Got a tweet yesterday which I promptly retweeted from CaptnAffiliate (someone you should follow if you are a marketer.)

@CaptnAffiliate: If you haven’t backed up your blogs recently, this is as good a time as any to do it!

It served as a good reminder and that is the reason for the post. My programmer does ours each week. This means we lose at most a week of blog posts if something goes wrong on the server.

There are two different ways to back up WordPress and which one YOU should use depends on how many plugins you have and how much tweaking you have done.

The easy way is to use the built in exporter in WordPress. This is quite easy to do just login and go to Tools – Export

Click the Download Export File and save it to your computer. (I have a separate folder just for blog backups so I can find them easily.)

This is the easy way but…

Yes there is always a but it only keeps your post content. If you are using a bunch of plugins or a complex theme like Flexibility that has various settings you have not saved all of those items.

The first way will give you your content but all of your settings are gone if you ever have to redo your blog. That is why I pull the actual data base for the blog. This will have all of the information on your settings and if you need to reinstall it you keep all of the settings changes you have made that are data base driven.

To save your data base I have started using a plugin called WordPress Data Base Backup (it will be added to the Power WordPress Users set on Monday) as it is easier to use for most than just exporting the data base through PHPMyAdmin. Once the plugin is installed just click Tools – Backup.

Then pick the additional tables you want to download (I grab them all but you can and should skip any stats data base as they can be huge and are not necessary for getting your blog back in case of catastrophe) by checking the boxes while holding the shift key.Then click

Check the download to your computer then click Backup now!

Save that file to your computer where you can find it and you are done.

Now this plugin will allow you to schedule the data base to be emailed to you but I always do it manually and save it to my computer so I know..

1. That I have a good copy
2. That is was actually done

Automation is great but it is too easy in my humble opinion to depend on that and God forbid you need it and something went wrong with the automation and you do not have a current backup. We back up once a week as part of our regular schedule of tasks. I have discussed your content and data bases here but you should also keep copies of any files you have edited such as your theme files. Just because you edited your header or footer of your theme in your dashboard you should always save a copy to your computer.

You can grab the basic theme files again easily but if you are like me and have editied your themes having a copy will save you having to do it again in case of catastrophe.

Which ever way you use, it is the end of the month and it is a good time to do your backup RIGHT NOW!

Hopefully this will be a total waste of your time and you will never ever need this backup but believe me, the one time that you do need this backup the time you spent doing it will be time well spent.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: back up WordPress, wordpress, wordpress plugin, WP Database Backup

There is a huge buzz about Twitter and the various social media. You hear it on the television (think Oprah), in the newspaper (even my little local Schuykill county PA paper has an account) and just about everywhere you turn.

The key is should it be a part of your blogging? And if so how can I use it in a time efficient manner?

The first question is easy. It absolutely should be BUT….

Yeah, I know always with the big but (that was but not butt stop looking back there it aint that big) that makes the easy not quite so easy.

You absolutely should be using Twitter if you can attract qualified followers and build a relationship with them so they will visit your blog and take advantage of your offers without spending forever to do it.

If you can do that it becomes an easy answer to absolutely use it.

If you end up spending hours and hours trying to make it work then it is a definite no. You are taking time away from creating content for your readers. Good content on your blog is always the top priority and will be your biggest draw for increasing visitors.

The key to making this work is to be able to use Twitter to attract more readers. Twitter followers properly targeted have become a bigger portion of my readership. Using items to automate some of it like Tweet My Blog is a huge time saver.

The big problem with Twitter though is to break through the clutter. You want, need to be seen as an authority by your followers on your topic. That way you will break through the clutter and be one of the people that they actually pay attention to.

If you are using some of the tools to maintain your Twitter account like Tweet Deck you have probably already started sorting the messages from people you follow. I have a general column but there are those that I segregate into groups so their tweets show separately and I don’t miss the people that provide me with quality information. This is where you want to get to with your followers.

If you become the authority not only for your blog but for your Twitter followers then you will be moved to the coveted must see column. This is done by sharing quality information.

That was the time constraint though for most. Finding quality information and then letting everybody that follows know about it without it becoming your be all end all. It is why I put together the Twitter Time Saver.

It shows the exact steps and how to automate most of them that I use to be able to easily share quality information with my followers. Your time is spent only as a filter to make sure you pass on quality information. That has lead to an increase in followers and visitors to my blogs.

The best part though is it only takes a few minutes, a few times a day to do this. When people get quality information they are likely to retweet it. That is the nature of Twitter. Each retweet gets your name in front of others that have no idea who you are but if the information is good and is coming from someone who is a credible source to that person already they tend to come follow you too.

It will snowball and will definitely increase your circle of influence. Check out the Twitter Time Saver and copy the methods to draw more visitors to your blog without wasting hours of your time.

Mike Paetzold

Follow me on twitter

Technorati Tags: blogging, tweet my blog, twitter, twitter time saver

I will be opening some type of coaching shortly but as I am trying to put it together a question came up in my mind so being the simple old bald guy that I am I figured the easiest way to get an answer is to ask. See old age has advantages sometimes even I get smarter .

