I’ve been asked many times for a clean, white template for CE4. One that really makes the ads Pop! Well, today I’m releasing a new premium template made for owners of CE4 (aka ClickBump Express/Engine). Its called “White Lightning!” and its a clean, SEO optimized, w3c-validating html5 compatible template made for WordPress and CE4.

Here’s a preview (click the image for full size preview):

This template features a unique blend of cutting edge CSS design (including some CSS3 for modern browsers), html5 compatibility, as well as the ability to morph into any color scheme you can envision, using the CE4 point and click color options.

You can also add a custom header graphic (to replace the default female avatar character) and I’ve included a layered .pxd file with the package so that you can easily create your own custom header image to make this your own. You can open the .pxd image at pixlr.com, edit it, then save it as header.png for uploading to your site. If you don’t care to use a header graphic, you can easily disable the header graphic with one click at “CE4 > Images > Hide Header Graphic”

The template also features a vast array of color customization options. Here is the help overlay that you will see at “CE4 > General Settings > Show Help” (click the image for full size preview)

By default, the color values are preset to match the example. However, you can easily customize these colors, along with the header image to instantly transform this template into your vision. As you can see in the screenshot below showing CE4′s point and click color swatches (1-4) that you will use to set those colors:

Adding the CE4 Google Search Widget to the template

At the top right corner of the screenshot, you can see the Google Search Widget, specially formatted and anchored to the top right corner of the template’s header area. Its a snap to add this to your CE4 enabled site.

1) Go to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag “Google Search Widget” (a ClickBump CE4 exclusive widget not found elsewhere) over into the widget area labeled “Sidebar“. Once you’ve done that, it will look like this:

As you can see from the screenshot, I’ve already pasted in all of the default script for you. All thats left for you is to place your Adsense Pub ID into the space provided. You’ll get this from your Google search widget code at your Adsense dashboard. You can also see that at the bottom of the widget panel you have even more control over where the widget appears on your site via the “Widget Visibility” panel, another CE4 exclusive. You can selectively show/hide the widget depending on whether its being shown on the home page, on posts, on pages, on category pages, on the search page, on 404 pages or on tag pages. No one else gives you this level of control right out of the box.

Adding Your Ad Code to the template’s Main Content Ad Area

To add your Main Ad code to the template, you have two options (for Adsense), you can use your Adsense Client ID and Slot ID or you can paste your entire Ad code block. I’m using a combination of both in my example, so that I can rotate ads between the two. However, you can use one or the other. Of course, you are not limited to Adsense. You can use ANY AD NETWORK, such as Chitika, Amazon, Ebay, ClickBank or whatever. Just paste your Ad code or script into the spaces provided at “CE4 > Ads” and you are all set to go with global control over your ads.

To enable the stacked 336×280 ads as you see in the screenshot, open your site’s admin dashboard and click on the theme options panel (CE4). Once you have that open, just click on the “Ads” tab and click the “Default to Stacked Ads” option and paste in your Google Client ID and Slot ID for your saved large rectangle ad like so (click the image for full size preview):

Note that I have a few extra options selected in my example. These are all optional (as all of the CE4 settings are). By placing ad code into the “Alternate Ad Code” block, and checking the “Turn on Ad Rotation Script” option, I’m enabling CE4 to rotate the ads that the viewer sees between the Adsense main ad (the one I’ve specified at the top with the Client ID and Slot ID) and the “Alternate Ad Code”.

What’s cool about this feature is that I can place ANY ad code I want into the “Alternate Ad Code” box, and I’m not limited to Adsense. I can, for example, rotate between my stacked 336 Google Adsense blocks, and a high commission ClickBank product with affiliate link (or whatever). You get the idea. This is very powerful.

Feel free to use the comments are below to ask any questions you may have about setting up the new “white-lightning” template for CE4. Existing CE4 owners can purchase and install this template beginning today at Paypal. To activate this template or any template, check the preview panel at the top of the member dashboard downloads page. You can instantly purchase any premium template there.

