MamaBlogga

We’re continuing our series on getting started with blogging, bouncing back to WordPress this week to look at the basics of posting and creating pages.

Previously, we looked at how to create your first post—but there’s a lot of information and options on the post page that we didn’t cover. To get to the edit post or add new post page, you can use your dashboard or the gray bar at the top of your screen when you’re logged in to WordPress. The Posts menu is on the left-hand side:

The Edit option takes you to a list of your posts (click to enlarge):

Here, the posts you’ve saved as drafts, published or scheduled on your blog are listed in chronological order. You can click on a post title to edit it individually. When you hover your cursor over the title of the post, you get additional options below the title: Edit (which does the same thing as clicking on the post title), Quick Edit (which lets you change things like tags, categories, title, and date right in the Edit Posts page), Trash (which moves the post to your trash, where you can salvage it later if you want), or View (to see what it would or does look like on your blog).

On the same line as each post title, you can also click on the author name to only show posts by a certain author, or the category name to narrow your view to posts in that category. Each post’s viewing stats and comments are also accessible from here.

You can also edit multiple posts from this screen. Check the boxes next to the posts you want to edit and use the drop down menu labeled Bulk Actions to edit or delete multiple posts. This is waht it looks like when you choose to edit multiple posts (again, click to enlarge):

This way, you can change multiple posts into different categories, add tags to multiple posts and change whether they can have comments or are even published—many of the same things you can do for a single post in Quick Edit.

The next option on the Posts menu is Add New. (You can also add a new post by clicking on the New Post button on the top gray menu bar.) We looked at how to create and publish a post last time; this time we’ll look at the rest of the post options on this page.

Below the post text box, there are three boxes for more information: Excerpt, Send Trackbacks, and Discussion. For the most part, these are pretty self-explanatory—especially since they include an explanation .

To the right of the post box, there are three more boxes with options: Publish, Post Tags and Categories:

The Publish box has the Save Draft, Preview and Publish buttons. (Once you’ve published a post, these buttons are replaced with a Preview Changes button up top and an Update button on the bottom).

This box also has more options: You can click Edit by Draft to change the status from Draft to Pending Review (for drafts you’ve completed but aren’t ready to schedule). Once you’ve published, Published is added to this option list. Clicking Edit next to Visibility allows you to set a post as public, private or password-protected (by a password you set). Also under this option, you can set a post to always remain on the front page of your blog, such as a short post describing your blog or perhaps inviting visitors to introduce themselves.

The Post Tags box is used to add tags to a post. These are usually listed on your post and can let your users see all your posts on a particular, narrow topic. Tags are generally more specific than categories (the next box down): if you blog about knitting, for example, you might have a category for all your Projects, but tags for Finished Objects, Sweaters, Cardigans, etc. When adding tags, be sure to hit the Add button (or the Enter/Return key) AND save the post/draft to save them. (You can remove a tag by clicking the x next to it.)

The Categories box lets you categorize your posts by the broader topics of your blog. You can also add a new category from right inside this box—just click +Add New Category and you’ll get a text box to name your new category.

Note that the Add New Post page can be customized: you can drag and drop all six of these boxes to rearrange the page however you’d like.

Also on the Posts menu are pages to manage all your tags and categories. The Manage Tags page (click to enlarge):

From here, you can add new tags, as well as edit the descriptions of existing tags. Once you’ve published posts with tags, your most used tags appear under Popular Tags. Also, an alphabetical list of the tags, their descriptions and the number of posts using those tags will appear to the right. As with posts, you can use the check boxes to select multiple tags to delete, or you can edit individual tags (such as to add a description) by clicking on the tag’s name. Clicking on the number of posts using them gives you a list of posts (on the Edit Posts page) using that tag.

The Categories page is very similar (click to enlarge):

The most notable difference here is that “categories, unlike tags, can have a hierarchy.” Tags are all one level, but Categories can be “parents” or “children”—you can have one category broken up into multiple subcategories. With our knitting blog example, maybe under the Projects category, you have three subcategories: Cardigans, Pullovers and Socks.

