On Tuesday, January 3, 2012 I was back in the office from a Holiday Break. I had an immediate need on my schedule for that day. A client needed to move their WordPress website to a new host. The old hosting account would be expiring on January 4.

Typically, moving a WordPress site is not a huge undertaking for me. I’ve done it so many times now, that I’ve come up with a very good “flow” for getting it done quickly. But this project was full of “flow busters” from the start.

Turns out the client’s old design company [referred to from this point forward as "the company"] was also the host (reseller) of the website. And, to make matters worse, the company had registered the client’s domain in THEIR name, instead of the client’s name. At the time I got involved, the client had already been to court and won the rights to her domain and website. But, that did not mean we were home free. When you move a WordPress website, you not only need a backup of the database, you also need the theme files, any paid plugins, and a copy of the uploads folder (Media Library). Because they would not allow us any access to the client’s hosting via cpanel or ftp (don’t even get me started on their reason for THAT*), it was requested of the company that they send us a zip file containing those items. This was our response:

“The images used were purchased with a single use license – which were used for the website – and not available for other use. There is no ‘theme’ to supply you with as it was custom built. The plug-ins are not ours to supply you – they are simply wordpress plug-ins.

Your hosting expires on January 4th. We do not provide payment for hosting accounts as we have provided you with 30 days notice of such payment becoming due. If you allow it to expire the site will go down.”

SERIOUSLY?? THAT WAS FULL OF EXCUSES…

This reply infuriated me, and prompted me to write this post! First of all, they are correct that many images are “single use”. But in this case that “single use” would have been for the client’s website…so we’re not violating anything by transferring them over.

Second of all, customizations to a default (WordPress TwentyTen) theme still reside in a theme’s files, so when they say there’s no “theme” to supply they are incorrect. I had access to the WordPress dashboard on the old host, and could see the customizations they’d made to the TwentyTen theme. The theme was not functioning very well at all, and we had none of the theme’s images…

Lastly, it is true that plugins are available from WordPress. But if there are any plugins that are paid, you have to get those files from the place they were purchased. Luckily, we were able to substitute. Interestingly enough, the slideshow plugin they were using had been discontinued because of a vulnerability which could be exploited by malicious people to conduct SQL injection attacks.

The company charges a very large sum, not only to mildly customize a default WP theme, but also for upkeep. Head desk, head desk, head desk….

I went to work. First, I got the needed database backup, and used 7-Zip to unzip the .gz file that WP Database Backup gives you. Now we had the correct type of file (.sql) to import into the new database.

Next, after toying with the theme files we were able to get from the dashboard, we decided to just go with a fresh theme. I customized my memorability theme for the look and feel the client had wanted from the start.

We had to have the 318 files from the old Media library…otherwise we’d be looking for images for weeks to come. No one wanted to sit and download these files one at a time! After doing some research, I found DownThemAll, a FireFox AddOn. This allowed me to download a whole page of images at a time…saving us lots of headaches.

NIGHTMARE OVER! We now had all of the ingredients necessary to move the site, without any input or help from “the company”. You can imagine the phrases that were bouncing around my office at that point!

Finally, it was a matter of installing WordPress; importing the database; installing the theme; and then fixing the image links. (this is all we should have had to do from the start) A couple of hours of work, had turned into 2 days, but lessons were learned, and the site works so much better than it did before (looks better too)!!

We got our positive outcome!

If you want to find out whether you OWN your own domain, go to WhoIs.net and look it up. Your name or your business name should show as the “Registrant”. If it does not, contact your domain registrar and find out why!!

*Did you know that your host can restrict FTP access to a particular directory? Yes, it’s done all the time. That way if you have specific ftp needs on just one of many sites you have hosted on a single account, you don’t have to expose all of your sites. What a concept, eh?

So Why Should I Have One? Smart phones with sophisticated apps are becoming more prevalent in today’s “always connected” society. QR Codes allow you to publish lots of valuable information in a small area, or provide easy access to contact information–making you and your business more available.

