In the past, I’ve talked clients through this as I believe people learn best when they are actually performing a task. I’ve even thought about creating a tutorial on how to add images to WordPress, but now I don’t have to, thanks to Smashing Magazine. They’ve published a post that explains (almost) everything you need to know about how to add and manage images in WordPress.

Read it here: Better Image Management with WordPress.

Photo: BigTallGuy

Layout:

The first thing to consider is the category — or type — of theme you will be using:

• Business/Corporate themes place a home page focus on services and/or products.
• Magazine/News themes feature articles and images on the home page and often contain posts by multiple authors.
• eCommerce themes include many of the elements you need to get an online store up and running.
• Portfolio themes are focused on showcasing art produced (photographs, illustrations, etc.).
• Industry specific themes are designed to meet the website needs of a specific industry (education, real estate, dining).
• Blogging themes are focused primarily on, well, blogging and are generally the simplest of themes in terms of layout.

What if you don’t know exactly what type of layout you want? All you know is that you want a website that looks something like your favorite website — not necessarily from a design standpoint, but from the way it is laid out. Then study that site — looking at layout and content, not design (meaning the colors and fonts and images) — and figure out what it is you like about the way the content is displayed. Then decide if it’s a magazine-type site, a corporate site, a portfolio site, etc.

Look, also, at the number of sidebars a theme offers. Some themes come with only one sidebar, others offer you the ability to choose multiple sidebars.

Function:

One of the greatest things about WordPress is its “extensibility.” Using plugins (applications/programs that enhance your site), you can pretty much get your site to do anything you want it to do. Some themes come with built-in functionality so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel by tracking down all the plugins you need. Things to consider when looking at the functionality of a WordPress theme include:

• Will you be adding video? Some themes come optimized for this, making it easy for you to embed videos.
• Will you be selling products? Some themes come with store templates to make it easy for you to add products.
• Will the primary focus of your site be photography? Some themes make it very easy for you to upload and manage your photographs.
• Is it important to you to have a rotating slide show on the home page? Many themes have this function built-in.
• How concerned are you with SEO? (Stupid question, I realize.) Some themes come with built in SEO functions, though many people are happy simply adding a plugin to handle this.
• Are you looking for a widgeted footer? Some themes allow you to pack a lot of content in the footer — from video, to your latest tweets, to images and excerpts from posts. Not every theme comes with a widgeted footer, so it’s something to keep in mind.
• Are you hoping to have ads on the site (Google Adsense, etc.)? Again, some themes make it very easy for you to place advertisements on your WordPress site.
• Are you in a specific niche industry? There are real estate themes that make it easy to integrate listings; restaurant themes that make it easy for you to have an online menu, etc.

Remember that not every theme will contain every function you need. You can always add a plugin to your site to accomplish what you want.

Design

Ah, design — it’s what catches your eye when you see a website you love. But unless you’re a designer yourself, or have hired someone to customize your WordPress theme, you’ll want to choose one that — right-out-of-the-box — comes closest to giving you the look you want for your website. Again, study some websites that you like and figure out what it is you like about them. For instance, are they full of images and color or are they minimalistic and focused on typography? This will give you a starting point for considering design.

Things to consider when choosing a WordPress theme based on design:

• How easy is it to customize the header?
• How easy is it to change the background?
• Does the theme offer more than one style? For instance some premium themes offer several color variations with each theme.
• Are you someone who cares about typography? Some themes make it easy for you to change typefaces (fonts and sizes).
• Have you found a WordPress theme you really love? Look at it closely and imagine what it will look like without the images and custom logo and icons — because that is how the theme will look when you first start to work with it: empty. Do you still like it as much? Or is it really the beautiful photographs the theme demo uses that you like?
• Many WordPress themes have a demo or preview mode that lets you see a theme “in action” before you download or purchase it. Take time to investigate how a theme works if it offers this option. You can see this to a limited degree when choosing from the free themes offered at WordPress.org. One premium theme developer, Woo Themes, offers what they call the WooThemes Playground where you can try out a theme before purchasing it.

Free or Premium?

Only you can make that choice. If you’re committed to using a free theme, then download a few that you like and take time to work with them to get a feel for what’s important to you when creating your WordPress site.

If you have your heart set on a premium theme, obviously most times you won’t have the luxury of testing the theme before you purchase it. But if you do your homework first, you’ll be making an educated decision and can purchase a theme that most closely meets your needs in terms of layout, functionality, and design.

My personal opinion is that most premium themes are worth the cost: you get a beautifully designed theme with built-in functionality and — most important of all — you get the help of a good support forum. If you’re considering purchasing a theme from a designer who does not provide support, I suggest you purchase another theme (one that comes with support).

