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Sites Weekly: How to Get Traffic When YouÔÇÖre Just Starting Out

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

A quick heads up to start:

Next week, the doors to Digital Commerce Academy will be reopening. They will stay open for a week, and the price will go up the next time we reopen to a new group of students.

So there is good reason to consider if now would be a good time for you to supercharge your training and education when it comes to building a thriving online business around digital products.

The best action to take right now is to join the waitlist.

Then next week you can see all the details of the offer and make a decision.

Now on to this week’s links …

Content: Are you customer-centric enough?

If your content marketing strategy is going to succeed over the long term, one of its core principles must be customer centricity.

And it’s important to note that even if you’re not selling products yet, and thus don’t view your readers as “customers,” that’s still what they are. No money may be exchanging hands, but these people are still paying you with their time and attention in exchange for value and insight.

The post linked below goes through several examples of big brands who have succeeded and struggled with customer centricity. Each of the stories delivers a valuable lesson.

Here’s the big idea:

“No matter what the future holds, for your brand or for the market, if you deeply understand who your customers are and what those core customers need, your brand will always be valued and relevant.

“Marketers must let these core customers be their guiding principles and funnel all decisions through this core customer centricity.”

There is no better way to future-proof your success than by being as customer-centric as possible.

The Road to Marketing Success Is Paved With Customer Centricity

Design: How to optimize images for maximum impact

Images can fulfill several roles on your website:

They make your pages more visually appealing.
They can communicate certain messages and emotions in ways words cannot.
They can even drive traffic via search engines.

But to gain all of these benefits (and others) from using images in your blog posts, you need to optimize those images.

Here are some useful tips to keep in mind that will help you do so:

14 Image Optimization Tips You Need to Know

Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?

Now they can.

Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.

Technology: AI applications to keep an eye on

This is another future-looking link, as most of what is discussed in this article about AI applications probably won’t impact your content marketing right now …

But it’s always important to keep an eye toward the future so you know what is coming and can have time to prepare how to either leverage it or respond to it.

AI Applications That Are Changing the Face of Content Marketing

Strategy: How to get traffic when you’re just starting out

It’s not difficult for us to drive big-time traffic to a new blog post. We have hundreds of thousands of people on our email lists, and hundreds of thousands more who visit our websites each month.

But this has taken time to build. And a lot of resources. Which is why you better believe we’re going to maximize every inch of this advantage.

However …

This also means that the strategies we use at Rainmaker Digital to promote new content may not necessarily be the same ones you will want to use, especially if you’re just starting out.

There is a big difference between promoting an article on an established website like Copyblogger, and the scratching and clawing any website owner has to do when launching a new site and trying to build a fresh audience.

I found this blog post by Jacob McMillen at Conversion Sciences to be very insightful. He ran tests on 20 different promotion strategies. Some of the results will likely surprise you (others won’t). And there are a few tools he mentions I’d never heard about, but have since bookmarked.

Give it a read:

I Tested 20 Content Promotion Strategies And Found 3 Big Winners

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

[12] What if You Could Simply Eliminate SEO from Your Life?

Could it really be possible? Well, back in March of 2017, no less an authority than Brian Clark wrote a blog post on Copyblogger with that very headline. LetÔÇÖs hear him out before we make our judgment.

Important links from this episode:

Try StudioPress Sites
Sites Weekly Newsletter
Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
@JerodMorris on Twitter
Original blog post: What if You Could Simply Eliminate SEO from Your Life? by Brian Clark

Transcript

Jerod Morris: Welcome to Sites, a podcast by the teams at StudioPress and Copyblogger. In this show, we deliver time-tested insight on the four pillars of a successful WordPress website: content, design, technology, and strategy. We want to help you get a little bit closer to reaching your online goals, one episode at a time.

IÔÇÖm your host Jerod Morris.

Sites is brought to you by StudioPress Sites — the complete hosted solution that makes WordPress fast, secure, and easy ÔÇª without sacrificing power or flexibility. For example, you can upload your own WordPress theme, or, you can use one of the 20 beautiful StudioPress themes that are included and just one click away. Explore all the amazing things you can do with a StudioPress Site, and youÔÇÖll understand why this is way more than traditional WordPress hosting. No matter how youÔÇÖll be using your site, we have a plan to fit your needs — and your budget. To learn more, visit studiopress.com/sites. ThatÔÇÖs studiopress.com/sites.

Welcome to Episode 12 of Sites.

Last week, in episode 11, we discussed site security. I gave you five important steps that you need to take to build a fortress of security around your website.

If you missed that episode, please go back and listen to it. ItÔÇÖs both important and urgent that you take the security of your website seriously. Without security, your content and your design and your plugins, and everything else can too easily be rendered meaningless. Take security seriously.

Once you have strong security in place, then you can start thinking about things like ÔÇª SEO. Which is our topic this week.

You may recall that we discussed SEO back in episode 7. In that episode, I highlighted a common mistake website owners make with SEO — namely, not thinking clearly enough about each of the three components parts of Search Engine Optimization. I also provided you with three important SEO action steps you should take right away. Like the security episode, Episode 7 about SEO is well worth going back and listening to if you missed it, or if youÔÇÖre new to the podcast.

And if you are new — welcome. ItÔÇÖs great to have you here. Please take a moment to send me a tweet and let me know youÔÇÖre listening. IÔÇÖm @JerodMorris on Twitter. And that goes for you too if youÔÇÖre a long-time listener. I love being able to make a personal connection with listeners, so please take a moment to say hi.

Okay — back to business. SEO.

We know we need to think about it. We know we need to have smart, proven strategies and technology systems in place to maximize its impact.

But what if ÔÇª

What if we could simply eliminate SEO from our lives?

Yeah, thatÔÇÖs right, I said it: what if you could eliminate SEO from your life?

Is that really possible?

Well, back in March of 2017, no less an authority than Brian Clark wrote a blog post on Copyblogger with that very headline. The original headline was actually ÔÇ£Forget SEO.ÔÇØ

I say letÔÇÖs hear him out before we make our judgment.

Here, now, is my reading of Brian ClarkÔÇÖs blog post: ÔÇ£What If You Could Simply Eliminate SEO From Your Life?ÔÇØ IÔÇÖve adapted it slightly for clarity.

