Explode the WordPress Learning Curve: An Evening with the Experts
Get connected with the tools and resources you need at Explode the WordPress Learning Curve: An Evening with the Experts. Your moderator, Miles Austin, leads presentations and discussions that will show you how a WordPress website, combined with savvy social media strategies and solid search engine optimization techniques, can make your marketing and sales so much more successful.
After An Evening with WordPress Experts, you’ll understand:
* why so may businesses are choosing WordPress for their websites and blogs
* how to leverage the power and flexibility of a WordPress website to increase sales
* how easy it is to make the move to WordPress
* 5 techniques for optimizing your WordPress pages for better search engine rankings
* the key features of 3.0, the newest version of WordPress
What’s Included in this Event:
* 3 “mini-seminars” from WordPress experts
* 15-minute break with time for networking as well as time before and after the event
* Extended Q & A panel discussion with the experts-get your questions answered
* Opportunity to meet the experts at the conclusion of the event
* Time to visit the presenters’ tables and exchange information
* Copies of all presentations
* Additional information on useful tips, plugin’s, themes and resources for WordPress users
Speakers at this event:
Moderator Miles Austin, founder and owner of Fill the Funnel, Inc.
Moderator Miles Austin, will serve as your guide for the evening. Miles will set the stage for the presenters, providing an overview of the content, introducing the speakers and facilitating the panel discussion/Q&A session.
Miles Austin is a leading authority on the selection and use of web tools to drive increased sales. He has 25 years of experience in high-profile sales with experience across multiple industries. Miles is a highly-sought out speaker and author of the popular Fill the Funnel blog.
Myself
WordPress 3.0: Better, Faster, Easier
With the release of the newest version, WordPress 3.0, life just got easier. I will have just returned from WordCamp San Francisco, where Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress was a key speaker. I’m not holding back. He’ll share all the cool new WordPress features and even a couple of hidden gems.
I am the founder of SavvyWordPress.com, the premier membership site for entrepreneurs looking for all the latest WordPress resources and tools to make their websites and blogs unique, memorable customer magnets. I’m a Mac evangelist and twitter addict who learned life lessons from Curly of the Three Stooges.
Mark McLaren , founder and owner of McBuzz Communications
Get Found Easier: 5 Tips for Better Search Engine Optimization with WordPress
WordPress is your out-of-the-box solution for creating a website or blog that is highly optimized for search engines. Learn how, with just a little extra time and effort, you can take your site to the next level of search engine optimization. Mark will show you five key techniques for optimizing your WP pages and posts for better search engine rankings.
Mark McLaren is passionate about WordPress. He was a speaker at WordCamp Seattle 2009 and presents regularly to Seattle business groups on search engine optimization, blogging, social media marketing and WordPress websites. Business Blogging 101 is his site for free WordPress tutorials and support. Mark is the owner of the online marketing firm McBuzz Communications.
Tom Todd, founder and owner of T2.
The WordPress Advantage: Why Smart Businesses are Making the Switch
Businesses of all types and sizes are choosing to replace their static, inflexible websites for dynamic, WordPress-powered ones. You’ve heard the buzz about WordPress. Now find our exactly why so many businesses are jumping onboard. In this session, Tom will show you how easy it is to switch to a client-attracting WordPress blog or website.
Tom Todd is a lifelong marketer, designer and tech-geek. Founder of T2, he creates customized WordPress websites and provides WP training and consulting services for a range of Seattle area clients, from solopreneurs to mid-sized companies.
About the Facility:
You will enjoy the benefits of a state-of-the-art lecture facillity with sloped floor stadium seating, workspace for your notepad and/or laptop, comfortable chairs and two extra large projection screens and sound system to follow along with the presenters.
Backup Buddy Plugin – A Dream Come True
If you have read my blog, attended my workshops, or even casaully discussed WordPress with me, you know my feelings about backing up your files. Yes, most servers and hosts do it routinely, and yours might be one of them. But I don’t like to rely on them.
I always recommend using WP DB Backup plugin for your database which it basically all of your content — pages and posts. But what about your other WordPress files. And all the media you have uploaded? Yes, you can back those up usually using an FTP client, but maybe you don’t have the know how or the time.
I know what you are thinking.
This sounds like an ad.
Well, in a way maybe it is. But PlugInBuddy.com from iThemes, has come up with Backup Buddy. It’s great. And it backs up everything.
A side note. I was concerned the otther day when a client that I was doing consulting told me another “so called” WordPress expert told her to just use the export tool, and that will backup everything. Not! What are these people anyway, giving away wrong info!
Yes, I am an affiliate for this, a few bucks in my pocket. And yes, it’s not a free plugin. But damn, it’s great. And well worth the money!
WordPress 2.9 – Update Success
This is the second day since WordPress 2.9 has officially been released. Normally, I wait a couple of weeks to upgrade. But this time I took the dive and the update went through seamlessly. In fact, I have seen a lot of the same results via Twitter. Sounds like a lot of the bugs were worked out in beta. Way to go WordPress!
Of course, I did backup all my files and database just in case!
I will come back and post any plugin or widget conflicts as I hear them.
And how did your experience go?
WordPress 2.9 Teaser
Okay, just a quick post to let you know a couple of features to expect in 2.9. I just uploaded the beta version and hope to come back soon with more to share.
