For some people, installing WordPress plug-ins is a Herculean task only for the IT professionals. Plugins bring endless possibilities for functionality and features to your WordPress site; however, many users are not very much aware how to use and to add this plugins to their site.

In reality, with just a few clicks you can easily install a plugin without much hassle. Here are a few considerations and resources that you will need for plugin installation.

Do a Little Research – Before you make up your mind to install any plugin, find some time to investigate.

1. In the WordPress Plugin Directory, you can find available and free open source plugins.
2. In the (Plugins > Add New) WordPress Dashboard you can search for plugins as well.

• Check Compatibility – Be sure to check the compatibility of the plugin to the version of WordPress that you are using. A plugin that is not compatible to your current WordPress version can make your theme or website to break.
• User Ratings – One way to identify the author’s support and the quality of the plugins is to read user ratings. A review on the plugins support forums is a great way to be aware of the options and conflicts in a specific plugin. Make sure to choose reliable and trustworthy sources.
• Premium Plugins – There are also plugins that are not available in the WP Directory. These Premium Plugins come with a fee for additional support from the author.

Installing WordPress Plugins

In everything you do for your WordPress site, it’s necessary to have a backup of everything – it is better to play it safe all the time. Here are few tips that you need to know in installing plugins in your WordPress site.

1. After the preliminary reviews and you have already decided on the plugin that you want for your site, in the right side bar select the red download button. Take not of the location of the file in your hard drive.
2. Select Plugins > Add New > Upload
3. Upload the zip file that you just downloaded in your WordPress website.

Upon activation of the plugin and you find something is wrong or something did not turn out as you want – you are caught in a conflict. This scenario can happen and there is nothing to worry about. This is the reason why you have to a backup before updating or installing anything. Deactivate the plugin and try another plugin with same features and functionality with the other one.

With the above information, installing a plugin is not a Herculean task only for the IT professionals after all. There are two things that you have to remember, review and backup.

Let’s face it; many are not happy with their organic or natural search engine rankings. And these are the same people who are obsessing about gaining high ranks in the search engines.

The logic is simple, if you are dead serious about attaining high ranks in the search engines that you desire – invest more time, energy and resources to get what you want.

Maybe at this point, you are already decided to invest for some good SEO. That means you have to understand that the most important thing in SEO is to find out what keywords are your target market looking for. Because, in SEO the CLIENT is your PRIORITY.

After you have identified the keywords and information your target market seeks for, the next step is to create valuable content for your client.

• Create high quality, catchy, interesting and very useful content.
• Create more high quality, catchy, interesting and very useful content.
• While at it, create more high quality, catchy, interesting and very useful content.

The point is simple. It doesn’t take skyrocket science to explain that all you need is quality articles. Good writing and nothing more but good writing that is relevant to your clients. Finding the right keywords and writing some relevant content about is SEO – soon rankings will naturally happen. But, of course it takes time and effort – lots of it! Your goal is simple; you want the visitors to steer away from that back button. And with the passion to create engaging content that persuades each visitor to click that contact button you can achieve what you want.

Sadly, not everyone is willing to spend much on that department. Patience and perseverance is a gift not everyone is blessed with. They opt for these shortcuts that give them no favourable results:

1. Changing keywords, descriptions and titles hoping that it will lead them to the high ranks in search engines – A change in the keywords, descriptions and titles alone does not guarantee positive results. Descriptions and titles should always be page specific.
2. More blogs means higher ranks! Quality content works, nonsensical regurgitated ones does not. Blogging per se does not improve ones ranks. Quality overrides quantity in SEO.
3. Linking to everyone – Google is smart enough to identify that you are linking to unrelated websites that gives no value.

The truth is, you, without the professional help of SEO specialists can SEO your WordPress website. So that, the target market that you’ve been eyeing can find you. Just write about what they want.

It is no secret that site navigation menus are not easy to customize before the WordPress 3.X. Customizing menu is made easier now, because it is way beyond the basic alphanumeric order of WordPress. In fact, most of the themes offer a feature where you can add two or more menus.

If you want to do some changes in your menu, you can do so with just a few clicks. You can manipulate your menus, simply by clicking to: Appearance > Menus.

1. How To Create a New Menu

   First, click the + (plus sign) tab then name your menu. From there, you have the option to select the box that indicates, “Automatically add new top-level pages”. Selecting this will add any new page that will create to the menu. If you choose this option, always remember to check menu order and arrange it as you desire.

2. How To Add a Menu Item

   After you have created a new category or a new page, choose the menu tab for the specific menu that you would want to add. Afterwards, check the item in left sidebar then select Add to Menu. Then you may drag-n-drop a new menu item to your preferred location.

