Now of course this can be automated with some simple scripts, codes or even manually with whatever find and replace functionality your software has - I’m not going to go into the options as each of you will likely have a different set-up, or prefer doing things in your own way. Though one simple example is to add the following php code to your footer, if you just want the current year noted (do a Google search for other methods):

Copyright © <?php echo Date(Y);?>

I like to include the date range - from the year of creation through to the present year (i.e. copyright © 2003 - 2008) - demonstrating how long the website/page has been live as well as it being current.  And to do this manually - it’s a good chance for a quick review of the page and to do any minor tweaking that may be helpful - we all need that now and again!

Of course if your site is based on WordPress, something I will be encouraging many to do if that meets their needs, then this is taken care of for you automatically by the theme’s code - though that you can change if you are so minded - and if you are then you don’t need me to tell you how!

]]> http://www.barbarasaul.com/wordpress/2009/01/website-copyright-date/feed/ http://www.barbarasaul.com/wordpress/2009/01/wordpress-tip-setting-a-different-home-page/ http://www.barbarasaul.com/wordpress/2009/01/wordpress-tip-setting-a-different-home-page/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:34:03 +0000 Babs http://www.barbarasaul.com/wordpress/?p=102 As you can see on the Internet Marketing Action website/blog, the home page is a “static” page and not the usual list of the latest blogs.

By telling WordPress to take your visitors to this “home” page, it appears more like a website. You do this, after creating the page that you want to be your home page, within the blog’s admin dashboard - go to Settings, Readers, and then choose the page you want the “front page” to display.

If you find that this still leaves you with an extra “home” page, it may be that your chosen theme has one coded into the header.php file, so you then have to remove that piece of code. Either ask someone of a geek persuasion to quickly do that for you, or have a look yourself. I found the WordPress support forum topic on eliminating one of two “home” buttons useful - but if you’re not sure, give me a shout and I can try to help you.

For most people this will be a strange idea, but for some it’s good to know that there are things you can do yourself.

So - how do you go about this.

The most immediate activity is to register with social media and networking websites.  Most of these will list your profile page on the search engines, and of course any additional activity bringing attention to those profiles will help.

Visit the following, join and create your profile on each:

• Business Scene
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• MySpace
  
• Facebook
• Xing
• BT Tradespace
• Ecademy
• The Results Academy
  
• FastPitch Networking
• UK Business Forum
• SocialMedian
• UK Business Labs
• Qassia
• workology
• network2connect
• Connect Buzz
• Business Directory UK
• Business Balls
• Naymz
• Spock
• Twellow
• 4networking
• Swapaskill
• Freeindex
• wwwi
• Classmates
• Friends Reunited
• Plaxo
• Sonico
• Digg
• Blogspot
• Squidoo

This is indeed a motley selection, and there will be many more that you can make use of - some may even be useful in other ways, some more relevant to you, and of course you can do a search for people you know to see what results are useful for you to consider.

If you have any articles to submit, use those on the above and on other article submission sites such as www.articlefeedster.com and www.articlehot.com - and then of course get your buddies to stumble, digg and generally bring you more attention (more on this later in the month).

If you don’t want or need to create your own blog, perhaps consider a Squidoo lens instead - go and have a look to see if it suits you - and it would be another recent addition to your own search placement.

Enough for now - let me know how you get on, of your suggestions, and if you want to know more.

Good luck

Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug is one of the best books for everyone with a website to read.  It gives you an easy to read insight into just what your website needs to be and do.

Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies by Ian Lurie - another easy read that just gets on with giving you the information you need on today’s new marketing.

There will be further reading later, mostly blogs and some ebooks, but this will do for today, order those books now and read them as soon as they arrive. They are essential preparation for your Internet marketing strategy. Don’t argue, just do it!

An easy start to your Internet marketing action plan - so easy that there is no excuse for doing it - this will be a worthwhile investment of £20 or so - both books are essential reading.

