So you’ve decided you want an online presence for your business. Congratulations – you’re on the road to getting leads and growing your business – the fast way! But how do you set up a website optimised to capture leads? I’m going to show you exactly how using a platform called WordPress – how to build a website using WordPress.
What is WordPress? WordPress is a content management system that sits on your server and can be installed with one click these days. How simple is that? Once installed you can use WordPress to upload and arrange the content for your site without writing a line of code meaning anyone an do it – including you!
After you have WordPress installed you will be able to get into the “back-end” of your site using a username and password set up by you during the installation process. The back-end is where you do all the arranging of your content to be shown on your site. And this is where you will spend your time setting it all up.
The look of your site is determined by the theme running on your WordPress installation. WordPress comes with its own default theme and while this can be used on your site, there are literally thousands of themes available for you to purchase or pick up for free and use on your site. Once you have decided on the theme for your site it’s another one-click process to get it uploaded into WordPress. In the back end, you can customise the theme as much as you like to get your site setup just how you would like it.
In addition to themes, WordPress also uses plugins to add extra features to your theme. Plugins are either free or can be purchased from developers all over the Internet. Plugins include things like countdown timers, image sliders, audio players, pop up boxes, even extra security features.
I’m sure you’ve seen this kind of features on sites before and these days, with the use of themes and plugins you do not need to know how to code them onto your site. And just like themes they can be installed in WordPress with just one click.
Once you have your theme and plugins organised and uploaded, there’s only one last thing to do- and that uses them to create your site. I’d like to mention here that choosing the right theme and plugins for your website should be carefully considered. For example, if your business takes bookings online you might look at using a booking plugin or if you want to collect lead details from your site (highly recommended), then you would need a form or opt-in plugin.
While this may seem a little daunting at first – it really is very simple to set up your site using WordPress once you get the hang of it.
A word of caution about spending all your time setting up your online presence – don’t do it! As a business owner, your main objective is to grow your business right? It’s not to build websites! So if you’re having trouble getting your site setup using WordPress or you don’t have the time, I recommended outsourcing to someone who knows about website setup and attracting leads online.
If you would like any help with setting up your online presence I can certainly help you out with that. You can email at tim@timlumsdendigital.com and I’ll get back to you asap.
