I saw a tweet from Jason Schuller a few days ago where he announced a new Lifestreaming WordPress theme being released called “Social Life”. He included an image of the theme which I’ve provided below:
If Jason’s name seems familiar it’s because I’ve written about him several times. He designs premium WordPress themes over at Press75.com and last year released a free Lifestreaming theme. He also recently updated his personal Lifestream.
Jason let me today that he was finishing up documentation and the demo for the theme. It looks like another nice addition to the ever-growing list of Lifestreaming WordPress themes. I’m looking forward to this latest release and I’ll keep you posted on when it drops.
UPDATE 1/12
Jason has released a live demo of the theme that you can now see here. Along with the live demo he also posted an image of the admin options for the theme here.
After playing with it for a little I’m very impressed. This offers a very nice navigation experience and I like the segregation and ability to filter by content type. The way blog posts are presented as you drill down through the menu is also very cool. I’m also usually not a fan of fluid width designs but this theme does a nice great job of dynamically going to 2 column instead of a single one on my 1920 px width display. If I had to complain about anything it would be that I’d prefer a lightbox effect for the photos & videos to keep the user on the site instead of navigating away. Overall though this is an awesome addition to WordPress Lifestreaming themes and I’m eyeballing using it myself.
Update 1/20
The theme is now available. It costs $75 and you can get more details on it here. Below is a screencast created for the theme
Note there are many Lifestreaming themes available for WordPress and I’ve provided a list of all of them here.
seems interesting
Social Life looks awesome. Can't wait for the release.
This looks great! I've been wanting to convert my lifestream (http://coryobrien.com/) into something that gives different weights to different types of content (more room for photos, less for links for example) and this looks to do just that. Hopefully it's expandable as well so that it can easily handle new services, because if so, I may just find myself switching soon.
[…] Sneak Peek at Soon to be Released Social Life WordPress Theme | Lifestream Blog […]
The Ultimate Entrepreneur & Small Business Toolbox | Sean M Everett
Julian Seery Gude
Posted on November 29th, 2010
These hundreds of links are the culmination of years spent on the web researching, reading, and saving the absolute best of the best resources for anyone looking to start or grow a business, whether that’s freelancing, building an app, or selling a product/service.
The topics covered are as follows: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, Web Design, SEO, Social Media, Advertising, Analytics, WordPress, Data Visualization, Videos, Negotiation, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pitching, iPhone Development, PR, Blogging, Photoshop, Pricing, Icons, Usability, Email Campaign, Textures, Landing Page, User Interfaces, Web App Building, A/B Testing, Logo, and Internet Marketing.
I’m going to stop right here and tell you to start using Instapaper (on the web, your iPhone, and even your Kindle), and creating “subject†folders to manage all your intellectual capital. If you already have Instapaper, then it’s as easy as following each of these links, then clicking the “Read Later†button you installed to your browser. Or, you could just bookmark this post!
UPDATE: if you don’t have an instapaper account and are not logged in, y ou will not be able to use these links. If you want something super portable, here is my entire download-able account (an HTML file, which you can either follow the link to or right click and ‘Save As’):
seanMeverett Ultimate Entrepreneurship & Small Business Toolbox
Web Design
Even if you’re not a web designer, understanding the tiny details that separate good from great design can make all the difference in the world when it comes to increasing your sales. How often have you left a website because it was too confusing or how often have you stuck around on another website because it was visually appealing and did things you’d never seen before? When all it takes is a split second for someone to get distracted on the web, can you afford not to practice good design principles?
