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This episode features a walkthrough of creating a content page using the WordPress Block editor along with some tips on how to layout content.

This is just a short clip taken from my Pro Club Webinar IMC #10 WordPress walkthrough which was recorded at the end of last year. The WordPress editor has changed a little since then but fundamentally it works in the same way.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

In this episode Ben walks your through how to use WordPress, from logging in to posting your first blog article.

Notes

Why WordPress?

Can get started for free on WordPress.com
Completely flexible when self managed
Lots of plugins such as woocommerce.com for commerce stores
Best control over SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Powers over 30% of the worlds websites
Used by the biggest companies in the world: TechCrunch, Bloomberg, BBC America, Sony, Disney, Playstation, Facebook
Has active community and developers

Screen-share and demo of self hosted WordPress
Log in

1. Go to /wp-admin
2. Use forgotten password

Dashboard

1. Quick tour of key features
2. Check time location

Add pages

1. Create Home page
2. Add dummy content
3. Make sub title H2
4. Add an image. Name image ‘John Doe accountant profile’
5. Link up CTA (Call To Action)
6. Publish
3. Add other pages About, Blog and Contact
4. Show page permalink

Customise

1. Change Title ‘Yellow Jumper Accountants’ and Strapline ‘Xero and Quickbooks specialists’
2. Select logo
3. Add Main menu and add Home, About, Blog and Contact
4. Remove widgets Comments, Archives, Meta, Categories

Add video

1. Add some media to the About page
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9809TALDE

Add blog

1. Add a new blog post with image
2. Rename uncategorised as ‘News’
3. Create new category ‘Tax’

Other stuff

Media library
Adding a new user
Changing your password
Adding a contact form contact page
Search optimisation of a page with Yoast SEO

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There are so many different and varied ways to build a website from coding your own in HTML to using a Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Weebly, Squarespace or WordPress.

In this extract from club webinar #18 I talk through the pros, cons and costs of the top website builders out there.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Developing a blog content strategy to get found online.

Notes

What is a blog?

• A page on your website that is updated regularly Company News
• Helpful information
• “Your business diary”

What is a blog for?

Insight into your business Passive helpdesk Credibility / Influence Search optimisation

Why should we write one?

• Get more leads
• Educate our customers
• Improve SEO to key product pages 
• Support sales / tech support

Who will read it?

• Who you are writing for?
• Think of your best customers
• Pay well, friendly, good referrers
• Understand what they like

Three types of content

• Helpful – long lasting and specific
• Topical – relevant but short lived
• Product (or service) – sales content

Content type examples

• Helpful (about them)
• How to file VAT return
• How to plan your business cashflow
• How should I price my services?

Topical (about them)

What does Auto Enrolment mean for me?
What is IR35 and how will I know if it affects me?

Product (about you)

Do I need an accountant?
Benefits of cloud accounting with Xero

Topic ideas

• Questions that clients ask Hints and tips
• How to
• Clever ideas
• Insider info / secrets
• What makes you different?
• Something you want to learn or be better at

Use answerthepublic.com to get topic ideas

Content checklist

• Is it based around a relevant topic?
• Am I adding value?
• Do people desire to see it?
• Will they share it?

Focus keywords and SEO

Build a keyword list
Use Google Trends for simple comparison or Google Keyword Planner for detail
Add keywords to the blog title and copy

• (most important areas of on page SEO)
• Title
• URL
• Heading 1
• Keyword research
•  Use Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin in WordPress to edit on page SEO

Blog styles

Example style and formats

daringfireball.net (simple design, linear format)
loudandclearaccounting.co.uk/blog (linear format with images)
ratherinventive.com/blog/ (blogs in two columns)
hellopippin.co.uk/copywriting-blog/ (main/popular blogs high-lighted)
communionarchitects.com/articles/ (broken into categories with popular blogs)

Writing tips

Allocate time

Create a regular event in your diary
Find a place that removes distractions
Make a routine, start small

Keep it focused

Write for your audience
Write the snippet first
Read around the subject

Ask for action

Email signup
Find out more
Buy related product
Get in contact for help

Images and video

Increases page views
Helps people scan content
More visible in a social feeds
People more likely to read
(Make sure you check the image license, can you use it for business?)

pexels.com / pixabay.com (free image library)
giphy.com (animated images, mainly silly)
selmach.com/news/going-the-extra…tooling/ (example of video in post)

When Alex Coppock from Communion Architects first approached us in 2012, he was keen to explore ways to improve search engine rankings and bring more visitors to his website. Since then, his website has remained in top two organic keyword positions and website traffic has grown 10x.

