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4 Ways to Measure Social Media ROI

Also this, I think, determination in small Businesses that they’re like “ There is no way to do this.”, So they love to hear about Roi return on investment. You get asked this too right Right. They end up spending so Much of their time on there, they wan na make sure they’re actually getting something back, Which I totally get right. You’re time is super valuable, you’re doing a million other things and then now social media Is added to your plate? How do you justify the time or the money if you outsource it like GoDaddy Social, You wan na justify that time and money and a way to do that is understand.

Are you getting a return on investment And the good news is there’s a lot of ways to See if you are or not, There’s data analytics metrics, but I’m going to break it. Down into four umbrellas of how to measure ROI, starting with number one brand awareness Cool, how do you Measure brand awareness, So brand awareness can be measured in one way that you’re, probably Already thinking at home, your number of followers How many people are following you More people following you on Twitter, seeing your tweets following you on Instagram Seeing your great photos following you on Facebook and Reading those great captions, The more exposure you have and the more followers you have seeing it that’s brand awareness Perfect And does that count likes and comments, and things like that too Totally So likes comments.

Love shares retweets. That’s just going to help You get in front of not only your followers The awareness there, but your friends and their friends, maybe their family members as well, So the awareness just Spreads like wildfire Spreadin’, the love Spreadin’, the love All right, so digging in On the analytics aspect, It’s easy to see the amount of followers you see the amount of Likes and things like that, is there a step further? We can go to really see the nitty gritty Yeah totally.

So that’s a cool thing. If you have business pages set up, they allow you a clear view of what’s working. What’s not working what time of a day a post works? Well, how many people are seeing It et cetera, et cetera, So with Facebook, you Have your “ Insights” tab And, what’s really cool, is it breaks down a ton of information And they even have a little Information button on each one. So if you’re reading a Metric and it’s like “, I’m not even sure what Engagement rate means.

”, (, laughs, ). You know you click on it. It’ll break down what it is Perfect And Instagram too. You have To make sure you create a or turn your account Into a business profile that way, you can see insights and how many people viewed Your page liked it commented what time of the week you Get the most engagement If you’ve turned your Instagram account into a business page. Let us Know in the comments below Just say, “ I’ve turned It into a business page.

”, So that’s with Instagram Twitter there’s the top tweet. So you can see that in your Twitter analytics as well So go in. There see what Your audience likes, in other words your customers and then have that inform Your strategy moving forward, which will also help you be More efficient with your time and give the customer what they want, Give them what they want, Give them what they want: ( laughs, ) All right, moving on Tip number two: where are we at with that? So tip number two: one Of my personal favorites customer satisfaction And you’re, familiar with This inside your business, whether you have a barbershop Or a car dealership, you can see it on the person’s face that they’re satisfied or not.

I can’t make a frowny face: Aw Darn it I was cuing them up. So one way you can do it. Online with social media is well your reviews. Your customers are going to tell you if they had a poor experience. Or a great experience But make sure you’re Reading those reviews Believe it or not, I still Come across businesses that don’t take the time To read their reviews, I’m like “ Wait. This is a great place “ to see if your customers Are satisfied or not.

” Also what they’re saying when They mention you on Facebook, Right, Especially, you have to Respond good or bad. I know most people will just Respond to the good ones and try to just ignore the bad Ones like they don’t exist, Just give them a response. See if you can make it right, apologize to the situation and move on Totally So again pay attention to What your customers are saying, They’re talking to you online And if you wan na even a Deeper dive into that we have another episode of The Journey on social listening so check it out So cool statistic: I read the other day: actually, a quarter of people who have a positive Experience at a business will go and tell 10 people Both online and offline – That’s pretty awesome.

All right. Tell me What’s tip number three Tip number three is actually Gaining new customers, which is your favorite, I know When I say “ You’re Gaining new customers”, you can picture just dollar Bills in your pocket Make it rain, ( laughs ). So how can you do that with all this social Media and online stuff Couple ways: One: your customers are going to Click on your Google listing for their directions.

I know I do that before Every business I go to because I get lost very easily, But if I’m clicking on the directions, I’m coming to your business and I’m coming to spend Money with intent Also calling Calling you That’s another great way to measure that you’re getting a new customer You’ve already learned. That a lot of customers don’t take the time to call So if they’re calling You they mean business, they are serious about Spending money with you, You got yourself a new customer And so because the Google Listing’s really important Yelp and that “ Click to call” you wan na, make sure I’m sure this obvious that everything is up to date, The right phone number, the right address The hours right.

