Tag: go daddy

Categories
Online Marketing

What Is a CMS? Which One Should You Use for Your Website?

” All right, so today, We have a special guest Alycia from Sucuri. Thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah thanks, I’m happy to be here Awesome, so we’re Talking about what is a CMS and which one should you Use for your website, Can you tell us a little Bit about what a CMS is So CMS stands for. Content management system and it’s basically an easier way to put pages, live on your Website or blog post manage your image media Library all that kinda stuff Awesome and now, let’s Go over the top three CMSs, I’m going to be a little bit! Biased in this episode, That’s my disclaimer right there, I’m going to start with WordPress WordPress is the most popular Content management system out there today powers Over 1/3 of the internet, It has tons of plug-ins tons of options and it’s pretty resourceful And probably my favorite Reason for why I use WordPress is the community behind it.

They’re such a large community that that just all comes Together, there’s meetups, there’s wordcamps and everyone just helps each other out For sure, and I mean with 40,000 plugins almost like you, have no end to the kind of functionality you can add to your CMS Absolutely. So what are some other CMSs that we can possibly use For sure, yeah,,’cause everybody’s heard of WordPress, so Yeah Drupal is another very popular one.

It’s been described to me as Kinda, like a Swiss cheese, you need to be a bit more Technical to use Drupal, but it does have a lot Of different features compared to WordPress, it has A different user experience and ultimately it’s been Used for a lot of things like government websites, And that kinda thing because of its ability to be a little more secure in some areas: yeah Yeah and it’s definitely One not for like the smaller business type sites as Enterprise or large Corporation type sites right, Yeah, yeah for sure Yeah Joomla – is another really Popular one as well, It’s got a really good.

Community – and it’s got, I think, the second highest Market share after WordPress, Although WordPress is Like 30 % – and I think, like It’s, a giant Joomla’s like 6 %, so just A little bit of a gap there between the top two but Joomla’s, also a really awesome CMS to use You wan na make sure that you’re using the most latest version. If possible, There are two active versions: Available that you can use Yeah, you definitely wan na stay on the most recent branch.

Of any CMS, if possible, Yeah that’s just a best practice there. All right. Let’s talk! About really figuring out, which one should you use right Like what are some of the first Steps we wan na think about. Definitely you wan na Make sure that you know what your requirements Are for your website, So how does it need to Be for your users to use! How are you going to go about? Actually creating posts and what are the processes that you’re going to use as part of that And then once you have all that you can kinda look at each CMS and see what are the extensions and Themes that are available And see if they’ll match the Requirements that you have for your website, That makes sense and It all comes down to figuring out what’s right for you Like, I will stand by WordPress all day, but WordPress may not be Right for your situations, Figuring out those requirements, With those applications are super important, Yeah and usually a Lot of the CMS websites have a great community Because they are open-source, So tell us a little about open-source Yeah for sure.

So all Those top three CMSs they’re open-source they’re, also free, which is very important, Open-source, basically Means that the source code used to build WordPress Or Drupal or Joomal, it’s all open and available, and anybody can contribute to it as well Right on So that just means it’s Constantly being improved by the community and the Community’s also checking to make sure that, what’s Being added is secure All right, so we want our Website to look good right, So is that something to think About when we’re choosing what platform we use and how easy it is to create those sites Totally so different themes will have different attributes like They may have a sidebar on the left or the right, Or they may be all one column in a never-ending scrolling website.

Different themes will Allow you to accomplish, maybe what you need by Having custom backgrounds or custom menus, so you Wan na look at the options for your theme and you also don’t wan na discount like premium themes, A lot of premium themes out, there will add extra functionality, So you’re, essentially Paying for the theme, even though the CMS is free, That’s an awesome option. There’s premium plug-ins as well, Depending on what you Need the default themes that come with it are Sometimes a little restrictive, so you wan na take a look at What the default themes are: Try some different free themes and see what the options are to get your site to look.

The way you want it to Yeah and what was kind Of controversial at first in WordPress and 5.0 remember Gutenberg, Oh yeah, Gutenberg is essentially The new WordPress editor, The whole point is to kinda mirror the printing press of just Blocks and everything else, Yeah, what you see is what you get So as you’re typing — Whizzy, wig, Yeah whizzy wig, Thank you So as you’re typing Yeah, you see exactly what you would see on the website, So that comes default by WordPress.

It has made the experience. Especially for first-time users easier to create, Then there are page Builders like Elementor or Beaver Builder or WPBakery Builder, that makes that user-experience A little bit easier, If you’re going on the WordPress realm and really want something: That’s pretty customizable, you don’t have to be a Web developer or guru to build that website For sure CMSs are having to Make things a little easier, You know, there’s a lot of Different places out there that are creating website builders that are super easy for people to use, and so it’s helpful for These open-source CMSs to make the user-experience a little easier All right.

So another thing we probably have to think about. Is the hosting requirements We’re going to need for our applications? Talk us through a little Bit of what that looks like For sure, so most of These are running on PHP, so you want the most Updated version of PHP, especially if you want The latest features and to make sure that you’re Getting those security updates? Yes, So that’s really important.

A lot of hosting companies will offer one-click Install for most of these major CMS applications, Some hosting companies Especially when I first started creating websites – and I Was on a super budget, but also a very secure host, it took me a long time. It took me like three days to install WordPress and they have a famous 5-minute install You wan na look and see, and maybe talk to your hosting company.

About what the options are for getting this CMS Installed on your server Right,,’cause, taking three Days to get a website going just the beginning is not Something you wan na do There’s a lot of places out there that will do managed hosting Especially with WordPress There’s managed WordPress that has just already automatically installed some extra security features And then what most people End up going with is like a cPanel type Hosting Since it does have that one-click install with Installatron or Softaculous, Whatever they’re, using Totally Couple of clicks of a button and then it’s there, You can start building and Designing, however, you want All right, so the real Reason I brought you on to this.

Episode is really talking about security with CMSs They’re open-source. You Constantly have to update them, so there’s lots of things. That we need to really think about to make sure Our stuff’s protected Totally well with It being open-source not only are all the good People contributing code, but all the bad people can Also, look at that code as well and find vulnerabilities. So that’s something that a lot of people are concerned about.

Especially with WordPress being so popular, it is a large target. The CMS itself is actually quite secure because there’s a great Community checking things out. You wan na make sure that you’re Not installing more plug-ins than you need Trying to make sure that you’re keeping everything up to date. If you have a managed solution, They’ll, do it for you, Which is awesome. Yup, You wan na make sure That you have something some kind of security plug-in That’s monitoring your site, letting you know if there is A problem that they detect There are some that can also Add features for protection like adding Two-Factor Authentication, which is a second password on your phone that you need to enter in Order to get into your website There’s all kinds of Cool security, plug-ins security utilities that You can use with your CMS Yeah, I know with WordPress the top security plug-ins That come to mind, of course, Sucuri has This security plug-in, but there’s also Wordfence And then with having an SSL on your site, super important just to Encrypt that password,’cause, you have to login The beauty with CMSs that You can access them anywhere right, Yup, So you wan na make sure that wherever you’re accessing’em Your password isn’t being sniffed out by someone in the middle Yeah.

You wan na, be careful. You don’t wan na. Maybe do It in like an airport or coffee shop, Wi-Fi Unless you’re using a VPN.’Cause, if you are sitting There on public, Wi-Fi and there’s a hacker sitting next to you, they could sniff your password As you’re typing it in And then the next thing you know, there’s a bunch of spam pages on your site that you need to deal with. So what about firewall? I’ve heard that it should be important.

Should be added to the site, What’s the validity with that? Definitely one of the nice things about a website firewall Is that it will virtually patch your CMS? So if There is a security issue, essentially the firewall’s Taking care of that, It surrounds your website. And if somebody’s trying to exploit a vulnerable Plug-In on your site, the firewall will catch. That attempt and block it They’ll see a blocking page.

Meanwhile, all of your legitimate Visitors are being sped-up because of the global Network of the firewall and content delivery network, So we’ve figured out what Cms we’re wanting to use We’ve got it installed, how Do we go about documentation, learning the program itself? There are some awesome Resources out there, You talked about WordPress WPBeginner has some awesome? Training guides and tutorials There’s an awesome community.

For all of these CMSs, with very active, like support forums, That’s a great way to go about it And then, obviously, if you have a developer, Or something like that, that’s helping you get some customization. They can usually help you. You wan na make sure that You’re documenting everything as part of your website as well, so It’s just going to help you Later on down the line, if you know you have a List of all the users, all the plug-ins and that kind of stuff and you’re keeping that up-to-date Yeah, especially if you Have people on your team that needs to access the site, Giving them documentation on What they should be accessing, what they shouldn’t be, because sometimes the wrong click can Make just chaos happen Totally and good user passwords making sure that you’ve Got the right role levels assigned to your users? Whether they’re just an editor or author or contributor Right Those roles are usually built into the CMS to allow you to make Sure they can only access what they should be allowed to access.

