An in-depth look at the internals of the WordPress system. As the most popular blogging and content management platform available today, WordPress is a powerful tool. This exciting book goes beyond the basics and delves into the heart of the WordPress system, offering overviews of the functional aspects of WordPress as well as plug-in and theme development.What is covered in this book?WordPress as a Content Management SystemHosting OptionsInstalling WordPress FilesDatabase

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Get comfortable with WordPress fast, with this media-rich, customized, hands-on learning experience!   Covers the upcoming release of a major upgrade to WordPress, WordPress 3.0 Tightly integrated with online video, screencast tutorials, podcasts, and more: the total learning experience for new WordPress users Companion website provides supplemental media including video, screencasts tutorials, podcasts, and much more.   WordPress has grown into the #1 blogging tool in its category: several

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http://wordpress.org/support/topic/having-new-wordpress-dashboard-problems-with-new-32-upgrade

But you don’t need to read all that. Here is the relevant suggestion:

vinkumar751 Member #

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In the Dashboard there is a listing of how many posts you have, how many pages, etc. If you click on the word Posts, it takes you to the regular Posts listing, and you can select a post to edit.

Unfortunately there is no such listing for Plugins, so I still cannot change or update settings on plugins. And I desperately need to do so.

Also, some plugins have their own dashboard and are operated manually from within WordPress. Too bad. No access.

There is a set of pulldown menus that appears across the top of the page when viewing the blog once you are logged in (not the dashboard, the blog itself), but it is very limited.

It has occurred to me that it the WP 3.2 might be incompatible with that particular theme, but if I change themes I will need to edit code, rearrange widgets, etc.—and I will not be able to in this WP version. Grrrrrr!

Plus, that has been one of my most stable themes, I have customized it, and I do not want to change it.

Please leave a comment if you have found a way around the plugin problem or if you have specific info about an remedial update on the horizon.

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I assumed a blog was just a blog.  Boy, did I learn otherwise!

After a lot of research, recommendations, and help from others (that’s the “Network” part of network marketing) I realized that I better go with installing WordPress for my blog.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with WordPress, it’s a blog platform that gives you a pre-built blog site for free.  But if you REALLY want to boost up your blog marketing – you really need to get a self-hosted WordPress blog and your own personal domain.  And I’m going to go into more details why here in the list.

As any smart marketer realizes – leave the hard stuff to the professionals.  So that is why I outsourced my blog set-up (which included the graphics, RSS feeds, theme, and connection to all of my social networking sites) to THE professional blog set-up guru I know – Ms. Shannon Shubert at IM Group Marketing.

I also self-hosted my site – and again, to another professional who knows a ton more information about self-hosting and is THE ONLY person I would trust with hosting my blog – Holly Powell at Nonstop Social Media.

If you stop by their sites, tell them I sent you!

Here are my Top 5 Reasons to Use WordPress for your blog:

1. Google Loves WordPress – If you’re using a blog for your marketing strategies, you’re probably interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – at least a little bit.  If you’re into SEO, then you want and need Google giving your site “some love.”  Now, I could go on and on and on and on and ON about SEO, but the idea is that you want Google ranking your site higher than your competition for any given keyword.  Well, for whatever reason, Google loves WordPress.  Period.  Game, set, match!  You need a WordPress blog if you are in SEO strategies.

Yes, you can use other blog sites and still get good ranking, but you typically have to work harder to get the same amount of “love” from Google as your competition.  If you already have a different blog and are so far into it that it would hurt you more than help you, just stick with it and MAKE IT WORK.  But AT LEAST have it self-hosted – which leads me into my next point.

2. Self hosted – I have this in my top 5 reasons, well, for a good reason.  (Oh man I’m witty!)  You can use the free version of wordpress and have no problems and make that work for you just fine.  But you could run into a few problems, the biggest of which is that your blog could be here one day, and gone the next.  If you have a self hosted WordPress blog, no one can touch it.  It’s yours.  Yes, you’re paying a small monthly hosting fee (usually around $5.00 or less) but it’s WELL worth its value considering the thought that you might lose your blog otherwise.

