Content is King

With more than 1.6 billion websites on the internet, Google has to figure out how to rank them. There is no point in having a beautiful WordPress website if no one is going to see it. When a user searches for lawn services in Las Vegas, 37,000,000 results pop up. If you’re the new kid on the block and on the last pages, this potential customer will not find you.

Your next order of business, after you launch your WordPress website, is to start creating blog posts and quality content so that you can improve your ranking. Google takes hundreds of things into consideration when ranking your site, but content is still king.

It is very important that you write content your visitors love and publish consistently. Your rankings will suffer if Google recognizes that you’re not providing any value to your readers. Educate your readers and offer them helpful tips.

If you give, you will receive. Readers will view you as an expert in your field and will in turn support your business. You will improve your rankings if readers are spending large amounts of time on a page, scrolling down on the page, reading other content on your site, and returning to your site more than once.

Digital Marketing

Social Media

There isn’t a single business that can’t benefit from having a social media presence, which is another way to get people to your website. There are many platforms you can choose from: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on. You can build slowly over time or run paid campaigns to reach larger audiences faster.

Once you launch your WordPress website, research what platforms your competitors are on and start building your presence there. Sharing impactful content and posting frequency are key. You may need to hire a social media manager if you feel that you don’t have the time to properly maintain your channels.

Guest Blogging

Another way to get traffic to your site is by guest blogging. More established sites have lots of traffic and dedicated readers. After you launch your WordPress website, pitch offers to write a blog post for an established site as a guest blogger. You can then link back to your own website to help increase traffic. Be sure your content is high-quality and find sites within your industry. If you’re not an established blogger currently, you may have to start with smaller sites and build up to the larger ones.

Email Marketing

Would you believe that I have 35,000 emails in my Yahoo account? Even still, I do still read the newsletters sent to me from my favorite brands. Coupons galore!

Email marketing briefly became the stepchild of digital marketing as social media and paid advertisements started to become the preferred method to reach audiences. However, do not sleep on email marketing. You can see some great benefits if your messages are authentic and you send newsletters that focus on personal experiences and storytelling.

Continue to offer value in the form of eBooks, giveaways, sales and coupons. Mobile is now the preferred method to view emails, so you definitely want to make sure your newsletters are mobile-friendly. The ultimate goal is to get them back to your website.

Ongoing Maintenance

Our Director of Business Development, Jodie Riccelli, compared maintaining your website to getting regular oil changes for your car. It’s absolutely necessary that you maintain your car or you can end up with a blown engine, like me. I bought my first car at 18—a brand new Nissan Sentra. I didn’t get an oil change my first year, and my engine blew after going 10,000 miles over.

It is equally necessary that you plan for ongoing maintenance after your site has launched, which is why we highly recommend for you to transition to our Maintainn team once your site has launched. Maintainn will handle all of your site updates, monitor for security risks, back up your site, make changes to your site, if you need, and more.

One of the most important reasons you need ongoing maintenance is security. A hacked site can compromise your customer’s data, which can lead to lawsuits, loss in money, lost trust in your brand, etc. Having regular monitoring, constant security scans, and a response team can save you from this.

Also, your theme, plugins and WordPress itself releases regular updates. You could update these yourself, but beware that sometimes updates can break your site. Having a team like Maintainn handle these updates and any of the issues that arise is highly recommended.

Technology

Plugins and new technology are constantly being released. The way consumers interact with your site evolves with technology. Once upon a time, a blog post would’ve been an advice column in a physical newspaper.

Previously, websites would just have a contact page and customers would fill out a form if they wanted to be contacted. Then they would have to wait for you to reply back via email. Now, you can add a chat icon that allows customers to chat with you in real time. Users grow accustomed to these new technology releases and may disregard your site if it doesn’t offer a similar experience.

If your site does not evolve with the times, you will get left behind. New technology can help to improve your workflow and user experience.

Time

Time is a resource we never seem to have enough of. All of these steps above are critical to ensure your site receives the attention it deserves. Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to online success. If you lack time, consider hiring professionals in each of these areas to help take your site to another level. I am sure you would prefer to be running your actual business. Let the pros handle your website.

Contact us when you’re ready to launch your WordPress website!

The post 5 Things to Consider When You Launch Your WordPress Website appeared first on WebDevStudios.

My iPhone, laptop, even a new air purifier I recently purchased all had the option to buy some form of a maintenance plan. I’ve never regretted purchasing one because while I’d like to think of myself as responsible, I’m far from graceful. Working in the tech industry now as the Director of Client Strategy at WDS, I’m often asked whether or not an ongoing website maintenance and support plan for a website is necessary. My answer is always the same, “Absolutely.”

I understand being hesitant to engage in this extra expense. I’ll be the first to admit that YouTube tutorials, online classes, and documentation have me believing that I’m an expert developer at times; and while these tools are helpful, they don’t always account for the unexpected. There are many reasons why ongoing support is critical but let me just share a few.

Plugin, Theme, and WordPress Updates

All of the code that goes into making WordPress work is often referred to as the “core.” WordPress sends out updates a few times a year to ensure that the core is always in tip-top shape. Some releases are small, but some are important, containing things like critical security updates. Every update is worth taking seriously.

Plugins are created by this amazing open source community to extend the functionality of your website. Plugins can update more or less frequently depending on how engaged the developer is in improving the tool.

There’s also your website theme to think about. Whether you’re using a free or premium one, chances are that as WordPress releases new updates, so will your theme.

I hesitate to hit that “update” button sometimes. You don’t always know how your website will be affected. While most agencies develop websites to be as update-proof as possible, there are no guarantees. Having a professional on deck to handle these updates for you is critical in the ultimate performance and health of your website.

