Explode the WordPress Learning Curve: An Evening with the Experts
Get connected with the tools and resources you need at Explode the WordPress Learning Curve: An Evening with the Experts. Your moderator, Miles Austin, leads presentations and discussions that will show you how a WordPress website, combined with savvy social media strategies and solid search engine optimization techniques, can make your marketing and sales so much more successful.
After An Evening with WordPress Experts, you’ll understand:
* why so may businesses are choosing WordPress for their websites and blogs
* how to leverage the power and flexibility of a WordPress website to increase sales
* how easy it is to make the move to WordPress
* 5 techniques for optimizing your WordPress pages for better search engine rankings
* the key features of 3.0, the newest version of WordPress
What’s Included in this Event:
* 3 “mini-seminars” from WordPress experts
* 15-minute break with time for networking as well as time before and after the event
* Extended Q & A panel discussion with the experts-get your questions answered
* Opportunity to meet the experts at the conclusion of the event
* Time to visit the presenters’ tables and exchange information
* Copies of all presentations
* Additional information on useful tips, plugin’s, themes and resources for WordPress users
Speakers at this event:
Moderator Miles Austin, founder and owner of Fill the Funnel, Inc.
Moderator Miles Austin, will serve as your guide for the evening. Miles will set the stage for the presenters, providing an overview of the content, introducing the speakers and facilitating the panel discussion/Q&A session.
Miles Austin is a leading authority on the selection and use of web tools to drive increased sales. He has 25 years of experience in high-profile sales with experience across multiple industries. Miles is a highly-sought out speaker and author of the popular Fill the Funnel blog.
Myself
WordPress 3.0: Better, Faster, Easier
With the release of the newest version, WordPress 3.0, life just got easier. I will have just returned from WordCamp San Francisco, where Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress was a key speaker. I’m not holding back. He’ll share all the cool new WordPress features and even a couple of hidden gems.
I am the founder of SavvyWordPress.com, the premier membership site for entrepreneurs looking for all the latest WordPress resources and tools to make their websites and blogs unique, memorable customer magnets. I’m a Mac evangelist and twitter addict who learned life lessons from Curly of the Three Stooges.
Mark McLaren , founder and owner of McBuzz Communications
Get Found Easier: 5 Tips for Better Search Engine Optimization with WordPress
WordPress is your out-of-the-box solution for creating a website or blog that is highly optimized for search engines. Learn how, with just a little extra time and effort, you can take your site to the next level of search engine optimization. Mark will show you five key techniques for optimizing your WP pages and posts for better search engine rankings.
Mark McLaren is passionate about WordPress. He was a speaker at WordCamp Seattle 2009 and presents regularly to Seattle business groups on search engine optimization, blogging, social media marketing and WordPress websites. Business Blogging 101 is his site for free WordPress tutorials and support. Mark is the owner of the online marketing firm McBuzz Communications.
Tom Todd, founder and owner of T2.
The WordPress Advantage: Why Smart Businesses are Making the Switch
Businesses of all types and sizes are choosing to replace their static, inflexible websites for dynamic, WordPress-powered ones. You’ve heard the buzz about WordPress. Now find our exactly why so many businesses are jumping onboard. In this session, Tom will show you how easy it is to switch to a client-attracting WordPress blog or website.
Tom Todd is a lifelong marketer, designer and tech-geek. Founder of T2, he creates customized WordPress websites and provides WP training and consulting services for a range of Seattle area clients, from solopreneurs to mid-sized companies.
About the Facility:
You will enjoy the benefits of a state-of-the-art lecture facillity with sloped floor stadium seating, workspace for your notepad and/or laptop, comfortable chairs and two extra large projection screens and sound system to follow along with the presenters.
Just Say ‘No’: 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Have a Blog
I have taught our blogging workshops long enough to recognize a certain person. You may recognize her, too. In fact, it may be you. After one of my classes, a student who had been very quiet throughout the session came up to me. She wore a deep frown.
But then she broke into a grin.
“Thank you,” she said.
” For what?” I asked.
“For giving me permission not to blog,” she said.
And she isn’t the last one to say that to me.
Too many blogs
Every social media expert on the planet has one or two or three blogs. All our friends and colleagues are doing the blogging thing.
It’s easy to see why someone might think their business will go down the toilet without one. In our workshops, we walk people through the benefits and the commitment required to be a successful blogger.
