iReal Estate Theme

A Custom WordPress Theme For Real Estate Agents

Theme Features

* Easily customizable
* Integrated blog
* Home page template
* Wide layout for content heavy sites
* Widget ready sidebars and feature areas
* Drop-down navigation
* Search engine optimized



Includes Access to WordPress Training Videos…..

You will learn how to do the following, and more…..

* How to install WordPress
* How to login to WP
* How widgets work
* How to upload/activate a theme
* How to write new Pages/Posts
* How to optimize WP for SEO

Click Here for full information, features, pricing, and a live demo of this theme.

Can I use a “blog” to build a membership site?

What is the best “blogging” platform to use?

Good questions that may seem to have obvious answers to the “seasoned internet user”, but maybe not so obvious to the ones just starting out on their internet journeys.

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing supply of information and news.

A blog is a frequently updated personal (or business) website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles and/or other web sites.

Blogs range from the personal to the political, the sublime to the ridiculous, and they can focus on one narrow subject or a whole wide range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as health, dating, dog training, web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology.

Some are more into just presenting links to all manner of other sites, mostly affiliate links that pay them when someone purchases a product after clicking one of the links..

And others are more like personal journals or diaries, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.

Whatever they are used for, blogs are ideally suited to building membership sites.

How does a person create a blog, you ask?

WordPress is probably the most popular and most powerful and versatile blogging software, and when I talk about blogging, I’m talking about using WordPress as the platform.

As far as using WordPress to build membership sites, I can say that it is definitely a very good way to get started. It is also a very low cost way to get started.

Membership sites are one of the hottest money makers on the web right now, and more and more people are creating an extra monthly pay check by building their own membership sites.

If you have a passion for a particular subject, almost any subject, chances are that a lot of other people have the same passion. Create a membership site where all of those people can mingle online with other like-minded people, and you are set to go.

If you have an expertise in a field, create a membership site, charge a monthly fee for others in the field to access your information, and you have money coming in every month, month after month.

You can find video tutorials that will guide you through all of the steps and show you exactly how to create membership sites using WordPress at TutorDaddy.com.

If you use WordPress to build a membership site, you will need a good membership site plugin to manage membership chores, and you can find information on a couple of good ones at Digital Access Pass and at YourMember.

Installing WordPress for the first time and getting it configured correctly can be a little intimidating, so watching a video tutorial on how to install WordPress can really give you a jump start on getting a membership site up and running.

In conclusion, if you want to build a membership site that costs almost no money, is easy to update and manage, and brings in a monthly recurring income, then I suggest you give WordPress a really close look.

This is not meant to be a tutorial on how to build a membership site. It is meant to give you information on platforms such as Joomla and WordPress that can easily be used to create membership sites.

It is also meant to give you information on components, plugins, and custom themes that you can use to accomplish the task with minimal cost and effort.

First of all though, why would you even want to have a membership site? The answer, of course, is that owning memberships sites can earn you a recurring monthly income. That means money in your bank account…..month after month after month.

Some reasons to start a membership site…..

• You have a book or ebook with some really great content that people would be interested in. Rather than try to sell the book or ebook as a one-time sale, break it up into sections and put it on a membership site, giving members access to one chapter or section each month. So, rather than sell 100 copies at $37 each and making $3700, charge 100 people $9.95 per month and give them a chapter each month for 12 months. Do the math on that and see what you come up with.




• You don’t really feel that you could sit down and spend several months, or years, writing a complete book or ebook and put it up for sale, but you could sit down each month and write a really good article to put on your membership site. That approach takes less time initally, and gives you a recurring income each month right off the bat.




• You want a site that gives you a captive audience that you can sell other products to each month. Affiliate products, other ebooks you own, adsense ads, all are opportunities to make even more money from your membership site members.




• You have knowledge or expertise in a subject or area that other people are interested in. People are willing to pay to belong to a group of like-minded people. Membership sites have been started on subjects such as:




• Cabin Enthusiasts,




• Fly Fishing Enthusiasts,




• Wedding Professionals,




• Cruise Ship Workers,




• Magic Enthusiasts,




• Acupuncture Professionals,




• Digital Photo and Video Enthusiasts,




• Travel Lovers,




• Golden Retriever Owners,




• Ferret Owners,




• Gambling Information Seekers,




• Religious Groups,




• Philosophy Lovers,




• Art Lovers,




• Home Builders,




• Dress Makers,




• Car Salespeople ,




• Cross-Stitch Enthusiasts,




• and on-and-on….

Trouble is though, building a membership site from scratch can be intimidating, even impossible, for a lot of people.

However, with the right instructions and a helping hand, you can easily do it using either Joomla or WordPress as the platform.

Since both are free applications, and components and plugins are readily available for both, you can do it for very low cost.

Video tutorials are available that will show you step by step how to setup your own membership site. You may choose to use free components or plugins to create a basic membership site. You also may choose to create a more advanced membership site using components or plugins that are available at very reasonable prices considering the advanced features they offer.

Detailed step by step video tutorials can show anyone, regardless of experience level, how to create a membership site that can possibly produce an ongoing and sizable income .

You can learn how to install your choice of Joomla or WordPress, and then be shown how to install and configure the necessary components or plugins to convert it into a paid membership site.

Creating a recurring monthly income is an established method that really does work. It is used extensively by many successful and savvy marketers.

Still not sure you can do it, even with detailed instructions? Don’t worry – it is easier than you think.

Picture this scenario – you make ten sales today for $47.00. OK, you made $470.00. Not bad at all. Now imagine that you have a membership site and you make those same ten sales, and they sign up for your monthly membership. You made the same $470 today, plus you rake in $47 per month, per member, for as long as your customers remain members. If they only remain members for four months, you just made $1810 over the four months for the same amount of effort on your part. Meanwhile you continue to make daily sales and your recurring monthly income grows and grows and grows. You are now well on your way to creating a sizable and dependable monthly income.

So, what are the problems you will need to overcome in order to accomplish this?

First…..how do you keep track of your customer activity? You have customers joining every day and some of them unsubscribe from time to time. Keeping track of this can be a big job if you don’t know how to do it the easy way.

Second…..collecting payments can be difficult. You need a choice of ways for your customers to pay for their membership. Without that you limit your chances for success. The solution sounds simple – buy some software to do it all for you. The big problem with that is that software that runs membership sites can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That is a big problem for a lot of people just starting out.

So…..what is the solution that will allow a person to build a membership site at a reasonable cost, possibly even free?


Let’s Consider Joomla First…..

There is a video tutorial available showing How To Create A Membership Site Using Joomla 1.5 and at a very reasonable cost and it will show you exactly, step by step, how to install Joomla 1.5 and then configure it to be a paid membership site. The components you will need to accomplish this task are either free or very reasonably priced, so you will be able to have a membership site up and running at very low cost.

If you want to go first class and use a professionally designed Joomla template that will make your site stand out above the rest, then take a look at the Joomla templates available at RocketTheme.com.

