Everytime I create a new website for a small business owner I get the same question asked about 9 out of 10 times: “Will I be able to update and add things to my site myself?”
In other words, they are asking how easy will it be for them make changes to the website themselves. They don’t want to buy an expensive web editing program and spend hours learning that program just so they can occasionally update their menu, add specials, announce new events or whatever the case may be.
They also don’t want to pay a large annual fee to a web design firm just to get “Free updates” to their website. Some web design companies charge upwards of $400 or more per year just to do basic updates to your website, as you need them.
As a small business owner, what can you do?
The answer is undoubtedly: WordPress websites.
Whether you’ve heard of WordPress or not, you may not know that WordPress has become one of the most popular and effective ways to build a website nowadays. In fact, did you know that some of the largest companies and brands in the world are currently using WordPress?
Here is a list of just a few:
Yahoo: www.ycorpblog.com
Rolling Stone magazine: www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily
CNN News: www.politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com
Southwest Airlines: www.blogsouthwest.com
Sony PlayStation: www.blog.us.playstation.com
Flickr: www.blog.flickr.net
The New York Times publishes over 50 WordPress powered website
What is WordPress?
WordPress came about back in 2003 and became popular when the blogging revolution started worldwide. Initially is was known as a blogging platform, but has evolved into a one of the most widely used Content Management Systems (CMS) that over 202 million websites worldwide are currently using to build and manage their websites.
What Can a WordPress based website do for my business? Web Designers worldwide, including Maine Media Pros, recommend WordPress based websites to the small businesses of the world for their website because of these reasons:
- Once the website design is done, it is very easy for the owner of the website to log into the administration dashboard from anywhere in the world with an internet connection and update, change or add content to their website without any programming experience or expensive software.
- WordPress comes with several built in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features so that people actually find your website in the search engines. WordPress’ ability to create SEO friendly permalinks, blogrolling and pinging are just to name a few.
- There are thousands of add ons (plugins) that can be added to each WordPress website to increase search engine visibility, build and manage company newsletters, track website performance and statistics, add flash animation, slideshows, background music, display interactive slideshows and portfolios of your work….you name it, it is possible. We can go on all day here.
- Each WordPress website also comes with a built in blog that you can write to and manage within the WordPress administration dashboard.
I hope I’ve convinced you that WordPress is the the best CMS to get your website designed and built upon.
Later Fellow Mombasa People!
Kefa Otengo
Mombasa Internet Marketing & Web Design by Smart Web Marketing
