Website Features

• Custom WordPress Theme Development
• Content Management System
• WebDog Hive Technology – gives the Associations the ability to share content with all 1500 Member Club websites
• Ad Management
• Social Media Integration
• Visit the website

What we did for them:

• Custom Web Design
• WordPress Custom, Premium Theme Development
• Scribe SEO
• Web Hosting
• Ongoing Web Site Maintenance
• www.qblittlesquare.com

So what is Little Square?
We were surprised when Intuit called us one day asking us to help develop a new project they called “Little Square”. They had seen our work for the LA Marathon as well as our feature on WordPress.org and thought we were the right guys for the job. They had a vision for an online community for Quickbooks for Mac users to gather, share ideas and learn new and effective ways to use Quickbooks for Mac.

Our Solution:
Working together with the Quickbooks for Mac team, we came up with a simple, clean solution. We developed a custom WordPress theme for Intuit on our own advanced WordPress Genesis platform and it was exactly what they were looking for. Now we are continuing our work with Intuit by working on enhancing Little Square, continuing some Scribe SEO work and beginning some new projects for them.

1. Extreme Grunge Garments Icons

This high quality, hand made, icon pack is full with 9 Extreme Grunge Social Media Garments. Each icon is in .png format with transparent backgrounds, sized at 256×256px. Icons are free for commercial and personal use.

2. 50 Free and Exclusive Twitter Icons

The icons are provided in both raster and vector formats: The transparent PNG versions are 256×256, and we have also included Illustrator files so that you can resize the icons as needed.

3. Exclusive Payment Method Icon Set for our readers

This icon sets download package contains the six icons, and include a choice of eight different sizes: 12px, 16px, 24px, 32px, 64px, 128px, 256px and 512px. The icons are entirely free for personal or commercial use.

4. Free Fresh Slick RSS Icon Set

A very fresh but slick RSS icon set exclusive to Creative Nerds Readers, the icon set includes a range of various different colours for you to have a play around with. I hope you like the icons, we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback about the icon set.

5. Free Social Media Icons: Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set

The theme is worn-and-torn, so it’ll look great on grunge, vintage, classic-themed web designs. This set contains 20 200px x 200px PNG files that you can easily resize and edit for your website design.

6. Free Set of Social Media Icons – Large Icons Social

Large-Icons.com, part of Aha-soft, brings to Six Revisions readers a free set of social media icons called Large Icons Social.

7. Free Cute Furry Monster Icons for Mac, PC and Web

Last week I posted an Adobe Illustrator tutorial covering the process of creating your own cute and fuzzy vector monster. This week, I’ve put together a little family of monsters, available for free download in the form of icons. Each monster can be found in PNG, ICNS and ICO filetypes for use on your Mac, PC or for inclusion in your website designs.

8. New exclusive icon set: Copenhagen

If you are working on a web app, these icons will spice up any feature list. They are based on the most popular search terms from IconFinder, but targetted web design for web apps.

9. New exclusive icon set: Copenhagen

We are beginning here a new tradition, a humble and honest way to pay back to all our kind readers. From now on, we will be giving away each week a special Icon set designed exclusively for the blog audience.

10. Rise : PNG

21 folders icons .

11. High detail social icons | All our free icon sets

A high details of over 20 2d social media icons.

12. Onebit free icon set

cojoy.com presents Onebit free icon set of 50 icons. Other icon sets from this style.

13. 330 Free Letter Pressed Icons

A collection of over a 100 letter pressed icons, in various letter pressed styles exclusive to Creative Nerds readers. The icons include three PSD files which are full of icons which you can drag and drop into your designs.

14. Free, Quirky Icon Set: The Dream Geek Team

A dream The set features well-known IT celebrities: Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Steve Jobs, and Steve Ballmer. There are 8 PNG files included in this set. We hope that you find a good and fun use for these!

15. Free, Quirky Icon Set: The Dream Geek Team

A dream The set features well-known IT celebrities: Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Steve Jobs, and Steve Ballmer. There are 8 PNG files included in this set. We hope that you find a good and fun use for these!

16. Vector Social Media Icons

This free set includes 80 icons of the most popular social media networks on the internet. The icons are designed in 32px and 16px vector format. With the vector format, you can scale the icon to any size to fit with your design or use it in high quality print materials. What you will get from the zip package: 16px, 24px, 32px in PNG format and a vector EPS file. Don’t forget to get our Moi icon set to match with this style.