Make sure you stick around after the reading, as IÔÇÖll have this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific call to action for you.

What if You Could Simply Eliminate SEO from Your Life?

Imagine a world without search engines.

ItÔÇÖs easy if you try.

No more surprise Google updates. No more worrying about XML sitemaps, robots.txt, and content analysis and optimization.

And perhaps most importantly, no more keyword research.

That last one means youÔÇÖre going to have to go old-school to figure out the language of your audience to reflect it back to them. ItÔÇÖs going to take a lot more work.

You didnÔÇÖt think you were going to get out of that one, did you?

LetÔÇÖs talk for a minute about choosing the right words ÔÇª

HereÔÇÖs a relevant quote for you:

ÔÇ£The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Mark Twain

When youÔÇÖre executing on your content marketing strategy, what you say is crucial. But when it comes right down to engaging and converting your intended audience, how you say it becomes the definitive difference.

You need to speak the language of the audience. In a world with search engines, you get a glimpse directly into the mind of your prospect, based on the language they use when seeking a solution to a problem or looking for the answer to a question.

Back before search engines, writers and advertisers still had to discover the language of the intended audience. It just took more work.

YouÔÇÖve likely heard of Eugene Schwartz, one of the most influential copywriters in the history of the craft. This is what he said on the topic back in the 1960s:

ÔÇ£One hour a day, read. Read everything in the world except your business. Read junk. Very much junk. Read so that anything that interests you will stick in your memory. Just read, just read, just read ÔÇª There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.ÔÇØ

In that scenario, youÔÇÖd have to rely solely on other content creators to get the language right. How do you know they did the proper work?

Still want to live in a world without search engines and keyword research?

YouÔÇÖre already doing the work

Let me be frank ÔÇª itÔÇÖs simply negligent to not use keyword research to understand the language of your audience so that you can reflect it back to them. YouÔÇÖre simply doing content marketing poorly if youÔÇÖre not discovering and addressing the related topics that your prospects care about.

And once youÔÇÖre covering the topics that matter, and using the language your audience uses, youÔÇÖre doing most of what matters for search engine optimization. You donÔÇÖt have to obnoxiously repeat keyword phrases anymore ÔÇö Google has been smarter than that for years now.

For example, voice search has increased sevenfold since 2010, thanks to mobile. This gives you a more conversational glimpse into the minds of your audience, while also allowing you to write in a natural, engaging manner that Google still understands.

Plus, GoogleÔÇÖs semantic abilities continue to improve. The algorithm interprets queries based on what users mean, even if that differs from what they searched. And GoogleÔÇÖs AI is even beginning to understand metaphors.

In short, if you do the work thatÔÇÖs required to understand the language and cover the topics your audience cares about in the context of doing business with you, youÔÇÖre doing the bulk of the work that constitutes modern SEO.

From there, the rest of the learning curve isnÔÇÖt that bad. And youÔÇÖve got technology on your side for that.

HereÔÇÖs the real danger of focusing on SEO

The real danger of SEO isnÔÇÖt that youÔÇÖll create content designed for robots. People use search engines, not robots ÔÇö so youÔÇÖre always creating for humans. And Google not only wants you to do that, they require it.

No, the real danger is that you run into problems when you chase search traffic as if itÔÇÖs an end instead of a means. The intentional nature of search traffic makes it a potential gold mine, but only if you do something with it.

In other words, ranking number one in Google for a coveted search term means nothing if that traffic doesnÔÇÖt further a business objective.

Are they likely to click deeper into the site?
How about a content upgrade that gets them on your email list?
Can you get them to check out your product or service?

ThereÔÇÖs nothing worse than a quick bounce. And search traffic bounces even if you do a great job of answering the initial question ÔÇö if you donÔÇÖt give them a next step, that is.

Traffic doesnÔÇÖt mean squat without some form of conversion. And search traffic is not your audience; itÔÇÖs just a highly qualified missed opportunity unless you get them onto an email list or prompt them to make a purchase.

This is the SEO last mile

If youÔÇÖre doing the real work of understanding the problems, desires, and language of your audience, you might as well do the remaining work of optimizing for search engines. And most of that is handled by technology.

Primarily, you need a mobile-friendly site that loads fast. Which, letÔÇÖs face it, youÔÇÖd need even in our imaginary scenario where search engines donÔÇÖt exist. People are still people, and thatÔÇÖs why Google wants you to optimize for their experience.

If youÔÇÖve done the extra work to rank well in search engines, you now owe it to yourself to optimize for conversion as well ÔÇö because thatÔÇÖs what you need to do for any kind of traffic, right?

Which brings me to my real point here. Outside of purely technical issues due to legacy website problems, SEO is not separate from content marketing. ItÔÇÖs an integrated aspect of content marketing.

So, to go back to the original question posed in the headline: Can you really eliminate SEO from your life?

Yes and no.

You can certainly eliminate having a separate, siloed focus on SEO from your life. It doesnÔÇÖt work, and it wastes your time and effort.

Because once you stop viewing SEO as something separate from your content marketing, and start viewing SEO as an integrated set of activities that help you empathize with and better serve your ideal audience, you will find yourself in a much better position to achieve your content marketing goals.

And when you combine smart, integrated SEO with basic, proven conversion techniques ÔÇª well ÔÇª now you have the formula for a powerful, successful WordPress website.

Now itÔÇÖs time for this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific call to action.

Call to action

For this weekÔÇÖs call to action, I want you to take a few minutes and gain a greater understanding for how people are currently finding your site in search engines.

So go into your analytics program and take a look at the keywords driving traffic to your site. Look at the top keywords, then dig into some of the medium- and long-tail keywords as well. And donÔÇÖt just look at the list of words, look at the landing pages people are ending up on when they search those terms. Are they landing pages you WANT people ending up on for those terms? And are those landing pages set up to convert? Check. Double check.

Are there terms you think, or you want, to be driving referrals to your site that arenÔÇÖt currently? Doing this can give you important insight into new pages you should create, or perhaps even assumptions on your part that are wrong.

The different types of insight that you can gain from an exercise like this are plentiful. So take 10-15 minutes, poke around, and see what you find out. I bet youÔÇÖll find it to be worth your time, as youÔÇÖll gain a better understanding of your current search visitors, as well as holes in how search engines see you that new content can help you plug up.

