Yes, some of you might have already figured out what kind of service we’re writing about here. ManageWP is a service that allows you to manage all your WordPress websites from one single dashboard. What does it mean?

Lets quickly run over the main features:

• Firstly, that means that you no longer have to remember all logins and passwords for your sites or keep them in long spreadsheets. With ManageWP dashboard you can access all your websites with one click.
• Performing an upgrade of WordPress, plugins and themes across all of your sites is easy as clicking one ‘Upgrade all’ button. You can also install plugins and themes to multiple sites at once, from a variety of sources (your favorites list, WordPress.org, your computer or any URL).
• You can backup all your sites from ManageWP dashboard at any time or restore a previous backup. ManageWP can backup both your entire website or just the database. You can also set automatic scheduled backups.
• ManageWP allows you to set up a new, fully loaded, WordPress site in minutes. Or use ManageWP’s clone tool to clone any of your existing sites from one domain, subdomain or folder to another.
• With all sites under one roof, doing bulk operations becomes easy. Whether you want to post an article to multiple sites, manage your blogroll links or add users, ManageWP allows you to do it effortlessly across any number of sites at once.

How does it work? Do you have to provide them with all your passwords? The answer is no. Access to your site is governed by the ManageWP Worker plugin that you install directly onto your blog. That means that the only password ManageWP stores is the one needed for their central dashboard. So lets get started and take a deeper look into this service.

Features

Dashboard

Once you’ve installed the plugin and linked your website with ManageWP you can access all the features it offers. The dashboard is clean and easy to use. Plus it looks just like your casual WordPress dashboard so you don’t have to worry about adapting to a new and unfamiliar platform.

In the main view you can see which plugins or themes have an update available, below there are post revisions aka post autosaves and spam comments. You can also view the recent comments and posts. In the top right there is a pageview statistics graph and scheduled backups below it.

Manage Plugins & Themes

ManageWP dashboard allows you to instantly and simultaneously install themes or plugins for all of your websites. You can also opt to Activate plugins after upload. Looking through all the plugins is also made easy. In my opinion, the only drawback is the plugin horizontal layout so you have to scroll the window quite far if you’ve got a lot of plugins installed.

Backup

With ManageWP, you can set up scheduled backups to Amazon S3, Dropbox, your own server, any external FTP or an email address for all of your blogs with just a few clicks. You can choose between daily, weekly or monthly backups. Note – this feature is only available for the professional and business pricing plan.

Migrating/cloning sites.

This feature comes in handy if you need to setup a new network of identically modified websites. The theme and all plugins are installed automatically so you don’t have to spend time setting up every blog manually.

Bulk Actions

ManageWP allows you to bulk add/export websites, create new pages, posts and links for all of your websites.

It’s pretty clear with the pages and posts – although I don’t see a good reason why one would like to publish the same post on several blogs, the function does it’s job. Again you’re given the default WordPress text editor so there’s nothing unfamiliar to master.

The Bulk add users feature is bloody useful if you’re willing to add a writer for a set of blogs. You can find this feature under the Users section.

Note – all the bulk features are only available for professional and business pricing plan.

Self-hosted version

ManageWP also offers self-hosted version which allows you to run the service on your own dashboard. Self hosted allows you to have an unlimited number of blogs, host everything on your server and add your own features. It’s created for companies and organizations managing hundreds or even thousands of websites and is currently available only as Enterprise license.

Pricing

ManageWP will be offering three pricing plans where the price then depends on the number of websites you’ll manage (you can choose from a range between 10 and 500). The pre-order is launching on December 6th. All users that sign up now will receive a 30% life-time discount on any hosted service plan that they pre-order for as long as they maintain their service.

• 30 day free trial so you can test the service before paying for it.
• Free plan which allows you to use the Standard features for up to three (five, if you refer some friends) websites.
• Annual plans, and you will get two months free when you sign up for these.

Below you can see the pricing plans for 10, 100 and 500 websites.

10 websites

• Standard: $7/month
• Professional: $21/month
• Business: $42/month

100 websites

• Standard: $40/month
• Professional: $120/month
• Business: $240/month

500 websites

• Standard: $70/month
• Professional: $210/month
• Business: $420/month

Interview

Since this series focuses on the startups we wanted to ask a couple of questions to the founder of ManageWP Vladimir Prelovac.Vladimir Prelovac is the the CEO of Prelovac Media, an internet company located in Belgrade, Serbia. Besides ManageWP he’s also written a book on WordPress plugin development and created other stunning services and plugins.

1. There aren’t many alternatives who can compete with ManageWP. How did you come up with the idea of ManageWP?

As with most good ideas, it was a stroke of luck and a hint of opportunity. A friend of mine was rambling about how he had trouble managing his blogs, and I suddenly realized there is nothing like that available for WordPress, which is, after all, the world’s biggest internet publishing platform. The world needed something like ManageWP, so I decided it was time to make it.

2. As far as I understand ManageWP began in 2010. Why did it take so long to finish beta testing and establish a fully functional service?

ManageWP is an extremely complex piece of software. What makes it unique is that we really tried to make it run smoothly on literally thousands of different server configurations that WordPress would run on. That was our biggest challenge. Scalability was also an important focus for us — some of our users are managing thousands of blogs. But knowing that ManageWP can load data from 1800 websites in less than two minutes… it makes it all worth it.

There is also a list of spectacular features that we are pushing to integrate into ManageWP. Some startups, for example, are satisfied with only offering backup solutions for WordPress. But that functionality is only a tiny piece of the overall picture. Backup features are critical — and something we pride ourselves in offering — but it is only one piece of the 23 major features currently offered by ManageWP, with many more on the way. And with all the great ideas coming in from our beta users, we know that the value we can provide will continue to grow.

Another thing is that we had to ensure that ManageWP would work with services that WordPress users already deeply value. That’s why ManageWP now integrates with Google Analytics and AdSense. And that’s why we already have plans in place to integrate with SEO and uptime monitoring tools in the near future.

And then there is the fact that WordPress is constantly evolving. Adjusting to all the changes is a challenge unless you are willing to work hard to adjust to those changes. Thankfully, our team put in the effort to adapt. So that’s why it all took almost a year and a half to arrive at this point. (And the ride is not over yet!)

Ultimately, our goal is to create a dashboard so useful, so powerful that people will no longer need to log into their WordPress websites or other services. They will be able to log into ManageWP, and everything that the user needs to effectively manage their WordPress sites will be all right there at the user’s fingertips.

