CIWD

Every business owner knows that they should have a website as part of their marketing efforts.

What can be uncertain is how to approach getting one put together and, more importantly, how to maintain that site going forward as an active part of your business plan.

This is where an important decision needs to be made, and it’s broader than anything web specific: “What is the best tool for the job?” Obvious right? Casting a wide net on keeping your website alive and current is the ability to update and maintain what is currently there. This is where Content Management Systems (CMS) come in and play a huge role in web development and business at large.

A solid CMS allows for anyone that has been given permission to login, choose the area of the site they wish to edit, make changes, save and MAGIC, everything that needs to be done behind the scenes for this to appear on the website just happens. So which tool?

Dependable WordPress Platform

The main focus of this solution is WordPress. Once easily dismissed as a tool just for personal blogs, WordPress has taken huge leaps and is now the major leader for web site development. Of course, being originally built for blogs, WordPress has perfected the art of updating content. But there are many more benefits than just communicating with your customers. A fine-tuned backend structure created by WordPress is ideal for Search Engine Optimization. Ask google’s head of the webspam team, Matt Cutts.

WordPress has many advantages.  Let’s take a look at just a few of them.

Reason 1:  WordPress is Open Source

Meaning; the code that allows it to do all the amazing things that it does is available to anyone who wants to modify it. Now only does this make WordPress extremely modular as far as what you can do with it, but it is also well supported and used by thousands of companies.

With WordPress you can create and edit your own content and you are never at the mercy of a dead end development when you want to expand what your site can do. Just call Central Indiana Web Design for quick changes!

Reason 2: Easily Update Content Yourself

Without ever writing a lick of code, you’ll be a content-updating pro within no time. With WordPress you log-in to your dashboard and with minimal difference you basically create an email with title and description. You’ll add a few more steps along the way but within minutes you can create a  page or blog post on your website.

Not only does WordPress make it easy to customize your website layout, update content, and feel like a web pro… it also has the power to create a social network, e-commerce store, affiliate hub and much more.

Again, these features are backed by Central Indiana Web Design developing ways to make life easier online. With Central Indiana Web Design, you have a competent designer and developer that can create powerful online tools for your business at a fraction of the “big business CMS” cost.

Reason 3: Easy Navigation for your Website Visitors

User-friendly navigation allows visitors to find the information they are looking for thanks to a dynamic site built using the CMS (Content Management System). Central Indiana Web Design can help you assign categories and tags to your posts and pages that will improve a visitor’s experience on your site as well as your SEO.

The web pages render in HTML and CSS allowing them to show up on iPhones, BlackBerrys, Android, iPad, etc.  It’s also easy for alternative browsers such as text only browsers (see Lynx) which are excellent for those with disabilities.

Reason 4: Build a Community of Loyal Customers

If you choose to also have a blog on your website, and we definitely recommend you do; you can work on building a community around your website. Writing blog posts that build relationships with your target market is an effective way to build trust, earn more sales and repeat business in the long run.

Simply write a new post and publish. Your new content is pinged out to the world and your subscribers are notified via RSS automatically.

Reason 5:  Optimized for Search Engines

At Central Indiana Web Design.com, we use WordPress for the majority of our websites due to its ease of use and SEO capabilities. When building any website or blog that’s aimed at a wide audience, search engine optimization (SEO) is important.  WordPress has SEO benefits built-in.  WordPress sites tend to do much better in the search engines and rank well quickly.

This means that your potential customers can find you!

Reason 6: A Website That Can Grow With Your Business

A traditional website is stagnant, meaning once you have it up and running, it pretty much sits there unless your designer is willing to change it. With WordPress, you can change it every day. Add new content, put in a new plugin, and develop a new graphic. And with comments and RSS, you have the potential of connecting up with clients all over the world. The best part is you also have the tools ready for what is coming next.

For example, you can add a new theme to change the look of your site without redoing your whole site.  Central Indiana Web Design can add new plugins for enhanced functionality (add e-commerce if your business grows, focus more on search results, add a store finder, etc.)

Things are developed all the time, and because WordPress is currently being used on 2 in 10 designs, you can bet that WordPress’s functionality will only be increasing. Why not use something that will help you develop a great marketing tool now and well into the future?

When you add up a lot of the features available with WordPress, you find that your WordPress site can grow with you over the years.  Central Indiana Web Design can easily upgrade it for new features and security.

Reason 7: Connect to Social Media

Are you on Twitter? Facebook? With a simple plugin, you can connect your WordPress site up with any other social site. Central Indiana Web Design can implement  plugins that allow you to put Like buttons on all your posts, and easily feed your content into a variety of social networking sites through RSS.

Reason 8: eCommerce

WordPress is also a fantastic option for e-commerce. With many custom e-commerce plug-ins available customizing an online store is now possible and the best part? No monthly fees for e-commerce hosting!!!

Central Indiana Web Design can integrate your e-commerce store within your WordPress dashboard. And without much difference you’re able to update products with as much ease as creating a new blog post. Everything integrates with your payment portal of choice such as authorize.net and PayPal.

Reason 9: Allow Multiple Users

Multiple people at your company can have access to update your website or blog.  Wordpress has core role base management and you are able to extend it as the need arises for you and your organization. Central Indiana Web Design can set permission levels of each user to maintain the security and integrity of your website or blog.

Reason 10: Clean, Web Compliant Code

WordPress produces clean valid code. This is an advantage over many cheap DIY software programs which output a significant amount of garbage code as well as invalid code. Not only does bad code cause your website to load slower (Google is now taking load speed into account), but it also can cause numerous errors when attempting to validate the site for w3′s current guidelines.

What does this mean in non-technical terms? Without valid code, your website may not perform well in certain browsers. This will be an increasing important issue as browsers begin to require stricter coding practices. WordPress outputs valid compliant code which is a tremendous advantage.

Reason 11:  Website Security and Spam Protection

WordPress comes built in with very robust tools such as an integrated blacklist and open proxy checker to manage and eliminate comment spam on your blog. There is also a large quantity of plugins that can take this functionality a step further.

Central Indiana Web Design can also implement several features to backup and protect your website against hacking.

Reason 12:  Maintain Frequent Contact with Your Customers

WordPress enables you to maintain frequent contact with your customers by enabling eNewsletters.  Send a professional-looking HTML newsletter to your customers and the subscribers of your website as often as you like. Add the latest news, coupons, and other offers specifically for current customers to upsell them and keep them aware of the happenings at your business.

The Bottom Line

WordPress is a solid, expandable, worry-free platform to get your business noticed.  Are you ready?  Contact us now and we’ll show you how.