Hostgator Is Great For Websites

I have been using Hostgator for years.  I think for the price they are one of the best web hosts. I like them becasuse technical and customer support is top notch. You can get a hold of them anytime and they help you with any problems really fast. And, unlike some of the other web hosting providers they have a real telephone number. I have used providers with email or chat only. Very frustrating. I like to get on the phone and talk to a real live person.  And, the really nice thing is Hostgator specializes in Wordpress. So check out hostgator.com.

How To Set Permalinks For Your Blog’s Best Exposure

WordPress has become one of the most popular content management systems and blogging platforms for many people in today’s connected world, rivaled only by Typepad (another content management system) because of Typepad’s mobile blogging capabilities.

Among the features that make WordPress so popular are the simple interface and secure environment, but when it comes to making money with your WordPress blog you are going to want to rely on plugins and additions in order to maximize traffic, search engine rankings and revenue potential.

What you are going to learn in this article is the concept of a permalink as it relates to your WordPress blog, as well as how you can tweak this feature in order to gain more control over the way your page address is displayed, the way that a search engine spider will rank each individual page, and even how you can use keywords properly in order to serve the highest paying contextual ads (using Google’s AdSense program for example).

First, what is a permalink? Well it is just like it sounds, it is a permanent link to a post on your blog. In order to understand the concept behind permalinks it is important to understand exactly what a CMS does and why this can be so much easier than running a traditional HTML website.

In a nutshell, the purpose behind a content management system (CMS) is to completely separate the content from the page layout, as well as to provide a simple interface where it is easy to add new content. It is also important to note that the structure of a blog is different than a traditional HTML site; whereas in traditional sites new content will be added via ‘deep linking,’ new content on a blog shows up directly on the front page. This is why permalinks are important, because your post will show up on the front page of your blog only temporarily and it needs to have a permanent link as well.

There are many different criteria that you can use when setting up your permalink structure, and this is where search engine optimization and relevant high-paying AdSense ads come in to the picture. One of the biggest factors in search engine algorithms and contextual ad serving technology is filenames, and so it is important to create a permalink structure for your WordPress blog that will include relevant keywords that are prechosen for your title.

The default permalink structure (depending on your version of WordPress) will either be simply numbering each post sequentially or it will be the date of the post. This does not tell a search engine spider any relevant information about your post, and as such your pages will usually rank lower in any type of hypertext-based search engine.

What you need to do to make your WordPress posts search engine friendly is to make your permalinks display the post title and possibly category title, and then choose post and category titles that include keywords relevant to your topic. You can optimize your pages for higher paying AdSense ads by determining which keywords pay out the most per click and then using those keywords in your post and category titles.

WordPress 2.6 Is Out With New Features

I just installed Wordpress 2.6. It’s official name is Tyner. Who’s Tyner?  McCoy Tyner, a jazz pianist  that WordPress chose to honor with this release. It has a few new and really nice features. the first is a cache of your earlier posts. If you change a post and don’t like it or want your old post back, just scroll to the bottom of the post page and there is a rollback to an earlier version of the post button. Click it and you have an earlier post. Another great thing is that they added “shift click″ to the admin panel. This way you can shift click multiple posts, pages etc. and for example delete all at once.

Also, there is an integrated theme preview. Now if you have multiple themes installed you can preview the theme before you implement it.

Check it out.

Adding Flash Video WordPress Plugin

I needed to add video to one of my sites and I wanted an easy way to do it. I tried a couple of video plugins but couldn’t find one I liked. I came across Hana Flv Player and fell in love with it. So easy to use. The tag is very simple and it works like a charm.
1. Download and unzip the zip file. Upload `hana-flv-player` folder with all of its contents to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the `Plugins` menu in WordPress Admin Interface.
3. Adjust the default settings in the ‘Settings’ menu in the Admin Interface if you want to.
4. Use `[hana-flv-player video='...'/]` in your blog article.  Attribute `video` is the only mandatory item where you define the video file. It can be full URL or absolute or relatvie path.

If you want a quick test and see if it’s working fine, goto Hana Flv Player settings admin page and copy the example shown in the bottom and paste in your blog article.

So easy!

WordPress The Non Designer Tool

Wordpress is so easy to use that in a few short hours anyone can make a professional looking site with little or no experience. All it takes is a killer template and their are a lot of them for free,  a few choice plugins like
Akismit and All in One SEO and your cPanel Fantstico. With a click of the button you will have WordPress installed. Now just upload your plugins and templates or use the one click plugin to do it automatically and you are on your way to having a great site real cheap.