Above you can see a screenshot from Wayback Machine with the ManageWP website in 2010.

3. You’ve established a flexible and nice scheme where instead of following a strict milestone schedule the users themselves suggest the ideas you then consider. How did you come up with this method and has it brought the desired results?

Yes! I believe this is one of our strengths at ManageWP. Many of our features were suggested by our users, and that makes it a much more personalized experience for them and for us. After all, nobody could ever have a perfect vision of a product (except maybe Steve Jobs), so it was very important that we listened to our users early on in the development process. We already have around six or seven different ways for users to send us feedback, and I read all of it. The best ideas are sent off to the team for development.

Above you can see a screenshot from ManageWP Google group where users can suggest ideas which then are sent for consideration.

4. Since our series is about successful and fresh startups could you comment on ManageWP from this perspective? How has it grown as a project?

There are different ways to measure the success of a startup. At ManageWP, and from the feedback we have received, it would seem that we created a truly useful service that solves a problem that many people share. Some of our users were excited to learn when we intended to charge for ManageWP, but for the past 12 months, all we wanted to do was focus on creating a genuinely useful product.

And I think that is the most important thing — in order to keep the team passionate and the users interested, you need to have a great product.

5. Your blog says that the number of websites managed by ManageWP has hit 50 000. How do you feel about these results and what are predictions for the future?

Well, looking at numbers like these is always exciting. We hit 50,000 websites near the end of September, but we now manage over 80,000 WordPress blogs. So, when you put it into that perspective, you get really excited as you can see that your product is making a small but measurable change in how the internet works.

Somebody once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

By having a clear vision of where we want to go and by keeping our customers happy, inventing the future is exactly what we are doing. It also helps when we are working with a strong and thriving publishing platform in WordPress. So, all things considered, I am very positive about our future.

Above you can see a screenshot with the exciting announcement.

6. Could you share some of your tips/business principles for others out there willing to make a successful startup?

There are couple of principles that I believe will make any startup’s journey easier:

First is that you need to have a cool product, one that you strongly believe in and you will want to use on your own. This also makes it so much easier to justify putting most, if not all, of your own time, money, and heart into it. You have to realize that there will be many hurdles along the way, as with all things in life, so you better have an idea of what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Second is to launch the beta as soon as possible. This allows you to start listening to your users and getting feedback. They will give great ideas on how to improve your product… for free!

Third is to not create a startup that relies on external funding to succeed. We are completely bootstrapped, which most likely forced us to create a significantly better product than we might have if we were basking in investment money. It motivates you to perform.

Fourth is the speed — making efforts to optimize your application and interface like crazy. Users have never been as impatient as they are today. Also, intuitiveness: the less the users needs to think, the better. You really need to watch other people use your product. You will be surprised by what you will discover.

Do the above things, and people will be drawn to your efforts and will help you to succeed.

Conclusion

ManageWP indeed is an amazing and one of the most useful services for WordPress. It’s also a great example of a fresh startup success story. You should definitely check out the free trial if you are running multiple WordPress websites.

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In this article, we shall attempt to compare TextPattern and WordPress and see which one emerges victorious.

Before proceeding further, a short disclaimer: the division of this comparative review under multiple headings does not essentially have a logical explanation – I’ve simply attempted to compare it using four basic, but very important, categories, functionality and usability, mode of operation, extensions and plugins and finally, community and support.

Furthermore, I guess many users of WP and TXP will either agree or disagree with my views. To be honest, using a particular CMS also requires a certain amount of personal choice, what might work for me, may not work for you, and vice-versa. Differences in opinion are always welcome!

So without further ado, let us begin with our comparison.

Functionality and Usability

When it comes to functionality and usability, WordPress seems to win easily. While this does not mean that TextPattern is, in any way, less functional than WordPress, WP simply beats TXP in terms of ease of use! With the advent of version 3.x and higher, WP now boasts of a super organized administrative panel that lets you manage your website with ease. Don’t believe me? Take a look at WP’s admin panel. ‘Dashboard’, ‘Posts’, ‘Pages’, ‘Settings’ – which of these sections are not self-explanatory? Customizing the blog becomes a matter of few clicks. Take a look at the ‘Settings’ page of both the CMSes.

On the other hand, TextPattern’s administrative panel, though equally capable and powerful, seems ‘outdated’ in comparison to that of WordPress. Of course, TXP is equally robust in its admin panel, but overall the interface is not as easy to use and may even be confusing for beginners.

Availability of Custom Plugins/Extensions and Themes

Apart from ease of use, the next thing that defines any piece of software is the availability of extensions for it. However, more often than not, there is a spiral between ‘ease of use’ on one hand and ‘extendability’ on the other. For instance, when it comes to mobile operating systems, Android is more popular than Samsung Bada. While this does not demerit Samsung Bada itself, Android’s popularity can be attributed to its ever-growing app market, which in turn is increasing because developers take an interest in it due to its easy extendability and wide usage, which ensures their efforts will not go unnoticed. Again, due to developers’ keen interest, the apps keep growing, and the users keep coming to Android.

Both WP and TXP support themes and templates as well as multiple plugins and extensions. However, WP has more themes and plugins then TXP. While this may or may not prove WP’s superiority, it surely plays its role in contributing to WP’s user base. Since many commercially viable tech blogs and websites are powered by WordPress (not to mention the millions of blogs at WordPress.com and Blog.com), it is but natural that WP has a large number of themes and plugins. Certain providers, such as WooThemes, offer themes for both WP and TXP. Yet, in this case too, WP dominates TXP in terms of the number of available themes.

If you have exemplary coding skills, fret not! You can easily tweak TXP and design your blog or website the way you wish to. But if you are an end user just looking to get a blog or website up and ready with as little technical expertise as possible, WP should be your safest bet!

Mode of Operation

Modus Operandi is by far the most debatable topic when it comes to comparing any two CMS’s, let alone WP and/or TXP.

To begin with, WordPress comes with a WYSIWYG Editor that makes editing posts and articles extremely simple.

TextPattern, on the other hand, has an equally awesome (though not so end-user friendly, as it takes some ‘getting used to’) editor, which can do almost anything you want it to, but will surely leave many beginners confused. In TXP, Textile and other related features can either be your best friends or your worst enemies.

In the admin back end as well, you will notice that mundane tasks such as updating the CMS, installing themes/plugins, or even navigating the back end – all seem easier on WP rather than TXP for a novice. However, the confusion vanishes once you get accustomed to the interface.

