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How to make your business site a WordPress site.

Yes, WP (WordPress) is way beyond its blogging origins. It is now a full-featured, content management platform. It’s also an entrepreneur’s key to a professional website. (Contact me, Mr. Goodhelp, for a “nearly instant” site, super-affordable, built for you!)

The next step is to be thoughtful about its content. Have you identified your core keywords? What is the desired purpose of your web site? What do you want it to do for customers and you? What reader interactions are desired?

Configure the usual plugins and work on the core content. Determine what you will write about beyond your “About,” “Category Topics” and “Contact Page?” Next, your blog section provides the answer to the fresh content search engines–and human readers–crave!

Your blog posts will be where much of the action is for you and your customers. What should you write about there? Can you come up with three more more items a week?

Need some ideas? Here’s 46 blog post tips for creating new blog post content.

• Take a look at these six ideas for creating blog posts that sell.
• If you are the web marketer, here’s 30 more tips on how to make your blog successful with passion!

10 more ideas from commenter Gini at spinsucks.com:

1. Ask your readers what they want you to write about.
2. Let your readers pimp their own blogs in your comments section.
3. Ask questions.
4. Create contests (goes along with polls and surveys).
5. Install the SEO “All In One” pack on your WordPress blog.
6. Use StumbleUpon and AllTop to increase your readership.
7. Create content for Associated Content by revising and republishing your blog posts there (it helps with avoiding duplicate content search engine penalties, gaining readership and news outlets may republish your content.
8. Comment on other blogs and news articles to show your thinking/expertise, but also link people back to your blog.
9. Make sure, when you use Twitter to promote your blog post, that you’re tweeting about it more than once a day.
10. Subscribe to SmartBrief newsletters, RSS feeds, and Google alerts in order to find ideas for new content.

All of these suggestions could spark a few more ideas and topics for you to write a short 300-400 word article. Happy brainstorming and here’s to your next week’s writing!

Related articles

• WordPress Or Blogger ??? (smashingfacts.wordpress.com)
• 10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Grow Your Email List (problogger.net)

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Getting hired is today’s goal. Whether you use a self-made web page resume to display your job skills and history or circulate your qualifications through alternative means.

Perhaps you have a LinkedIn professional networking listing, or a Facebook page, both very helpful in today’s hiring process.

Do you also like to read stories of triumph over long odds? Here are such tales in a recent “DoubleEx” column on Slate.com, written by Emily Yoffe. Enjoy, and hang in there!

Related articles

• LinkedIn CEO stresses personal brand creation (infoworld.com)
• Money | Getting a (better) job (mike10613.wordpress.com)

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This summer, the WordPress platform achieved its 50 millionth web site benchmark. According to the CMS Critic, it’s the world’s most popular blog platform.

Lately, there has been a bit of back and forth about exactly which content management system (CMS) is now the most popular. Just keep in mind you can host your own blog or use that of a service provider.

However, when you combine the numbers of wordpress.com-hosted and dot org downloaded and self-hosted sites, it’s a huge user number compared to other systems.

So, which of all are the most popular in the blog world? The Royal Pingdom breaks it down with its analysis of the Top 100 blogs tracked by Technorati. WordPress fans can be most proud of their share of top blogs on the list!

WordPress started out as a blog platform and has grown into a fully developed CMS that’s competitive with most any other you want to name. You might give it preference points when it comes to an easy to use design, where code knowledge is not necessary.

I classify it as the next step up to a professional web site presence. More flexible than any other blogging tool you may have used, WordPress will move your business forward.

Related articles

• WordPress Now Powers More Than 50 Million Sites (mashable.com)
• Why WordPress Rules (smallbusinessmavericks.com)

Are you a young mom thinking of starting your own business?

Watch out for the pitfall of–early success! You’ve solved the start up challenges that sometimes plague the entrepreneur, yet this can lead to unforeseen problems, writes Jill Coplan, the Work and Family editor of Bloomberg Businessweek  reports.

• Combining child care and building a successful dot com business can be tough on women and requires a solution about how children are supervised.