Alex has always taken a very thoughtful approach to his website and I invited him to write an article reflecting on his journey with his website. What follows are his thoughts on how he has changed the way projects are featured on his website over the years from a simple way to showcase the buildings Communion has worked on to something that has a much wider purpose. To my mind, the shift beautifully reflects Communion’s generous, people-focused spirit and its mission statement – working closely with people to deliver exceptional projects that transform spaces and change lives.

I’ll let Alex tell the story from here…

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This episode features an extract from a recent club webinar #18 where I share my entire process from planning to go live.

I talk about how best to plan your website, how to do a competitor review and tips on mapping out your site.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

If you are writing content for the web and you want it to rank highly, you need to think about your competition. Not only does it help focus your SEO efforts but it can often give you ideas on what you need to include on your page.

‘A SERP competitor could have only one page that competes with you, but if that page is ranking above you on an important SERP, they are your competition and you need to understand why they are beating you.’

https://searchengineland.com/search-competition-who-are-you-really-competing-with-338403

If you’re a Marketing Club member then you can find my competitor research process in the SEO Strategy webinar but I’d also check out this article from Andrew Dennis at Search Engine Land that goes through a simple process you can use.

Related to my post from earlier today. Seth on Doom scrolling

Getting hooked on an endless scroll of media inputs is not the same as being informed. There’s long been a business model of urgent news (“man bites dog!”), but now it’s been leveraged, amplified and optimized to suck people in for hours at a time.

https://seths.blog/2020/07/doom-scrolling/

I limit my news intake to a handpicked set of websites via Feedly and aim to check in once or twice a day, I don’t rarely listen to the news and try to use Twitter as a last resort. I don’t want or need to know everything that happens as it rarely brings me joys but I simply don’t have time.

Best practices, how to prepare an image for the web or social media, handy tools and live demos.

Notes

File formats

Formats (JPEG, PNG, EPS SVG) Compression
Best pixel size

Vector/icons

(respective sizes of example artwork)
JPEG     PNG   SVG   EPS
147KB   12KB   2KB    324KB

Raster/photos

5760 x 3840 (resolution of example photo)

(respective sizes of example artwork)
JPEG 20%    JPEG 40%.   JPEG 80%    JPEG 100%
471KB           628KB          1.4MB            9.7MB

Image dimensions

At least 1500px on the smallest edge
Recommend 3000px
Start with the biggest image possible
Always keep the original

Naming images

Describing an image to someone over the phone
Describe the content of the image in text
Add keywords if you can, may show up in Google image search
Name before you upload

A tabby cat in a wicker basket.jpg (example file name)

Live demos

Cutting out an image – Colour correction
Social profile icon
Social post
YouTube thumbnail – Podcast cover art

Finding legal images online

Free and paid image libraries
Free – www.pexels.com
Free – pixabay.com
Free – https://www.flickr.com
Free – giphy.com
(make sure you check license is for commercial use)

£14/mo – elements.envato.com/photos/
Other paid options (Adobe Stock, 123RF, Getty images)

Media Selection tips

Show don’t tell – Product in action
Evoke emotion – Include people
Draw up a shortlist, use light boxes
Test out with previews before committing

Useful image processing apps

Free – https://pixlr.com/x/ (image editor, browser based)
Free – https://www.canva.com (image editor and layout, browser based)
£22 – https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/ (image editor, macOS only)
Free – https://imageoptim.com/mac (image compressor, macOS only)
Free + paid – https://imagify.io/optimizer/v (image compressor, browser and WordPress)
£49 – https://flyingmeat.com/retrobatch/ (multi image processor)
Free – Digital Colour Meter (colour picker, macOS only)

I’ve often heard the term ‘Hanlon’s Razor’ – usually on tech podcasts – in relation companies doing the wrong thing and where people assume the worst and jump to conclusions. so decided to look it up.

‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity’

Robert J. Hanlon

An example of this can be seen when Apple was accused of slowing down old iPhones to force people to upgrade, where in fact an update was made to improve the performance of phones with older batteries by slowing them down a little to prevent a high peak power drawn causing the phone to crash.

The same effect can be seen on social media when people jump on the back of a scandalous story.

