How to Create a List of Forbidden Words for WordPress Titles

Recently, one of our users asked us how they can add a list of forbidden words for WordPress post titles? If you manage a multi-author blog and want authors to avoid using certain words or phrases, then this tip would come in handy. In this article, we will show you how to create a list of forbidden words for WordPress titles.

Why Create a List of Forbidden Words for Post Titles in WordPress?

It is not easy to keep all authors informed about your editorial style and policy on a multi-author site. You can use Edit Flow to leave editorial comments, add notes, and custom statuses, but it will not monitor your post titles.

If an author has publishing rights, then the unwanted words can go live on your website. You can prevent this by taking away publishing privileges from users, but this means more work for you as you will have to review and publish posts yourself.

Having said that, let’s see how you can easily add a list of banned words for WordPress post titles.

Adding a List of Banned Words for WordPress Post Titles

This method requires you to manually add code to your WordPress site. It is recommended for users who know how to paste code snippets from web into WordPress.

Important: Always backup your WordPress site when you are adding a code snippet to your WordPress files.

Simply add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.

function wpb_forbidden_title($title){
global $post;
$title = $post->post_title;

// Add restricted words or phrases separated by a semicolon

$restricted_words = "word1;word2;word3";

$restricted_words = explode(";", $restricted_words);
foreach($restricted_words as $restricted_word){
if (stristr( $title, $restricted_word))
wp_die( __('Error: You have used a forbidden word "'. $restricted_word .'" in post title') );
}
}
add_action('publish_post', 'wpb_forbidden_title', 10, 1);

Don’t forget to add the words you want to ban in $restricted_words variable. You need to use a semicolon to separate different words and phrases.

This code simply triggers a function when a user tries to publish a post which checks the post title for restricted words. If it finds a restricted word in the post title, then it will show the user an error like this:

That’s all, we hope this article helped you learn how to add a list of forbidden words for WordPress post titles. You may also want to see our guide on how to require featured images for posts in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a List of Forbidden Words for WordPress Titles appeared first on WPBeginner.

Revealed: Why Building Your Email List is so Important Today!

Are you thinking about building an email list, but not sure why it is so important? Many bloggers and business owners don’t see the importance of building an email list right away until they see the impact email lists can have on website traffic and revenue. In this article, we will show you the top reasons why building your email list is important (with real case studies). We will also show you how to start building your email list – step by step.

By the end of this article, you will have answers to all your questions about building an email list.

What is an Email List and Why is it so Important?

An email list is a list of names and email addresses of people who gave you permission to send them updates and promotions from your business via email.

Why is this so important?

Because these subscribers joined your email list from your website and verified their identity by clicking on a link (double-optin). They are extremely interested in what you have to offer.

According to Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in USA.

In our business, email lists get 10 times higher conversions than social media campaigns. This makes sense if you think about these five advantages of email as a communication channel:

Email is Personal – Email allows you to land into a user’s inbox. There is no ranking system limiting your reach. It is very direct, personal, and casual.

Email is Purposeful – To get your email a user needs to signup for your email list and confirm their email address. Someone doing this much work is obviously interested in hearing from you, and they are much more receptive to your message.

Email is Targeted – As we mentioned earlier the user has already shown interest in your products / content. Since you already know what they like, you can deliver them highly relevant content and offers to get better results. This is called segmentation, and we will cover that later in the article.

You Own Your Email List – You do not own Facebook, Twitter, or Google. Your social media campaigns and SEO efforts can go to waste when these platform change their policies. On the other hand, you own your email list, and it is not influenced by decisions of other businesses.

Email is One-on-One – People read email in the privacy of their inbox. The message is not on a public timeline or newsfeed. They can ask you questions directly in private with confidence. This helps build trust and connection.

This is precisely why every smart business in the world has an email list.

Big name brands learned this lesson a long time ago, and that’s why they spend thousands of dollars on social media campaigns to get people to sign up for their email lists.

They understand that email marketing is the best long term investment with a much higher return. Because people will continue to get their message at a very low cost for a longer period of time.

