News

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

This week, I have links to four blog posts (plus a bonus link to a Seth Godin post) that will help you improve your content, design, technology, and strategy.

Before we get to the links, I want to remind you that Sites Weekly now has a companion podcast, Sites. I’m hosting the show, which focuses on the same four pillars of a successful WordPress website.

If your goal is to build a powerhouse website that helps you achieve your goals, then consuming the podcast and this newsletter each week will keep you on the right track.

To subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes), click this link: sites.fm/apple.

And you can listen to this week’s episode right here at studiopress.blog: How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content.

And now on to this week’s links …

Content: What should you do when you get into a rut with your blog?

I suggest perusing this article from Content Marketing Institute (written by Jodi Harris), which presents five common problems that may be plaguing your blog.

More importantly, Jodi gives you clear and specific action steps that will help you overcome each problem. (And in doing so, she presents a meta example of how to write an effective blog post. Don’t just present and agitate problems, show us how to solve them.)

For example, the second problem is: “Your blog content isn’t unique or distinct.” One of the solutions is to craft an editorial mission statement. I love that!

I’m actually working through some ideas right now for a site I am planning to launch, and one of my challenges is figuring out how to present a unique take on a common topic. I’m going to try Jodi’s tip.

Which reminds me: Jodi’s blog post is useful for new blogs as well as old ones that are in a rut. You might as well prepare yourself for common problems and try to preempt them before they even start.

How to Beat the Battle of an Ineffective Blog

Design: Are two heads really better than one?

Anton Nikolov thinks so.

“The more diverse the group of people, the higher the collective intelligence grows. It is no surprise that international teams can achieve much more than only-one nationality teams.

Having a mix of different opinions and beliefs focused on solving a challenge gives rise to the collective intelligence. It allows approaching the problem-solution in multiple different ways until the best one emerges.

However, it is important to note that the presence of an expert, that could potentially influence the opinions of the rest of the group, automatically degrades the collective intelligence.”

While you may not be a member of a team that should be using the power of collective intelligence for a design project, there is still an important lesson to be learned from this post. And it can help you overcome the next optimization, innovation, or creativity challenge you face with your website.

Design principle: Collective intelligence

Technology: The when, what, and how of social media automation

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

I love how social media allows me to connect with people across the globe who are interested in the same topics I am, and how I’ve been able to build audiences through my activity on social media.

But I hate how distracting social media can be, and some of the hate and ignorance that gets spewed there, among other issues.

So, I’m always looking for ways to maximize the impact of social media while minimizing how much time I actually need to spend with my head buried in my computer screen or phone. (Actually, I removed all social media apps from my phone … and my life has gotten better because of it.)

One good way I’ve found to do this is with social media automation. This allows me to distribute my content in a systematic way and ensure that posts get sent out at different times on different days.

No, it doesn’t replace all of my social media activity. It’s important to still go in and have the one-on-one conversations that build real relationships. But automation does help, especially when done correctly.

This post from MarTech Today by Seth Price outlines four steps for getting social media automation right.

Social media automation: Oxymoron or godsend?

Strategy: What’s more important: customer acquisition or retention?

Or is this a trick question?

In this post on Help Scout by Emily Triplett Lentz, you’ll learn why it actually doesn’t make sense to prioritize one over the other.

Based on my own experience, I agree.

Is Customer Satisfaction the Wrong Goal?

And finally, here is a short blog post by Seth Godin about one of the great ironies of modern society: Two confusions.

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.

Not only do you want to attract your ideal customer, but you want to repel the people who you know are not right for you.

In this episode, we provide specific examples that illustrate why understanding your WHO is so important, and then we lay out a proven strategy for empathy that will help you get into the eyes, ears, and mind of your ideal customer.

Important links from this episode:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Brian Clark’s article: How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content
• One-click download of empathy map PDF

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.

I’m your host Jerod Morris.

Sites is brought to you by StudioPress Sites — the complete hosted solution that makes WordPress fast, secure, and easy … 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 you’ll understand why this is way more than traditional WordPress hosting. No matter how you’ll be using your site, we have a plan to fit your needs — and your budget. To learn more, visit studiopress.com/sites. That’s studiopress.com/sites.

Welcome to Episode 5 of Sites.

As you may have seen, last week we announced the show on Copyblogger — its official public introduction — and the response has been swift and overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed, left ratings and reviews over at Apple Podcasts, and reached out to me on Twitter with kind words. I really appreciate it.

We are just getting rolling here with Sites, and I look forward to continuing on this journey with you toward better, more powerful websites.

So … in our first four episodes, we did one complete cycle through our four pillars of a successful WordPress website. Now in this episode we find ourselves back at the beginning … with content.

In Episode 1, we discussed the simple three-step process for creating a winning content marketing strategy — understanding the who, the what, and the how. That episode is an important precursor to this one, so I recommend you listen to it.

In today’s episode, we’re going to build on that overview and dive deeper into the first of the three steps: the WHO. Then in the next two content episodes after this one, we’ll discuss the WHAT and the HOW.

Why is the WHO so important?

Here is a quick review from Episode 1:

Before you can get someone to buy from you, you need to know what to say to them, and how to say it. You’ll never get that right unless you know who you’re talking to.

Call them personas, avatars, or even characters if you like.

