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Ecommerce/CMS clients can back up their website database quickly and easily. It should be done at least weekly, or after you make changes to your site (changing page content, adding pages, adding new products, etc). All your changes are stored in your database and should your site ever crash or get hacked, it can easily be recovered with the backup you saved.
This process is not for WordPress clients.
Log into your site admin and find on the right column, under “Administration”, the link for “Backup”. Click on this link.
You’ll see a screen similar to this (click on image to view full size)-
Make sure all the tables in the list are selected. Leave “Show Data Only” UNchecked (do not check it).
Click on “Backup Database”.
You’ll see this screen -
Right click on the sql link and select “Save target as…” or “Save link as…” and choose a place on your computer that you can find it. Hit save, and you’re done.
Clicking “Delete Old Backup Logs” will remove old logs that were saved to your server/host.
I’m going to be starting school at Chemeketa Community College here in Salem in January. I’m going to get a degree for what I’ve been doing for years! It’ll help fill in the gaps that any self taught designer naturally has, and I look forward to improving my graphic design skills further and being able to offer more options in print design. The program is Visual Communications if you’re curious.
The main reason I’m posting this information is because starting in January, I’ll be taking a full course load, plus homeschooling 3 of my 4 kids, plus working as much as I can fit in there – you might image that I’m already busy now, I’ll be 2 or 3 times busier then. So I will be limiting my work to one client at a time. At this time, I normally have 3-5 at any given time!
I’m on the lookout for more great clients all the time (I have so many now, but I can never have enough – these people are awesome)!Just know coming in January, there will be a waiting list, first come, first served. If I have a client at the time you email me, your email will go on the list. I’ll start at the top of the list and if you’re still interested when I’m available, we can begin right away. Remember this doesn’t start until January 2010, so I can start on your project anytime through the middle of December!
Updating my “must have” plugin list. Most WordPress users will find these either very handy or essential!
Make sure you have the latest version of WordPress. It’s insanely easy to update your WordPress software and plugins right in your WP admin area, something I really appreciate as a web designer/developer using the software for myself and a lot of clients. Such a time saver (which trickles down to a money saver for my clients!!)
This is a bare basics guide to writing blog posts as well as adding, editing, and deleting pages in your website built on WordPress.
This tutorial assumes you use WordPress for your entire website (for your website pages and your blog). It also assumes absolutely no knowledge of WordPress.
Did I leave something out? Email me and let me know.
Your new website
Once your website is live and you have your admin information (username and password), you’re ready to go!
To make any changes to your website, you have to first login into the administration panel.
You can remember your administration panel address by going to your domain name + wp-admin – such as www.mywebsite.com/wp-admin/
Logging In
On this page you will see a place to enter your username and password, with a log in button.
The Dashboard
Log in, and you’ll be taken to your main admin area, called the “Dashboard” (click image to view full size)
This tutorial will concentrate only on “Pages” and Posts” – can you see these words to the left in the image above?
Pages
First we’ll work with your website’s pages. Click on the “Pages” button and a short menu will show right below it -
If you want to edit an existing page, click on “Edit”. If you want to add a new page, click on “Add New”. You’ll see a page like this (if it’s an existing page, there will be text in the boxes) (click image to view full size) -
Simply type in the title for the page (if the title is already filled in, it doesn’t need to be modified).
You can add a wide variety of information to your website pages. In the Page Content area, you can type in text and using the editor tools (the little buttons above the box), you can format your text to look how you want. You can make lists, bold text, links and more. Remember to make it readable – your website visitors won’t stay if they can’t read it easily.
Adding a Photo/Image
(skip this part if your page doesn’t need a photo)
If your page needs a photo, first click on the place where you want your photo to show, then find the text that says “Upload/Insert” – it has 4 images next to it. The first image is to “add an image” – just click on it. You’ll see this -
Click on the “Select Files” button. A window will show to allow you to find the image or photo on your computer. Find the file, and click on the “Open” button.
The next page you see will let you change the size and placement of your image. (click image to view full size)
If it’s a large image, for Size, choose “thumbnail” or “medium” and in the Link URL, click on the button that says “File URL” – this will create a smaller image of your photo AND link it to the big photo for you! If you’d like to change the placement of the image, maybe to the left or right of the text on the page, you can do so with Alignment.
Make sure to select “Insert into Post” (not “Save all changes”) and the image will be placed right where you clicked.
