Beginner’s Guide to Installing a WordPress Plugin A WordPress Plugin is an add-on that allows you to easily add customization and functionality to your blog without programing any files. Basically, they add tons of new features to your blog in a simple manner. There are thousands of plugins available for WordPress, and each one exists for a certain purpose. For example, there is a plugin that will display your most popular posts in the sidebar. Now that you know what a plugin is, its time to learn how to add them to your blog. There are a few ways of going about this, but for the beginner, this is the most simple and straight-forward method. Once logged on and in the WordPress Dashboard, find the ""Plugins"" tab located in the left sidebar. Under this tab you will find a section labeled ""add new"". Click on this. You will now be in the plugins section where you can search, browse, and upload plugins. Type in the name of the plugin you are looking for. (For example: ""Popular Posts""). This will bring up the search results. Browse through these and find one that strikes your interest. (Pay attention to the star-ratings of the plugins, because they will give you an idea of what other WordPress users think of them). Once you find an appropriate plugin, click on ""Details"". Here you can read more about the plugin, view screen shots, and most importantly, check if it is compatible with your version of WordPress. If everything checks out with the plugin, all you must do is click on ""Install Now"". The plugin will now be installed, but you still must activate it by simply clicking on ""activate"". Once you have activated the plugin, you will see the title of your plugin displayed under the ""Settings"" tab in dashboard sidebar. Here you can edit the settings of the plugin to further customize it. (Please note that not all plugins have settings to adjust). You have now successfully installed your first plugin! Way to go! It wasn’t so hard, was it? Beginner’s Guide to Installing a WordPress Plugin
Archive | affiliate marketing
Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog
By Randy Roedl on February 29, 2012 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
Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog If you’re one of the thousands of people out there right now looking for information on how to blog then you’ve come to the right place. In this article I will show you some helpful tips that you can follow to assist you with running a successful blog. Blogging requires you to have some amount of patience to be successful, and without patience you probably will give up too soon. It can take months to get your blog going so you need to stick with it and not let go of the blog until you’re for sure that it isn’t working out. We’ll now take a look at some tips you can follow to assist you with blogging successfully. Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog.
Remain on topic Once you’ve chosen your niche and you start your blog there is no going back so make sure that you really want a blog on the topic before choosing it. You can’t jump from topic to topic on your blog or else your readers won’t stick around very long. You need to offer information on a niche and always remain on topic when you post on the blog. Your visitors are there for information on the topic of the blog and nothing else, so don’t disappoint them. Write useful content Take your time when you write content for your blog, it isn’t a race to post as quickly as possible and be done with it. If this is your attitude then blogging probably won’t be the best thing for you and you should look for alternatives right now. Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog.
You need to spend time creating useful and educational content that your readers want to read about. Create a routine You should be posting on your blog everyday and you should also promote your blog everyday. Try to get into a routine so that the work starts seeming less like work. If you get into a routine you’ll also be less likely to miss days of posting, and also less likely to give up. Post frequently and consistently All of the search engines love unique content and also love new fresh content. This is why blogs rank so well in the search engines, but if you don’t post on your blog then you won’t get the search engine traffic. You need to post a lot on your blog and then you’ll get the rankings that you need to be successful. Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog
These are just a few helpful tips that you can use to start running your own successful blog. There is a lot more to blogging then what I’ve mentioned here and I would suggest reading more tutorials before beginning your adventure. This should help you out though and every bit of information is important when you’re trying to make money online. Don’t expect to make any money in the first couple months, and if you happen to then consider yourself lucky. It takes a bit for the search engines to start trusting your website and during this period money can be slow. Some Helpful Tips to Run a Successful Blog
How to Create a WordPress Theme
By Randy R on February 28, 2012 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. How to Create a WordPress Theme
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. How to Create a WordPress Theme
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. How to Create 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! How to Create a WordPress Theme
The 3 Pages That Should Be On Every WordPress Website to Increase Its Effectiveness
By Randy R on February 26, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes
The 3 Pages That Should Be On Every WordPress Website to Increase Its Effectiveness WordPress has come a long way in its journey to become the #1 blogging platform out there today. As the features and functionality have increased over time, the possibilities for what can be done with WordPress as a website solution have increased. With today’s features, WordPress can be used to create an entire site in most cases in addition to just a blog. This article discusses which pages should be created in any WordPress blog. The 3 Pages That Should Be On Every WordPress Website to Increase Its Effectiveness
1. Landing Page or Home Page The landing page or home page, depending upon the type of web site, is critical in being able to convert your visitors to taking a specific action. It is very difficult to do that with blog entries as the home page. When people land on your blog home page, they usually land on a page with a lot of content and nothing really directing them to do anything. If any of your blog titles happens to catch their attention, then when they click on a specific post, you may be able to convert that into an action, but only if your post is written up to do just that. If not, then you will just have a reader who may or may not come back to your site. Having a landing page will allow you to prepare the visitor and guide them through the site the way you want them to go. 2. Contact Us Page WordPress makes it easy to put a contact us form on your website that will get emailed back to you when the visitor submits the form. There are a few ‘contact us’ plug-ins that give the website owner a lot of flexibility in getting the kind of feedback that will be most beneficial to them. One of the contact form plugins that gives a lot of flexibility in creating great forms called ‘Contact Form 7’. The 3 Pages That Should Be On Every WordPress Website to Increase Its Effectiveness.
