With all the advanced tools currently available at our fingertips, content management systems like
WordPress and WordPress themes or site builders like Weebly make it much easier to create and
manage a website since much of the work is done by using WYSIWYG editors to add and manage
content.

There are four basic steps to get your website up and running:

Step 1: Find a Name for Your Website (URL)
Step 2: Choose an affordable website hosting Provider
Step 3: Build your Website
Step 4: Publish your Site

Step 1: Finding a Name for Your Website (URL)

Start by choosing a domain name for your site and buying the domain name.

Since most of the more common names are already taken, you will have to be creative, but still, come
up with something that fits your business or website topic.

You can check for prospective names anywhere domain names are sold. Once you have found an
an available name for your site, you will be ready to move on to step 2.

Search our partner Hostlabs for a domain name here.

Step 2: Choosing an affordable website hosting Provider

When choosing a web host, there are a few things you should consider.

Price: Find a host that can provide quality services for the price you need. The key here is to find quality
hosting and not just the cheapest.

Reliability: Reliability is critical for a website. If your server is frequently down, visitors will not be able to
access your content or make purchases. Does the hosting provider guarantee your site’s uptime?

Support: Should a problem arise; will technical support be available to help at any time day or night?

Along with reliability, support is helpful in the event something does go wrong.

Step 3: Building your Website

Now that you have your very own website registered to you, it’s time to start building a website.

Typically, website builders are provided by your web host, but you can use anyone you like. Some web
hosting services have awesome site builders that make it extremely easy to get your site up and running
in just minutes utilizing the data, you provide when answering a few questions about your site.

If you prefer taking your time to customize your website, then you might want to consider using a CMS,
or a content management system such as WordPress.

Your hosting provider should allow you to easily install WordPress via the cPanel. If you do not have
access to a cPanel, FTP is also available, although a little more technical then the one-click installs from
cPanel.

WordPress will come pre-installed with free themes and there are premium themes that can be
purchased from various websites. Premium themes will usually allow for more customization and have
more features available to build the website you want.

Once, you have picked a theme. Upload your images and content, then add them to your site, by
logically placing to avoid clutter and confusion. It is imperative that your website is user-friendly since if
users are unable to find what they are looking for in a few seconds, they will look elsewhere.

Step 4: Publishing your Site

When you have finally finished creating your website, give it another look over and then click publish to
make your site available to the public.

Don’t count on receiving traffic right away, in the first few days, weeks, months, or ever… without a
good marketing strategy to drive traffic to the website.

20 Years of Quality Web Hosting

Putting a good-looking website without being a developer or designer is possible if you use the right
tools. But a pretty website won’t matter much if you don’t build it on a good website foundation. A web host can be a difference.

There are many web hosting providers on the web, but not many that have been around as long as our partner
HostLabs. They have been giving quality web hosting for over 20 years.

Compare their web hosting plans here and build a website today!

The post Building A Website Design When You Are Not A Designer appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

You want your visitors to not only find what they are looking for quickly, but you want them to linger a while and explore your site. And, if you have a lot of content, you’ll want to be able to find it easily. Your site’s success – or lack thereof – sits on the foundation of its organization.

Taxonomy: An Organizational Method

So, what is taxonomy and how can it help get you better organized?

Taxonomy is a hierarchical structure for the classification or organization of data that enables websites to be categorized according to topics and types, enabling easy information retrieval.

To me, the most beneficial aspect of taxonomy is that is reduces manual content management. It allows you to dynamically retrieve and display anything on a page based on enabled tags or structured fields within your content. Taxonomy gives you the opportunity to balance the page’s content with other relevant information.

How Does Taxonomy Work?

Logistically, the way it works is that you are making content load dynamically when a page is accessed by programming a search on any number of taxonomy tags or other fields within your content block or page.

No doubt, you’ve seen this, but haven’t recognized what was going on behind the scenes. Amazon’s site includes taxonomy-driven content publishing. Whenever you log in and go to a page of interest, notice how when you scroll down a little you’ll see a section telling you other customers who bought this bought that, too. Or, it will show you what you should buy today based on what you bought yesterday.

