Content: The Foundation of a Great Website- The ABC’s of WordPress Website Building

by Nicolette Tallmadge

When you are building your website using WordPress, there are a lot of basics to remember that can make building your website a lot smoother. In this series, I’m going to run through some of the ABCs of your website using WordPress.

 

Content: The Foundation of a Great Website

One of the foundations of a great website is content. Website content is the reason why people are attracted to your website and why people will continue to visit. So when you’re initially planning your website content, it needs to be more than just an afterthought. One of the biggest mistakes that new website builders make is focusing more on the design of the website than the content. Make no mistake, the design part of your website is very important, but the content is equally, if not more important.

What’s website content anyway?

So what is website content? Content is classified as a lot of things, including:

  • Blog posts
  • Page copy
  • Image captions
  • Product descriptions
  • Email copy
  • Graphics and images
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Interactive content (surveys, polls, etc)

The power of the written word

Lots of people tend to treat the copy on their websites like a chore. You have to write something, so you may slap on a couple of paragraphs of industry jargon or swipe some copy from your latest marketing brochure and call it good. But the words you write on your web page are more than just words. Your written web content has a lot of work to accomplish. It has to:

  • Represent you and/or your company
  • Instill trust with your visitors
  • Convey important information
  • Answer questions, objections, and concerns
  • Inspire more interest in your visitors
  • Tell your visitors what to do next (sign up for a newsletter, come back for the next sale, make a donation)

So when you’re developing your written content, resist the temptation to just put something on your website and call it a day. Take your time and think about what each page, each paragraph, and each sentence is supposed to accomplish. If you’re not a good writer, get the help of someone else who is.

And don’t forget that written content is more than things like blog posts and page copy. Written content also includes things like product descriptions, image captions, sales policies, FAQ’s, privacy policies, email copy, and other “boring” content. If your website contains an online store, the way you write your product descriptions can make or break your sales. A well worded sales policy page, Frequently Asked Questions, or after sales email can save you a lot of customer service problems down the road. Treat these written pieces of content with just as much as as your regular page copy.

An online image is worth a 1,000 online words

Images and graphics also important pieces of website content. In a lot of cases, you can accomplish more with one well chosen graphic than you can with a whole page of text. If much of your product, business, or story depends on the visual, then graphics, images, illustrations, and all other manner of visual content, then imagery is going to plan a big role in your content planning.

Remember that the strength of your imagery lies in how good those images are. Blurry and under or over developed images are not going to help your website. In fact, it’s better to have one fantastic image than it is to have 10 bad or mediocre ones on your website. You should also avoid simply sticking images on your website, simply because you think you “need” some type of an image there. Some website suffer from “stock photo-itis”. Just about every image you see on that website came from some stock photo company, which makes that website look like the half dozen other websites where you’ve already seen that exact photo. Stock photos can be a great tool when done correctly, but nothing beat great original images you create on your own.

Take some time to carefully plan what kind of image content you want to display on your website. Images can include anything from photos, illustrations, infographics, screen captures, and computer graphics.

It’s more than just text and photos

Video is one of the most popular pieces of content on the web today. There are over 2 BILLION video views PER DAY on YouTube. It’s estimated that about 90% of all online traffic will be video by the year 2013. Video is more than just popular online, it’s also powerful. A great written product description can pique interest. A fantastic photograph can create a strong desire. But a great product video can seal the deal. In a 2010 report by Internet Retailer, people are 85% more likely to buy after watching a product video. In another study done by emarketer.com in October 2010, 60% of respondents said they would watch video before reading the text that was display on the same web page and 22% said they preferred to watch the video rather than to reading the text for information.

So video and even audio should definitely be part of the content mix on your website. And fortunately, it’s easier than ever to create or even find video content for your website. If you’re new to video and want to start creating video content of your own, you can learn more about online video by downloading my ebook, “How to Use Video to Promote Your Website”. This ebook will give you step by step instructions on how to create and use video to for your website.

Your website isn’t a print brochure

One of the inherent strengths of your website that makes it more compelling than your average print brochure is the ability for you to interact with your visitors and customers. Yet so many new website builders simply want their websites to be a carbon copy of their company brochure. This is a missed opportunity. Part of your content mix should be interactive elements on your website that encourages your visitors to contact you, give you feedback, and to encourage a more personal bond between themselves and you, through your website.

Interactive content can include things like surveys, polls, quizzes, questionnaires, comments, ratings, and reviews. The people visiting your website now are not simply content to just to passively view your website. Your best visitors are going to be the ones that want to leave comments about what you write on your blog, or reviews about your latest product, or suggestions on how you can make your next event run smoother. They’re going to talk about you anyway, so make it easier for them to talk to you and about you directly on your website.

So now that you know the importance of your website content, take some time to plan it and produce the best website content possible.

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Budgeting Your Website- The ABC’s of WordPress Website Building

by Nicolette Tallmadge

When you are building your website using WordPress, there are a lot of basics to remember that can make building your website a lot smoother. In this series, I’m going to run through some of the ABCs of your website using WordPress.

