Create and Get Started Blogging Online Part 10 – Important Plugins and Installation

In the previous chapter we went over choosing the right theme, and how to customize a theme you have chosen for your blog. Today, we’ll be looking at important plugins which you should always install with your website because it will help streamline your optimization process. However, some plugins will even help optimize your speed, images and help with visitor engagement. I always like to install these plugins as soon as I setup my blog because I’ll forget afterwards, and this can cause delays in engagement. With that said,

Let’s jump into plugins, and go over some of the MOST important ones to install going forward. And remember, the easiest way to start a new blog is with our free WordPress installation service.

Plugin Installation

When you access your website the plugins can be installed by going to the left menu then clicking on Plugins>Add New. Once the right screen populates, you can start by doing a search then clicking install after you find a plugin you like. The installation process is very simple, and can be done within minutes. Once the plugin has been installed, you can view it within the left menu.

Now that you know how to install plugins, let’s look at some of the MOST important ones which every blogger & website owner needs going forward.

Important Plugins

All-In-One SEO –

This is a must have because it streamlines your entire SEO process. Once the plugin has been installed you’ll see the options when writing content. Scroll down on the post page, and you’ll see SEO options which you can add before hitting publish. For example, you can add your title, description and keywords before publishing your content.

The plugin works right out of the box because it automatically adds the entire code to all your pages instead you having to do it manually.

WP Cache –

A very important plugin which optimizes the speed of your website. Having a slow website can push away visitors, and even hurt your rankings. Google works hard at giving people a good experience, and the last thing they want to do is boost a slow website higher than one which has been optimized for speed. This plugin works right out of the box and requires very little configuration. Next,

If you require some help with setup then do a quick search in Google, and you’ll find 10-20 videos on configuration.

Ewww Image Optimizer

Another amazing plugin and works right out of the box. It’s an awesome plugin because it shrinks the size of your images allowing your servers to display pages much quicker. With smaller images you’ll have less weight on your servers which is good for load times, visitor engagement and rankings.

There are other image optimization plugins available, but this one has awesome reviews and I use it for all my blogs.

Google XML Sitemap –

Another very important plugin, and very easy to configure once it has been installed. It adds the XML file to your server so all that’s left is for you to tweak what pages and posts you want in your sitemap. What does this plugin do?

It creates a list of posts, pages and categories in a format which is easy for search spiders to understand. This plugins will allow Google to index your pages more quickly, and understand the linking pattern within your blog. It’s just a great way to get indexed and start ranking faster within the SERP’s.

Contact Form 7 –

Many of the new themes will have their own contact form installed however if you are building from scratch then use this plugin. It adds a simple contact form to the pages you indicate, and it’s very easy to configure because you have to:

• Select what fields you want
• Add the “to” email
• Add the “from” email
• Add the code to whatever page you want the form displayed

The contact form will pull the .CSS code form your template so it matches the overall look and feel of your website.

Final Thoughts

The plugins I have listed above are the ones which you should install right away. You can do a quick search in Google, and find some more you think would be a good fit for your blog. However, please start by installing these first, and then looking for others which will be relevant to your blog.

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Tesla Motors Owners Meetup At Weiss Watch Company

The Tesla Owners Club of Orange County took a field trip to Los Angeles to visit the Weiss Watch Company to see how Cameron Weiss is restoring prestige to American watchmaking. The watches by Weiss start up at $950 and go all the way to $10K. They represent amazing value.

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Create and Get Started Blogging Online: Part 9 – Theme Customization

Thanks for joining me on my “Blogging Series” and today, we’ll be looking at theme customization. You have several options when setting up your theme, but it’s important to choose one that has the highest conversions. You want to make sure you choose a theme that represents your brand, and that people feel comfortable navigating through. WordPress offers thousands of free and premium themes to choose from so it’s important you go through to find one you’re happy with. Let’s go through some of the theme selection fundamentals.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Let’s jump right in. And remember, the easiest way to start a blog is with our free WordPress installation service.

Searching For Themes

WordPress themes are kept within the left column in the “Appearance” menu. You can then go to Theme>Add New. Here, you will find thousands of free themes available to you. You can go through each one, finding one that fits your brand. Remember, the rule of thumb is to find a theme that is easy to customize and navigate. Next,

If you guys want premium themes, you have thousands of options. You can start by going to Themeforest.net and skimming through the different templates. These are more advanced WordPress themes, and offer a greater selection. With the premium themes, you might get a drag & drop interface, additional plug-ins, etc.

