WpInsider Meetup - Oct 29, 2014 - How to create a stunning, mobile friendly, business website with the Divi theme

1. @MichelleCasti

2. A little bit about Michelle
Tecnomatix Tecnologies
Now part of Siemens PLM
(Product lifecycle management)
Robotics and Automation Planning solution
to develop robotic and automated
manufacturing systems. The software
addresses multiple levels of robot simulation
and workcell development, from single robots
and stations to complete lines and zones.

3. An a bit more ...
Japan 3.5 years – projects for
Toyota, Mazda, Nissan
France/Europe 2 years – BMW, VW, Renault
Detroit/USA 4 years – Ford , GM, Dell, Freightliner
Vancouver – IT Project Manager in TELUS
Real Estate Investor - Built more then 10 websites for
my own businesses
Since the beginning of 2011: Castillo Media Group

4. About Castillo Media Group
Mission: To educate business owners about today’s
online marketing technology so that they can make
smart and educated decisions when going online.
We allow business owners to have as much control
on their website as they want:
Build you own website training
We build the website and the business owner maintains
it
Maintenance and support for WordPress websites

5. What is WordPress (Wikipedia)
WordPress is an open source Content Management
System (CMS), often used as a blog publishing
application, powered by PHP and MySQL.
It has many features including a plug-in architecture
and a template system.
WordPress was used by more than 22.0% of the top
10 million websites as of August 2013
WordPress is currently the most popular CMS in use
on the Internet - 60 Million installations

6. Why Wordpress
Very popular which means that:
Huge selection of off-the-shelf solutions. Wordpeess
functionality can be expanded or customized using
plugins, which are add-on software modules. There are
thousand of FREE plugin that can do anything you need.
Easy to outsource required changes
Does not vendor-lock you
Search Engine Friendly
You are in control ( If you want to be )

7. WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com
We are going to talk about the Self Hosted
WordPress, ( also referred to as WordPress.org ) With
WordPress.org, YOU host your own blog or website.
WordPress.org is where you’ll find the free WordPress
software that you can download and install on your
own web server.
WordPress.com, on the other hand, takes care of all
of the hosting for you. You don’t have to download
software, pay for hosting, or manage a web server but
there are several limitations

8. What can you do with WordPress
Blogs: http://www.themarthablog.com/
Video Blogs: tv.winelibrary.com/
Business websites: clientattraction.com
Online Magazines: www.vancouverlatino.com/
Membership Sites: www.paleoplan.com/
Online store:
Government: JoinDelawareSchools.org
SalePages: wpinsider.org/introduction-to-wordpress-webinar/

9. Setting Up your First WordPress website
Acquire
Domain
Name
Sign up for
Hosting
Point
Domain to
Server
Install
WordPress
Install
Theme
Basic
settings
Add
Content:
Post,
Pages,
Pics,
Videos
Add
Plugins
Add
Widgets

10. Acquiring a domain
There are several provider – The most
popular is GoDaddy
Picking a good domain name
If possible Use keywords that you
target market uses
Is it easy to say?
Is it easy to remember?

11. WordPress Hosting
Minimum requirements to run a wordpress website are:
PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
MySQL version 5.0 or greater
Our additional recommendations:-
Apache mod_rwerite ( Linux hosting recommended )
cPanel support – cPanel is a web hosting control panel that provides a
graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the
process of hosting a web site.
Server Location – If your business serves a community in a specific
geographic location, it is recommended that you use a hosting service
that has servers in your target location. This will help improve your
SEO ranking in your area.
Disk space and bandwidth limitation –We recommend you choose
a hosting plan that is unlimited. These plans are so common and
affordable, there is no reason you will pick any other option.

12. Hosting Cont.
BlueHost A US Based hosting provider that offers an excellent web
hosting service. Simple signup process. $5.95/month = $71.4/year
Site5 – My favorite. Great customer support. .
$5.95/month = $71.4/year . They have servers in various cities around
the world which allows local hosting. Additional cost of $1~$2/month
WpEngine – Fully Managed WordPress hosting - $290/year
Not recommend : GoDaddy hosting

13. Point the domain at your hosting
Set up name servers –
The actual values are
provided by the hosting
company
The information should
be entered into the
domain registrant
database.

