One could argue that every year the WordPress platform gets better and better, and 2011 was no different with the release of three major updates: WordPress 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3. We have seen the addition of post formats, advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries, an improved import and export system, the introduction of an admin bar, distraction-free writing mode, revised dashboard interface, drag and drop uploader and much more.

As always, it’s theme developers who are taking advantage of these new features and pushing WordPress to do things that no one expected it to do. Today we would like to share with you 25 more of our favourite WordPress themes from the last 12 months. Included in the list are themes for personal blogs, photography websites, businesses and communities. There have been so many great designs released this year that this list could have extended to over 200, so please don’t be offended if your favourite design didn’t make the final 25 :)

2011′s Top 25 Themes

1. Daily Post
FREE

A simple yet beautiful free design from WPLook that was created for personal blogs. It was designed using HTML5 and CSS3 and due to its responsive design it looks great on portable devices such as phones and tablets too.

Post formats are supported and through the theme options area you can define your social media profile URLs and modify some basic SEO options.

Info & Download | Demo

2. Pink Touch 2
FREE

Designed by WordPress developers Automattic, Pink Touch 2 is a great looking single column blog design with beautiful typography, unique designs for post formats and custom header and background. Although the blog doesn’t have a sidebar, there are three widget areas in the footer. This simplicity is what sets the design apart from many alternatives.

Info & Download | Demo

3. PhotoClick
FREE | $4.99 For Premium Version

A feature rich design that was created for photography websites and personal blogs. It has great typography, shortcodes for styling content and its one column design is perfect for displaying large images.

The theme is free to download however for only $4.99 you can get an additional colour scheme (grey), custom widgets, banner integration, more theme options and the original layered Photoshop PSD file.

Info & Download | Demo

4. ProReviewTheme
Single License: $37, Multisite License: $67, Developer License: $127

An advanced WordPress theme that allows you to create an Amazon or Clickbank affiliate review site in seconds. All products can be rated using the popular 5 star rating system and the theme helps push traffic to affiliate sites by prominently displaying links to the product website.

It has been optimised for use on mobile devices such as tablets and through the theme settings area you can change basic style settings and modify the header. Arguably the best affiliate design for WordPress released in 2011.

Info & Download | Demo

5. FaultPress
Regular License: $100

Working in a similar way to their help desk theme SupportPress, WooThemes FaultPress design turns WordPress into a fully functional bug tracking system. It allows you and your team to monitor the progress of your project through milestones. Tickets can be raised by users to allow you to track what needs to be addressed.

It also features a great messaging system to allow users and developers to communicate with each other effectively and it has been optimised for use on mobile phones and tablets.

Info & Download | Demo

6. The Navigator
Regular License: $40

The perfect theme for a travel website. Utilising Google Maps, The Navigator shows a map of the world in full screen. Every trip (post) is noted on the map using a pin. Details of each location are displayed in a content box at the left hand side of the page whilst an image of the location is displayed in the background in full screen.

Info & Download | Demo

7. Delicioso
Regular License: $35

Perfect for restaurants, Delicioso displays a large image slider on the home page to showcase your dishes. It comes with 6 colour schemes and its own unique shortcodes to help style your content. There are also dedicated blog, gallery and menu templates.

Info & Download | Demo

8. PixelPower
Regular License: $35

A responsive WordPress theme that has a clean minimal styled design. With support for all post formats, PixelPower is one of the best options available for personal blogs. It also comes with 1, 2 and 4 column portfolio templates so should prove popular with photographers and designers too.

It is optimised for use on mobile devices and it includes dark and no-CSS child themes too.

Info & Download | Demo

9. Continuum
Regular License: $40

Boasting over 200 theme options, Continuum is one of the most feature rich designs released in 2011. It comes with 5 custom sliders, 11 custom widgets, 19 unique sidebars, 68 custom shortcodes, 6 colour schemes and 28 pre-selected backgrounds and 8 page templates.

It also has an in built ratings system that supports 5 review types: movies, music, video games, books and products.

Info & Download | Demo

10. Grido
Regular License: $39

A responsive Tumblr style theme from Themify that supports all WordPress post formats. The sidebar can be placed on the left or right or be removed altogether. You can also set 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns of posts to be displayed.

Coded using HTML5 and CSS3, it comes with a lightbox gallery, 9 post gradient colours and 7 colour schemes. It also has child theme support.

Info & Download | Demo

11. Rockwell
Regular License: $35

Packaged with one of the best looking theme options areas we have seen, Rockwell is a versatile design that is suitable for portfolios, business websites or blogs.

In total there are 43 category templates, 20 single page templates, 10 page templates, 30 shortcodes and 6 colour schemes. There are also 3 different home page sliders, 3 different styles of top navigation menus, a slider manager and much more.

Info & Download | Demo

12. Announcement
Standard License: $70, Developer License: $150

It’s becoming very common for couples and families to create websites to celebrate important events such as weddings, graduations or the arrival of a baby in the family. The Announcement theme was created specifically for events such as these.

Everything is displayed on one page. When a user clicks on a section in the top navigation menu the page scrolls to the appropriate area on the page. Visitors can also leave comments at the bottom of the page. It also includes a photograph slider and you can choose between 1 and 3 columns for your content. There are several preset layouts for evens such as births, graduations and website launches. A baby statistics grid is also included.

Info & Download | Demo

13. Sofa Shoppr
Regular License: $40

A cool eCommerce design that works with PayPal, 2CheckOut and Authorize.net. Orders and stock inventory can be tracked in the back end and featured products can be rotated at the top of the home page. There are 8 built-in widgets and 3 different layouts for the home page.

Info & Download | Demo

14. Studio8
Regular License: $35

A minimalist photography design that comes in white and black colour schemes. Images are displayed in the background in full screen and it is optimised for use on tablets. Videos are also supported though what many photographers will love is the ability to upload hundreds of photos at once using the themes built-in gallery management system.

Info & Download | Demo

15. Stereotype
Regular License: $32

A clean looking one page portfolio design that was created using HTML5 and CSS3. It comes with 4 colour schemes and is optimised for use on mobile phones and tablet devices. Featured images, videos and galleries are all supported and the contact area has Google maps integration.

Info & Download | Demo

16. Daily Deal
Standard License: $89.95, Developer License: $179

Given the success of daily deal websites such as Groupon and Living Social, it isn’t surprising that a lot of imitation scripts and templates have been released. Daily Deal is one of the best available. The design turns your WordPress website into a full functional daily deal service.

Each deal shows the length of time left before the deal expires, the savings you can make and the number of items sold. Several payment gateways are supported to allow sellers to upload their deals directly with no fuss, and there is a newsletter form built into the home page design that supports MailChimp and Feedburner.

Info & Download | Demo

17. Morning
Regular License: $69

A visually impressive magazine theme that comes with blue, dark and light colour schemes. Posts and pages can be shown in full width or have a sidebar placed on the left or right hand side of the page. It has fantastic video support and images are automatically resized so that they fit into the design correctly. One of the best looking magazine designs released this year.

Info & Download | Demo

18. Handmade
Regular License: $30 ($50 on Obox website)

A warm theme that was designed with arts and crafts, cooking and clothing websites in mind. It has a great looking home page that displays large featured images of your latest blog posts. The included gallery makes it a good choice for anyone who wants a welcoming blog design.

Info & Download | Demo

19. Lucky Times
Regular License: $30

A responsive design for blogs, portfolios and online magazines. The developer allows you to download the Photoshop PSD file for free before you buy to see if the template is suitable for your project.

It sports a unique columned menu design at the top of the page and bizarrely no home page template. Instead, users of the theme can build a homepage design using short codes. The theme has great typgography with Google Fonts support and it a great options panel that lets you customise the header, footer, colour scheme and blog and portfolio templates.

Info & Download | Demo

20. Me Gusta
Regular License: $35

The self proclaimed ‘user driven content sharing system’ uses a Facebook-like system that allows visitors to vote for the posts that they like. Posts that get a lot of votes are deemed ‘Hot’ and can be listed in your sidebar or your home page (instead of new posts). You can also make posts ‘Not Safe For Work’ for adult related content.