THE TRASH CAN – When you delete a post, page, category, comment, or any bit of content, it is moved to the Trash where you can decide whether to pull it back at a later date.
IMAGE EDITOR – ALTHOUGH SIMPLE… Image editing will allow bloggers to crop, scale and rotate images from right within WordPress.
New Image Widget
I have in the past given you steps to create an image in your sidebar using the text widget.
Well, today WordPress just came out with a new Image Widget, that solves that problem. Now it’s easy to add an image to your sidebar
WordPress.com stats every month
I normally don’t approve of simply doing a copy and paste for my blog, but this time I am going to make an exception.
Do you know that every month WordPress.com lists their stats under the “news” tab? Although the numbers may not affect you directly, they are impressive.
So for August ’09, here they are:
- 426,047 blogs were created.
- 4,560,168 posts were published.
- 455,423 new users joined.
- 6,658,426 file uploads.
- 3990 gigabytes of new files.
- 787 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters.
- 8,379,530 comments.
- 7,498,064 logins.
- 2,153,498 active blogs and 22,855,350 active posts, where “active” means they had a human visitor.
- 1,267,201,336 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 1,296,959,079 on self-hosted blogs (2,564,160,415 total across all WordPress blogs we track).
- 1,567,468,503 words.
That, my friend, is a heck of a lot of blogging!
WordCamp Seattle 09
Just a quick note to let everyone know that WordCamp Seattle on Sept. 26th is open for registration. Sign up before it sells out!
http://www.wordcampseattle.com/2009/08/registration-open-now/
I Survived My 2.8 Update!
Just had to do a quick post as I finally made the move to update to version 2.8. From past experience, I have found it useful not to jump on the bandwagon and update the minute the new version comes out. It’s pretty much my practice across the board with most hardware and software.
I did take the time to read other horror stories via Twitter and LinkedIn, took note of all the disappointments and frustrations, and basically, sat back and waited. Nearly 30 days later, with some of the bugs worked out, on the day after the 4th of July, I decided to take the plunge.
I anticipated similar fireworks and explosions that had been a constant for the past two days.
Fortunately, it didn’t happen.
Like a good WordPress neurotic, I:
- backed up my files (although I do use WP-Dbmanager plugin for auto updates)
- turned off all of my plugins and updated them — several had updated versions for 2.8, lucky me (and yes all 14 plugins)
- clicked my auto install update
- activated plugins again
- and presto, my site worked like a charm, and 2.8 was active
I must note that we do use a premium theme from StudioPress that survived the update without a glitch.
(Heavy sigh). Now it’s off to update client sites. So far 3 updated, and things are good.
If you updated recently, let me know how it went for you!
WordPress 2.8 is Officially Released
As of Wed., June 10th, WordPress 2.8 is out. There are some nice new features, nothing major, but worth checking out.
If you are on WordPress.com, you are updated automatically.
If you have your WordPress on your own server, when updating, remember to:
- Backup your database and files before updating.
- If you are using a free theme or a paid premium theme, find out if they have made it WordPress 2.8-compatible. If they haven’t, try the update, but again remember to backup. If your theme has issues, upload the old files again and wait till your theme is updated before going to 2.8 again.
- If you do need to update your theme, and you had someone customize it, talk to them before installing the updated version of your theme.
- After updating, if your blog or website starts having problems, deactivate any plugins one by one to see if that is what’s causing the issue.
- Check your widgets and make sure they are working with the new version.
And finally, don’t feel you have to update right away. Make sure you eventually do it, but you don’t need to be the first one on your block!
If anyone else has suggestions or insights, please feel free to comment.
A Peek at Some WordPress Beta 2.8 Features
WordPress Beta 2.8 has been out for a bit and I have finally taken some time to look at the new features. There’s some good stuff there! I won’t take the time to go through them all, but here are some that are worth highlighting.
THEMES
Now you can upload themes through the admin panel. In 2.7 and older, you needed to use FTP clients. And since there are a lot of WordPress users out there that don’t get “ftp” they limited themselves to the preinstalled themes. And an added benefit: now you can browse themes and search via keywords, and also apply filters too based on width, colours and columns. In addition the management of themes has improved. Before, you had to select the theme you wanted, and then either press activate or close after viewing a preview of the theme. Now you get options to activate immediately if you want, and also to delete the theme if you want as well.
WIDGETS AND PLUGINS
Although there isn’t any major change to the widget view, it it a lot cleaner and easier to use. As far as plugins, you can now edit them from within your editor. If a plugin is not working well, and you have the know how in coding, you can tweak it in order to get it working correctly.
COMMENTS
The new option to edit individual comments from the edit post selection saves a bit of time to do the standard delete, spam and reply to comments.
DASHBOARD
Again, just a bit making things a bit easier, you can now change the look of your dashboard and can set the number of columns that you want to be shown. Anything from one to four columns is allowed.
NOTE: If you are on the free WordPress.com, some of the features are not available.
So that’s just a quick preview. There is a whole bunch of other changes and improvements, but for most WordPress users, these are the one’s that will be more obvious. Not sure when we are looking at for the full release, but the Beta version does seem pretty stable. In any case, it’s just around the corner.
