Just messing around with the Brightcove Video Player to see the different options and integration into Thesis.   Not much of an elegant blog post here, this is simply a whiteboard upon which we will be regurgitating our video player…  Probably going to be pretty ugly.

Going to keep an eye on the time and see how long it takes to become accustomed to the Brightcove Player.  Here we go:

• Look over the admin interface and push buttons – 2 Minutes
• Created the Brightcove Player – 5 Minutes
• Uploaded Video – 5 Minutes
• Tagged and enhanced meta data, descriptions, etc. – 10 Minutes
• Created Playlist – 30 Seconds
• Added Videos to Playlist – 30 Seconds
• Added Playlist to Video Player – 30 Seconds
• Generated New Code for Site – 30 Seconds
• Embedded New Code in Site and Pushed Publish – 30 Seconds
• Forgot to allow the embed on this URL from Brightcove.  Fixed that.  1 minute
• Now it’s working!

Total Time Invested – 25.5 minutes (including the random distractions from my son’s children’s show)

Brightcove Video Player – Simple Easy to Implement Technology

Wow, that was really easy! In 25 minutes I was able to build my Brightcove player, upload my first videos, tag them, create the embed codes and implement into a blog post. Too easy.

Time to really start cranking out some video posts. it’s too easy and too engaging not to use regularly.

Adding a breadcrumb navigation structure is a simple way to improve your website navigation and usability, and increase the “spider-ability” at the same time.   Google is now including breadcrumbs in the SERP’s, allowing a searcher to navigate directly to the page that most closely matches their search term.  This can help increase your click-through rate, lower your bounce rate, and possibly increase conversions by reducing the number of steps required to reach the desired page.

If you can increase your SEO and usability, and possibly improve your conversion rate, would it make sense to add breadcrumbs to your nav?

Benefits for SEO:

There are 4 primary benefits of adding a breadcrumb navigation:

1. Create Additional Links – breadcrumbs create more links to every page that is included in the trail.   Internal links have value, so the more legitimate internal links you create, the more your pages’ internal link value will grow.
2. Prioritizes your pages – breadcrumb navigation sends additional link value to your highest level pages – because your breadcrumbs are laid out in a heirarchy, your top level pages will receive more links than the sub pages.  This helps build your total internal links to your highest value pages.
3. Increase Crawling Frequency and Breadth – Ensures that your highest value pages are getting crawled – When a page of your blog or website gets spidered, the bot will follow the links on the page.  Since there can be an endless # of links on any given page, the bot gives the highest priority to the links at the top of the page.   Breadcrumbs are usually included right below the main horizontal nav menu, so it’s very likely that they will be followed by the spider = your pages get indexed more thoroughly, and more often.
4. Keyword Based Anchor Text – Probably the biggest benefit for your sites SEO is the inclusion of keyword based anchor text.   Assuming that your categories and pages are named after their top level keywords, your breadcrumb navigation will also include those targeted keywords.  By simply adding a breadcrumb navigation, you’re automatically creating keyword based links to your highest value pages, thus helping them to rank higher for those terms.

If you’re using Thesis, adding breadcrumbs to your navigation will take about 30 seconds.  Seriously…

Go to Greg Rickabys post How to Add Breadcrumbs Without a Plugin.  Cut and paste and you’ll be done in under one minute.

Step 1: Open custom_functions.php and paste the following code at the bottom:

// Build Breadcrumbs
function the_crumbs() {
	if (!is_home()) {
		echo '<a href="';
		echo get_option('home');
		echo '">';
		echo 'Home'; // Home Link Text, change this to meet your needs
		echo "</a> >> ";
		if (is_category() || is_single()) {
			the_category('title_li=');
			if (is_single()) {
				echo " >> ";
				the_title();
			}
		} elseif (is_page()) {
			echo the_title();
}}}

// Show Breadcrumbs
function show_crumbs() { ?>
<div id="crumbs">
	<?php the_crumbs(); ?>
</div>
<?php }
add_action('thesis_hook_before_content','show_crumbs');

Step 2: Open custom.css and paste the following:

/* Breadcrumbs */
#crumbs {
	font-size: 11px; /*font size, change this to whatever you want*/
	padding: 10px 0px 0px 10px; /*10 padding top, 10 padding left*/
}
#crumbs a {
	color: #00F /*change this to whatever color you want*/
}
#crumbs a:hover {
	text-decoration: underline; /*underline the links on a mouse over*/
}

Could it possibly be any easier?  Go try it and look for breadcrumbs in the search results for your domain.

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Bye Bye Gigantic Header

Ok,we went ahead and changed the header as it was too big and ostentatious.  Obviously this was as simple as changing the size of the logo, and adjusting the CSS so the display fits the image size.

Now that we’ve made this change, it’s time to get into some more advanced customizations. We’ll probably fool around with the footer and widgetize it, then I think the site is going to need some more content, supporting all of the Denver SEO topics, and trends.

There’s been plenty of wild movement in the Denver SEO rankings lately, and there’s definitely some discussion items available there.

Better to Eat You With My Dear

We just wanted to play around with some image replacement CSS techniques, so we went and installed a fairly large version of our logo.   So the header is  a little ostentatious, but it’s going to stay that way for a while.

We’ll make it a bit smaller and more proportionate to the rest of the site in the future, but  for now we’re going to experiment with some of the Thesis Hooks.   I’m pretty excited about some of the things we’ve been able to do with them already, and I think there’s lots of potential.   Initially the concept seems difficult, but once you’ve used them a couple of times, they become a great tool in the arsenal.

SEO Benefit

Using your header in your logo is great for branding , and helps establish trust with your audience immediately.   This header is actually an image (HighPoint SEO’s logo) that is being served up with image replacement using css.   There is text behind the image, but it is pushed far to the left, off the page.

Using this Thesis CSS technique from Kristarella we were able to easily replace the header with our gigantic logo, but keep the title of Denver SEO Blog in an H1 header tag for the additional SEO benefits.   Going to chalk this one up as a design victory and look to add some more changes here in the coming days.

Simple Style Changes That Took Less Than 1 Minute

Edit the custom css file in 10 seconds to add a cool blue shading effect to the sidebar of this page.

Here’s all of the Steps and coding that it takes to add this effect:

• Go to the Thesis Options >
• Choose Custom File Editor >
• Choose to Edit Custom.css >
• Add the Following Code:

.custom .sidebar { background: CCCCFF }

Click the Big Ass Save Button and go view your changes.

Pretty complex eh! (in honor of the Canucks and the Winter Olympics)

Just a Few Quick Modifications to change the look and feel…

Here’s what the Denver SEO Blog looks like now:

What Changes Did We Make?

1. Changed the hover color of the nav menu to a blue that we like
2. Moved the nav menu below the header
3. Adjusted the padding around the nav menu to line it up with the Title
4. Changed the color of the background to match the nav menu hover color
5. Changed Nav menu font to Arial
6. Changed Site Font to Verdana
7. Removed the nav menu borders for a more miminmal look
8. Disabled the multi-media  box on the pages (still active on individual posts if desired)
9. Setup our posts to display the most recent post in excerpt form, and add all other posts as teasers
10. Set teaser images to display 250×150
11. Added an orange background color to all links when hovering.

That’s it for now.   More to come in the next few days as I continue to drink coffee and play around with the site…

Gotta say I love Thesis, and the changes that I made already can be found on the Thesis home page.  There’s a 24 minute video covering these basic changes…

Next Steps – see how this post affects the layout of the teasers…