Thanks to Jahan Choudhry for this image on her WordPress.com blog.

I know that WordPress has quite a buzz these days, but perhaps you didn’t know there are TWO WordPresses. Huh?

There is WordPress.org and then there’s WordPress.com. Let’s go over the basic differences…

WordPress.org provides free blogging software. You can install themes and plugins, run advertisements, edit the database, and modify the source code. While the software is free, it must be installed on a web server and there is usually a monthly hosting fee. You have to purchase your domain name, i.e., angelswithus.org. You are fully responsible for the management of your WordPress.org website – but you also own your site. WordPress.org allows for great flexibility and functionality through plugins, and the ability to customize code.

With WordPress.com you do not have to download software, pay for hosting, or manage a web server. When you sign up for a WordPress.com blog, you get a free domain name like “spirit.wordpress.com” (or, for a fee, you can have a domain name without the “.wordpress.com” portion). You can choose a free theme, but your choices are limited (to about 200); you cannot upload a custom theme. You do not control the software or the database, you cannot upload plugins, and you cannot change the code (again, for a fee you can get some options here). For no charge, WordPress.com provides web hosting, unlimited database storage with redundancy and backups, automatic software upgrades, community support forums, etc.

There is much information on the Web about the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. You can check out the WordPress.com site for the finer details distinguishing WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

How to choose which WordPress solution is best for you?

Here’s some points to think about when deciding on a WordPress solution:

• What’s the purpose of your blog website?
• How technically inclined are you or do you want to become so that you can use the more advanced, and fun, features of WordPress.org?
• How much time do you have/want to spend on learning this stuff?
• Will you use the software frequently enough to retain what you’ve learned in order to effectively manage your own site as well as to grow your knowledge to enhance your website?
• What are the features you want included in your site and which solution will be able to provide them?

WordPress.com is great if you are looking to keep an online journal or for small clubs and the like. I say if you’re interested in a business site, at some point in the future you will end up with a WordPress.org website. Save yourself the fuss, hassle, and perhaps even money to make the change later on and opt for WordPress.org straight from the gecko!

Upon pulling up to a red light, I glanced over to the pedestrians waiting to cross the street.

There were only 2 men. First was a business man, wearing a suit and tie, carrying a brief case. The second was a younger man, baggy pants, backwards baseball cap, carrying a skateboard.

What captured my attention was the fact that they were fully engaged in a conversation. Not the type where you politely say “Hi” and ask how they are, as you wait for the light. They were laughing and speaking with enthusiasm.

I decided to watch to see if they actually knew one another. When the light changed, they shook hands and bid farewell. The young man jumped on his skateboard and the businessman walked with a spring in his step. As they each passed me, I noticed a wonderful warm smile on both their faces.
 
At that moment, I felt joy. Right before me, two men from different backgrounds and different cultures, were able to surpass the obvious differences and connect below the “See Level.”
 
As I drove away, I was left wondering, how many other lives will these two men touch today?

For many years I’ve wanted to be able to accomplish this – and do the work myself. Thank you WordPress! Now my material is up-to-date and accurate, and I can post what I want to say just when the idea comes.

Maybe you’re ready to start your email marketing campaign – maybe you’re not.

Still I want to make you aware of this special offer from Constant Contact: BUY ONE MONTH of Email Marketing and GET ONE MONTH FREE!

Just use the promo code “BOGOEM” upon signup. This offer is valid until Thursday, April 26th.

You can go to my Constant Contact Business Partner website, and start the process now! But if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

P. S. Please feel free to mention this special offer to friends and colleagues! 
 
Why Use Constant Contact?

• It’s Affordable -
  With plans as low as $15 a month, Constant Contact’s Email Marketing is sure to fit your budget, and stretch your precious marketing dollars. Compared to your other promotional options, Email Marketing really measures up. Pre-pay and you can receive a discount of up to 30%.
• It’s Effective - 
  With Email Marketing, you can communicate with your contacts regularly, making it easy to stay in touch, stay connected, and build your organization or business. And, because it’s permission-based, your readers will look forward to, and really read your email communications. 
• It’s Easy -
  A wide selection of email templates and step-by-step, point-and-click Email Wizard makes it relatively easy to create high-impact, professional-looking emails in no time, and with no technical expertise. 
• It’s Measurable -
  Thanks to information-packed, easy-to-read reports, you can see, and learn from your email results – who opened your email, what links they clicked on, and more. 
• It Builds Your Brand -
  Your emails will reflect your business’s logo, colors, and messaging – reinforcing your brand look and feel with your clients and customers.

Sign up for Email Marketing with Constant Contact and get one month FREE when you use Promo Code “BOGOEM”. Offer valid until April 26, 2012.

Here are some suggestions for easy newsletter content:

If the content you share resonates with your readers and gets them to engage with you, then your newsletter is successful.

These suggestions on how to fill newsletter content are from a post by Jeff Ferrazzo, Constant Contact Regional Development Director, Minnesota. Click here to read the full post, Content that Writes Itself.

WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING?

Boost customer communication
Email newsletters are fast and inexpensive to create. So you can send them more regularly than paper ones. And, email marketing puts you in customers’ Inboxes more accurately than regular email. So you’ll avoid spam filters and be seen by more people. And, you’ll stay top of mind with people who want to hear from you.

