Tuesday, November 27, 2012

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but What’s Beyond That?

Blogging is becoming more and more popular activity in the Internet space, you can even count almost every fourth person is a blogger and every fifth is a photographer:) Everyone got something, or at least lots of people think that way. Some guys are limited with a particular social platform making it the main mouthpiece of ideas, interests and life events. Very often this “stage” is a Facebook. It allows users through post to tell about their lives/hobbies, share experiences and expertise in various fields, discuss interesting and exciting topics or famous people.

The style of these publications can be really different starting from light and funny up to dry and instructive. There are lots of opportunities to create and maintain your own blog that’s not based on a specific social platform. A blog can easily be created with the help of web services like: Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, etc. However, lots of bloggers prefer joining ranks of professionals and amateurs in various fields publishing their printed works (“User Content”) on brand media platforms like HuffPo, Forbes, Yahoo! Contributor Network, Social Media Today and etc.

But still there is a great amount of people who are used to air their words through custom made blogs. WordPress gives this opportunity to everyone willing.

WordPress platform
enables user to construct very quickly and less painfully fully-functional blogs using WordPress Themes, the number of which is really terrifying. In case you don’t want to spend money on a third-party theme you can create your own unique design, using one of those theme builders you can find on the net. Most amateurs do not need huge Internet portals or special Web-based systems. Relying on WordPress engine, you can create blog while drinking a cup of coffee.

One of major advantages of WordPress is its ability to use a huge variety of different add-ons and plug-ins that enhance the uniqueness and functionality, inner beauty and usability of your website, which in turn makes promotion of your resource much easier. WordPress engine is also marked with fairly simple administration process. Even a noob person can easily carry out the publication of articles and change blog settings. BTW WordPress – it’s an absolutely free content management system, which means that you can easily download it from the official website.

Let’s have a closer look at those things that will twist maximum power out of WordPress.

Code Snippets

So let’s see, you have a fully functional blog, with several plugins installed. But your heart speaks to you that it’s not enough, that’s why you can make use of one more “option” WordPress offers and it’s called code snippets. Up to this moment you’ve ran across functions.php file, now it’s time to get back to it.


This can include PHP code such as filters or functions to change the display of your WordPress install. But these codes are special because they can affect places even outside of your core theme files! All you need to do is create this file inside your theme directory and then copy over these codes inside the PHP < ?php ? > brackets.

Through-out the web you can find hundreds of websites where snippets are stored for example WPFunctionMe. WPFunction.Me lets you quickly build all the functionality you need for your next WordPress project.

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

Mobile Blogging

They say that the first blog entry created from a “smartphone” was made in 2000 by some Tom Wilmer. But not everyone agrees with this gossip, some argue convincingly that the pioneer’s name is Steve Mann and he posted photos on the web using his portable.

Today you can see how the whole world going mobile and number of Internet users who are used to this phones, tablets, etc., steadily grows. More and more people prefer mobile devices. As such, those who are engaged in blogging are interested in adequate rendering of their blogs.

Some of us like to overload blog design, and these activities can be a real head-ache for mobile users. “Heavy” blogs are loaded slowly, user gets frustrated and leaves.

These plug-ins will significantly increase the download speed of your blog and will properly display your blog on any mobile gadget. Also you will increase in load time.

But besides advantages, there are some disadvantages. First, the mobile blog is easy enough, in terms of design that’s why some promotional materials simply will not show, this will reduce your income. In general, this is only the basic pros and cons, but keep in mind that it is necessary to be engaged in mobile blogging, as this is an extremely huge market and it constantly progresses.

To make use of mobile blogging you can use following plugins:

WordPress Mobile Pack

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

The WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site. It has a mobile switcher, themes, widgets, and mobile admin panel.

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WP Mobile Detector

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

By simply installing the WP Mobile Detector premium plugin, you will instantly have a powerful mobile website. Use the included interactive theme editor to customize your new mobile website by changing colors, uploading a logo, customizing the menu, adding mobile ads, and much more!

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WPtouch

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website for mobile devices, complete with ajax loading articles and smooth effects when viewed from popular mobile web browsing devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, Android mobile phones, BlackBerry OS6+ mobile devices, and more!

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Apps for WP

Every blogger needs to have an app that will help him publish blog entries via his iOS or Android powered device. Here are several apps for these platforms that are extremely easy to use, what’s more they include all basic functionalities for running WP blog on the go!

WordPress for Android

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

With WordPress for Android app you can write new posts, edit content, manage comments on your blog.

WordPress for iOS

WordPress as Blogging Platform, but Whats Beyond That?

With WordPress for iOS, you can moderate comments, create or edit posts and pages, view stats, and add images or videos with ease. All you need is a WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted WordPress.org site running 3.1 or higher.

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Here is a video for you that will answer more questions about WordPress as a blogging platform, check it out!

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That’s what we wanted to say about WordPress as a blogging platform. Now let’s dedicate some more lines to what’s WordPress beyond being “blogger’s paradise”.

Online shops have flooded the web, going shopping on foot is no longer mainstream, now you can open your laptop, google thing you need and you’ll get hundreds of online stores in search results. And you know what, much of them will be WordPress-based. That’s because website owners need some light and easily-manageable solutions to have their goodies sold. Figuring out Drupal-based store and one ran by WordPress is like trying to disassemble space shuttle and then get it into one piece. WordPress based stores are as simple as the blogs, that’s why you don’t need to rack you brains over things you’re not really good at (reading Drupal code, eww).

April 2011 got noted with a significant event, there appeared a lightweight plugin that easily turns any WordPress based website into fully functional online store. Since then, there have been created thousands of Jigoshop themes for styling web stores.

Jigoshop is a WordPress eCommerce plugin that’s developed by professionals with years of experience delivering online shops for global brands. Previously you had to install it to experience all that awesome features available, after that you had to adjust your future online shop. This process is not that hard though it takes your time and efforts. Using Jigoshop plugin you can create multiple product types, apply detailed attributes making sure that your customers will find any product with just a couple of clicks. Inside the dashboard you get sortable sales graphs, incoming order/review notifications together with stats on your stores performance.

Blue host company released a series of video tutorials on how to use WordPress to the maximum.

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Gradually WordPress steps away from being blogging platform only, though it will remain one of the most popular ever. What do you think, what WordPress will turn into in future? How will it evolve? Is it going to be same simple but powerful or its developers will follow the path of complication, thus making it Drupal compeer? What do you think?

Got something to say? Drop a line at the bottom.

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Source : blog[dot]templatemonster[dot]com

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