What is a Landing Page, Why is it Important, and Why it Isn’t Your Homepage
A landing page is the most important page on your website for lead generation and sales. Do you have one?
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Circle to Search – Find Products via Pictures
Circle to search from Google offers an easy way to find information while you’re on your smartphone. Imagine that!
The Monty Hall Problem and Other SEO Logic Traps: Behind Which Door is Your Keyword?
Monty Hall Paradox? Logical thinking in SEO = ditching gut feelings & embracing data. Analyse, research, and prioritise. Build a sustainable strategy based on facts, not fads.
The End of Page 1 Ranking: Google Continuous Scrolling and SEO
Once just for mobile search, Google’s Endless Scrolling has now arrived on desktop. How does this effect SEO?
A Very AI Christmas
‘Twas but hours before Christmas, and all through the office,
I edited a final article; it looked full of promise.
My headlines and keywords were crafted with great care,
In hopes that the client’s payment soon would be there.
Home Digital Care: The Intersection of Compassion and Technology for Senior Services
Visualize a community centre that serves as a hub for a digital revolution—a place where seniors can visit to receive assistance and where digital care workers zip out on mopeds to aid those who can’t.
Beyond Backlinks and SEO: The Underrated Benefits of Guest Blogging
Talk shows have guests. So should your blog. Guest posts help increase your domain authority, add backlinks, boost your SEO and create community vibes!
How eCommerce Supercharges Your Small Business SEO
People shouldn’t need a detective to find your business. Being seen is core to SEO, and eCommerce can help!
Mastering Writing with AI and Emotional Intelligence
Enhance your writing skills by harnessing the power of AI and Emotional Intelligence. Combine both for impactful and authentic communication. A course proposal.
SEO Online: Learn Search Engine Optimisation
Improve the visibility of your company, discover untapped potential and learn to unleash its benefits!
Google and Twitter Changes Effecting Organic SEO
If organic SEO is of interest you, then two events are going to keep you busy: Google’s announcement that they are phasing out the sitemap ping. Twitter’s blocking views of tweets unless you are logged in. Wow!
The Importance of Good Content: Helpful – Evergreen – Hygiene Content
Hygiene Content allows you to provide valuable and relevant information to your audience while optimizing your content for search engines (SEO). Read on to find out more!
Your Website has 3 to 10 Seconds to Make a Good First Impression
The success of a website is usually dependent on two things: usability and utility. How can we ensure people stay on our website longer than 3 seconds?
Using Assistive AI to Build a Simple Website
You can use AI to assist you with a lot of your small business work. Just be sure to use AI as a tool, and not as a replacement for your own skills and talents.
How to Optimise Your Website for Voice Search
Want to be found locally? Use Google Business Profile and local keywords. Want to be found over Voice Search? Take a more conversational tone.
You are What You Learn: Tips for Teachers, Small Business Owners, and Seniors
Education never stops – even after we graduate and begin working. How is technology changing education, and how can we benefit? Find out more!
Not Your Father’s Keyword Strategy
In this post, I suggest a radical new keyword strategy. But first, a little overview about keywords and keyword strategy.
Hungry for Some SEO Tips? Here’s an SEO Appetizer for Your Business
SEO is a lot like the seasoning in a dish: you can serve your dishes without any salt and pepper, but your guests will be happier if you add some!
How the Goldilocks Rule Benefits Your Website Content Creation
Keeping content simple has many benefits. Things are easier to learn, and people remember more, Remember Goldilocks: useful, enjoyable, easy to consume.
The New AI Search. How Should I Adapt my SEO Strategy?
How can we adapt our Organic SEO so we still get views and clicks now that AI chatbots are answering people’s questions?
Ranking Problems? HTML Can Help Improve Your SEO
HTML makes our websites more accessible. HTML helps search engines process the information on our websites. Long story short, SEO needs HTML. Find out how!
9 Simple Tips to Help You Get Your Website’s Pages Indexed Faster
How can you get your web pages indexed by Google and Bing quickly? That’s a common question and I have 9 answers that may help you.
