Saturday, April 19, 2008

Design Your Site with WordPress Magazine Themes

By Eric Brown

As with any website, design can be key to your overall performance. Many already know that WordPress offers some great features for blogs and sites alike. But did you know that you can get great magazine style themes to ensure maximum design efficiency online?

That's right. WordPress magazine themes are outstanding design frameworks that include a wonderful, easy to manage homepage instead of the traditional blog homepage. Now, you can set any html page as your homepage when using WordPress, but this method requires little know how and even less technical ability. And at least one of them is free.

WordPress is the most used open source CMS out there right now and it takes little work to build and SEO powerhouse. Google loves it and indexes all pages easily if you have everything working properly.

But when visitors come to your blog, they frequently see a standard blog home page, with snippets of posts in a list and some sidebars containing various items of interest.

Magazine themes eliminate that aspect of this. They give a well structured, easy to follow foundation for the rest of your site and aid in directing traffic from your home page to various key areas of your site.

Three Great WordPress Magazine Themes

Mimbo 2.2
The first magazine theme called Mimbo 2.2. Mimbo creates a wonderful area for featured articles, sub-categories and less important categories individually. This is done with ease and a little code manipulation. You can get assistance with the code from the creator Darren Hoyt. It uses category key numbers to determine what content to place where and then uses WordPress's custom fields to place the pictures.

The best thing about Mimbo is it's free! Below is a screenshot of a Mimbo 2.2 theme in use right now.


revolution


Mimbo is the only free magazine theme found that merits any recognition; but there are also two for purchase that are just as outstanding, if not more so.

Revolution
Revolution is a top notch, for purchase magazine theme. It is a widget-ready, customizable theme that is an ideal solution for online magazines, online newspapers and other websites that wish to use WordPress as a content management system. It offers a little more flexibility and a different homepage layout than Mimbo.

Revolution also has other magazine style themes specific to news, business and more. A set can be purchased for around $80.00 for single use.

mimbo


WP-Magazine
Also of note is WP-Magazine Theme. It has a great scrolling image on the home page with a larger area to work with and less white space. The basic option here sells for around $80.00.


wp-mag

Now you have the resources to build a powerhouse publication website with a great design, ease of use and fun right at your fingertips. Why are you still reading? Read more about WordPress and the great things you can do with it now!

Search Engine Strategies (SES) Workshops Now Available Online

Marketers gain expert SEM advice at an economical price point
SES Workshop
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Search Engine Strategies announced today that it is bringing its popular Search Engine Optimization (SES) workshops online. Presented in tandem with Market Motive, these in-depth courses offer marketers the opportunity to learn about SEO tools for better ranking, paid search, advanced analytics, and more.

Internet marketing expert Andy Beal recently reviewed Market Motive online training. "Market Motive's media-consulting combination is effective and teaches online marketing in a way that works for the beginner or the experienced practitioner," said Beal, "I'm impressed, and the guys behind this are the best in the business."

For more than ten years, savvy marketers have converged at SES events around the world to glean the latest advice on new search engine marketing (SEM) trends and techniques. However, the slow economy and shrinking travel budgets make attendance a challenge for some marketing professionals. Search Engine Strategies’ new online workshops make it easy to interact with SEM experts at a lower price point. Spring/summer workshops include:
10 Ways to Attract People and Gain Rankings in the Search Engines

Tuesday, May 13, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
This session teaches attendees how to create a user-friendly site that dominates the rankings. The first part of the session focuses on the technical requirements for search engines to properly “see” your website and all of the information necessary to be included in the rankings. The second half of the session will explain the common factors that are important to website visitors and rankings.

Paid Search 101, 201, 301, and 401, All in One Workshop
Thursday, June 5, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395

This three-part workshop covers:
The fundamentals of paid search, with a focus on practical steps and checks you can apply to your campaigns for immediate improvement: improving your term list, ad copy, and choice of landing pages.

Insider advice on match types, day-parting, economic bidding, and the role of your brand in paid search

Advanced topics, including how to determine how much to spend on advertising, multichannel strategy and tracking, conversion as the ultimate PPC weapon, and on-page testing
Advanced Analytics: Enlightenment through KPIs

Thursday, June 26, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
If you log into your web analytics tool, and don't know what to do next, this class is for you. This session strips away the SEO buzzwords, enabling attendees to constructing key performance indicators that drive decisions. Participants will learn about the common factors that are important to website visitors and rankings.

SEO Tools for Better Ranking
Tuesday, July 22, at 9-11am PDT, 12-2pm EDT: $395
During this session, attendees will learn about the different types of information that are most important to a site's ranking, and how to identify them with a set of tools. This workshop will investigate tools for competitive analysis, on-page optimization, page level information, site level information, indexing information, and off-page information.

“There’s certainly been a demand for additional search engine marketing (SEO/SEM) training options,” said Kevin Ryan, VP and global content director for Search Engine Strategies and SearchEngineWatch.com, properties of Incisive Media. “Market Motive was the logical partnership; they’ve brought their expertise to the Search Engine Strategies shows and now our intensive online workshops give marketers yet another great resource to stay up to speed on these need-to-know techniques.”

To register for SES Online Workshops, please visit http://www.marketmotive.com/online-workshops.

About Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC -- A Division of Incisive Media PLC
Incisive Media PLC is a specialist business information provider, based in the UK with offices in North America, Hong Kong, India and Mainland China. The company's activities are currently built around ten core industry sectors - mortgages; marketing services; financial technology; retail investment; capital markets; risk management; insurance; legal services; private equity and photography. Information is provided via a wide range of channels--in print, in person and online. Funds advised by Apax Partners, a leading global private equity group, recently completed the successful de-listing of Incisive Media from the London Stock Exchange alongside the existing management.

Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC is the marketing services division of the company and incorporates leading websites Search Engine Watch, the ClickZ Network and their associated events series including Search Engine Strategies. These properties were acquired in 2005.

A Cross Platform Blogging Tool from Six Apart

Techtree News Staff

Bloggers racking their brains trying to make sure their regular updates reach all near and dear ones now have an option to stick to just one Web site to use multiple blogging services. Six Apart, which is known for its blogging tools like 'Movable Type' and 'TypePad' has come up with "Blog It" -- a new Facebook application that allows users to post to various blogs or micro-blogs from within Facebook, thus deleting the fine line between blogging and social networking.

Powered by TypePad, "Blog It" brings social tools to bloggers all over the Web no matter what publishing platform they use. Unlike existing Facebook blogging tools, the new tool is not limited to any one blogging service; it works with nearly a dozen services including Blogger, TypePad, Twitter, Movable Type, Vox, and WordPress. In fact, contrary to the existing norm wherein Facebook users would import data and information from across the Web, "Blog It" enables them to export content from Facebook. As a result, users do not need to sit and update each blog separately; they can now do it all in one go from within Facebook.

In addition, "Blog It" allows users to notify friends and colleagues around the Web of new posts. When writing a post, a blogger can choose to automatically share it via Twitter and Pownce, in addition to the Facebook Newsfeed. To get started, simply add the Blog It application (http://blogit.typepad.com/) to Facebook and set up your account details, and hey presto! you can start creating posts, adding them to blogs, and sharing with friends.