Best WordPress Themes: March 2012

Spring has officially arrived in New York City as I write to you with every window open in the house. It’s a great day to start thinking about getting a new business website and it has been a great month for fresh new WordPress themes. Without further delay, I bring you some of my favorite WordPress themes of March 2012:

Magnum

Perfect to Showcase a Portfolio

You’ve probably learned by now that of all things, I prefer minimalist website designs with a modern touch. That’s why I love this theme from templatesquare. The clean, no nonsense layout is clear, easy to read, but still cutting edge. Some of my favorite features include the 3D-looking box effect around all the content, the clean widget design, and the thin columned blog layout. (I once read it’s easiest to read lines spanning no more than 8 – 12 words per line and this theme follows that rule exactly.)
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Typography in Web Design

When it comes to websites, typography can make or break everything. WE can all recognize great typography, but when it comes to creating it for our own websites the equation is a little more difficult. That’s why so we brought in web design expert Chris Pentago of Kamloops Web Design Agency to give us a glimpse of the most important typography takeaways.

Many of today’s web designers debate more over typography than any other issue. When it comes to website typography, it’s hard to nail down what works best because typographical preference is both subjective and relative to the individual website. The deciding factor for any major web-based typographical decisions in the end, come down to the client and what they want to see happen. In working with the client, any talented web designer understands that good typography accomplishes the goal of readability.

At the very least, the website visitor or user should be able easily scan, read and understand the text on the web page. But just as Internet users’ likes and dislikes are changing, the methods by which web designers engage readers with typography are changing as well. In this article, we’ll take a brief look at the current state of web design typography; it’s current trends, widely implemented best practices, and the future of web design typography.
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Prepare Your Business for the Inevitable Rise of Social Media Optimization

Want to know why we know social media isn’t a fad? Because 1. People are obsessed with it and 2. It’s bringing serious traffic to websites. The frontiers for finding information on the web are expanding beyond the search box every day, but as social media matures, the demand for exacting social practices will become increasingly necessary for success across digital channels.

We saw this occur in the search industry when website owners saw the need and benefits of dominating the first page of Google. Increased visibility meant more traffic, and so an industry rose out of nothing to help website owners rise in the search engine rankings. SEO is one of the reasons companies such as Article Writing Services exists and provides free content for websites.

Google tried to benefit from the benefits of search domination by offering paid search advertisements, but this of course, was not enough. For increased benefit website owners started hiring people to manufacture organic rankings and SEO was born.
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The Unforeseen Consequences of Shifting Ad Spend to Mobile

Ad Spend Growth RateAccording to Kantar Media Intelligence, search and display ad spend cratered in Q4 2011, causing the digital advertising industry a mere 0.8 percent growth in all of 2011.

According to Kantar, which is owned by global ad-agency conglomerate WPP, the fourth quarter of 2011 was the worst three-month period for U.S. advertising growth in two years. In fact, since growing 8.7 percent in the third quarter of 2010, ad revenue growth has decreased every month since, actually declining in the fourth quarter by 1 percent (see chart).
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More Proof That China is a Whole Different Ballgame

Over the past few years I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of brands expanding into China. Every time we start digging our heels in and talking about how to best penetrate the market digitally I’m humbled and amazed at how different everything is over there.

The conventions of network effects and virality may be universal, but when it comes to platforms and vehicles for seeding a message the differences from here to there are like night and day. Mobile internet connections dominate the country (making mobile optimization extremely important there) and most e-commerce sites accept cash payment on item delivery.
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Talk About Your Social Media Marketing Experience & Get Featured on the LP32 Blog

It’s been almost two months since I picked up Lauren Proctor 32, and boy, what a two months it’s been. Our traffic has increased 500 percent and at this point the blog alone is generating approximately one serious lead per week. Granted, that’s nowhere near where I’d like to be, but for all practical purposes I would still consider this site to be under construction. If the last couple months have taught me anything, it’s this:

[sws_pullquote_left] As long as you’re working on your passion, you cannot fail. [/sws_pullquote_left]

There’s always more work to be done, but the real reward of keeping a blog and content marketing reveals itself in the people I meet. I’m always shocked and humbled when people take the time out of their busy lives to ask questions and tell me about their experience across digital channels. In honor of those people and in an attempt to highlight the readers who make this blog worthwhile, I’m starting a new Internet marketing series. Here’s how it works:

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Weekend Reads: TV, Unstoppable iPads and Social Gamers Who Spend Big Bucks

These days, a 9 percent increase in social media buzz equates to a 1 percent increase in ratings. We’d naturally be inclined to believe this is because people talk about what they like across digital channels, but what if built in engagement could manufacture better ratings for a show? Sounds far fetched until you think about it. After all, we all love feeling like we’re a part of something.

How the iPad will run parellel to Apple’s success with the iPod. Or perhaps more aptly put, why other tablet competitors should be running for the hills.

Roku CEO Andy Wood paints a picture of the oncoming the online TV revolution explains why Hulu restricts some straight-to-TV watching even though the content is available for streaming through Hulu on your computer.
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Infographic: How Blogs and Social Media Bring in Business

Excuse the cutesy graphics of this infographic, because content here means everything. At least that’s the message you’ll get in this content marketing case study. In this case an industry analytics blog pulled in ten times more traffic than the brand’s actual corporate website. How is this a good thing?

Blogs and other branded content can be used to build trust and educate the consumer throughout the purchase funnel. Jason Fried thrives on this very principle, as does, as the infographic would indicate, Sigma Marketing. In addition to bringing in high volumes of traffic through social channels, the company shows that direct sales and lead quality are viable measurements for content marketers.

What does this mean for your business? It means measurement is multidimensional, and if you’re outsourcing a social media marketing expert, you should make sure they mention lead generation in their measurement process. You should also quantify other tangibles like traffic growth, search engine rankings, and overall brand sentiment.

After all, a content marketer’s job is to shape the conversation about your brand online.

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