In the past, building websites required advanced skills in internet technology and various programming languages. Webmasters needed to be well-versed in HTML, PHP, CSS, and other programming fields, in order to create even a relatively simple website. Many times website owners would have to pay web developers a hefty fee to set up their website for them, and in many cases this still happens today. However, as the the internet has become more user-friendly, and with the advent of web 2.0, website owners can now use what are called CMS (Content Management Systems) to build, organize and maintain their websites. Some of these content management system let users upload preset themes that can be customized easily within a user-friendly interface. One of the most popular content management systems available is WordPress.

What is WordPress?

Although WordPress is actually a blogging platform, it is commonly used to create static web pages and complete websites. WordPress is basically a website administrative interface that lets you control every aspect of the site using tools that even the most novice users can utilize. These tools let you post text, images and any other kind of media quickly and easily without having any programming knowledge whatsoever. WordPress is updated on a regular basis you don’t have to worry about it becoming obsolete at all. WordPress can be installed by a complete novice using tools provided by your web host such as Fantastico or Simple Script.

Wordpress Plugins

One of the most appealing aspects of WordPress is it’s expandability. By using a vast array of plugins, users can do just about anything they desire with ease. New plugins are being created everyday, and they can be installed in less than one minute by even the most inexperienced webmaster. Once installed the plugin resides in the left side of the WordPress interface in the navigational bar, where you can easily adjust the plugin settings and control every aspect of your site’s functionality. Using plugins like the All-in-One SEO pack, you can even automatically optimize your site’s pages for the search engines.

Creating Static Web Pages with WordPress

Since WordPress was originally a blogging platform, creating a regular website can present some challenges to the novice user. The main problem is that the latest post will always be displayed at the top of the main page, which makes it hard to design a website as you would like it. Every time you add a new post, the order of your content will be disrupted since the latest post will be displayed at the top of the front page. This obviously is not desired if you want to have your content arranged a certain way. So how do you fix it? Well the answer is actually quite simple – use a plugin! There is a plugin called StickyOrderer that will let you organize your posts in the fashion want them, and you can do this on every page of your site! Using this plugin alone you can create well organized websites, instead of scattered blogs.

Drupal is one of the most popular CMS solutions on the market, along with Joomla and WordPress. All CMS give you the ability to choose templates for your website, and most of them have the same features in terms of design function, however Drupal seems to simplify the process of using themes with your website, even more than the average CMS.

The beauty of Drupal is that the design of your entire site can be controlled within one central database. Although the process is fairly simple, to fully take advantage of Drupal’s design features, there are a few things you should know.

Choosing Your Theme

Obviously the first thing you’ll want to do is select several themes that would fit your website. You can find themes in many places on the internet, such as third party websites. Simply do a web search for website design templates and themes, and you will find a huge selection to choose from.  While selecting the themes it is important to note whether or not the theme is supported by the version of Drupal you’re using. If you’re having trouble finding a theme that suits your needs, then you may want to hire a web designer to assist you in creating a custom made template.

You can find web designers that are willing to work for a relatively low price on many of the freelancing sites and forums online. Make sure you only work with reputable freelancers, as this presents the least amount of risk possible. You’ll also want to hire someone that is familiar with Drupal’s compatibility, and you’ll need to make sure they are wiling to make revisions if you are not satisfied with the template. Designing a website has to be a collaborative process that involves team work and trial and error. Make sure you theme matches the goals of your website as well. For example, you wouldn’t a soccer theme on a site about American football.  Once you’ve selected your theme, it is time to install it.

Installing Your Theme

Now that you have the theme of your dreams, it’s time to get it up and running on the world wide web. The first thing you’ll need to do is go through any README files or other support documentation that was included with your theme, as they may contain important information regarding the correct installation of your theme.  Once you’ve become familiar with the installation process, you can upload the them to the correct location. Usually this location will be: /sites/all/themes/yourThemeName. (Note that your user name and hard drive precedes the previous file path.)