Me Gusta has great Facebook integration too. Users can register and login using their Facebook account and you can replace the default WordPress commenting system with Facebook comments directly from the options area. With good support for post formats, Me Gusta is great for a content sharing website or a personal blog.

Info & Download | Demo

21. Huddle
Regular License: $50

A community design for users of the popular BuddyPress and bbPress plugins. It features 6 custom page templates, 9 custom widgets and a blog template that supports featured images.

Even though BuddyPress and bbPress had major updates during 2011, support for the plugins has been lukewarm at best from developers. Huddle is certainly one of the best options available if you want to create a community website using WordPress.

Info & Download | Demo

22. SocialLike
Regular License: $30

Another Tumblr style blog design that has support for all post formats. It could also be used as a portfolio as it has 4 great looking gallery templates.

It includes 22 background images, unlimited colour options for text using a colour picker, 25 fonts for headings and 9 for body text and an unlimited number of colour options for your post icons. Content can be styled using over 40 included shortcodes and you can publish any type of post directly from your iPhone using the Express App.

Info & Download | Demo

23. DK For Photography
Regular License: $35

Another versatile photography theme that supports a full screen rotating image gallery in the background. There are 4 home page layouts to choose from, 10 page templates, 6 gallery templates, 7 custom widgets, lots of shortcodes and support for password protecting your galleries.

Whilst some photography designs consider the blog template unimportant, DK For Photography has a beautiful blog design that integrates Facebook and Twitter voting buttons into the post area perfectly.

Info & Download | Demo

24. Humble
Regular License: $35

A powerful WordPress theme that can be used for just about anything. The first thing that you will notice about the theme is the unique polaroid style slider on the home page. It’s a great change from standard featured post sliders.

The homepage can be styled using shortcodes which allows you to create a near unlimited number of layouts. Additionally the theme includes support for 19 fonts, 5 custom widgets, over 80 shortcodes and 4 portfolio layout designs. You can also change CSS settings directly via the options area without having to touch the style.css stylesheet file itself.

Info & Download | Demo

25. Lightning
Regular License: $35

A beautiful business and portfolio WordPress theme that allows you to create an unlimited number of layouts using a visual drag and drop interface (this costs $25 if you buy it separately as a WordPress plugin). This allows you to create portfolio pages, columns, sliders, tabs, galleries and much more.

Info & Download | Demo

We hope you enjoyed this list of further theme faves from the year we just left. As always, we would love to hear what your favourite WordPress theme from 2011 was. Feel free to let us know about it in the comments, or leave your opinions on some of the featured themes that you may have used yourself.

(rb)

  

Whilst Joomla and Drupal are popular amongst website designers, WordPress is by far the number 1 used CMS in the world. Which is one of the reasons that WordPress themes are seen as such a hot commodity these days in the design world.

It’s popularity amongst design firms could explain the vast number of premium corporate designs that are available for WordPress. Gone are the days when a corporate template came with nothing more than a basic options page and a contact form. Today’s designs come with beautiful home page sliders, portfolio templates, eCommerce support and well developed blog pages. Due to this versatility, business designs can be used for just about any type of website.

Today we would like to show you 50 of the best premium themes that have been released in 2011. We hope you enjoy the list :)

The Themes

1. LeanBiz
Regular License: $39 a year for theme membership

A slimline business theme that features a great looking slider on the home page. The theme comes with 5 portfolio templates, a gallery template, contact form, sitemap and full width template.

Info & Download | Demo

2. Webly
Regular License: $39 a year for theme membership

Another ElegantThemes business deign that features a prominent slider on the home page. Several custom page templates are included as well as 16 unique shortcodes that allow you to style your content more easily.

Info & Download | Demo

3. Folo
Standard License: $39, Developer License: $59 (Buy 1 get one with both licenses)

An HTML and CSS3 business and portfolio design that helps you promote products and services to customers. There are over 21 layout options, 9 different colour schemes and lots of custom widgets.

Info & Download | Demo

4. Suco
Standard License: $39, Developer License: $59 (Buy 1 get one with both licenses)

A beautifully designed business theme that has a great home page slider. There are several different layouts to choose from, it supports post formats and it is optimised for use on mobile devices.

Info & Download | Demo

5. Tisa
Standard License: $39, Developer License: $59 (Buy 1 get one with both licenses)

A responsive business design that looks great on any device that it is viewed on. It is coded in HTML5 and CSS3, comes with 6 colour schemes and has child theme support too.

Info & Download | Demo

6. WebHosting
Standard License: $69, Developer License: $99

A fantastic theme that is perfect for a web hosting company. It comes in 5 different colour schemes, 9 unique page templates and a whopping 30 integrated short codes to help you style your content. There’s also a WebHosting plan page for comparing the hosting plans you have on offer.

Info & Download | Demo

7. Private Lawyer
Standard License: $69, Developer License: $99

Although it was created for Lawyers, this design is very versatile and could be used for just about any type of website. It features an integrated home page slider, 5 colour schemes and several custom page templates.

Info & Download | Demo

8. Mobility App
Standard License: $49, Developer License: $79

The ultimate design for smartphone developers. The theme was designed to promote applications and other smart phone related products. It comes with 4 colour schemes and over a dozen shortcodes for styling your content. It also features unique page templates such as a pricing page for comparing the products you have on offer.

Info & Download | Demo

9. Qlassik
Standard License: $49, Developer License: $79

A useful business design that is packed full of features. The home page featured a great looking animated slider. In total there are 5 different slider options available.

It also features 5 different colour schemes, 3 portfolio templates and various layout options. Over a dozen shortcodes are included to help you style your content.

Info & Download | Demo

10. Personality
Standard License: $59, Developer License: $179

Designed for professionals such as Lawyers, Politicians and real estate agents; Personality is a feature rich corporate design that comes with 3 different page layouts and a unique gallery template.

Info & Download | Demo

11. Overtime
Standard License: $59, Developer License: $179

Features a flexible post slider on the home page and it’s own gallery page. The blog template looks great and there are lots of shortcodes included.

Info & Download | Demo

12. Entreprenium
Standard License: $49, Developer License: $99

A responsive design that looks great on desktops and on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. The theme includes customisable widgets, image sliders, photo galleries and it’s own portfolio page. You can add links to your social media profiles at the bottom of the page, though social media sites haven’t been integrated into the content area.

Info & Download | Demo

13. Equilibria
Standard License: $49, Developer License: $99

A versatile theme that can be used for a wide range of websites. On the home page you can display a post slider, regular corporate style layout or your latest blog posts. There are lots of custom page templates and widgets and it comes with 5 colour schemes too.

Info & Download | Demo

14. Press Two
Standard License: $50, Developer License: 100, Membership: $125

A clean corporate design that comes in a light and a dark colour scheme. The home page has a beautiful slider and there are three different portfolio templates and a full width template included in the theme.

Info & Download | Demo

15. Appix
Regular License: $35

A clean design that was created for app developers and designers. Features great looking project and contact page templates and shortcodes to style your content.

Info & Download | Demo

16. Cleanistic
Regular License: $35

Packed full of features, Cleanistic is perfect for a corporate website, photographers portfolio or personal blog. You can select from an unlimited number of colour schemes and background colours and there are 40 background patterns included too.

It also includes custom page templates for a portfolio, sitemap or contact page; and custom widgets and shortcodes too.

Info & Download | Demo

17. Plan B
Regular License: $35

An elegant business theme that lets you create your own custom page using a drag and drop interface. It also includes 8 jQuery sliders, 6 page templates (4 of which are for portfolios) and 5 custom widgets. Text styling shortcodes are included too.

Info & Download | Demo

18. Minima Two Advanced
Regular License: $35

A minimal business theme that features a drag and drop interface for creating custom pages. 8 sliders are included in the design and lots of shortcodes for styling content. Social media can also be integrated into your design too via the settings area.

Info & Download | Demo

19. District 9
Regular License: $35

A corporate portfolio design that comes with great multimedia support for playing video and audio. It comes in 4 different colour schemes and includes shortcodes to format your content.

Info & Download | Demo

20. Fox
Regular License: $35

A clean business template with a minimal design. You can create an unlimited number of sidebars using the theme and select from an unlimited number of background colours too.

On the home page is a beautiful nivo slider and there is lightbox support for photos, plus video support for YouTube and Vimeo. All in all a very versatile minimalist theme.

