Boagword

Boagworld is a long running podcast by the team at Headscape fronted by Paul Boag. The show is relatively relaxed and covers a wide range of topics to suit anyone who designs, develops or owns a website. It’s suited to everyone no matter their experience and you’ll soon wonder where your hour has went, but it’ll hit home when you’re faced with Marcus‘ jokes at the end. The episodes usually last around an hour and are a worth a listen if you have anything to do with the web, be it developing and designing for it, or managing a website of your own.

Shoptalk

The Shoptalk Show is presented by Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert. Usually they are joined by guests who talk about web design, development and UX and answer questions submitted by listeners. If they’re short on a guest one week they’ll run through a Quickfire episode answering listener questions. Some may say the podcast is about sound effects. Some may be correct. Shoptalk shows usually last around an hour and are more suited to those who design and develop rather than a website owner, most of the time. If you’re into sound effects or terrible jokes then no matter your game give it a listen!

The Treehouse Show

The Treehouse Show is a podcast from the great folks at Treehouse, an educational platform to help people learn different technologies such as web design and development. This is a bit different to the rest in that it’s a video based podcast and is quite short in comparison, typically about 10 minutes long. Nick Pettit and Jason Seifer talk you through different web design and development news.

The Web Ahead

Jen Simmons hosts The Web Ahead, a 5by5 weekly podcast about the future of the web. Jen discusses various topics with a range of guests. A somewhat more serious podcast than the other ones mentioned here, but a great insight into a wide range of topics. Depending on the subject and guest, conversations can get pretty deep into the “nitty gritty” and typically the episodes last between one and two hours. A good podcast to listen to, especially if there is a guest on that specialises in the field you’re interested in or work in.

Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business is a relatively new podcast by Andrew Clarke and Anna Debenham. It’s a weekly discussion show about the business end of the industry which gives a good insight into some areas which other podcasts don’t really cover as much or in depth. The episodes are usually just over the hour mark.

It wasn’t only the website that we’ve hit, our branding has also changed. We have new character illustrations by Blair Wightman which give a fresher feel to the brand. On that note, we’ve dropped graphic design from our services to focus on the websites.

Let us know what you think in the comments, or on Twitter.

Put these CSS definitions into your co-workers Custom.css file. They will be applied to every website they visit as well as their developer tools. They are commented out by default, so make sure to uncomment your favourite ones!

View the code and instructions over on GitHub.

Content Management Systems such as WordPress will often sort a lot of this out for you if you have it configured correctly but it’s still something you want to be aware of and act on it if need be. A handy tool is the SEOmoz URL Spam Detection Algorithm, just put in your URL and check the results.

So what to look out for in your URL Structure?

www or non-www URLs

Some websites use www, and some don’t. And it doesn’t really matter which one you decide to go for – just make sure that you pick one and stick with it. Having multiple options is confusing to both visitors and search engines. You should redirect one to the other by using a 301 redirect. The redirect will mean your site only has one real URL and help it be indexed properly, whilst restoring a lot of the link value. Search engines will see your site as having duplicate content if you can access your site through multiple URLs.

Length of URLs and the use of Dashes

Ideally you should always keep your URLs under 5 words separated by dashes. The last thing you want is a stupidly long URL like /this-is-my-blog/what-i-write-about-all-day/. What would be much better for visitors and search engines would be /blog/what-i-write-about/. The use of dashes helps visitors read what the content is about before they even click the link.

It’s also quite easy to quickly work up really long URLs, especially in online shops. You might have /product/new/large/pink/socks/men/, where as something as simple as /products/pink-socks/ would be better. Not only will this help search engines, but it’ll help your visitors understand your site architecture.

Descriptive and Relevant URLs

The URL should have keywords inside it, relating to what the post or page is about. You need to be careful though, don’t overdo it. It should always be human readable. A URL such as /index.php?p=27329dab/ is no use, where as a URL such as /wind-turbines/ is much more efficient. It goes without saying that the URL should be relevant to what the content is about. If the URL mentions Wind Turbines the page should be about Wind Turbines, not a video of your nan’s flying cat.

Stick to Lowercase

Unlike your domain names, URLs are often case sensitive. Randomly adding in uppercase characters to your URLs can have devastating effects. Especially when people are entering their favourite URL into their web browser.

Check the Spelling!

