While working on WordPress project with a client today we ran into an interesting problem. Our client had a 30mb audio MP3 file they wanted to host on their website for playback by anyone who registered for the free newsletter. The page was hidden and re-directed after successful newsletter registration. Of course this page and MP3 can be found by search engines so if this is a problem for your situation and you don’t want people finding your hidden files don’t host your MP3 or any large file in this manner!

WordPress support for large files

There are numerous was to create a link, to a large file in a page. Or you can add a plugin to host, stream or play the MP3 files in WordPress. Some of you reading this will think they are crazy for hosting a large file and worry about monthly bandwidth limits? They have an unlimited account and we aren’t hosting top 40 music files or movies so it’s relative to the hosted content!

Problem

The problem was the client couldn’t upload the MP3 file via the WordPress Media Library upload. The PHP limits were restricting large files commonly anything over 8mb???

To get around this problem and avoid PHP editing we helped the client this way:

We logged into the website cPanel and simply clicked on “File manager.”

Next you double click on sub-folders or click the plus in the folder structure to dig down to the WordPress content library. The window will be open in the right pane.

example: ../wp-content/uploads/2010/2 (of course your year and month will change with the date you upload)

With the folder open on the right next click “Upload” in the top toolbar.

You will see your maximum file size upload. Often this is greater than the WordPress limits but if it’s less than your file size STOP HERE and contact your web host to increase your limit!

Next simply click Browse and choose your file and upload.

Back to WordPress

Now login to your WordPress Dashboard and add the plugin “Add to Server” from Dion Hulse

Next go to your Media Library in the Dashboard and you’ll see a new link

Next choose Add from Server and you are taken to a file browser similar to file manager in cPanel. Simply drill down to your directory and choose the file or files and import.

You will now find your files in Media Library!

Other considerations

Maybe you have a need to upload a large number of files? It could be a combination of photos, video, documents or ?? Maybe you want to FTP a bunch of files and then add to the media library instead of uploading one by one in the media library!

If you find any other solutions or ideas please post them here!

http://LCRMarion.org

I really enjoyed developing this website solution for a local church in Marion, IA. If there was ever a perfect fit for WordPress, a church comes very close. You have diverse congregation of people, the church staff and volunteer committees and groups inside the church. All of them share the need to communicate to the congregation on a regular and timely basis.

To date, most churches have used the traditional print newsletter on a monthly basis, weekly printed bulletins at the weekend services (for those members who attend) and more recently churches are using email, some too much!

The Details of the website

We developed a WordPress website using the bSocial Theme from iThemes.com and transferred their existing web pages to the new site. We then trained the staff on how to login and update and change the pages when they want to. We learned many of the pages hadn’t been updated for over a year and there were pages they wanted to add!

Next we added an online calendar and again trained the staff to add events based on a number of categories. They have started with simply the weekly services but soon plan to add all upcoming events around the church and groups/committees!

Next we connected their photos page to their SmugMug photo hosting site. The church has a photography club and all members who take photos upload to the SmugMug professional hosting site in high resolution. Now members of the church can order photos, posters, canvas prints and more!

The website pulls the most recent photos from the SmugMug website via the WP-SmugMug Plugin. As new photos are added the website is updated automatically!

Finally we setup the pastors and church leaders with the concept of blogging and the ability to send updates to the congregation when they publish a blog post. They can now post weekly sermon notes and other news/events without waiting for the weekly bulletin or monthly newsletter. This will allow more timely communications.

We added a video box for the church to include recent videos of events or videos pertaining to the holidays or sermon series!

Email, Facebook, Twitter integration with WordPress

We installed the Subscribe2 plugin to allow people visiting the website to sign up for email news and updates. Any blog post will be sent to their email automatically. This is similar to aWeber or Constant Contact but for free! It also allows the church to upload their existing email list of church members and manually add new members when they like. This is a powerful way to communicate but wait…

Next we add the blog RSS feed to the notes page of the Facebook fan page for the church. Now anytime the church posts to the blog it updates Facebook automatically! But wait…

Using the Twitter Tools plugin we also connected blog posts to Twitter updates. Again any blog post updates the churches Twitter account!

So ANY BLOG POST to the website is automatically sent to the email subscribers, updates Facebook and updates Twitter! Very powerful!

Christian Plugins

We did a search for terms like bible or church and Christian and came up with some very nice plugins!

Bible Reading Plan allowed us to put a widget on the main page with daily Bible Reading plans based on the bible used by LCRMarion.org! It supports many versions of the bible so this could be used for many denominations!

The Holy Scripturizer plugin is a really cool plugin. The plugin searches the pages and blog posts for any reference to a bible verse and automatically links them to the bible verse online AND displays a popup. The church can also choose their bible of preference!

Sermon Browser is an amazing plugin! The church is going to implement this next year but the site is setup and we have tested the plugin. Basically the plugin allows the church to upload audio/video copies of sermons and library sort them by date, pastor, series, keywords and more! Notes can be connected to a sermon and linked to iTunes for Podcasting support!

