April 20, 2015/8 Comments/in , /by

4 Key WordPress Image Optimization Tips

Images are often the best part of a WordPress website. They catch the eye, set the mood, and invite the emotions to take part in what can otherwise be a boring experience.

However, image files are often the biggest files on the server, and they tend to affect page upload speeds more than anything else. With new display technologies such as Retina becoming more and more popular, and mobile device usage on the rise, it pays to keep your image quality up and your file size down.

To help face these challenges, this post will look at four valuable suggestions to make the best choices when it comes to image optimization.

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April 13, 2015/3 Comments/in /by

Growing your Business: 6 Lessons from Taking a Brand New Open Source Product from 0 to 500,000 downloads in 12 months

A guest post by Ghost founder John O’Nolan

Almost exactly two years ago I launched a small new open source blogging platform to the world. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would pan out. I had hopes, of course, but there’s always that moment of uncertainty right before a big launch that’s impossible to ignore.

Today, Ghost is one of the fastest growing open source projects in the world, and we’ve been very fortunate to grow to $411,000 in annual revenue within a very short space of time (You can check this out live on our public revenue dashboard) – with more than half a million downloads of the open source package.

Kriesi has very kindly invited me to do a guest post to share some of the key lessons behind that roller-coaster of a journey, so I’m going to try and touch on all the biggest wins (and failures) that we made in the last couple of years.

Enjoy!

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April 7, 2015/5 Comments/in , /by

3 Reasons Why Good Typography is Vital to Great Web Design (Plus 3 Important Tips)

We have all heard this cliché: “A picture is worth a thousand words”, but is it always true in the world of web design?

Many designers are visually-minded people, and it does of course make sense to have a good eye for color, form and proportion in this line of work. Although the rules of typography are taught in design schools, these principles often take second place when planning the psychological impact of a web-design. The focus is on the overall visual effect, and typography is sometimes added as an afterthought.

This is an oversight that could have a negative impact on the effectiveness of your work. With that in mind, in this post I am going to share three reasons why good typography is vital to great web design, and give you three tips for making the most of the power of typography.

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March 30, 2015/in /by

5 Reasons Why Responsive Design is More Important Today Than Ever

A key character trait shared by most successful businesses is adaptability.

Businesses that prosper in an ever-changing environment are the ones that know how to stay up-to-date with the latest developments, and how to change their way of interacting with their world to stay on top.

With that in mind, if you don’t have a responsive web platform to showcase your services and/or products, you’ve already been left behind.

According to comScore, smartphones and tablets now account for 60% of time spent online. That trend is set to continue, with mobile devices on the rise and desktop browsing continuing to dwindle.

Obviously more people prefer using an app than a laptop to access Facebook, book a flight, or browse an online marketplace. That is understandable, given the convenience of a pocket-size tool that offers many of the benefits of something ten times the size. The statistics can be confirmed by simply looking around and noticing how many people are constantly glued to their smartphones.

As early as 2008 the forecasts indicated the trend, and in 2014 it became reality. Responsive design is no longer a luxury or a ‘nice to have’, but a necessity. Here are five reasons why.

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March 23, 2015/2 Comments/in /by

Single Page or Multiple Page Design – What’s Better For Your WordPress Website?

Choosing between Single or Multi Page Designs sometimes requires a lot of thought. Here are a few guidelines that might help you. 

Those familiar with WordPress’ history will know that it has its roots placed firmly in blogging.

But fast-forward to present day and you are arguably as likely to see a ‘traditional’ website running on WordPress than you are to see a blog. The world’s favorite Content Management System (CMS) has come a long way since its b2/cafelog days. And while creating a WordPress website that doesn’t operate as a blog is now a piece of cake, that added functionality opens up a veritable Pandora’s box of questions.

In this article I want to address one of those questions: should you choose a single page or a multiple page design for your WordPress website? With the growth in popularity of single page designs over the past year or so, it is a more relevant question than ever. Once you’re done reading this piece, you’ll know which option is right for you.

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March 16, 2015/22 Comments/in , /by Kriesi

Enfold Version 3.1 – New Elements, Demos and long awaited improvements

Again a rather large update that adds a lot of the features you requested 

This one has a lot of love for users who always wanted to use the template builder on posts and products. You can now build beautiful custom posts and unique custom single product pages. Of course we got a lot of new elements, improvements to existing elements, new theme demos and a lot of smaller bugfixes as well.

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