Recent Projects: OpinionHead.com

Now that I am working with the Revolution Themes, both Revolution one and two, I am switching as many of the sites I manage, to these themes. To put it in simple terms as to the reason, it is because Revolution is exactly what the name implies, a Revolution! I have modified, or attempted to modify many different themes, but the problem s that so many have bad or sloppy code, all of the Revolution themes have clean, clearly marked code, and, the themes are being upgraded to allow the use of all of the new WordPress 2.7 release, this involves the threaded comments, photo captions and more!

This site, OpinionHead.com, has had several themes, the last one, also done by Brian Gardner,  but it was an older theme, and this site needed a new look, again! Since OpinionHead is an All-American site, it is done in Red White and Blue, to represent this All-American spirit!

What do I recommend? Must have Plugins!

My Favorite Plugins

All of these plugins included in every installation package, at no extra cost. I feel that these are the most important, but are optional, if you don’t want them, I won’t install them. For you “Do It Yourselfers” just follow the link and download it, there are instructions there as well.

Akismet
This plugin is a definate must have, so much so, that it is included automatically with the WordPress download, I don’t even have to install it, just activate it and put in the API, which comes from WordPress.com.

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

Plugin Central
Believe me, when you have a lot of plugins, you will love this one! Follow the link to see what it does.

All in One SEO Pack
This Plugin Optimizes your WordPress site for the Search Engines.

SEO Friendly Images
SEO Friendly Images is a Wordpress optimization plugin which
automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes.
If your images do not have ALT and TITLE already set, SEO Friendly
Images will add them according the options you set. Additionally this
makes the post W3C/xHTML valid as well.

Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your
WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as
well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap
is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap
protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified
about the update.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade
This is one of my favorites and saves me tons of time!

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the
wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org
using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions.

WordPress.com Stats
This one also requires an API key from WordPress.com, no, not the same one from Akismet. I happen to be a Stats freak, the more the merrier!

There are hundreds of plugins and services which can provide statistics
about your visitors. However I found that even though something like
Google Analytics provides an incredible depth of information, it can be
overwhelming and doesn’t really highlight what’s most interesting to me
as a writer. That’s why Automattic created its own stats system, to
focus on just the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track and
provide them in a clear and concise interface.

StatPress
I love this plugin, although I don’t think anyone is maintaining it anymore, that is too bad, as fast as WordPress gets upgraded, eventually it may no longer work, and I have heard that there are some conflicts with other plugins, but until it is no good, I include it!

The real-time plugin dedicated to the management of statistics about
blog visits. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search
keywords, feeds, browsers etc.

WP Super Cache
This plugin is will help your site run a little bit faster, but can be a pain in the butt when doing and modifications or changes to yur content, when I have changes to make, I deactivate this one!

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress
blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that
file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive
WordPress PHP scripts.

cformsII – Contact Form
I include this one because of all of the contact form plugins, this is the most customizable and works great, it is the one used on this site.

cforms is a highly customizable, flexible and powerful form builder
plugin, covering a variety of use cases and features from attachments
to multi form management, you can even have multiple forms on the same
page!

WP – UserOnline
I like this one too, more statistics! I have had a conflict or two using the sidebar widget with this one, but I still include it.

Detailed statistics of where they are and who there are(Members/Guests/Search Bots).

TinyMCE Advanced
If you should ever need to put a table in a post or page, you will be glad I installed this one! The table on the Services and Fees page was created using this.

This plugin adds 15 plugins to TinyMCE:
Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions
(Smilies), Date and Time, IESpell, Layer, Nonbreaking, Print, Search
and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras.

NextGEN Gallery
This is a wonderful plugin for those that use a lot of images, and some other plugins require it, so, I include it just in case.

My Page Order
This is another of my favorites, it has come in handy many times, it is used on this site as well.

My Page Order allows you to set the order of pages through a drag and drop interface. The default method
of setting the order page by page is extremely clumsy, especially with a large number of pages.

Reveal IDs for WP Admin
This is also a very useful, and in some cases neccesary, plugin, when using the Revolution themes, it is a must!

