Figuring Out Your Identity
Information Architecture | Site Purpose | Get Leads | Sell Stuff| Brand Lift | Monetized | Choose Theme
Information Architecture
The user should be at the front of the line here. Similar to your storefront your entrance page should deliver a message within 5 seconds. Why do you want people to come to your blog? In my fictitious case above my company is a manufacturer of specialty fruit juices and we sell through wholesalers. The blog will be frequented by consumers and wholesalers. Based on my business model, which includes branding and product sales, I am going to create my architecture. I want to show both audiences the basics to our specialty juices. Our R&D department is constantly experimenting with our fine juices and our company sponsor’s many sporting events. Our juices are often endorsed by sport celebrities, on our blog we want to share that king of information. We also want an area to get feedback form wholesalers and consumers to help improve or beverage. 
Why Do You Have a Website?
Lead Generation
Before creating your website it is important to realize what you are doing so. Maybe you have a small retail store and you would like your website to appeal to a local audience are only. But what happens when your target audience lands on your website? What do you want your web site visitor to do? The probable goal for the retail store owner is to have his local website visitors visit the establishment. This would mean the website’s core purpose is to generate leads. Once again, there are ways you can measure this action by combining WordPress plugins with Google Analytics.
ECommerce
You can also sell your products on your website. Configuring WordPress Blog software is a cinch if you want to sell products on your website. Providing a full Ecommerce integration into your WordPress blog is something that is done during the setup process. Therefore the decision must be made before your website is configured for visitor activity.
Brand Lift
It may be your choice to have a website that exists solely for the purpose of creating a more brand awareness. In this case, you want to have a close look at the most important content pages that your website offers. It is recommended that you install Google Analytics on your website so you can measure time on pages, exit rate, bounce rate, and pages per visit. This will allow you to recognize the high performing pages and make changes to the poorly performing pages. Installing Google Analytics is (ideally) a preliminary step to launching your website.
Monetized
Whether you are going to run ads to monetize your site or sell advertising, it is a good idea to decide that up front. WordPress offers specific plugins to satisfy those needs. During the set up and configuration of your blog it is the perfect time to prepare for your advertising by installing the right plugins.
Choose a Theme OR a Custom WordPress Skin
Themes are the graphic appeal you want your blog to have. There are two types of WordPress themes you can adapt to your blog.
- WordPress Free Themes- You can select your own theme here http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. Currently there are 883 themes, 6,197,193 downloads, and counting. You must use them as is and keep the reference to the creator shown on the footer of every theme.
- Customize A Theme- You can have your own blog theme created. This way you have your own identify that will not be used by other webmasters. Custom blog themes are often created to complement the look of your well branded site. Here is an example of exactly that: Techwyse Site | TechWyse Blog
Either way, this is your final step to creating your own website using WordPress blog software. If you have a company that takes care of the technical implementation and set up they can provide one-on-one support to tip-toe you into using your new WordPress software. When you discover how easy it is to mange your content, you will think seriously about this software for every website you own and build.
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