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Some Things to Watch Out for When Choosing a WordPress Theme

By 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.

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Social Networking on Twitter

By on February 17, 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

Social Networking on Twitter

Social networking is the way you meet and great friends online. It’s a hot topic in most locations. Social networking sites are popping up all over the place, so you will need to be careful which you choose to post on, and where you should avoid. One place that you need to sign up though is Twitter.

Twitter is a fantastic social networking location. Find old friends, or invite some of your friends by sending them an e-mail. Is Twitter the newest and best social networking places? Well not being an expert about social networking, it still seems that this site has so many cool things. You really should check it out and get online with others.

Checking a topic that you may enjoy, say “cooking” and pull up others. Trade some recipes and get some fantastic ideas of what you can cook for that special get together. Or you may like a certain sport, pull it up and look at who else is interested in that. Meet people from all over the world, and lifelong friends. Heck some people could possibly find their knight in shining armor. With a social networking site you really can never tell what may happen.

Although Twitters choices on themes is a bit short compared to other sites, you are able to make the theme more unique by picking your own background colors. Make something that will make a person eyes ache, or go with the good old normal looking profile. Whichever you pick you can always change it later.

Twitter has some big name celebrities that are on their site too. How do you know it’s not a fake? Well most of them are legitimate, but there still may be a few that slip in there acting like they are someone they are not. This however, happens all over the place. It does seem like most of the big names on Twitter are themselves. What a blast to add your favorite celebrities to your following page. Even if you never talk to them, you will still get updates when they change their status.

What you make of Twitter is how much you go there. It’s hard when your busy working all day, when you come home you don’t always feel like going on the computer. And at times even if you get on the computer you may not check all those sites you belong too. If you don’t go often though, how will you meet people? Set aside a bit of time that you can go find a few people to follow and others will follow you too. It can create a great friendship.

Twitter is a quick sign up, maybe 10 minutes at the most, and you don’t need to pay anything to join this site. You will find the process of getting on Twitter is so easy that even a younger kid could join. Twitter does seem like a very clean site, not all those naked pictures, or bad things going on. There might be a few words here and there though, but really compared to some other places this place is fantastic.

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

By 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.  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.  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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So you have a WordPress blog

By on February 13, 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

So, you have a WordPress blog. But instead of just working for the blog (writing in it, fiddling with the HTML codes to make it look good), you can also make it work for you. Did you know that your blog can bring in the big bucks? Well, now you do. The question is, how?
That question will now be addressed.
First things first. When I say that your blog can make money for you, I don’t mean the page where you self-publish whatever you like. No; plugins – also known as extensions – are what I’m talking about. Of course, the plugins have to be embedded in your WordPress page in order for them to be seen, and when they can be seen, only then can they work.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get to the most interesting part of this article – monetizing your WordPress.
One of the most common methods of monetizing your WordPress is by allowing advertisements on your site, for example: adding AdSense ads to your blog. AdSense is a Google-run advertisement application which you can apply to embed in your page. It generates an income for you – the page owner – on a per-click basis, which basically means that advertisers pay you based on the number of times that ad has been clicked on; or a per-impression basis, where they will pay you based on the amount of traffic you have on your site.
Another money-making method is to market services, products, etc, on your WordPress site by way of using a shopping cart plugin. This plugin allows you to sell things and receive payment through the internet! There are a few available shopping-cart plugins for example Jason R Brigg’s YAK for WordPress which would link your product to the code of your blog entry, making the entry’s code the product’s identification number. It also provides modifiable payment options such as cheque or credit card, or the types of PayPal one might like to utilise.
Speaking of PayPal, it is actually yet another way to make your WordPress (and your readers) become your source of income! However, this method might work better if your blog experiences high traffic, as it is the donation method. That’s right, you can make money off of your site if you add a PayPal plugin where your visitors may make donations either with their credit cards or by electronic debits from their bank accounts. There are many plugins which would enable you to add a PayPal Donate Button to your page. Easy PayPal WordPress Plugin and PayPal Donate WordPress Plugin are two such plugins.
We have now come to the conclusion of the sermon; I’m sure some sort of enlightenment has occurred somewhere between the beginning of the article and this sentence, and the wonders of monetising your WordPress page have been exposed in all their monetary glory. I kid, I kid. Joking aside though, it is now time to view your WordPress blog as more than merely a space for self-published opinion-airing. With the right plugins, it can actually make you money!

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How to Become a WordPress Expert Overnight

By on February 12, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Become a WordPress Expert Overnight!

Blogging is here to stay and one of the best platforms on the Internet for blogging is off course WordPress. Blogger, another blogging platform offered by Google, is also popular but it lacks the flexibility needed to create professional-looking interactive websites. WordPress has taken the blogging world by storm and millions of blogs are now powered by it. Its success stems from its vibrant online community and support not to mention the hundreds of plugins that exist for the sole purpose of extending its use. It is now possible to create virtuially any kind of website, whether blog, or static website or e-commerce website or even a newspaper or online magazine. Many people are struggling to learn WordPress. Many are making progress but only a few know how to utilize the full potential of this powerful and awesome blogging platform.