And please report back to me on Twitter. What did you learn by following through with this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific Call to Action? I want to know!

Okay — coming next week, we move back to content. And I promise you next weekÔÇÖs episode will be the perfect next step after an episode like this weekÔÇÖs about SEO — because, as we discussed earlier in this episode, the best search rankings in the world wonÔÇÖt matter if your content doesnÔÇÖt engage visitors once they reach your site. So listen in next week to learn how to create content that deeply engages your audience.

Finally, before I go, here are two more quick calls to action for you to consider:

Subscribe to Sites Weekly

If you havenÔÇÖt yet, please take this opportunity to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you donÔÇÖt want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon.

Reading this newsletter will help you make your website more powerful and successful. Go to studiopress.com/news and sign up in one step right there at the top of the page. ThatÔÇÖs studiopress.com/news.

Rate and Review Sites on Apple Podcasts

And finally, if you enjoy the Sites podcast, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts (formerly known as iTunes), and consider giving us a rating or a review over there as well.

One quick tip on that: to make the best use of your review, let me know something in particular you like about the show. That feedback is really important.

To find us in Apple Podcasts, search for StudioPress Sites and look for the striking purple logo that was designed by Rafal Tomal. Or you can also go to the URL sites.fm/apple and it will redirect you to our Apple Podcasts page.

And with that, we come to the close of another episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Sites. I appreciate you being here.

Join me next time, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful WordPress websites together.

This episode of sites was brought to you by StudioPress Sites, which was awarded ÔÇ£Fastest WordPress HostingÔÇØ of 2017 in an independent speed testÔÇÅ. If you want to make WordPress fast, secure, and easy — and, I mean, why wouldnÔÇÖt you — visit studiopress.com/sites today and see which plan fits your needs. ThatÔÇÖs studiopress.com/sites.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Sites Weekly: New Research on How Audiences Respond to Podcasts

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

I’ve spent the last handful of weeks taking on full-time childcare responsibilities for my one-year-old daughter since my wife went back to work.

It’s been fun, tiring, rewarding, confusing, amazing, difficult, and priceless all at once. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

But it certainly has provided me with a challenge when it’s come to being productive … because I’ve also maintained a full-time, work-from-home job while all of this daytime childcare craziness has been going on.

I’ve stumbled, fumbled, and bumbled my way around, doing my best every step of the way, and I think I’ve learned a few important lessons about how to stay productive even after your well-manicured schedule gets detonated all of a sudden.

I wrote about it on Copyblogger last week. If you’re looking for tips on how to stay productive in the face of persistent distractions, this post is for you.

Now on to this week’s links …

Content: New research on how audiences respond to podcasts

I love podcasts.

I love listening to podcasts, and I love hosting podcasts. (This seems like a perfect time for me to plug the companion podcast to this newsletter that I host.)

And that’s all well and good … but is the time that I’m investing in creating podcast content really paying off? How would I even know?

And are current podcasting trends pointing in a positive direction that suggests you should consider incorporating podcasts into your marketing mix?

This post from Social Media Examiner attempts to answer those questions:

How Audiences Respond to Podcasts: New Research

BTW, this also seems like an opportune time for me to plug the other podcast I host, which is all about creating remarkable podcasts. If you’re curious about what it takes to host a successful podcast, The Showrunner will point you in the right direction.

Click here to learn more.

Design: Get more bang for your PDF buck

If you’re going to create PDF downloads for your audience, you want them to look immaculate. This is where design that fits your overall brand is so important.

But the look of a PDF is not the only element you need to be concerned about. You also need to design the implementation, meta information, and more in a particular way so that search engines can give your PDF as much love as possible.

Here’s a quick sneak peek at something I did not realize:

“Load speed is an important ranking factor for any page, but it becomes more challenging to accelerate this with heavy PDF files.

After putting so much work into creating an excellent piece of work, you donÔÇÖt want to have to remove images or charts just to compress the document.”

Get more tips here:

10 Tips to Make Your PDFs SEO Friendly

Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?

Now they can.

Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.

Technology: Let’s demystify the process of choosing an analytics tool

Want to immediately feel someone’s frustration? Read the first two lines of this next post:

“In three years my company used three (yes three!!) third party analytics tools.

Can you imagine the amount of time that was wasted on implementing the tools, and what little time was spent on effectively using them!?”

That sounds … awful.

But on the bright side, the author of this article was able to learn a lot about how to make smart decisions when choosing an analytics tool.

Let’s allow his frustration to be our gain and learn from him so we can make the right decision the first time.

And just to be clear: you should definitely have Google Analytics on your site. It’s free, and it provides a ton of useful information. But if, like many people, you want or need more, then his post is for you.

10 Tips for Choosing the Right Analytics Tool

Strategy: No, the era of ebooks is not over

Ebooks were once all the rage. It seemed like every single website on the internet was giving away an ebook (or 10) as an opt-in incentive.

And while that practice is fading somewhat, the power of the ebook as a smart and useful content asset is not. If you’re strategic when planning and taking action, ebooks can still be a lucrative and long-term asset in your overall digital business plan.

In this post, Sonia Simone explains how ebooks can even be a path toward a good living, all on their own.

Making a Living Writing Ebooks: HereÔÇÖs How It Works Today

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

[11] 5 Steps to Website Security You Can Trust

What can you do, as a site owner, to protect your website from the evildoers who will stop at nothing to harm your site for their own nefarious purposes? The first step is the most important.

Important links from this episode:

Transcript

IÔÇÖm your host Jerod Morris.

Welcome to Episode 11 of Sites.

Last week, in episode 10, we discussed user experience design, and how it benefits website users and can deliver bottom line business benefits as well.

But there is one sure-fire way to sink even the most immaculate user experience design ÔÇª and that is with poor security.

Nothing will erode your audienceÔÇÖs trust in you faster than visiting your website and getting a security warning, or having Google flash a ÔÇ£You canÔÇÖt trust this siteÔÇØ message in your search results.

Even worse, have you ever navigated to a site, started reading, and then been suddenly redirected to some spammy, shady looking sweepstakes page ÔÇª or worse? You try to press the back button, and you canÔÇÖt? I have.

