Before skipping this post as “yet another infomercial”, let me tell you a few things about myself. My name is Dragos Roua, and I blog for 6 years now. DragosRoua.com, my main blogging outlet, has more than 100.000 unique users per month. I don’t buy links, I don’t do any black hat SEO, I don’t do AdSense or AdWords. Yet, I make a (more than) decent living out of this blog. I’m also one third of WPSumo, the main topic of today’s post.

Why did I tell you that? Because what follows is one of those rare occasions in which you will be exposed to a few secrets from somebody who (really) does blog for a living. Some of them may surprise you, some of them may make you raise an eyebrow, while some of the may even look familiar, but somehow not so obvious. Without further ado, let’s start.

1. Stay In Control

Each and every part of your blog must look exactly like you want. The blog is your visual identity. So that’s why I want to have total control when it comes to the places from where I can tweak my style settings. I want to be able to modify the header, the footer, the titles, the distance between various layout blocks, pretty much everything. Without writing code, that is.

And WPSumo comes with a very powerful visual style editor which really makes this job incredibly easy. While we were working on that, we had a few times the acute sensation that we will never finish it. Because each and every time we discovered a tiny setting that we were not including. And we started to add this and then that and then the other thing too.

But as we advanced, we came to a point where we actually start to use our visual editor instead of the CSS files. That was a real milestone. Now I get back to the CSS files only when I really want to get hardcore. And I don’t want that very often, because I have something much better to do with my time: writing viral posts and create a real, sustainable business.

2. Be Flexible. Really Flexible

Working in a standard, fixed layout, like the one you get with a vanilla WordPress installation is good. It forces you to become disciplined and find the best available space for your message. But after you write 100 or 200 (or, in my case, over 500) articles, you start to get bored with that fixed layout. Ok, I get it: I have the content area and two columns, now what?

So that’s why we started to work on an incredibly flexible layout manager. A layout what? A layout manager. It makes each and every posts or page from your blog unique. You can have on this post one column for the content and two sidebars (for the recent posts and comments), while for the next one you can have only one sidebar. Or no sidebar at all.

The effects of this layout manager are huge from a business point of view. Imagine you write a review for a really cool product. Now you can make the entire post look like it’s co-branded. For instance, add a sidebar with an affiliate banner, only visible in that post, so the reader will be totally captured in your message. Oh, and this layout manager, we made it visual too.

3. Just Keep Writing

Many blogs are starting great, but only a few are keeping the pace for more than 6 months. Writing constantly is not easy. This is why, 2 years ago, I wrote a plugin to help me with that. It was called Blog Audit, and, until recently, it was one of my best kept secrets. With Blog Audit you set up certain writing goals and then just watch the stats, as you progress with your writing.

I cannot tell you how important was the Blog Audit functionality for me. After the first few months I could clearly see what kind of posts were generating reactions, how many comments I had and how the category distribution of my posts influenced that.  So, when we decided to create WPSumo, I instantly decided to integrate this plugin into the core of the framework.

And the charts were also refined to show more clearly the 4 key metrics, including comments, pingbacks/trackbacks and category distribution. Yes, you get Blog Audit for free, because it’s part of the core framework. I know it’s hard to believe, that’s why I felt the need to confirm it. Oh, and we even made it multiuser too. ;)

4. Use Handy Building Blocks

Want more tools like these? They’re all in the shortcodes area. We’re talking buttons, icon boxes, notification boxes, titles, even layouts and columns. Because that’s what a premium wordpress framework should offer: premium tools.

5. Keep It Simple

No more dozens of different plugins (hard to maintain and update), just a really big fat layer of functionality, integrated with everything you ever wanted to. So, here are just a few things that you get for free in WPSumo, thus completely voiding the need for extra plugins.

• integrated mobile theme (with its own plethora of options, too)
• google +1 share button, twitter share button, facebook share button, stumbleupon share button (with custom placement options too)
• facebook comments (you can have standard comments, facebook comments, or both. For each and every post you choose to)
• export and import of your settings (tweaking on the localhost, then just importing the settings in the live site)
• a simple and effective way to manage your ads (three units per post / page with custom placement options)
• a state of the art featured area (those nifty animations you see on top of some popular magazines, that’s what I’m talking about)
• a powerful portfolio section (just in case you sell something really cool on your blog)
• SEO settings for posts / pages and other related options (noindex, nofollow, robots.txt and more)
• more than 80 custom fonts (Google Fonts, Cufon Fonts, Generic Fonts)
• customizable home page (with your custom content, your latest blog posts, blogs from a certain category, pretty much everything)
• custom widgets for Facebook Like Box, Recent Posts, Twitter feeds, Flicker photo stream, Contact Forms and more
• last, but not least, more than 50 hooks and extensions are available if you really want to go under the hood and transform your blog into a spaceship (which will be really cool, isn’t it?)

