Building a Website Pro: Wordpress Training, How to

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of Building a Website Pro, we get to the core of WordPress plugins. With over 27,000+ plugins in the WordPress.org database alone (and growing), it’s easy to get lost in analysis paralysis in terms of what to actually install in your WordPress website. I cut through the clutter answering (hopefully most) of your burning plugin questions as well as share the essential plugins I recommend (and even a few “non-essential” ones I really appreciate). More specifically, in this session you’ll learn: What are WordPress plugins? (Aren’t those the air fresheners you put in the wall to make the room smell nice?) Why do I need plugins? How many plugins should I use?… and no, it’s not … every one that looks shiny What Makes a WordPress Plugin Essential? How do I search for plugins and Research plugins before installing them? When I started with WP, I wanted to know which ones I even needed! So…What Essential WordPress Plugins Does Michael Recommend? I will share with you the top 10 plugins I install on nearly every website (And guess what? They’re they’re all free!) Yippee! And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: VIDEO VERSIONS of “how tos” in my podcasts will be available soon. Would you like to be one of the few who finds out first? Feel free to join other special people like yourself who have signed up to receive my newsletters. I will only send valuable, actionable information. No Spamming. I don’t like it either. Have you tried WorkFlowy yet? Excellent way to organize your to-dos and other thoughts! Try it free with this link and you get an extra 250 items you can enter per month! Sweet! OpenMyToolbox.com – Memorable access to the tools of señor Michael Szapkiw of BuildingAWebsitePro.com GoProGift.com – Get a jump start in building your website. Get instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to family and friends (that’s you too). What Essential WordPress Plugins Do I Recommend? Top 10 plugins I install on Nearly Every WordPress Website (Hint: They’re all free!) ESSENTIALS Akismet – Plugin for spam protection. (You just need a free WordPress.com account to get your free key to use it on your website.) WordPress SEO – Great solution for optimizing your website for search engines. Better WP Security – Improve the security of your WordPress website settings. Google XML Sitemaps – When your blog has a sitemap, search engines can more easily crawl your content. Use Google Libraries – Use Google’s library for common files to speed up site performance. WP-DBManager – Create automatic backups of your site content. Contact Form Contact Form 7 Contact Form 7 reCaptcha Extension Better WordPress reCAPTCHA Gravity Forms (Paid Plugin) Analytics Google Analytics for WordPress Clicky for WordPress (Clicky by Yoast) LESSER-ESSENTIALS (but still in my top ten… or should I say “teven”) Pretty Link Lite SOCIAL MEDIA Sharebar – Sharebar adds a dynamic and fully customizable vertical box to the left of a blog post that contains links/buttons to popular social networking sites. Sociable Facebook Like Box Follow on Twitter Button Add Link To Facebook – Automatically add links to published posts or pages to your Facebook wall, pages or groups and more. BONUS Plugin (number “teven”): Jetpack by WordPress.com – Supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. Pro Pointer The Pro Pointer for this show included a brief discussion on the free Web service called WorkFlowy. It’s so simple but it is truly powerful. This service helps you create bulleted to-do lists, but it does it in such a seamless way that you can practically have your whole life in one sheet… but organized. I now keep it in an open tab in my Web browser now. And it’s great for my podcasting notes to use for recording. Check out WorkFlowy now. If you go through this link, you’ll get an extra 250 items capacity (on top of your free 500 items per month)… and I 250 extra too! Awesome. Did I mention it’s free? You can upgrade, but free is enough for me. Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 008: An Outlet for the Best WordPress Plugins appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of Building a Website Pro, we bond with WordPress themes. We discuss free themes, my choices for best WordPress theme companies, and how to install themes. Plus, we look at some helpful recommendations for images on your website. More specifically, in this session you’ll learn: The top WordPress theme companies I recommend Overview of theme prices and selection Which free WordPress themes I recommend and why searching Google for themes can be dangerous How to install themes And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: VIDEO VERSIONS of “how tos” in my podcasts will be available soon. Would you like to be one of the few who finds out first? Feel free to join other special people like yourself who have signed up to receive my newsletters. I will only send valuable, actionable information. No Spamming. I don’t like it either. TwentyTwelve Theme TwentyThirteen Theme Elegant Themes Genesis Framework (by StudioPress) WooThemes Thesis Framework Headway Themes Neil Patel Themes Directory (Free) on WordPress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Theme Development documentation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development OpenMyToolbox.com – Memorable access to the tools of señor Michael Szapkiw of BuildingAWebsitePro.com GoProGift.com – Get a jump start in building your website. Get instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to family and friends (that’s you too). As Promised in this Episode – Special PDF Download: “Bonding with the Best WordPress Themes: The Top 007 WordPress Theme Companies I Recommend” You’ll DEFINITELY want to have this as a reference for WordPress themes! Download the free PDF with all the theme companies I mentioned in episode 007, which includes pricing and information for each one. Tell Me