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Ten Reasons to Build Your Website with WordPress

May 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

People are looking at websites more with function in mind than before.  Previously, companies wanted a good looking, dynamic site with pizazz.  Those things are good to have, but if no one can find you in the search engines, then you have just wasted your money.  While WordPress is not considered a Content Management System (CMS), it easily doubles as both a blogging platform and a CMS.

Power of WordPress

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juanpol/

The power and flexibility is enormous, and i have become a believer in it as a product.

Therefore, I am listing ten reasons to build your website on WordPress.

10.  Syndication

If you are an online publisher, you know that getting your content in front of as many eyeballs as possible is the name of the game.  One of the best ways to do this is through syndication.  WordPress has RSS feeds built in to its framework.  It automatically parses your content in a raw RSS feed.  This makes it easier for other readers to find and import your content in to their favorite reader.

9.  Theme Customization

If you are concerned about having a bland-looking website that looks like 250,000 others, you shouldn’t have to.  There are tons of amazing designers who can customize a theme, or build a new one from the ground up just for your company.  So, you don’t have to share your look with thousands of others on the world wide web.

8.  Categories

The posts you publish have a unique URL, but you can use the power of categories to make them easily accessible for your visitors.  Categories can be customized as a gateway to that particular content, and your visitors may not know the difference between them and a regular static page.  You categorize posts chronologically, or by subject.

7.  Community

WordPress builds a comments template in to each post (each page if you want to) allowing visitors and readers a chance to “comment” on a post and making them feel like they are a part of the community.  Inherently, it is one of the best community building platforms since the message board, and I, for one, like the comments better than the message boards.

6.  User-friendly Publishing

If you can use a word processor, you can use WordPress.  In fact, most blogging platforms are built this way.  If you are a writer, the easiest way to publish online is with a blogging platform, and the most powerful of the blogging platforms is WordPress.  The learning curve is not very hard.

5.  Blogging Website

A website that shows up in the search engines well is one that has activity.  A blogging website allows publishing to happen quickly and often giving a website built around it all the activity it needs to be “seen and heard” by the search engines.  Build your website as (see @Shama The Zen of Social Media Marketing) a blog and you will be “found” easily by Google and the other guys.  WordPress is uniquely made to do this well.

4.  Large Support Community

Most folks who are regular users of WordPress are very helpful.  You will find the support you need, particularly from WordPress.org.  People are always writing tutorials and their are WordPress groups across the country.  Linkedin even has a WordPress group.  There is no shortage of help.

WordPress Buttons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamperegrino/

3.  SEO Friendly/Standards Compliant

The themes are usually written on the latest website design standards.  This, along with activity I mentioned above, makes WordPress very Search Engine Optimization friendly.  It kind of helps with the search engine thing.

2.  User Friendly CMS

WordPress, as I mentioned before, is very user friendly for publishing online.  This makes it a very easy-to-use CMS as well.  It allows writers to do what writers do best, write and publish.

1.  Free/Open Source

WordPress, the software is free to use under open source!  Everything about designing a website costs money from the domain registration, to the hosting, to the designer’s fees, so why would you want to add to the expense by paying thousands of dollars for the CMS software?

These are ten reasons I came up.  You can find a full list of features here.

Filed Under: websites, WordPress Tagged With: , , ,

How I impoved the rankings of a local photographer

May 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In February of 2010, I was contracted to help improve the rankings of Amy Jones Design, a photography business in Conway, AR.  Amy had a good website hosted and ran by Photobiz.com.  She wasn’t getting much traffic and her ranking was buried on the third page for the keywords “photographer, Conway, AR.  “  I was also interested in the keywords “photography, Conway, AR.”

My job was to help improve her search engine rankings.  My goal was to get her on the first page in one or both of the keyword phrases I mentioned above.  I set out to accomplish this by taking a look at what improvements could be made to the SEO of her site as well as other “tasks” which we might implement.

pic of google ranking

Google Ranking for Amy Jones Design, May 22, 2010

I want to mention three of the tasks we implemented which are easy for anyone to implement.

1.  Set up a Facebook fan page--This might have been the single biggest task.  I set up a Facebook fan page and Amy took the task to heart and grew her fans to over 800.  Amy came up with the idea in which she would give away a package for her “funniest kid picture” contest.  To vote, a person had to “like” her page (Facebook changed from “fan” to “like” during the middle of the contest).

2.  Set up a blog--Unfortunately, we were unable to put a blog on her domain with Photobiz, so we set up a blog on WordPress.  Nevertheless, I coached Amy to post at least once a week, and she began to create some posts which had a strong link to her website and her Facebook page.

