…but while it was responsive it did not have custom posts, hence, back to the old look. Click the image for things to think about when choosing a theme…
Things to think about when picking a WordPress.com theme
You want one that is responsive and has customs posts at the very least. Here’s how to find them…
Yes, I can help you with a website…
…but a website is only a small part of the transformational thought leadership process — I can also help you determine what you should blog about and how! Here are a couple of examples of websites I’ve done for clients recently. Click image to enlarge…
Related articles
- Entrepreneurs that Utilize their Online Reputation to Get Customers (personalbrandingblog.com)
- Don’t Tell Me You’re a Thought-Leader: Just Be One (socialmediatoday.com)
- Thought Leadership – Marketing with direction (marketingdirectorblog.com)
- 5 Ways to Show Your Thought Leadership (theengagingbrand.com)
- 5 Ideas about creating thought leadership (theengagingbrand.com)
- Revealing the man behind the curtain – blogging for better business (emergingmediastrategy.wordpress.com)
- Is “Thought Leadership” Just Business Jargon? (socialmediatoday.com)
- How I apply David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done’ to social media and ‘thought leadership’ marketing… (living-business.co)
Steve Dotto has a great post over at Stepcase Lifehack:
Evernote has become, for many of us, the hub at the center of our digital lives. We store everything — from notes to images to web sites to expense reports — in Evernote.
While many productivity apps have built-in Evernote integration, many still don’t. Fortunately there is a terrific technique that allows you to integrate Evernote into almost every app or program.”via How to Use Evernote for Everything [Video].
If you’re an Evernote fan like I am, you’re going to love this…
Me? I’ve posted many times on how important Evernote is to me — especially as Getting Things Done [GTD] ‘container’. Here are some of my greatest hits…
- Evernote: The key to my productivity and Getting Things Done [GTD] workflow
- Tools for Tuesday; Evernote [updated]
- How and Why I Use Evernote
I’ve also done 5 screencasts on various aspects of Evernote and I put them in a playlist for you here…
One last thought. If you’re a Getting Things Done [GTD] fan, you might also enjoy this powerful but inexpensive book…
Here’s something all-American content marketers can relate to!
What makes up the ‘meat’ of an effective content strategy? Digital Strategist Mark Smicklas decided to illustrate what he believes is crucial with this amazing infographicinspired by the American Classic.
Source: Food for Thought: The Content Strategy Burger [INFOGRAPHIC] | The Content Strategist
Now I’m hungry!
- Image via Wikipedia
I’ve been following industry oracle Guy Kawasaki for over 25 years and I agree with him almost all of the time. He was right about the Mac, he’s right about Posterous and he’s right about Alltop. He’s right about so many things. When he speaks, I take notes. This time, however, I take issue…
He posted a recent article on the topic of Facebook pages recently and this is one of the rare times I need to take issue…
“Q: I’m a small business entrepreneur, and I’ll be introducing a consumer product soon. Should I create a website for my company or a Facebook fan page?
A: I faced a similar question a few weeks ago for my book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I had three options: create a site for the book, add a section for the book to my existing website, or create a Facebook fan page.
After five minutes of thoughtful deliberation, I decided to add a bare-bones section to my website (which I haven’t gotten around to do yet—which should tell you something) and create a Facebook fan page but not to create a website for the book. Here’s why I did not choose a website:” Source: Ask the Wise Guy: Facebook Fan Page or Website? : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum
Guy goes on to elucidate 4 reasons why he did not choose a website and 8 reasons why he chose a Facebook page along with 3 potential ‘gotchas’ — go to the source and read the entire article if you’d like…
Here’s where Guy and I part thinking. In business, the answer is rarely either/or. Frequently it’s both/and. Guy’s advice is great for someone launching a product or a book, but it’s not really great long term advice for an entrepreneur launching a company. As a short term strategy I recommend that entrepreneurs buy a domain, set up Google Apps and create a Facebook page. Google Apps will give them the ability to send corporate email from their domain and their domain name can be temporarily directed toward their Facebook page until they build a blogsite. This will give them a total ‘appearance package’ that will allow them to look professional immediately while they contemplate their website and further social media strategy and tactics…
On this issue I side with author Lisa Barone who recently posted…
“Brace yourself: Facebook is trying to take over the world. Or, if not the world, at least the entire Internet. With Facebook partnering up with popular sites like Yelp, many SMB owners may feel as if their load got lighter. I mean, why waste time worrying about your building your blog or your own site when you can grow your Facebook presence instead? If Facebook’s opening up the doors so that people can take you with them, you don’t have to worry about anything else anymore, right?
