Did you ever get lost navigating your WordPress dashboard? Well you’re not alone, I’ve done it many times. Here are a few tips that should help keep you on the right track.

Comment Moderation Page

The most common mistake for me occurs when I’m moderating and reading comments from the dashboard. I like to respond to most of the comments that are left on my blog and I also want to leave a CommentLuv link from another recent blog post with my response.

TIP: Don’t click the title of the post! If you click the post title, you’ll go into edit mode by mistake. Instead, click the # sign next to the post title. Remember, long before Twitter we used to call this # the pound sign. Now everyone calls it a hashtag, but click that and it will take you back to your blog.

Widgets Page

I know everyone has this problem. We have so many widgets on our sidebar and the majority of them have the same name – Text Widgets. I wish there was a way to change the name of each text widget and I guess there’s a plugin or theme out there somewhere that allows us to do this. Having so many widgets with the same name can really make your head spin. For example, right now I have a total of 13 text widgets on my sidebar, and if I decide I want to get rid of one, I end up going back and forth opening them up until I find the one I’m looking for.

TIP: There’s no fancy way to do this – you just need to count down on your sidebar from your homepage and remember which position the widget is in before you go into the dashboard. If anyone has a better solution please let me know!

Plugins Page

There are times when you need to change the settings on an active plugin or deactivate one before you uninstall it. You might be surprised when to go to your plugins page and don’t see the plugin you’re looking for on the list.

TIP: You might be looking at the list of inactive plugins if that’s where you were last time you looked at this page. Check up at the top and click “All” to see a complete list. You might also need to, scroll down to the bottom of the dashboard menu on the left, and you should find your plugin hiding underneath the Settings Panel.

I hope you find these tips helpful and feel free to share any WordPress dashboard navigation tips that you might have with the rest of us so we can learn from them. Or maybe you just want to confess that you got lost on your dashboard before, we want to hear about that too!

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Official 2011 Second Guest Blogging Contest Post #8
Contest Article

Here we go again back on the SEO road or as I like to call it, “INSANITY”. As far as I know many of us bloggers would like to have the smoothest transitions from irrelevancy to superstar. but as can be attested to by many of us, this doesn’t happen overnight. We trouble and toil over phrases like keywords, SERPS, Page Rank, and if I miss a few please excuse me. Because just like all of the world’s various languages, there are a variety of dialects and tools that some of use to scratch and claw our ways to the tops of the most well-known search engine, Google.

Using Plugins On WordPress Sites Makes SEO Controllable

WordPress built sites somehow come with a certain plugin called All In One SEO. I’ve cut my blogging teeth on this one when I first started out using WordPress about five years ago. And of course as a newbie to blogging, I was more apt to care more about what I wrote and what was going on in my life, rather than pay attention to what keywords and Title tags were, and what the heck a meta description was. See, I got into this blogging thing as a way to voice my opinion on the problems that I was going through in my personal life. That’s a whole different story, so I won’t veer down those tracks.

Here is a list of the SEO Plugins For WordPress That I have used in the past.

• All In One SEO
• Platinum SEO
• Headway
• WordPress SEO by Yoast
• Ultimate SEO

The list above are also augmented by tie-ins and dropins that are used in conjunction with some of these WordPress plugins. I myself prefer the latest from Yoast since it encapsulates quite a bit of functionality that I definitely do not have the space to do in this entry. Google “WordPress SEO by Yoast” keywords to find out and read more about it. There are over 115 pages of SEO related plugins in the WordPress repository, so when doing your search for one that is functional for yourself do your research and testing. It will definitely pay off in the end by landing you some really sweet traffic that comes along organically.

SEO Is Not The Bane Of Your Existence

But we as bloggers are looking to grab the eyeballs of “readers” and to keep those readers we have to use tools to make our sites interactive or interesting so that they then “subscribe” to our email updates or even the RSS feed if they are technically inclined. Anyway, SEO or search engine optimization can be used to boost your rankings when a person types in a particular phrase to a search engine. And usually the top listing of those Google or other search engines are “paid” for, meaning an advertiser paid for that ranking based on the keyword phrase value set by the Google algorithm. Many such as myself would settle for anywhere on the first page. And landing on this first page can usually lead to some form of conversion (sale or click) on a service located on your pages.