Social Media vs Email Marketing

Now you’re probably thinking, wait a minute. What about social media?

A lot of social media experts and consultants, in an attempt to sell their services, downplay the importance of an email list.

In fact, we have even been asked isn’t email marketing kind of dead with social media taking over everything?

The best way to answer this question is to look at the information Twitter and Facebook ask you before you create an account:

Yup, it’s an email address. Because these companies know that emails are the most direct and reliable way of getting in touch.

All social media platforms are building an email list because they are smart business owners. This helps their valuation when selling their business.

While social media is a great way to reach your audience, it’s important to keep in perspective the timely nature of social media platforms.

They come and go.

Not too long ago we had MySpace, FriendFeed, Google Buzz, Plurk and countless others. Most of them are either dead now or irrelevant.

Today we have Facebook and Twitter, but not everyone is as hooked up on these sites. Some prefer other places like Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Snapchat, etc.

But studies show that at least 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis.

We are not saying that social media is not important. It is, and you should explore every opportunity to reach out to your audiences.

However you should spend more time and effort into something that guarantees much higher results.

What You Need to Start Building an Email List?

Hopefully by now, you should know why building an email list is so important, and why ignoring it would be a HUGE mistake.

So let’s take a look at what you need to start building your email list.

3 Things You Need to Build an Email List:

1. A website or blog.


2. An email marketing service.


3. High-converting opt-in forms

All three of these are fairly easy to setup, and none of them require you to know how to code.

For the sake of this article, we will only be focusing on the last two items in the list. If you don’t have a website or blog yet, then see our step by step guide on how to start a blog.

Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service

There are tons of email marketing services online. Often beginners use the free options to save cost, which is understandable. However, some of those free platforms are not the best option. Why?

Services like FeedBurner or Jetpack Subscriptions offer blog subscription via email. This allows your users to receive an email update every time you publish a new blog post.

The downside to a blog notification service like this are:

• You will have to create a blog post to send an email. This means that information you want to share will have to be publicly available first. You can’t send out private email newsletters.


• You can’t personalize the email message. It will be delivered in the same format often with no branding or personalization.


• You can’t categorize subscribers by interests, demographics, or content type.


• There is no reporting. You don’t know how many people got email, what percentage of users opened it, and how many of them clicked on links.


• If you later tried to move to a paid service, your users will have to re-confirm their subscription. Many of them will not do it, and you will end up losing subscribers.

This is why we ALWAYS recommend using a professional email marketing service. Yes, they cost a little bit of money, but they are an investment in your business which pays huge returns.

The benefit of professional email marketing services are:

• You can send private mass emails to your subscribers.


• You can see subscriber activity and group your subscribers based on actions they take.


• You can run A/B split tests to see which email subject line, content, and offers work best with your subscribers.


• With reporting tools, you can see which country you have the most subscribers from. You can adjust your timezone preferences, and send emails at the right time.


• Last, but definitely the most important, you can see the email addresses of all your subscribers.

There are hundreds of professional email marketing services available, but we have compiled a list of the best email marketing services.

For small businesses, we recommend using Constant Contact because they are one of the largest and fastest growing email marketing services in the world.

They offer a 60 day free trial. This gives you plenty of time to setup and start seeing the results. At the end of 60 days, your email list would likely be paying for itself (cost / month). Start your free trial.

Because we know people often like to see options before they make a decision, we also recommend AWeber. They are another popular email marketing service provider, and they offer our users a 30-day free trial.

Once you have signed up with an email marketing service, the next step is to add opt-in forms to your website to allow your users to subscribe.

Growing Your Email List and Getting More Subscribers

While choosing the right email marketing service is important, getting more subscribers is even more important because this is how you make money.

The biggest mistake beginners make is not strategically placing high-converting opt-in forms.

While some WordPress themes come with built-in sidebar widgets, they don’t convert as well. Your email marketing service may also provide you with codes to embed in your theme, but that requires you to know how to code.

This is why we recommend our users to use OptinMonster. It is the most powerful conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can easily create high-converting optin forms such as lightbox popups, floating header and footer bars, slide-in scroll boxes, fullscreen welcome mat, after post and inline forms, and more.

