10 carefully selected free premium WordPress themes that could be used on any blog. If you need a new theme choose one from these 10 beautiful WordPress themes.

Theme name: Neptune
Website: www.web2feel.com
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Piano Black
Website: http://www.mono-lab.net/
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Tarimon Notse
Website: http://tarimon.co.uk/tarimon-notse
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Mystique
Website: http://digitalnature.ro/
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Florance
Website: www.web2feel.com
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Kind of Business
Website: www.nattywp.com
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Crazy Monsters
Website: http://www.amazingwordpressthemes.com/
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Cool Retro
Website: http://www.freethemelayouts.com/
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: Tasty Showcase
Website: www.themelab.com
Links: Download | Preview

Theme name: RS17
Website: www.themelab.com
Links: Download | Preview

Q: What is a Gravatar?
A: Gravatar stands for Globally Recoqnized Avatars

Q: Why do I need Gravatar?
A: It helps to put a face or logo to your comments

Q: So how is Gravatar different?
A: You only need to update your image at Gravatar and your image will be shown on any blogs/websites/forums that support Gravatar

Q: But how is that possible?
A: Gravatar recognizes and binds an image to your email address

Q: Will my Gravatar appear if I made a comment prior to creating the Gravatar?
A: Yes it will

Q: How do I create a Gravatar?!
A: Read on!

First of all you need to register an account with Gravatar. To do that go to www.gravatar.com. Once you have registered an account you will need to have a picture ready. You can upload any image of any size and you can crop that image from Gravatar.com. However, I noticed if you uploaded a picture that is big, it will take some time before the picture loads. So you might want to make the picture smaller before uploading.

Once you have your the image(s) binded to the email, your future and past comments using that email will display the image that you set.

This is a tutorial on how to create Favicon for your WordPress blog. Creating a Favicon for WordPress is as easy as 2 simple steps. Read on to find out how!

In order to create a Favicon for WordPress you would need an icon (.ico) file that is no larger than 36×36 pixels. If you don’t already have an icon you can learn to create an icon from this tutorial here.

After you have created your Favicon all you have to do is upload it to your WordPress root folder as illustrated by the image below.

The icon that you want to use as your Favicon must be named as favicon.ico. Once you have uploaded the file, just refresh your page and you will see your new Favicon. It’s as simple as that!

Favicon enables your readers to easily identify your blog/website from their saved favourite links. Apart from that, it also gives your blog/website an image identity.

In this entry we continue where we stopped off the last time. Continue reading to uncover more plug-ins that you should have to power up your WordPress blog.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Description: This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic click out and download tracking to your WordPress blog.

Download – Download this plugin from Yoast.com

This is a video tutorial on how to find your Google Analytics Account ID. You will need to have a Google Account. You can use your Gmail login and password if you have one.

The website to go to is: www.google.com/analytics

Google XML Sitemaps

Description: This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.

Download – Download this plugin from arnebrachhold.de

Lightbox 2

Description: Used to overlay images on the current page. Lightbox JS v2.2 by Lokesh Dhakar. Mad props to Tanin for his crucial regular expression code! You rock!

Download – Lightbox 2 can be downloaded from stimuli.ca

When a person clicks on a picture, it shades your browser and focuses on the larger actual image. However if your original image smaller size then it would show a smaller picture. If you disable “link to a larger image” then this plugin will be disabled. If you have a few pictures in your post you can click the left or right arrow to navigate through the pictures.

Add Lightbox

Description: This plugin automatically add the rel="lightbox[ID_OF_THE_POST]" to images linked in a post. ID_OF_THE_POST is unique per post so all images per post are grouped in one lightbox set. Doesn’t add the the files required for lightbox!

Download – Add Lightbox can be downloaded from mdkart.fr

This plug-in is to be used hand in hand with Lightbox 2.

Most Commented

Description: Retrieves a list of the posts with the most comments. Modified for Last X days — by DJ Chuang www.djchuang.com

Download – Most Commented can be download from nickmomrik.com

This plugin easily lists out the most commented blog entries. With this plugin you or your readers can quickly find the most discussed blog entries.

Going on a holiday? Not going to be able to blog for quite some time? Don’t want to keep your readers waiting? Then read on to find the solution.

If you have a bunch of entries lined up, all you have to do is set the publish date for your entries and submit. WordPress will then automatically publish your entries that the set date and time.

Using Windows Live Writer? Publishing at a later date and time can also be set with Windows Live Writer. The option to do it is at the bottom right. Just select the publish date and time and choose when you want it to publish.

WordPress is a blogging software that comes with a wealth of plug-ins to enhance your blogging experience as well as the reading experience of your users. In this article and the next few articles we will touch on plug-ins that is a must have for any WordPress blogs.

On my WordPress blogs I have quite a number of plug-ins that I use to enhance my blog. I will be listing the plug-ins that I use alphabetically.

Akismet

Description: Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under "Comments."

Akismet comes with WordPress by default. Without Akismet, your blog is sure to be bombarded by spammers. Some users might have not enable Akismet because it requires a WordPress.com API key. So below is a video on how to get a WordPress.com API key. You will have to register a www.WordPress.com account first.

Basically what you do is register an account with www.WordPress.com, login and get your Akismet API Key from your Profile page.

All in One SEO Pack

Creators Description: Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.

Download – Get the All in One SEO Pack plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.

If you didn’t get it already the SEO stands for Search Engine Optimizer. So basically it optimizes your blog/site so search engines can find you.

Contact Form 7

Creators Description: Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

Download – Get the Contact Form 7 plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.

Contact Form 7 is easily customizable and it supports multiple forms on a single blog. I use Contact Form 7 for all my forms.

FeedBurner FeedSmith

Creators Description: This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

Download – FeedBurner was acquired by Google some time ago so you will need to register an account with Google or use your existing Gmail account. After you register you can set up you can download the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin.

Get Recent Comments

Creators Description: Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.

Download – Get the Get Recent Comments plugin from the official WordPress Plugin Directory.

I love this plug-in. It shows me the most recent comments so I can quickly reply to the comments instead of going through each individual blog post.

This about concludes the Must Have WordPress Plug-ins Part 1 entry. Don’t forget to check back again in a couple of days for part 2.

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