THE QUESTION

  With us the answer to the question “Is it my website?” is always “yes”; however, with many hosts the answer is often “no” and that may be a much bigger problem than some have considered. It’s a question that often stems from whether or not a business can take a site it has developed from one host to another. The devil is always in the details and money spent is certainly relevant, BUT before investing in a website be sure to understand what’s truly at stake!

WHAT IS AT STAKE?

  Online a website is the beginning and a means. While marketing and search engine optimization requires time, effort and [often] money it all counts toward building a ‘digital footprint’. What is a ‘digital footprint? It’s a forever growing record of digital interactions. A cumulative record, for instance, used by search engines to rank a site and its content versus the competition. It’s a page maybe several people have bookmarked (or linked, shared and liked) possibly to recommend to others or to reference for when they are ‘ready to buy’. All potential new business … assuming those records stand the test of time.

  If a business doesn’t own its’ website it likely does not control its’ current and future ‘digital footprint’. For the serious business, a long term mistake.

WHEN IS A WEBSITE NOT MINE?

  You see the ads for curiously cheap or even free websites. Ever wonder how or even why it’s free? Maybe the provider is selling something else so profitable [i.e. shared hosting or PPC service plans] it makes throwing in a template website worth doing for free. A classic ‘bait & switch’.

  Maybe the host offers a platform that suits an immediate need more cost effectively than ‘development from scratch’. There’s the free subdomain of WordPress.com [i.e. mystore.wordpress.com] option, where authority gained from digital transactions are passed along to the primary domain.  

  And free or cheap is nice, but NOT if it undermines a marketer’s opportunity to protect its’ historical record of digital interactions … and future business growth.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

  An architect might tell you that the shape or FORM of a building should be based upon its intended FUNCTION or purpose. Let’s parallel a ‘digital footprint’ in a way that defines what a website’s purpose SHOULD be. The data trail left by interactions in a digital environment or, better yet, the size of a companies’ “online presence” measured by its’ history of interactions is it’s ‘digital footprint’. Inputs to a ‘digital footprint’ may include location, search engine crawls, key word use, links, content, bookmarks, recommendations, social network activity, direct subscriptions and many more ‘signals’ that lend themselves to visibility (or a website’s function) over time.

  Why does a company build a website in the first place? Hopefully not only to own a website, but to be ever more visible online; to drive traffic, capture leads and generate business. For perspective, disregard all the signals a marketer’s website can accumulate in it’s ‘footprint’ over time. Rather, look solely at one – the time a business begins hosting its’ website on a particular URL. Time or ‘date stamp’ is a signal and it counts toward a search engine’s definition of authority in a competitive environment. Depending on the level of competition for visibility and traffic, for instance maybe in a less competitive geographic region, ‘date stamp’ for when a business arrived with some content at its’ URL can be enough to outrank the competition. And to outrank is, in theory, to drive traffic and potential new business. 

  Most subjects and geographic regions are a great deal more competitive for traffic, but using the one signal demonstrates the larger value proposition and what’s at stake. The big picture is not just that a business should own its’ website, but it should be in control of an entire history of interactions and the means to grow its’ visibility forever and ever! 

WORDPRESS.ORG AND PORTABILITY

  WordPress.org is open source software available under the ‘General Public License’ or GPL, which *generally* (within GPL scope) gives its user the right to do with it what they wish. Open source software might loosely be defined as base software code one can manage, develop, advance and/or launch applications (like themes and plugins) from without having to rewrite that base code. With WordPress.org and a little knowledge or help, a business can change hosts and never concern themselves with whether or not it’s all theirs

  Because so many people seem confused about the subject and it certainly can be confusing, we felt it might help to differentiate WordPress.com from WordPress.org for business websites. To be clear the use of either version of WordPress can be free, but this post is meant to help differentiate the two and to offer support for folks unlikely to be familiar OR to design & manage a sophisticated business website themselves.

