I had a questions come in today about why I do not recommend Go Daddy for my WordPress clients. Here is my response to the great question.

First let me say,  it doesn’t matter where you register your domains, so Go Daddy is fine for that,  but I have found several problems with using Go Daddy for hosting WordPress sites and ask new clients to change to bluhost when we are building or updating a WordPress Go Daddy site. When I have not insisted, sooner or later we end up moving it for performance reasons.  Here is my reason for not wanting to use Go Daddy.

First,  Go Daddy does not use the industry standard C-Panel interface so it is a pain in the neck to go in and work on the databases and so forth, if you need to. Whereas I am not really a back-end person, but I can go into the C-Panel in bluehost and change the memory allotment and add new databases, view and edit the files and such very easily.

Second, there are usually performance problems with intermittent periods of extreme slowness for their WordPress sites.  I have heard it has to do with their server set up being far from the databases and software so the calls to serve up the dynamic content takes longer. Then when you call and tell them you are having issues they will deny anything is wrong or suggest that you need a virtual private server. Most of my clients do not need anything other than economy hosting on bluehost and get great performance. Only Larger businesses and publishers with a great deal of traffic need to move up. When I move clients to bluehost all of their issues have resolved.

Third, I hate Go Daddy’s sexist advertising. Maybe they should spend more money on updating their equipment and less on Danica and the other Go Daddy Babes.

Fourth, Their interface of the site is very confusing and they try to sell you things you don’t need. Even if you know you don’t need all that stuff, presenting it to people in a confusing way clutters up the site and takes forever to find the thing that you do need. The way they push things makes novice users sign up for a bunch of garbage that is not needed.

The one good thing about Go Daddy is that they will refund your money for months of hosting not used yet. So I usually suggest to clients that we get a bluehost account and build their new site on it with a temporary IP address and search engines blocked and then when we are ready to go live we simply point their Domain from Go Daddy or wherever it is registered to the new site.

To be totally upfront, I am an affiliate for bluehost and get a fee for each person that gets hosting using my link. But I signed up twenty people before I ever set that up and I would refer to them with or without it.

One great thing about bluehost is that they are located in Utah and have the best ever tech support. They answer your calls within the first minute or two and are a delight to talk to. I met a bunch of them at WordCamp San Francisco this year and that was fun. They have taught me a whole lot over the years.

Hope that helps you!

via Zazzle.com

I hope you had a relaxing Labor Day weekend with friends and family.  I was worried that my weekend might have a lot more emphasis on the labor part than the relaxing part. Recently, a plugin called Tim Thumb, built into a lot of WordPress themes to help with dynamic image resizing,  was found to have a security flaw causing WordPress sites that included it, to be hacked.

Last week, I spent several days tracking down my client’s sites that incorporated the TimThumb plugin and repairing the problem.  I had a scare Friday late afternoon when several of these sites were running extremely slow which had me worried that they had been hacked.After several hours Friday evening, I discovered that none of these sites had been hacked and it was another plugin, Twitter Tools, that was slowing these sites down to a crawl. When I deleted Twitter Tools, all was well. What I had worried was going to take me all weekend to fix was resolved just like that. Poof. And I lived happily ever after. And so you don’t have to worry,  here are some tips to help you keep your site safe and secure.

Site Backups:

I routinely write about the need for backing up your WordPress websites. There are the theme files and the database files where the content is stored and all of that=t needs to be backed up. A lot of people use WP-DB backup and using that will help save your content if your site gets hacked or the server crashes or someone erases your site ( it has happened). But that plugin alone will not back up your theme files that may of you have spent time or money or both to modify to create your own branded look. It would be a shame to lose them.  You can learn to back your sites theme files up to your computer yourself through FTP. Or, if you are not inclined to fool with that kind of technical house cleaning, look into using a plugin called Backup Buddy or a service called VaultPress. There is a charge, but they will back up everything on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and give you peace of mind.

Versions: Keep Current

Once you have your site backed up, you must update your plugins and upgrade the WordPress software when it tells you on your dashboard that there are new versions. WordPress and Plugin developers are always working to not only increase functionality but also to provide security patches when vulnerabilities are discovered.

Plugins: Prime Suspects

The first thing to check when your site is not working quite right is your Plugins. Disable your plugins, one by one,  and see if the problem is resolved. Start with the plugins that you may have added recently or that run a j-query script or that interact with an outside application, like Twitter Tools does. If everything had been going fine. You could expect that it might have been a plugin that was upgraded recently.  It might have been changed in some way that it was working before but now causing issues.

