Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

Following on from the blog post in March on how to rename the blogroll link category , we thought a screencast might be useful. I certainly can think of better names…

So the screencast on how to change the name of the blogroll links category in WordPress:

Now – one of the vitals tasks that you must set for regular action is to backup your WordPress. You want to backup the database, and your WordPress files – in the eventuality that you do lose everything, for some horrible reason (and it happens to the best of us), you will be very glad that you did.

So, first install the WP-DB-Backup plugin and set that up to suit you:

1. Plugins, Add New, search for WP-DB-Backup and install
2. Go to Tools, Backup and take an immediate backup (I tend to have them emailed to me and store the last two, but you can store them on your computer or on your server). I generally select everything listed, however if your WordPress is particularly large you might want to be more selective – only you know what’s essential and worth the time and additional space required for larger backups.
3. Set to backup up regularly, at least weekly, I suggest.

Then you want to backup the WordPress files – these include your images, your plugins and your themes directories, so install WordPress Backup by Blog Traffic Exchange:

1. Plugins, Add New, search for WordPress Backup and install the one by Blog Traffic Exchange.
2. Go to Settings, WordPress Backup and set the interval – the rest will be taken care of (if your host permits – you may have to provide your ftp details for the required folders to be created).

And there you go – hopefully you’ll never need your backups, and remember you don’t have to keep all of them, just the last one or two.

Image via Wikipedia

Moving from a WordPress.com blog to your own domain is said to quite easy and it is, to a degree.
There isn’t a lot of information available online, for some strange reason it’s a closely guarded secret and some of it is wrong or misleading (so I found out when I tried it).

Lots of us start out with a free wordpress site, if your blogs domain ends in .wordpress.com then you have a free one. These are great for learning how to blog and practising on before you decide whether or not to go the self hosted route. WordPress place advertising discreetly on these blogs and they get the revenue which is only fair, they are hosting your site and it does cost money to do so.

In my case my blog was to become part of the Essex Virtual Town Hall, and I needed to control the advertising that was on the site. So it had to be moved to it’s own domain on my hosting.

What did I do?
I exported all my blogs postings from WordPress into a file on my desktop, just in case.
Then I set up my WordPress blog on it’s own domain and then imported all the blogs to it.

See simple. Pah, what about all those broken links when I deleted my site from the free wordpress site?

The solution is out there, and we have it here too. This document can be distributed freely with links etc, it explains how to move your wordpress blog without breaking all the links you have built up. you can download it from here, it’s written by Blogwell.com

how-to-redirect-a-wordpresscom-blog

Wished I had found it before I had imported mine, but it works fine so I am not complaining

Anyone else tried it? What did you do?

Sarah

A forthcoming post from Sarah had me rummaging around for something I wrote many moons ago on the basics to consider for a website. So during this Sunday of housekeeping, I thought I’d review that document and see how those rules apply to a WordPress blog/website.

Now of course your overall design wants to reflect your company’s professional image – and WordPress really is useful for that. If your website looks unprofessional, you will be perceived as being unprofessional – it is as simple as that. We are all expected to have a presence on the Internet these days, and it can be hugely useful for your marketing, but be sure that it looks good, that it does not look as though your nephew has been practicing his web design as a “favour” for you (unless of course he’s a professional!).

No Animation! Trust me – no scrolling text, flipping envelopes (fewer of these nowadays, thank goodness, but they are still about), animated images – anything that does not have a purpose or that distracts your visitor from the information they want. Very rarely is this going to enhance your visitor’s opinion of your website. You have your visitors’ attention for just 1/20th of a second – within that tiny timeframe they know whether they like your website or not. Mind you, if your page has taken longer than a few seconds to load, they’ll probably have lost interest anyway, clicked the “back” button and be away to the next website.

No clutter either – don’t be afraid of space – this makes it easier to read the content, which is what people look at even before the images. And italics – again – please don’t. It’s much easier to read non-italicised text on-screen. Indent your text or use some other way to distinguish it from the main text.

Be gentle with your visitors’ eyes – pink on orange will have them hitting the “back” button before they even (try to) read a word. Textured backgrounds, pale text on light backgrounds – anything that makes it less easy on your visitors’ eyes will tell them that you’ve not thought about making their visit a positive one. There’s a really good reason why black on white is the most often used format – it works, it’s easy to read. Your visitors do not want to be wowed; they want to find what they’re looking for.

And while we’re at it – make the text a sensible size – too small is irritating – if you want tiny text at least make it possible for the visitor to increase the font size (basic accessibility). You do know that we can do that – in your browser hold down your Ctrl and + keys to see an increase in the text size (or not) – good to see what happens to your design when you do that, too.

There you go – a few of the old design dos and don’t that still apply. Much of this is taken care of with WordPress, but there are plenty of themes available that break every rule above! Think of the websites that really hold your attention, that have you wanting to do more, read more, get in touch – make it simple for that to happen on yours.

It can be hard to formulate a comment sometimes when you are reading a blog, and if I can’t make a comment and I like the blog the next thing I look to do is share the content as a way of saying thanks to the writer.

I recently discovered Facebook sharing   this button when added to your site allows the post to be posted to your Facebook profile so those that see your status updates might like it and have a look. I have used this one a lot lately and now I look for it more when I am looking to share posts.
If you want to try it, you can download it from here and then upload it to your plugins  http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/facebook-fb-share-wordpress-plugin.zip

I still love the most popular plugin that Babs installs on every Blogmistress blog, the TweetMeme button that little green button will tweet the blog from your twitter account sharing it with your followers and helping to attract people with similar interests to you. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/ It’s not just me who loves it, it’s installed on 100,000 other websites who want to make sharing their content easier.

But what about sharing buttons? How do they work for you? You see, many sites have the addthis sharing widget and I have never used it, not once, not ever. Even though I can still share on Twitter and Facebook using it, for me there is something about the button that just makes me want to press it!

More enticing is Sexy Bookmarks, anyone use that? I saw it on someone else’s site (and I forget who, as I look at so many) and it said “Caring is Sharing” and then there is a drop down box with just about every share site in the world on it! They also have one that says “sharing is sexy”. How can you not use that?

Last, but by no means least – has anyone installed a Google Buzz button yet? I tried it on one of my blogs, but it conflicted. If you use it – how does it work for you? Love it or Loathe it?

Sarah