17. Free Furry Cushions Social Icons Set

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

18. Freebie: Incredibly Detailed 3D Icon Set

We’ve released a few other freebies on MediaLoot before, and as we get closer to the launch, we thought it would be nice to give away some icons! (you like icons, right?)

19. Freebie: Incredibly Detailed 3D Icon Set

A brand new set that consists of 20 3D icons in PNG format (64×64 & 128x128pixels). Hope you’ll find them useful

20. Woven Fabric Social Media Icon Set

This woven fabric set of social media icons was created by Jan Cavan from Dawghouse.

21. Free ‘Social Media Bookmark Icon +’ pack, the ever growing icon set

This woven fabric set of social media icons was created by Jan Cavan from Dawghouse.

22. Free ‘Social Media Bookmark Icon +’ pack, the ever growing icon set

Hate or love social media sites, they do bring you visitors to your site and the best way to do that is to show them what websites you are supporting. So I’ve designed the first 14 social media bookmark icons that you can download and use wherever you like, for free as well!

23. Free ‘Social Media Bookmark Icon +’ pack, the ever growing icon set

These 50 icons are released under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 and can be used commercially – just don’t redistribute them without written permission.

24. Free ‘Social Media Bookmark Icon +’ pack, the ever growing icon set

I am very excited to release LBOI’s first set of social icons in 2010. Iconshock contacted me to make icons for the blog and they did an amazing job on the first set that even had me iconized. For their newest icon set for LBOI, I wanted them to make moleskin social icons and boy did they make them or what? I love these RSS, Twitter, Delicious, Stumbleupon and Facebook clad moleskins. They are so awesome! I hope you find good use of these icons, they are free for commercial and personal use. They come in 256×256 resolution in PNG format. Thanks Iconshock! And be sure to check out Iconshock – icon sets

25. Free Hand Drawn Doodle Icon Set for Bloggers set

This set of free hand drawn doodle icons includes 14 graphics tailored specifically for bloggers. Including social media graphics for Delicious, Design Float, Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Technorati and Twitter as well as commonly used icons such as RSS, Home, Comments, Contact and WordPress.

26. Isometrica (Volume 1): A Free Social Media Icon Set

Ahoy there! It’s another social icon set to soak up your precious bandwidth, royally entitled, Isometrica.

27. 180 Massive Minimalistic Icon set

A minimalistic icon set which is available in a range of various colours, which includes over 175 icons all in one set available to be used in commercial design projects.

28. 180 Massive Minimalistic Icon set

If you would like to see different icons in the set let me know and I’ll include them in the next release.

29. 180 Massive Minimalistic Icon set

After the great success of our Free Social Media Icons, I have added another 10 social media icons to the pack. The new icons are AIM, Bebo, eBay, Hi5, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Windows Live, Ning, Orkut and Yahoo Messenger.

29. micrOS icon pack

This is my first atempt to small icons itented for webdesign. I really enjoyed making those icons zooming in and out from photoshop to try to get them a nice feeling. I know already I can improve this, so stay tuned for the next set!

30. Paint Icons

Hii there, after looong time, i design two icons based in paint theme .There in PNG 3 sizes 512, 256 & 128

31. Cute Critters Free Icon Pack

Each icon is in .png format sized at 512×512px with transparent backgrounds. Altogether, there is more cuteness than you could shake a stick at.

32. 120 free new icons!

A set of 120 simple icons, in 2 resolutions: 68×68 & 48x48px. In the zip file you will also find the AI & EPS files so you can either grab and freely use various elements or crop them for your resolution.

33. Social Icons Made of Wood

Here’s another social icon set from webtoolkit4.me. This time the theme is wood. The set consists of 11 icons in PNG format (64 x 64). It’s free for both personal and commercial projects. Here it is then. Enjoy

34. 24 Free Exclusive Vector Icons: ‘Handy’

‘Handy’ is a set of 24 free and exclusive vector icons that can be used on websites, logos and more.

35. Gorgeous Mini Social Networking Icon set

Gorgeous Mini Social Networking Icon set was a part of design assignment for a friend of mine who is planning to roll out a new design blog. The main reason why I’m releasing it as a freebie is, I’ve designed a whole lot of social icon sets. But they were usually fancy or too attractive to be used in decent blog designs.

36. Sleek! Free Tab Style Social Icons

Here’s one beautiful and sleek set of Social Icons. Inspired by Tabbed Social Icons This sleek tabbed social network icons are designed with a slight web 2.0 feel. And are great for those who want to use those icons which are present on DISQUS, Intense debate comment forms. It can be used with a beautiful hover technique to bring life in these social Icons.

