Learn how to include beautiful, high quality photos in your blog posts to captivate your readers!
Photos can make or breake a great blog post.

One blog that has been very successful in using photos with every blog post is Zenhabits which focuses on personal productivity.

Business blogging is becoming very popular.  Well known media organizations like the New York Times, Forbes and CNN all have blogs.

NEW! Recorded Training Now Available!

How To Get Beautiful Blog Photos Freshworkshops is happy to announce recorded training anytime! Join me as a guide I small group of business owners through adding photos to their blogs.

Each photo on the blog tells a story so you feel drawn into the post. It makes the site “sticky” and the reader stays around to learn more.

We’ll learn what sort of photos work best and where to find them!

Training Details

Great For: Individuals and organizations who already have blogs looking to get more participation from visitors.

Level: 101 No experience necessary
Time: 2 hours
Location: Online

This workshop shows you how to:

• Find and insert to beautiful photos into your blog posts
• Engage your readers with photos that make them think
• Make your blog “sticky” so your readers stay around longer
• Drive more traffic to your website by word of mouth

You Will Learn:

• Your options to manage photos on your computer
• How good looking blogs get more traffic
• How to find free photos online for your blog
• Keeping your website legit via copyrights
• Image Licensing via Creative Commons

You Will Receive Training:

• HowTo manage photos on your computer
• HowTo manage your photos online with Flickr
• HowTo insert photos into your blog
• HowTo give proper copyright and attribution
• HowTo purchase stock photography online

There will be an open question and answer period at the end!

Tools and Social Networks You Will Use

• Flickr – Social Photo Networking Site
• Google Picasa – Desktop Photo Manager

Workshop Goal

This workshop is focused on educating bloggers and business owners about the effectiveness of using photography to communicate ideas.

What you need to attend

1. Access to your email account
2. Internet connected computer
3. Computer speakers
4. Long Distance or Skype
5. A headset will allow you to work easier at your keyboard

Two Champions at the Rodeo by Photopro49

Want to build a website but don’t know where to start?

Many people have heard that Wordpress can be used to create beautiful websites but where do you start?

Forget difficult programming languages!

Build your own website today with Wordpress!

Level: 101, No experience necessary
Time: (4) two hour sessions
Location: Online

NEW! Recorded Training Now Available!

Build Your Own Wordpress Website 2.9.1

Freshworkshops is happy to announce that recorded training is now available anytime! Join me as I guide a small group of people through Wordpress. This recording was made in February, 2010 so you don’t have to worry about old instructions! Cost: $45

This Workshop Series Will Show You How To:

• Register a domain name
• Sign up for website hosting
• Download website editing tools
• Install Wordpress
• Configure Wordpress
• Manage your cPanel account
• Add powerful plugins to your Wordpress site
• Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content strategy to build traffic
• Monetize your blog with Ecommerce

8 Hours of Wordpress Training From Experienced Trainer

Have you ever attended a bootcamp and felt the information was going too fast?

Our Wordpress training gives you time to learn. No one day bootcamps with 50 people in the room. We meet for 4 weeks in row, in small groups of 12 so you have time to “digest” this new Wordpress information.

This hands-on training will teach you how to setup and customize Wordpress, as well as show you [demonstrate] how content choices affect SEO. Your questions get answered as you build your own Wordpress site.

Dates:

• Session 1: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 5pm – 7pm Pacific Time Zone
• Session 2: Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 5pm – 7pm Pacific Time Zone
• Session 3: Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 5pm – 7pm Pacific Time Zone
• Session 4: Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 5pm – 7pm Pacific Time Zone

Includes:

• Recording of each 2 hour session
• Wordpress 101 Guide How To Setup Wordpress
• Over 50 links to resources, blogs and tutorials to get you started with Wordpress
  AND
• 1 Month of Unlimited Access to Adria Richards’s brain on anything Wordpress See Twitter, Wordpress TV, YouTube

Want to attend a future Wordpress training? Make sure to sign up for the newsletter to get notified of upcoming workshops!

About Your Instructor

Adria Richards has been using Wordpress since 2006 and has experience in Content Management Systems (CMS) going back to 2003. She will take you though everything you need to get started with a Wordpress self-hosted site.

