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WordPress 3.0 Upgrade & Premium Theme Developers Fail at Customer Service

June 28, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

Most of you know that the much talked about WordPress Version 3.0 has been released and is flashing at you when you access your admin panel begging you to upgrade.  After a long weekend of fixing problems caused by the upgrade, I strongly recommend that you fight the urge to jump on that band wagon just yet!

After researching fixes to crashes caused on my sites that were using the Thesis Themes (the last new shiny object), I realized that perhaps this upgrade should have come with an install wizard or at least some caution labels to the unsuspecting users.  Here’s what I learned AFTER the fact about upgrading:

1.  Back-up - As with all automatic upgrades of WordPress, most of us all ready knew that we should backup our files before we hit that shiny upgrade button.  Wonder what the ratio is of the people who know to the people who do!!  Well, did you know that the back-up required before upgrading to WordPress 3.0 included all the plug-ins currently running on your site?

2.  Disable All Plug-ins - I may not be  the brightest crayon in the box nor am I a professional programmer but if this step was so vitally important to THIS upgrade, why wasn’t there a flashing pop-up or caution screen before the automatic upgrade button was engaged???  By not disabling all my plug-ins, I was rewarded with 23 error messages on my site that when researched through the help forums were all suggested the same fix “disable all plug-ins”.  How helpful is that?  Not to mention, just disabling them after the fact DOES NOT make it instantly better.  Certainly NOT a customer service friendly response!

3.  Backup Theme – We all know from using WordPress that not all themes work in the newer versions and when we choose our theme templates, there is usually a notification of what was the last version that it was tested with so that we can use that information to make our decision as to whether to purchase or download that particular theme.  Well who would have thought that PREMIUM theme developers were NOT working closely enough with the techs at WordPress that they could be already preparing upgrades on their themes for their customers in anticipation of problems they were going to be having.  After all, beta versions of WordPress 3.0 have been out for several months.  The help forums all indicate that we should be patient and that new releases are coming and in the interim we should upload an alternate theme…now that is certainly in fail in the customer service department in my book!

I would love to save you all many hours of frustration if you have already hit that shiny upgrade button and are now in error heaven, but I do not have the magic fix and am in the middle of reverting back to WordPress 2.9 and hoping that all my content will be in tack when I get there.

A big WHALE FAIL to WordPress for not engaging their users persistently prior to this upgrade and  the same to both WordPress and premium theme developers for not already having had their techs releasing the fixes that they obviously knew were going to be needed.  Perhaps we have put WordPress on a pedestal way to early in the internet game!

Filed Under: Website Maintenance, WordPress Websites Tagged With: , , , , ,

Is Your Website Out of Date?

June 1, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

By John J Holland

Is it time for your business to have a website makeover? Screen resolution standards, layout trends, artistic design and marketing are undergoing changes all of the time. If your website design was cutting edge a few years ago, it is most likely out of date today. You can think of a website makeover as the paint, cleaning & updates you would automatically do for a physical storefront– These are the regular maintenance tasks that you do to ensure the public that you are not only still open for business but are also doing well.

How do you know when it is time for a website makeover?

With a physical storefront it is easy to tell when a fresh new coat of paint is needed or your displays or furniture is out of date, but knowing when the time is ripe for a website redesign can be slightly more difficult. The best way to check if your website is behind in the times is to do some surfing around the web. Make a list of competitor websites as well as websites that you regularly frequent and compare those sites to your own website. By comparing your website to other websites, you will begin to notice what works and what doesn’t work– then you’ll be able to assess your own website more accurately.

Modern website design focuses on making information clear and concise, presenting your company and your products in the best possible light. Internet marketing has become more sophisticated, therefore methods have been developed that allow for layouts that maximize exposure and encourage web surfers to interact, join, purchase and collaborate. A website redesign will allow you to take advantage of these advances in internet marketing.