Adding Custom Menus to CE4 Templates

The White Lightning template (and almost all premium templates) is pre-configured to present the WordPress custom menus as you see in the screenshot, with the current post or section automatically highlighted. It also will display any posts you’ve flagged with the top-menu category and place them in the blue bar across the bottom portion of the header area. If you built your site with JumpStartPro!, the installer automatically created a custom menu for you. However, if you did not, click on “Appearance > Menus” to create and configure your menu similar to this (click the image for a full size preview):

The custom menus are flyout enabled, so that if you drag and drop them under one another, they will automatically orient themselves as flyout menus on the live site.

To flag specific posts to appear in the blue bar below the custom menus, just add the “top-menu” category to the post and CE4 takes care of the rest. To do this, click on “Posts”, then for any post you want to appear in the blue bar menu, click “Quick Edit > Categories” and click to select the “top-menu” category. Then click “Update” to save the setting. That’s all there is to it. The menu is now set as a top menu item and will appear in the submenu under the main header menu.

Adding the footer boxes

The four boxes you see at the bottom are optional. However, these are great areas to showcase special Amazon or ClickBank products that relate to your niche. Or, you can just place additional content into them. To create them, just go to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag a few “ClickBump Box x” widgets over into the “Footer” sidebar as you can see below. You can use as many or as few box widgets as you want. White-lightning will auto adjust the boxes to fit equally in the footer area alongside one another!

Note from the screenshot above, one of the unique capabilities of the CE4 theme that set it apart from other themes, the ability to set widget visibility. For example, in this case, the widget will only be seen on the home page.

Feel free to use the comments are below to ask any questions you may have about setting up the new “white-lightning” template for CE4. Existing CE4 owners can purchase and install this template beginning today at Paypal.

Today I’m releasing a new premium template made for owners of CE4 (aka ClickBump Express/Engine). Its called “Velocity” and its an SEO optimized, fully-validating html5 compatible template made for WordPress and CE4.

Here’s a preview (click the image for full size preview):

This template features a unique blend of cutting edge CSS design, html5 compatibility, as well as the ability to morph into any color scheme you can envision, using the CE4 point and click color options.

You can also add a custom header graphic (to replace the default female avatar character) and I’ve included a layered .pxd file with the package so that you can easily create your own custom header image to make this your own. You can open the .pxd image at pixlr.com, edit it, then save it as header.png for uploading to your site.

The template also features a vast array of color customization options. Here is the help overlay that you will see at “CE4 > General Settings > Show Help” (click the image for full size preview)

By default, the color values are preset to match the example. However, you can easily customize these colors, along with the header image to instantly transform this template into your vision. As you can see in the screenshot below showing CE4′s point and click color swatches (1-4) that you will use to set those colors:

Adding the CE4 Google Search Widget to the template

At the top right corner of the screenshot, you can see the Google Search Widget, specially formatted and anchored to the top right corner of the template’s header area. Its a snap to add this to your CE4 enabled site.

1) Go to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag “Google Search Widget” (a ClickBump CE4 exclusive widget not found elsewhere) over into the “Sidebar”. Once you’ve done that, it will look like this:

As you can see from the screenshot, I’ve already pasted in all of the default script for you. All thats left for you is to place your Pub Code into the space provided. You’ll get this from your Google search widget code at your Adsense dashboard.

Adding Your Ad Code to the template’s Main Content Ad Area

To add your Main Ad code to the template, you have two options (for Adsense), you can use your Client ID and Slot ID or you can paste your entire Ad code block. I’m using a combination of both in my example, so that I can rotate ads between the two. However, you can use one or the other.

To enable the stacked 336×280 ads as you see in the screenshot, open your site’s admin dashboard and click on the theme options panel (CE4). Once you have that open, just click on the “Ads” tab and paste in your Google Client ID and Slot ID for your saved large rectangle ad like so (click the image for full size preview):

Note that I have a few extra options selected in my example. These are all optional (as all of the CE4 settings are). By placing ad code into the “Alternate Ad Code” block, and checking the “Turn on Ad Rotation Script” option, I’m enabling CE4 to rotate the ads that the viewer sees between the Adsense main ad (the one I’ve specified at the top with the Client ID and Slot ID) and the “Alternate Ad Code”.

