When people browse the Internet and land on your website, they’re searching for content. That content could be in the form of articles, blogs, video or graphic images, or any other media; but you had better provide it or else your website visitors aren’t going to have much of a reason to stick around. To help foster a great reputation online and to attract as many visitors to your site as possible, you need to provide tons of high-quality content in all those forms of media we just mentioned, and possibly a few more (white papers, ebooks, ereports, etc.). Yet how can you possibly keep all that content straight? What if you need to access a blog you wrote three years ago? This is where WordPress comes in handy. As a content management system, WordPress for small business can’t be beat.
What Is WordPress Exactly?
To help you understand why WordPress is key for your business, it helps to understand what it is exactly. You can think of WordPress as a software program that is completely customizable for any sized business. You can easily create, edit and publish blog posts, web pages and various media. And all of that information is managed and labeled so that it’s easily searchable and findable at the drop of a hat.
How WordPress Works
When you install WordPress to your website, you will be taken to a login screen. To get to your login screen when using WordPress for small business, you will input your URL into your browser’s address bar with ‘/wp-admin’ added at the end. So, as an example, ‘http://ourexampleurl.org/wp-admin’.
After you log in, you will be taken to the WordPress dashboard. This is the main navigation screen within the WordPress system. You can create and edit blogs or pages, you can upload media and a whole lot more. Let’s look at a few other reasons you will want to use WordPress for small business.
Completely Customizable
WordPress is key for any business owner who wants a well-managed and fully-customizable website. No matter what you want your website to do and no matter how you want it to look, WordPress for small business can make it happen.
Themes
WordPress makes customization easy by providing a few preset design themes. Or you can download themes online or pay someone to create a theme for you. Themes aren’t just about design, though that is a big part of it. Choosing a theme also determines your site’s functionality. A site’s functions that aren’t handled by the basic WordPress system are carried out by plugins and widgets. Let’s examine those now.
Plugins
Earlier we gave a reason as to why WordPress is key and pointed to its customization. Most of the custom work that goes into a WordPress site comes from the plugins the webmaster chooses. Plugins are like power-up modules that can be added to a basic site. There are SEO modules that make optimizing your site even easier, there are photo slide widgets, music players and many more. You can search through the WordPress plugin directory to find pretty much whatever you’re looking for. Yes, WordPress is that customizable.
Widgets
When you want to add a sidebar or an opt-in box in the footer of your site, you’ll typically do this through widgets. Widgets are drag-and-drop elements within your site, usually chosen by the theme, that allow you to customize your site even further.
In short, there are many reasons why WordPress is key for all small businesses. The system makes managing any sized site a breeze, it’s free and it’s search engine friendly right out of the box. If you have a small business and you currently have a website, there are services that will help your site make the transition from HTML over to WordPress.
If you’re thinking about creating a new site using WordPress for small business, all you need to do is purchase the URL, the hosting and install WordPress. From there you can choose your theme, any plugins and widgets and you’ll have a fully-functioning site that’s ready to receive visitors.
For a fully-customizable site that’s scalable, affordable and easy-to-use even for the most technologically-challenged member of your team, it’s highly-recommended that you use WordPress for small business.
The system is currently used by some of the biggest brands known today and that’s because it’s one-size-fits-all and yet it’s ultra-powerful enough to do whatever you want it to and more.
