Mozak Design Blog

7 Reasons to Choose WordPress for Your Website

If you’re ready to create your business website, “how” you build it – what software platform you choose – is one of the biggest decisions you’ll make.

As of Sept. 2009, 202 million websites worldwide used WordPress, making it the most popular blog software in use today. WordPress is a great tool for small business owners. It is versatile, free, and easy to use.

Here are 7 reasons why I recommend it:

1. WordPress is versatile. It meets the needs of start-up businesses and seasoned pros. If you just want a blog, WordPress delivers. If you want an easy-to-use professional website, choose WordPress for its type-and-publish simplicity. And if you want both a business website and a blog, there is simply no better program available today.
2. WordPress is free. You don’t have to purchase the software. The basic themes (and there are plenty to choose from) are free. Most plug-ins (software tools that help the site operate more efficiently) are free. Online resources, including blogs and forums, are also free: This means it costs you nothing to become proficient with WordPress.
3. WordPress is easy to customize. Begin with a basic theme, and you can change the colors, layout, theme elements, and more. You can also create a completely unique theme, one that is as individual as you are. This part isn’t free – but by leveraging an existing theme it is affordable.
4. WordPress is all about “WYSIWG” – what you see is what you get. That means updating your content (something you have to do often) is easy. You type, test the page, and go live. This is also called CMS – content management system – and no one makes it easier to manage your words than WordPress.
5. WordPress is a global solution. That means it is designed to work on every browser, in almost every country, in almost every language. There’s peace of mind in knowing that your business website can do its job – selling you – everyplace it goes.
6. WordPress works with Social Media. This means Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the other social media tools, all work seamlessly on your WordPress business website.

WordPress grows with you. As your business evolves, so will your website. WordPress makes it easy to update everything from your theme, logo, color scheme, to page layout. It’s a snap to add or delete pages. When you’re ready to add a blog, offer a free ebook, or build a mailing list, you don’t have to change software programs.

Maximizing your Wordpress Blog’s Marketing Effectiveness

Is your wordpress blog integrated with your website?

By this I mean, is the blog built into the website so it feels like any other page is the site. If it is not, you are missing a valuable opportunity to maximize your blogs impact on your business.

To understand why, let’s look at how traffic flows to your site. Typically, web traffic that goes to your homepage reflects someone who either knows of your business by name or is looking for a specific product or service. Your wordpress blog on the other hand tends to draw traffic based on an interest in a topic or a solution to a problem. In both cases they are each bringing new visitors to your business. What is missed by not integrating your wordpress blog seamlessly with your website is the cross marketing that can occur.

A new client may discover your business by searching for a service you provide. Yet, if you have not been recommended to them, how can you instill confidence that you are an expert? Likewise, a client may have Googled a topic you discussed at length in a blog post, yet how are they to your you offer services as well?

By integrating the two; your website and your wordpress blog you get the best of both worlds. I potential client who lands on your site can see you as an expert and build his trust in you through your business’ blog. Likewise, someone who happens to find your blog will notice that you are a business and offer relevant services. By having the two pieces presented the same way they work together to showcase your business.

Plugins In Review: Redirection

Picture this, a potential client is searching on Google and finds a link to your site. They click on it and … yikes … a 404 page not found error! How embarassing …

One of the more useful Wordpress Plugins that I have been using on my Wordpress Website is something called Redirection. This handy little plugin helps to keep my site navigation clean and useful. Being highly configurable, Redirection provides many different options to help you keep your website navigation in check.

There are two specific cases when I turn to this plugin.

• First, in the event of a page url change or removal.
• Second, if I want to add an external website as a link in my navigation bar.

In the case of the first application, Redirection prevents visitor loss due to “page not found” errors (404s).  Instead, this plug in will redirect visitors to a specific page you select when the invalid URL is requested.

Additionally, Redirection tracks all “page not found” errors that occur on your site. This is important as it tells you exactly which URLs bring people to your site resulted in a 404.

The second application where I find Redirection comes in handy is the addition of and external site to my navigation. This comes in handy if something like a “calendar”, “event registration” or “homepage” exist on another site. To add these items to my navigation I simply create a page with the name I want to show up in my navigation. I then use Redirection to send visitors to the external URL I want when they click on the page name I created. It really is that easy.

Redirection is one of those gems of a Wordpress plugin that helps you gain more control over where your traffic goes because of errors. Installation is quite easy, and works with Wordpress 2.6 and higher.

Check out my video below to see how to install and use the plugin Redirection. (coming soon)

Wordpress Plugin’s In Review: TinyMCE Advanced

Finally you can format your text the way you want!

I remember the first time I sat down to create a post on my new Wordpress blog. It was an exciting moment that quickly changed to frustration. All I wanted to do was change the font size!

Seemed to me like a reasonable enough request. But, I’d be darned if I could figure out how to do that with the default tool bar. Sure I could change from “paragraph” to “Heading 1″ or “Heading 2″ but none of these gave me the results I wanted.

This sent me on a quest for a good wordress wysiwyg editor. After hunting around for a while I discovered two that I liked. One is called “WP Super Edit” and the other is “TinyMCE Advanced”.  Since of the two I prefer TinyMCE Advanced, that is the plugin I will discuss today.

So with out further ado here are some of the features this plugin provides:

1. Change font size and font family !!!
2. Create and editing tables
3. Text justificati0n
4. Text hi-lighting
5. Subscript & superscript
6. Anchor links
7. Search and replace
8. Time & Date insertion
9. Emotions (Smilies)
10. ieSpell checked

40 new formatting buttons in all.