She has attended Wordcamp Chicago, Blogging While Brown, BlogHer09, Blogalicious, Blogworld Expo, spoke at Wordcamp NYC, Wordcamp Atlanta and Wordcamp Boston plus she’ll be speaking at SXSW in March, BlogHer in August and Blogalicious on October 2010!

“This DIY Series was info-packed and detail orientated. Spreading
it out over a few weeks helped to not suffer information overload. I
enjoyed hearing other people’s questions too, as they brought up
questions I had not thought of at the time.

While website
creation using WordPress is achievable for the novice, I think it would
have taken many hours and not have the customized results participating
in your workshop provided.

I encourage anyone wanting to create their own website to save time and frustration and take this workshop.”

Jacque, JacqueBona.com

You Will Learn:

• Why websites are important to business
• 3 Important parts of a website
• What is SEO and why you should care
• Your options for building a website
• How to select a great memorable domain name
• What to look for when selecting a website hosting providers
• How to make your website Social Media friendly
• How to find and insert photos
• How to add videos from YouTube

“She is “techie” to the max. She knows her stuff, but she
speaks English and has a certain amount of respect for those she is
speaking to. Many techies do not. They overwhelm their audience with
tech lingo and do not communicate. Not Adria, she is good at making
technical concepts understandable and organizing the material.
Do I recommend Adria’s workshops to anyone who is wanting to learn
more about technology? Absolutely! I didn’t have a clue about SEO
(Search Engine Optimization) or CMS (Content Management Systems) but
now I feel quite confident about these subjects.”

Janine, Omsah

and Specific to Wordpress:

• Full tour of the Wordpress dashboard
• How to add themes to your Wordpress Install
• How to add plugins to your Wordpress Install
• Creating your first post
• Creating your first page
• Widgets and Sidebars
• 5 Essential plugins to turn Wordpress into a Website (CMS)
• What to look for when buying a Wordpress theme
• Discussion of Wordpress Security, Backups, Ecommerce, Upgrades

You’ll Leave With

• A brand new website you can update yourself
• Exclusive access to Adria via email, Skype and Phone for 1 month
• Homework after each session for you to complete on your own time
• Dozens of tips and tricks about using Wordpress
• List of Links and resources for Wordpress
• Better understanding of what websites need to be successful
• A sense of relief you don’t have to start from scratch

“While I have worked with a few WordPress installs already, this workshop gave me the opportunity to ask questions and get instant feedback. Adria does a great job of answering questions and showing what is possible.”

Bill, Meet Me Where I Am

Session 1

• Register domain names
• Signup for website hosting
• Why Wordpress?
• Amazing blogging platform
• Easy to maintain website platform
• Wordpress resources
• Questions and Answers for 15 minutes

Session 2

• Download and Install Wordpress
• Download website development tools for Wordpress
• Login to Cpanel
• Cpanel overview
• Benefits of installing Wordpress yourself vs one click installs
• FTP upload of Wordpress with Filezilla
• Creating a database for Wordpress
• Installing Wordpress themes
• Tour of Wordpress dashboard
• Creating your first post
• What is SEO and why you should care
• Questions and Answers for 15 minutes

Session 3

• Review of Session 2
• Creating your first page
• Adding your first widget on the sidebar
• Adding your first plugin
• How to get your site indexed in Google for a ton of traffic
• Overview – Why you need Google Analytics on your Wordpress website
• 5 Essential plugins to turn Wordpress into a Website platform (CMS)
• Overview – Email for your Wordpress website with Google Apps
• Wordpress Security, Backups and Upgrades
• Questions and Answers for 15 minutes

Session 4

• Review of session 1, 2 and 3
• “Check out your new websites!” Round Robin
• Extending Wordpress with Ecommerce
• Extending Wordpress with membership programs
• Tour of Beautiful Wordpress Websites and what they’re doing right
• How to insert video from YouTube
• Overview – Amazing photography for your site via Flickr
• How to customize your theme more
• What To look for when buying Wordpress themes
• Questions and Answers for 15 minutes

“I got a good foundation from you; enough for me to finish up the site on my own. I couldn’t be more grateful!”

