You may follow the progress of the work at the Ycademy Demo Site which features the Semiomantics XO Theme.

Looking forward to seeing you on YorgoLive tonight.

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Transparent WordPress Custom Theme

Playing with the XO Theme Version 3.3.x from Semiomantics and CSS3, I notice how easy it is for most anyone to customize the XO Theme by adding transparencies and other CSS3 elements. Here below you find some drafts. You may visit the test site from : http://globalthebrand.com.

On the test site we use the Semiomantics Widgets and Theme Handler plug-in as well as a modified Supersized plug-in; the latter needs some more work to make it more responsive. Also we use TubePress which behaves fine also on mobile.

The Theme is Semiomantics XO with 3 custom child-themes; any theme can be associated with any page, post, category, tag or sidebar.

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New Semiomantics XO Theme for WordPress

The above Screenshots represent just some of the pages, features and looks the 2012 Edition of the high performance XO Theme for WordPress has up its sleeves. The above site is the fruit of the 2 Days Ycademy Online Seminar for Semiomantics Developers and designers.

The 2012 Edition of XO is focused on even more flexibility in as much as editing, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility are concerned.

The Site displays perfectly on Mobile devices, showing responsiveness also of the plugged in scripts chosen of which some have been adapted to satisfy the high standards of Semiomantics Publishing Scripts for Excellence.

The site elaborated at the Ycademy Online Seminar this past week-end features some smashing features, such as:

• Background Slideshow, customizable for each page, post or archive
• Built in Directory
• Media Library for YouTube and Vimeo
• Pro-sliders which can be deployed anywhere on the site
• In addition to the responsive design, a separate light Mobile Version is available
• Bold and Efficient Navigation
• Built in Custom Fonts
• Social Network connectivity and publishing
• and much more.

The XO script is well commented and offers designers a clean and straight forward environment for custom developments. XO uses best practices for WordPress development and makes the best use of the possibilities offered by the WP back-bone, assuring smooth integration and optimized conflict handling.

XO is a great playground for designers. The DIY version allows anyone to adapt layout and colors to taste right from the back-office; there is no need to have any knowledge about coding or designing. The theme behaves like a Chameleon and adapts to specific needs with just a few clicks of the mouse: pre-configured layout elements transform your XO quickly into a Magazine, Newspaper, personal Author Blog, a Media Hub, a Shop, a Marketing Machine, a Social Media Publisher, a Product Promoter or a Fan Site or most anything your imagination dictates.

For the professional designer, XO offers a well commented environment. Custom code can be added right from the dashboard or, as I prefer using a child theme. XO is tuned for HTML5 and CSS3 use, making it a modern and inspiring framework for exceptional design effects.

Out of the box, the XO Theme for WordPress provides a stable and reliable, robust and optimized solution for common use. It provides built in features such a slider with multiple transitions and a one click selector for easy use.

Layouts can be easily adapted to needs and purpose of the site. In fact, most custom designers rely on the theme engine to format efficiently layouts.

The site featured in the above gallery uses a few pro plug-ins to add functionality in function of customer requirements. The integration of such add on scripts is a relatively simple process for designers and developers.

XO has been developed for high performance, productivity, excellence in publishing and flexibility. For the professional users, the XO Theme constitues a solid base with a huge potential for customization and creative artistic expression.

The release of XO Version 3.3.x is planned for the first week of February. The present Release Candidate has been thoroughly tested. A few minor issues will be taken care off before XO will be available to the public.

If your site is running on Semiomantics XO suing basic customization, the theme can just be overwritten. (Save your custom CSS beforehand.)

If you are using a custom version with custom developments or a child theme, some of your customization will need to be adapted to the enhancements of XO 2012. This concerns namely custom headers and footers as well as custom functions.

Support for developers and designers is available as usual at our Ycademy Online Calls and Seminars or through Semiomantics Pro Support.