Security

Hacking: it’s a term we are all familiar with. A quick look at the news and there is a story of some website being hacked somewhere. There are numerous measures you can take to protect your website. Some are easy and could merely require a plugin, but others tend to be a bit more complex. With ongoing support, trusted professionals will ensure the health of your website. One thing you may want to consider is if your website is being monitored on a regular basis. Constant security scans alert the website owner if a file has been tampered with, if there are irregular logins, or even if there have been DNS changes. Regular monitoring can detect if these changes are out of the ordinary and quickly put things back to normal.

Backups

Here is a typical scenario—you hire someone new to work on your website. It could be a new developer or maybe someone just adding content. They are given more access than they need, and accidentally something happens, and your site is not looking like it should. If you have regular backups being performed on your website, restoring to the last one should be a painless process. Without backups, you are in for a ton of investigation and work. Having regularly scheduled backups is the insurance policy you need most.

Big and Small Changes

The real hero of a maintenance and support plan us simply having access to a team of experts available to help. That form you want to add to the website, those images that you just haven’t had a chance to upload, the new ads you want to put on the homepage; with a support team, it’s as simple as letting them know your plans and then allowing them to take it from there. Think of your support team as an extension of your business. They are here to support you. No task is too small or large.

This may seem like a lot, and it is. There is no need to tackle all of this yourself. That’s why WDS has Maintainn. At Maintainn, a brilliant team of support specialists is there to answer your questions, help plan for changes, secure your website, back it up regularly, and update it consistently. All of this is to ensure you have a high performant and rock-solid website. Not only does this bring you peace of mind but it also assures your visitors are enjoying their experience. Yeah, there may be some additional investment, but it can’t compare to the investment needed if these safeguards are not in place.

The post Ongoing Website Maintenance: Why the Transition from WDS to Maintainn Makes Sense appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Maintainn is a professional WordPress support and services shop founded by Shayne Sanderson in 2012 and they provide professional WordPress support and maintenance services including 24/7 security monitoring, daily off-site backups, weekly updates to WordPress core, themes and plugins, a dedicated WordPress support desk and custom development.

At Maintainn, Shayne has assembled a dynamic team of active members of the WordPress community providing both back end and front end support for their WordPress clients.  This is a natural fit with our team and offerings at WebDevStudios.  So much so, that in early 2014, we contracted with Shayne’s team at Maintainn to help support our growing need for ongoing maintenance and support of our existing client base.  In working with Maintainn over the past several months, it became crystal clear to us that we could go far together in meeting those goals of both sets of clients (ours and Maintainn’s) and just a little over a month ago, we reached out to Shayne with an offer that we felt made a lot of sense for both parties.

What does this mean for Maintainn’s existing client base?  As our in-house support team, Maintainn immediately gains the benefit of WebDev’s existing development and design bench strength, which enables us to increase Maintainn’s offerings of support and maintenance with the confidence that comes with a large team of experienced and talented developers who excel at what they do.  All of the services and packages you already know and love from Maintainn will remain available with the peace of mind and confidence of knowing that Maintainn now has the support and backbone of WebDevStudios experience and skill.

By acquiring Maintainn, WebDevStudios gains an existing infrastructure of WordPress support services that our existing client base will immediately benefit from.  Maintainn instantly becomes our in-house team of dedicated, experienced and skilled support and maintenance that enables us to continue to provide our clients (old and new) with confident, skilled support that starts immediately following the launch of their latest web site.

In the distant past, Shayne Sanderson was once an employee of WebDevStudios and held the role of Project Manager – a role that he excelled in.  He left WebDevStudios in October 2013 to focus his efforts on growing and improving Maintainn, and always remained a close friend and valued partner to us.

Maintainn becomes our 1-stop support and maintenance entity. It will support all of our client retainers as well as any incoming clients looking for maintenance and support specifically.  Shayne will continue to head the effort with his team as Director of Support at WDS, and we’re excited about Maintainn’s future!

We are thrilled to have Shayne back at WebDevStudios!  Shayne has built a truly amazing platform at Maintainn.  It is both our honor and our privledge to bring Maintainn into the WebDevStudios family with the intention of supporting the growth and success of our WordPress support and maintenance offerings now, and in the future.

About WebDevStudios:

WebDevStudios is a website development company that focuses on custom WordPress website and plugin development, providing custom solutions for clients like Microsoft, WEtv, Discovery Channel, Wharton University, University of Pennsylvania, Kaspersky Antivirus and more.

The WebDevStudios team prides itself on the contributions it makes to the WordPress community (5 core contributors) and love to create new and innovative features that change the way websites are designed and developed. WebDev’s team is passionate about the work they do and work extremely hard to ensure that our clients are happy.

WebDev is a 100% distributed company, with headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, New Jersey, and Milwaukee, WI – owned by Brad Williams (CEO), Brian Messenlehner (CTO) and Lisa Sabin-Wilson (COO).

About Maintainn:

Founded in 2012, by Shayne Sanderson, Maintainn provides professional WordPress support and maintenance services including 24/7 security monitoring, daily off-site backups, weekly updates to WordPress core, themes and plugins, a dedicated WordPress support desk and custom development.

Maintainn’s knowledgeable team are active members in the WordPress community who have multiple plugins listed in the WordPress repository, have contributed to WordPress core and organize/speak at many WordCamp conferences worldwide. Maintainn knows WordPress!

Read more about this acquisition on Maintainn’s website:  Maintainn Joins WebDevStudios!

The post WebDevStudios Acquires Maintainn to bring WordPress Support and Maintenance Services In-House appeared first on WebDevStudios.