How many times have you gone to a business? That said it was open, you get there and it’s closed And that’s a bummer Just makes me so sad. So sad, And also besides that, if you have a chance to Speak about your business, maybe “ About You” or add Photos do that as well too and make sure that’s up to date, Maybe you’ve remodeled. Since the last time you had your Yelp photos. Updated or your Google Add that in there spice things up Take some photos, Keep it up to date, so When your customer comes in that new customer, you just gained they’re getting an experience.

That they predicted that they expected Right All right, so we’ve reached The end of our journey, We’re on tip number Four, the very last one: What do you got for us Brand loyalty, Another one you’re familiar With the terminology, but what does it look like online? Well, there’s, don’t worry, It’s not tough math, but well, let’s see how It goes for Justin here All right, engagement rate. How do you measure that? Well, it’s pretty easy.

It’s the number of likes You receive on a post divided by the number of followers times. You guessed it 100 And that’s going to equal Your engagement rate ( mumbles ), Oh no! No! It’s not that hard, So write it down, keep it nearby And when you’re posting Check in do the quick, math And then you’ll determine is that engagement rate Where it should be, And what’s also awesome, About brand loyalty is actually 85 % of customers – 85 %.

I know that’s – almost 100, 85 % of customers will actually Engage with your brand if they’re, loyal daily And when I say, engage they’re going to be liking. What you’re posting commenting sharing on a daily basis And that’s huge That constant, like and That constant, following they’re, going to continue to see their stuff and they’re going to continue. To tell their 10 friends and onward and onward and onward All right, so that’s a wrap.

We just covered four ways to measure ROI when it comes to your social media. Make sure you, like this article, subscribe to the blog and ring that bell. If you Wan na see these articles first, This has been The Journey. Thanks for reading

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4 Steps to Starting a Business

So first thing’s! First I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess:…. I know what you’re going to say: get organized Yes, But before we really jump in, I wan na say huge. Congratulations to you at home, you’re wanting to start a business! That’s why you’re reading this article? It’s a scary first step, but we’ve got your back Now with starting that business.

You wan na get organized and first thing’s, first figuring out what your business name is. We have a super cool article. We’ll have the link right up here for ya. You can check it out Where we go into how to figure out what your name should be and some tips on pickin’ the right name. It’s a good one Yeah. So what was your name from that brainstorming session? What’d? You come up with Coffee and Kickflips.

I love it Dig it So now, once you have that name, you really wan na figure out. And create your business plan, This is just a simple document: that’s going to go over! What your business is, what you do, who your market is, who your customers are everything that you need to Potentially show to investors to give you money right, You wan na get that bread Yeah. You got ta have a clear action plan with all the details, Plus it’ll help you to really flush out what you need and the goals You should keep top of mind in order to succeed And commit to those Right, And it keeps you kinda.

Grounded so you’re not going in a million different places as we all do. I know I do it a lot. I do it a lot. If I don’t have that plan written out, I’m everywhere and nowhere Same After you get organized and you’ve committed to what you wan na do with your business. What comes next I’ve seen my entrepreneurial friends and I went through it myself. With Coffee and Kickflips is determining, do I do an LLC? Do I not, Can you elaborate on that Yeah, so you definitely have To register your business in some shape or fashion right, What most people do is the LLC, but there’s also sole proprietorship, there’s partnership, there’s corporation but again the most common one is LLC.

Why is that? Well, it helps you Really protect yourself from your business, So if your business was ever sued, they can’t come after your Personal stash of pizza, It’s going to keep that separated, Hands off Hands off All right and then once you have that you can go ahead and get your federal tax identification number or known as the employee. Identification number EIN: That’s really going to help You, when it comes time to creating a business bank account All right so next up, you need to get your business license, Which you can contact.

Your Secretary of State to get more info about that. But this does vary by state and also depending on what Type of business you have, this will mix it up as well So check out the description. Below to get more info All right So now, the next thing you need to do with starting your business is figuring out where you wan na work. Now with your Coffee and Kickflips, I know that you can’t Really do that at home you have a brick and mortar store, but maybe you can do it at home or you can do a coworking space, which is super popular.

