Did you know that WordPress powers over 27% of all websites on the Internet?

That’s more than any other platform.

And that’s a lot of the Internet.

It’s safe to say that WordPress is popular – and for many good reasons! But before we get into those reasons, let’s start with a quick refresher…

What exactly is WordPress?

If you’re new to the world of online marketing and business, WordPress might be a bit unfamiliar. And that’s okay!

In its simplest form, WordPress is a content management system – or CMS – where small business owners like you can create an amazing website for their company. It started out as a blogging platform, but over the years it has grown in leaps and bounds.

And LOTS of businesses are using it. In fact, it’s estimated that WordPress 4.6 – the latest version of WordPress – has been downloaded 21.7 million times.

But don’t just listen to the crazy stats. Here are 10 reasons why we here at JSL love to work with WordPress and why WordPress for small businesses is the best idea since sliced bread!

1. WordPress for Small Businesses – It’s Easy to Customize

WordPress can literally work for any business – and it has so many different features available thanks to a library full of plugins.

What are plugins?

Well, they’re essentially little add-ons that can be included in any WordPress site – and they can do extraordinary things. For example, some will add calendars, booking features, image galleries, videos, and more to your website – the possibilities are endless.

2. You Can Easily Maintain and Update as Needed

If you don’t want to touch anything on your website, that’s totally fine. But – if you like to get your hands dirty and be a part of the action, you totally can do just with ease.

WordPress is really quite simple to maintain and update, whether you want to add a blog post, edit the content on one of your pages or even add a new image.

There’s a little bit of a learning curve, but once you’ve mastered the necessary skills, it’s not so bad.

3. Blogging is Simple with WordPress

Blogging is a great way to boost page views and reader engagement, and it’s also an excellent way to establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry (not to mention the SEO benefits).

WordPress makes it incredibly simple to add a blog into your website – whether you’re just starting out or you’re thinking of adding one in down the road.

The feature comes built in, so you’re good to go whenever you choose to get started.

4. It is Both Safe and Secure for Everyone

Since it is so popular, some consider WordPress to be a primary target for hackers. However, the good people at WordPress take security very, very seriously.

Keeping your WordPress site regularly updated with the latest versions of plugins and WordPress itself is one great way to ensure your site is kept safe.

Plus, there are a lot of great security plugins that integrate well with the framework – so you can rest assured that your site is in good hands.

5. WordPress is Ideal for Small Business Growth

You might be able to build a basic site on drag-and-drop website builders like Wix and Squarespace, but you can really only take your website so far with those platforms.

WordPress on the other hand allows you to start small and build big as your business continues to grow. You can add features as you need them and make room for more and more visitors to your website.

WordPress is ideal for small businesses looking to expand and grow.

6. Mobile Friendly Websites Are Standard

As web designers, we work on all sorts of different websites in a variety of different industries. And there’s always one thing that’s the same across the board – all of our websites are mobile-friendly.

It’s a must in today’s world, with everyone constantly on their phones and tablets.

WordPress makes creating mobile-friendly websites simple – and the end result is always beautiful and clean. A real win-win!

7. WordPress has Excellent Support and Help Forums

Have a WordPress question? There’s probably a forum dedicated to that very topic with a host of different solutions for your problem.

That’s one really great thing about WordPress – the support is phenomenal since everyone is using it. As designers, we find this incredibly useful, but it’s also beneficial if you’re maintaining a WordPress website and run into a question.

Of course, we’re always available to answer our clients’ WordPress questions, but there are also literally thousands of forums out there filled to the brim with solutions.

8. It Integrates with Many Email Marketing Platforms

We’ve talked about the many benefits of email marketing in the past on the blog, but it’s incredibly important that your website has an area for people to sign up to be placed on your email list.

After all, you need to have emails to send marketing messages to in order for email marketing to be effective.

WordPress makes this very simple, as it has the functionality to integrate with many, many different email marketing platforms, including MailChimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, and more.

9. E-commerce Friendly and Ready for Business

Looking to sell physical or digital products online? You guessed it – WordPress can do that too.

There are a lot of different platforms available for e-commerce, but the majority integrate with WordPress. Woocommerce in particular is one that works incredibly well with WordPress, but various outside platforms – such as Shopify – integrate with it as well.

And if you’re not currently selling products but thinking of doing so in the future, that’s totally fine! You can always add e-commerce into your WordPress site later down the road – it’s super simple.

10. WordPress is Always SEO Friendly

Last but certainly not least, WordPress is SEO friendly – meaning your WordPress website may just have a slight edge over the non-WordPress competition in your niche.