Your first step is to do the research that allows you to create a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal customer.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the word ideal in “your ideal customer.”

That, of course, is an excerpt from Brian Clark’s blog post The Simple 3-Step Process for Creating a Winning Content Marketing Strategy, on which Episode 1 was based.

This week’s episode, Episode 5, is based on Brian’s follow up post, titled: How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content.

I will perform that post for you now, edited slightly to fit the audio medium. Immediately after the reading, I’ll issue this week’s hyper-specific call to action.

Here now is Brian’s post, How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content.

How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content

“Hello, I’m a Mac.”

“And I’m a PC.”

You remember Apple’s “Get a Mac” series of commercials that ran from May 2006 to October 2009, right?

The commercials were short vignettes featuring John Hodgman as the sweet-yet-bumbling PC and Justin Long as the creative, hip Mac.

Those 66 short spots were named the best advertising campaign of the previous decade by Adweek.

The success of the long-running campaign leads one to believe that Apple certainly knows who its ideal customer is. Of course they do … because they chose their ideal customer, right from the birth of the Macintosh itself.

That doesn’t mean that everyone responded favorably to the ads. While researching for this piece, I ran across a commenter who maintained that the campaign had “backfired” because the PC character had actually been more appealing to him.

No, the campaign didn’t backfire (no one runs a series of ads for three years if they’re not working). Instead, Apple chose who not to attract as much as they chose who they hoped to convert.

Apple knew they were never going to get hardcore PC people to switch to a Mac. Instead, Apple used these 66 humorous little stories to target those who were more likely to “swing” toward Apple — after being educated about the benefits by the contrast between the two characters.

Sounds like really great content marketing to me. In fact, given the nature and duration of the Get a Mac campaign, it resembled serial online video marketing more than traditional advertising.

So, the first (and most important) step in our 3-step content marketing strategy is determining your “Who.”

Who do you want to attract and speak to, and just as importantly, who do you want to drive in the other direction? It all comes down to your values, first and foremost.

What are your core values?

Apple’s values were well reflected in the Get a Mac campaign — creativity, simplicity, and rebellion against the status quo. These core values were consistently present in the prior “Crazy Ones” campaign, and before that, the iconic “1984” ad.

Some feel that Apple has lost the ability to innovate since Steve Jobs passed. Whether or not that’s true, I think the perception of Apple has changed among those of us who were initially strongly attracted, because their advertising now, for the first time, tries to appeal to a more general audience.

Steve would definitely not approve.

Modern marketing is about matching up with the worldview of your ideal customer. Outside of a monopoly, there is no such thing as marketing that appeals to everyone, and yet, companies still try and routinely fail.

On the other hand, think of Patagonia. The founder of the outdoor clothing and gear company invented an aluminum climbing wedge that could be inserted and removed without damaging the rock face. This reflects Patagonia’s founding core value:

“Build the best products while creating no unnecessary environmental harm.”

Of course, not every company has a core value built into the founding story. Most businesses exist to simply sell things that people want, so it’s up to management to find the core values that they want to reflect in their marketing to attract the right kind of customer.

For example, there’s nothing inherently ethical about ice cream, beyond ingredients. So Ben & Jerry’s adopted the values of its two founders, which had nothing at all to do with ice cream.

Not everyone who likes ice cream necessarily agrees with reduced Pentagon spending and the fight against climate change, but the people who do care about those things turned Ben & Jerry’s into an iconic brand.

It doesn’t have to be all sunshine and light, either. If your core values fall in line with a “Greed is good” mentality, you’ll certainly find people out there who share this worldview. You just have to unflinchingly own it.

You need to understand who you’re talking to, yes. But you don’t just accept who you find — you choose who to attract.

What does your character look like?

In the Get a Mac campaign, Apple literally created a character that personified what their ideal “swing” customer aspired to be. It’s time for us to do the same.

You can call them personas or avatars if you like — I prefer character. That’s because the first step is the research that allows you to create a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal customer.

As far as fiction goes, we’re creating a character that will be the protagonist in their own purchasing journey that your content will help them complete. Since this journey is based on as much reality as we can glean from our research, it’s more like a fictionalized drama “based on actual people and events.”

When I say the prospect is the protagonist, that means the hero. Your content is a powerful gift that positions your brand as a guide that helps the hero complete the journey that solves their problem. If this sounds like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to you, nice work — we’ll elaborate on this aspect in the “What” portion of the strategy.

This journey does not take place in the context of you wanting to sell more stuff. It’s understanding how the prospect thinks, feels, sees, and behaves in the context of solving the problem that sets them on the journey in the first place.

And don’t forget about instilling them with your shared core values. Why would this person choose you to assist them on the journey, out of a sea of other choices?

Because you already see the world like they do in an important way, and they’ll pick up on that shared worldview immediately upon coming across your content. Your core values are your secret attraction spell.

Instead of hiding your world views in the hope of never offending anyone, you now realize the power of being loud and proud — and attracting like-minded people who see you as the only reasonable choice.

Now, most people don’t end up using this representative character in their content, like Apple did with Justin Long in the Get a Mac commercials. It’s really a composite to refer back to so that you never lose sight of who you’re talking to, what you should say, and how you should say it.

