In lieu of the WordPress ebook I’m working on (which is close to going live, by the way), here’s an advanced topic for the power WordPress users amongst you. If you’re not a power user, but understand the benefits of what this article discusses, let me know and I can certainly help out.

Here I am, re-working the Octane website from scratch. I have all these design ideas, but they all break when I take into account how WordPress 2.9 doesn’t allow for multiple content areas, which is a real shame.

A few months previously, I’d been playing around with custom fields for a client website — I’d used them to store information for the main navigation on the website, such as a shorter name for each Page to use in the navigation, and a value to tell the Plugin which Pages to include and exclude. So this got me thinking.

Can I use custom fields as content areas?

And the answer is a big fat yes! That said, anyone who’s used custom fields will know that you don’t get a fancy editor for your content; all you have is this plain text box. That itself could be the cue for a Plugin, but right then and there, it wasn’t an issue.

So that we know where all of this is going, I’ll explain what I was doing. I wanted to add blocks of text (containing headers, regular paragraph text and lists) to my Pages and then be able to add graphical devices in between.

Add the content into the custom fields

First things first, you need to add your content.

1. Either edit or add a new Page or Post.
2. Scroll down to the “Custom Fields” box.
3. Under the “Name” label, either choose from a previous custom field from the drop-down / pop-up, or click the “Enter new” link button beneath it and type the name.
4. Under the “Value” label, either type in or paste you content.
5. Now click the “Add Custom Field” button.
6. If this is a new Page or Post, be sure to either save draft or publish. If it’s a previous Page or Post, you don’t even need to update.

Add the custom field data to your theme

Now that you have your content added into custom fields, the next thing is to get that content into your theme. I don’t know where you’re placing any of this, so all I can do is explain how you pull your custom field content in.

1. Select the place in your Page or Post theme file where you want your custom field data to appear.
2. Paste the code below into that area.
3. Swap out where it says: “features” with the name of your custom field.

Code block

<?php $block = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'name_of_custom_field'); if (!empty($block)) { foreach(($block) as $blocks) { echo $blocks; } } ?>

Keep in mind, you can call custom field meta data from outside of The Loop — which is to say, you don’t need to be inside the loop that WordPress uses to summon up data about a particular Post or Page.

Making your custom fields conditional

This code runs a check to make sure there’s data in the custom field. So, for example, you could invoke a layer in your Page or Post only if there’s content present:

Code block

<?php $block = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'name_of_custom_field');
if (!empty($block)) { ?>
<div class="name_of_division_class">
<?php
foreach(($block) as $blocks) { echo $blocks; }
?></div><?php
} ?>

But are custom fields searchable?

By default, no they’re not. So if you’re using them to store lots of content — such as product data, for example — people searching your WordPress-driven website won’t find any of the carefully curated content you’ve added into your custom fields. Dilemma.

However, there’s a fix for this, all thanks to John Hoff, who’s written a script that extends the scope of the WordPress search engine to grab custom field data, too — which you can download here.

I’ve taken his code (which was a Plugin in all but name) and turned it into an actual Plugin you can install into your copy of WordPress. Once installed, you’ll need to edit line 37, which includes the names of the custom fields you want searched:

Code block

$customs = Array('additional', 'benefits', 'features');

So, within the Array() item, just change names of the items within the single quotes.

Editing the name values of the custom fields array

To add a new custom field:

1. add a comma after the last single quote;
2. followed by a single quote;
3. then the name of the custom field;
4. followed by a closing single quote.

To remove a custom field:

1. select comma before its name;
2. and the last single quote after its name.

You’ve now learned how to turn WordPress into a more featured content management system, hopefully without breaking too much of a sweat. As always, if you get stuck, leave a comment and I’ll see if I can help out.

Octane’s new website

And the reason for all of this furious industry is, well, you! The writing side of things is gradually (there are often consequential lead times for certain publications) picking up, thanks to Emily Cagle Communications, but the previous website and blog just wasn’t cutting it — if I want to appeal to the publications, I have to make it worth their while pointing their readers to me.

More emphasis has been placed on simplicity, speed of navigation and clarity. So when you’re reading an article, you’re not being distracted by links and buttons left and right. Instead, you just read down through the article, and when you’re done, you have the option to share the article on a bunch of popular social networks, or contact Octane for more information.

The wonders of WordPress

All of which is neatly squeezed into the ever accommodating WordPress — fast becoming less weblog and more content management system. I’ve been able to kid and cajole it into doing things you won’t be able to do with your common-or-garden variety installation of WordPress. Oh no. Much of what you see here is WordPress after being given the Octane treatment.

