We would argue that there’s a “slight” learning curve, while others claim it’s easy as pie to use and manage. Let me clarify WordPress is easy to use and manage, however to reap it’s full benefits, a complete newbie to online technology would be a tad lost. It took me roughly a few months to learn it well enough to get by, and about a year (or two) to truly deeply learn all its wonderful nooks and crannies. As I stated in a previous article one of the BEST ways to learn WordPress is via another blogger that already uses it. And knows it well.

But assuming you know it well enough to get by, below are five types of sites you can build with the popular and FREE CMS known to many a blog owner as WordPress.

1. Personal Blog – if you’re a real estate agent, hair dresser, mechanic or of any other professional background WordPress is great for creating and setting up your personal blog. This could be information about yourself, your skills, certification, licenses, etc. You could use it as a resume of sorts when looking for employment or simply as your placeholder online.

An example of a good personal blog built on WordPress is the site of real estate agent Ribeezie otherwise known as Ricardo Bueno. Notice how he uses the platform to establish himself as an authority in his field, this is how it’s done, take notes and see if you can emulate what he’s been able to do with his personal blog.

2. Company Site – whatever type of business you operate you can be sure someone has already used WordPress to make a website in your niche. You can hire the task out, you can try and do it yourself however the key takeaway is that with WordPress anything is possible including your company site.

An example of a cool and easy company site built on WordPress is the site of Extreme Tan and Smoothies based in Florida. For those who spend a good deal on Twitter and or social media might recognize this site as belonging to Extreme John who I easily could have used as an example of a good personal blog for number one above.

3. eCommerce – with an ecommerce plugin, just about any type of online shop can be created using WordPress. Can you create an Amazon.com size store? Well I highly doubt that as an online shop of that magnitude would require some sort of custom cart and many other custom enhancements. But assuming you’re not out to build the next Amazon.com, then WordPress would fit your needs just fine. And do so quite well.

An example of an e-commerce site built using WordPress is Chopper, an online shop for skateboarders. The site sells clothing, shoes and other assorted merchandise aimed at those who skate. It’s a nice looking site with built-in cart functionality and a fully operational shop.

4. Landing Page – a landing page is essentially a one page site that is used for a laser focused purpose such as collecting email leads, selling a product and or other single purpose. Many who use WordPress for their landing pages use it for email capture and or for selling a single product such as an ebook.

An example of a landing page site built using WordPress would be the Probloger Book page where noted blogger Darren Rowse sells his book. It’s simple and created using WordPress.

5. Portfolio Site – this is what a website designer, a freelance photographer and anyone who creates a visual service for a living would use to showcase their work, skills and talent for all to see. As a website designer you naturally would link to and highlight the various websites you’ve created over the years. As a photographer you would link to and display your most noted and celebrated photos for prospective clients to view and so on.

Your turn to speak? Leave a comment below and show us examples of good portfolio sites built using WordPress and do include a link in your comment. We look forward to your good picks.

As you can see from my examples above, WordPress is quite robust and comprehensive. It’s pliable enough that you can create just about any type of website imaginable. This is why it’s the CMS of choice among many web professionals.

Guest article by: Missy Diaz who relishes writing for BroadbandExpert.com, a high speed internet service provider.

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

As you may (or may not) know there are numerous ways to bring exposure to your blog and promote it on the web, but we are going to focus on five for the purposes of this article.

See our top picks for five quick ways to promote your blog on the net.

1. Social Media - you have three to choose from here including Facebook, Twitter and now Google Plus the latest social network to join the fray. The method for each is pretty much the same however they do work differently and each have different guidelines to get the best out of them. For each one the key is to engage engage and engage. With Facebook try to post regularly and do post items of interest to you niche. Anything from quotes, tips, information, news, and anything else of interest to your audience. Keep it light, keep it short and keep it coming. With Twitter rack up some fans, keep them in the loop and retweet others on a continual basis. Remember that with social media the key is to share and to allow others to shine.

2. Contests/Giveaways - another fantastic method to promote your blog is to create a killer giveaway and let your readers and visitors know about it. The key is to have a fantastic prize then let everyone you know including blog friends about your giveaway. Also don’t forget about your social network such as Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

3. Guest Blogging - one of the absolute best to promote any blog and to promote any blog page or article. Find one in your intended niche and then send an email to the blog owner via the sites contact form. From there create a knock out article and then submit it to the blog owner. If approved and published on the site, consider yourself very fortunate as you just scored a prominent spot in what could possibly be an established and popular blog.

4. Blog Carnival - this is an old classic but still rings true for any blog owner. Simply visit the site find a relevant blog carnival and submit a blog article to it then await a response from blog carnival host. This is a quick and easy way to gain exposure for your blog and in particular your blog site. They’ve been around for a long time and I use them on a regular basis. You should too.

We welcome and encourage you to try any one or more of the methods mentioned above to bring additional exposure to a new or existing blog and gain all the momentum you need.

Let us know below in the comment area which method (or methods) you intend to try and how we can help?

This guest article was written by Missy Diaz who writes for several clients including Tim a website builder on the web.

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

But perhaps you’re knee deep in other tasks associated with your blog and simply don’t have the time to begin a guest blogging campaign. This is when contract guest blogging comes into play and can make the difference between a successful outreach and a waste of your time.

Below we highlight five good ways to find a guest blogger for your site.

