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Best WordPress Plugins to Help With Website Design and Functionality

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

Best WordPress Plugins to Help With Website Design and Functionality

The great thing about WordPress is the ability to continually add new functions into your blog as they are developed. This functionality is added through plugins which can be easily added through an admin panel. As someone who uses them daily, these are the best WordPress plugins in my opinion.

Deans FCK Editor

This replaces the default WordPress editor that comes with WordPress 3.1. The main reason that I use this is for setting columns and rows inside the pages. This plugin makes it child’s play for setting pages as you can tell it to make the width 100%. The plugin then figures out the pixels for you. With different width themes this is a time saver.

All In One SEO

Setting a website without this plugin is tantamount to criminal neglect. The plugin adds fields underneath the blog post for title, description and keywords metatags. You don’t need to know code or visit metatag generator sites any more.

CBNET Ping Optimizer

During the initial set up of your website, you will probably make lots of changes to pages. This will save your WordPress blog from being tagged as spammer as it won’t post the edits only the new pages.

Contact Form 7

This allows you to set up a contact form on any page. You can create as many forms as you like for the various pages including radio buttons and drop down selections. It creates a piece of code that you can then place on the web page in the appropriate area.

Really Simple Captcha

This useful plugin allows you to have a simple captcha on your contact form above. It’s not the hardest captcha to break but it will stop a certain amount of automated rubbish traffic to your email which can be very annoying otherwise.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin automatically updates your sitemap and sends it to Google, AOL and Bing automatically. You need to get an API from Yahoo for it to send automatically to it. You can manually rebuild the sitemap or leave on automatic. It is a great set and forget plugin.

WP-Sticky

This allows you to make a post sticky at the top of the blog. For those who have never heard the term sticky it simply means that when you click the sticky option on a blog post it is never pushed to the bottom of the page when other posts are made.

Multi Level Navigation Plugin

This allows you to have drop downs from any top menu on your site. It allows unlimited drop down levels if you want. For SEO purposes placing too many sub levels will not be great but it’s there if you really want it.

Page Lists Plus

This allows you to create pages but not show them in the menu. This is perfect for creating privacy policy, terms of use and similar pages which you will probably want to manually add in the footer.

To add in a plugin for your blog, simply click on the plugin menu on the left in the admin section and then choose the “”add new”” option. It will then give you a search box. Type the plugin name and it will find it for you from the WordPress extension site.

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Simple Google Maps Plugin for WordPress

By on February 25, 2012 in Randy Roedl

SimpleMap is the most advanced, most customizable and the most actively updated Google Maps plugin for WordPress. SimpleMap’s primary goal is to simplify the Google Map experience within WordPress for site administrators, visitors, and developers alike. SimpleMap’s General Options page, shortcode API, and custom import / export feature gives the site administrator unrepresented control over the display and functionality of Google Maps on their WordPress powered web site. As a site administrator, you can modify an array of options and default setting including but not limited to the map location, search radius, map type, and map size. Our shortcode interface allows you to overide default setting for single maps, modify the search box properties, and control advanced features. The import / export system within SimpleMap allows administrators to quickly and intuitively add multiple locations to the database at once by updating a CSV file. Our CSV format is extremely flexible, allowing you to import almost any existing CSV while mapping only the data you need for your locations. We even allow you to create location categories and tags on the fly by simply including them in your CSV file. Exporting your data is as simple as clicking a single button. Your data will always be yours for the keeping. As an added bonus, SimpleMap’s location data and general options are included in all core WordPress exports. Of course, adding locations manually is easy as well. Using WordPress …

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Top Seven WordPress Plugins For Your Blog

By on November 14, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Top Seven WordPress Plugins For Your Blog

Many bloggers are using WordPress and with good reason. It is the most popular blogging software in use today and one of the biggest reasons is the ability to add functionality through the use of plugins. Plugins can turn your run-of-the-mill blog into a high powered online tool capable of bringing traffic and profit to your site. Consider using the top WordPress plugins on your current WordPress blog or on a future blog. You won’t be disappointed. Happy Blogging.

