WordPress Featured Image Thumbnails

In a previous post I showed you how to get the page content by page id to create a WordPress website page with snippets of many other pages.
What if you want to get a wordpress featured image from a page or post. This is easy if you are coding whithin the loop:

In this case there are 2 parameters of the_post_thumbnail; the size of the image and an array of arguments. The size of the image may be a width and height in pixels eg array(150, 150), or a preset: thumbnail, medium, large or full. The size of the presets may be changed in WordPress admin using the Settings > Media menu.

For more information about the_post_thumbnail see http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_post_thumbnail

You may need to add theme support for WordPress featured images (post thumbnails). More info here http://wpmu.org/daily-tip-enable-post-thumbnails-in-your-wordpress-theme/

the_post_thumbnail will work fine if you are coding within the loop (within the standard wordpress loop beginning

and ending

endwhile; endif;

WordPress Featured Images Outside the Loop

You may be coding outside the loop at times and in this case you will need to do 2 things to display WordPress featured images:

1) Add the post id as a parameter to has_post_thumbnail()

2) Use get_the_post_thumbnail instead of the_post_thumbnail and include the post id as the first parameter

Complete Code

The full code you need is

For more about get_the_post_thumbnail see http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_the_post_thumbnail

Now you know how to add page content and wordpress featured images to any WordPress template page.
Here’s an example of how we used this code in www.nrn.ie

Showing excerpts and featured images from different pages on the home page of nrn.ie

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

Interested in keeping in touch with the latest news in Irish Web HQ – Download our app for Android and Blackberry at http://www.joemobi.com/dl/2538/.

iPhone app coming soon.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

WordPress responsive images scale to fit whatever device you are using to view your website. Responsive design is the new buzzword in town, and rightly so. It is important that our websites are clearly laid out and easy to read no matter what device or screen size the viewer uses. For those that don’t already know, responsive web design means that we use CSS to present a different view of our website content to those who are using mobile devices, tablets etc. We use CSS media queries to detect their viewing size and restructure our content based on that information.

WordPress Responsive Images

Anyhow, here is a simple trick to get your images to scale perfectly in your WordPress website. First lets understand how we want our images to behave in our wordpress site.

• Upload our images as usual using the WordPress admin media/image uploader
• Display the images at the chosen size
• If the image is larger than the given device viewing area (on mobiles this is about 320px) then we must rescale the image to fit neatly into the viewing area
• Image width must be no more than 100%
• Image height must scale in relation to image width

Wordpress Responsive Image - Not Implemented

Wordpress Responsive Image - Scales Perfectly

So how can get WordPress responsive images? Quite simply actually.

In your CSS stylesheet add or change a rule for the img element as follows:

img {
max-width: 100%;
height: auto;
}

This will ensure that your image always scales down to 100% of the available width. The auto value for height ensures a nice relative scale of height to width. If the image that has been added using the WordPress admin is smaller than the available space it will not be scaled.

Of course IE8 has a problem with this so there is one final rule that should be added (Thanks to Web Designer Wall for this).

width: auto\9; /* ie8 */

This solves any issues with WordPress responsive image widths in IE8.

The complete CSS rule is:

img { max-width: 100%; height: auto;  width: auto\9; /* ie8 */ }

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

We discovered HTML Kickstart recently and decided to put it into practice in the design of our new site http://www.cheapwebsitedesign.ie. Generally our website designs vary considerably due to the requirements of our customers. Some clients focus on the design of their site while others are more concerned with e-commerce or custom programming. We pride ourselves on all these web design services.

We created the new site to cater for clients who don’t want to spend too much but yet require a high quality website with excellent features. These designs cater for a wide range of businesses, clubs, individuals etc.

From the moment I first started using HTML Kickstart I was impressed. Joshua Gatcke created “an ultra-lean set of HTML5, CSS and jQuery files, layouts and elements” in order to help web designers with future projects. The first thing I encountered was how to create the website layout. The flexible grids and image placeholders were ideal when creating the homepage for the new site. The themes page was set up quickly and efficiently by applying the grid system whereby the overall width of the site is 12 columns. The layout can then be perfected by specifying column widths for each div that you have. This was how I achieved the nice fluid layout for our Website Template Designs.

Once the images were in place I added the slideshow effect which I think you’ll agree is pretty impressive. The enquiry button was easily added by choosing a size, colour and design. All I had left to do was add some pages and a information and the site was complete. It was only when I had finished that I realised how smooth the process had gone with no major code or layout issues and also I had some time to spare on previous websites.

I was very happy with the initial foray into HTML Kickstart and look forward to investigating it further on upcoming Web Design projects. On the subject of Web Design why not check out our 2011 review to see what we got up to over the last 12 months.

If you have any queries about our Web Design, E-commerce sites, Custom Programming or Cheap Website Designs please contact us with your enquiry.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

I have been a bit disillusioned of late with the continuing race to the bottom in the website design industry in Ireland.

With this backdrop, I was delighted to receive a kind comment from a client today. We recently finished an e-commerce website for Mark Bunce of D8 Fitness(www.d8fitness.com). D8 Fitness use their ecommerce website to sell Fitness products to customers in Ireland and Europe.

