Category: General

Wordpress Tips and Tricks in the general category. These are broad WordPress tricks and tips that don’t fall into our other categories.

WordPress Featured Post

To use the WordPress featured post is a great way to show prominence to a specific web post as you publish new content on your WordPress blog. To publish the content all you have to do is use the right coding for the WordPress featured post and it will appear first and prominently on your WordPress blog homepage.

WordPress featured posts are some of the most popular and most used features for WordPress blogging. The WordPress feature post is a widely used feature for many templates because of it being an all-around good feature to have for your WordPress blog front.

There are a variety of ways to go about getting a WordPress featured post on your blog, which range from simple to more complex but appear more innovative on your blog front. If you choose to go the simple route and are just looking for a WordPress blog featured post plugin, you can use it to make it easier to mark posts as featured posts without having to use specific categories. This is a simple markup to show theme from your theme file. Using a tool in WordPress like the featured posts option, is a must-have for any blog that is magazine or news based especially because it helps keep your as blog current as possible.

WordPress featured post plugin:

Add <?php query_posts($query_string.”&featured=yes”); ?> before the post loops starts. From here you can manage the feature posts from the post edit list.

Other easy WordPress featured post:

There are a few different types of WordPress themes that allow bloggers to use a features post section in which the most recent blog post is displayed, along with a large image, which is attached to the post. You can do this by using the Custom Fields option, which is found when publishing a post. Depending on the type of featured post and type of theme you are using, there are different options to choose from. You can pick a theme that already has this option embedded in the coding, or you can simply add it yourself using a code like the one mentioned above. However, if you want the option to be included in your theme, you will need to find a type of WordPress featured post plugin coding that can be simply added to the theme you are currently using.

How to use the WordPress featured post:

There are a few different ways you can use a WordPress featured post. One of these ways is to integrate it into a theme. This way you can customize the look of the featured post as well as feature it along with an image if you desire. By customizing the look of your featured image, you can make the site look much cleaner and more professional in appearance, which is more likely to make sure your blog followers and visitors enjoy visiting your blog because they know it will be easy to read and follow. Fortunately, there are many places to find these custom themes and custom PHP variables to use on your blog. Be sure to check out the work of other WordPress designers who spend time putting together custom WordPress themes available for WordPress users. Keep in mind, however, it is important to go with a plugin that has been ranked as dependable when it comes to security. Adding in external WordPress widgets and plugins always place users at a bigger risk for a security breech. Be sure to choose a WordPress featured post plugin that will go along with the look and feel of your WordPress blog.

WordPress Excerpt

Using the WordPress excerpt tool is a great way to enhance the look of your WordPress website as well as to add more content and strength of words to your WordPress website. Being able to use a WordPress excerpt is a great way to add in more SEO for your WordPress blog to ensure you get found by those perusing the Internet.

Bloggers know not to underestimate the power of the WordPress excerpt. When choosing to enhance the appearance of your WordPress blog, it is a good idea to use this excerpt tool because it makes WordPress easier to browse and bring in more traffic to your site.

When it comes to adding a WordPress excerpt, otherwise known as a post summary, to your blog, it is usually for two purposes. The first use of having a WordPress excerpt is because it replaces the full content in RSS feeds. This allows the option to display summaries, which is selected under the dashboard tab under settings and then by selecting reading. The alternative reason for using a WordPress excerpt is because, depending on the WordPress theme, it can be displayed in places where quick summaries are preferable to the full content. A few examples of this would be with search results, tag archives, category archives, monthly archives and author archives. There are a few different ways to add excerpts to post. Let’s start with the basics:

How to add a WordPress excerpt:

Adding an excerpt for any of the above-listed reasons is easy. Simply write the excerpt in the excerpt field under the post edit box. This excerpt can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Generally a couple of sentences will suffice in length depending on its purpose. Keep in mind that with WordPress version 3.1 or higher, there are some screen options on the Post and Page edit administration panels that are hidden by default. In this version, the excerpt field is hidden by default if it has not been used before. Because the WordPress excerpt is similar in purpose to the META description of HTML documents, excerpts can easily be used additionally as a meta description as well. There are some WordPress themes that do this by default. It can also be done as an SEO plugin or a plugin that is specifically for managing data in the head of some of the (X) HTML pages.

