It seems to me that many people feel WordPress is either too difficult to use, or simply not worth the effort. Well, in my opinion, it all boils down to the fact that there are five secrets which most people don’t even know about:

1. WordPress.com and WordPress.org – this is where the confusion starts.

The first one, WordPess.com, hosts on their own servers while WordPress.org on the other hand, allows you to decide where you want your blog hosted, which effectively puts you in full control.

Hey, isn’t it wonderful to know that you own the blog and not somebody else?

2. WordPress is nowhere near as difficult or as confusing as many people tend to believe.

What most people overlook is the fact that WordPress makes two platforms available. Hey, if you’re anything like me, and you have some technical skills or IT skills, then simply choose the advanced platform and leave the basic one to all those non-techie people out there.

Really, at the end of the day we can’t complain because both versions are free.

3. Does the thought of making money from your blog sound appealing to you. If it does, then you need to use a blogging platform which offers plug-ins which will allow you to take advantage of Adsense and other affiliate programs.

Another point which so many don’t seem to know about is the fact that WordPress.com doesn’t allow commercial blogs. If you want to monetize your blog, you’ll need a self-hosted platform, in other words, you’ll need the .org version.

4. The WordPress.org platform is virtually maintenance free. Installing plug-ins is a complete breeze, as is backing up your blog database. Even moving your entire blog to an alternative server couldn’t be any easier.

5. I must admit, I also feel that one of the best things about using the .org platform is that I can actually integrate it into my website, so gone are the days of dealing with code all the time.

Above all else, you need to realize that WordPress isn’t limited to the five secrets I’ve just mentioned.

What’s your favorite blogging platform and why?

Click Here to Download

1. The first way to effectively drive traffic to your new blog is by taking advantage of all of the bookmarking sites and social networking sites out there. Spend a few minutes posting your blog posts and articles to sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon. These are just a small portion of the many bookmarking sites on the Internet. As you gain more experience, you’ll also likely find niche specific bookmarking sites that will have you really targeting the specific people you are interested in.

UPDATE: You can also use a free service like SocialMarker to save time submitting your website or blog to all of these social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking is very time consuming, so this is where SocialMarker comes in. It can help you submit your site to 49 of the best social bookmarking sites in under 15 mintues! This in turn increases your backlinks. As a result, you get more traffic and your site is also indexed faster by search engines like Google.

While you should not post all of your articles to these sites, you want to be especially sure to post the ones you consider the best. Those will really show the world what you have going and will entice visitors to return back to you after their first time seeing your site. Social networking sites like these can really help to get the word out about your new site, especially if you are showcasing some exciting and unique content.

2. A second easy way to drive more traffic to your blog is by commenting on other blogs that are about similar topics. This does two things for you. For starters, it gets your link in more places, which can directly lead to more traffic and can also help improve your standings in the search engines. Additionally, and even more importantly, is that by commenting on other blogs you are establishing yourself as a knowledgeable member of a community and if done properly, an expert with valuable information to share.

3. The third step that you can take to start immediately seeing increased traffic to your blog is submitting original articles to the large article directories. The most popular of these include EzineArticles, GoArticles and Amazines. This has a two pronged effect just like was mentioned above. You’ll have more incoming links to your blog, which directly increases traffic and indirectly increases traffic through improving your ranking in search engines. And you’ll establish yourself as an industry expert on whatever niche or topic your blog is about.

UPDATE: Alternatively, you can use a software like Article Post Robot to automatically submit your articles to over 400 high-traffic article directories (see full list here) for you. This will essentially give you more free time to focus on other important things, such as writing your next article.

It’s not difficult to start seeing immediate improvements in the traffic your blog gets. But you do have to know the right way to go about it and understand that it’s a process. By following the three steps I outlined above, your blog will see great results in both the short term and in the long run. Bookmark your blog posts, establish yourself in the community by commenting on other blogs and submit articles to showcase your knowledge and both the quantity and quality of your traffic will increase significantly.

Have you tried any of the methods described above to improve your blog traffic? As always – feel free to post your comments and questions below.

Click Here to Download

WordPress is a popular blog used for personal and business reasons. The plugins described in this article are designed to assist you in optimization, customization, and enhancements for your readers. In this article, I am going introduce and review my top 10 WordPress plugins.

1. All in One SEO Pack – This WordPress plugin is designed to help you optimize your blog. From helping you with title text and descriptions, all the way to keywords and checking for or fixing duplicate content problems, this plugin does it all. Saving you time and money, as well as optimizing your page for the best performance, you can automatically generate what you need, when you need it.

2. Akismet – This plugin for WordPress is designed to help you manage your blogs comments and safeguard against spam. It can detect spam-like comments and queue them until you have the chance to review and delete them, if it is spam. If they are not spam, you can easily move them to another folder for publishing. Spam comments are not unique to the blog world and by managing your comments with this plugin, you can keep your blog looking professional and appealing to your visitors.

3. Feedsmith – This is a great plugin for your blog which allows you to easily track feeds for your blog and receive reports that are accurate and helpful. This can help you in determining which access points are most useful to you, which are not working as well, and give you the opportunity to take action. Feedsmith will automatically redirect people to your feed no matter how they initially access it in the first place.

4. Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin generates a full sitemap. This is an ideal plugin for two different reasons. The first reason is that it is great for both your visitors and yourself in finding exactly what you need when you need, great for fast growing blogs. The second reason is the fact that major search engines take great stock in sitemaps and gives them the ability to quickly identify any changes that have been made to your blog.

5. MyBlogLog – Now your blog can become a community thanks to this WordPress plugin. You can now allow your users to interact, become a part of different communities, and even make their own profiles. It is as easy as creating a widget upon your blog and integrating the plugin into WordPress.

6. ShareThis – Ever wanted to get more from your blog? If so, this is the perfect plugin for you. Faithful readers can now promote your blog for you with ShareThis. With ShareThis, your visitors can take a particular blog and post it onto a social bookmarking website. When you install the plugin an icon is placed under every blog post you make. All the visitors have to do is click on that icon, choose the site they want to publish to, and share.

7. Statpress – Easily and effectively manage your blog visit statistics. You now have access to various information regarding visits to your blog. This information includes browser information, feed information, search keywords used, spider information, and visitor information. You can also identify the most popular categories, post, or pages on your blog.

8. Smart Update Pinger – This WordPress plugin was designed to replace the already existing pinger within WordPress. You can now benefit from pings for only new posts, instead of edited existing posts, as well as pinging taking place when the post is actually published, pinging on demand, and allows you to choose the type of ping you want, normal or extended.

9. Subscribe To Comments – Your blog will increase in popularity with this plugin. You know you have a good thing going when your visitors want to return and keep up with comments placed on your blog. This plugin makes that a little easier for them. All they have to do is checkmark a box indicating that they want to subscribe to comments made on that post in the future and from then on, when a comment is left, they will receive notification, which allows them to keep in contact and keep the conversation flowing.

10. WordPress Database Backup – This is a crucial plugin for every blog owner out there. The internet is sometimes unreliable, as is the blog hosts and so on. If something were to happen and you were to lose all of the content on your blog, what would you do? With WordPress Database Backup, you do not have to worry about it. Your blog and its main tables are backed up and if something were to happen, you can easily get things going again.

There it is, my top 10 WordPress plugins! Do you have a favorite plugin that is not listed above? If so, please feel free to post it in the comments.

Click Here to Download