Needless to say this plugin has become a staple in each and every wordpress website & blog I design. To see the plugin installation in action I invite you to watch the video below:

Where to Host your Wordpress Blog

So you have decided to begin blogging with Wordpress … but now what to do. For most of us the next natural step is to Google the term “wordpress” and begin creating our blog.

When I type Wordpress into a Google search I get two results.

1. www.wordpress.org > Blog Tool and Publishing Platform
2. www.wordpress.com > Get a Free Blog Here
   

Humm … so what is the difference?

Wordpress.org is the true open source software avaliable for download. The benefit to this is that you will be able to install and customize you blog however you wish. You own the domain. You own the design. The downside, you need to install it in your hosting area.  Thankfully the majority of web hosts  have Fantastico or another Open Source software installer to simplify this task. Most hosts also have great customer service so feel free to give them a call and ask them to walk you though the process if you want the extra support.

Wordpress.com is a site that will host your wordpress blog for you for free. However, free is not exactly free.  With the free blog you will not be able to pick your own domain; you will be given a subdomain of www.{business_name}.wordpress.com. You will not be able to  customize the blog presentation beyond choosing one of seventy seven options and there will be  ads on your blog. Now, you can pay $55 a year to enable the custom domain, custom presentation and removal of ads; but why? You are already paying for hosting for your business’ website.

Give a choice between the two for a Business Blog I highly recommend wordpress.org. I’m a big fan of controlling all the strings when it comes to my business.

What is the Objective of a Business Blog?

Recently I’ve been noticing that a lot of my customers know that they need a Wordpress Blog for their business’ website but they are unsure as to the why. As a result, it is unclear to them what to do with their Blog once it is created. These conversations have prompted me to share some of the ways I see a Blog impacting a Business’ Website & Customer Base.

So, what is the objective of a Business’ Blog

1. To establish a relationship with a potential client

   • There are 4 tiers of connecting with a client
     1. Website Home Page
     2. Blog Posts / Website Internal Pages
        
     3. Newsletter / RSS Feed
     4. email
     5. phone call
   • Each of these items offer a level for your customers to connect with you. Some customers may know that they are ready to work with you and will call or email your business. However, for those that are unsure you need to offer them options of connectedness. If a customers only options are a phone call or browsing the website; you will find that your business will lose many potential customers.
   • Instead by offering stepping stones of connectedness customers can start by browsing your site and wordpress blog to learn about you. They may then choose to be on you Blog Rss feed or your Newsletter mailing list. Then with time they will be ready to take the step of a phone call or email. The key point here is you are meeting their need to build a relationship with your business on their terms
2. To add new content to your website on a regular basis
   • New Content simple means new text containing information on things relating to your business. There are 2 key reasons new content is valuable
     1. New content gives your customer a reason to come back and look at your website. Especially if they are on your Rss feed
     2. New content attracts the Search Engines to your site resulting in them viewing your website at current and relevant.

3. To increase the quality of relevant content

   • Google’s goal is to provide searchers with websites holding information on what they seek. The more relevant content you have on your wordpress  website & blog, the more your site is seen as a valuable resource. This results in a higher placement in the Search Engine Results.
   • A high content Blog allows you to keep the remainder of your business’ website sales oriented and not content dense. This is key as most customers prefer to scan headers and lists. Not wade through paragraphs. A Wordpress Blog allows those paragraphs to remain on your website without compromising the sale portion of your site.
4. To be able to add content without the assistance of a web designer
   • It is essential that you are able to control the content of your Business’ Blog on your schedule not your web developers. There is nothing more frustrating then needing a edit done asap and having to wait on another.
5. …. I’d love to hear your comments on how you see your Wordpress Blog impacting Your Business!

Finding Blog Topic Inspirations

I know my website needs a blog

But what to write about?

This question is repeated to me time and again by clients. I even asked the same question when I began blogging. Then one day it hit me … I spend several hours a week answering clients questions over the phone and via email why not leverage this work

This approach has proved invaluable to me as a blogger. By posting blogs inspired by client questions I accomplish many things.

First, I know my posts are relevant to my readers. As the saying goes, “If you have a question ask it. You are not the only person in the room who is wondering the same thing”

Second, My posts are related to my work and thus on topic with the rest of my website. This translated into an increase in relevant content for my website; a powerful component of SEO.

Third, it gives me an opportunity to extend conversations beyond one person. Where an e-mail only connects me with one person; a blog opens up the conversation to the world.

So that is where I find my inspiration

Where do you find inspiration for your blog posts?

A SiteMap for Your Wordpress Blog

In the world of SEO sitemaps are consider a basic for every website. This got me thinking – Why not create a sitemap for my Wordpress Blog.

In my quest for an answer I went straight to the source – Google. There I found the following:

“A Sitemap does not affect the actual ranking of your pages. However, if it helps get more of your site crawled (by notifying us of URLs we didn’t previously didn’t know about, and/or by helping us prioritize the URLs on your site), that can lead to increased presence and visibility of your site in our index.”

So what is Google saying? Essentially a Sitemap will not effect how pages are ranked. However, it will increase the speed at which the page is found and indexed by Google.

Wow! this is the proof I was looking for. If I can speed up the rate at which the search engines fine new entries on my wordpress website I am all for it.

Otherwise I will need to wait till the next time Google decides to crawl my home page. From there, Google will need to follow a link to my Blog and finally notice I made a new entry. That could take a while. I’m not one to wait; especially if I do not have to.

So I am off to generate a sitemap specifically for my wordpress blog so I can say to Google “Hey Look! Check this Out!”