Experienced Users Only!
I strongly recommend that you only install my Free SEO Blog Software as new blogs; I do not recommend that you upgrade your old blogs to my SEO customized version.
It’s not that it can’t be done, we do it all the time.
The problem is that certain aspects and/or configurations of your current blog may be lost during the updgrade process.
And since this is a free piece of software we can’t possibly help you fix any problems that may occur during the upgrade process.
Only experienced users or people with access to good tech staff should use this upgrade procedure.
That having been said… thousands of you know what you are doing and asked us to put together this tutorial for you… so we did.
My guys work with wordpress every single day and they hack the hell out of it for me… so I asked them to put this tutorial together for you.
Here’s what they came up with:
This illustrated tutorial will show you how to upgrade your existing blog to Jeff Johnson’s Highly Optimized SEO Wordpress Blog (Free SEO Blog Software).
You can only upgrade your blog if your current version of Wordpress needs to be upgraded. If you have the most recent version of Wordpress, this installation tutorial will not apply to you.
Note: This upgrade process will deactivate any plugins that you may have installed in your current blog. Reactivate them at your own risk; they may or may not work properly once this updgrade process is complete and we can’t provide support for any problems that may occur.
Also, any configurations that you have made to your current blog will be overwritten by our SEO customizations in the upgrade process… that means your current blog configurations will be lost.
We strongly recommed that you backup your current blog before proceeding with this upgrade. If you do proceed with the upgrade, please proceed at your own risk.
We recommend you use our optimized blog package for new installations only.
Here’s how you install a new Free SEO Blog:
Installing a new SEO wordpress blog
If you still wish to continue with the upgrade… here what you do:
1. Backup Your Current Blog Database
Before you upgrade your blog it is strongly recommened that you backup your database, just in case anything goes wrong. You will have a backup of all your posts, pages, comments, links, and configurations of your blog. To backup your blog you will need the WP-DBManager plugin installed. If you already backed up your blog’s database skip to step 2.
Here are some Free cpanel hosting tutorial videos that may help with database creation and administration.
- Go here to download the WP-DBManager plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-dbmanager/
a. Extract and upload the dbmanager folder to wp-content/plugins/.
b. Activate the new plugin by logging into your blog, then click on [Plugins] in your Dashboard. (Depending on the version of your blog, the link will have a different look and location in your Dashboard. See illustration below.)
c. Locate the WP-DBManager plugin in the list of plugins and click [Activate] on the right.
d. Now that you’ve activated your new plugin, let’s use the plugin to backup your database. Click on [Database] on your Wordpress Dashboard menu.
e. Next, click on [Backup DB].
f. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on [Backup].
g. At this point you should have created a backup of your database. Now we will save the database to your local computer. Start by clicking [Manage Backup DB].
h. Select the most recent database backup (probably the only backup, if this is your first time using this plugin) and click on [Download].
i. Save the file somewhere on your computer in a safe place. The file you download will have the extension of .sql. You have successfully saved a backup file of your blog’s database.
2. Download the SEO Optimized Wordpress Package.
a. To get a Free copy of the SEO Optimized Wordpress package go to Free SEO Blog Software and request the download link.
b. Read the instructions in the 2nd email on where to download the package. (If you have downloaded this package previously, you may need to re-download the updated package, the package should be named: undergroundtraninglab-seo-wordpress-0.9b.zip)
c. After you have downloaded the package and extract it to your desktop. (If you do not have any extraction software, download and install WinRar here)
3. Uploading the Blog Package
a. Open your FTP client and upload the entire contents of the wordpress folder overwriting all the files of your current blog, EXCEPT for the wp-config.php file! (If you do not have a FTP client download and install Filezilla here)
| IMPORTANT! DO NOT UPLOAD AND OVERWRITE THE wp-config.php FILE!! |
4. Upgrade blog
a. After you’ve completed uploading the blog package navigate your web browser to: [YOUR DOMAIN NAME]/wp-admin/upgrade.php
b. Read the upgrade warnings before continuing. Please be aware that any and all configurations that you may have set in your blog will be overwritten by our customizations. Click on [Upgrade and Optimize My Wordpress Blog].
c. Click [Continue]. You may have to click Continue more than once, until it takes you to your blog’s front page.
d. Next login to your blog’s dashboard located at [YOUR DOMAIN NAME]/wp-admin
e. Click on [Settings] in the top right corner of your Wordpress dashboard.
f. Click on [XML-Sitemap].
g. Scroll down to the bottom of the configurations and click on [Apply Jeff Johnson’s Configurations].
Congratulations, at this point you have successfully upgraded your blog to Jeff Johnson’s Free SEO Blog Software!
14 responses
1 chris // May 8, 2008 at 5:56 am
Hi,
does your supercharged blog software include something along the lines of tagging and proper urls like the standard wordpress does not?
There are so many plugins for the ordinary word press platform and many people dont realise its not great from an SEO standpoint.
I think many people dont know how to get around this or which plugins would suit, so your souped up version free of charge is great!
Some recommend what to install to get around this so wordpress gives a proper url rather than any weird /= 14 destinations that do nothing in the search engines.
Does your version get around this such as incorporating tagging etc?
Chris
Jeff Johnson says: Glad you like it and… the anwer to all of your questions is yes, bookmark tagging and permallinks pre-configuration is included standard with my free seo blog software.
2 honeybee keeping // May 8, 2008 at 6:55 am
Jeff and his WP Team,
Thanx for sharing the tips for upgrading the WP .
The reason for my thanx is that i was thinking of shifting my wp blog to another host and i was at a loss of how to go about taking the backup of the database.
Thanx for letting us know about the plugin available for the same.
You are rocking with this free training.
Looking forward to more such post.
Maybe you should write a comprehensive tutorials to dominate the search engine like how howie schwartz and others are doing using web 2.0 sites…. Please !
Thanx
Anish
Jeff Johnson says: Thanks for the feedback!
We do a ton with web 2.0 and have a ton of tutorials created already… we use them to train our own staff.
I’m not sure they’ll all find their way to this blog… but some will
Have you checked out this post:
Social Bookmarking Tutorial
3 Jayant // May 8, 2008 at 8:17 am
Jeff,
Thanks. I could upload the wordpress folder successfully with your easy steps guide. The only problem I am facing is in the last step. I don’t see the “Apply Jeff Johnsons Configuration”button . I can see only the “Update” and “Reset” options. Does this mean that, Jeff Johnsons configuarations are already applied and I do not have to do anything now?
Thanks,
jayant
Jeff Johnson says:
Here’s what my blog guy has to say:
This feature is new to the ‘b’ version of the package.
Version ‘a’ does not have this upgrade feature. Tell him to make sure he is using ‘b’ version, not ‘a’. If he is upgrading his package from ‘a’ to ‘b’, he must overwrite all of the files and folders with version ‘b’. (Except for the wp-config.php file, of course)
He can distinguish the difference by looking at the name of the zip folder (notice the letter version at the end of the name of the file):
Version A:
undergroundtraininglab-seo-wordpress-0.9a.zip
Version B:
undergroundtraininglab-seo-wordpress-0.9b.zip
Hopefully this helps!
~Anthony
4 Brad // May 8, 2008 at 8:44 am
Thanks!
5 Pablo // May 8, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Hey Jeff, i have installed your blog software but i can´t see the “apply Jeff Johnson´s configurations” button on the XML-Sitemap settings page. I don´t understand why.
Best Regards.
Jeff Johnson says:
Here’s what my blog guy (anthony) has to say:
This feature is new to the ‘b’ version of the package.
Version ‘a’ does not have this upgrade feature. Tell him to make sure he is using ‘b’ version, not ‘a’. If he is upgrading his package from ‘a’ to ‘b’, he must overwrite all of the files and folders with version ‘b’. (Except for the wp-config.php file, of course)
He can distinguish the difference by looking at the name of the zip folder (notice the letter version at the end of the name of the file):
Version A:
undergroundtraininglab-seo-wordpress-0.9a.zip
Version B:
undergroundtraininglab-seo-wordpress-0.9b.zip
Hopefully this helps!
~Anthony
6 Chris S. // May 9, 2008 at 11:34 am
Looks good…
I dont mind giving someone a link back but I have 11 outbound links already after install
looks like a starter kit for a link farm
Jeff Johnson says: Amen! I sent out an apology email and made a post about this the other day.
Here is my apology post:
Remove my links
Basically, my non-marketing tech guys used some themes that have a boatload of links; not just my links but links the theme designer (not us) stuffed in the footer.
I asked them to update the package with themes that don’t have so many links.
They also accidently doubled up my links… so I had those removed, too.
You are only the second person out of thousands to mention it but I’m sure glad you did
the first guy brought it to my attention and we corrected it fast.
Feel free to remove my links, or join my affiliate program and promote it with the links on your site
Once again:
Here is my apology post:
Remove my links
7 Erma // May 9, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Hi Jeff: I am new at this so I have a couple of questions. I have done the slq data base and am ready to upload the blog, but am not sure where to uplaod. Does it go to the slq db or should it go to the public htm for the website?
Also I have an account at wordpress but never started a blog, could I just uplaod it there?
Thanks,
Erma
Jeff Johnson says: Sorry, but this needs to be installed on your own hosting account, not at the wordpress hosted site.
You should upload the files to the public folder (www)
Here are the wordpress tutorials my guys put together for you:
SEO wordpress installation video tutorial
Change SEO wordpress theme video tutorial
8 Rick // May 10, 2008 at 8:53 am
Jeff:
I have received a number of emails from you and it seems that all the U-Tube videos are no longer available? Do you have another source for the videos?
Keep up the good work,
Rick
Jeff Johnson says: All youtube videos are still available… the ones on the blog were down for a few minutes while I edited the posts, but should be working fine.
IF not you’ll find 35 or so of them here:
Jeff Johnson Videos
9 Stee // May 12, 2008 at 11:45 am
How do you use yahoo pipes I type in the keyword and get feed but not sure how to find the feed.
Jeff Johnson says: not sure I understand the question.
10 Bobby Pickett // May 12, 2008 at 2:22 pm
What is a micri-mini network???
Jeff Johnson says: using social profile pages at squidoo, hubpages, etc. and 4 or 5 page static sites sites.
As I said in the post.. please keep checking back for updates… I’ll post them when I can:
http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/48/traffic-getting-jumpstart/
11 Stee // May 12, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Was wondering what poster you are using with wordpress topost your rss feeds.
Thanks
Stee
Jeff Johnson says: My own http://www.affiliatetrafficmachine.com/
12 Manny // May 13, 2008 at 6:25 am
Hey Jeff,
I’m reading this post and I notice there are two versions of this software.
Version “a” and version “b”
I got version “a” when I signed up.
How do I get version b ?
Thanks.
Manny
Anthony says:
We’ve recently added a comprehensive FAQ’s section and a resolution to your problem can be found here: http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/faqs/
13 Douglas Titchmarsh // May 13, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Thanks for the all in one setup Jeff, I just upgraded an existing blog with no problems at all. Works as well for upgrading as the usual WP updates always do.
Just need to tinker with the themes and get the right one and I’m good to go.
Thanks Jeff.
14 Jay // May 14, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Great work Jeff. Can you forward me the free software, I never received it. Thanks.
Anthony says:
We’ve recently added a comprehensive FAQ’s section and a resolution to your problem can be found here: http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/faqs/
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