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Tag Archives: wordpress

Recalling your WordPress blog from the cyber abyss

Picture 5 300x298 Recalling your Wordpress blog from the cyber abyssHave you ever been diligently writing a blog using WordPress, when you accidentally backspaced, erase it all, then posted it without realizing? Perhaps not, but maybe you’ve encountered a WordPress error where all or part of your blog was deleted. Fear not! Although the ‘undo’ button might have failed you, there MAY be a way to get it back! I know, because not too long ago it happened to me.

Aside from looking at this post are you looking at your potential post? Yes? Okay, now, scroll down. Scroll down past the “property details” or “genesis” or “comments” (whatever you have below) all the way to “Revisions”. Are there any listed in blue? There, my friends, are various parts of your blog. Some you might have saved, some might be autodrafts, but hopefully you’ll find one that will work for you. (Even if you have to do some re-finalizing, it’s better than starting again from scratch!)

 

Sure it’s pretty, but will it do what you need?

Following is a guest post from InSights Enthusiast Todd J. List, one of InSights 2011 People Worth Knowing: The Geek Who Speaks People. Todd simplifies web technology for small businesses.

If you own a business, your website’s first task is to leave a positive impression on visitors. A very, very close second is to explain how you can help.

An interior designer friend wanted a theme that matched her bubbly, quirky, colorful personality. She found one adorned with doodles, fabric, needlework, buttons, and color that met those criteria beautifully. One day she asked me for some help with her blog.

I pulled up her site. “That’s cute. I like how you called your landing page ‘Hmoe.’” I asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“Look. Your first menu item is spelled ‘H-m-o-e.’”

She looked, then cringed. “Where do I go to change that?”

I skipped through the dashboard to find that she had not misspelled something. I started digging into the theme, and I found several problems.

  • Lack of contrast. This had prompted the initial call for help. The page title didn’t stand out, and the byline was lost in the beautiful but busy background.
  • The main navigation menu was hard-coded into the theme, but the user couldn’t edit the links to the landing page. Hello, 404 error! The designer incorporated common page titles into the theme, probably in an effort to make things “easier” for the user. But what if you only have three pages, or name one something different, or blog in Spanish? The theme screamed creativity, then restricted the user blog in a tiny box.
  • The menu elements were also graphics, not text. Without the funky font the original designer used, there was no way I could fix the misspelled word and have it match the other items. As it turned out, I found an updated version of the theme that fixed the typo.
  • The default sidebar widgets had custom graphic headers. Adding user-defined widgets to the sidebar deleted those out. This obviated the need to try to match graphic text, but the new text didn’t fit the rest of the theme.
  • Sharing options were built in to the theme. Again, this was a nice gesture by the designer, but it had limitations. What if your primary market is on a social network not included in the defaults? Without knowing code, the user can’t change this. This is better handled by a plugin.

My friend is now on at least her second replacement theme. Time will tell how long that one lasts.

What’s the better choice of social media sites to spend my time on?

Whats the better choice of social media sites to spend my time on?It depends on where your customers are. Each social media platform has it’s strongest attributes, and it attracts people who enjoy the interface. If you are dealing with B2B contacts, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are great. They will each let you interface with your customer as well.

If you start your social media strategy on a blog platform, (we recommend wordpress), you can hit publish and automate your posts to all of your social media sites. You can choose to spend time interacting on the ones you like, and still have your message in front of the people who like each of the sites.

You can also find out some information about the demographics of each of the sites. What is the age of the average user? Using the Facebook ads system you can find how how many men vs women are within a radius of a zipcode and craft messages specifically to those users. It would make sense to create a strategy, considering who your target customer is, and who the bridges to those customers will be. That can help you determine what sites may need some more of your attention.

Who is your customer, and what is your favorite site to interact with them?

Notes about adding Photos to WordPress Blog Sites

photo montage symbols Notes about adding Photos to Wordpress Blog SitesQ: I’ve uploaded a photo to word press. In the preview, we can’t see all of the people on the cropped view…is it possible to do so?
A: The wordpress system will crop it automatically. When the photo is viewed in the post all the people will be there.

Q: I’ve put notes on most of them…I never know if I should change the 1st line that identifies the photo from it’s’ jpeg name…?
A: Yes, change the first line (photo name) to keywords or explain what is in the photo.

Q: Is it better to put a caption or fill in the box for description? What should we put into alternate text?
A: A caption is good, as well as a description. The alternate text can be the same keywords from line 1, or a variation. Using Winter Park Dental Care or Dr. Linda Winter in alt text is also something you should do as often as possible.

Q: How does one decide what the public would be interested in seeing?
A: The public is interested in seeing what you are looking to share. I am putting some of the photos up in drafts. If you have any commentary to add from you or the staff: how you felt about helping out, feedback you received, how busy it was, etc. that would be great to add with the pictures.

Q: Also, after I spent the time cropping the 2 photos in Photoshop, I then saw the capability of cropping photos in Word Press…..would word press put them in the proper ratios better than what I had to hand create n Photoshop? What’s the easiest, fastest way to do cropping for the blog site?
A: The blog site does minimal cropping for size. If the photos have excess space etc. you should crop (I use windows photo editor) when I just need to crop the edges off etc. that’s the quickest that I have found.