Designing for Visibility: Redirect URL Mapping | iCrossing Digital Marketing Blog, Search Engine Advertising Blog: iCrossing
Forget About Photoshop: 5 More Ways to Stop Using Images in Your Designs – Cherrysave
Say NO to boring sidebars! « CreativityDen
Newsletter Design: 50+ Great Examples | designrfix.com
Design Proposal Software | Web Design Proposal Software | Bidsketch
Web forms design guidelines: an eyetracking study | cxpartners
25 Awesome Tools for Choosing a Website Color Scheme | Design Shack
15 Tips for Designing Terrific Tables | Design Shack
20 (More) Daily Sources for Design and Dev News, Tips & Tricks | Inspired Magazine
Convert PSD to WordPress with Divine. Convert Photoshop to WordPress theme
30-handy-blank-templates-for-designers
Resources – Places to Sell Your Designs Online For Extra Income | Think Design
20+ Must have documents for Designers and Developers | Creative Repository
Radial Pack – 50 Elements (Vectors & Brushes) « Media Militia
Designing “Coming Soon†Pages – Smashing Magazine
Applying Mathematics To Web Design – Smashing Magazine
50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files – Smashing Magazine
Free Apple iPad Icon Set for Your Website Designs
25 Color Combination Tools for Designers | Pro Blog Design
Mockingbird | Wireframes on the fly
MediaLoot Blog
The Best of Error 404 Pages | Web Design Tutorials | Creating a Website | Learn Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver
90 Creative Coming Soon Page Designs and Resources | Showcases | instantShift
10-completely-free-wireframe-and-mockup-applications
Adding Depth with Pixel Perfect Line Work | Web Design Ledger
Free vector logos | Logo Design Love
30 Amazing Web Design Interfaces From DeviantArt | Web Design Tutorials | Creating a Website | Learn Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver
30 Website Navigations that Make You Wanna Click It | Web Design Ledger
Interface Design Inspiration | 30 Impressive Ways to Design Sign-Up Page/Form | Dzine Blog
83 Crazy/Beautiful Letterhead and Logo Designs
50 Best Web Design Blog Posts In 2009 | Web Design Tutorials | Creating a Website | Learn Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver
50 Useful Tools and Generators for Easy CSS Development : Speckyboy Design Magazine
20 Design Features That Will Make Your Blog Stand Out From The Crowd! | Make Money Online
The Most Important Design Real Estate on Your Site | Inspired Magazine
Browser Size
How to Design a Print-Ready Flier with Photoshop and Illustrator | Psdtuts+
60 Best Icon Sets From 2009 | Creative Nerds
Breakdown of Great Web App Homepage Design – Inspect Element
Why Your Next Website Should be Designed with Wireframes | Build Internet!
20 Beautiful Website Design Tutorials
Visual Hierarchy: How Well Does Your Design Communicate? | Van SEO Design
10 Social Bookmarking Websites for Non-Stop Visual Inspiration | Inspired Magazine
Showcase of Excerpts in Blog Design | Vandelay Design Blog
App Sites – Showcase of great iPhone & Mac app websites
35 Websites that use transparency effectively « CreativityDen
50 Beautiful Free Icon Sets For Your Next Design
Styling HTML Lists with CSS: Techniques and Resources – Smashing Magazine
A Collection of Useful Web Design Wireframing Resources : Speckyboy Design Magazine
Design View / Andy Rutledge – Where Wireframes Are Concerned
The Smashing Book Is Released: Buy Now!
Tips For Designing An Awesome Site For Your iPhone Apps
A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks
TechCrunch Homepage Design Gets Deconstructed By ZURB
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you read any of these links on SEO, you’ll quickly realize that I’m definitely NOT performing best practice adding all these links to my website (which I’m not “no followingâ€). Thus, I’m giving this website’s “authority†to all these wonderful blogs and authors because I truly value their content. Not to mention the fact that Google and the other search engine’s are probably going to flag my site as a “link farmâ€. Oh well, it’s not always about link building. Sometimes it’s about giving credit where credit’s due.