How Your Small Business Can Use AI for Big SEO Wins
Your small business can use AI for more than just automating repetitive tasks or analyzing customer data. You can also leverage AI in your SEO activities.
How to Super Size Your Freelance Niche
In a crowded and competitive online space, getting business can be hard. You can throw a lot of money at the problem, or you can work smarter. Leverage yourself and your network. Repurpose what’s in front of you. Don’t just think outside of the box, step outside of it.
Tips and Tricks from Two Decades of Freelance Experience
So you want to be a freelancer? Here is some advice from twenty years as a freelance caterer, web designer, teacher, and writer on two continents.
23 Things You Can Do Now to Improve Your Online Marketing
There are so many things you can do – and for free – to improve your online marketing. From your website to your social media, from email marketing to SEO. Here are some tips!
The Google Helpful Content Update
Helpful Content: Google rewards content more when visitors are satisfied, and less content that does not meet expectations.
Cater a Wedding for 100 People Without Using a Food Processor or Build a Website Using Only HTML and CSS
Learning how a tool works is just as important as using it. Building a website with page builders doesn’t offer you the “why” and “how” that writing HTML does. Find out more!
The Target Audience You’ve Forgotten to Create Content for is Actually Your Most Important Audience
We should create content for people, and content for machines. We have the benefit of more eyes, which is good for our SEO and our Content Marketing, and as they say “The Internet is free, but it’s not for nothing”.
Keyword Cannibalism: How to Stop Eating Your Own Ranking
Are similar pages on your site ranking #1 and #7? You may have Keyword Cannibals rampant on your website. What are they and how can you stop them?
The Top 4 Things Your Website Should Include
Your website should contain many things, but there are 4 things it shouldn’t lack. Read about the importance of content, speed, security, and accessibility.
9 Benefits of a Multilingual Marketing Approach for Your Business
Here are 9 tips for a multilingual marketing approach. Reach people in their location and in their language.
What Does Hygiene and Sustainability Have to Do with Marketing?
Clean marketing allows things to go from A to B faster, easier, effectively and more efficiently. There is less friction. Speeds wins. You win!
WordPress and the Rise of Full Site Editing
WordPress is perfect whether you are a beginner or a professional. Use it for your cat’s blog or your online shop. With the Full Site Editor you can design in WordPress even easier!
Making Your Website Accessible for Everyone
Accessibility means creating websites so people can use them without restriction. It is an important part of sustainable, hygienic marketing.
Why Duplicate Content is a Good Thing. Yes. Duplicate Content is a Good Thing.
We shouldn’t beat ourselves – or others – up about duplicate content. We have bigger problems today. Instead, we should embrace it.
Why are Keywords the Key to Understanding Your Customers?
SEO is about getting in front of people. We can do that by matching our content, products, and services, with the keywords people use to search. Keywords don’t exist alone. You don’t research keywords once. It is an ongoing activity. They are important, but they aren’t the Alpha and Omega of SEO.
8 Ways to Promote Your Small Business Online for Free
Forget contracting an agency. Do you have a website? Do you have access to email and social media? Then you can promote your business, yourself, for free.
We Need to Have a Different Conversation About Seniors and Technology #DigiBlogChat
Who is a “senior” and who is not? Our access to technology is dependant on other demographics than age. Usually it’s about money, education, and access to the internet.
Grandparents Can Code Too
The Internet and digital technologies are becoming increasingly important in more and more areas of everyday life. How can we ensure the participation of older members of society in the current digital transformation? For everyone to benefit from these technologies, it will take more than the ability to download apps to smartphones or transfer money via online banking.
Working as a Senior in Our Digital Economy
The term “senior” means different things to people. Usually it means someone with more experience. Older workers have more experience but a more difficult time finding work. Why is that? Perhaps freelancing is the answer.
How to Plan, Structure, Write, and Market Your Own Book while Dealing with Writer’s Block
How Can You Plan, Write, and Market a Book While Dealing with Writer’s Block? This is not going to be the final word on the subject. More like a pre-penultimate teaser article. With revisions. Writer’s block is a myth. The real problem is often that you don’t take writing a book seriously enough. Don’t despair. You aren’t alone.