37. The Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set (750 icons, incl. PSD sources)

There are thousands of free icon sets out there, and every other day we see new sets being released by the design community. In fact, Smashing Magazine has been releasing icon sets for years now, too. But today’s release is particularly important. Over the last 1.5 years, Oliver Twardowski was designing and preparing an “ultimate web designer’s icon set” exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. Today we release the third, final version of the set, an extensive pack with over 750 free icons (48×48px) for designers and Web developers. The .PSD-sources are available for free download as well.

38. iPhone Toolbar Icon Set

Set of 64 toolbar icons for the iPhone toolbar. These buttons contain beautiful shaded portions to give added depth and to highlight icon features.

39. Twitter vector icons massive icon set

The best high quality collection of free twitter bird icon.

39. Office Supplies

A sweet high quality collection of free office icons.

40. Pixel Social Media

Free for personal and commercial use!

41. Five Free Vector Icons: Plastic Iconset

The Plastic Iconset is a group of five free beautiful and high quality icons released to you, Six Revisions readers, by Iconshock. They’re released royalty-free, so you may use them for any commercial or personal purpose.

42. Five Free Vector Icons: Plastic Iconset

Social Sketches is a free icon set containing several icons of popular social networks exclusively released here on Six Revisions. All the icons are done in sketch style, which brings them a new look and makes them especially fit for grunge/hand-drawn themed websites; in fact, the set was created initially for use in Referrer Detector plugin on The Daily Faces, my new “daily sketch” project, but then I decided to release it for public use.

43. PC Social Media Icons

A FREE social media icon set! which comes with 10 icons. You can freely use these really cool and special social icons for both your private and commercial projects.

44. Free Icons Module

A dozen of beautiful and stylish icons in style of QuickTime X.The set is free and intended for non commercial usage.

45. New free social icons sticker set!

Merry Christmas to you all! Hope you like this new set of social icons. You will find them in the zip file in PNG (64×64 pixels), EPS and AI format.

46. Orb Icons

Merry Christmas to you all! Hope you like this new set of social icons. You will find them in the zip file in PNG (64×64 pixels), EPS and AI format.

47. Social Media Balloons

As now blogging is becoming more and more popular, social networking and sharing is one of our essential daily tasks. Social media icons are also popular as people want to customize their sites in different styles.

48. Boolean 1.1

For every ten icons added to the set, the count will be bumped by 0.1 that is for 110 icons the version will be 1.1, for 200 icons the version will be 2.0 and so on.

49. Mobile Device Icons

For every ten icons added to the set, the count will be bumped by 0.1 that is for 110 icons the version will be 1.1, for 200 icons the version will be 2.0 and so on.

50. Sketchy Icons

I’ve been doing this for quite a while. I’ve recently bought a tablet, and it turned out that my hand isn’t listening as it used to. So I’ve been doing this for practice. I designed some of the icons, modified some and just redraw the ones that i found pleasing.

51. Consoles

In this collection you will find the evolution of interactive lightweight entertainment electronic devices or game consoles from the very first Atari to the Microsoft XBox console .This icons set comes with detailed characteristics, keeping the exactly same colors of the real ones, designed in an isometric perspective so you can see almost all the details of the consoles. This is a cool professional icon set inspired in those who are mad about electronic devices.

52. Industrial Itsy

Icon for Itsy (twitter client) made to suit the theme made by Nawong.

53. Halloween

This set of icons have nice shapes and textures, that make them look like they were made in plastic, with some spooky characters such as Jack (from nightmare before Christmas) an skull, and the main character of scary movie, perfect for Halloween time. Designed with shadows to give deepness to the icons, and very detailed characteristics to make them look great in any application or personal project.

54. Vista Style Base Software Icons Set

Previously known Elements Icon Set is advanced into Base Software Icons Set. It contains new icons and modifications suitable for every type of software and web sites. Base Software Icons offers icons that mean actions, objects and states. These icons are suitable for ribbons, toolbars, status bars, menus, categories, links, etc.

55. Web 2.0rigami

After creating my Twitter bird logo in an origami style a week ago, I wondered what other icons would look good all origamized.  Turns out a few of the web 2.0 apps/sites look great, so I decided to create a little collection for everyone to use as they see fit.  I suppose you could look at these with the view that web 2.0 companies can be extremely beautiful objects, yet are still very fragile and can be crushed instantly.

56. Xi4Dox

Finally it’s done, hope you’ll like it the file contains also pngs of my Dev id !!

