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These Top 5 Powerful WordPress Plugins Help With SEO and Rankings

These Top 5 Powerful WordPress Plugins Help With SEO and Rankings

Website design does not need to be as difficult as it is made out to be. In the past, it was a requirement and a must to have to hire a web designer to setup your website. With the advancements in the website hosting platforms, and the amount of open source scripts, like WordPress, anyone can setup a professional website in a matter of minutes. If you go with WordPress, then there are going to be some specific WordPress plugins you will need to install to make the most of your site.

For starters, you will need a plugin to help with the search engine optimization. The one WordPress plugin I recommend for this is the All-In-One-SEO plugin. WordPress by itself does a bad job with SEO, so a plugin is required to help get your sites ranked well.

One of the SEO tips people fail to do is the interlinking of the internal pages of the site. There are a few plugins which do this, but the one I recommend is the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP). This plugin runs a calculation, and determines the most related posts on the site. It then lists these below the original post on the page. This helps with internal links and also with adding more topic related content on the page.

You will also need to analyze the website traffic. Most people use Google Analytics for the their traffic stats. And, while this is good, I like to use Statpress Reloaded. This is an awesome plugin that allows you to look at the traffic to your site while still in the admin area. I especially use it to see if I have any error pages, and then I can fix these immediately.

Here is one of my most favorite plugins: Wptouch iPhone Theme. It seems everyone has an iphone, or android, or the Blackberry. The problem with these is normal websites just do not look good on here. The Wptouch plugin determined the viewers Operating System (OS), and then displays your website based on this. This is a growing traffic area, so you should be making sure you have this optimized and monetized as well.

And, of course, you still need to let Yahoo, MSN, and Google know you have updated web pages. Installing the Google Sitemaps Plugin takes care of this for you. It only takes a minute to setup, and then it runs automatically for you.

Those are my top 5 WordPress plugins you must have in order to even begin to be a successful blogger. Since you can install all of the plugins directly from the admin dashboard, it makes it a piece of cake to get your WordPress blog/website optimized and ready to run. So, if you are using WordPress for your website, just make sure these additional powerful plugins are installed. Without them, you will have a much more difficult time being successful.

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How Do You Choose A Shopping Cart For Your Business

How Do You Choose A Shopping Cart For Your Business?

When deciding on what type of shopping cart and what features you need to have with your shopping cart you need to take a good look at the needs of your customers and at the needs of your business. Your shopping cart can show your customer that you are a professional that they can trust in order to make a buying decision. The shopping cart is a very important part of your commerce website.

Your shopping cart should fit the size of your business including how many products you have and what features you will be using such as multiple items, discounts, shipping and payment options, the ability to collect contact information, the ability to process credit cards and echecks. Your shopping cart needs to have the ability to save information, to calculate discounts, and sales tax and multiple purchases. Your shopping cart needs to look like your website and to look professional.

You need to have a shopping cart that fits your program skill level, and ability to make changes to it with html. You need to be able to see in real time what your sales figures are, who your buyers are and how many sales you have. The shopping cart should be able to give you accurate inventory totals based on sales generated.

Your shopping cart needs to be easy to navigate for your customers, blend well with your website, and be easy for you to make changes to. Your shopping cart should give your customer all the information needed when making a purchase including what items are in the cart, the quantity of each item, any options such as size, color etc., and any discounts or certificates available. Your customer should be able to choose payment and shipping options right from the cart and should be able to see a total for their purchase prior to getting to the credit card information page. The shopping cart needs to be able to give information that is accurate and responsive to what the customer does including changes made in any of the shopping cart fields.

You choose a shopping cart for your online business that meets the needs of your customers, and meets the skills and abilities of the person in charge of administering the shopping cart. The shopping cart should be able to grow with your business; meeting your future needs as well as filling the shopping needs you have today.

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How To Design A WordPress Website

How To Design A WordPress Website

It is not hard to find out how to design a WordPress website. All of the instructions you need are in the program. All you have to do is follow them. The easiest way I have found is with WordPress Express.

WordPress Express makes learning how to design a WordPress website very simple and fast. There are only a few prompts in the program. You will have to get a domain name yourself, but other than web hosting, that is all the program requires to get the site up. Depending on your content, you will have hundreds of templates and color schemes to choose from. Please note that you will have to supply all the content for your site. This program only helps you put the site up, not filling in the pages you create.

As I was saying, there are hundreds of choices. You can pick out layouts and color schemes that compliment your banners and graphics, or pick something very simple that does not have a lot of space you need to fill in. It also had something for everyone. It doesn’t matter which product you are building the site for, you will be able to customize it to suit anything you can think of.

Learning how to design a WordPress website is very fast. Depending on which program, but with Express it’s a matter of five of six easy steps. You type in the domain name, pick out your layout, review your choices, and create. Nothing to it at all and the page looks great. It is has some suggestions under the layout choices to help you decide which would be better. Some of these are tailor-made for certain functions, and some are made to just be user-friendly. For your first page I would recommend a simple layout. This gives you a chance to get use to customizing before you get into something more complex.

