I am not sure if you have been watching the changes the web has been going through.

Fortunately, most of them are very interesting, bringing an exciting evolution with new and better options for building your business online.

The challenge is staying on top of all of the incredible choices and changes, while still staying focused on what is most important to you – running the day to day of your own business.

I know you don’t have time to learn every new tool and feature that comes along, but some of you have been asking me to let you know what to keep in mind, as you are growing your online presence.

To help with that, I am putting together a series of posts called: How The Web is Changing.

This first post talks about several of the most important/interesting things related to Sites and Blogs (with an emphasis on WordPress, since so many of you are using it). I’ll be exploring these changes for you, so you can consider which may be of value to your business.

If you don’t have a WordPress website/blog, much of this will still help you evaluate building a site or redesigning one using some of these new technologies. Along with this review are easy Action Steps to help you evaluate whether they are important for you to pursue.

My next few posts will explore the changes in Mobile, Email Marketing and Social Media.

For now, here are some of the things to consider about your Website/Blog.

Changes to Websites/Blogs

Though many of you are already on WordPress, did you know they keep making it easier, while adding more features?  And if you haven’t checked out any of the newer themes, you are in for a lovely surprise!

For the last few years, we’ve seen major advancements (like image sliders without flash, being able to use more font options, and seeing the site look more consistent on different browsers!). Much of this technology wasn’t supposed to be fully utilized until about 2014 (such as HTML5, not to mention CSS3 and Responsive Design).  Developers are already building with the technology, which means there are more advanced options available to improve your website (whether you use WordPress or not).

Here’s a quick and easy video to explain it in simple terms:

Don’t worry, you don’t need to learn any new technologies. That’s the beauty of many of these features, they are being created to allow you to do things easier (in fact, you are probably already using some of them:

• Drag and Drop features
• Adding a video without using a plugin

Just know the technology exists to make your site even easier for you to use, while providing capabilities to do so much more.

Kind of like The Six Million Dollar Man/Woman (except much, much, much, much, much cheaper)

“We have the technology…better, stronger, faster…”

So, what does this mean for you?

Things that would have taken a lot of heavy programming to code are now easier to incorporate into any site, or are common features within WordPress and on some of the new crop of premium themes (and even free ones, like Twenty Eleven).

In other words, better, faster and unlike the Bionic Man, they are available and cost-effective for everyone.

My current favorite WordPress Premium Theme developers are:

• Theme Blvd: Angela Bowman turned me on to these themes by Jason Bobich of Alaska.  Maybe the long, cold days made this all possible, or maybe this guy just has a good work ethic – which UniqueThink appreciates, but whatever it was, he took the time to create a series of videos to explain all the amazing features he has built into this new selection of premium themes.  And each only costs $37
• My personal favorite of the moment is Alyeska. I am using it to do a fairly quick redesign of the Video Station’s website (it’s not completed, but we made it live, because it is so much better than their old theme, even with very minimal customization!)
• StudioPress: I’ve been recommending the selection of themes from StudioPress for a couple of years now, but the new batch of layout options offer more features, including a landing page template on many of them.  Here is a new one called Focus

“I just finished spending time looking at pretty much every feature. It looks wonderful, and is so easy (and fast) to navigate. You are both priceless and invaluable, to be redundant. Thanks so much!”
- Bruce Shamma – Owner of The Video Station

Many folks will be happy with a theme by either of these developers, right out of the box (virtual box, that is), but if you are like most of my clients, you’ll want a custom look for your unique brand.  Either way, these themes are a great foundation to build a more engaging, dynamic and interactive site.

There are a ton of features built into all of these themes that I could write a whole blog post on (including image/video sliders and multiple layout options), but the other thing that is so interesting about many of these themes is they were created with Responsive Design.

Responsive Design

We’ll talk more about what Responsive Design is, in the near future, but for now, just know that a theme with responsive design takes into account what type of device your visitors are on, when they come to your site.  That means the site will look great on a large monitor and just as good on an iPhone screen.

And for those of you using straight HTML or other platforms, Responsive Design is not WordPress specific.  It’s just that these themes are incorporating it.

If you have considered changing the look of your site, this may be the time.

New Releases for WordPress

Additionally, they are just about to come out with a new features release of WordPress.  You may or may not need these features, but did you upgrade to the recent WordPress 3.3.2 security release?  If not, please do so now, or contact me to do your upgrade!

Your WordPress Action Steps:

Take a look at your admin section (the kitchen, as I call it).  Make sure you are up to date with version 3.3.2 (3.4 should be out any day now, but as you’ve heard me say, it is always important to upgrade when a security release comes out).

If you are up to date, skip down to the next set of Action Steps for Evaluating Your Current Site.

