Here’s a video recap of Justin’s presentation at WordCamp Fayetteville in July–on CSS3, WordPress, and yes, Salsa Dancing:

CSS3 provides an awesome landscape for speeding up web design with WordPress. Here you will learn useful techniques about CSS3 that will enable you to add unique touches easily to your designs. From the basics of adding rounded corners to using the more advanced techniques of using child selectors to rotate and scale items on you website, this presentation will walk you though an in-depth look at CSS3.

(credit: WordPress.tv and course description via WordCamp Fayetteville)

Please note – this is not a WordPress tips newsletter as much as it is a collection of the latest tips and tricks on how to use iThemes and PluginBuddy tools to create even more originality and creativity within WordPress.

This new tips newsletter will be delivered weekly via email (or you may subscribe via RSS).
We will include the title of the tip and a brief description, with a link to the full tip.

In addition to some standard, though often unknown, modifications you can make, we will also be providing some unique, cutting edge ways to distinguish your site from other sites.
Be prepared to get creative.

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We will have a look at:

• Using a widget to add content to your post content
• Using a shortcode to add content to your post content
• Using a filter to add content to your post content

Using a widget to add content to your post content

This method will describe how you can create your own widget area (still called “sidebars” which is not covering the actual functionality).

The advantages of using a widget is that you can change the content without having to go into the code. For instance, if you are creating a site for less technical users, who need to be able to change content on a regular basis (e.g. for announcements), a widget provides an easy way to modify content.

The downside here is that you have to edit two of your theme files, functions.php and the file(s) where you would like the widget text show up, in this case the single post page, single.php. If you’re a developer, this isn’t much of a downside. If you are more of a beginner, this isn’t hard. You just need to be careful to follow the instructions exactly.

Step 1: Register the sidebar, the widget area by adding the following code to your functions.php:

register_sidebar(
    array(
        'name' => 'Bottom of Post',
        'description' => 'My new widget area to appear at the bottom of a post',
        'before_widget' => '<div id="bottom_post">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h4 class="widget-title">',
        'after_title' => '</h4>'
    )
);

This creates a new widget area named “Bottom of Post”, it will be wrapped in a div container “bottom_post” (which may come in handy if you want to add additional styling), and the title of the widget will be wrapped in <h4>tags</h4>.

Step 2: Make sure the widget contents will be displayed on your page. To add the widget to your single post page, you will have to modify the single.php file. In most themes, somewhere in the single.php you will find where the content is being written. You can add the following code after that, but you can also choose, as you can see on my post pages, to add the widget below the meta data, categories, and add it just before the comments start.

<?php the_content('Read More'); ?>

<?php   if ( function_exists(dynamic_sidebar('Bottom of Post')) ) :
            dynamic_sidebar('Bottom of Post'); endif; ?>

Using a shortcode to add content to your post content

A shortcode is, as the name implies, a short code, that represents whatever code you assign to it. Using a shortcode is in particular useful if you want to add a specific text on various locations. The downside is that you have to add the shortcode “manually” to each post or page where you want it to appear, you do however have the ability to add it at the top of your post, the bottom, or perhaps just before or after the “read-more” break. (A shortcode to insert a subscription box might look like this: [subscribe].)

This method requires you to add code to your functions.php file. Please note, when you overwrite your functions.php file, such as when you upgrade your theme, your modifications will be lost unless you take steps to preserve them. Using the Easy Theme and Plugin Update Plugin you can minimise the damage, since your existing theme will be backed up before being overwritten. Or, if you are using Child Themes, you should be ok if you apply this modification to your child themes’ functions.php file.

In order to use a shortcode, it needs to have a name (here: subscribe), and a function (here: subscribeNewsLetter) attached to it, that will execute when the shortcode is used in a WordPress post, page.

add_shortcode('subscribe', 'subscribeNewsLetter');

function subscribeNewsLetter() {
    return '
        <div style="border:1px dotted #000; text-align:center; padding:10px;">
            <h4>Enjoyed this article?</h4>
            <p><a href="http://ithemes.com/feed/">Stay up to date, and subscribe to our RSS feed!</a></p>
        </div>';
}

Now, when you enter the shortcode [subscribe] anywhere in your post, or page content, the function subscribeNewsLetter will be executed, and the text will be inserted.

