~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, starting with WordPress 2.9, it’s super easy to embed videos, images, and other content into your WordPress site.

All you need to do to embed something into a post or page is to post the URL to it into your content area. Make sure that the URL is on its own line and not hyperlinked (clickable when viewing the post).

Translates to what you see below —

For example:

Check out this cool video:



That was a cool video.

WordPress will automatically turn that into a YouTube embed when the post is viewed. (Check the “Auto-embeds” check box in Administration > Settings > Media SubPanel.)

You can also opt to wrap the URL in the </code> shortcode. It will accomplish the same effect, but does not require the URL to be on its own line and the "Auto-embeds" setting to be enabled. It also allows you to set a maximum (but not fixed) width and height, like so: <code>...

If WordPress fails to embed your URL you will get a hyperlink to the URL.

Find out more about what can easily be embedded into your WordPress posts and pages by viewing the WordPress Codex page on the subject, http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds

Nothing is more frustrating than spending hours trying to get your images and text all set up in your WordPress page or post table, only to find that once you save it everything looks all wonky.  You know you have the alignment settings right, including using valign to center the text and images in the middle of their cells.

It works great in other themes and unless you had access to other WordPress sites you might not have thought about testing it that way.

Come to find out, there’s something weird in the global reset section of the style.css stylesheet of the Twenty Ten default theme that’s making this happen. Thanks to a thread at http://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-table-alignment-in-posts-for-twentyten-theme-1, I found the solution that worked great.

By removing or commenting out the vertical-align: baseline line from the global reset section, then saving your changes, you’ll find that the table will look exactly as you had wanted.

Here are some screenshots so you can see what I’m talking about:

Before the change: A 2-column table with images in the left column and text in the right column. A very common scenario.

The style.css file with the default vertical align setting. You’re looking for vertical-align: baseline:

Same file with the line commented out:

Table alignment is now looking as it should. FINALLY!:

Upgrading the WordPress software after making this change did not undo the changes to the stylesheet, as I had feared would happen. Of course, that was testing an upgrade on a site using the child theme, Twenty Ten Weaver. The upgrade was on site where the change was made to that stylesheet. Will have to test this after upgrading WordPress on a site not using any child theme. The change to the default Twenty Ten theme works great, it’s just that I don’t have any Twenty Ten sites that need upgrading as of right now.

Any day now WordPress version 3.1 should be released to the masses. A few of the new features I’m most excited about are:

• Admin Bar – contains various links to useful admin screens. The admin bar is displayed when a user is logged in and visiting the site and is not displayed in admin screens for single blog installs.
• Internal Linking – click a button for an internal link and it allows you to search for a post or browse a list of existing content by title, date, author, etc. and select it for inclusion. This will make the process so much easier! Hooray!
• Post Formats is a theme feature introduced with Version 3.1. In short, with a theme that supports Post Formats, a blogger can change how each post looks by choosing a Post Format from a radio-button list. Another reason to use premium themes that offer free updates after you purchase them. More than likely, they’ll incorporate many of the latest improvements into their theme updates.

I’ll bet the WordPress developers are working away to get the final bug fixes done and will be releasing it very soon. I’m definitely looking forward to these changes.

Keep a look for the release announcement in the Dashboard of your WordPress admin area. <open, open, open>

What Are the Things You Need to Think About When Using WordPress as Website Software?

WordPress, the acclaimed content management system, is well known for its user-friendly interface and simple website management. It’s so renowned for its simplicity, in fact, that it’s become by most accounts the de-facto website management tool for beginners and advanced users alike. However, it may be simple to use, but creating and managing websites in WordPress for the long term requires some thought.

WordPress is, despite its simple interface, a fairly complicated piece of code. It needs a fairly beefy server to work properly during heavy traffic; a powerful dedicated host or high-bandwidth plan for media-heavy websites, and a highly optimized theme for use on major authority websites. While using WordPress as a website manager is remarkably simple through its user interface, thinking through its back end can be quite complex.

Whenever you’re planning on using WordPress to build a website, integrate WordPress into website assets that you already have, or simply adding a WordPress blog onto your current website, make sure you keep these three factors in mind. In some cases, they can be the difference between a high-performance website and a sluggish, needlessly expensive, server drain.

Always use a self-hosted WordPress installation.

