Social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram can help you stay in Touch with your customers about important news and Updates about your business, So here are five ways: social Media helps businesses send updates to customers Number one. Let your customers know that you are still here Due to COVID-19 restrictions. There’s uncertainty about What’s changed for businesses and customers alike, Use your social media platforms to let your customers Know that you’re here and thank them for continuing to support small businesses like yours And to help customers find you make sure all of your social media buttons are included on your Website and vice versa, Don’t make it harder for them to find you or the information you’re sharing Yeah.
Additionally, Make sure you’ve updated Google, My Business page with the most current information like your business hours phone number and don’t forget those Social media handles Oh actually Darlene. I have an example of a business that I Came across on Instagram, that’s located in Austin, Texas, I’d love to take you Through their Instagram page and show you how they’re Using social media to still stay connected, With their customers, One thing I wan na point: Out is on their Instagram, and I noticed that they have actually the information About their curbside pickup and their online ordering – And it’s right here in the bio, I love that that’s front and center, So any customer new or Loyal customer knows like okay, great, Like this is an option for us to still get what We love from this business And, in addition to that, they even have some Instagram highlights about their curbside Service and their catering and their posts are keeping Everyone up to date as well, which I really love.
But I wanted to point out when I was checking out Their Instagram stories that they have a lot of User-Generated content from their customers who have already started To order from them and take advantage of the specials, And one in particular that I really loved besides all the customer content here is, they also did a little re-share of a post about their curbside pickup and a behind-the-scenes of Them still putting together their delicious cakes in their bakery Number two promote your online store for customers who need to stay home Since we’re all practicing.
Social distancing we’re not able to visit Physical businesses right now so take this opportunity to Reach out to both your current and potential customers by Promoting your online store on social media Yeah build on your Brand’s social media presence with posts about featured products, positive customer reviews, And current sales to drive visitors over To your online store – And this can be done via Instagram stories, tweets, Snapchat or good old Facebook, Also, like we mentioned earlier, make sure you’ve added Links to your online store as part of your social media, Account’s bios and posts No use in posting about it.
If you don’t tell them where to go Yeah. Actually, I saw an example of that Does a great job of this Aviator Nation, A small business. That’s Promoting their online store through Instagram posts, like you see here So number three run special deals to retain customers during the shutdown Spread. The word about good deals to get your customers talking similar to what we saw. Aviator Nation doing And social media promotions Can bring in new customers to your online store, For example, a fun way is To encourage your customers to share photos of your Products and tag your business And you can offer a Chance to win a free item: online-only discounts, Or waive shipping fees – These are great additional Ways to get the word out on your online store, That’s something you can handle As customers like to like And share your posts, they spread awareness about your business.
Your customers’ posts are Visible to their friends, which can bring in more Business to your store, Even if you don’t have a Physical or digital product, you can still post about Deals on gift cards or upcoming virtual classes, So number four find ways: To engage with customers despite social distancing. If your business relies on foot traffic, we understand you might be struggling with ways to communicate.
With your customers And your customers, Well, they’re missing out on the face-to-face conversations. About daily specials and products that offer Solutions to their problems, This is where being active. On social media comes in, Engage with your customers by frequently posting on Your social media accounts at least a couple times each week so that your business stays present in your customers’ minds.
So try to respond to Comments and direct messages, so customers feel acknowledged, And now this is a good Practice all the time, but it’s especially important now that there’s limited in-person contact Number five have customers Follow you for updates. Your social media presence reminds current and prospective customers That you’re still open or if you need to temporarily Close your storefront you’ll be open again.
Unfortunately, some Businesses might need to close for a limited time. I know my hair salon is doing that And if you’re one of those businesses urge customers to follow You on social media, for important updates on your re-opening Post about any changes to your hours or any other differences in How you conduct your business And remind customers if You’re available for takeout delivery, curbside pickup or any other ways that You’re still operating Creating content around Your adjusted processes might be very interesting.
To your customers, I mean, I know, that’s helped me with one of my favorite Pizza joints that’s closed, So give them a peak behind the scenes as to how your business is. Running during this chaos, It could be the reason they continue following your journey long after COVID-19, Whether you’re sheltering in place following social, distancing or still figuring out your Business’s restrictions, it’s tough for everyone; Thankfully social Media offers the ability to do more than just market your business, but it’s a means to stay connected when in-person contact Just isn’t an option Exactly Remain active on your Business’s social media accounts to promote your online store and deliver updates to customers And, if nothing else, your social media presence Can bring people together in a time when it’s really needed Stay safe and stay healthy?
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On your website and force a bitcoin ransom, or something like that SEO spam, which infects your Website with spam keywords and pages, not a good look And then there’s also things Like Crypto-Miners adware, that kind of stuff, Nobody Wants that on their website, Nobody want’s that right. No, So it’s not just something! That affects computers. It affects websites too. Yes, websites are definitely At risk – and you want to make sure that you are taking steps – To monitor your environment and protect it and having A plan for response is also very important.
How big of an issue really is this? Well, there’s a stat out. There that says, there’s about 75 % chance that a business Is going to be attacked And right now they say there: Is about 40 % of traffic to your website? Is actually Bots and about half of that is malicious, bots Ugh. That is gross Yeah, it’s not good. No, so how do we go about? Identifying, if our site is infected with malware Well, what you can do, Is you can run a scan on your website? We have a tool called Sucuri site check.
You can also just monitor Your activity logs, if you have somebody who can do that, Maybe a developer – You also wan na make sure That you’re practicing good password management, making sure that you’re users are set with the permissions. That they should have So obviously the least Privileged principle, you wan na make sure that They only have admin for as long as they need it. And then you put them back down to the role level that they need Right on, So that site check is great.