One important step to remember when learning how to add a WordPress excerpt, is that it is important to add a link to the excerpt linking it to the full post. WordPress does not automatically do this step for  you, which is why you will need to provide a link to the page containing the entire post. This can be easily accomplished by including the following code in the loop directly below:  <?php the_excerpt(); ?>.

<a href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>"> Read More...</a>

Or  you can put the following in your WordPress theme’s functions.php.

function excerpt_read_more_link($output) {
 global $post;
 return $output . '<a href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '"> Read More...</a>';
}
add_filter('the_excerpt', 'excerpt_read_more_link');

The difference between excerpt, automatic excerpt and a teaser:

Remember there is a difference between the manual WordPress excerpt and the automatic excerpt or the teaser. The manual WordPress excerpt is often confused with these two other features. The teaser is the part of a post that appears on the front page when you use the More tag. To remember the relationship between these three features, keep in mind that when a post has no manual excerpt and the post template uses the the-excerpt() template tag, WordPress does automatically generate an excerpt containing the first 55 words of the post. However, this is not an example of summarizing the entire blog post or article.  To have a quality blog that is easy to use and functional for web visitors, it is important to use features like the WordPress excerpt. It gives visitors an idea of exactly what they are about to read. If they don’t get a clear picture of what they are about to read on your WordPress blog, they may go elsewhere for the information. Unless you don’t care if people read your blog, it is a good idea to make sure and write up an excerpt that will keep visitors coming back. This can prove to be an essential tool to have especially if you are using your blog to make money. Having repeat visitors is a great way to keep them coming back and to keep your business going.

WordPress Websites

Building WordPress websites by using the WordPress as a full-on content management system is a great way to host a website. In order to host the best WordPress websites it is a great idea to pair your WordPress website with some of the best web hosting providers so you can get access to the tons of great web hosting tools and features.

There are a variety of ways to go about making one or more WordPress websites. Many Internet users will make WordPress websites because they want to use a blog to sell or promote their service or product. WordPress websites are easy to create and easy to use.

One of the best convenience to WordPress websites is that you can build a website using WordPress for an affordably low price. It is also easy to install and user friendly, which is the perfect solution for those looking to save money and build a website easily especially if they are new to web development or have no programming experience. To start building your web page using WordPress blogging software, you first need to choose a web host provider. There are many web hosts to choose from including BlueHost and HostMonster, which are two of the cheapest web hosts around, but still offer quality web hosting services. By going with a web host like one of these two you are guaranteed to get the best web hosting services, but at a low price. There are free web host providers too, but to try and install WordPress with one of these free web hosts, the results are difficult if you are even able to get WordPress installed in the first place. With free web hosts, you aren’t given the easy install SimpleScripts or other easy install choices, which makes the WordPress installation process painstaking and difficult to operate.

Once you have chosen your web host provider, it is now time to make sure they do have the technology to install WordPress . There are other ways to install WordPress, but it can be a difficult process for those who do not know much about programming or aren’t as tech savvy. It is simply easier overall to choose a web host that will essentially take care of the WordPress install for you. Also, make sure this web host offers MySQL database, which is required to run WordPress. After you choose the web host and have got that all taken care of, you can install WordPress using SimpleScripts or another easy one-click installer. From here, you will need to upload a WordPress templates. There are thousands of free WordPress themes available throughout the Internet to choose from. Be sure to pick a theme that best represents your reasons behind building a website. For example, some businesses might want something that looks more professional, while others might want to choose a free WordPress theme that goes along with creativity and innovative appearances.

There are easy ways you can modify the theme of your website to make it look more like a website versus a blog. This can easily be done by removing the comments section and the “posted by…” etc, displayed from your website. Make sure you back up these themes changes especially because if something goes wrong, you won’t want to have to entirely redo the process of making changes and edits. You can also feel free to edit other aspects of the theme to truly make it  your own. For example you can change the header image, etc.

Using WordPress websites are some of the easiest ways to create your own website. It is easy and fast, which is great for those that don’t have a lot of time to spend designing and building a website. Using the WordPress themes, widgets, plugins and other tools are great for easy design. Some say using WordPress websites are even easier than trying to build a website using the website design tools and templates offered through some web hosting providers for free. WordPress websites are great for a variety of Internet users for all website needs.

WordPress Backup Tools

WordPress backup tools are a huge priority for many WordPress users since the information they regularly publish on their WordPress website is of vital importance. Having access to the best WordPress backup tools is one of the best ways to ensure your WordPress blog and content stays secure and protected from risk of a crash and potential loss.

