7 Bestselling Unusual Themes for WordPress

There are some things that are truly unique and outstanding that they can’t help but stand out and rise to the top of the heap. Here are some of the best selling WordPress themes that owe their popularity to a unique niche that they fill.

X Theme

Dubbed as Themeforest’s most popular new product, this theme presents itself as the ultimate WordPress theme. The claim’s validity is backed by real world results and real time feedback from its satisfied users who have experienced the endless customization options available to its owners. While it offers a lot to those who want to dabble into the “nuts and bolts” of the theme, X also offers strong solutions for those who just want to get something up and running on their sites in no time. The theme has 3 predefined stacks that can be easily tweaked to give newbies and non-techies a “made by a professional” look for their websites. X offers features that have set the standard and raised the bar as far as WordPress themes go. Not surprising considering the experts who have given their inputs in the development of the theme not to mention the developer’s open ears to customer feedback. It is also not surprising that many already consider this as the last WordPress theme they will ever need.

Directory

This unique theme allows you to easily set-up an online directory portal listing categorized items of any type. You can have a directory of shops, websites, companies and more. This may be accomplished conveniently with from a frontend like admin panel giving you a more user friendly set-up experience. Visitors will find Directory a convenient reference resource as it delivers information in a concise, convenient manner. Entries are displayed as pins on a google map of the locale of interest. Alternatively visitors may search from a search box or browse off a category of entries. Directory comes with a lot of ad spaces so you can cash in on the traffic your content generates. This theme is integrated with Paypal so administering payments from advertisers and listed establishments isn’t a hassle. With more than 6000 satisfied users, Directory is considered the Best selling directory portal theme on themeforest.

Gymbase

This theme has been around for quite a while but remains a bestseller in its own right because of its special qualities. First and foremost it’s a Gym theme – unique and not like the rest. It addresses a viable niche market – the health and fitness market – where gym owners can easily create a website that can service players in this industry. Some of the useful features the theme has include: a timetable plugin included that allows members and visitors to plan the classes they will attend, Gymbase also displays the pricing for classes, features that allow updates for its members regarding upcoming classes, an easy to use admin panel equipped with a color picker to help you create your own custom look, and everything else you need to run a health and fitness website.

Academy

Designed to be a learning management solution for educational or training institutions to maximize the power and reach of the internet, Academy enables you to sell and share knowledge online. This theme gives you the platform to deliver classes and lessons to interested parties. Academy allows you to upload media content and documents as well as to encode quizzes and tests to check for your subscribers competency. You are also able to check the progress of your students, monitor the courses they take, as well as, administer payments. This theme is integrated with WooCommerce. Academy is an invaluable tool especially today, as more and more people turn to e-learning as a means of acquiring new skills and education.

Fundify

Fundify is the first WordPress theme designed for crowdfunding. This enables you to have a websites in the likes of Indiegogo and Kickstarter where parties can setup campaigns to raise funds for causes they support. Fundify allows you to setup campaigns for a fixed amount of money where supporters are only billed if the minimum target amount of the campaign is reached. Alternatively, the theme also enables flexible campaigns where whatever amount pledged is collected. Fundify also allows you to administer rewards to those who support your causes. The theme integrates with Paypal and easy digital downloads which makes it convenient for supporters to finance causes and advocacies that appeal to them.

Knowhow

With knowledge and information being an important commodity nowadays, it is not surprising to find a knowledge base theme in this list. What makes Knowhow special is that it enables you to setup your own knowledge base with ease and convenience while maintaining the privacy and control of information not available on public Wikis. You can list your content in the form of an FAQ. Knowhow also allows users to search by question or by topic which makes searching more convenient. Not your ordinary WordPress theme.

Jobify

Globalization and the internet have made the job market more competitive. Jobseekers have a need to display their resumes online so they can get the best jobs available. In a similar fashion, employers need to get the best talent available. Jobify is a job exchange solution used by top companies like dropbox to acquire the best talent globally. Employers can subscribe to your site for posting privileges. Jobseekers can post their resumes in response to job postings. This theme integrates with WooCommerce and Contact forms plugins to give you the best in payment and input management.


WordPress News You Can Use: September 2013


Ecommere – Tap Into What People Are Really Buying?