What’s cool about this feature is that I can place ANY ad code I want into the “Alternate Ad Code” box, and I’m not limited to Adsense. I can, for example, rotate between my stacked 336 Google Adsense blocks, and a high commission ClickBank product with affiliate link (or whatever). You get the idea. This is very powerful.

Feel free to use the comments are below to ask any questions you may have about setting up the new “Velocity” template for CE4. Existing CE4 owners can purchase and install this template beginning today at Paypal.

Adding Menus to the Velocity Template

The template is pre-configured to present the WordPress custom menus as you see in the screenshot, with the current post or section automatically highlighted. It also will display any posts you’ve flagged with the top-menu category and place them in the blue bar across the bottom portion of the header area. If you built your site with JumpStartPro!, the installer automatically created a custom menu for you. However, if you did not, click on “Appearance > Menus” to create and configure your menu similar to this (click the image for a full size preview):

The custom menus are flyout enabled, so that if you drag and drop them under one another, they will automatically orient themselves as flyout menus.

To flag specific posts to appear in the blue bar below the custom menus, just add the “top-menu” category to the post and CE4 takes care of the rest.

Adding the footer boxes

The four boxes you see at the bottom are optional. However, these are great areas to showcase special Amazon or ClickBank products that relate to your niche. Or, you can just place additional content into them. To create them, just go to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag a few “ClickBump Box” widgets over into the “Footer” sidebar as you can see below. You can use as many or as few box widgets as you want. Velocity with auto adjust them to fit alongside one another!

Note from the screenshot above, one of the unique capabilities of the CE4 theme that set it apart from other themes, the ability to set widget visibility. For example, in this case, the widget will only be seen on the home page.

Feel free to use the comments are below to ask any questions you may have about setting up the new “Velocity” template for CE4. Existing CE4 owners can purchase and install this template beginning today at Paypal.

Nov 21, 2011 update. Demo CTR-Plus site is now live

In this blog post tutorial, I’m going to walk you through the process of creating a review site using my WordPress theme, ClickBump 5 (aka C5).

I will be using my “CTR-Plus” template which installs into ClickBump 5 with one click to instantly transform your site.

ClickBump 5 is the WordPress core theme which comes with any of products > ClickBump Express, or Engine, or Express with JumpStart Pro or ClickBump Bundle)

Here’s what the site will look like when we are done (click the image for a larger preview):

(Above: CTR-Plus for ClickBump 5. Click the image for full screen preview.)

You can view the live demo site here

As you can see from the screenshot, there are several monetization sources available and at your disposal in ClickBump 5.

The Ads in the Example Site

To the right side of the header image, you can place a Google search widget, just by dragging and dropping the ClickBump ClickBump 5 exclusive “Google Search Widget” from the “Widgets” area over into the “Header” sidebar at “Appearance > Widgets“.

Below the header image and to the left, we’ve placed a 160×600 tall skyscraper banner (it can be from Google adsense or from any affiliate network such as Amazon or ClickBank). To place this ad, I just went to “Appearance > Widgets” and dropped a “ClickBump Ad Box” over into the “Sidebar” widget area. I then pasted my ad code into it and clicked “Save”.

To the right of the skyscraper ad, and inside the main content area, I’ve placed a set of “Stacked 336×280 ads” one on top of another. ClickBump 5 has an automated setting to do this for you, so I’ve just enabled that option at “ClickBump 5 > Ads > Use Stacked Ads“. I also placed my Adsense Publisher ID into the space provided at “ClickBump 5 > Ads > Adsense ID” and I’m all set, ClickBump 5 does the rest, including the nifty, two column, magazine style layout you see in the screenshot.

Just below the content area, I’ve placed a single 600×160 banner ad that reinforces my main offer, which is a ClickBank product on the workout ebook my site is targeted to. To place this ad, I simply grabbed my ad code from ClickBank, then opened “Appearance > Widgets” and again, dragging a “ClickBump Ad Box” over into the “Below Content” sidebar area. I then opened the sidebar widget and pasted in my ad code before clicking “Save“.

The Images in the Example Site

Starting from the top left, you have the ability to add your own custom header image (the avatar character). This can be any image you choose. You’ll upload it via “ClickBump 5 > Images > Header“. I choose an headshot of a male avatar character, which has a transparent background to seemlessly blend in with the template gradient background area for a nice, clean look.