Amazing concept I know.

I have considered following the pattern I did with WordPress Lessons and doing a series of 4, 5 or 6 lessons to go through using blogs profitably as a single package that runs consecutively at a single price or doing a monthly or bi-weekly lesson that will continue indefinitely with past lessons archived.

As WordPress keeps evolving my gut tells me that a continuing series would be more valuable but my gut has been wrong often enough for me to ask first. Please take the poll below and let me know what fits YOU best.

Thanks for your input.

On another note I have added a WordPress Resource page. Let me know what you think of it.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blogging instruction, WordPress Resources

Took the morning/early afternoon for the Memorial Day Parade and our family picnic but just got the last glitches worked out on my new project (I hope .

This is only for those that regularly add new WordPress blogs to your portfolio. If you only have a blog or two and rarely add a new one this is not for you.

If you do regularly add blogs for various niches like I do then this can be a great time saver for you. Save time on each blog you install by not chasing for the latest upgrades. Check it out at

Power WordPress Users

It will save you time with each blog you install.

Hope you are enjoying the holiday if you are in the US and hope you are having a profitable start to your week if you are not on holiday.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog install, Power WordPress Users, WordPress install

Staying ahead of the story line in your niche can be very beneficial for your traffic. As an example I picked up on the story of Six Apart supporting some WordPress plugins for their proprietary items. It was a big story because Six Apart is the owner of the Typepad blogging platform and is a competitor of WordPress.

The key though is that by being among the first I have gotten some good backlinks and traffic from others referring to my story.

Here is a simple way to keep abreast with whatever is hot in your niche. Google news is constantly updating by keyword. They also have an rss feed for any keyword search you make.

This allows me to monitor any topic for the latest stories easily. Take your topic and go to Google News and do a search.

Click on the RSS icon and go get the url for the feed. The next step is to add the feed to your reader of choice (in my case I stick with Google and use Google reader but any feed reader will work).

Click the add a subscription button and fill in the feed url. You will get a box that looks like this.

Click add and then each time you open the reader you will see all the new items that Google has found on your topic. You can follow the same format to add any leading bloggers in your niche, other topics you want to follow or any other feed that you find helpful.

For me I check the reader a couple times a day and get the latest items all in one place allowing me to stay current, know which blogs I might want to go comment on or any other item that will allow me to be a cutting edge resource.

After all anything that saves me time and allows me to keep up to date with a minimal time investment is something I want to do. What about you?

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: cutting edge, Google News, Google Reader, rss

Well for those looking for the newest version of WordPress they released the first beta version of 2.8 yesterday. I have added it to this blog today and it seems to be working fine so far.

Have been running the latest nightly builds on the beta blog so was not really surprised and did not expect any problems but Murphy does live at my house. Previously I covered some of the changes such as being able to add new themes the way that you can add plugins now.

So just a heads up that if the beta goes well and so far at least for me it has then you can expect the live release shortly.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: WordPress 2.8, WordPress 2.8 beta, wordpress-upgrade

Surprises never end. Maybe the Mid East will develop a peace plan that works. No it probably won’t but I would never have expected Six Apart the parent of TypePad to support WordPress with some of their plugins.

While not as heated a hatred as Hamas and Israel the two have definitely not been best friends and have attacked each other via their blogs as they competed to provide the best blogging platform for their customers.

Will be testing some of these new add ons and reporting back but this looks to be a win win for all bloggers and will be very interested in what comes from this. You can get more details form Six Apart here.

Below are some comments from Anil Dash of Six Apart.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: six apart, typepad, wordpress, wordpress plugin

Thanks to all for the good questions and hope you find this helpful.

Special thanks to my co-host Steve Roye of Real First Steps. Once again he did an excellent job of keeping me away from any techno-geek.

Hope you enjoy it.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: Blog Talk Radio, WordPress Q and A

Once again I was helping a customer with their blog and upon logging in found that they were not keeping their plugins current. It is now very easy to keep current and each time you log in you will see if any need to be upgraded.

I added a short video below on exactly how to do this.

Hope you enjoy.

Remember that tomorrow evening is the monthly Q and A and I need your questions to be able to provide answers. Please leave them in the comments below.

Thanks

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: upgrade plugins, wordpress plugin

It has been May for over a week and I had not scheduled the monthly show but have fixed that today. Next Wednesday at 7 pm will be the monthly Blog Talk Radio Show.

I have scheduled it for 30 minutes but if I get enough questions before Monday I can add more time on to it.

Once again my good friend Steve Roye of Real First Steps will be co-hosting to keep me from talking any techno-geek.

You will be able to listen in live from the web or call in and talk directly with us at

WordPress Question and Answers on Blog Talk Radio

Wednesday May 13 at 7pm edt.

Leave your questions in the comments below.

Thanks

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: Blog Talk Radio, blogging questions, Steve Roye, WordPress Q and A