A lot of people don’t prepare their site for a lot of visitors. However, with today’s social media, you can get a lot of traffic in a short period of time. It is essential that you always assume that your blog will be a huge success and make sure it won’t crash.

The easiest way to speed up your WordPress blog is through the use of the WP Super Cache plugin.

Everything in WordPress is dynamic, so every time a page is loaded, queries must be executed thus making the site load slow or even crash when you have lots of traffic.  This plugin, as its name implies, caches posts and stores them as files on the server and serve those to your users instead of processing the heavy dynamic queries repeatedly. WP Super Cache basically generates static html files for your WordPress blog. The plugin will automatically update as comments are added so the dynamic nature of the blog isn’t lost. Once installed, you will notice a significant difference in the time your site loads.

Installing this plugin will help a lot in boosting your site’s speed but it is not the only thing you can do. It is also important that you make sure your version of WordPress is up to date because the most recent version always has the security fixes and new features. It is also important that you check your plugin list and remove any inactive ones. Also, be sure to remove the active ones which you don’t really need. This is necessary because they use up server resources. In WordPress, each time you load a page, all plugins are loaded as well so if you keep the unnecessary ones, you’ll definitely slow down your site.

There are a lot of things that you can do to ensure the security of your WordPress blog. Below are some of the things you can do:

• Make sure your WordPress Blog is updated – It is important to regularly update your WordPress installation as well update your plugins. These updates usually contain bug fixes for any security vulnerabilities you may have on your site.

• Use strong passwords – When setting up accounts on WordPress, it is important to use a combination of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols for your password. This will decrease the possibility of hackers getting access to your account. Also, make sure that the password you use is not the same for all accounts you use online. You can also use the plugin Login Lock to lower the chances of a brute force attack. This plugin monitors login attempts and blocks IP addresses for too many failed login attempts.

• Backup your site – You have to be prepared for the worst, so just in case something bad happens to your blog, it will help if you have a backup. This will allow you to easily restore your site if  destroyed by hackers.

• Avoid using the default login name – By default, the login name used by WordPress is “admin”. You should use another login name to make it difficult for hackers to gain access to your site.

• Use secret keys in your wp-config.php file – Secret keys are essential in this file. This is the heart of your WordPress installation and it contains all configuration related settings such as your database username and password. Using secret keys will make it more difficult for hackers to hack your blog.

These are just some of the ways you can secure your WordPress blog. It is important that you implement these security measures to avoid having problems with your blog. Don’t wait until it’s already too late.

Why Backup Your Website?

A lot of things can happen which are out of our control. This can lead to you losing all the precious work you have done on your website. Your server could crash or you might get hacked so you risk losing all your valuable content. The Internet is very unpredictable and no one can say for sure that they are protected against all possible threats like viruses and hackers. This is why it is important to take regular backups of your entire site.  This not only applies to WordPress blogs but to all websites in general.

Some people learn the hard way and start backing up their site only after they’ve lost everything and had to rebuild their website from scratch. Thus, it is important to keep a backup of your site ready so that you won’t need to go through the long process of website building again.

How to Backup Your WordPress Blog?

There are a lot of things that you can do to backup your WordPress blog. You can do it manually by copying all your files to your desktop . However, it would be very time consuming and you will surely not have the time create backups regularly. An alternative to this would be to use the available tools online. Your own web server might have tools to backup your site but it is important to have a backup in other locations just in case something goes wrong with your server.

With WordPress, you can use plugins to create regular backups for your blog. Take note that you need to backup two things: the database and the files. To backup your database, you can use the WP-DB-Backup plugin. This creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database. Another plugin that you will need is the WordPress Backup plugin. It performs regular backups of your current theme, and plugin directories. Backup files are available for download and optionally emailed to a specified email.

Don’t wait for something bad to happen. Consider a backup as having insurance for your blog. Take regular backups now.

]]> http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/wordpress/importance-of-taking-backups-of-your-wordpress-blog/feed/ 0 http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/wordpress/best-seo-plugin-all-in-one-seo-pack/ http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/wordpress/best-seo-plugin-all-in-one-seo-pack/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:17:44 +0000 Lennie Appelquist http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/?p=2096 After installing WordPress and putting up content on your blog, the next thing you need to do is to optimize your website for search engines. Having an attractive website is not enough, you need people to visit it for it to be useful.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO is a technique where in you construct individual web pages so that they can be seen and then indexed by various search engines like Google and Bing. It is the key tool to achieve more traffic to a website. The ultimate goal of using SEO is to get more traffic and appear in the first five pages of a search engine. It is crucial especially for online businesses to have this high ranking in search engines so that potential customers can easily find their website. Good traffic can ultimately mean more customers, and more customers means more money.

Using the All in One SEO Pack to Optmize Your WordPress Blog

There are a lot of ways of doing SEO to your blog but a simple solution would be to install the All in One SEO Pack WordPress plugin. This plugin makes it very easy for anyone to optimize their WordPress posts and pages for better placement in the different search engines.  This plugin was made to ensure that the best SEO practices will be used and it also gives the user numerous options in the plugin configuration page.

To start optimizing your blog, the first thing you need to do is install the plugin. This can be done easily by clicking on the Add New option under the Plugins tab on your Dashboard. You can then search for the plugin and click Install Now.

