Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Archive for the ‘Website Setup’ Category

An out of the box free theme will not have all of the elements that you may want, or set up for your business’ needs. Adding elements is quite simple, and the sidebar may be your first stop.

Before I understood the code, I was able to change the order of widgets and elements in my sidebar. You can look at the code to see patterns, and by keeping those patterns, you can make your changes. The simplest change involves the order of the items in a sidebar, or eliminating an element, like a blogroll. Understanding some basics of code will make this process faster, and you may find that your sidebars can become effective in your marketing.

The Basics

In your WordPress theme, you will find a file called “sidebar.php”. You can edit this file in WordPress through the Editor found under the Appearance section. Feeling more adventurous? Use Notepad or Notepad++ to edit these files when not logged onto the internet. If you have more than one sidebar, you will see sidebar1.php, sidebar2.php, and so on.

When you open this file, you will be greeted with <div id=”sidebar”>. This bit of code sets up everything following as part of the sidebar. The code <div> and </div> create a section (division) of your site- one opens the section and the next one closes it. Anything that you put into those tags will go into the sidebar.

Here is where you need to pay attention. Let me give two examples that define the same element in two different themes.

Example 1

<li id=”links”>

<ul>

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_before=<h3>&title_after=</h3>&category_before=&category_after=’); ?>

</ul>

</li>

Example 2

<div>

<div class=”Block-tl”></div>

<div class=”Block-tr”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-bl”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-br”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-tc”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-bc”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-cl”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-cr”><div></div></div>

<div class=”Block-cc”></div>

<div class=”Block-body”>

<div class=”BlockHeader”>

<div class=”header-tag-icon”>

<div class=”BlockHeader-text”>

<?php _e(‘Links:’, ‘kubrick’); ?>

</div>

</div>

<div class=”l”></div>

<div class=”r”><div></div></div>

</div>

<div class=”BlockContent”>

<div class=”BlockContent-body”>

<ul>

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&categorize=0′); ?>

</ul>

</div>

</div>

</div>

</div>

Both pieces of code do the same thing, list the sites listed in your blogroll. They both tell the browser how these bookmarks will be displayed. Obviously, one bit of code is much shorter.

Let us take example 1 apart. The first tag that opens this element is <li>. Think of this as setting up a section within the larger section established by the <div> tag. Inside the <li> tag, you see attributes that define what this section includes. In this case, we find that the section is for the links. We then find a tag <ul>. This indicates that what comes next is an unordered list. If it was an ordered list, the tag would be <ol>. Your list is unordered, because you will be adding to it from your WordPress administration panel. All of these bits of code were HTML. Now we come to our first bit of code in php. Within the parentheses that start with ?php, we see a command that asks the server to find the list of blogroll links. Then within another set of parentheses, we see a command that tells the browser that these links will be placed under a header with the a title “Links” inside a tag <h3>. The <h3> tag tells the browser that this is a header of size 3. Size 1 being the largest header, down to size 6, the smallest. We then find the closing tags for this section. A closing tag uses the / mark inside the <> before the type of tag, li or ul.

Why is example 2 so complex? Well, the code was generated to create a specific look for a box surrounding the blogroll, and the elements inside that box. It has a lot of <div> tags. Just because we set up the sidebar with a <div> tag does not mean we cannot use them again. If you look inside all of these tags, you will recognize that the command telling the server to list the bookmarks is in the middle, and it is place within a unordered list. However, the code inside this command does not tell the server to create a header. It does tell the sever how they will be presented in that list. If you look, you will find the header mentioned in this command <?php _e(‘Links:’, ‘kubrick’); ?>. You will see that there are no <h3> tags, or any other <h> tags. In this case, the header is placed into a header image defined in the stylesheet. Getting back to this command; it simply tells the server to tell the browser that the title of this section is Links.

When looking at your own theme, look for those basic elements to find what is included to make one of your sidebar elements. You will be looking for <li> and <ul> tags, and you may need to look for <div> tags, but check for the repeating pattern.

Switching the Order

To move the order of the elements, you can open your editor to cut and paste theme in the order that you want. You have to save the file to implement those changes. Why would you want to switch elements? Maybe you would want to emphasize your links, but you want search to be down on the bottom of the sidebar. If the links are to your other business sites, you may want a visitor to go to those sites, so by bringing them up, a visitor is more likely to see them. Maybe they would only need to search, after they looked at those sites.

