With the number of blogs online growing every day, it is increasingly difficult to stand out and achieve success with your blog. In the end, many bloggers that start out with high hopes and expectations wind up deciding that blogging really isn’t worth their time. Those who have some patience and a plan to achieve specific goals with their blog will have a much greater likelihood of long-term success.

In this post we’ll look at 7 things that you should be doing to set yourself up for success and to avoid common pitfalls. The topics covered here should prove to be helpful for bloggers who are just getting started or for those who have been feeling like their efforts haven’t been producing enough results. Here are 7 things that all bloggers should be doing.

1. Finding Their Role/Voice

There are a lot of different types of blogs out there. Some break news, others provide though-provoking articles or commentary, and there are always corporate blogs, and the list could go on. For example, in the design industry there are several different blog types, including: news, tutorials, inspiration (lists/showcases), in-depth articles. Of course, most blogs publish posts that overlap into a few different types, but in general an established blog will have developed some sort of role that keeps readers coming back.

Every blogger needs to find their role and develop their voice within the industry in which they are blogging. Having a variety of different types and styles of blogs is good for an industry, but frequently new bloggers try to duplicate what the most popular or successful blogs are doing rather than finding their own role and focusing on what they do best.

How can you go about finding your role or your voice? My advice is to start with what you do best and find what you have to offer to readers in your industry, as opposed to seeing what other blogs are doing and trying to duplicate it. This is often a process that involves some change or evolution as the blog progresses.

2. Evaluating Reader Response to Post Types and Topics

Readers are ultimately what determine the level of success of any blog. Successful bloggers will pay attention to how their readers are reacting and interacting with their posts, and will use that information to help determine what topics and types of posts should be published in the future.

The evaluation process involves observing comments that are left on posts, paying attention to emails from readers, seeing which posts get tweeted or shared on Facebook, watching the social media votes that are received, and analyzing statistics such as page views. All of these things can help to tell you what content your readers are most interested in, and what content they really don’t care to see very often.

3. Networking with Other Bloggers

One thing that almost all successful bloggers have in common is that they are well connected. Having a strong network of other bloggers and influential people can help your blog in countless ways, including link building, recommendations, guest posting opportunities, partnership opportunities, social media votes, general advice, and so on. It’s very difficult, and very rare, to build a successful blog that is recognized as a leader in an industry without becoming well-connected within that industry.

Networking can be done through social media, email, IM, Skype, in person, or even simple blog comments. Your network doesn’t have to consist of all the most successful people in the industry, in fact there are a lot of benefits to have connections with others who are at your level even if you are just getting started with your blog. One common mistake the bloggers make is that they only try to network with the top bloggers in their industry, when really there is just as much to be gained by being connected to other bloggers who are motivated to grow their blog over time and are committed to making that happen.

From my experience, one of the best ways to network with other bloggers is through guest posting. Almost every blogger is interested in getting more quality content to publish on their blog, and if you are willing to provide that content to them it is easy to develop a connection. When it comes to guest posting, most bloggers see the primary benefits as being the inbound links or clickthrough traffic to their blog, but many times the development of a new relationship will be far more significant in the long run.

4. Developing Diverse Traffic Sources

Every blog needs traffic. This is one of the biggest struggles for many bloggers, and ultimately it is what discourages some to the point that they give up on their blog. If you are able to develop diverse traffic sources you will be drastically increasing your chances for long-term success.

Simply getting traffic to your blog is really not enough, that traffic should also be coming from diverse sources in order for it to last. Social media sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg are the focus of many bloggers because they are capable of sending thousands of visitors in a short period of time. But the key is that without diversity that traffic is shortlived.

Ideally, a blog will receive traffic from search engines, from links on other websites, from subscriber clicks in RSS feeds and emails, from social media sites (including voting sites like Digg as well as networking sites like Twitter and Facebook), and also from repeat visitors that type the URL into their brower or return to a bookmarked page. The longer a blog has been around the easier it is to develop search engine traffic, subscribers, and links from other sites. For newer blogs that are still working on gaining diversity, building links from reputable blogs in the industry will help with search engine rankings, clickthroughs, and also with building a reputation within the industry. One of the keys to developing diversity is being in a lot of different places. This includes guest posting on other blogs, leaving intelligent comments on posts throughout the industry, and being active at social media sites that are popular with others in the industry.

