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Internet Marketing
Internet Marketing
Benefits of Using WordPress
Jun 15th
For businesses looking to increase their web presence, creating websites and blogs are the way to go. The utilization of quality online content is crucial. By having relevant content online, whether on a blog or website, this allows for increased awareness of a business and its services. WordPress is an editing and uploading blog software for businesses to create and publish this content online. With the ability to create websites and blogs, business owners can easily share their information with the world. There are many WordPress benefits!
WordPress is an open source software. This means that millions of people around the world are constantly working on it. WordPress is also a low-cost service. This is very beneficial to business owners because WordPress offers many valuable services all in one program.
WordPress is user-friendly. It is easy both to learn and use. Finally, you don’t have to be an expert to update your website or blog. This is why so many businesses utilize WordPress to share their news and information online.
WordPress makes it easy to add a blog to your website. WordPress can be installed on your own website’s server or through WordPress web hosting. The thought of starting and maintaining a blog can be stressful to many business owners; however, WordPress makes it easier to start a blog. Quit using confusing blogging websites, when you can easily use WordPress!
WordPress offers customization tools with many website and blog themes to choose from! Long gone are the days where changing your website’s look took hours. WordPress makes it easier to customize your website or blog as quickly and as often as you want.
WordPress also has the capability to install plug-ins. Plug-ins allow business owners to add all sorts of things to their website and blog, such as pictures, maps, applications and much more. These are all easy to install with WordPress. There is no need to spend money on a web programmer when you can utilize WordPress’s low-cost tools.
WordPress is a CMS (content management system). This means that your business can use WordPress to collaborate information and data. This makes it easy to share information across the whole company! Things will get done more quickly and there will be less confusion!
Google loves WordPress because it is SEO (search engine optimization) friendly. WordPress is built in a way that makes blogs and websites easier to find on Google and other search engines. WordPress has a way of automatically announcing new content. WordPress also helps business owners create well constructed blogs and websites. This is crucial to maintaining good search engine rankings.
WordPress is safe to use! In a time where online security is often questioned, business owners may be wary about online safety. WordPress offers easy to install plug-ins that will make your web site or blog safer! WordPress takes the fear our of maintaining an online website or blog.
WordPress websites and blogs have accessibility. This means that anyone can access your business website or blog, thanks to WordPress. WordPress makes it easy to view your information on any computer, in any country, and on any device! As technology grows and changes, this is crucial for business owners.
WordPress helps your site grow with you! Once you have gotten the hang of WordPress, you’ll soon realize that it will continue to help your business. While your needs may change in the future, whether it be a new website design or the need for a video gallery, WordPress can continue to help you will all of these needs.
As you can see there are many WordPress advantages. Businesses have a great tool to succeed in the online world, thanks to WordPress! Make a web site or blog today, and utilize WordPress. Learn and grow with WordPress by looking at a WordPress tutorial. Website and blog set up is easy!
A Joomla Advocate Installs WordPress: How to Install WordPress
Jun 14th
I am a diehard Joomla user. I do not like WordPress. When I look at the backend of a Joomla site, it seems logical and well thought out to me. When I look at the backend of a WordPress site, it seems illogical and scattered. I know many people who think exactly the opposite.
To be fair, the extent of my WordPress usage at this point has been adding an article and image here and there. I have judiciously avoided anything else.
Why do some people swear by Joomla and others by WordPress? I don’t know, but I decided to give WordPress a try, and I created a playground site. Other people might call this a sandbox. This site is not a working site and it is okay to play with it and even to destroy it. (I have a couple of Joomla sites like this also.)
Step 1: Where are you going to install the site?
I decided to install the site here:
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http://wp-playground.shinynewts.com
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This is just a subdomain off my main site. I did not have to pay anyone any extra hosting fees and I did not need to register a new domain.
Step 2: Download WordPress
This was easy enough. I went to Google and typed in “download WordPress.” I found the code at WordPress’ site.
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http://wordpress.org/download
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I downloaded the zip file, but the tar.gz file would have been just as easy.
Step 3: Copy the WordPress code over to your site
That was easy enough. I just opened up my ftp client and copied the file over.
Step 4: Uncompress the file
I opened up a shell, logged in, and unzipped the file. Everything was in a WordPress directory so I moved all the files up a directory. This leads me to believe that most people should unzip the file on their pc and just copy over the contents of the WordPress directory it creates.
Step 5: Install WordPress
My thoughts on installation went something like this. “If WordPress is as easy as Joomla, I should not have to read any documentation to install this. I should just be able to go to the domain name in a browser and follow some prompts.”
I opened my browser and put in the URL to my playground site.
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http://wp-playground.shinynewts.com
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A page came up telling me I did not have a configuration file and needed to set that up. My initial reaction was “What?” but then I noticed that the screen had a button on it to “Create a Configuration File.” I clicked it.
When you click on the button “Create a Configuration File,” you get a page warning you that the next step involves giving up all the database information.
Step 6: Create a Database
I did not have a database set up, so I went and did that. I assumed it is a MySQL database, since it is open source and all that, and I did not want to read any documentation. The database name is shinynewtswp, the username is shinynewtswp, and the host is localhost. I also had to set up a password, but that is a secret.
To create a database, log into the control panel at your hosting company’s website and create the database there.
Then I went back to my browser and back to WordPress to fill in the database information.
The database screen asked me for the name of my database, the username to log in, the password, the database host, and the table prefix. You should have received all the information besides table prefix when you created the database, and you can leave the table prefix with the default value of wp_. This particular screen does not blank out the password you type in, so be aware of that. The next screen called me sparky and I clicked on the button to run the install.