The benefit of having a contact form instead of your email is it is easier to manage communications, you can outsource your customer support much more easily and you can guide the visitor much better with the information you need from them so you can better serve your visitors, prospects and customers. 3. Blog Postings Page If you are going to have a WordPress website, then you should have a blog as well. WordPress is a blogging platform so it pretty much comes with the territory. In this case, you will need to create a separate page to direct the blog postings to. When setting up the blog page, you will need to be sure to label it something that is very clear and enticing if you want your visitors to read your blog postings. Labels like ‘Blog’, ‘Articles’ and ‘Content’ are fairly popular. This is the name that will be on the navigation link for that page as well. This is why it is important to make it something that is easy for visitors to understand. Creating an entire website from WordPress is easy to do with the latest versions of WordPress. It is very easy to create the basic pages that will allow a small business owner to get a website up and running very quickly. Having a landing page, a contact us page and a blog page is a great foundation to build from. Once that foundation is there, additional pages and features can be easily added. The 3 Pages That Should Be On Every WordPress Website to Increase Its Effectiveness
How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs
By Randy Roedl on February 25, 2012 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
How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs It can sometimes be a difficult task matching accounting systems with your order fulfillment system. There are many categories of products on a Website: those products that are pending, those that are in back-order status, those that are to be drop-shipped, and those that have shipped. An order management system must also be able to print up sales invoices, packing slips, address labels and inventory reports. Some management systems can actually interface directly with the main shippers such as FedEx, UPS and USPS. Your orders should be able to integrate directly into your accounting system if things are to work as smoothly as possible. If you are a small merchant you may be thinking at this point that there is no way your shopping cart can handle all of this, well, the truth is that there are several ways that small merchants can deal with the needs of order fulfillment and accounting integration. One way for small merchants to integrate order fulfillment with accounting is to select a shopping cart purposely because it has the order management features you want. You can also import orders into an order management system on your desktop such as StoneEdge Order Manager from Stone Edge Technologies, Inc. or Dydacomp’s Mail Order Manager, which has Ecommerce Integration. These order management systems can import orders from the following shopping carts: AmeriCart, Miva, ShopSite, Storefront, and Yahoo. You can also start with an accounting program such as QuickBooks and use it to track your order fulfillment. When using QuickBooks you may find value in using Fishbowl by Fishbowl Inventory. Fishbowl fits small to mid-sized companies and uses the QuickBooks platform for the accounting aspects and incorporates advanced inventory tracking that can handle multiple locations, manufacturing, credit card integration, UPS/FedEx integration and a complete wireless bar-coding for warehouse inventory as well as EDI, shopping cart and merchant services. How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs
BusinessFlow by MainStreet Commerce is complete order management and multi-channel sales software that integrates with ecommerce as well as eBay sales. Order management is linked to inventory control, payment processing, marketing and also to customer relationship management. No one likes it when an order gets messed up least of all the customer, so having a order management system that coordinates perfectly with your accounting system is vital to the success of your business. When making your shopping cart decision take the time to check out similar Websites to see how they’re shopping cart works. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of customer service before you buy the shopping cart. Know what your needs are regarding order fulfillment and accounting and make sure that what you buy fits the bill. Being able to track orders, know what is pending, what has been filled, what has shipped and what orders have been returned are all equally important. How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs.
