WordPress Developer And WordPress Design Agency

COG Branding is an experienced reliable and trusted Sydney website agency that specialises in WordPress and WooCommerce website design and development.

Many small businesses come to COG Branding with a variety of creative and digital briefs. A common breif we are asked is how to set up a small business website. There are a few options, and WordPress is a great place to start and a regular software product we introduce to our clients.

The WordPress websites we design, develop, host and maintain are clients and businesses that choose to partner with COG Branding because we are a trusted Australian website development agency located in Cronulla, Sutherland Shire. We have a team of in-house WordPress Developers that are available during business hours, Monday to Friday.

Our Sydney WordPress website development agency delivers a full service solution for WordPress websites that covers strategic briefing, agile development processes, technical scoping, front end UX Website Design, custom website development and WordPress Website Hosting.

We know you want a WordPress Web Developer that is affordable, communicates clearly, and understands WordPress and WooCommerce. Plus, you’d like a digital expert to offer solutions for better performance in Google, UX, and solve hosting, email and domain issues. Trust COG Branding – the Small Business WordPress Website Experts.

We’re a Small Business Sydney Website Development Agency providing SME’s first class WordPress website development solutions. COG Agency Sydney are expert WordPress Website developers for CMS Websites. Our Australian based WordPress website development team are in our Sydney studio during business hours, we’re client facing and happy to join the briefing process and client discussion.

So firstly, what is WordPress?

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as “Themes”.

What Are WordPress Themes?

WordPress users may install and switch among many different themes. Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website without altering the core code or site content. Every WordPress website requires at least one theme to be present. Themes may be directly installed using the WordPress “Appearance” administration tool in the dashboard, or theme folders may be copied directly into the themes directory.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

WordPress’ plugin architecture allows users to extend the features and functionality of a website or blog. There are thousands of WordPress Plugins, not all good or useful. Each WordPress plugin offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their websites to their particular needs and functions needs. Some WordPress Plugins have a tiered payment plan and include a premium tier with monthly or annual fees for extra features and functionality.

These premium plugins have a range of solutions that range from search engine optimization (SEO) to client portals used to display private information to logged-in users, eCommerce and WooCommerce to content management systems (CMS), to content displaying features, such as the addition of widgets and navigation bars. Not all available WordPress plugins are always abreast with the upgrades, and as a result, they may not function properly or may not function at all. Most plugins are available through WordPress themselves, either via downloading them and installing the files manually via FTP or through the WordPress dashboard. However, many third parties offer plugins through their own websites, many of which are paid packages.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress and is a free plugin that turns a regular WordPress website into a eCommerce store. WooCommerce is fully compatible with the functions on your WordPress site. It means you can have a WordPress ecommerce site with products, a shopping cart, and checkout options.  It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. WooCommerce quickly became popular for its simplicity to install and customise.

It’s estimated that WooCommerce runs 30% of e-commerce sites and with millions of active installs this statistic is believable.
WooCommerce is built on top of WordPress and inherits all of its features. However, there are some key differences between the two: WordPress is a CMS while WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin. WordPress is used for websites and blogs while again Woo Commerce can be used to turn a WordPress site into an online store.

Connecting Brand to Business via WordPress Websites

COG Branding is a Sydney technology solutions agency with an approach that transfers knowledge to business and brand stakeholders with the goal of increasing client side intelligence. We know this assists the success of the broader businesses digital transformation process. Part of the COG Branding small business technology service suite is to provide aftercare that maintains the investment and achieves ongoing performance.

The WordPress Website solutions that COG Branding agency delivers our clients perform because they deliver against the brand objectives while connecting to the core business offer and supporting its digital function and purpose on the internet.

All COG Branding CMS WordPress Websites are built to enable easy administrator access for multiple users of different levels of security, and enable easy content updates. Our Sydney web design agency receives all types of web design briefs from different clients and businesses such as WordPress medical, pharmaceutical, industrial, FMCG, small business, action sports brands, building and construction, athletes, musicians, charities, events, sports clubs, clubs, pubs, restaurants, bars and many more.