Directly under the header area, you’ll see two large 350×250 images that match my site’s theme (Crossfit Workouts). I grabbed these images via Google search. Make sure the images you use are cleared for display and you are not violating copyright. There are many free stock photo collections available online and you can also search google images with a copyright license filter enabled. I also use istockphoto.com for paid stock photography.

The Content and Menus in the example site

To create this site, I used JumpStart Pro, the one click site installer that comes with my “Express with JumpStart Pro” and “ClickBump Bundle” packages. The JSPro installer automatically installed ClickBump 5, along with the CTR-Plus template (I placed a copy of the unzipped ctr-plus template folder into the JSPro’s “templates” folder prior to using it to create this site).

By using JSPro, I did not have to create any pages or posts, since JSPro creates them all for me as part of the one click install process. I merely had to edit my home page post with my main article content.

The menus were all created as part of the JSPro installer process as well. I simply removed the default “Custom menu” that the JSPro installer created (since I wanted a clean look across the top), but going to “Appearance > Menus > and de-selecting the “Site Menu” from the “Theme Locations” box and clicking “Save”.

Unlimited Color Options

As with all ClickBump templates, you have unlimited color options via the point and click colorpicker in ClickBump 5 theme options. For example, with just a few clicks on the colorpicker, you can instantly change the background to any color you like. Here are a few examples:

Since the template runs in the ClickBump Framework, you have complete control over ad placement, menu counts, and foreground (text) and background color options at the click of a button. You can also take advantage of ClickBump’s built in support for social media as well as Google search box as seen below (click for full size preview) as well as automatic social sharing widgets above or below your post content.

Finally, because CTR-Plus runs in ClickBump Framework, you can instantly customize the color palette to match your niche or tastes, from an unlimited selection of colors, with point and click ease via the ClickBump theme options panel. Here are a few color scheme examples:

CTR-Plus Step by step setup

1. (optional) Install and activate JumpStart-Pro. This sets up your site’s default pages and posts, installs the ClickBump WordPress theme into the site and sets up the site default settings to optimize it for search traffic and monetization.
2. Install the CTR-Plus template package ctr-plus.zip into the ClickBump Framework at “ClickBump > Home > Add/Upgrade Templates“.
3. From the “Template/skin” pulldown menu, select ctr-plus and click “Save Changes” at the top of the theme options panel. This tells ClickBump framework to use the CTR-Plus skin for your site’s design and layout. The ClickBump framework still controls the core markup, html5 & css3 compatibility, w3c validated markup and all settings. The template gives it the unique look and feel that leads to high conversion rates.
4.  Site Check – Assuming you’ve built your site with JSPro, the site will now appear as in the “Figure 1” screenshot below.

5. Next, if you don’t want the slider widget active, you can disable it, along with the jQuery library that it relies on by un-checking the two options at “ClickBump > Misc > Slider > Enable” and “ClickBump > Misc > Scripts > Enable jQuery“
6. Configure your Ad options – To do this, Go to “ClickBump > Ads“ and enter your Adsense Client ID (if using Adsense) and/or your Ad script or Amazon/ClickBank/Ebay/Chitika code at “ClickBump > Ads > Alternate Ad Code“
7. Site Check – Assuming you are using Adsense, and have pasted your Google Adsense Client ID into the space provided at “ClickBump > Ads” your site will now look like the screenshot labeled “Figure 2″ below.

8. Now I’m ready to place my affiliate ads into the left sidebar and below the content as in the screenshot. Before I do so, I’m going to clear out the default sidebar widgets that JSPro added to my sidebar. To do that, I just go to “Appearance > Widgets” and drag the 3 widgets out of the box labeled “Sidebar”. Just drag them over to the left and they will be removed from the sidebar leaving it empty.
9. Next, without leaving the Widgets screen, drag a “C5: Ad Box” widget from the “Available Widget’s” collection over into the sidebars labeled “Sidebar” and “Below Content“. If  you don’t want to place ads here, you can skip this step.
10. Continuing with Step 8, expand the “C5: Ad Box” widget and paste your ad code into it and click “Save”. In my example, I’m using a ClickBank offer in these areas, so I’ve uploaded my ad images via “Dashboard > Media” as ad1.png and ad2.png (but you can name your images anything you like). For the left sidebar, which will be using ad1.png, I”ve placed the following code into my “C5: Ad Box” widget for the left sidebar (don’t forget the “alt” attribute. You site won’t validate as html5 without it):
    