Before using this plugin, you need to configure it with your desired settings. To do this, you need to click on All in One SEO under the Settings tab. Here, you can enable the plugin as well as choose your desired settings.

Fill in the forms below. The home title is important for search engine crawlers to recognize your website.  Be sure to also fill in the proper Home Description, and provide Home Keywords that you are aiming for.

The other options will depend entirely on you but the best settings can be found below.

Try to verify your settings again and update your options. Your WordPress blog is now SEO ready.

There are certain pages that are essential for every website. However, many underestimate the importance of a contact page. A contact page supposedly is a place where you allow visitors to communicate with you. You can get general feedback or suggestions for the improvement of your website as well as gain income from customers interested in your products or services. Visitors and potential customers will be more interested in your website if you make it easy for them to communicate with you.

A lot of people make the mistake of placing their e-mail addresses on their website. This is bad because spam robots can easily extract your e-mail and fill your inbox with unnecessary mails. People usually choose this option because creating a contact form would normally require some coding.

Contact Form 7 Plugin

Lack of coding ability will no longer be a problem in creating a simple and functional contact form. The solution to this is the Contact Form 7 Plugin. This plugin allows the user to easily customize and generate contact forms and easily insert them to a page, post, or even on the sidebar of a WordPress page.

To install this plugin, go to the Plugins tab of your WordPress dashboard. Click on Add New and search for the term Contact Form 7 then click Install Now.

Or, you can download this plugin from WordPress.org and use the Upload feature under the Plugins tab. Choose the file from your computer and click Install Now.

Once installed, all you need to do is go to its settings page. It will be added as another tab on your WordPress dashboard named Contact.

Here, you can customize your contact form to include whatever details you require. You can easily create text fields, drop-down menus, radio buttons, and even allow file uploads. This plugin also allows you to use CAPTCHA for authentication. After setting up your form, just save it and copy the code which will appear at the top part of the page. To use this form, just create a page or post and insert the code you copied from the settings page. You can also add the code to your sidebar.

Having this plugin really makes creating a contact form easier. A contact form like this on your website encourages visitors to leave comments and suggestions which can be very helpful to you.

Each person or company who owns a website knows the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s just a matter of what strategy you use for your website. One of the most underestimated techniques in SEO is having a Sitemap.

A Sitemap, as its name implies, is a map of your site. It shows you the basic structure of your website as well as all the links you have. Sitemaps make it easy for users to navigate through your website especially if you have a really big one. Imagine having to go through every link on a website just to find a particular page.

Having an updated Sitemap is also very useful for search engines because this is your way of telling them where you would like them to go. A Sitemap is also very useful in that they inform search engines if you’ve made any changes to your website. Indexing of updated pages won’t happen right away but they are indexed faster compared to not having a Sitemap.

Now that you know the importance of having a Sitemap on your website, the next step is to find out how to create one.

Creating Your Sitemap Using the Google XML Sitemaps Plugin

There are a lot of ways you can do your Sitemap. You can create a Sitemap manually by creating a text file or use the different Sitemap generators available online. However, if you have a WordPress site, the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is the perfect solution for you.

This plugin can be easily downloaded in the plugins section of your WordPress dashboard. All you need to do is install, activate and it does all the work for you. It generates a Sitemap that will allow major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo to better index your site. It also automatically updates your Sitemap whenever you make changes to your site and notifies the search engines about these changes.

Once installed, you can configure this plugin via the Settings tab on your dashboard.

In the configuration page of the Google XML Sitemaps plugin, you can decide to exclude some pages from your Sitemap or add separate static HTML pages. Posts can also be reordered on the Sitemap by giving them priority based on the number of comments. Location of the Sitemap file can also be detected automatically or set manually. The configuration page also allows you to choose how frequently you want search engine crawlers to check your site for changes.

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The newest version of WordPress is now out and available for download. The basic features will remain the same however there are some changes in terms of appearance and functionality. It also promises to be faster compared to older versions.

The Dashboard

One of the most noticeable change in this release is the new look of the dashboard. Throughout the past, we’ve seen the WordPress admin interface evolve. In this version we can see a fresher look that which aims to make everything simple for the user. It features a sleek design that tightens the boxes and buttons and cleans the code behind the admin

Distraction Free Writing or Zen Mode

WordPress 3.2 has added a feature for those serious writers out there. It is really difficult to write with all sidebars, menus and other options in the background. Instead of concentrating on writing, you tend to look at the other things surrounding the writing screen.

This feature makes the writing interface full screen. It allows the user to remove all the distractions and focus on writing their content rather than other things on the screen.

New Default Theme

This new theme called the Twenty Eleven theme. The theme features a clean and modern look. It also allows for easy customization. This theme comes with a Theme Options page which you can see under the Appearance tab on the WordPress Dashboard.

Here, you can choose a light or dark color scheme. You can also change the link and text colors and choose different layouts.

There are also options for the header including flexible header heights. You can also choose to randomize the header so that visitors of your website can see different images on the header each time they visit.

How to Get WordPress 3.2?

If you already have an older version of WordPress installed, you can update to this latest release by clicking the link shown on the top of your dashboard.