Another example can be found at online news services, such as Reuters. If you’ve ever signed up with one, you’ve been given the opportunity to personalize your experience by your unique interests. That way, you don’t have to waste your time scrolling through hours of news you’re not interested in. As soon as you log in, you get to see what matters to you.

Some taxonomy sites allow the visitor to interact and filter in ways I just mentioned. But, other sites don’t require user interaction at all. You can also develop a site with only a little user interaction.

 Taxonomy Considerations

If your site has proper taxonomy, you will be able to bridge across subjects, and better manage and often reuse your content – at scale. Of course, it will assist with effective navigation and will, ultimately, provide a better product and brand alignment. At the end of the day, it will improve SEO and findability, and even support social sharing.

When creating a sound taxonomy, the first few things to consider is its projected longevity and flexibility. This means thinking ahead to what your site might become – what additions might occur down the road. You’ll also want to think from the perspective of what terms your visitors might use and what structure will help support your business goals and help your content perform optimally. And, don’t forget to understand the scope of your project. Taxonomies can easily get out of hand.

To develop the scope of your taxonomy, imagine a Venn Diagram. The taxonomy lies at the intersection of your business context (or purpose), content and users – which are your target audience.

The Benefits of Structuring Your Own Taxonomy

Taxonomy can be a huge boon for your website. However, equally clear is that this is not something that can be built overnight. It requires strong input from both your multi-disciplined team and from your users. You have to thoroughly understand your target audience and have a good grasp on how they think. After all, you’re creating something that should be almost intuitive.

Taxonomy requires vision and commitment to plan and execute. Many companies don’t bother to standardize data definitions. Yes, it takes real time to properly define your data. But, the many benefits of having a taxonomy structure under your site are huge. Not only for your users but for your team. The many, many ways you can utilize such a structure are endless.

The post Taxonomy for design & Why Use It on Your Site? appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

Guide To Create a Dream Blog

Here’s a quick look at the few simple steps you will need to run through in order to start your dream blog:

• Choose your blogging platform
• Get a domain name and set up your own web hosting
• Configure and design your blog
• Start producing content for your readers
• Marketing your blog

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of each step in the guide to help you start your first dream blog.

Step 1- Choose Your Blogging Platform
You first need to select a blogging platform so that you can get your content up onto the web. There are many open source platforms around for building your blog and they are supported by most web hosting companies. The main blogging platforms you can choose from are:

WordPress – is a massively popular blogging platform with countless plugins/add-ons and customizable content management system (CMS) offering superior features built for bloggers so that they have complete control over how their blog looks

Ghost – is the new kid on the blogging block and it has created a lot of buzz in the blogosphere

Drupal – is a popular blogging platform but it is difficult for novices

Joomla – has a great CMS but there is a steep learning curve involved
For those who want to avoid paying for a blogging platform – however small the cost—you can grab one for free from Blogger, WordPress.com or Tumblr. But before you take a decision, know that free blogs have downsides too, including:

• You won’t be able to get a custom domain name with many of the free blogging platforms, which can seem unprofessional to potential subscribers and customers.
• There are many limits to free blogs such as level of customization or available bandwidth for uploads. Moreover you will not be able to fully monetize your blog.
• With Blogger or Tumblr or the free version of WordPress you don’t actually own your blog and they can shut you down anytime without any prior warning. All your site content can be deleted with no way to recover it for even minor indiscretions such as using copyrighted images by mistake.

Step 2- Get a domain name and Set up Web hosting
Next you will need a domain name, which is the URL or the site address for your blog online. Every blog should have its own domain but it can be hard to find a domain name that isn’t taken! For your blog, choose a short name that can be easily remembered. Also consider its uniqueness and what the domain says about your brand. Do remember to take into consideration copyright and trademark factors when selecting your domain name.  Once you have a domain for your blog, you need to think of where your blog will be stored online. Selecting a reliable webhost is essential because this company will be responsible for putting your website up on the internet so that anyone online can see it. All the content for your blog will be saved on there. Investing a little money on domain registration and a good webhost will ensure that your site gets backed up regularly and you can recover your website for any reason. It is wise to get your domain registered from the same place that you get your blog hosted to save you from future headaches.

