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WordPress and Pinterest – Pinning It

January 31, 2012 by Babs Leave a Comment

Pinterest is taking hold after growing to one of the most exciting and popular social media online playgrounds last year, inspiring many of us to play and revel in creating our own boards of loveliness.

And if you have loveliness, or indeed anything worthy of pinning – that might be a product, an image, a photograph, anything that people might want to share, and much more (I’m going to experiment with the Blogmistress blog) – then you want to make it really easy to, well, pin. Yes, your visitor may have a Pin It button on their browser bar, but just in case, you can add a “Pin It” button to your blog post or to your sidebar. It’s good to remind and ask for the share.

You do need to have an image that Pinterest will use for the pinning – it’s all about the visuals – so choose relevant and tempting images.

Then you want to install Flaunt Your Site’s Pin It On Pinterest plugin, activate and away you go. A neat box appears under your post in which you can add your own description, which will show in Pinterest (very useful) and you can upload your image there or choose from one already uploaded to that post. Cool! (oops, getting carried away, but you may find yourself similarly enthused!)

There are more goodies for Pinterest users – to show your latest Pins in your sidebar and more – have a look by searching for Pinterest in the Add Plugins section to see the latest offerings (there will be more by the time this is published, quite likely!)

Just one other thing – Pinterest can be addictive! It’s the kind of thing to spend a little dream time on, but now you can say it’s work too 😉

photo credit: Nrbelex via photopin cc

Filed Under: RT, Using WordPress, WordPress Plugins

WordPress Store Options: 5 of the best shopping cart plugins

November 14, 2011 by Babs 7 Comments

Yes, you can use WordPress for your online shop and there are more options – themes and plugins – all the time, as we really settle down with WordPress for our websites. We’re setting up two stores this month so it’s a good time to check the latest ecommerce plugins as we decide which will work best for our clients, and share this with you.

Before you even look at them, though, you need to (really – it will save you a lot of time) know what you want your online shop to do and to consider the following:

    • Cost of the plugin – now and as you want more functionality? One good way to know the limitations of a free version is to take a look at the upgrades available – a quick view of what the free plugin does not include/do.
    • Products – How many does a free version allow for? What variations are required for your products (size, colour, etc) – can the plugin handle this?
    • Payment processing – PayPal is most often fine, but if you want to use something less common, such as SagePay then you do need to check that support is available for this (and look in the forums too, plus do a Google for your particular need – that way you’re more likely to find any problems others have had (can you tell that I’ve had problems with this particular issue before 😉 )
    • Postage/Shipping options – free p&p and a single scale is generally fine, but when you want more than that again you need to check that the plugin can handle it. (Another that has restricted us before with some of the plugins).  Most plugins can handle a weight or table or a flat rate – but what if you want a combination of these?
    • Support – is there a forum for users and how well is that responded to – it really is worth taking a look at what current users of the plugin are asking and if they are getting answered/helped.
    • Extras – do you want to offer discounts – check the features of each to see which allow for this and what other extras you can consider.

The following are a few of the current ecommerce plugins:

Ecwid


 


  • Price = Free up to 100 products but you then have to pay an ongoing fee

  • Simple to set-up and use

  • Integrates well with Facebook and other social networks

  • Some nice features too (I like the drag and drop into basket)

Features overview page
Ecwid Team on Twitter

WooCommerce


 


  • A recent and welcome addition to the WP ecommerce options

  • Looks very user-friendly - for customers and for you

  • Price = Free with a good selection of upgrades available

WooThemes on Twitter

Shopp

 


  •  New version imminent

  • Price = $55

  • Support and Forum (they show their response time - useful), plus premium support available

  • Seems like a good option, and well regarded

Shopp on Twitter

Cart66

 


  • Price from $89 (there is a free "lite" version too)

  • Premium support included

  • good range of integrations

  • blends with your current theme (we'll be testing this out)

Cart66 Features list
Cart66 on Twitter

Jigoshop

 


  • Free with upgrades and a premium club/support

  • Discounts, automatic related products, reviews all possible

  • Some good options included

Jigoshop Features (scroll down their page a bit to see them)
Jigoshop on Twitter

GetShopped / WP E-Commerce from Instinct

I have worked with this plugin and found it hugely frustrating for what we wanted it to do, I must admit – it’s not one I recommend although it is one of the most popular, so it must have something going for it aside from the fact that it is one of the most established. Now that we have more choice, it is worth taking some time to consider as many as you can.

