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Using Meta Data to Optimize Your Website Online

You’ve probably heard the term ‘SEO’ or Search Engine Optimization with regards to your website. Getting found online is largely related to your SEO strategies.  Just like a GPS system can help you find the location of a particular business or store, SEO helps search engines like Google find your website online.

“I exist, therefore I am.”  Not in the eyes of Google, Yahoo, or Bing.  You’ve got a website, but they don’t know you exist, therefore you are NOT.  There are several strategies you need to execute in order to let the search engines know that 1) your website exists and 2) what your website is all about.

Starting with the simplest of SEO tasks to tackle, updating your Meta Data is an important and effective strategy to implement.

What is Meta Data?

Simply put, meta data is information for search engines that describes and categorizes a website.  Meta data can help get your website found online by end-users searching for your product or service.

Meta data has three different categories: meta title, meta description and meta keywords.

The meta data for your website tells search engines what your website is about.  If your website exists to sell computer hardware, using that key phrase and others in your meta data will help search engines understand your site better.  The better they understand what your site is about, the more likely they are to give your website prominent visibility to someone who is searching ‘computer hardware’.

Search engines determine what your website is about, in part, based on your meta data.  Using that information, they decide whether or not your website would be a good match for a user searching for ‘computer hardware’.

If you leave your meta title as the name of your business (example: ABC Technologies), search engines may not understand that your website offers computer hardware.  This means that when someone is searching ‘computer hardware’, your website will most likely never appear.

Your webmaster or site designer can help you update your meta data with important keywords that relate to your business and match what users might be searching for.

How Can You Tell What Your Meta Title Is Right Now?

Pull up your website online. At the very top of your screen, above where you typed in your website address, is your meta title.  Check to see if it uses important phrases that related to your business. Phrases that you could safely assume consumers would be searching for online if they were looking for your product or service.

If your meta data isn’t telling the search engines what your website is all about, who or what is?

Filed Under: Digital Presence, WordPress Design

Content Creation is Running Smoothly. Now What Do You Do?

TELEPHONEHours upon hours have been spent creating solid content and your website traffic has been increasing tremendously. Now what is your next step? Tons of visitors doesn’t equal tons of business even if you have grade A content. Don’t let this discourage you. If you have a well laid out contact page, I’m sure there is some incoming clients.  Lets take this a step further and expand beyond the contact page. Create a spot on EVERY page that allows the visitor to connect with you and become a client.

Call-To-Actions

Call-to-actions or CTAs are located in various spots on the page that are calling on your visitors to take action and fill out some information. Lame definition but the name pretty sums it up.  Most CTAs are a transaction of information. For example, I have written a wonderful e-book but in order for you to download it, I need a name, email address, and some other stuff in return. Pretty straight forward.

Next Level of CTAs

The process works, but the 2-5% conversion rate doesn’t cut it for me.  I don’t have a statistic for the number of people that become clients from that number but I’m sure its very similar.  Is there a different way to use CTAs? Instead of a transaction of information, it needs to be a connection of people.  Network. So instead of offering a e-book, offer some time on Skype to talk or start a Hangout at Google+. The value of conversation will do more for your business than sending a link to your e-book.

How do you improve your CTAs? What can you do different?

 

Filed Under: 31DBC, Digital Presence, Innovation, WordPress Design

5 Ways To Get More Done With WordPress

SuccessPowerful, and limitless. Two words that best describe WordPress in my opinion.  WordPress gives me the ability to create, update, and innovate. It simply lets the user get more done.  Here are five ways to get more done with WordPress.

  1. Plugins. If you need your WordPress site to function in way that isn’t initially offered right out of the box, just hop over to the plugin directory and start searching.  You will find what you need.
  2. Widgets. Drag and drop at its finest. Change an offer on the homepage. Feature a new page. Add a contact form. If something isn’t working out as planned, change it.  You dont have to know code to add a new look to your site.
  3. Internal Linking. Awesome feature that simplifies creating internal links. Give your viewers new pathways to read more about your blog or business.
  4. Full Screen Editor. Great new feature in WordPress 3.2 that will eliminate that countless distractions and result in getting more done. I started using this feature immediately.
  5. Custom Frameworks. Having a solid foundation to built on is extremely important if you want to focus on getting more done on your blog or with your business. Frameworks alleviate the stress of coding and add the assistance of a solid community.
What did I miss? I know there a more things about WordPress that help you get more done. Lets hear them.
Filed Under: 31DBC, Business, Digital Presence, Genesis, Innovation, Journey, WordPress Design Tagged With: , , , , ,

Eliminating the Clutter on Your Website

At first glance, your site might not seen cluttered to you. Now you need to take a step back a pretend you are a visitor who has never been to your site. Is your message being conveyed easily or is it difficult to find among all the various changes and upgrades through the years.  This isn’t meant to say everyone’s website is a disaster.  I want to you to see if you can eliminate some of the useless clutter that has accumulated over the years.