You can get your dream blog up and running with the VPS Hosting package from HostLabs at a super affordable rate of $44.95/mo. HostLabs offers fast and easy setup for WordPress installation, intuitive control panel for easy website file management and 24/7 technical support.  If you already have a domain registered, HostLabs will provide you with the necessary information to easily transfer your domain. You can install WordPress on your blog in just a few clicks through HostLabs and then make changes from the WordPress administrator area.

Step 3- Configure and Design Your Blog
Take your time to configure WordPress themes as it controls the look and feel of your blog. You do not need coding expertise or design knowledge to design your dream blog. WordPress theme is a pre-designed template for you to customize your blog exactly how you want it to look. There are two aspects to every theme: the framework and the design element. To make your blog standout in the crowded blogosphere, first impressions with an impressive design theme count for a lot. You may select from thousands of free themes available online, but investing in a premium theme can help improve your brand image. Additionally, they are secure, fast, easy to navigate, and responsive designed for both mobile and desktop. You will find that they are also easy to customize and install. You can find themes for your blog at Themeforest, StudioPress or the WordPress Library.

Installing your theme is even easier as it comes in a .zip file format and you can upload it direct to your WordPress Dashboard by logging into your WordPress blog. If it is a free theme, you can click Install on the preview screen of your WordPress dashboard. WordPress also allows you to switch themes or go back to your old theme with just a few clicks and without fear of losing any precious content or images.

WordPress allows you to install and use plugins through its dashboard to make your blog feature rich and more functional. Do keep your added plugins to a minimum and install just the best ones you need.

Step 4- Start Producing Content For Your Readers
The soul of a successful blog is in its writing. If no one wants to read your content then your blog will not get too many subscribers. The two main types of content that you can create for your blog in WordPress are ‘Pages’ and ‘Posts’. Pages are static pages that will not see much change and it helps link to and from your navigation area/menus on your blog, such as the ‘About Page.’ Regular posts are what appear on the front page of your blog, with comments and the date of publishing.

The aim of a blog is to ultimately provide valuable content that people actually want to read and share with their friends. To create great content, you need to put thought into more than just words. Blogs should not be huge block of text without any visual breaks (such as bulleted lists). Posts should include images or videos and you can use stylized fonts and colors to make your content stand apart from the rest.

Step 5- Marketing Your Blog
You may have setup your blog properly and published great content but this is no guarantee of anyone ever discovering it online. For your blog to grab more eyeballs, you need to promote your blog correctly. There are several methods you can utilize to properly market your blog including:

• Social networks– When you publish your blog post do make sure to post a link on your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. Promoting your post on social media platforms improves your chances of getting more shares and you may also see an increase in traffic to your blog.
• Commenting on other blogs– You can access people with similar interest areas by leaving a comment on other related blogs with a link back to your own blog. Make sure not to abuse this method and only submit a useful comment to get people interested in wanting to learn more from your blog.
• Guest posting– You can also get readers of other blogs to hear about your blog by writing guest posts. Get in touch with other blog owners and offer to write a post for their site with a link to your blog.
• Online forums– Make sure you join popular online forums related to your topic to make helpful posts on the site. Most forums do allow you to post a link to your site in the signature at the bottom of every post you write. If your forum posts are high quality and informative, people will surely want to click on your blog to read more.

Now that you know the technical side of setting up your blog, let the fun times roll. There will be a lot of learning along the way but don’t let that overwhelm you. Welcome to the blogosphere and enjoy expressing yourself in your new blog.

The post Start Your Dream Blog In 5 Easy Steps appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

WordPress plugin expert Brian Lis says the key is to choose only a few plugins that fit your needs. Standard plugins can run for free and premium versions vary in price, but all are implemented in the same way a mobile app is: You download the plugins to your hardware, file them in your content directory and then activate them. The best WordPress plugins — often the premium ones — are consistently updated by their engineers and are easy to troubleshoot because of their large, collaborative user base.

Premium WordPress plugins perform reliably and minimize problems, such as website downturn, that can come with running a site. Functions such as defining “security vulnerabilities, conflicts, and increased load times,” are most important, because they prevent system crashing. It’s ironic, then, that certain plugin combinations will cause a site to crash, especially when developers use too many of them at the same time.

The nature of plugin development is the cause of the challenge. Anyone can build a WordPress plugin, and sometimes official instruction documents that detail build conflicts aren’t available. For these reasons, Lis says, top developers often use fewer than 10 plugins per build. “Anything over 30 plugins is generally an invitation for problems.”

