As Sales Force, the leading software for CRM states: “Customer relationship management is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business.” Sounds good to me.

But what is the Relationship aspect of Sales? And what does it have to do with me or my business? A website won’t make your business successful on its own. You have to drive potential customers there. There are several ways to do this:

• Collection of user contact information
• Posting to Social Media of your choice
• Chat Software to create a dialogue
• Follow ups and Analytic tracking
• Customer Retentions

I’d like to focus on Collection of Contact Information. You can pay hundreds of dollars per month to a company that will capture your visitor information. But what if you can easily get that for practically free by publishing a few white papers or other material for download? With the right plugin for a one time fee for $60, that download can lead to your visitor’s contact information which you can then collect. You can also see what categories or types of information this visitor downloads and the number of downloads. There are lots of other goodies in the software that may be useful as well.

If you already publish posts, whitepapers and slide shows, this will be invaluable tool to stay in touch with visitors and grow your business.

1. GET FOUND

Publishing a website is not a “magic bullet.” New customers don’t find us simply because we have a domain name. We want more business. But many website owners are frustrated because they have a website that is not generating new work. Keep in mind that thousands of new websites come online every day; right now, there are over one billion active websites in the world. Whether you are competing in a national or international market, that’s quite a lot of competition.

If someone already knows your name and is aware of your services, they should be able to find you with a Google search. But what if they are looking to hire for the first time? They want to find the best business or person for their needs. If you aren’t sending out leads, you are out of luck.

WordPress is Blogging

You have the power to improve your odds, because you chose WordPress for your website content management system. You can take advantage of its most valuable feature — blogging and easily publish a weekly blog post just writing about WHAT YOU KNOW! Educate your readers on a relevant topic, or bring an industry update to your readers’ attention. After solving a particular website problem that I think would be interesting to others, I write a blog post. Each one of those posts goes out on the internet with a direct link back to me.

Here’s an example: I wrote about malware, because once I clicked on a link that got me into trouble. Months later, I got a call from a local business person who found my post by searching the web and it linked to my website. He called me because he wanted to find out more about what I knew on the subject. I automatically became his local expert on malware! And he said he was sorry he hadn’t found me earlier, having  hired someone else to develop his website.

Blogging directly impacts your success

A client recently told me her company was not bringing in leads. It’s a well-designed site with lots of content so I suspected she was not using the full marketing capability of WordPress. I asked if she was blogging and she said she wasn’t. Another client also said she wasn’t blogging because she could not think of what to write about. Since her company has a weekly meeting, I suggested she ask for topics to write about. Someone may come up with just the right story or idea.

It’s very important to write on a regular basis. There are many posting features, such as scheduling your blog posts to run on a calendar. Write several posts for later and they will publish at just the right day and time. Consistent blogging has a compounding effect so that posts which are many months old can bring in the most traffic. Search for anything on the internet and you will find articles still hanging around that are two or three years old!

What to write about

Here are more ideas for what you can write about in your blog. Don’t forget to set up categories and tags and use them to create an index of your topics. Try to come up with a consistent voice and write about what you know. Remember, you are the expert!

1. News and events: Is your company hosting an event or attending one? Did you just hire a new employee or did someone in your company receive recognition for a job well done?
2. Client Education: Your customers are looking for advice and guidance. If they purchased your product, perhaps there is more information you can give them about it.
   c. Case Studies: Write about a product or business success story. Start with an issue or problem the client brought to you and how you resolved it. There are potential customers looking at your site who may relate. It also establishes trust in your company.
3. Invite guest writers: A great way to attract readers is by inviting someone who already has a following to write a guest post… especially if their service is complementary to yours. You’d be surprised how many people will accept your invitation. It’s a win-win for both parties.

Check out this CoSchedule.com article that outlines how to write successful blog posts. It covers the gamut from writing good headlines to building content that drives traffic.

