Jason Unger

5 Unique Ways to Use WordPress (Not as a Blog)

Posted by junger - 08/28/08 at 10:08:36 pm

WordPress is easily the most intuitive, user-friendly blogging software available today.

But did you know you can use it for other types of sites?

Here are five unique ways to use WordPress besides as a blog.

A Content Management System

Like most Web sites that use a content management system, WordPress allows you to create static pages outside of the reverse-chronology setup of blogs.

Whether you're creating a page of resources, links, or non-date specific information, pages are the best option for timeless content on your site.

But what about your site's home page? WordPress allows you to set any page as your site's main page. In WordPress 2.5 and above:

• Log in to your dashboard
• Click on "Settings" and "Reading"
• Under "Front page displays," select "A static page" and choose the page you'd like to use

Using WordPress as a CMS is increasingly popular, especially because it doesn't require tech-savvy users.

A Job Board

If you're looking to start a job board using WordPress, it can be done.

Sorel Mihai, one of my favorite theme designers, has created JobPress, a WordPress Job Board.

JobPress allows for both free and paid listings, depending on your preference. Charging for listings is easy (view the settings page) and integrated with PayPal.

Other features include:

• Job categories
• RSS feeds for listings
• Categorization by part-time, full-time and freelance.

Check out more about JobPress here.

A Storefront

Yes, you can sell products using WordPress.

Check out the Market Theme. It's a great-looking, minimalist theme that focuses on highlighting the products you have to sell and helps you sell them.

Features include:

• Support for PayPal and Google Checkout
• Affiliate support, if you have no products to sell
• Compatibility with WordPress MU

Check out more about the Market Theme here.

A Portfolio

If you need a place to show off your work, WordPress makes a great portfolio.

Two great Portfolio themes are Sharpfolio, a free download from WEBRevolutionary, and Sorel Mihai's Portfolio theme.

These two themes work a bit differently — Sharpfolio works more like a "typical" WordPress site, while Portfolio has a custom settings page.

A Classifieds Site

DailyWP's Sorel Mihai comes through again with Classipress, a complete package for managing a classified ads site.

While there are some third-party plugins that attempt to do what Classipress offers, none of them do it right. Classipress requires no additional plugins, so everything works perfectly together.

Check out more about Classipress here.

Do You Know Your Site's Goal?

Posted by junger - 08/26/08 at 09:08:32 pm

What's the purpose of your Web site?

No, really.

In 10 words or less, can you explain

• why you have a Web site?
• where you'd like to be in one year?
• what's your plan for getting there?

If you can't, you're in trouble. You're not destined for failure — yet — but you're certainly on the wrong track.

Too often, Web sites get started and run for the wrong reasons.

"I want to have a blog."
"We needed to put something up."
"They're doing it, so we have to."

We're all guilty of this, to some degree. I've started a ton of Web sites on a whim with no real long-term goal — and they've all landed in the graveyard.

So take ten minutes, right now, and determine your site's goal. Some options include:

• to sell a product or service
• to deliver an information product, like news
• to build a brand

Be honest with yourself. It's OK to admit that your blog (while well-intentioned to empower your readers) is really about selling a product. There's nothing wrong with that.

Ask yourself this:

If you had to shut down your Web site today, what would you want in return?

That's your goal. Go out and reach it.

3 Web Publishing Tools I Can't Live Without

Posted by junger - 08/25/08 at 09:08:40 pm

There are thousands of tools you can use to successfully run your Web site, but believe it or not, you only need three.

They don't cost a lot of money, and you don't need a deep technical understanding to use them.

Here are three Web publishing tools I can't live without.

A Simple Text Editor

If you're a blogger, writer or any kind of content creator, a basic text editor like Notepad should be your best friend.

It's the simplest, cleanest and most intuitive word-processing program available — and it's free.

When you're using programs like Microsoft Word to write, you often get loads of junk content that comes along: fonts, sizes, and sometimes even HTML.

You don't need that. You're focusing simply on the words. Don't get overloaded with extra features and settings. You don't need them.

