Toronto Web Design Firm

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The Benefits of Using the WordPress Platform

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The Internet has changed drastically in a very short time.  Web 1.0 is dead and gone and Web 2.0 methodologies have taken its place.  Where once the Internet was a place of static websites, limited interactivity and almost no personality, things are very different today.  For example, this is best illustrated by the phenomenon known as blogging.  This provides individuals, companies and organizations with the means to disseminate information, interact with others and maintain a different type of web presence.  As such, WordPress is the most popular blogging platform.  What does WordPress offer?

Obviously, WordPress is designed to be a blogging platform.  The system excels at this and provides users with the means to easily create their own blogs.  Free templates, paid templates and even custom designed solutions can be found with incredible ease.  In addition, WordPress provides some powerful tools for users to track visitors, interact with their readers and much, much more.  However, WordPress is not just for blogs.

WordPress blogs can actually be used as mini-websites for any needs.  Whether you are an affiliate marketer, a Fortune 500 company or an individual interested in selling homemade handicrafts, these mini-websites are powerful options that can increase your web presence with minimal effort.  In fact, these types of websites are becoming the norm for many people, from multinational corporations to private individuals.

Of course, using WordPress blogs for their original purpose is still the most popular option.  This is because blogging is the best way to share information and to make customers and clients aware of your existence.  As such, blogging can be the cornerstone of a powerful online marketing campaign and can provide your customer with the means to interact with you on a more personal level.  This has the benefit of providing your company with a more personable presence – your customers can feel as though they are interacting with an actual person, rather than some anonymous corporate presence.

WordPress blogs and mini-websites offer many benefits, no matter what your particular needs might be.  They can even be hosted on your own website, or they can be linked to from another online location.  These tools are some of the most cost effective options available of you desire increased profitability, increased market saturation and better public relations – that should be of interest to any company or organization.  Using such a tool effectively is also quite simple and you will find that it requires very little effort.

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10 Must Have Wordpress Plugins

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For every wordpress user out there, it is a must to have certain plugins installed. Without these plugins a change to success will be very small. Your blog needs to be visible in search engines, you dont want spam on your blog, your blog needs to fit on mobile devices, you need to track your visitor stats, you want a fast loading wordpress site, etc. Below i have collected a top 10 list of must have plugins for your wordpress site / blog.

1Akismet: If you love spam, do not install this. If you hate spam just like most of us this is a must have plugin. Akismet checks all comment, and if it is spam the comment will be moved to the spam folder.

2All in One Seo Pack: This pack helps you to make you wordpress blog SEO friendly (seo = search engine optimization), this is a must if you want you blog positive in the search engines.

3Google XML Sitemap: This plugin will create a sitemap about your blog, this helps google and other search engines to index your website.

4Digg Digg: This plugin enables you to add all the social bookmark buttons to your blog posts and pages like: Digg, Reddit, Dzone, YBuzz, Twitter, Facebook, Polladium, Stumbleupon and Delicious.

5WP Super Cache: This plugins creates static HTML pages from you wordpress blog so it does not have  to reload the PHP codes everytime the page is loaded. This results to a faster loading website.

6WPtouch: These days a lot of people use a iPod Touch or iPhone. WPtouch is a theme package for your iPhone. It makes your wordpress website load faster and shows the content beautiful on these mobile devices.

7TinyMCE Advanced: This plugin ads 15+ addons to the admin post area to help you write your post the way you want. Wordpress also automatically removes the <p> and <br\> tags, when you write a post. You can disable this when you install this plugin.

8Google Analytics: We all like to keep track of our visitors. The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads.
8.1Pixelstats: Pixelstats is a good alternative for Google Analytics.

9WP DB Backup: This plugin simple gives you the option to backup your database in one simple click. Definitely a must have plugin. It also allows you to optimize database, repair database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries.

10AdSense Manager: Or Advertising Manager, will manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other ads on your Wordpress blog. Like Google Adsense, AdBrite, Adify, AdGridWork, Adpinion, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, CrispAds, OpenX, ShoppingAds, Yahoo!PN, and WidgetBucks ads.

Well go ahead and make sure you have all these plugins installed. If you have other plugins that you think are a must have. just leave a comment with the plugin.

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