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Content Management System

Atlanta WordPress Users Meetup At New Tricks

The Atlanta WordPress Users Group is going to be held at 130 Krog at New Tricks Atlanta Headquarters on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:00 PM. This is the 17th meeting of this popular Atlanta Meetup Group. Jack Kennard and I, Judi Knight, his new co-organizer, will give a basic presentation on how to go about getting a WordPress site up and started. I have written a recent post on moving your site from a WordPress.com site to a .org site and it pretty much outlines the material that we will cover. The presentation is planned to last about an hour including time for questions and answers.

Jack and I would like try and find a format for the group that can satisfy the diverse levels of experience in this group. So after the presentation we we will break into smaller discussion groups so beginners and more advanced members can talk about the things that are pertinent to their issue and get questions answered on both basic and more advanced topics. We are trying to work out the schedule so that there is little something for everyone.

With all of the interest and talent in our Atlanta WordPress Users’ group, we also want to give others a chance to present, so please, don’t be shy. Let us know if you have a topic you’d like to hear more about or if your would like to do the presentation for an upcoming meeting.

Some suggestions have been to have a meeting on the new features of 3.0 and another presentation on WPMU (multi-user version) and Buddy Press. So stay tuned, and keep in touch. I hope to see you Wednesday!

Why Re-Design Your Website?

I  just read a great post called Why Redesign Your Website? by HubSpot which is a SEO marketing Company that is pretty darn on target. I really liked what they said. One of the main points is that sure you have to have a well done site that is polished and put together, but…. the point is getting more visitors and leads, So you do a redesign if you are not on a Content Management Site (CMS) platform, not because you are bored with the design or because your CEO wants a new logo design.

Marketing guru, Seth Godin says,

“I’m going to go out on a limb and beg you not to create an original design. There are more than a billion pages on the web. Surely there’s one that you can start with? …Your car isn’t unique, and your house might not be either”.

The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweig once said to me ( I love that he actually, in person,  said this to me)

“I wonder why any developer would build a theme from scratch for a client when there are over 5000 themes to customize and save them time and money”

Great content is a most important activity on your website and adding the content on a regular basis drives people to your site. Which is most easily done with a Content Management Site such as WordPress and they should absolutely include a blog, RSS and landing pages.

Any website built today should include these basics.  They are not expensive, and they work.  A blog is a great way to create content on an ongoing basis, and to start to converse with your customers and prospects and RSS allows some content from your website to be automatically pushed out to other websites and people, increasing the reach of your content.

So take these words to heart and when you find yourself spending too much time with what the banner should look like. Yes, it should look sharp, but it really matters more that you get your content out there with the right technology, the right navigation, and a way to start and keep adding more content on a regular basis.

I am talking to a woman today who had her site redesigned over a year ago and it still has not gone live because she was paralyzed over the design the technology choices and her wording. I agree, for someone new to all of this it can be daunting. And there is a lot of competing information out there. There is a lot of OLD school information out there. Like selling people SEO services around key words and metatags, or people still building static, non-owner friendly sites that the site owner has to pay the developer every time they want it updated! At New Tricks, we really try and make it easy for you. Yes, of course we believe in good design, but it is important not to let your obsession on perfection stop you from doing it now.

New Tricks For Florist Blog Sites

drawing for flowers Florist Website Design has been dominated by old school design of the  on-line floral groups, FTD, TeleFlora and 1-800 Flowers. Now florist’s have a wonderful opportunity, with the new technologies available with social media and content management websites, to beat out their competitors in showcasing their finest work and specialties on-line.  These technologies can be used to increase revenues from business activities they love to do, large parties and wedding for example  and decrease their reliance upon the marketing provided by FTD, Telefora, 1-800 Flowers and other on-line ordering companies. With the new web tools and increased use of Internet, people can now easily Google a brick and mortar florist to order flowers from any city in the world. They can place their orders directly to a real person. This allows all of their budgeted money for an arrangement to go into their flowers and florist and delivery, cutting out the portion to the unnecessary broker. Check out this Business Week article, Is the Bloom off at FTD?.