Why is this? Well for one, WordPress is easy for search engine bots to crawl. Plus, it’s easy to establish a good URL hierarchy, so everything on your site has a place and fits together in a way that makes sense – kind of like a well drawn road map for both search engines and people.

In conclusion, WordPress really is an amazing choice for small business owners – which is one of the many reasons why we here at JSL Marketing & Web Design specialize in it!

If you’re looking to build a new website or redesign an existing one and you’d like to use WordPress, get in touch with us today – we’d love to help you out!

Content marketing.

It’s a buzzword in online marketing right now, but for good reason – it works.

And it’s really quite simple. Content marketing is all about creating and distributing content that is consistent, valuable and relevant with the end goal of reaching a specific target audience that resonates with your overall brand message.

In other words – you’re creating content to help out your audience with the hopes of creating a sense of brand loyalty that will eventually lead to loyal customers for your business.

It’s marketing – just unobtrusive marketing.

And while it really is quite simple, there are several key components that are necessary to any successful content marketing strategy, including:

1. SEO Friendly Blog Posts That Are Consistent and Helpful

If you want your audience to learn something valuable from your website, then you need to first provide them with some useful content.

And that’s where the blog comes into play.

In order to make your blog posts as beneficial as possible, first start by creating a list of both keywords that people in your niche market are searching for and also and questions that your audience is asking.

Then, once you have your list, start researching and writing the actual blog posts. The keyword targeted posts will help with your website’s SEO and the questions you’re answering will help to educate your audience – both great things.

One other thing to keep in mind – be sure to blog on a consistent basis. Not only is this helpful for SEO, but it also gives your audience some sort of structure or schedule so they know when to expect another helpful blog post from you. This could be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly – whatever works best for your schedule.

2. Relevant and Interesting Social Media Posts

Posting regularly on your social media platforms is another important part of content marketing. Now it’s important to note that you shouldn’t be posting a bunch of promotional content all the time on social media – your audience won’t like that.

You can post promotional content now and then (the 80/20 Rule is a good rule of thumb), but in general, you should stick to posting helpful content that engages and educates your audience.

So what should you be posting?

Well for starters, you can post links to your blogs, inviting readers to click back to read more about a certain topic. But you should also be sharing other people’s content as well – articles, images, interesting statements and quotes – whatever you think your audience would find interesting and relevant.

Think of your social media platforms as an extension of your website and blog. Be consistent, and always focus on sharing content that your readers will find helpful.

3. Email Marketing That Is Not Over the Top

With an ROI of 4,300%, email marketing is one of the best marketing methods out there – especially for those on a tight marketing budget.

And it’s also a great addition to any content marketing plan.

But, of course, the emails you send shouldn’t be 100% promotional.

Again, think of your content marketing focused emails as another extension of your website and blog.

Use these emails as a way to share useful content with your email list or to let them know when you’ve published a new blog post that they might be interested in.

This allows you to reach a segment of your audience who might not be checking Facebook and Twitter regularly but are still interested in hearing what you have to say.

4. Valuable and Relevant E-Books That Are Also Free

You don’t have to be a best-selling author to write an e-book for your business – all you really need is knowledge and a desire to share that knowledge with your audience.

Many online businesses give away free e-books in exchange for email list sign-ups, which is a great strategy to consider.

One company in particular who does this well is CopyBlogger. By signing up with your email (for free!) you gain access to a host of useful (and free!) e-books on all sorts of marketing related topics.

People love free, and if you can offer your audience something free and valuable – like an e-book – they’ll begin to see you as both an authority in your niche and someone that they’d like to do business with in the future.

And it doesn’t have to be 1,000 pages long – in fact, the shorter the better when it comes to keeping your readers’ interest and attention. Even something as simple as a 5 page PDF e-book would be helpful – and not too challenging to create.

5. Maintaining a Strong Sense of Brand Consistency

One last thing to keep in mind when it comes to content marketing is the importance of brand consistency.

You’re going to be posting content in a lot of different places – your blogs, social media platforms, emails, e-books, etc. – and you want people to recognize that each piece of content was written by your company.

To do this, you need to develop a voice for your brand and be consistent with that voice across all of your platforms. It may sound silly and it might take a bit of time to get right, but taking the time to develop your brand and your voice will really help you out when it comes to brand recognition down the road.

In conclusion, developing a successful content marketing strategy isn’t necessarily difficult – it just has a lot of moving pieces.

But if you stay on top of those pieces and really focus on helping your audience above all else, you’ll be successful in no time at all!

Month: December 2016

10 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress for Small Businesses