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Replacing a Bludomain splash page with WordPress splash page for better SEO and Search Marketing

Marc — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:01:58 +0000

Recently Dapper Images a wedding and portrait photographer located in San Diego asked if and how I would enhance the search engine marketing and SEO with their current Bludomain website located at dapperimages.com and their separate WordPress blog located at dapperimagesblog.com?

Dapper Images New WordPress based Bludomain splash page

They wanted to retain a Bludomain type splash page appearance and the basic layout of their blog’s styling. They also wanted a WordPress site that would be easy to customize the styling design with just click and save options.

The Bludomain site was, and is, hosted by Bludomain. The blog was hosted by a separate company on a Windows IIS server (please remember … friends don’t let friends host WordPress on Microsoft servers).

We discussed the tasks, options and prices and got the go ahead to begin the process. The first step was to install WordPress on their Bludomain hosting and then begin to create a WordPress based splash page and move the blog postings/content to dapperimages.com Then begin styling the major changes and minor design adjustments accordingly.

Below is a video review covering some of how the Bludomain splash page was replaced with a WordPress landing page for better site and blog integration and way better SEO and search marketing. Even looks better!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Upgrading to WordPress 3.0 on Bludomain hosting

Marc — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:41:32 +0000

WordPress recently released a major upgrade, WordPress 3.0 and many Bludomain website owners also use their website to self-host WordPress. Unfortunately upgrading to WordPress 3.0 on Bludomain hosting can sometimes present a frustrating problem, it freezes or you get an “memory size exhausted” error. The upgrade is important due to better security, speed and some great new features, but most Bludomain hosting accounts have a 32MB PHP memory resource limit which can prevent the upgrade. WordPress 3.0 has grown large enough with the new features and the new Twenty-Ten theme that it requires a larger PHP memory resource limit to upgrade. But once you can get it upgraded, WordPress 3.0 will make the needed adjustments.

Fortunately there is a plugin that you can install in your current WordPress site that will bump the memory resource sufficiently to overcome the limitation and allow you to upgrade to WP 3.0 simply. The plugin is called WP memory bump and it was created by the WordPress development team to deal with the issue.

So here is how you can upgrade to WordPress 3.0 with Bludomain hosting:

1) Backup your current WordPress files (the wp-content folder is all you need to copy) and backup your database. If you don’t have the WP DB backup plugin installed now is a good time to do it. It makes the database backup a cinch.

2) Deactivate all your plugins.

3) Upload, install and activate the WP memory bump plugin. It should be the only plugin that is active.

4) Proceed with the WordPress 3.0 automatic update.

5) When the WordPress 3.0 update is complete, proceed to update your plugins in their current deactivated status.

6) You can now begin to reactivate your plugins. Most widely used plugins now support WordPress 3.0, but if you make use of any relatively obscure plugins it might be best to activate them one at a time. That way if there is a problem, you will know which plugin to suspect.

7) Deactivate and delete the WP memory bump plugin. You will not need it again.

You should now have a completed fully up to date operational WordPress 3.0 site installation. But, feel free to send me an email if you have any questions or problems.

Migrating from Blogger to WordPress in 7 Steps While Keeping Subscribers and Search Results (UPDATED)

Marc — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:50:38 +0000

It is easy to move the content of a Blogger blog into WordPress. But that is just the first part of moving your blog. You should really want to move all the benefits of your Blogspot blog to your new WordPress blog. This is particularly true for many photographers who have Bludomain or similar Flash websites and have been using a Blogger blog to gain better search marketing and reach more potential clients.

If you have been blogging for anytime on Blogspot you probably have many of its articles in Google’s index, readers who bookmarked your blog or articles in your blog, RSS feed subscribers who follow your blog and some level of Google Page Rank greater than 0. All of these are important benefits that are related to your blog’s marketing value and you don’t want to leave them behind in your old blog, and then start over with your new blog. It is best to move the benefits that you have earned to your new blog with your content and continue building on what you have done. So how-to do it?

The basic assumptions: 1) Your Blogger Blogspot blog is using a standard domain like yourblog.blogspot.com. 2) You promise to never delete your Blogspot blog.

