Typically, on a custom build, I will make some screencast videos on how to manage the backend of the site but I was not accompanying it with anything in written form. I just felt a long write-up was overwhelming and it was ultimately clearer if clients could see what I was talking about when it came to how to update their site moving forward. Clarify has totally changed that and I’ve efficiently made clear PDFs to go with my custom builds. I can grab screenshots with or without delays, easily annotate them and add additional text notes and output a clean PDF with all of the notes.

Sure, nothing Clarify does is something I couldn’t do across a multitude of programs. Create a screenshot in a screen capture program, load it into Photoshop to make notes on the screenshot, take the screenshot and put it into a text editor to add accompanying text but Clarify combines all this noise into one simple application that makes that process so much more efficient. I am just so, so happy I stumbled across this gem of an app.

If you are in a position where making instructional PDFs that include screenshots would be beneficial, I strongly urge you to check out Clarify! It’s awesome.

• Keep WordPress and its plug-ins up-to-date: WordPress periodically releases updates that occasionally address security updates. While not deploying every update the second it comes out is not a cause for alarm, letting your installation become really outdated is. Additionally, every plug-in you add to your site is open to any vulnerabilities that exist within that plug-in. Making sure any plug-ins are well-researched is important, as is keeping them up-to-date with WordPress.
• Harden WordPress: The Codex has a great overview of additional steps that can be taken to harden your WordPress install.
• Security-based Plug-ins: There are plenty of plug-ins out there that are geared towards added WordPress security steps. Doing a simple search for “security” in the plug-in repository will generate a ton of results.
• Web Hosts: WPEngine is a hosting company that’s geared specifically towards hosting WordPress-based sites and security is a major focus. While more expensive than some other hosting options, if you want to go the extra mile with security, it may be worth checking out.

Overall, if the right steps are taken, WordPress is definitely a secure solution for any website. The Codex even offers guidance on how you can protect yourself from brute force attacks. Even with news of these brute force attacks, I wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest in using WordPress for any future project.

• Label & group your layers: It makes a big difference in how efficiently I’m able to pull necessary pieces from the PSD if I’m able to easily hide/show elements. Looking for a Header folder and finding the layer with your social icons moves much faster than if everything is within one and I’m forced to try to find everything with vague labeling like Layer 4.
• Make sure fonts are licensed for the web: This is one thing that I am honestly surprised gets overlooked so much. If you are not using a standard font in your design (Helvetica, Arial, etc.) then your font should be available via Google Web Fonts or FontSquirrel’s font kits or TypeKit or similar.
• Include everything that you want: If you want dropdown menus, show an example of what those menus look like on hover. If you want rollover states on the icons, include the rollover state in a layer group.
• Repeatable patterns: If you used a tiled, textured background in your design, supply that independently from the design.
• Responsive design: Responsive design is awesome and definitely a trend that we will all continue to see. If you are a designer and you want your design to be responsive, include what the layouts look like at a tablet and mobile level so the developer can see how you want it to break down. Typically, there are a lot of changes, especially from desktop to mobile, so working solely off a desktop design on a responsive build is difficult. For me personally, I request tablet and mobile breakdowns on every responsive project.

Overall, there are a lot of steps that can be taken to make for an efficient development process. If you are a designer or an agency and you are interested in handing off designs to developers for builds, I would encourage you to take a look at Photoshop Etiquette.

The good news is you can effectively maintain a WordPress website with very minimal technical skills and zero knowledge of code is required. Content is managed through very straightforward text fields and in text blocks you have button controls that function much like the controls of Microsoft Word or any other text editor. Images can be controlled through easy to use upload fields where you locate the image file on your computer and it can be set up to auto-resize images to fit within certain dimensions if the layout calls for it.

For each of my custom built WordPress projects, I supply a set of screencast tutorials made specifically for your project that outline how various updates to your site can be made. I walk you through the steps to do whatever your site involves: perhaps it’s adding a new portfolio project, a new video, updating an events calendar. Whatever it is, I’ll show you specifically how it’s done within your custom theme and answer any questions to make sure you’re more than confident about your ability to maintain your site moving forward.

In my time working with WordPress and with clients who have varying degrees of technical skills, I’ve never had a client come back and be unable to manage their site through WordPress because it is too complicated. I definitely make every effort to simplify even complex front-end features into super straightforward, easy-to-use fields. I think you will be blown away by how easy it is to manage your site with WordPress!

When WordPress developers, like myself, can develop custom themes from scratch, it gives us the ability to take your existing site and tack on the WordPress CMS without requiring many, if any, changes to your site. The complexity of this undertaking is based on what type of coding language your original site uses and the scope of the project (number of pages, functionality needed, etc.)

Reasons for wanting a WordPress conversion vary. Maybe you are sick of having to reach out to a developer every time you want to edit text or swap out an image of your site. Maybe your existing site uses a different content management system that you find clunky & hard-to-use. Whatever your reasons, I’m sure you’ll be amazed at how simple WordPress can make managing your site once it’s converted.

If you are interested in discussing a potential WordPress conversion project, feel free to contact me!

Some hosting companies do make automatic backups of their hosting accounts so it may be worth investigating as to whether that is the case with your own host. It’s up to you on whether you deem that sufficient coverage if they do offer it. It’s relatively simple to get added coverage in this department through several plug-in options:

PAID OPTIONS

• VaultPress: Vaultpress is created by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. You pay a monthly fee and there are scheduled backups and security scans run on your site.
• BackUpBuddy: Instead of a monthly fee, this is a one time fee and it also offers backup scheduling and you can backup to your host or external sites like DropBox.

