For the past few days, I’ve been writing about how to register your domain name and how to setup a hosting account, even how to install WordPress on your web server using a simple point and click tool called Fantastico. None of those challenges even come close to what I’m about to ask you to do … write content.
Let’s start with the basics of what your website is going to need and how we can put them together in WordPress.
Add a New Page in WordPress
The first thing that your website needs is a home page. This is where people land when they come to your site, it’s the most commonly loaded page on your site and … it’s the one Google will index the most often.
Let’s open your WordPress content manager by going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin and logging in. Once you’ve done that, click the Write tab at the top and then select page. WordPress will now prompt you for a title and some content. Make a series of pages for your website, clicking either Save (which saves it for you but hides it from the public) or Publish (which posts it live to the web) after each one. Add each of the following pages:
- Home
- Contact
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
As you’ll note, I didn’t add an About page because your default WordPress installation already has one. If it’s not there, add an about page as well. Now that we have our pages, we might want to rearrange our default page order (it’s alphabetical right now) or even assign some pages to be the children of others in the menu. For example, maybe the Privacy Policy should be a child page of the About Us page. To do this, let’s click the Manage tab at the top of WordPress and switch to Pages where we’ll see a list of our pages to date. Click the name of any page and you’ll enter the page editor, let’s scroll to the bottom of the page to find some advanced features.
Advanced Features
If we want to change the Parent of our page, simply open the Page Parent accordion and use the pull down menu to switch it to our preferred option. I’ve setup my fictious site with the following page structure:
- Home
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
If I’d like to change the order of pages in the site, I can use a weight system by opening the Page Order accordion. It’s a little funny it’s really easy to understand. All pages by default have a weight of 0, if you want a page to be float to the beginning of a menu, make it lighter (-1 … -10) if you want it to sink to the bottom, make it heavier (1 … 10).
Now, if you’d like to add some more pages or change / delete the ones we’ve added here you should take the time to setup the pages with the content and in the order you prefer. Spend some time and get it right, on Monday I’ll write about the difference between a Post and a Page, plus we’ll look at how to add a new theme to your WordPress website. Check back tomorrow or sign up for my
email notification or
RSS feed to be notified as soon as I post it?
I choose to use a very easy to use tool called WordPress as the content manager for his new website, it’s fast and easy to learn with a lot of great online documentation and a wonderfully supportive community. It also happens to be a tool that I know very well, so I felt comfortable offering it to Mark.
Mar
2009
25 Things to Do to Increase Your Website Traffic Right Now
Everybody wants to be successful on the Internet right? Of course we do, nobody want’s to be sitting at home on prom night especially when there’s money involved so how do we do it? Well, here’s a list of 25 things you can do right now to increase your website traffic …
Make Your Content Accessible
Use the SEO Checker I built to see what Google can see. This tool will also help you understand what visually impaired people in your community can see … they make up almost 10% of the population, so can you really afford to only appeal to 90% of the market?
Use Valid xHTML Markup
xHTML is the language web pages should be built in. If you write your page in sloppy code, it’ll be harder for web browsers to display it properly so just like a Word document, you have to save it in the right format for your audience to read it.
Translate Your Content
thisismyurl.com is available in 20 languages, 40% of my traffic comes from outside the US and Canada and is viewed in a language other than English using a free online translation service, I know it’s flawed but it’s the best I can offer and people learn from my postings.
Understand Keywords
Keywords are the heart and soul of the Internet, they’re like fresh pasta in Italian cooking or eye shadow to drag queens … if you don’t understand the value and application of keywords, get off the Internet.
Build Relationships with Other Websites
Almost half my traffic comes from Google, the other half? Came from other websites and referrals from great people that I taught something to and in turn taught me a lot.
Add a Google Sitemap
Google want’s nothing more than to know about you, it’s the companies only goal in the universe, so help them to help you.
Help People
Speaking of helping, help people. When you see a website with an error or run into a problem on a site, let them know. If you can fix a glitch, tell them how … I’ve picked up countless readers and sources of inspiration by simply being supportive.
Use Analytics
Back to Google for a second, they have a tool called Google Analytics. It’s free, it’s powerful and it’ll help you understand your audience.
Join Social Networking Sites
Websites like LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful tools to help people. Helping people leads to trust, trust leads to prospects and prospects lead to clients.
Add Fresh Content
Ask yourself, why do people come back to your boring old stale content? They don’t. If you ran a restaurant you’d have daily specials right? Well I think running a restaurant is easier than running a website, so make sure you have fresh content served daily.
Know Who’s Better Than You
There are a lot of web sites out there that are better than me:
Know who’s better than you and read them every day. The best way to learn is to know you need to learn. (btw, if you didn’t make the list don’t be sad I have hundreds of sites I read every week, these are just the first ones I though of)
Respond to Criticism
There’s a lot of things that I write on my blog that are not as well researched as they could be, and when I’m corrected I love it. You’ll notice if you pan through my comments that I don’t remove the negative … in fact I relish them. If people take the time to point out your flaws, thank them and you’ll grow.
Write Good Content
The best way to build traffic to your website? Make people want to come back. It’s harder to get new visitors than to keep your old ones.
Be Timely
Write about things that you know will be timely but don’t chase trends, it’s not relevant what others are writing about … only what your readers are reading about.
Get to Know Yourself
The past five months of blogging have taught me a lot about myself, I look back at some of the early pieces I wrote and know that I’ve changed. That’s part of what blogging is, it’s about growing not only as a business but also as a person and learning new things.
Make your Title Tag Valuable
Your title tag is a critical piece of the organic marketing puzzle, if you don’t understand how or why to use it properly … excuse my french but vous êtes vissé.
Add an RSS Feed
I don’t care what type of business you are … if you can add an RSS feed to your web site do it! Let people know what you’re up to if they want to know. Same goes for Twitter, use it to exploit your interests.
Give Stuff Away For Free
I love giving things away for free. I have website templates, plugins and artwork people can download for free as well as over 600 pages of advice here on my website. Guess what? It cost me nothing and it put me on Alexa’s radar without having to do anything complicated.
Respect Your Audience
There’s only one thing more important then you on your website, your audience. Take time to get to know them and help them.
Know Your Goals
Why do you own a website? You’d be surprised how many people have no idea why they want to run a website … it’s a little sad really.
Use a Content Manager
Websites that are build on a content management system (I use WordPress) make it easier for people to update their websites. Websites that are updated more often get more traffic.
Read Matt’s Articles
Matt Cutts is Google. Actually he’s not but he’s the face of Google, the man who talks to all of us and tells us what Google is thinking, explains what they’re up to and helps lowly web masters to interact better. His job … to help the public make the most of Google, so why don’t you read his blog?
Join Forums
Forums are a great place to generate free traffic to your blog. They help you build relationships with other bloggers, build respect in the community and get into endless conversations about topics that interest you.
Comment on Other Websites
One of the most overlooked methods for building traffic to your website is to simply comment on other peoples websites. Remember my point about helping others? Point out flaws or add to the conversation and you’ll be generating great traffic back to your website.
Analyze and Adapt
Finally … the most important point … look at your analytics often and improve your website to help your audience make the most of your content.
Tags: advice, analytics, blog, building, comment, content management system, content manager, Facebook, forums, google analytics, html, Learning, lorelle, matt cutts, organic marketing, Plugins, search, templates, translate, web browsers, web master, web masters, WordPress
Posted in Marketing Advice