Create a WordPress Website ebook final

Transcription

Create a
WordPress Website
In Ten Easy
Steps
Using the most
popular content
management system
on Earth
by
Mari Kane
Create a WordPress Website – 2
Why this ebook?
Recently, I was sitting in a seminar full of musicians who came to learn how
to improve their businesses using Web technologies. The presenters talked
about websites, blogs, social media and video, saying, ‘you’ve got to do this
and then do that.’
One man finally said, “Where can I read about all this in one place?” Their
answer? Nowhere. “You just have to pick it up wherever you find the
information,” he was told.
I agreed that a businessperson should have a guide to building a Web
presence in one easy read. So I wrote the series, Create a WordPress
Website in 10 Steps, for my site, BlogsiteStudio.com.
It has everything an entreprenuer must to do to build a Communication
Management System (CMS) that will serve their business to the world.
Now, in Ebook form, Create a WordPress Website in 10 Steps is your
guide to making a beautiful, functional website, and taking control your
Web presence.
I hope it helps you.
Mari Kane
@blogsitestudio
Cover photo by Mari Kane taken near Science World in Vancouver, BC
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Contents
Why this book?
2
1. Register a Domain Name 4
2. Find a Web Host 8
3. Install a Theme 13
4. Add Essential Plugins 18
5. Build a Site 22
6. Write a Post
29
7. Connect Social Media 34
8. Search Engine Optimization
39
9. Monetize
45
40
Bonus Chapter - Top 10 Ways to Learn WordPress
54
Thanks
58
10. Maintenance
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Step 1
Register a Domain
Name
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So, you want to create a WordPress website for your business, one that you can
blog with to increase sales and exposure. Great idea!
WordPress is the best choice for businesses big and small, being an excellent
Content Management System as well as being an easy way to blog.
Blogging is the best way to improve your search rankings which is the best way to
drive traffic to your site. More traffic means more sales.
But with a minimum of technical knowledge, exactly how do you create a
WordPress website?
In this 10-part series, we’ll look at the steps you’ll take to getting a WordPress
website up and running and hopefully ranking high in the search results.
The first thing you need to do is register a killer domain name.
Choose a Domain Name
To be found on the internet you need two things:
1. A recognizable and memorable domain name.
Choose a name that’s short, catchy, authoritative, unique, and hard to
mistype. Whatever you choose, just avoid hyphenation.
There are two schools of thought about choosing a domain name – Brand and
Keyword – and they are based on the vagaries of Google’s every changing
algorithms.
Brand Names
Google favors brand names over all others because brands tend to advertise on
Google more than non-brands. If you are a brand or part of a brand, the best you
can do is register yourbrandname.com. Otherwise:
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1.Eponymous. Your name could be your brand as long as it’s easy to remember and
spell.
2.Create a new word. Who would have thought a company called “Google” would
ever make it?
3.Use a portmanteau. Combine two (or more) words or morphemes and their
definitions to create one new word. Rebelmouse, Linkedin, Meetup are all
portmanteaus.
Keyword Names
If you don’t have a well-known brand name, the next best thing is to use applicable
keywords in your domain. Exact Match Domains (EMDs) have a higher clickthrough rate than Generic Match Domains (GMD). In effect, you are what you do or
sell.
▪ Use the Google Keyword Tool to find keywords as well as qualifiers that rank well
on search engines. Did you know that “red wine” is searched 3 times more
than “white wine?”
▪ Be sensitive to pluralities. Adding an “s” makes it a whole new domain name with
a whole new set of results on the page. When in doubt, register both.
▪ Use geography. If your business sells to a local area, using the name of your city
or state is a good idea.
2. Top Level Domain
Top Level Domains are .com, .net, and .org. However, .com is like being on Main
Street. The rest are like backroads on the information superhighway where people
tend to get lost.
While it’s a good idea to register in all of the top levels – to fend off competition and
avoid confusion – if you only get one domain address, .com is the one to snag.
Using country code domains, such as .ca or .uk, will limit your brand to that country.
Cybersquatted Domains
Back in the wild west of the Internet, people were registering all kinds of brand
names and holding them until the trademark name owners paid them a ransom to
claim them.
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While a major corporation might have to pay millions to a cybersquatter to regain
their branded domain name, other lesser-sized names may be bought at a
reasonable price.
When you consult Whois.net and find that your must-have domain name is owned
by someone who is not using it, don’t worry. They just might sell it to you – cheap.
I once paid $200 for a .com domain name that someone had registered and it was
much better than settling for .net or .biz, or adding “the” or “store” to the name.
Domain Registration
It used to be that Network Solutions was the only registrar of Top Level Domains.
Now, there are dozens of designated registrars that will sell you domains.
Where once the annual price of domain name registration was about $15, the retail
cost now starts at about $7.50 per year. Registrars often drop the price – or offer it
for free – when you order web hosting services.
Because Google likes to know that your site exists for the long haul, it’s best to
register your domain for a minimum of three years. Ten years is better.
Be aware of registrar scams to avoid. Here is a list of 10 Things You Must Know
Before You Register a Domain Name With Anyone.
Conclusion
A domain name is like your trademark. Pick one that describes you well, and once
registered, protect it from interlopers, intruders and thieves. It’s still the wild, wild,
World Wide Web out there.
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Step 2
Find a Web Host
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In step 1 of this 10 part series, Create a WordPress Website, we discussed how to
choose a domain name and get it registered.
Now that that’s done, it’s time to find web hosting to give your WordPress install a
place to live.
So, why do we need a paid hosting account if WordPress.com is available for free?
WordPress.com – free but limited unless you pay for upgrades
WordPress.org – flat cost and the possibilities are limitless
Read more about WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
For the price of four lattés a month, your web host will serve up open-source
software like WordPress, or Joomla or Drupal or other software. Then, the site is
yours to build any way you like.
Web Host Servers
The top types of web hosting are Shared and Dedicated.
