A better business with neuromarketing. - Money Women and Brains [PDF]

Online Success Advice for Women Entrepreneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster! Joyce Hansen, editor

Your Online Success Advice Starts Here Dear Reader,

Whether you are a beach lover or not, wouldn’t it be nice to nd ways to speed up your success so that you can get some enjoyment out of all your hard work? We are seven successful online women entrepreneurs and bloggers who have been at it for a while and know the pitfalls. While our advice may not be what you expect, each one of us is sharing an area of our expertise. This can save you time and aggravation by having good systems in place and helping in ways to get beyond the set-backs. Our contributing bloggers are listed below in the order of appearance. At the end of each entry, you will nd a Learn More page. It contains additional information about each one of us along with a contact link to reach us directly. 14 Top Time Management Tips – Jackie Harder Jackie is an author and success coach for professional women and entrepreneurs making midlife and mid-career transitions at Key-Dynamics Coaching and Consulting Inc. A Better Business with Neuromarketing - Joyce Hansen Joyce is a brain performance trainer who blogs about business brain marketing for women at Money Women and Brains.

Online Success Advice for Women Entrepreneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster! All Rights Reserved 2016

More Online Success Advice Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized – Kristen Wilson Kristen is a business marketing consultant helping small business owners to maximize their online presence at A Visual Business. Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble – Marquita Herald Marquita is a published author, professional blogger, personal development and resilient living specialist. She is the founder and chief evangelist at Emotionally Resilient Living. This is How to do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog - Renee Groskreutz Renee is WordPress specialist and podcaster showing bloggers how to navigate the WordPress-o-sphere with step-by-step training at I Teach Blogging. You Think You’re a Failure in Life? So What? - Susan Mary Malone Susan is a traditionally published author of six books, award winning editor, conference speaker and book editor for Malone Editorial Services. How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website – Webly Alfred Webly is a web designer and social media strategist who helps entrepreneurs make the best technical decisions for their website and social media platforms at Webly Alfred Tech Maven.

Online Success Advice for Women Entrepreneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster!

14 Top Time Management Tips

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away -- well, OK, it was just Miami, but still -my boss forced me to take an all-day training class on time management. I didn't want to! I didn't have the time! I was snowed under! There was too much to do! Which, of course, is exactly why he sent me. I came back a convert. Time management was a great tool, I discovered, but only that. It helped me be more productive so I could do the things that gave me joy and added value to my life. And ever since, I've been preaching that gospel. Below you will find a few of my favorite "sermons,” specially crafted for the online entrepreneur. My favorite time management tips In no particular order, here are my top 14 time management tips:

www.key-dynamics.com

14 Top Time Management Tips 1. Why are you doing what you're doing? If you're just doing stu to stay busy, you're going nowhere -- fast. Your number one priority should always be: What am I going to kill today? If you don’t bring home food for the table, you’ll starve as an entrepreneur. Focus on those things that will bring you money or save your money. Know where you want to be down the road and let time management be your roadmap on how to get there. Set goals and use those goals to create your task lists. Every day. If you put o a task more than 3 days, ask yourself why. 2. The Pareto Principle From a time management perspective, this principle means we should focus 80% of our e orts on the 20% of our activities that brings us real results. 3. Multitasking sucks Research has shown that multitasking lowers your e ective IQ by 10 points, or as much as if you'd smoke a joint of pot. You get that back, of course, but do you have any IQ points to lose, even short term? Other research indicates that you can "dual task" -- do 2 things at the same time -without damaging your e ectiveness but these tasks must be (a) closely related and (b) of equal importance. Switching back and forth between multiple tasks always creates a "Gee, what was I doing?" lag time of about 23 minutes that none of us can afford to lose.


14 Top Time Management Tips 4. Time-blocking is essential This was one of the toughest things for me to learn after leaving my corporate gig to run my own business. I had to assign speci c blocks of time to do all the tasks that needed to be done; otherwise, I was just churning away at busy work. If you are a business owner also, then one of the speci c blocks of time has to be devoted to business building. You always need to spend time growing and improving your business; I recommend at least one hour a day. Time-blocking will help you focus on being busy doing the right things. 5. Take control of your distractions If you want to get things done, you need to control your distractions -- and our electronic devices are among the biggest (more on other distractions later). Just because your phone rings doesn't mean you have to answer it. Heresy, right? Control your devices by allotting a certain time of day, for a certain amount of time, to return calls, check texts and so forth. You will not miss anything, I promise. And best of all, you'll get important stu done. Turn o your email noti cations. No little bell or buzzer, and no little icon on the bottom of your screen. Why? Refer to "multitasking sucks." In fact, I strongly urge you to close your email program entirely except for three pre-determined times during the day: (1) Mid-morning; (2) right after lunch; and (3) near the close of business for the day.