Are there anything that Like super obvious that we should be checking Is it like on Google? Is there on our website? What does that? Look like Yeah? Definitely Well, One of the biggest things is to make sure you’ve updated your site, A lot of the problems. That we see are because of websites that are out of date and have security, vulnerabilities Updates, don’t always mean new features. Sometimes they mean that You’re, actually, you know patching a security flaw that Would let a hacker get in and then do whatever they Want with your website Right, So I was actually Talking to when I was just a customer service, rep at Godaddy I had a customer on the line.
She basically had an interactive book site for little children And she was using WordPress She hasn’t really touched in a while And little kids go on there to read books with their parents. She was unfortunately hacked And the thing that they did was redirect them to a not so great site for little kids. So little Timmy was seeing Some very very adult things So super scary. Is there anything else There was something About Google, you said Like the SCO: What is that Yeah SCO spam is another Really bad one where they inject pages and Keywords into your site, It can show up in your Google search when people are looking for your brand and you’ll see pharmaceuticals, gambling stuff Like discount fashion spam, it’s pretty nasty The malicious redirects That you’re talking about are also terrible cause.
They’re taking your traffic and sending them to like another website, that’s maybe unsavory And you know that’s not A good look for your brand: It causes a loss of trust, So it’s definitely not ideal. Having a website firewall in Place is a really great step to mitigate that It forces All traffic to go through the firewall first Before The visitors hit your website and it also has the Benefit of speeding it up by cashing and using our CDN network, So the firewall is kinda.
Like digging a moat around your house and keeping All the bad neighbors out The in-laws, Anyone that you Don’t want to come in Right, Yeah there you go. That’s One way to look at it: (, laughs, ), All right, Alycia, So website is hacked I’m running around. I’m Screaming that the world is on fire to me right, How do I get this out of here? Yeah? That’s a really Important point, and not a lot of people, have a Response plan in place, Obviously, if you have Somebody you can trust who can remove the malware And has those technical skills that’s a great way to go? There are some tools that can Remove things automatically, but that doesn’t always catch a lot of the hidden back doors.
An attacker will always Try to leave some way to get back in If you just You know go in and clean up the spam pages and keywords the next day, they’re back in And your sites reinfected and a lot of that is Automated on the hackers part, So if you wan na take steps, There are some guides out there. We have one on sucuri.Net on how to clean your hacked website scan for malicious files in the database, and then you can just remove The pieces of malware manually, But generally you probably Want to contact a professional and have them help you Out, It’s usually going to be a bit faster and, like I said they’ll make sure those back doors are gone and that you’ve been removed.
From any blacklists as well, That’s another really important. Point is you don’t want to get blacklisted by Google, Nobody likes that, Then you’re rankings are gone And an important thing to Remember is these hackers they don’t care who you Are They don’t care what your site is about? They just care about hacking. Your site and making money off of you, So it’s not Personal, They just send out their bots to anything that they can find They get in They’re in Automation is super scary, They’ll just write a little script go, get a coffee and Come back and they’ll have a list of like thousands of WordPress websites that they might wan na attack, It’s not ideal and then They can further automate the attacks from there And again small websites.
Are fine because they can use your server resources? They Can use it for SEO spam to try to get other sites To rank that they want They’ll, just use your Resources They can even use your site to attack bigger sites Wow Like what does that look like So like? Let’s say you Are a hacker and you have a bot net of like a Thousand infected websites: You can use the power of all Those servers to launch attacks on like a larger company, So a DDos attack right Yeah, A DDos attack, So, essentially with that you can think of it as like a highway And there’s you know: cars Getting into your website and the hacker is flooding That highway with a bunch of fake cars and now no Real people can actually get into your website And that’s no good And Then all that traffic’s down and it looks like you’re doing it – ( laughs, ), Yeah yeah, nobody Wants to come to a website and see that blank white Loading page, like you know, most visitors, will leave a Website, after like three seconds of waiting for it, To load and it can cause you know a lot of of Disruption for conversion rates and that kind of stuff, So Not ideal for your business, No, and I mean, if you think, About a hacked site right, If your website ever gets Hacked like, if you have a visitor that comes there, they’re likely never coming back.
They’ve lost the trust with your business, Because, if you can’t Protect your own site, how can you protect their information Totally, It’s doubly important if you’re an eCommerce site, Even if you have gateways for Payment that are not hosted on your site, Like through Paypal or Authorize.Net or anything You still have to be PCI Compliant and make sure that you’re protecting the details, Of the people on your site Now with the website and Security we’ve talked about like the malware removal.
And things like that, Should our customers and Our audience really have an SSL on the site, too. Is that important? Yes, absolutely SSL is Awesome and a lot of people equate SSL with security. What SSL does is it makes Sure that any communication between the visitors Browser and your website is encrypted, So it’s data in transit, that’s being protected. Ssl doesn’t actually help Your website from not getting attacked by a hacker But Ssl is still very important.
It’s a ranking signal for Google, So it can help your website get to the top Of Google, if you have SSL And it’s just rapidly Becoming kind of defacto that you have to have SSL On your website as a way to establish trust with your visitors, I love it And that Trust thing is important Cause if you don’t have An SSL on your site, top left of the browser, says “ Not Secure”, To an everyday person. They See “ Not Secure” they’re out, So after we’ve cleaned up the malware.
What should we do going? Forward to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, Or that we’re just protected For sure yeah, You don’t Wan na deal with reinfections Those really suck So number One most important thing is to change all of your passwords, So passwords for your server, your FTP, your hosting account any of Your user accounts, because any of those could have been Compromised during the attack And don’t use password1, Yes Make sure you’re Using good long, complex, unique passwords for everything, Because if they get one password and you’re reusing It everywhere, that’s just They’re in your Facebook Account now your bank account now they’re everywhere and It’s hard to get them out.
