Archive for General How-To

Video Tutorial: Add your custom CSS styles to your stylesheet

Learn CSSWhat is CSS?

It stands for cascading stylesheet and when we say “I want to learn CSS” or “I want to modify my theme’s styles” we are referring to the process of adding custom style information to the bottom of the stylesheet of our child theme.

Why at the bottom? Because that is the way cascading stylesheets work. Whatever styles are placed at the bottom of style.css will override the styles above.

Learning CSS is fun and easy (especially since if you make a mistake, it will not break your site like working with PHP could). This video tutorial takes you through the process of modifying the styles that come with your theme, which in this case, is iThemes Builder Air (a custom child theme).

There are lots of great free tutorials available through doing a simple Google search for the type of style you are trying to accomplish. There are also online classes you can take for learning CSS more in depth. I plan to add some additional resources to this post in the future.

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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WooCommerce Tutorial: Overview and Installation

WooCommerce Tutorial: Overview and Installation

Install WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source e-commerce plugin 
for self-hosted WordPress websites that…

  • was launched in 2011 – (see Wikipedia article)
  • runs on 30% of e-commerce sites and has millions of active installs
  • is owned and operated by Automattic, Inc., the owners of WordPress
  • comes “out of the box” with product variations, virtual, downloadable & affiliate products, inventory management, coupons & reporting
  • has premium add-ons which come with a 30-day money back guarantee
  • has support via a free member account (ticketed), online technical documentation and/or video tutorials

WooCommerce is constantly evolving and needs to be kept up-to-date, just like all WordPress plugins, themes and core software.

Make sure you backup before you update! I use BackupBuddy.

WooCommerce integrates with most WordPress themes. Check with your theme developer to make sure!

You can use Storefront made by the Woo team which also offers child themes for variations in style and extensions for added functionality.

I use iThemes Builder which integrates with WooCommerce.

Make sure your hosting plan is adequate to support your e-commerce traffic needs and you have an SSL certificate installed on your domain.

Let’s Encrypt is a free SSL service that comes with most hosting accounts.

I use SiteGround for hosting all my sites.

This video takes you through the process of installing WooCommerce, a free and robust e-commerce plugin for your self-hosted WordPress website. With just a few simple steps, you can have your shopping cart up and running in a matter of minutes.

For a complete series of free video tutorials on using WooCommerce, visit:
https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-101-video-series/

Also, visit my slideshare presentation from my talk at WordCamp Sacramento for the latest WooCommerce features released in version 2.6, the Zipping Zebra:

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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How to add a youtube video to a page or post

YouTubeWordPress makes it easy to add a video from YouTube to your page or post. All you need to do is:

  • Go to your YouTube account at YouTube.com and log in (you can use your gmail login if you have one)
  • Find the video you want to embed
  • Copy and paste the video url into the Text editor of your page or post (looks like this: https://youtu.be/3aR0id8gvew)
  • WordPress will automatically transform the video url into the video you chose when you publish or update the page or post

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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Video Tutorial: Installing and using the iThemes Builder Style Manager plugin

This video takes you through the basics of installing and using the iThemes Builder Style Manager plugin, which gives you a simple interface with which to customize colors, fonts and more on your iThemes Builder site. The style manager plugin comes with your purchase of iThemes Builder. You will need to download the Style Manager plugin from your iThemes member panel in order to install it on your site.

Style Manager allows you to affect many different areas of your site, however, it does not touch everything. Learn how to add custom styles to your child theme stylesheet using CSS (which stands for cascading style sheet) code. The beauty of playing with CSS is that if you make a mistake, your site may look funny, but it won’t break completely like it could with editing PHP code (the code WordPress is built in).

Visit this tutorial for guidance with adding custom CSS styles to your theme’s stylesheet.

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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Video Tutorial: Scheduling Posts

Scheduling PostsDo you get brainstorms for your blog ideas all at once? Did you know you can create draft blogs and schedule them into the future? Watch this video to learn how to schedule your WordPress (self-hosted) posts for future delivery to your subscribers:

Then visit these 2 tutorial posts to learn how to use AWeber to create your blog broadcast and brand your email template:

Tutorial: Email Marketing with AWeber

Make a Blog Newsletter with AWeber

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information:

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Video Tutorial: What is WordPress and what are the differences between .com and .org?

What is WordPress?What is WordPress? It’s a free, open-source software that, when installed on a hosting server (such as SiteGround), allows the website owner to build his/her own website using a theme (such as iThemes) and plugins (there are many to choose from).

It is important to make the distinction between the free version available at WordPress.com and the self-hosted version available through WordPress.org (and through your web host). The free version available at WordPress.com is limited in functionality, however it is a great to place to get started learning it.

This video will help you understand what WordPress (the self-hosted version) is:

and this video will take you through the differences between WordPress.com (free hosting, limited functionality) and WordPress.org (self-hosted version which allows you to use plugins and have a shopping cart):

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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Video Tutorial: Integrate with Google Analytics

Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics gives you in-depth statistics that allow you to track detailed user behaviors on your website. Follow the guidance in this video tutorial to learn how to integrate your website with Google Analytics:

Login to your Google Analytics account here:
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

Check out Cat’s Level 3 self-hosted WordPress E-Course and learn how to:

  • install and use the Style Manager plugin, which will give you an easy way to modify some of the styles on your site.
  • add custom styles to your child theme stylesheet using CSS
  • optimize your home page for search engine optimization (SEO)
  • schedule your posts and create a blog broadcast with AWeber
  • install and setup WooCommerce with your existing paypal account

use coupon code 20%off to receive 20% off the price of Level 3!

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

Checkout Level 1 (free)
Checkout Level 2 (on sale)
Checkout Level 3 (on sale)

Video Tutorial: Add a favicon to your iThemes Builder website

What is a favicon? It’s the tiny, 16 x 16 pixel image in the corner of your browser tab. Web browsers display your favicon in bookmarks as well. In this video tutorial, I will show you how to add a favicon to your site using the iThemes Builder theme settings. Follow the guidance in this video:

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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Video Tutorial: Make sure your website is responsive

Responsive ViewsIs your website responsive? Does it look good on laptops, tablets and mobile devices?

In this video tutorial, I will show you how to preview your website on a desktop from the perspective of smaller devices such as laptops, tablets and mobile devices.

Keep in mind, there is no substitute for looking at your website through an actual device. Watch:

This tutorial is part of a series of e-courses created by Cat Scholz to empower you with using the self-hosted version of WordPress to achieve your internet marketing goals. Get more information and/or sign up:

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Video Tutorial: Make your home page unique from your other pages

In this video, I take you through the process of duplicating your default layout, titling it “Home” and applying the layout to your home page. This allows you to display a unique sidebar on your home page or any other page you wish to create.

Learn how to view your website through the eyes of different devices.