You have probably heard over and over again how great it is, and what a great website it would make for your business. But do you know why? What makes people say that on Facebook, Twitter, Blog posts, classes, marketing gurus…

I’m going to give you my take on it and why I have come to love working with WordPress.

1. It’s Free – Need I say more? No expensive software to buy and learn to create a WordPress Website. Simply go to WordPress.org and the software is just sitting there for you ready to be download.




2. Tons, tons, tons (and did I say tons?) of options to choose from – A crazy number of WordPress templates to choose. From free WordPress themes to Premium WordPress Themes. Plugins, yeah don’t even get me started on that one. I love plugins – plugins extend the functionality of what your WordPress website can do. Of course there is the age old warning, “Too much of a good thing…” can cause problems (will expand on that more in a later post)




3. It grows with you – This is right at the top of the list for me. A WordPress website/blogsite is something that will grow with you and your business. When set up and designed correctly, you have a tool that is easily adapted and changed to fit your business today and still in a year or 5 years from now. That is pretty cool to me.




4. Lots of help available – If you have questions, there is an incredible array of resources to help you out. YouTube video tutorials, blogs, books, training programs, articles, and of course virtual assistants!! … you name it, it is probably out there to answer your questions. One of the biggest resources is the WordPress.org community itself, with an active forum to ask a question or help someone else out.




5. You can control your website – This is far and away the biggest reason that WordPress just rocks! Have you ever had a word or phrase on a website that just begins to bug you and you can’t get to it to fix it? With WordPress you can and that is such a relief and a time/money saver even better. Now should you have a support tech on speed-dial, absolutely! There are so many things that you do not have the time to learn and frankly shouldn’t, having someone on hand to help you with the big updates, changes and integrations is a smart move but thankfully with a WordPress website you are no longer a slave to changing that niggly little word that is bugging you.

There are more reasons… I could go on but these are the big ones on my lit of why using WordPress is a smart move for your business.

Why do you like WordPress?

One of the projects on my list is to develop a set of Planning FUNbooks (who wants to work !) for Membership Sites & Websites. To walk you through the planning stage, to the installation & set up phase to the getting ready to launch phase. With questions, checklists, charts, eventually the works to walk you through the process with options to consider and most importantly helping you nail down, “The Why” of the project.

This is an opportunity to share what I have learned and what I continue to learn with each client project I work on. Over the next few weeks I will be blogging tips and ideas to help me flesh out the steps and get some feedback from you on what questions you have when starting a project like this.

If you have questions right now, put your comment below, I would love to answer and help out if I can.

Want to customize your blog feed – yes there is a plugin for that.

Need an event calendar? Need a donation button? Need a directory? Wait for it… yes there is a plugin for that too!

Want to have your blog posts convert to Pirate on “Talk Like a Pirate Day”? Oh yeah, there is even a plugin for that!

This is a great list of plugins, many I am looking forward to taking a closer look at and trying:

Mind Blowing WordPress Plugins « Lorelle on WordPress.

Have fun!

But just like free themes… you really need to be careful. Many of these themes will work just fine out of the box, but as soon as you need to customize a little or a lot, look out. Unless you know your WordPress structure and PHP code inside and out you  may be in for a headache. More than once I have had clients spend hours trying to get it to work and then contact me for help, and end up paying me to get it fixed or get it to look the way they had envisioned. As a small business owner this is a drain of your time, energy and possibly not worth the effort.

If you are looking for themes that you can add to your WordPress site and just change a few things like banner, or title text with a few sidebar graphics thrown in for example – go for it. You will have a wealth of choices at your finger tips and these will not be themes you see everywhere you look. This can be an incredible resource for you.

When it comes to customizing on a larger scale you could very easily run into the same problem you encounter with free themes.

