by BP Guest Blogger on March 12th, 2012 
10 Comments
WordPress has become one of the most popular blogging platforms ever released onto the web. Even the most obtuse, computer-illiterate user can create a genuinely professional looking blog that can gain followers over time and provide you with a great place to share posts. From adding media to SEO, it makes it all much simpler than it was before. Read More
by James Johnson on February 21st, 2012 4 Comments
Racking up thousands of pageviews and unique visitors might make you feel as if your work is more valuable then it use to be, however in the eyes of advertisers a websites success is based on more than just the number of people it reaches. One of the most important factors is the amount of time users spend on your website, known as “time on site.”
While there are many ways you can increase your blogs “time on site” numbers the following three options are simple to implement and can be placed on many of your top posts.
1. Add Video In Proper Placement Settings
Video in and of itself will typically increase “time on site” numbers because users are forced to sit through a video to learn more about your post, however the placement of video can drastically increase the chance that users actually watch your videos.
I often notice that blog posts will show a video at the top of the post, while that placement might mean users will engage with the video immediately it also lends itself to users leaving after gaining knowledge of your topic via the video. Read More
by James Johnson on February 16th, 2012 0 Comments
When placing social sharing buttons from various social networks on your website one of the biggest dangers is misplacement of those buttons. Some web designers argue that buttons at the top of each post will provide the most shares while other experts insist that directly after a posts content is best.
When I’m building websites I prefer to not leave the placement of social buttons to chance and I don’t like to place buttons in multiple positions because it can adversely affect pageload times. For that prefer to use the Sharebar plugin for WordPress which can be found at: wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar.
The plugin is extremely easy to install, simply search for “Sharebar” from the plugins screen in your WordPress administrator screen and the program will show up under the “settings” at which point you will see the following screen: Read More
by James Johnson on February 9th, 2012 2 Comments
WP Really Simple Health is a very easy to use and ultimately useful application for WordPress users who are worried about Cpu user time, server uptime and general WordPress memory utilization.
The program can be downloaded at WP Really Simple Health and offers users just three simple options for setting up the program.
Here’s a screenshot for the program’s health settings:
Once installed the program then provides instant access to a users server setup in the admin bar at the top of their WordPress page setup. Having immediate access means you can quickly see your servers health without needing to navigate to a specialized area for the program. Read More
by James Johnson on January 26th, 2012 One Comment
Working with an open-source platform that provides open-source plugins means it’s often cheap to build and maintain a website using WordPress, however because the platform and plugins are often open source it can also create a security headache for site administrators and that’s where Ultimate Security Checker comes into play.
The program is simple to use, essentially users simply search for “Ultimate Security Checker” in the WordPress repository and upload it to their server or they just install it direct from the WordPress plugins search section inside the admin area of their websites WordPress setup.
Once installed the program will ask you to run a diagnostic at which time Ultimate Security Checker will examine your blocks file settings, server settings, WordPress database and required plugin updates for stability. Read More
by James Johnson on December 22nd, 2011 3 Comments
I am not an advocate for WordPress plugins, most of the time users go overboard with their installation and in turn WordPress sites become server intensive power hogs that are slow to load and hard to administer. With that being said there are a handful of new plugins this week that attempt to make a developers life easier, both by speeding up a WordPress installation and by allowing for simple output protocols to be achieved.
Here are 5 new WordPress plugins for developing a faster and smarter blog.
As a fan of tweaking my websites design on a fairly regular basis I often find that purchased themes pose one significant problem, whenever an update is made available some developers provide all new files for that theme. Unfortunate that means If I update the theme without backing up the CSS file I lose all of the changes that made the theme my own. WP Separate CSS solves this problem by allowing users to create a separate CSS file that is then added into the theme’s CSS output. Simply upload the program, create a .CSS file within the plugins folder and edit that file instead of the typical style.css and other files. Once the .css file is saved the changes are loaded alongside the templates .css files. Read More
by James Dunaway on December 5th, 2011 9 Comments
For anyone just starting out in SEO or even existing SEO professionals, there’s arguably no quicker or easier way to experiment and learn than by running your own blog. In fact, I’m of the opinion that ALL SEO professionals should have their own side projects. If you don’t, you spend your entire full time job just keeping up with competition and never eclipsing them. Running your own site gives you more freedom and exposure to techniques you wouldn’t use on client sites. So don’t wait, it takes just minutes to set up a WordPress site and here are the first plug ins you should add to kick off your SEO campaign: Read More
by James Johnson on September 27th, 2011 9 Comments
Understanding where your users are coming from, which pages they access and what content they peruse for the longest periods of time is a great way to help better your websites content.
Whether you choose to use a free Analytics program such as Google Analytics or a paid program like GetClicky there are several WordPress plugins that make integration simple.
Here are a few of my personal favorite analytics programs with WordPress integration, all of which I use on my personal and business related websites. Read More
by James Johnson on September 22nd, 2011 17 Comments
WordPress is notoriously bad on server load, even without a ton of plugins and widgets installed users often complain that as the number of posts on their site grow so do the load times needed to access the site. If you insist on running those 10 must have plugins your site uses there is at least a few plugins you can access for free to help reduce WordPress size and speeds.
5. WP-Optimize
WP-Optimize as the name suggests helps users optimize their current wordpress setup. The main component of the program allows users to clear out old post revisions that are no longer needed after a post has been published, remove all auto drafts generated by WordPress and even clean out all comments that have been marked as spam with the single click of a button. The program is also able to clear all unapproved comments. After making changes to the WordPress database the program also offers a quick one click option for optimizing the WordPress database.
By cleaning up comments and revisions and optimizing your database more room is freed up on your WordPress installation, allowing for quicker load times.
Here’s a quick look at WP-Optimize: Read More
by Jonathan Bailey on July 13th, 2011 2 Comments
Bloggers love to argue about what is the best blogging platform. Whether they’re backers of WordPress, BlogSpot, Tumblr, Posterous, MovableType or a custom solution, there are very good bloggers who are strong believers in all of the major tools.
The simple truth is that every blogging platform is a perfectly fine way to run your blog. They all succeed in doing the major task of putting your words, images, etc. online. While they have different features, strengths and weaknesses, you can easily run a good blog with just about any platform you choose.
Unfortunately though, blogging platforms tend to become flavors of the week. As one company or platform draws a lot of attention, many bloggers are tempted to try and ride the wave and move their site to new platforms in a bid to stay on the bleeding edge.
However, this can be catastrophic for a site. Because, while your blogging platform doesn’t determine how good your site is, it does impact your site in other ways. As such, changing platforms, especially doing so routinely, can create serious problems that even a good blog will struggle to overcome.
So, before you chase the latest blogging platform fad, you may want to understand the implications of moving your site and why you might want to think twice before jumping ship. Read More
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