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Hot Off the Press Field Notes: SupConf 2016

May 31, 2016 @ 6:40 pm

Sandy McFadden

May 31, 2016 @ 6:40 pm

Community, Events

Automattic, Conferences, Events, Field Notes, SupConf

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Source: Field Notes: SupConf 2016

Owners of WordPress-based websites should update the Jetpack plug-in as soon as possible because of a serious flaw that could expose their users to attacks.

Jetpack is a popular plug-in that offers free website optimization, management and security features. It was developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and the WordPress open-source project, and has over 1 million active installations.

Researchers from Web security firm Sucuri have found a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that affects all Jetpack releases since 2012, starting with version 2.0.

The issue is located in the Shortcode Embeds Jetpack module which allows users to embed external videos, images, documents, tweets and other resources into their content. It can be easily exploited to inject malicious JavaScript code into comments.

Since the JavaScript code is persistent, it will get executed in users' browsers in the context of the affected website every time they view the malicious comment. This can be used to steal their authentication cookies, including the administrator's session; to redirect visitors to exploits, or to inject search engine optimization (SEO) spam.

"The vulnerability can be easily exploited via wp-comments and we recommend everyone to update asap, if you have not done so yet," said Sucuri researcher Marc-Alexandre Montpas in a blog post.

Sites that don't have the Shortcode Embeds module activated are not affected, but this module provides popular functionality so many websites are likely to have it enabled.

The Jetpack developers have worked with the WordPress security team to push updates to all affected versions through the WordPress core auto-update system. Jetpack versions 4.0.3 or newer contain the fix.

In case users don't want to upgrade to the latest version, the Jetpack developers have also released point releases for all twenty-one vulnerable branches of the Jetpack codebase: 2.0.7, 2.1.5, 2.2.8, 2.3.8, 2.4.5, 2.5.3, 2.6.4, 2.7.3, 2.8.3, 2.9.4, 3.0.4, 3.1.3, 3.2.3, 3.3.4, 3.4.4, 3.5.4, 3.6.2, 3.7.3, 3.8.3, 3.9.7, and 4.0.3.

Source: Flaw in popular WordPress plug-in Jetpack puts over a million websites at risk

Being a blogger, business owner, or an entrepreneur, you want people to know the services you have to offer or read the creative content you produce. Driving traffic to your personal blog, portfolio, or business website is key to building a larger audience, gaining new customers, and going viral. Everyone can benefit from learning about driving traffic to their site. When you've put a strategy in place that optimizes your website for organic traffic from search engine results, you are guaranteed to boost the traffic to your site. Here are few tips that can help you:

Create good content / well-written blog posts

This should be your number one task from the beginning. Write compelling and interesting blog posts. Information that other people (your blog readers) may not be aware of. It's even better when it's valuable and up-to-date. If possible, add images and videos. In addition, you can share you own stories or news from the beginning to attract the right readership. Once you have at least 4-5 compelling blog posts or articles, you might start considering promoting your blog. If your blog is unfinished and you don't have much content to read, then people will just think that the blog in-process and there's not much to read.

Become the expert of your subject

Try and become the expert of your subject as that will make people to visit your site often. Also, If readers believe you have information and thinks about what is newest and best they come to your blog first as they want to be informed about new things.

Use the search engine optimization (SEO).

Always place keywords in the pages of your blog. This can be achieved by including links in the text and title of your posts.

Don't make your blogging an advertisement.

Try to avoid making your blog content as an advertisement because readers feel abused when they visit a site thinking they will find useful information and they discover that they are in the process of read only blatant advertising for certain products and services. Concentrate more in making your content like an expert advice by providing thoughtful and thorough information that you will reach the top of the interests of your readers.

Send notifications about updates to your blog via email:

Sending notifications about updates to your blog by email is essential for potential readers who don't really have time. This a good way to communicate to them about the content of your blog daily and you can use a free blogging service like WordPress or auto responder email also known (auto responder) to invite readers and manage your list of drives.

Make sure the link to your blog is displayed on every post:

Including the link to your newsletters, your brochures, your business cards and in every post you make on various forums and also sending emails is very essential.

Make your blog a free article entitled:

Create access to your blog through your articles and place them in article directories online with free link back to your blog. Other bloggers will use your article in their own blog and let you know as soon as site is been used.

Put your blog updated often:

It is difficult to develop a base of readers and even a list of diffusion. People want to know that they can expect an update daily or weekly blog to your loyalty. Set a goal for your writing and keep it up. It is the regularity and originality of your post that will make the difference between a professional blogger and an unprofessional blogger. Finally, have a good plan. One step at a time you will surely get there which will in turn lead you to success and profitability.

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Source: How to increase traffic on your blog

Technology bloggers are getting all of the attention these days. With more brands competing for eyes and branding online, it's the tech bloggers and video artists who are getting all the love, money and attention from some of the biggest brands in the world today. Whether it be through complimentary products and services, or simply getting paid to provide a review or article about a specific topic, bloggers are finding new and exciting ways to get compensated for their time and reach.

So now the question is... how can you benefit from such opportunities and become a technology blogger of your own?

Simple! The first step is to simply get started! However, before doing so, you will need to have some guidance on what's working best today and how to get started. That's exactly what we are going to be covering in this article, we are going to take a look at the simple steps involved with starting a technology-focused blog of your own.

Going Live with Your Technology Blog

The first thing you are going to need to do is to decide why you are creating a site in the first place and how you are going to create content for your audience. It's not just a matter of being a "technology" blog, you need to actually have an expertise in what you are talking about, and it's always best to niche down as much as possible. The reason for this is that there are over 300 million blogs in the world today, and going after such a broad topic like "technology" would simply have you lost in the mix.

With all of this in mind, consider who your audience is and why they might be coming to your site. A good area for technology enthusiasts to jump into is mobile devices, tablets, software or even applications. All of which can be broken down further, such as mobile cases, chargers, providers, and tutorials. I highly recommend you try to start out which a more niche focus, such as "Android Apps" or "Apple iPhone Tutorials". By going more niche, this will allow you keep your focus tight while also ranking higher in the search results for long tail keywords. Just take a look at any of these Windows 10 stories on Examiner.com and see what people are currently talking about. The same can be done for nearly any technology product or niche.

Once you have a good idea on the type of content and audience you want to go after, all you need to do is register a domain name, set up web hosting and install WordPress. This process should take less than 10 minutes (even if you never had a website before). To learn more about setting up your first blog, refer to blogging.org or firstsiteguide.com.

Growing Your Blog and Getting People to Your Site

After going live with your new blog and having WordPress successfully installed, now it's time to focus on the content creation aspect of your site. No matter what type of content you are creating, be sure to follow these guidelines.

Try to have a minimum of 600-1000 words per article

Keep your content focused on one niche topic at all times

Break apart your articles with images and header tags

Provide an eye-catching headline for your article

Have a call to action at the end of your article (if needed)

By including each of these components in all of your articles, you will never have to worry about the end user losing interest in your articles or not finding value in your site.

After you've published a new article on your site, it's time to promote it to the masses. If your site is new and you don't already have a following, the good news is that there are plenty of established technology websites, blogs, forums and social media outlets for you to take advantage of. Here are some of the best ways to start sharing your article around the internet once it goes live.

Use technology related hashtags (#androidn, #apple #mobile) on Twitter and social media

Engage and share content within tech forums and social groups

Promote your blog and content to your own friends and family on social media

Guest blog and contribute to other tech-related sites in your niche

When first launching you blog, it will be a slow process, but over time you will see your site traffic and search rankings continue to improve. Something all site owners and bloggers need to remember is that it's not just about the "content creation" for your site, it's also about the "content promotion". With over a billion active sites on the internet and over 300 million of them being blogs, you will need gain valuable links back to your site through social media and other relevant sites in order to stand out from the crowd.

Connecting with Big Technology Brands and Sponsors

As your site continues to grow in size (traffic and content), it will start to rank higher in the search results and get shared more often through social media. While this is happening, it will also allow for new opportunities to arise as well -- such a sponsors and brands wanting to get mentioned or reviewed within your content. This is something that will happen over time, but also something you can speed up if you put in the time and effort in reaching out to such companies.

The most important thing to remember, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, is to always stay as niche as possible. Don't spread your content too thin by trying to cover too many different areas. This will allow you to have a better understanding of your audience, how to create content and the best sponsors and brands to approach when trying to find new revenue sources for your site.

Follow these tips and be sure to visit other technology resource sites to learn how they are effectively growing their audience and brands online.

Source: Tech Bloggers: How to Make Money with a Tech Review Site

It came to life before Twitter. It was around before Facebook. It has been written off for dead and/or obsolescence by many. And yet WordPress continues to grow, slowly and steadily. It accounts for about 26 percent of the web, and it is open source. And it was 13 years ago today, the software that powers my digital homestead took its first baby steps. I was one of the (if not the) earliest adopters of the software. It has changed a lot from those humble beginnings but as a blogger it still makes it possible for me to write, connect and publish without being beholden to an entity like Facebook. Thank you WordPress community for everything you do, everyday, and good luck for the future!

PS: Today happens to be the 79th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is as magnificent today as it was at the time of its birth! 

