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Top 30 plugins

April 9, 2007 by Tricia

There’s a great article over at Staska.net that lists the top 30 WordPress plugins. The list describes each plugin and gives the reason why it made the list. Often it’s place on the list has to do with a poll that was given to readers to find out how many were using each plugin.

I’ve used a number of the plugins that made the list and agree that many should be on the list and should be used by even more WordPress bloggers.

If I were creating this list a few of the plugins that are listed would have been given a much higher spot on the list than they are currently placed.

Go on over and have a peak at the list. I’ll bet that you find a great plugin to use.




Filed Under: Site maintenance, Wordpress Plugins Tagged With: blog, Blogger, plugin, useful plugins, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugin

Are you looking for a new WordPress Theme?

April 5, 2007 by Tricia

I was reading the BloggingPro blog earlier today and found a couple of new wordpress themes that I think I might try with some of our blogs. One that I downloaded – the Blogging Pro theme – will likely be used on this site. I like this theme, but it’s a bit too dark for my taste.


Speaking of themes, I also came across a post that said that HongKiat.com has a list of the 49 most downloaded WordPress themes of all time. Since I’m looking for new themes for three or four of our sites I mossied on over there to have a look.

I’m not sure that I want to use the same themes that everyone else is using. I’ve always prided myself on altering and customizing the themes that I choose to use to give our sites a unique look and feel. Well, I used to do that. I haven’t had time to customize a few of the themes I’ve been using on some of our sites lately and as a result of not customizing them I’ve grown tired of the themes rather quickly.

The list of the 49 most downloaded themes shows an image of each theme, which is nice if you are seriously looking at the list to find a new theme that might suit your site. Some of the themes listed are quite old and possibly might not work with WordPress 2.1.

Go have a look at the themes listed at HongKiat and don’t forget to visit BloggingPro too as it has some great web related information in it’s posts that I’m sure you’ll find useful.

Filed Under: Site maintenance, Wordpress Themes Tagged With: 49 most downloaded themes, BloggingPro, bloggingpro theme, HongKiat, list of wordpress themes, new wordpress theme, Wordpress, wordpress theme

Adding an image to your WordPress post

March 5, 2007 by Tricia

If you read the last post you now know a little bit more about preparing photos and images prior to including them in a post on your blog or an article on your website. Now you are ready to include the image in your post.

For the purposes of this article I’m going to tell you how to put images in WordPress blog posts, as that is the blogging platform that I use and to which I’m most familiar. I think that some of the methods might be slightly different on other blogging platforms but the theory should be the same.

As I said in the last post there are at least two ways to get an image into your post. You can upload them directly from your computer, or you can upload them to a free photo hosting service first.

Let’s discuss uploading an image into a WordPress post first:

While you are in the post writing area of WordPress you’ll see an upload section right below the writing area. When you want to add a photo that you’ve already prepared for your post simply scroll down to the upload area and:

Find the Browse button in the upload section. Browse through the files on your computer to find the image that you’d like to upload.

Once you find the image that you’d like to use in your post click on the Upload button in the bottom section of the Upload area.

Once the file has uploaded you’ll see a thumbnail of the image on the left. If you are using a version of WordPress that is less than 2.1:

– you’ll have to click on the image to choose either thumbnail or full size

If you are using WordPress 2.1+

– Beside the thumbnail of the image you’ll be able to select between full size, thumbnail, or title. I believe title will just be a link to the photo on the server. Below that you’ll see that you can link to the file, the page or none. I tend to use full size images in my post so I usually select full size and none.

Now, before you click on the Send to Editor button place your cursor in the area of the post that you’d like the image to be located. Ok … now click on send to editor.

If you are in rich text or visual mode you’ll see the image. If you are in code or plain text mode you’ll just see the code for the image in your post.

If you are in code mode you can use < center > or < p align="center" > to align the photo in the center of the post. You can also use the paragraph tag to align the photo to the left or right side of the post. The text will come up and wrap around the photo if you set the photo to the left or right.

In Visual or Rich text mode you can simply click on the alignment icons near the top of the post to move the photo from left, center or right.

Then TA DA you have a photo inserted into your post.

If the photo is still a little bit too large for your post you can click on the photo and you’ll see points in the corner that you can drag to make the photo larger or smaller. You’ll only be able to do this while in visual or rich text mode.

The other way to get photos into your posts is to get the photo links from the free photo services that you’ve already uploaded your photos to – ie Flickr or Photobucket. Simply visit either of those sites, upload your photos if you haven’t already, and then depending upon which service you choose to use, select the photo and get the link for the approximate correct size of photo that you need for your post.

Once you have the image link, you can use the link button at the top of your WordPress post writing area to add the http link to your post.