FREE OPTIONS

• BackUpWordPress
• BackWPUp
• WP-DB-Backup (this plug-in backs up the WordPress database only, no files)
• WordPress Backup to Dropbox

The best way to go about moving WordPress to a different location is to move the files manually vs. using WordPress’ Import/Export function through the admin area. To move WordPress the ideal way, you will need FTP and PHPMyAdmin access on both hosts, as well as a MySQL database on the new location where WordPress is being moved. It is a major help if you have some familiarity with PHPMyAdmin if you are moving WordPress this route. The steps I personally follow are:

1) First, I export the WordPress database from its current location via PHPMyAdmin. If you have never done this before, a quick Google search should provide helpful documentation articles, such as this.

2) Next, I back up all of the site files from their existing location via FTP.

3) On my local copy of the files, I change the wp-config file to reflect the new location’s MySQL database information by updating the database name, username, password and potentially host if the servers vary on their usage of localhost.

4) Logging into PHPMyAdmin on the new server, I import the WordPress database backup I created in Step 1 into the new database. Again, if you are not familiar with PHPMyAdmin, if you do a basic Google search for importing into databases in PHPMyAdmin you can find more detailed tutorials.

5) In the database you just imported, there are likely a lot of references to the old WordPress location in the site URL and home URL, as well as content. Running MySQL queries on the database is the easiest way to catch all of these instances and update it to reflect the new WordPress location. If you click here, you will be taken to an amazingly helpful blog post detailing some WordPress database queries. During a location change, you would want to run: Change siteurl & homeurl, Change GUID, Change URL in Content and Update Post Meta. Once you’ve run these queries, your database is prepped and ready to go for your new location.

6) Depending on the circumstances behind the move, how you approach transferring the files may differ. For instance, if I am moving a WordPress site to replace a live HTML site, I may add DirectoryIndex index.html index.php to the .htaccess file so that the client’s HTML site is prioritized before I upload any WordPress files. That way, I don’t interfere with their existing site until WordPress is fully ready to go. If I am replacing an existing WordPress site, I typically create a temporary splash page while I change out the files. If it’s a completely new server with nothing there, that’s the easiest and the files can just be uploaded without worrying about anything beyond that.

7) Once the files are in place and the database has been migrated, you will want to refresh Permalinks at the new location. The easiest way to do this is to log into the WordPress admin at the new location and go to Settings -> Permalinks and just click Save.

Your WordPress site should now be fully migrated! I know moving WordPress manually may seem overwhelming, especially at first, but once you’ve done it a couple times, it is a breeze. At this point, I feel like I could move WordPress in my sleep.

Additionally, there are plug-ins out there like Duplicator, WordPress Move and WP Migrate DB that are supposed to help you with parts of this process. I have never used them as I am comfortable doing it myself but there are options available to you should you wish to explore them!

If you are trying to transition into WordPress from HTML web development, I would advise against using any type of theme framework, such as Genesis or Thesis or anything of that nature. I am by no means trashing WordPress frameworks, some people love coding with them and to each their own. But in my personal opinion, I think it’s more likely to feel overwhelmed when starting out if using something like that as then you are working on learning both the framework and WordPress. Instead, I’d try to find a bare bones, minimal theme that works for you. You may need to try out a few until you find one that you like. I personally use one of my own creation that takes pieces from both Starkers and HTML5 Boilerplate. I’ve heard really great things about Bones and Roots, as well.

A great deal of the code used to set up layouts on WordPress themes is the same as standard HTML builds. Understandably, the key difference is how content is pulled in. There are so many awesome things to learn within WordPress but to start out initially, I’d focus on these key elements:

- The Loop: learn the loop so well that your children will have the loop encoded in their DNA. This is how all content is pulled in. Know how to interact with it. The Loop is all-powerful and without it, you will not get very far in WordPress theming.

- WordPress Template Hierarchy: This is important to understand so you know the WordPress theme structure to set up and where WordPress will look for each page.

- Custom Post Types & Custom Fields: Mastering these two elements are a must when you are using WordPress as a website CMS. There are plug-ins that can simplify the process (Custom Post Type UI and Advanced Custom Fields) While I’m not against using plug-ins to accomplish this type of functionality, I do think it’s important to not be fully reliant on them and understand how to declare custom post types through the functions.php file and how to query standard custom fields in.

Additionally, when I started coding in WordPress, I read A LOT of blog posts and e-books about doing so. The wealth of information available to you through a simple Google search is astounding. Of the e-books, the two I found most helpful were Digging into WordPress and How to Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer. There may be better e-books out there now than there were when I was first learning but I remember finding those two helpful. I’d also recommend checking out the developer track at WordCamp. When you’re starting out, you can take away a lot from those little conferences and the cost is extremely reasonable to attend.

Overall, I would just suggest to be patient and understand that it will take awhile to master the most efficient ways to do everything within WordPress. I still feel like I stumble on new & better ways to do things as WordPress continues to grow. It’s definitely worth the time it takes to learn.

function remove_footer_admin () {
echo 'Theme designed and developed by <a href="http://www.kristinfalkner.com" target="_blank">Kristin Falkner</a> and powered by <a href="http://wordpress.org" target="_blank">WordPress</a>.';
}
add_filter('admin_footer_text', 'remove_footer_admin');

In the theme’s functions.php file, I’ve now added a nice little credit link visible from the WordPress admin side that reads, “Theme designed and developed by Kristin Falkner and powered by WordPress.”