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GPL Licensing and WordPress for Normal People

The average WordPress user probably starts off with a simple and very basic desire to set up his/her own website. There are many platforms out there but the platform that most users end up with or choose to use is WordPress. These users either attempt to set up their own website on their own and learn as they go while others hire someone to do it for them. Not many are familiar with the legal or technical aspects surrounding the use of this software but it does not remove the responsibility of finding out the software’s terms, conditions, and proper use. Let’s familiarize ourselves with some of these technical terms. Some of these terms are quoted verbatim to remain true to its original intent.

What is WordPress anyway?

WordPress is a free and open source publishing software and content management system (CMS) with a focus on ease of use, speed and a great user experience. “WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL.

What does free and open source mean?

Open source doesn’t just mean that you can view the source code — it has political and philosophical implications as well. Open source, or “Free Software”, means you are free to modify and redistribute the source code under certain conditions. Free doesn’t refer to the price, it refers to freedom. The difference between the two meanings of free is often characterized as “Free as in speech vs. free as in beer.” The GPL is free as in speech.

“Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. You may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

GPL or General Public License according to WordPress terms and conditions:

The GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software – to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation’s software & to any other program whose authors commit to using it.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it. For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

The reasons for WordPress releasing under the GPL are both practical and idealistic. WordPress was born of the very freedom mentioned earlier. The predecessor to the WordPress project, b2/cafelog, was also an open source project.
(source: WordPress.org/gpl)

What does this mean to the average Joe?

According the GNU.org and its Free Software Definition, you have the freedom:

to run the software for any purpose or any kind of job
to study how the software works, change it and improve it
to redistribute copies in a manner that does not conflict with central freedoms
to redistribute copies of your modified version to benefit the whole community

Split Licenses, the GPL, the Marketplace and the WordPress Foundation

The GPL and WordPress conflict is not new. There have been several occasions before when conflicts of interest have risen between theme providers (ex. Chris Pearson and Matt Mullenweg) and the WordPress Foundation’s interpretation of how the GPL license is applied. The most recent debacle involving Jake Caputo, ThemeForest, and WordPress (resulting in Caputo’s banning from speaking at WordCamps) surfaced earlier this year. Envato and WordPress have been at odds because of the alleged violations of the GPL by the former. Envato claims to be GPL compliant while at the same time been implementing dual-license or split licensing particularly on WordPress themes and plugin. What’s wrong with that?

Here’s a simple analogy to illustrate this.

Choosing a publishing platform is like choosing a car brand. You have several choices: Chevy, Cadillac, a Benz, or a Toyota. Whichever you choose, the technology to create it, the patents, the materials used, and all the basic components like the framework, the engine, the wheels, and everything that makes it run to take you anywhere you want are already built into its system, subject to the manufacturer’s warranty. When it transfers to you, the car manufacturers have no control with what you do with it – use it for business, donate, repaint, etc.

As far as publishing platforms are concerned, you have WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla as the vehicle of your content. In the case of WordPress, the HTML code, the PHP and everything under hood that makes it run are built in and are 100% GPL. When it is transferred to your possession, free or otherwise, you have the freedom to modify, change, sell, copy, distribute, and do whatever you want under the GPL license provided that it retains all those freedoms that you enjoyed when you first got it.

The conflict between Envato and WordPress arose because of the licensing policies of the former, that were not, in the eyes of WordPress, GPL compliant. As far as WordPress is concerned, if your theme is “riding” on the WordPress framework and cannot run independently apart from it, then it inherits and is subject to all the GPL attributes as well.

On the other hand, Envato’s split license states that:

Envato’s marketplace license for themes or plugins sold on the marketplaces covers all the components of these items, except for the specific components covered by the GPL. This is why it’s called a split license: because different license terms can cover individual components that make up a single item.
The PHP component and integrated HTML are covered by the GPL. The rest of the components created by the author (such as the CSS, images, graphics, design, photos, etc) are covered by the marketplace license.

