Before you decide to create your first business website…or even upgrade your current site, be sure to take into consideration the layout of your site first. It’s really important that you develop your site so that it’s easily accessible and easy to read for your site visitors. You want to make sure your visitors stay beyond the first few seconds that they land on your home page and review what you have to offer. If they are not interested, immediately, they exit out of your website!

So consider these few important points when planning your website layout:

• Grab a piece of paper and pencil & sketch out several layouts
• Choose the layout you like the most
• Find a WordPress theme that closely correlates with your layout
• Name your website and purchase your domain name

Here are just a few samples of layouts you can use as a guide when you are crafting your site layout:

Now that you have mapped out your website layout design, your next steps will be whether you want to create your website using a traditional HTML program or WordPress. Well, it’s a given what I’m going to recommend to you. Build your dynamic marketing-magnet website using WordPress, or course!

Start off by reviewing the different pre-made themes that hundreds of developers have created for you. My top themes list can be found here. Be sure they match up with the layout you chose for your website. Then once you have chosen a theme you want to use for your site, you are ready to move forward with the development. If you are interested in having WordPress to Website build your next website, feel free to visit the PLANS page here.

Join me, Aletha McManama, your WordPress Expert, Designer and Trainer, where I will be hosting via a FREE 60-minute live webinar…

“The WordPress Website Creation Online
Workshop Preview Call”

This info-packed webinar will take place on Thursday, May 13 at 12 PM EST (11 AM CST, 10 AM MTN, 9 AM PT)

You will come away from this webinar call with an understanding of:

• How to plan and map out your website layout

• What to look for when choosing a theme for your website

• What are the best enhancements (or plugins) to make your website more appealing

• What effective marketing techniques to use for your website

There will be time at the end of the call for questions, so please come prepared to have your most challenging questions asked and answered by me.

Hey, and if for some reason you miss the live webinar call, I’ll be sure and send you the recorded video/audio in your inbox shortly after the call ends. But I would certainly love to have you there “live” so you can ask questions and gain the most out of this webinar session. And did I mention that the call is FREE?!

I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity as I reveal tools and tips to maximize the effectiveness of your website creation and marketing efforts.

More information and registration HERE.

Calling all Veteran and Newbie BLOGGERS…!

Join me, Aletha McManama, THE BLOG STRATEGIST, where I will be your Question and Answer host via a FREE 60-minute live webinar …

“THE ULTIMATE WORDPRESS Q & A SESSION WITH
THE BLOG STRATEGIST”!

This info-packed webinar will take place on Thursday, March 18 at 12 PM EST (11 AM CST, 10 AM MTN, 9 AM PT)

I want to take this time with you to not only critique sample WordPress blog or blogsites, but to also open up the webinar session to allow you to bring your most challenging WordPress questions to the call so that I can answer them for you. And if you would like for me to critique your WordPress site for you, email me at aletha@theblogstrategist.com and I will be happy to review your site on the webinar call.

You will come away from this webinar call with an understanding of:

• How to critique your own WordPress blogsite…what to look for and what not to have on your blog!
• Tips on how to create your own blog posting editorial schedule
• Listen and learn from others that come to the call with challenging WordPress questions

There will be time throughout the call and at the end of the call for questions, so please come prepared to have your most challenging questions asked and answered by me. Better yet, email me your questions beforehand and I will have answers prepared for you when you attend the call! I will take your questions by email at aletha@theblogstrategist.com.

Hey, and if for some reason you miss the live webinar call, I’ll be sure and send you the recorded video/audio in your inbox shortly after the call ends. But I would certainly love to have you there “live” so you can ask questions and gain the most out of this Q&A session. And did I mention that the call is FREE?!

I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity as I reveal tools and tips to maximize the effectiveness of your blog marketing efforts.

Click and register here: http://wordpresstowebsite.com/qawebinar-mar18/

As one of the top plugins that I install one each one of my client WordPress sites and my own sites, there is a little added work involved to configure the WP-DB Manager plugin so that the little pesky error message that shows up at the top of your dashboard window disappears . And I’m referring to the one below:

Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public

To correct this issue, move the .htaccess file from wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager to /home/content/x/x/x/xxxxxxx/html/wordpresstowebsite/teleclasses/wp-content/backup-db

Well, it’s not as easy as the message reads!

What IS located in the wp-dbmanager sub-folder is an htaccess.txt file, but that’s not the correct file to move. Yes, go ahead and remove the htaccess.text file from the wp-dbmanager file. It’s okay to do that. Now the correct .htaccess file you need to copy and paste over to the backup-db sub-folder is the same .htaccess file you will find in the root directory of your website (or in your host server account). Look for the folder that reads, “wp-content”, and you will find the .htaccess file. Copy that file over to your hard drive using an FTP client like SmartFTP or a web-based client called net2ftp. Net2ftp is a free service whereas SmartFTP is not.

