3rd party cookies are dead, so Google has been cooking up their replacement, Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC for short. Read more about FloC in this article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

‘If you have been assigned a FLoC ID, it means that your browser has processed your browsing history and assigned you to a group of “a few thousand” similar users. The FLoC ID is the label for your behavioral group. This numeric label is not meaningful on its own. However, large advertisers (like Google) and websites (like… Google) will be able to analyze traffic from millions of users to figure out what the members of a particular FLoC have in common. Those actors may use your FLoC ID to infer your interests, demographics, or past behavior.’

As a marketer I find a few tracking metrics such as which web pages have the most visits and where (broadly speaking) people came from highly useful but I don’t want to get lost in the data and would rather focusing on making great content and working with clients. And as an advertiser It’s great to refine your spend to only show ads to people who will be most interested. But I don’t agree that we need pervasive tracking to achieve this.

Some of the best advertising that has influenced me, has been from places of trust such as podcasts I love or blog I read daily. If a company wants to get in front of more people they might be better to tie into content providers with the right audience rather than target individuals on any platform with hyper personalised automated ads. The problem is that social media platforms have inserted themselves in between us and the content and are now charging rent.

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A lot of people’s go-to in marketing is social media but I’ve noticed a reinsurance in email newsletters. I speak with Nikki Elbaz an email marketer about the benefits.

👋 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 ratherinventive.com/club/

Everything from setting up the plugin to products, discount vouchers and shipping and order processing.

Notes

Woocommerce is a full featured ecommerce system which allows you to sell a wide variety of physical products and digital products along with a wide range of extenstions for subscriptions and mentions amongst other things. 

When you install Woocommerce for the first time

You need to access the Plugin tab on the dashboard at the back end of your wordpress website. Add new, then search for ‘Woocommerce’. It should be the top hit, press install now button and then activate to install.
Once it is installed you will get a little Wizard setup screen, going through some of the basic information.

Example site: https://ratherinventive.com/shop/

WooCommerce Key Tax Setup Tips

• Choose whether prices will be inclusive of VAT or not. Only shows it you enable taxes in General tab
• Chose whethere your customer base is business to business or business to consumer on which tax option you opt for.
• Calculate your tax based on your address. If your company is based within the UK, regardless of where the customer is located they will pay UK tax. There are lots of options available if you ship abroad and can rank your tax to correlate with different states and regions.

WooCommerce Key Shipping Setup Tips

• Shipping zones allow different options for each country or area you define

If you have any specific shipping issues, that I haven’t covered within the run through best to get in touch and run through these as shipping options are bespoke and taylored to each business differently.

Example site: https://campagnacollections.com/furniture/ where they have lots of different items and ship to different locations.

WordPress Payment

• By default Woocommerce comes with default payment details i.e Bank Transfer, Cheques, Cash on Delivery or Paypal.
• With each option you will follow the form to input your information and requirements.
• When setting up Paypal payments you will need to put in some details to activate this option. Ensure you capture the identity token so you can capture the payment and send the order details back to your website.
• We recommend Stripe highly for taking credits. You will need to add this as a plugin. It is free, there are lots of other free plugins for different payments method if you would like to chose something else.

Other payment providers: https://woocommerce.com/product-category/woocommerce-extensions/payment-gateways/

WordPress Privacy

• Options available that allow you to give access for guest orders or enforce customers to have an account to process the order. 
• Information here to allow ppl to remove their data correctly through the woocommerce system.

WordPress Emails

• Get creative and customise your email communications that get shown to people
• Run through the settings to customise the look of your email
• Include company logo from your media library
• By default, the email settings are quite basic. There are other ways of customising that in code or find plugins to allow you to customise emails. 

Products

• Highly recommend categorising your products so you are able to show targeted products on particular web pages of your site.
• You can also add thumbails for each category
• By default it will show related products in the same category but it possible to create upsell / cross sell items

Coupons

• Setup a Coupon under the Woocommerce menu tab
• Click Add Coupon which will allow you incentivise your customers by adding a discount off the final basket value.
• You have the option of percentage discount or fixed price discounts
• You are able to tailor the coupon to specific emails or products, limit the amount of time it can be used, set an expiry date etc

Processing orders

• Admin and customers get order emails (processed)
• Back payments will be put on hold until it is processed
• Once shipped or finished, orders will be marked as completed. Customer will get a final email to confirm the order
• In this page you can also refund orders from this screen

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For this episode I’d like to share an extract from my Marketing Boost webinar where I look at why feedback is important and how to get more of it. Spoiler, you just need to ask.

