Tag Archives | Search Feature

How to Find Free WordPress Themes

How to Find Free WordPress Themes

One of the benefits of using WordPress for your blogs is that you can easily change the layout of your blog by changing the theme. There are many free WordPress themes, or free blog templates, that are available. You can also choose to have a unique theme designed for you. In addition, you can also purchase a pre-made theme.

A WordPress theme is a collection of files that will create graphics for your blog. This provides a type of skin for your blog, almost the way a book cover will change the look of a book. By choosing a theme that reflects the subject of your blog, you can make your blog more appealing to your visitors. It can also make your blog much more memorable.

WordPress has two themes that come with the basic installation of your blog. These themes are very simple and are a very generic design.

WordPress has their own theme directory which contains over 500 themes and the number is growing. When you look at the directory, you will be able to see a list of the most popular themes. You will also be able to see a list of the newest themes that have been added. Still another section will show you themes that have been recently updated.

To easily find a theme that goes along with your blog, use the Search feature at the top of the page. Type in a word or phrase and you will be shown the themes that go along with those search criteria.

WordPress encourages each theme designer to come up with their own installation instructions for their theme. When you select a theme, be sure to read the directions for installation so that you would be able to use the theme correctly.

Another option that you will see in the same section where you will see the different themes is an option for headers. This is slightly different than choosing a theme because it does not affect the entire blog page, but it is simply a different graphic at the top of the blog. You can use something like this if you want to keep a clean, crisp area for your text without any clutter.

One thing to keep in mind is that you do not only want to choose a theme that will be aligned with your subject matter, but you also want to consider the purpose for your blog. If you have a blog that is for business purposes, it is best to keep a theme that is either business oriented or is somewhat plain. You want to avoid whimsical designs (unless whimsical designs would be a perfect complement to the subject matter of your blog and your business).

Remember that you can always change your theme later. There are plenty of free WordPress themes to choose from, and it is very easy to switch from one theme to another. Be adventurous and try something different with your WordPress blog.

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How to Add WordPress Plugins

How to Add WordPress Plugins

When it comes to utilizing the power of WordPress, the one thing that sets is apart from other platforms is the plugin system. Plugins allow you to easily add advanced functionality to WordPress and can help you perform a wide variety of tasks. However, you need to learn how to add WordPress Plugin before you can start using them on your own blog or website.

There are two different ways to add plugins to WordPress. The first one is to go out and find the plugin you are looking for on the internet. You can then download the file that they give you. From there, all you have to do is log in to your WordPress blog and select the add new plugin link. WordPress will then have you point to the file you downloaded and it will automatically upload it into the correct directory.

The second way to learn how to add WordPress plugin is to use the built in search feature. You can type in a certain keyword or phrase and WordPress will automatically show you the plugins that it finds based on your search. Best of all, you can also see ratings for each plugin and see which one is the best option for you.

Once you find a plugin you like, just click the install button and WordPress will take care of uploading the plugin for you. If you do this method, you do not even have to upload the files yourself. It is really that easy!

As you can see, there are a few different ways to learn how to add plugins to the WordPress platform. Regardless of the way you choose, you can quickly start adding a lot more functionality to your blog or website.

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If You Sell Products or Services Online You Need A Shopping Cart

If You Sell Products or Services Online You Need A Shopping Cart

The shopping cart is a vital part of any ecommerce site. A shopping cart allows your site visitors to browse your site, buy products or services and have a place to hold items while they continue to browse.

A shopping cart is a software application that gives your customer freedom to browse, to add or delete products from a virtual shopping cart and to see a running total of how much they have selected in dollar amount.

A shopping cart integrates with the rest of your site. A shopping cart may have links that allow the customer to search your site for specific items, see what is in their cart, even save their cart’s contents for later.

Shopping carts are designed in many programming languages. You can run a shopping cart on many different servers such as the Windows Web servers, Unix, and others. You can also place the shopping cart on your own web Server by transferring the files using any FTP program.

A shopping cart typically includes a database for storing information such as your product description; customer data, order information and can display this information for the customer on pages such as product detail page, checkout page, etc. Shopping carts also have an administration area where you can manage your store such as adding product, set up shipping and payment options, or process orders.

There are two parts or components to the shopping cart – the part that the customer sees, called the storefront and the administrative section where the owner manages the store. Features of a shopping cart will vary from one shopping cart company to another.

Basic features that most shopping carts should have are: A catalog of products, a search feature to locate items easily, a customer service area where customers can get help locating or buying products, special pages such as sales, featured products, a specific brands.

The administration section of the shopping cart is where the owner manages the store and should include general settings such as product, categories, currency, date format, language etc. and a module for creating and editing products, a place for managing product categories, and a section for managing options such as color or size. Another section that is important is the price setting and changing area. There also needs to be a module for managing orders such as those that need processing, those that are pending, and those that have shipped as well as a returns section.

Now that you know a little bit more about the shopping cart, you can understand just how important it is to have a shopping cart on your Website if you are selling products or services.

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Improve Your Shopping Cart

Improve Your Shopping Cart

If you want visitors to your site to use your shopping cart you need to make improvements to the usability of the cart and to make the purchase process as simple and short as possible.

Did you know that the checkout process is where more sales are lost than any other time during the buying process? Check your analytics and see if you have a large number of individuals leaving your site before finishing the checkout process, if this is happening than you know that you definitely need to make improvements. In order to determine where you need to make shopping cart improvements you can ask someone who is not familiar with your website to go through the process and check out the usability of your shopping cart. Ask them to specifically comment on how accessible the shopping cart is, if it is easy to use, if they ran into problems were they able to find instructions on how to use the cart, and did they find the shipping and payments methods that they prefer to use?

Investigate how easy it is to navigate around finding products. Do you have a search feature and does it give accurate results?

If you belong to any business forums ask members to rate your site and their shopping experience.

Ask yourself how organized your site is, how secure do people feel making purchases and how user friendly is the shopping experience on your site?

Your shopping cart is one of the most important parts of your Website. Periodically evaluating the shopping cart from a user’s point of view can improve not only your shopping cart but improve your sales as well.

Look at your shopping cart objectively does it meet all of your needs as the administrator? Can you manage all of the product fulfillment, payment and shipping needs in a timely manner without mistakes? Evaluate the hosting, customer service and technical support of the company who’s shopping cart you are using. How happy are you with the features? When upgrades are available is there an additional fee or are upgrades free to existing customers?

Does your shopping cart blend in well with your Website? Do you receive the information you need about your customers and their sales? Does your shopping cart have the capability to have an affiliate program, produce a newsletter or evaluate the shopping experience of your customers?

Does your shopping cart grow with your business or have you outgrown the shopping cart?

What do reviewers say about the shopping cart you are using? Can you find customer reviews of the shopping cart and if so, are they favorable?

After evaluating your shopping cart is customer service responsive to your need to make improvements? Do they give you suggestions or upgrades?

Seeing how important your shopping cart is to the success of your online business spending time evaluating how well your present shopping cart is performing and finding out what your customers think about your shopping cart is important and should be done on a regular basis.

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