The problem a lot of people run into is that they end up assigning too many tags to their posts. This defeats the purpose of tags. If you only end up with one or two posts with that tag, it hardly deserves its own “category.”

As mentioned, tags are somewhat like categories — but just a little more specific. For example, here at WPMU, we obviously don’t think the term “tags” is big enough or important enough for its own category. However, I am going to tag this post “tags” because it seems like an important enough/big enough topic that other posts will also touch on it some significant way.

I’m NOT, however, going to tag this post “merge tags.” That topic isn’t large enough to have a significant number of other posts that talk about that.

To be honest, I might have done that in the past, but we’ve come to realize it’s not really that valuable. And so we’re actually in the middle of cleaning up our “tag problem” by deleting many and merging the rest.

If you’ve got a tag problem too, read on.

How to Merge Your Tags

In order to help you merge your tags, I’m going recommend you use a plugin called Term Management Tools.

Once that’s installed, you’ll need to hop on over to your tag screen (Posts > Tags).

Get Rid of Unused Tags

Probably the very first thing you should do before you start merging is to start deleting. You may find a number of tags will be hard to merge with others. You might also find that somehow you’ve ended up with tags that aren’t assigned to any post at all.

On your tag page, if you click on the “Posts” link on the right, it will arrange your tags by the number of times they’re assigned to a post. I’d start by checking the box for all the ones that say “0” and then using the pull-down menu at the top and deleting them.

Get Rid of “Difficult” Tags

You can then start looking down through your other tags and seeing if there are any you know you can delete right away – i.e. tags that not many posts use and that will be difficult to merge with others. Again, the best candidates here will be the ones that are assigned to only a few posts.

As before, check the box next to the name of the tag, and then use the pull-down menu at the top.

If you have a large number of tags, you may want to increase the number you can see on one screen by pulling down the Screen Options panel at the top and bumping that number up.

Merge Remaining Tags

Assuming you’ve got the Term Management Tools plugin active, you can now get to merging your tags.

Go through your remaining list and check all those that should be merged together into one term.

In my example, I am checking the tag “blue” and the tag “blue things.” From the pull-down menu at the top, I choose “Merge.”

When I choose “Merge,” another box appears just to the right of the pull-down menu. I simply write the name of the tag both of those tags will be merged into. In my case, I’m writing in the name “blue.” But you don’t have to write the name of an existing tag here. You can write the name of a completely new tag.

Click “Apply,” and your tags will be merged.

If you have a lot of tags, this process may take a while, but it will be worth it in the end. It will be better for your users, and you can give up the tag addiction that so many of us are afflicted with.

(Note: Once the job is done, you can delete this plugin from your site. No use keeping unused plugins around.)

Photo: Red Tag from BigStock

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In fact, in good internet fashion, you can see some of the very first stirrings of WordPress in a post where Matt laments that b2 hasn’t been updated in a while, and he’s thinking of splitting off from it. The first commenter on that post is Mike Little saying, “If you’re serious about forking b2 I would be interested in contributing.”

And WordPress was born.

In order to celebrate the occasion, we thought we’d take a look back at these last 10 years. No doubt you will be seeing a lot of “looking back” posts over the next few weeks, going over features that have been added and important decisions that have been made.

But in this post we thought we’d take a different tack. With the help of the Wayback Machine from archive.org, we thought we’d go take a look at how WordPress.org itself has changed stylistically over the years. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the site, it might take us back.

Although it still holds to its roots of uncluttered simplicity today, there have been a number changes along the way. Take a look for yourself.

June 18, 2003

This was the first screenshot we could get a hold of, and so we’ll start here. As the official birthday is in May, and we find ourselves in May now, from here on out we will sample each year from a date in May.

About Page

It might also be interesting to take a look at the first About page for the site. You’ll notice a few interesting things there. One of the more interesting is a mention that the name “WordPress” itself came from Christine Tremoulet of BigPinkCookie.com. (Yes, her blog runs WordPress.)

Utilities?

You might notice an odd menu item there that you aren’t used to – “Utilities.” Here’s what that page consisted of.

By July 29^th, however, the name “Utilities” had been changed to “Hacks.”

Showing Off the Goods

Of course it’s a good idea to show off the wares to potential users, and so screenshots were included. Here’s a look at the first editor:

You can see more screenshots here.

It’s interesting to note that the WordPress.org site these days doesn’t seem to advertise screenshots of the backend. Perhaps because it’s free and easy to install, no look at the backend is really needed.

May 2004

Taking a look at the site the next year, we see a few changes.

Of course one change is the dark, right-side column where WordPress features are highlighted. Another little change is the shadow against the background.

Donate

In the menu, we also see a Donate button has been added. Taking a look at that page, we see a somewhat vague promise of “additional benefits.” OK, not a “somewhat “ vague promise — a completely vague promise.

Screenshots

And we also get a look at the updated editor.

May 2005

In 2005, things look pretty much the same, but we can see by the top menu that a blog has been added and a section to recommend web hosts.

Screenshots

In the screenshots section, you’ll notice that they’ve begun advertising themes in a more upfront way.

One other little note here. You may notice a little banner in the top right-hand corner that WordPress had been named Application of the Year by ArsTechnica. Here’s what they said: “WordPress is the most prominent rising star of weblog software, completely free and with a large and active community. Styles, plugins and hacks are readily available, with problems such as comment spamming being addressed far more rapidly than competing applications.”

And here’s a screenshot of the editor for that time.

May 2006

In 2006 we see a lighter, cleaner look with the removal of the background image. We now also see some navigation on the left. You might also notice the “Donate” button is now gone.

Themes and Plugins

In the menu, you’ll notice the first section for plugins and themes called “Extend.”

If we take a look at the themes section, you can see there were six! And you viewed their thumbnails by scrolling from left to right.

May 2007

No real changes to the homepage this year, and so we won’t include it here. Also, though there was the beginning of a theme directory, by May of 2007, it seems to have been eliminated. However, you can see that the plugin directory had really started to take off.

Year 2008

By 2008, the homepage had taken on a heavier look with a dark gray header area.

Plugins

In 2008 the plugin section had been reorganized (still no theme directory at this point). You’ll also notice some stats:

2,181 plugins, 4,082,686 downloads, and counting

At the time of this writing, those stats stand as follows:

24,897 plugins, 453,551,157 downloads, and counting

May 2009

The next year saw only a few minor changes to the homepage, but you’ll notice a menu item for “Showcase” at the top now – a chance to show off sites out in the public using WordPress. It seems the Showcase was added in the fall of 2008.

By May of 2009, the theme directory was also back … in full force. (Technically it seems to have arrived in 2008.)

May 2010

No major changes seem to have occurred to homepage by May of 2010.

May 2011

By May of 2011 we see a return to a lighter homepage.

May 2012

In May of 2012 we see a few important menu changes. The “Extend” section has been broken out into “Plugins” and “Themes,” but more importantly, we see a sign of the times with an addition of a “Mobile” button.

We can also see that the plugin section has gotten a lot of love in the last year, including the addition of fancy headers, a star rating system, and a more integrated support area.

May 2013

And finally we arrive at today. We see a return to a darker header.

We also see a new menu item at the top called “Get Involved.” This pulls down to reveal a number of different areas of the site where you can learn more about the behind-the-scenes process of putting WordPress together, as well as where you can begin to help yourself.

And so not only do we have to end there, but it’s also an appropriate place to end. WordPress has made it ten years with the help of a lot of different people pitching in from all over the world. If you feel so inclined, and you’d like to see ten more years of improvement, then think about joining in here.

photo credit: camdiluv

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Those efforts at the end of last year really made working with galleries much easier and more pleasurable. And so if you’ve been enjoying the new galleries as I have, you may like this little trick that will allow you to put galleries pretty much anywhere you like in your site.

You do this by creating a gallery in a Page and then inserting some code into your theme’s template.

Besides being able to put a gallery pretty much anywhere, another nice feature of this trick is that you can easily go back into your gallery page and change it as you like  – adding photos, deleting photos, rearranging photos, etc. And of course all those changes will immediate take place on your site as well.