Website Design Testimonial for www.d8fitness.com

“I would like to take the opportunity to say thank you for excellent work and outstanding service, I have worked with many alleged website developers and have never received such a good service with out any problems, you’ve carried out your work to a very high standard and in my opinion you offer a very professional service which I have never seen before in this profession, pity I never found you before, I expect that you have many references already but feel free to use me anytime, you guys come highly recommended.”

Website Design - D8 Fitnesss

Thanks to Mark Bunce for his custom and kind words.

View this website at www.d8fitness.com.

We are looking forward to more happy website design customers in Ireland in 2012. What will the major web design trends be in 2012? http://www.slideshare.net/Fresh_Egg/website-trends-2012-presentation

Check out our portfolio of website design work. http://www.irishwebhq.com/portfolio

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

The new year is upon us and we are focusing on new website designs here at Irish Web HQ, but here’s a quick look back at some of our best web designs for customers all over Ireland.

Web Design Trends in Ireland

As usual, the business owners knowledge of SEO and social media is increasing and website owners are now more thoughtful about how they would like their website to integrate with social media sites.

Web Design Tools

All of our websites are capable of sharing blog content in a number of ways. We use Google XML Sitemaps to notify the major search engines when a blog post has been updated and we automatically send the update sitemap.xml file to the search engines.

We also use systems like dlvr to share content from the blog to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Content is automatically sent to these networks whenever the user updates their blog and there are good backlinks which is helpful for SEO.

From a design point of view, an increasing number of users also have a greater understanding of how they want their site to look and the layout required.

Best Irish Web Design - Irish Web HQ

Website Design Gallery

So here it is, the web design hall of fame for 2011. Click any image to zoom.

Adventure World Camps run Summer Camps and School Tours in Nenagh, Tipperary, Limerick and Dublin. This website re-design is colourful and interesting showing slideshows and galleries of images and activities.

Molesworth Clinic - A website design for a Dublin City based Dentist with a clean and fresh design. Logo design and Google AdWords advertising were also included in this project.

Premier Sporting Goods sell sliotars, footballs and other GAA goods. Based in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, this company required a visually stunning website re-design with E-Commerce functionality and credit-card payments.

Platform Boutique is an E-Commerce design for this boutique based in Limerick. The site was designed in a colour scheme complementary to the logo and shop design.

Shack restaurant is another website re-design. We are dragging our clients into the 21st centuary, one by one. Like all of the websites we create, this re-design includes an easy to use content managements system. It also includes a newsletter collection and sending system.

Global Box Shipments ship boxes to the Philippines. We created a box order system and a tracking systems for customers to trace their box delivery status. One of the many website applications that we created in 2011.

This is a website template that we created for a wedding page company. Full CMS and many options for changing content, menus and slideshow.

First Polymer offer training courses for the Plastics industry. We created a new design and integrated the calendar with their desktop training software so that new courses are automatically added to the calendar.

The National Rural Network have their finger on the pulse of all things relevant to rural development in Ireland. This re-design simplified the site with a pleasing visual design. There are almost 1000 posts/pages on this site so we had a lot of SEO work to do to make sure that old posts were re-directed to the correct page on the new site.

Setanta College is the number one Hetac Accredited Sports College in Ireland. This website redesign includes course details, video and E-Comemrce course payments. We also manage and maintain the Setanta College E-Learning platform which is the primary teaching method of the college.

This is a website template that we created for a wedding page company. Full CMS and many options for changing content, menus and slideshow.

Adare Machinery is another website re-design with a full size background image slideshow, Information about all products and machines as well as an e-commerce shopping system with credit card payments.

Iridium Training needed an E-Learning system to create and deliver training courses. We implemented a fresh design in Moodle and Managed the e-learning system for Iridium

This is a website template that we created for a wedding page company. Full CMS and many options for changing content, menus and slideshow.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

Often when creating your homepage or a featured content page or slider you will need to get content from specific pages in your site. The following code snippet show a quick and easy way to do this, based on the ID of the page, post or custom post type.

 
$page_id = 6;  //Page ID
$page_data = get_page( $page_id ); 

//store page title and content in variables
$title = $page_data->post_title; 
$content = apply_filters('the_content', $page_data->post_content);

//display the title and content
echo $title;
echo $content;

Rinse and repeat to include content from multiple pages.

If you need to get the page ID you can easily do this by logging into your WordPress website admin and opening the page, post or custom post type for editing. The page id is visible in the address bar as shown in the screenshot below.

Need to get the featured image? This article shows you how to get the featured image by page id.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

Our Professional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Services will help to boost your website traffic. We have a great track record with many Web based companies in Ireland.

Discover how our SEO techniques and years of experience can generate more targeted visitors to your site. We focus on generating interest from targeted traffic meaning that visitors to your site will be potential customers.

Our complete Internet Marketing & SEO package is guaranteed to deliver the results you require.

We already run successful SEO campaigns including AdWords campaign for a number of companies attracting Irish and international visitors to their websites. For instant targeted search traffic we can manage your Adwords campaign, or for a longer term strategy we will analyse your existing website and convert it into a money-making machine. Get online marketing for your website now.

