Alt Text and Image Titles in WordPress – What they are and How to Add Them?

If you do a fair bit of surfing on the web about web designing and related stuff, then there are chances that you might have heard about Alt Text and Image Titles. You might have also heard about the significant role they play in SEO. But what are exactly these Alt text and Image Titles? That’s what we here to find out! In this post we would know what they really are and how you can add them to your WordPress website.

 

Alt Text

 

Alt Text is just the shortened form of ‘alternative text for image’. It is an attribute which is added to the image tag in HTML. This text is displayed inside the image container, when the original image cannot be displayed due to some reason. For example, the word ‘archery’ is used as an Alt Text below as the image cannot be displayed.

 

 

 

Adding Alt Text to an Image in WordPress

 

You can add an alternative text while uploading images through the built-in media uploader of WordPress.

 

 

 

If you want to add alternative text to pre-existing images, then you need to go to Media->Library and then select the image. Click on the edit image option below the image and you would find the place to enter the text.

 

 

USEFUL TIP: Try to include relevant keywords in the alt text for higher rankings on search engines. Alt text is often used by search engines to figure out what the image is all about.

 

 

Image Title

 

Like the Alt text, Image Title is also an attribute added to image tag in HTML. As the name suggests, it is used to provide a title for the image. Image Title becomes visible to the user when the user moves his/her mouse pointer to the image.

 

 

 

In this image, the phrase ‘Prada Shoulder Bag BR3601 – Light Brown’ is used as the Image Title.

 

Adding Image Title to an Image in WordPress

 

To add Image Title to the images you are uploading, simply go to the WordPress Media Uploader and you would get the field where you can enter the title.

 

 

 

 

 

You can add more interesting and useful features to your WordPress site with the help of the leading names in the field of Website Design in Houston as they are known for their proficiency in WordPress website development.

 

 

The top Web Designer Houston would include all the latest and the most useful features that would help you attract more visitors and also increase your visibility on search engines and social media platforms. So, take the help of the experts and design the perfect website powered by the WordPress CMS Platform.

Quick and Easy Ways to Make Your WordPress site More Usable

There are a lot of people who think that their WordPress website is not performing at the desired levels. Now, there might be various reasons for such an underperformance but you need to pay a good deal of attention to the issue and take certain steps to make the website more useful and deliver the performance that you desire. In the following post, we are going to look at some of the things that you should do in order to make your WordPress site more usable.

1. Backing Up  Your WordPress site

The first thing that you need to do is to create a backup of your WordPress site. Creating a backup keeps you safe from any website failure. For example, you might install a plugin that completely messes up your site or your site might get hacked. In such a situation, having a backup really does help. To create a backup of your WordPress site, you can use plugins like BackupBuddy and VaultPress.

2. Enabling Shortcode

Shortcodes add more functionality to your website.  However, shortcodes are not accepted by WordPress text widgets by default. To add that, you just need to copy and paste the following code in the functions.php file of your theme

1add_filter('widget_text','do_shortcode');

3. Getting the Help of Experts

A smart way to build a usable and feature rich website would be to take the help of experts in WordPress website development. Some of the leading names in the field of Website Design in Houston excel in WordPress website development. Therefore, if you are in Houston, then you do get a few good options.

The top Web Designer Houston would first develop a web design strategy and then work hard towards implementing it. They would use all the standard as well as unique features that would make your site more attractive. So, take the help of the leading Houston Web Design Company and design and develop a WordPress site that leaves an impact. 

The Technique for Proper Installation of WordPress Theme

Themes are very structure on which your WordPress website would be built. If you want to create a truly professional website using WordPress, then you need to choose and install an attractive and well-designed theme. Therefore, if you have a WordPress website then you must know how to install a theme for your site. In the following post, we would be looking at the ways you can install and activate a WordPress theme.

Installing a Free Theme

The WordPress plugin repository contains a lot of free themes that you can install. Just go to your WordPress admin area and go to Appearance>>Themes   and click on the ‘Add New’ Button. On the next page, you would get to choose from a list of different themes. The themes would be classified into different sections such as ‘Featured’, ‘Popular’ and ‘Latest’. You can even use the Features filter to set the desired criteria or you can even search for a specific theme. When you have found a theme you like, simply hover your mouse pointer over the image and that would reveal the ‘Install’ button. Click on the button and then you would get a dialogue box that would state your progress. Once it shows that you have successfully installed the theme, click on ‘Activate’ and you are done.