You’ll need to dig into the code once to set it up, but after that, changing things up is as easy as working with galleries through the media manager.

3 Steps to Inserting Galleries in Your Theme

Here’s a quick overview of the steps involved. We’ll go into details below.

1. Create a gallery in a Page
2. Find the Page ID
3. Insert a little bit of code into your theme’s template

1. Create a Gallery in a Page

As mentioned earlier, there’s a complete tutorial for inserting a WordPress gallery if you need it. In this post, we’ll assume you already know how to build one.

When you create your gallery, you will need to take into consideration where your gallery will go.

For example, let’s say you’d like to put your gallery into your sidebar. When you set your gallery up, one choice you’ll need to make is how many columns the gallery will have. If it’s going in your sidebar, for example, then you’ll probably want to keep the columns at one.

(Note: there is no option for rows, but we’ll talk about this later.)

If you set the columns for three, then you may get something that looks like this:

If you set your columns to one – which your sidebar has space for – then it will look like this.

The same is true for putting your gallery other places, of course. For example, say you want to put a gallery across the top all your pages by putting it in the header.

More than likely the best look will be stringing the thumbnails side-by-side all the way across the top in one row. (Of course you can do more than one row too, but you’ll probably want the thumbnails to be as close together as possible.)

For example, take a look at this page with thumbnails in three columns. The columns will spread themselves out to fit the width of the page. That leaves a lot of wasted space and takes up a lot of room (especially in a spot like the top of every page).

Now look at an arrangement that has all the thumbnails in one row.

(As mentioned, there is no “row” function in the gallery. You control the look by columns. And so in order to get one row, you just need to set the columns to be the same number as the number of thumbnails in your gallery. In this example, because I had six images, I set my gallery to have six columns.)

Again, you can have more than one row if you like. But in order to maximize space, it’s probably better in a case like this if you have more than one row only if there are too many images to fit on one row.

In the example below, I left the columns set to six, but I added six more images to my gallery.

2. Find the Page ID

The next thing you will need to do is to find the Page ID for the page with your gallery. You can see full instructions for doing that in this post.

3. Insert Code

The final step is to insert the following code in your theme’s template files where  you want your gallery to appear. (Appearance > Editor)

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2
3
4
5

<?php
$id = ID#;
$p = get_page($id);
echo apply_filters('the_content', $p->post_content);
?>

You will need to insert your actual Page ID into the spot that says ID#. For example, if my page ID is 2428, my code in that section will look like this:

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$id = 2428;

Or the complete bit of code again with the ID in place:

1
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3
4
5

<?php
$id = 2428;
$p = get_page($id);
echo apply_filters('the_content', $p->post_content);
?>

And so that’s it. Just add that bit of code, and you’re ready to go.

Where to Put Your Galleries

As mentioned, you can put your galleries practically anywhere, you’ll just need to think about things such as layout and columns, etc.

Here are a few places you may think about putting different galleries:

1. All Category Pages – Put a gallery on all category pages by placing the code in category.php (or archive.php if category.php doesn’t exist)
2. Different Categories – You can put different galleries in different category pages (e.g. a “fruit gallery” on your fruit category page and a “vegetable gallery” on your vegetable category page, etc.) In order to do this, you’ll need to create individual category templates.
3. Header — Put galleries at the top of every page by placing the code in your header.php file
4. Footer – Put galleries at the bottom of every page by placing the code in your footer.php file
5. Pages – Put galleries only on Pages (not posts). You’ll need to put the code in your page.php file.
6. Posts – Put galleries only on the post pages where your full posts appear (i.e. not on the homepage, category pages, etc.). You’ll need to put the code in your single.php file.

Get Your Wheels Spinning

Don’t forget that you can link a gallery thumbnail to any page you like. Your thumbnails don’t need to simply link to a larger version of the image. They can link anywhere. … This may get some wheels spinning.

Also, while we’re talking specifically about photo galleries here, this little trick works for any content you put into the Page you created – text, single images, videos, etc. So let your imagination run free.

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These numbers are somewhat affected by one organization, the NY Times, having seven blogs on the list and another organization, Wired, having three blogs on the list. That said, no one can doubt that the trend for WordPress has been an upward one.

The following chart is from Pingdom.com.

And here’s a list comparing last year’s results and this year’s results.

To see a list of what each of the Top 100 use, head on over to the Pingdom report.

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It’s pretty much a win-win for everyone. If you’re happy with the free theme, then carry on with it. It you want more functionality (or support in many case), then you’ll need to upgrade to a paid option.

At the very least, free themes let you check out a designer’s work from the inside with zero pressure involved. And so all in all, free themes from professional theme developers are a good thing.

But where do you find all those great themes? Many times they’re buried all over the web in the cracks and crevices of the developers’ websites themselves. Often, you don’t even know if a theme is free or not until you click and click and click and then finally get to a page that says, “Yes, this theme is free.”

But fret no more. We’ve got you covered in this post. We’ve gone out to the most popular theme developers in the WordPress world and searched out their free offerings. You’ll find them below.

Happy theming.

