eLine Studio is closed today in remembrance of the terrorist attacks that occurred thirteen years ago today.
A few of my friends had perished that day… RIP Carlos Lillo, James Reilly, and Peter Nelson. You’ll live forever in our hearts.
9/11 will forever be etched in our hearts and souls… Gone but not forgotten.
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share an awesome Independence Day sale we’re running that will expire this Friday (July 4th).
Get 15% off Domain Names, cPanel Hosting, or whatever else you need for your business, blog, or family website!
Whenever you spend $25 or more, use promo code “ELINE4”
Start by going to: shop.elinestudio.com
Have an amazing and safe 4th of July!!!
I recently discovered a problem with how NextGEN PRO albums link to gallery pages (manually created pages). They’re broken and send you to a non-existing page. You know, that evil “404 Not Found” error that we all hate. Especially Google! I tried visiting the NextGEN Gallery forums and the WordPress forums, where some users were having similar issues, and of course I searched the all knowing Google. But, surprisingly, there was no solution to be found. So, I did a little old fashioned digging around on my clients website. Guess what? I found the solution! You’ll have to keep reading to learn how to fix it.
While investigating the 404 error, I noticed that every album linking to a gallery page was using a cryptic URL. You know, that default out-of-the-box address that looks something like this “www.yoursite.com/?page_id=123”.
Ahah! It’s a permalink issue! But, when I checked the permalink settings, the “Post name” permalink structure (human friendly links) was selected. As permalink troubleshooting dictates, I clicked on the “Save Changes” button to reset the settings. When that didn’t work, I saved the “Default” setting, then saved the “Post name” setting again. No dice. The 404 error is still there. So, what gives?
I then began digging a little deeper. I disabled all of the plugins except NextGEN Gallery and NextGEN PRO.
Want to take a wild guess at what happened next?
The 404 errors disappeared! The links look pretty! Unicorns are now farting rainbows! All is good in the world!
Ok, ok, not quite.
Now, the next step is to re-enable the plugins one at a time until the 404 error comes back.
The error started once I re-enabled a plugin named “404 Redirected”. Great, all I have to do is remove that plugin and everything will be resolved!
There’s a small problem though. My client needs the 404 Redirected plugin to control dead links and redirects from within the control panel.
Not all is lost… Keep reading.
The solution to the problem with how NextGEN PRO albums link to gallery pages, doesn’t reside within NextGEN Gallery or PRO. The solution can be found within the 404 Redirected plugin. Why not use the plugin to fix the problem it created in the first place?
Allow me to explain.
The 404 Redirected plugin is causing NextGEN to generate cryptic URL’s, but that same plugin can also redirect those cryptic URL’s back to friendly ones.
Get it?
Soooo… Take that ugly URL and redirect it to the pretty URL of the gallery page you created! Using a 301 permanent redirect of course. That always helps with Google.
When you encounter a problem with your WordPress install, there are some best practices to follow when troubleshooting. Before going bananas and bashing your head into a wall, follow these basic steps:
After some good old fashioned WordPress troubleshooting, I discovered that the 404 Redirected plugin conflicted with NextGEN PRO and caused it to generate broken links. But, all I had to do was create a 301 redirect from within the plugin itself to resolve the conflict.
I truly hope you found this to be helpful. Please feel free to comment below and share this post!
Is PPC good for my business… You’re probably asking yourself that very question, if you’re thinking of attracting web surfers to your website without much effort. You should know that one of the easiest and most effective advertising tools is the PPC (pay-per-click) option, an advertising model that directs traffic to websites. Personally, I’d prefer the old fashioned method of writing articles and letting the search engines do the rest of the work… Organically. But to each their own right? But, if you want to learn how PPC can help you, keep reading!
PPC works by charging the advertiser (you) a certain amount of money based on how many times an ad is clicked. This type of advertising is perfect and very effective for targeted ads. It also gives the advertiser an opportunity to test their ad without losing too much money and quickly change the ad if it doesn’t work.
To run an effective PPC campaign, you must first make sure you are not part of a site that allows “click fraud.” “Click fraud” is where a site will allow people to click on the ad, but will not follow through to your site. Imagine how much money you’d be losing? It’s pretty embarrassing too! Of course, PPC giants like Bing, Google, and Facebook will have no part of click fraud, so you can be sure all clicks your ad receives are legitimate.
