Website management and creation doesn't have to be expensive, and you shouldn't have to pay for line item charges and worry if you're getting what you need.

At the same time, outsourcing your project to an overseas freelancer rarely is worth the cost; how much time do you really want to spend explaining the minutia of what you want? Can you trust that your project is being effectively managed?

Junger Media has services packages that fit any budget — from full-time publishers to small businesses and more.

To find out more about our pricing options, click here now.

CNN.com Blogs
Runs on Wordpress.com, the hosted version of Wordpress!

The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital
AllThingsD uses a modified version of Wordpress MU, the multi-user option.

Time Blogs
I count at least 11 blogs running Wordpress on Time.com.

Fox News Careers
Fox actually uses a copy of JobPress, one of our featured non-blog themes, to manage their careers site.

So, the question remains: why can't Wordpress run your site? If it can handle these massive sites, it can handle just about anything.

Theme Test Drive
When you're looking to switch themes, you need to see how the new design affects your current content and features. Even if you're working on a development site, things will be different on the live site — and you'll need to see what.

Since you don't want to turn on a new theme that may need editing, Theme Test Drive will let you see the new theme on your site, but not any of your visitors. You can set permissions so that only administrators, contributors, etc. can see the new theme.

Unfancy Quote
All too often, when content is imported from Microsoft Word other rich text editors, single quotes and double quotes (' and ") will be turned into fancy quotes — with the little curved bottom pointing in the correct direction.

The problem, however, is that these fancy quotes don't always appear correctly in browsers — sometimes they show up as funky ASCII text, and other times as weird characters. Unfancy Quote turns every quote into a plain text quote, and it works.

No Self Pings
When your site has internal links — links from one page on your site to another — Wordpress likes to think the pages are part of a conversation, and shows pingbacks in the comments section. If you tend to link a lot, these pingback links can take up a big part of your comments section.

No Self Pings tells Wordpress not to show internal links as pingbacks, and frees up your comments section.

But, like any other Website, it requires someone to look over it day-after-day.

When there's a security issue, upgrading is essential. When a new plugin comes out, updating is normally the right move — as long as you're aware of what changes have been made (and if it effects anything you currently have installed).

Weblog Tools Collection has a great post on the responsibility of running Wordpress, highlighting a question many Website owners deal with: who is responsible for securing my site?

While WordPress has lowered the bar of entry to publishing content on the web, one constant remains, the responsibility of running your own website. This responsibility includes making sure that your webhost is doing its job, that the various layers and technologies which make WordPress tick are fairly up to date and locked down.

Too many site owners fail to realize that they cannot simply launch a site from their designer and leave it be. There's plenty of work to do maintaining your site, from security to backups to upgrades.

Luckily for you, Junger Media specializes in managing Wordpress sites.

Don't worry about any security holes or new versions of plugins. That's what we're here for. And we'll make it happen.

• Water Words that Work (http://www.waterwordsthatwork.com)
• Employee Evolution (http://www.employeeevolution.com)
• Talya Weinberg Art (http://www.talyaweinberg.com)

Here's the Work We Did

Like all of our clients, the work we did for these sites spanned from production to maintenance to social media integration.

Water Words that Work: theme editing, advertising insertion using Ad Rotate plugin, widget editing, Twitter and Facebook automation.

Employee Evolution: complete Wordpress upgrade, removal of hacked in code, deletion of spam users and posts, plugin updates, fixing of error code.

Talya Weinberg Art: integration and production of e-commerce store, page development, image editing and manipulation, linking to external store, addition of items to store.

Why Haven't You Called?

Get started on improving your Website now. Contact us to achieve your goals.

Junger Media LLC, an online media company, focuses on providing superior management, service and product development to anyone with an online presence — from small businesses to non-profits to bloggers.

Founded by Jason Unger, an online media maven who created his first Web site on Geocities in the mid-1990s, Junger Media recommends and installs Wordpress as the content management system of choice for its clients.

