You need a clear set of criteria to guide you.

Think about the last time you bought a house. You probably used a set of criteria then to help you choose. You may have focused only on houses in a certain location. Perhaps you only looked at detached houses with at least three bedrooms and large south-facing rear gardens. Maybe off-road parking was a biggie for you, or having a great school nearby. Whatever your criteria were, they helped. And the same is true when you are looking to buy a new WordPress theme.

A good first question to ask is what type of theme do you require?

Are you looking for a personal blog template, a portfolio template or a corporate template? ThemeForest helps by allowing you to select only themes corresponding to your areas of interest. There are 238 themes in the blog/magazine category, 475 themes in the creative category and 445 themes in the corporate category. The numbers are still big but less daunting than the number that you started with.

Colour and layout.

Having some idea about what colour and layout you would like will also help you whittle down the number of themes. You can quickly check the colour and layout of each theme by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail image in order to see a larger image of how the theme looks. When you find a theme of interest you can look at it in even more detail with the live preview and screenshot options.

Browsers.

You will want your theme to look good in all the major browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and Chrome. And not just in the latest versions of those browsers, either. Not everyone updates his or her browser when a new version becomes available. For example, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is now available, but there are many people still using IE7 or IE8, while some are still using IE6. Most theme designers will have made sure that their design works across both the latest browser versions and older browser versions. If they have not, this could be another good excuse to look elsewhere.

By this stage, you should have a shortlist of themes you love. But it’s possible to reduce the list still further by looking at how much support is available post purchase.

Support

Theme designers often give support via the comments section associated with the theme on ThemeForest itself, or they may provide support through a separate website. With some themes, both options may be available.

Look at the comments associated with the theme. Look at the support website. Is the designer an active participant? Does the designer answer questions in a timely manner? If support is lacking, you may want to look elsewhere.

Some customers include a link to their website when they ask a question. Visit their website to see what they have done with the theme. Have they used the standard version, or have they customised it? It’s possible to get some good ideas using this approach, ideas that can help your website stand out from the crowd. Look at their website in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and Chrome. Does it behave in these browsers as the designer promised?

When you first visit ThemeForest in search of a WordPress theme, the amount of choice can be overwhelming. With over one thousand WordPress themes to choose from, you need some way of reducing the available options. One way of doing this is to have a clear set of criteria that allows you to reduce the available options to a more manageable number, to a number that doesn’t paralyse you but allows you to take action. If you follow this approach, choosing a new theme should be a simple, quick and pain-free experience.

The wp-content folder contains themes, plugins and uploads associated with your site. Imagine having to gather from scratch all the information in this folder. It would take a long time, or worse: you may find it impossible. Would it not be better to store a backup somewhere safe and accessible, ready to jump to your aid in a crisis?

If you’ve made changes to the .htaccess and index.php files, you’ll want to make backups of them. If you can’t remember making changes to these files, make a backup, anyway. Then you don’t need to worry.

In wp-config.php you will find important information such as database passwords and database usernames. You should only need to back up this important file once, as the information within it should not change.

How do I back up these files?

A search of the Plugin Directory will almost certainly throw up a plugin that does the job for you.

We, however, prefer to copy the relevant files from the server to our computer using a FTP client.

You have an overwhelming number of FTP clients to choose from–both paid and free.

Two very popular free ones are FileZilla and Cyberduck.

After installing the FTP client, you will see how easy it is to download wp-content, .htaccess, index.php and wp-config.php from the web server to your computer.

How often should I back up these files?

If you add new content to your site every day, back up every day. If you add new content to your site once a week, back up once a week. And so on.

Make sure to back up your WordPress database while you’re at it.

Follow the tips above and you can relax knowing that your WordPress website’s vital files are safe. Faced with a website disaster, just retrieve the backup files. They will help bring your site back to life within a few hours.

a. Use the automatic update option, but only after backing up your WordPress database?

b. Quickly press the update now button, but do not make a backup of your WordPress database?

c. Ignore it?

The safest option is a.

If you chose b you are taking a risk every time you update WordPress.

Why?

Database changes occur during the update process that put it at risk. And because the database stores your website content, anything that goes wrong with the database during an update could have a catastrophic effect on your website. Don’t worry, though; soon you’ll know an easy way to avoid that risk.

