On April 24th 2012 Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team at Google announced that there will be another algorithm change to the Google search engine.This latest update has been named “Penguin” and the main objective of the change is to specifically target webspam.To quote Matt’s words:"The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content."If your site's search engine traffic went down significantly since that date then your site is most likely being penalized by Google for not following the quality guideline.A lot of you may remember that the last time a high profile and significant algorithm change occurred was around February 2011 and that was given the moniker of “Panda”. Back then the Panda algorithm tweaks were aimed at penalizing sites with poor quality content - especially content associated with content farms like article directories.Although the Penguin update is believed to chiefly be aimed at webspam, a lot of the general rules of thumb regarding what makes a quality website in the eyes of Google still apply.The main ...

Another official major release of WordPress is due out very soon. WordPress 3.4 is scheduled to be officially unleashed to the public sometime in May 2012.How time flies... it seems almost like yesterday that we were talking about the release of 3.3.As you probably remember, the release of 3.3 contained a lot of major changes and tweaks but in comparison, WordPress 3.4 will be a substantially modest update.Currently WordPress 3.4 beta 3 is available to anyone who wishes to take a sneak peak and perform their own testing, but as for all beta versions, it is highly advised that you play with it on a test site and not slap it directly onto your live sites, because it is after all only a “beta” release.Before we go into the new things you can expect in WP3.4 I wanted to talk about something which you won’t find in the 3.4 release; and that is the new and highly anticipated native WordPress theme called Twenty Twelve.The Twenty Twelve theme was planned to be introduced in 3.4 early in the development stage but has now been pulled from this release and will make its debut in 3.5.So now let’s look at some of ...

The internet offers a huge amount of benefits to those who wish to take the time to build a business or offer something creative to share with the rest of the world.The qualities about online businesses which attracts the most people is the flexibility of lifestyle and the prospect of making a very good living because of the huge global exposure and reach which you potentially have by being connected online.Unfortunately due to this wide potential market base there will always be those who will try to exploit this in ways considered to be unethical. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise because unethical business practices happen all the time and have been happening since man first started to trade in ancient times.The only difference is, now with the interconnectedness of the world wide web and the huge internet technological advancements, the unethical side of business and marketing has been magnified.For instance before the internet really started to take off in the late nineties, people were hardly ever confronted with ads, spam or junk mail about “acai berries” or “penis enlargement”. I mean when was the last time you got a flyer in your regular letterbox about “Adding 3 ...

Every now and then we get users who find themselves in a tough situation where they need to deactivate a plugin but they can't log into the WordPress admin dashboard. Peter created a video tutorial covering 2 techniques that you can use to deactivate your WordPress plugins witout having to log into your WP admin.These 2 techniques will come in handy if you ever find yourself in one of the following situations:Installed a WordPress plugin and you get a white/blank screen when you log into your WP Admin Edited some PHP code from the plugin or theme editor and there was an error so you can't access the WP Admin anymore Installed a WordPress securiy plugin that locked you out and you can't get inside WP AdminDeactivate a WordPress plugin via PHPMyAdmin or FTPAlternatively, you can watch this videos on YouTube by going to the following link:Deactivate WordPress Plugins without Logging Into WP AdminHopefully this video will save the day if you ever find yourself in this situation.

Whether you are trying to convert targeted visitors to buyers, or curious web surfers to “FREE” members, the recipe you will usually need to follow when constructing your landing page is the same: that is, you must strive to have an unambiguous and clear call to action on your web page.Some Internet Marketers like to use the term “primary call to action” to refer to the most important action which you would like any person viewing that page to perform.There are also other levels of call to action types which are sometimes referred to as “secondary call to action” and “subordinate call to action” but these are lower down on the importance scale when compared to the primary call to action.The primary call to action is the ultimate goal of your landing pages and it defines the purpose of why you have that page on your site to begin with.A primary call to action should generally be represented by some kind of button although this is not strictly always the case.Human beings surfing the Internet seem to be psychologically drawn to buttons and people are almost instinctively compelled to click them if they feel that the situation calls for it.This ...