Community and Support

A CMS is only as good as its user base. Both TXP and WP have a good and fairly active community and many forums where you can seek support and advice.

In terms of documentation, TXP seems to win outright. WP is well documented, but it comes nowhere close to beating TXP – apart from the usual website, TXP also has its own User Documentation Website and another TXP Resources site.

Speaking of support, WP is updated on a more frequent basis as compared to TXP. However, this can be interpreted either way – supporters of WP will consider the frequent updates as higher level of activity at their developers’ end, while supporters of TXP can attribute the lesser updates to a sign of maturity of TXP in itself.

To sum it up

Before coming to a conclusion, let us recap each CMS’s pros and cons:

TextPattern:

Pros:

• Textile is a wonderful component, and if you get used to it, you will never, ever, miss WP.
• You can tweak your website as much as you want. There is negligible encapsulation done.
• Extensive documentation.

Cons:

• Admin back end looks outdated.
• Interface confusing for beginners.
• Lesser number of themes/plugins (as compared to WP)

WordPress:

Pros:

• Perhaps the easiest CMS ever
• Several themes/plugins
• Excellent update mechanism

Cons:

• WP is intended to power only one blog at a time (unless you’re using WPMU)
• With plugins/extensions, it may becomes bloated
• Editing article meta data is difficult
• Notorious for frequent security bugs and issues

And the Winner is…

As I stated above, using (or not using) a particular CMS is a matter of personal preference too. More often than not, our choice for a CMS is governed by our needs (and, perhaps, bias towards a personal favorite).

WordPress and TextPattern are both great at what they do! If you need a CMS just to power a blog or a small website, look no further than WordPress. If, on the contrary, you wish to run multiple blogs, or prefer to tweak your articles before posting them (or simply like to do things the geeks’ way), TextPattern might be your ideal solution. In simple terms, TXP should be chosen if you wish to define the dynamics of your website just as if you were ‘programming’ software.

Have you used WP and/or TXP earlier? Do share your experiences with us in the comments!

Building a credible website community from scratch takes a lot of dedication. Even more so than dedication is the requirement for patience. Networks take time to build and will require daily care in order to mature into a strong web entity.

Why Social Networks?

An interesting comparison relates to the growth of the Internet and how lacking our society is on trust. Many people will connect with strangers via social profiles yet wouldn’t even pass a “hello” onto the very same person had they met physically.

Websites support this node system because a large user base finds the services appealing. Having a direct connection to a large list of people you may talk with at any given point is priceless. Couple this theory with a beautiful user interface and you’ve got a well-oiled social machine.

We are evolving as a species, and thus finding more enjoyment in creating and interacting with networks. Connecting with other people has proven to show boosts in overall mood and general outlook on life. With so many of us busy at work it’s hard to find time to connect. The Internet is a medium which fills the role very well, almost to the point of dependence.

What is Community Essence?

Ideas will pop up from time to time that may change your way of thinking. Imagining a community website as a series of interconnected nodes helps to demonstrate a larger point among all social networks. The essence behind these connections is to grow and share information in ways previously unavailable.

What keeps visitors coming back is the strong surrounding user base and like-minded ideals. You’ll attract more visitors if you have a goal or interest in mind. It isn’t common to see active networks of people without a common goal or interest at heart.

Offer tools to your visitors which they can’t find elsewhere. For example, if you were to develop a Twitter-themed network you may place profile information from each user’s Twitter account. You could also implement the option for an OAuth connection between each user profile and their Twitter account. This is a small scale example but can work in all niches.

Solid Programming Techniques

Community will build much quicker with a good foundation. When building a web application keep all file structures and database tables neatly organized. There have been many situations in the past where a startup network won’t have enough computation power to load the site after a large influx of users. Servers crash and the site is rendered unusable – this can either cause your current base to flee or stir up some interest in the media.

If you aren’t as strong with programming it may be wise to partner up with a close friend or acquaintance. Many web frameworks are available to ease the workload on projects where intensive function libraries are required. This will also free your mind to work on other strategies in design and marketing.

However not all of us know web developers, never mind top notch professionals. The learning curve for PHP/MySQL or Ruby on Rails is steep for the initial 2-4 weeks. After a few practice applications and spending some time in the development environment things get a lot easier. If you find yourself curious about development set time aside to learn. You don’t need to depend on anybody else for updates and you hold full control of the work pace.

Don’t Leave your Members in the Dark

Members of your website are like fans to your brand. When you have people not only registering an account but also returning to your site daily/weekly it’s fairly obvious you’ve built something great. There is a level of trust placed between users and website administrators. If this is broken it can spell the downfall of any social network.

A recent example is the release of Digg v4. Closing in to the release date many top Diggers in the community were fighting the changes. The Digg staff wasn’t updating much on the blog aside from a small beta program (for those who got invited). The launch was very sudden and came with more down time than I’ve ever seen at Digg.

Since the launch many now ex-diggers have fled to other networks such as Reddit. The community has gone through a major collapse, although Rose and developers plan to add more functionality and fix issues over time. The new design has come a long way since first release. This community still hasn’t fully bounced back from the incident and it’s difficult to predict if Digg will ever return to king status.

Be Original

Original ideas are hard to come by. These days it seems anybody with sub-par development skills is launching the next hot app. These will die of faster than most and may earn the creator some small revenue. But money should not be the main purpose of launching a new community.

It’s perfectly acceptable to borrow and innovate off others’ ideas. This has been happening for centuries and will continue to govern laws of creativity well into the future. It’s a difficult transition, but learning how to adapt and inject your own ideas is a science which can only be learned through practice.

These tips should give you a good idea of how communities develop. Over time you can track analytics and learn about your userbase from an objective perspective. It’s a very rewarding experience to provide a small mass with services they truly value.

There are plenty more tips online for marketing and promotion but the best way to fight curiosity is diving head-first into building a community. Take away as many lessons as possible from your initial launches and apply these to future projects. When it comes to social networking it seems there is always room to grow.

Today, we’ll be discussing some key aspects & techniques that a web developer/designer must follow to have a clean & professional looking mobile version of any website. So let’s get started!

Mobile interfaces are usually small and so a developer has to adjust in pre-defined dimensions. To start with, below is a layout of a very basic “mobile-website”.

LAYOUT

Let’s discuss the different elements of the layout above:

• LOGO:

One of the main things in the layout. You should try to make it as attractive as you can but at the same time take care of its size. Make sure that the size doesn’t exceed 2 KBs of size because images always take forever to load on mobile networks and you don’t want your site to load incompletely for different people!