Junger Media offers the following services to its clients:

• Day-to-day management (upkeep, backups, maintenance, and more)
• Production and development of site features and themes
• Content management, usability advisement and social media integration
• Wordpress setup, theme and plugin installation, custom graphic creation
• Troubleshooting, problem solving and prevention

What Clients Say About Junger Media

Jason is smart, efficient, and he always picks up his phone when I'm having a technical crisis. He knows WordPress better than any other consultant I've worked with.
- Penelope Trunk, blogger, syndicated columnist and author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success

Jason's in-depth knowledge of the online space, both social media and content development & management, is the reason I continue to work with him.
- Dave Weinberg, founder, Parnasafest

Jason knows Wordpress like the back of his hand, and will manage your project with confidence.
- Eric Eckl, founder, Water Words that Work

Contact

Want to improve your online presence? Contact us now.

Would I

• actively find out more about the topic?
• sign up to get more information like it?
• pay money for it?

If you answered 'yes' to at least one of those, the content has value to you.

But as a Web publisher, you can't be sure that your readers recognize the value your content has unless you treat it with value.

How Content's Value Has Changed Completely

The Internet has democratized information. It's a beautiful thing, right?

Well, not for traditional publishers. Control of information has been their domain for hundreds of years.

Newspapers are going belly up. It's not going to get any easier next year, and it will hit certain places much harder than others.

Now that information is available from millions of resources, much of the actual content has lost its value. It's not a rare resource, dominated by a few in power. Anyone can produce it.

Giving Your Content Value

So how do you give your content value?

For small Web publishers, your content has to achieve certain goals or you won't succeed. Even if it's not about making money, it has to serve a purpose.

Your content could:

• Build a community around a product (ex. The Mint Blog)
• Grow a brand around yourself (ex. Robert Scoble)
• Market your offline services or products (ex. any freelance writer with a blog)

How to Make Money From Your Content

As forecasters expect online ad spending to decrease next year, you need to understand that pageviews are not going to pay the bills.

Even if ad spending was going up, users would still ignore ads unrelated to their online goals.

In order to make money from your content, you generally have two options:

• Charge for it
• Treat it as marketing materials for your paid products

Charging for content? Are you serious? Yes. Charging for content can be an extremely compelling business model IF you are creating the right content and, most importantly, targeting the right people.

Most people are not going to pay to read the Wall Street Journal online, especially because the information is available through other outlets.

But if you're a business owner, would you spend $100 to attend a specialized online training or business summit that will make you more money? Of course!

Targeting the right niche with information that will make them more profitable is, in itself, a profitable venture.

Use Your Content to Market Your Product and Services

Instead of charging for your content, use it as marketing for what you do get paid for.

Let's look back at the three 'free' ways to give your content value:

• Build a community around a product
• Grow a brand around yourself
• Market your offline services or products

Each of these use your content to make you money.

If you sell a product, you want a thriving community of users, critics and evangelists.

If you are a talking head or consultant, you need to build up your brand in order to establish your expertise.

If you are a freelancer writer or designer, you need to show off your skills.

Treating your content as marketing does not, however, mean it should be a sales pitch. Like all other information, if it isn't useful, your users won't respond.

What's Your Content Worth?

You're already producing content. But why?

The next time you sit down to write something, measure the value of your content. If you're not getting anything out of it, then your readers aren't either.

But if you still don't believe me, take a look at this listing of headlines:

(from the pfblogs.org RSS feed)

Without clicking through, can you tell me what these stories are about?

• Still Risky
• The Worst Decade Since the Thirties
• Long tin hats and canned food?
• Important Level
• Biweekly Mortgage Spam

While you can get a general idea from these titles ("Biweekly Mortgage Spam" is probably about emails or letters about a mortgage that come every other week), these headlines fail to tell the reader what the story is actually about.

There's a reason you should write your headline first — without it, you're not going to tell readers why they need to check out your content.

How to Write a Great Headline

The easiest way to write a great headline is to distill your story down to its root. Ask yourself these questions:

• What's the point of the story?
• How does it benefit the reader?
• If I was looking for this, what would I Google?

Once you've established the point of the story (hopefully something you've thought of beforehand), back up and look at it from your reader's point of view.

Is your reader going to get anything out of this story? What are they going to take away with them?

You can easily write a story for yourself, but if your reader doesn't benefit, you're not going to keep them around.

The third question — "what would I Google?" — is arguably the toughest question to answer. You need to step out of the silo that is your Web site and user base and think like a newbie.

If you want to teach someone to balance their checkbook, consider what they would look for — "how to balance my checkbook," "how do i balance my checkbook," or "how to balance your checkbook" all seem like logical searches.