There are tutorials available on how to design a WordPress website. Many of these include tips that will make the most of your pages. I would highly recommend them since not all of us can think of everything the first time we try something.

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Benefits of Using WordPress

Benefits of Using WordPress

For businesses looking to increase their web presence, creating websites and blogs are the way to go. The utilization of quality online content is crucial. By having relevant content online, whether on a blog or website, this allows for increased awareness of a business and its services. WordPress is an editing and uploading blog software for businesses to create and publish this content online. With the ability to create websites and blogs, business owners can easily share their information with the world. There are many WordPress benefits!

WordPress is an open source software. This means that millions of people around the world are constantly working on it. WordPress is also a low-cost service. This is very beneficial to business owners because WordPress offers many valuable services all in one program.
WordPress is user-friendly. It is easy both to learn and use. Finally, you don’t have to be an expert to update your website or blog. This is why so many businesses utilize WordPress to share their news and information online.
WordPress makes it easy to add a blog to your website. WordPress can be installed on your own website’s server or through WordPress web hosting. The thought of starting and maintaining a blog can be stressful to many business owners; however, WordPress makes it easier to start a blog. Quit using confusing blogging websites, when you can easily use WordPress!
WordPress offers customization tools with many website and blog themes to choose from! Long gone are the days where changing your website’s look took hours. WordPress makes it easier to customize your website or blog as quickly and as often as you want.
WordPress also has the capability to install plug-ins. Plug-ins allow business owners to add all sorts of things to their website and blog, such as pictures, maps, applications and much more. These are all easy to install with WordPress. There is no need to spend money on a web programmer when you can utilize WordPress’s low-cost tools.
WordPress is a CMS (content management system). This means that your business can use WordPress to collaborate information and data. This makes it easy to share information across the whole company! Things will get done more quickly and there will be less confusion!
Google loves WordPress because it is SEO (search engine optimization) friendly. WordPress is built in a way that makes blogs and websites easier to find on Google and other search engines. WordPress has a way of automatically announcing new content. WordPress also helps business owners create well constructed blogs and websites. This is crucial to maintaining good search engine rankings.
WordPress is safe to use! In a time where online security is often questioned, business owners may be wary about online safety. WordPress offers easy to install plug-ins that will make your web site or blog safer! WordPress takes the fear our of maintaining an online website or blog.
WordPress websites and blogs have accessibility. This means that anyone can access your business website or blog, thanks to WordPress. WordPress makes it easy to view your information on any computer, in any country, and on any device! As technology grows and changes, this is crucial for business owners.
WordPress helps your site grow with you! Once you have gotten the hang of WordPress, you’ll soon realize that it will continue to help your business. While your needs may change in the future, whether it be a new website design or the need for a video gallery, WordPress can continue to help you will all of these needs.

As you can see there are many WordPress advantages. Businesses have a great tool to succeed in the online world, thanks to WordPress! Make a web site or blog today, and utilize WordPress. Learn and grow with WordPress by looking at a WordPress tutorial. Website and blog set up is easy!

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Steps to Building a Mailing List

Steps to Building a Mailing List

All successful webmasters are always talking about how valuable a mailing list is, but most of them neglect to teach everyone how to build a mailing list. Nowadays you can choose between both free and paid services to build your mailing list, and I’ll leave it up to you to choose your mailing list software. You will need one though so make sure you pick one and get familiar with it so you know what you’re doing. A mailing list is great to have because then you can email them all at once with promotions, specials and anything else you want to as long as it isn’t spam. If you have a big enough mailing lists then you can make thousands of dollars off each email that you send out. You generally send out an email to promote a product to sell as this is how you’ll make money. One key thing to remember is not to email your list to often as then they’ll unsubscribe and you’ll lose potential profit.

Once you have chosen your mailing list software you need to set-up a form on your website so that people can join your list. You’ll want to mention what you’ll offer in your newsletter emails so that people will want to join it. You can also offer a free report or eBook to people so that there more likely to join the mailing list. Many websites out there focus on just list building and there simply one page websites that giveaway something free in order for an email and name. You can do this on your website by creating a new page and setting up a little article for people to read. I find that you should always try offering something for free in exchange for the reader to join your mailing list as most people need a reason to join anything these days.

After you’ve set-up your subscriber page with the free gift and mailing list form then you now need to promote this page and build some links for it. Of course your website traffic should be able to clearly see on every page that you have a free gift offer in exchange for there email. The more noticeable the better as you want your readers to know it’s there. Apart from your website visitors you should also submit the new page to social bookmarking websites. This brings in a lot of traffic and since you’re offering something free many of them will submit there email for the freebie. You can also submit articles to article directories and in the resource box make sure you notify people that they can receive a free gift by going to your page and submitting there email.

