August 30, 2024
The Utah Small Business Development Center (SBDC) provides a wide range of events and workshops to entrepreneurs and small business owners throughout the state. These workshops cover essential topics teaching business skills such as marketing, tax planning, legal considerations, intellectual property, websites, business essentials, and more.
Most workshops are available online at no cost, making them accessible to a wide audience of Utah entrepreneurs. Sessions conducted in person may require a nominal fee.
The SBDC recently hosted a WordPress workshop about creating websites to fit a new business. The session started with each participant sharing their goals and what they hoped to gain from the training, which ranged from learning software basics to more specific challenges like adapting existing sites to WordPress. The instructor then tailored the training to address individual needs.
Attendees learned how to create a unique website domain name while considering how it aligns with social media handles and other online platforms for consistent branding. Various websites can be used to register a domain name or reserve a URL.
The workshop explored WordPress templates, available at a cost or free, which make the design process more accessible to users without previous web design experience. Attendees learned how various factors, including image sizes, can affect a website’s load time. The website loading speed can be tested using webpagetest.org and can help determine the need for strategies to optimize performance.
Additionally, the training covered WordPress plugins, which add specific features or functionality to a website. This can include payment processing plugins such as Square, PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and Braintree. The WordPress plugin directory can serve as a valuable resource to determine a plugin’s ease of integration. The discussion explored other tools for newsletters, email marketing, and more.
The hands-on approach of the training allowed attendees to tailor the workshop to specific needs, demonstrating that the SBDC’s offerings are a valuable resource for Utah’s startup ecosystem.
Visit the Utah SBDC website to view upcoming trainings and events.
The information in this article is current as of the publishing date and is intended for informational purposes only. This article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal, tax, or business advice. Any resources and organizations mentioned, unless an entity of or a partner of the state of Utah, are not formally endorsed by the Startup State Initiative or state of Utah.