With WordPress 2.5 being released, the IDs on all admin pages have been
removed as it is. Propably due to the fact that the common user dont
need them. However, for advanced WordPress Users/ developers those IDs
were quite interesting for some plugins or template tags.

Insights
Another useful plugin, if you like tools, this is like an extra screwdriver!

Insights brings a powerful new way to write your blog posts. It increases productivity and at the same time quality of your posts.

TagThePress
This plugin makes tagging easy!

With this plugin, you will be able to use the the Web service tagthe.net for your posts. Just click on Fetch tags and the title, content and optional excerpt of your post will be analyzed by tagthe.net in order to find words that could be useful as tags.

Different Posts Per Page
Depending on the theme you use and how you set it up, and how long your posts are, this is one of the best plugins I use, it keeps you from having  mile long pages!

“Different Posts Per Page” plugin will allow you to modify the number
of posts shown in home, category, archive or search page. You can even
set the order of posts by ascending or descending order.

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu
This is probably my favorite plugin of all, it make navigating the Admin area of WordPress incredibly fast and easy, I just hope it sticks around after WordPress goes to 2.7. I have installed 2.7 on a test site, and sorry, I don’t like the sidebar in the Admin area! Anyway, this is a great plugin!

The lazy and the productive will love it : all admin links available in
a neat CSS driven drop down menu. No need to click on “Manage” then
“Pages” to edit pages, go to any admin page from any admin page.

CommentLuv
This is another plugin that you may or may not want. It works well with the NoFollow Free plugin, so I include them both. Some say that these plugins are bad for SEO, because when someone posts a comment on your site, it could link back to a site with a lower Google PageRank (PR), sorry, I don’t buy it, I look to give people an extra reason to get involved and post on my sites, if I get SPAM, I delete it! Both may not work on WP 2.7 due to the way that comments are handled.

Pass a bit of luv onto your commenters by providing a titled link to
their last blog post. This plugin attempts to parse the feed of the
comment author by visiting their site and looking for their feed while
they type their comment and appends it once they submit.

NoFollow Free
This Wordpress plugin remove the “nofollow” attribute from your
wordpress blog’s comments (precisely from the author’s links) and/or
from the comments text links and it inserts (if you want) an image band
at the top of your pages with the phrase: “NOFOLLOW FRE” to encourage
your users to submit comments.
The last release includes new options to replace the nofollow only when
the author posted X comments before and put back the nofollow when some
blacklisted words are matched. The replacement of the nofollow is also
based on the users type (registered and visitor users). Every option
cna be customized by the options page “NOFF”.

(May not work on WP 2.7 due to the way that comments are handled.)

There could be other options available, if you find something else you want or that you believe works better, let me know, post a comment below and tell me what your favorite plugins are!

Just in case you need business cards, a very useful tool to promote your website, I use Overnight Prints for mine, they are the best I found on the web, as far as quality and price, you can’t beat them!

Recent Projects: The Fellwock Real Estate Group

This is a site that I did about a year and a half ago, it is a static Html site, that I also maintain and update the listings. After building this site, Wordpress became a viable CMS Platform, so now, I am working on building a theme that will match this as closely as possible, as these are the colors and the layout that this company wants, that theme is a work in progress, but it is getting there. I hope to have that done in the next weeks, it wont be exact, but it will be close, and you will be able to see the flexibility of Wordpress. Take a look at the site here, FellwockRealEstate.com. Post a comment and tell me what you think.

WildWebDesigner now has a simple Link Exchange process using WP Reciprocal Links Plugin!

If you have a WordPress Blog, and you want a simple way of Exchanging Links with others, this Plugin does it! You can Download it here and for any questions, go to to the authors site here. As usual, there were a couple of little bugs, but all the kinks have been worked out now!

If you would like to exchange Links with this site simply find the button above that says “Link Exchange” and fill out the simple little form. Here is one tip, get the code for your site first and then come back and fill out the form. If you have a blog it is simple, just add a link to TrafficComplex.com in your Blogroll, then fill out the form and you are done, I will take a look, make sure it isn’t SPAM or something and approve it.

Remember, Reciprocal Links, or link backs, whatever you want to call it are one of the most important things you can do to improve your sites status (PageRank) on the search engines, so, get busy!