But what makes OptinMonster really powerful is the behavior automation and personalization features. OptinMonster allows you to automatically show different opt-in forms based on where the user is coming from, which page they are visiting, and what they are doing on your website.

For example, the Exit-Intent® feature track your users mouse behavior and show them a targeted opt-in form at the precise moment they are about to leave. This helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers.

This is important because over 70% of people leaving your website will never return.

That’s why influencers like Michael Hyatt, Neil Patel, and Social Media Examiner use exit-intent on their websites. It helped Social Media Examiner add over 95,000 new subscribers in 7 months.

But for smaller businesses, this is even more crucial. Nicolas Gagne, a small business owner, combined Constant Contact with a single exit-intent optin to grow his email list by 500%. This helped him triple his revenue from his online store (see the full case study).

There are tons more case studies and OptinMonster reviews that you can read as well.

Get started with OptinMonster today — Use the coupon WPB10 to get 10% off.

Note: OptinMonster was started by WPBeginner’s founder, Syed Balkhi, because he wanted to get more email subscribers, faster. It helped us increase our email signups by 600%. Due to popular request, we released this tool for public, and now it’s the most recommended lead generation software in the market.

List Building Strategies and Resources

Having the right tools is crucial, but knowing how to use them properly is what makes the most difference.

In your email marketing strategy, the most important thing you should plan out is segmentation. This is the process of grouping your subscribers, so you can better personalize your emails based on interest. It helps you get higher open rates and click-through rates. This definitive guide to email marketing has all the information you need to segment your email list like a pro.

Content Upgrades are the highest converting opt-in forms. It’s a technique where you give your users bonus content at the end of your popular blog posts. These usually convert 5 times higher than a regular opt-in. Here are some content upgrade ideas that you should check out. We have written a guide on how to add content upgrades in WordPress.

If you’re not sure how to create an opt-in form, then use this 63-point checklist for creating a high-converting optin form.

You may want to check out Kevin Duncan’s article on 16 ridiculously simple ways to get more email subscribers in less than 5 minutes.

In case you want more ideas, Mary Fernandez also shared 73 proven and simple ways to grow your email list that should get you going.

Conclusion

It does not matter what kind of business you run, what kind of website you have, or what industry you are in.

If you have a website, and you want to turn your visitors into returning customers, then you need to get them in your email list.

We hope this article helped you understand why building an email list is important and helped you get started on the right foot.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Revealed: Why Building Your Email List is so Important Today! appeared first on WPBeginner.

12 Tested and Easy Ways to Grow Your Email List Faster

Are you looking for easy ways to grow your email list? Many beginners just install a sidebar optin form on their website and wait for users to subscribe. This results in slow growth. There is so much more you can do to grow your email list much faster. In this article, we will show you some of tested and proven ways to grow your email list that are actually easy to implement.

Getting Started

First thing you need is to make sure that you are using a professional email marketing service.

Using the best email marketing company ensures that your emails don’t end up in the spam folder. It also provides you with the industry standard tools to build and grow your email list.

We recommend using Constant Contact. It is one of the largest and most popular email service provider in the world.

Next, you will need OptinMonster. It is the best lead generation software in the world. It helps you convert abandoning website visitors into email subscribers.

Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the most effective ways to grow your email list.

1. Use Multiple Sign up Forms

As we mentioned earlier many beginners start with just a simple signup form in their sidebar.

If you want to grow your email list quickly, then you need to use multiple sign up forms to give users more opportunity to join your email list.

We recommend combining your sidebar sign up form with a floating footer bar or a lightbox popup to make your signup forms more noticeable

2. Use an Exit Intent Popup

Exit-Intent® is an advanced technology built by OptinMonster that tracks your user’s mouse behavior and show them with a targeted form at the precise moment they are about to leave your website. Think of it as Onsite Retargeting.

You can use this technology in combination with full screen welcome gates, lightbox popups, or other optin types to convert abandoning visitors into subscribers.

We use an exit intent popup on WPBeginner, and it has helped increase our subscribers by 600%.

Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner used it to add over 250,000 new email subscribers.

3. Offer Content Upgrades

Content upgrade is a marketing technique where you offer users a chance to get exclusive bonus content by signing up to your email list.

This additional premium content offered for completing an action is also known as content bribe.

Human psychology plays an important role in the effectiveness of content upgrades. The psychology principle known as Zeigarnik Effect states that people are most likely to complete a task if they initiate it themselves.

Because the user initiates (click to download the content upgrade), they are more likely to complete the task (subscribe to your list).

See our step by step guide on how to add content upgrades in WordPress to grow your email list.

4. Add Full or Partially Gated Content in WordPress

Gated content is content on your website that can’t be accessed until the visitor enters their email address. You can use it to hide some of your content or hide the entire blog post until the user enters their email address.

Here’s a step by step guide on how to add content locking in WordPress.

5. Create Multiple Lead Magnet Pages

Lead magnet (also known as opt-in bribe) is an incentive you offer to potential buyers in exchange for their contact information such as name, email, phone number, etc.

Your blog posts with locked content, content upgrades, and premium content all fall into the lead magnet category.

Lead magnets need to offer additional value to your users. This could be an ebook, a resources newsletter, checklists, workbooks, etc. See these 9 highly effective lead magnet ideas for inspiration.

6. Add Sign up Call to Action on Your Facebook Page

Facebook has introduced call to action buttons for business pages. These buttons are prominently displayed on top of your cover image and are visible without scrolling.

Here is how to add a sign up button as call to action on your Facebook page.

You need to visit your Facebook page, and you will notice a blue ‘Add a button’ button.

This will bring up a popup with multiple choices. You need to click on ‘Get in touch with us’ tab and then select ‘Sign up’.

Next, you need to provide a link to your website where users will be taken when they click signup.

Don’t forget to click on add button to save your changes.

6. Use Twitter Lead Generation Cards

Twitter Ads offers another social platform that you can use to boost your lead generation efforts.

In fact, Twitter even allows you to run lead generation directly from Twitter. This way users can sign up for your email list without leaving Twitter.

You can also drive traffic to your website and use email sign up as a conversion. You can create special offers for Twitter users and tweet the links to your followers.

7. Use YouTube Call to Action Cards

YouTube is one of the largest social media platforms, and the second most popular search engine in the world. If you are using YouTube videos as part of your marketing strategy, then you can utilize your YouTube channel to grow your email list.

YouTube action cards allow you to add interactive information cards to your videos. You can use them to add call to actions and link them to lead magnets on your website.

Here is how to add YouTube action cards to your videos.

8. Use After Post and In-Line Optin Forms

After post optin forms appear when a user has already scrolled down an entire article. This means that they are already interested in your content and are much more likely to sign up.

You can also use in-line optin forms with in your blog posts and long reads. The middle of a long read is the point where users are most engaged with the content. Reminding them to sign up at that point, works like a charm.

9. Add Polite Slide-in Scroll Box Forms

As we mentioned earlier that users simply ignore most static signup forms. The goal is to divert user’s attention to your offer and sign up form.

Slide-in scroll box forms do that beautifully. They stay out of the way so that users can look at the content while diverting user attention to the sign up form with slide in animation.

10. Prominent Headers with Call to Action

Header is the area of your website most prominently visible to users when they arrive. This makes it the most effective spot to place your call to action.

You will need a WordPress theme that comes with large or full screen header. You can also use a page builder plugin like Beaver Builder to create custom pages with your own layout.

11. Use Social Proof to Encourage More Sign ups

Social proof is a psychological effect used to describe a social behavior where people feel more comfortable following other people. Marketers use social proof as a tactic for easing the minds of worried customers and increasing conversions.

There are many ways you can use social proof to get more subscribers. You can use testimonials on your landing pages, add reviews, show number of registered users, etc.

Many popular websites show the number of subscribers in their sign up forms to encourage new sign ups.

12. A/B Test Your Optin Forms

Many beginners continue to rely on guess work to understand what works on their website. You need to understand how your audience react to different call to actions, optin placements, colors, design, and copy.