Now you’re all set. You can create great posts with photos and images in them to illustrate whatever topic you happen to be discussing in your post.

Filed Under: How To, Wordpress Tagged With: adding image, adding image to post, adding photo, Flickr, How To, image, photo, Photobucket, upload image into blog, upload image into post

Easy way to create WordPress Blog

February 24, 2007 by Tricia

Did you just get a new domain? Want to start a blog? If so I highly recommend using WordPress as your blogging platform. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but it’s full of great features and you’ll enjoy using it. Since it’s a popular blogging platform there are a number of plugins and themes available for download. This is great as you can fully customize your blog to your liking with the theme of your choice and any of the thousands of plugins that are available.

So, to set up a wordpress blog the easy way you need to go into your C-Panel on your web hosting site. Login with your username and password.

Once you are in C-Panel, scroll down until you see an icon for Fantastico. Click on it:

1. In Fantastico you’ll see a list of the different types of programs that you can automatically install into your directory.

2. Look for the Blog programs and click on WordPress

3. Go through the install procedure – it will instruct you as you go. If you want your new blog to be in a directory such as mydomain/blog you’ll need to list the name of this directory at the start of the installation process. You’ll also have to assign yourself a login name and password.

4. Once you are finished you can tell Fantastico to send you an email with all of the new installation information. I recommend that you do this, and then store that email on your computer.

It’s easy isn’t it? Within less than 10 minutes you can have a new blog installed. All you have to do now is either start posting in your new blog or customizing the theme etc.

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: c panel, easy installation of wordpress, fantasico, install wordpress, start a blog, Wordpress

FTC moves to require disclosure for paid word of mouth marketing

December 14, 2006 by Tricia

The Washington Post published an article on December 12, FTC Moves to Unmask Word-of-Mouth Marketing which states that the Federal Trade Commission made a statement on Dec. 11th regarding word-of-mouth marketing campaigns where people are compensated to promote products to their peers will now have to disclose those relationships.

It’s not known exactly what percentage of marketing is now done through volunteer and paid word of mouth marketing campaigns, but it is clear that it has been increasing yearly. We’re seeing paid ads on web blogs, myspace pages and an increasing amount of on the street word of mouth marketing promotions.

Last June I was given an opportunity to participate in a voluntary word of mouth campaign for Nokia. I was given a Nokia 6682 Multimedia Smartphone by a “Marketing Buzz” creation company, all the accessories I could possibly need for the camera phone, some of which I still haven’t used, and a number of cards with information about the phone listed on them. I was told that the phone was being given to me completely free, but they would like to contact me in a few months in order to get my opinion on the phone and to see if I’d told anyone about the product. The phone was mine to keep with absolutely no obligation. I didn’t even have to answer the survey that they sent me if I didn’t want to, and I certainly didn’t have to promote the product in any way, but If I liked the phone would I please tell people about it?

Naturally I was totally thrilled to have been given a fancy new smartphone! Who wouldn’t be? I figured the phone itself, plus all of the accessories that they gave me was worth more than $500. I was on cloud 9. Of course I told my friends, family and co-workers about the phone and I even brought along some of the promotional cards that I’d been given when I went out to gatherings. I always told people exactly how I got the phone too.

That was my introduction into participating in word of mouth marketing. Would I do it again? Of course I would – particularly if it was a product that I could fit into my lifestyle. Would I tell others about it? Sure, why not – more so if I loved or hated the product.

I really don’t see any problem with marketing done in this manner. I suppose you could say my participation was voluntary, but I was compensated by being give a free cell phone to use and evaluate.

Advocacy groups are beginning to question whether some marketers are using such tactics (ads on web pages, peer to peer word of mouth) to dupe consumers into believing they are getting unbiased information.

They cite campaigns such as:

Sony Ericsson Mobile for its T68i mobile phone and digital camera. The initiative, called “Fake Tourist,” involved placing 60 actors posing as tourists at attractions in New York and Seattle to demonstrate the camera phone. The actors asked passersby to take their photo, which demonstrated the camera phone’s capabilities, but the actors did not identify themselves as representatives for Sony Ericsson.

What the FTC sought to do yesterday in its staff opinion was to note that such marketing could be deceptive if consumers were more likely to trust the product’s endorser “based on their assumed independence from the marketer.”

I suppose you could now say that I’ve embraced the paid form of word of mouth advertising. I write paid ads / paid posts on a few of my blogs. I do not disclose in every single paid post that I write that I’ve been paid to write the post. I have a disclosure policy on each of those sites which explains to my readers that I’ve been compensated to write some of my posts.

Am I being dishonest to my readers?

