How to Apply A WordPress Theme

One of the biggest advantages to WordPress is the easy to use theme system. This makes changing your blog or websites design a really easy task. Best of all, many themes are available for free of charge. The key is to learn how to use the theme system so you do not waste your time trying to figure out why your theme is not working.

If you want to apply a WordPress theme, the first step is making sure you have the theme installed. There are two different ways that a WordPress theme can be installed. The first option is to install it manually by uploading the theme folder to your themes directory. This requires some knowledge of FTP and web directories.

The second option is to use the build in theme uploader, which can be accessed from directly in the WordPress administration panel. To get started, just browser to the appearance section in WordPress and click on the themes section. One in here, you can just click on the add new theme button to get started. You can either search for a theme in the directory or choose the zip file you downloaded from somewhere else on the internet.

Regardless of the way you choose, WordPress will automatically install the theme for you and place it in the correct folder. Once this is done, you are then ready to apply the WordPress theme.

Guess what? Activating the theme is even easier than installing it! All you have to do is look at your installed themes and choose the one you want to use. Then just use the activate link to automatically apply any given them. Within a matter of seconds, your entire blog or website layout will completely change based on the theme you are using. Talk about an easy way to design websites!

So there is a quick overview on how to apply WordPress themes.

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WordPress Vs Google Sites - Some Gotchas For the Serious Marketer

WordPress is free to download, and Google Sites is already there on the web for you if you've signed up for a free Gmail account. There's an embarrassment of riches out there for anyone interested in creating a web presence for little or no money. 

But there are always hidden costs to anything that's "free", and if you want to put an organization or business online on a low budget it's good to know them now. Here are some of the most common criteria. I am discounting sites hosted on WordPress.com because they cannot take advantage of the most compelling WordPress features, such as plugins.

Easy to get started

We all have too much to do and too little time, so ease of getting started is important. Google Sites wins this hands down because it requires no installation or download step. WordPress, on the other hand, must be obtained from the WordPress site and you must already have a web hosting account in order to make use of it. Winner: Google Sites

Easy to maintain

At first Google Sites looks easier to maintain. For a very small site, it may be. But the WordPress internal architecture lets you create a dramatically appearance different simply by changing or manipulating a theme. WordPress themes are infinitely richer than those offered by Google Sites. Thousands of gorgeous WordPress themes are available free all over the web. Winner: WordPress

Ability to add features the product doesn't yet have (extensibility)

No software product, ever, has fulfilled all its users' needs. The best ones have an extensible architecture: Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Excel... and WordPress. Want to add affiliate sales through Amazon to your site but have no tech knowledge? No problem, there's a WordPress plugin. Want to sell your crafts, artwork or services on your site? Plenty of WordPress plugins for ecommerce. Want to do any of those things from a Google Site? Sorry, no can do. They don't have an extensible architecture. Winner: WordPress

Third party support and training

All successful software products have lots of consultants, books, and training programs available for them. That means if you end up not having the time or technical knowledge to add a particular feature to your site, you can rely on a web ecosystem to find the help you need. WordPress has well over a million installations, tens of thousands of knowledgeable developers, and lots of books available both online (for example, http://www.OnTheWebInAnHour.com) and offline (your local bookstore). Google Sites? Not so much. Winner: WordPress

Easy to move to another host

Do you like being tied down to a single company for anything? Most people who have responsibilities in any business or organization understand that's not an acceptable risk. One policy change, one simple decision to move into your previously undisturbed market segment, one rep who just doesn't like you, and boom! Your comfortable niche is gone. Or what if you just have reliability problems, or find a better deal elsewhere? 

Moving a website can be traumatizing enough. Make sure you can do so easily. Moving WordPress sites is child's play; HostGator, for example, will move it for free. What makes Google Sites so wonderfully easy to start under the hood results in a site full of all kinds of extra, copyrighted Google code you can't take with you. Plus they just don't have a good mechanism to allow you to take all your work with you to another host. It's a big gotcha. Winner: WordPress

Building a website is easy now. The ability to update articles yourself, keeping it running, getting third party help, and having a choice of web hosts make the decision far more different than you might have considered.

How Do Internet Marketing Pros Build Great Search Engine-Friendly Websites in Just Minutes? With WordPress and some special sauce. I spent $5,000 to learn their secrets. Then I came up with my own techniques. Sign up now for my free minicourse and get these trade secrets delivered right to your Inbox at no cost.

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How To Make Your WordPress Blog Faster

Having a fast blog has its many benefits. From an end user perspective, it means that people can get to your content faster and have a much more enjoyable experience. From a search engine perspective, it opens up easier rankings for you, as it is public knowledge now that search engines do take into account the load time of your blog.

The first think to keep in consideration here is your hosting. Is it currently powerful enough to support your traffic numbers. Whilst there are some basic and extremely popular hosts out there now, most of these shared hosting environments are simply not built to withstand large numbers of traffic. Keeping in mind that you will be sharing a server with potentially hundreds of other people, if one person has a spike in traffic, your load time will drop, and visa versa.

