At this point in time Flash is no where near becoming obsolete, and HTML 5 and flash should be used together. Both technologies are great and both for different reasons.

Flash programming is out preforming HTML 5 in speed, interactivity, and customization. Steve Jobs says that HTML 5 is the future, and although he may be right this is certainly not the case at this point in time. HTML 5 when used to perform simple tasks like fade in and fade out take up a pretty substantial amount of processor power. In it’s simplest form this is a problem. More dynamic illustrations and interactivity become slow, and renders website useless at times. Flash out performs HTML 5 in the simplest ways and uses about half as much processor when doing so.

A great example of this would be if you are to go to Apples website, on your iPhone. You will notice effects they have like fade in and fade out are lagging, and seem to lack any smooth functionality. This is because Apple has removed any use of Flash throughout their website. So a lot of you may be wondering what the use of HTML 5 may be.

HTML 5 truly is a useful technology. Although running it as a form of interactivity may look like Flash from 7-8 years ago it is still in BETA. While HTML 5 might not be your best bet for users compared to flash, HTML 5 is a great tool for SEO. A common mistake that web developers make is lacking in the search engine optimization qualities. Often times SEO‘s don’t know much about web design, and web designers don’t know much about SEO.

HTML 5 is a great new technology that will help break that medium. When it comes to Flash, often times search engines have a hard time indexing exactly what is going on. HTML 5 is the best way to do this without doing extensive site mapping. Therefore HTML 5 will be a great tool to help your SEO while keeping your site’s design high quality. Failing to recognize this may not affect your website’s design, but it can definitely affect how high you are being ranked in the search engines. For all intensive purposes that is just as important as your design.

So then who is going to win? Here and now there is no clear cut winner. I would say that it is a dead heat, and the battle has just begun. As long as Flash outperforms HTML 5 through web interactivity, Flash will continue to stay around. As long as HTML 5 serves an SEO purpose, then you can be sure websites will be using accordingly to outrank their competition. So for right now you have to assume that you will use both. Now a lot of people get confused by this. How an why would you use both. Let’s start with why. One reason why you might use both is to cater to the immense amount of Apple product users who will never be able to see Flash on your website. That is a big problem of one that may cause viewers not to visit, and not to invest in your website, whether that is time, money, or interaction.

You need to write HTML 5 for indexing purposes or mobile users, and use Flash in all other circumstances. This may seem like a lot of work, but this work can pay off. If you are to simply browse around on a iPad, you will see that many websites are failing to do this. They are missing out on a wide market of mobile users, and have a harder time being seen by the search engines.

Browser detection is key here. You can be a dominate website in your niche if you supply a healthy website. Using both technologies can be a very powerful way for your website to reach many different users.

Between HTML 5 and Flash there is definitely some fierce competition. Flash still dominates with user interactivity, and HTML 5 is still the best tool for SEO. Right now there is not clear cut winner, so using both is essential. Using both will help you to reach a higher number of web surfers and have the best site possible.

Google isn’t pushing HTML 5 for nothing. They want to see that in your website in the near future for proper indexing. One day we may see a winner, but for now, we will just have to wait.

This article was written by Ben Anderson. Ben works to provide many different White Label SEO tactics, including link building services.

WordPress is used by everyone from the blogging startup to nationally known news agencies and companies. If you are wondering if WordPress and its Premium Themes are right for your website, consider the following four points.

User Accessibility

WordPress is the most used application for web design for one primary reason: it’s easy. Because it was initially designed to manage blog content, its ability as a CMS is enhanced. Look at it this way: blogs are constantly updated, and therefore any system designed to manage them is geared towards change. Therefore, updating your website’s content is simple and self-explanatory.

In addition, WordPress Website Design has a system that does not require HTML knowledge to use. For those new to the internet game or who are developing websites for non-internet-based businesses, learning HTML presents a huge challenge that WordPress bypasses completely.

Excellent Support

In addition, WordPress is installed quickly through a “one-click” option, making it simple even for the novice small business owner to start a web presence. In addition to this ease, there are literally thousands of WordPress developers out there who can help you.

Especially if you are looking to create a website for a small business or some other non-web-based entity, using WordPress is your best choice. Its wide use will increase your ability to find an inexpensive developer to help you manage your site if and when you need/can afford it.