3.  Tweak keywords–We tweaked the keywords on her website making sure that they were present on every page.  Amy’s site at Photobiz is flash based, but they provide an html mirror making this a very important task.  As I said, the keywords I targeted were “photographer, Conway, AR” and “photography, Conway, AR.”

There were some other tasks we implemented as well, but these were the three main strategies, and they worked!  I checked the keywords on Google today and her website is on the first page for “photographer, Conway, AR.”  We are on the second page for the other keyword phrase.  It took a little less than three months.

We also have great placement in Google for some other keywords.

Just having a website is not always enough.  Having one that ranks well can lead to more traffic, more sales!

Filed Under: Case Studies Tagged With: , , , ,

Why businesses don’t value their websites

May 13, 2010 By 1 Comment
quarter

How much do you value your website?

Yesterday, I saw the company truck of a business that I know has a website. While looking at the truck, complete with all logos, etc., I noticed it did not have its website URL listed.  I was flabbergasted.  I asked myself, “Why don’t they have their website listed on their truck?”  Then, my next thought was, “I guess they don’t really value their website.”  Which makes me wonder why they went to the trouble of building a website to begin with if they are not going to promote the site.

In this day and age, we are lead to believe, a website is indispensable, and I believe it is.  However, if we don’t value the website, we might as well not have one at all.  There are three ways (at least) that businesses don’t value their website.

First, a business does not value its website if they do not promote the site. Not putting your URL on your business card/company vehicle/stationary, etc.?  Then, you really don’t value your website.  You are not putting the website to good use if that is the case, and what other tool of business would we invest money (you did invest money didn’t you?) in and not use as it was meant to be used?

Second, a business does not value its website if it does not utilize it to generate leads or customers. Would you invest money in retail space and not bring customers in to buy your product?  That is what you are doing with a website if you do not learn how to bring in traffic and convert them to customers or, at the least, a good lead.

Businesses put up websites because “everybody is on the internet.”  However, when we let the website become stagnant, then we have wasted the money that we invested in to begin with.  This brings me to a third way that businesses fail to value their website.

Businesses fail to value their website by having it built for free or cheaply. If you don’t believe it is worth investing in the website up front to get it designed well, then, then you do not value your website.

Businesses often wonder why their website becomes useless, but they fail to value it enough to invest properly in it’s use.  That leads to little to no results.  If you don’t invest up front, then what incentive to do you have to promote the website or use it well.

People who are good at this cost money.  However, the rewards are many.  Have you wondered what it would be like to be on the top of the first page in your major key words?   How about what would it be like getting quality leads from your website without sending a salesperson?

Solutions

First, you need to invest up front in a good website.  Find a good website designer who has done good work, and get over the sticker shock because he or she is worth the money.  If you don’t know anyone, contact me and I will help you find someone.  Having this done right up front can save you a lot of time.

Second, you need to either learn or pay someone to optimize your website for maximum performance.  This involves skills such as search engine optimization (SEO) and copywriting.  The copywriting can be tricky, but you need to find somebody who knows how to do it for the internet.  A good place to start is with Copyblogger.  They have a lot of articles to help you learn on your own.

Third, you should consider a social media marketing campaign.  This involves setting up social media profiles for the purpose of marketing your business.  You need to know that you cannot market the same way you do in traditional channels.  In the realm of social media, people mostly listen to those they trust.  A good to place to start is with Shama Kabani’s new book The Zen of Social Media Marketing which I have reviewed here.

If you need help in mapping out your new website strategy, don’t hesitate to contact me.  The fuel that runs the engine of these three solutions is having a strategy.

Photo Credit:  Dude With Camera on Flickr

All the best,

Todd

Filed Under: Uncategorized, websites Tagged With: , ,

Five Reasons to Hire Me

May 11, 2010 By 1 Comment

There is more than one way for me to be hired, and this article should address these different ways.  You can hire me to do freelance work on a website or social media, or you might be interested in hiring me to work full time for you company.  It really doesn’t matter what you might want to hire me for, these five reasons transcend should transcend.

Professional Profile Picture

Todd E. Jones

1.  Maturity

I have been working since I was 17 years old.  I started working full time as an adult in 1994, so, as you can see, I have been working for 16 years.  I have done different kinds of jobs from filling vending machines, to counting money, putting up stock in a warehouse, checking out customers to building websites.  I have had my share of “life experiences” which has given me a bigger perspective on life.  Further, my faith keeps me grounded.

2.  Skills

There are several skills which I am fortunate to have, but three stand out.  I am skilled at building a positive relationship with customers.  Previous employments have left me with customers as friends.  I am skilled on the computer.  I can find my way around the directory in a computer working with several different kinds of programs.  I am adept to learning programs quickly.  Finally, I am skilled at setting up and maintaining WordPress websites.  WordPress is exploding as a website of choice for many different businesses as its benefits are being discovered.