Adding an Element

What is important to you? Most WordPress themes have a blogroll. These are great ways to share your links with readers, but if you are a business, maybe you do not want to send your visitors to other sites, or you do not have other sites that you want to link. On my home inspection blog, I came to the conclusion that the blogroll was ineffective. On my site, visitors were quite likely to click on a link inside a post, but very rarely clicked on a link in the blogroll, even when I suggested that they do so. In fact, the only links visitors typically clicked on in my blogroll was to my other sites, and not to the other businesses that I was linking. I also so no reason for the Archives, because I found other ways for the user to navigate my site. There were other elements that I wanted. Here is a list of common elements found in a sidebar, but not necessarily in all free themes.

<?php wp_dropdown_pages(); ?> this lists the pages of your site in a drop down list. For example, if you have special pages attached to your About page, the About page would show up on the browser, while the special pages show up when it si clicked.

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(); ?> the links or blogroll

<?php wp_dropdown_categories(); ?> these are the categories for the articles on your site, listed by main categories, and subcategories when come in a dropdown list.

<?php wp_get_archives(); ?> This lists the archives, so posts can be accessed by date published.

<?php get_calendar(); ?> places a calendar in your sidebar

<?php wp_tag_cloud(”); ?> You will probably write down keywords as tags for your posts to help with SEO, but tags also help related pages plug ins find common topic posts, and tags are a great way for a user to search your site. This command produces a tag cloud (a list of tags) used on your site.

<?php wp_dropdown_users(); ?> This lets your site become a little more social by listing the users of the site.

<?php wp_list_comments(); ?> Want visitors to see the latest comments, then use this command. If you do not have many comments, you may not want this one.

Note: for any command that uses a dropdown in it, you will need to follow the following form in your sidebar to make it work:

<li id=”users”>

<h2>Users:</h2>

<form action=”<?php bloginfo(‘url’); ?>” method=”get”>

<?php wp_dropdown_users(); ?>

<input type=”submit” name=”submit” value=”view” />

</form>

</li>

I am going to deal with advertising and adding social media elements in your sidebars in different posts. I do want to mention one element that does not call upon the server or produce some standard blog/site feature. If you go to my home inspection site, you will see that the first element is a mission statement with my phone number. On this site, the mission statement with phone number are in the header. This statement is a good marketing tool. By having a mission statement, I let my readers know at a glance what my site is concerning. By including my phone number, I give a way for people to contact me quickly. You will find that not all users will go to your form or send you an email, so make your phone number easy to find on any page. Here is how to set up this element:

<li>

<h2>Title if you want one</h2>

<p> Mission statement or other info</p>

</li>

Here we have a title tag <h2> which stands out. You may not want it, or you may want to make it smaller with <h3>. We then have a tag that defines a paragraph of text, <p>. We then close these tags.

Alright, this post is becoming to long, but I hope this gives you a good overview of how to start changing your theme.

A list of essential plugins to get you going when you install WordPress for your small business site.

Not
all of these may be seen as essential, and you may argue that other
plugins may function better. This list is my standard list when
setting up a site, because I find that they get the job done, and
they make my life easier. I have included the standard description
that the plugins use to describe themselves, with added notes of why
I included it on this list.

All in One SEO Pack

Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog. Search Engine
Optimization is such a big deal to have your posts and site noticed.
There are other plugins for this function, but this one sets the
standard in my mind.

Version 1.6.4 | By Michael
Torbert | Visit plugin
site

Contact Form 7

Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. I found
that coding a form is not so difficult, and there are other plugins
that can help you create some fancy forms, but this one really is so
easy to use, and it gets the job done. It allows users to create
different forms (think “contact me”) for different tasks
in a clear way.

Version 2.0.1 | By Takayuki
Miyoshi | Visit
plugin site

Easy Gravatars

Add Gravatars to your comments, without requiring any
modifications to your theme files. Just activate, and you’re done! If
you are not setting up a blog style site, then you do not need this
one. A gravatar produces an image for the comment author when he does
not have one. It makes the comment section look better.

Version 1.2 | By Dougal
Campbell | Visit plugin site

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of
your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search
and YAHOO. Sitemaps are essential part of marketing your site,
because they give the search engines the data they need to direct
users to your site. This plugin generates the sitemap for you, and it
allows you to add pages that may not be part of the standard site.
Look at my sitemap, and you will find modified versions of the pages
that originally made up this site when it was dedicated to home
inspections.

Version 3.1.4 | By Arne
Brachhold | Visit
plugin site

HeadSpace2

Meta-data manager on steroids, allowing complete control over all
SEO needs such as keywords/tags, titles, description, stylesheets,
and many many other goodies. Meta-data is information stored on
your site to help search engines discover what a page or site is
about. This plugin adds some basic data that every post should have.

Version 3.6.30 | By John
Godley | Visit
plugin site

MobilePress

Turn your WordPress blog into a mobile website/blog. More users
are accessing our sites through mobile devices. This is great,
because we can reach them when they are thinking about us, rather
than later, when the inspiration to buy may not be as hot. The
problem is that our sites are designed to be seen on computer
monitors. If your site is not easy read on the screen of the latest
mobile toy, you have missed a chance to connect with a potential
client. This plugin helps solve that issue.