7. Page Mash

This is a simple WordPress page management plugin. The Ajax interface allows you to drag-and-drop the pages into the order you like, modify the page structure by dragging a page to become a child or parent and toggle the page to be hidden from output. You can also see the id of the page which is often helpful for theme developers. If you have a WordPress site with more than just a handful of pages, PageMash is extremely helpful.

6. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engine by allowing you to fine tune things like your page title and meta tags. This plugin is extremely easy to use as it works great straight out of the box. If you are an advanced user, you can customize virtually everything. And if you are a developer, this plugin has an API so your themes can access and extend the functionality of the plugin.

5. Google XML Sitemaps

Perhaps the most downloaded WordPress plugin, the Google XML Sitemaps plugin not only automatically creates a site map linking to all your pages and posts, it also notifies Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com when you make changes to you site. If you want to include pages that are part of your site but not part of you WordPress managed content, you can do that to.

4. WP Super Cache

If you have a popular WordPress website you should seriously consider running WordPress Super Cache to improve the performance of your website. If you are not caching your pages, then every time a visitor comes to your site, WordPress has to pull together various pieces of information out of a database to put your page together. If you have a high traffic site, this is can really become a problem. WP Super Cache will store a copy of each of the pages on your website so that after the page has been assembled from the database once, WordPress can rest and just keep serving the static html copy of the page. This might be a bit techie, but the idea is you can dramatically speed up your site and reduce the load on your server by using WP Super Cache. If for no other reason, use this plugin so you don’t have to panic when your friend says, “”I just Dugg your site.””

3. NextGEN Image Gallery

If you want to display a photo gallery, show a series of product images, or just publish a slide show from your most recent vacation, the NextGEN image gallery is the plugin for you. NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. Among the many features, NextGEN Gallery includes a thumbnail generator, sortable albums, and a water mark function.

2. cformsII Form Plugin

If your looking for a free form management plugin, cformsII is an extremely powerful plugin for setting up contact forms on your WordPress site. You don’t need to know any PHP or write any code. You can visually build forms in the WordPress admin panel. Then, navigate to the page or post where you want to use the form and there is a button in the WYSIWYG editor that you click and up pops a list of forms that you have made. Simply click on the one you want and your form is inserted into your page. Update your page and you the form is live. You can specify required fields, default values, and there are plenty of styles to make your form blend in perfectly with your site.

1. Gravity Forms

If you want the best forms plugin WordPress has to offer, you need Gravity Forms. Gravity Forms is an amazing plugin for managing online forms. Some of the incredibly useful features include conditional form fields which means you can show or hide a field or entire sections of the form based on a value selected in another field. You can pre-populate form fields using querystring, shortcode, function or hooks.You can even schedule when forms are available by assigning a start date and end date for when your form is live on your site. Supposed you want to run a contest where the first 50 people that fill out the form win a prize. Gravity Forms lets you set a limit on the number of entries a form can receive. Pretty much anything you ever wanted a form to do, Gravity Forms can do it.

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Affiliate WordPress Plugin – Amazon, CJ & ClickBank

By on November 1, 2011 in Randy Roedl

amzps.com “Product Style” is an affiliate WordPress plugin with advanced support for ClickBank, CJ and Amazon affiliates that allows you to easily create attractive affiliate ads with unique content. This video shows you how to use the plugin to create a new advertisement on a WordPress blog. It also shows you how easy it is to change the look of your ad with a few of the default styles. If you’re interesting in trying to monetize your WordPress blog with affiliate ads from sites like Amazon, Commission Junction (CJ.com), ClickBank, etc, the Product Style affiliate WordPress plugin is one of the best options that also won’t get your site penalized by search engines. Product Style 2 now available featuring Amazon API for simple, completely customized ad generation.

