Once you have your website setup with WordPress you will no doubt want to start adding content. Now you could go through and worry about a theme, plugins, etc, but if you are like me at all you want to test some of the functionality of the new site – even with the default theme. My first suggestion is adding an “About Us” or “About Me” page. This is usually one of the easiest pages to create on your website because you get a chance to talk about something you know, you and your business. An About page is also good because when someone comes to your website they want to know who you are and why they should trust you before they want to either listen to you or buy from you. An about page is a great way to accomplish answering this question.
Now I guess before I get too far you may be asking “What is a ‘Page’?” On a website you can create multiple pages of content that your visitors can go to and read information. On this website I have an About page, a Contact page, some quick start guide pages for domains, hosting, and installing WordPress, and my Resources page (as well as some others). WordPress also includes the ability to create a “Post”. You are currently reading a post on my website. This is like a page but the content is part of the blog. Here is a quick definition from WordPress themselves:
“In WordPress, you can write either posts or pages. When you’re writing a regular blog entry, you write a post. Posts automatically appear in reverse chronological order on your blog’s home page. Pages, on the other hand, are for content such as “About Me,” “Contact Me,” etc. Pages live outside of the normal blog chronology, and are often used to present information about yourself or your site that is somehow timeless — information that is always applicable. You can use Pages to organize and manage any amount of content.”
As a business website you may or may not have a blog. If that is the case you may always only deal with creating pages and you can ignore posts. A good use of posts if you aren’t doing a blog might be fore things like events or news items you want to make your visitors aware of. Since our “About” page is static content we always want available in the menu of the site we want to create it as a “Page” and not a “Post”.
I will be adding some videos to the premium membership area of the website but I thought I’d give you a sneak peak at how they look and give you a chance to watch how you can create a new page in your WordPress website. Check it out and then I’ll walk you through creating your own about page.
- To get started pick the title of the page (About, About Me, About Us…)
- Now click in the main text area to type your content. The first time through I suggest you just start typing – don’t filter, just let it flow. Talk about your business and why you started it. Talk about your vision for the future and how you feel you can benefit others with your products or services. Help the reader understand why you do what you do day in and day out.
- Once you are finished that go back and read the page content again. Does it make sense? Do you need to change the flow around a bit to make it more readable?
- Preview the page by pressing the “preview” button on the right. Does the page look ok in the current theme? How do you feel?
- Now either save it as a draft (or if you are like my publish it so you can view it live on the blog).
- In a couple of hours come back and read the page again. Make sure it sounds good and still makes sense. Have others read it too and offer feedback. It will probably be one of your most read pages on your website so it should be good.
Congratulations! You now have real content of your very own on your new business’s website. And look, you did it all by yourself!
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