Redhead Business Solutions Latest Blog Updates

New Videos: All about posts

reneeshupe — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:56:51 +0000

I’ve had a few new videos created that I wanted to share with you. These videos will cover some of the basics of how to create a post in WordPress as well as editing a post. I have had these videos commissioned (since I didn’t have the time) so you’ll find out pretty quick it’s not me speaking on the video!

Topics covered: Writing a new post, editing a post & some quick info about categories.

Total running time: 7:50 for both videos

Video 1: Writing a new post

Video 2: Editing a post & Categories

WordPress: a timesaver & budget friendly choice for a website

reneeshupe — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:06:35 +0000

For many business owners the decision to go with WordPress for building their online presence is: Cost. Since WordPress is an open source software and they have a very generous licensing agreement with few restrictions, it is free to use for any purpose whether privately or business. Not to confusion the issue the WordPress I’m talking about is the self-hosted version found at WordPress.org, not the free blogging platform found at WordPress.com.

Whether as a business owner you decide to do the setup and building of your site yourself or whether you choose to have someone manage the technical aspect of your site, you’ll discover that you can build a fully functional, dynamic and beautiful website and not have the need to be in regular contact with your web site designer for every little thing, they stick with it. Business owners know that operating a lean business can lead to more profits in their pocket. Starting with WordPress to create a website is an excellent start as well as a smart way to finish. WordPress creates beautiful, useful, search engine friendly websites that can be as simple as a blog, to as complicated as a full-fledged online ecommerce membership based community website. It’s completely up to you.

Once you learn the basics of using WordPress as a website building platform the sky is truly the limit. If you don’t consider yourself the techie type you can hire someone to build the initial site for you, and then either maintain it yourself or hire a service provider, like a Virtual Assistant to assist with keeping the website up-to-date . It’s truly up to you but here are a couple of terms to help you get started.

Theme — A theme is the look and feel of your site. When looking at a theme to choose read the description carefully because it will tell you what can be easily changed without adding code. Also, it will tell you how many column choices you have, whether or not you can change the logo in the header easily, and many other important facts. (Keep in mind that once you learn more about WordPress, anything can be changed via the code.) Themes can be both free and fee based and you can have them especially made for you too. My personal favorite is a theme framework called Headway.

Plugins — These are essentially little fun programs that you insert into your site by following th directions that add functionality to your site such as a shopping cart, article directory, membership functions, social media and much, much more. Just take a look at the plugins offered free on the WordPress.org website and you’ll get a feel for how much is out there. You can use free plugins, as well as premium plug ins. Additionally, you can have plugins created for you by a developer if you can’t find what you need already.

Not only is WordPress a budget saver for a business, but it is also a winning application to be used for the most simple to the most complex websites you have ever seen. How you use it depends on your skill level, your budget and your needs. As you see, WordPress is much more than a budget saver for any business.

Want to Learn More?

Want to learn a bit more about WordPress? Sign up for my Publishing with WordPress eCourse. It’s free and will give you the basics you need to get going with WordPress. You can sign up here.

Why you should use WordPress to create your website

reneeshupe — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:36:42 +0000

Starting and running a small business is an exciting venture, one wrought with technology pitfalls, money wasters, and time suckers. However, if you use WordPress as your website building technology you can develop a lean business model that will give you a fully functional, interactive and dynamic website. What’s more, your website will look better too, because WordPress is visually pleasing, has awesome typography, and looks modern.

WordPress is not just a blogging platform. While you may know of WordPress.com where you start a blog quickly and for free, the WordPress.com service that runs that site is also available for you to download. The “WordPress” that runs WordPress.com, can be downloaded from WordPress.org is just the platform, and you can use that same system on your own server. Additionally, many web hosting companies, my personal favourite is Hostgator, will install an initial instance of WordPress for you, using whatever is the current default theme. This makes using WordPress to build your business site even more convenient, because you don’t actually need to know anything about servers and the technology behind it.

WordPress is SEO optimized — SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, this is important because the way people find your business website is by searching for it via a search engine like Google. Being able to have an optimized website will make it that much easier for your potential clients to locate your business website.

WordPress is easy to use — The fact that WordPress is easy to use is really an understatement. Yes, you will need to learn a few things, but if you can use your bank’s online website, Facebook, or other popular destinations, then you can learn how to use self-hosted WordPress as your online business website building platform.

WordPress has tons of extensions — Due to neat little programs called “plugins” it’s simple to extend your business website’s functionality. This makes it possible to start small, and then increase the types of content you offer your clients and potential clients on your site such as, message boards, a members only area, affiliate area and more.

WordPress is very popular — Due to the fact that so many people use it, develop it, and out and out love WordPress this makes it very simple to find information about working with WordPress. Being open source software, means that many different people who understand code can develop plugins, create tutorials, learn to be WordPress service providers easier and more.

It’s free — What more can be said about the fact that the initial platform is free? Many times people think that free equates to bad, but the truth is, in the case of software, open source means it is often more functional than other types of proprietary software.

Premium Available — You can purchase premium themes and plugins which often make your website look better, have more built in features and superior functionality than the ones you can get free from WordPress.org to create an even more professional image. And what’s more, you can start out with free, and upgrade as your business becomes more profitable.