Installing a Premium Theme

You might want to download a paid or ‘premium’ theme from a source like Themelabs, Themeforest, StudioPress or others. You just need to download the zip file of the theme .To install such a theme, you need to go to Appearance>>Theme. Then on the Themes page click on the ‘Add New’ button.  On the next page, click on ‘upload theme’ button and then upload the zip file of the theme that you have download. Then click on ‘install now’. You would get a dialogue box that would say that the theme has been installed successfully. Once you get that, click on activate.

So that was the technique of installing a theme for your WordPress website. The theme of your website plays a significant role in determining the success of your website. Therefore, choosing the right theme is highly important. You can take the help of the leading names in the field of Web Design in Houston as they are regarded as experts in WordPress web design.

The most well-known names in the field of Web Design Houston would analyze your business and your target audience to help you choose the best WordPress theme for your business. If they don’t get one online, they would create a customized WordPress theme! So, get in touch with the leading WordPress web developers in Houston and build a website that is capable of attracting the attention of your audience.

Showing the Last Login Date for a User in a WordPress Website

In today’s world, giving a personalized experience to the users helps the website to garner popularity and be successful in the online world. Now, there are many little things that help you give a personalized experience to users. One such little thing is showing the last login date for a particular user. In this post we would be looking at the technique with which you can do that.

The Technique

To show the last login time of a user anywhere on your site, you just need to add the following code in the functions.php file of your theme

01

<?php

02

/**

03	* Capture user login and add it as timestamp in user meta data

04

*

05

*/

06

07	function user_last_login( $user_login, $user ) {

08	update_user_meta( $user->ID, 'last_login', time() );

09

}

10	add_action( 'wp_login', 'user_last_login', 10, 2 );

11

12

/**

13	* Display last login time

14

*

15

*/

16

17	function wpb_lastlogin() {

18	$last_login = get_the_author_meta('last_login');

19	$the_login_date = human_time_diff($last_login);

20	return $the_login_date;

21

}

22

23

/**

24	* Add Shortcode lastlogin

25

*

26

*/

27

28	add_shortcode('lastlogin','wpb_lastlogin');

29

?>

With this code, you would add the last login time as a meta key. Whenever a user logs in, the time would be saved as a meta key value. You can then display this meta key value using [lastlogin] shortcode in your WordPress posts and widgets.

By using the above code, the time would be shown as a relative value to the present, like ‘an hour ago’. If you wish to show the exact date, then just find the below given line in the code

19	$the_login_date = human_time_diff($last_login);

And replace it with this line

19 $the_login_date = date('M j, Y h:i a', $last_login);

If you are based out of Houston, then you can take the help from the leading names in Website Design Houston as they would help you make such little but useful changes to your website.

They are widely regarded as the experts in WordPress website design and they would know just how to create the perfect WordPress site for your business. The most well-known names in Website Design in Houston would help you design a site that your visitors would find to be useful. So, get in touch with the experts and make your website truly user-centric.

How to Design the Perfect Navigation for Your Mobile Site?

A website should be always designed for the user. If you want your website to be successful, then you need to ensure that your user can interact with your site without any hassles. The moment a user lands on your website, he/she should have a clear idea about what needs to be done in order to do the things that they want to do. You need to guide your user well as a user who gets confused on your website will not think twice before leaving your site. Now, to guide the user effectively on your site, you need to have an efficient navigation system in place. Your user must know what they should do if they want to share an article posted on your website, they must know where they should go to get the information about a particular product that your offer. In short, they must know how to get their way through your site.

Designing Navigation for Mobile

In this article, we would be talking about some of the most effective ways to design navigation for mobile. So, why do you need to design navigation for mobile?  Well, this is because a large number of people use mobile phones to browse the web. Therefore, the majority of traffic on your site would potentially come from mobile users. Now, designing navigation for mobile is different from designing a website for desktops. The biggest difference is the difference in screen size. Therefore, to give the best experience to your users, you need to focus on building a navigation system for mobile.

Tips to Design Navigation for Mobile

Design a Concise Menu – Scrolling on a smartphone is pretty disturbing for most people out there. Therefore, you should avoid excessive scrolling at all costs. You need to make your main menu short enough, so that the users don’t have to scroll much. Try to include only those categories in your mobile menu which you really need to do. Don’t try to stuff too many things as that would confuse the user more than it would help him or her.