As mentioned, the components are free or reasonably priced, but that doesn’t mean a lack of features. Look at what you can do using Joomla and the membership software (generally known as components in Joomla).

* Integrated Subscription Handling using the following payment processors: Paycom. CCBill, Paypal, Paypal Subscriptions, epsNetpay, 2Checkout, Authorize.net, Paysgnet, Allopas, Alertpay, Viaklx and more.

* Up To Four Membership Levels. You have the means to offer several different levels of membership to your clients thus increasing your possible profits.

* Integrated Document And File Handling. No worries. Your subscribers can only access the files they paid for and are entitled to receive.

* Integrated Forum. Create your own member forum so your subscribers can talk over items of interest with each other.

* Trial Memberships. Set up trial memberships so your members can take a test drive before they buy.

The above mentioned video tutorial is a seven part video series based on the new Joomla 1.5 series, and it takes you step by step through the whole process. It takes you from knowing nothing about Joomla or putting together a membership site to being somewhat of an authority at it.

And For You WordPress Enthusiasts…..

If you just want a good basic membership site built using WordPress, then there is a video tutorial that will show you How To Build A Membership Site Using WordPress And Free Plugins.

If you want a more advanced and full-featured membership site, then you will want to consider using either YourMember WordPress Membership Site Plugin or Digital Access Pass which works with WordPress as well as regular HTML web sites, and is loaded with features to power a full-blown membership site.

As with Joomla, there are custom templates available for WordPress.

You can purchase templates custom designed to create a professional quality web site themed to almost any type business you can imagine, from real estate to grunge to ecommerce to news sites, you name it and it is probably available to make your site stand above the rest. Check out what’s available in WordPress Custom Themes And Templates

So whether you prefer using Joomla or you prefer using WordPress, there is step by step training available, and there is a choice of components and plugins and templates available to allow you to build a great looking membership site at a very reasonable cost, possibly even free.

Do you get out the trusty old HTML editor, roll up your sleeves, and begin writing the HTML code from scratch? Well, if you have the skill to do it, and you have the time to do it, and you have the patience to do it, then that is one way to get it done.

Or maybe you just get out the trusty old checkbook and write someone a hefty check to do it for you. Well, if you have the money, then that is definitely the easiest way to do it. And then, when you need something added or changed, you can get out the old checkbook again.

What if you need it yesterday, not a few days or weeks or months from now?

What if you want a web site that is easy to add pages and content to, and you want to be able to do it yourself, quickly and easily and without having to get out that trusty old HTML editor, or the old checkbook for that matter?

What if you want a web site that search engines love, and you want to start getting some traffic without spending a fortune on SEO and then waiting and waiting to see the traffic?

What if you want a web site that you can change the look and feel of with just a few clicks of a mouse, and if you don’t like the new look, you can change it back with just a few more clicks?

Well partner, it sounds to me like you are in need of WordPress! More specifically, you need to learn just how powerful WordPress really is!

What kind of WordPress am I talking about when I say “powerful WordPress”?

I’m referring to WordPress “jazzed up” with all of the 100′s and 100′s of themes and plugins that are available to turn plain old WordPress into a thing of beauty as far as web sites go.

And before you roll your eyes and say that WordPress is just for blogs, you better take a closer look. In fact, WordPress, along with all of the readily available plugins and custom themes, can do just about anything you want, and it can do it either at no cost or very low cost, and it can do it very quickly.

You can have a WordPress site installed, configured with basic settings, and some popular plugins and themes installed, in just a few hours, and for zero cost. How’s that for fast and cheap?

• You can create a WordPress site that is a traditional WordPress blog.

• You can create a WordPress site that is suitable for the smallest business right on up to the largest corporation.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a membership site where members pay for your content.

• You can create a WordPress site that is an internet storefront to sell your products.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a content management system.

• You can create a WordPress site that is a combination of any or all of the above.

You can install plugins that do SEO for you, backup your database for you, create Google compliant sitemaps for you, handle product sales and delivery for you, handle membership signups for you, and on and on and on.

Do you begin to get the idea that I like WordPress and think WordPress is a great way to create a web site?

So, exactly what is WordPress, and how can you get it for free?

You can find out all about WordPress, and download it for free, at http://www.wordpress.org/. WordPress is an open source blog software package that anyone can download and install for free.

If your hosting provider has cpanel with Fantastico, and most do, then you can install it in a matter of minutes from there. If not, you can install the files manually.

WordPress makes it easy for anyone to set up, manage and maintain a website, and you can do it without being a total geek.

What if you get stuck and need help? Simply go to http://wordpress.org/support/ and you will find active forums full of people ready to help you solve your problem. How easy is that?

Since WordPress is open source, it’s free. That’s always a nice little benefit.

Since it’s open source it also has a thriving community of developers (geeks) constantly improving the software and creating those plugins I mentioned.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily create pages, which are basically content that is static, and not open for comments, and not organized by time.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily create posts, which are basically the blog part of WordPress, and they are usually organized by time-of-post, are usually open for comments, and they are the content to build out the meat of your site.

With WordPress, there are hundreds and hundreds of free themes available so you can easily manage your site’s look and feel. Check them out and download them for free at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ .

There are also some really great looking professionally designed themes available for purchase, most at very reasonable prices. These are well worth the money if you want a really professional looking web site. You can see examples of these at iThemes

There are hundreds and hundreds of free plugins available for WordPress, and you can take a look at them by going to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ . There are also many great plugins available that you will pay a reasonable fee for, but if you need a specialized plugin, they are well worth the money.

WordPress is highly customizable, so you can use it for just about anything, and make it do just about anything.

A Few Benefits of Using WordPress:

* Free Or Very Inexpensive! Using WordPress for your web site means it’s either cheap or free. WordPress itself is free, a custom theme is usually in the $50 to $100 range, many themes are even free. End result, you save loads of money compared to the cost of paying someone to design a web site for you.

* It’s So Easy! If you’ve got basic computer skills, WordPress is easy to use. If you can use a word processor like Microsoft Word or even lowly little Notepad, then you can use WordPress. It’s web site creation at it’s easiest.

* You Can Do It Yourself! Get ready Mr. Do-It-Yourselfer! No more need to find and pay a programmer to fix a tiny error, saving you time and money. Need to add some more content or a new page? No problem, you can do it yourself.

* Multiple Users And Accessible On The Internet. WordPress is accessed through an online administrative interface and can allow access to multiple administrators if desired, which means more than one person can login and fix problems that might develop, and you can access it from anywhere that has internet access. So, you lucky dog, if you’re on some beach in the Bahamas, you can access your site. Since your site is on a secure server through your web host, and you have a backup of your site and database on your own computer (you did create that backup, didn’t you?), you are well protected against data loss.

* Content Pleasing To The Great Google. WordPress makes it easy to have a web site that is search engine friendly. That means your web site is more likely to land on the first page of Google results, which means people are more likely to find you, which means people are more likely to spend time, and money, on your web site.

Since this is a rather long article on WordPress, I decided to break it up into three parts.