Size does matter…

The most noticeable sign that you need a website makeover is the width of your website. With more and more computers being sold with widescreen monitors (especially laptops), your site that was originally designed for 800 x 600 pixel screen resolution will now look very small on a 1280 x 960 or larger screen resolution. The ideal width for the modern website is between 950 and 970 pixels wide. That size range is perfect because it not only caters to widescreens (if designed properly), but also still works for the commonly used 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

If your website was created a few years ago, there’s a good chance that your site was designed to accommodate smaller screen resolutions and needs to be brought up to date. On modern computer screens, your website could look very small and insignificant.

Content is King!

One of the best things you can do to help bring your website up to date is to update your website content. Every page on your website is a chance for you to capture the interests of a visitor. With properly developed text and images that are up to date with the times, you’ll be able to maximize your conversion from visitor to customer. Your text should be compelling– Talk to the reader, don’t talk at them. Treat the site visitor as if you were sitting across the table drinking coffee with them and don’t forget to include a call to action. You can stand in front of a door all day long telling people about all of the wonderful things they’ll see on the other side of that door– But if you don’t tell them to go thru the door, they probably never will!

On top of your compelling text (whether it’s about your products or about your services), you should always have a call to action that encourages the reader to want to proceed with contacting you, buying from you or signing up with your newsletter or program.

Website makeovers are designed to give your business the greatest edge by presenting your business or organization in the best possible light. Modern web design is clear, crisp, highly readable and encourages visitors to become customers. You want your business to put on its best possible face, to look fresh, enticing, and most of all– Current. You wouldn’t wear clothes that are outdated and out of fashion– It’d make you look unprofessional and out of sync with what’s current. Put your website in your shoes (just not your old ones).

Keep your website looking its best and producing its best with a website redesign by JH Studios. Not only can we help you redevelop your website with a modern look & feel, we can also help market your website and get it to show up higher on Google. Higher placement on Google means more traffic– That mixed with informative well developed content and a good call to action means a higher chance for customer conversion!

JH Studios is a Tampa web design and marketing firm that helps businesses of all sizes build their brand and focus their marketing efforts for optimum Return on Investment (ROI). From powerful websites and Search Engine Optimization to full color business cards, postcards, brochures & door hangers and logo imprinted promotional products, JH Studios has all of the business marketing tools and services that you need to build and market your brand.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_J_Holland
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An Effective Web Site Or Blog Has a Statement of Purpose

May 25, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

By Jon R. Allen

You have a Web site or a blog to communicate with your visitors. An effective Web site or blog successfully communicates with its target audience, it meets the needs of its visitors. What do you want to create with your Web site or blog and why?

Visitors usually come to your site for one or more, of these three reasons:

  • They are looking for information.
  • They want to be entertained.
  • They want to gain education, they want to learn something.

An Effective Web Site or Blog Has a Statement of Purpose.

You must get a message across to your visitors, you must meet the needs of your visitors. Before you make the first mouse click while designing your new effective Web site or blog, you should have a Statement of Purpose. In a nutshell, a Statement of Purpose explains why your site or blog exists, what is its reason for being.

Some questions to ask yourself when writing your Statement of Purpose:

  • Why are you creating this site?
  • What are your goals?
  • What will be the focus of your site?
  • What do you want to accomplish?
  • Who will be your visitors?
  • What are the needs and interests of your visitors?
  • How are you going to meet the needs and interests of your visitors?
  • Are you going to inform, entertain, and/or educate?
  • Who is your target market?
  • What is your product, goods, or service – what are you going to provide your target market?
  • What’s it all going to be about?

Your Statement of Purpose does not have to be long and drawn out. A few sentences, maybe four or five, or a small list is all it takes. Regardless of the length of your Statement of Purpose, it must provide you a clear reason for your Internet site efforts. Your Statement of Purpose gives you the map to your Internet site destination… to success. Here is the Statement of Purpose I use for one of my blogs:

To provide information and answers to the questions and problems people have when they begin or manage a Web site or blog powered dynamically by WordPress, or statically by XHTML/HTML. Discuss Web site and blog creation, PHP/MySQL, CSS, SEO, management, coding, and fundamentals. To help my visitors learn how to create and maintain effective Web sites and/or blogs.

