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Archives for December 2012

December 31, 2012

4 Tips to Speed up Your WordPress Site

Bullet TrainSpeed is crucial in those precious first seconds someone visits your site. If you can’t satisfy someone’s basic desire to get content quickly, they won’t care how good your content is and won’t stick around to find out if it was worth the wait.

There should be no wait.

People are an impatient breed. In separate studies, Amazon showed a 1% decrease in purchases for every 1/10th of a second of delay they intentionally added to their servers and Google experienced decreased searches when tripling results by taking 0.5 seconds longer. Page load speed directly influences how long people will stay on your site. Google ranks slower sites lower than sites with a faster load, all other things equal. The numbers any way you look at it tell you to speed things up.

I’ve been a constant tweaker of code, plugins, servers, hosting plans, and all of that stuff isn’t for everyone, so here is the quick version of all that work to find speed success.

Use a FAST host

If your hosting company/plan can’t serve up content quickly, it won’t matter what you do on the server, no one will be able to see content faster. You’re at the mercy (or benefit) of your host first and foremost.

I use WP Engine – a managed WordPress host – after a steady progression from bad shared hosting to good shared hosting to VPS to managed hosting. I have about 10 solid reasons why its $29/mo is the best money you’ll spend on your WordPress site and more than 25 of my clients have migrated their business sites to WP Engine, with more making the move soon.

Use an optimized theme

I’ve seen lots of free and “premium” themes do things that would make Hannibal Lecter cringe – things that ought not to be. Ever. Some slow a site down by multiple seconds because they were poorly written to load all of the “features” on every pageview and in the header rather than the footer (more on that later).

The best advice is to go with a reputable developer with a proven track record of quality and support. For me, that’s landed me with the Genesis framework by StudioPress since 2010. There are others, but I’ve been down “the path of many roads” and it led me to sticking to one and I’ve not yet regretted my choice in over the past 18 months.

Cache your content as much as possible

Some really good hosts offer automatic caching and CDNs while others just require you to use a caching plugin or a good 3rd party CDN to vastly improve the load times of content that’s already been processed and quickly fetched from the cache. CloudFlare is a great option for simple CDN setup and many hosts offer it as a simple option to enable it.

Be conservative in your use of plugins

Plugins can slow a site down just as much as any or all of the previous points. Sometimes, they’re five times worse than all of the other downfalls put together, taking 20-30 seconds to load a page. Not every new benefit or feature you want to add to a site requires a plugin. Often, there is a simple line or snippet of code that you can easily add using any one of hundreds of tutorials to avoid a plugin.

Simple, eh?

That’s not too much for the average semi-proficient WordPress user, at least not to receive the core benefits of these steps. You might have a more cookie-cutter site unless you happen to be able to do all of the changes (and modify the theme to suit your design style, if you change to a framework), but your site will instantly be a hit with Google and readers who aren’t so caught up in fancy design.

If you want/need any help, I’m always available via the comments or my contact page.

WordPress Tips cache,  CDN,  Google,  PageRank,  plugins,  SEO,  speed,  Wordpress,  WP Engine

December 26, 2012

2 Steps to Defining Success

SuccessSuccess — the term, the place — means many things to many people. A certain degree of wealth or income, living in a particular neighborhood or city are on the material end of the scale. On the intangible end are things such as a position at work or a level of respect or notoriety in your industry.

If you only get one take-away from this, make it: you define what success is. If you let others define what makes you “a success,” you’ll ever be unfulfilled and wandering trying to meet others’ expectations for your life.

Define “success”

It’s not enough to define success in broad terms like, “I’ll be successful if I earn more money.” Those are the things of wishy-washy New Year’s resolutions that never get accomplished or don’t last long. Define success specifically, in writing, and tell a trusted friend and, if you have one, a mentor.

Several years ago, I wrote a guest post that changed the trajectory of my life in ways I could never have guessed at the time. The date: 6 years ago today. It was before I was a skilled writer with an English degree and over 1,000 posts to my name. It was raw, honest, and it caught the attention of a network of people who would later become my closest business allies, friends, and even a mentor or two.

Because of that post and the connections it created, I defined success for myself in 2006-2007 as earning enough that my wife no longer had to work for us to live a financially comfortable life. By that definition, I became successful at the end of January 2011.

 Update your definition of “success”

Congratulations are due if you’ve reached your definition of success! While there is something to be said for being satisfied with what you have and being present in the here and now, you must also not stagnate and stop growing. There’s a big difference between things of meaning and things of material worth only. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with wealth and stuff — just be mindful of why you strive for more.

