Here is a list of Essential WordPress plugins that you probably should install on your WordPress powered site:

• Akismet  – Best guard against comment spam for WordPress blog! This will definitely make your life easier.
• WordPress Database Backup  – This plugin allows you to do on-demand backup of your WordPress database. You can also schedule a cron job so the database backup is sent to your at a regular interval. It will help you restore your site if anything unexpected happens to it.
• Google XML Sitemaps  – An XML sitemap is good to have for your WordPress site. This helps with the Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This plugin generates an XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.
• WordPress SEO by Yoast  – You don’t need a ton of SEO plugins. Just one good SEO plugin is all you need since Google will favor you if you focus more on creating good cotent. I prefer to use Yoast’s all in one SEO solution for your WordPress blog.
• Google Analytics for WordPress  – You probably want to know some in-depth statistics of your blog. Using Google Analytics is probably the best thing for that. This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics tracking to your WordPress blog.
• W3 Total Cache  - A caching plugin helps with your site performance. If you have low traffic then it doesn’t really matter that much but when you start to get high traffic look into using the W3 Total Cache plugin. It is the fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin.

Some Other Useful Plugins

If you are just using your WordPress site for blogging then you most likely won’t need anything more than what is already listed above. However, if you are trying to monetize your site by using Adsense, selling products, selling memberships etc. then you will want to use some of the following plugins:

• WP Simple Adsense Insertion – You can insert Google Adsense just by pasting the ad code directly in your theme’s template file but sometimes it helps if you use a simple plugin. The WP Simple Adsense Insertion plugin allows you to quickly and easily insert Google Adsense ad code to your posts, pages and sidebar by using a shortcode or a PHP function. I mainly like this plugin since it is lightweight.
• WP Simple Shopping Cart – There are lots of good WordPress ecommerce plugins out there but if you need a lightweight and simple shopping cart plugin then use the WP Simple Shopping Cart plugin.
• WP-Polls  – Sometimes you need to get feedbacks from your users. Using a polling plugin is the best way to collect feedback data. The WP Polls plugin adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog.

Feel free to share your opinions in the comment section below.

The HTML Code

Paste the following code to where you want to show the pagination

<div class="my_page_navi">
<?php
global $wp_query;
$total = $wp_query->max_num_pages;
if($total > 1) {
if ( !$current_page = get_query_var('paged') ){$current_page = 1;}
$perm_structure = get_option('permalink_structure');
$format = empty($perm_structure) ? '&page=%#%' : 'page/%#%/';
$paginate_return_data = paginate_links(array(
'base' => get_pagenum_link(1) . '%_%',
'format' => $format,
'current' => $current_page,
'total' => $total,
'mid_size' => 4,
'type' => 'plain'
));
echo $paginate_return_data;
}
?>
</div>

The “type” plain parameter will create a simple plain pagination. You can specify type “array” to get all the pagination links so you can display them how you want to.

The CSS Code

Now, all you need to do is add some CSS to your theme’s CSS file (style.css) to make the pagination look prettier. Add the following CSS code to your theme’s CSS file (customize it to suit your needs):

.my_page_navi {margin: 5px 0;display: block;margin:10px 0px;}
.my_page_navi .page-numbers{padding: 3px;border: 1px solid #9E9E9E;background: #EDEDED;margin:0px;font-size:12px;text-decoration: none;font-weight:bold;}
.my_page_navi a{color: #0071bb;text-decoration: none;position: relative;}

WordPress counts more than 60 million users among its ranks, with a development community that numbers in the tens of thousands. Given statistics as impressive a these, it’d be easy to assume that the number of themes available for WordPress installations is as limitless, diverse, and impressive as the number of users who call the software their own. But that’s actually not true, as the design and development community at large seems to have settled into several easily-identifiable patterns when crafting themes for this content management titan. Indeed, a casual glance through any WordPress theme directory website reveals that most sites are comprised of two or three columns, a large header and footer, and the same tired typefaces and font families that have been used for years on blogs all around the internet.

