Tweet

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Build Website in WordPress

Guest post by: Sally Witzky

Article Overview: After working with several small business owners who have websites that are difficult for them to make changes or that cost them unnecessary design fees to do so, we have outlined several reasons why small business owners should consider building their website with Wordpress. Not only is it easy for the novice to use, but it also provides better search engine optimization techniques and social media integration. It's just better all around, especially now that websites are really becoming interactive tools and should serve to provide the user with new content to continue to draw people back again and again.

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Build Website in WordPress

If we were writing a book right now, we might call it "Lessons Learned in the Trenches" and this would be one of the first topics that we would discuss when it comes to online marketing for small businesses. Social media particularly is redefining how people use the web and since it isn't slowing down anytime in the near future, many small business owners are having a tough time catching up. And that's because the technology and applications are improving so fast that it is very difficult to keep up with the changes, especially those of the search engines, even for those of us who are in it everyday.

But that's all the more reason for the small business owner to take control of their online brand, and to utilize a flexible, open-source CMS platform like WordPress to build their self-hosted website.

First, let's clarify that we're not website designers by trade. We're content generators. And whether small business owners realize it or not, they will become content generators as well because static websites are quickly becoming a thing of the past for many reasons. A static website = a static business. Keeping a website continually updated is becoming more and more important in search engine rankings as well as increasing the chances a prospect will convert (recency and relevance of content to the viewer).

After working with several small business owners and learning about the challenges they've experienced with their websites, we've compiled five reasons why a small business owner should build his or her website in WordPress. WordPress...

1. Is Free and Updated Software. Because WordPress is an open-source project, there are literally hundreds of people working on it everyday. What does that mean to the business owner? It means you are free to use it for any type or size of business without having to pay a licensing fee. It is always being improved and the updates are free with a simple download. Design templates are endless but if you want something unique or want to make changes to a template, a web designer can rather easily custom design for your tastes.
2. Includes a Blog. Whether you think you need a blog or not, or even if you'd like to have one but are not sure that you would have the time to update it, it is critical that you build a website with integrated blog capability. In fact, WordPress was originally built as blogging software which gives it some unique advantages. Once programmers started working with it, they realized they could use it to build full-scale websites. We highly recommend that our small business Clients use a blog for many reasons (credibility, easy content generation including video, promotability, website traffic, etc.) but the main factor in integrating a blog within your website is that it is a very easy way for small businesses to keep their website updated with great content.
3. Is Great for SEO. Small business owners are not always well-versed in search engine optimization techniques (hey, it's difficult for us to keep up with it and we're in the industry). But it's important to know the factors of where your site ranks naturally when people do a search on a product or service that you offer. While other software platforms can be great for SEO for the experienced user and programmer, WordPress comes prepackaged to help you immediately with the basics and beyond plus the ability to easily add on other plug-ins designed to help you with SEO such as the very popular All In One SEO Pack which now comes in a Pro version. There are plenty of other search engine ranking factors like age of domain name and hosting, but at least you'll start out with more than the basics covered.
4. Is a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS website platform allows the novice user to update their website with copy changes and new graphics in an easy way, almost like using Microsoft Word. WordPress is not the only CMS website software, there are others such as Expression Engine, Drupla and Joomla. But WordPress is becoming the most popular and widely-used and easiest-to-use for the small business owner who would prefer to a) not spend a lot of time making website changes, b) would rather not have to pay a website designer to make the changes. The latter adds a lot of cost and those dollars could be allocated much better in online or offline marketing efforts and we can't stress how important this is, especially to a small or start-up business. And, with it being so widely used, there are many people who are WordPress experts who can help you if you need it.
5. Has Easy Social Media Integration. It seems social media changes faster than SEO these days and WordPress makes it easy to nicely integrate social media within your site. There are so many options with various plug-ins and easy-to-use widgets which help you to custom design your site in the way that you choose. Just like a blog, we believe your social media should be seamlessly integrated in places in your site that are natural to your reader. By showcasing your involvement in social media in the right places on your site, it shows that you are staying up-to-date with current trends, that you're accessible and that you're encouraging customer feedback and engagement with your company. All good things to do.

Recently, we spoke with an interior designer whose website developer built her website using Flash. It is not optimized for SEO and she cannot do anything with it without calling her web guy. She doesn't know if she has Google Analytics on the site and her blog is created separately in Blogger. Her social media links look like an afterthought because, well, they were. Overall, the site is gorgeous but isn't practical for her as a owner/operator of her business. Unfortunately, she spent a lot of money on her website only to have a web presence that isn't cohesive from a design, operational or SEO standpoint. We really get annoyed when we see these situations because there isn't much we can do to help without redoing nearly everything she's done.

We're not saying here that you can't successfully build a website in another platform but we favor WordPress for small business owners for many reasons. The biggest one is to keep costs down while giving you the ability to expand your website as your marketing needs increase . For example, if you're doing a lot of PPC advertising with Google or Facebook, then you want to create landing pages on your site that are specific to those ads. You don't want to be in a position to have to call your website designer every time you need to feature a special event, run a targeted offer or make changes to your staff photos.

Related Articles
  7 Reasons to Use a WordPress Design For Your Business Website
  From Mystery to Mastery: Creating and Maintaining your own Successful Website
  How Wordpress CMS can benefit an organization?
  Discover How Your Internet Home Business can benefit from a Wordpress Blog
  How WordPress Trackback works?
  Money Making Websites: The Benefits Of Starting With A Ready-Made Site
  Build Me A Website
  Small Home Business Ideas Targeting Local Offline Businesses
  WordPress- A Full Fledged Content Management System
  There Are Some Things You Should Know About Wordpress
  The must have plugins for your wordpress blog (for beginners)
  Hire WordPress Developer to build an exceptional open source web application
  Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com
  Business & Corporate Web Design - Tutorial on How To Build Under $100
  If WordPress Is Good Enough For Jeff Johnson Then It Must Be Good
  Some Enjoyable WordPress Plugins to Check Out
  When should I upgrade my wordpress site?
  Blogging Your Way to a Successful Home Business
  Benefits of Using WordPress As A CMS
  Which Comes First - Website Design or Logo?

Article Tags: small business, small business marketing, small business website, social media marketing, wordpress



Related Forum Posts
Re: how do I get started with Wordpress blog? - GoDaddy is another hosting company that works in conjunction with WordPress.org and makes set up a snap. For those of you entrepreneurs who are hesitant in setting up a WordPress blog due to time constraints or for whatever reason, I can help you with that. Setting up WordPress blogs is one of the services I provide, as well as maintaining it for you. Contact me for more information.
Re: Poll: Blogger or Wordpress Blog? - I’ve tried Blogger before. Then I decided to “migrate” my blog to WordPress. But I’m still maintaining the blog at Blogger because I still can’t figure out how to add Google adsense scripts on my WordPress blog.
Startup Challenges - Kevin - it's a great read - you should pick it up! John - what kind of services are you offering? Your signature says "Providing Big Business Resources to Small Businesses" I have always found big companies to be hard to work with and slow to make decisions but smaller companies are more risk-tolerant and understand the online world.
Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation
Re: what position to request? - Hi Michael, Great suggestion from David, or you could try something around a design consultancy, How about Website Design Consultant, Design and Development Manager, Website Support and Development Manager or maybe Internet Business Development Consultant. Ultimately whatever you are comfortable with and good luck for the future, Mal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How To Become A Member of the Paparazzi

Igniting Your Unstoppable Business Destiny

In the Year 2020 . . . Process

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.