ItÔÇÖs a pretty good sign that something got hacked on the original site, whether it was the site itself or a piece of code, like an ad script. It definitely makes me think twice about visiting again.

DonÔÇÖt make your website visitors think twice!

The simple reality is that website security has never been more critical. Hackers, ransomware, and denial of service attacks are all concerns for the modern business.

With WordPress, the power of the platform is also the reason that security holes can develop and be exploited. While the ability to mix various themes and plugins with the content management system provides that flexible power, it also increases the potential for malicious access.

So what can you do, as a site owner, to protect your website from the evildoers who will stop at nothing to harm your site for their own nefarious purposes?

The first step is the most important.

1. Choose a security-focused hosting provider

The most important security-related decision you will make is where you host your website. As you peruse different hosting options, or step back and review your current host from this perspective, ask this simple question: what is my host bringing to the table in terms of security?

You need a host that is specifically designed to provide an integrated environment that keeps your website safe from the bad guys.

What does that look like? Well, a strong host should essentially take care of the rest of these steps for you. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right? Absolutely. You donÔÇÖt want to stress about security, you want to work on your content and build relationships with your audience members and, hopefully, future customers.

So letÔÇÖs look at these other steps and see what your hosting provider should be delivering to you.

2. Have automatic WordPress updates in place

The beauty of open source software like WordPress is that there are thousands of people constantly making it better, as well as thousands of eyes looking for security issues.

But itÔÇÖs generally up to you to make sure you update your version of WordPress when there are problems with a previous release. This means you have to keep track of when WordPress updates are available, backup your site, and then cross your fingers that the update doesnÔÇÖt bork something. And then do it again a few weeks later when a new update is out.

ThatÔÇÖs cumbersome. And it can be stressful.

But itÔÇÖs necessary.

The best solution is hosting your site with a provider that has an automatic update feature — and to turn it on, if itÔÇÖs not on by default. Then, basically, your host is taking this responsibility and pressure off your plate. ThatÔÇÖs good. ThatÔÇÖs the value youÔÇÖre paying for.

3. Respect the risk presented by themes and plugins

The next question is will your theme or plugins you want to install add security holes?

If your host comes bundled with themes and recommended plugins, like StudioPress Sites does, for example, then you can feel comfortable that everything will play nicely together and be as secure as it can be.

Shoddy theme and plugin code leads to easy access for hackers. Plus, it can kill your site speed and performance. A double whammy. This is why using themes and plugins that have been fully vetted by a security-conscious host is a smart idea.

Take the Genesis Framework as an example. This is the framework on which our themes are built at StudioPress, and every StudioPress Sites website comes loaded with Genesis and 20-plus child themes.

Not only does the well-coded Genesis provide a strong line of defense, it also auto-updates when a new version is released and adds a layer of protection on top of the newest version of WordPress.

Make sure you watch your plugins too, both in what you allow into your siteÔÇÖs environment, and in ensuring that those plugins are always updated to the latest version. Plugins can be the blessing and the curse of WordPress, and you want to stay vigilant in keeping them updated at all times.

Helpful hint: if youÔÇÖre running a plugin that does not update quickly after new versions of WordPress come out, start looking for a new plugin. It might mean that the plugin developer has abandoned the plugin, which doesnÔÇÖt bode well for future improvements. At best, youÔÇÖll be using an outdated plugin, which is a recipe for security disaster.

Finally, letÔÇÖs discuss two more areas where you and your hosting provider need to be really serious about security:

4. Protect yourself from DDoS attacks

Have you ever heard of a DDoS attack?

YouÔÇÖve probably heard the term even if you didnÔÇÖt know what it means.

A distributed denial of service — DDoS — is a brute force attack that is the result of multiple compromised systems (for example, bots) flooding your site with traffic. You need to make sure that your siteÔÇÖs host has proactive technology that allows it to detect and mitigate attacks quickly, while repeat offenders are detected and banned accordingly.

For example, we have a proprietary technology in place for this at StudioPress Sites. ItÔÇÖs an ÔÇ£always onÔÇØ intrusion prevention technology that works continuously to keep your WordPress install safe from vulnerabilities, intrusions, and exploits. Our team has years of experience, plus weÔÇÖve sought audit input from multiple third parties, all of which allows us to create configurations and settings that keep the bad guys away without handcuffing your working style.

You would be wise to ask your host how they handle DDoS attacks, and you should hope they have a detailed explanation like what I just provided about StudioPress Sites. DDoS attacks are a serious problem, and they need to be treated with serious solutions.

5. Deploy continuous malware monitoring

Finally, you need continuous malware monitoring. This really isnÔÇÖt negotiable.

Unless you yourself are constantly monitoring all of the folders and files that make up your website, how will you know if a hacker has broken in and left something? Not all hacks and malicious code reveal themselves in a public, obvious way right away. And if your site has a ticking time bomb buried within it — really, if it has anything in it that you didnÔÇÖt put there yourself — then you need to know about it so you can take action.

To give you another example, the way StudioPress Sites handles this is to partner with Sucuri for continuous malware monitoring, scanning, and remediation. So if malware is found, we take the responsibility of removing it so you donÔÇÖt have to worry about it.

Additionally, we also scan for advanced threats, including conditional malware and the latest cyber intrusions. This is all included as part of your plan. And thatÔÇÖs how it should be.

Adequate website security shouldnÔÇÖt be an add-on that you pay more for, or something you have to rely totally on third parties for. Strong security should be a standard part of any web hosting package, so make sure you have it.

To review, here are the five steps you can take to have a more secure website are:

Choose a security-focused hosting provider

Have automatic WordPress updates in place

Respect the risk presented by themes and plugins

Protect yourself from DDoS attacks

Deploy continuous malware monitoring

Now stick around ÔÇª this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific call to action is coming up.

Call to action

For this weekÔÇÖs call to action, I want you to pick one of the following:

You can either ÔÇª

One: Create a recurring calendar or to-do list item that reminds you to check every other week for WordPress, plugin, or theme updates.

This way, youÔÇÖll never go more than two weeks without checking, if for some reason you donÔÇÖt happen to log in to your WordPress dashboard and/or miss the alerts in there.