3. How To Reorder Menu

   Just click on the tab for the menu that needs modification, then drag-n-drop the menu items in your desired order.

4. How To Add a Custom Link

   To add URL title and label, utilise the custom link box that is found on the left side.

5. How To Create a Submenu

   If you want an item to be subbed under a main title, just move the item then jog it a bit to the right so as to make it appear indented. This process will make a category or a page be a submenu for another title. Afterwards select the button Add to Menu then position the new link in your menu. This feature is quite good especially for off-site links such as social media, Estores or other websites.

   To sum it up, WordPress is evolving and with each upgrade new things are made easier for all of us. Not very long ago, WordPress shows all its pages. But nowadays, if you have a private page, or member’s only page, password secured page that you don’t want every visitor to see – with a few clicks or just simply do not add it into your menus it is concealed just like you want it.

You are getting good website traffic and you are happy with it. The thing is, that is not good enough. In terms of new web content, revising or reusing an old content, and landing pages you need to be aware of the website statistics.

If you have cPanel in your hosting server, you can locate your website’s statistics at the Logs | AWSTATS. However, because each host is unique, you may ask them if you are not able to locate the statistics.

To get the hang of it in no time, you need to familiarize yourself with the following 5 criteria. Basically, this will give you a good grasp of what is happening in your own website.

1. Quality over Quantity – You may hear online business owners brag about their outstanding website traffic and enormous “hits”. While the huge number of hits may sound really impressive, sometimes that number is not as relevant as it seems. Basically, a hit is counted with each call to the server. To know how many hits you have, you just need to go to your homepage and count the number of different images displayed – every image is equivalent to one hit. A single visitor can cause dozens of hits, that’s why the number of unique visitors is much important than the number of hits.
2. The Top Entry – The top entry pages is a metric that reveals the page where your visitors entered your site during their visit. With this metric you can identify the top pages where visitors enter; therefore, you can utilise this information and use it to your advantage to generate more traffic.
3. The Top Exit – The top exit pages reveal the specific pages where the visitors specifically left your site. This can help you identify which pages need improvement on the content flow and navigation. If each visitor exits at the same page, you may use this information to work the changes that you need for that specific page.
4. The Terms – The terms reveals the phrases and keywords utilised to find your website. This can be surprising at times.
5. The Referrers – This is the area of statistics where you will find referring sites and search engines. These sites are where your visitors clicked a link going to your site.

The above mentioned criteria can basically help you pinpoint which strategies are working and which are not. Understanding the trends and differences in your website is definitely an advantage for you and your business. Visit you statistics more often, there’s a ton of useful information there, just waiting for you to discover.

The ideal thing to happen is to have huge number of one-way links into your website. That only proves one thing – other sites find your website relevant enough to link with, even without you agreeing that you will link back.

Sure, exchange links is a not a bad thing. But you should be careful in linking to other sites – it should make sense for both parties and to the readers all the time. It won’t make sense if competitors will exchange links. And two different markets sharing links is a bit odd.

Many believe that exchanging links is the way to go to the high ranks in search engines. But, the truth is – it is not. In fact, it is being apparent that website owners are chasing links to the extent of excluding all other effective methods. Link building is just a single part of the huge puzzle – it is not the key to a single lock.
Link building isn’t just about putting your site address in anybody’s site. It should be a relevant place to put your link on. What do you think about having your links in pornographic sites? It doesn’t make sense, right? Therefore, it is imperative to make certain that you are linking only a site that is credible enough to recommend yours.

When you are linking to a site you are giving a subtle recommendation for your visitors about the website that you are linking with. So, its just smart steer away from linking to those poorly developed sites. Furthermore, the website you are linking to should catch you market’s interest as well. In this business, you will be judged by the links that you have.

In linking circles and link farms always be very apprehensive. Things that come easily don’t give positive results. There is no easy way to reach the top of the ladder. Search engines are carefully designed and are smart enough to identify websites that are artificially gaining links to top the search engine results. In fact, those websites that participate in buying links are given high ranks and sometimes they even get penalized.

Building irrelevant links to irrelevant sites does not work. So, what now? Create a website that is rich with relevant content that is worth linking with and links will naturally and eventually come. In Search Engine Optimization, there are no shortcuts to success. Hardwork is what pays of in the end.

In the Internet realm, the law of nature also applies – the fit survives and the weak dies. Same is true in maintaining a successful WordPress. You cannot afford to commit even the slightest mistake here – you cannot afford to be the weak one, or else nobody will take notice of your existence in the Internet. That is the last thing that you want to happen.

Sure, there are a lot of successful WordPress sites but there are more sites that are not-so-successful. More sites are out in the web that nobody took notice that they even existed. Many sites shut down everyday because of simple mistakes they commit.

