• Ideas
    • Start Here
    • Team Management
    • Mindset
    • FBA
  • Build
    • Money Site Creation
    • WordPress
  • Monetize
    • Income Reports
  • Grow
    • Link Building
  • Tools
    • Tutorials
  • Services
  • About
    • Contact
  • Ideas
    • Start Here
    • Team Management
    • Mindset
    • FBA
  • Build
    • Money Site Creation
    • WordPress
  • Monetize
    • Income Reports
  • Grow
    • Link Building
  • Tools
    • Tutorials
  • Services
  • About
    • Contact
  • Ideas
    • Start Here
    • Team Management
    • Mindset
    • FBA
  • Build
    • Money Site Creation
    • WordPress
  • Monetize
    • Income Reports
  • Grow
    • Link Building
  • Tools
    • Tutorials
  • Services
  • About
    • Contact
  • Ideas
    • Start Here
    • Team Management
    • Mindset
    • FBA
  • Build
    • Money Site Creation
    • WordPress
  • Monetize
    • Income Reports
  • Grow
    • Link Building
  • Tools
    • Tutorials
  • Services
  • About
    • Contact

Category: Tools

Building an online business like most challenges has a lot to do with your SEO tools. Getting your motivation, frames of reference and expectations right will have more of an impact on your success than simply following perfect SEO “rules”.
Tools

BackupBuddy – How to restore your backups

Two weeks ago, I was working on my Friday Most Excellent article.  I made a couple of tweaks to the article after it was published and pressed update.  WordPress was busy saving for a very long time, then up popped the dreaded 500 server error message.  No big deal I thought, I’ll just make the tweaks again and save it again.  I pulled the post up and all but the first couple of sentences were gone!

My shock and dismay must have been a little louder than I thought, as my wife asked “What’s wrong?”.  Shortly after, I remembered I had fortunately backups.  I sure hope my BackupBuddy daily backup ran this morning …

Fortunately, my backup did run and I began the process of restoring my blog from backup to recover the article.  In theory, restoring the backup should have just been a few simple clicks, but of course, it’s never that simple is it?

While the backup plugin I use, BackupBuddy (affiliate link), did make it relatively easy, I thought it would be helpful if I walked you through a complete restore of a BackupBuddy backup.   If you aren’t familiar with BackupBuddy, it’s definitely a plugin I highly recommend and personally use on all of the sites.  You can read more about how I use it for my blogs in my article: How to backup your WordPress blog automatically.

How to restore a BackupBuddy backup

The first step you’ll need to take is to download the backup that you want to restore.  I keep both database and full site backups.  This example will walk you through restoring a full site backup.  Restoring a database only backup is very similar, just less steps.  The instructions below will walk you through completing a BackupBuddy restore for my homeowners association website I’m working on.

I normally store all of my backups on Amazon S3, but for this example, I just ran a manual BackupBuddy backup and downloaded it straight from my Media Temple server.  You can do this by going to the BackupBuddy >> Migrate, Restore menu option in your WordPress admin console.  Once there, your screen should look similar to this one:

BackupBuddy Migrate Restore

Click to view larger image

Preparing to restore the BackupBuddy backup

Since I did a manual backup and stored it locally, my latest backup was available right off the Migrate/Restore page.  Let’s get the necessary files downloaded to our local computer:

  1. Right click on the link to your latest download listed in the Backup File section.  Select Save As… and save the backup zip file.  I generally just use the default downloads directory.
  2. Next, click on the red button that says ImportBuddy.  You’ll be prompted for a password that will be associated with your importbuddy.php file.  This password security mechanism keeps just anyone from accessing your importbuddy.php file.  If you leave this field blank, the default password in your BackupBuddy settings will be used.  I generally just input a unique password, just to be on the safe side.
  3. After entering a password or leaving it blank, the importbuddy.php file will be downloaded to your default downloads directory.  Both your backup zip file and your importbuddy.php file should now both be in the same directory on your local computer.

Upload your importbuddy.php and backup ZIP file

Next, we’ll upload both files to your web server.  There are a couple of ways to do this, with FTP being the easiest option.  If you’re hosting company supports ControlPanel, you can also use ControlPanels file manager to upload both files.

