Monthly Archives: October 2020

For some of you who might not be familiar with the layman’s definition of a WordPress Plugin, here it is-according to :

“WordPress Plugins allow easy modification, customization, and enhancement to a WordPress blog. Instead of changing the core programming of WordPress, you can add functionality with WordPress Plugins.”

With that said, some WordPress plugins will provide greater benefits to your business blog than others.

Here is a list of our 5 favorite WordPress Plugins:

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin: One of our favorite plugins, the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) enables bloggers to increase the number of times visitors stay on the site. Basically, YARPP provides readers with a few links to some of your past entries that are related to the current entry. Think of this plugin as a way to say to readers, “If you liked this post, you might also like these posts.”

This plugin offers an extensive list of settings that enables users to verify which criteria they would like YARPP to use when pulling up related posts. In other words, you can choose to have YARPP pull up related posts within the category of the current post, or you can choose to have YARPP pull up related posts that have similar tags and titles to the current post. You can also select how many related posts you’d like YARPP to display at the bottom of posts.

Many online retailers use something similar to YARPP on their websites to help consumers find other items that they might enjoy.  is a great example of an online company that does this. Whenever you purchase a book or DVD, Amazon pulls up other books or DVDs related to your current purchase(s).

All in One SEO Pack: If your WordPress theme does not include built-in SEO features, installing the All in One SEO Pack plugin is a must!

The SEO Pack enables you to optimize your blog without having your post title be enticing or catchy. Here’s an example of what that means:

For example, let’s say your post title was “4 Ways to Keep Your Customers Loyal.” This is the title that readers will see when they visit your blog. An SEO Pack title for this post might be “Customer Retention Strategy: Keep Loyal Customers.” This title is considered optimized because it has keywords placed at the beginning of the title. This is the title that search engines see and read. And notice, the SEO title isn’t very catchy or creative.

The All in One SEO Pack also enables you to add a meta description and meta keywords for search engines to read.

Facebook Like:

Adding the Facebook “Like” button to the top or bottom of your blog enables readers to quickly and easily “Like” your post on Facebook and they don’t even need to visit Facebook to do so! When readers “Like” your post, the news shows up immediately on their Facebook wall and in their friends’ news feed. It’s an excellent way to gain exposure.

Not to mention, when readers “Like” a post, a minibox pops up that enables them to add a comment with their decision to “Like” your post.

Broken Link Checker:

The Broken Link Checker searches your posts for broken links and images and immediately notifies you via your dashboard if one is found. Therefore, you have the opportunity to quickly fix the broken link or image before all your visitors try to click through the link or view the image and are disappointed or frustrated.

Tweet This:

Similar to the Facebook Like plugin, the Tweet This plugin allows readers to quickly and easily tweet your post to all of their Twitter followers. They don’t even need to leave your blog or open Twitter in a new browser.

And Tweet This also shortens the link for users so that they can add a comment to their tweet.

Additional Plugins for Specific Themes:

For those on Thesis:

Thesis Open Hook is one of the best ways to customize your Thesis blog without having to enter your custom editor and mess with coding. Basically, Thesis Open Hook allows you to add content to various features that make up the Thesis Theme. For example, the Thesis Theme has a header area (also known as the header hook). Open Hook allows you to add content to just the header hook without having to go into the custom file editor. The benefit here is that the coding you place into the header hook within the Open Hook plugin can easily be deleted without deleting anything vital to the design of the Thesis Theme. However, if you were to use the custom file editor to add the header but realized you didn’t like the look and wanted to delete it, you run the risk of deleting a vital component of the design of the Thesis. Just by deleting one, itty-bitty semicolon, without knowing it, you could mess up a great deal of your Thesis Theme design. Be safe-use Thesis Open Hook to edit your Thesis Theme.

For those on ProPhoto:

Flaunt Books Image Voting is an amazing blog feature for any blogger involved in the photography field. This plugin enables readers to vote on their favorite images within a post, just with one click of a button. We love this plugin because it engages readers and encourages them to be active on the blog.