When you have some time stroll along the SEO plugins pages at WordPress and see what fits. Your comments on your individual experiences are greatly appreciated so please use the comments box to express them.

Official 2011 Guest Blogging Contest Post #10
Contest Article
2011 Best Guest Blogger Contest Article – Not Completed Yet

By default WordPress is an SEO-optimized blogging platform and CMS (content management system). However, it’s not perfect (no system is), and you owe it to yourself to optimize your onsite SEO (search engine optimization) as much as possible. While there are numerous things that you can do, this article will focus on the top items, the ones with the most bang-for-the-buck.

1. Use optimized HTML titles that contain your primary keyword(s). These are *not* the same as the headline you write in your WordPress posts. These are what show up in the bar at the very top of your browser window and what the search engines read. You will need a plugin for this as WordPress makes the title and headline the same by default.

2. Clean up your permalinks and ensure that the search engines only see one URL. For example, domain.com/cool-article?a=b or domain.com/cool-article/trackback are really the same as domain.com/cool-article and you don’t want Google or other search engines thinking they are 3 different pages, and thus diluting the link juice that flows to that page. Again, either you’ll need to write your own custom code or install a plugin.

For items #1 and #2, a fantastic plugin that handles both of those situations is Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin, written by famed WordPress developer Joost de Valk. WordPress SEO is actually a combination of some of Joost’s older standalone plugins as well as some new functionality. In addition, this plugin also provides some additional minor SEO benefits: breadcrumbs; canonical attributes for the homepage, category and tags pages; meta descriptions and keyword checking in posts.

3. Use HTTP 301 redirects. Ensure that you’re redirecting broken or renamed URLs to the current and correct ones using HTTP 301 redirects. This tells both the search engines as well as browsers what page they should really be querying, again pointing valuable link juice to the right place, and not wasting it. A well-established plugin for this purpose is Urban Giraffe’s Redirection Plugin. This plugin also keeps track of your 404 errors, although you can use other plugins and/or Google Webmaster Tools for this purpose.

4. Include Category Descriptions. To take advantage of additional search engine ‘love’, if your theme or some plugin does not include this functionality, include the following piece of code into the top of your category.php page: and edit each of your categories via the WordPress administrative interface to have a keyword-rich description.

This provides both your readers and the search engines with a better idea of what your category archive pages are about.

5. Optimize your permalink structure. Don’t leave your permalink structure with the default (ex: domain.com/?p=2). This is a huge SEO opportunity gone begging. Update your permalink structure (Settings -> Permalinks) and choose one of better keyword-based structures or alternatively enter a custom structure that at a minimum includes the post’s slug. For example: /%postname%/. Again, this is also beneficial to your readers.

6. Use a caching plugin or mechanism. Although this was not an issue before 2010 (as far as the general public knows), the speed of your website (its response time) now matters to at least Google who have stated so publicly, although it is unknown how much weight that carries in their ranking formula. Top plugin choices include W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.

Of course, you should stay on top of the news coming out of the SEO community so that you can adjust as the search engines adjust, but don’t react too quickly or worse, overreact. Most of these tips have been true since the beginning and will probably continue to be true for quite some time. It’s typically the minor factors that are the larger moving targets and the ones that you don’t need to worry about as much.

WordPress Releases Another Critical Security Update!

Barely three weeks ago the WordPress development team released two important security updates and today they have released another and likely the most critical of the three.

Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Founder sent this out as a message this morning:

Message From: Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Founder

First off, happy holidays. I hope this time of the year, chilly for many of you, has given you time to enjoy family, friends, and loved ones and reflect on the year before and the year to come.

My last message to you this year is an important but unfortunate one: we’ve fixed a pretty critical vulnerability in WordPress’ core HTML sanitation library, and because this library is used lots of places it’s important that everyone update as soon as possible.

