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Web Design Built on WordPress

Alan Smith - Web Design and Development

Alan Smith is a web designer and web developer using WordPress as a CMS and the Genesis Framework. I am a devoted husband and father, a Christ Follower and a Georgia Bulldog Fan (Go SEC!).

How To Build an Engaged Audience [Infographic]

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Building an engaged audience is the “Holy Grail” of content marketers.  As we all try to grow our business with quality content, we have to remember the basics if we want to cut through the noise and build an online community.

The content marketing company Blue Grass has produced this infographic to identify several fundamentals to growing an engaging audience.  You need to use good headlines, engage on social networks and use guest blogging.

As with everything in life, we need to become experts in the fundamentals before move to the “cool” stuff.  The fundamentals are what keep your grounded and successful.  It is the stuff that generated 80% of the value.  Keep the fundamentals of content marketing in you mind as you build your business and you will build an engaging audience.

How To Build an Engaging Audience by Blue Glass

Here’s a Quick Way to Fix Your Website

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From Flickr by Tom Maisey

Your website needs to be fixed immediately!  You never get a second chance to make a first impression!

That goes for your website too.

If you are using your website to generate leads, gather email addresses, produce revenue or any other business enterprise, you better make sure it works.  If people land on your site and are immediately turned off, then your site has cost you greatly.

Every King has a Queen

I firmly believe that content is King when it comes to your website.  Quality content is what brings people to your site and valuable content is what keeps them coming back.  If you fail to create good, high value, quality content, you will not get traffic and you will not be able to grow your business.

The Queen to the content King is quality web design.

When visitors hit your site for the first time, you have less than the blink of an eye to get your visitors attention.  That’s fast!

Before a visitor has a chance to engage with your amazing content, they make a snap judgment and take action.  If you site meets expectations, they read the headline.  If the site fails to meet expectations, they hit the back button and your bounce rate soars.

It is quality site design that helps pull your audience into the site.  If it looks old and dated, then the inference is your content is old and outdated.  If it looks to flashy and “slick,” then the inference is your trying to sell me on something or that your “slick” yourself.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure you start with good site design.

Three Tips For Site Design

1.  Site Usability

A website should be simple, intuitive and require no technical skill to navigate and use.  It should be obvious to the user what they should do and where they should click.  The usability of your site is important for business owners.  If it does not move visitors into you lead or sales funnel, then your site is costing you money.

Look around your site for ways to simplify the way your site works.  Can you reduce the number of buttons?  Maybe get rid of some the ads or clutter that draws the eye around the page.  Maybe it’s time to think about getting rid of those animated .gif’s and flash banners.

Keep the site simple to use and easy to navigate.  Make it useable.

2. Accessibility

We live in a mobile world and there is a growing amount of site traffic coming from mobile devices.  The smart phone and tablet have really changed the way people surf the web.

I am in the process of making this site responsive.  Responsive designs are capable of adjusting to the browser or device.  The images scale, the font changes size, the order of the content adjust as you scale down from desktop to smartphone.  There is no need to generate a full version and a mobile version.

You need to make sure you website is accessible to your target audience.  Getting a better understanding of your audience and how they connect with you will help make sure your site is accessible.

3.  Design

Your color palette and graphics communicate information to your site visitors.  Is it warm or cool?  Do you depend heavily on graphics or is the site clean and simple?  Understanding your audience will help guide your design choices.

Since a visitor is going to make a snap judgement, make sure the site is visually appealing.  It should capture the right audience for your business.

Let Your Site Work For You

If you already have a website, make sure it is connecting with your audience.  Do some research.  Ask some questions.  Get some information.  If you are armed with information, you can make intelligent decisions about the changes you need to make.  If you do them strategically, you will see improvement in site traffic, bounce rate and engagement.

If you are in the process of creating a website, make sure you keep your audience in mind and design a site that meets their needs.  Only add those things that will help your visitors become clients.  There are some great WordPress designs that are pre-built that make great impressions.  I always recommend the Genesis Framework and can help you build a quality design.