Wrong!
It doesn’t matter how hot Facebook or any of the other social media sites are looking right now. You still need to be focused on using your blog to create your own authority and brand.” Source: 10 Reasons Not To Ignore Your Blog For Facebook
Reason #1 she cites? “You don’t own Facebook”…
The problem with Facebook from my perspective is that you’re not only a renter, you’re a free renter and you can expect all the rights and privileges thereof. In other words, you have no rights on Facebook — not even privacy. You use it at your own risk. Facebook can — and has — made major changes to their technology without notice or recourse. Using a Facebook page is a great place for an entrepreneur to start but not to stay. I agree with Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse and other internet visionaries who propose an internet ‘homebase and outpost‘ strategy that puts a blog at the center of your online presence. The key is that you have to own that presence and be ‘master of your domain’ name and internet brand…
In the future, these homebases may become less important as more people understand the wisdom of David Sauter and his team at Envano. Their ‘autobahn’ model describes a future where a website becomes less important as a company embraces appropriate social media tools to build their internet presence, but the lack of an ‘easy button’ or unified social media dashboard makes this more of a future vision than a present reality…
Guy, I love you, your thought leadership and your content, but just this once I think your Q&A might have done the reader a disservice. Readers? Questions? Feedback? Please comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…
Related articles
- 20 Real Tips for Hiring a Social Media Consultant (e1evation.com)
- How To Create A Website Using Brains Instead of Money (advancingwomen.com)
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In many ways, blogging is no more difficult than sending an email and much more effective in the long run…
“If you’re a great baker or known for your mad IT skills, chances are you get asked the same things over and over again. You probably also end up fielding distress calls from frantic friends struggling with a pie gone awry or a blue screen of death. Instead of typing out the same email responses repeatedly or talking yet another person through a troubleshooting process, slap up a web page with your own personal Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) and answers.
Next time you’re tapping out 2 single-spaced pages to Aunt Gertrude describing photosynthesis in all its glory and splendor, consider emailing it to something like Posterous instead; then, fire Aunt Gertrude a link to the page. Now, not only will Trudy have all the chlorophyll-related knowledge [she] can tolerate, but Google will probably stop by and maybe send some other interested parties your way. And the next time somebody hits you up about it, you need only send them a link to that thing you already wrote instead of rehashing the same crap all over again!
We think that’s a pretty ingenious approach to helping people out with a minimum of impact on your valuable time. Of course, there will always be times when you’ll want to help someone directly instead of pushing them off to a web site, but building a personal FAQ is still a smart idea. Your friends and family will probably appreciate it, too, since they might feel weird about bothering you during the dinner hour to help them solve a problem. This way, they don’t have to.” Source: Create a Personal FAQ for Friends Who Want Your Advice – Troubleshooting – Lifehacker
I originally started blogging when I became chairman of a local volunteer organization. I didn’t want to spam members with every great article I found so I posted the ‘just in case’ info on a blog so I could save ‘just in time’ info for emails — that way I didn’t offend members with too much information and they actually kinda paid attention when I sent an email because they knew it wasn’t just another good website I found. A year later, I was stunned to see that my posts had attracted 25,000 pageviews from 93 countries and I was hooked on blogging forever…
This blog has evolved from the simple strategy outlined in the source. In many ways, the blog is little more than a repository for all the cool stuff I find every morning in my ‘virtual newspaper’. Like the source author, if I have something brilliant to say in email or a resource to share, I post it first and then send it based on the principle that if it’s worth sharing with one person, it’s worth sharing with billions. The fact of the matter is you don’t have time NOT to blog! Comment, call or ‘connect’ so we can talk about how this applies to your organization…
I had a great connect with an old friend who is a real estate rockstar in Barrington, IL. She’s not willing to accept anything less than being the dominant player in her industry and she’s looking at social media as a way to help her accomplish her objectives. Couldn’t help but think of her when I saw this article…
“Brian Halligan is the founder and CEO of HubSpot, an Internet marketing software company that helps small and medium-sized businesses get found on the Internet and converts website visitors into leads and customers. He is also the author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found In Google, Blogs, and Social Media.
It used to be that you could efficiently grow your businesses by interrupting potential customers with outbound marketing methods like cold calls, email spam, and advertising. Today people and businesses are tired of being the targets of so much outbound marketing and they’re getting better and better in blocking it out.