Info & Download | Demo

21. FolioStudio
Regular License: $35

A portfolio style business theme that displays a beautiful slider on the home page. Through the settings area you can modify certain elements of your design such as your logo, background and fonts.

Several custom widgets and page templates are also included; and there are three colour schemes too.

Info & Download | Demo

22. Ocram
Regular License: $33

A fantastic business design that comes in an unlimited number of colour schemes and sidebars. It’s very easy to change the layout. There are 6 home page layouts, 5 different sliders and shortcodes for creating 2, 3, 4 or 5 columns within your content.

Info & Download | Demo

23. Venducci
Regular License: $35

A simplistic business design that has a beautiful drop down navigation menu. The included gallery template displays images full screen and allows you to change images via thumbnails at the bottom of the page. Shortcodes are also included for styling your content.

Info & Download | Demo

24. Target
Regular License: $33

Perfect for portfolios and corporate websites, Target has 9 widgetized areas, 8 colour schemes, 4 different portfolio templates and 25 shortcodes for formatting your content. It also has great typography with 31 Google fonts to choose from.

Info & Download | Demo

25. 7Star
Regular License: $30

A clean business theme that is very versatile. It includes 20 different colour schemes, 8 custom widgets, several page templates, font replacement using cufon or Google fonts and over 70 custom shortcodes.

Info & Download | Demo

26. Creole
Regular License: $33

Creole is a minimal business design that features a great looking slider on the home page. You can choose from an unlimited number of colours, lots of short codes, 4 portfolio templates and over 250 Google fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

27. Revolution
Regular License: $33

A great looking design that comes with a powerful admin page. There are 4 sliders to choose from, over 200 Google fonts and 10 page templates.

Info & Download | Demo

28. Socialite
Regular License: $35

A cool business theme that is optimised for use on mobile devices. The home page has 3 slider options: 3D, Nivo and Anything. It also includes several page templates, 100 shortcodes and 13 custom widgets.

Info & Download | Demo

29. Creative Box
Regular License: $33

A powerful corporate theme that comes in 9 varying colour schemes. The home page displays a beautiful 3D slider, and using the home page manager you can deactivate some areas of the design. You can also create an unlimited number of sidebars.

3 portfolio templates are included and lightbox is integrated into the design for images and photos.

Info & Download | Demo

30. Free
Regular License: $35

Free is an incredibly versatile WordPress theme. It boasts over 160 theme options, 50 shortcodes, 7 colour schemes, 13 custom widgets, 3 image sliders and 20 page templates. Google web fonts are also supported.

Info & Download | Demo

31. Adventure
Regular License: $35

A clean and minimal WordPress theme that was created using HTML5. You can change the background to any colour you want or choose from one of the 50+ backgrounds included in the design. There are several sliders and portfolio templates to choose from together with over 75 shortcodes and 100 Google fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

32. Switchblade
Regular License: $35

A fantastic design that comes with 8 pre-defined colour schemes, 3 slider options and hundreds of fonts. The theme options page is also unbranded so that you can re-brand it for clients.

Info & Download | Demo

33. Architec
Regular License: $30

A clean design that was made for Architects, but that can be used for any business website. It comes with light and dark versions, 9 page templates, 35 shortcodes and an extensive options panel.

Info & Download | Demo

34. Metropolis
Regular License: $35

An ajax powered design that is perfect for creative corporate websites. It features over 100 page layouts, 25 shortcodes and 12 portfolio templates.

Info & Download | Demo

35. Creator
Regular License: $45

A beautiful HTML5 powered theme that comes with a skin manager to let you save, load and export designs. Features a great looking slider on the home page, several portfolio templates and over a dozen shortcodes for styling your content.

Info & Download | Demo

36. Demonair
Regular License: $30

A clean traditional corporate design that features cufon font replacement, a jQuery image slider and newsletter sign up option.

Info & Download | Demo

37. Etherna
Regular License: $35

A stylish HTML5 design that has an advanced admin options area. A 12 grid system is used that allows you to customise our layout in a number of different ways. Custom shortcodes, page templates and portfolios are also included.

Info & Download | Demo

38. Athena
Regular License: $35

A flexible business theme that boasts a lot of great features. It includes 6 colour schemes, 7 background patterns, 6 custom widgets, a sortable portfolio and support for audio and video.

Info & Download | Demo

39. Curvo
Regular License: $35

A beautiful design that places a curved vertical menu at the left hand side of the page and the content at the right hand side. Over 80 cufon fonts and 40 shortcodes are included and it has support for video too.

Info & Download | Demo

40. Cascadia
Regular License: $35

A minimal and clean business design that comes with 10 different colour schemes. 8 widgets and 8 unique page templates are included, and there are shortcodes for creating columns in your content.

Info & Download | Demo

41. PowerPlay
Regular License: $35

Features unlimited slideshows, portfolios, colours and backgrounds. One of the designs best features is it’s mega sub menus that let you create columns and thumbnails in your drop down menu.

Info & Download | Demo

42. Creativo
Regular License: $35

Big and bold fonts dominate this creative business theme. Content can be styled easily using he included shortcodes and portfolio galleries are supported by lightbox.

Info & Download | Demo

43. Versatile
Regular License: $35

Versatile certainly lives up to its name with 2 home page jQuery sliders, 50+ custom fonts, 8 custom widgets, several page templates and lots of shortcodes for formatting your content.

Info & Download | Demo

44. Amoveo
Regular License: $35

Includes a whopping 16 colour schemes, 50+ background patterns, 80+ shortcodes and 5 different home page sliders. The 960 grid system layout is also very flexible with around 65 widget positions within the design.

Info & Download | Demo

45. UDesign
Regular License: $35

A powerful theme that has a widgetized home page. It includes 7 sliders, 5 portfolio templates, shortcodes and over 200 fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

46. CleanCorp
Regular License: $35

Another clean WordPress design that would be perfect for a company website. There are two sliders to choose from, 3 page templates and shortcodes to format your content.

Info & Download | Demo

47. Itis
Regular License: $35

A beautiful design that comes with 20 skins (light and dark variations for 10 designs). The home page slider displays images or video, and it includes over 40 widgets and 100 shortcodes for creating the perfect design. There are also 82 custom hooks available for advanced editing.

Info & Download | Demo

48. Bolder
Regular License: $30

A great looking business design with an advanced options page in the admin area. Includes 15 theme skins, 6 home page layouts, 3 different kind of sliders and 3 portfolio templates.

Info & Download | Demo

49. Stacked
Regular License: $40

A portfolio business design that comes in light and dark colour schemes. Custom widgets, page templates and shortdodes are also included.

Info & Download | Demo

50. Hermes
Regular License: $35

A great design that lets you control the home page layout by using a drag and drop interface. You can upload your own fonts using the font manager and there are 3 portfolio styles too. 7 custom widgets are also included and you can create columns in your content using shortcodes.

Info & Download | Demo

We hope you enjoyed the post. But much more than that, we sincerely hope that we have shone the light on some valuable resources that our readers will get some use out of. What are some of your favorites from the post? Or what are some of your favorite premium themes that were released this year that we failed to feature? Use the comment section below to let us know.

(rb)

  

There are probably a good amount of Noupe readers who would think little to nothing of paying money for a high quality WordPress theme if it was exactly what they were looking for. When compared to spending thousands of dollars on a unique design, a $40 investment in a premium theme for your website design is relatively painless. The number of premium WordPress theme stores and marketplaces has increased considerably over the last two years. Thankfully, many developers are still releasing quality designs for free.

Today we will be showing you 50 great WordPress themes that were released in 2011 for free. A few of the themes listed are the free version of a premium theme. Upgrading to the premium version usually gives you priority support and/or more features.

We hope you enjoy the list :)

1. News

A clean design from DevPress that could be used for a blog, news or magazine website. The home page has a beautiful featured slider for showcasing your important articles or videos.

Info & Download | Demo

2. Swatch

A free business and portfolio design that was developed to celebrate the release of the 100th theme from WooThemes. Features a custom homepage, featured slider, custom widgets, custom typography and multiple colour schemes.