Even if a WordPress plugin seems like it’s optimally useful, thorough testing and analysis bears out the truth. Lis says he once worked on a site using a single stat-tracking plugin that “took over 1.5 gigs in [the site’s] database [while] their website was only 50 megs. The speed difference once that stat-tracking plugin was removed was significant.”

The factors that go into load times can be varied and include what type of server or provider you use, whether your site is multimedia heavy or uses slow caching or whether it is connected to a content-delivery network. It might also be a signal that the website is coded poorly. In any case, a select combination of premium and standard plugins that work well together and offer serious benefits, like security and reduced load times, while unsexy, are more important than checking off every box of possible site functionality.

 Plugins Every WordPress Site Should Use

Before adding plugins, businesses should back up all files. Plugin failure rates are at 1 percent, but that tiny percentage can cause serious damage to the infrastructure.

Here are the WordPress plugins no site should do without:

Security: Limit Login Attempts (standard)

Hackers can brute-force their way into WordPress software because it allows unlimited login attempts. The best way to prevent this is by locking the number of attempts, and this plugin does it cleanly and efficiently. Users have noted the great customer service.

E-commerce: WooCommerce (premium)

This is a fully featured suite of great plugin applications. The software offers extensions that help both small and large businesses provide a variety of product options, including shipping choices, recurring payments, CSV product importing, one-page checkout and even a deep suite of marketing features.

Forms: Gravity Forms (premium)

Managing forms is a breeze using this plugin. You can create order forms with pricing fields, add PayPal for add-ons, create configurable entry lists, and a lot more. It’s also easy to customize any form, including CSS column layouts.

Membership: WishList Member (premium)

WishList Member is an awesome membership curator that can grow with your site. If you’re a major blogger who wants to offer a few paid articles in between tons of free content, you can offer free, trial or paid memberships, or you can create member upgrade levels for each of paid post.

Backup: WordPress Backup to Dropbox (standard)
You need to back up your whole system on a server, but your content also needs backup. WordPress Backup to Dropbox takes your files and SQL database and sends them to your Dropbox account folder (subscription required). The plugin uses the OAuth (authorization standard), so your account details are secure.

Analytics: Google Analytics for WordPress (standard)
A lot of people use Google Analytics, and this is the best plugin incorporating it. According to load-speed analysts, this tracking software is swift. It also comes with a wide variety of customizable demo options, such as categories for page views per user.

Social Sharing: Sociable (standard)
A customizable plugin that makes icons easy to see on a webpage is also one of the most popular. With two different choices for styling (including Skyscraper, which incorporates commenting data), it nicely features the big networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Digg and StumbleUpon.

Despite the many ways plugins can help, it’s important to temper expectations. Lis says the difference between hugely successful sites and modest ones comes down to execution of content, not necessarily plugin use.

The best sites “have meaningful content followed by a community of advocates for that website,” he says.

As a result, the best practice for beginners vetting plugins is to keep things simple and use the free ones “until you’ve perfected the core functionality. Once your core functionality is tested and true, [you can] begin adding in the bells and whistles [of the premium sites].”

Website owners with modest budgets can easily build out a site with plugins for analytics managers, file trackers, SEO enhancers, XML sitemaps, social sharing, social feeds and graphics software.

The post Choosing the Right WordPress Plugins for Your Site appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

User-Friendliness In Configuring And Managing A Website

All three CMSs are easy to install and since most users install using a script rather than manually, there is no big difference. When it comes to managing a website, one needs to consider ease-of-use in day-to-day site management and administration across all user roles and levels of the system.

WordPress

WordPress is immensely popular among users and developers alike. The WordPress philosophy is to build an intuitive and easy-to-use CMS that its users regardless of their technical knowledgexe2x80x94can use to publish on the web. WordPress is simple to use from the start, especially for anyone familiar with word processing tools such as Microsoft Word.

Joomla!

The best feature in Joomla! from the perspective of ease of use is its consideration of user levels -traditional website visitor access, front-end editors, back-end managers and administrators. The front-end area with defined user roles makes it easy for newbies and lower-level users to manage content.