WordPress Tip: Remove nofollow Attributes from Post Content | Digging into WordPress
Bing – Toolbox
How Web Video SEO is Finally Coming of Age
New Image SEO tool
SEOmoz | Senior Marketers Need Greater Accountability
Link building case study
Meaningful SEO metrics and where to find them | Analytics Advice
10 Goals For Link Building Campaigns: Moving Beyond “Get More Linksâ€
Code Snippets To Implement 301 Redirect – woorkup.com
WordPress SEO: The Only Guide You Need
SEOmoz | 30 SEO Bookmarklets to Save You Time
10 Professional Development Tips to Boost Your SEO Career
small-business-seo-search-engine-submission-scam
WordCamp Atlanta 2010 Advanced SEO for WordPress
Keyword research and mapping | SEO Chicks
SEOmoz | Keyword Targeting: How to Employ Multiple Keywords for SEO & Conversions
Get More Traffic: an SEO Guide for WordPress | WPblogger
Microsoft SEO toolkit (and two other resources) — Explicitly Me – Rishi Lakhani’s Home on the Web
Peer Review: SEO Best Practices for Duplicate Content
12 Ways to Improve PPC Landing Page Conversion Rates – by Christine Churchill
SEO 101 Common Mistakes
SEO 101: Everything You Need to Know About SEO (But Were Afraid to Ask) – Part 1 – Search Engine Guide Blog
SEOmoz | Whiteboard Friday – Domain Authority & Page Authority Metrics
30 Black Hat SEO Techniques You Can Use Ethically | SEOptimise
How to Build Links Fast: 101 Tips & Strategies | SEO Book.com
Justin Freid – SEO and Social Media Marketing
SEOmoz | 11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons Learned in 2009 (and annual moz traffic stats)
SEOmoz | Peer Review – SEO Best Practices; Title Tags, URLs and External Links
Huge List of Over 250 Social Media Websites | Graphic SEO Free SEO Tutorials
SEOmoz | 7 Ways to Use the Web Developer Toolbar for SEO
How to Use Feedburner for SEO
Increase Search Engine Traffic
Affordable Backlinking Packages and SEO Services CompeteSEO | ShoeMoney Marketplace
Link Building Trends For 2010
The Little Known Secret to Getting Page 1 Google Rankings : Marketing :: American Express OPEN Forum
Your Free SEO Book Tool Suite
Blog – SEO Link Wheelers | Link wheel backlinks
SEO Basics – a knol by aaron wall
Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool: Monetize The Long Tail of Search | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
SEOmoz | The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet
linkable-asset-inventory-a-starting-point-for-new-link-building-campaigns-31574
My Link Baiting Idea Generation Process | Wiep.net
Let’s Try to Find All 200 Parameters in Google Algorithm | Search Engine Journal
Search Engine Ranking Factors | SEOmoz
Search-based keyword tool
Seven sensational SEO tips for ecommerce sites | Blog | Econsultancy
20 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
Official Google Blog: The top ten ways to get your business ready for the holidays
SEO is dead, long live SEO | Blog | Econsultancy
Search Engine Optimization Services: Top 5 Reasons – Online Marketing Blog
Social Media
The most over-used term in 2009 is back for more in 2010. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumble, Reddit, FriendFeed, and…the…list…keeps…going. Fortunately, these links represent those posts that have risen to the top of the over-written and reported pile.
7 Ways Posterous Improves Your Social Media Presence | Social Media Examiner
Social Media Today | Max Your Brand With 4 Social Media Optimization Tips
Practical Social Media Measurement: Awareness, Attention, Reach | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding
Article:: New Chart: What Social Metrics are Organizations Monitoring and Measuring?
Laying Out A Framework for Social Media Strategy « Social Media Musings by Tom Humbarger
What’s Working for Social Media Marketers?
20 Amazing social media blogs that you may not have heard of
Social Media Power Profiles: Is Google In Your Mix?
Social Media Secrets and Resources Revealed – ReadWriteStart
How to: Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic
Great video showing ROI on social media
The Maturation of Social Media ROI
How To Measure Social Media ROI | DreamGrow Social Media
MarketingProfs Store: The State of Social Media Marketing
The Medium Is No Longer The Message, . . . You Are
5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
HOW TO: Make Social Media Work for Non-Consumer Brands
Showing CPGs How to Socialize
Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses
free-science-of-social-media-marketing-webinar.html
35 Must-Read Articles for Social Media Marketers | Traffikd
Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report
Online Advertising
Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. It’s called arbitrage.
MIT Study Debunks Online Ad Advantages
Bad news for creatives: Ad quality does not dictate sales | Blog | Econsultancy
Are Microsoft Users More Gullible When It Comes To Online Advertising?