One great way to bypass this seeming limitation of style is to forego the WordPress theme directories altogether and choose a theme from a regular web design directory. Web designers around the world are designing outstanding templates for websites not powered by WordPress, leaving out the PHP code in favor of placeholder text, and encouraging users to do their own handiwork to make the design come alive with content. This might sound intimidating, especially to those new to the WordPress software or XHTML and PHP in general. However, with a few simple steps and general guidance from the WordPress Codex and developer community, it’s easy to turn any web template into a robust WordPress theme. This process generally concerns “slicing” the theme into a header, footer, and content area, and injecting WordPress variables into the code to bring dynamic content to the otherwise-static page. Here’s how the process works.

Step 1: Defining the Header, Content Area, and Footer

Almost every WordPress theme splits the design into three content areas, which include the header and footer as well as a main content area. This main content area includes the published posts as well as at least one sidebar, and sometimes two. Though to goal is to achieve a design which visually breaks the mold of typical WordPress offerings, this basic three-part structure should still be followed as it’s the best way to ensure that dynamic content is pulled in the same way throughout the website. Using these three sections helps ease the process of titling pages, ending code, placing a copyright, and ensuring that there is a certain ease of use to the website.

The first step will be pulling the header out of the template file. Open up the template’s main design file (probably an “index.htm” filename or something similar). In that document, highlight everything from the very top of the file through to the end of the navigation elements. This will likely include meta tags, page title information, navigation, a masthead or header image, and a few script or CSS inclusions. This information should then be cut-and-pasted into a new, blank text file. Save that file as “header.php” and close it.

Next scroll down to the end of the file. Find the last line of code, indicated by a < /html > tag, and highlight everything from that closing tag up to the end of the main content area (likely the < /div > tag which closes the sidebar or content column). Cut that code and paste it into a new, separate text file. Save that file as “header.php” and close it.

Finally, with the remaining code, go to the text editor’s “File” menu and choose “Save As.” Save the file as “index.php” and close it. The template has now been sliced into the three key parts of any WordPress theme and it can now be easily managed and modified as variables, PHP code, and dynamic content are all added into the mix.

Step 2: Turning a Static Header into a DynamicWordPress Header

The theme’s header will be one of the easiest files to modify, as its code will require just a few small adjustments and additions. The easiest way to begin modifying this template is to add the actual “wp_head” tag. This simple tag is responsible for including the WordPress version number and other important information into the header when the page is rendered using the WordPress software. Simply paste the following tag into the header file right after the < head > tag:

<?php wp_head(); ?>

Next, the page must be styled using the theme’s stylesheet file using WordPress variables. First and foremost, rename the downloaded web template’s included stylesheet file to “style.css,” which is the widely-accepted standard name for the stylesheet included with a WordPress theme. Next, include the following meta tag in the file to call the stylesheet (and delete any similar tag which may have been inserted by the original theme developer):

<link rel="stylesheet" href="< ?php bloginfo( 'stylesheet_url' ); ? >" type="text/css" />

The important thing in the above tag is the actual PHP variable, which tells the theme to pull the stylesheet from the relative theme root folder rather than from a hardcoded server path. Finally, it’s time to place WordPress variables in the actual < title > tag so that the blog name and page title can be dynamically placed into it for display to end users. Here’s what that looks like:

<?php wp_title(-); ? > < ?php bloginfo( 'name' ); ?>

These two tags should be placed between < title > and < /title >. The first one displays the actual post or page title while the second one is responsible for printing the name of the blog. They can be arranged in any order and the hyphen placed into the “wp_title” tag can be defined as any ASCII character to serve as a separator between the blog and page title elements.

These are the last of the WordPress variables to be placed into the header. Developers will want to change the navigation area to reflect the site’s structure, as these links may not line up with those defined by WordPress. Make sure the home, archives, about me, and other links go to the proper pages within the site.

