Online Empire Academy

Web Development

The Blog Project Template That I Use

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When it  comes to web development, my ideal type of project is a blog or website that is not necessarily geared toward e-commerce.  Unfortunately, things can either get very complicated with most “project templates” that are out there for developers, but they can also get pretty vague.

Keeping things a little looser than norml is a great way to be creative and build a relationship with your client.  All that being said, here is the template that I use for all of my blogs/sites that I develop for clients.  All of these are to-dos in Basecamp:

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Brainstorming and Innovating

Related milestone: Preliminary Requirements Development

  • What is the site's name? And slogan?
  • If you could communicate only one message to visitors, what would it be? (One clear, simple concise thought. No run on sentences.)
  • Find 5 sites that best fit the look and feel of the new site.
  • Who is the target audience? (we can discuss)
  • What is the primary “action” the site visitor should take when coming to your site (make a purchase, become a member, search for information)

Design Brief

Related milestone: Preliminary Requirements Development

  • Site Structure / Flow Diagram Pro Sulum, LLC
  • Upload/email logo, picture and other important graphics
  • List of “call to action” buttons/sections (Join us, Buy Now..)

Development Server Setup

Everything related to the test site.

Related milestone: Preliminary Requirements Development

  • Setup test site. Create add-on domain/directory. Install CMS if required.
  • Post details about the test site. URL, login details for demo users.

Wireframing and Concept sketch

This is where we doodle around.

Related milestone: Design and Mockups

  • Create wireframes/sketch
  • Home page wireframe approved
  • Single post wireframes approved
  • blog index wireframe approved

PSD Mockups

The site should begin to take shape by now 🙂

Related milestone: Design and Mockups

  • Homepage Mockups
  • Inside Page Mockup
  • Blog Index Mockups
  • All Mockups Approved

Convert Mockup to WordPress Theme

Related milestone: Development

  • Code Homepage
  • Code Single post page
  • Code sidebar
  • Code navigation
  • Code footer
  • Create admin options page
  • Code feature area

Styling of site elements

Related milestone: Development

  • Headers (h1-h6)
  • Lists
  • Links
  • Blockquotes
  • Default images

Setup Production Server

Related milestone: Deployment

  • Get FTP Account
  • Download required files from test site
  • Upload required files to production site.

SEO Setup

Got most of these from here

  • In WP Settings —> General make these changes: Site Title = Main KW, Site Description = Description including main KW. Email should be youremail@email.com. Timezone = YourTimezone.
  • In Posts —> Categories, change the default “Uncategorized” category to the main KW phrase. Then do a Wonder Wheel search and find the other categories to add.
  • In WP Settings —> Permalinks change it to Custom Structure, use /%postname%/
  • In WP Settings —> Discussion change it so an admin must always approve a comment.
  • Remove all default Blogroll links from Dashboard
  • Google Analytics installed & configured w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/
  • Mobile version enabled & configured w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/
  • Multiple languages enabled & configured w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/global-translator/
  • Akismet installed & activated (key is XXXXXX)
  • All In One SEO Pack installed & configured w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
  • Caching installed / enabled w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
  • Captcha for comments enabled w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/
  • Related posts displaying at the bottom of individual post pages w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/
  • Digg Dig Installed for social sharing.
  • Archives page built ( linked to in sidebar w/ Sitemap ) using http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/clean-archives-reloaded/
  • Install & activate SEO friendly images @ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-image/ – in it’s setting, check both “Override” boxes to override WP defaults
  • Install & activate SEO Smart Links @ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-automatic-links/
  • Install & activate To Title Case: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/to-title-case/
  • User sitemap built w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sitemap-generator/ . Link to the sitemap at the bottom of the sidebar.
  • Google XML Sitemap installed, configured, built w/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
  • URL & XML Sitemap added to Google Webmaster Tools account

How to Make Money Through Web Hosting Without Being a Web Host

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I realize that not everyone that reads this blog is a web developer, but it should still be interesting to read just in case this method works for your particular niche!

I get asked a lot about my web development business by people who want to do the same.  One of the questions that often comes up is how I go about charging my customers for web hosting?  Well, I don't.  In fact, the last thing I would ever, ever, ever want to do again is try to make money hosting my client's website.  However,  I do still make money through web hosting.  How's that you ask?  Well… here's how.

Shared hosting is not very lucrative for web designers

I was so excited when I got my first few web clients.  Not only did I not have to work on-site for a company, I was able to do something fun!  I also had the opportunity to make annual recurring income by subletting the hosting that I used out to my clients.   That's right, a whopping $90 extra a year baby!  Or so I thought…

It didn't take long to see that trying to be a web host was a big mistake.  The site would go down, I was called to fix it.  Customers wanted a backup of their site, I had to go and do it for them.  Things broke, I was the one who had to fix them.

