CSS and Web Page Design List of Resources

The following are links to sites to help you design a web page or WordPress blog’s WordPress Theme. These include references for styling or designing your site using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), HTML tips and techniques, accessibility issues, web standards, and designing your web design for mobile, handheld computers, and print. CSS – Reference Cascading […]

Validating the Code Behind the Page

Checking Content Begin your web page validation by checking the content of your page. It’s actually fairly simple. Is everything spelled correctly? Are the sentences compete? Is the grammar right? While this should be done at the time of creation, after you’ve messed around with the code for a while, you often have a fresh […]

A New Kind of 404 Page Not Found Result

I love good 404 Page Not Found error pages. These are the web pages you encounter when you have landed on a bad link or wrong address. Really good 404 pages can be helpful to locate the information you want, with links to your site map and categories, but the best are the ones that […]

Web Pages That Suck

Top Hated Web Page Elements If you want to stay in the good graces of your visitors, the following are absolute NO-NOs: Music or sounds Flashing anything Movement Too many fonts Too many colors Things that go bump and twirl Automatic Page Refresh For almost ten years, Vincent Flanders of Web Pages That Suck has […]

Blog Exercises: Spell Checkup on Categories and Tags

Oh no! I was writing out a tag in WordPress and the auto-suggest feature popped up with a misspelled tag name! Yikes! Today’s blog exercise is to clean up your tag and category names to ensure you’ve not made the same mistakes. To review your category names in WordPress, go to Posts > Categories and […]

Blog Exercises: Blog Work Flows

In “A Sample Blogging Workflow” by my friend, Chris Brogan, he talks about the process of blogging with consistency and determination in mind. Your company has decided to launch a blog, and you’re the lucky blogger. Maybe you’ve even asked for this pleasure, suggested it to the boss yourself. Only now, you have to deliver, […]

Blog Exercises: Awesome by Association

In “Two WordPress.com Experts and One Series of Blog Work,” Kinna Reads featured myself and my friend, timethief of one cool site (lowercase intentional). I’m honored and grateful, but more importantly, I’m awesome by association. My friend, timethief, started blogging in 2005. When she switched to WordPress.com, her life changed as did mine and hundreds […]

Blog Exercises: May Summary

Is is June already? Where did May go? If you joined us for these Blog Exercises in the month of May, we were a pretty busy lot. Time was spent on blog policies and security at the start of the month. I gave you assignments with tips on how to protect yourself by owning your […]

Blog Exercises: Making Lists

Got a list? Today’s blog exercise is a technical one. We’re looking at making lists in your blog posts. You would think that something like a bullet or numbered list would be simple. No discussion or training involved. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as you would think. In the blog exercise on making a weekly […]

Blog Exercises: FAQs

A FAQ is a web page featuring “Frequently Asked Questions.” Does your site need a FAQ? Most sites do not need a FAQ Page. Yours might. How do you know if your website needs a FAQ? If your site offers products and services, a FAQ may be necessary to answer frequently asked questions about the […]

Blog Exercises: Backups and Alternatives

I didn’t expect to return home after a meeting this morning to find I have no telephone or Internet access on this bright sunshine, calm weather May day. I’ve got classes to prep for, sites to review for students and clients, article deadlines, these blog exercises to publish and keep to my year long commitment, […]

Blog Exercises: Excerpts and Continue Reading

Encountered the front page of a blog where the posts ran on and on and on and on, stretching across the length of the page? Do you ever wish you had more control over the length of your posts on the front page of your site? This Blog Exercise explores the use of the “more” […]

Blog Exercises: How Long Are Your Paragraphs?

How long are your paragraphs? Have you measured them lately? One of the telling differences between traditional writing and writing for the web is the length of the paragraph. Look at the example below. Which is easier to read? On the left, the paragraphs are huge, long blocks of text. On the right, the paragraphs […]

Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories

In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your categories, so I thought Noah’s site would be a perfect example, He has gratefully given me permission to rip his […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]