Small Business Website in 1 Hour Recording, with Marc Beneteau

Recording of the webinar that took place on Monday March 4, 2013. This is a strong foundational video on WordPress core functionality – a complete short WordPress training. Highly recommended.

Video

(Remember to go full-screen using the button on lower right of the video)

Download Slides | Download Video

Video Table of Contents

• Introduction [0:00]
• Agenda [0:30]
• About WP Academy and the problem of traditional website design [2:00]
• WordPress: What & Why [4:10]
• Installing WordPress on cPanel hosting [7:35]
• Anatomy of a WordPress website [10:00]
• Adding pages, Using the Visual Editor [13:30]
• Configuring WordPress as a static site [15:30]
• Working with the Visual Editor & Adding Images [16:37]
• Hyperlinking; Removing home page title & commend box [20:24]
• Adding a new theme [23:35]
• Theme discussion ; Theme selection grid [25:15]
• Customizing the Weaver theme; Installing the header; Weaver child themes [27:45]
• Adding simple navigation bar; adding drop-down navigation bar [31:35]
• Modifying theme colors and fonts; Colorzilla plugin for Firefox [35:25]
• Working with Widgets; Using Recent Posts widget; CHanging default Post Category [39:30]
• Using the Text Widget: Add a newsletter subscription box to your sidebar [42:35]
• Posting a Youtube video [44:30]
• How to find out more: WP Academy products & Services [49:06]

Here is the site that we made in 1 hour

Resources mentioned in the webinar

•Recommended Free Theme Frameworks: Weaver and Atahualpa

•Inexpensive header designs: Fiverr.com and Odesk.com

Integrated Website Branding: The look, the language, the story – with Christopher Staser

Brand designer Christopher Staser leads you through some of his secrets in redesigning over 40 brands. Christopher is a part of the WP Academy team and rebranded our own website recently.

You’ll learn the principles he uses on each project to discover and then express the brand’s unique and authentic voice.

You’ll see a half-dozen examples of brand transformation that will inspire your own project

You’ll discover the questions to ask yourself to begin your own branding journey towards an authentic expression that will give you a quantum leap in credibility and sales.

Christopher is the founder of BrandWeaver and is Chief Branding Officer with WP Academy. He has won several national awards in film, video and photography . He stands out as a brand designer for his unique combination of abilities as a brand strategist, visual designer and writer-storyteller.

Video

(Remember to go full-screen using the button on lower right of the video)

Download Slides | Download Video

Professional Green-Screen Video for under $500, with Marc Beneteau

Video technology and software continue to go down in price and increase in quality. Video production is one of the most effective ways of creating rapport with your audience and spreading your message, yet many people are stumped by it. This doesn’t have to be the case. In this presentation we’ll clear some of the obstacles and explain how you can create stunning semi-professional videos (green-screen or not) on a very small budget with just a little know-how. We’ll cover:

•Video Shooting, Editing, and Distributing basics

•Video resolution and bitrate

•Equipment choices (camera, microphone, lighting, and more)

•Lighting recommendations

•Teleprompters

•Screen capture options

•Video editing software choices

•Distributing video on the web

•Posting public video to Youtube

•Posting private video to your site with JWPlayer (using http streaming)

•Editing and publishing in Sony Vegas Studio

•Noise removal and normalizing audio in Audacity

•Green Screen demo in Sony Vegas

•And more…

Marc shares the particular sense of accomplishment that comes from producing near-professional video. You can too by following the instructions in this simple, clear, practical video.

Note: we are producing a new, quick-start course entitled "Video Essentials for the Web" that covers this content and more. This presentation is a comprehensive preview for it.

Video

(Remember to go full-screen using the button on lower right of the video)

Download Slides | Download Video

About WP Encyclopedia™ 2012

The WordPress Business Encyclopedia, 2012 Edition, is the most comprehensive, practical, do-it-yourself training program for making a WordPress business website ever created. It will teach you how to make an attractive website; to market your site with the full power of email marketing, search-engine optimization, social media and online video; and finally how to monetize your site with a shopping cart or membership system.

Feature walk-through of WP Encyclopedia™ and WP Live™

[Watch on Youtube]

Suggested Learning Track

Here is how you can become proficient in WordPress web design in about 4 hours. By using our methodology, in about that time you can learn how to make a website that might by indistinguishable from one that was done by a professional designer and which cost your several thousand dollars.

•Orient yourself in Getting Started with WordPress.

•This training requires a "Self-hosted" WordPress site (aka WordPress.org). Learn how to do this in Hosting WordPress.