Drupal

The out-of-the-box interface in Drupal is fully functional but it is not user-friendly for non-technical users. Users should be comfortable with PHP, HTML, CSS, and other web languages to operate in Drupal. For that reason, Drupal has the steepest learning curve and is designed to be customized at all levels.

Ease-of-Use in Creating and Publishing Content

WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal are all capable of supporting publishing workflows for non-technical users, such as inputting or creating content, updating it on an ongoing basis, formatting, and displaying it to users. For non-technical users wanting to create a new site using a pre-built theme, WordPress may be the best option, even Joomla! would work just as well but Drupal may not be the right pick for you. Since creating and publishing content is the bulk of the work you will do in a CMS letxe2x80x99s look at each platform in a little more detail.

Drupal

There are several default content types right out of the box in Drupal: Besides basic pages used for static pages, articles (similar to WordPress posts) and book page, which is a collaborative type of content that many users contribute to, are offered. There are also forum topics on which comments and reply threads can be added and polls offering a question with a set of possible responses for community members to vote on. You can also create new content types with different section headings, functions, features, multimedia elements, and capabilities. Drupal is an excellent choice for developers building a complex site with tons of content and numerous users because of its flexibility and ability to easily create and define own content types.

Joomla!

Joomla! allows users to create and store content as articles, which are then attached to a menu to be displayed on the site. It is also possible to place content in different positions and areas because of the way Joomla! uses modules. Joomla! may not have the most intuitive setup, especially for users without experience in any other CMS, but it is still worth spending a few hours learning it as it is an incredibly powerful system. With its innate structure and ability to create once, publish everywhere, content can be used in multiple ways throughout the website. For example, a blog post can be repurposed as a page, an event, and an article simultaneously.

WordPress

WordPress offers three default content types:

Post- For some websites, WordPress is used for its blogging capabilities alone. Blog posts are easy to create and publish with a time and date stamp and they are automatically added to your RSS feed. Posts can be assigned categories and tags, for easy archival and sorting.

Pages-Website pages are easy to build and add to the menu. The system has a drag-and-drop editor for easy management of the menu structure.

Media– This type of content is primarily for storing and organizing images, videos, or other files. WordPress media uploader enables drag and drop uploading, file size limits, automatic image resizing, editing and a visual gallery for management. It also has a built-in photo gallery tool.

WordPress also uses widgets to store other content that wouldn’t be considered pages or posts. They are generally regulated to a sidebar or footer, though some WordPress themes provide a lot of flexibility in creative use of widgets. WordPress is restrictive in its ability to re-use existing content differently. However, WordPress does allow “custom post types,” for creating your own unique content type, such as videos, whitepaper, case studies, and more, similar to Joomla! or Drupal. It is easier to review and create content on WordPress because it keeps content types separate.

Security

There is a myriad of threats to your website from cross site scripting, zero-days breaches, brute force attempts, and distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks to software vulnerabilities. Each of the three main CMSs have different security features. Let’s take a look at them.

WordPress

Hackers are more likely to try and find vulnerabilities in the WordPress system because of its popularity and reach. There are over 75 million WordPress sites on the web, in comparison to about 3 million Joomla! sites and less than a million Drupal sites. You need to modify WordPress core files to enable Secure Socket Layer connection or Two-Factor Authentication on its dashboard. Most advanced security features are entirely dependent on plugins. The most commonly used plugins are often subject to hacks and malware, as they are considered less secure and have less oversight. But if site owners are vigilant about which plugins they install, and update regularly then a WordPress site is no less secure than any other CMS. WordPress Core is still extremely secure. WordPress has a robust reporting process and vulnerabilities are fixed and patched quickly once theyre discovered.

Joomla!

Out-of-the-box, Joomla! comes with a feature to force connections over SSL and another option for enforcing 2FA[MK1] . It offers its unique set of security extensions, and developers working on Joomla! also maintain a list of extensions with known vulnerabilities. Joomla! has a dedicated Joomla Security Strike Team (JSST) who are quick to patch any vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered. Joomla has very few documented vulnerabilities and most are not knowingly exploited.

Drupal

Drupal commands the smallest marketshare but it is most popular with enterprise users who are more technically savvy and therefore Drupal enjoys a reputation of being the most secure CMS of the group. Drupal modules are usually targeted less but the lack of an automatic update makes it difficult to spread the word about the vulnerability to compromised users.