On the other hand, the Get a Mac commercials were just two guys standing and talking in front of a minimalist, all-white background. If you’re thinking in terms of online video marketing, you could do a lot worse than looking to this campaign for inspiration.

And think about your explainer videos. Wouldn’t a character that represents who you’re talking to give you an edge over competing marketing approaches?

At a minimum, contemplating the actual use of the character in your content will force you to get things just right. Let’s look at a method for doing that.

You are not your audience

Given that you’re seeking to attract people who share your values, it’s tempting to overly identify with your audience. While you’re going to have things in common, it’s dangerous to think your ideal customer is similar to you in other ways.

You’re a subject matter expert at what you do, for starters, and they are not.

You need to make sure you don’t fall victim to the curse of knowledge, a cognitive bias that occurs when a person with expertise unknowingly assumes that others have the background to understand.

This one assumption alone can sink your content marketing efforts. Plus, you don’t want to assume that the audience shares other characteristics that you have — you want to know, as well as you can, what they’re thinking, feeling, seeing, and doing.

In other words, for you to have the empathy to walk the buyer’s journey in their shoes, you must first see things from their perspective. Then you’ll be in a position to create the content that “coaches” them along the journey.

Let’s take a closer look at empathy, the definition of which consists of two parts:

1. The intellectual identification with the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
2. The vicarious experiencing of those feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.

It’s often said you want to enter the conversation that’s already playing in your prospect’s head. By matching up values and worldviews, you’re also aiming to enter the conversation in the prospect’s heart, and that’s how your marketing triggers the right motivation at the right time.

The process we use for achieving this is called empathy mapping. At the foundation of the exercise is this statement: “Our ideal customer needs a better way to BLANK BECAUSE BLANK.”

Empathy maps vary in shapes and sizes, but there are basic elements common to each one:

• Four quadrants broken into Thinking, Seeing, Doing, and Feeling
• Two optional boxes at the bottom of the quadrants: Pains and Gains

To get started, you can download and print a large version of the empathy map we use at Copyblogger and StudioPress. Just go to the show notes for this episode: studiopress.blog/sites05. You’ll find the link to download the empathy map right under the player.

The map allows you to easily organize all of your research and other relevant materials. The four quadrants represent the sensory experience of your ideal customer while in the prospect phase.

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What does a typical day look like in their world?
• How do they think about their fears and hopes?
• How do they feel about the problem your product solves?
• What are they thinking when they resist solving the problem?
• What do they hear when other people solve the problem?
• Who do they see as viable options to solve the problem?
• What do they see when they use your product? What is the environment?
• What do they say or feel when using your product?
• What are their pain points when using your product?
• Is this a positive or a painful experience for them?
• Do they hear positive feedback about your company from external sources?
• What do they hope to gain from using your product?

Jot down needs and insights that emerge as you work through this exercise. Then simply paste those notes in the proper boxes on the large empathy map.

At the bottom of your empathy map, you can also draw two boxes: Pains and Gains.

In the Pains box, you can put your customers’ challenges and obstacles. Ask, “What keeps my customer up at night?”

In the Gains box, include the goals your customers hope to accomplish. Ask, “What motivates my customer to solve their problem?” and “What are their hopes and dreams?”

Now … describe your character in detail

You’re now ready to create a written composite of your character. Some people do several paragraphs, or perhaps a page of description. You, being the smart person that you are, might consider taking it further by creating a character bible, just like novelists and screenwriters do.

In this context, a character bible is a detailed outline that lays out everything about your prospect in one place, so you can easily access their personality, problems, and desires.

It may seem like a lot of work, but you’ll be happy you did it once you start coming up with the “What” and the “How” of your content marketing strategy.

*****

That was a reading of Brian Clark’s blog post How to Attract Your Ideal Customer with Perfectly Positioned Content, the second part of a multi-part, step-by-step series on content marketing strategy that we’ll be continuing here on Sites. I know it was pretty detailed and a lot to remember just listening, especially everything about the empathy map and all of those questions.

You can see the entire transcript for this episode, find a link to Brian’s blog post, and download the empathy map (one click, no email address required) at studiopress.blog/sites05.

When we pick up the series again four weeks from now, the next time we discuss content, we’ll take the next step and begin the process of figuring out “what” information your prospect must have to complete their journey with you. You’ll go from stepping into your prospect’s shoes to walking the buyer’s journey with them.

Now here is this week’s hyper-specific call to action:

Call to action

This one’s pretty obvious right? I mean, Brian basically laid out the call to action right there at the end of the blog post when he said, “You’re now ready to create a written composite of your character.”

So, that’s your call to action: go create a written composite of your character.

But just don’t do it off the top of your head, willy-nilly style. Make sure you do your research. Ask yourself all of the questions that Brian laid out for you. Questions like “How do they feel about the problem your product solves?” and “What do they hope to gain from using your product?” And there were others.

Doing your research and answering these questions will help you fill out your empathy map, which is a part of this call to action. Don’t skip steps and don’t look for short cuts! Doing the work at this stage will set your website up for long-term, sustained success.

Again, go to studiopress.blog/sites05 to see the full transcript of this episode, which includes all of those questions bulleted out, as well as the link to download the PDF for the empathy map.

Coming next week, we move on to design and discuss a topic that is closely related to what we discussed this week. We’re going to discuss 3 Ways Your Web Design Can Better Connect You to Your Audience.