Info & Download | Demo

3. Wootique

A free ecommerce design that was released in conjunction with the launch of the WooCommerce WordPress Plugin (which is a modified version of Jigoshop, the free ecommerce plugin we reviewed in Extending the Functionality of WordPress). With a featured slider, custom home page and custom widgets; Wootique is a great example of what can be achieved with Wootique.

Info & Download | Demo

4. Fungus

A Colourful blogging design that has social media links integrated in the sidebar and support for post image thumbnails.

Info & Download | Demo

5. WordPress Anniversary Theme

Released at the beginning of 2011 by Matt Mullenweg and ‘The WordPress Crew’, the anniversary theme has a traditional blog structure with a prominent header image.

Info & Download | Demo

6. BlueBubble

A simply minimal design that would be suitable for a blog or a portfolio. Includes an advanced option panel, 8 different colour schemes and social media integration.

Info & Download | Demo

7. Fotofolio Landscape

Designed for artists and photographers, Fotofolio Landscape automatically resizes uploaded images to fit the surrounding area and includes a useful slideshow option.

Info & Download | Demo

8. Big Square

A clean minimal design that is suitable for photo blogs. Perfect for travel blogs, personal blogs, portfolios and photography websites.

Info & Download | Demo

9. Balita

A brand new eCommerce designed for Smashing Magazine that was created to help sell children’s toys and related products. It was designed using HTML5 and CSS3 and features a beautiful home page slider, custom shopping cart and Facebook integration.

Info & Download | Demo

10. Parallax

A simplistic portfolio design that features a large homepage slider and a useful portfolio template page.

Info & Download | Demo

11. AutoFocus 2.0 Lite

Designed for photographers, AutoFocus lite is a simple HTML5 powered design that has a grid design and clean typography.

Info & Download | Demo

12. WordPress Diary Theme

A retro style design that was designed in HTML5 and CSS3. It uses Google web fonts, has built-in pagination and an AJAX powered contact form. Uploaded photos are displayed beautifully using lightbox.

Info & Download | Demo

13. Splendio

Based on the Twenty Ten theme, this is a feature rich colourful blogging theme from Smashing Magazine. One of the few free designs that also comes with the original layered photoshop psd files.

Info & Download | Demo

14. Gynix Tema

A business design which places featured articles on the home page. The theme could easily be used for a blog as well.

Info & Download | Demo

15. Triton Lite

Triton Lite is a self-proclaimed ‘All In One’ design that features a beautiful home page slider, shortcodes for styling content and 3 built in widget areas.

Info & Download | Demo

16. Shuttershot

A portfolio design with a difference, Shuttershot shows photos in full screen in the background of the design. Even when a visitor views a blog page or page the background continues to change. A unique idea that has thankully been implemented well.

Info & Download | Demo

17. Bonpress

A colourful blogging theme that supports custom widgets. It includes custom widgets for social media services and comes in 4 colour schemes (blue, black, pink, orange).

Info & Download | Demo

18. MyPhoto

The first photography theme from WP Explorer is a minimal effort that uses Javascript to highlight photos when a user hovers over them. It’s clean and fast loading, making it a good choice for a photo website.

Info & Download | Demo

19. Shadows

A minimal blogging design that was created for WordPress 3.0+. It supports post thumbnails and includes built in pagination and an author information box on blog pages.

Info & Download | Demo

20. MyCorp

A business theme that features a home page slider, custom post types and custom fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

21. GazpoMag

Featuring post image thumbnail support, social media integration and a beautiful home page slider. GazpoMag is a great option for an online magazine.

Info & Download | Demo

21. Lefty

A fun blogging design that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The home page has a featured post image slider and you can use custom fonts using Google fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

22. theSevenFive

A social media theme that is powered entirely by custom widgets. Through the options page you can style the colour of the background, fonts, links and borders.

Info & Download | Demo

23. Side Blog

A great looking blogging theme that uses post image thumbnails in the index and in the recent posts section on the sidebar.

Info & Download | Demo

24. PolarMedia

A multimedia friendly design that would be suitable for a blog, news website or online magazine.

Info & Download | Demo

25. Blissful Blog

A simple yet elegant WordPress theme that was created specifically for wedding related websites.

Info & Download | Demo

26. Melville

Inspired by classic literature, Melville is a clean minimal theme that has beautiful typography.

Info & Download | Demo

27. PhotoClick

One of the few one-column themes that was released in 2011. It comes in two colour schemes and includes short codes and custom widgets.

Info & Download | Demo

28. Minimatica

A fantastic looking minimal theme that has a beautiful image slider on the home page. This feature rich theme is perfect for blogs, portfolios or video websites.

Info & Download | Demo

29. Min

This is an extremely simple, clean and to the point theme. It has two widgetized footer areas to handle navigation or anything else you feel like sticking in there.

Info & Download | Demo

30. Ari

A beautiful 3 column blogging theme that comes in a light and dark version. It uses Google fonts and has great social media integration.

Info & Download | Demo

31. Grid

A fantastic fast loading minimal design that uses a 4 column grid layout to display posts. Perfect for a portfolio or blog.

Info & Download | Demo

32. Amphion Lite

A blogging design that comes with 2 theme skins, 2 custom widgets, 2 short codes and 2 WordPress menus. Featured articles are displayed prominently on the home page in an image slider.

Info & Download | Demo

33. Grid Portfolio

A beautiful minimal theme that was designed for illustrators, photographers and graphic designers. There are several custom home page layouts to choose from with most displaying posts in a grid layout.

Info & Download | Demo

34. Scherzo

A simple, clean and minimal design which features a widget ready sidebar, custom header image and custom background.

Info & Download | Demo

35. Showcase

A portfolio design that could also be used for a corporate website or blog.

Info & Download | Demo

36. WP Creativix

A nice corporate design that also features a basic portfolio template (which has jQuery lightbox support).

Info & Download | Demo

37. Spectacular

Another fantastic design from Smashing Magazine, Spectacular includes short codes for styling content. An elegant theme that is perfect for blogs.

Info & Download | Demo

38. Steira

A boxy minimal blogging theme from the Automattic team.

Info & Download | Demo

39. Platform

Designed in HTML5, Platform is a drag and drop framework that makes creating your ideal site a breeze. One of the best free blogging themes released in 2011.

Info & Download | Demo

40. Retro Fitted

A fun retro style blogging theme that comes with several widget areas.

Info & Download | Demo

41. Ambrosia

An HTML blogging design that is optimised for viewing on mobile devices. It features 4 widget areas, two custom menus and an option to stick posts.

Info & Download | Demo

42. HTML5Press

Created using HTML5 and CSS3, the theme lets you choose from over 40 Google fonts. It includes a featured posts slider, post image support, post format support and 6 colour schemes (pink, blue, green, red, orange, and bluish purple).

Info & Download | Demo

43. Portfolio Press

Another theme that was designed using HTML5, Portfolio Press is a good option for a simple portfolio blog.

Info & Download | Demo

44. Liquorice

A beautiful vintage design that uses Google fonts.

Info & Download | Demo

45. Delicate

A clean minimal blogging design that was created using the NattyWP framework.

Info & Download | Demo

46. PressWork

An HTML5 WordPress Framework for designers, developers & publishers. The user friendly front page editor allows you to move things around and modify your website in a live environment.

Info & Download | Demo

47. Tungstenation

A good choice for a business or portfolio website. The home page features a beautiful jQuery slider. It also features post image thumbnails, social media integration, built in page navigation, custom font integration and much more.

Info & Download | Demo

48. SixHours

A great looking minimal blogging theme from Caroline Moore.

Info & Download | Demo

49. Busby

A clean blogging theme that was built using the UpThemes Theme Framework. It includes social media integration in the header and a featured post slider on the home page.

Info & Download | Demo

50. Blog-O-Folio

Last but not least is Blog-O-Folio, a great looking blog and portfolio design from Noupe. Features portfolio integration, built in advertisement options and an email subscription form.

Info & Download | Demo

Do you know of a great WordPress design that was released for free in 2011 that didn’t make the list? If so, we encourage you to share it with fellow readers in the comment area.

(rb)

  

Anyone who has had their website hacked or inadvertently changed something they shouldn’t have on their websites database, will know the importance of backing up your live websites on a regular basis. The steps involved in backing up and restoring a WordPress database using PHPMyAdmin is no different from any other MySQL powered website.