Truthfully there is not much difference between WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla! as far as security is concerned. The greatest security risk for any site is the users and administrators of the site. So if these content management systems are managed responsibly and monitored properly by someone with the required technical knowledge, most security breaches can be prevented. This is a major reason why website owners should opt for managed website hosting, instead of traditional web hosting.

Upgradability

WordPress allows easy updates for both minor and major upgrades to plugin, theme, and custom functions though it may be better to test things out on a staging site first to prevent any incompatibilities later. WordPress also enables automatic updates for minor version changes so that the latest security patches are installed without having to update manually.

Joomla! updates work just as easily as WordPress for minor versions. Even upgrading between major versions usually works just as well but it can occasionally require manual intervention.

Minor version upgrades on Drupal are a simple affair but upgrading between major versions requires a more involved effort than for Joomla! and WordPress. For someone without a lot of experience on CMSs, you are better off hiring a professional to perform major upgrades or rather choosing WordPress/Joomla! with an easier upgrade path.

For The Win

So which CMS would best suit your site?

All three Content Management Systems are usable and powerful. Depending on your unique situation.

Generally speaking WordPress is more suitable for blogs, simple business websites, news sites, marketing sites, small eCommerce stores, and any site managed by new users.

Joomla! offers a mid-ground between the other two platforms with flexibility for complex content publishing sites, social media networks, eCommerce stores, and more.

If your site is set to grow significantly and requires extensive features and unlimited customization possibilities, go for the most complex CMS, Drupal. This platform is capable of supporting the largest enterprise sites, community sites, and large online stores.

These are other factors like intangibles, integrations or transfer-ability that may determine your choice of CMS. But no matter which one you choose, just keep upgrading. Call us to talk with one of our experts about which content management (CMS) may be best suited for your site.

The post WordPress vs Joomla! vs Drupal: Which CMS Is Best For Your Business? appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

There are numerous things you can do to make it more secure.

1. If installing manually, change the default DB table prefix (wp-) when asked. If installing via Softaculous, you can change the table prefix afterward with the wp-security-scan plugin. https://WordPress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/ Changing the prefix to something else helps to block scripted attacks which will be looking for the default.
2. Keep WordPress and all plugins up to date. Just one old unsecure plugin can create a huge security hole. Both WordPress and most plugins can be auto-updated in Admin now.
3. If you enable comments, be sure to set them to be moderated. You should also install the ReCaptcha plugin to help stop bots from submitting comments. https://recaptcha.net/plugins/wordpress/ You definitely want to install the Askimet plugin or WP-SpamFree as well to help stop spam. https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/ or https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/
4. Change the default security keys in wp-config.php (AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, and NONCE_KEY). You can generate new secure keys easily at https://api.WordPress.org/secret-key/1.1/ .
5. Add the WordPress Stats plugin both for help with SEO and to monitor unusual activity. https://WordPress.org/extend/plugins/stats/
6. While external post writers such as Microsoft Live Writer make it easy to create posts on your own computer and then send them to your blog, they use xmlrpc.php which is quite often exploited and if you check your access logs you will probably see quite a few requests looking for that file. It is best to disable outside posting. If you just must use external writers, change the name of xmlrpc.php to something obscure and then set your external program to look for the new filename to use. In Live Writer, you must enter the URL for posting with the new filename when first setting up the blog in it.
7. To be safe you should make backups of your database and site files as it saves a lot of time & effort cleaning up after an attack and customers are responsible for their own files and keeping backups. Create new backups of files and database after making any site changes like upgrading to a new version, adding a plugin, or creating a truly brilliant post. Backup the database as often as necessary depending on the activity in your blog. The database is the one truly irreplaceable item and the one that changes most often. You can add a very nice DB backup plugin from https://ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/ and manually backup the database.
8. While not related to hacking or spamming, another major security issue for blogs is content theft (copyright violations.) This should be just as much of a concern whether your blog is about your family or business. Please see  https://creativecommons.org/choose/ , and another possibility is 5 Ways to Defend Against Content Theft.

Our last ‘bit of advice would be to follow the advice in our other articles in our blog.

