Web Design Built on WordPress
Have you noticed the rather odd looking default Avatars that WordPress ships with? And who is Mystery Man?
You can add a default avatar of your choice. Add the following to you functions.php and upload the avatar to your images directory.
When editing content in the TinyMCE editor, it would be nice for the text to look like it will once you publish the content. In previous versions of WordPress, there was no easy way to do this. You had to do some hacks to get the visual editor to display your style sheet.
To style the editor so your content in the dashboard looks like the content your publishing, you simply add the following to you functions.php file of your theme:
| /** Add Editor Styles within a WP Child theme*/ | |
| add_editor_style(); //This will use the default styles of your child theme stylesheet. | |
| /** Add Editor Styles for WP Themes */ | |
| add_editor_style( 'custom-editor-style.css' ); |
One of the problems your website has to overcome is Bounce Rate. It is the metric of how quickly someone leaves your site. When the bounce rate is high, that indicates that people are leaving without spending any appreciable amount of time on your site.
A high bounce rate can be bad for business. Keep it LOW! [TWEET]
Recent studies have shown an ever-increasing trend in mobile users. The number of people accessing the internet with a mobile device is growing. According to a September 2012 study by PewInternet, nearly 50% of American adults have a smartphone.
With the increase in mobile devices, we have a function problem with our websites. The vast majority of websites are not ready for a mobile world.
When people share a link on Facebook or Twitter to your website, odds are someone with a mobile phone is going to see it in their feed. When they click the link, they are going to be taken to a page with a miniature version of your website that is unusable. Buttons are to small, images are tiny and text is unreadable.
A website that is not optimized for mobile is losing business. clicktotweet
Google collects hordes of data and has commented on the growth and power of mobile. As they looked at their data and measured user expectations, they found that web design for mobile devices had a significant effect on consumers. According to their study, when a person landed on a website that was mobile friendly, they were 67% more likely to buy from that site.
Having a mobile friendly website will have an immediate and significant impact on your consumers and business. Imagine what this would do for your conversion rates, your bounce rates and subscriptions.
When a person landed on a website that was mobile friendly, they were 67% more likely to buy from that site.
The same study found that when a they landed on a non-mobile friendly site with their mobile device, they were 61% more likely to LEAVE! They are out of there. They hit the back button.
A site that is not optimized for the mobile experience WILL cost you business, customers, and traffic.
The fact is this trend is growing. The number of mobile users is trending up, not down. The reality is that if your website is not mobile ready, you are missing business now and you will continue to miss out on business.
I would immediately begin looking at your website analytics to see what percent of your site traffic is coming from mobile devices. If you are getting 40% or more of your traffic from mobile devices,
you should seriously consider making a change to your website. If you are less than 40%, you need to begin making plans to develop a
mobile site. The growth of mobile is compelling. Don’t get left behind and lose sales and leads.
Are you seeing a lot of social media sites, like Facebook or Twitter? These sites tend to have a higher percentage of mobile referrals than desktop referrals.
If you are on WordPress, there are some options you can take immediately. There are several plugins that will convert your website into a mobile friendly site. Simply install the plugin and it will deliver a mobile friendly experience. The downside to these plugins is customization. Your mobile site will not match your site branding. It could be a good intermediate as you decide how to transition to mobile.
The best solution is to develop a mobile friendly responsive website for your business. A responsive site will maintain your site’s branding and marketing message on all devices. It will use the same information, therefore giving your mobile user and your desktop user the same experience.
The worst solution is to create a stripped down version of your website to deliver to mobile users. They are looking for and deserve to have access to all of your great content, even if they are on a phone.
I am a firm believer in the value of WordPress to a small business. It is a simple to use content management system that will allow you to update and modify your site content. It powers nearly 25% of all websites on the internet and is a powerful tool for small business.
The most secure, stable and robust WordPress themes you can use are built on the Genesis Framework. This provides you with an incredibly stable platform upon which to build your business. It is the framework that sits on top of WordPress to provide your site with the support and structure to meet your business needs.
