Site-Owner-Friendly Websites With WordPress
The days are here that you can manage your own website without knowing web design, code or programming.
This is due to the technology, like the WordPress platform. WordPress (WP) has gone beyond the traditional WP powered blog with full-fledged websites.
There are thousands of pre-designed WP Themes (design and functionality of a website), and web designers or web developers can create a custom theme, as well. Themes are what give the look and feel of a website or blog, like a website template, except with functionality (which web templates do not provide). We use Artisteer software to create WP themes.
Themes are also customizable and usually very flexible, both in style and function. This is great for making a color scheme change and allowing for future website growth.
Here’s our Internet marketing website where we created a theme in Artisteer that looks just like any normal business website!
Benefits of a WordPress website:
- It does not take much technical knowledge to manage a WordPress-based website.
- It provides a flexible, manageable and dynamic website
- It dispenses with needing a technical person to make updates or simple changes to the site
- It’s a content management system (CMS) that allows you to easily manage your content
- It has an abundant amount of fabulous plug-ins (a small program or combination of programs) which can be added, and they integrate seamlessly with WP. These plug-ins give added features and functionality to the site.
- It makes it easier to optimize your search engine results. WordPress is very search engine friendly technology!
- It has a “back office” that you can log in and access your site from anywhere
- It allows multiple users to post or manage your site.
- It performs automatic backs ups of your site
The Power of Plugins
Regarding plugins, a MySocialMediaVA.com article states, “There is a plug-in for virtually anything you want to accomplish in WordPress. [...] If you want to monitor your visitor statistics, increase interaction with your visitors, add a photo gallery, automatically back up your database or anything else you have a desire to do with your site, you can most likely find a plug-in to use, and like we said, most of them are free.”
Some essential plugins (or variations of plugins) for a website include:
- Askimet (to prevent spam)
- All-in-One SEO Pack
- WordPress Database Backup
- Ultimate Google Analytics
- Contact Form 7
- W3 Total Cache (for site performance)
- Social Sharing Toolkit and Social Media Widget (or Share and Follow)
Other plugins to customize a user’s experience and/or a site’s specific needs include:
- Slideshow (for photo galleries) or NextGen Gallery
- Mingle or BuddyPress (for a social network site)
- WP Polls
- Events Manager
- Forum plugins, like WP Forum Server
- CSV User Import (to import a bulk email list into your user / subscriber base
- Mass Mail (to send out mass email to your subscriber base
- Simple Ads Manager or AdRotate
- Click Tracker
Like themes, there are thousands and thousands of plugins!
Dynamic and Engaging WordPress Sites
Here is a recent WP site we created for a singer/songwriter that was easy to change the color scheme for based on colors from the background image – not to mention her site is now dynamic and engages her web visitors (fans can subscribe to her updates, comment on her posts, share on social networks, listen to her music, etc.). The site also has a shopping cart for visitors to purchase products:
As above, this actress’ WP site similarly enables her to personally keep her fans updated on upcoming shows in tv/film and live performances without having to wait for a webmaster or technical expert to do it for her. She can also easily add or change photos in her photo gallery any time she wants.
This business WP site provides fresh article content that allows visitors to interact and leave comments, as well as easily keep their homepage updated regularly with news and updates. And, the navigation menus are seamlessly changed when new services are added.
With this WP site, the salon owner is able to update her own homepage with daily and/or weekly special sales. This was a critical factor, as she was unable to do that previously without having to wait for her webmaster to find time to update it for her.
This new site is a WP video site that allows the owner to easily post their own latest videos. And, since a new video is posted on a weekly basis, the timing was an important factor.
On this WP site, the theme has a social network plugin that makes it a fully functional social network site with members. It has all the bells and whistles of a social network, giving the administrator(s) the ability to engage with their members.
Similarly, this WP site also has members, but they are students who are given access to log into the online course room. Serving also as an information site, other site visitors can browse around to get info about the training program, but cannot access the student area.
No matter what your needs are, there’s a plugin that will take care of it!
Leave a comment and tell us what your needs are! Or, just contact us for a quote to create a WP site for you!
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