👋 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 ratherinventive.com/club/

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

For this episode I’d like to share an extract from my Marketing Boost webinar where I share how you can be remarkable in your business and why that matters. Credit goes to Seth Godin for the idea.

👋 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 ratherinventive.com/club/

A great explainer from Seth on what trademarks are, well worth a listen.

Until listening I was ignorant of the difference between the ™ symbol and the ® symbol. One is legally recognised and registered and the other is your assertion of an unregistered trademark.

My recommendations and advice for a startup or business new to marketing.

Notes

Marketing Fundamentals walkthrough (Foundation)

https://ratherinventive.com/blog/marketing-strategy-foundation/
My recommendations and advice that I have gained from working with over 500 companies in the last 10years. This is the Foundation level out of the series which is targeted at startups and businesses that are new to marketing.

Planning Section Highlights

• Write down three things you’d like your business to achieve over the next 12 months
• Take each objective and note down how you’ll achieve them
• Try writing your company strap line in 20 words
• Describe your ideal customer in 5 words
• Listen to how Gina Geoghegan started her drinks business Wild Fizz Kombucha
  https://soundcloud.com/rather-inventive/wild-fizz-kombucha-interview 

Top Tip: Spend more time on your planning than anything else as every hour you spend planning will save you so much time in the long run.

Analytics Section Highlights

Start setting things up as when you advance to the other marketing levels you will have something useful to work with.

• Set up a Google Analytics profile for your website
• Read beginners guide to Google analytics
• Set up a monthly Google Analytics email report
  

Website Section Highlights

I am assuming you have sort of website, if you don’t skip this section but for now we want to see where you are:

• Grade your website performance
• Make a backup of your website
• Check your website has no page errors
• Update your website content manager and any plugins to the latest version
• Add a cookie policy to your website to be GDPR compliant

Helpful Links:
https://ratherinventive.com/blog/imc-podcast-10-what-your-website-needs-to-be-legal/
https://ratherinventive.com/blog/boiling-essentials-gdpr-first-step-navigating-new-regulation/

SEO Section Highlights

• Check you have a Google friendly site
• Localise your primary keyword
• Research your primary keyword
• Find out the Google position for your primary keyword
• Check home page title and description are eye catching and interesting

Helpful Links:

https://ratherinventive.com/blog/imc-podcast-1-creating-an-seo-strategy/
https://ratherinventive.com/blog/imc-podcast-2-building-on-your-seo-strategy/

Social Section Highlights

A couple of simple things to cover but we go into more depth on the Pro Level:

• Set up a personal LinkedIn profile
• Set up a Google My Business page
• Get Local with Facebook and Google My Business
  

Helpful Links:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en-GB
https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/tTQrpkkRZjz1K98PiAvjtiEj

Business Section Highlights

This is everything else, all the admin but all useful stuff

• Understand basic marketing and accounting terms
• Set up a spreadsheet to log your business numbers

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

For this episode I’d like to share an extract from my Marketing Boost webinar where I show a technique to better understand how you can marry what you offer to your customers needs.

👋 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 ratherinventive.com/club/

This webinar is a screen share walkthrough of how to create text ad on Google. I share some of the tips I’ve learned along the way and my process for planning and creating ads on Google.

Notes

Where possible try to do inbound marketing put information out there for people to find. However, advertising and outbound marketing can help kick things off to start with. It can be good to combine the two. 

Inbound – You put out information i.e. a how to guide, a video, give and share information. Your customer will find it online and share it for you.

Outbound – Pushing information at your customer; disrupting what they are doing i.e. a phone call, advert.

Planning

Advertising comes down to planning:

• Goal – What do you want to happen?
• Audience – Who is it for? What are their needs?
• Benefits – Why does your product matter?
• Budget – Guess at first, quickly learn acquisition costs (£ ads / # orders)

Review and monitor your adverts regularly.

