Mobile Website Development Made Absurdly Easy with WordPress
In yet another example of the gloriousness of WordPress, you can skip custom mobile website development and just install a WP plugin and you’re done in 2 minutes. Yes I know that gloriousness isn’t a word, yet somehow it’s the only one that accurately captures the beauty of it.
I selected the WordPress Mobile Pack plugin, which has very nice features, including:
- A Mobile Switcher
- Custom Color Variations
- Standards Adherance
- Device Adaptation
- An Admin Panel
- Mobile Analytics
And more!
The best part is that all you need to do is install and activate the plugin and you’re good to go. Full gloriousness! Nothing could be easier, except maybe finding car insurance using Coverhound.
Of course, there are a few limitations. The pre-packaged theme may not work for everyone. E-commerce and accounts are probably an issue. That said, WordPress continues to mature into a multi-channel publishing engine and full service content management system, and the mobile plugins are yet another reflection of that.
Overseas Website Development and Open Source CMS make Powerful Bedfellows
The convergence of overseas website development and open source content management systems is bringing e-commerce to the masses and traditional development companies to their knees.
In the past, if you wanted an e-commerce site, you paid a lot of money for custom development. If you wanted a big e-commerce site, one with lots and lots of products, you were looking at 100k.
That’s simply not the case anymore, and big web development companies who spent years building up code bases should be sweating. Unless you’re doing some serious custom CMS work, there simply isn’t a need for unique code anymore. Open source content management systems WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal can handle almost every basic website management need these days, including e-commerce.
Combine this with overseas development companies that bill out at 10% or less than your average web design firm in the States and you’ve got a powerful combo. One that makes it possible for almost anyone with a little brawn and a little cash to get in the e-commerce game.
This is bad news for companies with big development staffs used to getting sweet cheddar for an e-commerce site. But it’s good news for companies that outsource development. The talent in India, Brazil and other upstart nations is getting better and better every day. Given the cost considerations, it is ridiculous not to take advantage of this talent.
Of course, not all overseas firms are the same, and some are choppers and used car salesmen, just like here. The smart ones are finding US partners to help forge the oh-so-essential trust so important to getting sales in the door and establishing long term relationships. This, in turn, gives the US partner a major price advantage over slower moving competitors.
In the end, the game is changing, mostly because the game is still young. Perhaps more importantly, anyone can play. Expect hungry overseas website development firms and their US partners to keep pushing the envelope.
Plus One Plugin for WordPress
Google’s been making strong moves lately with the Plus One button and Google+. It’s hard to say whether either of these will reach critical mass – ahem, see Google Buzz.
That said, it’s probably not a good idea to wait to incorporate the Plus One button on your WordPress site, mostly because it takes two minutes to install.
Not surprisingly, there are at least three decent +1 plugin options already. The one with the most unanimously positive reviews is called — wait for it — Plus One.
Search for Plus One in your WordPress account plugin page, install and activate, and you’re done. It automatically gets added at the end of your posts. I may have exaggerated — it probably only takes 30 seconds.
Given that Google has decided to incorporate Plus One data into Webmaster Tools, it’s betting that it can build reliance on it. Unlike Buzz, which seemed to exist in a vacuum, Google has connected the Plus One button to search results and Tools, making it an extension of its current offerings instead of yet another new application or platform to adopt.
Let me be clear — I ain’t saying +1 is going to make it big time. The Interwebs is a big place with lots of wires and tubes, and I’ve never once seen a result that someone in my network has plus one’d. In short, it’s never done for me what it aims to do, which is provide recommendations and leverage my network to facilitate decision making.
That said, it’s so easy to install in WordPress that you kinda hafta. And if it does go large, you’ll be in good position.
Why WordPress Rocks As a Website Content Management System
For anyone held hostage to a developer who isn’t responding to requests for changes or additions to their website, WordPress is a life saver. It has matured from a basic blogging platform to a fully functional content management system (CMS), allowing for website content to be added and edited at any time through a very easy-to-use interface. This saves money while allowing a website to be used how it was truly intended: for marketing pros and entrepreneurs who want to do their comm when they want, not when their developer wakes up after a three week coding bender.