Most Websites Use WordPress

  There’s a reason WordPress is the most widely used website software on the planet and it’s ONLY PART because it can be free. Mostly it’s because the software’s ‘open source’ status has attracted the collective talents of the largest development community on earth to maintain & advance it. And because of that collective talent, a business can build virtually any enhancement into its’ WordPress website - affordably! It’s because just a few years ago those same enhancements would have been prohibitively expensive and quite possibly less reliable. And it’s also because, rather than ‘a potentially soon to be obsolete website’, WordPress advances at an unparalleled pace. 

WordPress.com

  With WordPress.com, if you don’t concern yourself with your own domain name or too much customization you might be just fine. With WordPress.com you will have to accept a free subdomain [i.e. mybusiness.wordpress.com], basic shared hosting and some potentially unwelcome embedded advertising, but you won’t have to install or set anything up. While there is always going to be a learning curve, it offers ‘forum support’ for any questions and there’s also a series of free themes with limited customization capability. Keep in mind that nothing is truly free online. There are conveniences here, but the catch is some embedded advertising and cost when you want upgrades or any freedom to customize. If that doesn’t sit well, or you know you’ll want a site much more specific to your business needs, than you’ll likely need WordPress.org.

WordPress.org

  If you want a completely custom website on your own domain, unlimited features, maybe some 3rd party software integration, NO more forced advertising, managed hosting, lots of storage and the flexibility to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it … than you are going to need WordPress.org. Regardless of whether or not you want live support, one way or another the upgrades & constant maintenance will have to be managed. Important: basic shared hosting plans will not do this! And it’s only with WordPress.org that one will be able to leverage support into more features, more design and the customization that meets particular needs.

WordPress For Business

  Ultimately what this all means is, you can get a free site and / or blog at WordPress.com. It is going to be a subdomain URL of WordPress [i.e. business.wordpress.com] and it’s going to be limited to what those that manage WP.com platform decide it has. Or you can download software for free from WordPress.org, with no limitations. Note that unless you’re capable with the upgrades, security, maintenance, hosting, customization & design – they are going to cost a little money. It’s the case regardless of the software platform and it happens to be what Kinetic Knowledge focuses on. Unless you are a capable do-it-yourselfer, let us know what you have in mind. We can do all the heavy lifting AND you can focus on your core business 

RELATED POSTS:

Understanding WordPress

“Ranking being so valuable, how does a true biz owner that offers a legitimate business and has a vast number of customers supposed to gain the traffic *deserved* over those that specialize in creating traffic? Is it supposed to be this hard for us?”

It’s Q & A a number of business owners will appreciate, quick & simple!

Here Are Our Takeaways:

• To a degree, the web is a level playing field.
• Google tries to treat all information (online) in a level fashion. 
• However Google can’t identify, consume and value or rank information unless it is online.
• If a business has a bad website (or bad web presence), unfortunately it’s all Google has to go on.
• Make sure the website is easily navigated by, and user friendly to, visitors.
• There are many ways to compete for search traffic. For instance, if this particular business was slow to get online they’re not necessarily limited. The business owner claims to have a “vast number of customer relationships”. Relationships are a potentially huge competitive signal online, but the business owner has to learn how to leverage them for Google’s algorithm to see.

What Cutts doesn’t say in so many words is, ‘A good web presence requires planning and execution. Just like in the real world, a business has to get online and leverage what it has in a way that can be seen by a search engine. And no business is entitled to succeed – it has to compete!’

Useful Support On How:

• About ‘Web Optimization’ 
• About Google ‘Authorship’!
• Online Marketing Tips

Anecdote aside, a common problem for business owners is a ‘web presence’ that was never planned with a target & strategy in mind. Some roll out with a focus on website design, some SEO or Email Marketing and others 3rd party social networks like Facebook. They all count, and when planned in a cooperative fashion they will collectively amount to a powerful web presence. However, because Google remains where ‘consumer intent to buy‘ lives let’s focus on how to prepare for them first!