A variety of pre-hosted WordPress installations are available, the most well-known of which is the proprietary platform at WordPress.com. While these are easier to use than their self-hosted version counterparts, doing so puts you at a significant risk of losing your websites in WordPress.

While the vast majority of WordPress.com websites are rarely tampered with or affected by license changes, it’s always possible that your website could get out of your control when it’s hosted on an external server. Always self-host your assets when using WordPress as a website platform as it allows you both greater control over your content and the ability to customize your website freely.

Check that your server is powerful enough and compatible with WordPress.

WordPress, for all its coding tricks and developer accolades, is a bit of a resource hog. High-traffic pages can quickly turn into server-killers, particularly for those using shared hosting. If your blog or website is receiving a large amount of traffic, particularly in a relatively short amount of time, it’s a good idea to upgrade to either a dedicated server or a virtual private server.

Alternatively, you might wish to switch to a WordPress theme that contains very few images, as this will improve your page’s load times and limit resource usage. For the most part, however, using WordPress to build a website that’s expected to receive lots of traffic will need a powerful server for good performance.

Consider using cached pages for high-volume websites.

You’ve written an amazing post, promoted it using the standard social media channels, and woke up to a flurry of traffic from around the web. The only problem is that your server is crippling under its resource requirements, leaving your website slow and often inaccessible. The problem: you’re using WordPress’s default page loading settings, instead of caching your pages for faster access.

The solution is to flip a magic switch in WordPress known as ‘cache pages.’ This one simple change can reduce your website’s resource usage, allowing you to make the most of the surge of traffic that websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit can provide.

Andrea is a WordPress Virtual Assistant based out of the Denver area of Colorado, yet serves the global entrepreneur.

Are you Looking for More Great WordPress Business Themes?

Is your business website in need of a serious makeover? Is an outdated theme, navigation system, or marketing copy making your business lose its premium branding? These are concerns that hundreds of real businesses face on a daily basis, and they’re potentially dangerous issues. A poor website can cost businesses hundreds of thousands, even millions, every year in lost sales, revenue, and growth.

The standard procedure for replacing an outdated website has been to speak with a designer, build a new template and design from scratch, and invest thousands of dollars into what could have been an inexpensive project. However, with the world of online design and marketing changing and website design tools becoming more commonplace, many businesses are opting not to take this option.

Their alternative, surprisingly, has been to create their websites internally, using the services of an inexpensive freelancer or their own creative team. Using a platform such as WordPress has given a boost to businesses that was previously unavailable. With hundreds of high quality WordPress CMS themes available, almost any service or product-driven website can efficiently create their own website.

While there are hundreds of themes out there, each purporting to do a greater job than the next, an assortment of e-commerce WordPress themes stand out above their competition. We’ve taken a look at three themes below, offering advice on how they can help your business improve its online presence. For sales, service, or offer-driven businesses, be sure to check out these three WordPress e-commerce themes.

Levitation

This half-portfolio half-landing page theme is a great option for creative companies that would like to focus on their product right from the get-go. With a jQuery homepage and a variety of video and text-driven inner page templates, creating a full business website in Levitation is simple. Priced at a very reasonable $35, it’s a steal for businesses that are looking for a clean WordPress corporate theme for an action-driven website.

PureCorp

Whether you’re promoting software, tangible goods, or an online service, PureCorp is flexible and clean enough to offer all that your business needs. This dynamic WordPress store theme is available in several colors and with a variety of different page layouts. A range of jQuery features are included, although users concerned about browser compatibility can easily turn them off to minimize resource usage.

Academy

Sometimes direct sales just don’t matter, and branding is the only focus of a website. If that’s the case for your business, using a WordPress shop theme shouldn’t be necessary. Consider Academy – a content-based theme is an excellent choice for service-based businesses or consultancies. While it’s styled to suit schools and universities by default, a variety of color schemes are available to increase its use for business.

Andrea is a WordPress Virtual Assistant based out of the Denver area of Colorado, yet serves the global entrepreneur.

What are Some of  The Benefits of Hiring a WordPress Professional Virtual Assistant?

For online marketers, business owners, or bloggers, there are hundreds of potential problems that an online store, blog, or website can generate. The most common – and, often, the most simple to solve – are buggy interfaces or missing pages. The less common – and generally the more dangerous – are security exploits, missing database entries, and corruption caused by a failed server or web host.

