Lisa Marie Designs » Ask Lisa!

Ask Lisa: WordPress blog posts? Categories? Tags? Whuuut??

Lisa — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:09:25 +0000

I get a lot of questions from clients about blog posts and how categories and keywords relate when I am designing their WordPress website / blog. What are categories? Which should I use?? Do I have to use them at all??? Here is a handy-dandy article from Michael Martine @ Remarkablogger that nicely spells it out:

http://remarkablogger.com/2008/10/27/blog-pages-posts-categories-and-tags-help/

Ask Lisa: What’s RSS and how do blogs work???

Lisa — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:54:22 +0000

Lately, quite a few clients (and friends) have asked me “How do blogs work and what the heck is RSS?”

It’s no wonder, it seems to be one part of the whole “Web 2.0″ world that, for most folks, is not reachable simply by an intuitive leap (myself included). It took me a while to grasp the idea that I could subscribe to a blog or website and have the information sent to me. As a *totally random* example, if you just LOVE this post and desperately want to get updates whenever I add to my blog, go to the “Subscribe” button on the right-sidebar and click on “Subscribe” – I’m just saying, it’s an option. Well, back on point, I just found an awesome (and amusing) short video explaining the basic concepts of how RSS, blogs and blog readers work!

See the video » HERE (Click on the Play button on the lower left corner of the video.)

Just in case you’re not a video fan, here are a couple of links to articles on RSS, blogs and blog readers:

Lisa ♥

Ask Lisa: What are hosting accounts and domain names?

Lisa — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:18:02 +0000

What are hosting accounts and domain names?

This is one of the questions I hear frequently from clients. They have an idea of what a hosting account and a domain name are, but it’s usually pretty vague and they’re not sure how it applies to them and the website they’re asking me to design for them.

So, here’s the analogy: building a website is like building your own house

Domain name (example: www.DomainName.com) = your parcel of land/street address

The domain name is the address or “URL” at which your website will be located. It’s how people will find you on the web. My domain name is www.LisaRoberts.com. A domain name is leased on a yearly basis, generally costing about $9 per year.

Hosting account = the house

Even though you’ve purchased a lot/address, until you’ve built the house, you still don’t have anywhere to put all of your belongings. A hosting account is the place where you store all of your site pages and content (on a server). A hosting account involves a monthly fee, sometimes payable in yearly increments.

Once you’ve leased a domain name (example: www.DomainName.com) and gotten a hosting account, your web designer can build your site and upload the content onto the server. Once the content is on the server, the website is “live” and anyone who goes to the URL/address can see it.

{If you’re in the market for a domain name or hosting account, take a look at the GoDaddy.com recommendation on my “Stuff I Like” page.}