Now you’ll need to log into your site as an administrator to finish the process. You can access your site’s administrative interface by typing: “thenameofyoursite.com/admin”: in the URL address bar in your browser. Once you’re in the in the administrative interface, locate the Site Building area, and the click on Themes. You should see the theme you uploaded on the list. To set the theme as your default theme, simply check the appropriate boxes. You can make this theme your default theme by checking the radio box. Once you’ve finished clock on Save Configuration to finalize the process.

Today there are many control panels available for many different uses. You have control panels that are geared towards large businesses, and control panels that work well in the dedicated hosting environment. However one of the more recent types of control panels are those that cater specifically  to the needs of bloggers. One such control panel is FirePow.  Many professional bloggers use FirePow to setup blogs quickly and efficiently. In fact, once you learn how to use this control panel effectively, you’ll be able to create an incredible amount of blogs in a short period of time. The practice of setting up blogs in such a short time span is called autoblogging. Many people make their living off of autoblogging. Some of them make the blogs for others and sell them as a service, while others setup blogs in hot niches to earn revenue with AdSense. Whatever your reasons for blogging are. FirePow is control panel that will increase your productivity as a blogger.

Blog Management With FirePow

The features included in FirePow make blog management extremely simple. Since FirePow is also compatible with a plethora of web applications, the expandability of the software offers supreme flexibility.  The user has extensive control over multiple blogs within a single interface. You can access unlimited blogs within the same control panel module, giving you the ability to edit many blogs in a short period of time.

On Demand Information For Multiple Blogs Simultaneously

In FirePow’s control panel interface you’ll find important information next to the name of each blog. You’ll also be able to access web applications for each blog by simply clicking the icons located next to the blog names. Some of the information shown next to the blog name is the blog’s post count, as well as the date of the last entry. Having this information at hand is very helpful, especially when you have multiple blog’s to handle.  Your WordPress status, including the current version you’re using is also displayed in the main control panel, and you can easily update to the latest version of WordPress with a single mouse-click!

Taking Your Blogging to the Next Level

With FirePow bloggers can go from being an ordinary blogger to becoming an autoblogger with hundreds of blogs. Having access to this many blogs really gives you an enormous web presence that can be used for so many purposes. These blogs can be linked to each other to create an enormous link network that will increase the backlink count of each blog, or you can link them all to one central domain to build your main website’s search engine ranking. You can drive traffic from one blog to the next and create a seemingly infinite network of blogs that could potentially dominate a particular niche. With the power to mange and create so many blogs in such a short period of time, you could take advantage of the most recent trends and set up twenty blogs about a hot topic in a matter of minutes! You could then sue these blogs to promote affiliate offers, make revenue with advertising, or simply resell them later on for a profit once you’ve built a substantial visitor base.

With so many choices available, picking a content management system for your business website can be a very difficult task. All of them claim to be the best, and the truth is that most of them are capable of the same basic functions. However there are some CMS that go beyond the boundaries of what a normal CMS is capable of by offering unlimited expandability within the software. These CMS are called “open source” CMS, because they are an ongoing open project.

Any developer or programmer  that is interested in designing web applications for these CMS can do so without any limitations or legal ramifications. Fir this reason, the features and capabilities of these CMS are rapidly expanding. As the capabilities of your CMS expands, so does the capabilities of your website, and ultimately your online business.

The Cost of an Open Source CMS

With all of these wonderful benefits, you would expect an open source CMS to be very expensive. Surprisingly most open source software is free, including open source CMS! One such example is the ever-so popular WordPress which is used by millions of webmasters around the world to handle everything from everyday tasks such as email, to more complex tasks such as website design. WordPress even gives you the ability to outsource the work to multiple users within a single account. These users can be given certain permissions, such as uploading, content publication, and template administration. This feature alone really helps boost the productivity of your site by giving you a workforce that you can deploy with full control. It really is hard to believe that all of this comes at zero cost!

Just How Expandable are Open Source CMS?