THave you ever had this brilliant idea of a product that you just knew was going to sell like hotcakes but then flopped in the end? Have you ever considered tapping into the enormous income potential the Internet offers in terms of ecommerce but just didn’t know where to start?

Here are some of the many important insights shared by Ezra Firestone, ecommerce, SEO, and online media buying expert, and successful internet marketer of various products, real estate and training courses online, during the recently held Traffic and Conversion Summit held early 2013. Ezra’s vast experience and knowledge of landing page psychology, ecommerce user behavior and social media marketing has led to the success of many of Ezra’s ecommerce and online businesses.

According to Ezra,

“Someone is looking for a product. You show it to them. You don’t actually have to persuade them to buy it. They’re already looking for it. They buy it from you and then you ship it to them and they have something in their hands that they got from you.

It’s just like it’s such a good business model and it just felt really good and I could tell my wife’s parents about it and so I was just really happy when I stumbled across ecommerce and I kind of just went full-fledged into it and my put my 10,000 hours in because I had found a business model that really resonated with me.”

Why eCommerce and why sell physical products:

Ezra shares:

  • There are more buyers out there for physical products vs. info products
  • Ecommerce has highest value per visitor
  • First visit transaction – people buy the first time they come
  • Higher conversion rates
  • Higher perceived barrier to entry – less competition in niche
  • All work upfront. Finding marketing is hardest part. Ongoing work is traffic + testing
  • Easier to sell to customers
  • Ecommerce is a baby – only 8% of retail sales are done online and it’s growing 15% every year

Tips on how to address the most common concerns people have about getting into ecommerce:

  • Finding markets and evaluating whether to go into a specific market or not
  • Find developers of top carts who have done redesigns.
  • Find markets that lend themselves to return customers. ex. gift market, gift baskets, etc.
  • Find markets that lend themselves to multiple item orders where people are going to order more than just one thing at a time.
  • Find markets that look for products that are difficult to buy locally and meet their needs
  • Seasonal business that have a high season where people are willing to just buy, buy, buy
  • Try to choose products that aren’t super heavy to lessen shipping problems
  • There are great opportunities in markets that are geared towards women

2 Ways to make more money on your eCommerce site:

Get more traffic

  • The most important page on your store is your product page – the page that is displaying the products that you’re selling. Study how you can get maximum value for your product page.

Increase your conversions

  • What value are you bringing to the products? What value are you bringing to the marketplace beyond just listing the products?
  • Do you have a video talking about this product and showing its features and benefits?
  • Do you have a really rich description that talks all about not just the features of the product? Most people are talking only about the features. Who cares about the features? What people care about are the benefits of the product.
  • What value are you adding to the market? Are there education guides, informational guides on the products. You can add to the market beyond just listing the products is huge for conversion.
  • Do you have a frequently asked questions video? Do you have a video on your contact us page introducing yourself?
  • Do you have a shipping information video right there on your product page? Everybody wants to know what your shipping policies are.

According to Ezra,

“Create a relationship with your customers. I think that adding value to the marketplace is by far the highest leverage conversion lever that you have. Second is congruency. I see this is so big and so many people don’t do this. When someone clicks Add to Cart, it takes them to a page that looks nothing like the website they were just on. It looks nothing like the store that they were just on. You’ve got to have your shopping cart process look congruent to your website.

Otherwise you will just significant decreases in conversion. When people implement this, they often see a doubling in their conversion rates and then the third thing and I think what everyone knows about, it’s super hot right now, is video. Product videos convert. Sixty-four percent of the people who come to your website will watch that product video for an average of two minutes. Product pages that have videos on them convert at 164 percent higher on average. They work. You have to be doing video.”

Doing a video blog and blasting it out there on social media and getting it out in front of your customers that way and building a relationship and building engagement. What that does for us is it creates repeat sales. It creates community. It creates repeat business. It’s the third part of the puzzle. You need to be visible so you need people to know you exist. Then you need to convert them into buyers. That’s conversion.

More next week.