With A/B testing, you can find out which optins work better on your website. You can use these A/B testing tips to continuously test and improve your optins.

We hope this article helped you find the best ways to grow your email list. You may also want to see our list of 10 WordPress plugins that will quickly help you get more traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 12 Tested and Easy Ways to Grow Your Email List Faster appeared first on WPBeginner.

Ultimate list of 17 really useful WordPress plugins

alt="Ultimate list of 17 really useful WordPress plugins" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/default-image-500x308_c.jpg" />

There are endless amount of WordPress (WP) plugin available for downloads. In fact, there’s a plugin for almost every problem I encountered when blogging. Listed below are some of the best WP plugin that I have used or tested, and find them very useful.

I hope the list helps you find what you need.

1. ShareThis

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-3.jpg" alt="ShareThis homepage" class="border" />

ShareThis provides a simple solution for users who wish to add your post to many social bookmarking profile sites (Digg, Facebook, Stumble upon, etc). What I like the most bout ShareThis is that the plugin comes in a clean-and-tidy outlook thus it will not damage my blog template designs. Moreover, adding the ShareThis button can be done automatically thus it’s highly recommended for non-techies.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this

2. Google Sitemaps Generator

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-4.jpg" alt="Google Sitemap Generator" class="border" />

As the name suggests, Google Sitemaps Generator generates sitemap for WP blog that is supported by Google, MSN/Yahoo (Bing), and Ask. The XML file generated will lists URLs for a blog along with additional metadata (info like how often the page is updated) about each URL; which in turns, improve the blog’s search visibility. For those who wish to have more search traffics, Google Sitemaps Generator is a must.

Download: href="http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/">http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

3. Sociable

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Sociable works very similar with ShareThis but their outlooks are totally different. ShareThis hides all the icon links (display only when clicked); while Sociable displays all the social media bookmark icons at the bottom of your blog pages. Both plugins are extremely user-friendly and helpful in term of social media marketing.

Download: href="http://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/">http://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/

4. Light Box

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-17.jpg" alt="Dynamic Headers" class="border" />

Lightbox is the kind of ‘cool plugin’ that you can’t afford to miss. It’s a simple script used to overlay images on the current page. The plugin is easy to setup, convenient to use, and most importantly, works on all modern browsers.

Download: href="http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/">http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/

5. GD Star Rating

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-7.jpg" alt="GD Star Rating" class="border" />

GD Star Rating Plugin enables you to setup rating and review system for blogpost and pages. Different from most other rating plugin, GD Star Rating comes with an advance built-in control panel (in WP dashboard) and it provides great flexibility in term of site display and rating aspects. I have been using GD Star Rating for one of my shopping websites – the flexibility and complexity of the plugin is eye-opening.

Download: href="http://www.gdstarrating.com/">http://www.gdstarrating.com/

6. Twitter Tools

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-8.jpg" alt="Twitter Tools" class="border" />

The Twitter Tools plugin integrates with Twitter and support various Twitter related features on your blog. I don’t really enjoy using Twitter but what this plugin can do is amazing. In brief, Twitter Tools allow you to archive (or publish) your tweets on your blog, create blogposts based on your tweets, create a summary-alike blogpost of your tweets, and also create a tweet whenever you have a new blogpost.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/

7. Advertising Manager

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-9.jpg" alt="Advertising Manager" class="border" />

Formerly known as the Adsense Manager, Advertising Manager plugin helps to manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other ads on your blog. The plugin will automatically recognizes and supports various ad networks including Google Adsense, AdBrite, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, and so on. If you are looking for an organized way to monetize your blog, Advertising Manager is the one plugin you needed.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advertising-manager/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advertising-manager/

8. PollDaddy

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-13.jpg" alt="PollDaddy" class="border" />

The PollDaddy plugin allows you to create and manage your polls from your WordPress dashboard. If you think PollDaddy works just like the other 398 poll plugins found on WordPress site then you’re dead wrong. PollDaddy is a comprehensive poll plugin that’s used by tons of gigantic websites (Wired, TechCrunch, PC World!) and it works across various blogging/CMS platform. Survey features with PollDaddy include unlimited free polls with unlimited votes per poll, 14 PollDaddy skins to choose from or create your own in CSS, view poll results online, as XML or CSV or RSS, full foreign language support, polls control via IP address or cookies, and much much more.

