Using Social Media in Your Marketing

I have always followed the philosophy that your website comes first, online. Meaning-post your content on your website, and then post links to that content on your social media. This ensures that your website receives all the “juice” (traffic, visits, hits). It’s the best way to market your business and improve your SEO. So…website first.

The Change Doesn’t Affect Everyone

There has been a lot of near panic going around this week, that everyone with a WordPress website and a Facebook or Instagram account is going to have issues. I’d like to clarify some things for you and hopefully, make you feel more at ease because it’s not everyone.

First. Do you “pull” (or embed) feeds from Facebook into your website? Videos, posts, reviews? If so, you’ll want to make sure that you have one of two things:

1. A Facebook Developer account with a registered Facebook App. This is done through Facebook, and your web designer may have set this up for you. Contact them if you’re not sure. But ONLY contact them if you have feeds from Facebook embedded into your website.
2. A WordPress Plugin that will do everything for you. The best one around (and I’ve been using it for my clients) is Smash Balloon They have already updated their plugin for these upcoming changes, so if yours is up-to-date you have no worries.

Second. Do you “pull” (or embed) photos or videos from Instagram into your website? If yes, then all you need is the Smash Balloon plugin I mentioned above, and you are good to go!

Keep Calm and Use Smash Balloon

So, to sum it all up…NO, your WordPress website is not going to break because you also have Facebook and Instagram accounts that you use to market your business. It’s a very SPECIFIC change to how a very SPECIFIC process will work. NO, they didn’t spring this on everyone this week. They’ve been emailing people for months to let them know.

The specific process that is affected by this change is: “pulling” (or embedding) content into your website from Facebook and Instagram, not the other way around.

And by the way, the Smash Balloon plugin is an incredible thing! If you’re thinking of adding your social media content to your website, it’s the way to go. It is super easy to use (you don’t need developer knowledge) and it’s kept up to date. And it works on Twitter and YouTube, as well!

I’m always happy to answer any questions you may have regarding this change, so email me if you need more info!

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Smash Balloon in any way, and do not receive any compensation from them. The plugin is just that good!

The post Facebook and Instagram Embeds…Don’t Panic appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

The biggest advantage of a WordPress website is that it combines a functional interactive site with a blog function. It’s truly the best of both worlds.

Thinking through the order of your website content and how you want to present your information is crucial to making an easily navigated site. With WordPress, you will find pages and posts are easily reordered, rearranged, and reassigned…which is one of the biggest reasons that WordPress is the number one CMS (Content Management System) on the web, with an estimated 18+ million websites built on it as of 2017.

Your website is hungry for new content. But do you assign your newly written copy to a page or a post? Let’s look at the differences between WordPress pages and WordPress posts.

WordPress Pages

THE HOME PAGE

WordPress websites have the advantage of easily creating a custom home page for your site or blog. In most cases, your home page is the first page visitors see on your site. If you have a blog only website, your visitors will typically see the most recent posts listed in chronological order (newest first).

When you have created a home page that you feel is complete, you should first publish it. Once published you can designate it as your home page by going to Settings in the dashboard sidebar and clicking on the Reading link. At the top, look for the heading of “Front Page Displays”. This is where you can choose to display a static home page. This will allow your published page to be set as a static home page, which your visitors will see first. Keep in mind that many WordPress themes have custom home page templates, these allow even more flexibility in what your home page displays to your visitors.

ADDITIONAL PAGES

You are not limited to only one page in your website. To create multiple pages besides your home page, log into your dashboard and click on Pages in the sidebar. By clicking Add New, you can add a new page to your site. The page you add will not show up on your site until it is published. You can add a page as a “draft” and continue to edit it until you feel it is complete. This gives you yet another advantage: developing your page content as you are able.

SUB-PAGES

You can also create sub-pages for your WordPress website. Click on Add New to the Pages area and to the right, you’ll see Page Attributes. Here you can assign a Parent page for the page. Any sub-pages would then appear under the parent page.

As an example, consider your About page. If you added a sub-page called Services, your domain would look like this: yourdomain.com/about/services.

You can even add sub-sub-pages, so your URL would look like this: domain.com/about/services/event-planning. The sub and sub-sub pages can be added to a drop down menu within your site’s navigation.

USING PAGE ORDER FOR ORGANIZATIONAL PURPOSES

Another alternative, is to keep all of your pages at the top level, and organize them using the “Order” attribute.

You can assign an order to your pages in the Page Editor “Page Attributes” section/box. Pages are automatically listed in your dashboard in the order you created them, unless you use the “Order” attribute. When an order is designated, pages will then be listed in ascending order based on the number you assigned. This is a great way to put pages you will not use often (such as test or preview pages) at the end of your pages list – out of your way. The “Order” box also applies to child pages. This function is very helpful for keeping track of your pages and sections.

