All about wordpress widgets!

All about wordpress widgets!

Define It?

Widget sounds might funny but it has become a commonly used term, especially among bloggers utilizing the world-famous WordPress software.
The term ‘WordPress widgets’ is known to any user-friendly sidebar function in wordpress themes including such elements as search box, meta-tags, RSS feed links, recent posts, categories, etc. which can be arranged by bloggers into the blog’s sidebar in any way they want.
Majority of new wordpress themes are widget-ready, which mean that users can modify them without changing the code. You just log in as the administrator and drag the elements you want to the sidebar adding and rearranging them whenever you wish.

WordPress is a very easy-to-use blogging application, and with the addition of widgets it has become even more user-friendly providing for a most pleasant blogging experience.

Where to Search?

Many great websites offering widget-ready wordpress themes, but the most extensive collection of them can be found at the official website of WordPress. You will be offered a widest selection of blog templates arranged by color, width, sidebars on the left and on the right side, rounded and unrounded corners and so on.

Which Popular WordPress Widgets?

WordPress has many widgets. You will find some of them more useful than the others by experimenting with them you can come up with a most useful widget set that will make blogging even more fun. Your choice varies with your personal needs and taste, but there are certain widgets that are so popular within the blogging community that they’ve become a ‘must have’ for almost every blogger.

Exec PHP Widget?

It is a text-box widget that allows inserting PHP code into your sidebar.php and executing it by means of an easy click-and-copy operation rather them having to modify it manually.

IM Online Widget?

If you want to display your online status to your blog readers then use this specific widget because with the help of instant messaging services such as MSN, Google Talk, Skype and others it makes possible. Thus you can easily let your readers know when they can contact you. With the dramatic increase in WordPress users it has become rather hard to make your blog stand out against thousands of other blogs built with the same platform. However, the addition of widget-ready themes creates a unique opportunity to develop unique blog designs with just a couple of click-and-drag operations.

WordPress awarded as bloggers first choice

WordPress popularity is rising day by day beating the online competition. Many bloggers told “The more I use WordPress, the more I love it.” Blogspot is also good blogging engine but wordpress has 2 important reasons to beat him and they are:

Number 1: You can set up WordPress to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of traffic right away and this helps building backlinks to your blog automatically. You build a regular site, get the search engines to index it, get backlinks to improve your listings, and then start getting traffic.

Number 2: You can make use of categories in wordpress. Categories are a very powerful way to improve the structure of your site both for human visitors and for the search engines. For example, the topic of your site is Widgets. You could create a Category for black widgets, one for orange widgets, and one for green widgets.

Now when you add posts to your blog, you can choose which of your categories your post belongs to. Now your blog will archive your past posts not only by their month and date, as Blogger does. Also by categories!

So if you have a visitor who is especially interested in green widgets, they can easily find all your posts on green widgets. They don’t have to go through your entire archives to find them. With a blog that has been around for awhile and has hundreds of posts, that would be pretty discouraging. Using Categories makes it very easy. It’s very easy to download wordpress themes and also it takes few minutes to install the templates according to your choice.

You will eventually have hundreds of pages on your site with links to green widgets, black widgets, and orange widgets by using category feature. All those backlinks to those keywords can result in much higher search engine rankings.

One more exciting feature is that you can easily create an RSS feed for each of your categories. Then every time you post to your blog, it could be pinging the Blog/RSS directories for each feed! Nowadays many online website offers free wordpress themes but it read their conditions properly because some wordpress themes have limitations which could be harmful for your blog promotion and damage structure.

Compare that to putting up a new page on a traditional website. Even if the search engines find your new page right away, it might be a month or two before it actually gets indexed and starts drawing traffic. It might be a long time before it enjoys a first page position for its keywords. It’s almost amazing how easy all this is with a well-structured blog like WordPress with Categories enabled!

Why to choose premium wordpress themes?

In few days wordpress has become a highly popular open source blogging and publishing platform. The abundance of free themes and plugins as well as its ease-of-use has contributed to the attraction and popularity for using WordPress. While there are some great free wordpress themes, many only offer basic functionality and simplistic designs.