57. Web Injection

Finally it’s done, hope you’ll like it the file contains also pngs of my Dev id !!

58. icon for transformers

this is my second icons! you can see my inspiration comes from transformers. hope you like it!

59. A Set of 32 Free Sketchy Icons

If you have got a sketchy or handy drawing style website, you might be looking for some icons in a sketchy style as well. After I presented the tutorial of “How to draw a sketchy style icon“. Here is a free set of 32 icons named “Sketchy” which is in a sketch drawing style. The set includes two drawing styles: Plain and Scribble (see Preview images below).

60. Free Set of Social Media Icons – Rivet Social

I collect social media icon sets like an addict. I love them. So, I figured that it was about time I gave back to the community and created a unique set on my own, to release to you Six Revisions readers and the design community.

61. NX11 Unfinished

Unfinished set of icons, I remember saying that I would probably have these done before 2009 but I failed and it doesn’t look like I’ll ever finish them, so I might as well share these few icons now.

62. Free Vector Icons Set + Twitter Birdy Icon

As promise, I am going to release my very own icons. This is the icons I created for LoonDesign redesign. I like them very much and I like sharing. I decided to release in vector format. So, you will find a .ai a .eps and 32px X 32px .png within the zip file.

63. LiveJournal turns 10

LiveJournal is celebrating its 10th Anniversary! Why is that important to us? It’s easy, thanks to LiveJournal designers Denis Kortunov and Dmitri Joukov got acquainted with Yegor Gilyov, which marked the birth of Turbomilk! Also, a bunch of our friends work for LJ. It did not take us long to come up with the right present for the Anniversary: we created a set of icons for LiveJournal. Designer Mike Zhiharev drew three types of LJ users and also the company’s branded pencil, a <SUP> pan, and of course the mascot of LiveJournal – the legendary Frank the goat.

64. I like buttons 3a

Part 1 of my third set of buttons. All files are in .png format, size 512×512.

65. ID

A well designed icon set available for commercial use.

66. Social Icons hand drawned

A water colour hand drawn icon set, which look awesome.

67. Social Icons hand drawned

Free icon set that includes 36 hand pointer icons of 6 diferent types with 6 color variants. Icon set also includes .psd source file.

68. Social media beakers

A high quality icons set created by the team over at icon shock.

69. Original google buzz icons

A high quality icons set created by the team over at icon shock.

70. Amazing social icons

A high quality icons set created by the team over at icon shock.

71. Programmers

A high quality glass programmers icon set.

72. Adobe suite free icon set vol 2

A high quality glass programmers icon set.

73. Go adobe free adobe icon set vol1

A high quality glass programmers icon set.

74. 21 free social vintage icons

A high quality glass programmers icon set.

75. Cutielicious! A Free Twitter Bird Icon Set

Twitter Apps, Twitter Icons! Looks like we cant seem to stop liking them afterall! After the huge response received from our Previous Twitter Birds 1 and 2. We decided to bring out another Free Premium style Twitter Bird Icons.

76. Cutielicious! A Free Twitter Bird Icon Set

The Grass Textured Social Icon Set has been created by Richie Thimmaiah, from RichWorks exclusively for Speckyboy Design Magazine readers and are free to use for both your personal and commercial projects but may not be modified, sold or redistributed.The icons are packaged with 3 different sizes to suit your needs: 256px, 128px and 64px.

77. Freebie Release: Social Network Icon Set

These Iconshock icon set comes in 6 different sizes: 12×12, 16×16, 24×24, 128×128, 256×256 and 512×512 covering social various social network logos like Blogger, Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Linked-in, Reddit, RSS feed, Stumble Upon, Technorati and Twitter. All icons are free and you can download and use them in either personal or commercial project. If you like what you are downloading, consider linking back to this article

Read more: Freebie Release: Social Network Icon Set | Icons http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/social-network-icon-set/#ixzz0sj6pGeej

78. 3D Social Media Icon Pack | 20 Icon Set

Inside this Icon Pack are Twenty 3D Social Media Icons, created exclusively for the viewers of Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.

79. Free Set of Office Icons by IconShock

Our friends at IconShock have designed another set of free icons for readers of Vandelay Design. IconShock designs high quality icon sets and in recent months they have provided the design community with a lot of great, free icons.

80. Vintage Stamp Social Media Icon Pack

This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed.

81. TwitterJoy icons

TwitterJoy free icon set of 3 twitter-bird icons. These icons are free to use in any kind of project unlimited times.

