Whether you are an established business or just starting up the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed the way we live and our habits in terms of socialising, shopping, buying and selling.

With no signs of things returning to normal any time soon it’s a smart move to adapt to this new way of life and one way of doing that is to look at ways to make your business as accessible as possible.
For some businesses it is not possible to do what they do online, but for many this is an increasingly important option.

In this post we’ll be taking a quick look at what’s involved in getting your business setup online:

Startup or Established Business?

Whether you are just starting out or have been in business for years the practicalities of getting your business online will likely be largely the same. The most likely difference being that if you sell physical products and have been doing so for a long time then you may have a large inventory that you need to get online.

What Type of Business Are You Running?

Is your business a shop? Are you a yoga instructor? Maybe you’re a tutor. The type of business you run will dictate what sort of website you need and the audience that you will be targeting.
Take the chance to think about your brand and company values and how you want that to be reflected on your website and also who you are pitching to and what the best way to do that is.

Choose a Platform

Ezone Interactive are WordPress specialists and we recommend it for its incredible support, flexibility and ease of use. However, there are other platforms that you may think are better suited to your requirements. For example if you just need a simple online store then a service like Wix may be sufficient for you. If you want something more bespoke or with specific functionality then WordPress or a similar platform could be a good option.

What Functionality Do You Need?

Again this is going to be dictated by the type of business that you run. If you sell products then you will need an e-commerce website. If you are running an online class then you need good video functionality and if your business is centred around a community then you need membership options.

Have a think about the different things you will need your website to do and this will help you to identify the best platform to use as well.

We would recommend that you group your requirements into ‘essential’ and ‘nice to have’ categories as this will allow you to get online faster with your minimum requirements. You can then add your ‘nice to have’ functionality after the site has launched.

Remember that a website is an ongoing project, it doesn’t end when you launch so you can always be adding to and improving your website. It is important to avoid the trap of trying to get your website absolutely perfect before you launch it and ending up delaying the launch by months for functionality that is not essential.

Time Is of the Essence

The sooner you get online the sooner you can start to generate an income through your online presence.
As well as those mentioned in the previous section there are a number of ways to speed up the process:

• Assign a person to manage the project, if your agency has one point of contact who has the authority to sign off on stages of your project then it will go a lot faster.
• Avoid having people dipping in and out of the project, this only muddies the waters.
• Gather your assets before the project starts, this includes imagery for your site, written content, product images and details and as much other content as you can pre-prepare as possible. Content always takes longer than expected and is one the most common causes of delay to projects.
• If you want a custom design for your website share them with your chosen developer before the project starts so they can provide feedback.

If you choose WordPress as your platform you can use an existing design and adjust the colours, content and branding to match that of your company. This can represent a quick win if you don’t require any bespoke functionality.

Should you decide that a WordPress website is right for you, or just want more advice then Ezone can help, just ping us a message and we can discuss your requirements.

Here at Ezone Interactive we have been building and supporting websites for over fifteen years, and our customers have found our support service invaluable. So in this article I thought I would cover some of the reasons why you need WordPress support for your website:

Websites Don’t Run Themselves

A common misconception is that after a website has been built it is finished and can be forgotten about. In actual fact nothing could be further from the truth, your website going online is just the start of an ongoing process. 

To maintain a good ranking in search results you need to be regularly updating content on your site, you need to keep WordPress updated and secure to avoid any security breaches, you need to fix any bugs that develop over time, ensure your site works correctly on new devices… The list goes on and all these things can take up a huge amount of your time.

Content is King

Useful and regularly updated content is key to keeping visitors coming back to your website and in building authority in your sector. Content can take many forms, from running a blog, updating your services as they change or publishing details of your new offers. Not only does this require that you create the written content, but in most cases you will also need imagery which will need to be resized to the correct dimensions and optimised. 

WordPress Needs To Be Kept Updated

Your WordPress website will be built using a theme and plugins and they will all need to be kept updated to ensure that they work with each other properly and with browser updates etc. It is also essential from a security standpoint to keep your website up to date and many updates patch flaws that hackers can exploit.

It is also important to keep your WordPress version up to date as it is continually being improved to give better functionality and security.

What if Something Does Go Wrong?

If something does go wrong on your website what do you do? You need to make sure you have backups that you can revert to should something go irreversibly wrong on your website. 

You also need to have a system in place to alert you if your website does go down, and this is where an uptime monitor can be really important. 

Who Has The Time?

Do you have the time and technical knowledge to do all of the above as well as running your business? If so then you probably don’t need a support service, but it may be worth considering what you could achieve if even some of those tasks were taken off of your desk.

Flexible Plans:

Ezone offer a number of support packages designed to cover all of your WordPress support needs including all of the areas covered in this article from backups to updates and content work to uptime monitoring we can take care of it for you.

Are you an Agency?