You only wan na grant admin privileges to somebody for as long as they need it, and that kind of thing Now, with this website, I know many of the entrepreneurs or even solopreneurs out there with their stuff, has Many hats to wear right, Sometimes maintaining it, isn’t always something that they have time for Yeah. It may not be top of mind Right. What should we be? Doing with those updates Yeah, definitely I would say that it’s very important to make sure that you always retain Access to your property, your web property, So I’ve seen cases where a developer will leave a client and Leave with the passwords and then you can’t get Into your hosting account, or you can’t into WordPress, It’s not ideal, so make sure you always have access to those things And make sure that you’re just practicing safe security practices.

Throughout all of it Right on and with WordPress and Joomla everything else, we Talked about it earlier, make sure you’re at least going in there every now and then to update It to the next latest version: It’s not only for performance, but it is for security Yeah for sure I mean with some CMSs there might be different branches that are still being actively developed So having a firewall That can virtually patch and make sure if there Are any vulnerabilities you have a little bit of an extra window.

‘Cause whenever there’s a Security update released, the hackers are looking going. “: Okay, here’s the old file; “, here’s the new file; oh look: “! There’s the security flaw!”, So it can be –. Then send all our bots out Totally it can a matter of minutes hours after a security patch is released before there’s active attacks in the wild So definitely update your Sites as soon as possible, Auto-updates are amazing, WordPress has auto-updates on most hosts, Yeah and or you can hire developers like most designers or Developers will have like a website care plan, so you Can them just do it for you, If you’re using WordPress, Godaddy ProSites or ManageWP has the one-click updates.

So you can update all your Plug-Ins and your themes, You even have a safe update option. So what it does is It’ll update your site, take a snapshot of before and after and make sure they’re all the same. And if there’s an issue It’ll retract, back to it It’s a free option for you Yeah, that’s perfect! You hit on a good point, It’s not a set it and forget. It thing with a website: You need to make sure that You’re maintaining it And that it’s part of your business, it’s how your business looks.

So you should definitely Make sure that you have some kind of plan for keeping It up-to-date and maintained All right. The last point that we should really talk about is really your time and investment with the CMS of your choice. Talk us through a little Bit of that about that For sure we’ll you Wan na go in and realize that it’s going to take you Time to setup all the pages that you want Right: It may take you time to find the right plug-ins, so you wan na kinda think through whether You want to hire somebody or get some help with that To find the functionality and the look and feel that you’re after Definitely budget when It comes to free CMSs.

Well, you don’t have to pay for the CMS. So that’s helpful Right! But it’s customization and security and all Those things that you definitely wan na consider as part of the whole package of having a website On-going costs for domain WHOIS privacy, SSL certificates, Right firewall, All that kind of stuff, All that good things Totally yeah, there’s A lot of accessories that go on with having a website, So you wan na figure like I said at the beginning what those requirements are And then make sure you have a plan for how you’re going to budget and the timelines around When you wan na launch Perfect and with Drupal And Joomla they are, they do have that smaller market share, So there’s really specific requirements of when you wan na use those applications.

Those developers that you hire for Drupal or Joomla might cost more than a WordPress designer as well For sure yeah, and you wan na make sure that you’re really looking at the work that the developer has done and make sure that it Matches what you’re, after There’s lots of great Websites out there that you know can tell you more About how to pick a developer depending on what you’re after Well? Thank you so much for Coming out on the show today and helping us figuring Out what a CMS is why we should use one You’ve been awesome Thanks my pleasure.

Well, if you liked this article go ahead and smash that, like button, add a comment below on Something that you’ve learned and subscribe to this blog and ring that bell, if you’d like to see these episodes first, This is “ The Journey.,” we’ll see you next time.

 

Categories
Online Marketing

How to Use Facebook for Your Online Business

What’s up, How are ya Good, No surprise we’re going to Dive into Facebook today The book face But I also ( laughing ) The face book. It is your favorite right, It is my favorite No well, I don’t like To choose favorites So we’re talking about Facebook for your business – Maybe I just have a personal page and I’ve decided – maybe it’s Time to create a business page for my business right, What are kind of the First, steps that I need to really think about Well you’re, already, Off to a great start, You wan na go to a business page And that’s really important.

Because then, you get the ability to track metrics and analytics So absolutely business. Page over personal page And then from there You wan na make sure you set up your profile. Get that profile photo. Usually your logo works great or maybe, if it’s your personal brand use a great headshot of yourself and then take that cover photo to really showcase your Products or your services and then from there make Sure all your information is up to date And that Is really important? Your hours, your website, Your phone number 100 % And make sure that lines up with your Google And your Yelp listings too Right I went into a coffee shop recently I Was in northern California, You drink a lot of coffee, ( laughing ), It’s true And the cashier was looking At me, like I don’t know like, maybe she wanted to rush me and I’m thinking they’re Open for two more hours, what’s the deal, ( laughing ) Sure enough, they were Closing in five minutes I go, but your Facebook says and I wanted to Go into my spiel like this, but I saved it got a quick Coffee to go fortunately, but that’s the whole point.

I left with a customer experience that wasn’t as ideal And then onto probably one of the largest most impactful components: content Right, always preach Quality over quantity Yeah, so you definitely Want to make sure you vary your content, So mix it up. You know you don’t Wan na become predictable; Okay, And you also don’t want to turn into just a business always talking about yourself right. It becomes so salesy.

When it’s always about me, me me So salesy me me me: yeah, Buy this, buy that Yeah sell, sell, sell; Rather you want to Tell tell tell Exactly ( laughing ) Throw something out there. That’s entertaining I mean social media is escapism. Oh yeah, Throw in a good laugh But also educate me, So I always tell my friends: That I follow my dentist on Facebook and they look At me, like I’m crazy, Why right What And it’s because my dentist Shares really educational tips and tricks like how to whiten my teeth without spending hundreds of dollars.

I saw also my yoga studio was just giving a friendly Reminder to stretch how to maintain the zen, which Is really important in life? Absolutely Also, sharing testimonials that you’ve already Received on Yelp and Google and turning it into a Facebook post Right repurpose that content Take that review. Let’s Say it went on about your your ice cream, you’re an ice cream shop, And the review goes on about How you have the best flavors, but the ultimate flavor Is definitely rocky road, Absolutely Yeah, it’s the best Hands down.

So you have that review that the customer went on About your rocky road ice cream and then use Canva or Something and in the background of that review and select A picture of the rocky road on a nice ice cream cone. It really brings it to life. For those of you that don’t know, Canva is a free website that Has all sorts of templates and kits and graphics For literally all things that you could possibly create Like social media templates, Facebook headers all that Good stuff and it’s free – I use it pretty religiously, Also article, So I’m a huge advocate, Of article I love article Just keep it on the shorter Side, attention spans are short Seems like under two minutes: Or so under three minutes Yeah.

Definitely I would even a minute is good and also doing behind the scenes footage. That’s one of my favorite things about following local businesses is like well, I wan na know how This all comes together And showcase your staff And also repurpose anything your customers take User generated content And I think what gets A lot of people hung up on, creating article is, maybe they don’t have a production set like we do right, (, laughing ) And that’s okay.

Our smart phones are Pretty darn good right, Yeah they’re, pretty smart, Take a article with your phone and even it doesn’t have To be the best quality Go behind the scenes. People like that story like to see the other side of things, and it really helps them. Relate to who you are as a business owner You’re, not just some faceless company. So next up we have these groups. Can you tell us a little Bit about what the Facebook groups are and how I can potentially leverage It as a business owner Yeah, so definitely Encourage you to pay attention to other like-minded Businesses, but also groups to piggy back off the Engagement, you already have, I will say, content is Where you wan na spend most of your time, but Groups can be an advantage to getting your business More exposure for sure, So next up we have advertising.

What do we do with the Paid advertising aspect Yeah, so it’s no secret. Facebook has gone on Record to say organic reach is on ( whistling ) the decline Don’t give up on it. Organic content is still Alive and well and breathing, but I think Facebook posts that you boost has a lot of potential and you Can reach a targeted audience, which is one of favorite things about it? You can start off with like five bucks and you can get in front Of a specific demographic age group, zip codes and That way, you know your post is going to reach the right people And with I would kinda Look at the post that maybe have done the best And then boost those and get those that reach out.

That’s a really good point. Thank you for bringing that up. It’s usually ( laughing ) Wait you’re the expert ( laughing ) I dabble So with Facebook. It’s you wan na go ahead and let the post that you’re Doing hang out organically for a little bit, Let it chill see how it Does garner some reach Now once it garners some Reach then boost it, That’s what we found to work best While a lot of people. I Speak to think, there’s no way to track this to ROI.

That’s a total myth. You can actually go ahead and look at it’s called your insights tab and it breaks down everything. You know what your audience is liking engaging with. Are they Clicking on the links, what time of day they’re doing this, and when you look at all of that and really understand it, the insights you can truly be informed about. Where do I go from here right Like? Where do I go from When it comes to which days work best to post, what Time of day works best Does my audience prefer The entertaining posts more than the educational And on which days And from there you can truly Come up with a great strategy, What happens if I’m not Getting maybe the engagement that I want? Are there any like, like Just great pro tips or boosts that I can do to help me.