Shared hosting means you are on a server with numerous other accounts with
smallish sites. The upside is the low price due to the shared costs among the
customers. The downside is reduced security from the sites you are sharing with.
Dedicated hosting means you have the server all to yourself. The upside is total
control, ultimate security and the huge amount of traffic you can handle. The
downside is the cost, but you get what you pay for.
Most small businesses operate on a shared server.
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Hosting Services
Here is what you want from web hosting service:
Support
Apart from offering a solid connection to the Internet as well as the most recent
version of WordPress, the most important thing a web hosting service will offer you
is support.
I’m talking 24/7 technical support via phone, email, or chat. When things go terribly
wrong, you want to get help immediately, before your readers notice anything
askew. So, while it feels good to go with the little guy in your town, if you want help
in the middle of the night, it’s better to go with the server farm in Texas.
Cpanel
Almost all web hosting services give you a Cpanel, short for Control Panel. If they
don’t, fuggetaboutem.
The Cpanel is where you will install WordPress, configure your email accounts,
manage your domains, access files and more. You want a nice clean interface with
all the information and links to your site that you’ll need.
Unlimited Domains
Go for the plan that offers unlimited domains, even if it costs a few dollars more.
Being able to add domains to your account will give you the freedom to create more
sites in the future at no extra cost.
Choosing Web Hosting
Here is a chart from Find My Hosting that compares the top 10 web hosts in North
America.
I can personally recommend Bluehost, from which this site emanates, as well as
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HostGator, where my other sites, Tasting Room Confidential and BC Travel Writers,
are hosted. Both companies offer good support with automatic WordPress updates.
I’m affiliated with both.
The longer your plan the less you pay. Since you have already registered your
domain name for 3+ years, you may as well purchase a plan for that amount of time
to get the cheapest rate, even though the up-front cost is higher.
Web hosts are eager to offer all kinds of premium extras, like themes, SEO and
backup. All of that can be done by you with free plugins and themes, so purchasing
these extras depends on what maintenance you are willing to do.
If you bypass all the extras, you can expect to pay from $4-10 per month for a 3year package with unlimited domains on a shared server.
Installing WordPress
On the bright new Cpanel of your new web hosting account, scroll down to the
section on Website Building. You find links like Fantastico, Simple Scripts, Mojo
Marketplace or just WordPress. Click on one of them.
In the pop-up window, tell the server where you want your new install to go. Enter
names, directories, domains, passwords as required.
Boom! Within a minute, you will have a new WordPress install.
Domain Redirect
So, now you have a domain name registered somewhere and a web hosting
account, presumably elsewhere. You now need to join them up by pointing the
domain to your web hosting account.
In the welcome email from your web host, you will see your domain name server
(DNS)numbers. Each host has a different DNS and they will furnish you with two
alternatives that look like this:
ns113x.hostgator.com
ns113x.hostgator.com
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Go to your domain registrar, login, and find the page to manage your domains.
Enter both of these numbers in the proper place and click save.
At that point it can take up to 72 hours for your DNS to propagate – or connect with
your web host – but it usually happens within a few hours. Until the DNS resolves,
your new install will be accessible under a temporary address.
If your old domain is pointing to an old site, you might want to wait until the new
WordPress site is ready for prime time before pointing the DNS to it.
Next Steps
Your domain name is registered, your WordPress is installed at your web host, and
the DNS is resolving there. It’s time to start building your WordPress website.
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Step 3
Install a Theme
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So, now you have a new domain name connecting to your new web host account and
WordPress install. Now what? Your new install will come with a default theme, this year it’s
Twenty-Thirteen, but chances are, that may not suit you.
Time to install a new theme.
I’ve heard it said that choosing a theme is like buying a house.
▪ Free are like fixer uppers requiring ongoing investment of time and money. $0
▪ Premium are move in-ready houses, with rooms prepped for improvement. $40
▪ Custom are parcels of land where you’ll build the house from scratch and have
everything you want. $2,000 +
When choosing, you just have to know your budget for time and money.
About Themes
The theme controls all of your site’s visual styles as well as a lot of its
functionality. Here’s what you need to know about them:
All themes are created differently
Some have featured images, some don’t. Some support two navigation menus,
some one. So, when auditioning a new theme, you have to read the descriptions
closely to avoid the need for customization and/or annoyance later.
Frameworks
Some themes are run on a Framework, which is a “drop-in” code library used to
facilitate development, or a stand-alone base/starter to fork into another, or to be
used as a Parent template. A few frameworks are Studiopress, and Headway, but
unless you are a web developer or designer, a framework may not be the option for
you.
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Free Themes
There are hundreds of free themes available in the WordPress Directory at
Appearances>Themes>Install.
One can go nuts installing and playing with new themes. Some are quite excellent
and easy to customize, like Atahualpa. Some have photo sliders, like Zenon Lite.
They offer a lot to start with.
What free themes often lack are more sophisticated functions, like logo upload,
multiple navigation menus, portfolios and other custom posts. But if you don’t need
anything too fancy, free is the way to go.
Premium Themes
Thousands of WordPress themes are on offer, with new ones being spawned every
day.
Premium themes are sometimes specifically designed for a niche or industry – like
real estate, photography, music, education – which take the guesswork out about
the online image of your business.
For instance, if you search for “Best Lawyer WordPress Themes” you might get
this.
WordPress.org offers free themes with premium versions for sale by developers.
That is a safe way to audition it, then purchase it when you want more functions.
And there’s the security of knowing it’s WordPress approved.
The bulk of premium themes are sold through directories – clearinghouses, if you
will. And hopefully they are well screened by the house.
Both corporate and independent authors sell through directories and some are rock
star authors with followings.
Premium themes have pretty impressive demos on their sites that allow you to see
every possible template it offers as well as examples of the theme being used
online. Those demos sometimes contain video tutorials.
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Popular directories are ThemeForest and WooThemes which sell them for $25 –
$125 each.