There are alternatives to manually backing up and restoring your database in this way. In this article we will be showing you how you can backup and restore your WordPress database using the built-in import and export tool, using PHPMyAdmin, using CPanel and using a host of WordPress plugins and services.

If your chosen method of backup only backs up your websites database, your site could still be somewhat vulnerable. It is advisable to backup your website files manually as well so that you have a backup of uploaded files such as images, videos etc and any non-WordPress related files that are important (there are solutions for backing up files only).

Backing Up And Restoring Content Using WordPress

WordPress has a built in import (restore) and export (backup) system for transferring content from one location to another. It backs up posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags. Unfortunately, things like attachment files aren’t backed up.

The export function can be found at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/export.php. You will have the option of backing up all content or just posts or pages here. You also have the option of backing up any additional custom post formats you have installed e.g. forums, coupons, job-listings etc (quite a large percentage of good WordPress plugins use custom post formats to store data so you may have custom post formats and not even know it). The data is exported in XML format.

To restore your content, either on the same website or a different location, you need to use the import function. This can be found at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/import.php.

WordPress lets you import content from a number of different blogging platforms such as Blogger and Live Journal and WordPress related products such as bbPress too.

There is a good chance that you don’t have the WordPress importer installed on your website so you will probably have to install it (should only take a few seconds).

The import function is very straight forward. All you have to do is upload your exported XML file and click on the ‘Upload file and import’ button. This screen also highlights one of the limitations of the WordPress export and import functions; the file size limit of 2mb. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to increase this limit so that you can upload your file correctly.

After you have uploaded your backed up database you will have the option of assigning posts to an existing user or creating a brand new account for those posts. This is a useful feature when merging the content from two blogs or websites together.

In this screen you can also import file attachments. The backup file you exported earlier saves the location of all of your uploaded files so if the site you backed up is still live on the internet you have the option of importing these attachments to the new location. This is handy if you are moving servers but it isn’t a practical solution for importing attachments from a backed up file if the old website is no longer live.

Finally, WordPress shows you a list of the entries that were imported onto your new website. If the content already exists, it won’t be transferred to your new site, therefore you don’t have to worry about ending up with two copies of your posts or pages if you accidentally upload the file again.

The WordPress import and export function is a user friendly method of backing up, that WordPress beginners are sure to find useful.

Backing Up And Restoring Your Files And Database Via cPanel

One of the most popular hosting platforms used online is cPanel. You should see an icon for backups on your cPanel home page (it’s exact location depends on the version of cPanel you are using and the theme your host has chosen).

To download a database you simply go to ‘Download a MySQL Database Backup’ and choose the database you want to backup. The file will be downloaded as a *.gz file. You can restore your database from this area too (you just need to upload your *.gz file).

You can also download and restore a home directory backup from this area (again, a *.gz file is used). This will backup all of your website files including your core WordPress files, uploads, plugins, themes and non-WordPress related files.

It’s a quick and easy method of transferring WordPress files and the WordPress database from one location to another. Though you do need cPanel to be installed on both locations (or at least be using a hosting platform that supports this type of importing).

Backing Up Your Database Via PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is the most common way of administrating MySQL databases. You can access PhpMyAdmin directly through your hosting area (e.g. cPanel) though a great way to backup or modify your database through PhpMyAdmin is by installing the Portable phpMyAdmin plugin which allows you to use the tool through your WordPress admin area.

Once you are logged into PHPMyAdmin, you need to choose the database you want to backup, from the top left hand side (check your WordPress wp-config.php file if you are not 100% sure which one it is).

You then need to click on the export tab, which can be found in the navigation menu at the top. Some versions of PHPMyAdmin have a quick backup option that simply asks which format you want to back your database up in. It’s generally best to backup with the options like they are shown below.

Advanced options are usually available. The most important thing is to make sure that all of the database tables are selected before you click to backup (otherwise you run the risk of backing up one table rather than your whole database). You should also make sure that you click the option which says that it will ‘create a table if it does not exist’ (usually separated into two options to be checked). By default, the correct settings are usually selected but it’s important to make sure before you move to the next step.

Lastly, you may be asked how you want to compress your database. You can select none, zipped, gzipped and bzipped. It doesn’t matter much what you choose as PHPMyAdmin can unzip all of these formats when importing.

The steps for importing a database are very similar. Again, you need to login to PHPMyAdmin and make sure you choose the correct database. Then you need to click on the import tab at the top of the page.

All you need to do now is upload your exported file and click on the go button, ensuring that you chose SQL as your format.

When Moving Your WordPress Website

If you are moving your WordPress website to a new server all you have to do is:

• Backup your files and upload them to the new host.
• Export your database and import it to your new host.
• Ensure that your wp-config.php has the correct login information so that WordPress can access the database.

If your website is changing URL’s you have to make sure that your database has the correct information or WordPress will keep forwarding your website to the old URL.

The smartest way to do this is to change your WordPress address (URL) and Site address (URL) to your new URL before backing up (you do this at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/options-general.php). For example, you would login to your site at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/, change both URLs from http://www.yoursite.com/ to http://www.mynewsite.com and then start the backup process.

If you fail to take these steps, don’t worry. All you have to do is login to PHPMyAdmin and look for the wp_options table and click browse.

You should now see your site address (URL) in the first row. The option_name is siteurl. You simply need to click on the edit link and update this from your old URL to your new one.

The home address (URL), which is the first URL you see at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/options-general.php, can be found on row 39 under option_name home. Simply click the edit link and then update the entry with your new URL. This whole process is relatively painless though it is much easier if you simply update the URLs on your old website before you back up.

Recommended Automated Backup Solutions

There are lots of plugins and services available for WordPress that make the process of backing up and restoring a database quicker and easier. In this section we would like to show you what we consider to be the best back up solutions available for WordPress.

VaultPress – From $15 per month per site

Launched at the end of 2010, VaultPress is the premium backup service from WordPress developers Automattic. In less than a year it has established itself as the benchmark for backing up WordPress.

Once the plugin has been installed VaultPress will take a snapshot of your website. The backup includes your database, plugins, themes and uploads.

VaultPress is constantly working. If you check the activity tab through the VaultPress area on your website you will see several updates every hour.

You can access your main dashboard at VaultPress through the VaultPress page on your own site. You can see a list of all of your websites that are being backed up by VaultPress with a note of when they were last backed up.

From the backup page you can download a full backup of your website or just your database, plugins, themes or uploads.

Older backups can be downloaded too. VaultPress doesn’t just keep backups for a few days; backups are kept from the very first day you started using the service. For VaultPress users who signed up at launch that means that they can download any post, page, theme, plugin or upload since November 2010. This pretty much guarantees that nothing will ever be lost from your website.

Vitality is a measure of how active your site has been over the last month or so. The score essentially informs you how much content has been added to your site during that time; be it posts, pages, comments or uploads.

The basic plan retails for $15 per month per site. The premium package costs $40 per month per site and gives you additional features such as domain and hosting migration assistance, theme and plugin scanning and security scanning. The enterprise plan was created for large businesses who want performance auditing and consultative security. That costs a whopping $350 per month per site.

With constant backups dating back from the day you first started using the service, VaultPress is one of the best backup solutions available for WordPress.

Link: VaultPress

BackupBuddy – From $75

Developed by iThemes., BackupBuddy is a fantastic backup solution that lets you backup your site to your own server, to Amazon S3, to Rackspace Cloud, Dropbox, FTP or email.

It backs up your database, themes, plugins and uploads. You can even backup non-WordPress tables. You can schedule backups as frequently as you wish, exclude certain directories from backups and limit the number of local backups so your server doesn’t get too full.

BackupBuddy has a user friendly restore and migrate feature too. All you have to do is upload your file and then enter some details (such as your database information).

BackupBuddy Restore Feature from WebDesign.com on Vimeo.

A license for two websites retails for $75. 10 websites will cost you $100 whereas an unlimited license costs $150. Unlike VaultPress, BackupBuddy backs up your database to your own server or external services such as Dropbox (most of which are very affordable). This makes it a very reliable and affordable backup solution after the initial outlay (see the BackupBuddy VS VaultPress comparison table for a direct comparison of prices with VaultPress).