Who needs WordPress?

Personal bloggersMore people now have personal blogs. They may not have any specialty topic or niche, but have a passion for writing and sharing ideas. Others simply love the attention that comes with being able to put out personalized content on the Internet. Even more use WordPress for photo galleries especially to showcase baby pictures.

Online marketers and entrepreneursOnline marketers and entrepreneurs use WordPress heavily. This is because search engines love blogs and they want their blogs to be indexed quickly so they can sell their products. People with regular websites have also discovered that they need blogs to attract traffic and to appear interactive to their target audience.

WebmastersWeb designers and programmers need WordPress first and foremost to showcase their skills. We have mentioned that blogs attract better traffic than regular sites due to their interactive nature.

Become an overnight WordPress proIf you are a personal blogger, an online entrepreneur or a webmaster, you have everything to gain by learning the insider secrets of WordPress. For webmasters, learning WordPress by means of video tutorials is extremely profitable because it lessens the learning curve of having to go to web design school. Webmasters can also extend their skills tremendously.

Online marketers and entrepreneurs also need WordPress video tutorials because they need to be able to put out niche websites quickly and cheaply. Online marketers can save on the costs of hiring a webmaster to create and troubleshoot their niche blogs. With the help of video tutorials showing step-by-step how to master WordPress and become a professional almost overnight, anyone can be on the road creating extremely professional-looking blogs and websites even with zero xhtml/css or php/mysql knowledge.

Are you looking for high-definition WordPress video tutorial guides?

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Selecting the Best WordPress Theme For Your Business

By on February 10, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Selecting the Best WordPress Theme For Your Business

WordPress and Google update constantly, and so there is a constant change to the themes available for WordPress, and the best themes for your business. The quality of themes available to businesses is always improving for those who want to use WordPress as a CMS system for their business.

The following six design points are mandatory for any serious business looking at WordPress.

CSS menu (not images) – which is better for SEO and page speed
1000px body width – as most screens are now 1200px and anything less is a waste of space.
XHTML & CSS compliant, so that it can be read in all browsers
Any Javascript show degrade gracefully, so that if people have JS turned off, they don’t end up with ugly text all over the place
Menu bar across the top, preferable the right hand side.
Two Column Layout, this will reduce the clutter on your website
Space for your logo in the top left hand corner – the most prominent position
Background colour of the body is white – makes for the most readable content.
Stretchable side areas (outside of the body) – makes your website easy to read on most screens

For bonus points, the best WordPress themes for business also have the following;

Javascript at the bottom of the page
CSS in one file

All of which will help speed up the website. Also, there are a few more factors that need to be taken into account;

Choose a flexible template to match your brand

Look at your competition and see the information they are including in their website. Select a WordPress template that is flexible enough, customisable and can be changed to suit your business. Excessive customisable options, like in the theme “”Atuhalpa”” can lead to confusion, but you do need to be able to change the background, change the colours and easily add a logo.

Javascript and CSS Compressed

There are some good plugins to reduce compress.js and CSS files, but they don’t work with all templates all the time and sometimes they can be a pain to customise. WordPress themes that rely on a lot of additional CSS and Javascript files, across a lot of folders, will slow down your website, and in the long term this may cause you to be penalised by search engines.

Breathing space

Your WordPress website should breath. Too much clutter and you will scare away and confuse your visitors. Every element in your WordPress theme should be given breathing space of about 20%. It should also mean that when you add a widget to the sidebar, whether it is an image or text, it should not destroy the flow of the template.

Based on these recommendations, the latest best FREE WordPress themes for business are;

iblog titan eco idream greener-side Light Word

You can find these themes at the WordPress website.

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How to Apply A WordPress Theme

By on February 8, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How to Apply A WordPress Theme

One of the biggest advantages to WordPress is the easy to use theme system. This makes changing your blog or websites design a really easy task. Best of all, many themes are available for free of charge. The key is to learn how to use the theme system so you do not waste your time trying to figure out why your theme is not working.

If you want to apply a WordPress theme, the first step is making sure you have the theme installed. There are two different ways that a WordPress theme can be installed. The first option is to install it manually by uploading the theme folder to your themes directory. This requires some knowledge of FTP and web directories.

The second option is to use the build in theme uploader, which can be accessed from directly in the WordPress administration panel. To get started, just browser to the appearance section in WordPress and click on the themes section. One in here, you can just click on the add new theme button to get started. You can either search for a theme in the directory or choose the zip file you downloaded from somewhere else on the internet.

Regardless of the way you choose, WordPress will automatically install the theme for you and place it in the correct folder. Once this is done, you are then ready to apply the WordPress theme.

Guess what? Activating the theme is even easier than installing it! All you have to do is look at your installed themes and choose the one you want to use. Then just use the activate link to automatically apply any given them. Within a matter of seconds, your entire blog or website layout will completely change based on the theme you are using. Talk about an easy way to design websites!

So there is a quick overview on how to apply WordPress themes.

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