Elegant Themes offers a membership service which allows you to download all of
their 85 offerings for $39
Joys of Premium Themes
Although the look and feel is paramount, the top thing to look for in a premium
theme is good support.
Support
This is a service economy we’re living in, so you when you purchase something you
should expect some support. Look for authors who offer regular and consistent help
on their Support Forum.
First, read the forum entries to see what kinds of problems people are having.
Second, check the dates to see how quickly and how often the author responds.
Also, check the kinds of answers he/she gives. The best author offers snippets of
code for you to drop into your files. The worst is not even there.
Theme Options
The other thing to seek is Theme Options, a set of pages to control it. Theme
Options allow you to customize without resorting to code.
Often, the options can be extensive. This site’s theme, Inovado, has a multitude of
options, making this site a pleasure to customize.
Responsive and Retina
Your web site will be seen by all kinds of devices in this modern world, so pick a
theme that is “Responsive” to the screen. Responsive ones will rearrange the
elements to fit the device it’s being viewed on. With Responsive, readers don’t have
to zoom in order to click on a nav bar or a Call to Action.
Retina display is a higher pixel density invented by Apple for the iPhone, iPod touch,
iPad and MacBook Pro. Developers are making their themes “Retina ready” to
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accommodate this new, higher standard of pixelation.
The Right Choice
Themes are a little like wine: your favorite is the one in front of you. But don’t be
dazzled by flashy features. Choose your theme based on your level of experience
and online needs.
If you know nothing about WordPress and are keen for the hottest, fastest, sexiest
theme available, it would be like driving a Ferrari before you have a driver’s license.
Beginners should start with free themes and play with lots of them.
Experienced users should simply be realistic in their needs and goals, spend
according to budget, and not waste money on too much functionality.
Install Your Theme
Installing a theme is easy. Go to Appearances>Themes and pick a free theme from
the directory there. You can read details, preview, or just hit install. WordPress will
let you know when the install is successful. If your site was populated with data,
everything will fall into the place it belongs. Now, pat yourself on the back.
For a premium theme, go to the same place, click on install, search for the zipped
download on your hard drive and upload it. Sometimes a premium theme has too
much stuff in the zip file which must be opened and the theme folder re-zipped as
only the theme name.
The biggest issue I’ve encountered when changing themes is with the Navigation
Menu. If you have already established your navigation menu, you must go back to
Appearances>Menu and re-point the menu.
Your premium theme will come with Documentation, which may come in the form of
a web page, pdf, demo, and even video tutorials. Find them and read or watch
them. The information will come in handy when you start building your site.
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Step 4:
Add Essential
Plugins
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Your site is now up and running, wearing the theme you dressed it in. The next thing
you need to do is hide it while you populate and customize the site. This is as good
a time as any to install some essential plugins.
Plugins are the tiny apps that give your site more functionality than WordPress
offers “out of the box.” Most of the cool features you see on websites are powered
by plugins.
And although it’s true that badly coded plugins can conflict with others, that is no
reason to fear them. If your site shows issues after activating a new plugin,
deactivate it to identify the problem, and delete if necessary.
My rule is that if you can’t make a plugin or widget work within an hour, ditch it and
find another.
Remember that Plugins are for your pages, Widgets are for your sidebars. They
both come in through the plugin uploader, but Widgets are described as “widgets.’
Choosing Plugins
To chose Plugins and Widgets, read the description and make sure the version is:
4.Compatible with your WordPress version
5.Recently updated within the past year
6.Highly rated with at least four stars
7.Widely downloaded
8.Favorably commented in support forums
9.Not known for conflicts
Install your plugins
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Configure Plugins
Widgets mostly keep their settings in Appearance>Widgets. But because Plugins go
on the page, their settings are kept elsewhere and can sometimes be confusing to
locate.
Plugin settings pages land either in Settings, under Permalinks, or under Settings
as part of the navigation column.
Or else, the Plugins settings will land near the element it was programmed to help.
Or, it can land on the Installed Plugins page. You just have to find the settings pages
and configure them.
Some plugins require interfacing with the developer or the media you are
connecting to using an API key or special apps, and will walk you though that
configuration.
Essential Plugins
Maintenance Mode
Getting back to my point about the first plugin you need to install, one that will cloak
your site while you build it, get into Maintenance Mode.
Go to Plugins>Add New and search for Maintenance Mode. Try Ultimate
Maintenance Mode. With a plugin like that enabled, the site can only be viewed
when logged in.
Jetpack
Jetpack is a suite of plugins that “supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site
with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.”
By opening a free account with WordPress.com and connecting with it, you will not
only receive on-site traffic stats, but also a lot of useful plugins and widgets. Among
the most useful to me areSubscriptions to gather email addresses and send new
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post alerts, Publicize and Sharing to connect with social media on new posts, but
there are lots more tools to build with. Well worth accessing before looking farther
afield.
Backup
Even if your site is empty you might as well have a backup plugin installed. I use
WP Complete Backup even though it’s not well rated and is outdated. It works for
me.
Akismet
Just because you don’t have posts, doesn’t mean spammers won’t try leaving
spammy comments on your site. Get thee to Akismet to kill spam dead.
Here is a recent list of my favorite plugins.
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Step 5:
Build a Site
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If installing a new WordPress theme is like buying a house, then building a site is
like moving into that house.
Suitcases full of photos, videos, text, graphics have to be uploaded and put away.
Infrastructure needs to be set. So much to do. Where to start?
Like moving in, some people are more organized in their WordPress build than
others. Obviously, the more preparation the better, but some things should be done
immediately, like…
“Don’t panic!!!!!”
Know that WordPress is very forgiving. It’s hard to break the theme, and when you
do, your data is safe. WordPress also saves your Revisions to restore if you mess
up.
The second thing to do is familiarize yourself with the Dashboard’s navigation menu,
which I liken to chests of drawers.
Top chest – from Posts to Comments – is all about content. The fun stuff. The
bottom chest – Appearance to Settings – is full of tools to help you control the look
and functionality of your site.
