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Introduction to WordPress Themes

By on June 23, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

Introduction to WordPress Themes

Without a doubt, WordPress is one of the most popular blog and website creation tools. That is, WordPress.org which is the WordPress version that is hosted on the hosting company of your choice. WordPress.com is rather limited and is hosted on WordPress own servers. It is free, but you are limited to a small number of themes and the customizations options are limited. As long as you are willing to pay for your own hosting service, ie – Go Daddy, JustHost, MonsterGator, etc., WordPress.org is the way to go.

Most of the top blogs use the WordPress platform. By looking at these blogs, you can see a great variety in their design. In fact, many of them don’t look like blogs themselves, but look like traditional websites.

The reason for this is that WordPress allows users to create their own themes, and upload them to the WordPress website. Many people do this for fun or the good of the community. However, some create what is called a premium theme which is basically a paid version. Some of the themes offer a free starter theme, but a paid version gets you more features.

One of the strengths of WordPress is also a weakness. There are almost too many themes out there. It can get frustrating finding a theme that suits your purposes, especially after reviewing hundreds of similar themes.  To eliminate some of the frustration, consider the following:

What do you want in a theme. On one hand, there are people who are just interested in their blog writing, and they want it to look nice. Commercialization or ads do not interest them. On the other hand, there are other people who are interested in their blog, but would also like to make a little money.

This generally involves AdSense, banner ads, etc. However, the placing of these ads (or the HTML code that supports them) on a blog or website is of prime importance to the advertiser, and also to the website owner. You don’t want ads to distract from your website, but complement it.

WordPress accomplishes this by having areas of your blog where you can place widgets. Widgets are basically place holders where you can place a great variety of content. It could include a link page, a poll, a photo, text, or HTML code that generates an ad.  However, depending upon the theme, widgets will be in different places and different sizes.

The WordPress database allows you to search for specific elements of themes.

For example, when you search the WordPress database, you will find hundreds of themes that say “”ad sense ready.””  Many of these themes have only a few widget areas available for ads, and some have as many as 11 different widget areas.

Generally, the more widget areas the better in a theme, because no matter what your purpose, it gives you more flexibility. 

Another factor that comes into play is that many themes are highly customizable.  Don’t be deceived by the initial appearance, look at the option page before you move on.   Many themes have great features, you just need to choose the appropriate option.  Background image, color, placement of widget sidebars, etc. are all common things that can be customized.

Finding a theme you like is a trial and error process.  However, before you begin, have an idea on what you want to accomplish.  Do you want widget space for small rectangle ads?  Or do you want widget space that will accommodate skyscraper ads, leaderboard ads, and the other popular banner ad formats? Do you want a widget space that will accommodate a particular photo dimension format?

The process of looking for a theme you like is a daunting task, but if you have a general idea of what you want, it will make the process go faster.  With the thousands of WordPress themes out there, you are bound to find one you like.

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5 Gotta Have WordPress Plugins

By on January 6, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

5 Gotta-Have WordPress Plugins

Right here is my top-five list of must-have WordPress Plugins. All of these are free plugins, helping to make them even better!

1) All-in-One SEO Pack–This plugin helps your Search engine optimization right out of the box, without any configuration. To improve your on-page SEO, the plugin allows you to add title, description and keywords to make your posts more internet search engine friendly, but it is not a requirement.

2) WP-Super Cache–A caching plugin is really a requirement with Google’s new focus on page load speed. WP-Super Cache enables logged in users to disable caching, important if you’re trying to do some editing on your site minus the pages constantly caching. It also allows mobile support and greatly speeds up page load times..

3) StatPress Reloaded–Offers you site statistics instantly. StatPress explains exactly where your traffic is arriving from; it shows you the amount of daily page views, referrers, IP addresses, user agents (bots) and much more. A great addition to AWStats from the hosting company.

4) SEO Smart Links–SEO Smart Links increases your internal linking structure, an essential element of SEO. To configure this plugin, you add a list of keywords, and whenever one of these is brought up in an additional post, SEO Smart Links immediately links to it. You can also specify a URL which is linked to specific keywords, if you decide to want to link to an affiliate offer, this is a fast and simple way to do so.

