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How to add images and media to your WordPress website

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Another question that I get asked about using WordPress is, “How do I add photos and video to the website?”  And the answer is, WordPress makes it easy for you to add images and media to your web pages and blog posts.

Uploading and Managing Images with the Add Media Button

While you’re editing or creating a page or post on your WordPress powered website, simply click the prominent “add media” button in the upper left above the content editor.

 

WordPress-media-editor-screen

This button will open up a dialog window that asks you if you would like to use one of the images that have already been uploaded to your website, or if you would prefer to upload a new image.

WordPress-media-upload-files

From the new image upload dialog, the easiest way to upload an image is to seamlessly click a photo on your computer’s desktop or file system, and simply drag that photo into the photo upload dialogue in WordPress. WordPress will upload your photo to your website for you, and then present you with options for the metadata that will be saved along with a photo, which includes the photo’s title, its alt-text and linking and alignment options. (However, please note that you cannot drag an image directly into the “upload” interface from another software program. You have to save the image to your computer first. Always respecting copyright laws!)

WordPress-media-insert-image

By default, WordPress will always ask you to link the image to a Media Resource page. However for me personally I find that these media resource pages provide very little additional value; and therefore I almost always change the drop down menu to select “none” from the linking preferences.

As you add your image to your page or post within WordPress, you will be presented with the option of how to align the image and what size it should be. Generally you want the image to display at the highest possible resolution; and conveniently, WordPress now automatically shows a smaller version of the image to devices that support modern css3 functionality.

Click the “Insert into page” button and you will see your image within the content editor interface:

WordPress-media-image-is-inserted

 

Adding .pdf files and other types of documents

This is also the upload dialog that you will use to add PDF files that you would link to from your document and serve from your own server.  If you do not wish for the search engines to index your PDF files, be sure to go to the text editing tab for the text view and add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to your link HTML.

Adding .mp3 and other audio files

If you ever wish to add an mp3 file such as streaming audio to your webpage you can do so from the same “Add Media” dialog.

WordPress-media-insert-mp3-media-library

This is super-cool: select an .mp3 file from the media manager, and WordPress automatically generates a shortcode.

WordPress-media-text-view-audio-shortcode

When the page is rendered, the shortcode is dynamically processed and converted into a media player within the visitor’s web browser, if supported.  (If not they should still be able to download the file.)

WordPress-media-visual-view-embedded-mp3

Note that an mp3 file served in this manner will not play automatically on the visitor’s browser.  The obtrusive, autoplaying Flash plugin animation is a thing of the past.  Instead, the visitor must click the link to access the file before they will be able to stream it.

Your website is not a streaming media server

I use “stream” loosely here.  Properly speaking, your website’s server is not a media streaming server. Actual streaming media servers are configured specifically to serve large media files to your website visitors and to handle very heavy data loads.

Adding video content to WordPress pages and posts

Your web server is not configured to stream large media files.  That’s why, if you want to add video to your website, you’re not going to do it through the media manager interface that we just discussed.  Instead, if you wish to add a video to your website, the best way to do it is to upload your video to a video streaming service such as YouTube or Hulu.  Once you’ve done that, find the link below your video that says something like, “Share” or “Embed this content.”

WordPress-media-youtube-embed-iframe

Click the “embed” link and the website will present you with HTML source code for an iframe element. Copy this HTML using your browser; then return to your WordPress website and, from the “Text” view tab, paste the iframe HTML.  (The shortcuts are Control/Command+C, Control/Command+V on a standard computer, or “long-press, copy, long-press, paste” on a mouseless device interface.)

WordPress-media-text-view-iframe-html

Click “Update” or “Publish.” This will now display your video to visitors when they land on your website, and present them with the option to click the “play” button and watch your video right there on the website without actually having to go to YouTube or Hulu or wherever you have hosted your streaming media.