The key to understanding your new WordPress install is learning where everything
goes.
Before doing anything else, this is what you need to do to build a site.
Settings General
Here is where your most essential information is entered. Your Site Title gets
entered in title case, as does your Tagline, or slogan.
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Don’t muck with URLs. Change your email as needed.
You can disallow membership registration on this page, which is advisable.
Settings Reading
This is almost more important than General as it establishes what the home page
does.
Decide now if you want your blog posts to be seen first on the front page or if you
want Home be a static page, like an olde-fashioned web site. This is your first big
decision to make.
Blog is the default, so to make your Home page Static, you must go to Pages>Add
New and create two pages: Home and Blog. Then go back to Settings>Reading and
set “A Static Page,” then select “Home” and “Blog” in the drop down menus.
Permalinks
This is where you decide how your URL will be structured, because once set and
posts proliferate, Permalinks are a bad thing to change. 404 Errors occur when a
page’s permalink is changed.
WordPress offers six choices in Settings>Permalinks. By default you get a page ID
as your slug. Yawn.
If you like dates, there are two options to include them. Bloggy people like me go
with the Post Name option. It’s just the most elegant, I think.
Screen Options
In Pages and Posts, as well as other pages, there are a number of options to set
that might not be visible unless you check them in Screen Options in the top right
corner of your browser.
Keep an eye on your Screen Options on your Post and Pages, and on the
dashboards, where it allows you to increase the items viewed. Check every option
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you want available.
Import files
If you previously had a blog on another platform you can export it as an XML file
and import that into WordPress. In Tools, you’ll find options to install plugins to help
you import and/or export. Be sure to export all content.
Hopefully, all the files will find their places.
User Profile
Here is where you set how your name is seen publicly. In User>Your Profile if your
username is set Admin, it will look awkward in your posts, as well as attract brute
force attacks.
Get rid of that Admin user name immediately. Here’s how and why.
After deleting the Admin’s account, fill in your first and last name and select a
version of your names in the drop-down menu. That setting will appear in the Author
drop down on your posts and pages.
You can also change your password in Your Profile.
Settings Discussion
Most people who build a site are not thinking about getting comments while working
on the site. But being unfinished won’t stop spam bots from registering as users and
start leaving spam.
You have already disallowed registration in Settings>General. Now, go to go to
Settings>Discussion and make your choice on how you want people to comment.
Logo
Find the Logo Upload field in Appearances>Header, upload your gif or jpeg or png
file, and tweak. Or upload it in your Theme Options under Header.
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Lacking a logo, the Title and Tagline in Settings>General will populate your header.
Pages
Add text to your static Home page, but don’t bother with the page, Blog, as it will
populate when you add Posts.
Go to Pages>Add New. Give your page a title using either conventional titles –
About, Contact, Products – or make it keyword rich with words you’ll use on the
page. Save Draft. See that the Permalink beneath the Title is the way it should be.
Copy and paste your text into the Edit box. If the paragraphs are too far apart, go
back to the word doc and find and change ¶¶ to ¶. Paste in the condensed text and
it should look perfect.
Be sure to click on the Kitchen Sink tool to see all your formatting tools.
With formatting revealed, give your text some H2 and H3 tags. Search bots love H2
tags.
Check your Page Attributes to see if what page templates are available, and play
with them.
Check your Screen Options in the upper right corner to make sure all the features
are checked and visible below the edit box.
Note the difference between Visual and Text. Text is is code.
Posts
The difference between Posts and Pages is that Pages are static while Posts
appear in reverse chronological order. Editing them is basically the same, but unlike
Pages, Posts contain Categories and Tags, which are very important to the
organization of your content.
Categories
After editing your Post, add a Category to your Post. Categories rule your content
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and allow the site to corral stories, so readers can find related information.
For a music site, some categories might be Rock, Jazz, Classical, Hip-Hop.
Tags
Tags are more specific than categories. On the music site they might include guitar,
piano, Jay Z, Coachella. Most Used Tags collect in a tag cloud for easy of re-use.
Both Categories and Tags can be added on the fly on the Post page, or organized
on their respective Dashboard pages at Post>Categories, and Post>Tags.
Remember: with WordPress, there are at least two methods of accomplishing the
same task.
Media
Photos, videos, audio and text files get uploaded into the Media Library. Do this
either by going through Media>Add New or by clicking Add Media on your Post or
Page.
Either way, click install, browse for your file and upload. If done through the Post or
Page, you are presented with WordPress’s new Media Manager, which presents all
images as thumbnails. Clicking on an image reveals its Attachment Details and
Display Settings – but only in Insert Media.
What’s nice about the new Media Manager is how it allows you to control Insert
Media (on the page) Create Gallery and Set Featured Image from one interface.
Here’s more about the Media Manager.
Menus
Finally, organize your navigation bar. If you don’t, WordPress will add every one of
your pages in the order of their creation.
Go to Appearance>Menus. Create a new menu and hit Save Menu. See the Main
Navigation drop-down menu under Theme Locations become activated. Chose your
new menu and hit Save.
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Check your Screen Options to make sure all the post types are available.
To add menu items, check all the Posts, Pages, Categories, and Tags you want by
simply hitting Add to Menu. Those items appears in the middle of the page.
Drag your menu items up and down to reorder them. Drag an item to the right to
make it a drop-down from the item above it.
Menu Items can be opened and the Navigation Label edited without changing the
source.
Play around with them. Menus are fun.
Other things you can do to dress up your site include adding colors to different
elements, adding a background image or color and arranging widgets in your
sidebar.
Here are more tips to get you started as you build a site.
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Step 6
Write a Post
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Now that your site is built and furnished with plugins, it’s time to write a blog post.
Blogging is a fun and satisfying form of expression that allows you to share your
thoughts with the world.
Blogging is also the best way to draw traffic to your site. Posting regularly tells
Google that your site is a hip happening place that deserves higher ranking in the
search engine results pages (SERP).
