Luckily, there are options out there that, it turns out, are even better (not to mention easier on the eyes) to begin with. I myself am flirting with two different services. I figure I’ll give them both a few weeks of my attention so that by July 1st (the official death date for Reader) I’ll be settled in and comfortable with my new beau. It’s like the Bachelorette of RSS readers. Will you accept this rose?

(Note that I’ll continue to update this post as I discover more about each service, but these are just my early observations after a day of using them).

Feedly

I’d already been using the Feedly app for my iPad, which syncs up beautifully with Google Reader. I was excited to discover they also have a web interface. Read more about it on the Feedly blog.

Pros:

• Super easy to convert (just sync with Google Reader)
• Gorgeous magazine-like interface
• Multiple layout and theme/color options for you to customize exactly what you see
• iOS/Android apps available
• Lots of social media integration and sharing options

Cons:

• Like any new thing, interface may take some time to get used to
• No IE support (but you’re using a modern browser anyway, right?)

iPad interface

Web Interface

Converting to Feedly is incredibly easy, just sync with your existing Google Reader account. Migration is automatic and all of your folders and saved/starred posts will be preserved.

Be sure to check out these Tips for Migrating Users for suggestions on how to make your Feedly experience as Google Reader-like as possible. While I love the magazine view, there is a title view that lists just the titles of new content, much like Google Reader.

When you install the Feedly extension in your browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Safari), you’ll start seeing the little “feedly mini” icon in the bottom right corner of the page. This makes it very easy to add new content to Feedly, simply click it and choose the top green button to preview the content in Feedly. From there you can click the Add+ button next to the blog’s title to add it to your feeds.

BlogLovin’

I’d played with BlogLovin’ briefly at one point, since I loved the fact that you could see the full site and design of the sites you follow and the blogs themselves get pageviews (something a normal RSS reader doesn’t offer unless the reader clicks through).

Pros:

• Reading a full post directs you to the blog itself, which means the blogs get page views.
• Clicking through lets you read a full post, great for blogs that only publish a truncated feed.
• It also means you get to see the full blog with it’s full design in place.
• Frame Toolbar lets you easily navigate the next new post without opening a new window.
• Blog/follower stats show you how may followers you have.
• It’s almost a mini social network in-and-of-itself, with the option to ‘like’ posts and view the most liked posts of the day.
• Profile is public, so you can see exactly who follows your blog.
• Web-based, accessible from any browser or computer with an Internet connection.
• iPhone app available (although it wasn’t working for me this morning).

Cons:

• Reading a full post directs you to the blog itself, so you have to wait for each blog to load.
• Groups don’t import from Google Reader folders, have to recreate these manually. (EDIT: apparently now it does! Still no tagging functionality though).
• Profile is public, which means people can see what blogs you follow.
• No iPad app.

Web Interface

The BlogLovin’ Frame/toolbar

Converting to BlogLovin’ is not difficult to do, but it does involve exported your current subscription information from Google.

To import your existing subscriptions into BlogLovin:

Visit the Google Takeout page for Reader. It will generate an archive file of your subscriptions. Click “Create Archive.”

Once the archive file is complete, click download and save the .zip file to a folder on your desktop. Double click to unarchive the file. You should end up with a folder called “your@emailaddress.com-takeout”. If you end up with an error.html file instead, repeat this process to create a new archive file and try again.

Log in or create an account at BlogLovin’. Under Account > Settings, click the Import Blogs button. Browse and locate the takeout folder. Inside that folder should be a file called “subscriptions.xml”. Select that and click upload. (Note that if you get a “this file is empty” error, just try again).

If you had organized your Google Reader feeds into folders (as I did), you will notice that those are no longer there. Unfortunately, you will need to recreate your folders as Groups (under Account > Following you can create new groups and sort your imported subscriptions into groups).

To add a new blog to your BlogLovin’ account, you can either add it manually under Account > Following > Add Blog, or you can use a BlogLovin’ bookmarklet. Just drag and drop the bookmarklet into your browser toolbar, then click this bookmark any time you’re visiting a new blog you want to follow. It will automatically open up a BlogLovin’ page with an option to follow that particular blog.

BlogLovin’ also offers up some cool stats for your account (under Account > My Blog), so (if you have a blog) you can see how many people are following it on BlogLovin’. Even if you don’t use BlogLovin’ to follow your feeds, you may want to create an account and claim your blog just for this reason.

The Verdict?

Well, after writing this article and really digging in to the pros and cons of each system, I have to say, I’m digging Feedly. I really love the magazine-like design and intuitive interface, pretty color options and social media integration. The lack of a native iPad app for BlogLovin’ may have been the ultimate deciding factor for me, however, so Feedly it is!

Why yes, I do think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Our first suggestion is to take all hosting reviews with a grain of salt. Many of these reviews are paid reviews, not true testimonials from actual customers. So that glowing review you saw of Host X might not actually be the case.

There is no such thing as a perfect host. They are all going to have some problems here and there. The true test of a host is how they handle these problems. How is their support? Do they get back to you quickly? Are they helpful in solving the problem? A host that is quick to respond, and helpful in resolving the problems is a host you want to hang on to.

Ask Yourself: What Do You Need?

The first step in choosing a host is assessing your needs. You need to consider what you’ll be doing with the website before you decide where to host it. A blogsite is going to have different needs than an ecommerce site, for example. When you know what your basic requirements are, you can then begin to explore the hosting possibilities that fit those requirements.

Webhosting lingo:

Bandwidth: The amount of data that can be transferred between your website and the rest of the internet. The larger the bandwidth, the more traffic your site can handle. A host offering 50GB of bandwidth lets you transfer 50 gigabytes of data per month. Things that count against your bandwidth include people visiting your webpages and viewing your images, database queries, files downloaded from your site, and emails sent to and from your web server. If you go over your allotted monthly bandwidth, your host will either disable your site (bad host), or charge you overage fees for the extra transfer (better host). The best hosts will warn you well before you reach your bandwidth limit so you can assess your needs and upgrade your hosting plan if necessary.

