WordPress | Web Training Wheels

Setting up a WordPress Site the Right Way [video]

WordPress.tv is a wonderful resource for WordPress users of all levels. They post all the videos of presentations gathered from WordCamp events all over the world. You can see some amazing speakers with excellent info to share.

The video below is from my friend Natalie MacLees who is an extremely talented WordPress designer & developer and also runs the SoCal WordPress Meetup group (highly recommended if you are in the LA area). She spoke recently at WordCamp Phoenix on how to go about setting up a WordPress site the right way. And don’t be fooled by the title…this is not your average tutorial about how to install WordPress.

GoDaddy WordPress Sites Getting Hacked

WordPress

If you have a WordPress site on GoDaddy, keep a close eye on it. This week alone two different people have come to me with site issues that have turned out to be the same exact hack. There seems to be a spate of them going on – see this thread in the WordPress forums that I came across – this is the same hack that I found. Fortunately in the cases I’ve seen it hasn’t caused a ton of damage – more a nuisance than anything, but it indicates vulnerabilities in your site. GoDaddy of course will provide you with no help at all – they won’t even check if it’s a hack, they will just assume it’s some WordPress issue and not even give you a place to start trying to fix it. I’m not a security expert so I’m not sure if the timthumb vulnerability was the way in, but in both cases that vulnerability was present. In both cases I found code added to the functions.php file as well as a few other dodgy files showing up.

Make Posting To WordPress As Easy As A Facebook Status Update

WordPress Plugins, WordPress Tutorials - Basic

In a Google+ community recently someone wanted to know how they could make posting to their WordPress blog as quick and easy as posting to Facebook or Google+. When you post a link on those social networks, all you have to do is paste a url and the title, description and image for the webpage you’re linking to are automatically generated, so it’s very easy to quickly share information.

I recommended three possibilities to make posting to WordPress this easy (click to enlarge screenshots).

WP 3.5 Is Out – Back Away From The Update Button!

WordPress

WordPress 3.5 AKA “Elvin” is out now. 3.5 features a wonderful new look for the media uploader, a clean new default theme and more. However, I DON’T recommend getting trigger-happy with the update button just yet. I’m hearing of a few plugin conflicts and other issues so it would be wise to test out your …

Why Premium WordPress Web Hosting Is Worth It

WordPress

In the past few years a new breed of web hosts has emerged that focus specifically on hosting WordPress web sites. Some of the key players are WP Engine, FlyWheel, Pressable, Kinsta and Page.ly. These web hosts tend to be a little more expensive that the typical shared web hosting plans you can get through companies like Bluehost, Hostgator, Siteground etc. Whereas a Bluehost plan will cost you around $6/month, premium WordPress hosting starts around $25/month. If you’re used to shared webhosting and nothing has ever gone wrong for you, the price of a premium host seems a little steep, and indeed I was a little skeptical in the beginning too. I had never experienced firsthand any major problems with my current webhosts – no hacked sites or any outrageous downtime. So I really didn’t have much motivation to move to a premium host. But after I had the opportunity to try WP Engine’s service I quickly became a convert for many reasons, including the fact that my site ran significantly faster and the support was excellent. So these days, for my business clients, I always recommend a premium WordPress host and my host of choice is WP Engine.

Full disclosure – I am an affiliate of WP Engine and if you click the links in this post and sign up with them, that will result in me receiving a little extra cupcake money. If you want top notch hosting but are philosophically opposed to me eating more cupcakes you can certainly sign up without using my link and get the same exact price and service.

The reason I am an affiliate is because I use WP Engine every day (this site runs on WP Engine), as do several of my clients, and I love it. I recommend it to all my clients running an actual business on WordPress. As with any decision you make for your business, do your research to pick the right solution for your situation.

Getting The Word Out With Jetpack: Sharing, Subscribers, Social Media Networks

Tutorials, WordPress Tutorials - Basic

This is a guest post from my friend and super-talented WordPress developer, Suzette Franck. I’ve mentioned the Jetpack plugin before and in this post Suzette will take you deeper into it’s social marketing features.
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Let’s face it, no matter how pretty your blog or website is, people come back for fresh, compelling, unique and informative content. While there are various services that will accomplish the same functionality, never before has posting to all the networks simultaneously been make simpler than with the magic of the plugin Jetpack. Jetpack is chock full of goodies like the Publicize, Sharing and Subscriptions features that can help the most amount of people see your unique content in your social network. Support for posting to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, as well as share buttons for the major networks are all included in this no cost but priceless plugin.

What is Jetpack?

Jetpack (latest version is 2.0) is a free add-on suite of plugins once only available to WordPress.com users made available for your self-hosted blog. If your blog is hosted at WordPress.com, you do not need this add-on to access these features, but if you are self-hosting your blog, for example, at Media Temple, WPEngine, HostGator, Blue Host, etc. you will need to download, install, and activate this plugin to have it provide the features we will be covering, Also, you will be required to have a WordPress.com account, so that all of your subscriptions and stats can be accessed centrally right form the WordPress.com dashboard. I will walk you through the installation and configuration process and get you up and running in no time posting your unique content to your followers.