 

Budgeting Your Website

One question that a lot of potential new clients ask me is, “How much does a “typical” website cost?”. My answer is always the same:

“It depends”

There’s No Such Thing as a “Typical” Website

For one thing, there really isn’t such thing as a “typical website”. How much your website will cost depends on a number of factors, like what the purpose of your website will be, what kind of audience you’ll be building the website for, how many gadgets and gizmos your website will need, how big or how small your website will be. And since the answers for these questions are different for every website, it’s hard to pin down a “typical” cost for a website.

What Factors into the Cost of a Website?

The lack of a standard price for a website doesn’t mean that you can’t figure out what your website might cost based on your own needs. In fact, before you even start building a website, you should sit down and start building a budget for your website based on your needs.  Here are a couple of factors that you need to consider when it comes to pricing out your website:

  • Who’s going to build it?- This is probably one of the biggest factors that you need to look at when you are figuring out your website budget. Right now if you want to get a website online, there are three ways you can go about it.
    • Build it yourself (either from scratch or using website building software like WordPress)
    • Build it yourself a DIY web building service
    • Hire someone else to build your website

    Each method has it’s own sets of pros and cons. Building the website yourself is probably one of the least expensive ways to go about it, especially if you use software like WordPress to build your website. But it can also cost you in terms of time and will require some type of learning curve. Using a DIY service will cost some money, but is probably cheaper than say, hiring a web designer to do it and can be easier than building it yourself in many cases. But what you gain in cost and ease of use is often freedom and flexibility. Hiring a web designer is typically the most expensive option on the list, but what you lose in money you often gain back in time and efficiency, plus you’ll often get a much more professional-looking website in the end.

  • Who’s going to maintain it?- Building the website is only the beginning. Don’t forget that you need to update and maintain your website once it’s built. And this is a long term, reoccurring task, so that fact also needs to be taken into account as well. The same options that you had for building your website is also true for maintaining it. You can:
    • Maintain it yourself
    • Use a DIY service that takes care of some of the maintenance tasks
    • Hire someone else to maintain your website

    Again, the least expensive option is to maintain your own website while the most expensive option is to hire someone else to maintain it for you. Using a DIY service usually falls somewhere in between as far as costs.

  • How complex is it going to be?- The size of your website will greatly affect the initial and the ongoing cost of building and maintaining your website. Generally, the bigger your website is and the more whiz bangs it has (like ecommerce, custom programming, fancy design, etc) the more your website is going to cost to build and maintain, while simpler with a few pages and a blog tends to cost less.
  • How much can you spend?- This is of course going to be the deciding factor when it comes to how much your website is going to cost. You may want to have a state of the art website with all kinds of nifty features, but if you don’t have the budget for it, it’s going to seriously affect your other decisions, like how the website will get built and how complex it’s going to be. Now this doesn’t mean that you’re going to automatically spend every last dime you have to build your website, but the amount of money you have available to spend can help guide you into a realistic price for your own website based on your means.

What’s Your “Magic” Number?

So now that you have some cost factors in mind, now it’s time to translate that into hard numbers by looking at the typical things you’ll need to set up, run, and promote your website:

  • Domain name(s)- Typically cost between $9 to $40 per year, per name
  • Website Hosting- Typically costs between $10 to $100 per month
  • Email list management- Typically costs between $5 to $100 per month depending on list size
  • Ecommerce
    • Shopping cart- can be a per transaction cost or monthly cost. Average monthly cost between $10 to $100
    • Merchant account- can be a per transaction cost or monthly cost based on use. To get this number you’ll need to estimate your monthly sales you’ll be expecting
    • Gateway service- Typically cost between $20 to $90 per month
  • Web Design/Web Development fees- Typically costs between $25 to $100 per hour
  • Additional software (such as website building software, WordPress plugins and themes, stock photography, etc)
  • Marketing (advertising, business cards, direct mail, etc)

So now that you have a list of things that you will most likely need for your website, it’s time to do some research, look at what you need for your website and plug in some numbers.

One of the tools that I have available for my students to help them with this process is the Website Planning List. This downloadable planning guide can help you plan everything about your website from, design, website structure, to marketing and has a handy budgeting worksheet. If you’re planning on building your own website, you can download a copy of the planning guide here . It will come in handy no matter how you’re planning to build your website.

Download the Website Planning List

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Getting Facebook Likes Offline

November 1, 2011

During a recent trip to the local Sam’s Club I noticed something interesting on my Sam’s Club receipt. It was a request for me to “Like” them on their Facebook page. Remember that all of your marketing doesn’t have to take place online. There are plenty of places off the Internet where you can promote [...]

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Online Publishing: Why the Kindle is my new favorite toy

May 17, 2011

A while ago, I got a Kindle as a free prize in a contest. Although I love electronic stuff of all kinds AND I’m an avid reader, I was never really that interested in ebook readers, precisely because I love print books so much. Seriously, one of my favorite places both as a kid and [...]

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