More! (Note: If you’ve already joined my awesome newsletter, just reload the free ebook link from your original welcome email. If you lost it, no worries… you just might need to reconfirm real quick to get the link again!) Pro Pointer I stacked up several Pro Pointers in this show! Here are the tools to help you and your business: Photo Editing Adobe Photoshop (Paid solution) Gimp (Free solution) – Gimp.org Stock Photography ShutterStock.com (Paid solution) Stock Xchange (Free solution) Image layout/creation/mockup PowerPoint Keynote Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 007: Bonding with the Best WordPress Themes appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of Building a Website Pro, I share with you my Top 5 Tips for WordPress Themes: What I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me About Themes When I Started Learning WordPress. More specifically, in this session you’ll learn: The difference between a WordPress framework and a WordPress theme and why it’s important Why it’s so important to choose only one WordPress theme What a WordPress child theme is and when you need one Why a simple black and white website might be your best choice (especially early on owning a website) And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: VIDEO VERSIONS of “how tos” in my podcasts will be available in the future. Would you like to be one of the few who finds out first? Feel free to join other special people like yourself who have signed up to receive my newsletters. I will only send valuable, actionable information. No Spamming. I don’t like it either. Elegant Themes WooThemes Pete Williams’s Website OpenMyToolbox.com – Memorable access to the tools of señor Michael Szapkiw of BuildingAWebsitePro.com Themes Directory (Free) on WordPress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Theme Development documentation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development GoProGift.com – Get a jump start in building your website. Get instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to family and friends (that’s you too). Pro Pointer If you go to OpenMyToolbox.com, (or click on the “My Toolbox” link in my main navigation) you will find all the great tools I use for creating and maintaining professional websites. From hosting, to WordPress themes to email newsletter management, and more. This is a list I keep updated regularly with the latest tools I use to keep my websites running smoothly and hopefully these tools can help you too. Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 006: Top 5 Tips for WordPress Themes: What I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me About Themes When I Started Learning WordPress appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of Building a Website Pro, I share with you the must-know settings for a new WordPress installation. Where are they, which ones you should focus on, and what I suggest for setting them up. More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about: How to create a new category for posts Which settings are crucial for a new WordPress installation Where you should and shouldn’t go for downloading themes and plugins A quick strategy for backing up your WordPress Website And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: VIDEO VERSIONS of “how tos” in my podcasts will be available in the future. Be the first to know when they’re available. Sign up to receive email updates from me. I will only send valuable, actionable information. No Spamming. I don’t like it either. Plugins Directory  on WordPress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ Plugins information (all the official WordPress documentation about plugins): http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins Elegant Themes WooThemes Thesis Theme Themes Directory (Free) on WordPress.org: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Theme Development documentation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development BuildingAWebsitePro.com/gopro – VIDEO: Learn how to build a website with a custom domain name in 3 minutes. No joke! GoProGift.com – Instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Pro Pointer Get your own personal Gravatar image to help your own personal or business brand! Sign up for free at Gravatar.com. Your Gravatar image is linked to the email address with which you sign up, so use the email address that you will use in your WordPress account and when interacting on other people’s blogs (e.g. in your comments on a blog post). Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 005: Must-Know Settings for a New WordPress Installation appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of the Building a Website Pro podcast, we continue our journey together in building a website by discussing how to log in to your WordPress website. I also give a thorough overview of all the tabs and buttons in the WordPress administration area and the WordPress dashboard. This is your main control panel you will use to make all the changes and updates to your website. More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about: How to log in to a WordPress website The WordPress Dashboard The WordPress Admin toolbar All the menu tabs in the WordPress admin And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: VIDEO VERSIONS of things discussed in my podcasts will be available in the future. Be the first to know when they’re available. Sign up to receive email updates from me. I will only send valuable, actionable information. No Spamming. I don’t like it either. BuildingAWebsitePro.com/gopro – VIDEO: Learn how to build a website with a custom domain name in 3 minutes. No joke! GoProGift.com – Instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Pro Pointer Bookmark your WordPress login link for easy access to your website! Okay, that may be basic, but it’s REALLY helpful! But always remember the link too so you can access your WordPress admin area when you’re away from your