Don’t worry!

There is no need to waste time worrying about what type of website you need or what type of website is best for your business, because there are really only two different types of websites:

1. Standard Website

A standard website is built using plain HTML or XHTML and CSS and maybe some additional coding types such as Flash, JavaScript, Drupal, or PHP. It is the typical type of brochure style, sales website you think of when you think of a business website.

Typically, HTML editing software such as Dreamweaver is needed to make changes and update the site. Usually a webmaster or website designer is in charge of making all of the updates for the business. This style website is typically a more static site, not changing very often. In some cases content management systems like Joomla can be integrated to allow the user to edit the site themselves.

2. Blogsite

A blog site is the combination of a website (pages) and a blog (posts). This site is a sample of a blogsite. The blog feature can be on the home page of the site, or like this site, on an interior or sub page. There are platforms online that allow you to create a blogsite like WordPress, Blogger, and Typepad. Some blog platforms can be integrated into custom, self hosted websites as well.

Blogs are becoming increasingly popular due to their strong search engine optimization features, flexibility, and content management systems that allow uses to update their own websites themselves at anytime.

Some people refer to the type of content management system used in a website as the type of website. When in reality, it is instead a feature of a website. As mentioned above, some popular options for content management systems are WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

Bourn Creative offers the integration of the WordPress CMS WordPress into our Websites. WordPress is our content management system of choice because with WordPress, you can update your website anytime you want without knowing any HTML! It is easy to use, effective, and when used properly can yield massive results for your marketing efforts!

Basically, if you can dream it, we can create it with WordPress.

NOTE: mass-hosted blogsites are hosted with the blog system and usually include their name in the domain. An example of a hosted blog site is: www.yourdomain.wordpress.com. Self-hosted blogsites on the other hand, are hosted in your own hosting account with a web host like Dream Host, Go Daddy, and Blue Host. An example of a self hosted blog domain is: www.yourdomain.com.

Blogs, with features like trackbacks, pingbacks, and leave a comment, offer a whole new level of interaction with site visitors, allowing your content to start and participate in online conversations. The archiving options (by date or category) that blogs offer are also a great way to organize articles on websites.

Another popular blog feature is the options for feed syndication. The most common forms of feed syndication are RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Atom. Blogs publish feeds of their content, usually in XML, so that users can subscribe or sign up to have the content sent right to them by email or in a feed reader. Visitors can add the RSS feed links for their favorite blogs to their feed reader, and it will inform them whenever there are new posts.

What is WordPress?

Here is the definition from the www.wordpress.org website: WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress websites and blogsites can be completely custom built from scratch, or an existing WordPress theme or template can be used as a based and then customized. Basically, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.

WordPress is an Open Source project. That means hundreds of people all over the world are working on it and creating applications and plug-ins that work with it. It also means you can use WordPress for any website you want without being required to pay anyone a license fee. It was originally designed just for blogging. But because it is so powerful, many developers have created functional and helpful plug-ins that work with WordPress, making it a great tool for the development of business websites as well.

In a standard HTML/CSS website, each page and all of its content is a separate file and in most cases, the page files contain the code for the design and layout as well as the content. Anytime you want to make a change, you have to make it to each page it affects and re-upload the updated files to your server through an FTP account.

With WordPress, all of the content for each page is stored in a single database. The design and aesthetics of the site are stored in separate files that define the theme (template/skin) of the blog site. This makes updating the design and layout of the site much easier, because you only have to make revisions to the theme files, not the content. Likewise, it means all of your content changes can be made in one place.

You can learn more about WordPress in my blog post: 6 Reasons WordPress Is Perfect For Your Business Website.

• More information about you, your business, your products and services, and special programs
• Education about why your services and products are needed
• Samples of how your products and services have helped other people
• Opportunities to interact with you and your business
• News about your industry, business, products, services, etc. that affect them
• Increased customer services and added benefits

A business website or business blogsite can help local businesses connect with people in their community, and world-wide businesses reach a global audience. While each business may have slightly different website needs and requirements, a website can help and enhance your business by:

• Creating More Business
  A well-done, optimized website or blog can land your website in the search engine rankings, putting your site in front of more people, more often – and that results in more sales.
• Enhancing Your Reputation
  When someone wants to learn more about you or your business, the fastest way for them to learn more is to jump online, type in your name or business name and see what comes up. By investing in your online presence through your website, blog, and social media profiles, etc. you can actively manage your reputation and increase your online presence.
• Adding Streams of Income
  Your website or blog can act as an online store front, selling your products and services to a wider market. It also is a great opportunity to re-purpose information and sell it in the form of audio recordings, ebooks, and infoproducts.
• Positioning You as a Go-To Resource
  Your website can be a great resource for your customers to get more information, answers to their questions, customer support. It can be the perfect place to post your contact information, events calendar, sales and special offers, and more. Some of the most popular ways to do this is to provide a newsroom and an Frequently Asked Questions page.
• Saving Your Money
  Your website can save you money! While the initial investment in a custom, branded, professional website or blog may be larger than other forms of marketing materials, over time, your website will save you money. Instead of incurring printing and postage costs, your documents, handouts, newsletters, and reports can be posted to your website for people to download.
• Building Credibility and Trust
  A consistently updated website, with good, fresh content that is helpful to the site visitors shows that you value your customers. It tells them that you are committed to providing them the information they need on a timely basis. Allowing comments and other forms of interaction also shows them that you care what tey ahve to say and want to hear from them.
• Automating Redundant Tasks
  With all of the Internet tools and blog plug-ins available online, you can find a way to automate pretty much anything you want. Automating the redundant tasks in your business through your website doesn’t just save you time. It actually makes you money. Automating non-billable tasks frees you up to focus on billable work and serving your clients.

