Category: WordPress Beginners
WordPress 3.8.3
Again? Within 7 or 8 days, we upgraded from WordPress 3.8.2 to WordPress 3.8.3.
Does WordPress Update Too Frequently?
Frequent software updates may cause users a lot of trouble when they don't know how and some have too much customization (so auto updates may break the themes or plugins they have.
Fortunately, the websites we have been designing for our clients can update without breaking the code and the sites.
Also we love Softaculous Auto Update, which can update WordPress and send us an email notice: "Your site has updated to WordPress 3.8.3" within one day or two.
You may not have to update from 3.8.2 if you don't use "Quick Draft"
The “Quick Draft” tool on the dashboard screen was broken in the 3.8.2 update. If you tried to use it, your draft would disappear and it wouldn’t save. While we doubt anyone was writing a novella using this tool, any loss of content is unacceptable to us.
WordPress 3.9
WordPress Meetups
Meetups are great places where you can meet people who like the same stuff. WordPress meetups can help WordPress users learn from experts, developers or other WordPress users by sharing experience and lessons learned through failures or success.
I live and work in San Francisco Bay Area or the Silicon Valley satellite cities so I love to visit these WordPress meetups
1) http://www.meetup.com/wordpress-sf The San Francisco WordPress Meetup led by Zach Berke
Upcoming event:
Optimizing WordPress for Conversions
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Time: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 6:00 PM
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Meeting address:
Automattic's New Home
132 Hawthorne Lane, San Francisco, CA (map)
2) http://www.meetup.com/Eastbay-WordPress-Meetup/ East Bay WP Meetup ( they usually meet in Oakland, Northern California )
Their next meetup:
Setting up Google Analytics in WordPress
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Sunday, April 20, 2014
to
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Tech Liminal
555 12th St, Oakland, CA (map)
Some themes come with a place to paste your Google Analytics tracking code, but there are also plenty of plugins, and some of them display your analytics in your WordPress dashboard. Is it better to put your tracking code in your theme, or a plugin? Which plugins are best, and why?
I'll sign up for both above and hope to meet you there!
Keep Writing and Blogging
I'm so glad to find the some of my friends are starting to use WordPress to blog or build their business websites.
Bill Belew, a famous blogger in Silicon Valley, aka the traffic professor, has been encouraging people to write and blog about what they really like and he say, "Keep blogging and the people will come to your site", not in only a few months, but up to 5 or 6 months.
However, it seems to generate good traffic, you need to at least write one or two articles a day.
The second important thing for a good blogger is to have high quality articles. You need to create some "timeless contents", meaning the contents will remain valuable even as the time goes by.
Next is that you need to provide "timely contents", which Google would like as "Fresh stuff'. Blogs are usually updated more often by the Google indexer/spider just because usually blog contents are fresh. And WordPress has a great system to notify Google and other Web crawlers to index your new contents. For further reading, you may want to check this article on SearchEnglishWatch.com by Ray "Catfish" Comstock:
4 Types of Timely Content for Google’s “Fresh” Update
where the author said the bloggers need to create "keyword focused content on a continual basis". The four asset types to create a steady stream of keyword rich content he recommends are 1)Press Releases 2)Marketing Automation Content 3)Social Media 4)User-Generated Content (CGC). For the last one, it is an important part of Web2.0. No! Web2.0 is not old and it is working the best! Facebook is the best example! Twitter is also in this category. As I see it, not everyone can write so many articles as Bill Belew (and he has been running blogs on 9 different topics!). If you are the one with creative ideas but cannot write much, you should work with some copywriters or ghost writers to create blogs with lots of fresh continuous contents. When the bloggers success in doing this, they can sure monetize their rich content websites.
For bloggers who really want to make money from their WordPress websites, they also need to install a few must-have WordPress plugins, such as "WordPress SEO by Yoast", "Better WP Security", "Online Backup for WordPress", and some good plugins or themes that let you easily place your Google Adsense, and traffic monitoring code ( Sitemeters or Google Analytics )
$60 for Your Website with Your Domain For One Year!
It is a great package for your own website with your own domain.
Actually, this is you will get for $60 a year ( or $96 for two years! or $7 for month by month):
- Unlimited Disk Space ( so that you can host lots of big files online)
- Unlimited Data Transfer (Traffic)
- Unlimited MySQL 5 Databases & PostgreSQL Databases for WordPress
- Up to 6 Add-on Domains ( It means you have put your other 5 domains, existing or new, on the same server and same account. The first domain is free as long as you host with them or you may pay for the domain later in case you don't want them to host any more)
- Unlimited FTP accounts, Mail Boxes, Autoresponders, Mailman Mailing Lists .... ( See details at Arvixe Site )
- Best of all you can have Softaculous Script Installer
for you to quickly install WordPress (in one minute) - Last but not least you can help support us for more useful WordPress tutorial creation because we are an affiliate of this hosting company and your order will help us a lot financially.
For your own domain and website, order this affordable hosting service today!
WordPress 3.3.2
Do it quick before the hacker. Upgrade your WordPress as soon as you can, but you need to make sure it won't break your existing plug-ins or themes.
Better try the upgrade on your sanbox first if your production site can't be down for business. Contact us if you need our professional help.
Maintenance and Security Releases
Version 3.3.2 addressed some security issues and fixed 12 bugs. For more information, see the release notes.
Version 3.3.1 addressed a security issue and fixed 15 bugs. For more information, see the release notes.
