News from WordPress HQ today came early in the morning. The latest version of WordPress (3.3) is available to download now, just in time for the festive season.

This update boasts a number of slick new features – we’ll add video tutorials soon.

Instead of going over all the new features again, the purpose of this post is to encourage you to update your installation.

You should be able to upgrade in just a few clicks from your WordPress Dashboard (admin area).

If you’re one of our customers and are having trouble upgrading, please create a support ticket.

Oh, and before you upgrade please make sure you backup your WordPress and database!

Don’t forget, we love WordPress and equally love providing WordPress Hosting. Whether you’ve got a site or looking to start one, we’d love to talk to you about our UK based web hosting.

Using WordPress to power your website and/or blog is a wise move in our books. A lot of our customers spend a lot of time making sure their website is constantly up to date, and their blog packed full of useful information for their visitors.

Themes are tweaked to perfection and images resized for optimal display. But what happens when your visitors go mobile?

Is your site ready for the ever increasing amount of surfing that’s taking place on mobile devices? At RX Host, we’re guilty, of not having an optimised for mobile version of our site at all. That doesn’t mean you should follow suit.

Take a look at your analytics (contact us if you’re not sure what analytics are!) and you’ll more than likely see an increasing number of visits from mobile devices. The bounce rate and other stats will give you an indication as to how (un)friendly your site is on mobile devices too.

So what can we do to get your content to the new generation of mobile web surfers? Install a plugin of course! Both plugins below are free

WP TOUCH

WP Touch is really common on WordPress blogs and you’ll find it on a wide range of sites. More likely to be on blog centric sites than others, but if your content is mainly on your blog, then it’s a great plugin to use. Just make sure that if you’re a business and people use their mobile devices to access your site, that your contact details, including phone number is clearly visible, even on your mobile theme!

You can customise WP touch from your admin area and the theme even allows visitors to switch between “mobile” and “desktop” views whilst they’re on the go. The best of both worlds!

WP Touch is free, but there is a paid option too. The link above gives more info.

MOBIUS

Mobius resembles a normal WordPress theme in scaled down format. It comes with a few different styles, and hopefully one will suit your sites mobile needs.

Don’t forget, to use some plugins, you’ll need to get some WordPress Hosting and self host your site. We love hosting WordPress sites and would be more than happy to give help and advice about WordPress and web hosting in general.

To use WordPress when you’re not at your desk, you’ll probably want to use the WordPress App on your smartphone. To make sure you’re able to log in and manage your WordPress site from your mobile device, you need to make sure XML RPC is enabled.

How to enable XML RPC on WordPress

To turn on XML RPC, you need to:

1 – Log in to your WordPress Dashboard

2 – Select settings from the menu on the left

3 – Select “Writing” (it’s an option in the Settings menu).

4 – Under the heading “Remote Publishing” check the box that says “Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.”

4 – That’s it!

4b – Well, you may be asked for a link to XML RPC on your wordpress. This usually means you just add xmlrpc.php to the end of your WordPress url.

For example, if your WordPress is located at www.mydomain.com, you’d want to link to www.mydomain.com/xmlrpc.php

Et voila! Job done!

If the text doesn’t make sense, here’s a video:

Don’t forget if you need WordPress Hosting, we can also help. We work with WordPress on a daily basis and ensure that we provide a reliable and quick service for users running WordPress on our servers. If you prefer to manage everything yourself we also have some great UK Web Hosting Plans available.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I made the switch to a MacBook Pro for work purposes.

After having a chat with some friends and doing some checking around on the web for confirmation, it seems as if using Google Chrome was killing the battery on my Mac. I wasn’t expecting the advertised 7 hours, but at least around 4-5 hours of web browsing time. So, you can imagine my disappointment at getting only 2 -3 hours when using chrome.

It seems that for most typed of animation Chrome switches to using the MacBook’s dedicated graphics card, which in most cases was overkill and drained the battery unnecessarily. The Google Support forums didn’t offer much help in terms of an actual fix, however, they did lead me to a neat little app called gfxCardStatus.

The app lets you see which graphics processor you’re currently using (Integrated or Dedicated) and allows you to specify which one you’d like to use. You can even have it auto switch based on power supply. For example, use the integrated when on battery, and save power, and change to dynamic switching when you’re plugged in and power isn’t an issue.

If you have any experience with Chrome not playing nice with your battery or have a better solution, please leave a note in the comments. Thanks!

I recently made the switch from using a Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) set up to using a 15″ MacBook Pro (Feb 2011 model).

