by Tony Zeoli | Apr 20, 2010 | Updates
Ruby Creatives Home Page
Creative Career Coach, Anne Hubben had published her RubyCreatives.com web site with Google operated, Blogger.com. She faced a challenge when the company recently announced it would drop support for its long running FTP service, in favor of migrating its user base to custom domains.
Blogger’s FTP service provided blog owners with the ability to create custom themes and host their Blogger-enabled sites at any third party hosting. With less than 5% of all blogs powered by Blogger using the FTP service, the company decided to pull the plug, notifying all FTP service users their blogs would go dark after March 26th (they have since changed the date to May 1st).
While Blogger now offers a “migration tool,” that will help its clients move their blogs onto Blogger’s hosted platform, this meant that many blog owners custom themes would break, since they would not be imported into the new system. Anne, like many small business owners dependent on Blogger, immediately faced the same difficult situation anyone faces when a free-to-user service changes policy and deprecates support for a legacy product.
Realizing that she might not only lose her data, but also her custom theme and search engine ranking, Anne contacted Digital Strategy Works. After reviewing the instructions provided by Blogger, we set out to migrate Anne’s RubyCreatives.com custom theme and database to a self-hosted version of WordPress on MediaTemple.
First, we downloaded all RubyCreatives.com files from her current host, which included the HTML/CSS and associated image files. We then started the process of migrating Anne’s site content from the FTP version to Blogger’s platform, using the migration tools provided by Blogger. In the move, we realized the custom theme would be left behind. Since we’d backed up the files and could still access to the old FTP account, we had the resources to redevelop RubyCreatives.com custom theme for WordPress–and that was quite a relief to Anne!
Before we could move from Blogger’s FTP to Blogger’s custom domain service, Blogger requires changing the site’s CNAME record at the host. To do so, you must have access to the CPanel at your host provider. In many cases, domain owners register domains with a company like GoDaddy.com or Register.com, but host their sites with 1and1 Internet, MediaTemple, Blue Host, Dream Host, Pair or any one of hundreds of hosting providers. It’s critically important to be able to change the CNAME record at your host while having access to your registrar to change your DNS settings to a new host (in this case, MediaTemple).
While WordPress includes a Blogger to WordPress migration tool, we quickly realized it didn’t work for Blogger FTP sites. We first had to move RubyCreatives.com off Blogger FTP and onto Blogger custom domain. Even after we moved off of the FTP service, we still couldn’t use the import tool provided by WordPress.
We exported the database from Blogger, then used the Blogger2Wordpress migration tool, to convert the Blogger formatted database to WXR, which is the standard WordPress format. We were then able to install the latest and greatest version of WordPress onto MediaTemple, and subsequently import the reformatted WXR database into WordPress.
Unfortunately, in the process, all post and page links to images, video and audio, and documents were lost. Because the path WordPress and Bloggers media library are different, there was nothing we could do. Remember that backup we did earlier? Yup, we still had all the uploaded photos. We just uploaded them all to WordPress and edited each post and page to reconnect them. Obviously, this would be problematic for a major blog with lots of images. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go down that road.
We then recreated Anne’s original Blogger Theme as a WordPress theme, dropped it into the Themes folder, and voila! RubyCreatives.com was back, better than ever.
For SEO, we added Google XML Sitemaps and registered Anne with Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We also added the All In One SEO Pack. Today, when you search for Creative Career Coach, Anne’s RubyCreatives.com pops up on Page 1. Fantastic!
We loved working on RubyCreatives.com. We solved Anne’s problems and now she’s on her way to Career Coach super stardom!
Tony Zeoli founded Digital Strategy Works to provide small and medium size businesses with end-to-end digital strategy consulting. With over 16+ year of experience working on digital media projects for start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and corporations, Zeoli brings a wealth of experience that cuts across the digital media spectrum.
by Tony Zeoli | Mar 22, 2010 | Updates
Dr. Tristin Wallace Home Page
Client: Dr. Tristen Wallace
Site: https://www.doctor-wallace.com
Synopsis: Dr. Tristin Wallace is a Vancover, BC based Naturopath and Applied Kinesiologist. After 8-months of fits and starts with a local web designer, Doctor Wallace contacted Digital Strategy Works for a solution that would get her online as quickly as possible, yet make sure her web site would be easy to navigate and look beautiful. Because time was of the essence and there were cost concerns, DSW recommended using the Health & Beauty theme from OrganicThemes.com. The theme comes configured with a marquee for either images or video; a panel for introductory text; the ability to swap out a logo; the ability to add thumbnail images as creative for to delineate the site’s main sections; and drop-down navigation. It was the perfect solution for Dr. Wallace, so that she could learn the ins and outs of WordPress, while dreaming up a custom theme in the future.
In less than 72-hours:
- we installed and configured WordPress on Dr. Wallace’s hosting account at Godaddy.
- the appropriate php.ini file to ensure WordPress would function well on the server.
- acquired Health & Beauty theme from OrganicThemes.com.
- configured the theme in the admin control panel.
- assisted Dr. Wallace in plotting out the navigation and adding content.
- assisted Dr. Wallace in setting up the “testimonials” category to publish her patient’s testimonials to the home page slider.