5. Planning for Sustainability

Most bloggers fail because they give up. One of the most common reasons is that the results do not come fast enough to keep them motivated. Maintaining a successful blog takes a lot of work, and there are plenty of times when it may not seem to be worth the effort. In other cases it may not be an issue of motivation, but maybe there are not enough financial resources to keep the site moving forward. Whatever the case may be, a sustainability plan can help to get through the difficult times.

Planning for sustainability includes identifying your goals to know your true motivation for blogging, establishing a posting schedule and setting hours aside to work on your blog, identifying any areas where you need help from others (such as outsourcing content development, marketing, or design work), and determing how the blog will generate income to keep itself in operation (and maybe how you will sustain the blog until that time when it starts to produce something of value).

Without considering these things you’ll be more likely to fall into that large percentage of bloggers that start out with high hopes but fade quickly. But with a plan you’ll have a more realistic idea of what you will need to put in before you are able to benefit from your work.

6. Developing a Monetization Plan

As was mentioned in the previous point, developing revenue from your blog is critical to things moving forward (assuming we’re talking about blogs that are in existence for business purposes). When the subject of blog monetization comes up, advertising and AdSense are often what comes to mind, but there is a lot more to blog monetization.

Making money from a blog can be done in any number of ways, and it can even be done somewhat passively. For example, your monetization plan may have noting to do with ads or selling products, but maybe you want to use the blog to position yourself as an expert in an industry and to provide some type of service. In this case, the blog is passively marketing your services. Some bloggers have even used their blogs to land book deals, which is just another example of how it is possible to profit from a blog.

In many cases a blog’s monetization plan will change over time as new methods of making money are explored or developed. Some common ways to make money from blogs include, selling banner ads, selling text link ads (not recommended due to potential penalties from Google), AdSense, affiliate programs, product sales (such as e-books), membership or premium content, and promoting services.

7. Developing New Ideas

New ideas are critical to the success of any blog. This includes ideas for post topics, strategies and directions for the blog, new monetization ideas, design modificantions, and more. When running an active blog it is easy to get caught up in all of the work that is required to keep it going, but it is also important to take some time to step aside and just work on new ideas for the blog. New ideas are often difficult to develop when you are overwhelmed with work and are focused on just getting things done.

What’s Your Experience?

If you are a blogger, what have you found to be important for long-term success?

Go to Source

The Economist is the latest major publication to arrive on the iPhone and iPad, bringing users a number of the publication’s top articles for free beginning every Thursday evening.

Full versions are available to current digital and print subscribers at no additional charge; single issues can be purchased for $5.99 within the app.

The Economist’s apps for iPhone [iTunes link] and iPad [iTunes link] are designed to deliver the news magazine’s content in a convenient, accessible way. Both replicate the print version of the magazine as closely as their respective formats allow, devoid, somewhat unfortunately, of many of the bells and whistles — such as interactive graphics and video — users have come to enjoy in other print publications’ iPad apps.

It does, however, include a full audio version — great for those who prefer audio books or want to digest articles on-the-go — and allows readers to download each issue for offline viewing.

While we find both apps elegant and useful, they are missing three essential things:

1. Selectable text. Users cannot highlight, copy or bookmark favorite pieces of content for later reference.
2. Sharing. There is no way to share content, neither through e-mail nor social networks. In fact, the iOS editions do not acknowledge that they exist on Internet-connected devices at all; there are no links to the web, not even in advertisements.
3. Video. No video content is embedded in any of the issues I have looked at, although it appears in the apps of almost every other major news and magazine publication.

Still, readers of The Economist who want a more convenient way to digest their favorite content on-the-go should be well-pleased with the app.

Screenshot Gallery

Users can browse, purchase and download issues from the home screen.

The table of contents is divided by category. It would be easier to choose stories if sub-headers were included under article titles.

Sample article page.

Sample article page.

Sample article page.

Promotional Video

More About: ipad, iphone, magazine, media, The Economist

For more Mobile coverage:

• Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Mobile channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Go to Source

Today, almost everyone wants to share his or her thoughts on the web. And with so many easy ways of blogging brought to us by services like Posterous and Tumblr, why not do it, right?