Coming up in Part 2, we’ll roll up our sleeves and get into the “down and dirty” details of installing and configuring WordPress.

As promised in part 1, part 2 will go into the basic steps to follow in building your WordPress web site.

If you’ve never even heard of WordPress, and you’re wondering what the heck it is, learn all about it at http://www.wordpress.org/

Roll Up Your Sleeves And Let’s Get Started…..

You need to master a few basics and understand a little of the WordPress “lingo”. So, here we go.

With WordPress, you can produce and manage several types of content very quickly and very easily.

Built right in and ready to go is the ability to create and edit Posts, Pages, and Links.

Posts are your basic blog content and are used for standard blog entries. You can create new posts, anytime you want and as often as you want, for your site visitors to read. Posts are normally arranged in chronological order and you can allow viewer comments or not, just as you please.

Pages are basically just posts that aren’t time-driven, they are more permanent content, not open to comments, and they don’t show up in your “recent posts” list. Pages are added as a link in your menu, if you choose to, and serve as the basic meat of your site.

Links are just what the name implies…they are links to whatever outside web sites you wish to make available to your site visitors. This is where you put links to sites you are an affiliate of, sites that are recommended resources for your visitors, and anything else you feel would be of interest to your site visitors.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…..

Before you start, you need to spend a few minutes and make some big decisions on what type of web site you want and need. If you don’t spend the time now, you may not end up with the web site you want, and then you will have to start all over.

The biggest thing to figure out is what you actually need your website to do. Will it be just a simple blog, will it be a news site, will it be an ecommerce site to sell products, will it be a membership site, will it be a place to post mp3′s produced by your rock band…..what exactly do you need it to be and how do you want it to look?

Once you decide what you want it to be, you need to decide what type of content you will have on it. What kind of content will you need to create and manage?

Do you need posts? Maybe, maybe not. If you’re not creating a blog, you may or may not need to use the post feature in WordPress at all. Or maybe it’s not a blog you’re creating, but you want a section to give site visitors your latest news about your products or services. You can use posts to do that. Since posts normally show in order by date created, visitors would see the latest posts first.

What about pages? Do you need pages at all? If so, how many pages will you need? Since pages normally show up as menu items, will your pages have a hierarchy type dropdown menu, or will each post be a top level menu item?

What about your homepage, how do you want it to look, what do you want to feature on the homepage? You may want just some basic text about your web site, what you do and what you offer, or maybe you want to feature your latest news or latest post.

These are a few of the questions you need to answer. Basically you’re trying to figure out what you want and what you need from your website. Once you have that figured out, it’s easier to find a theme that offers exactly what you want and need.

Next Step…..

Pick a theme that suits your needs and also looks like you want it to. There are free themes and there are professionally designed themes that you purchase, usually for a very reasonable price. If you are building a business web site, you will probably want to invest in one of the professionally designed themes.

The theme on the right is an example of the 100′s and 100′s of themes you can download for free for WordPress.

Now that you know what you want and need in the way of a web site, you need to be sure and pick a theme that can meet those wants and needs. Keep in mind that WordPress makes it very easy to switch themes, so if you find more than one theme that you like, you can install all of them, and switch back and forth until you decide exactly which one is the perfect fit for your web site.

Here are some things to consider when searching for that “just right” theme:

What type of menu system does it feature? Can it display the number of pages you plan on having? Can it handle the hierarchy your site menu will require? If you plan on having a fair amount of hierarchy (categories and sub-categories), a drop down menu might be a must.

How is the theme laid out? Most themes are laid out in “sections” or “boxes” and with various sidebars, such as sidebar left, or sidebar right, or both. Most have a large center box or section, or maybe several smaller ones side-by-side, so make sure the theme’s homepage is laid out like you want.

Very important, is the theme widget ready? If so, you can add and delete sidebar items, and possibly others, with ease. You can do it without widgets, but it’s much harder.

As mentioned in Part 1, there are hundreds of free themes available, and you can check them out at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Two custom themes that I personally use and recommend are iTheme Custom WordPress Themes and StudioPress Custom WordPress Themes. These companies have specialized themes for most any application or niche you can think of.

iThemes has just introduced their new Builder Theme which is probably the most advanced and versatile WordPress theme on the market.

Once you’ve chosen your theme, you’re ready to install WordPress.

There are two ways to install WordPress, the easy way and the hard way.

The hard way is to download the WordPress files directly from www.wordpress.org and then do a manual install. Don’t worry though, even the hard way is not really that hard. Just go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress to view the very through instructions provided by WordPress.org. Follow the instruction and you shouldn’t have any problems.

The easy way is to install WordPress from the cpanel in your hosting account. Most hosting accounts have cpanel and a feature called Fantastico which make the install extremely easy.

Coming up in part 3 we will cover:

* Installing your theme
* Installing your plugins
* Entering your site details
* How to write pages
* How to write posts
* Using widgets on your site
* SEO for WordPress

So, be sure and continue with Part 3 to learn more about the power of WordPress.

Next Step…..

Once you’ve got WordPress installed, you’re ready to start setting up your site.

Once you’ve picked a theme and downloaded it, simply unzip it and upload the theme folder to your server at /public_html/wp-content/themes. Then login to your Dashboard, go to design>themes, and click on the theme to make it your active theme. You can click on any one of the themes that are showing to make them the active theme.

Plugins that you want on your site need to be downloaded, unzipped, and uploaded to /public_html/wp-content/plugins. Then go into your dashboard, go to plugins, and click on the activate link to activate any plugins you want to be active on your site. Remember, you can find free plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Go into settings and fill in the information on your site details. These items are pretty self-explanatory.

Go to Write>Page to start adding pages to your site. While editing a page you can choose the page parent to determine how it will show in your menu. Remember, the page title will become a menu link. You could write a page titled “My Family” and set it as “Main Page, No Parent” and then you could write a page titled “MY KIds” and a page titled “MY Wife” and set them to have the “MY Family” page as parent. That would give you a dropdown menu, assuming your template supports dropdown menus, with “MY Family” as the main menu item and “MY Kids” and “MY Wife” as dropdowns under it.

You also have the ability while writing the page to select if you want to allow comments or not, if you want it to be password protected, and a few other things.

Go to Write>Post to start writing posts to populate your site with content. As with pages, you can choose some options to determine how the post will display.

With posts, you need to first setup some categories under the settings>manage>categories tab so you can organize your posts into the order you want them in. For instance, you could have a category named “General Interest” and one named “Latest News” and one named “Cooking Tips”, and then organize your posts under the appropriate one.

Under Design>Widgets and Design>Theme Editor, you can customize widgets and theme files if you know a little html, php, and want to give it a shot. The widgets tab usually gives you a list of widgets and a list of sidebars and other areas where the widgets can be placed, and you simply drag and drop the widgets you want into the areas you want them in. You can then edit each widget to make it display as you desire.

Search Engine Optimization…..

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your website’s position in search results. Many books have been written about SEO and websites are dedicated to it.