Even without all of the incredible plugins and applications that are available, these tools provide powerful administrative capabilities. Now imagine adding an unlimited amount of features. Imagine having the ability to say “ I want this,” and then making it happen by hiring a freelance programmer. This is the kind of freedom and expandability experienced by open source CMS users on a daily basis! With literally thousands of applications available, even the worst open source CMS can be made into a fully functional super software with just a few additional applications. Although WordPress is already capable of just about everything one could ask for, the applications available for it really take it to the next level. Thanks to CMS like WordPress, webmasters can setup websites with pre-designed themes and templates in a matter of minutes.

Why Use a Free Software When You Can Afford an Expensive One?

The answer to this question is really quite simple – you don’t need to pay, because all of the features you’re “paying for,” are available for free through web applications that can be added to your free CMS in a matter of minutes. In fact some CMS  even have integrated applications that will make the installation of additional applications quick and simple. With features like these, the real question should be Why should you pay for a CMS, when you can get one for free that does the same thing…. and more?

Blogging is one of the easiest way to express yourself on the internet. Anyone can start a blog for free and discuss anything they’d like with ease. For this reason it is now wonder there are tons of new blogs created everyday.  Blogging can be done on free sites, or even on your own hosted domain. If you decide to make a serious blog related to your business, then you may want to consider a hosting package that will suit the needs of your blog.

Blogging Platforms

Blogging platforms such as Blogger and WordPress are extremely popular ways to host a blog. WordPress is actually considered the best by countless bloggers and their testaments may be a factor to consider when choosing your blogging platform. WordPress is extremely user-friendly and customizable, offering the user a wide variety of themes, “widgets” and plugins. These blogging applications will take your blog to the next step, and can help you make the entire process of setting up and creating a blog completely automated. In fact, some people utilize these blogging applications to initiate autoblogs.

Free VS. Paid Blog Hosting

There is a choice of either free or paid hosting services for your blog. For most people, a free blog host will suffice, as they are not looking for overly complex features or high amounts of bandwidth. However, you should remember that if you are serious about blogging, then sooner or later you will reach a limit in what you can do with free hosting. If you want your blog to grow and expand into a very large and highly visited blog, then it may be in your best interest to consider a paid web hosting package that includes blog support. It is not hard to find such services at very affordable prices in today’s competitive market.

Choosing a Paid Host

Choosing a paid host means that you will want to weigh your options carefully, as you do not want to pay for a service that does not meet your needs fully. It used to be quite difficult to find the right match for your web hosting needs. However it is now far easier as the market is more competitive and there are more resources available that will help you choose the right web hosting service.  Once you have chosen several prospective web hosting services that are interesting to you, you can then search for a review on each company to see which one is most suitable for you.

Regardless of whether you use free or paid hosting, blogging is an excellent way to share your opinions with the world. Blogging is also a great way to make money if you know how to market your blog in an efficient manner. If you are not comfortable using paid services in the beginning, then you can try using free services until you are ready to upgrade to a more comprehensive hosting plan with better blog support. Most of the time you can add your existing free blog to a paid hosting account, so your hard work is not really lost.

Being hacked is one of the unfortunate facts of life for a web site.  Of the most heavily attacked, open source and commercial CMS (Content Management Systems) programs are at the top of the list.  Secure information such as credit card numbers, banking information and other confidential items could be leaking from ones own web site and often one wouldn’t even be aware of it.  How can web site owners combat this constant barrage of attacks and security leaks?  Simply by utilizing security software that incorporates itself into an existing CMS setup.

CMS programs covered

SecureLive is a CMS security tool that easily incorporates into many major CMS programs – WordPress, Joomla, Magento and more.  The products offered by SecureLive seem to be more heavily geared toward Joomla but it appears as though the company is striving to ensure as many different CMS and PHP programs normally used are included.  One CMS program that it does not work with just yet is Drupal.  However, support for Drupal is pending and should be released soon.

Live monitoring

This program works in real-time and is a live monitoring service that increases the security for web sites containing secure information.  As soon as a web site has been attacked, SecureLive immediately sends a notification of the attack to the server administrator.  Information regarding the attacker is captured and saved.  A notification is also sent to the SecureLive staff enabling them to file a report with the appropriate entities so that immediate action can be taken against the attackers.  All alerts and notifications can be sent either by text messages or emails.