Both of these files must be uploaded to the directory where your WordPress installation is located.  This will be the same directory that contains the wp-config.php file along with the wp-contents directory and a number of other files and folders.  If you are unsure of the WordPress installation location, contact your hosting company to confirm.

Also important: Do not rename the BackupBuddy backup file.  The importbuddy.php file will not be able to find it if you do.  Trust me, I learned the hardway.

Create a new WordPress database

Next we need to create a new database for the restore to be copied into.  BackupBuddy will not overlay your existing database.  Unfortunately this process varies by hosting company, and it would be to much for me to walk you through the process for even the top few.  I could certainly help you as part of my services business or I’m sure your hosting company’s support would help you.

But in a nutshell, you’ll want to create a new database and a user for that database. The user you create should have full rights to the database.  MediaTemple allows you to do this via Plesk, while companies like Bluehost and HostGator use ControlPanel.

Temporarily store the database name, database user name and database user password.  We’ll be using that information shortly.

Restoring the BackupBuddy backup

Now that both files are in the proper location on your server, it’s time to restore the backup:

Open up your browser of choice, and navigate to your website, but put \importbuddy.php on the end.  For example, if your blog is someblog.com, you would navigate to http://someblog.com/importbuddy.php

If you’re unlucky, like me, your screen now looks something like this:

Error #22434.  This directory is not write enabled.  Please verify write permissions to continue.

Don’t panic, easily fixed.  Different hosts have different default levels of permissions.  All BackupBuddy is trying to tell us here is that the directory for your WordPress installation isn’t writable.  We’ll need to make it writable before we can proceed.

You can use your FTP program to do this or the ControlPanel File Manager.  Find your WordPress directory, and change the file permissions for the directory that contains your WordPress installation to 777.  Pay attention to what they were before you make the change, because we’ll need to set them back once we’re done.  What 777 does is make your whole WordPress directory writable – not very secure.  But don’t worry, we won’t leave it like this for long.

Here’s the screen shot from the FTP/Development tool I use show the correct permissions for the httpdocs folder on my MediaTemple server.

Change Permissions

With that change made, access the importbuddy.php file from your web browser again.  If all went well, you should see the screen for Authentication:

BackupBuddy Authentication

Remember earlier when we downloaded the importbuddy.php file and we either specified a password or left it blank for the default?  Here’s where you’ll enter this password and press the Authenticate button.  If you forgot the password, you can just get the importbuddy.php file again and re-upload it.

After pressing Authenticate, you’ll proceed to Step 1 – Choosing your backup file :

BackupBuddy Choosing your backup file

A couple things of note here:

  • If you uploaded your backup zip file to the right place, you’ll see it listed above.  If not, no worries.  Click on the upload tab and you can select and upload it from here.  If you use BackupBuddy Stash, you can select your file from there.  I don’t currently use Stash as I started using Amazon S3 before they announced it.  
  • The little yellow warning is basically just telling us: “Hey, you already have a site installed here and bad things could happen if you just overlay it.”  Now, if you’re confident an overlay won’t be an issue, than proceed.  If you aren’t sure, you should delete all of the files and folders in your WordPress directory on your server so BackupBuddy can do a clean install.  The couple of times I’ve done restores, I did an overlay with no issues, but your mileage may vary.

Once you’re ready, press Next Step and you’ll see the page below:

Step 2 BackupBuddy

Click for larger image

Really nothing to do here.  This screen will show you the extract process for your backup ZIP file.  Just watch for the “Files successfully extracted” and press the Next Step button.  If you get an error, consult the BackupBuddy site, they have tons of FAQs to help you resolve any issues.

After pressing Next Step from the extract screen, you’ll see the following page:

BackupBuddy Database Information

Click for larger image

This page is where you’ll tell BackupBuddy how to connect to your new database so it can import your data.  Put your database information in and press the Test Database Settings button.  Assuming you put all of your values in correctly, you should see the same text in gray above from my screenshot.

If so, press Next Step.  If not, recheck/reenter the information and try again.  The problem could also be that you may have wrote down the information incorrectly or made a typo when you created the database.  If all else fails, just delete the database and create another one.

After pressing Next Step, you’ll see the following page:

BackupBuddy Database Import

Click for a larger image

This page is like the ZIP file extract page and shows the verbose output of your database import.  If all goes well, you’ll see a message saying:

“Initial database import complete”.