Note: if you wish to use shortcodes in widgets as well, add the following line to your functions.php to enable this:

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

Using a filter to add content to your post content

By far the easiest and hasslefree way to add code to all your content, is to append it to your post content using a WordPress filter. WordPress filters allow you to “hack” into the core WordPress functionality, and change, add or remove it. (But if the thought of changing the core WordPress functionality makes you nervous, you may want to try one of the first two methods.)

The filter to use to add your own content to your WordPress post content is the_content.

The following code will execute a function (here: insertSubscribeNewsLetter) that in turn will append text, similar to what you can see at the bottom of this post, right after the content.

add_filter ('the_content', 'insertSubscribeNewsLetter');
function insertSubscribeNewsLetter($content) {
   if(is_single()) {
      $content.= '<div style="border:1px dotted #000; text-align:center; padding:10px;">';
      $content.= '<h4>Enjoyed this article?</h4>';
      $content.= '<p><a href="http://ithemes.com/feed/">Stay up to date, and subscribe to our RSS feed!</a></p>';
      $content.= '</div>';
   }
   return $content;
}

Note the conditional tag used if(is_single()), which will make sure that this filter is only applied to single post pages. Without this condition, the code would be appended to posts and pages.

So there you have it, three ways to add content to your content. Of course this is not just limited to add a newsletter subscription form, there are many uses for this.

Which of these three solutions do you like best? Or do you have another way you prefer? Leave a comment below and let us know.

There’s actually a super-simple solution.

All you have to do is add the following to the END of your theme’s style.css file:

If you are new to working with your style.css file, here are a couple of pointers:

You can access the stylesheet in your WP dashboard by going to Appearance > Editor.

It is usually the last, or almost last, file listed in the right column. Click on it, if it’s not already selected, and you will see the code for your stylesheet in the editor window.

First, copy, paste, and save the entire stylesheet to a text file on your computer. You want to have the original to go back to just in case you inadvertently delete something.

Or, for a full solution, you can use BackupBuddy to make a full backup. (That may be over-kill in this situation, but it never hurts to be safe.)

Once you have the style.css file showing in the editor window, scroll all the way to the bottom and add the three lines of code in the image above. (You aren’t adding the numbers in the gray box – they are just to help you see the code.)

Be sure to “update file”, then go view your site.

See how simple that is?

The iThemes Support Forum is chock full of answers to questions about themes, plugins, and general WordPress issues. The Support Forum is available to current license holders.

You can also access the iThemes Codex for additional support.
(p.s. This tip came from the iThemes Codex.)

So, what is the_excerpt?  Thorough documentation can be found in the WordPress Codex, but I will give a brief overview. The_excerpt basically shows a brief preview (or dare I say, excerpt) of your post rather than the entire post. You can easily go to your blog index page and replace the_content() with the_excerpt() with little effort. Here are a few reasons why you would want to do that

1. Save load time on your blog page

Your blog page is a wealth of information, but no one wants to wait 5 minutes while you pretty pictures and text loads. Generally, I give a page a second or two before I move on to something else. Sure, I’m a little ADD, but so is the internet. It is about instant information, and using the_excerpt can help you embrace that.

2. Save bandwidth

Unfortunately, the internet is not an unlimited resource. While it may seem unlimited at times, you can’t just pour huge amounts of data from a server onto every user’s screen that visits. I have been to blogs where the home blog page loaded over 5mb of data. That is a huge drain on bandwidth for your server. On a site with high traffic, that load could be detrimental.

3. Really, it just looks better

Not in all cases, but as a general rule, I think sites look much better when you can see a headline and a brief preview of a lot of posts. That makes me more likely to click more of them. If you have one blog post that takes up all of the page that I can see, I may never scroll far enough to see what’s next. With the_excerpt, I can easily decide which posts I care to read, without having to scroll through tons that I don’t.

You can see an example of using the tag on the iThemes blog page. If you would like more information about usage, feel free to ask in the comments section below.

In some cases, this was not an upgrade from 2.8.2 to 2.8.4 since I had neglected some sites for a while, or haven’t been able to upgrade yet, others were almost up to date. If, like me, you’re responsible for multiple site, either your own, or sites that you manage as a webmaster, this needs a bit of planning, and in my case, a simple list that I can tick off, just to make sure I don’t miss anything.

First, I identified the steps involved in an upgrade of WordPress. There are clear instructions on the WordPress site, I’ll just post my simplified approach here.