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t go around ranting uncontrollably about random stuff on the web. If we really want to share something interesting with the community of our choice, we should, at the minimum, project professionalism and trustworthiness and emphasize accuracy and quality of the writings we put on the internet.

Whether you’re maintaining a personal blog, starting up a design blog, or managing and updating your company’s official blog, the fundamental tips and strategies discussed in this article will ensure that all of your posts will be professional, high-quality, and awesome to read.

Why Should We Care About the Quality of Blog Posts?

It’s all about empathy. But then again, everything in this world should come down to that.

Design blogs, in particular, are an interminable source of information. This information, however, needs to be reliable and useful for it to really contribute value to the design community.

If we want to get reliable information, we should also worry about providing reliable information.

Considerations for Writing Solid Blog Posts

We can take many considerations into account when we are writing a blog post to share with the online community. The following tips cover essential things to keep in mind for every blog post your write.

Developing Your Idea and Post Title

Generating an idea for your blog post is the way we normally initiate the writing process. First and foremost, your ideas should be original — although we all know this is tougher than it sounds because there is already so much content out there.

When picking a topic to write about, make sure that you have the necessary knowledge and experience to competently write about the topic. This ensures your writing is authentic.

You should also start thinking about a solid title for your idea that encompasses what you will be discussing.

Often, in blog writing, it can even be better to develop the post’s title before writing the post itself. Why is that? There are several reasons why writing a title first is a good idea:

• It gives you a starting point
• It gives you a concise idea to work with
• It gives you ideas for researching keywords
• It ensures you keep your writing focused because you can regularly check back to it as you write

The post’s title should be inviting. In the mind of the readers, your title should translate to "You need to read me right now!"

Some examples of popular design-related topics include:

• Inspiration or resource lists (e.g. showcase of blog designs, free WordPress themes)
• New technologies (e.g. a guide on HTML5 canvas, a guide to new WordPress 3.0 features)
• Design theory and concepts (e.g. color theory, negative space)
• Design software and tools (e.g. color tools, 960 Grid System)

Frank Chimero, a celebrated graphic designer/blogger/teacher, has a very interesting way of explaining the way one can develop an idea — you should definitely check his illustration out.

Creating a Powerful Introduction

In order to engage readers from the start, you have to begin with an attractive abstract that succinctly encapsulates the subject of the blog post. This introduction should be short and concise — try keeping it within 3-5 sentences. After reading your introductory paragraph, readers should immediately know what they will be in for.

Think of your introduction as a sales pitch. Let the potential reader know why he or she should read the rest of the post by stimulating their curiosity and outlining the value they will obtain should they read the post.

This introduction can also be useful for developing things such as post excerpts, metadata, descriptions for submitting to social news portals and so forth.

Using Research and Secondary Sources

A blog post should always have sound and accurate information. It’s best to support ideas and arguments with secondary resources, quotes, and research studies. Linking to relevant sources reinforces the things you say in your own blog posts and gives the reader greater context about the items you’re discussing.

Providing Interesting Personal Insights

If you chose the topic yourself, it stands to reason that it is because you have something new and interesting to say about it. Providing your own insights is what differentiates a blog post from a news article or a boring, old academic paper.

Don’t be afraid to let your own voice shine through. Don’t hesitate on using your own style of writing.

Personal insights invite discussion and promote conversations. Your insights also make posts more compelling and can engage people further into the reading experience.

Structuring Your Blog Posts for Readability

An easy-to-read blog post helps people scan through it so that they can decide whether it’s interesting to them or not.

Think about a post that has paragraphs spanning 30-40 lines. The visual appearance of a huge wall of text will be so overwhelming and intimidating that readers will be discouraged to read the post in its entirety.

Consider the following tips:

• Keep paragraphs short
• Have one idea per paragraph
• Use bulleted lists
• Use headings to break up your post into logical sections
• Use bold and emphasis to highlight key terms and concepts
• Keep your writing clear, avoid ambiguous language

Using Images

Good visual aids go a long way when trying to get your ideas across to readers. If you’re talking about statistics, why not use charts and graphs instead of data tables with a lot of intimidating numbers?

