WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Randall West

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com?

The question comes up, sooner or later, when talking with potential clients – why not just use WordPress.com?

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com? The Short Answer:

WordPress.com is not a general-purpose WordPress hosting solution. It is a blogging community, and thus it covers only a small part of the WordPress capacity. Most of the WordPress sites we build are for small businesses, and therefore we use the self hosted version.

In fact, there are many hosting companies that allow, or even optimize for WordPress. There are small and larger differences between these companies, which will be the subject of another post. We, at TapSuccess, have used half a dozen hosts. In considering WordPress.org vs WordPress.com, we have decided to answer this question here. We are now recommending our own managed hosting solution.

Here’s a technical comparison of WordPress.org vs WordPress.com.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com? The Longer Answer:

There are many reasons why you might want to host your blog or simple site on WordPress.com. As a blogging community, WordPress.com is designed to get you engagement from the millions of other WordPress.com users, through promoting topics on your blog’s dashboard, recommending other blogs, and making your homepage a list of blogs rather than just your blog.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com? Some of the benefits:

* Built-in email subscription and social sharing features, including twitter feeds, facebook like boxes, etc.
* Lots of nice-looking themes whose CSS you can customize if you dare
Themes like P2 can be used to create an simple discussion group
* The right plugins for publishing a blog, with video embeds, statistics, anti-spam and lots more
* Pretty good documentation and tutorials for working with the site
* You don’t have to maintain or update the WordPress software

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

Defy Your DNA

If your business site is basically a brochure, contact form, and blog, then WordPress.com can work for you. For only a little bit of money you can buy a theme like LifeStyle or OnDemand and have a very nice homepage that’s more than a list of your latest posts or a simple page.

Lots of people and small organizations will create a website using some other tool, and add a WordPress blog, which you can host on WordPress.com. WordPress.org vs WordPress.com. It’s a great way to make connections. But…

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com? WordPress.com is not for running a business

There are a few things that make WordPress.con unsuitable for maintaining a general-purpose business site:
* You’re not supposed to sell anything directly from your site (according to the TOS) unless you’ve made it with your own two hands. Advertising is limited and certain affiliate links are also not allowed. Also, you can’t charge for membership.
* No ability to put event calendars, shopping carts, or iFrames into your site. So no newsletter signups (unless you want to link users to a form hosted elsewhere, or WordPress.com decides to integrate w/ that service), no Facebook Wall, no Paypal buttons (links to Paypal.com are allowed), no embedded Google Calendars and Forms, etc….
* At the moment, WordPress.com also doesn’t have the ability to control SEO features like page titles and descriptions (though this may be available w/ one of the premium themes).
* Automattic (the parent company that owns the WordPress software) can change the behavior of things, sometimes arbitrarily (they did this a year or so ago, when all of a sudden tags on my blog linked to everyone’s tagged posts, not just mine). This is usually beneficial, because they are adding features, but can be alarming or unpleasant if you’re not planning for it.
* No support for custom post types or the ability to customize the admin dashboard beyond turning things off.

Deny Your DNA sells books, and blogs about interesting things on their site
Most of the sites we build are for small businesses or freelancers who want an event calendar (with an actual calendar, not a page that you have to update or posts that you can only order chronologically). Many people also want to include a PayPal button or sell downloadable content or create business listings.

Some of of our design-oriented customers also want to be able to have particular slideshows or portfolio viewers, which are not available on WordPress.com. And some want to configure different sidebars in different parts of their sites.

All of these things can be done with a self-hosted WordPress site, which means that you install the software and customize it as much as you want. Fortunately, there are zillions of options for you to pursue at almost every price point.

At the “State of the Word” WordCamp SF 2012, Matt Mullenweg (the author of the WordPress software) said that the direction of WordPress is headed towards being an application engine, rather than just a content management tool. This means that we’ll start to see a greater and greater number of storefronts, social networks, and interactive applications that use WordPress. Most of these will not be hosted at WordPress.com.

Posted in Getting Started, Online business, Our Hosting Services, Products, Sell Your Services, WebSite, WordPress | Leave a comment

Customizing Skeleton Theme Footer

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Randall West

Downloading New Skeleton theme is easy. Customizing skeleton is also easy – and necessary, IMHO. New Skeleton is a responsive WordPress theme based on the Skeleton Boilerplate. It has several useful shortcodes, such as tabs, toggles, cross-browser CSS3 buttons, and layout columns. It also includes a bbPress skin/stylesheet and sample child theme. The New Skeleton uses simple (read feature), html5 css3 and jquery tools that make it very desirable. Simply removing the .png makes the link bigger, so modifying the code is necessary.

