If your website is powered by WordPress you may be thinking which plugin to install and which to leave. I have five year experience in WordPress development and has helped hundred of client launch WordPress based website, it is my daily job to help them decide which plugins to use and which to avoid. Also I always discourage installing so many plugins on a single website.

Why do I advise that to keep plugins count to minimum (SEVEN or TEN in maximum)? Because when you add a plugin to your website, it introduces a third party code which can affect your website’s speed (page loading time) SEO and website security so it is always recommended to keep them to minimum to avoid such risks.

Every website to succeed online in today’s competitive world , have to have great content, secure website, with fast loading pages, and properly optimized pages for SEO. Yes WordPress cannot write content for you, but it can help you with other important aspects to make your website speedy, secure and have SEO optimized pages.

I recommend following four types of plugins to cover four important factors of websites’ online success namely Speed, SEO, Security and ZERO Spam content or comments:

1- Anti-Spam plugin: You can use any good anti-spam plugin however I recommend WordPress’s official plugin for this purpose called Akismet it is already installed in every WordPress website, you just need to activate it using the API key ( you can get API key free of cost by signing up for it with them, please check help link inside the plugin for more details.)

2- Security plugin: there are many security plugins but my two favorite are WordPress Firewall 2 and WordPress File Monitor. WordPress firewall stops all hacking attacks like SQL injections and much more. WordPress File monitor plugin keeps you informed if some hacker or virus changes any of your WordPress files so you can look into that and see if your site is attacked or hacked.

3- Cache plugin: It is must to have fast loading pages and avoid high server load at your hosting. To serve successfully all your visitors without overloading your server, which can take your site down or make it very slow, you need to have cache system in place.

Cache plugin can help you in this regard to keep your sites fast and speedy. Two popular cache plugin are W3Total Cache (W3TC) & WP Super Cache , I have used both at different site both are awesome and have own working style and cache approaches. I recommend to test drive both on some test blog and see which one you like and use that on your websites onward to make them speedy with caching capabilities.

4- SEO Plugin: WordPress is already very much optimized for SEO. However a good SEO plugin can guide you through the process to keep your content properly optimized.

Three popular SEO plugins are AIOS (All-in-one SEO) plugin, Platinum SEO, and WordPress SEO. I have used all three in the past and my (currently) favorite is ‘WordPress SEO’ by Yoast.
Yoast is top SEO guy who knows his stuff and keeps his SEO plugin up to date and simple to follow even for beginners.

That’s it for this tutorial. Again I warn to resist the temptation of installing too many cool plugins. Always be very concerned about your WordPress website’s SPEED, SEO and Security. And use only the absolutely necessary plugin which do not make your site slower or weaken its security.

After having above four types of WordPress plugin in your site, your site is way ahead of 90% sites out there which are slow to load, unsecured(easy to hack) and filled with hundred of spam comments. In conclusion having these four plugins in place you make sure your site is secure, speedy and take care of all spammed comments which are some of fundamental factors of a website to succeed online.

The post Four Must Have WordPress Plugins For Your Website To Make It Succeed Online appeared first on WarMarks.

Using WordPress comes with some risks and you need to take care of them with sound risk management strategy to avoid any issues in future. After all you do not want your website to get hacked or become comments spam hub.

I call it 5ws Strategy for WordPress. It is as followings:

1. WordPress Security
2. WordPress SEO
3. WordPress Spam
4. WordPress Speed
5. WordPress Stats

Here are the quick details for each WS in this strategy. You get to know what needs to be done and why it should be done and for how to do it guides and resources checkout the links in the footer of this article.

1- WordPress Security

There are about 70+ Millions WordPress websites online and most of them are not secure. As reward for hackers is great due to the number of sites they can infect. They are always trying to exploit the WordPress and release some type of virus.

You must make sure that your website is secure, using latest WordPress version. Also make sure that you are using secure theme and secure plugins.

Try to keep plugins to the minimum and use only which you install directly from WordPress directory but still there is risk so avoid using any plugin you do not know if it comes from reliable source. Also best option is to have security plugins installed and your website’s database and files backup taken daily or at least weekly. How to take backup and what specific security plugins to install is out of the scope of this article but you will find the links in the footer for detailed posts and resources where you have find all the details you need to know to implement the wordpress security measures for your website.

2- WordPress SEO

WordPress is great for SEO, Matt Cuts of Google loves it and endorses it but if you are not using right theme then SEO of your website is screwed. It is the theme installed on your WordPress site which, most of the time, take cares of your on-site and on-page SEO.

So make sure that the theme you are using comes from professionals who know what they are doing. It will be great if you keep SEO in mind while selecting the theme for your website.

Also make sure you have got SEO plugin installed and SEO urls turned on for better SEO rankings.

3- WordPress Spam

There are tools and softwares released often to spam WordPress powered websites. You must take care of your website to avoid getting spam comments live on your website.