Ad Avoidance Up
iPhone analytics, iPhone apps, iPhone advertising: Mobclix | How to Increase Your Advertising Revenue
Analytics
A subject close to my heart. The more numbers the better. The problem lies in mis-interpreting the data or over-analyzing to the point of creating optimization bias. We’re also building an analytics web app that’s going to finally bridge the gap between on-site and off-site analytics, something never done before. Read a bit more about it at Evolyte Analytics.
Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics – Guest Post by Eric Ries
ClickHeat | Clicks heatmap
Using Click Heatmaps to Understand Your Viewers | Tutorial9
A First Look at Some Metrics Numbers
3 New Ways to Measure the Social Web
DAYTUM
The Google Analytics Cheatsheet | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing
Google Analytics Hack For Export All Your Keywords | SEO Addicted
Free Web Analytics Books: Web Analytics Demystified and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators | Web Analytics Demystified
Social media analytics
Bringing Enterprise Analytics to WordPress
Defining A Web Analytics Strategy: A Manifesto | John Lovett at Web Analytics Demystified
HOW TO: Track Social Media Analytics
Social Media Metrics Superlist: Measurement, ROI, & Key Statistics Resources
SEOmoz | How To Get Past Last-Touch Attribution With Google Analytics
Track Social Media Engagement for Any Website With PostRank
µStat – Website value calculator, SEO and traffic estimator
Ad.ly Launches Analytics For Sponsored Tweets
ClickTale | Web Analytics by ClickTale | Visitor Movies, Heatmaps & Form Analytics
Eureqa | Cornell Computational Synthesis Laboratory
Machine Learning with Quantum Algorithms
Searching for Benchmark
WordPress
Easy to use and infinitely customizable. This site is built on it, you should probably have a couple built on it too.
15 Resources for Setting Up an E-Commerce Site with WordPress – DesignM.ag
10-new-wordpress-wanted-hacks-and-powerful-techniques.html
The 15 Best WordPress Plugins to Use in 2010
7 Superb Social Plugins for WordPress
Theme switch and preview plugin
Digital Goodies Shopping Guide #2 – 25 New WordPress Themes, Under Construction Templates & Domain Names | Inspired Magazine
55+ Most Wanted WordPress Tips, Tricks, and Hacks
best-wordpress-themes-2009
How to Speed up WordPress
31 Rare WordPress Themes | TutZone
Sneak Peek at Soon to be Released Social Life WordPress Theme | Lifestream Blog
29 Free WordPress Themes That Kick Ass « Beyond Random
Press75.com | Professional WordPress Themes by Jason Schuller
For Your Clients: How to Use WordPress
8 Great Blogs All About WordPress « The Communications Strategist
Free WordPress Themes and WordPress Tutorials at Theme Lab
Do it yourself: 12 WordPress Solutions Without Using Plugins- WebAnthology.net
WordPress 2.9 Upgrade And Simple Tags Solution
Best WordPress Tutorials of 2009
My 45 must have WordPress plugins. Any to add to the list? — A View from the Isle
Add Chat and Drag & Drop Sharing to Your Site With Meebo Bar
10 Outstanding Corporate WordPress Themes for Freelancers and Small Business Owners | Inspired Magazine
Use WordPress to Create Amazing Sites – WordPress Arena
The Coolest Blogazine WordPress Themes of 2009 | Inspired Magazine
WordPress Themes with Unusual Uses – Web.AppStorm
Extravagant WordPress Themes & Under Construction Templates Out in September | Inspired Magazine
10 Absolutely New & Stunning Portfolio WordPress Themes for Non-Designers | Inspired Magazine
30 Fresh & Priceless WordPress Themes Out in Octomber | Inspired Magazine
Socialize, Connect, Share and Promote using Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo and Open ID
100 Premium Like But Free, Fresh WordPress Themes: Year 2009 | Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials
100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes – Smashing Magazine
10 Ways to Make WordPress More Useful : Marketing :: American Express OPEN Forum
Data Visualization
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Cool Infographics – Cool Infographics – 16 Infographic Resumes, A Visual Trend
15 Awesome Free JavaScript Charts / JavaScripts / SPLASHnology – Web Design & Web Technology Community
28 Rich Data Visualization Tools – InsideRIA
An In-Depth Look At Pivot, Microsoft’s Newest Data Visualization Tool
20 Essential Infographics & Data Visualization Blogs | Inspired Magazine
Tableau Public Brings Your Boring Data to Life – Charts – Lifehacker
Videos
YouTube didn’t blow up for nothin’ and it takes significantly less backlinks to get a better page 1 Google PageRank (i.e., SEO) than text.