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We are living in times of rapid change and the explosion of the mobile market. People use their mobile phones to search the net, to find what they want, to compare it and – to buy it. Sales figures triggered via the mobile net are staggering – and as web designers we have to adapt – which means also to focus on new technologies and learn new languages.

Over the past years, Semiomantics has always evolved along with WordPress Developments. Remarkably, the latest WP update allows for much more creativity. While our Semiomantics based author blogs display perfectly on smartphones through integration of the right plugins and settings, there’s much more scope that we will be looking into at this weekend’s Ycademy Seminar 2012 – which is also a testing ground for the new Semiomantics XO 2012 – to be released soon.

In that sense, I am looking forward to the evolution of Bianca Gubalke Mobile!

In order to follow and implement Web Design Trends 2012, learning new languages like CSS3 and html5 has become crucial – especially also due to the unfortunate conflicts around Flash which cannot be seen on the exploding mobile market. Accordingly, this weekend’s fully online YCADEMY Seminar will need focused attention and strong nerves! That’s the price to pay to be and remain a qualified Semiomantics expert!

MadMax is ready – are YOU?!

As “Publishing for Excellence” at “Web Design with Passion” demands consistent learning, experimenting, an adaptation to trends and almost daily reassurance of the script’s leading SEO performance, the global Semiomantics Team is currently testing the new script and exploring different ways of presenting themselves or their products and services online.

I am very pleased with the more adventurous ways we can explore with the new Semiomantics XO 2012 for WordPress… and I know we haven’t even started! I am looking forward to creating the Wedding Website on this extraordinary WordPress based script.

With sliders being an important part of the Trend 2012 as Website Design and “the Look” are concerned, I am currently experimenting with a fading slider – although extremely frustrating with often failing Internet connections and extremely slow lines down here… it feels like the sun flare is targeting us specifically and knocking us out completely!

Besides using sliders in the header or sidebar widgets or even blog posts and pages, we can now use them even in the background – which opens a lot more creative options and perspective.

At the Ycademy Seminar, we will work on becoming familiar with the new features of the XO 2012 and improve our knowledge of CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery so we are in a position to ‘play’ with the script, explore new avenues and, last but not least, adapt XO to our customers’ needs.

To be continued. . .

XO has evolved over the past 4 years along with WordPress Developments. The theme has become responsive and shows perfectly on smart phones and tablets.

Subsequent to the release of WordPress 3.3.x XO needed some adjustments and updates which we have implemented and tested. New design functions become available for advanced customization. XO remains the most flexible theme for custom development, accessible to most anyone.

The goal of the seminar is to become familiar with XO and it’s new features as well as to learn how CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery allow to adapt XO to most any customer’s needs.

Some of the technical issues we will have a detailed look at are:

The most obvious expansions are via plug-ins. We will show how to make the best use of plug-ins for the Mobile Web, Social Networking, Social Media Publishing, Social Network Marketing as well as for more attractive display. Time permitting we will look into additional functions, such as shopping cart or marketing specific scripts.

We also will start looking into another important chapter:

How to convert your XO sites into a Mobile App!

In order to make the understanding easier, we will build a new site during the 2 days event. Please join our pre-seminar call on Thursday to prepare the event by setting up a new XO powered site.

All materials will be provided. You will just need some images/photos, videos and other content you may want to use to populate the XO site.

Saturday and Sunday, 28/29 January, 2012 from 1 pm London time till 9 pm London time.

Tickets are available on our new shop at HIOD.com. Please click on the below image to order.

Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros: Please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the coupon code.

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In this respect, I watched the results of  “Happy Weddings in Cape Town” on Google – this being a short and sweet article published yesterday on the relatively new website I created for Monkey Valley Resort HERE.

The result – and this within only 42 seconds – was absolutely astonishing: Position One on Google ahead of 2,560,000 search results! See the screenshot I took yesterday, below:

This morning – basically a little less than a day later – I wondered how the ranking would look now – and here is the even more spectacular result: Positions 1, 2 and 3 on Google Top 10!