(Why use subcategories instead of tags? If a topic is really central to the purpose of your blog and something you’ll be posting about frequently, but falls under the purview of a broader subject of your blog, a subcategory might be the perfect fit—but only you can decide what should be a tag and what should be a category.)

In addition to Posts, you can also have Pages on your blog. Posts are the temporal stuff—the day-to-day news updates, the regular content on your blog. Pages are for important information not tied to time, like your About or Contact pages. The Pages menu is further down on the left-hand side of WordPress:

The two options, Edit and Add New, lead to pages almost identical to the Edit and Add New Posts pages.

The biggest difference in creating pages is that, like categories, you can have subordinate pages—for example, your About page might have child pages on your Biography, your Portfolio, etc. This is set in the Attributes box below the Publish box on the Edit or Add New Page page:

You can also use a custom template (if you dare) for certain pages—a different layout for a particular page, for example. The page Order determines what order your pages are displayed on your menu bar on your blog. If it’s not set, the pages are listed by date published.

Whew! Everything there is to know about the Posts and Pages menus on WordPress!

Like I said last week, we are going back to basics. I realize that most of you don’t need this help, but you might have a friend or relative who could use this. Last week, we covered how to sign up for Blogger, so this week we’ll look at how to sign up for WordPress.

Note that there are two versions of WordPress: wordpress.com and wordpress.org. Wordpress.com is what you want to use if you just want a free blog. Wordpress.org is if you want more control, but are ready to take care of the maintenance and technical stuff, as well as pay for hosting. Today we’re looking at wordpress.com

Go to WordPress.com. To sign up for a blog, click the big orange button on the right-hand side of the screen. You know, the one that says “Sign up now.” (You already knew that, huh?)

On the next page, you provide some very impersonal information: a username and password for your account, and an email address where WordPress can reach you.

Be sure here that you check the box to indicate that you’ve read the terms of service (which you should always read, of course), as well as tick the circle by Gimme a blog! (Like username.wordpress.com). You’ll get to select the exact address at wordpress.com in the next step. This option is selected by default. The other choice is if you just want a username for commenting on other WordPress.com blogs, etc.

As promised, we now get to set the blog address. You select an address for your blog as well as its title (what will appear in big letters at the top of every page). Note that there are no @ signs in the address of your blog—@ signs are only used in email addresses! Your blog address will be whatever you choose (if it’s available), followed by .wordpress.com (Unlike with Blogger, the address can’t be changed—choose wisely!).

Also here, you indicate what language you’ll be writing in and whether or not you want Google and other websites, including WordPress’s public listings, to be able to access your blog. If you’d like to keep your blog more private (and also make it harder to find), uncheck this box before you click Signup.

WordPress gives you a message that your confirmation email has been sent. In the mean time, if you’ve opted to be included in the public listings of WordPress, you can fill out your profile with your name and a little about yourself.

Here’s our confirmation email:

As it says, click on the link or cut-and-paste it into your browser’s address bar.

And your account is active! The confirmation message gives you a link to visit your blog, where they’ve already put up a useful Hello World! post for you. If you’re signed in, there’s a dark gray bar across the top of the screen—your dashboard. Click on New Post to start writing your own blog posts. (You can click on the picture below to enlarge it to see the New Post button.)

On the New Post page, you can write the individual posts for your blog. Enter a title in the title box—the title of the post appears at the top of the post in big letters. (This post’’ title, for example, is “Beginners’ Guide to WordPress: Sign Up.”) (Again, you can click on this image to enlarge it for a better view.)

In the larger box below, type the words you’d like to see in the content or body of your post. (I’m pretty sure we’ll also be talking about what all those buttons do soon, too.)

To save the draft to finish later, or to make sure you don’t lose your work should your computer or browser crash, click the Save Draft button in the Publish box on the right side of the screen. To publish it to your public blog, click the blue Publish button. Once you publish, you’ll see this at the top of the screen:

You can click on the View post link to see your public post:

Congratulations! You just started a blog on WordPress!

What blogging topics would you like covered for WordPress?

UPDATED 26 August 2009, with minor updates throughout, and a big change to step 3.