- Desiree, Envielabs

Previous sites attendees have built:

Didn’t Get Everything The First Time?

If you feel that you didn’t get everything the first time around?
Take the workshop again for free! Just email Adria and let her know you would like to take it again and you’ll be signed up! Easy as that!

More sites people have built:

You will learn how to setup Joomla on your computer. We’ll download the files, create a database and go through the install process right on your computer using XAMPP. No hosting account is needed.

Great For: Individuals who are learning to work in Joomla!, website designers learning to use Content Management Systems (CMS), staff at organizations who have to support Joomla

What You Will Learn

1. Building Websites – Why people get stuck in with outdated sites
2. Why Joomla!
3. Review of workshop outline and minimum technology requirements
4. Discuss possible “Gotchas” during install (Skype port 80/443)
5. Setup local webserver with XAMPP
6. Download Joomla! Files
7. Download Filezilla FTP Client
8. Install XAMPP on your computer
9. Test XAMPP
10. Setup database and user in database using phpMyAdmin
11. Install Joomla!
12. Login to Joomla!

We will be installing a webserver locally on your computer, talking about best practices and working in phpMyAdmin, MySQL. Cpanel is a popular control panel for website hosting accounts. Cpanel will be discussed but not used so don’t worry if you don’t have a domain or hosting space. This workshop is to learn the basics of installing Joomla.

Level: 201 Intermediate or 101 Enthusiastic Beginner

Time: 2 hours

Location: Online

Cost: Free

What you need to attend

1. Desktop or Laptop
2. High speed connection
3. Long Distance or Skype – (you can use Skype’s monthly $3 plan)
4. Headset – This will allow you to work easier at your keyboard. Speakerphones will cause problems on conference calls.

For Extra Credit

Certain workshops will require us to download tools. Feel free to download these ahead of time.

1. Download and Install XMAPP local webserver
2. Download Joomla! and unzip the files

Workshop Goal

This is the fifth run of this class. This class will remain free at Fresh Workshops.

If you don’t need to know how to install Joomla!, don’t sign up.

Great For: Individuals and organizations looking to start their first blog.  Bloggers unhappy with their current blog and website developers looking to learn how to setup easy blogs.

• What’s the best blogging site to go with?
• How to decide what to blog about?
• How to measure your blog’s success?

Level: 101 No Experience Necessary
Time: 1 hour
Location: Online
Cost: Free

Join this workshop to learn how you can start blogging tomorrow!

There will be an open question and answer period at the end!

You Will Learn:

1. Things that draw interesting people to your site
2. How companies of all sizes are enjoying the benefits of a blogging
3. How to find topics to blog about
4. Why quality is more important than quantity
5. How to locate free photos for your blog posts
6. What types of blogs are out there
7. List of the top 100 blogs on the internet and what they’re doing right
8. Ways to track your traffic for free
9. Your first steps to blogging
10. What to avoid in terms of bad content, blackhat SEO and sleezy marketing

What you need to attend

1. Access to your email account
2. Internet connected computer
3. Computer speakers
4. Long Distance or Skype
5. Questions about blogging!
6. A headset will allow you to work easier at your keyboard

Workshop Goal

This workshop is focused on educating business owners about the real benefits, options and pitfalls of blogging. The information will center on information, links, real life examples and answering your questions. The content will encourage you to do your own research so when you’re ready to blog, you can make an informed decision.

If this sounds like something you want to learn about, sign up!

This free webinar will show you how to get Google Analytics installed so you can start understanding your visitor traffic!

Level: 101
Time: 1 hour
Location: Online
Great For: People who have a self-hosted Wordpress install and want to track their visitors. You can also benefit if you have a regular website or blog running on another platform.