1. WooThemes – Swatch

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

2. WooThemes – Skeptical

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

3. WooThemes – The Morning After

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

4. WooThemes – Bueno

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

5. WooThemes – Rockstar

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

6. WooThemes – Mainstream

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

7. WooThemes – Meta Morphosis

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

8. WooThemes – Irresistible

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

9. WooThemes – Blogtheme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

10. WooThemes – Typebased

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

11. WooThemes – Snapshot

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

12. WooThemes – Premium News

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

13. Colorlabs – Lensa

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

14. Colorlabs – Photogram

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

15. Colorlabs – Leatherly

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

16. Colorlabs – TumblePress

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

17. Colorlabs – RPG.cod

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

18. Colorlabs – Wellblog

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

19. Templatic – Video

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

20. WPZoom – Meeta

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

21. WPZoom — BonPress

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

22. WPZoom – Photoria

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

23. WPZoom – Academica

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

24. PageLines – PageLines Theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

25. PageLines – Platform

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

26. iThemes – December

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

27. iThemes – Quick Vid

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

28. Theme Junkie – Table

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

29. Theme Junkie – Channel

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

30. Theme Junkie – Fashion Press

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

31. ThemeFuse – Gadgetry

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

32. Gabfire Themes — Snapwire

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

33. WPShower – Paragrams

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

34. WPShower – Expositio

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

35. WPShower – Imbalance

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

36. WPShower – Imbalance 2

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

37. WPShower – Sight

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

38. WPShower – Suburbia

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

39. WPShower – Blogum

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

40. WPShower – Portfolium

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

41. Graph Paper Press – Snaps

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

42. Graph Paper Press – Retouch

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

43. Graph Paper Press – Mixfolio

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

44. Graph Paper Press – Mansion

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

45. Graph Paper Press – Work-A-Holic

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

46. Graph Paper Press – Fullscreen

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

47. Graph Paper Press – F8 Static

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

48. Graph Paper Press – F8 Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

49. Graph Paper Press – Modularity Light

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

50. Graph Paper Press – Monochrome Pro

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

51. Graph Paper Press – Berlin

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

52. Graph Paper Press – Gridline

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

53. Themify – iTheme2

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

54. Themify – Koi

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

55. OrganicThemes – Verbage

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

56. OrganicThemes – Structure

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

57. InkThemes – InfoWay

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

58. InkThemes – Poloray

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

59. InkThemes – Local Business

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

60. InkThemes – Blackbird

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

61. InkThemes – Figero

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

62. InkThemes – Squirrel

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

63. InkThemes – Andrina Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

64. InkThemes – Cloriato Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

65. InkThemes – Dzonia

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

66. InkThemes – Themia Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

67. InkThemes – Colorway

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

68. InkThemes – ToomMorel Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

69. Bavotasan – Gridiculous

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

70. Bavotasan – Snowblind

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

71. Bavotasan – Feed Me, Seymour

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

72. Bavotasan – Magazine Basic

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

73. Theme Hybrid – Ascetica

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

74. Gorilla Themes – Mountain Creek

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

75. Obox – Selecta

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

76. Obox – Casual

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

77. ThemeShift – Decente

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

78. ThemeShift – Destyle

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

79. Up Themes – Gallery

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

80. CyberChimps – CyberChimps Theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

81. CyberChimps – Neuro

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

82. CyberChimps – Business Lite

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

83. CyberChimps – Response

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

84. CyberChimps – iRibbon

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

85. CyberChimps – iFeature

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

86. CyberChimps – Responsive

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

87. Themes Kingdom – Tint

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

88. Themes Kingdom – Widely

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

89. Themes Kingdom – Danko

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

90. NattyWP – GreenFreshart

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

91. DevPress – Zenith

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

92. DevPress – Cornrows

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

93. DevPress – Cinnamon

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

94. DevPress – Murmur

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

95. DevPress – Sonorous

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

96. DevPress – Quiescent

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

97. DevPress – Cascade

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

98. DevPress – Fanwood

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

99. DevPress – Good

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

100. DevPress – Dotos

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

101. Theme Furnace – Clear Response

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

102. VandelayDesign – Versatile Church

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

103. VandelayDesign – Classic Photography

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

104. VandelayDesign – Zion Church

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

105. VandelayDesign – Auto Focus

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

106. VandelayDesign – Simple Style Photography

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

107. VandelayDesign – Blogfolio

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

108. VandelayDesign – Oversized Photography Theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

109. VandelayDesign – High Resolution Photography

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

110. VandelayDesign – Minimal Non-Profit

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

111. VandelayDesign – Green Grunge Church

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

112. Gavick – Meet GavernWP

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

113. Theme Horse – Clean Retina

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

114. Theme Horse – Attitude

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

115. Alien WP – Oxygen

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

116. Alien WP – Hatch

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

117. Alien WP – Origin

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

118. Bluchic – Adelle Theme

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

119. DerPrinz – Branford Magazine Free

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

120. Kreative Themes – BrightSky

DOWNLOAD | DEMO

Photo: Vector gold frame on a easel from BigStock

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And then time and time again you started running into people who “wanted a website” but didn’t really have the first clue about how to build one. At some point it probably dawned you – Hey, I could make some money doing this.

But then you needed to actually get down into the weeds and figure out how you’d go about it.

This post hopes to help you with that “how to go about it” part — more specifically about how to run a business providing others with WordPress sites by using WordPress Multisite as your base.

Many others have done it. In fact, many are doing it right now. Why not you?

The Structure of Your Business Model

First, there are two basic ways you might approach the services you offer. You can either be essentially a Web Host, as we’ll call it, or you can essentially be a Designer (while providing ongoing web hosting too).

We’ll use these terms “Web Host” and “Designer” loosely for convenience. In truth, to be an actual web host would be a little more involved than what we’re going to propose here (though you could still do it with WordPress with plugins like WHMCS MU Provisioning and WHMCS WP Integration). To be clear, however, those plugins are NOT necessary to do what’s outlined in this post. Also, we’ve chosen the term “Designer” here, but in reality, of course you’d be responsible for getting the whole site together, not just the design aspect of it.

Web Host

A Web Host (again, as we’re calling it here) lets anyone sign up to the Multisite installation. Maybe you’ll let them sign up for a free site and then charge for upgrades. Or maybe you’ll require payment even at the lowest level. While that might be a big marketing decision, as a technical decision, the two aren’t that different, thanks to the great plugins we’ll be talking about later.

Examples of the Web Host style would be WordPress.com and Edublogs.org. You can sign up for on those sites and then upgrade for more advanced features.

Markets for Web Hosts

There are different markets you might want to target, and so that’s a decision you’ll need to make. For example, you could go after only plumbers or roofers or lawyers. Or you could go after any type of business, of course. But specializing may help your marketing, and it would probably let you offer more complete solutions designed especially for that particular market.

The same is true if you went after bloggers instead of businesses. WordPress.com is going after the general blogger population. Edublogs.org is going after the education market.

Pros & Cons of Being a Web Host

Of course there are going to be pros and cons associated with anything you do. We’ll try to map out a few of main ones below. Considering these things may help you decide whether you’d rather go the “Web Host” route or the “Designer” route.

One other important consideration that we won’t really go into here is the type of marketing you would need to do for each. Going after many clients paying a small monthly fee is very different from going after a few clients paying a much larger initial fee.

Pros

• No custom work required
• Could charge extra for custom work if you liked
• Inexpensive for clients, therefore possibly more clients (easier for your service to go viral)

Cons

• Users must do some setting up themselves
• Probably lots of support question (due to the D-I-Y nature of it)
• Less money per customer – need lots

Designer (+ Host)

As primarily a Designer, as we’ll call it (with ongoing hosting as well), your clients most likely will never even know that they are on a Multisite installation. The Multisite installation is for your sake much more than it is for theirs. The Multisite installation lets you easily access all your clients sites from one backend and keep them updated as well.

In addition, if using the right plugins, it allows you to easily use pre-made templates (not just themes) that you can then tweak and customize, cutting down your design time considerably. While pre-made templates can be used on the “Web Host” site too, again, that’s more for the convenience of the end user than it is for you. In this case, however, the templates are for your convenience as a designer. (We’ll talk about this in more detail later.)

Markets for Designers

Like a Web Host, the Designer primarily needs to decide if he/she will go after a niche market (only lawyers, for example) or whether the target market will be any type of business.

For Designers, however, there is typically another option that isn’t usually pursued by Web Hosts, and that’s defining your market by location. So, for example, you might sell yourself as a web designer for businesses in XYZ City. Because of the higher income earned initially on each site, you can afford to have fewer clients and give them more personalized service – such as showing up at their offices and teaching them face to face how to do something.

Pros & Cons of Being a Designer

Pros

• More money per client
• Once set up, work may be minimal
• Fewer support questions because you do it for them

Cons

• More time spent with customers initially
• Customers may be harder to please due to higher expectations
• Possibly harder to find clients due to the expense

Combination of the Two

Of course you could also structure your business to be combination of the two styles, letting customers do it themselves on the lower end or opting in to more custom designs and more hands-on attention on the upper end.  While that may sound like the best of both worlds, and it could be, there would be aspects about that to consider, such as how effectively you could market to such a wide range of client types.

Pros & Cons Recap

Just a quick recap of the pros and cons for each type of setup.

Differences for the Clients

In deciding which model to pursue, you should consider who your clients will be for each. While your communication with one type may be different from your communication with the other (email vs. phone, forums vs. face-to-face, etc.), you will still be dealing with clients no matter which you type you choose.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how these two systems differ for the clients. When you understand that, you’ll better understand what type of person is attracted to each system.

The Main Differences

There seem to be two main differences:

1. A willingness to get your hands dirty
2. Price

Web Host

With the Web Host set up, the client signs up and then must go about putting things into place – theme, menus, pages, widgets, plugins, etc. You can help them out a lot by setting up pre-made templates with many of these things already in place. (We’ll talk about this later.) But if they want something to be different from the template (as they probably will), they’ll need to do it themselves. This will most likely mean finding instruction for how to do it (best if provided by you) and then having the time and patience to follow those instructions.

In exchange for getting their hands dirty, they’re getting a high-quality site at a cheap price. They will also have more flexibility to change all those things they set up – themes, widgets, etc.

Pros for the Client

• Cost less
• More flexibility to change major parts of the site

Cons for the Client

• Must do it themselves
• No customized looks available beyond the themes’ default (i.e. they can change themes but not the looks of the themes)

Designer

With the Designer setup, the client will talk to you directly about what they’re looking for. Perhaps they’ll choose a basic design from a set of choices, or maybe they’ll even point to certain site to use as a model. Or maybe you’ll even make suggestions to help them out.  It then becomes your job to build the site to their specifications, checking with them to make sure they’re happy.

In exchange for you doing the hands-on work in the beginning, they pay you for it. How much hands-on work you do after that is something you will need to work out. If you leave it open, you may have some clients requesting changes on a regular basis. And when we say “regular basis,” we mean very regular. If you attach a price to additional work, it will cut requests down, but it may leave some clients feeling somewhat handcuffed.