Why Marketing Hygiene is so Important to Your Clients and Your Processes
Marketing Hygiene is the process of maintaining the freshness and function of your marketing tools, processes, and strategies to preserve the overall health and wellbeing of your business.
Your Online Marketing Hygiene includes your Social Media, Website, Online Shop, Email, Search, and Controlling assets and tactics.
I Recently Joined SEO Anonymous
Today, most people are visible and have some presence on the internet. The internet pulsates and throbs with the artistic progeny of literally billions of people. From TikTok to Blogs, Facebook to Pinterest, Amazon to eBay, the world wide web is bloated with our well-intended artistic creations and our constant need to be found and heard. Is it too much?
Are Cookies Going Away in 2023?
Google announced that it will phase out 3rd party cookies in the Chrome browser. It also does not plan to build any similar tracking devices. Their plan is for this to happen in 2023. This change will affect anyone advertising with Google Ads, as 3rd party cookies are important for retargeting us when we move from one website to another.
TechTalk #4 How You Can Easily Conduct a Mini Site Audit
Your website is your 24/7 marketing platform. Don’t forget to perform a checkup once a quarter. A Site Audit is something you can do yourself. Find out how in Bridget and my TechTalk #5!
1 Easy Way You Can Make Your Social Media Posts More Creative
It’s no big secret that SEO actually IS all around us. Whether we are on Social Media, running our websites and online shops, or watching YouTube videos, our content optimizes search engine results for good or bad. Hopefully, it make our lives better.
How To Get On To The First Page of Google and Other Things We Want But Don’t Need
I swore I wouldn’t write another SEO post for a while, but it isn’t working. Obviously. I have my SEO class to teach, there’s a 1 euro SEO ebook coming out this summer (200 pages for a euro – pretty cool), then there are the articles I write for clients which while not exactly SEO tasks need to be found and engaged with, so are on the cusp of SEO.
TechTalk #3 Using Google Fonts on Your Website
Many of our website themes deliver fonts, icons, and other 3rd party material directly to our websites. This is easy and fast and something we don’t think about. This data is sometimes delivered unsecured, and over time it might become a lot of data, thus slowing down our websites. What can we do about that and why would we do it?
Online Pornography: When Too Much Delight Gets in the Way of Satisfaction
Online pornography is just one example of when too much delight, over an extended period, is bad. Expectations of porn sex in our own relationships are high, and only a few people can meet them, and probably not for a prolonged time. Online pornography, like any other customer expectations we are continually trying to exceed, is simply not sustainable.
TechTalk #2: Optimising Your Website for Page Speed
If you can do something faster, then you have an advantage. The same goes for websites. No one likes a slow website. Join Bridget and I as we look at how you can speed up your website!
Schools Benefit from Customer Loyalty that Most Businesses Can Only Dream About: a Talk with Rob Cairns
Schools have an advantage over other types of businesses. A school is a brand that we’re going to be very involved with for many years.
Social Champ – Your Social Media Automation Toolkit – Review 2022
Social Champ is an all-in-one social media automation tool used for media management and content scheduling. It can help you automate your social media presence and streamline posting on social platforms. I like it, and I use it. Give it a try yourself today – for free!
TechTalk #1: Why Your Website Sitemap is Important, How to Make a Sitemap, and How to Implement Your Sitemap
What is the purpose of a Sitemap? Do Sitemaps help SEO? Are Sitemaps still relevant? How do I create a Sitemap? The answers to these questions and more are just a click away!
Tracking Your Goals and Other Reasons Why You Need to Include a Data Analytics Tool in Your Website
There is the “Aha moment” when we stand back and ask questions about everything we do. How did that work? Are we doing the right thing? Analytics and tracking allow us to capture the impact of what we are doing on our website, social media, and advertising. It gives us the chance to measure our success or failure so that we can optimise our efforts.
eLearning Studies Got You Down? You Might Learn More About a Subject by Teaching it.
Education is changing. It’s moving further from the classroom and the fixed lesson plan to somewhere more ad-hoc and less physical. If we think about how our tech culture has changed over the last generation, education is probably going to undergo even more drastic changes as we enter the virtual world of research, teaching, and learning.