Now, if your hosting provider has automatic updates for WordPress and even your theme and certain plugins, you may not need to do this. Just make sure the automatic updates are turned on. Then you can choose CTA #2 ÔÇª

Two: If you donÔÇÖt already know, ask your hosting provider how they are protecting you from DDoS attacks and malware injections. You may need to put in a support request, or find the answers in your hostÔÇÖs knowledge base or documentation.

You need to know this, even if itÔÇÖs just for your own peace of mind.

Okay — coming next week, weÔÇÖre back to strategy, and weÔÇÖre back to SEO. WeÔÇÖre going to ask — and answer — the question What if You Could Simply Eliminate SEO from Your Life? Come back next week to find out.

Finally, before I go, here are two more quick calls to action for you to consider:

Subscribe to Sites Weekly

If you havenÔÇÖt yet, please take this opportunity to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you donÔÇÖt want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon.

Oh, and I should mention, we occasionally include special offers in these emails too — stuff that isnÔÇÖt otherwise marketed publicly. So if you like StudioPress products, keep your eye out for special deals in your Sites Weekly email. Again, itÔÇÖs studiopress.com/news.

Rate and Review Sites on Apple Podcasts

And finally, if you enjoy the Sites podcast, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts (formerly known as iTunes), and consider giving us a rating or a review over there as well.

One quick tip on that: to make the best use of your review, let me know something in particular you like about the show. That feedback is really important.

And with that, we come to the close of another episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Sites. I appreciate you being here.

Join me next time, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful WordPress websites together.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Q&A: Keep it all on one site or split?

Henrik is getting ready to launch a new website, but he is wondering if he actually should split his content up on two separate sites. He also wonders about options for an ecommerce plugin to get started with.

Important links from this episode:

Transcript

IÔÇÖm your host Jerod Morris.

Welcome to another special Q&A episode of Sites.

Our question for this episode comes to us from Henrik Blomgren. HenrikÔÇÖs question is as follows:

I┬┤m planning on starting up a website that will be both my own portfolio, my first try at selling themes/PSD/Sketch files to visitors, and for this I have a couple questions.

1. Would you recommend having that combination of areas on the same site or would you recommend splitting them up even more?

2. What e-commerce plugin would you recommend? Currently looking at WooComerce and Easy Digital Downloads.

Those are my two concerns right now so any help/answers are appreciated.

In order to answer this question, I sought the counsel of one the smartest designers I know: Rafal Tomal, our lead designer at Rainmaker Digital.

Here is RafalÔÇÖs response:

1. I would combine both just to get started. It may be easier to sell products as cheaper alternatives to his services. Once he establishes a stronger brand and people start coming just to buy his products then I think it would make sense to start building a separate brand for it and redirect customers there.

2. Yeah, WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are probably good choices for a start.

Thank you, Rafal.

I agree with him. Since Henrik is just getting starting with this website, I donÔÇÖt see the need to split his content into two separate sites. As Rafal said, if his audience grows, and if he starts generating significant revenue from the digital product sales, then maybe it would be smart to split. Until then, do it all on one site and let all of your efforts push that one site forward.

And while I have not personally used WooCommerce, and only have very brief experience with Easy Digital Downloads, I have heard good things about both from people with more extensive experience. Just look at the numbers:

WooCommerce is installed on more than 3 million WordPress websites and has a rating of 4.6 stars in the WordPress plugin repository.
Easy Digital Downloads is installed on more than 60,000 WordPress websites, and it has a rating of 4.8 stars in the plugin repository.

Compare the two and choose the one that works best for you.

Good luck Henrik, as you get your new website project off the ground. Please send me a tweet or an email and let me know you listened to this episode, and you can send me any follow-up questions you might have as well.

If you have a question youÔÇÖd like to submit for one of our Q&A episodes, please go to studiopress.blog/submit-your-question/ and use the form to submit. You can find that link in the show notes for this episode, which are always available at studiopress.blog.

Before I go, remember to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you donÔÇÖt want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon.

IÔÇÖll talk to you soon.

Join me next time, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful WordPress websites together.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Sites Weekly: Inspiration Is Everywhere

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

Let’s begin this week with two recent posts from Copyblogger that contain essential information you need to know.

The first is from Sonia Simone, who clearly articulates the important difference between features and benefits. The lines about Jimmy Choo shoes and hybrid cars sum up the differences perfectly.

Even if you’ve been creating content for a while, and know the difference between features and benefits, it can be easy to fall into the feature trap with your copy. Be proactive in avoiding it. Let Sonia’s post serve as a usual reminder.

The second post I want to direct your attention toward is one I wrote about SEO called 3 Important SEO Steps to Take Right Away.

The big idea is to split up the term SEO into its components — search, engine, and optimization — and dig deep to understand how they each work individually and together.

Consider those bonus links for the week.

Now on to this week’s four links about each of the pillars of a successful WordPress website …

Content: Are each of these elements part of your content strategy?

Hey, speaking of features and benefits, this blog post from Jeff Bullas discusses the importance of accentuating benefits as well. It’s #6.

Overall, it’s a useful overview of how to approach your content strategy.

#3 is the one I know but sometimes forget. So I appreciated the reminder.

7 Ways to Create Better Content Simply By Understanding Your Customers

Design: Inspiration is everywhere

When I first clicked on this link and started scrolling, I thought, “Oops, this isn’t really going to work for Sites Weekly.”

But then I kept scrolling …

And I found myself having flashes of ideas for my own sites as I looked at the featured designs. Besides, scrolling and looking at gorgeous designs can be a nice mental break.

So go ahead. Click and scroll. See if these designs give you any inspiration for your own website.

The experience can be a reminder to always keep your eyes open and receptive to inspiration, because it’s everywhere.

Learn From What You See: It All Starts With Inspiration

Technology: Voice-controlled devices are here to stay

I don’t have an Amazon Alexa or Google Home device yet. I feel a bit unnerved every time I think about those devices constantly listening to everything going on inside of my home.

But I have a realistic enough view of the future to know that we’ll eventually get one. I’ll have to deal with my misgivings.

So I found this blog post from NewsCred very interesting.

You’ll notice that many of the examples are big brands. This is because the technology is still new and the big brands can actually afford the investment in content optimized for voice devices. But as the adoption rate hikes, the technology will likely trickle down and become easier.

Bottom line: we’re all eventually going to need to understand how to create content that works for voice-controlled devices. So we might as well get a head start thinking about it.

