This article explains the type of services offered by Donncha Hughes since 2013 with this website Startup Web Training. The solution is WordPress focused services for startups and small business who need a website for marketing of their business.
Would you like to embed your tweets (twitter timeline) in the sidebar of your WordPress blog. This blogpost will provide instructions and also explain how to add a Badge or Button that allows your visitors to Like your Facebook page and see how many people like your facebook business page. See both the Facebook and Twitter widget end result in… Read More »Adding Facebook Page Feed and your Twitter Timeline to your WordPress blog (updated 2020)
Last week a client sent me an email asking how she could ‘save’ a brochure as a picture so that she could use the image in a presentation for a potential customer. She had included the brochure as an attachment and it took me all of 5 minutes to send her back what she needed. This got me thinking that… Read More »Working with Images for your Website
This post will address how to set up an email address to match your website address. In summary the steps are as follows: Buy a URL or domain from a hosting provider – in this case I secured one from Blacknight Solutions Buy Hosting in order to publish your site. Set up Email address via your Host. Blacknight will give… Read More »How to get an email address to match your website URL?
This is the second of a two part blogpost that addresses how to ‘work with images for your Website’. The first blogpost talked about sourcing the images and manipulating them in terms of size and adding text as part of the messaging. This second part assumes that you have lots of images that you now want to add to various… Read More »Working with Images on your Website – Part II
Video instructions on creating a quick home using on the Phlox theme adding a video background to a section using Elementor
This is the second of two articles with video based instructions outlining how elements of this example website has been created using the Phlox Theme. The first article with Video 1 explained how the navigation menu was added and this one will focus on how the blog was configured using 3 short video. Adding Blogposts A few blogposts were created… Read More »Phlox Theme Instructions Part 2 Configuring the Blog
This is a two-part video-based blog that explains how elements of an example WordPress website have been created using the Phlox Theme. This first part of the post explains how the navigation menu was created while the second one will outline how the blog was configured. The Phlox Theme I really like the Phlox Theme. It works great with Elementor… Read More »Phlox Theme Instructions Part 1 Adding a Menu
A nice looking logo can really help to make your website look professional. This article includes a short video on how to add a small neat logos that fits in the Header section of your WordPress site. The sample logo is created using a freemium online service called Logomakr.com What is a logo? A logo will generally comprise of a… Read More »How to create a business Logo for your WordPress website
Video instructions on how to secure a url (domain or website address) and hosting from Blacknight Solutions for your WordPress website.
A blogpost which explains how to set up Google Analytics on your WordPress website, followed by instructions on how to then create and link to your Google Search Console (Webmaster tools) so that you can upload an XML sitemap for your WordPress site – all of which is recommended for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Google Analytics (GA) is a free… Read More »How to add Google Analytics to your WordPress Site
If you are wondering how to add an SSL certificate to your existing WordPress website, this post will outline the steps I followed as a Blacknight Hosting customer last weekend for my other website which is now located at HTTPS when it used to be HTTP. The entire process took less than an hour – to include all 3 of… Read More »How to add SSL Certificate to Blacknight Hosted Domain?