Showing up higher in search results usually means more traffic and more business. That is another reason why using WordPress is such a good idea, because WordPress is especially well suited for boosting your site’s rank in search engines.

How to make your WordPress site SEO friendly…..

You need to research the right keywords for your site and then put those keywords in the right places. Those right places include the title bar (the text that shows up at the top of your browser), any headers, headlines or bold text on a page, and the meta data (helpful information in a page’s code that is not visible in a browser).

How WordPress Helps Your SEO Efforts…..

Right out of the box, WordPress is SEO-friendly. It puts important information in the right places by default, so as long as you fill in the appropriate information in your dashboard settings, you’ll have a good start in the search engine rankings.

However,there are also a number of extra steps you can take to optimize your search engine rank, many of which are either built in to WordPress or easily managed with plugins that are available to download.

Permalinks are the direct urls to your content and optimizing how those links appear is good SEO. There is a place in your dashboard to change the way your permalinks are setup.

There is a plugin you can download and install that creates a sitemap, which is a widely adopted standard among search engines, and helps improve your search rank.

There are SEO plugins available that specifically deal with improving your sites SEO. They are worth the effort if you want to improve traffic to your site.

And Finally…..

Once you have your site up and running and optimized the way you want, you just have to keep it updated with new content. Updates are a breeze with WordPress, which means you can spend more time on your content and less time trying to figure out the tech stuff.

So, what are you waiting for? WordPress can be the right answer for just about any need. It can be the answer to quickly and easily building a professional looking web site for:

• The smallest “mom and pop” business right on up to a giant corporation.

• Service-oriented companies like home builders, plumbers, HVAC contractors, real estate agents, car dealers, etc.

• Consultants, freelancers, and coaches.

• Schools, nonprofit agencies, and churches.

• Bands, artists and creative professionals.

So, that’s it, you are now the proud owner of a great looking web site, a “WordPress On Steroids” web site.

Hope you enjoyed this series on installing and configuring WordPress.

A premium WordPress theme can be one of the best ways to really improve the looks of your WordPress web site.

Because WordPress is free you don’t have to spend money purchasing it,so with the money you’ll save you can afford to get a great looking premium theme—and it’ll still be cheaper than a custom-designed site.

When you purchase a premium theme you can avoid the somewhat shoddy work that sometimes shows up in free themes. That’s not to say free themes aren’t any good, because many of them are great themes, but often a lot of the detail work that really makes a theme special is missing.

Anyone can put together a free theme and offer it to the public, but it takes a lot more skill, care, and dedication to build themes people are actually willing to pay money for.

One the other side of the coin, just because you pay for a theme doesn’t mean it’s worth what you paid for it. There are bad premium themes, good premium themes, and great premium themes. And even the good and great ones may not work to exactly fill your needs.

This article is all about helping you make intelligent decisions when choosing premium themes.

Some things we will discuss:

1. Things to consider and plan for before you even start looking at themes.

2. How can you best assess a theme’s quality?

3. What you should be getting when you purchase a premium WordPress theme.

Item 1: Needs, Wants, and Expectations

The very first step to selecting a premium theme is to gauge your own needs, wants, and expectations. You surely can’t pick the right theme if you don’t even know what’s right for you and what you really need.

So, first step, before you start looking at all of the really cool themes and get excited about all of the really fancy designs, you need to sort out what it is that you really need and want. What do you really want your site to look like, and what do you want it to do?

And before you even do that first step, you should probably understand what you’re getting in a premium theme.

What, exactly, makes a theme a Premium Theme?

No discussion on premium themes would be complete if it didn’t answer one question: What is a premium theme?

There are a lot of different opinions on what a premium theme should include, including but not limited to:
customization, documentation, support, higher quality code, better “design” work, etc.

What it comes down to though is that a premium theme is a theme you pay for, it’s as simple as that. All the other potential extras and goodies depend on what the creator of the theme actually delivers to you.

You can see some demo sites featuring premium themes at iTheme and Revolution.

For sure, not all premium theme creators are equal, and not all premium themes are equal. Everyone has a different opinion on what makes a theme great. Where one premium theme creator may have a lot of professional experience, another may only produce themes as a hobby. Both themes may be equally good but you’ll get a different experience from each.

If you choose to buy a theme from a hobbyist you can’t expect the levels of support a pro-theme creator can offer. If you buy a theme from a company that offers premium themes as a second thought, you might get terrible or non-existant service. These are things you need to consider.

Bottom line, do your research, don’t let slick marketing fool you, and make your decision based on facts.

What Do You Need in a Website, what do you need it to do?

Before you start picking themes you need to make some decisions. If you don’t do your homework now, you may end up regretting it later. The most important thing to figure out is what you need your website to do.

• What type of content do you need to manage?
• Do you need blog capabilities (news, portfolio, press releases, catalog, etc.)?
• Does your site need a specific call to action (like an e-commerce component)?
• How many pages will your site need?
• Will those pages need a hierarchy?
• What do you want to show or feature on the homepage?

These are the sort of questions you need to answer. You’re trying to figure out what you need
from your website. Once you have that sorted out, it’s easier to find a theme that offers what you need.

What Kind of Theme Should You Buy?

One of the most common mistakes in choosing a theme is assuming it will fit your needs. Premium themes
come in all shapes and sizes and colors. Some focus on a specific need while others focus on generic blogging.

Some themes are designed to put the focus on the content. At the other extreme are the corporate themes. These tend to focus on static pages and relegate the blog content to a small news section. The key is to not make assumptions about what the theme will or won’t do.

Shown here is the iTheme eCommerce premium WordPress theme that can be used to sell your products through an internet storefront created with WordPress. This is a good example of a specialized premium WordPress theme, in this case the theme was designed to showcase an ecommerce web site.

Just because WordPress is a blogging platform doesn’t mean that any theme will be great for blogging. WordPress is extremely flexible and more and more themes are focusing on sites that don’t focus on blogging at all.

What Features Do You Need?

Before you start shopping for themes you should decide what features you need. Some features may appeal to you when you read about the theme and view the demo, but if you don’t really need them then you may be paying for something you’ll never use.

In some cases those fancy features could actually interfere with what you do actually need. Finding the right theme for your needs is much more practical than finding a cool looking theme and bending and sacrificing your needs to make it work.

Here are just a few examples of some features that are available on premium themes:

• Featured post on the home page instead of the latest post
• Featured photographs from Flickr
• Featured video(s) from YouTube
• Advertising integration (Adsense, etc)
• Advertising management features
• Optional color themes to choose from
• Control panels for easily adding tracking code or feed URLs
• Header image replacement, resizing, and cropping capabilities
• Contact form (so you don’t publicize your email address to spammers)
• Tabbed sidebars
• Tabbed featured posts
• Multiple positions for sidebars and widget capable sidebars
• Multiple page layouts
• Menus auto generated from WordPress pages
• Menus auto generated from categories
• Menus generated from the blogroll
• Manual menu control
• Drop down menus
• Built in asides / sideblog
• Advanced search functionality
• Niche specific templates; e.g. real estate, auto sales, photography, etc
• E-commerce integration if desired
• Image / banner rotation if desired
• Reordering the home page
• Alternative graphics packs
• And more…

There are so many choices that you have your work cut out for you in choosing that “just right” theme.

