Integrating Post Types via Functions.php

Integrating post types is simply a matter of including the register_post_type function. Once you have included this in your functions.php file, your nav menu should go from something like this:

to this:

In order to create custom post types, open your template’s functions.php file in an editor, and place the following function within the file:

Broken down, this adds the function create_post_type, and registers the post type mysite_reviews,

You may wonder why I’ve named the post_type mysite_reviews, and not just reviews. I made the name more conspicuous in order to make sure that my post type wouldn’t interfere with custom post type names from other plugins or themes.

Another friendly reminder, your custom post types must not exceed 20 characters, as that is limit of the database column.

Here is a summary of the important post type parameters I’ve set above:

• labels – WordPress allows us to label everything from the post type’s name to the label for adding new posts. A complete list can be found here. In the above function, I labeled the name of the post type and its singular name.
• public – If set to true
• menu_position – I set this to 5, which will place the post type directly under “Posts”. The other placements are as follows: null (below Comments), 0 (below Media), 20 (below Pages), 60 (below first separator) and 100 (below second separator)
• rewrite – So that our actual term “mysite_reviews” doesn’t get put in the URL, we set the slug to “reviews” which will be much better in the long run for our visitors, links, and SEO.

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WordPress can be a frightening lion or a gentle lamb, depending on how much experience you have.

This platform gives you the opportunity to incorporate many useful plugins and code to manipulate your website to function exactly how you want. This is the lamb. The lion comes when a beginner opens the files to complete the Five Minute Installation.  or WordPress beginners, looking into all the files and code for the first time can be overwhelming – I know this because, not too long ago, I was a newbie to the land of WordPress. It takes time to get accustomed to the way WordPress functions and all of the abilities it offers. To use WordPress, a general knowledge of PHP is needed, but you don’t have to be an expert. Below is a list of the most used and needed WordPress code, plugins and functions to get you started. They’ve been created with examples and use real scenarios to help you understand the process.

Why wordpress is one of the most popular CMS and blogging platform around?

I think it because wordpress is free, customizable and have a great support by community or other developers. And as wordpress users, we should keep updated with the new development, tips and tricks shared by other developers. So every month we tried to collect the best of wordpress articles around the world. Creating custom meta boxes is extremely simple, at least it is once you’ve created your first one using the tools baked into WordPress’ core code.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about meta boxes:

• Creating meta boxes.
• Using meta boxes with any post type.
• Handling data validation.
• Saving custom meta data.
• Retrieving custom meta data on the front end.

Smashing’s side note: Have you already bought your copy of our brand new Smashing Book #3? The book introduces new practical techniques and a whole new mindset for progressive Web design. Written by Elliot Jay Stocks, Paul Boag, Rachel Andrew, Lea Verou, Stephen Hay, Aral Balkan, Andy Clarke and others. Thank you for your time and your support.

Note: When I use the term “post” throughout this tutorial, I’m referring to a post of any post type, not just the default blog post type bundled with WordPress.

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A lot of people use WordPress as their blogging platform.

After installing WordPress, newly christened WordPress users will usually try to find and download WordPress themes that they can use so that their site looks different from the default theme. Whether a WordPress theme is free or premium, there are plenty of ways to improve them.

The following WordPress theme tips cover basic customization, styling and optimization

Images are an important part of every WordPress theme, yet WordPress theme developers sometimes forget about optimizing them. Images in a WordPress theme include CSS background images, template logos, default stock images, icons, and so on. Optimizing images can save you in bandwidth consumption and can improve page response times for your blog readers. Photoshop, for example, offers a Save for Web feature that optimizes images for the web. What I usually do is lower the quality settings of the image until I start to see changes in color or quality.

How to upgrade your WordPress Theme for WP 2.3?

WordPress has been growing sensationally as the tool to use for Blogging.

We’ve compiled a list of things that are good practice and you must do if you are a pro wordpress blogger or developer.

