This is part two, of a seven-part presentation series, structured to support those new to WordPress. The goal is to provide a contiguous set of WordPress Meetups designed to help attendees gain the skills to build and use a WordPress website. This series was developed in cooperation with the Four Points Chamber of Commerce.
This beginner’s session discusses how to plan your WordPress site and build it’s information architecture — your site’s navigation — to match that plan. This presentation will focus on the difference between a ‘Page’ and a ‘Post’, and how to use ‘Categories’ and ‘Tags’ to build your navigation structure.
We will also review how to use the WordPress linking strategy to give the search engine spiders clear and distinct paths to follow that will improve your site’s search engine rankings. The session closes with how to use a site maintenance schedule to keep your online business on track and making money. Bring your laptops and your questions! Rich Plakas will lead this class.
This is the second in a series of seven sessions designed to support those new to WordPress. The goal is to provide a contiguous set of WordPress Meetups designed to help attendees gain the skills to build and use a WordPress website. This series was developed in cooperation with the Four Points Chamber of Commerce. This session was first presented in August 2013 under the title of Sensible Site Navigation —Building an Information Structure and is being repeated based on membership requests
Building the information structure of your WordPress site keeping the end in mind
Just because the WordPress features give you the capability to set up a complete WordPress site in 30-minutes doesn’t mean you should.
It is easier to do it right the first time then go back and rework, restructure. The great news is that Word- Press is such a powerful tool, changing your mind, reworking and restructuring, can be handled a magnitude easier than with the old-school static sites.
The time invested in planning and organizing your WordPress website will net a successful website that meets clearly identified goals and provides compelling content that draws your audience to your site again and again. In addition it will be easy to navigate and is attractively designed to complement the content.
You do not need to invest an inordinate amount of time planning your WordPress website. Some would-be website owners use the “Planning Process” to avoid the actual “Implementation Process.”
We advocate the middle path.
PLAN your site
DO your site,
CHECK to see if the site is doing what you PLANNED
then ACT on the information your analysis has indicated.
A successful site is the product of continuous process improvement. The time you invest in the improvement process will help you develop a site that will invoke a positive response from search engines and help convert site visitors into customers.
Your Website Is A Business Unit
Commit to treating your website as a business unit and follow a set schedule for updating content
Make sure that your website reflects and supports both your business plan and the marketing strategy you have set for your business.
To go directly to Sensible Site Navigation —Building an Information Structure Presentation Slide Deck:
To review the Creation and Organization of Pages go to: http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages
To review the Creation and Organization of Posts go to: http://codex.wordpress.org/Posts
Review of the Post Categories Screen: http://codex.wordpress.org/Posts_Categories_Screen
To review Linking Posts Pages and Categories go to: http://codex.wordpress.org/Linking_Posts_Pages_and_Categories
The guide to using the WordPress Menu system to Build a Site Navigation Organization can be found at: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Menu_User_Guide
One of the reasons we are so enthusiastic about WordPress as a solution for business websites is that there are so many Free resources available to the beginning user.
In addition to the Austin WordPress monthly meetups, you can find answers to most of your questions on the WordPress Codex [codex.wordpress.org]and if you are more of an audio/visual learner there are hundreds of videos at [http://wordpress.tv].
If you have questions between meetup you can always post them on the Austin WordPress Google Groups Forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/wordpress-austin.
Next month we will present: How to Choose and Install a WordPress Theme.