Posting also gives readers something to chew on while they click on the ads you’ve
placed in the sidebar. But how do you post content on your site and what do you
write? The answers to that question are personal and subject to the context in which
you blog. Since blogging came into vogue about 15 years ago, writing a blog post
has become almost as much science as craft, with dos and don’ts abounding.
Drawing from my experience, here is my list of top ten rules of blogging.
Inform and Entertain
There are two ways to approach a blog post: write what you know or write what you
want to know about.
Be an authority and educate your readers. One reason people will read a blog post
is to get answers to their problems and if you can solve them, you’ll win subscribers.
Or, write about your journey of discovery on a topic that interests you. In this case
however, please, please don’t start a sentence with “Who knew?” Chances are,
someone does know and you’ll only sound behind the curve. Either way, write in a
snappy or humorous tone to keep your readers engaged. Never be boring.
Tip: finish each paragraph with a humorous aside using a simile or metaphor.
Only use cultural references when they are universal or relevant to your
niche.
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Be Brief but Accurate
A blog post should have a minimum of 300 words for Google to pay attention and no
longer than 1000 words to keep the reader’s attention. Blog readers are fairly ADD;
they want to get the information and move on.
A blog post that’s too long and unentertaining tends to be clicked away, resulting in
a high bounce rate. Keep your blog post crisp and clean. Check your facts before
hitting the Publish button, since even though posts can be changed anytime, you
don’t want to invite corrections in your Comments.
Write in a Word Program
Composing a post in the WordPress editor is not very much fun, and of course it
requires an internet connection. Using a Word-type program offers the freedom to
work offline as well as to use the multitude of tools these programs offer. Then, you
can simply copy and paste the text into WordPress and place links, photos and H2
tags from there.
Tip: if pasting text results in the doubling of space between paragraphs, first
do a Find and Change from “^p^p” to “^p” to collapse the text.
Write a Blog Post Like a Journalist
Give your blog post a beginning, middle and end. In the beginning, lay out your
argument and describe how you will support it. In the middle, support your argument
with points of fact using examples and quotes, and links to sources. At the end,
wrap up with a description of your solution to the argument and invite readers to
comment by posing a question.
Use Keywords
Pick a keyword or keyword phrase – with help from Google keywords – and stick
with it. Conventional search engine optimization (SEO) requires that keywords
appear in the URL, Title, Post Heading, Content and Meta Description in your blog
post.
Tip: Keyword adherence can infringe on your creativity, so you may have to
decide which is more important: readability or searchablility.
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Schedule Posts
It’s such a drag to publish a post before it’s ready. You can avoid premature
publication by scheduling your post in the Publish box.
After setting the day and time (be sure your local time is set in Settings>General),
hit OK, then Schedule. From there, instead of hitting Save you’ll press Update to
save changes. But at least you won’t take chance of accidentally publishing.
No Excuses
Never start your blog post with an explanation about why you are writing it. Nobody
cares why you are not writing on the topic you mentioned in a previous post or why
you are diverging from your stated intent for the blog. Just launch into your topic
and go with it.
Don’t Gush
While the advantage of blogging is to offer a personal, opinionated point of view,
hyperbolizing about how much you love, love, love something can be a raging bore.
Instead, follow up your expression of admiration with the reasons why you love
something and invite the reader to agree or disagree with you.
Link Smart
Place links in your post both externally and – once you accumulate enough posts –
internally. Google loves both. For internal links, using the chain link tool’s Search
button to find your internal page and hit Link. For external links, be sure to check the
Open in a New Window so that you don’t lose your readers when they click on your
links.
Tip: If your link doesn’t directly relate to the topic of your blog, make it a “No
Follow” link. Otherwise, Google may think you were paid to place that link and
might ban your site.
Post Frequently
The more you post, the better your chances of ranking highly on Google. Posting
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daily is great, two or three times a week is very good, weekly is pretty good, every
couple of weeks is ok, and once a month is, well, better than never but still kinda
pathetic. Anything less than that won’t do anything for increasing traffic, but at least
it will show people you’re still alive!
For some ideas on what to write on a business blog, check out this internal link to 5
Post Topics for Business Blogs.
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Step 7
Connect Social
Media
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So, you posted a post on your new blog and you’re wondering if anyone read it?
Probably not unless you told them and they remembered, or you sent them a link.
And the best way to send links to your hundreds of friends and acquaintances is by
harnessing the power of social media to get your story out there.
Thank the Web gods for Social Media, it changed the way we interact online. We
can be friends with thousands of people without actually meeting them, each one a
potential fan.
By the time you’ve twitfaceinstalinkpluspinned enough people, and they like your
writing, your site will grow traffic exponentially. But you have to be dedicated to
promoting it.
There are two reasons for using Social Media on your blogsite
1 - To attract followers and people who will share or recommend your site by clicking
on icons
2 - To promote your new posts
How to Promote Posts
To post a “hey, I blogged” announcement on Twitfaceinstalinkpluspin, take that
page’s link -– the URL – and paste it into your social media outlet page, add a
comment that is different for each outlet, delete the link once the Featured Image
pops up, and post.
It was once thought that starting with “New Post” was a sharp idea, but that concept
seems to have dulled with time.
If you have set a Featured Image for the post, it will appear radiantly, depending on
the outlet. Lacking a Featured Image, WordPress will present to, say, Facebook all
the photos in the blog post, and then let you choose. Or, nothing appears. Best to
have a Featured Image assigned.
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Social Media Plan
If you don’t already, you must open an account with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
and Google Plus immediately. If images are part of your thing, get into Instagram,
Pinterest, Flickr, and YouTube without delay. Also, Digg, Tumbler, and Reddit are
popular, as well as FourSquare, although I’ve never seen the appeal to constantly
announcing, “I’m at…!”
To build up your lists in each outlet, search for the “influencers” in your niche and
friend them, follow their followers, and engage, engage, engage. Then, when they
see your latest post, they’ll read it and retweetsharerepin it. Hopefully.
