Wordpress LMS Time for a Solution for ESL and Other Courses Online

This blog is about my experiences, thoughts, and ideas with the struggle with making money online. It is not easy at all. For every success story you have hundreds if not thousands who make less than minimum wages.  Our dependence on the search engines for traffic and limitations of current software can make our tasks very difficult or very easy, but in any case it is still quite a lot of work for most of us.

I first started with websites online with portallanguageservices.com which was at first an HTML site I made with Dreamweaver templates. It was great at first and I was adding information for my ESL (English as a Second Language) students to look at and some fun games for practicing vocabulary and tests for reading.  At the time, I only knew HTML so I was just limited to what was not dynamic or software online to use as-is.  After several months of adding content and seeing my visitors rise, I also saw that manually updating/adding HTML pages was getting quite tedious. I was having trouble getting a consistent look and I found myself spending time on getting the same design on each page often more than in writing my content!

I next went on to try Wordpress (which was much more limited then. It was before tags were added around version 2.3), Joomla, Drupal, etc.  I found Joomla to be tedious and Drupal to have a poor interface so I stuck with Wordpress and HTML.

Next I went to see if I could use any software for creating online courses for giving tests to my off-line students to take when they were not in class with me. I tried Atutor but the lack of help was unnerving. It worked and I was able to give tests, but I knew it wasn't anything I could easily modify or improve myself. I finally got rid of  Atutor with much regret after trying to set up a new course finding that half of my page content was cut off.  It seems they decided that we shouldn't have pages with a lot of text!  I couldn't get the Paypal system to work right either since that was just an add-on and the instructions were vague. I could pay, but the system wouldn't update.

I next went on to try Moodle. I admit the community is much larger and people were really friendly. There seems to be several ESL/EFL teachers online willing to help out, but I couldn't figure out how to create a course.  I know Moodle is powerful and can do very much what you want, but the interface was not very intuitive and I didn't want to have to take a course or read a book  to create a course! I was shocked to discover that almost a year and half have gone by since I joined Moodle.  I still have my Moodle install online, but I don't have it linked to my pages so it shouldn't come up for searches. In any case, the courses I was working on are set as unavailable.

Not much after joining Moodle, I started working on integrating affiliate datafeeds to my websites since I really didn't care for paying for Popshops which didn't quite meet my needs and without good sales, who wants to be paying a monthly fee?  With many hours of self-study and asking a couple friends in a forum some questions when I got stuck, I learned how to write PHP pages using mysql for databases.   Every so often I've added more code of my own or hacked other free scripts getting better. I'm far from an expert, but I am not a newbie in the least.

What happened to my first website? As I got more focused on creating my visual art which is my third activity, I admit I left it in a sorry state. I had started to convert it from HTML to Wordpress, but kept running into problems with integrating the quizzes and games many of which are in javascript.   Very frustrated, I left it in a worse state than it was in before with so many broken unredirected links that my traffic went from several hundred visitors per day to around 50 per day to old pages that unlinked still somehow get traffic! Ever since then it has been nagging me so a couple days ago I started my third attempt. I'm still in the process of moving that old content into "ordpress, but I finally have a plan for how to do it so it will be organized and logical even if it takes me until summer to finish!   I first mindmapped my ideas then I made a diagram of what I would do.

What about those pesky tests and quizzes and javascript games? I've put my PHP coding skills to use and I've turned my favorite quiz script into a Wordpress plugin integrating the logged in user info or email address for registering test and quiz  scores each test gets its own table and the scores are also placed in a master gradebook table recording the initial answers and then the most recent score and the number of tries for each test.

Anyone can take a quiz which makes it very internet friendly, but only registered and logged in users can see their answers in the gradebook while admins (think teachers) can see the gradebook scores for any test or student.    I like this system because they just have to log in to Wordpress and then navigate to the gradebook to see their results.

What more needs to be done? I need to do quite a lot of code clean up and I'd need to make an options page before distributing the code. Most of the settings are hard-coded and I've been using a separate database instead of the wordpress one although that would be easy to switch.   Other items on my to do list is to add recording of  passing grades from some of the activities that are not necessarily scored, but I'd like to see that a student did the activity.  I'm afraid I'd have to learn AJAX so that might be in 2011 or 2012 depending on what information I come across.Finally I'd eventually like to set up PayPal for membership to get certain features yet I'm not eager to learn their API or pay hundreds of dollars a year for a membership plugin.

Is anyone out there going through the same issues, just wishing that Wordpress had a LMS  quiz/testing/grading/gradebook system set up?

I would like to have Wordpress (or something as easy to use and expandable) for my LMS base because it is a great tool for communication. Most LMS are very closed system which is fine for an established schools, but not so great for private teachers and online educators. With Wordpress you can add content and the search engines can find it quickly.

I also think Wordpress would make a great LMS base because all of the busy work of registration and notification of new users.  Users can log in and edit their profiles right away.

Wordpress has hundreds of PHP based themes and custom page template options. You can easily use a free theme from wordpress.org to use or customize one to your hearts content by changing the CSS and PHP of the templates.

Wordpress only isn't an LMS because of the lack of plugins for managing course content and record keeping. I have seen some slow progress with a plugin for quizzes (but no grade keeping!) and another for a gradebook which is no longer supported (yet you have to mantain a CSV file with scores to use it).

I've given up on hoping someone else will do it for me so I decided yesterday to hack my favorite and previously abandoned PHP quiz script fixing its per-quiz table records to include a gradebook and a script for viewing scores of tests.  The missing element was user (student) management.  By using current user checks in Wordpress, I was able to show quiz scores based on level. The admin sees scores for tests by all students when logged in.  A normal Wordpress user only will see his or her scores when logged in.  A guest quiz taker or someone not logged in will see a page reminding them to log in or to register if they need to.   If you go to the "reading" option in the menu there and select an article, you will then be able to read then answer comprehension questions.  After adding your name and e-mail address, you get your results and an e-mail message with the test name and score for your personal records.   A logged in user seeing the quiz will have their name and e-mail filled out using information from their Wordpress profile.  Their user ID is also recorded when the grades are saved to the database.

Can you think of a better way of doing this?  I'm trying to keep it simple so that if I later switch to a different CMS as my LMS backend, it wouldn't take more than a few days to reintegrate the script.  I didn't want to create a separate user registration system since that just complicates it and it would break eventually as Wordpress gets updated.

