Blog Loom

Drupal Multi-Site Setup

Now it’s the turn for a Drupal site to be transferred. This site is for testing to see if there’s any problem during and after transfer. If successful, the rest of other sites will move too.

I am going to keep multi site configuration as I always had. With this I only install a single copy of Drupal codes for as many domains as I have. Very handy if you run more than just a site or two. You will immensely appreciate this simplicity when it’s time to upgrade the codes from old to new version. This benefits extend to modules and themes too. I only ever worry about one set of codes that cater for all sites that I own.

Another great thing is - it doesn’t stop you from managing every site of yours differently from one another, as if they run on their own set of codes. You could for example have specific themes for each and every site if you like so they all look differently. Brilliant.

Compare this with other CMS where I have been upgrading one site at a time and I tell you that it was absolutely tedious. In fact, I have not upgraded all my WordPress sites to the most current version available due to this. Most of my sites are still at 2.5 if not 2.3, just too bad since this is considered a serious security risk. Just imagine if you have more than just a handful of sites to maintain.

Ok, enough preaching so let’s continue with the transfer process.

Do the Upgrade Later!

I’ve made a mistake here. As I wanted to upgrade to Drupal 6.4 from 5.7 I had earlier on, I uploaded 6.4 codes to the new server. Then the database get created and imported and settings.php updated and then run the browser to see.

Oh no what a mess! The site it’s not what I expected to see and it’s not nice at all.

I then deleted the database, files and folders and upload a fresh copy of Drupal 5.7 codes. Created the database again and did Import. Same old mess!

After some soul searching, I realized that the codes from the old server should have been copied and uploaded instead. As this will eliminate any hidden compatibility issues that Drupal doesn’t like. I did just that and voila! It works.

The rest is then super easy. Import the remaining databases and examine settings.php for each site. All should be up and running. So far so good.

Summary

Here are the steps involved if you’re moving a Drupal-based site to a different hosting:

1. Backup the associated database from your old server to the local machine. You can either use cPanel>Backup>Databases or cPanel>phpMyAdmin>Databases>Export.
2. On the new server, do cPanel>phpMyAdmin>Databases>Import. If the backup is a plain text file, you could choose cPanel>phpMyAdmin>Databases>SQL and paste the content of the file into the form field.
3. Download a copy of the Drupal codes from the old server to your local PC.
4. Upload it to the new server.
5. Update settings.php file within /sites folder to reflect the new database and URL in these two lines:

$db_url = ‘mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename’;

$base_url = ‘http://www.example.com’;

Ok, we are done with the database and the codes. If you’ve updated the DNS to point to the new server, you can now enter the site URL into the your browser and the site should load up as expected.

It’s now time work on the rest of the domains…and it looks a lot less intimidating now that the first one was done successfully.

Lessons Learnt

1. Move your primary domain last. Its’ the one that you register your hosting with.
2. Use the original codes and database i.e. download them from your old server to be uploaded to the new one as is. Don’t try anything fancy here, yet.
3. Work on a single site or two the most at any one time to avoid mix ups.
4. Transfer your less important sites first and move up the ladder. This is to avoid disruptions to your most valuable sites and let you learn step-by-step. It’s best if you use an idle domain to test the water before touching your live and more important sites.
5. Postpone the urge to upgrade until the transfer is over and everything runs as expected.

Yey, I’m Back To Normal!

From all these, I still have one question remaining to be answered. What could happen if my old and new servers run different versions of PHP and mySQL just in case?

I consider myself lucky as both the old and the new servers have version 5 otherwise things might have turned less cheerful.

This time, I hope my new hosting won’t slap me with any restriction that they could have written in that lengthy TOS. Based on an earlier chat communication, they pose no restrictions to the number of files residing on the server beside unlimited storage and bandwidth.

But at least for now, I am as happy as ever - having all my sites found their new home(server) and I can continue doing the ever more important thing… building of my business! Cool.

Ready? Roll-up Your Sleeves

Ouch! Now the mega challenge is to transfer about 30+ sites big and small over to BH. Most are built using Wordpress & Drupal CMS platforms plus a few software scripts here and there. These include software codes, databases and email accounts. I’ve never done something at this scale before but I believe I’ll figure things out as I go along. Just take a small bite each time and don’t rush.

Well, to be on the safe side, I’ll be keeping both account active for a while and plan to close the old hosting account when the new one works without problem by a month or so.

This is a simple plan to help me manage the little project:

1. Backup all files and databases at old hosting.
2. Use one Wordpress site first as a trial and upload to new hosting. This includes uploading the codes, setup database and changing DNS to point to the new hosting server. Solve problems if any.
3. Pick a Drupal site with its codes and database uploaded and see if it works smoothly. Solve any problems that may crop up.
4. Prepare to move the rest of the sites one at a time. Solve problems, if any.
5. Rejoice when done! Continue with normal daily routine.

I guess the whole thing shall take less than a week in total and I pray there will be minimal site downtimes for going through this. DNS propagation will inevitably cause some website outages.

Come back here to see how I progress along but before then just wish me good luck!

  This time around I will go through every step that most marketers generally regard as essential to their success. However, the expanse of the subject may not allow me to do a complete review here so the details will have to covered in future posts while this one will still serve as a good introduction.