Just skyrocket and get in front of those people Yes, Contests: Okay, how so So recently, I saw this cafe that had a special music guest coming in and they encouraged their Audience on the Facebook post, which is like promoting the music, Okay, yeah Comment below and tag a friend and then they’re going to do a random drawing, and it’s like two free Tickets to the show That quick little tag, A friend now becomes just free advertisement for you and it’s costing you a couple tickets or maybe a free, drink or free burger.

Exactly Or whatever you do, You could also ask a question: What is your “ go, to” order when You come into our restaurant Or, what’s you favorite thing on the menu and your favorite person to dine with, And so it’s your customers Spreading word of mouth about what’s great to eat So on Twitter and Instagram Hashtags are super relevant, but I don’t always see It as often on Facebook Are they a thing.

Absolutely I mean here’s the thing when it comes to using hashtags Whether it’s on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, Or if you’re just posting either way you got ta monitor it, because it’s going to be Different for each business, It doesn’t hurt to use Them just be mindful and use relevant, hashtags Perfect and probably only one or two Don’t go overboard. Just a few Yeah, you don’t need to go overboard.

This has been The Journey. Thank you. So much for reading Make sure to like and comment. Below subscribe to know when our next articles are coming atcha and we are signing off

 

Categories
Online Marketing

The 5 Most Popular Domain Extensions

” Today we are going to play a little game and we’re going to discover the top five domain extensions. So when looking for a domain, Name for your business there’s a few things you wan na consider Starting off with something That’s easy to remember, And on top of having a domain name, that’s easier to remember. You also want to make sure Don’t have any numbers in there or hyphens or Any misspelled words Also be sure to consider a name that actually reflects your brand.

So maybe that’s the name of your business or keywords like coffeeandkickflips.Com And last but not least, consider Which TLD makes most sense for your business, which extension So maybe.Org or.Net or.Com? And since we’re talking about extensions, let’s get into our game Now, let’s welcome our first contestant coming all the way from Arizona, Justin, Nealey ( crowd, cheers ). Oh my god. I’r ready to play, let’s go.

He is confident folks, So without further ado, let’s jump into these TLDs. Let’s do it All right now, the moment You’ve all been waiting for, especially you Nealey, Oh yeah, We’re going to dive into the five most popular Domain name extensions Here: are the rules You’re feeling good, I’m feeling great? Let’s go. You came in pretty confident. I came in hot Coming in hot, Alright, so here’s the deal You get up to two strikes, but only two Okay, I don’t need them, I’m getting them all right, He’s so confident.

I love this Well the moment. I’ve Been waiting for someone to win this game, What’s the prize, A new car Just kidding You get like a trip. Somewhere in the local area, How’s that a trip Well, I’m still going to win It’s for the glory, It’s for the glory, So the first one is going to be easy Right..Com.Com is King. It’s the domain. Name extension. You always wan na get. How confident do you feel about this one So confident, Let’s see Told you Ting ting ting.

I got this All right, fantastic, So zero strikes, keep going. Alright, You got four more to Get right by the way, All right there is a time factor. I’r feeling like this is a trap, cause you’re all about pizza. Oh, he must have gone online to do a research, A little stalking. I Mean research, research,.Net,.Net, Feeling good about this one Feeling great. Let’s see, Let’s see What do we have? Oh, my gosh two for two.

He is confident See I got this. You only got to get three more right And you still have two strikes. I bet the viewers at home are on the edge of their seat. Oh yeah, So I mean dance is a universal language right We’re going to go for.Dance.Dance.Dance.Dance, I’m Feeling pretty good about it. Oh you can dance your little sorrows away on that one Nealey. So that’s strike one. Remember the rules. You Got one more strike, I get three more right right Right.

Correct So you strike out on this you’re out of the game, We’re going to bring Up our next contestant, So I think it’s going to be dot dot, Dot dot. No! No! No! I think we heard dot. No, Let’s check, though ( laughs, ) Strike. Two, This game is rigged. ( argues ) Bye. Thank you Security. Well, I know it’s sad to see Nealey go. I really felt good about him on the show He came in with confidence. He started off getting a few correct, But he’s gone So, let’s introduce our Next, contestant, all the way from Austin Texas, Alex ( crowd, cheers ).

How are you feeling Good, I’m feeling great. I, like the confidence, Have you been on a game show before Can’t say I have no. This is my first one, Hey first time charm. Let’s go So you know the rules, you saw what happened. Nealey was coming in naming the most popular domain name extensions. We have three more to go Yup. What are they? You have two strikes. Remember, Let’s see here Pizza, I’m a little distracted by that, but we’re not picking them.

I’r distracted by that too. I’r going to go with the.Org. I feel like.Org, there’s A lot of organizations.Org Those nonprofits Wow We’re off to a good start. You only have to get two more right And you get to bring home the grand prize. So, what’s it going to be, Let’s see I’m going to go with.Co, it’s like.Com, Maybe just a lot of People forgot a letter on the end: It’s not missing anything. Is it Only one away from taking it all home? Nealey is probably sitting in the back Just shaking his head “.

I knew that!”. This is what a winner looks like. Those are fighting words. Alright, go ahead, No pressure, but you have one move away from winning or striking I’m going to pick.Us because greatest country Out there is the US: Let’s go with it. Yes, She got it. Stop Congratulations, Wow America for the win. Alright, That’s the end of our game. I had a lot of fun. I hope you did at home as well as you Alex, And you just learned the five most popular Domain name, extensions, Be sure to comment below and like this article Also subscribe and ring that bell so that you can find out when we have more great articles.

This is “ The Journey.” Thanks for reading, I’m the champion.

 

Categories
Online Marketing

GoDaddy Domain Renewals and Avoiding Expired Domains

It is imperative. I’r Darlene mrs. Mehta and we’re going to introduce you to your renewal options like GoDaddy and share some tips to avoid accidental domain expiration. When you register a domain name, you decide the term or how long you want to maintain registration.

This could be anywhere from one to ten years now, when this time is up, you can pay a renewal fee to retain the registration or it expires when your domain name expires. It’ll take some time before it’s released back to its registry and made available to the public again yeah, your domain name can be recycled. If you fail to renew the registration, while you can manually renew your domain, one great way to avoid accidental expiration is to enable Auto renew you can do this from your domain settings page when Auto renew is enabled for your domain the day it expires.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mvSA2aBrSPY

Our system will automatically attempt to charge the payment method on file for that domain. If automatic renewal fails, let’s say, for example, if the credit card on file is expired, we send an email that notifies the expiration and then we park the domain. A park domain displays a temporary webpage when someone visits the domain in their web browser. This process is also used for domains that have been set to manually renew.

So if you don’t manually renew your domain by the expiration date, we notify you via email and park. Your domain, one very important point, is that all of these notifications are sent via email. Godaddy sends all of your domain, expiration notifications to the email associated with your account. That’s why it’s crucial that your email associated with the account is not only accurate but also one that you check all the time when important account contact information is inaccurate.

We have no way to get you important information or updates like domain names or other product expirations. If you haven’t checked it in a while, maybe it’s a good idea to take a peek. Another thing to be aware of is unsubscribing from GoDaddy emails. If you wish to unsubscribe from some of our lists, you won’t hurt our feelings. However, if you still have products make sure you select which specific types of emails you don’t want to receive, but don’t select all anytime you unsubscribe from receiving GoDaddy emails.

Spam laws requires two immediately stop sending you an email. So if you unsubscribe from all GoDaddy emails, this means that we can’t send you any important account related information like domain names or other product expirations. If you want to safeguard your domain name, setting up Auto renew is a no-brainer and keep in mind. Our expiration notifications are only as good as the email address we have on file so be sure.

Godaddy always has the best one to reach you at thanks for reading

 

Categories
Online Marketing

SEO for Beginners – How to Rank in Search

And the most trusted for searches related to Your products or business, So those two things, Relevance and trust – is What Google’s looking for to determine? Which which Websites, it should rank on the first page, And so when I say Google, just so you know, I’m going to be using that interchangeably for all search engines. Because 167 billion searches happen on Google a month. That’s a ton. Most searches happen on Google right Right, so I’m just going to Use, Google interchangeably, I mean it is the 167 billion Pound gorilla in the room, so we’re just going to go with it.

I’r scared All right so SEO, like Why why is it important? Why should we invest our time? Energy and money into it So search engines, they’re The new Yellow Pages: This is where people go to find answers Billions upon billions of Searches are happening each month and many of those are for Your products and services, So, if you’re not showing up On the search results, page you’re missing out on a Huge untapped potential of all these customers, Who, literally, are typing your products into the search? Bar wanting to purchase 88 % of people, research Before they buy and they’re-, where do they research [ Nealey ], That’s huge Google, so you need to just- It’s just plain and simple: You need to be there So, instead of me telling You, let me just show you, Let’s go check out a Search result right now, Cool: let’s do it All right, so we’re going to Break down the different pieces of SEO by going to the Search results page itself: Okay, So, let’s dive into it, So let’s go to Google.