9 Types Of Blog Posts That Are Proven To Boost Traffic

2. EXPAND YOUR AUDIENCE

You are writing about what you know… but how can you get that out to as many people as possible? Social media is one great way to expand your audience. Most themes have a place for adding your social media links and you can upload a share plug-in (which invites readers of your blog to share on their socials, such as Facebook, Linked In and Twitter.) Two that I have used are AddtoAny and MashShare.

Another nifty tool that can save you time is a Cross Posting Plug-in such as WordPress to Buffer and CoSchedule. Write your post and within an hour it publishes on your social networks, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It’s an efficient way to get a lot of mileage with one post. Some writers recommend tailoring the article for different social networks and audiences, known as “Cross Promoting”.

3. CONVERT YOUR VISITORS TO CUSTOMERS

Once you begin to blog, you are only half the way there. Now you have to interest your visitors long enough to make them stay more than eight seconds, the average length of a visit. But how do you achieve this? It’s all about the content and where you place it.

My aha! moment came with an article I read about Purposeful User Flow. It is a content layout system that instructs and informs your potential customers about how you help them, and leads them to a page that describes your services. By adding sections of case studies and testimonials to the mix you can convince them to get in touch. It is also makes for great UX – User experience — because you are giving the reader what he or she needs to know to make an informed decision and takes them on a path that makes sense.

With this structure in place, you can create marketing campaigns that link to Landing Pages within your site. The visitor will inevitably go to your home page, where the User Flow starts the flow of information they are seeking. At the bottom of every page add a Call to Action. The Call to Action is a usually a row with headline text and a button link, making it easier for the reader to get in touch with you. What makes Purposeful User Flow so appealing is it is used by large agencies as well. I love to tell the story that my husband came home one day from working as an editor of publications at a large research hospital. He attended a meeting about their new, very large website. The agency’s representative talked about Purposeful User Flow. For me, that sealed the deal. It is an industry-wide standard.

4. RETAIN CUSTOMERS

Keeping in touch can be difficult in this fast-paced world. If the posts aren’t getting much of a reaction, use these additional methods of getting a response.

For instance, you can add a newsletter service to your WordPress website. Some are free and can be written right in the WordPress dashboard, such as MailPoet. I like to combine several of my blog posts and send them out in one newsletter. My clients are more likely read them and I feel confident that I am keeping them informed. Email opt-ins can be easily set up using JetPack on a web page as a pop-up or embedded in the footer or side bar. With it, you can start collecting new subscribers for your publications.

Another way to add value to your WordPress website is to set up surveys from forms to find out how you are doing. This will give you valuable information to improve your methods as well as collect testimonials. There are many ways to get a response with a form: How about special offers or coupons for filling out the form? Don’t forget you can also collect information on your Facebook page.

5. KEEP YOUR TOOLS SHARP

WordPress makes it easy to update your site to ensure security and better functionality. The good folks at Automattic work hard to improve the components of the software and respond to any bugs or potential threats to the community. All you have to do is review the dashboard after you log in to write your new post and see what needs to be done. You will also update any plugins and your theme if needed. If you manage more than one website check out ManageWP. With ManageWP you can update all the software at the same time. Updating is super important because if you are using your website as your main marketing tool, as you should be, you’ll want it to keep up with the ever-changing and wonderful internet.

Where do you start with color?

Type “color” on Google and you will find color wheels, web color palettes, color theory and even a link to the International Color Consortium, which promotes vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management systems for computers. It’s getting complicated.

Even if you aren’t a visual artist, you probably go to the paint store and draw on the color wheel information you learned so long ago. It is as valuable as the algebra we use to calculate size variables. How many of us remember learning the color wheel in art class? Well, it is still a valuable tool for graphic designers, interior designers, architects and other visual professionals. When sitting in font of a blank canvas (by this I mean my computer screen), I often pick a starting color based on client research. It may start with a main logo color. The next color I pick is going to be complementary. Why? Because it looks good! See basic color wheel rules from coschedule.com.