The next screen called me sparky and I clicked on the button labeled, “Run the Install.”
This screen asked me for the site’s title, so I gave it “Shiny Newts’ Word Press Playground.” It asked for a username. Most people probably put in admin, but I put in my traditional username of tamaragwen. It asked for the password for this admin account, so I gave it one. The password on this screen blanked out. It also wanted my email address.
At the bottom of the screen was a checkbox for allowing the site to show up in Google and Technorati. Most people want their site to show up in Google. This is a playground site, so there’s no reason for that.
Clicking on “Log In” yields a login screen. Normally, you get to this login page by using the WordPress admin URL.
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http://domainname.com/wp-admin
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So, I logged in and got the backend of the WordPress site.
Next, I checked out what the site looked like for users, and it looked a lot like a default Joomla installation.
My summary opinion
So, all in all, I have determined that it is just as easy to install a WordPress site as it is to install a Joomla site. I think my next step is to build myself a table. It will have three columns: Task, Joomla, and WordPress.
I have no plans to change my loyalty to WordPress, but I’m generally up for learning new toys.
If you’d like to play around with WordPress or Joomla on sites you can mess up, and it’s okay, send me an email. I’d be happy to create tester accounts.
How to Set Up a Purchased WordPress Website on Your Hosting Server – Part 1 of 2
Jun 14th
This is a two part article describing how to move and set up a purchased WordPress website on your hosting server. The first part explains why you may want to purchased a WordPress site, how to transfer the domain and setting up the domain on your hosting server. Part two will take a closer look on how to install the websites database and configure some important WordPress settings.
Have you ever tried moving and setting up a purchased WordPress Website on Your Hosting Server. In case you purchased an existing WordPress website and domain and has no clue on how to move and set up WordPress website on my Hostgator hosting account, read on…
The reason you may not want to setup your own WordPress website from scratch may be because you want to speed up implementation time and take advantage of the fact that the domain has already some age and AdSense monetization working. So you would only have to use your SEO experience to improve Search Engine ranking for the niche keywords.
Lets take a real example but change the names. Bob is the guy who purchased the domain and blog and the lady, lets name her Maria, that had sold Bob the domain and corresponding WordPress website told him she would send him all the information needed, but what Bob received were two zipped backup files, one with the database sql import file and the other was the WordPress domain directory. The only indications regarding setting up the WordPress website Bob got were that he had to upload the files to his server. Was this all he needed to do? What do you think?
Even though WordPress is very easy to install and manage, moving an existing WordPress Website to your hosting server should be a little more complex than that. So Bob thought that there must be more to it, especially as the MySQL database file had another database prefix, which is usually your hosting account ID. The format is something like MYHOSTID_MYDBNAME; so let’s name Maria’s database file maria89_wpbd123.sql. Bob’s Database prefix is bob58.
I know that when you restore a MySQL database in cpanel that it takes the sql file name to import the tables it into the same-named database, or creates a new one. Bob tried it out and as a result a MySQL database named bob58_maria89wpbd123 was created. The database restore had stripped out the underscore and added Bob’s database prefix. Not very nice:-(
Bob then wrote Maria back asking for more details, and whether there were any specifics that he needed to take into account for moving, setting up or configuring her specific the WordPress website. She apologized and replied that she did not know how to handle this and suggested having a live chat with my hosting support provider. Maria probably thought that moving a WordPress website from one hosting server to another would be as easy as she initially said, so Bob could not count on her and did not insist futher. Bob’s hosting provider has an outstanding support, so this was not a too bad idea, but then he decided that he would first have a go on his own.
So here comes how Bob proceeded for moving, setting up and configuring her WordPress website on his hosting server…There may be a quicker way, but it worked great for him and, in the end, if you know some simple but important details, the set up is pretty straight forward. Let’s first outline the basic steps required to transfer the domain to and set up the WordPress website on your hosting server.
Transfer the domain to your domain service provider
Set up the domain on your hosting server
Upload the WordPress database files
Configure your WordPress website
What do you need before you start?
WordPress Database MySQL restore file, DBprefix_DBname.sql
The complete WordPress website directory
The current WordPress admin userid and password
So let’s go a little more into detail on each step of the set up process…
1. Transferring the domain to my domain service provider
If you have also purchased the corresponding domain, the very first step is to get the domain transferred to your domain service provider. This will be done by the owner. If you have the same domain service provider, this is usually very simple; it’s called “pushing”.
Unfortunately Maria had another domain service provider than Bob is using. So to make things easy he created a free account with her domain service provider and would take care of transferring the domain to his provider later on. Maria then “pushed the domain into his account, Bob accepted it, and then pointed the domain to his DNS server. That was the easy part.
2. Setting up the domain on your hosting server
Bob has a hosting plan, which includes unlimited add-on domains. He logged into his cpanel and created the new add-on domain. This is pretty simple, so I won’t go into more details here. Bob did NOT need to create a WordPress Blog Website installation. This is done by restoring the WordPress database and uploading the WordPress website directory files he got to the domain’s root directory.
Bob then entered my new domain name in the internet browser’s address bar and saw that all was working so far, because he could see the empty cgi-bin directory that is created by default.
Now Bob could upload the WordPress website directory content to the domain directory, located below the root directory; in his case KingKoilMattresse.net. You can either do this via FTP or use the cpanel > Files > Backups wizard.
Bob reentered the domain name in the internet browser address bar and got the expected database connection error. First of all he did not have the DB installed yet and the connection information would be incorrect anyway. We will see how this part of our WordPress website setup can be achieved.
In the final part of the article we will have a closer look on how to Upload the WordPress Database files and Configuring your WordPress Website.