I take advantage of the “Order” attribute to not only give my pages a hierarchy (parent/child), but also to keep “sets” of pages together. For example: pages containing contact forms all begin with 200 (i.e., 201, 202, 203). Pages with photo galleries begin with 300. Pages with policies begin with 400. And so on.

This practice allows me to keep pages on the top level of the site (homepage/toplevel/) vs. deeper (homepage/toplevel/deeperlevel), and yet group them together for organization.

WordPress Posts

A WordPress post is a more fluid option, allowing information to be assigned to categories and sorted within your blog function. Posts are typically shown in the order they are posted and are usually assigned a date, at least one category, and tags.

Posts are traditionally shown in reverse chronological order but you can assign a post stickiness by designating that it that stays at the top of your blog at all times.

To assign stickiness, look in the Post Editor “Publish” section/box. Next to “Visibility” click on edit and under the “Public” option check the “Stick this post to the front page” option box. An example of a post that you might want to be “sticky” would be a “rules for commenting post”. If you create rules, you would want them to always be visible first.

Scheduling your posts ahead of time can also be a great time-saver, when you’re a busy entrepreneur.

WordPress Pages are Static, WordPress Posts are Dynamic

In summary, pages contain more static information that changes infrequently, such as: services, contact information, etc. Posts tend to be more dynamic and frequently added items such as news, events, a blog series, updates, etc.

The post WordPress Pages and WordPress Posts – The Difference Between Them appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

Categories as Clues

Categories act as file folders in a crowded file cabinet. It is easy to find the proper information if it is filed correctly, and retrieved easily.

You can create a new category on your WordPress blog in one of two ways:

1. Go to Posts > Categories in your dashboard, and create as many categories as you’d like, all at once.
2. For true easy creation, click Add Category from the “Categories” box, while creating a post.

OPTION 1. – THE DASHBOARD OPTION

The dashboard option allows you to edit and manage all of your categories at once.

Via the dashboard option, you can add category descriptions (which are shown in some themes), and even create a category hierarchy (parent/child) with sub-categories. This is like labeling your hanging files with one title (ie. Tax Records) and adding labeled sub-folders within (2010 taxes, 2011 taxes, 2012 taxes, etc.).

Option 1. also allows you to delete categories. Deleting a category doesn’t erase your blog post but does move it to your default category (which, as we know, is titled “Uncategorized”, if you never changed it).

Categories and sub-categories are used to help visitors find what they need. Tags can help as well but they tend to be more voluminous and subject specific. For example, let’s say you have a recipe blog and one category is vegetarian foods, while another is chicken recipes.

You would post chicken recipes within the chicken category, but you might use a variety of more specific tags, such as “Mexican chicken,” “salsa chicken,” and “spicy chicken” as well.

MAKING IMPORTANT CHANGES

Changing your “Uncategorized” Category (which is the only category in WordPress out of the box) to something different is very simple. Go to Posts > Categories and click Uncategorized. Change the name from within the “Edit Category” screen. Be sure to change your slug, too. This is what will be used in your blog post URLs, and thus should match the category name whenever possible (for the best SEO advantage).

Changing your Default Category is also very simple. Go to Settings > Writing and near the top you will find “Default Post Category” with a drop down list of all your current categories. Select the category that you would like to have as your default, then click the Save Changes button. That’s it!

Organized Chaos

Category designation can help your visitors navigate your website with ease. As mentioned above, if your website features recipes, you can categorize your posts by food, ethnicity, topic, or some other category. Then if a visitor is interested in chicken, all the chicken recipes will be at her fingertips.

The only downside to categories is if you over do it. Select your categories wisely. If you offer a long list of category selections, you can overwhelm and confuse your visitors. If there are several categories you want to feature, consider consolidating some or adding sub-categories. Often, this is where you might want to consider using a tag instead.

Taking control of your categories is both advantageous to your SEO, but also helpful to your many guests.

The post Categories: Take It to the Next Level With Better Organization appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

WordPress Categories Versus WordPress Tags

Categories within blog posts and pages are broad definitions of the content, such as profiles, special offers, photo gallery, etc. These category designations sort your posts according to topics, often assigning it to a page based on the category. It also helps identify the content for search engines, as well as visitors searching by keyword phrases.

Tags are a micro-definition, far more specific than their category counterparts. A WordPress tag designation digs deeper into the content and describes specifically what’s inside a particular blog post.