Disk Space: The amount of ‘stuff’ actually stored on your web server. This includes all your websites files, pages, and images. If you plan on having a very image-heavy blog, for example, you are going to need more disk space than someone who won’t have nearly as many images.

Server: The physical box that holds your site’s information. Yes, it’s an actual box somewhere (think a giant external hard drive) that stores your site’s files and facilitates the delivery of your website to the world. Technically, any computer connected to the internet can be a server. By purchasing web hosting, you are essentially renting “space” on this server to store your website’s files.

Domain Name/URL: The name of the website that is entered into the browser to access a website (for example, www.purrdesign.com). A lot like your car’s license plate, you must register your domain name and pay an annual fee to keep it registered in your name and continue to use it.

IP Address: The numerical version of a website address/domain name, a unique identifier akin to a telephone number for a computer or device. The IP address is used by machines to refer to each other when sending information through the Internet, it describes the source and the destination of such information. IP addresses, in order to be more human-friendly, are converted to easy-to-remember domain names. Instead of having to remember an insainly complicated number to visit a website, we can simply enter the domain name instead. You IP address will be given to you by your host. Depending on your chosen plan and needs, your IP will either be dedicated (it’s yours and only yours), or shared (other sites on the same server share the same IP address). If you require the use of an SSL certificate, you must have a dedicated IP address.

Database/MySQL Database: Think of a database as a powerful Excel file stored on your webserver, made up of a series of tables and cells that contain related information. If your site is built on a database-driven system (both wordpress and ckgold are mysql-based), a database stores all the content associated with your site, from your blog posts to your product information.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol is a way to exchange files over the internet. When you sign up for hosting, you’ll be given FTP access to your webserver. Through FTP, you’ll be able to upload and download images and files to and from your website. You will need an FTP client to do so. Our favorite is Fetch (MacOSX/$25), but you can find plenty of free clients as well (try CyberDuck for MacOSX, or SmartFTP for Windows).

SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. An SSL Certificate is what lets you shop online without having to worry about someone stealing your credit card information. SSL is a protocol designed to enable applications to transmit information back and forth securely. It’s what makes a website show the little lock icon to indicate that your personal data is safe.

Shared Hosting: Think of a hosting company as a city. Each building in the city is a server that stores website files. Shared hosting is like an apartment building, where you have a bit of space within a larger space. In other words, you share the server with many other people. For most sites, this is the best option, as it is affordable and the landlord takes care of much of the maintenance for you. If your site takes off and you are getting hundreds of thousands of visitors (we can hope, right?) you may outgrow your shared hosting account and need to upgrade to a ‘single family home’ where you have a server all to yourself (vps/dedicated hosting).

Unix/Linux vs. Windows

Many hosts offer two different hosting ‘platforms’ for you to choose from. Unix/Linux and Windows. Do not confuse Windows hosting with the Windows operating system – they are not the same thing. A website hosted on a Unix/Linux plan will work perfectly fine on any PC, and a website hosted on a Windows plan will work just fine when viewed on a Mac.

Unless you require any type of ASP/.NET based software, you’re much better off going with a Unix/Linux hosting plan. Unix/Linux hosting tends to be more secure, more affordable, and more reliable overall. Everything we do, including our ecommerce, content management, and blogging systems, require Unix/Linux hosting.

Some things to look for:

24/7 Support: If your site goes down in the middle of the night, you want to be sure you can get in touch with someone, stat! Many hosts may not offer 24/7 phone support, but as long as they’re accessible via email that’s typically a good solution. A good host will respond promptly to all support requests, no matter how small. Don’t be afraid to get in touch with the support before purchasing your hosting and see how prompt they are to respond.

Control Panel: Your control panel is where you manage every aspect of your site, from email to SSL certificates, to visitor statistics. You want to be sure it’s a good one. Look for HSphere or Cpanel control panels. Even better, if they offer a demo of their control panel check it out for yourself. Make sure you’ll be able to do what you need to easily and without much hassle.

Money Back Guarantee: Yes, it’s a sales pitch, but hosts that offer a money back guarantee (for 30-days or otherwise) will ensure your money can be recovered should the host not work out. It happens. The host might look good up front, but once we start poking around and setting things up for your brand new site, there may be a feature they don’t support and are unable to fix. Having a backup escape plan is always a good idea.

SSL Support: If you want to sell anything through your website, and accept any method of payment other than PayPal Standard (in other words, credit cards) you will need an SSL certificate to be able to securely accept this information. And you want to make sure your host will support that. Will they support 3rd party SSL certificates or do you have to purchase your certificate through them? Ask about additional costs, such as fees for a unique IP addresses. Can you install an SSL certificate yourself, or do they need to install it for you (and how much will they charge to do so). All things to keep in mind before you make any commitments.

Add-on/Additional Domains: Many hosts will let you host multiple domain names on the same account. This is always a good feature if you ever see yourself having multiple websites (a personal blog, maybe? or a second business website?) Being able to host multiple sites on one hosting account will save you money, as you won’t have to pay anything more than the domain registration to host another website.

Hosting is Always Limited.

There is no such thing as unlimited space. Be wary of hosts offering this. Also be very wary of hosting reviews sites. Every host will have a few unhappy customers, and chances are those are the people who will be the most vocal. Many reviews sites are also padded with paid/biased reviews, so that glowing review might actually be from an employee of the hosting company, for example. Unless you want to make your head spin, I’d avoid hosting reviews sites altogether.

