Ten quid website upgrade

Mar 10, 2008

Frustrated computer user

Changing or upgrading your website can be a bit challenging and frustrating — especially if you’re trying to do it on your own, or on a laughably tight budget.

I’ve managed to get the site at least looking presentable, and I thought I’d tell you how I’ve done it, what it cost me and what I’ve used, in case there was anything here that you thought might be useful to steal and go and put on your site.

Try and use free stuff
First of all, this website is a Wordpress site. That’s a free bit of software that takes a little bit of setting up, but a lot of web hosts these days have a Wordpress auto-install feature, so that can take a good deal of the headache out of it.

You’ll still want to upload some (free) plugins to give it greater functionality and you may need to dig around under the hood at some point, so grab yourself a good FTP (file transfer protocol) programme. I’m on a Mac so I use Cyberduck (also free). There are plenty of alternatives.

Design
I’m using a free template called Grid Focus Public 1.0 which I found just by doing a few Google search variations on the phrase ‘best free Wordpress templates‘.

I happen to have a 15 year-old son who likes to play with Photoshop, and he made some banners for me. He says they’re nothing special, and he did them fairly quickly, but I think it would have taken me quite considerably longer to much less satisfying effect. Thanks, Jake.

Your experience of teenagers may vary.

He’s actually made similar banners for my other websites too and helped me choose colour palettes from Adobe Kuler (recommended). Given that I’m a bit colourblind (reds and greens), that’s really helpful.

The photograph of me in a pub is by Kate Beatty.

Plugins
Then the site needed some functionality. That’s where the free plugins came in.

I already had a handful of these (though some of them needed updates) but my friend Craig sent me a link to a page of 50 Best Wordpress Plugins.

There are far fewer than 50 on this site, but there are some I just wouldn’t be without. So - in case you’re wondering, these are the plugins I currently have installed on New Music Strategies:

Akismet
This deletes all the spam comments before I even see them. At the time of writing, Akismet has so far prevented me from being bothered by 81,936 spam comments. So it’s earned its keep.

All-in-one SEO pack
Search Engine Optimisation. Makes the website easy to find on sites like Google.

Audio Player
Allows me to easily put a piece of audio into a blog post. Like this:

Comment Relish
If you’ve never left a comment on this site before, go leave one now. Comment Relish lets me send out an automated thankyou note to all first-time commenters.

Disable Wordpress Widgets
I’ve disabled the sidebar widgets on this site and used this plugin to help me do that. I originally started using it because the old theme (based on K2) needed me to in order to function. The new theme doesn’t use sidebar widgets either - which suits me fine. I like to get in and mess with the template. It’s a geek thing, probably…

DoFollow
Wordpress automatically adds a ‘no follow’ tag to outgoing links in the comments. I’ve used this plugin so that the link that you add to your own site counts towards its Google ranking. You’re commenting on my blog? It’s the least I can do. A quantity I specialise in…

Feedsmith
This plugin replaces the RSS feed that Wordpress generates with the souped-up, all-singing, all-dancing RSS feeds you get when you sign up to Feedburner. Which I recommend doing, because it makes the whole subscription thing much easier for your readers. Click here to get New Music Strategies delivered to you automatically and just see how easy that is.

First RSS
This is very clever — it’s a plugin that lets you embed an RSS feed into a page. I use it to create the Newswire. I take the RSS feed from my del.icio.us bookmarks (the ones tagged ‘newswire’, that is) and they just turn up on that page as a steady stream. Easy-peasy.

Full Feed
Why should my readers have to come to my site to read my blog? Just because I put all this work into making it look nice… Full Feed gives RSS subscribers the whole post, even when I’ve put a ‘Read more’ tag into the post itself. You need never know what New Music Strategies looks like again — but you’ll still get all the content.