In Atlanta, there are so many FTD, Teleflora and 1-800 Flowers sites and they all look essentially alike. The Florists Websites relying on these company templates have been lured in  by easy and have become complacent maybe thinking a more personalized site would be too expensive or hard to maintain. Not now with WordPress Florist websites being able to be a regular business site with built in blogging ability all ready for Social Media Marketing Opportunities. Now you can post those professional photos your bride sent to you right on the site in a couple of minutes, showcasing the beautiful work that you did. The pictures of those  roundy moundy’s from the Teleflora and such sites cannot compete with your being able to post beautiful examples of your favorite and more profitable work. Then you can send those posts out to Twitter and to FaceBook where more brides and event planners will be searching for options. Florists who use this new design and website technology have a huge advantage as their sites stand out from the crowd and are more personal representation of the shop and its unique qualities. People buy from people they Know, Like and Trust. These new Florist websites are able to build that in like a window into their shop.

New Tricks designed a WordPress website for Candler Park Flowers last March and by Mother’s Day they had sixty new orders from out of town than they had the year before all saying it was because of the website.

Want to know more? Here is Part One of the presentation by Dene Shepherd of New Tricks for the November 19th Floral Meet and Greet sponsored by Carlstedt’s Atlanta and Linda Knight McCarter. Beautiful flowers donated by Associated Farms were given out as door prizes throughout the night to the delight of all.

Social Media Marketing for Florists

View more documents from NewTricks.

Part two of the presentation was given by Judi Knight of New Tricks.

Florist Web-Site Make-Over Tips

View more presentations from NewTricks.

Time for an On-line Makeover?

New Tricks was busy marketing this week on the premise that if we do our networking, and workshops in November then our December will be as busy as we want it to be. We had a great time at the Ga. Coaches Association round table meeting and the North Fulton Express Network Luncheon of the American Business Women’s Association. Good to see old friends and make some new contacts as well.

Here are our slides from both Dene’s and Judi’s presentations. The Coaches didn’t get to see Dene’s talk on Googling Yourself and other Online Marketing Tips. But both of the talks are on this Slideshare.

For those attending the workshop we are offering a free consultation on your on-line presence. We can do this by phone or in person so drop us a line or give us a call and we will get you on our schedule. We are limiting this offer to the first twenty people to respond.

Get Yourself an On-Line Makeover

View more presentations from NewTricks.

Using WordPress as CMS, the Musical

We have written before about the evolution of WordPress’s use as a website development platform rather than, what most people think, as just a blogging program. Using WordPress for websites is cutting edge Web 2.0 and takes advantage of WordPress’s use of a My SQL database. It then becomes a content management system, otherwise referred to as a CMS, which offers much more to a business than a traditional old skool static or Flash website.

Today, I want to bring you what I imagine must be the first song in history about using WordPress as a CMS. I know it is a little rough and I understand there is a new version coming out with much improved production quality. In the meantime, I bring you a performance by Charles Williams from the Dallas WordPress Camp:

Using WordPress as a CMS from Charles Williams on Vimeo.

You really need a great Website When the Economy is Lousy

We came across a post today called, Lousy Economy, Awesome Website. I loved this post. I completely agree that this is the time, with our economy so precarious, that it is most important to put your best out on the Internet for your business to thrive. I think it is  just as important to have a website if you are marketing yourself in a job search.

With the ever increasing use of the Internet and new web 2.0 technology, people have higher expectations for what a website should look like and how it should behave. Shoddy, poorly organized sites with bad graphics will not be well received. People don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore. They just Google your or your business to get your number. You better show up.

I went to look up my son’s doctor’s office number and she showed up number one in Google as living and working in Michigan. Her current practice here in Atlanta has a website that one of the doctors put together. The graphics were bad, the navigation poor, and the photos of the physicians were scary. What a waste of an opportunity to make a professional impression. I am not talking about spending an arm and a leg. Good web design does not have to be expensive, and it will pay for itself.

We just got a new intern here at New Tricks. We were immediately impressed by this young man because he had an awesome on-line resume portfolio. No flimsy ass business card for him. he was the first applicant I looked at and so I thought they all would have comparably designed web-based portfolios. Not so. I say bring it on people. Get it together NOW. Our New Tricks motto is It’s never too late….but of course you have to remember that its the early bird that catches the worm!

Mirar Salon

mirarsalon_screenshot

Project Highlights :

Shawn Black came to us after he heard about the benefits of using WordPress as a website platform. He was especially interested in the searchability of these content management sites as well as the ease with which he could learn to maintain the site and have it be an active conversation with his clients. He had already started with some other designers but after meeting with us he completely changed directions. [click to continue…]

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