Types of Codes: URL (your own website, sales page, or your social media pages to “follow”), Contact Information, Google Places/Map, Email Address, Phone Number, SMS (a form of short text messaging), RSS Feed. There are so many possibilities!

Some Great Uses:

• Business Cards – put your URL or Email address in a QR code, making it quick and easy to find out more about you.
• Promotional Materials – put your URL on a coffee mug, or any other promotional item.
• Marketing Materials – use a QR code to put your URL on your catalog or brochure, especially when handing them out at trade shows! Link to a blog post or article on your site that’s relevant to the print materials you’re distributing. Using a QR code on a post card allows you to use even more space to get your message across, by putting your contact information in the code.
• Signage – put your contact information or URL on your Car Magnet, or any banner or sign you display. A great opportunity for quick contact with Real Estate agents!

Truly, a QR code will be valuable on any item that you distribute or display, due to the increased usage of camera and smart phones in today’s society!

Generate your own code for FREE over at delivr. Sign up for their other free services while you’re there!

There are some basics to WordPress architecture that are very important. Understanding the difference between Posts and Pages in your WordPress website will make a difference in how your site content is organized. Your website’s architecture is very important to your online success.

A Basic Layout

Example of an F-Shaped Heatmap

Pages

The pages of your WordPress website should contain static content. Static content is text that informs your visitors and that will not change (or will change very infrequently). Things like “About Us”, “Contact Us”, and “Services” are considered to be static content. Static content CAN and should still be categorized and organized within your site. For example, a Services page could contain an overview of your company’s services (and say for example a Mission Statement). If you have enough content, you could then create a static page for each of your services…making them “children” of the Services page.

While we’re on the topic of Content Families: A Parent Page is a top level page. A Child page is a page that is organized beneath another page. An example would be: “Social Media Marketing” as a child of “Services”.

The best way to keep Pages vs. Posts straight is to remember that Pages are relatively static. You will rarely change their content (minor changes such as prices or phone numbers, etc.), and they are informative sections of your site that generally describe your business.

Posts

If your WordPress website is not primarily a blog to begin with, it’s a great idea to take advantage of the posting ability and add a Blog page to your site…or change it up and call it News or something quirky.

WordPress Posts are wonderful little things! They provide you with a nearly limitless way to keep your site updated and your visitors engaged. Setting up Categories will help keep your posts organized…making them easier to reference later, and even helping your visitor to understand them better. And yes, your post can be in more than one Category.

Basically, a post is an informative article or opinion piece that you provide to your readers to keep them engaged in your website. Posts keep them coming back, get their reactions (through comments), and even get them to SHARE! You can write a post as often as you like…several times a day, once a month…it’s up to you.

REMEMBER: If you’re going to post opinion pieces, don’t forget that the Web is a big place, and with the advent of Social Media, your words will have the ability to travel (and be shared) far and wide. Try not to post something that could reflect negatively on your business, especially if your posts are linked in any way to your business website.

Incredible Flexibility

Your WordPress website does not have to contain any posts at all. If your site is more of a brochure for your business, and you don’t have a desire (or the time) to engage your visitors on a regular basis, then there’s no need to post.

However, do keep in mind that posting to a blog or news section on your site and being social, keeps your visitors coming back…AND keeps the search engines coming back as well!

A theme is your WordPress website’s template or skin. It’s what makes your site look good and work well. Depending on how it was designed, your theme should also have built in functions for the site, including menus (for upper, side, and bottom navigation of the site), widgets, blog integration, and different page templates.

