GEN34 : Take Control of Your Website: Putting Wordpress to Work for You

Amanda O’Brien

CPE Credit

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for 60 min sessions, 1.5 for 90 min sessions, 1.5 for 75 min sessions and 2 for 120 min sessions>

– Delivery Method = Group Live– Field of Study = Specialized Knowledge and Applications

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Introduction

• This presentation will be available online after the conference. You will receive an email for the Insights session Website approximately 4 weeks after Insights.

• amanda@hallme.comBooth 517

Amanda O’Brien

VP of Marketing

Hall Web Services

Learning Objectives• After participating in this session, you will be able to:

– Know the benefits of a CMS/Wordpress website

– How much content your website needs

– How to customize your Wordpress site

– Important Plugins to make your site work for you

Benefits of a Wordpress site• Easy to use

• Each entry is a new page

• Great for SEO

• Categorizes information

• No need for web developer to update content

• Great compliment to a business website

• Can be skinned to look like your website

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeltelling/292642699/

Other Popular CMS Systems• Joomla

– Open source– Great for designers

• Drupal– Open source– More developer friendly (not necessarily user friendly)– Ready for more hand coding

Blog Benefits• Social Media Hub

• More personal companion to your website

• Easy to update and organize

• WYSIWYG editors make formatting easier

• Gets your website and company found

CMS/Blog Downfalls• Time commitment

• Checks and balances

• More responsible for knowing SEO

• Wordpress easier to use but not as customizable

Things to Consider Before• What are your goals?

• Strategy

• Allowing comments

• Who is going to write?

• How often?

Succeeding at Blogging• Provide valuable content

• Create an editorial calendar

• Be consistent

• Define and stick to your niche

• Read other blogs

• Mix it up (video, images)

• Write what you know and care about

Setting Goals• Sell more stuff

• Establish yourself as expert

• Brand Awareness

• Customer Service

Measure Trek to Those Goals• Business Goals not blog metrics

• Website Traffic

• Traffic from Blog to Product Pages

• Blog only offering (discount codes)

• Brand mentions on social media sites and other blogs

• Trackbacks

• Comments

• Lower Customer Service Calls

How much content is enough?• Search engines read words

• Keyword searches are getting more complex

• More you update, more search engines come back

• Being consistent is more important

• 1 a week and measure effectiveness

Lets Get Technical

Getting Started• Domain (Dreamhost one-click Wordpress Option)

• FTP (File transfer protocol)

• Theme or create a custom theme (clothes for your blog)

• Blogging for you or to be found?

• What happens between web visit and a sale?

Free Themes vs. Pay vs. Create• Free doesn’t mean good

• Bad code makes it hard for search engines to read your website

• Free usually means lack of control

• Create – need lots of technical skills

Thesis

Now What?

Get Found and Make Subscribing Easy• SEO

– Key words– Google Adwords free keyword tool– Optimize content

• Categories

• Email subscribers– Less tech savvy

• RSS subscribers

Plugins• Akismet

• SEO Title Tag

• Sociable

• Disqus

Questions?

Summary• A Wordpress site, blog or CMS may be a viable solution

• Inexpensive

• Easy to update

• Need content and in-house resources

• Define your nich, position yourself as an expert

• Try plugins to make it easier

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