Check out her site, www.radiantintentions.us for class info and some incredible client feedback.

1) To control your reputation management better. Perfect example is on this link: Ron Ianieri. Look at the name you are clicking on and then look at the domain name you arrive at. Someone else snagged up this domain before he did and it is not to his advantage.

2) Search engine rankings. If someone is searching your name, having your name in the domain is an added bonus to ranking well.

3) Promotional quality. It’s (usually) easier to tell someone your domain is myfirstnamelastname (dot) com than some clever word play, like net experienced.

4) Mistaken identity. If someone goes to michaelshearer.com they’ll see it’s a crappy, undeveloped geocities site. They might think, “hey, this guy Michael Shearer is a web developer and internet marketer but his domain is lame!” It’s not my domain and I’ve already tried to acquire it to no avail. I think he misspelled his email on his domain registry. Also, you might get famous so you want to be ahead of the game. Now, if I become famous, michaelshearer.com will probably cost me much more than if I try to buy it from the owner now, as an ordinary guy.

I back up my theme, export my posts, pages and comments via the built-in Export tool. Remember, the import/export tool only works for up to 7MBs, so you may want to consider exporting your database tables separately too. I back up my full database, too using phpmyadmin (even though I know it is quite possibly the culprit)

2) Make note of all plugins you need/want to reinstall and your sidebar widget configuration (if any).

This is a good opportunity to purge your site of unused or unnecessary plugins.

3) Create your new database via phpmyadmin.

4) Create new sub-directory.

I install my new version on a sub-directory and move it over via the instructions here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

5) Upload most current version of Wordpress and go through install (updating wp-config.php file with most new database info)

6) Upload backed up theme to wp-content/themes directory.

7) Delete “Hello World” post and “About” page.

Import posts, pages, and comments via built-in Import function.

9) Fix your sidebar widgets where applicable.

10) Upload fresh downloads of all plugins you want to use, activate and configure.

11) Fix permalinks.

Please post questions in the comment section below!

Last night, in a major miscommunication, a sales page for one of my client’s biggest yearly promotion was not properly equipped for the traffic we were about to send it and SHTF. So Skype messages started firing off and we teamed up and from 9pm to midnight we were plugging away at code and testing (with many snags along the way). Here are the ‘critical components’ to the success of this project:

1) Rapid response. When you have peoples’ attention online, most things can’t wait.
2) Vigilance. The issue was caught “in the nick of time”; maybe an hour earlier would have helped.
3) Don’t give up. We were personally coding and fixing code for 3 hours straight – 9pm to Midnight. Even after a help desk submission to Experts Exchange, I refused to give up and with that resolve remedied a 2 hour long problem.
4) Stay calm. The business owner, who discovered the problem, while adamant about a fix, stayed incredibly calm and well-mannered, which allowed everyone else working on it to be less stressed and more focused on just getting it done.
5) Be proactive. We could have spent way too much time discussing who should do what we probably wouldn’t have been done until 2am or later. We identified the problem, who was responsible for each task in fixing it and started work. All in about 15 minutes time.
6) Don’t blame. Another major time waster. Cut through the confusion and “should haves” and move on. Customers are being lost by the minute if your busy blaming and not responding.
7) Remember what you did. I’m not going to forget why Internet Explorer wasn’t working correctly for this particular project. A bonus way I like to remember is to post the solution to a forum where someone was having the same problem and it was not resolved. This also helps future researchers have a quick solution.

So, we need 1) quick action 2) a watchful eye 3) perserverance, 4) calmness 5) proactive response 6) no blame and 7) a good memory, AT MINIMUM, to have a good chance at succeeding in online business.

Aimee McBride
Owner, Ananda Shala LLC

Michael has provided outstanding support of the web site for the Frederick Triathlon Club (www.fredericktriathlonclub.com)! He responded to our requests for web site support quickly and also suggested solutions that would work better for us in the long run.

Overall, the Wordpress web site/blog software works very well for our purposes as it allows us to update our site via the web on any computer. Therefore, our members can receive updated information very quickly rather than having to wait until we can update web pages using special software on a particular computer. Wordpress also has “plugins” that allow customization of one’s site, allowing us to offer class act functionality to the members.

However, without Michael’s personal and expert involvement in upgrading the Wordpress software over the past year and integrating various plugins for our site, we could not have gotten the site to its current class act level.

If you’re thinking about building a web site for your business or organization and looking for top-notch support, look no further than Michael Shear of Net_Experienced!

Thanks Michael!

Dave Miller
President and Web Site Editor
The Frederick Triathlon Club

Brad Barnwell
Brad Barnwell Photography

Jason W. Feaga
Principal, 18 Visions Design & 18 Visions Green