For most of the work I was doing, including web design, the mac seems to handle everything fine. However, I had a few issues with the Firefox and Chrome.

With Firefox, flash just seeemed to appear as scrambled lines on the screen and I could barely watch videos or see any displayed data (e.g. in Google Analytics).

After some careful Googling the fix that seemed to work was running Firefox in 32 Bit mode.

Apparently, this is quite a common problem with the Firefox + Flash + Mac combination so I’m posting the fix, in the hope that it will help someone.

The Solution

Finder > applications > firefox > get info > check “open in 32 bit mode”

Then simple Command and Q on your keyboard to quit Firefox and restart it.

Business Blogging is something we’re seeing a lot of small (and larger) businesses adopt, in order to increase there exposure in the wilderness that is the Internet.

To all our clients we recommend WordPress as our platform of choice when it comes to powering their online marketing, whether it’s a Business blog, or a full featured brochure site that explains all their services and offerings.

Why should my Business blog?

If you’re sitting there wondering if you should blog, the answer is YES! After setting up a number of blogs for our business customers, we’ve found that they’re able to reach a whole new audience, especially via social media and organic google searches, that it’s literally made their business worthwhile (even in the current economic climate).

What should I blog about?

This is where most business owners get stuck. I get it. You run a business and that’s what you’re good at. You’re not a writer, nor did you ask to be one, so what on earth could you possibly write on a blog? Well, anything really, anything about your business. I usually recommend that it’s best to provide value to your potential, and current, customers. Educate them. Tell them what’s going on in the industry, or even give them some tips on how they can use their products and services in a better or way.

For example, if you’re selling window washing liquid, write a blog post on how to clean a window in under 5 minutes. This gives you an opportunity to introduce proper technique (also known as providing value) as well as letting potential customers know about your product. The aim isn’t to sell, just educate. You’ll soon build up a following, who’ll come back regularly for your expert tips, and who knows, they may check out your products and buy something.

How do I blog?

Setting up a blog is pretty straight forward. Whilst there are a number of ways of setting up for free, for Business use we highly recommend you blog on your main website domain i.e yourcompanyname.co.uk or yourcompanyname.co.uk/blog. In order to do this you’ll need to have some WordPress Hosting or Managed WordPress Hosting. If you get your own hosting, you’ll have to install and set up WordPress yourself. Not having an in house tech team may mean you’d be better off with managed WordPress Hosting, which would normally include set up and ongoing technical support.

What next?

Once you’re all set up leave a link in the comments to your blog so others can see what you’re doing. If you have any questions or need and help feel free to leave a comment below or give us a call.

To those of you that already have a business blog, what impact has it made on your business?

This guide is a step by step to moving your WordPress powered blog or website.

These instructions should help you if you’re trying to:

- Transfer to a different directory on the same web host

- Transfer from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (self hosted with a web hosting company)

- Transfer from WordPress from one host to another host.

There are a few different ways you can move WordPress, this is the simplest we’ve found.

The step by step guide to transferring WordPress

1. Log in to your existing WordPress dashboard.

2. Select Tools > Export, follow the steps shown on the screen. Save the download file somewhere you’ll be able to find it later.

3. Select Plugins and make a note of the plugins you have installed.

4. Select Appearance and make a note of the theme you are currently using.

4b. If you’re moving from one host to another or a different directory on the same host make sure you use File Manager on cPanel or FTP to download your theme folder from /wp-content/themes.

5. On your new host (or in the new directory on the same host) install WordPress – we recommend using Fantastico, Softaculous or Installatron to do this, if you host offers either of them.

6. Log in to your new WordPress’ dashboard. (usually yourdomain.com/wp-admin if you installed in the root directory)

7. Select Tools > Import – WordPress will ask you to install the WordPress importer – install it and activate it. You may then upload the file you downloaded earlier from Step 2. You need to follow the steps in the wizard, assign your posts to users. Make sure you check the box to download images and attachments.

8. Use FTP or cPanel’s File manager to upload your theme folder to wp-content/themes/ for your new WordPress install.

9. In your new WordPress dashboard select Appearance and activate the theme you uploaded in the previous step.

You’ll need to install your plugins and configure them again – hopefully your wrote them down in Step 3.

10. Take a look at your WordPress site and make sure you’re happy that everything has transferred over properly. Oh, and don’t forget to compare your settings from one WordPress install to another to make sure you configure everything the same, especially those pesky permalinks (Settings > Permalinks)

That’s it! Everything should be transferred and working.