As explained earlier, our license also allows for specific components of an item, which inherit the GPL from the platform they’re built for, to be licensed under the GPL. Using this split license complies with the GPL’s requirements, while still providing protection of the author’s copyright on assets they’ve created.

There are valid points on both sides. Proprietary licensing violates the spirit of the GPL while on the other hand, piracy on the creative output of theme authors are also valid concerns. Conflicts arise to reveal gray areas that need to be dealt with or addressed. Striking a balance between GPL compliance and protecting the creative or intellectual output of theme authors is a tough juggling act. We believe the conversation will still continue.

Update as of February 2013

Envato did a survey about licensing among their users and published the results specifically relating to GPL. They have announced that a 100% GPL option is now available for authors on ThemeForest. Jake Caputo has also posted that he has again been invited to participate in WordCamps.

Useful Articles to Read:

Why WordPress Themes are Derivative of WordPress
WordPress, GPL, and Copyright Case Law
Matt Mullenweg – Q&A – WordPress & GPL
Themes are GPL too

Using a WordPress Page as Your Home Page

This has been tested to work in WordPress 2.X and above. This article was last updated in March, 2013.

Welcome to WordPress Wednesday! Each week we’ll be answering as many of your questions about the blogging platform WordPress as possible. If you have questions you’d like answered that aren’t covered here, feel free to drop them in the comment form below. Covering topics such as themes, plugins, popular tutorials, current WordPress promotion codes, and more – be sure to jump in with your questions and comments.

QUESTION: I’d like to use something other than my recent posts as my home page. Is that possible within WordPress?

It’s not only possible it’s relatively easy. The first step is to create a page to serve as your new home page. For the purpose of this example, we’ll call it “My New Home Page.”

In your WP control panel, select the Pages tab.
Click on Add New.
Give the page a title – something like, “HOMEPAGE”
Create the content for your home page just as you would a blog post.
Click the Publish button.

While you’re still in the Write Page subpanel, create a second page:

Title this one “RECENT POSTS” (or whatever you want to call the page that your recent posts appear on).
You don’t need to have any Page Content for this one.
Click the Publish button.

Now you’re ready tell WP to use your new page as the home page:

In the Settings panel on the left navigation select Reading.
At the top of the Reading Options subpanel you’ll see:
To change the front page to your new home page, select “A static page” for Front page displays.
Select “HOMEPAGE” from the Front page drop down menu.
Finally, be sure to tell WP which page to use to display your recent posts. From the Posts page menu select the “Recent Posts” page you created earlier. As you can see in the picture below, our posts page has not been set yet.
Click Save Changes.

View your site. “HOMEPAGE” should now be your home page. You also do not need to put the title in all caps. This was simply done for our example.

Note: Any Page content you have entered for the page you designate as your Posts page will be overwritten by the listing of your recent posts. The content will still be there, it simply won’t show while you have that particular page set as the Post page.

If you have a question you’d like me to address or (better yet) if you have a WordPress tip, trick or tutorial you’d like to share let us know!

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35 Creative and Hilarious Examples Of Well Known Caricatures which will make you Laugh Definitely

When I asked a friend of mine, who is a model and has a perfect shaped body, about how to stay fit she said that I must exercise a lot and eat less and also try to remain happy all the time. This view is shared by many other nutritionists and gym coaches too. Humor can play an integral role in keeping us fit and healthy. Humor’s role is not merely entertainment. It is also a medicine for keeping us fit.

Wikipedia defines a caricature to be a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person, animal or object to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. Almost all newspapers and magazines have professional cartoonists to design quality cartoons and/or caricatures for their publication. Cartoons/caricatures are a powerful and sarcastic tool to comment upon any social or political situation. The controversy that arises every now and then over cartoons is proof of the fact that cartoons command an equal impact as, say, news articles.