Make sure akismet plugin is activated. It will take care of 50% comment spam on your website. But most of the comment spam will keep coming, you better approve manually and also be very picky which author’s comment you approve so you discourage commentators which are there just for backlink and no other reason.

It is also better practice to close comments on old posts as most of the time spammers target your old posts which are now ranking in Google. Better have link to contact page there and comments closed. So if somebody wants to add something critical, they contact you and let your know about that.

4- WordPress Speed

It is very tempting to install all those latest plugins to add bells and wistels to your WordPress website. But remember this can slow your website. And everybody knows that Google loves sites which load speedy.

If your website does not load faster, visitors are going to hit back button, and google again, and Google is going to take note of this. And next time if you do not take care of Speed issue yourself, they will and they will stop sending visitors to your website.

It is suggested you must use some caching plugin and also try to have the minimum plugins and stuff on your most important pages like sales pages and lead generation pages. So that pages load faster and visitors get your message quicker and then take the action which you want them to take.

5- WordPress Stats

As you take care of all above issues, you are going to get more traffic to your website. You must be already using some traffic stats solution like Google Analytics. But I recommend that you have some stats plugin installed on WordPress too. This helps compliment your other efforts and result into growth.

As you login to your wordpress often for posting new content, checking new comments, you also must spend some time to browse the traffic logs provided in the WordPress dashboard with a simple stats plugin so you know which page is getting most traffic. For which keywords your pages are ranking. From which page most of the visitors are leaving your website so you can improve that page.

Hope this will help you devise your own S5 Stategry for WordPress site and get your Internet business protected, and ready for growth. For detailed tutorials and checklists to implement all the steps suggested in this article checkout the links in the footer.

The post WordPress Security Risk Strategy for Your Internet Business Success appeared first on WarMarks.

But Why you want to use WordPress to make our Website?

It is very genuine and reasonable question from a person who has not used wordpress before. Our answer is simple, that we do not develop clients’ websites just for the sake of making. We do and offer SEO and Traffic Generations Services too so clients can actually make profit from their websites!

So our aim is to make SEO friendly and User friendly websites. Also we want our client to use a system which can scale with their website’s growth for years to come and which will not become obselete in next few years. And for best SEO structure, ease of use & user friendliness, scalibilty and wide array of choice to customize it in anyway we choose WordPress.

There are websites we made 5 years ago using WordPress for our clients and they thank us for making their websites powered by WordPress as their sites keep growing and wordpress has always the capapibilites and new features to take care of upcoming requirments and trends online.

When Video marketing became the buzz word, and Youtube started to rule the web, wordpress had so many awesome video plugins which help you fetch videos from Youtube with few clicks. Again WordPress proved upto the mark with latest versions and plugins when Social Media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus) became the NEW web online.

Using simple WordPress plugins we can add, edit or enhance any feature in your website both at front-end and back-end. Using great wordpress theme’s framework, we can design, redesign and customize any front-end design, layout, look and feel of your Website.

Yes there are few issues with WordPress like Security and Site Getting Slow but it can easily be rectified using best security plugins and suggestions and cache plugins and server side optimized settings.

At WarMarks we can help you build your most profitable website using WordPress and then we can help you implement of in-house plans and SEO campaigns customized to your website needs and target market. You can contact us anytime using our contact form from the top menu. Or Click Here for Contact Form.

Best Regards,

Mohsin Rasool

The post Why WordPress is Our Preferred CMS appeared first on WarMarks.

When you are regularly blogging online, you may need some stuff to upload to your site time to time.

Like a plug-in which needs to be installed manually. You need to FTP the files of that plug-in to the plugins’ directory before you can activate it.

Here is a quick tip to save your time and frustration:

Where possible upload .zip file and then Unzip on the server!

This will save you 75% time of uploading and 99% time of brain work & tension. Because it is always easier to upload one file (no matter what size) than to upload many many tiny files.

Also in case of interruption you do not  need to worry what file is done and what needs to be re-uploaded..as you are dealing with just ONE file it is easier to manage.

That is for today a Quick tip

The post Uploading Files Fast Quick Tip appeared first on WarMarks.

It is very bad to be an entrepreneur and also try to prove the world how genius I am by presenting complex solutions!

Man it has happened to me and  often i find myself in this trap. I see a simple problem in the market, and when I try to solve this, wow I have got the simple solution…but my damn genius mind will not accept that so simple solution.

My genius mind wants me to bring something which makes people wonder, which is so complex and difficult that no one in the world can do that.

That is great if I am going to run for Nobel prize..but for simple business I observe that simple solutions always win, Simple is HOT! Simple and Easy is what is called Miracle!

I tried to come with a graph, a grid to help focus our energies, for me and my team and i came up with four cases as shown in the following image:

Now you see there are four different cases for problem and solutions with respect to simplicity and complexity:

1. Simple – Simple Scenario:

Simple Problem and Simple Solution. Wow I think it is where the money is. When i observe my big money makers so far, it is always the case..but problem is we kill the idea as simple-simple case scenario fool us and says who is gonna buy this, people will laugh that how simple it is, and i will look like a stupid guy with so simple solution/product. Lol our genius mind always wanted to add some extra crap/steps to add the complexity to the solution to show how genius we were to discover this combination.

