Tag Archives | Servers

Introduction to WordPress Themes

Introduction to WordPress Themes

Without a doubt, WordPress is one of the most popular blog and website creation tools. That is, WordPress.org which is the WordPress version that is hosted on the hosting company of your choice. WordPress.com is rather limited and is hosted on WordPress own servers. It is free, but you are limited to a small number of themes and the customizations options are limited. As long as you are willing to pay for your own hosting service, ie – Go Daddy, JustHost, MonsterGator, etc., WordPress.org is the way to go.

Most of the top blogs use the WordPress platform. By looking at these blogs, you can see a great variety in their design. In fact, many of them don’t look like blogs themselves, but look like traditional websites.

The reason for this is that WordPress allows users to create their own themes, and upload them to the WordPress website. Many people do this for fun or the good of the community. However, some create what is called a premium theme which is basically a paid version. Some of the themes offer a free starter theme, but a paid version gets you more features.

One of the strengths of WordPress is also a weakness. There are almost too many themes out there. It can get frustrating finding a theme that suits your purposes, especially after reviewing hundreds of similar themes.  To eliminate some of the frustration, consider the following:

What do you want in a theme. On one hand, there are people who are just interested in their blog writing, and they want it to look nice. Commercialization or ads do not interest them. On the other hand, there are other people who are interested in their blog, but would also like to make a little money.

This generally involves AdSense, banner ads, etc. However, the placing of these ads (or the HTML code that supports them) on a blog or website is of prime importance to the advertiser, and also to the website owner. You don’t want ads to distract from your website, but complement it.

WordPress accomplishes this by having areas of your blog where you can place widgets. Widgets are basically place holders where you can place a great variety of content. It could include a link page, a poll, a photo, text, or HTML code that generates an ad.  However, depending upon the theme, widgets will be in different places and different sizes.

The WordPress database allows you to search for specific elements of themes.

For example, when you search the WordPress database, you will find hundreds of themes that say “”ad sense ready.””  Many of these themes have only a few widget areas available for ads, and some have as many as 11 different widget areas.

Generally, the more widget areas the better in a theme, because no matter what your purpose, it gives you more flexibility. 

Another factor that comes into play is that many themes are highly customizable.  Don’t be deceived by the initial appearance, look at the option page before you move on.   Many themes have great features, you just need to choose the appropriate option.  Background image, color, placement of widget sidebars, etc. are all common things that can be customized.

Finding a theme you like is a trial and error process.  However, before you begin, have an idea on what you want to accomplish.  Do you want widget space for small rectangle ads?  Or do you want widget space that will accommodate skyscraper ads, leaderboard ads, and the other popular banner ad formats? Do you want a widget space that will accommodate a particular photo dimension format?

The process of looking for a theme you like is a daunting task, but if you have a general idea of what you want, it will make the process go faster.  With the thousands of WordPress themes out there, you are bound to find one you like.

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Free Hosting vs Paid Hosting

Free Hosting vs. Paid Hosting

If you’re just starting out in the webmaster arena then you’ll probably either already be debating between a free host or paid host or you will be soon. A lot of new webmasters aren’t too confident with what there doing and feel that they may not know how to do anything which is one of the reasons why people choose using a free host. There are tons of free blog hosts out there which allow you too create your very own blog on their servers for no charge at all. This means you could potentially make money without ever spending a dime of your own money, but there are downsides to using a free host.

Sure most people talk about how new webmasters should use a free host because it will allow them to test out how to run a blog and will give them valuable experience. Now this is correct in the fact that the person would learn what it takes too run a blog, but then once they do feel confident with blogging they’ll want too move on to their own domain. Now the problem with this is that you won’t be able too take your blog with you and therefore you’ll need to start from scratch from again which isn’t always fun. This is why I recommend starting out with your own paid hosting right from the beginning. For the price that it costs for a domain and a small blog hosting package nowadays there is no reason too be using free hosts.

It will cost you no more then $20 too get your first domain and first months of hosting paid for and from there you can begin making your blog and you actually will own it. On a free blog host you don’t really ever own your blog, but with your own domain and hosting you’re the complete owner to your blog and nobody will be able too take that from you. Free blog hosts have the possibilities of closing down in the future and then all of your hard work would also be lost.

I tend to not enjoy leaving my blogs in the hands of someone else and I personally have never used a free blog host and never will. When you have a successful blog on a free host not many people really care and your monetization methods are slimmer for private advertisements. Private ads are a huge part of blogging monetization and without the option you’re cutting yourself short. When you have a blog on its own domain then you’ll easily be able too sell links, banners and more once you get traffic.

The benefits of coughing up $20 to own your blog is well worth it and can save you from lots of headaches down the road. You never want too leave your web properties in the hand of someone else and by using a free blog host you’re doing exactly this. Now for children and teenagers I understand using a free blog host, but if you’re an adult and serious about giving the online world a chance then you shouldn’t be scared about paying $20 for a domain and hosting as this will be the least of your investments.

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WordPress suffers mystery DDoS attack

Iain Thomson in San Francisco, V3.co.uk , Thursday 3 March 2011 at 22:21:00 Blogging site now back online after possible political protest Popular blogging site WordPress has suffered a severe distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that took servers offline for several hours. WordPress, which hosts over 25 million blogs, posted a statement at 3:30pm GMT saying that the site had come under …

Original post by wordpress blogging – Yahoo! News Search Results

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