This way the streaming media content provider of your choice gets to deal with the hassle of figuring out how to make their server withstand the heavy load of serving large media files potentially to many people at the same time; and you can sit back and enjoy while website visitors view streaming video without leaving your website.

The “Media” screen

Now that you have added your images (or potentially your PDF files and Word documents) to your webpage or blog post, you can conveniently manage them from the “media” link, on the left hand side of the WordPress admin view screen.

This interface provides you with options to edit and delete images. You can delete them and remove them from the website entirely. However, note that if you have embedded one of the images in one of your posts, the image source code will remain in the post even after the image has been deleted from your media manager.  WordPress does not delete that automatically. And therefore if you delete an image that you’ve previously embedded in your content, you need to make sure that you go to that page or post and remove or edit the image source code. You need to serve a different image, or to not serve an image at all; otherwise your visitors will see a broken image link or 404 “file not found” error.

Is this clunky?

One criticism that I’ve heard of WordPress in comparison with other (usually paid) content management systems is that WordPress’s media management interface gets a bit clunky and unwieldy; especially if you are managing a website with a very large number of photos or images, say in the thousands or tens of thousands.  It can be quite difficult to find an image that you’re looking for to make an edit to it if you have to scroll through the media manager because the media manager will actually take time to load a version of every single image that you scroll through.

But the interface is no longer strictly visual, so it’s getting easier to search for images by for example their alt text or other HTML attributes.  You just have to be sure you add these attributes when you save the images…

Also, there are probably media management plugins that can help you deal with this challenge if you do have a website of that size.  (Know of one? Shout it out in the comments, or contact me through the form if you’re stopping by after the comments close.)

Not a problem

For most people, if your website has say 12 – 36 pages and you write a blog post every couple of weeks (which would be a very good rate of engagement for most local small business owners) then you probably really don’t need to worry about managing thousands upon thousands of photographic images. That’s really something that only affects large news sites or media outlets.

Featured Image

Finally I think it’s worth noting that depending on your theme you may have the option to add a “featured image” to your page or post. A featured image shows up usually at the top in a prominent position, and is formatted differently from standard images that have been added to a page or post.  Often the featured image is the full width of the content area in your website content area, whereas a standard image that’s been added to a page your post will be formatted so that the text flows around it (especially if you have left or right aligned it).

The featured image interface

Find the featured image link on the right hand side of the content editor page, usually at the bottom below the other options.  (In this screenshot, I’ve already set the featured image.)

WordPress-media-featured-image-editor-view

Click the featured image link. It will open up the media management dialogue. You can upload a new image or you can select an image that you previously uploaded. And then once you’ve done all that, be sure to remember to hit save!

WordPress-media-select-featured

And that is how you add images and media content to your WordPress web site web page blog or post.  If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Mardesco, and I’ll be happy to help you get your website set up and running.

 

 

 

How to Format Text in WordPress

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As you compose content on your WordPress-powered website, you will occasionally wish to format the text in certain ways.  I’ve been asked questions about text formatting many times: at my WordPress presentations, and also by my clients during training sessions after I’ve built them a new website.  So I have compiled an overview of how to format text using the WordPress content editor interface.

Text formatting: the easy part

The great thing about WordPress is its ease of use.  The toolbar above the text editor offers a number of convenient text formatting options.  To apply a style to your text, you can simply click an option, and then begin typing.  Click the option again to stop using that style.  You can easily render your text in boldface, italics, or strikethrough.  The toolbar also makes it easy for you to write

  • unordered lists

or even

  1. numbered lists

as well as

blockquotes

Not to mention left aligned,

center aligned, and

right-side aligned text.

Alternatively, write some text first, highlight it with the cursor, and then click an option from the toolbar to apply your selected style to the highlighted text.  This is the easiest way to add (or remove) links to your text.

Even more options!

Need more options than just bold, italics, strikethrough, lists, quotes, links, and alignment?  No worries!  There’s a “toggle” link at the right hand side of the options menu.  They used to call it, “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink” but as WordPress has grown up, some components have been renamed.  This button now describes itself as, “Toolbar Toggle.”