If you get errors, use the error text to troubleshoot the issue or again consult the BackupBuddy site for assistance.

Assuming all went well, click Next Step!

BackupBuddy Database Migration

Click for larger image

This page wraps up the database migration by updating your WordPress config files and showing you the final import status.  Hopefully yours says “Import complete” like mine.

At this point, you’ll want to access your site and verify it is operational.  Do not close this window. – just open a new tab to verify your site.

Once you’ve confirmed that your site is up and running, press the Clean up & remove temporary files button and you’ll see this page:

BackupBuddy Cleanup

Click for larger image

This page displays a log of the clean-up activities.  BackupBuddy is kind enough to clean-up any temporary files and backup files and removes the importbuddy.php file.  I have seen this not work 100% of the time though, so I would definitely recommend giving your restored WordPress directory a quick skim and delete any unfamiliar BackupBuddy files.

Finally, don’t forget to reset your WordPress directory permissions back to the original value, which is generally 750.  Resetting these permissions is critically important to securing your site, so please don’t forget!

BackupBuddy backup restore is complete

That’s it, all done.  While certainly not 100% point and click, it is relatively simple, especially taking into consideration what’s going on under the covers.  BackupBuddy does a lot of the leg work for you.

The really slick thing about BackupBuddy is that you can not only restore your site using it, but you can also migrate your site to another hosting company or server using the same process!  I’ve also built “clean” template sites, with just WordPress, Thesis (affiliate link), and the base plugins I normally use.  Then I ran a BackupBuddy backup and used the restore process to do new WordPress installs.  This makes site creation and initial set-up really simple.  This single feature alone has saved me a ton of time, and paid for the plugin 2-3 times over in time saved.

If you currently don’t use BackupBuddy, I would highly recommend you give BackupBuddy (affiliate link) a try.  You won’t find me saying that about too many “pay for” products, but this is one that’s worth the money.  The whole process just works, and the fact that I don’t even have to think about my backup process really helps me sleep better at night.

What’s this “affiliate link” thing?  An affiliate link is a link that pays me a commission if you purchase the product in the link.  The product doesn’t cost any more for you.  I take affiliate offers very very seriously, and I don’t ever recommend a product or include an affiliate link to it if I haven’t personally used it and like it.  Most of the time I use these same products everyday and when I don’t, I use them with my clients.  You never have to worry about trusting an affiliate link on Side Income Blogging.

Read More
Jon March 5, 2013 5 Comments
Tools

Add WordPress sidebar widgets

Now that we have our base pages in place, it’s time to add some sidebar widgets.  This will complete the overall look of the blog and then it will be time to dive in and starting writing.

WordPress sidebar widgets

One of the really neat features of WordPress is the ability “drop” widgets into your sidebars.  WordPress widgets are visual “gadgets” that can moved in and out of your sidebar and even moved around in your sidebar.  This all happens on on the fly and as soon as you drop a widget, it’s available on your blog.

WordPress by default comes with a number of default widgets.  You can see them by logging into your WordPress admin console and clicking on Appearance>>Widgets.  The widgets are displayed to the left and the available sidebars will be shown on the right.  There are widgets for categories, archives, links, calendars, searching, comments and more.  Remember too, this is just the default ones, there are many more available on WordPress.org Plugins library.

Sidebar Aesthetics

Many bloggers make one of two common mistakes related to sidebars:

  1. They content flows far beyond their sidebar
  2. Their sidebar flows way beyond their content

Let’s look at the situation of content flowing far beyond the sidebar first.  Doesn’t seem like a bad thing right?  Once users scroll past your sidebar, they aren’t being presented with anything but your articles.  All of your opportunity for them to click on ads, see your featured posts, subscribe, purchase your ebook ,etc are gone.  25 – 30% of your blog page is now white space (read wasted space).

With that in mind, filling up the sidebar and sticking tons of stuff in it would fix that right?  Well, if you sidebar flows way beyond your content, than you have the opposite problem.  Now you have up to 70% of your blog showing white space and no content.

As with most things, the best option is a compromise.   Do your very best to keep your sidebar and content equal in length.  Problem solved.  You’ll note that I do just that here on Side Income Blogging.  Personally, I think it just looks better too.  Nothing worse (in my opinion) than a large amount of wasted space.

