Tag: planning

Creating a Menu in WordPress

You may want to setup a menu on your WordPress blog or perhaps you have setup your website using WordPress.  Having a menu is a good idea for organizing your content and making navigating your site easy for your visitors.

Here are a few tips on organizing to create a menu

Your Plan

When you are designing your website or blog – think of how the content should be organized. What are the main headings – what topics would fit under these main headings. As your website grows having an organized structure is a real help to the visitors so they can find information easily.   It also helps you as you add new pages and posts to know where you will put them.

Using Pages and Sub Pages

When you create a new page in WordPress you can assign it as a main page or a sub page.

Using Categories

Assigning a category is a first step in being able to create a menu item from your POSTS. Think about your categories and how they relate to the major topics of your blog or website. For example on the Out and About Nova Scotia website – PLACES is a category. Any new post that has to do with a PLACE is assigned this category and a place name is assigned as a sub-category. See the PLACES menu with its sub categories.

Managing Categories

If you wish to rename, delete of change a category you will find this under POSTS – CATEGORIES on your dashboard.   This is also a good place to see the overview of all your categories and the number of POSTS assigned to each category and the hierarchy.

Manage categories

Managing your Menu

The Menu manager is found under Appearances on your dashboard. On the left you see a list of all the PAGES you have created. Click the check box(es) next to the pages you want to add to the menu and drag them onto the menu on the right. Then reorder the pages according to your plan. You can make sub pages by indenting a page under another page.

If you wish to add a CATEGORY as a menu item – select the category from the list that you see when you click on “Categories” on the bottom left section. Then select the category you want and add it to the menu on the right.

Be sure to SAVE your menu.

You can select to add your pages automatically when you create them – or each time you want a new page on the menu go through the steps above. You can rearrange pages and posts as your site grows.

menu managae

Categories Widget

Use the CATEGORIES widget to add a categories drop down list with number of posts on your sidebar. This works well if you have a lot of categories and gives a good overview for the website visitor

Categories widget

Places category

menu outandabout

Examples

 

 

 

The Power of a Prototype in Developing a Website Application

Before setting a programmer to work on a database structure and programming the website, developing a prototype will help all the planners to see the full logical flow, decide on what types of information are to be collected, decide on what information needs to be shown in reports, screen outputs and email outputs.

A prototype is extremely useful in developing any database pplication for your website.  Often someone has an idea of what they want the website to do from a functional point of view.  It may be complex and it is necessary to be clear on the inputs, outputs and data types that will be included. 

Before setting a programmer to work on a database structure and programming the site, developing a prototype will help all the planners to see the full logical flow, decide on what types of information are to be collected, decide on what information needs to be shown in reports, screen outputs and email outputs.  If you identify that something must be shown – then this lets you see that it must be collected at some point.  

The manager, administrator, and marketing persons from the organization and business will be able to visualize exactly what will be on each of the pages and see how the program will work.  The database administrator and programmers will understand the concept and flow and have a clean idea of how to build the application.  Much time, frustration and effort will be saved by building a prototype.

Your

In an interesting article “Ten Things about Technology for Library Administrators”  this point caught my eye

8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype. It is simple implementations of a new site or service that can help demonstrate what a fully-developed site or service would be like. Since many of us find it difficult to imagine a new site or service from a text description, it can spark understanding in a way that few things can. Also, they tend to be much easier and faster to put together and can provide enough learning opportunities so that if you decide to support full development, the result will be more effective than it would have been otherwise

Since 1996 Aleph Consulting ( http://www.alephconsulting.org )  has worked with clients to develop web applications as part of the suite of Internet services.  A prototype is an essential part of the flow in developing an effective functional web application.  Please contact me if you would like more details.  davies@alephinc.com

How to increase traffic to your website

Growing the number of first time visitors, and building return visits to your website can be done using several approaches. Here are a few methods that will help you to increase the traffic to your website.

Growing the number of first time visitors, and building return visits to your website can be done using several approaches.  Here are a few methods that will help you to increase the traffic to your website.

Website Keywords and Search Engines. Look at your website and check if the “title” “description” and “keywords” meta tags are added to your website pages. These are important in making sure your website is indexed by search engines like Google and Yahoo. In the text of your page – especially your home page – use the words that best describe you and the needs of your target audience as part of the body text. After all this is done – register the site with Google, Yahoo and other major search engines. All these have free submission forms but there is no guarantee how long it will take. Keep reviewing your statistics and you will see when you start getting traffic from search engines. Look at the keywords people are using to find your site and refine these keywords on your pages.

Email Newsletters and Announcements. Tell the people on your list(s) about your website and what they can find there and why they should visit. Add a signup form on the site and some incentive for people to sign up for your newsletter. Your newsletter and announcements will really build your RETURN visits to the website. Remember that people may visit thousands of websites and even if they like you on their first visit – they need to be reminded to return.

Links. Links from other websites to you build credibility and also improve your position in the search engines. These are called in-bound links. If you have a resource or links page on your site – you can link out to useful sites – and then contact the other website owner and ask them to link to you. If you have affiliates, partners, sponsors, or other relationships – send them the link to your website, your logo and a key phrase and ask if they will add your link to their website.

Signature File. Add your website address to your email signature file. Make this also an organization policy and have everyone create a standard signature file that includes the website link. Include the website address also in any paper correspondence, flyers, brochures, advertisements, articles and PR and of course your business card.

Online Social Networks. Create your own presence on the large social networking sites such as Facebook page and group and LinkedIN. Participate in the groups and discussion forums and include your website as part of your profile.

Using these methods you can increase the traffic to your website – but do remember that your website must be engaging and interesting to the person and have some appropriate calls to action – or your efforts will bring traffic but not help you in achieving your objectives.

Internet Strategies and Tips eNewsletter:
Signup for our Email Newsletter