•Purchase WordPress Essentials for Business either from us (it’s included in WP Encyclopedia) or get WordPress Essentials for Business on Udemy.com (that link has your embedded $5 discount coupon)

•Build out the "Words Are Music" website as a training exercise, using the project files provided. It is recommended that you do this on a dual-monitor computer — read the instructions and/or watch the training videos on one monitor, and build out the site on the second monitor

•Purchase Theme Selection & Customization either from us or from Udemy.com. Then choose your professional theme framework and build out your own site. If you have followed our first two courses, you could be able to do this in a few hours or less (not including writing/authoring your content — we recommend you spend at least as much time on your content as you do on your design)

•Use the Index and Search on this site. You should be able to find almost everything you will need to know about WordPress inside the WP Encyclopedia.

•To fast-track your way through this education, you may register in our WP Live Program. This is the web’s premier training program in WordPress web design and web marketing technology, designed for self-employed professionals, small-business owners and other non-technical people. It includes live classes, group coaching, professional themes and stock photos. A new class begins at the beginning of every month.

•The WP Encyclopedia[Beta] is still in development (scheduled completion in July 2013), but it is already the world’s largest reference source for creating a WordPress Business Website. Please send us feedback for additional topics you want covered. Paid subscribers can request ticket support for topics that are still under development and/or need better coverage.

Good luck – and may the Road Rise Up to Meet You!

Free Previews

Free previews are available for many topics in our courses, including the following free videos from the WordPress Theme Selection & Customization short course:

•How to choose a WordPress theme

•StudioPress theme class examples

•ElegantThemes class examples

•WooThemes class examples

•OptimizePress examples

•Thesis 1.8 or 2.0?

Enjoy!

WP Encyclopedia contents

WP Encyclopedia is WP Academy’s A-Z training for creating an attractive website, then promoting it with the full power of email marketing, SEO, social media and online video, and finally monetizing it with a shopping cart or membership system.  It is designed for busy small-business owners, self-employed professionals and non-technical people who want to quickly master web technologies for the purpose of creating additional income sources through the web.  It has also been used to start successful WordPress webmastering businesses, and by social media consultants to add valuable web design skills to their service portfolio.

These lectures were originally recorded live in May-June of 2012 for students who paid $600 for the full course, WordPress for Business.  Major sections were redone in professional video in April-May of 2013, with the rest of the content due for updates and expansion in the next few months.  In addition to the 14 hours of WordPress for Business Live Recordings, WP Encyclopedia includes the popular short courses WordPress Essentials for Business and Theme Selection & Customization, plus additional sections listed below.  The first two short courses will show you how to create, in under four hours, a professional-looking website which may be indistinguishable from a site created by a professional designer that cost you $2000 or more; while the remaining sections will show you how to hook up your site to newsletter management systems, search-engine optimization, shopping carts and membership systems, social media, online video, and more.

There is no other course on the internet that gives you so much practical and directly actionable information in such a brief time to create an effective, business-oriented website.  You can read the reviews for WordPress Essentials on Udemy to give you a flavor for the style of teaching, and you can review the table of contents on the left to see the breadth and depth of coverage.

WP Encyclopedia is in active development and will be completed by early July 2013. In the meantime the sections below are all available:

•WordPress Essentials for Business

•Theme Selection & Customization

•Advanced Content Creation

•Advanced Styling: HTML and CSS

•WordPress SEO

•WordPress Shopping Carts and Payment Systems

•Newsletter Systems

•WordPress Social Media Integration

•Video Production for the Web

•WordPress for Business Virtual Summit Recordings

•WordPress Webmastering for fun and profit

Purchase WP Encyclopedia Lifetime – Just $147

Immediate activation – 30-day guarantee

Join WP Encyclopedia for just $147, which includes Lifetime Updates. Then, if and when you are ready, upgrade to our premium program WP Live, giving you one-on-one assistance from our expert instructors, on your own schedule, along with a complete toolkit including themes and stock photos.

Note: from July 2013, we will no longer be selling lifetime memberships.

See  all our programs here

How to add CloudFlare to your site

CloudFlare is a free service that can significantly enhance your site’s speed and security.  WP Academy recommends that all WordPress sites use it.  However, it takes over your site’s DNS so you need to understand how it works before you plug it in.  This lesson shows you everything you need to know.

Video

How to speed-up and clean-up your database

You should keep an eye on your WordPress database to make sure it doesn’t grow indefinitely or keep unnecessary data.  This lesson shows you how how to inspect, clean it up and optimize it.

Video

How to double or triple your site’s speed with a page caching plugin

This lesson shows you how to add the powerful W3 Total Cache plugin to your site.  This could double or triple your site’s performance, but it is system-level software that needs to be used with care.

Video

How to benchmark your site speed

Before your begin any kind of site optimization you need to get some base performance numbers.  This lesson shows you two powerful free tools that will give you a lot of information about your site’s performance and usability.

Video

How to keep your site protected

Better WP Security is one of the better (if not the best) WordPress security plugins. However, it needs to be used with caution, or it may create more problems than it solves.  This lesson will help you get setup properly.

Video

How to scan your site for malware and detect intrusions

This lecture shows you how to scan your site using two powerful free tools.

Video