technology

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A computer screen displaying the WordPress logo, with colorful 3D blocks stacked next to it. Text below reads, "How to Host Your Own WordPress Website.

If you’re in the market for a new (or redesigned) website, you’ve likely heard of WordPress, which powers nearly 50% of the Internet.

If you’re an absolute WordPress beginner, you might want to check out this post: What Is WordPress, to get a high-level overview.

It’s important to note that there are actually two versions of WordPress. WordPress.com is a cloud platform that’s the equivalent of Squarespace. It lacks the functionality of what we’re discussing here, which is a self-hosted WordPress website. WordPress is open source software available to anyone, and self-hosted means you’ve installed this software on your own server. It’s infinitely customizable, and this post will teach you how to manually set it up.

How to Set Up Self-Hosted WordPress

This is the manual process to install WordPress on your own server, and will reference DirectAdmin, which is software that comes with certain web hosts. Some hosts will use cPanel or proprietary software, but this should give you a good idea of how the process works. If it looks too technical, schedule a discovery call to learn how easy it is to have to us do this for you.

You’ll Need:

  • domain name/URL (~$10-50/year)
  • website hosting account (~$360/year)
  • website hosting account’s nameservers
  • WordPress install file (.zip)

Required Tools:

  • computer
  • Internet connection

Step 1: Choose a web host and purchase a hosting plan

It’s important to choose the right website host (it’s not GoDaddy). How to choose a web host is beyond the scope of this post, but it’s incredibly important the choice is a good one; your hosting impacts speed/load times, security/spam and many other things. We offer/manage WordPress hosting for every website we build, so our clients don’t have to worry about any of this.

How you install WordPress will actually change depending on the host; many of them offer install tools that reduce this process to clicking a few buttons. For this post, we’re getting back to basics with a manual install that will work on even the most bare-bones servers.

Once you choose and purchase a hosting plan, proceed to Step 2. If you purchased the domain name through the web host at the same time, skip to Step 5.

Step 2: Choose a registrar and purchase a domain name

This is assuming you don’t purchase the domain name through your web host. They offer domain name registration as well, but you don’t have to use it. If you choose to purchase through a different registrar, we recommend Namecheap for domain name/URL registration. They include privacy (WhoIs Protection) for free on all domains, and you can point the domain name at any host. Sometimes hosts will not allow you to point a domain name to a different host, and if you decide to move your site elsewhere it can be a pain. For this reason, we recommend using a registrar separate from your web host, even though there are extra steps.

Search to make sure your desired domain is available, and don’t be afraid to consider alternate extensions like .co, .io, .art. It’s extremely hard to find available domain names these days.

Purchase your desired domain name (make sure auto-renew is set to on). Most registrars will offer add-ons, but the only one you need is privacy, which should be included by default. If it’s not, find a different registrar.

Step 3: Point the domain name at your web host

Once your domain name has been purchased, navigate to the DNS settings in your registrar account. You’ll need the nameservers of your web host. Copy/paste those into the domain’s DNS settings. Update time can take up to 24 hours but is usually much quicker.

Step 4: Add domain name to hosting account

This is going to be different for every host, but generally there’s a domain section in your hosting account, and you’ll need to add the domain you purchased at the other registrar. Log into your web host and navigate to the dashboard, then follow the steps in this area and/or search their knowledgebase for instructions. The process should be straightforward.

Step 5: Download the WordPress install package

Open WordPress.org and click the blue button to download the most recent version of WordPress. Save it to your desktop.

download WordPress button

Step 6: Create a MySQL database on your server

Log into your website hosting account. Different hosts offer different ways to manage the backend, so it might be a proprietary software, or something like cPanel or DirectAdmin.

Look for MySQL Management. Click the button to ‘Create New Database.’ You can name this anything you like.

Create a user and password, then assign it to the database you just created (if necessary).

During this process, create a text note and save the:

  • database name
  • username
  • password

You’ll need those in Step 9.

Step 7: Upload the WordPress software to your web host

In the main dashboard of your web host, look for file access (often called ‘File Manager’). You can also use FTP software for this step.

Once you find the server files, navigate to the public_html folder. Upload the zipped WordPress package you downloaded in Step 4.

Step 8: Extract WordPress

Extract the zipped file you just uploaded to the server (usually right-click > Extract). Move all the files out of that folder and into public_html, so they’re just loose, hanging out. You can delete the now-empty ‘wordpress’ folder.