Basic WordPress theme components:

• Widgets – the theme should (at the very least) have a widgetized sidebar.
• Custom Menus – WordPress added this feature as of version 3.0, so your theme should be able to utilize it…at least for the main navigation.
• Easy Customization – If you’re using a premium theme, and you didn’t hire a designer, you should be able to upload your own logo to and change some basic colors in your theme.
• SEO – your theme should be set up for easy integration of SEO plugins. Things like breadcrumbs, custom meta tags, custom page titles, etc.
• Fewer Plugins – Your theme should not require tons of plugins to function properly. The more plugins you use, the greater risk of increasing your load-time.

Okay…so what’s a Widget?

Widgets are tools or content that you can add, arrange, and remove from the “widgetized” areas of your site. Widgets make it easy to customize your layout. They show up within your WordPress dashboard in the Appearance menu (see image to the right). Typically, the widgetized areas of your site will be labeled (this one is labeled Blog Side Bar). You’ll be able to select the widgets you want, then drag and drop them into any area you want. You may have a widgetized sidebar area, or footer area. Using these little gems, you can add a search box, Social Media links, a blog roll (list of links), recent blog posts, blog categories and much more….making your site unique.

Creating a Custom Menu

To find out if your theme uses Custom Menus, visit the “Menus” link in the Appearance menu of your dashboard. In the Theme Locations box, it will tell you how many (if any) custom menus your theme supports. You can create menus and name them whatever you’d like (such as “Top Navigation”, “Footer Navigation”, etc.). Once you’ve created and saved a menu, you will then be able to designate which of your new menus should be used in which area of your site. In my example on the right, I created two menus: Top Navigation Menu, and Footer Navigation Menu. I then selected the Top Navigation Menu as my Primary Navigation, and the Footer Navigation Menu as my Footer Navigation.

Theme Types

There are some basic types of themes available, the main difference being the home page layout:

1. Blog – Used if your site will function only as a blog. This theme will show your most recent blog posts on the home page, and you’ll have static pages for “About” and “Contact”. You can also add your blog categories as sections of your top navigation, or as a list in your sidebar to make it easier for your viewers to find content.
2. Static Home Page – Best used for a brochure site, a theme with a static home page allows you to put in whatever home page content you’d like. With this type of theme, you can create a separate “blog” page (for news or updates), or not blog at all. You would typically utilize the pages in this type of theme and not the posts and post categories.
3. Magazine Style – A magazine style theme is becoming very common amongst WordPress users. With a magazine style theme, your home page contains many sections. Those sections may contain blog posts from specific categories, widgets, image galleries and more. With the right theme setup, you’ll be limited only by your imagination! This type of theme can also have a separate “blog” page, where all posts can be accessed in one place. Magazine style themes allow you to showcase your content.

Your theme can also be divided into columns (for displaying your content); from one column all the way up to several columns.

How do I choose a theme?

The best way to decide on a theme is to know beforehand what you want that theme to do for you. Choosing to use the WordPress platform for your site was a smart step. The next one is to sit down and create a flow-chart of your site. Once you know your site’s basic sections, you’ll have an idea of how you want the site to function overall. This will then help you determine what type of “home page layout” will best suit your content.

Remember to keep your target market in mind when deciding on a theme. Usability is important, and if your readers are confused by your content, your site will not do well.

Another determining factor will be ease of use. If you do not have the budget to hire a designer, you’ll need a theme that’s super easy for the end user.

Colors matter! Make sure that the theme you’ve chosen also matches your branding color scheme. If it doesn’t, then it should be easy to change those colors without knowing CSS or HTML. If you have basic HTML and CSS knowledge, then you’ll be able to do even more with your theme, and colors will not be a factor.

SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing. (from Wikipedia)

There are SEO “trends” that can get you in trouble, so know your risks

Spamdexing – (aka search spam) repeating unrelated phrases, to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system. Here are three common ways of “spamdexing”:

Keyword Stuffing – calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page. Long lists of keywords or keyword phrases placed within page content (or in most cases, at the end of the page content) are considered keyword stuffing. Making them into internal links does not negate the fact that it’s stuffing! Which brings us to…

Link Spam – links between pages that are present for reasons other than merit (or good content). Hidden links or putting hyperlinks where visitors will not see them to increase link popularity. Highlighted link text can help rank a webpage higher for matching that phrase.

