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Top Seven WordPress Plugins For Your Blog

By on November 14, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Top Seven WordPress Plugins For Your Blog

Many bloggers are using WordPress and with good reason. It is the most popular blogging software in use today and one of the biggest reasons is the ability to add functionality through the use of plugins. Plugins can turn your run-of-the-mill blog into a high powered online tool capable of bringing traffic and profit to your site. Consider using the top WordPress plugins on your current WordPress blog or on a future blog. You won’t be disappointed. Happy Blogging.

7. Page Mash

This is a simple WordPress page management plugin. The Ajax interface allows you to drag-and-drop the pages into the order you like, modify the page structure by dragging a page to become a child or parent and toggle the page to be hidden from output. You can also see the id of the page which is often helpful for theme developers. If you have a WordPress site with more than just a handful of pages, PageMash is extremely helpful.

6. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engine by allowing you to fine tune things like your page title and meta tags. This plugin is extremely easy to use as it works great straight out of the box. If you are an advanced user, you can customize virtually everything. And if you are a developer, this plugin has an API so your themes can access and extend the functionality of the plugin.

5. Google XML Sitemaps

Perhaps the most downloaded WordPress plugin, the Google XML Sitemaps plugin not only automatically creates a site map linking to all your pages and posts, it also notifies Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com when you make changes to you site. If you want to include pages that are part of your site but not part of you WordPress managed content, you can do that to.

4. WP Super Cache

If you have a popular WordPress website you should seriously consider running WordPress Super Cache to improve the performance of your website. If you are not caching your pages, then every time a visitor comes to your site, WordPress has to pull together various pieces of information out of a database to put your page together. If you have a high traffic site, this is can really become a problem. WP Super Cache will store a copy of each of the pages on your website so that after the page has been assembled from the database once, WordPress can rest and just keep serving the static html copy of the page. This might be a bit techie, but the idea is you can dramatically speed up your site and reduce the load on your server by using WP Super Cache. If for no other reason, use this plugin so you don’t have to panic when your friend says, “”I just Dugg your site.””

3. NextGEN Image Gallery

If you want to display a photo gallery, show a series of product images, or just publish a slide show from your most recent vacation, the NextGEN image gallery is the plugin for you. NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. Among the many features, NextGEN Gallery includes a thumbnail generator, sortable albums, and a water mark function.

2. cformsII Form Plugin

If your looking for a free form management plugin, cformsII is an extremely powerful plugin for setting up contact forms on your WordPress site. You don’t need to know any PHP or write any code. You can visually build forms in the WordPress admin panel. Then, navigate to the page or post where you want to use the form and there is a button in the WYSIWYG editor that you click and up pops a list of forms that you have made. Simply click on the one you want and your form is inserted into your page. Update your page and you the form is live. You can specify required fields, default values, and there are plenty of styles to make your form blend in perfectly with your site.

1. Gravity Forms

If you want the best forms plugin WordPress has to offer, you need Gravity Forms. Gravity Forms is an amazing plugin for managing online forms. Some of the incredibly useful features include conditional form fields which means you can show or hide a field or entire sections of the form based on a value selected in another field. You can pre-populate form fields using querystring, shortcode, function or hooks.You can even schedule when forms are available by assigning a start date and end date for when your form is live on your site. Supposed you want to run a contest where the first 50 people that fill out the form win a prize. Gravity Forms lets you set a limit on the number of entries a form can receive. Pretty much anything you ever wanted a form to do, Gravity Forms can do it.

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How to Create a WordPress Theme1

By on November 4, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Create a WordPress Theme

As most bloggers know, WordPress is an amazing platform for blogs, personal sites, businesses and portfolios to publish content, news, pictures and anything it comes to your mind. It’s very powerful and nowadays, it’s not just for blogs, most people are using it as a CMS (Content Management System). WordPress is for free & incredibly secure! It’s open source and one of the best thing about it, is that you can integrate plugins very easily from your WordPress admin panel. You can search for plugins all over the web, in the WordPress official website (WordPress.org) or anywhere else.

Designing a theme can be a hard task, specially because you can get a bit lost if you know nothing about html or php, but it’s definitely not impossible. With patience and perseverance anything is possible.

Looking around the web you can find several interesting tutorials, very useful and easy to understand, they guide you step by step on how to use the codes and tags, but very few of them are precise about what it takes to build a WordPress theme from scratch and what you need to know beforehand. They usually assume you already know about html and CSS.