Google Analytics
Very useful stats right on your Wordpress admin page. This shows you how many people are reading your site, where they come from, what they were searching on when they found you, whether they’re there for the first time or returning, how many pages they looked at on your site, what they had for breakfast…

Google Sitemaps
Handy. This builds a little file for the robotic spiders from Google to find so that they know exactly what’s on your site and what it all means. This will cause you much better search results, and therefore visitors.

Less
This is a little plugin that just changes the way the ‘Read More’ link works. It just makes reading the posts a little more intuitive. Rather than leap to the bits of the text you haven’t seen yet, it shows you the whole post from the beginning - which seems more helpful.

Share This
This creates a link at the bottom of a post that lets you share it on one of any number of social bookmarking sites, or just send it on to a friend via email. Very helpful, and I recommend you click on it often.

Simple Twitter
I haven’t quite worked out where to put this yet — and I may only end up using this on my personal blog — but this allows me to very easily import a simple ‘What I’m Doing Now’ status update from Twitter and put it in my sidebar. I recommend that musicians who have fans (or would like some) should use this feature on their sites. Which means use Twitter.

Subscribe to comments
This allows for readers to be kept up to date by email whenever someone comments on a particular post. Particularly useful if they’ve left a comment themselves and want to keep track of what the response is like.

Wordpress Database Backup
Things go wrong. Even the best computers in the world break. To allow for this simple fact of life, this plugin automatically backs up my Wordpress database with all of the posts, pages, comments, templates and plugins, zips it all up and emails it to me once a week. Or daily, if I prefer.

Wordpress Reports
Again, this is about Google Analytics. Actually, I’m a little confused. Either this plugin or the Google Analytics plugin above is giving me all this useful traffic data. Doesn’t hurt to have both installed. They may even be two parts of the same whole. At any rate, I know where you live. Or at least - I know how many people are subscribed and how many people visit New Music Strategies each day.

Tweaks and cheats
I’ve also gone into the template and messed around with the code to do little things like change the colour of the navigation buttons and make them touch the site banner rather than leave a 5 pixel gap between the two of them. I can be trusted to do those sorts of minor amendments.

But I also paid someone £10 to upgrade all of my websites to the latest version of Wordpress and do a little debugging (there were some bits of this site that weren’t working so well).

I found my IT support on Elance — a site that allows you to post any job, take bids from professional providers from all around the world, negotiate terms and read their feedback from past customers before you cut down a shortlist and decide who’s going to get your work.

You can get some very good work done for not very much money — which is helpful when you’re in a business with just a little cashflow (on a good week) — and you need some things done that lie outside your particular area of expertise. But be careful checking the feedback about reliability, etc. Cheapest is not always best.

All in all, a successful upgrade for £10, several hours of time, the aid of a teenager and that special bit of concerted effort you need to get over that reluctance to just get stuck in and dismantle the damn thing so you can build it back up the way you want it.

Unfinished business
There’s just one remaining bug that I need to iron out: there’s something screwy going on with the categories. I think it might be a conflict there. Anyone got any suggestions on where to look?

I’m also going to continue to mess around with the sidebars. Let me know if there’s anything not doing what it’s supposed to.

Hope you like the results.

If you found this post interesting or helpful, you may wish to subscribe to
New Music Strategies in your feed reader. Click the orange button.

20 Comments, Comment or Ping

Inge

Thanks for the insight in the process and plugins. It’s always interesting to read how others get their website together.

Some advices:

1: start using the email newsletter function of Feedburner. That way, people who lack the knowledge about rss (and there are a lot of them) can still get your news via email. The option to configure are limited, but it does the job very properly.

2: comment relish can sometimes make your wordpress very slow, since it needs to match the email address in the comment form with a complete list of all email addresses ever encountered. This can (especially with certain templates) result in long page loading times, even when no comment is made.

3: Dan’s Avatar Thingy (http://www.cheesemasterdan.com/wordpress) is a great plugin to allow people to upload their avatar to their profile. This makes signing up more interesting, and gives a more personalized feel to attributing to the community.

