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Things You Should Do Immediately After Launching a Website

Things You Should Do Immediately After Launching a Website
So you’ve just launched your website. The only thing left now is to start creating content and arranging for some promotion, right? Well, not so fast. Here are a few things you should do right after launching a website (and if you can, do them prior to launching your website publicly). Create a Sitemap.xml File and a Robots.txt File What are these files? The Sitemap.xml file is a standard protocol for listing all the URLs that are contained within your website. If you’re using WordPress, you’re in luck: The only thing you need to do is to install a plugin called Google XML Sitemaps, and it will do all the work for you. If you’re not using WordPress, you can have a look at XML-Sitemaps.com, a simple tool for generating a Sitemap.xml file just by providing your website’s URL. Robots.txt is yet another file that search engines love. To create such a file, you can just use a template and modify it to you own needs. Here’s my template (designed for WordPress sites): Set Up Web Analytics Karol K.

Blogs et sites sur l’ergonomie (fr) [ Usaddict : Ressources sur l’ergonomie des interfaces (le blog Usabilis) ] La conception d’interfaces, l’ergonomie et le web sont en constante évolution : technologies innovantes, nouvelles tendances, interactions inédites sont autant de sujets auxquels il convient de rester attentif. Sur le Web, de nombreux professionnels partagent expériences et découvertes sur l’ergonomie, au sens large du terme. De l’accessibilité au e-commerce, en passant par le web 2.0, l’expérience utilisateur et les NTIC, nous proposons de (re)découvrir quelques blogs et sites francophones actuellement actifs (novembre 2010). AccessiBlogue – accessibiliteweb.com/accessiblogue Blogue (québécois) promoteur de l’accessibilité des contenus Web aux personnes handicapées et vieillissantes, de la normalisation (WCAG, SGQRI, etc.) et enjeux. Capitaine Commerce - capitaine-commerce.com Le Capitaine et ses acolytes nous font partager avec humour leur passion du e-commerce au travers de commentaires, découvertes et réflexions sur le web marketing, le web analytique et l’utilisabilité. Partager :

A/B testing for headlines: Now available for WordPress Audience data is the new currency in journalism. I don’t just mean the traditional Costco buy-in-bulk kind — “our readers are 52 percent male, 46 percent over $75,000 household income, 14 percent under age 35,” and so on. I mean data that looks at how individual readers interact with individual pieces of content. And beyond that shift there’s also the move from observational data — watching what your audience does — to experimental data, testing various ways of presenting or structuring content to see what works and what doesn’t. My desire for more experimental data is one reason why I’m very happy to point you to a new resource for sites built on WordPress (like this one): a new Headline Split Tester plugin, built by Brent Halliburton and Peter Bessman, two Baltimore developers. Not sure if you want a straight, newsy headline or something with a little more pizzazz? If you’re in the kind of operation that has regular debates over headline strategy, here’s a great way to test it.

Use Dropbox CDN for Hosting your WordPress Files You may use Dropbox as a free CDN for hosting your WordPress static content like the JS, CSS and image files. For optimal site performance, it is recommended that you use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to host your website’s static content – like images, CSS and JavaScript files – since it effectively reduces the physical distance between the user’s browser and your content. A CDN is a collection of web servers distributed across multiple locations to deliver content more efficiently to users. The server selected for delivering content to a specific user is the one with the fewest network hops. Amazon S3 is among the most cost-effective CDN for hosting WordPress files but if you are not on S3 yet, you may well consider using the Dropbox service as a CDN to serve the static files of your WordPress blog. How? It works something like this. Will this really help improve performance? Related resources:

