The growing popularity of smartphones, and of mobile computing in general, is already starting to change the way visitors interact with your site. It’s not too soon to start laying out the blueprint for a version of your site designed expressly for pocket-sized screens. Times may be tough, but...

I‘m a fan of GOOD, a site that is “a collaboration of individuals, businesses and nonprofits…who have been making a magazine, videos and events for people who give a damn.” One of the things I like about the site is its use of infographics to explain complex ideas. If youR...

When I launched my first blog about 3 years ago, I used a free WordPress theme called “Cutline,” designed by Chris Pearson. At the time, it was among the most-downloaded free themes on WordPress.org. It’s a terrific-looking theme and it was designed with the reader in mind. Cutline...

The first reason is that I wrote a headline that just about forced you to read this post, heh. Actually, what I really want to talk about is the interaction between Web designer and Web writer. I often write about Web design, although I’m not a designer. Oh sure, I can muck around with Macrome...

You can learn an awful lot about how to write compelling headlines from studying your junk mail. I get a lot of it because of a dead relative. Naw, I don’t mean the poor guy is sending me junk mail from the great beyond. He passed away and his mail is being forwarded to my house. He was a good...

On the side, I write for a few blogs, one of which is AppCraver, an Apple iPhone applications review site. With each review I do, I get smarter about which apps are truly useful to people like you and me. Here’s what’s been on my iPhone lately: Bringing in the reads and feeds The best ne...

I mention Google so often that many people must think I’m getting paid by the company. Just for the record, they don’t pay me. I just can’t help myself–Google is always doing cool things. Recently, Google said it is now able to use optical character recognition to index scann...

Photo by Sidelong Dozens of Web sites offer royalty- and copyright-free photographs and other images. I can’t imagine having to buy stock photos and art these days, although I have many times before. I use stock.xchng and Big Stock Photo often. The photos are generic, one-size-fits-all but the...

Visitors to your Web site won’t read much of your content word-for-word. They’ll scan the text, cherry picking what to read. They’re in a hurry, easily distracted and have limited attention spans. If they don’t see right away what they’re looking for, they’ll bail...

My first writing job was for a small small publishing company that published magazines for consumer electronics and major appliance retailers. Writing for trade magazines is not as glamorous as writing for consumer magazines but the pay is a heck of a lot better. It was one of those places where the...