The Expand2Web Blog » Using WordPress

Verify Your WordPress Website in Google Webmaster Tools

Don Campbell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:25:56 +0000

Google Webmaster Tools is one of the most powerful free toolkits at your disposal for making sure Google can crawl your website properly.

In order to use Google Webmaster tools for your website, you need to verify it with Google to prove that you own the website.

There are two ways to do this:

Uploading a special file to your website
Adding a Meta Tag to your website.

With WordPress, it can be confusing how to do this. This video shows you how to verify your WordPress Website in Google Webmaster Tools using the Meta Tag method.

Once your site is verified, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to do all sorts of diagnostics on your site. For example:

Submit an XML sitemap for your site (I use this WordPress Plugin to automatically update my XML sitemap)
Discover any problems Google might have crawling your site
Discover any duplicate content issues on your site
See what keywords people are using to find you
See what sites are linking to your website
Check your Page Load Speed
And a TON more.

Trust me, this is an indispensable tool and you’ll want to set it up for your website.

Please rate my video and leave me comments below!

How to Add an Image to Your WordPress Sidebar

Don Campbell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:44:42 +0000

Here is something I get asked a lot – how can I add an image to my WordPress sidebar?

This video shows you how:

In the video, I’ll show you how to upload the widget using the WordPress Media Library, grab the URL for the uploaded image, and then use a WordPress Text Widget to display your image in the sidebar.

In this case I’m using the Expand2Web SmallBiz WordPress theme, but this tip will work with any WordPress theme that is widget enabled.

Here is the code snippet I used in the video for the sidebar widget:

Just put the URL of your image in between the quotes of the image source tag.

Note: You should resize the image to the width of your sidebar before uploading. In this case the image is 200px wide. The width of the sidebar will depend on your WordPress theme.

What I Learned Upgrading to WordPress 2.9

Don Campbell — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:15:28 +0000

WordPress 2.9 was released a couple of days ago. I read about all the cool new features and said to myself – “hey, I need that version!” so I used my favorite WordPress Automatic Upgrade plug-in to upgrade my primary blog to WP 2.9.

I got almost all the way to the end of the upgrade process, where it told me a “CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE FINAL STEP.” When I clicked OK I was rewarded with this nice little message: “ERROR: WordPress 2.9 requires MySQL 4.1.2 or higher”

Apparently, my blog was running a version earlier than that. So now all my files are upgraded to WP 2.9, but my database is not compatible. Now what!?

Damage Control

My blog is officially offline.

I use BlueHost and 1and1 for my WordPress hosting. I primarily use BlueHost now because they’ve got the whole WordPress install and upgrade process dialed in, but this blog was hosted on 1and1. I looked at their help to see how to upgrade my database, and a quick check told me that I had to do a lot of stuff to make that happen.

Luckily, I did perform the backups that are recommended as part of the upgrade process with the plug-in. So I took my backup files and copied them over my the WP 2.9 files that had just been copied into my blog directory. My blog was now restored to a state where it was displaying posts, but the editing controls in the WordPress Admin panel were not working.

Upgrading MySQL Database

So I was faced with the task of upgrading MySQL to 4.1.2 or higher. The instructions from 1and1 were:

1) Export your existing database using phpMyAdmin
2) Create a new MySQL 5 database
3) Import your database file into your new database using phpMyAdmin
4) Update your wp-config.php with the new database info

Ok, I think I can handle this.

So I went into the 1and1 control panel and created a new MySQL 5 database. Then I exported my existing database:

Then I imported it into my new MySQL 5 Database:

This seems easy enough. But wait:

Access Denied.

DAMMIT!

Ok. Keep calm. What the __ do I do next?

Well, after trying it a few more times and realizing I wan’t getting anywhere, I called 1and1 support. The support guy had to keep putting me on hold, but eventually he told me that I needed to delete a couple of lines at the beginning of the MySQL back up file.

These lines specified the old database name, which was causing the permissions error.

Ok, now that’s cool, but my SQL backup file is 4.6mb, and I see that the max file size on the import screen is:

(Max: 2,048KB)

Nice.

What I ended up doing is opening the SQL backup file in a text editor, copying the entire text from the file, and pasting it into the box on the import screen.

I was rewarded with a box that said my import was successful.

Finally… Upgrade Success

I then went and put WordPress into maintenance mode, updated the wp-config.php file with my new database settings, took it out of maintenance mode and verified everything was working fine.

Tip: You can put WordPress into maintenance mode by creating a file in your WordPress directory called .maintenance with the following code in it: to take it out of maintenance mode, just rename or delete the file.