Registering Your Domain Name

The big question here is should you register your domain with your host or someone else? Without hesitation I will tell you never to register your domain name and host your website at the same place. The reason for this is you want a quick escape route. If (god forbid) your host fails big time, your site is down, and you need to get out quick to avoid losing valuable business, you can. Changing hosts is as easy as moving data from one server to the other, and then ‘pointing’ your domain name to the new host. This ‘pointing’ of the domain, also known as changing your nameservers, is done through the domain registrar. If your registrar is a different company than the host that dropped the ball, it’s no problem. Your site will be back up within a matter of hours. However, if you had your domain registered with the same shoddy hosting company that crashed your site, you’d need to transfer the domain elsewhere as well, a process that can take 3-5 days or longer. I don’t think I need to tell you why having your site down for a few hours is better than close to a week.

I wholeheartedly recommend using GoDaddy to register your domain. Register it there and keep it there for all eternity. They are cheap and efficient. Granted, they will try to sell you the kitchen sink in the process, so hold on to your wallet and don’t let them convince you to purchase any of their add-ons… things like private and ‘enhanced’ registration are unnecessary.

Purr Recommends…

This* – Good starter host. Great support and very reasonable prices make ThisWebHost a good choice for your new blog or ecommerce website. Best for small blogs and low-traffic sites.

Fluid Hosting – We hosted our sites with FluidHosting for 5 years before we finally moved to a VPS. Their shared hosting plans are great for small to medium blogs and ecommerce sites.

Liquid Web – As your blog grows, so will your hosting needs. You may reach a point where shared hosting is no longer suitable. LiquidWeb has great support and affordable managed VPS plans for higher-traffic blogs and websites. Their shared hosting plans are great too.

WiredTree – Another great host for blogs who may have outgrown their shared hosting plan. Their managed VPS plans are comparable to LiquidWeb’s in price and services, but we love that they offer a LightSpeed server add-on that makes for a very efficient environment for a wordpress blog.

GoDaddy – Register your domain here, and that is all. Godaddy is first and foremost a domain registrar, and that should be all they should be used for (with the one exception being affordable SSL certificates). While we recommend GoDaddy for domain registrations and SSL certificates, we avoid their hosting at all costs. Their hosting is not up to par with the aforementioned hosting companies, and is NOT compatible with many of our systems, and for this reason we are unable to work with GoDaddy’s hosting at this time.

Hopefully, having a list of some of the possibilities available to you might help you decide what features you’d like to incorporate on your new WordPress blog, as these are things that can greatly affect the scope and cost of the project. By providing a complete and thorough site outline up front, we’ll know exactly what you need, and how much it will cost, from the very beginning.

Header

The header is the first thing people will see when they come to your site; you want it to be as memorable as it is functional. The header appears on every page of your website; it’s what gives your site it’s “identity.” A header typically includes your logo/identity and main navigation elements. Other elements you may want in the header include a tagline/description, social media links, images, search box, and/or an advertisement.

Logo vs. Header

We offer full logo development in addition to our blog design services; but a logo isn’t always a necessity for all blogs. Sometimes a simple typographic or image header can work just fine. What’s the difference? A header gives the blog an identity without going through the process of developing a full logo. A header is developed at the same time and as a complement to the rest of the blog design, whereas a logo is designed first and separately, then the site is designed around that. Many of the blogs we do don’t require a full logo design. But if your want your blog to act more as a business then it may be something you consider. (Examples of headers: Love & Olive Oil, Two Peas & Their Pod, What Megan’s Making, For the Love of Cooking; examples of logos: Cheeky Kitchen, Annie Bakes, Steamy Kitchen, Kitchen Confidante).

Navigation

The navigation or menu of a blog is essentially what allows your readers to navigate from one section of the site to another. Most blogs require one menu with links to the main pages or sections (examples: Love & Olive Oil, The Novice Chef, Kitchen Confidante, Cheeky Kitchen). If your blog has more content, you may need further organization. Hierarchical navigation can divide your content into two or more menus, formatted to highlight their importance. For example, listing major blog sections in one area, and less-important, informational links smaller in the upper corner (examples: Steamy Kitchen, Live Pretty). You may also choose to utilize some sort of dropdown menus in your navigation, to allow your visitors to navigate top level and subpages easily without excess clicks (examples: Macheesmo, AnnieBakes, Italian Food Forever).

Homepage

The first thing your readers will see when they come to your site is your homepage. So deciding what exactly you want there is a big part of your overall design, both in terms of aesthetics as well as scope and price.

Standard Style

The standard blog style is very simple: full posts running down the page. Nothing fancy, it allows your readers to enjoy the content chronologically just by scrolling down the page. You can choose to utilize the “more” tag if you’d like to “break” the content, requiring readers to click a “read more” link to see the full content of the post, but this is optional and can be done on a post-by-post basis. You can also easily change the number of posts that appear on each page. But overall, the standard blog style is the most simple and straightforward option you have when organizing your homepage. (Examples: Love & Olive Oil, Annie Bakes, Macheesmo)

Teaser Posts

Teaser posts are just that: teasers of the full post that require a click to read the full content. Teaser posts often contain a thumbnail image and an excerpt from the post itself. Teaser posts can be displayed below the most recent full post, below a featured slideshow, or as part of a magazine style layout.