What WordPress sidebar widgets do you need?

With all of those widgets, how in the world do you decide what to put and in what order?  Well, there is no right or wrong answer to that question, and ultimately you’ll have to play around with various combinations until you find what works.  But in order to get you started, here are the widgets I recommend an in the order I recommend them:

Subscriptions Widget – I talked about this widget earlier in this series when we did your Feedburner set-up.  This widget should always be at the top of your blog.  This widget is only available with the Thesis theme.  If you aren’t running Thesis, you’ll want to use a Text widget and build your own text and links.

Welcome/About (optional) – There isn’t a widget for this, so you’ll use a text widget.  The welcome/About widget will provide a few sentences (i would recommend no more than 5) about your blog or you.   The decision really depends on if you are trying to primarily brand yourself or your blog.  In general, most of you will want to brand your blog.  Those looking to establish consulting or services businesses should work on branding themselves. After the 3-5 sentences, provide a “Read more on our about page” and link to your about page.  I noted this widget as optional, as it really is personal preference.  I prefer to have this information in the footer rather than the sidebar.

Search – The WordPress search isn’t optimal, but for now it will be sufficient.  Later, as your blog grows, we’ll want to incorporate Google search.  Search will be an important tool used by your visitors to find your content, hence why it’s high on the list.  You don’t ever want someone to have trouble finding your search.

Categories – We’ll discuss this a bit more in a future article, but WordPress provides the ability to relate each post that you write to a category.  This provides your visitors with an additional way to browse your content.  For example, if you want to see all of the tips on blogging here at Side Income Blogging, than you could visit my blogging tips category page.  The categories widget will list off all of the categories that have posts on your blog.

Archives (optional) – Archives again provides an additional way for visitors to browse your content.  Archives allows visitors to view your content by publish date.  You wouldn’t think many people would do this, but I was surprised at the number of contacts I’ve received that said something like “I just finished reading all of your content from start to finish”.  Personally I prefer my archives on a dedicated page, but I’ve seen them in the sidebar frequently on other blogs.  The Thesis theme offers a really slick archives page.

Add WordPress sidebar widgets to your sidebar

Adding WordPress sidebar widgets to your sidebar is easy:

  1. Access the Appearance>>Widgets menu from your WordPress admin console
  2. Find the WordPress widget you want from the list of available widgets
  3. Using your mouse, drag the widgets into your sidebar.  If you have more than one sidebar, drag it to the one you would like the widget placed on.
  4. After dropping the widget, it will expand to show you any options the particular widget may have.  Set these to your liking and press the Save button.
  5. Your widget or widgets are now live on your site.

Always remember: Your sidebar should augment your content and never distract the reader from it.

Graphic by: Kurt Thomas Hunt

Read More
Jon June 15, 2011 2 Comments
  • 1
  • …
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
Recent Posts
  • Content At Scale Review [Tool Walkthrough and Test Output]
    Content At Scale Review [Tool Walkthrough and Test Output]
    October 20, 2022
  • 10 Best Copyscape Alternatives in 2022
    10 Best Copyscape Alternatives in 2022
    September 7, 2022
  • Mailchimp vs Hubspot: A Side By Side Comparison
    Mailchimp vs Hubspot: A Side By Side Comparison
    August 3, 2022
  • 5 Best Free Plagiarism Checker Tools You Can Try
    5 Best Free Plagiarism Checker Tools You Can Try
    July 26, 2022

Services

  1. BrandBuilders.io
  2. LightningRank.com
  3. Speedy.Site
  4. SiteBuddy.io
  5. MotionInvest.com
  6. Originality.AI
motioninvest.com
brandbuilders.io

Engineering Your Financial Freedom with Online Business   Sharing everything (except my passwords) as I repeatedly build income streams from online businesses
Contacts
If you have any questions about this site or the internet marketing tutorials I have here please don't hesitate to contact me…
Email Me – Jon Gillham at…
jon (at) authoritywebsiteincome (dot) com
Services
MotionInvest.com
ContentRefined.com
SiteBuddy.io
BrandBuilders.io
LightningRank.com

Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions

Copyright © 2021 WebsiteIncome.com All Rights Reserved.