Sound nasty? They are, particularly if you’re dependent on your website for income. For the tens of thousands of people that generate significant incomes with their websites or personal blogs, the idea of a performance hiccup or downtime due to poor technical management is a disaster. This is why a great deal of WordPress bloggers and site owners opt to use the skills of a WordPress professional support virtual assistant.

WordPress is one of the world’s most popular and widely supported content management systems, with a vast and knowledgeable paid and unpaid support base. From open source gurus to slick and knowledgeable WordPress professionals, there’s a huge amount of support available for this platform’s users. Discussed below are the key benefits of engaging their services.

A WordPress professional can help you with compatibility issues.

Are your plugins failing to operate properly? Did a server software update break your website? By engaging the services of a WordPress virtual assistant, you can limit or eliminate common compatibility problems. While most installations of WordPress are both stable and compatible, it’s far from uncommon for a small issue with plugins, themes or other extras to pop up, given the software’s huge popularity.

While the open source support system fixes most of these glitches almost instantly, some continue to exist for months without the right amount of attention. If a compatibility issue is bringing your website to its knees, get in touch with a WordPress professional to address it quickly and easily.

High-traffic website? A WordPress professional can improve its performance.

It’s fairly well known that despite its powerful features and massive archive of plugins, WordPress isn’t the most efficient content management system in the world. High-traffic websites can see their page load times increase dramatically under a WordPress installation, causing frustration for their users and lower earnings for the website’s operators.

The solution isn’t to switch to a different CMS, but to work with a professional to eliminate the bugs and glitches from your WordPress installation. Speak with a WordPress support virtual assistant about cutting server load and caching pages for faster viewing – two simple changes that can dramatically increase your website’s loading speeds while simultaneously cutting server resource usage.

Want a custom look for a site layout? Ask a WordPress professional to help locate themes with the most customization options for you.

Due to WordPress’s mass of premium themes with friendly customization options, creating a customized layout for your website is a simple process. If the idea of modifying it yourself isn’t appealing, speak with a WordPress professional about completing it. You might be pleasantly surprised about how inexpensive a premium theme can cost, particularly if you compare those costs to having a theme designed for you from scratch.

What are Some of the Best WordPress Plugins and Themes Available for Your ECommerce Shopping Website?

Since its release in 2003, WordPress has improved in leaps and bounds as a blogging platform, an advanced web development tool, and a content management system for business and personal web presences. With thousands of paid and free themes available, a wide range of plug-ins, and a large support community, it’s now thought of as the ‘go to’ platform for quick, simple web development.

However, there’s one field in which WordPress has historically fallen somewhat short: online stores and e-commerce. The ‘do all’ platform has, for the past five years, lacked any dedicated software for creating and managing an online retail outlet. Aside from WordPress e-commerce plug-in options, it has been largely ignored by online merchants, primarily due to its resource usage and slow navigation.

Over the past two years, however, things have changed. Once a content-only platform, this system is now backed up by many online shopping plug-ins, themes, and e-commerce tools that makes setting up a WordPress webshop relatively simple.. These plug-ins certainly don’t represent all of WordPress’s immense power as an e-commerce platform. That said, they do offer a great look into the platform’s potential as a back-end for online stores.

StorePress

StorePress isn’t a plug-in as such, but a full-featured shopping theme for e-commerce WordPress sites. Designed for a complete compatibility record with almost all shopping categories and easy integration with Paypal and other credit card processors, it’s a simple option for building your WordPress shop. The theme uses its own independent control panel, allowing for simple tweaks and product layout changes.

WP E-Commerce

Regarded as the leader amongst WordPress shopping plug-ins, WP E-Commerce is a full-featured online store and retail plug-in. Available for free, this ultra-powerful WordPress e-commerce plug-in can integrate with an assortment of online payment options, including Google Checkout, Paypal, and other credit card plug-ins. Simple, fast, and powerful – it really is the ultimate free e-commerce tool.

ArePaypal

This simple tool allows you to charge users through your WordPress store in order to access content, similar to the strategy used by online newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal. Posts, guides, or articles can be marked as a restricted category, which can in turn be assigned a price. While it’s certainly not recommended to use this on your standard blog, ArePaypal is great for e-book websites and other online guides.

WP Invoice

If your WordPress store caters to wholesalers and merchants rather than end users, it’s important to have a powerful invoicing plug-in available. WP Invoice is to WordPress what Quicken is to offline retail outlets – a powerful, versatile, and easy-to-use accounting tool. Install it to generate service invoice documents, keep track of client and customer accounts, and allow for simple tax expense claims, all through your WordPress shop.

