How a WordPress Project Comes Together

WordPress makes a very nice platform for building many types of web sites — especially business sites. You may want to convert an existing site to WordPress, build a brand new site or add a additional site to use to drive supplemental business.

Here is the basic plan that we follow when building a WordPress site so that you understand how your WordPress project should progress.

What You Will Need to Provide for the Project

• Domain Name. If you do not already have a domain name that you want to use, make sure that you chose a good domain name. The name can either be a Keyword domain or a Branded domain. Most businesses build their first site around their company name or product brand name, and thus choose a Branded domain. The name should be short, easy to spell and easy to remember. The preference is to select a domain name with a .com extension, but if that is not available, a .net or .org domain can be used. Using other domain extensions can put your site at a disadvantage with search engines.
• Web Site Hosting. It is easy to set up a hosting account and we can guide you through the process. WordPress must be installed on a Linux server that uses a MySQL database. The hosting company must also have mod_rewrite enabled and allow server overrides via a file named .htaccess. Here are the WordPress hosting requirements. Most hosting companies offer Linux hosting that meets these reqirements. A couple of popular inexpensive hosting companies that offer good tech support are GoDaddy.com and Host Gator. For a small web site any of their basic Linux hoisting packages will work.
• Textual Content and Images. We do not normally provide the images or content for a site, but we can we make special arrangements to do so if you cannot provide this yourself. If you are converting an existing web site, we may be able to cut-and-paste most of the content from that site.
• A List of Targeted Keywords. This is optional, but if SEO is part of your goal, it is then a requirement. We do strongly recommend our Keyword Research Service to make sure that you are focused on the best keyword to use to drive targeted traffic to your site. There is frequently a big difference between how a site owner describes their offerings and how someone searches for them, We focus on how a potential customer searches for your products and services. Are there specific geographic areas where you provide your services? If the site will focus on a USA or worldwide audience, then the site will have a general focus. If there are specific states or cities where you do business, then we need to focus on those areas. Localizing a web site gives it an advantage in search results in those geographic areas. See How to Select the Best Keywords for more advice.

Project Phases

1. Project is Defined. We need to know how large the site will be and if there are any special features or requirements. We also need some ideas as to which web site designs you like. You can provide us with some URLs for web sites that you like. Most of the time we cannot copy the designs, but you can pick out elements that you like and we can develop something similar.
2. Keyword Research. If you wish to use the site drive free organic search engine traffic and new customers, this part of the project is important and highly recommended.
3. Test Site Set Up. If this is a brand new web site, we can use your hosting company’s web site for development, but most of the time we develop sites on our test server. the keyword phrases that you chose are used to build the focus for textual content that is used to attract search engine spiders.
4. Site is Developed. You will need to provide the textual content and good quality digital images. We coach you through the process of writing new content or modifying existing content. Writing focused articles and content is frequently the most time-consuming part of the project. All content must be absolutely unique. Content cannot be copied from any other web site. Over the past year Google has been extremely harsh with web sites that use content from other sites.
5. Site is Moved to the Server at Your Hosting Company. When the site has been completed, the WordPress site and database are moved to your hosting company. After the nameservers have been changed at your domain registrar, the new site should be live within 24 hours.
6. Follow-up Support. See the Bonuses section below. If you want us to maintain the new site, which includes adding or changing content, maintaining updates and database backups, or anything else that you require, just let us know. We can do this on an hourly basis as requested by you.

Bonuses

The goal is to help you to become comfortable with WordPress as soon as possible so that you can maintain your new web site yourself and save the cost of paying others to do that. We can maintain your WordPress site if you do not want to do it yourself, but we do offer a three-prong approach to raise your comfort level with WordPress as quickly as possible.

• 30 days of no charge training support via e-mail or phone. WordPress is easy to learn and the learning curve is short, but we still want to make sure that you are comfortable with it.
• Our WordPress Starter Guide. This comprehensive Top Rank Solutions e-book is designed to familiarize you with the WordPress administration area.
• Access to our new WordPress Training Center that contains training videos and downloadable documents that show you how to do specific things with WordPress. This is the fast-track area that shows you how to use many of WordPress’s important features.

Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about your web site project.