Step 9: Run the WordPress installer

Open a new tab in your browser and navigate to yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php (change yourdomain.com to your URL). If everything was done correctly, you should see the installer walkthrough screen. Follow the prompts… this is where you’ll put in the database name, username, and password. Database Host is usually ‘localhost’ and Table Prefix is ‘wp_’.

Once you get past this screen, you’ll set your Site Title, login/username, password, and email. After you click ‘Install WordPress’ you should see a new website with the stock theme (Twenty Twenty-Four) and your site title. This means the install was successful.

If you have trouble, check out the official WordPress.org install instructions here (specifically the Common Installation Problems section toward the bottom).

Step 10: Start editing your new website

At this point, you can navigate to yourdomain.com/wp-admin and log in with the username/password you just set, and you’ll find yourself on the backend of your website in the WordPress Dashboard. You can then choose and install a new theme, add and configure plugins, create pages, menus and more. This is where the real work begins, and we recommend you check out the Getting Started With WordPress Course here.

While the setup is straightforward, like any software, there will be a learning curve.

Thanks for reading!

Now you know how the famous WordPress install works, whether you decide to go that route or not. If you decide against it, schedule a discovery call to learn how fast we can set this up for you, and more importantly, how to talk about your services and who you help. While the software is important, and technical/design set up is necessary, getting the messaging right for your business is where we deliver the most value.

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A computer screen with gmail on it.

As of February 1, 2024, email sending best practices are now requirements.

Remember a few years ago how SSL (https://) used to be recommended for your website, then Google decided it was a requirement? Yeah, it’s like that, but for email.

If you send email to Gmail/Google Workspace users (let’s be honest – that’s everyone), then you need to meet the following requirements:

  1. Only send email newsletters from your branded domain (don’t send newsletters from [email protected]: send from [email protected]). You should definitely be doing this anyway.
  2. Prevent email impersonation by setting up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your domain. These are DNS records added to yourbusiness.com, which we’ve already taken care of if you’re a client on a Managed Hosting Plan. Read the guidelines at the links below to learn more about these records.
  3. Maintain a low spam report rate of under 0.1% (that’s fewer than 1 spam report per 1,000 emails), and never exceed more than 0.3% (3 spam reports per 1,000 emails). So also what you were (hopefully) already doing.

If you’re on a cyclone press Managed Hosting Plan and/or we originally set up your email account, we’ve already taken care of adding these records for you.

Here are a few handy links to announcements from several of the big companies (plus MailPoet, which is the email marketing software we offer to our clients for free).

Announcement Links:

Need Help?

If you have specific questions about this (or anything else website-related) please reach out and we’re happy to answer your questions.

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how to set up the best free invoicing software - Wave Apps
bookkeeping-wave blog post

If you’re starting a business (or even just doing a few projects on the side), you must use a billing/invoicing/accounting system to track income and expenses. A spreadsheet isn’t terrible, but come tax time you’ll need reports. Creatives: do NOT try to use design software to make fancy invoices. There’s no way to track these, and you’ll end up with a nightmare.

  • In the early days of cyclone press I used an invoicing software (without real accounting features).
  • Then I used Xero for a bit, which is an up-and-coming cloud option.
  • After switching to a new accountant (with special software pricing) I broke down and switched to Quickbooks Online, something I swore I’d never do. While there were a few nice things, it was overall as terrible as expected, particularly in the recurring invoice department (practically nonexistent).
  • 2 years ago I switched to Wave and have no regrets whatsoever.

Wave is now the billing software I recommend to all my clients, and the best part is that it’s totally free. I want to quickly outline why I like it, then give you a walkthrough of how to set up a new Wave account.

Wave Accounting Pros

  • Wave is clean, simple, and incredibly user-friendly. It does what it needs to do, beautifully.
  • Recurring invoices are a dream. Easy to set up, and more importantly, easy for clients to pay. They can choose to save credit card info for automatic payment.
  • Online payment setup is practically instant.
  • Reconciliation is unbelievably easy.
  • It’s easy to add and switch between multiple businesses.
  • Zapier integration.
  • If you need payroll, you can add it (although that service isn’t free).
  • It’s easy to add users (bookkeepers, tax preparers etc.)