Step 3: Filling in the Web Template’s Footer Information

Most web templates are designed to give the original theme developer some credit in the footer area, often pairing it with a link to the author’s site, a copyright, and other links such as those to the wider template directory. It’s fine to keep these in the footer, especially since free themes (and free theme developers) rely on these referral links to generate future business. They can be removed by the end user as their tastes demand, however, and that process should be completed first.

After the content in the footer has been updated to the satisfaction of the WordPress administrator, it’s time to place one simple variable into the footer so that WordPress can place its own basic copyright information (both printed on the page and included in XML tags behind the scenes). This is done by including the following tag:

<?php wp_footer(); ?>

With this included, and the administrator-desired information placed into the footer, the alteration of this template is now complete. It can be saved and is ready to upload to the server.

Step 4: Bringing WordPress Content to the Main Index File

Two things are now necessary to complete the actual XHTML elements of the content area of the web template. Those two things will see dynamic WordPress content brought into the sidebar area, and will enable the display of published content on the page. The sidebar is, without a doubt, the easiest thing to modify and bring up to WordPress standards. Start by highlighting all of the existing static code in the sidebar < div > area and cutting it. Then paste that information into a new text file, saved as “sidebar.php.” Eliminate any content that should not make it into the final theme, and then paste the following variable below that content. This variable will allow the placement of dynamic WordPress widgets below the hardcoded static content.

<?php if ( function_exists ( dynamic_sidebar() ) ) : ?>

With that variable added to the sidebar content, the “sidebar.php” file itself is now complete and can be saved. It is now ready to be uploaded to the server. All that remains is the standard WordPress sidebar inclusion variable which will serve to bring the sidebar’s content into the main index page. The variable below should be pasted into the same < div > element that the static sidebar content was just removed from:

<?php get_sidebar (); ?>

The sidebar area is now complete and focus can shift to the main content area of the website. This is where the content from pages and posts will be displayed and it requires inclusion of the standard WordPress Loop in order to make that happen. A standard WordPress Loop is given in the example below, but it’s important to note that this is an exceedingly simple version of what is often considered the “heart” of WordPress programming. There are many more variables which can be used, and a combination of XHTML and CSS can be used throughout the loop to give it a truly stunning appearance on each page as the author wishes:

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

<h2> <?php the_title(); ? > </h2>

<span> <?php the_date(); ?> </span>

<p> <?php the_content(); ?> </p>

<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<span><?php _e('There are no posts here! Go back and try again?'); ?></span>
<?php endif; ?>

With this code placed into the file, it should now be saved as it is ready for upload to the server. Also, since this template will also work to display categories, archives, single entries, and user-created pages, it should be saved with the following file names using the “Save As” feature in the “File” menu:

- archive.php
- category.php
- page.php
- single.php

With all of the PHP files updated with WordPress variables and completely saved, the web template is just one simple step away from becoming a regular WordPress theme, capable of handling any content the software throws at it. That simple step involves modifying the “style.css” file created earlier in this tutorial so that it’s header includes basic theme information. This information will allow the theme to be seen by the WordPress Dashboard, allowing administrators to view, preview, and activate it as they wish. Here’s how that process is completed.

Step 5: Turning the Stylesheet into a Theme Identification Document

Every WordPress theme is identified using “commented” lines of CSS code in the theme’s “style.css” file. This method has been used since the early days of WordPress and has proved so effective, and so easy to use, that it was also adapted to site plugin files for their identification in the Dashboard as well. Each line of this information needs to be filled out, and authors should do their best to fill everything in as accurately and fully as they can. It only helps to identify the theme and set it apart from the others once uploaded to the server. Here’s the commented CSS code which will need to be altered:

/*
Theme Name: Web Template Theme
Theme URI: http://link-to-actual-web-template-here.com
Description: Place a brief description of the theme in this area, as it will be displayed in the Dashboard itself and will help identify the theme to administrator users.
Author: Your Name
Author URI: http://your-website-here.com
Version: 1.0
Tags: list, creative, tags, which, describe, the, design elements, of the, theme, separated by commas
*/

This information, once completed, gets placed into the “style.css” file immediately at the top of the document. This means it appears before any actual CSS code is added to the document. Failure to include the information in that way will see it completely ignored by the Dashboard. The immediately consequence of this is that the theme will not be displayed in the Dashboard at all, rendering it unable to be activated until the problem is remedied.

