Let me get this straight to start with, I am very easily impressed by simple themes that offer SEO benefits, along with being the owner of this site, I am also an SEO Expert, and I sell websites on Flippa, so naturally, I would want themes that will allow this site to be discoverable in the search engines. At times, it can be very hard to achieve this without sacrificing on the visual quality of the website itself.

The Theme Foundry themes, as much as they use certain scripts that search engine crawlers would otherwise not be able to interpret, the coding of their themes is done in such a way so that it is readable by the search engine crawlers, which means that certain keywords that are emphasized in headings will be of great use when ranking in the search engines.

Along with this, the themes that are available, including Vigilance, Titan, and Traction, although they are limited (take this as a hint guys, you make good themes, MAKE SOME MORE!!), the four themes in total that the Theme Foundry offer are of such high quality, and so diverse and customizable, that you would almost be led to believe that there is no use to ever use another theme again. I can definitely agree with this, with the coding structure of these themes being laid out in such a way that it is easy to interpret and modify, you can literally purchase one of the Theme Foundry themes, and make it your own within a matter of minutes.

So, where can you find out more? The Theme Foundry themes are currently all available on Top WordPress Themes at some of the most competitive prices available in the theme industry.

Punchcut WordPress Theme – A beautiful theme that has an element of fun in its minimalistic layout. Perfect for your blog!

Traction WordPress Theme – Simple, and effective magazine style theme that has a darker tone, but extremely professional.

Titan WordPress Theme – Beautiful and simple theme. For those who want to reap the SEO benefits of a well crafted WordPress Theme, with focus on the content rather than flash

Vigilance WordPress Theme – One of the top 10 themes of all time. Needs to be seen to be believed.

Want To Learn More? Visit The Theme Foundry Now!

Truth has it that backlinks are the stronget way to build site authority over time, and the good news is that building backlinks is an easy task that everyone can do. What do they mean? Well, think about it this way. If hundreds of people in Time Square pointed at something, would you look? The probability of that is extremely high, right? So, naturally Google will react much in the same way by saying “Hey, this site is relevant, becuase lots of people are recommending this site to their viewers!”. That is the simply dynamic of earning one way backlinks.

Of course, certain backlinks will always give more link juice. Each website has a diferent value when it comes to PageRank, and how much of that juice it passes on is entirely dependant on a few points. How much PageRank does that site already have, and how much is it dishing out already?

Earning one way backlinks can be done via a series of methods. First being blog commenting. Manually hunting down those opportunities, and commenting (nicely) on blogs that carry some kind of relation to the topic that your site covers. You can also simply shoot an e-mail to other website owners and ask them for a backlink exchange, or even offer payment. Although, I prefer to pay, as two way backlinks yield less power.

At the end of the day, there are multiple ways to earn one way backlinks to your blog, you can read about these methods in more detail over at my blog.

With any redirection, if done right, all of your old URL’s that are listed in Google should automatically redirect to the appropriate page on the new domain, however, having your site indexed, or at least, have the ball rolling with getting your new domain indexed is still very important. There are many ways that you can aid this transition, and I stress that this can be very varied depending on the niche and the webmaster. Choose your own way, and take this as a basic guideline.

My advice is to first, submit your new domain to Google for crawling, then add the new domain to your Google Webmaster Tools, and submit a site map along with it. Another extremely important factor is to submit a change of address request through your Webmaster Tools. This is the fastest way to let Google know that you are redirecting from your old domain to the new domain. This is always a fast track way to make sure that your site is indexed, and in my last domain name transition, indexing of the home page took less than 24 hours.

At the same time, use all the social networks that you use to generate buzz about the impending domain change. Install some new features on the new domain that people will like, create a press release about your new domain name and these new features, and communicate on Social Networks about these changes and improvements.

Another very important factor here is that you will be changing to a new domain name that does not have any PR or even an Alexa rank. Although all of your previous back links will still redirect to the new domain, these will not count, as they are not back links directly to your new domain. So, you will also need to get active and create more and more back links to your new domain name. Contact sites that have created back links for you and ask them to update your links as well.