Version 1.0.4 | By TinyImpact
| Visit plugin site

No Self Pings

Keeps WordPress from sending pings to your own site. Well, I do
not care for most pings, which are like comments telling readers that
the post they are reading is linked to on another site. Often these
pings are a form of spam. What is worse is that your own site could
be setting up pings, when you have other ways to let the visitor know
about other posts. This plugin stops them.

Version 0.2 | By Michael
D. Adams | Visit
plugin site

Redirection

Manage all your 301 redirects and monitor 404 errors.
Eventually, you will find that you have moved a page, changed the
link (permalink) of a post, or removed a post. With this plugin, you
can redirect the user to the new position of the page or post,
instead of having them fumble through the site.

Version 2.1.22 | By John
Godley | Visit
plugin site

Robots Meta

This plugin allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags
to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow
unnecessary links. Like HeadSpace, this plugin is adding meta-data to
your site. In this case , you are telling the search engines what
not to include or to include.

Version 3.2.2 | By Joost
de Valk | Visit
plugin site

SEO No Duplicate

This plugin helps you manage your search engine duplicate content,
by setting your post page’s canonical to the permalink. Search
engines do not like duplicate content (sort of), but you also want to
make each page and post title unique. This plugin adds meta-data that
will help tell the search engines what is what.

Version 0.3.2 | By Thaya
Kareeson | Visit
plugin site

SEO Slugs

Removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to
improve SEO. Maybe not really necessary, but I find that this
helps me make a better link for the search engines by removing some
common words to get down to the heart of the title, which may very
well be the keywords you are targeting.

Version 1.0 | By Andrei
Mikrukov | Visit
plugin site

SEO Smart Links

SEO Smart Links provides automatic SEO benefits for your site in
addition to custom keyword lists, nofollow and much more. There
are some really fantastic plugins out there like Apture and Balloon.
Apture is great if you have a site where you want to enrich the user
experience. With this plugin, I do create a better experience for the
user by showing them where a related post may be through a link in
the post. This happens to also help with your search engine
optimization.

Version 2.1 | By Vladimir
Prelovac | Visit
plugin site

ShareThis

Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail
and posting to social bookmarking sites. Questions on configuration,
etc.? Make sure to read the README. Everyone is going social. I
share my findings with friends. This plugin allows users to share
your site with others. The other methods, but this is a commonly used
method that produces a clean look on the site. More for blogs, but it
can be used on any site.

Version 3.0.1 | By ShareThis
| Visit plugin site

Simple Tagging

Simple Tagging is another tagging plugin for WordPress: smarter,
better, faster

As semantic applications become more
common, tagging will increase in importance. WordPress out of the box
has a tagging feature, and this makes it easy for the user to
discover posts on your site with related tags. This plugin enhances
the tagging features of WordPress. Version 1.7 | By Amaury
BALMER | Visit
plugin site

SpamTask

Protects your blog from comment spam, using advanced spam
filtering methods. All spam robots are caught effectively. Mentioned
in my last post. This is turning out to be a good alternative to
Akismet.

Version 1.3.3.2 | By Jenruno
| Visit plugin site

WordPress Automatic Upgrade

WordPress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade
the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by
wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade
instructions. Thanks to Ronald
Huereca for making the plugin run in automatic mode. Oh wow
has this made working with the site so much easier. The ability to
upgrade WordPress and the plugins automatically has been a blessing.

Version 1.2.5 | By Keith
Dsouza | Visit
plugin site

WordPress Popular Posts

Retrieves the most active entries of your blog and displays them
with your own formatting (optional). Use it as a widget or
place it in your templates using <?php get_mostpopular();
?> Not all
themes have this feature, and you do see it more on blogs. If you are
selling products, and the products are listed individually on posts,
you will be able to show visitors popular items. I like the fact that
this can be placed anywhere within your theme’s template.

Version 1.5.1 | By Héctor
Cabrera | Visit
plugin site

WP-Click-Tracker

Tracks all links in posts. Maybe this is more interest to me,
since I am a data junkie. A new site may not have many visitors and
consequently clicks on links, but once you do start building up
traffic, this plug in gives you the data to understand what interests
your users.

Version 0.5.1 | By Eric
Lamb | Visit
plugin site

WP Super Cache

Very fast caching plugin for WordPress. Your files are stored
on your site in a cache, which makes it easier for the pages to load.
This plugin helps you manage this storage. This is important for
sites as they get bigger.

Version 0.9.6.1 | By Donncha
O Caoimh | Visit
plugin site WP Super Cache must be configured.

