Paula G. Web Design

RSS is at the heart of blogs yet many people don’t know what it is and why it is so great. I want to help you better understand not only the term but how you can use it to your advantage.

RSS stands for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary. It is an XML format for delivering Web content. What that means it follows web standards in a way that is accessible across many different technologies. Think of it as one of those universal adapter type thingies you might buy for the house. Whether you have one brand or another, it works just the same.

RSS is at the heart of blog content allowing updates to be delivered to other Web sites and individual’s RSS readers as new content is added. This is the most exciting and important part of it.

Why?

Well, information coming at us from all sides on a daily basis. You might wonder, why do we need yet another delivery channel? Read the rest of this entry »

If you are in or around the Doylestown, PA area (just outside of Philadelphia, PA in Bucks County), here’s the scoop on a speaking engagement I have coming up this week…

Blogging is all the rage and part of a savvy Web 2. marketing strategy. But, it is right for you & your business? Join me as I  share with you the ins and outs of getting started with blogging. In this seminar you will learn:

• What a blog is and why it is such a popular marketing tool
• Questions to ask yourself before you get started
• How to get started with your own blog and what tools to use

When:      Wednesday, June 4th, 2008    8:00AM
Where: James Lorah House, Doylestown, PA
More Info: http://www.womensbusinessforum.org/

This event is free and open to the public as part of the regular monthly meeting of the Doylestown Women’s Business Forum.

I ran across this excellent blog post today “7 Signs of SEO Scams”. It is well written and really debunks the common myths of SEO. Before I share a little excerpt, let me say that while I am not an SEO expert (at least not yet!) I do work closely with several people on my team who are so I can offer my clients the best expertise possible. I am smart enough to know what I don’t know — admit it and then partner with experts I trust.

That being said, web clients will come to me and say things like “I want to be #1 in Google for Real Estate in Philadelphia” or better yet #1 for “business coach”. Well, I hate to say it but that is short-sighted and unrealistic. No one can promise you #1 rankings for anything ever. Just not possible. It is like asking a financial adviser to guarantee a certain rate of return - out of their control, can’t happen. What can be offered is a sound, SEO strategy that takes ongoing work and effort. That includes finding the right keywords to target (for you).

Doing so is a time intensive process, so expect to pay for good service. It is more than just sprinkling a few words in your copy and calling it a day.

Here are two of my favorites from Josh Garner’s article:

1. We can rank your site in 48 hours!
Boy, I wish this was possible. It sure would save me a whole lot of time slaving over my computer like a maniac, pouring over search term trends, conversion reports, traffic and ranking reports, etc. I wouldn’t be spending hours on end modifying and optimizing content until my SEO fingers bleed. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. It takes hours to find the right search terms. Depending on the size of a website, it can take days to implement changes. It takes weeks to see the initial effects. It can take months to get things going in the right direction. If you’re being promised results in a few days, your being offered a money pit and little more.

7. We guarantee page 1 rankings!
Nobody can do this. Nobody. In SEO, there are no guarantees on rankings, traffic, or any other measure. Think of SEO like advertising (that’s really all it is, just online). The best marketing guys don’t guarantee anything either. Neither do doctors or lawyers. You hire these professionals based on the questions you’ve asked them, their past successes, experience, etc. SEO is no different. Good SEOs are good SEOs because they have spent years learning and testing, and know of the measures most often needed to produce results. So if anyone guarantees anything, they are only guaranteeing that you will be wasting your hard earned money.

Head on over and check out the full 7 myths. For anyone seeking to understand what SEO is even at its most basic, it is worth your time. That way you can be sure to avoid getting scammed or wasting your pipe dreams on unrealistic expectations.

So you’ve set up your email newsletter publishing system and you have launched your blog. Now you need to come up with regular, valuable content. It is at this point that I often hear the screams “What do I do? How will I ever figure out what to write about?” It is a worthwhile concern. After all, one of the things that make email and blogging effective marketing tools is the fact that it is regular and consistent. So if you’ve decided that a blog and email newsletter is right for you, you need to stick to a schedule.

Sticking to a writing schedule, for some, might seem like a neverending bad nightmare of last minute paper writing in college. However, it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact it can be fun. If you’re not having fun with it (at least most of the time) it is not the right marketing tool for you (but that is a different topic altogether).

So, here’s my top ways for beating writer’s block and keeping your blog posts and email newsletter content flowing.

1. Pick a reasonable schedule for you. Sure there are blogs out there that update content 24/7 multiple times each day. Unless that is how you want to live and run your business, I suggest picking something a little more in line with what you really want. The important thing is to make sure it is regular and consistent. At a minimum — at least weekly is recommended for blogs and every other week for email newsletters (although weekly is better there too).
2. Write about what you know and enjoy. If you’re in business for yourself I surely hope you enjoy what you are doing because you’ll spend a lot of time doing it! If you don’t enjoy it — well, that’s a question for my coaching business. Write about your expertise and write in a way that feels good to you. This isn’t English lit… relax a bit and let your personality come through. Stay professional of course but let your written voice align with what you stand for.
3. Content is everywhere. Running out of things to write about? Not possible. Read the rest of this entry »

With email marketing it can sometimes feel like you spend time crafting your articles, bless them, send them off,and then wonder if anyone is every opening or reading them.  How can you know?  If you’re using a professional email publishing system you have easy access to basic statistics about your broadcast.

