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.

10 Useful WordPress Add-ons for Firefox

Almost in all our blog posts we need to add external links, images, etc. to enhance the quality of our posts. The traditional method to do that is to first write the complete article and then search for the relevant data on the Internet and, when found, insert it in the blog post. But you can save a lot of time by using the Zemanta WordPress add-on. If Zemanta is installed and you are writing an article in WordPress then the add-on displays relevant articles, links and images that match with your text and you can choose which ones to insert right from the WordPress dashboard. Zemanta will also display the attribution details of the image. Obviously this is a great help in your blogging journey.

This is just one example on how add-ons can help you in blogging. If you want more of these fantastic add-ons then you have come to the right place. In this article I present you  10 useful WordPress add-ons for Firefox.

The add-ons collected below have different purposes. For example Deepest Sender, can be used to post to your WordPress website even when you are on a different page. This can be of a great help when,  you are reading an article on the Internet and you think you can build upon the idea presented there in a better way. All you have to do is to hit Ctrl+ and you will be in your WordPress dashboard and can start typing.

So scroll down and find which one suits you best.

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30 Inspirational Non-Profit WordPress Themes 2013

Amongst all the civilized life of shopping malls and movie lexes we must not forget that there are parts in this world whose inhabitants don’t get even the basic necessities of life like food and water. Innocents get killed everyday in calamities like bomb blasts, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Children are out of schools as their parents cannot pay for their education. People die even from minor curable diseases merely because they didn’t have the money to see a doctor. The situation is far more serious than what I can describe in a few sentences. The statement that I wish to make is that we should care about others and should donate generously to non-profit organizations that are trying to help those in need.

Perhaps the following collection of 30 WordPress themes, designed especially for the non-profits may make a small contribution in making the world a better place.

Of course different niches have different site design requirements. A social networking site should look and behave in a completely different way than what a gaming site should look like. Special care and attention was devoted to the following templates so that they craft out into a good and clean look, which is what is required for non-profit organizations.

Some of the templates below are without charge but due to certain restrictions we can’t just giveaway everything absolutely free, although we would have loved to. Hence we have charged a nominal amount in the remaining templates. Scroll down and take a look.

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Black Friday & Cyber Monday WordPress Deals 2012

WordPress: Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals 2012

We like to keep our pulse on the latest and greatest in the world of WordPress, and we wanted to bring you a list of some of the biggest and best WordPress deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2012.

Bluehost: You can join Bluehost hosting at the bargain basement price of $3.95/month starting Friday November 23, 2012 – Monday November 26, 2012. Get the Bluehost Promo here.

HostGator: Get 50% off your hosting order on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This includes shared, VPS, and even dedicated accounts. Get domains for $1.95 (this is the lowest price HostGator has ever had on domains). Get the HostGator Promo here.

Themify: Starting now until November 26th, 2012, you can use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY to get 40% off on all of our Themify WordPress Themes including the Club membership! This is a great opportunity to join their developer club at a fantastic price. You can get all 33 themes (Photoshop mockup files included) for just $53.40 (normally $89). That is $1.62 per theme! If you are an existing member, this is a good time to buy more themes or upgrade to the Club membership. Get the Themify Promo here.

ManageWP: Subscribe to a premium subscription and you’ll receive a 30% life-time discount for any ManageWP package or configuration, which will remain active for as long as you remain a customer, even if you upgrade or downgrade in the future! Get the ManageWP Promo here.

Theme Junkie: This year, Theme Junkie is offering a promo code that allows you to get 40% off with the promo code BLACK. This brings the lifetime membership to $119.40, the 1-year membership to $41.40, the 6-month membership to $29.40, and the single purchase (which lets you get 3 Themes for the price of 1) to $23.40. Get the Theme Junkie Promo here.

Obox-Design: Obox has put together two bundles for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion this year. The Classic Bundle gives you 4 overhauled classic Themes + 1 Plugin for just $25. The Super Premium Bundle gives you 6 amazing Premium Themes + 2 Plugins for $50 (an incredible savings of $610). Get the Obox Design Promo here.

