We decided to get a VPS account at HostGator, where we got our own cPanel and lots more control than we actually needed for the site. However, the assurance that only our web sites would be running in our virtual space made me feel a lot better.

Overall I have been impressed with HostGator. It was my first experience using them. I have been a DreamHost customer for years and were it not for the fact that I have 30+ sites running on my DH account I would move to HostGator in a heartbeat. I did not feel confident enough about DH to recommend them to my customer.

So, after we got the new account set up on HostGator I uploaded the web site files and the WordPress database and we were in business. The only thing left was to do the DNS cutover.

In all my years of web development experience DNS cutovers have usually taken anywhere between 4 and 8 hours to propagate. Of course, when you do a cutover you want to ensure that the old web site is available for long enough to support the propagation and that was the plan with this cutover.

It turns out that using HostGator VPS you have to create your own nameservers. No problem I thought. Even NameCheap.com which is a reseller for eNom which is a reseller for Verisign let me create my own nameservers. We contacted Earthlink and their support staff didn’t even know what it meant to create a nameserver. The customer was handling the contact with Earthlink and during the course of a few days trying to get the nameservers set up Earthlink at one point recommended shutting down the existing account. For whatever reason, this actually happened and the DNS had not been cut over yet.

To make a long story short, my client’s web site was down for close to 2 whole days and Earthlink still had no way for us to create a nameserver. For every DNS change request that we had with Earthlink they told us it would take between 24 and 72 hours. It turns out that they use Network Solutions and they only put in change requests during a certain time in the afternoon. So, we would have to call Earthlink and wait for their request to get sent to NetSol. Then we’d have to wait for NetSol to handle the request.

The solution I came up with was to create my own temporary name servers and point those to the new HostGator VPS IP address. I then told Earthlink to use those nameservers. After waiting an unusually long time the web site finally came up.

Here’s how you can avoid a similar horror story in the future:

• Don’t use a company to host your website that is not really in the business of web hosting (hint: Earthlink).
• No matter what, make sure your current web host will keep the site up during the DNS changeover.
• Plan for the worst.

The last thing I would recommend is to use a site like webhostgear.com to get cPanel hosting reviews and recommendations on WordPress hosting options.

Find out everything you need to know and register at the WordCamp Miami website. Follow WordCamp Miami on Twitter to keep in touch.

Kudos to local WordPress gurus, David Bisset, John James Jacoby and John Carcutt who have done a super job organizing the event in an extremely short timeframe!

Feel free to add your comments to let me know what you would like to learn at WordCamp Miami 2010.

Powered by WordPress

Calvary Chapel has been using WordPress for several years and we wanted to keep the momentum going with this redesign. One of the major goals of the new site was to allow church staff to design promotional graphics for events and activities and incorporate them into the site in addition to adding events, news and other textual content.

Site Design

For this project I started with the Aperture theme from Woo Themes (affiliate link) and then customized the design and developed new widgets and along with other PHP enhancements.

We wanted to keep the design framework minimal but feature the colorful promotional images that Paul Funk (J.P.), our creative assistant pastor, creates week after week. The Aperture theme was designed for a photo blog and that worked out great to feature the image links on the home page which draw site visitors in to find out more.

Church and Social Media

Many of the church family members have been using Facebook, including the pastoral staff. It has been a great way to keep in touch with people here in Miami but even more so as a way to stay connected with those who have moved away. Calvary Chapel Miami Beach is in a “transient” community and we see many people come and go. If you come to our church and then return 6 months later you will find many new faces.

The logical next step was to create a Facebook Fan Page for Calvary Chapel Miami Beach. Pastor Robert Fountain updates the page regularly to let people know what’s coming up and to share devotional and encouraging messages.

We hooked up the Facebook page to the Calvary Chapel Miami Beach Twitter account. The twitter posts are really links back to the public Facebook page. We have found this to be effective since it expands our audience to the general Twitter community but makes it easier for us to post on Facebook.