82. Free Exclusive Vector Icon Pack: Web User Interface

The Web User Interface vector icon pack is a group of five free beautiful and high quality icons released exclusively to you, Six Revisions readers, by Iconshock.

83. Free Social Icons from IconShock

IconShock has designed social icons exclusively for Smashing Share readers. These free social icons are awesome and free to use for both your personal and commercial projects. Included icons are for following services. Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter and Delicious.

84. Free High Quality Premium Apple IPAD Icons

This is Icon stet of is Apples brand new latest product the Apple Ipad. The Icon set feature four high premium icons for you to enjoy for person use and commercial use.

85. Free Social Media – Networking & Bookmarking Icon Set

Introducing the first of many, many free icon packs here at Digital Art Empire. There are a total of 36 icons with 9 different Social Media – Networking  & Bookmarking sites.

86. Free Social Media – Networking & Bookmarking Icon Set

In this post we release Twi bird — a Free Twitter Icon Set, a set of 9 beautiful and lovely Twitter icons. Released exclusively for Splashnology.

87. Free Icons: Worn-Out Soda Cans Social Media Icon Pack

I’ve been a happy user of DesignBump, a site where you can share, save, vote on, and discover the best design related links from around the web. So when they launched their very own design blog, I decided to contribute for them. For my very first contribution, I’ve created for them the Worn-Out Soda Cans Social Media Icon Pack. The icon pack once again features icons of our favorite social media sites in 200×200, transparent PNG formats.

88. Free and Exclusive Icons: Brown Social Icon Pack

In the pack, you will find 12 glossy polished icons in different size variations: 32×32px, 64×64px and 128×128px for maximum flexibility. All files are .PNG format and are mainly brown-colored especially for all you brown fanatic bloggers that like to share posts over the social networks nowadays.

89. Mac 3D icon set

Bored of your 2D mac logo. Wanna give your dock a new touch with a 3D effect? Need a creative mac logo for your webdesign?

90. 27 Free Wooden Badges – Social Icon Pack

Inside this Icon Pack are 27 Free Wooden Social Icons, created exclusively for the viewers of Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.

91. Grunge Peeling Stickers Social Media Icons

This Icon Pack is chuck full of 20 Grunge Peeling Social Media Stickers, created exclusively for the viewers of Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.

92. Free Social Media Icons for Designers – A Life in Pixels

The set includes 16 32px x 32px PNG files. They are monochromatic and can work with many other colors, which is perfect if you are looking for icons that are subtle and muted so that they do not dominate your design.

93. Tabbed Social Media Icon Set 50+ Icons

A Beautiful icon pack exclusively to Creative Nerds readers designed by chethstudios. A huge collection of icons including over 50 simple but elegant icons which are perfect for minimalistic websites. I hope you like the icons also we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback about the icon set.

94. Burnt Wood: A Social Media Icon Set

Burnt Wood is a collection of wood-tiled icons branded with various social media network logos that are perfect for your next grunge-styled web design.

95. Social Cubes – Exclusive Vectortuts+ Free Pack

This new Vector Freebie Pack is created by Oindrila Mukherjee and is available exclusively from Vectortuts+. If you’re looking for high-quality social icons for your next web project, then check out these icons. This set of 18 high quality freebies is available to download today! Enjoy!

97. Free Vector Icons: Panda Social Network Icons

The Panda Social Network Icons is a free package containing 12 sweet panda animals, 128×128 pixels each, that have social network marks on their stomach. The set is created by Webby freebies and released exclusively for the readers here on Six Revisions. You’ll get 12 .png files and 1 vector (.ai) file in case you need to rescale them (in Adobe Illustrator format).

98. 81 Pixel perfect Social Media Icons

81 Pixel perfect Social Media Icons free for personal and commercial work. Each icon is hand crafted and available as a large share button, 32 pixel and 16 pixel icon.

99. Free Farm-Fresh Web Icons

FatCow “Farm-Fresh” is a new free icon set, containing exactly 1000 with 2000 more to come 16-by-16 and 32-by-32 pixel icons. Formats include ICO (PC, desktop), PNG (web, toolbars, UNIX), GIF (alive?!), DMG (Mac). These are Fatcow’s Amazing variety of icons related to web design / development / web hosting available free to download.

