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WordPress, Not Just for Blogs

Debra — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:00:52 +0000

Small businesses need a Web presence. It’s the central hub of your social media strategy – the place where you send everyone to find out more about what you do or provide.

The challenge for many small businesses is to obtain a high quality, professional Web presence that is affordable and easy to keep fresh with new content. On top of that, business owners are hearing that if they blog, tell stories and keep people aprised of what they are up to, they will help increase their chance of being found through search engines.

So how do you maximize your Web presence without breaking your marketing budget?

For most small businesses, building your Web site in WordPress will help you achieve what you are looking for. You can get a quality web site that is easy to update and maintain, support all the multimedia features you want to keep it interesting, while having the ability to add a blog if you are ready to take that step.

I’m still finding small business owners are confused as to what they truly need when it comes to the Web. What is necessary is a place you can call your home base. This home base is where you should be directing everyone through your calls to action in your marketing campaigns. This one place should tell your prospect why they want to do business with you. And, this one place should have everything you need to keep your visitors engaged. You should strive to combine your Web site and blog into one Web property that does it all for you. If you have two separate sites – one for your static Web site and one for your blog – you risk splitting your traffic between the two and you may just find yourself

If you are starting to develop a social media strategy, be sure this Web presence is solid so that when you point people to it from your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Google profile, you will be proud.

Why WordPress?

[/caption]I have finally moved all of my client’s Web sites to WordPress and have trained them on how to update their content. This has liberated many of them, helping them keep their Web site up to date with news, events and content that attracts their ideal clients. In my opinion, the following are the key benefits for building your Web presence in WordPress:

It is easy for anyone to add, change and update content – This is a real benefit to businesses that sell services. Sharing your expertise through articles, a blog or other types of content keeps your Web site interesting and up-to-date and helps you demonstrate how you help your customers.
The developer community has built an enormous number of quality plugins – This enables you to include complex features, such as embedding video, audio, image galleries, flash, and secure email forms without having to know how to write code. This reduces development time, thereby reducing the overall cost of building the site. In my experience, if I search for “wordpress plugin xyz feature”, I usually come up with a plugin that does what I want.
The business can grow their Web presence as needed – Start with a web site using only the page template and add a blog when you are ready for that option. Businesses don’t feel like they have to know everything about how their site will look to get something done. They can add new areas of pages (if the theme is set up to accomodate), change content and add the blog without a major redesign.
The site takes less time to set up – The structure of the site can be set up in a much shorter timeframe than developing a web site using html. If the business owner has the time or another resource, they can enter the content themselves, reducing the overall cost of the site to create.
WordPress templates extend the design capability – You don’t have to have just one page template for the whole site. You can create different templates and apply them to pages to create a customized look for various sections.
WordPress sites are search engine friendly – You still have to ensure other SEO (search engine optimization) techniques are used, but the structure of the site (page names/categories/tags) are all used to help the search engines index the site better. Two plugins that help with this is All in One SEO Pack and Google Sitemap Generator which creates an XML sitemap supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.
Your site can be mobile ready with a simple plugin – By installing the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin, you can support mobile devices such as iPhone, Blackberry Storm and other powerful smart phones without a lot of additional development. Mobile support has become a must for all web sites now given the number of people who access the Internet from their mobile device.

The following sites are all created with WordPress. These examples illustrate the creative sites you can achieve using this platform. In addition, even though these sites are a tad complex, they all support mobile devices.

So the bottom line is this: small business owners – take the plunge and get your web site built on WordPress. Many Web developers can do this for you. Find someone who understands the online marketing world and can help you set up a Web presence that helps you grow your business.

For a really comprehensive discussion about building a WordPress Web site, read the blog post Guide to Your First WordPress Web Site by Jerry at Web Hosting: Secret Revealed.