Pros for the Client

• You do the work for them
• More customization available outside of theme’s defaults

Cons for the Client

• Cost more initially
• Additional work costs more too

Setting Up Your System – Plugins for the Super Admin

One of the biggest pieces to the puzzle in setting up your system is to get the right plugins. As one of WPMU DEV’s specialties is Multisite plugins, we will be drawing on a lot of DEV plugins to get the system up and running. In some cases, such as with the Pro Sites plugin (which lets you easily charge for different levels), there are really no other options out there for WordPress.

In other cases, we may have a preference for our own plugins, of course, but we’ll also try to point you to plugins that aren’t ours as well in order to give you some other options.

Web Host vs Designer Plugins

For the most part, many of the most important plugins you would use as a Super Admin would be the same whether you were running your business as a Web Host or a Designer.

The only exceptions to that are two plugins  that are critical for running a Web Host system – Pro Sites and Anti-Splog.

Pro Sites lets users choose from pre-determined packages, pay with a service like PayPal, and then get access to what they paid for immediately.  As a Designer, you will be talking to your clients one-on-one and discovering what their needs are. Therefore, the automated nature of Pro Sites isn’t needed.

Anti-Splog helps you protect your network from spam blogs. As a Designer, you won’t have your network open for just anyone to come along and set up a blog. Therefore, you aren’t going to be running into spam blogs.

Here’s a list of the main plugins you will likely need to set up your system. We will go over each in more detail below.

• Pro Sites (Web Host only)
• Anti-Splog (Web Host only)
• New Blog Templates
• Domain Mapping
• Ultimate Branding
• Easy Blogging
• Video Tutorials

Pro Sites (Web Host) – DOWNLOAD HERE

If you’re running a Web Host setup, then the Pro Sites plugin is going to be THE key piece of the puzzle for you.

As mentioned above, this is the plugin that will allow you to set up different packages that users can subscribe to. For example, you can limit certain themes or plugins to certain levels. You can offer upgraded support for certain levels. Users can sign up to get more space, etc.

Take a look at the video below to get an overview of Pro Sites.

Putting Pro Sites to Work – Let’s say you’ve decided to run a Web Host system for interior decorators. Most would want to show a portfolio of their work. At one level, you could offer the default WordPress gallery. At a higher level, however, you could give them access to a premium gallery plugin that looks much nicer.

And of course it could work the same way with themes. Give them some nice themes at one level, but let them have access to even nicer themes at another level.

But Pro Sites gives you a lot more control than that. While  you can give a user free access and then let them upgrade, it isn’t required to have a free level. You can make even the lowest rung on the ladder a paid level.

Another very nice feature is that you can give access to any level you like for a limited amount of time. And of course it’s not required to have multiple levels, and so one strategy might be to only have one level packed with everything (all the best plugins, themes, etc.), but give users access to it for only three days. This way they could sign up, play around with things, get excited about building their site, but then they’d need to pay in order to actually continue.

Something else you can do with Pro Sites is to limit the number of Posts and/or Pages that can be created.

And there’s more on top of this. All the options it offers allows you to structure your offer most any way you’d like.

Anti-Splog (Web Host) – DOWNLOAD HERE

As mentioned, Anti-Splog helps you combat spam blogs. If you’re running an open network, it’s an absolute must. If you’re running a Designer type setup, then more than likely you’ll be adding new sites yourself, and you won’t have the need for an anti-splog tool.

Check out the video below to get an overview of Anti-Splog.

New Blog Templates – DOWNLOAD HERE

New Blog Templates is one of my personal favorites. In my view, if used right, this is a plugin that can help set you apart from the crowd if you’re going in the Web Host direction, or it’s a plugin that will drastically cut down your workload if you’re going in the Designer direction.

First, a quick explanation. New Blog Templates lets you set up a blog any way your like – with Posts, Pages, widgets, the theme you want, menus, galleries, any plugin you can think of, etc. – and then it lets you turn that blog into a template.

So what does that mean in practical terms? Well, let’s look at an example. First from the Web Host point of view.

New Blog Templates for Web Hosts

Let’s say you’ve decided to target restaurants. You want to set up a site that lets restaurant owners sign up for $X-amount per month, and then they can build their own sites with the themes and plugins you offer. The problem, however, is that sometimes setting up something like a menu (either in a theme or with a plugin) can be a little overwhelming for someone not familiar with such things. Just reading the instructions gives them a headache, to say nothing of actually getting it to look the way it should.

With the New Blog Templates plugin, you can go in and set up a site for a sample restaurant and make it look just the way it should. And you could do that over and over again with a number of different “sample” restaurants. Maybe you have an Italian restaurant sample and a Chinese restaurant sample and a Sandwich Shop restaurant sample. Or maybe you only focus on sandwich shops, and you have ten different Sandwich Shop samples.

The client can then choose one of those samples and, in many cases, simply replace your sample content with their own content. They don’t have to learn, for example, that they need to create a “Menu” page and then place a special shortcode in it. They simply have to navigate to the premade menu and start substituting their items for your sample items.

Make the Simple Things Even Simpler

And the same is true for things that are even much simpler.

Many people have no clue how to do many things you take for granted, and they have no interest in learning. Even something as simple as installing a Google Map plugin and putting in a map to their place of business can be a chore. They don’t want to learn how to install plugins or even how to activate/deactivate them. They don’t want to go searching out what the right shortcode is for a particular plugin. They don’t even know what a shortcode is. All they want is a Google map on their site.

So in this case, for example, you could cut their learning curve down a ton by setting up a working example and having them simply replace the Google map URL. You set it up and then give them simple instructions (maybe even right on the page itself): “Go to Google Maps (link), put in your address, copy the URL, come back here and put it in the space where the sample URL is, and then delete these instructions and update the page.”

Set Up Themes and Make Them Templates

Many themes look great when you see the demo on the developer’s site, but then you install one on your own site, and you find there’s a lot of work to do to make it look as good as it did on the developer’s site.

You could do a lot of that work for your users by creating a sample site that just needs to have its “dummy content” replaced by the user’s content.

For example, if the theme you’re using has a featured spot on the home page for whichever category you’d like, go ahead and make up a category called Featured – Homepage, so it’s clear to the user that by putting a post in that category, it will show up on the homepage. In this way they don’t need to muck around in the settings of the theme to figure out how to get posts to go into the featured spot.

The more you dig into just about any theme these days, the more you’ll see little opportunities like this to make things easier for your users. And if you’re going after a certain niche, then you can set up special plugins just for them too, special Pages they may need, etc. Essentially, you’re building their site for them, but you only do it once. Then you just clone it and turn them loose with it.

This initial building will take some time, as will providing them with instructions. But keep in mind that you’re setting up a system here. Once it’s built, it will chug along more or less on its own.

*** IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. It should be noted that with this plugin you can only choose a template for NEW blogs – i.e. as the blog is being set up. (Hence the name: New Blog Templates.) Also, you cannot change templates once you’ve set the site up. In order to get a new/different template in place, you would need to create a new site on your network.

2. Of course users are not required to choose a template to start with. And even if they do, they will still have free reign to add and delete what they like as they would with any other site. As you might set up some templates to work with certain themes, however, this may cause some mismatching here and there if another theme is used. Users will need to be aware of that.

New Blog Templates for Designers

As we said the Pro Sites plugin would be THE key piece of the puzzle for Web Hosts, the New Blog Templates plugin is the THE key piece of the puzzle for Designers – assuming you’d like to drastically cut down your design time by automating large chunks of it.

One way to go about it would be to begin from scratch by working with some clients and building the exact sites that they want. This will be a lot of work, of course. But when the first few sites are done, you can turn them into templates that you can then use for future clients. Of course you won’t want all your sites to look the same, so you can make changes here and there – sometimes large and sometimes small.

The big advantage here is that you may find a nice combination of features that work well for most businesses you deal with. You can then set about including that feature set into a wide array of different themes. From that point you can make smaller tweaks to customize each site as the client likes. If you need to do any editing of the theme itself, you can use child themes.

