March 29th, 2010
- Sign up for hosting and buy a domain. For simplicity, you could really just do this from one spot. Follow instructions to sign up for basic website hosting.
- Once you get username and password info to log in to your hosting accoung, log in to your control panel (lplogin.com) and go to “fantastico” to install WordPress with one click. Install to the root of the domain. Save the username and password to login to your WordPress account.
- Look online for free wordpress themes. There are a million places to buy from and wordpress.org has some free ones for download that are really nice. You can install themes from here with a couple clicks using these instructions.
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Log in to your wordpress account and create the pages of your site. Just go to “Pages | Add New” and add the pages you want for your website. Create a page for your homepage, called “Home”. Note that WordPress already created and About page for you. You’ll need to change the content in that one
. I recommend you create another page called “Recent News”. I’ll explain why in a second.
- Now, this is the trick that lets you use WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) that most people don’t know about. Go to “Settings | Reading”. Set things up such that the main page is set to “Home” and the posts page is the “Recent News” page.
This way you have all the fuctionality of the blog but the site appears as a standard business website and even has a “Recent News” section that pulls content from your “Posts”.
Posted in How to | 1 Comment »
January 17th, 2010
We’ve been designing and developing websites for a while. We’ve heard many excuses why companies opt not to hire a “design or development shop”. Many of them are actually reasons why they should hire someone to help their site.
Here are 5 telltale signs that you need to hire a web design company:
- Your cousin, uncle, daughter, or 5-year old son already maintains your site. Let’s be serious. Unless your son is in design school, or studying User Experience in a technical college, he or she probably doesn’t know enough to really maintain your site. Enlist someone that knows what’s out there, how best to organize your content, and how to help turn your visitors into customers.
- You design and maintain your own website in Frontpage/Publisher. How valuable is your time? If you think like I do, then you feel it is important to concentrate on services your business provides, and let others do the rest. When visitors see a site that uses 600 colors and still has a scrolling phone number, they might choose to go somewhere more “professional”. Here’s a quick stat – 46% of web sales are lost on web sites that lack the critical elements that build value and trust with website visitors.
- You have no idea how many people are visiting your website. With a simple fix and some free software any development shop can install code on your website that tells you who, what, when, where and how your site is being seen online. From simple reports to full webpage overlays, statistical results are a key part of telling what you are doing right or wrong with your website.
- You can’t find your own website when you search for it on Google. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not an exact science and it takes work to climb the rankings. However, there are some simple things you can do to show up higher in the rankings. You need to help the search engines to help you get found by the keywords your customers will search. Good SEO starts with your website content, keywords and description and extends to the code organization, content, and links within your website.
- You don’t have or don’t think you need a website. Just a quick stat – Over 90% of prospective customers will visit your website before considering doing business with you. If you don’t have a website, what do your potential customers find? Your competition!
If you or someone you know is exhibiting one or more of these signs, contact us immediately and we’ll make sure to create or enhance the online presence of the business in need.
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
October 28th, 2009
One of the best ways to market to your users, customers or fans is a newsletter. Leverage the power of websites like Constant Contact and My Emma to notify your audience of what is going on in your business. Not only does it remind people that you exist, but your content could inform potential customers about your industry in a way that could push people towards becoming a customer. Putting a sign up form on your website is simple, and helping you get an account created is a cinch.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 16th, 2009
We hope you enjoy our new website. A revamp has been long overdue. Let’s just say we have been working diligently with clients so shoemaker’s shoes, blah, blah, blah…
We do have a lot more work to show off, so check out our portfolio section and let us know what you think in the comments. Things are very busy over here, but we would like to enlighten you as to what is going on at Creative MMS from time to time and offer some tips for website design and development, especially for our clients.
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
