Back Up Your Website

Backing up your files

The first part of backing up your website is backing up your website folders and files. The easiest way I know how to do this is using an FTP client to log on to your server, and download the files onto your local computer.

Not sure how to do this? Here’s some simple steps.

1. Download and install an FTP client such as Filezilla or SmartFTP or Fetch if your on a Mac
2. Log in to your hosting account and find your FTP login information.  If you can’t find it, you may need to contact technical support at your hosting company to obtain your FTP username and password
3. Open your FTP client and login to your website server using your FTP login information
4. Dowload all the files in the public or www folder on your server onto your computer
5. Be careful not to accidentally delete any files or folders!

If all of this is confusing, consider hiring a professional to do this work for you.  If you alredy have a web designer, they could do this for you and put the files on disk so you have a copy of your website files.

Backing up your Database

Whether you’re using WordPress to run your website, or some other CMS, if you’re using a database to store your data, it’s very important that you periodically back up your database.

This can be very daunting task for some people. However, here is a simple and easy WordPress Database Backup Walkthrough. This page provides instructions on how to back up your database using phpmyadmin (a database program used by many hosts). There are also instructions for using Straight MySQL Commands, as well as MySQL Administrator to back up your database.

It’s important to note that this process can be very dangerous.  If you execute the wrong command, or push the wrong button, you could erase your website data.  Therefore, if you don’t have any experience with this process, consider hiring a professional to do the work for you.

If you’re using WordPress, there are several plugins including WP-DB-Backup, that help make backing up your database easier.

Contact me if you’d like help backing up your website or if you need assistance with other web projects, or if you have questions about this information.

Desert Sands Acupuncture and Oriental Therapy

Desert Sands provides acupuncture and Oriental therapy in Tucson Arizona.  The site follows a typical layout for a pracitioner of alternative medicine, with pages outlining information about the practice, the healing space, rates, and healing modalities used.  It also has a newsletter page, photo gallery and event calendar.  This website with designed using Wordpress as a content management system (CMS).  Visit Desert Sands Acupuncture and Oriental Therapy in Tucson Arizona.

Add Your Business to Google’s Local Business Center

Adding your business to Google’s Local Business Center is a smart marketing idea.  If you do a Google search using your location and the type of business (for example: Tucson Web Design), you’ll see that Google has implemented the first organic search result to come from local business results and Google maps.  What does this mean?  Two things:

1. Google is moving toward more relevant search results by adding a local component to their search results.
2. If your business is not listed with Google’s Local Business Center, it should be.

Google gives you lots of options for adding your business to its Local Business Center, including adding your basic business information, adding your business to categories, adding a link to your website, displaying payment options, uploading photos and videos about your business, and adding coupons.

With all the options available, you can basically create a mini site about your business, giving potential customers a lot of information about what you provide.

Here’s instructions for adding your business to Google Maps.

Magic Tower Games

Magic Tower Games is a game store located in Tucson Arizona. This website was put together using WordPress as a content management system and using an open source shopping cart. The site offers dynamic content on the front page to help local customers quickly find information about upcoming events at the game store. Visit Magic Tower Games

Using Screen Capture Software to Create Marketing Videos

Everywhere I look now, people are putting video on their site.  And why not?  It’s highly effective and much more personal than reading text. Today, creating your own video is fairly inexpensive. All you need is a decent digital video recorder and you can post your video to a video sharing site like YouTube or
Viddler and it doesn’t cost you anything.

Online video is a perfect opportunity to share your knowledge with people, while making your site feel more personal. I’ll be using this approach with my Yoga and meditation website. But I’ve also been playing around with something new…

It’s screen capture software called Camtasia.

Camtasia allows you to record whatever is on your computer screen while also recording your voice in real time, giving you the capability to create video presentations or video tutorials. It’s also great for creating howto videos as well as adding audio to a PowerPoint presentation and posting it on a website.

Camtasia has some amazing capabilities, and I’ve only touch the surface of it, but you can see the work I’ve done with it to create these WordPress training videos. The piece I like the best is the ability to create a “theater,” where you can link videos, one after another in a series. This allows you to create training video presentations, and also include a table of context that allows users to jump ahead in the video presentation series. See an example of that with this online video tutorial

The power of Camtasia is it’s ability to pack powerful features into an easy to use presentation. The learning curve was very low for this product. I was able to plug in my microphone, watch one Camtasia video tutorial, and I was on my way to creating video tutorials. And Camtasia comes at a reasonable price, just $299. I’d expect to pay a lot more for something this powerful.

If you’re looking to add video to your site, I’m working with a local videographer who can utilize digital video or HD technology for your video project. Conact me to find out how we might work together to add video to your site, or create a video product to enhance your product offerings.

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