You have everything you need, right?

• Photoshop (or Gimp), check.
• Sources for stock images, check.
• Design elements such as Photoshop brushes and vectors, check.
• WordPress itself, check.

That’s everything, right? Well, maybe not completely. There are a few things that freelance WordPress designers need but never think about until situations crop up, and these problems usually surface over and over again before they are finally dealt with consistently. Here are some of those issues, with suggested ways to handle them.

Problem #1: Client Training and Support

Teaching clients how to use their new WordPress-based site and supporting them every time they have a question about WordPress is at best a time-suck, and at worst, an excruciating grind. Many designers are not prepared for the customer service side of things, and may not have the best “bedside manner” when dealing with client training.

Consider the following scenario. You’ve given your client a once-over of the WordPress dashboard, yet every other day, you get a call from the client that goes something like this.

“Joe, I don’t remember how to stick a picture of my dog on the right side of the stuff I want to say today. How do I do that again?”

You say something like like:

“Nick, remember what I showed you a couple of days ago? How you click on the toolbar icon to upload an image, and …

If you only have one client, that level of support might not be a big issue, but if you have several clients – or hope to find time to market yourself and obtain more – you need to minimize that kind of interaction as much as possible, while still giving your clients everything they need to succeed with their new site. Some questions are ones that only you can answer, but in most situations, many of the questions could be better handled by written or visual documentation. If you have the time and patience, you could create documentation and videos that answer all the most common questions that might arise. Of course, that kind of documentation takes a lot of time (and some talent), and would have to be revised every time WordPress makes major changes, which happens pretty frequently. The better option is to make use of what someone else has already done, especially if it is high quality and always updated to reflect the current WordPress version.

Of course, you could use my Beginner’s Guide to Blogging with WordPress, but that’s only the tip of the training iceberg, so you’ll probably want to use something more comprehensive. You should check out the WordPress User Manual Plugin because it covers pretty much everything needed to train your clients. It has over 35 high quality video tutorials that teach your clients how to use the site you developed for them using WordPress. It is installed just like a normal WordPress plugin, and once installed, the plugin creates a “Manual” menu item in the WordPress dashboard that lets your clients get their questions answered without having to contact you.

It will answer all those questions such as “How do I upload pictures?”, How do I add a page to my site?”, and “What do all those toolbar buttons do?” In addition to the videos, the plugin also includes a Word and PDF manual with screenshots.

One thing that is really cool is that you can brand the plugin and manuals with your own logo, as though you created it yourself. In addition, you can even add your own videos to the plugin! This makes it ideal for those projects that you created custom functionality for, that needs a little more explanation than the average WordPress user needs.

Of course, the plugin videos and manual get updated with each new stable release of WordPress, so you know your clients will always have instructions that match the current version of WordPress. That saves a ton of time and headache because WordPress changes the way the back end works pretty frequently.

Probably the best feature: You get a developer’s license, which lets you install the plugin on as many of your client sites as you want.

Most new freelance designers will never think about how much time and effort is involved in after-design training and support. After the third or fourth client that knows nothing about using WordPress, though, the advantage of something like this becomes blindingly obvious.

Problem #2 – Proposals, Contracts, Forms, Checklists, etc.

A new freelancer quickly realizes that he or she needs to find some sample forms to handle the business side of projects. Contracts, proposals, disclosure agreements, invoices, etc. all become a necessity, and no one generally has those things just lying around when they are just starting out. Finding free ones on the web is a major source of frustration, and while some freebies can be found – eventually – in the end, it’s a lot easier to just pony up a few bucks for a nice set of templates.

There are probably tons of web design business documents available for purchase. A quick search will let you find whatever you’re looking for. I like this particular web design document pack because it’s a set of ready-made templates that enable you to just fill in the blanks and be done with it, but I’m sure there are plenty of other choices available as well. I happen to like the types of documents included in this one, though, so I’ll list them here, and you can compare to others you find, and determine which is best for your situation.

Work Request Order Form – Defines and clarifies each ADDITIONAL task requested of you outside of the original agreement. This lets you handle scope creep in a way that’s fair.

Credit Card Authorization – Lets your client give you the credit card info needed to purchase items on her behalf such as domain name registrations, hosting, etc.

Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement – Gives your client the reassurance needed that the information they give you will not be disclosed to the competition.

Web Design Proposal – The document most requested and most difficult to deal with… It lets you present a proposal to a prospective client showing the project overview, recommendations, benefits, functional specs, technical specs, information architecture, etc. and details the project with regard to both cost and timeframe expectations.

Lite Proposal – Same as above but a lighter version that’s great for smaller projects.

Web Development Contract – Once you land the client thanks to a great proposal, you need a contract that covers code ownership, payment terms and conditions, change requests, scope creep, expenses, liability, cancellations, etc.

Technical Specifications – This is a good place to log all that important information such as site usernames and passwords, domain and hosting account information, etc.

Invoice – This invoice template includes your business details, accepted payment methods, payment terms, due date, itemized list of work accomplished and hours billed, and total of outstanding and paid items.

Project Handover Form – When the project is complete, and it is time to “hand over the site to client”, this document allows the client to sign off on the completion, take ownership of and responsibility for the new design, and gives you proof that you’ve satisfied the project requirements, in case anything is disputed in the future.

Problem #3 – Tracking The Time Spent on Projects

Just like you can find tons of contract documents online, you can also find tons of time tracking apps online as well. No matter what you use, you should use something other than the clock in your taskbar to keep track of the time you spend on client sites, especially if you charge by the hour. I like the free Paymo Time Tracker that lets you create tasks, start/stop time spent on a task, mark tasks when completed, and send out invoices based on the time spent. As I mentioned, it’s free for most freelancer’s needs, and it includes options that allow you to download a Windows or Mac desktop timer widget, use a browser-based web timer, or even use a mobile app timer. It also lets you connect the invoicing to your PayPal account so your clients can just click a Pay via Paypal button on the invoice that will take them right to Paypal to pay, and after paying, the invoice will automatically be marked as paid in Paymo.

Those are three problems most new freelance WordPress designers encounter, that they never considered having to deal with before they started their freelance career. If you’ve been wishing you had a way to train your clients, track your time, or handle the paperwork involved, one of these three tips might solve your problem.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: freelance, resources, web designers, WordPress, WordPress Designer
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A Dynamic Front Page

In the past a WordPress site could be spotted a mile away with 10 blog posts flowing down a front page and a sidebar. WordPress now functions more like a traditional CMS out of the box, but theme developers are creating WordPress themes with more dynamic and rich front pages. Below are 3 different approaches to creating a dynamic front page:

Stack uses CSS and jQuery to assemble a front page of posts that fills the width of a user’s browser. Featured image functionality is also being used in this theme to ensure all images on the front are the same width. This is still 10 posts on the front page, but with a more edgy look. This theme also uses several widgetized areas and some custom built widgets.

Parallax is another fun take on the WordPress posts front page, using the featured image to set the background for each post. This theme also utilizes some open source javascript to create a fun scrolling feature that is easier to see than to explain. Parallax also uses several widgetized areas and some custom built widgets.

Portfolio does not display a post or page on the front. Instead, this image centric theme displays featured images of user chosen portfolio items in a jQuery slideshow. This theme also uses several widgetized areas with some custom built widgets and a custom "My Portfolio" content type for displaying art, photography, design work, projects, etc.

Custom Post Types

WordPress 3.0 introduced many new features including full support for custom post/content types and many themes are taking advantage of this. A custom post type essentially allows the theme developer to determine what information is stored about a particular piece of content. For example, the Portfolio WordPress theme not only stores the typical title and post content, but also includes separate fields of information for Piece Title, Year Completed, Materials used and Discipline. This functionality allows a theme developer to manipulate and format this data in various ways. With custom post types a business like real estate can have a more rich experience using WordPress.

Featured Images

Featured images are a fantastic addition to WordPress and allow a theme developer to create many variations of an image as it is uploaded. These images can then be called later for custom widgets, front page features, gallery thumbnails and more. A good theme will utilize this to match the image size to the space being utilized. However, this resizing happens as images are uploaded, so if a theme that supports this is being added to an established site, the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will be needed.

