Wordpress Tutorials
Add A Google Adsense Blog To WordPress Blog
May 31st
This tutorial is being expanded upon. Please bare with me while I flesh out the details for you but meanwhile you might be able to follow the “steps” to get started.
Log into your Google Adsense Account
Log into your WordPress Blog Dashboard
Go To _Adsense Setup_
AdSense for Content
Choose Ad Type
Ad Unit
Text and image ads (default)
Text ads only
Image ads only
Link unit
Choose Ad Format and Colors
Format (select style of Ad Block)
Colors
Fonts
Corner Styles
More Options – Alternate Ads or colors
[CONTINUE]
Choose Ad Channels (what are ad channels)
[CONTINUE]
Save and Get Ad Code
AdSense unit name:
AdSense for Search
Adsense for Feeds
AdSense for Domains
AdSense for Mobile Content
Follow the steps to create the ad
Then copy the Adsense unit code as a:
Text box Widget for your sidebar
or into directly into your Theme
Add A Downloaded ZIP Plugin To WordPress
Feb 22nd
Sometimes we want to add a plugin that isn’t necessarily listed amongst those available in the WordPress Plugins Directory. These files are saved as .zip files and you can download them directly from the Plugin creators. Be very careful when adding files directly from creators! WordPress has a strict policy when accepting plugins to their directory and the files that are not in their directory may not follow these policies. They have not been vetted and approved my WordPress and may not have been tested for compatibility with the latest WordPress upgrades.
Add a Downloaded ZIP Plugin to WordPress
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Plugins
- –> –> Add New
- [Upload]
- Click [Browse] and find your .zip file.
- [Open] and [Install Now]
- Installing: The file will now attempt to install itself.
- Activate: [Activate Plugin]
You can now treat this plugin as you would any other. Add that plugins settings and remember to make sure the plugin has not adversely affected your site in any way.
Add/Edit WordPress Links
Feb 22nd
Add A New Link To Your WordPress Blogroll
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Links
- –> –> Add New
- Name: This appears as the text on your blogroll that will be linked. Use a short, descriptive name or call to action.
- Web Address: This is the URL that you want to send readers to. Include the http:// with your link.
- Description: The description is optional but it is a good idea to add one. Your theme may or may not include the description when showing links. Remember to use keywords in your description, be informative and tell readers WHY they might want to view the page linked to here.
- Categories: Your blogrolls will sort by category and the category is another position you can use your keywords when creating categories for your blogrolls. Select which category or categories you want you link to be listed with.
- Other Options: All other options are optional.
- [Add Link]
To edit a link you can click on any of your existing links from the “Links” page inside your Dashboard. To edit the details simply replace or change any of the information on the existing link and “Update Link”.
Add your Contact Form 7 to your website
Feb 8th
Adding your new Contact Form to your website
There are three options for adding your contact form to your website. You may want to include your contact form on a page, inside a post, or in the sidebar of your site.
Add your Contact Form on a page
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- -> Contact
- -> Pages
- Paste into body of page
Copy the snippet of code from the form you want to use.
Select the page you want to include your form on.
Find the place on the page where you want your form to appear and paste the Contact Form 7 snippet of code into that part of your page then save your page.
Add your Contact Form in a post
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- -> Contact
- -> Posts
- Paste into body of post
Copy the snippet of code from the form you want to use.
Select the post you want to include your form on.
Find the place in the post where you want your form to appear and paste the Contact Form 7 snippet of code into that part of your post then save your post.
Add your contact Form in the sidebar
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- -> Contact
- -> Appearance
- -> -> Widgets
- Paste into the text widget
Copy the snippet of code from the form you want to use.
Drag and drop the Text widget into your sidebar.
Paste the Contact Form 7 snippet of code into the text widget and save.
Contact Form 7 Plugin w/ WordPress
Feb 8th
One of the most important features every website should have is a contact form which allows visitors to contact you safely and securely. I recommend Contact Form 7, which allows you to make all sorts of forms, not just contact forms, that will send information to an email address of your choice.