3.  Initiative

I have taken initiative in many of my positions.  I have built and implemented websites which have filled unique niches, and I have been willing to take initiative to solve problems in other jobs.

4.  Communication

I have shown the ability to communicate effectively.  I have had articles published online at news websites such as Examiner.com and PegasusNews.com as well as successfully ran my own blogs.  Further, I have effectively communicated with many different people using the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter.

5.  Critical Thinking

All of my education has been in the area of liberal arts.  This training has given me the ability to think critically.  I have demonstrated the ability to think from multiple angles about an issue.

Now, what do you need to do?

Filed Under: About Me, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Buy a Free Website cont.

May 4, 2010 By 1 Comment

In the previous article, I talked about the background for having a good website and listed the first six reasons.  Quite simply, as a twitter friend of mine said, “You get what you pay for (@guynamedlucas).”

problogger

It's good to learn from the best

4.  Access to the code/directory–You need access to those things.  Try setting up a blog on one of those turn-key sites.  Do you have access to the directory; can you install WordPress.  There are times when a user needs access to his directory on the server via a ftp client, or a user needs access to the code on the web page.  With those turn-key sites, this is not always possible.

3.  Positioning your website for traffic–Simply putting up a website will not bring visitors to your site.  A skilled designer knows this.  They will do everything they can to position your website for traffic.  You still need someone who can be the webmaster, but when setting up your website, a poor functional design will have you swimming up stream from the beginning.

2.  Updating can be difficult–I worked with HTO and was amazed at how cumbersome it was.  I am a skilled webmaster, or so I tell myself.  The rest of the staff was at a loss for what to do.  It took me a week to begin to figure things out.  Other sites can be the same way.  I would rather see businesses use a free blog from blogger or WordPress because those tools are very user-friendly.  If it is harder to use than one of these two solutions, it is too hard.

1.  Would you get a house built for cheap or free? –This analogy might be wanting, but it has a point.  People ask me how much money it takes to build a website, and I wanna answer, “how much money does it take to build a house!”  Your website is your business home online.  The results might not be as catastrophic as if someone did a terrible job building a house, but it can be costly.  Do not take chances.

Hire a skilled designer who has had results.  He or she should have a good history of designing quality websites that function well, has good site architecture and does well in the search engines.  Even better would be someone who is skilled in search engine optimization (SEO), conversion techniques such as landing pages, and an understanding how to use social media to market your website.  Granted, if you find someone liked this, it will cost good money.  However, it will be worth it.

Now, this is the part where I am supposed to say that I am that person.  Not at all!  There are tons of people out there more talented than me, and I say, if you have the money, hire them.  I don’t have a problem saying that.  However, if you just don’t have a few thousand dollars to sink in to a website, then contact me and we can talk.

I have developed a page with some website packages.  These are for users to have an idea of price points, but a website can be more customized to fit your organization.

Photo Credit:  RachelC

Filed Under: Uncategorized, websites Tagged With: , ,

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Buy a Free Website

May 4, 2010 By 6 Comments

I realize just how undervalued the online side of business is when I looked at a job posting for an Internet Sales position at an Automotive Dealer.  The job posting noted that no experience was required and that candidate only needed to be a high school graduate.  I think people often have the understanding that the ideal person to work on websites is the high school computer geek who does it for fun.  That may have been the case 15 years ago, but those kids are now adults.

Yahoo Closes Geocities

Yahoo closed the most popular free website builder

Recently, I had a website job, in principle, to develop a website for a new online radio company.  I gave them my rate, which was not as much as it is now, and expected to start quickly.  Later, I found out that they went with Microsoft Live Office free websites.  They went with the cheap, albeit free, solution.  I suppose they didn’t think they had the money to spend on the website.  A month ago, I had another start-up business to inquire about a website via a recommendation.  After not hearing from them, I contacted again to find they were looking around.  I am reminded of something Samantha Hartley told me about her business and what she says to clients, “You can find someone to do it cheaper, and you can find someone to do it better, but you won’t find someone cheaper to do it better.”

People still haven’t decided to invest money in to the building of websites and optimizing it to get more traffic.  The truth is, like anything, it takes time and money to have a site built and to work for your business.  Do you have the money?  Can you afford get it done?  Can you afford not to?

In this economy and the changing mindset of the consumer, companies do not make the investment until the same thing they did for twenty-plus years does not work anymore.   At that point, if they aren’t careful, it may be too late.

So, here is a list of 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Buy a Free Website (or cheap).  Yes, I meant buy, because one way or the other, it will cost you.

Disclaimer:  Not every turn key company will fit every “reason.”

10.  Web Standards–These cheap or low cost and free turn key site builders have no concept of website standards.  Web designers will design your website to be accessible to as many different people as possible.  If you don’t think this is an issue, try searching the web while closing your eyes.  There are dozens of browsers out there although most use one of about four different browsers, but each of those browsers have multiple versions.