The post Keeping Your WordPress Site Secure appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It allows you to store style presentation information (like colors and layout) separate from your HTML structure. This allows precision control of your website layout and makes your pages faster and easier to update.

This article briefly describes the use of CSS in WordPress, and lists some references for further information. For information on CSS itself, see Know Your Sources.

WordPress and CSS

WordPress Themes use a combination of template files, template tags, and CSS files to generate your WordPress site’s look.

Template Files

Template files are the building blocks which come together to create your site. In the WordPress Theme structure, the header, sidebar, content, and footer are all contained within individual files. They join together to create your page. This allows you to customize the building blocks. For example, in the default WordPress Theme, the multi-post view found on the front page, category, archives, and search web pages on your site, the sidebar is present. Click on any post, you will be taken to the single post view and the sidebar will now be gone. You can choose which parts and pieces appear on your page, and customize them individually, allowing for a different header or sidebar to appear on all pages within a specific category. And more. For a more extensive introduction to Templates, see Stepping Into Templates.

Template Tags

Template tags are the bits of code which provide instructions and requests for information stored within the WordPress database. Some of these are highly configurable, allowing you to customize the date, time, lists, and other elements displayed on your website. You can learn more about template tags in Stepping Into Template Tags.

Stylesheet

The CSS file is where it all comes together. On every template file within your site there are HTML elements wrapped around your template tags and content. In the stylesheet within each Theme are rules to control the design and layout of each HTML element. Without these instructions, your page would simply look like a long typed page. With these instructions, you can move the building block structures around, making your header very long and filled with graphics or photographs, or simple and narrow. Your site can “float” in the middle of the viewer’s screen with space on the left and right, or stretch across the screen, filling the whole page. Your sidebar can be on the right or left, or even start midway down the page. How you style your page is up to you. But the instructions for styling are found in the style.css file within each Theme folder.

WordPress Generated Classes

Several classes for aligning images and block elements (div, p, table etc.) were introduced in WordPress 2.5: aligncenter,alignleft and alignright. In addition the class alignnone is added to images that are not aligned, so they can be styled differently if needed.

The same classes are used to align images that have a caption (as of WordPress 2.6). Three additional CSS classes are needed for the captions, together the alignment and caption classes are:

[css]
/* =WordPress Core
————————————————————– */
.alignnone {
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

.aligncenter,
div.aligncenter {
display: block;
margin: 5px auto 5px auto;
}

.alignright {
float:right;
margin: 5px 0 20px 20px;
}

.alignleft {
float: left;
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

.aligncenter {
display: block;
margin: 5px auto 5px auto;
}

a img.alignright {
float: right;
margin: 5px 0 20px 20px;
}

a img.alignnone {
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

a img.alignleft {
float: left;
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

a img.aligncenter {
display: block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto
}

.wp-caption {
background: #fff;
border: 1px solid #f0f0f0;
max-width: 96%; /* Image does not overflow the content area */
padding: 5px 3px 10px;
text-align: center;
}

.wp-caption.alignnone {
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

.wp-caption.alignleft {
margin: 5px 20px 20px 0;
}

.wp-caption.alignright {
margin: 5px 0 20px 20px;
}

.wp-caption img {
border: 0 none;
height: auto;
margin: 0;
max-width: 98.5%;
padding: 0;
width: auto;
}

.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text {
font-size: 11px;
line-height: 17px;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 4px 5px;
}
[/css]

Each Theme should have these or similar styles in its style.css file to be able to display images and captions properly. The exact HTML elements and class and ID values will depend on the structure of the Theme you are using.

Templates and CSS

To help you understand more about how CSS works in relationship to your web page, you may wish to read some of the articles cited in these lists:

• Using Themes – There are also many advanced articles in this list.
• Templates – Comprehensive list of WordPress Theme and Template articles.
• Theme Development – WordPress Theme Development guide and code standards.

WordPress Layout Help

If you are having some problems or questions about your WordPress Theme or layout, begin by checking the website of the Theme author to see if there is an upgrade or whether there are answers to your questions. Here are some other resources:

• Lessons on Designing Your WordPress Site
• Site Design and Layout – Comprehensive list of resources related to site design in WordPress.
• FAQ Layout and Design

CSS Resources

• Finding Your CSS Styles
• Troubleshooting
• Fixing Browser Bugs
• Coding Standards
• Shorthand
• Know Your Sources#CSS
• Conditional Comment CSS
• Validating a Website

The post Getting Started with WordPress and CSS appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.

