WordPress 101
and the 5 pillars of a successful website
Presented by: Dan Stramer / @danst
About Dan
- Owner of dmdesign - Webdesign agency
- Front End Designer and Developer
- Creating websites since 2000
- Mentor and taught at Canada Learning Code
- Member at WP Toronto meetups
- Father of 3 boys
www.dmdesign.co.il
Heard of WordPress?
Who has ever used it?
Started as a blogging tool in 2003
Powers more than 43% of websites*
https://blog.hubspot.com/website/wordpress-stats
Open source - freely use, copy, study and change the software
NASA, white house, TechCrunch, Ted blog
Which WordPress?
WordPress.com
- All tech aspects is done for you incl. hosting
- Limited plugins & Themes
- No FTP access
- Limited control
- Monthly payment to remove ads
- Great starting point to learn about blogging and editing
A commercial site where you can host your own site for free, but with some limitations.
WordPress.org
- Download the software
- install and set up the site on your server
- Update core, plugins and themes
- Keep your site secure
- Full access to code (front + backend)
- More freedom to code, host and manage
where you can download a copy of the WordPress software for free. There are less
limitations, but more expertise and setup
is required
Which WordPress?
WordPress.org
- Download the software
- install and set up the site on your server
- Update core, plugins and themes
- Keep your site secure
- Full access to code (front + backend)
- More freedom to code, host and manage
where you can download a copy of the WordPress software for free. There are less
limitations, but more expertise and setup
is required
Why WordPress
It's Free
Running your website on Wordpress may incur costs, but the software itself is free
Easy to learn
Managing a WordPress site is
intuitive, making it easy to use + many resources
Secure
WordPress is developed with
security in mind and is battletested.
Powerful
WordPress has a large network of
developers who are constantly
making it better and more
powerful.
Extensible
There are thousands of plugins,
themes, and tools to add
functionality to your Wordpress
site.
SEO friendly
Wordpress is built with SEO in
mind and uses SEO-friendly
permalinks.
Community
Meetups
727 Groups
107 Countries
507,719 Members
WordCamps
More than 40 per year
Endless YouTubes, tutorials, help & resources
wordpress.org > learn
Putting it all together
The 5 Pillars
Content
Design
SEO
Security & Speed
Marketing
Content
Our site's building block
Communication:
Users, Visitors, Stakeholders
Video
Articles
Content - How to
- List the 5 most important items of content, rank them from most important to least important.
- Have the most important item on your homepage - users allows you 3 seconds to get their attention
- Create a google doc with all of your content
- Separate the content into 'pages': Homepage, About, Services, Contact
- Write for 8th grade
- Start with 300-500 words per page
- Blog
START!
Design
How well is the site designed?
Color, fonts, layout
Easy navigation, mobile friendly?
UI UX
SEO -
Search Engine Optimisation
How are you found on the web?
Spider bots scan the web linking between sites
Great Content
Consistent
Key Phrases
Collaboration
I love speed
So do your users and search engines
Good Neighborhood
Reputation
Security & Speed
My site is my ship
Focus on a few
Marketing
Email marketing
Google My Business
Youtube
Fb / Tw / In / Pi
The 5 Pillars
Content
Design
SEO
Security & Speed
Marketing
Questions?
Thank you!