9.  Search Engine Rankings–There is so much to say here, but so little space and time.  The bottom line is this, these free/cheap solutions are almost exclusively built using tables to handle the presentation of the website instead of today’s accepted use of Cascading Style Sheets  (CSS).  Search engines like Google reward those who use CSS vs. tables.  Google actually encourages it in Webmaster Tools.  What does that tell you?

8.  Customization–It is not easy to customize with a turn key site builder such as Homestead or HometeamsOnline (HTO).  When using HTO, I noticed that the stories I wrote for the website has a generic News Story heading when I copied the link in to Facebook.  Having customized headings and tags is another way to help your rankings with the search engines, especially Google.  There is no way to customize these things in some of these types of sites.

7.  Syndication–Do you use My Yahoo or Google Reader?  Those are made possible with RSS feeds.  RSS feeds allow you to import the news from the sites you want so that you don’t have to go to 100 different websites.  On the internet, the modus operandi is about sharing content.  Many of these free/cheap solutions don’t have an RSS sharing mechanism.  Syndication allows your website and your articles/news to be shared everywhere while giving your site credible backlinks.

6.  Promise more but deliver less–That is what they do.  They want you to think you are getting a great value, but when you look closely at what they offer, you find out that you have to pay more for advanced features that a good website designer will include in the cost of designing your website.

5.  Media Limitations–One site I worked with only allowed pics to be a certain size.  What?  I could only have pics that were 300 pixels wide.  I never heard of that.  The reality is that you are limited in the amount of media you can upload.  If you have your own hosting and domain, you know exactly what you have.  Limiting the size of pics you upload to your server is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.  Facebook doesn’t do that!

Photo Credit:  www.flickr.com/photos/encouragement

continued . . . .

Filed Under: websites Tagged With: ,

The Zen of Social Media Marketing Book Review

May 2, 2010 By 3 Comments

The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue (affiliate link)

Shama Kabani is a leader in social media marketing.  She is trusted and she is well known.  Aside from the fact that she is pretty and that she will charm your socks off, she is an incredible communicator.  She communicates the basics of social media marketing as well as anyone I know.  If you have visited her website, Shama.tv, you will have learned lots of very helpful information while enjoying her video clips.

Book: Zen of Social Media Marketing

Zen of Social Media Marketing

It is no surprise that she is the first to put out a book on the basics of social media marketing.  She actually published it in an e-book form a couple of years ago.  I had already downloaded and read the e-book last year, but when she announced that it was coming out in a book, I was excited.

Shama (@shama) breaks down the reasons why you may need to incorporate a social media marketing plan in your business.  She addresses different questions and how social media marketing can be useful for all types and sizes of business.  But wait, just so you know that is not all theory, she has included 12 case studies with real life examples of businesses using social media marketing to improve their businesses.

Shama lays a foundation by addressing the basics of online marketing.  Then, she moves in to the use of websites, blogs and gives the reader a crash course on search engine optimization and how it can help improve your website in the rankings.  She recruited Steve West to write the SEO section.  In fact, Shama recruits Dave Kaminski to write the section on videos.  I like that she asked experts in other fields to contribute to the book.

Shama then turns her attention toward the “big three” in social media: Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook.  She gives the reader good advice on how to use the tool as well as how it can help you business.  These sections are worth the read because she gives information that is not widely known.  For instance, she gives information on the difference of a profile, a group and a fan page on Facebook and in which instance it is best to use one over the others.  After she writes about the “big three,” she turns the forum over to Kaminski to talk about why and how to use videos on websites.  This is an eye-opening chapter and has the potential to give business owners new ideas for online marketing.

Shama wraps up the book by addressing how and why a company should set up a social media policy.  It is worth learning and implementing before a crisis hits. Finally, she gives out a few suggestions on using social media such as how to synchronize updates using ping.fm and how to measure your efforts.

Shama with her book

Shama holding a copy of her book

The section in which I like the most is the back part of the book.  Shama has included a “practical” section.  I mentioned earlier the case study section, but she has also included the Q&A section.  I am impressed with how easily she takes something that can seem so theoretical and communicate it in terms of the practical.   That is a skill that is rare, and Shama is one of the best I have seen.  Of course, in true Shama form, she included a way to enhance your experience using the book by offering an ongoing community online.  You will have to read the book for that information!

Shama utilizes quotes from several “experts,” and the forward is written by Chris Brogan.  For my friends in Central Arkansas, is worth noting that Shama quotes Samantha Hartley in the book who is also from Conway, Arkansas.

Thanks Shama for this book!  I enjoyed it even more than the e-book version.

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: , ,