Use diagrams or sketches to show workflows and hierarchies. Use representative photos to illustrate or reinforce ideas.

Design bloggers have it easy on the subject of images. As designers, we can quickly create our own custom visuals to complement our blog posts.

Using Quotes

Quotes from notable individuals can reinforce your arguments and can be a valuable supporting element to your blog posts.

Let’s face it: every popular topic out there has probably been covered. We can use appropriate quotes to support our ideas.

As a best practice, lengthy quoted material should have a special format. In HTML, there is the <blockquote> element that is specifically for citing long blocks of text from another source.

Quoted content should quote the author verbatim as well as attribute the source properly.

Here is an example of <blockquote> formatting (quote from Maria Malidaki):

Technology, and especially information technology, evolves rapidly. People have come to terms with the constant, big and fast changes that fall upon the hardware and software we use.

Citing Related Resources

It is important to give the reader other sources of information so that they may continue their research on the topic covered by your blog post. This will also reflect your commitment to providing complete and useful content to your readers.

These related resources can include references you’ve used, books that cover the topic well, other relevant posts within your blog, and blog posts from other sites.

Quality Control

After you write a post, you shouldn’t just publish it immediately. You should appropriate some time for proofreading, editing and making sure you have the topic cinched to the best of your abilities.

All the efforts you have applied to writing your blog post might be lost on the reader if it is poorly written and peppered with spelling mistakes.

Further Reading

Here are some great resources for you to check out:

• Copyblogger: a blog about writing effective copy, focused on web writing and blogging
• Blogging Tips: a blog about blogging
• The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging
• 10 ways to become a better blogger
• The first 7 days of blogging
• Simple Strategies for Engaging Your Visitors
• Bring Your A-game to Write for Blogs

Conclusion

If many of the things I’ve talked about in this article are new to you, then it may sound like there’s a lot more to blogging than you had originally anticipated. But maintaining a great blog that ensures your blogging efforts will have good results will intrinsically involve a bit more work than run-of-the-mill blogging.

Anything of value takes time to create.

Related Content

• Guidelines for Writing a Good About Page
• 10 Important Traits of a Great Blog Design
• 11 Inspiring Lessons from Web Design Experts
• Related categories: Content Strategy and Project Management

About the Author

Pamela Dominguez is a 24-year-old interaction and interface designer located in the city of Monterrey, México. Currently working full-time for a user experience consultancy, she also runs a daily-updated personal blog. You can contact her through Twitter and view her LinkedIn profile.

Go to Source

Was it a new drug? Not really. But if it was, there would certainly be an incredible amount of media attention, with the company/organization who invented it receiving incredible recognition.

That single thing that contributed to lowering complications and death rates was…a checklist. It was a 19-point checklist that was used before beginning surgery that made sure people did the essential things, like give anesthesia and check for other basic problems before operation.

What most people often assume when dealing with complex procedures (like a surgery) is that we often get the basics right. This is not true. There is a worrying rate of doctors/surgeons forgetting about some basic things that need to be done, things that contribute to some major complications in the long run (like we’ve seen above). A simple list of things to-do solves this problem.

But are checklists limited only to the medical industry? Checklists are used everywhere to avoid errors. Take the aviation industry. Before takeoff, they have a simple, easy-to-understand checklist which makes sure the essential things are being done (essential = if they don’t get done, there could be a big chance for a crash).

Checklists and the Web Design Industry

The web design industry is getting more complicated every day. We must make sure small, but critical things are being done, like making sure the right conditions are set depending on the client we’re dealing with, then also be certain we’re doing everything our client requires during the project and so on.

Have you had a time when you missed something while designing a project for a client? Yeah, I thought so. It was usually a mistake where you thought ‘Gosh, I can’t believe I missed that!’ The truth is, our memory is limited. We can’t possibly remember every single detail. Even doctors, as we’ve seen in the previous examples, make some basic mistakes and need a checklist to remind them to do the essentials. I think web designers can do the same and dramatically decrease the rate of errors they make.