It sucked…

The time value of money

Now, at the time of writing this post – my consulting rate per hour is $150 and my development rate is $80.  Hopefully you can see where I am going…

Why would I want to spend 3 hours trying to find out why a server is down when the hosting company could be doing it?  Sure, I could charge my client but that'd be unethical in my mind since they'd get that service included in a normal hosting plan.

The price of having someone host with me and the hours spent helping them with things I really have no control over doesn't add up.

How I don't host and still make money with hosting

Rather than hosting a site in order to generate revenue – become an affiliate.  Nearly all hosts have an affiliate system set up and it's a great way to create a little side income as a bi-product of what you already are going to do anyway.

Here's my process:

  • The client signs with me to create a site.
  • My team goes to work on the design.
  • If they don't have hosting: Before the deployment phase (when they are going to get their site) I send them an email letting them know that they need to set up their hosting.  In the email I give them an affiliate link to Bluehost (and let them know it's an affiliate link and would really help me out if they used the link.  <– Just like this one, ha!).  They love me so they click-through the link, and then I get an extra $90 (you have to use Commission Junction for this rate).
  • If they have hosting, but it's crap (99% of the time they have Godaddy): I let them know that I recommend Bluehost since their customer service is amazing and their overall hosting is great.  I send them the link.  If they agree, I get $90.

Either way they will be spending the same amount of money on hosting.  Plus, this way they get taken care by an awesome shared hosting company and you don't have to do the support.

So now, armed with this knowledge go forth and make some extra money and spend the time you'd be spending on support on more important things like sales.  (Not that customer service isn't important.  It just isn't important when you don't need to be the one providing it).

Have any cool tips like this for other small business tasks?  Let me know in the comments!

How to Quickly Link Your Content for Good SEO

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Blogging is tough.  It's even tougher when you blog to keep people reading more of your content.  In other words, when people (or search engines come to your site, you want to ensure that they are able to find other content that they might find interesting.  The more great content they see, the more loyalty and community you'll develop.

Now, you could have your virtual assistant go through all of your posts and link them together, or you can do it an even easier way.


My Ultimate List of WordPress Plugins That You Absolutely Must Have

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Not really.

I meant to do this post about two weeks ago, but it's better late than never.  There are tons of these types of posts out there, but oh well.

Here are my list of plugins that I use on this site and nearly all sites that I (or my virtual assistants) create:

Akismet – No brainer.  It's by far the best spam protection that you can get for your blog.  Without it, having a blog gets really annoying – really fast.

All-in-one SEO Pack – Essential for out-of-the-box SEO for WordPress.  I've been using this plugin for years and it works great.  However, knowing how to configure it can be a little intimidating.  Luckily, here is a really good video (albeit outdated) that gives a great tutorial on SEO and how to configure the plugin: http://www.craigfifield.com/all-in-one-seo.htm

Blubrry Powerpress – A great plugin for podcasting.  Plays really nice with iTunes and has a built-in statistics system that you can configure.

Broken Link Checker – As you start blogging, you'll start to see that some of the resources you link to start to die off.  This little plugin helps you to find them without spending hours scouring through your posts.  If it find a dead link, it'll cross it out.  Pretty cool sweet.

cbnet Ping Optimizer – By default WordPress pings sites on your ping list whenever you update a post.  This stops that so you don't get branded as a ping spammer.  Not sure how valuable it is since I've never been marked as a ping spammer without it.

Digg Digg – a social media sharer that let's you put social media icons in your post or float them off to the side.  A little bit buggy sometimes, but I like it.

Contact form 7 – The most popular and best supported WordPress form.  Not too intuitive to use at first.  However, when you get used to the shortcodes that it uses, it's pretty awesome to see what you can do with it.

Google XML Sitemaps – Automatically creates an XML sitemap for Google and other search engines.  In essence, it's an easy way to tell Google that you've updated your site and give them a link structure.  Google likes that and will reward you with faster indexing and better ranking.

Insights – Adds a search area underneath the post editor that allows you to easily find and link to posts, Wikipedia, Google, etc.  Helps a great deal with internal linking within the body of your post.

IntenseDebate – A commenting plugin.  The reason why I like it so much is because, when users post a comment with the normal WP commenting system, the only way they'll know that you replied is if they come back to the same post.  But with IntenseDebate, when you reply it send an email to the users.  This means that they are more likely to respond and keep the conversation going.

Mailchimp – Aside from being an awesome and free email newsletter service, Mailchimp has a pretty cool widget program that you can customize for email newsletter sign up.

Maintenance Mode – Let's me work on my site without letting everyone see what I am doing.

Maxblogpress Affiliate Ninja – Let's you cloak your affiliate links and make them look prettier.  I really like the plugin, but I highly suggest that if you are going to use it, create a disclaimer page that let's your readers know that you get money from some of the links that you recommend.  It's just good and honest business.