Article Spinning – rewriting existing articles by changing a few words here and there, to avoid penalties imposed by search engines for duplicate content.

While many forms of spamdexing are practiced today, and they can, and often do, produce positive short term SEO results – it can be a risky practice. SE’s have been known to ban a site for these methods. Most SEO professionals will tell you that SEO is a process..and a process that takes time. Anything worthwhile does, right?

So what can you do as a website owner? Sometimes even with a good SEO plugin the time required to optimize your site just is not available (whether it’s your time or an employee’s time). If you have to hire an SEO firm, be sure they tell you up-front what techniques they will use. Get details. Discuss risks. Find out what they will do if their process causes your site to be banned. If they promise you a first page or top listing…find out exactly what keyword or keyword phrase that will be for (you may be surprised to find it’s not so relevant to your site’s content). In a nutshell, be aware…

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ:

• Google Says Goodbye to Black Hat SEO
• The 5 Best White Hat SEO Techniques
• There is Nothing “Urgent” in SEO

BUT…

It’s important to remember that you should set up a Facebook PAGE for your business, not a profile. Profiles are for individuals. Individuals can be friends with people, businesses cannot – per Facebook’s Terms of Use:

Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations of any type are not permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization. We have created Facebook Pages to allow organizations to have a presence on Facebook. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from user profiles, and optimized for an organization’s needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fan’s recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence for any artist, business or brand.

If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use. If you have questions about how to best leverage your Facebook Page, please check out our Insider’s Guide or FAQ.

All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.

You wouldn’t want a profile anyway!

With a Facebook page, your business will have Fans instead of Friends, and there’s no limit to the number (profiles have a 5,000 friend limit). A Facebook Page allows you so much more in terms of promoting your business! Pages offer many things that a profile does: photos, videos, and wall posts (status updates); but they also offer so much more! You can use your page’s discussion boards to start conversations about specific topics. Use the Question feature to create a Fan Poll. Add applications such as TabPress that allow you to create a welcome message for your page. It even allows you to create two separate messages: one for non-fans (new visitors) and one for fans.

Facebook pages provide you with tools to gauge your traffic and fan participation, as well as to start using Facebook ads (which by the way, I’ve found to be a very good return on investment).

Already have a profile for your business?

Not a problem…but, you should convert it as soon as possible, to avoid losing not only your photos, but your “friends” as well. When you use Facebook’s Conversion Tool, your confirmed friends automatically become fans. Your profile photo will transfer over, but you’ll want to make sure that you save any important photos and status updates from your profile…those WILL NOT TRANSFER. You will want to re-post them when the conversion is complete.

Don’t Forget you will need to have a personal profile set up in your name, in order to be the Administrator of the page. If your business profile was under your name, the conversion tool will address that issue for you.

Social Media is important for your business…make sure you’re following the rules, and using the correct tools!

There are two types of “WordPress” sites:

WordPress.com

Blogs that are set up on the WordPress.com site, are hosted there, and while you are able to use free themes (templates), and make some changes, you do not have the flexibility that you have with your own site…and you have the SEO disadvantage of sending website traffic to a domain other than your own.

Self-Hosted

Self-hosted WordPress sites use the free software downloaded from WordPress.org, and are installed on your own domain and hosting account. Besides the advantage of the traffic going directly to your own domain, your use of themes and plugins is only limited by your (and your designer’s) imagination.

To run a self-hosted WordPress site you need to be sure of a couple of basic things about your hosting account.  (1) You need at LEAST 50MB of disk space (more if you’re going to blog, or use eCommerce); and (2) You need to be able to create at least ONE MySQL database.

Why Use WordPress?