At the same time, people and businesses have fundamentally changed the way they shop and learn, turning more and more to Google, social media sites and blogs to find what they want. Inbound marketing helps companies take advantage of these shifts by helping them get found by customers in the natural way in which they shop and learn. The following are Brian’s five steps to help you get “get found.”” Source: How to Get Found : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum
You can go to the source and read more, but just in case, those 5 ways are:
- Be remarkable
- Create content
- Optimize content
- Promote content
- Measure results
As for my old friend, she certainly has 1 and 2 down cold — I’m hoping to get the chance to help her with numbers 3-5… ;-)
In the meantime you can use the site tools [comments, contact form, call button] to contact me if YOU are an entrepreneur who wants to be found!
A client asked me what is the best way to include pdfs in WordPress. Since I really hadn’t thought about that for awhile, I asked the smartest WordPress guy I know what he does. He answered “I like to upload to the media library, grab the URL link and then link to it in the post. More work but better control over appearance and such.” Now I’m sure that works fine, but for now, I’m going to use Scribd [an example of which you see below]. Me? I’m always thinking ‘home bases and outposts’ [use the search box] so Scribd makes perfect sense for me. If I post my pdf there and copy the embed code here, not only do I get some powerful viewing tools [full screen, print, etc.] someone my find my blog because they found my document in Scribd…
Here’s his approach:
Here’s Scribd:
Either way works — which one is more effective depends on your objectives but I’m biased toward being ‘social’ and Scribd helps me accomplish that objective nicely. Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me…
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In December of last year, I embarked upon an experiment to see if I could leverage a website with a blog combined with social media tools to increase traffic to a site. In that month, my sandbox site had a grand total of 670 pageviews. In the month that ended yesterday, I had a total of 15,985 — an approximate 25 fold increase in traffic! This morning I got 670 pageviews by 10:00. Here are some other statistics… Continue reading “Is your website a ‘billboard in the desert’?”
“Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that can be accessed through your account on their website, on your desktop, by instant messaging and mobile phones. Hundreds of thousands of people and companies, including several presidential candidates, reportedly, are users, although the firm won’t release that information.
What is known about Twitter is that its traffic is increasing rapidly, although it’s still considered a niche site. According to data from Web analytics firm Hitwise, visits to Twitter have more than doubled in the past 3 months and were up 60% in April. Twitter ranked #439 among Social Networks and Forums in late April, but its size is difficult to measure because it has so many ways for access, primarily cell phones.” Click here to read more…
Aliza Sherman has a great post over at Web Worker Daily…
“How many times are you hearing the question, “Why should I engage in social media?” during your work week? I’m hearing it often, and it’s reminding me of 1995 and 1996, when clients — and colleagues — were asking “Why should I have a web site?” And who remembers when the question was “Why should I have email/a cellphone/a computer/a typewriter/a telephone?” OK, maybe none of you remember the old telephone question, but I heard that when the telephone was first introduced as a consumer product, most families were appalled with the concept of putting a phone into their homes and saw it as an invasion of their privacy. Yes, the telephone.
Here is how I try to explain to people who may not be convinced that they — or their company — should be using social media for business. Hopefully, this proves helpful to those of you in the position of reaching the decision makers who are ignoring social media outright and consider it a fad.” Source: Why Should I Engage in Social Media?
The diagram she refers to is a useful, thought provoking tool…
Personally, I’ve benefited a great deal from applying social media to my internet marketing strategy and I’m happy to share my ‘home bases and outposts’ strategy with my clients. When a customer’s needs are greater than what I can handle myself, I include my virtual team members Dana VanDen Heuvel, the thought leadership guru at MarketingSavant.com and the brilliant folks at Envano led by David Sauter. Whether your needs are great our small, one of us can help you figure it out…
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Here are the top 5 websites [ranked by reach according to Alexa] of brands headquartered in Kewaunee County…
Could it be that we know something about how to use business blogging to drive traffic to a website? Comment below or ‘connect’ above to discuss how this applies to you and your organization…
…or doing it for the first time? In either case Seth Godin has an interesting perspective to share:
“The most common question people ask me when they want a new website is, “If you were in charge of this, who are the 2 or 3 people you’d want to be sure to talk to – to help think through the issues, help us figure out who should do the work, etc.?”
The second most common question people ask me, “In addition to Apple’s site, are there 2 or 3 that you think are really appealing and work well for their business?”
I think these are perhaps the tenth and eleventh questions you should ask, not the first two. Here’s my list of difficult and important questions you have to answer before you spend a nickel” Seth’s Blog: Things to ask before you redo your website
Go to the source for the questions that Seth thinks you need to answer before you begin — it’s always good to ‘measure twice and cut once’!