We’ll be using CCTV Logbook from Ecl-ips as an example. This web app helps people audit their CCTV system hardware.

Campaign 1

• Goal: Signup for a trial walkthrough webinar
• Audience: Security Managers who need to know when assets where maintained as they are responsible for site security and cannot have any cameras or recording
  equipment out of order. Saving time for staff or external engineers
• Benefits: Detailed CCTV camera asset log, Maintains full audit history, Easy to use, Save time on engineering audits
• Budget: £600/mo (£20/day)

Campaign 2

• Goal: Watch video ‘How to manage GDPR and privacy for CCTV’
• Audience: Business Owners who need to comply with legal obligations of data protection enforced by ICO. Don’t want to risk fine.
• Benefits: GCPR compliant and secure. Reduce risk of fine from ICO
• Budget: £300/mo (£10/day)

Recommend video IMC11 Understanding your customer

Research

Quick research

1. Search keyword in Google, note the main phrases used
2. Scroll to bottom and look at related searches
3. Build phrase lists for each campaign

Detailed research

1. Tools / Keyword Planner
2. Discover new keywords
3. Add keywords from campaign phrase list
4. Find more keywords, look for ones with higher searches and low competition
5. If low search volume then might need broader range of keywords
6. Check out the competition, what other ads/organic results are there? What are they offering?

Create keyword list
cctv logbook, cctv audit, cctv audit template, cctv audit report, cctv camera inspection checklist, cctv asset manager, cctv maintenance report, cctv audit system, audit software, cctv audit software

Split into two ad campaigns

CCTV Log Book
cctv logbook, cctv log book
CCTV Audit Template (or CCTV Audit Checklist log)cctv audit, cctv audit template, cctv audit report, cctv camera inspection checklist, cctv asset manager, cctv maintenance report, cctv audit system, audit software, cctv audit software

Forecast the cost

1. Tools / Keyword Planner
2. Get search volume and forecasts
3. Experiment with different initial click costs
4. Use to explore price to per per click

Creating a new campaign

1. New campaign / Leads / Search / Website visits
2. Website: https://cctvlogbook.com/
3. Add main keyword to campaign name: cctv logbook
4. Don’t include display partners. Dilutes traffic
5. Expand more settings
6. Add end date. To prevent leaving active. 30 days to start.
7. Add schedule to run between 07:00-22:00. Separate for week day and week ends to make easier to review and disable
8. Target to location. UK in this case as low searches but may wish to target locally
9. Add a budget: £20
10. And focus on conversions
11. Add site links, extra links to specific pages
12. Add call extension if relevant

Setup ad group

1. Name as primary keyword
2. Add keywords. BMM, Phrase and Exact. Allows easier review later

+cctv +logbook+cctv +log +book”cctv logbook””cctv log book”[cctv logbook][cctv log book]

Create ads

1. Start with Google defaults and amend
2. Create multiple adds with different wording. You can review and pause.

Google Ads Walkthrough Tips

• Never use broad keywords. This will waste your budget
• Analyse best keywords to use in tool like Google Keyword planner
• Search main keywords in Google to make sure expected results are returned and the keywords mean the same to you and Google
• Look at competitor adverts. Find out who is number one
• Limit number of ad group keywords to five and keep to same topic
• Use exact match [my keyword], phrase match “my keyword” and Broad Match Modified (BMM) +my
• +keyword to capture broadest range of traffic and help review process
• Use bid stacking e.g. Pay more for exact match (most expensive), phrase match (next), then BMM (next)
• Check devices: and change bid adj if want to exclude device types such as mobile
• Setup ad schedule 7am-10pm for general viewing and removing time waster clicks
• Ideally link to dedicated landing pages on website with text that mirrors the ad

Swipe-Worthy – Marketing, Ad and Copywriting examples

Matt Saunders writing on how to build rapport clients.

‘Repeat business is important because the average repeat customer spends 67% more in months 31-36 of their relationship with a business than they do in months 0-6. This particular study pertains to e-commerce sales but I have seen similar patterns in the B2B space also. It’s really all about trust. Once you’ve earned it, they’ll come back for more.’