Making sure your blog is protected from being totally erased is incredibly important, which is why WordPress backup tools are essential. Making sure you have these WordPress backup tools is the best way you can ensure you don’t lose everything from your blog.

Because your WordPress database as all of the information you have ever posted on your WordPress blog as well as all of the comments and links that are posted, it is a good idea to make sure all of those areas are backed up just in case your database gets accidently erased while you are making changes or if you have a corruption error. Otherwise you risk losing everything. This can be dangerous, so it is a good idea to make sure and use the necessary WordPress backup tools to make sure this doesn’t happen. Within the WordPress.org codex, you can find plenty of information on how to back up your WordPress data. We’ve also included some of this information below to help get you started.

WordPress backup tools should be used regularly depending on how often you post on your WordPress blog. The more frequently you  use your blog, the more regular you should make your backups. The more backups, the merrier. Having multiple backups is never a bad thing especially if the content in your blog is incredibly important. For some who use their blog for business purposes, losing everything on the blog could be devastating. This is why having multiple backups is a good thing despite seeming excessive. Conveniently, there are ways to make sure certain areas of your blog are backed up without having to provide backups for less important areas that tend to take up a lot of data like anti-spam and statistics plugins. Just make sure those areas that do not need backed up are deselected during the backup process.

There are also ways you can make sure your backups are automated. This is a great idea for those who do not have time to waste doing regular backups. With automated backups, you can feel confident your information is backed up and won’t be lost in case of corruption or an accidental erase. You also don’t have to worry about constantly trying to remember to backup your information all of the time.

How to backup your WordPress site:

Remember, there are two parts of your WordPress site that will need backed up in case of emergency: the database and files. To do this, you will need to backup your entire site as well as the WordPress database. The WordPress site consists of the core installation, plugins, themes, files, images, Javascript scripts, PHP scrips as well as other code files in addition to any additional files or static web pages. To make sure all of these areas are backed up, you can go with a web host that provides regular backups. This is probably the easiest way to backup the software on your site. This is done regularly by the web host provider and also is easy because there is not much you have to take care of  yourself. Another way is to make sure your blog is in sync with your site. Make sure to see if this is a service offered by your web host.

Another backup method would be to copy files to your desktop. Using FTP clients will help with this process. This makes it easy to copy that important information to a folder on your computer. From there, you can easily zip the content into a file to save on space. This also allows  you to keep several versions of the information in case you want to make any changes. If you plan to handle the backups yourself using PHP or the cPanel assistance, be sure to make sure this will work with the assistance from your web host. If so, simply walk through the WordPress backup tools on the WordPress codex to make sure you are able to transfer your database information using phpMyAdmin. It is a pretty easy walkthrough process. Be sure to consult with your web host provider for any additional assistance, or checkout the WordPress site directly.

 

WordPress Security

WordPress security issues have been called into question in the past, but new updates to WordPress and WordPress security should leave WordPress users with the utmost confidence in using WordPress to host their blog or website. There are other WordPress security issues to consider as well like what you put on your blog. Do your best to understand the strength of WordPress security.

Because WordPress has become such a popular method of blogging and reaching others online with their blog, there have been some issues with WordPress security. Instead of being concerned, however, it means users should beef up their WordPress security.

Taking efforts to increase WordPress security from hackers, phishing and other online threats is the best way to ensure your blog remains private and safe from outside attacks. Since WordPress was started, there have been unfortunate security risks that the company has worked hard to overcome. However, just like any online site or program, the security is not infallible, which means it is up to the user to protect themselves by enhancing their WordPress security. The WordPress programmers do their best to ensure great security and reliability with the WordPress software and support. However, when using outside tools and services to increase the user ability with a blog, there is a trade off between security and features. With so many outside widgets and plugins sponsored by other companies to be used on your WordPress blog, there is always the chance of letting in another outside source that could potentially hack or infiltrate your blog’s security. There are some ways around this however. The best ways in harden your WordPress security includes:

Limiting access points to your computer:

The best way to do this is to make sure you cover all of the areas of vulnerability on  your computer by making sure you are free of spyware, malware, adware and other virus infections. Make sure you are running secure and stable versions of your applications.

Upgrade your WordPress version as it becomes available:

This is another way to protect the vulnerable aspects of your system, but this time with the WordPress blog program itself. Updates will more than likely also contain improvements and updates to security giving you even more protection against online threats and attacks. Also along with this same concept, if you notice any bugs with the WordPress security, be sure to inform WordPress about the situation as soon as possible so they can get programmers on the ball to fix the situation for the future.