You might think it goes without saying, but in some Content Management Systems if you edit and change the Title and regenerate the URL sometimes it can change your URL to something you wouldn’t expect – or generate it before you’ve finished setting up the page. Or of course you could just have a typo in there somewhere. Google, and visitors will see /microwave-vans/ differently to /microwave-ovans/! Always check your URLs for spelling mistakes.

Planning your Social Media Campaign

Before you do anything, draw up some plans about what you want to achieve (goals), how you are going to get people coming to your profiles and what you’re going to do to keep them coming back for more. Having a clear set of goals will help you shape up your campaign and more importantly, let you measure and repeat success.

Make sure you’re on the right Social Networking site

Following on from Planning, you need to make sure that you’re on the right social networking websites. Whilst it makes sense to secure your brand name on every site you can using a service like KnowEm, the amount of effort you put into certain sites may be better used on sites where your customers are likely to be. Do a little research and see what successful companies in your field are doing. You wont find a lot of people getting business through LinkedIn selling cupcakes, whereas on Facebook they might be creating quite a stir.

Know the Rules, in particular the Facebook ones

Facebook have a set of guidelines which you should adhere to when using their pages. Failure to comply with their rules could see your page removed by Facebook. To summarise what the guidelines go over any offer or competition run through Facebook must not,

• Use Likes, Wall Posts or Comments as the entry process.
• Provide benefits to selected fans, not all.
• Announce or contact winners via Facebook.

In addition to this, you must,

• State publicly that the promotion is not endorsed or sponsored by Facebook.
• Post a disclaimer advising that all information provided by applicants is shared with you, not Facebook.

This begs the question, so how can you run a promotion on your page? Well, you can use Facebook to promote a competition that’s not hosted on Facebook – so something that’s running on your website for example, as long as the entry process doesn’t rely on likes, wall posts, comments, etc. And of course you don’t contact the winner through Facebook!

If you see a competition running which offers a prize to a random fan after 1,000 likes, or offers a prize to whoever shares a picture and gets the most likes, then you know now they are breaking Facebook’s Terms and Conditions. Stay safe.

Make conversation, not spam

People don’t want to follow or like you just to get advertising about your business. It’s quite likely that they already know, or don’t care about what you might be trying to ram down their throat. Social media marketing is about interaction, not strictly about advertising. The last thing you want to do is annoy your customer base by saying five times a day “come buy this”, “look at me”. Make sure you ask questions and put effort into following up peoples responses and follow your potential customers back instead of ignoring them.

Give the punters what they want

When people follow you on Twitter or like your Facebook page they are authorising you to promote directly at them. They probably visit these social networking sites in their free time to catch up with friends and family, sharing what they are up to and their holiday snaps, they don’t want your nose in telling them to buy your sewing kits. Don’t abuse it, and give people what they want. They’ll want to get something in return for them allowing you to advertise on their turf. This might be a discount code for your services, some great fan only content, opportunities to book events early or even have a chance of getting a freebie! Whilst doing this, remember it’s a social networking site so be social and create relationships.

Get the word out

Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. See what I did there? Now you know that you can find Dot Monster on Twitter and Facebook. Just because you’ve created your accounts doesn’t mean people will flock to them on their own. Only the really big brands are likely to gain from just being who they are.

If you’re a small company start off by sharing your social media websites with friends and family. Just due to the way social media sites work some of their friends might pick up on it, and before you know it you’ve got a little boost with little effort.

If you’ve got some form of database with contacts for a mailing list or similar – use it! Send your customer base a little mail to let them know about your great new voyage into social networking. Just because they might have already been and gone as your customer doesn’t mean their input into your social networking campaign is of a lower value, it’s quite the opposite if they are likely to spread the word with recommendations!

Make sure your website has links through to your social networking sites. If you write a blog, link to your social sites at the end of it and let people know that more great content comes out your mouth.

You can also utilise your email signatures, forum signatures, business cards, use your imagination!

Monitor results

When you started you should have set out goals. Perhaps these goals were to get a certain amount of followers or likes to help increase brand awareness. Or maybe you wanted to get an increase of 10% in sales in products you pushed out through the campaign.

With your goals in place you need to work out the best way for you to monitor the results. There is a few ways in which you can see how well your campaign works. You could create a discount code which ran with the campaign, or actively ask customers how they got to your site and products in your contact form. You might even use analytical software such as Google Analytics to track referrals and statistics.