A tag can be a specific list of colors or styles, the name of regular contributors, hot button words, or any further designation of the content within your post.

Adding Tags to Your WordPress Site

When you add a new post to your blog, you’ll see a box with the heading “Tags” on the right side.

You add keywords and keyword phrases by typing them into the tag section, separated by commas. Or, if your blog is established and you’ve been using tags for awhile, click Choose from the most used tags and select from your common tags within the tag cloud. To delete a tag from your post, click on the “X” before that tag.

Tags can be managed, in bulk, from the main dashboard as well-allowing you to edit your tags without going into each individual post. Go to Posts > Tags. From there you can add tags, edit them, or delete them.

Tip: WordPress recommends assigning anywhere from 5 to 15 tags for each blog post. Not assigning any tags negates any search engine optimization. An overabundance of tags can make the navigation more difficult for your visitors.

Effective Use of Tags

Several effective strategies for utilizing tags include:

• Think of keyword phrases, rather than a single keyword
• Reuse tags frequently, rather than only once
• Reorganize occasionally, consolidating tag designations and editing for word choice
• Consider adding a tag cloud, tag list, or “find others like this…” option to your site for visitors to utilize

The findability of your site and the effectiveness of your navigation is centered on your tags and categories. Use tags and categories wisely to give your blog the best SEO results possible.
For more help with customizing your tags and category designation and content creation, contact us about our design and content services.

The post WordPress Tags: Your Secret to Better Organization and SEO appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

This wonderful little box, provides the blogger with lots of time-saving tools! Let’s go over the Publish Box from the top:

1. Save Draft button: This allows you to write a post as you have time for it. As a matter of fact, I’ve used this button several times during the writing of THIS post! When you save a draft, your post is not visible on your site. It is also not visible without being logged in.
2. Preview button: This allows you to preview how your post will look on the site with the current changes. Remember, if your post is still only a draft, persons who are not a logged in user on your site will not be able to see the preview.
3. Status: This is automatically set to Draft when you “Save Draft”, and it is automatically set to “Published” once you publish your post. You can, however change it at any time. If you accidentally publish your post, you can easily change it back to a draft. If you are an editor, and need final approval of a post before it’s published you can change the status from “Draft” to “Pending Review”. “Pending Review” means that the post gets flagged in the Posts Admin area of the dashboard as needing to be reviewed. Click the OK button when you’re done.
4. Visibility: This allows you to determine who can see the PUBLISHED post. Public = everyone who visits the site can see the post. Password Protected = allows you to require a visitor to enter a password to see the post. Private = means that the post is only visible to logged in users with editor or admin permissions. Click the OK button when you’re done.
5. Publish: Gives you scheduling options. If nothing is entered here, the post will publish immediately. You can use this area to schedule posts for the future (giving you the flexibility of writing several posts at once in your free time); or you can change a post’s date to the past to rearrange how it displays (order) on your blog. Click the OK button when you’re done.

Once you’ve got everything the way you want it from the options above, none of it will take effect until you hit that “Publish” (or in the case of a previously published article – “Update”) button…even if you’ve clicked the OK button. And don’t forget about your Categories and Tags!

So the next time you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, or you have inspiration to blog…use these wonderful WordPress functions to help you post more effectively!

The post Scheduling Posts and More in Your WordPress Blog appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

To avoid any issues for your website, if you have large flash (or rotating) images at the TOP of your website’s pages, you might want to consider making some changes. I recently decided that I was not only at risk because of my home page image rotation…but I also was not receiving any SEO benefits from that rotation. It was graphically pleasing to the eye, but from a Search Engine’s standpoint, there were no “words” to give it meaning.

After doing some research for a client, I came across a plugin that I feel is a good compromise! RoyalSlider allows me to put Optimized content on a home page, that still “looks pretty” and grabs attention.

This is a great example of why it’s important to keep up to date about how SERP’s change! Good standard SEO is the best insurance (no black hat or trendy tricks), but sometimes there are other elements of your content that can affect your results.

The post Google’s Page Layout Algorithm Improvement – Ads Above the Fold appeared first on Nola Cooper Designs.

There are some basics to WordPress architecture that are very important. Understanding the difference between Posts and Pages in your WordPress website will make a difference in how your site content is organized. Your website’s architecture is very important to your online success.

A Basic Layout

Pages

The pages of your WordPress website should contain static content. Static content is text that informs your visitors and that will not change (or will change very infrequently). Things like “About Us”, “Contact Us”, and “Services” are considered to be static content. Static content CAN and should still be categorized and organized within your site. For example, a Services page could contain an overview of your company’s services (and say for example a Mission Statement). If you have enough content, you could then create a static page for each of your services…making them “children” of the Services page.

