Archive for the ‘website’ category

Wordpress Blog Sites: Easy Setup

April 20th, 2010

Today it’s a much easier task for a novice to build a website than it was a few years ago.  A popular way to go these days is with a blog site using the Wordpress publishing platform. Wordpress is free software downloadable from Wordpress.org. The look of a Wordpress site is determined by the choice of theme, or template, that is used.  There are free Wordpress themes that can be customized, or you can buy profesionally-designed themes for under $100.

Plugins are software programs that can be downloaded as add-ons to your Wordpress site.  There are all sorts of plugins that can add functionality to your site.  The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for Wordpress is an easy-to-use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products on the web.

When you begin working with Wordpress the learning curve seems steep.  ”What in the world are they talking about,” you might think.  If you stick with it, however, you will learn how to add pages, posts, products and lots of other things to your site.  In the process you will come to appreciate the power of the Wordpress platform.

Sell on the Web

February 14th, 2010

If you are selling personalized books and don’t have a website, there are several benefits of a website that you need to know.  First of all, we think the public expects people in business these days to have a site.  Every type of business has a web presence.  A website will complement all of your other means of selling your products.

If you go out and do shows, people may see your books and buy right then, but they may just as well not buy at that moment but want to buy sometime in the future for a child’s birthday or for a Christmas present.  If they take your business card with your website url on it, they may keep the card and later buy off your site.  Better yet, if you collected their email address, you can market to them with special deals and get  orders from him or her that way.  It is much better if a prospective customer has your web address when they go on the internet than if they just do a search for personalized books.  If they do a search they may find a different site and buy from it instead of from yours.

Some people will put up a website and just sit back and wait for orders. Usually they will be disappointed if that’s all they do.  Unless your site beats out nearly all of the other sites selling personalized books (very tough to do), you won’t see much business without doing something like pay-per-click marketing.  People should really see their site as a way to enhance their business.  A website used properly really is your modern-day storefront.  If all of your other marketing endeavors lead people back to your site, you will see a steady growth in sales over your site as time goes by.

You can set up your own personalized books site or Jiff-e-Books can set one up for you. We will discuss websites again in future blogs.