The WP No JavaScript or Cookie Checker plugin provides a way to show warning to your visitors who do not have "JavaScript" or "Cookie" enabled in their browser. It basically lets your website visitors know that your website requires the usage of JavaScript.Most of your website visitors will have JavaScript enabled by default so in most cases you do not need to worry about it. Less than 2% of your visitors may not have JavaScript enabled in their browser. When you have this plugin active it will show a warning message like the following to those 2% visitors so they can enable it (visitors using a modern browser with JavaScript enabled won't see this message).[caption id="attachment_4301" align="alignnone" width="444" caption="No JavaScript Warning Message"][/caption] Plugin InstallationUnzip and Upload the folder 'check-no-js-or-cookie' to the '/wp-content/plugins/' directory Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPressPlugin Usage There is no special usage instruction needed for this plugin. Simply activate the plugin and it will start to show the warning message to the visitors who do not have JavaScript or Cookie enabled in their browser. Plugin Testing Do the following if you want to test how the warning message will be displayed to users without JavaScript enabled:Temporarily disable JavaScript in your ...

If you’ve ever wondered what people are talking about when they mention WordPress Multisite then please read on. This brief article will explain what WordPress Multisite is, and also some of its concepts and features.WordPress multisite, sometimes abbreviated as WPMS,  is defined in wordpress.org as:“Multisite is a feature of WordPress 3.0 and later versions that allows multiple virtual sites to share a single WordPress installation. When the multisite feature is activated, the original WordPress site can be converted to support a network of sites.”In other words WPMS gives you the ability to have multiple individual sites within one WordPress installation and one database which all fits under the umbrella of what is known as a network.So when talking about WPMS it is common to refer to the whole multisite installation as the network. The term site is usually used when talking about each of the individual sites within the WPMS network.The individual sites created within the WPMS network are also sometimes known as “virtual” sites because they don’t actually exist in the file system but only the database.Each site within the network can feature different plugins and themes and have completely different content - just like a separate, independent single ...

Some users of our WordPress shopping cart plugins have requested us to create a shopping cart image and icon pack that they can use on their site.Ivy (our graphics designer) has put together an image and icon pack with various shopping cart images that you can use to customize the look and feel of your shopping cart (you can use this with any cart software/plugin).You get the following in this cart image and icon pack:All images are in PNG format so it will easily match the background color of your site Delete item from cart icon images Empty cart icon images Some Secure checkout buttons images Some other useful shopping cart imagesShe has also made some color matched sets that can be used to match the theme of your site. Here is a preview:[caption id="attachment_4259" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Shopping cart images and icons pack preview"][/caption] Download the Shopping Cart Image and Icons PackDownload Add to Cart Button Images For Your Site Check the Add to Cart Button Image page to download some free Add to cart button images that you can use on your eCommerce site.If you want to use these images in the WP eStore or the Simple WP Shopping Cart plugin then do the following:Find the ...

The length of time that you can keep your visitors on your website can be a crucial factor in determining how successful your blog will be.Simply getting traffic in the form of thousands of unique visitors daily is meaningless if the time they spend on your site is less than a few seconds or your bounce rate is more than 95%.There are certain things you can do in the way you present your pages and posts which will maximize the chances of your visitors sticking around for a longer period on your site.The longer people stay the greater your opportunity to monetize their visit or convince them to take your desired call to action.A call to action is an Internet marketing term which refers to the primary action that you want your visitors to take when they land on your page or website. One example of a call to action  is where you want someone to click your “buy now” button and purchase your product. Another might be that you want to get people to download your free ebook after signing up as members.Below are some tips which will help you to keep the attention of your visitors or at ...

Relevance is the most important factor when you are advertising on the Internet.The more relevant the keywords are to your ad text and your product or service, the more likely the ads will be to get clicked on by users who are actively searching for you and your business.The landing page is the page specifically designed as the entrance point for the users that click on your ad or contextual link and its job is to convince them to perform the relevant call-to-action which you want them to.But the biggest downfall of any Adwords or advertising campaign in general is when users land on poor quality or irrelevant landing pages.Spending money on Adwords and other advertising campaigns without having a proper landing page is like throwing money down the drain.Landing pages are one of the key components as part of your overall marketing strategy which you should strive to get right. After all, the primary purpose of landing pages is to turn visits into conversions.The landing page is where all of the magic happens after you’ve spent hours of SEO work and spent hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars just to get visitors to your page.It therefore makes sense that ...