I also just returned from Salt Lake City, where I attended the Altitude Design Summit. Not only did I get to spend loads of quality time with some fabulous ladies (like Cyd, Nole, Vane, Victoria, ...]]> Hi Edit and Posters! I hope you are having a wonderful start to 2011! I’ve been busy busy working on great new things for Elizabeth Anne Designs, as well as helping my good friends Cyd and Mojito Maven create brand spankin’ new sites!

I also just returned from Salt Lake City, where I attended the Altitude Design Summit. Not only did I get to spend loads of quality time with some fabulous ladies (like Cyd, Nole, Vane, Victoria, Emily, and Amanda), but I also was able to hear panelists like Heather Armstrong, Jordan Ferney, and Erin Loechner speak on a variety of topics including The Art of the Pitch, Advertising: Beyond the Banner, and Blogging Personal Stories.

I’d like to share a few overarching themes of the conference with ya’ll, and get your feedback on them.

The largest concept that repeated through the conference was blogging with integrity and honesty.

• Giving your readers full disclosure about any compensation for content
• Respecting your competitors and fellow bloggers
• Taking sponsored content only where you feel it fits with your audience
• Crediting all sources of content

We have all seen those blogs that bash other blogs, those who seem just the slightest bit sleazy with their sponsored content, who credit a blog and not the photographer when posting an image… Moral of the story?  Don’t be that blog.

Although I don’t take ads or sponsored content on Edit and Post, I do on EAD, so this part of the summit was the most interesting to me.  I came away from Alt with a few salient points on monetizing:

• Think outside the box when it comes to monetizing.  Case in point?  Check out I Wear Your Shirt.  Literally, this is a group of people who will wear your company’s t-shirt around town for money.  It’s so crazy it works, and I find it pretty awesome.  Explore alternatives to banner ads, such as affiliate relationships and ad networks.
• Don’t undervalue yourself.  I came away feeling like design bloggers are lightyears ahead of wedding bloggers in this respect.
• Monetize in a way that is in line with your readership (as in, if you blog about personal finances, a sponsored post on pet food probably isn’t a good way to make a buck!).

Every aspect of a blog will be better if you are engaging your audience and are authentic.  One of my favorite panels, Blogging Personal Stories with Karey Mackin, Marta Dansie, and Stephanie Nielson, honed in on developing your voice and taking small things from your daily life and weaving them into your blog to tell a story.  People love knowing things about other people and connecting with them.

Personally, I took the most learning opportunities from this theme and am excited about implementing some of my ideas on EAD.

So did you attend Alt this year? What do you think about the themes that the conference covered – does it get you thinking about your own blog?

One of the easy features to implement is the Advanced Segment feature.  Advanced Segments require no updates to the Analytics code on your site, only a little bit of configuration within Google ...]]> I’m sure most if not all of you know about the awesome tool that is Google Analytics.  It’s FREE, there are multiple wonderful plugins to integrate it with WordPress (I use Yoast’s plugin), and when used correctly, it allows you to track all kinds of interactions with your website.

One of the easy features to implement is the Advanced Segment feature.  Advanced Segments require no updates to the Analytics code on your site, only a little bit of configuration within Google Analytics.  I use Advanced Segments for a variety of things, but one important use is to track how readers from a specific referring source interact with your website.

So let’s say I want to see how readers from Google interact with Elizabeth Anne Designs.

First, log in to Google Analytics and access your website profile.

On the left sidebar, click on Advanced Segments.

Click ‘Create new custom segment’.

Under Dimensions expand Traffic Sources.  Drag and drop Source into the dimension or metric box.  Leave the condition as Matches exactly and in the value field type google.com.   Name your segment Google and click Create Segment.

Now, navigate back to your Google Analytics Dashboard.  In the top right, there is a dropdown for Advanced Segments.  In the dropdown, place a checkmark in your new Google segment and click Apply.

Your Dashboard will now show you how “All Visits” and “Google” stack up to each other!

Now to take it even further, let’s say you sell a product and have a checkout page on your site.  If people successfully check out, they are taken to a “thank you” page.  That thank you page represents your sales conversion page.  With Advanced Segments you can now see how many visitors from Google are converting into sales.

Navigate to Content -> Top Content.  At the bottom of the table, in the Filter Page field, type /thank-you/ (or the URL of your order success page) and click Go.