Solostream: Get 20% off your Solostream purchase with promo code: 5084BE. The promotion is valid through Monday November 26, 2012. Get the Solostream Promo here.

WordPress, Really? 5 Amazing WordPress Sites to Inspire You

Below are some amazing not so typical WordPress websites to inspire you to think out of the box:

1. Yoke by Jay Bigford and Alister Wynn

“Having the power to manage the content of your site and update it when you want gives you valuable autonomy and gives us more time with our colouring pens. We can provide simple elegant WordPress solutions to fully fledged e-commerce sites to get your online shop selling.” – co-founders Jay Bigford and Alister Wynn (eCommerce, Open Source, WordPress)

2. Girl with a Camera by Matt Brett

“This was my first venture into HTML5, and I took the opportunity to deck out Ashley’s photoblog with all sorts of CSS3 frills as well. One of the main challenges, was deciding on a colour scheme. Since each photo set could potentially have a dominant colour throughout, I came up with the idea of having the background colour change for each post (set).” – Matt Brett

3. Crack by DCOED

“We have created a fully responsive masonry-style website for Crack Magazine, designed by Fiasco. Mobile and tablet users can now enjoy a comfortable reading experience that does CRACK’s editorial and imagery justice.” – DCOED (WordPress, CSS3, HTML, Responsive Design)

4. Grind by Magic+Might and Co:Collective

“We leverage WordPress to manage content and templating for the site. WordPress is also used to manage the content for our members-area site, and our blog, the Grindist,” explains Josh Campbell. “We picked WordPress for a number of reasons. First we wanted a stable, feature rich platform but without a large investment, that would be able to grow with our needs.

“We also wanted a clean management interface for our writers and editors so they can focus on creating great content.” There is a fantastic community surrounding WordPress and the guys ?at Grind feel that this reflects on the kind of collaborative community that they are all about.”

5. Rodesk by Laurens Boex and Jasper van Orden

“WordPress is the best CMS for sites such as Rodesk, we’ve developed with it for quite some time,” explains Boex. “With a ton of plugins and extensions and a worldwide community of supportive developers it’s easy to work with and integrate quickly.”

The Business of WordPress

The root word of ecosystem is “eco,” a derivative of the Greek term for house or home, and “system,” is a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole. A closer look at nature reveals a highly integrated system of living and nonliving components capable of sustaining life. Each species, element, and energy source plays a crucial part in maintaining balance on our living planet. In the same token, there exists multiple layers of ecosystems within social and business structures that are interactive and interdependent upon each other. We have witnessed in the last few years a social networking phenomenon where our world has become more and more interconnected digitally and business environments are turning into digital ecosystems.

Caught in the midst of all this is a thriving WordPress community comprised of WordPress professionals, authors, developers, theme providers, marketplace vendors, web hosts, and other commercial entities that have evolved and conglomerated into this dynamic WordPress ecosystem we have today. These key players have all been instrumental in empowering the world’s most popular Content Management System (CMS) today, fueling this digital economy with WordPress powered websites, themes, plugins, and web consultancy services all around the globe.

One of the exciting events to look forward to in the WordPress scene is the upcoming Pressnomics 2012 conference in November. Pressnomics 2012 – The Economics of WordPress is the first of its kind gathering of the brightest minds in the commercial WordPress ecosystem represented by 7+ countries around the globe. The goal is to foster dialog, share and discuss business best practices, teach a mix of WordPress and general business strategy, et cetera, to help propel those who are active WordPress professionals even further as well as inspire those who are contemplating a future in the WordPress ecosystem. Among the list of speakers are familiar names in the WordPress community: Collis Ta’eed, Pete Davies, Alex King, Cory Miller, to name a few.

There is still much to learn and more room to grow in this realm as the world becomes smaller and smaller because of the recent technological advances especially in the mobile tech industry. The crest of this WordPress wave has yet to reach its peak and even as the wave rises so do the rest of the little boats floating along with it.