The “essentials” are the foundation of the whole project we’re trying to get done. The thing is, we usually get bored if we do a particular thing for a prolonged period of time. And essentials are the things we need to do all the time. So our mind starts considering them as boring and focuses on other, more ‘fancy’ things, thus hindering our progress in the longrun.

In his book, The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande describes also how checklists are also being used in the building industry. He says that everything those people do is made into one enormous list of items that are being checked after they get done. That way they keep the failure rate at below .1%.

Types of Checklists

There are basically 2 types of checklists you can use:

a) DO-CONFIRM checklist

With the DO-CONFIRM checklist you do the job from your memory or your experience. But after a certain period, you stop. You pause, take the checklist and confirm everything was done as supposed.

This type of checklist is often used in the aviation industry in procedures like handling a disaster. When you’re handling something unexpected, you’re usually in ‘fight or flight mode’ so the chances of missing something are pretty big. Using this type of reminder checklist is a great way to make sure everything is being done in the right order.

b) READ-DO checklist

What is a READ-DO checklist? It’s the typical checklist when you first READ what you have to do, and then you do it and check you’ve done the task. Or read what you do, check the task and start doing it. You don’t go through a series of tasks and then use the checklist to see if you’ve done those tasks in the proper order like with the DO-CONFIRM type of list.

Many checklists don’t need to be done in the proper order. You can do the things you’re supposed to do in random sequence. It really depends on your situation. But please know that the tasks on the checklist aren’t always required to be done in their proper order.

There is not a universal approach to creating checklists so try out some of the ideas above (plus, make your own depending on your situation) and see what works for you.

Ideas for Web Design Checklists

You can try and use a checklist when you’re dealing with a client. For example, after you’ve finished the deal and are ready to start working you can use the DO-CONFIRM checklist and see if all things are done as needed. Price point? Checked. All terms clear? Checked. Discussed what will happen if client is not satisfied with the end design? Checked.

Another idea is to use a READ-DO checklist when starting to work. There might be several things you need to do before you start working like checking all suggestions the client gave you are being put in place. Or whether you’ve checked the websites the client gave you for ideas.

Checklists can also help in emergency situation. For example, if something urgently came up, you may want to make sure your client and co-workers are notified etc. Remember out example with the aviation industry?

You don’t need to make a checklist for everything though, that would be stupid. First, try to identify things where you consistently make 1 or more errors, skip 1 or more things before or after starting work etc. Then try making a checklist for a week. After a week, reflect and see if that list helped you in reminding you of some of the things you used to forget. If yes, continue using it. If no, ditch it.

Is There Any Good Software for Creating Checklist?

So far TaDaLists is the simplest one/best I found. It’s a free online application and makes the process of creating/organizing checklists very easy.

To create a new checklist in TaDaLists, just click on “Create a new list” and enter the name:

You can then add the necessary items to that particular list. To remove an item from a list, just click on ‘Edit’ and then on the X sign next to each item.

If you want to make checklists offline, you can try and download a template for the office application you use like Microsoft Word or Excel freely available on office.microsoft.com.

Have you found this post to be useful? Please let me know in the comments section below.

Go to Source

If you are doing business online, consider your website as your main product and your readers, your customers. You can’t always think that people really spend their time and money on your website so it’s essential that you make a periodic audit to figure out if your customers have really meet their needs and not just reach out to them through social media and blogging.

People are diverse but when it comes to the internet, we all look for a few things in selecting who to follow, trust, and patronize. The following is a list of seven essential things that every web site should have.

* Ease of use

Your website should not be confusing or hard to navigate. Web customers typically look for simple things: your products, information about you, your blog, your contact page. These should always be prominent and easy to find, as should any other information or links you want people to follow. The font should be easy to read and the links should be keyword-rich and easy to spot.

* Clarity of content

Your content, including the call-to-action, should be easy to understand. This applies to every single page of your website. If your readers can’t understand you, they will leave.

* Credibility

First, your website should definitely have a dedicated contact page with a contact form, e-mail address (avoid free email addresses like @gmail or @yahoo) and a physical location and phone number. Credibility also includes not only on-page content like testimonials and comments, but also third-party validation in the form of Twitter followers, Facebook fans and awards or certifications. The quicker readers are able to discover that you are a thriving business vouched for by other people, the sooner they can make the decision to trust you.

