Tuesday 2 July 2013

Top 10 Wordpress Plugins You Cant Do Without

WordPress comes off as the top cms simply because of its large
database of plugins.The number of plugins is so large that if you don't
plan well you will find yourself installing more than you can
manage.That is why I have sat down and compiled this list of the top
10 WordPress plugins that you cant do without.

10. Google Analytics for WordPress

Get all your site statistics without visiting the Google webpage.This
plugin enables you track your page visits and other statistics related
to your website and gives you the details right from you website.This
increases your page speed by eliminating the junks of javascript used
by google analytics.

9.Google XML Sitemaps
This is the best WordPress plugin to go for when you want Google to index your
site as soon as you add new content.All it does is to automatically
generate sitemaps for you and add them to the Google index.

8.WP e-Commerce

Ever wanted to start your own shop in your WordPress installation?Then
this is the plugin for you.It is probably the best e commerce plugin
with lots of features and integrates well with other plugins.

7.Allow PHP in Posts and Pages

This plugin enables you to add php code into your WordPress posts and
pages.Probably great if you are well conversant with php.

6.Akismet
This plugin comes with WordPress so just install it.It does a lot to
keep off spammers from your blog

5.Contact Form 7

A very popular contact form tool, this is more basic than others but
nevertheless effective, dispensing with bells and whistles for core
contact form effectiveness.


4. Shareaholic

This one has social sharing in mind.It has a set of social sharing
buttons thereby increasing your visitors.You can edit which buttons to
display and the order in which they are displayed.

3.Jetpack

If you have ever used wordpress.com then you sure know that it comes
with many features.Well,This plugin allows you to add this features
into your WordPress blog.The features include site stats,mobile theme
just to name a few.

2.W3 Total Cache

When your blog becomes bigger,your server bandwidth becomes a problem
and so does the speed of your website.This plugin solves this problem
by creating static HTML files.When users visit your site it just
displays this files instead of the expensive php files.Try it and you
will notice the difference in the performance of your website.

1.WordPress seo by yoast

This is the best plugin wordpress hass ever come across,no doubt about
that.It comes with a mountain of features and once installed,it will
take less than a few weeks for your traffic to double or triple.

As you have seen,wordpress has many useful plugins some of which are
not listed here.Just take caution that the more plugins you have the
slower you site.

How To Install Wordpress On Your Web host

WordPress is famous for its ease of installation.The best part is that you have the ability to Install wordpress on your local computer or your web host.In this article,we will install WordPress on your web host,free and fast.
If you are not comfortable with renaming files, Steps 3 and 4 are optional and you can skip them as the install program will create the wp-config.php file for you.

1.Download and unzip the WordPress package if you haven't already.

2.Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.This is the database that will host all your wordprss pages,posts and related material.Make sure that you use a name and password that you wont forget just incase you loose your data and need to restore it.

3.Upload the WordPress files to the desired location on your web server:
          *.If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://mysite.com/), then upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (excluding the WordPress directory itself) into the root directory of your web host.
          *.If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own sub directory on your web site (e.g. http://mysite/blogs/), create the blog directory on your server and upload the contents of the unzipped WordPress package to the directory via FTP.

4.Run the WordPress installation script by accessing the URL in a web browser. This should be the URL where you uploaded the WordPress script.
*.If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://mysite.com/
 *.If you installed WordPress in its own sub directory called blogs, for example, you should visit: http://mysite.com/blogs/

Congratulations!We have just installed WordPress.You can now start blogging.

Monday 1 July 2013

5 Proven Ways To Write A Great Blog Post In Wordpress

Writing a great blog post in wordpress should be simple thanks to its
great features.Infact,most bloggers claim that they use wordpress
because it is SEO friendly.In this short article,I will show you how
to write a great wordpress post that Post.

1.Make Good Use Of Blog Title and SEO Title

Many users might not have yet realized that for wordpress,the title
you write in the top bar is different than the one you write down in
the SEO plugin's bar. The title that you write in the POST Title bar
is the one that appears on your blog above your post's descriptionos
on the header bar of your browser, whereas the SEO Title is the one
that is tracked bythe Search Engines and put up in their
searchresults.This allows you to vary the keywords for your wordpress
post. The title should be catchy and stand out in the search results.

2.Write a Description And Keywords That Stand Out

Here,I will put emphasies on the blog description because search
engines nolonger use keywords.When a user searches the web and your
site shows up in the results,the search engine will check to see if
that page has a description and if it has display it instead.You need
to insert something into that description box that will attract a
users attention easily (They all judge a book by its cover).
For you to write a great blog post in wordpress,you should take
caution on the keywords to prevent spamming.


