McClellan Services

So if your not convinced yet that WordPress is the best solution for you, let me tell you something about these top online companies and what they all have in common:

• CNN
• Flickr
• Time
• UPS
• Harvard University
• Green Bay Packers

So what do all these sites have in common?  They all use WordPress VIP which is very expensive, but  they use the same, stable WordPress Code as everyone else who has WordPress.  WordPress VIP is for websites that get millions of visits per day, or even per hour.  Not really for us small business professionals, and you can always start out small and upgrade.  WordPress gives you the flexibility to do that.  You can start out with the basics and expand later, but your website templates and WordPress Database will not change.  WordPress VIP is a premium support & hosting service reserved for the highest traffic generating sites.  So Unless your some kind of celebrity or something, you don’t need WordPress VIP.  I Promise you will be just fine with the basic WordPress.

So, if America’s Top Brands can put their trust in a program like WordPress, what are you waiting for?

When it comes down to it, your choice for a domain name can make a big difference on how your website performs.  Its very important to choose a name that is relevant to your blog or website.  You don’t want to choose anything to random or broad.  While its obvious that the domain name market is kind of saturated, there are still a lot of good domain names available.  Be creative, but not complicated in the name that you choose.  If you plan to monetize your site to make money, then you will want to choose a .com over say a .net or .org.  Its what most people remember.

What Keywords will best describe your sites content?

Think of 5 different keywords or keyword phrases that best describe your website.  You will be surprised how easy it may be to find a domain name available with a long tail keyword phrase.  A long tail keyword phrase contains more than one word.  For example, a friend of mine registered the domain name coolestplacestovisit.com.  His main keyword was places to visit, but by simply placing the word “coolest” in front of the keyword phrase, he was able to have a catchy domain name which included his main keyword phrase.  Keep this in mind when choosing the best domain name for your site.

Make your domain name easy to remember

Ever been to a website with really good content but couldn’t remember what the domain name was?  Its probably because it was not the easiest domain name to remember.  Try to avoid using complicated, or long uncommon words in your domain name.   If your business name is going to be your domain name, then its ok to use even if its hard to remember, since you will likely be giving it a lot of exposure.

A few more quick tips

Avoid using special characters, numbers, dashes, or symbols.  That will just make it harder to remember.  Also, try to keep your domain name limited to a couple of words.  The longer the domain name, the harder it is for people to remember when typing it in an email or trying to find your site.  Its always good to open up Notepad or a word processor and brainstorm your domain ideas.  You can go to any website that sells domains and type it in to see if its available, and just note that it is on your word processor.   After you have a handful of names, think about it for awhile and select the one that makes the most sense, and is easy to remember.

Congratulations on taking the first step in your journey to make a website!

I have been designing websites for nearly 10 years now and no matter how large the project, the one thing that people always ask me is “How do I get people to find me in the search engines?”

Its really not as complicated as you might think. You see, there are several ways to do this, but one unique way to get traffic to your site is to consistently add content that people are searching for. Lets say you want to make a website about gardens. You love gardening and enjoy talking about it, so you build a website and just post random articles about things that you know, but after several months you still don’t have any traffic. Lets talk about why.

First, did you do any Keyword Research? What the heck is that you ask? Well lets get right into it then. There are a lot of people that love gardening just like you, but they might be searching for something specific. If you knew what people were typing into Google and how many searches per month, and how many competing websites there were, then you could easily get on the first page of Google couldn’t you? You bet you could! So how much would something like that be worth to you? What if you could go from just about zero traffic to 25,000 visits a month just by targeting keywords with low competition?

Its totally possible. What you do with the keywords is write articles (or have them written for you), and post most of them on your website, and then also submit them to article sites like ezinearticles.com. This will do 2 things. First, you will have content on your website that people are looking for. Second, you will rank well with Google since you will be getting backlinks from websites who use your articles from ezinearticles.com since at the bottom of each article you write there will be your information and a link to your website. You can have great success doing this whether you want to run an ecommerce store, an adsense website, or a site that sells affiliate products (like amazon or something).

Before you even get started with a website you should look to see if there is a trend. For a gardening website a niche might be “Gardening tools” or “Gardening Tips.”

I can help you determine which niche might suite you best, and also put together a list of keywords and a blueprint for your website. The blueprint will include categories, and the keywords I would recommend in the order that they should be used.

For each Keyword Report, you will get a list of 100 keywords along with the site blueprint. All I need from you is your first, second, and third choice for topics. Once I determine which topic is the best one then it will take about 5 days to get your list of keywords sorted, and the blueprint ready to go. The cost for this is $167 for the first 100 keywords, and $47 for each additional 50 keywords for up to 200 keywords (I edit out the bad keywords and you get top quality keywords guaranteed).

Just contact me and give me some details and I’ll send you the payment link. Once payment is received I will get started on your project.

WordPress is the best program on the web for making websites.  There are literally thousands of Themes to choose from, or one can be built to meet your needs.  There are also little programs called “plugins” that add to the core WordPress code and can add functionality to your website.  Whether you are a Realtor wanting to have your own listing service, a Musician who wants to stream music and post videos, a Photographer that wants to show off your latest masterpieces, someone who wants to have a virtual cookbook, or even an online presence for a church ministry.  The possibilities are endless.

Here is the best part!

The WordPress program itself is FREE.  Yes you heard that correct.  It is a program that you can use for personal or commercial purposes, and you can change the code without violating anyone’s proprietary rights.

Where can I get WordPress?

When you go purchase your domain name, you will need a web host (a place to park your domain, and store files for your website).  To be sure a web host is compatible with WordPress, it must have the most up to date PHP & MySql installed on the server where your websites files will be stored.  You can download the latest edition of WordPress from WordPress.org but wait!  There are a few web hosts that have a platform built in to the hosting called C-Panel.  This is important because unless you want to spend hours trying to setup WordPress, you will want to have C-Panel.  There are options in C-Panel where all you have to do is answer a few short, easy questions and WordPress will be installed with the click of a button.

So where can I get a domain name and hosting?

I’m glad you thought of that question.  The place I get all my domain names from is GoDaddy.com (been using them for 7 years).  Its really easy, all you got to do is think of a name and put it in and see  if its taken already or not.  If not then just click on the link to setup that domain name.  I do not recommend the hosting plans that GoDaddy has to offer since they do not have an easy way to setup WordPress, and I’ll charge $97 to install it since it will be time consuming.

I have been using HostGator.com for web hosting for about 6 years now and have been very pleased with their reliability and service.  I have literally had no issues at all with them.  My websites are always up so I have no complaints.  Plus, they have C-Panel, which drastically reduces setup time for WordPress (will only take about 5 minutes tops).  Saving time and money by not having to have me manually install it for you will leave that much more money for you to invest in your custom designed look & feel (the Theme).  If you get HostGator, I recommend their “Baby Plan”.  This will give you all you need to get started.  You can always upgrade later.

WordPress is not just a blogging program.  There are thousands of websites that use WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS).  You don’t even have to have a blog, and you can go in and edit pages just like you were working in Microsoft Office.  It just doesn’t get any better than this!

So there you have it.  Now you know why WordPress is the best (in my opinon – and 100′s of thousands of other web designers).  Are you ready to get started?  Contact me for a quote.