What other tips do you have for site design?  Share them in the comments below.

It’s Impossible to Optimize a Website

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building site trafficHere’s the deal.  SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a nice fancy word that tends to freak people out.  After all, when you use letters instead of words, it’s got to be important. Right?

One of the misconceptions a lot people make about SEO is that it’s about optimizing a site.

It’s Impossible to Optimize a Site

When you go to Google and search for ‘hermit crab food,’ you don’t expect Google to send you to a site, you expect to be sent to a page about hermit crab food.

Google serves up ten pages that it deems relevant to your search.  You click on the first link and the PAGE is in fact about hermit crab food and how wonderfully nutritious it is and how your hermit crab will love it.  You have landed on a well optimized page even if the site is poorly optimized.

The Four Must Haves

There are four key elements to making sure your page is optimized for a specific keyword or keyword phrase.  If you hope to rank on the first page, you must have these four elements.  These are the MINIMUM!

1.  Keyword in the Title

You must have your keyword in the title.  This is arguably the single most important on-page element for optimization.  It helps search engines understand what this page is supposed to be about.  The closer to the first word the better, but it needs to be natural!  Don’t force it.

2. Header Tags

The second element is H1 and H2 tags.  The heading tags serve as triggers for search engines.  When the spiders are crawling your site and come across an H1 or H2 tag, they notices the terms identify them as important.

It’s like highlighting text with a bright yellow pen.  It triggers a response from search engines and lets them know what keyword is relevante for the page.

3. Document Title

The document title is what is displayed in search results.  You know the ten listings from Google, the title is the headline of your search result.  That title is important in identifying the relevant keyword for the page.  Make sure to get the keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

You do not have to make the Document Title and the Title of the page the same.  These can be different.  Just make sure they are keyword specific and relevant to the copy of the page.

4.  Links

In SEO, a link is like a vote.  Inbound links from other pages on your site or from other websites count as votes for quality.  The more links you have to a page the better.

When you are optimizing a page, you must be sure to include some links OUT of the page to other content on your site and to other pages on the web.  Make sure the links are using anchor tags and are using relavant keywords for the link.

It’s all in the Page

You cannot optimize a website, you can only optimize a page.  It’s the accumulation of optimized pages that lead to optimized sites.  Pay attention to these four elements and you will see your pages begin to show up higher and higher in search results.  And the higher you rank, the more traffic you will get.

What other factors do you use on your pages?  Share with us in the comments below.

Creating Navigation Menu with StudioPress

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Adding navigation to a StudioPress child theme is a simple process when you know the steps.  In version 1.8, you will need to use the WordPress Menu creator to generate your Primary and Secondary navigation menus.  But first,  you have to make sure Genesis is setup.

Setting Up Genesis

Genesis Theme SettingsIn the Dashboard, go to Genesis>Settings>Theme Settings.  This will take you to the Genesis setup window for you to set all the defaults.

Scroll down to the Navigation Settings meta box.  Here you will see two check boxes, one for Primary Navigation and the other for Secondary Navigation.  Check the box for the navigation menu you want to use.

By checking one or both of these boxes, Genesis will add the necessary code to the site to render the navigation menus.

Genesis Navigation Settings

Setting up the Menu

WordPress MenuNow that Genesis is ready for the menu, WordPress can create the menu and populate the navigation.  In the dashboard, go to Appearance>Menus.

Click the plus sign, [+], at the top of the page.  In the Menu Name field, type ‘Primary Navigation’ and click ‘Create Menu.’

Creating Primary Navigation Menu

You will now have access to three new metaboxes, the Theme Locations, Custom Links, Pages and Categories.  If you have other plugins or software installed, you may have additional options.

  • The Theme Locations is your Primary and Secondary navigation that is activated by Genesis Settings.
  • The Custom Links allows you to create links to external pages or sites by adding the URL and a Menu Label (name).
  • The Pages box lists all the pages you’ve created.  They will be sorted by ‘Most Recent’, but you can ‘View All’ or ‘Search’ for specific pages.
  • The Category box list all the categories that you’ve created for your posts.

