Tag Archives | widgets

How to Upgrade WordPress Themes Without Anyone Knowing1

By Randy R on May 26, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Upgrade WordPress Themes Without Anyone Knowing

How to find, fully test, and setup new WordPress themes on your blog without anybody knowing. Don’t put it live until it’s ready!

One of the worst things about WordPress is that when you hack your blog, or your theme, or try a new plugin or theme you’re doing it “”live””. In other words – everybody sees it. So if you want to try a new theme you have to switch them live while visitor are going to your posts and pages. I hate that. I’ve heard of guys keeping a “”test”” version of WordPress installed in another folder just to test new themes and hacks – and that’s not only more effort than I’m willing to do, it’s just a bit ridiculous.

I have a one web site where the WordPress theme was causing too many problems, it was old, and not worth hacking and fixing anymore. I have too many web sites and way too much to do to create a new theme from scratch. So I went theme shopping, and within 10 minutes I found one that really impressed me. You’d be amazed what you can find just Googling “”WordPress themes””.

Next, I downloaded the free open source Theme Test Drive WordPress Plugin, and installed and enabled it. This plugin allows you to set a theme for your entire blog that only the administrator will see. In other words, when you are logged into your WordPress dashboard as the admin account, you can test any post or page in your site under a theme and nobody will be the wiser. You can hack the test theme pages and nobody on your site using your normal theme will see what you are testing. Of course, if you make changes to widgets or plugins, everyone will see them on both the public and test themes. Once you enable the plugin all you have to do is go do “”Presentation -> Theme Test Drive”” in your WP Dashboard and enable the theme you want to test.

So in another browser window I went to my dashboard, and one by one enabled and tested 6 new WordPress themes I had uploaded to the server. I found and settled on one that I really liked. Luckily in this web site I use theme widgets, so everything updated beautifully because I didn’t need to make any changes to the sidebar. Now, all I’m missing are any customizations I made to my current theme pages manually by adding code. So I looked at the code for my Main Index, Single Post, Archive, Comments, etc., to see what I’ve added over time to make a list.

It turns out I added quite a few things, but they’re easy to put into the new template:

Print this page
Ratings
Threaded Comments
Post Views
Feedburner Flare
Breadcrumbs
AdSense

Then I went through the pages in my new theme and added in the code to add these functions one by one. I tested each one as went, because with “”theme test drive”” installed as admin I could view any page in the site with the new theme and see these changes as I went. After I added the code and uploaded the updated theme files to my site – I tested everything one last time. Looking through the pages the only other thing that I saw was in the sidebar(s) of my new theme the category pages weren’t listed, and in my current theme they are. I did a little shuffling of the sidebars, and then I set the theme live! So instantly when I enabled the theme for the first time, people saw a fully functional ready to go blog with nothing broken! I did all the testing and updating behind the scenes on my WordPress blog without anybody knowing it, and when I put the new theme live – voila, there is was! Now that I have this routine I’ll do this every time I update to a new WordPress theme, and I’m so happy I no longer have to do it “”live”” where current visitor’s see!

Blogging With WordPress

By Randy R on May 20, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Blogging With WordPress

WordPress is a popular open source blog publishing application. First available to the blogging public in 2003, the current release of WordPress is 2.7.1 as of February 2009. Open source means that it is available free of charge for the people to use. It is therefore very common for people to do blogging with WordPress.

WordPress has evolved around the years with introduction of themes, plugins and widgets into the blogosphere. Those additions really made WordPress very popular with bloggers due to the flexibility and ease to modify and customize the blogs. They could produce very professional-looking blogs in a short time frame with WordPress compared to when they had to do it using the HTML codes.

Theme is a way to “”skin”” a blog. It provides control of the look and presentation of the blogs. Without changing the core software, bloggers have the flexibility to change the display of posts and the blogs. By simply modifying some template files included in a particular theme, we can customize the blog’s look on-the-fly without having to worry about compatibility with the application and other components used by WordPress.