Meet Your Commentors – Whenever someone comments on your site, it shows you all of their social network profiles on the WP dashboard.  Great to build relationships.

No Self Pings – I hate when you link to another post on your blog and you get a pingback for it.  This stops that.

Quick Cache – A lightweight caching plugin that protects you from server crashes when you get too many visitors.

Scribe SEO – This little plugin analyzes my blog posts to make sure that I am writing them correctly for the seach engines.  Typically, I use this to train my virtual assistants on how to do On-Page SEO.  I just tell them the keywords I want them to target, and that their post should be 100% SEO ready.

SEO Smart Links – Let's you create keywords that will automatically link to internal and external posts.  Great for when you have a podcast and have your virtual assistants creating transcripts.  That way they don't have to waste time finding and inserting links.

Subscribe Sidebar – creates a list of ways people can subscribe to your podcast or blog RSS feed.

Tweet Old Post – I LOVE this plugin.  It lets you automatically promote your old posts on Twitter.  You can configure it to tweet in various intervals, and how old posts need to be that you want tweeted.  It's a great way to get re-tweets.

WordPress.com Stats – Just another stats plugin.  I like it because it's instantaneous, unlike Google Analytics.

WordPress Database Backups – Backs up your posts and comments. Best part about it is that you can schedule your backups.  However, it does not backup your theme.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Great way to introduce readers to similar posts.  Plus, it helps with your internal linking.

That's it!  I'll add more to this posts I find more valuable plugins, or reasons why I've deleted some.  Let me know if what plugins you think work well in the comments!

009 STBS: How to Easily Add Social Icons to WordPress

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Transcript of episode:  Click here to read

Have you ever been frustrated at trying to add social bookmarking icons to your WordPress blog?  Well, you are not alone, trust me.  I recently helped a friend of mine, Ted Nguyen build a WordPress website from scratch using a killer WooTheme.  Unfortunately, Ted is a real go getter and spent 5 hours trying to figure out how to go about adding some cool social media icons to the sidebar of his blog.

Well, because of this funny fiasco, I decided to create this video showing how to easily add social networking icons to the sidebar of your WordPress blog without having to know any code whatsoever.  All you need is a couple of icons (we used some from sixrevisions.com), and a little knowledge of how to leverage WordPress' visual editor and widgets.

Here are the step-by-step instructions:

  1. Essentially, you start off by uploading all of the icons that you want to use into your blog's media library.
  2. You insert the ones that you want to use into the visual editor used for posts and pages. *UPDATE*: Make sure that you select “Left” for alignment.
  3. Modify the height and width you want using the visual editor's resize capability.
  4. Once you've done that, you click over to the HTML tab, and all of the HTML is there for the taking.
  5. Copy all of that code and head on over to the widget area of your theme under the “Appearance” tab.
  6. Bring up a text widget drop it into the area of the sidebar that you want to use.
  7. Add some header text (or don't).
  8. Paste the code into the text widget.
  9. Then you are done!

How's that for an easy 9-step process.  I apologize for the lack of images, but the video explains it all in grueling detail.  Keep in mind that the mouse curse is a little off for some reason.

If you have any questions for the podcast or blog, please don't hesitate to ask.  Let me know if this was helpful in the comments.  If you listen to the podcast in iTunes, send me some good reviews if you like it!

002 STBS: WordPress as a Powerful Business Tool

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Transcript of episode:  Click here to read

WordPress is king, at least in this episode. I discuss how you can use WordPress in various ways to improve your business or your career. For those that don't know, WordPress is a free “blogging platform” that has become the standard for delivering content on the web.  While I don't go into a step-by-step tutorial on how to use it for your business, I go through an overview of things that you can do to leverage its capabilities for your business.  Here are some of the topics:

  • If you are a small business owner, using it for your business website can increase your web presence at almost no cost.
  • You can build an entire business for under $200 using the free blogging platform and an online shopping cart.
  • If you are a full-time employee, with a cheap domain name (I use Namecheap, they tend to be very reasonable. And yes, it's an affiliate link because I love them) and your own hosted site, you can really have an edge over your competition.
  • You can also earn tons of money on the side by helping people with specific needs (i.e. building themes and plugins).

I've been using WordPress for about 5 years now, and the best part about it is that you can not only build a gorgeous company site, it's easily updated. For those that don't understand the importance of updating your site, search engines like Google LOVE when you consistently have new content to search.   That means you'll get indexed more quickly and are likely going to have a higher page rank.  Couple that with good SEO practices, and you'll have a steady stream of new people visiting your site through organic searches.

If you have any comments or questions relating to WordPress, or just in General, don't hesitate to let me know below.  You can also leave voicemail feedback at 714-643-5301.  Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @DeanSoto