Be sure you know what keywords customers use to find what you’re advertising. Keyword phrases usually consist of three words or more and clearly describe what the user is searching for. By making keywords targeted you ensure more clicks. Keep in mind that short keyword phrases tend to be expensive, so long tail keywords are the way to go.
Your ad needs to be clear on what it’s offering. This will let the consumer know they have found what they are searching for and will prompt them to click the ad. Once they do that, be sure the page they go to is relevant to what they are searching. Quite simply, your ad needs take the consumer where they want to go and make it clear they have arrived there.
So, the next time you find yourself asking “is PPC good for my business” remember that PPC advertising is huge, and can provide you with a quick, effective, cost-efficient way to advertise your service or product.
You have a business you want to grow. You already have a few clients that you spend a lot of time with, so they can grow. After all that’s your job right? But, you find that their business is growing and yours isn’t. So, how do you get more clients if YOUR business isn’t growing? Problem. Hence my question… Why delay your business?
I have a few clients that I’ve been working with for years now. Their websites are quite successful, attracting a lot of traffic with impressive conversion rates. But then I realized, my client base wasn’t growing. My business wasn’t growing.
My website was getting no traffic. No traffic, no business, no growth.
So, I started taking a closer look at why. I’ll tell you why… I wasn’t doing anything to ACTIVELY help my business!!!!
My website was basically a holding page that was stagnant. No really, that’s all it was… For a year! It was a decent holding page, showing off our logo, a little message saying “we’ll be back soon” and all of the usual jazz you’d expect to see on a holding page. But what was it really conveying? What was it saying to potential clients? Nothing and nothing. I’d even go so far to say that it conveyed the message that we didn’t have our act together. I mean think about it… Would YOU hire an a web agency that didn’t have a website? It’s sort of like hiring an electrician who doesn’t have lights in his own home!
Let’s put this little realization we just talked about to the side for a moment, and ask another question. Why was our website allowed to sit like that for so long? We were so caught up in building in making our clients happy and spending countless hours developing their sites, that we never put anytime aside for ourselves. That’s just not healthy.
The proverbial lightbulb flickered on. And boy was it bright! We began dedicating one full day a week to work on our website. Tweaking, social media, and now blogging, etc. Since doing that, we’ve seen an increase in visitors and conversion rates.
Why on earth did we wait so long to do this?? Why delay your business?? That’s the million dollar question. Just put one day a week aside to work on it. You won’t be disappointed!
I am proud to announce that we are changing our company name from Island Web Development to eLine Studio. The name change will be official on April 25, 2014.
This name change is due to the significant shift in our activities which now includes products and services far beyond our traditional web development offerings.
The name change should also be perceived as an acknowledgement of our commitment, to bring your ideas to life through thoughtful, creative design solutions, and consulting services – making “eLine Studio” the cornerstone of our branding.
The studio will continue to operate in its current structure and your contacts will remain un-changed. At the same time we will change all our e-mail addresses to “@elinestudio.com” to reflect and strengthen our studio’s brand. The old e-mail addresses will continue to be operational while being forwarded to the new ones for the foreseeable future. All future emails sent from us will be from “elinestudio.com”.
Support and billing will be handled in a manner we believe you will find to be more efficient and useful.
a) All support issues will now be handled via our new help desk portal at “elinestudio.freshdesk.com”
b) Billing, invoices, and payments will now be handled via “elinestudio.freshbooks.com”
The above portals and links may be found on our new website at “www.elinestudio.com” under the “Services” tab. Our former web domain, “www.islandwebdevel.com” will now forward you to “www.elinestudio.com” as well.
Old Logo
New Logo
We look forward to continuing our partnership with you, and nurturing your online business goals.
Enjoy the weather and please be safe.
An amusement park that is popular amongst the locals here on Long Island, NY, contacted us about updating the look and feel of their website. That’s when our partnership began and we started having some great tines with Tiki Action Park. Keep reading to learn how it all went down!
Tiki Action Park’s website was built by a gentleman who was not easy to get a hold of and took a long time to complete requested updates. Any one who owns a business knows that communication, timely content creation, and updates are all critical to the success of an online presence. So, they decided to part ways and seek out a design and development agency that they can rely on. Allow me to introduce to you eLine Studio!
Not only did we take over the design, development, and maintenance of their website, we completely rebuilt their site from the bottom up. We designed a them that was attractive, exciting, and showed off accolades given by the local media.
