Apply These Website Planning Steps To Build A Better Website

This is Part One of a 3-part article series designed to help you understand the website planning process.

Are you considering the idea of taking your small business online?

One of the most important decisions you need to make is whether or not to build your web site yourself, or get someone to help build your site.

Both choices have pros and cons. Whichever option you pick will depend on many factors like:

• Your financial situation
• Time
• Your business priorities
• How soon you need your site to be up and running
• Your technical skills
• Your level of commitment to supervise and manage the project
• etc …

If your budget is limited and you want to save money, you could decide to build the site yourself, but it goes without saying that you will need to spend some time learning how to put your site together.

How To Plan Your Website – Understanding The Process

Whether you choose to build a website yourself or get someone else to build it for you, the first important step is to get some good planning done. In this blog post we explain in simple terms why better website planning can help your business and what to do before investing in web development.

Planning your website is regarded by many online business strategists as being the most important aspect of building a successful website. Careful planning in the early stages of your business development process will help you avoid costly errors later and create a better end product.

Below, you will find a comprehensive blueprint for non-technical users designed to help you better understand your website planning process. We will also cover the do’s and don’ts of planning a business website, and give you tips on how to brief your website designer to make sure that you end up with a website that will perfectly meet your budget, suit your needs and deliver you great results online.

Important: Before setting up a website or registering a domain name for your web site, it’s highly recommended that you first research your market.

Building a successful presence online requires more than just having a professional website or business blog built. It also requires in addition to a number of other things, a commitment to developing and implementing an ongoing web marketing strategy.

The Site Planning Process Made Simple

So … you need a website.

Let’s start, then, by understanding the website planning process.

Take a look at the diagram below, and let’s go through the information on this page together.

Note: Click on the image or the link below the image to enlarge the chart.

(click here to view larger image)

To make the process easy to follow, we recommend that you download and print the Website Planning Flowchart shown above.

Website Process Chart

Once you have downloaded and printed out the flowchart, grab some paper and a pen, or whatever you takes notes on, so you can write down your thoughts and ideas as we take you through the process. Also, make sure to shut out all distractions over the next 30-45 minutes.

Step 1 – Website Goals

No matter what type of website you want to build, the first step is to define clear goals for your web site and make these as specific as possible.

Ask yourself the following:

• What kind of website am I planning to build? Will it be a business website, an e-commerce site, a sales blog, or some other kind of site?
• What do you want this site to help you achieve?

For example, your goal could be to:

• Sell products or services online – you may want an online web store. Depending on your goals, this could also require adding a private product download area that only customers can access.
• Build a list of subscribers – you might want a simple site built with a “squeeze” page (landing page), or an information page and a lead capture form where all of youronline traffic get directed towards,
• Have a portfolio site that will help build credibility and trust for your brand or organization, post news, announcements or updates, etc.
• Get more exposure online for your existing business – you might need a business blog built on a separate domain, or added to an existing website to engage with users and keep customers informed about your latest product updates, or help your authority and expertise in your target market.
• Or something else …

List whatever it is that you want your website to help you achieve on your Website Planning worksheet, a blank sheet of paper, or wherever you are recording this information.

After your goals have been written down, go through the list and pick the goal that is most important to your business.

Write this goal on your worksheet (in “Your Website Goals” section) as “Goal 1“.

Now, return to your list and repeat this process to find two more goals and record these in your planning chart as “Goal 2” and “Goal 3“.

You’ve probably heard the old business saying “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

But, what if you already can’t manage?

Owning a website is going to to add a ton of additional things you will need to manage.

Your website planning process is a subset of your business marketing planning process. It’s important, therefore, that you continue to refer to your marketing plan to make sure that you will have the resources and capabilities to implement the strategies that will help you achieve your goals.

So, with this in mind, take a moment to complete the following right now:

After listing at least 1-3 goals and written these in your process chart, go back to “Goal 1” and ask yourself this question: “how will I measure this goal?”

In other words, what benchmarks will you use to evaluate your website’s performance? How will you know if your website is helping your business achieve your goals?

For example, your web site’s goal could be to help you get a specific number of leads each week through your site’s contact form, or getting “X” number of new newsletter subscribers per quarter, etc …

Also, think about the resources and costs associated with managing the process of measuring your goals. If you need to, revise your business plan to accommodate your findings.

Note: Keep your goals as flexible as possible at this stage, so you can adjust these once more feedback is gathered from visitors.

Step 2 – Name Your Web Site

Once you have clearly identified your goals, the next step is to come up with an appropriate name for your website.