The Price Is Right

Back in the 1990s, content management and CMS was a big game. Programs cost thousands and consultants cost even more. WordPress is a free download to anyone who needs it. This price point is what makes it a worthwhile option for those who are unsure of what they want to do on the web and what development path they want to take.

Be warned, however, that certain Premium Themes do come at a price and developers are also obviously not free. However, once you are established with this system it will be worth it.

Not for the Serious Programmer

The one downside to using WordPress is the same thing that makes it great: usability. The fact that everything is built in to either the program or its Premium Themes eliminates a lot of the programmer’s control in a website’s look and function.

If you do know HTML and want to have that kind of control over your website, then WordPress is not for you. It’s kind of the equivalent of buying a ready-made Thanksgiving dinner if you are a gourmet chef: not worth it.

Bottom Line

WordPress is one of the most used applications on the internet today because of its versatility, easy access, support and cost. If you are looking to expand your business to the web or want to begin a web-based business, WordPress is the best option for your webpage and content management needs.

By the way, I’ve noticed one thing about some themes, they also have Twitter support. You could read this free people search article and search for them (using option#1) or you could go to Twitter search directly.

Minimalist Website Design

Minimalist web design is the crux of creating a large-scale consumer product that millions of people respond to because of its intuitive user interface and accessibility. Having a website that is easy to understand often involves eliminating all the details that make it confusing or cluttered. Having more than one thing to do on any one page can make the website confusing. Minimalist web design is practiced by all three major tech companies, and it is one of the significant features that make the brands so lovable. Brands like Microsoft don’t have as much love coming to them on the brand index of consumer love and appreciation. There is actually a brand index that rates how much consumers love companies. The companies that consistently get rated highest are the ones that have minimalism as a part of their web design.

Facebook, Google, and Apple all employ minimalism in their websites, products, and services. By eliminating the clutter, the user is able to focus on what’s important to him, and that’s content. Content is the key to unlocking the user’s appreciation for the product, and if the user is distracted by the interface, or there are too many dongles and buttons, then the user can feel overwhelmed, and they won’t want to deal with the site at all.

One of the most stunning examples of anti-design in the industry was the Gmail interface. It won several design awards because of its preference for anti-design. By eliminating everything that wasn’t necessary, they enabled the user to get to what he was looking for, his content. Using e-mail is hard enough, and many people are uncomfortable with it, preferring snail mail, but Gmail actually drove a lot of new users to e-mail because of its ease of use.

Minimalism is also a large part of Facebook’s design. On Mark Zuckerberg’s profile, he talks about minimalism being an important part of his design philosophy. Minimalism is what has helped FaceBook garner so many users. While other users were flocking away from MySpace in droves, Mark Zuckerberg had the bright idea to make his website as simple as possible because this would drive more people to use it. Whatever is simplest and easiest to understand will be used the most.

Apple makes simplicity a leading part of their products. Even in their website design, they stress the principles of minimalist website design and eschew the negative factors of clutter and color. Simple colors like white and gunmetal gray, along with silver, black, and gray, give the website the impression of precision and ease of use.

If you want to employ the principles of minimalist website design in your business, you’ll find that users are much more responsive to it. This is because a smart person can understand something simple, but a stupid person can’t understand something complex. Therefore, if you make it simple from the get-go, both types of audiences will understand it. The majority of audiences will favor a design that is minimalistic versus cluttered.

This is a guest post by Rodney Warner – Owner of the Denver Web Design company Connective Web Design. You can follow Rodney on Google+ to keep up on topics such as this.

In order to be a great project manager you must complete projects on time, all the while keeping within budget constraints and ultimately turning out a product or service your clients will be are happy with. Microsoft Project can help with all of this, and is particularly useful if you are in charge of a complex project and need help organizing all your work at the planning level and connect with other workers, making sure everyone is on the same page before anything is carried out.

Microsoft Project is amazing in that it has so many different high-tech features. One of the best features is that MSP is able to create a budget for you based on your rate of resources and your assignments. Microsoft Project does this by cleverly calculating when your cost equals your estimated assignment work times at the rate at which you can get things done, and many project managers will and do attest to its accuracy. Another great feature is that resources such as people and materials can be shared in a resource pool which allows them to be shared by different projects; needless to say this is a boon to anyone with multiple (and unrelated) workloads.