I don’t believe that I am because I have disclosed on my site, but not on every single paid post – that I am writing posts and being compensated. I also don’t believe that I’m duping my readers. I could never write a post about something that I didn’t believe in. If whatever I happen to be writing about is not a service, product or information that I can personally use I’ll still write about it if I think a large portion of my readers will find the site, product or service useful in their lives.

Just as many bloggers spontaneously write about great websites or products that they’ve recently discovered, I believe that had I discovered some of the services or products that I’ve been paid to write about on my own I still might have written a similar article upon discovery. So it’s a bonus when I get paid for something that I might very well have written about anyway.

It’s my blog. It’s my sites reputation on the line. If I start writing about products that I, or my readers, won’t use or begin to write in a manner that sounds like blatant advertising I’ll lose my readership and as a result lose my blog. I think most of the bloggers that I know that write paid ads feel the same way. They wouldn’t ruin their sites or reputation by writing about things they don’t feel are worthwhile publicizing.

I don’t have a problem with disclosure, but I also feel that If I were required to list every paid post as a paid post that my readers might just skip over those postings and potentially lose out on some information that might be helpful to them somewhere down the line. Besides, I try to tie many of the paid posts that I write about into my own life, so if my readers were to skip the paid posts they’d be missing a portion of “me” and my writing which is what drew them to the site in the first place.

I talk about being paid to blog frequently enough on all of my sites that very few people would ever end up leaving my site feeling duped.

The Washington Post article went on to say:

The FTC said it would investigate cases where there is a relationship between the endorser of a product and the seller that is not disclosed and could affect the endorsement. The FTC staff said it would go after violators on a case-by-case basis. Consequences could include a cease-and-desist order, fines and civil penalties ranging from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. Engle said the agency had not brought any cases against word-of-mouth marketers.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see how exactly the FTC’s statement and subsequent investigations will affect word of mouth advertising and paid blog posts in particular. I’m not even certain that it would drastically affect paid blogging posts. When I write a paid post I’m not being paid directly by the company who’s product I’m writing about, I’m being paid my a company that they hired to secure my services.

Other forms of word of mouth marketing might be seen as being product promotion used in television series or movies. How many times have you see a TV show and all the computers that make it into your site while watching the show are made by the same company? Of course you’d have to clearly see the logo to know for sure- but of course we are shown the logo. The same for many of the drinks or other products that the characters on our favorite shows or in the movies use. The labels always face outward so that the viewers can see what the product is. Are the shows not being paid by those companies to prominently show their products? Are we the viewer informed that our favorite series is endorsing the product? No.

Do television commercials actually state that they’re a commercial being paid for by such and such a company? No. Do we feel duped? No not really.

If this FTC ruling ends up forcing me to list that I’m being paid by such and such a company to endorse the product of such and such a company – then Television and Radio programs had better start listing what products they are endorsing and who’s paying them to endorse the products as well. Fair is fair.

What do you think of the FTC’s statement and do you think it will affect you in any way?

UPDATE:

Apparently the proposal for the FTC to probe into word of mouth practices was rejected as stated In an article on Advertising Age on December, 11th. As I listed above the FTC is still open to probing the practices of word of mouth marketing on a case by case basis. To learn more about how they plan to open investigations read the article.

Deep Jive Interests brings up interesting points about affiliate programs and links that are used within the text of an article or post. On some sites these affiliate links are used multiple times and no where on these sites are there any form of a disclosure statement. Read the article to get his full point of view on the subject.

Filed Under: Blogging, Sales and Marketing, Site Promotion, Technology News, The Law and Regulations Tagged With: advertising, blog advertising, Blogging, disclosure, FTC, marketing, sales, washington post, word of mouth

Working on the theme

August 26, 2006 by Tricia

Have patience with me as I work on the theme. I want to get everything just right before I start re-publishing some of the posts that I already wrote up for this site.

If you have an suggestions as to what you might like to see on this site I’d love to hear it. Remember I’m creating this site for you my reader so that you can learn how to optimize your site better, and how to maintain it as well.

Filed Under: Blogging, SEO, Site maintenance, Site Promotion, Wordpress Tagged With: changing theme, suggestions, wordpress theme

Hello world!

August 26, 2006 by Tricia

I’m starting this site because I’ve found that over the last 10 to 12 years of making my own websites, creating mailing lists, creating blogs etc I’ve ended up helping a lot of people with Search Engine Optimization, graphics, and all the little how to’s that are confusing when you don’t know much html or php. So I thought that I’d create this site and create a record of the helpful tips that I’ve given out to others.

I also plan to start helping others that don’t have time to fix up their sidebars on their blogs or who want new headers, new design – for a fee. More on this later. For now I’m tinkering with my own theme.

Filed Under: Blogging, Site maintenance Tagged With: General

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