computer. Remember it’s “YourWebsite.com/wp-admin” Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 004: WordPress Login and WordPress Dashboard Overview appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this episode of the Building a Website Pro podcast, we continue our journey together in building a website starting with the basics. I introduce to you the online blogging software, website software, content management system, and any of the other terms used for it, WordPress. I discuss the what, why and how of a WordPress website. More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about: What is WordPress? What is the difference between WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG Why choose WordPress for your website? How to get started with WordPress And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: Forbes article on WordPresses wide reach WordPress.COM – Websites controlled by WordPress on their servers WordPress.ORG – Website software you use on your own Web host keeping you in control BuildingAWebsitePro.com/gopro – VIDEO: Learn how to build a website with a custom domain name in 3 minutes. No joke! GoProGift.com – Instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Pro Pointer I share GoProWebHosting.com — The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 003: The What, Why and How of a WordPress Website appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this second episode of the Building a Website Pro podcast, I start our journey together in building a website. And where does that journey begin? It begins with being certain with yourself what the purpose is for your website and then choosing a domain name (e.g. YourWebsiteDomain.com). You might love kitty cats and decide to start a website about them… but what is your goal for that website? Will it just be a hobby website with a glutinous array of pictures of you with your cats? Are you building an eportfolio (electronic portfolio) website that can serve as an online resume or vitae? Or are you building a website to raise money and find volunteers for a non-profit you are starting in Haiti? Regardless of the purpose, the important thing is to have one! Once you know your website’s purpose, you can more aptly decide how to name it! And I walk through all the things you need to know to choose the best domain that’s right for you. More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about: Being deliberate about deciding your website’s purpose Top things to avoid in a domain name Why a clever domain name is not always a good choice Tips for creating domain name ideas Resources to help avoid copyrights in domains How to find available domains What tool to use for finding niche domains And much more! Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: Dotomator.com – Create domain name suggestions Unique-names.com – Create unique name ideas to help you brainstorm. But remember, clarity trumps cleverness! GoDaddy.com – Search domain name availability with Godaddy. Copyright.gov/records – Search Copyright information Uspto.gov/trademarks – Search the US Trademarks website Google Adwords – Great free tool for keyword research Long Tail Pro – Awesome tool for fast and thorough keyword research. Find the exact phrases your audience is typing into Google when they search for what you offer on your website. BuildingAWebsitePro.com/gopro – VIDEO: Learn how to build a website with a custom domain name in 3 minutes. No joke! GoProGift.com – Instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Pro Pointer Long Tail Pro – Awesome tool for fast and thorough keyword research. Find the exact phrases your audience is typing into Google when they search for what you offer on your website. Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review in iTunes for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 002: How to Choose the Right Domain Name for Your Website appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.

Podcast Episode Overview In this (the very FIRST) episode of the Building a Website Pro podcast (yay!). This podcast has been long overdue for being recorded and released, but I am REALLY excited to finally be bringing it your way. This is only the first of many to come. While there’s not necessarily much “actionable” content in this episode, I take it as an opportunity to start our journey together with me bringing you great WordPress and Web design content. More specifically, in this session you’ll find out about: Who I am (Michael Szapkiw) — your host of the podcast and some of my background (but I’m sure you’ll get to know a lot more about me in future podcasts) What my heart is for the podcast and for helping you build and maintain your own website for yourself or for your business Having fun in building your website online! What you can expect from the podcast as a whole in the future Resources and Links Mentioned in this Session Include: BuildingAWebsitePro.com/gopro – Learn how to build a website with a custom domain name in 3 minutes. No joke! GoProGift.com – Instant access to my free ebook, “7 Important Things You Need to Consider When Building a Website.” GoProWebHosting.com – The Web hosting provider I love and recommend to friends and family Help Out the Show! And lastly, if you haven’t done so already I would love if you took a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It would be extremely helpful for the show and I’m aiming for 50, 5-star ratings before the end of the year! I am honored to have you here! Thank you! Leave a review for the Building a Website Pro podcast! Thanks! Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast!  Please let me know what you think in the comment section below. And let me know what topics you might like to hear about in future episodes! Ciao for niao! Michael   The post BAWP 001: Introduction | Show Formalities | What to Expect appeared first on Building a Website Pro: How to Build a Website, Wordpress Training and Web Design for Small Business & Individuals.