The top website and online marketing links of the week. Are you brand new to WordPress? Or considering moving to WordPress but not sure if you’ll be able to get the hang of using it? Don’t worry! Today’s post is all about resources for WordPress newbies. First is the user manual – WordPress doesn’t come with one, but there’s a great alternative in Easy WP Guide. It’s free, it gets updated frequently (unlike a real book) and is easy to read and use. Just don’t print it – it’s big and it updates too often to make that worth your… Continue Reading
The “Minding Your Business” Blog
Today is Red Kite’s 14th Birthday!
…and we’d like to give you a present. The first five people to get in touch today and mention our birthday will get 14% off their next WordPress design & development project. Have you been thinking about a new business website, or giving your older site a makeover? Now’s the time! Contact us to get started and get your discount today only. And a big, warm “thank you” to all our clients and friends who helped us get this far.
Weekly Links Roundup – New Business Location, URL Shorteners, Small Businesses Without Websites
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Adding a new brick-and-mortar location to your small business empire can be very exciting! But even though you’ll probably remember to update your website with your new location’s information, you might not remember to edit your Google My Business local search listing. Here’s a guide to understanding how opening a new business location can impact your local search strategy. Not using Google My Business? Even if you don’t have a physical location, it still matters for most businesses! We can help get you set up. If you use Google URL… Continue Reading
Why are My WordPress Email Notifications Not Sending?
WordPress by default uses a server’s PHP Mail service to send notifications or ‘transactional emails.’ These are automatic emails triggered by something a user does on the site, such as submitting an order or a form. The site might sent out an email confirmation in response to both of these actions. But sometimes the PHP Mail service is not set up on a hosting server at all. This is common on shared servers where the host wants to avoid mail abuse. Other times, it’s set up incorrectly, resulting in your notifications either not being delivered or only getting delivered sporadically…. Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – WordPress Care Plans for Agencies, Landing Page Copy, Link Building Tips, Optimizing LinkedIn
The top website and online marketing links of the week. I’m happy to announce the launch of our new WordPress Care Plans for Agencies at WP Minder (Red Kite’s sister company). If you’re the owner of a WordPress agency struggling with keeping client sites in good working order, or looking to offload your WordPress maintenance, please check out that link – maybe we can help each other out! Writing great copy that engages readers can be hard. Here’s a list of top 10 tips for writing landing page copy that converts (makes users buy, sign up, or do whatever it… Continue Reading
Making a Custom Slideout Menu for Genesis
I’ve been designing and building custom WordPress themes from scratch since 2009. Back on January 1 I switched to custom theming using the Genesis framework – not a huge transition but still something of a learning curve! A few months ago I needed to create a sliding toggle menu for mobile browsers for a client’s site (see the final version to the right). I’d done this for other frameworks numerous times and had the code snippets for it. But getting it working in Genesis took some extra steps. Here we go… I’m assuming here you’re already familiar with the Genesis… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Lazy Loading, Tracking Downloads, Page Speed, Email Marketing for Bloggers
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Here’s an easy performance win – implement lazy loading on your site. Lazy loading means not loading images that are off-screen; they eventually load when the user scrolls down to them. Learn more about lazy loading and here’s the plugin I like for this task in WordPress sites. If you offer white papers or other kinds of downloads on your site, did you know that you can use Google Analytics, which you’re most likely already using, to track downloads? Though GA doesn’t natively track this kind of interaction, you can… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Business Blogging, Scannable Content, Testimonials Slider, Video Galleries
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Think blogging is a waste of time? (Hint: it’s not, if you do it with a focus on quality and consistency). Here’s a quick guide on starting a blog for business and why it really does matter if you’re trying to make your website the strong online base for your marketing efforts that it should be. And if you’re taking the time to write well and frequently, make sure your content is also very easy to read. Most people today scan instead of reading – so you need to focus… Continue Reading