All that is left now is the “ Attributes” section, to the right of the page. If your page is a child of another page, select the parent page. Most people need to even look at this, but if you have a main category – such as “Dogs”, with subcategories – such as “Adults” and Puppies”, you may need to select the proper parent page to have this new page show up in the right place on your website. You likely will not need to use the Template section and can ignore it unless you are comfortable with that area.
Hit Publish, and your page is now live! You can visit the main page of your website and find your link.
Posts
Ready to make a post to your blog?
Click on Posts and a short meu will show below it -
Simply select “Add New” and you’ll be taken to a page very similar to the one used to add or edit a Page. (click image to view full size)
Enter your blog post title and content the same as for a Page, but this time, you can add tags and assign your post to a post category. Click on Publish and your new post will show on your blog!
If you let visitors comment on your WordPress blog, you have spammers trying to spam you and your readers. It’s one of those facts of internet life. Here’s some basic tips for making the fight against spam more successful. Make sure you have the latest upgrade to WordPress (2.8.1 as I write this) and read on…
Disable the ability for anyone to register unless you need it. It’s under Settings>General>Membership – deselect the “Anyone can register” box.
Enable comment moderation. Find this under Settings>Discussion>Before a comment appears – select “An administrator must always approve the comment”.
On the same Discussion Settings page, scroll down to your Comment Blacklist. These are words that trigger WordPress to automatically mark a comment as spam, which means you don’t have to deal with them. When you start getting spam, read them (but don’t click on the links!) and find words that normal visitors won’t add. IP addresses can be marked as spam too, if you find multiple comments from the same IP, add them. These words can vary, but look for words that you don’t really want on your blog and add them.
Don’t bother adding words to “Comment Moderation” since you’re already moderating comments. Once a week, visit the spam comment section (via your Dashboard) and scroll through to make sure no real comments got through.
If you don’t want to have to physically moderate your comments, try a plugin!
Anti-Spam Plugins:
Aksimet - Already installed on most self-hosted WordPress installations, but you need a code called a WordPress.com API to use it. To get the API, sign up at www.wordpress.com, but there’s no need to make a blog unless you want to (you have the option to select “just a username please”). Once you’re signed up, visit your Dashboard, view your profile and at the top will be the WordPress.com API code. Go back to your blog, activate Aksimet and add the code where instructed.
WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam
UPDATED! See the “Resources” page for more on social networking!
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, flickr… if you haven’t heard of any of those, you’ve been living under a rock. Welcome to 2009.
Social networking is a way to get your name, and your business’ name, out into the world. More than free advertising, if you spend just a few minutes a day networking, it gives potential customers a look at who you are. Like the “good old days” when the butcher would gab at his customers about their families and town business, but with a wider audience. People like to know who they are buying from or getting services from, but in the days of Made in China and Wal-Mart, it’s not a common occurrence to know anything real about the company or people who run it. Social networking websites let you give a real face to your business, and customers will respond.
It’s best if you have a website where you can link your networking profiles to and from, but even if you don’t, they will help bring people, and sales, in.
Where to start?
First, a valid email address. You’ll have activation emails to attend to, and potential customers who may contact you, so use an email when networking that you check often (and can rely on to deliver your email, I’m seeing many people with crappy ISP emails that never see any mail in their inbox).
Start with just a couple websites. Everyone is on Facebook. Chances are, when you sign up, you’ll be shown a list of people in your email contact list who are already there. You can also search for people by name or email address. Twitter about happenings with yourself and your business. Just made a batch of product, updated your blog, opened your store, are running a sale? Tell people about it! Once you’re comfortable with those, add on LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.
Make sure all your profiles contain a link to your website and/or blog, and link your website back to your profiles. In previous posts about SEO(1)(2)(3), I mentioned link backs – the links to your site from Facebook, LinkedIn, all of them, count as link backs! It will help your rankings.
If you have a blog, update it regularly so people finding your site have current news to look at – it makes your site, and your business, look more “cared for”.
A word of caution, stay professional unless you know the people you’re talking with online. The potential to get a bad name online is high and one bad review can come up high in search results for your business.
In step 2 of the Process page, I suggest that “By the end of this step, all content for the website should be sent to me.” But sometimes that’s not as clearcut as it seems. So here’s a list of common things I’ll need from you by the end of this step -
Basic website information
Photos and other images should be high quality, high resolution. Images can be resized to 72 dpi but otherwise left full size and I will modify them as needed for the pages they go on. Images need to be marked/labeled so I know what page they go on. Renaming the image file “homepage1.jpg” for example, or providing a list (image1.jpg goes on main page, etc) is a big time saver. Text can be written into the email itself, or in a Word or pdf file.