How Much Customization Are You Really Capable Of And Comfortable With?

If the thought of writing or changing code or installing plugins makes you nervous, you better pick a theme that has everything you need out of the box. On the other hand, if you’re fine with tweaking code, installing plugins or adjusting the CSS, then you can be a lot more flexible when you pick a theme.

A lot of the features shown above are built right into some premium themes, and many of them can
easily be added to themes with plugins. If you’re OK making some of those changes yourself, it might give you a little more leeway in choosing a theme you like for other reasons.

Next up in Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 2, we’ll cover specific details on what to look for when choosing a premium theme.

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series on choosing premium themes to use with WordPress web sites. If you missed Part 1 you can see it at:

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 1

In Section 1 we covered setting expectations and deciding on what you really need from a theme. In this section we’re going to look at some areas you should pay close attention to when you find a theme you like.

As mentioned previously, there is no standard for premium themes. The term “premium” means different things to different people. In my opinion though,it’s still reasonable to expect a high level of quality in a theme that you pay money for.

The question becomes…. just what is a high quality theme?

As with many other things, “the devil is in the details”. You will need to throughly examine the demo page, source code, tutorials, and any other details a premium theme creator offers when looking for the measures of quality listed below.

Valid code

One way you can assess a theme’s quality is to see how it stacks up against industry standards. You can use online tools to compare the page construction to specific code standards. The HTML markup validator (http://validator.w3.org/) should be run on the key pages, including the home page, single post page, category page, etc. If all goes well you will see a statement that says the page has passed. If it fails, the validator will report the number of errors.

The CSS validator (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/) only needs to be run on the home page, because the CSS style information will be the same across the entire site.

The CSS validator will normally list both errors and warnings. Usually you can ignore the warnings, and getting errors doesn’t necessarily mean the theme is a bad one. There are some situations where errors simply cannot be avoided; however, you should generally expect few errors.

Browser compatibility

All themes should be compatible with the major browsers. The author should provide you with info about the browsers their theme is compatible with. If the author’s website doesn’t say his themes are compatible, you should ask rather than assume.

Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera are the main browsers a theme should be compatible with. Test the theme in as many browsers as possible to determine if there are things that don’t quite work the way they should on any particular browser. Be skeptical of a theme that doesn’t look just right in any of the major browsers.

Styling

In any web site there are a lot of different elements that can be designed with a specific look and style. Perhaps there are different styles for each level of header or perhaps pull quotes are treated with a special graphic. Check to see if these elements are styled in any theme you’re considering. That will give you a good idea of the level of detail the theme author has included.

Look through the demonstration pages for examples of the following:

Headers, levels 3 to 5
Blockquotes / pull quotes
Code blocks
Tables
Numbered lists
Bulleted lists
Nested lists
Definition lists
Images, particularly the spacing around them if they are included within the text
Links (click on links to see how they behave and how they look after being clicked)
If the demo site doesn’t include an example of these in any of the posts or pages, then contact the themes author and request that they add a post that contains them. You just never know, for instance, when you might need to include a table, and there is nothing that looks worse than a poorly styled table.

You can see examples of some high quality premium themes and some fully operational demo sites at iThemes Premium WordPress Themes.

There normally will be a default style for all of these items, so it is unlikely they will be unstyled, but you’re really checking to make sure you’re satisfied with the way these elements are styled.

Typography

One thing a theme must do well is to make your content easy to read. A good theme designer will have considered the type in some detail to decide what is an appropriate font size and line spacing, among other things.

The following points are a general guide to assist you in determining if type styles and sizes are appropriate.

First, simply read through a few of the pages. If you find them difficult to read for any reason, then that’s an obvious indication that something isn’t right.

Another thing you should look for is a regular rhythm. Consistent spacing between paragraphs, headers, and lists will create a rhythm on the page that makes it easier to read. Frequently asked questions (FAQ) pages can be used for judging rhythm because they most often have a number of headers and short answers all visible on screen at the same time.

Finally, it is a good idea to compare the theme’s typeface to some sites you regularly visit and read to see if it stacks up and decide whether or not any differences are warranted.

Comment styling

If you plan on letting users leave comments on your site, you should check the way the comment section works. You can leave a few comments on the demo theme to see how it handles comments.

Trackbacks are pretty useless when they appear within a comment thread. Most readers don’t like wading through piles of trackbacks to find the comments in between them. A well thought out theme would separate them, or at least provide that as an option.

It’s also good practice to make the authors’ comments appear different than those of visitors and to include gravatars (globally recognized avatars) for every comment. If you’re planning on using the site for business, you probably will want to have the option of turning the gravatars off. Be sure you find out how the theme handles that. Does it leave an empty space, or does it look as though the gravatars were never there?

You should also check to see how a theme handles a post when comments are turned off and whether or not it displays a message when comments are moderated.

Pages

The WordPress theme API allows specific page types to have their own templates. This feature means the information that is displayed on a page can be tailored specifically to the need. You should visit the following types of pages and see how the themes author has used this functionality:

The home page (see if it is the same as a single post?)
Any single post
A category page
A tag page
A static page (such as the about page or contact us page)
The search page
Monthly archive page
Sitemap (If there is one)
When viewing these pages you should pay particular attention to the content of each post; i.e. is it an excerpt or is it showing a full post? Full posts might possibly make your site less effective with search engines since you can have multiple pages with the same content.

You should also pay close attention to the way you navigate between pages. Are there links from each post on the category page to the monthly archive page, or to the tag page for the tags that apply to that post? If there is more than one page of results, are the default next/previous page links used? Hopefully the theme author has gone that little bit further and included a list of page numbers so you can quickly navigate straight to page five?

Next, check the error pages. What happens when you search for a term and there are no results? What shows up when you change the URL to try to access a page that doesn’t exist, or a post that doesn’t exist?

Pay close attention to the details as well. In addition to post titles, does it also display authors, dates, categories, etc.? When it gives an excerpt of a post is there a user-friendly “read more” link of some type?

Most of these cases apply to blog-type content, but even if you’re not all that concerned about blog functionality you’ll probably want to see how the pages use the sidebar or widgets. For instance,is the sidebar the same on every page or is there some type of variation?

Theme options panels and commented code

It is quite possible that you will want to amend the theme to some extent, so you need to know how easy it will be to do that. Hopefully,the theme will provide you with a Theme Options (administrative) panel that will let you swap out images, change the feed URL, add in tracking code, choose between various color schemes, or control your menu. You will definitely want to know the details concerning the functionality that would be available to you without changing any code.

When you do need to change the code, a great theme will provide detailed comments in the source code to make it as easy as possible. Since comments will rarely show up in the source view, you won’t be able to check this without the original files. It can’t hurt to ask the themes author for a sample of a relatively standard section of code so that you can see what kind of comments it contains.

As you can see there’s a lot of things for you to think about here.