WordPress toolbar toggle

Click the toggle, and it will reveal an entire second row of options:

Additional text formatting options

Now you have control over your text! From the dropdown menu at the left, you can choose if your text is a paragraph, a heading, or preformatted text.  You can underline or justify your text; apply colors (not that I would recommend it…); safely paste text that you copied from another computer program; control indentation; leverage the “Undo” feature; and insert special characters.  What a lot of options!  Have fun with that.

Text formatting: the not so easy part

When I tell people about WordPress, I sometimes compare the text editor interface to Microsoft Word, in an attempt to express how easy it is to use. However, “ease of use” does not translate to “exact same features.”  People often think that they should be able to do anything with their website content that they would be able to do with content created in a document layout program such as Word or even InDesign.  This includes changing which font is used in certain places; changing the text size with pixel-perfection; and changing the precise positioning of images.  Certain tasks like these are simple from the desktop software interface, but are not possible (or are much more complicated) from the WordPress interface.  And the reason is, simply put, the Internet is not a desktop computer!

Regarding image positioning.  I’ll address media management more fully in a future post.  For now, suffice to say, if you are still using a WYSIWYG drag-and-drop website builder that allows you to precisely place your pictures in a certain place with the mouse and the images will stay there regardless of the visitor’s screen size, then your site is not mobile-friendly and as a result it probably has about a zero percent chance of hitting number one in the Google search results.

Font selection in WordPress

WordPress does not offer typeface selection via a dropdown menu.  WordPress will never offer this feature out of the box (although there may already be a plugin that offers something similar).  There’s a very good reason for this.  It’s due to the nature of the Internet itself.

You see, when a device’s web browser (or other application interface) renders text, that device determines the shapes of the letters by accessing a special kind of computer file called a font.

Font vs. typeface.  You may ask: what is the difference between a “font” and a “typeface”?  Good question!  The “font” is the computer file. The “typeface” is the way the letters look when that file is rendered.  Graphic designers talk about “typefaces.”  Computer users install “fonts” to render those “typefaces” on their local system.  Normal human beings use the word “font” interchangeably, and give their graphic designers a blank look when the designer uses the word “typeface.”

Now that you understand the difference, you’ll see why typefaces are not universal.  There are billions of devices from around the world, all connected to the Internet.  Each of those devices can only render a given typeface if it has a specific font file installed and available on its system.  Different computers have different fonts available.  For example, Windows computers ship with Arial;  Macintosh computers ship with Helvetica; and Linux computers might include something like the “Switzera ADF” font family.  Helvetica, Arial, and Switzera may all be highly similar typefaces (a “neo-grotesque sans-serif” according to About.com) but if your document specifies one, the end user’s computer will not automatically substitute the closest typeface, in the event the user does not have your first choice typeface already installed on their system.  That’s why, in CSS, we specify a “font-family.”  For example, your website’s stylesheet might contain a declaration like this:

p{font-family:"Helvetica Nue", Helvetica, Arial, "Switzera ADF", sans-serif;}

This style rule instructs the visitor’s browser to render the specified text (here, any text contained within a paragraph element) using the first available system font from the list of specified typefaces.  If the first one is not available, it will try to use the second; and on down the line.  If none of the named typefaces are available, the visitor will see whatever sans-serif typeface happens to be the system default.  (Always specify a fallback!)

The world is improving for website designers.  CSS3 gave us the special new @font-face declaration, which allows you to specify a font file that can be loaded via an external URL.  This approach has skyrocketed in popularity and you can see it in use everywhere you browse; but it is not without limitations.  Using an @font-face declaration adds another HTTP request to your page load, which makes it that much slower; and in many cases, if the body text is to be rendered in the specified typeface, the user is unable to read your web page until the font file has finished loading and processing.  This is especially problematic for users on slow connections such as, for example, a roaming mobile device.  Slow page loads mean high bounce rates; so you’re generally safer using system fonts for body text.