Password managers make it a Lot easier, I can’t recommend them enough. I think that’s Probably one of the top security tips that we hear at Sucuri. What’s a password manager, A password manager is a Tool in your browser that will allow you to store And even generate really good passwords, So when You go to a site as long as you’re logged into your Password manager, with your one master, password that by the Way has to be super strong cause, it stores all of your passwords, One password to rule them all Yeah, Which is awesome As Long as you’re logged into your password manager, it’ll Even auto fill the passwords for you, So it makes your Life a little easier And it takes the guess: Work of it out of having to create a password that You’re going to remember, but that’s also very strong, And difficult to hack Awesome What else should We look at to really prevent this from happening again.
Or just protecting ourselves, There’s a lot of different Post-Hack actions and we could go into security forever. It’s A never ending kind of thing, There’s no such thing as Zero risk You’re always some element of risk, But obviously you know making sure that you’re Changing default settings Like don’t use the username admin. You know you can do a lot. Of things through plug-ins and that kind of thing, If you’re using a CMS But there’s also a lot of Steps to take on the server Like changing file permissions And things like that Definitely recommend.
Looking For some guides out there for website security, We Have a couple on sucuri.Net that are freely available: But yeah Definitely taking just extra steps to Make sure that you’re thinking about security and setting those options Awesome Now backups I hear this all the time: Backups backups backups What’s your emergency plan, How often should should We be making backups and what does that look like? Well, it really depends on your site If you’re updating your site, Very frequently, you know it’s very important for You to be able to restore all of that recent content.
Then you wan na be making you know daily or even More frequent backups, You know for some sites, That are only updated, weekly or monthly. Maybe those are How frequent you want them! One important thing to think: About with getting hacked and using a backup is Sometimes the attackers will attack your site and wait. For months to actually launch the attacks, So They’ll, get in and they’ll sit there for a while And then your backups are actually infected, That’s scary! So if you restore a Backup, that’s still has a backdoor in it that Could be troublesome, But still nonetheless, it’s Great to have that safety net, Especially if you have Custom files on your site, If those get overwritten By a hacker – and you don’t have any way to restore the Custom files – it’s not like you, can just pull down The WordPress plugin files or the core files You wan na, make sure for sure That those are backed up All right.
Thank you. So much For coming on the show today and helping us out with How to find malware and what to do with it? It’s been a pleasure, Thank you so much for having me And hey make sure you, like This article and comment below on something that you Learned that you’re going to do with your website to Make sure you’re secure While you’re there Subscribe to this blog Ring that bell, so you Know when these episodes are coming out first, This is “ The Journey” We’ll see you next time,
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There are so many different ways you can go about that, but We’re actually going to cover how to actually optimize Your images for web and SEO here on The Journey All right fun facts with Nealey time. Did you know that images are The second most popular way to search after keywords.
No, but that makes sense I mean people buy with their eyes right Absolutely so leveraging The power of images with your content is crucial And that’s why, if you want to really make your business stand out and be noticed, you have to leverage the power Of images with your content, So there’s a lot that goes into it and I’m not going to do. All the work for you Come on. Please help a girl out All right I’ll at least help you I’ll.
Take you through your own website and show you at home a quick demo of how to optimize your Images for web and SEO Perfect: Let’s do it Cool compromise All right Alex. So, let’s Check out some of the images on your website, so where do You go and upload your images, So I normally go to where it says: media [, Nealey, ], Okay. So let’s Check out some of the content that you’ve uploaded All right, so all burgers, I dig it [ Alex ], Nothing wrong with that.
So let’s check out one of these images Cool, so I’m noticing some good things and noticing some not so good things. Let’s dive into this little bit: Okay, Alright! So we’ll start with a good Start with the positive right. So I do see here you have Some of what’s called “ Alternative Text.” Now, when Google or other Search engines crawl, your site, it can’t actually see This delicious burger, All it sees is that it says “ image”.
It doesn’t know what to do with that. That’s where that Alternative text comes in so this one, you put awesome Burgers, which is good, it’s descriptive, shows Exactly what it is, But I don’t see you have it On any of your other images, So you definitely want to Write some type of description of what that is, that way, it Gets indexed by search engines because, like we said before, it is the second most Popular way to search Okay, so every image gets Its own alternative text Yeah, and you really Want to describe it too, The more descriptive the better.
This also helps for Visually impaired people that are on your site, That have screen readers So if they’re on your site, It’ll have delicious burger it’ll. Have this or it’ll have that versus just going and saying Image is not very helpful. You got to keep the site successful to Moving on to title Your titles aren’t bad I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen The ones that are like screenshot dash this date dash blah again, that’s not really helpful.
You want to be as descriptive as possible. [ Alex ], Okay, [ Nealey ], So this one says Beef dash blur dash bread and then some numbers. How do I make it better? So we can probably just Get rid of the numbers Again, it has to be Descriptive of what the image is all about, so beef dash blur Dash bread that one’s fine You want to have those dashes in there,’cause that’s! What’s going to Show up in the address bar [ Alex ], Okay, It’s also something that Google kind of takes a look at as well, And then WordPress saves in real time.
So as soon as I clicked Off of that, it saves So you kind of have the same trend here. Blur dash buns dash burger those numbers just get rid of the numbers All right. The next thing, You really want to look at are the captions of the image themselves. The captions are one of the Most read parts of a website so having something there again, As descriptive as possible, Now, if you got this image elsewhere, usually caption has the source Of where you got that image, These are your photos and Since you’re Alex eats food, so it’s yours there and Then description same thing As descriptive as possible: The more descriptive, the more keywords you can Add to your website’s images, the better you are going! To be in search engines, [ Alex ].
So what would be a Good example for a caption here, literally just really describe it Juicy delicious burger. I can’t type today I really can’t type today With tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, And Dijon mustard sure, So it’s a pretty solid caption and I really cannot type today, Let’s add burger in there too, Oh yeah, maybe I guess Burger there. We go Nope, not there. Let’s put it right here, I’m struggling today, I’m just hungry.
