After creating your website, there are 10 things you should do to promote it to make sure it’s found.

 

1. Write your webpage titles and SEO descriptions

After creating your website, people won’t be able to find your site unless you do some preliminary Search Engine Optimization. Google has a great starter guide with info on writing meta tags, page titles and incorporating keywords. If you use WordPress, the Yoast plugin is a great option.

Make sure the site looks good on various devices. Use a browser extension like Chrome Developer Tools or the Chrome Window Resizer extension to view your pages on simulated devices like phones, tablets, and laptops, then correct what’s needed.

2. Write a launch story

After creating your website, you need to pitch it to an audience. Make sure you include these components in your story:

Headline — The headline should be brief, descriptive and contain useful info about your site including its’ purpose.

Short story — Include a brief paragraph about your website; what it offers, who you are and what you do, how you got started. Spell and grammar check everything.

Contact Info —Include basic details like the website URL, your name, title, location, and phone number. Add the links to your social media profiles such as Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook for verification and more info about you and your business.

3. Create visuals

Use some key images to identify your website for brand recognition, and for use when anyone blogs or posts about your website. Keep images small, no logos or lots of text. Keep it simple.

4. Use a press page

A press page is a web page where people go to read your story and download the key visuals. People who will write about your site will use this information. It’s basically a pre-written article about your site, so make sure it contains everything you want people to know.

Link to the press page when you pitch your site. The press page is your “news-hub” page.

5. Find bloggers and website editors

After creating your website, do some research to find bloggers and influencers that you want to write about your site.

Target particular blogs. Contact at least 30 people to pitch your website. This can be a time-consuming step, but the more pitches you make, the more likely that some of them will succeed.

Submit.co has an extensive list of places to pitch if you’re a start-up or tech-based business.

6. Create the pitch

After you’ve created your website, go ahead and make a list of people to send your pitch. Then it’s time to write. Make it short, interesting and well written. Spell and grammar check, always.

Put your headline in the email subject field, and summarize your website story in the body of the email. Be direct: ask them outright if they would write about your website. Include the link to the site and specifically to your press page.

Write an email to each person, using their name and include a reference to their website. Individualize it. Do not batch or write generic pitches.

For example:

“Hi Matt,

My name’s Diane and I’ve just launched a new online resource for creative entrepreneurs about how to have a wildly successful web presence: https://tipsandsnips.imageandaspect.com

I think your readers would benefit from it, and it would be great if you would tell them about it on your blog.

I’ve prepared a full post, including graphics here: https:// press page URL here

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks!

Diane

7. Find relevant websites

Research relevant forums and list-sites. Reddit, Hacker News, ProductHunt.com, and Designernews.co, are some examples of sites you might want to post on.

8. Post to the relevant sites

Post about your site in the relevant categories. Include the URL to your site as well as your sites info summary. If people like your site, they may hit ‘like’ or ‘upvote’ it, which will move it up in the rankings.

9. Write a blog post

After you’ve created your website, write a blog post on your website, then share the link on social media. A great way to do that is to use a key visual (visuals increase engagement) and share it along with the URL link to the post on social media channels like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and any others you use.

10. Pitch your site to your own social network

Announce your new site on your social network. Summarize the purpose of the site and provide a link to the landing page. Ask your connections to re-share the link.

Questions? 

[email protected]

My Contact Page

Other articles you might like:

-How your personal brand makes the difference

-Using images: Tips to improve your SEO rankings

-Use a customer thank-you page to avoid missed opportunities

 

About the author

I developed Image and Aspect because I believe that professionals need to have an impactful web presence. One that showcases their unique talents, skills, and abilities as well as their values and style. A presence that focuses on social engagement and connection.

I’m passionate about what I do; I like helping fellow humans, I like having all kinds of social connection with others, and I want to give back, to make the world a better place.

I do much of the designing and coding myself, and I also have a wonderful network of professionals that may contribute as well; photographers, copywriters, branding experts.

I love designing and coding beautiful, elegant and responsive web creations. I ALSO teach and help others who want to learn how to do it themselves.

