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Category: WordPress

Five WordPress Plugins Your Blog Needs To Have

Without a doubt, one of the most powerful elements of WordPress is its flexibility. This is thanks in large part to its thriving development community. By tapping into the diverse selection of plugins they’ve created, you can empower your WordPress-run website to do…well, just about anything, really.

It’s pretty incredible.

Unfortunately, with so many plugins to choose from, it can be somewhat difficult to figure out which ones are best-suited to your needs. That’s why this series exists – to let our clients know which add-ons are absolutely essential (and by implication, which ones they should probably stay away from). This time around, we’re going to take a look at a few plugins related to website monetization/membership services. There’s just one small difference between the plugins in this post and our regular fare – most of the plugins we’re going to go over today are premium.

Let’s get started. (more…)

November 4, 2014
What Your WordPress Theme Says About Your Blog

The theme is arguably the most important element of a WordPress blog. It’s the first thing users will see when loading in, and will impact their perceptions before they even start reading. The impression a theme leaves on a blog’s readers will determine how they view the blog, what they think of the content and, ultimately, whether or not they’ll come back.

What a lot of authors don’t realize is that a theme accomplishes much more than making a first good impression. By studying how a blog is laid out, it’s entirely possible to accurately judge the author’s personality, what they generally write about, and the sort of content they produce. In certain rare cases, it may even be possible to discern an author’s industry. (more…)

April 21, 2014
Five More Absolutely Essential WordPress Plugins

One of the most formidable aspects of WordPress as a platform is the immense degree of customizability its diverse selection of plugins affords a blog owner. Unfortunately, no two plugins are created equal, and it can often be difficult to decide what’s worthwhile. How’s a blog owner to know what they should and shouldn’t install?

It all starts with knowing what sort of functionality you’re looking for – what types of plugins does your blog require to shine? (more…)

April 8, 2014
Maximizing Your Exposure On WordPress

Content may be king, but it’s nothing if you don’t know how to promote it. Even if you write the best, most enticing and most shareable post in the world and update your blog regularly, it means nothing if people aren’t aware it exists. In order to truly drive traffic to your blog, you need exposure. Obtaining it is a dual process of promotion and optimization.

We’ll start with the latter. The best advice I can give you here is to install a plugin like All-In-One SEO. Although it won’t do all the work for you, it’ll greatly simplify the optimization process, and make it considerably easier for you to deal with Meta tags and title optimization. Scheduling is one thing you’re going to have to do yourself – personally, I’d recommend that you update your blog in the morning, as t traffic is usually highest around 11 AM. You’ll also need to figure out your focus keyword (think of this as the primary topic of your post). More than just site and keyword optimization, however, you should also practice topic optimization. (more…)

March 10, 2014
Is A User Created Content Site Possible On WordPress

Although WordPress is without a doubt the best blogging platform on the market, how suitable is it if you’re looking to create a site based on user-generated content? It’s an odd question, to be sure, but it’s one that’s been at the back of my mind for some time now. Is WordPress usable if you’re creating a content hub rather than a simple blog?

The short answer is yes – just look at WPeddit if you’ve any doubts. The long answer…yes and no. It’s complicated. If you’ve got the right plugins and enough programming knowledge, you can use the WordPress platform to design just about anything. The problem with that, of course, is that this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s well-suited for the task. At the end of the day, there are plenty of software platforms specifically designed for user-generated content, it could save you a great deal of trouble to simply use one of those. (more…)

March 6, 2014
Five WordPress Plugins No Blog Should Be Without

Perhaps the most powerful element of WordPress – and likely one of the primary reasons it’s the most widely-used blogging platform in the world – is the diverse selection of plugins available to its writers. One might consider that diversity to be one of the platform’s weaknesses, too; the sheer volume of different plugins available can be downright overwhelming, particularly to someone new to the platform.

Thankfully, if you know what types of plugins your blog needs, the process becomes far less daunting. It then simply becomes a matter of knowing the best plugin in each particular category. Today, we’re going to look at a few such addons. We will likely as not revisit this topic at a later date with a new set. (more…)

March 5, 2014