The top website and online marketing links of the week. I know it’s been a long time (about 6 weeks!) since the last post. Today’s post I hope brings an end to that unplanned break. It’s been a crazy summer that included a death in the family, a broken elbow and hand, a sad lack of paddle boarding, and a badly-needed vacation. But now that things have settled down, I plan to get back to weekly blogging (or thereabouts). Just for fun – here is the history of WordPress in 4 minutes. If you’re a long-time WordPress user, you’ll get… Continue Reading
Resources
Weekly Links Roundup – Email Marketing Images, Heatmaps, Map Plugins, PDF Plugins
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Ever really think about using images in your email newsletter? And what kind of an impact those images might have? If not, take a look at this post about images in email marketing, you might learn a thing or two about selecting and using them more effectively. Here’s a nifty new addon tool from Google Analytics – read this guide to using the Page Analytics Chrome plugin to see heatmaps of any website. A heat map can show you where users linger on your website – where they tend to… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Lazy Loading, Tracking Downloads, Page Speed, Email Marketing for Bloggers
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Here’s an easy performance win – implement lazy loading on your site. Lazy loading means not loading images that are off-screen; they eventually load when the user scrolls down to them. Learn more about lazy loading and here’s the plugin I like for this task in WordPress sites. If you offer white papers or other kinds of downloads on your site, did you know that you can use Google Analytics, which you’re most likely already using, to track downloads? Though GA doesn’t natively track this kind of interaction, you can… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Store Locator Plugins, Plugin Roundup, Social Media, Screenshots Tool
The top website and online marketing links of the week. If you have multiple brick-and-mortar locations, a really useful feature you can add to your WordPress site is a store locator – a map showing pins for each of your locations. Clicking on a pin opens up address and other info about that location. Here’s a small roundup of 5 top store locator plugins. I’ve used Store Locator on a few sites, pretty easy to use, but these other plugins also look promising. And speaking of WordPress plugins, here’s a big review of the single best plugin across many categories…. Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Ashburn VA, Adobe Apps, Forms, Remarketing
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Ever noticed, if you’re like most Google Analytics users, how much traffic you get from Ashburn, VA? Turns out Ashburn is a big technology center – 70% of the world’s Internet traffic flows through there; about 2.2 trillion Google searches per day. Adobe’s app subscriptions are undeniably expensive. Photoshop by itself is $33.99/mo for businesses (right now). The first time I bought Photoshop it was in a box with a bunch of other Creative Suite apps for around $600. But anyway, there are alternatives for everything. Here’s a post on… Continue Reading
How to Clear Your Browser Cache
This happens about once per week… I’ll make a change for a client in their theme and let them know an issue is fixed. They’ll go take a look and see that the problem appears to still be there. I’ll tell them to clear their browser cache. Either they’ve been through this a hundred times already and can do it in their sleep, or they have no clue what I’m talking about. The Browser Cache Every browser is different in some ways, but they all have a cache – a place where they store elements of websites like graphics –… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Best Pinterest Images, Recycle Old Content, Analytics, Google My Business
The top website and online marketing links of the week. Pinterest can be a great marketing platform for your business if your customers are there (same goes for all social media platforms). But do you know how to maximize your efforts? Here’s a post showing what types of Pinterest images get the most engagement.In short: avoid faces, use vibrant colors (especially red) and include lots of detail in your photos. I’ve written before about reusing your old blog or website content – you spent all that time making it, so why should it not continue to work hard for you… Continue Reading
Using Free Stock Images in Your Business Blog
Using photos in your posts is important – it helps the user get a better feel for your subject matter. Plus it’s also good for Google Search if you name and attribute the image correctly (learn how to do that in this post from Yoast on Image SEO). But you may think you have to hire a photographer (sometimes you do) or buy an expensive license (sometimes you do) to get just the right photo for your business site’s latest post because free stock images won’t be high-quality. Back in 2013 there was a rumor that Google was thinking of… Continue Reading