What are you looking for in an LMS for Wordpress? What should it do or not do? I'm very limited in time since I need to work hard to pay the bills, but if I get help or enough donations, I might be able to fix it up enough for testing by other teachers.

Current issues:

• Need a way to record Pass/fail grades for activities online


• Need a way for a teacher to manually add grades for activities that are offline or cannot be checked by the server.


• Need a way to add more question types. Currently only works for T/F and multiple choice. I'd like to add a drag and drop ordering question for process or timeline questions. I'd also like to add matching and sorting questions.


• Need a way to calculate a running grade for all tests on a site or a grade for a specific group of quizzes as courses by level or topic.


• There is no way to enter a quiz as having more weight than others for when I later add grade calculation.


• Need a script for quickly creating quiz forms and saving those forms to the quiz directory.


• Need a system for giving and receiving written homework although a special contact form would probably cover most circumstances since homework files could be email attachments.


• Need a way to add a calendar of events and assignments for courses with specific start and finish dates. This doesn't matter for open ended courses, but schools would want one.  I believe there is a plugin for this (yet no gradebook for recording that information).   Wordpress has a calendar widget and posts can be scheduled for different days in the future. You could schedule posts and put them in an assignment category however students can't see new posts until they go live whereas a normal syllabus would let you see every topic that has to be covered.  Pages could be used with topics and links, but a huge list of everything to complete might demotivate a student.

Recent developments online make many past needs unnecessary.  Twitter and Facebook have effectively replaced the need for a chat. It can be very easy to see updates and answer quick questions.

Wordpress MU 2.7 Finally Released!

WordPress MU was just recently released and I've upgraded several of my websites without any problems or error message through out the upgrade process.  It even includes a nice horizontal toolbar on top in addition to the sidebar. I'm very happy with this release for the same reasons mentioned in my previous post regarding WordPress 2.7.

The only real bug I've found is with upgrading plugins. After upgrading one plugin, the upgrade options disappear for a day or so ( I haven't actually timed it).  I'll still see a number by Plugins in the menu, but the options on the plugin page are gone!  This bug first appeared in MU 2.7 "bleeding-edge" when regular 2.7 came out. I reported it informally at the time.

Another thing that is needed for WordPress MU is a way to select all users and all blogs on the page without clicking each one. This is important for not wasting time deleting splogger registrations. I've been fighting the battle and losing against sploggers due to the lack of effective solutions. A simple CAPTCHA is not enough and after several months of this drudgery I've removed the signup link and I've disabled user blog signups. Hopefully in future versions we'll be able to limit signups/per day/month by IP and other tools that could help. Currently in WordPress MU you only have the option to list domains you want to blog signups for, but I've noticed that since .info domains are cheap for the first year, a splogger could easily register hundreds of those. As soon as I block one, they register with another.

Wordpress 2.7 has been released Wordpress 2.7 Review

Wordpress 2.7 Review

Wordpress 2.7 was just released, and I am happy to say that they did it right.  I upgraded one of my smaller wordpress sites using the automatic upgrade plugin and dove in. Here is my review of Wordpress 2.7.

I'm glad to say that the water's fine.  First of all they rearranged the interface. Now the navigation menu is in the left sidebar. It uses JavaScript (probably AJAX) to give expanding sub-menus so it takes fewer page reloads to get to specific items.

New Color Scheme

The new color scheme uses different shades of gray and a light blue link color. That light blue link color makes my eyes sore with my flat panel display, but I suppose it looks good on CRTs.

Menu Icons

WordPress now has icons for each item in the sidebar navigation.

Write Posts/Pages Fixed

I don't know about you but I was so ANGRY when WordPress moved the category list from the right sidebar to below the post write area. I was so upset that I had to scroll down just to select a stupid category, something you have to do every post!  Thankfully, the category selection box is back to where it belongs in the right sidebar and above-the-fold.  It took a while, but I'm glad it is back  They also put Tags there which also makes sense.

They also added back the Preview button that had been removed a few versions ago.

New Screen Options

For those who are looking for a more minimalistic Wordpress, their prayers have been answered.

You can now click on "screen options" which is in the upper right part of WordPress, and you get some check box that you can check/uncheck (or "tick") to show or hide different parts.

New Quickpress

Quickpress is a nice option for people who want to just log in and start posting. In your Dashboard page (the page you go to after you log in), there is a Quickpress box which lets you just type a post title, content, and tags then save as draft or publish.

The only problem with that is that there is no way to select a category. I may not need all the bells and whistles, but I think the category is just as essential as the title. Hopefully they'll fix that or someone will make a plugin to put that there.

Plugins Page NOT Fixed

One change I didn't like with WP-2.5 was how they got rid of drag and drop widgets. This was especially useful when you had 2 or 3 sidebars defined. Unfortunately the drag and drop widgets are still gone. You still have to click on "add" and you still have to select the sidebar in a drop-down menu.

Add (install) Plugin Feature

Now, you no longer have to download a plugin and upload it via FTP to your server. I'm sure I'll love this feature because I have many websites (most use Wordpress MU and I don't know if Donncha will let us yet. He said to check the trunk or the current beta, so that is on my to do list.), but for the few regular wp sites I have, this will save time.  Just search for the plugin by term or if you've downloaded it to your computer, you can select it and upload it through the webpage. You're still uploading, but you don't have to extract the folder and move it over, you save plenty of steps either way.

Core Wordpress Upgrade

Finally, you can upgrade your core installation files. No longer do you have to go through the drudgery of downloading-extracting-copying-uploading-via-ftp to update WordPress to the most current version. Go to Tools-Upgrade and it will give you the uption to update online or

Updated Comments

You'll need to update your WordPress theme to use the new features. Comments now are threaded. Visitors can reply to a comment and it will be a thread instead of just having the new comment at the bottom like before. This is great for people who have good reader participation. It will be much easier to see what is happening.

Did I miss any changes in WordPress 2.7 that you think are worth mentioning? Please add a comment.

Website Automation is Important

Are you Automating your content and site upkeep?

While there are so many things that must be taken care of with an online business, Internet based businesses need to analyze their processes and procedures to see what can be taken care of in a more efficient and/or automatic manner.