I cannot correlate the percentages but I know that I win more business from clients that I work with regularly. In fact just regularly communicating with clients I’ve found will stimulate business either by giving them ideas or keeping my business front of mind.

Matt’s article is specific to his industry but a lot of the advice works for any business. He outlines the following tips:

1. Get process in place – You’ll look and be more professional and work will be easier to manage
2. Don’t hide behind your email – Find other ways to communicate with them: in-person, video call, gifts, referrals
3. Get to know you clients – You’ll be able to serve them better and it’s rewarding for your soul if you have a genuine connection
4. Build long term relationships – Time spent will pay dividends in future work and referrals
5. Self development – Listen to the best podcasts and audio books available. Ask clients for their favourites and share yours with them

Jason Fried on product validation.

‘How do you know if what you’re doing is right while you’re doing it? You can’t be. You can only have a hunch, a feeling, a belief. And if the only way to tell if you’ve completely missed the mark is to ask other people and wait for them to tell you, then you’re likely too far lost from the start. If you make products, you better have a sense of where you’re heading without having to ask for directions.’

I often get asked if a certain page design or ad is going to work before it’s even off the drawing board and Jason’s post echos my thoughts. You just can’t.

Sure something may have worked before, for another company, in another medium but will it work now? I don’t know. But I do know that we can try it out, tweaking the idea until it does or doesn’t. Either way we’ll know for sure.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This is the final of 6 episodes in which I’ll be walking you through the foundation level of my Marketing Strategy. I’m going give you ideas, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process that will work for any startup or business new to marketing.

The episodes cover Planning, Stats and Analytics, Website Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and Business tasks that you need to do to give you marketing strategy a great foundation.

If you want to jump ahead everything I’m talking about is available online now ratherinventive.com/marketing-strategy

For now here’s part 6 and it’s about Business. Enjoy.

👋 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/

Learn more about mining LinkedIn to find prospects and then how best to engage with them.To help me explore this topic I’ll be joined by social media and blog writer Jack McCaughtrie from (Core Tree).

Notes

Guest Jack McCaughtrie from Core Tree

Why mine Linkedin for prospects

• Remote networking
• Local, national or global reach
• Connect with difficult to reach individuals
• Build awareness of your company and how to help people

There is less noise in the channel, because it is a business to business platform it has a more professional mentality to it and people are more diligent in their approach
Jack McCaughtrie

Case Study – Witley Jones

Bespoke school furniture manufacturer, based in Worcestershire.

• They wanted to build their awareness and engagement in education
• Trying to get an in, in a busy market
• Approach of not hard selling but one of trying to support and align partnerships

Understand, Engage and Convert

Building an Audience

• Quality not quantity
• Reconnect with contacts, clients and colleagues
• Use market intelligence to identify new companies and people
• Connect with new people you have (or going to) meet
• Digitising your network

…you have 100% control who is in your audience and have control in targeting the right people. It is important you connect to the right kind of audience, a target client or prospect who have some value to you or you to them. 
Jack McCaughtrie

Search

• Use Company Pages to find best contacts
• Search for Job Titles,
• Location and industry
• Set up ‘Search Alert’ for weekly email

Who to connect with

• Connect with people who are directly relevant to you
• Associated with markets you work with
• People who would be interested in content you can share
• People you can help with
• Don’t simply collect connections
• Connect with people that interact with your posts

Start a conversation

• Personalise your connection invitation
• Soft intro message once connected. Not sales focused
• Ask questions to encourage a response
• Follow 2/3 days after invite accepted
• Be patient

Breaking the ice

• Be inquisitive about their business or sector
• Make an opportunity to send more information – relevant blog or video
• Refer to a post they have shared recently or something you have seen on their website
• Ask a favour (Benjamin Franklin effect)

Nurture & Follow-up

• Sow the seeds that will grow over time
• Be patient. Building relationships take times
• Have regular content to share within your network
• Ask who the best person to contact
• Ask if you can share more information
• Don’t be afraid to follow up once, twice, three times

Review your profile

• Must be up to date and accurate
• First impression counts
• Make it relevant to your audience
• Answer the questions your new connections will have
• Add link to website and videos
• Consider the posts you share and engage with.