Here are the most common reasons why many WordPress sites shut down each day. Read on and learn from them, do not commit same mistakes other WordPress site owners already did.

• Commitment and Passion – Commitment and passion is required to stand a chance for success in the World Wide Web. Passion is the strong desire to do something it is even far more than love of craft. In addition, success doesn’t happen overnight; it takes a lot of effort, time and a little luck to attain the success you are wishing for.
• Love For Your Craft – The best motivation in any endeavor that you are into is interest and love for your craft. The logic is simple, if you are not happy with what you are doing; chances are you will not excel in your field.
• Advertising Is The Only Key – Do not rely solely on advertisements for profitable income. More often than not, advertisements in you site does not pay much especially if you are not getting much traffic. Let go of the thought that advertisement snippet alone can increase you site’s profits.
• Auto Propagated Titles – Plugins that create automatic titles that are similar to high-traffic sites like the Amazon.com is not a smart choice. Your visitors and Google will eventually know it and you may get sanction from this act. Never rely on affiliate programs for your increased traffic, rather work on your unique content to draw visitors in.

In a nutshell, it pays to be honest all the time. Always maintain veracity on what you are willing to offer to your clients and be realistic in setting your goals and plans. Work hard and when you start to see some favourable results work some more. Nothing less will lead you to a successful WordPress site.

Password for WordPress, have you heard about it? Did you know that it is possible to put password in your WordPress page? Did you know that you protect certain pages in your WordPress with a password? For those who do not know, password protection for specific pages is possible when you want only specific visitors to view a certain page.

The Advantage of Using Password for WordPress Page

In WordPress, there are certain things that users want to keep private or protected. Password protection does the trick; it protects a page and gives the owner the sole control to those who will be permitted to access information in a particular page. Those visitors or clients who will be provided with the password are the only people who will be able to access the password-protected page. Therefore, only the chosen people will gain access to confidential information or freebies for valuable clients only. This opens an endless possibility for marketing techniques that the users can utilise to gain more profit from their site. Here are few uses of using password in a WordPress Page:

1. Password is significant for VIP clients or customers only information.
2. Password is important in restricted information can only be given after completion of a form.
3. Password is imperative for protection of pages that contain downloadable links that you want to offer only to selected clients or to those who are willing to pay for it.

At this point, you must be convinced to have a password-protected page in your WordPress account. Therefore, you must start the process of putting it in your settings. Here are the user friendly steps. To start the password protection, click the Visibility located at the right sidebar under the button Publish. Then, edit link then select Password Protected. After doing that, you can see a password box for you to place your password.

In case that you care not using the custom menus, the page will be dispalyed in the site’s naviagtion like in other pages, with the exception that a visitor or customer will be prompted to eneter a password to view a specific content.

If you don’t like the page to be visible in your menu, you can create a (Appearance > Menus) custom menu and not add the new password-protected page into your navigation menu. In this manner, you may provide a page’s URL including the password only to the chosen client or customers that you want to access it.

There are lot of WordPress users out there who have been in a situation where they mess up a page or post beyond repair. If you are in that situation before, here are some helpful tips for you.

WordPress Keeps Previous “Saves”

Contrary to popular belief, WordPress keep all previous or past revisions and saves. If you want to revert back to any of your previous settings all you have to do is to scroll down to the bottom of the post or page. From there, you can see a detailed list of the time and date that you revised a page or post. Afterwards, you may choose the last revision from where you committed your mistake and you can restore from there. Start over more carefully at this point.

Needless to say, this procedure is quite user friendly – everybody can do it without the hassle of technical codes. What is surprising is that not all WordPress users are aware of it. Little did they know that by simply scrolling down to the end of the editor page you can correct whatever mistake you have done in the past.

Save Your Own Backup

Another trick is to keep a backup of your files, simply copy each file you have for your theme into your hard drive. Do not use these files, they are considered hands off until you need to restore your theme. In case those things do not turn out the way you like, you can always revert to your old settings with the backup file that you have safely kept – no risk; no harm.

For CSS or PHP Files

If you are working on theme PHP or CSS files, there is a different approach. Instead of doing the changes in the (Appearance > Editor) WordPress editor, you may copy then paste the file that needs some editing from WordPress to another editor in your computer. A good example is the Macromedia Homesite. Unlike FrontPage, Homesite is not a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. Therefore, to use this program effectively, you need to be well versed with the technical codes.

To be able to make the desired changes you may copy the files into the HomeSite. Then, after doing the revisions in the Homesite, you may copy and paste the edited version to the WordPress and see how things turned out. If you some things did not turn out as expected you can just hit the undo button in the Homesite, keep doing this step until you find your mistake. Basically, any editor with the undo feature can be used for this purpose.
Clearly, it doesn’t take much effort and technical abilities to do the job!