If you chose c you are missing out.

It’s usually a good idea to update your WordPress install when a new version becomes available.

That way you can take advantage of improvements such as the new dashboard design, or the new default theme Twenty Eleven, both of which came with WordPress version 3.2.

With 3.2 you now have the option to write your next post in Zen mode, which is the WordPress developers’ answer to distraction-free writing tools such as WriteMonkey (Windows), WriteRoom (Mac) and Ommwriter (Mac and Windows).

To see how this works, start a new post, hit the fullscreen button and watch as everything but the address bar fades, leaving just you and your text. The only distraction is the address bar. But you can even make this disappear by pressing the F11 key.

Another good reason to update WordPress is to make your website less susceptible to hackers, who are always on the lookout for weak-points or holes in the code that allow them to take over websites.

One day people are finding all the valuable content you’ve worked so hard to put together; the next day they are finding links to dubious pharma-products and pornography, which is not what you want.

An update plugs all known holes in the code, forcing the hackers to look for easier pickings elsewhere–someone running WordPress 2.5, perhaps.

You have two options when it comes to updating.

Either you can do a manual update, which is time consuming and puts important files at risk if you don’t know what you are doing; or you can take advantage of the automatic update option.

The automatic upgrade option became available after WordPress 2.7 and saves time. All you have to do is press a button and the software makes short work of the upgrade behind the scenes.

Whichever way you choose just make sure to backup your WordPress database before you start.

Making a backup is the quick and sensible solution. If you have a backup, you can use it to get up and running again if something goes wrong during the update.

Let’s look now at how to make such a backup.

First, though, a note of caution: many web-hosting firms claim to do automatic database backups.

Please, please, please do not rely solely on your web host to backup your database. When you look in the relevant folder, do not be surprised to find either no backup file or a backup that is so out of date as to be almost worthless to you. It happens.

A much better way is to use the popular (over one million downloads) WP-DB-Backup plugin.

This plugin makes backing up your database a breeze. You can choose to save the backup to your server, download it to your computer, or have it sent to you via email.

The plugin even allows you to create automatic hourly, twice daily, once daily or once weekly backups, which you can have sent direct to your inbox.

Now that you know how easy it is to backup your database before updating to the latest WordPress version, are you going to make it a habit? Surely, the alternatives are too risky.

After you have made a safe update you have the potential to do new and better things with your website. Not only that: you can relax knowing that your website is less prone to hackers.

What exactly is a plugin?

A plugin is an extra set of software that adds functionality to the premium version of WordPress. Someone finds a need for a feature on a WordPress website. They program this feature into a small package and make it available to other WordPress users. Often, they offer the download for free. They always give the plugin a name, so that you can search for it.

There are thousands of plugins available. Each plugin is designed to add certain functionality to your WordPress website. For example, there are plugins you can download that will reject any comments someone posts on your blog that look like SPAM. A couple of plugins that add this functionality are called Akismet and WP-SpamFree. There are plugins that will turn portions of your blog into a membership site, such as MemberWing and Amember. Some plugins will even improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your blog, such as the “All in One SEO Pack” plugin.

If you are browsing the internet and come across a feature on someone’s blog that you like, the chances are there is a WordPress plugin that can provide you with that same functionality for your blog. Despite the small size of plugins, they can be very powerful. They can turn an average website into a great website.

Choose your blog niche

Find a niche that you want to focus your blog on. You don’t want to review every product under the sun. For less competition, break into a niche that bloggers are missing. For example, parenting is a universal topic but break it down into something simple. Get creative and choose topics such as eco-friendly school supplies or homework tutoring gadgets.

Find products to review

Your first set of posts should be products that you have actually tried and tested. Find these in your own home or ask friends and family. Depending on how fast you work, you can build a review blog slowly or quickly. Focus and motivation are key factors.

Get busy writing

You can start writing your product reviews now, saving them until you are ready to publish. This will give you a head start on your review blog and allow you more time to promote the site. Make sure the product name is in the title of your blog post with the word “review”. You need to use words that people are searching for on Google. Many people use the Internet to find reviews on books, baby products, video games and more.

