Choosing a Theme
Welcome to part 2 in our series. If you missed part 1 you can find it here.
Choosing a theme is important because we want to provide our vistors with a website that is easy to use and pleasing to the eyes. A good way to get started in choosing a theme is to check out what your competition is doing. You should know who your competitors are, and if you don’t, now is a good time to get started.
We’ll pretend that we’re a Lexington plumber again. If I know some of my competitors I’ll search for them by name. Another great way to do it is by searching Google. Here is one of the results we found.
http://www.lileplumbing.com/
Here is a screen shot – you can click to enlarge it.
Example of your competition
And our thoughts about the site –
Some good things about the site –
Clean / Fast loading, easy to navigate.
1. Phone number – could be larger, and in more than one place.
2. Online scheduling – excellent idea.
3. Nice video – needs more contact information
4. Nice mascot
5. Testimonials, very important.
6. Guarantee
7. BBB accredited http://www.bbb.org/ – been doing good for the community.
8. Who are they.
I like the more about us page.
Problems with the site.
1. I mentioned the phone number.
2. Nowhere does it mention their fees.
3. Need more pages – we’ll talk more about this later but the more pages you have (generally) the easier it is to rank.
4. No social media – something that you need.
Start a spreadsheet on your competition. Check out 10 or 12 different sites within your industry. Do you notice a theme going on. I know you’ll notice some things that could be improved on. Find out what the competition is charging.
A good example for plumbers in the Lexington area is this site – http://www.dauenhauerplumbing.com/ which by the way is made by wordpress.
Now that you have a good idea of how your competitors built their local business website,
it’s time to start looking for yours.
Check out the video below –
1. Log into WordPress.
2. Find the theme you like.
Some places to look –
Places to look –
Template Monster
https://wordpress.org/themes/
My Theme Shop
Theme Forest
3. When you’ve found a theme you like, buy it, and download it to a place you can find it again.
4. Highlight Appearance on your left nav bar – then click themes.
5. Read the instructions for your specific them on how to install it. If there are no instructions…normally you would click “Add New”.
6. Click “Upload Theme”
7. Click “Browse” – find your theme where you download it.
8. Click “Install Now.”
9. Then Activate the Theme.
The cool thing I like about WordPress is if you don’t like the theme, you can always revert back to the one that you had previously.
Important – you need to make sure how you post is correct.
Left Nav bar highlight settings then click on permalinks.
Click Custom structure and make sure this is in the box /%postname%
This allows our posts to be www.mysite.com/postname, trust me it will help you with SEO things as we move forward.