5) WordPress Database Backup–It’s very vital that you have made an up-to-date backup of your site in the event anything goes very wrong, or your blog is hacked. This plugin will e-mail you backups on a regular schedule, or else you can have them saved to your server. There are lots of additional fantastic plugins for WordPress absolutely do deserve mention, but I’d rather not make your eyes glaze over completely right now.

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How I Crashed My WordPress Site (forever)

By on October 19, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, wordpress, Wp Headers, Wp Themes

How I Crashed My WordPress Site (forever)

I was making an instructional video on the topic of installing WordPress onto a domain.  In order to show the process, I was using my own account, by installing WordPress on one of my own domains.  I completed the video and was very pleased with the results.

I went to my main domain to upload the video and was shocked to find that my site was gone and in its place, the default template you get when you first install WordPress onto a domain.  Confused and panicking, I called Bluehost (the greatest hosting company out there) thinking they would have a way of fixing what I had done to my site.

I heard the words that everyone who has a site on the internet fears hearing: “”I am very sorry ma’am, but there are no backups to roll your site back to.  Your content is gone and not recoverable.””

Having always assumed that my site was being automatically backed up, I was shocked to say the least.  How could this happen?  Technical support informed me that my account had long ago exceeded 2 gigabytes, and that after the 2 gig size has been reached, they cannot guarantee that the sites will be automatically backed up.  In fact, it is very unlikely that the sites will be (automatically) backed up.

So what have I learned about hosting that could help you in the future?

That once your account (not just your site) gets bigger than 2 gig, it can and will no longer be backed up automatically.  You either need to go to your hosting and back it up yourself, or add a plugin that will do it for you.
That you do not get any warning that lets you know you are close or have exceeded the 2 gig limit.  But you can go into your C-Panel (the back end of your hosting) and check the file space and usage anytime to see how close you are to the 2 gig point.
You can backup your site yourself and I highly recommend that you do this.
Bluehost has wonderful tutorials that will walk you through this process.  Go to tutorials.bluehost.com for the best info available.
That PARKED domains are redirected to your main domain.  What you do to a parked domain, you will be doing to your main domain.  (Remember I installed WordPress on a domain I wasn’t using? It was a parked domain.)
I highly recommend that you learn all you can about your hosting package.  Bluehost offers C-Panel which is a user friendly, highly intuitive program allowing end users (you) to manage your hosting/sites/account yourself. Read up on all that you can get your hands on from your Hosting company.
Wherever possible, use other sites to upload content to. For example, did you know that you can create the coolest sales page in Twitwall?  And you can host your videos on YouTube and so on.  Get really creative and monitor the size of your account frequently.

What causes your site to exceed 2 gig? 

For one thing, it is not just any one site that you have hosted that is considered in the size-it is your

whole ACCOUNT. 
If you have a couple of sites hosted, they are both factored in on the size. 
Extra templates, unnecessary plugins, files you don’t use, and too many video and audio files.
Files in your directory.  If you don’t use the file any longer, take it out of your directory.

So please, go and create a backup of your site (s).  Never assume anything.

Oh, and I still highly recommend Bluehost.

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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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How to Set Up a Sub-Domain In CPanel

By on March 1, 2011 in Randy Roedl

www.gfydmember.com What is a Sub-Domain? A sub-domain is a domain that is part of a larger domain; a prefix before the main domain name. For example: demo.gfydmember.com videos.gfydmember.com The words demo and videos are the sub-domain of the main domain, gfydmember.com. You can actually set up a sub-domain in cpanel with any hosting company such as Bluehost or Host Monster that uses the cpanel interface. For More Video Tips Like this visit… www.GFYDMember.com ~Kimberly Bohannon & Ben Cope Co-Founders GFYDMember.com [how to set up a sub-domain in cpanel] [sub-domain in bluehost] [sub-domain in host monster] [ wordpress training] [wordpress videos] [help with wordpress] [gfyd member]

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