An Example – Sites for Lawyers

Let’s say, for example, that you’re working with lawyers. After working in the industry for a while, you start to notice that a lot of the underlying structure of lawyer sites is similar. While the designs may be very different, the types of content is similar.

Let’s say they all pretty much have the following sections:

• Areas of Practice
• Location
• Contact Us
• About Us / Staff
• Blog
• FAQs
• Disclaimer Page
• Testimonials / Awards
• Widget for badges, etc.

And so you can make up a basic starting point template for law firms. From there you can customize and design on top of that structure.

And of course you might even start to specialize for different types of lawyers. When you do, you begin to notice that on top of the basic structure above, they also have sections related to their specialty. For example, let’s say you begin catering to real estate attorneys. You notice many have the following sections, each with some general information and links pointing out to places of authority, such as government statutes.

• Real Estate Closings
• Real Estate Contract Negotiation
• Title Insurance
• Short Sales
• Foreclosure Services and Representation
• Loan Modifications and Restructuring
• Distressed Property Workouts
• Commercial Leasing

With this in mind, you can create a special Real Estate Law template.

Domain Mapping – DOWNLOAD HERE

The Domain Mapping plugin is going to be another must for most people. This plugin maps the user’s site on your network (e.g. xyzplumbing.mywebhost.com) to their own domain (e.g. xyzplumbing.com).

Although it’s possible to set up a site like WordPress.com or Edublogs.org and have people be willing to pay for upgrades without having their own domain, in most cases money will be made with clients that want their own domain. This, of course, applies to both the Web Host and the Designer model.

Another domain mapping plugin option is the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin found in the WP Plugin Directory.

Ultimate Branding  – DOWNLOAD HERE

Your client may or may not know that they are working on the WordPress platform. You may want to use that as a selling point. Or you may want to leave that fact out of the conversation altogether. That’s up to you and how you think it might affect your marketing efforts.

Either way, the Ultimate Branding plugin will let you easily wipe traces of WordPress’ branding from your system. Replace all WordPress logos with your own. Customize the Admin area. Use your own favicons. Write your own help content. Set up the dashboard the you like. And more.

Take a look at the video below for an overview of Ultimate Branding.

And here’s a look at some of the settings to give you a more complete idea about what you’ll be able to change with this plugin.

Easy Blogging – DOWNLOAD HERE

The Easy Blogging plugin takes rebranding to another level. Easy Blogging changes the look in the backend completely, making it both more attractive and much much simpler.

Have a look at the following video for an overview of the Easy Blogging plugin.

The Easy Blogging plugin is also flexible. At the “highest” level, you can let users choose to turn the Easy Blogging mode on or off. Or you can make it mandatory, thereby making sure you can control the complexity of the backend. You can also use it in conjunction with the Pro Sites plugin and make it mandatory only for free users, for example.

In addition to making things simpler, Easy Blogging also makes it easier to point users toward the things that will be most important to them.

For example, let’s say you have an “Announcements” section on the homepage of one of the Blog Templates you created. In order for the user to change the message in the Announcements area, they will need to go to a page which you conveniently created for them called Announcements.

Instead of making the user dig into the Pages section and find the page for Announcements, you could put a button right on the sidebar that goes directly to the edit screen for that page.

Quick technical note: You would do this by building the page, and then copying the last part of the URL and putting that into the URL box. For example, if the page you built for Announcements in your template had an ID number of 43, then the URL you would put in the box would look like this: post.php?post=43&action=edit.

This way, no matter what the user’s domain, that menu button would always go to the edit screen for the Announcement page (providing they’ve started with the template you built). For example, the same menu item would go to these edit screens on these three example sites:

• siteabc.com/ wp-admin/post.php?post=43&action=edit
• sitexyz.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=43&action=edit
• site123.com/ wp-admin/post.php?post=43&action=edit

To give you a better idea of how the Easy Blogging plugin changes the appearance of things, take a look at the edit screen under Easy Blogging.

And here’s a look at the dashboard with a custom widget put in place. I’ve added a bit of HTML to show you a little of what it can do.

In addition to the above, another very nice feature of Easy Blogging (especially if you have clients that aren’t technically savvy) is the Wizard. This feature lets you create a step-by-step wizard guide for your users, taking them through whichever pages/screens you assign to your home-made guide.

This is especially useful if you have set up a custom-made site – whether you’re using it for an individual client or as a template.

Users can easily switch back and forth between Wizard mode and regular mode with the click of a button.

Video Tutorials – DOWNLOAD HERE

And finally we come to the last plugin we’ll recommend as a “must have” – Video Tutorials.

Whether you’re setting up as a Web Host or a Designer, you’re likely to be dealing with a number of clients who aren’t familiar with WordPress at all. These white label video tutorials will be a lifesaver for both you and your clients. They integrate right into your backend, providing on-the-spot support that will show your users exactly what they need to do.

Take a look at the video below for an overview.

Other Plugins to Consider

The plugins mentioned above are recommended as “must haves,” but there are lots of other great plugins you’ll find at WPMU DEV to help you do exactly what you want to do. We’ll give a short rundown here of some others that may serve you well.

Support System – Set up a comprehensive support system with an FAQ and Support Ticket systems available to all your users via the WordPress Admin.

Admin Help Content – WordPress default help may overwhelm your users. Create your own. WP Help will also allow you to make up your own support documents.

Terms of Service – Places a Terms of Service box on the signup form. Especially good for Web Host setups. Multisite TOS is another option for you.

Default Theme – Allows you to easily select a new default theme for new blogs.

(Note: if you put in a default  theme and you also choose a template, the template will override the default theme)

Multisite Analytics – Offer users individual stats for their sites through Google Analytics. At the same time, get site-wide stats for yourself.

Affiliates -  Allow your users to become affiliates, send you referrals, track their clicks and sales, and get paid.

Custom Press – Especially useful if going after a certain niche and making special post types for them. Custom Post Type UI is another easy-to-use option for you. And Types is yet another.

Even More Plugins & a Technical Note

We’ll stop here with the plugins, but you should know that WPMU DEV’s Multisite plugins don’t stop here. You can find plenty more by searching the Multisite plugin directory.

Also, if you need to deal with bringing already existing WordPress sites into your Multisite Network, this post on importing to and exporting from Multisite should help.

Thoughts? … Comments? … Ideas?

As mentioned, this idea of running a business based around WordPress Multisite is not new. Many have done it. Maybe you have too. If so, we’d like to hear about your experiences.

If you’re thinking about doing this but haven’t done so yet, maybe you have questions that you’d like to put out there. Please do so in the comments.

Or maybe you just have a good idea you’d like to share. Let us hear it.

The post above is by no means a be-all and end-all. If anything, it’s only a possible beginning.

Photos: Embedment, Blue Strips, and Gears from BigStock. Photocredit: server.

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It is recommended that you make sure you have a very secure password. A secure password mixes things up by using letters, numbers, upper and lower case letters, and special characters such as &#)@!, etc. It is also recommend to NOT have a username of “admin.”

Photo: Other Danger Sign from BigStock

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And it doesn’t last forever… in fact it only lasts until the end of this month – scroll down or watch the video to find out more.

So, you set out on a journey.

You don’t get to where you want to be with nothing but luck. You can’t just back out of your driveway and start taking random roads, hoping you’ll end up at your planned destination.

You need a little help along the way. You need road signs and a map. Or better yet, you need a good GPS.

If one of your goals for your website is search engine or social media traffic, then SEOmoz is a little like that GPS. It calculates where you are in relation to where you want to be, and it helps you get there. Take a wrong turn, and it pipes up. Get on the right road again, and it lets you know that too.

And while SEOmoz may not tell you these things in a sexy, robotic voice, it will help you get the rankings you seek.

That’s why we personally use SEOmoz … and have for years.

A Special Offer For You

As your WordPress team, we work hard to help you build the best WordPress sites you can. A great site without traffic, however, is pointless. And so today we’d like to help you get that traffic too. We’ve talked to our friends at SEOmoz, and they have agreed to give WPMU fans 75 days of their awesome PRO Service for FREE.