6. Email is a productivity killer


14 Top Time Management Tips Here's why: Every time you open your email, you are working on other people’s priorities instead of your own. Go ahead and read that again; I’ll wait. Let’s put that another way: You are giving up control of your day. You are letting other people's wishes and issues come before yours. Yes, there will be occasions when you're waiting for an important email that you know will be waiting for you when you turn on the computer, but how often, really, is that the case? Don't give up your power to your inbox. 7. Close your tabs Right now, I have one browser window open -- my online timer (which would still be ticking away if I closed it). If you've got more than three open at one time, be sure they are necessary. And if one of them is social media...you know, just in case something funny pops up...Shut. It. Down. 8. Schedule your important tasks during high-productivity times It doesn't matter when you stagger out of bed: Research has shown that you are most productive for 2.5 hours beginning about 2 hours after you wake up. So even if you get up at noon (what that's like?), your most productive time will be between 2-4:30 p.m. Don't squander it on social media or emails or anything that doesn’t (a) make you money or (b) save you money. 9. Make good use of your "down" time Down time during your work day is when you are on hold, sitting in the doctor's o ce waiting to be directed to yet another room where you will sit for another 20 minutes, waiting in the parking lot to pick up your kid from soccer and so on. It's those bits and snatches of time that show up unexpectedly every day. Use them wisely: If you can't complete an entire project, take those few minutes to do something. Anything. www.key-dynamics.com

14 Top Time Management Tips 10. Create a list of quickie tasks This is related to the previous tip, but goes beyond that. On occasion, we'll reach a point where the brain stops functioning at its optimum level but we can't just throw up our hands and walk away. Whatever it is you're working on, it must be done before you quit for the day. When you get stuck, pull out your handy-dandy list of 5-minute projects and get them done. Could be ling papers, cleaning your inbox -- whatever. Be sure to set a timer so you don't go over your allotted time. There are two bonus points for this: You get some piddly tasks o your plate and you'll come back to your original project with a fresh set of eyes. 11. Rushing makes you stupid You make more mistakes and your creativity goes in the toilet when you hurry. Slow down. You'll get more quality work done if you do and you'll do it faster, even at a slower speed, as strange as that sounds. Remember this: If you can't nd the time to do it right the rst time, how will you nd the time to do it over? 12. Challenge yourself Give yourself a tight deadline -- not out of reach, but something that gives you a little competitive edge over the task. This works especially well when you're doing things you hate but still have to complete. And when you've finished that task, give yourself a treat. You deserve it!


14 Top Time Management Tips 13. "But I WANNA quit!" Yep. Been there. When you get to the stage where you want to throw the computer o a tall building, tell yourself, "Just ve more." Five more pages, five more minutes, five more anythings. You can do it! 14. Give yourself a break Could be a real vacation. Could be ve minutes of standing outside and admiring the clouds or playing with the cats or whatever the heck you want. It's vital to your mental, emotional and physical health take a break. Never work more than 90 minutes without taking a break; most experts recommend taking 10 minutes o every hour. Go ahead; you have my permission.


14 Top Time Management Tips Jackie Harder Jackie Harder is the President, Key Dynamics Coaching and Consulting Inc., Key Largo, Fla. Email [email protected] for a free coachching consultation session. She is also the author of DIY Coaching Manual for Women: How to Transform Your Life in 12 Months. Available now on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1NRLoIi

Learn more


A Better Business with Neuromarketing

A Bettr Business With Neuromarketing - Joyce Hansen

Neuromarketing is a term unfamiliar to most Internet marketers. It represents a shift away from old marketing strategies based on customer behaviors to a deeper understanding why customers buy. For example, walk down the aisle of any supermarket. Market research will tell you which products sell more than others and data analysis will tell you customer gender, age, income and buying habits. Feedback from consumer focus groups and eye-tracking programs will tell you the advantages of products placement and packaging (design, size, color combinations, font style and size).

www.moneywomenandbrains.com

A Better Business with Neuromarketing This is not much di erent from website designers who use the same elements to attract and hold viewer attention. Or, web analytics where detailed viewer and customer pro les and on-line behavior help to re ne a target market.

What Makes Neuromarketing Different? Neuromarketing looks at the hidden elements in the decision-making process that affect a final purchase choice. If you were to ask customers about why they purchased a speci c item, we would think their answers would be logic and reason based. However, the they are more likely to be an explanation validating a choice and not the real “why” behind a choice. Brain research tells us “choice” registers rst on a subconscious level and then at the level of conscious awareness. This means initial decision making is occurring at a deeper brain level and out of conscious awareness. What neuromarketers want to know is what is triggering this subconscious response rst, favorable or unfavorable, that will determine a choice to purchase or not. Going back to our supermarket example, customers who purchase laundry detergent have their favorites. All laundry detergents get clothes clean, but advertising convinces you that some get clothes cleaner than others.