If you don’t know what A coworking space is you essentially rent Out part of a building or you rent out a desk and there’s tons of other Entrepreneurs, just like you doing the same thing, So it’s cool to get that Same little, brain trust and people, just like you, workin’ and you’re out of the house. I know I love workin’ from home, but I need to kinda mix It up every now and then So it’s that or coffee shops Yeah same.

I get it And also it’s cool about The coworking space think about it you’re in such an exciting time, you’re starting a business. You might meet someone that Could help you network or help you with that next step, because there’s a lot of like Nealey, said like-minded people hanging out there doing productive things like you Absolutely, And I have a really good buddy that works at a coworking Space called Galvanized in downtown Phoenix and they have a shared slack blog of all the entrepreneurs.

In that coworking space And there’s nothing Gold mine, but leads all day so he gets most of his work. He doesn’t have to go to The coworking space most of the time, it’s just in that slack blog and he’s getting business All right. So one thing I thought about: With Coffee and Kickflips you mentioned, I have a Brick and mortar location, yes, but I had to think about okay. Well, do I wan na rent a space? Do I wan na buy property? How does that look? I need money, ( laughing ).

So how do you go about that? We got ta talk about the hard stuff. Yeah money is important right, So first thing’s, first get a business bank account, don’t use your personal account, especially when you’re Paying your employees and everything else it’s going to get real, just jumbled up between all your pizza expenses and your business expenses, And then with that open up a line of credit. Just In case something happens, you have those quick funds And then possibly talk to a tax attorney or an accountant to help you Keep everything organized That’s been very helpful for my other local heroes out there.

My friends recommend that All right, another big topic insurance. This was a huge topic of discussion at Coffee and Kickflips because well, there’s ramps in the back, so you’ve got kiddos on their skateboards Little Billy Tryin’ to turn into A Tony Hawk overnight and let me tell ya, you need to cover your Business with insurance And also your employees, a helmet, isn’t just going to keep you safe Right.

Your insurance Shouldn’t just be a helmet Everyone coming into your shop, Here’s a helmet, you’re, good, You’re, good ( whistling ) Good luck on the half pipe Yeah, So yeah check out just Different insurances and do your research to make Sure you’re fully covered,’cause, you never know what might happen. Someone might hurt. Themselves at your location, or just who knows All right Nealey. Now I wan na talk about Branding your business, The fun stuff, It’s a fun stuff.

Your email address your logo. I know we have a article on that There’s also social media, all the marketing. What are you going to do with your website..? Let’s jump in So branding. We were talking about All the not so fun stuff, but those are pretty Important essential things Branding’s also super important and essential. We have a article on the basics of branding, But let’s kinda jump into a couple of the different sections to give you just an overview.

Of what these look like, So, let’s start with a domain. Name and your email address, So your domain name that’s going to get people to your website. You don’t wan na have some random URL. You want it to be your business, So Coffee and Kickflips… [ Emma ], Coffee and Kickflips coffeeandkickflips.Com right! That’s the address! That’s the URL. People are going to Type to get to your website And with that you’ll have that professional email, so you can have Emma @ coffeeandkickflips.

Com versus coffeeandkickflips @ gmail.Com, If you have the ending Not be your domain name, it doesn’t look as professional. I love Gmail, but as a business have it your domain name, You can still do Gmail for business. There’s Office 365. Lots of email providers that you can use to really make your Business look professional and credible And then jumping into your website. That’s the whole point of Having an online presence, It’s something that you control Is have some type of website, even if it’s just basic Information on what you do, or some articles of your kickflips And coffee in the back, Yeah Yeah Put the merch on there Maybe an option for people to Spend money on your website, Yes Get those helmets’cause That’s your insurance right, (, laughing ) And then social media Tell us about social media.

And really the basics of it with branding their business? Yes, that’s where you wan na, go and really take the logo that you have be consistent with it across All of your platforms, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and then from there definitely identify the Voice of your brand and be consistent with that As you’re creating content day in and day out, Because you wan na be consistent And make sure those are business pages, not personal pages Very important, Can you elaborate a little bit on what the voice means Totally People throw it around a lot and it’s hard to Understand What does that mean with Having a consistent voice, Okay, Very good topic, One thing that comes to mind right away from being in the coffee: Business for years before I decided hey, I wan na Have Coffee and Kickflips I worked for a variety of coffee business And they did have their own voice Like there was one coffee spot that was just very upscale and very fancy.

