I'll be co-presenting SEO Still Matters with Robert Neu of FAT Media on May 18th at WordCamp Austin in Austin, TX. We will be hitting the key points on what to plan on for your next post regarding the SEO fields, keywords, and also planning your site around a content marketing mindset that works with SEO rather than being single-minded in crazed SEO efforts that cost a fortune. SEO is a natural effort by which traffic is a by-product. If it's not a natural part of your next post's planning or something you can easily visit doing a page audit on your site, then it's too complex and you're overshooting your optimum effort-to-reward target. If you have any questions or topics you'd like addressed after the slides are posted, along with my speaking notes, then post them in the comments and we'll start a discussion. Here is a link to the presentation below: SEO Still Matters … [Read more...]
Process Refining Through Lessons Learned
Refine your process when things work (and especially when they don't work) to improve your position in the market. One of the reason fledgling business fail is because they can't quickly enough learn from their mistakes or their initial mistakes are too much to overcome because they didn't take baby steps. While I've managed to avoid devastating mistakes so far, I've had my fair share of lessons learned over the past 4+ years. I presented a lot of them at WordSesh, but here is a nice, tidy list. The 10 Commandments of business Respond to initial inquiries quickly. The number of projects I've landed because I was the first (and sometimes only) person to respond is too great to guess at this point. Hundreds. Some people don't even reply to perfectly good requests. Don't give away the goose. When you're doing an initial quote, proposal, or call, don't tell them everything you're going to do - they just might find someone in India to do your plan for $300 - at least charge for your time if you're going to give that much info away. Charge how much you need to make ends meet. A sure-fire way to fail in business to to charge such low rates that you can't pay your bills. If you … [Read more...]
How to Modify a Genesis Framework Child Theme
The vast majority of the questions on the StudioPress forums for Genesis framework child themes are related to the general WordPress community who has been introduced to user-friendly premium themes not being web developers or programmers. The average website owner has no idea how to look for what to change or what options there are in changing something. That is why people like me have a nearly-endless market of professionals of other industries needing my industry's skills to make their vision happen. A lifetime of learning While it takes thousands of hours to learn a craft to the point of being both proficient and efficient, there are some simple things that the average person can handle once they are shown the tools to use and some instructions on how to use them. For those people, this should help them along the way with simple tasks. A recap of the tools In case you didn't click the link in the previous paragraph, here is what you absolutely need: First, either Chrome or Firefox web browsers. In them is a feature when you right-click an element on the screen that says "Inspect Element" in the right-click context menu (yours will likely look different based on OS and … [Read more...]
Things to do With Stealth Login Page – Rickroll Hackers
Since launching my Stealth Login Page plugin on April Fool's Day (I know, I should have waited until Tuesday), I've been Rickrollling would-be hackers. Because you can enter any URL you want into the redirect field, you can send them Rick Astley's way when they don't enter your login string correctly. I've been Rickrolled myself a number of times and it's annoying as heck when my headphones are jacked to the max... on MY OWN site! Here's how: Download Stealth Login Page from the repository or directly in your dashboard. Activate the plugin. Click the Settings link to set up the Rickroll. Once on the settings page, enter http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?t=2m6s as the URL for the redirect. Enter your answer and question phrases. Be sure to e-mail yourself the new login URL so you can always get back in without getting Rickrolled. Click the Save Settings button. Now go Rickroll some bad dudes. … [Read more...]
Case Study: Scribe SEO Quickly Increases Search Rank
More and more, people are wanting great SEO from their WordPress site without paying an arm and a leg for an "SEO Expert" because it's become increasingly difficult to know who actually is an expert. Enter Scribe SEO and what it can do for the layman, even the geeky developer who'd rather code than think about SEO. I was contacted by a Chicago businessman who had some bad press back in 2011. He said that those affected had apparently made it a hobby to keep the press at the top of Google results for his vanity namesake search. It certainly appeared to be true, because I knew about the bad press before our appointed consultation call because it was front and center right below his LinkedIn profile. I'm by far, unequivocally not so, an SEO expert. I only know the basics - probably enough to be dangerous, but I've had pretty good success in past years and project using Scribe SEO, so I told him that it would take some time, effort, and consistent blog posts and multiple social network profiles to push that down below his actual intellectual property and profiles. Boy was I wrong! It didn't take much time and barely any effort. Scribe SEO makes it what I call "stupid easy" to … [Read more...]