Promote your blog with a passion

If people know and see that you’re passionate about your topic, visitors will come. Use social networking sites such as Twitter to get your name out there. Build up an interactive community by responding to blog comments and tweets. It’s always a good thing if you have great blog etiquette towards your followers and fans. Don’t forget that you’re counting on them to refer your review blog to their own followers.

Build it and they will follow

Once you build your review blog with a lot of product reviews and traffic, it’s time to get the word out that you’re accepting products to review. Create a separate link to a page or post letting businesses know how they can contact you for reviews. Send businesses that carry products you are interested in reviewing a letter about your review blog. You can also send out a tweet to your followers who can retweet it to other businesses. Persistence and hard work will help establish your review blog.

What are they typing into search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others?

If you know what those words are and your competition does not, you have an unfair advantage.

While your competition flounders, making guesses, you can write articles that focus, laser-like, on the exact words people are using in their online searches.

When you do this, the search engines will see your web pages as extremely relevant and rank them higher. This means more visitors to your website, and more sales.

So, how do you work out what words your potential customers are using?

Luckily, there are tools available that can do the hard graft for you.

Wordtracker is a popular choice where you can pay either a monthly subscription of $69 or an annual subscription of $379.

Keyword Discovery is another option. Their monthly rate is $69.95, while opting for the annual subscription will cost you $599.40.

Alternatively, you could use Google’s keyword tool, which is free. For many people, this tool is all they need.

Let’s look at it in more detail.

Follow the link below to access the tool:

Google Keywords Tool

To get started, you need to decipher the CAPTCHA and enter a word or phrase in the box.

What word or phrase you use depends on what your goals are.

Today, however, imagine you are a chimney sweep looking for keyword ideas for your website. It may be an old profession but it has 21st century marketing needs.

Let’s start by finding keywords related to chimney sweep, sorted by relevance.

The top three results of chimney sweep, chimney sweeps and chimney sweeping look promising. It is easy to imagine someone using those words when searching online for a chimney sweep.

Now look at the local monthly searches column. Here you can see that there are greater than 40,000 searches for each of these keywords, indicating that there are lots of people looking for chimney sweep related information.

This is great news if you are a chimney sweep. The data indicates it could be well worth taking the time to write an article containing chimney sweep, chimney sweeps and chimney sweeping as keywords.

Looking at some of the other words on the list, potential customers are unlikely to be searching for chimney sweep training or chimney sweep brushes. But they are likely to be searching with words such as chimney sweep cost, nacs chimney sweep or chimney sweep lancashire. These terms could provide the backbone to another article or, possibly, articles.

Google’s keyword tool makes it easy to work out what words your potential customers are using. Just one hour using the tool should allow you to come up with lots of new article ideas.

All you need now is a tool that will write the articles for you.

As a result, it’s more important than ever to offer high quality content that’s relevant to visitors. That’s the first secret of a successful website. The second secret is just as important: that content must be attractive to look at and to read. The first without the second is not much use. Visitors may come, but they will not stay long, and that defeats the purpose. You need to get them to stay on your site long enough to absorb your message. Here’s how to do it.

1) Copywriting
Excellent copywriting is a prerequisite for valuable content. It does not matter how relevant the content is, a visitor will quickly leave a website if they find badly written text. Experienced professional writers well versed in search engine optimisation produce excellent web copywriting. They write copy that invites, assures and sells. Badly written copy does none of those things; worse than that, it is rarely neutral. With just a few words, it can turn a customer against your products or services permanently.

2) Graphic Design
Have the website’s “look” created by a professional graphic designer, one experienced in web design. It is just as important as professional copywriting; some would say it’s more important. Regardless of who’s right, it is vital. Your website is the first contact a potential customer has with your business and it may be the last if it’s not just right. In an instant, it must visually convey the essence of the business in a way that’s both professional and reassuring.

3) Web Development
Behind what’s visible, a website has a complex technical structure. If you’re not an experienced programmer, hire a professional web developer. The developer will know the best way to implement the creative specs of you and your graphic designer. The result will be a dynamic site that’s easy to navigate and pleasant to use.