The advantage to teaser posts is they allow more content to be featured higher up on the page, and they encourage users to click more (more clicks = more pageviews). However, more clicks can often be an inconvenience for readers; having to click through to read each post can discourage readers from doing so. (Examples: The Little Kitchen, The Novice Chef, Cara’s Cravings)

Magazine Style

If your site has very distinct, magazine-like sections or categories, or you have a great deal of content, then maybe a magazine-style homepage is the best solution for you. Magazine-style pages can be organized in a myriad of different ways, but they all tend to feature content more by category than chronologically. For example, we could have 4 category blocks, each showing the most recent posts from those categories. (Examples: Dear Crissy, Live Pretty, Bunky Cooks)

Featured Slider

Sometimes the best way to feature multiple posts in a compact space is with a featured slider or slideshow. These animated features allow you to select a handful of posts to display front and center on your homepage. Useful for displaying recent posts, seasonal posts, or other featured content, and often in combination with a teaser or magazine style layout. (Examples: Cheeky Kitchen, Kitchen Confidante, Italian Food Forever)

Sidebar

WordPress gives you immense flexibility to use sidebar widgets, and all of the sites we create are set up to handle this functionality in one or more widget areas. But maybe you want something special, not included by default. Maybe you want to highlight featured content, or display your popular posts?

Columns

There are a few common layouts for sidebars: single column (examples: Merry Gourmet, Cheeky Kitchen), double column, split column (examples: Dinners & Dreams, A Dash of Sass), or, the most common for our clients, a combination (examples: Love & Olive Oil, Kitchen Confidante, Two Peas & Their Pod) . The sizes/layout of the columns are typically determined by the required ad sizes.

Widgets

WordPress’ widget functionality makes your sidebar extremely flexible. Your new site will be set up with at least one “widget area”, which is a space where you can easily drag and drop, edit, add, and remove widgets as needed. Each “item” or block of something in the sidebar is one widget. By default wordpress includes some basic widgets, such as recent posts, archives, search, and text widgets (basically a flexible space for text, yes, but also code such as advertisements, banners, forms, etc), but there are a vast variety of plugins available as well as custom options so, if you have something you’d like to see in your sidebar, chances are we can make it happen. Here are some common elements you may want in your sidebar:

Ads

More than likely you will have ads in your sidebar, which often times define the overall structure of the sidebar spaces (so having a good idea of the size and quantity of ads you’d like to have up front is always helpful). You can easily insert ads into your sidebar by simply pasting the ad implementation code (provided to you by your ad network) into a text widget.

About/Bio

You may want to include a sort of “introduction” in your sidebar, a brief bio or welcome note. Maybe you want to include your photo, or a link to your full about page. We can setup a custom text block, formatted nicely to include your information and give your readers a friendly welcome to your site.

Social Media

You’ll likely want to call out your various social media networks somewhere fairly obvious on your site. Sometimes these fit into the header or navigation, but more often than not they end up in the sidebar. Decide which networks you’d like to display, and how big/bold/graphic you may want them. We often include a feed/rss subscription icon in the same space as well.

Subscriptions/Newsletter

Related to your feed/social media, you may also want to give your readers the option to subscribe to a newsletter or to subscribe to receive feed updates via email (as opposed to in an RSS reader like Google Reader). Keep in mind these are two different things: a newsletter allows you to send messages directly to your subscribers; what you include in those messages is completely up to you (looking for a newsletter service? we love MailChimp!) An RSS email subscription will simply email the subscribers whenever a new post has been added (a service like FeedBurner will do this for you automatically for free; MailChimp does have an RSS to email option as well if you want more control over the look/feel of your emails).

Either way, we can encourage subscriptions through a subscription form or link to a form prominently in your sidebar.

Search

Having a search bar somewhere on your site is a necessity – and sometimes the sidebar turns out to be the best place for it. Generally you want the search box to be above the fold, or fairly high up on the page. You don’t want to make your readers search for the search box. :)

Recent Posts/Comments

One of WordPress’ default widgets is a simple bulleted list of recent posts and/or comments. Oftentimes we find that a more customized display of these items is more functional, and we can set these sections up to display additional information and even thumbnail images.

Popular Posts

Another way to feature more content in your sidebar is with a list of popular posts. We have a few plugins we use regularly that will track posts based on total or average pageviews and even comments, and then display the most popular accordingly. Much like recent posts, we can also customize the display to show thumbnail images or other information.

Featured Posts

Maybe you want more control over which content displays in your sidebar, in which case, a featured posts section may be your best bet. A featured posts area will allow you to select posts individually or by category and have them show up in the sidebar. You can use this functionality to feature your favorite recipes, seasonal posts, or maybe even older content you want to highlight. Featured posts can be displayed as a list, a list with images, or even as a rotating slideshow.

Archives

Finally, it’s usually practical to have archive widgets present in the sidebar, both archives by category as well as archives by date. You want to make your content easily browseable, and some readers may prefer to browse your archives topically or chronologically. Archives can be displayed as a bulleted list or as a dropdown (useful for more lengthy lists of dates/categories).

Posts

The post pages are the bread and butter of your site; in addition to the homepage, they will be the pages that will be viewed the most often. If you’ve got a teaser or magazine style site, the post pages will show the posts in full whenever a ‘read more’ link is clicked.

Comments

Comments are built in to every wordpress blog, allowing your readers to comment and converse about each and every post. We typically include gravatars to visually enhance the comment display (you can get your own gravatar—or globally recognized avatar—at gravatar.com; it will show up on any site that supports them based on your personal email address). Users without a gravatar will get a default image, which we can customize to match your site.

Another popular comment feature is threaded comments, which will allow you or your readers to ‘reply’ to any other comment; the reply comment will appear directly below and offset from the parent comment. You can set it so that only you (as the site admin) can reply to comments; you can also allow your users to reply to each other if you’d like. Additionally, we can also setup a plugin that will send out an email whenever you reply to a comment. This notification is often helpful if your commenter has asked a question, since they may not remember to come back to your site to see if there is a response. Instead, they’ll receive an email with your response.

If you have posts with a large number of comments (such as giveaways), it can often slow down the site’s loading time. Sometimes it’s best to split the comments into pages, so only, say, 50 comments display on one page.