How to Build More Profit into Your Business
Today was a very early day, but I got to talk about "How to Build More Profit into Your Business" with about 125 viewers. WordSesh started at 00:00 UTC, which was 8pm here on the East Coast. My slot was 10:00 UTC, so I was up at 4am for my 6:00 time. The live talk went faster than my practice session yesterday, so I may edit what I did yesterday and post it in place of this live recording later. You can grab a copy of my slides or just flip through them on my SpeakerDeck page: http://speakerdeck.com/jpetersen/wordsesh-2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpiaQmgaTZY Key Points Always be honest. Care about your clients. Sell benefits, not features. Compete on value, not price. Skill > Speed Integrity > Skill … [Read more...]
I’m Speaking at WordSesh 2013 LIVE!
This week I got tapped for my first two WordPress speaking engagements. The first one is WordSesh 2013 coming up this Saturday, April 13th at 10:00 UTC (that's 6:00am for us U.S. Americans). I'll be presenting "Building Greater Profits into Your WordPress Business." The great thing about this, our WordPress community, is that, while there is always going to be someone (or hundreds) of people who know more about something than any single individual, we all bring something unique to the table. That said, it's my hope that I validate some things you are doing right, shine some light on some areas you maybe hadn't thought of before - or things you just haven't had the courage to do or say - and I'll be available for ongoing discussions long after the presentation. I'll be spending time preparing for Saturday and writing about the process afterward for the benefit of those who are asked to present some day and are curious or concerned about how to prepare and present. I've said it many times on Twitter: I'm an open book - I don't have any trade secrets to do what I do. On Monday I also released Stealth Login Page plugin and it's nearly up to 600 downloads in its first week, so … [Read more...]
Business Baby Steps
You've probably heard that the method to eat an elephant is "one bite at a time." It's the principle of taking baby steps to accomplish a big thing. Project managers set up milestones and mini goals to gauge progress, celebrate accomplishments, and to avoid getting bogged down looking at the mountain of work. I've also heard that rock climbers plan their path and then concentrate on the five to ten feet above them, all the way to the top. Starting your business is very similar If you haven't already quit your job, start small and make your mistakes while you still have a good safety net to fall back on when someone doesn't pay or you underestimate a quote. I recommend Jon Acuff's book, Quitter if you're looking to quit sometime soon to do your own thing. Figure out how much you want (or need) to make, divide that by the number of hours you can work, and then how many hours of that you can bill for. If you're doing project pricing, reverse the steps after calculating your need: how long will it take you to do the project and then price according to how much you need to charge over that time. Set up milestones for cash flow if you need to. An example I recently sought help for … [Read more...]
Lock Down Your WordPress Login Screen
Hat tip to @norcross for this login page security code. I can't claim any credit for this, but it deserves to be shared. I've recommended using a login monitoring plugin before. On WP Engine, Limit Login Attempts is a mandatory plugin. I've had a client having problems recently where someone on their IP address is attempting and failing to log in. This is creating a lockout for her valid attempts. The natural solution is to block the login screen. Unfortunately, in this case, blocking the IP address in the .htaccess file won't help any because that is my client's IP address. Like usual, I posed the situation to my Twitter crowd and got an elegant solution in minutes from @norcross - seriously, if you're not following Andrew Norcross, you are missing out. Place the following code in your theme's (or child theme's) functions.php file and find/replace each "question" and each "answer" with your own words. It's safe to assume that this will block 99.999999999% of attempts to access your login page since bots don't look for such addresses and it adds an additional wall to break through. If you've got excellent hosting with proper permissions and firewalls, this locks your … [Read more...]
What Is Your Work Worth?
There are a heck of a lot of us doing this "web thing" today. I read an article a few months back that geeky jobs writing code, managing databases, and multi-level problem-solving are the most in-demand jobs on the market with way more positions than there are people. It's a programmer's market right now and you just about have to try to not get enough work. Seriously. If you're not booked solid now, in March of 2013, you're doing something seriously wrong. Bill Erickson has a great article on this for consultants, in particular. I've got a lot of thoughts on that and what to do about it — some of you know I am working on, and I'll announce it widely soon. (I should probably at least tell my parents first.) Then I was reflecting on a chat I had with Jared Atchison last week month he said that people in our position don't last very long. He's right. If they need benefits, can't weather the ups and downs because they suck at managing a business, or they suck at client interactions, then they go to an employer with a position that more or less makes them happy. To be clear, I won't fault anyone for taking a job to do what's best for their family - some of my best WordPress … [Read more...]