#ChampsTalk Twitter chat session Topic: Let’s Talk About Google Core Web Vitals
I was invited by Social Champ to talk about Google Core Web Vitals, and it was a great Twitter hour. Thank you, guys! There were a lot of good questions, and the community on Social Champ are great. So what are the much talked about Google Core Web Vitals anyway?
Old School Meets New: Using Your Telephone and Typewriter to Increase Your SEO and Lead Generation
Typewriters, handwritten letters, face-to-face chats, and even slow-cookers have more to do with SEO and Lead Generation than we would believe. In fact, so do Sustainability and Mindfulness. Wait! I kid you not. Keep on reading and I will prove to you how a paper invitation to a home-cooked meal can improve your SEO and increase your Lead Generation.
Fight the Home Office Blues with these 3 Cooking and Eating Tips
Do you cook? You either love it or hate it. We consume 35 tons of food in our lifetime. That’s a lot of cooking. Let’s enjoy it! These three tips should inspire you to make the best of the Home Office months. I even include a special exercise tip!
When Fact Meets Fiction: The Value of a Good Story Goes Beyond the Page
Story telling is an integral part to most marketing. A good story is worth it’s weight in case studies. People don’t want facts. They want to be delighted! Read more and listen to the podcast right here.
Another Year Another Resolution
Chances are we will stick to our new years resolutions as long as the bubbles last in the bottle of champagne we opened on New Year’s Day. We shouldn’t let that get us down. Certainly looking back over the year I can pat myself on the back for a few small steps forward.
A Very Digital Christmas or, A Visit From Ms Claus
‘Twas but days before Christmas, and all through the classroom, Students tweaked projects, as I looked on, via Zoom. Their WordPress themes were crafted with great care, In hopes that good grades soon would be there!
Heads up! What is Sustainability, and Can You Explain it with Examples?
If you can do something faster than your competitors you will win. But, is being fast the best goal to have? What about being sustainable?
Online Marketing is important not only for your business, or your nonprofit. It’s also important for your school.
How do you first generate interest in your school and the programs you’re offering? You make sure you’re well covered in social media. You make sure you’re well covered for search engine optimization. Once you’ve got people’s attention, they’re going to go onto your website.
Spoiler Alert! We Rely on Our Web Students so We Should Pay Them More Money
We should pay for the real value in the services we receive. So why do we always pay more for perceived value?
DigiBlogChat: Nonprofits and GivingTuesday
Carol Stephan invited Bridget Willard and I to participate in her Twitter #DigiBlogChat on Tuesday, November 2nd. Pretty exciting! It’s now the second time I’ve done this. The topic was Giving – especially GivingTuesday with questions by Carol, Bridget, and myself.
Looking for SEO Tips and Which Hotel Has the Best Cookies? We Have You Covered!
Looking for SEO Tips and Which Hotel Has the Best Cookies? We Have You Covered! 6 SEO Tips from Bridget Willard and myself. Read on and check out the video – here or on YouTube.
Why You Should Add an Online Course to Your Current Website Today
Adding an online course is a win no matter how you look at it. People search the internet for solutions to their problems. Online courses deliver exactly that!
Avoid the Risk! Get the Best Free SEO Tool Available AND You Get a Free Website
I just completed teaching another 2-week SEO/SEA course last week. Every class is different. There are learnings in each class that are new – and can be brought into the next class. SEO is free! You only need to invet the time. Google helps. A lot! Check out ten days of SEO right here.
Who’s Afraid of Digital Thinking? A Conversation from the Center of the Universe
I was fortunate enough to talk with Rob Cairns this month about my book “Digital Thinking: Websites, Online Marketing, and more”. Check out this excerpt or listen to the podcast.
DigiBlogChat: eLearning and Teaching
Carol Stephens invited me to talk with her and others on her Twitter DigiBlogChat about eLearning and Teaching. How’s it been, and where is it going? his a change for the better or the worse, or somewhere in the middle? Let’s talk about it and see where it’s going! See you then!