Com and What’s an example business that we should look into [ Nealey, ] Um: let’s try, lawyers [, Morgan, ], Laywers, ahh, That business of yours is getting big time: huh [ Nealey ], Something like that. [ Morgan, ], Yeah, Phoenix Arizona, you need a lawyer now So lawyer, Phoenix Arizona. So what I just typed into The search bar is known as the search query and this Is a phrase or a question that you are looking for answers for This can contain your Keywords, for example, lawyer, is a keyword and Phoenix Arizona is probably a keyword.

So now, let’s look at the Three different pieces of the search engine results, page Also known as the SERP Okay, so these first two sections Right here these are the ads paid ads and normally You can tell because they have a little ad flag right there. So you can see there are two ads here and then, if we scroll down to The next section this is the local map listing sections, So these are local businesses.

Only so if you serve a national audience or you Don’t have a physical location that you serve, then you Aren’t going to show here The way that you appear Here is you have to have great SEO on your website? And you also have to have an optimized Google, My Business profile, And you can see that only a Few businesses appear here so there’s usually three. This is known as the local three pack And then occasionally there’d be an ad, So this is an example of Someone who’s paying to appear in the local listings and Then these three below it are the ones that are naturally Organically showing up here, which Google has deemed For Phoenix Arizona, these are the best three.

You can click on more places. And that’s going to bring you a wider map of all the Different local lawyers, So you can see quite a few And then you can dig into their Google My Business profile from there, So here’s an example of one So the next and last piece at the bottom. These are the organic results. This is where you want to be Because, unlike the paid ads, you have to pay to play for those.

So once your ad budget is Out poof you’re gone you’re no longer there, But with these you prove to Google over time that you’re the most relevant and The most trusted answer and then you’re going to stay Here, for a long long time, as long as you continue To show Google that you’re better than your competition And people love these A lot of people while ads are affective, we’re kind of trained to Just skip over the ads and go straight down: To the organic results, and so so many people will Just hop down right here and they’ll click and find their lawyer, So I wan na go back to the Top and I wan na talk about keywords and keyword.

Competitiveness because keywords are things which We’ll be talking about, you need to put all across your website. It’s these search terms. That people are looking for, and so you need to make Sure that you have that on your website as well Um, however, some are much More competitive than others, So if you look at lawyer, Phoenix Arizona, there’s about 32 million results, It’s pretty broad Phoenix is a pretty big city.

If we change it to something. That’s less competitive, let’s say a dog grooming- Dog groomer Phoenix Arizona, only 2.3 million results So clearly less competitive business. So there’s not as much competition there, which is great if you’re a Dog groomer cause. That means you have a- if you’re Doing the right SEO it’s going to be easier to Appear on the first page for that search term, Unlike lawyers, where They put a lot of money into advertising.

It’s a very Very very competitive space. There are people, always Fighting for those top spots, Should we only put short keywords: Is there anything else we can use So initially, no With Google. You need to start Small with they’re called long-tail keywords, so They’re they’re keywords with three four: five: Six words altogether um, because you need to prove your authority in the small, less competitive Spaces before Google is going to realize that you Should be ranking for these more broad terms, So for this example, If I’m a dog groomer, let’s say I specialize in poodle grooming, So we’re going to change It to poodle, groomer, Phoenix Arizona And you can see the Competitiveness there’s only 300 thousand search.

Results, so this is great because there’s not as many People who put poodle grooming on their websites, and so for me this is a great opportunity. For me to start building that authority with Google, So remember if I’m a dog Groomer and you go to my website and there’s absolutely Nothing about dog grooming, it’s just my name. My phone Number and maybe a photo Google’s going to look at that and think this doesn’t talk anything about It’s not relevant Yeah.

It’s not relevant. So this person must not be great for this keyword: They’re, probably not a dog groomer at all, So our job is to go and make Sure that all the content on our website is relevant, To those keywords, All right, so you’re Telling me all I need to do is update just a little bit. Of content on my website, Not exactly so remember, That we’re doing this not only for our users, So they have information, but for Google, Okay, So and Google wants our Websites to be structured in a very particular way right.

Ultimately, it’s a robot That’s scanning the backend of our website, so the Backend data of the website, Google wants to make sure that We have it formatted in a way that it can easily read and Know what our website is about, So these are things like Our H1 tag, our meta data meta descriptions which I’r going to go into right now to show you where this is [: Nealey ] Awesome. Let’s see it [ Morgan ]! So for Since we’re here on this poodle grooming website, Let’s go to this one Puff and Fluff Grooming and Pet Sitting: [ Nealey ], I’m all about rhyming, [, Morgan ]! It’s a nice! Looking Website it has great colors great branding, but the problem is Google doesn’t see any of that.

This is what they see Boom. [ Nealey ]. That’s gross [, Morgan ]! That’s not that pretty And end users, your customers, If this was your way that your website was presented, they would get nothing from this However, this is exactly what Google looks at when they’re Wanting to rank a website All right, so you’re Telling me that I have to know how to code to do that. Not necessarily because Modern day website builders already have this built in here.

You can see with this website. They’re actually using a plugin for WordPress Called “ All in One SEO”, Where you just put it in and It just makes it super easy for you, as a non-technical. User to update all of these SEO elements, which is awesome So as part of this, you need To have your meta title, so this is basically the title: Of each part of your website that when you go back to the Search engine results page you, this is what will show up So for this example.

They set their meta title for Puff and Fluff Grooming and Pet Sitting And then you can also see right, Here the meta description they get to choose what that is All right. So that’s the basics of SEO. The search engine results page Everything on your website. We just talked about everything on-site that you need to do to your Website so now, let’s talk about the things off-site. Okay, That shows Google that you’re The most trusted answer for search results.

All right so explain trust A little bit more for us Yeah, so I have an analogy. So let’s say that you get a call one day and it’s from a fifth grader And the fifth grader says: “: Hey Morgan is the best basketball player in the entire world..”. Are you going to believe him? Probably not. I think you paid him Right all right now. What If Kobe Bryant LeBron James and Michael Jordan, called you up and said, “ Hey, I’ve got the scoop.

On this new player, Morgan She’s, the best basketball Player in the entire world.”. What would you say to that? Would you believe them? Oh absolutely Yeah They have authority, They have authority, so you will trust their opinion. And it’s the same thing with Google: The way that Google can Tell if your website, if it should trust your Website cause again, we could toot our own horn all day long, And we see this all the time.

People say: “ best dog, groomer, In Phoenix Arizona,,” right, Like people love to toot their own horn, but with Google [ Nealey ] Self-proclaimed. It needs that authority. From other people and that’s where backlinks come in And so backlinks are Links on other websites that point back to your Website and Google uses this as an indicator to see Oh okay, this is actually a really good website. Other people are talking about it Now with backlinks.

It’s Quality over quantity, You don’t just want to go on. The internet and go put your you know, go on every comment. Every YouTube comment, like just put your website everywhere, cause that’s going to look spammy Google’s not going to like that. It wants really high quality. The Michael Jordan’s, if you will, What is one thing they can do right now, The biggest thing that you Can do that will give you so much bang for your buck is to put content on your website.

Especially content that has your keywords To determine those keywords: You should probably… What are the products and Services that you offer or what are the products And services that you want your customers to know about, For example, using the dog Groomer in Phoenix Arizona – maybe is there certain types, Of grooming that you do that you’re really well known for Let’s say you’re the best Darn toy poodle groomer this side of the Mississippi, ( laughs, ).

Okay, You should have a separate Page with content on it about that specific Service that you offer So that’s what I recommend Go make sure your page Just has tons of content so that way, when users and Ultimately, Google look at it, they know exactly what You’re about and then Google will start ranking you All right guys. I hope you Found this beginner’s guide to SEO helpful and that These are actionable things that you can start doing now.

So that way, your customers can start finding your business online If you’re going to get started. And you found this helpful, let us know in the comments: Below the number one thing you learned about SEO today Awesome and make sure You like this article, subscribe to the blog And if you wan na see these articles first ring that bell, But this has been The Journey Signing off.

 

Categories
Online Marketing

Email Marketing Made Easy with GoCentral | GoDaddy

This article explains how built-in tools in Your GoCentral website or online store make email marketing a breeze In general. There are four basic steps to Email marketing establish a mailing list, create a marketing campaign, monitor and evaluate results. Repeat Your GoCentral site includes user-friendly Tools that cover all the bases First, there ’ s the Subscribe form right.

On your Home page, When visitors use it, you, ’ ve, captured their Email addresses And, of course, when customers make purchases They provide an email address at checkout The Subscribers tool in your GoCentral dashboard Is where you can add names, either one at a time or in bulk from a contacts list or spreadsheet, And it ’ s simple, to create a variety of mailing lists Once you have your mailing list, creating an effective campaign is easy, with a host of templates To streamline the process Carrying your brand into your emails is effortless Because elements you have on your site, such as photos, product information and styles Are ready and waiting Feeling a little unsure how to create an effective campaign? Never fear There are great resources located right on The Compose page to help you, including an introduction article best practices, article Example, gallery and product demo Once your marketing email is just the way You want it, the click of a button sends it.

