 For anyone who is blogging, SPAM is an ever-present problem……..until now!
I’ve been blogging for awhile now, and like so many other bloggers, I’ve been using Akismet to block all comment spam, and it did a great job…….a great job of blocking it from going in to Pending comments, but my Spam comments was growing by leaps and bounds. All these comments still had to be waded through to see if there were any real comments in there that shouldn’t have been. Needless to say, this can be a little on the time consuming side.
Recently, while reading another article somewhere I came across a SPAM plugin I hadn’t heard of yet, the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, also known as …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Growmap Anti Spambot (GASP) Plugin
Part of the great thing about blogging and social media is that you can utilize all the great WordPress plugins that are available to automate your posts. Several weeks ago I wrote about the Network Publisher plugin which allows you to set up 5 social networks for free and with one click you can publish your blog post to all those social networks. This week, I will talk about a plugin that allows you to just post to Facebook. Sometimes I only want to post to Facebook, and not my other social media profiles, so this plugin allows you to do that.
The plugin is called, very simply, Post to Facebook. You …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – A Simple Way to Post to Facebook
 As a web designer, one of the things that has frustrated me over the years is the limitation in using different fonts on websites. There are only a handful of fonts that are considered “web safe” and honestly, using those repeatedly can get a little boring.
In the past, designers have resorted to creating graphic images to use fancier fonts for page titles and optimizing those images with alt and title tags to help with search, but the more graphics you have on the page, the longer it can take to load, so this isn’t always a great solution.
So why then can’t we just use any font on our web page?
There are a small collection of fonts that …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Using the Fontific Plugin to Add Style to Your Website
While many themes have their own built in menu features, combining those with the custom menu feature in WordPress makes it much easier to create the menu that you want for your site.
The WordPress menu features allow for simple drag and drop placement of menu & sub-menu items, as well as customize what the menu item label and title attributes will be. I like to use my theme’s menu styling options for background color or images, rollover colors, menu height, etc., but then use the menu features that are available within WordPress for placement and customization of individual menu items. Whether you’re using a page menu, a category menu, or both, this combination will provide you with much more …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Using the Custom Menu Feature in WordPress
With the improvements to WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System), many people are now using WordPress for their website, not just their blog. By default however, WordPress will make your posts page the “Home” page, instead of a static page. If your website is more than just a blog, you will undoubtedly want to make your home page static, instead of a listing of all your recent blog posts.
This is easier than ever and doesn’t require any coding knowledge whatsoever.
If you haven’t already created the page that is to become your Home page, in your Dashboard menu go to Pages > Add New and create and publish your page as you would any other page.
From there, …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – How to Create a Static Home Page in WordPress
**Note: this post assumes you are using the latest version of WordPress, 3.3.1. If you’d like to upgrade WordPress and you’re not sure how to do that, please read How to Update WordPress.
Most of the time, WordPress users can get by without using any HTML code. Every now and again, however, we want to add something to our website to enhance the user’s experience and this will require embedding small snippets of HTML code. Whether it’s embedding a YouTube video, a Google Calendar, or form, it’s helpful to be able to insert this code in our pages to provide those extra features to our readers.
While theoretically, you can insert …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – Raw HTML Snippets Plugin
Every now and again, WordPress will come out with updates to their platform and you will need to update your version of WordPress so that you will be able to use all the new features that are included with the new version.
This is very easy to do, and just requires a few minutes of your time, and it is well worth it. WordPress always provides great new usability features to make things easier, with each of their updates. The last 2 have been great!
As of this post date, the most recent version of WordPress is 3.3.1, so if you are using a different version, follow the instructions below to update.
If you haven’t yet updated, when you log …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – How to Update WordPress
Every now and again it is necessary to manually install a plugin for WordPress, instead of going through the automatic process that is provided in the plugin dashboard. Especially if you are looking for a particular plugin by name, WordPress will not always find the exact one you’re interested in, however you have access to the download through the plugin website.
In this example I will be installing the Add Google Plus One Social Share plugin to my website San Joaquin Valley Fun. While I don’t believe this is one that cannot be accessed through the plugins dashboard in WordPress, for demonstration purposes, I will be installing this manually.
To install plugins, or …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – How to Manually Install a Plugin
 WordPress was already a great asset to any business, but now, with the new 3.3 update, it is even more polished and user-friendly.
You may have heard buzz about the new update under its nickname “Sonny” in honor of Sonny Stitt, the legendary Jazz saxophonist. This update has significantly changed the WordPress interface with these new features:
Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader: All you need to do is press a single button to upload all different types of media–just drag and drop media directly from your desktop. Drag and drop as many uploads as you wish, this uploader can hold plenty. Responsive Design: The WordPress admin page now has a shiny new responsive design that reflows content to fit your screen. Fly-out Submenus: Say goodbye to drop downs …
…Continue reading New Features in WordPress 3.3
 If you’ve been blogging or maintaining your own website for any length of time, you know the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and getting found online. At least I’m hoping you know this, or you have quite a bit of catching up to do!
One terrific WordPress plugin that can help get your site ranked better in search results is the All in One SEO Pack. This plugin will let you input some of the very important information required for search engines to rank your site, such as Title, Description & Keywords. Since many DIY website owners are …
…Continue reading WordPress Wednesday – All in One SEO Pack Plugin
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