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Source: Wordpress at 13 - Om Malik

By WVLT Staff | 

Posted: Fri 5:12 PM, May 27, 2016  | 

Updated: Fri 5:15 PM, May 27, 2016

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WVLT) -- An Appalachian Trail thru hiker is sharing his personal account of what happened when a bear ripped through his tent and bit his leg.

Bradley Veeder, 49, Las Vegas, was attacked on Tuesday night, May 10.

You can read the original report from Local 8 News on the attack here: Spence Field backcountry shelter closed after bear attack

Veeder wrote about the attack on a blog post. He said he visited a shelter nearby to get water, eat dinner and hang up a bear bag containing food, a toothbrush, dental floss and other personal items.

Veeder said he decided to pitch a tent instead of sleep at the shelter because the shelter was crowded.

He described waking up to a sensation of a vice squeezing his calf. That's when he realized a bear was attacking him. He says he screamed and the bear let go of his leg.

The blog post goes on to read the bear came back several times and attacked the tent.

The following is an excerpt from the post:

"The tent wall started bulging in at upper-body level, and I punched the bear as hard as I could and shouted, "No, bear! Back off!" at the top of my lungs. The bear moved to the top of the tent and attacked the vestibule. I shouted, and the bear backed off. Three more times, the bear attacked the vestibule and backed off when I shouted as loudly as I could."

Veeder said he took a chance after about 10 minutes of silence to get away.

He said on his way to the shelter, he told a few hiker what happened. One hiker gathered her things and followed him to the shelter. He said later, she found her tent shredded by the bear. Veeder estimated that tent was about 40 feet from the shelter.

The next morning, Veeder said three Appalachian Trail hikers went to Veeder's campsite to get his things. Those campers told Veeder the bear moved all of his stuff 100 yards from the camping spot and chewed through everything he left behind.

Rangers collected the items the bear chewed to use bite marks and saliva to identify it.

Biologists believed they caught the bear a few days later and euthanized it. DNA results came back, showing it was not the same bear. You can read that report here: DNA results of euthanized bear do not match bear that attacked hiker

Veeder said at the end of his blog post that rangers told him the bear would have pulled him out of the tent if it could have seen him. He said they added he wouldn't have been found until morning and at that point, probably would not have survived.

You can read the full, detailed account from Veeder here: https://peachpeak.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/first-blog-post/

Source: Hiker writes blog post about Smokies bear attack

WordPress, one of the world's most popular content management systems, is the backbone for thousands of websites, both small and large. When a person or business decides to go the WordPress route, either a traditional installation or managed WordPress Web hosting, two factors must be considered: the website's appearance and its functionality. After all, who doesn't want an attractive, easy-to-navigate online presence? Fortunately, one of the simplest ways to tailor the WordPress experience to your liking is to install a WordPress theme.

WordPress Themes DefinedA WordPress theme is a set of files that create a graphical user interface (GUI) for WordPress-powered websites. The GUI doesn't alter the underlying software, so you can swap themes with relative ease, should you wish to give your site a visual refresh or add new functionality. WordPress.org hosts many free themes that were inspected for quality.

Yes, free themes. WordPress themes come in no-cost and premium varieties, with each type possessing pros and cons. Free WordPress themes are, well, free, but they typically come with sponsored links, limited customer service support (or none at all!), and very few security updates.

Premium WordPress themes, on the other hand, require a monetary exchange, but you'll typically receive a link-free installation, strong customer support, and frequent security updates. You should also expect updates to keep the theme current with the latest modifications to the WordPress software itself (which happen frequently). You can expect to pay a one-time fee of approximately $40 for a high-quality, single-use professional theme. You can expect to pay more than $1,000 for an extended license that grants you, or a client, a theme that you can sell to others. If you're serious about building a WordPress-powered website, a premium theme is an essential part of the process. And to find a premium WordPress theme, you must visit an online store, such as Envato's ThemeForest.

The Anatomy of a Good WordPress Theme"We have a review team that goes through and reviews every item," Will Herring, Business Development and Affiliates Manager at Envato, a WordPress themes marketplace told me. "We reject more items than we accept."

According to Herring, a worthwhile WordPress theme should include three important elements: A responsive design, a build that's compliant with search engine optimization (SEO) standards, and good technical support.

A WordPress theme with responsive design eliminates the need for a mobile version of your site, as it alters its form to fit screens of differing sizes. Most ThemeForest themes are responsive, but some are not; be sure to check a theme's description to see if it boasts a responsive design. Additionally, the WordPress theme should match basic SEO standards.

"If a theme is compatible with Yoast (a WordPress plug-in), you're good," said Herring. "Many of the top themes will promote that they are SEO-optimized."

You should also make sure that the theme you're interested in purchasing is compatible with all major Web browsers, including Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Fortunately, you can check a theme's browser compatibility by firing up its demo in your browser. Any WordPress theme store worth its salt will let you try before you buy.

Your potential purchase should also offer technical support from the theme shop or theme developers, so that you can contact someone for assistance should you encounter any issues. Never underestimate the value of having someone walk you through the troubleshooting process. It helps. A lot.

How to Find WordPress ThemesBefore you buy a WordPress theme, you must first find one that best suits your needs. ThemeForest boasts dozens upon dozens of themes, but you don't have to slog through them all. You should look for a WordPress theme that boasts a high user rating, a large number of reviews, and significant sales, so that you get an accurate view.

"I would always start with the buyer rating and customer support," said Herring. "If it's 4.5 (out of 5) or higher, it gives the consumer confidence in the client. Go with something with at least 3,000 sales and 4.5-star rating."

Thankfully, ThemeForest lets you apply filters, so that you can perform a fast search to meet those criteria. There are lots of themes designed for personal and business needs that fall within that range, and a surprising number of deep cuts that are laser-focused on a particular market. For example, WordPress themes that are designed with stores in mind feature integrated online shopping carts.

Recommended WordPress ThemesThat's how to go about buying a WordPress theme! If you wish to get started with a WordPress theme without perusing the robust ThemeForest store, Will Herring has selected two business-focused and two consumer-focused products that will add value to your WordPress installation. The four handpicked themes meet the criteria established above; they're highly rated, responsive, SEO-friendly, and have been purchased thousands of times. Consider them must-have WordPress themes that you should download today.

BeThemeStarting at $59BeTheme is a WordPress theme that was crafted with designers in mind. It gives you the freedom to build hundreds of sites, each with its own particular visual style. BeTheme also contains hundreds of demos, and comes bundled with some of the highest selling plug-ins in the ThemeForest marketplace.

EnfoldStarting at $59Enfold is a business-centric WordPress theme with legs. It's a longtime ThemeForest bestseller that also doubles as the highest-rated theme in the marketplace. Enfold has numerous demos, outstanding support, and quality code.

KaliumStarting at $59A WordPress theme designed for nonbusiness use, Kalium is another popular ThemeForest product. Its lightweight, minimalist design works well with eye-catching photography and typography. Kalium's users often praise the theme's customization options and customer support.

RedwoodStarting at $39Redwood is a WordPress theme that's built for blogging or personal promotion. It contains several promotion boxes, custom widgets, and a large beautiful slider on the front page.

Source: How to Find the Best WordPress Themes for Your Website

× How to blog for a living

DENVER — What if you could work from home, be your own boss and make more money? It sounds far-fetched, but more Coloradans are making it a reality as bloggers.

they say a picture is worth a thousand words. For Ashley McLaughlin though, her pictures are worth a lot more than that.

"I made a kale and cabbage shredded salad and I roasted delicate squash," she said as she arranged the dish in front of her camera.

McLaughlin is a trained architect. She moved to Colorado with her husband a few years ago and couldn't find work.

"I was looking for a job full time and just blogging to stay busy and avoid boredom," she told FOX31 Denver.

She turned her hobby into a website called Edible Perspective, where she blogs about healthy food and photography. The page now gets up to 400,000 views per month, which is enough to make a living.

"It's completely different from anything I ever thought I'd be doing," McLaughlin says of being her own boss. "It is everything from amazing to scary to like crying meltdowns not knowing what to do."

She now makes most of her money as a freelance photographer, a business that grew out of her blog. She never took Edible Perspective to full-time status, even though she could have.

Fellow foodie Barb Kiebel took the leap of faith and began blogging full time in 2014. Before that, she designed websites. The first one she ever designed was a recipe site, which inspired her to create her blog Creative Culinary. She began working on it eight years ago as a part time gig.

"Somehow it's just grown and I decided a couple years ago to sell my business and just do this full time," Kiebel said.

She gave us some insider tips for anyone considering switching to a blogging career.

First, pick a topic and set up a website. Kiebel suggests WordPress as it is considered the industry standard.

Then, begin to write posts regularly and share them on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Once you gain enough followers, you can partner with companies or join ad groups who will pay you to advertise on your site.

"You have to have a lot of traffic to have it really start to add up, but I get paid a certain amount for each person that comes to my blog," Kiebel said.

The more page views you can generate, the more you'll get paid. Bloggers can make anywhere from $50 to $1 million or more per year depending on how much traffic their site gets.

Most importantly, Kiebel suggests you treat the blog as a business, rather than as a hobby. If you have children, enroll them in a day care. If you are not good at keeping track of money, get an accountant.