First of all, you need to understand how HTML works. HTML is essential to learn how to create a WordPress theme. You need to find a way to learn and get familiar with the basic html tags and commands. Use Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage to play around a bit and get used to the html structure. Without HTML, you are completely lost, because you are going to deal with a lot of coding! Simply Google and key something like this “”learn html from scratch””, “”html for begginers””, “”html for newbies””, “”html step by step””.

After learning the basic html tags and functions, you need to learn how to style a webpage, that is to say, in other words, you need to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets ). Learning how to Style an html page will allow you to style a WordPress theme, with pics, colors, font sizes, etc.

Why is this so important? HTML + CSS = CSS TEMPLATE. In order to build a WordPress theme, we need to create an HTML CSS layout first. It is the easiest way to build a WordPress Theme. That would be an html page styled using CSS. As we already mentioned before, with CSS you can control the different font sizes, font styles, colors, layer positions, margins, etc.

Once you’ve created a CSS template, THEN you will be able to easily convert it to a WordPress Theme.

So, to sum up the first phase:

1- Learn html. 2- Learn CSS. 3- Create a CSS Layout. 4- Convert the CSS Layout to a fully functional WordPress Theme.

Remember it’s a process that takes time but it’s definitely worth it if you aim to work freelance to make some extra money! don’t be afraid, use Google and search for tutorials, play around with Dreamweaver, and you’ll be able to create a WordPress theme!

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Monetizing your Blog

By on November 1, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, article directory, article plugin, article themes, Blog Business, Blog Platform, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs, Conversion, Domains, Free Reports, Google Adsense, Membership sites, Mobil Blogging, New Blogging, SEO, Themes, Traffic, Web Design, Websites, widgets, wordpress, World Internet Summit, Wp Headers, Wp Themes, Youtube Video

Monetizing your Blog

After you have set-up your wordpress blog and begun getting some traffic to your blog from your link building and from the search engines you can begin monetizing your blog. You shouldn’t start monetizing your blog too early because it will turn some people off from your blog. Also make sure that you don’t make each post a big advertisement for some product or advertisement because your readers won’t enjoy that too much. You need to figure out the perfect combination of ads to make money off of your blog while keeping your readers happy.

Pay-Per-Click Ads

Google Adsense is the biggest ad network for bloggers and you’ll be best off using them for your pay per click ads. You simply make some pay per click ads to the size you need them in the Adsense admin section and implement them into your blog. The size of the ads will make a big difference so make sure you don’t try adding too big of ads into your blog. You should try to implement the ads into your blog so that they fit right into the content as it will draw in more clicks.

Affiliate Leads

Many of the affiliate networks offer leads that you can add to your blog and what this means is simply that you send your readers to a lead page where they sign-up for something free. Leads don’t pay that much when there free, but some of the leads which cost money will pay a lot of money. You’ll also find that you have better luck trying to get people to join leads then buy products.

Affiliate Products

All affiliate networks have products that you can promote and you can either add links or banners to your blog to promote these products. It’s best to generally write a review as a blog post to promote the product this way it won’t interfere with your blog. You will be paid on a commission basis for the products you sell ranging anywhere from 5-75%.

Link & Banner Sales

There are lots of webmasters and businesses that will buy links and banners from blogs with traffic and you can make lots of money with ads. You can choose to find the people privately on webmaster forums or you could advertise your blog in some of the networks out there that allow you to advertise your blog in hopes of selling links and banners. Many of the networks work great and will find you advertisers quickly, it’s best if your blog is niched based though when looking for private ad sales.

There are lots of ways you can monetize your blog as you can see, and I haven’t touched all of the methods either. I’ve gone through the most popular methods, but there are some other things that can make you money depending on your website niche. I’d recommend starting out with these monetization methods first so that you can make some money before moving onto other areas. Also remember that you should stay with the same networks until you reach minimum payouts so that you don’t have money sitting in a bunch of networks that you can’t withdraw. It’s a rookie mistake that many webmasters make and I don’t want to see you waiting months for your first check.

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What Is Link Bait

By on October 29, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

What Is Link Bait?