Below I present you with 35 hilarious caricatures of well known public figures. All the images have been twisted intentionally to make them more interesting and hilarious. So scroll down and enjoy.

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Pandas and Penguins – SEOlogy According to Google

You either love them or hate them. Who would have thought that these cute and cuddly creatures would be the object of so much debate and controversy and even dread in the land of SEO. Because of Google’s recent and ongoing algorithm updates, it has given the gentle panda and the prim penguin new personas. These powerful updates have sent SEO heads spinning and scrambling to regain lost rankings, search engine visibility, web traffic and revenue. But what’s the buzz really all about? Let’s go back to the source.

The Goal and Philosophy Behind the Panda / Penguin Updates

According to Google,

Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.

We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.

The goal of many of our ranking changes is to help searchers find sites that provide a great user experience and fulfill their information needs. We also want the “good guys” making great sites for users, not just algorithms, to see their effort rewarded. To that end we’ve launched Panda changes that successfully returned higher-quality sites in search results. And earlier this year we launched a page layout algorithm that reduces rankings for sites that don’t make much content available “above the fold.”

What animal is that?

The Panda Update – It’s all about your content

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. (Note: Panda Update 24 – Jan 2013)

The Penguin Update – It’s all about your credibility

This update is an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. (Note: Penguin Update 3 – Oct 2012)

What should you avoid?

Unnatural links – spammy links
Using techniques outside of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Thin, duplicate content
Overuse and abuse of keywords (keyword density)
Spelling, stylistic, or factual errors
Sloppy, overspun, unhelpful, poor quality or nonsensical content
Dubious link building and black hat SEO strategies
Over optimization of content, internal links, backlinks, and anchor texts

What’s the Penalty? the Reward?

Of course nothing escapes the eyes of big brother, Google, and people who have been gaming the system have been severely hit. On the other hand, legitimate quality sites and small businesses have not been spared either.

It only takes a few poor quality, or duplicate content, pages to hold down traffic on an otherwise solid site. Google recommends either removing those pages, blocking them from being indexed by Google, or re-writing them.

However, Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer (that’s the head of the Webspam team for Google, warns that re-writing duplicate content so that it is original may not be enough to recover from Panda — the re-writes must be of sufficient high quality. High quality content brings “additional value” to the web. Content that is general, non-specific, and not substantially different from what is already out there should not be expected to rank well: “Those other sites are not bringing additional value. While they’re not duplicates they bring nothing new to the table.”

Theoretically, these updates reward well-designed and carefully thought of websites that provide an optimal user experience with high rankings. Failing to follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and best practices for content creation, site design, and link development will definitely affect a site’s ranking and SEO chances. Conventional SEO tactics will no longer cut it. Efforts should be directed towards using clean Code, publishing quality Content, and establishing site Credibility instead of black hat or grey hat techniques. The marriage of white hat search engine optimization techniques, exceptional web design, coupled with effective marketing practices won’t hurt any company wanting to be on Google’s good side. But more Google updates are still anticipated so the results remains to be seen.

Explore Your WordPress Settings for WP Beginners

Getting to know your WordPress Settings is like learning to drive a car. You don’t necessarily have to know how everything works under the hood but you do have to get to know all the knobs, dials, buttons, and controls that will make it start up and run before you can get anywhere. Exploring the different WordPress Settings and functions on the left hand side of your admin panel will help you direct and control the way you want to run your WordPress website and how far you can take it.

If you are a WordPress beginner eager to post and publish content you need to get to know the Settings Administration menu in the Admin Panel.

Here are the default options you will find when you click on the Settings menu.