The most important thing here is to not rush into things too fast. Domain name propagation can take the better part of three days to complete, and in all essence, you should take as much time as you need to make sure that your new domain is indexed and that you generate buzz and back links. Not too much time though, as you don’t want to have pages indexed that are inaccessible for long time frames.

Lastly, do not forget your blog directory listings. It is vital that you do not overlook these, as they do generate a ton of links for most people, they are vital back links, and they are your front to the wider community who have not discovered your blog yet. Make sure to update these links a few days before the domain name transition so that they synchronize with the transition.

So, now you should have generated a ton of buzz, you should have at least some URL’s in the process of being indexed, and you are just about ready to go. Shortly, I will post the finale to this article which will cover how to redirect your old URL to your new domain name.

Remember, the most important thing here is to take your time, and do it right. A slip up here could cost you in the long run. And as always, if you have any tried and tested ways that have worked for you, please post them below.

Today we are going to learn how to move your WordPress Blog to a new domain. Changing your WordPress installation to a brand new domain is not the easiest of tasks. Unlike a standard website, the URL of your website is hard coded into your WordPress installation, meaning that even if you did copy the files from your WordPress install to a new domain, it would always point straight back at the old domain.

What we will be covering over the course of about three articles which will be produced over the course of this week is a strategic method in which to change your WordPress installation over to a new domain, whilst minimizing the impact that this has on your SEO, and your Google rankings. Part one, which we are seeing today, will cover how to change your WordPress blog to a new domain.

For a blogger, this is quite a scary thing to even attempt. Speaking from my own experience, at the moment, I am currently changing a sister site of Top WordPress Themes over to a new domain giving it a dot com rather than a dot info. The problem with this is that the dot com has no Alexa ranking, and it is not listed in Google at all yet, so the implications of doing this can be very severe. If not done right, I could lose income from Advertising, I could have trouble getting my Google rankings back, and much worse.

In this part, we will be covering the aspect of moving your WordPress files to a brand new domain and making those files work. This involves a few steps which may not entirely make sense until I go into further detail in the next parts to this article, but I do stress, there is a method in this madness, this is what works for me. I am sure that there are many other methods out there, and in part, this is why we have comments on this site enabled, so you can too share from your experience what has and hasn’t worked for you.

First thing that you are going to need to do is deny robots from accessing your new domain so early, as this could affect your search engine rankings. Create a new file on your new domain called robots.txt and include the following lines of text in this file:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /

Now you are going to need to back up all of your files on your current installation on your current domain. This will include your SQL database and your files. Depending on what you have installed on your server, this may be as simple as downloading a backup from your c-panel, or downloading everything via ftp. Once you have everything backed up, upload your WordPress files to your public_html or root on your new domain, and make sure to set all of the same permissions as you had on your existing installation.

Depending on what you have installed on your hosting, or how your SQL is set up, this part may be a little tricky. You need to restore your SQL from the old domain on the new domain. In C-Panel and Direct Admin, this is as simple as creating a new SQL database (this will create a SQL table with the right prefix) then restore your backup on to the new SQL database. If you haven’t done so already, add your user, and then include these details in your wp_config.php file. This will tell your WordPress installation where the database is now located, so that it is not looking for the old installation anymore.

Whilst you have the wp_config.php file still open, we are going to fix that little problem of your WordPress install directing to the old domain. This is a surprisingly easy task. Simply add the following lines in your config file:

define(‘WP_SITEURL’, ‘http://www.example.com’);

define(‘WP_HOME’, ‘http://www.example.com’);

You should now notice that if you navigate to your WordPress on your new domain, it should be working 100%. That is how simple it is, not as complex as it is made to sound. The only thing that needs to be fixed now is changing any links that you have created over the course of your blog being live that direct to the old domain. This is also a very simple fix. Download the Search and Replace plugin, and using this plug in, you can easily replace any references to your old URL with the new URL.

And that is it! That is how to move your WordPress blog to a new domain. Now, let’s not forget that there is a much more important aspect to this, and that is how to redirect from your old domain to the new domain without affecting your search engine rankings, and we will cover this over the next few days in more detail, including what we are going to do with that robots.txt file.