Download: href="http://polldaddy.com/">http://polldaddy.com/

9. SEO Title Tags

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-11.jpg" alt="SEO Title Tags" class="border" />

This WP plugin makes it dead-easy to customize (or optimize) your title tags across your WordPress blog or website. Not just your posts, not just your home page, but ANY and EVERY single title tag you can find on your blog! Personally, I am a big fan of the SEO Title Tags plugin as it helps me complete my SEO work a lot faster. If I can only pick one plugin besides Askimet, SEO Title Tags Plugin would be it.

Download: href="http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/">http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/

10. Redirection

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-12.jpg" alt="Redirection" class="border" />

The function of Redirection does is simple yet critical. Basically, what this plugin does is to tidy up any loose ends your blog may have. It provides a convenient way to manage 301 redirections as well as keep track on 404 errors. This is particularly helpful if you’re running an old WordPress blog/website (especially if you migrated some pages before).

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

11. Flickr RSS

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Flickr RSS allows you to display Flickr photos on your WP blogs. It supports a wide variety of Flickr features and is relatively easy to setup and configure via the settings panel.

Download: href="http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/">http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/

12. Exec PHP

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-19.jpg" alt="Exec PHP" class="border" />

Ever wish to write and execute PHP codes directly from a particular WordPress post or page? Chances are you gave up the idea because it’s just too troublesome/difficult to work that out. Well, not anymore with Exec PHP. The Exec-PHP plugin executes code in your posts, pages and text widgets.

(There are, in fact, quite a lot of well known WP plugins with the similar features but I find Exec PHP the easiest to use.)

Download: href="http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/">http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/

13. SI CAPTCHA for WP

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-18.jpg" alt="SI CAPTCHA for WP" class="border" />

I’m sure you are familiar with CAPTCHA anti-spam system. This SI CAPTCHA plugin works perfectly well on WordPress comment form and registration form. In order to post comments, users will have to type in the phrase shown on the image – which in turns, help prevent spam from automated bots.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/

14. Dynamic Headers

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-16.jpg" alt="Dynamic Headers" class="border" />

Dynamic Headers plugin is especially useful when I was working on a travel related website. This small, easy to use plugin allows you to manage what header media is shown on each page/post – as the name suggests: dynamic image OR Flash files.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dynamic-headers/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dynamic-headers/

15. Google Analytics for WP

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-6.jpg" alt="Google Analytics for WP" class="border" />

The Google Analytics for WP plugin easily adds your Google Analytics tracking code to all your web pages; which in turn allows you to track various parameters about your websites conveniently.A strong selling point for this plugin is that it automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads. It also allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, track image search queries and it will even work together with Urchin.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

16. Contact Form 7

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-14.jpg" alt="Contact Form 7" class="border" />

Contact Form 7 is an user-friendly plugin that helps manage multiple contact forms published in August 2007. At current time of writing, the plugin supports Ajax-powered submitting and Akismet spam filtering (but not CAPTCHA spam filter).

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

17. SidePosts

src="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.com/images/2009/0810-15.jpg" alt="SidePosts" class="border" />

The SidePosts plugin allows you to publish entire post entries in selected category on the sidebar instead the main blog. You will have then a small blog on the sidebar for those special entries. This feature is extremely useful for those who wish to build ‘mini-blog’ or ‘one-liner shout-out box’ sort of things on their blog sidebar.

Download: href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sideposts/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sideposts/

Page 30 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Not Your Ordinary Top 10 Hosting Providers List

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Everyone seems to have an opinion on who should wear the crown of top 10 hosting providers. We’ve even thrown in our two cents on who the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/compare-best-five-hosting/" target="_blank">best five are, and we stand by that list. However, nearly ever hosting company out there claims to be the best of the best, top notch, or most supreme whatever. We got to thinking… what if we put on our silly hats for a minute and looked at other reasons a web host might be able to claim to be in the top 10? While the href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-reviews/">web hosting companies WHSR recommends and reviews deserve to be in a top 10 best web hosts list because of their superior service, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/pressidium/" target="_blank">other hosting companies might make a very different type of top 10 list for quite different reasons.

