Category: WordPress

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Tips to creating blogs quickly

As you may know consistency is the key, if you post once in a while people can forget you. If you post weekly and let them know you have posted then you will be fresh in their minds.

I am not saying you have to post every day, but minimum of once a week is great. More if you have lots to say.

Posts do not have to be a book either, they just need to give valuable information to your audience.

There are a few tips to making it easier and faster to write blogs. I find that keeping a notebook for blogging can help. Now I use online or virtual notebooks I have a section for each blog site I write for.

Within that anytime an idea pops into my head I write it in the notebook. I may even add bullet points with key thoughts of what I would write.

Then once a month I have a day that I write all my blogs. I look at the theme for the week, it is easier for me to have a social media theme for all posts where I can add tips, information and more about that theme.

On the blog day I pull out the notebook and pick the blogs that match the theme then add it to the social media calendar. I use google calendar and have a calendar for each blog and social media platform for the site. This means I can show them all when I am scheduling and planning but when I am creating the posts I can hide the calendars I am not using.

If I have written bullet points about the information I want to cover in the blog I use those to create headings then write a paragraph or two for each. Just writing those paragraphs can lead to more ideas which I either write in the notebook or schedule them in the calendar for the future.

Once you have written the blog and added any images you can schedule it to publish in the future. I don’t want to have to remember to go into my website and publish a blog each week, scheduling will do it all for me.

There are WordPress plugins that will automatically create a post to your social media profiles and pages to inform your connections that you have a new blog.

Writing is like any skill the more you practice the easier it will be. In the beginning it may take you a long time to write 4 blogs but after a while 4 blogs might take an hour or two of your time.

Schedule the time into your schedule as you would any other business appointment.

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Branding and your Theme

Your website should show your brand, which is much more than your logo and name. You can use a theme to show some of it, if your brand is modern and cutting edge you would not use the same font as a traditional and old fashioned brand.

Some themes are flexible and others are how they come with no changes. There is a feature filter that you can use to find themes that allow you to filter out themes that you are searching for by subject or more importantly features like Custom Header, Custom Logo, Custom Colours and more.

Then use the Search themes to put in keywords. Find a theme that is or can be made to fit the brand of your business. If you apply one and do not feel it fits, simply apply another one and delete the themes you do not want to use.

If you have used text styles then applying a theme will update your whole site quickly and let you see whether it the right theme for you!

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Branding is very important for your business

What people think of when Brand is talked about can vary but the brand plays an important part of your website design and the information within it. Things to consider:

  • Colours
  • Fonts
  • Layout
  • Text

All of these things should be looked at over your entire business, every business card you hand out, the flyers, brochures, and ebooks you give out as well as your website should all look like they belong to the same company.

I am sure we have all received a business card then when we visit the website it looks completely different, with an entirely different look and feel to it. If you take a little time, though not too much, to consider a few things then everything will tie in and look cohesive.

Colours

It can be difficult to decide on colours, I personally start with one colour I really like then use tools to help me find a palette that works. https://coolors.co is a website that help you to find sets of colours. You can then save them and export with their colour codes.

The same colours can be used in your website, on you printed materials and in your email.

Fonts

Fonts are the text format that you use, it can be difficult to know which ones go together. Some people will use the same font for headings and paragraphs.

Google fonts help, they are free to use and if you select one it will tell you which fonts will go with it.

The type of font is actually important. Is your business formal or relaxed? If it is a relaxed and modern business but the font is stiff and old fashioned then you are giving mixed messages.

In google fonts you can search by type, like handwriting, calligraphy or script. You can even type in your own text to see what it will look like or with their generic text.

The fonts can be downloaded and installed on computers so you can use with your letters and in other programs. Some online software has google fonts available as well.

WordPress has themes that use google fonts and if the theme does not there are plugins that can be added to use them.

Layout

This may not seem important but goes with text. If you have a layout that is busy and confusing or overwhelming but you want your business to seem clear then you are again sending mixed messages.

If your business is loud and manic and that is your brand then your website layout should not be sparse and minimalist.

Navigation is with layout, if people cannot get around your site and find what they want quickly they will leave.

Text

The text is the most important part and there is a lot to consider, but do not let this be overwhelming, some of what to think about:

    Language – the language that your clients will understand
    Tone – what tone do you want to use, reserved, casual, etc?
    Information – what information does your perfect client want from your website and what do they need?

Overall

Having a brand can help with all of this, even if you only look at what your perfect client is like and what they like. For example if your client is young, loud and talks using modern saying then you probably want to make your brand reflect that. Modern casual fonts with text that uses modern sayings, trendy colours.