"Have a business plan and get some financing and a decent website built," she explained. "All the things that you have to do to run a successful business."

While blogging for a living does have some pretty good perks, it is also a lot of work. Kiebel's typical work day includes developing recipes, shopping for ingredients, photographing the food, editing the photos, writing the blog post and then promoting it on social media sites.

"I spend easily 50, 60 hours a week," she said.

Bloggers usually work weekends, whether it is answering emails or setting up content for the next post. It is also nearly impossible for them to take vacations for the first few years because there is no one to cover for their absence. If the blog doesn't produce content regularly, it will begin to lose followers. Once a blog is established, older content that had fewer views can be recycled for new readers, allowing bloggers to take some time off.

Blogging also does not make a lot of money at first.

"I put a lot of time in before I really turned it into something that was able to pay a bill. One bill. Much less all the bills," Kiebel told FOX31 Denver.

Both bloggers agree, any aspiring bloggers should start slow and write part-time while growing their site. It is not a good idea to quit your job and jump right in to blogging. While it is a leap of faith, it is possible to quit your nine to five job and do what you love instead.

Source: How to blog for a living

WordPress, one of the world's most popular content management systems, is the backbone for thousands of websites, both small and large. When a person or business decides to go the WordPress route, either a traditional installation or managed WordPress Web hosting, two factors must be considered: the website's appearance and its functionality. After all, who doesn't want an attractive, easy-to-navigate online presence? Fortunately, one of the simplest ways to tailor the WordPress experience to your liking is to install a WordPress theme.

WordPress Themes DefinedA WordPress theme is a set of files that create a graphical user interface (GUI) for WordPress-powered websites. The GUI doesn't alter the underlying software, so you can swap themes with relative ease, should you wish to give your site a visual refresh or add new functionality. WordPress.org hosts many free themes that were inspected for quality.

Yes, free themes. WordPress themes come in no-cost and premium varieties, with each type possessing pros and cons. Free WordPress themes are, well, free, but they typically come with sponsored links, limited customer service support (or none at all!), and very few security updates.

Premium WordPress themes, on the other hand, require a monetary exchange, but you'll typically receive a link-free installation, strong customer support, and frequent security updates. You should also expect updates to keep the theme current with the latest modifications to the WordPress software itself (which happen frequently). You can expect to pay a one-time fee of approximately $40 for a high-quality, single-use professional theme. You can expect to pay more than $1,000 for an extended license that grants you, or a client, a theme that you can sell to others. If you're serious about building a WordPress-powered website, a premium theme is an essential part of the process. And to find a premium WordPress theme, you must visit an online store, such as Envato's ThemeForest.

The Anatomy of a Good WordPress Theme"We have a review team that goes through and reviews every item," Will Herring, Business Development and Affiliates Manager at Envato, a WordPress themes marketplace told me. "We reject more items than we accept."

According to Herring, a worthwhile WordPress theme should include three important elements: A responsive design, a build that's compliant with search engine optimization (SEO) standards, and good technical support.

A WordPress theme with responsive design eliminates the need for a mobile version of your site, as it alters its form to fit screens of differing sizes. Most ThemeForest themes are responsive, but some are not; be sure to check a theme's description to see if it boasts a responsive design. Additionally, the WordPress theme should match basic SEO standards.

"If a theme is compatible with Yoast (a WordPress plug-in), you're good," said Herring. "Many of the top themes will promote that they are SEO-optimized."

You should also make sure that the theme you're interested in purchasing is compatible with all major Web browsers, including Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Fortunately, you can check a theme's browser compatibility by firing up its demo in your browser. Any WordPress theme store worth its salt will let you try before you buy.

Your potential purchase should also offer technical support from the theme shop or theme developers, so that you can contact someone for assistance should you encounter any issues. Never underestimate the value of having someone walk you through the troubleshooting process. It helps. A lot.

How to Find WordPress ThemesBefore you buy a WordPress theme, you must first find one that best suits your needs. ThemeForest boasts dozens upon dozens of themes, but you don't have to slog through them all. You should look for a WordPress theme that boasts a high user rating, a large number of reviews, and significant sales, so that you get an accurate view.

"I would always start with the buyer rating and customer support," said Herring. "If it's 4.5 (out of 5) or higher, it gives the consumer confidence in the client. Go with something with at least 3,000 sales and 4.5-star rating."

Thankfully, ThemeForest lets you apply filters, so that you can perform a fast search to meet those criteria. There are lots of themes designed for personal and business needs that fall within that range, and a surprising number of deep cuts that are laser-focused on a particular market. For example, WordPress themes that are designed with stores in mind feature integrated online shopping carts.

Recommended WordPress ThemesThat's how to go about buying a WordPress theme! If you wish to get started with a WordPress theme without perusing the robust ThemeForest store, Will Herring has selected two business-focused and two consumer-focused products that will add value to your WordPress installation. The four handpicked themes meet the criteria established above; they're highly rated, responsive, SEO-friendly, and have been purchased thousands of times. Consider them must-have WordPress themes that you should download today.

BeThemeStarting at $59BeTheme is a WordPress theme that was crafted with designers in mind. It gives you the freedom to build hundreds of sites, each with its own particular visual style. BeTheme also contains hundreds of demos, and comes bundled with some of the highest selling plug-ins in the ThemeForest marketplace.

EnfoldStarting at $59Enfold is a business-centric WordPress theme with legs. It's a longtime ThemeForest bestseller that also doubles as the highest-rated theme in the marketplace. Enfold has numerous demos, outstanding support, and quality code.

KaliumStarting at $59A WordPress theme designed for nonbusiness use, Kalium is another popular ThemeForest product. Its lightweight, minimalist design works well with eye-catching photography and typography. Kalium's users often praise the theme's customization options and customer support.

RedwoodStarting at $39Redwood is a WordPress theme that's built for blogging or personal promotion. It contains several promotion boxes, custom widgets, and a large beautiful slider on the front page.

Source: How to Find the Best WordPress Themes for Your Website

It's difficult to say just how many blogs are out there—mostly because new ones crop up each day. According to Wordpress, a popular publishing tool, 58.6 million posts are published each month on the platform, while 409 million people view more than 22.6 billion pages each month. Recent data from Tumblr shows that it now hosts 275.9 million blogs.

Basically, the blogosphere is massive—and it's growing very fast. We often hear about the ones at the top—A-list bloggers like Chiara Ferragni and BryanBoy—but what about those somewhere in the middle? Increasingly, it's the Vanessa Lamberts, those with solid followings but a lower profile, who are making an impact on the industry and cashing in in a major way.

"If you have a social following of 50,000 and your content is great and your readership is loyal, I would say you could easily make $50,000 in your first year," said Lambert, who declined to disclose how much she currently made from her blog. Heidi Nazarudin, the blogger behind The Ambitionista and founder of blogger network BloggerBabes, seconded this: "When I was mid-tier, I would say I was making about $50,000 a year." Nazarudin is now ranked #198 on Fohr Card and rakes in upwards of six figures each year.

According to multiple sources, mid-tier bloggers can charge up to $2,500 for one blog post, plus corresponding social media conversation. The average fee, however, probably ranges closer to between $400 and $1000, depending on the breadth, scope and content. Even those with just 10,000 followers can find ways to monetize.

"We try not to let bloggers take less than $200 per post, even if they're small," said Nazarudin, whose BloggerBabes network helps broker deals between brands and bloggers.

Two hundred dollars might not sound like a lot, but if a blogger is publishing two to three sponsored posts a week, as many are, even on the low-end of the spectrum, it can quickly add up. And certainly, there is no shortage of opportunities for motivated bloggers to partner with brands.

Source: The Power of the Mid-Tier Blogger

Details WhaTech Channel: Development Press Release Published: 25 May 2016 Submitted by Vikash Sharma WhaTech - Pro News from HireWebDeveloper Viewed: 0

HireWebDeveloper has accumulated WordPress talents over the time and made it even easier for the clients to avail contemporary WordPress Themes, Websites for greater ROI, excellent performance, and cost-effective development.

23rd May' 2016 Noida, India: WordPress is one of the sought-after Content Management Systems (CMS) featuring added functionalities that make it a popular blogging platform. The extra features utilized in WordPress have also made it a preferred choice for non-blogging websites. Being an easy to use, clean and simple platform, WordPress is mostly used these days for creating stunning and user-friendly online stores. Serving the required needs of the clients globally, HireWebDeveloper has been into this business for last 6-7 years and have designed web stores with increased functionality, usability, and enhanced web presence.

With the help of our smart and experienced WordPress developers, we have created websites which are a perfect match of SEO-friendly architecture, high usability, feature-rich appeal, and so on. Our developers have rich experience in designing customized WordPress plugins, themes, and websites that stand ahead of the crowd. Our developers fully understand your business requirements and then design a store which maximizes sales and online visibility. Combining several years of expertise and in-depth knowledge, they have devised solutions which easily convert your traffic into sales.

Advantages of hiring WordPress Developer at HireWebDeveloper-

Our developers have rich experience in designing websites which convert your simple blog site into a feature-rich eCommerece store by enabling features like product management, payment gateway, shipping inventory management, order tracking, and so on.