There are numerous free and premium StudioPress themes that will provide your site with the mobile friendly experience and the professional design you deserve. The StudioPress themes are mobile ready by using responsive design code. This will make sure your site looks great on the desktop, tablet or phone.
Making sure your website is mobile friendly will help your site traffic, conversion and lead generation. It will lower your bounce rate and improve your consumer experience.
What has been your experience? Are you mobile ready? What impact did it have on your site when you made the switch? Share you experience in the comments below.
We have written a lot about different SEO tools that will help you get found online. They are all excellent. But what I am excited about is the tool that I have recently discovered. Raven Tools!
The last post talked about what you need to do get your your website found. We looked at the absolute minimum set of tools you need to be successful with online search.
The problem with all of these tools is that they are all over the place. You have so much data in so many places that it makes it difficult to understand. Unless you are a spreadsheet guru, you will always have difficulty using so much data scattered among so many sources.
It is into this space that RavenTools enters. They have developed a series of tools that brings all of your data under one roof. Your Google Analytics, Adwords, Keyword Research, Social Media, etc are all accessible from one dashboard. You can simply scroll through your data, run reports, compare metrics and really begin to see what is and what is not working for your website.
It really is the tool that I will use exclusively going forward. It makes the process of data mining and research so much more effective. And I don’t know about you, but time is one thing I NEED to manage better. And Raven Tools is helping me.
Watch and see what Raven does for you . . .
Are you interested? Would you like to have this kind of information at your disposal?
I’m going to be making it possible for you to use this amazing tool, but here’s what you have to do. In the comments below, answer this question. Everyone who answers it will have an opportunity to get access to RavenTools for their business.
Ready?
What are you currently using for search optimization? How effective is it for you? Are you getting traffic and qualified leads? Explain what your doing in the comments. . . Go!
You have a website. Now What?
A website without traffic is doing your business no good. Getting your website found is critical if you want to grow and build your online presence.
If you follow this blog, you should know that getting found online is a very important topic. We’ve talked about the basics and tools that will help you get found for a long time. We even put together a free email course to help small businesses get an understanding of the basics of SEO so they could get their website found.
As a small business owner, finding the time to grow your business can be difficulty. If your like the majority of small business owners, you probably wear a lot of hats and it takes a lot of time.
What I want to do is help you maximize your time and become more effective with your website. I want to help you find the tools and resources that will make getting found less difficult.
There are plenty of wonderful tools available to do quality SEO. Some are free, while others are not. What I want to do is identify the essential pieces of the puzzle and give you some tools or tips to help you do the basics of SEO so your website starts to show in search results.
The first and most important tool is basic web analytics. Analytics provide you with data about visitors to your site. It identifies the keywords used to get to your site, the pages visited, the number of visits per day, etc. It is a significant piece of the puzzle because it tells what is happening on your website.
When you review and track your analytics, you should be able to find trends that work. What are the keywords that bring visitors? What pages seem to be the most active? Do visitors stay on the site and read content or vanish after the first page?
Answers to these questions can be found while studying your analytic data. You have several tools at your disposal.
Google Analytics: A free tool that keeps track of traffic. It requires a google account and site ownership verification. By placing a small piece of code on your site, Google begins to track your visitors.
AWStats: Most web hosts provide Awstats for free. Access your sites cPanel and open the Awstates panel. This data is collected directly from server logs. It is an excellent source of data that will help you know what to do to improve your sites performance in search.
You need to be able to research keywords to find available terms that you can optimize for. I tell people that not doing keyword research is link trying to shoot at a target after being spun around three times with a blindfold on. You may hit something, but your probably going to miss your target.
Don’t write post, create pages and generate content blind. Get some information to know how you should phrase your post and what terms are getting searched. Think long-tail instead of short-tail. In other words, instead of trying to optimize for “Widgets,” optimize for “brown widgets that bounce.” The second is a long-tail term that would have less competition. The lower competition terms are easier to rank for.
