Transparent WordPress Custom Theme

Playing with the XO Theme Version 3.3.x from Semiomantics and CSS3, I notice how easy it is for most anyone to customize the XO Theme by adding transparencies and other CSS3 elements. Here below you find some drafts. You may visit the test site from : http://globalthebrand.com.

On the test site we use the Semiomantics Widgets and Theme Handler plug-in as well as a modified Supersized plug-in; the latter needs some more work to make it more responsive. Also we use TubePress which behaves fine also on mobile.

The Theme is Semiomantics XO with 3 custom child-themes; any theme can be associated with any page, post, category, tag or sidebar.

Related posts:

1. Transparent WordPress Semiomantics XO
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5. Semiomantics XO 2011 for WordPress

Portraits of Africa 2012 on Google

Time again to monitor and check the performance of our new WP based Semiomantics XO 2012 Script on search engines.

Here’s a screenshot of yesterday’s post “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google – have a look! Positions 1, 2, 3 and 6 ahead of 10,800,000 search returns – YEBO GOGO!

Portraits of Africa 2012 on Google

When looking up “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google, I also checked how the images in my article were ranked – here’s the detail of the screenshot showing the Image of a “Young African Girl” on position one, followed by the Image of a “Young African Boy” on position 4… and a small ad I created ages ago peeking at us on position 2. All of them ahead of our South African presidents… just too funny! The young generation is on the move!

Portrait of Africa Images

It becomes even more intrigueing when we look up “Portrait of Africa Images” on Google and find these young faces of Africa featuring amongst some really classy photography! And again… the random positioning is just too weird… for those who read this and understand what I mean! Welcome to the future :)

Fact is, that with the increasing importance of images and media on the Internet – and with this for our website development – … and people preferring to look at something for quick grasping of the contents rather than reading long time-consuming – and even worse: thought-provoking -  texts… that the correct tagging and classification of photos and images becomes more important. Here as with any post what counts is to be found on Google – Google Top 10 that is. Noone else looks further…

Congratulations to our young friends who’ve made it to the top ranks and find themselves in interesting and attractive company! There will be more….

Who is Cy Ford

Cy (Cyril) Ford is a Painter living and working in Notting Hill, UK, who has decided to share his work online. His new WP Best Gallery has been set up by Semiomantics. Felisa Ryan, will take care of the content management.

The new site at cyford.com is up and running and already indexed by Google.

Cy Ford Online Gallery Images

sunset

Sunset by Cy Ford, Acrylic

still-life

Flowers and Candles, Still Life by Cy Ford

drawings

Seashore, Drawing by Cy Ford

Note the changing site backgrounds, which are images of works by Cy Ford. The selector projects randomly a different background with every page view.

Look out for more.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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CyFord.com goes live

It’s done! We have loaded the first draft of Cy Ford’s online Gallery to CyFord.com. For the time being we run in private mode, but the next step will be to storm Google Top 10 with the new site.

Cy Ford Gallery

Cy Ford’s website is first of all a Gallery, place to exhibit paintings and Drawings online. The site allows the artist painter to bring his work in front of interested visitors and to sell straight of the site.

365-()-Flowers-and-candles-(Cy-Ford)

Flowers and Candles by Cy Ford

Best Buy Cy Ford Paintings and Drawings

An easy to follow purchase pipeline paired with secure check-out allows Cy Ford to sell his work online. The store is easy to maintain and works can be added with just a few mouse clicks. Buyers will be able to navigate in function of the various categories, such as Drawings, Acrylic Paintings, Landscapes, Still Life, Drawings and more.

Google Top 10

As per above, we will now optimize the site and then invite Google to index and list CyFord.com. I suppose that within the next 24 hours we will see the first results on Google Top 10. Once Cy Ford indexed, we will add content to our target categories to reach higher visibility.

