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Put a Photo in your Sidebar

Adding a photo or image to your sidebar is a great way to make information stand out or to point the way to important information. Using widgets, you can put all kinds of things in your sidebar as well as the usual categories, pages, recent posts, blogroll etc.

You could add a photo of yourself, a photo from a post with a snippet of text linking to that post, a photo of a new product, a book review, a membership logo or anything else you want to put in front of your audience. If you look at the sidebar on this blog, you will see that I have added a screenshot of the latest website I have designed with a link taking people to it.

To add an image to your sidebar, you need to be able to

1) resize the image you want to use to the exact size (in pixels) you want it to appear (you don’t want it to be wider than your sidebar or it will play havoc with your page layout)
2) Have widgets available as part of your blog’s theme
3) Know a little bit of html code (which I will teach you below).

How to Add an Image to Your Sidebar

You need to upload your image first, then…

1. go to Manage/Uploads
2. Select the image you want
3. Click on the link text button
4. Copy the link url (appears top field on the right)
5. Go to Presentation/Widgets and create a new text widget
6. Enter html code below and replace the link url, hyperlink (if you want one) and alt text etc altered to suit.

Code to display photo only

<img src=”http://nzwebsites.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/pepwebsite.jpg” alt=”Parenting Enhancement Programme Website”>

Download code for photo linked to website or blog page

<a href=”http://www.parent-help.co.nz” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://nzwebsites.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/pepwebsite.jpg” alt=”Parenting Enhancement Programme Website”></a>

Titles and Slugs for Blog Posts

The title of each post you write on your blog is not just something catchy which appears above your content! It is very important when it comes to search engine ranking and blog searchability.

What is a Post Slug?

Whatever title you type for a new post on your blog, is automatically translated into a Post Slug. For example:

Post Title = Titles and Slugs for Blog Posts

Post Slug = titles-and-slugs-for-blog-posts

The post slug is then added onto the end of your blog address when visitors are veiwing that particlular post. The webpage address (url) for this post is therefore http://nzwebsites.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/titles-and-slugs-for-blog-posts/

For this reason, naming your posts using keywords and keyword-rich phrases makes it much more likely that your blog will be listed on search engine results for searches by your target markets.

How to change your post slug

You can change your slug to something different to your post title as long as you have no spaces and include dashes between words. If you are not sure where to find the post slug field when writing a new post, click on the image on left to see a screenshot.

NOTE: This diagram illustrates how to use a WordPress blog only.

How to List Products Online

When it comes to displaying your product range on a website, the most important thing is to make it easy for your customers to find what they are looking for.

To achieve this, there are several important design elements you need to think about…

• Include an obvious button called “Products” or “Product Range” on your navigation bar
• Showcase your new/best-selling/most popular products or all categories on your homepage (with photos)
• If you can include easy-to-understand product categories on your navigation panel
• Link to related products throughout your website wherever possible

Too many products to list?

If you only have a few products, it is a good idea to list them all as main headings on your navigation but if you have lots of products, include categories only on your navigation. If you have too many categories, use sub menus which fold out from the main heading (“product range”). See screenshot of HodgPodg Creations homepage on left.

This can be reinforced by showing a photo and heading for all your most popular categories or products on your homepage with links to the information. See Oak and Whale homepage screenshot on right. Again, it is down to knowing what your customers are looking for.

For advice on how to best display your products on your website or for a detailed navigation plan for your new website, send me an email or phone 09 5337093.

Use Plain English on Websites

Ever had comments from your customers that they had trouble finding information on your website? You probably had a look and wondered how they could miss it!

Take another look. The chances are you wrote your website for yourself rather than your customers. The exact words which read well, look professional and reinforce your brand identity to you, may do the exact opposite for your customers.

Ask yourself what the 4 main things visitors to your website will want to do, and include “plain english” text links to these on your homepage. For example:

The #1 thing visitors to my Creative Ideas website want to do is to see other websites which I have designed. I have therefore included a line of text right near top of the page stating View websites designed by Creative Ideas. It is also in bold to make it stand out for people who only scan webpages quickly looking for the important information.

Use short obvious headings on the navigation panel to get people to your main webpages. For example:

The navigation headings on Lupton Lodge Website (see image on left) are very easy to understand. A common mistake is to use brand names instead of an actual product name or category. Customers who are on your website wanting to buy a frying pan with have a lot of trouble finding one if the navigation heading leading to this page says “sizzlypots” (the name of your frying pan range).

Don’t use industry terms or jargon if you want your customers and search engines to understand you.

If you would like me to review your website and suggest ways to improve the homepage and navigation so your customers can find important information and products, send me an email.