Link: BackupBuddy

ManageWP – Currently Free

ManageWP is a service that lets you administrate all of your WordPress websites from the one area. Last month they upgraded their service with support for automatic backups to external FTP, Amazon S3 and Dropbox.

You can schedule backups on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The number of backups you want to keep can be set and you can choose to delete older backups from your server.

To backup via FTP, Amazon or Dropbox you simply need to enter information the alternative backup destination.

ManageWP is currently in beta development and is therefore free to everyone. From November 2011 the service will cost only $5 per month for 10 websites and $50 per month for 500 websites. With DropBox offering the first 2GB of data for free and Amazon S3 having a very competitive pricing plan; ManageWP is an affordable way of backing up your WordPress website.

Link: ManageWP

WordPress Smart Backup – $20

A WordPress plugin that lets you schedule backups to your server or to your Amazon S3 account. Files can be zipped in order to save space in your accounts.

All past backups and future backups are shown on the backup manager page. Backups on your server can be deleted directly through the admin area. You can also restore your database or files by simply clicking on the restore button.

Backups can be scheduled on a daily basis if necessary and old backups can be deleted when necessary. You can receive updates whether your files were backed up successfully or not.

A regular license for WordPress Smart Backup costs only $20. Although not as advanced as VaultPress or BackupBuddy, it’s a useful plugin for scheduling backups on a regular basis.

Link: WordPress Smart Backup

CodeGuard – From Free

A user friendly service that backs your website up on a regular basis and checks your files for known malware. Your first website on the service is free. All you have to do is enter your website address and the FTP login details and your account will be setup.

The first backup takes between 48 and 72 hours but once it’s setup backups can be scheduled on a daily basis.

You can also receive updates if any of your files change. Backups can be restored at the touch of a button too.

The entry plan for CodeGuard is free and gives you 1GB of storage for one website. The basic plan offers the same storage for $10 per month however lets you backup an unlimited number of websites. The pro plan offers unlimited storage and costs 20% of your hosting costs. A strange way to price a service but it makes sense when you think about it’s a good estimate of their costs.

One of the best solutions available if your website files and database take up less than 1GB though you should perhaps re-evaluate your situation if you need more storage space.

Link: CodeGuard

30 Free WordPress Backup Plugin Alternatives

The official WordPress plugin directory is home to many backup plugins for WordPress. All of these plugins are free to download so you want to consider them if you are not keen on spending money on your backup solution or if the solutions mentioned above just don’t suit your needs.

• MyRepono WordPress Backup Plugin – Automate an unlimited number of backups using the MyRepono backup service.
• WordPess EZ Backup – Backs up files and databases to your website server.
• WP Online Backup – Backup your website to your desktop or email. You can also backup up to 100mb of files on Backup Technology’s servers.
• WordPress Backup To Dropbox – Automatically backs up your files and database to your DropBox account.
• Xcloner Backup And Restore – Backup and restore your website using the Xcloner application.
• WP DB Backup – A simple plugin that backs up your database to your website server.
• The Codetree Backup – Allows you to backup your database, themes, plugins and uploads to your server or via the MyCodeTree server.
• Snapshot Backup – Creates a backup of your database and all of your files and uploads it to the FTP destination of your choice.
• Backup And Move – Allows you to create a backup of your WordPress database and restore it on a different location at the touch of a button.
• Bei Fen – The predecessor of WordPress Smart Backup, Bei Fen allows you to schedule backups to your server for your database and all of your files.
• WordPress SQL Backup – Lets you backup your database and your wp-contents directory.
• SME Storage Multi Cloud Files Plug In – Backup your website to one of 10 storage clouds including Amazon S3, RackSpace Cloud Files, Box.net, Microsoft SkyDrive, Microsoft Live Mesh, Google Docs, DropBox, Mezeo, FTP, and any WebDav enable cloud
• Automatic WordPress Backup – Backup your important files to the Amazon S3 storage service.
• WP S3 Backups – An alternative Amazon S3 backup plugin.
• Ezpz One Click Backup – Automatically backs up your website to any FTP server.
• iDrive For WordPress – Backs up your whole WordPress website to your iDrive online account.
• Backup WordPress – Schedule daily backups of your database and files to your server. You can exclude specific files and folders from backups if you wish.
• WP InstantBackup – Backup your database and files via FTP or email.
• BackupWP – Your database and files can be backed up to your server or to an external cloud storage service such as DropBox, Amazon S3 or Google storage.
• My EasyBackup – Easily backup, restore and migrate your database. Backups are stored on your server and can be placed outside the WordPress installation so that no one else can link to it.
• PressBackup – Backup your website through Amazon S3 or PressBackup.
• Sypex Dumper 2 For WordPress – A plugin that lets you create and restore your MySQL database.
• Updraft – Backup your website to cloud services such as Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud. You can also backup to an FTP destination or via email.
• Duplicator – Transfer an entire site from one location to another in 3 easy steps.
• OP Archive – A one-click backup solution that backs up your files and database to your server.
• Drop In Dropbox – Backs up your files to your Dropbox account.
• WP Time Machine – Backup your files and database to Dropbox, Amazon S3 or via FTP.
• WordPress Move – Helps you migrate your WordPress website to a new server.
• WP Migrate DB – A useful plugin when you are moving to a new host. The plugin backs up your database and does a find and replace on your old URLS so you don’t have to do it manually via PHPMyAdmin.
• WP Export – Export your database as a CSV file.

Overview

What backup solution you use for your WordPress website depends on your own situation. It depends on your budget, your experience administrating FTP applications and databases and how important your website is to you.

The one thing you shouldn’t do is disregard the importance of backing up your website. There’s always a chance of someone hacking your website and you never know when something could become corrupted in your files or database. So don’t be afraid to pay for a good backup solution if the free alternatives are not practical (which is usually the case once your website reaches a certain size).

What method of backing up do you use for your WordPress website? Please let us know in the comments area.

(rb)

  

There are successful bloggers who exclusively write all of the content on their blogs however the vast majority of the top blogs on the web have a number of writers producing content for them on a regular basis. When you manage a multi author blog you spend less of your time writing articles and more time reviewing articles, scheduling articles and managing authors.

Today we would like to show you 25 WordPress plugins that will help you run a multi-author site quicker and more efficiently. The list includes plugins that help you manage your staff and plugins that make the posting process better for you and for your authors. It’s important for authors to get credit for the work that they do therefore several author profile plugins that let you increase an authors presence on your articles have also been included in the list.

*As always, all plugins have been tested for the purpose of this article.

Managing Authors

The following plugins will help you manage and communicate with your staff more efficiently.

1. Adminimize

Adminimize is a powerful free plugin that lets you control who has power over every aspect of your website. You can deactivate every possible option you can think of and control what admin, editors, authors, contributors and subscribers can do. The plugin automatically recognises any new user groups you have created too.

In short, it gives you complete control over what every user on your site can and cannot do. It works well with a number of other popular plugins too and is updated fairly regularly.

2. User Role Editor

A large percentage of blog owners won’t need the extended functionality that Adminimize provides. WordPress does not allow contributors to upload images so it’s a useful way of adding this functionality easily (if not, it’s a pain for guest posters to add images to posts).

In short, User Role Editor allows you to control exactly what each user group can and cannot do.

3. Members

Like User Role Editor, the Members WordPress plugin features a useful role manager that allows you to modify what certain user groups can and cannot do.

The plugin lets you control who can see content using shortcodes. By using this feature you can post secret messages to authors and staff or create private informational pages for them (everyone else will see a blank page).

4. Dashboard Notepad

What sets Dashboard Notepad apart from other notepad plugins is the ability to configure who can read the notes and who can edit them. It’s a useful way of communicating with your staff and leaving notes for yourself for future articles.

5. Private Messages For WordPress

If you are looking for a more direct way of liaising with your staff, you may want to consider Private Messages For WordPress. The plugin allows user groups the ability of messaging each other. You can set the number of messages each user group is allowed in their inbox. By setting the number of messages for a given user group to -1 you can remove their ability to send messages. Therefore, to create a private messaging option for editors only, you just have to remove the option for authors, contributors and subscribers.