Products offered

SecureLive offers ten different products to suit specific needs.  There are products specific to online blogs, shopping carts, forms, forums and analytics.  All separate software programs run $197 each.  If needing a complete system encompassing all different aspects of an online web site, SecureLive offers SecureLiveMax.  At $497, this software is a combination of other products offered – SecureBLOG, SecureCART, SecureFORM, SecureFORUM and SecureANALYTICS.

Add-on services

Beyond the actual programs offered, SecureLive also offers add-on products.  SecureLive PLUS is an add-on that places a dedicated admin within one’s system to allow for system adjustments and quick follow ups on site security violations.  For a complete server security optimization, the company offers SecureRX as another product add-on.  For those who have had the misfortune of already being the victim of an attack, SecureLive also offers SecureRESCUE – a de-hacking service that repairs a hacked server and gets it back online as soon as possible.

Support

The SecureLive web site has a few areas one can utilize for support should it be needed.  The support forum area and Q&A area seem to be rather sparse but the company does offer a toll free support number to call.  Perhaps as the product grows and becomes more well-known, the support sections for the company’s web site will be expanded.

Conclusion

As threats and attacks to web sites increase on a daily basis, growing not only in number but sophistication, the need for employing good security measures is paramount.  One of a business’ most important assets can be their online web site – ensuring good customer relations, gather new customers and getting their product or service out there for the general surfing public.  Putting into place a good, solid security program to safeguard not only the web site but the secure information that is entailed with customer relations is just good business sense.

When looking for a content management system (CMS) to create and manage a web site, there are literally hundreds to choose from.  One that stands out from the crowd due to its ease of use and simple implementation is Wordpress.

Installation

The few items that should be checked prior to installation is whether or not PHP and MySQL are installed on the server where the web site resides and whether FTP access is enabled.  Wordpress relies on PHP and MySQL in order to work and the site must be accessible via FTP in order to upload files.  Once these items have been attended to, Wordpress can be downloaded and unzipped onto the user’s computer (not the web server at this point).  A database must be created on the web server as well as a user with the privileges set to access and utilize this newly created database.  Once the database has been created, the file named wp-config-sample.php needs to be renamed to wp-config.php then opened up and edited to reflect the details of the database previously created.  After the wp-config.php file is saved, the entire folder can then be uploaded to the web site at the root web location.

Configuring and adding

The installation of Wordpress is the hard part.  The easy and fun part is configuring and adding to the program.  There are a large number of plugins and themes available to make a web site one of a kind.  Plugins range from statistical gathering to comments to polls and much more.  If there is a need, guaranteed it has already been created as a plugin by someone.  At last count, there are over one thousand themes available at the Wordpress site and this number continuously grows.

The Wordpress site also has an extensive documentation area that covers installation, upgrading, file and plugin management and much more.  If a question can’t be answered within the documentation area, there is also a forums section overflowing with information from previously asked questions and people who are more than happy to help with wading through the ins and outs of Wordpress.

Showcasing

Once the Wordpress site is up, running and looking beautiful, Wordpress has a “Showcase” section on their web site.  This is a great way to show off a newly created site and gives peers a chance to review and rate different sites.  The Showcase area is also great for inspiration.  Some very beautiful and creative Wordpress sites are shown here.

Conclusion

Easy to install, simple and fun to add to and configure, great documentation and forum support, a way to show off new sites and free hosting – Wordpress is an excellent choice for managing web site content and building a beautiful new web site.

Securing your web site may be one of the most important things you can do to ensure your data is safe from hackers.  Any hole left open is an invitation to nefarious attacks and these attacks can lead to not only leaking or usage of your private information but information that belongs to your customers.  Proper security measures effectively put into place can deter attacks and give you and your customers peace of mind.

