AIM Custom Media WordPress Open Discussion Presentation - May 2010; Richmond Open Source Meetup Group. Presented by Greg Magnus, Custom Publisher

1. WordPress Open Discussion Richmond's Open Source Meetup Group www.meetup.com Greg Magnus Custom Publisher AIM Custom Media, LLC www.aimcustom.com

3. Overview - Features & Benefits

4. Essentials – Themes, Plugins & Widgets

5. Strategy and Tactics: Blogging, Content Management System (CMS), E-Commerce, and not so common

6. Resources and Open Discussion

9. Standards Compliant: Adheres to Web Standards and is compatible with browsers.

10. Easy to Install: Several hosting companies allow you to install it with a few clicks.

11. Easy to Use: Dashboard is user friendly – webmaster not required.

12. Themes Support: Thousands of free themes are available; purchased themes are readily available. But, buyer beware; purchase themes from reputable sources.

13. Plugin Support: Add functions and features easily; site map, SEO, forms, calendars, etc..

14. Community Support: Large WordPress community; forums, tutorials, conferences, etc.

17. View the source code, look at the CSS files for developer references.

18. Sitepoint article - WordPress Theme Basics http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/create-your-own-wordpress-theme-from-an-html-template

21. StudioPress Themes - http://www.studiopress.com/themes

22. Theme Forest - http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress

23. Theme Jam - http://themejam.com/

24. DIYthemes - http://diythemes.com/

26. www.semrush.com

28. Google Sitemaps Generator

29. SEO (several): Headspace, Greg's High Performance SEO, All in One SEO

30. Related Posts, Contact Form, Subscribe to Comments

31. AddThis – Allows readers to bookmark your content on social networking sites.

32. WordPress Gallery Plugins – NextGen Gallery or see: http://www.blogohblog.com/wordpress-gallery-plugins/

33. WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache

34. WP-DBManager

36. Consolidate CSS files – they can quickly add up and slow down your site (Header <link>). Same for scripts (JavaScript included in footer). “Stylesheets on top, Scripts on the Bottom”

37. Optimize your theme header by reducing the number of <php> calls Replace: <title><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php bloginfo(’description’); ?></title> With: <title>Your Title - World's Greatest Website Ever</title> [More speed tips on my digital AIM blog: http://aimcustom.com/digitalAIM/

38. Minify CSS and JavaScript; you can use Firebug to do this easily.

39. Include image “alt tags” and header tags with keywords (<h1>, <h2>)

41. If your blog is older, clean out the old revisions from you database: MySQL dbase query (or use WP-DBManager plugin): DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = &quot;revision&quot;;

42. Consider using CSS sprites for static web images. CSS sprites allows you to download one larger image file instead of multiple smaller ones, which takes longer. CSS Sprites Gnerator: http://csssprites.com/ Tools: Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Websitegrader.com

43. Best Practices (cont.) Yahoo! YSlow http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/ YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the Firebug web development tool. It includes Smush.it for reducing image size. WordPress Optimization Bible (Vladimir Prelovac) http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-optimization-guide Comprehensive WordPress optimization tutorial/guide created with the intention of helping you troubleshoot performance related issues. Article provides guidelines on how to speed up your WordPress site.

45. Menu Management (Full control over your site’s navigation menus)

46. Custom Taxonomies (no longer just “Categories” and “Tags.”)

47. Twentyten - New default theme (w/ custom features)

48. Multi-Site Capabilities - WordPress MU (Multi-User) is now merged with the core WordPress system in 3.0.

49. WordPress Codex: Complete list of enhancements and fixes http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.0#Development.2C_Themes.2C_Plugins

50. More at digital AIM blog: http://bit.ly/AIMblog-wordpress

52. 10 Best WordPress Plugins For E-commerce http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/10-best-wordpress-plugin-for-ecommerce/

53. 15 Unconventional Uses of WordPress http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/15-unconventional-uses-of-wordpress-in-action/

54. Themes with Unusual Uses http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/wordpress-themes-with-unusual-uses/

55. CSS Sprites: What They Are...and How To Use Them http://css-tricks.com/css-sprites/

57. WordCamp San Francisco 2010 Held on May 1, 2010 http://2010.sf.wordcamp.org/

58. WordCamp Richmond, VA 2010 date TBD (Last held May 9, 2009) http://wordcamprichmond.org Connect WP to: Facebook.com LinkedIn.com Twitter.com

61. Ping.fm (leverage content)

62. Friendfeed.com

63. Connect to your WordPress blog

66. Budget requirements?

67. What's the ROI?

69. National SCORE Blogger Ask an Expert Blogger www.askanexpert.score.org