Friday, 10 May 2013
We all need friends
We all need special friends who are there with us for many reasons and all seasons. I came across many people in my life and most of them taught me valuable lessons. Some became special friends and some were just acquaintances. Some loved my company and celebrated my special days with me and some who cared for me had their shoulder for me to lean on when life was a bit under the weather. Some left me too soon because of their ego and I left some because of my ego. Whatever they were and however they were I haven’t forgotten anyone. I still remember, love, miss and cherish all the people I have ever met because of the part they played to my precious memories and the purpose for which they came in my life. I still keep them in my prayers and wish them well .But the ones I cherish are the ones that stayed on and supported me unconditionally through thick and thin. They are my true friends and I will treasure them for life…
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Saturday, 4 May 2013
Freelance Writing Vs. Blogging : Pros and cons
“A blogger can be a freelance writer but a Freelancer writer cannot be a
blogger”. This statement holds true up to an extent, and today I will be talking
about what are the advantages and disadvantages of being a freelance writer over
running your own blog. Freelance writing is one of the easiest ways to earn
money online. If you have good writing skills, you can join any of these
freelance writing websites, grab some writing jobs and earn money. This is not
the same with blogging, as managing your own blogs requires more than just
writing skills. So, lets look at some of the pros and cons of both the job
type.
Advantages and disadvantages of Freelance writing over Blogging:
There are many things which is common between these two:
Both could be taken as part-time job or full-time job
You can work from home or virtually anywhere.
You can be your own boss.
You can work in your jammies.
Well, these are the common ground between these two but at the same time, there is a hell lot of difference in terms of revenue, branding and many more. This is going to be useful for freelance writers, who are planning to start a blog of their own.
Freelance writing and blogging
Short-term money or long-term recurring money:
This is where major difference comes in. Freelance writing gives you instant money. You take an order for particular work, and you finish it to get paid. Where as, in blogging you have to constantly write and keep your blog updated, and money will come but may take some time.
Freelance writing is research and writing – Blogging is your expertise:
A freelance writer usually writes on various topics by researching, and putting it in their own words. Even if they have no idea about particular topic, they end up writing about it according to client needs. Where as, blogging requires you to be an expert in a particular field. It’s different from freelance writing, as in blogging you give your name and a face to your blog post. You talk in first person tone, and give your expert opinion, views and advice.
There are niche based freelance writers too (ex: tech niche, finance niche), and these kind of freelance writers earn more because of their expertise and insight about the topic. Even if you decide to stay as a freelance writer, try to develop expertise in particular niche, this will help you to earn more in future freelance projects. I have explained about it at the end of this article.
Blogging is more than writing:
One of the major advantage of freelance writing is, it’s easier than blogging. When you run your blog, you need to take care of various things that includes:
Regularly updating your blog
Promoting your blog
Engaging with audience
Content planning
SEO of your blog and similarly many more
Where as when you are taking freelance writing jobs, all you need to do is: Take the task, finish it and get paid. You don’t have to deal with all the management issue and other tasks which a blogger needs to carry.
Freelance writer may end up working as a ghost writer:
This is one of the biggest disadvantages of being a freelance writer. Most of the time your article will not be published under your name. This is known as ghost writing. Your client usually publishes article written by you under his name or under a dummy name. In any case, you lose out the chance of branding yourself, and this doesn’t give you any long-term advantage.
Tip: When you are doing ghost writing, you could always ask for more money.
These are just some of the major different between these two and few other differences are:
Freelance writers doesn’t need inspiration, as they have to finish work in a deadline.
A freelance writer expertise is writing and they can write on almost any topic.
With time freelance writing could be monotonous and boring, as they don’t have to pick the topic, and they might end up writing on similar topics again and again.
Which is better for future : Blogging or freelance writing?
I have worked as a freelance writer, and I know one thing: Freelance writing is great when you need quick money. I have earned around $150-$300 for single post and which actually is good, if I compare it with time spent on writing those articles. Do remember, articles which I have written as a freelance writer is within my niche expertise, and I got paid high because I know how stuff works in this particular niche (Ex: SEO, WordPress)
If you are doing freelance writing, that means you need money and it’s as good as people say it is for quick money. But the major disadvantage is: It’s one time money, and when you are not working or writing, there is no way you will be making money.
Where as, when you writing for your own blog, you keep making recurring money from various monetization techniques. Your ad will be running on your old blog posts, and this will keep making money for you. This will put you into your comfort zone in future. Now, a good solution to make sure cash flow for present and for future is:
“Start a blog along with your freelance writing job“. It may take some time to kick-off your blog, but over the time you will learn more about blogging, and you will be earning more. Just remember few things:
Your blog should be about one topic (Stick to a niche). Pick a topic that you are passionate about.
Maintain a regular flow of updates on your blog. Depending upon your schedule, you could publish one article a day or 1 article a week. In any ways, your blog will be updates. Try to write evergreen content, instead of time-sensitive content.
Starting a blog is quite easy, and you can read my earlier guide on how to create your own WordPress blog, and my WordPress guide will give you enough knowledge on how to use WordPress or you could see these WordPress videos to learn more.
Advantages of having blog for a freelance writer:
This will help you to establish as a domain expert (Niche expert), and will work as a portfolio for you. This will not only help you to get better writing jobs, also you will get more jobs in the topic of your interest. Once you have created a name and profile for yourself with your own blog, people will prefer to put your name directly, and not asking you to do ghost writing for their blog or websites. More over, you will get paid more.
Tip: A blogger can add a service page on their blog and take freelance writing work to earn extra money.
Also see: Tips to promote your freelance writing
How to start freelance writing career – Real life case study
The hard part for a freelance writer is to get out of their comfort zone, and bring the change. But, once you make this change and work on your blog along with writing, you are creating an asset and a better future for yourself.
Advantages and disadvantages of Freelance writing over Blogging:
There are many things which is common between these two:
Both could be taken as part-time job or full-time job
You can work from home or virtually anywhere.
You can be your own boss.
You can work in your jammies.
Well, these are the common ground between these two but at the same time, there is a hell lot of difference in terms of revenue, branding and many more. This is going to be useful for freelance writers, who are planning to start a blog of their own.
Freelance writing and blogging
Short-term money or long-term recurring money:
This is where major difference comes in. Freelance writing gives you instant money. You take an order for particular work, and you finish it to get paid. Where as, in blogging you have to constantly write and keep your blog updated, and money will come but may take some time.
Freelance writing is research and writing – Blogging is your expertise:
A freelance writer usually writes on various topics by researching, and putting it in their own words. Even if they have no idea about particular topic, they end up writing about it according to client needs. Where as, blogging requires you to be an expert in a particular field. It’s different from freelance writing, as in blogging you give your name and a face to your blog post. You talk in first person tone, and give your expert opinion, views and advice.
There are niche based freelance writers too (ex: tech niche, finance niche), and these kind of freelance writers earn more because of their expertise and insight about the topic. Even if you decide to stay as a freelance writer, try to develop expertise in particular niche, this will help you to earn more in future freelance projects. I have explained about it at the end of this article.
Blogging is more than writing:
One of the major advantage of freelance writing is, it’s easier than blogging. When you run your blog, you need to take care of various things that includes:
Regularly updating your blog
Promoting your blog
Engaging with audience
Content planning
SEO of your blog and similarly many more
Where as when you are taking freelance writing jobs, all you need to do is: Take the task, finish it and get paid. You don’t have to deal with all the management issue and other tasks which a blogger needs to carry.
Freelance writer may end up working as a ghost writer:
This is one of the biggest disadvantages of being a freelance writer. Most of the time your article will not be published under your name. This is known as ghost writing. Your client usually publishes article written by you under his name or under a dummy name. In any case, you lose out the chance of branding yourself, and this doesn’t give you any long-term advantage.