Yet Another Related Posts
Plugin

Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for
display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows
customization of the display. Not typically available on a theme,
but a great way to have your visitors explore your site by looking at
posts that are related to the one that they are reading. The longer
the user stays on your site, the better that they will become a
customer. I am under the impression that this plugin makes the server
work a bit though, which means that your site will take longer to
load. If this is an issue for you, you may want to rely SEO Smart
Links plugin more.

Version 3.0.8 | By mitcho
(Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine) | Visit
plugin site

Yoast Breadcrumbs

Outputs a fully customizable breadcrumb path. Breadcrumbs are
the navigational elements that allow a user to go to the different
levels of where the post is connected. For example, you could have
Home>Category 1>Category 2 or subcategory 1>post title.
Again, this gives the user the option to explore the site. Some
themes have this navigational system built in, but this plugin makes
it simple to include breadcrumbs on your site. This plugin will also
add a feed on your dashboard from the developers site.

Version 0.8.4 | By Joost
de Valk | Visit
plugin site

There
they are. Again, some of these plugins may not be needed, but I feel
that they enhance the user experience ( a key factor in site design
to me), while helping the search engines find you.

You could delete spam comments one by one, but WordPress plugins can take care of this for you.

I was not expecting to have so much spam come in the comments so quickly. At this time, it is not like this site is so special, but that is not the reason for this spam. It is a link building technique. Getting an unsuspecting site owner to approve a comment can help a site that is being linked in the comment as being more important. Search engines have their way of determining which sites deserve attention from the sites that do not, but comment spam can come in many forms.

The most obvious is the long list of links to a porn or prescription site. The next most common is when you notice that the same author or ip address is sending very similar messages for different websites. These comments are left by automatic systems on every site they can, because a small percentage of site owners will approve some. Sometimes I feel that the spam was hoping that I would click on a link, so they could get to my computer (infecting it). The real problem is that many sites have adopted these tactics to help their own marketing. I find site owners approving comments which are obviously spam, because these comments are hard to separate from a true comment.

This spam can be a nuisance to a site owner who is new to creating his web presence. The solution from WordPress is to find a spam filter plugin to ween these comments away from the real ones. The filter most often mentioned is called Akismet. I have used it for years, and I think it is wonderful, but there may be one issue with it for a new user: obtaining an API key to make it work. This is not overly difficult, but it sets up a small roadblock for some users. This caused me to search for other means to block spam. I really wanted to find if other spam filters work as well as Aksimet.

I was thinking of adding a plugin that would create a human test. These are the forms which ask you to solve a math problem or write a phrase in an image. Since most spam is deposited on your site by an automatic system, they cannot deal with these tests. A comment that gets through this test would have to been added by a human. This does not always ensure that the comment is not spam though. It could mean that a person is out there depositing the same comment on several sites instead of a computer program. Many filters rely on looking at common phrases in spam comments (“Great site. I will be back!”, “Very informative post. It taught me a lot”, or some other praise with no substance) or other reference terms used to check for spam.

I decided upon the plugin called SpamTask. To this point, I have seen no difference in its performance to my known Akismet. It was easy to install, and there are a few nice options on the settings portion of this plugin, where you can customize a message. Installing plugins has been made so much easier in WordPress. Under the Plugin section, you will find an option for “Add New”. This brings you to a page where you can search by typing in a keyword or you can click on a word in the tag cloud. By choosing a tag or typing in a phrase, you will be brought to a page with plugins that are related to your search. By clicking the “install” link, you will get to view the plugin’s page. There is another install button. After clicking this one, the plugin is added to your site, and you are asked to activate it. Once activated, it will begin to work or it may ask you for some additional set-up steps. This is a lot simpler than using an FTP client.

If you have a blog, the spam will come, so I thought going over this means of prevention is a good first step. The next post will go over a collection of plugins to have your site function well.

By having a special stylesheet and a few lines of code, you can give your visitors to print a post.

Do you print a page off of a website to read later? Well, pages are typically saved in a folder when I want to read them later. However, I do print web pages all the time, including blog posts. When I began to consider the user experience on my home inspection site, I thought that some articles would be popular for printing. Moreover, since I have been reading works in behavioral sciences, I thought that maybe nudging a visitor who is sitting on the fence about my site, to go ahead and print a page. At the beginning of the post, I placed my RSS feed and print command. ( I have since added an email button).

Unfortunately, I ended up printing everything. Sidebar, Footer, and header came along for the ride. That would be a waste of paper for the user who printed, and leave a negative experience when I was trying to create a positive one. I thought that the solution lay within my javascript, so I researched it all. I even studied my php and HTML to find a solution. On various forums, I found statements with some code that would help me in my dilemma, leading me to the belief that I was on the right track. I tried their solutions, but none worked. I thought that I must be doing it wrong. Maybe there is a purely javascript solution, but there was a far simpler path by creating a new style sheet.