It’s about that time. [ Alex ], ( laughs, ), A mustard burger Juicy, delicious mustard, all right All right now with this, it’s not really optimizing it for SEO. But it is optimizing it for your website itself. Now what you don’t want, To do is have an image: that’s like 5000, with by 5000 height, It’s way too large. My screen, Is definitely not that big? You want to keep them condensed If they are pretty big.
You Can resize them on a computer and re upload them? You can actually resize Directly in WordPress, by going to edit image, And then right over here, there’s new dimension. You Can literally just type say I want this to be 800 width, it will automatically Constrain it down to by 533 Click scale and then It’ll shrink my image, so it’s not as large. You also use the plugin WP Smush, smush And it’ll.
Basically do What exactly what that is it’s going to smush your Images so they’re not as large, because also the faster Your website is the better search results. You’ll come up with whether it’s text based search results or image, search results, Good to know perfect. Well, thanks, so much Nealey. Hopefully my great burger pictures will get seen a lot more now, Yeah Be sure to let us know. In the comments below what kind of articles you Want to see in the future Yeah and while you’re there make sure you smash that Like button as always Subscribe to, the blog and You can get this content first.
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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’m 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’m 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.
But how is direct response? Marketing different than that Good question, So direct response marketing is different because direct marketing You’re, just talking directly to the client like an e-mail But direct response, marketing you’re doing something to elicit a specific response from Your potential client, So what are some examples of this Say? For instance, you have a article that you put on Instagram and you’re, telling people about what you’re offering a service a product, and you tell them.
I want you to call now. Yeah They have to take a specific response in order to take part of it. Gotcha So when handled the correct Way it can be very beneficial and bring about some interesting results For one it takes out. All the intermediaries, It’s just between you and your customer – You don’t have to have the middle man. Second, it’s pretty cost effective. You don’t have to have Mass market saturation with traditional marketing methods And then the third, it’s also Measurable and trackable: Okay, You can see your ROI and then also it adheres.
To some good old-school marketing methods – and it doesn’t go with some of these trends that are flighty Gotcha so would an example, be I do an Instagram post Specifically, for let’s say a new backpack that I just came out with and then I have a link and They go and they buy that Exactly so in crafting your Direct response, marketing there’s a couple elements: That you want to have, For instance, the proposal Rather than thinking hey buy my product.
You actually want to go into some details, Especially like trial Period what the person is going to sign up for answering a lot of the questions that a person may have Gotcha so part of this proposal? Is you want to create some urgency? You want to give them all the information and kind of lead them down the funnel. Why is this important What are the details and, at the very end, maybe This is a trial period.
I see this a lot with webinars or different online courses. You know it’s a limited time offer within the next three days. This is introductory price and the price goes up right, so you’re always kind of leading Them down that funnel and giving that sense of Wow this is important. This is what I need and I can’t wait. I need to buy this now. You want that response. You want to make that person feel like they can’t miss out.
So let’s say that I’m An online business coach I’ve just opened up my Online one-on-one coaching and I’m going to let my Subscribers know about this, So one way that I could do This is through a webinar and I’ll. Let everyone know that hey one time only I’m doing this webinar, I’m going to give you five tips on how to crush it in social media. And this is the only day that I’m going to do it so I’m creating that urgency, so people will come they’ll sign up, Hey, I’m not telling These tips anywhere else.
This is the only place You’re going to find them, I’m never going to do a blog post about them. I’m never! You know. I’m Just really creating this, like you got ta, be there moment And for them to register. That would be the response that you want, Then, in the webinar at the end, I’m going to let them know Hey I’ve opened up my online coaching. I only have ten spots and you guys here. Reading this webinar are the first people you’re Going to get the first chance, so if you want to here’s, my Special introductory price, and after that, once I Hit those ten spots done So if my goal was to get ten new clients, this would be a great way.
To create that funnel, create that sense of urgency and hopefully be an effective way to Get those new clients. So today we talked about Direct response marketing and how it can bring you more customers. We would love to hear from You in the comments below what other topics would You like us to talk about And, of course, be sure to Like subscribe to our blog and hit that notification bell, so you’re always notified Of our next new article Until next time, this is The Journey
There are so many different ways you can go about that, but We’re actually going to cover how to actually optimize Your images for web and SEO here on The Journey All right fun facts with Nealey time. Did you know that images are The second most popular way to search after keywords.
No, but that makes sense I mean people buy with their eyes right Absolutely so leveraging The power of images with your content is crucial And that’s why, if you want to really make your business stand out and be noticed, you have to leverage the power Of images with your content, So there’s a lot that goes into it and I’m not going to do. All the work for you Come on. Please help a girl out All right I’ll at least help you I’ll.
Take you through your own website and show you at home a quick demo of how to optimize your Images for web and SEO Perfect: Let’s do it Cool compromise All right Alex. So, let’s Check out some of the images on your website, so where do You go and upload your images, So I normally go to where it says: media [, Nealey, ], Okay. So let’s Check out some of the content that you’ve uploaded All right, so all burgers, I dig it [ Alex ], Nothing wrong with that.
So let’s check out one of these images Cool, so I’m noticing some good things and noticing some not so good things. Let’s dive into this little bit: Okay, Alright! So we’ll start with a good Start with the positive right. So I do see here you have Some of what’s called “ Alternative Text.” Now, when Google or other Search engines crawl, your site, it can’t actually see This delicious burger, All it sees is that it says “ image”.
It doesn’t know what to do with that. That’s where that Alternative text comes in so this one, you put awesome Burgers, which is good, it’s descriptive, shows Exactly what it is, But I don’t see you have it On any of your other images, So you definitely want to Write some type of description of what that is, that way, it Gets indexed by search engines because, like we said before, it is the second most Popular way to search Okay, so every image gets Its own alternative text Yeah, and you really Want to describe it too, The more descriptive the better.