Be up to date everywhere else, too:

There may also be vulnerabilities with your server, web browser and any scripting or programming language you might use on your computer. Be sure to cover these areas in case of a potential attack. Make sure you are up to date with the newest versions of all programs and that you are running secure versions of each with a trusted web host that also offers quality security.

Backup your database and files:

While this may not directly relate to security, just like with anything worth saving, it is worth saving and backing up your WordPress blog. In case your blog does get hacked, you will be glad you did.

Use a trusted network:

If you have secure firewalls established on your network at home or at your office, you know you have a secure network and it is safe to access your WordPress blog without too much risk of sending encrypted information like passwords over the secure network. However, be careful not to do this with an non-secure network like free WiFi at your favorite coffee shop or at a hotel. These are examples of non-secure networks and can be infiltrated to take over your password and other vital information.

Be careful with your passwords:

This may seem like an no brainer when it comes to WordPress security, however, millions of people get their various online accounts hacked every day. The best way this can be avoided is through good security habits. There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a password:

  • Do not use your own name for a password
  • Do not use a dictionary word
  • Do not use a 4-character string of numbers as your password
  • The best password is made by using a combination of letters and numbers with alternating capitalization.

Change the administrator account login:

When installing WordPress and setting up your account, be sure to change the administrator name. If you don’t, this will make it easy for hackers to get into your account because half the battle is already won. Be sure to not make this mistake.

Monitor your logs, files, server, WordPress account and computer:

Overall, one of the best ways to stay safe with WordPress security is to be sure to carefully monitor your blog activity. Regularly check  your logs to make sure you know if there is someone out there who is trying to guess their way into your login by guessing the password. Make sure you monitor these logs to ensure your safety. Also, watch your files and blog content for changes. This will help prevent severe damage or changes to your content and risk compromising other content or the information of others. Lastly, check your computer regularly for viruses and other forms of malware to make sure there are no risks attempting to penetrate your computer and WordPress security.

What is WordPress?

What is WordPress? WordPress is a great blogging and entire content management system that can be used to publish content or host an entire website. WordPress is a blogging software tool that also offers a variety of WordPress tools like themes, widgets and plugins that can be used to enhance your WordPress blog.

WordPress is a great tools and resource for anyone looking for open source blog publishing and website features. WordPress uses a variety of application features to help modify the entire application to be enabled to do the management of an entire website.

What is WordPress?

If you are new to WordPress is it important to understand how it works and how you can take advantage of the many features and content management tools WordPress has to offer to help you build a creative blog or website. WordPress offers open source blog publishing applications that are powered by PHP and MySQL, which are also known to be used for content management.  WordPress has a variety of features web builders and bloggers can use to customize their blog or website to how they like it, and make it easy to use for a number of purposes.

WordPress Features:

WordPress offers a web template system that uses a template processor. This way you can rearrange the look of your blog or website exactly how you want. It is also easy to change later for regular updates or additions to the web space. WordPress offers dozens of WordPress widgets. These types of tools offer text and RSS widgets you can add to your site and rearrange without having to edit the PHP or HTML code. They are also easy to install and switch between themes. For advanced customization to your site, you can easily change the PHP and HTML code in themes for your blog or site. WordPress provides users with a management system that is great for integrated link management, clean permalink structure, the ability to assign nested and multiple categories to articles and blog posts. There are automatic filters included to help provide standardized formatting and styling of the text in articles. You can also easily tag words in each of the articles. One of the best WordPress features is the ability of plugin architecture. This allows users and web builders to extend the functionality of the website to any level beyond the base install for a variety of added features and customization.

For those who enjoy blogging or managing their site from their smart phone, there are WordPress apps for Android, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry. These apps allows  users to access most of the features in the WordPress Admin panel and work with WordPress.com and many WordPress.org blogs. There are many benefits to blogging or creating your website with WordPress including access to dozens of widgets, huge variety of templates to customize your blog or site as well as the ability to post your WordPress blog with other web host providers by using an easy integration. This way, you can ensure your website is linked to your blog and vice versa. This feature is perfect for those who have a business and use their blog to promote and provide information about their business. It is also just an overall great feature to have for anyone who has their own website and would like to generate traffic between their website and blog to provide Internet users with more information about their site, business or organization.