Repeat what works

Once you have a rocking recipe – keep it! If you found out what really works for your customer base use it again. One thing you don’t want to do is repeat the same campaign over and over, mix it up with other offers or fan content to keep your social profiles fresh and current. Generating new stuff for your customers will keep them coming back.

It takes time to make things work. Others might lead you to believe that Social Networking Campaigns are a quick money, all gain approach – they’re wrong. It’s all about building relationships and trusts. People often untick that box on a website which says “Please don’t spam me”, so why would they jump on your Social Networking ship to get the same?

The Contact Form 7 plugin allows you to;

“manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.”

Using a Quiz to Stop Contact Form 7 Email Spam

Using the Quiz tag inside Contact Form 7 is a quick and easy way to add a spam shield to your contact form.

To create the Quiz, visit your Dashboard and go to the Contact menu item where you manage your Contact Forms. Create your form as you normally would, but just before the Submit button generate a new tag for a “Quiz”. The format for a quiz answers are question|answer. Here’s a little look at how you might use this;

It’s up to you how much you put in. It only shows one of your entries – not them all! If you want to use these ones feel free just to copy and paste the code onto your contact form;

[quiz spam-quiz 2/2 "What comes first, c or y?|c" "What is 3 + 2?|5" "What is 2 - 1?|1" "What is the capital letter of y?|Y" "What is bigger, 7 or 9?|9" "What is smaller, 6 or 2?|2" "What is 5 - 2?|3" "What is 6 + 2?|8" "What is bigger, 3 or 7?|7" "What is bigger, 6 or 5?|6" "What is the capital letter of j?|J" "What is smaller, 8 or 9?|8" "What is bigger, 8 or 2?|8" "What is 2 x 4?|8" "What is 3 x 2?|6" "What is 8 - 3?|5" "What is the capital letter of k?|K"]

Using CAPTCHA in Contact Form 7

There is a built in anti-spam method for Contact Form 7, and that’s to use the CAPTCHA tags but you need to have Really Simple CAPTCHA installed to use it.

Nothing is Bomb Spam Proof

Whether you use the Quiz, or CAPTCHA, or another method you will never cut spam out 100% as some spam might even be a human on the other end. These two simple methods in Contact Form 7 will help you however – I just prefer using the Quiz as it doesn’t require another plugin and is easier for a human to answer than an obscure image. It takes a bit of trial and error to see what works for you.

It’s a little different when it comes to making images just for a screen, as we’ll briefly look into.

What is Image Resolution?

Resolution is in basic terms, the size of an image. It’s the density of dots that make up the image when printing. The bigger resolution, the more detailed it is, the lower the resolution, the less detailed and fuzzy it becomes. DPI (dots per inch) and PPI (pixels per inch) are often used and are much of the same thing. When going into the sizes there is a lot of background reading to be done, I would suggest reading this article called Say No to 72 dpi, it outlines resolutions mainly for screens very well and explains why the concept of PPI for web design is a bit of a myth and is often misunderstood – simply as video works in pixels, not inches.

Image Resolution for the Web

The goal of an image on a website is to get it to load fast. It’s useless to have massive images on your website and it takes forever to load – especially on mobile devices using a slower connection. There is no notion of DPI on a computer screen, it’s done in pixels, not dots and inches like a printer. Without going into massive detail here, check out the Say No to 72 dpi article linked before if you’re really interested. Equally there is a good article on the Myth of DPI at the Web Designer Depot website. But to keep it simple, if you need an image to be 100 pixels by 200 pixels, make it that size, the DPI or PPI doesn’t matter if it’s just for viewing on a screen.

Image Resolution for Printing

Normally printing firms require work to be at least 150 DPI, but often at least 300 DPI is required. Some specialist printers might require even more, it’s a good idea to check with the printers before carrying out work if you know it’s a larger printing project. Generally the bigger resolution the better the image can be printed.

Vector Images

Vector images don’t use resolution the same way as normal images. Vector images are based on maths to calculate paths and a frame of where the image goes. It has no concept of sizes and resolutions. Basically speaking, if you want your image 100 times larger the calculations are multiplied by 100. This means that vector images are not tied to the same constraints other images are, they can be scaled up and down as much as you want without losing quality. If you’re printing something really, really large then a vector would be the way to go. It keeps your file sizes low and you don’t need to worry about quality. The trade of is you need specialist software and knowledge to create these images and not everyone has both in their head or installed on their PC! A common application used to work with vectors is Adobe Illustrator. Sometimes your printing firm will prefer it if you can provide artwork such as logos in vector format as it allows them to scale it as they need without worrying about quality.

