Paul T

Thank you for the WordPress class and including the nitty gritty details – it was all great and nice to meet you!

Molly B

This was a really valuable event for me, achieved exactly what I needed. Christine very clearly and efficiently gave us a basic exposure to using Wordpress.

Peter H

It was great. I used a couple of things I learned when I got home, and they worked.

David L

]]> http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/2010-05-may/feed/ 0 http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/2010-06-june/ http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/2010-06-june/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:30:49 +0000 admin http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/?p=531 Thanks to WOW for hosting such a great event. I have not gotten this excited about anything since Ebay. That was over 15 years ago and now to have this available knowledge of word press and to share it so freely and to explain it so easily to the crowd is a talent. The smiles on their faces also shows how much they enjoy sharing too.  They always answer questions and yet never get off track.

Linda F

Christine and Christin, Just wanted to say thank you what a great presentation/class. I would recommend this class (Free – how amazing is that) to anyone who is even thinking of doing a website and even if they are thinking of hiring someone else to do it! Thanks again! Excellent. Christine, with your beautiful accent, I could listen to you talk all day!

Michelle C

The presentation was great. I thought it was a great introduction for a tech savvy person who didn’t have any experience with WordPress.

I am looking forward to their additional WP seminars.

Ebon A

Wow, this program is powerful and just what I am looking for, how to improve my virtual marketing tools and drive more traffic to my sites.

Roberta W

I am again amazed at how much valuable information Christine can pack into a program and how fast Christin is at the computer. I have shared their business info with others and recommend them highly for working with Wordpress. Times are a changing….

Bridget S

Thank you for an exceptional program. Even though I have been using wordpress for a while now I learned many new things that I have started to put into practice.

Highly informative.

Diane Kern

]]> http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/2010-06-june/feed/ 0 http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/10-reasons-why-wordpress-is-your-personal-publicity-machine/ http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/10-reasons-why-wordpress-is-your-personal-publicity-machine/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 19:09:53 +0000 admin http://www.worldofwebpublishing.com/?p=529

1. Traditional websites were effectively brochures on the web.  They looked nice, had a certain amount of information but were static.  By contrast a WordPress Website and Blog is a living thing.  It is designed from the ground up to radiate ‘I’m here!’ to the search engines, social media sites and blogosphere.  It’s a connected technology that communicates with the world.
2. WordPress has unlimited capacity to grow.  Unlike traditional websites, WordPress sits on top of a database (MySQL) which handles the web pages and posts, organizes and collates the images, videos, brochures and documents.  It is highly extensible through themes and plugins.There is a development community out there that create add-ons to WordPress enabling it to undertake just about any task.  WordPress is almost infinitely expandable and extendable.  You’ll never outgrow it!
3. WordPress lives and breathes Search Engine Optimization.  Every page and blog post you create with WordPress is designed to attract attention.The URLs  (page addresses) are editable to provide descriptions of the content on the page.  Where you call a page ‘About Us’, your URL can read

   ‘wordpress-training-consulting-development-blog-writing-seattle’;

   which offers a stickier phrase for the search engines to catch hold of.

   Search engines cannot read what is in an image so WordPress gives you many ways to describe an image.  You can create a caption, a pop-up message and a full description so your images become part of the search engine optimized content just as much as your posts themselves.

   You can add keywords and tags to posts and articles, and those tags get indexed by Google as well as the article title (long description as mentioned above) and content.

   You can create excerpts of your pages and posts.  These are summaries that are picked up by the search engines, are easy to enter and very effective.  The short answer is that WordPress is a great environment if you want your content to be found.

