We recommend keeping your version of WordPress current, mainly for the security fixes.
There’s a good article on the WordPress site with instructions for Updating WordPress.
There are a few main points in the article that need a little more explanation.
Check Requirements
Most of our wordpress sites are hosted with Bluehost and currently they meet the system requirements for the most current version of Worpdress, and I would imagine they will always meet the system requirements. If you’re not sure check with your web host.
Take a Backup
In the Control Panel of your web host download a backup of both your database and your website files. In Bluehost’s control panel it’s under Files > Site Backup & Restore you’ll want to download “Website Files” and “MySQL Databases (All)”, or alternatively you could just download the “Full cPanel Backup”, although it might take a little while longer.
Disable Plugins
In the wordpress dashboard go to plugins. Select all and disable. You might make note of which are currently disabled already so you don’t inadvertently enable them later.
Ready to Update
After clicking the update button in the wordpress dashboard you’ll see information for upgrading WordPress and down below information on upgrading your plugins. Update the plugins first, and then wordpress. You’ll want to do the automatic update. If you are unable to continue because wordpress is requiring ftp connection information, you can often use your control panel user and password but it would be more secure to first create a new ftp user and password in your host’s control panel and to then use that connection information to upgrade wordpress. Once wordpress is updated go back into plugins and activate those plugins which were previously active.
If You’re Feeling Lucky
You can always just click the “Update” button, and ignore these instructions. We are not recommending this, however we have clients that do it all the time.
This is a great article in TechCrunch.com which will tell you everything you need to know about updating your business facebook page with the new facebook timeline.
We recently designed a site for Ocean Frontiers, a new environmental film about ocean stewardship. The site is built in WordPress, and includes: editable flash slideshows, random testimonials, and recent news items posting to the home page with thumbnail images. Check out the website at: ocean-frontiers.org
Many businesses are now setting up custom facebook pages with their message and brand, and setting this custom page as their landing page, so that when a visitor goes to their facebook url, they first go to the custom landing page, instead of the company’s wall.
2. It’s one more place to build your brand
Facebook is known for displaying all content on pages in a uniform fashion. Unlike youtube.com where you can customize your channel with your own colors and backgrounds, facebook pages always have the same white background, black text, and blue headings. You can’t change the style of the page, but you can add custom pages to your facebook page with your unique message and identity.
3. Facebook pages are becoming mini websites
The trend of setting up mini websites on facebook, is only going to continue. It’s hard to ignore how many people use facebook now. If you’re not sure how popular it is, check out The World is Obsessed With Facebook video.
4. It’s easy to get started
It doesn’t take long to add a few custom pages to facebook.
We recently set up a custom landing page for the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce that highlights the upcoming events in Nevada City. http://www.facebook.com/nevadacitychambernote: if you are already a fan, you will be taken straight to the wall
In addition to a custom landing page, we also added an Email Sign Up tab to the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce’s facebook page, so visitors can sign up to receive news from the Chamber’s blog, without having to go to the site to do that (making it far more likely they’ll sign up, than having to make a few more clicks to the website to get there).
Just watched another great webinar from HubSpot.com, called The Science of Timing. This one talked about the best times to publish blog posts, update your facebook status, and post tweets. Here are some of the takeaways:
The Eastern timezone has the greatest population, with Central, then Pacific next.
I just watched a great webinar on hubspot.com about The Science of Email Marketing. There were a lot of great tips there, and many of them surprised me. These are some of the takeaways:
Try sending emails on weekends.
Send very early in the morning.
80% of users report reading email on mobile devices.
Use lots of links in your emails.
Give your subscribers special access.
Don’t be afraid to send too much email.
Ask people to follow you, not share your emails.
Definitely worth watching if you send email campaigns.
An easy way to publish an email newsletter is to use WordPress and Mailchimp. In a nutshell Mailchimp can pull the content from your blog post and send it via email as an e-newsletter (you can also post straight to facebook, but that will be the subject of a future post). Once you have a template setup, one of things you need to be careful about is how you insert an image into your blog post.
The video below gives a brief explanation on the best way to insert images so that they look good in both your blog and your newsletter.
