Blogging 101

Posted on October 30, 2020January 18, 2021 by antwilliams00

Pages vs. Posts

clock

If you’re new to WordPress you may be wondering what’s the big deal behind Pages and Posts. At first glance they appear to be one and the same: if you were to create either a new page or a new post you’d be presented with nearly identical interfaces and in many cases the public appearance of pages and posts will look the same.

Don’t let this fool you. There’s a very fundamental difference between the two and that difference is what makes CMSs, like WordPress, great platforms for integrating blogs with traditional websites.

Pages

Think about the kind of pages that make up a typical website. Most often you’ll see pages like “Home”, “About Us”, “Services”, “Contact Us”, etc. Within WordPress these are often treated as Pages; documents that have no particular regard for the time they were posted.

For example, when you visit the “About Us” page of your favorite company’s website you don’t expect the content to be very different from what was available there a week ago.

Basic Taxonomies

Posted on October 30, 2020January 18, 2021 by antwilliams00

Categories and Tags

desktop

If you write about a variety of subjects, categories can help your readers find the posts that are most relevant to them. For instance, if you run a consulting business, you may want some of your posts to reflect work you’ve done with previous clients, while having other posts act as informational resources. In this particular case, you can set up 2 categories: one labeled Projects and another labeled Resources. You’d then place your posts in their respective categories.

Tips For Better Writing

Posted on October 30, 2020January 18, 2021 by antwilliams00

Plan Your Content

laptop

If you’re considering adding a blog to your site, you’ll want to have a plan beforehand. Planning your blog will help your subject matter remain consistent over time. It’ll also help you determine whether or not there’s enough material to maintain a steady stream of posts.

One pitfall many new bloggers run into is starting a blog that isn’t posted to frequently enough. A shortage of recent posts can give your visitors a bad impression of your business. One may think “I wonder if they’re still in business” or “they may want to hire a writer.”

A blog, like any other customer facing aspect of your business, communicates your brand. If it isn’t maintained and given proper attention, people will notice. Post regularly and keep your content fresh. Give your audience a reason to visit often.

Visual Space Effects

Posted on November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 by antwilliams00

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about using visual effects to change the appearance of a room, such as making a tall room look wider or a short room look taller. I’ve responded to a number of those privately, but thought I’d do better to finally have that information see the light of day, if for no other reason than to free up a little more creative time.

Let’s start by making rooms appear taller. Here are a few of my favorite:

Use stripes, either strongly or weakly contrasting, to draw the eye up and make a room appear taller. Actually, pretty much anything that draws the eye up makes your room feel taller, even if it’s just a high shelf with collectibles near the ceiling, an interesting border or similar attention-grabber.

Stick to using a lighter paint or wallpaper on the ceiling, making it recede.

Use flush lighting to increase the appearance of height. Hang your drapes closer to the ceiling instead of just at the top of your window (you can use this trick to make your windows look larger, too). Decorate vertically instead of horizontally.

. . . pretty much anything that draws the eye up makes your room feel taller, even if it’s just a high shelf with collectibles near the ceiling, an interesting border or similar attention-grabber.

Make small spaces big

There are also a lot of options available for making smaller spaces look larger. Don’t feel that you need to stick with painting everything white to expand the space, but you will want to stick to lighter colors. If you do go bold with your color scheme, make sure you use clear tones that help expand the space, rather than muted tones that will make it seem closed in.

Use functional furniture with storage spaces to help reduce clutter.

When it comes to small spaces, you’ll want to incorporate medium-sized accent pieces to keep the space from feeling small when large accents are used or cluttered when using a lot of tiny items. You want accents that use similar colors to draw the eye across the space instead of stopping its motion.

Add a diagonal element to help draw the eye upward.

Take a good look at how the vertical elements in this room’s design help draw the eye upward, making it appear taller. Whether it’s a bold pattern, stripes or tall design elements, drawing the eye up makes a room look larger.