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.
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.
Website Redesign: 5 Copywriting Questions to Ask Yourself
These days, especially if you have a WordPress website, you can easily make updates as your business grows and evolves. When your target client and message change, it’s a good idea to make sure the content of your website reflects that.
Sure, you want the details right. But you also want your site to reflect the heart of your business. Because that is what your clients and customers will respond to. When you engage their senses and emotions, they will stick around-to the end of your message.
5 Copywriting Questions to Ask Yourself in a Website Redesign
To get your content right, with a nice balance of facts and emotional appeal, ask yourself these 5 questions:
- Is the content focused on my needs or those of my clients? Are you talking too much about yourself: your experience, your degrees, your portfolio? Because your visitors don’t care about that. All they want is a solution to their problems.
- Do the words I use show that I know my audience? What works for accountants with MBA’s or company CEO’s would be disastrous if you are selling to teenagers looking for the best deal on a skateboard.
- Do I know my business’s brand and personality? Try narrowing your company’s brand down to three adjectives: Is it loyal, fun-loving, serious, friendly, trustworthy, playful, reliable, irreverent, or something else? Keep these descriptive words in the back of your mind as you write your website’s copy.
- Does my passion about my business show? Picture your copy as eyes. Is your visitor seeing them light up when you talk about your product or service? Don’t be afraid to get excited. Show in your copy that you deeply believe in what you do. It will shine through in your message.
- Does my unique “voice” come through in the website copy? Every website visit is a conversation. Visitors click to ask questions. The answers you give them show them who you are. It’s simple: Know your company’s brand and personality and put that voice in your copy.
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.
WordPress Themes – Free Vs. Paid
A couple posts ago I talked about the basics of a theme. Now let’s talk about the free versus paid.
If you use WordPress, you know how many free themes are out there —literally hundreds. There are a lot of good ones, and some that are okay. If you are using yours for a blog, the choices are endless, depending on your needs. But if you are choosing WordPress as a platform for your website, you may want to consider the benefits of a paid theme.
Now don’t get me wrong. Again, there are plenty of good free themes out there, and I’m not slamming any of them.
But, let’s look at what you may get with a paid theme:
You get what you pay for. Hey, that’s life. I don’t need to explain this one. In fact you will find that many of the “free” theme developers, have paid one’s as well. Get the point?
More bells and whistles. Yes, the paid themes will be more widget-friendly. They may already have a lot in place that you don’t even need to bother adding.
Support. Here’s a big one. Again, someone that offers a theme for free, how much time can they give to supporting that theme. Sure, they may have a forum on their site, but still the opportunity of being able to contact someone when you need them, is so much more beneficial.
Updates. Another biggie! When WordPress does its updates (and they can be often), this can send your theme into oblivion. I’ve seen it happen with clients. Sites that offer paid themes have a bit more reason to make sure that their themes will work with the next update. In fact, many get hold of the “beta” version of the next update, just so they can be ready!
So the choice is yours. Just give it a bit of thought as you choose your next theme. What do you want it to do for you? Think long term.
Of course you can always change midstream and that works will with blogs. But a complicated website — changing the theme can cost you time, money and several ongoing headaches!
Here are just a few links to some great paid themes:
Again, just a few. Look around, ask around. I’m sure you will find just what you need.