Social Media

We typically include basic social media sharing options on all sites, giving your readers the option to share your posts across a variety of networks and mediums. These buttons often include a Tweet, Facebook Share, Google Plus +1, and Pinterest buttons; we can also display buttons to Email a Friend, Favorite, StumbleUpon, and more, depending on exactly which services you want to utilize. We use AddThis.com to manage these buttons, which will allow you to log in and view sharing statistics (how many people tweeted about a particular post, for example).

Recipes

If you’ve got a food blog, we can install a customized recipe setup to allow you to insert recipes into your posts without worrying about special formatting. Simply insert your recipe information into the appropriate fields, and place the shortcode into the post where you want the post to appear. The recipe will be formatted automatically (to match your site) and output to fit Google’s hrecipe specifications (so your recipes can be indexed within Google’s recipe search). Do note that, at this time, the recipe setup can only accommodate one recipe box per post.

Printable Recipes

Your recipe format will, by default, include a print recipe button that will allow your readers to print out just the recipe (and not the entire post). We can also include a thumbnail image in the recipe and/or on the print page if you’d like, as well as a (non-printing) advertisement on the print page.

Save Recipe

Recently we’ve been working quite a bit with ZipList, a recipe management tool that allows users to create virtual ‘recipe boxes’ and ‘shopping lists’ and save recipes across many different recipe sites. If you’d like to incorporate a recipe box into your site, we recommend getting in touch with ZipList about becoming a partner. Just tell them you’re working with us—they’ll know exactly what we need to integrate the service into your site.

Related Posts

One of the ways to increase clicks and user engagement is to offer up some ‘suggested’ or ‘related’ posts; these typically display at the end of the post, before the comments section. The related posts will display based on the categories or tags set on the current post (for example, if you’ve tagged a post ‘chocolate’, the related posts will pull other posts with the same tag).

Author Info

If your blog has multiple authors or regular contributors, you might want to feature them with more than just their name. It is possible to add a ‘bio box’ to the end of each post, with the author’s image and bio, plus a link to view all posts by that author (example: Live Pretty).

Feeds

Your posts will be included in WordPress’ built-in RSS feed, allowing your readers to receive updates of content in their RSS reader of choice (or via email, see Subscriptions above). Some of our clients like to truncate their feeds, or cut them off so a reader has to click through to the site to get the full post. While this can increase pageviews and help fend off content scrapers, many people do not like truncated feeds and will not subscribe to them. If you do choose to have a truncated feed, we can install a plugin that will allow you more control than WordPress’ default ‘summary’ option (which we never recommend using). These plugins will cut off the feed at the ‘more’ tag, so you can place that tag at a specific point in your post, giving your readers a substantial preview of the post, including at least one image, will help them decide if they want to click through for the rest.

Pages

Most blogs have a few static or informational pages, meaning the content on those pages doesn’t change like the blog pages do. An example of an informational page would be the About page or Contact page.

Contact Page

You want your readers to be able to easily get in touch with you, which is why a contact page is pretty much a given on every website. You can choose to simply list your contact information, or you may decide you want a basic email form to allow your readers to easily send you a message. Or, even better, include both. That way your readers have a choice in how they’d like to contact you. (Examples: Love & Olive Oil, Cheeky Kitchen).

Press Page

Another page that some bloggers want is a press page, listing their features and profiles from various websites and news outlets. While adding a page is easy enough, sometimes a press page can use a bit more attention. We can spend some extra time formatting your press page to include thumbnails, links, and even popup previews of print features (examples: MaleneB, Steamy Kitchen).

Recipe Page

For food bloggers, being able to include recipes in your posts is essential. Sure, you can type in a recipe in any old post, but what if you want your users to be able to print the recipe (and not all the other photos/text from the post)? We’ve created a customized recipe setup that will allow you to easily input recipes into your post without having to worry about formatting or code. The recipe setup will output a beautifully formatted recipe complete with a print button.

Recipe Index

One of the most important features of a food blog is a recipe index, allowing your readers to easily find exactly what they’re looking for. There are different ways we can organize this, but the most common is a simple list of categories, dates, and/or tags.

These pages will update automatically (no more tediously updating your index!), so if you add a new category, it will appear in the index automatically. The individual category pages are basically a customized version of wordpress’ standard archive pages, which will display your posts visually with thumbnail images and titles (examples: Love & Olive Oil, Steamy Kitchen). Categories with subcategories can display, giving readers the option of “refining” their search (examples: Recipe Girl, Italian Food Forever).

Recipe indexes by category will pull in all your blog categories or just the recipe-specific ones. These can be displayed as a simple list (examples: Love & Olive Oil, Cheeky Kitchen), or if you have a limited number of top-level categories a visual index might be more appealing (examples: Muy Bueno Cookbook, Steamy Kitchen, My Cooking Hut). You may also have multiple forms of categorization (such as recipes by season, region, etc–basically a series of categories and subcategories), which we can break out into separate sections (examples: My Cooking Hut, Steamy Kitchen). We can also utilize wordpress’ tagging feature to create an ingredient index (examples: Love & Olive Oil, Macheesmo, Eclectic Recipes).

Archives

Related to your recipe index are your site archives. By default wordpress’ archives are setup like a standard homepage, with full posts running down the page. This leaves your readers with lots of scrolling and lots of clicking through pages to find what they are looking for. A better solution is to use thumbnails and/or teaser posts. More compact posts mean more posts per page which means fewer pages to click through.

If you have other, non-food categories, you may want them to display differently than your recipes. For example, your recipes pages may be thumbnails and titles (as seen here), and your non-food category posts may display with an excerpt as well (as seen here).