Now when I went through the WordPress Automatic Upgrade process, the WordPress 2.9 upgrade went smoothly.

Man, that was a hassle! I wish WP Automatic Upgrade would have told me up front that my database wasn’t compatible with WordPress 2.9. It would have saved me a lot of last minute panic.

Anyway, I wanted to share this in case anyone else has a similar problem and does a panicked Google search looking for a solution!

Backing Up Your WordPress Database with the WP-DB-Backup Plugin

cindy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:00:10 +0000

One of the most essential functions in keeping a smoothly-running website is to make sure you always have a current backup. In a perfect world, disaster recovery would never be necessary, but in reality, server crashes do sometimes happen. Particularly for small businesses, it’s vital to make sure that you always have a way to restore your data in case of emergency.

The WP-DB-Backup plugin allows you to quickly and easily backup your core WordPress database. To install the WP-DB-Backup plugin and run a backup of your WordPress website:

Go to Add New plugins in your WordPress Admin interface
Search for WP-DB-Backup and install it
Go into the setting for the plugin and schedule your backups.

You can set a schedule to run the backup and email you a zip file with the contents of your WordPress database. The schedule of how often you should run a backup really depends on how frequently your website content changes.

For example, if you post new content every week, just set the schedule to run the backup each week.

If your website ever does crash, and you need to restore from your most recent backup, simply log into your web host’s control panel, and use phpMyAdmin to quickly and easily restore your WordPress database.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

Do you need hosting for your WordPress site? BlueHost is a great way to go. Easy WordPress installs, 24/7 U.S. based support, and a Free domain name are just a few reasons why. Just $6.95/month Find out more…

The Tag Cloud widget – your obsessions made text

David — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:00:55 +0000

The Tag Cloud widget gives your readers an at a glance view of your most commonly used (and less used) tags. A tag cloud is really a way to show your users what tags (or topics) you write most about and display the tags in a manner that is more visual than pure textual. Here are the details.

The Tag Cloud widget – your obsessions made text

Instructions

Login to your blog and start at the Dashboard
Click on Appearance > Widgets
Click on Add next to the Tag Cloud Widget
Click on Edit in the Tag Cloud Widget you just added to your default sidebar
Enter a Title
Click on Done
Click on Save Changes

Wrap-Up

If you are actively tagging all your posts than a tag cloud is a great way for you to get maximum value and easily allow your readers to find posts that of interest to them.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

What Is A WordPress Theme?

cindy — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:00:29 +0000

If you’re new to WordPress, one of your first questions might be to ask, “What exactly is a theme, and do I need to use one?” The short answer is that a theme is the background, or “skin,” of your website. And yes, you will most definitely want to use a theme to make your website stand out from your competitors.

Controlling Your Website’s Look, and More

WordPress themes are actually a little more complicated than just managing the look and presentation of content on your website. The theme is a collection of files (called template files), which work together to produce the design for your WordPress website or blog. Essentially, the theme controls the way your website is displayed, without making any changes to the underlying software.

What’s In a Theme?

So, exactly what types of template files are included in a theme? This can vary somewhat among different themes, but in most cases, the theme is comprised of style sheets (*.css), code files (*.php), and image files (*.jpg, *.gif).

How Do I Find My Theme?

To find a new theme for your website, there are practically endless options available. A quick Google search for “WordPress themes” returns thousands and thousands of results. There is a directory of themes available for download from WordPress.org, as well as other sites that host a repository of WordPress themes, most of which are free to download.

There are also many Web developers who will design a custom theme for your WordPress weblog for a small fee. This might be beneficial if you want to ensure that your business’s website is truly one-of-a-kind.

I’ve Got My Theme, Now How Do I Install It?

The WordPress theme will generally be packaged in an archive file (.zip or .gz). The old way to install WordPress Themes was to download the theme archive to your local machine, extract the files, and then upload them to your /wp-content/themes directory using and FTP client program. (Often the theme designer will include a file with a name such as “readme.txt” to give any further instructions that might be necessary.)

Now with WordPress 2.8, you can easily find and install themes without having to download them or use FTP. See this video How To Install a WordPress Theme in WP 2.8 to see this new feature in action.

