EvoBloggito

Design Challenge: Developing a Grid that Integrates “Traditional Website” Pages with a Blog

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 15, 2009; Category: Content Management System, CSS, Design/Development, WordPress; Tags: 4-Column Grid, WordPress as CMS; No Comments

Business websites that include both "traditional website" pages and a blog are becoming more common. It seems that most people want their business web site pages to be in the traditional “subnav-left/content-right” configuration. At the same time, they want their blog pages in the common "posts-left/sidebar-right" configuration (I prefer that myself). For months, I’ve tried to modify 2- and 3-column WordPress blog themes to accommodate both, without much success. The results never looked very integrated; there were too many compromises in favor of either the blog or the website at the other’s expense.

I didn’t feel I could present WordPress as a CMS option for businesses unless this issue was resolved. Sure, there were premium business themes, but most of them looked odd to me as well.

Finally, it dawned on me that a 4-column grid was the answer. Not a 4-column grid with equal-width columns: that still resulted in some strange geometry for the blog. Instead, I developed an irregular-width 4-column grid. This approach allowed the preferred configurations for traditional website pages (green shading on the illustration) and for a blog (red shading). These two very different page configurations are visually tied together by adhering to the grid in both the header and footer elements.

How does this work in the wild? You are reading a blog post on a page with an irregular-width 4-column grid. If you select any of the nav areas other than "EvoBloggito" above, you will see how the grid underlays a traditional web page configuration.

The precise measurements for the grid are somewhat flexible, and the concept itself is very simple. But, like many simple concepts, it solve a number of layout issues. Does the grid have limits? Of course it does: grid systems create limits.

One of the issues a designer using this system has to look out for is the choice of appropriate content for each of the 4 footer areas. Too much or too little content in any of them can ruin an otherwise well-planned layout. I’ve been using the system for almost a couple of months, however, and on balance, the system seems to resolve a lot more issues than it creates.

I’ve almost completed a WordPress theme based on the grid; hopefully can release before October. If you subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for my newsletter, you’ll be notified when it’s ready.

My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 10, 2009; Category: Blogging, Design/Development; Tags: Design/Development, Plugins, WordPress; 2 Comments

I love plugins that solve a problem or expand my capabilities. The following plugins have earned a place on my standard WordPress implementation list because they do one or both, and because they are extremely reliable.

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu
Simplifies the admin area of WordPress and creates more space on the admin page by putting a horizontal dropdown menu at the top of the screen. It’s one of the first plugins I install on every WordPress implementation. Plugin site»

UTF8 Sanitize
Takes care of or prevents virtually ALL broken characters due to misinterpreted HTML entities. I rarely even think about broken characters anymore: no need to. (Plugin site seems to be down).

All in One SEO Pack
Such a useful plugin! Allows you to craft meta data for each post and page as you would expect, but also allows you to make the navigation links different from the h1 page title. Extremely useful for blogsite implementations. One minor complaint: the developer updates this plugin frequently, and everytime you update, you must re-enable it. Plugin site»

Akismet
Almost forgot about this one because it comes standard with the WordPress installation (you have to activate it with a WordPress API key). Catches about 99.9% of comment spam; turns spam into a non-issue.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
One of the coolest plugins ever! Generates a highly configurable site map so that lost visitors can find their way. Again, this is invaluable for blogsites using WordPress as a CMS. Plugin site»

Simple Section Navigation Widget
Another plugin that’s a must-have when using WordPress as a CMS, it generates subnavigation for pages within a section. For example, if you attach several pages to your "Services" section, it generates a subnav menu listing those pages. And, it incorporates WordPress "current_page_item" and "current_page_parent" classes so you can easily hilite the current page menu item. Plugin site»

Google XML Sitemaps
Generates a spider-friendly XML sitemap that Google loves and is also supported by supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search. And you don’t even have to think about it, once installed. I love that part. Plugin site»

Contact Form 7 with Really Simple CAPTCHA
Contact Form 7 is such a nice little plugin, easy to create, style, and configure forms. Be sure to get the companion plugin Really Simple CAPTCHA, which prevents spambots from submitting the form. I had one instance in which the plugin would not work on a blog, which may have been a conflict with another plugin (at some point I gave up trying to figure it out and used another form plugin). Other than that, it’s been one of my staples. Plugin site»

Seth Godin's Book Roundup

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 9, 2009; Category: Book Review; Tags: Books, Marketing, Seth Godin; No Comments

Take a look at Seth Godin’s Book Roundup, a list of mostly business and marketing books, but even those that are not have some application to business and marketing. No doubt the list could be longer, but this is what Seth has been reading.

I’d like to mention another book that I think deserves your attention: Stories that Sell by Casey HIbbard tells you everything there is to know about using case studies for marketing.

Eating our own Dogfood: We’ve Relaunched our Entire Website on WordPress

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 2, 2009; Category: Blogging, Content Management System; Tags: Blogging, Business, WordPress; No Comments

You may or may not have noticed: you’re looking at a new version of both EvoBloggito and evowebdev.com. They are integrated in a "blogsite", based on the WordPress platform. Why? Primarily because we think the integration will result in increased search engine traffic for the "non-blog" portion of the site. But also, because we wanted to demonstrate WordPress’ viability as a Content Management System. The entire site does not have to look like a blog. Had we not created a blog section and blog posts, you might not have guessed that the site is built on a blog platform.

EvoBloggito, of course, has been on WordPress from the beginning. But we wanted a closer connection between the blog and the website. The lines are blurring, and that’s a good thing. We believe most businesses would benefit by using this approach, attracting more traffic and engaging with their customers/prospective customers via a blog.

If you would like to learn more about replacing your static website with a WordPress-based blogsite, contact us.