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Wordpress
Wordpress
Premium WordPress Themes – What Makes Them Premium
Jun 11th
Over the last couple of years WordPress has become a hugely popular open source blogging and publishing platform. The ease-of-use as well as the abundance of free themes and plugins have contributed to the attraction and popularity for using WordPress. While there are some great free themes for WordPress, traditionally most only offered basic functionality and simplistic designs.
Since the end of 2007 however an increasing number of WordPress theme developers have been offering premium WordPress themes – themes which are offered for a fixed price. These premium WordPress themes are usually sold for between $50 to $250.
Initially only a handful of talented and well-known WordPress theme designers released paid premium WordPress themes which were well designed, highly functional, top-quality themes that transformed a WordPress installation from a simple blog into a powerful content management system (e.g. magazine, news, portfolio or ‘traditional’ web site). However as the premium WordPress theme business concept spreads, more and more WordPress theme designers have hopped on the bandwagon and filled up their portfolio with premium (paid) wordpress themes, trying to cash on the new trend.
However with greater variety and numbers of paid premium WordPress themes also comes varying levels of quality. So what exactly makes a premium WordPress theme premium and worth the money you have to pay for it? Below are some features that should set a premium wordpress theme apart from a free theme:
1. Unique Design, Quality and Sophistication
Premium WordPress themes should be just that – Premium. They should look better and be of a much higher quality and unique design than compared to those available for free. “Better” is an individual interpretation, so unfortunately it has to be left up to the designer and the buyer to decide what is better for them.
2. Live Demo or Preview
There should be a live demo or preview of the theme so you can test it and check it out before buying. If there is no live preview or demo that should be a warning sign. You should ask why don’t they want you to test the theme first? All reputable premium theme sellers will have a live demo full of content for you to test. Explore the live demo thoroughly, testing all pages to see that the theme works properly and there are no errors or mistakes.
3. Full Supporting Documentation
Premium WordPress themes should come with an instruction manual or document. This should explain how to upload and install the theme and how to manage any of the options that are built into the theme.
4. Full Support
If you’re buying a premium WordPress theme it should also come with a certain degree of support from the designer. The level of support can vary however and will range from personalised individual support from the designer, to the provision of forums or blog comment sections for asking questions and obtaining support from the designer and other people who have purchased the theme.
5. Flexibility and Customization Options
People want options, so Premium WordPress themes should be customisable. Buying a premium theme will set you apart from the crowd significantly, but since other people will still be using the same theme, premium themes should be able to be easily customized further, whether it be for the layout, colours, images, or all of the above.
6. Features
While every theme is different, in general premium WordPress themes should have more ‘Features’ than their free counterparts. What that means depends on the theme in question. However some features may include: Javascript/DHTML, ‘Ajax’ or dynamic sections, ‘Featured Posts’ areas, Multiple layout options for the home page, drop down menus, multiple customs templates for pages, custom field options, print style sheets etc.
7. Well Coded and No Errors
There should be no coding errors, misspellings, X images, etc in a premium WordPress theme. The theme should have clean and valid code and adhere to strict XHTML and CSS standards. You should also make sure the theme has cross browser compatible and been tested to work properly on all the major browsers.
8. Free Updates
WordPress is continually being updated and improved and a premium WordPress theme developer should be offering you free updates of the theme when required.
Hack Attack – Just How Secure is Your WordPress Blog?
Jun 10th
People with Internet and web experience of all levels have worked to make sure that their websites, web service accounts and browsers were as safe as they could be from computer hackers. However, the hackers practice an old baseball saying which goes, “If you want to be a success you have to hit ‘em where they ain’t.”
The weakness that the hackers have found is the WordPress Blog. Many may have never considered a blog to be worthy of a hacker’s attention, yet with the way that advertising and marketing dollar potential have soared, that’s what sets a hacker off on their hunt for a victim.
The hacker attacks on WordPress Blogs take the person who wants to come to a particular blog to a different site that’s full of ads, many of them obscene and many of them virus filled, which obviously does not present what was the assumed landing point blog in the best light. One hacker attack, no matter how quickly it’s spotted and dealt with, can destroy all the work that the owner of that blog has done. If it’s a blog full of content with years of archive material, a hacker’s attack will turn all of that work into worthless untrustworthy words.
The attacks launched on WordPress Blogs by hackers get even worse for the blog owners. Google, for example, when (not if) their robots detect something suspicious about a WordPress Blog will include the following in the search result for that WordPress Blog.
“This site may harm your computer.”
