Five WordPress Plugins That I Love

June 16, 2009 By 9 Comments

If you’ve been blogging on a WordPress powered site for any amount of time then I’m sure, you will have come across a few plugins that make your life easier. Rather than just sit here and hoard the information I decided today to share a few of them with you so that you can go away and make use of these with your websites from today.

  1. All in One SEO Pack (Free) – This is the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugin that I have come across in my time working with WordPress to date. Once it’s installed even the most novice of users can set up the basic title structures for their blog. Advanced users will not be disappointed either as there is plenty of flexibility to delve even deeper into the SEO workings of your blog.
  2. Ultimate Google Analytics (Free) – If you want your blog to succeed then the often overlooked area of tracking can have a huge impact. You can register completely free of charge for a Google Analytics account and easily hook it up with your blog install via this plugin. The functionality that Google Analytics is so advanced that  before the original company was bought out it was sold to website owners for upwards of $1000. This should give you an idea of how effective this really can be.
  3. Twitter Tools (Free) – Everybody is talking about Twitter and regardless of your views it’s likely you will know a few people who are devout fans of it. This plugin is designed for those devout fans, and if you are one of them, you! Automatically create tweets for your new blog posts and hook up your tweets through your blog. This is the most full featured Twitter plugin that I’ve seen even if some of the options from my view are plain daft, use with care!
  4. Wishlist Member ($97)- You love WordPress but you’ve been thinking of setting up a membership site? Well you finally can have both with this plugin. Built in is the option to protect certain areas of even your entire installation to paying customers or registered members depending on your set up. It fully integrates with major payment providers and auto-responders. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s possible to have your own very own paid membership site in a day with this plugin.
  5. WP DB Backup (Priceless) – It’s the moment that every blogger dreads; you log on to your site and there are error messages left right and centre or even worse… there’s nothing at all… Believe me I have been there in the past and it is not a good place to be. That’s why it’s important to not only keep a back up of all of your theme files etc but also use a plugin like this to regularly backup your WordPress Database. With some hosts charging up to $150 to roll back your hosting account a day or two it’s worth the few minutes it takes to install something like this on every blog,  even if it’s “just in case”.

Hopefully within that list there will be one or two that you haven ‘t come across before and are interested in checking out or perhaps you currently use them all already. Either way it would be great to hear some of your favorite plugins for wordpress. If you have a moment why not leave a comment with the plugins that you simply couldn’t do without.

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , ,

Less Than 24 Hours to Claim Your Facebook URL

June 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Earlier this week Facebook announced that vanity URLs were finally being released to owners of both, Facebook Profiles & Facebook Pages. With less than 10 hours until their release I thought that now was an opportune time to inform anybody that was still unaware or had started to forget.

What is a Vanity URL?

Simply put it’s a web address that describes the content of a link more than a generic code.

http://www.facebook.com/username – Vanity URL

http://www.facebook.com/516036873 – Standard URL

The launch has been highly anticipated and as such it’s expected that the most common and desired names will be gone in the first few minutes. It’s likely that thousands of social media addicts and business people across the globe will be anxiously awaiting the launch to stake there claim so it’s important that you are ready and waiting if you want to guarantee your selection.

In order to stop people from collecting names, you will have to be a member of Facebook already if you want to claim your URL in the morning. Similarly if your Fan Page has less than 1000 fans you will most likely need to wait a little while before being able to register a vanity URL.

So What Next?

If you’ve met the criteria described above, all you have to do is head over to the launch page at 5:01 AM (GMT) and claim your exclusive vanity URL.

Click Here toVisit the Page You Need

PLEASE NOTE: Once it’s registered this is your URL for life so make sure you choose yourself a good one!

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ,

Damian Walters Jumping The Streets 2009

June 12, 2009 By 1 Comment

I came across this video and just had to share it with you. No, it’s nothing to do with business or marketing. However it is an amazing example of what we can achieve with dedication and constant movement towards a certain goal. Plus it’s just plain cool…

Free Running is an interesting combination of both parkour and gymnastics. Free runners perform aesthetically pleasing ‘tricks’ over, under and through objects in there environment. I will openly admit that I have tried a few of the more basic movements in the past and it requires fluidity and strength far beyond anything I can currently do.

In this video a man by the name of Damian Walters demonstrates what is possible through training. This is an amazing example of potential in human fitness and the field of free running, enjoy….

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , ,

My Personal Experience with Online Paid Survey Sites

May 20, 2009 By 1 Comment

I remember when I first started exploring the multitude of opportunities online back in 2003. One of the things that seemed to crop up a lot were paid survey opportunities. The basic premise was that all you had to do were share a few opinions on products that you used or your habits and you would receive financial compensation in return (read: easy cash).

The truth is it wasn’t always easy cash back then, when you found a website that finally worked you would have to wait about 10 minutes for each page whilst listening to your ancient dial up PC struggling. Finally when the page loaded there would be three pictures of a bottle and you would have to state which was your favorite and the various reasons for this through a series of say 50 questions over 10 pages. When all is said and done, it could take up to an hour to fill out a good survey and you would only receive about £2. Not exactly as easy cash as you’d hoped!

Things have come along quite some way since then and to be honest with you, I don’t find time to complete many surveys these days. There are a few however that I remain on the list for and they contact me from time to time with survey offers. I had one such offer yesterday in fact but this one stood out a little from the rest.

The company that contacted me were actually going to be holding a focus group to discuss a new website. As the group was in the area and I didn’t have any major plans for the day I decided to go along and see what it was all about.

Although due to the nature of my agreement I can’t discuss the actual topic we were talking about today I can tell you the following. I turned up at the agreed location with six other participants and what followed was a casual discussion for about an hour and a half. We talked about our use of similar websites in the past and what we might want from their forthcoming project.

At the end of the session we were all handed an envelope with £60 and a thank you letter, before we all went on our way. Now I don’t know about you, but I know quite a few people who would be happy with sixty pounds (nearly $100 at the current rate) for just over an hours “work”.

It got me thinking again about the paid surveys I used to do online. Online surveys would never overtake the benefits of your own business but if I were a student right now or if I generally had some spare time on my hands, I think that now would be a great time to get involved with online paid surveys.

Technology has really improved and you will find many legitimate survey sites where you can complete some surveys within 15 minutes or less and earn anywhere from $5-10. Not only can some of them be quite fun, once you complete a few of those in your spare time it could start to add up. So if you want a bit of extra cash and have some time on your hands then I say why not sign up for one of the legitimate survey sites?

Filed Under: General
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