Getting Started with WordPress
Just because WordPress gives you the capability to set up a complete website in 30-minutes doesn’t mean you should.
It is a far more efficient use of your time, talent and treasure to structure your site’s information architecture correctly the first time, rather than rework and reorganize your site’s content after you have gone live, and your site has been indexed by the search bots.
When we are developing a WordPress site with a new client, we remind them that their website is the visual manifestation of their business plan. How can your website support your business success, if it does not reflect your marketing and business plans? If you want to create a successful, easy to navigate website, you need a good and solid plan.
WordPress is fun and easy to use for the average business owner or site manager, and the temptation to “just wing it” is great. However, if you do not have a site plan, it is time to back away from computer and spend an hour or two going old school —back to when people actually wrote things down.
On a piece of notebook paper, or whatever is lying around, describe your site. Take five to twenty minutes to come up with a purpose for your site, or better yet, call it your Mission Statement.
Answer the following questions:
- What am I going to do with this?
- Who is going to read this?
- What kinds of information will I be posting?
- Why am I doing this?
- Who am I doing this for?
- How often am I going to be posting and adding information?
Now, compile this information into a paragraph so it looks like this:
This website will be dedicated to X, Y, and Z,
and cover the topics of A, B, and C. The audience will
be __________ ________________ _______. I will be adding
posts every _____________ about ________ _______ ______________.
I am doing this because _____________ _____________ __________________.
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