Again, if you have anything to add on this matter, please don’t be scared to use the comments!

What we will be talking about today is possibly the most important factor about owning a blog. Blog Hosting. Best web hosting for blogs. This is of course where your blog will reside, and apart from SEO, this is hands down the most important aspect of blogging. Your host can impact your new blog in many different ways. Some hosts will cap you during peak times, meaning that you may see visible slowing of your blog during peak times, and usability may drop. You are also looking for included features, and simplicity of your interface.

Most web hosts will offer you a few things in their packages. First thing that we will talk about is bandwidth. We are talking about the total amount of data that can be transferred into your blog, and out of your blog. Each image and every single file that loads every single time that someone navigates to your blog takes up bandwidth, and this can deplete much faster than you think. For one blog, I would say a minimum of 50 GB should suffice per month based on how graphic intensive your blog is, and how many pages and articles you have to publish. Some providers also offer unlimited bandwidth which is also great, and these offers should be taken advantage of.

Storage space is also a major consideration. In order to store your files, you need space. The average article based blog may never need more than 50mb of storage space, however for those who do provide other downloads (such as this site) several GB’s may be needed. Choose your total storage space wisely.

If you are looking to host just the one blog, then you will only need a host that will allow you to use one domain. If you plan to use several, or are not too sure how many you would like to host, and then seek out offers that allow you to host unlimited domains. You do need to be careful with these however, main reason being that many people do abuse these services, and only the rare host does maintain speed. The only host that I have used that is reliable in this sense is Host Rocket.

Tech Support is also a major consideration in choosing a host. Servers do go down, and whilst it is very hard for a host to offer anything above 98% uptime without a drastic increase in pricing, there are a few out there that are very cost effective that will offer you good uptime. In all cases, having tech support that works around the clock is a major factor in choosing a good web host. If your blog goes down, this can mean a loss in users and revenue in some cases, and having reliable technical support will make sure that your uptime is as good as it can possibly be.

Do I need a Dedicated Server?

In most cases, if you are running a blog, you will not need a Dedicated Server. For those who are not aware of how hosting works, all Web Hosting providers who provide basic hosting packages put multiple users on one server, who all share the total bandwidth and space of that server.

A Dedicated Server on the other hand is a single server that is set up for one user only. That user can set up multiple accounts on that server to host websites, and these are generally extremely fast.

The only reason that you would ever need to use a Dedicated Server is if you are running a very bandwidth hungry website that needs a dedicated line to be able to host that site. In most cases, you will not need a dedicated server. If you do think that you need a Dedicated Server, but are not too sure, then a VPS may be another option for you. These are generally set up so that between 4 and 6 users share one server, and each have their own remote access to a remote desktop or shell. Although this seems similar to basic web hosting, this is different in the sense that there are less users on the one server, and you have a much more customizable server than what you would have access to using a basic web host.

Who do we recommend?

We have had countless good and bad experiences with Web Hosts, and we have picked out three different companies that we cannot recommend highly enough to you.

Host Rocket

Host Rocket are hands down one of the most reliable web hosts that I have ever used. They have lightning fast tech support, and a well above average uptime. They offer basic web hosting plans from $4.99 per month which includes unlimited bandwidth, dynamic (growing) space, unlimited domains, and is just so reliable it is beyond belief. They also offer a wide range of Dedicated Servers, VPS set ups, and reseller hosting as well. Set up is extremely fast as well, which will always get you up and running very fast.

GoDaddy

Whilst I am not vouching for their web hosting service here (I am not a fan), I am mentioning them here because their domain pricings are quite good, and there is generally not a long wait time for DNS propagation as well, which means that when you have purchased your domain and added your own Name Servers, your domain will be viewable.

If you have any other suggestions here, please let us know, we will be happy to try and review potential hosts!

I have tabled up a list of the 10 most common blogging tips that I know of that will guarantee to make you look like you have got absolutely no idea what you are doing. And why wouldn’t you want to know what you are doing? Well, for one very important point. People who know what they are doing succeed.