You should make your Statement of Purpose available for your visitors to see. Your Statement of Purpose will help your visitors determine if you can meet their needs. My above Statement of Purpose is shown on my blog’s About page.

Without a well prepared Statement of Purpose, a site or blog is likely to get off track and flounder. It will be here, there, and everywhere in subject matter and content, but not where it should be. Without a solid Statement of Purpose you greatly increase the chances of failing with your message to your visitors. If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, then how will your visitors know? If you can’t meet the needs of your visitors, then what are the chances they will return, or buy your goods and services, or read what you have to say? Answer: slim and none.

Use your Web site or blog to provide its visitors what they want. Meet the needs of your visitors. An effective Web site or blog meets the needs of its visitors by successfully communicating a message.

Author Information

I’m Jon R. Allen and I have a blog to help you learn more about creating effective blogs and Web sites. Please visit my blog at: http://www.wordpressblogsandwebsites.com. My goal is to provide information and answers to the questions and problems people have when they begin or manage a Web site or blog powered by WordPress, or by XHTML/HTML.

I hope you found my article informative and useful. Thank you for stopping by.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jon_R._Allen
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Do I Really Need A Website?

May 17, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

People always want to follow the latest thing, be it in fashion, sports, that kind of thing. Websites have become a necessity to almost everyone. Companies, businesses, individuals, even young adults have created personal websites with their respective purposes, be it for profit, or for entertainment.

What one must consider, however, before creating a website, are such things as  setup costs, maintenance, use, web host and so forth.

Cost – We must always try to find an affordable host, not spending too much, nor too little. A cheap host does not exactly symbolize a credible reliability rating, but we must always look for value for money deals. Also, regarding the efficiency and server/web host reliability, there are many cases of web hosts not providing the service they had assured other people, some had even shut down and were nowhere to be seen. Keep this note in mind, as if you would like a long-lasting website, this would be the first thing to look for. (My personal recommendation would be Hostgator.  I have tried several hosts but Hostgator beats them hands down with reliability and ease of use!)

Is hiring a professional designer affordable? Is it the best option? For simple websites, we could always pick up the coding, or even use programs, as it is relatively simple. However, when it comes to more complex coding, and when you want it to do a tad more than just providing information, hiring help in doing so would be the best way. Not only in terms of design, but security is also a key factor in assuring a quality website. If the website also acts as a portal for businesses, security would definitely be the issue here.  Note: If this is your very first website and you’re not 100% sure of the direction of your business, I strongly suggest you do your first website yourself or hire someone to setup a basic site (like me!  lol) until you get totally clear in your direction and then spend the big bucks on a personal site designer.

So, having considered the things to do before building a website, do we actually NEED one? Absolutely!  Here are just a smattering of the reasons for having a website even if you are not a business owner:

  • Online business card
  • Landing page for social networking sites
  • Virtual storefront to extend brick & mortar business
  • Blogging on matters that are important to you so you can connect with like-minded individuals
  • Resumes
  • Networking
  • Staying in touch with family & friends & showcasing important events in your life
  • And of course, for conducting business or providing a virtual service

Here is a quick video on how too plan out your website!

Filed Under: Why Wordpress, WordPress Websites Tagged With: , , , ,

Choosing a Theme For Your Blog – 5 Tips to Help You Out

May 12, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

By Denis Samardjiev

If you are new to blogging, one thing that may be a little hard for you is choosing the right theme for your blog. And I really can understand why, there is hundreds of thousands themes out there.

5 tips to help you choose a theme for your blog:

  • First, you want to check out some professional blogs out there. Really just see how everything is set up, and how the theme looks overall. You can go on Google and find a bunch of blogs. See if more blogs are dark or light, what color links are, what the header looks like.
  • You want to make sure you choose a “clean” theme, as in everything is organized and looks good, also make sure the theme can compete with other top blogs out there.
  • Your blog theme must be related to your niche. For example, if you are blogging about dogs don’t have a theme with footballs all over it.
  • You want to decide what kind of audience you want to attract to pick the right theme. For example if you are targeting businessmen you might want to have a corporate looking blog theme. And also if you target kids you might want to have some bright colors and things like that.
  • Don’t pick a theme that looks I guess “over stuffed” as in there is too much crap on it. You want something “calm” and easy to use. You don’t want your visitors trying to find the homepage for half an hour.

