A Small Business Owners Manual for the Internet Presentation 4 of 9

1. How I learned to stop worrying… and love the web A Small Business Owners Manual for the InternetPresentation 4 of 9

2. The Big Picture From Stardust to Super Nova

3. Web Presence vs. Website You need more than a website to be successful on the web today. You need a web presence. This means…

4. A Web Presence • WordPress Website • Social Media • Forum and Q&A accounts • Web 2.0 Sites • ???... What’s next

5. Web Collateral All of your web properties need these things to be successful. • SEO • Content • Engagement

6. Web Collateral The keyword target for all of these are… • Your Domain Name or top keyword • The two supporting termsyou picked That’s it for now… remember sniper…..

7. A Process Overview It’s just not possible to cover every detail step by step. The following is an attempt to show processes and basic guidelines.

8. From Orbit

9. No Brainer - Foundations This process works for any website regardless of SEO… however it is not nearly as effective without keyword research, SEO, and a solid website. Your website is the center of your universe. If it is not built right.. Everything else will be harder to do.

10. Going Super Nova Think of your website as the core of your growing planet. Each piece of static content is part of that core. Each blog you write adds to and supports a part of that core. Every marketing effort adds to the growth of your planet. Every follower, subscriber, and fan helps grow your influence Every click, every conversion, grows your influence Fans are customers andsales people … The driving force is content and the proliferation of that content.

11. Circle of Influence A cool way to see it all

12. A quick blog example

13. A quick blog example • Pick a keyword • Pick conversion goal(s) • Write a blog about KW and publish it • Use ping service to announce new post • Send post link to social channels • Send post link to email campaign • Send post to social bookmarks (web 2.0 sites) • Find a related Q&A topic and add post link • Find related blog topic comment and link • Track results in Analytics • Revise and repeat

14. SEO Blogging Mechanics • One target Keyword • Supporting terms if applicable • 150 words minimum • At least one image / element per 150 words • 300-500 words is good • SEO all content (images, vids, text) • SEO meta title and descriptions • Link from keywords to static pages • This assumes you’ve done keyword research • This assumes you have a blog queue

15. SEO Blogging content • Summarize first • Tell a story • Don’t be boring • Ask for engagement (question, feedback, comment, poll) • Tease… A reason to come back • You are marketing your personality… So have one.

16. Content Proliferation Social Media • Be creative • Be a tease • Target emotional triggers • Ask for help or an opinion • Be funny • Be controversial • You are marketing your personality.. So have one.

17. Social Media Examples

18. Social Media Examples

19. SM @Pearsonified • 15,000+ followers • Only follows back 150 or so • He is the brand behind Thesis • Tweets images, vids, links, etc… • Has an opinion • Is controversial • Blends marketing efforts with who he is. • Transparent, open, and engaging

20. Social Media Examples

21. Social Media Numbers • Average twitter user has 126 followers • Average Facebook user has 120 followers • Average Linked In user has 120 followers • Potential reach through all three 1.5 Million • A twitter account with 4000 followers can generate between 75 and 130 clicks to any link from a single tweet, depending on your fan base. This is fan power!

22. Social Media Works If... • You have a solid SEO foundation • You have personality • You are a resource • You do not over sell • You provide value • You are creative in 140 characters • You engage your fans • You work it!

23. Social Rules • 80% resource • 10% personality only topic related • 5% random BS • 5% sales.. If that.. Social is not about sales

24. Site Review ecologiclandscape.com

25. Key Points • Overall Look (Design) • User Interface Layout (UX) • Typography (super critical) • SEO (keywords, content, structure) • Functionality (speed, security, accessibility) • Circle of Influence (traffic, social engagement, etc…)

26. Old school websites

27. WordPress The most powerful tool on the web for Small Business Owners…

28. CMS ( content management system) • Blog (the most powerful tool you have) • A website platform • A system YOU can learn to use! • The ONLY way your website should be built WordPress - What is it?

29. 72 MILLION websites and counting • Major companies use it • Largest support community in the web world • More choices than any other platform • The easiest system to learn • Stays up to date with regular maintenance WordPress - Why use it?

30. WordPress Shady old school developers will lie to you about WordPress to keep your business.. They make a lot of money that way… They know that WordPress gives you control… they are very afraid you’ll find out…

31. WordPress – installation WordPress is a one button install in Cpanel. Cpanel is the most widely used website server platform. If your hosting company does not use Cpanel.. Dump them… Everything else is a pain in the ass to work with.

32. Front end ( layout and design) • Back end or (admin) • Pages and posts (content) • Themes and skins (design framework) • Plugins (add-on functions) WordPress - Terminology

33. WordPress – Front end The front end of WordPress is what everyone who visits your sites sees. It’s the way your pages are laid out and styled. It is also the end user experience. How they navigate though your site and what they see what they go to each page or post on your site. Design and end user experience are important! You cannot do these things on your own effectively unless you have professional design experience.

34. WordPress – Admin The back end or Admin are of WordPress is where you control everything that goes on. This is where you write your posts and pages, install plugins.. Everything. The more you learn about the WordPress admin… The less you’ll need to rely on other people to manage your site. This puts the control in your hands... You just need to be willing to learn. It’s not hard.. It’s just a lot. It’s like MS Word.. Only much more powerful.

35. WordPress – Logging in

36. WordPress – Logging in

37. WordPress – Quick change

38. WordPress – Quick change

39. WordPress – Quick change

40. WordPress – Quick change

41. WordPress was designed to be used by the average person.. For the most part. Learning how to do everything by yourself is not practical for small business owners. There are things you will have to hire out for if you want your site done right. Understanding what these things are and how they work is more important to you than doing them. This is what gives you the edge over your competitors. You will know what’s going on and how things work. This gives you the power to know what you can change, what you cannot, and how to move forward. No Brainer Takeaway

42. WordPress – Pages & posts

43. WordPress – Designs WordPress can be designed to look anyway you want it. Just like an old school site. But WordPress uses theme’s and skins to give you a ton of design choices and functionalities ready to go with the click of a button. Can’t do that with old school…

44. Front End WordPress – Designs

45. WordPress – Designs WordPress comes with a theme. It’s OK but not good enough for a professional small business website. The Thesis Theme for WordPress is packed with awesomeness! It is the most widely used professional paid theme for WordPress. Thesis is designed for both small business owners and web development professionals. Installing Thesis takes about 1 minute…

46. WordPress – Thesis

47. WordPress – Thesis skin

48. WordPress Rocks! There are a lot of themes but Thesis is by far the best. Thesis has a huge support team, lots of free lance coders who work with it, and a lot of plugins designed to work with it. Thesis was built for serious small business owners. It’s packed with options and all the SEO options you need to build you site right… However…

49. WordPress Rocks! Thesis is not for the slacker! It is a robust platform and takes time to learn. Thesis skins are a great easy way to start you design.. But skins are not a complete professional design.. They are design baselines and also provide added functionalities to make it easier to work with. Even with Thesis and a quality skin, you will need to contract with a professional designer to create “design elements”. These extra design pieces will make your site unique and enhance the end user experience.

50. WordPress Rocks! WordPress gives you easy ways to “style” your on page content… the problem with this is that many of the styles you’ll need to use need to be coded by a professional. If you use the built in WordPress styling functions, you will have in-line styles… This is not good SEO. Remember.. Styles or how things look are part HTML but mostly CSS. CSS should not be on page or in-line. Good SEO requires CSS to be separated and in it’s own file.