WordPress for Dummies Download
WordPress for Dummies is a highly recommended book for WordPress beginners. Wouldn't be nice if you can download and start reading it right away?
Yes, you can. Here's a few options you have:
- Click and Download the first sample chapter for WordPress for Dummies 3rd Edition where you can find the great comparison of WordPress.com and WordPress.org (self-hosted) in details. Reading the table of contents in pdf may help you decide that you should buy a copy for yourself.
- Buy the Kindle version (for only $14.54) and download it right away
- If you don't have Kindle, you may download Kindle of PC to read that Kindle version, or you may pay $16.99 to buy the WordPress for Dummie 3rd Edition Adobe ebook.
You may also download WordPress for Dummies Cheat-sheets here.
softaculous vs fantastico
For WordPress users, beginners or advanced, they love the easy installation of WordPress, which may be completed from the hosting control panel, such as cPanel offered by Arvixe.
I had been enjoying the great web application installation services from Fantastico until I found Softaculous also available from the ControlPanel.
With Arvixe Hosting service, you can find both Softaculous and Fantastico are listed side by side in the "Software/Services" section:
softaculous fantastico side by side
Both Fantastico and Softaculous are great in offering quick installation of popular software (web application) with simple steps (Fantastico makes the installation into 3 steps while Softaculous requires only one, thus few clicks.): blog, cms, shopping carts (online stores), ERP, and educational Software. Both of them create the needed database and install the software automatically for you. However, it seems that with 200 auto installation scripts (premium license that Arvixe bought), Softaculous, the new comer, is winning more users. According to a Cpanel user forum poll, over 85% of users prefer Softaculous over Fantastico.
One of their users said
Softaculous is good forWHMCS and Magento users as well as hosting provider becasue both scripts are present in Softaculous and easy to install as compared to manual installation.
The e-commerce web applications from Fantastico only include three: "CubeCart, OS Commerce, and Zencart" while with the premium Softaculous that Arvixe hosting offer, you have 13 choices, including the above three and OpenCart, PrestaShop, phpShop, Magento, WHMCS, CubeCart, AccountLab Plus, PHP Point Of Sale, TheHostingTool, TomatoCart. (Even the free version of Softaculous has 10 more scripts than the paid version of Fantastico, which has only 50 scripts.)
For WordPress users, the installation of WordPress offered by Softaculous are so up to date: see our WordPress news on WordPress 3.1.3. It makes Fantastico's WordPress installation a bit outdated. One good thing about Softaculous WordPress Installation is that it offers you different language versions of WordPress, which is not found with Fantastico.
It seems that it takes a lot more efforts for Fantastico to catch up with Softaculous. Otherwise, Fantastico may lose more and more market to Softaculous.
I was frustrated a few times when the installation is missing for some popular Web application by the Fantastico auto installer. Way to go, Softaculous!
WordPress 3.2 Full Screen Editing
If you can't wait to see the WordPress3.2 Full Screen "Distraction-free Writing" mode, the above video just shows you that for your curiosity. We also show you the most ignored but useful features of "Kitchen Sink" and spell checking language options, which has been available for quite some time, even in previous WordPress versions. It is useful for people who want color text or change some text to heading 1 to heading 5, etc.
Basic WordPress Tutorial: Widgets
How to use widgets for your WordPress sites
One of the most useful WordPress features is being able to use widgets or add custom widgets to enrich the site contents and facilitate navigation.
Using WordPress Widgets (2) will show you more on how to use widgets for better interface of your site.
Making Money With WordPress
I may say that not all WordPress users run their sites for money, but in order to cover the cost for the self-hosted WordPress sites and the time they invest, advertising is a great way to help them to keep the balance and grow their sites. No money no talk is the truth unless you are talking about Jesus. We, as the owner of WP89.com, would also like you to buy from our sponsoring advertisers so we can cover our cost to roll out more free tutorials and tips for everyone.
This article here only briefly cover a few ways to make money with WordPress as there are lots of books covering this topic only. The following should help you to get started
Usually, most people may think of Google Adsense ads on the their sites and blogs as their first choice.
How to put Adsense ads on their WordPress sites?
- Creating a Google adsense account (if you don't already have one): https://www.google.com/adsense/apply ( What is Adsense? )
- Get the Adsense code and insert it into your WordPress posts, pages, or widgets manually.
- Or install a WordPress Adsense plugin to help you insert the ads.
- A friendly reminder: Adsense ads are PPC (pay per click, the advertisers pay Google for every click, then Google pays you a percentage of that payment), but never click on those ads by yourself because it is considered fraud and get your serious result.
Actually, some people can make big money with their blogs with affiliate programs. Most of these programs are pay per action, meaning if the visitor from your site links enroll or pay for the advertised services or products, you will get the commission.
How to put affiliate ads on Your WordPress Sites?
- Create/Open an affiliate account from Amazon, Commission Junction, Clickbank, etc.
- Get the affiliate ad code and insert it into your WordPress widgets
- You may also install some WordPress plugins to manage your affiliate ads on your WordPress sites (We will cover this soon)
You may sign up a hosting affiliate here: http://wp89.com/arvixe .( Please remember to click "Affiliate Program" link at the left bottom when you get there. Also remember that you cannot get any commission if you use your own affiliate link to buy things. That is general rule for all affiliate programs. If you want to get your own hosting account now, you get use our link to open your own hosting account first and then make money from the sites you build with your hosting account.)