4: Viper’s video quicktags (http://www.viper007bond.com/wordpress-plugins/vipers-video-quicktags/) makes embedding video from youtube and alike as easy as boiling eggs.

5: Wordpress mobile edition (http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress) is very useful to make your website mobile friendly. Your son can furthermore hack the template to make it suit your needs

Good luck, and looking forward to many new great stories.

Mar 10th, 2008
Paul Capewell

Looks good - I like how the colour scheme seems drawn from the main image of you on the right. It’s a calming site to look at, and uncluttered - not easy with sidebars.

Mar 10th, 2008
Dubber

Thanks, Inge. This is exactly the sort of feedback I need.

I do use the email function of Feedburner, but I should make more of that fact. Both the Newswire and the blog itself are available via email. See the Subscribe section in the sidebar. I think that’s going to get its own button though.

Comment Relish gets unplugged immediately. I have rid myself of plugins that slow the site down in the past, because loading times are hugely important. Perhaps even more important than thanking first time commenters. I could be persuaded to put it back if it turns out that this problem has been rectified, but in the meantime, your experience of the site comes first.

I’ve never quite understood the avatar thing with blog comments, but I’m happy to oblige. Perhaps I’ll get it once people start using it.

Putting video into the blog will happen more and more often, so I’m taking your advice on the Viper thing.

The mobile edition makes me a little nervous. I know it’s increasingly important, but I’m still reasonably old fashioned and prioritise the web browser experience. In fact, I’ve been having conversations with people this past week about the rise of the widescreen website format. Three columns is no longer the problem it used to be.

I really appreciate your input on this stuff. Anybody else got any similar tips?

Mar 10th, 2008
Inge

“The mobile edition makes me a little nervous. I know it’s increasingly important, but I’m still reasonably old fashioned and prioritise the web browser experience. In fact, I’ve been having conversations with people this past week about the rise of the widescreen website format. Three columns is no longer the problem it used to be.”

I understand the reluctance, but don’t worry. The plugin detects whether or not a mobile client is used, and only then provides an alternative format of data presentation. Compare for instance my own website (www.eclectro.nl) with the mobile version (via http://mtld.mobi/emulator.php?webaddress=www.eclectro.nl&emulator=sonyK750&Submit=Submit). It’s just a undressed version, which works like a charm.

There’s also a wordpress-plugin that simply gives back the feed of your site via Google Reader to the mobile visitor, presenting nothing more than the latest 10 posts.

As for comment relish: the slow down varies per site. It might be that your site works like charm without and with the plugin, but you’ll need to test it. I do know that the more comments there are posted, the slower the plugin will become (since there’s more comparing to do).

An essential for reading: http://ilovetypography.com/2008/02/28/a-guide-to-web-typography/. Summary: optimize contrast, increase font size, use clear indicators of content hierarchy and use lots of white space. For you, increasing font size and optimizing contrast in the menu seem like quick wins.

If interested, I could also do a quick usability analysis for you. Just let me know

Mar 10th, 2008
Marco Raaphorst

looks great and thanks for the info about the plugins you’re using. some of them I am not using right now and might use in the future.

Mar 10th, 2008
~Jon~

Looks beautiful Andrew! Well worth the effort.
I wouldn’t personally use Google Analytics, because that is something I always block while browsing. I’m sure many other do as well.

Mar 10th, 2008
John

HOORAY Dubber..looks like a “treat”..well worth the 10 squid!
extra plugs:

1) Wordpress Automatic upgrade..works great less filling..Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions. Go to Wordpress Automatic Upgrade to upgrade your installation
2) Google translate widget.for your friends in the US who don’t know what a quid is..sorry..could not resist..
3)Trackback Validator..works great etc
4)Photo Dropper-Lets you add Creative Commons licensed Photos to Your Posts from Flickr..MARCO and his friend Akbar have some outstanding things there btw.
5) My Page Order: A Wordpress plugin to let you set the order of your pages..you’ll see , you’ll need this.
6)Myftp.A plugin that can be used to manage folders and files via the WordPress admin panel
7)Magic Keywords: Determines the best keywords for your individual blog posts and pages — works almost like magic! like..Doug Henning!
http://www.johnpazdan.com For the best in Music Art and Politics

It did say “plugs”

Umm, can I get Jake to make ME a new banner? I’ll trade his dad a list of really useful plugins for Wordpress..or..I have a 1 squid coin left over from last summer’s tour of the UK that Rena forgot to turn in..it’s actually worth a bit more now..shoulda kept the euros.