Link bait is basically how you’d think it would be, simply put link bait is something that will make other bloggers want to post about what you’ve written about. This can be done in a number of different ways including writing a great article, creating a WordPress theme or widget and also through any other software you could make. If you make a theme, widget or other piece of software then you’ll stand a great chance at receiving lots of backlinks from other bloggers and depending on the functionality of your creation you may even get some great backlinks from authority blogs.

Authority bloggers are also looking in the blogosphere for new and interesting topics to write about and if you offer a great new creation then chances is it will be found by other bloggers. All you need is one good review from an authority blog and your traffic could jump an insane amount instantly. Some blogs receive thousands of people each day and if you ever get a link on one of them then your blog will enter a new phase, and it’s something you should be proud of.

Another way to get link bait without creating anything is through writing an interesting and well written article. The topic must be something that isn’t widely talked about and you must teach something that hasn’t been taught before or at least taught well before. If you find a good topic that you think you could teach better then anyone else has then you should create a long and detailed blog post. After which you should begin getting the word out about the blog post, you can do this by submitting to social bookmarking sites and also by contacting other bloggers in your niche.

Link bait is how all the big name bloggers get so many backlinks pointing to their blog and if you want to enter a new league of blogging you’ll need to get lots of link bait rolling. The good thing about link bait material is it never completely dries up, meaning you’ll always get new links from great link bait material even after its aged which is great for bloggers. Link bait is an important part of blogging and once you reach the point where you’re getting lots of links from something you’ve created then you’ll begin to realize more how vital it is. One creation could bring in a steady stream of both traffic and revenue so get into the lab and think up some new wonderful yet creative ideas.

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WP Simplicity WordPress Plugin Review

By on October 24, 2011 in Randy Roedl

WP Simplicity – WordPress Plugin That Configure And Set Up Your Blog With Contents With Few Clicks… 100% Proven. Unleashing The Magic Tool Smart Bloggers And Marketers Are Using To Dramatically Transform Their Blogs To Easy Money Making Machine!

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Ways to Monetize Your Blog

By on October 23, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Ways to Monetize Your Blog

In the early stages you shouldn’t really be thinking about monetizing your blog and instead you should be more focused on providing good content so that you can build a readership. Once the foundation is laid and you have a steady stream of traffic then you can begin to play with the many different monetization options. I feel some bloggers will put ads on their blogs way to early and most readers get turned off from this. If you’re planning on having a long-term successful blog then you shouldn’t even consider using ads on your blog until you’re well into being established in your niche. Once you have a certain trust factor secured with your readers then adding monetization methods can pay off greatly.

The first type of ad many people start with is cost per click ads and the most popular network for this is of course Google Adsense which I highly recommend joining. If you haven’t already registered with Google Adsense then this should be the first thing that you do before anything else. Adsense is very slow in the beginning but if you have traffic then eventually your earnings will go up. You’ll need to play with ad placement on your blog to ensure that you’re optimizing your ad space to the best of your abilities, but you shouldn’t be posed with much hassle doing this. Adsense pays millions of people every month and have a very good reputation which is why so many people use them to make money from their blogs.

Another method commonly used to monetize your blog is through affiliate offers and sales. You can either get leads and receive a set fee or a commission for products you sell. Selling products is far more profitable then getting leads but in the beginning we all need to start somewhere and often time’s leads are easier then selling products. There are countless numbers of affiliates for you to choose from and you should try sticking with only one or two until you reach minimum payment.

Finally you could choose to sell your own advertisements on the blog, usually you’d post on a webmaster forum in a Link Sales section and try selling links or banners. This can be really profitable if you can manage to keep a high page rank and decent alexa rating. Many people buy links on blogs so you can ensure residual income through link sales by maintaining a blog.

There are still other ways for bloggers to monetize their efforts but that’s the main three ways you should use to monetize, although selling links you need to be careful and make sure they don’t appear as paid links. Google frowns upon paid links and for this reason you should be really careful when thinking about selling links on your blogs. Selling links in the content is a lot risky and safer for you to do then offering sitewide blogroll links so you need to make the decision on how you’ll sell links if in fact you even choose to. Monetizing your blog gives you the chance to earn a nice income off of your hard work and you should make sure to capitalize on the chances. Once the readership is high then you should implement ads and affiliate offers that pertain to the topic of your blog.