• WEBSITE NAVIGATION:

One of the most important things in the design. No matter what, you need to have the links to main pages/places/things on your website on this bar and this should always be at the top. As you know, typing on most mobile devices using the small QWERTY or the virtual QWERTY keypads is not easy to work with at all. Therefore, creating a thorough navigation for your website is a key aspect to making your website mobile friendly.

• CONTENT:

This is the main thing on your mobile website. People actually come to websites on their mobile devices just to view the content. So make sure that you don’t make any single change to your content for mobile devices otherwise you might just end up losing a user.

While on Mobile Devices, people are usually on the go, so they don’t really have much time to view content. As a solution to this, you should cut down your content to some major value points but at the same time you should provide your user with a Link to the main article containing all of your content. (If you have an active blog then you can ignore this as you can’t really cut down content for each post separately every day!!)

We all know that images in content are a must. But in the mobile version of your website, you should make sure that you don’t have much graphics because most mobile phones would take forever to load heavy images. So use images and graphics as little as possible, only where contextually relevant.

And if you do wish to put images on your mobile website, it should be in .JPEG or .GIF or .PNG format as these files are pretty much light-weight. Plus make sure to compress your pictures to avoid zooming. And one more, today nearly all current devices display images, however, users may browse with the images turned off. So always use the ALT text property for the images which is a recommended practice. Also, you must properly size your images to avoid a situation where the reader/visitor has to zoom into the image to see it properly.

• FOOTER:

There’s an old saying, “A Man is not recognized by the clothing he’s wearing but by the condition of his shoes!” This goes true for many websites. I always see blogs, marketing websites etc. OVER-LOADED with “garbage and dirty” Hyper-links in Footer. Like me, many others don’t like it and on mobile websites where the screen size is small, this could be one thing where you could lose a client or a reader. So make an attractive Footer!

So if you want your applications/website’s mobile-interface going successful, you should lay focus on its Layout. It should just be error-free as “Web-Browsing on Mobile Devices” will be the next big thing.

CODING

This is one thing where many new mobile-interface developers hesitate. Below are some tips that can help remove that hesitation:

• VALID CODE:

Use proper code and make sure that its 100% valid because most mobile browsers aren’t as good as their PC (Personal-Computer) counterparts so you should make sure that it’s valid.

• FLUID LAYOUTS:

It’s not always easy to discover how your layout will look on all mobile browsers as there are far too many mobile devices used for web browsing and to track them all can be a big pain. One way to address/bypass this problem is the use fluid layouts that will automatically adjust to the screen size.

To accomplish this avoid setting widths in pixels and use percentages or ems instead. For instance, instead of:

width: 400px;

use

width: 100%

or

width: 1.0ems

You can find more about the fluid mobile layouts and also download some pre-built ones by going to this link: Perfect multi-column CSS liquid layouts – iPhone compatible

• SPECIFIC STYLESHEETS

You can always target various mobile devices for better user-experience. For example, for targeting users browsing your site using Handheld devices you can use this in your website’s <head>:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="handheld.css" type="text/css" media="handheld"/>

You can find more about these media types at this link: W3.org – Media Types.

• SAY “NO” TO FANCY SCRIPTS

For your mobile website to go successful, don’t use Javascript or Flash or any other of those fancy scripts available out there. Because majority of mobile devices fail to interpret these and end up either freezing the device or just doing something stupid!

If you really want to use these then should give your user a Polite Option so that your user knows what his/her mobile handset is loading and opening up (and if anything goes wrong, it’s their fault and not yours because you already warned them).

• TAKE IT EASY WITH THE ADS

This is one thing that almost everyone should take care of! Don’t fill up your mobile page with ads. And this is not only for the mobile page but also for the original website.

It’s an old saying, “One rotten Apple in a basket makes all others dirty”. It goes true for these websites which are full of ads. These websites don’t care about User-Experience but only care about the money that comes into their pockets (because CPM is high on mobile devices).

So my suggestion, just don’t fill it up with ads! “Just don’t make your page with colourful ads.”

• MOBILE BROWSER DETECTION (AUTOMATIC)

For making your brand successfull you should also include an automatic “Mobile Browser Detection & Redirection” server-side script (eg. PHP).  You might also use this as User Agent detection, where a server makes a decision on what to serve based on how an incoming browser describes its capabilities. You might also want to use this as an alternative or fallback method to the previous one Mobile Browser Detection in PHP. Other implementations feature real-time JavaScript requests to databases like DeviceAtlas or WURFL that also supply information on what a device can do. A mobile version is not complete until it’s automatically triggered for every mobile user!

• MAKE A DEDICATED APPLICATION CLIENT (if necessary)

Yes! You read it correctly. If you have a really high user-base, make a dedicated application targeting various mobile interfaces. Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Yahoo and many other big-companies have done this and this is why they have been so successful. If you make an application for specific handsets then you no longer have to care about all the Fancy scripts etc. because you can then enhance the application your own way (you can’t change the mobile browser but definitely your own application).

MOBILE SITE BUILDERS

You must have seen those Fancy Website builders out there, haven’t you? Well, now we have websites which help you create websites for mobile interfaces as well!

1. MOBIFY

2. MOFUSE

3. WIRENODE

For users who use WordPress as their platform, there are many free as well as paid plugins available out there. Some of them are listed below:

4. MobilePress

5. WP-TAP

6. WP-TOUCH PRO

So we have pretty much gone through all the aspects and the techniques of “Mobile Website-Designing”. If you have any questions about anything regarding “Mobile Website Designing” then feel free to point that out in the comments!

Over my time of working with WordPress and using it to create websites for clients, I have found that some of the most unique requests I have recieved from clients have been settled by a simple WordPress plugin. We all know the major things needed for every website – From SEO to Analytics, which I will also be including in this article.

Getting Started

For those of you that are new to using WordPress and installing plugins – There are a couple of different ways to do it. The easiest being to use your admin panel under “Plugins” and clicking on “Add New” where you can search for each plugin and install directly from your admin panel. The other way is to use an FTP client such as FileZilla and browse to your WordPress Plugin directory “WP-Content” – Then “Plugins” to manually upload the plugin files.

Remember that after manually uploading your plugin files you will still need to activate them by visiting your admin panel and going to the plugin tab and choosing activate.

The Plugins

Here is my own personal list of my top 10 WordPress Plugins that go along with each personal and client installation of WordPress. Remember also that there are many different variations of some of the plugins, which some people like more or less than the ones I have listed. Through my own personal experience using these plugins and doing my own research the following ones are the ones that have suited me the best and worked for me.

