WordPress

Quix Cheatsheet

by oscar on 2010/02/12

If you haven’t heard of Quix, and you’re a webmaster, or a webdmin, or work on SEO a lot, you definitely want to check it out. I’ve been using it since the day it was announced and I love it, it hasn’t replaced some of my major tools, but it is very helpful and extremely useful when I want to do quick analysis and check for “stuff”. You can actually dig pretty deep into different types of information about a website or specific URL. read the rest, and get the file

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Free WordPress Installation FAQ

by oscar on 2010/01/16

  • Do you support (fill in the blank) theme?
  • It depends, if its a popular theme, chances are I can install it for you. The ones that are supported for sure are: Thesis, Athahualpa, Revolution, Flexx, beyond that, almost any highly rated plugin from the official repository will do too, but just to be sure please check with me.

  • Do you support (fill in the blank) plugin?
  • The same applies as the first question above, for themes. Please see it.

  • WordPress says its really easy to install already, they have a 5 minute installation guide, why don’t I just do it myself?
  • Please, by all means if you want to roll up your sleeves and give this a try yourself, then go for it. Millions of people have done it and new people do it everyday. It isn’t that hard, there are so many free resources online already that can help you get started too. The services I offer give you peace of mind and worry free maintenance, but if you have time to do it yourself I encourage you to do so. If you run into any issues, please let me know if I can answer any questions for you.

  • But, the hosts you recommend already offer automatic WordPress Installations, why is yours any better?
  • The automatic installation they offer is just a basic installation. You still need to go through at least 6 pages of configurations and settings before your website is ready to go. Not to mention, you have to make sure you have a backup, e-mail works, your urls are well formed, and that you know how to use the site.

  • Do I need to give you my username and password?
  • It is up to you, there are two ways to do this, you can create your account as a master account, then go into the control panel and create me an account. Or you can give me your username and password, let me do all the work I need to do, then you can change your password when I’m finished. It is all up to you, I recommend that you create me a separate account so you can easily turn it on and off when you need my help.

  • How can you say its Free?
  • In order to have a website of your own, you need to pay somebody for hosting. This hosting fee is going to be there no matter where you go. The reason I’m offering you this service for free is that when you buy hosting from my recommended host, they pay me a commission fee. This commision fee ends up paying for your installation, maintenance and support. So, technically it isn’t free as in a free lunch, but at least it doesn’t come out of your pocket. In this case the host pays me a percentage of your fee.

  • But I still have to pay?
  • Your only costs are those you pay directly to Dreamhost, and your registrar where you bought your domain, I recommend Godaddy, I have over 60 domains registered with them. But I would not recommend their Windows hosting. (World’s Largest Registrar – GoDaddy.com). Remember, you need a domain of your own. If you need help with this, please let me know and I’ll be happy to walk you through it.

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Favorite WordPress Plugins List

by oscar on 2010/01/15

When I install WordPress for you, you get a bunch of pre-installed plugins. You also get to pick additional ones from the list below; these also happen to be some of my favorite plugins.

Optional plugins:

Adsense-Deluxe
All in One SEO Pack
Articles
Category Posts Widget
Contact Form 7
Display Widgets
Inline Posts
Lifestream
NextGEN Gallery
OpenID
Ozh’ Who Sees Ad
Page Links To
Photo Dropper
Popularity Contest
RSS Footer
Redirection
SEO Smart Links
SexyBookmarks
Statpress Reloaded
Subscribe to comments
Subscribe-Remind
TweetSuite
Twitter Tools
WP Since Last Visit
WP-Polls
WP-PostRatings
WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam
WP-Syntax
WordPress Download Monitor
cForms II

Included:

Akismet
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google XML Sitemaps
Maintenance Mode
Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu
Really Simple CAPTCHA
WP-DBManager
WordPress.com

Additional Options

There are some plugins that require extra configuration. The plugins listed below can be installed for an additional fee.
wp-e-commerce
Featured Content Gallery
FeedWordPress

More Plugins

If you would like to add a plugin to the list, please speak up in the comments. I’ll probably add it to the next revision of this list, or you can do it in private.

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Favorite WordPress Plugins List

by oscar on 2010/01/15

When I install WordPress for you, you get a bunch of pre-installed plugins. You also get to pick additional ones from the list below; these also happen to be some of my favorite plugins.

Optional plugins:

Adsense-Deluxe
All in One SEO Pack
Articles
Category Posts Widget
Contact Form 7[1]
Display Widgets
Inline Posts
Lifestream(see it in action right here)
NextGEN Gallery
OpenID
Ozh’ Who Sees Ad
Page Links To
Photo Dropper
Popularity Contest
RSS Footer
Redirection
SEO Smart Links
SexyBookmarks
Statpress Reloaded
Subscribe to comments
Subscribe-Remind
TweetSuite
Twitter Tools
WP Since Last Visit
WP-Polls[2]
WP-PostRatings[2]
WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam
WP-Syntax
Wordpress Download Monitor
cForms II[2]

Included:

Akismet
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google XML Sitemaps
Maintenance Mode
Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu
Really Simple CAPTCHA[3]
WP-DBManager
WordPress.com

Additional Options

There are some plugins that require extra configuration. The plugins listed below can be installed for an additional fee.
wp-e-commerce[4]
Featured Content Gallery
FeedWordPress

More Plugins

If you would like to add a plugin to the list, please speak up in the comments. I’ll probably add it to the next revision of this list, or you can do it in private.

Footnotes:
  1. With one basic contact form installed.
  2. Installation only
  3. Included when you use Contact Form 7
  4. Please note: This plugin is free, but desirable addons may be purchased directly from Instinct

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To help reduce Spam comments on your WordPress website, you can and should use Akismet. It seems to be the most accurate and effective plugin. That’s the only plugin to control spam that I run in all the sites I manage. There’s one more thing you can do to improve your site’s SPAM catching ability: Blacklisted Words.

Here’s the best list of blacklisted words for your WordPress website. You can just go to your comment moderation options and add them there. Get the file right here. wordpress-blacklist-words

What does it do?
Protects WordPress from Spam
Saves you time, (moderate real comments, not spam)
Reduces load times (less spam comments to display and clean up make your site run better)

This list is for English words to blacklist and protect you from spam. If you have an interest for other languages, please let me know in the comments. I’ll be happy to compile one for your language.

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