    <a href=”my-affiliate-link”><img src=”path-to-my-site/wp-content/uploads/ad1.png” alt=”crossfit workout course” /></a>

11. Continuing on with Step 9, for the Ad that appears below my content, I’ve expanded the “Below Content” sidebar and pasted the code for the 2nd ad into the “C5: Ad Box” that I placed into that sidebar:
    

    <a href=”my-affiliate-link”><img src=”path-to-my-site/wp-content/uploads/ad2.png”  alt=”crossfit workout course” /></a>

12. Site Check – Now that I’ve got all my ads in place, you can see what my site looks like now in Figure 3 below…

13. Next, I’m going to temporarily hide the 4 boxes that JSPro added to my “Footer” sidebar at the bottom of my template. Unlike before in Step 8 where I removed the widgets completely from the sidebar, in this case I might want to use them later, so I’m going to use ClickBump Framework’s built in “Widget Visibility” option to simply disable them for now. To do this I simply check the Hide button on each of the “C5: Box” widgets 1-4 and then “Save” at the bottom of each widget. You can see this in Figure 4 below.
14. Next, I’m going to customize the header image and replace the image of the girl with my own custom image. The default size of the CTR-Plus template’s header image is 967×100, but your image can be any size you like. To expand the header to accomodate a taller image, you can enter a custom header height at “ClickBump > Images > Header Image > Custom Height“.
15. To upload your image, go to “ClickBump > Images > Header” and click the button that reads “Upload Header”. Just remember to save your image as a .png file. ClickBump will automatically rename the image header.png and place it into the ctr-plus folder under “wp-content/themes/c5/styles/ctr-plus/”

16. Site Check – Now that I’ve disabled the 4 Boxes in my “Footer” sidebar, and uploaded a custom header image, my site looks like you see in Figure 5

17. Finally, all that’s left is to add the two large images just below my header area. To do that, I’ve renamed my images with an underscore in front of the filename (_image1.jpg and _image2.jpg) and uploaded them via “WordPress Dashboard > Media“. I’ve also checked the option to show product images at “ClickBump > Product Images > Enable“. This tells the theme to display any images it finds with an underscore character preceeding the filename at the top of each of my posts.
18. All done! Now you just need to add your content and you are set to go forward. For help configuring your custom menus, check FAQ #19 in the ClickBump User’s Forum. To see how ClickBump Framework’s automated metadata manager works, check FAQ’s #10-12.
19. BONUS: If you want to short circuit a few of the setup steps above (specifically #3, #5 and #17), here’s a script that you can import via “ClickBump > Misc > Settings Manager > Import Settings” to insure your site is set up as directed above (Note: you will still need to upload the product images, this script just assigns all the correct settings in CE4 theme options to emulate my example site).

Figure 1 – CTR-Plus after installing on a new site built with JSPro

Figure 2 – CTR-Plus after enabling ads and checking the “Default to stacked ads” option

Figure 3 – CTR-Plus after adding the ad to the left sidebar and the “below content” sidebar

Figure 4 -Temporarily hiding the footer boxes using ClickBump Framework’s unique “Widget Visibility” panel.

Figure 5 – CTR-Plus after adding a custom header image via “ClickBump > Images > Header Image”

I’m sitting in my den typing this post on a brand spanking new MacBook Air 13 that I picked up today from the Apple store in Birmingham, Alabama.

To say its a work of art would be an understatement.

The New MacBook Air is Fast

And, despite its razor thin profile, the Apple engineers have somehow managed to pull off the impossible. The new MacBook Air is amazingly responsive and fast. Cnet perhaps put it best…

Into a 0.68-inch high enclosure, Apple has dropped a six-cylinder engine where a poky four-cylinder used to be.

