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U. S. DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH AND

HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of

Health

Benchmarks:Powered by WordPress

Brooke Hardison Wang

NCI-PAN Steering Committee

January 11, 2010

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An online

‘webzine’

Since 2001, the NCI

media relations team

has been publishing

articles for reporters

about the research at

the NCI

Volumes and issues

Paired articles

Text-only article

pages

Internally hosted

videos

Separate pages for

multimedia files

Keyword-based and

date range search

options

Average hits/month: 800

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Time for Change

• The webzine concept was antiquated and

we felt the site needed a fresh new look

• Being locked into a two-article per issue

format was limiting

• Any time we wanted to make a significant

change, it required a lot of time on the part

of the web team and their programmers

• There is an increasing need for more blog-

friendly content

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We needed to utilize web 2.0

• 70% of journalist use social networks

to assist in reporting

– 69% go to company/org websites

– 66% use blogs

– 51% use Wikipedia

– 48% use online videos

– 47% use Twitter & other microblog sites

• 92%believe that social media is

enhancing journalismSource: Middleberg Communications and the Society for New

Communications Research (SNCR), "Survey of Media in the Wired World."

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Top Information Sources

Search types journalists

used most often:

– Standard Search 91%

– News Search 27%

– Social Search 27%

– Image Search 18%

– Blog Search 14%

Social Media Tools

used

– Social Networks (64%)

– Blogs (55%)

– Wikis (50%)

– Micro-blogging (36%)

Source: TopRank Online Marketing Survey on Journalists Use of

Search, www.toprankmarketing.com

64% of Journalists use Google or Yahoo! to get news

information

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A new format

In 2009, in an effort to

modernize the site and

serve a broader audience,

the Office of Media

Relations redesigned the

site, inspired by news

blogs and social media

http://benchmarks.cancer.gov

Multiple images per

article

Embedded videos (now discoverable on

Youtube.com)

Twitter and YouTube

and Flickr integration

Easier search (text-

based), utilizing

categories, a tag

cloud, and archive

Hits in December: 2,452

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Website Development

• We needed a format that would allow us to

make changes and add content easily,

without a lot of web coding

• We wanted more flexibility in terms of

format and content

• We wanted a solution that would be cost

effective.

• We wanted a format that would allow us to

incorporate web 2.0 components

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Our Solution:

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What is WordPress?

• WordPress is an open-source, blog

publishing platform

• Available in two formats:

– Free, downloadable software package

used for self-hosting

(www.wordpress.org)

– Free, blog hosting service with the

software installed and maintained by the

company (www.wordpress.com)

• More info: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

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WordPress details

• Content management system (CMS)

– PHP and MySQL (code and database)

• Secure log-in (SSL)

• Customizable using Cascading Style

Sheets (CSS)

• Can create regular pages, in addition

to blog-style ones

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The Dashboard

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Instant

Web

Statistics

View visitors by

day, week and

month

See the most

popular posts and

pages for each

day

See what pages

are referring

people to your

site

Change views to

see summaries:

7 days

30 days

Quarter

Year

History of

the site

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Instant

Web

Statistics

(cont.)

See the search

engine terms that

are driving people

to your site

See to which

other sites your

site is driving

traffic

Get info on other

blogs that link to

your site

See counts of

overall visits to

your site, and

summary tables.

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If you have your own host

Pros of self-hosting WP:

• Can upload themes (many free) from

hundreds of sources

• Plug-ins allowed (third party software

that adds features to your site)

• Completely customizable

• Complete control over your site,

including the ability to put your own

ads on the page

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If you have your own host

Cons of self-hosting WP:

• You need your own web host ($540

per year)

• Requires more technical know-how

• You are on your own for back-ups

(many hosts will do this)

• When there are updates to the

software, you must do them manually

• To start, all you get is this:

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WordPress Start page

When you first install WordPress, this is what you get.

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Examples of Self-hosted Sites

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More examples

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More examples

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If you don’t want to self-host

Pros of WordPress.com:

• Set-up, updates, spam, back-ups and

security are handled by

WordPress.com

• Free (except for upgrades)

• WordPress.com will occasionally

promote your blog for you

• Requires NO knowledge of CSS,

(x)HTML, PHP, etc.

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If you don’t want to self-host

Cons of WordPress.com:

• Limited to the 70+ themes available

on their site (can alter for a fee)

• Cannot edit the PHP code

• Can not add plug-ins

• May end up with ads on your site

(unless you pay the extra fee)

• Some limitations on the type of items

you can add (certain types of code)

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Upgrades for Wordpress.com

• Custom CSS: $14.97 per year

• Domain mapping (so address isn’t

wordpress.com): $9.97 per year

• No ads: $29.97

• Space upgrades (3GB included):

– 5 GB $19.97 / 15 GB $49.97 / 25 GB

$89.97

• VIP hosting available: $500/month +

$1500 set up

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Examples of WP-hosted Sites

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Examples of free hosted sites

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Cost for the new site

Contractor-created WP Theme: $7,900

Labor hours to transfer old articles: $750

Web-hosting for one year: $540

HTML Class: $800

WordPress Class: $800

CSS Class: $800

Total Cost: $11,590