A special WP Best Gallery Feature

Surfing CyFord.com, you will notice that the site background changes; in fact we have built in a background rotator. The rotating images are Cy Ford’s works which can be purchased from the shop. This feature is a customization of WP Best Gallery by Semiomantics. More tomorrow.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Cy Ford Art Gallery Project

Earlier today we have introduced Cy Ford to the Internet. In the meantime we have started working on the implementation of the project. The project is managed by Semiomantics and Felisa Ryan, an Semiomantics Agent.

Cy Ford Domain

Felisa has registered the domain CyFord.com at yorGOdom and acquired appropriate hosting for the new site at ChiHosters.

The name domain cyford.com will allow us to get the name of the artist under control on search engines to build authority and Cy’s public image.

desheadMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Cy Ford Design by Yorgo Nestoridis

CyFord’s Art Gallery

To get Cy’s site up and running quickly, we have loaded a WordPress Back-bone and a WP Best eShop Theme. From this base we will now develop the site to become The Cy Ford Art Gallery.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Cy Ford

Cy Ford is an artist, a painter in the UK, interested in bringing his work to the Internet.

Cy Ford on Google Top 10

Surprisingly, there is no entry under Cy Ford on Google. There are however loads of references to Ford Motor cars …

Show as slideshow

Cy Ford Gallery and Shop

Semiomantics will manage and build Cy Ford’s online presence, starting from scratch on a blank page and we will use the project to demonstrate the power of Semiomantics WP Best Websites. Under the Project we will build a Gallery and Shop where Cy Fords works will be exposed and offered for sale.

Cy Ford Profile and Public Image

At the same time we will build Cy Ford’s public image and profile in a Google efficient way to make sure, interested searchers will find the Painter on the appropriate top spot on Google Top 10.

You may follow the evolution of this project by following this series of posts, where we will describe the different steps and achievements.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Best WP Design

Image handling for advanced visual effects is a difficult task for any coder since the first ambition remains to provide clean and valid code. Best WP Design by Semiomantics is experimenting with different solutions which are seen on static pages to integrate them into the dynamic frameworks of WP Best Themes from Semiomantics.

WP Best Design Carousel

The below presentation works fine on dynamic content. Use the mouse-wheel for fat image scrolling (place the cursor on an image). The presentation can be combined with zoom effects for magnification of individual images. This WP Best Design element can be used for product galleries, people galleries or any image. Enjoy.

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New Semiomantics XO Theme for WordPress

The above Screenshots represent just some of the pages, features and looks the 2012 Edition of the high performance XO Theme for WordPress has up its sleeves. The above site is the fruit of the 2 Days Ycademy Online Seminar for Semiomantics Developers and designers.

The 2012 Edition of XO is focused on even more flexibility in as much as editing, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility are concerned.

The Site displays perfectly on Mobile devices, showing responsiveness also of the plugged in scripts chosen of which some have been adapted to satisfy the high standards of Semiomantics Publishing Scripts for Excellence.

The site elaborated at the Ycademy Online Seminar this past week-end features some smashing features, such as:

• Background Slideshow, customizable for each page, post or archive
• Built in Directory
• Media Library for YouTube and Vimeo
• Pro-sliders which can be deployed anywhere on the site
• In addition to the responsive design, a separate light Mobile Version is available
• Bold and Efficient Navigation
• Built in Custom Fonts
• Social Network connectivity and publishing
• and much more.

The XO script is well commented and offers designers a clean and straight forward environment for custom developments. XO uses best practices for WordPress development and makes the best use of the possibilities offered by the WP back-bone, assuring smooth integration and optimized conflict handling.

XO is a great playground for designers. The DIY version allows anyone to adapt layout and colors to taste right from the back-office; there is no need to have any knowledge about coding or designing. The theme behaves like a Chameleon and adapts to specific needs with just a few clicks of the mouse: pre-configured layout elements transform your XO quickly into a Magazine, Newspaper, personal Author Blog, a Media Hub, a Shop, a Marketing Machine, a Social Media Publisher, a Product Promoter or a Fan Site or most anything your imagination dictates.

For the professional designer, XO offers a well commented environment. Custom code can be added right from the dashboard or, as I prefer using a child theme. XO is tuned for HTML5 and CSS3 use, making it a modern and inspiring framework for exceptional design effects.