The basic plugin is free with a number of upgrade options that anyone wanting more will need to take into consideration. I do know that the team have worked hard to raise the support for this plugin and it remains the most popular – having been one of the first. But do have a good read of their site to be sure it does what you need it to – this goes for any of the plugins offered.

Others to consider include the simple paypal shopping cart plugin by Tips & Tricks HQ as well as their eStore for digital content – especially if you want to incorporate an affiliate scheme – their plugin for that works nicely.

I would go with Ecwid except for their ongoing monthly charge for over 100 items – I’d rather buy an upgrade outright. So WooCommerce is our favourite for one project at least and possibly Ecwide for another (we really do like the drag and drop into basket option) for another if the client is happy with their pricing. We will update you with our experiences. If you have used any of the above, or others, we’d love to hear your experiences, especially the good and the things to watch out for.

Filed Under: Using WordPress, WordPress Plugins Tagged With: online shopping plugin

Favourite WordPress Plugins – revisited

August 1, 2011 by Babs 2 Comments

As WordPress evolves and becomes more efficient, doing more of what we want as standard, it is important to take a look at the plugins you are already using and which of those may no longer be necessary.

One example is the “Exclude from Navigation” that was always invaluable, especially when using WordPress for websites. Now that WordPress has the Menus feature as standard we can instead specify our navigation there (yes, a blog post on how to do this follows next week) – if your theme allows of course (but not to worry if it doesn’t as you can still use this plugin).

So – what are our latest plugin recommendations?

There are a number of essential plug-ins that we strongly suggest you install and activate. However, for each task you want taken care of there are several options, so putting together a definitive plugin list is not always that straightforward.  There is such a choice now that you can choose the plugin that suits you best, or perhaps those that work best together – sometimes they can fall over each other and cause problems (only install and keep live those plugins you are using and need). So we’re not going to be overly specific, but rather encourage you to look for the plugins that will work best for you, your blog/website and for your business. Consider what you want your blog/website to do and look for the plugin (and/or theme) that will do it for you.

Within your Dashboard, go to Plugins, Add New and then Search for what you want.

For instance if you want to use Twitter (and there are different ways to do this – showing your tweets, asking people to Follow you or tweet the post) then search for what you want – i.e. Twitter Stream and see what comes up. There will be a dozen options, which can be daunting, but look for a well-rated plugin, check the Details to see if it is up-to-date and if popular – then Install and test it out.

Don’t be afraid to try different plugins, but remember to deactivate and ideally delete those you don’t want.

For basics, we do suggest the following:

Spam Filter – an immediate essential. For personal blogs you should just use Akismet as there is no charge, but even for business use, at $5 per month it can be worth it. There are other options – plugins that you can install such as Defensio, which works well and is free for small business use or you might like to consider using Disqus to handle comments while making use of its in-built filter.

Visitor Stats – again there are plenty of options providing us with whatever level of information we want, from the simple Count per Day plugin to one of the Google Analytics options. We install the former as standard now until the blog or website owner knows just how much detail they want. It is simple and offers an immediate overview of what’s going on.

Backup – of the many available backup plugins, we would not look at a complete backup solution, such as the WordPress Backup to Dropbox or the Snapshot Backup. either a combination of the WordPress Database Backup and  or go with something more complete with the one-stop premium plug-in BackupBuddy, which we now use on all sites because it works a treat. Most will now enable you to backup to Dropbox or to Amazon S3 if you wish, or to simply hold the backup on your server, or email it to you.

Cryptx is still something we include as standard – scrambling any email addresses to avoid harvesting.

And for security the trusty Secure WordPress is as good as anything, combined with common sense processes that should put enough blocks in the way of anyone wanting to do harm to your blog/website.

And offering a level of protection for your content is the WP-Protect plugin – while this won’t stop people copying your content entirely, it does put a few blocks in their way.

If you like to write posts in advance or have several authors to herd, the Editorial Calendar is invaluable.