Theme options

Most premium themes are going to include some level theme customization. These options could include things like adding a logo, slideshow controls, color themes, social media integration, a place to add analytics code, and etc. A good set of theme options will give you powerful tools to easily manage your blog or website.

Widget Areas

WordPress widgets are a great way to quickly add content to a website, but most themes only include these in the sidebar. Many newer themes are now including widget areas in the sidebar, footer, post and page area as well. And, getting a little fancier, a theme can also include a separate footer and/or sidebar area reserved for the home page.

Digging Deeper

Fortunately, adding new widget ready areas to a theme is pretty straight forward but you will have to get your hands dirty. Suppose you need widgets in the footer, but your theme does not include a widget area for the footer. Adding this is not terribly difficult.

1. Register the new widget in your themes function.php or widgets.php file by adding the PHP code below. This file will be in your theme folder, not in the main WordPress install. (There is a quicker way to do this, but this gives you more control)

register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'Single Post Top',  //This name will help you know what sidebar it is on the backend
'id' => 'post_top', //A unique ID
'description' => 'Use this widget to include ads, widgets, etc. in the top of your posts.', //This text is more description that shows up in the admin for reference
'before_widget' => '<div class="post_top widgetBox">', //Set the element before  your widget to match what your  theme's widget are using - also set any classes you may want for styling
'after_widget' => '</div>', //Set the element after  your widget to match what your  theme's widgets are using
'before_title' => '<h3>', //Also match the before and after element for the widget's title
'after_title' => '</h3>'
));

2. Call your new widget by adding the PHP code below to the appropriate file, here the single.php file.

<?php if (!dynamic_sidebar('post_top')) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>

3. Add any needed CSS to styles.css that your widget might need. Here you will use your class that you added to control the look of your widget. Maybe you want to add a nice border around your ad.

.post_top {
background: #eee;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
}

Author Bio:

Jeff Rainey is an art lover, WordPress junkie and the creator of Theme Spectrum. References from above include the following themes:

• Stack WordPress Theme
• Parallax WordPress Theme
• Portfolio WordPress Theme

© guestposter for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: content management systems, design, themes, WordPress
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If you have an old non-CMS site lying around that you wish you could convert to WordPress, without too much hassle, this is the guide for you. Essentially, it boils down to 2 main steps, which involves moving your static content into WordPress’s database as pages or posts. STEP ONE: Get your static HTML pages gathered together in one place, using HTTrack to build those static pages, if necessary. STEP TWO: Import those pages using an easy WordPress plugin.

Let’s start with some basics. No matter how your site is coded, once a visitor loads a page on your site, the browser takes all the bits and pieces (server-side includes, images from another directory, etc.) and puts them all together in what amounts to a final static HTML page. Even if some elements on the page are still dynamic, the code itself is all together in one spot that can be moved into a WordPress page that would still work. There may be some exceptions to that which I’m not considering, but for most of the sites out there, that would be true. So, even if your site consists of somepage.php, which calls a file named header.inc, and a file named footer.php, once the user views somepage.php in her browser, the resulting source code is all in one place, as though it were hand-coded as a static HTML page. This is the type of code that is needed to convert a site to WordPress using the method I’m outlining here.

If you already have an old static HTML site with no server-side includes, then you have everything you need to get your content right into WordPress. If that’s the case, you can skip the next section, and head straight to the section titled “Import Your Content Into WordPress”.

Convert Your Dynamic Pages To Static Pages Easily

HTTrack Website Copier lets you download an entire website onto your computer. If your pages are dynamically put together, using server-side includes to automatically insert chunks of content into each page (like the header, footer, and menu), then you’re going to want to have HTTrack mirror the site – with all content already inserted – and recreate it on your computer. It doesn’t take very long, but of course, how long it will take depends upon the size of your site. Luckily, you just run it and go do something else, and eventually, the entire site will be recreated and waiting for you. There are lots of options for how you can run this. Most of you will simply use the graphical interface instead, and if so, then you should be able to determine what to do pretty easily. The manual has lots of screenshots to help.

Personally, I like running this from the command line on my Linux computer, and I like using the -K option to use absolute urls in the links. When I run this from the command line, I use something like this:

httrack http://www.yoursite.com -O /home/you/somefolder -K

But I can’t guess at what your exact code should be, if you decide to use the command line instead of the graphical interface. You’ll need to read through the documentation to determine what’s right for you.

