Theresa Sheridan Designs

Pandas and Penguins, According to Google

theresa — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:15:25 +0000

The previous Google Panda updates, have now morphed into Penguin updates, but the message remains the same.

Provide relevant, meaningful and consistent content FOR YOUR VISITORS, and all will be right with the world. And Google.

In a recent post by E-Web Marketing, How to Protect Your Site Against Future Google Penguin Updates, an infographic was posted, which further elaborates on what Google has been trying to accomplish for quite some time with both the Panda & the Penguin algorithm updates. The goal is for website owners ...

...Continue reading Pandas and Penguins, According to Google

One Perfect Moment

theresa — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:30:42 +0000

Have you ever had that one perfect moment?

The one that you always associate with a particular person, sound, or smell, and you spend years trying to relive and recapture, but you just never quite get it right?

Hopefully most of us will have more than just one of those in our lives, but the other day, as I was jogging, I was reminded of one of my most perfect moments.

I always jog with my MP3 player. God forbid I should have to listen to the sound of my own brain for a full 30 minutes. ...

...Continue reading One Perfect Moment

WordPress Wednesday – Categories vs. Tags for SEO

theresa — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:07:26 +0000

For those who are new to WordPress, or to blogging all together, the importance of categories and tags may not be all that apparent. To some, there may not even be much of a difference, but with WordPress, categories and tags are two different things and behave in completely different ways. In this post, I will try to explain the difference between the two, from a navigational standpoint, but also from an SEO standpoint.

What are categories?

The best way I can describe it, is that categories are a lot like folders. Imagine you have a vertical ...

...Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Categories vs. Tags for SEO

Post-Penguin Social Media Marketing Tips

theresa — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:38:30 +0000

This is a guest post by author Brian Nixon, a professional search engine optimizer who writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Canadian company that provides top rated SEO services to businesses across North America. For more information please visit www.pitstopmedia.com.

Penguins and Pandas have made life in the SEO world quite interesting! Just when you think, your SEO company is delivering results, Google throws in a spanner and you are back on the planning table.

The best way forward, therefore, is to formulate an SEO plan focused on a combination of classic White Hat SEO ...

...Continue reading Post-Penguin Social Media Marketing Tips

Website Review – Innovative Images

theresa — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:52:35 +0000

I recently mentioned to my readers on Facebook that I was thinking about doing a series of blog posts reviewing or critiquing various websites, with the idea of offering tips and helpful information about how these sites could be improved, from my point of view.

Right away, a couple of brave souls came forth and offered up their websites for me to take a peek at. And I say brave, because no one really wants to hear negative things about anything that they had a hand in, but I offer these reviews and the information they will ...

...Continue reading Website Review – Innovative Images

Do You Know What Effect Color Has on Your Website Visitor?

theresa — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:42:29 +0000

Today’s post is by Guest Author Jeanette Chasworth, an interior designer and expert on color from Los Angeles. Check out her great offer at the bottom of this post!

There are so many decisions when putting together a website, it can almost seem overwhelming. There are so many pieces and parts and finding the right person to put them all together can be a chore.

While many of these pieces and parts seem to be knee deep in computer speak, one of the simplest questions you may get asked when putting together a website may be “What color ...

...Continue reading Do You Know What Effect Color Has on Your Website Visitor?

WordPress Wednesday – Adding & Styling Tables in WordPress

theresa — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:14:52 +0000

One of the more challenging tasks in WordPress is adding, formatting & styling tables. Typically page layout and formatting is done with div content blocks these days, but sometimes tables are necessary for formatting tabular data and charts. By default, there is not an easy way to do this with WordPress, unless you know how to hand code tables and this can often be confusing because so many opening and closing HTML tags are necessary.

The best way that I’ve discovered to add and format tables in WordPress, is to use the plugin WP-Table Reloaded. Install ...

...Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Adding & Styling Tables in WordPress

The Quest for My Own Logo

theresa — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:20:17 +0000

Yes, it’s true.

I’m a graphic designer that has never been able to finish her own logo. That’s like a car mechanic who drives the oldest, junkiest, worst-running vehicle in the neighborhood.

Over the years, I’ve struggled with different looks, colors, themes, etc. I spent forever trying to brand myself and figure out what direction I was going to go in, until spring of 2011 when I was smart enough to hire a marketing coach, Chris Makell. She helped me figure out who I was first, and then who my target client was. Prior ...

...Continue reading The Quest for My Own Logo

WordPress Wednesday – Using the Display Widgets Plugin to Customize your Sidebar Content

theresa — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:15:57 +0000

WordPress templates allow us to put content in our sidebars that will display on every page, so that this information can remain front and center for our visitors. This is pretty handy, as any good marketer knows that repetition is key, so we want our visitors to have multiple opportunities to opt in to our list, or purchase our product.

In some cases, however, we might want to display various content on numerous different pages, and some themes only provide us with one or maybe two sidebars, so if you want a different sidebar on each page, this could prove ...

...Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Using the Display Widgets Plugin to Customize your Sidebar Content

Wanna Guess How I Spent My First Day of Freelancing?

theresa — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:30:11 +0000

Last Monday, April 2nd, was my first day of full-time freelance work, and I was very productive…….just not at design work.

In fact, I didn’t even sit down at my computer until about 2 in the afternoon.

Any guesses as to what I was doing?

Yup………moving cattle.

Of course, this is one of the many perks of working for yourself in the manner I do, is you get to make your own schedule. You’re not punching anyone else’s clock but your own. And the beauty of working from home on a computer is that, if I need to, I can ...

...Continue reading Wanna Guess How I Spent My First Day of Freelancing?