6. Admin Message Board

Adds a private discussion area that all admins can view and add to. For some strange reason the plugin mimics Twitter and restricts messages to 140 characters or less.

7. Pre Publish Reminder

A useful plugin that lets you add notes for authors on the sidebar or below the post area. For example, you could remind them of formatting rules or remind them to always add a featured image. Handy if you have staff members who keep forgetting important elements of your posting rules.

8. Blog Metrics

Yoasts Blog Metrics makes it easy to monitor exactly what sort of contribution each author is making to your website. The plugins shows the average number of posts per month, average number of words per post, average number of comments and average number of words in the comments. It’s a useful way of gauging the value of each of your authors.

Managing Posts

The following plugins improve the procedure of posting in some way for you and/or your staff.

9. Co Authors Plus

A simple yet useful little plugin that lets you assign more than one author to a post or page. Handy for blog owners who publish a lot of collaborative posts.

10. WP CMS Post Control

Lets you remove certain controls of the post editor area from certain user groups. For example, for contributors you can remove the ability to set the post slug or featured image for any articles they submit.

11. WP Document Revisions

A collaborative document and file system that multi-author blogs should find useful. Users can create and modify documents through the admin area and leave notes for others to advise them what they have updated in the article.

This could be particularly useful if you are working on an eBook or preparing fresh content for a new area of your site. Could also be used as a FAQ or Wiki system for staff.

12. Audit Trail

Audit Trail allows you to track the actions of your all users (including admin). It shows you when a user last logged in, their IP address and the article they were working on. The ‘Trail’ allows you to see who has been working online via your site on a given day and see exactly what they did.

13. Editorial Calendar

Editorial Calendar makes scheduling articles a breeze with its easy to use drag and drop interface. The plugin creates a new calendar page therefore you can still use the traditional posts index page when you want.

14. Future Posts Calendar

Adds a simple calendar into the top of your post editor sidebar that shows dates of upcoming articles. You can also add the calendar to your WordPress admin dashboard.

15. Auto Schedule Posts

If the publication date of your articles isn’t that important for your website (e.g. a dating website may not be concerned about whether an article publishes today or three weeks from now), then you should find Auto Schedule Posts incredibly useful.

The plugin lets you set certain parameters about when you want your articles to publish every week. It will then schedule articles for any days that don’t already have a post scheduled.

16. Insights

Adds a productive box underneath your post editor that allows you to search the web for blogs, images, videos, news, Wikipedia articles and more. Authors can then insert or link to the items they find. If your authors are writing articles for you every day they should find the plugin saves them a lot of time.

Author Profiles

Authors are a vital part of every blogs success, therefore it’s only fair that they get some credit for their work. Noupe, for example, clearly displays the authors name at the top of an article and includes a bio box at the bottom of every article too.

The following plugins will give your authors more exposure and let your readers get to know them better.

17. WP Biographia

Arguably the best looking author bio plugin available for WordPress, WP Biographia gives you complete control over what is shown in the bio area and adds Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ profile fields to every users profile. You can choose whether the box is shown on posts, pages, archives and/or the home page and you can customise the colour scheme and border too.

Without a doubt the plugins best feature is the ability to display author bios in the RSS feed. 99% of blogs don’t include a link to the authors posts or website through their RSS feed therefore the guest poster loses a lot of potential traffic from RSS readers. WP Biographia corrects this by displaying a beautiful looking bio at the end of every post in the RSS feed.

18. Top Authors

A highly configurable top authors widget that lets you list your most frequent authors using their username, avatar or both. You can exclude admin and authors without posts if required.

19. Post Avatar

Let authors choose from a pre-defined list of images for their profile avatar. Images can be inserted automatically or manually into posts.

20. User Photo

Allow a user to assign a photo to their profile for use in posts and comments. You can set the dimensions for the photo and the JPEG compression level via the admin area.

21. Post Author

Adds an author information box above or below your content. Post revisions can be shown and an avatar can be added to the bio box too.

22. Cool Author Box

A simple plugin that automatically adds a cool looking author bio box underneath your posts and pages.

23. Author Exposed

Once installed an author box will appear when someone clicks on the link of an author. The box shows the authors name, email address and website. It also links to their Gravatar image, and shows a short bio for the author with links to the author’s other posts.

Advertising

Two WordPress plugins for those of you who want to share advertising revenue with your authors:

24. Author Advertising Plugin

Lets you set aside a percentage of advertising space to be shared amongst authors on your website. It supports any advertising program such as Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher etc. Authors need to input their publisher ID in order to take part in the program (you can determine what user groups can take part in the program).

In order to install the plugin properly you will need to create the table manually via phpMyAdmin (the code is provided via the admin area).

25. WordPress Multiple Author Ad management

Allows authors to have control over the advertisements that are displayed on their own posts. Custom banners, text links, PayPal donations and Google Adsense are all supported.

Overview

If you don’t set things up correctly for your authors, you may find yourself in a position where you are spending more time managing authors and correcting their mistakes than you would if you wrote the articles yourself. By automating as many aspects of the moderating process and making things easier for your staff you can save both you and them a lot of time.

(rb)

  

Previously, on Noupe. We brought you a handful of ways to expand on the functionality of any WordPress based site using some inspired plugins and/or themes to elevate this CMS beyond its humble beginnings as a blogging platform. With ways to turn WP into a Discussion Forum, an Online Shop, and a Helpdesk. Today, that mission continues.

Excerpt from Part One

Theme designers and plugin developers have been pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can do for some time. This has accelerated since the introduction of Custom Post Types into the WordPress core as it allows developers to use WordPress in a lot of weird and wonderful ways.

Today we will begin showing you examples of themes and plugins that let you use WordPress in ways you may have never thought possible.

As we mentioned last week, in this installment we will show you how to extend the possibilities of your WP site to make it a Wiki, an Arcade, a Job Board, a Membership based site, a Review site, or just a Q&A site. Now let’s get at it.

Wiki

Due to the sheer amount of content they contain, Wikis are a good way of making money online (take Star Trek fan wiki Memory Alpha for example). They are also a useful addition to blogs and websites as it allows readers to contribute to the site. As you would expect from a CMS, WordPress handles Wikis easily.

Theme

WikiWP – FREE

In A Nutshell: A free WordPress theme that’s based on the Wikipedia design.

Pros

• SEO friendly.
• Clean design (though perhaps a little dated).

Cons

• Hasn’t been updated for years so new WordPress features aren’t built into this theme.

WordPress Wiki Theme – $30

In A Nutshell: A premium WordPress design that uses WordPress to create a wiki.

Pros

• 6 colour schemes to choose from.
• Features sliding sidebar menus and a dedicated FAQ page.

Cons

• Hasn’t been updated with WordPress 3.0 features such as featured images.

Plugins

Wiki – $39

In A Nutshell: A premium WordPress plugin that lets you convert any post or page into a Wiki.

Pros

• Entries can be edited directly on the page without having to access your admin area.
• Works with WordPress, WordPress MU and BuddyPress.
• Perfect for adding a Wiki to an existing website.

You May Also Want To Consider…

• eSimple Wiki – A basic free Wiki plugin for WordPress.
• Wiki Embed – Lets you embed wikis onto any WordPress page or post.
• WikiPress – An open source plugin that lets you collaborate with other users in your admin section via a Wiki.

Arcade

There are quite a few premium products that allow you to build an arcade website using WordPress. Most plugins come packaged with a theme and charge a little extra for the games to be included in the zip file.

MyArcadePlugin Lite – FREE | My Arcade Plugin – €29.95

In A Nutshell: A feature rich arcade WordPress plugin that lets you install a whopping 29,000 games.

Pros

• Games can be downloaded and posted automatically.
• Great looking design and can be customised with your own brand in minutes.
• Leaderboard support to encourage visitors to come back.

Cons

• Free version of the plugin is very limited.

WP Arcade – $33

In A Nutshell: A premium arcade theme store that comes packaged with a plugin that automatically grabs games from MochinMedia.

Pros

• All themes come with 5 colour schemes.
• Advertising and Google Analytics integration.
• Huge amount of customisation through the themes unique options page.
• Good price for an arcade solution.

Cons

• There are currently 10 themes available however they are all very similar.

WP Arcade Engine – $29

In A Nutshell: A premium arcade plugin for WordPress.