The front page showcased photos of amusement park visitors having a great time racing go-karts, traversing the laser maze, and playing mini golf on their award winning course. There is also a streaming video of a news clip talking about Tiki Action Park and how fun it is for families.
Since the launch of their new website, we are proud to say that they have seen a tremendous increase in traffic to their site. More importantly, they’ve experienced huge increase in guests to their park!
Partner with us to work towards accomplishing your business goals… Click HERE!
We are proud to say that we’re partnered with WGM Obstetrics & Gynecology, to help educate and serve women in need of the highest quality Obstetrical & Gynecological care available! Their practice consists of two physicians, a Nurse Practitioner, and a Registered Nurse. Keep reading to find out how our partnership started.
I was checking my email one morning and saw that a representative from WGM Obstetrics & Gynecology had contacted us. They had a major issue that needed to be addressed immediately. Their website at the time, was provided and hosted by a marketing agency that was using a proprietary system to generate their site. Ok, so what’s the big deal you ask? The big deal is that the marketing agency in question had sent them an email, stating that they were closing their doors and all of their hosted websites were going to cease to function. So, they need a new website and reliable hosting right away!
They wanted a website that was similar in appearance to their old website, yet allow them ownership and portability. And that is exactly what we did for them. We developed a them that looked like their former website, a blog if they chose to write articles, a menu system that they could edit, the ability to create pages with custom content & photos on the fly, and contact forms where patients can request medical records as well as create and change appointments. And thats just some of the capabilities we added to their website!
All of this functionality was built on a content management system (CMS) that is cross-platform compatible, in case they choose to switch hosting providers at anytime in the future. The hosting solution we offered them was not only reliable, but fast and affordable as well.
Interested in partnering with us? Contact us by clicking HERE.
One of our first clients when we were Island Web Development, was Canine Corral Kennels. Their challenge was increasing their online visibility as their website at the time was not visually appealing or user friendly.
We designed and developed a custom theme for their new website was not only user friendly and visually appealing, but also showcases all of their adorable puppies and services. Their puppy selection is segregated by breed and those that are available for adoption. Every single puppy page has an inquiry form where potential customers can ask a question pertaining to the puppy they’re interested in. This allows representatives to promptly and knowledgeably respond to any questions. There are also pages that display their coupons, gallery images of their happy customers with their new puppies.
It doesn’t end there. In our quest to save our clients money, we built the website on a platform that allowed them to easily add and edit content on their own, without having us do it for a fee. They are able to change expiration dates on coupons, add & update available puppies, upload pictures, edit photos , and update their business hours. Those are just some of the things they can easily do using the custom backend provided by eLine Studio.
If you are interest in learning more about how our custom websites and themes can enhance your business goals, please contact us by clicking HERE.
So the burning question here is, what should I write about? I’m sitting here with my beautiful wife, watching tv and thinking about topics for my company’s blog. Wow this is pretty hard stuff! Definitely not as easy as I thought it would be.
Ok, here goes… My wife just fell asleep on the couch, so I’m just going to dive in and just start tapping away on my iPad! Shhhh don’t tell her about this or I’m a dead man… Hopefully she won’t read this 😉
Let’s get back to the question of what to write about. I’ve been struggling with that question for the last year, knowing that I have to write to help with my business’s (Island Web Development) SEO. I got tons of ideas by simply listening to podcasts like Your Website Engineer, WordPress Plugins A-Z, and the WPwatercooler. But then the thought pops into my head “they already covered the topic man!” This really sucks right? Feel my pain.
Anyway, one day as I was driving home, listening to either The Matt Report or WP Elevation (I honestly don’t remember), and I heard one of their guests give some advice that made total sense. They said to monitor Twitter and Quora for questions that need to be answered, or topics that need to be discussed. That’s write, put the the power of social media to use. Pick a question that interests me, write about it, publish it, then go back and answer the question with a link to my post. Ingenious right?!
Well, here’s the problem… I don’t know how to write articles. I’ve never done it! Then another piece of advice reverberated in my thick skull… Just write! Theoretically, the more I write, the better I’ll get. Hmmm sounds good to me.
What about sticking to a subject? Should I write about web design, plugins, hardware, business planning, e-commerce, or search engine optimization? Talking about too many topics seems fragmented and all over the place. That doesn’t sound like a good idea.
What should I write about? I’m sure I’ll settle into a topic that you’ll enjoy, and that truly interests me as I write more. So I’ll keep at it, get better at it, and find my own little niche that hopefully you will all love.