Modern media treats outrage as a profitable commodity. This often takes the form of articles which attribute malice to that which could be explained by incompetence or ignorance. We see examples of this play out in the media multiple times a day. People rush to take offense (sic) at anything which contradicts their worldview or which they imagine to do so. Media outlets are becoming increasingly skilled at generating assumptions of malicious intent. When looking at newspapers, websites, and social media, it can be beneficial to apply Hanlon’s razor to what we see.

https://fs.blog/2017/04/mental-model-hanlons-razor/

The lesson I take is not to see the worst in peoples mistakes but to assume they are busy, forgetful or hassled like the rest of us and to give them the benefit of the doubt. At least the first time. Not only will it help you to stay calm but it will also moderate your response and prevent a situation from escalating.

The quoted article from FS above, dives into detail as well as explaining other popular terms like Occam’s Razer. Well worth a read.

Part of the business recovery workshop series by Start And Grow Enterprise

The pandemic has moved us to new ways of doing things. We’re having to adapt and change to meet the needs of our customers, which now include meeting the social distancing requirements. So how can you make the most of the online tools that are available to both market and sell your business virtually?

In this webinar, I will share some great ideas on using online tools such as Social Media, Video and Augmented Reality (AR) to connect with your customers so you come out of this stronger together.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

Back in July last year I spoke with Tess Coughlan-Allen about planning the content for your website, along with tips for getting started and a helpful tool to map out your content.

I firmly believe that websites should be built around the content first and is actually a key part of the design process.

If you are starting a new web project or revising your current site you’ll find real value in this conversation.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

Seth writes

A study of behavior (sic) at breakfast buffets showed that the first item in the buffet was taken by 75% of the diners (even when the order of the items was reversed) and that two-thirds of all the food taken came from the first three items, regardless of how long the buffet is.

The study Seth mentions is an interesting read but only cites one small experiment. However I have noticed similar behaviour on our client websites, such as; the first menu items often get the most visits, the first few at the top are clicked on most but, unlike the study, I have no science to support this.

How to improve your website content and structure with an aim of getting to page one in Google.

Notes

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Making changes to your website that you know (or believe) will gain a higher position in search engine results for a given keyword search
There are many search engines We’ll focus on Google:

Why people search

• Do something e.g. ’camping france’
• Know something e.g. ’how to fix washing machine’
• Go somewhere e.g. ’facebook’

First five results get 68% of clicks
Desktop & mobile ranking position CTR 2014 data from Moz.com
 

Terms you should know

• SERP – Search Engine Ranking Position
• Snippet – Information on a Google search result
• Impression – How often your snippet shown
• CTR – Click Through Rate. Number of clicks compared to impressions
• Keyword – A phrase used to find something online
• Long tail – A long and specific keyword phrase
•  Keywords and how to find them
• What keywords do people use to find services like yours online?
•  Keyword examples: “accountant” “cirencester accountants” “accountants in cirencester” “how to prepare end of year accounts”

Google Trends for simple comparison

• Broad, simple keywords
• Keyword Research
• Google Keyword planner for advanced searches
• Related searches on Google

Create content that search engines will love and people will share

• Find the best keywords to rank for
• Find out who else is ranking for them
• Create content that’s better than those pages
• Meta Descriptions: Writing a snippet is a great way to start writing content
• Blog Content
• Help Content
• Content Checklist
• Must have keyword on the page
• Keyword order and spelling often matter
• Content of page must be relevant to keyword
• Avoid ‘thin’ content. Write enough to answer the question
• Write for people not search engines
• Page structure development
• Link to main pages Adding keywords to images Simple URLs
• Link to page on your site <a href=“/bookkeeping/”>Bookkeeping</a>
• Link to a page not on your site <a href=“http://website.com/”
• rel=“nofollow”> A link to another site
• Add no follow if you don’t want to pass any Google SEO credit

 “If you create a page on a keyword that is 10x better than the pages being shown in search results (for that keyword), Google will reward you for it, and better yet, you’ll naturally get people linking to it!”
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/on-page-seo

 Images

• Describe the content of the image in text <img src=“tabby-cat-in-wicker-basket.jpg” alt=“A tabby cat in a wicker basket”/>
• Add keywords in if you can. Can then show up on image search
• Short and human readable i.e. /blog/how-to-fix-washing-machine’
• Use hyphens ‘-‘ not spaces
• Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin

Getting linked

• Links from other websites (often called backlinks) can be most beneficial
• Self created
• Links by you to other sites e.g. directories
• Natural: Referenced by another website because your content is awesome
• Manual outreach: Asked for the link or guest blog post

   
 Do Measure Repeat

Use Google Search Console to track performance Tweak site slowly to look for improvements

•  GSC performance
•  SERP listings
•  Page errors and indexing issues

Other Important factors

• Site speed. Less than one second
• Mobile friendly
• Engagement / Long click
• Reviews and ratings (structured data)

How people find your site, tracking sales and setting up a dashboard.