About WordPress:

WordPress started out in a slightly different version of itself called b2/cafelog, which was the precursor to WordPress. However in 2003, WordPress became the official successor as a progression of the b2/cafelog idea. By 2009, WordPress became one of the best and most usable open source content management systems. Through development WordPress began making more changes to the content management system. One of these changes was to no longer allow themes with sponsored links, a move that received a mixture of criticism and praise from users. Many were happy with the idea that it would cut down on what many considered to be spam. WordPress version 3.1 was launched in February 2011 with more updates to be made throughout the rest of the year. WordPress also offers a multi-user system that allows multiple blogs to exist within one installation. This way, users are able to operate more than one blog from a single dashboard.

Make Money Online with a Blog

There are many ways you can make money online with a blog. Making extra money online by blogging is a great way to add some extra cash to your wallet. Through affiliate programs, tools like Google Adsense, banner ads and by selling products, you can make money online with a blog!

I’ve been blogging for about 6-7 years and I get asked how to make money online all the time! Friends, family and random people who find out the industry where I work ask me all the time, “How do I make money online?”.  Anyone with $10 and a little ambition can make money online. There is no prerequisite for becoming a blogger, website owner, or webmaster. I’m going to give you a few tips here on making money online by blogging.

This article will assume that you already have your domain name or maybe a subdomain through a free web hosting or blogging service. I also assume you have some idea of the content that you’ll be posting on your blog – make sure it’s something that people will actually search for. You can use the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool to help you discover if your content is in demand.

Easiest Ways to Make Money Online Blogging:

1. Google Adsense – This is one of the easiest and quickest ways to make money online.  You can signup online, grab your code within minutes, and paste into your webpages/blog posts. That’s it…you’ll be earning in no time. Your URL does need to be approved so that is the only thing you’ll have to wait for. You can include up to 3 ad units in your webpage, but this is an ample amount. Any more than 3 ad units would look bad anyways. If you start earning over $10,000/month you can become a part of the “UPS Club” where your checks will be send via UPS! Google Adsense displays text ads within an ad block that is relevant to your webpage’s content. So if someone searches Google for a keyword related to your content, then they visit your webpage, and finally they click on an ad that is related to your blog post.

2. Affiliate Programs – This is another easy way to make money blogging. There are thousands of products available online that have affiliate programs. There are also sites like ebay, buy.com, and amazon.com that have affiliate programs so you can review any product in their catalog. Affiliate programs track sales with affiliate tracking software which gathers info on sales from specific referrers (websites). If your website refers a customer to another website and they purchase something you can earn a percentage of that sale or flat fee. Some popular programs include web hosting affiliate programs, credit cards, health, and technology related sites. There are networks such as CJ or LinkShare that bring affiliates and vendors together in one place so you don’t have to search online for each product. You should insert affiliate links to vendors that have products related to your blog posts/articles.

3. Text Link Ads – If you have a WordPress blog you can sell text link ads right in your content without having to add them in yourself. There are services such as textlinkads.com that allow you to paste some code into your website or blog that automatically inserts text ads into your pages. You submit your website into the system and they set your initial pricing based on PageRank, Alexa ranking, and a few other factors. You can display many link ads per page, but you don’t want to over do it.

4. Banner Ads – Usually this method doesn’t work very great unless you have hundreds of visitors per day and thousands of impressions. You can sell banner ads direct to businesses or you can use services like Bravenet, ValueClick or AdBrite. These don’t pay as well as Google Adsense, but if your site or blog doesn’t really fit into Adsense – this would be an option for you. Banner ads don’t pay what they used to back in 1999, but they can give you some supplemental income.

5. Sell Products!!! If you have a blog that talks about a specific topic and you get tons of traffic…start selling products yourself! You could develop your own product or resell someone elses product on your website. If you have a weblog that focuses on free web hosting and you get tons of visitors…you could start a web hosting company to get your own customers.

Benefits of WordPress

For those looking to start a blog with WordPress, learning about all of the benefits of WordPress is a great place to start. The benefits of WordPress range to include a variety of web features, plugins, widgets, WordPress themes, custom themes, the content management system and so much more!

Are you wondering what the benefits of WordPress are??? This article shows you the benefits of WordPress including the top reasons to use WordPress.  If you’re considering using TypePad, MovableType, Blogger, or WordPress – you should read the article on benefits of WordPress.

1st Benefit of WordPress – IT’S FREE!