The knowledge

So what’s changed? Apart from everything, there’s a new home page, which is essentially the blog aspect, now called Knowledge. By pulling all of the content to the front of the website, all of the knowledge I’m pouring into Octane is right at your fingertips from the moment you step through the door.

And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, use the search tool. Or use the category browser further down the page.

Media — in the press

Then there’s the Media section further down the home page, which is where all of my publication materials can be found. Each article is an excerpt taken from the publication itself, accompanied by a link to the PDF, ready for download.

Community

Further down the home page is the Community panel. Here’s where you can hook up with Octane and me, Wayne Smallman, on either Twitter or Octane’s very own Page over on Facebook.

Designed for the future

Or as close as is feasible. You see, things just keep changing. Which is fine, assuming you’re ready for change. I am. There’s still more stuff I want to do and the new Octane website has the potential to meet those needs head-on.

If you’d like to know more about using WordPress to manage your website, or you’re interested in my web design services, let me know.

Image used courtesy of Flickr and Frank Monnerjahn.

Automated versus Manual processing

A few weeks ago, a client of mine asked me if I could automate the processing of a list of data. I asked her to send me the list. In total, there were just over 30 items. My advice was to just process the whole thing manually. She wasn’t pleased, but worked her way through the list.

I’m a PHP developer, which means I can write all kinds of things for the web — everything from a simple scripts that automate response forms for websites, right up to full-blown web applications, that process vast amounts of commercially sensitive data.

So, depending on the circumstances, I can write small scripts to batch process things like lists. My client knows that I’m a programmer, which is why she asked about some automatic way of processing her list. But the thing is, I had to invoke Smallman’s first law of energy conservation:

“1st law — If you’re dealing with a single array (or column) of data that’s less than 100 items, do it manually. Beyond that (more than 100 items, or a list of multiple arrays), automate it, so long as it’s possible to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to process the list of data in its entirety manually.”

But my laws don’t just apply to processing data, they also apply to images / photographs, for example. Adobe Photoshop has some excellent batch processing tools.

Let’s say I have 10 images that need resizing, given my experience, I could probably do them manually in the time it would take to set up a batch process in Photoshop. But let’s say I have 10 high resolution images that need re-sizing, their colour profiles changing from RGB to CMYK, and then saving as JPEGs. At that point, it’s more than likely I’d save some time automating the whole thing — especially if there’s a chance of me repeating the process at some later date.

This is where I’d have a conversation with the client, asking them if there’s a chance I’d be repeating this process at some point.

Write once, process many times

Even though you’re solving a problem (not just for yourself but you’re client), it’s not the best way of spending your time. So even though you’ve automated a process, the client is still coming back to you with Microsoft Excel files or emails full of photographs, asking you to process them all.

Here’s where I take my automated process and turn the whole thing into a small web application, where the client can do the processing themselves:

“2nd law — If there’s any chance that an automated process will be repeated, give the power to the client (write an application or script) and let them process their own data.”

Of course, this might not apply to digital imagine processing, although there are ways of doing this, but the cost become prohibitive.

By handing the power to your client, you’re adding value to your service. At the same time, your time is freed up to do more meaningful things. By all means, charge the client for the effort you made handing the power to them, but make sure you explain the cost savings they’ll be making over time.

Let’s say the client needs to change the data in a table on a web page. Initially, I’ll do this manually. As time passes, the table gets bigger, with more columns. At some point, it’s just not practical for me to do this manually any more. This is where I write a script that allows the client to upload a .csv file and upload the table themselves.

A problem shared is a problem out-sourced

Have you ever been asked to do something that’s either right at the edge of your skill set, or just plain out of reach? Of course, it’s tempting to swat up and try doing it yourself. And good on you! However, in the meantime, there’s a deadline to meet, on top of which, are you actually making any money doing this?

“3rd law — If in performing an activity that’s not a core service you’re likely to lose money and / or exceed a deadline, out-source the work, or delegate to someone with the requisite skills.”

If this is something totally new to you, and it’s got an appreciable learning curve, there’s a better than average chance you’re not making a profit. Also, there’s no guarantee the quality will be sufficiently high enough to meet the exacting standards of your client. Worse still, you might not get the work done in time.

Of course, choosing to out-source or delegating the work to a colleague is no silver bullet, so it’s all about selecting the right person to execute the work for you. In the end, it’s better to get the work done right and on time than not at all.

If you think there’s a good chance of there being more of the same work in the future, there’s a good argument for learning on your own time and getting good enough to take the work on. But that’s your choice.