Our developers not only design websites but also have experience in designing WordPress plugins and themes to maximize the functionality of your store. With customized WordPress websites and themes, you will enjoy a unique experience, thereby opening chances for brand exposure

Each and every website designed by our team members is perfectly hand-coded and in compliance with the latest W3C standards. This ensures the perfect browsing, usability, and compatibility across all major devices and screens.

Along with designing websites, our developers also set up and install plugins on your site as per the requirement of the project.

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Source: Press Release Software and Technology Development

Two years ago, Vanessa Lambert was feeling stifled. She was married, with a two-year-old at home, and working full-time in the financial services sector in Chicago. "I felt like there was no Vanessa," she recalled. "Like, I'm a mom, I'm married and all I do is work."

In another time, Lambert might have embarked on a find-yourself vacation, or taken up yoga; but in 2014 she didn't have to go that far. Instead, like some 18 million other people that year, Lambert started a blog. After a year and half, the income she made from What Would V Wear had matched her corporate salary. Soon after, it surpassed it. This January, Lambert—who is ranked #767 out of 9,352 influencers on Fohr Card's verified blogger directory—quit her corporate job.

"When I first started, I didn't even know you could make money," said Lambert. "Now my blog is an actual business and my source of income."

It's difficult to say just how many blogs are out there—mostly because new ones crop up each day. According to Wordpress, a popular publishing tool, 58.6 million posts are published each month on the platform, while 409 million people view more than 22.6 billion pages each month. Recent data from Tumblr shows that it now hosts 275.9 million blogs.

Basically, the blogosphere is massive—and it's growing very fast. We often hear about the ones at the top—A-list bloggers like Chiara Ferragni and BryanBoy—but what about those somewhere in the middle? Increasingly, it's the Vanessa Lamberts, those with solid followings but a lower profile, who are making an impact on the industry and cashing in in a major way.

"If you have a social following of 50,000 and your content is great and your readership is loyal, I would say you could easily make $50,000 in your first year," said Lambert, who declined to disclose how much she currently made from her blog. Heidi Nazarudin, the blogger behind The Ambitionista and founder of blogger network BloggerBabes, seconded this: "When I was mid-tier, I would say I was making about $50,000 a year." Nazarudin is now ranked #198 on Fohr Card and rakes in upwards of six figures each year.

According to multiple sources, mid-tier bloggers can charge up to $2,500 for one blog post, plus corresponding social media conversation. The average fee, however, probably ranges closer to between $400 and $1000, depending on the breadth, scope and content. Even those with just 10,000 followers can find ways to monetize. "We try not to let bloggers take less than $200 per post, even if they're small," said Nazarudin, whose BloggerBabes network helps broker deals between brands and bloggers. Two hundred dollars might not sound like a lot, but if a blogger is publishing two to three sponsored posts a week, as many are, even on the low-end of the spectrum, it can quickly add up. And certainly, there is no shortage of opportunities for motivated bloggers to partner with brands.

"A lot of our clients will prefer to work with two-tier, or five or seven-tier influencers—depending on what their goals are," explained James Nord, founder and CEO of Fohr Card, an agency for influencers. "Sometimes it makes more sense for them to work with a whole range of people—that way they can hit the customer from multiple angles."

Fohr Card uses a proprietary algorithm based on data points culled from social media and Google analytics to rank influencers so brands can discover and connect with those that make the most sense for their goals. In the last year, the company paid out roughly $1.4 million to 200 influencers—and according to Nord that number will likely rise steeply in the coming years.

"A year ago, the average campaign's budget was $50,000 or less," Nord said. "Today I would say the average campaign is $150,000." How that media spend gets divvied up can vary greatly: "We have done campaigns for $150,000 where we've worked with three or four people, and ones where we've worked with 120 people."

While Fohr Card does not track bloggers' income, Nord estimated that many are making $50,000-70,000 each year. "There are plenty of influencers who are clearing six figures each year," he said. "I'm sure there are some that are doing a million."

From a brand perspective, the appeal of working with bloggers is becoming increasingly apparent. When Nord meets with clients he explains the importance of working with influencers who have a respectable 200,000 followers this way:

"Take the biggest football stadium in the country, put two of them next to each other, fill them to the brim with people who are interested in potentially purchasing your product. Put the person they trust explicitly to give them advice on the kind of products they should buy on stage. Give that person ten minutes to talk about your product. Now, would you spend $5,000 on that?"

To this day, no one's said no.

In fact, as brands become smarter about advertising and engaging in the digital sphere, many are beginning to see the advantages of working with a mid-tier blogger over an A-list one. The obvious reason is that they can get more bang for their buck: What one A-lister might charge for one sponsored post, could be enough to buy sponsored posts from 10 mid-tier bloggers, who also tend to go above-and-beyond to please a brand.

"It's better for the brand, especially if they're new and just trying to get the word out," said Nazarudin. "As a reader, if you see a brand tagged in say, a Song of Style Instagram, you might not investigate further. But if you see it on the Instagram of five or six bloggers you know and follow, you're like, 'I need that bag.'"

Mid-tier bloggers also might offer a more targeted, engaged audience. "If you're a very, very popular blogger with millions of followers, everyone will follow you," said Nazarudin. "Whereas people follow mid-level bloggers because they want to—not because they're popular."

Having an impressive number of followers is certainly an asset—but who those followers are is just as important. A bikini brand, for instance, might be better off partnering with a mid-tier blogger whose audience aligns with theirs, rather than a world-famous swimsuit model, whose millions of followers probably include a great deal of thirsty dudes.

"Looking at reach isn't enough [to determine the cost of sponsored post]," said Nord. "We also look at rich engagement, growth rate, how many times they are posting—there are so many variables." If a blogger's audience has grown exponentially in the past six months, their endorsement might be more valuable than someone with twice the followers; If someone posts thirty times a month, a sponsored post will be more expensive than someone who posts three hundred times a month.

Sponsored content aside, mid-tier bloggers can also make bank by using their platform to sell products—either through affiliate links (which can generate thousands of dollars each month) or by launching their own line. Kilee Nickels, a mother of four whose blog One Little Momma focuses on lifestyle, DIY, motherhood and style, harnessed her engaged audience to help launch a successful jewelry line, Nickel and Suede. While steeped in DIYs for the blog, Nickels realized that one of her creations—lightweight, leather statement earrings—might sell well on the Etsy store she ran with her husband. "After we started selling them, I talked about it on the blog and it just kind of took off," she recalled. "Shortly afterwards, we did $2,000 in sales in one day, on Valentine's Day." The jewelry line is now her and her husband's main source of income. "My husband really saw the potential for growth so he quit his full-time job," she said. "We've been doing the line no w for three years full-time. Nickel and Suede is our main business, and the blog is now a supplementary business," she said. According to Nickel, she can make anywhere from $2,000 to $7,000 in one month from the blog alone. She did not provide information on income generated by Nickel and Suede—but we can assume is significantly higher than that.

Whether they made the bulk of their income off affiliate links or sponsored content—or some mixture of the two—one thing remained consistent among mid-tier bloggers: None of them were eager to discuss numbers. "Before I even realized I could monetize my blog, I remember being startled by the lack of transparency within the industry," said Erica Ligenza, a full-time student at the Wharton School of Business whose blog Coming Up Roses, is ranked #1324 on Fohr Card. "It was so hard to find any information on what you could make blogging."

Ligenza is part of a growing number of bloggers trying to combat that lack of transparency by publishing monthly income reports. Each month Ligenza details exactly how she made money off her blog, and what her expenses were. In December 2015, for instance, she made $1,412.42 from her blog; in November it was $1,783.27. It's a fascinating read—especially since Ligenza openly discusses missteps, lessons learned and takeaways. "I try to take the approach of: How can I make this most valuable for the reader, where someone will actually get something out of it instead of me just make money off of it?" she explained, of her decision to share her financial reports. Ligenza doesn't make a huge income off her blog, she's a full-time student and hasn't been able to devote all her time to it, but when she graduates this year, she plans to blog full-time. And she hopes her monthly income reports will show her progress.

Amy Lynn Andrews, who teaches blogging best practices and founded a newsletter called Useletter, keeps track of income reports posted by a variety of bloggers on her Pinterest Board. As you can see, some (like Becky of Your Modern Family) are making roughly $40,000 a month, others (like Monique of Chasing the Stars) are actually losing money each month.

Bloggers willing to openly discuss finances are still the rarity, but as the industry matures there will hopefully be clearer guidelines as to what bloggers can charge. According to Nazarudin and Lambert, many fashion bloggers don't know their own worth, and aren't always comfortable negotiating. "A lot of fashion bloggers—which are mostly all women in my experience—are really eager to please and feel they should accept whatever the brand offers," said Nazarudin, who before blogging full-time served as VP of a division at CitiBank and, later, CEO of a mobile content company. "Some brands can try to take advantage of that."

Lambert recalled seeing one of her images used in an ad without her consent. "A lot of bloggers get excited when they see that a brand is using their image," she said. "But it's not okay for a brand to use someone's image without a proper written contract and licensing fee. That's like stealing." (Lambert contacted the brand and negotiated a deal).

Nazarudin encourages the bloggers she works with to think hard about how much their time, point of view and effort is worth—and then ask for slightly more than that.