When you look at a Website, what do you see? Value, Budget, Functionality?

Often there is a habit, myself included, that the first impression of a website, is determined by a pretty picture or flashy display of some sort, but that is not what counts!

What counts is the functionality, ease of navigation, and of course, the quality of the product being sold.

If I am looking for toothpaste, I want to find toothpaste, but, if I am looking for advice on using toothpaste, well, you get the point.

Every website is as different as the website owner, or it should be. When you hire someone to build a website, there are many things to consider, besides cost. Even a FREE website is worthless if both the designer and the owner do not communicate properly, and that is the biggest problem for both parties. Why?

The designer wants to build the best site they can, but, they are often hindered by what the website or domain owner wants  to spend. Hey, enough money can get you the Mona Lisa, but who can afford that?

So, look at the value, what can the designer offer? What is the potential return? What is your budget? Will the site work? Once you put all of these things together, you are just getting started!

What are you plans for the website, now, and later? Can it grow with your business? Does the designer charge for each new page? What will your involvement be? Will you work to make the website better? Will you post new information about your products and company yourself? There are so many questions that you need to ask.

At this point in time, Wordpress, no longer just a personnal blog, but a complete Content Management Solution, Wordpress has so many plugins and such available, that it can be customized to do so many things! If you are a small business owner, that will tell people about your products, and get involved with your website, I can help you! If you know yur way around the web, you can do it your self, but, this is what I do, I can help you, and guess what, I work cheap! In some cases FREE, since this is my hobby.

If you would like more information, use the contact form, just tell me what you need, maybe I can help? If you are just starting out, and have an idea, bounce it off me, I have seen just about all of the stuff that works and doesn’t, just avoid the scams, drop me a note, I am here to help!

Recent Projects: PattiMace.com, your choice for Real Estate in the Houston area!

This is one of my favorite sites, since the release of WordPress 2.5, things haven’t been the same. There are so many plugins available to turn a simple Blog into just about anything you want.

Why would you want to do that, you may ask? Affordability is one answer, go take a peek at this site, PattiMace.com, it uses a real estate plugin that allows you to post home listings, and even creates an .xml file for an RSS feed, that can be used to add your listings feed to Google Base and others, so that your listings are available in places like Google Real estate! That will increase the visibility and make it easier for people to find you!

This is the main reason for using the WordPress format, which is highly customizable, through themes and plugins, to get your pages picked up by the search engines! After all, having a website that nobody sees is a waste of server space!

You might wonder why I would tell the world about how easy it is to build a Real Estate website? That is clear, there are way too many “professional” website designers out there, that are just too expensive for the average real estate agent to use, so, they try to do something themselves, or get into expensive hosting contracts that are not always in their best interest. It isn’t that these designers are bad, they just are too expensive for a small business to use. Large real estate brokerages can do this, and rightly so, take a look at the Houston Association of Realtors website (HAR), this is where the properties are listed with MLS, and is a wonderful site, but, as an agent, or even a small brokerage, building something like this is way out of reach.

So, an agent needs a way to stand out, this is Patti’s page at HAR, you would never find her, unless she was to get extremely lucky and someone was to find her using HAR’s Member Finder, in other words, a needle in a haystack! By having her own site, that is also functional, and very visible, she can have the clients find her, and avoid that luck of the draw search process, do you know how many real estate agents there are in Houston?

Using the Wordress Blog, she can write useful posts that help people, even if they have no interest in buying a home in her area! The more she writes, the more her sites page rank will grow, the better that page rank gets, more people will be able to find her even easier.

Helping people, what a concept? I live by the philosophy that “if you help enough people get what they want or need, you will in turn, get what you want or need”, this is the purpose of this site, helping people get a website that will work for them, and be affordable for just about anyone.

For anyone that finds this post, and is looking to relocate to the Houston area, or just wanting to buy or sell a home in the Houston area, I can tell you this, Patti is a dedicated agent, and having a real estate agent that is dedicated to helping you, is a very important thing! So, take a peek at her site, send her an email, and let her help you.

If you are a real estate agent, or anyone needing an affordable website, drop me a note, and I will either build you a website, or help you to build your own.