Heck, we’re that excited about it that we’re going to embed this video twice to make sure you watch it :)

But this isn’t all about fancy animations, we genuinely have been using the heck outta moz ever since James signed up years ago, here’s what we’ve been looking at.

How SEOmoz Helps Us

In addition to the great educational information available from SEOmoz, one of the greatest benefits to a PRO membership is access to great tools.

We’ll go over a few of the most important tools and resources briefly and then give you a little look into a few of those tools as well.

Tools & Resources

Link Research & Analysis – Keep an eye on your competition’s links. Inspect anchor text. Spot link opportunities. Get social activity data. And more.

Twitter Analytics – Study your followers and dissect data. Find top influencers. Connect with people in your niche. We recently used this to determine when our audience was tweeting the most, giving us a better time frame for releasing posts so we get more shares. We also use this to discover our most influential followers. Knowing this information is valuable for building powerful relationships.

Rank Tracking – Monitor your site’s position in the major search engines.

On-Page Optimization – Get grades on your pages’ SEO on-page effectiveness.

SEO Web Crawler – Make sure your site is optimized and accessible to search engines. Get information on problems that could be holding your site down.

Lab Tools – Somewhat like Google Labs, this section offers exciting new tools to take out for a test drive. Current lab tools include the Competitive Link Research Tool for finding where your competition is getting link juice but you aren’t. And next there’s the Link Acquisition Assistant – a tool to help you find brand new link opportunities.

Other Tools — In addition to the tools above, there are also two more older tools that are no longer supported; however, that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their value: 1. Historical Pagerank Checker for finding a page’s Pagerank – both past and present, and 2. Top 500 – a list of top 500 domains and pages according to SEOmoz.

Training Webinars – Twice a month training webinars not only give you an SEO education, they let you interact with professional SEOs.

Q&A Forum – Ask questions and engage with others who are serious about SEO. No off-the-wall high-schoolers shooting their mouth off about SEO here (unlike other places you may find on the web).

Comprehensive Q&A Database – Get access to an enormous database of SEO knowledge.

Advanced Online Marketing Guides – Beginner to Advanced online marketing guides with info and advice from SEO pros.

SEO Community – A 250,000 community of true professionals, with approximately 10,000 of those being PRO members.

A Few of the Tools We Like Best

Of course you may have your favorites, but here are a few of the tools we really like. There’s so much available in each, however, that even if you find you like the same ones we do, there’s a good chance you may like them for a different reason. And, like us, you may find yourself liking a particular aspect of one tool one day, and then discovering you can’t live without a another aspect of the same tool the next day.

Open Site Explorer

The Open Site Explorer is the place to track both your own backlinks as well as your competitors’.  It’s also the place to get link data, examine top pages, and get advanced reports.

Below is a peek into our account to give you an idea of some of the sections there.

Top Pages

Linking Domains

Anchor Text

Fresh Web Explorer

The Fresh Web Explorer lets you track your brand mentions in order to get the most relevant new results.

Campaign Tracking

And finally, we come to campaign tracking, where you can set up different campaigns and get a host of information — rankings for keywords, crawl diagnostics, on-page optimization scores, link analysis, traffic data, and info on your social media footprint (as well as your competitors’, of course).

Sign Up For Free

As we mentioned, this 75-day special offer is completely free. There are no contracts, and you can cancel at any time. And so with a deal like that, you might think the most obvious question is What’s to lose?

But it’s not.

When you’re dealing with your business, the best question to ask is What’s to gain? As you can plainly see, the answer is A LOT.

Learn more at SEOmoz! (Offer good till the end of April, 2013.)

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Similarly, another common question is, “Can I peel off a site on a Multisite install and turn it into a single installation?”

The answer to both of these questions is yes, and we’re going to go through how to do that in this post. Essentially it’s as easy as using the Import/Export functions found under the Tools menu in your WordPress admin area.

What Gets Imported

While WordPress will import most things from one site to another (such as users, posts, pages, categories, media files, and more), it won’t import everything.

More specifically, it won’t automatically import your plugins or themes. It also won’t import some of your settings, things such as your permalinks structure, the title of your site, or your timezone settings. You’ll have to go into your new site and set these things up again.

The following table should help you keep track of what will and won’t get imported automatically for you. The order follows the menu order that will find in your admin area; however, you can sort the table how you like.

* WordPress will import any media files (e.g. header image or background image), but it will not automatically apply those images. It will not import the settings for colors – e.g. if you have set your background as a certain color, it will not import those settings.

Also, there are some plugins that may be able to help you such as the Widget Settings Importer/Exporter.

Video of the Process

We have both a video of the process and a detailed step-by-step text tutorial for you. Here’s the video.

Exporting a Site from a Single Install and Importing It to a Multisite Set Up

I. Exporting Your Site

Go to Tools > Export, choose what you’d like to export via an XML file, and then hit “Download Export File.”

You’ll save this file onto your computer and then import it into the new site.

II. Importing Your Site

Some of the information below about usernames can get a little confusing. However, the nice thing about Multisite is that you can add and delete sites at will. If things get too confusing and consequently get a little messed up, you can always delete a newly created site and then start over.

With that said, let’s get into it.

Step 1. Set up a new site on your Multisite install.

Go to My Sites > Network Admin > Sites > Add New

* IMPORTANT * The name of the site URL you put in the Site Address box will also become the name of the default administrator for that site. For example, if you make the site’s URL “xyz.example.com,” the name of the default administrator for that site will be “xyz.”

* However, there is an exception to this. If you use the email address of a user already registered on the Multisite install, then the admin will take the name of that user.

The Username “Admin”

Many people use the name “admin” as the name of their administrator.  However, as the name “admin” might already be taken by the Super Admin on the Multisite install, you will not be able to name your new site administrator “admin,” even if that was the name on the old site. (We’ll deal with overcoming this later.)

If, however, you are using the same email address as the Super Admin of the Multisite install, and the Super Admin has the username “admin,” then you can choose to assign the posts to that user, and it will appear that posts are still authored by the user called “admin.”

Step 2. For the Admin’s email address, you can put in the email address of your admin on your single install. If you will be running the site yourself, of course you can put in the email address for the Super Admin.

Step 3. Click “Add Site”

Step 4. Go to the Dashboard of the site you’ve just created. There should be a convenient link that says “Visit Dashboard” right on the page that appears after creating a new site.

You can also access the site by going to My Sites > Network Admin > Sites.

Step 5. In the Dashboard of the newly created site, go to Tools > Import.

The last option on the list should be the WordPress option. If you haven’t yet installed the importer plugin on your Multisite installation, you will see the following beside the WordPress option:

 This importer is not installed. Please install importers from the main site.

(If your importer is installed – i.e. if you do NOT see the link above — you can skip directly down to Step 12.)

Step 6. Click that link.

When you click it, the system will take you back to the Network Admin section (i.e. out of Dashboard for your newly created site).

Step 7. Click on the “WordPress” link.

Step 8. This will bring up a popup to install the plugin. Click “Install Now.”

Step 9. Then click “Network Activate.”

Step 10. You’ll now need to navigate back to the Dashboard of the newly created site. (My Sites > Network Admin > Sites)

Step 11. Once in the Dashboard, again go to Tools > Import.

Step 12. Click on the WordPress link in the list in order to upload the file you saved onto your computer.

Step 13. Browse for your file and upload it.

Step 14. In the next screen, we’ll address the problem of having an administrator on the single installation named “admin.”

As mentioned, if the Super Admin for the entire network has the username “admin” (or if anyone else in the network does), then you will not be able to create a new user on the new site named “admin.”

Also as mentioned before, when you add a new site to the network, then the site name (or actually the URL name) is automatically created into a user on that site, and that user is the default admin. So, if your new site’s URL is xyz.example.com, then you will have a user with the name “xyz,” and that user will be the admin for your that new site.

You can see below that I am beginning to import the XML file from my single installation. On that single site, I had two users – one was named “admin,” and the other was named “singleuser.”