While we’re on the topic of Content Families: A Parent Page is a top level page. A Child page is a page that is organized beneath another page. An example would be: “Social Media Marketing” as a child of “Services”.

The best way to keep Pages vs. Posts straight is to remember that Pages are relatively static. You will rarely change their content (minor changes such as prices or phone numbers, etc.), and they are informative sections of your site that generally describe your business.

Posts

If your WordPress website is not primarily a blog to begin with, it’s a great idea to take advantage of the posting ability and add a Blog page to your site…or change it up and call it News or something quirky.

WordPress Posts are wonderful little things! They provide you with a nearly limitless way to keep your site updated and your visitors engaged. Setting up Categories will help keep your posts organized…making them easier to reference later, and even helping your visitor to understand them better. And yes, your post can be in more than one Category.

Basically, a post is an informative article or opinion piece that you provide to your readers to keep them engaged in your website. Posts keep them coming back, get their reactions (through comments), and even get them to SHARE! You can write a post as often as you like…several times a day, once a month…it’s up to you.

REMEMBER: If you’re going to post opinion pieces, don’t forget that the Web is a big place, and with the advent of Social Media, your words will have the ability to travel (and be shared) far and wide. Try not to post something that could reflect negatively on your business, especially if your posts are linked in any way to your business website.

Incredible Flexibility

Your WordPress website does not have to contain any posts at all. If your site is more of a brochure for your business, and you don’t have a desire (or the time) to engage your visitors on a regular basis, then there’s no need to post.

However, do keep in mind that posting to a blog or news section on your site and being social, keeps your visitors coming back…AND keeps the search engines coming back as well!

¹ from Website Design.

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A theme is your WordPress website’s template or skin. It’s what makes your site look good and work well. Depending on how it was designed, your theme should also have built in functions for the site, including menus (for upper, side, and bottom navigation of the site), widgets, blog integration, and different page templates.

Basic WordPress theme components:

• Widgets – the theme should (at the very least) have a widgetized sidebar.
• Custom Menus – WordPress added this feature as of version 3.0, so your theme should be able to utilize it…at least for the main navigation.
• Easy Customization – If you’re using a premium theme, and you didn’t hire a designer, you should be able to upload your own logo to and change some basic colors in your theme.
• SEO – your theme should be set up for easy integration of SEO plugins. Things like breadcrumbs, custom meta tags, custom page titles, etc.
• Fewer Plugins – Your theme should not require tons of plugins to function properly. The more plugins you use, the greater risk of increasing your load-time.

Okay…so what’s a Widget?

Widgets are tools or content that you can add, arrange, and remove from the “widgetized” areas of your site. Widgets make it easy to customize your layout. They show up within your WordPress dashboard in the Appearance menu (see image to the right). Typically, the widgetized areas of your site will be labeled (this one is labeled Blog Side Bar). You’ll be able to select the widgets you want, then drag and drop them into any area you want. You may have a widgetized sidebar area, or footer area. Using these little gems, you can add a search box, Social Media links, a blog roll (list of links), recent blog posts, blog categories and much more….making your site unique.

Creating a Custom Menu

To find out if your theme uses Custom Menus, visit the “Menus” link in the Appearance menu of your dashboard. In the Theme Locations box, it will tell you how many (if any) custom menus your theme supports. You can create menus and name them whatever you’d like (such as “Top Navigation”, “Footer Navigation”, etc.). Once you’ve created and saved a menu, you will then be able to designate which of your new menus should be used in which area of your site. In my example on the right, I created two menus: Top Navigation Menu, and Footer Navigation Menu. I then selected the Top Navigation Menu as my Primary Navigation, and the Footer Navigation Menu as my Footer Navigation.

Theme Types

There are some basic types of themes available, the main difference being the home page layout:

1. Blog – Used if your site will function only as a blog. This theme will show your most recent blog posts on the home page, and you’ll have static pages for “About” and “Contact”. You can also add your blog categories as sections of your top navigation, or as a list in your sidebar to make it easier for your viewers to find content.
2. Static Home Page – Best used for a brochure site, a theme with a static home page allows you to put in whatever home page content you’d like. With this type of theme, you can create a separate “blog” page (for news or updates), or no blog at all. You would typically utilize the pages in this type of theme and not the posts and post categories.
3. Magazine Style – A magazine style theme is becoming very common amongst WordPress users. With a magazine style theme, your home page contains many sections. Those sections may contain blog posts from specific categories, widgets, image galleries and more. With the right theme setup, you’ll be limited only by your imagination! This type of theme can also have a separate “blog” page, where all posts can be accessed in one place. Magazine style themes allow you to showcase your content.

