Anything that I could possibly say about 3.0 will either be covered by one of the hundreds of WordPress-focused blogs or by the WordPress team itself. Honestly, it’s not like I’m going to dig through the codex to find out what’s hot with the new version of WordPress. I was going to get my information from WordPress.org and the WordPress blogosphere anyway.

So without further ado, I present to you the WordPress 3.0 video tour…

WordPress 3.0 New Feature Highlights:

• Cleaner Admin Panel
  • Customer admin login and password on install
  • Unified update page.
• New default theme
• Custom menus/navigation
• “Shortlink Support”
• Merged with WPMU features

The clean and light color scheme is ideal for business websites for many reason. When I say business websites, I of course mean corporations, small businesses, etc., and not business-oriented blogs. Of course, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used for that purposed. But I digress… By giving the visitor little option, other than focusing on your content, Minimal is perfect for the company that wants focus on their website’s content, and wants to avoid any possible confusion when their prospective customers land on their website. I actually may use it myself, for my freelance copywriting business.

Although the homepage is what makes this theme unique, the blog archive pages equally stunning. I’ve found that although many of the themes at ElegantThemes are absolutely gorgeous, many of them lack readability. This is not the case for Minimal. Instead, Minimal is actually very easy on the eyes, and I don’t feel like I’m struggling to make sense of the typography. A common feeling when working with some of his other themes. I can’t speak for the darker color scheme, but the lighter color scheme is very easy to read, which I think is derived from the perfect clash of black and white.

You can, of course, check out the theme for yourself over at ElegantThemes.com

You can never be 100% protected, but the techniques laid out in this video add a couple more layers that wrongdoers have to work through. And as I always say (not really), if you can’t beat ‘em, you may as well be a pain in their arse.

WPZonBuilder Features

• Instantly Add Hundreds of Posts To Your Blog – Just search, queue, and post to add hundreds of product-focused to your WordPress Blog. All content preformatted, all links cloaked, and every post tagged.
• 8 Handy Widgets – It comes with 8 cool widgets made specically for this plugin, to add even more dynamic content to your page.
• User Comments - When I, myself, am shopping on Amazon, a good product review can make all the difference when I’m deciding to buy. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not alone. Because WPZonBuilder adds the customer reviews found on Amazon directly to your comments, giving your visitors even more incentive to buy. Heck, they may even be so engaged by your content, that they actually stick around.
• 3rd Party Plugin Integration – To use WPZonBuilder to it’s full potential, it’s best to create your own custom mix of content sources. You can take advantage of any dynamic content that other plugins using [shortcodes] generate. I, for example, have plans to integrate this with PHPbay, and maybe a Flickr plugin, to make my content look even more unique.

Although the Amazon Associates program is lacking in many ways (short cookie life, low commissions), it’s actually a great source of free content, and you have the opportunity to pick up some pocket change in the process.

How Does WPZonBuilder Work?

1. WPZonBuilder works just like any other WordPress plugin. All you have to do is upload to your /wp-content/plugins directory, and activate it in your dashboard. You’ll need access to the Amazon API, and an Amazon Associates account if you want to collect a commission, both of which are free to join. After entering this information into the settings page, WPZonBuilder is pretty much plug-n-play.
2. Next you’ll be adding products to your post queue. An easy to use search function makes it simple to find the products you would like to add to your blog. Just click the items you would like added.
   



3. You’ll then head over to the “Post Products” page. Here you can select what category you’d like the posts to be added to, when you’d like them posted, and what user is posting them. You also have the opportunity to add custom code before or after the Amazon template.

Then, depending on when you scheduled them, posts will begin to get published. That’s all there is to it.

If you’d like to take the less automated route, you can add Amazon listings to individual posts. Not nearly as fun, but not everyone is comfortable adding hundreds of pages to their blog overnight.

Overall, I’d say WPZonBuilder is a fantastic product. Although I haven’t worked with an Amazon WordPress plugin before, it can’t imagine it’s possible to make it any easier than this. My first time testing this out, just a few minutes ago, I had added over 50 posts to an old blog of mine in just a few minutes.