Tip: When you are doing ghost writing, you could always ask for more money.
These are just some of the major different between these two and few other differences are:
Freelance writers doesn’t need inspiration, as they have to finish work in a deadline.
A freelance writer expertise is writing and they can write on almost any topic.
With time freelance writing could be monotonous and boring, as they don’t have to pick the topic, and they might end up writing on similar topics again and again.
Which is better for future : Blogging or freelance writing?
I have worked as a freelance writer, and I know one thing: Freelance writing is great when you need quick money. I have earned around $150-$300 for single post and which actually is good, if I compare it with time spent on writing those articles. Do remember, articles which I have written as a freelance writer is within my niche expertise, and I got paid high because I know how stuff works in this particular niche (Ex: SEO, WordPress)
If you are doing freelance writing, that means you need money and it’s as good as people say it is for quick money. But the major disadvantage is: It’s one time money, and when you are not working or writing, there is no way you will be making money.
Where as, when you writing for your own blog, you keep making recurring money from various monetization techniques. Your ad will be running on your old blog posts, and this will keep making money for you. This will put you into your comfort zone in future. Now, a good solution to make sure cash flow for present and for future is:
“Start a blog along with your freelance writing job“. It may take some time to kick-off your blog, but over the time you will learn more about blogging, and you will be earning more. Just remember few things:
Your blog should be about one topic (Stick to a niche). Pick a topic that you are passionate about.
Maintain a regular flow of updates on your blog. Depending upon your schedule, you could publish one article a day or 1 article a week. In any ways, your blog will be updates. Try to write evergreen content, instead of time-sensitive content.
Starting a blog is quite easy, and you can read my earlier guide on how to create your own WordPress blog, and my WordPress guide will give you enough knowledge on how to use WordPress or you could see these WordPress videos to learn more.
Advantages of having blog for a freelance writer:
This will help you to establish as a domain expert (Niche expert), and will work as a portfolio for you. This will not only help you to get better writing jobs, also you will get more jobs in the topic of your interest. Once you have created a name and profile for yourself with your own blog, people will prefer to put your name directly, and not asking you to do ghost writing for their blog or websites. More over, you will get paid more.
Tip: A blogger can add a service page on their blog and take freelance writing work to earn extra money.
Also see: Tips to promote your freelance writing
How to start freelance writing career – Real life case study
The hard part for a freelance writer is to get out of their comfort zone, and bring the change. But, once you make this change and work on your blog along with writing, you are creating an asset and a better future for yourself.
5 Gmail tips to Perform Tasks Easily & Effectively
When you are online, your Email is your permanent address. There are many
email service providers online, and Gmail is one of my favorite. With one Google
account, you get access to all the services offered by Gmail. Over the years,
Gmail surpassed Yahoo mail, and hotmail popularity, and now one of the best free
Email service provider.
Here at Springs of good hope, we keep sharing various Gmail tips and tricks, for example you can do more with Gmail apart from Emailing, you can also use Gmail ID to login to Youtube account and you can create various Email templates to improve your productivity. It doesn’t matter what online service you prefer, what matter is if you are using it to maximum potential or not. To improve your experience with Google mail, here I’m sharing few tips for Gmail users, which will help you to use Gmail more effectively.
5 Tips to use Gmail more Effectively:
1. Sign out Gmail remotely
Gmail remote signout tip
This is the most useful feature and it will inform you when your account is accessed from another location which is not familiar to you.To perform this action click on details at the bottom of inbox and now it displays a dialogue box with the last 10 successful login details,click on “signout all other sessions”. You can set an alert by click on alert preference.
2. Select multiple Gmail Emails with single click
This is the time saving tip when you need to delete or move some messages from your inbox.For this you can select the starting message and now press shift button on keyboard,hold down it for a while and select the ending message.Now messages between starting and ending all are selected.
3. Vacation responder
Gmail Vacation responder
This might be useful when you are going to a vacation there is no internet connection.In this vacation responder you will give a message to your friends or somebody else who will contacts you.
How to set Gmail vacation message?
Click on the settings icon and select setings option.
In the general tab go to bottom and you will see vacation responder.
Now set vacation “responder on”
First day will be set to default and ends will be optional.If you want to give a date set it.
Now type subject and type the reply message what you say to your friends.
If you want to send message to your address book contacts only then tick the box and click on save changes button.
Now vacation responder is ready.
4. Use Gmail keyboard shortcuts
By turning on keyboard shortcuts you can manage your inbox,send mails,compose mail and archive the mails easily and quickly.To turn on the keyboard shortcuts follow this steps.
Go to settings and select the general tab.
Go to keyboard shortcuts and select “keyboard shortcuts on”.
Here you can find all the Keyboard shortcuts for Gmail. It make take a little time to remember all the keyboard shortcuts of Gmail, but it will eventually help you to get more done in less time.
5. Wrap up messages and store them safe
Many of Gmail users don’t try to archive their important messages with the archive feature.This will be useful for storing bunch of messages in a place safely.If you delete any message accidentally that will be stored in trash only for 30 days.By using this feature,you can store them life long.Just follow these steps to archive messages.
Select the messages and click on Archive button on the top.
Now they will be archived .
To get the messages which are archived follow these steps
Click on all mails on side bar.
Check the box and click on “move to” inbox button.
These are few of the many Gmail tips out here, but if you start following even few of them, it will help you to use Gmail effectively. Specially, if you learn all the Gmail keyboard shortcuts, you will save a lot of time.
If you have any other tip for Gmail service, do share with us via comments. If you find this article useful, do consider sharing it on Facebook and Google plus.
Here at Springs of good hope, we keep sharing various Gmail tips and tricks, for example you can do more with Gmail apart from Emailing, you can also use Gmail ID to login to Youtube account and you can create various Email templates to improve your productivity. It doesn’t matter what online service you prefer, what matter is if you are using it to maximum potential or not. To improve your experience with Google mail, here I’m sharing few tips for Gmail users, which will help you to use Gmail more effectively.
5 Tips to use Gmail more Effectively:
1. Sign out Gmail remotely
Gmail remote signout tip
This is the most useful feature and it will inform you when your account is accessed from another location which is not familiar to you.To perform this action click on details at the bottom of inbox and now it displays a dialogue box with the last 10 successful login details,click on “signout all other sessions”. You can set an alert by click on alert preference.
2. Select multiple Gmail Emails with single click
This is the time saving tip when you need to delete or move some messages from your inbox.For this you can select the starting message and now press shift button on keyboard,hold down it for a while and select the ending message.Now messages between starting and ending all are selected.
3. Vacation responder
Gmail Vacation responder
This might be useful when you are going to a vacation there is no internet connection.In this vacation responder you will give a message to your friends or somebody else who will contacts you.
How to set Gmail vacation message?
Click on the settings icon and select setings option.
In the general tab go to bottom and you will see vacation responder.
Now set vacation “responder on”
First day will be set to default and ends will be optional.If you want to give a date set it.
Now type subject and type the reply message what you say to your friends.
If you want to send message to your address book contacts only then tick the box and click on save changes button.
Now vacation responder is ready.
4. Use Gmail keyboard shortcuts
By turning on keyboard shortcuts you can manage your inbox,send mails,compose mail and archive the mails easily and quickly.To turn on the keyboard shortcuts follow this steps.
Go to settings and select the general tab.
Go to keyboard shortcuts and select “keyboard shortcuts on”.
Here you can find all the Keyboard shortcuts for Gmail. It make take a little time to remember all the keyboard shortcuts of Gmail, but it will eventually help you to get more done in less time.