As an extra precaution and as good site maintenance, get rid of plugins that you are not using. Go through your plugins and deactivate one that you think is not being utilized. Check your site and  if everything is working right, delete it. Often we get carried away with all of the things plugins can do. But in this case Less is More.

Themes : Use them or Lose them

Delete any themes that you are not using. In the case of the Tim Thumb hack, even if the active theme did not use the TimThumb plugin, the hackers could get into the site through a nonactive theme that had been uploaded.  Often we try out a bunch of themes before settling on one we like. So go ahead and clean house and get rid of those that are sitting around. You can always load them up again if you need them again.

If you are thinking about redesigning your website here are some of the posts on my site that can help you understand the opportunity you have to choose the best technology today. Small businesses today need to choose a WordPress website that is easy for them to manage themselves and lets them use it as the hub of all of their Marketing and Social Media to grow their businesses. Here are some selected references from my site that can help bring you up to speed on what’s possible.

Why you should use WordPress

Build a Website for People to Know Like and Trust You.

New Tricks  Portfolio

One of my client’s Todd Semrau, of Urban Eats is a restaurant consultant ( he has a WordPress website that we did for him) I wrote a guest post on his site recently  on the things that people should consider in website design for restaurants.

If you need any other information, just let me know.

When someone comes to your website, you have about 3-5 seconds for them to “get” whether they want to stay or leave. I  believe that part of their assessment is whether or not they can ” know, like and trust ” you  through your website.  I have found that several factors go into building this first impression with your potential and your current clients.

1. The overall appearance of your website is one of the biggest factors. Your site must be professional and/or visually appealing in a way that reflects your type of business and your business in particular. This begins to build trust. You have had the experience of going to a site that is not updated or professional and getting off of it fast. Most likely it reflected how you felt they would be as a company. The look of the Web site is crucial to being able to have time to convert a visitor into a consumer of your information and then a customer. It is important that your web designer understands how to build sites and has a portfolio of visually appealing websites for the type of business that you are in.
2. The second factor that builds up trust is Useability. How easy it is to find information within your site and how easy it is to use the site to accomplish their goal. Keep the word “navigation”  in mind. If a web user has to search all over and becomes frustrated with the site they will leave. It is your responsibility as a business owner to make the site is as easy to use as possible. People, by nature, will not work harder than they have to and often it is easier to just leave a Web site and find one that is easy to navigate.
3. The  third factor that builds trust is the text. Web design is not just about the website, but also how easy it is to  read the text. Have you ever found a great article but it was on a black background with small text. What were they thinking? Even if I wanted to read it, I get frustrated and angry and leave.  The text needs to be accessible and laid out well. Another thing about text is often people have text on their sites front page that is too long or not laid out in a way that is web readable. Be careful about this since people don’t really read the small print!

With the new web design technologies all businesses can have an affordable and attractive website. Please don’t go to your sister-in- laws nephew. Hire a professional and get a WordPress website and learn how to take care of it yourself. You will reap the rewards of this investment for years to come when visitors to your site feel like they can Know, Like and Trust you.

Guest contributer, John Bennison, Principal at Bennison Associates and former VP of Product Development at Skywire Software (now Oracle) has quickly become one of New Tricks’ BFF.  John has contributed his extraordinary small business coaching and technical skills to the New Tricks growing world empire.   See the end of the post for John’s bio.

• Are you a freelance photographer during the day but make the cutest little doggie purses at night? You need a single website that lets people find both of you – without displaying symptoms of a multiple personality disorder.

• How about a small business owner who paid gobs of money for a website that’s been promising ‘Under Construction – Coming Soon’ since Y2K? You need a website you can define and maintain – without hiring a cadre of coders, or becoming one yourself.

• Or, maybe your boutique bakery already has a website but needs a way to let your customers know that you’ve just taken the most sinful chocolate cake out of the oven and they’d better hurry over to your shop before it’s gone.  Good news, like good food, is best served fresh.

• Perhaps you are job hunting? You need a website that shows off your bad self and your good work — to showcase your authority in your field.  Every project you do is a potential promotion if you post it on your site.

Small businesses adapt or die.  Change is the one constant.  Your website should set the pace, not lag behind.  A website stakes your claim.  It helps you build and furnish your business’ place in space (Cyberspace, that is.)  Getting your site onto the web is the modern equivalent of getting your product onto the shelves.  It’s not an optional part of the plan.