1. Login in to your Wordpress.com account
2. Go to Your Account (top right menu option), and then into stats
3. Scroll to the bottom and you can grant another person access to the stats by adding their email address.

This will add that person to the Stats Access list, where you can promote their level of access as you require.

For instance, recently I was determined to buy a bonsai tree as a gift.  So the first thing I do is pop to Google and type in bonsai trees Kent (to give it a wider chance than just Maidstone).  Well a place in Whitstable came up, but that’s a bit far for me, and little of much use, quite honestly.  So I tried Maidstone in the search instead of Kent - the Google Local focussed on trees, unfortunately - none actually did bonsai - however a phone call to one of them pointed me to a new shop with an astonishing array of bonsai trees, expertise and related items.  I mentioned that I’d tried to find them online and they now have a website that comes up immediately for a Maidstone search (time to suggest they include Kent in their keywords - Maidstone being well placed in the county).

This may be a particularly specific search, but you get the idea.   It is astonishing how few businesses are bothering to include the town/area/county in their keywords.  Crazy!

So - even if you don’t want to limit yourself to local custom, it’s not going to harm you to include your locality with your keywords - quite the opposite, I suggest.

And be sure to register your business with Google’s Local Business Centre (the UK link) - be sure to add your website.

And of course there will be local directories from which to request links - make sure you make use of those too.  How to find them?  Search for area directory (replacing area with your target area!), and you could try the search “local directory” and see if any offer free listing - no need to go mad on that - you’ll likely find that a few enterprising local people have set up specific directories.

And of course use the online social and business networks, such as Business Scene, Ecademy, Word of Mouse, WeCanDo.Biz, BT Tradespace, UK Business Forums, and plenty more… (which will be covered in another blog later this week). Some will include for local business networking - so see which appeal to you and get stuck in!

Go optimise for local searches - it’s easier than you think.

And this is what we came up with - the Iterative Projects blogsite, where she will demonstrate her professional expertise in Agile project management and IT strategy.

And this also inspired the Online in a Day package for More Business Websites - having achieved great success with a few of these recently, it made sense to make it something more widely available.

What you should be doing is talking “you” - rethink the wording of your web copy and bring the focus around to the reader - your potential customer! Hold a conversation on your web pages - talk naturally, make it easily readable - something that will appeal to your readers - your potential customers!

Now there is a way to check just how good or bad your web copy is.  Visit the We We Calculator and run your web page or copy through it to see what needs attention - at least on one level.

Being found on the search engines is all well and good, but a waste of time/resource/money if you don’t then engage your visitors.  Don’t waste the effort it’s taken to get people to your website with poor copy or by making them think about what to do next, or where to find what they’re looking for - but more on that another time.  For now, sort the focus of your copy - vital for your Internet marketing strategy.

In very simple terms your internet marketing strategy needs to consider:

Your clients – what do they want and do they actually use the Internet, how do they use it. Know your market.

Your available resources – in time and/or money. If you have the time and inclination to roll up your sleeves and do things yourself, this is certainly achievable – none of it is rocket science, but you do need to understand what will and what won’t work for you. Also do not underestimate the time involved. Even if you do not have the time but can afford to outsource your Internet marketing, having a basic understanding of what it’s all about should enable you to spend your budget wisely.

What are the latest useful tools available on the Internet – this is changing all the time, of course. The rate of evolution and creation on the Internet is astonishing – and understanding just what is going to work best for you will save you time and bring you more business sooner. Blogging has been a big thing in the last year or so – but it’s not going to be useful or necessary for everyone. Do you need a small brochure website, or something more interactive and pro-active? Will a pay-per-click campaign (i.e. Google Adwords) pay for itself?

And what do you want to achieve - what is your overall marketing strategy? The Internet is one part of making that happen.  And knowing what you expect means that you can target the most likely means of making that happen.