And guess what you better know about your audience before you can create a design that helps you connect better?

Exactly. The stuff we discussed in this episode. So make sure you take that call to action!

That’s next week, on Sites.

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

Subscribe to Sites Weekly

If you haven’t yet, take this opportunity to activate your free subscription to our curated weekly email newsletter, Sites Weekly.

Here’s how it works: Each week, I find four links about content, design, technology, and strategy that you don’t 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. That’s studiopress.com/news.

Rate and Review Sites on Apple Podcasts

Also, 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.

For example, one of our early reviewers says: “I’ve been a fan of Copyblogger for many years and now I’m ready for this podcast to help my artist brain build my online business (oy). I’m ready to create the site I’ve wanted to build for how many years now?? I’m super excited about the guidance this show will give me for building my dream site. Thank you Jerod Morris.”

You’re welcome … and thank YOU.

To find us in Apple Podcasts, search for StudioPress Sites and look for the striking purple logo that was designed by Rafal Tomal. 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 week, and let’s keep building powerful, successful 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 wouldn’t you — visit studiopress.com/sites today and see which plan fits your needs. That’s 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.

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

Last week, I teased a fun bit of news: we are launching a new podcast.

And that podcast has now launched!

It’s called Sites, and it will allow us to deliver weekly bits of audio insight on the four pillars of a successful WordPress website that we also cover here in Sites Weekly.

So, like wine and cheese, Sites and Sites Weekly pair quite well together.

Click here to subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes).

You can also check out the first four episode pages here:

• The Simple 3-Step Process to a Winning Content Marketing Strategy
• How Great Design Can Help Your Content Marketing
• Is WordPress Hosting Really That Important?
• The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy

If you decide to listen, let me know what you think.

Now on to this week’s links …

Content: Could you deliver more to your audience?

Do you like short blog posts? I like short blog posts. Especially when they deliver a cutting, essential point in only a few words.

Seth Godin writes short blog posts that do that.

Below, I’ve linked to one that is just 42 words. It’ll take you about 16.5 seconds to read. And it will deliver an important lesson about how to make the content part of your content marketing as effective in the long run as possible.

Side note: My description of Seth’s blog post is now longer than the blog post itself. And nowhere near as profound. That’s the way it usually goes …

Better than it needs to be

Design: Want to design better? Write more

This is yet another example of the overlap between content and design.

In this post, UX designer Alana Brajdic outlines 10 reasons why all designers should actually spend more time writing.

Here is the reason I found most compelling:

“Not only is writing useful for internal communications, but itÔÇÖs a UX role in itself. Companies such as Google and Amazon employ UX writers. ItÔÇÖs their role to create copy that helps a user understand the task at hand.”

Which of her 10 reasons speaks the most to you?

10 Reasons Why All Designers Should Start Writing More

Technology: Need some help getting more out of Google Analytics?

I often feel like I do.

Despite having used Google Analytics for the better part of a decade now, I still don’t always feel fully comfortable in its interface. I always wonder if my methods are woefully inefficient or even wrong.

So I found this post by Alex Birkett helpful. He outlines several important basics for how to get the most out of Analytics itself, and then how to add a few simple free tools (Google Sheets and Data Studio) to improve your reporting.

Google Analytics Reporting: How To Communicate Insights With Dashboards

Strategy: Hitting “Publish” is just the beginning

The reason why you create content is so that people see it and act on it. If you already have a huge audience, then you may get a lot of action simply by hitting “Publish.”

But what did it take to get there?

And what will it take to continue growing your audience?

You have to continue to reach new people with your content. And that means having a defined strategy for what you will do with content after it’s published.

The link below contains a SlideShare presentation (only 37 slides, so it’s a breeze to go through) with a series of eight tips, any one of which will help you distribute your content further and wider.

Check it out and see which of the tips you could apply to your own content right away.

8 Distribution Tips That Will Help Your Content Soar After Pressing Publish

Also, here is an additional article I found that may not be of immediate importance, but is important to read nonetheless: Is retargeting dying?.

And finally, one last reminder, don’t forget to check out the just-released Sites podcast. New episodes come out on Tuesdays (although next week’s will be on Monday, ahead of the July 4th holiday).

Click here to subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts.

I’ll be back with a new edition of Sites Weekly next Wednesday.

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.

What is digital sharecroppping and why is it so dangerous? We explore those questions this week on Sites, with the help of one of the most widely shared strategy articles in the history of Copyblogger.

Important links from this episode:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Sonia Simone’s article: Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy

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 ÔǪ 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

Hi there, and welcome to episode 4 of Sites. ItÔÇÖs great to be back with you, and have another opportunity to help you take the next small step toward the continuous improvement of your website and overall online presence.

Its time to complete the cycle. In the first three episodes we covered content, design, and technology  which means there is one pillar of a successful WordPress website left for us to cover this week before we start the cycle over again next week.

That pillar is strategy.

So in this episode of Sites, we review one of the most widely shared strategy articles ever written at Copyblogger.

As of the day IÔÇÖm recording this, it has 7,447 shares — over 3800 on Twitter and over 2000 on Facebook. Clearly, this is a topic, and a lesson, that has connected in a major way.

The reason is because it taps into one of the greatest fears we all have about investing legitimate time and money into building something online: that someday, due to forces totally outside of our control, we could lose what weÔÇÖve built.