Step #1 - Identify Profitable Niche

This is clearly the most important step if you were to aim for a reasonably good chance to success. If you treat it poorly then you’ll have to pay the price. No gurus or marketers talked about Internet marketing without mentioning this very step. I hope that is enough to emphasize the point.

The principle is to evaluate market demand versus competition and obviously we want to enter a market where there is an abundance of demand while competition is minimal. Online marketing is blessed with the simplicity in carrying out this step. All can be done online i.e. from the comfort of your desktop.

It can be done manually first by determining number of searches(S) for a given period per your chosen keyword. The same keyword is then entered into a search engine and number of search results(R) is observed. Ideally, the ratio(S/R) of searches over results has to be as big as possible i.e. it is showing there is a huge demand that exist whilst competition is low. Unfortunately there is no set value for this ratio as it depends largely on a marketer’s risk acceptance tolerance.

For the sake of efficiency, most marketers use their software tools of choice either free or paid ones to work on this task  . Here is a small list of typical software used by some marketers:

• Good Keywords from www.goodkeywords.com
• Niche Inspector
• www.NicheBot.com
• Keyword Elite

Most tools share the basics of keyword research such as search quantity and search results. Additional features vary from product to product.

Step #2 - Offer Right Solutions

In marketing, offering right solutions to people’s problem is key to guaranteeing success. It is therefore a must to consider this factor in every marketing effort. People seek solution to their problem and when they were offered something that promises to help with the problem, a purchase comes into consideration. Sometimes affordability becomes secondary matter as they will look for ways to obtain the needed cash or fund.

If you operate blogs, useful contents is crucial. Most people visit blogs looking for information and if that is what they get every time they visit, becoming a loyal reader is a high possibility.

Step #3 - Design a Website With a Strong Call-To-Action

Sales letters are typically used to present the benefits of an offer and along the way a few call-to-actions are put in place. It’s very important to make this very clear for the prospect to know what they need to do next. Also try not to confuse them with too many choices at the same time.

Step #4 - Monetization

If you’re into Internet for money then you must rejoice as this is the place with endless opportunities to the point of overwhelming. In general this can be categorized as money made from:

• Selling your own products or services be it physical or digital goods.
• Commissions made by promoting other people’s products or services a.k.a. affiliate marketing. Examples of popular affiliate marketplaces are Clickbank, PayDotCom, Commission Junction, Amazon and ShareAsale.
• Selling ads space on your site or blog such as Google Adsense, Bidvertizer and tons of others.

The list may look deceptively short but the reality is simply mind boggling once you started to explore all the possibilities out there.

Step #5 - Promote Your Site To Get Traffic

If you’re into online marketing for sometimes, you must have realized that it’s not just your presence with a good looking website that brings you visitors or traffic. If that was all you did, you may not even get one speck of a visitor. It’s so true because there are millions of websites on the net and counting by the seconds.

And you do not want just any visitor, you want a targeted or quality visitors. If you blog for business, you are basically after the buying visitors. Window shoppers or freebie seekers may not be worth your while.

Therefore, efforts has to be made to promote your site or blog which will help you bring traffic.

Promotion can be carried out using free as well as paid methods and the way to go is purely a choice of yours. Again, you’re facing a myriad of options as to how you can promote your site. Search engine result and paid ads are among the most popular ones.

Step #6 - Optimize and Tracking

Optimization is necessary if you want to maximize the return of your site. There are many ways to do this and typical ones are via testing such as sales page split test, ads positioning test, site layout test etc.

Tracking is another critical task for a webmaster since the information will help him/her decide what is best. Examples are visitor demographics, click patterns, popular articles and so on. One of the most common tools in use is Google Analytics which is a free service.

Step #7 - Build relationships

Majority of marketers will tell you that it’s cheaper to make sales from existing prospects or customers rather new ones. So if you were to maximize your income, it’s strongly recommended that this principle is adopted into your marketing portfolio.

Relationships are normally build using one or a combination of these methods but not limited to:

• Using “opt-in” forms
• Blog comments
• Polls
• Competition with prizes
• Guest writing

Applying those above will significantly increase your site “stickiness”.

Personal Asset Must Haves

Finally, this is a set of required qualities (if you want to taste the fruit of success):

• Strong-willed as the journey ahead is rough! Don’t simply assume you can weather the storm as many had failed the tests before you.
• Do not listen too much to others especially the sceptics and I-know-all type of friends. As they say, “free advice is expensive”.
• Ready to barter all it takes to succeed be it time, money and comfort and you may need lots of them.
• Use available resources economically and don’t spread things too thin.
• Ability to ignore barrage of distractions i.e. keeping laser focus on current project until finish.
• The patience to let the business grow through it paces and sequences. The opposite of this is rushing things through while neglecting quality.
• Full commitm
  ent with consistent actions.
• Keep Doing and Learning again and again. I put doing first for a reason as takin
  g action is another blood line to your business survival. Learning is important as long as you translate it into reality.
• …ok, add your own here

The small percentage of successful people is not something created randomly. They possess special characteristics not owned by ‘ordinary’ people. So don’t follow the crowd if you don’t want to become part of the “average” people. Instead, do the opposite and how you interpret this is a subject that’s worth pursuing.

Want To Know More?

In this installation, I briefly touched each of the steps above while the intention is to go through each one in details in future posts. If you like this article and would like to follow the upcoming ones, please subscribe to my free RSS Feed or keep yourself updated via Email.

Enjoy and Good Luck!