Content Marketing in the Era of Voice-Controlled Devices

Strategy: Is your business a taxi or a cruise ship?

Here is another little ditty of brilliance from Seth Godin.

I have nothing useful to add. Just read it, and give it some thought.

The taxi or the cruise ship?

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

[10] How User Experience Design Pays Back to the Business

Creating a positive user experience is very important, but it should not — in fact, can not — trample on your business goals. Even the greatest user experience in the world isnÔÇÖt worth it if the cost will cause you to be unprofitable.

Important links from this episode:

Transcript

IÔÇÖm your host Jerod Morris.

Sites is brought to you by StudioPress Sites — the complete hosted solution that makes WordPress fast, secure, and easy ÔÇª without sacrificing power or flexibility. For example, you can upload your own WordPress theme, or, you can use one of the 20 beautiful StudioPress themes that are included and just one click away. Explore all the amazing things you can do with a StudioPress Site, and youÔÇÖll understand why this is way more than traditional WordPress hosting. No matter how youÔÇÖll be using your site, we have a plan to fit your needs — and your budget. To learn more, visit studiopress.com/sites. ThatÔÇÖs studiopress.com/sites.

Welcome to Episode 10 of Sites.

Last week we discussed content, continuing our series on content strategy by discussing how to know exactly what content to deliver to convert more prospects.

This week we move on to design, and once again we are going to feature some simple, brilliant insight from Rafal Tomal, our lead designer at Rainmaker Digital.

You have surely heard about UX design — the ÔÇ£UXÔÇØ stands for user experience. It wonÔÇÖt surprise you to learn that Rafal believes creating a positive, intuitive, useful experience for users of your website is important.

BUT ÔÇª

ItÔÇÖs important to note that doing so should not, in fact, can not, trample on your business goals. Because even the greatest user experience in the world isnÔÇÖt worth it if the cost will cause you to be unprofitable. ThatÔÇÖs simply an unsustainable formula.

LetÔÇÖs dive in and talk about that more now, with this reading adapted from RafalÔÇÖs blog post How User Experience Design Pays Back to the Business.

What does it really mean when we think about designing for better user experience?

We often talk about readability, usability, how it should work, and how it should behave. We focus our attention around the users, their problems and needs. We test, research, optimize, and repeat.

ItÔÇÖs all correct but there is one more big point that it seems like we sometimes forget. UX design — the UX stands for user experience — is not there just to serve usersÔÇÖ needs but also to serve business needs.

Joe Natoli in his book, Think First, calls it a ÔÇ£value loopÔÇØ:

value loop: creating something that delivers value to users, so that value also comes back to the productÔÇÖs creator in the form of increased use, efficiency, or good old fashioned dollars and cents.

So, you have to constantly keep thinking about the business needs when designing for user experience. You should really look for that sweet spot between both worlds.

Ok, it all sounds pretty good in theory but how does it translate into real life situations?

LetÔÇÖs look at some examples.

ItÔÇÖs always a good idea to bring in real examples because that puts all the ideas into some perspective that you can easily relate to.

IÔÇÖll try to make it quick and simple, but of course some of these may be way more complex than it sounds.

Example 1

So, letÔÇÖs say youÔÇÖre designing a web app. Designing an effective user onboarding process can be the easiest example to show how UX can benefit both the users and your business.

User onboarding can be an email sequence, a guided tour, or just a simple welcome message explaining some features of your app. Actually, it can really be anything that can help users to be successful in using your product.

For users it can be a huge time saver, and provide an overall good experience since they feel welcomed and guided through the process. It means better retention for your business and fewer support tickets to answer.

Simple, right?

Example 2

Another example could be designing access to your customer support. The goal is clear: to help solve a userÔÇÖs problems as fast as you can.

If you were looking just from the userÔÇÖs perspective then probably giving quick and easy access to your support team would be the best solution.

You could add a live chat and always have someone available 24/7 whenever your user has a question. You could add a ÔÇ£Get HelpÔÇØ link at the top in your navigation and everywhere around the site so itÔÇÖs easy to find it and file a support ticket.

However, this could kill the business because the support cost would skyrocket.

You need to find a solution that helps your customers while still being cost effective. ThatÔÇÖs where the real challenge is.

So, your solution could be adding a knowledge base with tutorials, guides, and frequently asked questions. You could help users find answers for their problems on their own to limit the need to contact the support team.

The challenge here is to make sure that such a knowledge base is frequently updated, comprehensive, and that itÔÇÖs all supported with an advanced search functionality.

Then you can keep optimizing and improving it, so users can find answers faster while maintaining a lower volume of support tickets.

If executed well, it would be a win-win situation with benefits for both users and the business. You have to sacrifice a little bit on both sides but itÔÇÖs all good as far as you find the middle ground.

Of course, keep in mind that every business is different. In some cases, providing accessible support can bring so much value to customers that it would pay back to the business in a long term and cover such a level of customer support.

IÔÇÖm not giving any final solutions here, just some examples.

Want an example about how good UX design can impact sales? ThatÔÇÖs coming up next.

How about increasing sales?

There are many examples of how good UX can help you increase sales based on how you design your sales page, shopping cart, checkout page, or even your service questionnaire form.

I like looking at the bigger picture when designing websites. How do users behave on your website and what are they looking for? What path do they take from the moment they enter the site to when they purchase your product?

LetÔÇÖs imagine designing a new home page for a company that sells some digital products.

The current home page displays some of the most popular products with a prominent ÔÇ£Buy NowÔÇØ button and a secondary ÔÇ£learn moreÔÇØ link.

A false assumption could be that if you put the ÔÇ£Buy NowÔÇØ button right in front of your users, they just cannot miss it.

If you start watching your usersÔÇÖ behavior, you may realize that they actually wander around your site, read more about the product, and look for some specific information before theyÔÇÖre ready to purchase the product.

The more expensive the product the more information it needs, of course.

So, your redesign could put more information on the home page, and link to product sales pages with all the features, screenshots, social proof, and the actual call to action somewhere in the middle of the page and at the bottom of the page.

That way your users can easily get all the information they need to make a purchase decision (benefit of users), and the business gets more sales, a higher conversion rate, and better customers (fewer refunds since customers are better educated about the product).

