So many small business owners tell me they want a great website, but they don’t want to “have to depend on some developer” for “even the smallest” changes later on.
How can a small business have a relatively static website and have new content on a regular basis?
First, build the website “normally,” using WordPress pages (not posts).
Then, because WordPress is so easy to use, the business can easily add short articles via the WP “blog post” feature.
In addition to having some semblance of control over content, every business wants their website to rank as high as possible in search returns. New content is recognized by search engines, contributing to a higher ranking.
With no additional effort on the part of the business, WordPress can take the new content and automatically draw the attention of visitors through the use of well-placed widgets.
Here’s a good example. We recently completed a volunteer job, renovating an existing website for our church. It’s a very good example of how small businesses can make use of the WordPress platform for simple websites.
Although most people associate “WordPress” with blogs, the church site doesn’t have a blog page at all. But there are currently 137 pages within the site, and 1,790 “posts.”
The posts are simple to add, and each one brings fresh content to the website. The title of each new post is automatically added to a widget on the home page, where it draws the attention of visitors.
Our church site is a fairly “low key” example of displaying new content on the home page, but the principle is the same: every time a visitor comes to the home page they’ll be able to see the latest “posts” on the left. A business site can do something a bit more dramatic, or attention grabbing, but the functionality is the same… a link to the latest content is always automatically put on the home page.
This is one of the reasons WordPress makes sense for small business: you use someone else to set up the site, but then you retain the ability to add content, content you know your customers will find valuable, as easily as writing a Word document. And WordPress will take care of making sure it’s presented to your visitors.
This is a good thing!