Regardless of how you run HTTrack, or what options you choose, once you have a folder that contains your entire site, all in a static HTML format, you’re ready to move it into WordPress.

Import Your Content Into WordPress

Start by installing a fresh copy of WordPress. Then add the following plugin and activate it.

Import HTML Pages WordPress Plugin

Once activated, open up its options page and make a few choices there. You can choose either to create pages or posts (not both). When I used it, I chose pages. Now you need to tell it how to recognize “just the content” (without all the surrounding template code, sidebar, footer, etc.). My content was surrounded by a div with an id of “content” (<div id=”content”>all my content was here on each page</div>), so that was easy, but as long as your content is surrounded by some sort of consistent, unique HTML tag, you can just specify that.

Once you’ve set all the options, you’re ready to run it. Very quickly, you’ll have a new WordPress blog with all the pages of content that match the content of your old site.

At this point, you may need to either recreate the template as a WordPress theme or use a new design. Personally, I think using a new design at this point is a good idea. It’s probably time for your old site to get a fresh new design facelift, right? In any case, converting an HTML template to a WordPress theme is beyond the scope of this post. There are tons of tutorials on how to do that on the web, so I won’t try to reinvent that wheel here.

You may also need to make a few tweaks including possibly some redirects if needed, but all in all, in probably just a few minutes, you’ve converted your old static HTML site to a new, easy to maintain WordPress site.

Final notes: Before you attempt this, you should carefully consider all the possible ramifications of making this change.

1. While WordPress makes maintaining a site very easy, and comes with some powerful modern advantages, there are some possible reasons to reconsider. For one thing, a static site is almost always going to load faster than a dynamic one, especially one that involves a database. If your site receives tons of traffic, a less-than-great server can probably handle the load if it’s serving static pages much better than it can handle serving a highly-traffic’d WordPress site. If this sounds like it may affect you, you might need to consider also upgrading to a better server and/or hosting company.

2. There may be some issues with URLs changing. There’s a good chance that you’ll need to adjust every page’s slug to match your old page URLs, or you’ll need to deal with redirecting all the old URLs to the new ones.

3. Some things may not work. It’s impossible to really guess at what those things might be, but maybe you have some pages on your site that use some sort of script to output some sort of crazy whatchamacallit. That script or whatchamacallit may not play well with WordPress.

The best idea is to do this conversion first as a test on a development site to see what gotchas might crop up. Since it’s fairly quick and easy to do, running a test first might save some headaches later on.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 51 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: HTML, HTTrack, static site, WordPress
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There are already some well-known theme clubs / packages, but those aren’t the ones I’m highlighting here. I’ve looked around to find six lesser known theme sites that have great package or club prices, with nice themes to go along with those nice prices.

General Facts About These Packages and Memberships

One major positive about each of these six deals: All the themes are GPL licensed, enabling you to use them as often as you wish on as many domains as you wish.

Be aware that if you purchase a membership with a monthly fee, then you’ll still be able to use all the themes you downloaded after you quit the membership, but you just won’t be able to download new themes (or get whatever extra goodies come with membership) after you quit. So, in all cases, package or membership, you get to continue using the themes you download for all time. That’s a deal!

Final note: I’ve only actually used one theme from the sites below on an active site, so I have pretty much no experience with the quality of the themes, or the support, etc. Be sure to read all the material on the site to know what you’re getting, what the terms are, etc.

Now on to the good stuff.

Simple Themes

$39 for 3 months access … check it out

Organized Themes

$75 for 14 current and all future themes (the $50 christmas sale is over) … check it out

UpThemes

$99 + $9/month for Club membership – at least 2 new themes per month promised … check it out

Obox

$125 + $15/month for Club membership … check it out

Theme Weaver

$50 one time fee … check it out

FlexiThemes

$19.95 1 month membership … check it out

29.95 3 months membership

39.95 6 months membership

49.95 year membership

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: club memberships, packages, themes, WordPress
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Donna, what would I need if I wanted to create a [fill in the blank] type of site, using WordPress to manage it? What tools would you recommend I use to make it quick, easy, and profitable, and how much will it cost me to get those tools?

