Very few will not agree that WordPress is the best blogging platform currently available on the web. With its multitude of features, you will be spoilt for choice regarding how to optimally use the content management system. One thing that makes WordPress quite infamous is its slow loading time and the tendency to create problem when it has too much data. But if there is a problem, there has to be a solution. For WordPress blogging, the solution is right in front of your eyes. It isn’t difficult or cumbersome if you make it a point to keep servicing the platform regularly. Many bloggers will tell you to compare WordPress blogging with an automobile and remind you to service the blogging platform like you regularly service your car. The comparison is pretty apt considering the fact that servicing increases the longevity of your site.

5 Steps on How to Maintain Your WordPress Blog

1. Regular Backups: There is so much that can happen to your blog if you do not keep regular backups. You will find many bloggers sharing their woes of how they lost a month’s data due to a malware or an external threat to the site all because they didn’t create backups of the blog. Make it a habit to regularly create backups as this is a must. WordPress experts suggest creating a backup at least once a week. You will find appropriate plugins for this purpose too.
2. Update WordPress Versions: The WordPress community keeps on releasing new versions of the blogging platform now and then. It is advisable to make it a point to regularly upgrade into such new versions. You may be thinking that every new version will not have much different to offer that is actually true. But by upgrading you will ensure that the security improves. With an old version, the risk to threats increases that is something you wouldn’t want.
3. Update Plugins and Delete Unwanted Ones: It doesn’t matter how many or which plugin you use. The fact remains that they need to be updated regularly so that they function well. When you start using WordPress, numerous plugins must have impressed you and you may have installed several plugins. But as time goes by, you realize that you don’t really need all of them. If you ever feel that a plugin is unnecessary, immediately delete that plugin. Please note that you have to ‘delete’ it and not ‘deactivate’ it.
4. Delete Spam: Make it a habit to check the spam folder and delete all spam. Do this at least once a week to control unwanted utilization of space. You could also install plugins to help delete spam, such as Akismet and Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin.
5.  Update Themes: If you have bought a premium theme for your blog, make it a point to update it regularly. Always be in touch with the theme developer and see that you update the theme as soon as the developer makes some change in the theme. This will once again ensure that your WordPress blog is free of external threats.

iPhones, Androids and a host of other smartphones are here to stay. It will be misleading to say this, as they are here to change the way people communicate and use the Internet. According to the industry forecasts, by the year 2013 there are going to be 1.7 billion mobile users. If even one third of these people start visiting your website through their mobile, you can only imagine the kind of exposure you will be getting. If you are running a WordPress powered website, it is important that you convert it into a mobile friendly site at the earliest. Any WordPress developer will tell you that making a website mobile friendly isn’t really difficult.

A few plug-ins, a smart navigation plan, clear and concise content and a fluid and good web design is all that is required for getting that perfectly compatible and responsive website. When you plan to make your website mobile compatible, it is important you understand the nuances of the medium. Mobile devices come in various forms, sizes and with many operating systems. The advantage of using WordPress for a mobile website is that you get the flexibility, the robustness that is inherent in the CMS and get the opportunity to install several plug-ins to enhance the functionality of the website. There are several plug-ins that will help in making your WordPress site mobile friendly. Let us take a look at some of them:

• WPTouch: Any WordPress programmer will vouch for this great plug-in that has literally swept the industry. It has been downloaded at least 1 million times on the last count! The plug-in automatically transforms the desktop version of your website into a web application that can be readily viewed on iPhone, iPod, Android or BlackBerry Storm. It has an easy-to-use admin panel and doesn’t require a dev key. The advantage of WPTouch is that you can decide what content to display on the mobile version, how to add custom code that includes CSS and Google AdSense.

• Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin: To access the dev key of this plug-in, ask your WordPress programmer to register you with the Wapple website. This is one of the most customizable WordPress plug-ins that has advanced SEO settings with about 8 in-built themes and style sheets. Moreover, The Wapple plug-in integrates mobile advertising.

• WordPress Mobile Pack: With a mobile switcher, numerous themes, widgets and an easy to use mobile admin panel, WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help in the conversion process. The mobile switcher can automatically make suggestions on the mobile and desktop presentation. For tracking usage on the website, the plug-in has the analytics powered by PercentMobile. The plug-in has been designed such that it adheres to valid XHTML-MP1 markup.

• Verve Mobile: Verve Mobile offers great solutions for detecting the standard and advanced mobile devices and displaying a website for the detected website automatically. The other key features of the plug-in includes seamless integration with the Verve network, advanced traffic tracking system, automatic formatting of content, resizing of images, etc.

Before taking the plunge, remember to use a tracking software such as Google Analytics to get an estimate of the user demographics of who is accessing your website from a mobile. Remember that tables are a thing of the past for website designs and is an absolute ‘no’ for the mobile versions. It is essential that you reduce the number of links and make it more intuitive for better site navigation. Make the website light so that users can view your website even in the slowest of Internet connections. Lastly, your content should be your top priority.