Interesting WordPress Themes April 2013

Academy (Online Education)

Turn your website into a functioning e-learning solution with Academy Learning Management Theme from ThemeForest. This premium wordpress theme takes the elegant form of an ecommerce site and tweaks it to meet the needs of the e-learning market. Share, sell and promote your knowledge online effectively. This powerful theme includes features and functions to help you manage course offerings, rate their popularity, and publish subscription plans aimed to reach your target market. This theme includes a powerful options panel that allows you to create courses and lessons.This theme provides awesome features for creating online courses, such as extended user profiles, rating system, questions system, file attachments, embedding self-hosted media, tracking course progress, WooCommerce integration and more.

Responsive Knowledge Base & FAQ WordPress Theme

For the business or website that exists to help people make the most of their computing experience, Responsive Knowledge Base is the perfect theme to use. This premium WordPress theme was built for support providers as a first line response solution for clients seeking answers to their problems, technical or otherwise. This theme acts as a knowledge base or depository where visitors can search your site for solutions to their issues. Users can browse through Q and A pages, articles and similar material or do a live search (jQuery TypeAhead powered) to help them identify their problems and find solutions.

Rescue – Animal Shelter Theme with Petfinder Support

Animal lovers unite! Rescue Premium WordPress Theme is a theme built with a specific purpose – to get animals adopted. Outstanding pet-related WordPress themes are few and far between that’s why Rescue is a special theme pet lovers can find a home in. What makes it more unique is the built in Petfinder API support that allows you to easily sync your pets from your Petfinder profile to your WordPress install. Petfinder is an online, searchable database of animals who need homes. It is also a directory of more than 13,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

GymBoom (Fitness)

If you are in the fitness business or if you own a gym, a health club, or a wellness center, check out GymBoom, a responsive fitness theme with a built in dynamic calendar to manage training schedules for those serious health buffs and fitness addicts. This responsive theme also sports a unique diagonal slider created with the slider creation tool. It’s got useful shortcodes to post lists, highlight text, create multiple columns and more. You also get two homepage option styles: one with a slider and a page styles option. Gymboom includes a google map shortcode integrated in the widgetized footer section.


WordPress Themes Should Be More Expensive: HERE’S WHY

If this post has caught your eye, you are probably a current WordPress user, author, developer, designer, or if not, perhaps a potential one. The subject of pricing is a tricky topic that some prefer to ignore or avoid – the proverbial elephant in the room. Why, because this is a hot topic indeed.

How should WordPress Themes be priced anyway?

For the purpose of this article, let’s start off by saying that a WordPress theme is a downloadable digital product as compared to an actual physical product that can be shipped. When you purchase a WordPress theme you do not receive any physical items at all but instead, you are given permission or license to download an electronic/ digital product (the theme), via email or a provided link, and use it according to the author/developer’s specific TOU (Terms of Use).

Traditionally, the actual cost of producing/manufacturing tangible products can be arrived at by adding the cost of materials used and the labor paid to produce these products to arrive at the total cost of goods. Others may add on overhead costs but strictly speaking it’s simply materials +labor. For services rendered, actual cost can be arrived at based on a rate applied to the number of man hours spent (time) on a project or the professional fee charged by the person (expert) rendering the service.

However,

Digital products require an approach to pricing that differs from that used for physical products. Most digital products have common characteristics which includes:

  • high fixed cost to produce the first unit, but low marginal costs to produce subsequent units
  • quality is difficult to judge without actually experiencing the product

The most common pricing method that can be used for digital products is to use a licensing approach.
(source: Digital Economy: Impacts, Influences, and Challenges by Harbhajan S. Kehal, Varinder P. Singh)

The Digital Products Cost Equation

The cost structure of digital products = high fixed costs that are sunk, and tending towards zero marginal costs.

Fixed costs refer to the costs associated with a product, that are fixed over a number of units. Thus regardless of the number of units produced and sold, the fixed costs remain the same. With digital products, much of the fixed costs are actually sunk costs, and therefore non-recoverable costs. A large portion of the costs associated with digital products are fixed, and sunk, and not variable costs, which are more typical of traditional manufactured goods.

Sunk costs refer to costs that are non-recoverable fixed costs. Digital products usually have significant sunk costs (when compared to other fixed costs) in the form of research & development and intellectual property (copyright, patents etc.) for the product. If the product is not successful in the marketplace, the costs associated with the the product development (intellectual property, labor) cannot be recovered. Thus when making pricing decisions about the product in the future, one should not factor in the sunk costs. If a product’s cost structure is made up of sunk costs (no other fixed costs) and zero marginal costs then any price above zero will contribute to the company’s bottom line. Other fixed costs, that are not sunk (rent, depreciation on equipment etc.) should be factored in when making pricing decisions in the future, since these are ongoing costs to the company. The company will continue to have to pay these costs in the future, this is not the case for sunk costs.