• Little or no documentation
• Probably very little support
• Bad, disorganized code
• Features may not work exactly right

Just be careful before jumping in and take a few minutes to check things out:

1. Can you easily find a contact page on the site to ask questions?
2. When you do an internet search on the company name are their more negative then positive comments?
3. Do a search on Twitter http://search.twitter.com does the name come up? Positive or negative tweets?
4. Check on WordPress.org, do you see anything mentioned about the company or the particular theme you are considering? What are the comments?
5. Ask! Ask a WordPress geek, ask on Facebook or Twitter, find out if anyone else has worked with the company and ask what was their experience?

Doing just a few minutes of research up front can save you time, money and frustration. This is your business, this is your presence on the web, make sure it is going to work for you!

There are so many to choose from Free Themes, Premium Themes, Bulk Themes… This week we are going to take a closer took at Free Themes, where to find them, what to look for and what to consider.

First things first… Free Themes are fun – looking at all the options, the creativity of designers and incredible array of features. And even better, they are everywhere, you would be hard pressed to not find something that would work for you. The best place to start is to look at WordPress itself: http://wordpress.com/extend/themes, here you probably could find just about anything you might need.

If you go to Google and type in the keywords “free WordPress Themes”:

About 66,200,000 results (0.20 seconds). That should do it don’t you think?

If you are new to WordPress, just learning and getting comfortable with using it. And especially if your budget is tight and not a ton of $$ to invest, a Free Theme is a great way to get started.

Having said all that, there are definitely things to be aware of.

1) Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth – There are some wonderful themes out there… but there are also many that are, well, junk. Take a few minutes and do some research. Google the name of the theme, see if there are any comments about it. Definitely go to the WordPress Support Forums and do a search on the name, see what others have encountered, good and bad.

2) Be prepared – You may run into trouble and free themes do not normally come with support. Hopefully you won’t run into an issue but you just never know.

3) Code can be messy – In my journey getting to know WordPress I have come to greatly appreciate the value of Beautiful Code… there have been many times, when helping a client, I have run into some of the most ugly, messy, disorganized code possible. Which can take a lot more time for someone like me to figure out what is going on and find possible fixes.

Generally (and of course there are always exceptions) the more organized the code the better luck you will probably have.

4) Customizing… maybe - The great thing about Free Themes is that with all the options out there you probably can have something that is ready “out of the box”, but in the chance that you need to change a logo, change a color etc. see if you can find out about the customization options.

5) WordPress 3.01 - With the newest release of WordPress, there are quite a few free themes, which do not come with support are not 3.0 compatible, make sure to double check this important point as well.

Here are some additional resources you might want to check out:

Theme Forest: By Envato offers a free theme each month, there have been some cool ones too!

I’m a huge StudioPress, Brian Gardner fan and my top recommendation. He has some great free themes and are how I got started. Here is a list of quite a few of them http://www.eblogtemplates.com/author/bgardner/

Chris Pearson of DIY – Thesis Theme also has a collection of early themes that are great to work with – http://www.pearsonified.com/themes (scroll to the bottom)

The missing piece, not thinking long term

Now I don’t want to target coaches only with this problem, just about every entrepreneur out there when they are getting started, have this issue. It’s also perfectly natural.

You are getting started in your coaching practice, you have a million things to consider, organize and set up. You are most likely bootstrapping your business and every dollar counts. So you look at the very short term and set up only what is absolutely essential right here, right now to get you up and running.

In many areas this will work, you do what you can then, add features plus all the bells and whistles you need, as you need them. But are you looking ahead 1, 3, 6, even 12 months down the road? Have you laid out an action plan of steps and needs as you grow your coaching practice? This is essential for your online presence: Website, Social Media, eCommerce.

When you don’t take that peek down the road a bit it is very easy to get caught in a trap of a solution that “Will work for now”. I can’t tell you how many times that has come back to haunt many entrepreneurs… and yes I’m including myself in that statement. Of course watching the $$ is vital but when you skimp in important areas such as shopping cart, list management and website it will hurt you in the end more then it helps up front.

Your website will become your home base on the internet and it needs to have a strong foundation in order for you to grow and expand, without needing to re-do the entire thing in a few months time. As mentioned before, a self hosted WordPress site is my favorite foundation to get started with.

