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How to Install and Activate a Premium WordPress Theme1

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

How to Install and Activate a Premium WordPress Theme

The greatest thing about WordPress, the open-source Content Management System and blogging platform, is the sheer number of options it affords users when it comes to designing a website or blog. The user of a WordPress blog can upload any number of custom widgets that could display the user’s latest tweets or even a simple contact form, they can get granular control over various technical aspects of their site design including modifying permalinks and URL structures and, most importantly, they can easily alter the appearance of their website by installing a few WordPress themes. The power of WordPress exists in its ability to make significant changes to the appearance of a website in just a few simple clicks – users can add and delete entire designs in the click of a button.

The easiest way to add a new theme to your WordPress site is just to upload it using the in-built WordPress theme uploader. Before doing this however, you will need to actually download a theme and this can be done quickly and easily by typing “”WordPress Themes”” into Google and selecting from the many paid or free options available. You do not need to extract the contents of the zip folder once it has been downloaded, merely leave it as it is and then go to the appearance menu in WordPress and select add new theme. Click the upload button and then browse to the zip file and click upload, once this is done just click the activate button and you theme will now be live on your website.

Another popular way to install a theme is to upload it directly to the WordPress themes folder situated on your web server. The easiest way to do this is to install an FTP client such as FileZilla, and configure so that you have FTP access to your website. Once this is done, go to the “”wp-content”” folder, then click on the themes “”folder””. To upload a theme you will need to unzip it first – once you have done this just drag and drop the theme folder that is on your hard drive into the WordPress themes folder on your server. The theme will now be available to activate under the WordPress themes menu in your WordPress control panel.

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How to Create a WordPress Theme1

By on November 4, 2011 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.

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. 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. 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!

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Quality WordPress Themes1

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

Quality WordPress Themes

A innovative software makes it possible for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, DotNetNuke, and Blogger individuals to easily build templates within a short period of time. Instead, I use a WordPress theme that I installed in less than a half hour. After that I just added loads of great content such as images, articles, videos. As soon as they notice that another site have a similar theme they will immediately look for to find another one to ensure that their website boast a unique look.

The ePanel is the mechanism in their themes where you customize and set your website layout. You can dictate the navigation, home page, color scheme (if more than one color scheme is offered by a particular theme), search engine optimization, blog settings, and more. Photo WordPress theme is extremely important in the world wide web as to catch client and users to check out and use their web site wherever you’ll be able to include up your blogs and of course generating your own articles or blog posts and posting it to a certain web page.

Once you find a theme you like, you will need to download it to your own PC. It will likely be in either RAR or ZIP format, so you will need a unzipping tool. WinRar is free to download if the file has a.rar extension. Once unpackaged, you will need to FTP/Upload the files to your own webhost. WordPress application can also be used as a Content Management System (CMS). CMS is a document centric application which is used to manage documents.

By the time you get the Gallery WordPress Themes, the first thing that you should know is on how to install it. You should always remember that this is a child theme and because it is a child theme then the first and the most important thing that you should do first is to upload both the parent theme and the child theme, to do this you have to download Thematic theme and extract the folder and then after upload it to your /wp-content/themes/ directory. There has been a huge increase in the number of developers releasing free premium WordPress themes over the years. This has boosted the competition in the field, which has in fact benefited the end user.

Language of local or international origin can be used to create the weblog using WordPress theme development process. You can make test site and check the functionality of your WordPress template. StudioPress is a leading WordPress theme provider; the designer Brain is famous in this area. If you are looking for high quality professional premium tempaltes, you can find your favorite WordPress themes on StudioPress. While selecting from online sites, you have to ensure that the site offers its themes rich with high quality and great appearance.

A genuine magazine WordPress theme with pure articles or blog posts, minimalistic illustrations or photos and usable layout, structured to focus between visitors interest around the content and ads, instead of designer graphics. If you have a bit of knowledge in PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript then you can make your own themes for WordPress that can be sold over the net for a nice profit. But there’s one important part that reflects the image of you and your niche as a blogger, and it is what we call design. Although design is just secondary to the content, it is still very potential for the blogger to make it look very attractive.

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WordPress Content Management System Training – Part 3

By on October 18, 2011 in Randy Roedl

inConcert Web Solutions Video Tutorials: In this video, you will learn how to use your new WordPress Content Management System. This video reviews the difference between pages and posts. It also explains using tags and categories for your blog postings. Also, it briefly goes over managing your media files from your media library. For more training, please view Parts 1 and 2.

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7 Big Benefits to Creating Your Next Small Business Website With WordPress

By on September 7, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

7 Big Benefits to Creating Your Next Small Business Website With WordPress

Which of these choices would you prefer?

A website that requires custom programming costing $3000 or more, requires a knowledge of complex programming languages in order to make even simple changes to the content, and requires a complete redesign (again costing thousands of dollars) if you decide the look is outdated?