Want a full guide to setting up WordPress on BlueHost, an inexpensive, WordPress-recommended hosting company? Sign up for BlueHost with an affiliate link on this page, and email me (guide at mamablogga.com) for a free PDF guide on installation, set up, WordPress, add-ons and more!

I made the move from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress more than a year and a half ago. At the time, I wrote the original ultimate guide to migrating, but a few things have changed in the intervening months. So I present the fully updated, all new, ultimate guide to migrating from Blogger to WordPress!

Be sure to check out my article on deciding and preparing to switch your domain. Once you’re sure you’re ready, then here are 10 steps to transferring your blog safely, completely and . . . well, awesomely. This method preserves your links, your subscribers, your comments and your content, and makes the move search engine safe.

Get the goods: a domain, hosting, and the WordPress software

1. Get a domain, preferably “yourblog.com.” Don’t own a domain? I use either GoDaddy or Bluehost for domain registration. Their prices are okay. I recommend three things here:

• Get private domain registration. No junk mail, no strangers getting your address from your whois info.
• If available, get yourblog.com , yourblog.net and yourblog.org. Sometimes GoDaddy offers a deal where you can get free private registration when you register 3 domains. (Then redirect .org and .net to the .com using account management. Select 301 redirects.)
• If you go with GoDaddy, search for “GoDaddy coupon.” Click on the first result and use whichever coupon will save you the most money (calculate out the % to see which one that is if you have to).

2. Get hosting. I recommend Bluehost.com; they came highly recommended and are a pretty good deal. Also, they’re one of WordPress’s recommended hosts and feature a very simple install for WordPress.

UPDATED 3. Install WordPress. With Bluehost, just login to your control panel, click on Fantastico under Addons/Plugins Simple Scripts under Software/Services, select WordPress from the list, and click the green Install Now button (under Install on an existing server—even if you’re importing your old blog, you’ll be using a new installation of WordPress). Fill in the forms and you’re done. If your host doesn’t have a similar install, you’ll have to install manually. It shouldn’t be too hard; WordPress gives you instructions (and they claim it takes five minutes!).

Prepare to transfer your feed: you don’t have to lose any subscribers

4. Blogger enables you to transfer your subscribers seamlessly as well. If you haven’t already, sign up for a FeedBurner account (if you need a walkthrough to FeedBurner, check it).

Then, login to Blogger and go to Settings > Site Feed. In the Post Feed Redirect URL box, enter your new FeedBurner address. This will help redirect your subscribers.

Prepare your new WordPress blog: with some fun stuff

5. Login to your WordPress (might take a little time for the installation to “take”). Select “Options” then “Permalinks.” Select “Custom” and type this line in the box:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

This is to match the post structure of your Blogger blog, to minimize the number of broken links and redirects. (It’s possible to change this structure, too, of course, but it’ll take additional steps.)

Wendy Piersall has a few more steps to setting up your initial WordPress installation and getting it off the ground. All good steps!

Move your posts and comments

6. This is the easy part! In WordPress, go to Manage (Tools in WP 2.7+) > Import. Select Blogger from the list and enter your login information. This should automatically transfer all your posts and comments for you.

However, some of your links won’t work anymore because Blogger and WordPress convert post titles into URLs differently—Blogger leaves out stop words like “and” and “the.” You can fix this, too, with another handy plugin, Redirection. Upload it, activate it and you can use it to easily track and redirect individual broken links (for example, from “/this-best-post-ever.html” to “/and-this-is-the-best-post-ever.html”).

There are also some other plugins to do this automatically. To get these (or any) plugins, in WordPress go to Plugins>Add New. Search for the plugins by name or related terms. (Searching for “blogger permalinks” brings up some plugins that can help with this and some of the other technical stuff.)

Transfer your feed: keep all your subscribers

7. Login to FeedBurner, go into the feed and click on “Edit Feed Details.” Change your Original Feed to http://YOURNEWURL.com/feed/ .

8. In WordPress, you’ll probably want to use FeedBurner as well, and if so, there’s another plugin to integrate the two services perfectly, FeedSmith, owned by FeedBurner (which is owned by Google).