To Summarise All That!

If you are making an image for the web or digital displays, ignore the DPI or PPI just use the dimensions you need it to be such as 400 pixels by 800 pixels. After all, 400 x 800 pixels is always going to be 400 x 800 pixels.

If you are making an image for print, create your document in the physical size you need. If it’s for a 40″ x 40″ print, make your document that size and set it to 300+ DPI. It’s easier not to work in pixels here, it confuses matters. This is because having a higher DPI/PPI requires less physical space to fit those pixels in. Confusing? Try create a document that’s 1000 x 1000 pixels at 300 DPI. Then create another document that’s 1000 x 1000 pixels at 72 DPI. You might think that the document that’s 300 DPI is going to be bigger right? Wrong. The 300 DPI document is 8.47cm x 8.47cm. The 72 DPI document is 35.28cm x 35.28cm which is bigger! This is because the 300 DPI image is squeezing in more of your pixels per inch. The 72 DPI image is squeezing in less of your pixels per inch, so it spans a larger area. If you work in the physical size you need from the off, it makes things much simpler.

If you are making an image which might be used for a bit of everything you should really work with a vector, or at really large resolutions. Failure to do so might find printing on larger surfaces impossible without re-creating your image.

No problem now though, using this script!

Simply visit the interconnect/it website and download the Search Replace DB script then upload it to your server and run it by visiting the URL, http://yourwebsite.com/nameofscript.php. There is instructions on the screen as you run through it.

Important!

This code is supplied with no warranty or support implied. You use it entirely at your own risk. Currently it is supplied under the WTFPL but this will change to the GPL eventually. And when you’ve finished using the script, PLEASE delete it as it can pose a serious security risk to your site.

In this article we’ll run through identifying spam, WordPress methods of reducing spam, plugins to help reduce spam. Keep in mind however that there is no method of keeping all spammers out automatically, spammers change their methods and even manually add comments to try and bypass your protection.

How to Identify WordPress Spam Comments

You would think that identifying spam comments would be easy, and quite often it is. Take a look at this one with the links removed:

“As I website possessor I believe the articles here is rattling great , regards for your efforts. cpanel reseller | whm reseller |”

Here the poster is trying to link back to a website. A quick Google search inside “quotes” returns quite a few results where this spammer has wrote the same thing over and over again.

Google search for spam comment

Here are a few pointers for manually identifying spam comments. Whilst sometimes a real comment might fall under one of these, they are generally good guidelines to follow.

• Unrelated Links: If a comment has links back to an unrelated website it’s probably spam. Why would someone link to buying a new car on a bread recipe website?
• Many Links: If a comment has more than one link then it may be spam – sometimes it can be real to link more than once but it is rare.
• Generic Comments: If the comment content isn’t really related to the post or is very generic then it just might be spam.
• Wow, you’re really awesome: Similar to the above point, if the post is very complimentary then it’s probably rubbish also.
• Name Field: A big hint is in the name field. If someone says their name is “Car Seller Brighton” instead of “Jim Bobbins” then alarm bells should be ringing.
• Multiple Comments: If the comment is posted twice on different articles they both are probably going to be spam.
• Fake Quotes: Sometimes a spammer will quote your post or part of it without actually replying to the post itself.
• Old Posts: If a post is old real posters normally don’t comment as they realise that the subject is dead.
• Language: Posting in another language is often a big sign. If you’re site is in English why would someone reply in another language?

Using WordPress to Reduce Spam Comments

WordPress actually has a few useful tools built in to help reduce spam, without using any plugins. All of these methods are in some relation to the list above for identifying spam. The first one we’ll look at is what WordPress can do about Links.

Post Links. WordPress allows you to set the number of posts within a link which flags the comment for manual moderation. This attempts to stop spammers who leave multiple links. If you visit your WordPress Dashboard and go to the Settings > Discussion panel, under Comment Moderation you can set the number of links to 1, when the default is 2.

Spam Words. WordPress also allows you to block certain words. In the same area as before, Settings > Discussion, you can add words to the text area. WordPress has a list of Spam Words which you can use and add to. Put each word on a new line and be careful not to have any empty lines!