Notes

Social Media Round Table

What is Google Analytics?

Free tool to track people who visit your website Like a security camera in a shop but not as creepy
 

How do I install Google Analytics? Don’t have GA installed?

I’ll help you
Book free half hour session

Questions to ponder on

Who uses Google Analytics?

How do you need your site to improve? What information do you need to track?

• What are you trying to measure? Sales, Downloads, Form fills?
• Social engagement? Best marketing channels?
• Overview of Google Analytics (GA)
• Key sections
• Real-time, Audience, Acquisition, Behaviour, Conversion
• IMC7 – Google Analytics – 29 October 2019
• Select account – Five key sections
• Change date range – Export

Terms you should know

• Users: Unique visitors
• Sessions: A block of time spent on your site
• Bounce rate: A single page visit
• Pages/session: Average pages viewed in one session

 How people find your site

• Best sources
• For new traffic
• For new visitors
• For people who spend time on your site • Where you money is coming from !
• Connect Google Search Console

What keywords drive traffic and SERP

• GSC performance
• What people do on your site?
• Popular pages? Where do they click next?
• Tracking conversions
• Which sources generated sales? Does Instagram deliver email sign ups?

Segmenting data

• View only data from people who buy Or people who who visit key pages
• View just the sources where traffic converted
• See which landing pages they saw
• Campaign URL generator
• Get more clarity from inbound links
• https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign– url-builder/
• Setting up a dashboard report
• Stay informed with regular updates
• Custom dashboard
• datastudio.google.com “

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Does your business need a website any more? Can’t we just publish our details on Facebook and even use it to sell products directly?

With so much communication already happening on social platforms it makes sense to move over your brand presence as well. Or does it?

Here’s an extract from a conversation with Ben Wheeler in which we discuss the role of websites in marketing and ask in are they diminishing in favour of social business pages

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

I’ve been waiting for a feature to compensate for poor lighting for a while. This and many more features now available in Zoom.

Feel even more video-ready with granular control over the intensity of your touch-ups and lighting adjustment, so you’re well-lit in any lighting. Change the brightness of your panel and amount of skin smoothing to put your best video frame forward!

These controls will never make up for having good lighting In the first place. I made a little image grid to show what a difference a simple light makes.

I wish the Mac had better built-in camera controls to adjust exposure, brightness and other factors that can affect the quality of the video. I currently use the app iGlasses to make these adjustments for my webinars but for security reasons this never worked in Zoom. I’m so pleased they added these extra features.

And why they are good for SEO

Notes

Review examples
What do I mean by reviews?

• LinkedIn – Shame they are tucked down the bottom
• Google Ads  – With seller ratings – 150 reviews and 3.5 average ratings https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375474?hl=en-GB
• Local search – Google My Business location reviews https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en-GB
• Added manually on your website – Via 3rd party such as Trust Pilot https://uk.trustpilot.com
• Embed directly on your website – Collected on 3rd party SayHola https://sayhola.co
• On Facebook – Show upfront before any updates. Moved to a thumbs up/down rating rather than five star
• Twitter review – Recommendations
• Podcast reviews
• Helps bubble up popular shows
    

Why are reviews useful?

• Find local contacts
• Multiple keywords

Support SEO

• Get shown in Google map pack
• People more likely to click on your entry
• May also help improve organic rankings

Learn to talk you customers language

• Use testimonials text in your copy
• Helps target SEO
• Reflect language back in a conversation
• Use to improve customer persona

Bring your customers closer

• A positive review reinforces your opinion of a company
• More likely to refer to others

How to collect reviews

• Ask after a positive engagement – ‘If you were to recommend us to a friend what would you say’
• Asking after a few successful deliveries. Want testimonials from long term customers
• End of your support emails
• Ask for review directly on your Google My Business profile . Send people to the review page directly https://support.google.com/business/answer/7035772
• Thank people for their review. A free coffee, discount or other small gift No bribes, keep it under £20

Structured Data (don’t be scared)

• A standard format to identify types of content
• Recommended to add by Google/Bing

Example schema for a company. Provides context to the data Ties together other online identities Added directly to HTML

 <script type=“application/ld+json">{ "@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "Corporation",
"name": "Selmach Metalworking Machinery",
"alternateName": "Selmach",
"url": "https://selmach.com",
"logo": "https://selmach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/medium_selmach-
logog.jpg",
"contactPoint": {
   </script>
"@type": "ContactPoint", "telephone": "+44(0)1432346580", "contactType": “sales"},
"sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/SelmachLtd", "https://twitter.com/SelmachLtd", "https://plus.google.com/117812825186653408748", "https://www.youtube.com/user/SelmachLtd"
], "aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "5",
}"reviewCount": "1" } 

Interview with Duane Forrester who helped to develop schema.org
Well worth a listen.