If you haven’t installed WordPress yet, you can download the latest version of WordPress from WordPress.org.

Experience the newest release of WordPress, build your website with WordPress 3.2 now!

Save your best Post ideas with WordPress “Post Ideas”!!

Blogging for pleasure or for business is an occupation that requires constant updates and a fresh flow of ideas. Most bloggers have plenty to say but unfortunately the times when ideas occur to them may not be when they need those Post Ideas most. That is when the WordPress plugin Post Ideas comes in handy, in fact it may be among the most useful WordPress tool ever for the daily blogger.

The WordPress plugin Post Ideas not only allows the blogger to save their ideas to their WordPress blog but also lets them sketch out a brief description, a working title and possible keywords. If the idea came from a link then links can be saved by the plug in and best of all the ideas can be prioritized from 1 – 99 saving the best for first. What follows are three reasons every serious blogger needs the plugin Post Ideas.

Saving ideas. Ideas don’t come on schedule but they are gold and many bloggers have lost valuable ideas by jotting them down haphazardly on post-it notes or even in a notebook. Misplace the post-it or the notebook and the idea may well be gone too. Dry spells happen and like squirrels hording nuts, the serious blogger hordes their ideas for those times when nothing comes to mind but a post must be made.

Organization of ideas. Post Ideas may come as just a few thoughts but they may be absolutely perfect, in that case the blogger can prioritize the ideas in terms of what they feel are best or most complete, and all of it is saved in the WordPress admin by the Post Ideas plugin.

Descriptions and links can be saved in Post Ideas. It is hard to jot down a link on a post-it note unless it has a tiny URL and that valuable reference can easily be lost.

The WordPress post Ideas Plugin is a great way for you to save your best ideas in a convenient place. Got any bright ideas or comments? Please share them here.

A Cooler Way to Navigate!

The fans of WP-PageNavi plugin describe it as a more advanced way of navigating pages in your WordPress blog. While advanced is nice, most bloggers care more about how it looks and what kind of experience for their readers a plugin provides.  The good news is that WP-PageNavi looks great and gives a much more finished appearance to a blog’s pages. Rather than old post, newer posts, the plugin shows a neat series of numbers so that the reader can navigate through pages with ease.

See the blog and archive navigation on this site to see Wp-PageNavi in action.

Here is the “standard” WordPress page navigation:

Here is the after picture – the site now using Wp-Page Navi:

Of course speaking of ease, most bloggers also prefer not to have to fight their WordPress to install a plugin and there are not many simpler plugins to install than WP-PageNavi. The blogger simply downloads the plugin, unzips and uploads to the /wp-content/plugins folder. After upload use the admin page to activate the plugin.

Many WordPress themes are incorporating WP-PageNavi in their themes so that editing is not necessary however, if the theme is not Page Navi ready, then a simple line of code can be added to the footer <?php wp_pagenavi(); ?>. Then you can configure your plugin as desired.

Note: If your current theme uses the “Previous – Next” style navigation, you will probably need to replace the code that looks something like this: <p><?php posts_nav_link(); ?></p> with the PageNavi code: <?php wp_pagenavi(); ?>

Blogging is an extremely popular means of marketing as well as a great source of information for the visitor. However, the ease of use and navigation of a blog can either help build subscribers or drive them away.  WP-PageNavi is designed to make the visitor experience, especially those browsing archives a lot easier and smoother. Content can easily be found and read and posts skipped using this navigation system, not to mention it looks much more professional. In fact this advanced navigation plugin has become so popular that the average visitor knows exactly how to use it and those interested in browsing archives will find the experience faster and smoother. This all translates to a better experience for the visitor and encourages their return.

You can install WP-PageNavi from inside your WordPress dashboard or if you want to download it to your computer, go here: WP-PageNavi

Have any WordPress tip, tricks or plugins you’d like to share? Please comment and share below.

WordPress Featured Content Gallery

One of the coolest plugins ever developed for WordPress! The Featured Content Gallery adds instant elegance to your WordPress site… But how the hell do you use it?

Watch this very informative tutorial to learn the ins and and outs of the WordPress Plugin – Featured Content Gallery.

The Featured Content Gallery is a WordPress plugin by iePlexus that creates an automated rotating image gallery of your posts or pages for use anywhere within your theme.

Completely customizable, the Featured Content Gallery by iePlexus is very easy to integrate. Choose to automate the plugin and simply add a custom field to each post or page you want to display and the gallery will show the image, an auto-generated thumbnail in the upper carousel, and the title and first few lines of page/post text. Advanced options allow inclusion of custom thumbnail images, text, gallery styles and transitions.

This is another in the series of WordPress Tutorials in this series from RockYourWordpress. There are many more advanced features, but that isn’t the purpose of this WordPress Tutorial.

Below is a summary of what the dashboard is.

Your Dashboardl provides access to the control features of your WordPress installation. Each Administration Panel (Dashboard) is presented in sections, the header, the main navigation, the work area, and the footer.

The top portion of all Panels, the header, is featured in light shading. The header shows the name of your blog as a link to your blog’s main page, a Search Engines Blocked message if your Privacy settings block search engines, a favorites menu, and links to your profile (shown as your user name), and Log Out. Just below the top shaded area are two hanging tabs, Screen Options and contextual Help, that can be clicked to expand them.