My new WordPress clients are often confused about some of the terminologies of WordPress. This makes it more difficult to communicate effectively with them about what they want from their WordPress sites and blog. So, I’ve decided to list the top 10 WordPress related terms everyone who uses WordPress should know.

Term 1: Themes

A theme is a collection of files that create the visual look of your WordPress website or blog. Themes are kinda like ‘skins’ that you can easily download, install, and start using on your site. Themes also can include some custom features to give you greater control over the presentation and functionality of your site. In general, only one Theme can be used at a time.

Term 2: Templates

In WordPress, templates are one of several specific files that control how a particular page on your site is displayed. For instance, your theme may have multiple page layouts, perhaps one with a sidebar and one without. There are also templates that control the top of all your pages including navigation, called a “header”, the bottom of all your pages, called a “footer”, and “sidebars” (see below). Templates can also be created for a specific page or post, category, and much more.

Term 3: Plugins

Plugins are a collection of files that you can download and install to add certain functionality to your site. For instance, there are plugins for e-commerce, Search Engine Optimization, to create specific features like a calendar, or to modify how you control and operate your website. There are 1,000’s of plugins, most of which are free.

Term 4: Sidebar

A sidebar is a section of your website that generally displays along the left or right side of your pages, but can also appear in other places, such as the footer. You can also have multiple sidebars on your site based on the templates you have.

Term 5: Widgets

Widgets are the individual blocks of content that go into a sidebar. You can easily add, delete or rearrange Widgets in your sidebars by dragging and dropping in the WordPress admin center. Many Widgets can also be edited to give you extra control over how the Widgets appear on your site. Some common examples of Widgets are simple text, recent posts, advertising such as AdSense, etc.

Term 6: Pages & Posts

Pages vs. Posts are a bit confusing and could have its own article. In general, though, you want to use Pages for any single pages of content that remain in the same place on your site. Pages generally have their own navigation in WordPress and are good for pages like ‘About Us’, ‘Contact Us’, etc. You can easily select different templates for pages and they are not categorized.

Posts on the other hand are used when you will be creating multiple entries about a particular topic. You can put Posts into various Categories. WordPress will then automatically handle creating various Category pages, which will list all of the Posts in that Category, generally showing only an Excerpt of the Post and putting the Posts in chronological order. For instance, if you had a blog on Hollywood happenings, you would use Posts each time you write a new entry about some celebrity doing something stupid.

Term 7: Admin Center

The Admin Center is where you control everything about your WordPress site. To access the Admin Center you will go to a specific URL on the internet and enter your username and password. From there, you will be able to add/edit/delete Pages and Posts, control Plugins and Widgets, manage your users, and much more.

Term 8: Permalinks

How your URL’s are formed is very important to Search Engine Optimization and making your pages more memorable and understandable to your visitors. In WordPress, you can easily create Permalinks, which are a particular structure to your site. Instead of using meaningless URL’s like, you could have  You can control the permalinks for each Page and Post in WordPress.

Term 9: Tags

Tags are similar to Categories, only they are less structured. For instance, you may have a Post about your favorite Football team, which perhaps you are putting in a “Sports” category. You could also use some tags like ‘Football’, ‘Cincinnati Bengals’, and ‘Carson Palmer’. Using the tags makes it possible to have a list of Tags in your sidebar where people can click the different Tags to bring up all the Pages and Posts that have those particular tags. If you have a Search box, then the Tags are also used to retrieve results for the user’s specific search.

Term 10: Custom Fields

WordPress includes a way to create custom values that you assign to a particular Page or Post. Your Theme or WordPress developer can then use those fields and values to create custom functionality on your site. For instance, you may want to be able to have a rating system for whatever you are writing about. A developer could set-up a custom field where you just enter your rating and then the system takes that information and makes a pretty display feature based on the rating you assigned. The possibilities are endless with Custom Fields and are a powerful feature of WordPress.