And as for the social media sharing options, well that needs a post of its own. There are many choices beyond the standard Tweetmeme and Facebook Like buttons – some that do the lot in one plugin and others that add individual buttons. The thing to do is keep it simple, don’t add things just because you can and they catch your eye – imagine that every plugin has to earn its place within your WordPress.

For contact forms we still like the Contact Form 7 plugin but as ever there are many to choose from, so do take a look at what you can use and do.

And then there are the various Google plugins, as well as for analytics (several strong contenders), there are many that help you integrate Google Maps, Google Ads and more… It is definitely sensible to include a sitemap and the Google XML Sitemaps does a good job of this.

Beyond these – well just about anything you might want to do with your WordPress, there is likely a plugin or 3 that does it for you. Explore and test and have fun!

Filed Under: How to Use WordPress, RT, WordPress Plugins

Being Sociable

July 19, 2011 by Babs 1 Comment

Are “Like” and “Share” buttons must-haves, or are there other ways to promote your social media presence on WordPress?

I’ve had something of an “on-off” relationship with the “Like” button… When it and the “Tweetmeme” buttons hit the scene a year or so back we all rushed to populate our sites with them.

This is great for bloggers and “entrepreneurs” (note deliberate use of quote marks) as it facilitates interaction and sharing.

Recently I’ve found a useful plug-in that better serves my purpose.

My personal strategy online is to promote a real physical product… ME! – I sell my time working as an entertainer or coach.

I am becoming less convinced about the overuse of “like” and “Share” buttons for what I do – Thankfully I have found another tool!

Over-filling a “website” with buttons can be counter productive. There’s a risk of making your site seem cluttered, your page formatting can go astray and less experienced visitors may be directed away from your site (if they have to log in to Twitter/Facebook etc).

I use WordPress as a CMS for my websites. I use blogs. Not to generate huge amounts of traffic or discussion, but to give me a way to create content for SEO and to build and maintain my real-life reputation.

Your social media presence should no longer (be and never should have been ) considered as separate or distinct from your traditional web or off-line marketing… It should be integrated and appear part of the whole – this is especially relevant for business such as mine which go beyond being simply “On-Line”

I’ve stumbled upon a great little plug-in that allows you to neatly, concisely and easily promote your social accounts. This is not a “share” or “like” widget, save those for your blog pages, IF you think they will add value.

The ‘Social Media Widget’ by Brian Freytag is easy to set up, supports dozens of different media links as standard and even allows you to create your own and import other icon sets…

It displays neatly, cleanly with the option of some natty animated icons.

In summary – integrating social media account on your website is a must… Think about your own objectives and find a way to do it that enhances, not clutters, your pages.

Marc

A great guest post from Public Speaking Coach and Presenter, Marc Lemezma, who we’ve worked with for a couple of years now as he really gets to grips with WordPress. He’s definitely on the “if you ever want a job” list.

Filed Under: RT, WordPress Plugins Tagged With: social media

What you need to know before the next WordPress update

May 25, 2011 by Babs 1 Comment

Having beta-tested the forthcoming release of WordPress, the focus is very much on “faster, lighter” so we won’t see as much of a difference as last time to what you work with (I hear that sigh of relief from those of you only just getting used to the new toys we were given earlier in the year).

One important thing that you do need to prepare for is that WordPress 3.2 requires your hosting to run MySQL 5 and PHP 5.2.4 as a minimum.

This is the behind the scenes gubbins that your hosting server needs so that your WordPress works. So we need to know if that the server is nicely up-to-date before we try updating with the new WordPress when it is released (soon, soon).

You can either ask your hosts directly – simply saying “I’m using WordPress and the next release will need MySQL 5 and PHP 5.2.4 – please confirm that my hosting includes this” or you can check yourself using a plugin called Health Check and the screencast below shows you how to install and use this.

There will be speed improvements to the next WordPress – that seems to be the main focus with this new release – faster and leaner. We’ll post further when it’s out and prepare you to update…

And of course there will be some shiny things too but we’ll introduce you to those later. For now check your hosting to see if it’s up to the task. Or if you’re unsure, pop us an email to hello@blogmistress.com and we’ll check for you.

Babs

Filed Under: Updates, WordPress Plugins Tagged With: hosting

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