And that’s why WordPress does not offer font selection from a convenient dropdown menu.  In short, it’s too complicated.  You may be able to find (or build) a plugin that will allow you to quickly select between several Google Web Fonts from the WordPress content editor interface; but this is a workaround.  I would not expect the WordPress core to ever add a feature like this.

What can you do instead?  You can work with your website designer to add custom CSS class definitions to your stylesheet.  These new rules will require the visitor’s browser to render text in the font family of your choice.  That way, you could for example switch between Helvetica and Times New Roman like this:

<style type="text/css">
/* for best results, concatenate these declarations with the stylesheet in your site's header */
.font-times{font-family:"Times New Roman", Times, "Liberation Serif", serif;}
.font-helvetica{font-family:"Helvetica Nue", Helvetica, Arial, "Liberation Sans", sans-serif;}
</style>

<p class="font-times">This text will render in Times or the default serif.</p>
<p class="font-helvetica">This text will render in Helvetica or the default sans-serif.</p>

To add class names to your paragraphs, you must manually edit the HTML from the “text” editing tab of the WordPress content editor.  It’s the only way.

And if all that sounds like it’s not worth the trouble, you’re right!  A well-designed WordPress theme will make all the necessary typeface selections for you.  Typeface selection is an important component of the design process.  Overriding the theme’s style rules with arbitrary typeface declarations can lead to a presentation that looks, well, messy.  In general, it’s not worth it.  If you find that you always want to use a different typeface in a specific context, work with your designer to customize your theme accordingly.  This makes your life much easier.  That way, you’ll never have to add CSS class names from the HTML editing view.

Text size in WordPress

Website designers have a lot of options for specifying the size of text.  The old metal-type-foundry concept of “points” roughly translates to “pixels,” but not every device calculates “pixels” the same way.  Because some screens (like Retina) have a higher pixel density than others, specifying a pixel-based text size will NOT result in the same size text being shown to all users.  Instead, best practices state that web designers should use relative units like “em” and “rem” to offer the best presentation to all users regardless of the user’s device size.  Those kinds of calculations must be performed by the web designer and built into the stylesheet.  It’s simply too complicated (and problematic) to attempt to provide selectable text size options based on relative units of measurement.

I’ve had clients attempt to use headings from the WordPress text format dropdown menu, as an alternative to an easily selectable font-size option.  This works….  sort of.  But I would caution, that a heading should be used as a logical separator for your content.  The heading tag itself has a special meaning to the search engines.  Using a heading when you really just want larger text is non-semantic.  If the text on your website is too small, ask your web designer to make it bigger.  Substituting headings for body text will make your graphic designer cringe, and will make your website’s visitors think that you are not very professional.  Use body text for body text!  The text can be made bigger with a style rule.  Use CSS appropriately, and use headings where headings are appropriate.

Any questions?  Give Mardesco a call!

 

What should you do if you can’t contact the person who built your website?

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I’ve been asked this question repeatedly, when I am talking with local small business owners who have decided that it’s time to update their company website.  People say something like, “My website was set up by someone who no longer responds to messages, or is otherwise unavailable.”  And they ask me, what can they do in this situation?  It’s a complicated question, and no single answer is going to be appropriate for every situation.

How was the website set up?  Your response to the “case of the missing web designer” situation will depend on who originally set up your website, and how.  Who registered the domain name?  Who set up the website hosting account? Who installed WordPress (or the CMS of your choice, if any) on that hosting account?

If you set it up.  If the answer to all of the above is you, or if you have currently valid login credentials to the service provider(s) for all of the above, then you’re golden.  Even if someone else performed the original web page creation, you already have all the information you require to make ongoing changes to your website.  (If the task looks too complicated or time-consuming, give us a call!)