Step1. Open media.php file under wp-includes folder.
Step2. Find the function named “image_resize_dimensions” (Around line 309). Unfortunately this function is not pluggable and doesn’t use any hooks so we will edit it directly. Find the lines:

1 $s_x = floor( ($orig_w – $crop_w) / 2 );
2 $s_y = floor( ($orig_h – $crop_h) / 2 );

Step3. Those two variables define the start point of crop that will be used. Here is a sample image that will be cropped with those variables shown:

Step4. If you want top of part of the image as post featured image then $s_y value must remain zero. So we change that line to:
view source
print?
1 $s_y = 0; //floor( ($orig_h – $crop_h) / 2 );

Step5. Save the file and upload it to wp-includes folder.

Last Step. A post image is cropped at the first time it is uploaded. To update thumbnails you need this great plugin called Regenerate Thumbnails. This plugin takes post thumbnails and crops them again using your latest media settings. After you install it click on the “Regenerate All Thumbnails” button under tools. It will automatically crop all the post thumbnails again. This will take a minute or two depending on your server and number of posts you have. After the regeneration is complete all your thumbnails will be cropped from top.

From: Shailan.com

But how should you blog — and how much?

To answer to those questions, we looked at data from 1,531 customers (mostly small- and medium-sized businesses). 795 of the businesses in our sample blogged, 736 didn’t.

The data was crystal clear: Companies that blog have far better marketing and seo results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has:

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

Take a look for yourself in the graphs below:

Website visitors are important because more visitors mean more people to convert to leads and sales.

Inbound links are important because they signal authority to search engines, thus increasing your chances of getting found in those search engines.

Indexed pages are important because the more pages you have on your site, the more chances you have of getting found in search engines.

Read more at Hubspot. See, we just gave them a link because they blog. We rest our case.

Most people are unknowingly messing up the effectiveness of their web site content, so here is a list that we found that should help you out: Nine SEO mistakes that we see people making with their content all the time

When this occurs, site owners are sometimes paralyzed into inaction because they have already gone through so much heartache with their current providers, or fear that any change they make will result in continual problems. Well, change isn’t always easy, but there is a defined process you can go through to make your transition to a new system go smoothly. This article is not about which ecommerce platform to choose, but the steps to take as you prepare the move to a new platform.

1. Domain Name Issues

If your move involves a new web host, make sure your domain registration is in order. By this, I mean that you are listed as the owner and administrative contact for the domain name, and you have the ability to log into your domain account and update the domain name servers (DNS). If what I just said sounds like gibberish, I would start by going to DomainTools and typing your domain name into the “Whois Lookup.” Unless you have a private registration, you should see your domain registration information display on the page. The problem that can lead to heartache is when your previous provider has registered your domain name. When that happens, it can take a little finesse and negotiation to gain control of your domain so you can move it. Start on this process early to avoid problems when you are ready to make the move.

2. Impact on Current Processes

The growth of your business usually requires streamlining and automating business processes. Research how your new platform integrates with shipping vendors, accounting systems, and payment processors. Consider that the more your business matures the more fine-tuned your needs could become. Before you switch, confirm that the new solution offers reports and systems to suit your business, and that the solution will tie into whatever third party vendors you currently use.

3. Security Certificates

If you have an SSL (secured socket layer) certificate associated with your current website, you will need to move it to the new server. If you are not sure about the status or existence of an SSL, go to the checkout pages of your site and see if the URL in the address bar shows “https://” followed by your domain name. If the address shows the address of your provider and not your own domain, then you are likely using a shared certificate. Determine if the new provider offers a similar shared certificate or if it requires you to purchase a new one. Moving your certificate is not typically difficult, but does require some technical know-how. And, you don’t want to overlook the certificate transfer or leave it for the last minute. Not all certificates are compatible with all web server software. So make sure your current certificate will work before making the move.

4. Moving the Data

A site migration can range from mildly challenging to arduous. A key component is how easy it is to move your data from one system to the other. Ideally, you can export your products, accounts, and orders into a simple comma-delimited or tab-delimited format and then import the data into the new system. The more complex your products are, the more difficult it will be to import your data, particularly if you have complex product options. Most ecommerce systems will provide some explanations or charts of their database structures. If this information is confusing, then solicit the help of a professional for this part of the project. Product data is pretty straightforward. Order and order history data varies much more from system to system. Moving order data from your old system to your new system might not be realistic.

5. Avoid Search Engine and Linking Glitches

If your business success has been built on good organic search engine placement, that success easily evaporate if your new system generates different page URLs. Before making any move, study the page titles and URLs of some sites using the new system. Be sure that you will be able to adjust the page titles and URLs so they are identical to your current site. The next best option is install 301 permanent redirects of old URLs to new ones. This means that you create a file on your server that will direct web browsers and search engines to a new URL on your site that replaced a previous one and tell them that the change is permanent. Check with your new provider to be sure one of these options will be available to you.

