Screen Shots

It seems like Microsoft finally taken queues from Apple and have tightened up their UI across all their systems.

Where’s the Kitchen Sink?

Bottom line is the the Xbox SmartGlass seems to be an attempt from Microsoft to compete with Nintendo’s Wii – U and Sony’s series of handheld systems that integrate with the PlayStation 3.  But where Microsoft could have gained leverage, they simple have released a sub-par product.  Aside from in game features that will take time for the developers to implement, better social features would have made the application useful right away.  Wouldn’t it be cool to quickly select a friend to type a message to?  Or even record a message?  Add friends online, set your status.  Much cleaner and easier to use than hitting the Xbox guide while playing.

Just saying… What do you think?

The post Xbox SmartGlass Reviewed appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

Who is Targeted?

Anyone and everybody!  This covers big companies, small companies, consumers, etc.  Some notable facts are:

• Sony’s Playstation Network was hacked last year, compromising an estimated 77 million accounts.
• A recent PBS special revealed that the Pentagon receives over six million hacking and security threats a day.
• Reuters was hacked last quarter because they didn’t update their web software.
• It is reported that nearly three quarters of all Americans have fallen victim to a form of cyber crime.
• If you are a business owner, that number goes up to 90%!  While still being sensitive to the consumer base that has experienced the frustration of being hacked, this is much more daunting to a business owner as a hacked website usually means loss of revenue and potentially permanent loss of business.

How often does this happen?

It has been reported that on average, a website is hacked every 5 seconds.  Since you’ve been reading they’re have been at least 3!

How long do I have?

According to a recent survey there is a 156 day lapse between the time a computer resource is compromised and the time the compromise is detected.  That means that a hacker has almost half a year to use your computer or website as they will.

Passwords

While this may be “inconvenient” to remember a password that contains numbers, symbols and a mixture of capital and lowercase letters, the benefits vastly outweigh any perceived inconvenience.  See below for some statistics on how long it takes a menial hacker using a brute force attack to crack your password.

Wait the Internet Told Me How!

Believe it or not, there are publicly available resources on the internet that teach people how to hack into anything!  If you can find it and we can find it, just imagine what a malicious hacker can find.

Website Security Statistics Conclusion

Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound in cure” and this couldn’t be more true, especially in today’s society.  Not to mention that the more and more we integrate technology and the internet in our lives, the more and more we become vulnerable to malicious attempts on our digital investments.

Interested in adding an enhanced layer of security to your WordPress site?  Schedule a free one hour consultation with us today and get protected!

The post Website Security Statistics appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

In addition to providing information about your products and services, your website should ALSO be an insight into your particular industry.  This let’s your customers know that you are not only passionate about what you do but, have foresight and are willing to go the extra mile to make them happy.  So once your brand new content is created, now we have to promote it?

Marketing Automation Assumptions…

So we’ll go out on a limb here.  As this is a guide for people that are a bit technically savvy, we’ll make some assumptions:

1. You are continuously creating fresh content – If you’re not, then the door is right here.
2. You already have a MailChimp account and are familiar with its basics – MailChimp offers plenty of resources on how to use its platform.  No need to rehash them.
3. Your website has a valid RSS feed – This should be a standard piece of functionality if you are using a website that is powered by a CMS.  If you’re not, then go get one!

Great!  Now that we understand each other, let’s get down to business…

Step 1 – Create New RSS-Driven Campaign

After you’ve logged into MailChimp, from the dashboard create a new RSS-Driven campaign.  It looks something like this:

Step 2 – Setup the Campaign’s Feed and Send Timing

This step configures how the marketing automation campaign will ultimate work.  Specify the feed’s URL and send frequency and then move on.

NOTE: If you have some trouble getting past this step, you might have an invalid RSS feed, or your site is blocking HEAD requests.  Talk to you webmaster to see how you can resolve it.

Step 3 – Select Which List to Use

Straight forward and simple.  If you do not know how to create a list, check out MailChimp’s video.  Otherwise, see the picture below

Step 4 – Setup Campaign Info

In this step we name our campaign, setup default email addresses and can connect it to Twitter and Facebook.

NOTE: Do the right thing and take advantage of connecting the campaign to the offered social networks to further automate your marketing efforts.

Step 5 – Select Your Template Option

There are many options here but for the sake of this example we’re going to select Basic.

After you’ve selected Basic, select a sample starter layout.