Step one, list all sites you need to upgrade.

Most likely, when managing multiple sites, you will have some list with the sitenames, WordPress login info, database connection details, and FTP info, together with your contact details. If not, now is a good time to make such a list.

List all activities involved in upgrading

Now these may not apply to everyone, but I try to be safe rather than sorry.

1. Inform the site owners, and get their consent – Most likely, in case if such an urgent need to upgrade, I’m sure that won’t be too hard.
2. Prepare your tools – Make sure you have access to the sites, ftp access, WordPress logins, and any other tools you prefer to use (e.g. plugins for backing up WordPress, the theme(s), the database, see also links at the bottom of this article)
3. Backup the database – I prefer to do so by doing a full export of the database via PHPMyAdmin, if you feel comfortable doing so using a plugin, or any other tool, that is fine. Just make sure you will be able to restore the site exactly as it was before you did any upgrade activities.
4. Complete Site backup – I use the manual approach, and use an FTP program to download the entire site to a folder on my local machine.
5. Export your posts – Just because it’s easy, and in case a backup fails, at least you will have a WordPress formatted XML file with all posts, comments, categories, users, tags etc.
6. Put the site offline – To avoid site visitors to run into a half upgraded site, I use the maintenance mode plugin to disable access to the site, unless you’re logged in as a user with Administrator site.
7. De-activate all plugins – This may seem a simple one, but one good advice, make note of all plugins that you deactivate. In most cases, there may be plugins already de-activated that you needn’t/shouldn’t activate once the upgrade is finished
8. Check custom modifications to WordPress – This may apply to very few, but I know that for some customers, I have modified the script that holds all the buttons in the WordPress editor (quicktags.js). This file is located in the wp-includes/js folder. Note, recently, I found a better way to add custom quicktags without having to modify core WordPress
9. Upload the latest version of WordPress – Assuming you have already downloaded the theme, and unpacked it somewhere on you local machine. Using FTP, overwrite all files on your server. Check if there are any files failed to upload. If so, retry until all files are uploaded.
10. Perform the upgrade – To do so, navigate to http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php and hit Enter. WordPress will inform you if a database upgrade is required, and with a click on a button, the database upgrade will be performed.
11. Reapply the custom modifications – This refers to any modifications made to core WordPress files, such as modifications to quicktags.js. Verify any changes in the standard code, there may also have been changes caused by the upgrade, so you can’t simply copy the old files over the new ones. You will have to check this carefully.
12. Activate plugins – Re activate the plugins, and update when indicated.
13. Test and verify the site – This should be a shared responsibility of you, as the site manager and the site owner. Generally, the site owner will have a different way of looking at things, and probably uses different functions than site managers/webmasters.
14. Get go/no go from the site owner – It should also be clear that it is the site owners responsibility to release the site again.
15. Put the site back online – When using the maintenance mode plugin, de-activate it.

Put Together An Upgrade Checklist

What I then did was put this all together in a spreadsheet, and just work by this checklist. Whether you want to do so top to bottom, then left to right, or left to right and top to bottom is up to you. The last approach will ensure the shortest downtime for each site.

Wp Upgrade Multiple Sites

download spreadsheet

So there you have it, a simple checklist and planning to make this as painless as possible.

When should a person upgrade their WordPress blog? Frankly, this is not an easy question to answer.

The answer is completely dependent upon what type of site you are running, how important it is to ensure maximum uptime for the site, and how skilled you are at fixing problems like a failed WordPress upgrade. Even after determining a safe amount of time to wait before upgrading, there are a number of things that you should do before upgrading.

In this post, I hope that I can not only provide you with a base guideline for when you should upgrade but also how you should upgrade.

WordPress upgrades from an iThemes perspective

As a new WordPress version release approaches, we actively work to ensure that there aren’t any problems with our themes or plugins that would cause them to fail when the new version comes out. Personally, I run the latest development code for weeks on my personal sites and on my development sites to try my best to catch any and all bugs or potential problems.

So far, the 2.8 release has been kind to us. The internals of WordPress really didn’t change, so we didn’t have to update any of our code specifically for the new version release.

However, this isn’t to say that there will not be any problems. Problems always have a way of appearing out of nowhere. As always, if you find a problem with your theme after a new version release, please stop by our support forum and let us help you out with it.

