Holiday Discounts on WordPress Learning, Themes, Hosting & Plugins

WordPress deals - Themes, Plugins, Hosting

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the US which means retail craziness. Some of your favorite WordPress theme, plugin and hosting providers are getting in on the action and providing deep discounts that only come around once per year. Most of these will expire at the end of Monday or Tuesday so act right away!

 

WordPress Learning Resources

Learn WordPress - Lynda.com

Lynda.com – Get a free 10 day trial

Lynda.com has some great WordPress video courses from great teachers like Morten Rand-Hendriksen and Carrie Dils, and they are currently offering a free 10 day trial. No coupon code needed, just click through the link:
https://webtrainingwheels.com/recommends/lyndacom/ (aff. link)

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A Few of My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Recommended WordPress Plugins

I gave a small talk on plugins at WordCamp LA recently and was inspired to start compiling a list of my most commonly recommended ones. I’ve also started collecting them as Favorites at my WordPress.org profile but there’s no way to organize them there according to topic or purpose. The list is by no means exhaustive so if you have any requests for recommended plugins of a certain kind, leave a comment and I’ll see about incorporating them into a future edition.

Get the PDF Download

Here’s what’s on there as of now:

CONTACT FORMS

Formidable (free and premium)
http://wordpress.org/plugins/formidable/
Formidable has both a free and paid version. The free version is one of the better free form builders available. For me, the workflow and interface is easier to work with than other free plugins such as Ninja Forms or Contact Form 7.

Gravity Forms
https://webtrainingwheels.com/recommends/gravity-forms/ (aff. link)
Gravity Form is strictly a premium plugin – there is no free version. I have invested in the Developer license and use it on most sites because it’s so powerful. This is more than just a contact form plugin – it gives you advanced data collection and processing capabilities. There are add-ons to integrate with other services such as PayPal, MailChimp and many others. Developers will find it very customizable via the many hooks and filters provided.

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Why Am I Getting Notifications of New User Registrations On My Site?

New User Registrations on WordPress Sites

A common question I get from new WordPress users (twice in the past week as a matter of fact), typically arriving in a panic-stricken email, is “Why am I getting notices of new user registrations on my site?” The follow-up questions are along the lines of “Have I been hacked??” “Is this spam?” “How do I make the madness stop?”

The answer is thankfully simple. There’s one little setting in your WordPress dashboard which is needlessly (at least in most cases) allowing people to register for your site. Unless you’ve deliberately customized it, the registration screen is at the same url on most WordPress sites:

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-login.php?action=register

So it’s easy for spambots to find that page in an automated fashion. And those spambots love a good form to fill in whether that’s a comment form, a contact form or a registration form!

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4 Essential Online Marketing Resources

Smart Passive Income - Tim Ferriss

Figuring out WordPress and getting your website up and running is just the beginning of having a successful site. What happens next is where the real work begins! As a website owner you’ll need to know the fundamentals of online marketing – search engine optimization, conversion optimization and all kinds of other skills to help you generate traffic and business with your site. With Google constantly changing and new developments happening all the time, it’s tough to keep abreast of what’s going on. Here’s a few of my favorite resources for keeping up on online marketing from those who are already finding success. 

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Put Back What’s Missing in WordPress 3.9 – Advanced Image Options and Text Color Picker

missing-3.9

WordPress 3.9 came out last month and while the post/page editing screen has generally been improved there’s a couple of small features that have been removed. Chances are a lot of folks won’t ever miss them, but some of you will and already are.

The two main things I get complaints about are the missing border and spacing options for images, and the lack of color options for text. 

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