If someone else set it up.  Sometimes the website was originally set up by a friend or family member who just doesn’t have time to be involved in the project anymore.  Sometimes the website was created by a freelancer; and the freelancer is the only person who has access to the domain name registration, website hosting account, and/or CMS login.  And sometimes the old website design service provider is a major corporation; for example, a directory listing service, who registered the domain name on your behalf.  In these cases, you will probably need to begin by contacting the person who originally built the website for you.

Not a big deal

Approach the situation with as relaxed an attitude as you can muster.  It’s been my experience that most of the time, the other person is just busy, and they may not even realize you have grown impatient with the delay in their reply.

Contact your former designer directly, by phone if you can, or even using multiple channels if you truly have trouble reaching this person.  Calmly tell them that if they’re unable or unwilling to make ongoing website changes on your behalf, then you require them to transfer ownership or control of the domain name registration, website hosting account, or CMS installation, to you.  Most of the time, this direct approach will get a prompt response.

What you will need

The pieces of information required for total control of your website are the administrative login credentials for your domain name registration, website hosting, and your content management system (such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.).  The domain name is usually registered with the same company that hosts the website (but not necessarily).  Many sites do not use a content management system; and some sites still use the hosting provider’s legacy drag-and-drop page builder, ouch!

Transfer the domain name.  As a convenience, most website designers will register your domain name under their own account.  This simplifies the process for them, and protects you from a certain category of spam email; so it’s generally beneficial to you.  However, the person who controls the DNS settings ultimately controls the website: so if you are now taking over control of the website, you will need to begin by obtaining ownership of the domain name.  To transfer ownership of a domain name to you, the seller will need to release the “registrar lock” and obtain an “EPP” (also known as “Domain transfer”) code.  You will supply the domain name and that EPP authorization code to your own new domain name registrar.  Few of the registrars have streamlined this process; you will probably have to open a support ticket with the domain name registrar of your choice.

Note: If you only paid a low flat rate for the website, and you now want to take control of it, the original designer may ask you to pay some sort of buyout fee, early termination fee, or expensive domain name transfer fee.  If this is the case, your options are to a. pay the fee, or b. create a new website at a different domain name.  In most cases, paying the fee is probably the simplest course.  (If you choose to build a different website instead, be sure to abide by copyright laws and the terms of your legal contract with the original designer.)

Transfer the website hosting account.  If the original designer established an account with a domain name registrar and/or a website hosting company, it may actually be a violation of the web hosting service provider’s terms of use for that other person to simply hand the account over to you.  If you want to keep the website hosting setup as it has been, then you will need to contact the web host.  They will probably want you to establish your own new account, and then they could roll over all the data associated with the old account.  This is support ticket territory.  It is not a task that can be completed in 15 minutes through a convenient online interface.

Consider moving to a better website host.  In most cases, I recommend upgrading your hosting environment.  The convenience of staying with your legacy low-cost shared website hosting provider is far outweighed by the performance benefits of a managed VPS.  But it’s your business!  (Most of the people I talk to seem to prefer the slow web server they know, to the unknown pain of moving their hosting account to a more expensive web host.)

In the event that you have control of the domain name registration but you can’t obtain other administrative access information from the original setup person, then moving to a different web host is your best bet.  Establish an account with the new host for your existing domain name.  Log into your domain name registrar interface, and point the DNS to the new web host’s nameservers.  Your domain name now points to the new server.  Note that this change makes the old site inaccessible; so for best results, you will probably want to post something to the new server, before you change the DNS.

What’s really going on here?

This question raises other questions.

You didn’t think I would hack it for you, did you?  I’m never really certain what people are hoping I will tell them, when they ask me what I can do for them in circumstances like this.  It always makes me wonder if they are secretly hoping I will tell them I can hack my way into the website for them, using illegal techniques to obtain unauthorized access.  If so, they must be real disappointed by my answer.  Yes, it’s true that if they have full administrative access to the hosting account on the server and they’ve only lost their WordPress login, it’s technically possible to simply insert a new user record directly into the database, and assign the new user full administrative privileges within the CMS.  But that is not the answer I give them.  And the reason I don’t give them this answer, is because I often find myself wondering, where did the original designer go?