Here are two areas you need to focus on if you want to remove the clutter.

Header/Logo

  • Does the header clearly show your logo and display who you are? This is your brand. Its needs to be clear and concise.  Without this nobody knows who you are.

Nav-bar

  • The navbar needs to be simple and direct.  Minimize the buttons. Take complete advantage of the dropdown menus, but keep it organize.  One of my favorite examples of a simple, well-organized nav-bar is Best Buy.

How do we remove the clutter? Not as difficult as it may seem.

  1. It is important to design the site from the customers perspective.  They don’t know where everything is like you do.  Ask a friend to take it for a test drive and try to break it or get lost within the site.  If a first time user can navigate from start to finish without getting lost, then the clutter has been removed from the navigation.
  2. The Nav-bar requires some basic data crunching to decide if its organize properly.  Use analytic’s to see what pages your visitors enter and exit on.  Also keep an eye on the visits by page breakdown.  This shows the most important pages to your visitors. Making the top pages easy to access is a key factor.
  3. Use WordPress.  Makes quick adjustments easy. Need help getting started?
  4. Do not make the logo so it dominates the valuable screen real estate.  I like to make the max height of a header/logo 160-200px.
Now head over to your site and look at it like its the first time you have been there.  Write down your thoughts.
Filed Under: Business Model Innovation, Digital Presence, Innovation, Weekly Innovation, WordPress Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Create a Website Base and Set Up Your Outposts

Devín Castle Outpost
Why do you have Facebook or Twitter?  To engage and interact with your audience.  Lets look at a model of engagement that is very similar to the one used by our military in various parts of the world.  This post will avoid the political aspects of our foreign policy.  It is only meant to compare your digital strategy with the one used by the finest military in the world.

First thing that needs to be established is the main base, i.e. your website.  Its main purpose is to supply content and establish a presence in the digital world.  Contains EVERYTHING that is important to your digital presence.

Next focus is getting your content to the population.  Set up your outpost in the various social media worlds.  Get your valuable content out to your audience.

Now that you have gotten your content out there, you need to listen. Use the feedback to rework and perfect your content.  What is the point of having an outpost if your not going to listen?

Think about this strategy and IMPLEMENT IT.

Filed Under: Digital Presence, Innovation, Journey, Weekly Innovation, WordPress Design

Radio Interview with Todd Youngblood & Todd Schnick from Dreamland Interactive

[powerpress]

I recently had the great opportunity to interview Todd Youngblood and Todd Schick from Dreamland Interactive (and a few other solid organizations). Our conversation touched different topics revolving around small businesses and their digital presence.

Topics include:

  • How a small business can benefit from a website.
  • The areas a business should focus on.
  • How geographical limitations shouldn’t limit your digital presence.
  • How do you drive new visitors? How do you create loyal visitors?

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our conversation. I hope you enjoyed Next Level Innovation’s first radio show.

Interviewees:

Dreamland Interactive:
Dreamland

Todd Schnick:
Todd’s Intrepid Blog
Find Todd S. On Twitter

Todd Youngblood:
Todd’s YPS Group Blog
Find Todd Y. On Twitter


 

 

Filed Under: Digital Presence, Innovation, Radio, WordPress Design Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Creating a Theme Round 2

Here is my second attempt at creating a theme. Tungsten v2. Now off the the fun part, coding. (Made easy with Genesis by StudioPress) If all goes well, I will be offering the theme as a free download.

Filed Under: Genesis, Innovation, Studiopress, WordPress Design

WordPress Can Change Your Digital Presence

What is stopping you from moving your website to a dynamic platform? Think about it. Lets step through some quick questions to see where your small business stands.

  • Let’s start simple. When was the last time your site was updated? Can you update it without going to a webmaster?
  • Can you easy update your product, and/or service?
  • Do you have old products still float around??

