Wordpress

Fixing OptimizePress After Adding SSL to Your Website

Kim · February 22, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I added an SSL certificate to a client’s website. This client has OptimizePress already installed and dozens of opt-in pages and sales pages previously created using the OptimizePress plugin. Adding the SSL certificate, which was done with a SiteGround plugin that automated the entire process, went smoothly, until…

I immediately got an alert that OptimizePress key was not working. So I figured it was because of the switch from http to https. Yep…just needed to re-save the current key and all was well.

But…

After I did that, the green padlock symbol changed to gray with a red slash through it. Sigh.

So obviously that had to do with OptimizePress also. I realized it didn’t update the links and locations that are in those pages. Ugh… I really didn’t want this 5 minute task to turn into a 5 hour chore of digging through ALL of those pages to update each individual image and link.

Realizing that others likely had the same problem, and hoping for an easy solution, I went to the OptimizePress support page and quickly found what was needed.

Here are the steps to resolve SSL security issues with OptimizePress after installing a new certificate on a site with older pages.

First, re-save the general dashboard settings of OptimizePress, which will re-validate your API key.

Now, you will need to download the Helper Tools plugin that OptimizePress has created to update links and images after you migrate a site to a new URL. It will work the same for this SSL purpose. Click here to access those instructions and the plugin.

It will download a .zip file. Save this to your computer, do not unzip it.

Go to the plugins areas of the website you are working on. Install the plugin by uploading it. Activate the plugin.

On the left side dashboard menu, go to Tools and then OP Helper Tools.

Click on Migrations.

In the entry for “Old domain”, type in your domain without the SSL certificate. Example: http://ponytailedprofessional.com.

In the entry for “New domain” type in your domain with the SSL certificate. Example: https://ponytailedprofessional.com.

Click migrate domain.

You will see a notification of the number of links that were updated and the lock symbol next to the URL in your browser should turn green immediately.

That’s it! I hope this worked well for you. I’d love to hear your comments. If you run into problems, feel free to ask.

Tootles!

What’s all this about WordPress websites anyway?

Kim · January 13, 2014 · Leave a Comment

If you have ever looked at the back of a website you saw some pretty strange looking stuff. That stuff is the language that makes it work, the language that creates the beauty your eyes see on the screen, the language that makes a contact form or an opt-in form actually do something.

Before you saw it, you may have thought building a website was as simple as building a document in Word or Publisher. Then you saw all that code, as it’s generally called, and panicked.

Shocked at the appearance of html

So you hired a tech nerd to build you a fabulous website with all the bells and whistles, or maybe just a few, but it was yours and you loved it.

But after a while your site started to look outdated. Or you moved your office and simply needed to change your address without paying your web tech $1000 to do so. Or you wondered why you still weren’t ranking high on Google. You kept hearing about blogs and why you need to have one. So you started to investigate how you could fix all of those problems yourself and you heard about WordPress.

In its early days, WordPress was mostly just a basic blog tool. Then major companies started to take note of the brilliance and the possibilities that are WordPress. And brilliant minds started to build off the work of other brilliant minds. And today, just over 10 years later, we have a tool that is nearly perfect for not only blogging, but full-fledged professional websites as well.

Many of the websites you visit during your daily internet use are built on WordPress. And many more are being built on it every day.

WordPress creates a website that is user friendly for both the person adding pages and blog posts and the person viewing the site. It is optimized for SEO, that’s how Google finds you, out of the box as much as possible. And it is beautiful, with thousands of free and premium themes available for use as-is or with any amount of customization.

WordPress is quite possibly the perfect website tool.

Out of the box, most of the newer themes are modern, sleek, and down-right beautiful. You can install it, add a few plugins perhaps, and start writing pages and blog posts to your heart’s content. You can add a header, change some colors and make it yours. Or you can start with a basic theme and make it look 100% different! It is entirely up to you what happens with your WordPress website.

Want a great design based on another website even a Photoshop design someone created for you? That’s possible as well. Want a site where every page looks different, or a set of pages look different from the rest? Again, completely possible. Your imagination is the limit.

Need help? Just ask. 🙂

Trying to figure out what theme is best for your needs? Download my free report on choosing the best theme for your site by filling out the form below.

You will also receive my free enewsletter and other occasional communication from me, and only me.

October Blog Challenge — Here I go!

Kim · October 6, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I am so bad. I tell my clients how important it is to have their website in tiptop shape and to be blogging regularly, but I don’t do it myself. My website is in a constant state of upheaval, because I’m always deciding to redesign it. My blog…ha…I don’t think I’ve posted a darn thing on it in ages. But hey, it goes way back! At least my original blog did. I have moved my posts around a bit from Blogger to another website and eventually to here. I’m still not entirely sure that this is where it will stay. Trying to really wrap my head around all of that.

But anywho, this is my first post in the 30 Day Blog Challenge. I’m involved in two of them, both for October, and both to kick my butt into gear. Problem is, I’m a bit late. Today is October 6 and I’m doing day 1. Oops. Ah well, I’ve been sick this past week and trying to maintain things for others.

But here we go. I started this blog years ago just to share life. Then it morphed into being business related. And now it’s a little bit of both. I hope to share the great and not-so-great moments of my life, show you how you too can become a work at home mom (WAHM), and maybe even teach you how to kick up your marketing and WordPress skills along the way.

Want to join in on the blog challenges? It’s not too late! Here’s how:

Ultimate Blog Challenge

And

30 Day Blog Challenge

Are you blogging regularly? If not, how about joining me on this dual challenge? Comment below and let me know how its going for you.

Over 2 Dozen Ways to Modify WordPress Functions File

Kim · July 19, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Wordpress Function File Modification and Additions This is truly one of the most useful lists of tricks for features you can add to your WordPress Function .php file.

The list includes the tricks to:

Add Google Analytics Code (This is useful if you are using a child theme and can’t access the header file.)

Add a Favicon to Your Blog (that is the tiny little image that shows up next to the name of the page in the tab and address bar on your browser.)

Add a Custom Dashboard Logo (shows up on the dashboard, this can be useful when you are creating a theme for other to use or when you have multiple users who log in to your WordPress site.)

Change the Footer in WordPress Admin Panel (This may come in handy if you can’t find a simple method of changing your footer.)

Add Custom Dashboard Widgets (Ooo…this way you can add your own widgets that you have written that compliment your theme!)

Change the Default Gravatar (Simplifies the process of having a branded avatar when you post on other blogs instead of having the mystery man or the weird alien.)

Dynamic Copyright Date in Footer (Have you had your website since 2005 but your footer says “copyright 2011”? Well this handy little bit of code will let you show the world that you’ve been around a while. It will change it to “Copyright 2005-2011” by pulling the dates from your earliest and latest posts. Pretty cool!)

Control When Your Posts are Available via RSS (This one should come in handy for those of us who don’t always use the “draft” button as we should! It will put a delay of several minutes on your RSS feed so those notorious errors you see immediately after hitting “publish” can be corrected before the world gets to see them!)

Customize Excerpts (These tips give you more control over how your blog excerpts appear. You can change the … at the end and control the length of your excerpts.)

There is more, but those are the ones that I think you might find the most handy. To get all the directions and see the rest of the tips, check out the full post at WPBeginner.com: 25+ Extremely Useful Tricks for the WordPress Functions File.