My attention for this site is to write for small business people who may have no experience with the internet, so let me translate some of what I said in the last paragraph. Javascript, php, HTML, and css (for the stylesheet) are all programming languages that work together to make your WordPress site function. To have a post print without any extra baggage is simple, once you realize what piece of code you need in which language and where it should be positioned. This post will take you through those steps.

First, you will need a stylesheet that will define what will be printed. If you look under the “Appearance” section in WordPress, you will find a stylesheet, probably called “stylesheet.css” under the Editor section. These are the set of codes that tell a browser, like Firefox, what your site looks like. Now we need to tell the browser what will be printed. This is done by adding a new stylesheet just for printing. We can call it “print.css”. Are you going to need to write code now? No. Download this css file for printing. Now you have a print.css that will handle your site.

Use a FTP client, like Filezilla or the one on your cpanel, to upload this file to your site. Go to your “public_html” file. Look for a file called “wp-content”. You will find a file there called “themes”. Find the name of the theme that you are using. Move a copy of the print.css file into that theme. So /public_html/wp-content/themes/theme name is the path.

Having this stylesheet is not enough; you need to tell the browser that it exists when a visitor comes to your site. To inform the browser, we link to the stylesheet in the header. Under the “Appearance” section in WordPress, you will find an Editor. This brings up a page with a window with code in it and a list of files that make up your theme. Pick the “header.php”. This contains the data that browsers need to display your site. Paste the following code above the </head> tag: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print"href="<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’); ?>/print.css"/> . You could paste it just below the link to your other stylesheet. Once a visitor clicks the print command on their browser, only the blog title information and the post with comments will print.

What if you want to nudge your visitors to save your post? What if you have instructions for your product online? Sure anyone can print from their browser, but they may have to hunt for the print command, which may mean that they will not print the page. I placed an icon on the yourhoustonhomeinspector.com site at the beginning of the posts to encourage the idea that a user may want a post to read later. Choosing the top of the post came about, because a visitor may not have time to read now, so he could print the page. Other sites place the print command after the post. I have even seen sites that place the command in the middle of the post. You have to plan where you want it that makes sense to your site and goals. To tell the browser to print, we need a simple javascript code. To make enhance the user experience, I use an icon of a printer, instead of writing “print”. Here is the code when using a print icon:<a HREF="javascript:window.print(”)"><IMG SRC="URL location of the image/Printer.png" BORDER="0"></a>. If using the word “print”, replace the code in the middle parentheses with the word print.

You can find free icons on sites like smashingmagazine.com, or type in free icon sets in your favorite search engine. Look to see that they can be used for commercial use.

Site organization can help your website and your business

Like installing WordPress, adding a subdomain from cpanel is quite easy. You will look for the section that deals with domains. Locate an icon that says subdomains. Clicking on it brings you to a simple form where you type in the name of the subdomain. Click on the create box, and you are done. This gives you a new section for your website that has a url structure subdomain.yoursite.com. If we had added a folder to your current site, the structure would be yoursite.com/newfolder/.

Once the subdomain has been created, you will have to install WordPress there to have a website in that location. The setup that exists on your main site does not carry over to the subdomain, so act like it is a whole new site.

Installing it was the easy part, but what do you do with it. Why would you want a subdomain?

For a small business, I can think of two basic reasons why you would want a subdomain: emphasizing a brand name while giving a division of your firm more prominence; or targeting a specific term or area in your marketing. Subdomains will take some work to setup, but they help you target a specific part of your audience.

Emphasizing Brand

Let us study an example. Imagine a firm called AtHome. This company is building its brand in one community. It wants consumers to associate AtHome with everything you need in your home; however, this is quite a few different types of products. The owner of AtHome decided to open several stores where each location specializes in one area of products. He has a store that deals with items for children, another for garden and landscape needs, furniture, and finally kitchen.

Each store has its own name, but the owner has focused his branding on the AtHome name to encourage customers of one store to go to the other stores. When setting up a website, the owner wants to continue the emphasis of the AtHome name while having each site create a unique experience for the customer. The store specializing in the kitchen sells equipment and food items, so having recipes on the site may be in the cards. You will want cooking images throughout the site. This works for the kitchen, but it is a detriment to the kids store site.

The owner is able to maintain an emphasis on the main brand (AtHome), but each store will have its own emphasis. Remember the subdomain will give the individual store name first then the AtHome name, so you could have KidsatPlay.AtHome.com. A customer looking for the AtHome brand will find the site through that name, and a customer looking for the KidsatPlay store will find it.