WordPress Menu PageWordPress Theme NavigationIn the Theme Locations metabox, select the Primary Navigation from the drop down.  Now go to the Pages metabox and select all of the pages that you want included in your Primary Navigation.  Place a check in the check boxes and then click ‘Add to Menu.’

All the pages will populate the menu field to the right of the metaboxes.

You can then drag the boxes around to get the navigation in the order you want it to appear on your site.  Move them up and down to arrange the order, move them under and indented to make them a submenu.  You can move them around to fit your desired navigation structure.

WordPress Primary Navigation

Onc you have the menu the way you want it, click ‘Save Menu’ and you menu will be live on the site.  Go to a page on the site and you will see the Primary Navigation displayed the way you set it up in the dashboard.

Primary Navigation

You can add pages or remove pages as often as you need.  When you create a new page, if you want it to be included in the navigation, you will have to manually add it in the Menu.

If you have any questions, leave them in comments below.

Four Ways Pinterest Can Work for Your Business

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Pinterest is a very fast growing social network that has a lot of people talking.  It is a bit unique in how you share content.  If your not using Pinterest and do not have an idea what all the fuss is about, go check it out.  If you need an invite, let me know and I’ll send you one.

Source: mashable.com via Alan on Pinterest

 

4 Ways to Make Pinterest Work for You

1.  Add a Pin It Button

You can add a Pin It button to your website.  If your on WordPress, use a plugin that adds the social media icons to your Posts or Pages.  Check the plugins that are available and make sure that Pinterest is included.

Having the simple “Pin It” button can get more people connecting with your site.

2.  Become Visual

Pinterst pins images and videos to users walls.  Not text or excerpts from your page or post.  The way to encourage Pinterest sharing is to have plenty of graphics or video on your site that users can share.  They can be simple images that are interesting or captivating to expanded Infographics.  Become more visual if you want Pinterest traffic.

3.  Promote MORE than Products

It will be tempting to just load your Pinterest boards with your own products and images.  But if your going to be on Pinterst, you need to participate.  And participation is about sharing information, news, tips, and products from other companies.  You need to promote the social community by engaging the community. Definately post your content, but don’t be an island.  Share!

4.  Learn from the Heavyweights

There are several larger companies that are doing an excellent job using Pinterest, follow them.  Get an idea of how they are using the network?  Look at the kind of content they are sharing.  Observe the kind of content that is getting a lot of re-pinning.  Find the trends and then begin to develop strategies that work for you.

To Join or Not to Join, that is the Question

Whether you take the time to become part of the Pinterest world is up to you.  I have just recently joined the community.  I will keep you posted on what I think and how effective it is for me.  I really think that it can become a great traffic source.  But I want to spend where I get a return and that return is translated into revenue.  I’m going to give a few months and see how it goes.

How are you using Pinterest for your business?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

13 Pinteresting facts about Pinterest users

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Have you heard of Pinterest?  It’s only the “hottest” new social network on the planet.  Yes, Facebook is the largest and Twitter is the “coolest,” but Pinterest is the new up and comer who will challenge both of these social rivals.

Its unique position is how you share information.  Instead of posting updates or information about you life,  you “pin” images from the web to your “pinboard.”  It’s a virtual pin board for all the cool and interesting things you see on the web.

It has potential for being a traffic driver to your website.  The current data suggest that it referres more traffic than YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter combined.

It is growing in numbers and the cool factor is obvious.

Here are 13 “Pinteresting” facts about Pinterest.  If these demographic data fit your target audience, you might consider becoming active in the Pinterest world.

Pinterst Demographics

How much does a website cost?

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Small Business MarketingAs a web design and developer, one of the first questions I’m frequently asked is “How much does a website cost?”  I understand the reason for asking, but it is a very difficult question to answer.  It’s kind of like asking, “How much is a car?”

There are several factors that go into the cost of a website and I want to break them down so you can have a better understanding of what to expect.

Site Design

Depending on where you are with your business or blog, you may need to invest in a site design.  A website design needs to reflect your business, matching your logo and company image.  Your company needs to project the same look in print and online and having a quality design will help make that happen.