IMC4 – Get more from Linkedin

Thumbs Up is a handy YouTube video thumbnail listing preview tool. Use it to make sure your content can be seen at every size and that important text isn’t covered up.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This is the fifth of 6 episodes in which I’ll be walking you through the foundation level of my Marketing Strategy. I’m going give you ideas, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process that will work for any startup or business new to marketing.

The episodes cover Planning, Stats and Analytics, Website Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and Business tasks that you need to do to give you marketing strategy a great foundation.

If you want to jump ahead. everything I’m talking about is available online nowratherinventive.com/marketing-strategy

For now here’s part 5 and it’s about Social Media. Enjoy!

👋 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/

Wow, you’re now on the Expert level. As with the previous tasks they follow a similar format but will be suited to business regularly promoting their business or those who’ve completed my Foundation and Pro levels.

Jump to a specific category:

• Audience & Planning
• Stats & Analytics
• Website Design & Development
• SEO & Content
• Social Media
• Email Marketing
• Business

Ben is joined by guest Copywriter, Catherine Every (Hello Pippin) to discuss how to review your blog to find the best-performing articles and which ones need cutting away.

Notes

Guest Copywriter, Catherine Every (Hello Pippin)

What is a blog review and why do we do one?

• Remove thin content / consolidate articles 
• Aim: to focuson content quality, improve search visibility, build traffic 

Casestudy
Communion Architects www. communionarchitects.com 
They have built up a lot of posts over 8 years some with good traffic but could be improved.

Collecting the data

• Collect data over a full two year period 
• Export article pages from WordPress 
• Marry up article pages, GA, GSC data into Google sheet Compare which pages most visited from search 
• Find low performing pages and review

Blog Review

• Start with the low performers (<10 visits) 
• Then tackle pages with >50 unique visits 
• Make notes on pages actions to take

Review Process

• September 2019 and January 2020 
• Review all posts, make notes 
• Start with the easy stuff: delete or fix broken links, images 
• Combine posts: Read, outline new content, collate, rewrite 
• Review in a day or with Alex (client) 
• Key challenges

Review Checklist

• Can content be deleted and redirected? 
• Can content be merged with other articles? 
• Should the article be split up and extended? 
• Can URL, title be improved? Keywords added 
• Can content be improved 
• Is it in the correct category? 
• Any missing images or broken links? 
• Can any relevant images or videos be added? 
• Does it have a link to a landing page? 
• Are there any content gaps?

Tidying Up

• Site audit to make sure everything works 
• All deleted posts are redirected to new ones 
• All internal links point to new articles 
• Note content ideas for future articles
• Be careful not to change URLs for key pages

Shannon Rawlins sheds some light on this shady company. Via Fran Roberts.

‘No, PicRights is not a scam. What they are doing is entirely legal. In fact, they are serving to enforce the already-existing laws surrounding copyright. They have major clients and work with real law firms.

However, just because it’s not an illegal scam, that doesn’t mean what they are doing is right.

Hounding people for money and threatening to take them to court if they don’t pay up is unscrupulous, especially when they instigate the case themselves, not on behalf of the copyright-owner.’

If you’ve been contacted by a company claiming that you have used an image or video without permission. Take the notice seriously but don’t panic and read the article above first.

Further reading:

• Letters alleging online copyright infringement
• Step-by-step guide to copyright in images online
• How to settle an infringement demand letter
• Demand Letters for Copyright Infringement and Photos: How to Respond (and How to Avoid them in the First Place)

I’m joined by Jack Nelson (Photographer) to discuss why great photography is crucial to show your property in the best light.

Notes

The importance of great photography

• Why is it worth the time and money?
• Examples: Exterior Croome Court, Interior Croome Court & Heath Town

Get the lighting right

Examples: Kensington Palace & 3D Render image comparison

Staging

• Interior or exterior
• Make sure everything is neat and tidy
• Image examples: Airbnb Slide 17 & Airbnb Slide 18
• Light and bright  
• Dark and Dull  
• Trace of life

Video walkthrough

• Drone or Handheld
• Understand the layout and flow better than photos
• 3D Experiences

3D Experiences

Matter Port

• User lead, Immersive, Fun
• System to capture and display 3D Photography Visitors explore in their own time
• Ideal for estate agents, also great for holiday lets and shops 
• Make your own Matterport 3D on iPhone
• Matterport demo on https://bengoughproperty.com

Augmented Reality (AR)

• Move freely within 3D space View products in situ 
• Communion AR example and commentary video
• www.apple.com/augmented-reality/

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Android.

