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7 Lessons I’ve Learned from Live Chat

I’ve installed Live Chat on the Web sites of a number of clients. Most of those clients — especially those who hadn’t used Live Chat themselves as “consumers” — initially pushed back when I suggested they offer this particular form of customer service.

They had lots of common preconceptions. Now that I have a fair amount of experience as a Live Chat “agent” under my belt (I provide Live Chat support on behalf of most of these clients), I can tell you that most of those preconceptions were misconceptions.

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I Built a WordPress Plugin for Downloadable Files

If you’ve ever embedded a PDF file or other downloadable file in WordPress posts or pages using the standard “Add Media” button, you probably know what a pain it can be if and when — but most likely when — that file needs to be updated.

You can’t just upload the newly updated file to the Media Library and expect “voila” to happen.

Even if the updated file has the same filename as the original, WordPress will rename it on upload rather than replace the old one with the new one. (I’ve tried a plugin that offers this replacement functionality, but it wasn’t user-friendly and fell short in other ways.)

So I made my own plugin.

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Automatic “Visit Web Site” Links on WordPress Portfolio Posts

If your blog includes articles about Web sites you have built, here’s a simple way to automagically and uniformly show “Visit Web Site” links at the end of all such posts. Sure, you could do this the old-fashioned way (hard coding the link), but there’s a better way. (Hint: You get to use that “Custom Fields” feature.)

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How to Reuse Content in WordPress with the amr shortcode any widget Plugin

Whenever you’ve entered identical content in more than one place in your WordPress Web site, have you wished there was a better way? Well, there is. In fact, there’s a plugin for that: the amr shortcode any widget WordPress plugin. This has become a standard plugin for all of the sites I build. Read this post to find out why and how it’s used.

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Dynamic Linear Gradients for Background Images in Genesis

Many Genesis child themes natively implement what I call dynamic linear gradients over background images in homepage sections. The effect is that as the visitor scrolls down the home page, the background image gradually changes appearance, typically getting increasingly darker. This blog post shows you one way to implement dynamic linear gradients over background images in Genesis themes that don’t natively support the effect.

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Add Dynamic Table of Contents to a Series of WordPress Posts

When I’m writing a series of posts on a subject — such as a multi-part tutorial — I like to include a table of contents for that series of posts. I think this helps readers navigate the content. I’ve looked for a plugin that performs this function, without success. This post describes my own home-grown solution.

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Help Your Blog Readers Find What They’re Looking For with the Search & Filter Plugin

This article shows how to use a simple, lightweight plugin — one I installed long ago, deactivated because I hadn’t followed directections, and forgot about — to filter blog posts and make it easier for you Web visitors to find what they’re looking for in your blog. After all, making our visitors’ experiences better is what it’s all about.

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