5. Wrap up messages and store them safe
Many of Gmail users don’t try to archive their important messages with the archive feature.This will be useful for storing bunch of messages in a place safely.If you delete any message accidentally that will be stored in trash only for 30 days.By using this feature,you can store them life long.Just follow these steps to archive messages.
Select the messages and click on Archive button on the top.
Now they will be archived .
To get the messages which are archived follow these steps
Click on all mails on side bar.
Check the box and click on “move to” inbox button.
These are few of the many Gmail tips out here, but if you start following even few of them, it will help you to use Gmail effectively. Specially, if you learn all the Gmail keyboard shortcuts, you will save a lot of time.
If you have any other tip for Gmail service, do share with us via comments. If you find this article useful, do consider sharing it on Facebook and Google plus.
WordPress Setup Guide
This is a guide for beginners to create their own WordPress blog in 5
Minutes. I will be extending the guide with Version 2,
and you can be the first one to get notified.
WordPress is one of the most widely used Blogging platform. It’s an open source CMS which is powered
by PHP and MySQL. According to recent surveys, almost 16.7% of websites on Internet is powered by WordPress.
LikeBlogSpot which is powered by Google, WordPress is powered by it’s parent company Automattic which offers two
variation of this popular blogging platform; WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We are not going to differentiate between
free and self hosted WP blog at this moment, but we will quickly learn about What is WordPress and about two variations of
WordPress here.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com
WordPress was launched as a Blogging platform but now it’s fully evolved into a content management system. That means,
you can use it to run fully-functional business Websites. There are many E-commerce, Membership websites are running on
WordPress. WordPress team also offers buddypress plugin, which convert WordPress into Social networking site.
WordPress has two variants and most of newbie get confused between which form of WordPress they should opt for.
WordPress.com Blogs A.k.a free WordPress domain blogs:
WordPress offers free WordPress blog which can give you address like anyname.WordPress.com. You also have an option
to add custom domain to your blog, which is managed by WordPress and gives you limited access to settings. Like you
can’t install every WordPress theme you wanted but you have choice to install Free themes from WordPress theme directory
or some selected premium WordPress theme. This platform is good for non serious or hobby bloggers. Anyone on the Internet
can go to WordPress.com and sign up for a free account and get a WordPress.com blog instantly.
Limitations of WordPress.com blogs:
You can not add custom WordPress theme
To use custom domain, you need to pay for it
You can add custom PHP code
Limited Way of monetizing your blog
Your blog could be deleted by WordPress team for any violation of their TOS.
No FTP Access
Limited Space
Useful links:
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Learn WordPress.com
Self Hosted WordPress blog A.K.A. WordPress.org blogs:
Self hosted blog, as the name suggest, needs to be installed on your server. You download WordPress software from Word-
Press.org and install it on your server. Usually you buy a shared hosting and install WordPress on it. You have complete
control over settings and customization and you are not limited to anything. Though self hosted blog requires investment in
terms of custom domain name and hosting space. This is more popular as you have power to monetize your blog and have
complete control over everything.
Some more info about WordPress:
WordPress was first introduced in 2003, founded by Matt Mullenweg, who is also the founder of WordPress parent company
AutoMattic. Automattic also offers other services like:
VaultPress- which ensure WordPress backup and security.
Aksimet plugin – which catches the spam comments.
Jetpack plugin- Which brings many features of WordPress.com into self hosted WordPress blog including WordPress
stats.
WordPress has given a complete new dimension to online business and many 3rd party services and tools are available in
the market, whose models completely run on WordPress.
How to Install WordPress on Bluehost Hosting
Now, we will learn how to create our self hosted WordPress blog.We will be using Bluehost for this purpose. Bluehost offers
unlimited hosting, unlimited domain, cPanel, One click WordPress installation, custom script installation, free adwords
coupon and free domain registration for one year.
So, I assume you have your domain and hosting purchased from Bluehost and you have Bluehost login with you. If you are
stuck with purchasing, you can refer to this guide.
If you are accustomed with other cPanel hosting, you will have no problem using Bluehost cPanel, but if you are new to
them, this Step by step tutorial will help you to get started. If you have purchased domain from somewhere else, you need
to change the NS to point to Bluehost nameservers. I.e. :
ns1.Bluehost.com
ns2.Bluehost.com
Once, you have updated the NS and you used the same domain name while purchasing hosting account from Bluehost, you
can simply start with WordPress installation on Bluehost hosting. Login to your Bluehost cPanel account by typing your
domain name and password given at the time of sign up.
There are two site builder script offered by Bluehost to Install WordPress: Simple scripts and WordPress. I will not go into
the pros and cons of any of them, as you can use any of them to get started with WordPress within 5 minutes. For the simplicity
of this tutorial, we will use Simple scripts method to Install WordPress.
Under BH cPanel, click on Simple scripts under Site builder:
Now, you will get a huge list of blogs and forums, that you can install using simple-Scripts. Click on WordPress, under Blog
section.
As soon as you click on WordPress, you will be taken to Wp install script page. There are two options: Install and Import.
Click on “Install“.
Setting up Simple scripts for WordPress installation:
Now, we are on the page where we will configure the complete WordPress installation on Bluehost. Let’s understand every
step one by one:
WordPress Version:
First field is WordPress version. You can always check the latest WordPress version on official page here. And by default,
you will get the latest WordPress as an option. If you wish to install an old version of WP, you can simply select the Wp version
from drop down menu.
WordPress Installation directory:
When you are installing WordPress, you get two options to Install Wp on your domain: With www or without www Prefix.
I usually prefer to keep it without www now, as short is always sweet. There is no SEO advantages or disadvantages of using
www or non www.
If you wish to install blog on sub directory, that is domain.com/Blog, simply add blog or any other suffix you want to use
for your WordPress blog.
Advance options:
Once you are done with version and Installation path, next is to configure options like WordPress admin login and password.
Other options like Blog name, you can always edit later from Settings > General under WordPress dashboard. Also
remember, by default your admin Email address is your Bluehost account Email address. (Email address you used for
signup).
Plugins and Themes:
Third option is to install some pre-configures themes and plugins, which I suggest you to uncheck and start from scratch. I
prefer, to keep my WordPress installation as clean as possible and install only those theme and plugins, which I’m going to
use. Wait for my next tutorial on essential plugins for your blog.
Step 4: License agreement
And like any other software installation, you just need to agree with license agreement and click on complete. Within minutes,
your WordPress site will be installed and running on your new bluehost account.
On the next page, you will see the status of your WordPress installation and once it says, complete you can login to your
WordPress dashboard by typing http://domain.com/wp-admin (replace domain.com with actual domain name).
Now, all you need to do is finalize the WordPress setup.
Set up WordPress blog in 5 minutes:
In this guide, I will add screenshots and explain every WordPress settings, that you need to configure. You can skip certain
settings, depending upon your requirement for example, if you are creating a membership site or guest blogging WordPress
blog, you can open user registration. So, lets get started with ourWordPress setup guide and learn how to set up WordPress
blog. Specially, for newbie this guide will help them to understand WordPress and help in understanding how to work with
WordPress.
You can login to your WordPress dashboard by going to http://domain.com/wp-admin (replace domain with actual domain
name).
First thing first:
Once you install WordPress blog, you will get a default post “Hello World” and a default comment. Delete them and follow
the rest of the tutorial:
Settings > General
This is where you will configure your Homepage name and tag line. This is very important, as by default this is what shows
up in Google search. Email address will be your site admin Email address and this is where you will get all the Email notifications
related to your site.
Now, for the security reasons, if you have a single authored blog. I suggest you to disable WordPress registration. Else, if
you creating a membership site or implementing guest blogging opportunities, you can enable it and give it subscriber role
by default. For allowing registered member to submit blog post, you can change the default registration permission to contributor.
also, make sure you setup the timezone to your local time, this will make sure your scheduled post will go according
to your timezone.
