HomePostsJul 17, 2009

Web strategy links and Resources for July 17th

These are links that I’ve saved on Delicious or sent over Twitter since last Friday that you might find useful. Everything relates back to web strategy in some way or another whether it’s improving your design, improving your code, or improving your technique. I want to help you get the most out of the web and the best way to do that is to keep learning. So, read.

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

smashing_logoSmashing Magazine puts out an unbelievable amount of useful and free content. This collection of sites and resources is a great example why I would subscribe to a printed version of this website. A big part of web strategy is representing yourself well across multiple profiles, networks, and sites. The best way to do that it to make sure you have a solid grasp on the English language, particularly as it relates to the internet. The better you can write, the better you look online… period.

We collected over 50 useful and practical tools and resources that will help you to improve your writing skills. You will find copy writing blogs, dictionaries, references, teaching classes, articles, tools as well as related articles from other blogs.

The Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials of all Time

There are an unbelievable about of Photoshop (and Illustrator and web design and…) tutorial sites and posts out there that it’s hard to keep up with them all. Well, I can’t either so I don’t. I realized recently that, unless you have tons of extra time to walk through these and nothing better to do, you should look for a tutorial that helps you with the project you’re working on. How does this relate to web strategy? Part of a cogent presence online is how, visually, it represents you. Pick up a few ideas or try your hand at Photoshop… it can’t hurt.

With hundreds of Photoshop tutorial sites around these days it’s easy to forget some of the classic posts that have shaped and inspired the community for years. These kinds of posts are in a sense timeless, and have inspired countless designers (including myself) to begin writing their own tutorials.

12 Essential Security Tips and Hacks for WordPress

I’m a big, huge, unrelenting, obnoxious fan of WordPress. The more I learn, the more I love. I’m always looking for ways to improve on what’s there and create a strong, secure, easy-to-use web site for my clients. This article covers both back end changes as well as admin panel changes that can be made in WordPress to make sure you keep people out of your installation. Beginners should concentrate on 1, 4, 5, and 7. If you feel comfortable with any of the rest, do it.

WordPress being open source means that the chances of malicious attacks being successful are higher because the project’s source code can be easily obtained and studied for vulnerabilities. This article highlights several tips and hacks that you can use to secure and lock down your WordPress site and to fortify it from attacks.

10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals

I’ve been getting deeper and deeper in to website analytics and having a lot of fun playing around with data and trying to come up with coherent and useful conclusions. I was once told “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” (a Peter Drucker quote). That may not be the best advice for every situation but, for web analytics, it holds true. The more you understand about how people come to your site and interact with what you’re offering, the better you can serve them. If you’re a true beginner with Google Analytics or not sure where to start, check out Smashing’s timely article.

The definition of Google Analytics goals has always been clear to me – a means to measure business objectives, reports and improve on them. Google Analytics has transformed itself over the years from a ‘nice to have’ analytics software to a ‘must have’ analytics software …

Twitter links

Web Do’s and Don’ts: I think this site is great! On one side, you have the “do’s” of modern web design and, on the other, the “don’ts.” People login, add their own, and vote on others. Very simple but some great reminders for people of all skill levels. I’d like to think I’d score pretty well on here…

10 UI Design Patterns You Should Be Paying Attention To: Another Smashing article… if you’re even flirting with the idea of putting together a web application, start here. Also, if interactivity is your bag, check out a few of the examples they show.

5 Tasks in the Morning: Chris Brogan shows us the five things he does in the morning. My five would be Gmail, Gmail, TweetDeck, Facebook, and a quick trip to Popurls.

101 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog: Are you getting traffic and not sure what to do with it? This post is almost 2 years old but gave me a lot of ideas to go with for online monetization. Great place to start if you know a little bit but not sure where to go.

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Newer

Jul 23, 2009

Searches on Delicious are more powerful than you think

I talk about Delicious.com a lot because I’ve found it very critical for my own web strategy and organization. Saving links is incredibly easy and I LOVE being able to share categories of links with people.

Older

Jul 10, 2009

Trying to learn Photoshop? Here's what to concentrate on

With all the tutorial sites out there these days, the problem isn’t finding something to learn, it’s figuring out which skill to concentrate on.