Or a website that is built on free software, allows you to easily update content yourself and you can select from thousands of clean, professional looking designs that can be added to the site in a matter of minutes?

No brainer, right?

Meet WordPress.

WordPress, originally used solely for blogs, has morphed into an incredibly powerful Content Management System you can use to easily and inexpensively create a very professional and functional website for your small business.

Here are 7 benefits to using WordPress for your small business’ website:

1. It costs nothing! Not one penny! WordPress is available for download at WordPress.org at no cost – you won’t even have to give up your email address. To host a WordPress site yourself, however, you will need to find a hosting company. That’s generally not free. But it’s not expensive either. For just $5 – $10 a month you can host your WordPress site at any number of quality web host providers. Many of them include Fantastico with your hosting plan which is software that lets you install WordPress in just a few clicks without even having to download the software.

2. Ease of Use. Using WordPress is really quite simple. Yes, especially for the technically-challenged among us, there will be a little bit of a learning curve. However, there’s no shortage of quality WordPress tutorials online to help you get up to speed quickly. Once you get the hang of things, adding content is a snap. It’s no more difficult than using a word processing program. And you don’t have to know how to write code or do anything vaguely technical in nature to maintain your site.

3. Themes. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of themes available for WordPress. A theme is basically a template that changes the look and feel of your WordPress site (a theme can also alter the behind-the-scenes options to make WordPress even easier to customize and use). Some of these themes are free, others you have to pay for. You can also have a custom theme designed so your site meets your exact specifications.

With themes, it’s easy to get a clean, professional looking site without paying a lot for custom design work. And if one day you decide you don’t like the look of your site – no problem. Find a theme you like better, activate it in WordPress and you instantly have a new look and feel to your site – all without having to change the blog posts or pages on your site.

4. Plugins. Plugins are software the extend the capabilities of WordPress to do pretty much anything you want. Using plugins, you can track site visits, add social bookmarking to your site, automate backups of your site, fight spam, create contact forms, improve site security and a lot more. And, with few exceptions, the plugins are absolutely free.

5. Search Engine Love. Google (and the other search engines) love WordPress. Using WordPress can give your search engine optimization efforts a big boost. And if you take advantage of some of the SEO-related plugins available for WordPress, the search engines will really think your site is the bee’s knees.

6. Technical Support. WordPress does not offer tech support for you to email or call with your questions. However, have no fear, there are still a ton of options for you if you have an issue you need addressed. You can turn to the forum on WordPress.org, which is a very active community of WordPress users who are always willing to help those having problems with the software. In addition, there are a bunch of other websites, message boards and blogs that you can turn to for advice. There are also plenty of wordPress experts for hire to assist you. Whatever issue you may encounter, help is always close at hand.

7. Control. Hosting your own WordPress website puts you in control of your web presence. Need to update your content, add new posts or pages? You can easily do it yourself. Want to update the appearance of your site? Find a new Theme, upload it, activate it and you’re done. Don’t like the hosting company you’re using? Find another and move your site – there are plenty of good hosting companies around.

So there are seven strong benefits to using WordPress for your small business’ website/blog. Without a doubt there are reasons why you may WordPress may not work for your situation and hiring a programmer to develop a custom site is the best option.

For most small business owners, however, WordPress will provide all that you need to get a professionally looking website that you, and the search engines will love. It’s a highly functional, flexible and cost-effective option that is hard to top.

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Premium WordPress Themes – What Makes Them Premium

By on August 26, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Premium WordPress Themes – What Makes Them Premium

Over the last couple of years WordPress has become a hugely popular open source blogging and publishing platform. The ease-of-use as well as the abundance of free themes and plugins have contributed to the attraction and popularity for using WordPress. While there are some great free themes for WordPress, traditionally most only offered basic functionality and simplistic designs.

Since the end of 2007 however an increasing number of WordPress theme developers have been offering premium WordPress themes – themes which are offered for a fixed price. These premium WordPress themes are usually sold for between $50 to $250.

Initially only a handful of talented and well-known WordPress theme designers released paid premium WordPress themes which were well designed, highly functional, top-quality themes that transformed a WordPress installation from a simple blog into a powerful content management system (e.g. magazine, news, portfolio or ‘traditional’ web site). However as the premium WordPress theme business concept spreads, more and more WordPress theme designers have hopped on the bandwagon and filled up their portfolio with premium (paid) wordpress themes, trying to cash on the new trend.

However with greater variety and numbers of paid premium WordPress themes also comes varying levels of quality. So what exactly makes a premium WordPress theme premium and worth the money you have to pay for it? Below are some features that should set a premium wordpress theme apart from a free theme:

1. Unique Design, Quality and Sophistication

Premium WordPress themes should be just that – Premium. They should look better and be of a much higher quality and unique design than compared to those available for free. “”Better”” is an individual interpretation, so unfortunately it has to be left up to the designer and the buyer to decide what is better for them.