This also helps for Visually impaired people that are on your site, That have screen readers So if they’re on your site, It’ll have delicious burger it’ll. Have this or it’ll have that versus just going and saying Image is not very helpful. You got to keep the site successful to Moving on to title Your titles aren’t bad I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen The ones that are like screenshot dash this date dash blah again, that’s not really helpful.
You want to be as descriptive as possible. [ Alex ], Okay, [ Nealey ], So this one says Beef dash blur dash bread and then some numbers. How do I make it better? So we can probably just Get rid of the numbers Again, it has to be Descriptive of what the image is all about, so beef dash blur Dash bread that one’s fine You want to have those dashes in there,’cause that’s! What’s going to Show up in the address bar [ Alex ], Okay, It’s also something that Google kind of takes a look at as well, And then WordPress saves in real time.
So as soon as I clicked Off of that, it saves So you kind of have the same trend here. Blur dash buns dash burger those numbers just get rid of the numbers All right. The next thing, You really want to look at are the captions of the image themselves. The captions are one of the Most read parts of a website so having something there again, As descriptive as possible, Now, if you got this image elsewhere, usually caption has the source Of where you got that image, These are your photos and Since you’re Alex eats food, so it’s yours there and Then description same thing As descriptive as possible: The more descriptive, the more keywords you can Add to your website’s images, the better you are going! To be in search engines, [ Alex ].
So what would be a Good example for a caption here, literally just really describe it Juicy delicious burger. I can’t type today I really can’t type today With tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, And Dijon mustard sure, So it’s a pretty solid caption and I really cannot type today, Let’s add burger in there too, Oh yeah, maybe I guess Burger there. We go Nope, not there. Let’s put it right here, I’m struggling today, I’m just hungry.
It’s about that time. [ Alex ], ( laughs, ), A mustard burger Juicy, delicious mustard, all right All right now with this, it’s not really optimizing it for SEO. But it is optimizing it for your website itself. Now what you don’t want, To do is have an image: that’s like 5000, with by 5000 height, It’s way too large. My screen, Is definitely not that big? You want to keep them condensed If they are pretty big.
You Can resize them on a computer and re upload them? You can actually resize Directly in WordPress, by going to edit image, And then right over here, there’s new dimension. You Can literally just type say I want this to be 800 width, it will automatically Constrain it down to by 533 Click scale and then It’ll shrink my image, so it’s not as large. You also use the plugin WP Smush, smush And it’ll.
Basically do What exactly what that is it’s going to smush your Images so they’re not as large, because also the faster Your website is the better search results. You’ll come up with whether it’s text based search results or image, search results, Good to know perfect. Well, thanks, so much Nealey. Hopefully my great burger pictures will get seen a lot more now, Yeah Be sure to let us know. In the comments below what kind of articles you Want to see in the future Yeah and while you’re there make sure you smash that Like button as always Subscribe to, the blog and You can get this content first.
Let’s talk about How to find and enable one of our value ads for Websites plus marketing Free ad credits, You can use these for running a campaign to reach out to your target. Audience and let them know you’re here and what you’re all about Yeah. So, let’s start at your Websites Plus Marketing dashboard Locate the marketing link. In the upper navigation Scroll down to ad credits and offers, You should see the free ad credits to start your marketing campaign.
In this case, we’ll set Up a Snapchat campaign using our available credits, We’ll want to make sure We’re set up in Snapchat before we start. You should also see a few of The deals available to you from our partners, below that These are only some of the Deals you have available to you We’ll show you where to locate. Others, after we walk through our Snapchat, set up We’ll click on the yes Please call to action within the Snapchat credit box.
You can see that this Will apply $ 100 credit? All we need to do is set up the campaign Now. One thing to note: you do need to spend at Least $ 100 on your campaign to receive $ 100 credit, Some of the ad credits Will require less or more depending on the marketing blog Click create an ad to get started. Snapchat will need some basic Info about your business to make sure your ads go. To the right audience So we’ll fill that out now, Okay, so in my case I want more traffic going to my website.
So I’ll select the first option, Depending on your business and objective, you may choose one of the others I’ll add my website link and I’m going to add my own image for the ad, So I’ll skip adding one from my site. I’ll add my headline. My call to action button and an image I have saved on my computer Now I’ll set up some of my Target audience information, so it gets to the right. Potential customers I’ll add my location and other details, so it limits the scope.
Of where the ad goes, This is also where I set up my budget. You don’t have to throw all of your eggs in one campaign basket. In many cases you wan na Create a few to see which ones get the best response. I enter my payment info and I’m just about ready to launch It’s that easy to set up a campaign. Okay, so, let’s quickly Look at where to find your other deals and offers The quickest way to see. Them all is to go here Just scrolling through so You can see a ton of the things to enhance your business either.
Online or brick and mortar, So that’s it! That’s how you use the ad Credits available to you within Websites Plus Marketing And even if you don’t have Websites plus marketing, you can still use the Information to run campaigns or find the appropriate marketing Blog for your business, I’m Darlene And I’m Emma Thanks. For tuning in Stay safe And stay healthy,
Who is helping with your digital business footprint?
We’re going to talk to you about the big three, which are your domain, your email and your website yeah. So really, it all starts with the domains of the foundation, because it’s going to be in your email address. It’s going to be the URL for your website, part of your social media. Yes, part of the social media handle once you get there so with the domain name, you want to keep it short and we like to say the radio tested GoDaddy.
If you heard it on the radio when you’re driving home, would you remember it when it’s time to go search for it right and you have to make sure you get it very quickly? A lot of people have a lot of ideas and they’re buying domains. Every day make sure yeah, I’m sure you get yours right away all right so now that you’ve got this domain name you’ll want to get the email address reason being. Is I’m not going to put poppy Joppy 1717 at whatever com on my business cards? No, you! Don’t want to do that.