It really doesn't matter what kind of business you have. Whether you are a blogger or a merchant selling tangible goods or perhaps you're somewhere in between like a blogger, you need to see where you can improve.  An investment of a week or two now could save you much more time in the coming months or years.

Check for repetition

If you're like me you probably don't know where to start and you probably started your web site as a hobby or as a supplement to your regular brick-n-mortar physical store.  That's ok, just start with where you are at now.  Ask yourself what tasks have to be done regularly. It might be a good idea to make a list of activities that you have to do every day, every week, and every month.

See which activities are very repetitive. Those activities are good candidates for automation.

Automation Examples

Consider using a CMS

Are you writing your web pages in plain HTML and copy/pasting product information in?  Parts of your website creation process can be automated. You could save the time spent on adding HTML, page layout, and menus, by installing a CMS such as Wordpress, Drupal, or Joomla or a forum like bbpress, or Simple Machines Forum.  By installing a CMS or Forum on your website, you preset the design and categories, and entries get added to menus. You'd just work on adding the content to entries such as blog posts or forum threads.

Automate your product displays

If you are an affiliate marketer or a merchant, you'll want to look into automating your display of products using a database.  In affiliate marketing, many merchants make datafeeds available which are electronic spreadsheets with a list of available products and other relevant information.  Affiliates can use PHP and MySQL to integrate those datafeeds into dynamic pages that visitors can browse or search.

HTML Make-a-Page creators are a short-term solution

While some affiliate networks offer HTML page creation with code ready to copy/paste into a website or blog entry, that static page information will soon become out-of-date and will require updating.

Don't rely on static HTML pages

I had made the mistake of relying too much on static and other difficult-to-update displays on my sites and found myself caught between spending half my time updating existing pages or creating new content. It was very frustrating because it worked, but I didn't know how to progress. I was so busy updating product information that I didn't have time to write original content!

Learn PHP and MySQL or hire a programmer

In this case you'll most likely want to hire a programmer or learn PHP and MySQL yourself.  I know it sounds complicated, and yes, PHP is a programming language unlike HTML which is just simple coding, but once you finish your first couple scripts, you'll find that it isn't too difficult with a little planning and patience.  If you are an affiliate marketer you'll need at least a couple scripts. You'll need one to import datafeeds into your MySQL database and another for displaying products. You can then expand your ability by allowing user search or by displaying products by keyword, category, or really any other feature you can think of.

Automate your XML Sitemap

Another great option for automation is your XML Sitemap, also called your Google Sitemap.  You can write your Sitemap in PHP and submit your php script to Google Webmasters.  If you have dynamic content this is crucial otherwise you'd have to do it manually!  That could take weeks for a large website.

If you have a small website, you might not think it matters, but what about when your site is larger in a year or two? Your Sitemap was easy to update manually when you had only 30 pages, but it won't be so easy-to-update when it has 200.  If you later delete a page from your site, you'll have to look through 200 pages to find it while a well written sitemap script will include all pages that currently exist.

Standardize your website design

If you have multiple websites, consider what goes into maintaining and updating them.  Are you customizing each site, or are you making different aspects modular?  If you need to update your CMS or your custom scripts, could you copy the files over to the other site and have them just work?   By standardizing things like page width, and locations where your scripts and software are installed, updating could just be a matter of uploading everything to the same place on each site.   There are tricks you can do in PHP that let you get the IP address and website name which you might need in the script, so instead of having to open and configure your configuration file, you could tell your script to look up the domain and IP it is running on and do different things based on that information.   By autoconfiguring your scripts, you'll save plenty of time when you need to upgrade. I only wish CMS designers would do the same thing!

Servers are good workers

Servers once set up and running can save you plenty of time once everything is set up. Servers don't get tired, sick, or bored. They don't limit themselves to business hours either. Any activity that you can give them is going to be much cheaper than paying someone or spending the time to a task by yourself. Even with shared hosting, you just go to your webserver's control panel and add a "Cron job". Cron jobs just tell a server to run a script using the frequency that you set. So if you want it to run a backup, or a datafeed import at 2:00 am, just set it up. If you can write or pay for a script to do a task, you can later set it up as a Cron job, your script will run, and the task will be done, rain or shine, or even when you're on vacation!

How to Upgrade WordPress

How to upgrade WordPress introduction

Sometimes it seems that by the time I get my websites upgraded there is a new version or minor update to WordPress. After a while, upgrading WordPress seems as easy as brushing my teeth or tying my shoes. I do understand that for a beginner, this process can be frightening. In reality, WordPress is probably the easiest and simplest CMS or Blog software available. I have personally tried Joomla (which I like) and Drupal (which I don't like). I also tried Google's Blogger which has obviously been dumbed down to the least common denominator so that you can't customize it.

I do not accept liability for your ability to follow these steps, nor to I accept liability for any changes that may occur to Wordpress or its upgrade methods. Essentially, I'm saying that these steps have worked for me for upgrading the last few versions of Wordpress and they probably won't change in the near future. This article/post assumes that you know how to use FTP and how to download a file from Wordpress.org.

Short version - Steps for upgrading WordPress blog/CMS software

1. To be safe, backup your database via your webhost's control panel via PHPMyAdmin (ask your webhosting company how)


2. Disable all plugins


3. Download the newest version of Wordpress from wordpress.org.


4. Extract all of the files to your copy of Wordpress on your computer (your backup, you do have one right?) overwriting the older files with the same name.


5. Upload your Wordpress directory or your website via FTP to your server overwriting files with the same name.


6. go to http://yourdomain.com/wordpressdirectory/wp-admin/upgrade.php or http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php and follow the steps until it says it is finished.


7. Re-enable your plugins

If you never installed any plugins, then you can skip steps 2 and 7. The options in step 6 depend on whether you have Wordpress installed in your main directory or subdirectory. When uploading your updated files you could omit the wp-content/plugins and wp-content/themes directories. The default theme might have been updated, but your custom themes and plugins are not updated with Wordpress. Plugins and custom themes are maintained by their authors.

Don't forget to update your plugins!

Sometimes a plugin stops working due to a change in Wordpress's API. After you upgrade, be sure to check for new plugin versions. The most recent versions of Wordpress will warn you when your Plugins are out-of-date. You'll need to replace the plugin with the same name in your wp-content/plugins directory and upload the plugin via FTP. It is recommended to disable a plugin before uploading a new version and reenable it afterwards. A plugin will sometimes break otherwise. If you don't and you find errors just disable and reenable the plugin and that will take care of most issues.

