1. You will need a few things before you get started with your WordPress install.

• Your FTP or SHELL information, user name and password to allow you to upload files to your server
• Your host will need to have the minimum requirements to run WordPress
• You will need to create a database and a MySQL user on your web server
• An editor a text-editor will do
• A web browser

2. Download and unzip the latest version of WordPress

3. Find the wp-config-sample.php file and rename it to wp-config.php

4. Open the file mentioned in step #3 and edit the database details to match those that you have set up on your web server

5. Upload your WordPress files to your desired location. If your entire site is going to be your WordPress installation then upload the files to the root folder. If you wish to have your WordPress at something like http://www.yoursite.com/blog then be sure to put your files in a folder named blog.

6. Run the wp-admin/install.php file by copying the filename and adding it to the end of the path to your WordPress install. (ex: http://www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php)

7. You’re done!

If you need more detailed instruction you can visit the WordPress website and visit the Installing WordPress section.

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This post was written by Simon Vreeswijk of Stikky Media Social Media Marketing

Firefox

This code:

<div style=”-moz-border-radius: 5px;” >

Will allow your div to have rounded corners.

The following code will make an entire div or class have rounded corners with 5px indent on either corner. Set the radius in pixels to change the shape of the corners. You can even adjust each corner individually to have a different radius to provide a different look.

• -moz-border-radius-topleft: 5px;
• -moz-border-radius-topright: 5px;
• -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 5px;
• -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 5px;

Safari

<div style=”-webkit-border-top-left-radius: 5px;” >

• -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 5px;

• -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 5px;

• -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 5px;

• -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 5px;


Hopefully one day Internet Explorer will join the rest of the world and we will no longer have to mess with multiple images, transparent png’s, javascript hacks, or whatever other pains you web designers go through while trying to create rounded corners.

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This post was written by Simon Vreeswijk of Stikky Media Internet Marketing.

The Top Adsense Plugins for Wordpress

Adsense and Wordpress work together in perfect harmony – these are the top adsense plugins suited for your website.

Adsense Injection – This adsense plugin injects adsense wherever you choose, using a code (once you set your publisher ID up) and injecting adsense wherever you want it in a post, using the tag <!–adsense–>, you can set up multiple styles, so setting up a few different looking ads with size and color schemes are integrated and called by using a unique code – for example <!–adsense4–> or whatever you choose to call it.

Adsense WP Widget – A quick and easy solution to creating an Adsense block to display on every page in your sidebar widgets (near your blogroll, etc). This plugin costs $1USD, don’t really know why, but hey – depending on your traffic you could make that back in a day.

Adsense Deluxe – This bad boy offers some unique options to manage automated insertion of your Adsense, and even your Yahoo feed. It has universal control to change your Adsense color scheme across your entire site.

Adsense Earnings – This plugin is incredibly useful if you aren’t logged into your Google adsense account. This is useful for folks like me, logged into Gmail from another account, and then logging into Adsense with another… which logs me out of email most of the time. This plugin shows your daily earnings, and overall CTR of the site.

Shylock – This is another really uniquely designed Adsense plugin. This will swap the targetted keywords to higher-paying ones on posts older than X days, weeks, months. You need to really play around with this one and make it work for you.

AdRotator – A plugin that can manage adsense and affiliate banners, etc. Great for seeing your top performing ads on the site, and doing some split testing between Adsense/banners.

RevShare – A great, great plugin if you have guest writers on your blog – the option of letting them write for your site and having their own Adsense ads on page. They’ll be happy that their writing is benefiting you while they make a bit of passive income on the side.

Beautifier – A fun one for designers. Images are placed near the Ad, to improve CTR – Warning: may be against Adsense TOS

Ad Wrap – Want sectional targetting? Google spiders will love this one because it wraps your posts up in a nice targetted adsense wrap.

Top Search Engine Optimization Plugins for Wordpress

There are many SEO plugins that are completely awesome for wordpress. Not as many great options as the Adsense ones, but these are damn good.

Google Position – I am absolutely in love with this plugin. Easily track your position in the SERPs by placing your desired keywords. Main terms as well as long-tail keywords are trackable, and if you have clients using a wordpress site, this is almost a must. Giving detailed and accurate reports of the position of search terms, without having to search for yourself.

All in One SEO – Another great plugin that helps you tailor your meta data. Page title, meta keywords, and description in a twitter fashion. Most search engines use a maximum of 160 chars for the description. It gives you a character count in a little box so you can maximize your keyword copy. Brilliant!

SEO Siloing – This one may be a bit dated, but it’s perfect for those that don’t quite grasp the Wordpress setup in the permalinks area. Typical SEO practice is to have /%category%/%postname%/, this just overrides the settings to do exactly that.