Free 5 Day Crash Course – Sign up now

Publishing with WordPress

WordPress is your best choice in a website editor, and here’s why

reneeshupe — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:18:21 +0000

WordPress is so much more than a blog, but did you also know that there are two distinct versions of WordPress? You may know of WordPress.com, it’s a fast easy way to get a blog set up and it’s often used by someone new to the whole idea of WordPress and blogging. There is also a self-hosted version of WordPress (found at WordPress.org) that is free to use, you simply upload a version to your own hosting service. WordPress is fast becoming the most used website building platform and can be used for a lot more than just a blog.

Here’s a few ideas why you should use WordPress (the self-hosted version) for your next website:

Simplicity — WordPress is easy for anyone to learn and use to build very good websites within hours. One can find a template or “theme” in WordPress parlance, and then simply edit that theme to fit your needs without ever knowing any HTML or CSS. My personal favourite is Headway and once you learn how to customize a theme anything is possible.
Search Engine Optimization — Otherwise known as SEO, search engine optimization is almost automatic within each theme that you use with WordPress. You can also get fabulous additional “plugins” that will make your SEO even better, without knowing a single line of code. Check two of my favs – All in One SEO and WordPress SEO Plugin
Great Support — WordPress is an Open Source software and this makes for a very active and helpful community. This means there are also a lot of people that can be hired to help you with your WordPress website if you don’t want to build it yourself. But, even if you do want to do it yourself there are also many people you can ask for help.
Cool Add-on’s — WordPress has little add-on’s called plugins. Plugins can be easily installed within just a few clicks on your WordPress website. They will give your site more functionality, such as adding on a shopping cart, affiliate program, or something smaller such as featured posts. Adding such fun items as fun commenting functions, polls, ratings, social media icons and more to your website becomes possible with just a few straight forward clicks.
Content is King — Spend anytime learning about online marketing and you’ll hear the term “Content is King”. Wordpress is much more than a blog, it is an entire content management system. WordPress allows the content to be the main part of your Website in focus. You can easily update content on any page of your site very simply without knowing any code at all. No need to ask your webmaster to do it.
Customizable — There are many Themes which provide the look and feel of your WordPress website, but even the themes are very customizable if you learn to use CSS and HTML. Even if you don’t know how to use these things you can quickly learn due to all the tutorials available and all the help available within the active community on how to customize any theme. You can even have specialized themes made relatively inexpensively compared to old style Web Designer costs.
No Hostages Taken — You will not be held hostage by your website designer for every last thing that you want done to your site. Once the site is designed and built you can easily change things on your own. You can even find someone else entirely, like a Virtual Assistant who specializes in WordPress updates, to perform tasks on your WordPress site less expensively than a designer.

Using WordPress as the program of choice has many benefits to it, the benefits above are just but a few. Once you get started using WordPress to create your business website you’ll soon discover the ease in which you can design, build and maintain your business website with ease.

How I can help
If you are a DIYer when it comes to much of your business, check out my WordPress Mastery Video Series. It has over 60 quick and to the point videos that will help you get your WordPress site up and running quickly.

If you’d rather have someone take care of most of the process for you check out my 10DayBusinessSite option and get your site online in 10 Days.

New Offering: WordPress Training Videos

reneeshupe — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:55:07 +0000

Wow! It’s been sometime since I mentioned that I was going to be releasing some videos that will give you everything you need to know about WordPress!

I’m excited to announce the release of my brand new video series, “WordPress Mastery Videos: Learn all you need to know about WordPress”.

So what can you expect from the video series? Lots!

I commissioned this video series because of the need for others to learn about WordPress in a simple and straightforward way. Each of the videos are short and to the point, broken out into 60 different videos which cover all aspects of setting up WordPress and how do just about anything in the backend of WordPress.

You can read the sales page to learn more, but here’s a quick overview:

Whether you are a Virtual Assistant, an Online Marketer, Author, Crafter or a hobbyist, WordPress opens the doors for any solo professional to get online and promote themselves, their services or their products, but you need to know what to do first!

There’s simply so many different things you need to learn when it comes to mastering WordPress. If you’re a visual learner maybe you’ve wished there was a video vault which contains all the tutorial videos for the most common topics of WordPress…

If that’s what you’ve been looking for, the “WordPress Mastery Videos” package is exactly what you need!

Curious to know what kind of topics will be covered? Here’s a sample of a few of the 60 videos:

How to Install WordPress Manually Via FTP
How to Change Your Permalinks Structure
How to Create New Blog Posts
How to Create New Pages
How to Insert Images
How To Install Plugins Automatically
How to Upgrade / Delete Plugins Automatically
How to Upload & Install Plugins Manually
How to Install Themes Automatically
How to Customize Your Theme Menu
And a whole heck of a lot more!

Since it’s taken me a bit longer to get these out I wanted to offer my readers (and if you are on my list you’ll get a separate email as well) a special deal. The only catch is you’ll need to jump on this by 9pm Pacific to save 50%!

You can read all the details about the WordPress Training Video Series or you can simply jump in right now and grab your set ~~before time runs out~~, simply click on the Buy Now Button below.

~~Pricing expires January 31, 2012 at 9pm Pacific~~