I realize an update during the holidays is no fun, but this one is worth putting down the eggnog for. In the spirit of the holidays, consider helping your friends as well.

You can update in your dashboard, on the “updates” tab, or download the latest WordPress here:

http://wordpress.org/download/

The official release announcement is here:

http://wp.me/pZhYe-qt

Merry WordPressing in 2011,

–
Matt Mullenweg

Generally speaking there is always the recommendation to wait ONE (and only ONE) week after a any update release to push an upgrade.

It’s preferable to wait no more than a couple days on a security upgrade because that means the vulnerability is known to everyone and you become sitting duck.

However, in this case, the nature of this particular exploit would make it wise to do your backup and get this done NOW.

Before you ever upgrade your site be sure you have a backup of both your database AND your contents (if you’re doing this by plugins that often means two separate plugins).

There are a couple different solutions for backing up, but for those nervous of doing an upgrade from there, my preferred method of backing up WordPress from within the dashboard via plugins is found here.

The one-click upgrade that is now built into WordPress generally works well particularly for these incremental updates.

However, when you start doing major version updates such as when 3.1 is released (soonish), there are ways that you can upgrade WordPress with less risk that might interest you.

It is important that you get comfortable with doing backups and upgrades on your self-hosted WordPress blog as they are a way of life.

Skipping an upgrade unless its a purely cosmetic or feature change upgrade (which the larger numbers never are only) dramatically increases your risk of code injection exploits, hacking or misuse of your site in some form or fashion.

Have fun, play safe and give me a shout if you have any questions at all!

Kimberly Castleberry

PS: The letter from Matt should convey the sense of urgency – as a letter like that is not usually sent.

PSS: Would someone please find the noobs that are beating on our beloved WordPress code and tell them to knock it off?!?! Thank you to the WordPress team for working even during the holidays to ensure that we are safe!

WordPress Releases Back-To-Back Security Updates!

The last week and a half has been a flurry in the WordPress community with the back-to-back release of two very important security updates.

In the WordPress world, there are two types of incremental (third digit in the number) updates… those for minor feature fixes and those for fixing security holes that have to be fixed NOW but do not warrant a full sub-version number.

In your WordPress dashboard, after a release there is usually a link in the WordPress Blog section that tells more about whether or not the release is a security update.

In the case of 3.0.2 and 3.0.3 – BOTH – are different security updates and MUST be applied due to known vulnerabilities in the code that could easily expose you to an exploit (aka “hacking”).

Generally speaking there is always the recommendation to wait ONE (and only ONE) week after a any update release to push an upgrade.

It’s preferable to wait no more than a couple days on a security upgrade because that means the vulnerability is known to everyone and you become sitting duck.

I still don’t like to upgrade a primary business site or high traffic site on day one of a release, but there are plenty that do for the added protection of avoiding the security risk that could be more problematic than an upgrade gone poorly.

Before you ever upgrade your site be sure you have a backup of both your database AND your contents (if you’re doing this by plugins that often means two separate plugins).

There are a couple different solutions for backing up, but for those nervous of doing an upgrade from there, my preferred method of backing up WordPress from within the dashboard via plugins is found here.

The one-click upgrade that is now built into WordPress generally works well particularly for these incremental updates.

However, when you start doing major version updates such as when 3.1 is released, there are ways that you can upgrade WordPress with less risk that might interest you.

It is important that you get comfortable with doing backups and upgrades on your self-hosted WordPress blog as they are a way of life.

Skipping an upgrade unless its a purely cosmetic or feature change upgrade (which the larger numbers never are only) dramatically increases your risk of code injection exploits, hacking or misuse of your site in some form or fashion.

Have fun, play safe and give me a shout if you have any questions at all!

Kimberly Castleberry

Most people still only look at WordPress as a blogging platform. On a site such as Blog Engage, its a safe bet that most of the readers use it for just that. However, WordPress has evolved into the strongest and most flexible content management system, allowing you to do so much more than just blog.