A Better Business with Neuromarketing They can’t. They can give you additives for hard water, enzymes for stains and optical brighteners that improve the appearance. Without these additives, your clothes will still be clean, but not look clean based on what advertising tells you your clothes should look like. Now, not only should your clothes look clean but they should also smell fresh. Brands that add optical brighteners and fragrances lead you to believe that any extra cost is worth it to guarantee you really do have clean and fresh smelling laundry.

This is physical neuromarketing engaging your brain’s visual perception of “cleanness” and the olfactory sense of “freshness.” Therefore, as you come down the detergent aisle, your brain is already physically primed by past associations and you don’t think twice about looking at other brands. The real secret of neuromarketing is not just neural associations of physical sensations, but reaching down to your level of your brain’s “nucleus accumbens.” What Does My “Nucleus Accumbens” Have to Do With It? Your nucleus accumbens is a small region in each hemisphere located in the front and lower part of your brain. It acts as a conduit center for the emotional sensations of pleasure, reward, and motivation. (red dot area)


A Better Business with Neuromarketing

By measuring this part of the brain with a fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imagery) researchers can measure positive responses by increased activity and blood flow. According to Uma R. Karmarkar, PhD., associate professor at Harvard, “The more desirable something is, the more signi cant the changes in blood flow in that part of the brain.” “Studies have shown activity in that brain area can predict the future popularity of a product or experience.” Major corporations looking for a marketing edge can a ord to conduct these expensive brain scans. It will tell them which product qualities will generate a pleasure response that can make a product more likely to be purchased. As an Internet marketer you're not going to be able to measure blood ow activity response to launching your newest product or service. However, you can modify your marketing approach to be more effective.

How do I do that?


A Better Business with Neuromarketing First, creating a product or service that solves a problem or is a solution that your customer tells you they are looking for is not enough. Second, what you need is something that solves a problem or o ers a solution that also gives pleasure or reward to their nucleus accumbens. The more you stimulates activity and blood ow to their pleasure center the more likely there's a decision to purchase. Think back to all the laundry detergent advertising you’ve seen on television. Just about every commercial has a story line of a mother smiling and feeling satis ed that her laundry has come out white, bright and smelling fresh. Her nucleus accumbens, pleasure center, is lighting up with the reward of feeling good knowing that she is doing the best for her family. It’s that same feeling that gets triggered in the detergent aisle and makes the purchase of that product predictable. Third, look at what you’ve written about what your own product or service o ers. For example, your bene ts may include saving time, making something easier to accomplish, or increasing return on investment. All things that would be a problem solver or solution you would think customers want. And, they even will tell you that is what they are looking for. Your job is to convince them that you and your product or service is di erent. Do you throw in add-on bonuses: free consultation call, private Facebook group, webinar series, e-book, etc.? What if you offered some brain pleasure in your promotional copy?


A Better Business with Neuromarketing Know that after taking the “Anyone Can Be a Dynamic Speaker Course,” every time you come out on stage, you have honored your promise to become a professional speaker. Anyone can build a big email list, but we show you how to build an email list of people who are going to open your emails because they are genuinely interested in what you have to say. If you can remember the rst dollar you every made, then we can help you remember your first on-line sale, your first 3-figure bank deposit, and your first 6-figure business. Making your business better with neuromarketing is all about building positive emotions and memory connections with customers in order for them to feel more comfortable and find pleasure in buying from you.


A Better Business with Neuromarketing Joyce Hansen Joyce Hansen is President of Brain Quality Performance Inc. (BQP) and founder, chief blogger and online marketer for MoneyWomenandBrains.com. Money Women and Brains is for women entrepreneurs who want to learn how to create business brain marketing strategies for more savvy customer relationships. Learn more


Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized

Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized -Kristen Wilson As a small business owner we often need to explain what we do for a living. In my industry, internet marketing, it isn’t easy. When I begin to explain Search Engine Optimization (SEO), most folks say that their website is already search engine friendly. They think it means the same thing as being search engine optimized…they are sadly mistaken. Whether you design your own website or use a website developer who makes your website SEO friendly, you still have to do the monthly SEO work on your website. My job is to help you optimize your website so that it is more searchable by the search engines which in turn makes your website reachable to more eyes and consumers.

What a Search Engine Does? Remember, the search engines want to provide the best experience to their consumers who are searching for information. They need to ensure that they provide the most relevant, up to date and valuable content.

www.avisualbusiness.com

Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized Search engines … respond to what is typed into the search engine (such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc.) in order to find something. show the SERP (search engine results page) which provide 10 organic and 10 paid (works a little di erently) results with websites that best meet the needs of that specific search query Keep in mind, the consumer may search past the rst page of search results, meaning page 2 or 3, but usually don’t. They may likely try another better targeted or longer keyword phrase. return responses within a matter of seconds as soon as you hit enter from entering in your search phrase provide previously cached/stored information. The search engines crawl websites and store that information until needed. give authority to websites which provide value to the consumers, update their website regularly and ones that have good functionality (search engine optimized)

What Makes Your Search Engine Friendly? Mobile responsive – For example a website that is mobile responsive is going to be search engine friendly because it’s easier for the consumer. Remember, your website is intended for the consumer, the end user, so build it for them.


Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized Load time – Another thing that would make your website search engine friendly would be the load time. If you have excessively large graphics or something like JavaScript that causes the website to slow down, that will naturally cause you to have problems with your website load speed. Anything that lessens a customer’s experience is not a search engine friendly website. Sitemap – Something else that makes a search engine friendly website is an XML sitemap, which makes it easier for the search engine spiders to crawl your website. This is like a map, giving direction to the search engines telling them which pages to crawl and which ones to ignore. HTML – if you are using a WordPress site or website builder, chances are, you have the right type of website that the search engines are looking for. So, be sure you are updating your website because technology is always changing and you want to be mobile ready. Plugins – If you have a WordPress site, you must update your plugins several times a month, seriously... just do it. Pretend it is like your phone and allow those to update when they need to. There are also various other tactics, such as website readability, navigation, page speed and the like that can also make your website more user friendly.

What is Search Engine Optimization?


Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized Search engine optimization is not a one-and-done type thing. It is something that you do at least monthly on your website. Would you buy a house and never clean it or maintain its structure? Don’t do that to your website! A website that hasn’t been visited in a longer period of time is likely not going to get noticed by search engines or you will see old cached information. Consider this, the older information cached in the search engine, the lesser chances of you being returned in the search engine results.

A few things you can do Spend Time – The more time you spend on your website and more often, you are telling Google, or any other search engine, that this website is current and up-to-date and that it is continuously working to provide value to your consumer. So, don’t so don’t kid yourself thinking you can avoid this! Blog and Update – A blog is a great way to continue to add value and quality content to your website. Keep your website updated with fresh blog content, at least monthly Imagine…..Stay with me here… let’s say you optimize every page of your website, once, and leave it… but your competitor does what you do but blogs at least monthly and works on improving their SEO each month – who do you think Google, or any search engine, is going to value?


Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized Major Product/Services – If you have changed your business model or even your products or services, you’ll want to optimize your website for that particular product or service.

How Do You Optimize Your Website? Keyword rich content - words on your pages. Add keyword rich blogs to your website at least once a month (two + would be better). Provide the right keyword, not spammy, content that is easily understandable to your consumers. Title tags – Create unique title tags for each and every page as well as blog titles. (also known as header tags, h1) Meta tags - these are description tags which clearly explain what each speci c page or blog is about. They show up in the search engine results page in the form of a snippet. This snippet is what you want to optimize by creating unique meta descriptions with keyword rich content that drives action again back to your website. Alt tags for text – act to label a division or section h1, h2 or h3, etc. where appropriate to indicating what each paragraph is about or telling Google the importance of the blog or page. Alt tags for images – Be sure all photos, logos, images of any sort have a name (which bene ts being near the accompanying text) and an alt tag keyword descriptive using words that describes the image. Links – are internal, external and backlinks that are within your pages and blogs. Add links to relevant content within your website and link back to your website from social media, forums and guest blogs, other sites, etc. www.avisualbusiness.com

Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized That should get you started and by no means is it necessary to go out there and do it all today... wow, that would be a nightmare, right? But, as you are adding a blog or two each month, dedicate another 30 minutes or so to go through your older pages and clean them up and optimize them! Hopefully this has given you a little glimpse into the di erence between a website developer making your website search engine friendly and search engine optimized. For best results, I recommend that you optimize your website on a monthly basis.


Search Engine Friendly Versus Search Engine Optimized Kristen Wilson Kristen Wilson is a consultant and trainer for small businesses with a focus on their online presence using social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising on Google (PPC), blogging, website readability and development, email marketting. She understands what is needed and what it takes to run a small business and happy to share that knowledge with others, who are willing and able to take that step to outsource or learn what it takes to get it done. Learn more


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble

Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble - Marquita Herald Even the most enlightened and outwardly con dent people have moments when they question their self-worth … a bad end to a relationship, loss of a job or a very public stumble. For most people it takes time and work to build a healthy level of con dence in the rst place, but the process of rebuilding self-esteem and con dence after a personal or professional disaster (either real or perceived) is an uphill challenge at best; one that is made even more di cult when there are issues of anger or guilt. Adding to the struggle is the natural tendency to begin second guessing every new decision and commitment in an effort to prevent a repeat of the experience.

