How to Install a WordPress Theme or Plugin Using FTP or Cpanel — Part 1 of 2
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WordPress Tutorial – How to Make a Static Page Your Home Page & Hide Double Home Page Link
NOTE: More tutorials at mcbuzz.wordpress.com This beginner-level WordPress Tutorial by Mark McLaren of McBuzz Communications shows how to make a “static” WordPress page your Home page (also called a “front page”), and how to hide the second Home page link that sometimes appears in your site navigation when you make that static page a Home page. By default, a WordPress website displays the blog page on the home front page. For example, when you go to the Business Blogging 101 website at mcbuzz.wordpress.com you see blog posts with the most recent post at the top of the page and earlier posts below that. WordPress allows you to select a different page as your home page, so that you can display more traditional content like information about yourself or your business. You can also create another page to use as your blog page, with a link to that page in your site navigation. Watch this tutorial to see how to do this. One problem you may run into when you make a static page your home page is that the link to that page now appears in the main site navigation, so that you have two links to the same page – usually the page called “Home”. The second part of this tutorial shows how to remove one of those links from your site navigation so that visitors to your site are not confused by the duplicate link.
How to Upgrade WordPress Themes Without Anyone Knowing1
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!
WordPress Custom Header Tutorial
WordPress header tutorial for all kinds of different themes. www.2createawebsite.com The Genesis Lifestyle Theme Seen In The Video http (affiliate) My WordPress Tutorial www.wpstarterguide.com
Tips for Building Links for your Blog
Tips for Building Links for your Blog
Once you start blogging and want to become more serious about making money off of your blog you’re going to need to know how to build links for your blog. Links and content are the two most important things you’ll need to do for your blog and they’ll both take lots of time. In this article we’re going to look at some tips you can use when building links to your blog. Try implementing as many of these tips as you possibly can because they will all help you out.
Tip #1
• Make sure that you build links to your blog on a consistent basis. This means you should build links to your blog on a weekly basis and nothing longer then that. Don’t build a bunch of links one day and then stop for a couple weeks because the search engines will think your links are unnatural. As your blog ages you can build more links just make sure there all natural links.
Tip #2
• Always spread your anchor texts around and use a lot of different ones when building links. You want to use your main ones more often then others, but don’t just use a couple anchor texts. The search engines will think you’re trying to rank for the keyword unnaturally and punish your blog. If you use different anchor texts when building links you shouldn’t face this problem.
Tip #3
• Use as many different types of websites you can for your link building campaign. There are thousands of different websites where you can build links to your blog and you should spread your links around so they seem like there just coming naturally. The more variety you use when building your links the stronger rankings you’ll start experiencing.
Tip #4
• Don’t build links on link farms or anything that looks like a link farm. The search engines are very capable of finding these link farms and will ban your site from their listings. Most blog networks selling posts with duplicate content are considered link farms so be weary when buying these links for your blog.
Tip #5
• You can use automated software for building links to directories and social bookmarking websites, but there is a possibility of being banned in the search engine listings so be aware of this. There are plenty of people using these software programs without issues though so you can try them at your own risk.
There are plenty of other tips I could list for building links but you can implement these into your daily life and you’ll be well on your way. Always make sure you’re careful about building links because if you build links in a bad area you could get punished months down the road and all your work would be down the drain. I typically stick with directory submissions, social bookmarking and links from other blogs. I also use forum signatures for building quick links to my blogs and getting them indexed in the search engines. Make sure it’s a respected forum before using it for signature links because if you don’t then it could hurt your site instead of help your website.
How to Pick WordPress Plugins That Fit Your Blog Needs
How to Pick WordPress Plugins That Fit Your Blog Needs
If you have a hosted WordPress website you can add plugins. These little programs can change the features of your blog and make it fit your unique needs. But deciding which plugin to use can be a challenge with so many available.
Why is the decision so hard?
The number of plugins available is ever growing on the WordPress directory. In just the past 3 months over 1000 plugins were added. So it is virtually impossible for someone to test all the different plugins and combine them with different themes and in various combinations.
What about support services?
Most WordPress plugins are free. The developer(s) of a plugin may have a full time job, may have stopped updating it, or whatever, but they may or may not provide support. Even when they do provide support remember the plugin is free. They are not making any money except through the occasional donation.
How do I install a WordPress plugin?
Most plugins can be easily installed from the dashboard, your WordPress back office. Scroll down to plugins and click the arrow, beneath in the new menu click “”Add new.”” Search for the name of the plugin or the feature you need. Now you will have a list but it is important to make certain the plugin meets certain criteria.
What is the rating?
Look at the stars. Most of the plugins have some sort of ranking. While you do not know how many people voted for that 5 stars, chances are it is worth more research than the one with one star.
Does the description meet your needs?
Just because a plugin matches your term does not mean that it actually matches your needs. People have different needs. A plugin for photos could turn your site into a gallery, allow you to edit your photos in WordPress, work with one photo program but not another or it may work with both. So you want to be certain the plugin fits your needs.
Do I install it now?
If you still like the program click Install. Now you get more information and more criteria.
How long ago was the last plugin updated?
Over 365 days ago is over a year ago. 10 days means it is fairly current.
Is it compatible with your WordPress Version?
Do not worry if it has not been tested.
How many people rated it?
You knew from the previous screen how many stars, but now you can find out how many people rated it. 290 people rating a plugin 4 stars is far more impressive than one person rating it 5 stars.
How many downloads are there?
Like the rating, more downloads gives it a better chance of being a workable plugin.
Will the plugin work?
Most plugins will not cause too much trouble, you can back up your blog for precaution. If the plugin is still to your liking then you can install it. Activate and see how it works. Again because there are so many themes and you could use it with a combination of plugins, that does not mean it will work in your case. Plugins are free so they are worth trying!
Blog Comment Plugins For More WordPress Website Traffic
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.
Most Commented Widget
Rather than show the top commentators this WordPress widget shows a snippet of the most popular post. People can be curious about your most popular post or page and this will show them the one with the most comments.
Disqus
Growing in popularity is this plugin / website. Disqus works with Aksimet and blocks more spam. It adds the ability to like comments and subscribe. Readers can visit see not just check out the commentators, see what blogs they have and which other blogs they visit and comment. It also allows you and visitors to like comments, similar to Facebook.
gPlus Share WordPress Plugin Demo.mp4
A quick demo showing how my gPlus Sharing Plugin for WordPress works. A great way to expose your WP blog to Google+