Everything about this computer is well rehearsed and flawlessly executed. From the smooth, backlit keypad that automatically adjusts its light output based on ambient lighting conditions, to the feather-light aluminum clad chassis that belies the incredible power inside, this is truly the state of the art in personal computing.

I’ve been on it non stop for about 5 hours since unboxing it at the Apple Store and the battery still has nearly a quarter charge left.

The New MacBook Air Comes Alive with Trackpad Gestures

But by far, the most enjoyable feature of the new MacBook Air, especially when surfing the web, is the perfect marriage of the expansive and velvety smooth trackpad with the new gesture-based navigation and control that has been introduced with OSX 10.7 Lion.

Web browsing is particularly enhanced with trackpad gestures. I’m finding that I open less tabs, due to the ease of 3 finger swiping backwards and forwards through the current tab’s history. I might just have found a cure for my severe case of “Tab-itus”. I frequently run up to 30-50 tabs at once! Maybe Lion will help me cut that in half at least, LOL.

I’m still learning and practicing the various gestures that whisk me around the computer, but its without a doubt, an enjoyable experience.

Here’s to Jonathan Ives and the brilliant engineers at Apple. You’ve hit a home run with the new Macbook Air 13.

I can definitively say, the next version of ClickBump Engine will be built on a Mac. The new MacBook Air.

I’m including a slider widget control, similar to the $99 slidedeck, with all copies of ClickBump Express, Engine and BizLocal. You will find the slider widget in your widgets collection once you upgrade or install CE 4.4

Here’s a quick video showing how to configure the slider options such as frame advance duration, auto-advance or paused on start, edit the contents, add/remove slides as well as how turn it on and off via CE4′s theme options panel…

Today I get to introduce a product I’ve been working on for months, JumpStart PRO! Its the successor to my wildly successful WordPress site installer, “JumpStart”. However, as you can imagine, the “Pro” version does much more. It comes pre-installed with a copy of my award winning WordPress theme (ClickBump Express) as well as the new premium template, “Amaze” all pre-installed and configured.

You can purchase and download it now via Paypal at http://clickbumpengine.com/jumpstart-pro > Important Note: Existing JumpStart owners: don’t use this link. You get a special discount link inside the members dashboard at the top of your JumpStart box.

Here’s a quick video demo of the install that creates a fully functional site in less than 30 seconds:

As you can see from that quick demo video, JumpStart Pro enables you to create fully functional websites in seconds. What’s more, the installer automatically installs and activates the ClickBump theme and “Amaze” premium template, along with all of your pages, posts, widgets, plugins and site settings.

Fully Functional WordPress Sites In less than 30 seconds!

The JumpStart Pro installer, stores all of your default settings that are repeated on every site you create, saving you time and money. Its the absolute fastest way to get a site up and earning, bar none.

With JumpStart Pro, you can go from a default WordPress installation, to the site you see in the screenshot below, with just the click of a button and without touching a line of code or even entering the WordPress content editor:

I’ve been promising many BizLocal owners a lead capture style template for some time and, having just about completed CE 4.4, I’ve finally finished it enough to show it to you.

Here is “Destin” for ClickBump BizLocal (click for full size preview)

The women in the slider pic is echoing my sentiments exactly

There are a few things about this example, I’d like to point out. First, I have not yet completed the custom menu look and feel. That will go directly under the tagline and above the slider.

The other thing that you might notice is that there are no footer boxes. I’ve got to do the styling for those too. But for now, I’ve just turned off the footer area at “CE4 > Layout > Hide Home Footer Area Widget”

The header graphic is a semi-transparent cloudscape. You can easily upload your own custom header at “CE4 > Images” to replace the default one, or leave it blank. The background colors are all customizable via the CE4 colorpicker for virtually unlimited looks with a single template.

Like all CE4 enabled templates, Destin features a slider widget that you enable with one click in theme options. You can add slides as easily as creating a bulleted list with text (the slider is a simple definition list styled with CSS and jQeury). You can add images to the slider by uploading “slide1.png” for the first slide, “slide2.png” for the 2nd, etc…

Additionally, the items in the right sidebar are all standard WordPress widgets. You can easily move them around, edit them or remove them with point and click.

Easy enough?

I’m looking forward to getting your feedback as I put the finish on this one.