BEST PRACTICES WITH GOOGLE

It’s never easy and there are always competitive variables, but here are the fundamentals of how to begin planning that professional Google- friendly web presence:

• Website Content
• Something Google has always been vocal to marketers about is, “it’s all about the consumer and content that helps them”. Place focus on what existing and future customers want & need (never SEO tricks) and a business will not only attract the qualified traffic it targets, but it will build a long term sustainable presence online.
• For a business it is as simple as sharing from what ensues every day, questions, answers and education. What question did one client ask today that can be published with a useful answer for others to see? The fact is many prospective clients are searching for that same answer, so Google is saying “be there with useful information and we’ll do our best to make the connection”.
• It requires a little discipline and some time, but consumers expect answers and Google makes its’ living by putting consumers and the information they need together.
• Your website has a blog, use it and you should convert targeted consumers into customers!
• Content Keywords
• Keywords are the phrases consumers search to research questions. Every business needs to identify what keywords their target consumers search and use them in content. Think of it this way, keywords are how Google connects the searching consumer with a website’s content. The consumer searches ‘Broward County FL Disability Insurance’ and Google serves up a list of pages with those very keywords.
• There are some simple best practices like use keywords in page titles, keywords in meta tag titles & descriptions, keywords in permalink URLs and, rather than repeating them over and over in the body of a page, use synonyms or similar words and phrases.
• No tricks here: it’s all about the consumer and the content they seek … and traffic will come.
• Google Plus
• Google is doing everything it can to measure legitimate social reaction (signals = likes, shares, links, etc.) that content receives in as many environments as it can.
• Like it or not, Google’s social network is here and they are prepared to reward it’s use because they can easily verify & track it! Establishing a Google Plus account is important, for instance, so that Google can offer & acknowledge verified votes (or +1s).
• Registering a website’s blog with the Google Plus ‘Authorship’ application also helps verify a connection between content and its true author. It then rewards that verification by affiliating name & headshot with content, making indexed keywords incrementally more visible in search results.
• And then in circumstances where a business markets local, a Google Plus Local page will consume both reviews and ‘address mapping’ as signals for local search results.
• Folks, you need a Google Plus account!
• Don’t Cheat
• We’ve said it for years now and it’s pretty simple, “trying to outsmart Google isn’t going to be productive in the long run”.
• To simplify, Google mostly used to place emphasis on how many times websites linked to other websites. They felt a link was a vote of confidence and those sites that received votes should be rewarded with higher ranking in search results. They still believe it and do well identifying the good (from the bad) links generated on merit, but their logic was also exploited as an opportunity to cheat by companies and some SEOs. Elaborate back link schemes undermined search result quality and Google had to adjust. The adjustment eliminated millions, maybe billions, of back links and those who willingly or even unknowingly pursued these bad links dropped or even disappeared from search results.
• The algorithm uses a couple hundred signals and the weight of each can be adjusted as often as every day, but back links were highly rated signals. Solutions like Google Plus mean to improve signal measurement options. 
• Per the anecdote above, there are still companies trying to sell ‘silver bullets’, meritless tactics and wee all need to understand & avoid them. Google’s own business depends on connecting consumers with the best (never gamed) search results. So don’t buy back links and, in general, use discipline, some know- how and don’t ever cheat!

Support: 

• What Does ‘Google Crawl’ Mean AND How Will Your Site’s Blog Help Influence It?
• Website Design
• Google Plus Pages
• Facebook Pages
• Email Marketing

  It’s no news that more and more consumers are accessing the web from their mobile devices. So how websites appear in mobile browsers has to be taken seriously. Particularly if we want our visitors to have the best experience possible.

As website designers, we know there are new devices with new screen resolutions arriving every day and we certainly intend to support that reality. This post aims to provide useful information for the small to medium sized business owner.

