WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-Er

This post is written to address multiple questions I have received from my existing customers and readers of my blog - how to build WordPress blog with minimal number of plugins for speed and still profit from it. While the choices will greatly depend on what niche you are addressing and your goals, I’ll provide some of my personal choices that I think should be part of ANY WordPress blog, no matter how minimalistic it is.

But first, lets define minimalist:

min·i·mal·ist (mn-m-lst) n.

1. One who advocates a moderate or conservative approach, action, or policy, as in a political or governmental organization.
2. A practitioner of minimalism.

And now lets discuss how we can make our WordPress blog to follow the standart above…

Read the rest of this entry »

This post brought to you by the letter “D” and the number “7″. D is for Dan who’s an almost thirty web developer and blogger hailing from the Great North and 7 for the number of paragraphs you will be subjected you to.

Let’s face it… all the stuff you heard about setting up your own website being difficult was not true. Most blog owners are not tech-savvy people and everyone including your grandmother has a website now. My websites have evolved over time and transitioned through various blogging platforms giving me a taste of what options everyone has when they choose to put up a site. One of the things I’ve learned is that while it’s nice to have all the newest and coolest widgets, plugins and advertisements on your website you have to keep in mind that the more fancy things you add the more that has to load for every viewer who comes to visit. The key thing to having a website is to keep it running smoothly and provide readers with a pleasant experience.

For every widget that you add to your website you are adding one more call to an external website every time your page loads. You must also remember that if one of these external websites is experiencing problems it will directly affect the loading time of your own website. A perfect example of this would be any blogger who uses a twitter plugin to display their tweets or whatever they’re called (I do not use twitter). I do know however that the twitter website experiences above average downtime.

Read the rest of this entry »

Web design for WordPress always comes down to evaluating which Blog Templates (or what is commonly knows WordPress Themes) fit your needs the most! This review of available options for choosing best blog template for your WordPress will concentrate not only on their visual appeal (web design factor) but also functionality!

WordPress is a dynamic by nature and any web designer failing to also properly integrate functionality - falling short of the target and minimizes benefits of the platform. Web design for WordPress blog is quite a bit different from creating template for static site and how well designers understand it will impact the overall performance of your blog.

Read the rest of this entry »

With upcoming release of WordPress 2.5 which introduces some large changes to administrative backend I thought it was appropriate to share my personal WordPress Wish List.

I know it will be largely ignored but hey - let the guy share the dream…

Read the rest of this entry »

In last and final part of Customizing WordPress Theme Guide I want to provide details on how to take advantage of your Sidebar even more, while using less of valuable real estate.

Taking advantage of Javascript Domtab technology we will create a tabbed sidebar section exposing your best and most popular content much like Darren at Problogger does but I will make it simple enough that even a brain dead can follow and implement.

Read the rest of this entry »

WordPress Sidebar is the prime real estate for every blogger, no matter if you are trying to earn or simply gain more exposure and perhaps provide interactivity to your blog. While content is the king - sidebar is your virtual vault and making sure its space properly and most efficiently allocated one task we all go through.

In Second Part of Customizing Your WordPress Theme tutorial I wanted to dedicate enough time to talk about things that are fairly basic and don’t require much of technical knowledge and yet, hard to do unless you know how. I want to show How To EXTEND Your Sidebar Functionality and help you understand how it will work to your advantage…

Read the rest of this entry »

WordPress Theme is responcible for the visual whoomp of your blog. It is a single, most important element that creates the Look and Feel of your blog and determines the visual message you send to your visitors. It is also one element of your WordPress blog that will either help you or drive your visitors away!

No matter how well crafted are your posts, how well research and presented your content - if the first impression is negative - your chances of retaining the visitor are slim. This article of WordPress Guide Series will concentrate on the task that according to the poll on this blog is The Most Painful Task:

Read the rest of this entry »