General – This is the default screen and controls the most basic configuration settings for your site such as:

Site Title – the name of your site or blog
Tagline – a catch phrase or short description of your site
WordPress Address – the full url of the directory containing your WordPress core application
Site Address – the address you want people to use when searching for your website
Email address – the email address where you want communication sent
Membership (if you want to open registration to other users)
New User Default Role – the default status or position of new users
Timezone – choose the timezone of your location
Date format
Time Format
Week Starts on – choose your preferred day to start your week

Writing – control the way you write and publish your posts

how you add new posts
adjust the post box size
set your post format and how you want graphics like emoticons are displayed
set your default post category
set how you want “Press this”
set remote posting permissions – via email or mobile

Reading – this module allows you to:

set how the front page displays your posts
set a static page for the front page and the posts page
set how many blog pages to display
set how many posts to display on syndication feeds
show full text or excerpts of blog posts
set search engine visibility
preset email acknowledgments and replies to recent followers and commenters

Discussion – this module allows you to define

default article notification settings like pingbacks and trackbacks
moderate and manage comments, permissions, approval, blacklists
email notifications for comments
manage user avatars

Media – this module allows you to set by default how images, documents and other media files included in a post will be processed and organized. You can also preset the image dimensions (thumbnail, medium, large) in this section although you can still do further edit while adding a new post.

Privacy – this option has been moved to the Reading module in WordPress 3.5 under Search Engine Visibility.

Permalinks – are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to refer to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. Because others may link to your individual postings, the URL to that article shouldn’t change. Permalinks are intended to be permanent (valid for a long time). There are several third party plugins you can also install to customize the structure of your permalink to optimize your SEO visibility.

This list gets longer once you install new plugins or other third party functions included in other WordPress themes you choose to install. Once you have decided on how you want your site to function you can define and select all your parameters, save your Settings and enjoy publishing your content the way you want and as much as you want.

WooThemes Shuts Down Their Affiliate Program

It’s true. Disappointing but unfortunately true. For what reason? Here’s what WooThemes posted on their website:

We’re sorry to say that we are discontinuing our referral program because of lack of traction for the program. Access to signup and login has been removed for the time being. We will be in touch with all existing affiliates prior to discontinuing the program with further details. Thank you for your patience in this regard.

In a newsletter addressed to Woo affiliates, Adii wrote:

I’m in the unfortunate position to let you know that we will be closing our referral program on Friday, 8 February 2013. In the last couple of months, the costs to maintain the referral program have exceeded the benefit of keeping it around. We have also experienced so much fraud & abuse on the referral program, which means it is currently losing money for us.

This seemingly drastic decision has left hundreds and thousands of affiliates hanging in mid-air wondering what hit them. For long-time affiliates, all the years of plowing and link building efforts have gone down the drain and all for naught. For whatever internal reasons WooThemes might have for shutting down their affiliate program, the “lack of traction” reason for public consumption seems rather lame and lacking in substance.

Many of their affiliates, especially those who have been around for quite some time, understand business cycles, seasonality, and the normal ups and downs of business operations. To say that it was mainly because of prevalent fraud and abuse of the referral program that has caused them to lose money more than generate income puts a shadow on their management policies and practices. Even if it were so, legitimate affiliates should not be punished for that. In the broader picture of all that has happened, this incident also casts a longer shadow and raises doubts even on the way they handle their WordPress themes program.

Of course, everyone is entitled to benefit of the doubt but the way that WooThemes has been handling it so far has been wanting. What is to happen to all those who have already put in the work and are waiting to receive their commissions? The work is already done and the service has been rendered but what remuneration can these affiliates expect? Not to mention all the admin work and backend hassle. Affiliates are still sending traffic to WooThemes through their affiliate links but now they are simply not getting paid. Online business relationships are based heavily on trust and unless the issues at hand are addressed head on, the consequences could cost WooThemes more than the loss they incurred from their affiliate program. We hope not.

WordPress Admin Panel

Navigating your way around in the backend area of your WordPress website need not be complicated even if you are a beginner. The WordPress Admin Panel area found in the backend is a powerful and flexible area where you can manage your website content and other WordPress functions. It has continually evolved since 2003 and with the help of and contributions from the WordPress community has improved and become more and more beautiful and user friendly.

