One of the great things about WordPress is its almost limitless extendability.
Most commonly this might be adding a Plugin to perform a particular task. Really useful (and free) examples might include WooCommerce to easily create an online shop, or JetPack, which among many other things will automatically share your company or product news with all your social media accounts; a huge time-saver and one we generally recommend for every business site.
Another way to make your site truly useful to you and your customers is to create what are called Custom Posts.
The best way to help non-techies understand this is by using some common examples, and then a couple of truly custom examples we’ve created ourselves.
With a normal Post you can add pretty much any text, pictures and all sorts of other bells and whistles you want. Importantly too, you can categorise each post to make searching for information quick and simple for your customers. Great – that’s generally all you need to, let’s say, introduce the occasional new product or member of staff, but what if you need to something like that time and time again?
With new products for example, you might turn to WooCommerce, which in itself creates a new type of custom post that presents your products in a consistent format and easy to search manner. To do this you simply need to fill in the essential product details (see image left) such as price, description, product images etc., plus maybe some other essentials like dimensions and weight to automatically calculate delivery costs. Don’t worry, this is a lot simpler than it may sound (with large product ranges for example it can all be done via simple databases), and we can show you exactly how before letting you loose on the eager to buy public!
Other common examples might be client testimonials, recipes, how to guides or videos, new dealers or retail outlets – you name it.
If you want to regularly use anything like this, again, you’ll want them to be consistent in ‘look’ and quick and easy to add entries. Many Plugins exist to accommodate such ‘custom’ posts, but what if you need to invent something completely new and specific to your organisation?
This is where fully customised posts come into play.
Again, using a Plugin, you (or more likely your developer) can do this down to the last detail. It takes a little time, but the time you save later on will pay this back over and again. Two examples we’re currently working on will serve to illustrate this in a non-technical manner.
Cat Categories!
The first is a site for a cat rescue organisation in France. Essentially their aim is to rescue and re-house abandoned cats, so to simplify this they need their web site to perform two key tasks, notably:
To have a quick & simple means of entering the characteristics of each cat (these run into many hundreds each year), and present that information in a consistent and attractive format.
Subsequently, to enable potential adopters to search for their ideal cat based on these characteristics.
Both are easily achieved by creating a custom post.
The first part is creating a series of lists covering all aspects of cat types and characteristics. These include colour(s), age and behavioural factors – is it a lap cat or a voracious hunter for example!
We then turn this information into an online form their volunteers can quickly fill in, largely by ticking the appropriate boxes or choosing from a drop-down menu, adding a bit of additional text if required and uploading a photograph or two. The whole process takes minutes, and from this information the machine generates consistently designed, fully categorised pages for each puss.
Potential adopters can then use a simple form to search for the type of cat that suits their circumstances. This is then presented as a neat list of possibilities, complete with photos and a detailed biography. For example, if they live in a city flat it’s important not to choose a cat that’s more used to the great outdoors.
Rock – but not a hard place!
The second example is for a famous rock venue with a huge archive of historical concerts going back to the swinging sixties.
Again, the aim is make it infinitely searchable, whether this be based on a particular band or year, a specific genre (anything from death metal to folk), or indeed any other rock’n’roll type criteria.
In this instance there’s a huge amount of historical data to be uploaded, so it’s important we do this in a quick and efficient way, to avoid some poor soul having the cut and paste everything into individual pages or posts.
No problem! We add all the data (including photographs, external links and much else) to a database that WordPress can understand and upload in a trice, at the same time turning each into an individual, consistently designed page or post.
New entries can be added via an online form as with the cats example, or added to the database and uploaded in seconds.
Searching it is now a doddle. Users can just type in a keyword (e.g. ‘Ramones’), or use a search form to select various criteria such as ‘Ramones, 1977’ etc. Click ‘Go’ and within milliseconds the user will be presented with a complete history of the group’s appearances at the venue.
Custom posts like this can be adapted to any sort of application, and your clients will love the way they simplify doing business with you.
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