Word Press, WP, Blog, Blogging, CMS, Add Value, Business Website, Word Press as Content Management System, Search Engine Optimization, SEO
WordPress
I’m sure by now you’ve come across a number of web sites that have a Word Press blog either integrated with the owner’s static web site (HTML site), as a standalone, or (less easy to spot for folks not in our industry) a Word Press blog configured to look like a static site, but which is in fact a clever use of Word Press as a CMS (Content Management System).
If you’re new to Word Press, or have not yet fully considered its potential value to your business, you may wonder what all the hype is about, and may be asking yourself if having a Word Press blog can help to promote your business online to your regular visitors and customers?
The Answer:
Word Press is a free open-source blogging platform which is constantly evolving to keep pace with the ever-changing world wide web. It has been around for a number of years now, since 2003 in fact.
In their own words (http://wordpress.org/about/) Word Press has become “the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.”
And there’s the answer to the second part of your question: “…can having a Word Press blog help to promote my business online to my regular visitors and customers?”
YES!
With Word Press having become so ubiquitous, and used by so many millions of people across the world every day, it is now a highly probable fact that NOT having a Word Press blog to promote your business can actually hurt your online promotion and marketing efforts.
I have used Word Press in one way or another since 2004, and I can truly say that I would never consider having a web site without either integrating a WP blog or using Word Press as a CMS to promote my own business as a professional freelance web designer and developer.
I highly recommend Word Press as both a content management system and a blogging platform to all my clients. It is a fantastic way to reach out to your customers, especially on today’s internet.
Why WP Is Great
RSS or Atom Feed Subscriptions
When using Word Press as a promotion tool, your readers are instantly provided with the option to subscribe to your blog’s RSS or Atom feeds, thereby getting your updates and news instantly from their favorite feed-reader or browser bookmarking tool. In other words, you are giving your audience an easy way to ‘stay in touch’ with your site, thereby reaching a much wider, and more loyal, audience than you would if you only depended on your static web site to promote your business.
And of course, offering your users different options to stay up to date with your happenings and promotions is THE best way to go! So offer an RSS or Atom feed subscription to your blog, in addition to your regular e-mail newsletter subscriptions, and you have all your bases covered.
Writing Posts
Blogging is not the same as “writing a daily diary”, though, this is where the original idea for “blogs” sprung from. Nowadays blogs are better used to write interesting, original and relevant information about your niche or industry, special interests, etc. Blogs are mostly used to educate and inform, and to promote!
Besides text copy, your posts can include images, links, podcasts (video) and social-media promotion buttons (a fantastic way to further promote your business).
Word Press blogs also include any number of static pages which can accommodate (in addition to everything you can do with a blog post) interactive photo galleries, contact forms and so forth.
You can have link lists to your favorite web sites and/or reciprocal links lists in the left, right side bars of your blog, you can have widgets promoting your Twitter, Facebook or FriendFinder streams, amongst others. There is also room to spare for your blog archives (a list of your old posts) and a great deal more.
Developers have produced thousands of free plugins that cover a range of interactive features and neat tools for use on your Word Press blog, for free! If you can think of it, there is probably a Word Press plugin for it. Some, of course, are better than others, and learning which plugins will best serve your purposes requires some experimentation, and research.
Search Engine Friendly
Apart from being very user-friendly (from both an admin and user point of view), Word Press is also extremely search engine friendly.
Regular updates on your Word Press blog will ensure that your web site remains current with the search engines, and it keeps your business in the fore-front with your customers and users (i.e. a constant reminder).
If you post regular, relevant, original content, specific to your industry, special interest or niche, and then promote your blog posts through social media and other built-in tools, then you can be assured that you will soon gain a loyal following (subscribers).
Search engines love blog posts, especially if the content is original, and written for your audience, and not just for the search engines (a mistake many people still make, unfortunately).
A note on writing original content: This is the single most important piece of advice I will give you – don’t copy what other people have written – this is illegal and does you no good with the Search Engines.
Always make sure that what you write is original, and that your spelling and grammar is tip-top.
The other piece of advice I’ll give you is to KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Make sure your text copy is easy to read. In other words, keep paragraphs short (three to four sentences) don’t waffle on with long explanations or high falutin’ vocab. People skim read on the internet, and if your writing style is not simple, informative or engaging enough they will quickly lose interest and move on to greener pastures.
It’s 2010, not the 1990′s …
Today the internet is a busy market place and if you don’t keep your web site current, modern and relevant, you won’t be found by your target audience, and you won’t gain the loyal following that can increase your bottom-line.
If used properly, a Word Press blog is today’s gateway to online success. Using it wisely, and with skill (practice makes perfect) you will soon find that it is an invaluable tool.
Getting started …
If you have never used Word Press before, and would like to get started, go on and have a look at WordPress.Org and read through their documentation and help files. It is a great place to start.
If you’re too busy to learn how to implement and customize Word Press yourself, write me an e-mail and let’s talk about getting you started with Word Press. I can install and customize Word Press to suit your specific needs, and can provide you with easy-to-follow instructions on updating and managing your blog.
© Copyright Dew Lilly Design - www.dewlillydesign.com
Related posts:
