Red Kite Creative

The “Minding Your Business” Blog

How Often Should I Post to my Business Blog?

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Ah – that question I hear so often from clients with a new blog!

I don’t blog enough – I have a lot of info to share, but often I just don’t think about it until I get some kind of reminder from the outside world – such as a post like this one…

Most of my clients are not freelancers but some of the tips I read recently in this post apply here to their small businesses, too. The worst thing you can do with a blog is start off with an energetic post or two when you first get your shiny new website, then stop using it altogether. Seeing that your last post was dated June 22, 2010 communicates to potential customers that your website is not a high priority for your business, among other things…

You probably paid a not-inconsiderable fee for your custom business website on a CMS platform like WordPress or Drupal. It’s given you the ability to easily add fresh content in the form of blog posts, so if you’re not blogging on a regular basis, you’re not getting the full benefit of the money you spent. It’s like buying a new car and letting it sit in the garage, gathering dust.

So here are a few basic tips on business blogging:

1) Good quality is more important than high frequency. Writing a high-quality post with content useful to your customers (your customers – not you!) once or twice per month is better than writing a bunch of small, short pieces about anything and everything. [Read more…] about How Often Should I Post to my Business Blog?

WordPress Plugin of the Week: Image Widget

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Image Widget interfaceThe venerable Image Widget has been around a long time. Currently on version 4.0.6, t’s been downloaded over 661,000 times as of this writing, and I’ve been using it myself for at least 3 years on client sites.

It’s a simple little plugin with a narrow purpose: use the native WordPress media manager to add image widgets to your site. It’s great for WordPress site managers or editors who don’t want to deal with adding img code to text widgets, and I like it because it is very easy to use.

Install it from within WordPress admin: go to Plugins > Add New and search for Image Widget.

Once done, to add a new image widget go to Appearances > Widgets and drag the Image Widget to a sidebar. You’ll then see the interface to the right.

Select an image from the Media Library or your computer by clicking on ‘Select an Image,’ then enter a title (the headline for the widget), ALT text for those who may not be able to see the image, and a caption if you like. The caption will show under the image.

If the image needs to link somewhere else, add the link. Then choose the size and alignment for the image and click ‘Save.’ You can always change out the image in a particular widget by clicking on ‘Select an Image’ again, and you can use more than one Image Widget in a page or post.

If you need to add a single image and caption to your site, say for a special or an ad for an upcoming event, this is an easy way to do it.

This series is for helping WordPress editors and managers add useful  functionality to their websites in the easiest and most efficient way possible. I’ll be reviewing plugins I recommend for my own clients.

Who should write your website's content?

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If you own a website, you’ve more than likely heard the phrase “content is king” more times than you can count in the last couple of years. It’s never been more true than it is right now. 

Old-school SEO tactics (even white-hat ones) that used to give sites a leg up in Google search results are no longer cutting it after the Google Penguin update, designed to reduce the number of spammy search results. Google is much more interested in providing a searcher with a high-quality result now, meaning content that’s relevant to their search terms.

Google puts value on content quality now to help in determining your site’s relevance and popularity. If your site provides high quality content, your users will stay on your site for longer periods, visit more pages, and return to your site more than once. You will have to put in the effort to get that high-quality content onto your site, but in some ways it’s a blessing: you’re more in control of your own search engine results now that content has such increased importance.

I’m of the firm opinion that it’s you, the owner or editor of your company’s site, who should take at least the first stab at writing the content for your own website. Here are a few reasons why.

  • Few people can know your business better than you do. There’s no way that I or anyone else who doesn’t work with or for your company has the knowledge to write meaningfully about the nuts and bolts of what you do and how you do it.
  • Your voice matters. If you’re adding fresh content to your site on a regular basis through a blog or newsletter, readers will come to recognize your tone and writing style. To them, you become a trusted voice of your company.
  • It’s more authentic. Your personality (and that of your business) should come through to some degree in anything you write. 
  • It’s unique. If the “About Us” page’s content is interchangeable with that of 20 other websites in your industry, that’s not good. As an owner or inside in your company, you’ll know the little details that an outside writer will not.
  • Tweets and Facebook wall posts count, too. If your company is involved in social media, the people writing those posts and tweets should have a voice and writing style similar to what’s on your website.
  • You’ll get better the more you do it. Truly, it becomes easier as you write more often.

You may not be a “good writer” but that’s okay, you can always get someone else, even an outside service, to copyedit and clean up your work. But I really feel it’s important that you take ownership of your own content as much as possible. Your readers – and Google – will know the difference, especially if you’re producing regular new content as you should be.

Two New Website Launches: PRS Septic Services and Ace Chem-Dry

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Our latest launches: two Colorado company websites – one for our long-term client Portable Rental Systems, and the other for Loveland-based Ace Chem-Dry.

PRS Septic screenshotPortable Rental Systems recently expanded into a new industry, septic cleaning and pumping. They had content related to the new field on their existing website but the work had grown to the point where they felt they needed to spin it off into a new site.

We created a new website, loosely modeled on the five-year-old original, but focused entirely on content for the new niche. We removed that content from the existing website at launch.

The new site was built in Concrete5, a lightweight CMS that allows the client to edit content, add pages on the fly, and manage custom functionality easily. It’s not as powerful as WordPress, but is also less expensive to build; Concrete5 fits perfectly with their business needs and lets them handle everything they need to do with the site on a day-to-day basis.

Ace Chem-Dry screenshotLoveland-based carpet cleaning company Ace Chem-Dry had a page within the Chem-Dry company site, but came to us looking for a separate website where they would have more freedom to present their own unique content. We set them up with a custom WordPress site that includes a multi-page appointment scheduling form similar to the one found on the master Chem-Dry site, but scaled down to fit their needs. We also made a template with custom fields to enable them to manage the coupons on their new Specials page quite easily.

Quick Custom Google Map for Business Service Area

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(Updated Oct. 14, 2013 – In order to import a KML, you’ll need to click on My Places, then instead of the red Create Map button, click the link underneath (“Or create with classic My Maps”). On the next screen you can import a KML; it’s Maps Engine Lite that won’t let you import KMLs at this time.)

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Ever tried to use Google Maps to create something more than the typical road or location map? Frustrating, wasn’t it?

Map 1I needed to make a service area map for a client and started by doing a search for ‘google county map boundaries,’ since I knew that county lines were not part of Google maps by default. I found a map of US County Boundaries in Google’s Fusion Tables data. I only needed three counties, so I zoomed in, then used the Filter to select the County Name of each of those three counties. That produced a map like the one to the right.

However, I couldn’t edit this one. I needed the counties to be semi-transparent.

I went to Google Maps and created a new map, zoomed in on the area I needed. Then I clicked Import (it’s just above the title) to see if that would help, and it did: it told me I could import files with a format of KML.

I went back to my custom map and clicked File > Download, where I could choose the KML format. I downloaded this to my computer, then back in the new map clicked Import again to pull in the new file.

Map 2

Voila! That pulled in my county boundaries perfectly. Then, all I needed to do was click on each county and I could change the color and transparency of the overlay and lines.

Here’s my final edited map to the right. It took about 10 minutes to create, once I found the county line data. You can search for all types of map data to use in your own custom maps at Google Fusion.

Two new website launches

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So far in September Red Kite has launched two Colorado company websites – one for the non-profit Atmosphere Conservancy, and the other for Clear Surroundings Organizing.

Atmosphere Conservancy screenshotThe Atmosphere Conservancy was using an older custom WordPress theme that had begun to break as new WordPress versions were introduced. We replaced the old theme with a new custom one, including many of the same design elements but with a more modern look and feel. The site got a slideshow and project slider on the home page, but the most important change was the splitting of two long pages for News and Projects into individual News and Project blog posts. This added more focused content pages to the site (good for Google) and makes those sections more readable in smaller chunks.

Clear Surroundings is a clean, uncluttered theme that reflects the owner’s status as a professional organizer. A gallery will be added soon; for now the site has a home page slider, rotating testimonials and a simple contact form.