This is another important step of the website planning process, so take your time to think carefully about coming up with a good name for your site.

Brainstorm ideas with others. Call a few customers (or potential customers if you haven’t launched your business yet) and get their input.

Try to think beyond the obvious (i.e. your company name), especially if your business name isn’t something that immediately brings up your products or services to mind. Remember, most online users have probably never heard of you.

Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer. Who would be searching online for the very thing you sell? What would they be typing into a search engine or browser to find you? Once you know this, try to come up with a name that would entice your potential clients.

Note: You can be creative and clever with your name, but it’s best to avoid being “too clever”. This also can be said about choosing a catchy, memorable or a stand out name. It can be a fun or quirky site name, but it’s best to try and avoid website names that may sound offensive (and definitely stay away from trademarked or registered names or phrases – you’ll just be inviting trouble!)

Go online and do a little research to find out what other companies in your industry or niche have named their sites. Study your competition, especially those who occupy the search results that you would like to own.

For example, if you are thinking of starting a blog related to food, a quick search online for “cooking blog” reveals a number of memorable site names like: “Smitten Kitchen”, “Cooking With Amy”, “Shockingly Delicious”, “The Rambling Spoon” and more …

So … now is the time to get inspired. Make a huge list of possible names and then narrow this list down.

After narrowing the list of names down to the most likely candidates, repeat the same process as above to craft a description, tagline or unique value proposition for your web site.

Your description should be concise and inform the reader with as few words as possible what your website is all about. For example, in one of the food sites we came across while searching online, the blog’s description was “Fast, Fresh, and Simple Recipes Easy Enough for Tonight’s dinner.”

Include keywords in your site’s name and description.

Once you have completed this step, the next step is to look at your domain name. If you plan to add a blog to your existing website and feel that this blog should be its own entity, go ahead register a new domain name for your site.

There are different strategies you can use to register domains for your site. For example, you can register keyword-rich domain names (i.e. domains that contain the key phrase you want to rank well for in search engines), expired domain names (domain names that the previous owners have decided not to renew and that can be registered once more, different top level domains and domain name extensions, etc.)

Tip: Subscribe to this site to learn more about practical strategies on registering domains and tips on how to develop your website marketing strategy.

Step 3 – Managing Your Technology

After choosing a name and description for your web site, the next step is to develop a clear plan specifying how you are going to manage the technology that is going to host, support and help you power your website.

We strongly recommend building your site with WordPress.

WordPress is not only a robust and secure platform to build a website with, but it is also easy-to-manage and great for non-technical users.

WordPress is also the world’s most popular CMS platform, and, as you can see from the screenshot below, WordPress powers almost half of the world’s CMS-driven websites.

A WordPress website is ideal for publishing your content and communicating information about your business to your existing and potential clients.

A website or blog powered by the WordPress platform allows you to interact better with online users, and makes things like posting content, special offers, promotions, news and announcements about your products, company or industry very easy, even if you have little to no technical web skills. In fact, no coding is required to publish content on a WordPress site, and managing tasks like backups and software upgrades can easily be automated.

In fact, many businesses no longer use static websites built using traditional website building tools. More websites are now being powered with WordPress, which can provide businesses and their users with all of the features and capabilities of a regular website.

If you would like to have better management and control of your business online and don’t have the time, need or desire to learn technical “web coding” languages such as HTML, then you should consider choosing a WordPress-powered business website or blog.

Hosting And Management

In addition to using to build your site with the WordPress CMS platform, you should also think about where you are going to host your site, and if to let others manage your web site, or manage your own site.

We use and recommend WordPress for many business uses, and we also provide more information about WordPress and information on areas like how to register domain names, what to look for in a good webhost and website management in other articles on this site.

If you need more help or advice with this step, don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Step 4 – Your Website Target Audience

After you have gone through the basic planning steps above, then it’s time to define who is your site’s target audience.

Key information about your target audience includes:

• Audience demographics
• Their needs and wants
• What kind of problems they are experiencing, or will face in the future
• How prefer to consume digital information
• How they see themselves
• What they can expect from you or your business

It’s very important that you try and create as accurate a profile of your target audience as possible. Try to picture the actual person that you will be communicating directly with when presenting your information to.