ItÔÇÖs a frightening proposition, especially if youÔÇÖve built your business and livelihood around your online presence.

But it neednt be so frightening  if you own the land on which you build. That keeps you in control.

And that is the big lesson of this weekÔÇÖs episode of Sites, which is based on a blog post written by Sonia Simone titled Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy.

What is digital sharecropping and why is it so dangerous?

Lets explore that now, via words written by Sonia and spoken by me  and dont forget to stick around after the reading for this weeks hyper-specific call to action.

Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy

We have a great bookstore in my town ÔÇö the kind of place you picture in your mind when you think of a great independent bookshop.

ItÔÇÖs perfect for browsing, with lots of comfy chairs to relax in. The books are displayed enticingly. ThereÔÇÖs a little coffee shop, so you can relax with an espresso. They get your favorite writers to come in for readings, so thereÔÇÖs always an event and a sense of excitement.

They do everything right, and theyÔÇÖve always had plenty of customers.

But they still closed their doors last year.

No, not for the reasons you might think. It wasnÔÇÖt Amazon that killed them, or the proliferation of free content on the web, or the crappy economy.

They closed the store because they were leasing their big, comfortable building  and when that lease ran out, their landlord tripled the rent.

Literally overnight, their business model quit working. Revenues simply wouldnÔÇÖt exceed costs. A decision made by another party, one they had no control over, took a wonderful business and destroyed it.

And thatÔÇÖs precisely what you risk every day you make your business completely dependent on another company.

It might be Facebook. It might be eBay. It might be Google.

ItÔÇÖs called digital sharecropping, and it means youÔÇÖre building your business on someone elseÔÇÖs land.

And itÔÇÖs a recipe for heartbreak and failure.

WhatÔÇÖs digital sharecropping, anyway?

Digital sharecropping is a term coined by Nicholas Carr to describe a peculiar phenomenon of Web 2.0.

One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few.

In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook, but that content effectively belongs to Facebook. The more content we create for free, the more valuable Facebook becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit.

The term sharecropping refers to the farming practices common after the U.S. Civil War, but itÔÇÖs essentially the same thing as feudalism. A big landholder allows individual farmers to work their land and takes most of the profits generated from the crops.

The landlord has all the control. If he decides to get rid of you, you lose your livelihood. If he decides to raise his fees, you go a little hungrier. You do all the work and the landlord gets most of the profit, leaving you a pittance to eke out a living on.

Well, weÔÇÖre professional content marketers ÔÇö not subsistence farmers ÔÇö and our work doesnÔÇÖt involve 12-hour days in grueling conditions. So is sharecropping still dangerous?

It is, for a couple of reasons 

Reason #1: Landlords are fickle

LetÔÇÖs look at Facebook. What if you moved all of your marketing to a site like Facebook? ItÔÇÖs local, itÔÇÖs free to sign up, and it makes businesses feel like theyÔÇÖre doing something cutting-edge.

But what happens when Facebook thinks youÔÇÖve done something that violates their terms of service and deletes your account? Or changes the way youÔÇÖre allowed to talk with your customers?

Facebook is a particularly fast-changing platform, but itÔÇÖs not the only one. An entire industry has sprung up based on trying to figure out what GoogleÔÇÖs going to do tomorrow, both as a search engine and as an advertising platform.

If youÔÇÖre relying on Facebook or Google to bring in all of your new customers, youÔÇÖre sharecropping. YouÔÇÖre hoping the landlord will continue to like you and support your business, but the fact is, the landlord has no idea who you are and doesnÔÇÖt actually care.

Reason #2: Landlords go away

The other problem with sharecropping is that the landlord may or may not be here next year.

Sharecroppers have put millions of hours into sites like Digg or MySpace. And those sites still exist ÔÇö but theyÔÇÖre no longer bringing the traffic they once did.

Sharecropped land, in other words, has a tendency to become less and less fertile over time.

Maybe Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest will buck the trend. Maybe theyÔÇÖll continue to stay healthy and vibrant for decades.

The best we can do is guess. And if we guess wrong, our business goes into a slow and steady decline.

So are Facebook and Google bad for business?

Of course not. Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and many more search and social sites are all superb tools to add to our marketing mix.

The secret is to spend most of your time and creative energy building assets that you control.

There are three assets you should be building today and should continue to focus on for the lifetime of your digital business:

• A well-designed website with your own hosting — go back and listen to episodes 2 and 3 of Sites for more on each of these topics.
• An opt-in email list, ideally with a high-quality autoresponder
• A reputation for providing impeccable value

Developing these assets are the equivalent of buying your building instead of renting it.

Any of these can still fall prey to outside influences. The bookstoreÔÇÖs building can burn down. And your site can be hacked, your email account closed down, your reputation smeared.

But repairing your assets is in your control. You can fix the hacked code, export your email list to another provider, and respond effectively to manage your reputation.

More importantly, you can proactively protect those assets by taking website security seriously, avoiding any spammy or dodgy practices with your email, and cultivating a loyal audience who will vouch for you as being one of the good guys.

YouÔÇÖve put a lot of time and effort into your business ÔÇö donÔÇÖt put it all at risk by building on rented land.