The biggest benefit of WordPress blog software is that it’s free. You can find the download for WordPress and instructions on how to install WordPress on wordpress.org. This is the official website where the developers of WordPress distribute WordPress CMS/blog system.  WordPress has been around for years and the biggest benefit of WordPress is the cost…always free.

2nd Benefit of WordPress – Progressive Development

Over the years, WordPress has gained a huge following of developers who ensure the safety and security of all users of WordPress. These people are huge fans of the blog software. Hundreds and even thousands of people dedicated countless hours to the development of the software so you and I can enjoy a great platform. Rest assured, if you use the WordPress CMS software, you’ll enjoy the benefits of WordPress from the great development team.

 3rd Benefit of WordPress – The Best Website/Blog Themes

Due to reason #2, WordPress also has the best themes for your blog or website. Tens of thousands of WordPress themes are the 3rd benefit of WordPress. According to some sites, WordPress sofware powers approximately 10-13% of all website as their chosen CMS provider. Having tons of options for your web design is the third benefit of WordPress. You can read our article on the best WordPress themes which explains how to find the best WordPress themes for different applications. The WordPress software enjoys a huge following of blog theme designers which provide various theme options for your business, hobby blog, family website, or other applications.

4th Benefit of WordPress – Easy to Use

WordPress is the most intuitive blog software available on the market at this time. The WordPress blog software utilizes a very easy navigation system to create blog posts/articles, manage user settings, update your WordPress version, and change the appearance of your WordPress theme. That fact that WordPress is easy to use makes it the fourth benefit of using WordPress.

5th Benefit of WordPress – Availability of Plugins & Widgets

Because WordPress is free and the previous mentioned #2, WordPress has the best blog plugins and best blog widgets. There are literally thousands of WordPress plugins. WordPress plugins and widgets are very similar – widgets are more elements of design and plugins are range from admin settings, SEO, or publishing options.  My favorite WordPress plugin is the Homepage Excerpts, which is an SEO function and makes your blog more usable.  The Homepage Excerpts plugin takes a few words from each post to populate the homepage and your archive/tag pages instead of the full post (which results in duplicate content).

Well…you get the idea.  I can come up with many more benefits of WordPress for your website or blog. There are just too many to list. If you aren’t convinced by now you probably shouldn’t be starting a site – just kidding.  WordPress software is free, supported by hundreds of web hosts, easy to use, tons of options to customize, hundreds of developers supporting development, and tons of free themes. What do you think the best benefit of WordPress is?

Find the Best WordPress Themes

When you are trying to find the best WordPress themes for your WordPress blog, there are many places throughout the internet to find great-looking themes, custom themes and just about every type of WordPress theme to fit the needs of your WordPress blog. To find the best WordPress themes, first decide how you want your blog to look and go from there!

So you’ve been looking for the best WordPress themes and having trouble finding a good one? We’ll discuss some tips in this article that will help you find the best business WordPress themes, music themes, hobby themes, and more for your WordPress website or blog.

Search Engines: Best WordPress Themes

Of course, the most obvious method to find the best WordPress themes is going to Google. The hard part will be sifting through all the garbage that is presented. If you search for a term like “best wordpress themes”, you’re going to be given options that will include theme designers as well as WordPress theme directories. What you’ll probably want to do is include some descriptive text like another keyword mixed into the phrase.  This could include: “best wordpress theme for business”, “best music wordpress theme”, “best 2 column wordpress theme”, “best education WordPress theme”, etc.

Find Great WordPress Themes You Like Visiting Other Sites

The next method is to find a WordPress theme that you like by visiting other WordPress websites. If you find a good theme that you like – check the footer for the design credits. Then visit that designers WordPress site and see if it’s a free WordPress theme or premium WordPress theme.  They will most likely have a demo page and a download link which is easy to find.

Find a Designer for Custom WordPress Themes

If you’re not able to find a good WordPress theme using these techniques – you might want to consider hiring someone through a service like elance.com. You can also check for referrals from other website owners. There are many benefits to having a custom WordPress theme.  You could be the only one to have that design. Usually, if you choose a WordPress theme there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are using that them. The chances of them using it for the same purpose are pretty slim, but it’s not unheard of. If you’re worried about people having a website that looks just like your site – go custom theme!