Voila! Data showing you how many sales conversations you received from Google visitors.  Of course, this is also useful for other page views, such as how many visitors are viewing your contact page, and other referring sources, such as external advertising you might purchase.  And soon, we will talk about Google Analytics Event Tracking and how to combine Event Tracking with Advanced Segments – which is where the real fun comes in!

So have I inspired you to try out Advanced Segments?  How will you apply them to your site analytics?

High resolution images are a no-no.  Not only will it kill the speed of your site to host high resolution images, but it’s also bad blogging etiquette.  For best results, size images to no more than 500kb (and less is preferable).

Because most people are viewing your site on a widescreen monitor, portrait/vertical photos ...]]> We’ve talked about the legalities and etiquette of images in your blog posts.  Today, let’s chat about some of the technical things you should know when blogging images.

High resolution images are a no-no.  Not only will it kill the speed of your site to host high resolution images, but it’s also bad blogging etiquette.  For best results, size images to no more than 500kb (and less is preferable).

Because most people are viewing your site on a widescreen monitor, portrait/vertical photos should be sized to about half of the width of landscape/horizontal photos.  This will help to keep the file sizes smaller, as well as keep each image within the viewable area of everyone’s screen.  For aesthetic reasons, this is why many blogs choose to “pair up” verticals in their posts.

Use WordPress’s built-in Media resizing functionality to help you out with resizing.  Under Settings -> Media you can supply a thumbnail size, a medium size (I use this for vertical images) and a large size (horizontal).  As you upload photos, WordPress will automatically create copies of the image resized to each of your specified dimensions.

A lot actually.  Search engines can’t “see” images, they simply recognize the caption (aka alt text), title, and image name and read those to index the image.  Name your images something descriptive and WordPress will automatically fill in the alt text and title with your image name.

When deciding on a file name, put yourself in the shoes of the searcher. “Juli and Jon Wedding” likely won’t produce any search hits. But “Yellow Sunflower Bouquet” might.

If you find a photo on a blog and want to use it for your own blog (with the appropriate credits and permissions of course), it’s likely that the photo size won’t be exactly what you need for your blog. WordPress and Blogger both have ways of “hiding” the original photo source of a full-size photo. These little shortcuts may help you find a larger photo to meet your needs:

WordPress puts the sizing at the end of the photo name. Removing the sizing produces the full-size photo.

http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Retro-Dessert-Table-249×375.jpg

becomes

http://www.elizabethannedesigns.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Retro-Dessert-Table.jpg

Blogger on the other hand, embeds the sizing within the URL. As with WordPress, removing one little section produces the full-size photo.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__udAgyKza48/SpxravhrAmI/AAAAAAAABVo/VcllvgzGBfs/s400/snapdragon-flowers.jpg

becomes

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__udAgyKza48/SpxravhrAmI/AAAAAAAABVo/VcllvgzGBfs/snapdragon-flowers.jpg

And last but not least, if you have an image-heavy WordPress blog, here is a plugin that you will love me for (seriously). It’s called Faster Image Insert.

WordPress by default allows for the uploading of multiple images at once, but the insertion of only one image into a post at a time. This plugin fixes all of that and allows you to insert multiple images into your post with one click. If it’s compatible with your version of WordPress and the other image plugins you may have installed, I definitely recommend giving it a whirl on your test site and seeing if it’s a fit for you!

What other image tips and tricks do you have to share?

I posted a recap with some beautiful images of the conference and the Cayman Islands over on Elizabeth Anne Designs, but ...]]> If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I was fortunate enough to attend the Engage!10 luxury wedding business summit at the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman last week. Created and produced by Rebecca Grinnals and Kathryn Arce of Engaging Concepts, the event was a chance to connect with many amazing friends, both old and new, in the wedding industry.

I posted a recap with some beautiful images of the conference and the Cayman Islands over on Elizabeth Anne Designs, but here on Edit and Post I wanted to delve into just a few of the recurring themes from the conference and my insights and takeaways based on the panel discussions and conversations with other attendees.

On the very first day in the very first panel discussion, Harmony Walton posed a question to a small group of us: “Where do you want to be in 10 years?”  I sat there, relatively clueless, awaiting my turn to answer and wondering what the hell I’d say.

Because the truth is, I HAVE NO IDEA.

And you know what? I am OK with that.