• If you aren’t at the latest security release, you definitely need to upgrade now.  But equally important, make sure you backup your site and verify your plugins are compatible with WordPress.  Why?  Because if your site isn’t backed up and you have a conflict with a plugin, you could loose your site, or at least crash it
• If you are on a much older version (which I hope is not the case), the Broken Link Checker plugin may crash your site on upgrade, so deactivate and remove it, before you upgrade.  Then reinstall the latest version, after your upgrade has been completed.  It’s a great plugin, so remember to reactivate it!
• Back up your theme, too, especially if it has been customized.  You can also check to see if there is a new version of your theme – it will tell you in the upgrade section – but if it has been customized (and it wasn’t done with a child theme or you are unsure), check with the person who customized it, before you upgrade
• After you have backed up and checked your plugins, upgrade to the newest version of WordPress
• If you have not had me teach you how to do the backup and upgrade, let’s set up a time for a tutorial or have me do the maintenance for you!  I can’t say it enough, you have to stay up to date with the security releases.

Your Action Steps to Evaluate Your Current Site:

• Is it doing everything you want it to do?
• Are you happy with the look of it?
• Does it have all the functionality you want or need for your visitors?
• Is your content current and are you adding new content on a frequent enough basis?
• Are you integrating with social media appropriately?
• Do you provide easy ways for folks to share your content?
• Does it look/function well on different sized screens?

If the answer to these are all yes, congratulations and keep up the good work.

If the answers are no, it’s time to do a little exploration.

For those of you currently using WordPress, or are interested in redesigning in WordPress, take a look at these new themes with Responsive Design. See what functionality they provide and which look you like.

Visit your competition’s website, to see what they are doing right and what they have done wrong, too. (Don’t just assume, because they do it, it works. Look at their site like a new customer might look at it.  Is it easy to find the info you need?  Do they answer the most frequent questions clients ask you?)

Then ask some of your current clients for feedback about what works and doesn’t work for them, both on your site and – if you are comfortable with it – your competition’s site.

What did you find out, when reviewing these Action Steps?  Were they revealing?  Did they help give you some direction?

Obviously, there are always more questions to ask and more to evaluate, but let me know what you discovered, by posting a comment below.

You can also help to direct the next part of this series, by letting me know if you are more interested in Mobile, Email Marketing or Social Media.  Tell me which you’d like to see me write about next in this series: How the Web is Changing.

Finally, WordPress.com makes it easier to switch over to a version of WordPress.ORG (self hosted version, that means it sits on your own hosting plan, instead of on their server, which gives you A LOT more freedom).  This used to be a chore to do, but WordPress.com has made it much easier with a new Premium option called Offsite Redirect.  Yes, Premium comes with a small cost, but nothing compared to the time and effort of the old way of accomplishing this.  It’s only $12 a yr.

So what does this Premium upgrade get you?  I’ll let them tell you with copy from their post about it called Hello, Goodbye: Offsite Redirect Upgrade – by Jane Wells

Purchasing the Offsite Redirect upgrade will take the traffic coming to your old wordpress.com blog and forward it to your new domain so that links to your old content won’t break and you won’t take an SEO hit as a result of your move. Oh, and unlike the old domain mapping/DNS workaround, the signup process is easy as pie. Mmm, pie.

So, now the question on your mind might be: Why would I want to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.ORG?

And, the answer is, if you are happy and have no complaints, stay where you are.  However, if you have ever wanted any of the following, it might be a good time to consider a move:

• Your own domain name: OK, this one isn’t that much of a problem, because you could always point your own domain name to WordPress.com – and there is even a way to make it so all your pages follow through with that address, but there is a fee for that!  So, if you don’t want your address to be MyBlogName.WordPress.com, you have three choices:
  1. Buy a domain name and point it to your .WordPress.com account
  2. Buy the domain and then pay a Premium to have all your pages and posts reflect that name
  3. Use the self-hosted version of WordPress.ORG – as I said earlier, this reason alone may not be compelling enough, but read on…
• Control of Ads: On occasion, the WordPress.com folks will throw an ad on your free .WordPress.com blog.  It is their way of keeping their service free (and they do provide a lot and ask little).  So, again, let’s compare the options.  The one concern is how they are placing the ads?  Are they relevant to your keywords?  Since I don’t know how they pick when to put an ad on someones site, it leaves some questions. And, though it is unlikely, I wonder if there is a chance they could put up an ad to your direct competitor?  Hopefully, they have a good system in place to avoid that, but here are your options, regarding ads:
  1. You can pay a Premium to remove these ads from your .com site/blog
  2. You can agree to do a 50/50 split to run your own ads now (I had never seen this before, so not sure of other details)
  3. You can move to WordPress.ORG where you can have the freedom to put up your own ads (maybe subtly promoting your own products/services), make money from offering ad space to others (if your site/blog is appropriate), or be completely ad-free.
• Scripts/Codes/Plugins: Sometimes you want to put a script on your site/blog, to do some functionality – for instance, collect email addresses from your visitors.  With WordPress.com, you can not put any 3rd party software or code onto your WordPress.com accounts, so you’d definitely want to move to WordPress.ORG to take advantage of the 1000s of amazing add-ons available from the WordPress community, in the form of plugins.  Go to WordPress.ORG’s Plugin Directory to find many of the free ones.  Similar to the iPhone Apps, if you are looking to do something, there’s a plugin for that…
• Customize the look of your blog/site: To do some light customization (changing colors, for instance) you could pay WordPress.Com to get into the CSS (providing you know CSS), but to get a look that really meets your vision, you could move to WordPress.ORG and use any theme (layout, the look of your site) or have someone custom create a look for you

Again, if you are happy with the way your WordPress.COM site works and/or OK with paying them the small Premiums to get some of the other options, then stay where you are.