Play around and do some research and decide the best days to post on your blog.
There is a whole science behind optimized posting.
Plan to spend the hours following going live writing snappy link comments on each
outlet. Reply to comments as soon as they are posted to get conversations going.
Online Tools
A whole industry has been spawned to help automate your social media
management plan.
Hootsuite, Buffer, Social Oomph, TweetDeck, Tweepi and fifty more listed at
Social Media Today.
These tools – some of which are free up to say, the fourth social media account or
more than one advance posting – allow us to set tweets and updates in advance,
into infinity. Advance posts are sent more and more as people get hip to it,
explaining the canned tone of many of the tweets floating around out there.
The social media outlets themselves will create apps for you to connect with
it. Facebook has a dizzying array of apps to help readers like you, share your post,
recommend your post, etc. They’ll give you API keys to connect your blog to them.
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WordPress Tools
The easiest way to attract followers to your social media is by presenting the
various icons in your header, footer, sidebar, and after or before the blog post. Place
no more than five or six of your most relevant icons on one line or it gets a bit
extreme looking.
Your WordPress theme might have a built-in dashboard tool to configure these
icons. Look in Theme Options > Social Media. If the theme will present icons in the
theme’s style, do it.
Otherwise, use plugins to help you out. Here are a few of my faves.
Social Media Plugins
Add Link to Facebook
This plugin is great for automatically posting to Facebook. Best of all, when
someone comments on Facebook it shoots the comment to your blog. Worst part is
navigating Facebook to create the app to make the connection, which works better
with private pages than fan pages.
Social Media Widget
Back in the WordPress Directory after its disgrace of passing malware, the new
version of this handy widget lists a ton of sharing sites, more with each update.
Jetpack Sharing
Provides colorful icons on the page above or below your post. Drag and drop
sharing services into the enabled section to have them show up on your site.
I don’t use it anymore, but the Digg Digg plugin integrates social media icons into
your pages on a floating vertical bar. Clever, but can be annoying.
Email Alerts
Email is the original Social Media tool and can be employed to send alerts to
subscribers. Once a reader has subscribed you don’t need to reach them through
Twitter or Facebook.
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Sending alerts can be done with WordPress or through a third party.
Through WordPress, simply place a link to your registration page. The link URL is
“yoursite.com/wp-register.” This method only works when Membership is set to
“Anyone Can Register” in General>Settings. Their name and email will be stored
the Users drawer.
Here are plugins/services to help with Email:
Subscribe2
A good plugin for alerts to your WordPress Users list. It sends out a text message to
your Users when the post goes live. Subscribe2 allows you to configure your opt-in
messages as well as the message that accompanies your alert.
Jetpack Subscriptions
A subscriber/alert widget for the sidebar. Simply drag it to your sidebar and write an
alluring come on and watch your blog or comments list grow on the Jetpack Stats
dashboard. This list is stored at WordPress.com
Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, IContact
These are a few of the email marketing services that can be used on your site.
Their features are vast and sophisticated but have varying degrees of reliability.
Mail Chimp is free for the first 500 subscribers and the rest start about $10 per
month. Your email list is stored on their server.
Lightbox Popup
A plugin to help you be more aggressive about getting readers to subscribe. When
you page loads, it appears after a pre-set delay and says, “Subscribe!” You can
style it with code from, say, Mail Chimp, and set the Display Logic and Positioning. I
use it on this site.
Next Steps
I’ve only scratched the skin of Social Media here, as it is an ever-changing medium,
but this should be enough to get you started.
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Step 8
Search Engine
Optimization
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Now that your blog is launched and is exposed to social media, it needs some
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to help it get found by search engines.
But, although SEO is a science, it’s also a constantly moving target. In an effort to
make the most high quality sites rank highly, Google purposely changes it’s
algorithm to foil the efforts of those would game the system. One little change can
undo hours of SEO planning.
Yet, you have to play the SEO game if you want to rank. And that means friending
Google.
Here is where to start:
Webmaster Tools
Go to Google Webmasters and open an account. If you already have a Google
login, use that. Logged in, click Add Site.
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Verify ownership of your site by following the steps it requires. I usually go for the
alternative method of placing the HTML tag in header.php in Appearances>Editor.
Be sure to deactivate Maintenance Mode to verify.
Once you do that you’ll have access to some of the best tools on the Internet,
hosted by the biggest search engine in the world.
Sitemap
Sitemaps help the search spiders crawl your site by telling it what you want it to see.
It pings the major search engines every time you update.
XMLSitemaps is a plugin to build and control your sitemap. The sitemaps URL will
be “yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.” On your Google Webmaster dashboard page, add
that address.
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Google Analytics
To track the traffic produced by your Search Engine Optimization efforts, you need
to do analytics. Head to Google Analytics and create an account.
You will get a tracking code snippet to put in your theme’s header. That can be done
manually by pasting it in header.php. Or, some premium themes have a field for the
tracking code in Theme Options.
You’ll also get a shorter code that starts with UA. Upload the plugin, Google
Analytics for WordPress by Yoast, and enter that UA code. Configure it using this
training video as a guide.
Google Social Media
Open accounts and complete profiles for Google Plus, Google Places, Google
Authorship and anything Google does.
Make Google your BFF.
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Yoast SEO
I once heard this plugin described as “the secrets of the universe for mere mortals.”
It’s simply the most power Search Engine Optimization tool out there. Upload Yoast
SEO and use it on each an every page, post and image on your site.
Here’s my guide to using Yoast SEO.
Keywords
The humble keyword may have seen better days but it’s still key in Search Engine
Optimization.
Keywords are the terms that indicate what you are writing about and they tell a
search engine what’s on your web page. Read more about keywords here.
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Find keywords that apply to your pages at the short-living Google Adwords. Use
the keywords you chose on your pages, posts, links, images, videos – just
everywhere. Don’t forget to add them to Alt tags and Description.