• Networking must also continue and it’s recommended to get out of the “office” more often and have a weekly “girls’ night out.”

Good advice for coping with operating a home-based business in 2011, yet written in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, originally printed in April, 2000.

Another working mom, Phoenix resident Mary Beth Stern, cites the balancing act needed between work and family, in the interview article on singlemindedwomen.com site.

Stern offers additional useful advice in a quick read, if you’re on the go!

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Looking for the next best job or company to work for? Perhaps you’ve thought of starting your own business?

One more question: how old are you?

Studies show the most successful entrepreneurs are “older.” The average age of a company founder is 40. Age and industry work experience combine to give the 40+ start-up business person an advantage.

Read more in this BusinessInsider article. Think the young have it all going on? Think again! About 2.2 percent of US business owners are younger than 25, according to a June report by the U.S. Census Bureau.

I’m going to pass this item around the office to my buddies “of a certain age.” Should bring us a smile!

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Everyone knows potential customers use search engine results to research their subject: your product or service. You may already know how important it is for your listing to be found in the top ten results for your core keyword phrases. What does this have to do with how you build your web site?

If you’ve been around the net for a few years, you might have tried your hand at building your own web site. The tools provided for your use were probably of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) variety. Drag and drop into a ready template. No need to understand HTML. Perhaps you’ve even tried hand at blogging with Blogger.

Maybe you’ve attempted Adobe Dreamweaver and decided not to become a full-time webmaster. Or perhaps you paid another web designer to build and support your site. Once setup, you may have had to pay this middleman for every update you wanted, every time you wanted it.

Is there a better way? Yes, there are other kinds of content management systems (CMS). But I recommend just one.

The WordPress CMS embodies a professional platform, a growing support community and allows you to easily change the text and pictures, even the site design, when needed. It’s also built on search engine optimized elements.

It’s the Goodhelp Web answer for small or start-up business people who want to spend their time building their business and customer base. You may have guessed what you’re reading at here is now hosted on the WordPress platform solution.

How to help your business customer service with handy services and tips! The Holy Grail of a business owner is 100% totally happy customers, right?

In addition to a great product or service, we must also spotlight better customer service, which many people acknowledge is a weak point for many businesses, large or small.

Here’s a quick roundup of current 6 customer service tips from Mashable, one of my favorite ‘Net-centric news sites.

Another super service to consider is the online help tickets provided by Zendesk. I have no affiliate relationship with the sites I write about (unless noted otherwise!). I do have the experience of being a “customer” of a service provider who employs the Zendesk system.

All of my questions and requests are handled clearly and efficiently. The trouble ticket is viewable online and sends updates through email if you prefer. I like and use both methods. It’s nirvana!

What Google’s latest Panda 2.2 update means to you.

Web site owners who want to stay high in the search engine results pages (SERPS) often pay attention each time Google updates its algorithm.

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The latest update, nick-named “Panda 2.2″ is not in honor of the furry bear at the left. But just as the few endangered species of Giant Pandas remain popular with the zoo-going public, Google updates are also closely scrutinized.

The seo experts have measured the changes as a result of this latest update and have pronounced their results. Required now:  more of the seo best practices, social linking and more current content.

This Google Panda update also reinforces the seo basics of keyword phrase choice, distribution and density. On-page and off-page linking remains critically important.

Our friends at seomoz.org have a lively blog and here’s a link to their best Panda update assessment.

What does this update means to the business operator and her website? It could be the right time to upgrade your site to a real user-friendly, content management system (CMS) built upon “seo friendly” code.

This could be the answer to the webmaster-as-middleman problem of older web site designs. Now, the state of the online art enables the site owner to add content and updates in minutes with a few clicks of a mouse. The transition to a new platform takes a bit of time, but it’s worth it!

Of course, I would not recommend something that I would not do myself. You may have guessed: this entire web site has been recently reconfigured with the latest WordPress version CMS!

This is where I post seo observations on a frequent basis, at least three times a week. Keep coming back! –G