You’ve registered your domain, you have your web space and WordPress is installed. At this point there are 3 very simple steps you can take towards improving your blog – Permalinks, Feedburner and Google Analytics. If you are not sure what Permalinks are simple login to your blog’s wp-admin page and click the “Settings” option on the left sidebar. This will expand to show nearly a dozen options (and more once you install plugins), one of which will be Permalinks. Inside Permalinks there are 5 common settings: default, day and name, month and name, numeric, custom structure. The permalink is the way that your posts will be displayed in the address bar of your browser. I recommend that you switch to the “month and name” selection. By choosing this setting your readers will have a reference to when the post was created as well as a descriptive link to share with their friends. Not only that, but search engines love good hierarchy and description in posts so do yourself a favor and change from the Default Permalink Settings.

Next is Feedburner – if you’ve noticed an orange icon with 3 white arcs along the address bar of your browser you’ve witnessed RSS (Really Simple Syndication). If you’ve never heard or used RSS let me quickly explain what it is and why it’s important to your tech blog. In the past people focused on adding Bookmarks or simply remembering the URL for websites they frequent often. The problem with this method is that it is time consuming and if you want to follow dozens or even hundreds of sites it can just be downright overwhelming. RSS feeds are text excerpts of the latest articles published by websites or blogs and by using a RSS reader you can quickly monitor a large number of sites without opening a browser (unless of course you use a web based RSS reader like Google Reader). By default your WordPress Blog will have a RSS feed in the form of [http://www.myblog.com/feed] and promoting this feed will be your first step in building a following for your tech blog. Feedburner is a free service now owned by Google which transforms your RSS feed into a monetizing powerhouse. Not only will you be able to make money off your RSS feed, but Feedburner will allow Email subscriptions and provide you with analytic data on what links are being clicked in your feed and how many people are subscribed.

The final step is Google Analytics – a free tool from Google which allows you to track your visitors. Understanding what posts are popular and where your audience is located is essential in targeting the right products and advertisements to monetize your tech blog. When you visit google.com/analytics and sign up for a free account you will be given a Tracking Code which will need to be inserted into the Header of your WordPress template. This can be done very simply by visiting your wp-admin page and going to Appearance / Editor then selecting header.php. Once you’ve pasted the Tracking Code and saved the edit Google Analytics will begin tracking the sources of traffic to your website as well as general details about your visitors (location, browser, click tendency, bounce rate, etc). By setting up Google Analytics from the start you are giving yourself valuable data which you can use down the road to fine tune your tech blog.

birthday party favors

I see it on blogs all the time and would like to do it on mine.

an example is on this blog

http://theflashblog.com/?cat=20
About the Author: joomla themes

i’ve been trying to set up wordpress blogs, but it’s hard..

does anyone know how?

and does anyone know any reliable hosting websites?

If you are using a self-hosted WordPress script as the CMS for your web site you might be wondering: How can I customize the look of this blog? It is easy to change the look and feel of WordPress using Free WordPress themes. Free Themes are available from a number of different sites on the web. A simple Google search for “Free WordPress Themes” should turn out a fair number of good results. There is also the official WordPress (download) web site, WordPress.Org, not to be confused with WP.com, the remote-hosted network of blogs. On the.org site you will find the extend area has a plethora of free themes.

Once you have chosen a theme you like and have it downloaded to your computer you need to unzip the theme and upload it to your WordPress themes directory via FTP. For an FTP upload you will need an FTP client. This is a program that uploads files to your web site. I recommend Leech FTP as it is easy to use and is a free download. Upload the unzipped theme folder to yoursite.com/WordPressdirectory/wp-content/themes/ and log in to your WP admin panel. Go to the side menu and select “Themes” under “Appearance”. Here you will be able to find any themes you have in your themes folder.

Select the one you want to use and check “Activate”. Your new theme should be working. If the page does not show up properly or at all, go back to WP-Admin, deactivate the theme and re-upload the files checking to make sure the directories and identical on the site and on your computer. If it doesn’t work after that I am afraid you will have to move on to the next free theme. Congratulations on installing a WordPress theme.

Anyone that wants a professional looking site that can be created with all the bells and whistles should look into creating a website with Joomla CMS. If you want to get off on the right foot from the very beginning with your website this is what you need. If you already have a site then you can easily change your old site to one with Joomla. It is the best open source software to use for this purpose.

Before you do anything you need to plan out what you want on your site and the features that you would like to have. How many pages will your site consist of? Are you putting any videos, audio, forums, or blogs on your site? If so you’ll need to know exactly what is needed to create each one. At the very least if you outsource this you should have a detailed list of what should be done included in their contract.

After the site is created by you or someone else you need to add articles to your site or the old information should have been transferred to the new site with Joomla. Next you will need fresh content on the site and a menu link. Test it out to see if it contains everything required that you planned out on your list. If not go back and adjust anything that doesn’t mesh well.

If you have any questions you can go directly to Joomla’s website and get customer support. They are knowledgeable and helpful. They will be able to help you on many of your basic questions that you encounter such as: how to install, how to configure, how to do module add-ons, and how to get around and navigate your site. If that isn’t enough for you there are also plenty of video tutorials on YouTube and other online sites that literally walk you through step by step on each phase of creation. The first site you create is always going to take the longest as you are unfamiliar with how everything works. After that it will be a breeze to create one. You might even get so good that you can advertise your services.

The many features that come with the site include templates, support of international languages, and easy web creation through one click installation. Because of the reputation that Joomla has your site will have a better appeal since it provides a professional look. This will have an added monetary value to your website if you should decide to sell it in the future.

You won’t have to worry about the cost of this as it is absolutely free. If you create a website with Joomla CMS on your own the only cost will be the time you have involved to make it. You will join the ranks of others that are using Joomla for every site that they create. There are many to consider but for optimum value, ease of maintenance, setup and installation you won’t get a better value.
About the Author: wordpress themes