Search engine refinements may filter out much of the dross from search results, but they can’t eliminate it all. Devious webmasters will still find ways to fool even the smartest algorithms. Only websites with quality content stand out from the crowd. Professional designers, developers and copywriters create them. These skills do not cost a fortune; it is money well spent, as you can quickly recoup it many times over.

As you can see from the image below, such adverts consist of three parts:

• The headline
• A brief amount of text underneath the headline
• The website address

These small ads have become an extremely popular and cost-effective way for businesses to find new customers. The reason they are so popular is largely down to their cost-effectiveness. Unlike traditional advertising, where you pay whether or not anyone reads the ad, you only pay for a Google ad if someone clicks on it. The good news is that people are only likely to click if the ad looks interesting to them.

The most important element for encouraging people to click is the headline. Just bear in mind that your ad is competing for customers’ attention with lots of other ads. And, not only that, it is competing with the organic search results too. Which means it is vital that your headline stands out from the crowd. The headline ‘Promote Your Website’ stands out. Anyone looking for new ways to market their website is bound to take a closer look.

It is also important to follow up the headline with some good copy. ‘Find Customers With GoogleAdWords’ is good copy. It is both relevant to the headline and provides some useful extra information.

And the next line is hard to beat. It tells anyone who is interested that they can be up and running ‘In Just 15 Mins!’ Making it sound easy to get started.

It is easy to get started. Clicking on the live advert takes you to a page on Google’s website. There you have the opportunity to either sign up on the phone or sign up online.

Does the advert live up to its promises? Try Google Ads and find out for yourself.

First, access your WordPress dashboard by providing your username and password in the usual way before pressing the blue Log in button.

On the left hand side, you should now see something like the image below. To create a new post, click Add New (red rectangle). To create a new page, click Add New (blue rectangle).

The screenshot below illustrates what you should see if you decide to create a new post.

Now all you need to do is give the post a title (red rectangle) and add your content (blue rectangle). Click Save Draft any time. Hit Preview to see how the post looks. When you are happy with how things look, click Publish to go live.

That’s all there is to it. Add as many new WordPress pages or posts as you like. It’s both easy and free.

But owning a website is pointless if no one sees it.

Here we look at two ways for you to get more website visitors.

1. Achieve a high search engine ranking.

You can do this by regularly adding high quality content to your website. The sort of content that shows people what you do and how you can help. This could take the form of pictures, podcasts, writing or video.

Out of these, writing is still the best if you want to rank well with a search engine like Google. Ranking high with Google is well worth shooting for because it gives you a better chance of appearing on that all-important, high visibility, first page of search results—getting your business in front of potentially thousands of potential customers at much lower cost than traditional advertising in, say, magazines or newspapers.

The trouble is everyone is trying to do the same thing, which makes it tough to get on the first page of search results without a lot of hard work and a good dose of luck. And it is not likely to get any easier in the future as more and more business owners make the jump online.

It’s not all doom and gloom though because there is another way, an easier way:

2. Google AdWords

These are the small adverts found top and right of Google’s main search results. Pay enough, and you virtually guarantee a spot on that lucrative, high visibility, first page.

Yes, you have to pay, but only if someone clicks on your advert. Don’t worry—most times, they will click only if they are at least semi-interested in what you have to offer. A click on one of your adverts takes the searcher direct to a page on your website—a landing page. Where, combined with the rest of your site, the idea is to persuade them to take the next step in the sales cycle.

The cost per click (CPC) could be anything from pennies to several pounds—depending on the number of searches and competition for the keywords.

For example, according to Google’s Traffic Estimator, the estimated average CPC for the phrase “wordpress web design” is only £0.04, with 6,600 monthly searches. Whereas the estimated CPC for the phrase “web design” is a whopping £2.43, with 6,120,000 searches.

Taken at face value, £2.43 per click sounds expensive. But consider a web design firm that charges £2000. To them it may seem good value. It costs them £243 per 100 website visitors, and even if only one visitor buys, the firm still banks £1757 after subtracting advertising costs.

Your business may be in a similar position.

If not, Google AdWords is still worth serious consideration because it is a tried and tested way to guarantee more website visitors.

If paying for more website visitors does not appeal, just make sure you keep adding quality content so that your website ranks high with the search engines. Otherwise, invisible website syndrome awaits.