Creative and Expert WordPress Web Design Atlanta and the World
Judi Knight is the founder and chief at New Tricks. When she’s not working with businesses to create their online goodness, she'll be checking people into the Urban Oasis B &B, planning WordPresss events or hanging with her husband and three Basset Hounds.
Want to get in touch? Shoot me a note, Sign up for my free social media tips or,
Better yet, want to work with me? Check this out.
Last Sunday was the closing day of the Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera exhibit at the High Museum and, as part of the festivities, my friend and yoga teacher Isvari Verre taught a morning yoga class outside on the piazza in front of the museum.
Frida was a self-taught Mexican painter who started painting as a young woman while recovering from a near-fatal bus accident.
This accident caused her many surgeries and much pain over her lifetime, [Read more...]
Chris Guillebeau’s book signing in Atlanta
Many of you know I also run a bed and breakfast and event space called the Urban Oasis and we put on lots of events here throughout the year. I am the co-chair of WordCamp Atlanta as well, so the topic of event promotion is an important one to me.
We used Social Media to put on a super book signing for Chris Guillebeau’s Art of Nonconformity book tour with over 225 people. And WordCamp Atlanta sold out in two weeks. Event planners should really bone up on all the cool social media apps that come in handy to insure the success of your next events.
When creating an event, you must think about your specific event and create a targeted online and offline marketing plan.
Yesterday, my sister called me and told me that a friend of hers called her to tell her that my Bed and Breakfast was featured in Houzz in an article called Atlanta for Design Lovers.
If you don’t know Houzz, it is an online design magazine that features high resolution photos of cool designs. About a month ago, I was interviewed by one of their writers and then promptly forgot all about it.
My loft on Krog Street is the world headquarters of New Tricks as well as doubling as the Urban Oasis Bed and Breakfast.
I started the Bed and Breakfast in 2009 about the same time that I started [Read more...]
Using email to post to WordPress could not be easier. This method will be a great tool to use while traveling, when you don’t have access to a computer or to WiFi , or if you have a client who feels intimidated about going into the WordPress Dashboard to post.
With the Post by Email method, you can just email your blog post in. That’s right, you just write an email to a certain custom email address and the subject becomes the Title and the message becomes the body of the post. You can attach images which will go into your post as single images or galleries, if there are multiples. [Read more...]
I am going to let you in on a secret. When I am thinking up newsletter topics, often I choose something that I also need to keep up with.
Getting testimonials is one of those things. The trick to getting testimonials and recommendations is to ask for them.
It seems simple but then why not do it? I am going to add this step to my website wrap up check list [Read more...]
In honor of the impending demise of Google Reader coming up in July, I wanted to offer an even better way to share your online goodness.
People who write content on their websites need to make it easy for others to access it and unfortunately, those other people, even if they like your content, will forget to go to your website. It is so true.
Some people have used RSS (really simple syndication) feeds to get your content delivered to a feed reader, [Read more...]
This week there were several scares from hacking attacks on WordPress sites or plugins.
One of these was a well known and much used plugin, Social Media Widget which had some code put into it by someone who was working on it (accidentally or on purpose, we don’t know.) The code injected links to a spammy PayDay site that you would not have seen, but Google could have black-listed you for.
This was re-mediated fairly quickly and sites could continue to use this plugin after updating it which removed the injected link code.
The second problem was a bigger issue, a brute force attack by bots [Read more...]
If you are using “admin” for your user name on your WordPress site, you are a sitting duck to hacking attempts from Bots.
These automated attacks run a program to target vulnerable WordPress sites. If they can get into the site through “admin” they only have to figure out your password. It is not unusual for people to be using “admin” for their user name and “password” or “1234″ as their password. This is not good, people!
The most common reasons people get hacked are [Read more...]
Before you can start planning an email campaign, you need to clearly define your audience. Once you get a good idea who you are writing to, it will be easier to decide what you want to send to them and how often they want to hear from you. This is similar to the process you should go through to determine the content for your blog.
What are some words that describe the people you are writing to? The more specific you can be in understanding your niche, the better you will be in targeting your content to their particular needs. [Read more...]
It’s easy to get caught up in analysis paralysis when doing something new, especially when it is something very public. A common effect of this anxiety syndrome is to explore all of the options and rethink them several times over. And then to do it again. Around and around we go is a sure path to never getting yourself out there.
To anyone who is perseverating over launching whatever it is they are working on, I say, “Get over your self and just do it!”
Perfect is not the goal here. It is best to keep things simple and get the job done. And then spend time making it work. Make a name [Read more...]