Google Sitemaps Are Important

It is important for Google and the other search engines to find your site. The best way to do this is by adding a Google Sitemap to your blog or website. Wordpress makes it very easy to do this. I use this myself. All you need to do is do a search engine search for “Google Sitemap Wordpress Plugin″ and you will find many. Pick one and upload to your site. Then navigate to Google Webmaster Tools on their site and if you don′t have an account register. Then you can add your site to their directory. You will have to verify your site by putting a small empty file page Google gives you to verify that the site is yours. Then just turn on your Google sitemap plugin and tell Google where to find your sitemap and any future updates will be listed in Google.

How to Make a WordPress Static Site

It is really easy to create static Wordpress sites.

Find a nice template you like. There are many sites with free Wordpress templates. Go to Google and do a search on ” Free Wordpress Templates″ or “Free Wordpress Themes″.

If you don′t need things in the sidebar like calenders or archives etc, a simple solution is to go to design>widgets and by adding widgets you can make the sidebar look exactly as you like. This way you don′t have to touch any code.

Add the all in one seo plugin
Add the privacy policy plugin. Optional, but I always have a privacy policy on my sites.
Add a sitemap plugin if you want. Good for Search Engines
Add a Google Sitemap.

If you want Adsense or affilaite banners add the ads manager plugin or any of the other wordpress plugins available. I use ads manager. It also can be used to easily add other types of banners to a page and control it by the Admin panel. With ad smanager you also need:
exec php plugin. Might need this if you are going to hard code includes into the template. I use it to add banners to the sidebar via widgets and the text widget. If you don′t know what this means then forget it.

Find the plugins at Wordpress.org or do a Google search for each of the above plugins. If I am looking for some type of plugin I usually do a Google search by “keyword” and then “wordpress plugin.”

Activate plugins in your wp admin panel. They are located in the plugins link to the right if you are using Wordpress 2.5. Read the instructions that are on the individual author plugin sites as to how to use them.

Create a page. Label it whatever you like. Scroll down the page writing panel to all in one seo area and add keywords and description to your page.

Scroll down some more to comments and pings and turn off Allow Comments so you won′t see a user comment box. If you want also un-check Allow Pings. It is up to you. I un-check both.

All the way on the bottom of the page you will see Page order. If you want to have a certain order to your pages in your category menu then name the page you want on top of the menu 1 then the next page you create 2 etc. You can later change the order of your pages by using this feature. This is good so that maybe a sales page will be on top.

I also use the subcategories Parent – child a lot. An example. I will make a page say articles and then add different article pages as a subcategory to articles. For me everything is then neat and orderly. But this technique is up to you.

In the Wordpress admin panel go to settings>reading. On top you will see reading settings. Then “front page displays″. In the front page displays check the radio button “A static page (select below)” and then from the front page drop down menu click the page you want to use for your front page. That page I usually title Welcome or I will add a keyword rich title. if you don′t want any title leave blank.

Now you have the start of a static website with Wordpress. Use pages instead of posts, add keywords and descriptions via all in one seo and your site is static. Control the sidebar with widgets.

You can add to it but this will give you a basic static website.

Do not choose templates that make use of the wordpress tagging feature. Some of these templates are called newspaper themes. They are a little harder to do and take a little more to understand.

Probably you can find someone who has time on their hands to do it for you. I have a problem with doing the word for someone mainly because no one ever did it for me. I learned myself. I just did the research and mainly used Google to find anything I needed. And the advantage was that I learned very fast.

If you don′t do it yourself you are at the mercy of other people. If you do it yourself and, this is really easy once you get the hang of it, you can keep your site updated and fresh very fast.

This Chinese proverb is very powerful and I think about it every day:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Sitepoint is giving away a free Photoshop ebook

The Generous editors at Sitepoint are giving away their Photoshop book in pdf format titled ‘The Photoshop Anthology‘. It is only for a short time. No strings attach, no payments. All you need to do is, go to the website, enter your email address and start downloading. Check it out.

WordPress 2.5.1 Image Upload Fix

Since upgrading to 2.5.1 I have been having problems uploading images with the “image uploader” used in the Write post/page. I found this tutorial on how to fix the problem. It seems to have to do with security and permissions.

Now, some installations don’t seem to have the problem. Everyone including myself who use Hostgator seem to have the problem. So check to see if you get errors before doing this.

It is a simple fix by just adding a few lines into the .htaccess file. For more info and a step by step guide, navigate to: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wordpress-25-image-upload-error-wordpress-fix/

Adsense Manager Plugin Is My Ad Plugin Of Choice

Adsense manager is now my plugin of choice when I want to add banners or adsense ads to my WordPress site. I used to use Adsense Deluxe plugin but have completely switched over.  It works with almost anything. I add Clickbank ads, banner ads, adbrite ads so easily. The admin panel is very easy to use. I can add or change an ad effortlessly.  I highly recommend this plugin if you want to put any type of advertising on your WordPress site.