It’s going to be, at best, a long-term strategy building your Internet activity if your customers don’t actually use the Internet in order to find you. The very first thing you need to consider is your clients – put yourself in their position, ask them – do they use the Internet, are they comfortable with the Internet. Research your market.

The Internet marketing overview document (Word) will be helpful for you to focus on these specific aspects - download and spend some time working on that.

Working with a few good business people this past couple of weeks has inspired me to create some step-by-step notes on how to set up and create a blog.  Now for this I suggest WordPress, your own domain name, and your own hosting.

So, here goes:

These notes are for those of you with no hosting in place and no software already set up.
If you have these already, I suggest you work with that and then follow the notes provided by WordPress – they are very good and easy to follow.

Why do I recommend using WordPress? It’s simple, straightforward, there are plenty of excellent design themes and useful plugins being added all the time.

So – let’s get you blogging:

The information you need to gather:

• Domain name
• Hosting dns server information
• Hosting database name, username and password

1. Choose and register your domain name

Now this is something you can spend more money on that perhaps you need to.
Choose a simple name that feels right and that will be easy to say to people.
Do not choose a name purely for SEO (search engine optimisation) purposes – i.e. cramming in your keywords – any benefit from such is minimal – trust me. If a good name that has your keywords in it will work and is available, great, but if not – don’t worry about it – get a name that makes sense, is as short as it can be, does not have a competing similar domain. Use your common sense, basically!

You do not need to register every possible option for your name – i.e. the .com, the .co.uk, the .net, the .biz and then the same but with hyphens in the actual domain part. Unless you have a spare £100 or so to splash about for no reason, that is – and know that you’ll have the same spare cash in two years’ time when it’s time to renew (yes you can choose not to renew, but it’s too easy to forget to cancel!).

To register domains I use www.ukreg.com – reasonable pricing and they don’t charge to transfer away if you ever want to.

Now – when you register your domain, you so also need to consider where the blog will be hosted, so please read the next step before .UKREG do offer this through their sister company, Fasthosts. I prefer not use Fasthosts, however that would work fine for you if you just want one home for both the domain and the hosting.

2. Choose your hosting

You may already have something in mind and know all you need to know – in which case, brilliant – go for it. If not, and if you’ve not simply signed up with Fasthosts, then I suggest you go to www.unitedhosting.co.uk and sign up for their basic package at £5/month. Their customer service is brilliant. I use them for More Business Websites clients if they don’t want content management systems and lots of extras.

The hosting is where your blog will “live” and you need to tell the domain at UKREG/Fasthosts where this is. You do that by specifying the name servers. Your host will give you this information and it will look something like ns1.xssl.gosling.net. You tell UKREG this information in the domain registration settings, “hosting nameservers” link.

It can take 24 hours or so for the above to be ready – although I did get one set up within half an hour recently, which is amazing and encouraging. So you can get stuck in with the next step…

3. Setting up your hosting ready for the blog (notes written for United Hosting)
You need to log in to your domain’s site administrator control panel and set up the necessary database. Go into the MySQL Management option and Create New Database. Add to the database name – I tend to use “blog” unless otherwise inspired – so then you end up with a full database name of something like mydomain_com_blog. And Save, making a note of the full database name.

You then need to set the MySQL password – so go to Change MySQL Password and set that – even if it has some asterisks in there, suggesting the password is already set – it’s not!

While in that control panel you’d may as well set up an email address, if you want one.

4. Download and install WordPress

Go to http://wordpress.org/ and Download the latest version of WordPress to your computer.

When downloaded, unzip and extract the file into a directory

I’ll work on the assumption that you do not have any kind of html editor (such as Dreamweaver) – so we’ll use WordPad or your computer’s equivalent – most people have that basic text editor and it’ll do what we need.

Open the file called wp-config-sample.php in the directory you extracted WordPress into. You need to replace the following:
Putyourdbnamehere with your full database name (i.e. mydomain_com_blog)
Usernamehere with your database username – this will be the same as for your domain’s hosting control panel, unless you changed it!
Yourpasswordhere with your password
And also, with United Hosting, change localhost to 127.0.0.1
Save the file as wp-config.php and then close.