6. Email Interruptions

Keeping your email flowing is key during the possible chaos of a site move. I recommend that you have a way to check email on the old server as well as the new server, or temporarily forward email going to the old server, for at least 48 hours after the move. Review all the accounts and aliases that your company uses. Sometimes site owners lose track of their list of email addresses and don’t correctly set them up in the new environment. Once the new site goes live, test every address and every form on the new site to make sure the email is functioning correctly.

7. Determine the “Live” Date

This is the crucial step to make a site transition happen quickly. At least 48 hours before you move your site to the new platform, log into the server management account at your old provider and update the DNS records so the time-to-live (TTL) is established within 300 seconds. This is a fairly technical subject; but by taking this step, when you actually update your DNS servers, the changed address information of your website should spread across the Internet within five minutes. If you are unable to adjust the TTL, then you dependent on the global Internet routing system as far as whether a site visitor sees your old or new site when he enters your address.

8. Test First

Before making your site live, place some test orders and confirm that the new site is connected with your payment processing system. Better to work out those bugs before actual customers are ready to order.

9. Schedule the Transfer

I recommend doing the cut over very early in the morning, say 1:00 a.m., before most of your customers are active. If you were able to establish the TTL, then the change should happen almost instantly and you can do your test orders and make sure all links are working correctly. If you have access to the log files on the old and new servers, you can see what is happening to your site’s traffic. Checking these files throughout the day is a good idea, as it will also show you if visitors are getting to pages that no longer exist.

10. Keep the Old Site

Keeping the old site active for an overlapping month is a good strategy. This gives you time to archive all old files and make sure that you didn’t miss a vital file, script, or piece of information.

Summary

Migrating your web site can definitely presents challenges, but following these steps will ease the transition and keep your website operating smoothly.

by Practical eCommerce

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.

If you are selling products/services or just publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that will make your site profitable over time.

Those who ignore the efficacy of social media usually fall into three categories; the ones who don’t know much or anything about social media, the ones who are interested but don’t know how to use it and those who don’t believe in the value that a social media strategy can bring to any site or business.

The Value of Marketing Through Social News Websites

For those who don’t understand or see the value of social media websites, let’s take a look at the benefits of creating viral content and effectively promoting them through social media channels.

Developing link baits and successfully getting it popular on various social media websites like Digg and StumbleUpon will lead to multiple benefits for any website:

• Primary and Secondary Traffic. Primary traffic is the large amount of visitors who come directly from social media websites. Secondary traffic is referral traffic from websites which link to and send you visitors, after they come across your content through the social sites.
• High Quality Links. Becoming popular on social news websites like Digg or Reddit will get you a large number of links, some of which may be topically relevant, some not. A good story can realistically acquire a large number of high quality editorial links, most of which cannot be easily bought.

Now let’s translate this into tangible benefits for your website:

1. Links = Better Search Engine Rankings.

When a website receives a large number of natural, permanent links from trusted domains, it develops authority. Search engines trust it. If you optimize your linkbait and website structure properly, you can easily start ranking for competitive keywords, which will in turn bring in search engine visitors.

Do this often enough and your search traffic will undoubtedly increase. In a sense, you are obtaining these quality links through borrowed trust. Many bloggers and webmaster still think that if an article is on the Digg or del.icio.us homepage, then it’s probably worth checking out and referencing through a citation link.

A new website may find it difficult to gain links from a critical mass that is not familiar with it but a trusted social news resource makes it easier for links to come in, because the community and buzz has somewhat ‘certified‘ the value of the site. Note that the actual strength of the article is still of utmost importance for all.

2. Primary + Secondary Traffic = Community/Supporters.

Some people claim that social news websites only send useless traffic, visitors that will often just view a specific webpage and click away. Yes, that’s usually the case. Sites like Digg are notorious for their poor bounce rates: many visitors drop in for the article and then leave after reading it. StumbleUpon is much better in this aspect.

But don’t mistake this with a lack of interest. Your subscriber figures will often take big jump up and then stabilize after a few days. If your entire site is relevant to the general interests of the social media website, there will always be a handful of social users who will start to track your site in order to submit future content.

Detractors also ignore the power of ultra targeted secondary traffic. General sites or blogs in the same niche will link to a story that’s popular on social sites, because it adds value for their readers or users. This is done naturally on a daily basis for many.

