Review sites, also known as shopping comparison sites, are a golden mine because all the affiliate products you sell there usually come with hefty commissions. However, despite their huge potential shopping comparison sites frequently fail.

When they do have such an enormous money making potential, why does this happen?

Here are some common reasons:

After you’ve chosen your theme, it’s time to customize it with plugins. The WordPress glossary defines a plugin as, “… A group of php functions that can extend the functionality present in a standard WordPress weblog.” In other words, plugins allow you to customize your site beyond the built in programming that comes with the basic platform.

However, as a beginning blogger, you may not be familiar with the technical side of blogging, such as coding, HTML and CSS. Because of that, you want plugins that work “out of the box.” Meaning, there is no extra back-end work to be done, simply install, activate and go. Check out these easy to use plugins to get started.

In last few weeks I have noticed increased WordPress hack attacks against administrative login across multiple blogs we maintain and manage.  Interestingly enough, this hack is not new, in fact I have published post in June 2011 that shows simple video on how WordPress blog can be hacked in minutes. In fact that post is been gaining popularity lately, see the stats from yesterday,  WordPress hack phrase in some combination at the top of searches that brought people to my blog:

I guess the increase can be attributed to popularity of the WordPress as publishing platform that helps its adoption, in many cases by people who have no clue how to take basic steps to protect their WordPress blog. If you are not sure how well protected your blog, please read the WordPress security guide I have published on this blog, I guarantee you it will save you time and money, as it is expensive to hire someone to fix your blog and recover it from hack!

But let’s look into some details of what I’m seeing…

The login screen of WordPress has its logo on it. Just below are the fields where we enter our WordPress username and password. The wordpress login logo on the login screen makes the login look a little whacky so why not change the wordpress login logo to your own blog logo. It would make your blog look a lot more brandable and professional.

Yes, it is possible with just a few simple steps.

Start with the general term for which you are looking, and enter it in one of the free keyword research tools. The Google keyword tool is useful, except that you cannot copy the numbers — only the keyword list. Put your keyword list into a spreadsheet program to track your activities and help you to identify the best keywords.

Look at the traffic for the keywords as you go down the list; around 5,000 a month or fewer searches will give you the most likely overlooked terms. However, rarely will you find very good SEO keywords in your first general list. The real secret to finding the overlooked ones is to find sub-phrases of the main keyword group with high traffic, type them into the Google search tool as mentioned above, and then look at the words you get.

You know the Like button? Well, Google one upped Facebook with the +1 button. What makes the +1 button unique but comparable to the Like button is the ability for users to like links and share it amongst friends. But the +1 button works on a slightly different level in that it can directly affect the way Google ranks a site in their browser.

When a user uses Google to search, they will be able to click the +1 button that appears next to each site if they like it. The only way a user can do this is by logging into a Google account; either Google+ or Google profile will do.

What happens when a site is +1’d? When a site is +1’d, it will show up in the search results of your friends (as long as they are logged into Google). Your name will appear below the link as a sort of endorsement to the site, signifying that the site is worth checking out. Your friends will be more likely to click on the link after seeing that you recommended the site and more than likely they too will +1 it.