Create your own Blogsite

A web presence is an essential element for any new business. In today’s world it is as important as having a mobile number or an email address.  A business website works for you all over the world 24/7, providing information on your company and promoting your services or products to potential customers.

Small businesses generally operate on small budgets that don’t stretch to thousands of dollars for a professionally designed website (although this might be different if the business is selling online). Now, thanks to a vibrant and active software developer community, it is possible to create a low-cost professional website yourself. One that you can edit and update as your business grows or changes. The only financial outlay the purchase of a domain name and hosting package, and of course an investment of your own time.

WordPress, started in 2003, is now the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world. The international WordPress developer community created this open source software and made it freely available to everyone to use as they see fit. WordPress is now used by bloggers everywhere and increasingly by Fortune 500 companies for their websites or blogs - Fisher Price, Nikon, eBay Insider, Samsung Newsroom to name just a few. Admittedly you will need more than a basic knowledge of web development to create sites with that level of sophistication. However, with just a little knowledge you can create your own professional looking website and get your business online quickly and on a modest budget.

But I don’t want a blog I want a website!

Although WordPress was developed by the community as blogging software it can easily be customised. It can be adapted using only limited knowledge, to create either a BlogSite (Blog with website pages) or a dedicated Website. The dedicated Website option has the advantage of retaining the ability to utilise plugins (more on these later), which add capabilities such as user registration and Twitter feeds.  On a custom built website these capabilities, available free in WordPress at a click of a button, would all require additional custom coding and incur additional cost.

WordPress also includes, as part of its software package, a powerful yet user-friendly Admin Panel that allows creation, updating and customisation of your site.

How do I get started?

Four easy steps are all that are required to get your site up and running:

1. Register your domain name;
2. sign up with a web hosting service;
3. Visit www.wordpress.org to download the latest version of WordPress;
4. Follow the Quick 5 minute WordPress installation (details available on the WordPress website) and have your site up and running in minutes.

So now you have a fully functioning site online, albeit basic. Now you need to learn how to make it your own. The CMS is where the magic happens!

So what’s a CMS?

CMS stands for Content Management System which is a fancy technical term for an Administration Panel.

The WordPress CMS interface is designed to be uncluttered and user-friendly.

The Dashboard, which is your first view of the CMS, provides an overview of your site, the QuickPress panel and, if added, the site statistics plugin appears here.

The Navigation bar, on the left-hand side, takes you to basic site creation features (post and page creation, a media library, site appearance, comments editing), as well as links to general settings, user setup and plugins.  If you add plugins that have settings or options panels, they will install themselves at the bottom of the navigation bar or in the settings panel.

WordPress provides the option to create posts or pages on a site. If you choose to create web pages for your site then ensure that you turn off the “Allow comments” option when you add a new page. This will ensure that the page does not appear with a comments section under the page information.

Branding your site?

WordPress comes with a default theme, which is basic and uninspiring. This however is only a starting point and there are thousands of free themes available to ‘skin’ your site.

There are three ways to theme your site:

1. Free themes – A selection of great themes are available on the internet. However, the ‘payment’ for being a free theme means that you will host a link for the designer/provider of the theme. This may be a link to an aspiring web designer or a Viagra website! Check carefully before you make your choice.
2. Buy a theme – These are themes designed for purchase and do not host ads. Prices range from $5.00 upwards, with the price increasing as the level of design sophistication and ability to customise the theme increases.
3. Engage a Web Designer. If you have particular branding requirements or don’t have a logo or branding established yet and you do have some spare cash this is a good choice. The end result will most closely reflect your business look and style and ultimately save you a redesign at a later date.

Uploading a theme is easy. You can search for a theme through the Appearance section of the CMS and load it onto your site directly. Preview your chosen theme first to see if you like it. WordPress loads the theme automatically to your site and it will appear permanently themed in the browser once you have activated it.

What are plugins?

Plugins are small software programmes that extend the capabilities of WordPress allowing you to customise your site by adding features that are relevant to your particular requirements. These plugins (almost 10,000 currently available) allow you to enjoy the fruits of the Developer community’s knowledge at no cost. They are generally well supported and once installed can be upgraded easily through the plugins section of the CMS.

The variety of WordPress plugins available is extensive. 

Basic Plugin requirements for any site would include: Site Statistics, Search Engine Optimisation assistance and spam protection. Thereafter, add plugins to suit your site requirements  - user log-in, links to Social networking sites, form building, web invoicing and billing, an events calendar  – the list is endless.

There are also some industry specific plugins available.  One example is The Simple Real Estate Pack plugin, which includes mortgage and home affordability calculators, a closing cost estimator, live mortgage rates, a local rental rates meter and many more industry specific tools.

Spend some time researching the correct combination of plugins to meet your site’s requirements this will be time well spent.

To blog or not to blog?

Many small businesses may choose not to add a blog page to their site. A Blog page can however provide positive support for your site in terms of that ever important determinant in getting your site found by search engines - search engine optimisation (SEO).

Many websites built for small businesses are created and then remain untouched because they may lack regular changing content. In this respect a blog with regular posts attached to your site would be advantageous to attract search engines.

SEO is an art that yields results over time and requires persistence and fine tuning (choosing good keywords, page titles, obtaining links to your sites and getting more and more visitors, to name just a few issues). However, with the correct use of an SEO program and blog posts covering content relevant to your business (wherever possible relevant to current news items, product launches etc. in your industry area) your site should progress well over time. Allow about 3 months for Google to give a new site reasonable recognition. Remember a search on Google for ‘web site’ alone produces over 3,500 million hits!

If you are unable to invest the time required to learn how to optimise your site well and your budget is limited you may wish to invest in a Web Designer to do this for you.

Ask your Web Designer to optimise the site and give you SEO tips on how to maintain this yourself to increase your rankings.

Supercharge your Site

Now that you have built your site and themed it why not start to supercharge it? Work on attracting as much traffic to your site as you can.

If you are using social media in your marketing then this is an opportunity to use plugins to bring in Twitter feeds or to post to your Facebook Business page. If used correctly, this will assist with regular, updated site content and help to drive traffic to your site.

Do some research, learn how to write posts and content that are keyword-rich and relevant to your customers. Use plugins to further optimise your page titles so that they will be found by new customers searching for information on your industry.

If you have a small range of items that you wish to sell over the internet think about creating a products webpage.  Open a PayPal account then put product information and Buy Now buttons on your web page.

This article has given you an overview on how you can create a Website or Blogsite for your business with a small investment of time and money. Ultimately it will serve you well as you will be in control of your content, and can expand and supercharge your site as your confidence and knowledge grows.