Then upload the .htaccess file from your hard drive over to the /backup-db sub-folder. Log into your WordPress site dashboard if you haven’t already, and check to see if the above error message has disappeared. If it did not, then I would refer to the documentation for this particular plugin, which you can find here:
http://lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-dbmanager.html

WordPress 2.9 has been released for upgrade for your current WordPress blogs or sites, but I must caution you that the newest version is causing some issues with plugins that are not yet compatible with the new version of WordPress. As a matter of fact, I received an email from WP Wishlist letting me know that it’s not a good time to upgrade to the 2.9 version until they test it with their plugin. So I am waiting to upgrade until I hear back that there are no known bugs that would cause their plugin not to work.

I also heard from a client over the weekend that once they upgraded to 2.9, their page editor screen no longer allows them to make edits and save them. That’s a HUGE problem. It could very well be from a plugin, but we won’t know until we test them all out.

In the meantime, I will be re-installing the 2.8.1 version to the client’s website so that we can get the page editor window back to its normal version.

You can try to upgrade to the 2.9 version, but I would also recommend backing up your website files before doing so.

It’s not too late to register for my upcoming 60-minute, free webinar called Social Media Connection…Even For Your Blog! It’s scheduled for Wednesday, November 4, 2009 from 1:00 PM ET to 2:00 PM ET. This is something you don’t want to miss if you are looking for simple ways to maximize your visibility of your WordPress blog or website.

Here are just some of the topics that will be covered on this webinar call:

• Which popular social media plugins are available for download to your WordPress blogsite

• What the definition of social bookmarking is and how you can apply it to your own blogsite to increase traffic

• How to get clients to stay on your blog site once they have come to you via social media

• How article marketing can also connect you with social media marketing

I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity as I reveal what tools you need to connect your social media marketing and see how these tools increase your site traffic.

So reserve your spot now for this *FREE* info webinar!

Click here to register.

For those of you who are looking for a premium theme at a very reasonable price AND has a brand new ePanel feature, then you need to take a look at ElegantThemes. You can find them at http://www.elegantthemes.com/.

The ePanel feature is simply this:

It’s a sharp-looking admin panel that will allow you to customize your Elegant Theme without having to wade through all the custom CSS code (which most of you probably don’t want to fool with), plus you can manage your navigation bar with just a couple of clicks of your mouse. Oh, and did I mention that you can better manage your SEO configuration in the ePanel? Yep, it does all that! Check it out for yourself:

http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/theme-changesbug-fixes/epanel-released-batch-1/

Have you ever found yourself stuck on what to write for your blog or someone else’s blog for that matter? That’s a challenge I face all the time and it’s the reason why I do not post more often. And it’s because I honestly do not have a plan of action on what I want to write about.

So I have come up with some tips that I think will help you and me get past the “writer’s block” and have a plan of action AND a blog post schedule that will put you on the right track to becoming a successful blogger.

1. Create a topic series or a tip series and schedule the posts on a daily basis or a weekly basis. For one topic, you could interview other experts in your industry and get some really good content to post.
2. Create and send out a survey to your industry and see what kind of topics of interest your audience would like to hear more about. This could be a goldmine for you! I recommend SurveyMonkey to create and distribute your survey.
3. Repurpose your old newsletter articles or reports you have written in the past. They make for great blog articles!
4. If you are an avid Twitter user, round up your best “tweets” and formulate blog articles from those. You would be surprised what you wrote a week ago could be your best article yet!
5. Devise a simple blog posting calendar in Outlook or Google and set reminders so you can remember that you have a blog article due.

Lastly, if you do not already use WordPress for your blog (and/or website), consider switching to their platform. I am a huge advocate of the WP product and I will be offering training to those interested in learning the system from top to bottom. If this is something that interests you, email me at aletha(at)wordpresstowebsite(dot)com and I will inform you of the training dates when they become available.

Go Back To School To Be Your Own
WordPress Expert!

Who says you cannot go back to school and learn a new skill, especially if that skill is a well sought after content management system and self-hosted program known
as WordPress?

You NO LONGER have to be intimidated by the thought of using WordPress for your website or blog.

You can now be your own WordPress Expert!

Join me, Aletha McManama, your WordPress Expert and Website Builder, and I will demonstrate to you via a live webinar presentation a sample training topic from a beginner’s standpoint, all the way to an advanced WordPress user level.

As a lot of us are visual learners, and we don’t learn a thing by listening to hours and hours of boring audio recordings that we purchased (HUGE WASTE of MONEY!), then being a part of this webinar would be perfect for you!

I will cover on this webinar call the following topics:

• Benefits of using WordPress for your blogsite or your client’s blogsite (for those who just don’t know)

• A brief tour of the WordPress dashboard (beginner level)

• Creating additional users in your WordPress dashboard (intermediate and advanced level)

• Downloading and installing a plugin (intermediate and advanced level)

So don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about WordPress training opportunities during and after the call. If you do, the call will be recorded and videotaped so you can download and listen to the presentation later on, but it would be so much better if you can be there “live” and on the phone with me!

So reserve your spot now for this *FREE* training webinar call on Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 3:00 PM EST (12 noon PST)

Click here to register.