The Administration Panel provides access to the control features of your WordPress installation. Each Administration Panel is presented in sections:

The Header

The top portion of all Panels, the header, is featured in dark shading. The header shows the name of your blog as a link to your blog’s main page, comments awaiting moderation, +New to add new posts, pages, media, or users, a Search Engines Blocked message if you Privacy settings block search engines, a favorites menu, and links to your profile (shown as your user name), and Log Out. Just below the top shaded area are two hanging tabs, Screen Options and contextual Help, that can be clicked to expand them.

The Main Navigation

On the left side of the screen is the main navigation menu detailing each of the administrative functions you can perform. Two expand/collapse arrows just below the Dashboard and Comments allow the navigation menu to collapse to a set of icons, or expand (fly-out) to show an icon and description for each major administrative function. Within each major function, such as Posts, a pull-down arrow is presented upon hovering mouse hovers over the title area. A click of that arrow expands the menu to display each of the sub-menu choices. Clicking that arrow again collapses the sub-menu.

The Work Area

The large area in the middle of the screen is the work area. It is here where specific information relating to a particular navigation choice, such as adding a new post, is presented and collected.

The Footer

Finally, in the footer, at the bottom of each Administration Panel in dark shading, are links to WordPress, Documentation, and Feedback. In addition, the version of WordPress you have installed is shown. Just below the menu tab section, if your version is NOT the latest version, you will see the message An updated version of WordPress is available. Please update now. Click on the provided link to navigate to the Updates SubPanel.

Below is a list of the submenu items you will find in your default WordPress Admin Panel main navigation menu. Some of them may or may not be included depending on the WordPress version you have installed.

Dashboard

The Dashboard tells you about recent activity both at your site and in the WordPress community at large and provide access to updating WordPress, plugins, and themes.

WordPress Updates

This sub panel gives you an easy method to update WordPress, plugins, and themes. Note not all hosts will allow the automatic update process to work successfully and will require you to manually upgrade by following the Upgrading WordPress instructions.

Posts

This sub panel is where you can publish writings, compositions, discussions, discourses, musings, and, yes, even rantings, of a blog owner and contributors. Here you can write new Posts, create new Categories, new Tags, and new Custom Fields. In addition, any Media (pictures, video, recordings, files) can be uploaded and inserted into the Posts.

Media

This sub panel allows you to upload new media to later use with posts and pages. A Flash Uploader is provided and the ability to use a Browser Uploader is supplied if the Flash Uploader does not work.

Pages

A good example of a Page is the information contained in About or Contact Pages. A Page should not be confused with the time-oriented objects called Posts, nor should a WordPress Page be confused with the word page referring to any web page or HTML document on the Web. In this Sub Panel you can select the Page to edit or delete. Multiple Pages can be selected for deletion and for editing. As with Posts, a powerful bulk edit tool allows certain fields to be edited for a whole group of Pages. A handy in-line edit tool, called Quick Edit, allows you to update many fields for an individual Page. Various search and filtering options allow you to find the Pages you want to edit or delete.

Comments/Reader Feedbacks

Comments are a feature of blogs which allow readers to respond to Posts. In this sub panel you can edit and delete as well as mark comments as spam. Comments that are awaiting moderation can be marked as approved or previously approved comments can be unapproved. Multiple comments can be selected and approved, marked as spam, unapproved, or deleted. A section at the top of the Comments SubPanel displays the number of comments awaiting moderation and the number of approved comments. A search box allows you to find specific comments.

Appearance

From the Presentation Administration Panel you can control how the content of your blog is displayed. WordPress allows you to easily style your site by either installing and activating new Themes or changing existing Themes. This sub panel includes customization controls for Themes, Widgets, Menus, Background, Header, and Theme Editor.

Plugins

Plugins allow you to add new features to your WordPress blog that don’t come standard with the default installation. This sub panel allows you to view the plugins you’ve downloaded, add new plugins, modify the plugins and choose which plugins you want activated on your site.