To be honest, it usually takes a lot of time to boil down the numerous questions into those two concise questions, because more often than not, the person asking isn’t sure what they are trying to ask. By now, though, I’ve answered it enough times that I can do it fairly easily, so I thought it would be useful to share it with everyone here.

My answer:

Of course, it depends upon what you choose to put into that [fill in the blank] spot in that question, but I can still make general recommendations, regardless. Naturally, you *could* do everything for almost no money at all, but you’d need to be pretty tech savvy with some programming skills, so I’d rather just recommend a few reasonably-priced products that will get anyone ready to roll quickly.

Generally speaking, I’d recommend getting both products from the first group below (Group A), and then pick just one product from the second group (Group B). That combination of 3 products will cost a little less than $200, in one time fees, with monthly fees ranging from $19-$46/month. In most cases, just one conversion per month will more than cover the costs.

Group A: Products I Recommend No Matter What You Put In The [fill in the blank] Spot

Market Samurai $149, or $97 if you grab their special offer more info…

OR

Raven Internet Marketing Tools from $19/mo more info…

Ninja Affiliate – affiliate link manager – $97 more info… (You can skip this if you won’t be promoting affiliate products on your site).

Group B: Choose One Product Below Based On The Type of Site You’re Creating

For A Generic Shopping Cart For Any Type of Site, Templatic eShop – $99 more info…

For either a Directory, or a Classifieds Site, or a Coupon Codes Site, or a Real Estate Site, PremiumPress – $79 more info…

For A Membership Site, Wishlist Member – $97 more info…

For A Review Site, WP Review Site – $97 more info…

For General Affiliate Products, Rich Affiliate Theme – $70 more info…

For Affiliate Datafeeds, Datafeedr – $27/mo more info…

Group C: Optional / Additional

For Anything That Can Benefit From A Killer Landing Page, Landing Page Plugin – $97 more info…

Note: I wish all of these products had been around years ago when I first began. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I was forced to learn how to do so many things all on my own. It’s been a great education. But wow, the time I would have saved (and the extra money I would have earned) if I’d had these years ago, just boggles my mind.

Additional Related Reading

List Building Glossary – Terms and Definitions

Intro To Membership Sites

Affiliate Datafeeds: An Introduction

Affiliate Review Sites: An Introduction

11 Ways to Make Money Online

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affiliate, plugins, themes, tools, WordPress
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“It does not matter how much traffic you receive if those visitors do not take the desired action. … Investing in increasing your conversion rate will pay off much faster and better than increasing your traffic.”

Use Effective Landing Pages To Increase Conversions

If your goal is to increase conversions of any kind – sales or giveaways of your own product(s) or affiliate product(s), lead generations, newsletter signups, etc., then you need a page that is designed specifically to convert that traffic. Traditionally, that meant spending considerable time becoming an expert or considerable money hiring an expert in landing page conversions. Those days are gone. If you aren’t a landing page expert, and would rather not spend a lot of time or tons of money, you can still create an effective landing page on your own (self-hosted) WordPress blog by simply installing a landing page plugin.

Max Foundry created this landing page plugin that saves tons of time (and lots of misguided mistakes) by providing you with 6 landing page templates that you can use for any of your WordPress pages. The landing page templates look great, but more importantly, they focus on designs that are proven to increase conversion rates and sales. Since each template is completely customizable, you can create variations of each and then test them to find out which ones perform the best with your visitors. Here’s a quick look at the templates with the default options.

Easy To Use!

And just like premium themes that let you make adjustments via easy admin options, this plugin does the same. All the adjustments, such as background colors, seo metas, logos, screenshots, headlines and subheadlines, forms, call-to-action buttons, testimonials, etc. can be changed right in the options panel. Below is a screenshot of just a few of the options you can edit from your plugin admin panel, to give you an idea of how easy it will be.

“Each landing page template is highly customizable – fonts, sizes, colors – it’s all there, and easy to use. There are 9 different backgrounds for the call-to-action button, the 6 most web-friendly fonts, over 30 font sizes, and an unlimited number of colors to choose from, just to name a few customizable options.”