Where did the original designer go?

As a web designer, if someone tells me that their former website designer has disappeared, I always find myself wondering, “why?”  There are two sides to every story.  Why is it that you are no longer able to obtain services from the original designer?  This will depend on your situation.  Let’s consider a few common scenarios.

The website was originally set up by a large corporation.  I once had a client who found themselves in this position.  They signed up for a directory listing service, and the company offered them a super-cheap website as something of a freebie add-on.  The client said, “Yeah, sure, why not: we need a website!” without realizing the level of service that would be provided.  The so called “web design” service turned out to involve little more than the customization of some stock text content, set up in a template.  Change requests had to be submitted to an operator at a call center.  The client was never able to speak to the designer directly, and each round of change requests was handled by a different designer; with the result that the client felt there was no consistency, no direction, and nobody listening to them when they tried to explain what they wanted.  The client was unhappy with the result, but they were locked into a contract with this directory listing company; and the directory company had registered the client’s domain name, so now it was the domain name owner.  The directory company wanted a large buyout fee, if the client wanted to obtain direct control of the existing domain name.  The client did not have a lot of options.  They continued to make payments on the directory advertising contract that included the website they didn’t want; and, rather than also pay a bunch of money to that same company just to transfer the existing domain name, they simply bought a new domain name, and applied the money towards the development of a better website instead.

The website was originally set up by a friend or family member who no longer has time to work on the project.  This is a common lament.  Say, for example, maybe your teenage nephew built your company website in his free time while he was in high school; but now he is in college, or out in the world, and your project is not a high priority for him.  Or perhaps your brother-in-law built your company website four or five years ago when he was between jobs and thought he might try his hand at being a website designer; but now he has a regular job and never answers your emails when you ask him to help you with website stuff.  This is an instance where gentle persistence may eventually pay off.  If you’ve already asked for the login information and haven’t received a reply, there’s a good chance that your nephew or brother-in-law hasn’t yet replied because he doesn’t remember what the old credentials are.  If he wrote the password down on a scrap of paper and lost it, he may need to go through a password reset with the service provider before transferring access to you.  And doing that probably seems like a hassle to him (or her).  But you’re still a friend-or-family-member, and the other person wants to maintain a good relationship with you; so be nice, and eventually they will probably find a way to help you out.

The website was originally built by a local design firm that has now gone out of business.  Incidentally, the most common reason website design companies go out of business, is because they don’t charge enough money for their services.  Your business benefits from sustainable partnerships with reliable vendors; so try to keep this in mind when haggling over price.  But none of this helps you solve your problem now.

Legal remedies.  Generally, if someone else set up your website and never gave you the access codes, then they own it and you don’t, even if it is a website representing your company.  In most cases, I would strongly advise against pursuing litigation to retake control of the website.  There is almost certainly a better way to resolve the matter.  However, in the limited scenario where you are unable to obtain administrative control from the original company because they have gone out of business, then you should obtain the assistance of a lawyer.  You may be able to pursue some sort of bankruptcy-court-related intellectual property claim.  However, this gets beyond my area of expertise.  I know there’s a mechanism through top-level domain name registrar ICANN that allows brand owners to claim a website property that appears to reference their brand; but this mechanism is intended for use by multinationals to foil counterfeiting websites: it’s unlikely you will be able to successfully invoke this rule under the present circumstances.

The website was originally set up by a low-cost freelancer or local design firm.  Let’s face it: People who paid a lot of money for their websites never ask why they can’t get ahold of their designer anymore.  If you find yourself asking what to do because you cannot contact your web designer, then your website was, by definition, built on a budget.  There’s no shame in that!  There are tens of millions of websites on the Internet, and only a small fraction of them cost more than a couple thousand dollars to build.  (Of course, of those more expensive sites, development costs can run into the tens of millions of dollars or more; but that’s a topic for a different post.)