Then you just have to wait for the results For each campaign. You send your campaign dashboard lets. You know how many people you sent it to how many mailings were successfully delivered, the number of recipients who viewed it and how many took action And when you click on these high-level stats. You get even more details about your campaign, Pretty powerful info right. All your campaigns are saved for you, making it simple to reuse a successful campaign at a later date, Or you can make a copy of a campaign edit.

It — say by changing the call to action — and send it again, This handy feature ensures you don. ’ t lose Any of the original campaign: ’ s, history! With a GoCentral site, you don, ’ t need to be – or hire – a marketing expert to reach customers and drive sales. All the user-friendly tools you need to run. Effective email campaigns are right at your fingertips. Go ahead, give them a try.

 

Categories
Online Marketing

What Is a CMS? Which One Should You Use for Your Website?

” All right, so today, We have a special guest Alycia from Sucuri. Thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah thanks, I’m happy to be here Awesome, so we’re Talking about what is a CMS and which one should you Use for your website, Can you tell us a little Bit about what a CMS is So CMS stands for. Content management system and it’s basically an easier way to put pages, live on your Website or blog post manage your image media Library all that kinda stuff Awesome and now, let’s Go over the top three CMSs, I’m going to be a little bit! Biased in this episode, That’s my disclaimer right there, I’m going to start with WordPress WordPress is the most popular Content management system out there today powers Over 1/3 of the internet, It has tons of plug-ins tons of options and it’s pretty resourceful And probably my favorite Reason for why I use WordPress is the community behind it.

They’re such a large community that that just all comes Together, there’s meetups, there’s wordcamps and everyone just helps each other out For sure, and I mean with 40,000 plugins almost like you, have no end to the kind of functionality you can add to your CMS Absolutely. So what are some other CMSs that we can possibly use For sure, yeah,,’cause everybody’s heard of WordPress, so Yeah Drupal is another very popular one.

It’s been described to me as Kinda, like a Swiss cheese, you need to be a bit more Technical to use Drupal, but it does have a lot Of different features compared to WordPress, it has A different user experience and ultimately it’s been Used for a lot of things like government websites, And that kinda thing because of its ability to be a little more secure in some areas: yeah Yeah and it’s definitely One not for like the smaller business type sites as Enterprise or large Corporation type sites right, Yeah, yeah for sure Yeah Joomla – is another really Popular one as well, It’s got a really good.

Community – and it’s got, I think, the second highest Market share after WordPress, Although WordPress is Like 30 % – and I think, like It’s, a giant Joomla’s like 6 %, so just A little bit of a gap there between the top two but Joomla’s, also a really awesome CMS to use You wan na make sure that you’re using the most latest version. If possible, There are two active versions: Available that you can use Yeah, you definitely wan na stay on the most recent branch.

Of any CMS, if possible, Yeah that’s just a best practice there. All right. Let’s talk! About really figuring out, which one should you use right Like what are some of the first Steps we wan na think about. Definitely you wan na Make sure that you know what your requirements Are for your website, So how does it need to Be for your users to use! How are you going to go about? Actually creating posts and what are the processes that you’re going to use as part of that And then once you have all that you can kinda look at each CMS and see what are the extensions and Themes that are available And see if they’ll match the Requirements that you have for your website, That makes sense and It all comes down to figuring out what’s right for you Like, I will stand by WordPress all day, but WordPress may not be Right for your situations, Figuring out those requirements, With those applications are super important, Yeah and usually a Lot of the CMS websites have a great community Because they are open-source, So tell us a little about open-source Yeah for sure.

So all Those top three CMSs they’re open-source they’re, also free, which is very important, Open-source, basically Means that the source code used to build WordPress Or Drupal or Joomal, it’s all open and available, and anybody can contribute to it as well Right on So that just means it’s Constantly being improved by the community and the Community’s also checking to make sure that, what’s Being added is secure All right, so we want our Website to look good right, So is that something to think About when we’re choosing what platform we use and how easy it is to create those sites Totally so different themes will have different attributes like They may have a sidebar on the left or the right, Or they may be all one column in a never-ending scrolling website.

Different themes will Allow you to accomplish, maybe what you need by Having custom backgrounds or custom menus, so you Wan na look at the options for your theme and you also don’t wan na discount like premium themes, A lot of premium themes out, there will add extra functionality, So you’re, essentially Paying for the theme, even though the CMS is free, That’s an awesome option. There’s premium plug-ins as well, Depending on what you Need the default themes that come with it are Sometimes a little restrictive, so you wan na take a look at What the default themes are: Try some different free themes and see what the options are to get your site to look.

The way you want it to Yeah and what was kind Of controversial at first in WordPress and 5.0 remember Gutenberg, Oh yeah, Gutenberg is essentially The new WordPress editor, The whole point is to kinda mirror the printing press of just Blocks and everything else, Yeah, what you see is what you get So as you’re typing — Whizzy, wig, Yeah whizzy wig, Thank you So as you’re typing Yeah, you see exactly what you would see on the website, So that comes default by WordPress.

It has made the experience. Especially for first-time users easier to create, Then there are page Builders like Elementor or Beaver Builder or WPBakery Builder, that makes that user-experience A little bit easier, If you’re going on the WordPress realm and really want something: That’s pretty customizable, you don’t have to be a Web developer or guru to build that website For sure CMSs are having to Make things a little easier, You know, there’s a lot of Different places out there that are creating website builders that are super easy for people to use, and so it’s helpful for These open-source CMSs to make the user-experience a little easier All right.

So another thing we probably have to think about. Is the hosting requirements We’re going to need for our applications? Talk us through a little Bit of what that looks like For sure, so most of These are running on PHP, so you want the most Updated version of PHP, especially if you want The latest features and to make sure that you’re Getting those security updates? Yes, So that’s really important.

A lot of hosting companies will offer one-click Install for most of these major CMS applications, Some hosting companies Especially when I first started creating websites – and I Was on a super budget, but also a very secure host, it took me a long time. It took me like three days to install WordPress and they have a famous 5-minute install You wan na look and see, and maybe talk to your hosting company.

About what the options are for getting this CMS Installed on your server Right,,’cause, taking three Days to get a website going just the beginning is not Something you wan na do There’s a lot of places out there that will do managed hosting Especially with WordPress There’s managed WordPress that has just already automatically installed some extra security features And then what most people End up going with is like a cPanel type Hosting Since it does have that one-click install with Installatron or Softaculous, Whatever they’re, using Totally Couple of clicks of a button and then it’s there, You can start building and Designing, however, you want All right, so the real Reason I brought you on to this.

Episode is really talking about security with CMSs They’re open-source. You Constantly have to update them, so there’s lots of things. That we need to really think about to make sure Our stuff’s protected Totally well with It being open-source not only are all the good People contributing code, but all the bad people can Also, look at that code as well and find vulnerabilities. So that’s something that a lot of people are concerned about.

Especially with WordPress being so popular, it is a large target. The CMS itself is actually quite secure because there’s a great Community checking things out. You wan na make sure that you’re Not installing more plug-ins than you need Trying to make sure that you’re keeping everything up to date. If you have a managed solution, They’ll, do it for you, Which is awesome. Yup, You wan na make sure That you have something some kind of security plug-in That’s monitoring your site, letting you know if there is A problem that they detect There are some that can also Add features for protection like adding Two-Factor Authentication, which is a second password on your phone that you need to enter in Order to get into your website There’s all kinds of Cool security, plug-ins security utilities that You can use with your CMS Yeah, I know with WordPress the top security plug-ins That come to mind, of course, Sucuri has This security plug-in, but there’s also Wordfence And then with having an SSL on your site, super important just to Encrypt that password,’cause, you have to login The beauty with CMSs that You can access them anywhere right, Yup, So you wan na make sure that wherever you’re accessing’em Your password isn’t being sniffed out by someone in the middle Yeah.

You wan na, be careful. You don’t wan na. Maybe do It in like an airport or coffee shop, Wi-Fi Unless you’re using a VPN.’Cause, if you are sitting There on public, Wi-Fi and there’s a hacker sitting next to you, they could sniff your password As you’re typing it in And then the next thing you know, there’s a bunch of spam pages on your site that you need to deal with. So what about firewall? I’ve heard that it should be important.

Should be added to the site, What’s the validity with that? Definitely one of the nice things about a website firewall Is that it will virtually patch your CMS? So if There is a security issue, essentially the firewall’s Taking care of that, It surrounds your website. And if somebody’s trying to exploit a vulnerable Plug-In on your site, the firewall will catch. That attempt and block it They’ll see a blocking page.

Meanwhile, all of your legitimate Visitors are being sped-up because of the global Network of the firewall and content delivery network, So we’ve figured out what Cms we’re wanting to use We’ve got it installed, how Do we go about documentation, learning the program itself? There are some awesome Resources out there, You talked about WordPress WPBeginner has some awesome? Training guides and tutorials There’s an awesome community.