Your theme can also be divided into columns (for displaying your content); from one column all the way up to several columns.

How do I choose a theme?

The best way to decide on a theme is to know beforehand what you want that theme to do for you. Choosing to use the WordPress platform for your site was a smart step. The next one is to sit down and create a flow-chart of your site. Once you know your site’s basic sections, you’ll have an idea of how you want the site to function overall. This will then help you determine what type of “home page layout” will best suit your content.

Remember to keep your target market in mind when deciding on a theme. Usability is important, and if your readers are confused by your content, your site will not do well.

Another determining factor will be ease of use. If you do not have the budget to hire a designer, you’ll need a theme that’s super easy for the end user.

Colors matter! Make sure that the theme you’ve chosen also matches your branding color scheme. If it doesn’t, then it should be easy to change those colors without knowing CSS or HTML. If you have basic HTML and CSS knowledge, then you’ll be able to do even more with your theme, and colors will not be a factor.

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SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing. (from Wikipedia)

There are SEO techniques or “trends” that can get you in trouble, so know your risks

Spamdexing – (aka search spam) repeating unrelated phrases, to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system. Here are three common ways of “spamdexing”:

Keyword Stuffing – calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page. Long lists of keywords or keyword phrases placed within page content (or in most cases, at the end of the page content) are considered keyword stuffing. Making them into internal links does not negate the fact that it’s stuffing! Which brings us to…

Link Spam – links between pages that are present for reasons other than merit (or good content). Hidden links or putting hyperlinks where visitors will not see them to increase link popularity. Highlighted link text can help rank a webpage higher for matching that phrase.

Article Spinning – rewriting existing articles by changing a few words here and there, to avoid penalties imposed by search engines for duplicate content.

Another frowned upon SEO technique is Hidden Content – adding pages and/or content to your site that is not viewable by your site’s visitors, but created specifically for the search engines.

While many forms of spamdexing and hidden content are practiced today, and they can, and often do, produce positive short term SEO results – they can be a risky practice. SE’s have been known to ban a site for these methods. Most SEO professionals will tell you that SEO is a process..and a process that takes time. Anything worthwhile does, right?

So what can you do as a website owner? Sometimes even with a good SEO plugin the time required to optimize your site just is not available (whether it’s your time or an employee’s time). If you have to hire an SEO firm, be sure they tell you up-front what techniques they will use. Get details. Discuss risks. Find out what they will do if their process causes your site to be banned. If they promise you a first page or top listing…find out exactly what keyword or keyword phrase that will be for (you may be surprised to find it’s not so relevant to your site’s content). In a nutshell, be aware…

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ:

• Google Says Goodbye to Black Hat SEO
• The 5 Best White Hat SEO Techniques
• There is Nothing “Urgent” in SEO

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There are two types of “WordPress” sites:

WordPress.com

Blogs that are set up on the WordPress.com site, are hosted there, and while you are able to use free themes (templates), and make some changes, you do not have the flexibility that you have with your own site…and you have the SEO disadvantage of sending website traffic to a domain other than your own.

Self-Hosted

Self-hosted WordPress sites use the free software downloaded from WordPress.org, and are installed on your own domain and hosting account. Besides the advantage of the traffic going directly to your own domain, your use of themes and plugins is only limited by your (and your designer’s) imagination.

To run a self-hosted WordPress site you need to be sure of a couple of basic things about your hosting account.  (1) You need at LEAST 50MB of disk space (more if you’re going to blog, or use eCommerce); and (2) You need to be able to create at least ONE MySQL database.

Why Use WordPress?

Simply put, the WordPress platform is easy to install, easy to use, and easy to optimize for every type of website. Even a novice can quickly get online with a WordPress website. The newest versions of WordPress make it easy to add images to your site, upload documents, and change your site’s navigation, content, and structure. With the added use of select plugins, it’s easy to embed videos, incorporate social media, and take charge of your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

If you plan to “blog” or even just post regular “news” on your site, WordPress is an excellent choice. Your content (posts) can be organized using categories and tags that will then make it easier for your readers to find them. The regular updates to content that come from blogging or posting, make the system carry more weight with the search engines, thus help to improve your rankings. WordPress also allows interaction with your visitors via a built in commenting system that you have complete control over.

Because your site’s content is database driven, it is very simple to reorganize that content at any time, just by changing categories, tags, page order, or the site’s navigation. And with themes (both free and custom), changing the look of your site can be as easy as a few clicks!

WordPress is the ultimate platform to test everything from site layout to content. And what better way to insure you get the best visitors to your site, than to test?

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