Wave Accounting Cons

  • My biggest complaint is that there’s no way to add credits to a client accounts. I use renamed invoices with positive amounts instead, but it’s an annoying workaround.
  • Products are not searchable.
  • I’d like to see more Zapier options.
  • No time tracking. I don’t actually see this as a con: I’ve never used this as part of an invoicing system and I think it should be separate anyway, but just FYI. I use Timecamp for the bulk of my time tracking.
  • Ads. HR Block bought Wave in 2019 so they’re obviously going to give themselves ad space, and because the product is free they’re trying to make money somewhere. You might click on a tab to discover it’s a partnership with another B2B product. As long as they maintain Wave this doesn’t bother me.
  • No downloadable app (I despise in-browser apps). There are ways to run cloud apps as a standalone app on your desktop (on Mac) which is what I do.
  • No way to digitally accept estimates.
  • Because it’s free, updates are infrequent.

I feel like I should clarify the fact that all of my cons are just nice-to-have features, not actual needs. The top two are really the only things I’d like to see updates for, but I can’t be truly picky because again, Wave is totally free.

getting started with Wave Apps accounting software

Here's a quick how-to process to get your small business up and running with Wave. At the end of this tutorial, you'll be able to send invoices and receive online payment.

I'm no accountant, so none of this is legal/tax advice, but I do work with soloproneurs and startups to establish processes and set up software. If you need help getting set up with a business email address, branding or a website, get in touch.

how to set up the best free invoicing software - Wave Apps

Time Needed: 45 minutes

Cost

You'll need:

- business email address
- business bank account information
- bookkeeper/accountant name and email (optional)
- business logo, ideally transparent PNG
- business brand color code ("#000000")
- your sales tax rate (if you sell products)

Required tools:

- computer
- secure Internet connection

How to set up a Wave Apps account

Step 1 : Sign up for a Wave account

Click the link above to open the Wave registration page in a new tab and follow along. You’ll want to sign up with your work email and a strong password (or log in with Google).

Step 2 : Create a business account

Follow the prompts to add the information for your business. Available business types are listed below.

Step 3 : Invite your accountant or bookkeeper

Chances are you’ll need to add another user to your account. You’ll find the option to invite users under ‘Settings’ in the sidebar, then ‘Users.’ There are currently 5 types of access level. Choose the appropriate level, then add your new user’s information. They’ll receive an invitation to join your account via email.

 

Step 4 : Customize the branding for your business

Under Settings, go to ‘Invoice Customization’. There are 3 invoice templates, an option to upload your logo and choose an accent color. While this doesn’t sound like much, the “Contemporary” template is well-designed so you don’t need to do much. Use a medium resolution PNG (with a transparent background) for your logo.

Now scroll down to customize your invoice terms, payment settings, and adjust units to your business. Make sure to ‘Save all changes.’

Step 5 : Adjust online payment options

Wave has their own payment processing system that makes it incredibly easy to accept online payments. Toggle these on and off as needed.

Step 6: Add sales tax (if you sell products)

Under Settings > Accounting, click ‘Sales Taxes’ add your sales tax rate, if needed.

Step 7: Add business bank account to receive payouts

Under Settings > Banking, click ‘Payouts’ and follow the prompts to add the bank account that online payments will deposit into.

Step 8: Add your business bank account for tracking expenses

Once your account is set up, look for the ‘Banking’ tab on the sidebar, then click ‘Connected Accounts’ to add your business bank account. Start typing to search for your bank, then select it and log in with your online banking credentials.

Important note: always separate your personal and business expenses. Go set up a business bank account and use it for all business purchases and payments. Do not use your personal bank account for anything business related. This is rule number 1.

Step 9: Add standard products and/or services (optional)

If you charge an hourly rate or have a flagship product, you’ll want to add those under Sales > Products & Services. Make sure you’re choosing the correct income account when you set these up. When you select ‘Sell this,” it will give you the default option to add it to the ‘Sales’ income account.

To better track different income streams you’ll probably want to add additional accounts, which you can do under Accounting > Chart of Accounts. For example: the bulk of what we do at cyclone press is web design, development & hosting, but we also sell business cards and other printed products, which I track under a separate income account.

Step 10: Send your first invoice (or estimate)

At this point you’re ready to go. You can create an estimate, then convert it to an invoice when accepted. Or send out that invoice for the project that was the impetus to get an accounting system set up in the first place.

If you created a product, you can click to add it to the estimate or invoice, meaning the 5 minutes of up-front work to set it up is going to save you a ton of time in the long run.

Choose to include a message when you email it, and pick how often you want the client to receive reminders to pay.

There’s a lot more I could cover on the day-to-day use of Wave, but because it’s so user-friendly, it’s going to be fairly straightforward to figure out.

