I my series of posts last year on creating a web presence for your community group, I devoted one post to creating a calendar for your community group, where I lamented the fact that WordPress.com did not allow embeds of Google Calendars for some very strange reason. Thankfully this has now been rectified, and you can now embed a Google Calendar in your WordPress.com site. But it’s not only for Google Calendar but Google Docs as well. This is fantastic news, because this now makes WordPress.com the almost one stop shop for your basic website requirements, for a small business, community or sporting group – basically, WordPress.com now works!
I do strongly recommend WordPress.com if you fit into one of the following broad categories:
Individual
Like me, if you just want a place to record a bit about yourself, a landing page for your domain, and a place to rant or share your wisdom with the world, then WordPress.com is for you. See my post on WordPress.com for your domain.
It might be too structured for you if you want a highly visual site or want to quickly post from email and mobile, where Tumblr or Posterous would probably be better. If you want to sell stuff or embed ads or are fanatical about your google ranking, then it’s probably not the platform for you either.
Small Business
As I have mentioned before, if you are a small business, it’s easy to look at MYOB’s Atlas offering as a simple way to get a web presence for your business. Please don’t go down that path. Spend a little bit more time and effort, (and less money) and create a site that is individual to you and your business.
However, before you decide, have a look at the websites of your competitors – if you are in an industry that is highly visual, maybe just having your logo and a few images on your site is not going to be enough, and you will need a custom designed site.
Also, if you are going to sell stuff online, and you want a great looking simple site, then head over to Chieftech’s blog for a review of Goodsie.
Community Group or Sporting Group
WordPress.com is absolutely perfect for a community group or sporting group, which is why I did the whole series of posts on the topic. I reckon with the combination of WordPress.com, Google Apps for Your Domain, MailChimp, and possibly a few other cool free or low cost tools that I have blogged about previously, you now have a fantastic platform for your Community or Sporting Group.
I would love to hear if you have any other ideas for either extending WordPress.com, or what other alternatives there are for Small Business, Community groups and the like to get a great web presence.
Hi Jodie,
I just stumbled on your blog but have found it very helpful. I’ve just joined the committee of a community association. The entire committee changed at one time and we inherited boxes full of correspondence and a system that is paper based-completely archaic. I want us to transfer to a system which retains all the info and stands on it’s own through any committee member transitions. I’ve started using mail chimp to do newsletters and to hold our email database but we really need a full service online database solution that integrates with Mail chimp and also I think we should have our accounts online. Do you know of a good free online accounting system? We are a community organization in New Zealand. I’m looking at doing a website on wordpress also. Any help is much appreciated.
Cheers,
Jon Imhoof
Gibbston Community Association