On the left side of the screen is the main navigation menu detailing each of the administrative functions you can perform. Two expand/collapse arrows just below Dashbord and Comments allow the navigation menu to collapse to a set of icons, or expand (fly-out) to show an icon and description for each major administrative function. Within each major function, such as Posts, a pull-down arrow is presented upon hovering mouse hovers over the title area. A click of that arrow expands the menu to display each of the sub-menu choices. Clicking that arrow again collapses the sub-menu.

The large area in the middle of the screen is the work area. It is here the specific information relating to a particular navigation choice, such as adding a new post, is presented and collected.

Finally, in the footer, at the bottom of each Administration Panel in light shading, are links to WordPress, Documentation, and Feedback. In addition, the version of WordPress you have installed is shown. Just below the menu tab section, if your version is NOT the latest version, you will see the message An updated version of WordPress is available. Please update now.” Click on the provided link to navigate to the Updates SubPanel.

Each Panel, referred to as SubPanel, that is accessed via the main navigation menu, is presented in the boxes below. The links in those boxes will lead you to sections of this article describing those SubPanels. From those sections, you can navigate to articles detailing more information about each SubPanel. Also, WordPress Screenshots shows examples of all the SubPanels.

This video covers the basics of WordPress and what you’ll see immediately when you log in to your WordPress Administration.

Welcome to your WordPress Dashboard.

Rock On!

There always seems to be quite a lot of confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The main difference is simple and huge:

WordPress.com blogs are hosted on WordPress.com. A WordPress.org site is self hosted, meaning you host it on your own server (at your web hosting service). This means that it is part of your own site and you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.

Here is a listing of other differences:

Self Hosted WordPress Platform (WordPress.org)

9,700,000 Active Installations

• Full Theme Support – You can use custom / commercial themes, plus all other free themes that exist. You can modify, customize, or do anything that you like with your site. Not limited.
• Fully customizable content management system – Your self hosted wordpress site can be so much more than a blog!
• All Plugins Allowed – Since this blog is under your control, you can upload any plugin you want on your WordPress.
• Monthly Expense – You have to pay for your web hosting monthly. You need to pay a domain registration fee every year.
• Ability to Sell Ads – You can sell as many ads as you want on your website. Using the self-hosted platform, you are in control.
• Site Maintenance – You have to keep your WordPress Software & the plugins up to date with the new versions.
• Full Control – You are your own boss when using the Self-Hosted blog. You do not have to worry about adhering to any TOS.
• Your Own Brand – You can create your own brand using your domain name, your theme, your own favicon etc. You can also create many sub-sections such as (section.yourdomain.com)

Free WordPress.com Version

9,200,000 Active Blogs

• Limited WordPress Themes – You are not allowed to use custom / commercial themes. Only themes that exist in the WordPress theme directory are permitted, but you cannot modify the CSS or other codes.
• No Plugin Upload – You are not allowed to upload any custom / commercial plugins. This can limit your use of WordPress as a CMS.
• FREE!! – You don’t have to pay a single dime, when using the free WordPress blog by WordPress.com
• NO Ads Allowed – You are not allowed to sell ads on your site. If you wanted to make money from blogging, this is not for you.
• No Maintenance – You do not have to worry about the upgrades. Automattic staff take care of all site maintenance.
• No Control – You must follow their Terms of Service, or you will lose your blog. You are not your own boss.
• Not for Brands – Free WordPress.com option is not for your brand. If you want to start a corporate blog, then you need the Self-Hosted WordPress Software.

My Pick – Self Hosted WordPress Platform

Without a doubt, this is the best choice! That is why EVERY site we build uses a self hosted version of 100% customizable WordPress installed!

Remember, it’s never too late to upgrade. It is very easy to migrate all your existing content from a WordPress.com, Blogger or Type Pad blog with a single click. I love easy.

Welcome to your WordPress. So you have logged in for the first time, now what? This video covers the little things you want to do when setting up your WordPress the first time.

These “little things” will make your new WordPress website not only more user friendly, but it will also help your site get discovered and indexed by the search engines including Google.

If you find the information useful, please comment below and share.

Innovate don’t invent. So says my friend Alex Mandossian.

What I am talking about in this instance is the notion of leveraging other peoples content. I am not talking about stealing it, simply using something that already has some notoriety and leveraging it.

Check it out… Remember Siskel & Ebert’s “At the Movies”? They leveraged other people’s movies and became commentators and before long very trusted commentators. Without other people’s movies, they would have had nothing to talk about. How about TMZ or Perez Hilton… With Celebrities doing questionable things… Get my drift.

We can do the same things with our blogs. Become reporters/commentators. Just make sure that your commentary isn’t frivolous and adds value to your leverages content (and to your visitors).

The video below works as a two-fold example. Firstly, I am leveraging the power of a video that has been viewed over 700,000 times (and it’s really good too!).  I am giving my visitors something fun and something of value. (If you find this post valuable, please add a comment below).

I use use the video as a foundation for my blog post. Then I discuss it or some thoughts/ideas that the video provokes. Get it?