Write Shareably
After getting all the mechanics in place, write the most compelling content possible
in order to get readers to share your writing. Use eye-catching titles and featured
images that will attract attention on Facebook, etc. Shareability is as, or more,
important than searchability.
And build up quality links in order to get links back to your site.
Next Steps
This is just the beginning of Search Engine Optimization, meant to get you started
with the best tools. There’s a million more things to do to optimize a site. Learn
more by starting at Webmaster Tools to get Google’s advice. Google “SEO” and
you’ll get tons of suggestions.
Next time, we’ll talk about monetizing your site so you too can “make $5,000 per
day at home,” or something like that.
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Step 9
Monetize
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Now that your site is a bulletin board on the information superhighway, make it pay.
Much of the income received from websites is passive. Someone clinks on your
site, buys something, and you get a piece of the action. Easy.
Active methods require some engagement with your readers/customers, but in
those cases, you are getting a whole or major cut of each transaction.
Here are the top ways to monetize your site.
Monetize Actively
Payments
Make it easy for people to give you money. The first thing to do is open an account
with PayPal, since it seems to be the easy way to transfer money online. A secure
credit card system requires the use of a Payment Gateway to provide that third
party screen. Your hosting service may have solutions for you. Any service offers
code or plugins to install in WordPress.
Sell Books
Books are an obvious choice, since Amazon is such an easy program, and it’s easy
to offer the books of interest to your target audience. If you review these books, you
can place text links (no follow perhaps) to sell the book.
Sell Merchandise
Got t-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads or pens with your brand name on it? Put an
ad in the sidebar using a fulfillment plugin. Or use WooCommerce to open a store.
Sell Services
Is there a service you perform that’s related to your blogsite content? Put up a
splash page, a portfolio, or your CV and link to it. Create Google ads to point to your
services splash page. (see below)
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Sell Sponsorship
Let companies give you money or perks in exchange for ad space or mentions.
Watch out with links to avoid being frowned upon by Google. Like anything else,
there is a whole school of learning related to navigating the Sponsorship waters.
Run Contests
Contests can make money both for non profits as well as for profit. Give away
something that you provide or get a sponsor to pay for the prize. Here’s some legal
advice about running online contests.
Take Donations
You don’t need to be a non-profit to ask for donations. Write an appeal as a Call to
Action and give them a link to Pay Pal. See what happens.
Monetize Passively
Google Adsense
Adsense is the mother of all pay-per-click advertising programs, allowing sites to
offer text, image, video or interactive ads targeted to the site’s content and
audience. Site owners are paid based on the number of clicks per ad.
Conversely, to advertise with Google Adsense, use Google Adwords. That is
where the keyword tools live.
Affiliate Advertising
Affiliate advertising is somewhere between Adsense and sponsorship. It’s an
automated program, but you pick the advertiser. They give you the code to put in
sidebars or on the page and pay you when your link is clicked and a sale is made.
Blogsite Studio is affiliated to companies with which it works, like Bluehost, Harvest,
and Themeforest because it’s easy to recommend them. Each of these has a
program I applied to individually, and they give me ad code to post and online
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reports to check.
Affiliate Networks will hook you up with advertisers that suit your site. I’ve worked
with LinkShare and Commission Junction. Amazon sells everything these days and
offers a good program. Here is a good review of affiliate networks.
Paywall
You’ve got to have some kind of reputation and offer a lot of exclusive information to
make people pay to read your stuff. Big city newspapers are still dipping their toes
into making readers pay for information, but if you are Jancis Robinson to the wine
world, you’ll find people will pay for reviews and ratings that the hoi polloi won’t.
Good luck with that.
Start with Subscribers
Passive or active, the first thing a site needs is subscribers. They are the base from
which to build a following to which you can sell. All a subscriber need do is enter an
email address, confirm via an email and boom! You have opt-in subscribers.
Links
Put Subscribe Now! links around your site. The easiest way is to put code in a Text
or Image widget and slap it in the top and bottom of the sidebar. Or in a footer. Or, in
a plugin on the bottom of your page. Jetpack will give you code, as will any outside
email services.
Pop-ups
I recently started using a pop-up plugin, Lightbox Pop-up. I set the message down
low on the screen and about 10 seconds into page load time. It works.
Free Ebook
Everybody likes free gifts, so if you have an Ebook to give away, offer it as an
enticement to subscribers. This series, Create a WordPress Website, is now an
ebook, offered to my subscribers.
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There are plugins to handle delivery of various types of files, like Paid Downloads ,
which I have used at Tasting Room Confidential. But this time I might try out WP
Email Capture
Next Steps
As always, this is not the end of ways to monetize your site. New opportunities arise
every day. But it’s a beginning.
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Step 10
Maintenance
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Now that your WordPress website is a going concern – with updated content,
monetization and search engine reporting – the last thing you must do, here and
forever, is website maintenance.
Website maintenance is like housework. You have to do it sometime. Better to clean
up small messes than huge disasters. Make yourself a schedule. Every week go
through the backend to make sure everything is running properly.
Call it zen and the art of website maintenance.
Backup
The keyword for website maintenance is backup. Backup, backup, backup and
then, backup again. You’ll never be sorry.
Plugins will backup data to your server, or to the Cloud where it’s safe from
computer breakdown. Still, it’s not a bad idea to use a plugin to export your content
and data to your hard drive(s).
How often you backup depends on how much activity your site has. Monthly,
weekly, or if there’s e-commerce involved, do it daily.
Updates
Plugins
Plugins need constant updating as developers are constantly fixing security hacks.
Visit your Installed Plugins page often. Update cautiously as plugin updates can
pose unforeseen problems with your theme, or with other plugins. Check the plugins
and deactivate errant ones to isolate any problems, and maybe rethink and delete.
Plugins can be updated automatically through the WordPress Dashboard, but it is
more secure to FTP them to the server. One is quick and easy, the other long and
tedious.
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WordPress
WordPress itself needs updating about twice per year, or at every major version.
Always backup before updating and check with your theme developer about
compatibility issues.