1. Don’t change your permalinks! Leave them so that they look like http://www.topwordpressthemes.info/?p=123 If you do this, then you are guaranteed that people will look at you and wonder how much of a newbie you really are! Not only that, but this will also impact your search engine rankings, as you will not be using any keywords in your URL’s, and at the same time, it will just look like a newbie owns and runs that blog.
2. Change your theme every 25 minutes – If you want to look like the ultimate newbie, change your theme every two minutes. This will confuse your users, make them wonder if they are still browsing the same time, most likely affect your SEO in a bad way as some themes have better SEO than others, and at the same time, it will make you look like you have no idea what you are doing.
3. Install your blog in the “WordPress” directory – Classic way to make yourself look like a complete newbie. This just shows that you are not creative, and that you can’t be bothered installing into the root directory. One of my favourite ways to make myself look like a complete newbie.
4. Write 300 posts using 300 categories – This is a very easy way to make yourself look like you have no idea what you are doing, also great for a giggle too! Create a category for absolutely everything! As a classic example, lets create a category for Cars, then add sub categories like red cars, green cars, aqua cars, gold cars, then under each one of those, we will add manual and automatic, then under each, lets add 4 cylinder, 6 cylinder and V8. Confuse the hell out of your readers by doing this as well, and don’t include your posts under the main parent category either. This one always gets a good laugh!
5. Take a shot at Social Networking services because they banned you – Yes, this is one of our favourites, almost worth starting a whole new blog for that one purpose. Having a go at Google because they banned you from AdSense, or taking a shot at Digg because they banned you for asking your friends to Digg your article is always amusing because it is like screaming at a brick wall. It won’t yell back at you because you can’t damage it. Try it sometime. Hilarity always ensues.
6. Use stupid post titles – This one can be hilarious. Use utterly crazy post titles like “Today sucked”, or “Emma is such a n00b cake!”, or even better, “eye h8 lyf so hard rite nao!”, these will almost guarantee that you will cause all kinds of chaos in your comments. This is even more fun to pull if you have an established blog with a PR of 5 – 6 with a couple of thousand hits a day. I can guarantee that even the most experienced blogger and publisher will look like a newbie in t-minus 3 seconds.
7. Don’t use title case – Not quite as effective, but there are a lot of grammar freaks out there who will happily put you down for this. Create a new title such as “How to make Money in three Days”, or even better, “how to make money in three days”. This is pure brilliance. This is best used in combination with suggestion number 6 for maximum effect.
8. Post erratically – Make about 30 posts in your first day of running your blog, then disappear for about 4 months. Then come back, make about 5 more posts, then disappear for about 5 weeks, then come back and make another 13 posts that are completely unrelated. This will always make you look like you have no idea what you are doing. Results are guaranteed!
9. Beg huge blogs and sites for backlinks – This one is a guaranteed winner. When your blog has been running for one day, and you have received your first view, write an e-mail to Facebook and ask them for a backlink. When they deny you, tell them that Google have already offered you a backlink on their search engine. Works a treat! While you are at it, write to as many unrelated blogs as you can and request backlinks from them, and I am talking PR6 and above blogs. Write to WordPress as well, and ask them to feature them on their front page. This is seriously a guaranteed winner.
10. Focus on only one narrow topic – Make sure to cover only one topic on your blog. Those people who cover a ton of things on their blog like Dog Breeding, Hiking, Camping, Computers and IT, Web Design, Barbie Dolls, and the latest on Lindsay Lohan’s rehab fails, they look too professional. Making it known that you only know one topic will make you look so well informed!

So there we have it! These are my favourite ways to make myself look like a blogging newbie. Just as a quick disclaimer, I mean no offense to anyone by posting this, this is merely a joke intended at pointing out what you really shouldn’t be doing as a blog owner, and more than anything, bringing some humour to this situation. Using the reverse of this should give you a good start!

Running a blog is serious business, and there is a lot that can be achieved through owning a blog. These are simply some of the things that you need to avoid, in a humorous context of course.

In other news, I will be providing 10 ways to look like a blogging pro soon, although, this will not be humorous. These will be serious tips on how to find success in blogging!