Need some help with your WordPress move?

There are some scenarios where the above instructions would need some tweaking, for example if you are moving from one host to another and want to use the same domain name. If that’s your situation or you get stuck at any point please leave us a comment below and we’ll do our best to help.

Let us move WordPress for you!

If you’d rather not deal with moving WordPress yourself, why not let us handle the transfer for you? We offer a WordPress Transfer service for just £50. Just click the link below:

Please transfer my WordPress for me

Free WordPress Transfer

Choose RX Host for your WordPress Hosting needs and we’ll transfer one WordPress installation to your new hosting account with us for absolutely no charge!

View our plans here or order our budget plan now

WordPress is ever-growing into a fully fledged Content Management System with some great functionality. According to the founder of WordPress, almost 12% of all websites on the internet are powered by WordPress.

Given that WordPress is so easy and intuitive to use, a number of users just starting out are not focusing on ensuring their WordPress installation is completely up to date and secure. Recently we’ve seen an increase in users having their WordPress hacked as a result of not upgrading to the latest version, or having out of date WordPress themes or plugins.

Upgrading is just the first step to running a secure WordPress website or blog. We’ve got three plugins that we’d like to recommend to you install on your blog to enhance your WordPress security.

1. WP-DB-Backup
WordPress Database Backup allows you to quickly and easily backup your WordPress database at will, or per schedule. We strongly advise you to install the plugin, take a backup today and set a schedule to back up your database at least once a week. If you update your blog regularly, then backing up the database once a day would be a really good idea.

2. Login Lockdown
This plugin helps protect your blog against malicious attempts to log in to your blog. If it detects someone trying to log in by guessing, it’ll ban their IP and stop them accessing the site for a set period of time.

3. WP Security Scan
WordPress Security Scan will take a look at your WordPress installation and make suggestions as to how you can further secure your WordPress

4. Admin Username and Password
This isn’t a plugin, but rather some good old RX Host advice. Please please please make sure your admin area username is not just “admin” or “administrator”. Use something unique, not your name, or something others can guess easily.

After that it’s usually a good idea to make sure your password is strong. Aim for at least 6 characters and include at least one capital letter, one lowercase letter, one numerical character, one special character (@’#!. etc)

If you need WordPress Hosting make sure you check out our UK Web Hosting Plans. If you’re not sure what you need or would like some friendly advice, please leave a comment below or contact us via the contact page today!

Creating content, and driving traffic to your site or blog takes a lot of time and dedication, but what can you do to improve your bounce rate?

Bounce Rate – what is it?

Your bounce rate represents the number of users that visit your site and then quickly leave, without clicking through to any other pages.

How can you improve your bounce rate?

The easiest thing to do is give your visitors something else to do on your page. For example, if you’re running a blog with WordPress, you can simple install a Related Posts plugin (we use the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin). This will give visitors a list of related posts they can view after they’ve finished reading the current one. Hopefully the plugin will be able to find related posts you’ve made, that should interest visitors on your site.

If you’re not using WordPress, it may be worth looking into using it as a platform for publishing your content, or even managing your entire website. Either way, giving visitors easy access to related content is a great way to bring down your bounce rate.

Bounce rates may also indicate that your page isn’t actually what the end user was looking for. It may be a good idea to take a look at your analytics and google the keywords bringing traffic to your site to take a look at the content on other sites returned for the same keywords.

As always, we’re  happy to hear about your experience with Google Analytics, bounce rates and other metrics. Leave a comment and let us know what your Bounce Rates like. What steps have you taken to improving them?

RX Host is proud to announce the launch of the London Digital Directory.

The London Digital Directory is an Editor-moderated directory of projects, vendors, freelancers, gigs, jobs, job seekers, recruiters, internships and events in technology, web development, smartphone apps, interactive and online marketing.

Since we just launched we’ll be running a special offer of FREE 30 Day Premium Listings to the first 10 Approved Listings in each category.

30 Day Premium Listings are worth £30.

How do I get a free premium listing?

To get a free listing, just head on over to the London Digital Directory. Register for an account and create a listing.

If your listing is approved by our Editors and one of the first 10 in the category, your listing will be automatically upgraded to a premium listing!

It’s that simple! So head on over to the London Digital Directory and claim your FREE premium listing today!

What if I don’t get a Premium Listing?

Don’t worry, you can still create a FREE listing.

Free listings can always be upgraded to 30 day premium listings for only £30!

Connect with the The London Digital Directory

Twitter | Facebook Group & Page | Linked In