Out of the box, the XO Theme for WordPress provides a stable and reliable, robust and optimized solution for common use. It provides built in features such a slider with multiple transitions and a one click selector for easy use.

Layouts can be easily adapted to needs and purpose of the site. In fact, most custom designers rely on the theme engine to format efficiently layouts.

The site featured in the above gallery uses a few pro plug-ins to add functionality in function of customer requirements. The integration of such add on scripts is a relatively simple process for designers and developers.

XO has been developed for high performance, productivity, excellence in publishing and flexibility. For the professional users, the XO Theme constitues a solid base with a huge potential for customization and creative artistic expression.

The release of XO Version 3.3.x is planned for the first week of February. The present Release Candidate has been thoroughly tested. A few minor issues will be taken care off before XO will be available to the public.

If your site is running on Semiomantics XO suing basic customization, the theme can just be overwritten. (Save your custom CSS beforehand.)

If you are using a custom version with custom developments or a child theme, some of your customization will need to be adapted to the enhancements of XO 2012. This concerns namely custom headers and footers as well as custom functions.

Support for developers and designers is available as usual at our Ycademy Online Calls and Seminars or through Semiomantics Pro Support.

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WP Best Design

Images as content and for visual effects can be dealt with in multiple ways. Depending on the purpose of the site we need to be flexible and provide to customers the most efficient technology in function of the purpose of the site and personal preferences.

Custom Designed WP Best Themes from Semiomantics provide flexible solutions without messing up scripts and code and serve perfectly the primary ambition which is high visibility and performance on search engines. The below slide show can be used on the front page, in pages and posts as well as in side bars, footers or headers.

WP Best Design for Image Handling Sample 1

A first example shows a slide show with a carousel on top and an info pane underneath the pictures. A timer lets you set the duration of display, transitions can be adapted to preferences.

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The Bianca Gubalke Products Shop is the new WP Best eShop currently under construction – based on a WordPress based Semiomantics Script and configured at the first Ycademy Business Building Seminar 2010 that’s taking place right now.

Bianca Gubalke Products Shop

Based on remarkable results over the past years, the new Bianca Gubalke Products Shop will offer everything that’s needed for a professional and high ranking presence on the Internet – from a smart domain name research, over hosting to a customized setup, configuration, running and maintainenance of personalized Websites and Blogs for private individuals who wish to build their Authority on the Internet… to Small Businesses with an ambition to succeed online… and large Corporate Clients who need to build, maintain and expand a professional and continuous presence on Google Top 10 positions to maximize on Traffic and Sales while cutting down on increasingly expensive Google Ads.

Each Project managed personally by Bianca Gubalke will focus exclusively on the Customers’ requirements – dependable yet independent.

Personalized Web Design & Publishing Services

Benefit from our Personalized Web Design & Publishing Services based on Google efficient Semiomantics Scripts, original well-edited Content and eye-catching Artwork -

• Customized Web Design,
• Captivating Web Graphics and
• Search Engine Optimized Writing and Publishing

as lined out in Web Design Consulting.

Stay tuned as the Bianca Gubalke Products Shop evolves. . .

Bianca Gubalke Mobile

Bianca Gubalke Mobile – a first pre-seminar sketch for a mobile version! The little icons stand for Social Network icons like Facebook, Twitter etc, which I would design myself to fit into the overall picture I have in mind.

Bianca Gubalke Mobile

We are living in times of rapid change and the explosion of the mobile market. People use their mobile phones to search the net, to find what they want, to compare it and – to buy it. Sales figures triggered via the mobile net are staggering – and as web designers we have to adapt – which means also to focus on new technologies and learn new languages.

Over the past years, Semiomantics has always evolved along with WordPress Developments. Remarkably, the latest WP update allows for much more creativity. While our Semiomantics based author blogs display perfectly on smartphones through integration of the right plugins and settings, there’s much more scope that we will be looking into at this weekend’s Ycademy Seminar 2012 – which is also a testing ground for the new Semiomantics XO 2012 – to be released soon.

