Resources

Tools for WordPress Webmasters

There are many tools and techniques that can help to improve a website, some paid and some free. I have listed here the resources that I personally use and can recommend. I have provided a brief introduction to each one, but for full details of what the product or service can provide I urge you to visit their website and find out for yourself.

WordPress Hosting

There are two market leaders in the field of hosting WordPress websites: Hostgator and Bluehost. They both offer superb service, expert technical support and reliable uptime. I use both of these companies and I can recommend either of them. The reason they are ideal for WordPress websites is that they both offer automatic scripts for installing WordPress which saves a LOT of time and which means that you can be up and running within minutes of signing up. What are the differences between the two companies?

Bluehost offers one basic plan which enables you to host an unlimited number of websites on one account. Hosting fees are payable in advance for a minimum of one year.

Hostgator offers more than one plan and has more flexible payment options, which is why I recommend them to beginners. You can sign up to host just one website on the ‘Hatchling’ plan and pay monthly if you like. Their ‘Baby’ plan is equivalent to the Bluehost plan in that you can have unlimited domains all on the one account. In all their plans, the longer you sign up for the cheaper it gets.

If you can’t make up your mind, Hostgator has offered my readers a discount using coupon code WORDPRESS2GO which is equivalent to a month’s free hosting!

WordPress Themes

In addition to the default theme of Twenty Eleven, WordPress users can choose from hundreds and hundreds of free themes in a wide variety of colors and formats.  But if you want a more exclusive look to your website you can use a premium theme from one of the many companies specializing in WordPress designs.

One of the best-known companies is Elegant Themes. For a small annual fee you get access to their whole portfolio of premium themes, including new ones which are released during the year. They have many happy customers and an awesome reputation for high quality designs. This website uses one of their themes and I can highly recommend them.

Woo Themes is another premium themes service, this time with a range of theme packages and pricing options. They have some truly exciting designs to suit a wide range of applications and they offer a good range of options and plugins to maximise their themes’ functionality.

The powerful Thesis Theme by DIYThemes is the mother and daddy of all premium themes. It is actually a framework designed to enable you to customise each element of your theme and make your WordPress website unique. It requires no coding knowledge and delivers precision results via its revolutionary layout generator.

Header Graphics

If you want to design your own website header to upload to a theme I can recommend XHeader, a service which provides an easy-to-use graphical interface which combines text and graphics. There is a good free service where you can use your own graphics or there is a paid service which gives you access to a huge library of images to suit your website.

Artisteer

And, if you want to design your WordPress theme yourself, you can use Artisteer, a point and click theme generator that lets you design totally unique themes that look and behave like professionally designed themes. You don’t need any particular technical or artistic skills to use it. I have used Artisteer to design unique websites for many of my clients and I can report that it is easy (and fun!) to design your own WordPress theme.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is all about presenting your website to the search engines (Google in particular) so that your indexed site will attract your target audience. There is no point in having a whizz-bang website with every latest dingle-dangle if no-one every visits it. And, even if you do have thousands of visitors a day, it is a waste of everyone’s time and resources if they are not the right sort of visitors.

SEO begins with keyword research.  You need to know what phrase or question your ideal visitor would type into Google Search when they are looking for a website like yours. And you need to know what your competition is. How many websites are there already in existence that Google will list in preference to your website and what keywords are they optimized for?

Google Keyword Tool

The first place to go for SEO is the free keyword tool provided by Google. This will give you a general idea of the words and phrases that people use when looking for a site like yours. And it will provide evidence of the level of competition that your keywords will encounter.

And one tool that I have heard good reports about is SEOpressor, a WordPress plugin that takes care of analysing on-page SEO in your site. This plugin looks intelligently at your content and either tweaks your site itself or makes suggestions about how you can improve your internal SEO. SEOpressor has a large customer base and an impressive reputation for effective SEO.