Category: Worpdress Tips

WordPress is a great content management platform on its own right out of the box, just install and five minutes later you have a working website. But what truly puts WordPress head and shoulders above lots of content management systems and website platforms are the amount of plugins that have been created to work with WordPress and are available for you to use.

Whatever you require your WordPress website to do there is most likely a plugin that will add that functionality to your website.

These are the plugins that are currently installed on The Grizzly Marketer site; browse the following list and see which ones apply to your WordPress installation.

Contact Form 7

You’re going to want to have a way for your visitors to contact you and Contact Form 7 is a great simple to use plugin that does just that.

MailChimp for WordPress

A newsletter is a great way to keep in contact with your audience and Mailchimp provides a cheap easy solution to do just that. This plugin allows you to intergrate your Mailchimp account with your WordPress Install.

MailChimp for WordPress – Top Bar

Adds a floating bar to your WordPress install to increase newsletter signups.

ThirstyAffiliates

If you’re going to be promoting affiliate products you will want a handy way to keep your affiliate links organized.

W3 Total Cache

This is a plugin that will speed up your WordPress install to create a better user experience for your visitors.

WordPress Database Backup

It’s always a good idea to have a backup of your website and this plugin is an easy method to schedule regualr backups.

WP Limit Login Attempts

This is a handy plugin as it will stop any hacker in their tracks attempting to gain entry to your WordPress install by using a brute force attack which tries to guess your password by running through all the common passwords that people use. Without this plugin a hacker will unlimited attempts to gain entry.

Yoast SEO

A very helpful plugin that will help make your WordPress install more SEO friendly.

Previous -> How to Secure WordPress from Being Hacked

Next -> Free Website Design and Business Productivity Tools

If you have ever had your site hacked in the past your know it’s not a fun experience and even though WordPress is quite secure out of the box there are a number of things that can be done to make it more secure to ensure you don’t get hacked in the future.

Below are the best tips to secure your WordPress installation from hackers.

1) Choose a hard to guess Admin username and password. Don’t use a username that’s easy to guess such as admin or administrator. Make sure to put special characters and numbers into your username to make it harder for a hacker to gain entry.

2) Choose a long password with plenty of character variation in it such as capitols and special symbols like $#)* so that it will make it extremely hard for a brute force hacking program to guess it. If you use the One Click install through Hostgator they will provide you with a solid password when you install WordPress.

2) Keep your WordPress and plugins up to date at all times. One of the ways that hackers gain entry is they find a security vulnerability in a plugin or exploit in the core files of WordPress and use these vulnerabilities to gain entry to your site or inject their own code into your site so don’t ignore the update messages as most likely they will address whatever the latest security vulnerability has been exposed.

3) Limit login attempts to your admin area. This is an excellent way to prevent your WordPress from ever being hacked by a Brute force program which will try to gain entry by attempting to guess your password just by entering the most common passwords until they can gain entry. Limit Login Attempts is a great plugin to stop just that. Once installed you can set it to limit the login attempts that someone can make and will stop any brute force attacks in their tracks.

4) Get your themes and plugins from reputable sources such as the WordPress directory or a reputable third party. If you go looking for plugins for free from website you don’t know you could be inadvertently leaving yourself open installing a plugin or theme that will leave you open to hacking. Downloading plugins from reputable sources is the only way you can be sure that you are not downloading  a plugin or theme that will leave you vulnerable. Also downloading from a reputable source is the best chance that the theme or plugin developer will keep their theme or plugin updated and secure as time goes on.

5) Change your folder permissions to make your files more secure. If you are hosting with one of the larger reputable hosting companies such as Hostgator then you are covered already and they have done this for you.

If you want to double check the basic security settings for WordPress folders they should have 0755 permissions and WordPress files should have 0644 permissions.

6) Remove and themes and plugins you don’t use. Having old plugins and themes installed can create security vulnerabilities as these themes and plugins won’t be getting updated regularly and give can still give access to a hacker into our site. Deactivating plugins isn’t enough you should delete plugins and themes you don’t intend to use and activate.

7) Adding two step login authentication. A really good way to secure your WordPress Installation is to setup two factor authentication which means that your website will require a password plus a second code sent directly to your smartphone that is generated each time you login. There are several plugins that can do this and you can check out Google Authenticator which is a popular method.

