Archive for October, 2009

Why and How to Ping Your WordPress Blog

October 30th, 2009

WPDaddy keeps on providing you with helpful tips in order to simplify your efforts and help you get the most pleasure and benefits from your everyday writing. Today we are going to touch upon the easiest and the most convenient way of making your weblog even more popular and profitable - blog pinging. Haven’t heard about it yet? Then learn the following suggestions we have kindly prepared!

Pinging is known among bloggers as an XML-RPC-based push mechanism with the help of which the server is informed about all updates implemented within your blog via an XML-RPC signal. When the ping server receives a signal it creates a list of weblogs which have refreshed their content. The thing is a summary or your full new post will be added to your pinging service database and your post link will appear in this service recent ping page. Sometimes pinged data history is also indexed which provides search traffic.

Simply speaking, blog pinging is about generating traffic to your site and requires minimum time and efforts. All you have to do is subscribe to one of the pinging services and update your weblog content regularly in order for these services to index and rank your site. In such a simple way you will increase your blog rankings and get more traffic to it. You are also allowed to attach your weblog to several blog pinging services but you should be attentive with that - if they notify the same web services your weblog may be considered as spam. In fact there is a lot of cases of a real ping spam so be careful not to be included in the number of blog spammers.

Blog pinging also implies pingback which is one of the linkback types - the ways of getting notification when the user links to one of your documents. This helps you as an author to keep track of the users who link or refer to your articles. Pingback implies an XML-RPC request which is sent from one site to another in case of reference. When your website get a notification signal it goes to the site of the referrer and checks whether a live incoming link exists there. In case the link really exit the pingback will be recorded successfully, thus such mechanism makes pingbacks less spam-prone than trackbacks. As for WordPress, it supports automatic pingbacks which means that all the links in the published article are pinged when the article is submitted.

Blog pinging possesses several great advantages - it is free of charge and highly effective at driving important traffic to your blog. Besides, it is user friendly - most of the pinging services require you to enter only your blog URL and name to start, and seldom your IP address is required additionally. Among the most popular online pinging services are:

Ping-o-Matic!
Pingoat
Pingates
Autopinger

So don’t waste a minute and subscribe to one of the pinging services to increase your blog traffic and earning potential as well as improve your status and credibility!

Posted in Blogging Basics | 1 Comment »

10 WordPress Themes To Showcase Your Art Works

October 21st, 2009

If you are going to establish your personal online portfolio with the help of WordPress platform there are several ways to go. First, you can make use of special gallery plugins which we told you about in the previous post. Such add-ons will help you to create a photo gallery within your WordPress site and thus to share your photo art works. But if you want your weblog to be concentrated on the photography entirely the best solution is to use one of the specially developed Portfolio WordPress Themes. Today we present you the compilation of 10 most beautiful free WordPress Themes for photographers available for immediate download.

1. Grain

This is a classic photoblog theme with fixed width and administrative backend. It is distinguished by overview page made in a mosaic style, archives, the ability to show exif data, watch photos in random mode and much more.

2. Impress Theme

Impress Theme for WordPress is a brilliant basis for any photography blog you are going to launch. It has a very stylish look and possesses all necessary facilities an online portfolio should have, including the function of displaying featured posts thumbnails.

3. Typebased

Typebased theme is distinguished by non-standard customization options, sidebar widgets which allow you to carry out full control of your sidebar, and implies five color schemes among which you can choose the one that fits you best. So you are free to make your photoblog look according to your own particular preferences!

4. Cellar Heat

This WordPress theme possesses several advanced features which you will definitely appreciate. It has enabled gravatars, posts excerpts and recent comments options which add to your photoblog usability. Cellar Heat theme is widgetized and doesn’t require any plugins to start using it.

5. Irresistible

Irresistible is a brilliant photo theme with popular backend and non-average modification options. Its main distinctive features are integrated video player and 9 color schemes for you to choose the way you want your photoblog to look.

6. Outdoorsy

If you want to establish a photo weblog which will stand out against a background of others Outdoorsy theme is the best choice for you. This theme possesses exclusive design and impressive graphics which will provide your website with innovative and attractive appearance.

7. Coffee Desk

Coffee Desk theme will be undoubtedly to your taste due to its creative background design and functional features. The theme is W3C XHTML and CSS compliant, contains enabled gravatars and is compatible with all popular web browsers.

8. Vector Flower

This theme has rather pleasant-to-the-eye design which will help you to establish the most user-friendly WordPress photoblog. It is compatible with WordPress 2.7.1, has integrated PageNavi function for enhanced usability and is distinguished by social bookmarkings toolbar which you can see in the bottom of every post.

9. Fotofolio

Fotofolio theme is a great solution for any photoblog built on the WordPress basis. It maintains nice design and is very easy to use due to the advanced functionality features it provides. Fotofolio theme allows you to resize images for previews and thumbnails, has Jquery for featured posts, and possesses slideshow options and much more.

10. Auto Focus

This WordPress theme allows you to post images into the posts automatically without using Custom Fields, and moreover protects them from direct download (as on Flickr). Auto Focus theme also possesses 2 layouts (Photo and Blog ones) and works with WordPress for iPhone.

So as you see you can create a professional photoblog with a few clicks - just downloading and installing one of the Portfolio WordPress Themes!

Posted in WordPress Themes Showcase | 4 Comments »

Create A Photoblog With Wordpress Gallery Plugins

October 15th, 2009

Some time ago we have already touched upon the topic of gallery plugins for WordPress which help you to turn your weblog into an impressive online portfolio and showcase your art skills in the best way. Today WPDaddy reviews another set of extensions that are developed for you to spice up your weblog by adding personal photo galleries to it.