Even though we have yet to find any issues related to our themes with the 2.8 release, some customers have still had issues after the new version release. So far, all of these have been caused either by plugins that have not been maintained or by custom code running on the customer’s site that was not tested on the new version. Please keep in mind that themes aren’t the only source of potential problems as a site’s plugins and customizations can also cause upgrade woes.

So, this brings me to some basic steps that should be followed to give you the best chance at a safe upgrade on your site.

Five things to do before upgrading WordPress

Now that WordPress is so easy to upgrade, you can simply click a button and let the software take care of it for you, it becomes very easy to forget that this process can fail. If the upgrade does fail, your site could be down for hours or days or you could lose valuable data from your site (posts, pages, etc).

Doing the following won’t guarantee that you won’t have problems, but adhering to these recommendations will go a long way toward minimizing the risks of upgrading and will allow you to recover better in case of lost data.

1. Make a backup of all your site data – Even though WordPress itself tells you to backup your data before upgrading, most people don’t. This is just inviting disaster as most people don’t have any backup strategy and losing any data means that it is lost forever.

   The easiest thing to do is go to Tools > Export and save an XML export of your site’s data. This backup isn’t a complete backup, but it does have all your site’s posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags. This is the most valuable data on your site, so at the very least, save this export file before doing the upgrade.

   To get a more complete backup of your data, I recommend using the WP-DB-Backup plugin. This plugin allows you to create a backup of all your data, including any data that your plugins could have stored on your site.

2. Upgrade all of your plugins – Most plugin authors work hard to ensure that their plugin will not break your site. When a new WordPress version nears release, they will update their plugin as needed to ensure that it still works and that it won’t break your site. By upgrading your plugins first, you give yourself a better chance of avoiding a problem caused by plugins after the site upgrade.

3. Visit plugin and theme author websites – Beyond simply updating your plugins, visit your plugin and theme authors’ sites. If the code is still being actively developed, the author should have information about compatibilty with the new release. If there aren’t any updates, contact the author and ask them directly.

   When dealing with a plugin, if you can’t get a confirmation from the site or the author, I highly recommend that you disable the plugin before upgrading. You should also see if you can find anyone else running the plugin to see if they have any issues running the plugin on the new version.

   If your theme is no longer actively maintained or was a custom-built theme, test out the theme on a test site running the new version of WordPress first before upgrading your live site. I have more information on test sites toward the end of the post.

4. Disable all plugins – You’ve updated your plugins and ensured that they will work with the new version. Before doing the upgrade, you should disable all plugins to ensure that they will not cause any issues during or after the upgrade.Once the upgrade is complete, reactivate the plugins one at a time. If activating one of the plugins causes the site to break, go and delete that plugin’s folder inside wp-content/plugins. This will force the plugin to disable and should give you access to your site again.

5. Ask yourself if you need to upgrade now - Getting back to the main topic, you really should consider if you are 1) prepared enough for the upgrade and 2) your site is ready for the upgrade. I’ll talk about this in more depth in the next section.

How important is your site?

Your site is a source of income for you, has very high traffic, or could be severely hurt by any downtime. A new WordPress version just came out. Should you upgrade right now? Frankly, if you can’t accept any amount of downtime, wait a minimum of two weeks after the new version comes out. This will give the WordPress developers enough time to identify and fix any major issues that were found immediately after release. The same goes for giving your plugin and theme developers enough time to ensure that there aren’t any problems.

If your site is just a hobby site or you don’t mind having some downtime, go ahead and update as soon as you are ready. You could end up finding a problem that helps out the community.

To hit the main point again: If you rely on your site and maximum uptime is important to you, wait at least two weeks before upgrading to a new version of WordPress.

Safest choice: run a test site

I’m a huge fan of test sites. I actually have numerous test sites. I have a primary one that I use to test any code that I plan on moving over to my personal website. I have a primary development test site that I use to build and test new code for iThemes. I also have a running version of most of the major versions of WordPress.

This type of solution is overkill for most people, and I really have a hard time recommending it to the average user. However, I do think that every person who runs a WordPress site that needs to have maximum uptime should have at least one test site. What makes a good test site? I’m glad you asked.

1. The test site should reside on the same server as your live site. This will ensure that differences in core software on the servers won’t create unpredictable results. In other words, it creates a level playing field that makes your testing environment simulate your live site much better.

2. Ensure that your test site is a duplication of the live site. The data isn’t what is so important here; rather, you need to have the same version of WordPress installed complete with exact copies of the theme and every plugin. The theme and all active plugins on the live site need to be activated on the test site.