I just came across this video from Google’s Matt Cutts that I think sums up pretty well the core value proposition of the ClickBump CE4 theme for WordPress…

Speed, Internal Linking and Social Media Marketing

Those three things are fundamental to CE4 and are baked into the package without requiring plugins.

With the release of version 4, where I introduced enhanced internal linking tools like the category index, related links below every post, and a WordPress first: category landing pages with interlinked content, I’ve got the Internal Linking thing down.

Now with version 4.4, I’ve added even more point and click options for social media marketing, like Google +1, Facebook “Like” and Twitter  Tweet all built in and activated with a single click and not one line of code.

But by far, the one thing that I’ve focused on from the very beginning, and continue to optimize around, is…Speed!

I’ve built CE4, which is the framework theme runs ClickBump Engine, Express and BizLocal, from the ground up as a standard’s-compliant, fully-validating xhtml/css theme.

If you take a look at one of my sites and look at the “view source” markup (just right click and choose “View Source”), you’ll see the main reason for the incredible speed that the theme enables. The markup is 100% clean, semantic xhtml with 100% of the presentation contained in a linked, streamlined CSS file.

What’s more, I’m not just designing with CSS. I’m designing all of my templates with Object Oriented CSS. There’s a huge difference between themes that are just put together with CSS and those that use optimized CSS built with OOCSS principles*.

For example, in my ClickBump Engine package I have a template called Inoved that was originally introduced as a WordPress theme several years ago. The theme is no longer supported by the original developer but became a very popular review site theme due to its use and promotion by George Brown of Google Sniper fame.

I was able to recreate Inove for CE4 with pixel for pixel fidelity to the original in under 75 lines of CSS. The original theme weighs in at over 1700 lines and that’s just in one stylesheet!

Its “byte” savings like that which account for the incredible speed of my software, whether you choose Engine, Express, BizLocal or any of my Premium templates. They are all 100% pure speed and ranking power.

Just wanted to give a quick behind the scenes on what my secret is. Which has never really been a secret. Fast websites are cooler than slow ones.

Welcome to ClickBump

~ s

*Nicole Sullivan is credited with coining the phrase, and codifying the methodology around OOCSS. Its a methodology that me, and many other CSS designers have been utilizing since the early days of CSS development. Nicole deserves much credit for bringing the practice to a wider audience of web designers.

If you’ve been following my blog posts lately, especially the new Amaze announcement, you know that CE4 (my core theme framework that ClickBump Engine, Express and BizLocal packages are built on) has Google +1 sharing built right in.

OK, so now you know what Google +1 is, right? If not, here’s the skinny…

Google +1, as it relates to Internet Marketers, is a very compelling new way to boost your page’s worth (and rankings) in the eyes of Google. By adding a tiny little +1 button to each of your posts and pages (you can see one at the top of this page), you can allow your viewers to register a “vote” for your page, in the form of a +1 click, that is then recorded by Google. In short, users vote for your page by clicking the +1 button.

So, now that you see the power of +1 clicks registered to your pages, the question becomes, “How do I get more +1 clicks?”

The most important way to do that is by providing compelling content that engages and rewards the viewer with valuable information. But, now that you have Google +1 installed into your site, you can also take advantage of a ClickBump exclusive option built right into the software…

The Google +1 “Click Reward”

What is the “Click Reward”? Its a cool new feature that’s built right into CE4 allowing you to unlock content for users who click your page’s +1 button.

How the Google +1 “Click Reward” Redirect Can Be Used
When you utilize the +1 redirect option, you must follow a few simple rules regarding how your incentivize users to click your +1 button.

For example, the Google +1 policy, as currently written, states that you are allowed to reward users that +1 a page on your site:

“Publishers can direct users to the +1 Button to enable content and functionality for users and their social connections.”

Remember, +1’s impact rankings, so you should steer clear of any impulse to “buy” rankings by paying for +1 clicks. Google has made it very clear that you should not pay for +1’s. What this means is that you should not incentivize users with money, product, or services based on those users clicking a +1 button on your site. According to the Google +1 policy page:

“Publishers should not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for +1 Button clicks.”

