WordPress Hacks » Kyle Eslick

3 Reasons Mobile WordPress Themes Trounce Mobile Subdomains

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:36:35 +0000

Making your website mobile-friendly isn’t just a good idea – it’s a necessity. With more people accessing the Web via smartphones and tablets these says, any site administrators who haven’t “mobile-equipped” their online real estate are well behind the curve. In 2011, do you really want to miss out on a substantial chunk of traffic just because your site is hard to read on an iPhone?

Of course not. That’s why many sites direct mobile traffic to sub-domains (e.g. “example.com” becomes “mobile.example.com”), a workable solution if you have time to generate new versions of each page from scratch.

Luckily for WordPress users, mobile themes like WPTouch and WordPress Mobile Pack offer a better alternative to mobile sub-domains. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Maintenance

Having a mobile sub-domain requires you to maintain multiple versions of each and every page – a laborious task if you don’t have a large staff.

Mobile themes, on the other hand, simply deliver all of your existing content in a mobile-friendly format. You can maintain your site as usual and rest assured that everything will display properly in mobile browsers.

2. SEO

When other sites link to your content, those links help you rank higher in the search engines. If you have multiple domains, all of which have different permalinks for each page, you forfeit your ability to rank well in the search listings.

Think of it this way: I post an update on my blog and get 10 links. 5 of those links are from desktop users, and they point to the post on my main domain. The other 5 links come from mobile users, all of whom were redirected from my main domain to a dedicated mobile sub-domain. Their links go to the mobile version of the post – the one they pulled up on their phones.

Instead of getting 10 links for my post, I really only got 5 for each version – a situation that leads to lower overall rankings for my content.

With a mobile WordPress theme, however, your content stays in one place. The page you serve to mobile visitors is the same one that exists on your main domain – everyone who links to it is linking to the same page.

3. Sharing

Mobile sub-domains can also cause social media havoc.

Let’s say you tweet a link from your phone and your colleague clicks it on her desktop computer. She’ll get the mobile version of the site that you tweeted – a version that is probably all text, heavily compressed into a tiny column, and devoid of any navigational links to help her explore other corners of your site.

This is not good for the user, and it’s unlikely that she’ll share any of your content with others.

Again, your mobile WordPress theme can save the day here. With no separate link for anyone to share, you don’t risk serving the wrong version of your site to any visitors.

And since several mobile themes are free, there’s little reason to put off “mobilizing” your site any longer. Spend an afternoon setting up a mobile WordPress theme and stop missing out on all that great traffic.

This post was contributed by Adam Green. Adam writes copy for tech companies and stays up to speed on enterprise fraud management software as best he can. Follow him on Twitter @IAmAdamGreen.

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Build Custom Facebook Page Themes Using a WordPress Plugin

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:36:34 +0000

Over the past couple years it has been impressive to see Facebook craftily grow its influence beyond the Facebook.com domain and expanding all throughout the internet. For example, it seems just about every major website now allows you to login using Facebook. With Facebook’s growing influence over the internet it isn’t surprising many WordPress developers have really stepped up, providing a number of great free and premium WordPress plugins to help improve WordPress and Facebook integration.

Once of my most recent Facebook plugin discoveries came from the developers at Premium Coding, a website which builds quite a few things, including a series of premium WordPress plugins. The plugin I want to talk about today is called Facebook Page Themes, and the title pretty much sums up what this plugin does. With this premium WordPress plugin users can generate a custom designed theme for your Facebook page, giving your business a professional look that promotes your product or service.(...)
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Create Your iPhone App with the WiziApp WordPress Plugin

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:40:00 +0000

As we transition to a new era of computing where people are getting their information via mobile phones, you are starting to see just about every high profile website or blog making their own iPhone app. But what about the average WordPress user who doesn’t have the time and/or budget to make their own custom iPhone application?

Not long ago I covered a free WordPress plugin called WPTouch which creates a mobile-friendly version of your WordPress blog to display for mobile web browsers. The unfortunate truth, however, is that outside of clicking on a link from Twitter on their phones, most iPhone, Android, or mobile users in general do not use the mobile web to view a webpage. In order to maximize convenience for your readers you really need a custom iPhone application. This is where an app I recently discovered, Wiziapp, comes to the rescue.