Since it is an open-source application, there are many people willingly working on and sharing the WordPress theme with everyone. Most of the blog themes are available free of charge. You can just use search engines to find WordPress theme with whatever additional attributes you want to have. You will be presented with hundreds if not thousands of websites that have more information on themes. You can also visit WordPress Theme Directory for a complete listing of officially recognized blogging themes.

Plugins are used extensively to extend the capability of WordPress blogs. There are just too many things to list down what you can do with WordPress plugins. I guess you can find just about anything you want to do available. If you can’t find it, it is relatively quite easy to make one if you have some basic programming skills. Just like the themes, there are many plugins available. Most of them are also available freely on the web. Beside using search engines, WordPress plugins are also available at WordPress Plugins Directory.

Another benefit of using readily available themes is that many people have designed adsense-ready themes. Adsense is a way to monetize your blog. Adsense is simply an opportunity for bloggers to display google ads on their blogs. They will earn money when people click on the displayed adsense. With adsense-ready theme, it means bloggers can configure adsense easily just by entering their adsense pub-id into some parts of the theme files.

A good resource to learn about blogging with WordPress is available on the web. Using normal search engines to search for WordPress tutorial, there are many resources available. You can choose to do the blogging directly on http://www.WordPress.com Otherwise, you can choose to host the WordPress on your own web hosting.

Installing WordPress can pose a challenge. However, nowadays WordPress is included in Fantastico that you can use to install with just one press. If you don’t have Fantastico in your web hosting, you should be able to do an install following the instructions provided when you download WordPress.

Although WordPress is very easy to use, for first time users who are not technically savvy, it is advisable to start with some basic tutorials to understand the structure of how blogging can be done with WordPress. Once you get the basic, using WordPress will be just like using a normal word processor.

Happy Blogging!

Blog Comment Plugins For More WordPress Website Traffic

By Randy R on May 4, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Blog Comment Plugins For More WordPress Website Traffic

Comments are a great benefit of blogs. People can give you feedback on the posts you write. You also know you have traffic and sometimes people follow other people just to see their comments. With WordPress you can add plugins to add extra benefits to both you and your commentators.

Akismet

This spam plugin comes installed with WordPress, you just need to activate it. This plugin catches most spam and occasional “”ham”” these are comments it is not certain are spam. You do not have moderate as much as with out it.

Subscribe to Comments

If your readers like a post, they may like the comments as well. With this WordPress plugin they can subscribe to a particular post and comments and a notice will be sent to their email with each new comment. Then they can unsubscribe to some or all posts when they want.

Nofollow Case By Case

People like to comment on other blogs so they can get a link back to their own site. This will boost their page rank with search engines which will boost your comment rate. With many Dofollow plugins you follow every link that comes into your website. With “”Nofollow Case by Case”” you can selectively choose to make a comment nofollow, or you can choose nofollow for a particular comment author.

Top Commentators Widget

This is a plugin that you can add to your widgets in your sidebar. With this the top commentators on your blog are listed each month. Also with their control form you can manage the commentators. You can also exclude certain ones, which means you can exclude yourself and other writing partners.

Comment Luv

Share the love with this comment plugin. When they comment on your blog it will add a link to their last blog post. This benefits both of you because people are more likely to comment when their posts show.

WordPress Thread Comment

This allows people to comment on an existing comment. The comments will flow logically instead of being yet another comment.

Best WordPress Theme – Factors to Consider to Have the Best Page Theme for Your Online Business

By Randy R on April 26, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Best WordPress Theme – Factors to Consider to Have the Best Page Theme for Your Online Business

If you are looking for the best WordPress theme for your business website, this article may help you. You need your website to be user-friendly and professional looking. That way, web users or your customer can navigate in your site with ease and convenience. They will also keep coming back to your site, thus, increase profits.

In choosing the best WordPress theme, there are some factors you need to consider. Here are they:

Widgets Position

Position of the content in your website is important. You need to make your sales proposition to be in the centre of the page; which is the first thing that the user will be able to see once they arrive in your website. That particular content should be distinctive and customisable. Put the call options or call action in the right part of the page. This is helpful as user is naturally looking for call option at the right hand. At this part, you can try using the enticing sales words such as ”Try this now” or ”buy now”.