1. Akismet

Akismet Home Page

This one should be a given. This is actually included with every WordPress install by default. You will need to obtain a Akismet API key to use it, but it is on my top list of plugins that are worth using. Make sure to use it on all of your WordPress powered websites to cut back on the spam comments. Although it doesn’t cut out 100% of all spam comments, I myself cannot imagine not having it installed and activated. There are also other plugins that take it a step further and more protect from spam comments, but Akismet is well worth using.

2. All in One SEO Pack

By: SemperFiWebDesign.com – All in One SEO Pack

I have tried and tested many of the other SEO plugins available for WordPress and found this one to work the best for everything I have ever needed. The list of options is almost endless, and the ease of use adds to the list of great features offered by this wonderful plugin. Most of us that currently use WordPress have used this plugin, or probably currently use it now. I would recommend this with each and every WordPress install. If you are looking to really make your website Search Engine Friendly then I would always use this, and take advantage of all the options it has to offer.

3. Contact Form 7

By: Takayuki Miyoshi – Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is another one that has always been high on my list of must have WordPress plugins. Everyone that has created a website knows the importance of having a secure contact form. I have choosen this one as my favorite due to all of the options available for it, along with how easy it is to create and implement forms on any page of my WordPress powered website. I have used this to create large surveys for clients websites, and custom contact forms for times when very special things were needed on the form itself. I want to also mention that using the included .CSS file it is VERY easy to modify the appearance of this plugin on your website to make it fit in with your website.

4. Google XML Sitemaps

By: Arne Brachhold – Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin has been a top performer from the start. We all know the importance of XML sitemaps for SEO purposes, and especially using Googles Webmaster Tools. This sitemap creater runs by itself to always keep your sitemap current, and also submits it to the major search engines. It can also create HTML sitemaps, and .gzip sitemaps as well. Another top one on my list that I think should be added to every WordPress powered website.

5. Secure WordPress

By: SiteSecurityMonitor – Secure WordPress

This has proven to be a great security plugin for WordPress. It use to be individually owned and was recently purchased by SiteSecurityMonitor (SSM) and made a lot better. Below is a brief overview of features directly from SSM.

Secure WordPress:

1. Removes error-information on login-page
2. Adds index.php plugin-directory (virtual)
3. Removes the wp-version, except in admin-area
4. Removes Really Simple Discovery
5. Removes Windows Live Writer
6. Removes core update information for non-admins
7. Removes plugin-update information for non-admins
8. Removes theme-update informationfor non-admins (only WP 2.8 and higher)
9. Hides WP-version in backend-dashboard for non-admins
10. Adds string for use WP Scanner
11. Blocks bad queries
12. Validates your site with a free malware and vulnerabilities scan

6. Secure Admin

By: Ryan Boren and Robert Accettura – Secure Admin

Like Secure WordPress, the Secure Admin plugin adds more security to your WordPress admin panel. I have always used this alongside of Secure WordPress to try and protect each of my WordPress installs. I have done research on both and always used them. I put alot of thought into how much work and effort I had in each of my WordPress powered sites, and thought it only made sense to activate a simple plugin to offer more protection. There are many other security plugins available but some offer the same things. With this one and the above mentioned, they together cover most everything.

7. WordPress Database Backup

By: Austin Matzko – WordPress Database Backup

The WordPress Database Backup plugin is exactly what it says. I have not personally found a more straight forward way of backing up my WordPress site and having so many options to automate the process as well. I always run this on every WordPress site I have, and it has never let me down. I have always set mine up to email me a weekly copy of my website, for those just in case situations. If you are looking for a way to backup your WP database, as well as your published articles and information that you have on your site, then you need this plugin.

8. WP Google Analytics

By: Xavisys.com – WP Google Analytics

Exactly what it says, and if you don’t know about Google Analytics then you don’t know what you are missing. This is the best way to use a plugin to add Analytics to your site. There are other ways (Manually adding it, and you can also do it using your functions.php file) But for the easiest most straight forward way…. The plugin is the answer. This will ensure that your stats can always be seen by you to know what is going on with your site. Great way to monitor the details of your visitors.

9. WP No Category Base

By: WordPressSupplies – WP No Category Base

I found this plugin when I realized that WordPress was making a “Category” directory trailing my domain name, that was being placed before my pretty URL’s I had created. This was throwing me off, and I searched high and low for a way to remove the category base. Using this plugin is as easy as it gets, just install – then activate it, and your done! Works the first time every time, and makes those URL’s look much much better. Great for SEO purposes.

10. White Label CMS

By: VideoUserManuals.com – White Label CMS

One of the best CMS plugins I have found that has so many options. White Lael gives you the option of customizing your WordPress install along with making it more aimed at a CMS instead of just blogging. I have used this numerous times for many purposes and it is worth taking a look at. Great way to make a CMS site, or use it just to customize your WordPress login and Admin panel with a custom logo and branding. Great Plugin!

Other Useful and Unknown Plugins

I have added some of these extra plugins that I have found over time at the request of different clients. As things are asked of me when I am creating a website I start searching and so far (Fingers Crossed) I have always found a plugin to fit my needs. These are all more reasons that I love and recommend WordPress. Here are the extras, along with a description of each. Many of you may already know about these, but the point of this article is partially a reminder, and to show new users to WordPress the power of certain plugins, and also as a reminder to those of you that may be using WordPress and just simply forgotten about some of these lovely plugins.

Web Invoicing and Billing

By: TwinCitiesTech

Great plugin for keeping track of clients and being able to create and send invoices directly from your admin panel. Nice way to keep track of your business needs, and also be able to monitor your income from the invoices. I really like this over other invoice plugins simply because it’s the best. It also will handle recurring payments you setup, and also recurring payments from PayPal. Great if you have a reason to send out invoices to get paid.

TubePress

By: TubePress Plugin

Great plugin to allow you to easily add some content to your website. Set it with keywords and it will add videos directly from YouTube directly to a post or page of your choice. Has options for you to change where the videos come from (also supports other video services like Vimeo) and will let you pull videos directly from a user, keywords, and many other options. Great for tutorial videos on a website of any kind. Awesome way to create more dynamic content to your site. I highly recommend this one and I currently use this on one of my sites as well.

