What is website training?
You’ve worked with our team of custom website design and development experts to create a unique website tailored to perfectly fit your needs and the needs of your customers. What’s next? Through our website training, we’ll help you (and your team) understand your site’s features, and make the most of all they can do for you and your business. Ready to become a content whiz? Let’s get started.
Here at Lform, website training is a series of meetings where our quality assurance specialist will take you and your team on a tour of your website’s new content management system. During this process, we’ll act as a guide, highlighting key points you’ll need to know while you ask questions and gain experience updating and entering real-world content, preparing you to take the reins and put your new site to work.
During these sessions, you will cover each facet of your custom website’s functionality and gain insight into how the “behind-the-scenes” elements of your site and content management system work to bring the visible aspects of the site to life.
Why is website training important?
While many brush off the need for this type of instruction, we value website training because it is a vital resource necessary to the continued growth of your website’s reach. With this initial influx of expert-level knowledge and understanding, you’ll be able to more quickly integrate new content into your site, pivoting to address customer needs as your website and business grow.
Through our instruction and training process, we will provide you with the tools and confidence necessary to keep your website up to date with the latest information, something that is essential in today’s quickly changing world. Once trained, within minutes you’ll be able to change text, swap out or include new images, and even create entire pages. Additionally, during the training process we’ll review essential best practices for WCAG conformance so that you can maintain your site’s conformance after you take over the reins of your new site.
What does website training encompass?
Following the project kickoff, we’ll schedule two website training sessions, spaced weeks apart from each other. Why do we like training sessions to be spaced out in this way? Allowing time between sessions helps to ensure your evolution from a content pupil into a content wiz, and gives you and your team time to put what you’ve learned in each session into practice.
After each session we’ll provide you with a recording of the training, which will allow you to go back, rewatch the session, and check if there’s a step in the process you’re working on that you’ve missed. We also offer support from the start of the training process up until a month after the website’s launch. During this period, our team is available to answer any questions you might have about your site’s CMS and content entry processes as you continue to familiarize yourself with the system.
During the website training process, you can expect in-depth coverage of the following website components:
Dashboard: The first aspect of your site that we’ll work through together is your dashboard, which is the initial page visible upon login to your site on WordPress. This page contains a high-level summary of other systems present on your site.
Posts: Another essential element that we’ll explore is your site’s posts. This section contains the content that makes up your website’s blog, and includes blog posts, authors, categories, and tags. Being able to easily navigate through this portion of your site is key to making the process of running your own blog easier, and more seamless. Plus, as you take over the website’s management and move forward with content integration, having this part of your site organized and streamlined will make your job that much easier.
Media: Your site’s media section is another important element to keeping your custom website looking beautiful, and maintaining the custom website design that our team created for you. This section stores all the images and documents contained on your site, and is key to keeping its look and feel consistent.
Pages: One more component that we’ll review is pages. This section holds all of your website’s pages, and keeping them organized in a clean, streamlined lineup is all-important to maintaining the flow of your new website, ensuring that it is easily navigable for your audience.
What are some of the standard data types you’ll learn about during website training?
Once you’ve explored your custom website’s dashboard, posts, media, and additional pages, we’ll dive into the standard data types that you and your team will be working with most often.
During your training, we’ll cover the following data types:
CTA’s: During training, we’ll show you how to update these CTA’s (calls to action), which are announcements that can be made at the bottom of the screen. If you want to promote an upcoming sale, special event, or just encourage users to sign up for your newsletter, CTA’s are another vital element of your site, and are essential for the continued growth of your website and business.
Locations: Whether you have one location or many locations, the address and other necessary information about your business’ location is stored here. You can even include helpful information like access to directions, a map view of your location(s), and more.
Glossary: No matter what business you’re in, it’s important to keep a glossary of terms and definitions that get pulled in throughout the site up to date. This will allow users to learn more about your company, and provides a resource to give new and returning users insight into what you do and what products or services your team offers.
Resources: Depending on the nature of your business, resources can be a crucial element of your site. Keeping relevant PDFs, word documents, and excel spreadsheets up to date and available to users coming to your site provides added value to new and existing customers alike.
Staff: If you’re like us, you’ll want to take advantage of your new website to highlight your team! In your site’s staff section, each member of the team and their corresponding social media should be included. The ability to easily update this data will be especially useful for adding new hires to your site, updating contact information, and highlighting any title changes for your team members.
Testimonials: Received a great review from a customer or client? Here’s where you’ll want to include it! In this section of your site, we’ll show you how to incorporate quotes and citations from customers to highlight the great work you and your team have been doing.
Custom Data Types: While not all websites include this, yours may require more custom data types like products, services, and more. If your business needs one (or more) of these custom data types, we’ll prepare you with the tools and knowledge required to add, remove, and update this data on your website as needed.
Site-Wide Settings: Site-wide settings include any information that gets pulled into the header or footer of your site, or forms not included elsewhere. This can include your business’ contact information, address, logo, links to your business’ social media pages, and more.
If you’re ready to further your understanding of your website’s functionality and CMS, we’re ready to help. Schedule a needs assessment with our team today, and we’ll get you on the road to becoming a content whiz armed with the knowledge and skills necessary to keep your website updated in today’s ever-changing world.