It is in this instance that it is advisable to either seek a VPS or dedicated solution, or even a CDN style backup solution to load your most critical files. There is also what is known as "Cluster Based Hosting" which means that your site will load from a variety of locations, deemed best depending on the location of the visitor. What this means is that instead of loading from one static location regardless of where you are based, it will load on the quickest location based on your location.

It is also worth using caching plugins for WordPress that generate a status set of html files to load content quicker. It is worth mentioning that these plugins amongst all else are a powerful script that runs on your hosting account, so you will still need to be conscious of the amount of computing resources that you are taking up on your host.

Another recommendation is to start using GIF images for graphics, and JPG strictly for photos only. Both of these file formats are purpose built for each purpose, and can generate smaller file sizes. For example, if you are using a large PNG image for your header, consider shrinking it down using the GIF format, as that will take the load off your hosting resources if rolled out over your entire site.

This should not be taken with a grain of salt. Load time is a big factor in not just visitor experience, but also how well your website ranks in the search engines. Using just the above methods should see some massive improvements, however, this is something that should be focused on long term. That way, you can continuously please both your visitors and the search engines.

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Hosted Or Self-Hosted WordPress Blog Website?

WordPress is a free, the most professional and the most customisable blog publishing application. It allows you to easily create a blog or website for free. Blogging is becoming more and more popular on the internet these days. WordPress is also now used to create Websites and for that reason you want your blog/website to be different to the other blogs. So when choosing the WordPress type of hosting, consider both the advantage and disadvantage that comes with each.

You can either use hosted or self-hosted WordPress. Self-hosted WordPress blogging platform needs you to manually install and host the WordPress software whereas the Hosted WordPress - WordPress.com blogging platform is managed by WordPress developer professionals. There are advantages and disadvantages for both hosted and self-hosted WordPress.

Hosted WordPress - WordPress.com

It is really easy to set up and you are ready to go online within minutes. It is also automatically updated when the new release comes out. It is less flexible than the WordPress you download and install yourself. Hosted WordPress is also limited in choosing your domain.

Advantages:

• Free - you don't have to pay for hosting and domain registration. All you need is an e-mail address.
• Automatic Updates - Each time the new version becomes available, your blog will be automatically updated.
• Easy to Use and Set-up - All you need to do is to create a Wordpress account, choose your subdomain, theme and you are ready to go

Disadvantages:

• No income - with hosted WordPress you cannot monetize your blog. All the advertisements are controlled and you are not allowed to display advertisements
• Domain limitation - your domain will be like yourblogname.wordpress.com
• Limited storage space - if you run out of space you will need
• Limited Design - you will get to choose from over 75 themes

When you need a professional blog/website you don't want to be limited with your design, domain name, (you only get a subdomain, like yourdomain.wordpress.com. Other limitations are also with earning revenue, as you can't display advertisements to show your AdSense, Yahoo,... ads. All you can do is add affiliate links in your post.

Self-Hosted WordPress

With self-hosted WordPress you will need to download, install and host the free WordPress platform yourself. You will use your own domain name, which will make your blog/website more professional.

You will also need to get hosting and also will have to do upgrades when new WordPress is available. You can easily customise it, make all the changes you wish to make according to your niche.

But the main thing is that you can earn income from your blog/website. You can display all advertisements like AdSense, Yahoo etc. This can give you a big revenue. The cost varies on how much help you need, who you use to register your domain and hosting with.

A WordPress Blog that is hosted through your own domain ensures that your site is not only completely optimised for search engine ranking, but also provides the highest level of customisation and options to earn revenue.

With self hosted blog you gain more power and control of your own blog.

Advantages:

• Earn revenue - start selling your own products or promoting someone else's products. You are allowed to add a shopping cart and any number of plug-ins for tracking, click-throughs, and other widgets that generate revenue.
• Design - No limitation on themes. There are many free themes available and also customised or premium themes to make it more professional.
• Complete control - you can customise your blog/website as you wish. No limitation on the design. This will help you to differentiate your blog from others. You will have many more options as your online business evolves and grows.
• Search Engine Optimisation - WordPress is Search Engine friendly and allows every single page to be indexed.
• Own Domain Name - choose the right name for your blog/website, get recognised, brand yourself. Do your keywords research first.

Disadvantages:

• Not as easy to set up - you will need to download and install WordPress. This also depend on the type of Hosting you use.
• Not automatically updated - WordPress is becoming more and more popular and it is updated regularly and so you will need to manually update the self-hosted blog with the new release
• Cost - you will have to pay for hosting and domain renewal. With the professional blog, or if you wish to use it as a Website, you will need a professional to design you a unique theme.

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Is AutoBlogging Productive or Spam on Steroids?

People make a lot of assumptions when it comes to autoblogs and autoblogging, and of of the most common is the idea that autoblogs are the same thing as splogs. That in many ways could not be any further from the truth. Spam blogs are intended solely to pick up backlinks and to be picked up quickly by the search engines, and do not really serve any other purpose or bring about any long term results. These are the type of sites that are annoying for search engines to deal with and are eventually noticed and de-indexed over time.