Unlocking Content leads to more +1′s

Although you can’t provide products or services that otherwise would be paid for in exchange for +1 clicks, Google explains that you can unlock exclusive content. Here is a snippet from Google’s policy in this regard:

“Publishers can direct users to the +1 Button to enable content and functionality for users and their social connections.”

What this means is that, If a user +1’s your new blog post or page, you can unlock exclusive content for that user as a reward for their action. There’s all sorts of creative ways that you can capitalize on this. Just remember to adhere to Google policies and make sure that you don’t use the +1 click redirect in a manner that is not in accordance with Google policies.

Happy Earnings!

~ scott

I’m sitting here switching between the iMac and PC and running the final rounds of browser checks on the next release of ClickBump Engine, version 4.4 (update 11/23/2011: the current release is version 5.x).

As part of this release, In addition to pre-installed, one-click activation of the just released Google +1 platform and (a special bonus way of using it to increase your +1s):

I will be debuting a brand new default template for ClickBump theme. The template will come pre-installed as the default template with all purchases of ClickBump theme and will be a free download to existing ClickBump theme owners who have previously purchased.

So, here it is. The newest template for ClickBump theme, ““Amaze” with Google +1”

Above and below, the new “Amaze” template for ClickBump theme. Click the screenshots for a full screen preview. The Google +1 option can be seen at the top of the post and its enabled with one click in theme options (ClickBump > Social > Enable Google +1). Other themes make you copy and paste code. ClickBump makes it as easy as the click of a checkbox.

A ClickBump exclusive: Increase your Google +1 clicks with unlocked content

There’s a slew of cool features in the newest version of ClickBump theme, but most notably, I’ve included built in support for the Google +1 button. But I haven’t stopped there, you can even specify a redirect URL on a global or page specific basis.

What this means, is that you can reward users who +1 your posts and pages by redirecting them to unlocked content at a special bonus URL. CE4 is currently the only premium theme framework to support URL redirects of Google +1. All without having to install a plugin, or write a single line of code and included at no extra cost, when you purchase any of my CE4 based software applications (ClickBump Engine, ClickBump Express, or ClickBump BizLocal).

Even more cool stuff with ClickBump theme and Amaze?

You also get built-in support for the WordPress custom menus feature, with flyout capability. All you have to do is create a custom menu via drag and drop, and Amaze does the rest, just as you see in the screenshot.

I’ve also added a Facebook “Like” button as an enabled option right inside theme options so you just click a button and “Amaze” displays your Facebook “like” and/or  Google +1 buttons every page just as you see in the screenshot.

Next, I’ve added built in social media icons…

To enable these, I’ve added a new custom widget called “C5: Social Icons” that you simply drag over onto the “Footer” widget area. That’s it, no code to copy/paste. Just edit the links in the widget to point to your social media sites and you’re done. You’ll end up with a list of social media icons just as you see at the bottom right side of the template above.

Adding an inner blog to your site with a static home page

I’ve added the ability to display an “Inner Blog” option as you can see from the menu button labeled “My Blog” at the top right corner of the screenshot. You may need to click the image to view the high res version to see this better.

To add a post to your blog, just add the post to the ClickBump “blog” category – or create your own category and enter the category ID at “ClickBump > Blog > Parent Category”.

Your latest blog post, will then automatically appear in a blog listing on your inner blog landing page, complete with a thumbnail of your “featured image” (if you’ve added one to the blog post) as well as an auto-generated “Read More” Link (if you’ve added a “More” option to the post, otherwise, the full post is displayed). You control the number of posts that appear with the WordPress options “Settings > Reading > Blog pages show at most___ posts” setting (or via a handy option inside ClickBump theme options).

Finally, I’ve added a new widget area just below the content area, called “Below Content“. This widget area allows you to place ads (or other content) just below your main content area on the page. This option is enabled for ALL templates, not just Amaze. I’m using this new widget holder to place the Adsense ad you see in the screenshot.

There are tons more enhancements that are included with the latest release of ClickBump theme. Look for more announcements in the coming days.

I’m hoping you’ll be Amazed!

~ s

For more about using the Google +1 Redirect option see this blog post > http://clickbump.com/maximizing-google-1-with-clickbump/