3. If you are concerned about people stumbling onto your test site, simply protect the site with a username and password. You can do this by creating .htaccess and .htpasswd files and then loading them onto your test site. Instructions can be found here.

Once you have your test site up and running, always run any upgrades, new plugin installations, theme modifications, etc through it first. If your test site breaks, breathe a sigh of relief that it isn’t your live site. If your test site keeps running, you have as good of an assurance as you’re going to get that your live site should work just fine after the change.

Closing thoughts

For those of you that don’t like the massive amount of information I’ve thrown up here and just want quick answers, here’s a summary:

1. Always backup your site data in Tools > Export before upgrading WordPress.

2. Always update all of your plugins before upgrading WordPress.

3. If your site’s operation is critical for your business, reputation, or because you don’t want the hassle, wait at least two weeks after a new version release before upgrading WordPress.

4. The best way of knowing what will happen to your site after an upgrade is to make a personal test site that has all the same plugins and theme activated and running the upgrade on the test site first.

So that after you’ve done some of these quick details, it has a look and feel that reflects you and your businesses’ distinct personality. But until now, we’ve never done a tutorial (that I know of) to really show off some simple ways you can customize your site.

So I thought I’d offer a couple of easy ideas to do that … here they are:

1. GRAPHIC HEADERS

The easiest customization you can do to a theme is to design a custom header image for your client. This is perhaps the best (and most affordable) way your client’s site can set itself apart from one site to another.

Using Photoshop and great images from iStockPhoto, you can do a lot of things with just the header image for your client.

Ideas to include in a graphic header:

• Profile photo of the main person – this is great for personal/professional blogs, real estate agents, politicians and other professionals wanting to put a personal touch on their site
• Stylized text of the business name; or else a logo – this simple little technique can really personalize a site … take some time and find the appropriate font style and color that fits the business or site best
• Taglines or company slogan – using stylized text, place the slogan in an appropriate place in the header that builds a unique look
• Contact information, like phone, email – a website can be a 24/7 business card or brochure, so be sure the most prominent action your client wants is front and center in the graphic. If they are a retail store, then they may want the phone number and location prominent.
• Background images – again, iStockPhoto is loaded with great abstract background images and pattersn. Search for graphics that are associated in your client’s field or industry (i.e. if you’re building a bank, how about images of money, graphics, etc)

Because the header image is a super easy way to customize themes, we’ve included the Custom Header Uploader script into our most popular themes, so all you have to do is save your image to your desktop, then use this script to easily upload and install it on your site.

Check out a demonstration of the Custom Image Uploader Images script that is included in all of our most popular themes.

2. SIDEBARS AND FEATURE AREAS

The WordPress Widgets feature make it extremely easy to put fresh, new content in your theme’s sidebar and feature areas.

To access your theme’s Widgets, in WordPress, go to Appearance / Widgets … then find the area you want to add text to.

You want to take full advantage of your sidebars as they are important marketing real estate on your site. So be sure to display your most important actions and items.

Here are some ideas for things you can add in your sidebars:

• Contact Information – give customer all the details for contacting you
• Business Hours – tell them when you’re open
• Driving Directions – link to Google Maps of your business
• Highlight Products / Services – iThemes uses our sidebars to feature our best themes and packages of interest
• Email Newsletter subscriptions – put your subscription form right in the sidebar and ask people to join
• Display Social Media icons – show off your web 2.0 savvy by linking to your profiles on hot social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
• Recent Posts – if you’re blogging regularly, be sure to drive traffic to your blog posts; this also helps keep your readers on your site longer

For more information on widgets, check out our How to Use WordPress Widgets video tutorial here

3. FEATURED IMAGES

We’ve included our Featured Images script — which lets you display a Flash-like, rotating images slideshow — into our most popular themes.

This feature is used in the header and home page feature photo areas on most themes.

The Featured Images script can be used in various ways, but here are the two most common:

• Display advertising messages – Use the Featured Images script to display our key marketing messages like special coupons, upcoming deals, or you could also use it to explain features and benefits of your products.
• Recent photos of events, activities — If you’re an organization like a church, you could use the Featured Images script to display a photo gallery of your recent event. Politicians could use it to show off photos of them on the campaign trail.

Check out a demonstration of our Featured Images script that is included in all of our most popular themes.