How does it work?

• We submit your site to all the main search engines and make them aware of it’s existence (Many companies neglect to do this!)
• We write standards compliant code and make it easy for search engines to read your site content
• we ensure that your site loads quickly for users and search engines
• We write useful and relevant content using important keywords that we identify for your site
• We use use internal links and external inbound links to drive useful traffic to your site and
• We add the proper meta data to communicate your sites purpose to all of the main search engines
• We use  social media to promote your site and build a profitable network
• Many other small but important checks and tune-ups that combined make a major difference

We can do the same for your site. Contact us to find out how.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

Here at Irish Web HQ we have noticed significant increase in the number of SME’s requiring specialised websites. Small businesses in Ireland have realized that the online marketing of their site is now more important than ever in order to survive and grow.

Web Design in Ireland is changing. The need for websites is a must as more and more people browse, engage and conduct their business online.

We are an Irish Web Design company that offers a unique service ranging from website design, search engine optimization, ecommerce sites and custom programming.

Our latest web design project is an e-commerce site for Platform Boutique which will enable our client to reach new markets and expand their business by selling online. E-commerce sites ensure credit card payments are sent quickly and securely for  ease of use for both the merchant and the customer. As Web Design in Ireland continues to grow we are open to the needs of our customers and we liaise with them to create customized and optimized user friendly sites.

Please feel free to contact us to discuss your website or e-commerce site requirements. We can also design e-mail newsletters to keep your clients up to date on your products or services.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -

Want to drive traffic to your website and perform well in the search engines? The following is a list of tips for you to consider in your web design.

These tips will help in all of the main search engines but it is important to be patient as it can take 3-6 months to see the benefits of your work. Persistence is importance so stick with it and focus on future benefits to your website.

1) Choose keywords wisely

Keywords are the search terms that users search for in search engines like Google in order to find your website or your competitors. For example, if you offer web design services in Ireland your potential clients could use terms such as Irish web design or web design Ireland in order to find your website or other similar sites, so your keywords should include web, design, Ireland, Irish, website etc.

Once you have identified these keywords you can begin the process of optimising your site for these terms.

2) Choose a Good Domain Name

Your domain name should be based on your keywords identified in step 1. The most effective domain name for search engine results doesn’t need to include your company name. If required you can register another domain name with your company branding and redirect it.  Using keywords in the main domain name for your website identifies it as as being closely linked to those keywords.

3) Choose a Good Web Page Name

This benefits your site in the same manner as having a keyword focused domain name. You are alerting the search engines to the upcoming content in the page. Use a keyword focused page name such as irish-web-design-blog.htm.  Don’t use non-descriptive page names. For dynamically generated pages you should update your .htaccess file to convert dynamic names such as “www.irishwebhq.com?pid=345″ to a keyword focussed domain like www.irishwebhq.com/web-design-ireland”.

4) Use Keywords Correctly

When designing and writing your web page, use keywords correctly within the page. Use keywords in the title, h1, and h2 tags and also use keywords within links. Your keyword density should constitute anywhere from 3 to 7% of the text on the page. Anything more than this could flag you page as trying to fool the search engines using keyword stuffing, leading to a blacklisting of your site.

5) Blog Often

It takes time and patience to write and edit a blog. While bloggers often start enthusiastically they can often be distracted and neglect to update their site.

How often should you blog? Try to write some new and interesting content at least twice weekly. It doesn’t have to be a novel, a short and interesting article can generate plenty traffic. Remember to use your keywords throughout your blog post.

6) Network on the Social Media Sites

Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and You Tube are excellent resources for you to network with potential clients. Facebook is mainly for social interactions so place more emphasis on communicating with people and less on blatantly selling your business. Twitter allows you to use a mix of the two. Linked In for for creating business connections and discussing interesting topics in the groups. You Tube is a good place to host instructive videos which can then be displayed in your website.

7) Don’t Try to Fool Google

Don’t trade short term gains for long term losses. Google doesn’t appreciate tricks or attempts to fast-track your site to page 1 and will penalise your website if you try and “black hat” techniques. If you need traffic fast try Google AdWords.

8 ) Have we Met? Introduce yourself to Google

Google webmasters tools is the number 1 way of ensuring that your website gets listed on Google. Ignoring this important step means that you are relying on Google to follow links from other websites in order to find and index your site. www.google.com/webmasters

9) Where are you? Geolocate

Google places allows you to specify your location on Google maps. When someone searches for a business in your industry in your town or city your marker will be displayed. Clicking on the marker displays your business details, a link to your website and even directions to your business.

10) Track performance using Google Analytics

Add your site. Track users. Create conversion goals. Google Analytics is the best free tool to help you understand what your visitors are doing on your website. You can see the pages that they are viewing, the keywords that they use to get to your site, the page they don’t like and many other stats that give you excellent insight into your websites performance.

Now it your turn to optimise your site using the 10 useful steps above.

Need Help? Irish Web HQ carry out Search Engine Optimisation for many of our clients. Contact us to discuss your website or SEO requirements.

Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ -