The in-house version of The Leadership Hub is designed in particular for large organizations that have a globally dispersed leadership group whom the organization wants to bring together virtually to build a leadership culture.

The Leadership Hub for Corporates lets you disseminate best practice leadership from ‘hotspots’ of good practice out to the rest of the leadership community.

So yesterday my site was approved for submission to the showcase site, CSSMania.  I’m pretty excited about this as it’s the first time I’ve tried anything like it. Fingers crossed for future sites and submissions

You can view the submission at :

http://www.cssmania.com/galleries/2010/03/07/i-am-brom

Please vote for me!

All-in-One SEO pack

This panel is added underneath your post and page add screen.

What is it?
This is the most complete Search Engine Optimisation plugin for WordPress I have come across.

Why should I use it?
If you want to optimize your site for search engine ranking then this is a great way to start. You can configure your META tags, site description and site title from an easy to use (if a bit long winded in places) interface. You can even get granular and configure pages individually for some really tasty targeted SEO. There is also a PRO version which removes the donation prompts and ads, they also offer forum support for the PRO version.

Download All-in-One SEO pack from here

Contact Form 7

What is it?
A highly customizable and simple to implement contact form.

Why should I use it?
You want an easy to use contact form that you can style with CSS. This is my favourite contact form. Through a clever tag system, you can add text and email fields, text areas, drop-down menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, Quiz (like 1+1 =2, not a pub quiz…), CAPTCHA and file upload. Might sound overwhelming, but is brilliantly implemented and simple to use (if you read the instructions which aren’t long).

Download Contact Form 7 from here

Exclude Pages

What is it?
A plugin that adds a check box to your pages that lets you hide them from the site navigation.

Why should I use it?
Sometimes you have a page that you don’t want to appear in your sites navigation. For example the Home page (as you use your logo to link to the homepage). So install this and uncheck the tick box and you’re away, or at least the page you unticked is!

Download Exclude Pages from here

Google Analytics for Wordpress

What is it?
An easy way to implement Google Analytics into your site.

Why should I use it?
If you don’t already use GA on your sites, simply put, you should. It’s a great way for you (and your clients if they want) to see how well the site is doing. I could write a whole post about GA, but for now, it’s something I would recommend researching and getting used to. You will need a Google account to set up GA. Don’t worry though, it’s free.

Download Google Analytics for WordPress from here

My Page Order

What is it?
A simple drag and drop interface for ordering the hierarchy of your pages on your site.

Why should I use it?
Wordpress orders your pages alphabetically by default. That’s not usually how people wan their sites to work. There is a version of page ordering built into WordPress, but it’s not user friendly. It’s a numbering system based on weight. For example 1 is light and would go at the top, and 5 is heavy and would site lower down. My Page Order allows you to drag and drop pages into any order you like. Especially useful if you have a lot of pages.

Download My Page Order from here

Tweetmeme Button

What is it?
Adds a ‘Retweet’ button to your blog posts (and pages if you like).

Why should I use it?
In the ever increasing internet savvy world that we live in people have the need and desire to share information. Twitter really helped spark this revolution with micro-blogging. Having a ‘Retweet’ button on your blogs allows people to share that post with hundreds and thousands of people from around the world with a simple button click. Cool eh?

Download Tweetmeme Button from here

Sexy Bookmarks

What is it?
Easy to use and great looking social bookmarking utility.

Why should I use it?
OK, so once you get over the name, this is a brilliant way to share content with other users across a multitude of different social bookmarking sites. There are a LOT of different sites to choose from. But if you don’t know your Digg from your Technorati, then there’s a button that lets you choose the most popular. There are some great options that allow you to tweak it to your taste too.

Download Sexy Bookmarks from here

Starting a new web project is an exciting time for both yourself and the client. So many ideas flying around and so many possibilities, “Oooh, wouldn’t be cool if it did this, and had one of those”. But how do you organise those thoughts and ideas into something comprehensible? Something that you can actually see?

When I work with a new client I often ask them to consider a few questions and come back to me with a document that we can both refer to if our direction becomes a little vague. Some of the questions I get them to consider are:

• What does your company do? This might sound like quite a silly question, but often it’s not. If you can get your client to clarify (in layman’s if possible) what they do, it will make your life easier.
• What do you want your site to achieve? Sounds simple enough, but ask them to really think about it. Promotion, sell more of their product, attract new clients? All of the above?!
• Do you have an existing website? If they do, then you need to see if the hosting package can support any features that you may be using later. You’ll also need all their hosting details (FTP and any control panel logins). If they don’t then do you have a hosting company that you would recommend?
• Do you want/have a content management system? If they do have one, do you know how to use it!? Could you recommend an alternative?
• What functions do you require from your site? Do they need video, JQuery functionality, contact forms? Can you implement these ideas? If not, learn quickly!
• Do you have any branding you want to use? Many existing companies have branding they use already. Logos, images anything you can get hold of. These can all be used on you vision board.
• What is your budget? Never a nice question to ask, but critical to any working relationship. You wouldn’t want to finish the site for your client, only for them to turn around and say “Um, we hadn’t budgeted for that much”. That would suck…

Once you have clear picture of what your client wants to achieve with their site you can then start to formulate a plan of action. I usually write everything out into a lined paper pad (my wife goes crazy at the amount of pads there are lying around my office). You can then type this up and send over a quote to your client based on how much time you think it’s going to take, and a complete breakdown of all components that will be needed for the sites deployment.

Over my time working in the web design industry I’ve collected many techniques that I reuse on a regular basis. They help me increase my work flow speed and productivity. My plan for this blog is to share some of these tips, tricks and tutorials that I have accumulated over the years. As well as being (hopefully) useful for anyone interested in reading them, it should also serve as an online repository for myself. A database, if you will, of everything I have and am learning!

I’ll also be posting my thoughts about all things current in the web industry that pique my interest that particular day!

Anyway, I look forward to conversing with fellow web nuts out there!