* Uniqueness

This applies to your site design, to your product and to your content. If your site doesn’t look interesting, people are not gonna waste their time looking on it. If you’re like every other business in the market, why should your readers listen to you?

* Participation / Ability to give feedback

If your customers can’t reach you easily, they’ll give up. If they contact you but don’t receive a speedy respond, they’ll leave and either forget you or damage your credibility. So provide an easy way for customers to interact with you and give them as many options as you can
handle: phone number, social media, contact form, and blogging are some of the most popular ones. People will likely trust and be loyal to you if they see that you are open and are always available.

* Personalization

Remember that every single person you interact with or sell to is unique and has his or her own expectations from your product and services. No one likes to be referred to as “Dear Customer” in an e-mail, and everyone likes offers and products about subjects that are of special interest to them! So get to know your customers, store the individual information they share with you and use it to build personal and lasting relationships.

* Security

Readers and customers want to be sure that any and all personal information provided to you will stay confidential and not be sold to third parties or misused. If you are selling products, this means SSL security. If you are asking for e-mail addresses for a marketing list, this means respecting your readers’ privacy. If you are connecting with people on social media, this means discretion on your part about any and all personal interactions.

Does your web site pass the test?

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Seven Things That Customers Look For in a Website

Go to Source

More and more people are starting their own online businesses, and the competition within any particular marketplace is getting more and more intense. This is why having the right website design is now such an important part of the success of any online enterprise. Remember that your website is your store window, and just like any good store, the best window dressing will attract the customers in their droves.

Many newbies tend to make the same mistake, and that is to scrimp on the amount of money they spend on their website design. The problem is that there are a number of online businesses that offer cheap or even free website design. But the truth of the matter is that is that these low or no cost websites are very basic. Often they are simply templates that you can personalize in a limited way with choice of colors and font styles, but if you are serious about wanting to run a successful website, and your ambition is to handle lots and lots of traffic, you need a website that is capable of handling that sort of activity.

Finding a good website design company is not hard, and the website that you commission doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. But for a small outlay, you will be investing in your own future and your own online success. You must have the right tools for the job, and quality website design is fundamental to that success.

A good website design company will give you two essential things. The first thing is a website that looks aesthetically pleasing, and the second thing is a website that incorporates cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art knowhow. Let’s examine these two elements a little more closely.

Your website design needs to be aesthetically pleasing because you only get one chance of capturing a visitor’s attention. When traffic first arrives on the chosen landing page of your website, it is vitally important that you capture their immediate attention and interest. You need a visually stunning website that not only grabs and holds their attention, but also leads them further into the website to eventually clinch a sale. Lose them and they are gone forever.

But as well as being visually stunning, your website design must also include cutting edge technology. For example it should have the capability of streaming video, which is superb for great advertising and marketing messaging. It should also include state of the art coding in its links and structure because it is these links that enable search engine spiders to crawl all over website, indexing it for the major search engines which will enhance your website’s search page rankings.

A good website design company will also help you with your content, making sure that it is interesting, relative and informative, because this too will increase your website’s search engine ranking, making it much easier to find for customers seeking out the sort of products and or services that your website promotes.

Finally the right website design company will design your website making sure that it operates at a high conversion rate, meaning that it takes newly arrived traffic and stands a much better chance of converting casually interested visitors into cash paying customers. The best website design companies are not just there for the short ride. It’s not just a case of design a website, then leaving it all up to you to make the best of it on your own. A good website design company will be a permanent partner to you, always being there when you need them to tweak your website in one particular direction, or to insert some new form of technology that keeps your website at the cutting edge of current effective website design.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Cutting Edge Website Design – The Key to Online Success

Go to Source

For today’s news we have collected the best articles that focus on CSS3 tutorials, and give you a little insight to what all the buzz is about.

Understanding The Basics Of CSS3

In this article,the author talks about some of the more popular features of CSS3 that have recently been spotted out in the wild among several popular websites. While most of these are only visible in some of the more modern web browsers (Mozilla, Chrome, Safari) it’s important to go ahead and get a grasp of exactly how they actually work.