But how do you use it? That’s what I love the most. After installing and activating the plugin, you simply create a page, and choose one of your new landing page templates in the Page Attributes dropdown. Save as draft and suddenly, voila!, all the new landing page options will appear below the main edit box. Fill out the options to customize, publish, and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Oh, and one more thing. Not only does it come with 6 landing page templates, but it also comes with one of those long-form sales pages, and it works exactly the same way as the landing pages do. Sweet!

I can’t imagine anything could be easier than this.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Conversion rate, increase conversions, landing pages, plugin, WordPress
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How many times have you seen the panicked tweets of people who’ve had their blogs hacked? Ever wondered what you should do if it happened to you? Today, I’m talking to an expert in dealing with hacked WordPress blogs, Michael VanDeMar. Listen, learn, and then be careful out there!

How He Knows

Donna: I know you have a popular blog post that describes how to completely clean your hacked WordPress installation. In fact, it’s even been linked to as a resource by WordPress themselves (twice) and by the well-known WordPress geek Lorelle VanFossen as well. My question is, how did you become so familiar with hacked WordPress blogs? How do you know how to clean one?

Michael: I went through a period a few years back where I was getting hacked every other month, and on multiple sites. Usually it was because I didn’t follow one of my bestest friend’s advice*, and would procrastinate on upgrading. As it is I learned by necessity how to quickly and effectively clean up a blog, and have used that knowledge to try and help others as well.

Protect Yourself

Donna: So, everyone agrees that the best way to prevent getting hacked is to keep WordPress upgraded to the latest version. What else should we all do in addition to that?

Michael: Up until the most recent versions of WordPress, every single version that was released wound up having relatively serious security holes in them. Now that WordPress itself seems to have plugged all of those, there are 2 main ways that a WordPress installation can get hacked:

1) Insecure hosting environment. Unfortunately this year some of the bigger names in hosting have had security issues, and almost always when they were discovered, it was WordPress that was attacked by the hackers, and in many cases unfairly blamed for the security holes. You should always investigate your host before buying a package, make sure that not only are they safe, but check out how they responded to problems in the past. Those that owned up to them and addressed the issue, instead of repeatedly issuing denials that anything was wrong, are probably the ones who take security more seriously.

2) A virus on a computer belonging to someone who has ftp access to the web server. Although this is more rare, it does happen. Certain FTP programs store their passwords in plain text, which means anyone who can read the files on the computer can see what those passwords are. If a person is using one of those programs, and their computer gets a virus, there are viruses that will read those passwords and ftp up malicious files to the host. The solution to this, aside from using strong virus protection (or switching from Windows to Linux), is to not store your passwords in your ftp program.

There are some plugins that can sometimes help catch certain types of hacks, and you yourself wrote a very handy script designed to check the last modified dates on files located on the server and alert you of any change, but unfortunately there are ways that hackers have found to get around most of those (although of course they still help in many situations).

What About DIY?

Donna: I know you often clean hacked WordPress blogs as a service. In what situations would someone need to hire you to clean their hacked blogs? Can’t they just do it themselves?

Michael: Yes, many people can, and the guide I wrote was intended to be a DIY type of instruction manual for people to do just that. However, one of the main attractions of WordPress in the first place is that it allows people with almost no technical knowledge to be able to build and maintain their own websites. With one-click installation and built in upgrade functionality, you don’t even have to know how to FTP files to your server to be able to have a WordPress blog. Cleaning a blog (at least, cleaning one properly) involves actually going into the sql and looking inside the php files themselves. For many people that is unfamiliar territory that they would rather leave to a professional. Plus, getting hacked is scary. Some people who might even have some basic web development knowledge feel better having someone who is more familiar with the ins and outs of dehacking a website handle the job.

Back Door Access

Donna: Ok, I’ve actually been asked this question a few times, so I thought I’d let you answer it here. If I do get hacked, can’t I just upgrade my blog and everything will be ok?