Again, that blog post by Sonia Simone is titled Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy and it was originally published at Copyblogger.com. IÔÇÖll have a link to the original post in the show notes, which you can find at studiopress.blog/sites04 because this is episode number four.

Now here is this weekÔÇÖs hyper-specific call to action:

Call to action

Take five minutes this week — preferably right now, since this content is fresh in your mind — and review your content and community mix.

How dependent are you on Facebook, Google, Twitter, or any other sites that are great for distributing content and making connections  but that you dont own?

And hereÔÇÖs a way to think about it: when you consider your audience, is your first thought to think about how many Twitter followers or Facebook likes you have, or is your first thought to think about how many people are on your email list or how many site members you have? Because remember: the way you interact with your audience on Twitter and Facebook could be forced to change or even taken away at any time. But youÔÇÖll always own and determine the rules of engagement with YOUR list on YOUR site. ItÔÇÖs an empowering feeling.

So think about how much you may be digital sharecropping, even unintentionally, and then the next step is figuring out how to regain any control you may have ceded.

Coming next week, we start the cycle over. Weve now done an episode each on content, design, technology, and strategy  so its back to content.

In our first content episode, we discussed the three-part strategy for crafting a winning content marketing strategy: the who, the what, and the how. Now we get to explore each of those areas further, starting with the who. WeÔÇÖll discuss how to attract your ideal customer with perfectly positioned content.

ThatÔÇÖs next week, on Sites.

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

Subscribe to Sites Weekly

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 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

Also, 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.

For example, one of our early reviews says: ÔÇ£I never knew that there was so much to consider when it came to my website, but thanks to this podcast, I now look at my site through a new constructive lens. Thanks to this show, IÔÇÖve been taking action to improve my online appearance. I am eagerly awaiting more.ÔÇØ

ThatÔÇÖs helpful — both to me, as I look to continue to improve the show, and to people who are browsing shows in Apple Podcasts wondering what will give them the most value for the time they invest in listening.

To find us in Apple Podcasts, search for StudioPress Sites and look for the mesmerizing purple logo designed by Rafal Tomal. 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 week, and letÔÇÖs keep building powerful, successful 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.

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly, where we delight in delivering insightful links about content, design, technology, and strategy.

I learned something specific and actionable from each link below. I hope you will as well.

And I also want to tease a little bit of news this week …

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working on a new podcast. It’s called Sites, and it will be launching next week.

The plan is to have four episodes ready for you at launch, and then get into a regular rhythm of posting new episodes each week.

It will be companion content to this newsletter, because the podcast will also cover the topics of content, design, technology, and strategy as they relate to building powerful, successful websites.

I’m still putting the finishing touches on the first set of episodes, so I can’t give you a sneak listen … but I can give you a sneak peek at the show art, because Rafal already sent it to me.

Here it is:

Next week in this space, I should have links to the first four episodes and instructions for how to subscribe. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here are four useful links …

Content: Do more with your opt-in incentives

Do you have one general opt-in incentive that you offer visitors in exchange for their email addresses? Or, instead, are you creating specific offers for individual pieces of content?

I admit: I’ve typically done the former … with an ebook, a free course, a newsletter, etc.

But after reading this blog post, my mind is racing with ideas for using hyper-specific opt-in incentives on individual pieces of content that are geared toward helping readers take a logical next step.

Retargeting Case Study Part 2: How To Use A ÔÇÿHyper Specific Next Step OfferÔÇÖ To Collect Up To 15% Email Optins From First Time Readers

Design: How a simple text editor can improve your design (seriously)

If I tell you this next link is about telling stories and using text editors, you’re probably not going to immediately assume it’s about design.

Which is exactly why I picked it.

Your copy is how you tell your website or brand story in words, but your design completes the picture. (Some might argue the design comes first, and the words complete the picture.)

So, your design needs to answer this question as much as your copy does: “How would I explain to a friend, in a conversation or in an email, this thing/topic/product/story I am trying to communicate?”

This blog post provides a useful overview of a strategy that will help you do exactly this.

Storyframes before wireframes: Starting designs in the text editor

Technology: What should you look for in an email service provider?

I am in the process of getting a small, new side project off the ground. After a few years of running all of my sites on Rainmaker (and really, really liking it), it’s been fun to dive back into a more traditional and open WordPress environment using StudioPress Sites.

After I started my Sites account, picked my theme, installed Google Analytics, and outlined my beginning content strategy, I had to figure out what decision to make next. It didn’t take me long to realize what it needed to be:

Which email marketing provider am I going to use?

I’ve spent a couple of weeks looking into it off and on — comparing and contrasting the different options, starting some free trials, and reading various recommendations from different sources.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until I stumbled upon this blog post from FreshBooks that I identified the provider I’m going to go with — at least to start. I’ll tell you more about that decision, and how it turns out, in upcoming newsletters and episodes of the Sites podcast.

For now, read this post if you’re in the process of choosing or switching email service providers and want six smart questions you should ask yourself.

How to Choose the Right Email Marketing Software for Your Business

Strategy: Try this if you want to improve conversions

Brian Clark recommended this link to me last week, and now I’m recommending it to you.

At first glance, the methodology described in this post seemed a little arbitrary and even hokey (plus-10 Psych points! minus-5 Psych points!).

But when I went through the examples and saw how it works in practice from a qualitative standpoint, I realized how valuable this kind of thought process can be in designing an effective website.

