We’ve been on the WordPress-as-CMS bandwagon for several months. Recently, we heard WordPress was awarded the Best Overall Open Source Content Management System award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards, beating out Drupal, Joomla, and a bunch of other geek favorites. We didn’t even know there was such an award, but of course, we like that it confirms our point of view that WordPress is a great CMS.

Recently we posted that All Small Business Websites Should be on a Blog Platform, by which we really meant "on WordPress." We were trying to appear open-minded. But really, we’re biased: we love WordPress. There, we said it! And we don’t care if the whole world knows it! WordPress has earned our favor by being simple, flexible, and powerful. And the more we use it, the more we understand how simple, flexible, and powerful it truly is. Read the above article for the benefits of blog-based websites for small businesses.

Also, check out our recently released (September 2009) CMS theme: Evo4 CMS. It was designed specifically to be used by professional designers who need a CMS for websites that incorporate a blog. We suggest it for professional designers because it’s not pretty out of the box, and you’ll need an excellent understanding of Photoshop and CSS—along with some understanding of PHP—to use it as the basis for a great website. You can also download a companion Photoshop template to help in the skinning (we can almost guarantee you won’t want to use the theme as is: it’s gray on gray).

Tags: CMS, WordPress

OK, there are probably a few exceptions to that statement. But for the most part, small businesses—say, 98%—that have either static websites or websites that are separate from their blogs are missing out on two huge advantages:

1. search engine traffic
2. an inexpensive, easy-to-use content management system

Search Engine Traffic and SEO

Attracting search engine traffic is the difference between a website that’s an asset and one that’s nothing more than an expense. If your website is not a search destination for your prospective customers, it’s not helping you very much. Oh sure, if you have a website people can go to when they see the URL on your business card or your Yellow Pages ad, that has some value. But the old idea of a website being a sign alongside the information superhighway pointing to your business is outdated and not very effective.

The key to a website that helps you build your business is search engine traffic, even if your business is exclusively local. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a local business person say they don’t need to be found in online searches, because their business is all local. Yet, they spend (lots and lots of) money on local newspaper ads and local radio ads. I guess they think local people don’t have an internet connection and don’t use it to look for local businesses? Think again!

The number one way people look for places to buy goods and services is by internet search, overtaking the Yellow Pages more than a year ago and widening the gap on a daily basis. And that includes checking out local businesses that people intend to drive to and do business with after they’ve determined online that the business offers what they’re looking for and appears to know what it’s doing (the quality of your site and blog posts have some influence on that one).

Blogs are search engine magnets, IF they contain focused, frequently updated content that your potential customers search for. Google’s algorithms favor focused, frequently updated content, the kind of knowledge and information you already have your head. Put it into some blog posts (frequently, and focused) and watch your business benefit from additional traffic from online searches.

Having your blog integrated with your website (what we often refer to as a blogsite) gives the non-blog portion of your website a higher pagerank than if the blog is completely separate from the website, moving it higher in search results.

Inexpensive, Easy-to-use Content Management

Secondly, a blogsite makes it easy for small businesses to update any part of their website using the same backend used to publish blog posts. The days of calling the "webguy" for simple content updates will be over. You may still need the webguy to add certain kinds of functionality or to make fundamental changes in the structure of your blogsite if and when that becomes necessary, but you will have full day-to-day control over the information it displays. And that’s important, because if people are finding your site, the last thing you want them to see is outdated information.

But beyond that, the information on your site can reflect what’s happening currently and can make your website an integral part of your sales and promotion strategy. Suppose you offered a daily special to the first person each day to say the word of the day that they could only get on your website? Suppose you gathered email addresses on your website from people who wanted to be made aware when there was a sale? You could email these opt-in, prequalified customers and save yourself the expense of a radio ad or newspaper ad announcing the sale.

These are just a couple of examples of how having greater control over the content on your website can lead to more business. There are other strategies, likely some that would fit your business perfectly.

Tags: Blogsites, SEO, Small Business

We’re really thrilled to announce that we’ve launched Evo4 CMS, a free theme for WordPress that is specifically made for building business websites that include an integrated blog. These are the kind of sites Google finds really attractive, provided the content produced on them is focused and frequently updated (always a catch!). Evo4 CMS is not much to look at as downloaded: just a dull gray, blank canvas. But that is easily remedied by a skilled designer who can use the provided structure on which to render a gorgeous website.

EvoBloggito and evowebdev.com are built on a beta version of the theme, and just last week we launched storiesthatsellguide.com on the theme, so it’s been shaken out and had the bolts tightened as needed. While we’ve made it available for download to anyone, we really don’t care if anyone downloads it or not. We created it to provide ourselves with a better platform and starting point for the kind of websites we’re building more and more often: business websites with integrated blogs, which are updated by our clients. So WordPress functions as the content management system our clients use to update their website as well as their blog.

You can review the (very gray) demo site here, with a look and feel only a programmer could love. But if you know how to look beyond the surface and inspect its structure, we think you’ll be impressed. Because we made the theme for designers, we’re also making a companion Photoshop template available for download, to assist with the page design phase.

Why is it so gray? A couple of reasons. Frankly, we want to discourage amateur bloggers from selecting the theme for their blog. It’s not really the best choice for a blog-only website, and we don’t want all the email from amateur bloggers asking us how to do whatever it is that their inexperience keeps them from understanding. More important, however, we wanted as close to a blank slate as we could get in terms of appearance; nothing that could steer the look and feel for a particular client. We don’t want it to be obvious by appearance that two different client websites both used the same theme as a starting point.

So there you have it, our first WordPress theme. I think there will be more, but first we need to make some hay with this one.

Tags: CMS, WordPress Themes