Begin this process by asking lots of questions, such as:

• Who will your site’s content be addressed towards?
• What kind of information will visitors be looking for on your website or blog?
• What problems and challenges are your visitors going to face that your site can help them solve online? What types of solutions are people searching online for similar issues?
• Are your visitors technology-savvy? How does your audience consume digital information? Does your audience prefer videos to visual content like images or graphics and text? Will they need downloadable content (e.g. price lists, schedules, timetables)? Will you need to create content like videos, audios or multimedia presentations regularly in order to keep your site users engaged?
• Where are they located? Is geographical location or factors like occupation, relationship status or income level, significant to the success of your website? If so, what segments of the population will your website be marketing to and how will you find these demographics online?
• How do your site users see themselves? Who does your target audience engage online with? What music do they listen to? What else do they buy, or consume online?
• What will your site users expect from your site? What kind of information are you willing to provide to them for free or for a fee? What kind of information will you not be providing online for free?

Being able to accurately define your website’s target users is an important step in the website planning process and it will help you communicate better with your web developer and everyone else assisting you with your website, which will then ensure that you get a better end product.

If you don’t have access to accurate research information about your target audience, then start with a “best guess” based on your experience and research.

Also, try not to limit your criteria too much. You could end up investing too much time pursuing a niche that is just too small, or an online opportunity that may not be sustainable.

Finally, unless you plan to build a portal website and have the resources to do so, don’t try to make your website or blog appeal to an audience that is just too broad, or you’ll just end up creating a ton of extra work for yourself when it comes to populating your website with content, as you will see when we continue exploring the website planning process in another section.

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This is the end of Section 1

To read Part 2 of this article, click here:

Comin Soon

Please subscribe to this blog, as we will be posting lots of great content, resources and practical business tips on developing and implementing your web site marketing strategy.

Disclaimer: We are not associated with WordPress or any of the WP products written about on this site. We may derive a financial benefit from sales of products advertised, reviewed or linked to from this site. All information on this page have been supplied from the plugin’s own website and websites that provide Premium WordPress Services

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Using WordPress: A Basic Guide To WP Widgets

There are lots of great things about using WordPress to build and grow a web site. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your site and reconfigure the layout of your website without code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and manage various blocks of content from your site’s sidebar menu (or header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) using widgets.

(WP widgets)

In this article you will learn what widgets are, why they are great for non-technical users and how widgets can add new functionality to your web site.

Widgets – What Do They Do? Understanding WordPress Widgets For Newbies

(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier!)

Widgets are small modules of code that perform a specific function, such as adding a form, or a text box or list item to your website.

The WordPress software is written using a scripting language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Normally, in order to add features and functions that will enhance the functionality of a website, you need to know how to write code.

Now … don’t worry if the above sounds too technical. As will soon see, WP widgets are perfect for non-techie website owners.

WordPress widgets help you control specific features and functions on your website without the need to edit code.

(Widgets help you manage many features and functions on your website without the need to edit code!)

Widgets were originally designed to provide a simple way to give WordPress users to control aspects of their WordPress theme’s layout and functionality.

In simple terms, widgets let you do things like:

• Easily add, edit and remove features in parts of your website without touching any code, and
• Reconfigure the functional layout of your WP theme on “widgetized” areas of your site (e.g. the sidebar, header, footer and other areas) using drag-and-drop technology.

Here are just some of the many functions you can add to your site’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) using WP widgets:

• website page list
• content categories
• blog post archive
• custom page menus
• links to external sites
• links to your recent posts
• recent comments
• clickable text ads
• testimonials
• surveys
• RSS feed items
• shopping cart information
• image galleries
• Facebook feeds
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

In other blog posts, we provide an overview of WordPress plugins and WP themes; what they are, what they do, how these easily add loads of new functionality to WordPress and even drastically change the entire design of your website or blog.

As you will soon discover, WordPress themes affect how widgets work on your website and some plugins also add accompanying widgets that can help further fine-tune your site’s capabilities.

Widget-Ready Themes

Most themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas on your site where widgets can display.

Typically, widget-powered features can be found in the sidebar, but depending upon the theme, these can also be located in your site’s header, in the footer, and even below or above the content area.

It all depends on what theme you have installed.

For example, the WP theme shown in the screenshot below provides users with only one widget area displaying items in the theme’s sidebar …

(Some WordPress themes have only a single widgetized area)

Here is an enlarged image of the widget screen of the theme above, and you can see that this particular theme only contains one widgetized area …

As you can see from the above, the only place where users can add widgets to their site using the theme above is in the site’s sidebar area.