You will also see an option that says “or assign posts to an existing user …” and then it has a dropdown box.

What you’ll want to do is to assign the posts from the user on the single site named “admin” to the new admin for the new site — the user “xyz.”

(Of course you can also make up another user on the site before you import this file and assign the posts to that user. You can also use an email address already associated with a user on the Multisite install.)

Step 15. You’ll also want to download and import file attachments. Then hit “Submit.” (see graphic above)

And that’s it. You should now have your site imported, and the “admin’s” posts from your single site should now belong to the default admin for the new site (in our example, the user “xyz”).

* Remember to update the passwords and roles of imported users. Also the new blog you set up will have the default sample page and first sample post (“Hello World”). You’ll need to delete those.

Exporting a Site from a Multisite Set Up and Importing It to a Single Install

Install a single version of WordPress where you’d like before beginning this process.

Step 1. Go to the Dashboard of the individual site (on your Multisite install) that you wish to export. Then go to Tools > Export.

Export the XML file for that site, and save it on your computer.

Step 2. Choose what you wish to export, and click the “Download Export File” button.

Step 3. On the Dashboard of the single version of WordPress (i.e. the single install), go to Tools > Import.

The WordPress option should be the last option in the list. If you haven’t installed the importer plugin yet, you will need to do so now. Clicking on the “WordPress” link will automatically bring up an installation screen.

Step 4. Browse to the XML file that you saved on your computer in Step #1, and upload it.

Step 5. You can decide if you need to assign posts to a different user or not.

If you need a more detailed explanation of this, then begin reading from Step #1 in the section above titled, “Exporting a Site from a Single Install and Importing It to a Multisite Set Up.”

When you’re ready, click submit.

* Remember to update the passwords and roles of imported users.

* Also remember, if you have problems when you import your file, you can always go through, delete everything imported (posts, pages, images, users, etc. – everything that’s been imported) and then reimport the file.

Assign Posts to a New User After Importing

If you would like to assign posts to a different user after importing your content, follow the instructions below.

Step 1. Go to Posts > All Posts.

Then click on the username of the author whose posts you’d like to change to a different user.

(In this example, I’m going to change posts of the user named “singleuser” to be assigned to the user named “xyz.” )

Step 2. In the next screen, you will have a list of all the posts made by that author. You can then either click the “Select All” box at the top of the post grid, or you can select individual posts as you like.

Step 3. In the pull-down menu at the top, select “Edit,” and then click the “Apply” button.

Step 4. Next, under the “Categories” column you should now see an option to select a different author through a pull-down menu.

Select the author you’d like, and then click update.

And that’s it. The author of those posts should now be changed.

That’s It

And so that’s it. Though it may get a little confusing with the usernames, just remember to assign posts to users already on your site, and that should make things simpler.

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Just below the surface, and somewhat hidden away, there is an even more powerful mode that WordPress possesses – a mode called Multisite.

Enabling this mode allows you to turn a single WordPress installation into a network of sites. Thousands of sites, if you like. Hundreds of thousands. Even millions.

While that may sound like an exaggeration, it’s not. As an example, you can simply look at WordPress.com or Edublogs.org. They both contain in the millions of sites. And they both run on Multisite.

An Introduction to Multisite

While not for the average user and not something everyone will need, Multisite may be just what you’re looking for if you have a situation that requires a more robust approach than a single WordPress install allows for.

Our hope here is to give you an overview of what Multisite is and to help you decide if it might be right for you.

We’ll cover the following:

• Why Run a Multisite Network
• Is Multisite for You?
• Examples of Multisites in the Wild
• When Not to Use Multisite
• Advantages and Disadvantages
• WPMU DEV Multisite Plugins
• Differences from Regular WordPress
• BuddyPress
• Resources
• How to Activate Multisite

What Exactly Is Multisite?

Multisite is a feature (or a mode) within WordPress that allows you to run a number of different sites from one WordPress installation.

All the sites in the “network,” as it’s known, will share all the same plugins and all the same themes.

(Note – with special plugins like Pro Sites from WPMU DEV, you can control access to plugins and themes – for example, allowing User A access to all plugins and themes but allowing User B access to only a few of the installed plugins and themes. You can also do this in a more limited way with the out of the box version of Multisite.)

All the sites also share one database; however, they do have separate tables within the database, and they also each have their own directories for media uploads.

Why Run a Multisite Network

There are different reasons why you may choose to run Multisite. Below are a few of the most common.

1. Host Sites Open to the Public

One of the most common reasons for running a Multisite Network is to allow users to sign up for their own blogs/sites, as sites such as wordpress.com and edublogs.org do.

Multisite can be set up to allow users to create a new site automatically with no extra work needed from the administrator.  Typically new blogs will reside at a URL that looks like one of the following:

• site1.mysite.com
• mysite.com/site1/

The difference here is the difference between setting up sites as subdomains or subdirectories. (More on this later.)

Using Multisite in this way could work in many niches — for example, giving users their own sites so they can blog about  gardening, surfing, dieting, traveling, music, education, etc., etc. The list really is nearly limitless.

2. Host an In-House Network of Sites

Another common reason for using Multisite is when one person or one organization would like to run a number of different sites from one installation, thereby making it easier to update plugins, themes, and WordPress itself. When all your sites are on one installation, it also makes it easier to access the Admin areas of different sites from one main control panel.

Here are a few examples of when this type of Multisite network might be ideal:

• Different schools in a school district
• Different departments in a company/university/newspaper/etc.
• Different teams in a league
• Different stores/branches in a chain
• Different cities in a state/country … Different countries in the world
• Different events in a location (e.g. festivals, concerts, etc.)
• Different shows on a radio station

Is Multisite for You?

With all those “differents” above, however, you should ask yourself an important question: Do I really want these sections/sites to be different?

In other words, can I just use “categories” on a regular WordPress install and achieve the same thing?

If you can say YES to any of the following below, then you Multisite may be the way for you to go:

• Do I need a different themes on the same site?
• Do I need different plugins/functionality for different sections?
• Do I need to give access to different administrators/editors for the different sections?
• Do I need different top level addresses (e.g. mapping colors.com/red/ so that resolves to red.com)?

Examples of Multisites in the Wild

Below are a few Multisite we’ve found out in the wild. You can browse some more for yourself at the WordPress.org Multisite Showcase section.

WordPress.com – Open to the public. It is the largest Multisite-based site on the web.

Edublogs.org– Open to the public, but limited to educational purposes. This site, run by the same company that runs wpmu.org and wpmudev.org, is the second largest Multisite example on the web.

Harvard Law School Blogs –  Open only to students associated with Harvard.

Reuters Blogs – Contains a different site for each writer. While it looks like each writer simply has a different “section” from the frontend, in the backend they would actually have their own blogs. In this way, one writer cannot access another writer’s Admin area.

Tradr — A site that provides commercial platforms with integrated marketing tools.

BBC America – Presumably, each show is a different sub-site. While this can be done with categories, it probably makes more internal sense for the BBC to silo off each show into its own backend. This way those with permissions on one site don’t necessarily have permission on another site.

Teatra – A “social marketplace“ for people to buy and sell tea.

Yacht Blogs – Open to the public. For all those interested in yachts.

Mission’s Place – Run by our own Aaron Edwards, this site is open to missionaries.

When Not to Use Multisite

If you don’t need to use Multisite, then it’s probably better not to activate it. While it might not make much of a difference one way or another, there is a chance that you might run into some issues that you don’t really need to deal with.

Don’t use Multisite if  …

• categories will do
• you need different user databases (for special security reasons, for example)
• users need to install their own themes or plugins

Some argue that you shouldn’t use multisite if you’re running small client sites. When asked why, most will end up saying that it’s just “cleaner.” And by that they mean that because you have totally separate databases with single installations, it’s easier to transfer the site somewhere else if needed.