On top of having your blog self hosted – I would also recommend getting a domain name that is specific to you.  Mine is obviously www.LinusRuzicka.com.  It looks a lot more professional that the generic site URL that WordPress gives your site.  Having your domain forwarded is essential for branding YOU in this industry.

3. WordPress Design Themes – Now , do you want the generic WordPress Theme that comes with WordPress, or a custom designed one that is specific only to you?  The default WordPress theme is perfect if you’re just setting up a blog to have a blog.  BUT, since you’re in this industry to make money and brand you, I suggest a designed custom theme. There are tons of people who design custom WordPress Themes that you can easily upload to your domain, to change the appearance and feel of your WordPress website. Some of the WP Themes are paid versions, but most of them are free.

There are more than 1000 themes loaded directly into the WordPress theme website, from which you can choose, although you are not limited to just the themes loaded into the WordPress website.  Since I outsourced the design and feel of my blog, my designer and I talked bakc and forth for a week or so to grind out the details of what I wanted.  The theme I chose is very SEO friendly (“Monezine” theme), but there are many other to choose from such as “Flexibility” or “Thesis”

4. Plug-ins – This is my favorite.  Plugins are what soups-up your blog and converts it from a 1992 Ford Taurus, into a 2010 Chevy Camaro.  The right plug-in can save you time, make you money, and make your job a WHOLE lot easier.  In fact, I think I’ll make my next post on specific plug-ins just so you can see some of the money making ones you NEED to have on your blog (So make sure to Sign-up to get my blog updates via e-mail so you can get the next one).

Just like with the WordPress Themes, if there is a specific function you want your blog to perform, there are programmers out there who have created WordPress Plugins that will make your job A LOT easier. There are 1000′s of WordPress Plugins on the WordPress.org website (wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ ), which are free and an ever growing amount that are not in the WordPress database.  You just have to go looking for them.

When you find a Plugin you want, just click “Install” on that specific plugin page, and it will automatically download, unzip, and upload it to the right Plugin directory on your blog. After it finished its upload, simply go to the backoffice area of your blog to “activate” the plugin.

5.  WordPress functionality – Now, I don’t want to lose you here on this one, so I’ll keep it simple.  WordPress is an HTML based blog platform.  The reason I love that is that it allows you to do SOOOOOOO much more to your blog.  Whan you’re creating a post – you have the ability to add videos, pics, graphics, links, and audio all in HTML format.  The cool thing is, when you create posts, you can create them in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design – meaning that what you see on the screen is what your readers will see.  Or you can do HTML formating – all with a click of the mouse and flip-flop back and forth.

To Double check and see what your content will look like, you can “Preview” it and see it in real time on your designed blog to double check and make sure it looks the way you want it to.

So there you have it, the Top 5 Reasons To Use WordPress For Your Blog, but that’s not the end of it yet.  To get more Free blog marketing strategies and find out how you can get more network marketing tips delivered straight to your inbox visit the Linus Ruzicka Marketing Nerve Center.
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WordPress also has a great feature which allows you to install plug-ins. These plug-ins are small pieces of programming that change how wordpress works, in some way.

For example you may have a plug-in which automatically deletes spam (undesirable) comments left on your site, or even one which automatically places advertisements in each page you create. The possibilities really are endless when it comes to customising wordpress to suit your needs.

The first thing you need to do to get wordpress running is to download the latest version, this is available on the wordpress.org web site. You will end up with a .zip file which is around 3mb in size.

Although the wordpress installation is a very simple process, it is recommended that you possess the following skills to make it easier.

A server with PHP and MySQL (required!)
The basics of MySQL database management (creation, backup, etc.)
Basic knowledge of how HTML/CSS and PHP work.

For this guide I am installing wordpress on my local apache server, although the steps are exactly the same for those of you using a Linux hosting environment with cPanel.

Step One: Upload the wordpress install zip to your root directory, you can also use a sub directory if this is where you want the wordpress site to be located (for example blog.yoursite.com).