A big part of this is branding once you get the domain name you’re going to be sending a lot of emails, so you’re going to want to pick a good domain name and that email is really what starts to push it quickly. For you all right so now the email and the domain are up and running. We need the website up and running. This is your window to the world. This is what everyone’s going to see when they look you up, so it needs to be attractive and it needs to be mobile-friendly and then from there.
You can get into more specifics for what your business needs right. So, as far as the features go, this is the first time you’re standing up. This website is the first time that it’s it’s on its legs, get the minimum stuff that you need and then out on the bells and whistles later you’re going to need payment processing. Are you going to need people to set appointments on their stuff like that right and, as you consider these features, can you do it yourself, or are you going to hire a pro to do those things for you yeah, it’s going to be an ongoing cost, so Try to plan for the future as best you can consider your initial cost versus your maintenance costs.
So after you get that website up and running after you get your domain name, it’s just going to be maintenance. It’s just going to be chill enough. It’s a lot like real estate, actually right, there’s that down payment to first get into it higher and then from there you’re renting is like ongoing maintenance, cost right and be realistic. It’s you know, do some research, it’s not going to be too high.
It’s not going to be too low, it’s going to be somewhere in the middle time for the future. It’s going to be around for a long time. I’m Joplin I’m Eric thanks for stopping by you.
Who is helping with your digital business footprint?
For your website right So when someone comes To visit your website, what are some things? That you want them to do For me. The most important thing is: they need to find all of our fresh new content on the homepage, So we have a lot of Content coming out daily, whether it’s interviews or news articles, So I want them to be able to find that and easily find the thing. That’s most relevant to them Right.
So just kinda Go down the rabbit hole of all your content. Getting the freshest first Yep And then possibly find oh cool. Here’s a related article, [, Morgan, ], Yep, yep, And then here’s another article, So that’s super important Yeah, You have a plan for your visitors, So same thing with you. When you want someone to visit your site, is it just to get information about you? Is it to call you? Is it to contact you? Is it to buy your product Whatever it is? You wan na have an idea of what that is going forward so that way, when you develop your website, that is priority number one, whether you’re designing the site or you have someone designing it for you, Okay, so I have a homepage but other than that.
What other Pages are important to have So homepage. Definitely important. If you don’t have a homepage, you don’t really have a website, so that’s kind of important, But other than that. You Want an About Us page, you want to talk about yourself and really talk about how You you help the visitor, the consumer, the customer right, The About Us, usually in typical fashion. Here’s the company’s history.
[, Morgan, ] Yeah, A lot of people may not care about that With your About page. Have it really about how you help them a Little bit of your history but more important how you help them Have a Products and Services page to really showcase what you do Have a Contact page, because that’s super important. For people to contact you And then lastly, a Testimonials page People love that social proof. You can pull reviews from Like Yelp, Google, My Business Facebook, wherever you’ve got a review plug it on the website.
And really show people that you are who you say, you are Yeah and with those Pages people are either finding you through social Or just going to Google and finding you that way, and so these are the Pages that they wan na do and they’re doing their due diligence. They wan na know who you Are why you’re an expert? What other people say about you? What product and services you offer so yeah having those Main ones are perfect All right so now another thing to really keep in mind with designing your website is you want to keep it simple And what I see a lot? Of first time, people do is they’ll, go in, they have like paragraphs and paragraphs Of their content, They wan na have everything there, Literally everything So they throw everything on their website and it’s Just a giant block of text, that’s super hard to read and I know us millennials don’t really like to Read we like to skim so it’s really tough to Understand where to go, Don’t be afraid of that white space That negative space that Basically has nothing, it helps people just see better, It helps out eyes, breathe and relax cause we’re not straining Yeah Right Yeah, What’s some other things to really keep in mind with the website? I think once you start Putting ads on your site is to limit the number of ads.
Obviously you want to Monetize your website, but if it’s just bombarding you with ads, it’s a really poor user experience. I know that I’ll find A recipe on Pinterest I’ll click on it and It’s just bombarded with ad ad ad ad, where I just say It’s the worst I don’t want to make this casserole anymore and I’m done Those clickbait-type articles right, Yep, You’re on social media, you click on it. Then it Gives you like a paragraph and I go onto page two and there’s a bunch of ads and it’s like 17 Pages for what could’ve been like half a page, Yeah, Going back to the purpose of your website, the reason you have a website is cause you’re, hoping to turn these users into clients or paying customers.
So if you have too many Conflicting messages they’re just going to go away; And you’re leaving customers sending them away because You have too much going on Absolutely and I think The as a beginner designer or whatever you’re doing, I would shy away from using ads in the first place. Until you’re established, Like you said, it’s About the user experience and if the first thing they See is just a bunch of ads they’re not going to trust you and they’re, not loyal to you.
Yet to understand like okay cool they have ads, I Already love their content, I love them. Let me help them out and maybe I’ll look at these ads, but if you’re not there, Yet shy away from them, And now, with the website too, you also don’t wan na Have just super random, conflicting colors, It stresses out the Eyes, like a yellow text on white background, just doesn’t work. You really wan na stick to Kind of your brand colors there’s a lot of cool little like complementary color wheel.
Calculators out there online just do a quick, Google search and it’ll show you cool Plug in your primary color and it’ll give you some Complementary colors that look good. That’s not Going to be too overwhelming for the end user on your site, Because if you frustrate them, And stress out their eyes: they’re never coming back Now. I know with your website. You have a ton of content, so lots of experience there.
What are some best practices when it comes to content with designing your website. First off, you want Content that is relevant to you and your business And your audience, If you are a dog, groomer and You are writing about plumbing. Then people coming to Your website are not going to find that helpful and They’re going to go away So make sure that whatever your audience is coming to you for You’re writing content that you like, and you Can use Google Analytics or just ask your audience what They want to hear from you and you can start writing.
