Brenda Horton of Hware was looking at my website to check out my BuddyPress integration and noticed my site was loading very slowly.  I started researching ways to speed up my site and this post is the outcome of a full day’s work (literally, 9am – 8+pm, eating at my desk).  Let me share the results with you.

First of all, why speed up your site?  The search engines now look at page load time to give your website a good page rank.  Plus, you may easily lose potential sales or email captures if your site takes more than a second to load!

My quest for faster load time information led me here: http://www.larre.com/2010/01/24/amazon-s3-and-cloudfront-with-wordpress-and-dreamhost/ – a blog post about using Amazon CloudFront with my web hosting company, Dreamhost to create a CDN (content delivery network) to spread out the http requests from users (thus decreasing load time).  Turns out, my favorite web hosting company, Dreamhost, is not only a green web hosting company, but is the first to roll out this new feature!

Hire me to activate this feature on your site, or Dreamhost/Wordpress users, here are the steps involved:

1) Deactivate and delete any other caching plugins you may already have installed on your WordPress site.  Verify they are completely deleted using your ftp program to make sure the plugin folder is REALLY gone.

2) Create an Amazon AWS Account. Please note: it may take several hours for your account credentials to be functional.

3) Log into your Dreamhost web hosting panel and go to “Goodies” –> Amazon CloudFront.

4) Copy your Amazon CloudFront settings into the Dreamhost settings and click “Create CloudFront.”  Dreamhost automatically creates the new CloudFront bucket for you.  It will appear in your AWS Console after it is created.

6) Install W3Total Cache DEVELOPER version.

7) Activate the plugin and enable CDN only.

8 ) Configure the CDN settings and click “create bucket” then “test.”

9) Upload the media library, includes files, theme files and custom files to the CloudFront using W3 Total Cache , the AWS Management Console or S3Hub (for Mac) or the Firefox add-on S3Fox (for PC).

10) Make sure you set the ACP (permissions) to “Read Only” for “All Users” or “Everyone” otherwise your images and other content may not show up.  Here are the screenshots for using S3Hub:

Read up on how to use Amazon CloudFront.  Also you may want to take advantage of the new AWS default root object feature for enhanced security.  Let me know how it goes!

P.S. I am an affiliate of Dreamhost as well as a user and a big fan (as you can tell!).

1) With Firefox open, install the Firefox add-on, Web Developer Tools

2) Re-start Firefox when prompted

3) Go to the Firefox Menu—>Tools—>Web Developer—>Images—>View Image Information and Firefox will open a new tab for you listing all the image information you need.

Any questions? Feel free to leave a comment.

1. Upload your .mp3 file to your media library through your WordPress backend.

2. Copy the file location.

3. Paste the file location in the “share link” area on Facebook.

4. Add a description in the text field above the link and a short link back to your site (use TinyURL.com if it’s long).

5. Click “attach” to attach the link.

6. Change the artist name and album name if needed.

7. When you are ready, choose your privacy settings and click “Share.”

Your .mp3 will now stream live on Facebook!

More Facebook techniques from Cat’s Web Weave

(*make sure you have a backup copy of all your template files before you do this!)

1) Log into your WordPress backend.

2) Go to Appearance: Editor

3) Open single.php

4) Place this code right before <?php the_content(); ?>

<iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:60px”></iframe>

5) Click “update”

6) refresh your blog page and see the new Facebook Like button at play!

And if you don’t want to delve into the code, use this super easy plugin by Todd Williams!

1. Google loves WordPress (and blogs in general) because search engines favor sites that have regularly created fresh content.  See my post on SEO.
2. WordPress is interactive.  Visitors can comment on pages and posts.  You can create a community around your business with your site.
3. You can organize content with categories and visitors can view or subscribe to the categories they want to.
4. You can automatically sync your content to social websites such as Facebook with the RSS feed.
5. WordPress sites can be translatable into many languages.
6. WordPress sites are easy to update (far easier than reglular html or Joomla).
7. Multiple authors and editors can contribute to writing content and posting photos or video (you can DELEGATE!)
8. You can add PayPal buttons or a shopping cart to monetize your site (you can MAKE MONEY!)
9. You can embed video from YouTube easily (YouTube is second to Google as a search engine now!)
10. WordPress is open-source and is constantly evolving (it’s always getting better!)
11. OK one more: WordPress is easy to learn!

There are more advanced reasons that concern templates, tags and permalinks, but the 10 reasons listed above should satisfy most folks who need a fast and easy way to get their business website up and running.

Here is a screenshot of what WordPress looks like from the back-end:

Live in Nevada County and want to learn more about WordPress in person?  Come to my free class.

Winter has arrived in the Sierra Foothills and being snowed/iced-in at my place has fostered a wonderful sense of stillness.  Between winter-wonderland walks, I have been working on my new music album and this valuable blog post on how to sync your blog with your Facebook Page.

Networked Blogs is an application developed for Facebook that pulls your RSS Feed from your blog on a regular basis, then posts a thumbnail image (if you’ve included one in your post) and an excerpt from your blog onto your Facebook Page Wall for all of your fans to see in their News Feed.  With this application, you can also follow other blogs on Facebook and invite people to follow yours.  It’s a great way to share your content with your Facebook fans and to drive traffic back to your website/blog.

So far, my experience with this application has been mostly good.  Sometimes it takes a few hours to pull the feed content and sometimes it needs attention to keep it working.  Like most Facebook applications, it is still under development.  To get started using Networked Blogs, follow these directions or watch the video I made:

1) Log into your Facebook account and type “Networked Blogs” into the search field.

2) Click “Add to My Page”

3) Choose your page

4) Go to your page (type the name into the search field)

5) Click “Edit Page”

6) Scroll down and find “Networked Blogs” and click “edit”

7) Follow the directions (you may to first register your blog – open this link in a new tab or window)

Once the blog is registered, go back to the setting page for Networked Blogs, find your blog and do a test publish (you can delete the post from your Page after it posts)

9) Make sure you click “grant permission”

10) then save your settings and your blog posts will begin appearing on your page within hours.  If they don’t show, check your settings.

Any questions or comments?  You can write a comment on this post or send me an email at cat @ catswebweave.com.

Blessings of wonder for your holiday season!

-Catherine