Settings > Writing
At this stage, we will set up WordPress settings related to writing. By default, WordPress adds a category “Uncategorized”
which doesn’t look so ideal. Here you can change the default category to any other category. You can go to posts> Categories
from left sidepanel, and add a new category. Come back, and change the WordPress default category to newly created
category.
WordPress ping list:
One of the major difference between a static Website and a blog is ability to ping. By pinging search engine bots, our Word-
Press blog notifies the search engines about newly published blog post. You should update your ping list with all major
ping services. You can get a list of WordPress ping services from here. Add all the ping services URL and click on update
button. I also recommend you to use PushPress plugin to ping cloud ping servers.
Also under Settings > Writing you can enable or disable atom publishing and XML-RPC Services. If you are using any
desktop blog editor like Windows live writer, you need to enable XML-RPC service.
Settings> Reading:
Now, at this WordPress set up page, you can configure many things like what should be your blog homepage be. For example,
here at WpFreeSetup, we are using custom home page and not a regular blog page. So, we changed the homepage to
custom page we designed. For a normal blog, you can let the setting be “Your latest posts” as shows in screenshot.
You can also configure number of maximum blog posts to show on homepage and in feeds. Also, you can set if you want to
publish full content or just partial content in the feed, I prefer to offer partial feeds(Summary) , as I want more activity to
happen on my site and also to avoid RSS theft.
Settings > Discussion
Here we configure comment related settings on our blog, and also one important settings which happens due to comment
pagination. Here are settings which I usually use on my blogs: I’m writing down the settings which requires to be on.
Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article
Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)
Allow people to post comments on new articles
Comment author must fill out name and e-mail
Enable threaded (nested) comments
Anyone posts a comment
A comment is held for moderation
An administrator must always approve the comment
Avatar settings:
Now, if you are new to WordPress, I suggest you to go to Gravatar.com and create an account and upload your image for
your Email address. And here, you can make changes like gravatar rating and default gravatar. If you wish to use a custom
gravatar, you can refer to this guide.
Settings > Media
Though, you can skip setting up this part but I usually suggest users to make come necessary changes to avoid lots of images
files. By default, when you upload images in WordPress, it creates images in 3 different sizes. Here you can set sizes as
0*0 and keep only one desired size as enabled along with size.
Settings> Privacy:
This is the setting tab, where you configure if you want search engine like Google to show your blog in searches or not. I
usually keep it off until I’m completely done with WordPress set up and ready to write my first post. If you are done with
set up, select the option which says “Allow search engines to index this site.”
Permalink Settings:
This is one of the initial setting, which every new WordPress user should change. Default WordPress permalink is not
search engine friendly, and we should select one of those option which gives us maximum search engine advantage.
I prefer to keep it as: /%postname%/
First one is useful, when you are planning to submit your site on Google news, and second one if simple and very effective
for SEO. Go to Settings > Permalink and change your permalink to /%postname%/ and click on update. Make sure, you do
this step before publishing any new blog post. You can get more info on WordPress permalink here. If you wish to change
permalink for an existing blog, you should read: How to change WordPress permalink with 301 redirection.
With all these changes, you are done with set up of WordPress blog. Now, we need to make more changes like add plugins,
submit sitemap, Install theme, customize look and usability of our blog.
How to Install New WordPress Theme
You can always directly search for any WordPress theme from WordPress theme repo and directly install it from dashboard.
Or you can download the .Zip file and install it. I’m a huge fan of Premium WordPress themes, as they offer better feature
and functionality over free theme and most of free WordPress theme and premium theme club let you download the .zip
file of theme and you can install it. So for the sake of making things simple, I assume you have downloaded the theme in
.zip format. Here are few WordPress themes, which we have covered in the past:
Wp bold WordPress theme for magazine design Blog
Publisher WordPress theme by Theme-Junkie
So, once you have downloaded the WordPress theme, login to your WordPress dashboard. Click on Appearance > Theme.
Click on Install theme.
On the next page, click on upload and it will bring you up on upload theme screen. Simply click on browse and locate the
.zip file of WordPress theme you have downloaded. Select and click on Install now. It might take a minute or two, depending
upon the size of theme and your internet speed. Once done, it will show the installed theme screen.
Before activating the theme, you can click on “Live preview” to see how theme will look before activating it for everyone.
Once you are satisfied with the look and feel of theme, you can click on activate and your newly installed theme will be live
for public. Though, if you wish to make some changes into theme before making it live on your site, you can use Theme test
drive WordPress plugin.
Another way to install WordPress theme is by uploading it directly via FTP, but again that will be a long process and it’s
useful when you don’t have a .zip file of your theme. Though, you can always archive your theme in .Zip format and install
it from dashboard. If you wish to learn, how to install WordPress theme manually or via FTP, you can refer to official doc
here.
How to Install WordPress Plugin
One of the most basic thing which you need to learn about self hosted WP blog is to install WordPress plugins. There are
many ways by which you can install a plugin in WordPress blog, you can use any of these three methods to quickly add a
plugin:
Install plugin by Searching from dashboard
Upload .zip folder to WordPress and install
Install via FTP
I won’t recommend installing by FTP until you don’t have permission to install a plugin from dashboard, and most of the
recommended hosting companies like Bluehost, Hostgator gives you enough permission to add plugins from dashboard. I
have already shared a list of must have plugins for WordPress blog, you can refer to it to get the best of plugins for your
blog, and read on this tutorial to learn the whole process.
If you wish to search plugin from WordPress plugin repo, you can simply get the name of the plugin and do a search from
dashboard and install it.
Login to your WordPress dashboard.
Click on plugins> Add New
Search for plugin which you wish to install.
Click on Install now
Activate the plugin and configure it’s settings.
That’s it and you are done installing the plugin. There are many plugins which are old and have not been updated for years,
but they are still very useful. Since you can’t install such WordPress plugins by searching, you can download the .zip folder
from official repo and install it. Here is a quick guide on installing .zip format plugin:
Login to WordPress dashboard
Click on plugin > Add New > Upload
Click on upload > browse the .zip file > Install plugin
Activate and configure settings
This is pretty easy and below I have added a video tutorial which will give you a better understanding of the whole process.
Also, when you are downloading plugin, make sure you download it from credible sources like WordPress plugin
repo, Codecanyon , or official plugin page of plugin developers. Avoid downloading plugins from any non credible sources
like free file sharing sites, torrents.
I hope this guide helped you to understand this basic but one of the most important part of using WordPress blog. If you
still have any question regarding the whole process of plugin installation in WordPress, feel free to let me know.
Must have WordPress Plugin:
Here I will add the exact name of the plugin which you need to search and install. Most of these plugins come with extra
configuration and you should make sure to make optimum changes for making most of these plugins. If you need tutorial
for any specific WordPress plugin set up, you can let us know on our Facebook fan page.
Akismet:
This plugin is managed by official WordPress creator Automattic. This plugin is very useful to avoid spam comments. There
are many alternative to this plugin but I prefer this one, as it’s fast and does the job pretty well. You can download plugin
from official page here. You need API Key to activate this plugin and you can quickly create a free account on WordPress.-
com and get your WordPress API key.
SEO plugins:
WordPress SEO by Yoast:
WordPress SEO by Yoast is an advanced plugin by Yoast, which integrated many important features from some of the popular
SEO plugins for WordPress like Robots meta, All in one SEO, RSS footer, Sitemap and many more. This plugin require
proper configuration for optimum performance. Along with above feature, you can also edit your Robots.txt, .htaccess file
using this plugin. This plugin also offers Keyword suggestion and Keyword optimization, which will give you an extra edge
in Search engine ranking. Also, you can configure indexing and no-indexing of your site structure which is very useful for
proper SEO of your blog.