Elastic Theme Engine and Editor

By: Elastic Theme Engine and Editor Plugin

I have played with this a number of times. I am still a little in between on really liking it and not being too sure about it. I do think that if you do not know anything about programming and want to make a custom site, then it is worth playing with. Like anything, it had it’s downside, but overall was really worth playing with. If you are looking to make your own custom WordPress site and don’t know any PHP or CSS then get this plugin, and make your own site easily.

WP125

By: WebMasterSource

This is one of my favorites. If you have a blog that you offer out advertising on, then you need this plugin. There are other plugins aimed specifically at BuySellAds.com, but this plugin is for the individual managing their own ads. It shows details on your admin panel, and can be set to run ads for a set number of days.

WP-Polls

By: Lester Chan

I love this simple plugin. As the name implies, it is for adding a poll to your website. Now I know that there are hundreds of other plugins that do this, but this one is the most simple straight forward that also offered the most options and never let me down. Just for that I will recommend it and keep using it myself. Customize the look and feel of it, while generating different polls over and over. Great plugin for doing exactly what it is suppose to do.

In Closing…

Plugins are a great way to add more functionality to your WordPress powered website - and no matter what you are looking for someone else has thought of it and probably made a plugin for it. I personally think that WordPress is still growing in popularity and being used more and more each day. This helps with the growing community of users supporting more WordPress themes(massive theme collection here) and plugins. If you don’t find what you are looking for then you can always create your own. I hope everyone has enjoyed the article!

Single Quotes vs Double Quotes

You may ore may not have even thought about this up to this point in your PHP use but it is kind of a big deal. Using the right or wrong quotes can not only cause errors that might be hard to find but there can be a slight performance boost and can make your code much easier to read.

<?php
     echo 'hello world';
?>

<?php
     echo "hello world";
?>

These will produce the exact same end result but do you know which one is technically better? The single quote. The single quote just puts exactly what is inside of it without processing while the double quote actually evaluates and processes. Let me explain with an example.

<?php

      $example = 'hello world';

      echo '$example'; // outcome will be $example

      echo "$example"; // outcome will be hello world
?>

As you can see here the double quotes take the time to process what is inside so technically there will be a little more overhead. Obviously on a small scale this means nothing but if you have a loop that iterates 1000 times you might start to see the benefits of single quotes in a performance sense.

Now if you are trying to put a variable in a sentence you can do this:

<?php

	$example = 'hello world';

	echo 'This is my '.$example.' for PHP';  // outcome This is my hello world for PHP
	echo "This is my $example for PHP";  // outcome This is my hello world for PHP
?>

Either of these will work just the same in getting the output that you want but the single quote will be slightly faster because while both have to process the variable the double quote is also scanning the rest of the sentence in search for anything that it has to process. Yes it is more typing but I personally find the first one much more readable because you can much more clearly see that you are outputing a variable. If this was randomly in a 500 line PHP file the single quote method would be easier to spot.

PHP Short Tags

You know when you just want to prepopulate a form or add one PHP variable into the middle of a an HTML block. Well having to write an open PHP tag and then a close PHP with all of the line breaks and indentions to make it readable is such a pain. So what is the solution? PHP short tags like this.

<?php
	$example = 'This is some text that I want in my paragraph.';
?>
<html>
	<head>
	</head>
	<body>
		<h1>I love short tags</h1>
		<p>
		< ?php
			echo $example;
		?>
		</p>
	</body>
</html>
</pre>
Personally I like to get things done with as little typing and code as possible, so I am not a fan of this.  I love my short tags.
<pre>
<?php
	$example = 'This is some text that I want in my paragraph.';
?>
<html>
	<head>
	</head>
	<body>
		<h1>I love short tags</h1>
		<p>
		< ?=$example?>
		</p>
	</body>
</html>

That will produce the exact same output as the first but much neater and with a little less code.
NOTE: Short tags is something that can be disabled in the php.ini so it is not guaranteed to work but industry standard has short tags enabled.

Short Tags With Inline IF Statement

Short tags are also great when used with inline if statements. Having if statements in an area of the code with a lot of HTML can make it harder to read but using inline if with short tags can make it much neater.

<?php
	$minimum_age = 21;
	$customer = 19;
?>
	<p>You are
	<?php
		if($customer<$minimum_age)
		{
			echo 'NOT';
		}
		else
		{
			echo '';
		}
	?>
	old enough to buy alcohol here.</p>

Obviously we do not need the else in this case because it doesn’t do anything. I just have it in there to help understand inline IF statements. Also since there is only one output line we dont need the curly braces.

<?php
	$minimum_age = 21;
	$customer = 19;
?>
	<p>You are < ?=($customer<$minimum_age?'NOT':'')?> old enough to buy alcohol here.</p>

You see the inline IF is shorter but might be confusing at first so I will break it down.

<ul>
	<li>First "$customer< $minimum_age" is exactly the same as "if($customer<$minimum_age)"</li>
	</li><li>Next "?'NOT':" is the same as "{ echo 'NOT'; }" (anthing after the question mark and before the colon is executed if the statement is true.</li>
	<li>The last piece is the "else" ":''" is the same as "else{ echo ''; }" (anything after the colon is what is executed for the else)</li>
</ul>

And lastly for this post I just want to show a little way to dynamically create variables that can make things a little bit quicker for you. One of the best uses for it is when you are making a database call. Here is a traditional example.

<?php
     $id = '1';
     $query = mysql_query("SELECT name,title,content FROM blog_post WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1");
     $data = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);
?>
     <div id="blog_wrapper">
          <h2>< ?=stripslashes($data['title'])?></h2>
          <span id="blog_author">< ?=stripslashes($data['name'])?></span>
          <p>< ?=stripslashes($data['content'])?></p>
     </div>

Here we run a query and are outputting the data in HTML format. We do stripslashes() on all of the items because when you insert things into the database it will ad slashes to escape special characters. Instead of having to individually do the stripslashes on everything we can do $$key = stripslashes() like this:

<?php
     $id = '1';
     $query = mysql_query("SELECT name,title,content FROM blog_post WHERE id='$id' LIMIT 1");
     $data = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);
	 if(is_array($data))
	 {
		foreach($data as $key => $value)
			$$key = stripslashes($value);
	 }
     <div id="blog_wrapper">
          <h2>< ?=$title?></h2>
          <span id="blog_author">< ?=$name)?></span>
          <p>< ?=$content)?></p>
     </div>

Now you can see that we can access all of our items from the database like $name,$title,$content. We can do this because the $ in front of $key sets it as a variable with a value of stripslashes($value). Here we are taking the $data array from the query and looping through it. In the foreach($data as $key => $value), $key is the key for that element in the array (which is the reference like $data['name']).

