Your website is one of the most important tools for growing your business. But it can be intimidating to manage if you’re not very technically inclined. Don’t let that scare you. You don’t have to be a tech wizard to manage your site and get it to its fullest potential.
Here is a simple checklist to help assure your website is doing its job.
Good Hosting
Use a reliable yet affordable hosting service when starting out. We recommend WPX (read why we moved here) as it's affordable and enables you to comply with the GDPR rules. Poor quality hosting will taint pretty much everything you do, so don't cut corners here!
Keywords for SEO
Use the free Yoast plugin (you can download it under “plugins” in your WP dashboard).
Once you have it installed, go to “Settings” in your dashboard, select Yoast and enter a title, description for your business, and the top keywords for your business. An example of a keyword would be “designer handbags”, or “virtual assistance help”, or “Thornton Hedgehog hospitals”.
Then, on each page and post, you’ll want to add a title, description, and keywords specific to that page or post. There will be a place to do this underneath where you write the content on the New Post or Page.
I also use Rank Math for SEO. Again you can download it from the “plugins” section on the WP dashboard. It's very simple too set up and you'll find it just as easy to use as Yoast. Which one you use is down to you and your own personal taste.
Social Sharing Buttons
You want your content and images to be easily shareable! Use a free, simple to put social media buttons next to your content. Remember to use a free plugin to make sharing images on Pinterest easy for your readers, visual content marketing is easier than you think.
Limit Plugins
While plugins are great and add functionality to your WordPress blog, you don’t want to install too many plugins and you definitely want to deactivate any that you aren’t using. Too many plugins can slow down the speed of your site, cause conflicts, and generally cause you problems.
Google Analytics
Go to www.google.com/analytics, create a free account, and then paste the code into your website. Depending on your theme, where you place the code will vary. Most themes have a place in “theme settings” for you to put your GA code.
Google Analytics will help you keep track of your traffic, the source of your traffic, and which pages on your site are most visited. This is important information to track and is a key part of growing your blog.
Opt-in Box for List Building
Make sure you are collecting email addresses! Even if you are selling a product and not trying to do regular email blasts, you should be collecting the email addresses of everyone who visits your site. Offer something useful and free to encourage sign-ups.
Use a service like Active Campaign to do this. Active Campaign easily integrates with your WordPress website through a strip of code or a WordPress plugin to create an opt-in form on your site.
Place opt-in forms in these key places on your site:
- Homepage –above the fold (so visitors don’t have to scroll down to see it)
- Top of side-bar or in the header
- Bottom of every blog post
- Bottom of About page
If you cannot add the opt-in form in your theme, a tool like Thrive Leads to add your opt-in forms in the optimal locations.
Another great strategy for growing an email list is to offer lead magnets that are specific to each blog post. These are known as Content Upgrades. You Can Do It!
Managing your blog can feel overwhelming. It can feel like there are a million “impossible” things to do. Break down each action item into a daily or weekly “to-do” and tackle each item one at a time, and soon you will have a successful business blog.