Every 6 months, re-evaluate your definition of success and make or renew your goals to reach your current success. Some people prefer baby steps for their goals while others like to “go big or go home.” If you’re of the baby-step school, you’ll want to update your definition of success as you grow.

Regardless of which method you use to reach your ideal success status, it’s vital to look at yourself and your situation to see if life’s circumstances have changed your ideals. I can attest to my definition of success taking a 90-degree turn in May earlier this year. It’s amazing how things have a way of working together to change one’s perspective. If I had left off with my previous definition, I would have missed out on the joy and challenge of my current ideal of success.

Do you have any other suggestions or tips in the success topic? Feel free to share and ask in the comments.

Investments in You

December 24, 2012

Hire the Expert, not the Jack of All Trades

Jack of All TradesA few years ago, I thought that I’d find more success and fulfillment by learning about everything I could wrap my mind around. I grew up around men in my family who fix everything from wooden things to mechanical things to electrical things.

As a kid I thought, “one day, I’ll know how to do ALL of those things if I put my mind to it.”

Now I’m well into adulthood with a house, wife, kids, and our microwave broke a couple of weeks ago. I went at it with my usual gusto:

  • Google for trouble-shooting steps
  • Google for parts pricing, which led to the later steps because of noted high prices
  • Google for microwave pricing
  • YouTube for how to test components
  • Ordering a new magnetron (aftermarket for 1/3 the price of GE parts – and it was identical)
  • Ordering a new diode at 32x bulk pricing
  • Very handily replacing both components

Unfortunately the result was that the glass of water I put in after all of that was still the same temperature as before I ran it for 2 minutes. Thankfully, I’ve learned my lesson after doing such repairs for years to know not to close it up and re-mount the unit on the wall before testing it.

It’s not worth it to know everything

I knew how to do all of those things, things a hefty portion of the population of DIY dudes would have stopped when they saw how much of a modern microwave is electronics. Yet I still could not fix our unit.

All told, I likely spent 6-8 hours on the list mentioned above, too upset to do client work for one morning of this process, and working on Saturday for the rest. I also dropped $45 on a magnetron and $28 on a tiny GE-branded diode you can buy for pennies in bulk.

Weigh your time/skill against that of a pro

You are worth more if you know something very well, however you water down your worth if you know 100 things well enough to take it apart and throw your hands up. Stuck. It is blatantly evident that I’m not an expert in home appliance repair.

I know WordPress. I know how to either do 99.99% of things asked of me or I know who to ask who has even further specialization in something within WordPress. For that thing, that person holds more worth to be able to do what’s requested. Can they do the rest?

Save money, hire a specialist

I can’t do my business taxes. I hire a professional who knows what questions to ask, what numbers to enter where, and what itemizations or credits we qualify for. He saves us well over 60 hours of work and charges less than $350. Our CPA is a specialist in business taxes.

Right after the holiday, I’m calling a microwave repairman to come fix our problem.

If you’re tinkering with WordPress, hire an expert.

If you’re not getting results from what you’ve done, it’s time to revisit the process that got you there. Was it a “this person was cheapest” thing? Maybe it was a friend or family member who did it for free or next to nothing. Lots of people mean well, but they can’t fix your microwave, do your taxes, or give you a top-notch website.

I’ve reconfirmed my own arguments to wary or jumpy clients by failing miserably at this particular home repair. I hope it’s a long time before I forget this lesson.

What things did you used to do before you started hiring experts?

Business Tips

December 17, 2012

Put the 80-20 Rule to Work for You

Make a PlanIt’s surprising how many areas of life and how many disciplines fall subject to the 80-20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, named after the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t read or hear a reference to it.

The last five business books I’ve read go into pretty good detail on harnessing the power gained by being aware of its benefits. This is what I’ve learned, so let’s take a look at your situation.

First step: analysis

Take a look at your business. For me, as a solopreneur, everything project- and client-related falls on my plate. For you, there may be vast wiggle room to delegate or outsource. To be transparent, I’m still working on how to do any of that, but since I’ve positioned myself as a quality and integrity brand, it’s very difficult for me to loosen the reigns on anything. But, nevertheless, take a look at your operations.

  • Does 80% of your revenue generate from 20% of your clients?
  • Does 80% of your e-mail load originate from the same 20%?
  • If you concentrated on 20% of your to-do list, would things keep on trucking?
  • Are you stressed out over only 20% of your projects, clients, or tasks?