Do you want to learn more about blogging? I have actually just finished my FREE 50 page eBook “The Full Blogging Guide”. Download it for free here: Full Blogging Guide. My eBook will teach you everything you need to know about blogging, from setting up a blog to publishing the right type of content. And on top of that it is FREE! The Full Free Blogging Guide

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Denis_Samardjiev
http://EzineArticles.com/?Choosing-a-Theme-For-Your-Blog—5-Tips-to-Help-You-Out&id=4181320

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Website Planning For A Virtual Business

May 6, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment

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Seo Tips for WordPress Users

April 27, 2010 By Laura Leave a Comment
Author: Pilar

There are 55 million blogs in existence today. Each one of these is competing for reader’s attention, some more aggressively than others. If you are a blog owner, one of your main tasks is to compete with other blogs in your niche head-on. Having the right blogging platform is important because it will give you a significant advantage.

A lot of successful bloggers agree that barring a customized platform, WordPress is the best platform for bloggers in many ways. It is flexible enough to accommodate the changes you want. It is also user friendly and search engine friendly.

Steps in WordPress Optimisation

Permalinks - enable the permalinks in your blog. This simple step can go a long way to helping your online promotion initiative. Basically, you should format the permalinks in such a way that it will include the post title.

The structure /%postname%/ is excellent because lets you change the category of the blog post and make other modifications without changing the page URL.

Title Tags – using title tags is also important. Use HTML to boost your chances of landing in the first page of the search engines. There are many versions available in the theme/header.php page.

Site Map - the site map enables web visitors to find specific articles on your blog. It also lets the search engines find all your blog links. There is a number of WordPress plug-ins that can be downloaded to automate the process.

WordPress Design - there is no hard and fast rules when it comes to design because everybody’s taste is different. Generally, it is best to keep the design simple and clean. Having big headings could also help. The text content should be far up so visitors can access it immediately. User Interaction

After finishing the steps in optimization, the next step is to integrate web tools that make user interaction possible. Most blogs are readily equipped with the Commenting feature. But you can take it further than that by using polls, linking back, and guest posting. All these initiatives will help increase your search engine ranking as well as your blog traffic.

There are many plugins available for wordpress that you can easily install to automate functions and also to add lots of different features like posting to twitter, adding to favorites, adding bookmarks automatically to Digg, Delicious, Stumbleupon and many other features.

WordPress could really save you a lot of time since you can automate so much. It is an essential tool for blogging.

For more free tips go to Free Marketing Tips Blog – Get Free Video Training at Free Web Marketing Training

Article Source: http://www.a1articles.com/article_1507158_3.html
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The Importance of Choosing a Domain Name

April 16, 2010 By Laura 2 Comments

By Eileen Phua

A domain name is an identification label. It is just like an address whereby will direct targeted audience to your shop. An example is name of your shop. It is always needed when you want to create a websites.

There are a lot of newbie venture with no awareness of where and how to get started. Choosing a domain name is never as easy as choosing a theme for your blog. It has to be recognize by search engine and attractive so as to drive more traffic. Therefore it is important to choose your domain name wisely. It has to be easily remembered, short, related to your company, brand or products of your websites. Common extensions used are com, org and net. Do not take this step for granted, because the domain name you choose can make or break your websites success. Finding a good domain name could be the critical factor that determines whether your business succeeds or fails. Take the time to really pick a good one.

You can start off by doing a keyword research under Google keyword tools which is relevant to your business. Do ensure the keyword you selected have the most search. Once this is done, you may proceed to check under Name Cheap on the availability of the domain name and register.

You can also purchase a domain from domain name “registrars”. Commonly mentioned including name cheap and Yahoo hosting. Price range from $6 to around $10 per year. The Domain Name administration is not an easy task and sometimes involves technical knowledge. However Name cheap is quite straight forward with just a few steps and get it done.

