WordPress 2.3 has been launched by September 24th. Nowadays most of my readers ask me about the guidelines of an easy WordPress upgrade.

Well, before answering this question, let me tell you something. Before upgrading to a newer version, you should wait for a few months and see whether it is operating smoothly or not. Every time a new version is launched, it usually comes with bugs. These bugs are mostly discovered by end users during the first few months of the release and then fixed by the developers of WordPress. Better late, than never!

Having said that, it is up to you to upgrade to WordPress 2.3. But i must warn you at the beginning that any upgrade that involves database changes should be undertaken carefully, and preparation is key to a successful upgrade.

Typically, most webmasters install custom themes and additional plugins, and of course they upload extra files such as images to their /wp-content/uploads folder. You need to back up and store them off server before starting the upgrade process. Also you should backup the database itself.

How to Back Up Your Site?

Backing up your site is best achieved by installing the BackUpWordpress plugin. You are free to download the plugin and see the instructions from here. You may then select the default backup options which will create a compressed file of your complete site including files and database. If anything does go wrong it should be relatively easy to restore this and import your database into MySQL using phpMyAdmin or your host’s preferred database manager.

Once you are certain your site has been backed up, you’re ready to start preparing for the upgrade.

Are your Plugins and Chosen Theme Compatible with WordPress 2.3?

Most modern themes shouldn’t cause any problem except that non v2.3 themes may not include the tags code needed to make use of the new tags feature of WordPress 2.3. This is a relatively simple update to make, and simply involves adding extra php code to the theme’s index.php and single.php.

Open index.php and single.php in your favorite text editor and search for the following code , and simply add the following code before or after depends on where you want the tags will be displayed (before or after your article).

The plugins used in your site will need to be checked against the list of compatible plugins. Any plugin that isn’t compatible will likely not work correctly or at all. You may need to contact the plugin author for an update or discontinue using that plugin until an update is available.

You should now be ready to upgrade your installation to WordPress 2.3, and if your host provides wget functionality simply copy the zip file to your server then unzip them directly into your WordPress folder. If wget isn’t available to you, then you’ll need to download the zip file and use an ftp client to upload the unzipped files.

Once you’ve uploaded your WordPress files, make sure your WordPress 2.3 compatible theme is uploaded to /wp-content/themes. Did you need updated plugins? Upload these to /wp-content/plugins. You should now be ready to initiate the WordPress update script.

Navigate to the admin section of your site, WordPress will automatically recognize that an upgrade is required. Once completed, and if all has gone to plan, you should be able to login to Dashboard without any difficulty.

Should you have any problems, i am here to assist you. Please tell me about your upgrade experiences. Join my RSS subscriptions in order to be informed about the new and more detailed WordPress coverage. Good Luck!

Getting your self a money making affiliate program comes from research. Almost all affiliate programs give you commission of sales. For example you are an affiliate of a voip phone service. You have to put catching marketing material on your web page that interests the reader and gives the customer solutions for voip phone service. If you have taken up affiliate account with a web and domain hosting company then you will have to make sure you are providing the key benefits that the customer is searching. Make sure your web host has a good repute or else you and your customers will suffer.

Imagine your blog is listed amongst the most populars of del.icio.us, or on the front page of Digg, for about a day or so. I assure you that after reading post, you will learn all the basics of writing a killer “How to” article that works.

We all know that today “How To” articles are the most popular ones in Blogosphere . If you add value to others by clarifying a problematic or detailed issue, they will reward you by subscribing to your RSS feeds, giving link to your post, or even leaving a comment to your blog. Each comment is accepted as your blog content and is affecting your Search Engine Optimization positively. Formula is very simple, attract their attention, give what you promise and then be rewarded.

But how?

The major problem is to attract attention of blog readers at the beginning. There is a fierce never ending battle between bloggers so as to attract attention of blog readers. In order to win this battle, you should develop your skills on writing a killer headline.

Show Them the Benefits

Due to crazy busy lives we seek out tips, tricks, and methods to make things better, easier, and faster. This will make us feel happy too. Therefore focusing on better, easier, and faster is the key elements of great “how to” headlines and content.

Let’s have a look at this headline which is a killer headline for the men who are desperately seeking for a single date with a woman:

How to Date With 5 Different Women a Day

The headline structure is very powerful. You show the benefit by starting with “How to”. But the benefit you offer is not realistic. How can you manage to date with 5 different women in a day? You may face with a heart attack If you change it like this it will be far better :

How to Arrange A Date With A Woman In 5 Minutes

Congrats! The chance of achieving this target is higher than the previous one.