The custom theme features in-site integration of our Facebook feed as well as an embedded Google Calendar for our events. It was a definite win to use Google Calendar for managing our schedule. With a little bit of tweaking I was able to get it into a widget on our site footer.

Lastly, we started using MailChimp for our email newsletters and mailing list management. MailChimp has an API that we use to allow people to subscribe right from the website and also manage what groups they are interested in.

The Point: Better Communication

The new site looks better and is easier to use. But the major change we have seen is improved communication with our community. Using WordPress and social media has allowed me (geek) to get out of the way and allow the pastoral staff to do the communicating themselves. I think I did my job right this time.

The ERP Software Blog brings together a group of experts nationwide to assist financial professionals in the ERP/Accounting software selection process.

Read more about the project on my projects page.

One of the cool things about going to Refresh Miami was that I got to meet in person many of the people with whom I had already interacted with over the web. It turns out that last night there was a common theme in the presentations and announcements that were made: I would tag it as “Working Together”. I really appreciate what Alex said about social media interaction over the web:

Social media is not about the platform, it’s about the people.
– Alex De Carvalho

Coworking

First up was a talk by Alex and Brian about Coworking, which I would describe as a new way of working that basically involves sharing: sharing office space, sharing tools, sharing ideas, sharing skills and experience. Coworking is something that is of particular benefit to freelancers, solo entrepreneurs and startups who should be working together rather than just going it alone. It’s obvious that coworking can help you lower overhead costs but as Alex also said at the event:

Coworking is not about the space, it’s about the people.
– Alex De Carvalho

So, consider the benefits of coworking and get involved. If you’re not familiar with Brikolodge then you should be. Brikolodge is Miami’s first coworking facility and it’s run by Ali and Eduardo, two very friendly people who embody the ideal of sharing.

LaidOffCamp & FreelanceCamp Coming to Miami!

Next up at the event was a brief announcement about LaidOffCamp Miami and FreelanceCamp, two BarCamp-style unconferences that I hope to bring to South Florida. The idea is to have an event where freelancers, independents, startups and job seekers can come together, share ideas and opportunities; bottom line…find work. Please follow @LaidOffCampMIA and @FreelanceCampFL for updates and RSVP for the May 15 event on Facebook.

VOIS.com – Global Social Sourcing

Finally, we had a presentation at the event by Craig Agranoff and Herb Tabin from VOIS.com. VOIS.com is a social networking site that is all about connecting people who need projects done with those who can help them. VOIS stands for Virtual Outsourcing is Social. They call their concept “Global Social Sourcing” which combines a lot of the best features of social networking and freelance bidding sites and helps you build long-term relationships for business around the world. Visit VOIS.com – Social Networking for Freelancers, Outsourcing and Coworking!

This was my first time at Refresh Miami and I’m glad I finally made it. Thanks Brian, Alex and the rest of the community for a splendid evening.

I am not an SEO by profession and I don’t sell myself as an SEO expert. I don’t do SEO unless it is part of my developing a web site. In that case, I optimize the site based on the keywords chosen by the customer. I don’t get into the business of choosing the right keywords and building link campaigns.

With that said, I have taken the time to learn about SEO in order to market my own services and business ventures. Plus I’m just plain curious and any good web designer should know how search engines work.

I’m not going to get into the details of WordPress SEO with this post, but I will point you to some resources and give some of the main concepts that I have learned.

Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about but try these google searches and see where Papasoft ends up. I’ll post the current organic rankings as of today and we’ll see how well I can keep it up.

Google the following keywords (Papasoft rankings on page 1 in parentheses):

• custom wordpress programming – (#1)
• wordpress programming – (#5)
• wordpress miami – (#2)
• wordpress south florida – (#5)
• wordpress seo miami – (#2, I didn’t expect that one, let’s see how I fare after this post!)
• miami web developer – (page 1)

I think that I am just lucky to have used some keywords that may not be that popular. However, that proves one point I would like to make: You can find opportunities to rank your site by finding keywords that are not over saturated. It also helps in some cases that I have included my geographic location on my site title because sometimes people search for developers near them.

