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  • Social Media Strategy: Its Important Role in Site Building

    social-media-strategy-its-important-role-in-site-building

    A few decades ago, scientists and professionals kept racking their brains out trying to find a better alternative to snail-mail. We had beepers for a while, as well as those too-large cellphones we couldn’t keep in our pockets. But while nostalgic at best, technology from the past is most definitely no match to the communication methods of the 21st century. Now, in the year 2016, our friends, family, and colleagues, can be contacted in a little more than a second. As the cliche goes: “Everything’s literally at the touch of our fingertips”. Literally.

    Slowly veering away from tradition?

    It’s hard to deny just how much traditional routines we’ve had to give up due to the fast-paced innovations of today. It’s taken us a bit of getting used to (especially for the older generations), but truth be told, this isn’t exactly a bad thing. In fact, it’s the opposite.

    For example, in 1993, the amount of time and effort it would take a baker to inquire about a new oven model would usually take weeks, if not months. Now, the same task can be achieved in 2016 by simply browsing the oven manufacturer’s website. Additionally, if the same oven company announces they’re going to have a sale the following weekend, and the baker wants to tell their friends about it, all they’d need to do is post about it on Facebook, Twitter, or other popular social media websites. In this day and age, we’ve all succumbed to this routine at some point in our lives, so we’re pretty confident that you’re familiar with the process.

    Case in point, social media is a great way to get word out in the open about almost anything. Its influence today is incredibly powerful, and because of this, your presence online can be a key factor to the success of your site-building journey, as well as its maintenance. In fact, magazines regularly sold in newsstands— like Time and The Economist– have their content available both through physical copies and online ones, which ensured reaching an even broader audience. Likewise, if an influential person coming across your site, and find that they love your content (or at least find it relevant enough to share), they’ll most likely be spreading your content through other social media outlets as well.

    Keep in mind though, that it doesn’t exactly need to take a person of influence to spread word about your site; merely sharing your stuff by yourself (or with the help of a few others) via social media can open a lot of doors for you too, whoever your target audience may be. In fact, an article from BrandWatch.com cites that 2.3 billion people (out of the world’s total population of 3.17 billion) are present in social media.

    That’s a lot of people. Rest assured, your target audience is going to be in that demographic.

    Extending Social Media’s Functionality

    Apart from getting your content out in the open, social media’s relevance also extends to staying up-to-date with the latest trends in any audience or market. This will hold especially true when gauging what your audience’s wants and needs are, and will extend further into how you can reach and cater to them better; remember, reaching out is always and important factor to your site’s success.

    While you may not magically gain 15,000 followers on the first month or even in the first years of your site, having an online presence active on social media accounts will surely give you a significant boost in the long run, one way or annother. Remember: Rome wasn’t built in a day, so stay determined!

    Possibly more

    A premium video on Treehouse.com cites that compared to e-mail and traditional promo events, social media is twice as effective than any other means of reaching out to the audience. Indeed, social media remains a powerful tool that can make a huge difference in your audience reach. What’s groundbreaking with social media is that of most of the time, it’s free (and thank God for that). So use it to your advantage!

    Happy Site-Building!

  • A Tour of Page Builder Sandwich Version 3

    a-tour-of-page-builder-sandwich-version-3

    We’ve changed a lot things in Page Builder Sandwich version 3. If you’ve been using Page Builder Sandwich for quite some time, you’ll notice that the changes are quite drastic. There is a big difference between the version 1, version 2, and the current version. In the previous versions, everything was located in the inspector on the side. We’ve since gone through and split its components into different, more logical partitions. We have listed reasons for this upgrade in the previous blog post.

    Current users may find the changes cumbersome at first. Give it a few minutes of trials, and we trust that you’ll feel right at home. We’ve carefully designed each aspect of the interface for your second nature in word processors to function in website building.

    Watch The Tour of The New Interface

  • Shortcode Mapper Plugin Feature: The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe

    shortcode-mapper-plugin-feature-the-events-calendar-by-modern-tribePlugins of the same category, but with respective features, are developed and enhanced every day. This gave birth to the variety of WordPress-powered websites – and later on, websites catering to several functions. For instance, there is a number of plugins which enables a developer and/or user to create, schedule, invite an interested person to an event.

    The Events Calendar is the events calendar you’ll need

    There are a lot of available events calendar in the WordPress market. So how do you choose? There are recommendation blogs, plugin face-off blogs, and of course testimonials from different users. All of these have one thing in common: they include The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe in their list.

    screenshot-2016-10-05-20-00-09
    An example of a minimal event post of The Events Calendar

    What’s with The Events Calendar, anyway?