Content Management Systems have eased the process of starting and managing a website. Traditionally developing a website would mean coding it in HTML which required a lot of skills and expertise. But CMS solutions have made it a cup of tea for any computer literate person. Now, with so many content management systems available which one do you choose? WordPress has become another synonym for CMS solutions and holds a grip over half the CMS market with talented WordPress developers offering highly customized website solutions. Businesses prefer WordPress theme development when it comes to developing websites and blogs.

Five Reasons to Choose WordPress CMS

1. It is Free – WordPress is an open source content management system and thus comes absolutely free. You don’t need to incur huge expenses on developing a website or blog in WordPress. When businesses are looking to streamline operating costs, this comes as a huge boon especially for small businesses and startups. You also have access to hundreds of free themes which you can use to start your website. Most businesses however, get their custom website developed by professional WordPress theme developers, thus adding to their brand recognition and value.
2. It is User-Friendly – Not all of us are technology geeks or can afford to spend hours to learn how to manage a website. In this regard, WordPress scores a point as the CMS is very user-friendly. The learning curve for WordPress is smaller than other content management systems available in the market. One can easily manage a website using a web-based interface sitting anywhere in the world. The self-explanatory interface allows one to post text, pictures and multimedia elements in the website with ease.
3. Customization – Your website needs to stand out among competitors and for this you need to have custom features and functionalities that cater to the needs of your customers. WordPress developers can develop your website from scratch and create custom features and functionalities, which address the niche demands of your business. These are aided by the huge number of third-party plugins available with the CMS. These plugins offer high levels of features and functionality to your website and are easy to install. These plugins come for free or fraction of the cost required for developing them from the scratch.
4. SEO Friendly – The success of a website rests on the search engines as they contribute bulk of the traffic to your website. WordPress emerges as a winner in this as the codes generated by WordPress are SEO friendly and attract the search engine crawlers easily. Apart from this, when you hire the services of professional WordPress theme developers, they hand code the website using semantic coding techniques which further boosts the online visibility of the website helping you reach out to more customers.
5. Community Support – WordPress has a huge community of developers who act as a great source of support when need arises. You can post your queries and doubts in such groups and communities and get replies from the expert developers. These groups also review developments happening with the CMS and fix the loopholes that might threaten security of the website. You won’t get such support in other content management systems as they have smaller communities.

With all these advantages, WordPress becomes the ideal content management system in the world fulfilling the needs of small and big businesses alike. By hiring WordPress programmers with a proven track record, you can reap benefits out of this content management system for your business website or blog.

To be successful with your online venture, it is important that you build a website that is visually appealing and has the ability to attract more visitors to the website. Once a user visits your website, he should be encouraged to stay there for a long time and browse around the content of the page. The longer the user stays on your website, the more benefits it will bring for you. One of the best ways to get that appealing website is to use WordPress CMS. In the world’s most popular CMS, you can create almost any design you want. Moreover, WordPress is known for its robustness, flexibility and user-friendliness. Using WordPress to create an appealing theme is thus a wiser choice. For WordPress theme development you can use a free template, buy a premium template or design one on your own.

However, if you want to be really different and make a special place for yourself, you should go for PSD to WordPress conversion. With the help of PSD you can design almost any theme for your website. There is no limit to creativity when you start using Photoshop. However, the tricky part of using PSD for your website theme is to convert it to HTML. But today you won’t need to worry about this too as you can hire WordPress developers who have adequate knowledge of code conversion. Their expertise, technical know-how and creative ideas can make your website a prominent one in no time.

The image to markup language conversion really helps in streamlining the website template that a free template cannot offer you. When you use a free template you invariably have to compromise with a few issues, but with PSD to WordPress conversion, you can personally take care of them. A free template will have heavy and cluttered codes that are not SEO-friendly. Usually you will find a tabled framework that takes time to load on the browser. Apart from this, a free template cannot guarantee a W3C validated website that is cross-browser compatible and has 100% pixel perfection.

A visually attractive website is not only about the looks, but there should be enough emphasis on the back-end coding that helps making the website robust and dynamic. When you go for PSD to WordPress conversion, you invariably take care of HTML and CSS coding, thus enrich the WordPress theme development. Always cross-check that you have taken care of the following things when you are converting the PSD file into a WordPress template:

• Slice the PSD file into different layers for better results. Slicing will ensure that you can easily code the different sections of the PSD file. A simple slicing plan that WordPress developers use is to divide the template into different sections such as banner, links, body, footer, etc.

• Use clean and semantic codes, as this will add to the functionality of the website. Ample use of CSS also helps in bringing uniformity to the site. Semantic coding also helps in search engine optimization and thus yields better results for your website.

• Always ensure that you have W3C validation as it will make your WordPress template free of errors, bugs and viruses. A W3C validated template is eventually light on the browser and is user-friendly too.

• Pixel perfect conversion is a must to create a visually appealing website. For WordPress theme development, it is a necessity that all your pages have the same look and it isn’t jarring when one navigates from one page to another. With 100% pixel conversion, all your pages will look similar and that really helps in pulling more visitors towards your site.