Amazing WordPress Plugins

Debra — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:18:26 +0000

I am a big fan of WordPress. Most of my clients have chosen to move their Web presence to that platform for the following reasons:

Low cost
Easy to use
Easy to maintain and update content
Easy to add a blog when ready
Many cool plugins to make our lives easy
Add your favorite reason here!

So when I suggested we move the Beach Dreams Community Web site to WordPress, I really didn’t think twice about it. However, I had forgotten that we had a Flash header with a variety of catch phrases that were randomly assigned to pages. I really wanted to find a way to create the site so that the phrase changed everytime a page is refreshed or a new page is loaded. But after looking for a plugin to provide that feature, I came up empty-handed. But with my creative juices flowing, I managed to implement the headers using two plugins – Kimili Flash Embed and WP-Ads.

WP-Ads lets you set up rotating ads pretty much anywhere you want them on your page or post. In the administrative interface in WordPress, you set up as many banner ads as you want, indicating the location and the html code that will show the ad. Unfortunately it did not take the Flash code directly but by using the Kimili Flash Embed plugin, I was able to put the following code in place of the html the plugin was expecting:

[kml_flashembed movie="/flashfiles/catchphrase1.swf" height="171" width="639" /]

Kudos to these developers who built these plugins. I’m sure neither thought this was how their plugin was going to be used, but the flexibility of WordPress and the creativity of the development community enabled me to accomplish what I had set out to do. To view the site with the rotating flash header, go to Beach Dreams Properties web site and go to any of the back pages and refresh a few times.

Small Business Marketing on the Internet

Debra — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:31:28 +0000

Getting found on the Internet is one of the most cost effective mechanisms for finding new business, yet many business owners don’t have the time to figure it all out or the budget to hire someone to do it for them. Using the Internet to market your business has its complexities like all marketing strategies, but understanding the basics can go a long way towards having new customers find you when they are in need of your services.

There are two valuable avenues available for marketing on the Internet – Internet marketing and social media marketing. These are two different, but very related and overlapping strategies.

Internet marketing is using online media to execute more traditional marketing techniques such as advertising, direct marketing, and public relations. Social media marketing uses the Internet to create relationships via conversations, networking and word of mouth marketing techniques. One could say that Internet marketing uses “push” marketing and social media marketing uses “pull”.

Using the Internet to Get Clients

To start down the path of Internet marketing for your business, you need to understand what you want to accomplish with marketing on the Internet. Just like all other marketing programs, before you decide that you want to “do” Internet marketing, you need a plan. And, like any marketing program, if not planned properly, you can spend a lot of money with little result. Figure out what you want to accomplish with Internet marketing and if your target audience is using the Web to find the services you offer.

The following simple diagram gives you a roadmap to help you implement these strategies without becoming overwhelmed.

Develop Your Web Presence

The first thing to do is to invest in a good web site or blog optimized for search engines. You may be thinking, “Well duh”, but I still speak with many business owners who really don’t have a web property of any kind. And if they do, their web site was created by a friend and has not been touched for a few years. The following tips will help you get started:

Regardless of whether you choose a web site or a blog, consider having it created in WordPress. In the past year, I have been converting the web sites of most of my clients to WordPress. Even if they don’t need a blog right now, they still have a flexible site where they can manage the content for themselves. In a very timely post, Shama Hyder lists the top 10 reasons for using WordPress for your web site.
Get a great design that is easy to navigate and consistent with your brand.
Build your web site and continue to work the content so that it reaches your ideal clients with the precise message that resonates with them.
Write regularly on your blog with content that appeals to your target audience. A blog without regular posts lose its readers quickly.
Purchase the domain name for your company name and your personal name. You will take control of your complete online reputation. Both domains can be pointed to the same site or blog initially. Matt Dickman has a post on Owning Your Digital Identity that suggests you not only get your domain name, but secure your ID as soon as possible for all social media sites now.

