• Often your free website has a web address with an extension like wordpress.com or weebly.com. This not only makes your web address extra long and difficult to remember, it doesn’t sound very professional.
• Often, without a yourcompanyname.com domain name, you’re more than likely also using a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo email address. Does this really create a professional, I’m-in-it-for-the-long-term image for your business?
• Often with free website hosting, you’re probably advertising other businesses on your website. And you have absolutely no control on what’s being advertised even if they are competitor sites. Does that really make good business sense?
• If your free website is content managed (you add content and make your own changes), are you able to back up your database file to your desktop computer or to your email? In some cases, the answer is no.
• If you’ve uploaded images and other media files to your free website, can you access them through a file manager or via FTP? In most cases, the answer is probably no.

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WordPress, originally developed as a blogging platform, is an easy-to-use, FREE content managed system that is available to anyone with a domain name and web host (and even those without).

WordPress is the ideal solution if you just want to add a blog to your company’s existing website (or for personal blogging), but WordPress is not just a blog.

It can also be used as a standalone website with “static” web pages that you can quickly add and change at any time as long as you have an internet connection.

Working off a database, the default WordPress installation comes packaged with a number of features and is constantly being developed to improve user experience (both that of the owner and visitors) as well as to maintain a high level of security for your website. (more…)

One of the best ways to keep your website fresh and interesting for your loyal visitors is to add new content. Not only will it encourage them to keep coming back on a regular basis but it will help your website stay at (or close to) the top of Google search results pages (provided you are using the right keywords in your content).

The type of website you have – static or content managed – and how much time you have available, will determine whether you can add or change content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. I recommend changing your content at least monthly, but if your time or budget is limited, choose things that are quick and easy to change or add.

Below are 10 quick and easy ways to update your web content you might want to try. (more…)