Creating Web Presence - Case Study Example

Creating Web Presence The platform that I chose to create my Web Presence was Wordpress. This essay describes and explains the methodology, implementation and results of Web Presence creation for Web Communication 101. Although there are other alternatives that could have been used, Wordpress has been chosen for its unique advantages such as advanced features. The content niche that was chosen was pizza making and cooking especially the practices at Pizza Hut. Various Web 2.0 tools were also used to enhance the quality of the blog and web presence. These tools included Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and this essay will explain why these were chosen and how they were made use of. Although Wordpress is primarily considered as an authoring platform (Shamah), it has effectively exceeded this reputation and has extended the locus of its influence beyond blogs. Since its inception, Wordpress has continuously added to its arsenal of extremely useful tools and features. Wordpress allows integration of advanced features such as using shopping carts, mailing lists and integration with social networking websites which helps generate and maintain traffic on a blog, which is essentially its lifeline. Another important factor that tipped the decision scale in Wordpress’ favor was the availability of widgets and plugins. Wordpress allows users to upload information in a very easy, simple and elegant way (Shamah). In a nutshell, these capabilities have allowed Wordpress to become a content management system. Another reason why Wordpress was preferable to other platforms is its multilingual capability as it is available in all the major and minor world languages including some of the archaic ones as well. However, the crucial factor that helped finalize Wordpress as the platform for my Web Presence was the fact that Wordpress is free and easy to setup. Wordpress software is readily available online and can be downloaded for installation on web host of our choice and this allowed me to finalize Wordpress as the platform of my choosing. The process of creation began with signing up for Wordpress and a URL https://yimingzeng.wordpress.com/ was selected. Blogs on Wordpress rely heavily on themes and pre-designed Hemingway theme was chosen. As required by assignment instructions, five pages were created namely Home, About Me, Pizza hut, Making a Pizza and Exegesis. The theme was customized slightly to include a picture of my choice and to give the blog a Title. The process culminated with creation of nodes for integrating contribution for social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Having stayed in abroad, I have learnt the art of cooking and sharing and this is what initially inspired me to focus on food and cooking. The key requirement of a blog is that content should be well written and being well informed and experienced in culinary matters pertaining to Pizza particularly due to my job at Pizza Hut, I was well suited to this. The About Me page included basic information regarding me and my background. An email address was also posted for viewers to contact. The page regarding “Pizza Hut” included information regarding various types and methods of making Pizzas at my workplace. The “Make a Pizza” page was where I shared my personal experience of making pizza and I included various YouTube videos to acquaint the blog visitors to Pizza making process. This is an overview of the content I put in the blog. The next step was to use Web 2.0 tools and three of those were chosen for their particular advantages. These three were Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Henceforth, their particular advantages and reasons for their choosing shall be discussed. Facebook has over 890 million daily users and 1.39 Billion monthly users (Alexa.com). It is the primary social networking tool in Australia and worldwide. It ranks as the second most visited website as per Alexa ranking (Alexa.com). With its video and photo sharing facilities, continuous connection with friends, families, customers and subscribers, Facebook has become an indispensible social networking tool. It is self-evident that linking Facebook to my blog would help generate traffic. Moreover, using Facebook’s resources, my blog is capable of posting Cooking photos and videos as well. Since the demographics related to Facebook are abound, it can be a learning experience for me to be exposed to cooking styles and members from other countries. (Johnston) Twitter is what defines Micro blogging. It had a slow initial permeability in Australia but it has grown beyond any forecasts as is evident by the graphs attached. It has maintained a linear growth rate and is expected to reach a user base of 3.2 million in Australia by 2018. Where Facebook is the most useful tool for targetting a younger audience, Twitter is the key to getting in touch with people above 35 years of age since they comprise 60% of Twitter’s Australin users (Lewis). Twitter’s strenght is in hastags which, combined with search, helps reach like-minded people and thus it was imperative that Twitter be included in the Web 2.0 tools used for the task as I could use hashtags similar to cooking and crabs and help improve traffic statistics, (Johnston) Hefferman has described Instagram as one app to replace camera, darkroom process and publishers. The strength of Instagram is that its content is indexed by person and subject matter and thus it eliminates any ranking algorithms that might have been used to judge the aesthetic appeal or quality or scales regarding beauty. Ever since its acquisition by Facebook, it has become more powerful and has a larger user base than before owing to the smartphone revolution. It is a well-known fact in blogging world that pictures increase the traffic by magnitudes and thus integration of Instagram provided tools to integrate all the usefulness and utility of this excellent website into my blog. This would allow people to look more photos of food through my blog and thus increase user hits. Thus, it can be concluded that Wordpress is an excellent choice for creating Web Presence considering that it is free, easy to use and setup and allows integration of Web 2.0 tools, includes variety of customizable widgets and themes and helps craft an outstanding blog. These strengths enabled me to have faith in it to post about food and cooking, coupled with my personal experience and interest, to put a good and interesting blog online. The Web 2.0 tools selected for the purpose have immense user base, plethora of facilities and resources including images, videos and hash tags which allow identifying and targeting a particular part of the wider public that can be used to improve network statistics and overall quality of the blog. It is expected that Wordpress will have increased popularity and utility in web-development and blogging and the author would be even more facilitated by its technological and user-friendly provisions. Works Cited Johnston, Eric. 'Twitter Has Growth Plan For Australia'. The Sydney Morning Herald. N.p., 2013. Web. 6 June 2015. Heffernan, V. (2013, 05). Instagram. Wired, 21, 94-n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1411852801?accountid=10382 Lewis, A. (2010). Facebook and twitter: Socially network yourself to success. Training and Development in Australia, 37(1), 8-11. Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/208559768?accountid=10382 Shamah, D. (2009, Sep 02). Wordpress: Both free and priceless at the same time. Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/319698897?accountid=10382 Alexa.com,. 'Facebook.Com Site Overview'. N.p., 2015. Web. 6 June 2015. Read More