Archive for the ‘Suggested’ Category

Having recently noticed someone selling their Internet marketing wares recently and including the fact that Google picks up their blog content within an hour as a selling point, I’d rather like to point out that this is actually a simple thing for most people. It is not some magical SEO bonus bestowed upon those in the know; it is standard practice if you make it easy for Google to do such.

Think about it. What does Google want to do? What is its purpose?

Google’s aim is to provide you, the searcher/user/however you like to be known with the most relevant websites for your search. And the best way it can do that is to work those spiders hard – sending them out to updated and new content as fast as their little legs can manage (ok – enough with the analogy now!).

So how can you tell Google that you have fresh content? Well if you include a XML sitemap plugin then you’re doing it! A sitemap simply lists all the pages within a website, so any changes to this list are easily spotted and updated. When this post goes live, I’ll check Google after 10 minutes and will be surprised if it’s not listing already – not magic, rocket science or fairy dust – it’s just what Google does if you help it.

We use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin but there are several available to you (as with most plugins!). To then set this up, Settings, Google XML Sitemaps – go through each option and set to what you want. It’s quite a list, but don’t be daunted. If you’re at all unsure, leave the standard, default settings in place, or get us to check yours with you. One thing to watch is not to request updates too frequently – any such settings will be suggestions anyway, but if you do update Google too often with the same post, that may not be well-regarded. Let’s face it, daily is more than adequate for most of us – it’s not that long since we had to wait months for our pages to be listed in Google – now we’re talking in hours or even minutes.

Babs

Just a quick recommendation of a service I add as standard to our websites, and recommend to all clients. If there is a problem with any of our websites, I want to know about it, so have mon.itor.us keep an eye on any downtime at server level – the 500 Internal Server Error. For most of us there will be little to report, but when there is a problem reaching your website, mon.itor.us will send you an email to let you know. You can upgrade to have SMS notifications, and there are many other services available too - it really is worth having a look to see how they could help you.

Told you it was a quick one…

Ian Lurie is someone I’ve long respected, even before his Conversation Marketing book came out back in 2006. His Conversation Marketing blog is always easy to read, and he does not waffle (well, not in a way that bothers me ).

This book is rich in content and covers the topic well within the succinct 100 pages (I like succinct!)  - simply put, this is another of those “JDI must reads” for anyone marketing online – it’s easy to digest and then to action the sound guidance offered.

Ian takes us through a  model that will make sense to most good bloggers and website owners – that “the Internet offers a unique two-way marketing medium” that can attract attention and customers, and build sales when used correctly.

Reading this book will help you to make more of your website and blog, whether based on WordPress or not – it’s a standard that we all should read in order to have a clear Internet marketing strategy – which is essential to us all if we want to make the most of the web for our businesses. And of course what are blogs but conversations of a sort – well, they can be (and I suggest some of the best are).

Do you have a favourite book that has helped you with your online strategies?

A tweet today asking about the correct use of “myriad” then had me thinking that perhaps I should use “many” instead – considering that web copy really should be in its simplest form. But then I was reminded by @anthonymadigan that if using “myriad” is the real me, then I should use it.  And so it is with blog posts, not only are we allowed to use our own voice more, we should use it. Blog posting is often more about the conversation.

I do find that the more personal ramblings contributed to the Birds on the Blog are more widely read and better received than those that are factual in style.  And I think this is the way with writing for blogs. Here at the Blogmistress, I see the stats for Joe’s and Sarah’s posts are often higher than for my more factual writings – so I certainly need to relax some.

We can also get away with using  ”I”, “me” and “my” a lot more – something that is strongly discouraged within website pages – those should be all about the customer and I’ve long suggested FutureNow’s Customer Focus calculator – always worth checking your web pages on their WeWe Monitor.

What kind of blog posts do you like reading? Those where the focus is on you, or perhaps more of a chatty style that allows the writer to be more personal? We’d love to know your thoughts and preferences…

The first of such recommendations – all based on direct experience – not just bigging up my buddies!

Many years ago I moved all clients’ website hosting to United Hosting – no mean feat, even then when I had just a few dozen clients, but one that I am glad was made.

Pricing is comparable to any of the bigger names – from £5/month – but the customer service and the support is leagues ahead of others that I’ve dealt with (and often have to – some clients like to stay with their own hosting, which is fair enough but I too often then need to adjust my expectations downwards for any support we may need!).

An issue recently arose for one clients’ hosting – we needed to find out what version of MySQL they included, for WordPress purposes – it took several days to get an answer, and sadly it was not an encouraging one – this large hosting company was running a very much older version than is required to host a WordPress website – so we moved across to United Hosting.  Not only is their hosting server technology clearly available on their website, but if you couldn’t find that, you can ask them and get an answer within minutes, if not immediately.

Another good reason to be with United Hosting is that they have the necessary versions of MySQL as standard – it astonishes me that larger hosting services have outdated versions which mean that the latest WordPress cannot be so easily hosted with them – that’s a big fail in my opinion, and raises concerns about other areas which may be lacking.

Anyway – I am glad that I took the time to move every domain (about 50 at the time) across all those years ago – and in my experience, United Hosting cannot be bettered – one area in which I am very content with my provider.  Right now I host over 100 websites with them and know that they can cope as that doubles over the next year – not only cope but support me as well as I could possible want.  You really cannot beat that…

I could, of course, set myself up as a host provider myself, and while gladly take care of and manage the hosting for clients, others are better off going direct – I cannot offer 24/7 support, but they can and do – brilliantly.

So the well deserved first recommendation is for United Hosting