Get a Premium WordPress Theme

Most of the WordPress themes are free, but the best WordPress themes can usually be found in premium/paid sections of theme directories. You can find all sorts of premium WordPress themes for various industries such as: real estate agent themes, WordPress themes for attorneys, photo gallery WordPress themes, and more. Some of my favorite premium themes can be found at wprocks.com. Sadish offers some of the best WordPress themes at very affordable prices. Most websites will offer premium themes for about $29-$49 one-time fee.  Premium themes usually don’t have sponsored links (which we’ll explain how to remove in another post). Sponsored links are usually placed inside the footer of the free WordPress themes – this enables them to be free. The designer sells these links and the buyer hopes that their website will get ranked higher by obtaining all these extra links on hundreds of websites. We’ll explain a little more on how to get higher rankings the good ol’ fashioned way…without buying links.

If you think of any other ideas on how to find the best WordPress themes I’d love for you to post them here. Please don’t do shameless plugs for websites if you comment. Limit comments to actual tips on how to sort through all the junk and actually find the good stuff!

Best WordPress Hosting

Finding the best WordPress hosting is easy if you know which web hosting providers you would like to consider. WordPress hosting for your website is a quick and easy way to get started building a great website. You can use all that WordPress has to offer in combination with the best web hosting services and features to create and build a great looking and professional website.

In the previous article I discussed the basic general steps on how to start a WordPress blog.  In this article we are going to focus on item number two on that list. The first was find your idea…a great idea for your blog. This is the most important piece of the puzzle, but once you have the idea the second point will save you time and hassle in the long run.

Find the Best WordPress Hosting

This is the second step in starting your WordPress blog or WordPress website.  I mentioned a few pionts on what to look for in that first post and I will go over them in more detail here.

1.  Make sure they have a one-click install for WordPress blog software. This will save you time and more money later. Unless you have a very good understanding of programming languages and database management (or phpMyAdmin) – you should opt for a WordPress host that offers a “one-click” install.  Do they really have a “one-click” install? NO. WordPress hosting companies will tell you that they offer this…but it simply isn’t true, but it’s very close. You’ll need to choose which domain to install WordPress on, the version, and you’ll need to define a few variables. This is a very simple process and won’t take long – under 5 minutes.

2. The WordPress web hosting should cost under $4/month for the initial term.  This isn’t a hard task. There are plenty of WordPress web hosts that offer specials for under $4/mo. I can thing of about 10 off the top of my head. Don’t pay more for this on the initial term, but hosts will raise the rates on the renewal periods. Nearly all hosts do it. They don’t tell you that they are doing this, but you need to be aware of it. The initial term is just to get you in the door. One web host that I recommend charges $3.95/mo on the first 2 or 3 years. Then they charge 8.95 or 7.95 per year on the renewal period. Some hosts just want to charge you $10/month right out of the gate. Don’t fall for it. You can find the best WordPress hosting for less than $4 – this will save you $6/mo on a 36 month term…a lot of dough!

3. The best WordPress web hosting should offer a free domain name.  A lot of web hosts will not offer this. As web space got bigger and bigger and prices keep coming down. They just have to start cutting back on the extras. If the web hosting company doesn’t offer a free domain name – they will usually charge about $10-15/year. You can find cheaper. I will tell you how to find a web host with all these qualities at the end of the post. If you find a great host you want to use and they don’t offer the free domain name – I would use GoDaddy. This is the best domain name registrar on the web. I’m not a fan of the flash GoDaddy Super Bowl ads, but they do know how to do domain names. That’s about all they do well (that and SSL certificates).

4. Cheap WordPress web hosting will offer unlimited add-on domain names. This means that they will allow you to add on as many domain names as you want to your account and host them there. So you could have hundreds of domains on one account without having to get a dedicated server for your WordPress website or blog. This is handy because if you decide to start another WordPress website or blog you can for as little as $10/year – the cost of the domain name. A lot of hosts such as GoDaddy will only allow a certain number of domains to be added on to the account. Our recommended web hosts will allow you to host as many domain names as you want!

5. The best WordPress web hosts offer U.S. based support 24/7. You don’t really want to call India or some other country where you can barely understand the support tech. The recommended WordPress web hosting services offer 24/7 support and it’s US based. You don’t want to be working on your WordPress website and then have an issue that gets you frustrated and then have to try to explain your WordPress blog issue with someone who has a language barrier.

Best WordPress Web Hosting Services:

1. BlueHost – $3.95/mo – CLICK HERE

2. HostMonster – $3.95/mo – CLICK HERE

3. JustHost – $3.45/mo – CLICK HERE