Search

Similar to your archives page is your search results page. We usually set these pages up to include post teasers and thumbnail images, along with a friendly excerpt that displays the portion of the post that contains the search term (examples: MuyBueno Cookbook, Kitchen Confidante, The Novice Chef).

Footer

Your site’s footer can range from extremely simple to much more complex. The most comment footer elements are a secondary navigation (either repeating the main navigation or an alternate navigation), as well as a copyright notice. If you want an extended sidebar, we can usually fit 3 additional widget ‘areas’ into the space, allowing you to add additional content that may not have fit in the site’s sidebar. The footer also offers an additional opportunity for advertising space if you want it.

Other Considerations

Existing Content/Import

If you’ve already got a website you’ll want to include your content in the new site, right? Of course! If you’re already running wordpress this is easy (obviously). But if you’re running Blogger or another blogging platform/cms, importing existing content can be more tricky.

We have a system in place that works well 98% of the time, and will transfer all your content to blogger as well as forward your old links to the corresponding page on the new site. However, due to some software quirks that are out of our control, sometimes there are issues with this process. The issues tend to be magnified on larger sites (sites with over 200 posts and/or 5000 comments). We promise that we will do our darnedest to get all your content moved in once piece; but we cannot guarantee that every single one of your posts or (more likely) all of your comments will survive the move.

What if you happen to have another software system in place, other than wordpress or blogger? Once again, we’ll do our best. There are many resources out there for transferring content from other platforms like Drupal, Typepad, Moveable Type, etc. Even if we’ve never worked with it before, we are happy to look into it further.

Whether you are on WordPress or another platform, and especially if you have a food blog, you should expect to spend some time reformatting your existing posts within the new design. You’ll want to be sure you have featured images set for each post (featured images show up in the archives, search results, and related posts areas, for example), as well as moving your recipe information into the appropriate fields. For clients moving from Blogger, we also recommend cleaning up the cruft code that Blogger leaves behind. This can be time consuming, so prepare yourself; but you don’t necessarily have to redo all your posts before the site can be launched. Any older/unformatted posts will still be readable and accessible; they just won’t have the fancy features and bells and whistles that newer posts have.

SEO

SEO is not a specific service we offer. You can pay tens of thousands of dollars for SEO “optimization” with no guarantee of results, and we’re not ones to cash in on such shenanegans. However, do know that your new site will be built to current web standards and with SEO in mind; no part of the design will impede your SEO potential.

WordPress on it’s own is a very SEO-friendly platform. By simply producing quality content, establishing external links and credibility, with some time and patience you will get indexed. But if you want additional SEO considerations, we can install a plugin to give you additional meta fields (keywords, description, etc) for your posts.

Our recipe functionality by default is set to Google’s new hrecipe standards, and includes the basic code necessary to have your recipes indexed. We also provide you with a link to more in-depth code samples and declarations if you’d like to take it further, but this is not required.

Mobile

With the growing prevalence of web-ready mobile devices, you want to be sure your site can be accessed and is functional on these devices. We build all our sites in such a way that they’ll be perfectly functional on mobile devices. We do not utilize Flash or any other technology that would cause problems. Your site will appear exactly as it does on any modern computer.

Some people, however, want a site further optimized for mobile devices. There are methods that make it is possible to create a ‘responsive’ site that will change depending on the device and the size of the screen on which it is viewed. For example, the sidebar will move so that the posts can be larger and fill up the screen, to reduce the need for a manual zoom.

Do note that this is a new area for us and we are just beginning to explore the possibilities. Mobile optimization can be very time consuming and costly to fully and completely optimize a site for mobile devices, so it’s probably not something that the majority of you will deem necessary, but it is something we are willing to explore.

Anything Else?

The purpose of this (lengthy) article was to expand on and list out some of the many possibilities available to you. Use it as a menu of sorts; choosing which features you may want to incorporate into your own site. Not everything listed here is necessarily an “add-on” or extra cost. Some are basic, fundamental features we include in all our sites, whether you ask for them or not. It’s important for you to make a list of the features you absolutely have to have, and also the features you might want to have. We’ll take the entire scope of your project into consideration and determine the final cost based on the project as a whole.

Also, just because something isn’t listed here doesn’t mean it isn’t doable; with WordPress, chances are that if you can think of it, we can make it happen. Just ask!

Merchant Mumbo Jumbo

Lots of terms you’ve never seen before, eh? No kidding. Here, let us translate for you.

Merchant Account: A way for businesses to accept credit cards. Also known as payment processing or credit card processing. A merchant account is acquired through a merchant account provider.

Payment Gateway: What “connects” your ecommerce shopping cart software to your merchant account. The equivalent of a physical POS (point-of-sale) terminal in retail stores. CKGold integrates with many popular payment gateways, including Virtual Merchant, Authorize.net, and LinkPoint.

Chargeback: The result when a customer disputes a transaction on their statement, the cardholder will issue a chargeback against the merchant’s account. The amount of the disputed transaction is then debited from the merchant’s bank account. Merchants have a set period of time in which they can dispute the chargeback, usually by providing proof of purchase by the cardholder. This could be a signature or proof of delivery. A fee is generally issued by the merchant provider for the handling of this dispute process, whether or not the merchant wins the dispute, the fee still applies.

Discount Rate: The percentage charged by the merchant provider for each transaction. Discount rates will vary depending on the type of credit card (corporate/rewards cards command a higher rate than regular cards, for example).

Look at Your Needs.

Depending on your business needs, your merchant account needs will be different as well. If you anticipate a gross monthly credit card income of $500-600 or less, your needs are vastly different than a business with more than $600 worth of credit card transactions each month. Keep in mind that the options for smaller businesses are usually less binding, meaning when your business outgrows them, it’s easy enough to move up to one of the options more beneficial for a larger volume of credit card transactions.