It also phones home. Without mincing words, this is unacceptable.

Customizing skeleton is also easy - and necessary, IMHO.

Customizing skeleton is also easy – and necessary, IMHO.

Customizing WordPress

There are zillions of WordPress themes these days. Many are paid, many more are free. There are reasons not to use a free WordPress theme, unless you get it through wordpress.org, but that’s a topic for another post. For now, lets stay with the Skeleton theme.

Customizing Skeleton Footer

There’s something that we needed to change in order to use the code. That is, take off the ads for the theme author. I don’t mind helping someone. I don’t mind giving recognition where it’s due, and I will do so here. Skeleton was created by Casey Lee at Simple Themes (http://www.simplethemes.com). What I don’t like is sneaky little ads without my knowledge or permission. Casey, you are welcome to correct me if I’m wrong here.

Having been a photographer, I have mixed feelings about copyright. On the first hand, the people who do the work should receive the credit. On the other hand, we don’t like other people’s name on something so personal. Customizing skeleton is a good way to get started.

Here’s what I mean. If you go to the demo page for this theme, http:demos.simplethemes.com/skeleton look for the “Resize” arrow in the bottom right corner. If you hover over an area near the bottom of the page and just to the left of this graphic, you will see an almost imperceptable image with a hyperlink for simplethemes.com. In the modern InternetWorld, backlinks are currency. If you’re like most people, you will want to get this off your new site. If you don’t mind posting links for other folks, consider posting one for me, TapSuccess, LLC (tapsuccess.com).

Here’s how to customize skeleton:

This part is essential. To customize skeleton, open your text editor like BBEdit or TextWrangler and open functions.php (first in the main folder, then again in the child theme folder) and search for “themeauthor”. Right behind this term, you will find the php code for the hyperlink to simplethemes. The simplest way to change this is just point the code to another site. Again, you can point it to your site. Again, if you want to, you can use mine, TapSuccess, LLC. Save both files.

Customizing Skeleton Theme Footer

This next part is optional, but a good idea. Next you want to customize skeleton’s logo image. Open Photoshop and open images > icons > stlogo.png. It’s a very small image with light grey type on a transparent background. Again, you will probably need to do this for both the main theme and the child theme. Simply make an image the same size with your name, or TapSuccess, LLC. Save it in the same folder to overwrite and replace the original. Be sure to upload these files if you have already installed your theme. That’s it. Enjoy your new theme.

Posted in Building Your Web Store, Ethics, Getting Started, Products, WebSite, WordPress | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Customizing WordPress TwentyTwelve Footer

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Randall West

We all love WordPress. We all love customizing WordPress. We pay homage with every new update. We also love customizing the footer. Customizing WordPress 2012 footer isn’t any different. Nowhere as challenging as customizing the Skeleton footer, tho. If you’re a newbie, you can try this: open footer.php in your ftp client and change:

'http://wordpress.org/',
to
'http://tapsuccess.com/',
and change
< ?php printf( __( 'Powered by %s', 'twentytwelve' ), 'WordPress' ); ?>
to
< ?php printf( __( 'Powered by %s', 'twentytwelve' ), 'TapSuccess, LLC' ); ?>

That should be enough to begin.

Here’s how I did this for another site. It’s not finished. I have a facade in place until I finish the site inside, so there are two links. One for the outside and one for the inside. Actually, what I now do is make my own customer footer, including Terms, Privacy, and Sitemap links along with my own copyright notice. To keep the year current, I use a simple php code for the current year. These are just part of building out the site for your client. You can do this, too. We all know standard practices are good for everyone, like building a child theme. Just copy this code below:
< ?php echo date("Y") ?>

Customizing WordPress example - Defy Your DNA is a new book

Defy Your DNA

http://defyyourdnabook.com/

Customizing WordPress

Having been a photographer, I have mixed feelings about copyright. On the first hand, I did the work and I should have my name on it. On the backhand, we use it, we love it, and we customize is. We feel intimate with our WordPress and the theme that represents our identity.

Customizing WordPress TwentyTwelve Footer

The TwentyTwelve theme is wonderful. Elegant, sleek, stylish and nice under the hood, too. Lots of work went into this puppy. Not completely the reason the 2012 theme was delivered in December. Just three weeks from an apparent deadline. Car manufacturers can push the date early with late models, so I guess we shouldn’t begrudge WordPress for pushing the deadlines back.