I spent a lot of money there as a customer before I worked there, So their voice was a little bit more…. I don’t know just very classy. And true to the art of coffee, Whereas when I worked at a Spot that really inspired me to open my own. It was a little bit more divey. It was in Long Beach, California, we would say things like rad dope, sick. This coffee is awesome, as we were doing captioning and creating our social media content.

It was just a little bit: More loose and chill Different vibe Different voice, So whatever your voice is identify that before Going and creating content across your social media pages And finally policy. What are your policies? I know. I saw this a lot when Speaking to retail businesses, and when I would consult them, it’s like okay. So what are your policies? What are your return policies? I know I personally love when I shop when the return policy Is a little lenient,’cause, I lose receipts all the time, ( laughing ), But the tag’s on it, But the tag — I swear.

But so what are your policies? In place for your business, All right now with almost Any type of business you need a terms of service Now you should probably consult some legal council with this. If you’re, not a lawyer, you Shouldn’t just make up stuff, But you should have something Like what is your return? Policy, like you said: what’s your privacy policy, do you keep customer information? What does all this look like? Have some type of terms of service to help protect you and your business, and it’s absolutely important And then have a copy of that For all of your employees and have that there readily Available for them to review Yeah, most companies will Usually have it on their website, usually down at the bottom, there’s a little link.

To the terms and service and the privacy policy, Speaking of your website, another important thing to bring up make sure you have contact info, Be accessible, Yes And also have some social proof. That is definitely today’s word of mouth So be easily accessible. Easy for me to contact you and definitely make sure I can find you readily easily available on Facebook. Twitter and Instagram All the things And that social proof, that’s basically just testimonials reviews of other customers that they say: hey, Emma’s, pizza’s, awesome or Emma’s.

Coffee shop is awesome, or whatever that looks like it really helps people identify with you and trust you and a pro tip for you all, do not be just a cave. Dweller go out into the open and be social Talk to people on social media. Talk to people in real life and really put your business And yourself out there.’Cause, you can’t expect them. All just to come to you,’cause. That will not happen. I know that it’s a famous quote “.

If you build it, they will come”, they won’t. You have to go to them and show Them what you’re all about Be proactive And add the human element? To your online presence, All right, That’s a wrap! If you liked this article make sure to give this A like at the bottom and while you’re there leave a comment on what You’ve learned today And be sure to subscribe and ring that bell. So You’re the first to know when we come out with another article.

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Time Saving Social Media Tips for Your Business

So hey I’m Sam, and this is Emma. So I’m constantly knowing social media’s important and you need to be on it. Or your thought is I have to like. I have to comment. I have to constantly post Actually Emma. I know you’re the social media Queen here. So what is some of your Tips on saving time on social media, First and foremost start a social media content calendar.

This is a great way to help you plan ahead, also to help you get Creative with your posts, because it is all about quality, not quantity, So to improve the quality. If it you want to plan ahead, To get those holidays in there with some cool posts, Also think about it. This way you got Instagram Facebook Twitter. How often do you post I get that asked all the time And the worst thing you want to happen.

Is you wake up it’s Thursday and you Haven’t posted anything since last Thursday, So with Instagram, post At least once a week, But I recommend a couple times a week – Also take advantage of those Instagram stories’cause, that’s really to me easier to fit in because it’s more Raw unpolished content, So it’s a really great Way to some like behind the scenes, I know we’ve done it here on set And then for Facebook again post a couple of times a week And think about what photos, you can add, Show photos of your team Showcase.

Your expertise share something that’s entertaining and of value, Educate me and then Twitter. Now Twitter. You can get A little more frequent to stay on top of that newsfeed, So you can be posting every day Once a day, maybe twice a day and keep it short and sweet. Like me, And informative, I wasn’t going to say it And you might be thinking I’m a seasonal business, so I’m going to like take some time off with that social media calendar Eh wrong, Let’s say: you’re a hotel.

It’s the off season show me a picture of the beach Wish. You were here, Happy get excited about it. Take this and put it top of mind for your customers, your guests, so they don’t forget about you throughout the year Wow Emma! That’s all great and it’s Valuable information, However, I’m only one person And it feels like it’s a lot to do. Do you have any kind of Tips on how to kind of go about all that.