$500/$600 or Less

For now, you want a merchant account with lower monthly/annual fees, even if it means higher per transaction fees.

PayPal Standard. The best option for businesses just starting out. Not an actual merchant account, per se, but it has no annual or monthly fees and reasonable per transaction fees, plus integrates beautifully with our ecommerce system. The downside is that customers will be redirected to the Paypal website upon checking out, which can deter some people from completing their order. As your business grows, accepting credit cards directly is desirable as it helps to maintain a level of professionalism. Paypal can always remain a secondary payment option on your site as well.

ProPay. A low annual fee, and 3-3.25% transaction fees. Keep in mind these accounts often have transaction limits – meaning if you gross more than a certain amount in a month, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan. This solution does not include any sort of payment gateway – meaning you’ll need to manually enter the credit card numbers to charge the orders as they come in.

$600 or More

You, unlike the smaller businesses, will benefit from a merchant account with lower per transaction fees (since you’ll have more of them), though that usually means higher monthly fees. It’ll even out in the end though.

Your Bank. Sometimes this is the simplest solution. Purchasing merchant processing through your bank will ensure you get your money quicker. If your bank’s options are too expensive (as they can often times be), you can get a merchant account elsewhere.

Costco/Elavon. If you are a Costco member, they offer merchant processing through Elavon for some of the most reasonable rates available. If you’re not a Costco member, Elavon is owned by U.S. Bank, and their services can be acquired through them. You will also want to sign up for their payment gateway, known as Virtual Merchant, to allow real-time processing between Elavon and CKGold. This option does have strings – you must make a 2-3 year commitment. Cancel early and you will be charged a hefty fine.

PayPal Pro. If you like PayPal, their Website Payments Pro is a merchant solution that seamlessly integrates into your website. While the payment is technically made through PayPal, the customer will never leave your website, and cannot differentiate between this and a regular merchant account. The downside is it is pricey, the monthly fee alone puts it over even the more expensive merchant accounts. But it works well and can be integrated into CKGold.

Do the Math

Still not convinced? Let’s compare. Take two businesses. Business A is just starting out, and maybe has 10 orders a month averaging about $50 a piece. Business B has built up its business, and now averages about 50 orders per month, around $50 a piece. We’ll compare the annual costs for these two business using two merchant services, ProPay and Elavon, and their respective fees. The final total shows the total amount spent on fees per year, and the percentage of sales that those fees cost you.

According to this table, Propay is going to be the best option for Business A, while Elavon is the most economical choice for Business B (and keep in mind, after the first year this fee amount will go down even more, as the setup fee only applies to the first year).

Hidden Fees

There are lots of fees associated with processing credit cards, and you’ll want to be sure you know up front what you’re being charged for. Don’t be afraid to call a potential merchant provider and ask them to list these, one by one. Fees are unavoidable, but you want to know what you’re in for so it doesn’t surprise you later.

Monthly/annual fees: Expect to be charged a monthly or annual (or both) fee for your new merchant account.

Statement fees: Another fee often charged in addition to the regular monthly fee, for sending you your statement each processing cycle.

Gateway fees: Another monthly fee, if you’re using a payment gateway such as Virtual Merchant or Authorize.net. The gateway itself is a separate service, sometimes with a separate company, and thus commands extra fees. Sometimes a gateway will also charge its own transaction fees in addition to the ones your merchant provider will charge.

Setup fees: Fees to get your account up and running. This is a one time fee, and while it’s included in the cost calculations above, it’ll only be a factor the first year. Keep in mind there are often setup fees for BOTH the merchant account AND the payment gateway.

Transaction fees: For every card you charge, the provider will take a cut of it. It’s usually a flat rate ($0.20 to $0.35), plus a percentage of the total charge. Also called your discount rate. The lower the percentage, the more money you’ll save in the long run. Keep in mind most providers charge different rates based on the type of merchant. With your website, you qualify for the internet rate, usually significantly higher than the retail rate. The discount rate also varies depending on the card type, corporate, international, or rewards cards, for example, take a higher percentage than other cards.

Amex fees: If you decide to accept American Express cards, you’ll have to pay an additional monthly fee and transaction fee for all amex transactions. Typically $5.95 per month, plus a slightly higher discount rate and an additional $.05-$.15 cents per transaction. However, keep in mind that in general, amex customers tend to place larger orders. It’s up to you, not all businesses accept amex, but we find the extra cost to be worth it for those that do.

Application fees: Some merchant providers will charge you a nominal fee just to apply for a merchant account with their company. Supposedly this fee covers the cost of processing the application.

Cancellation fees: If your provider requires you to sign a contract and commit to using their services for a certain period of time, chances are there will be a nasty fee if you cut out early. Be sure you know this up front and are ok with those terms.

Monthly fee minimum: Many providers specify a monthly minimum, or the minimum amount of transaction fees you have to pay each month. Say your minimum was $20. If you had a slow month and only had a few charges, you’d still have to pay $20 even if your fees only totaled $10. Once your business grows, this usually isn’t an issue to meet this every month.

Chargeback/Retrieval fees: Should you ever have a chargeback, not only will you lose the money from that charge, but you’ll also get hit with a penalty fee. Never a good thing, and we always try to do everything we can to avoid these altogether.

Transfer/Daily Batch fees: Yes, sometimes providers even charge you to get your own money. Whether you have to transfer it to your bank account, have your daily batch of charges transferred automatically, or get it in another way, many providers will charge nominal fees every time you do this. It adds up.

Voice Authorization fee: Some providers give you the option to phone in a card transaction (say you’re at a craft fair, for example). You can do this, but you’ll usually get charged another fee. How nice of them.

AVS (Address Verification Service) fee: If you charge card-not-present transactions (meaning you don’t physically swipe the card yourself), you might be charged extra to verify the billing address matches that on the account. Some providers charge extra for this, though other times it is already included in the transaction fee.