Selecting a color scheme for your website or blog website

Color preferences by age and gender for web pages and website color schemes.

Color preference tendencies by gender

Women tend to dislike dark or black web page backgrounds. I am commenting out of my personal experience. When I went through multiple color schemes on my first website in 2006. I started with bolder colors with a dark background. All of my friends who are men told me it looked fine and some of them liked it a lot. Almost all of my friends who are women said that it was too dark and that the background had to be white or very pale. Of course once I switched to a light background, my other colors no longer matched. After several color scheme changes I got stuck with white background and not-very-bold colors for everything else. The women I know don't complain and the men I know don't either.

Color preferences by age

Children prefer bolder and brighter colors, so a site with beige, light blue, and gray would probably lose their attention extremely fast. As we get older we start to prefer fewer warmer and bold colors and start to prefer cooler, paler, and more neutral colors so beige, white, black, pale blue, pale green, and pale yellow are great for websites for those over 55.

Choose your website's theme colors or color scheme according to demographics and other criteria.

Now when I design a new website, I try to imagine the largest demographic as a combination of young, old, men, or women, and I try to make it more appropriate for them without alienating the other groups.

• A site for children will have bolder colors. A site for 55+ will have mostly beige and other pale colors.
• A site for women will have lighter colors with a touch of either pink, or purple.
• A site for men will have gray, blue, or red added.
• A site with Very mixed demographics will have a mix of colors that are not too strong and typically cool like green and blue. I might add one neutral color for balance.
• If a site is about a holiday, I might use that holiday's colors in my design o help put the visitor in a holiday mood.

General color scheme considerations

Light on dark or dark on light?

In general, you should stick to darker text on a lighter background like black text on a white background. Many people say it is hard for them to read light text on a dark background like white text on a black background. Artists and more creative types are less likely to have this complaint.

The colors should allow the visitor to read the website without squinting or getting a headache.

Color schemes that have colors that don't match will cause frustration or sometimes a headache. If the text color and background colors don't contrast sufficiently, it makes it difficult to read. For example: Dark brown background with light brown text. It can be done but there has to be a significant difference between the two shades of brown or it will tire his or her eyes.

A color scheme should not have garish colors.

Another way to annoy your visitors is to have garish color combinations. I remember one fascinating site with pink text over a vomit-green background and purple header text. I couldn't concentrate on the content. All I could think of was how hideous and repulsive that site was.

A website's theme shouldn't have too many colors

While having just back and white is boring, having too many colors in your site's color scheme will be distracting. Try to have between 2 and 5 colors. This includes tonal variations. A site with light blue, medium blue, dark blue with a white background has four colors.

How to get started with affiliate marketing?

I'm sure that many of you are interested in affiliate marketing due to the flexibility it gives. Perhaps you just want to make a few extra dollars or pounds for your next vacation or to save for retirement. That is ok too! You can put as much time and effort into affiliate marketing as you want because you are your own boss.

The problem for many is how to get started and people make some bad decisions, waste thousands of dollars on gimmicks, and then give up. You won't be making thousands of dollars per day unless you spend hundreds on advertising your sites, but you don't have to! I have been doing affiliate marketing since September 2007 and I haven't spend on advertising at all except for a coupon I got for Google Adwords for $25 I got from my web host. Without spending a dollar on advertising, I made almost $400 in December even though I've only been doing this for a couple hours a day for a few months. If I had put in 40 hour weeks I would have made much more.

Here are the basic steps involved:

1. Plan! What kinds of products and services do you want to promote? Pick something that interests you and that you have at least a little knowledge about. If you love to cook, you might want to have a website about gourmet foods and kitchen products. If you like sports, perhaps you'll go for exercise equipment, supplements, and sportswear. In any case pick a topic you enjoy! It will be difficult to motivate yourself to work if it isn't something you like.

2. Brainstorm! Make a mind-map of the topic that you chose and then make an outline and think about how you might organize your website. Also think about the visual aspects of your website so that it will also be attractive. Decide what kind of interactive or social features will benefit visitors. What kind of content will you use?

3. Pick a name! You need to give your website a name so make a list of possible names based on your topic and mind-map and put them in order.

4. Sign up for web hosting! You need a home for your website, so sign up for a cheap shared web hosting account. I recommend signing up with BlueHost or HostGator. In fact, I am currently using Bluehost for all of my current websites.

5. Register your website when you sign up for hosting.

6. Start your site using either HTML pages or a CMS program such as Joomla, WordPress, or Drupal. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Many web hosts have a quick install option for CMS or blogging software. Both BlueHost and HostGator have special quick installs for WordPress and Joomla! called Fantastico.

7. Sign up for affiliate marketing programs for your topic. I recommend starting out with .

8, Start adding content and mix relevant and useful affiliate links in with your content. Don't hard sell! You are providing a benefit for the visitor.

9. Integrate a website statistics service into your website, so you can see what works and what doesn't. I suggest using Google Analytics which is free. Also check your statistics in the affiliate network to see where your sales are coming from and which programs are converting to sales.

10. If a program doesn't convert and you know that your content is good, replace the program with one of another merchant and see if you get better results. When I first started I had used some programs that just wouldn't convert. I tried some others and they did. What do I mean by convert? Your statistics will tell you when a visitor clicks on an affiliate link on your website, If the visitor makes a purchase on the merchants site and the sale registers, it "converted". In other words, the click through converted into a sale.

Consider adding content description meta tags to each of your webpages for better search traffic (SEO)

Would you like more traffic to your website?

Whether it is a blog or a shopping site you need traffic for your website to be a success. One way to do so is to work on your SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization. Typically people optimize for Google, but it is also good to consider traffic from Yahoo and ask.com as secondary targets.

Content First, SEO Second

Once you have good original content on your website, it is time to consider SEO. There are many different tasks involved in SEO, and I admit that I still need to do many tasks on my websites as well, so I've added the webmaster and SEO category and a SEO series for these articles that any website can use to improve its results.

The main problem is that it is a lot of work! SEO is not yet automated. If you use a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla, you might find special plugins and modules to help you, but you still have to type in the information that the system needs.