Yeah totally So I will bring up, Go Daddy, Social. We are a do it for you service, we’re on that team And we’ll take this Completely off your plate, After all, it’s a full time job So we’ll give you the Writers to handle all this, If you want to handle this on your own Rad, there’s hootsuite TweetDeck, those are scheduling apps, So that can help you to plan ahead and get that content. You know think about it ahead of time, Ready and it’ll post on your behalf.

In the future, I also recommend to Keep in mind, especially on social media, that you don’t always have to create original content, Which does take more time. You can also share content from relevant folks in your industry. So let’s say you have a restaurant and you read this great tweet from Bon Appetit. Oh, my gosh click retweet. There’s your content for the day and it’s super relevant to your audience.

Maybe some cool recipes and cooking tips, Or maybe you are a landscape artist and you read something about on homes and gardens or better homes, And you get excited about it. You’re like this is something My audience will love Again: repost retweet And don’t forget user generated content. Your customers are already big fans of what you do. They might be taking photos of your food, your products capturing their experience.

With your services Pay attention to that when you’re mentioned and repurpose that Share it, retweet and That’s going to save you time, Just like the scheduling apps that I mentioned prior So I’m sensing a theme here that I don’t have to come up everything myself Exactly and that’s. What’s so cool about these Social media blogs They are very social and that, yes, it’s not always about You and it shouldn’t be Just dishing out your content, your expertise, sell, sell, sell.

You want to drive some Conversation and engagement with the help of your friends on social, Like other businesses in your industry, So I know one of my bad habits in the past is really just always being on social media. So do you have any kind? Of tips to kind of help with that Yes, you can definitely just set aside some time a window where you take that time to really focus on your social media content And also go and check out what other people are posting.

So you can get new followers. You can get eyes on your brand by just following, like minded people, And in addition to that, I’m a big fan of setting alerts and reminders. Oh yeah, I love to do whatever I can to declutter up here and take off my brain One less thing to think about. I am all for it. I live by my calendar, so I get that Yeah same You should see it mine’s color coded It’s ridiculous.

Oh mine’s bland So have an alert, Have a reminder and then, when that alert goes off this is your time to hone in and see you know who’s commenting on your post. Did you get any reviews And if you did take the Time to respond to those Read them and respond: In a personal manner, And any mentions that you have, Which I just talked about, User generated content: this is another great time to Check in setting that alert, like hey Sam, remember, see if Your customers are posting about you and, if so, acknowledge that, because this is clearly a Testimonial to your business, if they’re out there mentioning you Or taking photos of your services, your products Take advantage of it set an alert: Your users, your clients, your customers, they’re the best marketers for your business.

Another thing that I recommend for a good time saver is write out the copy before you post, So your caption. I see this all the time. With my influencer friends, They got that great shot, they’re ready to post that awesome photo on Instagram and then they’re Just hanging out stumped for words like Em Em Em. What do I say? I’m, like I don’t know, you’re putting me on the spot. So it’s something to Think and put time aside to put these captions, Maybe in a word doc, I often use my iPhone notes.

I see my influencer friends do the same So that way, they’re not rushed to come up with a witty creative caption. They have like this caption bank. If you will So you’re saying pretty much, you don’t have to do. Everything in the moment, You know you can plan it out Yeah and that actually brings up a good point. We’re talking a lot about captions and having a caption bank if you will, But also have a photo Bank, so if you come across some compelling photos that you think you might use one day to represent your brand or Your team or your business store those in a place where You can easily access them And just put them out there.

It’s going to save you so much time versus that day, you’re coming in to the kitchen, You haven’t posted on Instagram in a week and you’re like already rushing to get the orders out, Be like oh team, get Together, we’re going to do a behind the scenes photo, It’s like no. This is our busiest time of the day. People need to be served. Customer service is still important, So get a photo bank it’ll save you time in the end, All right, that’s a wrap comment below with your Favorite time-saving tip And make sure that you, like this article, subscribe to our blog and ring that bell to make sure you’re notified when our brand new content comes out.

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I Think My Website Is Hacked! How to Know and How to Fix It

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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How to Optimize Images for Web and SEO

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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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’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.

 

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Using Direct Response Marketing to Attract More Customers

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

 

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How to Optimize Images for Web and SEO

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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WordPress Design Tips for Beginners

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.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Branding Your Business

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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