1. Google – when you seek something online your first stop should always be the almighty Google. Why? Because they have the bigger and better web results. We realize this is a highly debatable statement but in our humble opinion we feel they just do. In this case you would type in any of the following to find a guest blogger – guest blogging service, guest blogger for hire, freelance guest blogger, guest post service, guest article writer, etc. When you find a few that you fancy, check out their testimonials and or feedback page and give them a ring. Well send them an email since most likely they deal with clients strictly via the web. Try him or her out via an order for one guest article, then when they deliver gauge the quality of the writing, site the article was placed on, their communication, base rate and proceed accordingly.

2. eLance.com (Or Other Freelance Site) – this is the grand daddy of freelance work sites and as such is a huge source of good talent. Sign up and place a request for a guest blogger and be quite specific in what you need and seek so as to garner good quality (and relevant) responses. The site does take a commission for connecting you to talent, so factor this into your budget for a guest blogging campaign.

3. Your Social Network – this is when you tap into your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus networks and put out an ABP on a contract guest writer. You might be pleasantly surprised as to who knows who and can refer you to a great freelance guest blogger. You can take it a step further and include a small (but fair) bounty for a good referral.

4. My Blog Guest – if you have yet to visit this site, it’s a must. My Blog Guest is a community built for the sole purpose of finding and or offering guest blogging opportunities and it’s run by the wonderful Ann Smarty of Search Engine Journal. Through this site you can place a free listing for a guest blogger via their “Guest Blogging For Hire” job board. This active community is highly regarded as a great place for guest posting – whether to give or to receive.

5. Other Bloggers – one of the best resources for a guest blogger is another blogger. Are there any blogs that you follow and or subscribe to and read on a regular basis? Chances are the bloggers on these sites are available for hire. What better way to score a good blogger than to pick one you already know and read. Contact him (or her) via the contact page or form on the site and ask if they are available for guest blogging for a fee.

To begin a guest blogging campaign today try any of the following methods to score a good guest blogger. We would love to hear your personal stories on what think of our ideas and our tips. Weigh in below in the comment area.

This article brought to you by Missy Diaz an established blogger who works for a high speed internet provider on the web.
[image via]

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

There has already been a WordPress plugin created to visually display your posts in the same fashion as the new Facebook Timeline.

Plugin: WP Facebook Timeline

Description

Create a visual linear timeline representation from your WordPress posts and other media sources in the style of Facebook Profile Timeline. Timeline events can be filtered by taxonomy terms and post types, including custom taxonomies and post types enabled by your active theme.

In addition to WordPress content, you can also add content to the timeline from Twitter – filtering by multiple hashtags. As a sidenote: This functionality makes this plugin especially cool!!

You can set timeline events to be “featured”, ie: span across both columns to be more prominent by setting a custom meta field key to mf_timeline_featured and its value to 1. This is great for indicating milestones on the timeline, or highlighting a particular piece of information on the timeline.

The plugin is brand new in the WordPress Plugin Repository. At the time of this post there have been 84 downloads and three 5 star ratings for version 1.0.2 of the plugin.

The plugin can be called through the use of shortcodes, so that’s convenient for allowing you the ability to integrate the timeline in any page/post.

The author state that additional content sources such as Flickr and YouTube will be coming in future releases.

If you try it – let us know your experience.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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I’ll let this great data visualization point out those points.

[via pushingsocial.com]

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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That being said, the fine folks over at Flowtown have put together a representation of what the blogger was then and what the blogger is now.

How many of you remember back in the day before blogging was so cool? Are there official courses at the university yet on “How To Blog”?

Which categories do you fit into ?

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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That’s an astonishing number for an open-source piece of software  that really isn’t all that old – when you think that Matt and Mike started with the first official release of WordPress back in 2003.

I found this infographic posted on the blog of my good friends and business partners, Page.ly.

For those who want to know stats and numbers and who’s making big waves in the overall WordPress community – look no further than below.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Get Matt Mullenweg’s WordPress Themes (thetechscoop.net)
• FeedWordPress Plugin (tomaltman.com)

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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See more here:
11 Ways to Speed Up WordPress

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

Image via: http://www.dpkpr.com

Running my own IT consulting organization, HicksNewMedia, and writing for a handful of well-known and respected blogs has got me thinking about something – proper etiquette on the web for content creators.

I decided to draft the Bloggers Code of Conduct and publish it for all of you readers to dissect and provide commentary on.

I know that Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) made a similar call for action from the blogger community back in 2007, but it doesn’t look like the initiative has gained much momentum since. So I’m picking up the torch.

Here are the 10 Guidelines that I have crafted. The order of importance is open to discussion, but frankly they all carry an equal weight in my opinion.

1. Plagiarism is bad. Proper attribution is good
2. Focus on the Reader’s Experience
3. Strive to only use properly targeted advertising within pages and posts
4. Many times LESS is MORE and BETTER
5. It’s great to share, but avoid becoming a social media spammer
6. Interact with subject matter experts and accept constructive feedback
7. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Remain focused on your core goals/niche
8. Test it. Back it up. Secure it
9. Mix your media
10. Buy what you need, but remain fiscally conservative

Now many of the above guidelines are self-explanatory while others could have multiple meanings, depending on whom you talk to.

For now, I’m going to leave the guidelines wide open like they are and see what feedback comes from you, the readers.

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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