Understanding The Basics Of CSS3

50 Excellent Tutorials for Web Development Using CSS3

In this emerging roundup they mphasis on some of the latest techniques: text-shadow, rounded box, box sizing, opacity handlers, multiple backgrounds, border images and also support for multi-column web layouts.

50 Excellent Tutorials for Web Development Using CSS3

Basic CSS3 Techniques That You Should Know

This article, from Six Revisions, takes a look at a few of the essential things you need to know about CSS3. With all of these new features, it’s important to place emphasis on the most important ones to get you up to speed. Even though only the most modern of web browsers (Safari, Mozilla, Opera) currently (partially or fully) support CSS3 specs, it’s an exciting time for those who like to experiment.

Basic CSS3 Techniques That You Should Know

15 CSS3 Navigation and Menu Tutorials and Techniques

Please bare in mind that for the most part all of these menu tutorials have not been written for usage in the wild, they are more experimental, a demonstration of what can be achieved and will be used in the near future.

15 CSS3 Navigation and Menu Tutorials and Techniques

By Paul Andrew (Speckyboy and speckyboy@twitter).

Go to Source

We’ll be looking at a few of the essential things you need to know about CSS3. With all of these new features, it’s important to place emphasis on the most important ones to get you up to speed. Even though only the most modern of web browsers (Safari, Mozilla, Opera) currently (partially or fully) support CSS3 specs, it’s an exciting time for those who like to experiment!

This is a follow-up of a previous article called CSS3 Techniques You Should Know which you should also check out.

Multiple Backgrounds

CSS3 lets you apply multiple backgrounds to an element using several properties. Included in this list of properties is background-image, background-repeat, background-position and background-size. In order to include these multiple backgrounds within a single element, you must specify the correct properties separated by commas.

body {
  background:
    url(../images/bottom-left.png) top right fixed no-repeat,
    url(../images/bottom-right.png) top left fixed no-repeat,
    url(../images/top-left.png) bottom left fixed no-repeat,
    url(../images/top-right.png) bottom right fixed no-repeat;
  background-color:#ffffff;
}

Selectors

CSS3 selectors allow you to select elements to apply style properties with greater specificity, giving you opportunities to select complex groups of elements. The new selectors not only save you time, but also help you keep your HTML markup to a minimum. You’ll inevitably reduce the number of classes and IDs you’ll need, allowing you to become a bit more organized with your stylesheet.

The general sibling combinator

There is a new kind of combinator that is being introduced in CSS3, the general sibling selector. This selector targets all of the siblings of a particular element. For example, if you wanted to target paragraphs in the same hierarchy as your level-1 headings, you would do:

h1~p {
  color: red;
}

The selector above will match the first p element below (giving it a red color), but not the second p element, because it is not on the same level (e.g. not a sibling) as the h1 element.

<h1>Heading</h1>
<p>This paragraph is a match</p>
<div>
  <p>This paragraph is not a match</p>
</div>

New pseudo-classes for greater specificity without scripting

New pseudo-classes introduced in CSS3 specifications allow you to select a group of elements that, before, would’ve required DOM selection using a scripting language such as JavaScript, or additional classes/ID’s.

Here are some new pseudo-classes:

• :last-child selects only the last child element.
• :nth-child(n) selects the n^th child, useful for zebra-striping tables.
• :not(e) selects everything except e.

SitePoint has a complete list of CSS3 psuedo-classes.

Resizing Elements

With CSS3, you can now resize your elements using the resize property. Nice right? The catch: it only works in Safari right now. The following code block makes it possible to have a tiny triangle appear in the bottom right corner of an element that you can then drag to resize.

div {
  resize: both;
}

Better Fonts

The most commonly used fonts on the web are Arial, Helvetica, Verdana and Georgia because most computers have them preinstalled. With CSS3, you can break away from these fonts and use various types of fonts as long as it can be called from an internet-enabled location. When you call on your font, it will be displayed anywhere on the site. Because of copyright issues, you have to make sure that you can use the font before using the @font-face feature.

In the following example, the @font-face feature declares the name of the font family (you can name it anything you want) and the location of the font file (in this case a TrueType font file). Once it’s declared, you can use the font-family property to set the font of an element.

