Running Your WordPress Website Workshop

This WordPress training course is perfect if you are interested in creating your own website or business owner like a Virtual Assistant planning to offer WordPress as a service to create websites for clients. This course also helps small business owners to gain more control and insight into their own website and is suitable for absolute beginners. The WordPress training is flexible and designed to equip you with the basic knowledge and confidence needed to setup and manage your own website. I also offer WordPress Training on a 1-2-1 basis in your own home or office in Toronto or in a very small group workshop. I like to keep the groups workshops small to ensure you get the best from your training.

The WordPress Website Workshop is perfect for you if you have ever experienced the following…

• Wanting to start a website, but not sure where to begin.
• Frustration with waiting on your busy webmaster.
• The stress of knowing how much web design can cost you.
• Wondering how you’ll update and make changes to your website now that you’ve finished it.
• You may be a Virtual Assistant wanting to help clients create their own web presence, but does not have the adequate training on how to get started.

These are common issues we’re faced with when it comes to building a website. Luckily, I’m here to tell you that you can breathe easy I’m going to teach you EVERYTHING I know about running websites with WordPress. The WordPress training is a 1 day workshop in Toronto, but I am willing to travel if you pay the expenses.

Course Outline

Here’s some of what you will learn:

• Introduction to WordPress
• Overview of the WordPress settings and the dashboard
• Understanding Plugins & Sidebars/widgets: -installing, setting up and activating vital plugins
• Creating your content Understanding catergories and tags Adding images & videos
• Basic WordPress SEO
• Integrating email marketing
• Intergrating social media
• WordPress security

For the purpose of the workshop we will working from a professional high quality theme (template) that I provide suitable for business sites and blogs.

So how about it?

It’s time get your website up running There are better ways to spend your time than saying “some day I’ll get my website set up…” or waiting till you have the funds to outsource it. Just do it – today. Right now, while you’re still on this page.

  What You Will Need

 Needed for and must be in place before the course:

• A domain name
• Web hosting its must have Cpanel -it must also feature one click install for wordpress
• You must bring your laptop (wifi must be available)
• A rough idea of what you would like to see on your website i.e. images, text. ideally come prepared with 5 pages of text or dummy text will be used (I will send specific info before the workshop).

I’m happy to talk you through getting hosting and a domain name on a one to one basis with each person that books the workshop.

The Workshop has a maximum of 6 attendees.

When you have a website or blog you want to stand out from all the other websites out, which is why having a good WordPress theme that sets you apart is so critical. There are millions of websites that are run using WordPress and with that, there are many themes out there that are being used many times over. This can cause your website to look like many other websites if you are using one of the standard themes out there.

If you can find a theme or someone to create a WordPress theme for you that is unique, you will be one step ahead in terms of branding and making your website stand out. Free WordPress themes are not the best way to go because anyone can have the same exact design as you. Not only will it not stand out to your visitors, but search engines as well. If someone comes across your website and they have seen that design before, they may think twice about visiting your site again.

The search engines will also see your site as the same as many other websites on the web. This can play a role in your website ranking well for any keywords that you want to be ranking for. Search engines have been cracking down on all the non-unique, or otherwise spam type websites. One way that the search engines will see your site as a spam site is the design and layout. If your website is the same as millions of other websites, they will automatically put your website on hold until it creates some authority.

Let’s look at some good reasons why you should have a website – the main of which is to gain more customers and improve the bottom line:

1. Building trust: Your website in this case forms part of your corporate branding, in the first place, and through the content and imagery that you publish on the site, conveys a certain message with regards to who you are and what services you offer. If you don’t have a website, or if your website is badly designed, your potential customers will definitely have doubts about your standing, stature and trustworthiness. After all, which big, trustworthy company these days do NOT have a website?

2. Improve your services: You can use your website to improve your services. Use the interactive mechanisms on your website to run surveys and get feedback on your quality of service or general customer satisfaction.

3. Advertise your services and products: If you are looking for cost effective advertising, look no further than a corporate website that is well designed. It can convey much more information than original print advertising such as a company brochure and even better – the information that you publish can always be fresh. If you consider the costs of print advertising, and compare this with the costs of website design there is actually no comparison – your website will win hands down every time.