The focus in this post is in adding a Meta content description tag to each page of your website. Meta tags are nothing new. Meta tags are informative HTML tags placed in the header of a web page's code. There are many meta tags used for many different reasons.

Adding meta page descriptions to static HTML is simple

Add the following to each of your page headers describing that page:

<meta name="description" content="Brief description of the contents of your page.">

Add a description of that specific page instead of the 'informative description here'. If you use static HTML pages on your website then simply go into your code with your favorite editor and add the code in between the head tags. You should be concise and descriptive. You should not repeat the title since that is going to be seen in the search result above the description.

Dynamic pages often require coding or SEO plugins

If you use a dynamic header through a CMS or website template using PHP then it is trickier, since one header is used for all of your pages. In this case you could perhaps make your own PHP modification if you are a programmer, or you could search for a plugin or module to add that information for you. Even with a plugin, you will still have to add that data in your CMS software. In a wordpress blog, you'll probably see it as an extra field in your writing admin. page after the plug in is activated. Once you activate a plugin with this functionality you'll have to go and add meta data to each page, post, and article you have.

Meta page descriptions improve search click through rates

You won't see results until Google's webcrawler rechecks your site. It doesn't matter if your pages are static or dynamic. This could take between hours and weeks. After Google's search engine updates your information and a page on your site appears as a search result, your description will appear after your page's title. By giving a more detailed description of your page, your page will be more interesting to the person searching and you should get more clicks. It should also lower your bounce rate, since people know what your page really contains.

What meta descriptions won't do for you

Adding meta descriptions will not improve your page ranking. Your web pages will appear at the same rank. This optimization is for increasing clicks on your pages when seen in the listing. You will need to do other optimizations to improve page ranking.

Amazon.com's Astore is easy to set up

 Amazon.com Astore

Amazon.com has a simple shopping cart option for anyone who wants to start a store selling Amazon products.

Amazon's Astore can be set up by anyone who registers as an Amazon affiliate.  It is easy to do on their website.  You can follow their steps with no extra explanation.

Adding Products

Astore lets you add products by category or individually after doing a key word search.  If you want to have a well defined niche store then having hand selected products will make sure that your customers see what is for your niche.  If you have a site that is about a general theme, it is very likely that you will find an Amazon.com category for the same issue.  Amazon Astore categories have many subcategories, so it would be easy to make a catalog of categories in categories just for your area.  You don't have to follow their category sequence. You can rearrange the order of categories and subcategories according to your needs.

Themes

Amazon's Astore lets you modify several colors and even modify the .css file.  There are only two actual themes to install on the site. You can also change the font size.

Product listings

Products that are added as categories are normally pretty good however I noticed on one catalog how some items were linked correctly.  For example: I saw some women's clothing items show up in the men's clothing category when I viewed a store that I had set up.

Reporting

Amazon's Astore reports one day late. I can see yesterday's report today.  The report is not updated at midnight. It is updated by morning. The reporting options are decent.  You can see reports on sales, type of link, and store code/tracking ID among others. You can set up multiple tracking IDs in the affiliate control panel. Each Astore has to have its own tracking ID.  The tracking IDs can also be used for other kinds of links. It makes sense to give each website that you own and its astore a different ID. When you make a sale, you will know which site sent it.

 How it works

When you are an Amazon affiliate, you earn a commission on any sale is made through your Astore or your Amazon links within 24 hours of a click. This is handled by cookies.  This period is very short and I hope they change it.  I am sure many commissions are lost because the customer decides to wait a day or two to confirm his or her order.  They offer a sliding scale on commissions starting at 4%, but it doesn't apply to all products.  You can read all about the commission rate on their affiliate website when you register.

How to get it on your site

You can have your Astore as:

• A stand alone site (you can link to it from other sites)


• Embed it as a frame (you do remember when people used frames, don't you?)


• Embed it as an iframe (include it inside your site's content for example inside a DIV)

Amazon does not currently offer integration in any CMS or other software.  The easiest way to add it to your CMS is to add it as a link in a menu or sidebar.

Feedback

What have your experiences been using Amazon's Astore?

Adding a Shopping cart to your business website: Introduction

Start selling online by setting up a shopping cart on your website or externally.

Depending on the business model you choose, you might want to consider adding a shopping cart to your website. The process of adding a shopping cart to your website can be very easy or very hard depending on the level of integration that you require and what kinds of products you are going to sell.

First you must determine:

1. Will you host the store externally on a third party website, or internally on your own server or hosted server.

There are several companies that let you create a store on their websites that you can link to. When someone buys a product you earn a commission.

Other stores and shopping carts online will let you store your downloads on their site for a fee. If you don't have your own domain then this could be a good short term option for getting started. It would also be good for people who are not interested in maintaining a server and shopping cart installations.

You could also have your own website and install commercial shopping cart and store software. This would give you the advantage of having technical support in most cases, but costs could get quite high once you include web hosting.

The other option which would be best for the long term with your own products, would be to have your own website and install free shopping cart and store software. This would be best because A. you'd be able to customize the look of the site B. Your only monthly fees would be hosting costs. As you sell more products, your cost/product will be cheaper.

2. Will you be selling your own products, affiliate products, or both?

Some shopping and store systems will be designed as a full store and others have the option of being used in 'catalog' mode. Typically affiliate product sales are completed on the manufacturer's site, so there is no need to actually go beyond having a 'clickable catalog' which sends the customer to the merchant site to complete the purchase. If you are selling your own products, you'll need to have a complete system for shipping, taxes, etc.

3. Will you be selling digital downloads, tangible goods, or a combination of the two?

Not all shopping cart and store software is designed to allow digital products. Most seem to have been designed for tangible, physical goods. Digital stores don't need to have 'items in stock' or shipping information. Recently there has been more interest in digital product stores however they seem to be only beta versions and have very limited cataloging functions. Most online stores that include a digital download option limit you to only one download per product listing or have multiple downloads with all of them available to the purchaser. I hope that we will see more flexible programs in the future.

4. Are you willing to pay for this service or software, or does your lack of budget require a free version?

You can pay between hundreds of dollars and a few dollars to set up your e-store. If you already have web hosting set up then you could use free shopping cart and store software then set it up yourself. If you do it yourself, expect to spend many hours. Try to avoid editing the basic code since you'll lose your changes when you upgrade to the next version. If possible, choose premade templates with your own logo then change the template colors to match or go well with your logo. Experiment with the system for at least a few days to make sure everything works properly before linking it to your main site. Make sample purchases and try different options.

