Brandon Kraft has a knack for using simple metaphors to explain complex ideas. Here are some cliff notes from his awesome talk here at #wcatx.
Before you install WordPress or write a single line of copy ask yourself the following:
Who are you?
Who’s your audience?
What’s the call to action?
Do you want them to subscribe or are you selling tickets to an event. Set your goal. It might be multiple things, but you need to know ahead of the game to make it a part of your plan.
Think of your site as an employee. Go ahead and ask him “What do you do here?”
If the site has no purpose, if you can’t find the answer, you need to make a change.
Homepage
While still important, don’t forget that people are rarely hitting homepage’s. Instead readers tend to land on secondary pages, coming in from social, be sure to spend as much time designing and planning to also make them awesome.
Design
Don’t let the WordPress theme dictate the functionality of your site. Instead figure out what you need on your site and then search for the theme that meets your needs.
Here are some resources Kraft recommends to help you find the right one:
Navigation
Give people decisions not choices, keep it to few options in your menu. If there are a thousand tabs, they will click none of them. If you must add more links, use the footer to avoid confusing your visitors.
Categories and Tags
According to Kraft, tags are not outdated. Making it easier for the reader to find posts that are similar to the one they liked is a good thing.
Rule of Thumb for Categories: 5 categories is about right for the typical blog.
Think of categories as an elevator pitch, too many categories would make for a bad, unfocused pitch. So stick to the ones that are really on topic.
(This elevator pitch metaphor is another example of Kraft’s ability to find creative ways to simplify his points)
Rule of Thumb for Tags: Use as many to cover what you’re talking about but not more.
I really enjoyed this session. Brandon was is very knowledgeable in WordPress and also owns a Twitter handle that I am sure Kraft Foods would love to have.
You can find Brandon Kraft on twitter @kraft or at his site
Guest post by Miguel Fernández
@fernandezcw
http://fernandezcw.wordpress.com/
https://www.rebelmouse.com/fernandezcw/Word_Camp_Austin/