4. Improve your communication: Communicate with your existing and potential clients through your website by making use of mailing lists and newsletters. You can notify clients of new product releases, special offers and general news of the company.

In conclusion, the best way to create brand equity and build a brand for yourself or your company, is to have a unique design. Visitors and search engines will see your website as a legitimate source for quality information or products.

Talk to us about your requirements for your corporate website design. Take advantage of our great prices and get your new website started today!

How to Stop Your WordPress Blog Getting Hacked

Hacking has been going on since the birth of the Internet, but lately online criminals have taken it to a new level. Not only are digital villains cracking into our email, social network profiles and bank accounts, but they are now hacking into websites for a whole host of reasons. This can cause huge losses in audience, reliability and really makes you or your business look incredibly unprofessional.

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms not only for blogs but for big websites too. Security is one of the most important aspects especially for WordPress CMS. Over the years you learn many ways to secure WordPress and to protect you against hackers.

Creative Web Design 123 can perform a security audit of your WordPress site to determine how well protected it is against hackers, and prepare a report card outlining what best practices you are already following and where you need to improve.

We will lock up your WordPress installation for you and help you understand how to adopt all of the best practices that we recommend, from building a firewall to configuring permissions. If adopting best practices causes conflicts with existing plugins that you have installed, we’ll assist you in working around or solving those problems.

One missed WordPress update is all it takes for hackers to potentially ruin all of our hard work.

If you run WordPress yourself, then you need to be concerned about how well protected your installation is. Your web host may be responsible for the security of their systems, but you are responsible for the software you run on them. That includes WordPress. If your content is important to you, you owe it to yourself to make the security of your site a priority.

Our services include:

• Assessing strengths and weaknesses. We can perform a security audit of your WordPress site to determine how well protected it is against hackers, and prepare a report card outlining what best practices you are already following and where you need to improve.
• Constructing site defenses. We can lock up your WordPress installation for you and help you understand how to adopt all of the best practices that we recommend.
• Security education. If you run a site which multiple people contribute to, I can assist you in educating them about best practices, whether that’s holding a webinar, group chat, teleconference, or possibly even visiting your offices in person. Remember, the security of your site is only as strong as the weakest link in your defenses.
• Recovering and restoring a compromised site. We can help you get back on your feet and reverse damage to your filesystem and database caused by hackers.

As you can see, most of our services are preventative in nature. There’s a reason for that! As the old adage goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Many folks who have had their WordPress installations broken into have learned this lesson the hard way. We’d like to help ensure that you never have to.

We can’t guarantee that you’ll be completely protected if you engage my services. But we can help you dramatically improve your ability to defend your WordPress site and the content you manage with it.

Prevent Your WordPress Blog From Being Hacked!

Creative Web Design 123 provides WordPress security services to protect your site from malicious attacks. We specialize in malware and virus removal. If your WordPress blog is hacked, broken, or you want to protect it, we are here to help.

Is Your WordPress Blog Hacked? We Can Help You! We’ll clean your WordPress site and get it back up and running as soon as possible CLICK HERE.

Add Posts to Pages in WordPress [Tutorial]

This tutorial is a beginners’ guide to adding Posts and Pages content to your WordPress blog.

Before you start adding content, you’ll need to log in to the WordPress administration center. On your blog there should be a link that says “Login.” Click that, type in your username and password, and click Login.

Adding Posts

Posts are the articles you publish on your blog, like the ones you’d find in a newspaper. The article you’re reading right now is a WordPress post. Posts are chronological (they’re published on a certain date), they can be categorized and tagged, and visitors can leave comments.

To add a post to your blog, click the “Write” button on the top administration menu.

The two most important input fields you see will be Title (where you put the title of the post/article) and Post (where you put the content).

To add a category, first click the plus sign next to “Categories” if you can’t see the list. Then check off a category or two from the list, or type in a new one and click “Add.”

To add tags, type them in the “Tags” box and separate them with commas.