It’s not likely that a theme will be perfect in all of the points raised, and different theme authors will have different views on the importance of each one. It’s therefore possible you may have to compromise on one feature in order to get another more necessary one.

At this point in time, you should know how to gauge a theme’s quality, which will be a tremendous help in picking a theme that is right for you.

In the final part of the discussion, coming up in Part 3, we’ll consider the value of a good theme.

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 1

Choosing A WordPress Theme-Part 2

Section 3, What Do I Get For My Money?


In Section 1 we discussed finding out what your needs and wants are and setting your expectations. Section 2 looked at how to go about determining the quality of a theme. In this section we’ll take a look at what you actually get when you purchase a premium theme.

What you actually get when you purchase a premium theme may vary significantly between sellers. Some theme authors are simply out to sell themes while others are trying to build a business around it and are willing and eager to provide everything you will need to get the best out of your theme.

The prices may possibly differ between the two, but not necessarily in the way you would expect. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of correlation between the price of the theme and the extras you get. The extras aren’t always listed, so you may need to ask what’s included and what’s not included.

Page templates

Page templates are technically a part of any theme and you’ll get them anyway, but we’re including them here because it’s not always evident what kind of page templates are included.

When you write a page in WordPress you will have the option of applying a page template to it. The templates can be very minor variations on the basic theme. As an example, it might have the sidebar on the opposite side of the page, or no sidebar at all.

Where these page templates really start to do some important work for you is when they represent alternative core functionality.

WordPress allows you to replace the default home page with a different page if you wish. If the theme author has provided page templates with different styles of home page, you can apply these to a WordPress page of your choosing and assign it to be your home page to change the way the theme works.

If you purchase a theme that was intended to be used as a normal website instead of a blog, the default home page may not show any of your posts. If you should later decide you want a normal blog it’s easy to make the change if the theme’s author has provided a blog style page template.

If the theme does include page templates they may be limited to different styles of home page, or they may include more variations such as pages that have a featured post at the top, several variations on sidebar position, multiple posts in different layouts, etc.

A really neat looking feature that has just become available from one premium theme provider is flash-like fading photos on the front page. These create a really great looking effect. Take a look at the demo of Titanium Premium WordPress Theme to see this in action.

Instructions

With a new theme you will probably have choices for new ways of putting your content together. Features such as adding an image to represent the post, changing the theme header, or using images with captions can be difficult to figure out at times without some guidance from the themes author.

The quality and quantity of the instructions you get with a premium theme can vary widely. You may only get a “read me” file in the theme itself, or you may get multiple video demos of the functionality and even tutorials in PDF format.

Although you are not necessarily paying extra for these instructions, and very often they are available free on the website as tutorials (which makes them an excellent source of information before you buy), they can absolutely make the difference between a new theme that works well and one that just causes you a lot of headaches and frustration, so it’s worth considering what kind of instructions are available as part of the cost.

Photoshop files

Even if the instructions are detailed and you know how to change the header, actually changing it without the original Photoshop files can be difficult at best. You may need to find the correct dimensions, determine what typeface the original is in, duplicate all the styles involved, etc., so having a Photoshop file to work from can make it a whole lot easier.

In some cases a Photoshop file is included with the theme by default, and may not even be mentioned as a selling point. In other cases you will have to pay extra for it and you will then need to decide whether it is worth the extra cost or not.

For those simple themes where the header is a regular background image, there isn’t necessarily a need for it. For more complicated themes, especially those where the header text is a key component, it can be very difficult to do without it.

Compatibility with feature upgrades?

The theme you buy should be compatible with whatever version of WordPress you are currently using, or that you are planning on using, but what happens when WordPress upgrades, which they do quite often?

If a feature is changed in WordPress or a new feature is added (tagging and sidebars are good examples of relatively recent feature additions) the theme may need to be updated to match the new version of WordPress. The important question is whether you are entitled to a free upgrade of the theme or not.

The themes themselves most likely won’t remain without change either. Customer feedback and requests and new trends mean that themes will likely add new features or change their look over time.

You may possibly be entitled to get new versions that have been upgraded for compatibility free of charge, or you may be entitled to any new version that comes out, also free of charge, or you may be required to pay extra to upgrade to the next version.

Support

When you ask what a premium theme includes, the answer usually mentions support of some kind. If you pay for something, you normally expect support if it doesn’t work. How much support you will actually get, and on which issues and problems, can vary, though.

Some premium theme sellers offer their customers forums to cover basic support issues. These forums normally aren’t something you will have to pay for and they are a way of taking support responsibility away from the author, but they can also be very helpful for finding your answers. I have found forums to be an excellent means of quickly getting questions answered and problems solved.

If there aren’t any forums provided, or they fail to answer your question, you’ll need direct support from the themes author. If you’re using the theme as it was intended, on a compatible version of WordPress, and something just simply isn’t working right, then basic support is normally available.

If, on the other hand, you have made any changes to the theme code or are trying to change it to make it work with an earlier version of WordPress, it is by no means certain that you will get help from the themes author.

Providing support can be time consuming and very expensive for the theme creator. Just a few hours a day providing free support to customers can put a huge dent in their income. For that very reason, you shouldn’t automatically expect a theme author to provide endless support on everything you want to do simply because you have purchased a theme from them.

To wrap it all up: As you now know, there’s a whole lot of things to consider if you want to get the most out of a premium theme.

• First you have to sort out your own needs, wants, and expectations.

• Next you need to assess what a theme has to offer you, and will it match your needs.

• Finally you need to know what you’re paying for.

The good news is that most premium themes are not really very expensive, all things considered. Despite being inexpensive, however, not all premium themes live up to that cost, whatever it might be.

So…..consider your needs and wants, do your research, and you will be in a position to make an intelligent and informed decision on choosing that perfect theme for your web site.

Many people making their first attempt at creating a personal or business web site will not even consider using WordPress. After all, WordPress is just for blogs, isn’t it?

The answer is, absolutely not! WordPress is arguably the best platform there is for creating a blog, but it definitely is not just for blogging, it is so versatile and so customizable that it can be used to create just about any type of web site you can imagine.

What with the hundreds and hundreds of plugins available for WordPress, and the hundreds and hundreds of free and premium themes available for WordPress, it becomes a simple matter of choosing the correct plugins and themes to create the perfect web site to suit your needs.

Plugins, in case you are not familiar with WordPress, are little applications coded for WordPress, and they are extremely easy to install and configure. These applications make it so very simple to allow WordPress to perform complicated tasks, completely automated, and without any further effort or involvement from the site owner.

Here are some examples of what WordPress plugins can do for you…..

• Control and practically eliminate the spam comments that your site may receive
• Automatically create a Google compliant sitemap for your web site
• Automatically help to make your site SEO friendly for the search engine spiders
• Install a contact form on your site so customers can contact you
• Make it easy for site visitors to refer your content to the Web 2.0 sites
• Install Adsense ads on your site
• Turn your site into an ecommerce site complete with shopping cart
• Automatically upgrade your site to the latest version of WordPress
• Create RSS feeds for your site and submit to Feedburner
• Automatically backup the database for your site
• Convert your site into a membership site and handle subscriptions and member management

And the list goes on and on…..