Working smart and not hard

I see so many people squander huge amounts of time, it’s unreal. They might feel they’ve done a good days work, but working hard is not nearly as rewarding as working smart, so long as you do it right.

If you’ve got your own tips for working smart, feel free to share them here…

Berryman Glass Recycling is Britain’s largest purchaser and recycler of waste glass. Founded almost 90 years ago, they’re now looking forward, and meeting tomorrow’s challenges, both in terms of maintaining a technological lead, as well as carving out a presence for themselves on the new social web.

Berryman are a progressive business, so the potential for expanding their activities (to include video as well as adopting more aspects of social media, for example) is encouraging.

Berryman now have a place on the web around which they can build various other activities, such as using their website as a point of entry for exhibition attendees to follow up a meeting with one of their team, or as a way of publicizing their activities and various recent business successes.

If you’d like to know more about the specifics of the project, take a look at the Berryman Glass Recycling case study, as well as visuals on the portfolio page.

I’m sure you, like me, have had your fair share of spam email; people trying to sell you everything from prescription drugs to watches. Worse still, some of these offers will probably be coming through your companies contact form, which is both annoying and a time waster.

Securing response forms with a CAPTCHA

OK, I confess, this is a buzzword. After everything I said about buzzwords and jargon being a pain, I go and do this! But, there’s a a very good reason.

There is a way of preventing a good percentage of the unsolicited email you receive, and it’s a security feature you can add to your contact forms. It’s called CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Human Apart. If you go to the contact page of the Octane website, you’ll see one in action.

Manually submitting contact forms

However, CAPTCHAs aren’t a silver bullet, or some kind of cure-all. Because of the various tools I use, I can see where people come from before they send me a message via my contact form.

The vast majority of the spam I get is from India. So rather than this being some automated system trying and failing to complete my response form and navigate its way around the CAPTCHA, it’s a real person at the other end. That’s a problem you can’t solve with software alone.

However, some feel having a CAPTCHA on your response forms might be doing more harm than good. As an example, a recent body of research shows that CAPTCHAs have a measurable effect on conversion rates:

“From the data you can see that with CAPTCHA on, there was an 88% reduction in SPAM but there were 159 failed conversions. Those failed conversions could be SPAM, but they could also be people who couldn’t figure out the CAPTCHA and finally just gave up. With CAPTCHA’s on, SPAM and failed conversions accounted for 7.3% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. With CAPTCHA’s off, SPAM conversions accounted for 4.1% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. That possibly means when CAPTCHA’s are on, the company could lose out on 3.2% of all their conversions!”

Those figures do certainly offer pause for thought. But it’s also worth mentioning this is a relatively small study group, and I have a feeling that the type of visitor could play a major part in conversion and abandon rates.

Respondr response form script

Because I got sick of relying on other people, I wrote my own response form script, called Respondr, which you’ll find being used here on Octane, as well as on the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, and several clients of mine.

Rospondr is free to download, and if you’re a web developer, it should be easy enough for you to install and configure. Rospondr also includes a built-in CAPTCHA, which can also be configured.

In the time I’ve been using CAPTCHAs, I’ve seen several people get stuck with them, but very few have abandoned them. My feeling is, people know why they’re being asked to enter a security code, because they’re just as sick of unsolicited mail as I am.

But if you are concerned about people abandoning your contact form, make sure your telephone number is near by, so they can call you direct.

Masked passwords versus usability

I’ve always disliked masked passwords. What’s a masked password? It’s any text field on a contact form that turns all of the characters you’re typing into bullet points. Let’s face it, if you can’t see what you’re typing, how can you be at all sure you’ve typed the right thing?

Recently, usability expert Jakob Nielsen weighed in on the subject of masked passwords:

“The more uncertain users feel about typing passwords, the more likely they are to (a) employ overly simple passwords and/or (b) copy-paste passwords from a file on their computer. Both behaviors lead to a true loss of security.”

This is a problem for both new and seasoned web users alike. As a web developer, I don’t use masked password form fields. If a client asked for them, I explain why they’re such a bad idea, who’s positives are massively out-weighed by the negatives.

If you’re worried about people looking over your shoulder, that’s a people thing and not something software can get around. At the very least, if web developers are going to use masked passwords in their response forms, they should include a little check box which enables and disables it, to give the user the option.

Conclusion

Ultimately, if you choose to use CAPTCHAs or masked passwords on your company website, it’s about balance; are you doing the right thing by your customers / clients visiting your website?

And knowing your audience is essential, which is why I highly recommend you track the visitors to your website, to help widen that knowledge.