There are many who think a WordPress site is too “bloggy” looking and I can see that point. You want your site to stand out, be noticed and not look like everyone else’s. But you also want and NEED a site that can be up and running in a short period of time, is something that you can be comfortable working with and does not cost you an arm and a leg in the process. A WordPress site can do that for you… can your current site do all this:

• Easily change the look by installing a new theme
• Let you easily update the site
• Allow you to easily add new marketing mediums, blogging, video, podcasting & social media
• Expandable and adaptable website to allow you to add to new products, programs & features as you add them
• Need a membership site? No problem WordPress can handle that with WishList Member or Digital Access Pass
• Easily integrate your shopping cart and/or list building  into the site
• Add a forum in a matter of a couple hours… at most!

So make sure to plan

Take some time to look down the road and review the goals you have in place for your business. What areas of the business will you be developing in the next few months, what role does your website need to play? Will you be venturing into new forms of marketing? What features will you be needing with the new products and/or programs coming up in the next 12 – 18 months?

Do you feel you have a strong foundation in place to get started and grow with? If not contact me today for your FREE consultation and we can see if WordPress might be a good solution for you.

Okay you have totally awesome graphics, you love the look and feel of your website! You have it uploaded to your site either as a traditional HTML website or as a custom blog design. It looks great, you are getting great comments on the look of your website. Great that is what you were hoping for…

After a few weeks you realize you need to add a page or remove a page. You need to add some sub pages that appear when you hover over the navigation tab. Then it hits you, uh oh I don’t know how to do that!

You check with the designer and you find out that your entire menu is a graphic. So in order to add a page you will need a new graphic made, have it installed and linked to the new page.

Now I am not a proponent of the coach doing it all. Coaching, website guru, designer, bookkeeping, customer service etc. In fact I think that is the fastest way to burnout. BUT I firmly believe that you the coach needs to be able to quickly and easily jump into your site to make minor changes. That sentence that you REALLY want to tweak or add a new page, drop in a video etc.

In order to get that small little thing that is staring at you from your to-do-list you need to be able to jump in and take care of it in just a couple of minutes.

Your site looks incredible… content? I don’t remember what it was about.

You have your design in place and it looks great you are getting comments on how nice your site looks… but where are the comments on your content? On the great blog post? There may be a few mentions but not nearly as many as you thought.

Take a look at you design – is it overwhelming and taking away from the content? A nicely designed, professional looking website is a must but there is also such a thing as “Simple is Best”. When your content is getting lost in the beautiful design it may be time to reconsider the design.

I have seen some gorgeous websites and I get caught up in the design details and then have to scroll down to the content.  Not good! You are establishing your online presence to have people get to know you and what you offer, not how wonderful your designer is.

Don’t get me wrong I think a designer is an important part of the team and the right designer who gets what you are trying to accomplish can create something for you that looks incredible but does not take away from your content.

What can overwhelm your content?

• A header section that is wide and moves the content to the bottom of the screen or below it sometimes.
• Sidebars that have huge loud graphics so that your eyes bounce from sidebar to side bar missing the juicy content in the middle.

So what do you need to consider before having a custom design created?

• What is my message? What do I want to convey right away when a visitor arrives on my site?
• Will my content and headlines be visible right away or does the header move it all to the bottom?
• How many sidebars do I really need? Will 1 be enough or do I need 2? What can I do to keep the important info displayed but not overwhelm?
• Can I add and delete pages without needing a new graphic made?
• Are there different page styles available? Full page (no sidebars), Left or Right Sidebar only (only 1 sidebar) etc.

If you have a website for your coaching business is there anything you would love to change right now? If so what  and why?

The All-In-One Website for Coaches

Actually, I almost have a hard time calling this one a mistake. This is a great concept and can be a very inexpensive way to get started. It will have all the features and tools you need, all under one roof.