What is WiziApp? Wiziapp is a WordPress plugin that automatically turns your WordPress blog into a native iPhone app in real time, giving easy access to the following within the application: Posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, links, images, videos, and audio files. And if that wasn’t enough, Wiziapp even offers a push notification service to notify iOS users when your website has new content available!

Here is a complete list of the features provided by the Wiziapp team:

Create and personalize your iPhone application from your WordPress dashboard using the plugin’s wizard.
Deliver all of your blog content directly to your App in real time.
Notify your readers about new posts via push notification service.
Your readers can easily read and post new comments directly from your App.
Your App will display your images and galleries in native iPhone style.
All the media you have posted will be collected to video or audio libraries.
Your readers can easily search your blog directly from your App.
Playing video and audio using Wiziapp’s advanced players.
Enable your readers to navigate between posts by categories, tags or author name.
Integrate with your login system.
Your readers can easily share your posts and images via Facebook, Twitter, Email or SMS.
Monetize your App by displaying ads using your own AdMob account.
Your readers can easily save your posts to their ‘favorites’ list.
We publish your App to the iTunes App Store and save you time & money dealing with an Apple developer account.
See daily stats of your App visits and downloads.
Stay up to date with all iOS and WordPress new features.
Check out the Wiziapp tour here.

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WPTouch: Creating a WordPress Mobile Theme

Kyle Eslick — Sun, 29 May 2011 20:50:12 +0000

Thanks to the huge success of the iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, and other mobile devices, Apps have become all the rage. The problem for many webmasters and WordPress users is that most smaller WordPress websites/blogs can’t afford to have a custom app developed for their WordPress site.

Of course, thanks to beauty of the open source nature of WordPress, WordPress users have access to all sorts of great WordPress plugins. I recently found myself debating whether or not to develop an app for WordPress Hacks and decided that first I would look into what free WordPress plugins were available. My goal was simply to find one which would display a WordPress blog to mobile browsers in a mobile friendly format.

Based upon roughly 2 million downloads plus great reviews, far and away the best plugin I’ve found to accomplish this is one called WP Touch. For those that haven’t heard of WP Touch, this WordPress plugin automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, and will display this theme when your WordPress blog is viewed from an iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile device!

The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your WordPress website to mobile visitors, all without modifying a single bit of code or making any changes to your standard WordPress theme. The mobile theme also includes the ability for visitors to switch between WP Touch view and your site’s regular theme if that is what they prefer.

If you are looking for a more feature-rich product, I discovered that users can also purchase a Pro version of WP Touch which includes a slew of new features like more style, color and branding customizations, themes, 10 languages, more advertising options, web-app mode, and even iPad support.

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My Favorite Blogging Furniture: Sumo Lounge Bags

Kyle Eslick — Sat, 28 May 2011 12:00:02 +0000

Although it is somewhat off the topic of WordPress, I’ve always enjoyed it when blogs discuss their blogging setup with their readers. After all, the typical blogger ranges from spending an hour a day blogging to doing so as a full time job, making the topic of comfort an important one. I’ve been blogging fairly regularly for almost five years now and I have to say that thanks to some recent technology, over the past two years or so I’ve found my blogging habits have changed quite a bit and I’ve been able to make some changes/improvements to how I blog. I’ve now almost completely moved away from using a desktop for my daily blogging routine and find I do most of my blogging now on a laptop or even occasionally from my iPad.

As a result, I’ve spent some time talking to fellow bloggers and getting input on some more comfortable furniture for doing my blogging. I’ve tried a couple of different things ranging from laptop stands, to chairs/couches or other pieces of furniture, but hadn’t really found anything I could highly recommend to others….until recently.

This past week I had the opportunity to try out a product that isn’t completely new, but that I only recently discovered, called the Sumo Gigantor bag from Sumo Lounge. My research showed that it had been featured in all sorts of magazines and received tons of great reviews from trusted websites, so I decided to give Sumo Lounge a try.

The closest comparison I’ve seen to the Sumo Lounge chairs is probably the Love Sac, which you may have seen for sale in most malls, however Sumo Lounge actually cuts out the middleman allowing them to make their similar bags available at a much more affordable price. These well constructed bean couches aren’t built like the beanbags I grew up with, which was a pleasant surprise. I quickly discovered that the great thing about the Sumo Lounge line of beanbags is that this allows me to comfortably do my blogging in front of my entertainment center or pretty much any room within the house (assuming their is adequate room available).