See what you think …

PsychÔÇÖd: A new user psychology framework for increasing funnel conversion

Which of the ideas in these posts will you take and 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.

This week’s edition of Sites Weekly is all about cheating.

As you’ll see, this week’s strategy article is about why it remains foolish to try to cheat Google. Hopefully that article means nothing to you because you’ve payed attention to our consistent advice about Google over the past decade, but I included it just in case.

This week’s links also should help you avoid cheating yourself. For example, don’t cheat yourself of extra value from Twitter because you’re not leveraging everything you can do. And don’t cheat your website of putting its best foot forward by having a subpar website header or waiting too long to update your version of WordPress.

You’ll find links for all of those topics and more (there’s a bonus link!) below.

Content: Think outside the box with Twitter polls

We know Twitter is powerful for content sharing. But Twitter also plays an important role in content creation … though depending on how you use it for creating, Twitter can be both a bane and a boon.

Twitter can be a bane when we use it as a distraction from creating content, or when we allow the magnitude of news, information, and ideas to overwhelm us.

But Twitter can be a boon when we are disciplined in using it, and when we leverage all of its features for specific purposes and with specific goals in mind.

Case in point: Twitter polls.

My friend Kelsey Jones wrote a piece recently at Search Engine Journal that provides six creative tips on how to use Twitter polls. Her ideas cover both promotion and creation, but I found the ones dealing with content creation to be the most interesting.

So pay special attention to #2 and #3.

6 Interesting Ways You Can Use Twitter Polls

Design: What more could you be doing with your website header?

Your website header does a lot of heavy lifting. It creates a lasting first impression in the eyes and minds of every single person who visits your home page.

The question is: are you creating a positive first impression or a negative one?

A secondary question would be: are you creating a comfortable, intuitive experience or a confusing, disorienting one?

These two questions are related, of course, as the answer to the second question is going to influence the answer to the first one.

So when was the last time you took a look at your header? Perhaps today is a good time to do so. Try to view it through the eyes of someone who has never visited your site before. Is it having the intended impact?

Before you do that, take a few minutes and review this article from UXPlanet.org, which Rafal tweeted out earlier this week. It’s a useful overview of the basic elements and importance of a website header, and it provides several spectacular examples that might jog your creative thinking for your own site.

Best Practices for Website Header Design

Technology: What’s new in WordPress 4.8?

In case you missed it, there is a new WordPress update available.

Always take the opportunity to upgrade to the newest version of WordPress as soon as you’re able (unless, of course, you have a host who does it for you). In addition to new bells and whistles, the most important element of any update is the security updates and patches that come along with it.

To find out what’s new in the latest version, read this article from WP Beginner. (The added functionality to widgets looks really interesting.)

WhatÔÇÖs Coming in WordPress 4.8 (Features and Screenshots)

Strategy: Stop trying to cheat Google

We all want to improve SEO on our sites.

Moving from the second or third page to the top of the first page can have a massive impact on traffic. If we have a well-designed site with useful content, that increase in traffic can lead to a major increase in subscriptions and sales.

This is why it’s so important that your website has good hosting, so pages load fast and are secure, and that you use tools that help you structure your content in a way that makes your focus clear to Google. (An example would be the patented SEO tools we include with every account at StudioPress Sites.)

And, of course, you need to publish valuable content that users actually engage with and share. Do all of this, and Google will trust your site and be more willing to surface your pages for relevant searches.

What you don’t want to do is try to trick Google. In case you haven’t already learned that lesson, the article below offers a quick refresher of several companies who have tried and been smacked down.

Create good content. Structure it clearly. Play by the rules. This is a future-proof way to keep your site in good standing with search engines.

What Happens When You Try to Cheat Google

Bonus: 10 quick lessons from a smart man

Finally, here is a bonus link from our very own Chris Garrett.

It’s a list post, but it’s very short. It will take you less than 75 seconds to read. And I bet you’ll learn (or relearn) something important.

Give it a read: 10 things I have learned about business and start-ups over the last 10 years.

And now ask yourself: which of the ideas in this week’s posts will you take and put to good use immediately?

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

In the meantime … 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.

Today, we’re releasing Genesis 2.5.1, which addresses a few issues that have been reported since Genesis 2.5 was released. In addition, Genesis 2.5.1 has also been tested and is compatible with the latest WordPress 4.8 update.

Layout API

In Genesis 2.5, we introduced a Layout API that allowed developers to register a layout with different types depending on context. You can register and apply a layout to, for instance, only category archives, or only for a specific author’s archives, etc.

However, there was a problem with the method we used for determining layout priority internally. That has been fixed, and everything should work fine in Genesis 2.5.1.

Exclude Posts Widget Setting

In the featured post widget, if you selected the option to exclude posts that had already been displayed, there were certain circumstances where this wouldn’t work. We fixed the issue that was causing the problem.

Deprecated Constants

In Genesis 2.5.0, we deprecated several unnecessary constants. When switching to the references in the Genesis source away from these deprecated constants, we missed a few that caused some issues for users in some circumstances. We removed the internal references to those constants, eliminating the possibility for Genesis to throw an error as a result.