For all of these CMSs, with very active, like support forums, That’s a great way to go about it And then, obviously, if you have a developer, Or something like that, that’s helping you get some customization. They can usually help you. You wan na make sure that You’re documenting everything as part of your website as well, so It’s just going to help you Later on down the line, if you know you have a List of all the users, all the plug-ins and that kind of stuff and you’re keeping that up-to-date Yeah, especially if you Have people on your team that needs to access the site, Giving them documentation on What they should be accessing, what they shouldn’t be, because sometimes the wrong click can Make just chaos happen Totally and good user passwords making sure that you’ve Got the right role levels assigned to your users? Whether they’re just an editor or author or contributor Right Those roles are usually built into the CMS to allow you to make Sure they can only access what they should be allowed to access.

You only wan na grant admin privileges to somebody for as long as they need it, and that kind of thing Now, with this website, I know many of the entrepreneurs or even solopreneurs out there with their stuff, has Many hats to wear right, Sometimes maintaining it, isn’t always something that they have time for Yeah. It may not be top of mind Right. What should we be? Doing with those updates Yeah, definitely I would say that it’s very important to make sure that you always retain Access to your property, your web property, So I’ve seen cases where a developer will leave a client and Leave with the passwords and then you can’t get Into your hosting account, or you can’t into WordPress, It’s not ideal, so make sure you always have access to those things And make sure that you’re just practicing safe security practices.

Throughout all of it Right on and with WordPress and Joomla everything else, we Talked about it earlier, make sure you’re at least going in there every now and then to update It to the next latest version: It’s not only for performance, but it is for security Yeah for sure I mean with some CMSs there might be different branches that are still being actively developed So having a firewall That can virtually patch and make sure if there Are any vulnerabilities you have a little bit of an extra window.

‘Cause whenever there’s a Security update released, the hackers are looking going. “: Okay, here’s the old file; “, here’s the new file; oh look: “! There’s the security flaw!”, So it can be –. Then send all our bots out Totally it can a matter of minutes hours after a security patch is released before there’s active attacks in the wild So definitely update your Sites as soon as possible, Auto-updates are amazing, WordPress has auto-updates on most hosts, Yeah and or you can hire developers like most designers or Developers will have like a website care plan, so you Can them just do it for you, If you’re using WordPress, Godaddy ProSites or ManageWP has the one-click updates.

So you can update all your Plug-Ins and your themes, You even have a safe update option. So what it does is It’ll update your site, take a snapshot of before and after and make sure they’re all the same. And if there’s an issue It’ll retract, back to it It’s a free option for you Yeah, that’s perfect! You hit on a good point, It’s not a set it and forget. It thing with a website: You need to make sure that You’re maintaining it And that it’s part of your business, it’s how your business looks.

So you should definitely Make sure that you have some kind of plan for keeping It up-to-date and maintained All right. The last point that we should really talk about is really your time and investment with the CMS of your choice. Talk us through a little Bit of that about that For sure we’ll you Wan na go in and realize that it’s going to take you Time to setup all the pages that you want Right: It may take you time to find the right plug-ins, so you wan na kinda think through whether You want to hire somebody or get some help with that To find the functionality and the look and feel that you’re after Definitely budget when It comes to free CMSs.

Well, you don’t have to pay for the CMS. So that’s helpful Right! But it’s customization and security and all Those things that you definitely wan na consider as part of the whole package of having a website On-going costs for domain WHOIS privacy, SSL certificates, Right firewall, All that kind of stuff, All that good things Totally yeah, there’s A lot of accessories that go on with having a website, So you wan na figure like I said at the beginning what those requirements are And then make sure you have a plan for how you’re going to budget and the timelines around When you wan na launch Perfect and with Drupal And Joomla they are, they do have that smaller market share, So there’s really specific requirements of when you wan na use those applications.

Those developers that you hire for Drupal or Joomla might cost more than a WordPress designer as well For sure yeah, and you wan na make sure that you’re really looking at the work that the developer has done and make sure that it Matches what you’re, after There’s lots of great Websites out there that you know can tell you more About how to pick a developer depending on what you’re after Well? Thank you so much for Coming out on the show today and helping us figuring Out what a CMS is why we should use one You’ve been awesome Thanks my pleasure.

Well, if you liked this article go ahead and smash that, like button, add a comment below on Something that you’ve learned and subscribe to this blog and ring that bell, if you’d like to see these episodes first, This is “ The Journey.,” we’ll see you next time.

 

Categories
Online Marketing

8 SEO Tips for Your Website

Nowhere And so SEO stands for. Search Engine Optimization and it’s work that you do To make sure that you prove to Google and other search Engines you’re the best So for SEO. I like to use the analogy of all the work that you need to do is like a 1,000 piece puzzle And you and all of your competitors. You all have the same puzzle and we’re trying to prove To Google who’s the best which one of these puzzles Is the most complete My puzzle’s best? Definitely the best Yours is definitely the best.

We know that Does Google know that We shall find out Right But the thing is not Everyone has all 1,000 pieces, Some people are new, Some people have been Doing it for a long time, and Google doesn’t necessarily care that you have all the pieces in The thing that Google cares about is that you have more than the next guy. You could have maybe 10 pieces and if you’re in not a very Competitive space then yeah you’re going to appear on the first page, So these eight tips that We’re going to talk about are going to help you to Start putting those pieces in to get started on your SEO.

Journey for local businesses Perfect. So, let’s jump into the tips. What’s tip number one Tip number one for local businesses: Everybody needs this. Is you need to create or claim your Google My Business Profile, Google, My Business? Is this Tool that Google has created that allows users to see all Of your business information in one place, We did a article all about This so go check it out, so you can deep dive, but basically, if you don’t have a profile, You need to go, create one and, if you haven’t claimed your profile, meaning that your profile exists.

But you didn’t necessarily do It or some user created that you need to claim it. So that you can update it with all the right information Right, You need to make sure It’s in your control, Don’t let it out to the World for anyone to add It’s yours, So tip number two is that you need to optimize your profiles, It’s great to have it created, but if you don’t have all the information that Google is looking for, then they’re not going to recommend your business over someone else.

So that means having your Business name correct your address: your phone number, your hours of operation, Those are the basics that most people do, but optimizing it really Means going a level below that so adding photographs, adding your logo adding pictures of your building, so that was when people are Actually going to your business, they know what it looks like If you’re a restaurant include pictures of dishes.

And what you’re known for so that way, people have Lots more information when they’re, looking at your Google, My Business page, So those are the key things That you need to do to optimize If there’s reviews that are outstanding, you need to respond to All of those reviews You need to encourage your Customers to go and leave reviews, because that also plays a part In how you’re going to rank against other local business profiles, All right, Morgan What’s tip number three Tip number three: is you Need to add your business to relevant business directories.

These are other sites. That their main business is promoting other Businesses like yourself, and so you need to make Sure that your business, not only is there but the Information is correct and the great thing It’s an easy back link. Absolutely So it really helps with your SEO to make Sure that your business anywhere people are looking At these business directories, your business shows up All right, which brings Us to tip number four Tip number four is to Add your business address to your website.

It sounds pretty plain and simple, but a lot of websites don’t have that So again to increase your rankings. This is one thing that not Only Google is looking for, but your users, if they’re wanting to visit your business, they want to have the address. Very prominently placed So put it in the footer. Have a separate page about your location, Just make sure that it’s there Visible and very prominent All right so should We put a Google Maps thing on the site too.

Yeah that helps That’s. Visual People can click it. They can see exactly where you’re located the cross streets. So that’s Always helpful as well so just make sure that you actually have the address called out. And written out next to that Perfect, which brings us to tip number five, What’s tip number five, Make sure that your NAP is consistent across the web. What’s NAP, Name I like naps, I mean well ( laughter, ) Name address phone number, So you need to make sure That those three things are consistently formatted everywhere, So pick one and then Update it on your website, [ Nealey ], Stick with it, Update it on your Google, My Business and then update it anywhere.

Else where your website appears, If you don’t own those websites, Email, the owner and say: “: Hey: can you update this?” And most likely they will but just make sure it’s Consistent everywhere Perfect To number six, what do we got? You need to update your home, page’s, meta, title and meta description, The meta title and meta Description are things on your website that you control how your website shows Up on the search results, So whatever the meta title, Is that’s what will appear on the search engine results page and then the little description below This is a great opportunity for you to let your clients Know what you’re about So, if you are a coffee shop in Seattle, maybe you should have That, in your meta, title and description Put your location, Put more information about your business.

So that way, your users Know what you’re about Right and most website builders or applications that you use have a section for you. To add a meta title, a meta keyword and meta descriptions. If you don’t know how to go. In the backend and do it, which most of us don’t want to right So if you need help just contact, whoever you’re Hosting your site with They’ll, probably be able to help you get that information there.

Because if you don’t set anything Google will just assume Whatever it wants to put there – and it may not always be relevant to what you want to Invoke to your audience All right Morgan! What do We got for tip number seven Tip number. Seven is just to make sure that all of your other Seo elements are in place Make sure that you have great Content on your website Make sure that your Source code is formatted in the way that Google likes to see it, Make sure that you have a great number of high-quality backlinks that are pointing back to your site.

All of this will help with your local SEO. We actually did an entire article. All about the basics of SEO check it out right here, So it’s super relevant to make sure your site is structured in a Way that Google basically wants so on your site, those H1 Tags, like you mentioned it’s basically, a code On the site that says “, This is my most relevant Tag line,”, if you will So only one H1 tag per site.