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Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin – Product Style 2

By on September 18, 2011 in Randy Roedl

The best Amazon affiliate WordPress plugin, Product Style 2: amzps.com This Amazon WordPress plugin allows you to quickly generate completely customized affiliate advertisements and comparison charts by using Amazon Product Advertising API directly through your WordPress blog. Typically, ad information will have to be manually obtained from Amazon, but Product Style 2 will generate all of this information for you. It will even locally save product images to optimize them for search engine rankings – this plugin has a track record of top ten and even number one Google rankings for many different affiliate sites. In addition to creating image or text affiliate ads with this plugin, you’ll also be able to automatically generate product information to be displayed next to the advertisements. This product information creates an affiliate ad that is actually useful for website visitors, which results in higher CTR and more commissions. Unlike other plugins that automatically generate Amazon affiliate ads for WordPress blogs, Product Style 2 encourages unique content with a creative way to use Amazon Product Advertising API. Instead of creating the exact same ad as all other affiliates, Product Style actually lets you pick and choose the product information you want to display with your affiliate ads. You can also edit this information and even rearrange it to suit your needs. Since you can customize the way ads are created with this plugin, the plugin will actually remember an …

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Installing WordPress Plugins – A Little Goes A Long Way

By on August 20, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Installing WordPress Plugins – A Little Goes A Long Way

WordPress is the most popular blogging and CMS (content management system) platform used by inexperienced webmasters. The reason it is so popular is because you can add plugins to increase the functionality of the site without having to have any kind of technical knowledge. However, there are some very important factors you should know about before adding plugins to your WordPress website.

What is WordPress and What is a Plugin?

WordPress, on its own, is a very powerful and stable program. It is an OpenSource (free) program that is installed on a database and is designed to manage the content that you input into it. It is updated regularly to correct any known issues or to add more features to the core program. You should always make sure you are running the newest version on your website. Upgrading to the newest version is as easy as the click of a button in your user dashboard.

Plugins are scripts that are developed as add-ons to the existing program. These give you the ability to add new features to the program to help customize the site to your needs. Because WordPress is OpenSource, it means that any web developer can use the source code or API to create new scripts for the program.

Caution is Needed When Adding Plugins

Because plugins are created by all different developers, they are not always compatible with each other. When compatibility issues arise, it can make the database unstable. In other words, the engine driving your website will begin to fail. This can result in your site crashing.

Another reason to exercise caution when installing plugins is because every one you add on to your site adds more code to the core program. Adding too many will bloat the code and make your website slow and sluggish. It can also hamper the ability of search engine bots from crawling your website effectively.

Which WordPress plugins should you install?

I cannot give you a definite answer to this since every webmaster and every website has different needs and functions. What I can advise is this; only install the plugins you really need. Typically this would be an SEO plugin such as All In One SEO, a database backup plugin such as WP Database Backup, a contact form plugin such as Easy Contact, and a social plugin such as Sociable or Share This. These are the plugins I consider to be essential.

Any other plugins you should only install one at a time and tested for compatibility before adding any more. Always do a database backup before adding new plugins as a safety net in case any issues arise and you need to restore your website.

WordPress plugins are wonderful inventions and can help you create the website of your dreams, but before you go on a wholesale plugin installation spree, be aware of the consequences.

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5 Popular Must Have WordPress Plugins

By on July 21, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

5 Popular “Must Have” WordPress Plugins

If you have a WordPress blog, there are certain plugins you will need to install to make blogging easier. A lot of blog posts lately recommend various, “”must-have”” WordPress plugins. Most of the commonly recommended plugins include:

1. All-in-One SEO Pack: Easy fill-in-the-blanks features to optimize your blog post for first-page search engine ranking. Add a Title, Meta Description, and Meta Tags (keywords) to every post you create.

2. WP Greet Box: Shows a different greeting message to your visitors depending on which referrer url they’re coming from (ex., Google, Facebook, Digg, etc.).