Install Contact Form 7 on WordPress
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Plugins
- –> –> Add New
- Search term = Contact Form 7 [Search Plugins]
- Select Contact Form 7 from search results [Install]
- [Install Now]
- [Activate Plugin]
- Check site still loads correctly.
One of the features of Contact Form 7 is the ability to include Captcha. If you want to include Captcha on your forms you also need to install Really Simple CAPTCHA:
Install Really Simple CAPTCHA on WordPress
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Plugins
- –> –> Add New
- Search term = Really Simple CAPTCHA [Search Plugins]
- Select Really Simple CAPTCHA from search results [Install]
- [Install Now]
- [Activate Plugin]
- Check site still loads correctly.
Your first Contact Form with Contact Form 7
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Contact
- Form
- Generate Tag
- Mail -> To
- Mail -> From
- Mail -> Subject
- Mail -> Additional Headers
- Mail -> Use HTML content type
- Mail -> Message Body
- Mail 2
- Messages
- Additional Settings
- [Save]
The Contact Form 7 plugin creates the first form for you. This is a basic form which you can edit or change as suits you. The first section of this page shows you the snippet of code you will need to copy and paste into your contact page. But first, lets take a look at the other fields on this page.
In the “form” field you will see a textarea box that has HTML code inside. The codes used here are very simple. <p> is a paragraph tag. This creates a block of text that breaks lines either side like a paragraph. There is also a <br /> tag which we call “break row”. This is like a carriage return that and puts what follows onto the next line of the page. Within the HTML in this box there are also small snippets of Contact Form 7 code contained within square brackets “[".
The drop-down list here allows you to create new snippets of code so that you can add other fields to your form. We'll go into these in greater detail later.
The email address you use here needs to be one you will check for your contact form messages. You may prefer to use a contact email address that is not your normal address and you may also find it best to use an email address that is tied to your domain name. This email address is the one that is used when sending the email as well as receiving it and some web hosts will insist on using a domain associated email address to send mail.
This will be the from line you get in your email when someone fills in your contact form. If you allow your visitors to fill in their name and email then you'll be able to reply to this contact form and reach them via email directly.
This will appear as the subject line of the email you receive when someone fills in your contact form.
Leave this blank unless you understand how email headers work and why you might want to include additional information here.
If you want to include HTML in your email you should click this box. If you leave this box unchecked your email will come through as plain text.
To see the information your visitors have given in their form you need to have a each of your Contact Form 7 mail tags inside the body of your email so that you will see the result they send you. You can add other information here and it will be included in the body of the email message you receive.
This is an advanced mail option. Usually you will leave this unchecked.
These default messages appear as different events happen with your form. You can customize your messages if you choose to do so however these default messages usually contain enough information to assist your visitors.
This is another advanced feature. We will discuss your options for this field later.
Add a Kadom Ad Zone to your Web site
Feb 8th
Earlier we showed you how to install Kadom Ad Management. Installing Kadom is just the first step. You have to create your first Kadom Zone, and add campaigns to your Zone but you also need to add your zones into your WordPress theme so that you ads display.
Now that you have at least one ad zone and one campaign within that zone you need to add the zone to your website so that visitors can see your ads. There are three options for adding your Kadom Ad Zone to your website.
Using Widgets
If your websites theme is widget enabled you can use the Widget settings within WordPress to choose where your ad zone will appear.
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Appearance
- –> –> Widgets
- Select where you want your Ad Zone to appear in your sidebar or widget location
- Drag and drop the Kadom Ad Widget into that location
- Open the Widget settings
-
- Title:
This is optional, it will appear as a heading above your Ad Zone - Select the Ad zone to display:
Fairly self explanatory, choose which of your Kadom Ad Zones to display - Custom image URL for empty zone:
You can have an image that will appear if there are empty spaces available in your zone where you are accepting new advertisers. The image URL should be placed here. - Show Empty Zone ?
If you added a custom image URL you can choose to show empty zones and they will display your custom image. If this box is not checked the Ad Zone will shrink so that it only shows the ad boxes currently available. - Show “Advertise Here” text link ? (bottom of the widget)
This link will take visitors to the page URL you add to your Kadom Ads settings. - Margin in px (between Ads):
The space between each ad campaign image. - Number of columns banners:
The number of ads that will display across the page. - [Save]
- Title:
Insert into directly into your Theme
Coming Soon!