@INGE: thanks for the added tips!
jp

Mar 10th, 2008
Craig

Lovely stuff, Dubber.

The scariest thing with tweaking a site is the fear of b-r-e-a-k-i-n-g it but plugins do seem (for the most part) to allow you to try things without disaster. I found the 50 things most useful, and this article deals with things in a little more depth.

I think the general message with Plugins is to remember that they each do their one thing very well, but that you need a mess of help to stand alone. It’s all about finding the right mix.

Personally, I’d like a plugin that enabled me to mess with the layout of my site. There is something cute and egalitarian about bloggers all using one of a limited number of layout themes, but it would be nice if a degree of personalisation didn’t require a knowledge of CSS (or whatever it is you need to know). If anyone has ideas here I’d appreciate it.

In the meantime I will check out the sidebar widget plugin you mention as I’ve never been 100% happy with having these on my site, but I continue with them as I like the layout in the rest of the theme.

Cheers
Craig

Mar 10th, 2008
garagespin

Whoah. Almost didn’t recognize the site…nice work. One small comment — right now, every other comment has diagonal red lines running through it…it makes me squint when reading it. Perhaps a solid, but different, color could be used instead?

I truly wish I could switch from Movable Type to Wordpress, but don’t have the technical know-how to do so. Maybe eLance is a good place to try…

Nice job, Andrew.

Mar 10th, 2008
Mike

Hey Andrew - new site looks great!

Thanks for the tip on E-lance. I think there are probably a lot of us out here who are looking for just the kind of help you got - I know I am. How about hooking us up with the individual e-lancer who did your site (assuming he or she is looking for referrals)?

Mar 10th, 2008
mikhail alexandrovich

I think I preferred it the way it was before. That’s not helpful is it?

Mar 10th, 2008
Dubber

Hey Mikhail,

You might have encountered it on one of those occasions when it had mysteriously switched itself back to the Wordpress default template, which is fairly ugly. I don’t know why it keeps doing that, but it’s done it three times now.

Anybody got any clues?

Mar 11th, 2008
John

‘Anybody got any clues?’

hmmm..did you pay Jake yet?

It’s back to the default now as I am typing. ..the obvious (?) answer is that you inadvertently switched back to it in the presentation panel without saving the new template. But that doesn’t make much sense..when you go to the presentation panel, what template comes up as the default?

Mar 11th, 2008
Dubber

Ah. I think I found the problem.

Mar 11th, 2008
Andrew Potterton

nice. not too jargonny then….. arggh. the geekiness of it all……

Mar 13th, 2008
brendadada

Great list, thank you, and your commenters. And your site looks superb.

I’m a big fan of widgets, since I don’t much like fiddling with code, and like you, am not convinced by this new trend of avatars or whatever we are calling them these days.

Off to install dofollow. Have been thinking about it for a while.

Mar 27th, 2008
James

Andrew - I really like you’re plugin that add the little ‘If you found this post interesting or helpful, you may wish to subscribe to New Music Strategies in your feed reader. Click the orange button.’ text to the end of each post .

Where can I get it?

May 12th, 2008
Dubber

Hi James - I hard-coded that into the template. Feel free to cut and paste the code. It goes toward the bottom of your ’singlepage.php’ file in the template.

May 12th, 2008
James

I see - thanks for the tip/permission, I may well do that!

May 12th, 2008