2. Live Demo or Preview

There should be a live demo or preview of the theme so you can test it and check it out before buying. If there is no live preview or demo that should be a warning sign. You should ask why don’t they want you to test the theme first? All reputable premium theme sellers will have a live demo full of content for you to test. Explore the live demo thoroughly, testing all pages to see that the theme works properly and there are no errors or mistakes.

3. Full Supporting Documentation

Premium WordPress themes should come with an instruction manual or document. This should explain how to upload and install the theme and how to manage any of the options that are built into the theme.

4. Full Support

If you’re buying a premium WordPress theme it should also come with a certain degree of support from the designer. The level of support can vary however and will range from personalised individual support from the designer, to the provision of forums or blog comment sections for asking questions and obtaining support from the designer and other people who have purchased the theme.

5. Flexibility and Customization Options

People want options, so Premium WordPress themes should be customisable. Buying a premium theme will set you apart from the crowd significantly, but since other people will still be using the same theme, premium themes should be able to be easily customized further, whether it be for the layout, colours, images, or all of the above.

6. Features

While every theme is different, in general premium WordPress themes should have more ‘Features’ than their free counterparts. What that means depends on the theme in question. However some features may include: Javascript/DHTML, ‘Ajax’ or dynamic sections, ‘Featured Posts’ areas, Multiple layout options for the home page, drop down menus, multiple customs templates for pages, custom field options, print style sheets etc.

7. Well Coded and No Errors

There should be no coding errors, misspellings, X images, etc in a premium WordPress theme. The theme should have clean and valid code and adhere to strict XHTML and CSS standards. You should also make sure the theme has cross browser compatible and been tested to work properly on all the major browsers.

8. Free Updates

WordPress is continually being updated and improved and a premium WordPress theme developer should be offering you free updates of the theme when required.

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Magazine Style WordPress Theme and Why Your Site Needs It1

By on August 24, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Magazine Style WordPress Theme and Why Your Site Needs It

Whether you are a seasoned internet marketer or just an ordinary blogger you of all people will know this cruel fact:

“”No one will visit, let alone bookmark your site if your pages looks unprofessional, long-winded or in worst case, having a bad design…””

Studies conducted by Joel Comm a veteran in AdSense and online marketing has shown that it took 5 second or less for a visitor of your site to determine whether they want to stay, or click the back or close button.

In the unforgiving world of online marketing and website development, having a simple but yet engaging “”first page”” prove to be better than just having words and flashy graphics.

So what is Magazine style WordPress theme, why you should change your site design and where to find it?

With the advancement of internet connections revolutionizing the world of information technologies, we can find internet access to places that you would usually dream of connecting to the internet. The Web 2.0 has also made it easy for anyone, anywhere to have a website without getting a degree or going to schools.

One of the most popular open source (free) content management system or CMS that are used by ordinary bloggers to popular websites such as the CNN and New York times is the WordPress. It is easy to know why so many websites are using wordpress, because of its easily customizable themes, design, its useful widgets, plugins and last but not least, its free!

When searching for freely available theme or deciding on shopping for premium themes, WordPress user are being bombarded with thousands of choices, and chosing the right design for your website can be a headache. The Magazine style wordpress theme took its name from an easy to navigate “”Magazine cover”” style. The Magazine style theme stands out from the rest due to its superior layout and presentation of content, and more users are drawn to change their wordpress site into Magazine style themes.

But like many great themes and designs, there are some pros and cons of the Magazine Style WordPress Theme:

Pros

1. More featured content previews than bulky paragraphs.Ever visited a site with long winded, bulky content on its first page and immediately you click the close button?

2. Establishing a website while writing a blog.Many users like to look professional with the magazine style “”real”” website looks, rather than blog standard face.

3. More control of what you WANT to feature.You have got millions of information you want to tell, but you have got to filter the first page just like a normal magazine cover, so that readers want to read on and click to your next page.

4. Ability to put engaging pictures and videos to interact with visitor.Welcome to the Web 2.0 world! The Magazine style wordpress theme really revolutionize blogging by allowing your site to look like a professional news and media portal.

5. Great Ads Placement.Maybe it is just personal, but I find that the advertisement placement in this theme is one of the best and smart way to get your AdSense or message across your audience.

Cons

1. More heavy editing and work. Most people like you and me do not know html codes and can only do minor editing to enhance the site.

2. too much content VS too little content. Blogs or websites with too much or too little content can make the page look messy and unorganized.

3. Requires more clicking for your visitors. As content can only be seen on the next page, your users have to do the extra effort to click onto the next page to see what you have written.

4. Freebies VS premium templates. Free is always good, but you need dedicated support and a unique look so that your site can stand out from the rest.

My last word of advice is that, if you do not wish to be bothered by simple html coding and changing your whole blogs or sites into the WordPress CMS, then the Magazine style wordpress themes is not the right one for you.

But if you love your site, and wish that you get more unique and returning visitors, or you are like me, an internet marketer who want people to come and convert each visit into cash, you have got to check this Magazine style WordPress theme, as it might change your world forever.

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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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