Web Design Inspiration Blog | SpicyWebDesigners.com

I recently took a vacation up in northern Ontario with my wife this summer.  Running SpicyWebDesigners.com means that I publish content every so often and I like to keep publishing it when I’m not there.  As anyone who publishes a blog on a regular basis knows, a vacation means a halt in publishing to your blog.  Well, not any longer!  I wanted to talk about a tip that can help you publish content to your website even when you are on vacation.

Normally when you click the “Publish” button in WordPress it is set to publish content to your blog or website “immediately” as seen below in this screenshot…

However, if you happen to be running a website or blog and you are going to be away and you want to schedule new content on your website to appear it’s a pretty easy process and WordPress makes it even easier.

Simply click on the “Edit” hyper link next to the “Publish: immediately”.  You’ll notice that you then have the option to set the time and date (down to the minute) to have your content published.

Lastly, click the “OK” button.  You’ll then see that your WordPress post is scheduled for the particular date and time you want it to appear it.

I love this functionality that WordPress has built for website owners and bloggers and I am sure that you will too!  Now you can step away from your WordPress blog in confidence knowing that you can schedule your content to appear anytime you want!

Luc Arnold

With the dawn of database driven websites and website platforms like WordPress, Drupal, ExpressionEngine and countless others it’s clear that lots of people want to run websites that use database technology to generate web pages.  Originally before this trend in web development you would simply host HTML pages on your web hosting server and preserve the URL structure and it would look similar to this…

http://www.mysite.com/category/page.html

Everything was great, then as dynamically driven websites (a.k.a. websites that use databases to grab content and display that content in a generated web page) became more popular there was a problem.  The problem was that the URL structure became and looked dynamically generated as well leaving it looking like this…

http://www.mysite.com/?p=881

This left things looking messy, confusing and not very pretty to look at.  That’s why they call it an “Ugly Permalink”.  So what was the solution to this problem? Pretty Permalinks, of course! But what are permalinks exactly?

Permalinks come from the concept of “Permanence” meaning that people want to link to something that is “permanent” so that they can source it, refer to it or link to it without thinking that it is going to change.

A permalink looks like this…

http://www.mysite.com/my-about-page

So what CMS website platforms support using permalinks?  Here is a list that should help you choose a website platform that uses the permalink structure.

• WordPress
• Drupal
• ExpressionEngine
• Moveable Type
• TypePad
• Blogger

Using Permalinks in WordPress

WordPress has done a great job for a while of allowing people to use Permalinks in their blog and website posts and pages and I believe the reason is because they’ve made it easy to use for everyone.  If you currently use WordPress for one of your websites and you’ve never tried to customize your permalinks or you don’t know the first place about where to begin then hold on tight.  The first thing you need to do is log into your WordPress website and follow these steps…

• Look for the “Settings” section and then look for the “permalinks” section and click on it.

• Next, you’ll see something similar to the screenshot below that allows you to customize your permalinks in WordPress

Depending on how you want to custom your permalink structure you should be able to find a solution that allows you to display URLs the way that you want to show them.  If you are interested in all the supported permalink attributes click here to get a list of them that WordPress currently supports then click here.

For those of you that don’t currently use WordPress on your website here are some links to other documentation for different platforms like Drupal, ExpressionEngine and others.

• Permalinks in Drupal
• Creating permalinks in posts using Blogger
• Using the permalink variable in ExpressionEngine
• Publishing Settings in Moveable Type
• Using Permalinks in WordPress

Benefits of Permalinks

Some of the benefits of customizing permalinks include that it can help you in a number of ways like optimizing your URLs for search engines and specific keywords, having a pretty link that people can link to and read, removing the “chronological” structure from your site and allowing you customize the URL as you see fit!  It gives you a great amount of choice as to what your readers see, how they see the content and experience your website.

What are post slugs?

No they aren’t the kind of slugs that you find in the garden on your Tomatoes and the term “slug” does really give you a good impression of what it actually does.  Simply put, a “Slug” is a one or two word description of a post that is used in the permalinks when you post an entry in WordPress.

How to edit Permalinks in WordPress at the Page or Post level

If you are creating a page or a post in WordPress then you might have noticed once you’ve entered the Page Title or Post Title the Permalink is filled in automatically with the contents of the title you’ve entered.

At the Post level the permalink will include the structure you’ve chosen under Settings > Permalinks mentioned above but at the Page level the only thing included is the contents of the page title.  Have a look at what I am talking about…

Page Level Permalink Example

Post Level Permalink Example

Are Hackable Permalinks bad?

A note about “Hackable Permalinks”: “Hackable” Permalinks are permalinks that are easy to break down and allow the user to navigate to a different part of your website easily.

Hacking and being hacked has had a bad reputation associated with it in the computer and internet world but the truth is that Hackable Permalinks are some of the best kinds of permalinks available according to WordPress.  WordPress has this to say about Hackable Permalinks…

“The best Permalinks are “Hackable,” meaning a user might modify the link text in their browser to navigate to another section or listing of the weblog.”