www.emotionallyresilientliving.com

Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble When one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. When one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. When one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her. ~Lao Tzu When we fight and resist the circumstances of our life we generate feelings of fear and upset that almost always makes things worse and can end up blowing a situation completely out of proportion. This is why the ability to keep things in perspective is so important. The moment you are able to separate that wall of emotion from reality, everything seems to change. With the fear and resistance gone, you become calm, better able to put things in perspective and focus on recovery. While there will inevitably be unique circumstances contributing to your recovery, there are a few basic strategies that will go a long way toward helping to rebuild your confidence. 4 Steps to Begin Rebuilding Confidence Acknowledge Your Reality It can be so very tempting to avoid facing an unpleasant or painful situation in the hope that it will somehow “right” itself or simply go away; sadly this is seldom the case. So before you can begin taking steps to rebuild your con dence you have to work through the lter of negative emotions to determine and accept your current reality without placing blame or guilt.


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble In life some pain is inevitable, but su ering is optional, and self-pity is addictive and capable of destroying lives. ~Author Unknown Regain Perspective Ironically the experience or incident that damaged your con dence needn’t have even been your fault for it to have adversely a ected you. All too often we are plagued by nagging feelings that somehow we should have instinctively known better than to trust, or been able to predict or prevent a situation. If this is the case for you, take some time to honestly evaluate the circumstance of the event – remove all forms of “should-a, would-a, could-a or “if only” thinking – and then learn what you can from the experience and move on. But what if it’s the worst case scenario and the fault is yours? Just because you failed at something, does not mean YOU are a failure! Remember, it’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it. Determine the lessons to be learned from the experience to help you make better choices in the future, make necessary corrections and amends where needed, and then begin the work to put the incident behind you with the understanding that this is not a quick fix but a period of growth for you. Take Care of Yourself Stressful situations can quickly take a toll on your body, so connecting with your support system (family, friends, faith) is important as is making time for meditation and quality periods of solitude to regain a sense of calm.


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble Take Action If you have a string of earlier success you can focus on to begin rebuilding your con dence that’s great! The problem is few people keep track of their successes so it can be tough to come up with anything positive when you’re feeling bad about yourself. Regardless of your track record up to now, the best remedy for fractured self-con dence is action. Maybe you need to rework a work assignment, learn a new skill, or consider ways to improve your social life, put yourself out there. Take charge. Inspiration to Replace Negative Self Talk Many people turn to resources such as positive a rmations and inspirational stories to sooth jangled nerves during challenging times. The perspective of those who have learned insightful lessons from similar situations can be invaluable to help us replace negative scripts with positive self-talk. Following are a few of my favorite inspirational insights on recovering from a stumble.


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail once and it is all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. If you are willing to accept failure and learn from it, if you are willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you have got the essential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces. ~Joseph Sugarman I’m stronger because I’ve had to be. I’m smarter because of my mistakes. I’m happier because I have overcome the sadness I’ve known and I’m wiser because I have learned from my life. ~Author Unknown The greatest mistake you can make in life is to live continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing. ~H. Stanley Judd If we ll our hours with regrets over the failures of yesterday, and with worries over the problems of tomorrow, we have no today in which to be thankful. ~Author Unknown We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. ~Dr. Steve Maraboli Sometimes your greatest teachers in life have no idea just what they taught you, especially those who treated you the worst. The day you can truthfully say, “I deserve better than this” is the day you graduate from class. ~Author Unknown Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive. ~Author Unknown and of course the classic …


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble You gain strength, courage, and con dence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~Eleanor Roosevelt If you enjoyed these quotations you’ll nd these and hundreds more in my book Re ections on Resilience for Challenging Times available now at Amazon.com. Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become.


Strategies to Rebuild Confidence After a Stumble Marquita Herald Marquita Herald is a personal development and resilence guide, blogger, author and founder and chief evangelist of Emotionally Resilient Living. Resilience isn't like an umbrella to be stored away in the closet for a rainy day. It is the key to managing the stress of modern living and to finding opportunities to grow through all of life's challenges. The mission of Emotionally Resilient Living is to provide insight, resources, and inspiration to help you recognize the power and authority you have to put "you" unapologetically in charge of your life. Learn more


This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog

This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog - Rene Groskreutz Do you really know what is on your blog? Is that a crazy thought? If you have been blogging for a while, ask yourself "Do I remember every single blog post that I ever wrote?" Recently someone emailed me and asked a question on blogging. I love it when people do that by the way.

When I read the question, I thought that I had created a tutorial on that but wasn't really sure. Perhaps I meant to but didn't? I had to go search my own blog to find out.

www.iteachblogging.com

This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog It turns out that I had. This is when I realized that it was truly time for a blog content audit.

