iMark Interactive

In the world of Ecommerce, having a shopping cart is essential.  There are so many different options for shopping carts between hosted and licensed shopping carts.  One of the major downfalls of each option tends to be the cost.  Most hosted platforms can cost as little as $20 a month and upwards of $500 a month.  Licensed shopping carts do not require a monthly fee, but the initial costs can range from as low as $500 and upwards of $2000 for out of the box software licenses.  With all of the options, it can be hard for anyone to choose.  I am going to try to help out and provide you with an easy out of the box solution that costs below $100 and is integrated in WordPress, the most widely used blogging software.

With a self-hosted wordpress installation, anyone can create a simple and easy ecommerce site with a shopping cart that is comparable to many.  Shopperpress offers an unlimited license wordpress shopping cart theme that can take any wordpress website from simple blog to a fantastic looking ecommerce site.  Their theme costs $79 and can be installed on any domain that has wordpress.  The following features come with the Shopperpress Shopping Cart theme:

• Unlimited Installation License
• Open Source, no encryption
• Google Adsense/Analytics Ready
• Shipping/Tax options
• Amazon/Ebay/CSV datafeed import options
• Pre-installed with over 20 website designs
• Multi-Language
• Over 20 Built in payment gateways including Paypal
• Supports the addition of other wordpress plugins
• Multiple currencies
• Built in advertising spots
• Browser based, so customization can be done from any location

ShopperPress has many great user features keeping your website visitors online:

• Members can create accounts to login and monitor their order status, edit their profile and keep updated with site news and products.
• List & Gallery Views giving your visitors more freedom when it comes to viewing your shop products.
• Built in search tools allowing visitors to quickly search and reorder the display of your shop products.
• Coupon Codes, give away coupon codes online so your visitors can enjoy promotional discounts when buying products from your store.
• Multi language & Currency giving visitors the ability to change product prices to local currencies and language settings.
• Bookmark, print and email tools allowing visitors to email and print their favorite pages to show their friends.

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WordPress is easily the most widely used blogging platform.  With the simplicity and ease of use, it is not surprise.  When we create blogs, we usually make sure that we have all the best plugins to make our blogging lives easier along with better results in the SERPs.  I am sure that there are many of you out there that have many blogs that are setup the same way.  Each one as the same plugins, permalinks, and settings.  The main issue that many people forget, especially beginner bloggers, is the security of their wordpress blog.

Unfortunately, with the increase of use of any software comes the increase in hackers and security loopholes.  Since WordPress is open-source, it can easily be obtained by hackers that can study the code to look for security holes.  This happens all of the time and why you see so many updates in your WordPress dashboard.  Keeping up with updates can be an easy way to keep hackers out of your blog, but there is another simple way for anyone that has an apache server hosting their website.  The main security flaw in WordPress is the use of wp-admin as the login screen.  Everyone knows it and can navigate their way to your admin login section at any point.  Now, I am aware that we all have user names and passwords that is to prevent unwanted users in our blog, but how many of you don’t change the username from “admin”?  This is a common mistake in new bloggers is to keep the tried and true name of “admin” as the username.  The first step to securing your blog is to change this name.  Next, I will show you the way to add another layer of protection on your admin login page.

This method should not be used for anyone that wants users to register on their blog.  There are many of blogs that do not want people registering as it is too much of hassle.  If you do not require a registration, then make sure to change the setting in your admin section to make sure people cannot register on your blog.  If you have Cpanel with your webhost (most apache webhosts have Cpanel), then you need to login.  We are going to password protect the wp-admin folder in order to add another layer of security.  This is done in a few simple steps, which I will outline below.

1. Once logged into Cpanel, you need to scroll down the home page and click Password Protect Directories.  This will then give you the option to view the folders in your webroot, or specific directory.  Choose which one you want.
2. Cpanel will take you to a page that allows you to see the directories.  You can either go into a specific directory and password protect a folder inside of it, or you can click on the directory name to start the process of protecting that directory.
3. If you have installed wordpress in your root directory, then you will want to go there and then click the name of the admin folder “wp-admin”.  If you have installed your blog in a subdirectory or subdomain, then you will want to navigate to that directory and then click the name of the admin folder “wp-admin”.
4. This next page gives you the ability to tell your server to password protect your wp-admin directory.  You will want to check the box and to password protect the directory and then give it a name.  You can name it anything you like.  This is what the login box will say when it pops up to login.

   

5. You will then want to create a user.  This will be what you use to login to access the wp-admin folder.  Do not use the same login information as your wordpress admin login.  This will defeat the purpose.  Once the user is created, make sure you add it to the authorized list.
6. After you Save and Add the users, your wp-admin section will then be password-protected.  It is similar to how you log into Cpanel, but once you log in with the server popup, you will then see the regular wordpress login page.  Use your wordpress admin login to get to your blog dashboard.