Providing support can feel like a hassle when you are trying to focus on larger development projects. Whatever size of agency, if you work with WordPress, then Ezone can help. We offer bespoke white label support solutions to take support tasks off your desk. Interested? Get in touch. 

Last weekend saw the third WordCamp to be held in Edinburgh.

Hosted at Codebase in the heart of the city just next to Edinburgh Castle the weekend promised much: beautiful Scottish summers weather, Haggis and Wapuu’s scampering around the foot of the castle and of course a great event.

Sadly only the last of those things actually came to pass as it rained all weekend and the local wildlife must have been sheltering. However, this didn’t stop the event being fantastic with great people, great talks and a great atmosphere.

It was a jam-packed event with:

124 attendees

22 speakers

15 volunteers

Talks covered topics of social change, productivity, security, service provision, Jetpack, agile development, site optimisation, WooCommerce, lightning talks, social media, web design, the Rest API, customer service, development strategy, accessibility and more.

A week later the dust has had time to settle so I thought I would put pen to paper and post some of the top things that I took away from the weekend. It was tough because there was so much to choose from, but here goes:

5 Takeaways from WordCamp Edinburgh 2017

1. Volunteering is awesome.

WordCamp Edinburgh was my fifth WordCamp, having also travelled to London, Manchester, Edinburgh in 2015 and WordCamp Europe in Vienna last year. But hands down this was the WordCamp I enjoyed the most and that is largely because I volunteered at this one.

Volunteers help the organising team with the running of the event, be it registration, handing out t-shirts, operating cameras, helping with lunch or simply answering attendees queries.

I didn’t really know what to expect turning up for the weekend, but was immediately introduced to the organising team and the other volunteers. Everyone was super enthusiastic and keen to run a great event.There was a great sense of camaraderie and I made way more connections at this WordCamp than previous ones as I’d met twenty odd people before registration even opened.
I would strongly encourage anyone to consider volunteering, especially if you are new to WordCamps as it’s a great way to get to know people while at the same time helping to give back to the community.

2. Facebook Advertising is Very Powerful

One of the most interesting talks for me was Gavin Bell speaking about Facebook Advertising and vlogging. As an area I knew very little about it was a real eye opener for me. It was fascinating to hear Gavin’s story and gain a better understanding of the versatility and power of Facebook advertising, which really does have incredible reach.

Gavin is a Facebook advertising consultant and vlogger and he spoke about how he got into vlogging, highlighting the importance of video in social marketing and gave us an overview of how he uses Facebook advertising to drill down and target his intended market.

Loving this masterclass in FB ads from @MrGavinBell! #wcedin pic.twitter.com/ITUdRGjyxY

— Bridget Hamilton (@bridget_helen) July 23, 2017

3. The Gutenberg Editor is Coming

Kimb Jones spoke in the lightning talks about the Gutenberg Editor. This new block editor is eventually going to be integrated into WordPress core but is currently available as a plugin. The editor is based around blocks and empowers users to more easily add rich content to posts and pages without the need for messy shortcodes and custom fields. There were a lot of questions raised around backwards compatibility and if sites will be broken by the introduction of this new editor due to incompatibilities with themes and/or plugins. It’s well worth taking a look at the plugin to familiarise yourself with Gutenberg as in the future it will be standard in WordPress.

4. The WordPress Community is Awesome

One of the really cool things about WordCamps is the diversity. The events bring together designers, developers, project managers, agencies, hosting providers, accessibility specialists, bloggers, social media experts and many more. They attract people from different countries (according to a tweet this week the speakers alone came from or originated from more than ten different countries) and cultures and with different beliefs and professions and they are all there to make connections and to learn from each other. That is special and part of what makes WordPress so great.

5. WordPress Can Transcend Simple Code and Speak to us on a Human Level

Some of the most inspiring talks focused on how WordPress can be used to create personal and social change. Bridget Hamilton spoke about blogging to handle tough issues and create social change and Andres Cifuentes spoke about building multilingual communities. Finally Rachel Martin delivered a talk that I know moved a number of attendees. She spoke about her personal experience of the earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, and how she used blogging as therapy.

WordPress TV

Remember if you weren’t able to be at WordCamp Edinburgh, or missed a talk that you were interested in they will be available on WordPress.tv. But it does normally take a few weeks for the videos to be edited and uploaded.

Roll on WordCamp Edinburgh 2018!

There’s a ton more stuff that I could have spoken about in this article such as the swag:

The awesome t-shirts designed by Ben Usher Smith:

And the social events in the evenings:

#wcedin after party at Sygn, #Edinburgh pic.twitter.com/XBdFXvJTq4

— CoolfieldsConsulting (@coolfields) July 22, 2017

The organising team did an incredible job this year, delivering a great event for all. With Ahmed Khalifa taking the reigns next year I’m sure it will be another amazing event (and who knows, next time we might even see a real live haggis!) – I can’t wait!