4. BACKGROUND IMAGES

Effective use of background images can be a great way to put an extra touch on your website or blog. But because on some people still have smaller monitors your readers might not always see beyond your actual website to get a glimpse of your background images. So we’ve put this further down the list.

You can use background images in numerous ways to set off the look of your main website. The possibilities are almost endless.

You can repeat your background images or patterns — horizontally and/or vertically — across the browser screen. You can use fades and gradients at the top of your side, or fix them to the side.

In several of our latest themes, in particular our FlexxTheme, we’ve included a Background Uploader feature, where you can upload your graphic easily and set the CSS properties with a dropdown menu.

Check out demonstration of the Background Uploader in FlexxTheme here or learn more about CSS Background properties here

5. CUSTOM FAVICON

Favicons are those little icons that display next to your web address in a web browser. It’s just some extra “bling” that adds a nice visual presentation to your site.

If it looks good, we suggest cropping your logo, or using your main color, to become the favicon.

1. Crop your image to 16×16 pixels or 32x32pixels at 72dpi
2. Save as a GIF
3. Upload to your theme’s image folder
4. If your theme doesn’t have the favicon code. Place this code in your header.php file, somewhere near where the stylesheet is called
5. Refresh your site and you should see the favicon.

In our FlexxTheme, we’ve included our demonstration of the new Custom Favicon Uploader feature, that will be phased into other themes soon.

Here are some other resources for creating favicons:

• Favicon Generator
• Smashing Magazine’s resource post on Favicons

As a general rule, from an SEO perspective, bear in mind the most fundamental issue. Google loathes duplicate content! Google is trying to index and categorize the billions of pages on the web and calculate each page’s relevance to specific search queries. Therefore, to have any chance of attaining appearance in Top 30 SERPs (search engine results pages), pages must be accurately described…

Keep in mind that Google is an entirely automated text indexing system doing its absolute best to deliver the most relevant content to its core users. Those core users are NOT website owners! Google’s main focus is on its search customers. If you want your website to get noticed, you’ve got to assist Google et al in every way possible, by accurately describing your own content. Make it clear and unequivocal what each page is about. Ensure it is original content, properly described, and easily accessible.

Apparently, there are over 200 elements that Google assesses as it’s trying to calculate a page’s relevance to a specific search query. Individually, some of them are almost insignificant. Collectively they add up to prominence or obscurity! The thinking man understands that the more elements you get right, the higher the probability of appearance in Top 30 SERPs.

Here’s a dozen of the primary indicators of unique content to an SE spider;

1. URLs: precise control of every page URL, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. Use Permalinks wisely!
2. Title Tag – 70 characters limit: Accurate, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. The single most important element for every page!
3. Meta Description – 150 chars limit: Accurate, carefully using primary keywords / phrase. By default, its used verbatim in Google SERP’s. Its very important to write a catchy phrase incorporating primary keyword phrase, one that impels viewers to click on it! I always use All In One SEO because I’m a “content control freak” and want to make sure every word is in the right place. Dynamic meta-tags are better than no meta-tags – but the ability to manually input as many elements as is possible is what makes the overall difference to SE Rankings.
4. Meta Keywords: Accurate, carefully using primary / relevant keywords and phrases. This should NOT be vaguely related words! It should be a set of long-tailed keyword phrases specifically relevant to the page content. I’d never use more than 8-10 phrases separated by commas.
5. 1st On-page Title/Heading: Headings offer limited space, but ALWAYS try and get at least one primary keyword into the title, and the tag must be H1 or H2, not an ‘imitation’ with large/bold text.
6. First Paragraph: Very important to get the primary keyword phrase into the beginning of the first sentence!
7. Last Heading: If you use one, reiterate a primary or secondary keyword phrase.
8. Last Paragraph: Quite important to get the primary or secondary keyword phrase into the beginning of the first sentence!
9. Images: Use keyword-rich image file names! Provide a descriptive and accurate image ALT text that uses a primary keyword phrase. Don’t overdo it – just lightly reinforce the page content descriptions.
10. Anchor Text: Provide links to other Internal Pages from primary/secondary keyword phrases within page content. Don’t waste the opportunity available to give clues to content on other pages! Using “Click Here For More” is not productive.
11. Menus: CSS drop-down menus are good. Text menus are good because they (usually) describe briefly the content of the page at the end of the link, providing an additional clue/reinforcement for the SE spiders. JavaScript menus are a disaster because they are completely invisible to Google et al.
12. Latent Semantic Indexing: Within the overall content, don’t use excessive primary/secondary keyword repetition. Instead, employ a sprinkle of similar words having the same meaning… and variations of the primary words; e.g. mortgage, mortgaged, mortgagee, mortgagor, lend, lending, lender, financing, funding, loan, loans, loaned etc… Reinforce the primary / secondary keyword phrases with supporting content. LSI is based on a mathematical probability that if a page says its about something, AND general content also contains related words / phrases, then it IS accurately described and IS specifically relevant to related search queries.
13. USE Google! They’ve got two absolutely essential items designed to help you! The first is the Google sitemap, and there are plugins available which totally automate generation of the sitemap.xml file every time you add or edit page or post content. The 2nd is Feedburner… Create a Feedburner account, and add your RSS Feed to it. That gives you an intravenous pipeline directly into the belly of the beast! I’ve regularly got blog posts and page content appearing in “Google Alert” distributions within 2 – 3 hours of publishing the post or page! Feedburner also offers you a managed email subscription service which routes your new content directly to interested users…