Including Search Functionality – A search bar on a website allows a user to search for a thing more quickly and efficiently. The user doesn’t have to use the menu or anything else. He/she just needs to go on the website and type in the search bar. You need to include the search bar on your website so that the user can get the desired thing, without needing to anything else.

Make it Easy to Share - Social Media can really work wonders for your site’s popularity. Therefore, when a user wants to share a post on your website on social media, you need to take steps to ease the process. The simplest way to do this is to use the share button on which a user can click to open the list of share options.

Taking the Help of Experts – You need to take the help of a professional web design company who possess a great deal of expertise in mobile website design. The leading names in Website Design Houston , like IOM Partners of Houston, have a great deal of repute in designing attractive mobile websites that have the perfect navigation.

They have a team of web designers who know how to build an awesome mobile website. A professional Web Designer Houston would understand your target audience and design a website to attract their attention.

So, these were some of the techniques that you should follow to design the perfect navigation for your mobile website. Be a little creative and get ready to attract the attention of your audience.

How to Enlarge Images on Your Website without Compromising on the Quality

Images are widely used in websites today, not only to make the website look more attractive but also to get the message across in a more effective way. Now, sometimes you might need to enlarge an image and post the enlarged image on your website. However, whenever you want to enlarge the picture, the picture loses its quality. This is commonly called pixilation. Such low quality images ruin the look and the attraction of your website and hence they should be avoided at all costs. In this post we would be looking at some of the ways that you can enlarge your image without compromising on the quality.

Technique 1 – Gimp

Gimp is free software that can be used to enlarge photos with ease, without messing with the quality of the images. You need to download Gimp first. Then open the image you want to resize in Gimp. Go toImage>>Scale Image. Enter your desired dimensions and then in the ‘Quality’ section, select the interpolation method to be Sinc (Lanczos3) and then click on the ‘Scale’ button.

Technique 2 – Irfanview

Irfanview is another free image editing software that would help you to enlarge the images. Open the image in Irfanview and from the navigation bar, click on the Resize/Resample option under the Images section. In the pop-up box, enter the desired dimensions in the ‘Set Image Size Option’. Then go to the ‘Size Method’ heading and choose ‘Resample’. From the drop down menu, choose ‘Lanczos (Slowest)’. Then check on the box that says ‘Apply Sharpen After Resample’. After you are done with all that, simply click on ‘OK’

You should note that both these methods are free to use and therefore, you cannot expect to get stellar results. Houstonians can take the help of the leaders in Web Design in Houston as that would be a smarter option to take.

This is because the leading Houston web design companies have a team of some of the most experienced graphic designers who would use more advanced and effective techniques to enlarge the image. So, if you want to spare no efforts to make your site look professional, then you need to take the help of the experts in the field of Web Design Houston. So take the help of the experts and design a flawless and attractive website.

3 Ways to Make Your Website More Exciting in 2016

The past few years have seen quite a few trends emerge on the web design scene. This has changed the way websites are being designed around the world. With new trends emerging every year, it is very important to be aware of the latest trends in the field of web design so to ensure that your website stays modern and attracts the desired volume of traffic. Here, we are going to talk about some of the latest features that are ‘in’ in 2016. You should try to incorporate these features into your website to keep your website attractive.

1. Material Design– Material Design is the design language used by Google for its apps. It is also being used by a number of its web applications. Of late, the material design language has been used by a number of ‘third party’ websites since it offers a clean and user friendly interface. So, if you want to give your users a more effortless browsing experience, then you must consider designing your website on the Material Design Language.

2. Card Layout – Cards Layout offers maximum utilization of the available screen space, makes it easier for the user to access the information and also helps you to increase the level of attraction of your website. If you have a WordPress site, then you can easily set up the card layout with the help of the plugins such as Masonry Layout. If you are in Houston, then you can take the help of the leading names in Website Design in Houston as they would help you set up a website with card layout.

3. Animation– Animation is the next big thing to happen to web design. Websites around the world are using creative animation effects to increase the attraction of their website. However, the use of excess animation might slow down your website and that might dampen user interest. So, you need to take the help of an expert, like an expert Web Designer Houston to use animations the right way.

So these were some of the features that are expected to play a big role in the success of a website in 2016. Try to incorporate these into your website design and make the impact, you have always wanted.