Though blogging is clearly big business today, outsiders, brand execs and even the mainstream media can sometimes dismiss fashion bloggers as silly and self-absorbed. It's an attitude that many of these young women—who are in fact incredibly business-savvy and entrepreneurial—resent.

"I'm not just a girl behind a computer trying to look pretty," said Lambert. "I have a family. I'm supporting myself and my family with this income."

Source: The Power of the Mid-Tier Blogger

Many people think of WordPress as a simple blogging platform, but this flexible content management system (CMS) has a deep catalog of free and premium themes and plug-ins that make it the backbone supporting millions of websites, including high-profiles ones like CNN, Grantland, and TED, as well as small business sites and even personal blogs. If you've thought about creating a WordPress-powered site for business or personal use, you should consider going the managed WordPress Web hosting route.

Managed WordPress Web Hosting ExplainedManaged WordPress hosting uses a platform that's designed specifically for WordPress. In fact, the CMS comes preinstalled—you don't have to download and set up a WordPress installation as you'd do when using a traditional Web hosting environment. Managed WordPress hosting behaves very much like any other self-hosted WordPress installation, giving you the freedom to install nearly any theme or plug-in. That said, some managed WordPress hosts have a short list of restricted plug-ins that may negatively affect your site's performance or duplicate features already built into the managed setup.

Please understand that not every Web host offers managed WordPress hosting—it isn't a ubiquitous feature. For example, Dreamhost boasts managed WordPress hosting, while HostMonster does not.

Managed WordPress hosting prices are all over the map. Entry-level plans will cost roughly that of shared Web hosting, but higher-tier plans can scale upward to around $60 per month. The upside? Your WordPress installation should run more smoothly in a managed WordPress environment than in a traditional hosting environment. In addition, going the managed WordPress route may save you money, as you don't need to pay for a system administrator to perform the same job. This is particularly beneficial to small businesses.

Dozens of companies offer managed WordPress hosting, including traditional Web hosts like DreamHost and Media Temple. Other companies, such as Pagely and Pressable, base their entire business models on managing WordPress installations.

Companies that offer managed WordPress Web hosting provide daily website backups, automatic plug-in updates, page caching for faster site load times, malware detection and removal, and—last but not least—WordPress-centric security options. Security is critically important. As one of the world's largest content management systems, Wordpress is a high-profile target.

In short, a managed WordPress installation gives you a few less things to worry about when creating content or reaching out to potential customers.

The Features You NeedBefore you sign up for a managed WordPress Web hosting service, you should look for these attractive—and possibly essential—features. Ideally, you'll want to invest in a managed WordPress host that provides unlimited monthly data transfers, email, storage, and 24/7 support. There are quite a few managed WordPress Web hosts that place caps on those features; WP Engine, for example, limits sites to 400,000 visitors and a paltry 30GB of storage. If you expect lots of site growth, you'll want a host that can properly accommodate your website's future expansion.

Additionally, you'll want a service that offers Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) if you plan to sell products. Ever see a green padlock in your browser's address bar while you're on your bank's website? That's the symbol that tells visitors that SSL is in place. It's a symbol of trustworthiness.

An SSL connection encrypts the data that travels between your site and users' Web browsers, thus safeguarding the transmission of purchasing information. All the managed WordPress hosting services in this roundup offer SSL certificates, but the prices vary from company to company. Some companies include a free SSL certificate when you sign up for a hosting plan, while others charge close to $100.

You'll also need to consider how long you'll need managed WordPress Web hosting. If it's a short-term project—say, less than a month or two—you'll typically receive a refund should you cancel your hosting within 60 days. Some companies offer 30-day money-back guarantees, while others offer 90-day money-back guarantees. Once again, it's beneficial to do your homework.

Naturally, your Web hosting needs will differ from the next person's, but keep these features in mind if you want a silky smooth managed WordPress experience.

Uptime ImportanceThe aforementioned features are valuable to the Web hosting experience, but none matches the importance of site uptime. If your site is down, clients or customers will be unable to find you or access your blog or your products or services.

We've added uptime monitoring to our review process, and the results show that the most Web hosts do an excellent job of keeping sites up and running. Web hosts with uptime issues cannot qualify for inclusion among the best services in the field, no matter how solid their rest of their offering is.

Do You Need Managed WordPress Hosting?Managed WordPress hosting isn't a one-size-fits-all option. If you're a system administrator, or someone who's familiar with the ins and outs of WordPress, you can manage a WordPress installation yourself. That's important to note, because some of the managed WordPress Web hosts we've reviewed are significantly more expensive than non-managed WordPress Web hosting. It's wise to shop around.

Also, a managed WordPress environment won't allow you to set up a non-WordPress site—that's something else to keep in mind, especially if you have a site in mind that will rely on specific Microsoft frameworks, for example. In such instances, you'll want to go build your site on shared, VPS, or dedicated Web hosting services.

Still, if you'd rather just create posts, pages, and galleries, managed WordPress hosting is an attractive option. We've reviewed many managed WordPress hosting services and included the best of the bunch in this guide. The chart above, which includes traditional Web hosts that offer managed WordPress hosting and dedicated managed WordPress services, gives you a quick overview of the features you can find with each service. If you want a more in-depth look at managed WordPress hosting services, take a look at the blurbs—and links to full reviews—below.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP
Source: The Best Managed WordPress Web Hosting Services for 2016

In an ABA Benchmark Study on Law Firm Website Costs, Legal marketer, Conrad Saam reports that "WordPress has become the de facto website platform for most commercial websites."

Saam's right. WordPress for so many reasons has become of the software of record for publishing. Whether it's a law firm website, a blog, or good portions of the New York Times, WordPress is the right fit. Commentary that WordPress is only for blogs and is inherently insecure come from the unknowing.

But I don't agree with Saam in his comment that those software and development companies charging law firms ongoing subscription fees for WordPress sites are reaping pure profit after they've recouped their initial costs. At least not in the case of the good companies.

Any law firm using WordPress for publishing, whether for a website, blog, micro-site, magazine, or whatever, needs to be paying for upgrades and feature enhancements. Ideally they'd be working with a company doing research and development so that the law firm is receiving never ending improvements to their publishing platform.

Think about it this way, says Mike Duncan, CEO of the marketing agency, Sage Island, in a story in Wilmington Business Insights:

You buy an awesome new car, one with a killer paint job, leather seats and a state-of-the-art sound system. That car is your baby and because you want it to last a long time, you take care of it with regular oil changes, repairs and weekends spent waxing it until it shines. Well, your website is the same way. No matter how good it looks, there's a back end, much like the engine of a car, that needs to be serviced regularly. If you fail to take care of your website, you'll quickly run it into the ground.

You need to on the latest version of WordPress for any number of reasons, per Duncan.

Security. WordPress is immensely popular, which makes it a target for hackers and data thieves. By updating to the latest version, you're able to reconcile known security vulnerabilities. If you ignore the updates, you're putting your website – and your business – at risk.

New Features. Each WordPress release comes with new features and improvements. Taking advantage of these features is an easy way to improve the users' experience and keep your site looking and feeling modern and relevant. It sends the right message to your clients, and shows them that you care enough to offer them the best experience possible.

Speed. Faster is better, especially online. Each WordPress update improves the speed of your website, which is a huge factor in SEO. If you don't update WordPress, it could take minutes for a simple page to load, and today's online user doesn't have the patience to wait that long, nor should they.

Bug Fixes. Nobody's perfect, not even WordPress. The platform is, however, constantly improving. In fact, any issues you experience on your website can usually be solved by updating WordPress, as each new release fixes bugs that managed to slip in. If you don't update your site, these fixes won't be available.

Beyond these reasons, you have feature enhancements that ought to be regularly added. There are constant and never ending improvements that can and should be made to a publishing platform that go beyond core WordPress upgrades.

There are unique publishing, education and support features sought by law firms. This requires ongoing research, development, testing and regular upgrades to those features.

A law firm would never use software that is not regularly updated. Unfortunately, law firms often only look for upgrades to websites and blogs when they are looking for an updated design.

But design is only the surface. Launching a nice looking design on an outdated version of WordPress with outdated plugins, which version and plugins are only getting more outdated over time is fraught with peril and something that can easily be avoided.

Moving from an agency model to a publishing software business model has enabled us to focus on our underlying publishing platform built on WordPress. Like other SaaS providers, it's enabled us to provide law firms and other professional services firms with a publishing platform that's better, faster and cheaper.

So, yes, do pay for regular upgrades and feature enhancements. But me smart in the way you do so. It need not cost a lot and probably ought to be paid on a monthly or annual subscription.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Cristian Labarca 

Advertisement Need a reason (or 5) to start blogging? Read the latest ebook from LexBlog
Source: Are you paying to keep your WordPress site up to date?

Hot Off the Press Field Notes: An Event Apart Boston 2016

May 20, 2016 @ 4:00 pm

Mel Choyce

May 20, 2016 @ 4:00 pm

Community, Events

An Event Apart, Conferences, Design, Field Notes

Previous Post New Theme: Rebalance

Please do not use these comments for asking questions, support, or bug reporting. Use the forums or support contact form for that.

Please read our comment guidelines before posting.