5. Do you require 100% integration into a CMS, Content Management System, or are links or IFRAME pages adequate?

There are modules for integrating certain shopping cart and store programs into a website so that it will share the look and feel and registered users. This makes the whole process simpler. Even if you cannot integrate your shopping cart, you can at least try to use the same page layout and colors across your website.

6. Will you require technical support, or are you willing to do a little coding and forum/tutorial research?

If you need hand-holding support then go with commercial software. You have to spend much more, but in the end you'll have your store set up and ready instead of wasting days or weeks trying to figure out how to install and configure it all.

An alternative is to find someone who is already familiar with setting up stores and shopping cart software and negotiating payment for him or her to do the installation and configuration of a free program for you.

7. Do you require more than one download per product listing (for digital products)?

I have so far tried Wp-ecommerce (for Wordpress), VirtueMart 1.1beta (for Joomla), and Zen Cart. The only one that has allowed me to set downloads linked to attributes was Zen Cart. Wp-ecommerce only allows one download per product listing. I even offered to pay for the modification, but the owner is not interested. VirtueMart 1.1 allows multiple downloads however you can't let the visitor select a file. Instead the buyer has access to all of the downloads listed for that product, so if you were hoping to sell digital photographs at different resolutions and prices, these two applications won't work unless you want each size for each product show up as separate products which looks very bad and will cause you extra work because if you decide to add another version you have to add more products! I bet you could waste many hours doing that.

After several hours of looking reading and guessing I finally tried Zen Cart. Zen Cart is related to OsCommerce so it is possible that OsCommerce also has this feature. Zen Cart is an independent free shopping cart store that you can install on your own server, but it doesn't have Wordpress or Joomla integration. I was able to set up a shopping cart with one product and multiple download options. It worked. I, as a shopper, was able to specify the product download I wanted and the correct price appeared and the download link worked. It also sent my business e-mail address a message to let me know of the 'sale'.

8. Do you require special payment option modules, or is PayPal good enough?

You'll have to check each program to see which methods of payments may be processed.

In this category of CrucialBusiness, Shopping cart and stores, I/we will be adding information from our and my own experience, books and e-books that you can read to learn more, and information about opensource as well as paid shopping cart and store products and services to get started. You could also read the more general category, sales, which most shopping cart and stores articles will be cross-posted. If you have experience with Shopping cart and store creation for online business, please contact us via the contact form on this site and you can be a guest writer/blogger (including an about the author with a link to your own site).

As you read more about this topic, keep in mind your answers to the questions in this post and good luck!

Joomla 1.5 RC2 Wrapper issue fixed in nightly builds

Joomla 1.5 RC2 Wrapper breadcrumbs now working after installing nightly build

I had posted earlier about having messed up links above 'wrapper' IFRAME page content after installing Joomla 1.5 RC2 over Joomla 1.5 RC1.

I had posted on the Joomla forum but no one knew of a fix, and another person said that he had the same issue.

I finally decided to see if it was fixed. I downloaded the latest nightly build from Joomla and copied it into my Joomla install. The fix took. Wrapper pages are showing up correctly.

If you notice that your breadcrumbs are broken in Wrapper after installing Joomla 1.5 RC2, just install (copy & upload) the nightly build over it and that should resolve the issue for you.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 bug: Wrapper breadcrumbs path to file above content is broken in Wrapper

Joomla 1.5 RC2 bug: Wrapper breadcrumbs path to file above content is broken in Wrapper

On my main site, I had installed Joomla! 1.5 RC1 which I later upgraded to the new RC2.

Above the content of IFRAMEd content using the Joomla 'wrapper' to include external pages, I used to see the path from 'home' to my file. Now I see funny code. including the html <span>.

This error only seems to appear in external pages included using Joomla's wrapper.

I have posted in the forum and I'll update this site with the fix. Until then I suggest not upgrading if you use IFRAMES in Joomla 1.5.

Joomla 1.5 RC2 from Joomla 1.5 RC1 Upgrade

How to upgrade from 1.5 RC1 to 1.5 RC2

1. Download RC2 from the link .

I downloaded the zip version.

2. Copy the contents to your Joomla folder overwriting earlier versions.

The extracted files took 10.3 megabytes of space on my hard drive.

3. Upload the joomla folder to the server via FTP.

I use Dreamweaver's FTP function to manage my sites, but any program that can upload a folder or directory is fine.

Since this takes a long time. It is good to prepare supper or watch a movie or something so you don't stare at the clock.

4. Log in to your Joomla 1.5 RC2 site and click on the administration menu item then system info under the help menu to verify the version.

It will say

'Joomla! Version: Joomla! 1.5.0 Production/Stable [ Endeleo ] 1-September-2007 15:00 GMT' (Obviously with a different date and time)

Joomla 1.5 RC2 is available

Joomla 1.5 RC2 (Beta/Release Candidate 2) is available for download from Joomla!

The new version of Joomla 1.5, called RC2 has been available for download since Saturday the first of September.

Here is the information posted on the Joomla.org site. Please note that if you are using RC1 you should upgrade due to security risks.

Joomla! 1.5 RC2 [codename: Endeleo] is now available for download. What better way to celebrate our 2nd Birthday! We chose Endeleo as the codename for this release candidate as it is Swahili for 'development, growth, progress ... improvement'. Highly appropriate we feel.

It is roughly five weeks after the RC1 release and we have made major improvements in certain areas of the 1.5 codebase. Time to share another RC with the community. Some improvements and areas of changes are listed below:

* Router refactoring solving a range of bugs
* Media Manager refactoring, moving this to MVC standards
* Updated scripts (version); mootools, tinyMCE, Xstandard
* Core template improvements
* Template language installer support
* ... and of course a lot more
Note: due to the Router refactoring there will be known issues with SEF url's.

Important, you need to upgrade! In the current RC1 we found three security issues, one SQL injection, one XSS, and a few full path disclosure vulnerabilities. Those security issues are solved in the new release.

Where we go from here: as you might have read on a recent blog, we will have at least one more Release Candidate (RC3) and hope to move to a Stable release from there on.