A Customer Called with a Question. What Happened Next was Incredible!
Why not answer people’s questions before they ask them? Turning a simple phone call into a content marketing strategy is as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. With a little creativity, you can turn the obvious into the extraordinary!
Storytelling, Characters, and Content Marketing — It’s All Real
One of the Main Reasons We Love to Watch TV Shows is Empathy. That works in our website and content marketing too.
SEO Mini-golf Summer Rules
I know SEO is important. Search Engine Optimisation means your content needs to be precise, targeted, and convincing. Just like your golf swing! Just nine holes, but hey, we’re on vacation right? Have a great time!
7 plus Reasons You May NOT Want to Be Self-Employed
Perhaps, just perhaps, being your own boss is not for you. It isn’t for everybody, and that’s okay!
3 Great Reasons to Make Time for Both Cooking and Content (it’s Easy)
Cooking for yourself lets you control the ingredients. You also take more time preparing a meal than you would opening a bag of chips or stopping at a drivethru. It’s a healthier alternative. It’s also fun. It’s also content marketing.
Wrestling with Sustainability
Say the term sustainability and you open up quite a few rabbit holes. However, like any term, the best way to understand it is probably first to look for the ‘why?’ behind it. It all comes back to looking for doughnuts on Google. Do you want to talk about doughnuts?
4 Online Marketing Tips for Your Nonprofit
What are four important things nonprofits need to think about when it comes to their online marketing? Bridget Willard and I talk about them!
Branding and Design. Keep it Simple and Consistent
Rhonda Negard from Fat Dog Creatives joins Bridget Willard and I to talk about Design and Branding for Small Businesses. In a nutshell? Keep it Simple and Consistent!
The Sweet Aroma of (Marketing) Empathy
When we start a business, we look at the big picture. We often lose that one-to-one customer empathy, which directly affects how well our business performs.
Be an SEO Expert in One Day
Some things to think about. I’m putting together some notes for an SEO class, and I know you probably won’t be able to join me. A few of my juiciest tidbits are here for you. Sorry, you’ll miss the slides themselves.
Why I Want Clients to Leave Me
Last week I lost a client. When we met they had a small WordPress website and nothing more. Now they manage their own website, Google Ads, and Social Media. They are even really good at SEO. They don’t need me anymore. Well, perhaps if they get stuck they will email me. Do you know what? I feel great!
Expecting Visitors? It’s Going to Get Messy
The layout, structure, purpose, and content of our website need to be regularly updated and analyzed, as do the activities and needs of our visitors. It can feel messy. It can feel exhausting. You do this to your wardrobe almost daily though, so don’t neglect your website.
The 5 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Website for Free
We want to help our friends who are small businesses, like navigating through the blah, blah, blah, big agencies and all of their jargon that makes them feel very expensive and important. Let’s talk about some of the things that small business owners can do right now, themselves without hiring a big SEO company!
The 3 Most Important Things About Your Social Media
Welcome to a new series for Small Businesses, to help you with your Online Marketing! In this post, and video, Bridget Willard and I, are going to talk about the top three things small businesses, or anyone really, need to have on their website.
The 3 Most Important Things on Your Website
Welcome to a new series for Small Businesses, to help you with your Online Marketing! In this post, and video, Bridget Willard and I, are going to talk about the top three things small businesses, or anyone really, need to have on their website.
New Year, Old Resolutions?
Chances are we will stick to our new years resolutions as long as the bubbles last in the bottle of champagne. We shouldn’t let that get us down!
A Very Home Office Digital Christmas
‘Twas but days before Christmas, and all through Home Office, my colleagues were working – in pants, none could notice. Happy Holidays!
Learn About HTML in 5 Steps
Building things, allows us to think about them. Thinking about things, allows us to understand them. It can save us money, give us a sense of gratification and value, and it can also give us another perspective on what others do.
Marketing Never Sleeps
Be sure to “sell” your campuses value and remember that marketing doesn’t end, even once a student is enrolled.
(Anti-) Social Media
We have the tools, we have the technology, but we are still very primitive in how we use them – if we need (all of) them at all.
