WordPress is a surprisingly great tool for videographers.

Blog popularity is due in large part to blogs’ simplicity. Hosting companies have made setting up a website uncommonly easy. Everyone - no matter what level of technical proficiency - is capable of setting up a blog site. Yep -even me.

I’ve found WordPress to be not only a user-friendly blogging tool, I also believe that when used correctly, it has the potential to be the perfect tool to use to generate an above-average level of traffic to your website. And that can translate directly into more dollars in your pocket!

Here’s why I like WordPress. First, the relative advantages are many; you don’t have to know how to design or program a site, you can automatically import images and video, you can easily customize your site, and yes, if you want, you can blog. Oh -and blog sites are indexed almost instantly by the major search engines. No more waiting for months for Yahoo or Google to recognize your site. It’s just not blogging software, either. WordPress is a content management tool that allows anyone to create a great-looking website.

Secondly - For those of you who are running blogs right now, you are on the leading edge. Web 2.0 is here, simply meaning that smart communicators are encouraging two-way dialogues. It’s no longer enough to build a site that talks to visitors without allowing feedback. Nowadays, people are looking for real people behind the pixels…people who will listen and respond to them.

Finally - Your customers are starting to ask about web videos. You have got to get with the technology to do this, as well as get behind the marketing strategies to sell them what they want. Thankfully, the technology is relatively easy…and if you’ve got some streaming software program and a working knowledge of WordPress in your toolbox, you can not only produce video clips for the web, you can hand your client a brand new, WordPress-based website featuring those clips. Better yet, you can do it in less than an hour, if you have to and, you can almost guarantee it’ll be in the major search engines in a matter of hours - if not sooner.

If you’re looking for more information on WordPress and how to use it effectively, I’ve added 20 video courses on the subject to the Members-Only section of the Video Business Advisor. The newest flight is “Advanced WordPress Training,” a 10-lesson series that covers most of the different aspects of WordPress that usually get answered with lots of technical jargon. None of that ’round here.

Each lesson runs approximately 10 minutes and covers the stuff you need to know, such as changing header graphics, CSS style sheets, using your blog as a Content Management System, desktop blogging, RSS uses and stats, and a few more -like how to customize your 404 pages for fun and profit.

Like the other dozens of helpful videos and hundreds of resources designed to help wring maximum profitability out of a video production business, they’re accessible to VBA members 24/7. There’s membership info here, if you’re interested. Check it out. Get a step (or two) ahead of the competition.

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