@font-face {
  font-family: SketchRockwell;
  src: url('http://example.com/fonts/SketchRockwell.ttf');
}
h1 {
  font-family: SketchRockwell;
  font-size: 3.2em;
  letter-spacing: 1px;
  text-align: center;
}

Text Shadows

The text-shadow property allows you to add a dropshadow underneath HTML text elements. You should always make sure your text is readable in case the user’s browser doesn’t support advanced CSS3 properties.

In the following example, we apply a dark blue (#003471) text-shadow that’s 2px to the right and 5px to the bottom of the text and with a blur of radius of 2px, to all h1 elements.

h1 {
  text-shadow: #003471 2px 5px 2px;
}

Preview of text shadow CSS3 property in Firefox 3.5.5.

Rounded Corners

Creating rounded corners can be a bit of a task. However, with CSS3, it can be a breeze when using a new property called border-radius. This property sets the curvature for every corner of the box.

For example, the below code will produce 10px-rounded corners for divs:

div {
  border: 2px solid #434343;
  padding: 10px;
  background: #e3e3e3;
  -moz-border-radius: 10px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  width: 500px;
}

In the above code, -moz is for Firefox and -webkit is for Safari and Chrome.

Rounded corners in Firefox 3.5.5.

Summary

CSS3 gives us better control over our HTML elements, opening up possibilities of creating complex and flexible designs that have a reduced reliance on static graphics and scripting. We talked about some basic stuff that works in most modern web browsers (except IE8). To learn more about CSS3, check out the W3C CSS3 Current Work page and see CSS3 .Info for the latest news about the newest version of CSS.

Related Content

• Six Questions: Eric Meyer on CSS3
• 20 Useful Resources for Learning about CSS3
• 30 Exceptional CSS Navigation Techniques
• Related categories: CSS and Web Developement

About the Author

Joel Reyes is a web designer and web developer with years of experience in the industry. He runs a development studio called Looney Designer. He works with standards-compliant HTML/CSS, PHP, JavaScript and WordPress development and design. Connect with the author via Twitter.

Go to Source

Go to Source

When I launched Cats Who Code in June 2008, there was a “Blogging Tips” category, in which I posted some posts about affiliate marketing, blogging advice and making money online tips.
Even we had some really nice articles in there, Cats Who Code is mostly a Web Development blog and most of my readers are more interested in stuff as such as jQuery or WordPress than how to make some money with affiliate marketing.

This is why CWC “Blogging Tips” category quickly became neglected and just a few posts were written. Though, I really like that kind of tip and I also thought that my experience as a blogger could benefit some people. This is why, on October 10, 2009, I decided to create a “sister-site” to Cats Who Code with a content dedicated to blogging tips. Cats Who Blog were born.

As a part of my blogs network, Cats Who Blog features my cat Fisto. The drawning was made by Zira Zulu, who had created mascots for Cats Who Code and WpRecipes as well.

What you’re going to read on Cats Who Blog.com

Cats Who Blog mades its debut a month ago, so I already have some nice articles for you to read. Here a selection:

• How to write a great blog post title
• How to manage multiple blogs efficiently
• 20+ blogs that use the Comment Luv plugin
• 7 essential things to do to protect your name and branding
• How to display Adsense ads only when you want to
• 10 professional WordPress themes to start your online business
• Talking about success : 7 questions to Pavel Ciorici of WpZoom
• How I made delicious.com front page one week after launching my blog
• Top 10 WordPress plugins to monetize your blog

Also, please note that I just published a great post about 10 WordPress hacks to make more money online.

Now, what about the existing “Blogging Tips” category on Cats Who Code? As I now have a blog fully dedicated to that subject, this category will be closed. Existing posts will be moved to Cats Who Blog, or deleted when their quality isn’t good enought in my opinion.
Of course, my readers opinion matters so don’t hesitate to let me know about what you think.

Now, it should be time for you to go to Cats Who Blog and discover it. Or you can already grab the RSS feed so you’ll never miss any of my posts there.
And don’t worry, a very cool Web Development tutorial will be published right here on Cats Who Code on wednesday!

Get 20% off on the MyHomePro Premium WordPress Theme by using this exclusive code: wpcats20.

Introducing CatsWhoBlog.com

Go to Source