More content about that, so it’s more in line with What they’re looking for, but then also you wan na make Sure that it’s consumable, You can’t just have This giant block of text, because you wan na put everything in there. I won’t read it. No one’s going to read it, so it’s as simple as trimming it down to the core message, but if that content is really important, then Just hit that return bar and add some spaces, so that way, it’s nice and easy on the eyes Right.
It’s not an essay When you were in high school, You wan na break it up. Even if the paragraph is not the perfect form make it easy for the visitor to read. Have nice bolded Headlines or bullet points, or quote boxes, break up that content Make your English teacher mad. Okay, Just make it nice and pretty Yes, we’re going to get Some angry angry emails, but with the website itself, Too, you really wan na think about the structure.
Of the content, as well, especially on the main pages, the blog posts and things like that – definitely have to have structure, but so does like say your homepage. Now you don’t want that. Block of text in your hero, So the hero of a website, is basically that first little banner Header area that you see it usually has some type of text saying here’s how I help you a call-to-action and a nice image on The background, usually Images with your website: They have to match your brand.
You can’t just throw out If you’re a dog groomer some plumbing stuff cause That doesn’t make sense. It’s weird What about corny photos Like corny stock photos? I mean, if you don’t, have any photos. I would say that corny Photos are maybe better than a blurry photo from your phone. It’s true But maybe it’s time to invest in a photo shoot, so you can get really Nice, high-quality content and images that really show and display what your brand and your Products and services are Absolutely My two cents, A professional photographer Will definitely elevate you, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar having someone coming to your place and take super quality.
Photos that way anyone can actually see it is great Worth the investment And now, if you have To use stock photos you don’t always have to Use the super corny ones, there are some free Resources that I like to use when I’m designing websites for clients, so pexels.Com is probably my favorite one and then unsplash.Com Is also a solid option, Basically photographers Are going on there uploading some of their Best work to get exposure and they’re giving away for free, which is super, awesome and helpful.
You can donate to them if You really like their stuff, but it really elevates your website, so it has some beautiful imagery, especially when it’s on-brand Okay, this is awesome, but what else do I need for my website Right? So with your Website you really want that purpose of it right and we talked about what Is the goal of the website? Part of that goal is Having a call-to-action and not just one call To action up in the hero, you want multiple call-to-actions throughout, So a call-to-action Is a usually a button or a link of some sort that says, learn more get now buy this product Subscribe to my email list.
Yes, Something basically telling The user to take action So again you wan na Have in the hero image, but you also wan na, have it Throughout the website itself, at the end of blog posts, I really like to have it at the top of the navigation bar upper right, just because the way that People’s eyes kind of travel around the website, It’s usually in a Z formation, so they’ll start at the top left, which usually your logo they’ll, move over and have the navigation, but then have a call-to-action right there and then they’ll, kinda scroll down, they’ll, see other content And to the right they’ll Kind of finish off, and especially if that menu Bar kind of scrolls down that call-to-action is Always there for them to see and use and take that action.
Nice Nealey pro tip guys take notes Alright. So now another Aspect of your website when designing is truly have Some sort of social share if you can say that five times fast Social share social share, Social share social share social share, woo got it. I’m impressed Pretty good She’s kind of the best So now, with the social share. I know what you’re thinking right, like that’s, not design, But design is every single Part of your website – and you really need to be Designing with purpose So how is social share? I can only say it one times fast.
How has that really changed your website? Well, for our website. We want people to. We do a lot of blog posts, news articles we wan na share our interviews and so having those buttons at the end of every article is crucial because we will have Article that will go viral and that’s really the goal. If you’re writing content, that is a blog post or whatnot, you want, as many people To see it as possible, so having that option that At the end of the article, they can just click and share it to their favorite.
Social network is key. If you don’t have it you’re missing out on potential new viewers and new users who can find you and your Business and your content With social shares, it can be on, like the left side bar of Like your blog page, you can have it in the widget Area on your right side bar, you can have at the bottom of a blog post. Usually people have it in Either the header or the footer, The more places you can Add it to your website without it being overwhelming the better You wan na, make this as easy as possible for someone to really love your content.
Wan na share it with the world Now another aspect that you Really wan na keep in mind and a lot of again a lot Of people don’t think this as designing the website. Is planning for SEO SEO is all about the website design and what you put into it. What are some things to keep in mind when really designing for SEO Yeah? So you have this Website you want it to be found, and there are certain Things that you have to do when building and designing your website so that way, Google and Other search engines can actually find and read your website.
[ Nealey ] Right So the first one is your source code. There is certain ways that you need to structure your website, so that way the crawlers can find it. An example. Are the image alt tags? Google is not a human It doesn’t really know what your images are. About it’s a robot right, Yep And so you have to go in and put text to describe hey. This is a picture of a dog being groomed. So that way, Google Knows that this picture this website is relevant.
For those search terms, So again, this all goes around. You have to structure your website in a way that Google wants But then also your content, you have to have your key words in there, that’s relevant to you and your business so where you’re located Yes, What your products and Services are your business name, make sure all of that is found in the content of your website, cause that all helps with your SEO And if you want even more Of a deep dive about SEO click this article right here and we can go into it even more Now super important When designing your website is to make sure that It is mobile friendly, Everyone has a mobile phone.
Gone are the days of the early 2000s when literally everyone Was on a desktop Yeah now, not only does Everyone have a mobile phone or a tablet that they’re Using to look at your website, but all the different phones Have different dimensions So all the screens are Different sizes and there’s just a lot so having a mobile, responsive, Site solves for that And most WordPress themes Have some sort of responsiveness that’ll make it look good? No Matter what device you’re using almost all website builders do as well, so you wan na make sure You keep that in mind, cause over half of Searches on search engines are coming through mobile and if your site is not mobile, optimized you make me zoom.