Packages

For the 1.5 RC2 Release only full packages are available for download. As usual, the packages are provided in three compression formats (zip, tar, bzip2). The download link for this release:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=2812

Upgrade instructions

Upgrading from any version of Joomla! 1.5 to 1.5.RC2 simply involves overwriting your current sites files, with the files in the proper Patch Package that applies to your site. Note; during Beta and
RC development, some files could be removed from the Core Code. Using the above method for upgrading might leave some deprecated files in place. This could be solved by performing a fresh
install once the Stable release is available and exporting/importing your database. Between Beta and the RC2 some small database changes have been made. Check the /installation/sql/mysql folder for the diff.sql file. Run that with any database tool such as phpMyAdmin to get your database updated.

This can be done by either uncompressing the Patch Package and then using an FTP client to transfer these files to your server and overwriting existing file. If you find errors after the process,
ensure that all files were properly transferred. There have been verified reports of some FTP clients not properly transferring files across to a server - without notifying the user of such a problem. One
possible cause is that under certain circumstances the webserver locks the files it is using, and the ftp-server can't update those files. One possibility is to take the site shortly offline during the FTP
transfer.

If your Web Provider gives you access to your site via some sort of Web Admin panel like CPanel or Plesk, you can use the syetems file manager to upload the Patch Package file to your server and
then extracting the package file and overwriting all the files on your server.

More information can be found on the Forums and if at any stage you are unsure, then search the forums for posts on the subject. Most will be found in the Upgrading forum .

Conversion / Migration

With the new 1.5 version it is not that easy anymore to convert for example a Mambo site to Joomla!, especially to 1.5. You will need to perform a migration which is described here:
http://www.joomla.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,105/p,401/

Backing up

Before undertaking an Upgrade or Conversion, it is extremely important that you backup your site's Database and if possible, also you site's files. While we try to ensure that an Upgrade or Conversion process is relatively straightforward, we cannot garuantee that this will always be the case for every user. So it is imperative that users take protective measures in case they face problems after the Upgrade or Conversion.

We hope you enjoy Endeleo and as always, we look forward to your feedback.

How to install Joomla 1.5 on your webserver

Step-by-step instructions for installing Joomla 1.5 RC & nightly build.

These instructions assume that you:

• have basic computer skills


• know how to use FTP


• have access to your webhosting account

Download Joomla 1.5

1. Download Joomla 1.5 from Joomla.org

Extract the download to your computer's website directory

2. Open the file and extract the contents to the directory or folder on your system where you'll keep your website backup. If you want to install it in a special folder on your site do so. It isn't recommendable to install it in the same folder as another web program, so if you have already installed WordPress or another program in your public-html directory then put Joomla in another directory like /joomla or /yoursitestopic.

Upload Joomla 1.5 via FTP to the web server

3. Upload everything to your webhost's server's FTP account. I use Dreamweaver for normal HTML coding and it has FTP included so I use that but any program that lets you upload a folder or directory is fine.

Some webhosting companies let you upload .zip files for later extraction online but many do not. That is why I don't tell you to upload the compressed file. If your host lets you do so then extract the file online to save time.

Take a break

4. While your Joomla files are uploading, watch something on TV, play a video game, call your mom, or whatever.

Go to your uploaded directory on the server

5. Once the files have finished uploading and they DID all upload, go in your favorite webbrowser, mine is Firefox, to http://yourdomain.com/yourjoomladirectory

Substitute the domain that you have registered and the folder you put the Joomla contents in.

If you installed Joomla in the public_html or main web directory on your server then just go to: http://yourdomain.com

again substituting your actual domain.

Verify that the Joomla! page appears

6. If you typed the address correctly then you'll see a page with "Joomla! Installation version 1.5" in the header.

Choose your installation Language

7. First you have to choose your installation language. En-GB for British English is selected. You could select a different language in the list and click the 'next' button. The next button is to the right of the language list.

Pre-install Check

8. The next page is the Pre-installation check. The Pre-installation check checks your PHP and Mysql settings.

This depends on your webhosting company and the server software that they installed. If your system fails a check then you'll need to let your hosting company know and see if they can change the software or if they can help you modify your php.ini. I have been using Bluehost and by default my system passed the Pre-installation check.

You know you are ok if all the settings are in green, so click on 'next'.

License Agreement

9. This next screen has the License agreement. You can read it and click on 'next'.

Database page

10. This screen has fields for the Mysql database. You need to create a database for use with Joomla. If you haven't already just open a new window or tab in your webbrowser, login to your webhosting account, and create a database and user. Write down all this information so you can enter it into the Joomla window that is still open.

• In the hostname field type: localhost


• In the username field type the username for the database as you setup via your webhost.


• In the password field type you username's password for the database that you setup.


• In the database name field type the name of the database.

Click on 'next'

Joomla! FTP

11. This page asks for you to configure Joomla 1.5 with FTP. Use the same settings that you used to upload the Joomla files to your server OR create a new account with your webhost and enter it instead.

Click on 'autofind ftp path' and it will test your FTP settings and enter the actual directory path from your account root.

Click on 'next'

Main Configuration

12. This page is called 'Main Configuration'

Enter the name of your site.

Enter the e-mail address that you will use.

Enter your administrator username and password (and write it down in a txt file or on a sheet of paper).

If you have a new install keep the dot in the 'install the default sample data'.

If you are upgrading, use the option to load the migration script and add the required information.

click on 'next'

Finish

13. You are now on the 'finish' page. This means that Joomla 1.5 is installed. Wasn't that easy?

Delete your Joomla installation directory

14. Using your FTP program or your webhost's control panel or file manager, delete the installation directory inside your Joomla directory. You could also rename it but you should delete it for security reasons.

Log in to your account as administrator for further configuration

15. Log in as administrator so you can configure it to your heart's content.

warning: If you enable the 'wrapper' module you must add a URL to its URL field or the system won't open in Internet Explorer and you'll get an error message in Firefox saying that the URL is not valid.

As long as the site's URL is entered OR the wrapper module is disabled you won't have a problem.