Those are the things to look at: load, stress, profit, revenue, expenses, etc. The key metrics of your business should fall in line with the 80-20 rule… let’s say 80% of the time. That makes sense, so let’s go with it.

Second step: trial period

Try, for one week, one area of your business and concentrate on the 20%. Whatever that area is, either neglect the other 80%, delegate to others, refer to others (work out a commission or a flat rate for a win-win-win), or handle them much more quickly than the primary 20%.

After that week is over, re-analyze the data and look introspectively at yourself and the state of your organization. If it’s not in better shape after that week, ditch the trial, resume business as normal for a week, and try another area of your business.

Rinse and repeat.

Rebuilding your current plan

After you’ve looked at all of the areas of your business that you want to improve, come up with a plan to make the trial period changes more permanent. For some that will include a new hire or fire (I’ve been on the business end of an 80-20 firing in my younger years). There is also outsourcing e-mail support, fulfillment, and many other service.

Remember that not all major improvements necessarily mean major changes. One example of that is Chris Brogan’s 7-day challenge to get more done.

For my business, the immediate realizations were that 80% of my steady repeat business comes from 20% (or fewer) of my clients. I’m talking about work every few weeks or months or complete redesigns every year or two. I could nearly survive on those 20% if I was proactive and made myself available to help them in more areas of their business using my services.

As a result, I’ve become very picky about new clients because my current top 20% clients are already top-notch.

Resources

There are three books I’ve read on the subject in 2012 that will help you work on a new plan and course for your business and life.

I highly recommend Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek for tips on delegating and outsourcing. While it had a lot of scenarios that didn’t work for my situation, he and I are both writing to a broader audience — and I will be putting some items into action.

The second book I most recommend to improve your day-to-day business activities by way of finding your peak products or services and your best clients is Michael Port’s book, Book Yourself Solid, which also comes with a 90+ page downloadable workbook to follow along and vastly improve nearly everything about your business. Prepare to be pumped up.

Lastly, on this subject I recommend Your Brain at Work by David Rock. He goes into great, yet simple, detail on how we hijack our own day by trying to multi-task, work when we’re least efficient, and much, much more.

Discussion

What have you learned about your business by evaluating it through the lens of the 80-20 Rule? How’s that working for you?

Business Tips

December 14, 2012

Mistakes Are a Prerequisite to Success

Mistakes are a prerequisite to success. Without mistakes, you’ll only reach partial success (if any) before a mistake topples everything you’ve worked hard on. Sometimes one mistake snowballs into another and a chain of events produces demise.

Frank_Wilczek_quote

I heard that quote listening to The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss on Sunday while driving home from town. It was good enough that I skipped backwards twice to hear it again and drop a bookmark there to look it up in more detail when I got home. Take a minute to think about it.

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. – Frank Wilczek

Mistakes or failures

Okay, that was good, wasn’t it? That’s coming from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Work on hard problems and make mistakes.

You know, another word for “mistakes” in the business world would be “failures.” Every success story includes failures along the way, or at least 99.9999% of them. Very rare are the successful without blemish. Without risk (calculated risks are better than wild risks), one doesn’t have as much of an opportunity to grow or learn. Usually the learning part comes from the failing part, but there is learning during success, too.

Fail in order to improve

Back in 2009, I read a book by Barry Moltz called Bounce. It was all about failures and how to bounce back from them. What is often the case after a failure or a mistake is the phenomenon called “improvement.” When you were in school and took a test or exam and didn’t do very well, did you ever have a teacher allow you to re-take it? You did better the second time, didn’t you?

Without learning from mistakes, we’d never have 99.999% of our innovations we live with today because nearly everything imaginable comes as a product of several, if not hundreds of mistakes. We all know about how many “lessons” it took before Thomas Edison finally came up with the correct combinations of materials and design to make a lightbulb.

Teflon, Velcro, and “super glue” were all mistakes made by their inventors, and look how much they’re used today.

Mistakes “make the man”

It’s flat out difficult to be a success without making mistakes. The saying “you win some, you lose some” always goes with the message that you learn more from your losses than you do from your wins.

My experiences thus far in business regarding hosting, theme choice, who to consult with when I need help, vendors for dozens of things have all taught me countless things that add up to some serious gains and saved me from some even more serious losses.

How much does it cost you, as a business owner hosting 50 sites (like I am), when everyone is hacked and you don’t have a backup that goes back far enough to recover from it? If that happens, we can safely conclude everyone is going to abandon ship.

