YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) for WordPress is used to show a list of related content at the end of a blog post or in a widget. Out of the box it simply displays a list of related posts after your main content, yet the plugin can be highly customized through its own settings and the use of custom templates.

We like adding related posts at the end of blog posts to entice readers to consume more content as a step in our conversion funnel. We have found through studying our stats in Google Analytics that conversions on our site (like opt-ins, affiliate clicks, etc) are split among visits with one page view and visits with multiple page views.

In simple terms, less than half of our visitors opt-in on the first page they land on. The rest read more content first. Displaying related content is an easy way to give visitors what they want.

Like I said, YARPP can be used without any configuring, but I don’t recommend it. The defaults are not the prettiest and with a few simple changes, the display of your related posts can be greatly improved.

Here is a step by step list for our standard configuration of YARPP (after the plugin has been installed and activated):

See a Standard Configuration for the YARPP WordPress Plugin

With 2012 officially off to a start, one thing to remember that many people forget to do at the beginning of a new year is to change the copyright date on their websites.

WordPress sites can be built in various ways, so depending on how your site is built, there are a few ways that copyright dates are handled.

If your website has the copyright date hard coded into WordPress theme files (most likely footer.php) you can replace the current year with < ?php echo date("Y"); ?> and the copyright date will change to the current year and change again automatically next year.

Always remember to make a backup copy of your theme before making any changes to your theme files.

More Reminders About Automatically Changing the Copyright Date on Your Website

Now that you know the 8 components of a successful website opt-in box, you have all the information you need to create an awesome opt-in box. But, even though your opt-in box has all the right pieces and works the right way … it may not actually work to build your list?

What?!

If your free offer — the thing you’re giving away for free in exchange for their name and email address — isn’t what your visitors want or need, they won’t sign up and enter their name and email … even if your opt-in box is awesome!

Learn 4 Ways to Make Your List Building Free Offer Irresistible

At Bourn Creative we approach websites differently! And we want you to think about your website differently too …

I challenge you to stop thinking about the pages and the pieces you need to include in your site and how they are all going to fit together. That’s the old way of building websites.

Instead I want you to think about your site in a more strategic way.

I know “being of service” to your clients and audience is important to you. I know you want to follow your passion, help others, and make a difference in the world. I know you want to change lives – and you can.

But I also know that to do all of those things, you also need to make money. As one of my premiere clients, Suzanne Evans always says, “Money isn’t everything, but it touches everything that is.”

This is why your website exists – to make money.

But the key to a wildly successful website that works when you’re not working is a seamless blend of sales conversion strategies and being of service to your audience. When you can meld these two concepts into a website, you will get more clients, shorten your sales cycle, help more people, and make more money.

Learn How to Convert Visitors into Clients Without Having to “Sell” Them

Let’s talk about your website opt-in box visitors will see when they come to your website, and the eight key parts of an opt-in box that ensure maximum success (and conversions).

In the example to the right, all eight components of a successful opt-in are used to create an irresistible offer for a free video series.

If you already have a website opt-in box, use this checklist to confirm that you have implemented each item listed and aren’t missing one key component that could increase your conversion rate.

If you’re in the process of planning or creating a new website, use this checklist to ensure your designer includes all eight elements in your website opt-in box so you can build your list effectively.

Here are the 8 components of of a successful website opt-in box:

Learn the 8 Parts Of A Successful Website Opt-In Box

Once your website is complete, it’s time to focus on marketing your website and getting people to your site.

After all, they can’t opt-in to your list, download your free offer, sign up for your free teleclass, register for your event, contact you, or buy from you if they never get to your website in the first place!

The old way of thinking, “If you build it, they will come.” Simply isn’t true.

There is so much competition on the internet these days that there are literally millions of other websites, opportunities, and distractions available that you have to complete with. If you just sit back and wait for people to find your website, you may be waiting a very, very long time.

Instead, your responsibility as a website owner and business owner is to get the word out there and market the heck out of your website and business so those people who are looking for and need what you’re offering can find you.

If you don’t like to market, you don’t want to promote yourself, or you’re hesitant to get you name out there in a big way, think of it this way – if you don’t you’re actually hurting and stealing from other people. In a way, you’re robbing them of the opportunity to get to know you, to learn what you do, and to get the help and solutions they have been looking for.

Read my list of 74 Ways to Market Your Website and Business

In one of my last posts, I published a list of the top free WordPress plugins we use that are compatible with most WordPress themes.

At Bourn Creative, we now almost exclusively develop all of our custom WordPress projects on top of the Genesis Framework by StudioPress, and there a few Genesis-exclusive WordPress plugins we use when creating our custom themes.

Combine the plugins from both lists that you need, along with a Genesis based theme, and you can create a very powerful WordPress site for your business.

See A List of Our Favorite WordPress Plugins for the Genesis Framework

Searching for a new WordPress plugin and testing new plugins is a time consuming process that doesn’t always yield good results.

In my last post about WordPress Plugins, I discussed my method for searching for new WordPress plugins. Most of the time when we are designing and developing custom WordPress themes, we have a stable of plugins that have not caused us or our clients any major headaches.

The list below of free WordPress plugins are ones we use depending on the goals and needs of the individual WordPress site we are working on.

Get Our List of Top Free WordPress Plugins

WordPress 3.3 was just released!

WordPress 3.3 is a major release with major overhauls to the user interface (UI), the media center/media uploader, and several more improvements.

I have been following the development cycle and absolutely love 3.3.

One of my favorite changes is regarding the permalink structure options.

In the past, our favorite permalink structure was to use the custom option /%postname%. This would result in a post URL of http://yourdomain.com/your-post-title which is good for users and SEO, but would cause performance problems when you get a lot of posts and pages in your database. This has been remedied in 3.3 and now is one of the options in the permalinks settings screen.

Read More About Upgrading to WordPress 3.3

At the time of this writing, there are 16,852 free plugins on WordPress.org and numerous other premium plugins for sale on developer sites around the web.

At Bourn Creative we stick to a core group of plugins to accomplish what we need and want, but occasionally a need will arise that is out of our normal stable of trusted plugins. If we can’t custom code the solution I will start the hunt for a plugin, and here is how I do it.

I start out at wordpress.org (never from inside the WordPress dashboard) if I am looking for a free plugin, and after searching and finding potential candidates I like to look at the information on the plugin page: (I won’t use a free plugin that is not hosted on WordPress.org)

Learn How I Evaluate and Select WordPress Plugins