Menu Bar

You business site should have menu bar so that the web user will be able to navigate in your site more convenient. This is also reserved for your sales proposition.

Logo Space

You want to make your business site to be professional-looking thus you have to reserve space for your business logo. The logo should be in the upper left hand part of the page as this is the part where the user is looking at in the first glance. This will help you to be recognizable.

Background Color

You don’t want your web visitor to have difficulties in reading or viewing your page thus you have to use a background in your WordPress theme that the fonts or images are easy to be read or seen. It is safe to use white color as background as it can complement in any font colors.

Stretchable Sides

You need to consider the sides of your chosen theme. You need to make sure that users won’t have any difficulties in viewing your entire page as there are a lot of different screen sizes and browsers.

CSS Menu

This is not images; this is for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. Most of web users are searching certain sites using search engines such as Google or Yahoo thus you have to make sure that your site will be able to be read by search engines. You have to make sure that the contexts are highlighted.

Customisable

It is also important that you can customize your WordPress theme whenever you need to add content or CSS. This way, you can update your site whenever you need to.

ACME Feedback WordPress Plugin

By Randy Roedl on April 25, 2012 in Randy Roedl

This plugin allows you to collect visitor feedback on your wordpress blog. It adds a feedback tab to the left or right side of your site.. and also has an option to display on exit. The feedback popup also allows you to add widgets to one side so that you can display any kind of widget content in the popup. Videos, ads, html, popular posts and more. Learn more at: acmefeedback.com

What Are The Top WordPress Widgets In Use For Blogging

By Randy R on April 14, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

What Are The Top WordPress Widgets In Use For Blogging?

WordPress as a content management system is very popular. In my opinion one of the main reasons for it’s popularity is the WordPress widgets. If you are new to this blogging platform you may be asking yourself “”What are widgets?””. Well, in an nutshell they give you full control of the content in the side bar of your blog. Widgets allow you to insert HTML code for banners of various shapes and sizes, they also allow you to insert contact forms otherwise known as autoresponders.

I would like to discuss the top WordPress widgets, that I use on a daily basis.

1. Wp Spamfree. This widget removes spam from your website. It finds unnecessary content and gets rid of it.

2. Wp Polls. This allows interaction between your visitors and your blog. This widget helps you create new polls and display them on your blog.

3. All In One Seo. This will take care of your search engine optimisation. This widget takes care of optimising keywords, tags and HTML. This widget helps in getting your site ranked higher in the search engines.

4. Featured Content Gallery. This widget gives your site an nice look and give your visitors an nicer experience while on your site.

5. Font Resizer. Font resizer give your site visitors the opportunity to change font size with just a click.

6. Secure WordPress. This widget secures your website content.

7. Follow Me. Twitter has become very popular and there is a widget called follow me, which allows site visitors to follow you on twitter, thereby increasing you twitter following. You can in turn market your site or blog to your increased twitter following.

8. Sexy Bookmark. With this widget you can give your visitors the choice of bookmarking any useful content on the various social bookmarking site. This is an excellent tool for website promotion.

9. Recent Comment This one is self explanatory, it displays recent comment.

10.Related Posts. This one encourages your blog visitors to stay longer on your site by reading related posts. They may even bookmark your site and read more content at a later stage.

These are just a few of the top WordPress widgets I use. WordPress widgets are crucial for your website or blogs design, functionality and promotion, so enjoy and take action.