MSP also provides the ability to create a calendar for each resource, making it efficient to see when certain resources will become available. MSP has now joined with Microsoft Office Project Server and Microsoft Project Web Access. The implications of these connections are that Project Server provides a place to store project database in a central database, and Project Web Access provides a place for users to display and update their data across the Internet. Included with Web Access is the ability to use timesheets, administrative tools and graphical analysis of workloads, and Authorized Web Access users can also access a project server database on the Internet. All in all, these appliances create so many avenues for operation that if you can’t find a particular function, it probably isn’t worth doing!

MSP acknowledges that all users are the same, but also intuitively knows that it has different types of users so that each worker has tailored access levels to each project, bringing with it the ability to access different data as set by the project manager.

For the first-time user, it can be admittedly tricky to navigate and get to grips with first time around. As with anything, any time spent learning the basics in order to set up the framework for your project effectively is time certainly not wasted, so play around on a practice session for a while to get your bearings without the fear of breaking anything. That said, there is very little that can go wrong in Microsoft Project that cannot be fixed easily, so get stuck in!

To get you started, the very first thing you’ll want to do in MSP on creating a new project is to set the start date and working hours. To do this:

Click on define the project in project manager tasks pane. From here, go into the calendar date picker and set the project’s start date. Click on continue to step 2 at the bottom of the guide, which will lead you into the Project Server options. Assuming you’re not using Project Server at this stage, so click continue once more which will give you the option to save and finish.

Now that’s sorted, it’s necessary to set the working hours for each day of the project. These general hours will be defined and displayed in the main project calendar,  but it’s handy to know that individual project workers can have custom calendars with different hours, reflection days off, shift patterns etc. To set working hours:

There are three default calendars available, which are viewable by selecting define general working times to see a preview of the default set hours. Obviously things aren’t ever that simple, so hit continue to step 2 where you can use the tick boxes to select days in conjunction with the I want to adjust… option. Going into the step 3 dialogue, you can define other aspects of the working schedule such as holidays and time off. Follow the click boxes through to finalize your selections and save the changes.

Of course, that’s just the basics. But if you work in a large corporate environment, you’ll probably have no difficulty coming across someone already well-versed in all aspects of Microsoft Project (hit up fellow project managers or someone in the IT department). Another well-penned resource on Microsoft Project is, predictably, the …for Dummies guide which is worth keeping on your desk whether you’re an amateur or expert on the application.

Michael Jenson has written about a whole host of IT applications, including Access, Outlook, iOS development and this guide to Project which has been provided freely. Michael is also an amateur interior designer and occasionaly writes on behalf of sofasandsectionals.com

Cloud Hosting: The Freedom to Choose

For many years, website owners have been forced to choose between expensive VPS and dedicated hosting options when they required hosting packages with more resources. These packages often included unnecessary resource allocation, which the user did not require but was forced to select, in order to get the actual resource they needed.

A webmaster wanted more RAM but was forced to pay top dollar for a plan that included a gargantuan HDD, when all they really needed was the RAM. But with the introduction of cloud hosting this all changed. Hosting users can now create their own customized hosting plans and only pay for what they need, and for what they actually use. Throw in some extra reliability, and a splash of scalability and it is easy to see why cloud has standard hosting shaking in its boots.

What Exactly is Cloud Hosting? A Nice Simplified Explanation…

A large group of physical servers are interconnected. This is referred to as a ‘cloud’. Virtual Machines (user accounts) can then be installed on the various servers. These VMs are controlled by a piece of software installed on to the servers called a ‘hypervisor’ (common software is VMware, XEN, and Hyper-v). Each VM can then be allocated a certain amount of resources (processor, RAM, HDD). This is dependant on the specifications selected by the account user.

By joining many physical servers into a cloud formation, the hosting provider is able to balance overall load between the servers (usually termed ‘load balancing’), as well as greatly reducing reliance for service provision on individual physical servers, and increasing the ability to deploy resources as and when required.

What Can Cloud Hosting Offer You?

• Greater flexibility and overall control over hardware, software, and networking.
• Increased availability of hosting plans: Pay-as-you-go, On-demand, instantly scalable.
• Load balancing
• Fault tolerance
• Disaster recovery
• Self-service portal
• Rapid provisioning
• Redundant and self-healing infrastructure

Searching for the ‘True’ Cloud

Many companies are offering cloud hosting services, but not all offer what is referred to as a ‘true’ cloud solution. A ‘true’ cloud will feature the following options:

1. Contract Free Hosting

Gone are the days of imposed annual or bi-annual contracts. A company offering a ‘true’ cloud will provide a plan that comes with a flexible monthly, or hourly, billing arrangement with no cancellation penalties. Cloud web hosts may offer a billing discount for customers agreeing to sign up for 3, 6, 12, or 24 months, but there must be the option to sign up to a non-fixed monthly plan.