If you don’t know what content you have, and how it’s performing, you can’t improve. What is a content audit? Essentially, a content audit is when you take inventory of all of your blog posts and pages on your site. You take some time to analyze a few key factors such as whether or not the content is still relevant and serving a purpose or not. Once you have the answers, you can make other decisions such as whether or not it should be updated, deleted or merged. You can also verify if the SEO is setup properly or any other improvements that could be made. There are multiple options on what to include in your content audit. They can be as basic or as extensive as you want them to be. No matter how basic or extensive your audit is, one thing remains true. You should have a plan for your content audit.

Why do a content audit? Content is the heart and soul of your blog, so it is important to check in and make sure it is still doing its job.


This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog As a blog grows, so does the blogger. This means that content is bound to become irrelevant and/or outdated. It also means that you nd places where you could expand on a topic and make the content even more valuable. Blogs evolve over time and therefore blog strategies should evolve over time as well. Here are some of the questions that a content audit will help you realize…. Is the content still relevant? Is your content optimized? Is your blog headed in the right direction? Should you change paths with your content? Did you change paths without realizing it? Is anything broken? How long will a content audit take? This is a fair question and the answer really is 'it depends.' I know that is not what you want to hear but it varies based upon how much content that you have and how in-depth you plan to go with your audit. This is why I highly recommend that you do this in steps. While it would be awesome to sit down and do this in the span of a day or two, that is likely not realistic. Consider committing to one step a week and go from there. Remember this is not a race. This should and will take you some time. Be patient and take your time.


This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog While I do not believe that a full content audit needs to be done yearly, it does need to be done from time to time. Plan for a Content Audit Schedule time It is important to nd time that you can commit to this audit. This is not an urgent process but it does require a commitment of time. So go ahead and find a couple of hours each week in your calendar. Get a list of All the Pages on Your Site We need a quick and easy way to gure out exactly what content is on our site. There are two ways to accomplish this by using free software tools that will create a list of all your posts and pages which can be put into as easy to use spreadsheet. My go-to resource is a called Screaming Frog. It is quite a powerful tool that also will show you info such as pages and posts that lack missing H1's, H2's etc. and even pages without meta content. I have been running this software on my computer for some time and have not had any concerns. Therefore, I give it my stamp of approval. Another option is Yoast - SEO XML Sitemaps. If you are already using Yoast SEO they have a sitemap function built right in.

Evaluate Content On Your Blog


This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog At this rst stage and using your spreadsheet, you can begin by just deciding if the content is relevant or not and should be on your blog. Just put a yes or no in your spreadsheet. You can generally get an initial idea to this question by the blog post title alone. Is blog post relevant, yes or no? or Is page content relevant, yes or no? When evaluating your blog content, you have a lot of options. You can easily nd a list of tasks that would make your blog better. Your rst instinct may be to dive in and get to work. Realized that not everything is a must do right now. Sometimes, it would be really nice to have everything uniform but it doesn't need to be. But ask yourself "Does this impact the value of my content?" If the answer is no. Take a step back and make some di cult decisions, what must be done right now and what would just be nice to have. It’s also time to start deciding what content still ts your brand and what content does not. As we grow our blog we also tend to better de ne our niche. This means that some of our content needs to be merged and/or deleted. While it is painful to delete content that we worked hard to create, it is sometimes the best action that we can take. Conclusion


This is How to Do a Complete Content Audit on Your Blog The most important part of a content audit is making sure that your content is on target. It may seem like a big undertaking, but I will be with you every step of the way. Whether you decide to start with a basic audit or move on to an advanced audit, I’ve got you covered. I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do with step-by-step details, demo graphics and video on how easy it is to use Screaming Frog.

Renee Groskreutz I Teach Blogging keeps small business WordPress websites updated with the latest software so that you can focus on your business and not worry about your website. We also provide WordPress Support on an hourly basis so that simple changes no longer cost a fortune. Our goal is to always provide friendly and timely services so that your needs are met. Learn more


You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What?

You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? - Susan Mary Malone We all have that feeling now and then, don’t we? You know, the (usually loud) voice that says, “You’re a failure! Give this up!” Or is it just me? Because lord knows I’ve thought that many times. I work in a fairly brutal industry. Publishing is just unforgiving when it comes to selling ction to Traditional houses. I’m not talking about the selfpublishing craze, but the way of producing books the old-fashioned way— where your manuscript sells to a publisher, who pays you an advance, undertakes all the costs, and then pays royalties.

www.susanmarymalone.com

You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? You know, the way it once was exclusively done. It’s always been exceedingly tough to sell to a Traditional publisher, and I’ve been blessed in that area. And with the digital revolution over the last decade and a half, it’s gotten even more incredibly difficult. What once was a literal million-to-one shot is now more like 3-million-toone. It’s not difficult to feel like a failure here. I bet your industry is tough as well. Many who read this are bloggers, trying to succeed in a huge market. The latest statistic I could nd said that 6.7MM people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12MM write blogs using their social networks. And that was from an article that listed 45 reasons to blog! Still, that’s a lot of folks out there trying to get messages out. And I’m not even sure I know what “successful blog” translates to. Many, many professions are tough to succeed in. And that doesn’t even mean being at the top of the pyramid, but merely nding success in the middle. We all begin starry-eyed. And none of us likes to fail. But no matter what you aspire to, if you’re not failing, you’re not trying. Absolutely no one succeeds all the time. www.susanmarymalone.com

