Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

I recently decided to try out Fiverr, a site where you can put up a service and charge $5. While it works great for a lot of things, it was an Epic fail for WordPress support questions.

I specifically worded my “gig” to not accept advanced questions or questions that would require me to fix a plugin or do something that took more than an hour. Frankly, I was not even up for dealing for a 30 minute problem because… well $5 is not even worth it and I would prefer to give it out for free or not at all.

Perhaps my expectations are high, but this was only an experiment. I do not know the people who have offered WordPress support for quite a while on Fiverr, but I am certain they have been wasting their time. I have had people asking for plugin support on premium plugins from other places, which means… they probably did not buy the original copy or… in the case they did actually pay, they never even bother contacting the plugin developers. The other requests were to add functions to existing plugins.

It was enough to make me click delete on the fiverr gig after two days.

So, while Fiverr is great for a lot of different services, it may not be worth it for WordPress support. People do not read the gig’s description and want you to bend over backwards. Those wanting to try their own venture, good luck, but you will get a lot of inquiries that will want you to do more than $5 worth of work.

If you are going to get a job done, get the guys at WPQuestions to do it. They will do it right and for a fair price.

The author’s page by default only allows you to put just enough information up. For those who utilize their authors.php page, they can add more things like your Twitter and Facebook profile to their author profile and not have to even alter the core of their site. You can even add more than that. This is done by adding and a simple function and filter to your theme’s functions.php file. function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) { // Add Twitter $contactmethods['twitter'] = ‘Twitter’; //add Facebook $contactmethods['facebook'] = ‘Facebook’; //add LinkedIn $contactmethods['linkedin'] = ‘LinkedIn’; return $contactmethods; } add_filter(‘user_contactmethods’,’my_new_contactmethods’,10,1); If you want to add Read More →

Slidedeck is a jquery slideshow plugin for WordPress. For users unable to build a content slider, this might be a nice option. Slidedeck comes in two versions: a free version and a PRO version. The PRO version costs, but you have the ability to customize the plugin further. Even with just the free version, it is a pretty good jquery slider. You can specify the size, what type of posts (example: recent, featured, or popular posts), and the navigation type. (Please right click on image to open in a new window.) To implement the plugin into your site, you can Read More →

There are over 1,400 themes available at the WordPress Theme Directory. There are a lot more elsewhere online. Although Leland of Themelab blogs Stop Downloading WordPress Themes from Shady Sites, the point really should be: be cautious when downloading any themes ANYWHERE. Some of the things to look for: – Encrypted code – Inability to edit layout to fit your own means – Link spam that have nothing to do with your site or may be linked inappropriate websites in the footer – Malicious code that could open your server to attacks or your own computer to viruses “Free” is Read More →

There are plenty of roundup posts about social bookmark plugins for WordPress. However, I have to ask: have you really tried them out before settling on the best, or did you pick the first one you found? I am a real stickler when it comes to using plugins, especially social bookmark plugins. Why? For several reasons: Design – It looks good. Convenience – Cuts my time down from hard coding social networking and social bookmarking icons into a layout. It works. There are plugins that I have had to hard code around to get it to look right. So, here Read More →

I have noticed a lot of plugins over the years lack the ability to totally uninstall files. What I mean by totally uninstalling is that when you use your WordPress admin panel to delete the files, it does not always take away the database tables that were installed in the beginning. A couple I can think of up front, are Next Gen Gallery and WP Link Directory. While it might not seem so important for most people, it is important to remove any resources that you do not plan to use on your web hosting space because it could prove Read More →

No matter how experienced or capable a freelancer you are, you will never get new work if nobody knows you exist. Promoting your freelancing skills online is the best way to attract new clients and can even help you keep the ones you already have. What’s more— online promotion these days isn’t expensive. Having a fantastic website showcasing your freelance services is definitely the first step. But that’s only part of the battle won. You still have to get people to view your site, and once they’re there, they still need to actually make use of your services. Getting people Read More →

I love polls, but not every poll taken is going to exactly reflect the whole of a target audience. Every opinion has its nook and cranny to observe. TechCrunch wrote on The Death Of The Impulse Shopper saying that more shoppers are prepared when shopping these days due to technology allowing the consumer to find out information quickly from tools like smartphones and in general, the Internet. The problem is impulse shopping is different from informed shopping. This is where you still are aware of a products information, but make a last minute choice to actually purchase it. For example, Read More →