Others to take a closer look at are:

For a simple shopping cart solution, I like the simplicity of combining the NextGEN image gallery plugin with WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart plugin.

Themes –

• Kidz Store theme
• ShopperPress theme
• Store theme
• WPStore theme

Plugins -

• WordPress eStore plugin
• TheCartPress
• Shopp

Why Would You Even Consider Selling Your Products in a WordPress E-Commerce Site?

For thousands of online marketers, entrepreneurs, and product developers, one goal seems to trump all others. It’s the goal of recurring, stable, and lucrative passive income – an earnings source that is completely untied to any physical location, set schedule, or workplace office. It’s a dream that many in the online space have realized, and many more are working hard in an effort to create.

While there are hundreds of ways to generate passive income online – selling products using online auctions, promoting affiliate products, and others – one offers a combination of longevity and stable earnings potential that the others just can’t match. It’s designing, developing, and marketing items in your own way – a process where you control everything from research to the post-sale service.

It’s a dream of e-commerce, but at the same time it’s one that can easily be achieved today. Software such as WordPress makes developing an online store simple, while blogging plug-ins and other text-driven tools allow for simple promotion and search marketing. With hundreds of direct advertising platforms available online today, even creating a direct-to-sale marketing process is fairly simple.

Let’s start with the first part of e-commerce – the building block, if you like. Most e-commerce sites are, to put it fairly bluntly, poorly designed and even more poorly optimized. Built in the early years of the internet, they tend to lack action-driven features and proven sales tactics. While a range of large examples to the contrary exist, most e-commerce websites just aren’t well engineered.

The reason? Most website design software is clunky and difficult to use, forcing marketers and sales professionals to accept a sub par job on their website. Thankfully, with its simple interface and wizard-driven processes, creating a clean WordPress store is simple. WordPress e-commerce plug-in options and e-commerce specific themes and templates are even available to assist with optimizing your sales process, increasing retention rates, and marketing to existing customers (more about that in a later post).

But it’s not just simplicity that makes developing a WordPress shop a fantastic option for developing your e-commerce websites. It’s the program’s versatility and immense compatibility that makes it ideal. From email or SMS marketing plug-ins to auto-tweet promotional tools, having a WordPress webshop as the foundation of both your sales process and your fulfillment system simplifies, speeds up, and optimizes your business.

So if you’re considering online commerce as a way forward – or, perhaps, a way past affiliate sales and other saturated online industries – be sure to consider e-commerce WordPress options. Fast, user-friendly, and decidedly versatile, it really is the ultimate platform for developing your sales or subscription-driven online store.

What would be the 5 best tips I can provide for building your WordPress site? Read on, my friend…

Are you thinking of building a website with WordPress – one of the internet’s most popular content management systems? The ultra-popular website and blogging platform is a leader for an extended list of reasons, most of which revolve around its simplicity and sheer power. From quick administrative changes to a massive archive of themes, there’s plenty to love about being able to make a website with WordPress.

That is, there’s plenty to love if you know what you’re doing. While WordPress is incredibly simple for basic modifications and quick publishing, it’s a true monster when used heavily by new bloggers or inexperienced developers. These five quick tips can teach you how to make a WordPress website without getting caught up in the extensive options or developer tools, saving you time and frustration.

1. Use a light, clean, and simple theme.

There are thousands of WordPress themes available, with some tipping the scales at over a hundred megabytes. These themes, generally designed for resource-heavy media websites, are not what you want for a simple blog or business website. Make a WordPress website that’s clean, simple, and light, and you’ll see your load times dramatically decrease.

2. Get to know the WordPress dashboard.

The WordPress dashboard is one of the most intuitive and simple in the business, but it still takes a slight degree of getting used to as a newbie blogger. Before you publish your first post, check all of the different publishing and management options and familiarize yourself with the system. It may be best for you to go through WordPress website tutorial videos a documents as well. While it is unlikely that you’ll use all of WordPress’s features, it’s always good to know your territory.

3. Don’t even think about coding until you’re ready.

WordPress is, for the most part, very easy to use. However, the standard dashboard includes a series of sections for advanced users, most of which require knowledge of PHP and CSS. Unless you’re an expert – or in some cases, an intermediate-level user – at web languages, it’s generally best to ignore these sections and stick with the simple publishing and display options when building a website with WordPress.