Life isn’t fair. Life isn’t perfect. Mistakes are all part of becoming a better (fill in the blank).

Live long and make mistakes!

Business Tips

December 12, 2012

How to Fix the “Bad” Month Trend Each Year

Fix itIf you’re anything like me, as a small business owner with reports at my fingertips, I noticed that I had my superb month(s) and my absolutely horrible month(s). The good ones were great enough to buy luxuries and the bad months couldn’t buy our groceries, let alone pay the mortgage. I needed to fix that, somehow.

Being in business for more than two years showed me, or so I believed at the time, that some months were set in stone to have particular results. Februaries were 2 for 2 being horrible, like sub-mini-project income horrible. The month of June was 2 for 2 for breaking revenue records, as was December.

Then it so happened that one of my favorite people in the world, Phil Gerbyshak, was coming to town to speak at a conference right before Christmas last year. I offered to pick him up at the airport and hang out for a few hours before dropping him off at his hotel. After some pizza, shopping, and a hot chocolate and coffee at Starbucks, I got the best business tip of 2012.

Don’t think about what a month has been in the past. That has no bearing on what you can do this February. You set it in your mind to do what you have to do to make it as good a month as your good months. Your good months aren’t set, either. Those come with hard work, too.

When it rains, it pours

It’s no surprise to those who know Phil to hear that he was spot on. February of 2012 was a great month. It was a good thing, too, because I spent five days in the hospital at the beginning of March. We were able to confidently tell anyone who asked if we were okay that we were. Financially, I could have taken more time off.

Projects came in so fast in February that I was scheduling projects to start in April. March was mostly working my way through project after project.

…and the opposite, too

Because I was working on so many projects instead of taking on mini-projects or tasks, March, April, and May were all slow. It was hard to find a happy medium. It took several more months to learn (far into my 3rd year doing this full-time) before I found a balance of doing work for a day’s wages and working on the bread and butter that is project work.

Some tips for this balance:

  • Don’t schedule projects further out than 6 weeks. Beyond that, people get antsy that you took their deposit and are flakey. At that point, you have to either drop everything or give them a refund. I gave 2 out of the 4 refunds I’ve done in 42 months of business in just the past 4 months.
  • When a request to look at a site and help fix something comes in, unless you have a deadline due that day, take some time to help. You’ll probably make 4x more than you did at your “real” job and help your cashflow. It can be a long spell between a deposit and a net payment.
  • Just because you’re busy, don’t turn down work and…
  • Just because you’re twiddling your thumbs doesn’t mean to accept every project that comes your way.

Discussion

Which do you prefer: steady work or gluts and minimal work? There are advantages to smaller months to allow you to recuperate from months of overwork, so long as they still pay the bills. How do you achieve whichever work situation?

Business Tips income,  Phil Gerbyshak,  revenue,  trends

December 10, 2012

Love: the Success Secret Ingredient

Love Secret IngredientLove in today’s business culture is rare, a lost way of doing business, despite its direct influence on success. When people or companies do ordinary tasks or gestures with love toward their customers and clients day in and day out, they are extraordinary. It’s sad, but true.

How many times does someone in a business transaction or customer service experience do something that exceeds your expectations? It turns out that your expectations are actually very low because of a history of less-than-stellar experiences almost everywhere.

We shouldn’t be surprised by ordinary acts of kindness, right-ness, or gratitude, yet we are.

Love

If you want to be successful in your business, your career, or anything involving other people, you need to master one trait: love. Love is the great equalizer because love transforms situations, people, and entire organizations.

Love builds bonds, heals wounds, and creates a sense of purpose in life. It’s the cheapest, easiest thing you can do to improve your life and the lives of those you interact with. Clients and customers are no exception.

I’ve got a lot to say about this approach that I learned from my grandpa, but you’ll have to come back next Monday for that lesson. For today, I have a personal experience from receiving love from a company.

Zappos

Case in point: Zappos. In 2010, I’d been looking for new running shoes because my doctors (yes, plural) told me for the 8th visit that I needed to start getting out to exercise, even if it was walking. I looked all over Tampa for a pair of Nike+ shoes in my size. Desperate, I turned to Zappos, found the color and size I wanted AND used a $50 gift card that let me choose which retailer to redeem it at.

As you likely know, Zappos offers free returns to get the right size if the shoes don’t fit. I figured this was a no-brainer but was a little disappointed that the cheap shipping got them to me after my birthday, but I saved $50, “so what?”