3.Post Permalink

This is what your users use to access your posts.Most of the users use
their post title as the permalink, and so you would be wondering whats
the importance of a permalink.A great permalink should not have
stopwords such as "a" "an" etc.You can also use this as a platform to
add your keywords.
wordpress
4.Post Interlinking

This is a crucial step while writing a blog post, especially when your
blog has a very high bouncerate.We can reduce the bounce rate by
linking to similar posts in our blog. In SEO terms, interlinking to
your old blog posts improves your page rank and gives a new route to
the search engines to crawl over your old blog posts if they may have
faced an error crawling it before.

5.Images And Seo

The value of images in a blog post can not be underestimated.They not
only enhance the beauty of your content but also allow your content to
be searchable in google image search.

I hope that after reading this post,you will be able to write great
blog posts that get thousands of hits.

How To Install Wordpress Locally On Windows

Learn how to install wordpress locally on windows.This might sound
complicated but installing wordpress locally on windows or mac is
simple and takes only a few minutes.You only need to follow the
following steps.

1. Download and Install Xampp
In order to install and run WordPress locally, you need to create a
local server environment which takes over the role of a web
host.Fortunately, this is easily done with a free piece of software
called xampp.
Visit its homepage and click on the "Installer" option then download.
You will be prompted to enter an installation directory:
It is recommended that you do not use the Program Files directory,
because of potential write permissions issues. Please note that the
directory you choose at this stage will be where your local WordPress
site's files are located.
Proceed through the installation process - there is noneed to adjust
any of the default installation settings.
2. Set Up Xampp
After the installation process, load Xampp and Start the Apache and
MySQL modules:
Confirn if your new server has started running by openning your
browser and entering "http://localhost" into the address bar.If it is
running then go on,else check the documentation that comes with it.
3. Create a Database
Every WordPress installation needs its own database, so before we
install WordPress proper, we need to create one.
From the same screen where you Started the Apache and MySQL
modules,select the MySQL Admin button. This will open up phpMyAdmin in
a browser tab. Select the "Databases" tab - here you will create your
database:
You can use whatever name you want and you're done!
4. Download, Configure and Install WordPress.

Grab yourself a copy of the latest version of WordPress from the
WordPress.org home page.Download  and unzip Wordpress. I would
recommend that you give the resultant folder the same name as your
database.
Find the location where you installed Xampp and open up the "htdocs"
directory. Paste your WordPress folder into this directory. This is
where your local website's files will live.
Double click on your WordPress folder and open the
"wp-config-sample.php" file with Notepad. There are a few variables
you need to change in here:
Obviously, your database name may not be "mytestsite" - it willbe
whatever you named your database in phpMyAdmin.
Once you're done, save the file and rename it as "wp-config.php" (i.e.
remove "-sample" from the filename).

Thats it!You have installed wordpress locally on your windows computer.You can now start posting or configure your website to be
accessible from the internet.

How To Create A wordpress Blog For Free

Creating wordpress blogs for free.

 I cant help but wonder why some people take the struggle of paying tech geeks like me so that we can help them create a website when indeed you can create one yourself for free.That is why I have decided to come up with short manual to guide you on how to create your own wordpress blog for free.

For the past few years,wordpress has proven without doubt that it is the best cms in the market and that is why it is the first option for those bloggers who are thinking of creating wordpress blogs for free.And not just that,you can earn money from your wordpress blog and use the money to buy domain names.
In this article,We will be looking at the basics of creating wordpress blogs for free.


Steps to creating wordpress blogs for free

1.Get free Web hosting with php and mysql

This should not be hard at all considering the fact that there are thousands of free web hosts available on the internet today.Take note to choose a web host that you trust not one that will keep breaking down every minute.You dont want to boast to your friends about your new website only to find out that the server is down.The main thing that you should look in your webhost is the wordpress installer so that you dont do this manually.

2.Get a free domain or subdomain

Let me make something clear,getting a free domain such as dot tk or dot cu.cc is not such a good idea.This is because such domains rarely appear on major search
engines.I therefore recommend that that you use the sub domains offered by your free web host.


3.Install wordpress

If you followed step 1 above then this should not be a problem.All you have to do is to login into your control panel and select the auto installer.If your web host doesnt offer this then  download wordpress and install it into your web host.Visit the configuration page and it will take you through the process of installing it.We have a full article on how to install wordpress.

4.Start creating your free wordpress blog

This involves Writing great posts and adding new pages.The first page that you should add should be an about page which introduces you to your customers.Visit the settings page to adjust your preferences.This stage   also involves installing some usefull wordpress plugins such as wordpress seo by yoast.jetpack by wordpress.com and others which might come at handy during your new life as blogger.


5.Share your blog for free

Before you share your blog,make sure that it has enough posts so as to keep your new visitors.Depending on your subject,this can range from one page and ten posts to five pages and twenty posts.This builds up trust and respect in your visitors.You can share your blog by adding it to major search engines and social networks.
Now that you have learnt how to create a wordpress blog for free why don’t you earn money from your new blog.