Same thing with WordPress themes. There are hundreds and hundreds of free themes that you can download and install on your web site. If you want a theme that is specialized and loaded with extra features, then there are premium themes available at very reasonable prices, and they are available for almost any type of site you can imagine.

Premium WordPress themes are available for…..

• Social web sites
• Business web sites
• Corporate web sites
• Photo galleries
• News sites
• eCommerce web sites
• Grunge type web sites
• Music web sites
• Real estate web sites
• Auto sales web sites
• Sports related web sites
• Church web sites
• School and team web sites

And again, the list goes on and on…..

Some good demonstrations of premium themes can be seen at iThemes.

So, when it comes to building a web site, whether you are a raw beginner or an experienced site builder, it will pay you to consider using WordPress. You can literally install WordPress, install your plugins and theme, and start adding content in just a matter of minutes. In no time at all, you can have a great looking web site up and running, and you can do it with very little cost and very little experience.

If you have no desire to tackle the project yourself, there are sources available that will install a custom WordPress web site to your specifications, and again, at very reasonable cost. More Info

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Bread Recipes

Combining the best elements of Northern and Southern, this is a superb, just-barely-sweet version of one of the classic African-American cornbreads. Be sure to use stone-ground cornmeal for its full flavor and distinctive, delicious grittiness.

Ingredients
Vegetable cooking oil spray
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup corn or canola oil
2 tablespoons butter

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray a 10-inch round baking pan or heavy oven-proof skillet with cooking oil.
2. Sift together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.
3. In a smaller bowl, stir baking soda into buttermilk. Whisk in sugar, egg and oil.
4. Place skillet over medium heat, add butter and heat until butter melts and starts to sizzle. Carefully tilt pan to coat sides and bottom.
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients; combine quickly, using as few strokes as possible. Scrape batter into pan; bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool a few moments, and slice into 8 wedges to serve. Serves 8.

This thick batter makes a dense bread that’s great toasted and served with butter. When cranberries are available, throw a few bags in your freezer to make this bread year-round. We like it prepared with dried cranberries too.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 egg, well beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons hot water
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup grated orange rind
1 cup fresh or dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan or 3 mini loaf pans.
2. Combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add sugar, egg, butter, hot water, orange juice and grated orange rind; stir until moistened. Fold in berries and nuts. Spoon into pan and bake 50 minutes (or 35 minutes for mini loaves). Cool; wrap and refrigerate or freeze.

Although it’s tempting to try to arrange the balls of dough neatly in the pan, once they’re coated in butter, they are slippery and practically slide into place by themselves. At first the pan will seem too big for the dough, but it rises nearly to the top. When the bread is baked, it fills the pan.

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup 2% reduced-fat milk, heated
1 egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Instructions
1. Combine 1 1?2 cups flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add milk and egg; beat until blended. Gradually add remaining flour and beat until mixture forms a soft dough. If necessary, add more flour.
2. Turn out onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in an oiled bowl, turning to oil top of dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, about 50 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 375F.
4. Punch dough down; shape into 16 balls. Roll each in melted butter and arrange in a greased 9-inch tube pan. If there is extra butter, pour over top. Cover and let rise in a warm place about 50 minutes or until dough nearly fills pan.
5. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan onto wire rack; serve warm. Serves 8.

Salad Recipes

Use a good strong blue cheese, such as Roquefort, in this slaw. Mexican sour cream is richer and thicker than regular sour cream, but either will work fine.

Ingredients
1 head of green cabbage, sliced thinly
½ cup finely shredded carrot
¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
¾ cup crumbled Roquefort cheese, divided
½ cup Mexican sour cream or regular sour cream
½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Dash of hot sauce

Instructions
1. Place cabbage, carrot and parsley in a large bowl and set aside.
2. In another bowl, whisk together 1?2 cup Roquefort cheese and remaining ingredients until smooth. Pour over cabbage and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
3. Sprinkle with remaining Roquefort cheese before serving. Serves 10.

Ingredients
Dressing:
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 small garlic clove, pressed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Coarsely ground black pepper

Salad:
10 cups coarsely chopped lettuce (romaine and Boston)
2 medium tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped, cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 9 ounces)
6 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
3 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled Roquefort or blue cheese
1 avocado, pitted, peeled and chopped

Instructions
1. To prepare the dressing, combine all ingredients in a jar, cover tightly and
shake vigorously.
2. To prepare the salad, arrange lettuces on a large serving platter, big enough to toss the salad. Arrange tomatoes in a strip down the center and arrange chicken, bacon, eggs, and cheese in strips on either side of tomatoes. Scatter avocado around edge.
3. Before serving, slide the salad into a large bowl; pour dressing over top and toss gently to combine. Serves 6.

Two old standbys, deviled eggs and potato salad, join forces to make a potato salad that’s a real crowd pleaser.

Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds (about 5 large) russet potatoes, peeled and cut in 1/2-inch
chunks
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon salt
Coarsely ground black pepper
3 celery stalks, diced
3 hard-cooked eggs, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus additional for garnish
Instructions
1. Place potatoes in large saucepan; add cold water to cover. Cover and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, 10 minutes or until tender. Drain, transfer to a large bowl and cool 5 minutes.
2. Whisk together mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Combine potatoes, celery, eggs, parsley and mayonnaise mixture. Mix gently with a large rubber spatula. Garnish with additional parsley. Serves 10.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons grainy Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 large Portobello mushroom caps
4 ounces goat cheese, room temperature
1 small bunch baby arugula, stems trimmed
16 grape tomatoes, halved
Instructions
1. Whisk together oil, vinegar, mustard and salt.
2. Place mushroom caps on a plate, and drizzle them with half of the vinaigrette. Broil mushrooms in a shallow ovenproof pan or grill on a rack for about 5 minutes (rounded side up).
3. Turn caps over and top with goat cheese. Return to the oven or grill to slightly melt cheese.
4. In a medium bowl, toss arugula with remaining vinaigrette and tomatoes. Spoon arugula mixture into four plates; top each with a warm, cheese-topped mushroom. Serves 4.

Sweet and juicy Bartlett pears are perfect for this salad. Ripen them on the counter until they have a delicious “pear” aroma, and then refrigerate until it’s time to make the salad.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
1?4 teaspoon salt
1?4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
3 firm-ripe pears, such as Bartlett, cored and cut in bite-size chunks
2 cups shredded or thinly sliced cabbage
1?3 cup thinly sliced celery
1?3 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted
1?3 cup dried cranberries

Instructions
1. Whisk oil and 3 tablespoons lemon juice together in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper.
2. Combine pears and remaining lemon juice in a large bowl. Add cabbage, celery, pecans, cranberries and oil mixture and mix gently. Serve on lettuce leaves. Serves 8.