A couple of hours after I placed my order, I got an e-mail saying they valued me as a first-time customer and upgraded me for free next-day arrival.

I am now a Zappos customer for life.

How much did it cost them? Probably $15 because of their exclusive deal with UPS.

How much effort did it take? A (likely) automated e-mail they send to all first-time customers — I don’t know and I don’t care. I felt special. Loved.

Let’s talk

What is your best or favorite personal story of receiving love from someone you were buying from?

Business Tips love,  love in business,  success

December 7, 2012

How to Write an Epic About Page in WordPress

About PageYour About page is arguably the most important page in any WordPress site. It is a window into who is writing, selling, or producing whatever the visitor is reading or about to purchase. Think about it, don’t you click About pages any time you’re interested in what you just read?

My stats on several of my site show the About page to be one of the two pages visitors click after coming to the site to read a post. They either read another informational page or the About page. On this site, visitors either click About or Services, depending on whether they’re in the market for WordPress services. Coole note: as I was writing this, it happened:

About Page Navigation

What should be included

There are a lot of tips out there on what is absolutely necessary. I reviewed the 4 most-trusted posts on the subject and, in the specifics, they vary a lot. In the whole, they say pretty much the same thing, so here’s my advice, which includes some of theirs because some are universal. – I’ve linked others’ advice at the end if you’d like to review them, too.

  • A photo of you or your team. Make it a current photo! When you go to conferences or meetings or a Skype video call, you don’t want someone’s first reaction to be a shocked double-take. #awkward
  • Names are important, both for the visitor and for SEO. If you just say “I” or “we” all over the page, you haven’t properly introduced yourself. I wrote mine in the 3rd person, but I am considering a 1st person re-write in a couple of weeks after monitoring this iteration.
  • Either/both a little of how you got where you are or what you do now. I prefer both because how you got somewhere has a lot of influence on the present. It is difficult to know how much history to give, so a link to an aptly-named post or page (not in the navigation, especially no drop-downs) is a good way to write more about your journey. If someone is going to spend thousands of dollars, they often want to know.
  • Make it easy to contact you. Put your social links and a link to your contact page to make things easy for your visitor.

Those are my suggestions that apply to 99% of sites. Certain things should be added for niches of one type or another, but it’s not a good idea to cut any of these four items out of your About page.

Here are those other good tips on writing your About page: Copyblogger, Six Revisions, ProBlogger (who has apparently taken his out of his menu), and DIY Themes.

Your About page

Is it time to re-visit your About page? I’m going to review mine monthly now.

Proud of your About page? Show it off in the comments – let’s go take a look and learn from each other.

WordPress Tips

December 6, 2012

How I Made $14,400/hr Fixing WordPress

iStock_000006952750XLargeYes, $14,400 per hour to fix a WordPress site, you read that correctly. There’s both a story and a lesson to be found in there for every solopreneur, so read past the story for the nugget. Some of the comments are top-notch, too.

Several years ago, before I started this company, I had an urgent request from a customer of the company I was with at the time. Her site was down. Hard. It was either a full page of errors or a white PHP screen of death and she wanted my personal, out of support scope help.

I told her that I’d get her running for $120. The short of the story is that I either went into her .htaccess file or her wp-config.php file and fixed it. In 30 seconds. Done. Site up, customer clapping hands over the Internet 1s and 0s.

The guilt

Then the guilt hit me. I just “took” $120 from a lady for something that took me 30 seconds to fix. That would be $14,400 per hour for 30 seconds of my life. I’ll never forget it.

I immediately e-mailed her a moment after telling her it was online again, thinking she was going to be pissed that she just spent $120 so quickly. I asked her if she wanted most of it back, like $100 of it.

No, I spent over an hour trying to fix it myself. I’m happy to pay that much for having my site back online, regardless of how much time it took you. It was worth $120 to me and I wish I’d asked you sooner so I could have that hour of my life and my site uptime back.

The lesson

Your skills, whether it be physical or intellectual, are worth a certain amount regardless of how much time you spend using those skills.

Changing a lightbulb is a pretty simple task that anyone can do. Changing a lightbulb at the top of a 300′ tower on the edge of a 1000′ cliff will come with a hefty price tag. Get where I’m going with this? Skill — particularly the scarcity of it — directly influences the market price. It’s simple supply and demand. Certain skills take that to an extreme.

No one in their right mind is going to pay $14,400/hr for WordPress services, but they will pay $120 to get their site back online. So don’t settle for $1 for such a task.