• Website
• Blog
• Shopping Cart
• Newsletter
• Sometimes even a membership site

And the best part? One login! Nice – that is probably my favorite part

But here is the bad part… as your business grows, as you expand your products and services – 9 times out of 10 this type of set up will not grow with you.  You will be limited by template options, number of pages, tool, features and bandwidth. You can always upgrade to get a bit more of what you need but by that time you are probably paying an arm and  a leg.

So next you start looking for new options for your website… here comes the ugly part.

All of a sudden you now need to go get hosting, shopping cart, newsletter service and set up a membership site. Oh but wait now you need to move all of your content over, but what about ALL your blog posts? Sorry their blog software is not compatible with WordPress, Blogger or Typepad. So either your lose all the content or start moving over each post one by one. Now you are hearing and feeling the big ouch!

So what should you do? Ask your colleagues, check on the coaching forums you visit, ask on Twitter! Find out what is working for your fellow coaches, what they like, what they don’t like, what they wish they had done different or features they find helpful. The feedback you receive will give you a starting point in your research.

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind:

1. Scalable - will the site grow with you?
2. Adaptable – will the site allow you to install new features and allow you to show video, podcasts, social media updates?
3. Manageable – can you go in and change that word or sentence that is driving you nuts without waiting for your web designer or virtual assistant?
4. Customizable – will it allow you to add color, styles, design options that fit you, your brand and speak to your target audience?

My personal bias is WordPress – scalable, adaptable, manageable and customizable.

Start with what you need:

WordPress – Free

Theme / Design – There are tons of free and low cost options available.

Hosting – You can easily can find something for under $10.00 per month.

Domain – Usually $10-15 per year.

Newsletter Service – From Free to under $25 per month, lots of options to consider.

When you are ready… you can easily add a shopping cart, membership site, forum, social network… your options are wide open.

Are you a DIYer? Check out my resource pages for recommendations and options. I’m adding more as I find tools that may help you, feel free to check back often.

Not so much a DIYer? Not to worry, feel free to contact me and we can set up a time to go over your options and figure out what will work best for you.

What questions do you have about setting up your coaching website?

The beauty of WordPress is that there are so many different options out there that add a tremendous amount of functionality to your site. Plugins are fun! Here is a quick list of some of my favorites:

1. Akismet – Control the spam comments that bloggers get attacked with. Akismet works great for my sites.
2. Audio Player – Great option for adding a simple player for your MP3 files to a post or page.
3. Exclude Pages from Navigation – Simple way for you to manage which pages do and do not show up in your navigation bar.
4. My Page Order – If you want a simple drag and drop way to organize your navigation bar, this is a great tool to have on hand.
5. Sociable – Make it easy for your subscribers and visitors to share your blog post on social networking sites.
6. Subscribe to Comments – Allow your visitors to get updates when you reply to a comment or a new comment is started. Great way to keep the conversation going.
7. TweetMeme – Super duper easy way to retweet your blog post, probably one of the more recognizable features on a blog these days.
8. Twitter Tools - Sorry to say but this has been mostly replaced by TweetMeme and Sociable but still a great option to connect your Twitter account and keep it updated as new posts are published.
9. What Would Seth Godin Do? – Love the name… offer an easy way for your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed.
10. WordPress Automatic Upgrade – Keep your WordPress up-to-date with a simple upgrade option.
11. WordPress Database Backup – Keep your content safe and set up a weekly back up of your site.

There are so many different plugins to choose from. These work great for me but your site and needs may be different and most likely there is someone somewhere with the same needs who has created a great solution. Check out the plugins directory here.

But, how do you do it and what tools or plugins should you use?

Register for this complimentary webinar to find out:

http://wishlistproducts.com/webinar/wlp.php?af=945379

The training is called “Plugins That Rock” and it will outline the most popular plugins for building membership sites and online communities.

Enjoy, Ihope to see you on the webinar!

NOTE:  There is a 500 person limit (set by the webinar company) so register early to guarantee your spot.

http://wishlistproducts.com/webinar/wlp.php?af=945379