4. WordPress is a Content Management System where you as a developer, administrator or author can make fast updates to the site.  No longer will you have to wait for your developer or Web Master to change a picture, update some prices or post a new article.  All of that can be done by you.
5. Dynamic Content, Dynamic Updates, Dynamic Home Page. WordPress can pull in content from different places, feeds and resources; combining it all onto your page or post.  Pages and posts can be scheduled to appear when and where you want them to that your website is always fresh and alive.  Search engines begin to ignore static sites.  There is nothing static about WordPress.
6. WordPress and Niche Marketing. Chris Anderson’s book ‘The Long Tail’ revealed how niche marketing has become main stream.  Through the unlimited capacity of the Internet… digital marketing and distribution has encouraged niche markets to thrive.The main body of sales comprises the best sellers.  The major retail stores have to hold inventory that has to sell in numbers to justify the cost of the ‘shelf space’ Therefore the market has traditionally limited itself to a relatively restricted number of products; effectively ‘The Hot 100’, The blockbuster, The top 10,000 book titles etc.  But that has all changed.  What ‘The Long Tail’ revealed is that the market is much bigger and more varied than people imagined.  As ‘search’ became more effective than advertising and display, niche products could be offered and found as easily as the latest Lady Gaga CD.  Although individually, sales down the far end of ‘The Long Tail’ may only be in single digits, the combined sales of all of these niches actually rivals that of the best sellers.  The Long Tail is a market of niche products and we can all be part of it.

   WordPress is the perfect vehicle to develop and promote niche products.  Niche products by their very nature are targeted to small groups.  These groups seek out products and services that are unavailable in local stores but are available online.  And nowadays, the more unique the product, the less competition for search engine key words and phrases.

   If you have a niche product, a WordPress website and blog is the perfect vehicle to ‘open shop’ to a market searching for you.  Product descriptions, testimonials, blog posts and articles, embedded videos and case studies are all a few clicks away.  Every time a new article or product is posted, the blogosphere and search engines will be ‘pinged’ and the market will grow.

7. WordPress integrates with Social Media. WordPress is designed to get you up and running fast.  Once you have your products and services on your WordPress website, visitors can interact with you!If you post an article or case study, visitors can leave comments or questions.
   Customer Service becomes transparent and interactive as customers openly discuss good or bad service and you can respond quickly, honestly and directly.

   Social Media links and tags can be incorporated into your posts which makes it just a simple click for a visitor to bookmark an article or offer… or to share that offer with his/her Facebook friends.  The effectiveness of the Social Media Links cannot be over emphasized.  Let’s say you post a case study on how your business resolved a problem for one of your clients.  Soon after someone else has a similar problem and searches a solution.  Your case study pops up and they call you… but not only that; they also share it on their Facebook and click the Twitter link.  That Twitter link gets shared with their 120 followers, a few of whom ReTweet the link to their combined 10,000 followers.

   Because WordPress  makes it so easy to share and integrate with other social media sites, your message can get out there quicker and further than you ever dreamed possible.

8. The WordPress Dashboard. Developing a traditional website can be a tricky business.  You need to learn a system like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.  You have to know how HTML and FTP works.  But the WordPress dashboard presents you with every tool you need to create an effective website and blog in a clean and intuitive manner without having to be a web developer.The Dashboard features:

   a.  Blog Posts.  Using the in-built text editor (essentially a word processor with full formatting) you can create posts and articles and allocate them to a sophisticated set of relational categories.

   b.  Media.  WordPress makes it a breeze to upload images, brochures, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations and more to its media library.  It automatically files these away giving total access for inclusion in your websites and blogs.

   c.  Links.  Here you can create links to all of your favorite sites or indeed pages within your own site.

   d.  Pages.  WordPress Pages are created the same way as Posts but are more like traditional web pages; although  they have the bonus of Parent/Child relationships and dynamic content.

   e.  Comments.  Here you can monitor and moderate and respond to the comments visitors have made on your site.

   f.  Appearance.  Comprises a set of tools to change, update and configure the appearance of your side including themes, widgets and more.

   g.  Plugins.  There are thousands of plugins that have been developed to extend the features of WordPress.  These range from simple slide show presentations, contact forms, photo galleries, statistic packages right through to highly sophisticated eCommerce systems.

   h.  Users.  WordPress is multi-user and here you can create new users with varying degrees of access and security.

   i.  Tools.  A set of tools including the facility to import and export your whole Wordpress site along with images, video and other content

   j.  Settings.  A complete set of tools to configure your site for the outside world.