The Layout

When choosing your WordPress template, it’s important to understand how your layout will affect your conversion rate. For example, many people have said they prefer a website with a right sidebar, however, others prefer no side bar at all. You have to think about how one will perform compared to the other. Research has shown that the right-sidebar layout has the highest ROI so I would encourage all of you to focus your attention on this layout. Next,

If you feel you want to try different layout, that’s fine, but make sure you have an analytical tool installed to ensure you can test which one is performing the best.

Theme Colors

When choosing theme colors, I like to go with those that reflect my logo. However, remember, WordPress templates can completely be customized so you can change colors at a later time. I encourage all of you to know what design and colors you are looking for before choosing because many of you don’t have .CSS experience so will want a theme that does reflect your current color scheme.

Customizing Your Theme

WordPress allows you to customize your theme in “2” ways.

First, you can customize using your .CSS files, which are located within Appearance>Editor. At this point, you are looking for the Style.css file and can go through, making unique changes. You need experience if you are going to make changes to the .CSS file because errors can destroy your entire template. I recommend that you create a backup before you start messing around with your .CSS file. Next,

Many of the advance themes come customized with a customizer that makes it easy for you to select colors, etc. These themes are newer and mobile optimized so very easy to tweak. You have to go into Appearance>Theme Options, then start adjusting what you need from various options you have available. I am using various themes that allow me to easily fix:

• Color
• Menu
• Layout
• Add banners
• Font type
• Font size
• and much more

Again, if you run into a problem, doing a quick search within Google will provide walkthroughs on how you can customize your theme using the .CSS file available.

Menu

One important thing to keep in mind when customizing your website is that you have to ensure your menu is in the right place. This is an important design element because the menu will reflect how many people visit your website while navigating through. I believe by having the menu in the right place, you’ll encourage people to go through and read other content or pages. The menu can be adjusted by going to Appearance>Menu.

There are many resources on how to set your menu the right way.

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Create and Get Started Blogging Online: Part 8 – Getting Familiar with WordPress

Now that you have installed WordPress, it’s time to get familiar with the interface. WordPress has a lot of options in the backend so it’s important to understand which ones will be vital in your blog growth. For example, you have the “Appearance” menu, which will control the customizations, and then you have “Permalinks”, which will control how your URLs are displayed. The “Plug-Ins” menu option is also very important because it controls all your plug-ins, and how your blog will function.

Even though WordPress is very easy to use, it’s still important to know which items are the MOST important so you can customize your blog when you need to. Let’s jump in and explore WordPress a bit further before getting into theme customization, plugins, and marketing. Your feedback is appreciated so please let me know if I have missed anything.

Appearance Menu –

This is where your theme installation, and customization is controlled. Through here, you’ll be able to select new themes and even tweak the little options you have. All themes come with different tweak functions so you’ll be able to control the customization through .CSS files or even drag + drop elements. This is located within the left menu under “Appearance”.

Plug-Ins –

The Plug-Ins menu is located within the left panel and allows you to add awesome functionality to your WordPress blog. Through this column, you’ll be able to add cool plugins that will streamline how fast you grow your blog. For example, you’ll be able to add plug-ins for:

• Quick cache
• Social
• SEO
• Contact forms
• Layout
• And much more

I believe knowing how to install plug-ins is very important because it will show you how you can tweak your blog to give you even greater functionality.

General Settings –

This menu item is very important because it gives you control over some very important aspects. For example, it will give you authority over who leaves comments or if they should be moderated before publishing. These settings will also give you control over how your URLs will be displayed. It’s always a good idea to change your permalinks settings to Post Name so your keywords show within the URL, which is amazing for indexing and optimization.

Within this menu, you have other options like media settings, ping settings, and even setting your avatar. I would suggest you leave most of them as default, but make sure you change the permalinks to “Post Name”.

Media Settings –

The media menu will be on the left hand side with all the other menus. This menu is in charge of all your images and videos, making sure they are indexed and optimize so they can be viewed correctly by your visitors. However, you have to make sure you keep a few things in mind. First, you might want to crop each one individually to make sure they look good on your blog. The file “type” is very important because the higher the quality, the more weight on your server. I like to save images as .gif, .jpg, and .png because they preserve the quality, and visitors engage with them more than others.