In contrast, the theme shown in the screenshot below contains a number of widget-enabled areas …

(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widgetized sections)

Here is an enlarged image of the widget panel of the above theme, so you can see how many widget areas are included in the theme …

(Multiple WordPress widget areas)

As you can see, with the above theme, you can add widgets to the sidebar area of two different page templates (Main Sidebar and Showcase Sidebar) and three different Footer areas (Footer Area One, Footer Area Two, Footer Area Three) …

(Some WordPress themes let you add widgets to your site’s footer)

How Do I Access My Widgets?

To access the Widgets section go to Appearance > Widgets …

This loads the Widgets panel in your web browser …

(Widgets Area)

The Widgets section displays all the widgets you can use on your site.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …

(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately active and can be used.

The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.

By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets (e.g. widgets for displaying your pages, links, posts, post categories, adding text, adding RSS feeds, adding tags, adding a search box, etc …) and active widgets.

These widgets are available in the default WordPress theme right out of the box and display items like Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Categories, etc. to visitors …

(By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)

Sometimes, new widgets display in your Widgets area whenever new WP plugins are installed on your site …

(Installing new WP plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets area!)

Widgets Features: Drag-And-Drop

WP widgets are great because you can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove them all right inside your Widgets area using simple drag & drop …

(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)

Using drag & drop technology lets you easily rearrange the order of your website’s widget-enabled areas.

For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A contact support banner, and
3. Click to call sales buttons from a widgetized plugin …

(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)

Inside this site’s Widget area, you would see that these features appear on the site’s sidebar area in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget area …

Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements in the widget area …

(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar …

This immediately changes the layout of your site’s sidebar. Note in the screenshot below that the click to call function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar menu, and the contact us banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …

(WordPress widgets are very easy to use!)

Pretty simple, huh?

There are some other things worth knowing about WordPress widgets:

Widget Management – Preview Widgets

Depending upon the WordPress theme that you have installed on your site, you can also customize widgets without making actual changes to your site, so you can be sure that you like what you have done before committing these changes to the live website.

You can do a number of things in preview mode, like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your active widgets to any widget areas that your theme makes available, and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done and click the “Save and Publish” button, your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.

(Widget management – work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!)

The ability to manage widgets from within your WordPress dashboard is a great feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how your widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area discussed previously.

Widget Configuration

As we’ve explained previously, WordPress lets you quickly and easily rearrange how information displays in areas of your website or blog, like sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop …

(Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)

In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have easily reorganized the site’s sidebar section by switching around the search and testimonial sections. As you now know, this was easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience.

Now … what about the widgets themselves? Can the widgets be customized instead of simply added, removed and rearranged?

Absolutely!

With many static websites, you would need to edit code in your site’s templates to reorganize the layout, make unique customizations to features on page elements like subscriber forms, or just add features like your website’s page list, or a dropdown menu of your blog categories, an archives section, menus to display selected pages, links to external sites, links to your recent posts, the latest excerpts of comments added to your posts, a section displaying image banners, quotations or poll questions & results, RSS feed content, video thumbnails, Twitter feeds, and more.

While some widgets are “fixed” in the sense that they provide little to no configuration options, other than to add something like an optional title to the widget as shown in the example below …

(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)

Many widgets offer a number of options that allow you to further customize things. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc. and more …

(Many widgets provide users with configurable options!)

How To Use Widgets

As we have seen, widgets require no coding experience or programming expertise to use. Most widgets can be added to your website simply by activating a plugin and then dragging and dropping the plugin’s widget into your Active widgets area.

There are some useful tips and tricks to using widgets, however, and we plan to add more great step-by-step tutorials to this site showing you how to use different widgets in WordPress to improve the effectiveness of your web site, plus lots of cool tips on how to get the most out of WordPress with widgets, so stay tuned and come visit us again soon!

Related Posts

If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following related posts useful:

• WordPress Plugins Overview
• About WP Themes – A Beginner’s Guide

Hopefully this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.

Has this post helped you gain a better understanding of WordPress? Did we leave something important out? Please comment below or take a moment to share this information with your friends.

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How To Log Out Of WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial

This quick tutorial shows you how to log out of WordPress.

If you’re new to using WordPress, the information below will help you if you or someone you know is having difficulties working out how to log out of the WordPress administration area.

If you are working on your web site or blog in your own device and in a secure environment, the easiest way to leave your website is by typing a new URL into your browser window, or just close your browser without logging out.

If you’re working on a shared or public computer, or in an unsecured space, however, this presents a security risk. Someone could view your browser history, access your account and get into your admin area.