Whoever you are, chances are if that if you’re ready to blow some Benjamins, you’ll want to blow away the completion as well.

The answer my friend, is blowing in ….. well, WordPress

Websites that adapt and evolve – hosting dynamic content and plugging into social networks – weren’t easy with first generation website development tools.  But there’s been a quiet revolution in the Blogosphere and blogging tools have crossed over into mainstream websites -it changes everything.  More and more businesses are using WordPress for their web-sites. WordPress isn’t just blogging software any longer. NO it has grown from a blog  for letting others know about your fishing trip to Alaska, sharing recipes or ranting about politics anymore. Many companies, including the US Government, are using blog engines to drive all types of websites these days.  And for small businesses there are huge benefits.

Why use WordPress to power your second generation web site?

WordPress sites started out as blog sites. The word Blog came from the combination of web and log. Now WordPress has evolved to provide an easy and versatile framework on which to publish all kinds of content. Non-coders can easily do lots of cool things with a WordPress site like embed video or audio or photo galleries in your posts and incorporate a blog as a base for a podcast, add widgets and nifty plugins or interactive tools. And the open-source WordPress has grown to offer much more than basic blogging, such as  content management websites, multi- user sites, mailing lists, discussion groups, newsletter services and shopping carts.

Sites built on a WordPress platform can be furnished with static pages so that they are indistinguishable from a traditional website.  But they can also show off all the latest capabilities of a burgeoning technology.  Best of all, you maintain control – you can set the tone and tune it to match your style, your business, and your priorities.  Nobody even has to know it’s a blog on the inside.

WordPress sites are Budget Friendly

WordPress software is Open Source. That’s techie speak for cheap and easy.  WordPress, is actually free.  There’s very little set-up cost for you to get up and running.  Just a domain name (great, if you already have one), webhosting (think of it as the office space for your website) and a theme which can be customized and should be customized to reflect your unique brand.

Since WordPress is open source it also has a thriving community of developers constantly improving the software and creating plugins to expand the functionality. It’s sort of like having your own world wide web of developers all working for you – for free.

Building your website on an open source WordPress engine gives you a huge and growing set of built-in features and capabilities, with no licensing cost.

No coding required

The bane of first generation websites was that they required a technologist between you and your site.  You either had to hire one, or become one.   And if you kept your site half-way current, that meant an ongoing relationship with the bits, bytes, and bolts.   WordPress does for website design what iPods did to music collecting: get the technology out of the way.  The new tools let you run your site like you run your business.  You can delegate to your staff, outsource projects, or roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.

Social Networking

Social Networking is about creating conversations with your customers. “Word of mouth advertising” becomes whispering into the ear of the Internet.  Social Networking harnesses the energy of your customers, and feeds it back into your site –  keeping the content on your website fresh and updated. People will want to come back to check out what’s new.  And they’ll help you define, refine, and promote your image – for free!

Structured change, and living history

Websites built with WordPress allow you to have time-driven content and make it easy to manage that content – storing  posted items with categories, tags  and dates.  Customers can subscribe to your site, so they can be updated every time you cyber-speak to them. Sites with inherent blog capabilities are also easily integrated with other Social Networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and RSS Feeds.

Talk may be cheap but it is certainly effective.

Search Engines Love Websites built on database engines

Because it is built on a database, each item on a blog-enabled websites can have an individual “permalink” which is it own unique web address. This allows the web content to be accessed by a search engines, even years later.  This means whenever someone Googles ‘cute dog purses’ your site is more likely to appear at the top of the list.

Database platform websites like WordPress also allow for comments and user participation, which is becoming the standard for how individuals get involved in the companies they do business with.

Fired up, ready to go? Give New Tricks a call. We’ll show you ‘It’s Never Too Late!’ to learn new tricks.

About our guest Blogger:

John Bennison, is a Principal at Bennison Associates, an Atlanta-based Entrepreneurial Software Development company.  John co-founded Micro Dynamics Limited, a document imaging and content management solution which was flipped up the corporate later (taking John along as VP of Corporate Development) until being acquired by Skywire Software (now Oracle).

Prior to founding Micro Dynamics, John mastered the art of mentoring and listening  as  Assistant Director of Computer Operations, User Services, and administration of the academic Computer Center of Brown University. John holds a BA in Math from Amherst College.