Here’s something that is cool…

You have several plugins that will do the trick for you as far as optimizing your images. For example, you have plug-ins that will compress images, change file name, or even adjust the colors so there is less weight on the server. Play around finding out what works for you.

Pages and Posts

These are self-explanatory and are important menu options when you are adding content, etc. When you are ready to add content, you can go to Posts>Add New. To add “about us” or contact us” pages, you go to Pages>Add New. This part of WordPress is very simple and these two sections will be utilized once you’re set up.

Final Thoughts

It’s time to familiarize yourself with the menu by logging into your backend, and playing around with the different options. Don’t change anything because you simply want to become accustomed to where certain elements are going forward. After, you’ll know what sections are important to tweak every day, and what menu items are important once in a while. Go ahead right now and log in, then go through each menu until you know what each menu item does to your blog.

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What Internet Marketers Can Learn From Princess

In this video, I show you what you can learn about internet marketing from a Princess Cruise ship. Yes, the cruise ship business and making money onlie are very related.

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Create and Get Started Blogging Online: Part 7 – Installing WordPress in Hosting

We have covered a lot of ground, and will be looking at installing WordPress within your hosting backend. Many of these hosting providers have made it very easy to streamline the entire process, For example, hosting now provides a 1-click interface, which allows you to get the job done quickly and with very little experience. However, it’s still important that we go through the steps so you know what to expect when it comes time to get things moving in the right direction.

Here’s what we’ll be looking at in detail:

• Installing WordPress
• Adding a theme
• Interface functionality
• Final Thoughts

Let’s get started and jump right in:

Part 7 – WordPress Installation

When choosing a hosting provider, it is important that you select one that has a complete CMS interface installed within the backend. This will allow you to install WordPress and others with the click of a mouse so you can get to work much faster. In the end, it’s important you spend very little time learning how to install the CMS platform, and more time able to customize the site going forward. With that said, let’s go through the process quickly so you know where to look for the application.

First, you’ll log into your hosting provider, and your cPanel. In the backend, you’ll see an “Application” heading, where all of them will be listed from top to bottom. As a matter of fact, WordPress will be listed as the first because it is the MOST popular among all of the others. You can click on WordPress and fill in the required information.

If you have registered your domain with the same hosting provider, then you’ll be able to select it from within the drop-down, which makes the process much faster. If you have your domain registered at another provider, then you’ll have to change the DNS settings, which can be done through the registrar. Search for their tutorials on how you can get this done, which should NOT take more than a few minutes.

You will be required to fill in the following details before installation can begin:

• Username
• Password
• Select domain
• Sub-folder (if you want in root, then don’t change)

After installation, you can explore the interface, which I’ll discuss next.

Interface

WordPress has one of the best interfaces ever because they make finding things so simple. Once you have installed your website, head over by going to www.example.com/wp-admin. This will bring you to the control panel, where you can login with the username and password you selected. Once you have logged in, you can start scrolling through the left menu, where all the features and settings are placed. Pay close attention to:

• Appearance
• Media
• Posts
• Pages
• Plugins
• Settings

Theme Installation

Having a site with the right theme is very important because this is what matters when people arrive on your website. It’s stated that 80% of people make a decision to stay on your website as soon as they arrive on your page. This means you need a theme that is attractive, and that keeps people on the site long enough so they read content. If you head over to “Appearance” then “Themes”, you’ll be able to browse what they have in their selection. There are many premium themes available that have to be purchased, but the free options will do the trick for now. When figuring out your theme, you have to understand the following:

• Logo design (for colors)
• Main colors for your site
• Layout you have in mind
• What your competitors are doing in terms of theme
• Free or premium (some premium themes are more unique and can be customized better)

Once you have answered theme questions, you can head over to “Appearance”, and click “Add New” before scrolling through the FREE selection you have available. Having a good idea of what you’re looking for will help streamline the selection process.

Summarizing

We went over a few quick things today:

First, make sure you choose a hosting provider that has quick WordPress installation. This will streamline installation so you don’t have to download the application. Secondly, install application within the right directory, and choose a safe username + password. Third, you want to think about your theme and layout so your selection process will be more streamlined. If you have a good idea of your layout and colors, you can start to narrow down themes quickly.

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