Oh the worst. I am never coming to your website or doing Business with you ever And lastly, you wan na make sure it works, no matter what browser people are on. I know some browsers have Some funky different settings right. So what might look good in Chrome may not look good in Internet Explorer if you’re still using Internet Explorer Edge. Edge Edge now Or if you’re, using Internet Explorer upgrade to Edge Firefox, make sure just test it out.
Just download the browsers. Really quick, go to the website. Go to different pages. You wan na QA these things to make sure that you’re not putting someone else’s experience down because they happen to Have a favorite browser, So these are all really great tips, but where do I go to find What’s new and modern and to see what other people In my industry are doing with their websites, Do you have any tips or ideas Yeah? I have lots of suggestions here.
I know designing website, especially when it’s not your forte or something you do everyday. It’s hard to really get Those design juices flowing So sometimes it’s good To see just inspiration check out other websites and you can go online and just start searching random. Websites, if you want, but I have two recommendations – that these sites really just Highlight kind of the best of the best, The first one is awwwards.
Com and the second one is behance.Com. Now both have all sorts of just graphical design-type aspects, but they do have website just examples and basically sites of the day that you can kinda check out And start picking apart, like cool. I really love this feature or I really like how this looks and mold it into your own site Kind of take the best of everything and make your own Alright Nealey. Thank you so much.
Those were fantastic tips. On how to get started with WordPress, I think if you follow those you’re going to have a killer website Absolutely and you helped out a lot which has helped me so I don’t have to come up with as much content. What can I say, But let us know your favorite Tip in the comments below and while you’re there Smash that like button and subscribe to this blog, so you get all these episodes first.
No one right, So you want to really niche down. Follow your niche to get that rich right. That’s a little little dad joke there! Ooh catchy, When I think about branding your business, obviously there’s a lot of questions.
Where do I start? Where do I begin First thing that comes to mind and I get asked by local heroes. A lot is target audience. Yes, How do you know what that is? How do you define that That is such a tough question right? So when I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs and people just starting off – and I ask them who’s – you, your audience Who do you wan na serve And they’re like “, I want to Have everyone, as my customer.
”, ( laughs, ), Give me all the money All of them. Everyone And that’s such a bad idea, because not only is it super expensive to try to acquire everyone, you become just a generalist, You’re, not really known for anything. I would start by figuring out who you actually like to serve. Who is your most preferred customer or your favorite person? To serve in your business And really make a story around that, So if you were my target audience right, I would say Emma she lives in California.
She really loves to surf and skate. She loves coffee, But she likes to spend a lot. Of her time on social media And really build a story, Around that, so when — He really gets me Right, Soul, mates, But so when I go and create My messaging and my content I create, if, for you and Your story and your pain and what you really want to solve right, Which makes me feel valuable Right and it’s for you, I feel heard Yeah And that doesn’t mean that you can’t help out Jessica or Sally or Billy when they come in and want your services –, Don’t forget John And John and Eddie right, But you can still serve them, but your messaging has to be about Emma.
So that makes a ton of sense to me, But it also just now Another question’s brewing, So that seems like a goal right So goal: one find your target audience, But it’s more than that when it comes to branding your business. So what do you do? Next? With goals in general, What other goals should I be keeping in mind at this stage of my business. Well, you want to define What’s important to you, What is your goal? You should have something That your trying to achieve otherwise you don’t really Know what success is, And I would really focus on small wins So first off get a Website is that first step And then get your first customer, And then you get your first 10 customers And then you kinda, grow and grow and grow, And that kinda snowball effects.
‘Cause a lot of business. We talk to. They get scared of all the Things they have to do Instead start small figure out what that first Small win: you can do and then grow from there. I do the same thing just when I wake up on a Monday morning: ( laughs ). If I think about everything I have to do for the whole week, — You’re goin’ back to bed Yeah Covers over your head, I’d be like “. Let’s this isn’t going to happen today.
.” It’s not actually Monday One of my favorite things about speaking to local businesses. It’s like they’re, so unique Right. Right So I imagine when it comes To branding your business, that’s something you want! To take advantage of right Yep, What is it about? My coffee, Shop or my retail store, that makes me unique. What makes me stand out Is that part of building your brand? Oh absolutely. You have to be unique right.
If you imagine a line and on this line, we have crazy and the middle is mainstream and on the right is prolific or unique. Well, you want to be Basically right there So like with your idea that The business I’m stealing the Coffee and Kickflips — There. He goes again. That’s kind of on ( laughs, ) that unique spectrum right, There’s a lot of just coffee shops, but there’s probably no coffee. And skate park shop right Well now there will be because He’s revealed our secret ( laughs, ) coffeeandkickflips.
Com, But so you want to kind Of make yourself different from the rest,,’cause everyone in the Mainstream, it’s commodity right And that’s why we build a brand. That’s why we try to be unique, is to try, set us apart and really be someone that Someone wants to follow And then kind of following up on that, I’m going to lean on you for a Lot of this is social media. Yes, Your brand, I was waiting for this part That platform is just so phenomenal at growing Your brand and your reach, So if I’m a small business owner, I’m going to lean on you, what are some of the Platforms that I should be on, if I really want to build that brand Yeah, so you want to be on Facebook, Twitter Instagram also don’t forget your Yelp and Google listings: Okay, These are the most important for a local business, But to your point about being unique, you know you already are, but you need to voice that Across your platforms, Super important Your speaking to yeah that specific Ideal customer rather Yep To come into your business and spend money with you And when you’re on social media too, you have to make sure That it’s not about you.
Yes, it’s your company. Yes, it’s your brand, But your brand is there To serve your audience And if you position them As the hero you win Absolutely Let your customers sell you, Let your customers get Your next customer in –, 100 % Because it’s word of mouth, which is social media Yep All right, So that’s a wrap. I want to give a huge thanks. To my co-host Justin, Thanks for having me Yeah, thanks for showing us and teaching us how to Brand, your business, a very hot topic: -‘Cause brand is everything I’m sure you have Questions and comments Be sure to leave them below And also subscribe.
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