Often you’ll start with a logo or a photograph that is the jumping off point for the color scheme. But where do you go from there? This can be a real quandary.

Thankfully, the web abounds with tools that can help you select the right colors for your new website.

Here are seven tools that can help make the difficult job of choosing a website color scheme that much easier:

• 0to255 — a simple tool that helps web designers find variations of any color; perfect for hovers, borders, gradients, and more;
• kuler — explore, create, and share color themes;
• Color Scheme Designer — generate color schemes;
• ColourLovers — a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns;
• Color Palette Generator — create a color palette to match an image;
• Color Schemer Gallery — website ready color schemes;
• Daily Color Scheme — a new color scheme every day.

What are your favorite tools for selecting website colors? Leave me a comment and a link to the website.

Photo: unleashingmephotography

Although the author wanted to be able to add new content to the site and to start a blog, she didn’t want to worry about WordPress upgrades, plugin upgrades, security, etc. — all the issues that go along with having a self-hosted WordPress site. She didn’t want a website with a lot of “bells and whistles.” By her own admission, she isn’t tech savvy. She also had a small budget for the site.

Thinking over what she needed, I realized a site on WordPress.com would be “just right” for her. The yearly costs are low — no hosting fees, just the annual fee for her domain — and because WordPress.com themes don’t require (or allow) many customization changes (unless you purchase the CSS upgrade), I was able to quickly create a website that fit her needs and her budget. Plus she will never have to worry about upgrading her software or making sure the site is secure.

It was my first time working with WordPress.com and while I was frustrated by some things — the inability to have more than one page template for instance — all-in-all it was a good experience. Most important, I think the client is happy with her site and happy to have worked with someone who listened to her — and gave her what she both wanted and needed.

There’s a belief in the world of many WordPress users and so-called “experts” that the right way to go when creating a website — the only way to go — is to use WordPress on self-hosted sites. I disagree — you should consider the needs of your client when making such a decision. WordPress.org versus WordPress.com? Sometimes WordPress.com comes out the winner.

From WordPress: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Changing themes in WordPress is so easy. Simply install the theme, activate it, and voila! You’ve changed the look of your site.

But before you hit that “activate” link, there’s one very important thing you should do: deactivate your plugins. Your current theme may use certain plugins that conflict with the new theme you want to use. If you don’t deactivate the current plugins, when you activate the new theme, your site may completely disappear. You won’t see your login page or your admin panel or anything. If this happens, don’t panic. What you need to do is connect to your site and delete the offending plugin(s).

You can connect to your site using FTP or through an interface offered by your web hosting company. Find the proper directory — all plugins are located in the following WordPress directory:  wp-content/plugins — and delete the plugin. If you’re unsure of how to do this, or do not know how to connect to your site, contact your web hosting company and see if they can help. You can also ask for help in the WordPress forums.

Finally, if all else fails, restore your site using the back-ups you made of your database and files. This assumes, of course, that you’ve backed-up your site. You have, haven’t you?

“If you own or manage a website, you are responsible for that website’s security. Compromised websites can infect visitors with badware, and are commonly blacklisted by search engines, web browsers, and security vendors. Many legitimate websites are the targets of malicious hacking attacks, during which code linking directly to badware is inserted onto an otherwise innocent, but poorly secured, website.” (StopBadware.org)

On a regular basis, all website owners/administrators should check their sites for badware by using these tools:

• Google’s Safebrowsing Diagnostic Tool: To test your site, use the following URL, but replace “example.com” with the name of your site:
  • http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=example.com
  • If I wanted to check my site, I would enter: http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=rmfcommunications.com

• Check to see if your site is listed in the Badwear Website Clearinghouse at StopBadware.org.
• View your domain’s site report at McAfee SiteAdvisor.

Hopefully, your website will pass these diagnostic tests. However, if you do find badware, you’ll need to remove it. You can find tips for doing this at StopBadware and BadwareBusters.

WordPress users can find tips on keeping WordPress installations secure at “Hardening WordPress.”

Once you’ve removed the badware from your site, you should request a review of your website from the services that have issued warnings: Google, StopBadware, and/or SiteAdvisor. If you don’t, visitors to your website may see the following warning: “This site may hurt your computer.”

You might have a flashback to previous disasters with software upgrades (does the blue screen of death ring a bell?) and decide that your site is working just fine thank you very much, and you don’t need to upgrade.

That would be a mistake. I’m not saying you should upgrade the minute a new version of WordPress is released; I usually wait a few days to make sure all the obvious bugs are worked out before I upgrade my installations (one good way to do this is to read what others are saying or complaining about on the the WordPress forums).

But why, if your site is working properly, is it necessary to upgrade WordPress? What about security? Are you concerned about that?

