February 8th in Wordpress Tips by Wordpress Jedi . 
If you run you own WordPress blog, you know the effort that it takes to engage users and keep them coming back for more. You can have the best blog in the world, but if people are not being engaged, you can’t sustain your traffic, and your community will not be as strong as it should be.
One way to engage users is by creating magnetic polls. By that I mean polls that are more than about “what you had for lunch today.” Something about your industry, issues and challenges in it, and possible controversies. WordPress makes it easy to create polls on your blog. You can use WP Polls to create polls and track them on your site. You can customize the design as you wish, and you can set deadlines or schedule your polls months in advance. But is hosting your polls the best way to go?
After testing both internal and external polls, I have come to conclusion that external polls give you more strategic options to drive traffic to your site and engage your users. Sites such as Poll Daddy and LinkedIn allow you to create your own polls and share them with other easily. And they are compatible with WordPress too!
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Continue Reading February 6th in Site Logo by Wordpress Jedi . 
In the first part of this series, I talked about the three approaches that you can take to create a logo for your WordPress blog. As promised, I am going to discuss how you can build one for your blog fast using online self-service logo services. LogoMaker by HP is an innovative logo design service that allows you to get started with your design fast.
LogoMaker allows you to choose your business category and based on that, you are provided with a set of images to choose for your logo design. The designs will be based on:
- Letters: letter-based logos
- Symbols: relevant symbols
- Abstract: abstract symbols (not necessarily related to your niche).
For instance, you can find the above images under the real estate category (these are symbol based). Once you have chosen your favorite image, you can add it to the design canvas for further changes. You can then add text to your logo, change color, and styles easily using LogoMaker’s interface.
LogoMaker makes it easy to rotate the image, change its size, or even change its color (even in parts). You can also choose from all kinds of fonts to customize your text section. Once you are finished with this part, you can save your logo. You can then decide to test the logo for free for a certain period of time. LogoMaker provides you with a script that you put on your site for free for the testing period. If you decide to buy your logo, you are provided with standard versions of your logo to download (jpeg, gif, eps, tiff).
Overall, LogoMaker is so easy to use even a caveman can do it. You can be absolutely new to the world of design and still create attractive logos with LogoMaker. The prices are low too which makes LogoMaker very affordable.
Stay tuned for part III, where I talk about yet another solution you can use to design your logo fast.
Continue Reading February 6th in Premium Themes by Wordpress Jedi . 
Have you ever thought about runnig a job site right from your WordPress blog? With the power of WordPress, there is really nothing that you can’t do these days. I got to confess that I was intrigued about creating a geen job site on WordPress about a year ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the resources to write one from scratch and when I finally found Job Press, the niche was so overcrowded that I changed my mind completely.
But if you are thinking of running a niche local job site, you should definitely check out Job Press.
Job Press is a simple WordPress theme that allows you to create job sites on the fly. You don’t need any plugins to enhance the functionality of Job Press as all you need is included with the theme. The theme is well designed and allows you to use the provided images to describe fulltime, part-time, and freelance type of jobs. In addition, you can categorize jobs based on skills, locations, and so on, which makes this theme extremely powerful.
You can also monetize the blog by asking for a small amount of fee to display listings for a defined period of time. Posting a job is very easy, and if you get things right, you may get your investment money back in a fairly short amount of time.
Job Press comes with two different types of licenses:
- Single License: You can use it for one site only but you have to keep the footer intact. It is all going for $79!
- Developer License: If you want to go crazy with job sites, you can get the developer license which not only allows you to use this theme on multiple sites, you can change the theme and even remove the footer. It will cost your $199, but for $120 more than the single license, you get total freedom to do anything with this theme.
Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars. Job sites are very niche sites for a content management system such as WordPress. Job Press does the job brilliantly, and it is well designed. Best of all, it doesn’t require extra plugins or crazy PHP libraries. We would’ve liked the ability to remove the footer with the single license as well but regardless will have to give this theme 5/5 due to its uniqueness and attractive design.
Continue Reading February 4th in Wordpress Tips by Wordpress Jedi . 
In the first part of this series, I talked about how you can use third-party services such as Twitter Feed to connect your WordPress blog to your Twitter account. Another way to connect your WordPress blog to Twitter is by bringing the Twitter community to your WordPress blog.
This process is not really that hard. All you have to do is log on to Twitter, and click on the tools link right on the footer.
Once there, you want to grab a widget from the options available.
Once there, you get a few options to choose from. Obviously, there is none for WordPress, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the code available on your WordPress blog. I personally use myspace widget on my blog. It is flash, and I know the SEO purists hate flash, but I find it more attractive on my blogs. You can also use the blogger option and grab the code for your site.
The blogger code makes it easy to optimize the look and feel of your Twitter snippet with CSS. A lot of folks have used it to create unique looking Twitter sidebar widgets, but I personally like the flash version better.
At the end of the day, you want to make sure you take advantage of Twitter to not only drive more traffic to your site but also create a tighter community around your blog. And let’s not forget that the more connected you are on Twitter, the better off you are.
Continue Reading February 2nd in Wordpress Tips by Wordpress Jedi . 
What makes a WordPress blog unique? You can say your content. But even if you have the best content in the world on your blog, you want to make sure people know your site is unique. I am sure you have seen sites that use one of those free WordPress themes that do not even come with a graphical logo. There is really nothing wrong with starting that way. After all, buying a custom made theme could be a bit costly, and creating a logo could be expensive too, right? Wrong!
I have mentioned in the past that you can buy premium themes for as low as $20. But what I haven’t mentioned is how you can create your very own logo for cheap as well. Many start-ups are using the very same services to develop their logos, and there is no reason you shouldn’t.
There are three ways to go about creating your very own logo, depending on your budget:
- Custom Logo Design: you can always pay a designer to create a unique logo for you. You want to keep in mind that this option can cost you anything between $100 to $5000. It really depends on who you work with, and what you ask of them. Large companies do pay thousands of dollars for their design projects, but everyone can afford that kind of design work.
- Self-Service Logo Design: this is my favorite option. You can design logos yourself, using online services available. You can grab images, change color, change shapes, and get creative. The cost is anywhere between $20 to $200, which is affordable to most folks.
- Hybrid Design: you can always use the second option to create a concept and then ask a logo company to enhance your concept and create a unique logo for you. This option often costs $200-500, but it allows you to get a unique logo done without having to break the bank.
Depending on your budget, you should go with the option that gives you the biggest bang for the buck. If you are just starting with blogging, you don’t need to have an expensive logo. A lot of experts may even tell you not to invest in a logo early on. I firmly believe that you should get started with your branding as soon as you can. You can’t wait around for a year or two and then get your logo. It’s just too late. You may want to keep your $200 and spend it later, but I would think of it as a long-term investment. The sooner you have a logo, the sooner you can get started with your branding process (mugs, t-shirts, business cards, …).
In the second part of this series, I am going to talk about some of the popular logo solutions that you can use to create your very own logo fast. It’s not that hard. Stay tuned.
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