Become a WordPress Pro
By Randy R on February 22, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes
Become a WordPress Pro
WordPress is my website platform of choice nowadays. I find it extremely easy to use and with so many templates or themes to choose from and I do not need to ever hire a web designer.
Add a few SEO plugins and you really have a powerful website. Yes, I said website. I use WordPress as a blogging platform and also as a website.
What I try to do is look through the thousands of templates until I find a theme that looks more like a static site. Then I go into the CSS and customize is just a little to make the theme a little different then the original.
When I want to add content I usually use the page feature. I add my content to a page instead of a post. Maybe each of my sites will have ten or 15 content pages. Then I go into the Options>Reading panel in the Administration area and change one of my pages to a static front page. And presto. I have a nice static website.
Now, if I want to also add a blog on the site, I will just post normally and I have a combination website and blog all rolled into one. The really nice advantage is that I can update anything instantly and I don’t need a html editor. I like this feature because I travel a lot and sometimes use other computers instead of my own. With WordPress I always have a way to update my web sites fast and easy.
For those that don’t know how to set up a WordPress site it is very easy. All you need to do is go to your cPanel of your website. Scroll to the bottom and select the smiling icon called “”fantastico””.
Select WordPress from the navigation bar on the left and then select install. Fill in the data fields which consist of your administration name and password, the name of your website and a short description. All this can be changed in the WordPress Admin Panel once the site is live. Click the install WordPress button and you have your very own WordPress site.
Now all you need to do is add some content and you will have a great professional looking website that would have taking you a lot longer to build if you had to do it in html and especially if you are not skilled with coding.
How to Change a WordPress Theme
By Randy R on February 20, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes
How to Change a WordPress Theme
One of the first things people want to learn when it comes to WordPress is how to change WordPress theme. The main reason being that people love to tinker around with the design aspects of their blogs and websites.
The good news is that WordPress has a built in theme system that makes changing your design a really easy process. Believe it or not, you can install and activate a theme in a matter of minutes. It sure beats trying to design a website from scratch!
The first step in learning how to change WordPress theme is to understand how to add new themes. By default, WordPress only comes with a couple built in themes.
To add a new theme to WordPress, you can either download a theme you find on the internet or use the built in search function in WordPress. The next step is to click on the add new theme link which is found under appearance in WordPress.
If you downloaded the theme yourself, WordPress will ask you where it is located on your computer. Once you select the file you downloaded, it will automatically upload the theme to the proper directory on your computer.
If you prefer using the theme search function, all you have to do is click the install link by whatever theme you wish to use.
Last but not least, you need to learn how to change WordPress theme that your blog is using. In other words, you have to activate the theme you wish to use. To do this, just click on the themes tab in the WordPress navigation menu. Next, simply hit the activate link found by the theme you wish to use. WordPress will automatically activate the theme and make it live on your website. That is it!
Some Things to Watch Out for When Choosing a WordPress Theme
By Randy R on February 18, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes
Some Things to Watch Out for When Choosing a WordPress Theme
There are literally hundreds of WordPress themes out there and the quality can vary markedly between different suppliers. Some of the more popular options in the marketplace at the moment include the Thesis Theme, the Genesis Theme, Woo Theme, Elegant Themes or even that vast range of themes available through Theme Forest.
It’s important before deciding on a particular theme supplier to have a look at the pricing plans they have on offer and compare these to the rest of the marketplace. Ideally, a consumer shouldn’t be spending more than $39 on a premium WordPress theme however some themes such as the Thesis Theme do offer extra functionality for the additional cost. It’s also important to watch out for recurring monthly fees – some theme providers will charge a monthly fee for access to all the themes in their catalogue, furthermore some may charge a development fee in case you wish to apply the theme across multiple sites.
WordPress Themes are typically designed as an out of the box solution, they are provided as an out of the box solution for webmasters who have little to no design skills or even to web developers who do not have the time to continually redesign websites. However, due to the fact they are an out of the box solution it’s important to be able to control as much of the layout of the site as you possibly can, this means being able to edit all of the various elements on the homepage and maybe even change between a two and three column layout.
Some WordPress themes also come with pre-installed sliders – a slider is an image board that rotates between different images and is usually found at the top of a page. Some webmasters do not like the slider being positioned so prominently on the page and may in fact wish to remove it – it’s important then to be able to either change the images contained in the slider, or even remove it if you so choose.