Let’s talk about money here for a minute. Yours. Especially if you are a small business owner or professional. And if you don’t already have a web site. Or have one that is in serious need of updating. It seems that everyone has a web site nowadays. Some are slicker than others. Some look like they were designed by your son’s friend across the street with his trusty (and very bootleg) copy of Front Page. Others look like they have been built with care and quite a bit of design theory. Some web sites look plain, but get the job done, have lots of traffic and rake in lots of revenue for their owners. Others, though pretty, just sit there, so much web lint.

So before you shell out those hard-earned shekels for a new web site or a web site overhaul, here are some things to think about.

It used to be that WordPress 2.0.11 was the only other stable WordPress release available. However, the WP devs have now decided to discontinue support for this legacy version. But not to worry. I’ll show you here how to safely upgrade from 2.0.11 all the way to 2.8.2. You shouldn’t do it in one fell swoop, since there are too many changes close to the bone along the way. Remember, 2.0.11 will be two years old on August 5, so it’s time to retire it and move forward with all that WordPress has to offer.

The key to a successful WP upgrade is a healthy database. If the database is stable and has survived the upgrade, and you don’t have any weird calls to obsolete tags in your templates, you are cleared for takeoff. Here are the steps you should follow to ensure that your database (which contains all your posts, pages, settings and comments, your WP site’s heart and soul) survives intact.

Most of you who know me know that incorrect grammar usage and misspelled words on a web site are bugaboos for me. And my mind will quickly discredit any information I find on the web that contains such things, no matter how otherwise well-qualified the author might be. It’s my belief that if you care about your audience and about your writing, you’ll take steps to ensure that it’s correct in every aspect. Nothing destroys credibility faster than misspelled or incorrectly used words.

So here is my quick and dirty run-down of the top ten most common grammatical errors, misused words and misspelled words to help you on your way to better cred. :)