How to setup WordPress SEO by yoast
Google XML Sitemap:
Sitemap helps search engine bots to crawl your site effectively. Google XML sitemap plugin helps you to generate sitemap
of your blog and also as soon as you publish new post, this plugin will keep updating the site map. This is a dynamic plugin
and you need to configure it only once. Simply install this plugin and create a sitemap and submit it to Google, Bing and Yahoo
and forget about Sitemap submission after that. For better result, put a sitemap link in the footer of your blog as it helps
in deep-indexing of your blog.
XML Video and XML Image sitemap plugin:
Images and videos are also great way for ranking and when you are creating a normal sitemap using Google XML Sitemap
plugin, it doesn’t list images and videos. XML video and XML image sitemap plugin for WordPress helps in creating
sitemap for your images & videos, and you can submit them to search engine service and drive traffic to your site.
YARPP: Yet Another related post plugin:
Though this plugin is more of usability plugin but I prefer it as SEO plugin, because it helps in linking to related article.
YARPP also offers settings to show related posts in feeds, which helps in decreasing down the bounce rate and increasing
user experience on your site. If not YARPP, you can use any other way but showing direct related posts will help in boosting
your site usability.
SEO friendly Image:
Images helps a lot in driving traffic to your blog, but to rank for images you need to work on alt tag optimization of your
blog. SEO friendly image plugin does the same by, converting your image name into Alt tag and make it search engine readable.
Bonus tip: Always use your Keyword or relevant name as image name. Avoid using Image-001.jpeg and such names.
PushPress:
If you are suffering from indexing issue on your blog, try PushPress which is a free WordPress plugin to ping cloud servers.
It helps in faster indexing of your blog. This is a plug and play plugin which doesn’t require any configuration.
WordPress Insight plugin:
WordPress insight plugin is very useful for WordPress blogger to do a search and insert links directly from WordPress editor.
You can search for term within your blog or in Google, Wikipedia and other sites.
Increase usability:
Now, here are list of those plugins for WordPress, which will help you to extend it’s capabilities and give better user experience.
WpTouch:
Number of people using smart-phones are increasing day by day. Wptouch is an easy to set up plugin for WordPress, which
will make your site mobile optimized. I’m using this plugin and tested it on iPhone and iPad and it works great. You can
also insert your adsense codes from WpTouch settings to monetize your mobile site.
W3 Total cache:
Page load time is one important factor for great user experience and also for better search engine ranking. W3 total cache is a
complete solution to your WordPress caching. This plugin comes with advanced configuration and caching options. Also, if
you are using any CDN service and cloudflare, this plugin offers easy to implement option for configuration. Though, some
of the webhosting companies doesn’t work great with W3 total cache, in this case I suggest you to try WpSuper cache.
Contact Form 7:
Contact page is an essential element of a website. Contact form 7 plugin let you create multiple contact forms and you can
also add contact form in sidebar of your blog. There are many more contact forms like Gravity forms, but in free options this
is one of the easy to set up contact plugin for WordPress. I have also tried Enhanced Word-
Press contact form by Yoast, which is equally good and easy to configure. This plugin shows the referral link location and
you will get an idea, who visitor landed to your contact form. Check out Enhanced WordPress contact form.
Wp Db manager:
One stop plugin for doing various maintenance job and schedule job in WordPress. Using this plugin you can quickly optimize
WordPress database, clean WordPress tables, take WordPress backup and configure WordPress timely backup. Very
useful plugin to get many things done.
Wp Optimize plugin:
Another useful plugin to delete all posts revisions, delete all spam comments and optimize WordPress table. Though, you
don’t need to use this plugin all the time but running this plugin once in a month, will keep your blog performance in good
shape.
Digg Digg WordPress plugin:
Social signals has become an essential part of SEO and to encourage social sharing of your blog post, you should must implement
social bookmarking button. Digg Digg plugin helps you to quickly add most of the popular and new social bookmarking
buttons. More over, this plugin comes with many settings like lazy load button, social button size and other placement
settings, which you are hoping in a Social bookmarking plugin. There are few alternatives to
Digg-digg plugin like Slick share & sexy bookmarks.
JetPack plugin:
This is another official plugin by WordPress, which comes with many options that they offer to WordPress.com users. Also,
this plugin contain some of the essential elements that you would be requiring for example: WordPress.com stats, Subscription
option for commentator, Spelling and grammar check, Contact form and also many more features. In future WordPress
is planning to add some paid modules for example, right now they have integrated VaultPress which is their premium
WordPress backup service. Though, all paid services are optional and to use this plugin you need to have a WordPress.com
account. Also, disable any cache plugin which you are using while configuring Jetpack plugin.
Wp Smush.it:
Smsuh.it is an online service by Yahoo, and smush.it plugin does the job pretty well of compressing your images for faster
loading. Your image quality remains the same and using image compression technology, this plugin will compress images
at the time of loading. This plugin also comes with bulk image compression of already uploaded images. So, if you have
new or old blog, Wp smushit plugin will help you to keep your blog loading time faster.
The list of plugins for WordPress are endless and you can browse WordPress plugin repo to find plugin for every use. But,
these are some of those must have WordPress plugins, which are essential for every WordPress blog. Do let us know about
any other new wp plugins, which should be in this list.
WordPress Resources:
Webhosting:
Bluehost
Hostgator
Dreamhost
Themes:
Elegant themes
Thesis
Genesis
WooThemes
If you have any query regarding this guide or WordPress, feel free to ask me on Google plus here or mail me at
LUMSM983@GMAIL.com
Lets make blogging full time business.
LUMS MARTIN
http://www.LOVELIFECONSAULTANCY.WORDPRESS.com http://WWW.SOGHFZAMBIA.WORDPRESS.COM
HTTP://WWW.LUMSMARTIN.BLOGSPOT.COM
and you can be the first one to get notified.
WordPress is one of the most widely used Blogging platform. It’s an open source CMS which is powered
by PHP and MySQL. According to recent surveys, almost 16.7% of websites on Internet is powered by WordPress.
LikeBlogSpot which is powered by Google, WordPress is powered by it’s parent company Automattic which offers two
variation of this popular blogging platform; WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We are not going to differentiate between
free and self hosted WP blog at this moment, but we will quickly learn about What is WordPress and about two variations of
WordPress here.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com
WordPress was launched as a Blogging platform but now it’s fully evolved into a content management system. That means,
you can use it to run fully-functional business Websites. There are many E-commerce, Membership websites are running on
WordPress. WordPress team also offers buddypress plugin, which convert WordPress into Social networking site.
WordPress has two variants and most of newbie get confused between which form of WordPress they should opt for.
WordPress.com Blogs A.k.a free WordPress domain blogs:
WordPress offers free WordPress blog which can give you address like anyname.WordPress.com. You also have an option
to add custom domain to your blog, which is managed by WordPress and gives you limited access to settings. Like you
can’t install every WordPress theme you wanted but you have choice to install Free themes from WordPress theme directory
or some selected premium WordPress theme. This platform is good for non serious or hobby bloggers. Anyone on the Internet
can go to WordPress.com and sign up for a free account and get a WordPress.com blog instantly.
Limitations of WordPress.com blogs:
You can not add custom WordPress theme
To use custom domain, you need to pay for it
You can add custom PHP code
Limited Way of monetizing your blog
Your blog could be deleted by WordPress team for any violation of their TOS.
No FTP Access
Limited Space
Useful links:
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Learn WordPress.com
Self Hosted WordPress blog A.K.A. WordPress.org blogs:
Self hosted blog, as the name suggest, needs to be installed on your server. You download WordPress software from Word-
Press.org and install it on your server. Usually you buy a shared hosting and install WordPress on it. You have complete
control over settings and customization and you are not limited to anything. Though self hosted blog requires investment in
terms of custom domain name and hosting space. This is more popular as you have power to monetize your blog and have
complete control over everything.