Step 6: Bug Test and Activate the New WordPress Theme

Developers need to avoid making a common mistake: Overestimating their ability to correctly copy code and custom-create a WordPress theme on the first attempt. Even the most seasoned developers have been known to make mistakes, and that means that an effective bug test is the key to ensuring a theme’s high quality and usability. Be sure to preview the theme in the Dashboard before activating it; after activating it, browse the website and make sure that everything is displayed properly and according to plan.

If everything looks as great in real life as it did when the web template was first downloaded, then the process is complete and a new, unique WordPress theme will grace the appearance of a blog which almost fell victim to uninspired, uniform WordPress-targeted design.

• WP No JavaScript or Cookie Checker

Any modern website will require the help of JavaScript to function properly. If you get visitors who are using a browser that doesn’t support JavaScript or they kept JavaScript disabled then using the above mentioned plugin will warn them.

List of WordPress Constants

ABSPATH
ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH
APP_REQUEST
ARRAY_A
ARRAY_N
ATOM
AUTH_COOKIE
AUTH_KEY
AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL
COMMENTS_TEMPLATE
COOKIEHASH
COOKIEPATH
COOKIE_DOMAIN
CRLF
CUSTOM_TAGS
DB_CHARSET
DB_COLLATE
DB_HOST
DB_NAME
DB_PASSW
DB_PASSWORD
DB_USER
DOING_AJAX
DOING_AUTOSAVE
DOING_CRON
EP_ALL
EP_ATTACHMENT
EP_AUTHORS
EP_CATEGORIES
EP_COMMENTS
EP_DATE
EP_DAY
EP_MONTH
EP_NONE
EP_PAGES
EP_PERMALINK
EP_ROOT
EP_SEARCH
EP_TAGS
EP_YEAR
EZSQL_VERSION
FORCE_SSL_ADMIN
FORCE_SSL_LOGIN
FTP_ASCII
FTP_AUTOASCII
FTP_BINARY
FTP_FORCE
FTP_OS_Mac
FTP_OS_Unix
FTP_OS_Windows
IS_PROFILE_PAGE
JSON_BOOL
JSON_END_ARRAY
JSON_END_OBJ
JSON_FLOAT
JSON_INT
JSON_IN_ARRAY
JSON_IN_BETWEEN
JSON_IN_OBJECT
JSON_KEY
JSON_NULL
JSON_SKIP
JSON_START_ARRAY
JSON_START_OBJ
JSON_STR
LANGDIR
LOGGED_IN_COOKIE
LOGGED_IN_KEY
MAGPIE_CACHE_AGE
MAGPIE_CACHE_DIR
MAGPIE_CACHE_FRESH_ONLY
MAGPIE_CACHE_ON
MAGPIE_DEBUG
MAGPIE_FETCH_TIME_OUT
MAGPIE_INITALIZED
MAGPIE_USER_AGENT
MAGPIE_USE_GZIP
MAX_EXECUTION_TIME
MAX_RESULTS
MC_LOGGER_DEBUG
MC_LOGGER_ERROR
MC_LOGGER_FATAL
MC_LOGGER_INFO
MC_LOGGER_WARN
OBJECT
OBJECT_K
PASS_COOKIE
PCLZIP_ATT_FILE_NAME
PCLZIP_ATT_FILE_NEW_FULL_NAME
PCLZIP_ATT_FILE_NEW_SHORT_NAME
PCLZIP_CB_POST_ADD