Likewise, when crackers breach servers for various web services and expose the user information to other ne’er-do-wells, your accounts could be at the fate of many shady characters.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to use strong, secure and unique passwords for each of your online accounts. Of course, that sounds great in theory, but the main reason we often reuse the same password or passphrase is because trying to remember 50 different logins, each with various alphanumeric strings, is just not realistic.

Fortunately, there are some great tools and services available to users to not only keep your passwords secure, but to also make them accessible and usable from multiple computers or web browsers. Here are five of my favorites.

1. 1Password

1Password from Agile Web Solutions is my favorite way to manage, create and securely access my passwords from a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android device. The program is $39.95 (a family license for 5 users is available for $59.95) but you can install it on as many of your own computers as you want. It’s a great way to create and fill-in passwords across the web.

The application has plugins for all the major web browsers — Safari, Firefox and Chrome, and you can also pull up your passwords from the application itself. The app works like this:

When you’re on a website and you create a new account, 1Password will prompt you to save that account to its database. In the future, rather than having to type it in manually or rely on your browser’s built-in manager, you can just use 1Password to automatically fill in your username and password data.

Even better, 1Password includes a truly fantastic password generator that lets you create robust passwords of a length that you choose. You can generate a password for an account and then automatically save it.

1Password saves all of your passwords and login information into its own secure database that is stored on your computer, but where 1Password really shines is with its ability to sync with Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service that lets you keep a cloud copy of anything within the Dropbox folder on your desktop. That folder is then accessible across computers and devices. Any change to that folder is synced across every connected computer. 1Password can use Dropbox to store its secure database, which means that if you use multiple Macs or want to have constant syncing on the iPhone, iPad or Android, you can.

1Password has a beta version of its app available for Windows. Like the Mac app, the Windows version can connect to a Dropbox account and sync its database with other platforms.

1Password can even store other form information like credit cards, address information, server logins for your website and software serial numbers.

2. LastPass

LastPass is a very popular cross-platform password manager that stores all of its data in the cloud. It works on Windows and Mac and in every major web browser. Like 1Password, LastPass can automatically save your logins, help you generate safe and secure passwords and automatically fill in your passwords when you visit a site.

The difference is that instead of storing its database on your computer or in Dropbox, it’s all stored on LastPass’s servers. LastPass actually has a really robust set of security around your data and if its center is compromised, your data still can’t be accessed.

LastPass is free to use but for $12 a year, you can gain access to LastPass’s many mobile apps (including iPhone, BlackBerry and Android) and gain access to priority support. It also means you get to skip any advertisements.

3. KeePass and KeePassX

KeePass and KeePassX (which is KeePass but for Mac or Linux) is a free, open-source password manager. It works very much like 1Password, in that the database is stored on your local computer. Like 1Password, you can use Dropbox to keep KeePass synced across machines and profiles.

KeePass can run off a USB drive, which makes it a great choice for users who frequently work on different machines but don’t want to leave any of their personal data on those machines.

KeePass isn’t as user-friendly as LastPass or 1Password, but its dedicated userbase loves it because it can be extended and used in a variety of ways. Plus, it’s free.

4. RoboForm

RoboForm is very similar to 1Password, but it’s just for Windows users. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and with Safari and Opera via a bookmarklet.

RoboForm also has mobile apps for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian. Like KeePass, you can even run it off of a USB drive, which is great for users who want a way to keep their passwords with them and use RoboForm on various computers they use, but don’t want to have to install a program on each of those computers.

You can also use RoboForm with Dropbox, which makes using it across machines that much easier. RoboForm is $29.95 for a single-user/computer license and you can get RoboForm with two computer licenses for $39.95.

5. Firefox Sync

Formerly known as Mozilla Weave, Firefox Sync is a plugin for Firefox 3.5/3.6 that will also be an integrated feature in the upcoming Firefox 4. Firefox Sync is a pretty cool concept and it takes a slightly different approach to password management and syncing from the other tools in this list.

Firefox Sync securely syncs and protects your passwords, bookmarks and browser tabs (you can choose to sync all or none of these items). When you login to another computer with Firefox on it, you can just login to Sync and have access to your existing data and even pull up tabs that are open on your other computer. When you log out, all of that information disappears.

Sync also has iPhone and Android apps so you can bring your tabs over to those mobile devices. The upcoming Firefox Mobile for MeeGo and Android will let you access your passwords securely and remotely as well.

By being built into the browser, Sync is a great way for Firefox users to keep track of their passwords. Because it is part of Firefox, Firefox Sync is really designed for people who use Firefox as their primary web browser. If you use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Safari, you’ll want to look at the other options listed above.

Do you use a password manager or syncing tool? Let us know in the comments and also share any of your best password tips.

Before You Start

There is one thing you need to realize before you start: The power of metrics. As you build links, how will you measure the results? How will you determine what links are the best links to get?

What people often use is PageRank, a metric from Google. They see the SEO game through the lenses of PageRank. There are a few problems with this:

1. Pagerank is not updated often, the last update was 5+ months ago
2. Google doesn’t say publicly when do they update PageRank, they seem to want to hide this
3. There isn’t a strong correlation between the Pagerank of a page and where it ranks in the search engines. SEOMoz did this correlation, by the way.

On the positive side, there is a significant correlation between the home page pagerank and where it ranks. So if you want to get a link from a specific domain, take a look at its homepage PR instead of the individual page from where you want the link.

So, besides homepage PR, what are good metrics to use? Page Authority and Domain Authority. These are 2 metrics SEOMoz constantly tries to match so they have significant correlation with Google rankings. Use page authority when you’re determining whether you should get a link from a specific page and domain authority as a replacement for home page Pagerank (they have veru similar correlations with Google rankings, so it’s your choice which one you’re going to use, domain authority is probably going to exceed Pagerank over time because the SeoMoz guys are constantly working on it).

Why am I telling you all this? Why am I telling you about metrics? There’s been some business studies that show that one of the main differences between companies, in terms of how much money they make, is whether they use the right metrics. And if you think about this, it makes sense. If you’re using totally wrong measures then you don’t know how good you perform and you can’t focus on improving the thing you do. Ever heard of “You can’t improve what you don’t measure?”

And now, finally, the main part

Get Started in Getting More Links

If you aren’t ranking for your websites name, then how do you expect to rank for other terms? That’s why I recommend you read this article on 1stWebDesigner I wrote several weeks ago on that topic. You’ll find there a description of what ‘authority’ is, and how Google is constantly trying to establish a balance between ranking a page based on its authority / how relevant that page is for that particular keyword.