How to create a hyperlink that opens in a new window in wordpress

How to create a hyper link that opens in a new window on your WordPress Blog:

Type the word to be the link, highlight the word and then click the chain link icon. The popup box opens, type in the ending url, and then in target choose the “open in new window option.”

To link a photo that opens a website in a new window, insert the photo, choose advanced options, and choose the target and enter the url in the advance options menu.

wordpress hyperlink 300x160 How to create a hyperlink that opens in a new window in wordpress

Where to host your blog – even if you know you want wordpress

Where to host your blog even if you know you want wordpressThere are basically two hosting options for WordPress blogging software:

1) Host it for free using wordpress.com.
2) Find a hosting provider and pay a monthly fee (this is called “self-hosting”)

Option 2 is the best choice by far.  Here’s why:

  • WordPress.com free hosting does not allow you to use any custom or commercial themes; you can only choose from the limited number of themes they make available.  (a theme provides the “look” of your blog)
  • You cannot modify themes in any way.
  • WordPress.com free hosting does not allow you to upload plugins (plugins provide various optional useful features to WordPress).
  • You are not allowed to sell ads on a free WordPress.com site.
  • With WordPress.com free hosting, you have no control over your blog site; you must live by their Terms and Conditions.  Your blog is not really yours, and they can shut it down if they don’t like something that you’re doing.
  • The default URL for free hosting is “yourdomain.wordpress.com” rather than “yourdomain.com”.  This means that you’re using someone else’s domain rather than your own, and you don’t really “own” the address.  Furthermore, Google will not recognize the site as belonging to you, and you will get no search engine ranking benefits.

The only advantages of free hosting with WordPress.com are:

  • It’s free.
  • It’s stupidly simple to set up a site, and there are no maintenance or technical considerations.

These “advantages” are not worth the price you pay in other areas.

Self-hosting provides the following advantages:

  • You can use any themes that are available from any source.
  • You can have someone modify your theme to change the look and functionality of it.
  • You can upload any plugins you want to add functionality to your site.
  • You have full control.  You can do whatever you want with your blog, because it’s yours.  Nobody can impose any of their rules on you.

Considering that self-hosting costs less than $10 a month, this is an easy decision.

Hosting companies that offer WordPress hosting provide very simple installation processes and good support.  Check out  www.bluehost.com.

This is a guest post by Tom Harris. Visit his awesome and amazing website here.

Favorite WordPress SEO Plugins

All in One SEO Pack

Automatic SEO Links

Google XML Sitemaps

HeadSpace2

Meta Robots WordPress plugin

Nofollow Case by Case

Platinum SEO Plugin

Redirection

SEO Blogroll

SEO for Paged Comments

SEO friendly and HTML valid subheadings

SEO Friendly Images

SEO No Duplicate WordPress Plugin

SEO Post Link

SEO Smart Links

SEO Tag Cloud Widget

SEO Title Tag

Simple Tags

Sitemap Generator

TGFI.net SEO WordPress Plugin

Sure it’s pretty, but will it do what you need?

Following is a guest post from InSights Enthusiast Todd J. List, The Geek Who Speaks People. Todd simplifies web technology for small businesses. He just announced a series of WordPress Classes.

sure its pretty 225x135 Sure its pretty, but will it do what you need?If you own a business, your website’s first task is to leave a positive impression on visitors. A very, very close second is to explain how you can help.

An interior designer friend wanted a theme that matched her bubbly, quirky, colorful personality. She found one adorned with doodles, fabric, needlework, buttons, and color that met those criteria beautifully. One day she asked me for some help with her blog.

I pulled up her site. “That’s cute. I like how you called your landing page ‘Hmoe.’” I asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“Look. Your first menu item is spelled ‘H-m-o-e.’”

She looked, then cringed. “Where do I go to change that?”

I skipped through the dashboard to find that she had not misspelled something. I started digging into the theme, and I found several problems.

  • Lack of contrast. This had prompted the initial call for help. The page title didn’t stand out, and the byline was lost in the beautiful but busy background.
  • The main navigation menu was hard-coded into the theme, but the user couldn’t edit the links to the landing page. Hello, 404 error! The designer incorporated common page titles into the theme, probably in an effort to make things “easier” for the user. But what if you only have three pages, or name one something different, or blog in Spanish? The theme screamed creativity, then restricted the user blog in a tiny box.
  • The menu elements were also graphics, not text. Without the funky font the original designer used, there was no way I could fix the misspelled word and have it match the other items. As it turned out, I found an updated version of the theme that fixed the typo.
  • The default sidebar widgets had custom graphic headers. Adding user-defined widgets to the sidebar deleted those out. This obviated the need to try to match graphic text, but the new text didn’t fit the rest of the theme.
  • Sharing options were built in to the theme. Again, this was a nice gesture by the designer, but it had limitations. What if your primary market is on a social network not included in the defaults? Without knowing code, the user can’t change this. This is better handled by a plugin.

My friend is now on at least her second replacement theme. Time will tell how long that one lasts.