Do you have specific questions?

Drop them in the comments and I might do a follow-up post. There’s also a chat bot inside Wave you can use to find links to help articles in the Wave Help Center.

 

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Did your email open rates increase recently? That’s not as good as you think it is…

Apple’s newest iPhone operating system is out now (iOS 15), and it comes with big privacy changes. One of the new features is “Mail Privacy Protection.” The first time you open your email after the update, you’ll see this notification:

I mean, who doesn’t want to protect their information?

Let’s assume everyone will choose ‘Protect Mail activity.’

Like most soloproneurs and small businesses, you probably send email newsletters. And after sending, you probably view the reports to see how many people have opened or clicked on links, right? This works by loading hidden data when the email is opened. Now, on iOS 15, Apple is going to preload that data when the email is received. This means that your open rates are probably going to increase, but it won’t necessarily be because more people are opening your emails.

This impact will come only from email opened on Apple Mail and iPhones/iPads (which might be up to half the market). It’s not the only privacy update coming either: iOS 15 also enables hidden IP addresses and a ‘Hide My Email’ feature. We’ll only see more of this as our tech services (hopefully) become more privacy focused. This is great for all of us as consumers, but from a marketing standpoint, it will be important to move away from open-rate data to other metrics, like clickthrough rates.

For 6 ways to adapt your email marketing to these changes, see this excellent article from MailPoet.

Side note: Mailpoet is email marketing software that integrates with your WordPress website. You can send email newsletters and welcome emails from the backend of your website, which is quite handy. We use it with many of our clients (it’s included for free with our hosting).

Do you need help with your existing email marketing? Maybe you’re a soloproneur just getting started, and you have yet to start building an email list at all. We’d love to break down this process for you – schedule a discovery call to learn more.

Schedule Discovery Call
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what is wordpress .com vs. .org self-hosted

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS); software that enables entrepreneurs to design and manage a website without learning how to code.

It’s open source, meaning it’s free and available for anyone to use. It also powers ~42% of the Internet; everything from personal blog and podcast websites, to photographer and artist photo galleries, to small business service, product and startup landing pages. You can build almost anything with WordPress, with an important caveat…

there are actually 2 types of WordPress…

WordPress is really just a piece of software, but there are 2 ways to use it, with big implications. The naming structure is… a bit confusing.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a SaaS (Software As A Service) – a cloud hosting system that is similar to Squarespace. You sign up for a cloud account that includes the domain name and web hosting all in one. However, like Squarespace, options are limited and everything requires a cost/plan upgrade. Maybe you start with a more basic plan and decide you want scheduling. That’s going to be +$X per month. You’re locked into their system and pricing tiers, just like any other website builder platform.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is the hub for all the help articles, forums, and the plugin directory. This is where you go to download the WordPress software to install on your own web server. You’ll need to purchase separately the domain name (yourbusiness.com) and a website hosting plan (where you’ll upload the WordPress software). You can then set everything up yourself, exactly the way you want it. This is known as self-hosted WordPress, and this option is limitless.

download WordPress button
All that stands between you and a powerful package of website software is this big blue button.

With self-hosted WordPress, you own and control everything.

If you happen to discover that yes, GoDaddy is as terrible as this blog post says, you can package up your website files and database and easily migrate to another web host. I’ve written an overview on how to set up WordPress on your own server here.

When you run WordPress on your own hosting, you can install any theme, any plugin, send email newsletters, offer free downloads, add an online store, add custom functionality–anything you can dream up, with no additional hosting fees or pricing package upgrades from the platform itself. Many of these themes and plugins are free.

wait, what’s a WordPress theme?

WordPress is the platform.

The theme is the overall framework that styles it.

If WordPress is the coat hanger, the theme is the button-down shirt that provides the overall shape.

If you plan to launch an e-commerce store, you might choose a product-focused theme. If you’re creating a personal art portfolio, you might want a theme with built-in portfolio gallery features. There are many highly stylized themes that offer special functionality. A real estate theme might have a built in listings post type, for example.

At cyclone press, we use a couple of lightweight, all-purpose themes that will work for any business, then style them and add the exact features and look you need. After years of designing websites, I believe this is almost always the better option. Individual theme developers all tend to style their theme options differently, and may not include much customizability. When they offer more customizability, it makes the theme “heavier,” meaning it won’t load as quickly. There’s also the potential for hacks if you select a theme that was badly built or isn’t updated regularly.