During the past ten years my life has changed in ways that were both completely expected and incredibly surprising.  I love the thrill of the unexpected.  I thrive on change, constant revision, and self-examination.  I came away from Engage! with several budding ideas of ways to change my business, and if I had a “goal” that I was single-mindedly set towards, I may not have been open-minded to these new strategies.

Know that the wedding industry is changing faster than we can even realize.  Are you ready to change with it?

So many of the conversations that I participated in throughout the conference centered around growing your business when you provide a personal service. One conversation went like this:

Her: “I went back to work 5 days after having my baby because my clients needed me.”

Me: “Don’t you have a team working with you on the client’s wedding?”

Her: “Yes, but they only wanted me.”

Me: “Then you’re doing something wrong.”

So I tend to make blunt statements and brash generalizations, but here is my point (which I clarified to her during this conversation).  There is only so much of you to go around.  If you are giving a little piece of yourself to each and every client, soon you won’t have anything left.  This is when burnout occurs.  This is why businesses become stagnant.

I’m guilty of this – we are all guilty in one way or another – but it’s so important to keep perspective in an entrepreneurial business. In order to grow, you must find, train, and give creative control to your team.  You must trust them.  If you don’t trust them, how will your client trust them?  And if your client doesn’t trust them, how will you be able to let go and focus on growing your business?

Are you giving a little piece of yourself to each of your clients?  How many pieces do you have left?

One of my personal action plans from the conference is to put a great deal of thought into diversifying my business from the rest of my industry.  Perhaps because it was so applicable to me, this subtle thought stood out to me as a conference “theme”, if there is such a thing at Engage!.

What am I doing to differentiate my business?
In the first moment of interacting with my business, do you see what I want you to see?
How do I stand out from the crowd?

If you are in the wedding industry and are considering attending an Engage! event, I would definitely recommend it. Engage! is not a “how to” or “what to” conference. Rather, it is a thought-provoking environment that allows you to connect with like-minded industry professionals and gives the opportunity for reflection on your business.

More recap posts on Engage!10: Jasmine Star, Liene Stevens, Harmony Walton, Sean Low

By far the most common question that I have received from ya’ll since starting Edit and Post is “How do I make my blog look the way I want?”.  Now that you have installed WordPress and know how to install WordPress plugins, it’s time to start learning about themes.

Themes hold files that tell the browser what to display and how it should look.  If you remember from this post, PHP gets turned into HTML and that tells the browser what ...]]>

By far the most common question that I have received from ya’ll since starting Edit and Post is “How do I make my blog look the way I want?”.  Now that you have installed WordPress and know how to install WordPress plugins, it’s time to start learning about themes.

Themes hold files that tell the browser what to display and how it should look.  If you remember from this post, PHP gets turned into HTML and that tells the browser what to display.  In coding language PHP = “get”.  CSS tells the browser how the html you have coded should look.

WordPress comes installed with several themes, including the Default theme.  Let’s take a look at the files in the Default theme and see what they do.  Don’t worry if all of this is very confusing now!

index.php – Displays your main blog page.  Includes PHP calls for all of the files that control how your main blog page is displayed.

header.php – The header file essentially sets up the page and includes PHP calls to “get” the CSS files for the theme, the blog information and title from your WordPress options, and your header image.  It also calls WordPress itself from your server and includes the opening html for the body of your page.  There can be lots more included in here (and we’ll get to that when we talk about more complex coding).

footer.php – “Closes” your page in the browser.  Calls the WordPress footer.  Also includes any credits, copyright info, etc that you want to display.

single.php – Displays a single post.  Includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on a single post.

comments.php – Displays the comments for a post.  This file is typically only called from single.php.

archive.php – Displays category, tag, and date archives, as well as any other kind of archive you might have on your site due to some advanced coding.  Includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on your archive page.