Nowadays wordpress themes developers are creating premium themes which are offered for a fixed price. Usually these premium wordpress themes are sold for $50 to $250. Originally only a small number of talented and well-known WordPress theme designers created paid premium WordPress themes which were well designed highly functional, top-quality themes that transformed a WordPress installation from a simple blog into a powerful content management system. However as the premium WordPress theme business concept spread, more and more WordPress theme designers have hopped on the bandwagon trying to cash on the new trend filling up their portfolio with premium (paid) wordpress themes.

Some characteristics that should set a premium wordpress theme apart from a free theme are listed below:

Quality and Unique Design
Premium WordPress themes should be just that – Premium. They should look better and be of a much higher quality and unique design than compared to those available for free.

Features
While all themes are different, in general premium WordPress themes should have more “Features” than their free counterparts. What that means depends on the theme in question. However some features may include: “Featured Posts” areas, multiple layout options for the home page, drop down menus, multiple customs templates for pages, custom field options, print style sheets etc.

Customization Options and Flexibility
People look forward for options, so Premium WordPress themes should be customizable. Buying a premium theme will set you apart from the crowd significantly, but since other people will still be using the same theme, premium themes should be able to be easily customized further, whether it be for the layout, colors, images, or all of the above.

Live Preview or Demo
Live demo or preview of the theme should be available so you can test it and check it out before buying. Explore the live demo thoroughly, testing all pages to see that the theme works properly and there are no errors or mistakes.

Full Support
If you’re buying a premium WordPress theme it should also come with a certain degree of support from the designer. The level of support can vary however and will range from personalized individual support from the designer, to the provision of forums or blog.

Five steps to make wordpress easy for blogging

WordPress becoming popular blogging platform but its complexity creates problems for some bloggers but after going through these easy five steps you can get rid of worries!

WordPress is a complete Content Management System which is among its major benefit. No matter how large your blog grows, WordPress will manage it for you. WordPress also has many plugins which will extend the functionality of your blog.

One more great benefit of installing WordPress themes on your own domain is that you have complete control over your blog. If you use free blogging platforms, your blog may be deleted without notice. This is heartbreaking if you’ve spent time and energy on your blog.

So here we start. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Select keywords and buy a domain name

Make a list of keywords best describing your blog.What will your blog be about? For example, if you wanted to create a blog about cars, make a list of keywords a person would type into a search engine to find your cars.
“Cars” would be an obvious keyword; others include “auto, vehicle, racing cars.”
Now it’s time to buy a domain name. Many web hosting companies offers a domain name as part of your hosting package, but find a company which deals in domain names only. You may want to move your blog at some stage, so the domain name registrar should be separate from your hosting.

Just search for “domain names”, pick a company, and register your domain name.

With your domain name purchased, it’s time to get hosting.

2. Choose hosting company

Before finalizing the company you find via searching, ask friends which company they use, or ask on any forum for favorite hosting companies.
A tip – read your chosen company’s Help files before you buy. Look for “WordPress installs”. Be sure that your host will install WordPress for you with just a few clicks.

Pick a company, and pay for your hosting. Their Help files will tell you how to update the DNS (Domain Name Service) to your new hosting company.

3. Time to run wordpress script

Most hosts offer scripts which install WordPress as of its rising popularity. If your host uses CPanel, click the Fantastico icon to install the WordPress script.

Some companies use proprietary scripts, so just do search to find the script, and install it.

4. Finalize a wordpress theme

With your script installed, you’ll arrive at your WordPress Dashboard. Click Design to change the wordpress themes.

You can find hundreds of great WordPress themes on the Web, both free and commercial, so you’re sure to find exactly the right theme for your blog.

5. Add wordpress plugins

You’ll also need to install some WordPress plugins. These are scripts which perform functions on your blog. Your blog already has a plugin which will guard it against spam, so activate that plugin.

Other useful plugins are those which will create a contact page for you, create archives, and allow you to backup your blog.

So what are you waiting for, Start blogging!