PCI Compliance fee: If your merchant provider is holding you to PCI security standards (not applicable to paypal/propay accounts, but very likely with any other merchant account), expect to have to pay to uphold this compliance. You’ll usually need to sign up for a service to scan your website monthly or quarterly for vulnerabilities ($100-$300 per year). If you are found to be PCI non-compliant, your merchant provider will charge a non-compliance fee, usually $20/month, every month, until you are compliant.

3rd Party Processors

Be wary of 3rd party/discount processors. While their services might seem cheap, they make their money by subcontracting out their services to multiple other companies. We’ve had experiences where the company you signed up with was completely different from the company who sent your statements and also completely different from the company that sent your transactions to your bank account. If you had a problem, it was your best guess as to which of the three or four different companies you should call, and often times you’d be bounced from one company to another and back again. Merchant processing is already confusing enough, you don’t need to add another layer to it.

A merchant provider is associated directly with a financial institution in order to provide you funds for your credit card transactions. A 3rd party processor is a company that will contract its services with another merchant provider. Think of them as a ‘reseller’ of the merchant services. Wouldn’t it be easier just to go directly to the source? Elavon, who we use for our merchant processing, is owned by U.S. Bank. We have one phone number we call should we need any assistance. Support is hugely important with something as technically complex as merchant accounts. Just keep in mind that price is only part of the equation.

Credit Card Security and Avoiding Fraudulent Charges

The reason processing credit cards on the internet costs more than doing it in person is the risk. Internet fraud is running rampant, and banks have to charge enough to recover their losses in case of fraudulent charges. Cardholders are protected. If their card is stolen and used to purchase something on your site, guess who foots the bill? You. As an internet merchant, you are responsible for the security of your credit card transactions. And most of what can be done to prevent internet fraud is just a matter of common sense.

Use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). If you plan to accept anything other than PayPal Standard, you will need an SSL certificate on your site. SSL is an internet protocol that encrypts information sent over the Internet. You should never send any personal information over the Internet unless it is over a secure connection, signified by an https:// domain name and a secure lock icon display. Basically, an SSL certificate prevents hackers from intercepting this information and using it in fraudlent ways.

Use AVS (Address Verification Service). Part of your merchant package, AVS will check the billing address on the order against the billing address on the cardholder’s account. It will return a response code with each transaction, letting you know if the address matches or not. Many merchants will still approve orders with partial or even no AVS match, but that is your call. AVS is not a surefire way to prevent fraud, but it’s all we’ve got. International credit cards are not supported by AVS, so it is up to you whether or not you’d like to accept these at all.

Compare the Shipping and Billing Addresses. It’s not uncommon for someone to have a different billing and shipping address. Maybe they get their credit card statements at home but want their order shipped to their work. It’s also not uncommon for an order to ship to a different person altogether, maybe it’s a birthday gift. However, keep in mind that a non-matching billing and shipping address is one of the first signs of fraud. Especially watch out for shipping addresses in other countries (billing to Utah, shipping to Vietnam? I think not). Bottom line, if it looks suspicious, proceed with caution.

Get a phone number. It’s always a good idea to require a phone number from your customers. If there is a problem with their order, it’s the best way to get in touch with them quickly. And in the case of a fraudlent or suspicious transaction, you can give the customer a call to make sure they did indeed place the order. Check to see if the phone number is even in the same state as the billing/shipping address. If the phone numbers don’t match up, do a whitepages search for the cardholders’ name (as their name and address might be the only accurate information you have).

Watch out for Free Email Addresses: I’m not saying not to accept an order placed with a free email address (ie: @hotmail.com), but if the order already looks suspicious, a free email address is another red flag.

Beware of multiples. Internet scammers don’t usually care what they buy, they just buy it. That order you got for 14 of the same necklace? Unless it’s a wholesale customer, ordering multiples is not normal customer behavior.

Hold off. If you’re unsure about an order, don’t ship it immediately. Credit card charges take a few days to show up on the cardholders’ account. You can give them a bit of time to see the charge, and give you a call if they didn’t authorize the charge (your phone number is listed on all your transactions as it should be, right?)

Don’t store credit card information. Once you’ve shipped an order, you have no reason to keep the credit card number. Especially on your website. CKGold will purge this information for you once you mark an order as shipped.

Use your insctincts. If it sounds fishy, it probably is. Trust your gut, and if an order makes you uncomfortable, look into it more. Call the customer. Or, if nothing else, just cancel it. One lost order isn’t worth the hassle of dealing with a fraudulent charge.

PCI Compliance – Yes it applies to you, too.

PCI Compliance is a set of data security standards created to help merchants avoid credit card fraud. These standards are more and more being imposed on smaller and smaller merchants, so don’t be surprised if your merchant account holds you to them. These standards include business practices and internet security. It’s a complicated process to become PCI Compliant, but in the end it will make for a more secure ecommerce environment. This is something we’ve been through ourselves, and are available to help you along the way. For more information visit https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

A Final Word

We know the prospect of all these costs as fees is intimidating. But keep in mind that credit cards are what make the ecommerce world successful. Without credit cards, ecommerce websites would cease to exist. It’s a cost of doing business, and is better than doing no business at all.

If you’re just starting out, PayPal Standard is the best way to begin. As your business grows, you’ll want to give your customers more flexibility in how they pay, and give off an image of professionalism by having the payment & checkout seamlessly integrated into your site. This is when moving up to a merchant account will be beneficial to your business. From personal experience, there are many people who don’t like or don’t trust paypal. When we switched our ecommerce site from just PayPal, to a choice of credit cards or PayPal, business jumped. Now, nearly 95% of our transactions are paid via credit card.

Just something to keep in mind.