- Home page text and images
- About us page text and images
- Content page text
- Address, phone numbers, alternate emails, do you want a map to your location? What form fields do you want in your contact form? Common ones include Name, Email, Phone, and a Comments/Questions section, but you can request any other information you want.
- Other page text and images
- Hosting information – account/ftp information
eCommerce site information
- I typically add your initial products to your website, so unless you prefer to do it youself after it goes live, I need product photos, description, options (like if it comes in different sizes, colors, etc), price, and weight if you ship by weight. Product photos can be resized to 72dpi.
- I need to do the initial set up of Mals-e to hook it up with my system
- I will need your PayPal, merchant account or other payment processor information. Depending on how you accept payments, this will differ.
- I will also set up the shipping and tax information, so I need to know your shipping rates and how much sales tax to charge, and to who (if applicable).
Search engine optimization
I will need your title, description and keyword information. I can help you with this, but read on to learn more about them…
First, how do you want to be found through search engines? “Florida candles”, “homemade soda”, “Nevada seamstress”, etc.
Now consider search engine results. When you type in a search, the results are given like this, which are hidden meta tags in your website’s code:
Your title is very important. It has to be relevant to what your business/website is about. If you cater to a specific group, like brides, and sell a specific product, like custom shoes, and have a retail store in a specific area, you’ll want your website title to look something like: Custom bridal shoes :: Serving brides in the City, State area.
The description is more helpful for the user doing the search, but the search engines do look at it for relevant information. If you leave your description meta tag out, the first text on your website will be displayed and it might not reflect your site as good as it could to the user.
Last for meta tags (but not least for SEO), is keywords. A list of words or short phrases, relevent to your website. For the bridal shoe example above, a list like: bride, bridal, wedding, pumps, high heels, flats, city, surrounding cities, state, retail store street, etc.
All of that though is second place to your website content and link backs. Search engines look into your code and place your site in the results based on the amount of high quality content and coding, and how many good standing websites are linking to yours. My job is to make sure your website’s code is up to standards, and your website’s content is the best it can be, but you will need to list, or have listed, your site by other websites. D
DO NOT let services that promise “top google placement” touch your website or place links. Bad linking and bad coding (using link farms or hidden text/links, among other tricks) can and does cause your website to become banned from Google and other search engines. It takes time to get good results. 2-8 weeks just to show up on Google and months to get placed higher in the results. It is worth it to be patient!
Expanding on this post: http://www.amywilliamsdesign.com/blog/2008/08/28/viewing-your-orders-and-sales/
The orders management system allows you to let your customers know the status of their order – On Order, Shipped, Back Ordered, Completed, Canceled; if you have it enabled for customers to look it up. It also lets you print packing slips – both with and without prices (for gift orders).
When you click on view orders from the Orders Panel:
You’ll see the list of orders your site has received….. you can click on the order # to view details of the order, print a regular printing slip, and a printing label.
When you click on the order #, you’ll see a page like this:
On this page, you can update the order status (don’t bother unless you have order tracking enabled for clients to view their orders!), update details of the order, print a regular or gift packing slip, or print a mailing label.
A gift packing list:
Regular packing list with prices:
1. Do limit Flash, and anything else that will make your initial page load slow. 50% of internet uses still have slow connections, and a lot of people with high speed connection lose interest in a new website if they don’t have immediate gratification. Leave the Flash for subpages in your website, allowing the visitor to choose to look at it or not.
2. Do have tons of related content. Content is King. And Queen, Princess, Prince, the whole dang court. Other SEO methods (meta tags, etc) are the peasants, still needed to run a kingdom but search engines don’t notice them as much. If you do a search for nearly anything on Google, you’ll notice one thing in common with all the top sites: lots and lots of relevant text.
3. Don’t do flashing, scrolling, required downloads, pop ups – anything that can be construed as annoying, or worse, not work on the visitor’s browser.
4. Don’t use music, or have it off to allow the visitor to play it. You don’t want a potential client to get fired when your website’s music comes blasting out of work speakers they didn’t know were on, nor would you want it waking up a baby. Music is very similar to Flash…use it wisely or not at all.
5. Do have quality design and coding – I can’t stress enough the effect of good design and coding to a business. Your visitors are more likely to come and stay if your site looks good (holds visual appeal) and has easy to find content. The back end coding (html, css, etc) is equally important – websites that use current standards are more favorably looked upon by search engines.