Blacklist Words. Similar to blocking words, you can create a Blacklist in the same area. This is more powerful because anything that matches a term wont even sit for moderation, it’ll be totally destroyed from view. The comment will still be in the database however marked as [spam]. It’s not really advisable to use the Blacklist unless you’re certain of what you want to destroy as partial words can match. If you put in “ass” words like “assistance” would result in a match.

Closing Comments. As mentioned before, sometimes spam comments are left on old articles. Under Settings > Discussion you can enable “Automatically close comments on articles older than X days” and enter in a value. If you are writing a personal blog perhaps comments only need to be open for about 90 days?

Moderate, everything. You probably don’t want to take this action for larger websites where you get a lot of comments, however on smaller blogs it’s fine. Ticking the box “An administrator must approve the comment” under Setting > Discussion will force all comments to be checked before going onto the site. You can take a similar approach by checking “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” – this is pretty self explanatory, anyone who leaves a comment needs their first one manually checked.

Registered User Comments. Forcing users to register before they leave a comment is a deterrence for spam comments, however it can also be a deterrence for real commentators. Visitors might not want to go through the bother of registering before leaving a comment, it’s something you need to weigh up – there is better alternatives out there. To enable this visit the Dashboard and under Settings > General panel select “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”.

WordPress Anti-Spam Plugins

Akismet. As mentioned before, WordPress comes bundled with Akismet. This works by using an algorithm combined with a community driven database to “learn” which comments are spam. To use Akismet you need to register with them over at Akismet.com to get your API Key. If you make money from your website you need to pay for your subscription however it is free for personal websites.

Bad Behavior. This plugin works well with Akismet as it provides a different type of protection. It acts as a blanket over your site to stop spammers from even looking at your site, never mind leaving comments. This helps keep your sites load down and keeps the logs clean. For more information check out the description on the plugin page of WordPress.org.

WordPress Hacks and Modifications to Reduce Spam

So your WordPress is all setup, your plugins are ready to rock, that’s enough right? Yes, it probably is enough however more protection wont hurt. These next steps are not recommended for average users, you should really have an understanding of how WordPress works and editing files before doing any of this. As normal – take a backup of any files before you change or delete them in case you break something!

Deleting Files. If you want to totally remove comments you can delete wp-comments-post.php. This will effectively disable comments on your site. The end. If you have troubles with trackback spam, you can delete wp-trackback.php. Just like deleting the comments file, this will totally disable trackbacks.

WordPress Anti-Spam Check-list

Time to sum everything up into a check-list for combating spam on a WordPress site. Some of the methods have been left out of this check-list as I feel some of them are too drastic or are not that useful. The following check-list could be used in almost all setups:

• WordPress: Limit the amount of links visitors can leave without being moderated from the Discussion panel.
• WordPress: Setup your spam links from the Discussion panel.
• WordPress: Close comments on old articles on the Discussion panel.
• WordPress: Force all first timers to have their first comment moderated from the Discussion panel.
• Plugin: Install, activate and sign up for Akismet.
• Plugin: Install and activate Bad Behavior.

Back in the old days using “Click here” provided some form of instructions to users. Publishers of web content decided that visitors needed pointers of carrying out basic tasks such as clicking on links. Surely you want to write your content without worrying about users being able to navigate around, after all they got to your page in the first place so it would be a safe assumption to assume they know how links work. Especially when “Click here” implies they are using a mouse to actually click…

Why using Click Here is bad

• If you print out the page, “Click here” suddenly becomes useless and doesn’t look very professional.
• Search engines use the text in a link to help identify what the link is about. The link isn’t really about “Click here” is it?
• “Click here” applies you have a device to click with. Not all users do have that device, or chose not to use it.
• “Click here” is useless when taken out of context in a list of links.
• Quite often users just scan a page, stuff like hyperlinks stand out – make use of them with descriptive text!

Examples of Good and Bad links

Here is some examples to show the usage of links.

Good Examples of Links

• Order now!
• Tell me more about Web Design.
• Find out more about Dot Monster Web Design services.

Bad Examples of Links

• Click here to order now!
• Tell me more about Web Design.
• Find out more about Dot Monster Graphic Design services by clicking here.

See the difference? When calling a user to action try to follow the link guidelines from w3:

• provides some information when read out of context
• explains what the link offers
• doesn’t talk about mechanics
• is not a verb phrase