In that sense, I am looking forward to the evolution of Bianca Gubalke Mobile!

Web Design Trends 2012

The upcoming first Ycademy Seminar 2012 will focus on Web Design Trends 2012 in terms of what they mean for our brand-new WordPress based Semiomantics XO 2012.

Web Design Trends 2012

In order to follow and implement Web Design Trends 2012, learning new languages like CSS3 and html5 has become crucial – especially also due to the unfortunate conflicts around Flash which cannot be seen on the exploding mobile market. Accordingly, this weekend’s fully online YCADEMY Seminar will need focused attention and strong nerves! That’s the price to pay to be and remain a qualified Semiomantics expert!

MadMax is ready – are YOU?!

Responsive Themes for WordPress

Responsive Websites become a must in 2012. This tutorial demonstrates how to make your WordPress Theme Responsive.

In very simple terms: Responsive Web Design aims to display content adapted to the visitors screen size. This means namely that the layout width must be fluid, i.e. expressed as a percentage of the width of the screen, typefaces expressed in em and images must be scalable.

Responsive WordPress Theme XO by Semiomantics

Practically speaking: a responsive designs can be viewed on a smart-phone or on a large PC screen, the display will always be the same and adapted to the size of the screen or browser window. n stead of using multiple style-sheets for different screen sizes, designers use Media Queries which allow to create multiple layouts using the same content. To achieve scalability, CSS media queries, such as min-width or orientation are used.

A quick and easy way consists in creating a child theme; this allows you to upgrade your theme as the case may be without altering your customizations.

1. Create a new folder in your wp-content/themes folder and name it anything you like; for the purpose of this exercise I call it “responsive”

2. Create a style sheet in your new Child Theme folder (call it styles.css).

3. Suppose your main theme is called “wptheme”; paste the following into style.css

 /*
 Theme Name: wptheme Child
 Theme URI: http://www.yourdomain.com/
 Description: Child theme for wptheme
 Author: Your Name
 Author URI: http://www.yourdomain.com
 Template: wptheme
 Version:1.0
 */

The only line you really need to respect is Template:wptheme; this line refers to the parent theme folder.

4. Import the parent themes style-sheet by adding now the following line to your new style.css:

@import url(“../wptheme/style.css”);

5. Define the screen sizes you design for. (Smart-phones, tablets, PC) To test the result we just create different h1 color values for the different screen sizes:

@media screen and (max-width:320px)
{
h1 {
color: #ff0000;
}
}
@media screen and (min-width:321px) and (max-width:768px)
{
h1 {
color:#00FF00;
}
}
@media screen and (min-width:769px)
{
h1 {
color: #0000FF;
}
}

Having set these basic parameters, you can now apply styles and layout values to taste, such as vertical navigation display on small screens.

To make images responsive we will need to take some WordPress specifics into account and there fore we will intervene with CSS3 and Media Queries and modify styles.css and functions.php of our theme.

Add the following to your style-sheet to make images scalable:

img{max-width: 100%;}
img{ -ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic; }

Now the images will be re-sized to fit horizontally, while the vertical scaling is still defined by WordPress. We need to remove WordPress image height and width values to scale our images proportionally.

In WP, image classes come with a with and height properties; we delete these properties like so:

change in your WP editor:

<img class=”imgclass” src=”../images/imagethumb.jpg” alt=”” width=”100″ height=”100″ />

to this:

< img class=”imgclass” src=”../images/imagethumb.jpg” alt=”” />

This will work for your post and page images, however not for the images created by WP dynamically, such as post thumbnails. We need to delete with and height properties dynamically with a function.

Add to functions.php:

function remove_wp_width_height($string){
return preg_replace(‘/\/i’, ”,$string);
}

Now you need to make a final modification in your template and replace:

the_post_thumbnail();

with the following:

echo remove_wp_width_height(get_the_post_thumbnail(get_the_ID(),’large’));

That’s all!