Source: Field Notes: An Event Apart Boston 2016

Dear millennials, once upon a time there was a platform known as a blog. Before humankind could SnapChat, tweet, YouTube or Instagram its every waking thought, people often sat down in front of a physical keyboard and spent time carefully composing a rant of several hundred words, I mean post, on some topic or other. Now it's just something marketers do.

Maybe we'll see a personal blogging resurgence (no LiveJournal-esque emo poetry, please) now that Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has acquired the .blog top-level domain (TLD).

Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg said, on his blog of course, that the acquisition cost about $20 million after the company secretly bid for the TLD using dummy company Knock Knock Whois There. No, really.

There's a waiting list for sign-up if you want to get a .blog. Trademark holders can get theirs in August and the rest of us will have to wait until October.

https://ma.tt/2016/05/blog/

Source: Web Log: WordPress offering .blog domain

In this article, I'll cover some of the best WordPress multi-author management plugins. Before we dig into the most popular options available, let's first look at some of the key features we'd expect to see in a good multi-author management plugin.

The Key to Managing a Multi-author Site

If you decide to build a multi-author blog or website, you may wish to consider the following features. The associated plugins mentioned below will be described in further detail in the next section of this article.

Hiding the WordPress Dashboard

Firstly, you don't want every WordPress role to have control of your admin area. You should hide this from user roles such as Contributors and Authors where it's not needed. This can also help make things simpler for your authors.

Use: WP User FrontEnd plugin

Managing Submitted Posts

When managing multiple authors, providing a frontend form via template tag or a shortcode that can enable visitors to submit posts and upload images is an important feature.

Use: User Submitted Post plugin

Author Profile and Bio

Authors usually want their content to be published on a website to help with recognition and to boost their author profile, showcasing their contributions to other professionals. So, the author profile and bio should look attractive, but simple enough to grab attention of the readers.

Use: Author Avatars plugin

Email Multiple Users

An editor can get frustrated with the time spent emailing multiple users when coordinating a busy schedule. A plugin that can make the task easier to email multiple users at a time is certainly another valuable option.

Use: Email Users plugin

In-progress Content

Looking for incomplete posts individually or trying to remember what to do with an incomplete or partially complete document can be tiresome. Managing the editorial workflow can make everything simpler, such as marking incomplete posts with notes or auto detecting empty posts.

Use: Content Progress plugin

The registration page comes with a predefined workflow and standard fields. Eliminate some of the unwanted fields and allow other important fields to be added. This helps give the registration page personal touch.

Use: Cimy User Extra Fields plugin

Notes about Users and Authors

Adding notes in the form of a text area around the profile of each user in the dashboard is a useful feature. Don't worry, this is not visible to others, only Administrators have access to the notes.

Use: User Notes plugin

WordPress Multi-author Management Plugins User Submitted Posts

Active Installs: 20,000+

User Submitted Posts is a plugin that lets you easily create frontend form to enable visitors to submit posts and upload images via a template tag or shortcode.

Some of the main features include:

Allowing visitors to submit posts from anywhere on your site

Setting submitted images as featured images

Including input validation and customizable captcha and hidden field to stop spam

Post submissions may include title, tags, category, author, url, post etc.

WP's built-in rich text editor for post content

Redirecting a user to anywhere or to return to a current page after a successful post submission

HTML5 submission form with streamlined CSS styles

Use your own custom form template and stylesheet

User Notes

Active Installs: 300+

The User Notes plugin allows you to keep private notes about users that only Administrators can see. It adds a text area to the profile of each user in the dashboard so that Administrators can maintain private notes. Also importantly, the notes are visible to only Administrators.

WP User Frontend

Active Installs: 10,000+

Through the WP User Frontend plugin the user can easily create new posts and edit their profile from the site frontend, without needing to enter the backend admin dashboard.

Features include:

The user can create a new post from the frontend

The user can edit post also from the frontend

They can view their page in the frontend custom dashboard

Edit profile from the frontend

Administrator can restrict any user level on accessing the WordPress backend

Uploading attachments from the frontend

Uploading post featured image

Managing users from the frontend would be possible for administrators

Content Progress

Active Installs: 300+

Content Progress is a plugin to manage the editorial work flow. Here are some of the features:

Adds icons to the content listings, such as Posts, Pages, and custom post types indicating what you need

Auto-detects empty posts or documents with less text

Flag any document if it's incomplete or needs review

Creating custom content flags, for example i.e "Add Video", "Needs formatting"

Adding notes to the post for making communication between groups easier

Active Installs: 20,000+

The Cimmy User Extra Fields plugin adds more useful fields to your registration page. You can also add various options to the registration page, including a picture and URL. You can also hide some certain fields if you wish.

Email Users

Active Installs: 10,000+

The Email Users plugin allows the site editors to send an email to the registered site users.

Adminimize

Active Installs: 100,000+

Adminize is an amazing plugin to remove some items from the dashboard for non-admin users. If you're an admin, you often want to hide certain items in the dashboard to prevent contributors and authors from viewing it.

Capability Manager Enhanced

Active Installs: 30,000+

Not to be confused with the WordPress rules and capabilities, the Capability Manager Enhanced plugin helps you manage the roles (such as Subscriber, Author, Contributor, Editor and Admin) with ease.

Here are the main features:

Add new roles

View or change the role capabilities

Easily copy the existing roles into new ones

Add new capabilities to existing roles

Restrict Author Posting

Active Installs: 2,000+

The Restrict Author Posting plugin will allow the Admin to restrict a specific category to a user profile. This makes it easier for the author or editor to post only in specific categories.

Revisionary

Active Installs: 4,000+

The Revisionary plugin moderates the editing of published content. The revision can be published immediately or scheduled following consent by an editor. It also gives contributors an ability to submit revisions to their own published content.

Author Avatars List

Active Installs: 10,000+

The Author Avatars List plugin makes it easy to display lists of user avatars on your multi-user blog or website. You can use widgets or shortcodes to display a list of user avatars. A TinyMCE editor plugin comes in addition with this plugin that allows inserting shortcodes easily.

Here's a great list of 11 of the Best WordPress Author Bio Plugins by Sally Wood if you're after even more options.

Summary

In this article I've covered some of the best multi-author management plugins available for WordPress and how they can help you to better manage your multi-author website. Do you have any others you wish to share?

Source: The Best WordPress Multi-author Management Plugins

New Delhi: A suspected Islamic State sympathiser in Kerala, who threatened to kill rationalists belonging to a particular Facebook group, has now appealed his Muslim brethren to return to Jihad or quit Islam. 

In his new blog, where the writer is announcing his loyalty towards ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the blogger also urged Muslims not to abide by the Indian constitution. 

The new post, with a header -promising to show the way to jihad, appeared on the blogmuhajir2015.wordpress.com earlier this month.

Reports say that Kerala police is on the search of the blogger but so far they have failed to nab him.

Source: "Muslims should return to Jihad and should not abide by Indian Constitution"

Kozhikode: The anonymous blogger who had issued death threats to rationalists in Kerala last month has come out with a new post reiterating allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and its self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The post that appeared in the blog muhajir2015.wordpress.com on May 3 said the Khilafat could not be restored 'without sacrifice or blood'. Detractors had flayed the blog's stand as un-Islamic. The new post reacts to comments on the earlier post.

Parodying the BJP's election slogan 'Vazhimuttiya Keralam, Vazhikattan BJP', the blogger claims to show the real path to Kerala's Muslims who have deviated from the path of jihad. The unidentified person also refuted allegations of loyalty to Jamaat-e-Islami or Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), saying that 'it is a terrible mistake' to bracket the writer under these organizations.

The basic premise of the blog is a refutation of the stance taken by the majority of Muslims in India - that of co -existence with other beliefs in a pluralistic society. The blog says this compromise is against the basic tenets of Islam and that Muslims in India suffered tragedies like the Gujarat riots because they had abandoned jihad.

Taking a dig at Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, the Malappuram district president of IUML, for freely mingling with people of other faiths and taking part in their festivals, the blog says the Thangal family misused the Prophet's lineage for material gain.

The blog says there can be only one relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims - that of war. "Islam divides human beings into two groups: Muslims and non-believers. If Allah wishes, the camp of the non-believers will be destroyed," the blogger says. The blog reproduces propaganda videos of the IS and has also given brief translations of speeches by Baghdadi. It says that many of the stories appearing in western media about the IS are either exaggerated or blatant lies. Meanwhile, police have started a hunt to trace the anonymous blogger. Sources with the police department say that reposting IS videos and propaganda material can be considered as waging war against the nation. Considering the content of the blog, it is assumed that the material is being posted from within Kerala. Attempts are also on to reconstruct the blogger's personality from hints available in the posts. The person could be a former activist or sympathizer of SIMI, who got attracted to the IS through its social media campaign. Though the blog indicates strong emotional bonding with the IS ideology, it is believed that the blogger may not have any organizational links with the IS.

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Source: Extremist blogger claims to show 'real path' to Muslims

Media Temple is launching a new enterprise-grade WordPress hosting solution today. That would be interesting by itself, but the twist here is that the company, which is owned by GoDaddy, is hosting this service on AWS.