The arugula, with its mustardy quality, is a piquant, leafy complement to the potatoes. If arugula is not available, spinach is a good alternative.

Ingredients
2 pounds potatoes, red-skin or fingerling
1 pound mixed baby summer squash
4 large shallots, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
5 ounces arugula

Instructions
1. Wash potatoes and baby squash and cut into bite-sized chunks.
2. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water 6 to 8 minutes or until tender. Drain.
3. Blanch baby squash in a large pot of boiling water for 1 minute. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop cooking.
4. Whisk together shallots, garlic, mustard, salt, black pepper and vinegar. Whisk in olive oil.
5. Toss potatoes and squash with vinaigrette. Chill.
6. Fold the arugula into chilled potato mixture. Adjust seasonings and vinegar to taste before serving.

A small serrated knife works well for sectioning the fruit. Do this over a large bowl to catch the juices, and save some for the dressing.

Ingredients
3 seedless oranges
6 cups baby arugula
1 red apple, cored and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1?4 teaspoon kosher salt
1?8 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1?2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta or blue cheese
Instructions
1. Grate rind from 1 orange into a small bowl and set aside.
2. Peel all oranges and section. Reserve juice, squeezing more for the dressing if needed. Combine arugula, orange sections and apple in a large bowl.
3. Whisk 3 tablespoons orange juice, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper with orange rind. Pour over salad and toss gently. Spoon onto serving plates and sprinkle with feta. Serves 8.

Beef Recipes

For the leanest brisket, ask for the “first” or “flat” cut, without an overly fatty flap lying on top. Trim off any surface fat; there’s plenty left in the fibers to keep the meat moist. Pure chile powder is made with just ground chiles—no oregano or cumin in the mix. Look for it in the spice aisle or near the Southwestern foods.

Ingredients

1 cup beer
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 chipotle canned in adobo sauce, seeded and minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon pure ancho
chile powder
1 (4-pound) beef brisket, trimmed of surface fat
3½ pounds sweet potatoes,
peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces

Instructions
1. Mix beer, cornmeal, cumin, oregano, cinnamon, salt, chipotle and garlic in a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker.
2. Rub chile powder into brisket; place in slow cooker and turn to coat. Cover and cook on high 6 hours.
3. Add potatoes; cook 3 hours, or until meat is fork-tender.
4. Remove meat and potatoes; skim fat from sauce. Slice meat and return with potatoes to the sauce; cover and keep warm up to 2 hours. Serves 10.

We love veggie burgers, but they unfortunately don’t love the grill—proving to be too tender for it. So, we found a happy medium by adding canned black beans to lean ground beef, for a healthier burger. Serve with guacamole salsa.

Ingredients
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 pound lean ground beef
¼ cup diced red onion
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
½ teaspoon salt
Coarsely ground black pepper
4 hamburger buns
Instructions
1. Place drained beans in a large bowl and mash beans with a potato masher. Add beef, onion, chili powder, cumin oregano, salt and pepper; mix to combine. Shape into 4 burgers and grill, broil or pan-fry until cooked through. Place burgers on buns and serve. Serves 4.

Ingredients

1 (5-pound) beef brisket
12 ounces tomato paste
1 tablespoon olive oil
Coarsely ground black pepper
1 pound chopped onion (about 4 medium onions)
¼ cup diced garlic (about 12 cloves)
1 (750ml) bottle burgundy wine
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
½ cup low-sodium soy sauce (optional)
2/3 cup water
4 slices crustless rye bread, cubed (optional)

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet until hot. Add meat and sear over high heat until lightly browned.
3. Rub brisket with tomato paste, salt and pepper.
4. Place onions in a large roasting pan. Place meat, fat side up, on top of onions.
5. Combine garlic, wine, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, soy sauce (if using) and water. Whisk. Pour over brisket
6. Cover and bake 2½ to 3 hours, basting often with pan juices. Uncover add rye bread, if using, and bake 30 minutes, until brisket is fork tender. Serves 12.

New York State’s big claim to food fame is buffalo sauce, a mixture of melted butter and hot sauce normally found on fried chicken wings. Watch your tailgating guests gather around the grill to taste a burger variation on the buffalo theme.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces
1?3 cup mild hot sauce (such as Durkee Red Hot)
½ cup finely crumbled blue cheese
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 pounds ground buffalo or beef chuck, 85 percent lean
½ teaspoon celery seed
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
6 hamburger buns, split

Instructions
1. Before You Go: Melt butter in a small microwaveable bowl or stovetop. Whisk in hot sauce.
2. Mix blue cheese and garlic in small bowl.
3. Using your hands, gently mix buffalo or beef, celery seed, onion and ¼ cup hot sauce mixture in a medium bowl until blended. Using a light touch, form into 12 patties about 4 ½ inches in diameter and no more than ½ inch thick. Spoon about 2 teaspoons of cheese-garlic mixture in center of 6 patties. Top with remaining patties and press together, sealing edges. Refrigerate burgers until ready to grill.
4. When You Get There: Heat grill to medium. Brush and oil grill grate. Grill burgers, covered, 7 to 9 minutes, turning after about 4 minutes, for medium-done (150F, slightly pink). Add 1 minute per side for well-done (160F). Brush with remaining hot sauce mixture during last 2 minutes of cooking. Toast buns if you like. Serves 6.

This recipe uses a slow cooker to cook brisket, so place brisket in cooker.
Sprinkle soup mix on meat and spread chili sauce over top.
Season as desired with garlic powder and black pepper.
Sprinkle diced onions over meat and add water.
Cook 4 hours or until meat is tender.
Allow to cool a few minutes before slicing.

Preheat oven to 325F.
Place brisket in roasting pan.
Add celery, onion, chili sauce, salt and pepper.
Roast uncovered 1 to 1 1/2 hours and bast frequently.
Cover and roast brisket 3 to 3 ½ hours.
Add beer in final hour of cooking.

Preheat oven to 300F.
Trim excess fat from brisket.
Season with garlic powder.
Place brisket on heavy duty foil and place on a rimmed baking sheet or glass dish.
Mix remaining ingredients together and pour the mixture over brisket.
Pull foil over brisket and cover loosely, creating a tent.
Bake 1 hour per pound.
Place meat on cutting board and allow to cool.
Slice into thin slices and place back in baking dish without foil.
Pour juices over meat.
Serve immediately or refrigerate to serve later.
To reheat, place dish in 350F oven 30 to 45 minutes.

Place brisket in roasting pan with fat-side up.
Pour Italian dressing over meat.
Cover and cook at 250F to 300F for 7 to 8 hours.

In a dutch oven heat the vegetable or canola oil over medium to medium-high heat.
Brown the onions in the oil and remove them from the pan.
Place the brisket in the pan and brown on all sides.
Return the onions to the pan and season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika. Put garlic in pan and cover.
Reduce heat and simmer for 3 to 4 hours, turning brisket occasionally.
Place potatoes in pan during the last 20-30 minutes of cooking.
Remove brisket from pan and slice across the grain.
Thicken gravy in pan with flour, if desired.

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