What Is The WordPress Website Design and Development Process?

COG Branding are experts in the WordPress Development Process, and it starts with our proven Seven Steps To Success. As professional WordPress development experts  we lean into our WordPress design process to ensure the outcome for all our website development projects are controlled and achieve project success at go live.

The COG Branding Website Design and Development Process follows a rigorous 7 step method, that results in your own unique website. The steps include:

1. Site Architecture
2. Wireframes
3. Website Design
4. Staging Server
5. Content Upload
6. UAT
7. Go Live

The COG Branding approach is to work closely with our clients, collaborate with Digital Marketing and Creative Design teams if required to ensure the relationship during development and during aftercare is well serviced with clear communication. Our process is second to none, below is an elaboration on what each of the steps involve in detail.

Site Architecture

The Site Architecture is the hierarchical structure of your websites pages. This structure is reflected through internal linking. The focus is on the user and on user requirements, considering web content, the business plan, usability, interaction design, information, and web design. It also considers the navigation system of the website.The Site Architecture helps users easily find information and to help search engines, primarily google to crawl and index the site, as well as understand the relationship between different pages.

Wireframes

The Website Wireframes work inline with the Site Architecture. They are a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of the website layout. They depict which interface elements will exist on key pages and are purposely built without colour to establish the functionality and structure of the website. The wireframes ensure that the website will be built to meet the primary business objectives.

Website Design

The Website Design is responsible for the visual aspect, which brings together the layout from the Wireframes, now including colour, logos, images and any iconography. We most commonly only design the home page as these design elements and styling will be applied across the rest of the website design. The delivery includes both desktop and mobile views to display how the website will function on both devices.

Staging Server Development

A Staging Server is a type of server that is used to test a software, website or service in a production-similar environment before being set live. It is part of a staging environment or staging site, where it serves as a temporary hosting and testing server for any new software or websites.

Content Upload

The Content Upload stage of the website process works inline with the Staging Server. This step involves bringing across all the text content from the Wireframes, as well as any images and iconography, which are either supplied from you or we create/source online. We may ask to work with you at this stage to fulfil content in areas that we can’t make up e.g. a History or FAQs page.

UAT (User Acceptance Testing)

UAT (User Acceptance Testing) is a thorough process in the last phase of the website process. This process is anything from a button linking to the correct place to a form submitting to the client’s email. We go through the site and test that everything is working and functioning as it should when the website is live. We follow a strict UAT process and review everything to be inline as per the previous deliverables (Site Architecture, Wireframes, Website Design).

Go Live

Once you’ve reviewed the staging server site and approve go live, we do what’s called a soft launch. This is simply taking the website live and letting it sit for 1-2 weeks—no marketing, no email deployments to let people know the website is live. It is critical to let this sit a few weeks to let Google crawl and index the website, this also gives us more space to make critical website updates should there be any more requested.

Aftercare

All WordPress websites from COG Branding are deployed with aftercare and warranty. We’re here in support and pride ourselves on our service and ability to ensure our small business clients get value from their digital assets and learn how to manage their own technologies.

Read enough?
Head over to the COG Branding WordPress Website Case Studies to review some of our projects that have used WordPress in their small to medium business to get results. View Projects Here.

What Types Of Businesses Use A WordPress Website?

WordPress is a factory that makes webpages. This is a analogy designed to clarify the functions of WordPress: it stores content and enables a user to create and publish webpages, requiring nothing beyond a domain and a hosting service. So with this simple analogy you can apply it to any small to medium sized business that needs a website. There is nothing that limits WordPress from what type of business can benefit from this type of technology.

Our website designers are located in Sydney based WordPress website developers, all PHP website development experts delivering WordPress designs and websites for hundreds of COG Branding‘s clients. Their mandate is to make it easy for any business no matter what the size or industry achieve success online via a WordPress CMS Website.

