I'm excited to announce that I have been certified by WishList Member and I'm able to assist you in setting up your own membership sites using WordPress and WishList.
Contact me for a free, personalized consultation.
Just in time for Christmas!
The developers at WordPress are rolling out version 2.9 “Carmen”, named in honor of magical jazz vocalist Carmen McRae. If you need to edit images I recommend that you upgrade now to take advantage of the new built-in image editor.
Some of the other headline features are…
- global undo/trash,
- batch upgrades,
- plugin compatibility checker,
- and easier embeds.
And of course it wouldn’t be a major release without a short video summarizing some of the cool things about the new version:
WordPress Version 3.0 (due out probably this spring) will have a new default theme, better upgrades, dynamic image resizing, and more.
All In One SEO Pack
The WordPress plugin that addresses the most important on-page optimization needs…A MUST HAVE if you want to generate traffic on your WordPress site.
What does it do?
By default, WordPress uses the blog tagline as the meta description and keywords, but the keywords in your tagline might not relate to content in your individual posts and pages.
My blog tagline “offering WordPress website services” is not very descriptive for a person searching for the how to use the All in One SEO Pack. I need to edit the Title, Description, and Keywords (or Meta Tags) to let the search engines know what content is found on this page.
Optimize Individual Pages & Posts
This assumes you have the All In One SEO Pack plugin install and activated on your WordPress site. If you need any help, please contact me.
The All in One SEO Pack can be found as a drop down on the post and page editors.
The Title allows you to chose the name of each post. As you can see with this post it is called “SEO for WordPress”. The title tag for this page has been changed to “How To Use The All In One SEO Pack To Optimize Your Website”. The keywords are more descriptive and will allow me to rank higher for search terms relating to the All In One SEO Pack.
The Description is basically the meta description for the post. Whatever you write in this field is what will affect the description search engines will use to describe your website in the search engine results. Make sure that your meta description properly reflects the content found within the post. This is the first thing your readers will see when your site was appears in search engine results. The meta description I used in this post is: “This all in one seo pack will help you optimize your wordpress for better search engine results. Easy to install and use”.
The Keywords are the meta keywords you want to include for the post. All you have to do is make a list of keywords that appropriately reflect the keywords found within the post and enter them in. Use commas to separate each meta keyword and avoid keyword spamming or keyword stuffing. This will hurt your search engine results. The meta keywords used in this post are: “all in one seo pack, seach engine, google, optimize, seo”.
You can also optimize the home page of your site. The All In One SEO Pack allows you to make search engine friendly your home page title, home page meta description and meta keywords.
From the dashboard, select
All in One SEO
Here are just a few options you can set…
Home Title allows you make your homepage title separate from any other pages on your site. It’s recommended to make your home title include the keywords you are trying to target for your site.
Home Description allows you to fill out the meta description for your home page. This is what will appear in search engine results for when your home page is being displayed.
Home Keywords are the meta keywords you want to have included on your home page. These keywords should reflect keywords found within your site. Make sure you include any keywords you want to rank high for in search engines when filling this out.
All in One SEO Pack – The plugins that optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines.
How the DB-Backup Plugin Saved a WordPress Site
When you delete a user, the pages that the user authored get deleted too. You’re given the option of assigning another user the posts and the links, but NOT THE PAGES.
Here’s the story…
I deleted a user on a client’s site. I was given the option of assigning another user the posts and links that the deleted user had written…
but NOT THE PAGES!
I had already assigned the posts to another user so I thought I was good to go…I made my selection and deleted the user. But I soon realized, with a sinking heart, that all the pages that were owned by the deleted user disappeared!
What could I do?
Luckily, I had run the Database Backup plugin* before I started so I was able to restore the database. Here’s how it was done…
(1) Download and unzip the backup file, making sure that it can be located again!
(2) Logged in to my web host CPanel and selected phpMyAdmin (the one with the sailboat icon) from the Databases section.
(3) Choose the WordPress database you want to restore from the list of all available databases.
HINT: The database name is contained in your backup zip file. In this example, it’s sswp01.
You need to DROP all WordPress tables in your database to make room for the restore.
(4) You should see the tables on the Structure tab…make sure that all of the boxes are checked then go down and select drop.
You will then see
(5) Click Yes IF YOU ARE SURE.
Your database is now empty.
(6) Click on the Import tab…
And use the browse button to locate the unzipped backup file on your computer and upload it.
(7) If it all goes well, you’ll see this. You’re done!
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PLEASE READ THIS !
If your .sql file is less than about 3meg in size, you will probably be fine with this method.
If your .sql file is larger, you can try the upload but you may get timeout errors. This is NOT the fault of WordPress – it is a host setting. If you have your own server you can change the settings. If you cannot alter that, and you get timeouts, you will have to do the following;
Open the .sql file in a text editor. Do NOT use a word-processor or Dreamweaver unless you REALLY know what you are doing – on a Windows machine NotePad is fine.
You will see something similar to this at the top:
– phpMyAdmin SQL Dump
— version 2.6.1-pl2
— http://www.phpmyadmin.net
—
— Host: localhost
— Generation Time: Jun 24, 2005 at 05:14 PM
— Server version: 4.0.24
— PHP Version: 4.3.11
—
— Database: `tamba2_data`
—
CREATE DATABASE `tamba2_data`;
USE tamba2_data;
Ignore all that, not needed. Everything else in that file needs copying and pasting into the SQL window. You highlight some text, copy it, paste it into the SQL window, click Go and after the Success message, you do it again with the next chunk of text. It can take a while, and you need to be careful that you miss no lines out.