animoto – the end of slideshows
TubeMogul.com | In-Depth Tracking, Analytics for Online Video | Web Video Syndication
HOW TO: Add Captions To Your YouTube Videos
10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About
9 Secrets of A Successful Online Video Social Media Marketing Strategy « Jeffbullas’s Blog
How To:: Create Product Demo Videos that Get Social Media Attention: 6 Strategies to Increase Sales
Best Screencasting Tool: CamStudio [Hive Five Followup]
Five Tips for Producing a Demo Video for Your iPhone App
Negotiation
You negotiate every day, whether you realize it or not, with your significant other, your friends, at the workplace, even with your family. Why not get a little better? The secret, in one phrase, is care…but not too much.
How to be a better negotiator | VentureBeat
You Can Negotiate Anything * Get Rich Slowly
Entrepreneurship
This is what it’s all about. Follow your dreams and change the world in a big way. Believe it or not, networking is probably the most under-appreciated yet most important aspect of entrepreneurship.
Perfection By Subtraction – The Minimum Feature Set « Steve Blank
The Ultimate List: 40 Social Networking Sites Specifically for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, and Startups
The Essential Startup Reader: 10 Lessons In Entrepreneurship
» Blog Archive » Calculate This! 100 Financial Calculators Every Entrepreneur Needs
A VC’s tips on securing seed and series A financing
Top Ten VC Firm Websites By Traffic
The Venture Hacks StartupList Helps Fledgling Startups Pitch Top Angel Investors
Platforms and Networks: A Compilation of the Web’s Best Advice for Entrepreneurs
Bizmore Adds A Blog Network To Go After The Small Business Reader
Twitter
I love twitter. Seriously. And the reason I love it is two-fold. First, you can steepen your learning curve on any subject faster than any other method, and second, because I love sharing interesting things with others (hence the reason this post is ridiculously long with links). If you’re interested in keeping up with links like these, you should follow me on twitter here: @seanMeverett
Rails Template: Create a Twitter Application in Seconds – Intridea Company Blog
This Weeks Twitter Design News Roundup N.20 – Speckyboy Design Magazine
The Best of Twitter 2009: Graphic Design Edition
15 Free Services to Schedule Tweets on Twitter
HOW TO: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace
Twitter Cheat Sheet.pdf on iPaper By Scribd – powered by Box.net
12 best tools to raise your Twitter profile | News | TechRadar UK
How to Place the TweetMeme Button Directly Into Your WordPress Blog | Anthony Licari
New Twitter Client for Mac Packs a Powerful Punch
Twitter Comes To Pearltrees, The Visual Social System
Follow the Tweets – Business Insight – Wall Street Journal / MIT Sloan – MIT Sloan Management Review
35 Web Analytics & Internet Marketing Experts You Should Be Following (on Twitter)
How @Flipbooks Hit 80,000 RTs : TruAction Flipbooks – marketing, event and tradeshow promotion
HOW TO: Start and Run a Successful Twitter Chat
Facebook
Ah, the bane of my existence. Where Farmville and Mafia Wars updates continually spam my feed, and people who think they’re sarcastically witty start their status updates with “Dear ___â€, followed by unoriginal dribble or upload risque pics like they’re still on MySpace. I’m not mad at you though, just keep uploading pictures of your cats and we’ll be kosher.