14. cPanel – Provided by the hosting
company
Manage email accounts
Configure domains
Install and uninstall
WordPress
Manage files in a user
friendly environment

15. Configure Domain In cPanel
Your main domain is automatically defines
If you add more domain to your hosting account,
use AddOn domain
Sub domains allow you to define domains such as
members.wordpressinsider.org

16. Installing WordPress
Different cPanels may use different
software but the idea is the same
Use a unique administrator user
name NOT admin

17. WordPress dashboard
Login through <site-url>/wp-admin

18. Publishing content
In WordPress, you can write either posts or pages.
Posts are typically regular blog entries, 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.

19. About Categories & Tags
Each post must have at least one category
Tags are similar to categories, but they are generally
used to describe your post in more detail. Using tags is
optional

20. Plugins Overview
Plugins are software
add-ons that can
enhance and
modify the default
behaviour of
Wordpress.
Plugin are installed
from with the
WordPress
Dashboard
Example - AddThis

21. What you can do with plugins
Easily integrate with email marketing system such as
MailChimp
Convert your website to a membership site
Speed up your site
Event calendars
Add contact form
Implement eCommerce functionality
Social Media sharing buttons

22. Widgets
Widget is a fancy word for tools or content that you
can add, arrange, and remove from the sidebar(s) or
any other “widgetized area” of your WordPress
website.
Widgets make it easy to customize the content of your
sidebar(s).
In may WordPress themes Widgets are used to
customize the home page

23. Themes
There are hundreds of free themes you can choose
from
Premium themes cost anywhere between $39~$300
Premium theme providers:
Elegant themes – $39 per 1 year access for 50+ themes
WooThemes – From $70/3 themes and up
DirectoryPress - $79
StudioPress - $99.5 for one theme/$400 for the entire
collection

24. Planning your website
Understanding your potential clients
How they find you website
What are they looking for?
What problems do they want solved?
What pain are they seeking a salve for?
What dreams would they love you to fulfill
for them?
What language are they using?

25. Content is king: Write better copy
Creating fresh, engaging content helps build a
loyal following and attract links.
Good content creates natural links
Good content bring repeat visits
Good content likely to cover long tail keywords
that your market is looking for
The secret for writing great website copy is
simple: use keyword, the words people use when
they search, within your website copy

26. What is the action you would like
the site visitors to take?
Call
Fill in a contact form
Opt in to my list
Buy my product
Like my content and recommend to
others via social media

27. Visual Aspects of your website
Images
Typical image is less the 500 pixel wide and less then 100KB
in size
Colors - Need to be in a harmony
( Read more - Useful Tools to Help Choosing your Website’s Color Scheme )
Paletton.com – generates color schemes using base color
Pictaculous - generates a color scheme for you based on
five primary colors from a photo that you upload to the
program.
Contrast Ratio - Contrast between background and text

28. About Divi
Pros
Modern looking
Mobile friendly
Easy to create various page layouts - Comes with pre made
templates
Very well documented -
http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/readme.html
Cons
Hard to move to another them
Small space for logo
Cost $69/year or $249 for lifetime. Gives you access to all
elegant themes’ themes

29. Install new premium theme
1. Go to Appearance /Themes
2. Click on “Add New:
1. Click on “Upload theme
2. Upload the file and activate the them

30. Building Pages with Divi
Pages can use the default WP editor or the Divi page
builder
The 3 main level of the page builder are:
Section
Column
Module
There are predefined layout you can use to create a
new page
To create a sales page you can use the “Blank” page
template

31. Page Settings
Setting/Permalinks –
The permanent URL to your
Individual posts
It is recommended to use custom
structure :
/%category%/%postname%
Setting/Reading/Front Page displays
Here you define which page is your home Page

32. 3 places to customize theme
Appearance->Divi Theme Options
Appearance-> Customize
Theme settings
Colors
Schemes
Custom CSS ( Use child theme )

33. Basic theme settings
Logo
Favicon

34. Questions ????

35. Connect With Me:
Email: Michelle@CastilloMediaGroup.com
LinkedIn
Twitter: @MichelleCasti
Facebook/WordPressInsider
Website: WPInsider.org