This is the forth of 6 episodes in which I’ll be walking you through the foundation level of my Marketing Strategy. I’m going give you ideas, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process that will work for any startup or business new to marketing.

The episodes cover Planning, Stats and Analytics, Website Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and Business tasks that you need to do to give you marketing strategy a great foundation.
If you want to jump ahead. everything I’m talking about is available online nowratherinventive.com/marketing-strategy

For now here’s part 4 and it’s about Search Engine Optimisation. Enjoy!

👋 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/

Ben shares his website design process from planning to going live as well as reviewing some of the most popular website platforms to chose from.

Notes

My Process

• Series of calls
• Client and dev team working together 
• Planning > Content > Design > Go Live > Review Iterative design
• Objectives – What must the site do?
• Audience – What do they need? How the website will help? Competitors – What are they doing well?
• Site plan – Main landing and supporting pages + other content ideas 
• Add everything to a Project Plan

See my full Website project checklist

Project Plan

• What are your website’s objectives?
• Vision – What do you want to be known for? 
• Outcomes -Downloads, sales, signups etc
• What content needs to be on the site 
• Sites or styles your customers like 
• Deadlines and dates

More information on What to think about when planning your website

Audience

Watch #11 Understanding your customer

Competition review

• Search as your customer
• Review the top three results
• What do you like? What are they doing well? What can you do 10x better?
• Placement and use of keywords
• Outline site plan 
• Landing page based on keywords 

Content Gathering

• Focus on content, not design
• Wireframe – Copy site plan into real pages on dev website SEO
• Identify keywords people use when looking for a product 
• Review existing content – What to keep, discard or made new

 “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!”

Check out Moz.com for a Beginners Guide to SEO

• Start with the snippet
• Write title and description – This is the first thing people will see 

Landing page SEO

Watch #6 SEO Strategy
Watch #16: Improve landing page SEO
More information on Creating and supplying content for your new website

Design & Build

• Confirm pages / page elements
• Refine content on each page to best enable a visitors objective.
•  Add supporting content. Such as FAQs, PDFs or blog articles 
• Review the internal linking structure
• Design around content to help it stand out (where it needs to)

Landing page

• Titles and Headings include keywords.
• Use a variety of content: headings, lists, images, tables Include keyword variations in the content
• All related supporting pages link to LP
• Use FAQ and other schema markups
• Include social proof
• Include Call To Action: Signup, buy, download

Supporting pages

• Help someone, add value
• Questions you get asked a lot
• FAQ Misconceptions people have of your industry 
• Mistakes people make
• Things you wish more of your clients knew 
• Provide insight into you and your business 
• Customer interviews and case studies – 
• Testimonials Benefits of your product
• Link back to LPs in the first paragraph

Images and video

• Increase time on page
• Helps people scan content
• People more likely to read if the text is broken up with video and images

 Watch #8 Image Editing to learn some key skills

Go Live (before)

• Test site on different browsers and devices
• Test all contact forms, checkout process, downloads Review site plugins and extensions
• Make migration plan – Set up page redirects Check for missing pages or page errors

Go Live (after)

• Add SSL certificate
• Check for missing pages and issues (again)
• Verify site on Google Search Console (GSC) and add XML sitemap 
• Add Google Analytics (GA) tracking code
• Test GA code is collecting data

Watch #7 Google Analytics for a primer
Watch #17: Google Search Console (GSC) walkthrough

Review

• Review of the site against objectives
• Review GSC to make sure there are no errors
• Improvements and future ideas

Website CMS (Content Management System)

Ways to make a website
Help keep up to date Balance of price / complexity

WordPress

Shows the dominance of WordPress that it is still growing
https://kinsta.com/wordpress-market-share/

• Has an active community and developers 
• Can get started for free on WordPress.com 
• Completely flexible when self-managed Lots of plugins such as ecommerce 
• Best control over SEO
• Two options: Managed (like Wix or Squarespace) or Self Hosted
•  New layout editor