The developer of WPZonBuilder is also a very reputable guy. Bugs get fixed almost instantly, and if you’ve got a good idea for new feature, he’s likely able to implement it for you.
At just $69 for an unlimited license, WPZonBuilder is quite a steal. I highly recommend you check it out.

And easy is what WordPress is all about, so it only made sense for Automattic to develop a way to not only update, but also manage your WordPress blog from your mobile device. Applications available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry enable you to:

• Write, edit, and publish posts/pages.
• Manage and reply to user comments.
• Upload pictures and video.

These apps work for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.org blogs. Best of all, the only configuration required is enabling XML-RPC in your writings settings. Then just login, and start managing your WordPress blog on the go.

I can’t speak on the iPhone or Blackberry apps, but running WordPress on my Droid is a great treat.

Most professional themes these days are created with SEO in mind, and more often than not, are in line with my regular SEO practices. However, there are times when you’ve got to look beyond the themes, and start looking for plugins to do your dirty work.

Below are 6 plugins that I activate on nearly all my WordPress installations, and chances are, you should be using them too!

If you have any plugins that you would like to add to the list, please do so in the comments!

1. Platinum SEO Pack – This is one plugin that you need to have
   

   Platinum SEO Plugin

   installed on your WordPress blog. If you’ve ever used the All in One SEO Plugin, then you’ve already been familiarized with Platinum SEO, because it’s actually based on it.It performs all the basics like custom page titles, more control over META data, nofollow, noindex, and more. I’m trying really hard to make this sound enticing, but making meta tags and page titles sexy is not easy.

2. WP No Category Base – Hopefully you’re effectively using permalinks to SEOify your URLs.  Again, its one of my favorite features, but there is a problem. The category base, the default being “category” which gets tagged onto your URL, right after your domain. Not only does it over zero SEO significance (at least not when it’s set as the default), but it also adds 9 more characters to your SEO-friendly URLs.This is an extremely simple plugin, with a single purpose, but it’s quick and easy, and doesn’t require any hacking around in your .htaccess file. Do note that this plugin hasn’t been updated in over 7 months. I am, however, currently using it on dozens of blogs, and I’ve yet to run into any problems.
3. Google XML Sitemaps – I see this plugin recommended time and time again across the Web, and for good reason. This plugin is awesome at what it does! So what does it do? As you probably guessed, this plugin is great for generating XML sitemaps, which are used by most major search engines to thoroughly spider full sites. And it should be noted that this is not just a tool to appease the Google Gods, but Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com as well.
4. Google Analytics for WordPress – If you aren’t thoroughly analyzing your traffic, than all your SEO work has been done in vain. Google Analytics is arguably the best free analytics software available today. To track your stats, you must first install the Analytics tracking code on your site. Google Analytics for WordPress does this for you, but goes a step further, and lets you easily set yourself up to track and segment outgoing clicks and Adsense clicks.

5. 
   

   
   

   Scribe SEO

   Scribe SEO – Scribe SEO takes in depth look at the actual content of your posts. Scribe SEO is the perfect solution for blogs with multiple authors and editors that aren’t as well versed in SEO as they should be. If you’re producing mass amounts of content, it’s not always easy to ensure that it meets all your SEO standards. Scribe SEO fixes this problem.

6. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Although not typically thought of as a SEO plugin, “YARPP” provides a convenient and natural way to interlink your pages, resulting in some serious onsite SEO benefit. You can also add related posts to your RSS feed for even more effect

Now I must warn you, this is the work of an extreme amateur, but I think I’ve made it simple enough to follow along with, even for complete beginners.

To kick things off here, I figured we start with the very first step of using the self-hosted blogging solution provided by WordPress.org (not to be confused with WordPress.com). I walk you through the process of downloading and installing WordPress on your own host, including how to set up your MySQL databases.

Things You’ll Need:

• A PHP/MySQL Capable Webhost (We recommend LiquidHost)
• FileZilla or other FTP Program
• The ability to extract files.

Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions, I’d love to answer them for you. I’m also accepting video critiques!

Until next time!