After you select your layout, you’ll be taken to an editor screen that looks like the one below.

Step 6 – “Design” your Plain-Text Emails

Not many people still use plain text emails.  Many send out plain text emails but can still receive HTML ones.  For the sake of the few we can still create text based emails.  See below:

Step 7 – Confirm and Launch

After you’ve confirmed all your settings, its time to pull the trigger:

Conclusion & After Thoughts

So there it is, a crash course on how to use MailChimp to enhance your marketing automation.  With how simple this is to setup, I can’t see a reason why any business owner wouldn’t take advantage of it.  Now all we have to do is focus on creating content and let technology do the rest.  Seems like a win for everyone!

The post Marketing Automation with MailChimp appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

Stylish and useful

Have you heard?  Google Glass is getting ready to be released to developers early first quarter 2013.  This amazing new technology is similar to a pair of glasses and offers users a HUD (heads up display) with a camera.  It is aimed at delivering user friendly AR (augmented reality) apps to its users.  From what we’ve seen and what we’ve conceived, the future is Q1 2013 and costs $1,500.

What this Means for Web Designers

With the continuous growth of smartphones and now tablets, having AR based glasses means that designers will now have to worry about yet another medium.  This could mean yet another gust of air into the RWD (responsive web design) bubble but, may vary being that Google Glass is powered by the Android platform.

Some Cool Ideas

Iron Man is now

The sky is the limit.  Imagine the following.

You walk into a crowded room.  You see a bunch of people that you recognize but, can’t remember their name.  With Google Glass, there could be an app that recognizes faces and by search through Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.; and would correctly identify people that were focused on for a few seconds and send social information about your target to your heads up display.  Within a few seconds you would know that person’s name, phone number, who their with, and any other available information.  Crazy futuristic right?  Well, it’s right around the corner.

How about this?  You’re playing a game of pool with some friends.  With Google Glass you improve your shot with the trajectory guide that is projected in your HUD.  Unfair?  Totally.  Awesome?  You bet!

Here’s something that would help everyone… Bring down speeding tickets and increase safety.  Instead of fiddling with a GPS manually and constantly adverting you eyes from the road, why not build that into Google Glass.  While driving, you would see a visual projection of your path much like in many modern video games.  Hands free GPS.

Again the sky is the limit!  What can you think of that would be possible with Google Glass?  Let us know in the comments!

The post What Google Glass Could Mean for the Future appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

Why should I use WordPress?

That’s a good questions and one with many answers: availability, accessibility, community support, easy administration, open source, expandability and scalability.  Take your pick.  Being that WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system it means that you are adopting a product that is actively developed, will grow the technology and is widely supported enough so you’ll never find your back against the wall.  Either way on to the WordPress real estate plugins and themes.

WordPress Real Estate Plugins and Themes

Below you’ll find a list of WordPress real estate based themes and plugins.  While there are many to choose from these are currently our favorites.

WordPress IDX from iHomeFinder

Plugin URL: http://www.ihomefinder.com/product/optima-express/
Plugin Cost: Starting at $29.95/mo

This is a great plugin that puts an IDX feed in your website.  It offer many features such as, mobile IDX, map search, broker features is SEO enhanced.

FireStorm Professional Real Estate Plugin

Plugin URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fs-real-estate-plugin/screenshots/
Plugin Cost: FREE

Another great plugin that allows agents / brokerages to put their listings on their site.  Note that this plugin does not offer an IDX feed but is fully featured and ideal for smaller agencies that want to avoid a monthly fee.

dsIDXpress IDX Plugin

Plugin URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dsidxpress/
Plugin Cost: Free but requires a dsIDXPress account

Another IDX integration plugin offered from dsIDXPress.  This plugin offers many widgets and shortcodes so that integrating your listing throughout your site is a breeze.

Premium Press Real Estate Theme

Theme URL: http://www.premiumpress.com/realestate/
Theme Cost: $79.00

This theme allows agents to include their own listing on their website.  Aside from including standards features such as being SEO optimized, maps, etc.; the theme also include some unique features like allowing visitors to upload properties and an advanced theme customization tool.

ElegantEstate Real Estate Theme

Theme URL: http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/elegantestate/
Theme Cost: $39 for every theme

A visually stunning theme offered from Elegant Themes, the ElegantEstate theme is easy to use and has a vast array of customizable options, shortcodes and widgets to thoroughly build your listing site.