Now here are the steps:

Beginning with the assumption that you have self hosted WordPress installed on your domain begin by importing the content from Blogger.

Step 0) BACKUP your Blogspot blog and template. To back up your Blogspot blog use the Export tool in the Admin panel it is in Settings > Basic > Export blog. Save the file to your computer. Template back up is done from, Layout > Edit HTML > Download Full Template. Save the file to your computer. Now if an error happens you can restore your old blog.

Step 1) Create the permalink structure that you need in your WordPress blog. To do this login into your new WordPress site’s admin panel and in the left side menu go to Settings > Permalinks. The screen looks like this –

You will need to use the “Month and name” option. It is most similar to the Blogger structure.

Step 2) Now let’s import your Blogger content. To do this login into your new WordPress site’s admin panel and in the left side menu go to Tools > Import. You will see a screen that looks like this –

Click on the Blogger option and follow the steps. Authorize WordPress to use your Google account and WordPress will display a list of blogs associated with Blogger account. Select the blog that you like to import in Blogger and click Import. Your posts, comments, categories and users will be imported into WordPress in moments.

(Sometimes, particularly for large Blogger blog with lot of content this process may be balky. If it is for you, the workaround is to go to WordPress.com and create a blog and import your Blogger blog into that and then import that WordPress.com version of your Blogger content into your self hosted WordPress. I don’t know why this works, but it does. You will also want to have the WordPress.com account to activate the spam blocker, Akismet, for your new self hosted WordPress blog, so don’t be concerned about starting a new account)

Now starts the details of moving all the related value of your Blogger blog to your new self hosted WordPress blog.

Step 3) Keep your RSS subscribers. If your Blogger blog is not using Feedburner, set it up now. This will make keeping your subscribers a simple matter of managing your blog’s Feedburner account. To burn a Feedburner feed got your Blogger blog go to http://feedburner.google.com and proceed through their steps. Once you have assigned your Blogger blog’s feed to Feedburner, or if you already are using Feedburner, just transfer your feed. Go into the feed and click on “Edit Feed Details.” Change your feed from your Blogspot feed URL to http://yournewblogdomain.com/feed/. At the same time you want to setup WordPress to use that Feedburner feed. To do this install a Feedburner plugin in your self hosted WordPress. In the Admin panel on the left side click Plugins > Add New. Then in the search box enter Feedburner and you will be presented with a screen that looks like this –

Click Install on the right side (highlighted) of the “FD Feedburner Plugin” after it is installed. Alternately you can use the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin provided by Google (Feedburner parent) it can be downloaded here and has some very good instructions if you are new to Feedburner. Still in your WordPress, go to the plugin’s configuration screen and enter your Feedburner feed.

Step 4) Now we need to make sure that when someone clicks on a search result that lists your old blog that they end up at the right place in your new blog (no 404′s). Very important. Sounds like it could be complicated and it is a little.

UPDATE December 24, 2009 – I have changed how I do it to a method that seems to be a little more consistant. =Relatedly I no longer use Amit Agarwal’s process. Instead I use the plugin and code snippets provided by justinsomnia. Much of the Steps 4-6 are edited from his blog, please visit his blog for more understanding of the plugin if needed.

Lets get started. Download and install justinsomnia’s wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks-1.1 WordPress plugin and install it on your WordPress blog. Activate it and then go to Tools > Maintain Blogger Permalinks, and click the button that says “Maintain Blogger Permalink”. Let it operate and build the list.

Step 5) Next we have to mdify the .htaccess file on your website hosting server (this will be in the base WP folder) to have the Blogger URLs which always end in “.html” are probely redirected to your imprted Blogger post now in WordPress but which no longer ends in “.html” To do this open the .htaccess file and place the following code snippet ABOVE the block of code that starts with “# BEGIN WordPress”

^?View Code TEXT

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{1,2})/([^/]+)\.html$ $1/$2/$3/ [QSA,R=301,L]

Save the .htaccess file and upload if required.

