Enhance Your Blog with Apture

I recently came across a WordPress plug-in that really puts a bit of spice into your blog postings. In fact, this is one of the most useful plug-ins that we have seen in a long time. Apture basically allows you to insert any form of multimedia or file within your blog post very simply. Once you have installed the plug-in and signed up your account, you can interact with the friendly dashboard and can get quick access to all forms of content to really enhance your blog.

How often have you come across a blog with a lot of great content, but little other than text. As we know, we need to enhance our blog posts with images to keep the readers attention. A page which is full of only text will quickly put your visitor to sleep and you need to insert pictures, images or videos on a regular basis. Apture allows you to do this rather easily. Once you have it all configured, you simply highlight a particular keyword and Apture will automatically pop open showing you related text, images and videos. If you find something that is appropriate, a click or two and the content is inserted into your blog. It can be resized to your liking, but it’s basically as simple as that.

Now, when the reader scans your blog post, he or she can mouse over the highlighted section and a box will pop up including the video, photographs, graphics, maps, audio link or whatever you have selected as appropriate.

This is a much more interesting and much less intrusive way of prettying up your blog. We are all familiar with those plug-ins that simply pop up an advert when you mouse over the highlighted term. Apture pops up more appropriate and informative material that you hand-choose as being most likely to further interest your readers.

In addition to WordPress, Apture is available in a whole variety of versions and will enable you to present a veritable multimedia feast of pop-up links or embeds within every post that you write. You can opt to go to a location on your hard drive and find graphics, additional posts, articles, pictures, slide show presentations – basically you name it. The opportunities and options here are considerable and this solution will take a lot less time than the traditional means of insertion, through your blog platform dashboard.

One of the most useful plug-ins we’ve seen in a long time. What do you think?

Adam Toren

WordPress – More Than Just a Blogging Platform

WordPress is one of the best known blogging platforms on the Internet. It is highly respected and rightfully so. Search engine optimization experts recommend the platform over others and maintain that the major search engines, principally Google, “love” WordPress and may allocate additional ranking juice.

WordPress has been around for some time but it can be much more than just a way to get your daily “thought bubbles” online. It is a powerful content management system but there are a number of plug-ins and applications available which, together with a little ingenuity, can allow you to use WordPress for far more than just blogging.

For example, you can use WordPress as a contact manager. With WP–CRM, you can add contacts from the front end of WordPress, associate an image with each contact, assign a category, create notes, clickable e-mail and website links and automatically dial numbers, subject to configuration. It requires a theme and appropriate plug-ins and step-by-step instructions are available here.

How about setting up WordPress to showcase your talents? You can create a portfolio if you are a photographer, web designer or artist. You can either utilize a specially made theme, or you can use the link manager contained within WordPress itself to create and display your portfolio. Simply enter all the data, such as name, link to website, special attributes, categories, description, screenshots etc., and once this is complete you can then use WordPress tags and codes to display it. You can see a step-by-step guide here.

WordPress can be used as a Twitter clone. This could be your own private micro-blogging site and although you may not be directly linked to the power of Twitter, you will have fewer restrictions. WordPress has already come up with an appropriate theme for you involving easy posting from the front page and dynamic updates. Check it out here.

Affiliates will know the power of a review site. WordPress can be used to create user powered review sites on any subject. A plug-in is available to help you create a completely new site or enhance your existing blog. Find out about WP Review Site.

Forums are powerful by themselves, so why not add this option to your WordPress setup and increase the power exponentially. Google loves forums as well due to the interactivity of the traffic and they will create a lot of credibility for your product, niche or group. You can get the plug-in here.

Do you know of any weird and wonderful WordPress ways?

Adam Toren

Which Web Content Management System is Right For You?

The choice of the correct web content management system can be critical to your aspirations. As margins are so thin these days your site design, appearance and rendition can often make the difference between success or failure. The website is your shop window to the world and it fully reflects your professionalism. You have but a fraction of a second to create that first impression to start off with and once the visitor is at your site, you must make sure that they are able to navigate and interact according to your intended purpose.

Choosing the correct web content management solution is a process of narrowing down your choices. There are many hundreds of different options available to you and your choice will be dependent on your needs as well as budget.

As flexibility is demanded in the marketplace these days, your WCM platform should enable you to rapidly respond to your market conditions and in general you should seek to simplify and not leave yourself at the mercy of technical paralysis.

For many webmasters, the choice between open source or commercial hinges largely on cost but you should know that whereas open source is invariably free to procure and to install, you may come up against costs on the backend should you run into problems. Top quality support is not always available right when you need it.

Above all else, your web content management system should be easy to use and control, enabling you to specify your branding with little or no technical restriction. SEO should be almost second nature and your system should come with the tools to make it so. As there are so many different ways of presenting your site these days, different browser standards and, lately, internet-enabled mobile devices, strive for flexibility within your system so that it may be optimized and rendered according to your visitor’s choice. Note that within a good content management system your site’s templates will be separate from content and you should be able to maintain total consistency throughout. As the site will be easy to update, it will be possible to refresh content more frequently and in response to your particular market pressures.

There are many highly specialized providers in the field of enterprise specific content management and you can further zero your selection based on whether you want to focus on Java or Microsoft.NET technology.

Within the open source options, Joomla, Mambo, Drupal and WordPress are front and center.

Joomla is a highly flexible CMS which allows you to create numerous modules and components within a fresh and progressive framework. The latest version, 1.5, marks a considerable improvement, yet while you may be able to install this CMS in less than 30 minutes, you may spend some time getting the hang of it.

Mambo is similar to Joomla, is quite powerful and is simple to use. Its control panel is user-friendly and the system is backed up by a growing community of forum support.

