I received an email newsletter that included a link to a great article about how Perry Noble prepares sermons. Excellent content – the kind most Pastors love to consume.

I stopped reading after only one third of the article, not because it wasn’t good, but because of article pagination. Just look…

I immediately thought, “I should have known.” This particular website is locked into some outdated marketing principles that say “offer good content, but smatter it with monetization.” Let me tell you why paginating your articles is, in my opinion, bad marketing mojo…

1. It stinks from a usability standpoint. If I click the page numbers out of order, my browser’s back and forward buttons now create an illogical puzzle, and why should I have to click a link to read more twice during a single article?
2. It messes with the sharable nature of the content. If I’m on page three and tweet the current url, it’s a different url than the article’s actual primary url.
3. It costs more server load. Yes, the pages can be cached, but some elements will still load on every click. Thankfully, I have broadband.
4. The two-fold purpose is obvious: 1.) get three pageviews instead of one, thereby decreasing bounce rates and increasing the marketability of advertising spots, and 2.) make me look at more ads (which are wallpapered all over this site).

So the excuse I hear so often is that you get more content above the fold with pagination. I would argue that I still have to scroll some and scrolling really isn’t as much of a problem as loading another page. The other excuse is that it breaks content into more readable chunks. Baloney.

The bottom line is that modern content consumers are more savvy than ever before in their understanding of how websites work. It doesn’t take much more than common sense for me to realize I’m just a marketing target and you’re dying to get me to see more ads, click more ads, and sell more ads for your business.

I’m not against monetizing content. I monetize content myself and also work hard to accomplish that goal for clients. But please, please realize that your bad marketing mojo with it’s immediate “click” payoff really just turns me into an untrusting skeptic. It really seems to me that developing untrusting skeptics is the opposite of good marketing. I’m a brand loyalist but I’m only loyal to brands I trust.

Watch your marketing mojo!

A long time ago I purchased the .info version of my name to use as a simple business card site. I’ve finally gotten around to launching it and thought I’d take the super-simple html template and make it available to others for free. It’s a single page of code and just a few lines of style. Images are included as well as layered psd and png files (I’m a Fireworks guy). Just edit the text or take it and make something totally new out of it. Just have fun. No credit is necessary, but feel free to link back here if you’re in the mood. I would love to see it in action, so feel free to leave your link in the comments if you use it.

Live Demo (In Action)

Download the Zip File

Another Alternative

I also highly recommend Hein Maas’ v-Card Template from Themeforest. (aff link)

I like logos, and I certainly like church. I design church logos, in fact. So as I’ve sought inspiration by looking at other church logos, I’ve run across a lot of church “logos” about which I’d have to say, Jesus would not do this! So I thought I’d give some “subtle” advice in the way of some tips and tricks, beginning with what NOT to do… I mean never!!

Photos aren’t logos.

Don’t put a photo behind your church name. It’s a photo and a photo isn’t a logo. It doesn’t belong in a logo. It doesn’t stretch like a logo, feel like a logo, or smell like a logo. No photos!

If you have to use a photo, which you should never do, don’t use a photo of your church sign. Sure it’s pretty, but it’s a sign. No one cares. Instead, find a nice, pretty, flower-covered photo of your church cemetary. That will show everyone your church is alive!

Comic Sans is for comics.

Choose your typefaces wisely, and let’s just go ahead and rule out comic sans and anything like it, even if you advertise in the comics section.

Use doves, flames, flags, crosses, and globes sparingly, if at all.

I have a few logos to boast of that incorporate crosses or globes, but these five images are terribly abused and over-used. Nobody outside of Christianity has a clue what the dove means. Flags alienate people who don’t carry the ones you display. Flames can mean passion, but they can also mean other things. Crosses are ancient electric chairs, instruments of cruel execution. Don’t gold-plate them. And globes are okay, they’re just everywhere.

Don’t animate anything.

Crosses don’t spin. Flames don’t look like flames when crackling on a computer screen. And please, please, don’t let any images bleed on your web page. Besides, seems like I read somewhere that crosses and flames are overdone.

Avoid clipart.

Clipart has its place – right next to the comic sans font. It was an 80′s thing, like shell necklaces.

Look at great inspiration.

Look here… please!

Top 33 Church Logos

Church Logos by Jeff Fisher

Creattica’s Logo Gallery (Church logos)

Have You Seen Any Good Church Logos?

I am a texture nut, and here are 18 recent posts I’ve recently bookmarked to help all the other texture nuts out there!