New Study Reveals Facebook Better Than Twitter for Marketers | Social Media Examiner
How To Create An Incentive For Visitors To Fan Your Facebook Page (Day 17) – Social media and inbound marketing for non-profits
NutshellMail Lets Users Create Simple Email Newsletters For Facebook Fan Pages
Facebook Fan Pages « ShoeMoney System
Facebook Marketing: Everything You Need to Know | Social Media Examiner
Facebook Guide Book: Mashable Launches Hub for Facebook Resources
Ten Steps for Creating a FANtastic Facebook Fan Page : MarketingProfs
How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans
The 4 Types of Branded Facebook Campaigns
What Do Seniors Do Online? Visit Facebook and YouTube, of Course [STATS]
Apple Brings iTunes Gift Cards To Its Facebook Fans, With Help From GroupCard
LinkedIn
Yah, I know, not much content. I do have a few videos, however, that I can’t share due to copyright constraints.
8 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group
Pitching
If you’ve never given a presentation, or if you plan to ask a VC or Angel Investor for a bit of cash flow, then you should take a look at the link below. I’d also recommend searching for Dragon’s Den on YouTube, which is somewhat similar to the American Idle concept, but replaces singers with entrepreneurs and Simon, Paula, and Randy with VCs.
A VC’s Advice On How To Pitch VCs
17 Awesome PowerPoint & Keynote Presentation Templates – WorkAwesome
iPhone & iPad Development
Self explanatory.
The Complete iPhone Development Toolbox | iPhone.AppStorm
iPhoneFlow : iPhone Development Community Link Blog
Blogging & PR
If you don’t know what a blog is, you should probably just call it a day.
7 Simple Steps For Growing Your Blog From Scratch – SimplyZesty
Be Your Own Publicist
Photoshop
This is a graphic designer’s greatest tool. I don’t pretend to be anything of the sort, but I have been known to hack around with it from time to time.
Photoshop Cheatsheets & Our Must Know Shortcuts – slodive
Tutorial9 | Photoshop Tutorials, Photography Tuts, and Resources
Free PSD: Facebook Fanpage Template | Fuel Your Creativity
Free PSD Twitter Background Template | Fuel Your Creativity
Create a Slick and Minimalist Web Layout in Photoshop
40 Free PSD Website Templates – slodive
27-must-have-starter-kits-for-web-designers
Design an Ecommerce Website in Photoshop
Pricing
This is one of those art-and-a-science sort of things. It’s the single “easiest†way to impact your revenue (positively or negatively). Pricing is hard, especially dynamic pricing where you charge the highest price possible for each unique customer. Fortunately, a few of the guides below will help you in your quest.
dontjustrollthedice.pdf (application/pdf Object) (eBook)
Creately Blog » How much to charge for your Web App?
How to Price Your App – Learning from Basecamp
What We Can Learn About Pricing From Menu Engineers – GigaOM
Pricing Strategy, Monetization and Value Marketing Solutions for Profit & Growth – PricingWire – PricingWire – Understanding Freemium – How to Create and Grow Paying Customers
Customers are always right, except when they are wrong
Icons
You’d be surprised how many things can be represented with a simple icon, and how these basic icons can impact behavior on the web. For example, I recently reviewed a sign-up section of a landing page that asked for the typical information (name, email, address, etc). The goal was to determine a way to increase the conversion rate of folks signing up. By adding a simple lock icon with a green checkmark next to the 5 information fields, it increased the conversion rate by a staggering +50%. That. Is. Insane. Like I said, a picture’s worth a thousand words, and perception often outweighs reality.
11 Great Resources to Find Free Icons – DesignM.ag
Vector Social Media Icons
Elegant Themes Icon Pack, For Free!- Elegant Themes Blog
20 Free Payment Option Icons | The Roxor | Design blog for resources and inspiration
The Best Icon Sets for Minimal Style Web Design | Freebies
Iconfinder | Search through 122,683 icons or browse 296 icon sets
365icon.com – A Collection of The Web’s Highest Quality Free Icons
35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets – Smashing Magazine
Professional icons, web icons and stock vista icons
30 High Quality Free Icon Sets for Designer
InterfaceLIFT: Mac OS X icons (by date)
Usability
You may have never heard this term before. That’s okay, it’s a little web design specific. Think of it like the UI (user interface) of Apple’s iPhone. There was a ridiculous amount of thought and human interaction testing that went into the final design of how to actually use it. For example, most phones make you push the “menu†button, followed by navigating through a hierarchy of confusing folders in order to accomplish a task. Apple, on the other hand, transferred the most used items into apps and allowed for easy navigation throughout these apps, which included forwards/backwards arrows, consistent placing of buttons, etc. In basic terms, usability is the difference between Google’s homepage and Yahoo’s. Google’s minimalism allows you to only do one thing, search, and not get distracted by any other tasks, which is in stark contrast to Yahoo’s over-engineered homepage.
