You have multiple locations, but are they REAL locations?
Google wants to know if they are legitimate locations with a door and all. This past month I've been going through a location verification process with a client for 26 offices. We want to make sure that he appears correctly in all directories with a local, VERIFIED location. You would think this would be easy. He has a lease at all locations. There is an address, a suite [...]
Are crutch words losing your audience?
When I hear people say them, I cringe. 95% of the time they are not necessary and serve as fill, lazy transitions, and crutches. I find myself visually seeing their words over their heads and putting a red line through what they are saying to drill down to the necessary words. It's typically about half of what they said, if that much. Those of us who write for [...]
Create a Succession Plan
Silver Tsunami Ahead: Create a Succession Plan - Here's a little excerpt from Exit Power Strategies. An article that ran in the Washington Post on May 9, 2017 discussed the “Silver Tsunami” once again. An excerpt that really struck me reads, “According to Project Equity, many small business owners do not have succession plans–and because of this they’re putting their employees at risk.” As a small business owner [...]
Test Your Subscriber’s Journey
Those of you with websites and links to contact: link to a FORM, not just an email. If they are on your site, don't distract them by sending them to their email service to contact you. They will get distracted. AND on phones, it means opening a different app. Just give them a simple form that SAVES to a database and emails at least one person. As a [...]
A simple way to hide content in case you need it again later.
Here's an idea to tuck away seasonal content. In this article about advertising promotional products, some of the items in a heavily visited page are very seasonal. Here's how you do it in the TEXT or CODE/HTML view - add a "comment" around what you want to hide for now and show later: <!-- is the beginning of the part you want to hide. --> is how you [...]
https and SSL checklist – it’s not as simple as you may hope.
I need to update my own site. I know this; AND the bulk of you need to get https:// SSL compliant on your sites. That means purchasing the proper SSL certificate for your precise domain - www vs. no www, subdomains, etc. THEN, you have to get it installed. Your site needs to update all paths to images, internal links and more to https:// vs. http://. With WordPress, there [...]
High Quality Video Images Using PPT and Photoshop
I hope you enjoy this video: Creating high quality video images using PPT and Photoshop. I've been doing a lot of voiceover lately for clients. They've been giving me a PowerPoint presentation, I help them select and purchase the images - yes - PURCHASE with a license - even low-budget royalty free ones. Then, I help them create a video for use on their YouTube channels, as webinars, [...]
Gather and select resources before you create your site.
We all know we need websites. What we do with them varies - some are very interactive, some are more like static brochures that you have to hit yourself in the head to add content to regularly. Some are eCommerce based to generate income. The variations are endless. The part that doesn't change is the prep work way before you start designing a website or having someone design [...]
Your Search Results Are Biased!
Reminder: Your search results, when checking your own business rankings, are BIASED based on how you search, what you search, who you are connect to and what you click on. Same goes for everyone. The cleanest way to see what the results are is to search in an incognito window. In Chrome - click on the three stacked dots in the upper right corner to open incognito window. [...]
Employment Interview Tips to Land That Job!
I hope you enjoy this video: Employment Interview Tips to Land That Job! Helping out at the local high school today with Mock Interviews. It's a requirement for Juniors and Seniors. I asked my friends for their top tips and here they are. Best of luck if you are interviewing for the first time or interviewing after a long time and all in between. Thank you to everyone [...]
3 Tips to Lock Down Google Drive Documents
We are in such a hurry to give someone access to a resource of Google Drive, Dropbox and the others, that we can compromise the security of the document, and perhaps much more. LAZY, QUICK RESOURCE SHARING: Be careful. Sometimes we are in such a hurry to give someone access to a document on Google Drive or other places that we click the quick, "Get a share link." [...]
Spotting scams from companies – take 5 minutes to check them out.
With the ease of being able to create a "company" online - buy domain, get quick or free hosting for basic template website, have email account forward to another, get a popup or "executive suite" type of address aka, PO Box and use your cellphone - scams are easy. Hear that? They are EASY to pull off if you are prone to the weasel, scumbag genes. The rest [...]