Having a mailing list is so important to earn revenue online nowadays that I recommend everyone begin working on there mailing list immediately. Even if you don’t have much traffic right now that’s alright as you can still build your list slowly. You don’t need to send out emails until you reach at least one hundred subscribers though as you want to make it worth your while. If you wait though then you’re just throwing away potential people who would sign-up for your list and you can’t afford to do this. I suggest you get a mailing list software program as soon as possible and begin building your future.

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How to Customize WordPress Theme

How to Customize WordPress Theme

Learning how to customize WordPress is not as difficult as you many think it is.

With so many themes out there it is fairly easy to find a new theme for your WordPress blog. But if you just can’t seem to find a theme that is quite right, you can always take matters into your own hands and learn how to customize WordPress yourself.

Keep in mind that if you have downloaded a theme you will have to check with the theme creator to make sure they approve your customizing the theme. Most will have no problem with it as long as the theme contains the link back to their site, but you want to check to be sure. If all else fails, you can always customize the default WordPress theme.

Now today I am going to go over customizing the graphics in the WordPress theme. This is the easiest way to customize a WordPress theme and make it your own. I believe in keeping things as simple as possible. As long as you like the layout why get into restructuring the whole site? In keeping with our simple theory, we are going to find the current graphics used on the theme and change them up to fit our new theme.

You will want to find the image files for the theme you are using. This will be simple to do if you installed the theme manually. If you installed the them automatically using WordPress then you will need to find the theme and download it to your hard drive.

Once you have the theme on your hard drive you will want to browse to the image folder. The image folder will most likely be located in an image folder within the theme folder. Each theme creator can name this folder whatever they choose, but most creators will name it ‘image’ or ‘img’.

In this folder you should be able to find the header, background, icon, footer and any other graphics files that are used on that theme. Make a copy of these images so you don’t alter the originals and copy them to a work folder on your hard drive. For me it is easier to make a copy of the image files and use them as my base. I already know they work with the theme and they are the correct dimensions I need and there won’t be any second guessing on my part.

To edit these files you will need a half way decent graphic editing program. If you have Adobe that is great, if not you can download GIMP for free. Once you have your graphics program fired up the first thing you should do is add a layer to the image to start your work on a ‘fresh canvas’.

From this point on it is basically putting your design skills to work. If you have other images you want to replace the images with you can just copy and paste them onto the new layer. There are no limits to the options you have when editing your graphics. I could go into detail here but graphic design is a whole tutorial in itself.

Once you have edited your graphics and are happy with them, it is time to reveal your customized WordPress theme.

There are two ways you can install your new customized theme.

You can manually upload your new graphics by using a FTP program. You will want to make sure you upload the graphics to the correct folder and overwrite the original images.
You can copy your new files into graphics folder of the original theme on your hard drive and then log into WordPress blog and install it automatically. If you already have the original theme installed, you may need to remove it to install the new one or rename the theme on your hard drive.

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The Power of WordPress 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

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Steps to Dominating a Niche with Blogs

Steps to Dominating a Niche with Blogs If you want to dominate a niche on the internet with blogs nowadays it’s completely possible and although it will require a lot work the payoff is huge. Not many webmasters or companies can say that they dominate there niche and it’s very difficult to do, but with the right planning you could do it. The first thing you need to do is choose your niche, which should be something you enjoy and are familiar with. Don’t choose a niche that is overcrowded with webmasters though because then ranking your blogs with become a lot more difficult and in some cases nearly impossible. You don’t want to compete against any big companies for search engine rankings, because most of the time there budget is a lot larger then your budget is and you don’t need that hassle. Once you a narrow down a niche that isn’t very competitive then you need to begin planning out your exact plan so that you can simply follow through on the plan. Also don’t expect to be dominating a niche in a week either as it takes time and hard work. The number one reason why webmasters don’t succeed is because they give up without allowing their websites enough time to establish themselves and earn money. Step One The first thing that you need to do is establish an authority blog, which should cover the entire niche. Your niche should be small enough that you can have an authority blog ranking for many of the terms in the niche. You should spend a couple months establishing this blog before moving much deeper into your network of blogs. Once you have some traffic and rankings then you can begin to expand. Step Two Once you have your authority blog established then you need to know break down your niche into anywhere from three to ten categories. You’ll know create a blog for each of those categories and begin adding content to them as much as possible in the beginning. Content is important on blogs and you need as much of it as possible so never think you’re writing too much. The traffic you get from these blogs should be targeted and could earn you some good money. Step Three In this step you’ll be creating small blogs that simply consist of only a few pages a piece. These blogs will be used to promote the different products in your niche. These are the small websites that you’ll be sending your blog traffic to in order to convert them into customers. Blogs can build up great search engine traffic and this is the best traffic to sell products to which is why you should send all your blog traffic to these websites. As these blogs age you’ll also begin getting traffic from search engines for the keywords you targeted. As you can see if you follow these three simple steps then you’ll be able to dominate a niche within one year pending the competition isn’t to stiff. You’ll need to of course spend long hours building links and traffic to the blogs in order to have any success, but if you do the work then the money will follow. Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter in the online world so always be willing to work for what you need or else find a typically 9-5 job now before you waste anymore time online.

 

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