And all of this can be done just by observing the users, enhancing their experience, and providing them with what they really need instead of trying to force them to walk a completely different path.

Again, in some cases, your user testing could show something completely different. It could appear that users are so well-educated about the products youÔÇÖre selling that they donÔÇÖt need to learn more about it and are looking for the fastest way to purchase it.

ThatÔÇÖs why itÔÇÖs so important to learn more about your users, their needs, and their behavior on your website. You should never make any assumptions based on someone elseÔÇÖs research or testing.

I think itÔÇÖs worth remembering that user experience design wouldnÔÇÖt really make any sense if it didnÔÇÖt give value back to the business.

ItÔÇÖs also work that is never truly finished, because you can keep measuring, optimizing, testing, and iterating new solutions.

Fortunately, itÔÇÖs time that you shouldnÔÇÖt classify as being well spent, but instead well-invested.

This was a reading the was adapted from Rafal TomalÔÇÖs blog post How User Experience Design Pays Back to the Business.

Now stick around ÔÇª this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific call to action is coming up.

Call to action

For this weekÔÇÖs call to action, IÔÇÖm going to suggest you do something that I, myself, try to do on a somewhat regular basis.

That is: go through your purchase and user onboarding processes as a user. Sign up for an account or purchase a product just like your user would and experience exactly what they experience. Pay attention to things like:

How is the purchase process? Is it intuitive?
Does the thank you page set the right tone and provide useful information for what to do next?
Does the timing of your onboarding emails make sense? Do they provide timely value?
Does any part of the process throw you off guard or not make sense?

It can be really easy to set an onboarding process and forget about it, and think weÔÇÖve gotten it all right so we donÔÇÖt need to test it. But challenge your own satisfaction in this regard. Go that extra mile for your customers and potential customers to be sure that the user experience youÔÇÖre giving them is a good one ÔÇª and, crucially, that it also makes sense for your business.

Is there an opportunity to upsell on the thank you page?
Is there another offer you could work into the onboarding autoresponder?
Are there places where you can offer help at a critical time that people will appreciate and that will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty? That could lead to more referral business.

So do that. And keep it simple, donÔÇÖt overwhelm yourself. Do it for one product, one onboarding sequence. Take notes as you go. And then make improvements.

As Rafal said in his piece, ÔÇ£You can keep measuring, optimizing, testing, and iterating new solutions.ÔÇØ Take this opportunity to do exactly that.

Okay — coming next week, weÔÇÖre talking technology. And this is another topic that isnÔÇÖt necessarily fun or sexy — in fact, itÔÇÖs kind of scary — but it is absolutely paramount to the sustainability and success of your site: security. DonÔÇÖt miss that discussion.

ThatÔÇÖs next week, on Sites.

Finally, before I go, here are two more quick calls to action for you to consider:

Subscribe to Sites Weekly

If you havenÔÇÖt yet, please take this opportunity to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you donÔÇÖt want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon.

Rate and Review Sites on Apple Podcasts

And finally, if you enjoy the Sites podcast, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts (formerly known as iTunes), and consider giving us a rating or a review over there as well.

One quick tip on that: to make the best use of your review, let me know something in particular you like about the show. That feedback is really important.

And with that, we come to the close of another episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Sites. I appreciate you being here.

Join me next time, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful WordPress websites together.

This episode of sites was brought to you by StudioPress Sites, which was awarded “Fastest WordPress Hosting” of 2017 in an independent speed testÔÇÅ. If you want to make WordPress fast, secure, and easy — and, I mean, why wouldnÔÇÖt you — visit studiopress.com/sites today and see which plan fits your needs. ThatÔÇÖs studiopress.com/sites.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Q&A: How do I increase conversions?

Our first Q&A episode is based on a question from Rene, who wants to know how to increase conversions from all digital media. ThatÔÇÖs a broad question! So I enlisted the help of our remarkably capable marketing maven Loryn Thompson to answer.

Important links from this episode:

transcript

IÔÇÖm your host Jerod Morris.

Welcome to this special Q&A episode of Sites.

A few episodes ago, I made a request for your questions, and much to my excitement many of you took me up on that request.

So as we move forward with the show, we will continue posting a new episode every Tuesday about content, design, technology, or strategy. And then I will also be releasing these shorter, less formal Q&A episodes as well. So be on the lookout. This will be fun.

Okay, our first question comes to us from Rene, and Rene wants to know about conversion. I sent her a follow-up email and asked her to specify what areas of conversion she is interested in and she said how to increase conversion from all digital media i.e. engagement — from her website, Facebook, LinkedIn, MailChimp, etc.

In order to answer this question, I sought the counsel of one of my colleagues at Rainmaker Digital, Loryn Thompson. LorynÔÇÖs title says data analyst, but Loryn is much more than that. She has proven herself to be a remarkably capable jack-of-all-trades marketing maven, and her splendid ideas and smart work have directly led to several instances of conversion improvement for us since she joined our team.

So I wanted to get LorynÔÇÖs expertise, and she kindly agreed to participate. Here is what Loryn had to say:

Firstly, ÔÇ£conversionÔÇØ and ÔÇ£engagementÔÇØ are two different things.

A conversion is an action that has meaningful value to your business ÔÇö the most common is a sale, but you could also include email opt-ins, leads, phone calls, etc.

Engagement metrics, on the other hand, are best used for diagnosing problems in your conversion funnel ÔÇö if your emails tend to have a high open rate but few clicks, you know that in order to get more people closer to conversion, you should work to improve your click-through rate. But donÔÇÖt get so caught-up in click-through rate that you forget about actually converting.

So, to the individual points of the questionÔÇª

As far as SEO, you can use Google Search Console to figure out what keywords send the most traffic to which pages, and then optimize the calls to action on those pages to fit the keyword intent. After you change the CTAs, give it a bit of time, and then check to see what effect your changes had.

For increasing overall website conversion, you can use A/B testing if you have enough traffic, but make sure the changes are dramatic enough to give you statistically significant results. Otherwise, you can make adjustments to your website and watch the conversion rate for your desired action, and keep the changes that appear to be correlated to an increase in that conversion rate.

Right now, IÔÇÖm particularly interested in using customer feedback to improve marketing messages. If you can, survey your customers and learn why they purchased the product in the first place, and what they love most about it. Chances are, youÔÇÖll find ways to market your product that you never before considered, and other people will connect with the messaging you hear from your customers ÔÇª and therefore you will increase your conversion rate.