page-fan-facebook-trucs-astuces from marevueweb.com *** Veuillez noter que depuis le mois de mars 2011, les pages Fan Facebook ne supportent plus l’application Static FBML. Consultez le lien suivant si vous désirez apprendre comment créer une application Facebook pour personnaliser votre page fan. *** Article présenté par… Cet article vous est fièrement présenté par notre entreprise de création de sites web pour PME au Québec Guerilla Web. Les pages fan de Facebook sont extrêmement intéressantes pour les compagnies puisqu’elles leur permettent une grande visibilité sur le web et leur permettent également d’interagir avec leurs clients. La tâche facile : Installer une page fan Facebook. Vous trouverez, dans le billet suivant, 10 trucs et astuces Facebook afin d’ajouter ou d’améliorer des fonctionnalités sur une page fan ainsi qu’une superbe liste inspirante d’exemples de pages fans Facebook. N.B. Si vous avez d’autres trucs ou pages inspirantes à partager avec nous, n’hésitez pas à les écrire dans la section de commentaires! Le code: Le code:

Make a Simple and Modern Web UI Button in Photoshop This beginner-level web/user interface design tutorial will walk you through the creation of a popular style of buttons that can be used in a variety of situations, such as in call-to-actions, common user tasks such as submitting a web form, and buying products from your e-store. In addition to the creation of the graphic in Photoshop, we will go over the HTML and CSS needed in order to make the design fully functional. Preview View Demo Step 1: Create the Photoshop Document Our button will be exactly 170px wide and 50px tall, but we’ll make a bigger canvas (600x600px) so that we have some breathing room while we work (then we can just crop our work before saving it). Step 2: Create the Base Shape Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) set to Shape Layers and with a Radius of 5px to create a 170x50px rectangle. Step 3: Give the Base Shape a Layer Style The appearance of the button will largely depend on its layer style. We will give this layer two layer effects: a Gradient Overlay and a Stroke. <!

Lessons in Conversion Centered Design: 7 Arm-Twisting Persuasion Techniques for Your Landing Pages Conversion Centered Design is a strange two-headed beast. On one side it aims to utilize principles of User Centered Design; usability, clear & relevant communication, targeted design and ease of navigation. On the other is a relentless desire to coerce visitors down a one-way sales funnel, where navigation and exploration are actively discouraged. Standalone landing pages differ from websites in that they are designed to persuade you to engage in a single offer, product or service. Here are 7 methods you can use on your next landing page to persuade your visitors to convert: 7 persuasion techniques to make your landing pages convert better. 1. Pointing is rude in some cultures, but when you live in Conversionland you need to learn to be more direct. Use directional cues to direct your visitor's attention to the CTA, and while you're at it turn out the lights on the emergency exit sign, there are no distractions allowed here. Examples of directional cues 2. The preview 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

HOW TO: Get Up-to-Date on WordPress 3.0 This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace's hosting solutions here. WordPress 3.0, the latest and greatest version of the popular open source content management system, has just been released. While we've written about some of the most exciting and important new features in WordPress 3.0 already, we thought now would be a good time to round-up some resources of how these newest features work and what WordPress designers and developers will need to consider when upgrading or creating new plugins or themes for WordPress 3.0.Although WordPress 3.0 was only released last week, it has been in the works for quite some time, so a fair amount of documentation is already online. All About Menus One of the most exciting new features, at least for theme designers and end users, in WordPress 3.0 is the introduction of custom menu support. Here are some must-read posts about menus and how to best implement and customize them in your themes:

IntenseDebate comments enhance and encourage conversation on you Integrating Feedburner and Google Analytics In mid-November, Google Analytics and Feedburner announced a very interesting integration. While this is excellent news for Google Analytics and Feedburner users, it must be dealt properly when it comes to SEO, especially on websites that are heavily based on RSS feeds. Google Analytics users rejoice! This integration is very interesting in that it allows a much deeper understanding of the interaction of users coming from feeds and the profitability of this segment on websites. So, which level of granularity can be achieved through this integration? Which parameters get added? As can be seen in the screenshot below (from Online Behavior website), we are able to use five UTM parameters as used in the URL builder. And the dynamic variables that can be used for each of the parameters are: How SEOs should deal with the change First of al, Feedburner made it very easy to deal with the change. The easiest way is to have all your links using the “#” sign on your campaign tracking.

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