Marginal costs are the costs associated with creating an additional unit of product. This is similar to variable costs, which are the costs that increase directly with the increase in production (unlike fixed costs). Digital products typically have very low marginal costs, when compared with traditional goods (materials, labor etc.) and if the product is distributed via a web site, then the marginal costs can be zero. The consumer is bearing the distribution costs, and there are no packaging costs. This is why companies are able to market their products for free on their web sites, in order to try to entice further purchases at a later time (in the hopes of creating lock-in perhaps).
(source: http://www.udel.edu/alex/dictionary.html#d)

What costs go into the creation of a WordPress theme anyway?

How many of you enjoy BTS (Behind the scenes) footages of upcoming movies? BTS clips give you a sneak peek of how these movies were filmed and the production process these films have gone through. Similarly, if we could do a BTS video of how a WordPress theme is created, can you imagine the amount of work that goes into creating a theme? Can you identify which activities fall under fixed costs, sunk costs, or marginal costs? Can you tell how many working hours have gone into its creation? Can you measure the education, experience, competence and expertise of the author/developer?

When you purchase a WordPress theme from a reputable WordPress author/developer you typically get a long list of features like the one below. But, have you ever associated any cost to these features?

1. Theme Features and Functionalities

  • Fancy Sliders
    • Simple jQuery Slider
    • Slider Pro ($25)
    • jQuery Carousel Evolution ($10)
    • TouchCarousel ($21)
    • LayerSlider (Parallax Slider) ($15)
    • Paradigm Slider ($15)
    • Slider Evolution ($18)
    • Nivo Slider WordPress Plugin ($19)
    • Pinwheel Slider ($9)
    • Responsive Ken Burns Slider WordPress Plugin ($18)
  • Plugins/plugin compatibility ($4-$50)
    • eCommerce/shopping cart plugins
    • Audio/Video/Images/Slideshows/Widgets/Portfolio
    • SEO, Social Media
  • Multiple page templates (more than basic Blog and Archives templates)
  • Graphic Design Elements
    • Icons
    • Fonts
    • Stock Photos
    • Multimedia
  • Mobile device compatibility and display features
  • Styling Short codes (buttons, columns, tables, boxes, dropdowns, drop caps, etc.)
  • Custom admin panel and customization features

2. Admin/Marketing/Support Costs

  • Business license/ applicable taxes (cost = based on your geo location)
  • Developer’s fees
  • Hosting costs
  • Theme preview designs
  • Copywriting
  • Analytics – Marketplace sharing
  • Support staff, Forum maintenance, Live chat support
  • Documentation, PSD/XML/Demo content files
  • Video tutorials, screencasts and video hosting costs
  • Setup, installation of WordPress, theme, plugins (time spent)

3. Labor: Professional fees and software (personal or outsourced)

  • Man hours to create and develop theme
    • (design and coding)
    • design concept | creative process (R&D, selection and decision making: colors, fonts, graphics, icons
    • testing, browser compatibility
  • Software: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, etc – ($1500 up)
  • Training, Seminars, Education

Did you know that creating custom themes for clients range from around $1500 up to $50000 depending on the project. Looking at the list above, and seeing everything that goes into creating a theme, would you say that WordPress themes are underpriced? overpriced? or fair enough?

Let’s ask the next question. What’s important to you? How much do you value your business? your brand? yourself?

The answers to these questions will more or less determine how much you are willing to pay anything actually – whether it’s paying for your website, for your family needs, or even for your own personal growth.

How important are these WordPress designer’s traits to you?