Some more info about WordPress:
WordPress was first introduced in 2003, founded by Matt Mullenweg, who is also the founder of WordPress parent company
AutoMattic. Automattic also offers other services like:
VaultPress- which ensure WordPress backup and security.
Aksimet plugin – which catches the spam comments.
Jetpack plugin- Which brings many features of WordPress.com into self hosted WordPress blog including WordPress
stats.
WordPress has given a complete new dimension to online business and many 3rd party services and tools are available in
the market, whose models completely run on WordPress.
How to Install WordPress on Bluehost Hosting
Now, we will learn how to create our self hosted WordPress blog.We will be using Bluehost for this purpose. Bluehost offers
unlimited hosting, unlimited domain, cPanel, One click WordPress installation, custom script installation, free adwords
coupon and free domain registration for one year.
So, I assume you have your domain and hosting purchased from Bluehost and you have Bluehost login with you. If you are
stuck with purchasing, you can refer to this guide.
If you are accustomed with other cPanel hosting, you will have no problem using Bluehost cPanel, but if you are new to
them, this Step by step tutorial will help you to get started. If you have purchased domain from somewhere else, you need
to change the NS to point to Bluehost nameservers. I.e. :
ns1.Bluehost.com
ns2.Bluehost.com
Once, you have updated the NS and you used the same domain name while purchasing hosting account from Bluehost, you
can simply start with WordPress installation on Bluehost hosting. Login to your Bluehost cPanel account by typing your
domain name and password given at the time of sign up.
There are two site builder script offered by Bluehost to Install WordPress: Simple scripts and WordPress. I will not go into
the pros and cons of any of them, as you can use any of them to get started with WordPress within 5 minutes. For the simplicity
of this tutorial, we will use Simple scripts method to Install WordPress.
Under BH cPanel, click on Simple scripts under Site builder:
Now, you will get a huge list of blogs and forums, that you can install using simple-Scripts. Click on WordPress, under Blog
section.
As soon as you click on WordPress, you will be taken to Wp install script page. There are two options: Install and Import.
Click on “Install“.
Setting up Simple scripts for WordPress installation:
Now, we are on the page where we will configure the complete WordPress installation on Bluehost. Let’s understand every
step one by one:
WordPress Version:
First field is WordPress version. You can always check the latest WordPress version on official page here. And by default,
you will get the latest WordPress as an option. If you wish to install an old version of WP, you can simply select the Wp version
from drop down menu.
WordPress Installation directory:
When you are installing WordPress, you get two options to Install Wp on your domain: With www or without www Prefix.
I usually prefer to keep it without www now, as short is always sweet. There is no SEO advantages or disadvantages of using
www or non www.
If you wish to install blog on sub directory, that is domain.com/Blog, simply add blog or any other suffix you want to use
for your WordPress blog.
Advance options:
Once you are done with version and Installation path, next is to configure options like WordPress admin login and password.
Other options like Blog name, you can always edit later from Settings > General under WordPress dashboard. Also
remember, by default your admin Email address is your Bluehost account Email address. (Email address you used for
signup).
Plugins and Themes:
Third option is to install some pre-configures themes and plugins, which I suggest you to uncheck and start from scratch. I
prefer, to keep my WordPress installation as clean as possible and install only those theme and plugins, which I’m going to
use. Wait for my next tutorial on essential plugins for your blog.
Step 4: License agreement
And like any other software installation, you just need to agree with license agreement and click on complete. Within minutes,
your WordPress site will be installed and running on your new bluehost account.
On the next page, you will see the status of your WordPress installation and once it says, complete you can login to your
WordPress dashboard by typing http://domain.com/wp-admin (replace domain.com with actual domain name).
Now, all you need to do is finalize the WordPress setup.
Set up WordPress blog in 5 minutes:
In this guide, I will add screenshots and explain every WordPress settings, that you need to configure. You can skip certain
settings, depending upon your requirement for example, if you are creating a membership site or guest blogging WordPress
blog, you can open user registration. So, lets get started with ourWordPress setup guide and learn how to set up WordPress
blog. Specially, for newbie this guide will help them to understand WordPress and help in understanding how to work with
WordPress.
You can login to your WordPress dashboard by going to http://domain.com/wp-admin (replace domain with actual domain
name).
First thing first:
Once you install WordPress blog, you will get a default post “Hello World” and a default comment. Delete them and follow
the rest of the tutorial:
Settings > General
This is where you will configure your Homepage name and tag line. This is very important, as by default this is what shows
up in Google search. Email address will be your site admin Email address and this is where you will get all the Email notifications
related to your site.
Now, for the security reasons, if you have a single authored blog. I suggest you to disable WordPress registration. Else, if
you creating a membership site or implementing guest blogging opportunities, you can enable it and give it subscriber role
by default. For allowing registered member to submit blog post, you can change the default registration permission to contributor.
also, make sure you setup the timezone to your local time, this will make sure your scheduled post will go according
to your timezone.
Settings > Writing
At this stage, we will set up WordPress settings related to writing. By default, WordPress adds a category “Uncategorized”
which doesn’t look so ideal. Here you can change the default category to any other category. You can go to posts> Categories
from left sidepanel, and add a new category. Come back, and change the WordPress default category to newly created
category.
WordPress ping list:
One of the major difference between a static Website and a blog is ability to ping. By pinging search engine bots, our Word-
Press blog notifies the search engines about newly published blog post. You should update your ping list with all major
ping services. You can get a list of WordPress ping services from here. Add all the ping services URL and click on update
button. I also recommend you to use PushPress plugin to ping cloud ping servers.
Also under Settings > Writing you can enable or disable atom publishing and XML-RPC Services. If you are using any
desktop blog editor like Windows live writer, you need to enable XML-RPC service.
Settings> Reading:
Now, at this WordPress set up page, you can configure many things like what should be your blog homepage be. For example,
here at WpFreeSetup, we are using custom home page and not a regular blog page. So, we changed the homepage to
custom page we designed. For a normal blog, you can let the setting be “Your latest posts” as shows in screenshot.
You can also configure number of maximum blog posts to show on homepage and in feeds. Also, you can set if you want to
publish full content or just partial content in the feed, I prefer to offer partial feeds(Summary) , as I want more activity to
happen on my site and also to avoid RSS theft.
Settings > Discussion
Here we configure comment related settings on our blog, and also one important settings which happens due to comment
pagination. Here are settings which I usually use on my blogs: I’m writing down the settings which requires to be on.
Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article
Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)
Allow people to post comments on new articles
Comment author must fill out name and e-mail
Enable threaded (nested) comments
Anyone posts a comment
A comment is held for moderation
An administrator must always approve the comment
Avatar settings:
Now, if you are new to WordPress, I suggest you to go to Gravatar.com and create an account and upload your image for
your Email address. And here, you can make changes like gravatar rating and default gravatar. If you wish to use a custom
gravatar, you can refer to this guide.
Settings > Media
Though, you can skip setting up this part but I usually suggest users to make come necessary changes to avoid lots of images
files. By default, when you upload images in WordPress, it creates images in 3 different sizes. Here you can set sizes as
0*0 and keep only one desired size as enabled along with size.
Settings> Privacy:
This is the setting tab, where you configure if you want search engine like Google to show your blog in searches or not. I
usually keep it off until I’m completely done with WordPress set up and ready to write my first post. If you are done with
set up, select the option which says “Allow search engines to index this site.”
Permalink Settings:
This is one of the initial setting, which every new WordPress user should change. Default WordPress permalink is not
search engine friendly, and we should select one of those option which gives us maximum search engine advantage.