1. Keep it updated. Publish it later. Keeping it updated can be a laborious, arduous task. In order to do something like this I highly recommend writing 2-3 articles at a time and publishing them later at another date.
2. Use Shortcodes. Shortcodes can save you a lot of time and provide you with text and bbedit type shortcuts. Using text like: [shortcode]. It replaces the need with formatting text and easily allows you to insert a template or snippet.
3. Editing offline? Use Google Gears to kick your writing abilities offline. While using Google Gears Turbo can write, edit things locally then sync them later.
4. Write posts via email: This is something people tend to forget about only because its such an unutilized feature. But with the ubiquity of smartphones it makes sense to write posts via email. (Thanks to @dmassad for the tip.)

WordPress has become one of, if not THE, most popular open source blogging and content management systems around.

With over 25 million websites and blogs powered by this award-winning web software and a continuously expanding community of developers, designers and contributors, freelancers who have the skills and knowledge to create WordPress websites are in high demand. Over 90% of my own freelance business involves the use of WordPress somehow, and I have found a niche for providing clients with quality, affordable, custom WordPress websites that has grown my business at a rapid pace.

In this post, I am sharing 13 sites (in no particular order) I find myself visiting often for tips, tricks and tutorials that will enhance and expand your WordPress knowledge and abilities. Some of them you may already know and others you may not. Regardless, these are my own personal haunts when it comes to getting more out of WordPress. Search engine optimization, or SEO, doesn’t have to be scary. It can be fun and exciting to put these WordPress SEO tips to use and to watch your blog begin receiving targeted visitors from people who are actively searching for exactly what you have to offer.

What are the keys to building a successful presence on the search engine results pages? What are the most important SEO factors for getting your site discovered by Google’s search bot and how can we get in on the action? So you’re looking for the best SEO tips for WordPress necessary to get your website noticed by Google? Look no further. Take your time. Exam the ideas below and then transform the effectiveness of your WordPress website.

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I’ll run through 10 fairly straightforward ways that a beginning developer or blogger can customize

their WordPress theme to ensure it doesn’t “look like a blog” — at least to a certain degree. Keep in mind that the goal here is not to hide the fact that a website is using WordPress — that’s quite difficult, if not impossible. The ultimate goal here is to help your website have a seamless, consistent, look and feel that does not necessarily scream “WordPress-driven” from the instant the home page loads up.

Customize Your Sidebar and Keep it Consistent- The sidebar in WordPress is a dead “giveaway” when a user visits your site. The sidebar will have default titles like “Blogroll”, “Categories” and “Archives”. You can easily change the text of these titles, and which sections are displayed, by editing the sidebar.php file in the theme directory. Also, WordPress displays a different sidebar depending on what page of the site you’re on, which can also be changed. I personally prefer to display virtually the same sidebar on all pages, to keep the site consistent.

These tips are for beginning WP developers who are coding themes for their own site

Use “Decategorizer” Plugin for Cleaner URLs- One of the most obvious ways to customize the look of your blog’s urls is to use clean permalinks, rather than the default querystring driven url structure. But that’s an obvious one. No self-respecting blogger would fail to enable custom urls, which can be done easily through the WP dashboard.  The Decategorizer plugin had a few bugs, which have recently been corrected, and also requires that you install the Redirection plugin, for Decategorizer to work properly. Be sure to read carefully the documentation and installation instructions for these plugins to ensure they are installed and functioning as expected.

Customize Metadata for Individual Posts- Every post has “metadata” contained inside of paragraph tags at the bottom of each blog post. This data is generated dynamically through the loop that pulls your content out of the database. You can easily edit, delete, or modify any of these pieces of data that are displayed with each entry, which can be found inside of the index.php file in your theme directory. The default look for the metadata section looks like this in WordPress 2.7.1:

Give me 100 engaging followers on Twitter any day over 10,000 followers who do not engage at all.

So today I’m going to show you some of my biggest tips on how to grow your Twitter following based on this principle. The reason why I mention this is because there are a huge amount of services out there where you can buy followers. Do not do this! Sure it makes your Twitter profile look good, but at the end of the day these followers won’t engage with your tweets. Remember the more engagement you get through retweets and mentions, the more followers you will gain both in the short term and long term!