WordPress is the one name that every web developer relies on and rightly so. As an open source content management system (CMS) and powered by PHP and MySQL, WordPress gives ample opportunities for developers to unleash their creativity and develop top-class websites to attract more traffic. Being an open source CMS, there are thousands of WordPress theme developers who are constantly working to improve the platform and offer best services to the businesses. PSD to WordPress conversion is one such technique that WordPress developers offer and it has become an instant hit with businesses that are interested in making a dynamic, user-friendly and interactive website.

With the help of PSD you can get some amazing themes developed. When the unlimited features of Photoshop are used to design a theme and launch a website using WordPress, it paves in better business opportunities for any company. PSD to WordPress conversion gives you ample advantages. Let us look at some of them:

• Easy to Use: Though PSD to WordPress theme conversion needs expertise, once this is done it is very easy to use the CMS. There are no technical hurdles that can obstruct the use of WordPress even though PSD is integrated into the software. Content of the website is easily customizable and can be edited without technical help.
• Cost-Effective: There are thousands of WordPress theme developers who have sufficient expertise to convert PSD to WordPress. Outsourcing such projects is also very common as they are cost-effective. You can easily get in touch with developers specifically to make the conversion and pay only for the specific job.
• Cross Browser Compatibility: One of the reasons why some websites become runaway hits and some don’t is because of the availability or lack of cross browser compatibility. PSD to WordPress conversion ensures that your website is cross browser compatible and can be efficiently browsed in any of the popular browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari.
• SEO Friendly: While converting PSD to WordPress, slicing the original file into different layers and coding them using markup languages HTML/XHTML is essential. With HTML and XHTML coding, you can make sure that you are avoiding unnecessary codes, thus, making the site lighter. When you use a template you are unable to do anything about the codes. Lighter codes mean that it makes a site SEO friendly thus driving in more traffic to the site.
• W3C Validation: To get an error-free website and develop a website that has great designs, it is important to follow the structure prescribed by the industry. This validation happens via W3C, a consortium of organizations brings together all the frame rules and laws to standardize website coding. Coupled with the advantages of W3C framework and the flexibility of PSD to WordPress theme conversion, you can easily get a great website to represent your business.
• Semantic Coding: With the help of semantic coding you can ensure that all the contents of the website are in proper place. Individual elements of a site are defined with semantic coding and this makes it easy for search engine crawlers to quickly index the web pages. Thus, semantic coding makes your site search engine friendly.
• Pixel Perfection: Good designs and easy navigation have always attracted users to websites. To achieve similar effects for your website it is important that you convert PSD to WordPress seamlessly and without pixelation. Even when the different parts of the PSD file are sliced, all the layers should maintain the same pixel ratio.

WordPress is the most used content management system in the world. It is highly robust, user-friendly and scalable open source CMS in the world. It offers solutions for all genres of web development ranging from corporate websites to ecommerce stores. What makes this platform so powerful are the thousands of plugins that are available which allows businesses to have highly customized websites. Although it is difficult task to pick the best plugin let us take a look at the top ten WordPress plugins which in other words can be referred to as killer plugins.

• All In One SEO – Search engine optimization plays a pivotal role in a website’s success and this plugin optimizes your website for the search engine. Among its most notable features are advanced Canonical URLs, Fine tune Page Navigational Links and support for Google Analytics. It optimizes the page title and generates META tags automatically.
• Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin generates a special XML sitemap which helps your website get indexed in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com. Google XML Sitemaps makes it easier for the search engine spiders to see the complete structure of your site and index it more efficiently.
• Broken Link Checker – Broken links hurt you both on the SEO front and also the brand value of your website. This plugin looks for broken links missing images in your website. It monitors links in your posts, pages, blogroll and custom fields. It can even detect redirected links in your website.
• WordPress Database Backup – This plugin comes in handy when you plan to overhaul your website. You can back up the entire database in your website and return to the existing state in case anything goes wrong with your upgrade process.
• Gravity Forms – When it comes to using forms in your website this is without any doubt the best plugin available in business. It allows you to quickly set up highly customized forms. You can set up multipage forms, schedule time period and limit the number of entries.
• Askimet – This relives you from the world of spamming. It can easily identify spam and saves your previous time and effort filter genuine comments and trackbacks from spam that come your way. Moderators can easily see the number of approved comments for each user.
• Google Analytics – It is very important to know the data on traffic to your website, where your visitors are coming from, what keywords are they using. All this is possible with Google Analytics which is the ultimate analytic tool in the world. You can know about the landing page, bounce rates, outbound links all using this awesome plugin.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade – If you want to stay in sync with the latest WordPress installation this plugin does it automatically for you. It updates the WordPress installation with respect to the latest available from WordPress.org. Apart from this it also automatically performs backups and provides you with downloadable links.
• Social Media Widget – Social media is very important for a website’s growth and this plugin which comes in the form of a sidebar allows you to input social media website profile URLs and other subscriptions. It supports all popular social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace and many others.
• WP-PageNavi – Navigation plays an important role in the success of any website and this plugin adds more advanced navigation to your WordPress site. Here you will be able to install custom buttons in your website which allows users to go wherever they want adding to your website’s popularity.