If your not using Google’s Adword Keyword tool, your missing out on a free tool for research. If you want to get found online, research for terms that have potential.
Social Media is a powerful tool in online marketing. Regardless of the kind of business you run, you have a great resource of potential customers or clients on various Social Media networks. In order for your website to get found online, you must be engaged in Social Media. This is a fairly new trend in search. Google and Bing, the two major search engines, are tied into social media. Google has its social network Google Plus and Bing is the search engine for Facebook.
The reason this is important is because it provides search engines with a type of proof for a page. When people begin to share content online through social networks, search engines begin to identify pages that are important. The more it is shared the more important. These pages begin to get ranked and less engaged content get pushed to the bottom of the heap.
Regardless of the reason you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest, you need to be actively involved sharing your content and engaging with others. This leads to links, comments, shares and increased engagement.
It is the engagement that all website owners want. The engaged audience is one who has bought into who you are and what you do. They listen, respond, share your content. They are the people who buy what you sell.
Social Media monitoring is critical as you build your online presence through search.
As a small business owner, you need SEO to be streamlined, manageable. It needs to be something that you can do in a shorter period of time and get good results.
The problem is that these necessary tasks are generally disconnected. You have to go from one to the other. Copy/Paste information so you can compare. Generate spreadsheets to keep track of all the information. It can become so overwhelming, that many small businesses stop working about SEO and hope for the best.
It’s hard.
But we need a way to streamline the process to make it easier for small businesses to get their websites found in search. . . you need a tool. You need Thor’s Hammer. A tool that is powerful and strong and something that only you can use.
So, here’s your homework. Anser the following question in the comments below: What have you been doing to get your website found online? Is it working? If yes, why? If no, why not?
There are times when you want to change the way your comments are positioned in your blog. The standard positioning in WordPress for your comments is the comment feed above the respond form.
But occasionally, you may want to change this layout. To move the respond form above the commend thread, you need to remove the form and then add it above the comments.
To do this, you use a couple of the built in hooks that come with StudioPress. Adding the following to your functions.php file, will reposition your comment form.
/** Reposition secondary navigation */ remove_action( 'genesis_comment_form', 'genesis_do_comment_form' ); add_action( 'genesis_before_comments' , 'genesis_do_comment_form' );
Which will result in switching the respond form with the comments feed.
Shout off in the comments below. Do you have any other StudioPress questions?
WordPress is a free, open-sources software for web development. Its humble beginnings as a blogging tool has developed into a robust web platform for users at all levels.
As of 2012, over 22% of new websites are built using WordPress. It powers the internet.
WordPress was started by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of the blogging software b2/cafelog in 2003.
The software has evolved from a true blogging tool to a full functioning CMS (Content Management System). No longer is WP “just” for blogging. Thousands of robust, full functioning websites are employing the software to manage the content of their websites.
WordPress provides the user with several simple to use, plug-in play tools. By developing custom websites or using pre-build themes, any user can have a working website up and running in less than 10 minutes. There is no programming experience required, which makes the software very user friendly.
A Theme in WordPress is a site design. There are over 1,600 themes available to download for free from the WP repository. You are able to get a professional looking design, without the design and development cost.
There are various premium themes that are available for purchase from companies like StudioPress (which I uses here on Media317), WooThemes, iThemes, and ThemeForest. You can get high quality, professionally designed themes with many built in features. In many cases it is worth the investment to get a high quality theme design.
You can search, upload and install themes directly from the WordPress Dashboard. By visiting Appearance/Themes, you can select the theme you want to use and install with the click of a few links.
There are over 1,600 themes available to download for free from the WP repository.
The WordPress community is filled with developers solving all sorts of problems. Whether you need an event planner or Google maps for your website, there is probably a plugin already developed. There are over 18,000 plugins that cover the gamete in web needs.