8) Create regular backups of your site. There are many WordPress backup plugins that you can use and this is the one that we use WordPress Database Backup. This plugin will allow you to set the schedule that the backups are created and will email you a copy of the backup. That way if you ever are hacked you will be able to quickly and easily reset your website with your latest backup.

For additional reading and tips on how to secure and harden your WordPress installation you can check out the WordPress.org security page.

Previous -> How-to Install a WordPress Theme

Next -> Best Must Have WordPress Plugins

One of the most exciting parts of setting up a new website is getting to choose how your website is going to look. With WordPress you will have literally thousands of themes to choose from so your will need to do a bit of planning in order to narrow down the theme that is going to work best for your website.

These days the majority of browsing on the Internet is done by people on their smartphones or tablets as opposed to desktop computers or laptops so you will need to make sure that the theme you choose is a responsive theme. This means that no matter size of screen your visitor is viewing your site on they will be able to see your content easily as a responsive theme will resize your menu bars and content so it can be viewed on mobile phones as well as the largest desktop monitors anytime someone comes to your site.

Places to Get Themes From

There are a number of trustworthy places to find themes both free and paid. You might be tempted to go with a free theme and that’s great if you do but make sure that it comes from the WordPress Theme directory accessed from the so you will know that is trustworthy and updated. A good reason not to go with a free template is that designers create free themes and then place their own links to various website into the footer to offset the cost of providing a free theme. This is why I recommend you choose a paid theme if your can afford it as the paid themes from a reputable theme company will be kept up to date whenever a security vulnerability is found and you will have access to support and help if you need it while installing and updating your website. If you’re going with a paid theme we recommend Themeforest for their price and support. For free themes look no further then WordPress.org own theme directory https://wordpress.org/themes/.

To add a purchased theme to your WordPress install scroll down to Appearance -> Themes and click on the Add New button.

Click on Upload theme,

and browse to the location of your downloaded theme in Zip format.

Click on Install Now once file has been selected and then click on Activate finish installing your new theme.

Previous -> Installing WordPress On Hostgator

Next -> How to Secure WordPress from Being Hacked

Now that we’ve chosen our domain name and where we are going to host our website we move onto the next step which is choosing a method to build our websites pages.

These days there are a multitude of options and platforms you can choose from to build your websites such as WordPress, Blogger, Weebly and good ole plain HTML website. All these platforms have their place and uses but for our purposes they only one we’ll concentrate on are WordPress sites.

WordPress is a free blogging platform that has been around since 2003 and has been constantly being updated and worked on over the years to the point that it’s practically become synonymous with blogging these days. One of the best things about working with WordPress these days is that it’s evolved far beyond just a simple blogging platform.

Whether you’re starting a blog or an eCommerce site or anything in between WordPress has got your back. If there is something specific you’re looking to add to your website chances are there are already a bunch of free or moderately priced plug-ins created and whatever you’re looking to do with your website you can probably find a free or moderately priced plugin for WordPress that will expand its functionality to suit your purpose.

WordPress is incredibly to install depending on who you host with. Most of the major website hosts have a one click install feature that will allow you to install WordPress in a matter of minutes. I’ll walk you through the install process for Hostgator where this site is hosted.

After following the directions from our article about registering your domain name with Namecheap and setup website hosting with Hostgator and your nameservers are resolving correctly you are ready to move onto the exciting step of installing your website.

Installation:

Login to your Hostgator cPanel and scroll down to the Quick Install button:

This will take you to QuickInstall by Mojo Marketplace make sure you’re in the One Click Installs section and look down the left hand menu under Popular Installs for the WordPress link. Click on that to get to the next area:

On this next screen you will be asked to fill in a few quick details such as choosing which domain you would like WordPress installed on and to pick a username for your Admin login, don’t make it something easy to guess and use special symbols and numbers where possible. We will cover WordPress Security Tips later but for now just pick a hard to crack Admin name for your WordPress install. You will be given a password to login in with when the install has completed.

Fill in your details as above and leave the install path blank to install WordPress in the root directory.

Now sit back and wait for QuickInstall to do its thing which should only take a few minutes to complete.

After the install is complete you will receive a confirmation on screen and an email with your login details.