Images are super important. Because Google cannot read images, but it can read text. So that’s that little description there Most website, builders or Applications, like Word Press, has a place for you to add those All right. Morgan, we’re On the very last tip, It’s been an incredible Journey # thejourney. What is tip number eight Tip number. Eight is To consider launching paid ads or Google guarantee, So if you’re not getting The results fast enough or the traction that you need Using steps one through seven and appearing in the organic sections, then this is where paid ads and the Google guarantee comes in, So you can consider doing these things Paid ads.

Obviously, it’s pay to play Whoop. You appear right at the Top of the search result, It’s amazing, but once Your ad budget is gone. You no longer appear there, But people click on the ads, They’re very effective. So I love paid ads. It gets you right to the top, but I’m not really familiar. With what Google guarantee is Give us the low down, So the Google guarantee Is basically paid ads supercharged, So you could pay.

Anyone really can pay to have their business. Appear in the paid ads, but the Google guarantee Takes it to the next level, where, if someone purchases the service through the Google guarantee And they’re not happy, they can get their money. Back, which is really awesome, So it’s Google vetting certain businesses and making sure that they Provide a great experience, There’s extra levels, you Have to do to qualify for the Google guarantee, but it’s really great and Stands out in the search results and people love it All right guys.

Those were our eight quick tips to help improve your local SEO. I hope you liked it I liked it Did you like it. Loved it, I thought you would Make sure you like this article Comment below on just Something you learned today Subscribe Ring the bell, so you Know when these articles are coming at your first, This has been The Journey. And we are signing off

 

Categories
Online Marketing

How to Turn Your Hobby Into a Side Hustle

I’r super excited to be joined with my co-host Justin Nealey, what’s up Justin, What’s up Seems like everybody, These days has some type of side hustle. This is the Side, hustle economy right, Wait! What’s your side hustle, I just hustle ( laughter, ), Fair same oh, my gosh We’re doing the same thing So, what’s kind of the big challenge that someone reaches they’re like “ Yeah, I wan na turn this Into a side, hustle.

”, What’s one of the first things that halts them from getting there, I think the biggest Thing is figuring out what their side hustle’s going to be about, because we have a lot of Different things we do Some people like to Just eat pizza all day, some people like….. What was Your Twitter handle again @ EmmaWantsPizza. I look Forward to your follow First step is drilling Down “, What do I actually want to be known for what Do I actually wan na do?” When I think of something I’r passionate about I just wan na give it all of my time.

I don’t want it to be a side hustle. I wan na give 110 % so How do you balance that I think the biggest thing Is to start small right, We can’t just go full-force on it. Some of us can’t afford To take that full leap and just become a full-fledged entrepreneur, Good point: That’s why we have that side hustle! It’s that great source of income to basically test the Waters and figure things out before we can make that leap and see if it’s a viable option.

Totally Cause we got bills right. Can you really make money with this? Is that something that People get hung up on, or do you think people get distracted with side hustles that are Just full passion projects in hopes that they’ll make money. One day I mean: where does that come in? I think it’s both You can either spend a lot of money towards your side. Hustle And not take it anywhere or you can make it something lucrative.

So another thing that comes to mind, besides, of course, making Money with a side hustle is time resources. What do You have advice about that. So that’s tough right. The biggest thing is You have to prioritize what’s important and set aside time, so you can actually Work on your side, hustle or not. Let your side hustle Control your entire life Cause. I know that I’ve been there I freelanced for a while in the past It caused me to just burn out which is pretty common.

I imagine yeah In the side hustle world, It challenges your balance every day, 100 %, so the biggest Thing you need to do is prioritize what you need to accomplish and set aside specific times. Of when you’re going to do things cause you still have to have a life. You still have to eat that pizza. So what would you say for Me if I had a side hustle and you were going to give me some advice about time, management and planning ahead.

How would I do that, So you can basically Take your content calendar to real life, so on Tuesdays you’re going to work on social media for three hours And then on Friday. You’re going to do whatever You can really just piece: That out, but start small, You don’t wan na overwhelm yourself and you don’t wan na burn out cause. If you go too full-force into this you’ll end up just not Liking what you love to do, and we don’t want that to happen.

How do you decide which platform to use First and foremost, you Have to have a website, That’s basically the first Place that people are going to go to make sure that you’re legitimate And then two go to social Make sure you’re out there promoting your products? Telling people what you do following people in your niche Having those conversations – And I would still do a little bit of in-person in real life right And have those connections – And go to local meetups or go to networking events and find people that are in your potentially Your area, your niche and build up those connections.

I love that. I call that local love All right Like if you’re the Juice bar in Silverlake follow the yoga studio next door, There’s a lot of overlap and similarities between their target audience Right and then, once you get everyone to whatever platform you end up. Choosing your website social in real Life that local love right, You got ta get paid, There’s a lot of cool platforms out there that make it super easy to get paid Like what We all know Square right, The little thing that just the dongle that gets put in your phone And you swipe the credit card right there.

I am so grateful for Square when I go To the farmer’s market, And then we have PayPal and Stripe for online processing, so Lots of easy integrations like WordPress or just any Type of website builder that we have that you can Easily set up and get paid Or Venmo if it’s a local transaction, — Ugh, I love Venmo. I love Venmo, the random Conversations people have, I see, lots of tacos in –. That’s how I pay my landlord In your feed.

That’s how I keep my friends happy. That’s it! Splittin’ those bills: What do you do when it Comes to protecting yourself and the policies that go along with that Right – and this is Something that you might have to go and get advice from a lawyer with, Because you wan na make Sure that you’re protected You’ll, probably wan na File some sort of LLC or register your business in some way, There’s a couple different variations, But do that first and foremost On your website.

If you have one terms of service, is a must. Same with a privacy policy, especially with some of the GDPR stuff that I won’t go into in this episode And then check out, there’s A lot of generators out there for web design contracts, for example, or just random service Contracts, you can use and protect yourself and your audience Okay, so this probably won’t come as a surprise that I’m going to ask this.

But how will you promote this side hustle, You know I’m a little Biased social media You’ve got your love, Got my love for the social media, but how are you going to promote it? The biggest piece of Advice that I can give is have some sort of lead generator on your website, because Leads turn into customers And that lead generator could be an eBook. It could be a article Series, it could be some of your blog content.

It could be coaching could be whatever you want it to be, Just that free piece of Advice or free content that you can give your audience That then turns into leads, and you continue that Conversation with them, Oh absolutely Right and now with social media. What are your top three Social media platforms, If I was to run a side hustle What do you want me on All right? That’s easy! Instagram for yours, Instagram Twitter and Facebook: That’s going to help you to reach A variety of demographics, which last we spoke That was your side hustle.

It wasn’t specific to an age group Also they work better together, So think about this too, and this is what’s really cool about your side. Hustle. Is you have a variety of angles to go? You could post something That’s educational today, but also besides educational, you could just post things: That are just entertaining Also some great ways to Engage on social media to spread more word-of-mouth To promote your business, Ask questions that your target Audience would wan na answer And so you’re mixing up the Types of posts that you’re doing and as a result, you’re getting That real word-of-mouth And, like you say you don’t wan na, go on there and just sell, sell, sell You wan na go on there.

And tell tell tell Yeah Right, It can’t be all about you and say: “ Hey buy this buy this Buy this buy this!” Cause. No one wants to actually follow that and be a part of that they’re. Just going to scroll past you or unfollow you. How do I know that? What I’m doing the promotions, I’m putting together the time, I’m investing it’s getting me a return on investment. For my side, hustle And that’s tough, What a lot of people get Hung up on are subscribers and like counts, which It’s somewhat important, What’s more important, Are your sales right? Are you making an impact? And are they buying from your service or product that you have for your side hustle? So there’s lots of Different tools out there that could potentially They track a lot of that QuickBooks for your sales.

Or online bookkeeping, Facebook has a lot of Really great tracking software, so you can See your engagement, you can see how many People viewed your post, viewed your article liked it shared it — Clicked on the post Same thing with Instagram. You can see how many people viewed It liked it commented — Engagement rate Right So, wherever whatever Platform you’re using there’s something to track that visibility or with your website itself.

You can use Google Analytics to see how people are coming to your site, Good point, How often they’re coming to your site, how they’re staying on there Are they just bouncing? That’s called a bounce Rate they literally just bounced they’re out, But what about paid promotions? This is the part where A lot of people end up spending a lot more into The personal side hustle than it actually pays them I bet It’s really easy today to start putting $ 5 a day $ 10 a day and At the end of the month, you’re like “, Where did my money go? This is supposed to make me money!”.

So what I would say, To that is start small Start with a couple Dollars here and there and kind of figure out what’s Getting you the traffic what’s actually converting to sales, and once you find something That works expand on that There’s. No one size fits all when it comes to paid advertising. — I believe that, But I can say going back: To what we said earlier is making it about how You help your audience and how you can really help them grow All right, that’s a wrap Justin! Thank you.