Some of these reasons are valid and others will clue you in to what you should watch out for if a company is trying to scam you.

Reasons to Make the Top 10 List

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As you’ve probably already figured out, we’re not necessarily recommending any hosting companies that might be inadvertently mentioned in this article, although some we may recommend. We’re simply having a little fun with the concept of a top 10 list while teaching you what to watch out for from those who would claim to be better than they actually are and at the same time teaching you how to recognize a truly good deal when you do see one.

Check out our reviews for a list of website hosts we do recommend.

Free Hosting

If we were going to write a list of the top 10 free hosting companies, we’d start with Jerry Low’s list of href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/freehostingservices/" target="_blank">5 Must-See Free Web Hosting Services. If you are just getting started with website hosting, a free hosting solution might be smart for you. There are obvious limitations with any free hosting company, so you’ll want to be aware that you may have to put up with advertising on your site, very limited space and bandwidth, and servers going down.

Cheap Hosting

There’s cheap hosting and then there’s cheap hosting. One list of href="https://plus.google.com/+JerryLow/posts/UdNYjVqQzd4" target="_blank">top 10 cheap website hosting companies might include less expensive companies that offer excellent service for the price, such as href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/a2-hosting/">A2Hosting or href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/my-hosting-story-downtown-host-review/">Downtown Host.

However, some unscrupulous companies might place themselves on a top 10 cheap hosting companies list simply because they charge very little for their inferior services.

Things to look out for when choosing a web hosting provider that is cheap include:

• Packages that require lengthy commitments. For example, your fee is only .99 a month, but you have to pay in advance for two years. This ties you in and no matter what they say you will have a hard time getting your money back.
• Consumer complaints on the host’s message boards.
• Check the terms, conditions and cancellation policies carefully.

“Some of the most common complaints I’ve seen about hosting providers surround non-refundable terms and cancellation fees. And most of the time, these fees and policies are clearly spelled out in the terms and conditions you agree to before you start hosting with them.” – href="http://webdesign.about.com/od/findahost/qt/cheap_web_hosting.htm" target="_blank">Jennifer Kyrnin at About.com

Most Twitter Followers

What about a list of the top 10 hosting companies with the most Twitter followers? Twitter is a pretty popular social platform after all. While we do recommend href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/socialmedia-marketing/how-to-use-twitter-for-small-business/">using Twitter to promote your business and gain new customers, we don’t really recommend it as the best way to choose your next website host.

As of November, 2013, HostGator has 46,563 followers and 19,156 tweets on Twitter. That means absolutely nothing about whether or not HostGator is a good hosting company to trust your sites with. Of course, you can read through some of those tweets and get an idea of different things HostGator is offering customers, so there is a slight advantage in that. However, it really doesn’t give you an indication of customer service.

Just as an example, the Twitter page had a Tweet that read:

“Thank you for your patience today. Almost fully restored now; continuing to work with affected customers until 100% stable.”

Yikes! As a potential customer, that would make me a little nervous. Why isn’t the system stable? However, all servers have problems from time to time. This could be a one-time issue that they got on immediately and fixed. If you find a lot of tweets like this, though, then beware. Just above that tweet is a shout out from a customer named Kristi, who says, “Thrilled with @hostgator support today. Very professional & helpful!”

id="attachment_7559" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/not-your-ordinary-top-10-hosting-providers-list/attachment/host-gator/" rel="attachment wp-att-7559">class="size-full wp-image-7559" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/host-gator.png" alt="twitter feed" width="750" height="392" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/host-gator.png 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/host-gator-300x156.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />class="wp-caption-text">Screenshot 11/26/2013 from HostGator Twitter feed. Learn more about href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/hostgator/">Hostgator hosting services here.