9. The Value of FREE.  Not only is it one of the best web development and blogging systems available on the planet at any price but being free it allows you to experiment and learn without risk.  It allows you to interact and develop without the worry of cost.  The value of free extends way beyond monetary value.  It empowers you to express yourself in an open and expansive way.
10. Blogging beats Advertising and WordPress excels at blogging.  You can unleash your creative self and if what you have to say is worth hearing, the world will find you and listen.

The answer is yes to everything.  All of these sites are used and abused by individuals, businesses, pressure groups, politicians and more.  As a tool becomes available it gets used and when it’s ‘free’ it gets used by a lot of people… as it should.

To say ‘No Business Should Be Involved in Online Social Networking’ is just plain wrong.  It should be used in combination with social media marketing.  Biznik (a business oriented social media site) is a prime example of how to combine social media networking WITH social media marketing.

Biznik has the mix of networking and marketing in balance.  Businesses can shamelessly promote and market their latest offerings while benefitting from the SEO that is inherent in the system.  They can write articles that increase the awareness and understanding of the business environment they inhabit.  It is right for businesses to be involved in both social media marketing and networking.  Done right, networking instills trust.

Biznik members (both paying and free) have the opportunity to evaluate other members’ products and services through their promotions and profiles; as well as getting an understanding of the ‘person’ behind the business through their articles and posts.  The benefit extends outside of Biznik too.  You don’t have to be a member to find a product or service that is on offer through the Biznik environment. Just go to Google/Yahoo/Bing and search for what you’re looking for.  If a Biznik member has written about it in an article, their profile, promotion, event or post… chances are it’ll be on the first page of search results.

Bizniks are encouraged to hold networking events and workshops, both physical and virtual (online).  Hundreds of Bizniks meet every week in coffee shops, hotels, meeting rooms, convention centers and in ‘the cloud’ (webinars, chat rooms, conference calls, Instant Messages and more).

Many people (including me) have 2 Facebook accounts; one primarily for family and friends and the other for business connections.  Just because Facebook is the number one social media site doesn’t prevent it from being used for business. You cannot ignore the vast communities that have grown out of these environments.

The same holds true for virtual online worlds.  Take ‘Second Life’ for example.  Second Life is an online game where you create an avatar (a virtual representation of yourself) and wander around a virtual world making friends and interacting with others.  You can earn virtual money and engage in business activities.  That virtual money can be exchanged for real money but can also buy online (virtual) products and services.

Second Life is a virtual world built around social networking and big business has gotten involved big time.  Major companies have bought virtual real estate and ‘set up shop’ in this virtual world.  Reporters wander around interviewing virtual people; Dell, IBM and others have virtual office buildings and stores.  In the world of FREE, there’s always business and networking ensues.

The great thing about FREE is that there is no risk.  If it doesn’t work what have you lost?  You try it but understand what you’re doing but good content and participation is vital.  The old maxim of garbage in / garbage out still applies.

Marketing has shifted focus considerably over the past few years. There are plenty of business people who were marketing their services effectively but are now finding the effectiveness of that marketing has diminished due to the nature of the researching and buying habits of modern customers.

Those business people who ignore (or are unaware of) promoting their services through interactive online communities will find that what they knew about marketing has lost a large degree of relevance. An advert in yellow pages says a whole lot less than a well written blog post with a series on comments from happy customers.

The business owner has to, as never before, think like his customer. What is the customer searching for, where is he searching, how is he making his buying decision and what are his existing customers saying about him.

Google has created a multibillion dollar company built around FREE.  It has huge data centers around the country constantly scanning for new content; indexing and updating its results so that you can type in what you’re looking for and have results immediately presented.  You can choose from sponsored links and search results.  You can click on a website or a blog post and more often than not, will see Google Ads appears that are relevant to the search results.  You need to be part of those results… and the social media / blogging environment is the best way to get there.

