Practically speaking, there are a lot of great low budget website promotion tools available to the layman. One of the best tools around is WordPress. It's not just a blogging platform. WordPress can be programmed to run your entire website.

WordPress is well suited to the needs of small businesses on the web:

• It's free
• Well-supported and popular (so it will be around for a while)
• Can be maintained by the layman
• Many great options (plugins and widgets)
• Great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Great for Web 2.0

We've had success with a number of websites implemented in WordPress. We design the initial site, the home page "look and feel" and features that are supported and integrated into the site, and our customers can take it from there by fleshing out each page's text content, adding new pages and creating blog posts. This saves our customers some money because they do not have to rely on us to create new pages, and can do many website maintenance tasks themselves as well.

It is possible, of course, to use a canned "theme" for your WordPress site. But to integrate your company's graphics into a canned theme requires some know-how of graphic design and web programming if the site is to look professional.

I'd like to talk a little bit search engine optimization (SEO). Consider the websites of just five years ago. Five years ago, it was a lot easier to attain high rankings in search engines. Why? Because there were fewer sites competing for the same key search phrases, and because today's web programmers have become more sophisticated, and because big corporations tend to crowd out smaller businesses for the most popular terms.

Some key factors for high search engine rankings include:

• The volume of content on site
• That it is a well structured site (optimized and coded for search engines)
• The number of sites linking to the site

WordPress empowers the small business person in all these categories. 

Content
Your website needs to stay relevant and have a lot of content. If you don't have applicable content for a particular search phrase on your website, it cannot come up in a search engine. The phrase must be on your site, and the more often the phrase is on your site, the more search engine authority your site has for that particular phrase. By enabling you to add pages and blog entries (which are seen as pages), you don't have to rely on the added expense of having a web programmer create every single page and post, and you can create many pages rich with key phrase terms for your business.

Coding
The web programmer can create a means for the business person to optimize each new page on the site. As long as the programmer is well-versed with current coding methodologies that are best for search engines, a framework will be in place so that the code of new pages is also suitable for search engines.

Incoming Links
Use of a good share plugin for WordPress facilitates the syndication of your content on the web. If the content of your page or post is compelling and your reader is prompted by some type of visual cue to share it, it is more likely to be tweeted or shared on Facebook or Linkedin or other social media outlets. Incoming links not only advertise your site's content, but in terms of search engines, links lend credibility to your content and are a consideration in the placement and listing algorithms used by search engines.

Part I: "The Perfect Website"

Stay tuned for the next followup post in this series. You can subscribe to this blog via email.

We are pleased to announce a new site, http://www.psychotherapy-cleveland.com.

This site is completely implemented in WordPress. The reason we went with WordPress is to enable Dr. Lou to edit her site with ease. The content of every page and post on this site is virtually completely customizable via WordPress's online administrative interface. Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform, and so there is a lot of support and familiarity with using it to edit posts and pages.

The theme was completely custom developed by Lakenetwork.net. We coded using pure CSS as a layout (rather than table-based layout.) The theme validates according to W3C standards as well.

Are there limitations to using WordPress to develop a site?

Not really. It is possible to make every area of the site completely editable and customizable. For instance, it is possible to have a WordPress "page" appear in a sidebar or footer, enabling our client to edit any information on the site. Complex operations can be managed with custom code if needed; WordPress does not hinder special development needs.

Is it more costly?

Depends on the amount of customization desired and the extensibility. Coding in pure CSS and managing it via WordPress does take a little more development time. But the flexibility offered to our clients in developing their own additional pages can make the site development less expensive than if we were to implement all the pages via traditional web programming methodologies.

OK, so you’ve got a new web site. How are you going to get people to come to the site?

Search engine optimization (SEO) used to be the main method of web site promotion. But Web 2.0 has arrived, and now you’ve got a number of tools to use from the driver’s seat of your web site.

Here are some ideas for consideration:

1. Have a blog? Claim your blog on Technorati and get feedback on the popularity of your blog.

“Getting Started with Technorati”

2. Generate compelling blog content that relates to your web site business. Find an educational mission and write about it.

3. Use Facebook. Create a business fan page and post engaging, relevant content on your page. We post information that corresponds to our educational mission (helping people promote their web sites) on our fan page.

Keep your audience in mind–don’t post spam; post information that can really be of use, and interact sincerely with people who are in your networking group.

Social media resources

4. Post your blog entries on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Related articles

• Six Reasons SEOs Love Blogs (searchengineguide.com)
• Three Blogging Tips (best-tutorial.net)
• Build Your Brand Through Social Media (lazerpromotions.com)

Some reading and trial-and-error is necessary, though. We’ve put together this resource page to help Joomla CMS administrators get started.

Also, check out our Facebook page for Joomla Users. You can subscribe to the information by becoming a fan of the page.

Here are some links to the initial articles we’ve posted on our Joomla resource page:

Starting points for Joomla Administrators
Books and links to help Joomla administrators get started

Logging in
How to get to the administrative interface

Using the Administrative Interface
Key functions for managing articles and pages

Joomla Article Definition
Articles are the means to add content to your Joomla site

Editing an Article
Overview, caveats and links to more detailed info

An easier way to edit your site
You can log in to the front end to edit articles

Creating New Articles
Key stuff to know when creating a new article

Uploading Images
How to get an image onto your site

Editing Article Order
Manage the order in which articles appear

Creating a Page or Menu Item
Menu items are the means by which to define a page

Adding a section or category
Organize the content of your site

Use Article Description fields
Describe your content

Pasting text into Joomla
Be careful when pasting text into Joomla articles

Lakenetwork.net has the expertise to get you up and running fast with Joomla. Contact us about converting your existing site to Joomla, or developing a new Joomla site. Conversion is more economical than one might think, and just about anything can be developed to work within the Joomla framework. Call our office at (440) 975-9580 or contact us via our website.

Unsure of your writing skills? Lakenetwork specializes in content generation and proofreading. With over twenty years in business journalism, we can edit your website text to impart a professional web presence.

Why use Joomla?

A Joomla site gives you the power to create robust, extensible, shareable web content without having to know how to program in html. It contains a huge amount of pre-built functionality such as event calendars, site search, ad management and many third party extensions such as shopping carts and galleries.

Why use Lakenetwork?

We can help define your starting point with Joomla. We create custom Joomla templates that are branded with your specific look and feel, completely original and to your specification. With a number of Joomla sites under our belt, we have the expertise to get you up and running fast. We also offer Joomla instruction and support.

Joomla Starting Point

So, you’ve got a new Joomla site–now what do you do with it? How do you create content? Joomla fortunately has a thriving user community and robust documentation. You can visit the Joomla Administrator Guide here. And this book seems to cover the basics of Joomla content generation and administration:

What else can I do with Joomla?

Visit the Joomla Extensions site to find just about any functionality you might want on your website, from social networking modules to e-commerce to user forums and much, much more.