Drupal is considered one of the top open-source CMS systems available, especially as far as its architecture is concerned. This system may be more for developers though, so you’d need to tread warily. Some users find Drupal more functional than Joomla or even WordPress, but unless you are somewhat experienced you may be better off sticking to the others.

Wordpress has long been known as the blogger’s platform and it is at the very head of its game without a doubt. It is very simple to use, but remember that it is fundamentally not designed for extensive modification and may not be the best platform if you require considerable e-commerce functionality, for example.

Do you have any experience with other CMS systems?

Matthew Toren

The Best WordPress Plugins for SEO and Marketing

WordPress is one of the most widely used blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet. WordPress has a wide variety of plugins that gives sites a much-needed boost in the search rankings.

Plugins (or add-ons) are software modules that add special features or services to a larger system. These plugins are geared specifically for SEO and marketing functions.

WordPress is easy to use and is popular for its blogging features. Plugins are great SEO tactics but don’t forget to utilize other “on site” SEO techniques.

• Keyword Optimized Content – Pick a few keywords that will rank high in search engines. Don’t “stuff” keywords into your content or you’ll get low ranking or bumped out of search engines altogether. Keep posts to at least 250 words. Lengthy content will lose your readers.

• Find Your Niche – Pick a niche and stick with it. Another key SEO strategy is to keep your sites consistent – a niche blog covering ONE topic is going to rank higher than a “general” site covering hundreds of topics.

• Site Design – Make sure your sites are easy to navigate and are validated (get rid of bad code!) Search engines don’t like a lot of Flash or JavaScript so keep sites simple and clean. Get rid of dead links (update on a regular basis!)

The following sites feature BEST WordPress plugins for SEO and marketing purposes:

1. WP Post Ratings - Ratings filtered by different groups such as: popular by author, month, year, category, all-time, etc.

2. Google XML Sitemaps – Informs search engines (Google) about pages on sites that are readily available for “crawling.”

3. All in One SEO Pack – Automatically optimizes titles and meta descriptions for search engines.

4. Twitter Tools – Integrates Twitter accounts to WordPress blogs

5. FeedBurner FeedSmith – Track stats, clickthroughs, subscribers, etc.

6. Easy Tube – Takes control of video content (YouTube, etc.) by using one tag

7. Lightbox 2 – Changes settings (background colors, etc) and add “lightbox” effect to blog posts

8. Google Analytics for WordPress – Tracks and segments links from posts; tracks image search queries and Adsense clicks

9. Wordpress Global Translator Plugin – Automatically translates your blogs into 41 different languages (includes 4 translator engines such as Babelfish)

10. WP-Cache 2.0 – Efficient page caching system that makes your site FASTER and more responsive.

11. WP-PageNavi 2.20 – Adds advanced paging navigations to blogs

12. Spam Karma 2.3 – Automatically blocks spam on blogs

13. Subscribe2 – Notifies subscribed members each time a new post is made

14. Target Blank In Posts And Comments – Opens links in blog posts and opens comments in new windows – keeps visitors on your pages

15. cforms – Powerful form building plugin. Allows you to have multiple forms on same page

16. Popular Posts – Lists “most popular”/most visited posts on blogs – usually found on the sidebar

17. Subscribe To Comments – Commenters can sign up for email notices of entries– allows them to unsubscribe to certain posts or change notifications

18. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Gives lists of pages or posts related to current entry – subscribers are directed to other related entries/content

19. ShareThis – A simple way for users to add blog posts to social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. or share via email

This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.

10 Dramatic WordPress Themes

Sometimes you want to be austere and professional.  And sometimes…well…you want to make a real statement.  If your business is based on a product or service that is edgy, outrageous, or even a little bit crazy, then your basic, everyday template is not going to do.  Here are ten dramatic WordPress themes that will blaze themselves upon the memories of everyone who visits your site.

1. Decayed

Whether you’re a pirate, own a skate shop, or are a t-shirt designer; this black-and-white-skull-and-crossbones theme will leave no doubt in your readers’ minds that you’re not to be trifled with.

2. Red Garden

Who says flowers have to be sweet?  This crimson theme features dramatic white floral pattern and a black background for a feminine but powerful look.

3. Colorful Life

The charcoal gray background is broken up with shockingly bright jigsaw puzzle pieces and one of the coolest navigation tools I’ve ever seen.

4. PC Blog 1.0

The vivid turquoise background with circuit board pattern is offset by the true black post background, giving it an ultra-futuristic feel.

5. Love Is In The Air 1.0

The drab, almost grungy background is broken by the blindingly brilliant red heart design; this is a template that will make anything you write on your blog seem poignant and deep.

6. Cyberducks in Space 1.0

It doesn’t get more dramatic than yellow and black.  Well, except when you add hot pink caricatures of birds and a crazy little landscape header.

7. Little Planet 1.0

The artistic header of this theme does not look like it was designed on a computer.  It looks like a genuine painting on your screen.  The color combination is whimsical…almost to the point of melancholy.

8. Art Theme

This theme uses bright colors and a paint splatter pattern that is strangely addictive to look at.

9. Abstract Paint

This theme uses bright colors and a paint splatter pattern that is strangely addictive to look at.

10. Green Splash

Slightly creepy, but still very cool—this theme uses rich colors and a fractal inspired header for a highly dramatic, but still somewhat organic effect.

Just because it’s green doesn’t mean it can’t be edgy.  This site uses graffiti-style header font, a bright green background, and deep espresso-colored splotches for a memorable design unlike any other green template I’ve seen.

If there’s anything I love it’s looking at new WordPress templates.  Do you a have a favorite dramatic WordPress theme that you would like to share?  Leave a comment and show it off!

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