Aug 15

Managed WordPress: Is It Right for You?

Managed WordPress: Is It Right for You?If you’re a small business owner just beginning to build your online presence, you may have noticed offerings of both ‘shared hosting’ and ‘Managed WordPress’ (or ‘WordPress hosting’) when searching for a company to host your website.  There are some good things to be said about Managed WordPress:

  • Managed WordPress servers are configured specifically for WordPress. That means even high-traffic websites can be super fast.
  • Managed WordPress includes strong security measures, like built-in malware scans and hacker blocking.
  • Daily backups are part of the package, with easily accessible restore points if your site fails or crashes.

Continue reading

Share This...

Oct 14

Content Strategy: Quality vs. Quantity

The quality of your content affects SEO

It is a common misconception among small business professionals that the more content they have, the better they will rank in search results. Maybe I should say it’s a half-truth, because it’s true the more high-quality content you produce, the better you’re likely to rank. And search engines can tell the difference between quality content and poorly produced filler. So always, always, always choose quality over quantity. 

What is quality content?
Simply updating your website frequently with visual content (like images or videos) and blog posts is not going to deem your content worthy by the search engines. Creating content similar to what can be found on other sites (copy/paste is a definite no-no) is not going to help your ranking. Your content needs to:

Continue reading

Share This...

Jun 04

Video Content Creation Tools Reviewed

Content Creation Video Tools Review

LIVE video is obviously the way to go with the reach you can achieve…

…but what if you’re simply not ready to take that plunge? Or you’re having a bad hair day (or week…)? Recorded video is the next best thing to live (and certainly better than nothing!) But YOU don’t even have to be on camera!

I was watching Kim Garst on Facebook (LIVE, of course)…someone whose philosophies, skills and talents I admire. During the broadcast (about do’s and don’ts for the latest Facebook algorithms), she recommended several video creation tools, only a couple of which I was familiar with. So I decided to check ’em out, give them a test and report back to my own audience about my experiences. Most of these tools have a premium version available but I’m reviewing the free or trial version for each of them here.

Continue reading

Share This...

May 08

Stuff I Like: GreenGeeks Hosting

Not too long ago, a representative from GreenGeeks reached out to me about including their hosting service on my Stuff I Like page as a paid affiliate. Well, I never just recommend a product or service to my clients and website visitors because I know I can make a buck doing it. I only share recommendations that I personally use regularly or at the very least have tested for quality and value. So I had the rep set me up with a hosting account for testing purposes.

I was able to build a client’s WordPress site on my GreenGeeks account, zip it up, migrate it to the client’s server and push it live there, all very smoothly. So I’d say their service is comparable to my other favorite, BlueHost. HOWEVER, they have the added element of being 100% green powered. So I’m very pleased to be able to include them among my favorite things for small businesses, with their green status being just one of the features that sets them apart from other hosting providers.

Continue reading

Share This...

Feb 01

Facebook Changes 2018: The Sky is Falling!

OK, the sky isn’t really falling. But there are some major changes taking place over the course of this year at the biggest social platform on the planet.

Shades of things to come
First, Facebook vowed to crack down on what they call ‘engagement bait‘ as part of the process of improving the news feed experience for their users (they announced they were turning up the heat on things like clickbait and links to low-quality websites in the Spring of 2017). This latest change was actually announced mid-December 2017, but I’m sure implementation of it has crossed over into 2018.

Continue reading

Share This...