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When I visit a website I tend to get turned off by “cluttered” websites. As do most readers do. When designing a blog or website and I need to add icons or buttons for social networking sites, the side bars, post and any header gets to cluttered if you add more than a couple. While searching the internet for a better option, I started paying attention to the “floating” navigation buttons pushed up against the left or right side of a webpage. I noticed over the last couple of months that I started seeing more and more sites starting to use this trend.
After some research I found the best option to get the look I wanted without having to spend to much time coding this into my site. That option is a WordPress Plugin called Cute Profiles. Cute Profiles brings all your Social Profiles to one location on your blog pages in an elegant. manner.
Features include:
- Customizable themes and customizable sizes for the icons.
- 50 different network profiles to choose from and more to choose as the plugin grows.
- Customizable CSS to set the profiles to be displayed.
- CSS based Design and Implementation
- Option to set Profile links to DoFollow or NoFollow. Recommend to share link juice by choosing DoFollow!
Installation
This plugin is easy to install like any other plug-ins for WordPress, follow the below mentioned steps:
1. Copy Folder “cute-profiles” from the downloaded and extracted file.
2. Paste it in “wp-Content/plugins” folder on your WordPress Installation
3. Activate the plugin from Dashboard / Plugins window.
4. Now plugin is Activated.
– via Cute Profiles
Configuration
The first step is to configure your social media profiles. There are two sections of profile configuration links to fill out. That is over 50 social media sites you can add to your site! The format to configure the profiles correctly is [http:www.socialmediasite.com/username]
The final step is to configure the layout of the icons on your site. Follow the steps below to complete the configuration.
- The first thing you need to do is set your icons to DoFollow to share the link juice. This will help with your SEO. .
- Set the Alignment to left or right.
- Set your icon size.
- Set your icon theme. You will have the choice between gray with color when you hover over the icons.
- Insertion of Profiles. Choose between automatic insertion and manual insertion.
- Display Media for Cute Profiles. You can choose between “On Screen Only” or “On all media, like screen, handheld ect.”
- Click Save.
Once you have the plugin installed and configuration, it should look like this.
For more information, questions, or troubleshooting please visit Internet Techies – Cute Profiles.
About James
Just want to say I retweeted this but that twittley is a pain! I use tweetmeme and it seems easier, just retweets when i hit the button and puts the @username for the site owner so they know who did it.
My recent post 6 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts:
Bah! Stupid Twittley, I know. I was havings some issues with tweetmem and the css and the blog theme. Thanks for stopping by. Check back in a few minutes. I am switching back to tweetmeme now. Once I can figure out how to code and put them both there, I will use both…
My recent post A Faster More Efficient Way to Read Your Blogs
I have seen both on sites before, I just use their plugin for mine (tweetmeme) but I can tell the difference when I am on a site which one is which. But I know it is possible to put both….
My recent post 6 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts:
I know you can, but for some reason it messes with my template. Plus I do not like the way the post looks with all of them. I think it clutters things up with so many icons and posting tools.
My recent post WordPress 2.9.1 Fixes 24 Known Bugs
Thats an awesome tip! Thanks for the great plugin find! I look forward to playing with this one.
PS: You really should put a page up on the root (www) of your domain name. I attempted to quickly get back to your homepage earlier, and landed on an empty apache page. Not useful. Took me a moment to realize that your blog is on domain.com/blog instead of on www like most are today.
My recent post January 1st 2010 – Happy New Years! – New Blog Launch!
Hi, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Kimberly, Cute Profiles is great, I am still working on creating my own, but right now I these are the best I could find.
As for my domain, I left it open on purpose ( not thinking about usability) because my main site page which is my company site and this site is just an extension for the main, is still in development and will be like that until I have free time to work on it. But in the mean time, I have a small vCard page, that I am working on and should be up sometime this weekend or next week.
My recent post WordPress 2.9.1 Fixes 24 Known Bugs
It's a very nice plugin!
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Cool! Your blog is really evolving, but I guess it should given the name.lol
I think Twittley is annoying too, but I'm not sold on Tweetmeme yet either. Maybe I'll give it another try.
Thanks.
@Ileane
My recent post Say Goodbye to Family, Friends and A Good Night’s Sleep!
Thanks for stopping by. I don't like either. I prefer Twittley, but most like Tweetmeme better so I use that one. If I can figure out a good placement for both I will use both.
My recent post How to create Twitter Lists Through Hootsuite
Thanks for stopping by. I don't like either. I prefer Twittley, but most like Tweetmeme better so I use that one. If I can figure out a good placement for both I will use both.
My recent post How to create Twitter Lists Through Hootsuite
This looks pretty useful pluggin. Bad luck for me is that I'm using blogger instead of wordpress and started to experience that all great stuff for blogging comes only for wordpress. I am compelled to use blogger since I can't afford hosting for wordpress. Waiting for the day when I'll earn sufficient to host wordpress blog.
My recent post Do I need permission to link to other websites in my post?
Good stuff, James.
I've been looking around for something like this. Many of the others I've seen were just less than what I had in mind. This is a really nice looking profile setup, plus it save valuable space on the page itself, which is what I was after all along.
Thanks for this post!
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