With this offering, Media Temple is combining its expertise in running WordPress installs with its (mt) One white-glove customer service offering, CloudTech Premier support, and the scalability of Amazon's cloud computing services.

While it may seem odd for a hosting provider like Media Temple to offer a solution on Amazon's platform instead of its own, it's worth noting that the company already offered managed cloud hosting on AWS before.

"Media Temple's servers are good, but there are things we can do with Amazon's technology that you can't do with a virtual private server," MediaTemple senior director of product management Brendan Fortune told me. Among these things are AWS tools like Lambda, Amazon's serverless compute service, and robust support for containers with the EC2 Container Service. Fortune noted how building on top of Amazon's container management service enables Media Temple to quickly scale a WordPress deployment up and down as needed, for example.

As Fortune stressed, the idea here is to provide users with peace of mind. Subscribers will get a dedicated account manager, for example, who can help solve problems but also work with users pro-actively. The WordPress installs themselves are managed by Media Temple's CloudTech team, which will use its monitoring systems to watch over these installs.

While Media Temple will obviously also be watching out for security issues and automatically patch these WordPress installs, the service also uses Amazon's CloudFront DDoS protection.

All of this service does come at a price, of course. While AWS charges on a per-use basis, Media Temple is abstracting all of this away from its users and rolling everything into two plans. The standard enterprise plan costs $2,500 per month comes with support for five sites, one terabyte of cloud storage, 1.5 terabytes of monthly CDN usage, scaling to up to 10 EC2 instances using containers, and support for Amazon's RDS database. Users who need more can opt for the "max performance" plan, but this plan comes with a bespoke pricing plan as well.

Given this pricing, it's no surprise MediaTemple is aiming this service at agencies, enterprises and mid-market companies. While the price may seem high, it's in line with other managed WordPress hosting services like Pagely, which charges a similar price for its high-end plan.

Fortune tells me the team looked at AWS's competitors like Azure and Google Cloud Platform as well, but in the end opted for AWS because it was already familiar with the technology and because it wanted to use AWS's container service.

Source: Media Temple launches new enterprise WordPress solution hosted on AWS

Ashley Perez is a graduate from DePaul University with a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Even though she loves writing poems and short stories she moreover has a passion for music. Her record collection is always expanding and she is always excited for new opportunities to hear the newest music. Her other interests contain reading,video games and playing guitar. She moreover runs her own blog on the side called radionotfound.wordpress.com where you can find old and new album reviews, list, and random music rants. She moreover writes for The- Crypt 1331 and Kitty Whipp. Previously, she was a contributor for Chicago Innerview. Contact Ashley at ap32007@yahoo.com.

Read more on this topic…Joey Jordison's Vimic releases 'She Sees Everything' video

Source: Joey Jordison's Vimic releases 'She Sees Everything' video. Las Vegas Blog

Being in a very severe depression is one of the most mentally excruciatingly painful (as well as physically painful) experiences any one can ever have. That's when the bottom falls out from under you, the rug is yanked out from under your feet and in either case, there is a black, terrifying bottomless abyss into which you fall. At first you claw and scratch to get out, but then as the days go by, you give up. You sit down, you stay put. All hope is gone, you have no energy to fight, your inner voice has maliciously turned against you. It tells you you are worthless, garbage, not worth saving. You don't want to listen but you have no choice, you have no energy left to fight this. You have no hope of getting better. And anyway, are you sick or is this the way you've always been? Useless, hopeless, ugly, stupid, wrong, just plain wrong. Well this kind of depression, a very severe depression definitely needs medication. But might someone in this kind of severe depression, or someone in a less severe depression be helped by another technique? My very good friend once told me of their experience with depression and how they cope with it in a very compassionate and positive way, which is to treat yourself like you are your good friend. So, you wake up, you feel so awful that you don't feel like getting out of bed. Now you are treating yourself as your own good friend, so you say "Hmm, don't feel like getting out of bed? That's ok, just rest if you need to." Then you check in with yourself and ask :How about now? You feelin' any better?" Then later "Feel like takin' a shower? No? That's ok, maybe later." And you go on like this, treating yourself as you would a good friend. With compassion, love, caring. No name calling, derision, hate. Remember depression is an illness, you are not doing this to yourself, you are suffering from an illness. What if you broke your arm and started calling yourself names and saying hateful things to yourself? You wouldn't, you'd go to the emergency room, get a cast and NURSE your arm back to health. This takes me to the second thing I wanted to say, my fellow blogger on Wordpress.com, Gentle Kindness, just posted a post about depression, in this post she describes depression to a tee and then offers the suggestion that when you are in a depression, you should be your own compassionate nurse! Another brilliant idea. Who wouldn't benefit from a good friend and a compassionate nurse? Lately, I have been feeling the choking, ugly, bony fingers of depression around my throat. Tasks have once again become more difficult to do. There is dread in my heart and tears that spill easily from my eyes, and my heart feels like it's breaking for things that would not normally phase me. yes, depression, unfortunately, definitely depression. Well, I am going to try an ex periment. Instead of saying what I normally do to myself when I'm feeling depressed "You useless, sick, sad excuse for oxygen consumption." I am going to treat myself with compassion and love, as a sick person deserves. Well it's already working to lift my mood a little, it's infinitely better to hear "It's ok honey, you are sick, take it easy. You'll feel better, you always do!" than the above negative dialogue. Be kind, be compassionate, use loving words and have hope and be resilient. You are hope and resilience. Hugs and positive thoughts for all those suffering from depression or other maladies of the mind or body.

I posted this on my blog called bipolar1blog.com and this comment blew me away, a reader wrote: "I am stuck in a deep depression at this stage, and now that I have read this...if gives me hope. It is keeping the suicide thoughts at bay. Strange how these little things help in a time when you really need it!"

This one comment actually made the whole year a nd a half of blogging on my blog worth every second.

There is hope, there is help, and we are strong and resilient! And it is in the human spirit to survive! And this is the true power of blogging!

Source: Depression Help

WordPress is without doubt one of the most widely used content management system in the world. What is even better is the fact that it is an open source platform with limitless resources to help even the least technically advanced individual to excel with the platform. Introduced back in 2003, bloggers and non-bloggers have learnt of the many benefits of using the platform. This posts looks at the key reasons why you should consider using WordPress for your website management needs.

Save Money

The best thing about using WordPress is that you no longer need to involve your web developer every time you need to update your content. The platform allows you to edit your content yourself. Needless to say, this will help you save money which would otherwise have been spent working with designers.

In addition to that, you no longer need to keep redesigning your website's layout from scratch. WordPress themes will make it easy for you to get designs that suit your need s. There are numerous themes available and most of them are free. If you are stranded on the design to use for your blog or website, you can get inspirations from these themes.

Great Accessibility

Another amazing thing about using WordPress is the fact that you don't need to use your home computer to update your content or gain admin access. The platform is available worldwide and you can access the admin feature from anywhere in the world using a browser. You don't need to install additional software or to change firewall settings. You only need your login details.

This accessibility makes it easy for you to manage your website from anywhere. In case of a problem, you don't need to rush to your home computer. All you need is a computer with Internet access and you will be able to easily make the needed changes.

Better Communication

With WordPress, you don't need to wait for your designer to get back to you. You also don't have to rush to yo ur home or office computer to make the needed changes. You can make the basic changes on your website immediately. This enables you to give your audience speedy response and current details.

Design Consistency

One of the most important things you need to do in web development is to maintain design consistency. This is often not easy especially when considering the different pages of your website require varying approaches. WordPress will help solve this problem for you.

The WordPress platform uses a themed approach in both design and layout. You can choose a pre-designed theme or have one custom made for your brand needs. The theme is then installed into WordPress files. Regardless of the number of pages you add to your website, the theme set up will assure that your site looks and feels the same. The theme will maintain design consistency and keep you from being distracted by multiple layouts.

Mobile Friendliness

In this modern age, creating a website that is not mobile ready will significantly hurt the success of your business. A great number of your regular visitors access your website using handheld devices that are of varying screen sizes. Failure to accommodate them on your website will definitely cost you valuable business. WordPress offers a great solution for this.

With WordPress, you don't need to create two websites; one for desktop and another for mobile users. All you need is a single website that recognizes the device it is being accessed on and adjusts itself automatically. The content is configured to be viewed on desktop web browsers and on mobile devices.

Needless to say, a mobile ready website will boost your search engine rankings. Google presently favours websites that are mobile friendly in their ranking.

Improve d Time Management

Not many platforms will allow you to schedule when posts will be published. WordPress offers this feature to give you better time management. Here, you can create content then schedule when they should be published. Whatever time or day you want, the content will be published. This means you can write 7-week e-courses and break them into 7 pieces that will be posted automatically at different intervals for the 7 weeks.

Easy to Create a Membership Site

There are many plugins provided by WordPress that you can use to make your work easier. One of these plugins is the full service membership plugins. This makes it easy to rollout a membership website. You can convert your site into a full service membership website.

Social Networking Friendly

Social media is crucial in on-line marketing. You have to integrate social media if you want to boost SEO and also to connect at a more personal level with your audience. WordPress makes it easy f or you to do this.

With WordPress, you get to automatically integrate your posts with social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With this integration, each new post can be featured on your social media page to inform your audience that you have added a new post. This will in turn increase traffic to your posts.