404.php – If someone is searching for something on your site and goes to a permalink that doesn’t exist, they will see this 404 page.  Includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on your 404 page.

archives.php – Displays a list of your archives by month and subject.  Includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on your archives page.

comments-popup.php – If you want comments to display in a popup window, this file will be used to control what is displayed in that window.

functions.php – A super-important file that you don’t want to edit until you know what you’re doing.  :)  functions.php basically performs like a plugin, and any php code in here will be executed when you call the function from your other template files.

image.php – Displays a single image and includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on a single image.

links.php – Displays your blogroll links.  Includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you display on your blogroll links page.

page.php – Displays a WordPress page and includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you want to display on that WordPress page.  This file usually looks a lot like single.php.

search.php – Displays search results and includes PHP calls for all of the other page elements that you want to display on the search results.

sidebar.php – Displays the sidebar widgets that you have defined; if no widgets are defined, displays a default sidebar.

style.css – a theme’s stylesheet is where the CSS for a theme is held.  Themes can have one or many stylesheets.  CSS is pretty complicated, so for right now know that each little section of CSS is called a div, and div tags control how whatever is inside them is displayed.

rtl.css – If you are publishing in a language that reads right to left, this stylesheet will be used.

Let’s look at an example and maybe this will start to make more sense.  Remember single.php?  It’s the file that displays your single post page.

single.php is going to start by doing a PHP call for header.php. Remember, the header.php has already called in all of your stylesheets and WordPress itself.

<?php get_header(); ?>

Each section of your page is styled using div tags.  The header.php file probably had several div tags to display your header image, menu bar, etc.  In single.php the main content of your page is also enclosed in a div tag.  Let’s call it “content”.  When you include a div tag in your php file, WordPress will look in your stylesheet for the div tag name and display the results using the CSS assigned to that tag.

<div id=”content”>

Then it is going to ask the WordPress database for the data from the post itself.  This is an if statement in PHP, because if no post exists you want to include a message saying that no post exists.

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Once it knows what the post is, you’ll want to format it accordingly.  So perhaps you have a div tag for your post header that you surround the post title with.  Because that is the only thing you want to format as a “title”, you will then close the div tag.

<div class=”post_header”>

<?php the_title(); ?>

</div>

Now that you have displayed the title, you want the content.  You probably have some styling for this, let’s call it “entry”.

<div class=”entry”>

<?php the_content(); ?>

</div>

Then you want to include your comments.php file.

<?php comments_template(); ?>

Now let’s close the if statement from above and tell WordPress what to display if no post exists, and once that is done we are done with the “content” so we will close the div.

<?php endwhile; else: ?>

<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>

<?php endif; ?>

</div>

Lastly, we’ll call the sidebar and the footer.  Remember, the footer closes the page, so after the footer is called, single.php has done its job.

<?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/sidebar.php’); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

This is a lot to wrap your arms around but I hope it’s starting to make some sense, because we’re going to be talking a lot more about themes as we start to edit each of the theme files, make new theme files, and add in awesome new functionality!

Any questions so far?

First up, the legal stuff: images are copyright to the photographer. Unless you have received permission from the photographer, or they have licensed their work for creative commons, you are using any images you post under the US government’s doctrine of “fair use”.

You should read this short page for the complete information about fair ...]]> Some of the common questions as people begin blogging are about images: how to credit them, what are the copyright regulations, and general proper blogging etiquette.

First up, the legal stuff: images are copyright to the photographer. Unless you have received permission from the photographer, or they have licensed their work for creative commons, you are using any images you post under the US government’s doctrine of “fair use”.

You should read this short page for the complete information about fair use but to paraphrase, if you are using an image for the purposes of illustration or comment, are not using all or substantially all of the author’s work, and clearly notate the copyright owner of the work, you are falling under “fair use”.

As you can see on the copyright office’s page, the entire fair use area is gray. Here are a few things that are absolutes:

• Getting approval from the owner means you are in the clear to use the image.
• A creative commons license (which many bloggers who take their own photos provide in the terms and conditions of their site) means you are clear to use the image.
• If the owner of an image asks you to take it down, take it down.  Period.
• You should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS credit the owner/photographer.  Even if you have permission.  Even if it’s creative commons.  Unless it’s something like a stock image you have purchased, this rule should be followed 100% of the time.

If you are a blogger yourself, it is a great idea to have a policies or terms page on your site, telling your readers whether or not they are free to use the photos (and content) that you have posted and in what manner.

When you post images that you do not own, I think it bears repeating that you should always credit the photographer.  You should also credit the source of the information (where you found it), and any sources that they have named.  For example, I posted an image last week on Elizabeth Anne Designs that I found through the blog Little White Book.  She found the image via the Ruby Press blog.  The original image was from the blog Matt Bites, who is the original owner of the photo.  So my full credit was: image by Matt Bites, via Ruby Press and Little White Book.

