When I first started using WordPress, I avoided premium WordPress plugins. Why? I assumed there were lots of free plugins available to meet my needs. Guess what? For the most part I was right. I didn’t need to spend money on premium plugins, because there were thousands of free plugins readily available. Then something happened. My needs shifted. My novice WordPress skills turned into using WordPress to build and run a business. At that point I realized the oodles and oodles of plugins ... Read More
WordPress Plugins
The Magic Potion of Newsletters: WordPress, Gravity Forms and MailChimp
At the start of 2013 I set a goal of actually producing and sending a weekly newsletter. I had been collecting names for months via Constant Contact, but hadn't quite sent anything out. Call it procrastination or time constraints or just a complete distaste for newsletters. I think it was a combination of all three. If I had to pick between a dentist visit and a newsletter, I’d probably pick the dentist. I suspected I was missing out on revenue due to my hatred for newsletters so in a New ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week Ending June 28th
It's Friday and that means it's time for another weekly roundup. Today we found excellent posts on WordPress security and choosing trustworthy themes and plugins to a beginner's guide on pairing fonts. You'll also find must reads on content marketing mistakes, how to spot links that could be harming your website and why quality over quantity is always best for SEO. Ready to read and take action? Web Design and WordPress Free WordPress Food, Recipe and Restaurant Plugins - These ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week Ending June 14th
It's time for another weekly roundup. At the end of each week we round up the top posts for the week. This week we have great information on how to improve your website, must-have content for your homepage, and some great WordPress plugins to let you know about. We also have good reads on content marketing and some SEO mistakes you might be making. Ready to get reading? Let's go! Web Design and WordPress 5 Minute Fixes: Improve Your Website Even If You're Short On Time and Budget - ... Read More
A Great Tool for Finding WordPress Themes and Plugins
Have you ever stumbled across an awesome website or blog and wondered if it was built using WordPress and if a stock theme was used? Yep, I thought so. You’re not alone. We all do it. The grass always looks greener on someone else's website, so we are on an never ending path of finding WordPress themes and plugins. Back in 2011 a little website called What WP Theme is That? was launched. This simple, but super cool website allows you to quickly locate the theme of any WordPress website and ... Read More
Favorite Genesis Framework Plugins
Did you know there are over seventy-five Genesis framework plugins in the WordPress.org repository? Holy WordPress Batman! That’s a lot of plugins considering the framework alone is already chalked full of features and functions. While I’ve been using a few Genesis plugins for quite a while, I had no idea so many more have been developed. When we build a custom theme or create a stock Genesis child theme, we tend to stick with plugins that we’ve used already and we've labeled “solid”. Knowing ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week Ending May 31st
It's that time again! Time for another roundup post. At the end of each week we gather together some of our favorite posts to share with you. Today you will find a lot of great information on WordPress (being that WordPress just turned 10 years old this week). You will also find good reads on writing great web content, as well as the marriage of content marketing and SEO. Ready to start reading? Let's go! Web Design and WordPress How To Improve The Deployment of WordPress Websites - ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of May 24th
It's that time again. Time for another weekly roundup! Each week we roundup some of the best posts for the week on the topics of WordPress, web design, SEO and more. This week we have a little bit of website inspiration, useful WordPress plugins, and what you need to know about the latest Penguin update from Google. Get ready to dig in! Here we go... WordPress and Web Design 6 New WooCommerce Extensions and Updates - You will find 6 new extensions and updates on 2 popular extensions on ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of May 17th
Welcome back to another weekly roundup post. We come across many great posts throughout the week and this is our way of letting you know about them. This week you will find "need to know" information on WordPress security, the deal on SEO plugins for WordPress, how to rank in the search engines, how to perform a competitive analysis and more. Ready to dig in? Let's go! WordPress and Web Design How To Move Your Site From Joomla to WordPress - Use this easy tutorial if you need to move ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of May 3rd
Welcome to another weekly roundup post. Each week on Friday we are rounding up our favorite posts from this past week. In this week's post you will find out where to get some very cool WordPress plugins and you will also learn how to solve some of the most common WordPress problems. We also found great information on why your search traffic might be down and how to create awesome content. Now let's get on to the content shall we? WordPress and Web Design 5 Ways to Find the Latest and ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of April 26th