Outline

• Register a Google Analytics account
• Go through adding it to Wordpress via a plugin and by editing a Wordpress theme
• Do a short tour of the Google Analytics dashboard

Notes: You will need to setup a Google Analytics account (It’s free) before the workshop starts. Video instructions compliments of Conversation Marketing

Detailed Outline

1. Intro
2. Wordpress as a Content Management System
3. Why tracking visitor traffic can grow your business
4. Overview of inserting Google Analytics code into Wordpress theme
5. Connecting to your Wordpress site via FTP
6. Navigating to the Templates directory
7. Text editors for Wordpress and the new built in editor in Wordpress 2.8
8. Adding Google Analytics Code to Wordpress via FTP
9. Adding Google Analytics Code to Wordpress via the Plugin
10. Testing your Google Analytics Code
11. Troubleshooting
12. Questions and Answers

Format

The format will be a live screenshare with phone conference where you will participate as we do a quick overview of Wordpress and Google Analytics before diving in and adding the code. Attendees will be able to get remote help and ask questions about Wordpress and Google Analytics.

What you need to attend

1. Access to your email account
2. Internet connected computer
3. Computer speakers
4. Long Distance or Skype – (you can use Skype’s monthly $3 plan)
5. A Google Analytics account. How to setup a Google Analytics Account in 5 minutes
6. FTP access to your Wordpress install. We will be editing the template to include your Google Analytics code so you need to have your FTP client, like Filezilla, ready to go.

Webinar Goal

This webinar is focused on providing hands on experience in setting up Google Analytics and answering key questions about editing Wordpress themes. We will also cover resources for learning how to interpret Google Analytics traffic.

If this sounds like something you want to learn about, sign up!

Learn how to register a domain name, register with Google Apps and get your domain email up and running!

Great For: Business owners who want domain email and IT staff who want to learn how to setup domain email with Google Apps.

Level: 101  No experience necessary
Time: 2 hours
Location: Online

This workshop is focused on showing you how to setup a Google Apps account from scratch

You Will Learn:

1. How to register for Google Apps for your domain
2. How to register a new domain name at GoDaddy and always get a low price
3. The steps to fully activate your new domain email
4. Verify domain ownership for new Google Apps account
5. How to change mail records (MX) for new Google Apps account
6. Discuss: What are mail records (MX)?
7. Discuss: Email migration strategies
8. Discuss: The difference between Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange
9. Tour of Google Apps dashboard
10. Learn how to test for mail record resolution

You Will Leave With:

• A fully functioning Google Apps account
• Increased comfort level of how to register a Google Apps domain account
• Better understanding of how email accounts work
• Links and resources for migrating your existing email into Google Apps

What you need to attend

1. Access to your email account
2. Internet connected computer
3. Computer speakers
4. Long Distance or Skype
5. Questions about Google Apps!
6. A headset will allow you to work easier at your keyboard
7. Be prepared to spend $8 to register a new domain name at GoDaddy with a credit, debit or Paypal account.

Note: We will be doing this as an exercise to learn the process. Please do not use a domain name that has active email on it. Changed the mail records could result in lost or bounced mail. For this reason, I ask that you be prepared to register an entirely new domain name at GoDaddy. The cost will be approx $8.

If this sounds like something you want to learn about, sign up!

Once you know who’s coming to your site and what articles interest them, you can leverage that information to gain advertising partners, sponsorships and focus on topics to build your readership!

Great For: Individuals and organizations who already have websites and blogs or those looking to get started off on the right foot with SEO

Level: 101 – No previous experience necessary
Time: 2 hours
Location: Online

There will be an open question and answer period at the end.

You Will Learn

1. Google rules Internet search.  Why?
2. Getting to #1 on the Google.  The real scoop
3. What SEO “experts” don’t want to tell you
4. Tracking your visitor traffic with Google Analtytics.  What it’s telling you
5. How Google Analytics compares to Sitemeter and other tools
6. Should you pay for Google Adwords or is it a scam?  The story of “sinkhole”

You Will Receive

• Help setting up your Google Analytics account
• Understanding of what to look for in visitor traffic trends
• How to use this information to improve your website content
• List of links and online resources to learn more about Google Analytics, SEO, SERP, measuring your traffic, interpreting your traffic

Workshop Goal

This workshop is focused on educating business owners about the real benefits, options and pitfalls of SEO strategy, analytizing visitor website traffic and getting results that lead to sales. The information will center on information, links, real life examples and answering your questions.

What you need to attend

1. Access to your email account
2. Internet connected computer
3. Computer speakers
4. Long Distance or Skype
5. Bring your questions!
6. A headset will allow you to work easier at your keyboard

Photo credit: Lieutenant Pol