WordPress versions can be easily updated through the dashboard, either
automatically or by uploading a zip file. But for more delicate maneuvers, two of the
main files, Admin and Includes, can be FTPed to the server.
Theme
Your theme should be updated whenever the developer updates it. It’s a good idea
since there might be security or bug fixes. Or, there might be a leap into new
technology, like Responsive or Retina display.
If you have customized your site’s CSS or any php files, you must make a child
theme to save your customizations from being overwritten by the new theme. So
make a child before updating your theme!
And…backup.
Analytics
Check your traffic stats at Google Analytics and see what you are doing right and
wrong. There is a whole science on analytics and with a little research you will get
the gist.
Jetpack Stats are a lot simpler to read (since they provide less info) and I’ve heard
Jetpack can be more accurate than Google, which undershoots the numbers, as
well as your server, which overshoots them.
Check the stats keywords to see what topics are bringing in the most traffic and
write more about that.
Loading time
Make sure your site is loading fast. Anything over 4 seconds and you loose people.
Go to Google PageSpeed and find out how fast the site is loading and what you
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can do about it.
After I upgraded to 3.6 and this site ran super slow, I deactivated about half of my
plugins and cut the load time by 90%! Goodbye Zemanta links, Flickr Gallery,
Inbound Writer, and Contact Form 7. I can do without you all.
Errors
In Webmaster Tools, check for messages that say you have errors.
If you have “404 Not Found” errors, try to fix them. Or, install a 301 Redirect plugin
to point offending pages at a current page. Yoast SEO has a 301 Redirect tool on
each page.
For a “Googlebot Can’t Access Your Site “error, Google offers a list of fixes. Then go
to Fetch as Google to check your fixes.
Comments
Sometimes, spam slips past Akismet. You can spot Spam a mile away from spelling
errors, business links, words like “penis”, or vague praise that doesn’t relate to your
post.
Repeat offenders can be labeled as Spam in the Comments Dashboard so Akismet
will remember that address. If you trash the spam, there’s no memory of it. Or, you
can blacklist anyone in General>Discussion.
Bad Site, No Ranking
If your site’s traffic is down and you can’t think why, you might be banned by
Google. Here’s a tool to check to make sure you are not banned.
Your site might be banned because your links come from shady sources. Research
your links at Bad Neighborhood, and use the Links Manager plugin to delete bad
links.
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Bonus Chapter
Top 10 Ways to Learn
WordPress Outside of
School
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Everyone learns differently. Some people thrive in a classroom, others become
autodidacts.
Now, thanks to social media and streaming technology there are more ways to learn
WordPress than just reading books and attending classes. Those things still exist
for WordPress, but since they often don’t fit into most people’s learning styles, it’s
necessary to get training in alternative places.
If you want to learn WordPress outside of school and beyond the school of hard
knocks, here are the top 10 methods to increase your knowledge base.
WordPress Consultant
Private tutoring is the fastest, most efficient way to learn WordPress. As a
WordPress Consultant and Tutor, I can give you a dashboard tour in an hour and
have your site launched in two. For $35 per hour, I’ll meet you on Skype or at my
local coffee shop. Or, I’ll come to your Vancouver office and tutor your employees.
People are blown away after I bring them up to speed.
Lynda.com
The Cadillac of tech training, you can learn WordPress and almost everything about
computers at Lynda. Vancouverite Morten-Rand-Hendrickson appears in most of
the WordPress modules with style and aplomb. Subscriptions start at $25 month,
which is long enough to soak up WordPress Essentials to get your feet wet.
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YouTube Tutorials
YouTube has an extensive variety of amateur and professional videos that
demonstrate the use of WordPress. Demos on how to do specific tasks can be very
handy when trying overcome obstacles. Free.
Plugins
Plugins like WP 101Plugin puts built-in videos on your site to guide and tutor you
and your clients on how to use WordPress. $24/month. Sidekick places
walkthroughs on your site and is free until the end of October
Tech Sites
Blogsites like wpmu.org, smashingmagazine, and business2community post
articles on the basics to building a site, plus all the “best themes”, “top plugin”-type
reviews you can hope to read. And there is a never-ending supply of it. Free.
WordCamp.tv
The WordPress broadcasting network features videos of talks shot at WordCamps
as well as high-quality How-To videos in multiple languages. It’s the closest thing to
attending WordCamp. Free.
WordPress Codex
The encyclopedia of WordPress knowledge. Written by WordPress contributors,
Codex is a deep read, but sometimes it’s too thick for comprehension. Free.
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WordPress .org Support Forums
At the WordPress Support Forums you can find answers to your questions or log
in to present your own issue. The board is manned by knowledgable volunteers who
deserve a lot of gratitude for their contribution to the community. Free.
Meetup.com
There are WordPress Meetups in 298 cities around the world with 485 groups and
115,625 members whose single aim is to learn WordPress. My Meetup, WordPress
Workshop, has 75 members around Vancouver. Chances are, there’s a WordPress
Meetup near you. If not, you can start your own. Usually Free.
WordCamp
Everything WordPress is discussed at these community-organized and highlyaffordable conferences. WordCamp is where users can rub elbows with developers
and still feel a part of something big. $15- 25, sometimes including lunch.
Learn WordPress Now!
So if you want to learn WordPress, think outside the classroom. Get thee online and
into groups to take advantage of what the WordPress community has to offer. There
will be a quiz on this next week.
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Thanks!
That’s just about all you need to know to build your WordPress site and launch it on
the Internets. But the learning doesn’t stop here. Technology is an ever-evolving
animal that you have to hold on a tight leash. You’ve got keep up.
Thanks for reading this 10-part series, Create a WordPress Website. I hope it helps
you take control of your web presence.
Please follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and Linkedin.
I’d love to know what you think about this ebook and how it can be improved. Or,
let’s talk anything related to WordPress.
Cheers!
Mari Kane
@blogsitestudio
blogsitestudio.com

Create a WordPress Website ebook final

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