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

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 version 3.2 is set to be released in the very near future (probably sometime this week) and the hosting requirements have changed.

To run the latest version of WordPress (which you always should for security and performance) your WordPress hosting must be running at minimum, PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. If you are not sure what versions of PHP and MySQL your WordPress site is running on,contact your hosting company and find out before you upgrade.

If your hosting is compatible, remember to perform a complete backup before upgrading. A good rule of thumb: upgrade WordPress before any plugins that need updated.

Here is list of what we backup before upgrading a WordPress installation:

Learn What to Backup Before Upgrading WordPress

Yowza! The last couple of weeks have brought in new clients, new projects, and a lot of fun …

But it has also brought in some trouble!

This year has been a notorious year so far for hackers and they’re going after WordPress sites — but don’t freak out — well unless you’ve been hacked that is!

A past client of ours reached out this week because her WordPress website got hacked and when we went into to take a look, we found that the malicious code inserted into her site added links to some very naughty sites in her footers, so they were on every page! YIKES!

Here’s the good news… there are some simple things you can do to protect your site, such as:

Learn How to Protect Your WordPress Site From Hackers

We recommend WordPress as the content management system for our clients’ websites not only because we have actual proof that blogging is great for business, but also because the availability of plug-ins and other third-party applications that integrate with the WordPress platform.

With WordPress as your business website content management system, you have flexibility in your setup and there are thousands of plug-ins available for you to integrate into your site. The trick is choosing the right plug-ins for your website and online marketing needs, and making sure you don’t select plug-ins that conflict with each other.

If you are blogging for business, here is a quick list of ten plug-ins we recommend using in your small business website:

READ MORE