When designing a website on WordPress, one of the essential pieces is going to be its structure.  In many cases, if you have a fully customized website, you will include various plugins to supplement parts of your site when utilizing the WordPress platform.  This platform allows for much easier creation and management than a custom coded and managed website. Plugins are used within the WordPress platform because they are programs designed to do specific things to augment and bolster your site, without needing custom code.

What is the most significant difference between using a platform like WordPress and coding your website?

1. Costs

the cost of good Webdesign can be incredible. WordPress websites can typically run in the hundreds to thousands of dollars. If you wanted a web development team to create a website, you would be looking at at least a $10,000 bill, which can be overwhelming to many smaller companies.

Deciding the primary purpose of your website will be vital in determining the path you need to go down.  If you are looking for fully customizable and unique functionality, you may need a web development team for a more extensive scope project.  However, most businesses will find that the WordPress route will allow them all the customization that they will need. WordPress provides for merchant processing and e-commerce plugins to be integrated.  This integration will enable businesses to run their shops entirely digitally in many cases without spending a large amount of money.

The bread and butter to any WordPress website are going to be plugins or unique code used.  There needs to be a balance of plugins with your other content. Having too many plugins can slow down your website.  Alternatively, there may be a point where plugins are messing with each other’s settings meaning that you are not getting full usability in some cases.  Kallen media is here to breakdown three common uses for plugins on the WordPress platform.

2. Search Engine Optimization

Often the purpose of working on WordPress is to avoid digging too deep into the coding elements of your website.  Search engines look at all aspects of your website unless you specifically tell them not to. When these search engines crawl your websites, they are looking for a variety of different factors to rank your site.  There are some elements that you can control, like how many keywords you embed and if you have all your proper tags in place.

There may be other elements like proper image sizing, 404 redirects, and a variety of more complex problems that you may have a harder time-solving. These issues are where specific search engine optimization plugins come in. By utilizing a variety of plugins, you can have images automatically resized to fit your website better.  You can have SEO plugins give you recommendations for pages as to how you can get the most search traffic.

3. Visual Builders

We are now at a point with website builders that we can design websites completely through a visible view.  This front end builder eliminates the need to code and allows for complete front end development capabilities. Some of the most common that Kallen Media would recommend would be Elementor and Divi.  Elementor offers a free version with limited features, while the Divi package offers yearly and lifetime licenses.

Utilizing visual builders allows you to bring design aspects directly into your websites.  Adding icons, pictures, and visual effects have never been easier. There are several beginner tutorials online that can guide you through building a website within a few hours from Kallen Media.  Of course, there are more functions once you dive in. But this is a perfect starting point for someone interested in creating a website. Alternatively, you could utilize Kallen Media to design, build, and teach you about your website.  This way, you are both informed and fully capable of making changes to your website without the need for a third party.

4. E-Commerce

The digital market is continuously expanding, and with it, so is e-commerce. So to be successful as an online business, you need to be able to process payments online.  Payment processing requires that you both have a merchant processor, and frequently, an e-commerce website. WordPress allows you to link merchant processors easily with their plugins like WooCommerce.  One other essential piece that you need to keep in mind is that you need to have an HTTPS security key to process payments through your website. This security can be purchased through most hosting sites, or contact Kallen Media for additional assistance.

Once you are working within an e-commerce website builder, you can display your products.  Whether it is physical products you ship out or services, you can show your business within an online store.  Setting up product pages is smooth and has full customization to make your business stand out from the competition. Integrating e-commerce software can seem overwhelming, but Kallen Media can make it simple with a free consultation!

After reviewing what WordPress has to offer, we would recommend trying your first website on WordPress. For now, we hope you enjoyed the article and would love to hear your feedback in the comments!

Marketing is often used to describe a wide variety of processes and systems within a company.  Anything from sales to social media campaigns can be considered marketing. So what is the most effective form of marketing that your business should spend the most money?  That is the golden question that every business is trying to answer. Today we are going to go over some of the most widely used marketing tactics, as well as some great times to use them.

The six main marketing streams we are going to investigate are Social Media, Mailers, Search Ads, Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and creating an Active Blog.

6. Active Blog

Search engines and people both enjoy fresh content.  The most effective way to display new information to your client base is through an active blog.  Here you can post anything from customer spotlights to further exciting details about your company!

Optimizing your blog is another key to great digital marketing.  Finding the search terms that you want to rank for can be key. The more words and key phrases you have in your content, the higher it is going to rank on Google.  Adding pictures and subheadings is a great way to optimize your post further, while also making your content more professional. Blogs should typically be longer than 500 words because that is the low end of where Google picks up information from web pages.

5. Search Engine Optimization

Having a website is no longer enough to keep you relevant online.  You want to make sure that your site is fully optimized and is getting tracked by all the most significant search engines.  If you are not showing up in search engine results on relevant pages, odds are people are not seeing your website. This realization can be a significant blow to many companies that invest heavily in their website and online presence.

Optimizing your website for search engines can be done in a variety of ways.  The first would be to utilize tools like Google to crawl your site. This crawl will expose areas of weakness while giving you great recommendations for how to fix specific problems.  With WordPress websites, you can often use plugins to adjust certain aspects if you are not a coding expert. However, this can also lead to slower overall websites since more data needs to load.

4. Email Marketing

Email can be one of your most prominent friends when it comes to creating digital marketing campaigns.  You will want to build your list for email blasts and updates that can be done through systems like customer relationship management software.  By keeping an email list, you can keep track of clients, as well as individuals who may have decided not to buy. You can now send these people marketing material to try and close sales by promoting similar products.

Keeping in touch with your client base is critical for maintaining top of mind in your client base.  Sending out updates and new features is an excellent way to keep yourself relevant. If you have seasonal deals or specials, send them out to your list!  Don’t hold your information a secret, the best way to spread the news is through individuals who have already expressed some interest in your company.

3. Search Ads

When most people go onto the internet, they use a search engine to find what they are looking for if they do not have an exact destination in mind.  This mindset would be if someone was looking for a restaurant and didn’t know what they wanted; they may type in the type of food. The same way someone searches for food, they search for companies within your industry.  Similarly, people look up specific words or phrases about what they are looking for that can be bid on within platforms like Google and Microsoft ads.

Advertising on these large search engine platforms gives opportunities to have your product seen by millions of people depending on how large your budget is.  This is the best way to get discovered when you are first starting your business. In many cases, there will be no chance you organically appear on the first page of search results.  However, utilizing paid search ads, you can be seen by people looking for your specific niche.

2. Mailers

One of the oldest and most frequent tactics can still prove highly useful.  Depending on your type of business, mailers can be helpful when targeting your specific clients.  There are two critical situations where mailers will prove to be cost-effective, which is when you are targeting customers in your area, or if you are trying to use mailers to expand other marketing efforts.  Some digital marketing services like Facebook ads require mailers to be sent first, so sending direct mailers around the country can be critical to opening up other forms of advertising.

1. Social Media Advertising

The final type of marketing is social media advertising.  This advertising would be using services from websites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Each different media outlet has a slightly different audience that may cater to specific businesses.  Instagram is strictly visual and media-heavy, so that attracts a much different audience than its parent company Facebook.

You will need to determine who your target audience is, and figure out where they spend their time.  If you do not do your research, you could end up dumping hundreds or even thousands of dollars into campaigns where you do not see any real results.

Kallen Media is available to help with all of your different marketing strategies.  For any other comments or questions, be sure to contact us at [email protected].