Michael: Unfortunately in most cases that will not help the situation. When hackers get into a WordPress installation they usually modify more than just the core WordPress files, which is the only thing that gets overwritten when someone performs an upgrade. Theme files and plugins will get extra code injected into them, whole new pages that act as back doors to the site will get added, and the database will have malicious code inserted into it. The only sure fire way to make sure that everything is good is to start with a blank slate, and rebuild the files, retaining and carefully scanning only those files that cannot be gotten from fresh, clean sources.

Do The Happy Dance

Donna: Do you do a little dance when satisfied clients tweet how great you are?

Michael: Yes.

It’s Not Your Momma’s Cleaning Service

Donna: Tell us about your hacked blog cleaning service and how someone should get in touch with you if they need to hire you.

Michael: If someone does have issues with cleaning their blog, or has hired someone else to do it but still keeps getting hacked, I am available for hire to do cleanups. When I do perform cleanups myself, in most cases they are complete wipe and reinstalls, as I suggest doing in my guide, retaining only those elements that can’t be replaced with fresh downloads (the uploads folder, customizations to a theme, and the database). For all of the elements of a hacked site that I do retain, I carefully scan them by hand and then put the blog back together in it’s original condition. There are many, many places that hackers can hide malicious code in your installation, and none of the automated or scripted solutions out there will find them all. When I scan by hand, I don’t just look for specific lines of code, I look for broad matching patterns in all of the places where back doors and virus droppers can be hidden. I have written some tools to help me with this, so I can be both thorough and relatively quick at the same time, but I still need to visually examine the results to be able to determine what is malicious versus what is simply suspicious.

I actually finally added a contact form on my blog. If anyone is interested in my services, the contact form on my blog is the best way to get in touch with me.

Care To Share?

Donna: Is there anything else you want to share with us? About WordPress hacked blogs or the meaning of life, even?

Michael: I can’t think of anything for this one.

Disclaimer

Donna: Disclaimer: Michael is my best buddy, so yeah, that may make me favor him, but what it really means is that I know his work. I’ve seen firsthand, many times over, how he painstakingly makes sure he misses nothing. He spends much more time being careful to ensure that every single detail is handled than anyone I’ve ever met. So if I tend to favor his work, it’s not just because he’s my best buddy – it’s because I know my best buddy’s work so well. That, I believe, is the best kind of endorsement.

* “bestest friend” = me. Why does my advice go unheeded so often, and for so long? Don’t answer that!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: hacked, WordPress
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© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Imagine opening up a store in a mall somewhere, and just when the profits start rolling in, the mall decides to close down forever, but they don’t tell you. In fact, they not only fail to inform you, but they place tons of dynamite around the mall, and completely blow it to smithereens. Your store is gone in a flash, and no matter what you do, you cannot get your store and its inventory back, nor can you get compensated for the loss of any of it.

Does that scenario sound ridiculous? Of course it does. But that’s exactly the risk people take every time they create a new site/blog on a free hosting platform like Blogger or WordPress.com. At any moment, those platforms could decide, on a whim, and for any reason, to delete your site forever. Period. End of story. Buh-bye.

Let’s take a look at a recent example, shall we? Look at Ning’s latest decision to go strictly paid. Everyone who built a community on Ning has two choices now: upgrade to a paid version or lose the community. (See Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff). Luckily, Ning gave a warning, so at least they didn’t just nuke communities without telling the “owners”, but it’s still a huge blow. Notice how I put “owners” in quotes? That’s because Ning is the owner, not the people who created and grew the communities. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make.

Be The Owner. Be In Control.

If you only want to blog about your cat and your lunch, and you never ever want to turn it into anything more serious or professional, then by all means, take whatever risks you want. But if you intend to build a site or blog that has a chance of earning you income, or that may become popular enough to sell someday, then I urge you to own and host your own site on your own domain. Here are the pros and cons of choosing to self-host a WordPress blog on your own domain, for example, rather than choosing the free option of wordpress.com.

