I was recently interviewed by Greg Levine at The Business Catalyst radio show about topics related to starting EPR Creations, website development and social media. You can listen to the entire interview below or click the link to download the interview:
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Download Interview Here as MP3
I’m currently developing a website for a client where advanced search capabilities are a going to be a key function of the website. This site will include a number of different categories, authors, and book that all need to be searched from a main “browse” page. Here are the main plugins I used to take advantage of some advanced search functions available for WordPress:
Search Everything
This one is pretty basic. It opens up the WP search capabilities beyond the regular limits. With this plugin, you can also highlight the searched term within the results. This is a nice feature so your users can see the searched term within the actual text.
Dave’s WordPress Live Search
This plugin utilizes the existing Search widget to either pop-up or down search results as the user types. This is a neat feature and should really be used on most of your websites to speed up the search result process.
Multiple Category Selection Widget
This plugin sets up the ability for you to have drop-down menus for each of your main Category types. For instance, someone could choose an author from the author category drop-down and a specific category in another drop-down and all books by that author within that category will show up on the search results page.
While these plugins are great, the most important part of creating a functioning WordPress website with advanced search functions is to set up your categories in the correct manner. I found it easiest to create categories and subcategories. So for instance, if you have a number of authors you would like to list, create Authors as a category and then the names of the authors as sub-categories. You can easily do this as you add a new category by assigning that category a Parent item.
Now, when you use advanced search features, you can have the results funneled into category parents. Another great use of categories is in the updated menu feature for WordPress 3.0+. You can now create menu links that are categories. That means that any time a user clicks on that link, he/she will go to a page listing all posts associated with that category name. One thing you could do with this is set up a website where a number of different bloggers could have their own page on the website through the use of categories.
As a website designer and developer, I enjoy keeping an eye on trends in the marketplace and watching patters with my clients. The process of creating and maintaining a website has undergone dramatic changes in just the last few years, not to mention the last decade.
In the not so distant past, website design for a company was about creating static pages of information. What I mean by static is that the design and content lived on the same HTML page that was usually too complicated to be updated by the client. So, website designers would create a website and then be called upon for each small copy or image update.
What has happened recently is that a separation has occurred between the design and the content. The design is on one side of the development process, but the content doesn’t live on the same file (or website page) as the design. Within the design, code is used that calls the content (ex. biography, photo, links) to be loaded onto the page from a Database. Thus, the information doesn’t reside with the website designer, but is now placed in the hands of the client who can update and maintain their own content.
A website page that calls the content from a database is called a dynamic page. We have moved from static website pages to pages that are dynamically driven and able to be updated by the client via computer or mobile device. The page will look the same to the end user.
The main shift here is that the client has become the owner and editor of their own content.
This may seem like an added task to the client. Something they want to outsource anyway. But, here’s the key feature. If you set up a dynamically driven site for your client, you are empowering them. They now have a database of their own information that they will keep forever. Think of it this way. If you purchase an iPhone, you can load, update, and maintain all of the information on that iPhone. Maybe you want to update the case around the iPhone every few years to the latest design trends, but that iPhone will be yours and you will be in charge of what it contains.
Here is an image that shows this process in a very basic way. The client now has their own user interface where they can add, remove, and archive information in their database without knowing the first thing about database management. Those changes take place in a website Admin area and are reflected in the database. The front end of the website (what the user sees on his/her computer) then pulls this updated information from the database.
Similarly, as a website designer and developer, you can maintain working relationships with your clients by updating the look and feel of their website every few years. You can incorporate the new standards and abilities available. But that database will remain the same for that client.
This is a very exciting shift. As your clients continue to see the importance of their website in gaining new clients, making new sales, or promoting their idea, they will want to maintain a closer relationship to that content and will have the ability by maintaining their own content.
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