It doesn’t cost anything to be nice and give credit where credit is due, so pretty please be nice and link to everyone who helped you find the image!

Other bloggers and photographers, do you have tips to share on image etiquette or guidelines for usage?

As small business owners, even if you aren’t going to handle your own accounting, it’s important to understand the basics of your finances so that you can determine how your business is performing.  Let’s start with some accounting language and terminology.

Your accounting records are kept in what is called the general ledger. The general ledger is made up of several ledger accounts (also known as accounts or G/L accounts).  Each ledger account is populated by journal entries.  Each journal entry ...]]>

As small business owners, even if you aren’t going to handle your own accounting, it’s important to understand the basics of your finances so that you can determine how your business is performing.  Let’s start with some accounting language and terminology.

Your accounting records are kept in what is called the general ledger. The general ledger is made up of several ledger accounts (also known as accounts or G/L accounts).  Each ledger account is populated by journal entries.  Each journal entry must balance to zero.

A journal entry is created for every transaction in your business, and each account is either debited (abbr: DR) or credited (abbr: CR).

Each ledger account is classified into one of five account types: Assets, Liabilities, Equities, Revenues, or Expenses.  These account types all have natural balances that are debits or credits. The total of all of your G/L accounts must balance to zero.

The natural balances of each account type are:

Assets: Debit
Liabilities: Credit
Equities: Credit
Revenues: Credit
Expenses: Debit

Don’t think of debits and credits as additions and subtractions.  Simply think of debits and credits as increases and decreases to the natural balance of an account.

A debit will always be a positive number.  A credit will always be a negative number.  The total of the debits and credits in a journal entry will always balance to zero.  This insures that you have recorded all aspects of the transaction appropriately.

Confused yet?  Let’s do some examples from our everyday lives.

You go to Whole Foods and spend entirely too much money on baked goods (oh wait, is that just me?!).  You pay cash.

Grocery expenses are increasing, because a debit increases the natural balance of an expense account, and cash is decreasing, because a credit decreases the natural balance of an asset account.

You find your dream home and go to the bank for a loan. The home costs $150,000 and you pay a $20,000 cash downpayment.

You are increasing an asset, your real estate account, by $150,000. But you now have a liability to the bank for $130,000 (remember, credits increase liabilities) and your cash balance decreased by $20,000.

You sold someone a book for $20, they paid with cash.

Assets, with a natural debit balance, and revenues, with a natural credit balance, are both increasing in this transaction.

So what do you think – are debits and credits starting to make sense? Next up in this series, we’re going to chat about financial statements (excited yet?).

To obtain your own WordPress.com API key, sign up here.

Then, since you know how to install plugins, install WP-Stats and Akismet (Akismet may already be installed with your WordPress package, so simply activate) and use your fun new API ...]]> Getting a WordPress.com API key is helpful for two reasons:

1. It allows you to utilize plugins like Akismet (spam comment filtering) and WordPress.com Stats
2. It allows you to comment on blogs hosted by wordpress.com without having to fill in all of the required fields

To obtain your own WordPress.com API key, sign up here.

Then, since you know how to install plugins, install WP-Stats and Akismet (Akismet may already be installed with your WordPress package, so simply activate) and use your fun new API key to block spam and see your page views!

We’ve talked a little bit about plugins, so you know what a plugin is, but let’s go over how to find and install them.

The WordPress site has a comprehensive list of every plugin available.  From here, you can search for the functionality you’re looking for and see reviews of the plugins, number of downloads, installation notes, etc.  Chances are, if you want to do it, there is a plugin for it.

We’ll start by installing a plugin that saves some real ...]]>

We’ve talked a little bit about plugins, so you know what a plugin is, but let’s go over how to find and install them.

The WordPress site has a comprehensive list of every plugin available.  From here, you can search for the functionality you’re looking for and see reviews of the plugins, number of downloads, installation notes, etc.  Chances are, if you want to do it, there is a plugin for it.

We’ll start by installing a plugin that saves some real estate on your WordPress dashboard, the Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu plugin.  By default, the WordPress dashboard menu is on your left.

When you install and activate Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu, the menu moves to the top, eliminating the need for lots of vertical scrolling.

There are two ways to install a plugin, through your WordPress dashboard, or through FTP.