Double Loading of Files

In Genesis 2.5.0, we tried to switch to the use of require rather than require_once for files. However, if a child theme or plugin tries to include a core Genesis file, it will throw an error. Therefore, we switched back to require_once in Genesis for the future.

Attribute Filters Running Twice

Because of the use of the Markup API to output opening and closing tags now, filters on attributes can run twice (on opening and closing) for a given context. This is usually not a problem, but in certain cases it was causing issues. For those cases, we have limited the filter to only running on the opening tag.

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.

Welcome to the first edition of Sites — the weekly newsletter that delivers hand-picked resources to help you create and maintain a powerful WordPress website.

We’ll keep things simple: four links per week to read, consider, and possibly act on.

My goal for each edition of Sites is for you take away one new idea or tactic you can implement right away that will help you take the next step in building your best website.

Let’s get to this week’s links …

Strategy: To Get Better Answers, Ask Better Questions

Data is such a fundamental element of a smart web strategy, but it’s so easy to mess up.

We have to know what is important to measure, how to measure it, where to get the measurements, when to look at the measurements, who needs to know the measurements, and, of course, never lose sight of why we’re going to all this trouble in the first place … which is to get answers.

Answers that we can base decisions on, which hopefully lead to improvement.

But improvement in what? Traffic? Engagement? Conversions? Revenue? Profit? Everything?

Clearly it’s not just answers we’re looking for, but the right answers. And that means asking the right questions.

Here are five fundamental questions to get you started:

5 Questions to Ask When Approaching Digital Analytics Data

Content: The ethical way to obtain an unfair advantage

Since this is the first edition of Sites, I decided I should kick it off with one of my favorite Copyblogger posts ever. It’s a post by Brian Clark that has stuck with me ever since I first read it, and one that I refer back to regularly.

It’s all about the audience — the immense value of building your minimum viable audience.

A value so immense that it really is an unfair business advantage.

5 Ways a Minimum Viable Audience Gives You an Unfair Business Advantage

Design: Are your visitors’ eyes playing tricks on them?

Answer: yes. And the impact of these tricks is that what you think┬áwill lead to balanced web page design (e.g. equal padding on all sides of a button) actually won’t.

So ask yourself: who are you designing for? Rulers and grids? Or real people with real eyes?

Because if it’s the latter (and, of course, it should be), then your visitors might not be seeing exactly what you think they’re seeing.

Making Your Design Optically Perfect

Technology: How to avoid being penalized for pop-ups and interstitials

I used to be stridently against pop-ups. Sure, I recognized that they achieved their goal of increasing opt-ins, but I loathed their intrusiveness. So I avoided them on all of my websites.

But one day, feeling audacious, I decided to try them. To my pleasant surprise, they were more successful than I thought and less intrusive than I feared.

Since then, I’ve been a vocal proponent of using pop-ups to drive conversions. But with Google recently announcing a crackdown on pop-ups and interstitials, we all need to make sure we’re not sacrificing so much on the SEO side that the increase in conversion rate brings with it a drastic reduction in overall traffic.

7 Tips for Using Pop-ups Without Harming Your SEO

Which of the ideas in these posts will you take and 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.

If you are an entrepreneur and ready to build a timeless, classic brand, the Refined Pro Theme by Restored 316 is the perfect foundation.

Refined Pro allows you to beautifully showcase your photography, your content, and your productsÔÇöwhile maintaining a simple, yet elegant, look.

In addition to five fully customizable front page widget areas, Refined Pro offers a front page slider, an announcement widget, a site-wide call-to-action widget, and a number of navigation menus.

If you need to build an online shop, Refined Pro is WooCommerce ready and has been designed to seamlessly match the rest of your website.

Refined Pro also includes a number of features that makes this a must-have theme for your lifestyle business:

• A mobile-responsive design that looks amazing wherever itÔÇÖs viewed
• Custom Pinterest graphics to add your own text, colors, and images
• Strategically placed newsletter signups to help build your email list
• WooCommerce-ready to help you build and showcase your shop
• Ample navigationÔÇöcreate the menu system that fits your layout
• Airtight security and SEO so you can rest easy

Get the Refined Pro Theme by Restored 316.

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.

If having a visually strong digital presence and a site thatÔÇÖs easy on the eyes are equally important to you, then this is the theme youÔÇÖve been waiting for. Monochrome Pro helps you keep things clean and fixes attention on your siteÔÇÖs narrative.

This Genesis-powered theme is designed to help your content work for you and showcases a sleek, powerful minimal style. With its smart use of whitespace and strong typography, Monochrome Pro makes an impact.

Monochrome Pro gives you the flexibility you need for your digital showroom.

The large hero areas on the home page give you the opportunity to let images do the talking, while the option for full-stretch recessed header images on article pages underscore your content beautifully.

If you need to add products or affiliate links, Monochrome Pro is WooCommerce ready and comes with a pricing page template complete with multiple column classes. It also boasts templates for landing, author, and contact pages.

Monochrome Pro also includes all the reliable features youÔÇÖve come to expect with StudioPress themes:

• A mobile-responsive design that looks amazing wherever itÔÇÖs viewed
• Support, documentation, and the StudioPress community forum
• The best rankings possible because of our clean code and mobile-friendly design
• Super-fast page load times
• One-click theme updates
• Airtight security so you can rest easy

Get the Monochrome Pro Theme by StudioPress.

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.