WordPress and Mobile

For many business owners it may seem like the latest in an endless procession of new technology headaches. If you’re with us, your site is more than likely built with WordPress. Not only are you visible to all browsers & devices, but you have time to evaluate mobile options. There is certainly NO NEED to develop new mobile websites with new content, separate URLs, new code and an entirely new set of competitive SEO challenges.

Regardless of the browser it’s viewed in, your website is visible to mobile phones and tablets. Recent studies by Pew Internet Research suggest many people have difficulty reading detailed web pages on small screens so, to tailor a website for smaller devices, we offer an incredibly cost effective mobile option.

With this solution, the site will detect what kind of browser [mobile or desktop] a visitor is using and adapt the screen accordingly. In effect, a different view designed specifically for smaller screens is shown when the visitor’s device uses a mobile browser. In this scenario, the design can also offer visitors the choice to switch back to the original website for folks on larger mobile devices, like tablets that might appreciate a website’s entire navigation. In this scenario both website owner and visitor are served.

Responsive Design

Although the term “adaptive design” covers a broader idea, underneath this concept is a website layout known as “responsive design”.  A responsive design refers to a site that automatically conforms itself regardless of browser and to any screen resolution. Technically, responsive design uses a CSS media query to figure out what resolution a visiting device has and, using flexible images and grids, sizes itself to fit that screen. The advance is not only a small device version of a site, but a site that adapts equally well to any device or screen resolution. One website for all devices, if you will.

While we both endorse and offer responsive design websites, we are seeing so much hype around a supposed immediate need that this post aims to lend caution. Responsive design is relatively new, it’s a project that requires understanding, sound decision making and also respect for what may have already been established (in terms of a marketing presence online over the years.) Informed decisions about change are always in order. For instance, how will content navigation look to a visitor in various screen resolutions? What will come of 3rd party software integration? Has traffic analytics been reviewed to see what percentage of traffic is actually arriving via mobile browser.

And that’s a start, but never ever a reaction. The bottom line is, regardless of what pressure stems from emerging change and even some bias, you have time to evaluate and excellent options too! We’d love to answer any questions, so please do not hesitate to get in touch.

RELATED:

Understanding How Mobile Drives Conversions

Have You Checked Your Lead Capture Forms Lately?!

  Your website should do many things for you, no  one more important than to drive new business leads! And while this post may be routine for some, the variables are such that hopefully it’s a reminder to check your lead capture forms!

  A client recently changed their email address, but failed to update the change in their ‘form notifications’. In doing so they innocently
negated any email notification normally generated when a site visitor fills out a contact form. While these contacts are stored in a ‘form entries’ file, this client was not in the habit of logging into the dashboard to check for new entries. And, having automated email expectations, why would they check? Don’t let this happen to you! 

Here’s How To Troubleshoot Lead Capture Forms

  Receiving inquiries and getting back to them quick is an obvious priority. This video walks one through the steps required in order to both 1) edit a forms’ email address for notifications and also 2) troubleshoot any possibility email notifications are out of sync with ‘spam containment.’

  In WordPress you want to:

> Login To Your Dashboard
> Locate Forms On The Dashboard’s Left Sidebar
> Click Forms
> Choose The Form You’re Troubleshooting
> Click Notifications
> Update email address in ‘Send To:’
> Save
> Go back to your live site
> Refresh your browser to be thorough
> Enter a test submission into your form and send
> Check your email inbox

  Regardless of whether it is an on site- based form or those possibly embedded via a 3rd party application, for instance Real Estate IDX applications, it’s always best to get in the habit of double checking your site’s forms! 

More Recent Video Education:

• Size And Embed Videos [Update]
• Managing Home Page Top Level Navigation Tabs
• Embed Youtube Video In A WordPress Widget

  Our last two posts have gone on about the importance of improving ‘content that stinks’ and how to grab people’s attention with content.

  This post looks strictly at fundamental techniques known to better search engine optimize content. In other words, this has nothing to do with appealing to people; this post is about how to better prepare content for competitive placement in the [SERPS] search engine results pages?