‘Tips and Snips’ is my blog, and it’s full of information and inspiration to help transform any online persona from “meh” to AMAZING! Sign-up HERE to get blog posts right to your in-box every Friday! I write about Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Branding, Vlogging, Color Theory, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, WordPress, Social Media…anything you’d want to know to get yourself noticed online.

Visit Image and Aspect to learn more about your web presence options

Diane M. Metcalf, M.S.

To create a browser icon or favicon

One way os to make it from scratch with a program such as Canva, or drawing it with an online app like Favicon.cc. It has a preview feature which is great for seeing progress as you go.

I’ve recently learned from one of my readers that while favicon.cc does a good job, it’s limited in that it doesn’t allow for generating favicons for various screen sizes and resolutions at the same time.  She found a pretty sweet, free, online favicon generator at Websiteplanet and suggested that I mention it. With this particular tool, you can create favicons from JPG, PNG, GIF (or even from a gallery) that are up to 5 MB in size, and it also has the capability to generate favicons for different resolutions and screen sizes at the same time. (Thanks, Paola!)

Another way you can convert an existing image into an icon is by using FavIcon from Pics, another free online favicon generator. It’s also one I’ve tried, and works well, even when using it on a Smartphone.

Use a simple image along with the organization’s brand colors, to give the site some brand recognition. The logo might work as an icon image if it’s not too complicated. Since these icons are tiny, logo details won’t show.

PNG favicons are supported by most browsers.  For backwards compatibility, use ICO favicons.

Using HTML

To add a browser icon or favicon to a website by using HTML:

1. Save the icon image as imagename.ico, or imagename.jpg
2. Save imagename.ico or imagename.jpg to the root directory of the website.
3. To identify the favicon to web browsers, so they can display it correctly, you’ll need to add this code to the head tag:

<head>

<link rel=”icon” href=”http://website.com/imagename.jpg” />

Using WordPress

Prepare the image

The image needs to be 500 x 500 px in width and height. As mentioned before, keep the image simple.

Open Customizer in the WordPress Admin area

Go to Appearance > Customize.

Click “Site Identity” 

This is the area where you can edit the site title, description and also upload the browser icon.

Click “Select Image”

From Media Library > Upload Files, browse for the prepared image on your computer and upload it to the Media Library. WordPress allows cropping, but I think it works out best if  the image is already the recommended size before uploading.

Publish

Click Save & Publish.

Enjoy and let me know how it goes!

Questions? 

[email protected]

My Contact Page

Other articles you might like:

-How your personal brand makes the difference

-Using images: Tips to improve your SEO rankings

-Use a customer thank-you page to avoid missed opportunities

 

About the author

I developed Image and Aspect because I believe that professionals need to have an impactful web presence. One that showcases their unique talents, skills, and abilities as well as their values and style. A presence that focuses on social engagement and connection.

I’m passionate about what I do; I like helping fellow humans, I like having all kinds of social connection with others, and I want to give back, to make the world a better place.

I do much of the designing and coding myself, and I also have a wonderful network of professionals that may contribute as well; photographers, copywriters, branding experts.

I love designing and coding beautiful, elegant and responsive web creations. I ALSO teach and help others who want to learn how to do it themselves.

‘Tips and Snips’ is my blog, and it’s full of information and inspiration to help transform any online persona from “meh” to AMAZING! Sign-up HERE to get blog posts right to your in-box every Friday! I write about Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Branding, Vlogging, Color Theory, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, WordPress, Social Media…anything you’d want to know to get yourself noticed online.

Visit Image and Aspect to learn more about your web presence options

Diane M. Metcalf, M.S.

1. Export your database to the live server

On your local installation:

a.) Open phpMyAdmin, then click on the database that contains your WordPress installation. (Mine is dbwordpresswebsite)

b.) Click on the _options table. (Your prefix may vary. The default is wp_options.)

c.) Click on Browse.

d.) Change two rows in the table named siteurl and home. Sometimes they’re right next to each other, and sometimes not. In my case, they are.