You can install as many plugins as you need for your website. It is recommended that you only install plugins that you absolutely need and that are from reputable developers. Poorly coded plugins open your site up to hackers.
If you are the kind of person who likes total control and responsibility for your website, then a .org self-hosted WordPress is for you. You use your own hosting platform, install it yourself and set it up however you like. You have complete control over the way WP is developed.
This presents some challenges, however. You are totally in control. Which means, you have to keep up with any maintenance or support that may be needed.
If you are the kind of person that likes to have something out of the box that just works, then a .com WordPress might be for you. You use the WordPress community platform that is hosted and maintained by the good people at Automattic. You are limited with what you are able to do on your site.
This presents other challenges. You are not in control. You don’t get to add themes or plugins that you want. You can upgrade to various paid services, but your ability to customize your site is limited by the bounds established by Automattic.
If you are a WordPress user, sound off in the comments. Tell us why you use it. Are you a self-hosted .org user or a .com community hosted user?
Share with the WP community why you have chosen to use this tool for your website.
A business without a mobile responsive website is missing opportunities. With more and more people finding online commerce more convenient and less expensive than traditional forms of commerce, any business owner worth his salt is trying to find a way online.
Having an established online presence is essential to engaging the new generation of consumers who actually prefer to be sold to online and through their mobile devices. These are the same people who will TiVo through commercials on a TV show or simply switch a radio station once it begins playing commercials. However, they will respond enthusiastically to coupons from a QR code or location-based sales pitches on their smart phones.
Having an established online presence is essential to engaging the new generation of consumers who actually prefer to be sold to online and through their mobile devices.
The crux of this online presence should be your mobile website. This will be the landing page that will provide information and commerce for your business. Below are just a few of the reasons that you should invest in a mobile website.
Customers who find your website online are much more likely to purchase from you.
According to many independent surveys, consumers to access a website online are up to 90% more likely to make a purchase or visit a store front than a consumer who accesses a website from a desktop PC.
This makes sense; when an individual accesses a website from a mobile device, that individual is most likely outdoors on the move searching for an answer to a particular problem.
In order to take advantage of these impulse buyers, you must have a mobile website that is ready to go.
Mobile websites give the best ROI of any marketing tool today. Contrary to popular belief, the creation and maintenance of a mobile website is very inexpensive. Because sales can be made directly from a mobile website, it pays for itself much more quickly than does advertising your products and services on television or radio.
Mobile websites have virtually no maintenance costs after the initial design and web hosting fees.
Mobile websites provide a forum for customers to feel personally attached to a business.
You will be viewed as a part of the life of a consumer rather than a business that is looking to sell a product to a consumer.
If you are able to entice your customers to opt in to a location based coupon service or an alert system that directs them to your mobile website, they will likely receive your updates happily rather than viewing them as spam or hard-sell advertising.
This phenomenon is based upon the fact that people perceive any information that comes to them through their personal devices as being more personal to them. You will be viewed as a part of the life of a consumer rather than a business that is looking to sell a product to a consumer.
The mobile website is the missing link between the online and off-line connectivity of your business and the customer.
In order to stay at top of mind of your customer base, you must have a ubiquitous presence in their lives. If you have a desktop website but no mobile website, it is very likely that your customer will completely forget your sales pitch on his way from the PC to the car.
However, if you have a mobile website, your customer is carrying you with him at all times. Your customers will literally not be able to get away from you, and contrary to what you might believe, they will actually thank you for this type of service with their continued, loyal business.
A business that is set to grow and expand their business needs to be where their customers are. The number of mobile devices, tablets and phones, in use by your customers is soon to surpass the number of desktop users.
If you put all your eggs in your “regular website” you will be missing out on the future. When your customer walks into your store, they will have phone in hand. They will be looking at your competitors and comparing prices. If they cannot also access your site while in your competitors store, you miss out on the opportunity to influence buying decisions.
A mobile website is the “next big thing” for small businesses. Shout off in the comments below. Do you agree? Do you have a mobile website?