The CMS solutions that COG Branding deliver our clients perform because they deliver against the brand objectives while connecting to the core business offer and supporting its digital function and purpose on the internet. While all businesses are unique, as are business owners, the fundamentals that a business needs form online marketing such as SEO, reliability, mobile optimisation and security for example is all the exact same. Is your business one of the below?

• Needing a website for a Health Care business?
• Need a new website for a cafe? 
• Need a new website booking system solution for a hotel?
• Upgrading an old website for a bar?
• Want to create a WordPress Website for a Sporting Club?
• Ideas for Small Business and Hobby Start Ups Websites?
• The Best Website for a Building Company? 

WordPress Website Design

The COG Branding WordPress Website Developers include UX Designers that are focused on designer first class user experiences across mobile, desktop and device environments for your WordPress website. COG Branding deliver innovative UX design solutions that are focused on delivering dynamic and intuitive user journey’s that consider Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and user engagement. Our UX (user experience design) approach provides positive user experiences and build brand equity.

All our WordPress website developments and website designs considering the key function of the website page itself. From looking to convert digital marketing leads via a basic ContactForm 7 or to contain rich media and brochureware content – we’ll make sure that the design satisfies function. To ensure this happens all our projects begin with an extensive briefing process, no matter the business type or client requirements. Our experienced project managers ensure our clients understand the project, the process and all the required technical items to ensure the project begins and ends in a smooth professional and swift manner.

Responsive Design

Responsive web design or responsive design is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size to ensure usability and satisfaction. We make sure that our Sydney Australia based website developers build websites that are responsive for Mobile and Tablet. This covers, iPad and iPhone devices, and Android Tablets and mobile phones such as Samsung Galaxy, Surface Pro and Google Pixel.

Mobile Responsive Website Design is also when the layout and/or content responds or adapts based on the size of screen they are presented on. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re reading it on – just like the one you are on now.

Responsive web design is important because essentially, responsive design is a way to put together a website so that it automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed. It keeps images from being larger than the screen width, and prevents visitors on mobile devices from needing to do extra work to read your content. COG Branding are focused on CRO (Conversion rate Optimisation) and responsive WordPress web design is key to this.

All our website developments and website design projects begin with an extensive briefing process, no matter the business type or client requirements. Our experienced Cronulla based project managers ensure our clients understand the project, the process and all the required technical items to ensure the project begins and ends in a smooth professional and swift manner. We have a comprehensive briefing process and also an extensive hand over process that gets any WordPress Website Development off the ground on the right foot for our Sutherland Shire clients. We Make it Easy for our Sutherland Shire Clients!

Need More Information on Design?
Head over to the COG Design Here.

What Technology Is Right For My Business?

Confused where to start with the technology available for your small business? Allocate 3 minutes to our solution builder and we’ll point you in the right direction. Start Here: https://cogbranding.com.au/technology-solutions/what-technology-is-right-for-my-business/

Our Sydney WordPress Website Development Team are focused on building websites and provisioning softwares that are common sense for our clients.  While WordPress is a single type of software, it integrates with hundreds of other CRMS, Email Marketing softwares and social media. So we know it’s our job to ensure that we approach all our clients business problems with a global solutions discovery process. We don’t expect our clients to understand how to get their WordPress website to configure WordPress to use SMTP for sending emails, that’s for sure. And that’s why small businesses love COG Branding – we’ll do this for you!

We have a comprehensive briefing process and also an extensive hand over process that gets any WordPress Website Development off the ground on the right foot for our business partners. While your email solution might not be part of the WordPress development brief, the website will be using SMTP protocols to send and receive emails form the website, and we’ll end up talking about it at some stage. It’s examples like this that ensure our WordPress Developers are reviewing more than just the immediate WordPress instance, but also the myriad of softwares and technologies plugged into and running alongside the website itself.