Change over the URL: the final steps to move your blog

9. Back in Blogger, select Settings for the blog you want to transfer. Select Publishing. Click the top link, “Custom domain.” Type in your new domain, www.yourblog.com. Save. Now your links will transfer automatically to your own domain (though sometimes Blogger will show visitors a page to make sure they’re not being taken to a different site accidentally), but you’ll need one more step to transfer your blog home page over.

10. Still in Blogger, go to Layout>Edit HTML. Place the following code anywhere after <head>:

<meta content='0; url=http://YOURNEWURL.com/' http-equiv='refresh'/>

This sends visitors to your blog homepage directly to your new URL, and, as Sebastian’s Pamphlets says, is a search-engine safe method of redirection.

Like the change in step 9, this can show visitors a warning page that they’re being taken to another domain. Some might think that it’s just as good to put a link to your new URL in your old blog and leave it up. However, it’s better for your search engine rankings to transfer it like this—if search engines see two copies of your content around the Internet, they may try to penalize one or both of your sites for “duplicate content.”

Be sure to test your main blog URL as well as some of your old post URLs to make sure everything is working, and of course, be subscribed to your feed to make sure that’s in order as well.

And you’re ready to blog on wit’ yo’ bad self.

Note: You might have to import your images to WordPress as well, but I haven’t.

Want a full guide to setting up WordPress on BlueHost, an inexpensive, WordPress-recommended hosting company? Sign up for BlueHost with an affiliate link on this page, and email me (guide at mamablogga.com ) for a free PDF guide on installation, set up, WordPress, add-ons and more! (Note: you must sign up with an affiliate link to receive the guide.)

Disclosure: the GoDaddy and Bluehost link is an affiliate link.

One of the most popular WordPress plugins is called Subscribe to Comments. This handy little plugin adds the check box you’ll find below my comment box.

Check the box and you’ll receive updates of the comments on that post delivered right to your email inbox. Whether you’re curious about the same subject, waiting to respond to another commenter or just want to know how other people reacted, you can stay current on blogs that use this plugin. TypePad blogs can have the same feature with a script, Subtocomments.

A few weeks back, I spent a couple frustrating hours trying to rig a hack to do the same for Blogger. I never succeeded—but that’s okay, because last week Blogger unveiled a new feature:

This check box does exactly what it says! It only appears if you’re signed in to your Google/Blogger account, however, so if you want to follow a Blogger blog post, be sure you’re signed in.

Why would I want this feature on my blog?
This feature is ultimately all about your readers—though helping your readers almost always helps your blog!

Letting your readers keep track of your blog at their convenience is similar to using RSS feeds, in my opinion. Let them read it when they want, where they want, and surprisingly often, they’ll come back to your site, whether to comment or to read others’ comments.

It’s all about the stickiness!

Would you like to know more about developing your blog’s stickiness? I’ve written a free guide to increasing your blog’s stickiness, “Get Your Visitors to Stick!“

I made the switch to my own domain just over 3 months ago. I’ve loved it! But moving your blog, especially if your blog is well established, can be a scary thing.

Why? Because it can break every link that your site has already earned. Those “backlinks” bring visitors to your site and may help your search engine rankings. And if you break them, all is lost.

However, all need not be lost. There is a safe way to move your blog or your website that (most) search engines recognize quickly.

If you’re moving from Blogger/Blogspot to self-hosted WordPress, I recommend my Ultimate Guide to Migrating from Blogger to WordPress, which includes two vital steps to preserving your backlinks. These steps are:

1. properly implemented redirects
2. maintaining your permalink structure

Of course, if you do #1 right, #2 may be moot. With proper redirects you can change your entire permalink structure without breaking backlinks and losing search engine love.

But first, we need to:

Evaluate Why You Want to Change
Why do you want to change your URL/domain/blog home? Some good reasons for changing your URL:

• You don’t own your previous URL.
• You can’t control your previous URL.
• Your site/business has evolved into something completely different, and your domain name is completely irrelevant.
• Your site is expanding and the blog will no longer be at its core. Perhaps moving the blog to a subdirectory is smart—but be sure to use conditional rewrite rules, or people trying to visit the new pages of your site might be redirected to nowhere.