    The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe is the frontline plugin in the said category. It provides professional quality of event posts. It has a pretty simple interface, with the title at the top, date and time, the price if applicable, a featured image and or map, and additional details about the event. You can view all your events by date, keyword, and location if Pro.

    You can do much more with The Events Calendars Pro and its official add-ons:

    The Events Calendar PRO

    • Recurring events
    • Week view
    • Photo view
    • Location search
    • Map view
    • Venue and organizer view
    • Advanced widgets
    • Additional fields

    The Events Calendar ADD-ONs

    • RSVP tickets
    • Event ticket plus via WooCommerce, Shopp, WPeCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads)
    • Community Events
    • Community Tickets
    • Filter Bar
    • Facebook Events
    • iCal Importer
    • Eventbrite Tickets

    Integrating it with Page Builder Sandwich makes it even cooler

    screenshot-2016-10-04-17-46-04Recent posts were made to highlight the benefits of using PBS and its Shortcode Mapper. This is to make sure that you guys are taking advantage of the latest innovation that the Sandwich Team can develop plus notify the plugin developers that their creation gave birth to another awesome feature.

    For the case of The Events Calendar plugin, we came up with 2 mind blowing reasons as to why the combination needs to exist:

    1.      Reviewed by WordPress plugin royalties

    The Modern Tribe assured their customers that the product and service they offered was of quality. Creator of Easy Digital Downloads, Pippin Williamson gave his inputs about The Events Calendar. Alongside him was Mark Jaquith, one of the leading WordPress developers, who made sure that the plugin was secure.

    Page Builder Sandwich was also reviewed recently by Pippin, together with the other established and rising page builders in the market. In his in-depth critique, he concluded that indeed, PBS is one of the most powerful drag-and-drop page builders. He highlighted that only  Page Builder Sandwich was able to create a functioning Shortcode Mapper.

    2.      Shortcode options: from backend to frontend editing

    By default, the plugin’s shortcode options can be accessed through the backend admin panel. Then, the same process of backend plugins takes place: go to the backend editor, input the wanted changes and then save. Only when the refresh button is clicked would the edited content be seen. All-in-all, that’s 4 steps.

    But that long procedure has been turned into a real time frontend editing by Page Builder Sandwich – in just 2 steps:

    1. Instead of going to the backend panel to access the shortcode options, click on the Shortcode Mapper and select on The Events Calendar. You’d be redirected to a pop-up window as seen below. Click on The Events Calendar.
      screenshot-2016-10-04-17-43-37
      View of The Events Calendar in the Page Builder Sandwich Shortcode Mapper
    2. screenshot-2016-10-05-19-57-11
      Close look at The Events Calendar Shortcode Properties
      The Inspector on the left displays the initial properties of the shortcode. Clicking on the “Open Editor” button, the shortcode controls displayed at the backend can now be accessed on the frontend via a pop-up window.
    screenshot-2016-10-06-13-25-04
    See? The Events Calendar looks like you’re just making an event post.

    screenshot-2016-10-06-14-37-52

    There are a lot of benefits, right?

    With the integration of a page builder that doesn’t lock you in and leaves shortcode mess, and the most popular events calendar, your workflow would not only smoothen but also increase in productivity. Additionally, you can look into what Modern Tribe offers: the bundle of plugins that go with The Events Calendar.

    So far, The Events Calendar plugin by Modern Tribe was the only one mapped in our Shortcode Mapper. This doesn’t mean however that the mapping stops there. Just comment what plugin of Modern Tribe that you would like to see in our Shortcode Mapper.

  • Pages and Plugins: Maximizing Your WordPress Experience

    pages-and-plugins-maximizing-your-wordpress-experience

    Some of WordPress’ features (especially the more complex ones) may take newer users some time to be familiar with. And if you are one of these newer users, WordPress’ intricate jargon might have the tendency to send you towards a spiral of intimidation, especially when getting that near-inevitable feel of information overload. Yikes.

    Now, if you’re a part of this particular percentage of WordPress users, we implore you not to fret; the good news is that it is but a misconception that being a WordPress noob automatically equates to a limited WordPress experience. This brand of thinking is a common error that almost anyone makes, and we urge you not to make that very same mistake.

    The truth is, you needn’t have that much of an in-depth grasp of the inner workings of software and code in order to begin building a site– or to get one to work in your desired way, for the matter. “How is that possible?” you might ask? Well, one of the ways this can be achieved is in the form of creating pages on your site, and adding in plugins.

