rocking out your site with wordpress

Rocking Your Site Out With WordPressby Nile Flores

www.blondish.net | @blondishnet

What I will cover today…

• Why Use WordPress? (my answer to this question)• What site owners should focus on when developing

their site both design-wise and content-wise.• How you can use WordPress in combination with

social networking to drive traffic and convert visitors.

Why WordPress?

• Easy to use. • Easy to teach to anyone.• Open Source software always updating and

advancing far more quickly than other CMS• Easy to design once you know the code.• Flexible for most projects.• Great community that provides support• SEO ready• Lots of useful plugins to optimize and make

your site dynamic.

WordPress is NOT just a blog platform!

• Web directory• Forum• Social Bookmark Site• Photo Gallery• Wiki

• Magazine• Auction Site• E-commerce• Site Showcase

You can do a lot of things with WordPress:

…and more!!!

Here are a few examples

IMAGINATION

In thinking outside the box, you will create a site that is worthy of your brand and

something you can be proud to share with others.

Two Key Factors to Your Site

• Design• Content

work hand in hand

Design and Content

Tips For Your Content• Provide unique information. Where one site might have

information similar, you want to dig deeper and give your readers something they can find

• Give your visitors a way to provide feedback. This helps you know what they are looking for so you can keep bringing them back.

• Have a focus. Whether you have a magazine, a business blog, community blog, personal blog, or some other site, keep your site on-topic.

Tips For Your Content• YARPP is your friend. (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) This

allows your visitors to see other related articles of interest, & successfully converts them.

• Google XML Sitemaps plugin is your friend too! Let the search engines know when you update your posts and pages.

• Offer a way to subscribe to your site, even if your site has no a blog. Examples: RSS feed, newsletter, social network handles like Twitter and Facebook.

(Continued….)

Tips For Your Design• Always offer clear ways of navigating your site. You might

even consider a couple ways like Breadcrumb navigation, top navigation menu, or bottom navigation menu

• SEO techniques say you should not go heavy on graphics. While this is true, you do can still not sacrifice your design. Sometimes CSS can do wonders.

• Try to use your page space (whitespace) wisely, but do not overdo it. Too much and it looks chaotic.

• Not sure of a color scheme, try colourlovers.com

Tips For Your Design• Do not use a ton of plugins. They will slow your site if they

involve database processes.• Be aware of how your site looks in other browser resolutions

and browsers in general (www.browsershots.org)• Try to keep up with W3C coding standards. This will help cut

down differences in your design from one browser to the next. You can check your site at validator.w3.org

(Continued….)

How you can use WordPress in

combination with social networking to drive traffic and convert

visitors.

Your Content Needs An Audience

Your content, whether you are selling a product or have a blog needs attention. In order to do that you need to tell people. These days, the best way is through social network sites or

forums.

Good Tools to Use

Twitter

Twitter Tools plugin by Alex King – Automatically publishes your posts to Twitter

Facebook

RSS Graffiti Facebook Application – Grabs Your Sites RSS feed and publishes your post to your profile page or Company’s Facebook page

These will help make your life easier when it comes to sharing your content with people on Twitter and Facebook. You will not have to manually publish, so you have more time engaging and influencing your followers.

Converting Your Visitors

While you might have the content up, you need to put it in key spots to get your visitors attention.

• Above the Fold• In Your Sidebar• Before Comments• In your blog updates

A Few Examples of Attention Grabbing Elements For A Site

• Banners• Specially designed widgets• jQuery content Sliders• Related Posts plugin (YARPP)

The point is to lead your visitors to where you want them to go other than your front page. If you do not have anything, then your visitors will just read your article and leave, rather than stay and go where you want them to go.

Great WordPress Resources• WordPress Codex (codex.wordpress.org)• WordPress Support Forums

(wordpress.org/support)• WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson• WPHacks.com• WeblogToolsCollection.com• Yoast.com• WPRecipes.com• WPEngineer.com• WPBeginner.com• WPAddict.net

Any questions?

www.blondish.netTwitter: blondishnet

www.wpaddict.net Twitter: wpaddictOR

Email: nile@blondish.netSkype Chat: blondishnet

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