Users

Every WordPress site probably has at least two users: the admin, the account initially set up by WordPress, and the user account you, as the author/owner of the blog. This sub panel allows you to set up all of the user accounts you need, change user information, assign roles, or delete users.

Tools

WordPress Tools provide you the ability to speed up WordPress for your local machine, import content from other sources, export your content, or to upgrade your WordPress software to a new release. This includes the Import, Export, and Press This functions.

Settings

The Settings Administration Panel contains all of the settings that define your website as a whole: settings which determine how your site behaves, how you interact with your site, and how the rest of the world interacts with your site. This sub panel includes control settings for: General (basic configuration settings), Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, Privacy, and Permalinks
(source: WordPress codex)

The backend or Admin Panel may vary from theme to theme. The look and appearance may vary depending on the customizations and tweaks done by authors and developers. Nevertheless, no matter how Admin Panel is tweaked, these basic functions are standard and generally remain the same no matter what WordPress theme you install.

The WordPress Dashboard for WP Beginners

According to the WordPress,

The Dashboard is a tool to quickly access the most used areas of your blog’s Administration and to provide glimpses into other areas of the WordPress community. The Dashboard Screen presents information in blocks called modules. WordPress delivers eight modules: Right Now, Recent Comments, Incoming Links, Plugins,QuickPress, Recent Drafts, WordPress Blog, and Other WordPress News.

The first screen you see when you log into the administration area of your blog is your Dashboard. The main idea of the dashboard is to give you a place where you can get an at-a-glance overview of what’s happening with your blog. You can catch up on news, view your draft posts, see who’s linking to you or how popular your content’s been, quickly put out a no-frills post, or check out and moderate your latest comments.

The Dashboard acts like a cockpit with all the controls and switches you need to help your website function the way you want it to. This might seem basic to those who have been using WordPress for quite some time now but there are still quite a few out there who are still struggling to figure out how to find their way through the backend, scared to death lest they “break” their website beyond repair.

Getting to know your WordPress Dashboard

If you are a WordPress beginner, the Admin Section or backend can be quite intimidating at first, but once you become familiar with the different sections, everything will make sense. What do you see after you successfully login to your WordPress website? Here’s what you can expect.

The Dashboard contains the following default modules. These modules can be dragged, dropped, repositioned, or toggled on and off according to your preferences.

Right Now

This module, at its basic, gives you a concise overview of your what’s going on with your site. It contains information and stats about your content (posts, pages, categories, tags), discussions (approved, pending, or spam comments), the name of your WordPress theme and the number of active widgets you are using, users online, and the WordPress version installed. More information can be included in this module depending on any additional plugins you install. You can also customize your Privacy Settings if you wish to keep your site private.

QuickPress

This module is the best and quickest way you can create a simple post. You can add a title, content, media files, custom forms, tags, and save your post as a draft or publish immediately. It’s a great tool for capturing and publishing ideas without going through the “Add New Post” module.

Recent Drafts

This module displays saved drafts of posts and pages that you are working on which still needs to be edited or published.

Incoming Links

This module reveals the urls of other websites that has linked to your WordPress website. You may or may not find this module useful as it does not always include all the websites that link to you. You can also configure incoming links you allow by editing the RSS feed information ( url, number of items to display, item date).

What’s Hot

This module displays recent posts from the official WordPress Blog, Other WordPress News, Popular or Latest Posts from around WordPress. This keeps you updated on the latest WordPress related news such as version announcements, security notices, and general WordPress community posts and updates.

Plugins

This module lists the Most Popular, Newest, and Recently Updated plugins available. If you are adventurous and you want to experiment with how different plugins work on your site, this is the perfect resource to find plugins to play with.

Site Stats

This module is probably the one you need to pay most attention to. It shows you a graph of your website’s activities – views, visitors, traffic – per day, week, or month. It’s a great tool to find out how many visits you get, what your top posts are, top searches on your website, and overall statistics to help you improve, maintain, and optimize your site even further.

Knowing the functions of each of these modules will help you learn how to use them to manage your website. Take some time to go through each one of these modules and familiarize yourself with each of them. You’ll soon be mastering all of them and it’ll be instinctive later on.

Finding and Establishing your own Niche WordPress “Channel”

The recently held digital marketing conference Traffic and Conversion Summit 2013 was an eye opener to many. Many of the topics discussed were cutting edge and one of the main buzz words that came out of the conference was “channelization”.

The Channelization of Everything

What do we mean when we say “channelization”? Here’s an interesting way to look at it.

Rivers come in lots of different shapes and sizes, but they all have some things in common. All rivers and streams start at some high point. The high point can be a mountain, hill or other elevated area. Water from some source like a spring, snowmelt or a lake starts at this high point and begins to flow down to lower points. As the water flows down, it may pick up more water from other small streams, springs or or from rain or snow melt. These streams may slowly join together to form a larger stream or river. Small rivers and streams may join together to become larger rivers. Eventually all this water from rivers and streams will run into the ocean or an inland body of water like a lake.

River engineering is the process of planned human intervention in the course, characteristics or flow of a river with the intention of producing some defined benefit. People have intervened in the natural course and behaviour of rivers since before recorded history – to manage the water resources, to protect against flooding or to make passage along or across rivers easier.

Channelization of a stream may be undertaken for several reasons. One is to make a stream more suitable for navigation or for navigation by larger vessels with deep draughts. Another is to restrict water to a certain area of a stream’s natural bottom lands so that the bulk of such lands can be made available for agriculture. A third reason is flood control, with the idea of giving a stream a sufficiently large and deep channel so that flooding beyond those limits will be minimal or nonexistent, at least on a routine basis.
(source: Wikipedia)

In today’s digital market, how then, does this concept apply to finding or even creating your own niche WordPress stream or channel?

Let’s take a look:

Product distribution (or place) is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries. The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing, and promotion. Distribution of products takes place by means of channels. Channels are sets of interdependent organisations (called intermediaries) involved in making the product available for consumption.

Today’s digital economy is shifting towards “channelization” – the way products are made available for public consumption. Because of the way business is evolving, what worked years ago may no longer work today. What was effective yesterday may already be obsolete today. Interestingly enough, starting your own business and distributing your own products has never been easier. However, the challenge of independent business owners or new players in the eCommerce arena is being discovered and being able to establish their own loyal market base. Creating your own stream or river from scratch is like pushing a boulder uphill everyday. This is where the shifting or the channelization occurs.

Today, the traditional trader can start off his business by taking advantage of these established “high starting points of distribution” like Amazon or Ebay, plug in to their channel, utilize their structure and distribution network to launch or introduce a new product or project.These powerful distribution channels have significant traffic and extensive networking connections to give your business a boost in the right direction. Once the channel is strong enough and the customer base is established, the business owner can spin off and establish his own business base according to his own terms. On the other hand, DIY-ers and boutique type businesses can create their own online stores in niche channels like Etsy. Other types of businesses can use other distribution channels such as KickStarter, AngelList, CafePress or Barkbox. How to get started? All it takes is to register.

What about digital goods such as WordPress Themes, Plugins and other types of digital products? New players in the WordPress themes business have found opportunities to introduce themselves and pool their work portfolio through established WordPress marketplaces or “channels” like ThemeForest with very little startup capital. The key, really, is to draw a loyal crowd or “traffic”, establish connections, and service them so that their conversion as long-term customers or customers for life will be cemented.

Bottomline, in today’s digital economy, having a good product is great, knowing your distribution channels is better, but having a good product + distributing thru the right channels + creating the media (email lists of customers) = the best starting point for you to build your own niche business and your brand.

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