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F559389345&show_artwork=true

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

Continuing on our theme of SEO I thought this interview with Duane Forrester (recorded back in early 2019) would be helpful to show how structured data and schema is a key trust signal for search engines.

We discuss why we should be using structured data on our website, how this impacts conventional SEO and why it matters for voice and augmented reality.

👋 If you found this podcast interesting you might like my Marketing Club. Join to receive regular tips and advice on marketing, video and the web and Pro Members get access to my live marketing webinars every month, exclusive discounts and other perks. Find out more here https://ratherinventive.com/club/

Episode Notes

Get you up to speed with LinkedIn and learn about some of the key ways people use it to get new business.

Notes

LinkedIn overview

Great place for sharing business content
Authoritative personal search result in
Google Good for engagement

LinkedIn stats

610 million users / Over 260M monthly active
LinkedIn provides 50% of social traffic to blogs

Profile checklist

Professional and friendly
No photos from holiday

Personalise the URL – linkedin.com/in/benkinnaird- marketing-expert/
Professional headline – Write how you help people
Profile photo – Recent picture that resembles you. Smiling, approachable
Banner images – Add contact number/email
Summary – Expand headline. Share your experience you have. Keep it simple. Include testimonials that share why people should buy from you.

Screen-share

Review Ben’s profile
Any anyone else who’s brave enough…

Q?

What do you look for in an LI profile?

Endorsements and Recommendations

Who uses these?
Do they help you to decide work with someone?

Engagement

Be the first to comment or help others
Original poster will appreciate your support
Helps stimulate more commenters
First follower video

Posting

Share links to your blog or other content
Alternative / addition to blogging

Screen-share

Review of posts and how to

Advanced Search

Find local contacts Multiple keywords

Screen-share

Demo of advanced search

Get noticed

Visit other peoples profiles
Use Google search to find people

Personal pages

These rule over business pages (Alex Galviz)
Get your employees to post your content on their personal pages

Stay connected

Connect with people you meet with or connect in advance (podcast interviews)
Ask a question when connecting

Become a tribe

Idea of WEN (Worcestershire Education Network)
All members reviewing group account
Looking for ideas to share

Resources

• Mastering the power of LinkedIn (podcast) Being authentic on LinkedIn with Alex Galviz (podcast)
• Social media strategy (book)
• Half day Social Media workshop with Jack

Worry about not making your ideas happen in the first place.

Seth on his blog

When I was a book packager, we ended up publishing about 120 books and pitching another 1,000 that were never published. In all of that time, I can only remember one of our ideas (it was a big one) being stolen from us and published without our participation. That code of ethics created a feeling of intellectual safety. But, at the same time, it was our successful books that were copied the most–and that copying was not just a symptom but often a cause of their success.

If there is one person worth copying, it’s Seth.

Relatedly there’s a good book I listened to called Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free by Cory Doctorow. He argues that by protecting your idea with wrappers of digital copy protection you’re stopping your work spreading and being bought by more people than if you didn’t have any copy protection at all.

(or websites as I like to call them)

Nice article from Suzanne Scacca on Smashing Magazine on how web developers can help restaurants up their digital game.

Restaurants that fail to digitize going forward won’t survive.

That applies to any business. Key take aways (ahem) from this article:

1. Think about your customer’s needs and prioritise the website for them
2. Diversify your income. Don’t rely on any sector or client
3. Make sure all related social sites and directory entries have consistent branding. If you aren’t mentioned on other sites start work now

Simo Ahava confirms that Safari’s 14s Intelligent Tracking Prevention does not blog tracking using GA (via Daring Fireball).

For better or for worse, one of the previews showed that google-analytics.com is listed among the trackers that are being prevented on websites.

Queue panic and the spread of misinformation like wildfire through the dry brush of first-party analytics.

I was under the impression that the forthcoming version of Safari was just ratting out trackers to users not preventing them.