Posted in Best Practices, Building Your Web Store, Products | Leave a comment

iPad Mini Helps Apple Set New Sales Record

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Randall West

Apple has something new to brag about. Three million iPads sold in 3 days. The announcement came after the launch of Apple’s iPad Mini. It’s not unusual for Apple to brag after a launch weekend. To put that into perspective, that’s double the sales posted in the opening weekend of the iPad 3 back in March.

Apple iPad Min Sets New Sales Record

According to Apple’s press release, that 3 million includes all of the iPad models currently in the lineup. That includes the iPad Mini, iPad 2 and the iPad 4 with Retina display. That’s definitely good news for Apple, but what does it really mean for the iPad Mini?

Apple iPad Mini

The fact that Apple didn’t single out the sales numbers from the iPad Mini may be significant. Instead, the press release quoted CEO Tim Cook, saying that Apple “practically sold out of iPad minis.” That could mean that Apple’s analysts are really good at their jobs. It could also mean that Apple didn’t have a large supply for their initial launch. It doesn’t mean iPad Minis were an unmitigated success.

We’ve seen mixed reviews about the Mini. The “regular” screen resolution has definitely been a common gripe from reviewers. Customers used to the retina display and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber have complained. Amazon sure didn’t pull any punches on its homepage, either. On the other hand, being a hand-held size is apparently the sweet spot for tablets and will keep Apple in that niche.

Apple iPad Mini

Clearly, it’s the Mini that most of us in the marketing world are concerned with because it’s designed to compete with other mid-sized tablets like the Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7. The battle for tablet supremacy is HUGE because it will determine how sites will be optimized. And, it will determine who has the rights to sell licensing for their development. In this context, the revenue from the initial product is less important than the upgrades that will come later.

People will standardize their sites based on the majority of visitors. Manufacturers will not want a repeat of the Macintosh vs Windoze war. Apple essentially created the desktop publishing market with the Graphical User Interface. When Microsoft imitated the Mac, it was a no-brainer for those who already owned an IBM clone. Windows looked the same. Why buy a new machine for thousands of dollars when they could buy a new OS for hundreds?

The same is true with tablets. Businesses are already making their sites “responsive” to smaller “smart phone” screens. They will standardize their websites for the majority of tablet visitors, too. Manufacturers will optimize their tablets to follow the standard size site.

Currently, if your site is optimized for iOS and Android, you’re basically all set. Microsoft has tried seven times to enter the mobile market without success. Surface, their latest venture into the tablet market, has received mixed reviews. Microsoft is just now making a large tablet when Apple is going smaller. For many, Microsoft has lost it’s luster and this contribution is too little too late. Consider that just the iPhone made more ($74 billion) than all of Microsoft ($72 billion) last year.

Apple iPad Mini Sets New Sales Record.

For more information…

Posted in Android, Building for Smart Phones, iPhone, iPhone Tips, Online business, Other Mobiles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Increase Traffic Backlinks

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Randall West

One of the biggest issues for online businesses is getting visitors, usually called traffic. Building websites is only the beginning of the road to sales. The next step is to increase traffic backlinks. That is, to increase your standing by getting other websites to link to yours.

This reminds me of the rhetorical question: “If a tree falls in the forrest, does it make a sound if no one is there to hear it?” Well, of course it makes a sound. But in this case, do you have an online business if you don’t have any visitors to your website? The answer to this question may be different. The best way to increase traffic backlinks is to ask for them. The second best way is Digi Traffic Generator.

Increase Traffic Backlinks with Digi Traffic Generator.

Increase Traffic Backlinks

Many people want to increase traffic backlinks. If you’re one of the more than 50,000 people who’ve been keeping up with Andy Fletcher’s Traffic Acceleration course, I’m sure you were just as pumped as I was to learn he was developing software that would automate the whole process. Even if you’ve not been keeping up with it, I think you’d agree anything that builds over 500 backlinks at the push of a button is a pretty sweet deal. At least, until someone figures out how to stop it.

Get ready for some good news. Because Digi Traffic Generator is about to be released. By focusing ONLY on high-traffic, high-value sites, Digi Traffic Generator gets you the most from every backlink. Now you can increase traffic backlinks easily.
• Which means more eyes on your content…
• More people knowing your name…
• More customers ready to buy from you!

All you do is provide the content and push the button. Digi Traffic Generator will promote your content across 600 high-traffic, high-visibility sites, driving traffic in 3 ways:
• Hundreds more backlinks getting your site a higher spot in Google, delivering far more organic traffic
• You tap into hundreds of high-traffic sources, sending people through your link directly to your site
• The sites are specially selected to be easy to share. Everyone who sees your content can tell their friends and send you viral.

Increase traffic backlinks

Posted in Find Clients, Getting Started, Online business, Products, Sell Your Services | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment