Your Business Listing Online
In this presentation called, "Your Business Listing Online", e4e partner Will Hanke tells us some things that will help our business's online listings and some tools we can use to do those things.
How to Set Your Business on Auto Pilot
In this presentation called, "How to Set Your Business on Auto-Pilot," e4e partner Will Hanke explains how he uses automation to make his business operations more efficient. He makes suggestions about what web applications have helped him, describes the types of tasks that are easily automated and show us how we can save a significant amount of time during our work day.
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Business APProved – Help My Website’s Been Hacked!
In this episode of Business APProved called, "Help My Website's Been Hacked!," e4e partner Will Hanke explains how you can protect your website from being hacked and what to do if you think it's been compromised. He discusses the importance of regularly backing up your website, a variety of apps and plugins that help make the process easier and how to make your website more secure.
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Business APProved: Scheduling Apps
In this segment of Business Approved, e4e partner Will Hanke discusses some of his favorite scheduling applications including Google Calender, Calendly and x.ai.
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Overcoming Mistrust: Injecting Credence and Credibility into Your Content
In this presentation called "Overcoming Mistrust: Injecting Credence and Credibility into Your Content," e4e partner Will Hanke discusses five strategies to increase the credibility of your web content. He explains how to use academic research, expand on ideas effectively, avoid link baiting, use active voice and he stresses the importance of taking the highroad.
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Business Approved: Finance Apps
In this segment of Business Approved, e4e partner Will Hanke discusses some of his favorite financial phone applications including Quick Books, Square's Cash App and Facebook Messenger.
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How to Proactively Prevent Website Crashes and Recover from Disasters
Most people take websites and digital services for granted, and expect them to be available 24/7/365. And a crashed website can cost a business a lot of money. Some business models, such as ecommerce platforms, lose money with each minute the website is down. But even if you don't sell anything online, a crashed website could be costing you brand reputation, trust with your audience, leads that are trying to find your business, and repair costs.
Instead of leaving things to chance, it's better to proactively take measures that will minimize downtime and ensure that your website doesn't crash in the first place. It also pays off to make sure that you've taken measures to recover if the worst should happen. Use the following tips, tools, and techniques to help minimize the chance of an outage, and to recover from one if your website crashes.
Use Website Security Tools
The best way to thwart hackers and viruses is to prevent them from tampering with your website in the first place. Any web administrator or small business that's trying to grow an audience online needs security services to ward off invasions from the latest threats, but some people forgo security protection in an effort to save a buck in the short term.
In the long term, however, failing to use security services could devastate your business. I'm sure just about everyone has read headlines detailing the latest successful hacking attack, whereby an Internet hacker stole hundreds of usernames and passwords. In the past, there were even reports that terrorist groups like ISIL were exploiting WordPress vulnerabilities.
The Internet isn't a safe place, and failing to protect your website is a rookie mistake.
Research Patch Notes and the Latest Vulnerabilities
It's always worth keeping up with the latest vulnerabilities and exploits. I know it might sound like a lot of work, but two of my favorite sources for the latest threats are the WordPress Vulnerability Database and CVE Details. I think anyone can make time to check things out at least twice a month or so. Since all the hard work has been done for you and all the latest known vulnerabilities have been aggregated, you can easily scan through the list and make sure you don't use any plugins, themes, or WordPress versions that are vulnerable to an attack.
I'd always recommend upgrading to the latest WordPress version, but it's a little nuanced. You do need to feel comfortable making technical changes to a WordPress site, and it's best to read up on patch notes to make sure the latest version is stable. Furthermore, you're going to want to make sure all of your add ons, plugins, and other similar components are all up to date. If you fail to update WordPress modules, you may still be vulnerable to an old attack.
If you’re uncomfortable with running updates and patches on your site, find a service that will do it for you. We offer a WordPress maintenance service which includes offsite backups and weekly updates.
Backup Your Website
Anyone who's felt the sting of a virus or data loss in the past knows just how critical it is to backup data on a regular basis. It takes an immense amount of time to put together a quality website, and creating content is a continuous process. But without website backups, you could lose all your content, custom coding, and user data in an instant. It only takes one virus or configuration error to negate all the blood, sweat, and tears you've poured into your digital marketing campaign.
As such, you need to stay on top of backups. Not only will it prevent data loss, but it can help give you a restore point if a new plugin goes haywire and crashes your theme. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools to help you backup your website, such as Duplicator, BackupWordPress, BackwpupFree, and even WordPress Backup to Dropbox. I wouldn't recommend Dropbox due to a lack of encryption and past security issues, but if you know how to encrypt your files, it's a viable free alternative.
Consider Using a CDN
A CDN is a Content Delivery Network, which may or may not be appropriate for your business (depending on the industry and type of website you run). If your main product is content, such as software reviews or how-to content, a CDN could be a real life saver. They work by caching static page content from your website and deliver it to users based on their geographic region.
Instead of the server hosting your content directly supplying visitors' web browsers with your static page content, the cached static pages can be hosted on redundant servers to lessen the load on your main server. Using a CDN can also help mitigate the damage from a DoS attack or sudden traffic spike. However, if your website is nothing more than a simple digital storefront that helps local customers find your business, you likely won't see much value in a CDN.
Drill Down and Determine the Root Cause
If your website mysteriously crashed and you can't discover why, it pays off to be diligent. You'll want to make darn sure you find out the root cause of the crash, or it could happen again. Worse yet, your website may have been the victim of an attack, in which case you'll need to determine where the vulnerabilities lie.
This is where monitoring packages provide massive value, since they'll be able to help alert you when your website crashed as well as other abnormalities. For instance, if you notice an abnormal traffic spike, it could be that you were victimized by a DdoS or DoS attack. Other times, physical hardware problems might be the issue. Hosting providers aren't perfect, so if you suspect physical hardware problems, get on the horn with your hosting provider ASAP.
I'd recommend looking into the WPServerStats plugin if you don't already have monitoring software in place.
Final Thoughts
A lot of headaches and expensive downtime can be completely avoided with a little bit of preparedness. I'd highly recommend doing the following to ensure your website doesn't bite the dust:
- Keep all of your code modules, plugins, addons, themes, and WordPress version up to date
- Spend the few extra bucks on a security service
- Use monitoring tools to log oddities and abnormalities
- Always backup your data
- Consider using a CDN
There may not ever be such a thing as a perfect server, but by using these techniques, can can drastically reduce your risk of a costly outage.
Contrarian Panel: The Trouble with Time Management
Led by e4e partner Dale Furtwengler, the "Contrarian Panel" explored this question: "Why is it that we still feel the pressure of time." The panel and audience had a lively discussion, captured in this video...
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e4e November 2016 Business APProved Panel
Digital marketing automation expert Will Hanke leads a discussion panel, including Tom Ruwitch and Brian Rogers, that recommends Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems used by the panelists. Will, Tom and Brian each present a CRM which they use and discuss the advantages of the chosen system.
Following their presentations, the panel takes questions from the audience.
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Business APProved
Using apps to support your business is crucial to your success.
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Leveraging Facebook Ads For More Exposure
Facebook has over 1.5 billion viewers (so far) with over 1 billion checking in for 20 minutes or more per day!
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e4e Business APProved
Social media is no longer an option for your business. It plays a major role in shaping your reputation and perceptions about your credibility. Luckily our e4e experts Karen Fox and Will Hanke bring you four powerful apps to ensure you grow a strong social media presence.
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7 Steps to a Badass Growth Funnel
Digital marketing automation expert Will Hanke starts at the top of the marketing and sales funnel process by focusing on how to draw awareness to your products and services and engage prospects through a wooing and courtship process. He helps viewers understand how to develop strategies that inspire serious consideration from prospects and lead to successful conversions with them.
In this video presentation, he describes how to:
- Get an audience – You need to understand your audience and how to attract prospects.
- Create a Lead Magnet: This is an irresistible bribe in which you offer value to get their email address and now that you have their information, you can educate them.
- Offer a tripwire: This is an offer in which money is exchanged. Offer something to those people who have engaged with the magnet. Give them an inexpensive option so they have paid something to receive value. (Exchange money for value)
- Nurture the relationship: Educate them. After you have the email, segment the audience and start to educate them. Use automation to nurture the relationship.
- Over-deliver: Give them more than they expected to get. Give a free bonus. Give them a free webinar.
- Introduce your Core Sale: Now you have already warmed yourself up to the people, you are able to move the conversation to a new level. Make sure you have call to action buttons in strategic places because they are important.
- Maximize the relationship: Once they are already doing business, make sure you leverage that by upselling to the customer.
For web development, digital marketing automation and SEO tips, subscribe to Will Hanke’s newsletter or check out his blog.
7 Steps to a Badass Growth Funnel
Digital marketing automation expert Will Hanke starts at the top of the marketing and sales funnel process by focusing on how to draw awareness to your products and services and engage prospects through a wooing and courtship process. He helps viewers understand how to develop strategies that inspire serious consideration from prospects and lead to successful conversions with them.
Get an audience – You need to understand your audience and attract prospects using the following:
- SEO
- Content (through blogs, articles, videos with periscope, share where you can meet people)
- Ads
- Social media
- Videos (using the right keywords)
- Podcasting
- Images and info-graphics
- Define your persona’s
- Understand what search engines know about your site
Create a Lead Magnet: This is an irresistible bribe in which you offer value to get their email address and now that you have their information, you can educate them. It should:
- Be consumable in 5 minutes or less
- Woo and romance prospects
- Be free
Offer a tripwire: This is an offer in which money is exchanged. Offer something to those people who have engaged with the magnet. Give them an inexpensive option so they have paid something to receive value. (Exchange money for value)
Nurture the relationship: Educate them. After you have the email, segment the audience and start to educate them. Use automation to nurture the relationship.
Over-deliver: Give them more than they expected to get. Give a free bonus. Give them a free webinar.
Introduce your Core Sale: Now you have already warmed yourself up to the people, you are able to move the conversation to a new level. Make sure you have call to action buttons in strategic places because they are important.
Maximize the relationship: Once they are already doing business, make sure you leverage that by upselling to the customer.
For web development, digital marketing automation and SEO tips, subscribe to Will Hanke’s newsletter or check out his blog.
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Is CRO All Its Cracked Up To Be?
You’ve invested in your website. At the end of the day, you want to increase your bottom line. In short, you need to see results.
Any serious business owner has a lot of time, money, and energy invested in their website. Sure, it’s fun building a website from scratch and watching your organic traffic streams grow, but at the end of the day, we all want to increase our bottom line. In short, we need to see results. As such, a lot of people turn to conversion rate optimization to maximize the effectiveness of their website and make a strong impact with their audience. You want your traffic to grow. You want your subscriber list to multiply – and ultimately you want more conversions. But those of us who don’t know a whole lot about conversion rate optimization are making some big mistakes.
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Quick Changes to Give Your Blog a Makeover
As website owners progress and mature over time, we find there is a lot to improve when we look at our original blogs. Specific pieces of content, the structure and format of our sites, as well as a lot of other small things needing an overhaul can add up or have a big and negative impact on the success of your digital marketing efforts. What makes these small mistakes an even larger problem is the fact that many people don’t have ample amounts of time to spend at their leisure to diagnose and fix them. Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do to give your blog a tune-up that won’t eat up your time. The following are some extremely quick, simple, and efficient changes you can make to your blog to give it a makeover.
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Common Misconceptions with SEO
When it comes to keeping your website optimized, a key factor is knowing fact from fiction about what helps or hinders your rankings
Most Common Misconceptions with SEO
Many people suffer from the same delusions of SEO. Business owners from all kinds of markets may have an expert understanding of their industry, but do not understand why they need an expert to continuously monitor their web presence. A lot of people have a lot of misunderstandings about SEO for two reasons.
First, the game is constantly changing. From search engine updates to new social media channels, you have to be knowledgeable about the latest and greatest trends to have any chance of success.
Second, there are always rumors floating around that are not backed by any tangible evidence, and these kinds of stories can quickly strike fear into the hearts of many business owners. If you are not an SEO expert, you need to be able to separate fact from fiction to make the right choices for your business. Be aware of the following mistruths about SEO before you make your next marketing decision.
One-and-Done SEO
Unfortunately, some people believe that once their website has been optimized for search engines, they don’t need to take a second glance at their online marketing strategy. Even if you obtain the number one ranking for your keywords, you must realize that the web is not static. SEO is a constant battle, and you will find that many competitors rise and fall in the struggle for relevant rankings. Once you obtain any quantity of organic traffic, you must then maintain your SEO efforts to keep your ranking.
To better illustrate this point; let’s compare SEO to the Indy 500. Once a driver is in first place, do you think he lets up on the accelerator? What a ridiculous idea! There is no faster way to lose the race! If anything, the competitor in first place needs to fine-tune their efforts to ensure success.
Link Building is Irrelevant
How many times have SEO professionals heard that their profession is a dying art? With every new search algorithm update and every new social media platform, the sheep claim that SEO is a thing of the past. This holds true with link building misconceptions. However, link building is an undeniably legitimate way to increase organic traffic.
Link building techniques are not dead, they have only adapted to accommodate the latest updates to the Google algorithm. While it may be true that older, spammier techniques for link building have bit the dust, link building still gives your website two great advantages:
- Another steady stream of traffic (from people that follow the backlink)
- Increased ranking signals to the Google search engine algorithm
Link building has not died; it has evolved. It is true that link building is not as easy as it once was. But in the end, the elimination of spammy and dubious back-linking techniques only improves the user experience of web surfers.
I Found a Great Keyword. Make Me Rank Number One!
Those who are inexperienced with the inner workings of SEO think it is a simple matter to rank high for any keyword. Some think they have stumbled upon a well-kept secret when they discover a keyword related to their market that is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of searches per month. However, understand that high-volume keywords are not necessarily the best way to obtain high quantities of organic search traffic. Most, if not all, of these high-volume keywords, have been sought after for years by massive, multimillion (or even multibillion) dollar companies. Search volume alone is a poor indicator of keyword relevancy to your site. You must also consider the competition.
Furthermore, you also need to consider that even though a keyword gets the highest searches per month in an industry, doesn’t mean it is the best way to obtain the most traffic. Aggregates of less sought after keywords and long tail keywords could add up to more traffic than the one that gets the most searches per month.
Google Abhors SEO Practices
For some unknown reason, some people have the thought that Google tries to discourage SEO. They think that each update to the Google search algorithm is another attempt to destroy SEO firms. Yet again, this is not correct. While Google does hate black hat techniques and people who cheat the system, they do not have anything against legitimate, ethical SEO firms.
The Social Media Myth
Contrary to popular opinion, social media platforms do not increase your ranking signals to the Google search algorithm. One rumor floating around is that the number of likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms somehow boosts your rankings in the SERPs. These social media followings do not increase your rankings. However, this does not mean that social media should be ignored, because it really is a great way to promote your site. While it may not directly improve your rankings, social media marketing can spread your content like wildfire and increase the chance that someone likes your content and creates a backlink to it on their website.
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Mobile Trends and Google
Google has just announced this month it will incorporate methods of measuring a websites’ user friendliness to mobile users. This update is supposedly going into effect on April 21st. Mobile friendliness is going to become a metric search engine use to determine organic rankings (a ‘ranking signal’). By making these changes, Google reported that its goals are to create:
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Tips to Improve Conversions with Improved Calls to Action
A lot of time and effort is used to attract a user to your website. Once they are there, the next challenge is to get them to spend time to hear your message and view your content. In the end, none of it matters if the users will not take action after the fact. This in and of itself can be a challenge, but creating a compelling call to action can have a persuasive effect on your audience. Follow these tips to strengthen the power of your calls to action (CTA).
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Video: 7 things you need to know about SEO in 2015
In order to get the maximum coverage possible on the internet, a thorough understanding of the latest effective SEO practices in 2015 is essential
Website marketing and SEO expert Will Hanke follows the latest trends in marketing your business on the internet and how to avoid the pitfalls inherent in outdated SEO habits from the past. In this video presentation, he covers the following:
- Why to stop using SEO shortcuts such as keyword stuffing, mass submissions on directories, and creating excessive and fluffy press releases
- Provide frequent, quality written and video content
- Make sure all your links are working correctly
- Have a mobile friendly website
- Learn how and implement a strategy to be social media friendly
- Use trust symbols on your site to reassure prospects and clients your site is safe and credible
- Get satisfied clients to do reviews on your business on your website and on other sites
Will Hanke offers tips for creating a robust website that is effective in attracting and converting customers. Will Hanke is Owner of Where Is My Business and can be reached at will@techlh.com
Hottest Graphic Design Programs
So you've decided to start a graphic design project. Great! But how do you get from your initial idea to a finished, printed product?
So you've decided to start a graphic design project. Great! But how do you get from your initial idea to a finished, printed product? If you decide to forgo the recommendation of seeking professional graphic design help, you are probably in the market for some software. It doesn't matter if you are trying to create a logo, banner, sign, or brochure, it can be difficult getting from the project's conception to the final product if you lack the proper tools.
SEO and website development expert Will Hanke speaks from experience and provides valuable information outlining today’s hottest graphic design programs, some known and some more obscure.
Adobe Creative Suite is probably the most known graphic design package, and it contains a lot of different software programs including InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. If you buy the entire suite, it will set you back a pretty penny. You do, however, have the option of buying individual components of the package. The following are some of the more popular components to help you with your project.
Adobe InDesign is great for making flyers and posters. It even has tools to help guide you in making your own brochure. The tools allow you to do a little bit of image editing, and help you layout your brochure and put text on top of an image.
Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, is simply a program allowing you to create or edit your own image files. It is essentially a blank canvas and provides you with tools to sketch, paint, erase, and scale a picture. If you are a talented digital artist, then this is a must have for your graphic design projects.
Lastly, I imagine everyone knows about Photoshop. The popularity of this program is so immense it has become a verb in the English language! Still, this photo manipulation software is considered an industry standard by many, and can help you touch up photos before you send them to be printed.
Corel Software
Corel is a software company and a competitor to Adobe products. Corel Draw even has handy brochure templates, and can really save you time. Some people prefer Adobe over Corel or vice versa, but the important thing to remember about Corel products is they are comparable software products and provide almost the exact same features at a fraction of the price.
GIMP
GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program, is part of the open source GNU project and a great piece of software. Software under the GNU license is free to use, copy, distribute and you could even change the source code. It's incredible because it competes with top image manipulation and graphic design programs, yet is still completely free! However, unless you already know how to use similar tools, you are going to need to learn a lot before you can use this program very well. Its learning curve is relatively steep.
These known and not-so-well known programs are great aids for many graphic design projects. Fair warning: they have a tough learning curve to them and some have a hefty price tag, so if you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed creating your own logo or design, seek the help of acustom printing company. On the other hand, if you absolutely need to do the design portion yourself, these programs will aid you in making your idea a reality!
SEO expert Will Hanke is a Jack-of-all-trades and understands a spectrum of tools available to do a variety of tasks, including those related to graphic design. He informs readers by describing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each product outlined. For SEO and website development tips, subscribe to his newsletter or check out his blog.
Link Reclamation: The Most Important SEO Task You Aren’t Doing
Remember that guy from high school, the one you hung out with all the time until graduation? What ever happened to him? Remember thinking how cool it would be if you could reconnect?
Thanks to the power of social media, and Facebook in particular, reconnections like this are taking place every day. People are finding old friends, lovers and long lost relatives, reclaiming those lost connections. The link between those two people always existed, but it just wasn’t active until a tool came along to reenergize it.
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Seven SEO Steps to More Business This Year
Between the years 2007 and 2010, more small businesses jumped online with a new website than ever. The majority of these websites were poorly thought out; they simply came into existence as the result of competition. If your competitor had a website, then you had better get one, too.
These websites, known as brochure sites, have pretty much lain in waste ever since. Business owners rushed to get them out there, and paid a lot to do so, and when they didn't generate any new business, most business owners chalked it up as the cost of doing business. Boy, did they miss the boat.
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How Guest Blogging Builds Your Online Credibility
Guest blogging is an easy way to increase the value of your own website.
Imagine every website on the Internet had a value from 1 to 100 dollars. The websites that had no updates, no social interaction, and no ease of use were only worth a few dollars, if that.
The sites consistently updated, with visitor interaction and easy to use, are worth more.
Now imagine the people (or company) that determines your value looked at more than just what you were doing on your website to come up with their evaluation. They also looked at other, similar sites sending them signals to your valuation - links, mentions (citations) and shares.
Those sites, then could determine a portion of the overall value of your site.
And if that were the case, wouldn't it be smart of you if you take advantage of any opportunity to positively influence your sites value? Of course it would.
Guest blogging is a great way to increase your website's value. And being picky about the value of the site you want to guest blog on is just as important.
In the analogy above, wouldn't you agree that a link from a $56 site be better than that of a $12 site? Again, of course you would. So make sure you not only guest blog on other sites, but make sure the ones you choose have established value.
Oh, and allow me to toss one more equation into the mix - the related value to your site. Guest blogging isn't just about finding high value sites and posting an article there - you should also consider the similarity of the two sites. A safety goggles article would be worth much more on Home Depot's website than it would on the equally valuable Bed Bath & Beyond site.
After reading this, you may surmise that getting 4 articles on 4 sites worth $14 each is easier than getting one article on a $56 site -and you'd probably be right. But is the risk worth the reward? Or as I heard this past week - is the juice worth the squeeze? Not usually. There's a reason why those sites are only worth $14 each, and if they aren't following the same process, your site value and your reputation will just be dragged down with theirs.
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Website Shortcuts That Lead to Disaster
Allow me for a moment to read your mind.
Let’s see… ah, you want to be at the top of Google when someone searches for your business. Good plan, terrific goal and smart way to use your marketing budget for the next year.
Can you imagine for a minute how many business owners think the same thing at some point? “We need to be at the top!” they say. I’m sure a lot say it, but only a few act upon that idea.
Or they act on it in all the wrong ways.