(My URL points to http://localhost/wordpresswebsite while developing the site locally on my computer, in XAMPP. Now I need to point it to my live server, http://websitename.com.)

NOTE: If I had to install it in a subdomain, I would point it to: http://websitename.com/subdomain-folder-name

NOTE: Your local site will not work after you make this change. You can change the values back and it will work again.

e.) Go back to your database and click “Export”, then select “Custom”, “Save output to a file”, as below:

NOTE: If your server isn’t running a current version of MySQL, you may need to change “Database system or older MySQL server to maximize output compatibility with” and MYSQL40  set to NONE.

Select Go at the bottom, and your database will download (dbwordpresswebsite.sql in this example). Make note of the saved file’s location.

2. Import your database to the live server

a.) On your live server, go to MySQL and Create a new database

THESE NEXT STEPS ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. READ THROUGH THEM FIRST TO MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO.  DON’T SKIP ANY STEPS.

b.) Create a database user: You need a user to be able to connect to your new database.

c.) Give the new user full access to the new database you just created. 

(I always create 2 users with full access in case I have an issue logging-in with one of them.)

d.) Find the information for the username and password for MySql. It’s usually located with the FTP settings information. Make a note of this information so you can log in to the database successfully.

e.) Go to server PHPMyAdmin

Find the database you just created and import your saved database into it. (Choose the .sql file you saved in step 1.)

3. Upload your WordPress files to the server

Use Filezilla or another FTP transfer app. Copy all the WordPress files and folders to the correct server-directory, usually called “public”.

In this example, I’m going to transfer everything that’s inside of C://XAMPP/htdocs/wordpresswebsite to the “Public” folder on the web server.

4. Change your WordPress configuration wp-config.php file.

a.) Find the local copy of wp-config.php in the root of the local WordPress install, (in my case, it’s in XAMPP/htdocs/dbwordpresswebsite in the screenshot above).

b.) Open wp-config.php with a text editor. Make a copy of wp-config.php in case this first attempt doesn’t go well.

The original file looks like this:

/** The name of the database for WordPress */

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘dbwordpresswebsite’);

/** MySQL database username */

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root’);

/** MySQL database password */

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘root’);

c.) Change wp-config.php to match your server WordPress configuration.

Change these three options to match your live server database, user and password:

/** The name of the database for WordPress */

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘your-new-database-on-server’);

/** MySQL database username */

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘user-you-just-created-on-server’);

/** MySQL database password */

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password-you-created-for-user-to-log-in’);

define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); will most likely remain the same, but some hosts create a different host.

 

d.) Now upload the changed wp-config.php to the server and over-write the one that’s there.  It will be where you just uploaded the WordPress files and folders.

5.  Go to the sites URL to check if it’s loading properly.

If it’s not, go back and make sure you’ve done every step. If you haven’t skipped any, then it’s most likely an issue with  wp-config.php . Make sure the 3 items you changed are correct. Correct them and re-upload wp-config.php to the root again.

6. Load the WordPress Backend

a.) Click Settings > Permalinks and update permalinks.

7. Find and replace URLs in database

*Backup your database before applying any changes.

Posts that contain links using URLs may need to be changed. There are plugins to do this: The  Better Search Replace plugin enables you to search for database “strings” of data, and replace them.

For broken links, you can use these tips, or use a SQL query to fix it.

To use SQL to do fix links, go to phpMyAdmin, click on your database and then click “SQL” in the top menu. Write this query but use your own file names and domain:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content, ‘localhost/folder/’, ‘www.yoursite.com/’);

8. Regenerate thumbnails to correct the images size

Use a thumbnail re-generator plugin to correct the display size of your images.

TA-DAAAAAA!

Now you know how to migrate a WordPress site!

Not too shabby, eh?

Questions? Contact me:

[email protected]

or

My Contact Page

Other articles you might like:

-How your personal brand makes the difference

-Using images: Tips to improve your SEO rankings

-10 Things to Do After Creating Your Website

 

About the author

I developed Image and Aspect because I believe that professionals need to have an impactful web presence. One that showcases their unique talents, skills, and abilities as well as their values and style. A presence that focuses on social engagement and connection.

