This week we received a fantastic question from David:

“I am confused. I’m working on a new website for my company and I’m talking to a lot of different developers. I hear a lot of talk about WordPress, but I don’t really know what it is. Is it a blog? Is it a website? What’s going on? Should I be looking at this as a viable option for my business?”

So join us for this week’s installment of Office Hours, where Mike breaks down what WordPress is and what it means for small business owners.

What Is WordPress?

Course Objectives

• What Is WordPress – Understanding of what WordPress actually is, and why it is so important to modern small business web development.
• History Of WordPress – Understanding of how WordPress has evolved from strictly a blogging platform to a mainstream website platform.
• Why Use WordPress? – Understanding of why WordPress is ideal for small, medium, and even large businesses.

Want To Win A Brand New Website?

Black Dog Education is giving away 9 websites in the month of May! To enter to win, jump over to our Facebook page and either upload a picture of your best bad birthday picture, screenshot of your current website, or picture relating to your business. After you’ve uploaded your picture of choice, share it with your friends on Facebook and ask them to vote for your picture. The daily vote leader will win a FREE brand spanking new website from Black Dog Education!

We’ve found that far too often the biggest roadblock is not knowing exactly how to get started. So to help give you some ideas on how to grow your business with Foursquare, I want to share with you the story of the Baltimore restaurant, Miss Shirley’s.

First let me give you a little backstory. Miss Shirley’s, like most restaurants, saw incredible business on the weekends, but not so much on the weekdays.

So to attract more weekday visitors, Miss Shirley’s started to focus on Foursquare to foster some friendly competition. Miss Shirley’s encouraged patrons to “check in” with their smartphones each time they came in for a meal. Doing so would alert their Facebook friends, and Twitter followers that they were there. And to make sure they were checking in every single time, Miss Shirley’s offered an awesome bribe.

The guest with the most check ins would then become the “mayor” of Miss Shirley’s. Mayoral privileges include being bumped to the front of the line and bypassing the common hour wait on the weekends.

To become the mayor, one must have the most check ins at any point in time. Meaning the weekend only bunch goers found themselves coming to Miss Shirley’s during the week to better their chances of skipping the long weekend lines.

This strategy allowed Miss Shirley’s to quickly increase its check ins, social media chatter, and word of mouth over a short period of time. And the best part of all? Miss Shirley’s was able to create all this buzz without giving anything away discounted or for free, just because management knew what customers would be willing to work for.

This week we received a fantastic question from Ashley:

“I’m getting ready to start a website redesign project and I’m not really sure how the whole process works. Do I need to back up my data, should I be making copies of my files? I’m not really sure, can you give me some ideas?”

So join us for this week’s installment of Office Hours, where Mike explains the easiest, cheapest, and most painless way to do a website redesign.

How Do I Start A Website Redesign?

Course Objectives

• Explanation Of An IP Address – Understanding of what an IP address is and how it relates to your website redesign.
• Explanation Of A Domain Name – Understanding of what a domain name is and how it relates to your website redesign.
• Website Redesign Made Easy – Understanding of an easy technique redirecting your old domain to your new website.

Be sure to tune in each Friday to Office Hours on YouTube to see if your question was chosen. Plus, subscribe to our channel and you’ll receive instant email alerts with links to our newest videos.

How to Submit Your Questions:

• Send Us an Email [We LOVE Email!]
• Post on Our Facebook Wall
• Tweet Us [#Officehrs]

We couldn’t be happier that WordPress has made it this far in the world. And to celebrate we’re giving away some FREE websites! Check out the video below on how you can get in on all the birthday fun!

Once you’ve submitted your picture of choice, you’ll want to spread it around like wildfire to your friends, family, and co-workers on Facebook and ask them to vote for your picture. Because starting May 15th and continuing through May 25th we’re going to be giving the daily vote leader a FREE DIY WordPress Creator Membership! That includes a free WordPress website, 1 year of free web hosting, over 6 hours of training, 4 coaching calls, and more!

Meaning, you’re going to want to be nice to your weird cousin Susan this week, because she could help you win a brand-spankin-new website from Black Dog Education!