Here are five really awesome things (besides blogging) you can do with WordPress:

Social Networking Site

Social networking in a box. Build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community all based on the power and flexibility of WordPress. BuddyPress will let users register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more.

Image Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option. There are a lot of image gallery plugins on WordPress, but none that are rated higher than NextGEN Gallery.

Message Board

Do you want to have your own message board on your site? With BBPress you can!

E-Commerce Site

Do you want to sell your products online? WordPress can become a fully-featured e-commerce site with this plugin.

Email Autoresponder System

With GravityForms you can create forms for your website to capture people’s contact information and market to them via email. This one has a lot of very cool features.

What other cool things have you done with WordPress?

What would you do if you woke up one morning and all of the posts from your blog were just gone? Would you panic and then remember you have an up-to-date backup of your files? Or would you just cry because all your hard work had been obliterated by some jerk?

Your content is your blog’s heart and soul. And if you host your own WordPress blog, you are unfortunately just as likely to get hacked as anyone else. But there are quick and easy ways to ensure that all the posts you pour your blood, sweat and tears don’t just vanish into cyberspace one day.

If you’re a fan of No Ordinary Homestead on Facebook, you probably saw that I recently had a big scare when I thought that all the posts in my blog (over 1300 posts) had been erased. Thankfully it was just a glitch with the database but it made me realize that even though I get weekly backups of my blog emailed to me, sometimes that’s just not enough.

If you have a blog yourself and run WordPress, you should think about installing something like the free WordPress Database Backup plugin. It’s a simple plugin that will allow you to run a backup of your database with just a few clicks…or if you prefer, backups can be emailed (or saved on your server) daily, weekly, etc. Your core files of layout and such will still need to be backed up manually, but at least you won’t lose all your posts and comments.

Because I write on new posts all the time, I realized after my scare last week that a daily backup is really more prudent. But it’s all a question of how often you’re adding stuff to your blog. And if you’re really concerned about hackers, I also recommend the WP Defender ebook with instructional how-to videos (not an affiliate link) which is loaded with lots of quick, easy ways to better protect your WordPress blog from attackers.

As if the blog scare wasn’t enough, my laptop also started crashing yesterday for no apparent reason. And I have to say that when Vista crashes, it’s even more fun than some of the others because your screen just sorta fades out for instead of going to the blue screen. Then you may get a blue screen when it tries to reboot and fails. Otherwise you just wonder if your battery died or if something has otherwise gone horribly wrong.

I have been telling myself for weeks now that I needed to back up the files on my laptop, but so many other things just kept getting in the way. So when the laptop started flaking out on me yesterday, I knew it was time to take action. Despite the laptop only being a few months old, I’m not exactly easy on my equipment and treat my laptops more like huge desktop PC’s, running tons of programs at once while I edit photos, look up this and that, and otherwise just keep my RAM full at all times. So now I’ve added some reminders to my google calendar (which is my life saver in the chaotic zone I call life) to save all the files on my laptop once a month, as well as backup website files for things like WordPress that I don’t edit and save on my computer.

If you’re not very good at checking things off your to do list, you can also try software like Cobian Backup (free open source backup option) which will automatically back up your computer to another location (at home, on a server, online, etc). But the nice thing about it, is that you can schedule downloads of all the files on your web server too.

So now before you do anything else today, go back up your files. Computer crashes always seem to happen at the least opportune times.

I have never used any themes from these guys yet but I can tell you they have an amazing support community simply by looking into their forums.

With a wide range of Premium themes for wordpress Woo Themes easily stands out from their competition. Woo word press themes are all built on a solid code framework which we have fine tuned over time. With a new backend to let you easily control the theme options and multiple theme styles to every theme, it won’t take you long to get up and running.

You get access to theme documentation, tutorials, knowledge base and probably the best support forum anywhere! Our Woo Ninjas deliver outstanding technical support and guidance on basic customization issues that you might have.

Woo word press themes promise to deliver a minimum of 2 new themes every month, so that you can easily satisfy your clients needs and keep your personal blog looking fresh. That is the advantage of our awesome subscription packages.

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Thanks,

Brian