Guest Author’s Bio: Ben Kemp has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry, including 15 years as a freelance IT consultant. He is one of Australasia’s longest serving website SEO practitioners, with clients throughout NZ, Australia, Thailand, UK & USA. He specializes in implementing CMS websites. You can read him at bjk@ComAuth.co.nz or http://www.comauth.co.nz.

Frequent backups of your WordPress blog/website are integral to the long-term survival of your online presence. In an instant, your database could crash, you could accidentally remove tables or delete files from your server, or any number of things could go wrong resulting in a loss of data.

Here are three options for backing up your WordPress database, along with the pros and cons of each:

1. The Built-In WordPress Export Feature

This is certainly the easiest way to back up your blog as no plugin is needed.

Use if … you just want quick and easy backups of your Posts and Pages.

How to Use: In the WordPress Dashbaord, it can be found under the Manage > Export menu. Just choose the author(s) whose posts you want to export, and download the export file. The file can be imported later using the form under the Manage > Import menu.

Pros:

• Quick and easy backup of your Posts and Pages only
• Comes with the default install of WordPress; no extra plugins or files needed
• Very intuitive interface that can be easily used by anyone

Cons:

• Limited to backing up users, posts, comments, and categories
• It doesn’t backup links (Blogroll), passwords, IDs (post/category/comment)
• No scheduled backups
• 64MB upload limit for importing backups
• Extra tables created by plugins will be lost
• No option to email you the backup file

Suggested frequency: Every month or so, depending on the number of Posts and Pages you have.

2. WordPress Database Backup Plugin

This plugin allows you to backup the entire database for your WordPress installation.

Use if … you want a complete backup of everything to do with your WordPress installation, like users accounts, passwords, etc.

How to Use: Download the plugin, upload and activate it. The menu can be found under Manage > Backup. It will automatically backup all the default WordPress tables, but if you have extra tables in your database, choose them to be backed up as well. Then choose the method by which you want your backup file delivered, and click “Backup!”. You can also choose to have the backups made on an hourly, daily, or weekly schedule. Choose your preference and enter your email address, then choose the extra tables you want backed up and submit. It will tell you when the next backup is due.

Pros:

• Backup your entire database.
• Backup non-default tables, like those created by plugins
• Backup file can be emailed to you
• Scheduled backups

Cons:

• No restore function from within WordPress, meaning you must restore manually using a program like PHPMyAdmin
• A little more setup time than the built-in export feature of WordPress
• A plugin must be installed
• Higher learning curve all-around

Suggested frequency: 3-6 months or more often depending on traffic and the blog’s importance. And if you don’t want to remember to do it, just use the Scheduling feature included with the plugin!

THE BEST AND EASIEST OPTION TO GET EVERYTHING: BACKUP BUDDY

BackupBuddy is an all-in-one solution for backups, restoration, and migration. The single backup file created by the plugin can be used with the importer script to quickly and easily restore your site on the same server or even migrate to a new host with different settings. Whether you’re an end user or a developer, this plugin is sure to bring you peace of mind and added safety in the event of data loss. Our goal is to keep the backup, restoration, and migration processes easy, fast, and reliable.

Learn more about BackupBuddy here