Insert into individual posts/pages
Coming Soon!
Kadom Ad Management Plugin w/ WordPress
Feb 1st
Do you cycle several advertising positions in your sidebar? Do you want to have easy control of the the ad spaces in your theme? Do you want to include ads in the content of your posts that can be updated in one simple location? That’s what Kadom Ad Management does for you. You’re in control of the ad zone and can insert ad campaigns, run them for a specified time, and add new campaigns, update campaign information, or remove inactive campaigns with simple administration.
Install Kadom Ad Management on WordPress
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Plugins
- –> –> Add New
- Search term = Kadom [Search Plugins]
- Select Kadom from search results [Install]
- [Install Now]
- [Activate Plugin]
- Check site still loads correctly.
Add A Kadom Ad Zone
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Kadom Ads
- –> –> Manage Zones
-
- Name:
This field gives your zone a name. Choose one you will recognize. I recommend specifying ad block sizes. It helps to have this information when adding campaigns to your zones. For example: “Sidebar Ad 120×120 [2x3]“ - Position:
Select the alignment of this ad zone. - Banner Width (px):
The width of your campaign images in pixels (for example “120″ or “468″) - Banner Height (px):
The height of your campaign images in pixels (for example “120″ or “60″ or “90″) - Number of Banners:
How many campaign positions in this ad zone do you want to include? - Max. Number of Banner displayed:
How many campaign images will appear at any one time. - Cost in $:
How much are you charging per month for advertisers to put their add in this zone? - Widget:
Yes or No. Do you want this ad zone to have a widget that you can plug into your sidebar or other widget enabled positions with the Widget settings on WordPress?
- Name:
- [Submit]
This ad zone will now appear on your list of available zones.
Add A Kadom Ad Campaign
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Kadom Ads
- –> –> Manage Campaigns
-
- Name:
This is the name of your campaign. Choose a name you will recognize as this is how you will be able to tell one ad campaign from another in your administration panel. - Url:
This is the target URL, the link that you want visitors to go to when they click on the add. You’re using Pretty Link right?
- Image URL:
The link to the image you want to use in this ad zone. This image should already be resized to fit the zone you intend to use for this campaign. - Alt Text:
When an image fails to load, a visitor has turned off their images, or a visitor is using vision accessibility settings this text will appear instead of the chosen image. - Start Date:
Usually you can leave this blank at the ad will begin when you save it. If you’d like to schedule your ad to start on a future date, or set it so it is scheduled for monthly rotation on a different date you can set a date here. - Period:
From 1 month to 1 year you can select how long this ad campaign will continue to run. - Masked URL: If you’re using Pretty Link you do not need to mask the URL of your ad campaigns. However, if you’ve got strange URLs or want to hide the true destination of your campaign URL you can choose to mask the URL.
- Ad Zone:
Select from the list of zones you have created with Kadom
- Name:
- [Submit]
Pretty Link w/ WordPress
Feb 1st
Have you ever struggled to remember the strange gobbledygook links to your affiliate products? Have you had super long links, lengthy querystrings, or confusing urls? That’s where this fabulous WordPress plugin comes in. Pretty Link takes your awkward links and makes them pretty. It makes them short, easy-to-remember, and it gives external links YOUR domain name.
So, how do you get started with Pretty Link?
Install Pretty Link on WordPress
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Plugins
- –> –> Add New
- Search term = Pretty Link [Search Plugins]
- Select Pretty Link from search results [Install]
- [Install Now]
- [Activate Plugin]
- Check site still loads correctly.
Add A Pretty Link
- Login to your WordPress Dashboard
- –> Pretty Link
- –> –> Add a Pretty Link
- Target URL
The Target URL is where you want your link to point. This is often an affiliate or external link. It may also be a long or complex link. - Pretty Link
Use one or two hyphen-separated words that will distinguish this link from others. Consider using keywords and unique names. - Title
A name you’ll recognize on the pretty link list. - Description
Optional