If a person clicks on that phrase, which appears as a link within the search result listing, they will be taken to a page that will repeat the warning of harm to their computer and suggest that they go to another site or blog that came up in their search results.
Even if a WordPress Blog owner catches the damage quickly, the time it will take to repair that blog’s reputation will be costly at a variety of levels. People will remember the warnings of computer harm no matter how strongly it’s presented that all with that WordPress Blog is well. A loss of blog traffic will mean a loss of ad revenue. In many cases this could mean the loss of advertisers since many affiliate ad programs require a specific level of traffic activity.
WordPress Blog owners make the mistake of thinking that since the warning signs that their blog has been hacked are so obvious that they’ll be able to catch the problem before it becomes a major disaster. They would have to be proactive rather than reactive and monitor their WordPress Blog every minute of every hour of every day. Just five minutes under a hacker’s control can destroy the connection that WordPress Blog had made with the thousands of people who visit it at any point.
While WordPress does the best they can with security updates, that’s still just a reactive option for the WordPress blog owner. There is a proactive step every WordPress Blog owner can take to prevent hackers from destroying the work and reputation of their WordPress Blog.
There are some smart and easy steps a WordPress Blog owner can take to better protect themselves and their work from hackers. According to James Stein, whose Internet and program experience spans 15 years, education combined with the proper easy to understand guidance can allow every WordPress Blog owner to avoid the horrors that hackers can create.
Stein points to a product like WordPress Secured which teaches how to close the many open doors WordPress Blogs contain which hackers exploit. It teaches how to find a blog’s softspots and strengthen them. Users discover how to protect their important avenues of ad revenue. Stein says that WordPress Secure makes the blog owner not only more secure but more smart and aware about their blog. This idea becomes a stronger defense against hackers versus the old way of one plug-in after another.
WordPress Secure also includes a special feature that made this product stand out in Stein’s eyes called BadBot Killer. This program stops the scanning bots that seek out a WordPress Blog’s weaknesses that are the welcome mats for computer hackers.
Stein says, “Thanks to a program like WordPress Secure, WordPress Blog owners can gain the knowledge they need to build an effective defense against hackers even before they try to strike. It’s the perfect example of how knowledge is power.”
WordPress – The Ultimate Blogging Platform
Jun 9th
WordPress is one of the leading blog platforms in the Internet today, and based on a search on Google trends, the number of searches with the word WordPress has at least tripled today, since the end of the year 2004.
Having really tried and fiddled around with WordPress system, I must say that WordPress is indeed a very powerful system to put your blog on. Unfortunately however, the system does take time to get used to.
WordPress comes in two versions. The first one is provided by WordPress.com, which is the hosted version. The second version provided by WordPress.org, and usually in order to use this version of WordPress, you will need to have your own domain name, and web hosting space.
Blogging at WordPress.com
Using the version provided by WordPress.com, you will be given a subdomain URL, like http://{your-name}.WordPress.com. While this still sounds nice, it is definitely more professional and stylish to tell people that your blog is at “blogopreneur dot com” rather than “blogopreneur dot WordPress dot com”. WordPress.com does, however, provide domain mapping services, meaning you can go and grab a domain and the redirect it to the WordPress blog. This comes with a fee, of USD$10.
The default and free configuration of the blog at WordPress.com comes with 50 megabytes of space, and allows you to select a template from the list provided. For some templates, you can further customize them using your own header images and colors. However, in order for you to take control over the CSS that goes behind the blog, of get more webspace, you will need to pay a fee.
Blogging using WordPress.org
The version of WordPress provided at WordPress.org is the more powerful version, and is the platform used by many A-List bloggers in the blogosphere today.
To set up this version of WordPress, you will need to download the system from WordPress.org, extract the file contents, upload, and install it on your own domain and hosting. For total Internet starters, this process may prove to be quite a roadblock, but as you get used to using FTP and using your hosting administration panel, setting up a WordPress.org blog is a five minute job.
As mentioned, this version of WordPress is extremely powerful.
Firstly it allows you to have full control over your templates – from the CSS to the individual pages that make up your blog. You can even have a different page look and feel for each category you use!
Secondly, it allows you add on functionality to the system by using WordPress plugins! With a simple search on Google for “WordPress Plugins”, you will realize that there are millions of plugins available for free for you to use. Plugins are extremely powerful – allowing you to add functionality to your blog like social bookmarking icons, subscription to your blog comments, and specifying a different front page for the blog.
With 70 million blogs as reported by the Technorati state of the blogosphere report in April 2007, every Internet entrepreneur must learn how to blog, and if you want to blog, you simply have to use a powerful blogging system with unlimited functionality – WordPress!