6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Blog
1. Your customers don’t go online. This is a big one. Obvious example: Say you are a service station owner. Do your customers go online to learn about your products and services? And if they do, will their habits in buying gas change as a result of reading your posts?
2. It would take you four hours to write a post. Depending on what you charge clients for your services, the marketing benefits you get from blogging could be eaten up by spending a half a day noodling with one post.
3. You don’t have anything to say. Maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t. But related to reason #2, if you are constantly stressed out because you don’t have a topic, if you have to reach deep every time you come up with a subject, this might be too time-consuming and draining an experience for you.
4. You have something to say, but you aren’t a writer. This may be good or bad, depending on what you think “writing” looks like. But if you get tongue-tied every time you sit down to write, or you have an inner critic, say, your 5th grade teacher, who just won’t let up on you, maybe you should rethink things. (Or maybe you should hire someone to blog for you.)
5. You and your computer don’t have much together time. I hear this frequently. “I’m away from the office a lot.” Part of blogging is posting. But another key part is responding to your readers. If you don’t recognize them with a comment, they might not come back.
6. You have to be careful about what you say. Maybe you are an attorney or a psychologist. If you blog under your business identity, weigh carefully whether you risk someone construing your personal post as professional advice.
Backup Buddy Plugin – A Dream Come True
If you have read my blog, attended my workshops, or even casaully discussed WordPress with me, you know my feelings about backing up your files. Yes, most servers and hosts do it routinely, and yours might be one of them. But I don’t like to rely on them.
I always recommend using WP DB Backup plugin for your database which it basically all of your content — pages and posts. But what about your other WordPress files. And all the media you have uploaded? Yes, you can back those up usually using an FTP client, but maybe you don’t have the know how or the time.
I know what you are thinking.
This sounds like an ad.
Well, in a way maybe it is. But PlugInBuddy.com from iThemes, has come up with Backup Buddy. It’s great. And it backs up everything.
A side note. I was concerned the otther day when a client that I was doing consulting told me another “so called” WordPress expert told her to just use the export tool, and that will backup everything. Not! What are these people anyway, giving away wrong info!
Yes, I am an affiliate for this, a few bucks in my pocket. And yes, it’s not a free plugin. But damn, it’s great. And well worth the money!
Your Old Blog Posts Aren’t Dead. They’re Just Sleeping.
Post by Judy Dunn
We’ve been tricked. All of us.
That freshly baked, piping hot, sweet-smelling, pie called Original Content grabbed us by the collar. Assaulted our nostrils. Made us salivate.
This pie was made just for me. It’s fresh and juicy. No one else has had a bite. I want the first piece.
We bloggers know this pie well. We should, because we baked it.
As we create the content pie that becomes a new blog post, someone is standing over our shoulder. Maybe it’s that Internet marketer who sends us their weekly newsletter. Or that hot-shot author whose book, “Create Original Content or Die,” is on the bestseller list. And they are whispering:
“Say something new! ”
“Write with your own voice!”
“Be original. Be Cree-A-tive.”
Why Bringing Back an Old Blog Post Can Be a Good Thing
Attention spans are murderously short on the Web. Plus, you are always collecting new readers.
So you have your memory-challenged regular readers. And you have a brand new audience that has never read your old posts. That means that with just a little tweaking (or a lot, if it makes sense), you can get more google juice.
Of course, if you just start republishing old posts randomly, without choosing carefully, you’ll just be rehashing stale, boring ideas. But done right, you’ll get a surge in traffic and, very possibly, some new subscribers.
5 Steps to Waking Up an Old Post
- Revisit your older posts often. Your goal here is to find which posts were the most popular. If you see a certain post being viewed again and again, this is prime content to bring back. Sometimes it will be a post that had a lot of reader comments and sometimes not. Pay particular attention if the referring site (where the reader came from) is Google. If people are searching for help with a certain problem and they keep finding your blog post, you have a winner and you should consider republishing it.
- Look at your title, sub-heads and formatting with a fresh eye. Reworking the title just a little bit could make your post even more popular in a Google search. An added benefit: Google will look at it with fresh eyes, too. Google Analytics even tells you what terms people were using in their search when they found your post. Adding intriguing sub-heads also helps—to break up the text and draw the eye to the important parts of your post. And check your spacing. Do paragraph breaks often to help readers skim and scan. Sometime my paragraphs are just one sentence long, especially if I want to add emphasis to a thought.