If you answered No, No, and I don’t know, then its time to look into making some changes to your digital presence.

Here’s why its time for you to move your website over to the WordPress platform.

  • Community – As of February 2011, WordPress has been downloaded 32.5 million times. So its been used by a few time I think.
  • Versatility – There is a theme for any business out there and if you can’t find one you like, no need to worry, it can be made exactly to your specs.
  • Plugins – Need a calendar? Need membership capabilities? Need conversion forms? You can find them as well.  Hundreds of thousands of plugins.
  • Blogs – The backbone of the WordPress platforms.  Blogs give you the capability to connect with your audience.
  • Unlimited Possibilities.

Now whats stopping you from evolving your static website to the dynamic WordPress platform?

Filed Under: Business, Digital Presence, Innovation, WordPress Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Disconnected

UnpluggedWhat happens if you are disconnected from the digital world? Do you completely disappear from the face of the earth until you are back in front of your computer? You may not have considered either of those questions. If you have, you are a few steps ahead of your competition.  If you haven’t, here is what you need to focus on so your product or service has a 24 hour presence.

Informative Website

Keep it simple, but not too simple.  You want your message successfully conveyed to the visitor.  If the content is there then you have nothing to worry about.  Pop-ups and all the other flashy gimmicks do not work (even with their guarantee of 10,000% increase in opt-ins).  Valuable content is all you need besides your product or service.  Draw your visitors in with quality not quantity.

FAQ

Keep track of your most common questions or concerns and create a “Q & A”.  Then there isn’t a reason to be concerned if you do not have access to email.  Majority of the visitors questions can be answer in a FAQ.

Contact Forms

Every page should have access to a simple contact form.  All the contact form needs to create a connection with the visitor is Name, Email, and Short Message. Make the path to connect as short and simple as possible.

Let Your Visitors Know You Will be Away

Straightforward. Quick blog post and tweet letting your audience know you will be gone for an extended period of time.  Make it personal. It will nurture the connection.

 

One week can seem like an eternity in the fast paced digital world.  Don’t get lost in the wake.  Make sure your foundation is strong.

What did I miss?

Filed Under: Digital Presence, Innovation, WordPress Design

Stop Asking About It And Do It

Business of Software - Youngme MoonThis guest post is by Todd Youngblood of ypsgroup.com and dreamlandinteractive.com

The question comes up all the time.  As a small business, do I really need a web site?  Normally, I’ll politely answer the question with a few more questions.   “What do you do when you first consider buying something?  You Google it to learn more, right?  After you’ve learned more, you Google it again to learn still more, don’t you?  …about different features?  …about different suppliers?  …about pricing?  …about what other people think?  You go to the web sites of businesses selling what you want.

Is it possible to survive, even thrive, without a web site?  Sure!  But why on earth would you purposely choose to go into the business battle hopping on one foot and with one hand tied behind your back?  Is it really more important to prove you can do it with only personal networking, referrals and the other traditional tools?  So what if it requires more time and effort?  I’m going to cut my nose off to spite my face and prove my point!

Face it.  “Do I really need a web site?” is a dumb question.  It’s so dumb, that it leads me to believe it’s not really a question, but a defense mechanism that causes a logical loop.  I think the actual thought process goes something like this:

  1. Gosh, I really need to get a web site
  2. But I have no clue how to even begin
  3. I’ll sound like an idiot if I start asking people
  4. I’ll do some research tonight
  5. Eeeessssh, I really don’t have a clue
  6. Return to step 1

Remove steps 3 and 6 from your brain!  RIGHT NOW!!!  Change step 5 to “Hire a web development service.”  RIGHT NOW!!!

There are tons and tons of small businesses that don’t have a web site for the exact same reason you don’t have a web site.  Leap out in front of them all.  RIGHT NOW!!!

For less than $500 you can not only get it done, you can get something that is extremely professional in less than a month.  And while you’re at it, have them include a blog page.  Your blog will become the foundation of your e-Rep.  An e-Rep is a web site on steroids.  But that’s another post.  And you need the basics first.

Todd Youngblood is passionate about sales productivity and marketing.  You can read more about Sales Process Engineering on his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed.  You can also follow the work at Dreamland Interactive to learn about working on your e-Rep.

Filed Under: Business, Digital Presence, Innovation, WordPress Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,