You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? But no matter what you aspire to, if you’re not failing, you’re not trying. And if you’ve failed, you’re in good company. Don’t you always love those stories about famous folks who failed a zillion times before they succeeded? And aren’t their takes on it eye-openers? I always loved that Thomas Edison quote, when asked if he felt like a failure after so many tries that didn’t work. “Why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know de nitely over 9,000 ways an electric lightbulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.” ~Edison

Okay, I have to admit, I haven’t tried anything 9,000 times. And I’m fairly happy that Edison didn’t quit! Or how about Walt Disney, who was red by the editor in 1919 from his job at the Kansas City Star paper because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” When I wrote my rst novel, of course I believed it was brilliant (all writers do!). And of course, I had a lot to learn. As one editor’s rejection read: “Your infelicitous word choices turned me off.” Ouch! I can’t really think of a worse criticism for a writer.


You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? And yep, I saved that one. But, I got better and my third novel was published by a nice Traditional Literary press. Famous rejections in publishing are legion. They are everywhere, but again, publishing is what I know.

Here are just a few of my favorite rejections: 1. Gone With the Wind was rejected 38 times before a publisher said yes. It sold 30 million copies. 2. One publisher said of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead: “Unsaleable and unpublishable.” Random House took a chance and it sold 7 million copies in the US alone. 3. Twenty-four literary agencies turned down Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook. The 25th agency took him on, and a week later it sold for 1 million smackers. 4. When Louisa May Alcott was told to “stick to teaching,” she refused to give up on her dream. Little Women went on to sell millions of copies, and is still in print today. I could go on and on and on and on with these. When I said these rejections—and perceived failures—were legion, that’s not even close to the reality!


You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? They all make me laugh, all bolster my courage. One that tickles me on all levels is: “Nobody will want to read a book about a seagull.” Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull has sold over 44 million copies. So, where were the real failures? In all walks of life, we can cite these sorts of stories. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mary Kay Ash, Oprah Winfrey, Colonel Sanders, Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln. Shoot, just to list all the famous failures would take all day. It is often said that your greatest success is just one more step beyond failure. But we want to see that success, no? To realize it. Preferably now. I love the teachings of Abraham Hicks, and one I grapple with often is that of living in the success of the thing you seek. That when the desire is launched, you’re already on the journey toward it. The thing that holds you back is focusing on what isn’t there yet. And the point is, to focus on what you want. It keeps me motivated. Keeps me striving for that brass ring. Keeps me writing. So if you feel like a failure, so what? You’re in awfully good company. And why do we know these stories? Because these folks didn’t quit.


You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What? As Michael Jordan famously said: “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I have missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

What keeps you going after failure?


You Think You're a Failure in Life? So What?

Susan Mary Malone I Just Came Here to Dance (novel); What's Wrong with My Family? And How Live Your Best Life Anyway; By the Book (novel); Body Sculpting: The Weisbeck Way; Fourth and Long; Five Keys to Understanding Men Find Susan Mary Malone's short stories, "Descent," "The Dream Delicious," "Illusion of the Heart" at Amazone.com/Shorts She has also edited 45 books that have been sold to traditional publishers see www.maloneeditorial.com Learn more


How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website - Webly Alfred “My Wordpress website is sending spam emails to my subscribers. Help I don’t know how to make it stop.” Does this sound like what’s been happening on your website? In a movie, a hacker who nds a way to get inside a computer to stop a countdown that would launch a missile to destroy the world is a hero. In real life, a hacker is not a hero when she is responsible for your email subscribers receiving spam emails, your blogs being bombarded with spam comments or worse, your website URL now leading to a porn site.

www.weblyalfred.com

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website Being hacked is an entrepreneur’s nightmare, and it can cost a lot of time, money and frustration. Most people get hacked because they simply don’t have the time to cleanup their website’s back end. In my experience, I discovered that there are 8 ways you’re compromising your Wordpress website and you don’t even know that you’re doing it. What if you could take simple steps to break the hacker’s heart instead of yours? There is, and today I am sharing them with you. Heartbreak #1: You Have A Complete Backup Of Your Wordpress Website Most entrepreneur when launching their business online, sign-up for a shared server with GoDaddy, BlueHost, Hostgator or else, to host their website. These types of web hosting packages usually cost $3.99 per month. You are sharing server space with many other people. You have no idea how secure the other websites are. A hacker can in ltrate one of them and delete your files. How can you recover your website if this happens? Having a complete backup of your Wordpress website can help. The complete backup allows you to save a copy of your website for you to recover in case you get hacked. The backup doesn’t require you to redesign your site. Your website can be restored to the way it looked like before getting hacked. The plugin I recommend to backup your entire website i s BackupBuddy. You can even schedule BackupBuddy to automatically save your website daily, weekly at a remote location or on a storage device.