I like the Site Origin page builder. It works very nicely with VANTAGE a cool theme by Site Origin. I created an example website for a fictitious Web Design Agency to showcase how the Theme is customised particularly how to create a custom home page. This is my second post on using Site Origin Page Builder. The other one was… Read More »Vantage Theme with Site Origins Page Builder – An example Site with Instructions
Links are extremely important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). You probably know that building backlinks is essential for off-page SEO – this is when other websites link to pages on your website – because Google and the major search engines attach great significance to pages which are being linked to by other sites and are being ‘talked’ about on Social… Read More »How to embed a hyperlink in your WordPress webpage or blogpost? updated for Block (Gutenberg) Editor 2019
WordPress 5.0 was released in December 2018. It introduced a new BLOCK EDITOR for editing content such as pages and posts. It was called Gutenberg while in development. This is going to be my first post using the Block Editor. I also created a 5 minute video of how to use the Block Editor (as of early 2019) – expect… Read More »WordPress Block Editor
If you are looking to upskill on Google Analytics – free web tool to help you analyze your website traffic – then I can highly recommend the online training programme published by Google Analytics Academy. I completed the Beginners course a few weeks ago and intend to complete the Advanced Google Analytics course soon. Here’s a quick review of the… Read More »Google Analytics Academy online training is Excellent
Adding a Google Map to your WordPress site is relatively easy. You will often see them along with a Contact Form on a Contact Us page or in a footer of a website. This post will provide instructions on how to firstly add a simple Google Map with your location to your Website – if you have a Google Business… Read More »Embed Google Map – How to WordPress
t seems that every website now has a beautiful slider on its homepage. This post outlines how to use Smart Slider 3 a fantastic free plugin from Nextend to create sliders – either as a main feature on a homepage or as content on any post or page. However, as I explain how to use this Plugin, I must also… Read More »Smart Slider 3 – how to add to your website
This blogpost outlines how to create a 404 error page that is customised to your business – that can include links to key pages on your site and a contact form plus much more. The instructions require you to download and activate two plugins: Page Builder by SiteOrigin and SiteOrigin Widgets Bundle Plus 404page- your smart custom 404 error page… Read More »How to Customise your 404 Error Page?
I have asked Ger, my technical WordPress Guru, to write an introductory post to FTP, or File Transfer Protocol. This was prompted by a message which pops up when I installed WP Super Cache (a highly recommended plugin to speed up your website) which read that the App permissions needed to be updated. To find out how to do this… Read More »Using FTP client with WordPress (intro)
Contact Form 7 is a superb plugin that I highly recommend during my Two and a Half Day Build your Website using WordPress programme. It is a great way to introduce the concepts of Plugins and Shortcodes. This post will provide instructions on how to configure the standard form. Contact Form Example Here is a screen grab of the contact… Read More »Configuring Contact Form 7 WordPress
This post outlines summary instructions to set up Pay with a Tweet – a cool WordPress plugin that facilitates you to request that a visitor to your site posts a standard tweet in order to download a document (pdf). There is no charge for the document hence the name Pay with a Tweet. It is an alternative to requesting an… Read More »Instructions to set up ‘Pay with a Tweet’ in WordPress
If you are wondering how you can embed an individual tweet in a WordPress page, post or widget – this article is for you. There are several elements to get right in integrating your Social media within WordPress. These include: displaying social icons linking to your accounts such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook; presenting a share bar; displaying posts from… Read More »How to embed an individual tweet in a WordPress blog or post?
Wondering how to create an animated GIF to enhance the Wow factor of your content. This is a short blogpost which presents an example of a simple animated GIF and explains step by step how it was created. I have used an animated GIF to present a short advert – the multiple frames catch the eye and allow a lot… Read More »How to add animated Gif to WordPress website?
This is a short blogpost which answers the question in the title: What colour is that on my website? by explaining how to add a tool referred to a browser extension to Firefox and Chrome which idenitifies the RGB or Hex colour code of any pixel displayed in your browser (on your website). Consistent use of colour is recommended… Read More »What colour is that on my website?