Secondly, the video itself is a great example of leveraging someone else’s content. DJ/Director Mike Relm, remixed some of those brilliant Old Spice response videos, added some music and voila! Now like I said before, you better back up your content with value. Mike’s remix is really excellent – if it sucked… probably not the same result. Get it?

Enjoy the video. And when you’re done, give some thought as to how you can leverage OPC (Other People’s Content) to give your readers, viewers, listeners, customers, clients added value.

Please comment and discuss below. Also if you have an AWESOME examples of this process at work, post those here to so we can all learn.

Rock On!!!

It’s time to Rock Your WordPress! This is the simplest version of the idea of adding a blog post. There are many more advanced features, but that isn’t the purpose of this WordPress Tutorial.

Anything new can be daunting. For some of you, WordPress and blogging might be brand new. This video covers the basics of adding a new blog post to WordPress. So go ahead use your WordPress blog and tell the world what’s on your mind.

In future videos I will cover some of the more advanced features. The point here is to set you up with the basics and then we can build from there.

Rock On!

I preach about blogging (using WordPress) for small business – until I’m blue in the face, really. But there is good reason. Let me explain:

Blogging might  very well be the single most important thing you do for your small business online. It’s not the only thing – but it sets the foundation for everything else you do online. What ever you are doing anywhere else online, your blog is what will ultimately capture your visitors’ interest and as long as you are consistently adding new, engaging content, keep them coming back for more.

Consider your blog as your “Relationship Maker” , “Branding Agent” and your “Expert Creation Assistant”. A well written, informative blog will help you accomplish all three of these  things.

Relationship Maker

Certainly you can begin “relationships” on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, but your business mission on these sites is to create enough interest so that your social media “friends” will go visit your website. This is why it is not only important to have a nicely designed site but a well integrated WordPress blog to keep their interest. If your visitors like what they are reading – it is extremely important to give them value – not only will they continue to come back and possibly buy your products, and services or even walk into your store, they will also become advocates for you and your business to their networks!

Branding Agent

Once you get people to your site, your blog can help mold people’s perceptions of you and your business. Branding as a concept means much more than your logo and colors… What you say on your blog will shape your visitors opinions about you in ways far greater than any logo of service mark. This is why it is important to use your blog consistently, relevantly and on message. And above all else: Give your visitors HUGE VALUE.

Expert Creation Assistant

The more valuable and insightful your blog is the more you leverage yourself as an expert – Period.

One of the major reasons to use your blog to establish yourself as the expert in your field is because your competition probably isn’t… Yet.

All that being said, here are 10 things to do to get your blog started:

1. Install and set-up your self hosted WordPress blog (Or hire someone else to do it. Your blog should be fully and neatly integrated into your site and not hosted somewhere else like blogger or WordPress.com
2. Write a list of 30 topics you can write about – just headlines
3. Set up news alerts from http://www.google.com/alerts. Once Google Alert is set up, you can receive daily digests of articles and blog posts on virtually any topic. This is a great way to discover new topics to write about.
4. Write 1-3 Blog posts per week.
5. Always stay Ahead! Write five to 10 posts and save them as drafts in your blog. Do not publish them yet.
6. Send an email to your friends, family and colleagues and invite them to read you blog and ask them to leave comments.
7. Invite people in your online networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to read your blog.
8. Find 10 blogs that target similar markets (not competitors) – read them, add comments and make friends with those bloggers. The blogging community always seems ready to help other bloggers spread the word.
9. Make friends with 10-20 people who already have strong social networks and ask them to help you spread the word.
10. Stay consistent with your blog posts – write 1-3 blog posts per week.

Good luck and happy blogging. Above all else… Have fun!

Plugins are one of the reasons that wordpress is so extremely powerful! There are thousands of plugins for your WordPress blog that are completely free, that will make your blog an instant powerhouse without writing a single piece of code. There are tons of great plugins – it is really hard to make a list of just 14 (plus 1), but, alas, I have. If you have more to add please put them in the comments below. (While you’re at it, would you mind hitting the Tweetmeme button above? Yes Tweetmeme is on of my favorote WordPress plugins! And away we go…

1. Akismet – is a plugin that fights spam. You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet. Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again. Like I like to say: “Kills spam DEAD!”
2. Contact Form 7 – is a plugin that you can use to make contact forms for your site, easily, without writing any code. Some slight html might be needed but for the most part Contact Form 7 is plug and play. One of the key features of this plugin is that it uses spam filters from the akismet database (see above) and will filter out any spammers on your form. It supports multiple contact forms so you can use it on as many pages as you need. It also has bot prevention which uses a CAPTCHA form to make sure the comments are real and not from a bot. This form is really simple to use and saves a ton of time it would normally take to code a form like this by hand. All very cool stuff!
3. Tiny MCE Advanced – This plugin adds 16 plugins to TinyMCE, WordPress’ wysiwyg editor: Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Full Screen, IESpell, Layer, Media, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras. Together these plugins can add over 40 new buttons to the toolbar, which is now two rows plus one hidden row. Some of the new features added by this plugin are:
   1. Imports all CSS classes from the main theme’s stylesheet and adds them to a drop-down list.