20 Fantastic Usability & Conversion Analysis Tools | Spyre Studios
Guide to Low-cost Usability Tools
Usabilla – Transparent Usability: Lean and mean testing
Usability Testing Toolkit: Resources, Articles, and Techniques – Noupe
Anybody Can Do Usability (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
Email Marketing
If you have an email account, chances are pretty high that you’ve received an HTML email asking you to sign up to something, buy something, or informing you of something. There are a few best practices to understand that produce higher conversion and sharing rates, without being obtrusive/annoying to current or potential customers.
MarketingSherpa: Email Makeover: 7 Email Optimization Tactics to Boost Revenue
Design and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul) – Smashing Magazine
How to Take Advantage of Social Media in Your Email Marketing : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum
15 Clean & Effective Email / Newsletter Designs – slodive
Small Biz Corner: Email Campaign Software
Textures
And we’re back to web design. You’ve likely seen these during your travels across the inter-web and typically represent background details on a page or the “skin†on a specific website element. For example, this site uses a simple intersecting line box design (not something that would traditionally be described as a texture, but same concept). Other concepts include a wood or stone “feelâ€. Just click through some of the links already!
7 High Resolution Stone Textures | MyInkBlog
100-free-stunning-bokeh-textures.html
100 Beautiful Free Textures – Smashing Magazine
Smashing Texture Contest Results – Smashing Magazine
Landing Pages
If you have any sort of online presence, then a landing page becomes extremely important because it is designed to push a visitor to perform some action, whether that means signing up for a newsletter or blog RSS feed, inputting contact and demographic information, or paying for a product or service. See the “A/B Testing†section below for more information on optimizing your landing page to increase conversion rates.
7 Types of Landing Page | Unbounce
Landing Page Optimization Silver Bullets – by Tim Ash
Conversion University Help
How we increased the conversion rate of Voices.com by over 400% | Conversion Rate Experts
Store That Landing Page « Grockit Blog
30+ principles to a better landing page design | Landing Page Optimization
Landing Page Templates, Review Site Templates, and Graphics Made For Internet Marketers | Landing Page Authority | Landing Page Authority
95 Fresh Examples Of Single Page Website Designs | Inspiration | instantShift
How To Build Your Own Single Page Portfolio Website
User Interfaces
Akin to usability, the UI is the more technical aspect of the wireframe/layout of buttons, navigation, etc.
Showcase of Great Web App Interfaces | Webdesigner Depot
A UI Design and Prototyping Treasure Chest | Web Design Ledger
Product Planner – View and Create User Flows, Viral Loops, and More.
A shorthand for designing UI flows – (37signals)
Web App Building
Basecamp from 37 Signals is the classic case study in how to build a web app. As an example, Gmail is a web app.
Customer Development Survey
A simple subscription billing service made just for developers | Recurly
Load Impact – Free web site load test
Make Your Web Applications Addictive 5 Lessons To Learn from Foursquare
Ruby Frameworks: What Are They And Why Should You Choose One (Which One?)
What Second Life can teach your datacenter about scaling Web apps
10 Awesome Websites That Help You Discover the Best Web Apps | Inspired Magazine
2010 02 19 the lean startup – webstock 2010
An exploration of the Basecamp Account (Upgrade/Billing) Screen
Creating a Web App from Scratch
thoughtbot : Web application development and design services
21 Tips to Decrease Website Server Load
How To: Build & Launch a Design Centric Web App | Inspired Magazine
A/B & Multivariate Testing
This type of testing is extremely important as you develop a landing page, but is also essential for your website’s design, usability, and user interface.