Tracking visitors to your company website

When I build a company website, I have a list of prerequisites, one of which is installing options to track and monitor visitors to those websites. Without an understanding of your visitors, you run the risk of steering your website into rough seas, less trafficked than the calmer waters more popular websites are to be found sailing through.

Here are some of the top benefits of gathering web statistics for your business website:

1. know how many visitors you’re getting daily, weekly and monthly;
2. see where those visitors are coming from (such as other websites, search engines, or typing your web address directly);
3. if you’re getting visits from the search engines, like Google, you’ll see what words they searched for;
4. see how long each visitor spent on which web pages, and what they did next;
5. monitor downloads of things like software, PDFs, white papers et cetera;
6. if you have a search tool on your website, you can track what people are searching for and which web pages they’re visiting.

They are but a small selection of the things you’ll be able to do once you start tracking visitors to your company website.

Using web statistics to improve your sales & marketing

But you don’t just want to accumulate all of this data. You want to put all of this data into action. So here’s some ways you can make use of your visitor data, which include:

1. track marketing campaigns, which include campaign codes;
2. use your web statistics to build a demographic profile of your visitors, which will help your sales & marketing team target their campaigns with more precision;
3. spot recurring trends, such as visits from particular web pages or articles, and use those sources to hone your marketing activities.

So the next question is, now? I use a number of tools, but the main two I use and recommend to clients are Google Analytics and Clicky Web Analytics.

Web analytics software

Google Analytics is free. All you need to sign up is a Google Account, which is also free. As well as a huge wealth of data at your disposal (far too many options here to cover in any real detail), you can also add profiles for different people, like colleagues and perhaps your own clients, as I do.

Clicky Web Analytics is a paid service, but there are some very unique features particular to Clicky what you won’t see in Google Analytics. For example, Clicky has a Spy feature, which allows you to see visits to your website live. The advantages of this might not be immediately apparent, but over time, you’ll appreciate being able to respond to currently active marketing campaigns in real time.

Clicky really comes into its own once you have a business blog. There are options to track buzz, such as who’s talking about you and your brand on Twitter, for example.

In both instances, Google Analytics and Clicky Web Analytics require you to install a small portion of code into each web page for them to do their magic.

So what have we learned? Data is good! Data can give your business a critical edge, one perhaps not shared with the competition…

Recommended reading

• Just what is a standard website anyway?
• 6 five minute SEO guides for business websites
• Does your business need a blog?
• So just what is Social Media and can it benefit my business?
• 5 simple ways to improve your business website

Emily Cagle is a marketing and communications consultant who enlisted Octane’s services shortly after reading my ebook and then putting some of the things I wrote about into practice. We’ve both worked together to produce a website and blog we can both be very proud of.

As I mention over on the Social Media Marketing Technology blog:

“It must come as little surprise to know that both Emily & I are thrilled with the end result, which you can read more about in my case study on the Emily Cagle Communications website. But this is only the beginning. We’ve both been working on planning a long-term social media strategy, making the most of the key technologies out there, like Facebook and Twitter to help promote her business.”

If you’d like to know more about the specifics of the project, and Emily’s thoughts, take a look at the Emily Cagle case study, as well as visuals on the portfolio page.

So why the major overhaul of the Octane website?

I wanted a totally fresh start. But more importantly, I wanted the Octane website to be the hub of operations for all of the other stuff I’m doing.

Octane is my business, but many more people know me for my popular tech’ opinion blog, Blah, Blah! Technology. And more recently, I’ve enjoyed great success with my free ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media.

The one thing I don’t lack is content, so the purpose of the Octane website is to pull together those sources of trusted and valued information and knowledge into one place, so people can learn more about the things I offer.

Right now, you’ll find two columns of links in the footer of certain service pages, like social media and internet marketing, the Octane blog and the home page itself. However, over the course on the next month, I’ll be integrating specific articles from the other two blogs directly into service pages.

How much would a website like Octane’s cost?

Good question! A guestimate of cost would be around the £1,300.00 (Net) mark, which would include:

• Design & Artwork — 8 hours / £360.00
• Web Design & Development (incl. custom programming) — 12 hours / £540.00
• WordPress, installation and setup — 8 hours / £360.00
• Hosting, Email and FTP — one-off £20 account set up and then £30 each year thereafter.

It’s taken me months to complete this re-design, but that’s because I’ve been fitting all of this work in between my client work, which actually pays!

What do you see as the key benefits of having a new website?

First of all, the re-design is a fresh look. Totally new. Secondly, as mentioned previously, I’m turning the Octane website into a hub for all of my other stuff. But there are other benefits, too.