If your perfect client is retired then using modern sayings that teenagers would use may not work but using language they use and understand would.

Once you know these things creating business documentation and marketing becomes easier, standard fonts, colours and tone of text, you only have to worry about the actual words!

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5 Tips for Web Design

You can find a lot over the internet about how to design a great website but there are 5 main tips that you need to keep in mind:

    Keep it simple
    Clear language
  1. Use the right pictures
  1. Important items above the fold
  1. All about the customer

Keep it simple

Have you ever visited a website that was so cluttered and confusing that you could not find what you were looking for and left without buying?

By making your site easy to navigate and clear to read visitors can find what they are looking for easier and increase your conversion rate.

Clear language

Does your ideal client know the technical terms? If not then make sure to either explain them or do not use them. You want language that your clients and potential clients will understand.

Use the right pictures

Pictures can make a website look great, but if you use a picture that is random and is not clear on what it has to do with your site or the text it is with then it is the wrong picture. You probably think that that never happens, I have seen it happen online several times this week. I was attracted by a picture then read the text or clicked on the more info and found that the picture had nothing to do with the website or topic. What a disappointment and I am not visiting that site again.

Important items above the fold

What does this mean? It is an old newspaper term, when papers were folded editors would put the most eye catching and sensational information on the top part where it could be seen when stacked. More people would buy.

The fold on a website is the part of the page that is seen when the site is first loaded without the person having scroll down. Since you only have seconds to grab attending having valuable information show up right away that the visitor likes will mean they will scroll down for more.

All about the customer

Who is the site for? You want the site to contain information the your target will find interesting and answers their questions. This means less can be more. You might want to tell them the history of you, your product or services but do they want to know? Customers are more interested in how you can help them.

What tips for web design do you have?

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Consistency is Key

If you have a blog on your website it can be difficult to come up with ideas or make time to write on a regular basis. You may write every day for a few weeks, or days, then it gets less frequent. The search engines like sites that are updated frequently, and that includes adding blog posts, but customers also need to hear from you on a regular basis.

Whether it is your social media or blog they all need to be consistent. Start with a social media plan, you need to know where you want to post to, Social Media, website blog, online articles etc. I have a yearly general plan which I sit down and plan out for a whole month, all my social media topics and even the text or general info I want within, then I see what I could go into more detail and mark them to be blogs.

You do not have to blog every day, once a week is fine, more if you like. By planning either monthly, quarterly or yearly you can schedule in a whole day to write all the blogs for a period like a month, if you are blogging once a week, that is only 4 or 5 you have to do at one time.

WordPress allows you to schedule a post to be published on a specific date, so once you have written the post you can add it to your WordPress site, add some pictures and schedule to publish on a specific date.

Writing can be difficult to start but once you do it a few times it gets easier. You do not have to write a book a couple of paragraphs can be enough, think about what information your customer would find useful. If it is too long people may not read, try splitting a longer post into smaller parts, more weeks to schedule in!

What is your tip for finding topics to blog?

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What is Alt Text and when should I use it?

You may never have seen the term Alt Text, it is alternative text and is in the settings of pictures. For those who cannot see the pictures, if the picture does not load or if they use a text to speech tool to hear the webpage, knowing what the image is might be useful.

If the image is there as decoration and does not have any value to information then you can leave the Alt Text blank or enter text to show that it was a decorative picture.

If the picture or graphic is really important, such as a graph with the number of people who you have helped who would say your service/product is wonderful, then it is important to put in Alt Text.

Remember when entering text that the person probably cannot see the image or if they can, they may not be able to see the detail of it. The Alt Text information needs to be descriptive enough that the image does not need to be there.

To make it easier, image that you cannot see the site at all, what information could someone tell you that would explain the image?

You can add Alt text to images in WordPress but also in other programs like Microsoft Word. This means that if you create a report and someone receives it and uses the text to speech feature they would be able to hear about the images in the document.

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How to use text styles in WordPress

Styles are such a timesaver and a lot of people don’t even know they are there. When you are writing pages and posts there is a dropdown that usually says paragraph.

Select some text and click on that dropdown, there is a list of predefines formats called styles. In the page or post edit screen they usually do not look like they will on the finished site but you can use the preview button to see how it will look.

Styles are set by the theme and when you apply a new theme as long as it has the same style the new theme will apply its format to the text. For example the style of Heading 1 can look different in different themes, so you do not have to go into each page to manually change the font or colour. This saves you a lot of time when you want to change the look of your site.