PCLZIP_CB_POST_DELETE
PCLZIP_CB_POST_EXTRACT
PCLZIP_CB_POST_LIST
PCLZIP_CB_PRE_ADD
PCLZIP_CB_PRE_DELETE
PCLZIP_CB_PRE_EXTRACT
PCLZIP_CB_PRE_LIST
PCLZIP_ERROR_EXTERNAL
PCLZIP_ERR_ALREADY_A_DIRECTORY
PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_CHECKSUM
PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_EXTENSION
PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_EXTRACTED_FILE
PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT
PCLZIP_ERR_DELETE_FILE_FAIL
PCLZIP_ERR_DIRECTORY_RESTRICTION
PCLZIP_ERR_DIR_CREATE_FAIL
PCLZIP_ERR_FILENAME_TOO_LONG
PCLZIP_ERR_INVALID_ARCHIVE_ZIP
PCLZIP_ERR_INVALID_ATTRIBUTE_VALUE
PCLZIP_ERR_INVALID_OPTION_VALUE
PCLZIP_ERR_INVALID_PARAMETER
PCLZIP_ERR_INVALID_ZIP
PCLZIP_ERR_MISSING_FILE
PCLZIP_ERR_MISSING_OPTION_VALUE
PCLZIP_ERR_NO_ERROR
PCLZIP_ERR_READ_OPEN_FAIL
PCLZIP_ERR_RENAME_FILE_FAIL
PCLZIP_ERR_UNSUPPORTED_COMPRESSION
PCLZIP_ERR_UNSUPPORTED_ENCRYPTION
PCLZIP_ERR_USER_ABORTED
PCLZIP_ERR_WRITE_OPEN_FAIL
PCLZIP_OPT_ADD_COMMENT
PCLZIP_OPT_ADD_PATH
PCLZIP_OPT_BY_EREG
PCLZIP_OPT_BY_INDEX
PCLZIP_OPT_BY_NAME
PCLZIP_OPT_BY_PREG
PCLZIP_OPT_COMMENT
PCLZIP_OPT_CRYPT
PCLZIP_OPT_EXTRACT_AS_STRING
PCLZIP_OPT_EXTRACT_DIR_RESTRICTION
PCLZIP_OPT_EXTRACT_IN_OUTPUT
PCLZIP_OPT_NO_COMPRESSION
PCLZIP_OPT_PATH
PCLZIP_OPT_PREPEND_COMMENT
PCLZIP_OPT_REMOVE_ALL_PATH
PCLZIP_OPT_REMOVE_PATH
PCLZIP_OPT_REPLACE_NEWER
PCLZIP_OPT_SET_CHMOD
PCLZIP_OPT_STOP_ON_ERROR
PCLZIP_READ_BLOCK_SIZE
PCLZIP_SEPARATOR
PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR
PLUGINDIR
PLUGINS_COOKIE_PATH
RSS
SECRET_KEY
SECURE_AUTH_COOKIE
SECURE_AUTH_KEY
SITECOOKIEPATH
STATUS_INTERVAL
STYLESHEETPATH
TEMPLATEPATH
TEST_COOKIE
USER_COOKIE
WPINC
WP_ADMIN
WP_CONTENT_DIR
WP_CONTENT_URL
WP_DEBUG
WP_IMPORTING
WP_INSTALLING
WP_LANG_DIR
WP_MEMORY_LIMIT
WP_PLUGIN_DIR
WP_PLUGIN_URL
WP_UNINSTALL_PLUGIN
WP_USE_THEMES
WXR_VERSION

WordPress MailChimp Integration Video Tutorial Summary

Here is a summary of what this mailchimp wordpress widget video will cover

• What to offer to your visitors to get them to singup
• Explanation of the two available methods of adding a MailChimp newsletter subscription form
• How to create your first MailChimp list
• How to create a signup form in your MailChimp account
• How to place the newly created MailChimp signup form on your WordPress site
• How to Create your MailChimp welcome email (the email your subscribers will receive after they signup)

