Nola Cooper Designs

This is the story of a WordPress website nightmare…

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!

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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!!

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*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?

A QR (Quick Response) code is a matrix bar code readable by camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded in a QR code can vary from information about an upcoming event, to a code that will take the “reader” directly to the code owner’s website. The photo to the right is an example of a QR Code on a product that will take you directly to a manufacturer’s website.

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!

Website Architecture is the organization of (sometimes complex) online content into categories and the creation of an interface for displaying those categories. It is very important that your website architecture is compatible with your target market. Your site structure should be easy to navigate, and flow well for the people you intend to provide a product or service to.¹

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

All websites should have the same basic layout: A header (top), navigation (can be top or side), content area, and a footer (bottom). When deciding where to put your navigation, keep in mind that studies have been done on “eye tracking” of websites, and where the visitor’s eye typically goes when surfing. These studies continue to show that most people view a website from left to right in an F shaped pattern.

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!

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¹ from Website Design.

Just what is a WordPress Theme, anyway?

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.

There are always trends in marketing. And in the online world they seem to come fast and furious. Some of these trends are beneficial (Social Media is most definitely one of them!), and some of them are questionable. It has become common in the industry to refer to SEO practices as “White Hat” (good guy – honest – good practice) and “Black Hat” (sneaky – not always on the up and up). Many SEO firms in today’s world will promise you “First Page Listings” in Google and other SE’s.

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