Category Archives: Site & Internet Strategy Effectivenes

A great question was recently asked on an online forum my company implemented, which I often participate and help moderate:

“Lately I have been hearing people talk about having their websites done on a WordPress platform so they can make quick changes on their own. Is anyone doing this? If so, is it as easy as others are making it sound? Are there any other benefits to switching over? ”

WordPress (WP), which is the tool or technical engine we use for this blog and many others we develop, is a great option to consider not just for the development of blogs but also for the creation of robust web sites as well. We have developed quite a few sites already using this tool and including the amazing and upcoming site of: Alan & The Gang.
Here are some of the pros and cons whether to use WordPress to create robust web sites:

Pros:

1. Allow the site owner to publish their own content updates and create new pages. Most such content changes may then be accomplished by a non-technical person.
2. Easier ways of integrating video and audio podcasting.
3. Give complete flexibility to your technical team to design the site to have a unique and outstanding look and feel that does not resemble a blog structure at all.
4. Enable easier interface with RSS so visitors may subscribe to automatically receive your site updates.
5. Take advantage of WordPress improvements to advance your site functionality.
6. Gain access to a WP community to learn new ideas and implement new software functionality via plugins.
7. Empower yourself with the ability at your leisure to quickly publish revised and new content on your site.

Cons:

1. Security is the biggest issue from my perspective. WP sites are possibly easier to hack into than other sites. I therefore recommend you do update your site and install security patches often.
2. When you update to the latest version of WP, some of your installed software functionality programs (plugins) may not work anymore.
3. The need to update the software and plugins often.
4. You must become familiar with the plugins concept to avoid the possibility of installing harmful code on your site. If you are not sure, read this horror story.
5. May become time consuming to stay on top of the necessary knowledge.
6. Updating the content does require some technical knowledge which not all people are apt to do.
7. Although it may seem that a non-technical user may be able to use this tool, don’t fool yourself. There are many issues that require the knowledge of an expert and when one is used this point should be place in the pros section above.
8. Backing up a worpress site is a bit more complicated than a static site since it contains databases. As basic as this sounds, do not underestimate the importance of backing up your site on a daily basis.

In an article I wrote some time ago, To infinity & beyond – Nine practical techniques to take your web site to the next level, I emphasized the importance of effectively testing your web site. This means that you need to test your site not only when you are ready to launch it for the first time but also when you make frequent changes to it. Let me show an example:

You may already know that when typing a web address in your browser you may save the amount of keystrokes and elect to take a shortcut. This means that you do not need to include the “http://www.” or the “www.” before the domain name. So for example, if I wish to enter this blog name in my browser I may type “chadbarr.com” instead of “www.chadbarr.com” or instead of the entire “htttp://www.chadbarr” which is often used by many.

Some time ago, a colleague recommended I check the blog by David Meerman Scott who also wrote the book The New Rule of Marketing & PR which I highly recommend. I launched by browser and typed “webinknow.com” and got this error screen suggesting the domain name I type was not found:

Upon further search on Google I found the blog I was looking for:

I then realized that the person who set up the blog did not take into consideration setting it up in such a way that enables visitors to type the shortcut into your browser. No big deal you may say, and although I may slightly agree, why not make it easy for your visitors to find your sites and reduce the chance of annoyance or creating the wrong assumption that your site is down or does not exist?

I then decided to visit David’s main site. When I got to his home page (as displayed below) I  was unable to click on the top right two links which are the Blog and Bio options although they both worked on the interior pages.

This error is quite common in my experience and I am not suggesting that I am immune of it in our own work. But I do suggest however is that if it happens to the best of us it may happen to you as well. Why not take the extra few seconds and test your sites thoroughly and on an ongoing basis?

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

The blah factor is my fancy technical term to describe web sites (not blogs) that have way too much text on their home page. I came across the site below and am depicting it as an illustration of the ubiquitous nature of this problem on the web. During my speaking engagements I often compare and show effective home pages to highway billboards and/or the front cover of most effective books. You only have a few seconds to grab your audience attention and establish credibility. This is not going to happen with vast amount of text and words to convey your message. Remember in this case: “Less is more.” I recommend you significantly reduce the amount of text on your home page, replace it with engaging and professional images or sections, with powerful sound bytes to grab attention that entice the visitor to click, learn more and explore.

The three screen shots below represent the scrolling through the home page of this site that its main focus is to help you become more productive with your time management issues. I suggest they help us become more productive by eliminating most of the text and getting a grip of their home page.

I don’t get the thinking with web sites that incorporate the concept of “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon” pages. Some sites I visit incorporate these pages to attempt and let us know that these pages are going to be released soon. Some do that on their home page thus suggesting that the entire site will be launched soon. When I see such pages here is what crosses my mind:

1. You are wasting my time navigating your site, thus aggravating me.
2. You are telling me that you are unable to meet your own deadlines and finish your commitments.
3. Marketing your own company is not a priority for you.
4. The methods you and your Webmaster are using are amateurish.
5. There is a good chance these pages will never change.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Finish developing all the content necessary for all pages on your site and only then should you launch your site.
2. Eliminate all pages from your site that content is not ready yet.
3. If you can commit and guarantee that the pages or your entire site will be available on a certain date, it is ok to announce the following: “Thank you for visiting this page, please check back on xx/xx/xx when this page will be launched.”

The examples below not only illustrate my points above, but they also demonstrate business negligence. These pages have been there for over a year. I suggest they either take the page or site down or complete writing the content.

(click on images to enlarge):