Wix

• Quick to set up with simple questions
• Lots of templates
• Setup process helps refine 
• Simple blocks & prompts help write content 
• Additional apps for appointments and ecommerce

Weebly

• The platform I have the least experience with Plenty of themes
• Design editor allows too much freedom 
• Free account available

Squarespace

• Lots of control over design Interface can be a little fiddly at first Ecommerce quite basic
• Can adjust template code

Shopify

• Used by 18% of ecommerce websites 
• Simple setup, ecommerce focused 
• Customisable templates
• Has a point of sale app
• Simple editor but very quick
• Geeks can dive into template code 
• We make our mini projects shop in it
•  Easy to manage products, even from app

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This is the third of 6 episodes in which I’ll be walking you through the foundation level of my Marketing Strategy. I’m going give you How to get better at marketing – A Business Marketing Strategyideas, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process that will work for any startup or business new to marketing.

The episodes cover Planning, Stats and Analytics, Website Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media and Business tasks that you need to do to give you marketing strategy a great foundation.
If you want to jump ahead. everything I’m talking about is available online nowratherinventive.com/marketing-strategy

For now here’s part 3 and it’s about Website Development. Enjoy

👋 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/

In this episode Ben talks you through how to use GSC (Google Search Console) to find your website Google rank and page errors.

Notes

What is Google Search Console (GSC)

Tool that shows data from Google Search Understand how people find you online What keywords get the most clicks Identify problems on your site

Setup and verify

• Domain or specific URL
• Example mydomain.com for Domain or https://mydomain.com for URL
• Prefer verifying with GA

Overview

At a glance look to make sure there are no issues

Performance

• Compare traffic you are getting with clicks
• Impressions are times snippet show in search results
• Clicks are when people clicked through to website
• Queries are the search terms people use

Identify traffic issues

• Filter on blogs
• View traffic to pages. Why lots of impressions but not many clicks
• Click URL to filter on specific URL and view queries
• View average position, are things headed in right direction
• View page snippet and page content, do they make sense

SERPS

• What search engine ranking position you are for certain keywords (Add new query)
• Add new query for ‘marketing club’
• Just started optimising. Starting to get impressions but lacking clicks
• View page snippet and page content, do they make sense

URL inspection

• Make sure a page is indexed and if not expedite indexing
• Adding or refreshing a sitemap can also force Google to index your site again sooner that it would otherwise
• Check snippets work

Coverage

• Start with errors first
• Next any pages that are blocked from index
• Email domain believed to be from client’s posting email link on website
• If issues fixed you can re-verify

Excluded pages

* Why are they indexed? Are they linked on your site?
* How to find links that appear on your website site:ratherinventive.com “email.ratherinventive.com”
* This year we changed over the site. Found lots of old URLs still in Google index and have setup redirects to new pages
* Yoast also had an issue where it made all image into pages

Sitemaps

• Add sitemaps to make sure google indexes all your pages
• Also helps highlight if there are pages in the sitemap aren’t indexed
• On WordPress Yoast SEO plugin makes sitemap Yoast > General > Features > XML Sitemaps (click question mark), then see the sitemap

Removals

• Useful if you must have a page removed from the index
• Temporary measure. Make sure the actual content has been removed, marked as 404 or no-indexed

Enhancements

• Mobile had an issues, fixed it and asked to ‘Validate Fix’
• Make sure no issues with bad or missing structured data
• Recommend listening to interview with Duene Forester on structure data and why you should use it https://ratherinventive.com/blog/duane-forrester-yexts-vp-industry-insights/

Manual Actions

Make sure there are no penalties against your site

Links & Settings

• Interesting to see what domains are linking to you
• Add other users. Only give full permission if they really need it

Connect Google Analytics (GA) to GSC

Allows you to view the search data and landing pages in GA

The recording of my webinar for Bath Digital Festival 2020. Here’s the original event blurb

‘Ben will share how to develop a bulletproof content strategy to boost your social media activity and help you get found online through search engine optimisation.

    You’ll learn:
    – A basic strategy you can adapt
    – How to focus on what’s important
    – Tips for generating ideas and making time around work
    – SEO techniques that could get you onto page one’