Discover how Eileen manage to achieve my Passive income through Internet Marketing, To find out more, click here to Download Free Report! http://imtowardrich.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eileen_Phua
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How to Securely Back Up Your WordPress Blog

April 7, 2010 By Laura 1 Comment

By Cecil Flynn

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging software applications that is currently being used for blogs and also as a content management system for websites. Just like any other software, with popularity comes troublesome security issues as people try to hack the program and cause problems for the users. In addition to doing frequent updates, backing up your installation is one of the best ways of making sure that you are secure in case your blog is taken down by a hacker.

There are two things that need to be backed up to have a complete backup of your WordPress installation. The first one is the database. You can manually use a tool to download your database and remember to do this week after week. There is also a tool that will do this for you automatically.

Get the plugin WP-DB-Backup. Install this into your WordPress blog under the plugin folder and activate it. Under ‘Tools’ there will be a Backup button that you can press. This is the area where you can set up an option to have this database emailed to you on a daily basis or at least once each week. Make sure you use an email that is not connected to your current hosting account in case the whole host gets attacked. Now you have your database automatically backed up.

The second piece you need is anything that you upload to your account like your plugins, themes, images, videos, and other things. To do this, simply use a FTP client software application to access the hosting account and copy all the contents of the public_html folder. This will get everything that you need. If you don’t upload items too often, this might only have to be done maybe once a month.

It is important to get into the habit of performing these two backups on a regular basis. By backing up on a regular schedule, if the blog or the host has some sort of security issue, you have the option of installing the blog again on that host or a new one without having to worry about losing any information, posts, pages, comments, or any changes that you have made to the account.

WordPress makes maintaining a blog or website simple and convenient. By taking steps to ensure your site’s security takes the simplicity and convenience to the next level and allows you to have peace of mind as well.

Cecil enjoys working in the garden and tinkering around the house. He realizes the importance of home security so he keeps a small safe in his home and office to protect his valuables. You can read all about different types of small safes on his website: http://www.smallsafe.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cecil_Flynn
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Filed Under: Website Maintenance, WordPress Websites Tagged With: , , , , ,

Spring Cleaning Your Websites

April 5, 2010 By Laura 1 Comment

Just like your house, you need to do regular cleaning or maintenance on your websites.  Here are a few spring cleaning tips that should be done regularly to keep your website running smoothly and your visitors coming back:

Upgrade WordPress Platform – New releases are sent out all the time from the WordPress team and all of us tend to fall behind in upgrading.  You don’t want to fall too far behind in these releases.  Every 3-6 months you should bring your site current with the most recent version.

Plugin Review – All of us are guilty of installing all kinds of plugins to test drive as we hear about them from our friends.  Some we keep using, others just stay loaded on our system collecting dust.  Here is where you need to spend a few minutes ensuring that the ones you are using are the latest version released and deactivate and delete those that are not being used.  With new plugins being released all the time, you may find that there is a newer model out there that can now do what 3 or 4 other plugins are trying to do.

Themes – Same can be said about theme templates.  When we start out designing our site, we test drive a number of different themes before we make a decision on the one to customize to fit our needs.  How many are still sitting on your system?  It is also important to check and see if your theme is still being maintained by the original author and is compatible with the most recent version of WordPress.

Style Sheets & Custom Templates - For those of you that make changes to your CSS style sheets and templates…Are you removing old codex once the new code is written or are you making your website work twice as hard to translate the necessary actions?  Don’t you normally throw out the old operating manuals once the new manuals are released to decrease confusion?  Same would be the case for your style sheets and templates!

Media Library – Go through all the images and files that you have uploaded to your media library and determine if they are still being used within your site.  If they are just taking up valuable space, delete them.  If you’re concern is that you “may” want them in the future, then download them on your computer before you delete them from the library.

Once you have completed your spring cleaning, take a moment to go through your website and make sure your links are all working and that all of your images are displaying properly.  Routine maintenance of your site will keep your site running smoothly and your visitors happy because everything is working properly!

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