How To Search Engine Optimize Content

1. Use The Keywords Your Market Actually Searches! – search engines index content for it’s keywords so target what you know your market will search
   • Research target keywords
   • Place keywords in post & page titles
   • Reinforce keywords, especially high in the body of posts & pages
   • If local, add geographic keyword modifiers
   • Leverage synonyms in content
   • Never overuse or ‘keyword stuff’
     
2. Use Meta Tags! – search engine spiders don’t always crawl the entire page, but they always look to identify it’s purpose via the meta title tag 
   • Override post or page titles tailored to people, normally acquired automatically as the title tag, with targeted meta title tags
   • Add meta tag descriptions to support a more enticing listing in the [SERPS] search engine results pages
3. Use Images & Video! – search engines actually place emphasis on identifying & indexing good alternative image and video content
   • Tag photos and video using descriptive ‘alt text’
   • Add keywords in the image & video file name (dog.jpeg, not picture.jpeg)
   • Describe videos in the surrounding text 
4. Gather Back Links! – it’s an abused signal, but search engines believe they can identify (only) the good organic links as votes for your content
   • Use your own content to back link to other useful content
   • Add these internal back links in keyword rich anchor text
   • Use these internal back links only when relevant to the purpose of the page
   • Comment on other sites & blogs, adding back links
   • Register leading business directories, adding back links
   • Attract organic back links from sites based upon the merit of great content
   • Add your content (post title, excerpt and a back link) to social network accounts
   • Never use low level tactics like link farming, comment link spam and or link acquisition – search engines use methods to identify and penalize for this!  
5. Offer Social Sharing – the social graph has become a huge signal for search engines, if visitors like the page a simple click may motivate ‘shares’ direct to their entire circle of friends & followers!

And for those who understand the power of content for their business, but just don’t see themselves finding the time to write, get in touch about our affordable content management services!

How Do We Add Impact With Our Blog?  

  The goal should always be to create compelling posts that address a need. For us marketers, that ‘need’ is very simply what we sell. After all, traffic, leads and new business is the point… isn’t it?

  ‘Advertising Copywriters’ use a method that, when followed with discipline, is not only easy to apply to advertorial blogging but adds a ton of impact! This method of writing first 1) attempts to command the attention of many readers, 2) next to peak their interest, 3) then to lead to a desire for the solution and 4) finally lands with an offer … a call to action. Simple!

How Do We Get A Reaction With Our Blog? 

  Let’s break down this blogs’ last post in order to demonstrate the actual use of this age old ‘advertising copy method’.

1. Attention: ‘Your Content Stinks!’ is certainly not the most pleasant post title, but it wasn’t meant to be nice. It was meant to challenge you to consider that possibility. Does my content stink? Why does my content stink? The title was meant to get your ATTENTION. 
2. Interest: And why does it matter if your content stinks? Whether we’re writing for the benefit of our visitors, for search engine visibility, social network visibility, more back links, bookmarks, for our email list or all of the above, the content is all about advertising. The problem we’re addressing is ‘cost effective advertising that works’, a universal concern among business people. And this isn’t just any advertising, but the most cost effective potentially viral advertising we could ever do. So if the content stinks it’s not going to support sales AND that is going to be of INTEREST.
   
3. Desire: Sure, if your content is great, no harm done and off you go. If not, naturally you’re going to think about a solution. There’s the discipline to write better yourself or, if there’s no time to write, the desire to get help. It’s here where we build our case. Even if you seek help, the potential benefits of copy writing are so obvious and cost effective (comparably to other forms of advertising) that the DESIRE to begin producing great content is real… and that’s where we mention we’ve got some solutions.
   
4. Action: And finally desire sets action in motion. The offer, a call to ACTION to either get disciplined with some education and new content or to hire help. It just so happens we have a blogging service and a special offer to write the 1st post FREE, so that the style and discipline is ‘crystal clear’ going forward. 