For more details about Pressnomics 2012, visit their website at pressnomics.com.

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.

WordPress Theme Marketplaces 2013: Trends

A good way to spot emerging trends in the WordPress themes market would be to look at the behaviour of theme marketplaces like Themeforest, Mojo Themes and other boutique WordPress marketplaces. Here are some of our observations of what is currently ongoing and our take on what is to be:

Themeforest – The WordPress Marketplace Giant

With about 2500 themes in its inventory, Themeforest is probably the largest theme marketplace there is. Collis Ta’eed, founder of Envato which runs Themeforest, observed that the main trends on theme sales for 2012 have been: responsive, e-commerce and app themes (themes that have app like functionalities).

These trends are indeed reflective of trends observed by developers in the industry. With mobile platforms taking their place as the new mainstream it is just fitting to find responsive themes becoming more of a necessity rather than a trend.

The introduction of Jigoshop and WooCommerce plugins are making people realize the viability of turning WordPress themes into robust e-commerce solutions.

Specialized app themes will remain and will continue to flourish because of the specific niches they service. These niche WordPress app themes will continue to evolve as the themes market matures.

Mojo-themes and other WordPress Boutique shops

A look at the top 10 sellers on Mojo Themes similarly shows 4/10 themes are already responsive indicating that the trend towards mobile friendly themes is indeed a phenomenon. Their top selling theme is an e-commerce theme validating the emergence of WordPress as an e-commerce solution. The rest of the themes are multi-purpose or portfolio themes which target professionals, small or medium scale businesses and corporations.

Boutique theme shops and clubs such as StudioPress, Thematic, Press75, iThemes, WooThemes, Templatic and many others continue to thrive with their own loyal following.

Outlook for 2013

Major and minor WordPress theme marketplace vendors are experiencing the trends towards responsive themes and e-commerce. The question is how will these trends influence these marketplaces as they prepare for 2013 and beyond?

It is our opinion that responsive themes will continue to be in high demand as the transition to mobile platforms is still ongoing. About 6.1B mobile subscriptions are still yet to convert to internet ready smartphone subscriptions. The recent introduction of WooCommerce and Jigoshop indicates that the market is also only in the early stages of adaptation and mainstreaming of this technology. 2013 will be a year for continued acceptance as more sites exploit the democratization of e-commerce with these two plugins. Perhaps more eCommerce plugins will be introduced into the market and WordPress users will have more options and solutions to choose from.With a big year ahead for responsive themes and e-commerce, developers now have to bid for the best products to serve these markets as well as look at what lies ahead in 2014.

As ThemeForest continues its commitment to evolve and improve its review standards on what WordPress themes are made available in the marketplace we can expect higher quality WordPress themes that will satisfy even the strictest Code gurus out there. The renewed commitment to become more involved in the WordPress community is also a welcome move that will surely benefit us all.

12 Useful Twitter Hacks and Snippets For WordPress

Everybody loves twittering these days. Don’t believe me? The statistics should make you a believer. As of 2012, Twitter had 500 million active users! The 140 character post social media platform is ruling the world, second only to Facebook. Considering the huge number of Twitter users, people are using Twitter options like plugins and add-ons on more and more websites.

These plugins and add-ons can have varied uses and applications. For example, some commenting systems like Discus allow you to post a comment with your Twitter picture being displayed in the comment as your Avatar. This helps you not to upload your display picture again and again whenever you want to comment and hence saves a lot of time. See entry #3 below for more on this.

Or maybe you want your blog posts’ links to become tiny so that your readers may share them on Twitter. As we all know…Twitter has a 140 character limit. Under such a constraint it is not a wise practice to share large URLs on Twitter as you will want some room to type out some text relevant to the link in your tweets to tell your followers about what you are sharing. Option #7 below enables you to achieve this.

There are 10 other options below that combine the technology of WordPress and Twitter to produce great results. Check them out by scrolling down.

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