Targeting a term

In a second example, we look at an owner who needs to improve his marketing, and his website is one tool in his campaign that can help him accomplish this task. In this scenario, we can break his dilemma into two situations.

Situation One

His business name does not include a word that a searcher would type into Google (or any search engine) to find a firm that deals with your business. Taking the AtHome name again, we could assume that it only sells kitchen equipment. If I wanted to find stores that sell kitchen equipment in my neighborhood, I might type “kitchen equipment stores”. A competitor has a website called “kitchenequipmentstore.com”, and that site is turning up first in the results. Having a keyword or keyphrase in your site name can help the search engines associate your business with what it sells. Recognizing this issue, the business creates a subdomain with that keyphrase, so we have the site “kitchenequipmentstore.AtHome.com”. This site name helps us reach out intended customer.

Situation Two

Many small businesses work in specific areas, but sometimes even a small area can have many different names. Take Houston as an example. There is a greater Houston area, but you also have the cities of Bellaire, West University, Bunker Hill, and the list could go on. You also have identifiable neighborhoods that you may want to target, like The Village, The Heights, Meyerland, and again the list could go on. Now AtHome is a landscaping service that wants you to feel at home in your garden. A homeowner looking for a landscaper might type in their city name or neighborhood name to focus on a landscaper for that neighborhood. The owner discovers that the phrase “landscaper in Bellaire” is the most popular way to search for landscapers in that area.

The owner then creates a site with subdomains focusing on keyphrases for each area. The owner now has “landscaperinbellaire.AtHome.com”, “landscaperinmeyerland.AtHome.com”, and so on. Each site has the same basic pages, but there are changes to make each subdomain unique to that area. This is called geotargeting. You can achieve geotargeting without a subdomain. It takes planning, but not really difficult. By using the subdomain format, you have the opportunity to improve the possibility of reaching the clients that you want.

The last paragraph hits upon a fact that you will need to consider for your business. Will a subdomain benefit you more than targeting your marketing on your main site? Creating a subdomain is creating a new website, which means that you will need to do the work to make it feasible just like you did with the main site. Is targeting a specific word or phrase worth it? It may be, but you should research it before creating as many subdomains as possible.

The step by step process of installing WordPress is simpler in your cpanel.

Downloading, uploading, installing WordPress by using a file transfer protocol client is not too difficult, but installing it through your cpanel is the best option for a site owner new to working with his website.

Log onto your website’s cpanel. Under the title Software Services you will see an icon of a smiley face in blue. This is Fantastico De Luxe. Click on it.

On the left hand side is a list of programs which can be installed on your site. Under Blogs, you will find WordPress.

When you choose WordPress, the window in the center of the screen will take you through the process of installing this software on your site. The first window in the set-up will ask you where you want to install WordPress, which will be the website url. The box below should be left blank to install it on your root directory. The next section creates a password for you to access the WordPress administration panel. For security, choose a different user name and password than what you use for your cpanel. The next section is the basic information about your site, which will likely be filled in automatically.

By following the instructions you will go through two more steps, where you will be finalizing the installation, and sending yourself the information about the installation. That is it.

Flavicons are small images that help identify a site.

After installing a theme, one step that can make your website standout as professional is to add a logo that will appear in the address bar or in the bookmark menu. Adding a little flavor to a page, these icons are called flavicons. The process is not all that hard.

Selecting an image: a company logo is the obvious choice, but you may need to modify it. The image has to read as being recognizable as your company logo, even when it is small. Writing is out. A single letter or two can be seen, but a sentence will be lost. On my desk sits a check from a bank which has a logo of four stripes and one square. It is black and white on the check, but this image follows their name in many locations, so I know that the colors are red and blue. On their website, this image is used as the flavicon. When I see it, I immediately recall the bank’s name. On my different sites, I use the same flavicon to help with this branding. Why this image? It is a section of my family crest, so it is unique (at least to my family members). It has a significance to me, which I can express into my working philosophy (the leaves symbolize protection on both sides of the river Ladbeck= protecting my clients). Finally, the image can be identified wether it is small or large. That creates a pretty good formula when deciding upon a logo/flavicon: make it unique as you can to your business; make it significant to your business and use it consistently to market your brand; and keep it simple to have the image identifiable at any size.

Sizing the image: flavicons need to be of a certain scale for the browser to use them. There are different methods to measure size on a website. For images, the most common method will be the number of pixels for the height and width. In the neighborhood of 15 by 15 pixels is about right. My flavicon is 16 by 10 pixels. To adjust the size, you have to open the image in a photo editor. I use the open source program GIMP or GIMPshop (open source software is free to download). In this program, you will go to Image > Scale, which opens up a tool box that tell you the current image size. Pick either size to type in the new measurement, and this will adjust the other size to keep the proportions of the logo the same. Save it. The best format will be as a gif image. A png image file is alright, but a jpeg or jpg file should be left to photos on your site. If your logo is in a jpeg format, you can save it as a gif file (the program will convert it).