Cool Tools
A  cool tool for color, from the software company, Adobe, can help you create or complete a color combination for your website. Use their color wheel to create a whole new palette or download one from their online community. Try it out! 

A color mission at Color Marketing Group
The Color Marketing Group’s “mission is to create color forecast information for professionals who design and market color.” They state that “color sells and the right colors sell better.” At annual design workshops, members track trends and their influences on design and color. The site says these “influences run the gamut from social issues to politics, the environment, the economy and cultural diversity. It is an understanding of the influences that provides the most useful information, and it is the input of so many color designers, that gives each forecast its tremendous validity.”

Start with one color based on what’s new.
Pantone, a design color authority, already announced Ultraviolet as the color of 2018, also assembled a list of new hues to watch as we approach Fall ’18. Consumers will continue to focus on self-expressive colors and non-traditional choices. So, what are the colors for this year, keeping in mind that one of colors from Pantone could be used for your website, and not all of them at once!

Perhaps you made a major marketing effort the previous month and want to see how that affected your website’s SEO. You can see here that visits were doubled in the period from October 11 to October 22. I made some home page edits and wrote a few blog posts. I was surprised to see the change. The chart on the right side lists my top competitors in the area.

This tool also allows you to track specific key words

Let me give you an example. The keywords I wanted to track are “web design” and the also towns where I do the most business, such as Framingham, Natick and Boston. One of the ten keywords I chose is “Framingham Web Design” and another “Boston Web Design”.

How did I do?

I am on the first page of Google for the keywords “boston divi theme”, “framingham website design”, “natick web maintenance” and wellesley web maintenance.” Perugi Design is number 12 for “natick website design” and number 14 for “boston wordpress websites”. I think that’s quite good considering the number 12 spot is located on  the second page of the orgainic area on Google.

Part of the work is figuring out the best keywords for the audience you are trying to attract. There are other tools we use for that too.

The softeare creates a pdf booklet that itemizes everything that is updated on a weekly basis. such as number and dates of backups saved, plugins that have been updated, security checks, spam comments that have been removed and if and when and how long your website was offline.

Only clients on the monthly web maintenance plan gets these reports, either monthly or quarterly. (It cannot be accessed via the dashboard.) The pdf report is great for presentation purposes, too. If you are an existing or new client thinking about taking advantage of this service, message me. I’d be happy to talk to you about it!

I arrived at 8:15 or so and found a nearby parking lot for only $12, despite being warned it could cost $30 due to a Red Sox game held today…. making up for the $75 parking ticket I got last month at a meter during a Red Sox game! But, that’s another story. If you’d like to skip this first hand account and read real transcripts, go to the WordCamp website.

I found out from the first talk, Intuitive Editing Workflows by Erik Bernskiold, that Structured Data Input is an important feature to offer clients, so they can keep their web sites fresh. Problem is, there isn’t a plugin or theme that does this very well yet. We have two options: Create Custom Post Types for the client to write in updates or use a Builder type plugin or theme. The second option can be dangerous as the design can get destroyed without the client realizing it. Some themes, such as Divi by Elegant Themes allow editor roles, thus limiting the ability to change the format.

Next that morning was, The Frustration with Website Security, hosted by Surcuri software. It was labeled WordPress 101, which I took to mean it was for “beginners”. I picked up a few tips, but basically it reinforced what I already knew. 1. Back up your site, not on the server, for instance with Amazon SImple Storage, Dropbox or on your hard drive. Do not rely on the hosting to do it for you. Their backup may also get infected. 2. Attacks are highly automated. which make money for the hackers, even with your small family website, as it can act as a jumping off point to infect other sites. 3. Use a password manager, such as Evernote, so you can have a different password for everything. 4. You can get malware from many places, even plugins!