    WordPress is both complex and convenient, and through a bunch of our articles for beginners, we’ve pretty much gotten that covered. Previously, we’ve also discussed how plugins contribute to WordPress’ customizability and flexibility, and how they allow its users to make the best out of their WordPress experience. And while familiarizing yourself with the importance of plugins is pivotal to your site-building journey, the basic elements of WordPress–such as the existence of pages, can get you off to a pretty good start as well.

    20160824_Una_PBS_Article_2

    Pages VS Posts Defined

    In the realm of WordPress, the term “page” is almost always associated with the term “post” –as in “pages and posts”– and there are times when people mistake them for interchangeable terms. Arguably, it’s easy to get confused between the two (especially if you’re still wading around the shallow end of the WordPress Beginner pool). So with that in mind, take note that while these things may seem trivial, it’s always a good idea to familiarize yourself around WordPress’ little things, especially if you’re just starting out.

    An easy identifier for differentiating between posts and pages is that posts are the individual entries you create on your site (this article you’re reading right now, for instance, is a post). These entries aren’t exactly a necessity for websites, unless yours has an active blog like ours. However, what may be a crucial element of your site are setting up pages, which is what this article will be a bit more centered on.

    Pages are Building Blocks

    Unless you’ve never touched a computer before (which we assume is unlikely), chances are, you’ve already seen or heard of website pages before, or at least have a fair idea of what they might be. If you are unfamiliar, don’t worry; it’s also likely that you’ve already stumbled upon pages on your visits to other websites: FAQ and/or About sections, contact forms, and picture galleries. For beginners and freshly-built websites, they can be akin to building blocks, in a sense. If put together, they make up the essentials of what your site’s all about, and what it has to offer.

    So it’s all well and good to be wary of these basic differences, yes. But combined with your basic plugin know-how, you’re actually in a perfect position to take advantage of your newfound knowledge on WordPress pages, even if you are a beginner. The question now though, is how.

    20160824_Una_PBS_Article_1

    Taking Advantage: Basic Plugins You Can Install

    On a basic WordPress site, creating pages is easy, sure. You’d just have to work your way through it, read a few instructions, click a few buttons and you’re good to go. If you want anything more than that, though, you’re going to have to install a couple of plugins.

    1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plugins

    Getting your site out there in the open is hard enough, and the task of spreading word about your site is much harder. Believe me. That’s why a little help from SEO plugins are crucial for your site to get that boost in ranking.

    Here at Sandwich, we use Yoast, which is often dubbed as today’s leading SEO plugin in the market. There are a bunch of other SEO’s to choose from though, and there are numerous sites, such as SitePoint, that compare and contrast the different SEO plugins if you want to weigh in your options.

    1. Back-Up plugins

    Backing up is one of the most important precautions you have to take when you set up your site; you really can never be too careful. After all, it’s better to take a few minutes (or hours, depending on your experience) to set up a good back-up plugin, than spending an eternity setting up your site all over again if your data accidentally gets wiped clean.

    1. Security plugins

    It’s a cruel, cruel world out there, even in the realm of the interwebz. Bad guys will want to steal your data and even hack into your site, among other things. And so it’s always a good idea to install a security plugin along with your back-up for good measure. We use VaultPress for both back-up and security.

    1. Anti-Spam plugins

    No one wants spam, unless it’s the food. Delicious.

    Well, popular canned goods aside, there are plenty of ways unwanted spam can creep its way into your WordPress site. According to WPExplorer, while it’s possible to manually tweak WordPress to prevent spam, you can also opt for a quicker solution: installing an anti-spam plugin for your site.

    1. Cache

    Installing a caching plugin is a sure-fire way to speed up your site’s and server’s performance. We’ve been using WP Fastest Cache for some time now, but there are a lot of other high-rated, trusted cache plugins too – like W3 Total Cache – which you may also want to give a go.

    You can learn more about caching on the WordPress Codex site.

    FUN FACT: Cache is pronounced ˈkash not kashè

    Additional Plugins for Your Pages

    1. Contact Form Plugin

    As the site owner, you are responsible for answering your audience’s queries and responding to their suggestions. So at some point, after your site-building journey, they may want – or even need – to reach you; and this is what contact forms plugins are for. While it is possible to build a contact form for your site from scratch, we have to admit there are times when doing so wouldn’t be very practical, considering that it will definitely take some time for you to do so, especially if you’re a beginner.

    WPBeginner has a list of what they rate as the best contact form plugins in the market, while Site Point has a similar article of ones that are available for free.

    2. Social Media Plugin

    Unless you’re a website that people frequently flock to, it’s admittedly a bit challenging to get your site’s content (such as articles) going around. This is why there are times when the need for a social media plugin arises. Chances are, if your audience finds your content interesting enough, they might want to share it with their friends on social media outlets.