With our next post we’ll go past reader impact and look at the things you can do *simultaneously* to better support competitive search engine indexing. 

Content Is Free, Potentially Viral, Advertising

  Does your content stink? The subject is so incredibly important to your business this post ONLY means to force you to think about the subject of your content. It’s our job to convince prospects that our products and services add great value. On the web, where consumers have the control, demonstration of value stems from current useful content. Its’ also our content that can go so far for FREE, serving as advertising everywhere it goes. Imagine publishing one post and seeing it:

1. live on site demonstrating value for all visitors to see;
2. index keywords in the search engines for all searchers to find;
3. feed out to social networks where its visible to friends direct and also consumed into the social search indexes for others to find;
4. sent out to an entire email database and any RSS subscribers direct;
5. shared by recipients out to their social network friends;
6. bookmarked by many as a saved reference AND
7. linked to from other sites.

Too Busy To Use Free Advertising

   There’s so much going on in our ‘business day’ that would be useful (as content) to prospects if we could only find time to publish it. The knowledge, tips and answers we all have that are likely to make prospects that much more likely to become clients. If the content stinks … maybe it’s because we’re afraid, uncommitted, uninformed about the viral possibilities of web optimization noted above or maybe we’re just too busy. Whatever the case, many most of us are failing miserably to leverage good content as advertising.

What’s The Answer?

   If you’re in business it’s time to get disciplined … or to get help! It’s so important we’re going write more about methods for creating better content in the coming weeks, BUT if you know you don’t have the time to produce good tactical content let’s discuss options.

FREE Help in February

  We have no problem doing a content review & strategy consultation. If you’re already writing but feel it could be better, we’d still love to take a look at it with you. If you decide to use our writing services in February, we’ll even write the 1^st post free! Not to diminish the value: the point is to develop a strategy and a writing style that fits. We offer experienced copy writing & blogging services and have for 7 years now! So contact us now to discuss a program that fits your particular strategy & budget!

  The first post in February is FREE!

What Is a ‘Social Graph’?

  The social graph in terms of the Internet has been referred to as “global mapping of everybody and how they are related.” Better yet it’s a giant graph meant to
demonstrate the personal relationships of Internet users … and Facebook wants to exploit it.

What Is ‘Social Graph Search’?

  And we all thought we were just sharing a few laughs with friends… Social graph search is search & search results based upon what we and our friends like or do. Facebook wants to expose all the personal information it has, currently the largest social database in the world, for their new pillar application ‘Social Graph Search’.

How Will It Be Used?

  It’s going to be search, but the results will be related to ‘connections’ [and possibly their connections' connections] activity. Don’t get too excited yet, Social Graph Search is in beta testing and only available to a select few Facebookers’ right now. They say they have a long way to go with it, but as it’s rolled out early focus will be on searching people, photos, places and business pages. For individuals it might mean being able to search “what friends like to snowboard” maybe to find a travel mate for that vacation time coming due. For a business, say a Ski Resort, it might mean coming up in the results when individuals search and their friends have liked it. For instance, maybe “what resorts do friends like to snowboard”. 

Is It Important To Business?

  All marketers are going to want to be visible in an environment where lots of people search, especially if we can be on the positive end of people’s thoughts and activity. So while not a huge thing so far and certainly not a part of Facebook’s standard search yet, it’s likely to going to be very important. Maybe one day as important as the consumer visibility we all seek in Google now.

What Should Business People Do?

 With Facebook Business pages, we want to keep gathering those likes. We want to be active posting specials, new products, blog posts and valuable comments by engagement and the number of fans is likely going to matter. You want to be sure you’ve been thorough in detailing your profile in the About page including an address and categories. For the local business Facebook’s Social Graph Search may even become more relevant than some of the big review directory sites, so be sure to jump in… and we’ll keep you informed as this evolves.

RELATED:

• Facebook Pages
• Is Facebook More Important Than My Own Site?