Designing and Theming for Performance by Matt Dorman was really nerdy, so I won’t go much into it. In a nutshell, Performance of your website, i.e. speed, is important. And there are various tools to determine and help you fix that problem. Obviously, you don’t want your site to load in more than two seconds or you’ve lost the smart phone customer. Sometimes it’s the size of your imagery, or its a plugin or the theme or even the hosting. Test your site on Pingdom, Yahoo’s YSlow, or Google’s Page Speed Insights and then let your web designer/developer know there is a problem so they can help you.

Designer’s Panel with four designers/developers of various backgrounds was next. A lot of chatting, but the important points were: Sliders are on the way out… too much movement especially for phones, which is where all the design is focused now. Give reasons for your design decisions and back it up with information. Quote data and anecdotes. Clients don’t always know what is best for their websites. Consider that what is fast for you and the client, because we have good wifi, is not necessarily the case with many of our users. Someone said the next iteration of WordPress, REST API, will focus on design components and not just the whole page.

Page Builder Showdown given by Gina Deaton rated six or so page builder themes (such as Divi) for creating web page design. A couple came out at the bottom, a few in the acceptable range and two on top. Surprisingly, Divi got knocked down a few points because Gina felt there was a learning curve and the theme only builds out to four columns. She acknowledged that it is a powerful theme, but that in order to use it at it’s full potential, you need to know css coding. The winner was Beaver Builder and a simpler free new theme called Elementor.

Why Good Design Matters was given by a young designer, Andrea Trew,  from the agency Fly Wheel. She mentioned a few books on design or design philosophy including As Little Design As Possible by Dieter Rams. She designed a clever intern campaign based on the Wes Anderson movie, Moonrise Kingdom. New interns were given notebooks backed with fake fur. The take home was “It’s not how it looks, it’s how you make people feel.”

Organizing Your First Website Usability Test by Anthony D Paul, was all about testing web design prototypes. Some results can be “too much content” which can be determined early in a testing environment and problems with Brand Perception, which usually takes some time to uncover and shopping cart abandonment. His favorite quote is “The Price of Light is less than the cost of darkness, by Arthur C.Nielson, market researcher.

Intro to Wireframing, by Karalyn Thayer pointed out that wireframing saves time and money, because you can easily make changes early on. A wireframe, either low fidelity such as a sketch on a napkin, or high fidelity made with software,does not contain any color, fonts, or other stylish elements. The client can more easily understand the hierarchy of content, layout and path of the user.

Are we having fun yet? That’s it for Day one!

At first it was mostly graphics for magazines and other publications, then I did more general graphic design projects such as annual reports, brochures, invitations, logos, etc. Technology was changing and I grasped the ring that came my way and started making html websites.

But as I reflect on the changing technology for design and marketing, I can appreciate what we have now that is so affordable or even FREE! I am a WordPress web designer. I (and my clients) get the WordPress software absolutely free thanks to Matt Mullenweg and his company, Automattic. I also get my favorite 80 themes cheaply, thanks to a special lifetime deal from Elegant Themes which I pass on free to clients. Many plugins that bring amazing functionality to your website are free as well.

Fonts, that we used to spec and order from Type Houses was expensive. And every new line of copy added up. Now, many fonts are free. In addition, clients enjoy free use of my font library. If you want to market your services, all you have to do is Blog (free) or use Social Media (free). Free Newsletters are possible with Mail Poet in your WordPress dashboard.

Are you noticing the word FREE a lot? Does anyone remember the days of news or magazine ads? Yes, you still have to be clever to convert visitors to customers, but the inbound marketing opportunities are there for the taking.

So, no, I don’t mourn for the Good ‘Ol Days. I’m happy for the Good New Days! I just wish they had come sooner!

They are offering a free trial of CoSchedule, a social media editorial calendar built exclusively for WordPress. It will help save time managing your blog and social media content by putting everything on the same drag and drop editorial calendar.

Click here to see what it does. (and get a free 14 day trial).

Here is something they published that will be useful as you write your next blog posts: 180 Power Words for Writing Emotional headlines, collected by copywriter Karl Stepp. Catchy headlines are one of the best way to up your seo.