However, if you are going to be paying for all those premiums, to try to get the results you want, I suggest using WordPress.ORG and have full control of your site (ads, look, plugins…).  To me, the plugins alone are reason to move!  Either way, you now have at least one less excuse for not moving to a self-hosted version!

I sure could have used this new Offsite Redirect feature, years ago, but glad to finally see it now.

Bottom Line: The $12 a year fee is a small price to pay, compared to the headache of the old way to do this redirect process!

Are you using WordPress.com?  Were you considering which version of WordPress (.com vs. .org) to use for your new site/blog?  Did this post help to answer those questions for you?  If you have additional questions, either comment below, or contact UniqueThink for a free 1-hour consult, to discuss your unique situation.

Update 10/28/099:  This class has been rescheduled, due to snow.  It is now being held on Wed, November 4th.  Same time, same place.

I am doing a Free Workshop (lecture style) on Why to Use WordPress.ORG to build your complete website.

WORDPRESS WEBSITES: How to get a cost-effective, easy to maintain website

NEW DATE: Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Westminster Public Library, College Hill, 6-7:30 p.m.
3705 West 112th Avenue
Westminster, CO  80031

Here’s the link to Google Maps

Call 303-404-5104 to register for this FREE program.

You need to RSVP – there is limited room, so make sure you call

Here is what I’ll be talking about:

• Get introduced to why WordPress is a great option for any small business to build and maintain their own site.
  • No more expensive graphic designers or waiting on a webmaster to make a simple change on your site.
  • If you have an old static site that isn’t bringing in traffic, or if you’re creating a website for the first time, WordPress is a great option for any small business.
  • Maintain your own website with this quick, easy and cost-effective tool that grows along with your company.

• What we will be discussing
  • Do you really need a Site AND a Blog for your business?
  • The difference between Blogs and Sites
  • WordPress.org (not WordPress.com)
    • It’s Free software (all you need is a hosting service provider and some plugins)
    • Maintain your own site/blog
    • Built in Marketing Advantages
    • A glance at how it works
      • Admin panel, Themes, Plugins and Widgets (what are they)
        • Steps to get started

      This series was coordinated by Dhyan Atkinson, and there are a lot of other great workshops in the series, as well, so go to the library’s website and check them out. Beth Hayden just did a great one on BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. And the next one, after mine is Cindy Kalman, talking about GRAPHIC DESIGN IN THE INTERNET AGE.  So, check them all out.

      If you miss any of them, don’t worry, we’ll be doing them again in the new year.  Also, don’t forget I am doing WordPress Workshops at Boulder Digital Arts, as well.

Learn how, and why, to use WordPress for your complete web solution.  Set up and create sites (as well as blogs) using WordPress.org:

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators
Date(s):
Monday, July 06, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers
Date(s):
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Location:
BDA Studio
2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301

Registration and more info available at BoulderDigitalArts.com

OK, many of you have been asking us to do this, and it ends up that due to family circumstances Doug won’t be able to teach his normal WordPress Workshop for Boulder Digital Arts.  So, Angela Bowman and I will be doing it for him.

If you have been wanting to learn how to set up WordPress.org for yourself, instead of hiring me to do it for you, this is the time and place.

You actually benefit from both Angela and my own experience.  Interestingly, we both took Doug’s class a couple of years before we met each other.  So, when we did meet, we were so excited to find someone else who loved building websites (not just blogs), from the fantastic WordPress tool set.

Anyway, for these classes, you get both of us teaching you all we learned from Doug, originally, plus all we’ve learned since.

So take full advantage of it.  Instead of paying one of us our normal hourly fee, you get both of us for 3 full hours, per class.

There are two options, and taking both classes could be beneficial, depending on your goals.

The first Workshop is for those who want to run the site themselves, to understand the power of WordPress.org as a content-creation or management tool, plus a review of the marketing advantages of using it.

The other workshop is  for using WordPress.org as a site-building tool ( bit more technical, so it’s geared toward those who want to learn all the nooks and crannies).

There will be a review of plugins during both classes, and some of the content will overlap, so if you have questions on which to take, call me and we’ll figure it out.

Sign Up Now, while there are seats available! Or contact me with any questions

There’s going to be lots of fun information.

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers

OK, I am trying out a new tool – which is Free and available to anyone looking to do a slide show.

It’s from http://www.slideshare.net/ and you can create your own page there, just like I did. Then set up a Powerpoint presentation. Mine is below, it is one I did a few months ago on Dhyan Atkinson’s Wed Afternoon Teleclass.

My presentation was called It’s A Blog, It’s A Website, It’s A Marketing Tool…It’s WordPress. It talks about using WordPress as both your blog and your complete website.

Comment below and let me know what you think of both the presentation and the SlideShare site!

Focusing on the possibilities…