When you are building a new site these days all the cool kids are building their sites "Secure". What does SECURE mean? Should you build your site SECURE too? That's a great question for today! Record a Better Intro than Lesley! Back when, all sites were not secure. Everyone had …
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What’s the difference between a Domain Name and Hosting?
I just had a great conversation with someone who wanted to start their own site. They got the info that it was WordPress.org that they wanted to use (which is right) so they went over there and downloaded the software. That's when the confusion started, "What do you do next with the …
How to give credit for a Featured Image
Giving the photographer credit when you use an unsplash picture for your post is easy. But, how would you give the photographer credit when you use an image just for the Featured Image? That great question was literally just asked by Lesley Sarson moments ago! Wait! The 2 Minute Tuesday …
2MT: How many themes are ok to have in your WordPress Install?
Themes. They are what makes your site look great! This week I'm in the middle of migrating a site from one server to another and the question came up as to how many themes was ok to have in your install. Welcome to the very first edition of 2 Minute Tuesday! I get it, you …
What type of content can you put up on your site?
This is a series that I hope will get you thinking a little deeper about your website, marketing plan and goals for the coming year. You might be familiar with "The Five Ws", this would of course be the second of them. You can read the whole series here. Ok, so part of the reason you want a …
Who Are Your Next Customers?
This is the first in a series that I hope will get you thinking a little deeper about your website, marketing plan and goals for the coming year. You might be familiar with "The Five Ws", this would of course be the first of them. You can read the whole series here. When a new client asks me …
How to setup SMART Goals for your website
December is a time for holidays, parties, friends and of course... putting on a few extra pounds. December is also the month to get your 2018 Marketing Plan set and ready to go. I always like to start the new year with SMART goals. You've heard of them before. When I say SMART …
SEO: Sorry, you’re doing it wrong
What's the most important thing to be doing now to get the best SEO out of your website? Good question. Here's the answer! SEO is one of the most misguided / misunderstood things I have to deal with when it comes to my clients. Part of this comes from the "what was true last week, may not be …
How and when to include Testimonials in your site
Testimonials or Reviews are what we call "social proof". They are a powerful element and every site should have them inside the site itself. Besides the obvious cheese factor, no matter how you say "I'm the best, you should use me", we trust what others say about you so much more. Having someone …
How many words?
Hey, it's the #1 question I get asked when I start someone with a blog. But, are they asking that with an eye on doing just the minimum? That's a fair question. Time is valuable and adding the act of blogging to your marketing plan is going to take a chunk of time. Are they asking because they …
How to Start Podcasting
Want to stand out from your competition? Podcasting is the answer. You want to get your message out. You want to be heard. We know that video would be one way to go but it's so time consuming. (or perhaps you have a face for radio like me) ;) TL:DR: Here's a podcast of this …
Blogging Better: What to do after you hit “Publish”
Congratulations! You just wrote your first blog post! I know it took you just over 3 hours to write a measly 350 words but believe me, it'll get easier - I promise! Now that it's published, here's a few thoughts on what to do next, (and I've also included a special offer at the end just …
Are you listening?
This is a short opinion piece but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Twitter is rolling out (slowly) an update that will double the size of a tweet from 140 to 280 characters. I asked on Twitter and Facebook if that will make a difference in how they use the …
How to Create Better Mailing Lists
A hundred avid fans or ten thousand people who are indifferent? "Throw it against the wall and see what sticks" "It's a numbers game" There's a thousand quotes I could throw at you but it's a simple "Quality vs Quantity" and that's the heart of the post today. (oh and there's no right answer …
Stealing Content
I recently had a new client of mine steal content from an older client of mine's website for use on their own website and it brought to mind a few copyright thoughts. I've written extensively on how to properly find and use images and not steal them, but what about Text? One of the most …
“The BLOG is Dead!” and other faulty thinking
So, I was tagged in a Facebook discussion the other day and the topic came up. It comes up from time to time. From what I can tell, there were a few social media professionals and content creators doing the commenting. It's like a bad case of poison oak - it just keeps coming back. Someone …
The Ultimate Guide to Writing the Perfect Blog Post
Does that title sound like click bait or what? Let's start with this. WANT TO WRITE THE PERFECT BLOG POST? You'll see that this post is indeed the most comprehensive post on writing a perfect blog post that you'll ever see. The idea is that I don't hope you read it - I have a …
Reasons to not automate your post distribution
Ok, so you wrote the blog post and hit the big publish button. Now what? Sit back and watch the money/leads roll in - right? Ha! I know you are smarter than that. The next thing you have to do is get eyeballs on that post you just wrote. That means having it be picked up by Google as well …
How to use Unsplash photos in your posts and pages
Unsplash is a great place to find images for your blog posts and pages. It's free and all the images are yours to "legally" do whatever you want with. In this post I'm going to show you how to use an image from Unsplash.com and do it right. Ready? Ok, so first... I assume you are …
Tool Tips from February
If you've listened to our show you've heard our Tool Tip session where each of us share a tool tip of the week. I know you don't usually listen (you should) so I thought I'd recap this month's tool tip here in a TL:DR kind of way. :) Tool #1: Goosh.org Everyone wants to know how they rank in …