4. Use Fantastico or one-click install host for an even quicker installation.

WordPress is famed for its five-minute installation, but it’s possible to make it even quicker with the right server-side software. If your web host offers Fantastico, or a one-click install method – or, if you’re using a dedicated server, your WHM interface offers it as an extra feature – use it to speed up your WordPress installation. It’s also possible to eliminate potential compatibility issues by using Fantastico as your default installer. If this is something you are not familiar with, check out a WordPress website tutorial on this matter or consult with a WordPress professional virtual assistant.

5. Don’t over-think – research instead.

WordPress is one of the world’s most popular website management systems, and it’s very likely that any and all of your problems have been encountered – and solved – before. If you’re running into an annoying issue or repetitive glitch, always research before trying to diagnose it yourself. There is an excellent developer and support community for WordPress – always use it to your advantage.

Why Create Websites in WordPress?

After seven years as one of the world’s most popular online publishing platforms, WordPress as website software has a history like few other online tools. It is one of the world’s most downloaded applications, with over twelve million individuals acquiring it throughout its lifespan. It is also one of the world’s most well received applications, generating a massive amount of praise from bloggers and journalists alike.

If you are new to online publishing, new to web development, or even just new to the web in general, it is likely that you’ll be using WordPress to build a website. This platform is used as the backbone of some of the world’s most important and powerful websites – the White House itself uses WordPress as a content platform – and equally as often for small, independent websites.

There is a reason for this popularity – several reasons, in fact. Using WordPress as a website platform is easy because it is one of the simplest and most user-friendly content management systems (CMS) out there, able to be used just as effectively by an inexperienced user as it is by an experienced professional. Its simple interface – split into a writing and publishing ‘dashboard’ and an advanced coding area – is intuitive and very easy to operate.

Publishing a post – or in some cases, a new page for websites in WordPress – takes little more than a minute or two. Pull up the ‘Pages’ or ‘Posts’ tab within the software’s dashboard and you will see a text entry area almost identical to that seen in an office application suite. Due to its similarity with standard applications, the transition from Microsoft Word to WordPress is smooth and impossibly simple.

Then there’s the added simplicity of adding dynamic media to your posts and pages. Unlike many other content management systems, which require you to hard code videos and embedded images into posts manually, WordPress as website software uses a simple Word-style embedding system. Click a button, pick your image, and click ‘embed,’ and it’s saved in your posts on your own web server for viewing.

It’s the same story with video content. Simply choose the file on your computer and upload it to be viewed using any one of WordPress’s HTML5 video display plugins. Longer videos and higher quality footage also benefits from being displayed in websites in WordPress. In place of the low-quality YouTube video display box we’re accustomed with, those who are using WordPress as a website platform can choose from a variety of HTML5 display fields.

To name a few HTML5 video plugins:

• Degradable HTML5 audio and video
• MediaElement.js – HTML5 Video & Audio Player
• HTML5 and Flash Video Player
• VideoJS – HTML5 Video Player for WordPress

This, combined with WordPress’s very developer-friendly nature, has made the platform one of the most customizable and versatile on the web. Thousands of extensions and themes are available for the CMS, many of which change it from a blogging platform into a completely different publishing or media tool. It’s not just for blogs any longer – WordPress as a website platform is a powerful and versatile system.

If your website needs a versatile management platform, one that will provide simple, stable, and all-round powerful options for yourself and your development team, then WordPress is the only choice. If you integrate WordPress into website assets that you already have, you’ll benefit from a platform that’s available free of charge and supported by an enthusiastic and helpful community. Indeed, this this piece of open source software is one of the greatest online developments of the last decade.

What is the one thing all websites have in common regardless of the type of site they are? Every site has to have CONTENT!  Whether you are an online store, an online newspaper, a photo gallery, or a blog; your site won’t succeed without quality, informative content.

Content is simply the stuff that makes up your site; similar to ingredients are the stuff that make up a recipe. Just as with any good recipe, ingredients have to be added in the right order and the right amounts for the recipe to come out just right; so it is with content on your website. You want to be able to create a site that has the right information, in the right quantities, at the right locations. Do this and you have conquered the world of CMS, otherwise known as Content Management System(s).