LiveTeam

LiveTeam is the online support service for small business, and the COG Branding LiveTeam support desk is provided to all our website hosting and development clients to ensure we have swift and responsive service for you during and after the WordPress development project. LiveTeam takes the responsibility to support our clients with at-call online support via the LiveTeam online service portal. LiveTeam is also available for businesses on a subscription model that can be tailored for your own business and client/customer requirements.

WordPress Website Hosting

Many clients struggle with understanding the digital space as it moves so quickly. And, many SMB business owners ask themselves the question of what technology is right for my business. Our management of WordPress website hosting services is logical and made by a common sense approach. We know that advanced technology and software solutions require smart humans to guide and manage the implementation into the business itself, though we also ensure that the decisions we make on behalf of our clients needs to be transparent and easily understood by our customers.

WordPress is the number one Content Management System (CMS) globally, with over 250 million sites using the platform at time of publishing. It’s no wonder there are so many poorly managed and vulnerable WordPress websites in our digital business community. The popularity is due to its cost effective development and simplicity of making content changes, but its accessibility makes it a double edged sword.

More than 30,000 websites are hacked every day, often due to a lack of regular maintenance. When not cared for properly, websites are far more vulnerable to hacking loss of function and even going down with a loss of all data. COG Branding align with the best hosting partners to ensure we can provide the best performance and security.

Software updates and security fixes for devices are released all the time, but people often forget to treat their websites with the same care and attention. WordPress sites are regularly neglected after launch as many developers move on from their client after the project is finished with little acre for proper aftercare procedures. With only 50% of installations running the latest releases – meaning that more than 125 million sites are vulnerable.

SAPOW! (Security and Protection of WordPress)

SAPOW! is a WordPress website management service provided by COG Digital. We created this service to support any business with a WordPress Website that is not equipped with the skills and resources to maintain their digital asset – Put simply we cover you butt from hackers! The numerous benefits to the SAPOW! WordPress Hosting package are peace of mind, a single accountable supplier, discounted developer time to name a few.

SAPOW! WORDPRESS WEBSITE HOSTING FEATURES

• Security Audit
  Before we take control of a WordPress site we analyse the setup for common and potential issues. Once identified, we resolve these before they cause disruption.
• Core Code Updates
  WordPress updates occur regularly, with 38 releases of version 4 in the last 18 months These core core updates often upgrade security features to protect against the latest exploitations and security holes.
• Plug In Updates
  Plugins improve the functionality of features across the site, but need to be maintained as an outdated plugin can create vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. These have been responsible for some of the worst security issues in recent years.
• Hosting and SSL
  Our Australian based hosting service is included in the cost. We also renew your domain registration and install an SSL certificate (improving security and SEO setup simultaneously).
• Security Scanning
  Our service includes daily scans for us to detect and resolve any issues and prevent users encountering spam from your site.
• Regular Backups
  Malicious assaults, outdated plugins or even user error can cause irrecoverable loss of data, so our service includes daily backups of your website code and databases for rapid issue resolution.
• Uptime Monitoring
  Unless continuously monitored, downed sites can go undetected. Our system immediately notifies us if any downtime occurs.
• User Guides
  Also included is free access to our training manuals for WordPress to grow in house knowledge.

Digital Marketing For WordPress Websites

Our SMB clients come to us for many brand marketing services, and developing a marketing plan for your small business is a regular breif for us, and common for any client needing a WordPress website. As a leading Sydney full service digital marketing agency, COG Branding supports all our clients with online and offline digital marketing solutions, alongside the WordPress website development projects. There are many cross overs in digital marketing the a Digital producer will do in their daily routines that involve digital marketing such as SEO, SEM, Email Marketing, CRO, Analytics and other third party software integrations. The COG Branding team are experts at providing support and service for Technology Solutions surrounding business development.

