An Introduction to WordPress for Prospective Entrepreneurs &

Startups

West High School 4 Nov 2016

By M. Jon Brownwww.journeymacedonia.com

Create Business Plan◦ Your identity (business name, trademark, logo, etc.)◦ What you’re offering◦ Your target◦ Marketing strategies

Perform Reality & Viability Check (profit margins)

Secure Financing Support of Friends & Family Register Domain Name & Obtain Web Host

Steps Prior to Internet Launch

Is free and easy to learn and use. It’s not just for blogging, is very flexible and

can be used for small to large websites An enormous support community

◦ Blogs - http://www.wpbeginner.com/ https://wordpress.org/support/

◦ Word Camps - https://central.wordcamp.org/ Over 4,000 Themes and over 45,000 plug-

ins are available for free.

Why WordPress

Powerful and easy to use Content Management System (CMS)

Very customizable and scalable (ramp-up ability)

Whether you are only advertising services on Craig’s List (dog walker, baby sitting) and need a landing page for potential clients to get more info on you and your services, or you want to open a store to sell products and take credit cards – WordPress can meet your needs

Why WordPress

Three Most Popular Site Building Platforms in 2016

Source: http://websitesetup.org/

Theme – The graphical interface that controls the presentation (design) of your website/

Posts –news & information (content) you use to engage the audience. Posts are dynamic and can be shared via RSS feeds & social media◦ Can be tagged and grouped into Categories◦ Users can leave comments

Page - For static content such as “About Us”, “Contact Us” “Privacy Policy” and etc.

WordPress Basics

Categories – Used for sorting and grouping content (posts).

Keywords – These are what search engines use to identify your website, what it is about and plays into how your page is ranked.

Tags – are internal to your website and allow for grouping of and finding related material on your site.

Plugins – Adds to or controls features on your website

WordPress Basics

Example Site DiagramPetServicesIC.com

DogsCats Goldfish & Reptiles

Dog Groomin

gDog

Exercises

Categories(Static)

Home Page/Index

Sub-categories(Static)

Dog Walkin

gSwimmin

gFrisbeeCatchin

gPosts(Dynamic Content)

About Us

Page(Static)

After installing WordPress on your web domain, before you can add any content – You will need to choose a theme.

Before choosing a theme, it’s a great idea to have site plan depicting how you want your site displayed and the key features & plugins you need on your site.

Browse other websites offering similar products or services.◦ What are their +s and –s?◦ What can you do to stand out?

Choosing a Theme

Free WordPress themes are available at https://wordpress.org/themes/

Read the ratings and reviews The number of “Active Installs” can be a

great indicator of reliability, support (especially continued support) and plugins availability.

Preview the Demo and look for documentation (done well?) and support options

Choosing a Theme

Theme must be “Responsive”, seamless across all platforms – mobile, tablet, PC

Make sure the theme is optimized for SEO with headers, alt tags and etc.

Website speed. Does it load fast? Themes with lots of extras you won’t use can

slow down your site If a free theme has a premium version that you

like, test out the free version before paying for the upgrade.

Choosing a Theme

Keep it simple – Don’t clutter, Less = More Make your site easy to navigate and content

easily accessible Don’t make forms difficult Use fonts that make for easy reading Use quality images to enhance visual

appeal or for branding It is all about the UX (User Experience). Put yourself in the shoes of the user. Is your site intuitive & easy to use?

Website Design Tips

Beware of installing too many plugins on your website. Plugins need to be updated and the more plugins you have installed, the greater the security risk to your site.

Plugin Directory - https://wordpress.org/plugins/

As with choosing Themes – read the reviews, check the ratings, number of active installs, & current compatibility

with WordPress

Choosing Plugins

Akismet◦ Protects your site’s comments and contact forms

from getting “spammed”. Free for bloggers. Contact Form 7

◦ A free plugin that allows you to manage multiple contact forms

Dave's WordPress Live Search◦ Adds "live search" functionality to your WordPress

site Email Address Encoder

◦ A free and lightweight plugin that protects email addresses from email-harvesting robots by encoding them into decimal and hexadecimal entities.

Useful Plugins

iThemes Security ◦ A great security plugin that is free. ◦ Note: Do not install too many security plugins are your site.

There is a potential for conflict that could result in the plugins not working and leaving your defenseless

Jetpack◦ A free plugin that gives you a centralized dashboard to

manage plugins, and tools on visitor stats, security services, speeding up images, and ways to get more traffic

Mailchimp ◦ Allows you to add subcsribers to your site

NextGen Gallery◦ A great free plugin for displaying pictures and galleries

on your site

Useful Plugins

WooCommerce◦ a free eCommerce plugin to establish your online

store. Does offer premium services. WordPress PopUp

◦ Allows you to create PopUps, targeted marketing campaigns, keep customers from leaving your site, and build your mailing list

Yoast SEO◦ Hands down, the best onsite SEO plugin. ◦ Free version is extremely useful.

Useful Plugins

Onsite SEO: ◦ Optimizing your website’s content,

structure, titles, descriptions and keywords to make your website search engine friendly.A great onsite SEO Tool: https://yoast.com/

Offsite SEO: ◦ Inbound links from External websites◦ A great offsite SEO Tool

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner (offsite)

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and etc.

Efficient Indexing: Google XML Sitemap

Link Exchange - Exchange links with service-related websites

Submitting Content to other sites: Write a guest post for another blog or leave a comment.

Participate in discussion/message boards.

YouTube - Create your own YouTube channel and share videos and reviews of your business

Classifieds - Advertise your products and/or services on sites such as Craigslist

Other Offsite SEO Ideas

After installing WordPress, you will have a default username of “Admin”. ◦ Hackers are aware of this and they can attempt a brute-

force attack as now they only need to find your password to gain entry.

◦ You will want to change this username (create another user) to make it more difficult for hackers. Research how.

◦ Also, check with your web host to ensure they minimize login attempts and if they don’t, install a plug in that will limit the number of login attempts.

Other Useful Tips

Get a SSL Certificate – it authenticates the identity of your site and provides an encrypted connection between your web server and your visitors' web browser

Use RSS feeds – update your content, so that people can read it in their mailboxes, feed reader and/or other devices.

Create an e-mail newsletter list (subscribers) and regularly (not too frequent) send out updates and useful information.

Other Useful Tips

Google Analytics◦ Tracks and reports traffic on your website◦ A wealth of statistical and demographical info

regarding visitors to your site◦ https://analytics.google.com/

Google Search Console◦ You can check the indexing the status of your

website and optimize visibility. Check for 404 errors and broken links.

◦ https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Other Useful Tips

Create a Contact Form◦ Allow users to contact you directly or anonymously

Always Update◦ For security purposes – ensure that your WordPress

installation, themes and Plugins are always updated. Look for the red dots on your dashboard.

Regularly Backup◦ Under your web hosting plan, know the

capabilities, limits and prices to backup and restore your website.

Other Useful Tips

It's not just for blogging

It’s open source software that is free to use with free themes and plugins available

You don‘t need to be a developer or know how to write code to use it effectively.

WordPress

Any Questions?