When it comes to backing-up WordPress, I’ve tried a lot of different website backup services.
Most have been free, some paid. Some were only database backups, others included the entire wp-content folder.
But it wasn’t until I acquired ChurchMag that I took my website backups so seriously. It didn’t take me long to figure out that:
I have seen many different people wonder what to use for a church’s website and there are a ton of options out there, including E-zekiel that has a great product for you to go from nothing to something great, quickly and easily. My own push for some time was for churches to have blogs on their site and of course the default blogging Content Management System out there is WordPress.
The unfortunate part is that I gave them a great idea, but the solution of installing and maintaing it was on someone else.
For over two decades now, I have dreamed of publishing a book. When the Kindle and iPad burst onto the scene, I knew that my dream had changed. Getting published on paper seemed daunting; however, getting published digitally seemed so very simple…except for the actual formatting of the book.
I tried to code and compile my own Kindle book several times. It took so much time to edit, proofread, and then recompile the book to only have to do it again the next time I see an error. Then, for Valentine’s Day, I made a book for my wife using a simple Amazon’s Send to Kindle app. That worked fairly well, but again, I had to go through several drafts before I found the formatting that worked best.
Into this malaise of formatting errors, a hero has emerged, a hero named PressBooks.com!
So your theming a WordPress theme, testing a WordPress plugin or simply designing a website with WordPress.
You need test data!
WP Test is “a fantastically exhaustive set of test data to measure the integrity of your plugins and themes.”
And it’s awesome:
Earlier this month, I suggested that many churches, ministries and non-profits consider using managed hosting versus unmanaged. Although the monthly fees are usually higher for what you get, the man hours and know-how that’s required for unmanaged hosting makes it well worth the extra cost.
There is another flavor of hosting that has begun to really rise and shine recently, and that is managed WordPress hosting. Managed WordPress hosting is much like your managed hosting services, but focus on one platform and one platform only: WordPress. I shared my personal experience with ChurchMag and why managed WordPress hosting is awesome in a guess post on WP Daily, and thought about how this applies to churches, ministries and non-profits.
The Shock Bundle is an enormous bundle that features a lot of quality designs from ThemeShock, this bundle includes all kind of resources with sources that any web designer would want for the next project, such as PSD and WordPress themes, multiple GUI, fantastic pixel perfect and realistic icons, nice photoshop actions, handwritten fonts, hundreds of logos, and many many others that can be seen at the product’s homepage. ThemeShock is a team behind some great projects like Iconshock, the largest icon collection in the Internet with more than a million icons.
Jared Erickson, superstar designer for 8BIT, released a free minimal WordPress theme.
And when I say, “minimal”, I mean “minimal”!
Less, as it’s aptly named, uses only the index.php, style.css and a function.php file (fitvids.js was later added for better video embeds). That’s it! The CSS on this theme is just as lightweight with less than a dozen elements defined.
Often times SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is referred to in the context of business websites and blogs, even on ChurchMag. Although this is one of the more common references, SEO is something that every church should consider: You need good church website SEO!
A church website may be thought of as a tool or resource for church members, as it’s usually full of current events, announcements and Bible study schedules; but it’s actually one of the best ways for potential church attenders to “visit” your church. In fact,
“In the past 12-months, over 17 million American adults who don’t regularly attend worship services, visited the website of a local church or place of worship.”
This is all fine and good, but without decent SEO, how are seekers going to find you?
Take this story for example:
If you’re new to WordPress or would like an awesome resource to share with those new to WordPress, look no further!
Easy WP Guide is a free download ebook that covers all the basics of WordPress from A to Z.
“You can read the WordPress Guide online or download the PDF, eBook or (brandable) Word document for reading offline. You can even pass it on to your clients to use if you’ve built them a site using WordPress. Enjoy!”
Brandable?
Way cool!
An attack on WordPress is sweeping across the web as analysts suspect a “never-before-seen” super botnet is being created that could threaten the web as a whole.
“With so much at stake, readers who run WordPress sites are strongly advised to lock down their servers immediately. The effort may not only protect the security of the individual site. It could help safeguard the Internet as a whole.”
Using more than 90,000 IP addresses, this attack is using brute-force to break open logins on WordPress systems. By leveraging these servers bandwidth and power, the damage would be substantially more than a DDoS attack.
Is your church website safe?
Here’s what to do:
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