Most of us do not even think about sending emails through our WordPress powered website. We have WordPress handling this task by default using PHP mail functionality which works! Well, in most cases.
However, I had challenges in the past when I didn’t even know that some of the emails my website sent, ended straight into the receiver’s SPAM folders. Thanks to some of my friends from the blogosphere who told me about this issue.
I am not such a huge fan of having too many plugins on a WordPress installation. However, there are times I can’t avoid adding a plugin or two for a feature that gets my attention!
At other times, I come across some awesome plugins because my clients need them. I am not suggesting that you install all of the plugins I suggest. However, if you need a feature that one of these WordPress plugins offer, these are definitely a great choice!
I am not going to write a whole lot about these WordPress plugins because their functionalities are so intuitive, and they are so lightweight, that you don’t need to go through too many hoops to get them working for you.
Setting up a blog, promoting it a bit on Facebook and Google+, garnering some website traffic and then adding Google Adsense to monetize – is all about making money online, isn’t it?
Well, several months ago, a couple approached me for some guidance about making money from home without jeopardizing their visa status in the US. They were students from India here to do their Masters.
Interestingly, they introduced themselves to me in a grocery store but had been my blog readers for a while.
I asked them if they had already thought about doing something. Among other things, they made mention of making money online through blogging. And the first line in the post which I wrote, I paraphrased what they had said.
WordPress is an awesome content management system (CMS) because of its fantastic set of plugins. With so many free and premium themes and plugins, WordPress allows you to get pretty much any functionality you may want, right?
I have previously shared about some of the “must have” plugins that pretty much every WordPress blog needs. And you can refer to this post for reviewing the list.
However, in this post, I am going to share a few very interesting plugins that give us some unusual functionality. These plugins are not a must, but do add some advanced features to your website when used correctly.
Earlier, we discussed how CloudFlare Supercharges Your Website Security And Performance. We discussed how CloudFlare helps you secure your website, protects against intruders and helps reduce the loading time for your website.
I received a lot of great feedback from you and not just that, this quickly became one of the top 10 popular posts on my blog.
Now, a lot has changed since I first posted this article and I realize it’s time to revise this post. It’s time to add the missing pieces and make this post complete and a one-stop solution for people looking to implement CloudFlare and MaxCDN services together.
When you are just thinking about learning to blog, WordPress.com may sound like a great idea because of one simple reason – it’s free! I did the same thing when I started exploring my options.
However, if you are serious about your personal/professional branding, and you know what you are going to share with the world, you need to be serious about how you choose your platform.
Interestingly, WordPress and blogging are almost synonyms these days. You search for blogging in Google and you will end up find more than you can chew about WordPress.
And that is great! WordPress is the most popular platform on the internet for bloggers and content marketers, period!
Moving from one shared hosting environment to another was a lot of stress for me due to one problem or another. Sometimes it was their server’s performance. Other times the hosting company was complaining that my website was consuming way more resources than they allocated to my account. It was all very frustrating.
Looking for a better solution and to give myself a peace of mind, I decided to go for a managed WordPress hosting service. I knew it was going to cost me at least 15-20 times more than I was paying in a shared hosting environment, but I also knew I needed to get rid of those shared hosting issues.
By the way, you can check out my recent post where I shared why Managed WordPress Hosting is desired for serious bloggers and online entrepreneurs.
So, I decided to bite the bullet and signed up for what they call 'the BMW of managed hosting', WP Engine. I signed up for a $900 yearly plan and moved 3 of my websites, excited to see how my website performance and overall experience improves.
My goal with this post is to discuss some of the top WordPress plugins I use and recommend. If you have questions about installing WordPress plugins, you may want to refer to my earlier post about installing WordPress Plugins on your blog.
Photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos/merzavka
One of my favorite things about WordPress as a blogging platform, is the ability to extend its features by using WordPress plugins. A few clicks and you are on your way to having a fully functional website with some great features.
Since I posted about setting up a self-hosted WordPress and blog, many people have asked for my recommendations on WordPress plugins, and so this post.
Naturally, it is hard to decide what to install and what to leave from more than 22000 plugins available in WordPress Plugins directory, isn't it? However, with a careful consideration of your needs, you can choose what you need and leave the rest.
To speed up your website, is to have happy visitors and happy Google, isn't that true? A website that loads fast for its visitors gains credibility and traffic much faster than those that do not. So, how do we do that?
Maintaining your WordPress blog itself is a task that needs regular attention. On top of that, publishing fresh content on a regular basis is a task enough to easily keep you busy for a few hours.
But what is the point of writing fresh, well written and exciting content if your visitors aren’t happy about the way your website loads? What is the point of putting so much hard work into design and content if Google is not happy because your website loads too slow?
Did you know your WordPress pings a few services each time you publish something new on your website? Essentially, it is a good thing that WordPress does it automatically so you don’t have to worry about notifying the search engines and all other services that there is something new at your website.
This is a great news and this is one of the reasons WordPress is the #1 blogging platform in the world!
About Ping Services
Basically, a ping is a notification sent to search engines that new content has been added to your website. This is a kind of an invitation you send to the search engine bots to visit your blog.