Source: WordPress Codex

What are the best permalink structures available?

Having the best permalink structure to your links is up for debate because some people prefer to do some things one way or another and there is no standard out there that says “This is how you produce the best permalinks”.  Some of the experts out there have their own ways to produce the “best” permalinks but again this isn’t set in stone because largely what they (the experts) are writing about is what has worked for them.

• SmartBlogTips – Best Permalinks URL structure for your WordPress blog
• Zemalf.com – Quest for the Best Permalink Structure
• EnlightenedWebMastery.com – Best SEO WordPress Permalink Structure

Permalinks is a core topic if you are using a lot of website platform technologies like WordPress that are out there today because they control what types of links you generate and what types of links people can use to link back to your website.  Links are the bricks and mortar that hold the web together and paying attention to this means that you will build a stronger and more structurally sound website ready for search engines, referring sites and the people who visit your website.

Luc Arnold

Permalinks are cool and useful!

There are a growing number of small business owners from personal fitness consultants to professionals like lawyers and doctors that are getting online everyday with one common goal which is to have a website that is stylish, quick and easy to use and that they can update themselves without necessarily needing help of a web designer or webmaster. Today I will be talking about this with respect to using WordPress to first create the website but having said that there are many other platforms that people can use to run their websites.

Your problem

As I said the main problem that most people run into when they are interested in starting a website is that they simply don’t have the skills to design and load an excellent website quickly and easily. Don’t let that stop you! Some people pay for the skills of a web designer only to realize that they are no further ahead by the time they are done because they don’t have the understanding or ability to make changes when they want. It’s frustrating, seems to complex but don’t give up!

Your Solution

Using a website building platform like WordPress you can usually figure out how to install the software quickly and easily with a Quick 5 minute installation guide provided by in the case WordPress on any web hosting that you’ve purchased and once this is done you can start deciding what you want your site to look and feel like. We’re almost there.

Your Choice

Now for the fun part of starting a website is that you can choose the look of it. The easiest and most cost effective way to get a look you want is to use a website theme or template. Depending on how much you are looking to spend on a website theme or template your money can go a long way when choosing to buy one of these pre-designed, pre-built website templates or themes. WordPress, for instance, has a large number of templates available online today, a lot more then when I first started using WordPress and since I am covering how to a personal website using WordPress here are some favorites.

WordPress Theme Name: WooThemes Antisocial Premium WordPress Theme

WordPress Theme Description: “Antisocial was one of our most anticipated themes yet. Designed by Tim Van Damme Antisocial is the perfect online business card and personal blog theme to aggregate all your online profiles in a beautiful slick and unique design.”

WordPress Theme Vendor: WooThemes

Created By: Tim Van Damme

Amazing Features Include:

• Ability to add vCard and hCard contact details
• Supports localization in case you are looking to publish the website in another language then English
• Neat AJAX calendar widget (plug-in required)

Sticking Points:

- It is a very personal theme and depending on your branding, if you are a professional, it may not make the cut for you

Price/Costs:

Standard WordPress Theme is $70.00

Developer WordPress Theme is $150.00

WordPress Theme Name: Thesis

WordPress Theme Description:  “The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a high-quality template system that you can use to improve your site immediately .”

WordPress Theme Vendor: DIY Themes

Amazing Features Include:

• Ability to fine tune each page of your site
• Thesis options panel allows users to customize and control your site easily
• Pinpoint Font Controls

Things to consider:

- This theme allows the user to do a great deal of customization so depending on your skill set you may or may not use all the features that this theme boasts

Price/Costs:

Personal Option Theme is $87.00

Developer’s Option Theme is $164.00

WordPress Theme Name: WP Remix Premium WordPress CMS Theme

WordPress Theme Description:  “ WP Remix a WordPress powered master theme, is completely customizable, quality coded & comes bundled with many layout options that helps everyone create custom websites in minutes saves weeks of time, maintaining top notch standards – compliant quality.”

WordPress Theme Vendor: WP Remix

Amazing Features Include:

• Documented Theme PDF Guide included!
• Over 50 Page Templates ready to use
• Free Technical Upgrades on feature versions of this WordPress theme

Things to consider:

- This theme has a lot of functionality built into it which is normally a good thing but some users depending on their skill set may have problems using the more complex features to their benefit

- It is a priced at $75 for the Single Use license which is a very reasonable price but having said that there are less expensive themes so doing your homework before you buy a website theme is important

Price/Costs:

Single Use License is $75.00

Multiple Use License is $275.00

Together the WooTheme Antisocial , Thesis and WP Remix Premium WordPress themes present some solid options depending on what you what in terms of functionality, style, customizability and overall usability. There are a ton of different website theme vendors out there so researching and thinking about what you want in a personal website is “key” when you make a buying decision about a website theme or template you run your website. I hope that this article solves some of your problems or clears up some of your concerns when selecting a WordPress Theme for your own website. Happy web designing!

Luc Arnold