Once your theme has been installed, choose “Appearance” on the left-hand column, of your WordPress Dashboard. This will bring you to the “Manage Themes” page. Here you will see all of the WordPress themes that you have uploaded. Simply click on the theme that you wish to use, and voila! Your website’s new theme has been installed. You can leave it as is, or customize it by going to Appearance > Editor.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

Pages widget – adding or excluding a directory of your static content

David — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:00:17 +0000

Pages are the key to displaying static content on your WordPress website or blog. Many themes allow you to display your pages as menus across the top of the page. You can also create a quick-reference list of the static pages on your blog using the pages widget. You can even choose to leave some pages out of the list. This short tutorial shows you how..

The Pages widget – adding or excluding a directory of your static content

Instructions

Login to your blog and start at the Dashboard
Click on Appearance > Widgets
Click on Add next to the Pages Widget
Click on Edit in the Pages Widget you just added to your default sidebar
Enter a Title
Choose the sort order
You can even choose to exclude certain pages. However, you will need to know the Page ID. You will need to go to the Pages section, click on a page and look in the URL to see the Page ID. Then you can enter that in this widget to have it excluded.
Click on Done
Click on Save Changes

Wrap-Up

Pages are a great way to show static content – everything from articles, to “contact me” and “about us” pages. The Pages Widget makes display quite easy.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

Do you need hosting for your WordPress website? BlueHost is a great way to go. Easy WordPress installs, 24/7 U.S. based support, and a Free domain name are just a few reasons why. Just $6.95/month Find out more…

Creating a PollDaddy Poll on Your WordPress Website or Blog

David — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:03:05 +0000

If you want to quiz or poll your readers with a customizable, embeddable poll, the PollDaddy feature baked into the WordPress editor makes it really easy. (Requires the PollDaddy Plugin.) This short video talks you through the process of putting a poll together and checking up on the results.

Creating a PollDaddy Poll

Instructions

Open up a new post in your blog (you can also start by going to Polls > Add New)
Look to the top of the editor window, on the Upload/Insert line and look for the circle icon which is the Poll Daddy icon. Click on that link.
Choose any existing poll or, as we will do here, click on Add New
Enter in your question
Enter in your answers – you can have as many answers as you like – just add and delete the boxes for answers.
Optionally you can choose multiple choice which means users could pick more than one answer
Another option is to randomize the answers. Survey research shows that the first answer always pulls more answers – so rotation avoids that bias
You can even choose to allow to let users enter the own answer instead of your fixed responses
Choose your design – pick the best option to match your theme
Select if or how the visitors can see the survey results – not at all, just percentages or the actual vote count
Select how you try and limit double-dippers, those who try and stuff the ballots with multiple votes
Save Your Poll

To view poll results

Select Polls from the left menu
Select Edit
Select the particular poll you want to review
Here you can look at the results
From here you can also preview, edit or delete the poll and even get HTML code that you can place on any website and feed answers from that site directly into your poll

Wrap-Up

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

Adding a new link to your WordPress-sidebar

David — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:00:58 +0000

Links are the way you can tell your visitors about other sites you recommend. These can be your sites – your photos page on Flickr, another blog or website you maintain, your page on LinkedIn or any link. Since you can promote any link, these can also be links to other sites that you would like to recommend.

In the WordPress world these links are sometimes called your blogroll. This is based on the original idea that this is where you would endorse/recommend other blogs. However, in practice, most blogs use these feature as links to many other types of sites and not just to other blogs.

Adding a new link to your sidebar

Instructions on Adding a Link

Login to your WordPress blog and start at the dashboard
Select Links
Select Add New
Enter the name – this is the text that will be displayed to your visitors
Enter in the URL – always a good idea to cut and paste this to avoid typos
Enter in the description – this too will be displayed, in this case in the hover box over the text
Select (or create new) Categories. The link categories work similar to your post categories in that they allow you to organize your links.
Target will allow you to decide if clicking on the link opens a new window or replaces what is there (your blog) in the current window.
Optionally you can add information on your relationship to this blog; an image, an RSS feed and even your own rating of the site you are linking to.
Update link and you are set!

Wrap-Up

As you work to increase the Search Engine Optimization of your site, other bloggers linking to you site can help your optimization – particularly if the other blogger has an established site with good traffic. It is not uncommon to return the favor and then add that other blog to your own blogroll.

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!

How To Change the Order of Your Nav Bar Items in WordPress

Don Campbell — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:00:28 +0000

By default, WordPress tries to order the Pages in your Navigation bar alphabetically by title. But what if you want to re-order them?

Well, don’t worry, it is possible. It’s a bit quirky, but you have total control over which order your navigation items appear in most WP Themes. The key is setting the Order Attribute when editing a Page in the WordPress editor.

This video shows you how to do it:

See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!