As far as improving email and social media conversion rates and engagement, I recommend categorizing your emails and posts by topics and attributes. I do this frequently with the emails we send to customers ÔÇö What was the main message? How long was the subject line? Where was the call-to-action?

After you categorize your content, take a look at the engagement metrics for each category. You might find that when you post about a certain topic, your audience responds better, or that video posts on Facebook get more likes.

When I first started at Rainmaker Digital, we found that placing the call to action higher in the email content resulted in more clicks. And, sure enough, we were able to increase our overall click-through rate by making sure we put the primary CTA within the first few paragraphs.

Thank you for that insight Loryn. IÔÇÖll piggy-back quickly on a couple of points.

First, as to LorynÔÇÖs comment about improving our email click-throughs, sheÔÇÖs absolutely correct. This was one of the first helpful pieces of data she brought to me after just a few weeks on the job. We had typically waited until the end of the email to introduce the CTA link, but moving it higher in the email has helped us to achieve greater click-throughs and, crucially, more sales.

I also think what she said about customer feedback is absolutely essential. And if you arenÔÇÖt selling a product yet, think more in terms of audience feedback. Not only will you find out what people like and even dislike most about what youÔÇÖre doing, but you will get to hear it in their own voice. And the best way to get more people like your best current audience members or customers, is to find out what moved the needle for them, how they describe it in their own words, and then highlight that feature and benefit in similar language in your copy. ThatÔÇÖs an age-old copywriting technique that worked then, still works now, and probably will work 2,000 years from now.

Good luck Rene, as you work to improve the engagement and conversion on your website. Please send me a tweet or an email and let me know you listened to this episode, and you can send me any follow-up questions you might have as well.

Before I go, remember to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you donÔÇÖt want to miss, and then I send them out via email on Wednesday afternoon.

IÔÇÖll talk to you soon.

Join me next week, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful WordPress websites together.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Sites Weekly: Are Your Landing Pages Leaving Conversions on the Table?

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

First up this week, a quick plug for two recent episodes of my new podcast Sites, which I hope you’ve had a chance to listen to.

As you’ll see when you peruse this week’s links, SEO ended up becoming a hot topic. So let me also point you in the direction of this Sites episode, in which I take a deep dive into an SEO mindset mistake that plagues too many website owners.

And I will also point you toward this episode about goals for meaningful content marketing. Because aiming for (at least a few of) these goals will greatly strengthen your content marketing endeavors.

Now, on to this week’s links …

Content: Are your landing pages leaving conversions on the table?

You probably already know the basics of landing pages:

They are a single page about a single topic.
They should have a single, focused call to action.
The goal of landing pages is to turn traffic into money.

Once you have those down pat, and you approach your landing pages with the right mentality, how do you take your landing pages to the next level?

Digest the eight tips included in this post on Conversion Sciences.

The example about insomnia when illustrating the power of “proming” really stopped me in my tracks as I was reading. Section #4 about utilizing visual and language processing was quite compelling as well.

How To Persuade Landing Page Visitors To Convert

For more on landing pages, I also recommend this guide on landing pages from Copyblogger.

Design: How do you know if a website is mobile responsive?

You’ve undoubtedly heard a lot about “mobile responsive” design in recent years. And hopefully you’ve done more than just hear about it — hopefully your website is responsive or adaptive.

(For the record, all StudioPress themes are mobile responsive.)

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between responsive and adaptive? There are a few tell-tale signs, and this piece by Search Engine Land highlights them for you. Now you’ll never have to wonder again.

More importantly, when you see a site that you like, you will now be able to tell how it’s configured … and thus be in a better position to apply what you like about it to your own site.

How to tell whether a site is adaptive or responsive

Technology: How to position your site for local SEO success

This link may not apply to you.

If your business does not have a particular geographic focus, then local SEO may not be on your radar screen to consider. But if you do have a brick-and-mortar business, or if you are targeting searchers in specific locales, then you definitely want to pay heed to the tips in this post from Search Engine Journal.

And, actually, numbers three and six in this list are useful for everyone, so click the link even if local SEO isn’t top-of-mind for you.

8 Local SEO Hacks YouÔÇÖll Actually Want to Use

Strategy: How to get links to your website (and improve your SEO)

No matter how much search engine algorithms change, one constant seems to remain: the power of the authoritative link.

But how do you get good, valuable links that come from respected sites and will send your website high-quality visitors who you want to convert?

In this Copyblogger post, Brian Clark shares how to acquire the right kind of links that also communicate your authority to search engines. Plus, an important principle for both link building and life:

DonÔÇÖt be a dope.

3 Strategic Ways to Get Links to Your Website

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Boss Pro: Turn Your Dreams Into Plans

Launching a website is an articulation of your dreams and ideas to a specific audience — people who will visit and, hopefully, be moved by what they see. Moved to call, moved to subscribe, and even moved to buy.

Boss Pro, designed by our friends at Bloom, is the theme that helps you turn your dreams into plans.

This “posh yet minimalist” theme offers a warm welcome that is streamlined and full of light, and it was designed to take your business to the next level and help you connect with your ideal audience.

Boss Pro is easy to customize, and it delivers a winning combination of full-stretch and gallery images, as well as beautiful typography.

Features of Boss Pro include:

Easy to customize
Widgetized homepage for a flexible, engaging layout
Choose colors to match your branding
Upload your own logo or simply type in your website name to match the default branding
WooCommerce ready
Responsive, mobile-friendly design
Integrate with email subscriptions
Crafted buttons and forms
HTML5 Markup
Built-in Read more button
Styled share buttons, recent posts widget, subscribe widget, contact form, and Instagram
Landing page, full-width template
Designed to grow your business
Built-in investment page
Stunning testimonial widget design

As mentioned above, Boss Pro is designed to be easy to customize — enabling you to choose any logo, menu, sub menu, link, button, and background image. You can also utilize any and all 7 homepage widget areas for your business needs.

In terms of layout dimensions, the sidebar width is 340 pixels wide and the post area is 675px. (You can also choose a no-sidebar layout if you wish.)

Get the Boss Pro theme by Bloom

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

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