Design Cost

I tend to break design into three categories: template, semi-custom, custom

A template is a prebuilt design that you can use for your site.  It is often professionally designed and offered for sale on template or theme sites.  These templates can be very professional in look and meet your needs.  This is the lowest cost option.  Themes can range from $10 and up.

A semi-custom site begins with a template or theme and is modified to match your business colors.  There is very minor changes to the theme, a color palette is altered, a logo or graphic may be added, and some very simple and basic layout changes may be available.

This is an intermediate option and can cost between $200 and $500.

A custom site is designed completely for your business.  A designer will take the time to develop a completely new and unique look for your site.  There will be custom images and graphics developed to match your company look.  This is the most expensive option available.

Cost will begin at about $1,000.00 and will go up depending on the designer, complexity, and time frame.

Site Development

Once you have a site design, whether from a template or custom work, you will need to turn that into a working website.  Web development is the process turning your design into a website for the Internet or an intranet.  Web development cost will vary depending on the platform you choose to use.

There are two classes of web platforms, open-source and proprietary.  Open-sourced platforms are free from patent and copyright liability and are free to use and modify.  Open-sourced platforms reduce the cost of entry and provide access to any and all users.  Some open-source development platforms are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and MySQL.

Proprietary platforms are “closed” systems.  Software companies design and develop software and then protect that software from users by keeping the source code hidden.  To use the software requires the user to purchase a license from the manufacture.

Converting a design into a working website is going to be connected to the platform your developer uses, their level of experience and expertise, and the complexity of your site.

A simple site consisting of static content, a blog and some simple content management will begin at $1,000.00 and go up.  As you add features like shopping cart, membership services, forums, social network, etc, the price will grow proportionate to the complexity.

Hosting and Registration

Once you have a site designed and developed you will need a place to store and serve the site.  This is done from a computer called a server attached to the Internet.  A hosting company will provide you with storage for your site and the appropriate bandwidth.

Hosting

There are three flavors of web hosting: Shared, VPS, and Dedicated

A shared hosting environment occurs when several websites are sharing the same resources from a single server.  Many web hosting companies will host 100’s of sites on a single server.  Each site has access to the servers processors and memory and will share those resources.  Shared hosting will cost between $3.95 and $9.95 per month.  Most will allow you unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.  Read the fine print and be aware of what your host is providing before you sign any agreements.

Shared hosting is satisfactory for small sites with less than 1000 unique visitors per day.  This is going to vary with hosting providers.

The Virtual Private Server is a server where you have dedicated services of processor and memory.  You are still sharing a server with other sites, but you have a dedicated amount of the server resources available only to you.  This increases your sites performance and limits residual impact from a shared environment.  The VPS is a good option for sites that are growing and need more resources for their site.

The VPS hosting begins around $14.95 per month.

The Dedicated Server is for larger sites with large amounts of traffic.  A site on a Dedicated server has all the resources of the server dedicated to their website.  All the processor and RAM is dedicated to your site.  Dedicated hosting is ideal for sites that are growing and have several thousand unique visitors per day.

The Dedicated hosting plans begin around $150 per month and will go up from there.  There is not a ceiling on hosting cost.  As you need more storage or bandwidth, you can add more servers to your network.

Domain Registration

Before you site can be found online, you need a domain.  The domain is the name of your website.  A registrar is a company that registers your domain with ICANN.  This will cost about $10 per year.  It is an annual cost and many hosting companies will register your domain for free as long as you maintain hosting.

The Cost

How much does a website cost?  It depends on what you want.  It can cost as little as a few hundred dollars or as much as several thousand dollars.  The only way to know for sure is to discuss your needs and get a quote for your project.

I always recommend bringing your budget when you meet to discuss your website.  Most of the time, a professional designer or developer will be able to help prioritize your needs so you can get all you can and stay in budget.  The budget is critical.

Now it’s your turn

What are you questions about the cost associated with a website?  Ask them in the comments below and I’ll be sure to answer them.