Imitate: MATCH Your Competitors

What are your competitors doing to get links to their websites? There is one way to find out.

Enter their website into Yahoo Site Explorer and Open Site Explorer (in Open Site Explorer, select “external links” and “to all pages on the Root Domain”). Example? Let’s use 1stwebdesigner :

Wow! What are these links from home pages of various (powerful) sites? After further investigation we can see that these sites link to each other in the ‘blogroll’ section of their blogs. Quick, how can you get these links as well? Say you also have a powerful web design/development blog, you can try sending a nice email to each of those people asking if they can reference your website, and in exchange, you’ll make a reference in the blogroll to their site as well. One tip: focus as much as possible on what’s for them, the what’s for you part will usually come naturally with the power of reciprocity.

So, before you go to the next step, PLEASE have a good look at the top 10 competitors (let’s say you want to rank for a ‘design blog’, take a look at the top 10 people who are already ranking, analyze them using the 2 tools I mentioned above, see what links you can also get). Sure, you can get links by the second step alone and still perform well, but isn’t the whole purpose to get more links in the easiest way possible?

EXCEED Your Competitors

This is the part where you’ve already seen and got the links your competitors have. Now it’s time to go a step further and get links none of your competitors have. How?

You can get many ideas from the previous analysis you did. For example, if you’ve seen that some of your competitors got links from guest posting on other blogs, you can do the same, email the webmasters and offer them a guest post. Or if you see that your competitors were active on design-related forums and put a link in their signature, you can try to do the same. To exceed, you can always try and do the ’standard’ link building methods like article marketing, leaving useful/relevant comments on blogs, submitting your site to directories (avoid directories that don’t have the option for a free submission) etc.

I hope you now grasped the match & exceed concept. I’ve noticed that most people who try to get more links to their websites usually do the one thing but forget to do the other. In reality, doing the both (with preference to first doing the ‘match’ and then the ‘exceed’) helps you get more links in the shortest time possible.

What Types of Links Should I Get?

There are 2 types of links you should get:

1. Have a preference toward stronger links (in terms of home page page rank/domain authority and page authority). These help a lot.

2. Have a preference towards links from DIVERSE domains. Diverse = unique root domains = eg. yahoo.com and google.com are 2 unique root domains, but yahoo.com and people.yahoo.com is 1 unique root domain because “people.yahoo.com” is a SUB-DOMAIN, not a root domain. Yahoo.com is the root domain.

There is a strong correlation between rankings in Google and the number of unique root domains they got (if you think about it, it makes sense, this is the single hardest metric to fake by spammers and it takes time/energy to get links from such a wide range of diverse domains).

But I Want the Blueprint to Getting More Links!

Sorry, there’s no such thing as a step-by-step process of getting more links (although a lot would love to sell you that idea for hundreds of bucks). There’s no such person who knows all the answers in this area. So if you plan to get more knowledge on this (and I’m sure you will), get your information from as many people as possible, get multiple points of view, multiple methods for getting links, and most importantly, try things out.

What about natural links?

I spend around 1/4 of my time in this. Natural link building, unfortunately, isn’t working quite well as it used to. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, it’s worth over the long run. Making viral content that attracts natural linksis another topic by itself and I’ll try to cover it in some other article

Take a look at your Analytics data

This can be crucial to making decisions. Take a look whether the keywords people use to get to your website are short tail or long tail. This depends a lot upon your market. Why should you take at the short/long tail? Because you’ll know what to focus on, short > rank for individual keywords, long > pump out more content.

2.How to Build a Custom WordPress Theme from Scratch
Chris Spooner,a very well known designer shared a simple but great wordpress tutorial which you can understand easily.

3.Make your Own WordPress Theme
Another good and very detailed WordPress theme tutorial with 7 parts(Layout,Header,Index,Comment,Sidebar,Footer and Publishing Step).Beginning from the layout to the last publishing step,ever part is easy to understand.

4.WordPress – Theme: Building Your Own Theme
Very detailed tutorials about every part of WordPress theme building with easy understanding.

5.How to Create a WordPress Theme
This tutorial is much more for those interested in taking an existing design and converting it into a beautifully working WordPress theme.

6.Stop Tweaking! Create Your Own WordPress Theme
This is also one the most understandable WordPress theme tutorial with 10 parts.I like this tutorial because it is really easy to follow the steps and understand what the codes are for and why.

7.How to Code a Praticle WordPress Theme
Every part of the WordPress coding is very well explained to understand easily.Great tutorial especially for beginners.

8.Converting PSD to WordPress Theme
This tutorial is from scratch.I mean you can see all the steps of PSD to wordpress theme building.Excellent tutorial.

9.Designing and Coding a WordPress Theme From Scratch
The tutorial is about building a wordpress ttheme from creating the layout (with photoshop) to the last step publishing.If you are new to wordpress designing and coding this tutorial is just for you.

10.How To Create WordPress Themes From Scratch
This is one of the best WordPress theme tutorials from scratch.The tutorial begins with structuring and designing from the photoshop to last step.Like some other tutorials,every step is very well-explaied and also i advice to read all the steps carefully to become a wordpress designer.

11.How To – Design Your Own WordPress Theme
A step by step tutorial for converting a design into WordPress site.

12.Building Custom WordPress Theme
The tutorial explains the basics of how WordPress theme works and show you how to convert a static HTML template into a theme.

13.So You Want to Create WordPress Themes?
A very detailed tutorail from scratch.The whole process is divided in the many parts to understand easily.You can also download as e-book.

14.WordPress Theme Guide:Dissection of a WordPress Theme
Easy to follow and understand 4 parts tutorial.The author dissects an existing theme and explaining parts as they are required.Also another very detailed tutorial.

15.How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch
This tutorial will look at taking a HTML/CSS template and turning it into a functioning WordPress theme.

16.Build a Newspaper Theme With WP_Query and the 960 CSS Framework
How to make a 3 columned newspaper theme that has all your main blog posts in the main column, and off to the side a set of posts with a certain category.

17.Developing a WordPress Theme
Not a tutorial from scratch but you will learn to convert your xHTML CSS site into a Compact WordPress Theme

18.Creating a WordPress Theme
Actually not for beginners but another good tutorial to create your own wordpress theme in 3 parts.

19.Creating WordPress Themes:Introduction
Like some other wordpress developement posts this tutorial begins from the basics of theme development to the end.