Hopefully the above will help you to do additional customization wok and as the case may be, to adapt your great themes to the requirements of 2012 Web Design.

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WP Best Business Theme Home Page

Once the WP Best business Theme selected and the layout defined we can now add our content to structure the home page in a compelling, informative and visually attractive way.

The WP Best Home Page Page Structure

At the top we find a traditional header banner with the Brand name (or and Logo) in defined fonts and colors.

wp-best_450×50Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

WP Best Theme Header Banner

On the top right we keep a short menu, making it easy to navigate to the main sections of the site:

menuMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

WP Best Theme Menu

The choice of the menu links is function of the purpose of the site. Considering that the page will serve as a business landing page for visitors from Social Networks, Facebook for example, we provide a profile page (About), a Contact Form, a link to the shop where products can be purchased as well as a link to the blog section (WP Best).

Thereafter we welcome our visitors in a rather personal way. We want to show that the success of our business is based on personal relations and a personalized approach to the management of each customer’s project. Discussion is needed to tune and to semantically optimize each website for best results and customer satisfaction.

The Semiomantics Signature stands for custom built web sites and the care we take to bring each project to fruition.

featured-wp-bestMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

WP Best Home Page Slider

After the welcome you find a content slider which I use for large images and a short legend underneath each image. The idea is to show some of the work delivered and to hopefully create empathy. In the case of websites it’s relatively easy as most visitors are first attracted by the look of a site. The presentation of websites with different looks or functions is an efficient way to give visitors a first, preferably good impression of our work. On WP Best Business Theme Home Page I use screen-shots of websites I have built.

The links underneath the images lead to more information, more images of work accomplished and a link to the shop, where corresponding products can be purchased.

To the right of the slider we put a banner, representing a visual branding element we use over and over again, wherever we are able to leave a trace online, for example in social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. The dominant branding throughout all places will make visitors feel comfortable as they recognize the branding element and are assured that they are following the link they wanted to follow. For the time being no link is associated with that banner, however it will be associated to a custom product category in the store.

The third section of the page is a list of Services we provide; the entries link to more information and as the case may be from there to the shop and contact form.

WP-Best-ServicesMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

WP Best Theme Home Page Services

To the right of the service section we use a sidebar widget to allow visitors to also hook up with us on social networks:

socialMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Social Widget on WP Best Home Page

The WP Best Business Theme Footer Section contains 3 widgets:

• Latest Posts
• RSS and Email subscription handled by Feedburner
• Flickr Photo-stream

These can be adapted according to needs but for the time being, I just keep them this way. The Flickr stream concerns a series of fun Ads I created for different purposes and constitute a good way to link to the flickr community.

wp-best-footerMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

WP Best Business Theme Footer

The WP Best Home Page strong points

The page is not overloaded with information. When opening the page, the visitor is mainly exposed to a very short text and attracted by the visual elements for a fast informative first impression. No need for complicated searching for content: the top menu and the service section allow to quickly navigate to the desired section of the site. I like the page for its clear structure, the dominating visual elements and the user-friendly navigation.

I would appreciate your comments.

Look out for the detailed content in the services and in the about sections.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics

Here’s today’s example of TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics XO 2011 (soon to be updated to XO 2012):

Earlier today, I wrote a small article for Monkey Valley Resort on “Best Tapas in Cape Town” as that’s what Darren Byrne from Thorfynn’s Restaurant at Monkey Valley Resort wanted a photo of on a hot Saturday afternoon yesterday.

While his interest is that a maximum of people see the News and visit his restaurant, my goal as a web designer is to ensure the message I put out on the Monkey Valley Resort Website reaches Google Top 10 – meaning a maximum of traffic and visitors to the website. Here’s the resultrank 7 out of 709,000 search returns and climbing! Ammmazing – Ole!

TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics

A day earlier, I prepared the brand-new menu en al for “Best Valentine’s Dinner Cape Town” on 14th February 2012 at Thorfynn’s Restaurant HERE and – lo and behold – captured position 5 within a few minutes… and -as I just tested – am holding it to this moment without further intervention or support – see the screenshot here (click on it to enlarge it):

Best Web Design South Africa on Semiomantics

And to end this post, the day before I followed a request by Monkey Valley Resort founder Judy Sole to promote ‘a bit more beach’ – and did a simple article “Visit Noordhoek Beach”. This post just shot up to spots 1 and 2 on Google Top 10 :

…and as I saw just now, after 2 days, it has captured even spot 3!

No doubt: Monkey Valley Resort has chosen simply the Best Web Design South Africa on Semiomantics – high SEO optimization, a captivating design and high functionality! Unbeatable and proven on a daily basis!

And as the Internet becomes increasingly sophisticated… quality counts!

Trendwise with Semiomantics XO2012

In a world of infinite choice, we all have our personal preferences when it comes to creating the Web Design for our personal websites and blogs – and this is exactly what many of our customers will tell us, especially if they have a business with set colors, fonts and logos. Of course, there are also those who haven’t thought about this issue, who may not want to be bothered with it (as this takes ample time and thought) and who expect us to suggest, advise and guide. This is where we should know and focus on current trends, put our personal priorities on the backseat, and design something fresh, modern and appealing where we are absolutely “Trendwise with Semiomantics XO2012″, which is currently going through a testing phase and will soon be released.

Most importantly, we need to think forward to adapt to the incredible developments and momentum on the mobile web: can people see our web design work on their iphones, smart phones and tablets? This is currently the driving power behind many decisions and as we want our customers to get the traffic and results they expect, this is what we need to focus on and ensure that they too see the advantages of certain essentials they might not initially agree with.

It’s all about functionality and thinking customerwise: let them see what your website is all about fast and in an attractive way, make navigation clear, quick and easy like a dynamic show. And let there be balance!

Trendwise with Semiomantics XO2012

With the new trends 2012 having been set, how can we at Web Design South Africa be trendwise with Semiomantics XO2012, the best WordPress based script to be released soon, and give our website or blog a New Look 2012?

How to give your Author Blog a Trend 2012 Look

Here are a few pointers as to how to give your Author Blog a Trend 2012 Look:

1. Color Trend 2012

I already wrote about the Color Trend 2012 HERE.

To repeat it quickly, the color of the year 2012 is a warm orangy red called “Tangerine Tango”.  It’s not too far off the color I am always using in my personal color scheme that marks “Web Design with Passion”. However, there are other trendy colors like ‘solar power’ and the ‘sodalite blue’ I used in my example above, in connection with ‘tangerine tango’.

Here you want to think of backgrounds, fonts, menu, graphics, links, hover effects etc. – however, don’t overdo it when setting it off against another shade or complementary color. What I learned in Typography many years ago with one of Europe’s two leading authorities in the field and a true friend, Professor Tuenn Konerding (Staatliche Kunstakademie Duesseldorf, Germany), still applies today: experiment massively… but then reduce, keep it simple, don’t use more than 2… maximum 3 colors.

I wish I had a better photo – but I am happy I can call at least this one up – for an extraordinary mind and spirit that left our planet far too early…

Interesting also the trend towards one-page websites and a comeback of the magazine theme (full layout Semiomantics XO). Of course, Apple-style layouts are still en vogue as they are a modern classic and simply good.

2.  Typography 2012

The focus is on bold letters and custom fonts that can easily be read on mobile phones. Interesting here the Google Font Library that can be added in form of a plugin and loads fast while making the look of the website more appealing.

Textures, shades and reflections are ‘in’ as well…

 3. Large High Quality Images

Less text but large, high quality images – meaning all forms of sophisticated Media Design – be it photos, graphics, videos… – especially for backgrounds but also for graphics, sliders (we will come to these) and whatever you integrate into your Website Design to attract and captivate.The use of light or shadow boxes – where pictures can be enlarged in an overlay-  is very much in the trend.

