When WordPress & Email Marketing Collide: 15 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

by

As a WordPress user, you’re used to things being easy. You aren’t super savvy in Photoshop? Great, there are pre-built, high-quality WordPress themes for that. Not comfortable with coding? That’s fine, too. There’s probably a free plugin for that. What about content creation? Well, that’s where you may need a little help, but it’s not too hard to find these days.

When it comes to your business’s marketing efforts outside of WordPress, this is where things can get a little tricky. You know you need to start email marketing, but you’re not sure what the best practices are. You’re probably wondering, “Isn’t there a plugin that will take care of it for you?” (There is, but you shouldn’t use it.) [Read more…]

How to Determine When it’s Time to Use a CDN for your WordPress Blog

by

Over the past few years, Content Delivery Networks (CDN) have become increasingly popular and affordable as websites owners seek new ways to increase speed and improve security. In as few words as possible, CDN’s help to distribute your website’s content across the globe to ensure that wherever your visitors may be, your website can be loaded from a data center fairly close to their location. The closer website data centers are to your users, the faster websites will load for them. Therefore, a user in Australia trying to access a website hosted in the UK will load slower than one hosted nearby within the same continent or region. CDN’s eliminate the distance issue.

cdn-region-specific

Image source

With all the hype and popularity that these systems have garnered, many site owners rushed to try out the many services on offer by providers on the web. Some experiences were great, some disappointing and others didn’t notice any differences in their site’s loading time. These mixed experiences are the result of a lack of information regarding one’s particular need of the service, how to implement it and what to expect. [Read more…]

How to Easily Create a WordPress-Powered Sales Page

by

WordPress

WordPress powers millions of blogs, and is used in a wide variety of situations. Thanks to its flexibility, many companies use it in place of a traditionally designed website, and with the many themes and plugins available, you can do some pretty cool stuff with multimedia. If you’ve been on the interwebs for any length of time, you’re familiar with the sales page. Usually it starts out with bold, bright text, and is followed by pages of why you need to buy XYZ product or service.

For the average blogger, if you’re trying to sell your own product or service, having a dedicated sales page may be a bit overkill. In fact, there are many sales pages that are just whipped up on a new page. However, if you’d like a bit more control with something, there is an easy way to create a WordPress-powered sales page. As with any self-hosted blog, you’ll need to pay for hosting, but the theme mentioned in this post is free. Created by Syamsul Alam, it installs just like any other theme. First, you’ll need to go here, and click the download link at the very top. I’ve inspected the code, and nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. [Read more…]

How to Pick Out the Perfect WordPress Theme

by

WordPress Theme

Finding the right WordPress theme is like shopping for a car. There are tons of choices, and you can end up going back and forth before settling on the right one. Fortunately though, unlike taking out a loan for a new car, you can grab a new theme for as low as the price of free! However, just because WordPress is so customizable, and there are thousands of simple to install themes right at your fingerprints, does not make the process any easier.

Your website design is a very serious investment, and your first impression to grabbing a visitor’s attention, and directing them to where you want them to go. Also, you have to factor in speed, functionality, and something that is optimized for SEO, not contributing to any problems down the road. To pick out the perfect WordPress theme, follow these five tips:

Stick With Reliable Sources

There are hundreds of marketplaces offering up themes for the taking, but do you truly know what you are getting? Some themes can be full of messy code, while others can potentially contain malware, hurting your visitors, and your reputation. Personally, I’ve had good success with Elegant Themes, WooThemes, and Theme Forest. All their themes are paid, but you tend to know that you are getting a high quality product, which is worth the rather small price to pay. [Read more…]

Rockin’ WordPress with Ryan Sullivan, Founder of WP Site Care

by

WordPress

Before you founded WP Site Care, a premium WordPress support company, you offered consulting to small businesses, and were even the VP of Marketing for a home care company. What intrigued you so much about WordPress, and diving into it full-time?

I learned about WordPress when I was exploring options for our company’s website almost 5 years ago. It was still really immature but I loved how it put control in our hands when we wanted to launch new stuff. We didn’t have to wait on web developers, or edit 1,000 lines of code, etc., for the majority of the stuff we wanted to do and I loved that. We could come up with an idea and move ahead, which is how marketing on the web should be. [Read more…]

Significantly Speed Up Your WordPress Blog in 9 Easy Steps

by

Improve WordPress SpeedYour blog’s loading speed affects more than just user experience but is now a factor used by google to determine an overall ranking for your site. The reasoning is clear: according to Google and other search engines’ goals, which is to provide the most relevant search results from sites that offer the best user experience. Site speed is definitely something we cannot not ignore and should take advantage of every opportunity to improve.

Here are 9 effective techniques and tips that can be easily implemented to make your blog lightning fast.

1. Disable Unused Plugins

This is one of the easiest things we can do to reduce load times. I know many of us get carried away trying out the thousands of cool plugins available but we need to bear in mind the fact that they use system resources. Assess whether you need the plugins that you have installed and determine if they necessarily serve a useful purpose. Also, deactivated plugins that are not deleted can possibly create loopholes and back doors that hackers can exploit so delete them and maintain security for your blog. [Read more…]

Howto: The Complete Guide to WordPress Security

by

WordPress SecurityKeeping your WordPress installation is usually not something a lot of people spend a lot of time on. However, I believe WordPress security, tightening up the place should be your first priority every single time you install WordPress. No exceptions.

With the recent Pharma hack, more info about it plus a solution on Chris Pearson’s blog, going around I thought it was time to focus on WordPress security today. There are a lot of things you can do build extra layers of security for your WordPress installation.

There are a few different layers involved to secure your WordPress installation. I shall list them grouped together as much as possible.

Server-side & .htaccess

WordPress security starts of course by using a proper hosting company. If a server setup is not secure by default then no amount of security measures is going to keep unwanted visitors out. Please look around before you decide which hosting partner will work best for you. [Read more…]

WordPress News: BuddyPress News, WordPress 2.8 News, WordCamp Toronto & Virginia, WordPress.tv Feeds, and More

by

WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: [Read more…]

WordPress News: WordPressMU Updated, WordPress 2.8 News, WP.com, WordPress Events

by

Some Administration Panel Redesigns in WordPress 2.8: While WordPress committed to no changes in the WordPress Administration Panels interface, there will be a few minor tweaks. In “Design Tweaks: Who’s In? (An idea in three acts),” Jane Wells explains that your help is wanted to redesign the header area of the interface. UX and design guidelines have been posted and you are welcome to have your input until Tuesday, April 27, 2009. The submissions will be offered for voting for only one day due to the pressure to get WordPress 2.8 released.

WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: [Read more…]