Step 6) Install a Javascript redirect in your Blogspot blog. We do this to make sure that when someone is directed to your old blog (say for instance from another site or even a search engine) that they will be presented automatically to the correct post in your new blog. To set the JavaScript redirect, just copy the following code snippet and paste it in place of the code between your and tags in your Blogger template (under Layout > Edit HTML). Then edit the two lines that say old_domain and new_domain, replacing myoldblog.blogspot.com with your current blogspot blog name name and mynewblog.com with your new blog’s domain name. Save the template.

^?View Code JAVASCRIPT

<script type='text/javascript'>
// edit the text in between the quotes in the following two lines:
var old_domain = "myoldblog.blogspot.com";
var new_domain = "mynewblog.com";
 
// do not modify this line:
window.location = location.href.replace(old_domain, new_domain);
script>

Step 7) Finally, tell the search engines to no longer index your old Blofspot blog. This will over time reduce the listings of your old blog. Go to the admin panel of your Blogspot blog, Settings > Basic and for “Add your blog to our listings?” choose “No” and for “Let search engines find your blog?” also choose “No”. Click “Save Settings”. (Note: Leave your blog “Public”, otherwise the redirect script will not work)

After you have done the all steps outlined by above, your new WordPress will appear seamlessly to your regular and new visitors who had become accustomed to your content in your old Blogger blog. As well as people visitors who click through from links on other sites or search engines. So you will not give up ground you have already earned through your blogging and can begin using the advantages of WordPress to further enhance your site’s style, marketing, social networking and SEO.

As usual, if you have any questions or want help just send me an email.

Installing WordPress on Bludomain hosting. A step by step illustrated guide.

Marc — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:49:29 +0000

There is much to like about Bludomain websites, they are attractive and well priced, but this article deals with how to put the free self-hosted version of WordPress on your existing Bludomain hosting account. All the screen captures and instructions below are from a recent Bludomain WordPress install I just completed. Bludomain makes it relatively simple.

Step 1) Login to your Bludomain hosting account. This will bring you to the cpanel account management screen. Below is a screen capture from a typical Bludomain hosting account. Scroll down the screen until you find the section titled “Software / Services”. In that section you should see an icon for “Fantastico Deluxe”. Those elements are highlighted below in yellow. Click on the Fantastico Deluxe icon.

Step 2) The Fantastico Deluxe screen looks like the one below. Fantastico is a great script that will install WordPress for you. Just find the WordPress option in the left sidebar. In the image below it is highlighted in yellow. Click on the WordPress text link.

Step 3) You should now see the screen illustrated below. Take the time to read it. (Note is there is any current WordPress installation and if there is make note of where it is installed. In this hosting account there is not. ) To install WordPress click on the “New Installation” link.

Step 4) This is where you provide the setup information. As you can see in this screen you need to tell Fantastico where on your Bludomain hosting account to install WordPress. I usually instruct it to install into a subdirectory called “wp” or “blog”. It is not important what you call it, but WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT WORDPRESS IS INSTALLED IN A SUBDIRECTORY. It it is installed in the main or root directory it may interfere with your Bludomain website. Just go through the screen.

Choose the domain name
Enter your subdirectory name
In “Admin access data” section enter the admin name and password you want to have to be able to login into your WordPress intall
In the “Base configuration” section enter the posting nickname you want to use, the email you want to have in case you lose your password, the name of your blog (east to change later) and the tag-line description of your new blog (also easy to change).

(Take a moment and save your username and password to a notebook or file.)

Now click on “Install WordPress”

Step 5) This is a confirmation screen. Read through it and if it is as you want, click “Finish installation”

Step 6) You are done! It will take just a minute or two. You now have a free self-hosted WordPress blog on your Bludomain website’s domain name.

The final screen will have your access and login details. You can copy them to a file for safe keeping, if you didn’t do already in Step 4. You can also click the URL for your new WordPress blog and login to its admin dashboard panel.

Just like any blog platform, there is a lot more to do; select a theme, style it to your preference and optimize it for security and SEO. I will touch on some of that in a future Bludomain / WordPress post in the future if there is sufficient interest.

Note: If you have any questions send me an email. Non-Bludomain hosting accounts supporting Bludomain sites should be similar, but there are often some small differences. Again if you have a question send me an email I’ll try to help.