1. Navigate to Plugins → Add New
2. In the search field, type in the plugin you want to install, in this case we’ll search for “Ozh Admin”
3. When the search results appear, locate the plugin and click “Install” then “Install Now”
4. Click “Activate Plugin”

If you have a zipped file of your plugin, you can also install it through the WordPress dashboard.

By now, you know that I love FTP and do the majority of my work in Core FTP (if you need a refresher on FTP, read this post).  To install a plugin using FTP:

1. Download the plugin that you want to install from the WordPress plugin repository
2. Unzip it to a folder on your computer
3. Sign into Core FTP, or your chosen tool
4. Navigate to www.yoursite.com/wp-content/plugins
5. FTP the plugin folder from your computer to your server
6. In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Plugins → Installed → Inactive and activate your new plugin

Plugins are addictive.  Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

Be super-careful when you are following these instructions and be very sure not to edit the web server or database for your actual website!  Always be sure that you have backed up your database and web server before doing this, just in case.

We’re going a little out of order here, but this topic has come up several times already and is so important that I thought we should cover it immediately.

So how do you set up a test site for ...]]>

Be super-careful when you are following these instructions and be very sure not to edit the web server or database for your actual website!  Always be sure that you have backed up your database and web server before doing this, just in case.

We’re going a little out of order here, but this topic has come up several times already and is so important that I thought we should cover it immediately.

So how do you set up a test site for your WordPress blog?  First, purchase a separate domain name (anything works) and set it up for hosting.  Then, take the following steps to copy your production site (the techie term for your user-visited website) to your test site.

Let’s say your production site is www.mycookingsite.com/blog and your test site is www.mytestsite.com/blog.

1. FTP the following files and folders from www.mycookingsite.com/blog/ to your computer or hard drive:
   • wp-admin
   • wp-content/themes
   • wp-content/plugins
   • wp-content/upgrade
   • wp-content/index.php
   • wp-includes
2. On your computer or hard drive, delete the plugin folder for wp-stats if you have it enabled.  This is to insure that you do not confuse WordPress’s dashboard when you create your test site.
3. FTP all of the individual files that are at the same level as the wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes folder to your computer or hard drive.
4. FTP all of the files from your computer or hard drive into www.mytestsite.com/blog/.

You’ve now made a copy of everything on your web server except your images (no need to have these on your test site).

1. You have already downloaded the nifty WordPress Database Backup plugin.  If you have yesterday’s backup handy, great, otherwise go to Tools → Backup and run a backup of your entire database.
2. Create a new SQL database through your web hosting company.
3. Through your web hosting company, there should be a service called phpMyAdmin.  Log into phpMyAdmin using the username and password for your database.
4. Select your newly-created database in phpMyAdmin and click on the “Import” tab.
5. Browse for your backup file, be sure that the SQL button is checked, and click Go.

1. In phpMyAdmin, click on your test database, and the table wp_options (or wp_xxxxxx_options).  BE SURE YOU ARE IN YOUR TEST DATABASE.
2. Find the option name “siteurl”.
3. Click the pencil on the siteurl line to edit the information.
4. Change the siteurl to your test site.

1. In FTP, navigate to the root of your TEST wordpress installation.  In our example this would be www.mytestsite.com/blog.
2. Open the file called wp-config.php
3. Change the values for DB_NAME, DB_USER, and DB_PASSWORD to your test database information.

1. Visit www.mytestsite.com/blog/wp-admin and log into your test site.  You will log in with the same username and password as your production site.
2. Verify that your test site is visible at www.mytestsite.com/blog.

Voila! A perfect copy of your blog.  Use your test site to edit your theme, install new plugins to play with, develop new functionality, test upgrades of WordPress or plugins, etc before applying the changes in production.

PS – If you aren’t on WordPress, but instead have an HTML website, you should still have a test site.  Simply FTP the files from your web server to your computer, and then FTP back up to your new domain.

PPS – Your web hosting provider should also allow you to easily password-protect your test site’s domain.

PPPS – You should also read the WordPress Codex articles about Restoring Your Database From Backup and phpMyAdmin.

Edited To Add: PPPPS – See comments below for some reasons why you need a test site – this can include changes to your WP theme, or testing out plugins and new functionality, and creating new page templates – and also a shortcut method that doesn’t involve a whole backup of your production site.