Actually, we have been ahead of this trend with Semiomantics XO 2011 already, and particularly with our comprehensive work on Evolution, my personal favorite… yet unfortunately on Flash which is currently not seen on mobile phones due to power plays between the ‘big boyz’ … but this too shall change one day once even they get it that ‘competition’ is out and ‘cooperation’ is in to save our planet – and this is NOT a trend but a Truth! Ask Steve on Cloud!

Meanwhile Evolution will… well, evolve!

4. Sliders are en vogue

And yet another feature where Semiomantics has been well ahead of the trend: sliders are en vogue! Besides that, in my view they are brilliant, practical, interactive, attractive, seen on the mobile web and add to the functionality of a website. At tleast the ones we use – they do come at a cost, but it’s well worth it – quality always had its price!

5. Connect to Social Networks

Finally, websites and blogs need to offer easy ways – meant are rather ‘loud’ icons (… I leave this to your personal taste…) – to interlink and connect to Social Networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google + etc. Today, people look out where they can connect, follow, share and register … and so the cybernet expands continuously and I sometimes wonder what all of this really means at the end of the day and for our environment! But that’s a topic for another day!

For now… let’s be aware of current trends and advise customers accordingly… there’s lots to play with!

Best WP Solution

What is the best WP Solution for Business and Individuals? WordPress is flexible enough to satisfy most any individual need, provided you are hiring a professional website developer. Semiomantics has been working on WP Custom Solutions since 2007 and acquired huge knowledge namely in the fields of optimization and development of feature rich custom solutions.

Best WP Solution for Small Business and Individuals

Home Business, Freelancers, Consultants, Individuals selling services or goods online need an efficient, captivating and highly visible online presence. Quality Web Design, a solid back-bone allowing for content management (CMS) and built in optimization hooks and features are a must in today’s highly competitive market.

WordPress provides a platform which has developed over time to an ideal base for web site development for most any purpose.

The Best WP custom websites are built when customers meet with professional developers and designers to realize custom tailored projects.

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Best WP Solution

How to build the best WP Website?

I will show in a few posts, how a custom website project can be realized, taking into account the typical needs of a small business.

The case study is based on the assumption that an individual would like to sell services and or products online.

The purpose of this series of posts is to allow you to become aware of the choices you have, the problems to consider and to enable you to have a more efficient discussion with your designer and developer when working on the project and its implementation.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Build your Professional WP Shop

The Ycademy January 2010 seminar will focus on building a professional high performance shop based on a WordPress backbone. The flexible shop is based on a licensed eShop script, modified and tuned by Semiomantics.

Ycademy Online Seminar January 2010 Profile

The Online Seminar will take place on January 23 and 24, 2010.

We will start on Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm GMT (London Time) and finish at 9 pm GMT; short breaks as usual and a 1 hour lunch or dinner break at 6 pm GMT.

Materials: all materials are provided.

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Semiomantics WP eShop YORGOO

Semiomantics WP eShop

The Semiomantics eShop is the most recent Semiomantics development. The Semiomantics eShop will shortly be available to to Semiomantics customers at a price of $500, including licensed scripts, configuration, set-up, basic customization and a walk-through.

Semiomantics WP eShop Features

Here’s a short summary..

• Usability

  One of the reason it took us long time to complete the backend of the e-commerce themes is, usability. We studied best practices of building e-commerce websites, studied lots of successful online eShops and brainstormed some of the key pages and functionality that may impact the sales process that your customer goes through. We reduced the steps of the process, restructured the purchase experience, debated on the small elements such as button / text / colors / notifications etc., finally concluding our base e-commerce theme to be one of the very easiest to use and best performing purchase experiences so far.

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  Semiomantics WP eShop Pink

• Different modes of Shopping Cart

  You may sell anything – tangible or intangible using Semiomantics eShop. You have an option to create your website in any mode:

  • Shopping Cart

    Like the standard shopping cart that you see on other e-commerce websites. You may choose to have “add to cart” mode and let the users add all the items they want and then lead them to checkout or, you can have “buy now” mode and take them straight to checkout when they select a product.