Information you will want to know about each broadcast includes:

• # of emails sent
• # and % of undeliverable emails
• # and % of people who opened your email

Any system you use should also automatically manage any undeliverable emails.  For instance, attempting to deliver the message a certain number of times before it considers it a “bad” email address.

As with any statistics, they are a benchmark, not an absolute. For instance, I use Aweber and while they can tell me the open rate of my broadcast, they cannot track this figure for emails that are sent plain text (vs HTML).  So, I can usually assume my open rate is “at least” whatever percent it is showing in the report.  I always include a plain text version of my HTML newsletters for people who either choose to receive plain text only or for email programs that do not support HTML (or have the settings turned off). Read the rest of this entry »

As a business owner who wants a website that works for you, why should you care about web standards? I’m all about a plain English approach so while I don’t expect you to have to understand or navigate the world of standards, validators, and well written code, I do expect you to care about what’s under the hood.

Before I give you some hard and fast reasons why what’s under the hood of your website matters, let me give you an analogy to help you understand what I am talking about. Because, after all, if you’re an end user of a website, and not a programmer, it is possible that you have no idea what code standards are or how they could affect you.

Let’s say you are in the market to buy a new car. You want one that not only looks good but also feels good. You want safety, reliability, and to feel a sense of pride when you drive. Business has been good to you so you decide you are going to splurge and buy a new BMW. Nice! Those 3 letters say a lot. Now, let’s say that instead of going to a reputable dealer, you decide to buy it from a random friend. The papers are signed, and you’re all ready to drive away in your new piece of materialistic bliss. Off you go. Feels good to you. What no one told you though is that while it appears to look and feel good, in fact the engine was built by a 12 year old who had a class in machine shop and assembled all the parts according to a cliff notes guide he bought on eBay. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the May 5, 2008 edition of LinkedIn bloggers! I am pleased to be this month’s host.

Without much ado… let’s get to this month’s roundup of articles. Lots of great topics ranging from leadership to business management to increasing your sales.

Life. Money. Development. presents The 7 Attributes of Leadership posted at Life. Money. Development., saying, “An excellent presentation of the attributes every leader should have.”

Matt DiChiara presents The Hills Sends MyNewPlace Traffic Skyward posted at MyNewPlace Blog, saying, “thanks and have a good weekend!”

Jenn Givler presents Information Overload posted at Create a Thriving Business, saying, “In this day and age we have easy access to so much information. It can become overwhelming - and we can get caught up in the research and learning phase - instead of implementing our ideas. This article explores ways to help cut the information overload.” Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re updating a blog, website, or sending out an email newsletter, one of the great things you can do to personalize your message and make it look good is by adding images. It doesn’t have to be difficult or complex, but you do need to edit and save them appropriately if you want them to look good and work well on the web and in email. That means no more:

• Funny cropped picture
• Incorrect file types
• Incorrectly resized photos that look horribly unprofessional
• Massively large image files that grind your email to a halt

Working with images can be a career unto itself. Many fancy software programs exist for experts to do magical things. However, for the average person it is total overkill. For those quick do it yourself situations consider using a tool like Google Picasa. It is free and easy to use for your most basic image tasks. Read the rest of this entry »

Technology comes flying by us at crazy speeds. While we sleep at night it seems like little gremlins are out there toiling away creating new and often better things for us. Perhaps it’s just the fact that so much development (especially in the open source community) is done globally that makes it seems like no one sleeps. Either way, we are each faced almost weekly with the question Shakespeare never got to ask “To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?”.

Even though web standards don’t change frequently (that’s why they are foundational, right?) the other goodies that help make our websites and online marketing run do change. An example of that is the recent announcement of the new 2.5 version of the popular blogging platform Wordpress .

So, let’s use this new Wordpress release as an example. Should you run right out an upgrade? Read the rest of this entry »

Often times clients will come to me frustrated and at the end of their rope because the formatting of text in their blog posts or web updates is all askew. Or, they might be working with PayPal (or other shopping cart) and find that their “Buy Now” buttons don’t work when they cut and paste them into their site.

The solution is often very simple, but unless you have an intimate knowledge of working with computers, text, and code, it would never even cross your mind. In fact, I can remember the first time I did some web programming about 12 years ago and no matter what I did it wouldn’t work. Was it my code? Nope. It was the way I was handling the text.

In a nutshell … Don’t use Microsoft Word to cut and paste any text on blogs or your website. Feel free to use Word to write your articles and compose, but you need to take an intermediary step before you post it to the web. Why?

Microsoft Word often inserts stray hidden characters or dirty code behind the scenes that makes everything go awry when browsers and blogging software interpret the text. Read the rest of this entry »