Older versions of WordPress have known security issues. With each upgrade, the folks at WordPress address these problems. But the evil hackers of the world are hoping that you won’t upgrade WordPress, that you’ll keep using the same version you’ve been using for the last 18 months so they can access your blog and install malware.

Now tell me which is scarier:

• The thought of upgrading WordPress?

• The thought that someone can hack into your site?

Really, I sympathize because I always feel a little pang of fear before I upgrade any software. But WordPress makes it easy to upgrade with the automatic upgrade (just press the button and go!). Or you can upgrade manually, if you prefer; instructions can be found here.

However you choose to upgrade WordPress, don’t forget the most important rule of upgrading: make a backup copy of your database and your WordPress files before you upgrade. Don’t skip this step. That way, if anything goes wrong with your upgrade, you’ll be able to restore your site.

To create your own favicon, follow these steps:

1. Create the image you would like to use as your favicon using a graphics program such as Photoshop. If you don’t own a graphics program, you can use a free one such as GIMP. Because a favicon is tiny (only 16 pixels x 16 pixels), it’s important to keep the design simple.
2. Save your design as a gif, jpeg, png, or bmp.
3. Upload your image to one of the many favicon generators available on the Internet. I use the favicon generator at Dynamic Drive. Download the newly created favicon and make sure it is named “favicon.ico”.
4. Upload your favicon to your website. It should be placed in the root directory of your website (do not place the favicon in an images folder).
5. For HTML pages, place this code in the head section of each web page: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=/favicon.ico”> — if you are using WordPress, you can find instructions on editing your page header here.

That’s all there is to it!

Sometimes you can’t see your favicon even though you’ve followed all the correct steps. If so, empty your browser cache and then refresh your page. Your favicon should appear.

You can use WordPress for e-commerce, but WordPress is not an out-of-the-box e-commerce solution. You need a plugin to make it work. If you want to use WordPress for an online store, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Am I the type of person willing to learn new skills — in particular am I willing to read documentation and troubleshoot problems and search forums to find the answers I might need to get a WordPress e-commerce plugin to work? In other words, am I a DIYer? For the most part, WordPress plugins are free and some are better supported than others. In my forays into the WordPress plugin universe I’ve read plenty of comments from frustrated users who could not get answers to questions they had about various e-commerce plugins. If you do not want to be one of those users, investigate your options carefully because plugin support is extremely important.
2. How big will my store be? How many products and/or services will I be selling? Plan for the future, not for the present. Does the e-commerce plugin you’re considering have the ability to handle a large inventory?
3. Does the e-commerce plugin offer everything my store needs? What about a payment gateway and security?
4. Do I want a site that integrates several functions — a blog, some pages, the ability to build an online community, and an online store — or do I just want a store?
5. Is cost an issue? Silly question, I know — of course, it is. Okay, then how much of an issue? Using WordPress for e-commerce is usually less expensive than using an e-commerce solution.

If your answers to these questions reveal you to be a “do-it-yourselfer” who wants to create a site that is more than just a store, and who does not want to spend a lot of money getting a online store off the ground, then using WordPress for e-commerce may be for you.

But if your answers to these questions reveal you to be someone who just wants to sell products, wants the site up quickly, and doesn’t want to worry about how it all works, just wants it to work, then you would probably be more comfortable with an e-commerce solution. Costs for e-commerce solutions vary, but you should be able to find one that suits your budget.

Photo: CreativeTools

1. Copyscape: use Copyscape to search for copies of your web content. If you discover someone is using your work and passing it off as their own, dive into Copyscape’s list of resources and suggestions for what to do if you discover you’ve been plagiarized. Place a Copyscape banner on your website pages. This does not protect your work, but it does discourage would-be thieves.
2. Place a copyright notice at the end of each blog posting: “Copyright [year] [your name]. All Rights Reserved.” Look at the end of this posting, and you’ll see my copyright.
3. The folks at WordPress suggest using a more-detailed copyright notice on your blog, stating what uses you will and won’t allow. I’ve placed this copyright in my sidebar. If you do not want excerpts of your work used, you can modify the notice to remove that language. This article also includes some other great ideas for protecting your work and gives suggestions on what to do if your work has been stolen.
4. There are good suggestions in an article at Freelance Switch, including a novel use of Google Alerts: “… choose one or more phrases that are relatively unique to your work, place them in quotes and set up a Google Alert to notify you automatically when a match is found.”
5. Use watermarks on your images. Other suggestions can be found in this posting from Web Resources Depot.

While there are no guarantees that your work won’t be stolen, taking some, or all, of these steps should help. And should the worst occur, you can follow these steps to recover your website property.

Copyright 2010 Regina Fried. All Rights Reserved.

Photo: Kreg Steppe