84 Free High Res Rust Textures

Freebie: Metal Texture Pack

Free Stock Images Part 11 – Brick Wall Textures

Freebie: Concrete and Pavement Texture Pack

New York Concrete: 10 Free Hi-Res Textures

6 hi-res wood textures

20 Free Original Hi-Res Grunge Stained Paper Textures

40 Free Concrete Textures

HRT records texture pack

Freebie: Cracks and Dirt Texture Pack

80+ Free High Res Paper Textures

15 Unique Ultra High-Resolution Fabric Textures

12 Great Wood Textures Pack

Hi-res textures of concrete, clay and slate

Free Texture Tuesday: Leather

10 Peeling / Grungy Paint Textures

350+ Brushes, Textures, and Fonts: Massive Hand Drawn Roundup

5 awesome Flickr groups to fuel your texture inspiration

One common question related to WordPress relates to how one can have a “static” (in the sense that content doesn’t change) home page with just a simple link to the blog pages. That’s how this site is set up, though it’s subject to change. Just selecting a page as your home page under reading sections is fine for a simple blog site, but what if you want to have different sidebars or style changes between the two areas of your site? Here’s how I accomplished it for eGrace Creative.

Arrange your design, html, and your loop the way you want it to work for your pages and save the file as page.php. Then do the same for your blog and save it as index.php. I created a secondary loop (not the real term, but you get the idea) and added it to a duplication of page.php and named it home-page.php. At the top of that page, I inserted this within a php tag…


/*
Template Name: Home
*/


In WordPress, I created my front page and assigned the page template called “home” from the dropdown box. This tells WordPress to use the correct template file for the front page of my site.

Back to the drawing board, I duplicate my index.php, which has my blog loop, and name it blog.php. I do this at the top (within a php tag):


/*
Template Name: Blog
*/


In WordPress, I create another page with the slug “/blog/” and leave the content blank. In the page template dropdown box, I select “Blog” as the template for this page. On the front page of my site, I link to this as http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/. This page calls up my blog posts in date order. I’ve arranged the code so that my categories display at the top, but your options are limitless for creating an easily-navigated page.

Note this – if you don’t see a dropdown box with various page templates available, it’s either because the theme you are using does not include any, or you’ve mistyped something before uploading.

I hope this helps!

If you use Internet Explorer regularly, please, please consider switching to Firefox. Why? There are lots of highly technical reasons related to open source technology, security, and speed. But one of the best reasons is you can customize it like crazy. Here’s a list of add-ons I use all the time. In fact, I don’t feel complete without them, which is probably a sign of something deeper…

Add-Ons For Everyone

Google Toolbar – Everything Google, in a toolbar!

Google Bookmarks – I like the fact that this plugin works exactly like the regular bookmarking (favorites) functionality of the browser itself, except that your bookmarks are stored by Google, so they’re accessible anywhere.

Delicious Bookmarks – I use Google Bookmarks for the sites I visit most and Delicious to mark articles or other dynamic content – items that are usually subpages of a site.

Gmail Checker – If you use Gmail, this keeps you signed in and updates you on incoming mail. Clicking it opens Gmail.

Download Statusbar – If you’re going to use Firefox’s built-in downloading, which is pretty good, then this is a nice feature – it adds a bar above your status bar to track progress and chart your most recent downloads.

PDF Download - This just makes downloading pdf’s nicer. I receive a certain magazine as a pdf email, so from Gmail, I can click “download.” PDF Download sees that it’s a pdf and offers to render it as html in Firefox, so I can read a lite version (no images) that loads fast without storing it on my hard drive.

Dummy Lipsum – Ever need some fake words? I do all the time, while mocking up a design or a document. This spits it out in a hurry.

Download Them All – After trying about a dozen different download managers, this is my favorite. It integrates well with Firefox’s existing download capabilities, giving you a choice.

ScribeFire – I operate multiple sites that are powered by either WordPress or some other blogging platform, and I can add content to all of them from within Firefox using ScribeFire. And, it will even insert ads from which I can earn a passive income – but that’s optional.

Add-Ons for Developers

Developer Toolbar – The Grandaddy of all Firefox development tools. Examine code of all kinds, see how css-based sites are laid out, disable javascript to test the effects, validate pages, remove images, etc.

MeasureIt – You can, um, measure it. Clicking it allows you to measure things on the screen in pixels.

ColorZilla – Check to see the makeup of any color on the screen.

FireFTP – Transfer files without leaving Firefox. It’s very easy and simple to use – not as fast as using some external ftp protocols, but great for transferring files on the fly.

FireShot – There are other screen capturing addons, but I like that you can set this one to do something with a capture automatically. For me, I click the button, it takes an image of the entire page (not just the viewable area) and opens it instantly in Fireworks.

IE NetRenderer – This plugin uses an external service to show you a screenshot of a site in IE6, IE7, and even IE8, but it won’t allow you browse – just renders your code as a satic page and shows you an image.

IE Tab – Surf the net in Firefox using Internet Explorer’s rendering engine. Why? For me, I need to test the functionality of menus and other things, but there are a few sites that just won’t work well with Firefox, so rather than opening IE (which I try never to do), I surf through Firefox with IE’s engine.

SEO for Firefox – This offers you tons of information about pageranks, inbound links, etc. and it’s easily turned off when you don’t care about such things.

I’m sure there are others. Feel free to name them in the comments below. These are just the plugins I use almost daily (if not hourly).