  • Competence – work portfolio
    Web development requires many skills: Proficiency in Photoshop and design skills, CSS and HTML skills, copywriting and SEO skills, programming skills, with subsets of skills across a vast array of programming languages.
    If you’re comparing costs between developers, make sure it’s apples to apples – you should know what you’re getting in terms of feature set and functionality. Then take into consideration the experience and portfolio of the individual or company you’re looking at hiring, the attention you can expect to receive and the general rapport between you and a potential developer. Even if the cost is perfect and everything else seems right on paper, you may want to think twice about hiring someone if you don’t feel that somewhat ethereal sense of connection and comfort.
  • Experience – good working knowledge, coding skills
    A less experienced person may charge less because he doesn’t have the full-blown skill of a seasoned professional. It’s always a risk when you’re working with freelancers who build websites “on the side”, self-taught “learn web design in 21 days” types and people who are just starting out in the industry.
  • Number of years in practice
    Experienced developers can charge you more because they bring the weight of their expertise to bear on your project. An experienced developer may be able to do your site in half the time and charge twice as much, but remember you’re dealing with value and not cost.

Sometimes you have to make your decision, not based on cost, but based on value – which company do you want to work with? Which one has the most experience, the best portfolio, the most responsive people? A higher cost should not disqualify a company if that’s the one you’re confident can get the job done.

Pricing is not a magic, secret recipe. It’s just the cost of doing business, plus the value of expertise, plus the time needed to complete a project in a particular set of circumstances with a particular set of requirements. (reference: Websearchsocial.com)

At $39 you can already get 80 premium WordPress themes, no sweat. It’s about the same price, more or less, of a plugin or a slider, isn’t it? Do you agree that these themes should be worth a whole lot more than that?

Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear your thoughts.


20 Combat Photography Examples which will Blow your Mind

The word combat stands for fight against or Oppose in battle, Combat photography carries the real mood, its not a real planned Photography. Its nothing but capturing the stunning live moments of soldiers during live action. Here I have collected 20 Combat photography examples, Enjoy…..

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25 Basic Adobe Lightroom Tutorials for Learners

The phrase “photo editing” has become synonymous with “Adobe Photoshop”. Photoshop is the industry leader when it comes to editing images. But one drawback of Photoshop is that a designer needs a good amount of coaching before he can use Photoshop properly. A coaching center near my house promises to teach Photoshop in 2 months to the layman. Not everybody will be willing to invest two months to learn a photo editing software, especially when one does not intend to choose photo designing as a career.

Understanding this problem, Adobe has designed another software named Adobe Lightroom to help even the general public to easily edit images. To quote Adobe’s website – “Lightroom includes all the tools you need for most digital photography tasks in one intuitive solution. Lightroom helps photographers work faster and more efficiently with one image, a set of images, or a large image library.”

When I stated that Lightroom can be used for the general public I don’t mean that one can begin using it merely after installing it. Obviously you need to have some guidance to use the software properly. Therefore, in this blog post, I have collected a list of 25 excellent tutorials on how to use Lightroom properly and get desired results.

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On Becoming a WordPress Professional

How does one become a certified WordPress professional indeed? Earning your stripes as a WordPress professional does not come from a course you enroll in and study for X number of years in your regular university. Neither do you get a degree or a diploma for the numerous WordPress conferences, seminars or webinars you attend. In truth, becoming a WordPress professional is not age bound, race bound, location bound, language bound or educational background bound. One key ingredient is the willingness to learn, make mistakes, and learn all over again.

Many current WordPress professionals and practitioners did not start out as such. Perhaps some have come out from the corporate world and taken a radical sabbatical from their daily grind while others probably started out in their dorm room or garage. Maybe others began tinkering with WordPress while they were in their teens while some are going through a second wind in their careers. The Internet has this built-in democratic leveling quality where anyone can make it regardless. Since the year is about to end, maybe some of you are considering a quiet change or transition into something else – a new career path of sorts. You don’t necessarily have to be a developer or a designer to be a WordPress professional. Here are a few options for you to think of if you are considering a shift into the exciting world of WordPress:

Developer

Web development is the back-end of the website, the programming and interactions on the pages. A web developer focuses on how a site works and how the customers get things done on it. Good web developers know how to program CGI and scripts like PHP. They understand about how web forms work and can keep a site running effectively.A good web developer will have excellent programming skills and be able to use a range of programming tools. He or she will be able to provide solutions to give a website the functions required. Web developers will use a range of programming tools such as ASP, Javascript, XML and SQL. The focus is more on the backend and the functionality of the site.