Free Blog Websites Cost You a Lot

Marc — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:25:57 +0000

Well over half the websites I come across can host their own free blog, but instead chose to use a different website like Blogspot, putting their best marketing content on a different business’ website. Be kind to yourself and your business, keep your best content on your own site. (Photographers particularly need to consider text content as carefully as they do their images.)

For all types of business, I see it many times everyday. In an effort to build traffic to their website, increase their online marketing and client base, website owners including photographers, real estate brokers, jewelers, restaurants, personal coaches, consultants, wedding planners, florists, believe that the best solution to expand their internet marketing is to have a Blogger Blogspot blog or the like.

It is a ridiculous strategy (except for the “free” blog website service). Sending people to another website to increase the traffic to your website is crazy. Then hoping that a visitor then might read something that you wrote on Blogspot, Xanga, Live Journal, etc. and then click over to your website is in reality a dispiriting leaky system. People are resistant to clicking to other domains and blogs typically have a high bounce rate. (yourdomain.blogspot.com is very different than yourdomain.com)

“But it is free!”, you say. Well not so much. As you can see above the opportunity cast can be high. Plus your content is building business for the “free” blog service and they can make it very difficult to ever move your content to your own site or benefit from the search engine indexing of your content on their “free” blogging site.

Still have doubts? Here’s another view by Hubspot of the same problems and business cost of using Blogger, and other so-called free blog websites.

The best solution is to have blog content, but to have it on your site building your visits, conversions and clients. Which you can do in most cases for very little or no cost by adding WordPress open source software on your current hosting. Well over half the websites I come across can support WordPress at no additional cost.

TANSTAAFL even holds true for Blogspot. Know the true cost before placing your content into the websites of others.

"Too much on presentation, too little with communication."; "Why do most real estate agent’s websites fail, Alex?"

Marc — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:13:42 +0000

Look at your current website or your colleagues. If it is like 95% if the real estate websites on the web, it pretty much has a lot of almost canned commodity like presentation of the agent, some standard buying, selling, moving and community pages and an MLS/IDX frame page or link. But very little personal communication from the agent. So there is no opportunity for “connection”.

What sells you? Not presentation. What sells you is communication of your expertise, values and ability. We learned long ago, when Century 21 was beginning that there was much more to being a successful agent than a new presentation. Today Century 21 stresses knowledge of neighborhoods and expertise, but back then it was all about gold coats. We saw that clients do not see their best interest in what you wear, but what you know and will do for them. Communication of that becomes your competitive advantage.

Which is what my websites allow you to do, COMMUNICATE and CONNECT with your clients and prospective clients, easily and effectively. You can use my website to share your expertise through communicating current market observations, advice, new information about your farm area, your neighborhood, prices, selling, etc. My father once told me that in the 1950′s when he needed to generate new real estate business, he would sometime get 2-3 haircuts a week and stop for coffee twice a day … all just so he could communicate and connect with new people about real estate. In your own office you probably see people who get so wrapped up in having everything right for presenting that they don’t get an opportunity to communicate. That is what you can do with my website, communicate what you know and can do with a huge interested online audience. Use your website to create a dialogue between you and your market. Quickly, effectively, and for low cost. That is what Web2.0 is about.

To be fair with my competition, until recently it was not very easy for you to use a website for this purpose. You needed website skills or a “webmaster” (expensive and slow) but that was then … now you can and with little more effort than you send an email you can post new observations and even showcase listings. And through the ability and advantages of a WordPress based web/blogsite and Google new prospective buyers and sellers will find you regularly. Increasingly.

Don’t waste time, change your approach emphasize COMMUNICATION, expand your business influence (and probably save money).

To have your website start connecting with potential buyers and sellers, just contact me:

Collaborative new home marketing website, the Ultimate Collection

Marc — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:55:56 +0000

This is a new site for a collaboration of five agents, ten home builders and a bank. The agent team will soon be adding the new home listings and some other content, but I wanted to share the site because the colors and design are so attractive. Are representative of the original design work that every one of my client’s site will receive.

I think the final appearance for “the Ultimate Collection” is gorgeous. And it is also a combined hybrid web/blog site and gets excellent search marketing scores. And will help keep your listing owners happy.