While I realize that this is another step in logging in, imagine how better you will feel.  It can be very heartbreaking to see that when you log into your blog dashboard to see that your blog has been hacked.  All of that time and effort gone without any warning.  While you many have backups, it is still a major pain to redo the blog.  Just by password-protecting your wp-admin folder, it gives you an extra sense of security.  While there are many other ways to provide your blog with security, this is a very easy thing to implement.  Just remember that if anyone tries to go and register for your blog, they will see the pop-up window.  Just make sure to disable registration.  Happy blogging everyone!

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WordPress is the most widely used blogging software out there. It provides the backdrop to some of the most visited blogs and websites. Though some of you think it can be hard to learn how to use WordPress, I assure you it is not. If you are interested in starting a blog, then the video below will show you exactly how to do it. The only caveat is that you have a web host that provides you with Cpanel. I believe that most Unix/Linux hosts install cpanel on their servers, so you shouldn’t have a problem. If you are looking for a host to start a blog on your own domain, then look for one that has Cpanel.

If you are not sure what Cpanel is, then I will just give you a quick run-down. Cpanel is like your website management console. You can add email addresses to your hosting account, create new subdomains, add new domains to your account. You can create new databases and add cool features like WordPress. Cpanel is your instrument panel for website management. The best part about Cpanel is that you can install WordPress with a few easy steps through a great add-on called Fantastico. It usually comes with Cpanel, but if your host does not have it, then you might want to ask. Below is the detailed video of how to install WordPress through Cpanel. Let us know if you have any questions or comments.

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This is a guest post by Chris Johnson. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

HootSuite is a great platform for an avid social network person or company to manage their networks in one place.  This platform makes it easy to keep everything updated without having to login into every other location.  It makes it easy for anyone that deals with a lot of platforms to keep it all organized.  The best part is that HootSuite is currently free.

HootSuite has outdone themselves with a new integration with WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world.  Now you can post a new entry to your blog along with managing your twitter account and others just in one place.  They made it easy to create a new post and post links, images, and more.  There is nothing better than making social media easy and Hootsuite has done it.  If you are thinking about something to help you with managing your social media experience, then I would suggest trying out HootSuite as we do not know how long it will be free.  All you have to do is enter your wordpress login credentials in the settings page and you are ready to post to your blog.  I suggest trying it out with a simple test post before you start posting everything from HootSuite as you might  not like how it works or might like other features.  Either way, you cannot complain with how easy they make it for us social media crazies.  Check out a sample video from HootSuite on the new integration below.

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With so many blogs being created each and every day, what makes your blog any different?  Are you blogging for personal reasons, or blogging in order to make some extra cash?  What is your understanding on the topic that you blog about?  These are just a few questions that you need to ask yourself as you continue to blog.

Most of us blog in order to provide a resource to others on the internet.  It might just be for personal reasons and you just want others to have information that they have gathered over the years.  Some blog in order to provide a resource, but to also make some money online while blogging.  Either way, there are a few things that need to be done in order to keep your blog active and growing.

The most important aspect of blogging is deciding which topic you want to blog about.  If you are blogging for personal reasons, then it becomes a little easier.  Most people that are blogging just to be blogging decide to pick their topic based on their experiences or which topic excites them or what they might be passionate about.  If you are blogging to make money online, make sure you are choosing a topic that you have experience in or that you are also passionate about.  There are many people out there that choose a blog topic based on how much money they could make or which topic is most popular among internet readers.  This is a large mistake because most people that choose these topics cannot keep up the blog without the proper information on the topic.

Another important aspect of blogging is that you continue to write quality posts throughout the life of your blog.  A lot of new bloggers that start a blog never continue after a month or two because they run out of topics to write or they just stop writing all together.  It is wise to come up with topics to write about, but schedule them to post at different intervals to keep your blog current.  This is easy to do when working with most blogging software.  If you come up with a few topics at once, then write them up and schedule them to post a day apart, so it looks like you are updating and refreshing your content.  Remember, Content is King and search engines love it.  Without new content, your blog will become stale and your readers will drop off.

If you continue updating your content, then you need to make sure that you continue to add new readers and visitors.  Without new readers and visitors, then your blog will become useless and no one will even know your opinion on your topic.  You should update your RSS feeds and make sure to have a way for your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed via email.  You have to constantly market your blog for new visitors especially if your using your blog as a way to make money online.  Many bloggers use Feedburner as a way to publicize and monetize their RSS feeds for everyone to use and keep updated on your blog.  There are many blog directories where you can list your blog as well for visitors to find.  This will also help with SEO purposes.  Think about making an aboutus.org page for your website.  This is free and like a wiki format.  There are many ways to market your blog, but you have to continue doing it in order to succeed.

So if you are blogging for personal or commercial reasons, you have to remember that content is king and keeping it updated is a must.  There are many ways to add new content to your blog, but you have to just do it.  Leaving your blog updated is the most important way to keep it going.  You can also let guest bloggers write content for your with their ideas about the blog topic.  Choose a topic that is important to you, but that can make your some money if you choose to go this route, as well is a topic that has a lot of information available and is easily updated.  Good luck with your blog and keeping it going and hopefully it will become useful to readers and visitors.

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