Simply put, the WordPress platform is easy to install, easy to use, and easy to optimize for every type of website. Even a novice can quickly get online with a WordPress website. The newest versions of WordPress make it easy to add images to your site, upload documents, and change your site’s navigation, content, and structure. With the added use of select plugins, it’s easy to embed videos, incorporate social media, and take charge of your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

If you plan to “blog” or even just post regular “news” on your site, WordPress is an excellent choice. Your content (posts) can be organized using categories and tags that will then make it easier for your readers to find them. The regular updates to content that come from blogging or posting, make the system carry more weight with the search engines, thus help to improve your rankings. WordPress also allows interaction with your visitors via a built in commenting system that you have complete control over.

Because your site’s content is database driven, it is very simple to reorganize that content at any time, just by changing categories, tags, page order, or the site’s navigation. And with themes (both free and custom), changing the look of your site can be as easy as a few clicks!

WordPress is the ultimate platform to test everything from site layout to content. And what better way to insure you get the best visitors to your site, than to test?

I’ve been using iStockphoto for many years, but there are several others that are comparable. There are also photo websites that cater to specific niches. Here are some of my favorites:

• Pixmac (new)
• iStockPhoto.com
• 123rf
• Getty Images
• stock.xchng
• Corbis (very high quality images)
• Shutterstock
• Dreamstime

Have a niche? Just enter that niche + “stock photos” or “royalty free photos” into Google, and you’ll be amazed at what you’ll find! For example, lets say you were creating a website for an Australian travel company. Enter “Australia stock photos” and you get this as your first choice: www.australiastockphotos.com.

On the specialized photo sites, you should expect to pay more for your images, but it can be worth it!

WordPress Expert Reveals Lurking Dangers of Not Upgrading WordPress And Why WordPress Updates are Critically Important

Mooresville, NC – June 20, 2011 – Have you upgraded WordPress lately on your blog or website? If not, Nola Cooper, of WordPress Website Upgrades, says you may be leaving yourself vulnerable to hackers. Yet many businesses fail to update their WordPress versions. Why would companies avoid doing something so important?

Here are 4 biggest reasons people fail to upgrade their WordPress blog.

1. Lack of knowledge in WordPress. Many business owners don’t know the first thing about upgrading WordPress for their website or blog.
2. Fear of losing WordPress posts. If something goes wrong in the WordPress update, there is always a chance of losing existing blog posts.
3. Messing up WordPress Plugins. Blog owners love the functionalities of their favorite widgets and WordPress plugins. Sometimes upgrading WordPress can prevent plugins from working properly.
4. Not knowing someone with the expertise to handle the WordPress upgrade. Not every web designer is familiar with WordPress. It’s important to find a company who specializes in WordPress update services to handle the upgrade.

Nola Cooper, who is a Certified Professional WordPress 3.0+ Expert says,

“Updating your WordPress version regularly is critically important. It protects your blog with necessary security patches. Having a professional WordPress upgrade service handle your WordPress update ensures that your blog database is protected, plugins maintain functionality, and that your WordPress upgrade goes without a hitch.”

Another advantage of working with an experienced WordPress designer is that they can help you get the most out of your blog. They can design a custom WordPress theme that not only communicates your brand but also has added functionality.

Nola says, “A custom WordPress designer can design a theme that enhances user navigation, loads quickly, and has features that make it easy to use. They can add plugins to boost SEO, reduce blog spam, and make it easy for visitors to bookmark a post on their favorite social marketing sites.”

About: Nola Cooper is the owner of WordPress Website Upgrades, a company that specializing in WordPress Update Services and designing professional WordPress themes. Since 1995, she has helped businesses to upgrade WordPress, maximize blog functionality, and create custom WordPress themes for their business. Find out more about how to get the most of your WordPress blog or website today by visiting her online at www.wordpresswebsiteupgrades.com.

CONTACT:
WordPress Website Upgrades
Nola Cooper
704-677-3037
www.wordpresswebsiteupgrades.com
design@nolacooper.com

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