If you are interested in one for your blogging setup, here are some of the features that the sumo line of chairs boasts:

Bean bag chairs range from 42″ x 42″ x 34″ to 86″ x 60″ x 40″.
Includes a removable microsuede cover made with machine washable 100% polyester fiber.
Each page includes several popular color choices.
Stays fluffy and full over time (won’t ever go flat!).
All bags include free shipping and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

In addition to blogging I’ve also spent some time looking for other ways to enjoy my new piece of furniture. The logical choice to me seemed to be to put it to the test playing video games. I enjoy online gaming as much as anyone and decided to spend a few hours playing Call of Duty online with my friends. Even though it may not have been reflected in my kill-to-death (KTD) ratio, it didn’t take long for me to appreciate the improved experience I was getting by sitting closer to the television. As a result, I think I can also recommend these Sumo Lounge bags as an excellent gaming chair. Lastly, I’ve also found that I often have to fight my wife for the Sumo Lounge chair as she often wants to use it for movies/Netflix, and then kids have been begging me to let them sleep in it pretty much every night since it arrived.

Overall I have to admit I’m very happy with my new Sumo Gigantor and can confidently recommend the Sumo Lounge line of bean bag chairs to friends and fellow bloggers. I know we have hundreds of professional bloggers who read this site so I’d like to hear about your blogging setups. Let us know in the comments below!!

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Maximize WordPress SEO with ScribeSEO

Kyle Eslick — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:24:16 +0000

For years now SEO has been one of those buzzwords which incites discussion and debate, whether you live by it or cringe upon seeing it. Whether webmasters want to admit it or not, however, search engine optimization works if done correctly. As a webmaster it falls upon you to maximize search engine optimization (SEO) on your website or blog. Just a few years ago this wasn’t particularly fun or easy for webmasters, but that has changed with things like new software and of course WordPress plugins.

For the past week I’ve had the opportunity to try out a new SEO service called ScribeSEO, a web-based SEO service from a team which includes Brian Clark (known in the WordPress community for CopyBlogger and the Thesis theme). ScribeSEO offers a web-based SEO software service, a WordPress plugin, and now also offers Joomla and Drupal integration. As most of my websites use WordPress in some way, I’ve primarily focused my attention on trying out the WordPress plugin. Here is what I’ve found:

Once installed, the ScribeSEO WordPress plugin adds a window to your post pages called the Scribe Content Optimizer. Here you can run an evaluation prior to publishing your post which will tell you how to best optimize your post!

In order to test out the plugin I decided to try it out on this post. After my initial evaluation, I was given the following feedback:

As you can see from the screen shot above the initial draft of this post received a 68%. Recommended improvements include to move primary keywords towards the front of the meta description, to increase the word count to above 300 words, and to add a few hyperlinks towards the beginning of the post.

At the top of the evaluation there is also a menu with additional analysis available. When switching to the keyword analysis tab I was greeted with the following:

This shows that after analyzing my post the search engines will think this post is primarily about the keyword “wordpress plugin”, then “SEO”, etc. You’ll even get keyword density percentages!

Next, I went to the Alternate Keywords tab to get an idea of keyword suggestions based upon relative search frequency:

This is a great way for you to find high traffic search terms that you may have forgotten in your initial draft.

Lastly, under the Tags tab, you’ll see a list of keywords found within your post which are recommended to be used as tags for your post.

After gathering all the feedback provided and updating my posts I was able to improve my posts score all the way to 99%:

If you run a professional revenue generating blog or build a lot of niche websites, I think that ScribeSEO is a perfect fit and well worth the price.

If you’d like to learn more about ScribeSEO or get a copy for yourself you can find everything you need here!

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WellBlog: A Premium Blogging Theme

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:33:37 +0000

Last month we wrote a review of the TypeMagz theme from the ColorLabs Project team, an up and coming premium theme website which offers a variety of premium theme designs at below market value prices. This week I received word that their new premium theme design, which was built specifically for those looking for a standard blog design, is now available for purchase.

The premium themes market has had an overwhelming focus on CMS Themes since its inception back in late 2007, but I’ve always felt that there should also be a variety of blog designs available for all of the WordPress users which actually *gasp* want a nice blog design to use with their blogging software. After all, despite being an extremely flexible piece of software, the core function of WordPress is blogging, right?