Using WordPress for your CMS is equivalent to picking the type of oven you are going to cook your recipe in. Some may prefer gas or electric ovens, others like the microwave. WordPress is your microwave choice when it comes to CMS. You are able to add content to your site quickly and efficiently, but may not be able to add all the bells and whistles. WordPress certainly has many opportunities, but just as you cannot cook all things in a microwave, you cannot make all applications work with WordPress…yet.

Advantages of WordPress as a CMS

The main advantage of using WordPress as a CMS is the ability to choose pages verses posts within your content. A page is a place where you will store static information, such as information about the company and owners, or a sign-up/contact form for visitors to your site. Pages are not meant to be changed on a regular basis; for that purpose it makes more sense to create a post.

Post pages can be created for either a single or multi-post format. You may include categories, archives, or multiple posts to be displayed. Their purpose is not to remain static, but to update on a continual basis. These post pages are perfect for bloggers.

Another benefit of WordPress is that you can have a static home page with post-pages behind it. The front page that your visitors will see when they login will always be the same, and then they can click within your site for updated information, articles, or blogs.

This brings us to another great feature with WordPress as a CMS. The site administration is very user friendly. As the site owner you may go into your control panel and assign different types of roles for individuals contributing to your site. If you have several writers you can enable their role allowing them to post articles only. Likewise, you may have several site administrators or site accounts.

WordPress also offers many widgets, plugins, and themes to help you create or brainstorm for your site content. Themes can be altered with the installation of plugins, making the site uniquely yours. Further, you can add other options to your site such as an online store, links to other sites, comment cards, or even polls.

Regardless of the type of site you choose to build, WordPress is your best choice for easy content management with the endless possibilities it provides.

Are you still trying to figure out what social networking is all about? Well, if you’re a member of MySpace, Twitter or Facebook; congratulations, you’ve already entered the world of social networks.

Social networks are sites that allow you to create an online presence of yourself, so friends, families, and followers can find you. Typically, these networks allow you to share that information within the community of the site. From MySpace and Facebook, we have expanded to the worlds of Twitter, Digg and Stumble Upon- places where we can update our status on recurring intervals letting anyone who follows us know what we have to say.

So, what about WordPress? Isn’t it a social network too?

WordPress now offers the MU (multi-user) features in the special Network settings of a WordPress site,  that have built in features similar to existing social networks, giving WordPress the ‘appearance’ of being your latest social networking site.  While it sounds like it would be a fun and easy thing to set up, it’s rather difficult and bit on the techy side. If you don’t want to go that route, don’t worry because WordPress offers many social networking plugins to their users to enhance the standard WordPress setup.

There is one other main difference between WordPress and all the social networking sites. On WordPress and other blogging platforms, individuals come online to their own specific location. With the popular social networks, while users have their own ‘page’ or presence online, it is not really their own as it is just an extension of the social network that is hosting the user’s presence.

How do you implement the features of social networking while using a blogging platform?

The key is plugins, and WordPress has many free and user-friendly plugins available. Many of the networking plugins provide one-click access for your readers to other popular social networks where you reside. Most blog owners utilize either an icon or a form of drop-down menu appearing at the bottom of single posts or on their blog’s sidebar. Popular plugins include About Me, Social Links, Social Bookmarks, Social Dropdown, SocioFluid, and Tweet My Blog, just to name a few.

Examples of WP plugins that help spread your online social presence.

Socialite – This one publishes your WordPress posts to sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

Twitter Updater – Just what it appears to be, Twitter Updater is a plug that notifies Twitter of your new blog posts. WordPress even offers a widget form of this plugin that will display your Twitter feed in your blog sidebar.

Lifestream – Possibly the most complex, this plugin logs all your online social activity on other networks and provides a live stream for your blog readers to follow you socially online.

The key to successful social networking with WordPress is not just enabling your readers to follow you through your other connections, but engaging them to stay invested with your blog.

WordPress also offers several plugins to facilitate engaging your readers.

• WP-Polls allow you to build online polls you can then add to your blog post or your sidebar. Readers are able to interact with you and leave comments.

• FV Community News allows readers to publish news items to your sidebar.

• How about providing a space on your sidebar for top or recent comments? Top Commenters plugin facilitates this function.

As the Internet and the growing number of online communities continue to grow, you need to be ready to help plant your social networking seed and offer your readers their own presence on your site too and WordPress can help you do just that without the need to hire programmers or maintain a huge social networking site of your own.