A Good Content Management System

It used to be that Web publishing involved creating pages in Dreamweaver or FrontPage; perhaps you used server-side includes or some kind of template for a consistent design.

Today, it's all about using the right content management system (CMS). A good CMS organizes your content and keeps it completely separate from your design and code.

For jasonunger.com and my other sites, I use WordPress — easily the best blogging software available (and totally free). Over at cepro.com, we use Expression Engine, a more fully-featured content management system designed for bigger sites.

I've also worked with Movable Type and Blogger in the past. They're not really my cup of tea, but they may work great for you.

Image Editing Software

When you want to add some photos to your site, you'll need to do some image editing. If you're not a designer, your needs will mostly be cropping, re-sizing, and small image creation.

Adobe Photoshop is the standard for image editing and manipulation, but it's also pretty expensive. Photoshop does a lot more than the simple tasks you'll need, but it's the best way to do them.

If you don't want to drop the coin for a copy of Photoshop, check out GIMP — a free alternative that does everything you need.

What Web publishing tools can YOU not live without?

You Are Not Your Users

Posted by junger - 04/28/08 at 04:04:12 pm

If there's one big thing I took away from Usability Week, it's that you are not your users.

It's a mantra every Web publisher should repeat constantly — in fact, you might want to even write it on a Post-It note and leave it in plain sight.

I run into this problem a lot with people who come from the print media world. The old school of thought is that you put out your product, take a survey or two of your audience, and make a change when necessary. But for the most part, your product is your product — you get to define it as you want.

When it comes to Web publishing (especially in the B2B world), your definitions are not always the same as your users. From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox:

A simple example: Many sites use segmentation, in which users must click through to the appropriate site segment. Unfortunately, these segments often don't match the way customers think of themselves, and thus require them to peek through multiple site areas to find the right one. Even a simple segmentation such as company size isn't obvious. What counts as small? Better sites will annotate their choices with a definition (stating, for example, that their small business segment targets companies with less than 100 employees).

Your users come to you for a specific piece of information — the sooner you give it to them (and the easier it is for them to find it), the more likely they will come back to you.

Real estate sites are horrible at this. We've been looking for a bit now, and are generally annoyed at the lack of information (pictures, etc.) given on realtors' Web sites.

From their viewpoint, they want you to give them a call to find out more. But as a user, you want to gather as much information as possible before making that call. It's frustrasting when you can't.

The next time you think about re-organizing your site or restricting the amount of information you present, remember: you are not your users.

Web Publishing Isn't Just For Experts, And It Shouldn't Be

Posted by junger - 04/03/08 at 11:04:40 am

One of the problems I have when coming up with topics for this blog and for the Online Savings Blog is choosing subjects to speak authoritatively about.

It's not that I can't or that I won't — it's just that I don't get that much enjoyment from it.

When I'm blogging, I'd rather share my experiences and stories living life than try and provide "useful" and informative content. It's a lot more fun to just shoot the breeze and post funny links and insights.

Every day, I read a number of amazing blogs like Copyblogger, Penelope Trunk and Get Rich Slowly, who are there to provide compelling and timely content. This is what I do every day at CE Pro — but it's not what I want to do when I write here.

Bloggers have been getting a bad rap lately, but a lot of that has to do with the different expectations and meanings that term has to people. Engadget might be a blog, but they are much better tech journalists than anyone in the mainstream media. Top it off with a strict policies regarding relationships with who they're covering and they've got a much cleaner rap sheet than many "professional" journalists.

But because anyone can start a blog, "bloggers" all get lumped together — the ones redefining journalism and the ones simply telling you about their day. But does that mean you should only start a blog if you really have something useful and informative to say? Of course not.

When you come to CE Pro, you get the informative content and breaking news. On this site, I get to talk about whatever the hell I want.

So what's the take away from this? You always have something to say — and you can speak authoritatively about it: you. As Gary Vaynerchuk recently laid out, you have to look inside yourself to find happiness.

I don't pretend to bring you compelling content with every blog post on this site — I only post things that I find interesting and want to share. That's our agreement.

Thanks for being a part of it.