I think freelancers get a bad rap.  They do a lot of work for not very much money.  Because web design looks easy from the outside, new freelancers are constantly entering the field, willing to undercut the competition on price if it will land them their first paid project.  Often these newcomers don’t recognize all that’s required during the course of a project of this type; and frequently these newcomers don’t yet have the skills to manage client expectations and rein in a project that’s suffering from scope creep. Heck, many of us who have been in the business for years are still working on perfecting these project management skills.  So if you hire a freelancer, you should expect that part of the reason they are working for so cheap, is because they are still developing these skills.  For example, they may not recognize that the project they just agreed to take on will take them 50 hours to complete.  They might think they can finish the project in a tenth of that time.  And discovering that discrepancy may lead to missed deadlines and blown budgets: two of the leading sources of friction between business owners and freelancers.

So when people start bad-mouthing their former freelance designer, I try to gently move the conversation on to a new topic.  You may feel like you paid them a lot; but they probably feel like they did a lot more work on your project than they originally expected to do, and your last payment was a very long time ago. No machine will run forever on a single fueling.  If you want it to keep going, you have to put more in.  The same is true of your freelancer.  Build strong and sustainable partnerships with the people in your networks and communities by resolving any outstanding accounts.

Mardesco: the trusted solutions provider

Are you unable to get a response from your former website designer?  You may be ready to upgrade to a more professional service.  Ask Mardesco to manage your website upgrade project.

At Mardesco, we are a trusted solutions provider, building websites since 2003 and serving the Salem area since 2012.  We are a team, with the experience and the expertise to manage your project effectively and deliver the appropriate technology solution on time and on budget.  View our portfolio to start dreaming about what we can do for you.

Contact Mardesco today.

 

 

 

What is WordPress, and why do I need it?

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As web designers, we tend to “talk tech” without starting at the beginning.  This can leave you wondering about the basics, like “Why would I want to convert my business website to WordPress?”

What is WordPress?

First, the basics: WordPress is an open-source, database-driven content management system.  (In other words, it’s a software platform: Not to be confused with the blogging website of the same name.)  This Content Management System (CMS) allows you, the website owner, to easily create and modify website content (yes, including adding images and links) through an interface that’s almost as intuitive as Gmail.  WordPress is widely supported and immensely popular, with tens of thousands of free plugins and themes, and many more paid ones.  WordPress currently powers approximately 1/5 of all the websites in the world.  And that’s pretty impressive!

Do I need WordPress?

To find out if WordPress is the right choice for your business website, first consider if your business would benefit from a content management system; and then determine if WordPress is the right CMS for you.

Does my business need a CMS for its website?

Not every website requires a full-blown dynamic content management system.  For example, “microsites” and “meme” sites often only have one page.  Installing and maintaining a full-featured CMS for a website like that would be total overkill.

Your business may not require a CMS if your website is a one-and-done design, with content that you rarely or never intend to update.  This works well for some microsites, or for a meme website that’s intended to provoke a laugh for a flash in the plan.  If you are marketing your small business in a competitive industry, this strategy is unlikely to bring you the level of success you were probably hoping for, because the search engines generally favor sites that are regularly updated.

Criticisms of WordPress

Personally, I think WordPress is awesome.  But in order to avoid simply sounding like a cheerleader, I’m going to begin by considering some legitimate reasons why you might not want to select WordPress for your website.