As you can see, only in this list there are at least 12 plugins that can be completely eliminated from your WordPress setup, because all the functionality is already inside of the framework.

Now, face it: you don’t make any money by endlessly tweaking your theme. You don’t make money by installing a new Twitter plugin. You don’t make money by trying to make that Facebook Box fit in the sidebar. You make money because you write compelling content. And that’s you should do pretty much all the time.

There is this mental blog that you gotta “pimp” your theme constantly. Maybe, if you already have 200.000 visitors per day and you get easily bored. But if you’re just putting yourself out there, if you try to make a difference, if you want to create value, then endlessly “pimping” your theme is just a big, lousy and expensive waste of time. That’s where WPSumo really shines. Although it does that by putting itself in the shadow, so to speak, and getting the garbage out of your way, so you can create fantastic content in your fantastic blog.

So, here we are. This post wasn’t intended as an infomercial, (although if you buy a developer license of WPSumo, I think you’re gonna make a pretty wise decision), but rather as a way to understand what are your real needs when it comes to blogging and the tools you need for that.

So, if, from now on, the moment you’ll want to buy a theme for your next blog, you’re gonna stop and get back here just to see if that theme is compliant with those 5 requirements, I consider my job here done.

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

5 Fundamental Reasons To Switch To WPSumo

Inspiration. That strange thing that boosts our brains, lifts our spirits and seems to automagically conduct our hands on the drawing board. Or on the computer keyboard. Or on the rock we’re transforming into a beautiful sculpture. That’s a fantastic feeling to feel. A fantastic place to be in. And fantastic state of your body.

How can you get there all the time? How can we repeat those creative episodes which seems to have no real connection with one each other? Is there anything capable to make our inspiration run on auto-pilot? In today’s post I’ll try to respond to some of those questions.

First of all, the main answer is “Yes”. I think we can re-create inspiration whenever we need it. Didn’t say this is going to be easy, but it’s possible. And second, I think inspiration is not something outside, something you can reach to. It’s something inside, something that you have to learn to let out.

We’re creatives beings, we modify our world in ways it was never modified before. And inspiration is our normal state as human beings. The only reason we can’t always be in that flow is because we’re blocking it. Consciously or, most of the time, unconsciously. We’re building perception walls around our core in order to behave like civilized citizens in the society or because we’re too afraid to let out our full potential. We’re finding excuses and we’re inventing lies, just to avoid the fact that we are inspired people, ready to change the world with a smile. And when we really need that internal power, we can’t find it anymore. It was already buried by our own social conventions or internal fears.

The good news is that you can overcome these blocks. You can find ways to remove the walls and freely manifest your entire potential. Here are 9 verified techniques to boost your inspiration whenever you need it. They’re all based on the approach that we don’t have to search for inspiration but merely remove the blocks in front of it.

1. Free Writing

Start with a blank piece of paper. Put it in front of you and start writing whatever crosses your mind. Don’t bother about grammar or punctuation, just follow your thoughts as close as you can. Write everything you think, regardless of the connection with that specific project you have to work on. In the beginning you’ll find it a little difficult to focus and maybe even struggle a bit to identify your thoughts. But once you wrote several sentences, a surprising flow of thoughts will emerge. You’ll be surprised by the noise in your head. You have so many thoughts in the background and getting them out of your head will seem to last for ever. At some point, the noise will start to lower. Your thoughts will be outside your brain and your focus will slowly start to shift towards your project. Keep writing until you surprise yourself writing your great ideas about your current project.

2. Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a fantastic creativity booster. As opposed to linear documents, mind maps are more like graphs, with nodes of information which in turn holds other nodes of information. You can create a mind map for a book, describing each chapter as a node, or for a project, defining each feature as a node. Whenever you have the time to re-create your project, do it with a mind map. Start with the title and then add nodes with features or goals. You can use a software program for that or you can use a blank paper, the physical support doesn’t really matters. One of the biggest things about mind maps is that you see all the project at once. And out of this perspective, from the height of bird-eye view, something will start to change in your project. You’ll start to see new connections, missing links or unnecessary clutter. Before you know it, you will work on your project and feel inspired.

3. Switching Work Places

Ask for a day out of office from your boss and go out. Start to work at home, for instance. Switching work places will have a beneficial effect on your brain. There will be a lot of new stuff to be processed, a lot of your immediate focus will be on the new stimulus around you, so you won’t have enough to keep the roadblocks in place. That’s the mechanism. Whenever you’re surrounded with something new, your internal strings are loose. And that’s a good news if you’re searching for some inspiration. The trick here is to chose your alternative workplaces wisely enough so they will give you plenty of comfort while still challenging your focus with new stimulus. Don’t spend too much time only at home or at the office. Move on, find other places. I had very good results while working in public libraries as well as in coffee shops.