- Consider updating the content. Your most popular posts got to be that way for a reason. If you can add new content, or rewrite, you’ll capture more readers, people who wanted to know more about what you were talking about. So think about the new things you could add.
- Add new tags. A tag is merely a keyword or category used to describe the topic of your post. Tags are indexed by Google and Technorati, so someone doing a Google search is more likely to come across your posts. Revisit your tags and think about whether adding a few new ones might help more people find your post.
- Think about adding a new image or two. If you are like me, you didn’t give much thought to images when you first started blogging. But images can be very powerful, hitting the part of the brain that triggers memory and emotions. The result: You attract more readers—and keep them engaged in your post. For more advice on what the right image can do for your post, read 5 Ways the Right Photo Can Get You More Blog Readers. For some good sources of photos, see my recent post, How to Find Spectacular Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Post.
What about you? Do you republish old blog posts? Do you think it’s a good strategy?
8 Recent Thoughts on WordPress
Hey, you may already know this, but WordPress is my life. Yes, I work with it on a daily basis. And no, I don’t know everything. But I enjoy finding those solutions to problems I have yet to conquer. So, just for the heck of it, here are eight thoughts I am having right now on WordPress as I sit here.
- Themes are a constant challenge. Their coding and CSS isn’t always obvious. Still convinced it’s worth paying for one.
- Permalinks are great. But if you move a site, and you suddenly start getting 404 errors on all of your pages, except your homepage, it can be a permalink problem. Simply go in and reset to default, save, then reset your custom permalink. That may just solve the problem.
- Bluehost is still my favorite hosting site. Three issues this week, all resolved within 15 minutes via the 24/7 chat.
- Nothing more gratifying then helping someone on Twitter solve a WordPress issue by sending them to a blog post I did.
- Looking forward to the WordPress workshop I’ll be presenting tomorrow, WordPress and the 3 Bears – Themes, Plugins and Widgets.
- Blogging is not dead.
- Cringe when other so-called WordPress developers and “experts” say you can create yourself an awesome online presence in just a few hours.
- Still don’t like the over-used cliches rockstar or sucks in any kind of reference to WordPress, or as a matter of fact, anything in life.
So, a bit of meandering, but just imagine what all my thoughts are in a day’s time!
WordPress 2.9 – Update Success
This is the second day since WordPress 2.9 has officially been released. Normally, I wait a couple of weeks to upgrade. But this time I took the dive and the update went through seamlessly. In fact, I have seen a lot of the same results via Twitter. Sounds like a lot of the bugs were worked out in beta. Way to go WordPress!
Of course, I did backup all my files and database just in case!
I will come back and post any plugin or widget conflicts as I hear them.
And how did your experience go?
WordPress 2.9 Teaser
Okay, just a quick post to let you know a couple of features to expect in 2.9. I just uploaded the beta version and hope to come back soon with more to share.
THE TRASH CAN – When you delete a post, page, category, comment, or any bit of content, it is moved to the Trash where you can decide whether to pull it back at a later date.
IMAGE EDITOR – ALTHOUGH SIMPLE… Image editing will allow bloggers to crop, scale and rotate images from right within WordPress.
Excluding categories in the sub-navigation bar
Just a quick tip this AM.
If you have a theme that has a sub-navigation bar for categories, often they have a theme setting on which categories you can include or not in the bar. But if they don’t, here is a few steps to ensure certain one’s won’t appear…
First, you need to find out the number ID for each category you want to exclude. An easy way of doing this it to go to your category list page under “posts”, then run your cursor over the page to identify the number. Look at the bottom of your browser page and you will see a url with the number at the end.
Now go into your appearance menu, and choose the editor. On the left hand find your file “header (header.php) and open it.
Look for this code:
<?php wp_list_categories(‘orderby=name&title_li=&depth=2′); ?>
Replace it with this
<?php wp_list_categories(‘orderby=name&title_li=&depth=2&exclude=1,2,3‘); ?>
or you can use this to select only the categories you want to appear
<?php wp_list_categories(‘orderby=name&title_li=&depth=2&include=1,2,3‘); ?>
Just remember, if you aren’t comfortable with coding, make sure you have everything exact, no extra spaces and no “,” after the last category number. To be safe, copy the whole files text into a text window as a backup. Good luck!