A solutions specialist for web hosting provider HostLabs , says that the worst thing you can do with a WordPress site is “install it and forget it.”

“A website is just like a car. It needs routine maintenance to ensure that it is going to run and function properly for years to come,” says Davis. “What happens if you don’t change the oil in your car? The car breaks down, and you have a huge repair bill. Make sure that your WordPress core, themes and plug-ins are up to date.”

After all, if organizations don’t maintain and nurture their websites, how can they expect the sites to take care of their customers?

Here are a few best practices that will help keep your WordPress install humming along.

Limit the Number of Plug-Ins

First and foremost, reduce the number of plug-ins to a simple core set. While it’s easy to get addicted to the functionality that they provide, plug-ins consume resources and memory on the server that runs your WordPress site. “If your WordPress site is hosted in a shared environment, you have limited use of the resources. You’ll want to make sure that your site is able to load in a reasonable amount of time so that visitors do not abandon your home page,” says Davis.

Optimize Your Home Page

If your website is a digital storefront, you want to ensure that the front door — the home page — opens quickly to allow customers in. WordPress offers the option to quantify the number of stories that appear on the home page, and you may want to consider posting abstracts of articles rather than the entire text. Davis recommends sticking to five or six of the most relevant or new items.

Install a Caching Plug-In

Caching the content on your site is one of the best things you can do to optimize site performance. Caching saves an instance of your article locally on the server. This allows WordPress to load content more quickly because it doesn’t have to read the content from the WordPress database.

Popular caching plug-ins:

W3 Total Cache

WP Super Cache

Hummingbird

LiteSpeed Cache

Keep WordPress Updated

WordPress frequently publishes updates to introduce new site optimization and security fixes. You should log in regularly to the administrative console within your WordPress install and check for these. When they do appear, run them! As a bonus, WordPress will alert you if any third-party items are incompatible with the update.

Prevent Spammers

Davis recommends installing both Akismet as well as a CAPTCHA plug-in to reduce the amount of spam that appears in your comments. Using CAPTCHA for your comments “prevents hackers and bots from trying to gain access and wreak havoc on your blog,” he says.

Prioritize Backups and Database Optimizations

Always ensure that you have a regular backup routine in place for the physical files on the server and the database powering the site. Database backups can be automated using a variety of available plug-ins, many of which also offer optimization for routine maintenance of the WordPress database. Once you have a local copy of the database stored within your file structure on the server, back those database and PHP files up regularly to an offsite location.

Monitor Third-Party Scripts and Images

Another thing that can dramatically slow down the load time of your WordPress site is third-party graphics or scripts. If you are linking images from a site other than your own, you are at the mercy of how fast that site can deliver the images. Wherever possible, try to have images stored locally within your WordPress install. Similarly, running third-party JavaScript or analytics can increase load time, particularly if the script has to be processed elsewhere. If you are running advertising on your site, again, you are at the mercy of a third-party to serve those ads. Be selective with the ad networks you use and prioritize those that don’t hinder your site’s performance.

Hosting Considerations with WordPress

When considering a web host for your WordPress install, there are a few technical considerations to keep in mind:

• How much memory, CPU and disk space will be allocated to your WordPress installation?
• Is the hosting provider oversubscribing the number of sites on a server (meaning, are they jam-packing a server with too many sites)? If you are using a shared server, all sites will be competing for memory and CPU, which means that a “noisy neighbor” may affect your site’s performance.
• How much control do you have over the server your WordPress site is running on?
• Should you move from a shared server to a virtual private server (VPS) or a dedicated physical or cloud server? While it may be more costly, you will definitely have better processing power and more memory at your disposal if you do.

Take Your Time

While the web is a medium that allows for instant publishing, Davis says it’s important not to rush — especially if you are installing WordPress for the first time.

“Take your time on installation and configuration,” he says. “A poorly installed or configured site leads to many issues down the road.”

The post Getting the Most Out of Your WordPress Site appeared first on Greenhouse Design Group.