What does this mean in terms of Cape Town Weddings and Monkey Valley Resort?

It’s quite simple – yet demands highly qualified skills and the right WordPress based Semiomantics Script to be achieved: if you take the above screenshot as an example, you see a typical Google page. There are Google Ads at the top (on a  yellow background), Google Ads to the right (continued to the next page indicating this is a highly sought-after keyword and gets lots of advertising) – and then you see basically 10 websites competing for the top 10 positions on Google (this is page one of Google with a total of 2,560,000 search returns… with always 10 websites per page… do your own maths as to how many Google pages on this keyword combination alone there are…!)

It means that the 10 websites who made it to Google Top 10 are visible for anyone punching in “Happy Weddings in Cape Town” – perhaps because that’s what they want to go for while planning for their own wedding… – and of course these 10 websites are the one’s these people will click on! Logical – who goes any further if what they are looking for is on the first page?

It means that these 10 websites who made it to the top get all the attention… the clicks… the so-called traffic! It means that the potential of making a sale is divided amongst those 10!

Of course, there are all these Google Ads – meaning the owners of those websites pay heavily – 24/7/365 – to be visible on Page one on Google and get attention as well! It means that heavy Google Ads budgets are allocated each and every month – short-term, medium-term and long-term… and forever rising. A budget of $50 a day brings you nowhere given the price a click can cost these days! So do your maths again… and decide what makes more sense: investing in the right website (yes, there are updates and upgrades as the Internet changes all the time, that’s just as it is…) or be dependent on heavy advertising without a guarantee to get it right (keywords move like mercury…)

The choice is – as always your’s! Nothing stops you from doing both: getting the right website and advertising with AdSense. But if you’re on a tight budget the answer is pretty clear – yes?

What is needed, however, is regular posting, meaning writing good content on a daily basis to keep things moving and alive. The Google spyders like to be stimulated and fed with new original material each day… and you may be in right competition on special keywords – like in this wedding example. In this case you either do it yourself, or you employ someone who takes on this important online marketing and publishing job – or you outsource to a professional who may be the best guarantee for continued success on Google.

Being visible on Google Top 10 – like you see above… meaning 3 positions of 10 on page one, means that you get 30% of the traffic! Meaning a large chance to get visitors to your website… and if your website is attractive and offers the answers and sales pipeline people are looking for, your online business will grow and bring you the desired success.

I hope I could explain this well and simple enough to respond to many questions received on the topic. It ain’t easy… I know! But being number one on a Formula One track ain’t either… and this is not much different, really!

If things aren’t clear yet, let me know…

Semiomantics XO 2012 will be released in January to catch up with the latest WordPress developments.

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The integration of the Booking System at Monkey Valley Resort seems to be more complex than expected; accordingly, I still wait for the integration link to finish off the website and take off the front slider that points out that this is a website built on a WP based Semiomantics XO – the best script out there when it comes to visibility on Google!

Obviously, it’s then a matter of doing regular editing and publishing of good original content to keep the positions in the keyword areas targeted; however, from the results seen so far – be it for the Best Cape Town Conferencing Venue, the Best Cape Town Weddings, Thorfynn’s Restaurant Christmas Lunch or the New Year’s Eve Spectacular or Monkey Valley Resort – well, as the results clearly have shown, the initial investment in the right website has paid off manyfold! And this before its completion!

Either you ensure your presence on Google top rankings by regular, daily Google ads – which is quite costly given the fact that you can’t go far even with $50 a day given the constantly rising cost – that’s dependancy short-term and long-term – or you invest once in the right Script and capture top entries on Google Top 10 on your desired keywords.

Monkey Valley Resort has made a smart choice with their new Semiomantics Website… it has paid off right from the start… and noone stops anyone from adding Google Ads… but now it’s a choice depending on one’s budget, it’s no longer a must. Be on the smart side of Internet Marketing; invest in an attractive and search engine efficient Semiomantics Website!