Joomla 1.5 Problem isolated: The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded or http:///

If you remember from earlier posts I had started with HTML many years ago, I've updated my HTML knowledge but now I'm learning PHP and Javascript and I'm looking for a way to integrate or at least harmoniously have Wordpress and a CMS on my sites. Wordpress is powerful, and easy to use however it isn't Javascript or external PHP friendly. It also doesn't work with Iframes so that work around isn't available. I have made the comment in the Wordpress website how an integrated IFRAME option for pages would work around many problems and I have my fingers crossed. ;-)

I had tried Drupal but due to several issues including confusing options, overall bad administrative design, and posts that got cut off half way through, I have decided to drop Drupal until I feel like torturing myself.

I had stopped my adventure with CMSs, Content Management Systems, after installing Joomla 1.5 and getting the following error in Firefox:

The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded

I had posted the error in the Joomla forum hoping for an answer and I started working on other projects. I finally realized this morning that I still didn't have a solution so I reposted the error.

I quickly got a reply from a forum moderator to try a nightly install version. I deleted Joomla from the server, downloaded the nightly 1.5 version and uploaded it all into a new folder, /business.

I checked it and I didn't get the error. I was so happy I went into configuring the installation. Joomla has a very nice graphic menu system so I am able to check those settings quickly.

I marked SEO friendly URLs, Modrewrite, and I enabled a few modules that were preinstalled but by default deactivated. I tried again to log in and guess what?

Firefox gave me: The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded

When you get this message you can later click on OK and change settings. IE doesn't let you do anything.

and Internet Explorer gave me http:/// with a white page.

I went back to the admin options and tried changing the normal settings and I disabled all but the Wrapper module.

I got the error again and then I realized I hadn't tried disabling the Wrapper module as it was by default. I did so and the error went away. I went back into the wrapper module and I saw that there is a field in the right 'parameter' column called URL:

The URL field was blank. I don't know what it is supposed to do but I added the URL for my Joomla install. I reactivated the wrapper module and I don't get the error anymore.

Joomla 1.5 Question: Can upgrade from Joomla 1.13 to 1.5?

I discovered that you can't do a typical upgrade install. You'll have to backup your database and any special configurations and do a clean install of Joomla 1.5 and then reimport everything. You can find the exact steps to take to switch from 1.xx to 1.5 on the Joomla website.

• The Joomla Forum


• Joomla Help


• Joomla Extentions

Make an outline and mindmap of your website

Now that you have all your objectives, features, considerations, and analysis, it is time to organize it.

Define possible organizational structures that could be used on your website. What kind of menu would be appropiate for the information and categories you'll provide?

How many menus & where?

How many menus deep should your site's menu go?

A technological information site could have several levels of information in many categories however a site for children's games should not.  In some cases a long list might be more appropriate than a menu.

How many side bars will you have?  Will the menu be in a sidebar or horizontal above the content?

You could even have more than one menu.

For example:  The education web site could have a teachers' section and a student section.

It could have a horizontal menu to select if you are a teacher or student and submenus for the level or subject being taught. The submenu might become a separate menu in a sidebar.

Perhaps there will be a separate menu to handle logins and profile information.

Once all of your must-have features are included in the design and you are happy, you can finally start installing your CMS and code HTML.

Plan your Business web site before you start coding

So you've got a business plan but do you have a business web site plan?

Many companies today treat their web sites as insignificant extras, but a company's web site should be an integral part of its business planning.

Web site planning

To plan your business website you need to first consider your business objectives for having the web site. These should be similar to your business's general objectives. Additionally, you should consider your audience, or targeted demographics, and what products and services your company is offering or going to offer.

Web site goals

What are the primary and secondary goals for your web site?

Who will be using the web site internally and externally?

Here are some common goals:

• 
  

  Advertising your product or service

  
  

When your goal is advertising your product or service, you want to let people know about what you are offering.

The purpose isn't to make the sale but to pre-sell, or generate interest. You will want to include elements in your web site design that will help it spread virally. You could add social bookmarking and referral links.

Perhaps you could add video or pictures to show your product more clearly. If it works then the visitor will be interested in your product or service the next time he has a need. You might even create the 'need'.

• 
  

  Selling your product or service

  
  

There are several differences here. When selling the product or service, you will be giving specific details about the product or service. You will need to give a secure, simple, and easy way for the visitor to turn into a customer. If the visitor doesn't understand or gets confused, he or she will most likely cancel the order or leave it incomplete. You'll want to add information about any guarantees and warranties, return policies, shipping options, etc.

• 
  

  Providing customer service

  
  

If you are going to include customer service, then you will need to add text-based chat and a F.A.Q., frequently asked questions. You could include steps to solve common problems. Perhaps you could integrate help-desk tracking software.

• 
  

  Providing information about your company.

  
  

Who is your audience? You should provide information according your potential audience.

It might include press releases, news, media kits, a telephone and e-mail directory. You might even include a newsletter.

• 
  

  Providing information about your service.

  
  

Here you could provide technical documentation, product demonstration videos, news about new products and product updates, white pages, and more.

• 
  

  Creating or establishing brand recognition or awareness.

  
  

When creating or establish brand recognition or brand awareness you must provide a very consistent look. You should have professionally designed logos and images. It would be essential to use a CMS, Content Management System like Joomla, so that any changes to the web site theme will update on all pages. If you need a less complex site then Wordpress is more than adequate.

• 
  

  Advertising another company's products or services.

  
  

If your company will do outsourced sales and marketing then your focus is on the image and products of the other company so you'd want to downplay who you are and provide more information, and advertising so that the user will be ready to click on over to the main company to buy their product or service.

Trying out Joomla 1.5RC: Part 2

I have been a little busy so it took me a couple days to go back to my Joomla 1.5RC install and see what works and what doesn't.

First of all I went to my /joomla folder and I noticed something that I suppose occurred before. I got an error message saying "the URL is not valid and cannot be loaded".

I did a search for the error message in the built in help and found nothing.  I posted a message in the Joomla forum and am waiting for a reply.

I did a search and some people mentioned seeing 'http://' when using Internet Explorer. I use Firefox almost exclusively and I tried the URL in IE and I see the page start to load and then a blank page with http:///

Sounds strange, doesn't it?

So I decided to go back to the Joomla forum because I remember seeing blank page after install with http:// which wasn't my problem at least with Firefox.

I saw that someone else had the same error but no one had replied with a solution.

It seems like a nice program and everything else looked interesting in Firefox, but since most people use IE I can't use Joomla 1.5RC.

I might try the older version but since they aren't compatible I'll be causing a lot of work for myself.