It's Friday and that means it's time for another weekly roundup post! We have gathered together some of our favorite posts from the past week. You will find interesting reads on web design and how rank naturally in the search engines. You will also find great information on how you can make your site more Google friendly and even prepare for the next Google update. Let's get to it... WordPress and Web Design 3 Steps For Designing The Ultimate Landing Page - This post is focused on the ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of April 19th
It's that time again! Time for another weekly roundup post. This week we rounded up some of our favorite blog posts on the subjects of WordPress, web design and search engine optimization. You will find great information on common WordPress SEO mistakes, why you need to hire a user experience manager, why long content is trending and even how to promote your new blog post. Ready to learn? Check out these posts. WordPress and Web Design WordPress SEO Mistakes - Learn how to avoid ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of April 12th
It's time for another weekly roundup post! At the end of the week, we are rounding up some of the best blog posts dealing with WordPress, web design and search engine optimization. This week we found cool tips and information on moving a WordPress website without hassle, a lot of plugin tips (and one plugin that is hiding spam), how to manage your content, how to rank locally with citations and much more! Ready? Let's go... WordPress and Web Design 5 Signs Your Website Needs A Better ... Read More
Friday’s Marketing Roundup: Good Reads from the Week of April 5th
It's weekly roundup time once again! Each week we are rounding some of our favorite posts from around the web. This week, you will find information from WordPress security and plugins to mastering your title tags. If you need help or more information related to WordPress, web design or search engine optimization then look no further. Ready for another roundup? Let's go... WordPress and Web Design There is a Theme For That - A new directory to easy search and find a theme. It is kept ... Read More
WordPress Plugins – Be Smart About The Ones You Install
One of the great things about WordPress is the ability it gives us to extend the capabilities of the core software with plugins. The official WordPress Plugin Directory now has nearly 23,000 plugins. That's an amazing amount of extra features we can add to our websites. However the old adage is still true: with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately there's a lot of junk in those 23,000 plugins. You can bog your site down to a crawl, expose your site to hackers or even worse if ... Read More
Three Steps to Keep the Cobwebs Out of WordPress
A lot of our web design clients ask about ongoing WordPress maintenance in the proposal stage of our project. They’ve heard WordPress is easy to use and they want to make sure it will be just as easy to maintain. They also what to make sure their website will be safe, secure, and free of malware or hacking attacks. I’m very open with people in these discussions. And I can be, because I’ve personally had few issues with WordPress maintenance and security. In the years I’ve worked with ... Read More
WordPress Multisite: What it is and Why Should You Care
What is WordPress Multisite? Originally dubbed WordPress MU, WordPress multisite is simply a way of networking a collection of websites under the same WordPress installation. The individual websites in the network are like children websites of the main installation. All share the same hosting account, WordPress themes, and plugin options. They can have unique URLs or have different subdomain addresses based on the main URL. Why does any of this matter and why should you care? WordPress ... Read More
The Girlfriend’s Guide to Blogging
This week I received an email from a longtime girlfriend who is interested in launching a blog. I was actually surprised by this, because Mary (name has been changed to protect the innocent) has a full-time job already and it is not marketing related. She had an idea for a blog and wanted advice on how to get a blog started. My girlfriend is not alone. I receive dozens of emails each week from people wanting blogs and websites created for their “idea” and I can tell at least 75% have no ... Read More
Stand Back! The Geeks Are Coming
Last night I met with a business partner named Scott. Scott is an engineer and his engineering brain loves SEO. I’ve been teaching SEO 101 while we build Scott’s website. Last night as we moved from SEO 101 to SEO 201, Scott couldn’t understand why I didn’t do this with every client. The truth be told, 99% of my clients don’t care. They pay me to make sure their website and SEO are taken care of and they don’t want to worry about it. We All Make Mistakes Very few clients have Scott’s ... Read More
The Case of the Hacked WordPress Website
A few months ago I was out of town visiting a client. On my route home my faithful iPhone popped up an email from another client. The client said “something strange” was appearing on their website. Peculiar I thought, because I’m the only one with admin access and I haven’t changed anything. I thought an investigation was in order, but didn’t go much past that initial thought. Following the Clues When I could get my hands on my Mac, I checked out the website. Sure enough, there was bizarre ... Read More
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