2. Unscheduled Resource Surges

Consumers must be able to use what they need when they want it. The web host should be able to provide and implement any rapid increases in resource usage without any disruption to the clients service.

3. Scalability and Fast Implementation

Cloud hosting has the advantage over standard hosting because its plans are fully scalable. A ‘true’ cloud service will allow a customer to increase and decrease resources when necessity dictates and any changes will occur in minutes, not hours. This almost instantaneous flexibility must be available directly to customers with no requirement to contact the host before alterations can be made.

4. Some API Availability

While not an essential feature of a ‘true’ cloud provider, providing a programmable API is rapidly becoming a feature of the more forward-thinking cloud hosting companies. There should be at the very least some client access allowed.

Choosing a Cloud Host: A Few Important Tips

Cloud hosting is no different from regular hosting in respect of the quality of available providers. There are excellent cloud hosts, average ones, and some who provide inferior service. The majority of providers will offer the resources you require, so simply judging a host on its resource options is not always the best solution.

It is far more prudent to look into the services that are not always blazoned on the home pages. Here are a few factors to look for in a cloud host:

• What level of data security is provided?
• Does the host offer vertical and horizontal scalability?
• Is data stored redundantly? And if so, is multiple redundancy used?
• What management applications are available?

Cloud hosting can provide the flexibility, pricing structure, and reliability most website owners are searching for. But while it is easy to locate information about general hardware, software, and other resources on a host’s website, finding out about more detailed factors may require a little more digging. The best way to find out if a cloud host is right for you is to contact them directly and interrogate them until you’re happy!

This article was written by Roko Nastic of WebmasterFormat. Learn more about cloud hosting services.

So, you do need to use social media CMS’s. Here are seven popular ones that are examined based on their pros and cons:

• Elgg: For those on a budget, Elgg can prove to be an excellent open source CMS since it is completely free and offers a solid foundation for building a decent social media and networking site. Those are the pros. The cons revolve around how stripped down and barebones this CMS is. Expansiveness is not an attribute to this otherwise excellent social media CMS.

• Pligg: This truly is an amazing CMS for social networking that truly does set itself apart from the other CMS systems in a unique way: it is a platform that can accommodate an unlimited number of authors. Pligg allows all registered users the ability to contribute to content. However, some may wish to not use Pligg for this same reason as they would prefer to restrict access from certain authors.

• Lovd By Less: Okay, this has to be one of the odder names for a social networking CMS but you do have to admit it remains a solid open source system. It is quite popular and employed by many social networking services designed to emphasize the social in social networking. If you want your social media to integrate blogging, private messaging, friend searches, or display photos easily, this is the open source to work with. The one negative is this source is really not the one to use if you wish to integrate business or commercial pursuits into your social media ventures.

• Drupal: Without a doubt, the name Drupal has become synonymous with excellent in the world of CMS. This reputation is a deserved one as Drupal is a very easy to use platform that is packed with all manner of features and functions. In some ways, its greatest pro is also its greatest con. That is to say, it could take a while to get the hang of all the functions available through a Drupal platform.

• BuddyPress: It has has been called “social media in a box” for its ability to develop a social networking community via WordPress. The fact that it is easy to install and even easier to use is a huge plus. The prime negative would be if you are not a fan of WordPress then you will not be much of a fan of this CMS system.
• KickApps: The name of this CMS system is may seem a little grandiose on the surface but the fact of the matter is it is understated. Really, this is a tremendous CMS concept designed to help build social networking communities will all manner of functions such as audio/video files, blogging, widget integration, and pretty much anything else you could think of. The one drawback is this system is designed for business and commercial social networking so it is not really for general users.

• Xoops: This is another contender for CMS with a silly name. It is also an excellent source for those that with to perform a lot of blogging or enjoy a platform with a lot of functions. One of the cons with it is you may need to repeatedly upgrade the system in order to stay current with its ever expanding functions.

• CommunityEngine: Consider this another all-encompassing CMS with scores of diverse functions allowing it to provide the traditional features associated with social networking. Its ease of use makes it a great CMS although the seeming lack of innovative or unique features may be a con to some.