That leads me to believe that there is a large market of buyers looking for a nice blog design which includes a flexible feature set and is also available at a lower price point than the more advanced CMS themes currently available. The new WellBlog theme by ColorLabs Project is one of those blogging templates which does a pretty good job of achieving the goals I have for a solid premium blog theme.

To start, here is an example of the design and control panel which is included with the WellBlog theme.

WellBlog Theme Homepage

WellBlog Theme Internal Pages

WellBlog Theme Control Panel

If you’d like to test it out, you can check out the live demo of the black version of the WellBlog theme here.

The WellBlog theme also includes a number of features in addition to the 3 built-in skins to choose from. Probably my favorite unique feature is the scrolling “Most Commented” section at the top of the sidebar. Here are a few of the other more notable features:

Supports WordPress Threaded Comments
Built-in Gravatar Support
After-Sales Support and Upgrade
Cross-Browser Compatible
Advertisement Banner Management
Theme Administration Control Panel

If you are interested in learning more about the WellBlog theme, or are interested in purchasing a license for your WordPress blog, it is currently available for $50.00 (single-website license), or $200.00 (developer’s license for unlimited websites). WPHacks.com readers can use coupon code 94F4D as well to get an additional 30% off your purchase!

If WellBlog isn’t for you, you can also view all of the themes available from ColorLabs Project here.

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WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” Now Available

Kyle Eslick — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:28:11 +0000

In what has been a long time coming it looks like WordPress 3.0 is now available for WordPress users to download. Everyone should see a “WordPress 3.0 is available! Please update now” banner in their dashboard which you can click to quickly upgrade, or for those of us that didn’t get the dashboard banner announcing the update being available, you can go into Tools -> Upgrade to complete the update.

WordPress 3.0 is a pretty significant update which includes the WordPressMU integration, 1,217 bug fixes and several important feature enhancements. Here is a video with additional information:

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Theme Junkie: Affordable Premium WordPress Themes

Kyle Eslick — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:52:17 +0000

For those that follow some of the more prominent members of the WordPress community, you have probably noticed that those at the top have become a very close group. I’ve always felt that this is a wonderful thing, but it has the side effect of making it difficult for a newcomer to break into those ranks and earn the respect of their peers.

One of those up and coming designers who is trying to get noticed is Roy Guan. A few months ago Roy entered into the crowded premium themes community with the launching of his website, Theme Junkie. In order to grab a foothold within this very busy space, Roy has managed to find a niche within a niche, offering all of his premium designs for under $30.00. In only about six months time Theme Junkie has already made available a large selection of premium themes as well as two free themes.

Below I wanted to take a moment and feature a few of my favorite designs already available from Theme Junkie:

FreshLife Theme

NewsTube Theme

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TypeMagz: A Premium News WordPress Theme

Kyle Eslick — Sat, 29 May 2010 22:08:21 +0000

Over the years it has been interesting to watch the WordPress themes market both grow and evolve. If you had asked me back in 2007 where I thought WordPress theme were going, I would have guessed that we were headed towards a strong focus on designs. Instead over the last year especially designs have moved more towards efficiency and simplicity with a focus placed on custom widgets and customizable control panels. These simple designs seem to allow bloggers to get all the features they want and then customize the simple designs to meet their individual needs.

One design that recently caught my eye is the new TypeMagz theme by ColorLabs Project. This website has been around for years now thanks to the extremely popular Arthemia theme, but rather than going with a magazine format, this new design instead places a focus on gathering and presenting news on the homepage. Here is a sample of how one configuration of the homepage may look:

TypeMagz Homepage Design

For internal pages the website converts to a blog format which includes many of the standard blogging features you’ve come to expect from WordPress:

TypeMagz Blog Design

Although this theme isn’t for every type of website/blog, if you run a website which manages a ton of content, the TypeMagz theme may be just what you are looking for. Like any good news-styled template, this theme really excels by taking a bunch of information and displaying it in one easy and convenient page where you can point readers to.

As you’d expect in today’s market all these features aren’t free, but the template is definitely affordable when compared to the competition. The TypeMagz theme is available for $50.00 for a single-use license, or a developer’s license is also available for $200.00. If TypeMagz isn’t for you, you can view all of the themes available from ColorLabs Project here, including their other new design, the Wellblog theme.

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