I hope these terms help you to better understand WordPress and how it operates. Even if you have a professional helping you with your WordPress site, you’ll be better off understanding some of the basic principles so you can be on the same page when communicating with your developer.

Long before Google was invented, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) websites were the way in which web designers did website pages. And they still do today. But after Google came to exist the scenario changed. Because HTML sites are static, this article doesn’t change. So the only way a webmaster can offer new submissions is by writing a new page at a substantial cost to the site owner. To maintain#1, 2, or #3 organic ranking they have to write new content and continually tweak and stack key terms. But Google is aware of these tactics. In fact, last year Google made over 400 adjustments to their SEO Algorithms. That is why you may be about the first page one day and turn into one another. So exactly what is the answer? In one simple word WordPress. WordPress sites consider the world wide web world by storm.

Here’s what you should do:

* You have to become on page 1 of at least 1 major search results (Google, Yahoo, or Bing)

* You have to drive traffic for the site

Google knows where individuals are when they search, and so the local businesses for a keyword display first, if done properly.

Traffic is visitors for the site, and traffic equals sales. Good techniques drive people to you that never look at an internet search engine. So, the answer is google search ranking and after that sending traffic towards the site.

You have to take another approach than most google search marketing companies.

Do key phrase research and locate the very best 20 keywords for ranking traffic. You choose 5 which you like.

Register a domain name using one of the keywords in the website name.

Register 10 additional website names each with one specific keyphrase. Each site drives traffic back to the main site. These are called satellite or hub sites.

Create a 5 page WordPress blog with each page optimized for starters from the 5 keywords.

Create your Google Places entry on your main city. Your responsibility is to get the customers to provide you with favorable reviews along with a 5-star ranking. If you get 5 or six favorable reviews, you should rank in the most notable 5 for Google Places to your keywords.

I have other cities that you might want to position in, apart from your own home city, add those too in your keywords. Example:

Carpet cleaner St. Petersburg, Carpet Cleaner Tampa, etc.

Provide fresh content for the blog every single day so the engines like google will require your website.

Write articles for the keywords and submit this content to around 200 article directories and article sites per article. The articles are going out at 50 per day so that the search engines avoid getting suspicious. This will generate the all-important inbound links which get search engine ranking AND traffic.

Do weekly promotion per keyword to build 1, 2, and 3-way links by starting accounts at substantially more than 200 high Google Page Rank sites inside them for hours them a link to each other and to you. This will quickly boost your Google Page Rank and allow one to compete against even tougher keywords that have much larger competition. What you are actually creating each week is a large and sophisticated “link wheel”.

Post the RSS feeds manufactured by your blog with a large volume of RSS aggregators. This will cause your blog content to get posted on other blogs, with links returning to you.

Get full reporting:

Article posting notifications Full tracking around the weekly runs to make and post to high Google Page Rank sites, as well as the RSS   account postings, created Weekly rank checking reports showing where you stand around the major search engines like google for your keywords, the number of inbound links you currently have and what your existing Google Page Rank is.

Do not do anything with your existing Web site. Standard HTML Web sites are extremely poor for internet search engine optimization. Search engines are only concerned with providing great experiences for his or her customers, that’s why they love fresh content. Changing existing HTML Web pages and adding new HTML Web pages is laborious and expensive. And there’s a very difficult strategy to allow the engines like google are aware that you’ve got fresh content.

Tracking results is important. How will you understand the campaign is working? One suggestion is always to give a coupon that only exists around the blog. For example, should you own a nearby restaurant, you could give a free cup of soup using a meal using the coupon, or perhaps a free non-alcoholic beverage, of your free dessert. When people go to your restaurant, they rarely go alone. When you have a coupon presented, you’ve got a sale that you can never have had some other way, and you immediately understand it originated in your search results marketing effort.

As you might imagine, this can be a significant amount of labor. You’re in your business and would never undertake this type of project. This is why SEO companies exist. This is what they certainly routinely.