WordPress MailChimp Integration Video

• wp_remote_get (Retrieve the webpage content using HTTP GET)
• wp_remote_post (Retrieve the webpage content using HTTP POST)

Example Code to Retrieve Remote Webpage Content using HTTP GET Method


$response = wp_remote_get( 'http://www.example.com/some-text-file.txt' );
if(is_wp_error($response))//check to see if any error occured
{
echo 'An error orccured when trying to retrieve the remote webpage content!';
print_r($response); //This will dump more data
}
else //webpage content was retrieved successfully
{
echo 'Here is the retrieved content:';
echo '<pre>';
print_r($response);
echo '</pre>';
}


Example Code to Retrieve Remote Webpage Content using HTTP POST Method


$response = wp_remote_post( 'http://www.example.com/some-text-file.txt' );
if(is_wp_error($response))//check to see if any error occured
{
echo 'An error orccured when trying to retrieve the remote webpage content!';
print_r($response); //This will dump more data
}
else //webpage content was retrieved successfully
{
echo 'Here is the retrieved content:';
echo '<pre>';
print_r($response);
echo '</pre>';
}

I hope this neat WordPress trick to retrieve remote webpage content helps.

If you want to list each tag in its own line then use the following:

<?php the_tags('<strong>Tags: </strong>',' <br /> '); ?>


before you send your wp_mail call add a filter to wp_mail_content_type

add_filter('wp_mail_content_type','set_content_type');

Then in your set_content_type function have it return the appropriate content type, in this case ‘text/html’

function set_content_type($content_type){
return 'text/html';
}


A More Compressed Way to Set the Mail Content Type to HTML

add_filter('wp_mail_content_type',create_function('', 'return "text/html"; '));
wp_mail('whoever@whatever.com', 'Subject', 'Message');


1. Support – Support should be the number one thing you look in for your shopping cart plugin because technology was made to mess up and when it does, you need to know you have someone on your side to resolve it so it doesn’t create a larger mess. If you choose a free plugin it may save you money up front but could end up costing you more because of the absence of support during problems.
2. Installation – If your plugin is too complex to understand, let alone install it, then maybe you should look into a different plugin all together for your WordPress site. You want the shopping cart experience to be just as easy for you as it is the customer and when it isn’t, problems and errors typically arise.
3. Easy of Use – Not all plugins are created equally. Programmers all over the globe are making WordPress shopping cart plugins and some of them are much better and easy to use than others. Some programmers even run WordPress sites of their own so they know exactly what to implement for the best results within your ecommerce plugin!
4. Functionality – The easier the shopping cart functions for the customer the better because people love simplicity. If the customer has to click a lot they may get frustrated and confused and simply choose another website for the product or service they are looking for. You want to allow them to be able to purchase your products or services easily.
5. Price – Of course everything in the end comes down to money and shopping cart plugins range in prices quite vastly. Most people will tend to look for the free plugins just because they are on a tighter budget, especially when they are starting out. However, you will soon find out that spending a little bit of cash for a quality WordPress shopping cart plugin is absolutely worth every single penny that you end up spending.

If you are trying to search online for the “best” shopping cart plugin then you are going to hit different results on each website you go to. The truth is that the best plugin is always based on personal experience and what works for some does not work as well for others. You should read some reviews online in order to find the best shopping cart plugin and module for you.

Reviews are made by actual customers who have used, or currently use, the plugin that you are interested in. By taking the time to read a few of these customer’s experience you may be able to avoid a bad purchase or reassure yourself that the plugin is exactly what you are looking for.

People look for a wide variety of features for a WordPress shopping cart plugin but one of the most popular requests is to accept PayPal payments as well as debit/credit cards. If you are unfamiliar with PayPal it is simply like an online bank account for sellers and people who make their income online. It is 100% secure just like a bank account and makes it very easy and painless to make online purchases.

Whichever WordPress shopping cart plugin you end up using for your website just make sure you have read up on it first. Shop around and keep in mind the essential points of all good WordPress shopping cart plugin.