Not as good reasons for moving your blog:

• Your latest domain name is cooler—will you change every time you snap up a cool new domain?
• You don’t like having the blog on the front page, but it will still be a very prominent part of your site-If you’re publishing with WordPress, you can set a static page as the “home page” and not have to move anything. This option is found under Options>Reading>Front page. Select “A static page.” The pages system in WordPress is also a fairly good content management system (CMS).
• Your site/business has changed slightly, and the old URL is not quite as spot-on as it used to be, though it’s still pretty relevant—unless you have a far superior domain name that has significant type-in traffic, you’ll probably be better off explaining to your visitors the full scope of what you do. However, this example may be borderline.

Prepare for the Move
One of the best things to do before you move your blog/site is to generate an XML sitemap for your old site. (This assumes, of course, that you’ve already mapped out a lovely, themed site archetecture, if your site isn’t blog-only.) Hold on to that puppy, because it’s pretty important.

If you’re migrating into WordPress (and especially any part of your blog has been hosted on anything other than WordPress), it’s important to set up your permalinks before importing your old posts. I highly recommend using the Custom Permalinks option, and having your %posttitle% your permalinks.

If feasible, you might consider using a Custom Permalink structure similar to your old one. If you’re importing directly from Blogger to WordPress, for example, you might consider the permalink structure /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html to minimize redirect problems. Not absolutely necessary, but nice.

Be sure to line up some highly linkable content for the first few days and weeks after the move.

Finally, test your design and your new site to make sure it’ll be ready when you throw the switch.

Move
Whether you’re just manually copying your files over or using your blog software’s built-in import feature, you gotta get your files there somehow. Unless you’re using domain masking. That’s another story all together.

Redirection
Make sure you have proper redirects in place. If this is a permanent move, use “301 redirects” to indicate to search engines that this is permanent. Visitors and search engines will automatically be transferred to the appropriate page on your new site if you use these rewrites.

There are various ways of handling this. You can login to your domain registrar and 301 the entire domain over. You can login to your old website and modify the individual pages to include 301 notices in their code. Or you can login to the back end of your website, using Apache or Windows Servers to redirect the old URLs.

The first options here only change the domain name in the URL. If you also changed your permalink structure, be sure to implement redirects for that, too. (It’s probably best to avoid chained redirects, i.e. a visitor going to oldblog.info/superpost.html being sent to yourblog.net/superpost.html being sent to yourblog.net/duperpost.html being sent to yourblog.net/duperpost/. You can handle most of these changes in 1-2 rules rewrite rules.)

For the actual implementation of 301 redirects, I must defer to those who are much more informative than am I:

• Lisa Barone at Bruce Clay Blog on Apache (.htaccess) and Windows servers
• Chris Gray at SEO Ladder with the codes for meta refresh (which, as he states, is not recommended), PHP, Apache, C#.NET and Java/JSP.
• SEOmoz’s Guide to Applying 301 Redirects with Apache with redirects and URL rewriting (which I used when changing my permalink structure).

The Aftermath
Now you’ve done it. You’ve flipped the switch and your new site is live. Be sure to go back through your old site’s URLs (a sample of them, at least) to double check that redirects are going to the right place.

If they’re good, submit that old site sitemap to Yahoo and Google. This will tell them to visit your old links, whereupon they’ll learn they’re redirected to your new links. (Once they’ve come through and learned that, go ahead and replace it with your new site’s sitemap.)

Unfortunately, Technorati will be a casualty in the move. At present, they have no way to edit your blog’s URL, so your new URL shows up as a completely separate blog. (If this changes, I’ll let you know.) If your redirects are written correctly, your posts on your new blog will show up as coming from both your new blog and your old blog. Plus, any internal links within your posts will come up as incoming links to your new blog from your old blog. Confusing enough?

Do what you can to recoup your Technorati authority: e-mail people that you have connections with, asking them to update their links. Also go through Technorati’s steps to delete your old blog. Really, it’s just clutter at this point. Finally, post that really killer, linkable content to earn more links—important for search engine rankings and Technorati authority.

