WordPress is used by over 75 million websites, making it the most popular Content Management System (CMS) globally.
Although WordPress is free to install and offers thousands of plugins and templates to customize the look and feel and add features, in the close to 8 years we’ve been building websites on WordPress, we’ve learned a thing or two.
1. Choosing the right theme is important. Many themes are created with heavy code that may make it close to impossible for it ever to load quickly enough to help with SEO. Some themes are also restrictive and will require custom coding for you to get the layout you want. Still, others aren’t great for security and tend to be more popular targets for hacking. At ZenChange Marketing, we use a theme built for speed that allows us complete design flexibility to make your website look like just about anything!
2. Choosing the right plugins is important. Plugins are often used for sliders, to help with SEO, for contact forms, and more. As an open-source platform, just about anyone can code a plugin and make it available. But that doesn’t mean you should use it. Those plugins coded by a guy in his basement could leave your website vulnerable to malicious code and slow it down. And if he decides he doesn’t want to be in the plugin business anymore, his code might break during an upcoming WordPress release. We use plugins created by known developers with a reputation for quality. We also license several of the premium plugins we add to websites at no additional cost to you.
3. Choosing the right website hosting company is important. Your website is made up of several pieces of software that run on a web server. That server lives at your website hosting company. Think of it a bit like the software that runs on your computer’s operating system installed on your desktop or laptop. Your website’s theme and plugins are like your computer’s software, WordPress is like your operating system, and the webserver is like your MacBook. As with any technology, things sometimes get out of sync if they aren’t maintained and break. If your website happens to go down the night before your next campaign, you want to know that your website hosting company will answer your call with reps who know what they’re doing and can help. You also want to know that your website is secure and backed up, so you don’t lose your investment and have to pay someone to rebuild it. While your cousin’s offer to host your website from that server he has in his bedroom may sound tempting, we’ve learned it’s better to host with a real company. We recommend GoDaddy.
4. The design process is important. You shouldn’t have to make your business message fit someone else’s design. We’ll take you through a process of sharing design elements and recommendations, and reviewing other website designs, you like to understand your style. We’ll then create a full home page mockup, so you’ll see how the colors, fonts, images, and copy all work together. Only once we know you love the design will we start your build, and we’re able to move pretty rapidly through that process.
5. Your home page is important. What is written on your home page often determines whether a website visitor will hang around to learn more about you, or bounce off to the next website destination. That’s why for each of our projects, we include home page copy that, in our experience, is most likely to convert. We’ll work with you to approve, of course, but there is a psychology to how you write a home page that we have found quite important.
Wordpress Site Development
Skils-Kin
SkilsPay
Ferrer Law P.A.
Achong Law, P.A.
Power X Pest Control
A Plus Title Solutions
Orange Insurance
US Credit Defense
Fit Life Pediatrics
VC Capital Partners
Amador & Cuellar, PLLC (legal)
Mind & Soul Therapy
Impressed yet?
Let our team build you a beautiful website that performs.
We also apply our SEO expertise when building websites. We want your new website to load quickly, be mobile-friendly, and have the right code for the search engines.
Business owners are busy people who don’t have time to micro-manage a WordPress website project. Some of our clients like to be very hands-on while others are happy to trust our recommendations. Either way, we try to make this experience as “Zen” as possible. Your account manager will gather all of your input, but with your permission, we’ll go ahead and select images, write the copy, create inner page layouts and do whatever needs to be done to move your project along quickly. We’ll reach out at various stages of the project for your approval, but we try not to be needy!
Looking for a marketing company that builds websites that are beautiful, functional, AND budget-friendly?