4. Ask Why?

That’s a process I learned from my 3 year old girl. Just ask “why?” until you have nothing more to answer. “Why do I have to make this website?”, “Because I signed a contract.” , “Why did I sign the contract?”, “Because I liked the project.”, “Why I liked the project?”. You go the idea, just play it until you can’t answer anymore. As for the other tip, this one will force your brain to work on what it already knows, let it out question by question and gradually make room for your creative solutions. Even if you think it’s pretty easy to get to the end of the questions, I can assure you it’s not. You’ll be surprised how inventive you can be when it comes to your own motivations. But when you really reach the point “no more answer”, that’s a real breakthrough, believe me. That is the moment you can actually start to work on your project.

5. Find Similarities

Find the closest projects to your assignment and watch them. If it’s an ecommerce website, find the best 5 ecomerce websites and start staring at them. If it’s about a fashion website, find the best 5 fashion websites and start scrutinizing them. This is not intended to make you blatantly copy other people’s work, but to start an internal vibe on your future project. Sometimes you need a starting note just like a musician. All songs are made from the same notes, it’s the specific combination that makes them valuable and uniques. It’s the same in every other area. You use the same tools and instruments like every other people. You work with ideas the same way a musician works with notes. So, find a place to get a decent “E” or “F” and see if it’s matching your internal vibe. Find that specific note and play your own song.

6. Postpone It For A Short While

One of the things that worked pretty well for me was to short term postpone some of the projects I had. Of course, if the context allowed that. If there was a heavy deadline, I couldn’t do this, obviously. But whenever I had enough time to start a project and didn’t had any inspiration at all, I left it in my inbox and reviewed it every morning until something kicked out. Postponing it will cheat a little bit on your internal blocks, it will make the project fly “under the radar“. It’s like keeping a low profile until you find your best opportunity. If you take out the strain on that project a little bit, your internal guardians will start to think it’s not that important and will stop blurring it. You will soon realize you had that brilliant idea about how to kickstart it all the time. It was there from the beginning, but it needed a little time to grow up.

7. Make A List Out Of It

Break it down in smaller chunks until you can’t break it anymore. Too often we can’t get inspiration because the path to the goal is blurred. We don’t know how we’re going to do it. Making a list, like in a sketchy implementation plan (not a full one, a full plan will break inspiration by focusing you on the practical details) will surely change your approach. You will focus on the internal structure of the projects, on their natural flow and the way they all fit in the big picture. A list will allow you to individually pick smaller parts and focus exclusively on them, freeing your resources from a bigger load. If it’s smaller, it’s usually easier to do. At some point, while you’re detailing parts of the project, something will try to tell you: “ok, I know how we’re going to do this”. And that’s inspiration.

8. Close Your Eyes

I’m not kidding. Close your eyes. Don;t do it like in a sweet game of “sugar, there’s a surprise waiting on the living room table, keep your eyes closed until we get there”. No, close your eyes and stay like this for at least 15 minutes. I know it’s difficult to time yourself with your eyes closed, but you got the ideas. Focus on your other senses. Let the project float in the background. Pay attention to the sounds around you, to the subtle air pressure changes, to the smells. You perceive more than 80% of your reality through your eyes. If you can temporarily close this gate, while still maintaining your consciousness alert, you will free some internal resources. At some point, you’ll feel the need to come back to the world, to open your eyes again. And, most of the time, you’ll do this because you just had a fantastic idea. About your project, of course.

9. Get A Second Opinion

You know, it happens more often than you think. You become so caught in your own perfectionist approach, than you forget what inspiration is. You’re focused on the results, on the techniques you use, on the tools and all you want to do is to get that thing done. And when you finish it, you’re so tired that you don’t even know if you were inspired or not. Yes, it happens more often than you think. And instead of moving forward knowing that you did a wonderful job, you erase everything and start over: it was such an ugly project, my god, how could I come up with something like that? Don’t do that. Ask for a second opinion. You may be surprised about how many beautiful things you can create, but you bury them because your low self-esteem.

10. Remember

Inspiration is not something you use, but something you allow to exist from within.

The Author

Dragos Roua is a serial online entrepreneur, personal development fanatic, blogger, raw foodist, father, husband, dreamer, risk taker. Think happiness is a process, not a goal. Dragos has an amazing blog where he writes about personal development, productivity and other inspirational topics. You should definitely follow @DragosRoua on Twitter and check out his new ebook – 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset

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Header image via Red Henry

This is a post from Inspired Magazine. If you like it, you may want to subscribe to our RSS full feed to be updated on every article we're publishing. Also, it's highly recommended to follow us on Twitter!

Inspired Talks – 10 Simple Ways to Instantly Boost Your Inspiration