Bear in mind that it will take time for the correct URLs to update in search engine results, but the URLs will change. It took me about 2 weeks before my new URLs started showing up in results. I’ve also seen a page that I redirected a few weeks ago still not change its URL in the results. Aaron Wall’s article this week says he noticed Google & Yahoo change pretty quickly, but MSN/Windows Live not so much.

Don’t forget to update your other blogging add-ons: Google Analytics, FeedBurner, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and anywhere you may have entered your old blog as your website or homepage.

One final concern that you might have: this “sandbox” (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it). I didn’t experience it for my new site. It’s only 3 months old and I’m in the top 10 for some interesting (and some useful) terms: migrate from Blogger to WordPress, blog stickiness, mom blog advice, etc.

This doesn’t mean that your toolbar PageRank will transfer immediately; this is only updated every few months. Patience. Unless you’re using ReviewMe or Text Link Ads, it doesn’t mean much anyway.

Personally, I think that using the 301 redirects to transfer the trust you built up on your old domain to the new one is the best way to avoid the “new site” penalty. Of course, I didn’t have a ton of trust on my old site, but I did have several months’ of content. (Also, my domain wasn’t brand-new; it was “gently aged.”)

Good luck!

Part of the eMoms at Home Second Group Research Project

Have you noticed the “U Comment, I Follow” badges on many blogs? Even if you’re on Blogger, you can join the “Dofollow” movement.

What’s “Dofollow”? It’s a reaction to the automatic code that most blogging platforms attach to comment links (both the names of your commenters and any links they include in their comments). This code, rel=”nofollow”, was created to tell search engines that you don’t really trust this link, so they shouldn’t take this link as a “vote” for or endorsement of it.

Why should you remove “nofollow”? It’s like a nice little gift to give your commenters (and possibly an incentive for people to comment on your blog!). Here on MamaBlogga, our current policy is to remove the “nofollow” tags from your name link in the comments after you’ve made ten comments (handled via plugin). You can share the link love, too!

How to Remove Nofollow
You can remove the nofollow tag pretty easily. In fact, if you’re on WordPress, there’s an abundance of plugins that will do this for you quite painlessly (Andy Beard has an “ultimate” list of these). Other programs require a little bit of programming work, but it’s well worth it.

Moveable Type/TypePad
Moveable Type-based platforms are a little more tricky. In addition to adding a “nofollow,” they also implement a redirect. For example, instead of a link going straight to “MamaBlogga.com” it goes first to “http://www.typepad.com/t/comments?__mode=red&user_id=715412&id=72558418″ (I made the numbers up) and then to “MamaBlogga.com.” Once again, this isn’t very nice as far as search engines go. For removing the nofollow and this redirect on Moveable Type, see Now is a Long Time Too. For TypePad, see ConverStations.

Blogger
For Blogger, go to Layout>Edit HTML. Check the little “Expand Widgets Templates” box. Scroll down to the comments section (it would probably be useful to paste your code into Notepad and use the Find function). Find this code: <a expr:href=’data:comment.authorUrl’ rel=’nofollow’> . Delete the “rel=’nofollow’” portion and save your layout.

Update: this will remove the nofollow from comments when viewed on a single post, but not when viewed in a popup or separate window from Blogger. For example, when you view a single post on Miscellaneous Adventures of an Aussie Mum, the “nofolllow” is removed from the comments. However, if you view the same comments in a separate page or popup window, the nofollow is still there. Those second windows are on a Blogger domain, and as far as I know, there’s nothing you can do about it.

(If you’re on the old Blogger template, this is found under Template>Edit HTML. The code to replace is <a href=”>$BlogBacklinkURL$>” rel=”nofollow”><$BlogBacklinkTitle$></a> you can’t remove nofollow from commenters .)

When making a comment on a Blogger/BlogSpot blog
Blogger will still use a similar redirect scheme to TypePad, only the link leads to something like “http://www.blogger.com/profile/16523599384736451872.” However, as a commenter, you can get around this. If the blog allows, you’ll have three options on the comments: your blogger profile, Other and Anonymous. Your blogger profile is the default, but it creates a link to your blogger profile, and not your blog. However, if you select Other, you can enter whatever name and URL that you like.

Be sure to stay tuned next week for another helpful blogging tip and an exciting MamaBlogga announcement!