1. A far cleaner, clearer design and layout means it’s much easier to manage and update the website and the blog.
2. A better layout also means that articles and pages are easier to read and find.
3. Having a business blog is a great way to raise awareness, engage with customers and expose people to your brand and your expertise.

Key points

Keeping the pace — the fact is, if I want to attract new clients, I need to demonstrate the strength and depth of my talents, and that’s what this new website does.

Room to grow — sometimes, you just out-grow a website, and fixing what you have simply isn’t practical. The previous design had served its purpose and something new, bigger and better was needed.

Having more to say — you can’t fit a pint of water into a half pint glass, can you? And that’s the problem I faced. So the challenge was making everything easy to find and read.

What’s next for the Octane website and blog?

As you can imagine, there’s a lot of work involved, not least the actual effort in creating the website and blog. Over the long-term, the value rests in keeping the website and the blog up to date. The typical schedule of activities would include:

• Updates to service pages, with links to new and related blog articles.
• New blog articles, based on a variety of different themes.
• Adding new case studies, linking to related blog articles.
• Adding new images to the portfolio page, also linking to case studies and related blog articles.

Right now, these are the very services I’m offering my clients who’re wanting to embrace and make the most of social media for their businesses.

I’d like to think there’s a good 1-2 years in this new website design, with maybe 2-3 years in the underlying structure, before I’d consider another major overhaul.

In the here & now, the timing of the new design is to coincide with the impending launch of a client website, and planned marketing efforts of my own.

Work has been good for me this year, with no real slow down, which is excellent. But I don’t want to sit back and become complacent! I always want more work.

If you’d like to know more about how Octane can help you business, feel free to contact me right now, or call 0870 755 0004 Monday to Friday 9am-5pm

Octane can help your business maximize profitability by reducing costs through automating tedious and complex tasks.

Right now, business owners all over Britain are looking at 2009 as a year of change. Many businesses are going to struggle, which is sadly inevitable. The question is a simple one: will your business survive the hardening global economy?

Building on your strengths and removing weaknesses

Many businesses have their own routines and their own ways of doing things. Microsoft Office is good to a point, but businesses need more flexibility.

Certain aspects of their business processes are automated, some are paper-based. It’s when one of those processes moves from computer to sheets of paper, and then back again, that things become difficult to measure, even harder to quantify and innumerable errors creep in.

This need not be the case. This is where a custom-built web application picks up where Microsoft Office et al and sheets of paper stop short of fulfilling their business needs.

By automating as many of their processes as possible, we remove most, if not all, of the traps that snag businesses, ruin productivity and invite error.

You, the innovator

I will sit down with your whole team and invite a candid, honest discussion, detailing specific needs, at the end of which, I’ll be equipped with an intimate knowledge of how your business functions. From there, we as a team will develop an outline of the ideal solution to your business needs.

• Bespoke software specific to your business
• Access your software from anywhere location
• Secure and private access
• Completely automate specific aspects of your business
• Track, measure and analyze your data

Your business. Your needs. Your solutions.

• Automation saves time
• Greater work capacity
• Reduced data errors
• Increased work efficiency
• Increased data accuracy
• Cost savings over time (ROI)

I can really help your business possibly save thousands of pounds over time, freeing your team up to be more productive elsewhere in your business — where it matters most…

The following are a collection of articles originally published on the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, taken from my instant SEO article:

5 minute SEO primer for beginners — “In SEO, it’s often the simple stuff that works the best. But time and again, people ask: “How do I get to the front page of Google?” — we start with the basics of Search Engine Optimization…”

SEO for URLs and externally linked files on websites & ‘blogs — “Google is a reader of websites who’s best kept happy with sensible structure and strong content. Google will read almost anything — or should I say almost any file…”

Search Engine Optimization: the art of ti… — “Titles maketh the article. Without a concise title, enriched with meaty keyword chunks, an article is just so many bytes of miscellaneous data. So I just thought I’d touch upon my thoughts on quick, easy SEO tips again, with an example. It’s the simplest principles of Search Engine Optimization that do the most good. But it’s the simple things that often get overlooked .. even by the big guys…”

2-4-1 keyword listing on Google SERP — “Ever curious as to the circuitous route some of the visitors to my ‘blog take en route, I’m often left in various states of mind…”

SEO tips for websites — “Here are my top Search Engine Optimization tips for giving your web pages a lift, making your website that little bit more friendly to the search engines and your visitors alike!”

What search engines really, really want from your website! — “The similarities between the web, the way the web functions and real life are much closer than you’d think.”

Feeling empowered? Hopefully, I’ve armed you with enough SEO know-how to at least give your business website a boost…