- performed a bit of light graphic design to create a custom logo and custom images for placement throughout the web site.
- created SEO opportunities throughout the site by setting the permalinks and installing All-In-One-SEO.
- searched for and installed various plug-ins for form building, Google maps, ShareThis, spam control, newsletter, Twitter & Facebook, hiding posts, and even online scheduling of appointments.
- trained Dr. Wallace in how to publish with WordPress, create keywords and be an SEO-jedi master!
- we registered her site with GetClicky to track stats and installed a Google XML site map generator, to get her up to speed with Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
We loved helping Dr. Wallace get her web site live in 72-hours! We can do the same for you. Please give us a call at 917.705.4700 or shoot us an email through our contact form.
Tony Zeoli founded Digital Strategy Works to provide small and medium size businesses with end-to-end digital strategy consulting. With over 16+ year of experience working on digital media projects for start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and corporations, Zeoli brings a wealth of experience that cuts across the digital media spectrum.
by Tony Zeoli | Feb 11, 2010 | Events, Updates
20dot20 Mixer January 28th 2010 from Habitat Music on Vimeo.
On January, 28, Digital Strategy Works co-hosted 20dot20, a networking mixer for music creatives and web technology types at the Gibson Baldwin Entertainment Relations Showroom. Check out this video from 20dot20 and see why it’s quickly becoming an essential networking event. The next event is scheduled for February 25. Click here for more info or register now.
Tony Zeoli founded Digital Strategy Works to provide small and medium size businesses with end-to-end digital strategy consulting. With over 16+ year of experience working on digital media projects for start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and corporations, Zeoli brings a wealth of experience that cuts across the digital media spectrum.
by Tony Zeoli | Feb 10, 2010 | Updates
Tony Zeoli hosts WordPress Westchester Meetup
On Thursday, January 28, 2010, Digital Strategy Works founder, Tony Zeoli, hosted the first WordPress Westchester Meetup group at the offices of the Journal News (1 Gannet Drive, White Plains, NY).
Tony’s presentation, Getting Started with WordPress, guided participants in the the difference between setting up a blog or web site on WordPress.com versus hosting by installing the WordPress software with a web host provider.
Tony covered the basics of install and how to set WordPress so that the home page resolves at “yourdomain.com, instead of “yourdomain.com/wordpress.” Just three simple steps and you’re done.
In your index.php file, (1) just change the path to blog-header.php from “/blog-header.php” to “/folder_name/blog-header.php; (2) Move the file from its current directory (usually “wordpress” if you didn’t change it when you installed WordPress) to the directory (folder), which is one level up (path: /directory_one_level_up/wordpress) from the “wordpress” folder; and (3) change the blog path in Admin/Settings/General tab from “https://www.mydomain.com/wordpress” to “https://www.mydomain.com.” Although this little trick is published on the WordPress Codex, many people don’t know to look for it there. When you download WordPress, this trick is not made obvious. Now that you know it, you can finally allow people to view your blog at “yourdomain.com” instead of “yourdomain.com/wordpress.”
Of course, you should try and do this when you first install WordPress, so that search engines pick up your site at “yourdomain.com,” and not “yourdomain.com/wordpress.” It’s a very simple step and one of the little secrets of WordPress.
The next WordPress Westchester Meetup tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, February 16th at 7:30 PM, again at the Journal News. Contact Tony Zeoli or Assistant Organizer, Jeffrey Marx, through the Meetup page for this event. Registering online will allow Tony and Jeffrey to keep you updated on date, time and location ongoing.
Tony Zeoli founded Digital Strategy Works to provide small and medium size businesses with end-to-end digital strategy consulting. With over 16+ year of experience working on digital media projects for start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and corporations, Zeoli brings a wealth of experience that cuts across the digital media spectrum.
by Tony Zeoli | Jan 21, 2010 | Updates
Wordpress Westchester Meetup
Digital Strategy Works is pleased to announce the formation of the Westchester WordPress Meetup Group. As the popular blog software, WordPress, continues its migration to a full-fledged open source CMS solution, user groups have sprung up around the world to support bloggers, theme developers, and plugin developers who are need help or want to contribute in some way to the community supporting WordPress.
In fact, the community has grown so much over the past few years, individual user groups working with WordPress in major cities around the country are now forming larger, two-day conferences, aptly name WordCamp. The most recent WordCamp in New York City attracted over 700 attendees interested in learning about or contributing to WordPress.
While the WordPressNYC group has grown exponentially, we thought it was time to help our fellow WordPress fanatics in Westchester form a group of their own. Our first event will be held on Tuesday, January 26 from 6:30 pm to 9 pm at the offices of the Journal News at 1 Gannett Drive in White Plains, just off Rt. 287 and Westchester Avenue. (Directions)
For more information on the WordPress Westchester Meetup Group or to join, please register at Meetup.com.
Tony Zeoli founded Digital Strategy Works to provide small and medium size businesses with end-to-end digital strategy consulting. With over 16+ year of experience working on digital media projects for start-ups, non-profits, institutions, and corporations, Zeoli brings a wealth of experience that cuts across the digital media spectrum.
