Category Archives: Web Project Management

SQL required to move a WordPress Site to a new domain

To move a wordpress site from one domain to another, you need to execute the following SQL scripts on the database:
UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.old-domain.com','http://www.new-domain.com');

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com');

This works as of WordPress 2.8.

Web Marketing – A Brief Glossary

There are increasingly a range of acronyms being thrown around in web marketing that sometimes slip out when interacting with clients. Here’s a brief overview of some of the more common e-marketing acronyms to ease the conversation.

  • SEM
    Search Engine Marketing

    SEM is a broad term covering the range of activities you might engage in to improve the extent to which you generate revenue via search engines

MooTools, AJAX, DHTML and Performance

I first delved into javascript frameworks with Prototype, but I quickly realised that the Prototype+Script.aculo.us combination, even in Protocoluous or Protopackt form, was never going to work – it was just too slow.

I moved to MooTools, and for a while was pretty happy – load times were quicker, effects smoother.

But having recently tried to build sorting and filtering functionality into an HTML table of 200+ rows, I’ve been forced to take a closer look at how different browsers execute javascript, and at where the bottlenecks are. Here I’m going to promote a few best practices, largely via Julien LeComte at Yahoo.

How to choose an eCommerce Solution for engagement and conversion

There are a real plethora of eCommerce solutions out there now, making it difficult to isolate which solution is best for you. Some solutions are free and open-source, some licensed or bought off the shelf, and others custom-built – each has it’s advantages and disadvantages. This post is an outline of what your decision-making process with your IT consultant should look like.

  1. Will you be marketing your products to the search engines? If so, you need, at a minimum, a solution with 301 Redirect Management, keyword-rich URLs, and management facilities for title and meta-tags. This will rule out a sleuth of options.
  2. What is your estimated annual turnover, average transaction value, and average unit price? Payment gateways (i.e. PayPal, Google Checkout, Protx, ChronoPay, etc.) differ in their charges, and you should choose to minimise your costs.

Communicating the ROI of Web Design with Web Forms

It is often hard for those needing a website to justify the costs of design. Design is often viewed as a ‘talent’ before a learned skill, and as something that we either have or we don’t, and it naturally follows that if you ‘have it’ should be able to produce it without greart expensive.

Luke Wroblewski gave an excellent presentation at the An Event Apart 2007 conference (Chicago) that helps communicate the complexity and process of design, and the value a strong design can contribute.

10 statistics that demonstrate the value of SEO

These statistics source from a compilation of SERPS behaviour studies for which I’ve listed source information at the end of the article. If you disagree with a figure, or have additional figures or sources, please do post them to the discussion.

  1. 42% of search users click the top-ranking link. 8% click the second-ranking link, and the click-through rate (CTR) continues to drop thereof.
  2. When these two top-ranking links are artificially switched, the click-through ratio of 42-8% drops to 34-12%, demonstrating the importance of engaging copy in addition to rank position.
  3. 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results

UK Google Market Share – March 2007

The latest figures on Google’s market share compared to its primary search competitors Yahoo, MSN, and Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves) have been published by Hitwise. As always, the numbers are astounding, revealing that Google holds a 77% market share, meaning overthree quarters of UK internet searches are made through Google. Yahoo is now holding 8%, and while MSN and Ask are both at 5% and falling.

March 2007 UK Search Market Share

Comparing the UK to the US figures, for which Google has just broken 66.6% or two thirds market share, it’s clear that UK internet searchers even more than US searchers turn first to Google.

Improve Website Performance – 10 Fundamentals

  1. Are you using Google Analytics (or require and use an alternative)?

    You can’t gauge success unless you measure performance. Google Analytics is a free and very effective tool for just this. For businesses that depends on local custom, it will qualify the proportion of your visitors that reside nearby and are therefore of value. eCommerce sites can drive sales by adjusting their site layout or structure based on the analysis of search terms used within their site when people can’t find information. The available measures are extensive.

  2. Is every page of your site connected to every other via a site map?

    Page Rank is a measure of how valuable or important Google considers a web page to be. It is based largely on the number, page rank, and relevancy of web pages that link to that page. The pages of a site can also inherit Page Rank from other pages of their website, but the more links to reach those pages, the less page rank is inherited.A site map thus maximises this inheritance by ensuring every page is just one page from every other.

10 Direct Routes to Reduced Website Costs and Risks: That’s what web standards are about!?

“Web Standards” is like another of these modern-day web buzzwords, like “Web 2.0” and “The Blogosphere”. But buzzwords become popular for a reason – let me give this one a simple definition, and explain the business benefits of web standards, namely reduced website costs and risks.

Web standards are, quite simply, a set of coding guidelines developed by a consortium of experts to reduce the risks involved in producing a website. The simple principle is that if everybody codes in the same way, the standard way, then everybody is compatible.

SEO: Evidence for the importance of Organic Search Engine Optimisation

This is a great image from an eye-tracking experiment that clearly demonstrates the importance of organic SEO. Check it out.

"Reliable and easy to operate, we regard our intraspin.com designed and built platform as the most vital part of our business."

Alister Thomson
Director SPM

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