This is a part two of last week’s “Online Marketing” post, where I focused on the importance of having a website and provided key tips for building an effective one based on Steve Mitten’s speech.
Putting these ideas into action, my personal exercise last week was to transform my WordPress blog into a website. I have been blogging on different platforms since 2005 and had previously consolidated my content onto a WordPress site. Since WordPress is improving rapidly and many entrepreneurs are using it as their websites, I decided to spend some time exploring the tools WordPress provides.
Here are the steps I took:
- I chose a theme I liked. Theme is the background and layout of the site. There are many free themes provided by WordPress and you can easily review them or change them.
- I made new pages and menu tabs.
- I gathered content for each page.
- I decided which elements to display on my homepage. After experimenting with static and dynamic pages, I decided to use my blog page as my homepage since it achieves better Google ranking though the frequent updates.
These steps took some time to learn, but with a technical background and a daughter who is familiar with web tools, I was able to work through the kinks and generate a simple, elegant website.
My takeaway from this exercise was “You just have to do it”. Over the years, I used Yahoo templates to host my own website. It’s a simple website construction and it allowed me to explore the content and key words. However it doesn’t look professional. Now my WordPress site looks more professional, and I still have the freedom to update it anytime.
I know many entrepreneurs experience fear and anxiety around building a website and lack knowledge on how to build a strong, effective web presence. To tell you a secret – no one visits your website unless you promote it. If you don’t use any social media tools to drive traffic to your website, you won’t have visitors. Therefore, it’s safe to explore what you want your website look like and play around prior to promoting your final presentation.
I still have work to do with my WordPress site and I will continue to share my experience. You are welcome to follow me on my progress and hopefully make some progress on your own site.
I am offering consultation for setting up a simple WordPress site. Please reach out to me if you want some help and resources (such as content writing, reliable graphic design referrals, and more) in this area.