From experience, there are a number of things which can mess things up when restoring and while nothing is fatal, it’s too complicated to describe here. If you run into trouble, please ask for help in the WordPress Support Forums.
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LESSON LEARNED! Be sure to run the Database Backup Plugin before you delete any user!
- *WP-DB-Backup – Easily backup/restore your posts and entire Wordpress database. Download or send the backup to your email.
Need a Membership Site?
There are a number of membership site plugins for WordPress but the one that I recommend (and am an affiliate for) is WishList Member and this week I’m beginning their first ever WishList Member Training and Certification Course.
WishList Member is the quick way to turn WordPress into a membership site and the WishList Member Training and Certification Course will cover how to setup, build and market a successful membership site using WishList Member…training that I hope will be of value to you in setting up your membership site.
WishList will teach strategies in this membership training program specifically designed for people looking to take their (or their client’s) membership sites to a whole new level. These strategies, grouped into 7 areas, have proven to be the core elements of successful memberships.
- Membership Planning Strategies
- Content Creation Strategies
- Promotion Strategies
- Conversion Strategies
- Retention Strategies
- Engagement & Community Strategies
- Outsourcing & Automation Strategies
This video explains more…
(my affiliate link for http://member.wishlistproducts.com/course)
If you’d like to join me in class, please sign up and send me an email to let me know you’re taking the training. I’ll touch base and offer you additional support in creating your own membership site. But hurry…the course will be open for new registrations until Tuesday, December 1st, 2009.
Not interested? That’s fine too. Just wanted you to know that I’m available for any future membership site needs.
As a bonus…
Top 10 Membership Models
Stu McLaren from WishList Member describes the Top 10 Membership Models for people looking to create an online membership site.
Did you know?
If you use InstantTeleseminars.com as part of your online marketing or delivery efforts, local numbers are available for some cities. A local number means no long distance charges for the folks on your teleseminar who wish to call in.
To find out if a local number is available…
…click on the Other #s from the ‘listen live by phone’ widget.
Please visit InstantTeleseminars.com if you are interested in learning more about using teleseminars to grow your list, to create and/or sell products, or using teleseminars as training events. [not an affiliate link]
A Solution for Audios
Add streaming voice content to your Website and eMail.
created with: My Website Talks!Easily add the selling power of your own voice to your Website, Email, and Auctions.
New do-it-yourself software make’s it quick and easy. No monthly fee’s. You buy it once, you use it forever.
Free demo available at My Website Talks!
A Solution to Long Email Links
Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you’re in the right place! By entering in a URL in the text field below, TinyURL.com will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.
An example
Turns this URL:
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?type=3&campid=5336224516&toolid=10001&customid=tiny-hp&ext=unicycle&satitle=unicycle
into this tinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/unicycles
Which one would you rather cut and paste into your browser?
That’s the power of TinyURL!
format: “http://www.yourdomain.com”
Web Design Solution
Browser Shots
browsershots.org
The fact is your web site will look different when viewed on different browsers.
That’s where browsershots.org can help. Since it’s not really practical to download every browser out there, this site can show you screen shots of your page in dozens of different browsers including Firefox and Safari.
Simply type in the address in the box on the screen, and within in a few minutes you can check out your masterpiece in every way possible.
SEO Primer
Keywords are the words and phrases entered in a search engine to reach a result page.
How to choose effective keywords
Consider…
- traffic (How often do people search using the keyword?)
- competition (How many other sites appear with this keyword?)
- relevancy (Is this the keyword people will use when searching for this product or service?)
Traffic
Use the Google AdWords free keyword tool to get a quick look at the advertiser competion and the search volume for the previous month and 12-month period.
Go to the tool and enter your keyword in the “descriptive words or phrases” box.
You will get a list of keywords with search volume details. If you don’t check ‘Use synonyms’, you will get a list with fewer keywords.
Competition
Use the same tool to research the competion.
After you select the keywords that best fit your product or service and that have sufficient traffic, go to Google and search to see which web pages rank for it. Make the list of the first ten URLs so you can analyze each site in the keyword tool.
Go to the tool, click the radio button for “Website content” and enter the URL in the box. You will be able to compare the high-ranking site with your own. Analyze your own page and see which keyword(s) you are missing. Edit the pages to include the suggested and related keywords.
Relevancy
Use the ‘Additional keywords to consider’ list for more related keywords, and the match type dropdown menu to broaden or narrow your search. (Learn about keyword match types.) Don’t be afraid to change one or more of your keywords if you find that you are not getting the results that you expected. Evaluate, analyze, test, and repeat!
Happy Keyword Hunting!
SEO Primer
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by Google that assigns a numerical value between 0 and 10 that represents how important a page is on the web.
Google figures that when one page links to another page, it’s casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page’s importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page’s PageRank is calculated.
PageRank is Google’s way of deciding a page’s importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page’s ranking in the search results. It isn’t the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one. (By the way, Google.com has a PageRank of 10.)
Use this free tool to find the PageRank of your pages.
| Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly: |
| This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service |
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