    3. Commenting Tools / Disqus

    Like we’ve mentioned, communicating with your audience is a must, especially if your site content revolves around feature articles. Getting to know your audience gives you a leverage too; you can use whatever feedback they have to better your site and/or your products.

    Disqus is a very popular commenting tool, and one of the most popular ones in the market. Kikolani also has a very handy article that might help you in deciding which commenting tool will work best for your site.

    There Are More Plugins Than You Think

    The list of plugins available for WordPress sites doesn’t stop with this article. These are but a few that we find very helpful; the realm of WordPress plugins definitely holds more than the eight we’ve enumerated above.

    That being said, we probably didn’t get to cover anything. So do you have a plugin in mind that you think should make the list? Tell us in the comments section below, and we might just take in your suggestions for one of our future articles!

    Happy Site-Building!

  • How to Create a Website from Scratch for Under $100

    How-to-Create-a-Website-from-Scratch-for-Under-$100

    If you want create a website from scratch, but you only have a short budget and absolutely zero technical knowhow, then this short guide is for you.

    This article is meant for absolute beginners who just really want to create a website without all the technicalities and complications. So if you’re a startup business owner who just wants a website for his office to show off to clients, or a foodie who wants to write your restaurant reviews online, or you’re a do-it-yourself guy or gal who just needs a site, then keep reading! I will stray away from as much technical jargon to keep things as simple as possible.

    Let’s enumerate what we’ll end up with when we’re done. By the end of the article, you would have:

    1. Your own website that people can visit at http://supermegaawesomewebsite.com,
    2. Optionally have your own email address at [email protected],
    3. A certain zen-like state of mind.

    What You Need

    Okay, so before we begin with the actual steps, we’ll need the following:

    1. An idea of what your website is going to be,
    2. A credit card or a Paypal account with $100 dollars credit, and
    3. A soda or a glass of water just in case you get thirsty, it’s always good to be hydrated.

    What Is a Website?

    Before we do anything, it’s important to know what we are actually creating first. Yes, we are creating your own website, but what is it really?

    In a nutshell, a website is a bunch of files in a special computer, and this special computer can be accessed by using a special web address on your web browser. After accessing the web server, it’s going to crunch those files together and in the end we would be able to see a pretty looking web page.

    Sorta techy terms:

    • bunch of files = web pages
    • special computer = web server
    • special web address = domain name or URL

    The bold words in the previous paragraph are the stuff that we need to get. Luckily for us, there is a place where we can get all of those all at once.

    Getting a Place in The Web

    I would recommend getting the GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress Hosting – Basic Plan. This plan gives us everything that we need to create our site right away with the least amount of hassle. The best part is that we don’t have to worry about the technical details of setting everything up.

    If you’re wondering what a “Managed WordPress Hosting” plan is, I’ll break it down:

    • Managed – GoDaddy will be the ones who’ll make sure that everything runs smoothly, updated, fast and without any problems. And if you need any help, you can ask their customer support.
    • WordPress – This the content management platform that will be used. It’s what you’ll use to publish your content online. It’s awesome. If you want to know more about WordPress, WP101 has a great intro video on What WordPress Is
    • Hosting – Everything will be placed in GoDaddy’s servers, so everything can be accessed quickly and with almost no down time.

    When getting the plan from GoDaddy, they also provide you with a domain name for free. This is awesome since now we don’t have to do anything aside from signing up in order to get the full package!

    As an added bonus, you can also get email addresses by getting their Basic Plan. The first year is free, so this is a no-brainer if you’re going to use email to converse with customers and other people.

    Check out this link below for more details on their plans (and no, they’re not paying me to recommend them):

    Check out GoDaddy’s Managed WordPress Hosting Plans

    Fill up all the details, find the domain name that you want (you don’t have to use supermegaawesomewebsite.com), then continue to check out and pay for it.

    I recommend that you sign up for at least one year so that you can avail of their discounts. You can also scour the web to check if there are any promos available.

    Web Server Cost: $12.18 – $59.88 for 1 year (the key here is to find a promo) Email Cost: $0 for 1 year Domain Name Cost: $0 for 1 year

    Total Cost so far: $12.18 – $59.88

    Congratulations, You Now Have A WordPress Website!

    After you’ve gotten your GoDaddy hosting, then your site should now be working fully. You can start browsing to your domain http://supermegaawesomewebsite.com and see your site.

    Initial impressions of your site is that it might look.. empty.. and it looks normal. Don’t worry, let’s fix that up!