You can call it anything you want, but ultimately when you break down every business to it’s core, you are engaging in commerce and trading a commodity for payment. Yes you may be aspiring to make a difference in the world, or help other business owners just like you achieve greater levels of success, or you may even be in business to create social change. But ultimately, you as a business owner must do one thing to make it all happen. You have to sell your products, services, and ideas for a profit.

To Make a Profit, Your Target Market Must Know That You Exist.

Your target market must be able to find you and learn more about what you have to offer and how it can help them solve their problems or achieve their goals. Only then will they be able purchase from you.

The easiest way to help you target market find you is:

1. To combine an impressive, eye-catching website or blog with consistently updated, fresh, and compelling content.
2. To optimize every aspect of the website and content. You must optimize first for the user with an easy flow of information, and second for the search engine robots to help increase your search engine rankings.

Gone are the days of merely having an online presence or brochure website. Now with web 2.0, it is all about interaction, engagement, community, relationships, sharing, teaching, and learning.

Your website can no longer be just a place for prospects to learn more about you. It can no longer be a glorified brochure.

With more and more businesses turning to the Internet each day to expand their market reach, high quality website design and blog design is becoming more important than ever.

Your website needs to:

1. Stand out from every other website in your industry. It needs to stick in the minds of your website visitors so they come back and tell their friends about your website.
2. Provide the information your visitors need and want quickly and easily.
3. Be a central hub of activity, sharing, and interaction, as well as a resource for fresh, valuable, useful content.
4. Show up on the first page of the search engine results pages for your keywords and long tail key phrases.

If you can position your website as the hub of activity and go-to resource for your niche, you will fill your marketing pipeline or marketing funnel with a consistent stream of new prospects and new customers. And, you will soon increase profits!

Do you have any questions about updating your content and making your website a lead generating, profit machine? Let me know!

I believe that reviewing the wordpress blog design and website design and development process is extremely important, not only to clarify the process, but to educate the prospect and set clear expectations.

Design is completely subjective. While your designer, whether it is myself or someone else, will do their very best to create designs that fit you, your business, and your needs perfectly, it is a creative process. Your first set of design drafts are exactly that – drafts. It is your designers first round of options created for you. The first designers you see are not the final designs. It is only the starting point.

When you receive your first draft website or blog design proofs, this is your opportunity to use your voice and offer input. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t like something or want to change something. Your designer is there as a partner to help you create a website or blog you will love and they want to work with you and hear what you have to say.

Here is a brief outline of the eight step process Bourn Creative uses for all custom website design and WordPress blog design projects:

1. CREATIVE BRIEF. In this first step, I gather all of the information possible from you. I ask questions and get to know your needs, desires, and expectations. I want to know what the website or blog needs to help you accomplish, what results you want to see, why you’re doing the project, how it will be used, and who the site is being developed for. The information gathered in this step is then compiled into a creative brief to be reviewed and approved by all decision-makers.
2. PLANNING. This step involves the development of your website/blog sitemap, flow of content, how the navigation will function, what tools and features need to be integrated and what inteactive elements like forms need to be included.
3. DESIGN. This is when I begin on creating the actual look and feel of your website or blog. I will design the page templates using colors, textures, graphics, typefaces, etc. and will present your website or blog design concepts to you via email as JPG files for review. I recommend some discussion about the concepts as well so I can chat with you about the thought process and reasoning behind the concepts and talk with you about any dynamic elements.
4. REVISIONS & FINE TUNING. This is where you really start to get involved and we work together to revise the concepts as needed to reach your final logo design. Sometimes my clients have no revisions and sometimes we’ll make two or three to get it just right. While I will always honor your ideas and requests, I also will provide design guidance as needed.
5. DEVELOPMENT. Once your final design is selected, the actual build of the website will begin, starting with the homepage and then the interior page template. Then the integration of your opt-in box, shopping cart, electronic forms, etc. will be completed along with the insertion and formatting on the content. The site will be available online for review during this time and you will be able to make changes.
6. TESTING. In this pahse we click through your entire site checking the links, forms, design elements, and copy to make sure everything is working and displaying correctly. Once the site has been tested, the files will be tranferred to your hosting accout using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. At the time your site will be live to the pubic.
7. CELEBRATION. At the end of each project I celebrate and I encourage you to do the same. Celebrating each step toward achieving your goals makes the journey quite a bit more fun!
8. MAINTENANCE. Your site may be live, but the work is not done! For the first 30 days your site is live, my team and I are available to make any little revisions you need and to help you in any way we can. To keep visitors coming back to your site it needs to be conistently updated with fresh new content. You may also have new services, products, or events to add to your website. My team and I can work with you to maintain your website and keep the content updated, or you can utilize a content management system that will give you access to your website’s “back end” and allow you to make the changes yourself.