Autoblogs are completely different as they can impressively bring together fresh, targeted content in order to create a site of authority for those interested in the specific topic. While autoblogs and the plugins that can run them do in fact take content from other places, they are intended to give credit to the owner's of the content and are a legitimate means to simply offer information is the fastest and most effective way possible. 

The assumption is that plugins such as the free and powerful MultiPress Content Lite plugin steal content, but in actuality what they are doing is browsing through, aggregating, and sorting content to make it easier for users to find.

Speaking of the MultiPress Lite plugin, since being launched it has quickly become known as one of the most powerful and most effective autoblogging plugins available today. Not only can it create entire autoblogs and then find the perfect content to constantly keep them fresh, it also costs absolutely nothing to download and use. There are no limitations with the free version of the software, and you can use it as many times and for as long as you want.

Even if you have never created an autoblog before, or before reading this article thought that autoblogging was just creating a bunch of splogs, you can easily learn how to get MultiPress up and running in a matter of minutes. All you need to do is set a few rules, choose the keywords you want to target, customize your settings, and then watch the free autoblogging plugin go to work. Within days you can have a variety of sites set up and running while you sit back and take care of more important matters.

Everything that MultiPress and autoblogging can do for you can be summed up essentially in one sentence:

Making more money in less time.

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Free WordPress Templates

Free WordPress templates can be a great way to give your blog a breath of new life with just a couple clicks. You don't have to change the information on your site because WordPress is a database driven CMS. You can simply change the template you are using and then your whole site will instantly look different and all your posts, comments and pages will be right there, it's that easy.

This is just one of the big advantages of using popular CMS (Content Management Systems) like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. For any webmaster who has used MS FrontPage in the past you know how easy using themes can be, but the best thing about using a CMS application is that you don't have to keep uploading files to the internet and synchronizing your "webs" like you used to have to do in FrontPage. 

You can find, install and activate new themes and plugins right from your administration panel when you login to WordPress. Changing your theme on any website can not only add a new look, but in many cases can add new functionality to your website as well.

Now that WordPress 3.0 is out, many of the new themes are taking advantage of the new "menus" feature and adding in some of their own tricks like twitter plugins and much more. You can go search for specific plugins you like and add them to pretty much any existing WordPress theme, but so many new free WordPress themes are coming standard with their own plugins and features that many times you can get everything you need by adding one new theme. 

The best thing about these WordPress templates is that there are so many that you can find for free you never have to worry about spending money to find one that will fit the main theme of your website.

You can find many great free WordPress themes on the official WordPress site by clicking on the "extend" menu or you can always search Google and find many websites that are offering their own free WordPress themes. No matter where you find a great theme for WordPress make sure that you do leave the link back to the originators site, it is only fair after all they have put into creating the design template for you to use for free. 

Many people worry about these links and think that these will effect their seo efforts and in most cases they have absolutely no effect on your page rank or search engine standings. They are a single link and are at the bottom of the page which Google values the least of any link on the page. So don't worry you will be fine.

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The Three Essential WordPress SEO Tips You Need to Know

If you want to know about WordPress SEO, then this is the article for you.

The internet today is incredibly accessible. Facebook, MySpace, and eye-friendly/user-friendly layouts of nearly every website makes the internet browsing experience an overall enjoyable experience. However, the internet wasn't always like this.

With today's internet, anyone can create a blog. Decide on a topic, do a little writing, make a few clicks with your mouse, and BAM. You've got a blog.

However, the internet wasn't always like this. Back in the day, creating a blog or a website was a serious endeavor. Every aspect of your blog had to be painstakingly designed one character at a time. No Visual Fox pro or Dreamweaver back then!

Because creating a blog or a website is now so simple, people can create a website without understanding the intricacies and vital elements required.

One of these intricacies is SEO. Specifically, WordPress SEO.

Thought you might not think it at first, WordPress SEO is incredibly important if you want to get large amounts of traffic to your website. Why? Because you will have a rough time getting your website to the top of Google without proper on-page SEO.

Before you do ANYTHING, you're going to want to do proper keyword research. Chances are, you already know which keywords you want to optimize for in your WordPress SEO endeavors, but double and triple check your competition to ensure that you can take that number one spot in Google.

After you pinpoint your main keyword phrase, target a few secondary keyword phrases. These keyword phrases should be related to your primary keyword phrase, but shouldn't not have too much competition.

After you've decided on the primary and secondary keyword phrases that you'd like to take over, you'll want to make sure that your basic WordPress SEO setting are correct.

Go through your blog and make sure that your headings, subheadings and titles relate to your primary and secondary keyword phrases.

Now that you've taken care of your primary and secondary keyword phrases, it's time to take the next WordPress SEO step. Content.

This is going to be an ongoing effort. Throughout your blogs posts, try to sprinkle your primary keyword and secondary keyword phrases throughout your blog posts.

WordPress SEO isn't something you want to ignore. It seems like a small thing on paper, but it's these small things that are going to put you ahead of your competition.

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