The Power of WordPress Themes

By Randy R on March 5, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

The Power of WordPress Themes Starting and maintaining a blog is not easy. One must think of ways to expose his blog in order to gain more audience and fan following. Aside from that, blogs usually contain articles, but articles are not enough to attract visitors. One must be able to have an interactive blog that keeps the visitor stay and read the blog. A blog that has lot of contents and eye catching designs are also one of the ways to keep the audience entertained and recommend the blog to other people. In order to do this, one must have such software that will manage his or her blog without delving into too much technicalities. A blog with a WordPress theme is very advantageous when it comes to its creation and management. WordPress is an open source CMS, content management system. What does this mean? This means that one, WordPress is free and will always be free. Second, a community of programmers, web developers, and enthusiast protects WordPress from any potential hacks and security lapses. Third, these people regularly try to develop WordPress and its plug-ins in order to improve its functions and features. A CMS is a content management system solely developed for websites, blogs and web pages so that they won’t have to hard code every aspect of their website. Why use a CMS? Better yet, why use WordPress among the other CMS? Here are some reasons:• It is free, has open -source licensing, has lots of WordPress themes available for download• It has lots of available plug-ins, widgets, and applications that can go with one’s web design• It is easy to use, outputs great end product, and gives you freedom in one’s design• Powered by PHP and MySql, WordPress has the ability to create and manage a website while at the same time, it has the ability to support and integrate a database to the website.• WordPress won the best open source CMS award on 2009 because of its excellence in the field of CMS and web development. Now, these are the reason why WordPress have an edge over other CMS. WordPress themes are available for download and it can be used in one’s web site, blog, or web page. This way, you will no longer worry about its core designs; WordPress themes would do it for the user. Of course, one would have the option to change or edit the WordPress them if it would not satisfy his tastes. By using WordPress one can hasten the design process while at the same time the quality of the site won’t be compromised. Web development takes a lot of time, WordPress however is a development tool made for blogs and websites that does not need too much abstraction but at the same time it has the elements of art and beauty. By using a CMS to manage one’s blog, it gives the user simple clicks here and there to update or change his blog without going into too much trouble. WordPress is here to make designing, creating, and maintaining a site easy. The Power of WordPress Themes

How To Build A WordPress Theme – 5 of the Most Popular WordPress Blogging Themes1

By Randy R on February 16, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How To Build A WordPress Theme – 5 of the Most Popular WordPress Blogging Themes

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the internet today. Over 25 million site owners have chosen WordPress as their blog software of choice.Â WordPress is easy to install, maintain and modify. It has a huge list of powerful features that can make your website very functional. Best of all, WordPress is free. Site owners can easily change the visual look and layout of their WordPress site simply by changing the themes.Â There are a lot of themes available for free online. One of the best sites to get your WordPress blogging themes is the official WordPress site of WordPress.org. WordPress.org maintains a theme database where people can download WordPress themes for free. Themes are ranked based on popularity, date of first upload, as well as the date of the latest update. Currently WordPress.org ranks Twenty Ten, Mystique, Atahualpa, Constructor and LightWord as the five most popular themes based on the amount of downloads.

LightWord is the fifth most poplar theme in WordPress.org. It is a basic, intelligent black text on white theme that can have two or three columns. The theme is set to display at fixed width regardless of the browser size and screen resolution of a site visitor. It supports widgets as well as Google AdSense and covers all the basic WordPress functionalities.

Contsructor is the fourth most popular theme. A lot of people like this theme because it can have multiple layout settings. The theme can display six different sidebar positions and three layouts right out of the box and creating a new layout on this theme is fairly easy. This is a great theme to work with if you want to easily come up with a distinct original theme.

The third most popular WordPress theme is Atahualpa. They are highly customizable WordPress blogging themes. It boasts of 268 options for site owners to use to come up with their own original themes with the resulting design compatible with most web browsers. Designs can be up to 4 sidebars, fixed or flexible width as well as other customizable functionalities. The theme also has an active support forum where users can find help in fixing any theme related issues.

Mystique is the second-most popular them in WordPress.org. It currently has over 340,000 downloads since October 2009. It is a feature rich theme built over solid and stable design. There are a lot of useful widgets built-in to the theme as well. The best part with Mystique is that the theme settings interface is intuitively designed so users can easily make changes to the theme even while having only a little knowledge in PHP and CSS.

Currently, the most popular WordPress blogging theme is Twenty Ten. Designed to be stylish, simple and readable while still highly customizable, site owners can easily make a distinctive theme by just changing the header image, the background and designing a custom menu. This them is great to use when you need to come up with a theme that you can easily set up, modify to be distinctive and efficiently present your information without making any modifications to the actual theme files. This theme is great for website owners with minimal knowledge in PHP, HTML and CSS and just wants to have a theme that they can easily modify to look different and original.

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