Pros

• The plugin can be set to publish new games every day automatically.
• Support for any type of game type.
• Includes a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee.

Cons

• The plugin retails for $29 however you don’t get any games for this price. You will need to pay an additional $29 to get a game pack.

You May Also Want To Consider…

• WP Mini Games – Allows you to easily embed flash games onto posts, pages and sidebars.
• ArcadePress – An fulley fledged open source arcade solution.
• WP Games Embed – Lets you embed flash games into your posts and pages using shortcodes.

Job Board

There are a lot of job related plugins available for WordPress though 3 stand out from the rest: the Job Board and Jobroller designs and the very useful Job Manager. I recommend Job Manager for those of you who want to add a job section into an existing WordPress website.

Themes

Job Board – $65

In A Nutshell: A premium theme that uses WordPress to power a job board.

Pros

• Complete control using a dedicated theme options page.
• Coupons feature to allow certain customers discounts.
• Automated payment collection via PayPal.
• Very easy to brand.

Jobroller – $99

In A Nutshell: Turn your WordPress website into a fully functional job board.

Pros

• Easy to use theme options area.
• Options for job seekers and employers. Job seekers can also upload their resume/CV for employers to see.
• Five different colour schemes.
• Social media integration.

Plugins

Job Manager – FREE

In A Nutshell: An open source job plugin that doesn’t scrimp on features

Pros

• Can create multiple job boards.
• Applicants can apply directly through the website.
• Good template system that allows you to customise the job area into your existing WordPress design.

Cons

• If you are looking for a dedicated job website, it may be better to use an all in one job solution such as the premium themes mentioned as you would need to use this plugin with an existing design.

WPCareers – FREE

In A Nutshell: A free plugin that lets you create a searchable resume (CV) database.

Pros

• Users can modify descriptions at a later date and upload their own photos/images.
• Can manage job seekers and employers.

Cons

• Limited features when compared to other options.

You May Also Want To Consider…

• CareerBuilder Jobs – Power your own job board through CareerBuilder.
• Job Listing – An open source plugin that lets you create a fully customisable job board on your website.

Membership

WordPress is the perfect platform for a membership website. The premium member plugins are better supported however free alternatives have a huge range of features too.

Members Only – FREE

In A Nutshell: Make your content viewable only by signed in members.

Pros

• Can specify what page the member is redirected to when they log in.
• Can protect RSS feeds for members too.

User Role Subscriptions – FREE

In A Nutshell: A user role subscription plugin that allows you to restrict content to paid subscribers.

Pros

• Can modify the email template for new subscribers.
• Automatically deletes expired subscribers.
• Can accept payments via PayPal.

Cons

• Quite limited. There are better alternatives available.

WP-Members – FREE

In A Nutshell: A membership system that restricts content to signed in users.

Pros

• Can block pages, posts, both or neither by default.
• Registration process can be changed to suit your needs.
• Private member area can be determined.
• Well documented.

Cons

• No support for paid membership.

Members – FREE

In A Nutshell: A user role and content management plugin.

Pros

• Capabilities of users can be modified.
• You can control what user groups can see specific content.
• RSS feeds can be restricted.

s2Member – FREE | s2Member Pro – $69

In A Nutshell: An feature rich membership plugin.

Pros

• Includes 4 membership levels: Free, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
• Works with multiple payment gateways.
• Can setup one off or recurring payments.
• Can restrict content and downloads to specified member levels.

Membership – FREE | Membership Premium – $39

In A Nutshell: Transforms WordPress into a fully functional membership site.

Pros

• Can offer free memberships that turn into paid memberships after a set number of days.
• Unlimited membership and subscription levels.
• Can restrict access to members only in lots of different areas including posts, pages, comments, categories, galleries and more.
• Well documented, well supported and updated regularly.

WP-Membership – $25

In A Nutshell: Sell your content with this premium membership plugin.

Pros

• Can setup unlimited membership levels.
• Payments can be made via PayPal and the dashboard shows sales for that month.

Cons

• Limited number of member options compared to other paid membership plugins.

CMS Members – $59.50

In A Nutshell: A solid membership plugin that boasts some great features.

Pros

• Create unlimited memberships.
• Built in mass mailer.
• Accepts PayPal and 2Checkout as payment from new members.
• Content within a post or page can be restricted to different member groups.

MagicMembers – $97

In A Nutshell: A premium membership plugin that has a huge amount of features.

Pros

• Works with a huge number of payment gateways.
• Integrates with popular auto responders.
• Premium content can be restricted on a ‘Pay Per Post’ basis.
• Categories can be protected and RSS feeds can be restricted to paying members too.

Wishlist Member – $97

In A Nutshell: One of the most popular premium membership plugins available today.

Pros

• Sequential content delivery for those who want to drip-feed content to members.
• Flexible membership options including free, trial or paid. Members can also migrate to other membership levels after a set period of time.
• Works with many shopping cart systems.
• Integrates with many popular WordPress plugins.

You May Also Want To Consider…

• DW Members Only – Redirects any unregistered members to the login page.
• Membership Database – Manage a member database for your club or association.

Review Website

The surge to make money through review websites has died down a little however there are still some good premium plugins out there for those of you who are looking to launch a review website.

My Review Plugin – $90

In A Nutshell: A flexible rating plugin that can add ratings to any WordPress post, page or product.

Pros

• Can use stars, letters or percentages to grade items.
• It’s easy to build horizontal and vertical comparison tables.
• Add ratings to any area of your site automatically with a one-click install.
• 45-day money back guarantee.

WF Review – $89

In A Nutshell: A review plugin that was created specifically for affiliate marketers.

Pros

• Import CSV feeds from affiliate networks such as Commission Junction and ShareASale to create thousands of products in seconds.
• Support for comparison tables.
• Amazon ratings stars are fully customisable via CSS.

WP Review Engine – $99.95

In A Nutshell: A premium rating plugin that can be customised easily.

Pros

• Rating comments and rating tables can be styled easily via the admin area.
• 13 star images, 23 buttons, and 6 comparison table image sets are included with the plugin.
• Add comparison tables to any post or page on your site.
• 30-day money back guarantee.

Q & A

The following themes and plugins allow you to create a question and answer website. This type of website has become very common due to the popularity of sites such as Yahoo Answers, Stack Overflow and Quora.

Themes

WP Answers – $89

In A Nutshell: Turn WordPress into a cash generating question and answer website.

Pros

• Pull content directly into your website from Yahoo Answers.
• Full Facebook and Twitter integration.
• Packaged theme comes in 6 custom colours.
• Intuitive points system that gives members points for answering questions.

Plugins

Q&A Lite – FREE | Q & A – $39

In A Nutshell: Add a questions and answers section to your existing WordPress website.

Pros

• WYSIWYG editors for both questions and answers.
• Integrated reputation points system.
• User profile pages for those who use the question and answer service.

You May Also Want To Consider…

• Question and Answer Forum – Easily add a question and answer area to your website.
• FAQ Builder – Create a FAQ area easily on your website.

Overview

Throughout the course of these two articles we have shown you how flexible the WordPress is and how it can be used for a variety of purposes. The products that have been listed in this article can be split into two categories: plugins that integrate with your existing WordPress powered website to add extra functionality to an area of your site and themes or plugins that use WordPress to completely change how WordPress is used (e.g. a discussion forum).

When you are using a product that uses WordPress to power the main areas of your website, you need to consider the stand alone scripts that are available. For example, The G Forums uses the WordPress platform to create a discussion forum. It achieves this through custom theme templates therefore it couldn’t be integrated into an existing WordPress website. The script retails for $29 and has very basic features therefore, in my opinion, you would be better off using a PHP bulletin board such as phpBB or Simple Machines instead. If however you wanted to integrate a forum into your existing website, a plugin such as bbPress may be better than phpBB or Simple Machines.

Another factor to consider is plugins. The official WordPress plugin directory has over 15,000 plugins. The number of add ons available for stand alone scripts is sometimes poor therefore if you need additional functionality on your website, a WordPress product is a good choice (e.g. one click installs of forums, sitemaps, member areas etc).

Also, if you know of any great free or premium WordPress products that extend the functionality of the platform, please share it with other readers in the comment area.

(rb)