Application as a solopreneur

I was encouraged by Brian Gardner of StudioPress to raise my hourly rates by 50% in 2011. He said it’d weed out the riff-raff and make my life easier. I was afraid I’d lose opportunities when people were pricing me out against others. It did. I lost opportunities. I’m glad, though, because it turns out those were probably clients I didn’t want to work with. I raised my rates again. Same thing happened: I got higher quality jobs and clients who didn’t complain or want more for nothing.

According to the 80/20 rule, 20% of your clients create 80% of your problems, extra work, and misery. It’s amazing how many things the 80/20 rule apply to. So, I took the 20% best clients and made them 80% of my work by raising my rates. I was many thousands of hours into using WordPress all day, every day and that made me more valuable than someone who uses a little of this and a little of that. They struggle where purists in one platform breeze through.

Stop there – kill your rates altogether

Now that you’ve raised your rates as you’ve learned more, kill them. Hourly rates hold you back. They make you an employee again, working time to get paid.

I attended my second WordCamp Orlando in 2012 and heard a great presentation from Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner, someone I met at the first WordCamp Orlando in 2009. He was a surprise presentation on getting paid what you’re worth and a lot of his (pep) talk revolved around not posting an hourly rate and not charging by the hour.

Instead, charge by the task or project for what it’s worth when it’s done by you.

One of his more awesome points was when you give a project price and include a bunch of features, and the client comes back wanting to pull out features to save money. First, you should be selling benefits, not features. Second, it doesn’t really save money because you’re already in the mindset that your delivery of said project is worth X. Adding or removing little items isn’t going to move the needle unless it’s a qualified scope change.

He’s right

I looked back over the last 3-6 months of 2012 and it’s been pretty rare the number of times I’ve billed someone by the hour or fraction of an hour. When I did, it was often an arbitrary price the task or project was worth on the market. That price was then converted into time because they’re old school and were expecting an hourly price.

The first week of December 2102 I killed my hourly rate. Have you killed yours? How is it going? Let’s talk below.

Business Tips

December 5, 2012

How to Use the WordPress 3.5 Media Manager

The new WordPress 3.5 Media Manager is arguably the biggest improvement to the WordPress core since 3.0 added custom menus, custom post-types, and the header/background customizations in 2010. That was a huge release and stands as the update that added the most functionality at once.

WordPress 3.5 is a milestone because it’s an exercise in efficiency — options and functions being removed — and improvements to existing functions. Fluff has been removed and what remains has been improved drastically.

Media Manager

WordPress 3.5 Media Manager buttonYou’ll notice as soon as you’re ready to insert your first image of WP 3.5 that the buttons above the post/page toolbar has changed. Gone are the words “Upload/Insert” with the icon of a camera and musical note. It’s also sporting a cleaner toolbar without shading or button outlines.

Once you click the Add Media button, you’re introduced to the  new image experience: a full-screen drag-and-drop zone. Everything within the browser viewport is a drop zone now.

Media Manager - Drag-and-Drop

That’s just the start, though. Once you navigate to or drag in images, the new uploader shows itself. I’m putting so many images in this article, I wish I’d upgraded this install to 3.5 RC3, because it’s that much better than 3.4.2. Anyway, you’ll see all of the media in the Media Library after it’s done crunching the new images. There is a drop-down menu for various media, and you’ll most likely want to stay in the current post image, but a nice addition is being able to add a gallery using any image in the library. Prior to 3.5, only images attached to a post/page could be used in a gallery unless you edited the shortcode.

New to 3.5, you can now include/exclude images attached to the post (or just in the library) without editing any shortcode, which was one of the biggest pains of using galleries up until now. Pick and choose and sort the order. Man, I wish I was using 3.5 right now… because this sucks in 3.4.2 — I’m editing shortcode now to get 3 images above and a few below, which requires finding the image ID number. Trust me, it’s awful if you’ve ever tried.

Wrap-up

That’s it for an overview of the changes to the Media Manager in WordPress 3.5 for now. Hit me in the comments if you want a tutorial on something specific once you update and start using it. I’m here to help. I’ll be posting some more info on 3.5 in the following weeks highlighting the other changes.

Response to comments

I have a comment below that you can’t NOT link to anything and that the insert from URL is missing. Here are screenshots that say otherwise… although both of these images are already shown in the images above if clicked to see the entire windows of the Media Manager – these are just small areas of the larger shots above.

WordPress Tips Media,  Media Library,  Media Manager,  Shortcode,  Wordpress

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