Category Archives: Useful Links

Creating a WordPress Child Theme

If you are creating a WordPress site for yourself, before you make any style customizations to your theme, it is very important that you create a Child Theme. If you don’t, the problem is that if you make any changes to your theme’s styles, the next time your theme or WordPress comes out with an update, the update may override your changes and you’ll have to add them back. This is assuming you made detailed notes of all the changes you made in the first place. WordPress updates generally fix bugs and make improvements, so you’ll want to stay current with WordPress updates. Always back-up your database before updating, in case anything goes wrong.

Instructions for how to create a WordPress Child Theme can be found at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes. You will need FTP access to your site and your FTP login information (different from your WordPress login), which you can obtain from your hosting provider (such as GoDaddy or BlueHost). After you create and activate your child theme, it is important that you leave the parent theme installed, because the child theme will take most of its data from the original parent theme. You should keep your parent theme updated to make sure you have the latest bug fixes and improvements.

Hootsuite Social Media Management

Hootsuite is a great social media tool. It allows you to manage several social media profiles with one login. The best feature is being able to schedule social media posts in advance. For example, schedule posts about events or sales for the appropriate time, instead of having to be online at the exact right moment to post to Facebook or Twitter. The free plan allows you to manage up to five social media profiles, but you can upgrade to the pro plan for a low monthly fee to add additional social profiles. I have been using it for over two years.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great free service, which allows you to track the number of visitors and other detailed statistics for you website. I install it on all new websites. If you have a Google account, I will share your site stats account with you so you can view them online anytime you want. Whether or not you have a Google account, I can set Analytics to send you a monthly, quarterly or yearly report of your website statistics.

www.google.com/analytics/