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

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 Its out of date methods of rendering the web cause me the largest headaches and frustration that I can’t even begin to explain.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.

Focus On Website Loading Speed Now More Than Ever – Google “Caffeine” Update

Lately I’ve been talking about how to optimize your Wordpress load speed with simple tricks using PHP’s zlib compression. Well, it seems that the latest word from numerous sources is that Google’s new algorithm code named, “Caffiene” will take website loading speed into account for their rankings. This is a big factor in the usability of the web and I think that its a great idea to optimize your site to make it as fast as loading as possible.

I’m not exactly sure how they would take into the account of Flash and/or Javascript into their algorithms as each website is unique in that sense. Even the size of the HTML – Will larger pages be ranked higher than short summary posts? The Caffiene update is scheduled to hit the Google datacenters in the new year, so start optimizing your site today.

Be sure to stay tuned – I plan on talking about techniques that I use here on my blog to make it as fast as possible for visitors.

Posted in Blog Design | 11 Comments

Cufon – The Ultimate Text Replacement Tool

Lets face it – SIFR has one critical drawback. If Adobe Flash isn’t installed on a computer or disabled by a browser, you have standard boring web safe fonts being rendered to a website visitor. If the website was designed with heavy reliance on the typography (more and more are being designed this way), you’ve screwed a great job up due to the very nature of the SIFR text rendering system. That was the only text replacement tool I used, until I found the amazing text rendering system known as Cufon.

Posted in Blog Design | Tagged Blog, Blog Design, Blog Template, Cufon | 8 Comments

How To Create Your Own 4 Column Blog Footer – HTML & CSS Included

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As more and more websites start writing content about the same topics, a first (and lasting) impression is becoming the most important factor of blogs today. You need to make the best first impression that you can make on new visitors and one of the techniques that I am going to share with you today is a useful blog footer. By providing users with links to popular articles, latest comments or even a RSS Subscription button, you can harness the power of people’s curiosity.

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Posted in How To | 34 Comments

Bouncing Higher than 80%? Heres 7 Ways To Reduce Your Blog’s Bounce Rate

I’ve recently have been talking to Rob Campbell, a great online marketer and SEO expert about websites, startups and other things… one of them being a website’s bounce rate. Rob Campbell has created multiple websites (one called Lenzr.com which is a photography contest website where advertisers sponsor prizes) and marketed numerous clients across the internet. More notably, he marketed a website called, MyCellMyTerms.com which is a company aiming to get you the best cell phone package possible.

The reason I mention this one in particular is because they are going to be on the October 21st episode of Dragon’s Den (The Canadian show that Shark Tank eventually copied) which is going to be really cool to see. I really like that program – seeing great startup ideas and terrible ones all in the same show… Genius!

Anyhow, He told me that he had heard, “anything over 80% in terms of a bounce rate will begin to affect your search engine rankings.” With this in mind, I created this post to help any blogger with this problem reduce their bounce rate for optimal placement in the search engines.