Talk to them with targeting
Want to increase the impact of your email newsletters? Segment your database and create smaller customer lists based on their interests. Then send more relevant and targeted messages to them. They’ll be more likely to respond – and more likely to act on your emails.

Get more referrals, more easily
Email newsletters are easy to forward to other people. So your loyal customers can give their friends – new prospects for you – a risk-free peek at your business or organization. It’s easy for these prospects to sign up for your mailing list when you put a “Join My Mailing List” button on your website. And through regular communication, you can turn those interested prospects into additional loyal customers.

Get immediate response and action
It’s quick to send emails, and it’s quick to see results with real-time reports. You can even schedule email delivery for when your audience is most likely to check email, so you’ll increase the likelihood they’ll read it and take action.

Track who reads and responds
See who opened your emails, who forwarded them to friends, and even who you need to resend them to. You can also tell who clicked on which links in your emails, allowing you to understand what people are interested in reading about, and tailor your content to get the best response and most business.

Save on paper and postage
Constant Contact Email Marketing is affordable – prices start as low as $15/month! You can send as many permission-based email newsletters as you want – it’s still the same low price. There’s nothing to print, no stamps to buy, no envelopes to stuff, and, no paper cuts!

This ‘officially’ reflects my saying good-bye to Gilbert in the East Valley of Phoenix, and laying down roots in the Verde Valley area of Northern Arizona, specifically the Red Rock Country of Sedona.

It’s been more than two years since my husband Rog and I moved to this beautiful place of natural physical beauty and loving spirits. I’d hesitated to change my phone number simply because in this day and age of the Internet, the phone number is plastered everywhere in cyberspace. Still, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. So I’ve taken the plunge, started notifying folks directly (a great use of Constant Contact email marketing), and trust that, in time – hopefully not too much – the search engines will follow suit!

Pages are used for content that won’t change often. “About Us” is a good example. In general, pages are linked to the navigation bar.  They are highly visible and easy to find because pages contain good general information about the services you provide.  Pages tend to serve as great references on your website.

A post is content that you are constantly adding to.  You may be writing a series of articles on a subject, let’s say, sacred sites in Sedona or container gardening.  Since posts are time- and date-stamped – pages are not – WordPress will always display the most recent on top of the category ever pushing the older articles down. Posts can have both tags and categories; pages cannot be associated with categories and cannot be assigned tags.

Because posts are dynamic and are constantly being sorted newest to oldest, it’s not a good idea to use a post for content you want people to see every time they visit your site. For this you’ll want to use a page.

Posts can also be scheduled for future publication at a specific date and time as well as can be can be automatically archived every month. They are used to create continual fresh content. Pages are for the sort of material that needs to be continually and easily accessible and hence are not archived away.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content for viewers to subscribe to. This RSS feed will notify your readers when you have added a new post. Because pages aren’t published with respect to a time and date, they aren’t syndicated through RSS feeds. If you want to take advantage of your RSS feeds, stick the content on a post.

The neat thing about a WordPress website is that since it is coded like a blog, the search engines treat it that way. As posts are added, search engines crawl regularly throughout the day in order to fetch new content. And, that’s a big reason why we love using a framework like WordPress.

You do not have to redo everything again to apply the same formatting to another word, sentence, paragraph, cell, etc. in the same file.

You’ll want to use this tool for several reasons:

• It’s quick and will save you time.
• It enables you to format items in a consistent manner.
• It’s fun!

How to Use the Format Painter

1. Select part of the text or graphic that has the formatting that you want to copy.

NOTE:
- If you want to copy text formatting, select a portion of a paragraph.
- If you want to copy text and paragraph formatting, select an entire paragraph, including the paragraph mark.

 2. In Office 2003, on the toolbar, single click Format Painter.

     In later versions, on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group, single click Format Painter.

The mouse pointer changes to a paintbrush icon.

NOTE: Double-click the Format Painter button if you want to change the format of multiple selections in your document.

3. Select the text or graphic that you want to format.

To stop formatting, press the ESC key, or click the Format Painter once.

NOTES:
- For graphics, the Format Painter works best with drawing objects, such as AutoShapes. However, you can copy formatting from a picture (such as the picture’s border).
- The Format Painter cannot copy the font and font size on WordArt text.

Try it and let me know how you like it! You can leave a comment below.

The Computer Spirit is thrilled to be named a Constant Contact® All Star once again for 2011!

The All Star Awards are how Constant Contact recognizes customers who stand out from the more than 500,000 organizations who use their services. This status is an annual designation that only 10% of their customers achieve, which makes our accomplishment as a Solution Provider even more noteworthy.

Note that any Constant Contact customer can be chosen as an All Star. Criteria include:

• Having been a customer the entire calendar year
• Consistently high open rates (greater than 25%), click through rates, and low bounce rates
• Regular contact with your audience, or sending at least 3 surveys or publishing at least 3 events
• Using tools like Join My Mailing List to grow your audience, either on your website or Facebook
• Using social tools to share and promote your content or events
• Regularly viewing your reports to see how you’re doing

Learn more about the Constant Contact All Star Awards.