1 The Digital Product Blueprint Tech Tools Training Setting Up A (Fast, Secure, SEO d) Blog 2 Overview

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1 1 The Digital Product Blueprint Tech Tools Training Setting Up A (Fast, Secure, SEO d) Blog 2 Overview 3 Essential Goals Of Your Blog/Website: Speed - for user experience, and for SEO Security - against hackers, and failures/errors SEO - To maximize organic traffic to your site 4 Goals of This Training Set up your wordpress-based website Configure core functionality Add security measures (backups, hacker-proof) Optimize for performance / speed Set up to maximize on-page SEO 5 Not Goals of This Training Website Design Setting up landing/sales pages and list building Content production / marketing Learning to be a WP tech ninja coder person coming in a later Tech Tools Training 6 The irony is Ideally you won t do any of what you re about to learn. Unless you are the tech department for your business - This is the perfect work to outsource and/or automate But at least you ll know what your techs should be doing for you. 7 Preparation Useful to set up some accounts before getting started wordpress.com - API/Id for Akismet/Jetpack Amazon S3 - Media storage and delivery gravatar.com - Brand yourself! 8 How Wordpress Works 9 How Wordpress Works diagram 10 Setting Up Your Hosting and Domain 11 Set Up Hosting and Domain Get a domain name Get a hosting account If different providers, modify DNS to connect domain to hosting server 12 Set Up Hosting and Domain Get a domain name:

2 Get a domain name: Popular domain registrars: godaddy.com namecheap.com 13 Set Up Hosting and Domain Various Types of Hosting Shared Semi-Dedicated / Managed VPS Dedicated Managed Wordpress 14 Set Up Hosting and Domain What kind of hosting do you need? Less than 25,000 visitors/mo shared Less than 100,000 visitors/mo VPS More than 100,000 visistors/mo Dedicated Ideal middle ground : managed wordpress hosting 15 Set Up Hosting and Domain Shared Web Hosting Providers Siteground.com InMotionHosting.com LiquidWeb.com 16 Set Up Hosting and Domain Managed Wordpress Hosting: Tends to be pricier but All the stability, security and speed issues taken care of for you; plus all the regular backups and maintenance updates A preferred solution if you can find the budget 17 Set Up Hosting and Domain WPEngine.com WebSynthesis.com LightningBase.com LiquidWeb.com Pressidium.com Pressable.com Godaddy.com 18 Install and Configure Wordpress 19 Install Wordpress Easiest: 1-click install from cpanel using Fantastico or Softaculous Manual Installation : Download from wordpress.org and follow famous 5-minute install instructions: Suggest install into it s own folder, not top level domain

3 Manual Installation : Download from wordpress.org and follow famous 5-minute install instructions: Suggest install into it s own folder, not top level domain 20 Configure Wordpress Edit wp-config.php file Edit admin dashboard settings Select a theme 21 Select A Theme Video 1: How To Find Your Big Idea 22 Select A Theme Buy only from known, trusted and reputable sources Make sure it s responsive / mobile-friendly - Not only for user experience, but also for SEO Keep theme updated to avoid security vulnerabilities 23 Theme Resources Default wordpress themes studiopress.com solostream.com woothemes.com elegantthemes.com themeforest.com 24 Theme Resources Visual Composers & Page Builders optimizepress.com thrivethemes.com beaverbuilder.com Elegant themes, Divi Velocity Page Dynamik for Genesis X - The Theme Visual Composer 25 Install Plugins 26 Install Plugins Only use plugins from known and reputable sources: either in the wordpress.org plugins repository, or it s a premium plugin Keep plugins use to a minimum - use only the ones you need plugin bloat can degrade performance and open security vulnerabilities Keep plugins updated to avoid security vulnerabilities 27 Install Plugins When choosing from wordpress.org plugins repository, select the plugins that:

4 27 Install Plugins When choosing from wordpress.org plugins repository, select the plugins that: Have the most downloads (at least 5,000) Have at least 4 star reviews (from many reviewers) Have been tested with the latest version of WP Have been updated within the last 6-12 months (sooner is better) 28 Secure Your Site 29 Secure Your Site Best practices: Remove admin user Change default table prefix Use long, unique passwords (password managers are handy/necessary for this) Protect wp-config.php and.htaccess files Backup regularly Disable source file editing Keep wordpress, themes and plugins updated 30 Secure Your Site Good news Many of these best practices are handled by security plugins like: ithemes Security Wordfence Security 31 Secure Your Site To secure your site, let s use: Cloudflare.com ithemes Security Sucuri monitoring plugin Optional/Recommended: SSL Certificate 32 Backup Your Site 33 Backup Your Site This may be the most critical component of your website/blog security and stability strategy If you have backups, you can recover from error, failure, malware or hacking with minimal impact Without it - you could lose everything in a matter of minutes (don t think it can t happen to you) 34 Backup Your Site Suggest using UpDraftPlus Wordpress Plugin Very flexible and saves to your cloud storage (google drive, dropbox, S3, etc) It s free, but over 1M+ downloads and great reviews makes it an easy yes 35 Backup Your Site If you re using ithemes Security plugin, your other backup option is Backup Buddy

5 35 Backup Your Site If you re using ithemes Security plugin, your other backup option is Backup Buddy from ithemes It s a premium plugin, but reasonably priced and integrates nicely with ithemes Security For a fully automated SAAS, consider vaultpress.com 36 Backup Your Site Connect to your preferred cloud storage destination, and automate backups of both your site AND your database Backup frequency depends on volume of activity on the site (monthly -> weekly -> daily as activity increases) 37 Optimize Performance 38 Optimize Performance Your host will be a main component of your site performance - choose wisely Choose well constructed themes and plugins, and keep them updated Use a cache plugin Use a CDN (Content Distribution Network) 39 Optimize Performance Better WP Minify or AutoOptimize : Minimize file sizes (don t need if using Cloudflare) WP Smush" - Optimize your images Use Google Libraries for fast fonts/scripts loading WP Optimize - Keep your database clean W3 Total Cache - creates static copies of dynamic files Cloudflare plugin - talk" to your cloud flare account. Keep your plugins under control Plugin Organizer 40 Optimize Performance Test your site s performance and improve using: tools.pingdom.com yslow.org gtmetrix.com 41 Optimize SEO 42 Optimize SEO Good on-page SEO can be a great help towards high search engine rankings Two parts: (a) the research and (b) using the research to SEO EVERY page and post you publish. Both are mundane and take time - but worth it if you want to build your search engine visibility and build free traffic streams to your website/blog 43 Optimize SEO Key things to do to optimize on-page SEO: Optimize each page/post for ONE keyword or phrase

6 Key things to do to optimize on-page SEO: Optimize each page/post for ONE keyword or phrase Use the keyword or phrase (keep the phrase intact) in: Page title, description and Meta tags Article title and article headings (H1, H2, H3 ) Throughout the article - especially in the opening paragraphs Filenames and Alt Tags 44 Optimize SEO Wordpress (Yoast) SEO plugin will enforce the optimization of each page/post you write (Assuming you know the keywords you re optimizing for, of course) Google XML Sitemap will index your site in a way the search engine robots can easily read; and is useful for submitting to Google Webmaster Tools 45 Optimize SEO Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) will generate links to other pages on your website, increasing time on site and page views Optional/Recommended: Use SSL on your site Broken Link Checker - search engines mistrust web sites with broken links 46 Add Analytics 47 Analytics Google Analytics by Yoast Tracking Code Manager Google Analyticator (for adding UA code) Insert Headers and Footers 48 Other Useful Plugins 49 Other Useful Plugins Auto Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Akismet P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) Duplicate Post Redirection or Pretty Link Lite 50 Other Useful Plugins Shortcode Ultimate TablePress Maintenance Mode Widget Logic Revision control 51 Other Useful Plugins Click to tweet Pinterest Pin it Button for Images Digg Digg or MashSharer 52 Other Useful Plugins

7 Digg Digg or MashSharer 52 Other Useful Plugins Periodically watch the wordpress.org plugins repository for new releases and those gaining in use and popularity (good reviews) 53 Summary 54 Summary Learned to: Install and configure your wordpress-based website Install and configure core plugins Add security measures (backups, hacker-proof) Optimize for performance / speed Set up to maximize on-page SEO Add analytics tracking A review of generally useful plugins 55 Summary Covered a LOT of ground Review repeatedly as needed Play - Pause - Do Consider outsourcing! Get your site online and start publishing! 56 Questions 57 Thank you!