I’m passionate about what I do; I like helping fellow humans, I like having all kinds of social connection with others, and I want to give back, to make the world a better place.

I do much of the designing and coding myself, and I also have a wonderful network of professionals that may contribute as well; photographers, copywriters, branding experts.

I love designing and coding beautiful, elegant and responsive web creations. I ALSO teach and help others who want to learn how to do it themselves.

‘Tips and Snips’ is my blog, and it’s full of information and inspiration to help transform any online persona from “meh” to AMAZING! Sign-up HERE to get blog posts right to your in-box every Friday! I write about Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Branding, Vlogging, Color Theory, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, WordPress, Social Media…anything you’d want to know to get yourself noticed online.

Visit Image and Aspect to learn more about your web presence options

Diane M. Metcalf, M.S.

What’s Gutenberg?

Gutenberg is the name of the new editor that’s now part of the WordPress core beginning in version 5.0, released in early December 2018. Before, when you created a new page or post, you used what’s now being called the “Classic Editor”, a kind of lightweight word-processor, similar to a bare-bones version of MS Word. It’s been pretty much unchanged for the last decade or so.

Gutenberg, on the other hand, is more than a content field. It’s a being touted as a modern editing experience and will be the foundation for building with WordPress from now on. If you’ve ever used a third-party page builder like Beaver Builder or the Genesis platform, then Gutenberg will look familiar to you because it uses a similar “block” approach for creating.

Gutenberg will be rolled-out in three phases. The first is the inclusion in WordPress 5.0, and that phase focuses on implementing “blocks” for a “content-first” approach. This will clear the way for the next two phases that will go beyond creating “posts” to actual page templates, then finally into full site customization.

The editor will create a new page- and post-building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or “mystery meat” embed discovery. — Matt Mullenweg

The Blocks

Blocks, in my opinion, are a welcome addition because they get rid of some of the clunkiness that I hated about WordPress. By that I mean blocks replace much of the need to use other formatting tools such as theme options, meta-boxes, shortcodes, embeds, widgets, post formats, custom post types, and others. Blocks are used to organize and compose content. They allow WordPress to be as functional as ever but without all the hacking and add-ons. It always felt like I was using some sort of Frankenstein approach when I was creating a page, and if you know code and appreciate its purity, you understand what I mean. Creating with WordPress wasn’t a clean way of creating at all. Blocks completely change this and it completely streamlines the user experience. I welcome that.

Blocks actually unify multiple interfaces. This streamlines the whole writing, editing, and publishing experience by way of simplicity. And developers can create their own blocks which means way less piecing together of shortcode, widgets, hacks, and plug-ins. To me, that implies a potentially faster, lightweight site with fewer elements that need updating or that could potentially break your site.

Blocks can be static or dynamic and each one contains configuration settings. They are hierarchical, so they can be a child or a parent to another block. They contain rich formatting tools for composing content instead of using text plus inserted media, embeds and shortcodes (although there IS a shortcode block). With one block you can do what a boatload of plug-ins would do, and I found blocks to be quite intuitive. I like that. Blocks focus on how the content will look without needing to use other configuration options, and this approach means that bloggers and developers can present content in a more engaging, direct, and visual manner.

The new Gutenberg editor is designed specifically for creating content-rich and flexible website designs. Paragraphs, headings, media, and embeds now become the content that’s stored in the WordPress database.

I should tell you at this point that when WordPress announced the coming of Gutenberg, I was not a happy camper. I was angry and I didn’t want to be forced to learn a new way of using WordPress because the current way was difficult enough, what with having to click around so many areas of the dashboard to find where to change this, or modify that and requiring the downloading of widgets and such. We end up literally piecing together a functioning site. It was often confusing and frustrating and it felt like a primitive and hodge-podge way of “developing”. And it felt risky at best. I thought Gutenberg would just add another level of unnecessary complexity and I resented that. I resented what felt like having no say and no choice if I wanted to keep creating sites in WordPress.