These are only basic tips to get started. If you are not sure how to proceed, get help from someone who understands this space and can mentor you through the process. In addition, this is only the first in a series of posts about marketing your business using the Internet. There’s a lot more coming in future posts that cover many of the topics in the diagram.

How to Make Your Blog Stand Out in a Crowd

Debra — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:03:34 +0000

I answered this question on LinkedIn so I thought I would share my answer here with you as well, but with a bit more elaboration.

The way to gain visibility for your blog is to make it an ongoing marketing project. Do all the marketing basics that you would do for any activity:

Pick your target audience
Understand what they need and how you fulfill that need
Speak to them in terms they understand
Provide useful, relevant information

Just as with all marketing, it takes time for you to build momentum and get the recognition that you want. Remember the three phases of relationship marketing: VCP model (visibility + credibility = profitability – defined in your terms of success) and apply that model to your online and social media marketing effort. Your blog is the medium to use to develop relationships with your audience, letting them get to know you, your expertise and your passion. It’s your “home base” for developing a strong personal branding and you need to put in a quality effort so that people can form their opinion of you based on what they see on the blog.

Post regularly (at least 2-3 times a week) with relevant content. Create a plan to get you on track and make a list of topics that you can write about if you find yourself with writer’s block. Just as I did here, use the questions on LinkedIn as food for thought. It’s always easier to write when you have a question posed to you. It’s the conversation starter!

Once you get the blog going and get beyond that first couple of posts, here are things you can do to make your blog more visible and stand out from others.

Comment frequently on other blogs and add value to the community so you get noticed.
Submit your blog to Blogged.com and use the rating to evaluate how you are doing against other blogs in your space.
Create a community on MyBlogLog, add the widget to your site.
Make sure you adhere to good SEO practices on the blog – if you use WordPress, install the All In One SEO Pack plugin
Include video and images as well as text content. If you don’t create your own videos, link to others that are relevant.
Include a link to your blog in every profile you create and in your email signature and make sure your blog is fed to all of your profiles in social networks.
Notify your Twitter followers of a new post via the Twitter Updater plugin to WordPress
Design your blog to appeal to your target audience, embracing your personal brand identity.

But on top of it all, keep at it with consistency. When you think you are only talking to yourself, all of a sudden your MyBlogLog starts filling up with little images, people visit and comment on your site and you start to feel like you truly belong to a community.

Please add your comments on your favorite activities for gaining visibility for your blog. I’ll take them all and create a checklist for folks to use.

Changing Your Blog’s URL

Debra — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:19:39 +0000

Apologies to those of you who received the Masterful Marketing feed of quite a few posts yesterday. Here’s the scoop on what happened and my learning experience (which were many for the record).

I decided to take Chris Brogan’s advice (don’t remember where but possibly a Twitter post) about turning your web site around and have the blog be the home page to begin the conversation with your target right away. His concept made a lot of sense to me, especially for Masterful Marketing’s audience.

So I embarked on the effort, rebuilding my site from scratch. I did that to remove the subdirectory /mmblog (which has been a thorn in my side for a while so this was a good time to rid myself of that mistake). So I reinstalled WordPress, uploaded my theme and plug ins and reloaded the blog content from the exported XML file. Piece of cake.

(Note: this is a really good way to backup your WordPress blog in the event you need to recreate it after a problem).

Well of course, changing the URL required me to update a bunch of things such as Technorati, Google Adwords, LinkedIn, etc. etc., and of course, my Feedburner feed. I didn’t recreate the feed, just updated it so it pointed to masterful-marketing.com and resynched it to clear out what was there and reload the feed with the proper addresses.

Hm so I guess resynching must have caused Feedburner to think these posts were new and resent them out to all my subscribers.

The good news is masterful-marketing.com is now how I want it set up and I can stop stressing over it, the feed still works, Google Webmaster tools has stopped giving me errors, and I hopefully made the change before I caused too much damage.

Content Strategy: Helping Your Small Business Blog Stay Visible