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Three Things That Separate Successful Blogs from Unsuccessful Blogs

By on September 26, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Three Things That Separate Successful Blogs from Unsuccessful Blogs

With thousands of blogs being started each and everyday you can bet that there are lots of successful blogs and then even more unsuccessful blogs. If you want to stand out from the crowd and have a chance at becoming the next successful blogger then you’ll need to make sure you follow the below tips. All bloggers that are successful share many common traits and if you want to be like them then you need to start acting like them when it comes to blogging. I will now discuss how you can work on separating yourself from the unsuccessful blogs and working your way up to becoming successful.

In order to achieve rank of successful blogger you will need to be able to display the ability to constantly post useful informative posts on a regular basis. Typically you’ll need to post once a day and you need to make sure that the post has value in order to become a successful blogger. Many bloggers fall in the content department and it’s a shame because content is the absolute most important thing to make sure is up to par. Without solid informative content you want have many return visitors as they will not need to return to your blog if there isn’t good information. Ideally you should at least thirty minutes writing a nice blog post each day that will not only be educational but also make for conversation with your readers. The more you can interact with your readers in your blog posts, the most comments you’ll notice which is great for a blog.

Apart from content successful bloggers also always have a nice custom theme that sets them apart from the rest of the bloggers. A unique theme can stick in people’s minds and therefore make them remember your site easier. WordPress themes can be bought for roughly $100-$200 and you can basically get any type of theme for that price which is an amazing deal considering you’ll now have a unique presence on your blog and people will be able to remember you more.

The final thing successful bloggers have over the rest of the crowd is the fact that they have the motivation to work and make their blogs better. It takes hours upon hours of work to make a blog even close to successful and if you don’t put in the labour then you’ll never end up with a successful blog. You need to be willing to write everyday, build links and do a lot more throughout being an owner of a blog. IF you thought becoming a successful blogger would be simple then you should definitely rethink your decision because it’s one of the hardest things to do. There are many other things that will determine a successful blog over an unsuccessful blog but if you don’t meet the above then you still have work to do before considering how else to become better.

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Three Reasons Why Affiliate Bloggers Should Utilize Datafeeds

By on September 23, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, Blog Business, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Three Reasons Why Affiliate Bloggers Should Utilize Datafeeds

If you’re an affiliate blogger then you might have already heard of datafeeds and what they can do, but if you haven’t then we’ll briefly define what they are. Basically a datafeed is a massive list of different products with certain things like price, description and pictures included within the feed. Affiliates are able to take these datafeeds and implement them on there websites.

Now you could do this yourself with hours of work and coding, but that is something most of us couldn’t even do if we wanted to. There are some new programs on the market though that makes adding an affiliate datafeed to your website effortless. Some affiliate bloggers have taken this new technology and started creating networks of blogs that sell products. You don’t need to start out with creating a network initially, but once you get use to the program and realize its power then I’m sure you’ll be starting your own network in no time.

It literally only takes minutes for you to create a new blog with an affiliate datafeed implemented into the blog, and all you need to do is work on promotions and link building. You can also add more content to your website to help bring in more traffic to the products. By using an affiliate datafeed with wordpress you not only save time, but you can choose any theme you want as long as it’s compatible with wordpress. This means your website can look just like the professionals who are selling products online. Let’s now take a look at three reasons why affiliate bloggers should use datafeeds on there blogs.

#1 – Automatic Content for Your Blog

With a datafeed you’ll be instantly adding hundreds or thousands of pages to your blog all waiting to become indexed. This is great for your website to rank in the search engines and once they become indexed you’ll see tons of traffic. All of the content is automatically inserted once you upload the datafeed to your blog, but you should change some of it to help make it more unique.

#2 – Massive Potential for Earning Money

By adding hundreds or thousands of different products to your blog you’re adding massive potential for making good revenue from your blog. Most people have a couple products on there blog and eventually make money so imagine how much money you could make once traffic starts rolling in.

#3 – Works In your WordPress Admin

Most of the software programs will work directly in your wordpress admin and I would suggest using one that does work in your admin. This way everything is recognizable and you shouldn’t get confused using the tool. Most are laid out very well in the wordpress admin with tons of details on what you need to do in order to get it working.

If you want to add an effective revenue source to your blog then you should purchase an affiliate datafeed plug-in that automatically inserts the datafeed to your blog. There is massive potential for making thousands of dollars extra per month through using a datafeed and it’s somewhat uncompetitive in the blogging market. Jump on this new technology now and cash in before everyone else begins using datafeeds as well.

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