Best of Best WordPress Tutorials of 2011 on WPBeginner

The last year was a big one for WordPress community. There have been awesome conferences and WordCamps, not to mention the release of WordPress 3.3. Over the course of the last year we wrote numerous tutorials and would like to point out some of our best ones.

Beginner Level Articles

These articles are for beginner level WordPress users and mostly come from our WordPress Beginner’s Guide category

What, Why, and How-To’s of Creating a Site-Specific WordPress Plugin – If you don’t know what a site-specific WordPress plugin is, then you should read this article to find out why you should have one, especially if you plan on changing themes.

How to Create and Setup Google+ Brand Page for Your WordPress Site – See how you can create your own business brand page on Google+ and how it can help your WordPress site.

Checklist: 15 Things You MUST DO Before Changing WordPress Themes – As easy as it is to change WordPress themes, if you are a beginner you should make sure to read this checklist just in case.

Beginner’s Guide to Pasting Snippets from the Web into WordPress – If you are unsure of how to paste code into your theme’s function.php file then this tutorial will show you exactly how to do it.

How to use FTP to upload files to WordPress for Beginners – File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a fast and simple way to transfer files from your computer to your web hosting server. In this article we walk you through using FTP to upload a plugin to your WordPress site.

What is a WordCamp and Why You Should Attend? [Infographic] – WordCamps are an important part of the WordPress community so if you don’t know what they are and you have a WordPress blog, this article will explain everything to you.

Why You Need a CDN for your WordPress Blog? [Infographic] – A content delivery network, or CDN, can be amazingly helpful in speeding up your WordPress blog. This article explains what a CDN is and why you need one.

Why and How you should be using iFrames for Videos in WordPress? – As the web switches from using Flash video embeds to HTML5 we recommend that you think about doing the same for your WordPress blog and start using iFrames for your videos. This will ensure that as more and more people access your content on mobile devices, your videos will still be viewable.

What, Why, and How-To’s of Email Newsletter for your WordPress Blog – From basics to advanced tricks, this article covers everything you need to know about email newsletters for your WordPress blog.

How to Add a Gallery in WordPress with a Lightbox Effect – In this article we show you how to use the built in WordPress gallery feature as well as how to install a plugin that will allow users to open images in a lightbox rather than going to a separate page.

How to Add a PayPal Donate Button in WordPress – Since a lot of new bloggers use paypal donations to help cover the costs of their blogs, in this article we show you how to include and use the PayPal donate button on your WordPress site.

WordPress Tutorials and Tricks on WPBeginner

How to Track Site or Network-wide User Activity in WordPress – If you are managing a multi-author WordPress blog it can be hard to keep track of all the activity on your site. In this article we show you how you can use a plugin to help you with that.

Case Study: Behind the Scenes Look of List25 – Plugins and Hacks – As you may know, we recently launched a new blog called List25. Although it seems like a simple list site at first, in this article we show you all of the cool plugins and hacks that we have in the back-end.

How to Automatically Link Keywords with Affiliate Links in WordPress – Many of our users ask us how they can make money from affiliate links. In this article we show you the best way to monetize the affiliate links on your WordPress blog.

How to Remove the Password Reset / Change option from WordPress – Sometimes you just don’t want to leave the option open for blog authors to change their passwords. In this article we show you how to remove that feature from the WordPress admin panel.

How to Add Custom Items to Specific WordPress Menus – As awesome as WordPress menus are, here we show you how to make them even better by adding custom items to them.

Default WordPress Generated CSS Cheat Sheet for Beginners – For beginners and experienced WordPress users alike, this CSS cheat sheet will make it easier to customize your blog.

Prevent Email Spam with WordPress AntiSpamBot Function – Learn how to prevent email spam for your WordPress blog using one of WordPress’s built in functions.

How to Add Rotating Testimonials in WordPress – By following this tutorial we will show you how you can create a rotating testimonial area in your WordPress blog. It doesn’t have to be limited to testimonials though, as you can include quotes, fun facts, etc.

How to Add Google Search in a WordPress Site – As amazing as WordPress can be, its search function leaves something to be desired. In this tutorial we show you you how to include Google’s much more advanced search feature on your WordPress site.

How to Remove WordPress Dashboard Widgets – If you have ever found it necessary to customize your WordPress dashboard then you know how important it is to be able to remove widgets that you do not need. In this tutorial we show you how to do that.

How to Create a Grid Display of Post Thumbnails in WordPress Themes – If you have a media centric site that uses galleries or just any showcase type WordPress site, in this tutorial we show you the best way to create a grid layout for your thumbnails.

How to Create Additional Image Sizes in WordPress – In this tutorial we show you how to use WordPress core funtions to resize your images rather than third party scripts.

How to Grayscale Images in WordPress – In case you ever wondered how to automatically gray scale images when you upload them, in this tutorial we show you how to do that using PHP.

How to Change the Login Logo URL in WordPress – While the default WordPress logo url points to WordPress.org, if you have a custom login logo or page design then you can use this technique to make it point somewhere more relevant.

How to Get Facebook Insights for Your WordPress Site – If your WordPress site is integrated with Facebook, we will show you how you can take full advantage of what Facebook has to offer.

How to Add a Free LiveChat option in your WordPress Blog – Adding a live chat feature to your WordPress blog can be extremely helpful and in this tutorial we show you exactly how to do that.

How to Add the Official Twitter Follow Button in WordPress – In this article we explain what the Twitter follow button is and how you can use it on your WordPress site.

How to Add the Google +1 Button to your WordPress – Here we explain what the Google +1 button is, how it can help your WordPress blog, and how you can use it.

How to Remove Menu Item in WordPress Admin Panel – Here is a tutorial that will show you how to remove items from the WordPress admin panel in order to make it easier on your clients and not confuse them.

How to Add Facebook Send Button in WordPress – If you are not sure how to use the Facebook send button then this tutorial is for you. It will explain how you can effectively use this powerful feature on your WordPress blog.

Display Popular Posts by Day, Week, Month, and All Time in WordPress – This article shows you how to create a tabber that displays popular posts by day, week, month, and all time in your WordPress sidebar without editing a single line of code.

How to Display WordPress Post Thumbnails with Captions – Although most of you probably know how to use the feature images function in WordPress, here we show you how you can add captions to your thumbnails.

How to Change the WordPress Database Prefix to Improve Security – In order to increase the security of your WordPress site and help prevent SQL injection attacks, we show you how to change the prefix on your database to make it harder for hackers.

How to Increase the Maximum File Upload Size in WordPress – Depending on your host and the package you select you will have a maximum file upload limit specified in your WordPress admin panel. In this article we show you how you can increase this limit.

WordPress Custom Fields 101: Tips, Tricks, and Hacks – Everything from what a custom field is to how you can use them on your WordPress site is covered in this comprehensive tutorial.

Increase your WordPress Blog Performance by using Google App Engine – Here we show you how to use Google’s app engine as a CDN to speed up your WordPress Blog.

How to Add Custom Fields Automatically on Post Publish in WordPress – In this article we discuss how to add custom fields on post publish which can be very useful if you are a developer looking to push WordPress to the next level.

How to Display Ads Only to Search Engine Visitors in WordPress – Studies show that users coming to your site from search engines are far more likely to click on your ads. In this tutorial we show you how to display ads to these visitors only.