Step Two: Unzip/decompress the wordpress zip file, a folder named ‘wordpress’ will appear. It is in here where the main files for wordpress are located. Open the wordpress folder and move the files from ‘public_html/wordpress’ to ‘public_html’ if you want the wordpress install at the root of your site, otherwise you can leave them in the folder and the wordpress site will be located at ‘yoursite.com/wordpress’. Please note you can change the name of this folder as it will appear in your URL.

Step Three: You will need to create a database and user for this wordpress installation and assign privileges to the user. This can be done through cPanel easily, make sure you remember the password and other details as you will need these soon.

Step Four: Navigate in your web browser to the location of the wordpress files, this may be ‘yoursite.com’ or ‘yoursite.com/wordpress’. You will be asked to create a configuration file, click the button and one should be created for you.

Step Five: A screen will tell you that wordpress requires your database information; click next and there is another page where you enter this information. Database host is almost always localhost and you can use any table prefix if you only have one database for multiple systems. The rest of the information you should know from creating your databases in step three. If you enter the information correctly you will be asked to run the install, click the button now.

Step Six: Once the install is complete you get to enter some basic information on your wordpress site. Choose a site name and enter your email and a secure password for your admin account. Ensure the password is strong as people will often try and hack the admin accounts for wordpress sites. You can now log into your wordpress site and will be greeted by the sleek dashboard. Your base installation is now complete.

The first thing you will want to do once your installation is complete is to write your first post. On the left hand side of the page is the administration menu. Click on the item named ‘posts’ you are now taken to a list of active posts, and will see a test post. It is a good idea to delete this post as it is only there for testing purposes, hover over the ‘Hello World!’ post and you will see red text saying trash, click this and the post is deleted.

On the admin menu you will notice the posts item now has sub items (or items below it), these are specific options to do with the posts, and each main item on the menu will have sub items like this. You can show and hide them at any time by hovering over the main menu item and clicking the arrow to the right. Click on the ‘add new post button’ and we will write the first post for your site. Choose a title for your post then go to the next larger box and begin writing it, you may like to take this time to familiarise yourself with the features available inside the post box. Once you have written your post you need to choose a category, these categories are used to sort the posts on your web site. On the right hand site, click on the ‘add new category text’ and create a new category. You can manage these categories on their page which can be accessed under the Posts menu item. Click the ‘blue publish button’ on the right hand side of your page and the post is now published to your web site, wasn’t that easy!

Other important aspects of wordpress sites are pages. These are more static than posts and appear separately. Common uses for pages are for contact forms, about us pages, whereas posts are used for actual content. Click on the pages menu item to the left, then on ‘add new’, we are going to create an about us page. Enter the title of the page ‘about’ or ‘about us’ will work, then go about adding the content. Once you are happy with what you have written you can publish the page.

Adding a new theme to wordpress is a very simple process and it can help your site look more appealing to visitors. On the wordpress.org site there is an ‘extend’ category for themes, it is here that you will choose a look for your site. Once you have found a theme that you like, you can download it (which consists of a zip file). You will now upload this to your themes directory, this is located in the ‘wp-content/themes’ folder of your wordpress site. Once it is uploaded you will need to unzip/decompress it. Go back to your wordpress dashboard (admin menu) and click on appearance, now choose the Themes option. This page will list all of the themes you have in your directory, find the one you have just uploaded and select ‘activate’. Congratulations, it only took several clicks of the mouse but your site now has a whole new design.

Plug-ins are just as simple as themes to get working in your blog. You can look through the plug-ins section at wordpress.org to find any that interest you. Once you find one that you want on your wordpress site, download it (again a zip file, are you surprised?), but this time upload it to ‘wp-content/plugins’ and unzip/decompress. Click on the plugins menu item on the wordpress administration menu and your plug-in should be listed here, click on activate and the plug-in will begin working on your site. At this time the specific plug-in may require custom settings, you will get a popup notice if this is the case.

In this guide we only covered the basics on wordpress and the features any new site administrator is likely to use. There is so much more to wordpress and trying to write about every little feature would result in a massive book! We recommend that you take a look through all of the options of the administration menu, just so you can get an understanding of anything. If there is something that you would like to change it can likely be done easy using this menu. If you have any further queries, the wordpress.org site has a whole wiki dedicated to helping you solve your problems. We hope you found this guide useful and decide to go with wordpress; the power it offers web masters really is unmatchable by any other CMS. Good luck with your web site, and remember to make backups often, you never know when you will need them.