How hackers work

First, exactly how do hackers get into your site and gather information?  Above all else, hackers are patient as much of their work involves guessing.  After carefully watching your web site for a time, the hacker will peruse cookies that are created and see if changes to the cookies garners success, explore the source code of each of your site’s pages and often will create an account to view the authorization process.  Hackers spend a great deal of time processing the information they gather to enable them to see where the holes are and how they can exploit these areas.

Update your CMS

One of the very first and simplest things to help secure your web site is to ensure you have the most current update of your CMS (content management system).  Software such as Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and many other mainstream CMS programs are constantly tested and updated to close up any unsecured areas.  Each day you let an update slide is another day a hacker has to get to your secure information.

Change the defaults

CMS programs often are automatically setup with default information.  After installing your CMS program, ensure you are not using the default administrator user name (often simply admin) and you have changed any default passwords.  You can be sure a hacker will know all the default information with regard to the particular CMS software your site is running on.

PHP error reporting

PHP is a very handy bit of web site programming but unfortunately can tell a hacker a lot about your system and your site if the error reporting level is set to show too much information in error messages.  You can greatly reduce this risk by completely turning off PHP error reporting and setting your configuration to not display errors should one occur.  If you are unable to do this yourself, request it of your system administrator or from support at your web hosting company.

The htaccess file

By properly setting up your htaccess file, you can also keep hackers out of secure files.  First, you should ensure no one can access the actual htaccess file itself accidentally by including the following within the htaccess file:

<files .htaccess>

order allow, deny

deny from all

</files>

If there are any other files you wish to keep private, you can use the same coding and replace .htaccess with the name of your secure file.

Secure passwords

Lastly, it almost goes without saying but always use very strong and secure passwords.  It is very unwise to use your birth date or passwords that are very easy to remember.  If you can remember it easily, it’s a safe bet that a hacker will figure it out in a matter of seconds.  There are many sites online that can help you create a good, solid and secure password.

Conclusion

Being diligent with the security of your web site will not only benefit you but will also benefit your customers.  Take a few moments to go over the tips listed above and don’t give a hacker a chance.

Content management systems are designed to facilitate the easy publishing and managing of various types of content.  A CMS simplifies the process of updating content and also makes it easier to create a dynamic website regardless of what you lack in programming experience.  Going with such a software tool is never a bad move, but there are some factors that must be taken into consideration before deciding on a CMS.

Do You Really Need a CMS?

The first determination you should make is whether or not your website truly requires the functionality of a CMS.  Do you need a simple blog or do you plan to open up an online storefront?  Do you intend to publish a lot of content that requires frequent updates?  If not, you might be best suited with a conventional site builder and shopping cart, or a user-friendly blog platform like WordPress.  Although most content management systems are advertised as “easy to use”, even intuitive software such as Joomla will require some technical savvy on your part, especially if you want to customize your site.  Do not make the trendy mistake of dealing with a CMS when your website doesn’t require such complexities.

Commercial or Open-Source?

After deciding that a CMS is really what you need to get the job done, you must then think about the type of software you want to work with.  In the beginning, this is a simple matter of commercial versus open-source.   If you have a knowledgeable IT staff on hand, you could also have them custom design the software in-house.  Ironically, the commercial solutions are the lesser known and often avoided like the plague.  This is mainly because of fancy price tags that range into the thousands.  If you want to see what the higher price gets you, check out The New York Times and Sun Microsystems as they are few of several big companies with sites powered by commercial systems.

Open-source content management systems are popular amongst the community of individual webmasters and developers.  This type of software is generally free and easy to install on the server.  Open-source solutions can meet a wide range of needs and even prove to be useful in the business setting.  The biggest drawback to these programs is inconsistency and a lack of stability.  The source code of an open-source CMS goes through the hands of numerous developers and there is often no official support to rely on.  You will also find that even some of the most popular applications have to undergo numerous releases be address bugs and security flaws.

Know Where to Look

Once you determine what type of CMS you need, it’s time find yourself a good product.  It shouldn’t be hard to find open-source programs like Joomla and Drupal on the web hosting market, but you will have to search in other places for commercial versions.   This could turn out to be a lengthy process, but you will appreciate the time spent once landing on the right software.