Of course, there are a great many other CMS website design platforms available for the “social network conscious” to try out. All of these many varied social networking CMS systems have their pros and cons. All you need to do is find the right one for your needs and you will be well on your way to developing the right social media platform that benefits you the most.

Mariana Fang Lin is an avid blogger and writes throughout the blogosphere. She’s most interested in SEO, mobile marketing, mysql web hosting, and Internet marketing strategy.

(1) Make Sure the Entire Page is Optimized Correctly.

Firstly, make sure your Title Tags are written correctly. Not only do they tell the search engines what the page is for, they also tell your readers what to expect when they get there. Consequently the title tags should include the most important keywords for that page, whilst also being written in a style that makes the reader or customer know that the product they are after is there. Secondly, once they get there, make sure the content is impeccable. Many site owners these days spend a fortune on design and SEO and then pay scant attention to content. Make the product leap off the page and into the imagination of the customer. Make them need that product. And if you can’t do that, hire a copywriter to do it for you. And while you (or your copywriter) is writing that content, throw in some of those keywords again for good measure. When it comes to other features of the page, make sure you avoid flash or frames and that you optimize both your images and your videos with the correct tags and metadata for the search engines.
(2) List the Product Specifications and Prices Clearly and Concisely.

Don’t make your customers search around for the details of the product or for the prices. They don’t want to feel like they are being mucked around, toyed with or taken for a ride. If a product comes in a number of colours, styles or prices, then you make sure they know that and can see all the differences. You have a limited window with your customers, the last thing you want them to do is leave because they are exasperated with the shopping experience you are offering.

(3) Make Sure the Shopping Process Itself Offers Smooth Functionality.

One rule of thumb for your own benefit should be that the quicker the customer can click and buy the better. This works for them too. No one wants to jump through hoops to get their shopping done. So when it comes to shopping carts, the fewer clicks the better. This is the only way to avoid what is known in the business as shopping cart abandonment. Also, make sure that the ‘add to cart’ feature is huge and always in the corner of their eye. Give them the ability to make quick and easy impulse purchases, pay and then leave. Lastly, give them the ability to set up a personal account so they can come back and shop again without having to fill in their details more than once. Again, remember the principle, the fewest clicks and the least work they have to put in, the more repeat business you will get.

There are all kinds of other features you can add to your page once you’ve got the basics right, but make sure you get these three basics absolutely perfect first.

Alex is a writer and SEO consultant based in the Uk. He is currently writing for the contracting sector on issues of finance and tax reduction.

The creators of preloaders.net (for those who are still unaware, preloaders.net is a loading animated gif’s generator web application that helps developers to create a custom animated image that is displayed during loading the web-site) have decided to grasp a much wider audience of the computer world having developed the fully functional application for creating icons for your web-sites and desktop applications. Having gone far ahead the popular icon search engines, iconizer.net provides tools for creating your own unique icons for your projects.

The new project has completely modified it’s way to generate icons. Even though the overall graphical design uses elements of previous version of the web site, it has changed it’s structure from the roots. If before you had to browse through hundreds of icons which were in chaotic view, now everything is much better structured for full view and better eye perception.

The main features include:

1. A NEW ICON GENERATOR engine with new features – you can choose your own file type, size, set transparency, background color and coloring of the image
2. Tens of thousands icons
3. All licenses for all icons – there is no need to fear to use icons in commercial projects, all licenses are there in each collection’s page.
4. A completely new  search engine with much more user friendly design and advanced search with feature of sorting icons by license and sizes
5. A large icon store
6. The use of latest technologies such as JQuery for user friendly interaction
7. The smaller size of the pages that increases download speed

All these are as simple as “find and generate” and of course FREE. Having communicated with the developers of the project we also found out that the 2 projects is not the end yet. Very soon they are planning to launch a free “live chat” application along with online diagram builder application. For now enjoy the services developed only for you. Just follow the steps that are shown when launching the website for the first time and you will find some more time in your life for cold beer with friends.

