If you are developing a new site in WordPress, it may make sense to select a hosting company that has specific experience with WordPress. Since WordPress will be powering your entire site, it’s important to have a hosting company that understands its unique requirements. Here are some things to keep in mind when selecting a WordPress hosting company. Read More »

There are a handful of quality WordPress backup plugins to choose from in the WordPress Plugin Directory, but there's a few things you need to consider when choosing a backup plugin. Do you have room on your computer hard drive to store backups? Would storing your backups via an online service be preferable? Do you want to simplify backing up your site with the ability to schedule automatic backups? Is top-notch security or perhaps one-click restoration important to you? Read on to find out which WordPress backup plugins are best for you and your needs.

When starting a small business, the creation of your company website is an important task–from choosing the right CMS and the right theme to choosing the best plugins. One of the most crucial plugins you will choose is a WordPress backup plugin. That's why I have reviewed and selected the top 3 WordPress backup plugins available and listed them below along with their details, so you can pick and choose the right plugin for you.

1. UpdraftPlus Backup

Rated: 4.7 out of 5 stars

Downloads: 118, 364

With UpdraftPlus Backup you can backup manually or schedule automated backups into the cloud (Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Rackspace, WebDAV, FTP, SFTP and email). One-click restoration of both file and database backups is provided, as well as optional encryption, ability to select which files to backup and which components to restore. It even allows file and database backups to have separate schedules. This is the top-rated WordPress backup plugin, and provides the biggest selection of backup options.

2. Online Backup for WordPress

Rated: 4 out of 5 stars

Downloads: 236, 823

I personally use this WordPress backup plugin and it's always worked great for me. Online Backup for WordPress provides the ability to backup your database and/or files either manually or automated, to your computer in a ZIP file, your email, or to their online vault where 100 MB of free storage is provided. Encryption is available, even as the download or process of emailing is taking place, as well as top-notch security in the online vault.

3. Simple Backup

Rated: 4.3 out of 5 stars

Downloads: 78, 249

Simple Backup is another good WordPress backup plugin, which stores backups in a created directory in the root of your WordPress directory (FTP). You have the option of backing up database and/or files, and configuring advanced optimization settings. This is an easy-to-use plugin, and can be as simple or advanced as you like–the only cons when compared to the other two plugins mentioned are that it only allows manual backups, and doesn't allow any other form of backups besides FTP.

So now that you've had the chance to compare and contrast the top 3 WordPress backup plugins, you've hopefully been able to make a decision as to which plugin fits your needs best. If not, you might try out all 3 and see which you like better. Backing up your website is very important as you can not always rely on your hosting company to do this for you. Servers crash and websites can go down. In order to make sure you can restore yours, maintain a current backup with one of these plugins.

Many people get confused between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Were you aware that hosting on WordPress.com is different than using the software from WordPress.org? They are quite different. WordPress is a Content Management System, web software for building websites, which can be downloaded from WordPress.org and installed on your web host. WordPress.com is a hosting platform where you can create a free blog without having to pay for a separate host, but without the ability to upload a custom theme, modify the code, or upload plugins. Your website URL will also end in ".wordpress.com". So which one is for you? Read on to find out. Read More »

For many businesses, a custom designed website is needed in order to properly represent the company’s brand. Companies like Apple or Pepsi require professional designers to create unique website designs that are consistent with the rest of the corporate marketing materials. On the other hand, many small business don’t have a website at all. They are less concerned with their site being branded properly and more concerned with it being available online where their customers and prospects can find it. If your business is in this latter category, a WordPress theme might be a good option. Read More »

Free WordPress themes are hugely sought-after, now that 1 in 3 websites today are created in WordPress. WordPress is widely considered the number one Content Management System (CMS), mainly for being amazingly user-friendly, highly customizable, open source, and having a plug-in directory comparable to the App Store. But one of the best things about WordPress is that you don't have to build your website from scratch; you can install a theme, then customize it to your liking, add some content and, voilà, you have a website! There are thousands of both free and premium WordPress themes readily available on the internet, but the trick is finding the best ones. The good news is that I've done that for you! Read More »

WordPress is used to create 1 in 3 websites on the Internet today and that percentage is growing every day. If you are not already aware of WordPress and how it can act as a great platform for your small business website, then read on. This article will discuss what WordPress is and what its benefits are. WordPress is the world’s leading Content Management System, or CMS. A CMS is just a fancy term for a program that let’s you edit your own website. Read More »

Many people don't know that links are one of the most influential factors of your Google rankings. Authoritative, inbound links with keyword-rich anchor text are what will ultimately get you ranking on page 1 for those keywords in the search engines. But how do you go about getting these quality links? Creating and carrying out a link strategy can be one of the most time-consuming SEO tasks you do for your web site. This is one reason people seek the help of an SEO professional. If you would like to do it yourself, there are a few things you should know about links beforehand, like what the different types of links are, which ones are good, bad, useful or useless.

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WordPress plugins. There are thousands of them, ranging from one star to five star, brand new or tried and true, and a waste of time to absolutely necessary. So where do you start? Which are the best WordPress plugins? The WordPress Plugin Directory is like the App Store for Apple devices. So to help you out, we've put together a checklist of the 10 best WordPress plugins that are must-have additions to your WordPress site.

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Have a site idea but don't know what domain name to register? Are all your first choices for domain names taken? Thinking about going with a .net, .biz or .co because you feel like you have no other choice? In this article, I'll walk you through a step-by-step process for your choosing a great SEO-friendly domain for your website. Read More »

There is a plethora of Content Management Systems (CMS) out there to choose from when deciding to create a blog or a website; WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. There are also a large number of free blogging services like Blogger, TypePad, etc, but using these sites is not recommended because you typically don't own the domain name. It will be something like mygreatblog.blogspot.com. This creates a couple of problems. One, if you want to move to your own domain in the future, you'll likely lose many of your readers. Two, it's a hassle because you have to copy and paste all the content you had built up over time into the new site. I highly recommend creating a self-hosted website, using a host like Bluehost.com for example, and installing a CMS. My number 1 recommended CMS for most small businesses is WordPress. "Why WordPress?", you may ask. Here are 5 reasons: Read More »