www.weblyalfred.com

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website Heartbreak #2: You always update your version of Wordpress Wordpress does an amazing job keeping their free product secure updating it frequently. Take advantage of this free support by keeping your Wordpress version up to date. Before updating your version of Wordpress , make sure you do a complete backup avoiding breaking your own heart just in case the Wordpress update didn’t go as expected. Heartbreak #3: You delete the plugins you’re not using Every plugin you install on your website was created by a di erent developer. Each time Wordpress updates its version, a good developer updates the plugin she created as well. Make sure all your plugins are updated and tested with your current Wordpress version. If not, nd a substitute or delete it. Hackers use a back door technique to install malicious codes on plugins not updated to in ltrate your website. It allows them to do whatever they want without you even knowing they already have access to your site. Heartbreak #4: You delete the Wordpress themes that you’re not using Your Wordpress website install usually comes with a couple of free themes. People purchase other themes with more features for their website and don’t even bother with the free ones. You can delete them. Keeping the Wordpress themes that you’re not using gives hackers the perfect opportunity to infiltrate your website.

www.weblyalfred.com

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website Heartbreak #5: You’re not using “ADMIN” as your username Don’t be shy, do you still use “ADMIN” or your email address as your username to log into your Wordpress dashboard? Having your username as “ADMIN” - the rst username hackers usually try - is doing 50% of the job for hackers. The solution is to break their heart changing your username to something that is tough to guess. Heartbreak #6: You’re using a password with at least 8 characters I get it, your pet name, your favorite restaurant or your wedding date anniversary are easier to remember. But they are also easy information for a hackers to obtain just by paying attention to what you post on social media. You want a password that is tough to guess and that's 8 characters long. Use a Strong Password Generator to create it for you. I know you have enough password, family schedules and grocery lists to remember. Don't worry, I got your back! Use a password management system like LastPass to remember ALL your passwords for you so you don't have to. Heartbreak #7: You audit your website users From your Wordpress dashboard, navigate the “Users” section. If you see other users you don’t remember adding besides you, delete them especially if they have “Administrator” status. You should be the only one with this status. If you need to give access to a designer to update your website, create a separate user account with a temporary password.

www.weblyalfred.com

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website Heartbreak #8: You Keep spammers from commenting on your blog When your website is new, you spend a small amount of time moderating comments. As it becomes more popular, comment moderation will turn into a chore especially with spam comments. Spammers love to bombard you with all kinds of comments to buy Ray Ban glasses or Viagra. You don’t want your visitors reading these types of comments, that’s why you must activate a spam filtering plugin. Wordpress comes with some plugins preinstalled. One of those plugins is a spam ltering plugin, Akismet, which doesn’t come activated though. You will have to take some extra steps to get it activated for a small fee. You can also use a spam prevention technology, a honeypot like Spam Fighter to force the spam bots to identify themselves before posting a comment on your site. A honeypot creates a fake challenge that can only be seen by the spam bots. When the bots ll the challenge, they end up identifying themselves and are caught before posting a spam comment. My wish for you is to get in the habit of protecting your business online as well as your visitors. I've been designing websites for 7 years and I've made many mistakes. You don't need to do the same! It’s good practice that every month you schedule some time to do a security audit of your website. Doing so will keep your heart intact and will surely break a hacker’s heart. If you feel stuck, I'm happy to help you ght your tech monsters.

www.weblyalfred.com

How to Avoid Compromising Your Wordpress Website Webly Alfred Not a techie person. Not a problem. If you need help securing your website, join my Facebook group, Website and Social Media Lab where I can help you fight those tech monsters. Click on Learn more to connect.

Learn more

www.weblyalfred.com

Online Success Advice for Women Entrepreneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster! Please visit us for more great information. We love having this opportunity to share with you our knowledge and experience. For questions, you can reach any of us directly at Jackie Harder - [email protected] Joyce Hansen - [email protected] Kristen Wilson - [email protected] Marquita Herald - [email protected] Renee Groskreutz - [email protected] Susan Mary Malone - [email protected] Webly Alfred - [email protected]

Unless otherwise indicated, All Rights are Reserved for Online Advice for Women Entre[reneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster! Individual articles are protected under the original copyrighted of their author. No part of these pages, either text or image may be used for any purpose other than personal use. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.

Online Success Advice for Women Entrepreneurs Who Want to Get to the Beach Faster!