We are going to take you step by step through a full integration of Facebook into your WordPress blog or website. We will focus on using the social plugins which utilize XFBML markup and Javascript SDK. Using a full Facebook Open Graph Protocol integration with your site will allow you do such things as:

• Add a like button. The like button will allow users to add comments and a picture to their wall feed when they like content from your site. With a full Like button integration your content becomes it’s own “Page” on Facebook that can be accessed along with the other Pages you are an administrator on. You get full access to the Page’s analytics data and sharing capabilities. You will be able to share updates to users that have liked your content as well as target ads at them. This is much better than using the old crappy Iframe like button!
• Activity Feed. The activity feed allows a webmaster to show personalized content about the user and or their friends when they are logged into Facebook and visiting your site. If they are not logged in, you will be able to show recommendations from your site. This is a handy plugin to get users engaged in your site with little effort on your part.
• Recommendations. This plugin allows you to share recommended content with visitors from any site you wish whether they are logged in or not. It shows interactions the user’s friends have had with your site to help them find what they may be interested in as well.
• The Like Box. This box allows visitors to become a fan of your Facebook Page with one click from your site or blog. It showcases fans and content from your Facebook Page to entice your visitors to become a fan. The like box is the quickest way to grow your Facebook Page following with the least amount of effort. If you are offering quality content on your main site, you are greatly increasing the chances of gaining more followers on your fan page with a Like Box implementation.
• Login Button. The Facebook login button will allow your visitors to see any of their friends that have already signed up for your site using the Facebook login button. Your visitors will be able to login as well. One thing that prevents people from registering on sites is that it’s too time consuming Confirmation emails and spam prevention make it too tedious to sign up, but a Facebook login integration will solve those problems for your users.
• Registration. The Facebook registration will allow visitors to register for your site using their Facebook profile. If they are logged in already the form will be pre-filled out with their information for them. Using the API you will be able to gather information outside of the normal Facebook fields.
• Facepile. This one is purely for showing off. You can display the faces of Facebook users that have registered or liked your page. Show off your social skills with a Facepile of Facebook users! Yes the name is corny and it doesn’t have much functional usage for your site, but in some cases it may give you more credibility and trust to show that a users friends are already liking your site.
• Comments. Allow logged in Facebook users to comment on your site using the Facebook comments. They will also be like-able and shareable on Facebook walls and feeds. I do like that Facebook comments make it easy for users to participate in a conversation, but the downfall is that comments are not indexable at this time, so from an SEO perspective it has little value.
• Live Stream. This plugin will allow Facebook visitors to communicate in real time by sharing activities and comments. If your running a real time event, Live Stream may be just what your looking for to keep your visitors connected.

Ok, now that you have an idea of what you can do using a true Facebook integration on your site, lets get down to the nitty gritty.

Creating Your Facebook App

The first thing your going to need to do is head on over to the Facebook Developers page where you will need to setup your very own Facebook App. From this page you will be able to see all of your existing Facebook Apps on the right side of the page. On the upper right hand side of the page you will want to click on the “Setup New App” button.

On the next page you will need to enter your App name and agree to the terms and conditions.

Moving right along you will find yourself able to edit all of the details about your new App. While much of the information here is not required, you can feel free to fill it out in as much details as you may like. You will find six menu items on the left side consisting of: About, Website, Facebook Integration, Mobile and Devices, and Credit.

Click on the website tab where you will see your Facebook Application ID and Secret code. You will be needing these for your Facebook Open Graph Protocol integration, so make a note of them! You can always get them at any time in the future by returning to the Facebook Developer’s Page and viewing or editing your existing Facebook Apps.

Make sure you enter the full website URL on the “site URL” field. For example http://www.mysite.com. The field below is asking for the “site domain”. This is the actual domain such as mysite.com. It will allow Facebook to authorize authentication on this domain and all subdomains, so do it!

This is really all that is required to get us going, so we won’t go into much more detail. Feel free to scan through all the advanced options you can set for your App. Also feel free to upload logos and avatars for your new App. Again, none of that is required, but it won’t hurt you to do so.

Implementing the Open Graph Protocol On Your Website Or Blog

It’s time to get down to some dirty work. You will be editing the code of your site, so make sure you have a backup you can fall back on just in case you make any mistakes. For the purposes of serving the masses, we will use WordPress as the platform we are integrating Facebook into. Remember that this will work for any website integration, it’s not just for WordPress.