Welcome to the 3rd article in the series of Quick Hacks for WordPress. Post two addressed HTML and referred to CSS which stands for Cascading Style Sheets. This article will now provide a brief introduction to CSS in order to explain how you can use Custom CSS to make small changes to your WordPress Theme for instance prescribing the colours… Read More »Custom CSS for WordPress – A quick introduction
The wonderful thing about WordPress is that you no longer need to learn HTML to create a website. However it can be useful to know a little HTML and to know how the front end of WordPress takes care of all the HTML for you. What is HTML? Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve… Read More »A quick explanation of Html for WordPress
Every page and post in WordPress has an ID number. This post provides instructions on how to find your Page or Post IDs in both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. Use of Post or Page ID The ID of a particular post or page may be needed by some plugins. For instance, a Sitemap plugin should allow the… Read More »Page IDs in WordPress – to find quickly using Firefox and Chrome
Eamon Kelly, General Manager of LetsHost.ie is again offering hosting for 3 months FREE to all participants on LEO Galway’s upcoming 2 Day Create a Business Website programmes in 2017 – simply buy or transfer a domain for your business – this offer proved very popular in 2016 with participants. Dates for the WordPress based training, to take place in… Read More »Letshost.ie FREE hosting for Galway LEO Training
This blogpost has been written specifically for participants attending the upcoming GIBO workshop to be delivered on behalf of LEO Tipperary. On the day, participants will be shown how to create a FREE website for their business using Blacknight’s Website Builder – an easy to use content management system created for the Getting Irish Business Online Programme. This particular post… Read More »Video instructions to secure website url with GIBO
According to its website, Into The West Blogger Network is a network for Bloggers in Ireland to connect, share, learn and network. Their mission is to grow a network of quality Bloggers within the West of Ireland. I spotted recently on EventBrite that ITWBN are now working with Michael of Educated Machine to deliver a series of Blogging workshop… Read More »Into The West Blogger Network (ITWBN) announce WordPress Training
The Theme that is selected for a WordPress site determines in large part the look, functionality and overall level of sophistication of your website. I recently delivered a Two Day ‘Create a Website for your Business using WordPress’ programme for the Local Enterprise Office Galway. It was attended by 8 business people who wanted to learn how to use WordPress… Read More »Selecting a Theme for your WordPress site
UPDATE – SUNDAY 20th April I finished the half marathon for LauraLynn and WE raised the half million for LauraLynn. My time for the record was one hour 59 minutes (closer to 58 minutes and I was delighted to finish under 2 hours for my first half marathon). Thanks to everyone for supporting my fundraise. I had set a target… Read More »Support Laura Lynn Hospice please
I am often asked: ‘What exactly is WordPress?’ so this blogpost includes a 2-minute video explaining that WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows any small business owner to create their own website with very manageable costs. This post provides my top seven reasons why WordPress.org is the best solution to create your professional website. WordPress has a… Read More »What is WordPress and why I recommend it?
Wishing all my clients, contacts and training participants a Merry Christmas and a peaceful new year. Hope you all like my featured image (created using Pixlr Photo editor) regards donncha (@donnchadhh)
Google Forms can be used as an excellent free alternative to survey tools like Survey Monkey and Poll Daddy. A Google form is a type of Google Document being the equivalent of an Excel Spreadsheet.The reason I like Google Forms is that you are not limited to 100 responses as you would be with Survey Monkey (the free version). You… Read More »How to embed a Google Form in your website?
WordPress 5.0 released in December 2018 makes it very easy to create Anchor links on any page or post – this is a link that takes you a specific part of the page that you are browsing as opposed to an internal or external link. This post will talk about when you might use an anchor link and how to… Read More »How to create Anchor links within WordPress (updated 2020 – Block Editor)
Disqus (prononuced Discuss) is a fantastic FREE service for WordPress websites to manage comments by visitors. I first used the service on the Tweak Your Biz site which I write for and followed the link to add Disqus to my own wordpress website. I was looking for a solution to the WordPress SPAM problem and now I would recommend Disqus… Read More »What is Disqus and why I recommend it?
A website URL or domain is your website address. Generally, you will choose either a .ie web address or a .com. The .ie is associated with Ireland while .com is available worldwide. You can of course choose to register both plus others associated with other countries – .co.uk is the United Kingdom. Choosing a domain name for your business is… Read More »How to choose your domain name?
The major problem for anyone creating a website is figuring out what to say/write/put on your website. After deciding that your business needs a professional website you need to generate ideas on what information potential customers want to access on your site. After all your website needs to work within the context of SEO, inbound marketing to include blogs and… Read More »10 Steps to create your Professional Website
When you write a blogpost, and Google presents it in a list of results following a search, your Google+ image will appear in the results if Google Authorship is activate. People are then more likely to click on the result and visit your WordPress blogpost. Google Authorship helps with SEO (see this article for more on the issue of rankings).… Read More »What is Google Authorship?