Navigation

Tag Archives | Fit

How to Pick WordPress Plugins That Fit Your Blog Needs

By on May 14, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

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!

0

How Do You Choose A Shopping Cart For Your Business

By on March 12, 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

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.

0

How to Customize WordPress Theme

By on March 7, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

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.

0