Pros of self-hosting WordPress blogs:

• Credibility: A self-hosted blog on yoursite.com immediately lends more credibility and professionalism to the site than one hosted at yoursite.wordpress.com.
• Affiliate Approval: If you plan to monetize your blog with affiliate ads, you’ll only be approved by some affiliate networks if your site is on its own domain.
• Place Ads: Want to place ads of any sort on your blog? You can do that with your own self-hosted WordPress installation, but not with wordpress.com.
• Don’t Display Ads For Someone Else: You aren’t forced to display ads that makes someone else money (like wordpress.com).
• Unlimited Plugins: Choose from the vast abundance of scripts, widgets, code, and plugins that are available world-wide to enhance your blog, rather than just the few pre-approved ones that wordpress.com allows. Or make your own!
• Unlimited Themes: Choose from the vast abundance of themes that are available world-wide to beautify your blog, rather than just the few pre-approved ones that wordpress.com allows. With a self-hosted blog, you can also get a custom theme created just for you!
• Sell It: When you own your own domain and site, you can sell it any time you want. Imagine building the site into a powerhouse that gets tons of traffic and then selling it for big money. Think you can sell a popular blog hosted on wordpress.com for lots of money? Forget about it. You can’t sell yourblog.wordpress.com for even a penny.
• Move It: When you own your own domain and site, you can easily move it to another host any time you want. (WordPress.com does have an export feature, but the process isn’t as easy, because you’ll need to deal with a new domain name, losing search engine rankings for the old URLs, and redirecting old URLs to new ones to get those rankings back before the next century begins).
• No Dynamite: No worries about a free host suddenly deciding on a whim to delete your site and account. Although all hosts have terms of service rules that you have to comply with, and technically, your site and account can be deleted from your host if you break those rules, you haven’t lost the domain. You can just set up yoursite.com on another host. You can’t do that with yoursite.wordpress.com.

Cons of self-hosting WordPress blogs:

• Maintenance Is On You: You have to maintain it, upgrade it, and deal with anything you might break. This can be scary, I understand that, but it shouldn’t override all the pros listed above.
• Price: It’s not free. But it’s not expensive either.

Don’t Hand Over Control Before You Start

It’s your site. One day, it might even be your livelihood. Don’t give up the control that will make that feasible before you ever even begin. Just don’t do it.

Don’t hate me for repeating myself. Don’t give up control before you ever even begin. Just don’t do it.

Other Useful, Semi-Related Tips For Maintaining Control Over Your Site or Blog

• Don’t ever host your self-hosted blog or site at the same place where you purchased your domain. If you buy your domain from godaddy.com for instance, don’t sign up for one of their hosting plans. Why? Because then you’ll put the control of BOTH your domain name and your site’s content in one company’s hands. Some of the same problems I’ve already discussed would also apply in this situation. Use one company for your domain registrar and a different one for your hosting company to avoid having any one company be able to delete or destroy or steal your entire site (domain name and contents). I recommend Godaddy for domains and Hostgator for hosting because they meet all my needs and satisfy all the recommendations I list below, but feel free to choose whoever you want. Just don’t put all your site eggs in one company’s basket.
• I recommend choosing a host that uses Cpanel. Cpanel is a standard web host administration application and that means there’s plenty of help if you need it. It also means that you can be fairly confident that you’ll be able to access and control pretty much everything necessary in almost any situation imaginable.
• I recommend choosing a host that lets you have SSH access, for both secure access to your files and ease of moving a large site if you ever need to. (Even if you don’t know what SSH is, and never think you’ll use it, it’s good to have the option down the road).
• If you already own a site (like yoursite.com), and want to add a blog to it, install WordPress in a folder of that same domain, such as yoursite.com/blog/. Dont host your blog on a different domain from your site’s current domain. Blogs are great for generating interest and acquiring links, and ideally, you want all that interest and link-love to accumulate at yoursite.com. Although there can be some cases where placing a blog on its own domain might be useful, if you are just starting out and don’t know what those cases might be, then it’s probably not the right thing for you to do. (Remember: this tip only applies to people wanting to add a blog to an already-existing site. If you don’t already own a site, and are starting a new blog, and only a blog, then ignore this tip completely).

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogger, self-hosted, WordPress, WordPress.com
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If you promote affiliate products, this WordPress affiliate theme should be on your radar. Not only is it stunningly beautiful (in my opinion), but I’d bet the layout will increase conversions. Here’s a screenshot of the demo.

Is it just me, or do you agree that’s one hot affiliate theme?

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affiliate products, affiliate theme, Theme, WordPress
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