1. Cincopa Content Gallery

Cincopa Content Gallery allows you to establish customizable image gallery, audio and video playlists and slideshows in your WordPress page. The plugin possesses automatic uploading and hosting, images resizing and videos transcoding options and is supported by iPhone. Cincopa Content Gallery helps you to manage your galleries easily and publish media to your blog wherever you are.

2. SuperSlider-Show

SuperSlider-Show is a plugin created for animated performance using Mootools 1.2 javascript to turn your photo gallery into a slideshow. This add-on possesses high configuration facilities, CSS based animations, theme based design and is able to create mini thumbnails automatically.

3. Flickr Photo Album

This plugin will be in a real value for you if you are a Flickr user as with its help you can display your Flickr photosets within your WordPress site. The plugin provides a simple template which can be edited according to your own preferences to make it match your website perfectly. The visitors of your WordPress blog are allowed to comment on your Flickr photos without moving to Flickr.com as this gallery plugin supports special commenting options.

4. Media Library Gallery

Media Library Gallery plugin is distinguished by the option of creating gallery from the images that are attached to your blog posts. All you have to do is to install the plugin to your WordPress site, select a post or a page where you want the gallery to be included and the work is done. Besides, Media Library Gallery plugin is thickbox ready.

5. Yet Another Photoblog

This plugin will come in handy if you want to turn your weblog into the full featured photo blog with minimum time and effort. Uploading and managing photos is extremely easily, and also self-learning EXIF filter is enabled which allows to select and make visible your camera tags.

So if you are eager to transform your WordPress blog into an advanced online photo gallery there is nothing difficult - just download and install one of the WordPress gallery plugins!

Posted in WordPress Plugins | 1 Comment »

Wordpress Anti-Spam Plugin

October 8th, 2009

If you own a blog you have undoubtedly stumbled upon the problem of spammers damaging your site and for sure have tried to find the most powerful solution to get rid of this problem. Spam is really annoying both for you and your visitors and requires immediate actions against it. This is where the AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin will come in handy.

The AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin for Wordpress is a tool which allows you to block spammers before they can do any harm. The system identifies the spammers by means of checking whether their IP addresses exist in such third parties as the Project Honey Pot, stopforumspam.com database or a local blacklist. Any IP’s and IP ranges can be added to the blacklist or whitelist if necessary. If you consider someone a spammer and want to add him to the local blacklist AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin allows you to do it simply by clicking a link contained in the received email. When a certain IP is blocked a visitor will see a special message explaining why the access was denied.



With AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin potential spammers can be blocked before any content is served and this feature possesses several advantages. First, it saves your bandwidth as well as CPU cycles which means that the spammer is checked and blocked at once before a Wordpress page is built. Secondly, this option will provide you with cleaner website statistics if you use some analytic tools to track the amount of readers which come to your weblog.

Another useful feature of the AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin implies IP Caching System which allows your website to receive more daily visits. The thing is that Stop Forum spam has a limit concerning API calls made every day - up to 5000 calls in total. So if you don’t use your local whitelist and blacklist your blog won’t be allowed to have more than 5000 visits per day. With IP Caching System this limit may be set to 5000 unique visits a day which is much more beneficial.

If you want to see IP’s stored in the database you should check the statistics. In case your site is busy and has a great number of unique visitors you can make use of the “Days to keep in cache” option to control this amount. Once a day the IP’s older than a day you set in the admin panel of the AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin will be removed from the database.

AVH First Defense Against Spam plugin has a certain order of checking the visiting IP’s if you enable the special feature. The plugin is also fully compatible with other anti-spam Wordpress extensions and there is no necessity to remove previous plugins you have installed. So take care of your Wordpress blog protection and don’t neglect using special tools to block spammers which attack your site.

Posted in WordPress Plugins | 1 Comment »

Simple Trackback Validation Plugin

October 5th, 2009

Any blog you have launched requires not only the readers attention but should also receive huge traffic flow in order to become competitive and profitable source. In this case you need to make use of some powerful link building strategy or find the right tool which will help you to derive traffic to your weblog. One of the most efficient link building facilities built in Wordpress platform is trackback option - the tool for achieving any of your backlinking goals.

Trackback is quite a useful option for intensifying communication between the authors of different weblogs and its mechanism in Wordpress is simple. If the user finds some interesting article within your blog and wants to refer to it in his own source you will receive a notification as soon as the article will be posted if the trackback option is enabled. At the same time you will see an extract of the article in your blog comments/trackback section. Thus trackback will remain in the comment form and no matter whether the comments box is do follow or not there will appear a link leading users to the page it represents. As a blog owner you may decide if you want to accept any trackback or mark it as spam which usually happens when you receive links from auto RSS feeds blog. Anyway you can always check whether the content from the source you receive trackback is veritable or not.

In order to manage the trackbacks within your Wordpress blog you will have to install special add-on like Simple Trackback Validation Plugin which will easily test all the received trackbacks to prevent spamming in the most effective way. When your blog receives trackback the plugin checks whether the sender’s IP address is identical to the IP of the web server to which the URL leads. This technique promises to disclose and prevent the 99% of the spam trackbacks.
Simple Trackback Validation Plugin opens the page represented by the trackback URL and in case there is no link to your weblog marks it as spam. It also stops those bloggers who send trackbacks promoting their products or services without links to the posts. Besides, Simple Track Validation Plugin allows you to choose between different actions you can apply to the spam trackbacks. You can either delete them from the database, place to moderation or mark as spam - it is all up to you.

So if you want to make the most out of the link building for your weblog popularity and success trackback is an excellent option which can be easily enabled with Simple Trackback Validation Plugin for Wordpress.

Posted in WordPress Plugins | 1 Comment »