Though the sky is the limit with WordPress, and it can get rather sophisticated if you want, the beauty is how simple and easy it can be. Here are a few basic features:
Pages
Using the main CMS navigation and selecting the Pages option, you get a handy list of all your website pages. Pick a page you want to edit, then make your edits in the text area. Though more limited than what you might see with Word or any other word processing software, you can bold, italic, underline, use bullets, and link to other pages. You can insert images, video and audio.
Posts
While this is your blog post area, it can be used for company news, white papers, or any other content that fits your content marketing strategy. With posts you have the same editing capabilities as pages, and you can publish in advance so you don’t have to worry about interrupting your hard earned PTO. You can save drafts and preview your work, and publish when you’re good and ready.
Users
For organizations with multiple people creating or editing content, the Users section is crucial yet simple. As the page administrator, you add a new user by filling out a form with the user info, then selecting the level of access you want them to have. Administrators have access to the entire site, editors to all posts, and authors to their own content only. User names and passwords can be sent to new users automatically through the system.
Though WordPress is often associated with blogging and design templates, it has become so much more. You can manage all your site content, drop custom designs, optimize for social media and search, and take control of your communications initiatives. Best of all, since it leverages open source plugins, it doesn’t have to be expensive either.
How to Launch a Custom WordPress Site Quickly
Is it possible to launch a sparkling, custom designed website with a complete content management system in one week? With WordPress, the answer is a resounding yes, as we recently demonstrated with the launch of a Dodd-Frank law website for a local firm.
As with any development project, the best way to get from beginning to end is to travel in steps.
Step 1: Functionality
Figuring out what content you’re going to publish, what and how many pages the site should have, and other basic mechanics should be ironed out up front. Creating a wireframe or sketch would also help but may have to get thrown out the window if you’re trying to launch a WP site in a week. Regardless, getting your site structure in place first means you won’t waste time re-designing later.
Step 2: Design
With site functionality in place, it’s design time. Here it’s best to create something that reflects the client brand speaks to their target market. Then make it really good looking.
Step 3: Development
Like finishing the functionality before moving on, you don’t want to go into development without finishing the design. Programmers can be very tolerant of wishy washy project managers, but that tolerance is pricey when extra time is involved, and it certainly isn’t efficient. Only after the design is completely done should you pass off a project to a programmer.
Follow these steps and move quickly and you’ll be able to launch a WordPress website in a week.
My Brother the Sailor – A Social Media Success (so far)
My brother is a professional sailor. Yes, a pro sailor. He gets paid by wealthy boat owners to help race their boats in regattas in St. Martin, Charleston, Italy, and anywhere else in the world where there’s a competition afoot. Right now he’s sailing from Newport, RI to Bermuda on a 3-day overnight sail on a mini-maxi called Bella Mente.
My bro started his professional sailing company a few years back and just started up a WordPress blog integrated into his site to keep people posted on his whereabouts, and also to help raise his profile among local Minnesota yachtsmen (he gets a decent chunk of income from local sailing lessons). His formula is simple and has worked very well so far after only a few months of blog work.
First, he started up a 42 Marine Facebook page. He has a built-in community of people who are naturally interested in what he’s doing, so it was just a matter of establishing a connection on Facebook. Right now he as just under 100 followers and it’s growing fast.
Second, he blogs pretty well. He’s got a bit of a tell-it-like-it-is voice, nothing too flashy. The stories are pretty entertaining on their own and don’t need a lot of flair, and he’s good at letting people draw their own conclusions.
Third, he promotes his blog posts. He’s got Feedburner set up for email updates and he posts a link on his Facebook page whenever a post goes up. Simple but effective. His Google Analytics account shows nice little peaks on the days he posted a link on Facebook.
Time will tell how big this thing will get. He’s starting to get long tail organic traffic from his posts very quickly because using Feedburner tends to get posts indexed in search engines right away. If he continues circumnavigate the globe and report back in his style of voice I’m sure he’ll be just fine.