So, how did I get ranked high for these keywords even though I’m not an SEO expert?  Here goes…

1. Write about what you know. Write about your product or service and be natural about it. In other words, produce quality content. (I have a lot to learn here.)
2. Determine the keywords you want to target. In other words, what would someone that you want to come to your site be typing into the search box?
3. As long as it makes sense, revise your content to incorporate your keywords. Focus on only 1 or 2 per post/page. The TITLE tag of your page (what shows up at the top of the browser) is the most important place to use those keywords and they’ll also show up in links within your site about that post.
4. Use quality WordPress plugins that allow you to manage the title tags of your posts and category pages. Check out my recommendations below.
5. Get legitimate inbound links to your site. It helps that my customers allow me to add a link in the footer of sites I have developed back to my site. That builds up my search engine cred. But more importantly, get sites that are already ranked in your subject area to link to you AND even better that use the keywords you are targeting in that link to you. (I need to do better at this most definitely.)
6. Track your progress. Use Google Analytics to review your stats and your referral sources and keywords that brought folks to your site. Run queries yourself to see where you end up in the results.

That’s a start from an SEO dummy who did a lot of self study.

Here are some resources that you may find helpful. Add more in the comments if you like.

• WordPress SEO – by Joost de Valk (pronounced Yoast and at Yoast.com, definitely check out the video prez also)
• WordPress SEO Plugins – check out this list by John Carcutt who developed this site for his talk at WordCamp Miami 2009. (The guy who is #1 to my #2 above for wordpress seo miami )

I admit I was a little skeptical about how this was going to work out. It was my first unconference and I am not generally of the opinion that things “just happen”. You need leadership and fortunately we had some leadership with the visionaries who brought BarCamp to Miami, namely Alex De Carvalho (@alexdc) and the rest of the BarCamp team. There were many volunteers who helped make the event a success. Thank you.

So, the way this gig started was with a big slab of paper on a wall with time slots. People rushed to put up post it notes with the presentations they had prepared. This was the part that had me nervous. I had ominous visions of an American Idol tryout for geeks.

It turns out many of the presentations turned out to be quite good.  Here were my favorites.

• David Bisset (@dimensionmedia)  introduced us to BuddyPress.  I’m very excited about BP and am thinking of using it for a community site for solo entrepreneurs at Solo Startup.
• Jim Turner from One By One Media (@Genuine) spoke on Blogging for a Living and did a live web broadcast of Social Mediasphere on Blog Talk Radio once he got the wifi working.
• John Carcutt (@johncarcutt) gave an information-packed session on WordPress SEO that confirmed what I have learned and taught me lots more about SEO for WordPress.
• Finally, Jay Berkowitz (@JayBerkowitz) and Alex Harris (@alexdesigns) gave a super session on tips for using social media increase traffic to your site.

There were many other sessions that I did not attend but I heard were very good. I hope to see some of the info online after today and maybe I’ll link up to some at that point.

The best part about today was that I was able to meet several people whom I had gotten to know “virtually”.  It’s always good to have some face-to-face to strengthen a relationship.

Dumb Video Smackdown

It’s the veteran “Ken Lee” versus the new contender “Obama’s Elf”. Who will win this dumb video smackdown? Cast your vote now!

Obama’s Elf

Ken Lee

Tell Gary your ideas on what he should talk about here.

So here is my advice for a topic that I would love to hear Gary address.

No Time to Bail Out

I’ve heard some of Gary’s videos and comments on this down economy and how there are many opportunities for people who are not afraid to take some risks.

My take on it is this:

1. The cost to develop a web site, blog or web application is less than it ever has been.
2. The social media scene is about to explode once Twitter, FriendFeed and other tools hit the mainstream.
3. Most of the competition is scared to make a move, especially big companies.
4. This “down economy” presents the opportunity of a lifetime for entrepreneurs with an excellent niche idea that are able to move quickly.

Can’t wait to hear you speak Gary.  See you in Miami.