Importing/Exporting Sites

That said, you CAN “peel off” a site from a Multisite network by using the Import/Export functions native to WordPress. If you would like to take a site from your Multisite network and turn it into a single installation, then do the following:

1. Set up a new install as you normally would
2. Export the networked site’s content with the Export function
3. Import the site’s content to the new single installation

You can find a detailed explanation of importing/exporting with Multisite here.

WordPress also has a page on migrating several Multisite blogs.

(On a somewhat related note — you can import/export single categories in WordPress.)

Advantages and Disadvantages

OK, so we’ve somewhat hit on the advantages and disadvantages of using Multisite in different ways already, but let’s go ahead and list some out here in a more direct way and maybe touch on a few we haven’t gotten to yet.

Advantages

• Automatic site/blog creation for any user
• Automatic blog creation for a limited set of users – e.g. restrict by email or with a special code (need a plugin for the special code – see below)
• Unlimited site-creation for one user
• Limited site-creation for one user (with a plugin – see below)
• Limit the amount of uploads (or make it unlimited)
• Different themes on different parts of your site
• Changes to a theme will apply to that theme on all the sites that use it
• Users still have the ability to place things such as widgets, menus, headers, and backgrounds onto their sites, regardless of their theme (to restrict this, see plugins below)
• Users can create and manage multiple sites (or restrict them to one with a plugin – see below)
• Sites can be completely separate from each other, or they can be integrated in a number of ways
• Activate themes on a site-by-site basis

Disadvantages

• While not “difficult,” it does require the admin to learn how to manage the network, which is a little more involved than a regular WordPress install
• You need access to your server – must be able to edit core WordPress files
• Some themes don’t always work so well with Multisite (most do, but I’ve run into some that don’t)
• Some plugins might not always work so well (again, as above, most do)
• If you have problems with the core installation, or the main site gets hacked, then all sites in your network may be affected
• While it’s possible to tie sites together, it is a little more difficult to display content from various sites onto the main homepage, for example. But it’s not impossible. WPMU DEV plugins will help you do that.

WPMU DEV Multisite Plugins

As with regular WordPress, a lot of the limitations you find with an out-of-box install can be overcome with plugins.

As most everyone who’s bothered to look into it knows, WPMU DEV is THE site on the web for Multisite plugins. There are literally too many to go over here. But will give you a quick rundown of a few things you can do with DEV Multisite plugins.

Pro Sites — Offer upgrades and charge users, like WordPress.com or Edublogs.org, offering your users premium themes, premium plugins, extra storage, advertising, domain mapping and more.

Anti-Splog – Stop spam blogs (splogs) from registering on your network and taking the whole thing down the toilet.

New Blog Templates – Create a template blog (or many!) and then duplicate every single setting (content, theme, categories etc.) for every new blog.

Domain Mapping – Let users use their own domain names for their sites. For example, turn site1.mysite.com into simply site1.com.

Multisite Analytics – Offer users individual stats for their sites through Google Analytics. At the same time, get site-wide stats for yourself.

Site Categories – Create site categories for your whole network.

Ad Sharing  - Split ad revenue with your users.

Recent Global Posts Feed – Get a feed of all the recent posts across your entire network.

Blog Activity — Collect info on how many blogs across your network have been updated.

And many, many more. See the full list here.

Differences from Regular WordPress

Super Admin

One of the main differences you’ll come across is the role of Super Admin. As the Super Admin, you control the whole network. That means you decide things such as which plugins are available, which themes are available, whether just anyone from the web can sign up and get a site, or whether you’re going to restrict your network.

The Super Admin will have access to a backend for the entire network, a backend for the main blog on the site, as well as the backend of any other blog created for the site.

Navigating between these different backends may get a little confusing at times, and it may be a little difficult to figure out where you need to go in order to control something that you want to control, but other than some slight frustration, this is not really such a problem for someone determined to run Multisite.

(Check out how to create multiple levels of Super Admins here.)

Set Up Choices

Of course you will also have different choices to make when you set your site up. For example, will you allow public registration? If so, you’ll likely need to look into plugins like Anti-Splog, which will help you control spam blogs (splogs).

You will need to think deeply about what you want to give your users access to. Some things may be easy to cut off. Others will require finding the right plugin.

Finding the right plugins, whether they’re security plugins or plugins that help you display content more flexibly, will allow you to truly make your Multisite install work the way you envision.

Managing Plugins and Themes

As mentioned, you will have need to control which plugins and themes are available to your users. Maybe you would like everyone to use the same theme. Maybe you’d like to give users a choice. It’s up to you.

You can also manage theme choice on a site-by-site basis, giving certain sites more choices, or picking and choosing one theme for one site and another theme for another site.

While none of the above is particularly difficult once you get the hang of it, it should be noted that being a Super Admin for a Multisite install is different from being an Admin for a regular WordPress install. And there is a learning curve. If you struggle with a single WordPress install, then you may want to become more comfortable with the basics before moving onto Multisite.

BuddyPress

BuddyPress is essentially a giant plugin that lets you create a fully-formed social network for users of your site.

While you don’t need to run Multisite to use BuddyPress, and you don’t need to run BuddyPress if you’re running Multisites, many sites using Multisite do use BuddyPress.

Of course it all depends on what you want your Multisite to do for you. If you’re looking to tie all the different users in your network together, then BuddyPress is a good option for you.

For some Multisite installations, however, tying everyone together is the exact opposite of what you want.

All that said, BuddyPress is really a whole ‘nother ball of wax. But we thought we’d at least mention it here as something worth considering if you’re thinking about starting a Multisite Network. (See our BuddyPress section.)

Resources

Below are a few resources that you will absolutely want to consult if you plan on running a Multisite Network.

• See all of WPMU DEV’s Multisite plugins
• Check out our Multisite Manual
• Join our community for Multisite info
• See the WordPress.org forum for Multisite questions

How to Activate Multisite

And finally, we’ll get into actually activating Multisite.

Although Multisite is a feature of all WordPress installations, you will still need to activate it before it is visible. As mentioned in the very beginning, it is hidden away from the casual user.

Before moving onto any instructions, you should know that you are most likely going to need to choose between setting up new sites as subfolders or subdomains. And so let’s go over that quickly.

Subfolders and Subdomains

Little works as well as an example, so let’s start with a few examples.

Subfolders look like this:

• mysite.com/site1
• mysite.com/site2

Subdomains look like this:

• site1.mysite.com
• site2.mysite.com

Depending on exactly how you’re setting things up, some of you may not have a choice. For example, if you try to activate Multisite on a site that is ALREADY in a subfolder, you will only have the choice of setting up more subfolders.

For example, let’s say your site titled “mysite” is located here:

• example.com/mysite/

You’re new sites will then be added on as additional subfolders:

• example.com/mysite/site1/
• example.com/mysite/site2/

Some people may run into problems with their server when trying to set up sites as subdomains (e.g. site1.mysite.com). If you have an upgraded hosting account (such as a virtual private server account, for example), you may be able to call your webhost and get them to help you out with it. If not, you’ll just have to go with subfolders.

Which is Better?

This is a personal preference. If you’re trying to set up a public blogging site like wordpress.com, for example, some believe that it’s more attractive to users to have the name of their site first – e.g. site1.mysite.com.

At least in the old days of SEO (I’m not sure anymore), it was said that having subfolders (e.g. mysite.com/site1/) was slightly more attractive to the search engines.

Once you choose, there’s really no turning back, however. So just pick one and don’t worry about it anymore.

Domain Mapping

With a domain mapping plugin, you can make it seem as if your Site1 site or your Site2 site is just a single install of WordPress.

For example, mysite.com/site1/ or site1.mysite.com can be made to resolve to the domain site1.com.  No one will ever know the difference.

Even users in the admin area will not know they are on a multisite network if you don’t want them to. Their admin dashboard will appear at site1.com/wp-admin/ just like any regular WordPress site.

Turning on Multisite

Activating Multisite is not difficult, but it requires more than simply clicking a button or two. You should know that you will need access to the core WordPress files on your server.

You can find instructions on creating a Multisite network at wordpress.org.

We have also made you a video of the process.

Photo: Hand Cursor – Thumb Up and world map from BigStock. Photo credit: key.

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