    Accessing Your Website

    Since you’ve signed up with GoDaddy, they’ll give you a URL where you can access the administration side of your website. If you can’t find it, you can add a /wp-admin at the end of your URL. e.g. http://supermegaawesomewebsite.com/wp-admin and log in from there. Once logged in, you’ll end up in your WordPress Dashboard.

    GoDaddy has their own “Quick Setup” system to help beginners customize their site. I recommend going through this setup process if you aren’t familiar with how WordPress works.

    Learning WordPress

    Now it’s time to get familiar with WordPress. As I’ve mentioned earlier, WordPress is the platform you’re now using to publish your content. In other words: you log into your site, create pages and blog posts and literally hit the publish button.

    The next step now is to learn how to use WordPress. If you haven’t used WordPress before, the dashboard is a bit of an information overload if you’re seeing it for the first time. I recommend that you explore the different areas on your own pace.

    If you need guidance, there are a lot of tutorials on how to use WordPress online too. One of them is WP101. WP101 makes things super easy by providing lots of tutorials in video format, and they have a huge library of videos that will teach you all the ins and outs of WordPress.

    They have a few free videos in their site. For example, you can watch WP101’s video tutorial about the WordPress Dashboard.

    Check out WP101’s Video Tutorials

    Video Tutorials Cost: $15 per month (if you can obsess over all their videos within the first month, then you’re golden)

    Total Cost so far: $27.18 – $74.88

    Making Your Site Look Pretty

    The next step is to change the design of your site to make it match your personality and/or needs. You’ll need themes for that. In short, themes are like “skins” for your WordPress site.

    There are a ton of free and paid themes out there. If you want free themes, then there’s no doubt that the WordPress.org theme directory is your number one option.

    Since there are a lot out there though, it’s sometimes hard to find the perfect one for you. Theme Friendly’s Find Themes helps by providing reviews for themes and gives them a score based on their review. They have a number of themes in their site, and probably the best thing there is that you can click on filters while browsing themes, so you can view only themes fit for portfolios, businesses or blogs, and many more.

    There are also paid themes, but for starters I would recommend the free ones first. If you decide to take the premium route check out Premium WordPress’ list of theme shops.

    If you’re wondering why I didn’t mention ThemeForest, it’s because there are a lot of themes there that add a lot of bloat (unnecessary features) to your site. So if you really want to find a theme from there, tread carefully.

    Theme Cost: $0 – $70 one time (I’d recommend looking for promos in theme shops too)

    Total Cost so far: $27.18 – $144.88

    Adding More Functionality To Your Site

    As you create your site and continue to add content to it, you might find yourself wanting to add more stuff like contact forms, maybe some icons, or a Google Map, or something else. For these kinds of stuff, you’ll need plugins.

    As with themes, there are also a ton of free and paid options. And like themes, the number one choice for free plugins is the WordPress.org plugin directory. It’s a common saying within the WordPress community that if you need something in your site, “there’s a plugin for that.”

    For premium plugins, you can also find premium ones in CodeCanyon.net. But I would recommend going through the thousands of free ones in the WordPress.org plugin directory first.

    Plugin Cost: $0

    Total Cost so far: $27.18 – $144.88

    Conclusion

    You might have noticed that the total cost indicator is a range instead of a solid number. It’s because there are various ways to push the cost down like watching out for promotions, and opting for free themes & plugins.

    So if you play your cards right, you can actually have your own site from scratch (powered on for a full year), for only $27.18

    Most likely the succeeding years won’t be as cheap as the first year, but if you have your site up and running for at least a year already, then I would like to think that it’s a success and the other future costs aren’t a problem anymore.

    Hopefully you’ve learned a bunch from this article. And if you didn’t know about WordPress before and you’re now a proud WordPress user, consider joining the numerous WordPress communities online. Just search for a WordPress group in Facebook :)

    Wait! Don’t Close the Tab Yet!

    Hold on! I’d like to mention Page Builder Sandwich before you close this tab. I’ve mentioned a lot of awesome stuff above, but you haven’t seen Page Builder Sandwich yet.

    Page Builder Sandwich will let you design your pages in your brand new site easily without knowing any piece of code. It looks and behaves kinda like editing a word processor document, but it’s for websites. With it, you’ll be able to make your site even more awesome with carousels, icons, buttons, image backgrounds and plenty more easily.

    You can try out the demo, or watch the video below. What’s cool is that we’re still below the $100 limit :)

    Try the Demo of Page Builder Sandwich

    Page Builder Sandwich Cost: $39 for 1 site

    Total Cost so far: $86.18 – $203.88