I prefer to keep it as: /%postname%/
First one is useful, when you are planning to submit your site on Google news, and second one if simple and very effective
for SEO. Go to Settings > Permalink and change your permalink to /%postname%/ and click on update. Make sure, you do
this step before publishing any new blog post. You can get more info on WordPress permalink here. If you wish to change
permalink for an existing blog, you should read: How to change WordPress permalink with 301 redirection.
With all these changes, you are done with set up of WordPress blog. Now, we need to make more changes like add plugins,
submit sitemap, Install theme, customize look and usability of our blog.
How to Install New WordPress Theme
You can always directly search for any WordPress theme from WordPress theme repo and directly install it from dashboard.
Or you can download the .Zip file and install it. I’m a huge fan of Premium WordPress themes, as they offer better feature
and functionality over free theme and most of free WordPress theme and premium theme club let you download the .zip
file of theme and you can install it. So for the sake of making things simple, I assume you have downloaded the theme in
.zip format. Here are few WordPress themes, which we have covered in the past:
Wp bold WordPress theme for magazine design Blog
Publisher WordPress theme by Theme-Junkie
So, once you have downloaded the WordPress theme, login to your WordPress dashboard. Click on Appearance > Theme.
Click on Install theme.
On the next page, click on upload and it will bring you up on upload theme screen. Simply click on browse and locate the
.zip file of WordPress theme you have downloaded. Select and click on Install now. It might take a minute or two, depending
upon the size of theme and your internet speed. Once done, it will show the installed theme screen.
Before activating the theme, you can click on “Live preview” to see how theme will look before activating it for everyone.
Once you are satisfied with the look and feel of theme, you can click on activate and your newly installed theme will be live
for public. Though, if you wish to make some changes into theme before making it live on your site, you can use Theme test
drive WordPress plugin.
Another way to install WordPress theme is by uploading it directly via FTP, but again that will be a long process and it’s
useful when you don’t have a .zip file of your theme. Though, you can always archive your theme in .Zip format and install
it from dashboard. If you wish to learn, how to install WordPress theme manually or via FTP, you can refer to official doc
here.
How to Install WordPress Plugin
One of the most basic thing which you need to learn about self hosted WP blog is to install WordPress plugins. There are
many ways by which you can install a plugin in WordPress blog, you can use any of these three methods to quickly add a
plugin:
Install plugin by Searching from dashboard
Upload .zip folder to WordPress and install
Install via FTP
I won’t recommend installing by FTP until you don’t have permission to install a plugin from dashboard, and most of the
recommended hosting companies like Bluehost, Hostgator gives you enough permission to add plugins from dashboard. I
have already shared a list of must have plugins for WordPress blog, you can refer to it to get the best of plugins for your
blog, and read on this tutorial to learn the whole process.
If you wish to search plugin from WordPress plugin repo, you can simply get the name of the plugin and do a search from
dashboard and install it.
Login to your WordPress dashboard.
Click on plugins> Add New
Search for plugin which you wish to install.
Click on Install now
Activate the plugin and configure it’s settings.
That’s it and you are done installing the plugin. There are many plugins which are old and have not been updated for years,
but they are still very useful. Since you can’t install such WordPress plugins by searching, you can download the .zip folder
from official repo and install it. Here is a quick guide on installing .zip format plugin:
Login to WordPress dashboard
Click on plugin > Add New > Upload
Click on upload > browse the .zip file > Install plugin
Activate and configure settings
This is pretty easy and below I have added a video tutorial which will give you a better understanding of the whole process.
Also, when you are downloading plugin, make sure you download it from credible sources like WordPress plugin
repo, Codecanyon , or official plugin page of plugin developers. Avoid downloading plugins from any non credible sources
like free file sharing sites, torrents.
I hope this guide helped you to understand this basic but one of the most important part of using WordPress blog. If you
still have any question regarding the whole process of plugin installation in WordPress, feel free to let me know.
Must have WordPress Plugin:
Here I will add the exact name of the plugin which you need to search and install. Most of these plugins come with extra
configuration and you should make sure to make optimum changes for making most of these plugins. If you need tutorial
for any specific WordPress plugin set up, you can let us know on our Facebook fan page.
Akismet:
This plugin is managed by official WordPress creator Automattic. This plugin is very useful to avoid spam comments. There
are many alternative to this plugin but I prefer this one, as it’s fast and does the job pretty well. You can download plugin
from official page here. You need API Key to activate this plugin and you can quickly create a free account on WordPress.-
com and get your WordPress API key.
SEO plugins:
WordPress SEO by Yoast:
WordPress SEO by Yoast is an advanced plugin by Yoast, which integrated many important features from some of the popular
SEO plugins for WordPress like Robots meta, All in one SEO, RSS footer, Sitemap and many more. This plugin require
proper configuration for optimum performance. Along with above feature, you can also edit your Robots.txt, .htaccess file
using this plugin. This plugin also offers Keyword suggestion and Keyword optimization, which will give you an extra edge
in Search engine ranking. Also, you can configure indexing and no-indexing of your site structure which is very useful for
proper SEO of your blog.
How to setup WordPress SEO by yoast
Google XML Sitemap:
Sitemap helps search engine bots to crawl your site effectively. Google XML sitemap plugin helps you to generate sitemap
of your blog and also as soon as you publish new post, this plugin will keep updating the site map. This is a dynamic plugin
and you need to configure it only once. Simply install this plugin and create a sitemap and submit it to Google, Bing and Yahoo
and forget about Sitemap submission after that. For better result, put a sitemap link in the footer of your blog as it helps
in deep-indexing of your blog.
XML Video and XML Image sitemap plugin:
Images and videos are also great way for ranking and when you are creating a normal sitemap using Google XML Sitemap
plugin, it doesn’t list images and videos. XML video and XML image sitemap plugin for WordPress helps in creating
sitemap for your images & videos, and you can submit them to search engine service and drive traffic to your site.
YARPP: Yet Another related post plugin:
Though this plugin is more of usability plugin but I prefer it as SEO plugin, because it helps in linking to related article.
YARPP also offers settings to show related posts in feeds, which helps in decreasing down the bounce rate and increasing
user experience on your site. If not YARPP, you can use any other way but showing direct related posts will help in boosting
your site usability.
SEO friendly Image:
Images helps a lot in driving traffic to your blog, but to rank for images you need to work on alt tag optimization of your
blog. SEO friendly image plugin does the same by, converting your image name into Alt tag and make it search engine readable.
Bonus tip: Always use your Keyword or relevant name as image name. Avoid using Image-001.jpeg and such names.
PushPress:
If you are suffering from indexing issue on your blog, try PushPress which is a free WordPress plugin to ping cloud servers.
It helps in faster indexing of your blog. This is a plug and play plugin which doesn’t require any configuration.
WordPress Insight plugin:
WordPress insight plugin is very useful for WordPress blogger to do a search and insert links directly from WordPress editor.
You can search for term within your blog or in Google, Wikipedia and other sites.
Increase usability:
Now, here are list of those plugins for WordPress, which will help you to extend it’s capabilities and give better user experience.
WpTouch:
Number of people using smart-phones are increasing day by day. Wptouch is an easy to set up plugin for WordPress, which
will make your site mobile optimized. I’m using this plugin and tested it on iPhone and iPad and it works great. You can
also insert your adsense codes from WpTouch settings to monetize your mobile site.
W3 Total cache:
Page load time is one important factor for great user experience and also for better search engine ranking. W3 total cache is a
complete solution to your WordPress caching. This plugin comes with advanced configuration and caching options. Also, if
you are using any CDN service and cloudflare, this plugin offers easy to implement option for configuration. Though, some
of the webhosting companies doesn’t work great with W3 total cache, in this case I suggest you to try WpSuper cache.