So much for being here, Thank you for having me And for all of you listening in, be sure to subscribe to our Blog, if you haven’t already More articles and fun and laugh And learn sessions to come

 

Categories
Online Marketing

How to Get Traffic to Your Website

It’s not something you can do today and you’re going to start Getting traffic tomorrow Right Right, But if you have all this Great content but bad SEO, no one’s going to find it Welcome to The Journey, I’m Nealey And I’m Morgan, And today we’re talking about how to get traffic to your website All right.

So I’ve got this website and I made it all super pretty its got good. Animations, how do we get traffic to it Yeah, so you spent so much Time and you’re pretty bummed that no one’s finding your website Well, the first thing you Need to do is you need to put content on your website? So if you don’t have articles, if you don’t have a Reason for people to be continually coming to your website. You need to give’em a reason So start publishing content regularly Start a blog.

It’s the Easiest thing that you can do You can post whatever cadence you want, whether its once a week twice a week three times a week, four Five six times a week, I don’t know You pick what works for you and just start putting content out there. Then people will start finding it and then subscribing and Coming back and back again, All right and as a bonus, we actually dove pretty deep into content creation.

And content marketing We’ll throw the link right over there, But talking about the cadence and series, how do we really keep things? Organized and consistent Easiest thing you can do is create a content calendar, Its a place where you Can put all of your post and all of your ideas in one Place and then you can see,’Okay. I need to write these 10 articles and they’re going to post on these days..’ Perfect.

So we have the Content created Content is king Now, should it just live on the website? What else should we do with That content to build traffic, So the easiest thing that you can do is once you already have tons of content is: go, publish it everywhere Everywhere. Everywhere So, for example, if I have a blog post and I took great photographs and its five tips on how To be awesome, you know I should show the world on Other places on YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Hey.

Maybe I should share those five tips on those other places because I have followers. There are lots of people out there that don’t just follow you on your blog, So you need to get that content out. There’s people on Pinterest Who don’t even know you exist? So you need to make sure you create a nice little Pinterest banner and it links back to your website, because people will be Searching and they’ll find you and they’ll become one of your New followers and readers – I like that, So that’s super important.

You create a banner for Pinterest and you create a you repurpose that content for Instagram, don’t just copy paste. It everywhere right, You have to make it for that platform Like Twitter, keep it super. Simple super short Instagram Include one of the tips. Imagery is everything Especially the five photos Right Make sure its for that audience.,’Cause they’re there for a reason Like if I’m on Instagram, I want to see imageries And things like that, I don’t want.

I don’t want to see text Yep For YouTube. You Basically, have a script already written with That piece of content so just get in front of the camera and share those five tips and publish to the YouTube world There. It is, And then you put little Micro-Content everywhere else on YouTube and then back to your website, just repurpose its like a circle Just be everywhere and share Yep Share it all All right, so we’re repurposing content, we’re putting on social we’re, putting it on our website, putting it where our followers are.

But what we haven’t brought Up is email marketing. Now a lot of people say ‘Email marketing is dead, don’t use it its in the Past everything’s, social.’: What’s the value behind email, marketing, First and foremost, people who are saying Email marketing is dead, NO, NO, NO Email marketing is still alive and well The great thing about email marketing, its really one of the only Places where the algorithm, like all these algorithms out There that hide your content and make it so people who Are supposedly following you can’t find it You own that list, And so, when you send an email, They will see your email, So that’s a great way to get your content in front of eyeballs of People who indicated like literally they’ve, signed Up to follow updates from you, So in email, marketing, there’s lots of different Things that you can do You can do a newsletter.

You can just anytime, you post, you automatically Send an email to anyone Whatever you want, just go and get in front of Your audience through email, What are some of your Favorite newsletters Like go check your inbox Right now and just look: Are you following businesses and there’s a reason and What a super great point is you don’t always read those messages Right right, But you still see that brand constantly Yep Right, keeping that awareness going When they see that email from you sometimes they’re, going to click they’re going to go back to your website and that’s Going to increase Traffic to your website, And just to add on to that, we talked about it in earlier articles, not to’sell, sell, sell.

‘, You Want to’tell tell tell.’ And when you’re creating your Email marketing newsletter – you want it to add value, Whether its your blog post or content, Don’t always be an offer to buy this.’cause you’re going to get Just unsubscribed immediately, So what are some other Options that we can do to help build traffic to our site Yeah, so we’ve done a ton. We’ve built our own content. We’ve shared our content on All of our social blogs and all these different places we’ve gone to our email list Now its time to go to Other people’s website Out into the wild, Yes, The wild wild west of sites that you do not own yourselves, So you don’t control It called Guest Posts, So basically we know how Hard creating content is its time consuming.

You have to edit it. You have to draft. You have to Come up with all these ideas and you’re an expert And maybe you’ve already Written about the things that you’re an expert About so many times over, Your audience knows that, but maybe someone else’s Audience would benefit from learning from you, So Guest Blogging is Going to someone else, maybe in your niche or a Different niche and saying “ Hey.

I would like to write An article for your audience, Here’s what I was thinking.” And what that does. Is you Create very useful content, And then the most important is that, somewhere in your bio or in that article, you have a link back to your website, So that these new readers can find you and then go to your website visit and follow you from there. Not only that that also Build back links right Yep, So that helps your SEO.

Increases the traffic, which is what this article is about – That’s perfect because That ties into SEO Getting more traffic to your site. It means appearing on search engines. So if you aren’t even Appearing on the first page, your basically dead, No one goes past. The first Search page of google or any of the search engines, So you need to work on your SEO, which is your Search Engine Optimization, So that way, people when they’re searching for your keywords or your products or services that you show up and they visit your site.

We actually just did a Article all about this, You can check it out right here. All the basics of SEO SEO is so big, make sure To check out that article, But if you have all this Great content but bad SEO: no one’s going to find it. So you really work on your Seo to increase your traffic Right And what really Helped me understand, backlinks and something that I deal with a lot is you can think of backlinks Almost as like followers or like on your post on Instagram or wherever else, The more likes you get, the More people are going to see it, So those backlinks are Just “ likes” for your website, So SEO takes a ton of time right.

It’s not something you can do today and you’re going to start Getting traffic tomorrow, [ Morgan ] Right right. What are some things that, if we need that instant gratification like’, I’m a millennial, I need to see it now.’. What are some things I can do. To get that instant traffic Yep, Like you said, SEO, is building a Relationship with Google, So it does take time. It’s Like we’re dating Google, You have to take them on all these dates month after month week after week, and so it really does Take six or 12 months to really have very Very strong SEO results if you’re consistently Putting in the efforts, But if you need traffic now there are things that you Can do right now to get.

.. Right, meow Right now To get the Traffic that you need Its called’Ads.’ So ads on search engines are an easy way to have your website pop up on the top of the search results, But the problem with it Is that its pay to play? So if I have a $ 1000 ad budget, every time that someone clicks that ad it gets subtracted from my budget And eventually whatever the rate is when by budget’s gone, my website,,’Poof.

‘, It no longer appears on the search result, But ads do work. We love Google, That’s why we use it Every single day, Multiple times per day, So people love Google And they do trust the ads. So if you need people to Buy your products right now, you might want to look Into a PPC campaign to get that traffic Right, That Pay-Per-Click and Google’s not the Only place you can do it, I’m sure you’ve scrolled on Facebook or on Instagram or Twitter and you’ve seen the ads there too, Like you need to be Where your audience is Like Google’s, probably the most relevant,’cause people are searching.

For those exact terms, so you’re going to get that instant click, But its part of the brand awareness and just random clicks to the site, those social media platforms, Are probably pretty good, too Yep, Speaking of social ads, social ads can be very targeted because they know everything About your demographics, what you like, what you don’t like! It’s a bit scary, All right! So we’re Doing all these things to build traffic to our website, but how do we know what’s working Analytics? So if you do not have Google Analytics installed on your website.

You need to stop and go Install it right now, Because it has so much information about who is visiting your website when they’re visiting your website, how long what pages they’re visiting when they’re leaving Its so much information, and it will help you understand. Which of your articles that you spent so much time creating are getting the most traffic Where they’re, coming from What search terms, people are searching to find those articles And so you’ll be able to see very quickly what are your top performers and what are your duds? So you can stop working on the Things that aren’t working And building more content that people are actually searching for So Google analytics you could do a whole article.

Just on that There’s master courses – Just on Google analytics, But even just having The basic installation will give you enough information, so you can continue building content that your audience wants. Which will bring more traffic And then to add on that. I probably recommend setting Up, Google webmaster tools Just so you can see where your organic search Traffic is coming from. You can see the search terms.

How often people are viewing It they’re clicking it Things like that kind of piggy backs on That Google analytics Yep All right guys. I hope this Article was helpful for you and that you have actionable Tips that you can start today to start increasing Traffic to your website, I’m curious. Let me know In the comments below What is one thing, you’re Going to start doing, Are you going to build content? Work on an email list, let me know, I know what I’m doing.

Creating article content, Nice Awesome, Make sure You like and subscribe and ring the bell, if you wan na see when our next articles are Coming so you get it first, This has been The Journey Signing off.