You can protect your account by signing out when you are finished working.

The tutorial below will show you how to log out of WordPress and provides additional information about ways to enhance your WordPress logout function.

Note: When you sign into your WordPress site, WordPress stores a “cookie” in your web browser. This cookie allows WordPress to remember who you are. If you leave your site for a while and return later, WordPress will recognize the cookie and you will not have to log in again.

Important: The cookie cannot tell WordPress who is actually logged into your site. If a WordPress cookie has been set in your web browser, anyone using your device can access your WordPress dashboard.

To prevent this from happening (especially when using a public or shared computer) click on the Log Out link and WordPress will delete the cookie from your web browser. To reset the cookie just log into WordPress again.

Also, while you are logged into the WordPress dashboard, your web browser may be sending frequent requests to your server, depending on what kind of plugins you have installed, and if you are editing pages on your site (this is mainly due to the WordPress autosave feature).

If you don’t close your web browser and leave your computer for a while, WordPress will continue to send requests to your server. For this reason, it is also recommended that you log out of WordPress when you’re not working on your computer or website.

How To End Your WordPress Session

At the far right-hand side at the top of your screen is the “Howdy, User” section with an image of your Gravatar.

If you hover over this section with your mouse it will expand with your name and username, and links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link.

To end your WordPress session, click on “Log Out” …

Your WordPress session is now ended …

How To Log Off All Other Sessions In WordPress

As an added security measure, WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions except your existing browser session. This is useful if, for example, you’ve left your account logged in at a public computer, or if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone.

To log off all sessions in WordPress, go to the “Howdy, User” section and select “Edit My Profile” …

Click on the “Log Out of All Other Sessions” button …

You will be logged out of everywhere else, except for your present browser session …

WordPress Plugins – Log Out Options

In addition to the native log out functions explained above, you can enhance your site’s log out capabilities using plugins.

Let’s review just some of the log out functions you can extend when signing out of WordPress:

WP Idle Logout Plugin

Have you noticed how all financial sites that offer online banking, credit card payments or financial services log out users after a certain period of inactivity? This is because inactive users pose a security threat to online accounts. Someone could hijack the session and access your account.

WordPress lets you do the same thing. You can automatically log out all inactive users on your site using the WP Idle Logout plugin.

This is not the same as the default WordPress “Session Expired” notice that users will sometimes get when working on their site …

(Default WordPress “Session Expired” notice)

This plugin lets you specify how long a user can be inactive on the site, before their session is automatically expired, giving you precise control of this event

To install the WP Idle Logout plugin, go to your WP admin dashboard and in the “Add Plugins” screen (Plugins > Add New), type “wp idle logout” in the search field …

Once the plugin has been activated, you can configure plugin options from the Settings > Idle Logout menu …

The plugin lets you configure the following settings:

• Idle Time – specify how long (in seconds) that users can be idle before your site will log them out
• Idle Message – enter a message that will display to idle users when redirected to the login screen, or leave this field blank to display the default message (“You have been logged out due to inactivity”) …

You can test the plugin by opening up a browser session in incognito mode …

Inside your private browser window, log into WordPress and then letting your existing session go idle …

Users will be automatically logged out after the set period of inactivity has occurred …

Edit the time and add your own custom message …

Logged out users will be redirected to your login page and your custom message will display to inactive users above the login box …

(Custom message to logged out users)

Go here to download this plugin: WP Idle Logout – Automatically Log Out Idle Users

WP One Click Logout – One-Click Logout Plugin For WordPress

WP One Click Logout helps to avoid confusion and replaces the “two-click” WP logout process by installing a “Log Out” link right on the toolbar, making the log out link visible and allowing users to log off WordPress with just “one” click …

To download and use this plugin, go here: WP One Click Logout

Protected Posts Logout Button – WordPress Plugin

Protected Posts Logout Button adds a logout button to your password-protected posts.

This allows users to log out immediately after viewing the private information. You can also add an optional alert message informing users they have logged out …

This is a great plugin if you need to share private content with clients and the default WordPress cookie expiration setting is too long for your purposes.

For more information about using the plugin, visit this site: Protected Posts Logout Button Plugin

Login-Logout

Protected Posts Logout Button replaces the default WordPress meta widget with a custom widget that displays either a “login” or “logout” link and additional information depending on whether the user is logged into your site or not …

Go here to download this plugin: Login-Logout

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As you can see, WordPress not only has a default logout function, but with simple plugins, you can even extend the functionality of the logout feature for specific situations.

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