3. Aweber Web Form Plugin: “”This widget allows you to quickly and easily…Drag and drop web forms that you have created in your AWeber email marketing account into your blog, without having to log into your AWeber account or copy and paste anything!””

4. Thank Me Later: Automatically sends a “”thank you”” email to anyone who comments on your blog and reminds them to engage further with your blog.

5. Askimet: This plugin comes preloaded on your blog, but you will need to activate it with a WordPress.com API. Just follow the instructions and this plugin will take care of all your blog spam.

Another popular WordPress plugin that you have to purchase and download to your WordPress blog is Popup Domination. This plugin undoubtedly helps increase your email opt-in rates and makes your blog look professional. Most importantly, it helps build your email list. It is widely used and comes highly recommended by professional bloggers. A more affordable alternative is another plugin called OptinPop.

You can find and install most of them from within your WordPress backoffice. Popup Domination can be found by doing a Google search for the product. Installation is usually quick easy with all of the plugins, but OptinPop requires additional technical know-how in order to make it work correctly. You can learn more about OptinPop on their website.

Of course there are more great plugins you can choose from and install on your WordPress blog, but these will definitely make your blogging experience much easier and smoother. This list of popular plugins was compiled from recommendations from professional bloggers and are most certainly recommended for a reason, but having the right plugins will not make you more profitable as a blogger. You have to learn the basics of blogging for success, then you must learn how to market professionally to monetize your blogging efforts.

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How To Get A WordPress API Key For The Akismet WordPress Plugin

By on July 13, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How To Get A WordPress API Key For The Akismet WordPress Plugin

With the growing popularity of blogs and the ease to obtain links through comments on blogs, it didn’t take long for programmers to come up with automated tools to blast link packed spam comments to unsuspecting blogs.

Some just turn comments off for their blog but to me that eliminates one of the great features of making your blog interactive for your visitors. Comments can open discussion between the reader and the blogger. Your blog’s visitors can even subscribe to a post’s comments, getting notified of any new comments, keeping your readers coming back.

The WordPress plugin, Akismet checks comments posted on your blog posts against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

To activate Akismet from your WordPress blog dashboard, click Plugins, scroll down and click Activate next to the WordPress Akismet plugin. After you do that you will see a box near the top of the dashboard that reads:

Akismet is not active. You must enter your WordPress.com API key for it to work.

Click the link in the message, and then the Akismet Configuration panel will open. You should then see this in the middle of the screen:

Please enter an API key. (Get your key.)

On the top of that page click the Sign Up tab, fill in your information and if you have a self-hosted blog choose the Just a username, please option.

Be sure to use a good email address in here to get your login information and WordPress API key, click the box to agree to legal junk and click next.

Check your email and click the confirmation link from WordPress to activate your account. You should then see a page that reads, “”Your account is now active!”” Click the login link within the text of that page and login.

You should now be at the WordPress.com site, if so click the dropdown box on the very top right of the page and choose “”Edit Profile””, now you are in the Global Dashboard.

Within the WordPress Global Dashboard you can now see your WordPress API key on the right side of the page. Oh, and by now you should have also got the API key in an email from WordPress also! But you should still edit your profile while you are in the Global Dashboard.

Now its time to place the API key in the Akismet WordPress plugin; go back into your WordPress blog dashboard, click the link on the Akismet WordPress plugin warning box near the top of the dashboard. Paste the WordPress API key in the box and click update options.

If the warning box is not visible check to see if Akismet is activated, click Plugins and look for the status of the plugin on the right. You will notice that all activated plugins are highlighted green. When Akismet is activated you can configure it by clicking Plugins, and look for the Akismet subpanel (white text in the dark blue bar) directly below and to the right of then main panel menu.

Keeping comment spam out while allowing your blog visitors to comment, will not only keep your blog clean but more interactive and help generate more traffic.

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