Five Steps to Creating a Successful Commercial Site with WordPress

Are you interested in creating a new website for a brand new commercial venture? Whether you’re starting a store, a promotional campaign, or even a magazine or blog, WordPress is the solution.  This is by far the easiest CMS program to use thanks to its easy customization with premium WordPress themes and standardization.

However, you may be confused as to how to go about creating a new website from scratch—even if a CMS program makes it very easy.  Let’s consider five steps from beginning to end.

1. Install the WordPress Theme

This is the most complicated step, and it involves signing up with a free or paid commercial website, and then transferring WordPress files (zipped up for a smaller size) to the directory via FTP or file manager, and then accessing the wp-login or wp-admin page so that you can begin building the database and installing the most basic features.  Some hosting companies also make it easier on you by giving you a “clickable” application online that auto installs WordPress or other CMS software for you.  If this is part of the deal then jump for it!  (Although it may cost extra, as even the cPanel interface definitely costs extra)

2. Develop the Content

It may be wise to plot what content you’re going to have, in terms of pages and in blog posts.  It’s best to have your keywords chosen in advance so that you can create titles with specific keywords, as well as headings, meta tags and meta descriptions.  If you are paying a writer to develop this content, then develop it first and then add special features to the site after inserting the content.  After all, content is the most important thing; flashy animations and complex apps are not priorities in SEO.

3. Add a theme, title, logo and fill out all necessary elements. 

The theme should be carefully considered, and not only for looks and style, but also for pre-installed features.  For example, some themes are meant to be e-commerce themes and will make purchase now buttons online much easier for you to manage.  The title is usually listed under themes or perhaps in the general settings category.  Most modern themes have a special section for adding a custom designed header and for filling in SEO-friendly titles and tags.  While you can change colors and sizing features, you must access the theme editor for this, and this involves learning some CSS commands.  Therefore, it’s best to choose commercial themes that make setting changes clickable, if you want to manage every detail.

4. Install Special Plugins

While most plugins are optional, and very few are actually needed, we must emphasize the importance of at least two.  The sitemap plugin is very important as this is your direct connection with Google and Bing and other search companies; this auto writes your sitemap as you publish more content and can ping search bots to look for new updates.  Web analytics is another possibility for a plugin and it will be easy to manage; nevertheless, some people prefer installing Google Analytics code into each individual post for more detailed site statistics.

5. Install Widgets

It used to be a very complicated task to install frames to a website and not very SEO friendly.  However, the latest “framing examples” from CSS and XFrames technology, makes creating sidebar features as easy as a click or two.  Popular side bar widgets include categories, About Us pages, search bars, recent comments, and banner advertisements. Remember to minimize graphics as much as possible (particularly on the side bar) unless they are absolutely necessary to the message.

These are five procedural steps to creating a search-friendly WordPress site.  Now it’s time to focus on content!