Making the image available to your website: there are two methods to load the image onto your site: through WordPress administration panel; and by a file transfer protocol (FTP) program. Your website will have an administration area, frequently this will be the cpanel, that has an ftp application to load files onto your site. You can also use your own ftp app to accomplish this. The image has to be stored in the public folder section of your site (the public_html folder). I will go over the ftp method in another post. The other method may be easier for a new site owner. In your administration section for WordPress, you will see Media as an option. This is where you can look through images stored on your site, or where you can upload an image. Add a new image. It will ask you to chose between a browser or a flash upload. Pick the one that you are more comfortable with. Once the image is loaded, a form will appear asking for additional information. Since this is a flavicon, you will not need to list a caption or a description of the image. You will need to make note of the name (it will load the name of your image automatically, but it could be changed here) and the url location of the image. This will be in the following format: http://yoursitename.com/wp-content/uploads/imagename.gif.

Using it as a flavicon: now we need the browsers to recognize this image as your flavicon. In the WordPress administration panel, you will find an Appearance option. Under this option, go to the Editor. This is where you can edit element of your theme. Choose to edit the Header.php file. You are going to enter a line of code into the head section. The head section is defined by tags that open it and close it. These are <head> and </head>. Look for the closing tag. Above this tag, you will place the following line of code: <link rel="icon" type="image/gif" href="”http://yoursitename.com/wp-content/uploads/imagename.gif"/>. This tells the browser that there is a link to an icon image at this location on the site. At the bottom of the box where you edited the code is a button to update the file. This saves your changes, so now the site has a flavicon. Go to your site to check it out.

Troubleshooting: you do not see the image; there are probably two basic reasons. First, lets look at the image location. If you used the ftp method to upload the file, you need to remember where you placed it. If you dropped it into the public_html folder, the path to the image is yoursitename.com/imagename.gif. If you placed it into a specific folder, then those need to be added to the path. If you used the WordPress method, check that you have the folder names spelled correctly on your path. Second, the code was not saved into the file or saved into the wrong location. Go back to edit the Header.php file. Check that the code was placed inside the <head> and </head> tags. If it is not there, add it again, and save the file again. If the code is below the </head> tag, move it above that tag.

Now you have the first tweak to making your site your own. What happens if you do not add a flavicon, the browser will display a default icon, which will be a blank page. It is nice to go that extra step to brand your site.

A good hosting service is the backbone to your site. It can help you load WordPress onto your site.

Wordpress is becoming common enough that many hosting services have the ability to install this program onto a site with a few clicks. Also many of these services seem to offer the same features at relatively the same price. Does it make a difference where you go? There may be factors to consider.

To download WordPress, you have to go to WordPress.org, and this site has many other resources for you, including recommended hosting services. Downloading is easy; just click on the button on the home page. To find the hosting sites listed, you have to go to another page titled Hosting. These providers change every so often, but most have been the official providers for a while. Considering that they are listed here, I imagine that they have been vetted, and that they have been proven helpful to site owners/webmasters with WordPress sites. That makes this list a great starting point. You probably will not have to download the program if you go with one of these sites.

You may want to look for other hosting services, but there are some items which you have to check into first. On the WordPress home page, you will see system requirements which are needed for the program to work. PHP is a programming language, and the host has to have the correct version on their system for your program to work. Most sites will list this in their specifications page about their hosting. You could look to see if the service mentions hosting WordPress. Another concern is the IP address of the host. This would be harder for you to discern, but if your hosting service provides space for spam sites, there is a chance that the search engines might be wary of your site. Another problem is their customer service. Quite a few sites rely on automated answers with few means to send off an email. Once you do send off an email, you may not get a response.

I chose my hosting service on the suggestion of another blogger. This may be a good place to start. I am not always satisfied with my provider, but I know enough now to do most things that I want to do. When conducting searches for providers, look for negative reviews or comments. Typing in “I hate (name of provider)” can produce results. There are sites that discuss reviews of hosting providers too. If you are not going with a standard host from the list at wordpress.org, you have to do your homework.

You can rush to have a site up and running, but preparing for a site launch can help propel a site along.

An ill conceived site can be a detriment to your business, so having a plan in place to make the site worth a visitors time from the beginning can leave a great first impression. “This site under construction” does not appeal. Having only one post up and other pages left blank can be frustrating to your visitors. Basically, your website is the first step in building an identity on the web. Anyone can claim to be an expert, but if your site cannot back up your claims, you have lost opportunities. You do not need a perfect site for all to see. Site owners, webmasters, are always changing elements, trying to improve the user experience, but you do want to have some elements in place before the world sees what you have to offer.