   2. Font size and font family selection.

   3. Support for making and editing tables.

   4. Advanced link and image dialogs that offer a lot of options.

   5. Search and Replace while editing.

   6. Supportfor XHTML specific tags and for (div based) layers.

   7. Support for adding inline css styles to any element.

4. Exclude Pages – This plugin allows you to add pages to your website and keep them out of the navigation bar. Some pages you do not want your visitors to see until the complete a required action (like thank you pages or offers that you have for people after they opt in to your list).
5. Page Links To – is a plugin that allows you to make a WordPress page or post link to a URL of your choosing, instead of its WordPress page or post URL. It also will redirect people who go to the old (or “normal”) URL to the new one, using a redirect style of your choosing (302 Moved Temporarily is standard, but you can enable 301 Moved Permanently redirects if you wish.)For instance, say you have an E-Commerce program (like Zen-Cart) installed, and can’t integrate it into WordPress. You’ll still probably want to have a link to it from your WordPress blog. With this plugin you can create a new page called “Shop,” and point it to the URL of your online store. “Shop” will show up when you use wp_list_pages();, but instead of linking to the (blank) “Shop” page, it will link you your online store!
6. Google Site Map – This plugin is really self explanatory. All you have to do is download it and install it and it will create a site map for you. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site. In a nutshell it will notify Ask.com, Google, Bing and YAHOO about changes to your blog and blog posts via ping. It is an invaluable tool for Search Engine Optimization and is extremely easy to use.
7. Tweetmeme – Tweetmeme is an invaluable plugin that will allow your visitors to retweet your blog and blog posts with the click of a button. It will also count the number of times the blog post has been retweeted. Tweetmeme will install a button within your posts and content and when it is clicked it will open up Twitter in another window and allow your visitors to log in to their twitter accounts and tweet about your blog from within their own Twitter accounts. Tweetmeme is so easy – go ahead, give it a try and see for yourself…
8. Viper’s Video Quicktags - Tired of copying and pasting the embed HTML from sites like YouTube? Then this plugin is for you. Just simply click one of the new buttons that this plugin adds to the write screen (rich editor included) and then paste the URL that the video is located at into the prompt box — easy as that. One of the great features of Vipers video quicktags is that you can control the width, height, colors, alignment on the page with ease. And you can customize these every time you upload a video. Video is becoming a huge factor for SEO and getting your blog noticed – so this plugin is a must have.
9. WP-DB-Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database. I still have never lost a WordPress database – But I subscribe to the theory that it is better to be safe than sorry… Get this plugin and back your database up regularly.
10. Comment Redirect - Getting comments on your blog is really important, it creates a conversation and helps reate a community. Your first time commenters are precious. This plugin allows you to redirect just those people to a page of your choosing! I use this plugin along side the exclude pages plugin to create a thank you page on my blog that is hidden and when a first time commenter comments on my blog I use this plugin to redirect them to that thank you page.
11. WP 2.5 Gallery Lightbox – This WordPress plugin adds the Lightbox feature to image links and to the new WordPress gallery feature (2.5+). It uses the jQuery Lightbox Plugin by Benjamin Arthur Lupton to create the lightbox effect (dimmed background as images rises up), and adds rel=”lightbox” to image links in posts, pages and galleries. Much nicer image presentation than the standard WordPress image handling.
12. Featured Content Gallery is a WordPress plugin that creates an automated rotating image gallery of your posts or pages for use anywhere within your theme. Completely customizable, the Featured Content Gallery is very easy to integrate. Choose to automate the plugin and simply add a custom field to each post or page you want to display and the gallery will show the image, an auto-generated thumbnail in the upper carousel, and the title and first few lines of page/post text. Advanced options allow inclusion of custom thumbnail images, custom text, and custom gallery styles and transitions.
13. GigPress is a WordPress plugin built specifically with musicians and performers in mind. Manage all of your upcoming and past performances or events right from within WordPress, and display them using simple shortcodes or template tags on your WordPress-powered website. You can optionally link each show or performance to a post, or automatically create a new post each time you add a new show. With a little tweaking – the GigPress work great as an events calendar too!
14. All in One SEO Pack – As they say, this plugin is streamlined for best SEO practices for WordPress. Actually very easy to install, and the user interface is easy to fill out. Recommended for the serious blogger. Looking for a simpler but very effective WordPress Solution? I also like the easy to use: Add Meta Tags – This plugin adds XHTML META tags to your WordPress blog. The addition of the META tags is fully automatic , but it also includes all those features a SEO-concerned publisher would need in order to have total control over those meta tags.

If you like this list or have some more cool WordPress to add, please post your comments/additions below.

Rock on,

Lennie

Why should I Blog?

That is a question that I hear often. Here’s the answer and it’s a simple one.

If you are doing business online and you don’t have an unlimited marketing budget, blogging is the most important weapon in your arsenal.

But I use Facebook and Twitter, isn’t that enough?

A good start? Yes… Enough? No!

If you are using the Social Networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and, yes even Myspace still has it’s place) then you are off to a good start. These are your marketing outlets, your networking events, your professional mixers – all done virtually. By leveraging the social networks, you are, in essence creating multiple doors to you (read: YOUR WEBSITE). It’s like inviting guests into your virtual showroom. Problem is, if it sucks or it’s messy, disorganized, disheveled… you get the picture, they (your site visitors) won’t stick around.