6. Do blog – and blog regularly. I highly recommend a self hosted WordPress Blog (like I’m using right now!) that can be customized to match your site, or BE your site. Google loves blog posts. Your site visits will improve dramatically if you post regularly and give readers and the search engines something to keep coming back to.
One of our computers was infected with a lovely gem of a product called “WinWeb Security” – not affiliated with winweb.com, this is a program the installs itself and pretends to be an antivirus program, telling you your computer is infected with a wide variety of issues. When you attempt to use the program, you are only able to if you pay $49.99. Unfortunately, this program does NOT clean up your computer, it actually installs vicious trogans, spyware and viruses and royally screws the computer and user up.
After spending 6 hours last night and 4 hours this morning fixing this problem (my personal/work computer is pretty darn secure so I don’t have a lot of experience with these things!), I am compelled to write a post to assist anyone else having this problem.
Symptoms of the problem: Unable to visit any spyware removal websites, unable to install or run any removal or anti virus programs, popups saying you are infected, pop ups that appear to be advertising pop ups (even using Firefox), Google search results not going to the actual website but to go.google.com/example, and the WinWeb “Security” program icon/window on your computer. There may be others but those are the main ones I experienced.
How this happened: Lax security on your computer most likely. The computer involved (not my own) had the Firewall disabled and someone who was not the normal user went to a variety of ….. bad ….. websites, without that without firewall in place, the program was able to easily infect many areas of the hard drive.
How to fix it: Basically, 3 main things: Firewall your computer, get a (free) antivirus program, and a (free) malware removal program. This isn’t going to cost you anything if you are a Windows user. 2 websites (listed below in references) were instrumental in assisting me get rid of this problem, and if you are infected, you won’t be able to view the websites, so I will link them but give the run down on how I fixed it, which will also streamline the process. Expect to spend hours on this, but it’ll be boring so have a book or knitting handing.
Step 1. Make sure your Firewall is ACTIVE. In XP with the classic menu, Start>Settings>Control Panel>WIndows Firewall. Make sure it is on, then go to the exceptions tab and uncheck anything you don’t recognize. If you are unable to get to a website or play a game (make sure it’s a honest site!), you can go back and recheck as needed. Then in the Control Panel, go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall WinWeb Security if it is there (it wasn’t in mine)
Step 2. Go to downloads.com and download Avira AntiVir Personal Install, but don’t run yet (disable it if it tries to run, as well as any other virus checkers). Now download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Install this program, and allow an icon to be placed on your desktop. Right click on the Malwarebytes icon and select Properties, then click on the Find Target button. A window will open with the icon highlighted. Right click on this icon and rename it to *anything* (I named mine lalalala), then launch it by double clicking it. WinWeb is VERY sneaky and makes these programs not work. By renaming it, it will run.
Step 3. With Malwarebytes open, select Quick Scan first, before anything else. It’ll take a while, get the book or knitting out. Let it quarantine the files it finds, delete them, then restart your computer. When it’s back up, run Malwarebytes again, but go to the Update tab and update the program. Do another Quick Scan, restart again. Repeat one more time.
Step 4. With the computer restarted, you’re still going to have WinWeb trying to get into your computer’s pants. Deleting virus ridden registry entries is next. Go to Start>Run and in the space provided, type “regedit” – without the “” quotes of course – and a window will come up with all your computer’s registry files. There are 3 to remove (I only had 2 of them, but make sure anyway):
1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D5DF7C9D-6069-4552-8B0C-D02A912FC889}
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{D5DF7C9D-6069-4552-8B0C-D02A912FC889}
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run “WinwebSecurity”
For example, to remove number 1, find and open the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT folder, then find and open the CLSID folder, the find the {D5DF7C9D-6069-4552-8B0C-D02A912FC889} folder (easiest way is to look for the D5D and make sure the ending is the 889). Don’t open this folder, just right click and delete the whole thing. Do the same with number 2 and 3. Restart your computer.
Step 5. Run Malwarebytes but do a Full Scan time, then run the Avira program. Update the program if it asks you to, then let it run. You need to stick close because each time it finds an infection it’ll ask you what to do with it (select quarantine). Once this program is done, go to the administation tab>quarantine and delete all the quarnatined files, then restart your computer. You should now be WinWeb free. If you aren’t, shoot me an email and I’ll see if I can help, but only if you’ve ALREADY done everything listed here, or are willing to bring me your computer and pay me to fix it!
References:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/remove-winweb-security
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6132_102-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=300720&start=0&tag=forum-w;forums06
http://www.download.com/Avira-AntiVir-Personal-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10322935.html?tag=mncol
http://www.malwarebytes.org/
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