Integrate Media

WordPress is not all about text. You can add images, audio and videos to reinforce your posts. This gives more engagement and better return on investment.

SEO Friendliness

One of the key reasons why you should consider WordPress is because of its SEO friendliness. The platform has a construction of consistent and streamlined code with no excessive HTML codes. These are features found quite inviting in Google indexing. WordPress will accept the Google spiders and your posts can be customized for the most impact in search engine optimization. The platform will hence give you a higher search engine ranking.

There are many more benefits you get from WordPress. They range from the ease of use and search engine optimization to building blogs that are ready to go. All in all, before you start working on WordPress, it is imperative that you understand the user policy and also learn from the mistakes of other developers ahead of you.

Author Bio

Charlie Brown is a WordPress theme developer based in San Francisco. He offers his services to clients all over the United States and occasionally takes time to blog on better web development practices on wpdean.com.

Source: Reasons Why You Should Consider Having a WordPress Website

When I was first taking the steps to turn my blog into an online business, I was trying everything. Facebook Ads, guest posting, being on every platform; you name it, I did it!

Only problem was, doing everything to build my business quickly wore me out. Not only that, but I didn't know what was really working. Sure, I saw some growth--but at the expense of my sanity!I literally tried everything and only saw about a $100/month return on my endeavors.

I felt like a failed dreamer--an optimist who tried and crashed, with nothing to show for it.

I was about to give up on the whole online business thing. I was an inch away from quitting everything. But then, I took notice of what my friends were doing to grow their profitable online businesses.

We had similar business models, and yet, they were 10x more successful. So I closely studied everything they did and discovered: unlike me, they weren't trying everything.

When it came to building a profitable online business, they were only focused on the essentials.

It was then that I changed my entire perspective on business. I shifted everything about my mindset and reapproached my business with a new lens. Here's the mindset shift that occurred:I used to view online business as a hit or miss game of luck. Now I see it as a disciplined pursuit of what works.

If you read the title of this article, you're probably wondering what all this has to do with minimalism. Well, minimalism is all about the intentional promotion of what matters and a clearing away of distractions. When I took this minimalist understanding and applied it to business.

My blog became profitable when I cleared out the excess of what wasn't working in exchange for pursuing what actually mattered.

In other words, adopting a minimalist mindset for my blog turned my blog into a business.

You're probably reading this because you, like me, have tried everything and are still closer to making a $100/month. Or, you're probably reading this because you're overwhelmed about how to grow your blog into a business that can sustain your livelihood.

Turning your blog into an online business doesn't have to be a game of hit or miss. You can prioritize what works to grow your business quickly.

If you're wondering how you can do this, tune in. I'm going to show you the minimalist, 7-step path, to building a profitable blog from scratch.

But before we begin, you can follow along in a brief email course I created called the "Blog to Business Jumpstart Course."

In this quick guide, I'll go through everything from research to launching your first product.

If you follow this minimalist path, you won't approach your blog as a game of luck. Instead, it'll become your full-time business.

Stop trying everything and pursue this minimalist path to business instead:

1. Before you begin, know whom you're serving.

The opposite of a minimalist mindset entertains everything. They invite distraction into their work, and as a result, don't build a focused audience.

As a minimalist blogger, your first action will be to focus. Before you spend time on anything, you will know whom you're serving and how you're helping them.

You're not going to start a blog about puppies, Netflix shows, and pirates. You're going to choose one topic that hits hard with a targeted, specific audience.

Choose one passion of yours.

Find 10 people you know who are also passionate about this.

Ask them what they struggle with when it comes to this passion.

Write blogs based on their answers.

2. Build a clear, uncluttered design.

Now, when you're ready to build your blog, you want to make sure you don't have a distracting design. Many first-time bloggers think they need a sidebar that's filled with ads and 20 blog posts that are all on their homepage. But really, what you need to do is guide people to take action in the clearest and simplest way possible.

This means, you don't need a distracting design.

When choosing your design, take a hard look at what's absolutely essential for your goal, and structure everything from there.

For instance, my website doesn't have a sidebar. This is because I don't believe it's necessary to distract my audience with a sidebar. I want my audience to stay engrossed in my content, not be distracted by what's in my sidebar.

I did this after an experiment I did last year on another website where I tested how much my conversions would increase by simply getting rid of the sidebar. The result? A 5x increase in conversions (email list subscribers).

Don't be afraid of white space in your web design. Instead, optimize your website so that users will easily be able to find the action you want them to take.

Check out the WordPress themes on Studiopress--my favorite place for minimalist website designs (like mine!).

Make sure your call to action--which should be signing up for your email list--is easily visible. For instance, mine is the first thing you see when you arrive on my website.

3. Make every blog post worth it.

Next, you'll be writing your blog posts. But when writing your blog posts, the last thing you need to do is write tiny 200-word blog posts that don't add any value to your readers.

Believe it or not, but minimalism isn't about writing as little words as possible. It's about promoting value. This means, you can decrease the number of articles you come out with (I do 1 per week), but have each article be epic and insanely valuable.

It's always better to have a handful of quality articles than a plethora of articles worth nothing.

Make every article worth something!

Write articles that are at least 1,000 words in length.

Put content upgrades in your articles. Content upgrades are post-specific incentives that you give for free in exchange for an email address. Have a content upgrade for every blog post you put out. This will ensure your list grows with every article you write.

Give people something actionable to implement in every blog post.

4. Don't be on every social media platform.

When it comes to promoting, many bloggers believe they need to be on every social media platform. They spread themselves thin being on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Periscope, etc. etc.

But the minimalist approach to business tells you that you don't have to be everywhere to be effective.

Again, minimalism is about pursuing what works, not spreading yourself thin. So here's my advice: choose Facebook plus one other platform to market your business.

I say Facebook because everyone's on Facebook. This is not to say that you won't be effective if you don't have a Facebook account. I just suggest it because you can literally do everything--from live video to groups--on Facebook.

But then, only choose one other platform outside of Facebook. To do this, you have to know where your target resides. If you have a cooking blog, you belong on Pinterest. If you want to do a coaching business, Periscope is probably your best bet. Know the strengths of each platform and choose the one that's best. This will allow you to build a great following on the platform where most of your audience is instead of burning out trying to be on every platform.

Set up your Facebook page on Facebook and invite your friends and family to like it.

Research which platform will be best for your business.

Use scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to grow your engagement on the platform of your choice.

Show up on the platform of choice every day.

5. Only create what you know will sell.

After writing blog posts, promoting on your platforms, and growing your list for some time, now it's time to monetize and create a product. But the thing is, you shouldn't waste your time on a product that won't sell.

I did this before. Before I adopted a minimalist, essential mindset to business, I just came up with a random product and tried selling it to my audience. It didn't go so well.

Minimalism helps you focus and not waste time on what doesn't matter.

So if you're a minimalist blogger, you won't spend an excruciating amount of time on a product that won't sell. Instead, you'll validate your product.

Build a preview version of the product. Could be first chapter of a book, first module of a course, etc. etc.

Presell the product idea. Ask for people to pay a discounted amount for the product upfront, before you create the rest of it. If people buy, give them the preview of the product, and consult with them as you create the rest of it.

If you reach your goal of presales, then move forward with creating your product.

6. Launch with one strategy first.

When you're finally ready to launch your awesome product to the world, don't go in without a plan. I've seen entrepreneurs with a chaotic launch plan because they're trying everything to launch their product.

Again, you don't want to try everything. The minimalist approach to business is a disciplined pursuit of what works, which means, you're going to launch with one awesome strategy.

Come up with a clear, repeatable process for your launch, and focus on that. Don't burden yourself with three different marketing strategies. Focus on one.

For instance, you could do a three-part video series to launch your product, and go all in with that. Or you could do an email sequence to sell your product. Or you could really focus on webinars for your launch.

The only thing is, when you're launching your product for the first time, don't try to do all of these at once. Perfect one strategy before you try others.

Know what process will work best for you first. If you're not good at webinars, don't choose that. But if you're an excellent copywriter, perfect your email sequence and go all in with that.

You could balance multiple launch strategies later, when you launch your product again. This will allow you to automate your past strategies so you can add another one to the mix. For instance, you can automate your email sequence so you can go all in with a webinar strategy.

This is the minimalist approach to profitable blogging.

Again, it doesn't try to do everything. It sticks to the essentials.

Now, I'm not sure why you stuck with me for this long. It might be because you're tired of trying everything to monetize your blog. Or it might be because you don't know what the simplest path to profit is.

Whatever the case may be, I want you to understand that you don't have to try everything to be profitable with your blog. All you have to do is focus on the essentials.

If you're struggling to find what the essentials to monetizing your blog is, then I encourage you to sign up for my free 5-day email course that's all about turning your blog into an online business in a simple and fast way.

This free email course will give you the simple tools and knowledge you need to monetize your blog fast.

To sign up for the free course, click the link below.

Click here to get the first lesson of the "Blog to Business Jumpstart" Course.Remember, you don't have to play a game of hit or miss with your blog. Choose the minimalist path and make your blog profitable.

This article originally appeared on EssentialHustle.com.

Source: 6 Minimalist Steps to Turning Your Blog into a Profitable Business