Tag Archives: WordPress

How To

Getting Started Guide: WordPress Plugins

4 Comments

We’ve gone over Themes and Widgets for customizing your WordPress site, and now we move on to the most impressive facet of WordPress: Plugins. Plugins are simply WordPress add-ons and customizations that are developed by mostly by outside developers and but also by WordPress. The plugins can range from simple to very specific. You may be asking yourself why plugins aren’t automatically included, well, WordPress has left them as an extra so you have the option of making your blog or site as basic or complex as you like.

Plugins on WordPress can do almost anything you would like your site to do. You can search for a plugin to make your blogs shareable, create a custom contact form, or link your social media accounts. But this is just the beginning. Want a plug in that will email a new blog visitor? Search for it. It’s there.

To put it simple, WordPress describes their plugins as: “Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. In the directory you can find, download, rate, and comment on all the best plugins the WordPress community has to offer.”

Why do I need plugins?

Maybe you don’t: In all honesty, you may not need or use any plugins that are offered. The standard WordPress offering is quite complete and plugins are a bonus for anyone interested.

Maybe you do: But, if you want to venture into the world of plugins, simply search for what you may want to add to your blog. Looking for a way to share your blog on social bookmarking sites? Navigate to the plugin link on your dashboard and then search “share,” or for specific service, “ShareThis,” which is what this blog uses at then end of each post. Another great plugin is Akismet, which can be free or you can chose to donate a certain amount. Akismet operates only on the backend of your site and monitors your blog comments and keeps spam posts from being posted and driving you nuts. If these two offerings sound great to you, it’s time to learn how to get started with plugins.

How do I use them?

Search for Your Plugin: The easiest way to search for, download and activate plugins is right through your WordPress dashboard. Navigate to Plugins>Add New and then search for what you may need. Perhaps it is a program that will share your recent Tweets in the sidebar of your blog, like this blog has. You would Search: “Twitter” and browse through the results. Read the descriptions of the plugins to ensure you are one the right path. Also be sure to read reviews on each plugin, because most are developed by outside sources and may not be the best option. Once you see a plugin you would like, click “Install Now.”

Activate Your Plugin: If the plugin is something that will appear on the front end of your site, like the recent tweets plugin you can see on this blog, then it will show up in your widgets area once it is downloaded. Then you will treat is like a widget with the drag, drop and customizing you learned about in this past post. If the widget is something that will only work on the backend of your site, like Akismet, you will just need to activate the plugin in the plugin area as it will not appear on your front end.

Be sure to check the front end for changes and check the back end of Twitter to see if programs like Akismet are working.

Good Luck and leave any questions you have about WordPress Plugins in the comments!

How To

A Few WordPress Tips: Themes and Widgets

3 Comments

WordPress has a lot to offer, which is why GDI offers it to you as part of your membership. WordPress requires a bit more background knowledge to navigate than our Site Builder, so we want to give you all the tools to create your best website when using WordPress through GDI. We will also be sharing a “How To” video for WordPress within the coming weeks, so stay posted! Until then, here a little “How To” for some of WordPress’s most powerful features.

Themes

WordPress themes are offered as way to create a great looking site with less effort on your part. Many themes are customizable and range from simple to very complex with tons of widgets and options. WordPress offers a huge number of themes and GDI now offers its own customizable theme. You can easily find the GDI theme by logging into your WordPress site and navigating to appearance>find themes. The GDI theme will be right at the bottom of the page. Just click apply and you’re ready to customize or just start posting.

To find other themes, you can easily search within WordPress or any search engine for free WordPress themes. You can search for themes in a number of ways including by color, features and columns. Many themes are totally customizable allowing you to create and add your own header and background. Themes also allow you to add widgets to make your page more functional and professional. You can also search outside of the WordPress database for free themes, simply by searching for “Free WordPress Themes,” just be sure you trust the author and site before you download.  When downloading a them from within WordPress all you need to do is activate it when the install is complete. For themes you found outside of WordPress, once your theme is downloaded, simply return to the themes area in WordPress and navigate to install themes>upload. Once your theme is uploaded, you will need to activate it before if will appear on your page and you can begin customizing.

Add Widgets

Now that you have a theme, you can get creative with customizing your page and making it easy to use with the addition of widgets. The many different widgets that WordPress offers can be overwhelming. However, widgets are there to make setting up your site even easier and they really aren’t as complicated or tech savvy as they sound. On the GDI Affiliate blog you can see down the right hand side: “recent posts,” “archives,” etc. These are all widgets.

WordPress is very user friendly and gives you many widgets to choose from and all you need to do just drop them in and activate. I will use the “recent posts” widget as an example of how to add a widget:

People will want to see past posts they missed, so the recent posts widget is a great way to give people access to this. Simply go into widgets, find the “recent posts” widget and drag it to the right hand side where ever you want it to appear. Depending on the theme you have chosen, your options may be “sidebar” “bottom bar” or more. Simply drop it where you want it and customize it before you save. Repeat this process for any widgets you may want to add. Some widgets may require a bit more work and coding, so be sure always check your site to see how things show up.

Now it’s time to for you get started with different themes and adding widgets and create your best page ever.

What other features would you like to see a “How To” blog about?

How To

Tips for a Great .ws Website

2 Comments

At GDI, we love to hear from our affiliates, whether its questions or feedback, hearing from you helps us offer a better product and experience. One of our new affiliates recently asked us on Twitter, “What are your tips for a great website?” Since this is too good a question not to share the answer to, read on for our GDI specific tips. It should be noted that these tips are for anyone not using a replicated site.

Your Site Should Reflect You

Your website should reflect your message and your business. This doesn’t mean cover the webpage with photos of yourself (though you can if you want to :)), but more so take the time to personalize your site.  You want you page to stand out from all the other sites on the internet, so customize it! Make your page inviting, eye catching and helpful. You can do this by building your site from scratch to make it truly unique or using SiteBuilder of WordPress, both offered by GDI.

Try SiteBuilder

If your .ws site is your first ever website, try using our SiteBuilder. The SiteBuilder has some very easy to use templates to get you started. SiteBuilder templates allow you to personalize them in a number of ways allowing you to add photos, contact forms and more. For a basic website or your very first site, SiteBuilder is the perfect choice.

Try WordPress

To be able to make an even more personalized website, try our WordPress offering. WordPress requires just a bit more website knowledge than SiteBuilder, but offers a ton of options. The benefits of our WordPress offering definitely make up for taking your time to learn a little more about creating a website. With WordPress you can use link your site with social media accounts, add plug-ins and widgets and have access to some great customizable themes. We are also working on a WordPress video tutorial for our affiliates, so stay posted for that if you’re not sure where to start with WordPress.

Make it Easy to Navigate

Your site should be easy to navigate. You don’t want a visitor to come to your page and have no idea where to go to get the information they need. All sites serve different purposes but there are a few universal things each should have: About Us and Contact Us. This way anyone knows where to click to learn more about your company and  where to click to get in touch with you for questions and business inquiries.  Be sure to have a navigation bar somewhere on your page, usually to the left or right or at the top of the page so people can easily access all the pages of your site.

Calls to Action

Finally what are you trying to accomplish with your site? Do you want a visitor to fill out a form? Buy something? Contact you or share their story? Be sure this is clear on your page. You can’t expect results if you aren’t asking for what you want!