How do I get them to stick around?

Create a destination. Once they get to your site – you need to corral them – and you have only moments to do this.

How do I do it?

That”s where your blog comes in (and if you”re not using WordPress, you’re crazy!). WordPress allows you to simply output great content onto your homepage. And if you are updating consistently (I’d say at least twice per week), you are giving your visitors new, up to date content. You  are actually “training” them  that you have the new, fresh (expert) info in your niche, get it?

Blog and blog well.

You want your website to be the destination.

Here’s the old version of the site as an image:

So here’s what I did:

Converted the entire site to WordPress

HUH?!

First some basics…

WordPress vs Static

Most basic sites on the net are built by a designer “coding” a site by hand or using a software program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. That’s cool – that’s the way I started. Here’s the problem – this means that only someone who understands a design program and/or coding can do updates… Not so cool…

That is how the old version of my site was built. For me, that’s OK, cause I can code… I was using WordPress for my blog.

Over the last year, I have completely changed the way I work. So my clients can manage their own site easily, I needed a good content management system where they would be able to do updates and manage their site themselves. There are a few choices like Joomla – which I find way too overblown and complicated for most. That’s why I LOVE WordPress! It works brilliantly as a content management system and was exactly what my clients needed to easily and successfully manage their web presence.

For the last year, all my sites have been custom built exclusively around the WordPress Blog. The  problem was – MY site wasn’t and I realized that it was time to put my money where my mouth is…

The new version of my site now lives entirely inside and is completely updatable from within the WordPress administration.

How did I accomplish this?

Custom WordPress Template

First I custom created my WordPress template based on my original design with some changes (coming later).

Where do I start?

First, I built a template called mainpage.php which is now the site homepage. To accomplish this, I made several adjustments to the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet). I also had to build a new functions.php in WordPress (this is the page that tells a template what to do), so I could do certain things on my new homepage, like feed the newest blog posts to the homepage as headlines and excerpts with thumbnails. This way, every time I add a new blog post, I get new content on my homepage automatically! The old version used an RSS feed for headlines and excerpts (no thumbnails).

RSS vs New Homepage Content

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is really common even if you don’t realize it. Nearly everywhere on the web where you see a headline with a link to a story somewhere is probably generated with an RSS feed. This is exactly what I did on the old site – I simply used a feed reader to make my blog headlines appear on the homepage.

But I wanted more design flexibility on the homepage. That is what the before-mentioned functions.php is for (and I’ll leave it at that). Now I can output the newest blog posts exactly like I want.

A Blog vs A Static Page

Most everyone who spends anytime online is familiar with blogs and what they look like. 10 posts or so per page with a sidebar that houses all the “Blog” navigation: Categories, Archives, Recent Posts, etc. These are exactly the 2 things I don’t want to appear on my homepage. That’s where the mainpage.php comes in: I built a WordPress template for my homepage – and then told WordPress to use it instead of the standard blog page.

(You too can use this function by going to your WordPress admin –> Settings –> Reading.)

What does the new stuff look like?

Here’s the newest blog posts feed:

So where’s the Blog?

By choosing to use a static front page you then must create a place for the blog to live. So, I created a custom page template for the “blog” which allows me to format the blog exactly like I want.

How did I get rid of the “Blog” navigation in the sidebar?

Since my sidebar actually gets called from a file called footer.php, I created a alternate footer page (footer2.php – creative, huh?) so I could alter the right column content – removing the blog navigation from the “pages”, home and others, while leaving the blog navigation intact in the blog.

The Cool Image Slider feature on top

Next, I added the slider feature on the homepage – to highlight things we do in a cool way. I did this using a slider java script and jQuery (jQuery is a lightweight JavaScript library that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML). I tweaked the dickens out of the scripts and accompanying CSS and ended up with what you see on the homepage.

Anything else?

Lastly I adjusted the column widths. I felt the the left column was to narrow.

This changed the dynamics of the right column, turning it into much more of a side bar. I needed to readjust the size of the email capture form and added an image of my book to make it more enticing. Narrowing this column also changed the number of “Featured Sites” thumbnails I could present per row from 4 to 3. This left me a couple images short so I added few new ones. Have a look:

I would absolutely love feedback on my updates. Thanks in advance! If you want to see the homepage in action, go here: Custom WordPress Design or if you want to check out our services, go here: Web Design & Social Media Marketing

Check out the advantages for you and your business:

1. They are interactive: Blogs allow for other people to freely comment on your posts, ask a question, or even contribute a different point of view other than the one that you have shared. And don’t fear the seemingly “negative” comments or someone disagreeing with you. That’s great! You’ve got them talking and noticing YOU and your business! It is also a great way to keep tabs on your target market.
2. Super easy to  manage: Need to make a change? Not so hip with HTML code? Not to worry! You don’t need to open up an HTML editor or even understand what that is! Everything is done from a central control panel. All you need is an Internet connection to get onto the blog and update the page. It is really great if you are new to the website world, but even experienced webmasters appreciate its ease and simplicity.
3. User-Friendly Organization:  With the use of categories, pages, and tags,  it is quite simple to put together your blog into a user-friendly website.
4. Plug-ins: What are plug-ins? They are  “little programs that are designed to enhance the functionality of your blog” (well-put by author Gary Ruplinger). An example of a plug-in function is making it easy for readers to “tweet” or “digg” your most recent post. Another acts as an indispensable bookmarking tool. You name it and you can probably find a plug-in for it! And with just a click you can add it!