2. Complex – Simple Scenario:

Complex Problem and Simple Solution. Awesome, one thing to focus on long term, this is where you earn respect and fortune both in one basket. Long term but good to have in the mission statement. I think it is not where cash flow is, if you need money to run the following three months, better you focus on CASE:1 Simple-Simple!

When you have money to fund your time and energies come to this quadrant and amaze the world, bring something which brings WOW, FUN and Happiness to the world. Yeah you push the button and problem is gone because solution is so simple.

3. Simple – Complex Scenario:

Simple Problem and Complex Solution. Wow this is what genius minds always come up with. A pure genius mind trap. How irrational i sometime become, that I often find myself in this scenario, there is simple problem, and damned i have got a genius solution which takes 20 days training , 12 hours to operate and 27 steps to follow to kill that little bug

Forget this, fire this, whenever technology changes, i find many people who do not want to learn new technology fall in this trap, they do not want to show the people new simple solution but wanted to tie up them into their big-dinosaur solution. Sure way to go out of business in coming years.

4. Complex-Complex Scenario:

Complex Problem and Complex Solution Well that is interesting case. Many time I have thought this a good option to consider, but then one thing dawned on me , that come on, we can take this case to case 2, if we spend more energy and bring more creativity to the table, we can take this complex problem to Case:2 where we have SIMPLE solution to this complex problem instead of complex one.

Again I have crossed this one too from my goals list. I think for a short life like us humans we have much to do on first two cases / quadrants. Specially for the entrepreneurs as I said in the start of this post, let’s stop fooling ourselves and forget about complex products and solutions.

Let’s bring more simplicity to our customers’ lives and I am sure they are going to give us more money to bring more simplicity. Let’s declare to ourselves that we do not have to prove anything to anyone that how genius we are!

We just want to add value to our customers’ lives by solving their simple and complex problems and bringing SIMPLE solutions to them. This is the only thing which will justify our title of Entrepreneurship. What you say my friend? Let me know your thoughts in the following section of comments.

Best Regards,

Mohsin Rasool

The post Fire the Complex, Go for Simple appeared first on WarMarks.

(Originally was posted at MohsinRasool.com)

How many times it has happened that we were doing something on our computer and time just ran out. We had to quit, no problem we resume it soon. And then time passes… We login to our pc back next day and we have forgot the most important thing we were almost 92.74% done!

If there would be some reminder who can remind us just the moment we are at computer just browsing and having leisure time. One thing is to have Coach always remind you of your goals and actions.

But I use this little trick and it works, a startup file in my pc, a simple Notepad file. Well I have a simple notepad file in my pc, listing little todo I am working on. And I have dragged the short-cut to this file in Startup folder of my PC.

Now everytime I login to my PC, this file opens up automatically and I know exactly what needs to be done. Yeah often time i find myself skipping it but it really keep coming up and finally things in that file are taken care and new things are added.

Today just i logged in to my pc, and this file just jumped in saying: Write Blog post! So here i am writing with the tip I am using quite effectively.

Ok what is the take away for you? You can create a simple Notepad or text file in your pc or mac, and make it open on Start-up. And keep adding stuff in it you want to get done and onward it is self reminding system. Everytime you login to your pc first thing you will see is this file asking you to finish up at least one item in this list of todos.

How to setup a file to open in Start-Up you can google for insturctions for the operating system you are using in your computer. For most common operating system it is as following:

1. First of all create Notepad file say Today.txt

2. Now create a Short-cut for this, by right clicking on it and click Send to > Desktop (create short-cut)

3. Now you will have new shortcut link at your desktop to this newly created file. You can drag or copy/paste this icon to Startup folder of your computer so Windows always opens up this file when your computer starts.

Where is startup folder in your computer?

Well in XP it is here:

C:Documents and Settings%USERNAME%Start MenuProgramsStartup

Just replace %USERNAME% with your user name on your pc.

For Vista it is here:

Click the “Start” button, Click “All Programs” then right click the “Startup” folder. And click OPEN

For Window 7 it is here:

same as above for VISTA.

let me know if this works for you or not?

Regards,

Mohsin

The post Start up File Helps Your Startup Business appeared first on WarMarks.

You are welcome to check out our specially crafted service offers for your businesses’ growth in 2011:

• Social Media Marketing Package – Facebook Pro Fan Page, Twitter Custom Background, Youtube Professional custom Channel

• Custom HOT Niche WordPress Blogsite – For Your Business in Your Chosen Niche in 48 Hours Maximum for a One time Low Price

• Outsourcing to WarMarks Team – WordPress, Joomla, Memberships site or any technical stuff you want to outsource. Check this out.

The post WarMarks Special Offers appeared first on WarMarks.