AgentPress

Theme URL: http://my.studiopress.com/themes/agentpress/
Theme Cost: $99.95

A child theme for the Genesis framework, AgentPress is stable, secure and integrates well with the dsIDXPress plugin.  AgentPress also offers many other features like maps, photos, quick search and sorting by property status.

Real Estate 2 – WordPress Real Estate Theme

Theme URL: http://templatic.com/app-themes/real-estate-wordpress-theme-templatic/
Theme Cost: From $89

An advanced theme offering many features such as  One click auto install, Allow user to pay & publish properties on your site, Create a unique submission form using custom fields,  IDX/MLS compatible.

The post WordPress Real Estate Plugins and Themes appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

What does this thing do?

A bunch of cool things.  Its main features are:

• Allows for plugin grouping
• Globally enable / disable plugins
• Selectively load / disable plugins on a per page / post basis

While there are a few other things it does, these are the meat and potatoes of what it does and why every WordPress site needs Plugin Organizer installed on it.  The main reason we use this plugin is for speed enhancements and to remove some nasty JavaScript errors from this site.  In this example we’re going to learn how to use plugin organizer to selectively load a plugin called Media Grid on a single page.  NOTE: It should be obvious but needs to be mentioned anyway, this technique can be applied to ANY plugin.

The Plugin Organizer Speed Trick

Let’s go over how to use plugin organizer to speed up your site.  The process is simple and involves only a few  steps.

Step 1 – Enable selective plugin loading

This will give us the ability to control which plugins are globally loaded.

Step 2 – Globally disable Media Grid

This will disable Media Grid so that it won’t load at all.

Step 3 – Enable Media Grid on the desired page

Now Media Grid will work only on the selected page.

Simple enough right?  How do you use plugin organizer?  Let us know!

Plugin Organizer Resources

• Plugin Organizer on the WordPress Plugin Repository
• Plugin Organizer homepage from WPMason

The post Plugin Organizer – Speeding up your site appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

SEO Content Writing Basics

The first thing that any writer should keep in mind when approaching content in this fashion is that the term SEO is used.  That means that their job REQUIRES them to understand technical details about how SEO metrics are calculated and more over, WHY they are important to consider.

The second thing is balance.  Writing for search engines and writing for people are two different things.  With where the current level of technology is they will be two separate for a while too.  Hopefully as natural language technologies improve, these metrics will start to blend but, until then we’re forced to take both into consideration.  Either way, on to the tips!

1. Have at least 300 words per page

Search engines see this as having REAL content and not something like a tweet or status update.  A simple and easy to follow tip.

2. Put your focus keyword in image alt tags

 According to SEOMoz, a leading SEO research and optimization firm, the alt tags play a significant role in adding relevance to a page’s content.  That said, make sure you’re alt tags contain your keywords.

3. Place your focus keyword in the beginning of your page’s title

An obvious but, worth mentioning metric.

4. Place your focus keyword in subheadings like h2 or h3 tags

While this isn’t a relatively highly calculated metric it is simple to implement and helps increasing your content’s SEO potency.

5. Place relevant outbound links in your content

Remember writing papers in high school or in college?  Are you still in high school or college?  Either way, citing you finding is important.  Search engines are modern day’s digital metaphorical teacher.  Do a better job on your paper, show your work and research, and you’ll get a better grade.

6. Place your focus keyword in the URL of your page

While this may seem obvious, it isn’t always completely possible.  Some content management systems don’t offer URL rewriting rules.  An example of a bad URL is as follows:

http://mysite.com/?q=637

What the heck is that supposed to be anyhow?  I don’t know and search engines don’t either.  Take advantage of most modern day CMSs by using URL rewriting rules.  An example of a good URL looks like this:

http://mysite.com/how-to-write-search-engine-friendly-content/

This way humans and search engines alike can easily identify what your content is all about.

7. Place your focus keyword in the first and last paragraphs of your copy

When this is done search engines see the content of your page as all inclusive.

8. Place your focus keyword in the meta description

Why wouldn’t you do this?  The meta description is almost like an advertisement of your content.  If search engines don’t see it, they think your content isn’t about what you intend for it to be about.  Also, the meta description is the second thing people look at aside from the title of the page.  Make this relevant and to the point.

9. Make sure your page title over 40 characters and under 70

Finding the Goldilocks zone is key.  A title too short doesn’t offer enough information, while a title too long potentially offers generalized information and furthermore has to be truncated to be displayed properly in search engines.