So there are the basics of why a blog and blogsites are so great. And as many of you know, WordPress is the creator of hundreds of great blogsite designs and makes creating an on-line presence almost a snap. But if you’re feeling as if you need a bit more instruction click HERE and  take a look at this awesome opportunity!

While “cruising” around YouTube, I stumbled across this video of Christina Aguilera performing live in Sydney Australia. Watching this video (not my normal fare, but damn can she perform), I noticed how she uses so many sales and trainer techniques. I touched on this before in the post: How to Market Like a Rock Star!

What are these, you ask? Good question. So, I’ll provide the answer…

As any good trainer understands, when you are presenting from the stage, you want to enroll and engage your audience, not talk “at” them. How do you do this?

1. Enrolling questions. This engages your audience and makes them feel like they are part of the training, not merely a listener. Christina asks, “Are we having fun tonight, so far, Australia?” Loud roar of applause – the crowd is engaged, step 1. Next question: “Are there any sexy males in the audience?” Enrolling the guys first since she’s talking to them, and secondly, the women who are responding to the call for sexy guys. Pretty clever, huh?
2. Audience participation. This keeps the audience active and engaged. You sit and listen to a symphony, but you participate at a rock show! First she introduces her male dancers and then (with subtlety) demands a response (in the form of applause) from the audience. Next she asks for a volunteer and sends her dancers into the crowd in search of a male volunteer. Like I said, audience participation. One additional benefit of the volunteer aspect is that it personalizes it. Everyone in the crowd (in this case, the men, for sure), live a bit vicariously through the volunteer.
3. Including the whole audience. When presenting to a group, it is extremely important to make everyone feel included. Christina does this by using the whole stage.

In this video it is also obvious that, yes, sex sells, but beyond that, Christina uses a lot of other presenter and selling techniques. How many examples can you catch? Would love to read your “catches” in the comments.

Web design plays an important role in marketing success. With an attractive web site, the success is guaranteed (as long as you have compelling content). Internet marketing is not all about getting as many visitors as possible but also to capture the interest of the visitor once he’s on that specific web site, so what better way to do this if not by web design?

Well, one way is to have compelling content, an authentic message and a strong, congruent marketing message!

This is where the 2 roads meet – Form & Function.

For any website to have success, it must capture a few key components:

1. Nice visual styling – The big boys (Yahoo, Google, Youtube) can get away with plain styles because the offer so much content. You and I, on the other hand, need clean, smart, even elegant design as a frame to display our compelling, rich content.
2. Easy, Intuitive Navigation – Don’t make your visitors guess how to navigate your site. Make it easy. ‘Nuff said…
3. Compelling Content – This would be informative content for site visitors. It should be keyword rich for the search engines too. Remember, stay on topic. Don’t add backpacking content to a site about hamsters…
4. Marketing Message – It doesn’t matter if your site is a personal site or business site… You are always marketing. Whether it’s to friends, family, spouses, business associates, future customers or clients, keep your message clear!
5. New Content – Visitors won’t come back to your site if nothing ever changes. Dammit get yourself a blog. It’s easy to update, there are tons of pre-designed templates (and it you want a custom designed one, we can do that for you) and did I mention that it’s easy to update? The best blog out there? WORDPRESS!
6. Truth – Nobody likes a liar… Stay true, authentic and connected to your message. People are attracted to messages that a consistent with the messenger!

A strong visual presence coupled with a strong message and compelling content will always increase you chance for online success!

Did you know that Blogger has its own channel on YouTube? I LOVE IT! The folks at Google, who own both Blogger and YouTube, have saved me the trouble of building my own Blogger tutorials. Talk about Good luck!

If you haven’t heard this from me before, Google is so loaded with great, free resources: From Gmail, to Webmaster tools, to Google analytics, to add words, and now these great blogger tutorials.

Blogger is such a great tool. Here’s how you work it. Create a blogger blog, making sure that you name the blog using the keywords you are targeting. Add a handful of relevant ARTICLES ( blog posts). Make sure that you use your keywords in the body of all the posts on this blog. Using the keyword method of linking, link that keywords or key phrases to the relevant page on your site. Not only are you getting “backlinks” you are getting back links from a site with relevant content using relevant keywords leading to a page with more relevant content.

What a great strategy to use.

As a little primer, here is a tutorial explaining how to set up your first Blogger blog.

What are you waiting for, get your blogger blog today. Here’s the link to the blogger tutorials.

Well, let me spell it out for you. Linkbaiting is a method to get other sites to link to your site. There are a lot of ways to do this including, giving away tools, having contests, being a really compelling blooger among others.

Darren Rowse gives us a pretty good list of linkbaiting techniques on Problogger.com.

In his list he includes some things like controversy and attack (to create controversy). Controversy maybe, but  if you are running a business site, the attack method may not be the best plan.