July 14 WordPress Questions and Answer - Metro Detroit WordPress Meetup

1. WordPress Q&A
July 14, 2013

2. Best plugins for a beginner blogger?
Before you install a plugin, what functionality do
you need?
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3. Best plugins for a beginner blogger?
SEO
• All in One SEO Pack
• WordPress SEO by Yoast
Spam
• Akismet
Google Integration
• Google XML Sitemaps
• Google Analytics for
WordPress
• Google Analyticator
Technical Functions
• WP Super Cache
• Wptouch
• Jetpack by WordPress.com
• WP-PageNavi
• Broken Link Checker
• W3 Total Cache
• Redirection
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4. Best plugins for a beginner blogger?
Connecting with Visitors
• Contact Form 7
• Ninja Forms
• Really Simple CAPTCHA
• Are You Human
• Fast Secure Contact Form
• Digg Digg
• Sociable
• GTrans
• WP to Twitter
• AddThis
• Buddy Press
Content Management
• TinyMCE Advanced
• NextGEN Gallery
• Word Press Importer
• Yet Another Related Posts
Plugin
• Smart YouTube PRO
• WP-Polls
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5. Best plugins for a beginner blogger?
Monetization
• WP e-Commerce
• WooCommerce
• Cart66
• iThemes Exchange
• http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wp-
shopping-cart
Source
http://visual.ly/wordpress-most-popular-plugins
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6. Andy’s Default Plugins
• Akismet
• Contact Form 7
• Redirection
• Are You Human
• Pretty Link Lite
• Digg Digg
• Google XML Sitemaps
• TablePress
• WordPress SEO
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7. Best Themes for a Beginner Blogger
• Twenty Twelve
• Free WooThemes
– http://www.woothemes.com/product-
category/themes/?prod_cat[]=100&s=&post_type
=product
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8. Free Themes vs Paid
• You get what you pay for
– Expert Design
– Functions and Capability
– Support…Support…Support
• WooThemes provides 3 themes for $70
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9. Useful Resources
• What are 2-3 good resources to follow to learn
as much as possible without suffering from
analysis paralysis?
– http://wp.tutsplus.com/
– http://www.chrislema.com
– http://www.wpbeginner.com
– Google / YouTube what you want to learn
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10. What do most people use WordPress to
accomplish?
• Content Marketing and Promotion
• Blogging
• Corporate Presence
• Membership Sites
• Application Development
– Software As A Service
– http://www.betterbooktools.com
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11. Can you do self-publishing with it?
• Blogging
• Membership Site
• Kindle Ritual : Amazon Kindle self-publishing
solution
• Blog Series = Kindle Self Publishing
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12. Customize vs Template/Plugin
• How much effort should I devote on finding a
developer to custom code my wordpress site
VERSUS looking for a plugin or template that
can do what I want?
• Approach
1. Template the look and feel
2. Plugin for features
3. Customization
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13. Customize vs Template/Plugin
• How complex are your requirements?
• Do you have a budget to work with a
developer?
• Perception : Outsource to a $5 / hr developer
• Get what you pay for
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14. Best Form Plugin
• How does Google forms compare with Gravity Forms
or Contact 7 in WordPress?
• Google Forms (Free)
– Excellent quick form to spreadsheet solution
– Embed or link to a site
• Contact 7 (Free)
– Simple form submission to email
• Gravity Forms (Paid)
– Advanced Form features
– Multi Form surveys, conditional logic, stores results
– Action hooks
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15. Development to Production Workflow
• What is the best work flow for developing on
a local machine and then uploading to a
server?
– Both web and database files
– Avoid overwriting config files
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16. Development to Production Workflow
• www.yourdomain.com
• dev.youdomain.com
• Local machine (XAMP, MAMP)
• PHP files and MySQL Database
• Duplicator Plugin
– http://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/
– Exports files and database
– Imports files, database and renames URLs
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17. How to setup Ping backs
• Ping Backs
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18. How to setup Related Blog Posts
• Contextual Related Posts
• http://wordpress.org/plugins/contextual-
related-posts/
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19. Joomla vs WordPress
• There are so many template out there. I am
used to Joomla where we create the design
and not use templates. Can you do the same
with Wordpress?
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20. Joomla vs WordPress
• Joomla uses components
in defined sections
• WordPress uses templates
– Templates assigned by page
– Edit template code to create
a different layout
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21. Theme Recommendations
• woothemes.com
• http://my.studiopress.com/themes/genesis/
• Themeforest.com
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22. Performing Art Themes
• http://themeforest.net/item/eventor-event-
management-wordpress-
theme/2437242?WT.ac=category_item&WT.seg_1=cat
egory_item&WT.z_author=themeskingdom
• http://themeforest.net/item/eventalist-events-
wordpress-
theme/2190231?WT.ac=category_item&WT.seg_1=cat
egory_item&WT.z_author=cssmania
• http://themeforest.net/item/music-musicians-theme-
facebook-
app/1541383?WT.ac=category_item&WT.seg_1=catego
ry_item&WT.z_author=Net-Labs
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23. How to take orders online and make
payments
• WordPress plugins can be added to support
order entry and payments
• May need a customized solution with Gravity
Forms depending on complexity
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• WP e-Commerce
• WooCommerce
• Cart66
• iThemes Exchange
• http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/wp-
shopping-cart

24. How to minifying Javascript in WP?
• Enqueueing scripts in the functions.php is
great
– Would like to cut down on my js and css requests.
– It seems like whenever you inspect wp-sites, the
head is full of scripts being loaded.
• If (is_page( 42 ) ) { do_something (); }
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25. How do I create a permanent (static) home
page?
• Settings - Reading
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26. What is a permalink and which should
I chose?
• The URL for your post is ugly and unhelpful.
You can turn it into a dated or undated named
page in settings.
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27. Settings - Permalinks
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28. How do I get Twitter tweets to show
on my blog?
• Plugins are used to display the Twitter feed
• Jetpack
• Real Time Twitter
– http://wordpress.org/plugins/real-time-twitter/
• Use Twitter’s own widget tools
– https://twitter.com/settings/widgets
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30. How can I hide my WordPress site
when I'm working on it?
• Ultimate Coming Soon Page Plugin
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31. How can I hide my WordPress site
when I'm working on it?
• Hide from search engines
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32. How to Create a Child Theme
• Why use a Child Theme
– Child theme allows customization
– Child theme prevents losing customizations when
the original theme is updates
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33. • http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
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34. How to Create A Child Theme
• Import the parent them
• Activate your theme
• Copy and modify template php files
– Without overwriting master files
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35. Functions.php vs Plugin
• You want to customize your website
• Option 1: Add function to your functions.php
file
– Quick and Easy
– One single error crashes your site
• Option 2: Create a plugin
– More overhead to create
– May generate error but doesn’t crash the site
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36. What are custom post types?
• Custom post types are new post types you can
create
– Directory, Book, Recipe
• How to set them up?
– http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2012/11/08/co
mplete-guide-custom-post-types/
– http://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-type-
ui/
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37. Additional Plugins and Resources
• PODS
• Ultimate Maintenance
• One Click Child Theme
• Velvet Blue’s Update URL
• P3 : Plugin Performance Profiler
• Instant WP
• Woosidebars
• AMPPS
• Backup Buddy
• ServerPress
• Display Widgets
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