Media management

I think there’s a reasonable criticism that WordPress is a bit lightweight in the way it manages media & attachments such as images.  The interface is incredibly convenient from the perspective of creating a blog post on the fly, and seamlessly adding supporting images to your content.  (Drag and drop an image into the content editor box, and the upload begins automatically: it doesn’t get much easier than that!)  But it becomes somewhat more cumbersome if you are required to sort and curate several thousand images over the long term.  This is because images and media content are not considered a post_type, but are simply stored in folders on your server, arranged by upload date.  This means you cannot do a “search” for a specific image or sort them by tags.  If you have thousands of images, trying to find one specific image that was added some time ago can become a tedious project.  This is really only a problem if you have a large website with tons of images.  There are probably plugins and workarounds to address this weakness (share your wisdom in the comments if you know!); but there may likewise be a CMS that is a better fit for your organization.

Security & infrastructure

On the other hand, if your company is very small, making the switch to a WordPress based website may require you to make additional investments in website hosting and website security.

Hosting

Depending on your theme and plugins, some WordPress setups can be too resource-intensive for some low-cost shared hosting servers.  (If you’re currently running WordPress on a low-cost hosting plan, and you notice that it runs really slow: then you would probably benefit from upgrading your web host.)   This can potentially increase your website hosting costs.  Your results will depend on a number of factors.

Security

If you have always had a “static” website (hard-coded, with no CMS or dynamic features) then upgrading your site to WordPress (or any CMS) will necessarily expose you to an ever-expanding universe of online threats.  With WordPress, some of the most common problems are comment spam, brute force login attacks, and exploits targeting coding vulnerabilities in plugins, themes, and outdated versions of the WordPress core itself.  Some of the better web hosts are now upgrading their own server infrastructure to automatically block or mitigate many of the most common attacks.  Nevertheless, even so, dealing with security concerns is an inevitable nuisance.

Benefits of WordPress

After reading the criticisms above, you may be left wondering, “Why then would anyone want to go through the trouble & expense of upgrading their website to a content management system like WordPress?”  A few reasons include:

Ease of use.  Update your website content through a convenient, intuitive interface.  No coding required!

Automatic updates. The WordPress developer community is actively working to improve the security and usability of the system.  To this end, they introduced an automatic update feature, so interim releases of the WordPress core (including vital security patches) are applied automatically, with no action required by the website owner.  Major core version updates, and updates to plugins and themes, can be applied with only two mouse clicks.

Developer community.  Some of the best minds in software engineering today have lent their personal ingenuity to the WordPress code base.  WordPress boasts tens of thousands of free plugins and themes available from WordPress.org, and many  more thousands of premium plugins & themes available in the range from $100 down to just $15 or so.

Widely supported.  It’s estimated that WordPress runs some 20% of all the websites in the world.  Many hosts and developers specialize in WordPress support, so it’s easy to find qualified service professionals to help you modernize & customize your own business website.  Never again have to worry about getting locked in to some proprietary CMS that nobody else supports!  Just check out the incredible volume of high-quality, courteous responses in the WordPress.org community support forums, and you’ll understand why WordPress is the platform with popular momentum in our zeitgeist.

Still have questions?  Get in touch!

 

“Intermediate WordPress” presentation

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Please join Mardesco’s own Jesse Smith at the Silver Falls Library this evening for an informative presentation on Intermediate WordPress usage.  Tonight’s presentation will discuss modifying a WordPress-based website’s appearance and functionality through the use of widgets, menus, plugins, themes, and shortcodes.  That’s a lot to cover in an hour…  It will be fun!  We look forward to seeing you there.

7pm on May 21, 2015 at the Silver Falls Library

 

Introduction to WordPress

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Please join Mardesco’s own Jesse Smith at the Silverton Public Library this Thursday, April 23 at 7pm for a free presentation titled, “Introduction to WordPress.”  This presentation is the first in a 3-part series.  Future presentations will discuss Intermediate and Advanced WordPress administration.

If you are interested in administering your own WordPress-based website, this week’s presentation will help you get started!  No overly complex techno-babble this time: we will focus on the basics.

This presentation will cover:

  • Logging in
  • Editing content
  • Adding images
  • Creating new blog posts
  • Creating new pages

We look forward to seeing you there!