Conversation is King
Without a real conversation, we make no connection. Our communication just becomes banter. Like a banner ad we would never, ever, click on.
I Click Therefore I am
Do we click on something because we really like it, or because it has been placed there because we will click on it?
Do You Really Need a Responsive Website?
While we are Drupal and to some extent Wordpress people, we don’t think a website always needs a CMS behind it though. Again, “it depends”
Our Relationship with (Tech) Things
Long term what does the future hold for us if we are unable to afford the best tech? Will we have the best/uptodate information?
The Ghost in the Design
That first step is the most important: acknowledging and embracing unpredictability. That is the driving force behind resilient web design.
My Take on User Experience
If the visitor does not find what they are looking for they will leave” is as relevant to the internet as it is to a shopping mall.
Digital Culture 101
Depending on your information bubble and reinforced via your peers how many people do you know who think differently?
A Real Game Changer
So why are we still pushing people to make their websites “mobile first”? It would seem websites need to be mobile … period.
Is That an App I See Before Me?
How did we manage before all this tech came along? Obviously not very well, because soon afterwards the App arrived.
The Student in the Machine
Google and social media analytics offer a free and immediate insight into how your online content is interacting with students.
Click Me!
Are students seeing your ads? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they just might see them far too often.
The Prior Prior Year
The prior prior year policy offer many benefits to students and their families searching for the right college or university.
A Shout Out for Drupal
Drupal is mobile friendly. Very friendly. And that is good so as who carries a desktop around with them any more?
Still Unsure About Social Media?
As branded social media spaces increase in popularity, visits to corporate websites are beginning to level off. People want to interact, and more and more that interaction happens best in social media.
What is this Design Thinking Anyway?
Too often websites are defined by the internal users. Use Design Thinking to think out of the box and include external users too.
Writing for the Web
What’s the difference between print and web writing? Print readers read, web users scan. FInd out more in this article.
The Client Worksheet
Creating a plan for your website ensures nothing gets left out. Think about who the website is for, and what they will use it for.
Defining New Defaults in Web Design
The most important thing for a phone, for instance, is battery life. For your website, it’s important that people can access your content.
To Code or Not to Code …
Computers aren’t going away any time soon. You should know how to code – or at least write some HTML.
Mobile First Websites
Your website needs to be accessible. Regardless if someone is using a Tamogotchi or a 10,000 pixel wide Jumbtron.
Do You Really Need a CMS for Your Website?
Does your website need a CMS – a Content Management System – like WordPress or Drupal? That depends on a few things. Read this post for more information.
People Visit Your Site for 90 Seconds
“What are we trying to accomplish with this information?” Content needs to be delivered simply, and answers to problems made clearly available.
Planning a Successful Web Relaunch
A workshop together with Bright Solutions at the German Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation Jahrestagungen in 2015. The steps are still relevant today!
Making a Good First Impression
Our marketing content may be the first impression people have about us. How can we make our content easier to produce and more converting?
(Understanding) Digital (as Part of a Complete) Strategy
Digital is about finding the best way of achieving goals, promoting your brand and services, through electronic connected media.
Recruiting with Social Media Apps
Always wanted to study in the USA or Europe? Well schools there want you too and are not above using social media to recruit you!
The Challenge of Mobile in Effective Communication
Whether people see our content and respond to it is as much a matter of our understanding their goals as it is understanding their context.
Why is SEO Important?
One of the most important elements to understanding SEO and search rankings is feeling empathy for (understanding) your audience. Why are they on your page? What were they looking for?
If Content is King, what is Queen?
Content should be accessible, and if we want reach this means perhaps adding another language. Building a multi-language site is not so difficult.
Open Source Content Management Systems
“Free” is not usually a word you think of when planning a website, but it is not a dream. Open Source CMS are free CMS.
Understanding International Students
Hobsons released a report called Beyond the data: Influencing international student decision making. The report is based on Hobsons’ International Student Survey and provides important insights into how international students decide where they will go for study abroad.
The Promiscuous College Come-ons …
Not only are colleges marketing like crazy these days, but students are casting their nets ever wider in the number of applications they submit. The internet makes this easy.