I’ve used my experience to put together what I believe is the best possible combination for small business websites: a great theme base + a highly customizable page builder. This combo will work for anything you can throw at it, whether you’re a startup, a growing business, or an artist. You’re looking at that package right now.

A few free WordPress theme options.

How to install a WordPress theme:

  1. Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes > Add New
  2. Search for the theme you’d like to use (or click ‘Upload New’, if you’ve downloaded a zipped file to install)
  3. Click ‘Install’ (or upload)
  4. Click ‘Activate’
  5. Click ‘Customize’ and upload your logo, adjust the colors, fonts, etc.

Congratulations! Your site now has an entirely different look and feel! Not a fan? Repeat the process to try another. You can access theme options from the Appearance > Themes tab, and the bulk of the customizations are done via Appearance > Customize.

what’s a WordPress plugin?

Let’s go back to our coat hanger/shirt example. Would you like that button-down shirt to have pockets? With snaps? Or perhaps some Star Wars themed cufflinks? Those extra special features are plugins.

Plugins are nicely packaged snippets of code that add extra functionality to your website. Let’s say you’ve realized how important it is to build a mailing list, so you want to add a signup form to your footer. You decide you’re going to use MailPoet, which runs inside your WordPress site. This is the plugin we recommend and use for email newsletters, and it’s free for up to 1000 subscribers (and we offer MailPoet Premium for free through with our WordPress website hosting). Here’s how you’d set it up:

Some of the available options seen when searching ‘Mailpoet.’

How to install a WordPress plugin:

  1. Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New
  2. Search for MailPoet
  3. When the search results populate, find the correct plugin and click ‘Install’
  4. Click ‘Activate’
  5. Tweak the Mailpoet Settings to your satisfaction

Congratulations! Your website now has email newsletter capabilities! Plugins usually add a tab to your sidebar, so you now have a MailPoet tab with newsletters, lists, forms and settings ready to customize. It really is that simple.

Another WordPress Plugin Example:
Let’s say you want to share recipes on your website. You could search for and choose a recipe plugin, then follow the same process above, and you’ll now have a tab in your sidebar for recipes. Depending on the specific plugin options, it might add special fields for ingredients, instructions with prep time and more.

There are many fantastic plugins we recommend that are paid, but even paid options often have a freemium (reduced features) version you can try first to see if it’s worth the (small) investment. For our recipe plugin example, the base plugin might be free, but the premium version might include the ability to scale servings or download printable versions. This allows you to test and confirm it works for you before investing any money. And by small fee, I mean something like $50/year, $99/year, etc. Check out our 5 must-have plugins for every WordPress website.

We love our recommended paid plugins so much that we include ~$1567 worth of plugin licensing for free with our managed WordPress hosting. Meaning that simply by choosing our managed hosting (managed means it includes maintenance), you get access to plugins that would cost you $1567 outright.

If you’d like to see what kind of WordPress plugin options are out there, click here to search the entire WordPress Plugins Directory. You might be there a while, as there are ~58,994 free options to choose from.

BONUS: what’s a WordPress page builder?

A page builder is front end editing software that runs on top of WordPress. It means you can design your site live, in real time using a WYSIWYG editor, instead of having to jump between the front end and back end. WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get. Click to drag and drop different modules for text, images, buttons, etc., then adjust the settings in the accompanying control panel. It makes design much more straightforward.

Elementor is a page builder which is incredibly popular for some reason (I do not recommend it). There are quite a few options out there and have various pros and cons, the biggest issue often being how much they can slow down your site. WordPress sites don’t need a page builder, especially with the new Gutenberg block editor (installed by default). Some themes include their own page builders, and overall page builders have become much more common because they’re easier for non-developers to use. We use and recommend BeaverBuilder, which is included on every site we build.

Self-hosted WordPress definitely sounds like the better option… but setup seems too technically complex!

In that respect, you are correct. I don’t know many business owners with the technical know-how (or time) to set up a self-hosted WordPress install. I do know some (especially artists and writers), that like the idea of designing their website themselves, however. We used to offer a DIY WordPress package, but there’s a very small demographic this works for. If you think you’re one of those people, schedule a discovery call and we might be willing to offer it on a case-by-case basis.

For our clients, we take care of all the steps to set up and customize a self-hosted WordPress install. We have it down to a science, in fact. Check out our website packages here for quick overview of what it looks like to have everything done for you.

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Anything else you’d like to know about WordPress? Drop your comments below!
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