3 Great Headlines In Action

Penelope Trunk, whose blog Brazen Careerist attracts a dedicated and vocal community, uses great headlines.

• 3 Things to learn from the crashing careers of the super-rich
• How to find meaningful work
• You should make Sarah Palin your mentor

They give you the point right away. You don't need to dig deep to find what they're really about. And to top it off, they're provocative.

How to Easily Practice Great Headline Writing

There's an easy way to practice your headline writing without having to write any stories: Twitter.

With its 140 character limit, you're required to get straight to the point and tell your followers exactly what they need to know. It's not a great medium for in-depth writing, but it's an easy way to analyze what you want to say and the best way to say it.

Here are five unique ways to use Wordpress besides as a blog.

A Content Management System

Like most Web sites that use a content management system, Wordpress allows you to create static pages outside of the reverse-chronology setup of blogs.

Whether you're creating a page of resources, links, or non-date specific information, pages are the best option for timeless content on your site.

But what about your site's home page? Wordpress allows you to set any page as your site's main page. In Wordpress 2.5 and above:

• Log in to your dashboard
• Click on "Settings" and "Reading"
• Under "Front page displays," select "A static page" and choose the page you'd like to use

Using Wordpress as a CMS is increasingly popular, especially because it doesn't require tech-savvy users.

A Job Board

If you're looking to start a job board using Wordpress, it can be done.

Sorel Mihai, one of my favorite theme designers, has created JobPress, a Wordpress Job Board.

JobPress allows for both free and paid listings, depending on your preference. Charging for listings is easy (view the settings page) and integrated with PayPal.

Other features include:

• Job categories
• RSS feeds for listings
• Categorization by part-time, full-time and freelance.

Check out more about JobPress here.

A Storefront

Yes, you can sell products using Wordpress.

Check out the Market Theme. It's a great-looking, minimalist theme that focuses on highlighting the products you have to sell and helps you sell them.

Features include:

• Support for PayPal and Google Checkout
• Affiliate support, if you have no products to sell
• Compatibility with Wordpress MU

Check out more about the Market Theme here.

A Portfolio

If you need a place to show off your work, Wordpress makes a great portfolio.

Two great Portfolio themes are Sharpfolio, a free download from WEBRevolutionary, and Sorel Mihai's Portfolio theme.

These two themes work a bit differently — Sharpfolio works more like a "typical" Wordpress site, while Portfolio has a custom settings page.

A Classifieds Site

DailyWP's Sorel Mihai comes through again with Classipress, a complete package for managing a classified ads site.

While there are some third-party plugins that attempt to do what Classipress offers, none of them do it right. Classipress requires no additional plugins, so everything works perfectly together.

Check out more about Classipress here. (UPDATE: DailyWP's Classipress seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, but interestingly, there's another classifieds theme of the same name now available!)

They don't cost a lot of money, and you don't need a deep technical understanding to use them.

Here are three Web publishing tools I can't live without.

A Simple Text Editor

If you're a blogger, writer or any kind of content creator, a basic text editor like Notepad should be your best friend.

It's the simplest, cleanest and most intuitive word-processing program available — and it's free.

When you're using programs like Microsoft Word to write, you often get loads of junk content that comes along: fonts, sizes, and sometimes even HTML.

You don't need that. You're focusing simply on the words. Don't get overloaded with extra features and settings. You don't need them.

A Good Content Management System

It used to be that Web publishing involved creating pages in Dreamweaver or FrontPage; perhaps you used server-side includes or some kind of template for a consistent design.

Today, it's all about using the right content management system (CMS). A good CMS organizes your content and keeps it completely separate from your design and code.

For Junger Media and my other sites, I use Wordpress — easily the best blogging software available (and totally free).

I've also worked with Movable Type, Expression Engine and Blogger in the past. They're not really my cup of tea, but they may work great for you.

Image Editing Software

When you want to add some photos to your site, you'll need to do some image editing. If you're not a designer, your needs will mostly be cropping, re-sizing, and small image creation.

Adobe Photoshop is the standard for image editing and manipulation, but it's also pretty expensive. Photoshop does a lot more than the simple tasks you'll need, but it's the best way to do them.

If you don't want to drop the coin for a copy of Photoshop, check out GIMP — a free alternative that does everything you need.

What Web publishing tools can YOU not live without?