COG Branding builds our customers their WordPress website and some clients remain with us on a support program for Digital Marketing such as the Velocity Marketing Support Program. Our focus as a digital marketing agency is primarily owned media, though we also understand a core function of digital marketing is to drive leads and interest via paid performance marketing. Here the synergy in what COG Branding delivers is of high value to small to medium businesses in Australia.

Part of our aftercare in developing a WordPress website drifts into the digital marketing space in areas such as indexing at Google search. Part of our WordPress website projects is to ensure Google is indexing the website via Search Console and the sitemap is neat and tidy. Our websites are built and launched to achieve immediate inbound search engine traffic by being submitted and optimised for Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. So we also include our customers a Google Analytics account which can be used later on for traffic management and insights on user behaviours.

WordPress DropShipping Marketing

Firstly, some context. Drop shipping is a form of retail business wherein the seller accepts customer orders without keeping stock on hand. If you choose the right niche, implement a proper small business digital strategy and constantly improve your customer support, dropshipping will be the most profitable business model to run. COG Branding are experts at WordPress DropShip Marketing and provide a full service dropshipping marketing service suite for our WordPress website clients.

How does dropshipping works step by step?

Our leading Sydney digital marketing agency has a team of professional marketers specialising in paid performance marketing across Google Ads and Social Media that connect your online business to your targeted customers. You may ask where can I market a drop shipping websites? Both Facebook and Google are great choices to advertise your dropshipping business and increase sales. Google ads target people who are actively looking to buy something or get information about it, while Facebook ads target people based on their interests.

All our WordPress dropshipping store marketing solutions make sure that the marketing message and strategy is at a premium, and it supports your WordPress Store today and in the future.

If you’re a small business with a WordPress website store and need to get your store generating real customer sales, you’ll need to understand both the consumer market and what they’re looking to buy, where they live, how much they want to pay for shipping and what they want to expect to pay for your products. The typical dropshipping commission rate is between 15% and 20%. The commission rate is the percentage of revenue from each sale that you pay out to vendors, the sales team, or another party for driving sales.

For many ecommerce website owners the prospect of spending your time and money on managing your inventory is a real deal breaker. If you create an ecommerce store which uses a dropshipping business model, you’ll never need to carry any inventory, but you’ll need to focus on your marketing!

A COG Branding WordPress Digital Marketing Program is built to perform and ensure your WordPress Digital Asset wins online and stands out from your competitors. When the Scope of Work includes Digital Strategy, COG Strategy provides superior digital strategy supporting Digital Marketing that is required by your project.

We deploy Digital Marketing programs that strategically communicate the key elements that differentiate your WordPress business and brand from the next. We know the fast pace of the Dropshipping and WordPress ecommerce is competitive and tough. Our digital marketing strategies are proven for a variety of other industries and that’s why we’ve transferred our digital marketing experience to WordPress ecommerce Marketing businesses.

Your website should perform and connect seamlessly with social media and email marketing, plus support the fundamentals of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Our WordPress Dropshipping websites are also built and launched to achieve immediate inbound search engine traffic by being submitted and optimised for Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

COG Branding agency truly understands our role us to make life easier for our ecommerce entrepreneur clients, so we offer a ultimate WordPress dropshipping marketing support to ensure our customers start their own journey in ecommerce successfully. Our team of professional Digital Marketers specialising in Social Media Marketing and Google AdWords Marketing that connect your online business to your targeted customers.

Heard enough?
COG Branding are expert WordPress Droppshipping Marketing experts for small to medium ecommerce stores. Get In touch Today (02) 9523 6007.

COG Branding understands what you require from your digital marketing strategy, performance marketing and how important the accurate management of branded digital activities is for any small Australian business and brand.

We lead as a specialist Sydney small business digital marketing agency, providing innovative and astute advice on what online marketing activities will work best for your business, and how it will build brand equity. Importantly, we assume it’s our responsibility to ensure your digital brand assets, channels and platforms are managed and performing to their highest potential.