Every one of my Real Estate websites are unique. Each site’s appearance is custom designed to reflect the website owner’s business identity and preference. Using their logos, letterhead and other items we prepare two mock-ups for consideration and then working together modify and adapt the selected mock-up into the site design.

Please visit and take a look – (the site is still being completed for a 3/11/09 launch)

Upgrade your Blogger* blog to self-hosted WordPress – just $47 – This weekend only

Marc — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:16:00 +0000

*Offer is good not only for Blogger/Blogspot, but also TypePad, LiveJournal, BigFolio, SquareSpace, Xanga, and others … even WordPress.com. But only this weekend through Sunday night (Jan 4th) EXTENDED THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT, Jan 5th

I thought I was going to travel some this weekend, but the plans fell through. So I want to put the time to good use and offer some savings for a substantive improvement if you have been thinking about improving your blog and your relationship with your website visitors and internet marketing presence.

The advantages and benefits of having your blog on your own website are very well known: higher search page rank, improved branding and URL recognition, more visitors, who spend more time spent on your website, and you control all your work. If you want these advantages, here is a quick and affordable way.

For just $47 I will:

Install and test the newest version of WordPress 2.7 on your web-host
Install a number of WordPress themes with similar layout to how your old blog is formated. You can then choose the one you want.
Upload a number of plug-ins to optimize the search marketing and networking success of your WordPress blog. Includes contact form and SEO configuations
Import, as supported by your current blog, your previous posts and content into your WordPress blog
Provide unlimited support through email and our private support forum for you as you personalize your WordPress blog with your images, art and color scheme.
And when you feel your new WordPress blog is ready to go live I will revisit to test, make live and install redirects and notices on old blog.
And, if you want me to do the personalization for you, with your art, images and colors it is just another $47.

So no matter which option you might want, it is a very inexpensive way to increase your presence and potential for success in 2009.. Win-Win.

And our support is available free for the life of your blog. If you have any questions please let me know via “marc at marcfuller.com”

~~Here are links to the shopping cart~~- (offer no longer available, thank you to all who participated)

Upgrade:

Upgrade with personalization:

No way! That’s a blog?

Marc — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:39:17 +0000

It may not look like one, but at its heart it is … a blog/website. Take a look at the new “reskinned” website for The Agency at Think Like A Bride. New template, new colors, new site organization without needing to redo any content. Pretty. Easy.

While it offers all the innovation and appeal of the latest website design, it is also as easy to manage and modify as a simple one page WordPress blog. Which means you have both the ultimate search optimizing platform and a website that requires no special software. It can be edited from a lap top at a cafe or even an iPhone.

Comprised of the same pages and posts and a simple stylesheet that you are probably familiar with, plus some cool features like a unique main page with slider to showcase your latest site additions. All elegantly, attractively formatted to work together to provide one excellent website for your business and your potential customers. Providing unsurpassed high value search marketing optimization combined with low cost. The economics of owning a great website has come down. A lot.

Do you want to reduce your advertising expense and increase your income? Let me upgrade your business to a WordPress web/blogsite. Appeal plus proven search marketing strength. The highest return on investment (ROI)!

Upgrade Your Flash or Blog to a full Premium Hybrid WordPress BLOGSITE for only $198.00

Marc — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:22:09 +0000

We have just decided to offer a cross-platform upgrade savings on our Kertesz premium WordPress blogsite for any site owner currently using a paid Flash or Blog template. And, even with this special offer we will do all installation and initial setup.

Limited time – Flash site owners and bloggers – save 30% on our complete hybrid BLOGSITE for Wedding Pros This offer provides a $99 savings.

Increase your website ranking, enhance your customer engagement, easily update all of your own website and allow mobile devices to browse your site. That is what our Kertesz Wedding Professional Blogsite will provide you. Plus we do the technical setuo and configuration. And you get unlimited tech support. Our BLOGSITE will work on any webhost that can run WordPress, even Bludomain.

Learn more at -
http://www.thinklikeabride.com/theagency/kertesz

Use the coupon code “UPGRADE” and your total cost will be only $198.