10. Keep your keyword density between 1% and 4%

Different search engines recommend different densities.  Google recommends between 1% and 2%.  Yahoo recommends 3%.

Google Keyword Density

Yahoo’s Keyword Density

Based on current search engine market share, sticking with 2% is a good idea.

11. Keep your writing simple

The Flesch Reading Ease test is a formula that determines how easy it is to understand content.  This isn’t always possible especially when blogging about things like SEO content writing strategies but, its always a good thing to consider.  Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the average reading level in the US is only that of an eigth grader.  Horrible right?  Go ahead, Google it and see for yourself.  Anyway, ideally, if you can write content that is rated at 70 point or above, you’re in good shape.

Conclusion

The aforementioned SEO content writing tips while basic are always good to take into consideration because of their longevity.  While search engines will change how their metrics work, these tips have a high chance of sticking around.  Need more help on SEO content writing?  Schedule a free one hour consultation.

The post SEO Content Writing Tips appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..

WordPress Speed Optimization Basics

Being that search engines take a website’s loading speed into consideration, this is critical in obtaining top ranking and keeping your users engaged.  There are a ton of WordPress speed optimizations out there but here are our top 5.

1. Get a Good Server / Hosting Plan

There are so many options out there that is hard to tell what is good and what is not.  New Leaf Web Solutions specializes in high-end managed WordPress hosting.  Self-promotion aside, this is important for several reasons.

Most in expensive hosts are giving you inexpensive hosting – Don’t be fooled by clever marketing incentives such as 1TB bandwith per month, 500GB storage, unlimited domains, and 3,000 email addresses.  Most blogs won’t use 1TB of bandwidth in a YEAR let alone a month.  And why is it that 500GB of storage per month is offered for web hosting at $3.95 per month but having 400GB of cloud based storage with Google costs $19.99.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Who needs unlimited domains, and who uses 3,000 email address aside from enterprise level companies?  Its all smoke in mirrors.

What’s important are things like a properly configured php.ini file, an available APC or Memcache cache, and a high availble mysql key buffer.  Being that these are all highly technical terms, most hosting companies will never try to sell you that and capitalize on the marketing lingo.  Having a hosting plan that is tuned for performance is what is key.

2. Use a Caching Plugin

This is super important.  While there are many caching plugins available, the most complete one available is W3 Total Cache.   Its relatively easy to use and setup and offers browser, page, object, database, minify and content delivery network support.  Additionally, properly setting up a caching plugin offers more than just speed enhancements; it will also increase your website’s security as your database is exposed less, save on bandwidth costs and will increase your search engine rankings. W3 Total Cache even boasts at least a 10x performance increase when fully configured.  A win-win for everyone!

3. Use a CDN

CDNs are sprouting up everywhere these days and allows web developer to take advantage of free or low-cost speed tweaks.  CloudFlare offers a free basic CDN and is easy to setup and use.  Max CDN is one of the most popular right now and a WordPress favorite.  When using a full fledged CDN isn’t possible, a favorite of mine is to use JSDelivr.  JSDelivr even offers a WordPress plugin that automatically scans your site for commonly used scripts and then will rewrite your code to use their scripts instead of your own.  Don’t see your script on JSDelivr?  Not a problem.  JSDelivr will host yours completely free.

4. Optimize Which Plugins Load

WordPress has an amazing library of plugins both free and premium.  However, because of its loosely engineered structure, there are a lot of poorly coded plugins.  There are even very popular plugins that fall by the way-side in terms of good coding standards and best practices.  But that’s okay.  The truth is, that you don’t need MOST plugins (especially complicated front end plugins) to load on every page.

That’s where Plugin Organizer comes in.  Use it to selectively load plugins based on a variety of options.  It even works with WordPress multi-site!

5. Move JavaScript to the Footer

Simply put, it will make your pages load faster.  When a page is rendering, it pauses the HTML part of it to load a JavaScript file.  Tell WordPress to cut it out by using JavaScript to Footer.  If your plugin has properly declared the script in its coding, it will move the scripts to the footer while maintaining the load order.  However, since there are no standard plugin design patterns, this MIGHT not completely work in every scenario.  Experimentation is needed.

Conclusion

Now get to work! Make your website faster with these WordPress speed optimizations.  Feeling overwhelmed to do this yourself?  Get a hold of us for a free one hour consultation!

The post WordPress Speed Optimizations appeared first on New Leaf Web Solutions, LLC..