Wordpress Tips

Nov

2014

Updating WordPress

The old days of a scary update have pretty much gone thankfully. WordPress is an extremely stable framework, and extremely well supported with regular updates. Some updates are more important than others, but I recommend that all Redback Graphics clients with WordPress sites update their WordPress around once per year.

Make sure to do a backup of your site prior to updating.

See article creating a website backup.

To update your WordPress is very simple. Login to your Dashboard, and at the top centre of the Dashboard home screen you will see “WordPress 4.x.x is available! Please update now.”

Click on “Please update now”.
The next screen will offer the opportunity to “Update Plugins” and “Update Themes”. DO NOT update these at this time, only choose “Update Now” button to update the WordPress.
Importantly, WAIT and watch as the WordPress enables Maintenance mode (site offline for a few seconds), then disables maintenance mode and your site is back online. Dashboard will then log you out and ask you to login again, to use the updated Dashboard.

If you have any problems please let me know asap.

Sep

2014

Blocked by firewall

“…your IP address has been blocked.”

If you try and access your cpanel/FTP/Email or website using the incorrect password or username too many times, you may be blocked by the firewall. This is an automated process to prevent hackers to your services. Contact your website host (Redback Graphics clients ONLY email jill@redbackgraphics.com.au), with your IP address and you will be unblocked.

Your blocked IP address will be displayed on the screen that displayed you are blocked. It will be a number eg 203.xxx.xxx.xxx.

If you have closed that screen and can’t locate the error message, go to http://whatismyipaddress.com and copy your IP address, email it to your host to get your IP address unblocked.

Jun

2014

Insert a Google map

First go to your Google map in google. Choose the “link” icon (usually near the “Get Directions” or “Print” option). Copy the code under “Paste HTML to embed in website”.

In any Redback Graphics installed CMS website, login to your Dashboard, go to the page you want to insert the google map, make sure you are in the “text” or “html” tab/view, position the cursor where you want the map, and insert/paste that code. The code must be exact and complete. You can alter the size and dimensions there, or modify the size in google maps then copy revised code.

Save your page and it’s done.

The code that was inserted for the map below (straight from the Google maps page), is:

And the resulting map is displayed:

View Larger Map

Mar

2014

Website title and SEO

Sometimes overlooked, for SEO purposes, you should make reference to your location, and or suburbs of your city, somewhere on your site, preferably on the Contact page and/or in the site title. From all Redback Graphics installed websites you can edit the site title from Dashboard/Settings/General/Site Title eg My Website | What my business is about | My Location.

Don’t go too overboard though, try and keep it brief.

65 characters is recommended (up to 80), the first 6-8 words most important for SEO.

Please see also SEO Content and images article.

Mar

2014

Adding/removing slides

If you have a Redback Graphics installed CMS website with the responsive “slides” function built in.

Make sure you have a slide prepared – it must have identical dimensions to your existing slides. You can see your slide dimensions in Dashboard/Slides/Settings.

Login to your Dashboard, under “Dashboard”, click once on “Slides”, then choose “Slides” to view your existing slides.

To add a new slide, click the “Add New” button, then choose “Set Featured Image” link. Upload a new slide (making sure it is already the exact dimension of existing slides), click the “Set Featured Image” button in bottom right corner, then the “Publish” button.

You can also add hyperlinks to the slides, so that anyone clicking on a slide is taken to another web address or page. Go to Dashboard/Slides/Slides then edit a slide and add the link in the “Slide link” field, then “Update” that slide.

The changes will be live immediately. Use CTRL+F5 in your live website browser window to force a refresh of the web page you are viewing to see the updated slide/s.

Number of Slides
The number of slides in your slideshow is set in Dashboard/Slides/Settings, Slideshow Quantity. If you add a new slide, without deleting an existing slide, you need to modify the slideshow quantity accordingly.

Tip 1
It’s always handy to have another browser window open to view the “public” side of your website to see the changes without having to log in and out of your Dashboard to see the public website.

Tip 2
Always backup your website before doing any updates until you are very familiar with updating pages and images etc.
See backing up your website.