Designer (Themes)

Web design determines the look and feel of a website. It covers the layout, navigation and colors of a website. Web design is more concerned with aesthetics and user experience than functions. A web designer will make a website easy to use and fit for purpose. A good web designer will have graphic design skills and a good understanding of marketing. He or she will know how to grab the attention of visitors and encourage them to explore a website. A web designer is concerned with how a site looks and how the customers interact with it. Good web designers know how to put together the principles of design to create a site that looks great. They also understand about usability and how to create a site that customers want to navigate around in.

Developer (Plugins and Widgets)

Plug-ins and widgets are a great way to enhance the functionality of your site by adding in extra features. These can be placed anywhere inside your template by function hooks. You can start creating and eventually selling stand-alone plugins that add value to existing or new themes.

Support Professional

One of the most common deficiencies in the WordPress themes marketplace is the lack of or absence of theme support. You can start a career by being part of a support team that is responsible for providing after-sales support to customers who have purchased specific themes.

Consultant/Marketing

Providing consultancy services, networking, and hooking up clients with designers and developers is another option to becoming a WordPress Professional. Many times, a lot of great designers do poorly sales-wise because of a lack of marketing skills. You can offer your services to acts as a marketing consultant to WordPress designers and developers who have little or no time to do the marketing themselves.

Blogger/ Theme Description Writer

With the explosion of WordPress themes in the marketplace, there is very little difference between one theme to the next and a lot of them look like clones. You can offer your services as a writer to create a marketing hook for designers and developers who would rather write code than a marketing spiel.

Documentation Writer

Providing appropriate and useful detailed documentation that is easy to understand even by WordPress beginners is another option. Transcribing the installation and setting up process in easy to follow steps adds value to the theme and a well written piece will mean less resources spent on support.

WordPress Trainor

If you have acquired a certain level of proficiency in WordPress and you are confident enough about what you know, you can also try going into teaching and training.

These are just a few ideas to think of as you consider starting or shifting to a career as a WordPress professional.


The Beginner’s Guide to Learn Almost Everything About WordPress

So you’ve been blogging for quite sometime now and you’ve been posting random personal and business stuff on one of those free hosted sites. Everything has been going on well so far until one day this free hosted site suddenly announces that it is shutting down and all your content including all your contacts, posts and thousands of images will no longer be available after a certain date. Horrors! You now scramble to download every last post you’ve made and backup all your data before the clock strikes twelve or else everything disappears forever. Have you ever had that happen to you?

And then you stumbled upon WordPress. The thing is you know very little about it and so you start googling about it which is also probably why you ended up here and you are now reading this post. You want to know more.

Below are some useful resources to help jumpstart your WordPress journey. These resources are mainly aimed towards the novice or beginner level so WordPress savvy professionals might find some of these a bit elementary. Nevertheless, these references can someday come in handy whether you are a beginner or a true blue WordPress guru. We would also like to ask our readers to join the conversation by leaving a comment, any helpful suggestions or additional resources to add to our list.

For those who are about to begin their WordPress journey, check out these resources we have compiled to help you get started:

Websites to Bookmark

  • WordPress.com – A blog web hosting service (free) powered by the open source WordPress software. A good starting point on how to learn the how WordPress actually works at the backend and also to familiarize yourself with running a WordPress site. You can always upgrade to Premium status once you know your way.
  • wpmu.org – The number one source for WordPress news, tips, plugins, and theme reviews.
  • WPBeginner.com – A WordPress resource site providing quality tips, tricks, hacks and other resources for the WordPress community.
  • Speckyboy.com – Web design magazine that offers tutorials, time-saving techniques, inspiration, and useful resources for the web including WordPress.
  • wp.tutsplus.com – A site dedicated to teaching people how to use WordPress, develop widgets, plugins and themes.

Books to Read

Channels/Videos to Watch

  • WordPress.tv – A visual resource for all things WordPress including tutorials, updates, and the latest news.
  • WordCamp.tv – Presentations, highlights, and behind-the-scenes look at WordCamps around the world.
  • Lynda.com – Online courses and tutorials on anything WordPress.
  • StudioPress.tv – Step by step video tutorials for the Genesis Framework for WordPress.
  • Youtube WordPress tutorials

Authors/Developers to Follow

Straight from the Source

  • WordPress.org – the ultimate source for all things WordPress.

There are so many resources out there and so many tutorials that can help you get started. These are just a few to help point you in the right direction.