Good News! The shortest podcast you will ever hear is back! 2 Minute Tuesdays is back! I want to start with an introduction to the complicated and often times confusing world of Lead Capture - and guess what? 2 minutes is just scratching the surface. Well, to be clear, this 2 minutes is going …
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How To Stop “Form Spammers” (better)
A few weeks ago I showed you how to stop the spammers from swamping you with bogus emails from your comment and IDX system. You can read more about that: "How to Reduce SPAM". I also dabbled a bit for your website forms and discussed the idea of Akismet, the Honeypot, and CAPTCHA. One of the …
Local SEO Ep4: Consistency
To earn better "Local SEO" we know that Google really likes consistency. Consistency comes in 2 parts: would be the 'A' in your N.A.P. would be in your posting schedule. Here's how to be consistent in both and improve your ranking for local keywords in your area. CONSISTENCY IN …
Local SEO Ep3: Your Footer
So, I was walking down the street the other day... I saw a local business the other day and looked them up online. Clarification: I'm literally standing in front of the business and could NOT find them online. Once I got home I did some deeper digging and found out that they do have a website …
Local SEO Ep2: Your Phone Number
The Clickable Phone Number. We've come to expect it. We're hungry and on our phone, we look up our favorite local pizza place, we see a number and if we click it, we'll be ordering that Large Canadian Bacon, Pineapple with Extra Cheese in moments. Right? So when that doesn't happen, when we …
Local SEO Ep1: The NAP
Welcome to the first in a very long series of 2 Minute Tuesday podcasts that focus not on SEO but LOCAL SEO. Let me clarify that - each post (technically they are a podcast) is still going to be 2 minutes long, there's just going to be a lot of them! IMPORTANT REMINDER: While we're talking …
AREWECONNECTED.com is 11 Years Old!
On this date way back in 2008 I needed a new website. I was transitioning from a job in a related industry and needed a URL that better reflected what I was now into. Mortgage > Title > Social Media/WordPress (with a detour along the way to do a bunch of Facebook Development stuff). How or …
How To Make Your LINKs Open In A New Tab
In this post I'm going to show you how to create links in your Gutenberg (block editor) WordPress posts and pages that open a new tab in the viewer's browser. Before we get into it, did you listen to WHY and WHEN you want to do this? Don't worry, that link will open in a new window for you! …
WHY You Want Your Links To Open In A New Window
This Part ONE of a TWO Part Series. We've come to expect that if you mention another site on your posts or pages, that we won't have to search Google for that site, you'll have a link we can click on right there in your post. It's just a common internet courtesy. But sending people to an …
What Pages Should Your New Website Have?
For this week's 2MT, we'll explore the pages that you must have, talk about the pages that you don't need and more importantly - the lead capture that will help your new site reach your goals. While I had this post in draft mode for a while I honestly just had a new client ask that very same …
Battling For Your Attention
I've said it before and it bears repeating. We're in a constant battle for attention. One of the reasons we blog in the first place is to get our message out. The problem today is that the attention span of the reader has become so very short and new information is bombarding them from all angles …
2MT has a new format!
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for me in creating new content is the time it takes. Afterall, we all only have so much time, right? I haven't done a 2MT in a while and I think this is the answer. No fancy schmansy intros anymore, no ticking stopwatch, no end of session bell. Just quality …
How to Reduce SPAM
If you have a form, any form at all, you're going to get some SPAM. How to Identify, and Eliminate Virtually All SPAM from your Website Let's start with a few simple rules that we can all agree on RULE #1:The simpler the form, the greater the response.The harder the form, the less …
Are You a “Tool”?
A funny thing happened to me the other day on my way to writing a post. I was going to write something educational and then this thing happened and well... I'm a little upset and I'm going to name some names. WHAT IS A TOOL? Depending on the context, a Tool could be good. My wrenches all …
Setting Up in the new IDXBroker Dashboard
For better purposes the title should really be "How to setup Showcase Widgets and Saved Searches in the new IDXBroker Dashboard" As this post and video are going to focus on just 2 things... Creating new Showcase Widgets, andCreating new Saved Searches (they call them "saved …
How to Embed a Video
A better title would be "How to Embed a YouTube Video in Gutenberg Properly" I'll bet if you been using Gutenberg (WordPress 5.0+) for any length of time you've embedded a video. It seems easy enough as there's a handy dandy block for YouTube video right on your dashboard. BUT... If …
Don’t justify an image
Yes I'm going to do a video to show you something about an image and why you should never justify an image. Of course what we're talking about here is putting an image to the right or the left side of a block of text and having that text 'wrap' around the image. In this I'm going to assume 1 …
How to (properly) add an Image
Images are everything when it comes to a good blog post. Images add visual interest, add to the story or compliment the story you are trying to tell. Images can break up the "wall of text" and help the reader actually read all the way through your post. Images are good! Here's how to properly …
What does BLOG stand for?
It might seem a little strange, but after I launch a new client website I subscribe to their blog. I want to see what they are writing and how they are using it. I read everything in my feed reader and I can usually zip through several hundred (really) posts in a short period of time. One of my …
New Years Resolutions For Your Website
I've had this post planned for a while but every year it just doesn't feel right unless it's the first day of the year (or in this case the first biz day of the year. That's kind of funny as I'm not a big maker of resolutions and even if I was I have always felt that you don't wait for a starting …