Contact Form 7:
Contact page is an essential element of a website. Contact form 7 plugin let you create multiple contact forms and you can
also add contact form in sidebar of your blog. There are many more contact forms like Gravity forms, but in free options this
is one of the easy to set up contact plugin for WordPress. I have also tried Enhanced Word-
Press contact form by Yoast, which is equally good and easy to configure. This plugin shows the referral link location and
you will get an idea, who visitor landed to your contact form. Check out Enhanced WordPress contact form.
Wp Db manager:
One stop plugin for doing various maintenance job and schedule job in WordPress. Using this plugin you can quickly optimize
WordPress database, clean WordPress tables, take WordPress backup and configure WordPress timely backup. Very
useful plugin to get many things done.
Wp Optimize plugin:
Another useful plugin to delete all posts revisions, delete all spam comments and optimize WordPress table. Though, you
don’t need to use this plugin all the time but running this plugin once in a month, will keep your blog performance in good
shape.
Digg Digg WordPress plugin:
Social signals has become an essential part of SEO and to encourage social sharing of your blog post, you should must implement
social bookmarking button. Digg Digg plugin helps you to quickly add most of the popular and new social bookmarking
buttons. More over, this plugin comes with many settings like lazy load button, social button size and other placement
settings, which you are hoping in a Social bookmarking plugin. There are few alternatives to
Digg-digg plugin like Slick share & sexy bookmarks.
JetPack plugin:
This is another official plugin by WordPress, which comes with many options that they offer to WordPress.com users. Also,
this plugin contain some of the essential elements that you would be requiring for example: WordPress.com stats, Subscription
option for commentator, Spelling and grammar check, Contact form and also many more features. In future WordPress
is planning to add some paid modules for example, right now they have integrated VaultPress which is their premium
WordPress backup service. Though, all paid services are optional and to use this plugin you need to have a WordPress.com
account. Also, disable any cache plugin which you are using while configuring Jetpack plugin.
Wp Smush.it:
Smsuh.it is an online service by Yahoo, and smush.it plugin does the job pretty well of compressing your images for faster
loading. Your image quality remains the same and using image compression technology, this plugin will compress images
at the time of loading. This plugin also comes with bulk image compression of already uploaded images. So, if you have
new or old blog, Wp smushit plugin will help you to keep your blog loading time faster.
The list of plugins for WordPress are endless and you can browse WordPress plugin repo to find plugin for every use. But,
these are some of those must have WordPress plugins, which are essential for every WordPress blog. Do let us know about
any other new wp plugins, which should be in this list.
WordPress Resources:
Webhosting:
Bluehost
Hostgator
Dreamhost
Themes:
Elegant themes
Thesis
Genesis
WooThemes
If you have any query regarding this guide or WordPress, feel free to ask me on Google plus here or mail me at
LUMSM983@GMAIL.com
Lets make blogging full time business.
LUMS MARTIN
http://www.LOVELIFECONSAULTANCY.WORDPRESS.com http://WWW.SOGHFZAMBIA.WORDPRESS.COM
HTTP://WWW.LUMSMARTIN.BLOGSPOT.COM
How to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How to keep your BOYFRIEND happy?
-Trust in him.
-Don’t be selfish.
-Let him talk to other girls.
-If you know it’s your fault, apologize.. and
lastly
-Love him all your heart.
•How to keep your GIRLFRIEND happy?
MAKE HER YOUR ONE AND ONLY
like i u agree comment if u don’t
-Trust in him.
-Don’t be selfish.
-Let him talk to other girls.
-If you know it’s your fault, apologize.. and
lastly
-Love him all your heart.
•How to keep your GIRLFRIEND happy?
MAKE HER YOUR ONE AND ONLY
like i u agree comment if u don’t
How Bloggers makes money
I thought of putting everything on one page, so that people could learn something from it and implement the monetization part, which they are comfortable with. My suggestion is, instead of jumping into all of them, explore every ad network and every method that I mentioned one by one. Just to let you know, it took me 4 years to reach at the stage where I’m in. Everything I learned comes from my experience; I made mistakes and learned from them. So, don’t just jump on the wagon of getting rich quickly; rather understand every system individually.
Every blog is monetized with different model and My suggestion, pick a niche and monetize it using method, which works best for that system.
How a Blog makes money:
Google AdSense:
I placed Google AdSense first because it gives recurring income. At this moment Google AdSense is making around 700$ every month, and it is such a relief to have recurring income from your blog. If you have a blog with decent traffic, you can make good money with Google AdSense.
In fact, if you are a newbie and looking forward to starting a blog with the intention of just making money, AdSense should be one of your first priority. Because, it gives you a sense of comfort and once AdSense starts making $10-20 daily, you can start exploring the other monetization opportunities.
AdSense guide for starters
Before getting into the world of Professional Blogging, start looking for recurring income opportunities from blogging. Out of all ad networks Google AdSense seems to be the best ad network for any blogger.
Beginner AdSense Guide
We all know, that AdSense is easy to use and easy to integrate, but for beginners, there are many things they are not aware of. Many people don’t even know how they can earn using Adsense and where they can integrate AdSense. I will try to add as much information & various AdSense tips and tricks which existing AdSense users can implement to double their revenue.
AdSense Guide
One thing, which I would like to say: AdSense is very strict about their policies, so make sure you also read official AdSense help center to learn best practices for AdSense.
BuySellAds-income
BuySellAds is an advertisement network that helps you to sell ads directly. They work as a middle man and they keep a percentage (25%) of the money you make by selling ads. this is a good system because you don’t need to interact with advertisers directly and you can cash-out money twice a month. BuySellAds is making almost 400-500$/month. Being a popular network for advertisers and publishers, if you have a nice specific blog, you can use BuySellAds to sell all your entire unsold ad inventory.
Direct ad sales:
If you are getting a direct advertisement, it’s actually good, because you are saving money by eliminating the middle man. These direct advertisement sales are making almost 850$ per month. The key to getting direct advertisements is by adding an advertisement page on your blog and giving all the necessary details like ad spaces available, ad placement, traffic details and a marketing pitch in the form of what your advertisers can expect.
Affiliate Marketing:
Dreamhost Affiliate Check
One of maximum potential for making money via a niche blog is by affiliate marketing. In simple words, you recommend a genuine product on your blog and when people sign up via your affiliate link, you will make a handsome money out of it. Affiliate marketing is something whose income is never decided and you can’t be sure how much you will make with this. If you promote almost 5 affiliate programs you can making around average 1800-2300$ per month.
Infolinks:
Infolinks is a In-text advertising program. if you are not into affiliate marketing, you can start with Infolinks here. Recently, also try Vigilink, which turns out to be a decent platform and in some cases better than Infolinks.
Blog Consultancy program:
This is one service that I started last year, and within it’s launch I started getting clients for personal consultancy. In this coaching, I teach about SEO, how to blog for profit, blog marketing plan, Social media plans and in short everything which I have learned from my 4 years of blogging experience. I have been getting good reactions from all the students I have mentored till now and you can learn about it on my blog consultancy page. I target 15 hour of personal coaching in a month and charge $199 per hr for now.
In between, I offered a few more services like WordPress SEO and Thesis customization, but with time I retired them to bring something better, as the service sector requires a great deal of time, and time is always an issue for a professional blogger. I realized, instead of offering those 20-30$/hr of service, I could make the most out of time via blogging consultancy.
Well, these are just a few of the ways I use for blog monetization, and there are many more ad networks that I keep trying on my blog network. I keep playing with latest monetziation methods to make most out of my online journey. I will keep updating this page with latest ways, make sure you are subscribes to the ShoutMeLoud Email newsletter for updates.
I’m sure this will help those who are missing ways to make huge money from blogging. Do share your story, How are you making money from blogging?
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