While primary traffic usually comes in a larger volume, I would argue that secondary traffic is more valuable. Why? Because links from other websites bring visitors who are very likely to be interested in your content. These citation links demonstrate recognition of your site in the eyes of others. It builds your brand.

Think of the social news site as a platform or a soapbox. As something that gives you a chance to be heard or read, even for a brief moment of a few hours. The people who are drawn to your message will visit your site and recommend it to others.

Four Reasons to Practice Social Media Marketing

Why bother exploring social media as a marketing channel for your website or business? After all, you could stick to link exchanges, search advertising or the purchase of banner and editorial ads on relevant sites.

Here are some reasons why you should consider using social media:

1. It’s natural. Not only do you get natural links without any discernible pattern, your website is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising which has overt commercial overtones.
2. It’s defensible. Once successfully mastered, social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.
3. It’s low-cost/high returns. If done by yourself, costs are limited to only time and perhaps the expenses involved in hiring a freelance programmer/designer. The benefits will often exceed the cost. It would take you thousands of dollars to buy many links; social media has the ability to give you that for free.
4. It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.

So How Does Social Media Help Me to Make Money?

It doesn’t. At least not directly. Every site or business that wants to expand and become profitable, needs a core group of supporters who will be willing to make purchases or recommend the site to others. Your site needs to perpetuate itself.

The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your site. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at at what you have to offer. You will grow when there are a group of loyal visitors ready to always act upon what you have to offer.

Because social media websites can be leveraged for links and better search rankings, they can greatly increase your site’s income potential. For example, you will be able to price ads higher or generate revenue from any paid business models.

Why Bloggers Should Learn How to Use Social Media

There are many ways to build a popular blog and many methods to promote your website. For example, you can start leaving comments regularly on many high traffic blogs in your niche or perhaps, consider guest posting on other bigger blogs.

My marketing strategy for blogs is very simple. I don’t comment actively, hold contests or write guest posts. I’ve never done any of that for any blog I’ve ever set up. Some people might enjoy doing it but its just a little too tedious for me.

What I do instead is strategic. I focus on creating just one excellent blog post, which I will then push through social media sites and email pitches to other bloggers. This is straightforward and I don’t have to run around many blogs putting up my URL and thinking of something insightful to say.

Think about it. Why write 50 guest posts for 50 different blogs when you can easily just write one article and get an equal amount of links and greater traffic through the use of social media? Guest posting builds relationships but I reckon there are many more powerful ways to network with others.

It isn’t just about creating articles and then promoting them on social sites as an afterthought. It’s about putting social media in the center of your marketing strategy, optimizing your site or content and making it an attention magnet.

Social Media and It’s Potential for Your Site: An Example

I recently launched a new blog a months ago and took around 20 hours to create a feature article. I subsequently promoted it on various social websites through my own influencer profiles. I also sent out emails to large sites in the same niche.

The article eventually got to the Digg, del.icio.us and Reddit frontpage and received over 140+ reviews on StumbleUpon. It accumulated well over 800 unique links, including some from very heavily trafficked websites. Some of them alone sent more traffic than the frontpage of del.icio.us.

The article is more than a month old and it is still receiving incoming links. Subscribers are up by over 800% and I received around 12K pageviews everyday for the first month. Bear in mind this is only a one month old site.

While not every article in every niche will receive the same amount of attention or success, this illustrates the great potential of social media. I’ve become a firm believer in having a solid social media strategy for every website I develop. It is important for success on every level, even for sites that are already popular.

Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing: An Article Series

Social media marketing is not difficult at all. It is something every one can do with some effort and knowledge. It isn’t some secret art form that only experts can master. Unlike other skills, social media has a remarkably low barrier of entry. Everyone is invited to the party. No one is excluded.

I know how social media works. I know what type of content/bait works for different websites. I know what type of marketing strategy to adopt for a high possibility of success. This knowledge is something you can acquire yourself too.

Now that I’ve illustrated the value of social media, a step by step introduction to social media websites and the appropriate marketing strategies to adopt is in order. I plan to start an article series on DIY social media marketing, to teach absolute beginners and bloggers/webmasters what they need to do for social media success.

Some of the advanced social media strategies I have in mind might not be appropriate for a large audience as they can be extremely intricate; unless you’re an active user of the site, it probably isn’t something you’ll appreciate reading about.

I might consider setting up some private newsletters or forums for these advanced tactics, so those who are serious about learning about them can opt-in and we can discuss them away from the public arena. More details later on.

I’m quite sure most of you will find this article series useful so if you have any specific topics you want to see addressed, feel free to drop your query in the comments.