Category Archives: WordPress

Domains, Features, SiteBuilder, WebSites, WordPress

SiteBuilder vs. WordPress: Choose Your Service

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GDI offers you two tools to help you easily build a WebSite at your .ws domain: SiteBuilder and WordPress. How do you know which one is right for you?

If you want to take out the guess work: SiteBuilder

SiteBuilder provides customized, professionally designed templates. You can choose form template groupings and then individual templates. These are set up with the color scheme and layout already chosen for you. All you need to do is add your own content in the form of text, photos, videos and more.

If you want endless themes and plugins: WordPress

While GDI provides professionally designed templates, anyone can design a WordPress template. This means there’s a countless number of themes available online for your download. If you’ve got a specific idea in mind, chances are you can find a theme created by someone else to fit it. This does require you to search outside of WordPress and some themes do cost money, though there are plenty of free ones as well.

If you just want to blog: Both

WordPress is designed for blogging. You can create almost any type of website with you want WordPress blog, but blogging is at its core. If you prefer SiteBuilder’s easy drag and drop structure and templates, don’t worry, SiteBuilder offers a blog plugin you can easily activate. Learn more about SiteBuilder’s blog option here.

If you want to share video: Both

Adding video is easy with both SiteBuilder and WordPress. It’s as simple as copying the embed code from the YouTube video you like and pasting it into the HTML or text option of the post editor. Click here for a step by step video on adding video to SiteBuilder.

Advice, How To, Marketing, WebSites, WordPress

Encourage Engagement with Blog Posts

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Blogs are a powerful way to connect with your audience, share your story, and build a brand. That’s why GDI offers a WordPress plugin as well as a blog plugin for our SiteBuilder service. Once you’re set up with the plugin of your choice, it’s time to think about how you want to blog. Here a three ways to create content that encourages engagement from your visitors.

Don’t Repeat Yourself

Think of the message you want your blog posts to convey before you write them. If you’re writing posts to encourage people to join GDI, think of new ways to write this call to action. Simple repeating posts that tell people to “sign up today!” defeats the purpose of a blog; blogs are a vehicle for fresh content. Create a new way to frame your messages with each post to keep visitors interested.

Connect to the News around You

One way to avoid repeating yourself is to follow the news. You can set up Google alerts for news related to your blog topic. Use these news stories to connect your blog posts and keep them relevant. This is also great for SEO as topics in the news are sure to be hot search topics for some time.

Switch Up Content

This tip helps your blog visitors as well as you. Switch up the type of content you’re sharing on your blog. This means taking advantage of all you can share from videos, to lists posts, to articles and blogs you like (attributed, of course). This will keep visitors engaged and will help you to avoid blog writers block!

What advice for blogging do you always try to follow? Do you use WordPress or our SiteBuilder blog?