Get Rid of the Google Landing Page Blues: 5 Tips for Increasing Online Sales with a ‘Portal Site’
Whether you are a massage therapist, dog trainer, executive sales coach, event planner, or someone else, if you are selling information products online, or are thinking about doing it, you might already know how hard it is to get your visitor’s undivided attention.
Your website visitor, who must be convinced to buy a product they might have never heard of, is a little different from the customer who goes to Amazon.com to buy a copy of Seth Godin’s latest bestseller-something she already knows she wants. What you must do, then, is persuade her to buy your product.
On a large, multi-page website, your reader has many choices: click here, go there, do this. If you have several products (e-books, DVD sets, audio recordings, etc.), your visitor can easily become overwhelmed.
To attract visitors and convince them to buy, consider creating landing pages. Also called micro-sites, landing pages are really just sales letters posted on the Web that allow you to target the very people who are most interested in what you are selling, the people most likely to buy.
Great idea. Except for the fact that Google recognizes landing pages as sales letters and does not rate sites with sales copy very highly. So you don’t get nearly as much organic search traffic. Many online marketers get around this by creating a portal site, one central place with valuable free content for the search engines and links to their individual landing pages.
5 Tips for Increasing Online Sales with a ‘Portal Site’
- Create a simple URL/address for your portal site. It helps, especially as you begin to sell more products, to have a simple, central site. When someone asks what products you offer, it’s easy because you just have to remember one site address and direct them to that.
- Create links from your portal site to each of the landing pages for your individual products. You will want to send people to separate landing pages for each product, each with its unique domain name. Choose names that are easy to remember.
- Create sections of your site where visitors can download free content. This is key because it will increase your organic search rankings and drive traffic to your site. Because Google loves content, especially fresh content, include articles, special reports, and other information that is timely and helpful and will bring you lots of visitors. Valuable content will also establish you as an expert and build the reader trust that leads to sales.
- Include a sign-up for your free, opt-in e-newsletter and links to your blog and other social media profiles. It’s a great way to build your list organically, find quality prospects, and get your content out to more people.
- From your portal site, send visitors to separate landing pages with their own unique domain names. Make each page simple, with no menu bar, no confusing options. You want your reader to focus on the reasons she needs to buy your product right now. So just include your sales letter and link to a form where your visitors can buy your product.
A well-thought out portal site linking to landing pages with amazing copy that sells your unique products will go a long way in pumping up your online sales.
To get more tips like these, sign up for our weekly etip, Marketing Hotspots.
Should You List Your Rates on Your WordPress Website?
If your business is service-based, finding your pricing strategy can be hard. And even emotional. Because it speaks both about your work and the value people put on it-and you. How much is enough, a fair price, and how much is too much? If it’s a product, it’s fairly easy. How much did it cost to produce? How much of a profit percentage do I want to make?
But services? Not so much. A lot depends on the specific client and her needs. And after you decide on a pricing structure, you have another decision to make. Should you list your prices on your website?
Believe it or not, even the experts don’t agree on this issue. There are compelling arguments on both sides. Let’s go through some of them:
Reasons to list your prices
- It helps you find your true customers. Listing prices can be a way to pre-qualify your prospects, discourage the “tire kickers,” and attract your true client, the one who is interested.
- It saves you and your customers time. You aren’t dealing with someone who truly cannot afford your service. And prospects don’t spend time listening to your pitch only to learn that it’s out of their budget range.
- Your prospects know what to expect. No guessing. No surprises. You’ll have fewer prospects who mentally “abandon the shopping cart.”
Reasons not to list your prices
- You have not established value and trust yet. This is a big one if your clients need to recognize your credibility as an expert. Your website is a great marketing tool, but not the best one in terms of trust building. You need to establish trust and value first.
- Upfront pricing can be difficult for some businesses. Sometimes, as in the case of website design, there are just too many variables and price depends on exactly what the client’s needs are.
- There is potential for misunderstanding. Some prospects will think to themselves, “”The prices are not listed. They must be high.” Others might look at your hourly fee and wonder if they need one hour or twenty.
Although some of the research shows that sales increase after prices are added, it’s a decision that only you can make. Weigh the pro’s and con’s as they apply to your business. Experiment. Try listing some ranges or perhaps descriptions of past projects and prices.
Before you run to our website and look, no, we don’t list a lot of our prices. The reason? Taking just one example, a client’s website, depending on their needs, can be 2-3 pages of web development, design and copywriting or a complex site, with 20-30 pages, several different products or services, and multiple drop-downs for sub-pages.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