So let’s jump straight in. Here are some of my biggest Twitter tips:

Do the Basics and Do Them Well- When I first joined Twitter I have to admit that I was extremely annoyed at the low signal to noise ratio. There were and still are heaps of spammy Twitter accounts out there. As a result, I pick and choose which Twitter accounts to follow. What do I base this on? Two things – first thing is whether they have filled out a bio that makes them sound like a real person or brand. So make sure you fill out your bio well, be descriptive and include your website address if you have one. Secondly, I look at the profile picture and whether it is a real life looking image. Not just some good looking guy or girl. Do the same and upload a real image of yourself or your business logo.  These are the very basics on getting more followers.

Follow and Be Followed- This is the oldest follower acquisition strategy around.

The basic etiquette behind Twitter is that if you follow someone, they will follow you back otherwise it becomes a one way conversation. However, this isn’t a rule so you don’t have to do this, but many people on Twitter still follow this principle. We are going to use this to our advantage. So the first tip is to follow some people! As a result, you will start to gain followers. Moreover, find a couple of popular Twitter accounts in your niche and then start to follow their followers. For example, if you sell golf products search for a golf related Twitter account. Similar to my previous post where I talk about how to target your Facebook ads, you are in effect creating a targeted Twitter following.

Twitter Contests- Twitter contests are relatively simple to implement and are great for growing your following. The basic idea behind a Twitter contest is to get people to follow you and then to tweet about the contest in order to win a prize. Make sure this prize is worthwhile by offering something of value. If the prize resonates as something people want and must have, the whole contest will go viral. Imagine winning a brand new Apple MacBook for about 1 minute worth of work. You get my drift! Twitter does have a list of guidelines when running contests which you can view here.

Twitter Directories- Another great way of getting more followers is to join a Twitter directory such as Twellow and WeFollow. These directories allow users to search for Twitter accounts to follow based on different categories. Add yourself to these directories.

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A Quick Primer on Online Payment Systems

Before getting started, here are just a few things to know about online payment systems.

• ACH payments are electronic credit and debit transfers, allowing customers to make payments from their bank accounts for utilities, mortgage loans, and other types of bills. ACH stands for Automated Clearing House and most payment processors offer ACH payment options to their customers, especially for monthly- and subscription-based transactions. Most payment solutions use ACH to send money (minus fees) to their customers.
• A merchant account is a bank account that allows a customer to receive payments through credit or debit cards. Merchant providers are required to obey regulations established by card associations. Many processors (such as the ones listed below) act as both the merchant account as well as the payment gateway.
• A payment gateway allows merchants to securely pass credit card information between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. The payment gateway is the middleman between the merchant and their sponsoring bank.
• A payment processor is the company that a merchant uses to handle credit card transactions. Payment processors implement anti-fraud measures to ensure that both the front-facing customer and the merchant are protected.
• PCI compliance is when a merchant or payment gateway sets their payment environment up in a way that meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS standard was created by

Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to increase security of cardholder data and to reduce fraud.

Authorize.Net-Authorize.Net is the Internet’s most widely used payment gateway. With a user base of over 300,000 merchants, Authorize.Net has been the go-to method for e-commerce sites that need a gateway to accepting payments. Widely used e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Volusion and X-Cart are designed to accept payments using Authorize.Net easier.

PayPal- 

PayPal is the world’s most widely used payment acquirer, processing over $4 billion in payments in 2011. PayPal payments are made using a user’s existing account or with a credit card. Money can be sent directly to an email address, thus prompting the users to sign up for a new PayPal account. In addition to taking payments, PayPal also allows its users to send money through the service, which is a feature that only a few payment solutions provide.

Amazon Payments- Amazon Payments allows its users to receive money using its API (and to send money out via ACH). Popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments. Pricing: Amazon Payments fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for payments over $10 (the percentage they take is less for larger transactions). For payments under $10, the fee is 5.0% + $0.05 per transaction. Source: Amazon Payments fees

Google Checkout- Google Checkout is Google’s answer to PayPal. Google Checkout allows users to pay for goods and services through an account connected to their Google profile. The major benefit that Google Checkout has over the competition is that millions of Internet users use Google for other services, making a purchase through Checkout a simpler process. Pricing: Google Checkout fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for sales less than $3,000. The percentage they take goes down depending on monthly sales volume. Source: Google Checkout fees

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