The good news is that all of this technology to get you noticed is free.  Biznik, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg etc are all free.  You can often upgrade your membership and get additional features but at the very least you have to be part of them.  They have SEO clout by their expertise and sheer presence on the web which in turn gives you additional clout.  Develop good content, regularly update and you’ll move up the search engine ladder.  Network and market well and you’ll continue up.

© 2010 Christine Ely

Blogging and online marketing is more efficient and effective that advertising.

Double Tree Hotel - Southcenter

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time and when you get to know it, you’ll be empowered on the web like never before.  With a WordPress website and Blog, anyone can create a truly amazing online experience without having to spend thousands of dollars on web consultants and developers. Now with a little education and support, even the computer novice can get online and get noticed.  We at ‘The World of WordPress’ are here to help.  Whether you just want a little training or a multi faceted, eCommerce enabled web experience, you can rely on us.
[Click here for Registration Form]

Call us on (206) 992 7222 or (206) 235 3994.

• Full Installation and Configuration of latest edition of WordPress
• Free Hosting for 1 Year – 5 email accounts
• In depth / hands on training to develop your own website and blog. For your WordPress website, you will be given a premium theme to choose from, worth $60, as well as free web hosting, email and FTP access.
• You also receive a WordPress eBook, a full set of plugins and tools on a CD to use with your WordPress website and blog.
• Next Event (Wed, Apr 14^th 1pm to 5pm).
  Premium event price is $120.00.
• Double Tree Hotel Guest Suites, 16500 Southcenter Parkway
  Tukwila Washington 98188-3388

This workshop with teach you how to get your WordPress Website and Blog noticed and ‘read’. It will also provide valuable techniques on how to write your Blog and how to include search engine friendly phrases that attract your targeted buyers and how to get syndicated.

A few years ago the world of advertising and marketing changed. Time magazine’s man of the year was ‘YOU’. That was because the Internet and technologies like WordPress have empowered ‘YOU’ as never before. Buyers now search for what they want instead of being advertised ‘at’. It’s your job, as a business owner or representative, to be found and that means having a great website and blog… with great CONTENT!

There’s an old saying that 5% of the people out there are looking for your services at any one time; the trick is to grab that 5%’s attention at the time they’re looking. And unless you have a ridiculously large advertising budget, it’s not worth the effort and it’s largely a waste of money anyway!

In today’s world it’s blogging, web site content, search engine optimization, quality of service and word of mouth that attracts buyers and readers/visitors. The buyer now has the power and the buyer is getting very savvy.

When you want to buy a new car, new furnishings or even a new house, do you wait until you see an advertisement or do you get onto the web and search? When you see results do you jump at the first slick advert? Of course you don’t and neither does your potential customer.

Attend this workshop and you’ll learn the secrets of Blogging and Search Engine Optimization.

[Download the FREE WordPress 101 eBook]

New release of eBook coming soon.

Each attendee also receives a CD with all the tools and plugins required to maintain their website and blog.

Note: You will need to bring your own WiFi enabled laptop to the workshop. These premium workshops are held at our office suite in Tukwila WA.

The workshop will be run by WordPress experts Christine Ely and Christin McDowell who will be on hand for personal assistance in the development of your site with ongoing instruction throughout the workshop.

All you need to know about maintaining your site will be included as well as access to all of our favorite plugins, links and widgets. You will learn the difference between Posts and Pages, where to use them and how maintain them. You will learn to incorporate graphics, videos, pictures, ecommerce and external content. You will learn search engine optimization techniques and how to incorporate statistics and analysis into your site.

Websites developed in WordPress include:

• Content Management System
• Unlimited Expansion Capability
• Updatable and Maintainable by You
• Highly Search Engine Optimized
• Full Blogging Capability

With a WordPress website and Blog, anyone can develop an amazing online experience without having to spend thousands of dollars on web consultants and developers. Now with a little education and support, even the total computer novice can learn to create professional, standout websites and blogs. The workshop runs for 4 hours which includes plenty of time for questions and answers.

Click here to view full description of book in .pdf format!