How To Formulate Killer Headlines

Below are some of the headline formats you can use for your articles:

1. Who Else Wants [blank]?

Example : Who Else Want To Have A Blog Like The Thinking Blog?

2. The Secret of [blank]

Example : The Secret of Successful Blogging

3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]

Example : Here is a Method That is Helping Bloggers to Boost Exposure

4. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All

Example : Get Rid of Spyware Once and For All

5. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]

Example : Here’s a Quick Way to Exchange Links

Outcome

The more you focus on the benefits to the reader in your headline, the more readers you’ll have. You will satisfy your readers by adding value to them and making them happy.

And then you might see your post on the front page of Digg

Getting yourself certified in various Microsoft technologies gives you the edge in the IT market. Exam 74-134 checks you for installation proficiency in Microsoft products. Microsoft’s CRM 3.0 expertise is checked in MB2-421. People who got certified in older technologies can give the upgrade exams, which will make their old certification on par with the new one. For example to get yourself certified in Exchange server 2003, if you are an MCSE on windows 2000, pass the 70-29670-297 exam has to be passed. Get your self appraised by 70-548 exam for developing and designing window based applications using Microsoft Dot Net framework. exam. To be certified in designing windows active directory.

Probably you have heard DMOZ before. DMOZ is an open directory project maintained by human moderators. In other words, all the links included in DMOZ is manually accepted by a human being in order to keep quality high.

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

There are nearly 75,000 human editors at DMOZ, nearly 600,000 categories and 4 million included sites. It means if you get your blog into DMOZ, the search engine spiders will find your blog and index it. It is the easiest way to get your site indexed in the search engines. However you may not expect to happen quickly. Also there is no guarantee for that.

Tips For Submitting Your Blog To DMOZ

You should be careful before submitting your blog to DMOZ. There are some requirements for your blog to be accepted into DMOZ. If your blog is a brand new one, chances are it will not be accepted.

1) You need to have some good content in your blog. Suppose that a human moderator from DMOZ visits your page and finds nothing except some links and Google Adsense ads on it. No way out! Don’t expect your blog to accepted by DMOZ if this is the case. You should have at least 20 published articles in your blog. Your blog must be at least 1 month old. Otherwise the human moderator will reject your approval.

2) You should submit to the best category in DMOZ that matches your blog topic. Be careful not to submit for more than one category. This may ban you from ever getting into DMOZ.

The best idea is to select the best category, complete the DMOZ submission process and then walk away. You may check back in a month or so if you made it but other than that leave it alone – it’s simply not worth spending much time on.

Here is the submission link : http://dmoz.org/add.html

I would like to give you some examples of interesting Affiliate programs where you can make some money with your WordPress blog.

ClickBank is a very good website example where you may find hundreds of Affiliate programs in one go. ClickBank affiliates are Internet marketers who earn commissions by promoting ClickBank products. Once you sign up as an affiliate, your internet marketing skills can lead to additional income.

How can you sell an Affiliate product ?

Why don’t you start with writing one product review every week in your WordPress blog? At the end of one year, you will have 52 blog articles all are waiting to make you some money.

I am very glad to announce you today that PayPal has changed its funding policy. This is going to be a new era especially for Malaysian, Indian, and Turkish bloggers who could not transfer their PayPal money to their local bank account.

Bloggers in Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Cyprus, Estonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Philippines, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay! Feel free to transfer your money to your local credit card if your card is withdraw eligible. All you need is to wait for 5-7 business days and pay $5 usd fee.

I would like to start with a short recap of what we have discussed so far. If you read my post Five Reasons to Start a Small Business Blog before, you know that why it is necessary to start a small business blog already. Let me list down five reasons to start a small business blog once again:

1. Search engine optimization
2. A blog is an inexpensive form of public relations and marketing
3. A blog can be more effective than traditional methods of turning prospects into customers
4. Blogs can help you receive immediate feedback
5. Blogs are easier and less expensive to manage than full-fledged websites

As i mentioned before on Part 2 and Part 3 Plugins are files you simply upload to your WordPress’ Plugin folder, and activate within your admin panel. That is all simple. However some Plugins may require somewhat technical setup. Personally I use a lot of Plugins with my blogs. I list the top 10 Plugins that are really important for your blog. You will boost exposure with these Plugins.

1. SEO Title Tag

This Plugin customizes the HTML title tags, and reverses tag order for SEO purposes.

2. Ultimate Tag Warrior

The main purpose is to assign keywords to your page or post, making them easier to search, as well as creating additional pages for the search engines to crawl, thus increasing your visibility.

3. Google Sitemap Generator

Creating an extensible markup language (XML) sitemap for Google, you encourage the crawler to visit all your pages. This page has no meaning for us, but it is very meaningful for Google.