Small Businesses have always struggled with online marketing as they require attractive, SEO compatible websites with content management functionality on a shoe string budget.  On one side of the spectrum you have template driven websites from all of the usual “one to the masses” suspects (e.g. GoDaddy, Yahoo, Office Live, etc).  On the other side of the spectrum you have tool and wizard based approaches from software companies that put a small business owner in “do-it-yourself” mode.  Generally these approaches are affordable and have content management components but they either look horrible or create a complete disaster from an SEO perspective.  This leaves the typical small business owner with only one option which is to step into the world of a custom developed website.  Unfortunately, just because a small business owner pays a lot of money for a website DOES NOT mean that they will get an SEO compatible website or that it will even look good.  It does almost guarantee that their website will take twice as long to develop. Enter WordPress. . . .

WordPress is a blogging platform that has slowly evolved into a light content management system that is idea for small business owners.  It is easy to install and end user manageable.  Best of all, search engines love it and it is very extensible. The extensibility piece is very important as it can save a small business owner hundreds to thousands of dollars in custom development fees to add business critical functionality to their website.  It is important to keep in mind that WordPress has two flavors.  The WordPress.Com flavor is a free online blog service.   The WordPress.Org flavor is where you can download the free website software that drives the discussion in this article.  Both are owned and maintained by Automattic out of San Francisco, CA.

What do I mean by extensibility?  WordPress’s core platform is designed to support “plugins”. The WordPress open source community has literally written thousands of plugins for WordPress. In our office we always say, “If you think you need to hire a developer for something fancy on your site, there is probably a plugin for it!” Need your site to look good on an iPhone? There is a WordPress plugin for that. How about incorporate lead generation forms? There are several WordPress plugins for that. Embed audio, video, RSS feeds, moving pictures? There are a bunch of plugins for that. The beauty for a small business owner is that installing and configuring plugins is generally point and click.  That is what I mean by extensibility.

So why don’t you see more small business sites built on WordPress? The answer is that WordPress sites tend to look “WordPressy”. A typical WordPress site looks like a blog. It is square and lacks those things that just jump off the page. That is until a couple of really good theme designers came on the scene. These are StudioPress and Press75.  Both StudioPress and Press75 have a collection of themes that include a theme that is customizable for small business websites.

Studio Press’s Corporate Theme for Small Business Websites

Studio Press Corporate Theme

StudioPress’s small business website theme is called StudioPress Corporate Child Theme .  This business website theme contains graphical elements and menu details that are what you would expect from a higher end site. The theme comes in two different graphic color packages and includes original PSDs so that a designer can very easily customize the look and feel of the site.  Depending on the customizations needed, a small business website with StudioPress’s Corporate Theme could run hundreds of dollars to a thousand or more.  If a small business owner installs WordPress from their hosting and installs The Corporate Theme as is, they’ll be out $70 plus hosting which is very affordable.

Press 75′s Cafe Press for Small Business Websites

Press75 Cafe Press

The Press75 small business website theme is called Cafe Press.  Out of the box, Cafe Press is a restaurant style website theme.  However, it is very customizable to fit a variety of small business genres.  It also has theme functionality built in so that customizations to key text such as address and contact information is done right through the WordPress user administration versus having to pay someone to get into the PHP.  Like all Press75 themes, Cafe Press has great looking graphics and overall site functions.  This theme uses the Simple Thumbnail plugin to easily add images to the various pages on the site.  Unlike normal images, these are designed in a way to encourage click throughs.  The cost of customization and installation should be considered comparable with the numbers I reference for StudioPress above.

Next Steps

If WordPress and a small business website theme is for your business, you really only need to do a few more things.  If you haven’t done so, buy a domain name.  This can be accomplished at GoDaddy or a reputable registrar.  Don’t get sucked into private registrations or buying 10 domain names with the .ORG and .NET of each.  After you have a domain name, procure website hosting that has a one touch installation of WordPress.  A couple that we use are GoDaddy (call to have them walk you through the WordPress one touch installation) or Media Temple. After your WordPress is installed, use your hosting providers online tools to upload your theme.  You might want to add a couple of critical plugins.  The ones we deem essential are:

• Platinum SEO or All in One SEO Pack for manipulation of Title and Description tags with in a post.
• Google Analytics for WordPress to easily be able to add Google’s analytics and tracking.
• Google XML Sitemaps to automatically create and update an XML sitemap for the Google bot (and others).
• WordPress Database Backup to automatically email you a copy of your WordPress site for safe keeping.*

* WP DB Backup saves the content and configurations.  You will need to keep a copy of your theme somewhere safe by copying the WP-Content folder of your installation.  Do this especially if you have customized your theme.

The State of Small Business Websites

Though the evolution of WordPress themes does take a lot of the complication out of small business websites for small business owners, the business owner still has to get the marketing part right.  Still, I’d rather see them spend the hours on crafting actionable copy and assembling stunning photos than trying to decipher which road to go down in the word of website development.  Enjoy WordPress and the themes I reference above as both have come a long way!  As a matter of fact Orangecast and our Marketing blog is driven by two installations of WordPress with a customized theme built on Press75′s Urban theme.

No matter how many small business eMarketing presentations I make, I always get a little scared when an attendee prefaces their question with, “I am looking to create a website for our church and. . . . “.  So one might ask, are you afraid of church Derick?  Not one bit. . .what I am affraid of are the demands that an organization such as a church can have on a website and how to recommend putting all of that together for a non-profit organization.

For years, WordPress has been my my default recommendation for blogs.  It is slowly becoming my default recommendation for small business websites and non-profits.  That is why when I came across the StudioPress Church Child Theme, I smiled with relief as there was finally a theme that combined all of the flexibility of WordPress with the social media needs of a modern day congregation’s site and allowed the site owner to keep things under budget.

The Church Theme from StudioPress

The Church Theme from StudioPress comes with a rather contemporary and youthful color scheme.  For the right church, this could be ready to install; yet, I view the theme more as a great starting point for customization.  StudioPress theme customization requires some knowledge of CSS and access to tools like PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements.  If you are a church or a non-profit looking to create a new website that has content management features and social media functionality, this theme can be given to a member of your congregation with the right skills or a local web developer to customize and make into a theme that matches your church.  If given to a third party developer, one should expect to pay between $500 and $1500 for customizations.  If looking for skills within the congregation, anyone with some comfort in WordPress and CSS should be able to get the job done.

Though the Church Theme from StudioPress is not for all out of the box, it is a great starting point for getting a dynamic website for supporting the needs of a church congregation.