Conceptually, an A/B test is the most simple test you can perform. It involves changing one specific element of a web design (e.g., color of a “sign up now†button) and sending 50% of traffic to the old design and 50% of the traffic to the new design. Then, you calculate the difference in conversion rates and choose the final design based on the highest conversion rate.
Multivariate testing is just like it sounds, instead of testing two elements at one time, you test more than two. Google’s Website Optimizer allows you to do both A/B and multivariate testing somewhat easily, but also for free. Then things get really cool, because there are some services (i.e., GitHub) that allow you to optimize multiple variables in real-time so you’re constantly getting the highest conversion rate with your web design.
35 Resources for Getting the Most out of Google Website Optimizer
Anne Holland’s Which Test Won? – A/B split & Multivariate Testing Know-how for marketers
Home – genetify – GitHub
Visual Website Optimizer – World’s easiest to use A/B, Split and Multivariate testing tool
55 Google Website Optimizer Tips and Tricks | Conversion Rate Optimization
How To Segment Google Website Optimizer Tests
An Introduction to Website Split Testing
ABtests.com – Share A/B Testing Results. Improve your conversion today.
Logo
My suggestion is to hire a professional so you don’t get a cheesy, self-explanatory or ugly logo. This is the first thing a customer sees…’nuff said. Feel free to contact me and I’ll set you up with our web designer and developers, who do all our work (though not this site).
15 Top Logo Inspiration Galleries | Web Design Tutorials | Creating a Website | Learn Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Dreamweaver
Logo Design A to Z
Internet Marketing
Marketing…but on the internet! This includes things like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Pay-Per Click (PPC) advertising, Social Media, web design, branding, pricing strategy, and the list goes on. I co-founded Evolyte, which specializes in these services, feel free to contact us if you have questions about your strategy and efforts in this area.
MarketingSherpa: Six Scientifically Proven Ways to Succeed in Office Politics
The 8 Elements of Contagious Ideas | Dan Zarrella
MarketingSherpa: Multichannel Testimonial Campaign Lifts Retiree Leads 267%
Privacy: Managing the New Currency of the Social Web
From the bleeding edge: 10 must-read scientific research papers on conversion rate optimization « Wingify Conversion Optimization Blog
Attribution modelling: the value of a view | Blog | Econsultancy
DiscoveryBeat videos: The masters explain how to get your app noticed
popsugar-media-gen-y-women-trust-online-reviews-peers-more-gen-x-september-2009.jpg
10 Must-Do Marketing Tips for 2010 : Innovation :: American Express OPEN Forum
The “Good Enough†Formula for Segmenting an Existing Market | The Experience is the Product | Better product management and products
MarketingSherpa: Product Q&A Emails Get 7.5% Conversion Rate: 5 Steps to Turn Visitors into Buyers
Article:: EmailSherpa 2009 in Review: Social Sharing, Segmentation, Optimizing Autoresponders, and More
11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action
How to convert email addresses into name, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation – This is so Meta
Show Adsense Only to Search Engine Visitors | TutZone
Tracking Your Every Move on Social Media: Are You An Influencer? – Eilene Zimmerman – Selling Science – True/Slant
Search Engine Marketing Agency | Radium
Online Marketing Guides From TopRank
Learning From the Best of the Best in Online Marketing – ClickZ
Derek Perez – Call To Action; You need to have me at hello.
White Papers #1 Info Source for Tech Buyers
12 Techniques to Increase White Paper Leads | Conversion Rate Optimization & Marketing Blog | FutureNow, Inc
How To Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising & Control Costs
MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Social Marketers Preparing for the Challenges Ahead
Really smart marketing email – Chris Neumann
4 Terrific Tools for Creating Business Web Forms
Build Hot Promotions with Wildfire | Web.AppStorm
Internet Marketing Tools for SEO, Social Media & Online Public Relations by Raven
ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Tools
How To:: Improve Affiliate Performance: 5 Tips
Whew, that took a ton of time. My goal is going to keep updating this list if folks are interested. I’d love to hear your thoughts about these links (too many? too few?). Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about any of this or follow me and ask me on twitter here: @seanMeverett.
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