Once you have received your WordPress Login information you can now login to your WordPress Admin “http://www.sitename.com/wp-admin” area start making it your own by installing a new WordPress theme to personalize your website.

Previous -> Choosing a Domain Name Provider and Web Hosting Company

Next -> How-to Install a WordPress Theme

As a webmaster you are probably looking for the fastest way to rank your content in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo and WordPress has a great feature for doing just that.

Every time you post new content on your website or blog you will be able to automatically let the search engines know that you have fresh and new content that they should come and have a look at.

Using this method you can have your content indexed in a matter of hours of posting it.

I have compiled a large list of ping resources that you can use below. Just copy and paste the list into Update Services box under Settings -> Writing tab where it says “When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services. For more about this, see Update Services on the Codex. Separate multiple service URLs with line breaks.”

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/pingSubmit?bloglink=http://yourwebsite.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/pingSiteForm?name=YourWebsite&url=http://yourwebsite.com
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx
http://blog.with2.net/ping.php
http://blogping.unidatum.com/RPC2
http://blogpingr.de/ping/rpc2
https://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ae/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.at/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.be/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.bg/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ca/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ch/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.cl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.de/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.es/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.fi/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.fr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.gr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.in/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.it/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.jp/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ki/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.kz/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.la/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.li/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.lk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.lt/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.lu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.md/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.mn/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ms/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.mu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.mv/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.mw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.no/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.nr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.nu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.pn/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.pt/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ro/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ru/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.rw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sc/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.se/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sh/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.si/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sm/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sn/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.st/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tm/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.to/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tp/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tt/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.us/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.vg/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.vu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ws/ping/RPC2
http://news2paper.com/ping
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.fc2.com
http://ping.rss.drecom.jp
http://rpc.bloggerei.de/ping/
http://rpc.twingly.com
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://audiorpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://blog.youdao.com/ping/RPC2
http://catapings.com/ping.php
http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi
http://ping.bitacoras.com/
http://ping.groove-cast.com/ping.php
http://ping.pubsub.com/ping
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.wordblog.de
http://rpc.twingly.com/
http://serenebach.net/rep.cgi
http://wasalive.com/ping/
http://xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://www.feedsubmitter.com
http://blo.gs/ping.php
http://www.pingerati.net
http://www.pingmyblog.com
http://geourl.org/ping
http://ipings.com
http://www.weblogalot.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping
http://blogmatcher.com/
http://blogpeople.net/ping
http://bulkfeeds.net
http://feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://geourl.org/ping/
http://hamo-search.com/ping.php
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping
http://mapufacture.com/georss/ping/api
http://mod-pubsub.org
http://newsblog.jungleboots.org/ping.php
http://ping.blogoon.net
http://ping.blo.gs
http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.kutsulog.net
http://ping.namaan.net/rpc
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://ping.snap.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.speenee.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.weblogalot.com
http://rcs.datashed.net
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rcs.salon.com/RPC2
http://r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc
http://rpc.blogrolling.com
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
http://rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping
http://rpc.tailrank.com
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/ping
http://rpc.technorati.jp/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://submitblogs.com/
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2eping.php
http://www.2bet.com/
http://www.2rss.com
http://www.a2b.cc
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogarama.com/
http://www.blogbits.com/
http://www.blogcatalog.com/
http://www.blogdex.net/
http://www.blogdigger.com
http://www.blogexplosion.com
http://www.bloggernity.com/
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net
http://www.blogpeople.net/ping
http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
http://www.blogroots.com
http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping
http://www.blogshares.com
http://www.blogstreet.com
http://www.blogwise.com/
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?XmlPing
http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://www.feedster.com/
http://www.globeofblogs.com/
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com
http://www.linksboy.com/
http://www.lsblogs.com/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.orgping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPC
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://www.ohlinks.com
http://www.popdex.com
http://ping.fc2.com/
http://blogs.yandex.ru/
http://rpc.bloggerei.de/
http://ping.rss.drecom.jp/
http://rpc.odiogo.com/ping/
http://www.readablog.com/
http://www.rogerlinks.com/linker/index.shtml
http://www.snipsnap.org
http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://www.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com
http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
http://xmlrpc.bloggernetz.de/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.comping/
http://zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://rpc.urlfan.com/ping
https://blogs.yandex.ru/pings/
http://pingoo.jp/ping/
http://modpubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php