There are many other fields on the Write Post page, but you don’t need to fill them out for purposes of basic blog publishing.

Adding Pages

Pages have a title and content like a Post, but they are static (they’re not date-oriented), by default they can’t be categorized or tagged, and visitors typically can’t leave comments on them. Pages can also be hierarchical, whereas Posts can’t.

Pages can give information about the blog, the author, or other non-article content that should always be accessible instead of being archived.

To add a page, click the “Write” button and then click “Write Page.” With the exception of the aforementioned differences, the “Write Page” panel functions very similarly to the “Write Post” section.

Creating Sub-Pages

The other option in the Attributes box of the Add New Page screen is the Parent menu. This drop down allows you to choose a parent for the page you’re creating; that is, you can make it a sub-page of some existing page.

As you can see from this, some of the pages are shown with an indent. That means they’re sub-pages of the first flush-left page above it. In a very complex web setup you could have sub-pages of sub-pages, as deeply nested as you need. You can change the relationship of a page to other pages at any time by using this same drop-down menu while editing the page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVRFUCKXosM

Before You Start a Website, Learn the Must-Do Tasks for the New WordPress Site.

That freshly-installed WordPress site of yours is poised to be a source of income, prospects and possibilities for your business. It has the potential to be a powerhouse resource, but there are a few things you’ll need to get in order first.

Here are some helpful hints if you aren’t sure what information to include on your website. It is a good idea to create a written plan outlining what each page should contain, so that you won’t forget anything, or repeat any information.

Once you have put all the relevant information together and are ready to order your Creative Web Design 123 Website, complete the Lets gets started form (below this post). Email images and logos.

The cost includes basic graphic design work for the website. For other graphic design work we have a number of designers we could recommend, at additional cost. Royalty free stock images can be purchased for use on your website from iStock Photo.

Home Page - This is the first page of the site, and needs to create that “first impression” for your potential customers. It should provide general information about the products or services your business provides, and an overview of what information can be found on your website.

Products and Services - Provide as much detail as possible about the products or services your business offers. Remember – in many instances this website will be replacing a printed brochure. Potential customers don’t want to have to call you for further information – they want it now! If you have many different products or services, this section of the website can be broken up into multiple pages.

Images - As they say, “ a picture tells a thousand words”. Make sure you supply professional looking images for your website.

Pricing - If possible, include the prices of your products and services. Again, potential customers are looking for information now.

Customer Testimonials - This can show potential customers that you are reliable and offer a quality product or service.

Media Information - If you have had reviews on your product or service in magazines, newspapers or online, make sure to include this on your website.

About Us - It is a good idea to include information detailing who you are, and why people should buy from your business. You may also like to list your opening hours, if applicable.

Links - By exchanging links with other websites that share a common theme with your business, you assist search engines such as Google to identify your website and raise its ranking.

Other Information - You may also like to include information such as delivery fees, privacy policy, return/refund policy, and anything else appropriate to your business.

Social Media Links - Does your business have a Facebook page, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkIn, TripAdvisor, Flickr, an online booking system, or any other type of social media avenue? These can all be integrated into your website.

Contact Information - Make sure people looking through your website can easily see how to contact you. You should have a separate page detailing your business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax and email. Make sure that if you are going to advertise an email address it is checked regularly.

Website Title - This should include your business name and a brief description of what products or services you provide, or maybe where you are located. This will display across the top of the page when visitors view your website in a browser (eg. Google). Also we need page title and description for each page (It should be no longer than 150 characters per page).

Website Description - This is a more detailed description of your business, and should be no longer than 150 characters. This description will display in a browser when visitors do a search and your website is included in the search results.

Keywords - These will probably be different for each page on your website. They should be relevant to the text on that page; that is, if you want a keyword used for a page, that word should be in the text somewhere on the page. Keywords help the search engines index your website.

It may seem like a lot to do, but they’re listed in order of importance. Work on the top of the list first. Once you’ve got those things set up, move on to the rest of it.

Before you know it, you’ll have a WordPress website that’s fully charged and ready to power your business.

Your New WordPress Websites quick turnaround time [Get Your Business Up and Running ASAP]