  • Digital Shop

    If you are selling digital product of any kind, this is a perfect option for you. Are you selling icons, digital art, PDF, e-books, scripts or any other kind of digital goodies? Select this option and when a user makes a purchase, they will have an account generated at your site and they can download their purchase any time. You don’t have
    to worry about third party digital delivery sites.

  • Catalog mode

    Maybe you only want to showcase your items and don’t want to sell it online? Simply choose this mode and you will have “send inquiry” button instead of buy now / add to cart. Visitors thus, can send an inquiry on the products they like.

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    Semiomantics WP eShop Blue

• Manage Products

  Add / Edit / Delete products are as easy as you create a wordpress blog post. You have a custom panel where-in you can edit the product description, different parameters, upload product images etc. real easy.

• Order Management

  Depending upon the settings from your admin panel, you can manage the order – approve, process or cancel / reject an order.

• Shipping Options

  As an admin, you can choose Free, Flat rate; Weight or Price based shipping option for your eShop. What’s more you can even set free shipping for particular items in case you’ve set other option for your eShop.

• Multiple Payment Gateways

  You have PayPal, Autorize.net, Google Checkout, WorldPay, bank transfer and Cash on Delivery as payment gateway options. Choose the gateway you prefer.

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  Semiomantics WP eShop Green

• Manage Tax

  You may specify overall tax percentage that applies to all your products and, you may choose to leave individual products tax fre.

• Grid view / List view

  Whenever you are browsing the product collection, you have an option to see the products in list view or grid view. It’s built-in by default.

• Guest Checkout

  Wish to provide an option to your users to checkout without registration? No problems. Simply activate the guest checkout option from theme admin panel and your buyers will not to register. They simply provide their email address and we create the logins for them. If admin wants, they can choose to send/not send their logins to them.

• User registration

  Users may register on your site or, they will be taken to registration page on the checkout procedure. They will have their own user area where they can keep track of their order, manage profile and download purchased digital products.

• Bulk Upload ( csv )

  Using another shopping cart solution for your eShop and want to switch to our eShop themes? No worries. You can export your data from there in .csv files and import it in your wordpress installation when you use our Semiomantics eShop themes. (sample .csv file included with the theme)

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  Semiomantics WP eShop Yellow

• Coupon codes

  Admin can generate coupon codes for occasional sales promotion.

• Product Images

  Built in multiple product image upload. Uploaded images are auto re-sized to fit various thumbnails required throughout the site. Also the product zoom functionality is built it.

• Other parameters

  Specifying Tax, weight,
  color(s), size(s) are easy. Also you may specify different prices for different size/colors just in case.

• Specify product size(s), color(s), and other miscellaneous features

  You may specify Size chart if applied, When viewing a product Similar Products are automatically displayed, Several additional custom widgets are built in such as customer support, Subscribe, socialize, promo banners etc. that you can use for your eShop website.

• Affiliate Module

  As an admin, you may choose to activate affiliate program where your customers/others can signup as an affiliate partner and start promoting your products. They will be able to track their affiliate data in real time, and as an admin, you will be able to export/check affiliate reports easily. A great way to boost your sales.

• Blog

  Of course the themes come with a Semiomantics blog, pages etc. functionality with some page templates so you can have a high performance blog for your website.

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  Semiomantics WP eShop YORGOO

Seminar Tickets and Limited number of Participants

Seminar Participants test the Semiomantics eShop when purchasing the Seminar Ticket. We have set up a demo store which will let you have the same shopping and check-out experience as your future customers.

Ticket cost: $65.00

Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pro.

Limited number of Participants

The Seminar will only be available to 10 participants, priority is given to participants of the December Seminar. Please check for availability with Bianca (bianca(at)ycademy.com).

Includes:

Each participant will receive a special site edition of the new Semiomantics eShop script licensed for a single personal site. The total value of the licenses (third party and Semiomantics) is of $250. The shop value, after the seminar is of $500, the price at which Semiomantics is selling its new eShop. The Seminar is sponsored by YORGOO and Ycademy to allow participants to access high performance software at the most affordable rate.

Registration

Please register from HERE

User Firefox browser rather than IE to register, thanks!

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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