Written by SiteArticles.com.
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I had struggled for a while with trying to figure out how to use them in WordPress, but when it came down to it, it was merely a case of adding a little HTML. Here’s how to do it:

First of all, create all the text on your page, including where you will be linking from (a list of FAQs) for examples and where you will be linking to (the anchor – a set of answers for example). Bear in mind that you can use anchors to link to another page altogether, so the link does not need to be on the same page as the anchor.

Create the Anchor

Once you have created all your text, go to the place that you want to place the anchor. This is most likely some text, but can just as easily be an image or any other part of your WordPress post.

Making sure that you are in the HTML editing part of your WYSIWYG editor, put your cursor before the text/image/code. Once there, you will need to “mark” the text, so that the place of the anchor is specified. You should do this by putting the following code ahead of the text/code, changing the word label for any string you choose (this could be descriptive, or simply sequential numbering):

< a>Text and/or code here…< /a>

Repeat this process for every part of the page that you want anchors, using a different label for each one.

Create the Link

Now that your anchor is in place, you are ready to create the link to it. This is done by using the href HTML tag. As such, use can use relative or absolute links accordingly. The href tag syntax is made up like this:

< a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”URL you are linking to”>Text that will link to URL< /a>

Therefore, in this case, you will create a link such as this, replacing the appropriate parts so that it suits your application:

< a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.yourdomain.com/faqs/#label”>Text linking to anchor< /a>

If the link and the anchor are on the same page however, you can use a relative URL, which involves deleting everything between the first quotation marks (“) and the hash symbol (#), leaving a much simpler href:

< a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”#label”>Text linking to anchor< /a>

Let me know if you have any problems or suggestions, but even more so, let me know if this helped you out.

I’m Dave and I’ve been building websites for several years, using WordPress as my platform of choice. I create WordPress tutorials so that my clients can use them to maintain their own sites, rather than relying on an expensive web designer to do simple tasks.
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Graffiti art has tremendous vitality and a feeling of authenticity. Sometimes ugly, it can also be beautiful and outrageously creative. It can lend freshness and creativity to a building, a neighborhood, or your blog.

I had created a page, where I intended to add a widget that allows you to easily make your own graffiti graphic signature. It’s free. It’s fun. And you just might find a use for the graphics you make.

However, WordPress will not execute the flash code required to implement the widget on a page. Instead you will need to go to the NY Graffiti Creator site and use the widget there.

They do offer the widget code to embed in your own site. (Presumably it works on HTML sites?) It does work if you paste the code in a WordPress Text widget and put that in a sidebar. I have done that, and it worked.

So for now you can see (and use) the widget in the lower right corner of this site. But I will not leave it there for long, so play with it now and remember to go to NYGraffitiCreator.com if you want it later.

By the way, the text entry box is that gray bar right above the control sliders under the Preview area.

Enjoy!

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Today, WordPress and Blogspot are the industry leaders when it comes to the blogging arena. When you answer the following questions, it will help ensure that you are using the best platform for your new blog.

1) Is the Interface Easy to Understand and Work With?

If you know how to compose and send emails, you will most likely have few problems using the Blogspot platform.  On the other hand, if you aren’t accustomed to posting in groups, or on social networks, you may find the WordPress platform a bit more complicated.

Nevertheless, once you get accustomed to the functions on one blogger platform, you can transfer the concepts to other platforms.  Therefore, even if you feel more comfortable with the Blogspot platform, you should not automatically eliminate WordPress from your list of possible platforms.

2) Are There Advanced Features Available?

Ideally, you should choose a platform that will allow you to take advantage of new marketing tools, as well as other technologies.  This includes incorporating social networking information, as well as many other things that will give your blog a constant source of live content.

In general, you will find that WordPress outstrips Blogspot when it comes to advanced features.  For example, if you select the Atahualpa theme, you will gain access to a page menu with listing features.