Here are a few ideas to help you along…
“Starting a new blog can feel like an overwhelming task. Not only does it involve either developing your own template (or finding a free one), creating interesting content that people will want to read, and making the blog SEO optimized, but once you’re finished developing that amazing new blog, you need to somehow get people to start visiting.
With millions upon millions of websites on the Internet, and with potentially hundreds of thousands focused on the same subject or niche that you are – developing an audience can feel even more overwhelming than trying to start a blog from scratch in the first place.” How To Start A Blog That Gets Instant Traffic
Go to the source and read the entire article — it’s worth it…
I love it when I find a quote to support my preconceived notions because if I say it, it’s just opinion, but if an ‘expert’ says it, well, it must be true. In this case a designer talks about web design…
“This one will probably get me into trouble.
I’ve worked as a graphic designer for over two decades and I’m not supposed to say this stuff. After all, it’s my job to make miracles. To wave my magic design wand and make a business look stronger, smarter, and more powerful than it really is.
Before I start dodging rotten tomatoes, though, I’m going to go ahead and say it out loud.
It’s a smart business move to have a well-designed website.
But good design — even great design — won’t solve all your business problems. Not even close.” Source: The Myth of Beautiful Website Design | Copyblogger
Although I do design websites, I think of myself less as a web designer than I do a social media technologist. In my methodology, a blog enabled website is a homebase or hub for a social media publishing network. My goal in design is simply to have the site load fast, connect to social media outposts and not be so ugly that a user won’t roll around on the floor clawing her eyes out. That’s it. As Pamela says in the quoted article “Don’t expect miracles from your graphic design. It’s definitely a valuable part of creating your business’s image, but it’s not a substitute for a sound marketing strategy.”
“As a lead generation tool, your website provides a virtual wonderland of sales and marketing opportunities. It’s easily accessible, available 24/7, highly visible, and gives you the ability to present your company and services in your most positive light.
Plus, your site gives prospects the ability to find you whenever they need to. All this makes it one of the most powerful lead generators at your disposal.
So… is your website, this powerful lead generating machine, doing all it can to bring new clients to your doorstep?” Click here to read more…
Facebook will be moving forward with a controversial plan to give third-party developers and external websites the ability to access users’ home addresses and cellphone numbers in the face of criticism from privacy experts, users, and even congressmen.
Facebook quietly announced the new policy in a note posted to its Developer Blog in January. It suspended the feature just three days later following user outcry, while promising that it would be “re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks.”
In response to a letter penned by Representatives Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) expressing concern over the new functionality, Facebook reaffirmed that it will be allowing third parties to request access to users’ addresses and phone numbers.
Facebook responded to the HuffPo with this statement “Despite some rumors, there’s no way for other websites to access a user’s address or phone number from Facebook. For people that may find this option useful in the future, we’re considering ways to let them share this information (for example to use an online shopping site without always having to re-type their address). People will always be in control of what Facebook information they share with apps and websites.” Who do you believe?
I have a lot of preconceived notions about blogging and one of them is that blogs drive traffic to your site, especially if you update them on a regular basis. Along comes HubSpot — one of the best social media sites on the internet — with a great blog post about websites and blogs and what a blog adds to your business. The HubSpot content was difficult to bring into this post in a way that made sense so I encourage you to go to the site and read the whole article — it only takes a minute or two — but it demonstrates in a graphic way why blogging is good for business…
I’ve seen this happen in a very graphic way in my own political blog. By using tools that update search engines and drive content into social media, my blog continues to rise in the rankings. Last week for example I was ranked 7th most influential in the State of Wisconsin and my one week Alexa ranking average was 1,077,607 in the world — not bad for a little political blog!
What’s my secret? I use WordPress to custom design websites that have blogs and use blogging combined with a well thought out strategy using search engine optimization and social media. You can check out some of my projects here. If you’ve got a point that you’d like to get across, I’d love to show you how you can do the same things I do easily and economically!
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…but don’t want to use an rss reader? Personally, I think that’s going in the wrong direction, but that would be your choice. ‘Feed my Inbox’ is a website that will allow you to track websites with newsfeeds and send an update to your inbox with new postings every day. By the way, if you agree that news readers are the ‘inbox for the rest of the internet’ and want to learn how to use Google Reader, click here for my free 30 minute training session on Reader…
Bright, shiny objects! 
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