Brad Blogging - Practical Tutorials And Tweaks On Wordpress, HTML & CSS, Usability and More!

Become a Fan on Facebook!

Just a quick heads up to let you all know that I made a Facebook Fan page for this blog:

If you join the Facebook fan page, you’ll be entered to win a website/blog optimization package being drawn on Feb 15th. I’ll go through your code and various aspects of your website and make it faster through unique methods of optimization. All you have to do is join the Facebook Fan Page for your chance to win this! Best of Luck!

As usual:

Stay tuned for more content from the one and only, BradBlogging.com

Posted in How To | 1 Comment

Save Money, Save Time – Use The World’s Largest Free CDN

Speed-McLaren

What if I told you that you could harness Google’s servers to load Jquery, Mootools, Scriptaculous or even Prototype on your blog? There are hundreds of servers spread throughout the world dedicated to loading your JavaScript that much faster. Google recently launched the “Google AJAX Libraries API” which allows you to use Google’s CDN to load popular JavaScript frameworks, many of which are in use by web developers today.

Every blog will use a JavaScript framework to “spice” up their blog with animation and usability (I happen to use Jquery). The only down side of using these libraries is the 50KB+ download that it takes up to deliver the framework to each visitor. Not only does loading a large JS file block parallel downloads, it won’t start loading other content until it is completely finished. However, Google’s free CDN eliminates this problem and allows you to use their cacheable libraries on your blog.

Posted in Load Speed | 2 Comments

Stop Breaking Your Wordpress Theme With Plugins – Use The If “Function-Exists” Option

PHP-if-function-exists

For bloggers, nothing is more disheartening than a blank page with one line of an error description calling a PHP function that Wordpress doesn’t recognize. This error may be created by many different situations, such as a new plugin or renaming files in your web server, but the end result still breaks your Wordpress blog until you fix the problem.

This is why I propose that you start using an excellent feature that PHP has, which is the if (function_exists) statement. By using this simple code when you call an external plugin file within Wordpress, you create a failsafe method of preserving your blog when altering files.

This code (quite literally) checks if the function that you call exists in the Wordpress library. If it does not exist, it won’t break your blog saying that the page has called an “undefined function” rather hide the function until it becomes defined.

The Example:

Take a look at the two methods of calling the famous “Related Posts” plugin for Wordpress:

1. - <?php related_posts(); ?>
2. - <?php if (function_exists('related_posts')) { related_posts(); } ?>

The first example will work fine, that is until you move the plugin files or modify any of the parameters. Then it will result in an error code that hijacks your blog until you fix the problem. If you’ve left on a vacation or don’t look at the blog for a few days, then you’ve lost all that traffic and new readership. Not so good for growth now is it?

The second example is much more ideal for any Wordpress installation. This code won’t hijack your blog with an error code, rather hide the function all together.

The Conclusion:

If you are serious about blogging and want to expand your reach as far as possible, error codes will not help you. Use the if (function_exists) call when adding plugins to your Wordpress theme… you’ll thank yourself if you ever run into trouble.

Posted in Coding | Tagged Code, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins, Wordpress Templates | 12 Comments

SEO and Load Time Optimized Wordpress Theme Now Available – “Optimized Overshadowed”

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an article here! I’ve been quite busy these past couple of weeks with clients and other jobs that life has thrown at me. Not to worry, I have prepared an extra special treat for all the readers here.

I’d like to introduce the “Optimized Overshadowed” theme that I have spent hours perfecting and optimizing. I’ve taken a Wordpress template and have completely revamped the stylesheet, images and design to create a unique experience for blog owners.

The Wordpress Theme:

screenshot

Attractive and Professional Font Replacement:

As you can see, I have applied a custom font to the header and sub-title which I have utilized Cufon for. It also has a nice drop shadow effect to it – I’m always a sucker for those types of things!

Then we have the content area. This area also uses Cufon for the H1, H2, H3 and H4 headers which keep the font family consistent. Perhaps the more important thing here is the SEO. I’ve spent a lot of time fine tuning this theme to give you the best rankings in the search engines as well as modifying the header.php to reflect your blog post title.

Free “SEO” Wordpress Theme:

Now that Google is starting to look at page load speed as a ranking factor, I’ve kept this theme very lightweight and all of the images are compressed using Photoshops compression techniques and then compressed again with Smush.it by Yahoo. This ensures that you are serving the content as fast as possible to the new visitor. The backgrounds are all 1px in either height or width and then repeated using CSS, which also increases the page load speed.

I’ve even taken the initiative to compress the CSS for you in which all the whitespace is eliminated. I believe that I compressed the final filesize over 30% less!

Automatic Page Generation in Navigation Bar:

Thats right! If you make a new page in your Wordpress admin area, the navigation bar will add the title of that page to the navigation bar, allowing fast access to your Wordpress pages. No editing required.

Clean Icons suitable for Wordpress:

The sidebar has custom icons to reflect different aspects of a blog as you can see below:

icons

Preview:

Go to http://blogpro.me to preview this theme.

How can you get this theme?

Simply subscribe to the RSS Feed! The link at the bottom of each post will have the direct download link.

Suggestions?

I’m always open to suggestions on how to make this Wordpress theme better – Feel free to email me or comment below.

Conclusion:

As usual, stay tuned! I have some great website related tutorials and content coming soon.

Posted in Blog Design | Tagged Awesome Looking Wordpress Template, Free Wordpress Theme, Wordpress SEO Theme | 10 Comments

Are You Missing Out on 14.24% of YOUR Website Conversions?

internet-explorer-6-stats

I’ll be honest – I hate Internet Explorer 6. Its out of date methods of rendering the web cause me the largest headaches and frustration that I can’t even begin to explain. However, being a web designer, that is no excuse not to ensure that your client’s websites render properly in this browser. 14.24% of their conversions depend on the rendering of that website!

As of December 2009, 14.24% of the Statcounter enabled websites have recorded the visitors using Internet Explorer 6. I thought that the stat had dropped to single digits ages ago, but it appears that I am wrong. Many people still haven’t upgraded from the damned browser that was released over 8 years ago.

Posted in Blog Design | 27 Comments

Optimize “CSS Repeated” Background Images In Photoshop

Today were going to take a look at how to optimize your background images in Photoshop. Most blogs use a repeated background image to provide a sense of individuality in their blog designs. In most cases, this sets blogs apart by appearance which is an excellent first step in attracting new readers.

Photoshop CS3 is an amazing tool that has years of experience built into its image algorithms. By utilizing the 4 pane view in Photoshop (when saving an image) you can reduce the size of your image to the smallest possible.

Using CSS’s repeat function, you can use beautiful gradients and background images without killing your web server.

Posted in Blog Loading Speed | Tagged Blog, Blog Design, Website Design | 11 Comments