That all tells Wordpress how to access the database, which is where your blogs and user information will be stored.

Now we need to put your blog onto the Internet.
Wordpress have previously offered to do this for free here – but at time of writing they’d had to stop due to demand.
For this we need a FTP client (hang in there – you can do this just fine and do not need to transform into a geek!) and I suggest something like FireFTP if you use the Firefox browser.

If you don’t, try http://filezilla-project.org/
Download the FileZilla Client to your computer – the latest version. You will need to Save it, and then install it…

Open your chosen FTP client and set up the domain information for connection:
Host: yourdomain.com or this may be ftp.yourdomain.com
Username: as you set up – such as webbie@yourdomain.com (remember to include this in full)
Password: as you set it up
Now connect – all kinds of gobbledygook will appear – that should be you connecting to your domain! Woohoo

Right – onwards – you’re on a roll here

You will have an area of your FTP Client for the Local Site – in that area you want to find the directory with the downloaded WordPress.

Open that directory until you can see the wordpress directory and files within it in the box below.

In the box (usually) immediately to the right of that, click into the mainwebsite_html directory so that it opens. You will see a file in there called index.html – that’s the holding file for your domain.

What you need to do next is upload everything within the wordpress directory on your computer onto your hosting/server (basically, from the left box into the right box). So highlight all the files and the 3 directories (wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes) then hold them with your left mouse button and drop them into the same place as the index.html file on the right. You may prefer to do this one directory at a time, and then the other files.

What now happens is that all of the files are copied onto the server and into your domain.

When done (and it will take a few minutes – you’ll see the activity) – you can delete the index.html file and the wp-config-sample.php file in the server box – that right-hand one.

Setting up your blog
Go to www.yourdomain.com. There you will get a WordPress welcome page and be asked for the Blog Title and your E-mail address. Also deselect the “Allow my blog to appear in search engines…” if you don’t want that.
And “Install WordPress”

You will be given the login username of admin and a password. Make a note of that (and Ctrl-C to copy that password – you’ll be using it in just a mo). This is also emailed to you – file that email away somewhere safe, just in case.

Now to login, and away you go!

I suggest you set up an extra user (or more if you have need) with admin rights – you never know when this will be useful, and you may prefer your blog entries to be by someone other than “admin”.

WordPress Themes (extra designs)
If you want to use a different design theme for your blog, there are many websites offering these for free. Do watch out for discreet, or even hidden, links that you may not want from your blog. A reliable source is http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ - or do a search for “wordpress themes” – you could spend all day looking… And of course you can download/unzip/upload as many as you like.

When you choose one, download the zip file.

Unzip this file and extract into your wordpress directory/wordpress/wp-content/themes – this will place the files where you need them.
And then you need to upload those using your FTP Client into the same directory.
When you’ve done that you can see your chosen theme available in your blog’s admin area – in the Design tab.

For plug-ins – firstly set up the Akismet spam blocker that is provided as standard – this will be necessary and save you a heap of time! To activate this fully you need a WordPress API key – but that simply means you need a WordPress account from http://wordpress.com/ - register there for a username and then retrieve you allocated API key from My Account, Edit Profile. Copy this (Ctrl-C) and then go to your blog’s control panel to activate the Akismet.

WordPress Plugins (for added functionality)
There are many useful plugins for many different things you might want to do – visitor stats, sitemap generators, backups, seo, galleries, contact forms, polls – all sorts of things. Have a good browse here, and pop back regularly to see the latest new offerings. Do also read the reviews and feedback on these – useful to be aware of others’ experience of installing the plugins.

Now if all this is a bit more than you want to get your teeth into, of course you can get a geek to do it for you. More Business Websites has a blog setup package that includes for all of the above (and some extras, as usual!) for £150. Let me know…