When it comes to advanced features, you should also give some thought to functions that may not be seen by users.  In particular, if you are going to have more than one writer work on the blog, it will be of some help to provide each person with an account.

Even though both Blogspot and WordPress offer account setup functionality, WordPress tends to give you more options.  On the other hand, the Blogspot platform tends to be more secure.

At the very least, you won’t have to worry about continually upgrading to a new version because hackers have found yet another hole to exploit in the platform’s overall security.

3) Can the Blog Script Be Modified Easily?

Even though WordPress has an endless number of advantages, it can be very difficult to modify the basic template.

Consider a situation where the theme you select does not come with controls for changing the header image or background color. If you look at the WordPress dashboard, you may find well over a dozen files that may have coding related to these parts of the blog.

Without a question, if you do not have experience with CSS, HTML, and PHP, you may find that making even simple changes represents a daunting challenge.

By contrast, making changes to a Blogspot template is much easier. At the very least, you can edit everything in one file.

At the same time, if you need to make changes to a widget, you can easily select an option in the editor that will give you access to the appropriate code. Therefore, even if you are not familiar with web design, you can still tweak a Blogspot template with a minimal amount of difficulty. Worst comes to worst, you can also reset the blog with ease.

During the process of choosing a blogging platform, it is very important to make sure that you will be able to manage each aspect of the blog with a minimal amount of difficulty.  This includes being able to make changes to the following basic areas:

Header and Footer
Fonts, colors, and format for posts
Background colors and designs
Number of Columns and Column Size
Login and account areas for writing teams

Once you begin comparing the general characteristics of the Blogspot and WordPress platforms, it will be much easier for you to determine which one will give you the most flexibility in each category of interest.

As may be expected, you may come across situations where one platform will suit your needs better than others.  Therefore, even though you may have chosen one platform for your first blog, there is no reason to conclude that you will never want to use a different platform at some point in the future.

About the Author:

Learn how to make money blogging today. Visit Brian’s website, http://www.HomebasedBlogging.com and learn how you can make money online from blogging using social media, affiliate marketing, podcasting, article marketing, and many other money-making topics from blogging professionals.

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Image via CrunchBase

I use several plugins to promote WordPress blogs via Twitter. They mainly fall into three categories:

Getting users to tweet individual posts.

Getting users to follow you on Twitter  (so they are reminded to come back).

Automatically tweeting about every single post.

Getting Users to Tweet Your Posts

There are others, but the plugin I use to get readers to tweet my posts is Tweet This. It offers a nice selection of buttons. I get to select which button it will insert at the end of each post.

Getting Users to Follow You on Twitter

The Twitter badge that remains in the upper right (or the left, if you choose) corner of the blog window is one of my favorite Twitter-related blog add-ons. It is attractive and can be eye-catching without being intrusive. Basically it takes up no space.

You get the badge for free at http://www.go2web.com. You select the color, the wording, even the exact position (left/right, and distance from the top). The site generates the code to create the badge on your blog.

The Twitter badge is not technically a plugin, because you have to use the Appearance > Editor and insert it in the PHP code (usually on the footer page), but that is actually quite easy. And the thing just works.

You can edit the color on your own site (instead of regenerating it at Go2Web.com) if you want to. Simply change the hex code in the tiny script you pasted on the footer page.

Tweeting Posts Automatically

Automatically tweeting a link to each post seems to be the most effective of all the Twitter tie-ins I have tried. There are several (at least) plugins that do that, and all of them that I have tried work just fine. Here are the ones I use:

Twitter Autopost

Tweet This

Twitter Tools

Twitter Autopost

Twitter Autopost is the simplest automatic tweet plugin I’ve ever seen. It is not free. I bought it with another automation plugin for less than $5.

Tweet This

Tweet this is free. You can find and install it, using the Add New feature in your WordPress dashboard. Besides adding a Tweet This button as described above, it can be easily set up automatically post to a Twitter account. Just enter a Twitter username and password.

Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools is a whole complex of tools. It allows you to not only tweet automatically when you make a blog post but also to automatically post tweets to your WordPress blog. You have to be careful in setting up this plugin, or your tweet-post-cycle can become circular.

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