WordPress began as a blogging platform, so it’s no wonder that the popular content management system has had trouble shedding the “blogging only” reputation. I get asked all the time,
Can I use WordPress for my business website?”
Yes absolutely! And in fact, it’s not just a yes that can work….it’s actually the top preferred website creator on the Internet today. Did you know that CNN uses WordPress? So does Harvard, Cornell, Best Buy, TechCrunch, and a ton of other sites you consider “websites” and not blogs.
To start…do you know the difference between a website and a blog? There used to be a clear distinction between the two: Blogs were chronologically ordered content, updated daily, and more informal in style. Websites were a set number of static pages that didn’t update frequently and represented a business entity, service, product, etc.
With the rise of content marketing, most businesses have realized that blogging is a great way to bring more traffic to a website rather than simply having a few pages of unchanging content. Blogging climbed in popularity and many websites added a “blog” to their website setup. However, two separate sites aren’t ideal for search engine optimization (not to mention upkeep).
Thus, the merging of a website and blog.
So how do you use WordPress
as a website and not a blog?
Change the Reading Settings
Change the reading setting so that WordPress homepage displays a static page rather than a list of latest posts. Then you can style it with a slider, images, text, etc. so it doesn’t change even when you add new content.
- You’ll have to create two pages – one called HOME and one called BLOG. Go to Pages > Add New and create both of them.
- Then go to Settings > Reading and change the option so it says a static page and make the homepage the HOME page you created, and the blog page BLOG.
I know what you’re thinking…”What if I don’t want a blog at all and just a website?” Don’t worry about it. No one will be able to see your BLOG page unless you link to it on your main page through your menu bar or a text link. The above directions apply whether you want a blog area or not. If you do plan to use the blog area, you’ll need to link it to it on your menu bar.
Remove the sidebar on the main homepage
Sidebars have a “bloggy” reputation, though they are still useful for websites. Find a theme that allows you to remove and/or add the sidebar on various pages. Genesis is a classic theme that gives you control over your website on a per page basis by simply choosing the layout you’d prefer when you are creating the page.
Take advantage of the blogging area but disguise it
If you remove the date from the style of your blog, the content starts to look static rather than time-sensitive. You can also hide the author name, the category and the tags. All of these features will make your content look like a page rather than a post. If you’re using Genesis, the Genesis Simple Edits plugin will allow you to hide all of that.
Otherwise, some simple CSS can hide most post info. I show you how to do it in the YouTube tutorial below.
This way, you can still use the categories feature of posts so you can create a navigation system that is helpful to your audience.
Turn off comments
WordPress allows readers to comment on both pages and posts – something that is very “bloggy”. Simply turn them off globally if your theme allows it, or you can turn them off in batches this way:
- Click on PAGES > ALL PAGES
- Check the box to select all pages.
- Then choose bulk edit and hit apply.
- You can change the comment settings to “do not allow”.
- You can also edit the comment setting of each page/post in the edit screen. If you don’t see the option, you need to turn it on in the screen options first (it’s the tab in the top right).
Other than those elements, most blogs and websites are virtually identical.
Every website or blog should have…
- A primary navigation menu with most static pages linked from that location.
- A prominent search bar.
- Sharing buttons for your viewers.
- A place to capture email addresses to build a list.
- A recognizable logo or header.
- An about and contact page.
- A mobile responsive theme that looks nice on all devices.
- Regularly updated content.
Why it’s not a great idea to have two separate domains for your website and blog
Three letters…SEO – search engine optimization.
If you are a small businessperson, you’ll want every piece of text, imagery, and content to boost your ranking in Google search results. Keeping all your content on one URL is the best way to get the most bang for your buck. Otherwise, you’re spinning your wheels trying to build the authority of two domains rather than one.
How to convert and merge your website and blog
If your website is not yet on WordPress, you’ll want to get it on WordPress first. Make sure you put it on self-hosted WordPress and not WordPress.com. I wrote an article about the differences here. If you’re unsure about how to setup WordPress, contact me. Otherwise, you can follow this blog post:
>> Create a Mobile Responsive Website <<
Don’t let any fancy schmancy designer convince you that you need a custom made content management system, Adobe Flash, HTML, Wix, Weebly, or Joomla. WordPress is the best platform for your website!
Glen says
Nice Post. I had a clunky website which I didn’t need to draw too much traffic since I am so busy building custom applications.
But when my wife started the push to move from BlogSpot to WordPress self-hosted, I used here template and changed my site to a much more up-to-date site.
The one part about keeping blog options available is in a business you can create new pages posting trends or special projects to promote the business. And do it very easily and include demo videos for projects which make it easier for clients to preview.
I underwent the process of preparing the move from Blogger to WP.org and since I am a programmer I quickly found the export from Blogger was not as easy to work with and my dear also had been dabbling with a test WordPress.com blog. So we then exported from WordPress.com and WordPress.org(self) was able to import except we didn’t get the images.
So I loaded the xml into MS-Excel and created an html list of images and found I could simply pull them from WordPress.com.
Then being a bit handy with SQL, I did a simple SQL script to change https and https oursite.files.wordpress.com to test.oursite.com set post_content = replace(post_content,oldsite,newsite) and set guid = replace(guid,oldsite,newsite).
Then using the Excel file I also used formulas to identify the permalinks from the Blogger download xml and the wp xml and built SQL script to change the permalink to match blogger…….
These are some cool tricks that made it possible. I should actually have done a post on my site and might just do this in more detail…
2 topics here, business use of a wp blog theme and moving from Blogger to WP…. We will now have control over our database, ftp to our site to backup and great access..
ps. I also created a local site on my development workstation with MySQL access to really get to know the wp database…
Thanks for the other post on transitioning….