So here’s what I did. I decided that the best thing to do, for me, was to see how it worked and so I installed the beta plugin of Gutenberg.

I have to say that using Gutenberg was a little confusing at first, after being so used to the previous editor. Putting no pressure on myself, I just started playing with it on a test-site, to see what it could do. First, I found within a few minutes that it was kind of fun. I should also tell you at this point that I went ahead and installed the Atomic Blocks plug-in and Atomic Blocks theme (atomicblocks.com) to extend Gutenberg’s functionality and it made a big difference to me. Now there were even more cool things I could do with the blocks. Second, within just a few minutes, I had created a pretty nice looking page, designed totally from scratch from a blank page, using only blocks. It seriously would have taken 2-3 times as long to do that in code. And because you can see your changes live, as you go, there’s no clicking back and forth to the browser to see your changes take effect, like there is when you’re writing in code. So there’s that.

Compatibility

I was concerned about compatibility, and I’m pretty sure there are lots of us out there still dealing with the anxiety that the Gutenberg roll-out has caused. For those of us who have highly-tailored existing sites, it’s good to know that our posts are totally backwards compatible, and our shortcodes still work. WordPress is exploring how to accommodate highly-tailored metaboxes, and is looking at other desired solutions such as a plugin that disables Gutenberg altogether, or possibly auto-detecting whether Gutenberg should even be installed/activated or not.

Not saying it’s better in any way than writing in code. I’m still a code girl. But it’s a nice alternative.

Here’s the Gutenberg Handbook for Designers and Developers in case you’re interested.

What’s Next

If you don’t want to use Gutenberg just yet, there is a way to keep the “Classic Editor” as the default. Go to “Plug-ins” and “Add New”. In the search box, input the keywords “Classic Editor”. Once it appears as a choice, install it and then activate it. IF YOU’VE ALREADY USED GUTENBERG to create a page or post, your formatting and CSS will be wiped out. So be careful.

Also, you know to make a backup of your full site before updating to WordPress version 5.0 and installing/activating/using Gutenberg, right? Just sayin’. Look in your C-Panel to find any backup utilities you could use. There are several WordPress backup plug-ins available as well. Go to Plugins>Add New>and search for keyword “backup”. Of course, you could also have me do it. I’d be happy to download a copy of your entire site, databases and all, for you to keep somewhere safe and sound, to restore your site in a jiffy if need be.

WordPress will continue to find ways of ensuring that a page’s existing functionality continues to work while allowing us developers the necessary time and tools to make a smooth transition. And I think that Gutenberg will certainly create desirable opportunities for plugin and theme developers to begin designing even more visually engaging user experiences.

In the meantime, if Gutenberg’s got you down, give me a holler. I can help with that. I’ve been using Gutenberg since it was available in the beta version as a plug-in and I’ve developed a couple of live sites with it.

Diane

Email me at [email protected]

More contact information is on my site Imageandaspect.com.

 

Questions? 

[email protected]

My Contact Page

Other articles you might like:

-10 Things to Do After Creating Your Website

-Using images: Tips to improve your SEO rankings

-Use a customer thank-you page to avoid missed opportunities

 

About the author

I developed Image and Aspect because I believe that professionals need to have an impactful web presence. One that showcases their unique talents, skills, and abilities as well as their values and style. A presence that focuses on social engagement and connection.

I’m passionate about what I do; I like helping fellow humans, I like having all kinds of social connection with others, and I want to give back, to make the world a better place.

I do much of the designing and coding myself, and I also have a wonderful network of professionals that may contribute as well; photographers, copywriters, branding experts.

I love designing and coding beautiful, elegant and responsive web creations. I ALSO teach and help others who want to learn how to do it themselves.

‘Tips and Snips’ is my blog, and it’s full of information and inspiration to help transform any online persona from “meh” to AMAZING! Sign-up HERE to get blog posts right to your in-box every Friday! I write about Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Branding, Vlogging, Color Theory, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, WordPress, Social Media…anything you’d want to know to get yourself noticed online.

Visit Image and Aspect to learn more about your web presence options

Diane M. Metcalf, M.S.