Lets start by declaring the Facebook document types in your header.  Right below the document type declaration you will want to insert the following code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#"
      xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">

Now we need to add all the meta information that will inform Facebook about the content of your page. It’s important to include as much of this information as possible, so don’t skip any Open Graph Protocol meta tags if you can help it. Paste the following code before the closing </head> tag. I like to make them the first bit of code after the opening head tag myself:

    <meta property="og:title" content="<?php the_title() ?>"/>
    <meta property="og:fb:app_id" content="1111111111"/>
    <meta property="og:type" content="movie"/>
    <meta property="og:url" content="<?php the_permalink() ?>"/>
    <meta property="og:image" content="<?php echo catch_that_image() ?>"/>
    <meta property="og:site_name" content="<?php bloginfo('name') ?>"/>
    <meta property="fb:admins" content="USER_ID"/>
    <meta property="og:description"
          content="A group of U.S. Marines, under command of
                   a renegade general, take over Alcatraz and
                   threaten San Francisco Bay with biological
                   weapons."/>

<?php function og_meta_desc() {
global $post;
$meta = strip_tags($post->post_content);
$meta = str_replace(array("\n", "\r", "\t"), ' ', $meta);
$meta = substr($meta, 0, 200);
echo "<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"$meta\"/>";
}
og_meta_desc();
?> 

Now you’ll need to paste the following code into your functions.php file. This is required so that it will automatically populate the first image of your post as the one to be used when someone shares your content with a like. as you can see, you can also define a default image if you wish just in case there is not one on the post:

function catch_that_image() {
 global $post, $posts;
 $first_img = '';
 ob_start();
 ob_end_clean();
 $output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"].*>/i', $post->post_content, $matches);
 $first_img = $matches [1] [0];

 if(empty($first_img)){ //Defines a default image
 $first_img = "/images/default.jpg";
 }
 return $first_img;
}

Now lets take a brief look at what we’ve done here. We’ve given you all the dynamic calls you will need to pre-populate all the Facebook Open Graph Protocol meta tags with data from each new post you make on your blog! There is no maintenance required at this point.

• og:title: Title of the post. We are dynamically pulling in the WordPress post title for this tag.
• fb:app_id: insert whatever the Facebook App ID is you received earlier in the post.
• og:type: The type of content of the page. For blogs the type is typically “article”
• og:site_name: Name of the blog
• og:url: Permalink to the post. In this case we are dynamically pulling the permalink to your WordPress post and populating this meta tag with that data.
• og:image: The code above allows you to dynamically pull the first image of the post and populate this meta tag with that image. It also allows you to define a default image that can be used in the event that there is no image on the post. This saves you alot of time and headaches updating this meta tag with each new post.
• og:description: This is a description of the post. We are dynamically pulling in the description from the Post excerpt for you.

Now you will need to add the Javascript SDK code to your site so that you can being utilizing social plugins using the API. In order to add the Javascript SDK code to your site, simply paste the code below directly after the opening body tag:

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
  window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
    FB.init({appId: 'your app id', status: true, cookie: true,
             xfbml: true});
  };
  (function() {
    var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true;
    e.src = document.location.protocol +
      '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
    document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
  }());
</script>

This code is loading the Javascript Asynchronously so that it doesn’t block any other elements of the page from being loaded. We have your back . Make sure you replace “your app ID” with your actual Facebook App ID you put in the meta tags above.

At this point you have successfully implemented the Facebook Open Graph Protocol on your site and your now ready to begin using it to enhance your blog with the aforementioned social plugins. Read our other posts to learn how to implement a Facebook Like Button or Facebook Like Box to your blog! we will be writing further walk through’s about how to enhance your blog with other Facebook integration features soon.

Last year at this time we recorded our first WordPress integration video tutorial that showed how to integrate WordPress into any existing website. With the recent updates from WordPress many things have changed, including the default theme. The new default theme for WordPress is now TwentyTen instead of default. In addition their code has been streamlined.

Since we had many questions and some great additions from the community, we have decided to go into greater depth this time around, showing in detail how to fully integrate WordPress into your website.

This will work with any existing website you have. It does not matter if your site is HTML, Joomla, Drupal, or any other format. Simply watch the video and follow it step by step to integrate a WordPress blog easily into your site!

You should be prepared to pause the video to allow you to do the steps. We had to move quickly in order to keep it under the 15 minutes Youtube allows. By watching the video below you will be able to make WordPress match your website in under 14 minutes flat!

Please leave us a comment if you found this video useful or even if it’s just to show off your new blog that you used our video to create!

If you get stuck and need help or just want us to do it for you, simply contact us or fill out the form to your left now.

We found that the Youtube video is not the best quality. We’ve embeded the video directly below if you need one that is higher quality