Additional Plugins

WP FollowMe was added to put a floating icon on the right side of the website to allow people to easily follow LCRMarion.org on Twitter.com

We also added the TweetMe – Retweet plugin so visitors can re-tweet any content or post they like. Sociable was added to extend this functionality to Facebook, LinkedIn and more!

There are many other backend plugins for backup and database management, SEO, XML sitemaps, Google Analytics and more!

In Closing

Churches today are looking for ways to reach out using technology to their current congregation and to find new ways to attract members to their church. Churches are also aging and looking for ways to bring younger people and families to their congregation. Collaborative WordPress sites that implement Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook, Twitter but more importantly have the ability to blog post their updates when they happen vs waiting till the the next weekend service or monthly newsletter!

We have started working on a new website for the LCR Youth. The goal of the separate site is to connect to youth from 6th grade to high school seniors but more importantly to stay connected to the youth through college and into the future!

More updates coming soon!

If you are looking for a solution for your church contact us today to get a quote and learn more about our services!

Point is the majority of Internet users understand email and the last thing they want is another RSS Reader on top of checking in with their social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or by following Twitter. If you own/manage/contribute to a blog and people find your blog interesting you want to give them an option to subscribe to your posts/news/updates.

Another way to say this is every time you update your WordPress.org site (either posts-pages or both) an email is sent to your email subscriber base. So how do you collect these email subscribers?

There are numerous plugins available for WordPress.org and external solutions that can be linked into your blog. Today I’ll talk about the most popular solutions chosen by our clients.

Subscribe2 – (Free)

Subscribe2 is a Free plugin to add email user management to your WordPress site. Due to the cost this is a very popular plug-in especially for people getting started with their first blog.

Once you install and activate Subscribe2 your registered users in WordPress are notified of any changes/blog posts moving forward. You can disable notifications for page updates or only send updates for certain categories. There are a number of settings to set future configurations if you add categories etc..

You also have the ability to edit the default subscription/notification and unsubscribe emails. HTML or text emails, send email for every post or a daily/weekly digest.

A common option is to enable the sidebar widget so you can add the “email subscription” widget to your blog. Now people can easily add their name and email address and click subscribe.

To see an example of the widget you can visit: http://LaurieSexton.com

To learn more about Subscribe2 visit: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe2/

If you need more advanced Double-Opt In email management or you want more control over the look/feel of the HTML notifications keep reading. Otherwise Subscribe2 will take care of your needs for a very good cost!

G-Lock Double Opt-in Manager (Free up to $349)

If you need a more advanced email subscription manager and/or you are looking to do a lot bulk mail G-Lock has a free plugin to manage your email subscribers in WordPress. They also offer a separate program for bulk mailing and there is a free version, Personal version $149.00 and Business Edition $349. Here is the description of the personal version right from the G-Lock website:

You can easily manage opt-in mailing lists for your subscribers, create personalized messages such as HTML newsletters, e-magazines, account statements, reports, statistics, bills to your customers and send them with G-Lock EasyMail in just minutes. G-Lock EasyMail easy-to-use address book provides a convenient place to store the recipient information. You can use the program built-in database to segment your recipients into groups in order to send more relevant targeted emails.

Visit the G-Lock website here: http://www.glockeasymail.com/

To learn more about the WordPress plugin go here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/g-lock-double-opt-in-manager/

If you are looking to just notify subscribers of blog posts/updates Subscribe2 will take care of your needs. If you need to bulk mail, send newsletters and sync your subscriber info to another program G-Lock is a good solution and one time cost.

aWeber.com (Starts at $19/month)

aWeber is not specifically created or developed for WordPress but it’s very powerful and easy to integrate with any web platform! With aWeber  you have a simple “subscribe to” form on your website but your subscriber information is stored at aWeber. Now you can login to aWeber and create amazing newsletters, announcements and more! Plus you configure Blog/RSS to subscribers so anytime you update your WordPress blog you subscribers get an update.

Custom landing/confirmation pages. You can also create custom confirmation landing pages and direct subscribers to specific website URL’s. So when a subscriber enters their email address and name they click submit and are redirected to your custom confirmation page saying thank you then a link to redirect them back to your site.

Custom fields: Do you want to collect a full name? Postal address? phone? or any other questions? You can create custom sign up forms and ask any question you like.

Custom HTML emails: You can edit your HTML formatted emails going to your subscribes to include your colors/logos, links to other sites or information and make it look more like a custom newsletter. There are numerous templates to choose from and edit to fit your needs

You pay a flat monthly fee and you can create multiple subscriber lists, multiple registration forms, multiple HTML templates, multiple RSS to email templates etc…

The theme with aWeber is “multiple.” If you have multiple websites and/or want to manage multiple subscriber lists or maybe you just want one list but you have multiple sites you can copy the same subscriber form to all your websites and collect all your subscribers into one solution at aWeber.

To learn more about aWeber and get a free trial account click here: http://aWeber.com

CyberInnovation.com – Consulting and/or implementation services

We can help your organization with a strategy to drive more people to your website and collect email subscribers for future marketing and updates. Our focus is to help our clients balance form with function which in turn compares price to features. Whether you need a consultant to help you build your solution or our designers/developers to create a solution for you we can help! Contact us today for more information!