Content is king. You will read this mantra on many a blog about making money online. Before you send your site out into the world, you should write some content for it. Then edit that content. Reread it. Have someone else give their opinion on it. I make the mistake myself of posting a piece that I did not edit, and I can kick myself for missed chances, so I have to go back to edit. You will want at least five pages:

1. An “About Me” page- this page is like your resume. You want to sell your visitors on who you are, and why they should trust your site.

   
   

2. A “Contact” page- they need to know how to contact you. Give them various options: a form to fill out, an email, a phone number, or even your Twitter or other social networking account information. This page could have a list of your services and prices.

   
   

3. A “Home” page or an opening post- WordPress can be used as a CMS, which means that visitors can go to one standard home page. When being used purely as a blog, the landing page will contain the latest posts. Your home page is your sales pitch arena. You want to help direct visitors to parts of the site that will help you make the conversion from visitor to client. An opening post helps this idea and it can be turned into a page if you want, but it does help to begin your blog with a post that helps define your mission for the site.

   
   

4. The last two pieces of writing should be posts or pages that contain articles which will help the visitor who may be considering your product. For example, a “Links” page can have a collection of sites that help provide data on clarifying your service or items that you sell. With my focus on real estate, I have pages that link to other professionals who help a home buyer with the transaction. I also have over two hundred pages describing aspects of my job. Showing a client what you do, can convince them that you do it better than others.

   
   

Study what your competitors are doing. They will be studying you, and they will use their sites to counteract your marketing. By understanding what they have done, you can work on developing a site which better addresses the consumer.

If you are new to the web, you may want to get your feet wet by creating a free site; however, it may be better for you to begin by having your own site hosted. How to choose?

You are going to waste a good deal of money on marketing when you start your business. Most of this will be because you have been told that some marketing technique will generate business. To save money, you may concentrate on some pretty ridiculous free measures proclaimed by others who work in your industry. It will happen; it did happen to me. Hopefully, by showing you my mistakes, you will not have to experience that for yourself.

Can you establish an online presence for a local business for free? Yes. It is quite simple actually. My focus is on the real estate industry, so if you are looking at another type of business, you may have to do a little research, but the basics to guide you are here. There are various places to create free blogs that you can use to promote your services or product. Real estate professionals can socialize and blog on a site like ActiveRain. This is a very supportive community where you can learn social networking skills and blogging. If your goal is to learn how to create an effective website with no money, I would recommend creating a blog on WordPress.com. ActiveRain may be the better training ground and support for a newbie. You can find a social networking aspect to the WordPress site, but you will start to learn about websites with them.

A free blog will get you noticed. If you need to dip your feet into the water, free sites are not a bad option. One fear may be that you cannot hone the site to achieve the best results with the search engines. The ability of users to find us through search is paramount. This can be more easily accomplished by having a site hosted, but a WordPress.com blog can produce great results with little tinkering. Several of my posts on a blog there have brought me business, because those posts rank high in search results. That is the key. Having a web page that is in the first, second, or third position on a search page will drive a visitor to your site. A free blog may not offer you all of the opportunities to fashion a high ranking web page, but it will happen with good content. My free blog outpaces my hosted site for many keywords. Do not underestimate the power of such a blog. However, my hosted site does bring in more business through my marketing efforts.

Hosting a site may seem daunting when every term that you encounter is new, and you have no guide. I had many false starts, but it is not hard to learn by typing questions into your favorite search engine. Hosting packages can start as low as five dollars per month. You may find a respected company offering to help you create and host a site for thirty dollars per month. I would not do it. Good hosting can be had for under ten dollars a month. More than that I consider to be not worth it. By going with a cheaper package, you will have to do work on your own. I spend about four hours a week on all aspects of my website; you can find such a groove too. This was not the case when I started, so be forewarned, you may need to put in extra effort to begin.

The main benefit of hosting your own WordPress site is that you can add plug-ins to help you market the site. This cannot be done on the free sites. The beauty of WordPress is the ability to fashion a site that serves your needs so easily with the plug-ins. You can craft the elements that help you get noticed. Another benefit to WordPress is that there are amazing free templates which can be used to enhance your site. To edit these templates to create a presence that reflects your needs is not all that difficult. Future posts will discuss how you can modify a template and how to shape your site with pug-ins.

My advice is to have your own site hosted rather than a free site. Free is good, and it can be a great way to introduce you to the tasks involved in administering web pages. To accomplish more, you have to be in control of every aspect of the site, which can only be handled through your own hosting account.