Really, Divi is a super-customizable theme more than a framework, at least in the way you use it. Exactly like any theme you’d find anywhere, you install Divi. Then you use the Divi theme options and Customizer to really make the site your own.

What sets Divi apart from most other themes you can find is that it’s a drag-and-drop page editor. In other words, if you *only* install Divi and don’t actually use the builder, you’re not gaining anything. It’s power is that you can take a plain page and turn it into a really beautiful design without having to know any coding at all.

I have yet to hear a complaint from a client for whom I have built a site using Divi.

In fact, a few of my clients love Divi as much as I do now because it allows them to create their own beautiful landing pages without having to pull me in! That’s always my goal – I want you to be able to work on your website as much as you’d like without feeling like you need to pay me for it.

The one thing we’ve all wanted

As developers using Divi, there’s been one limitation that we’ve really wanted for. Other page builder frameworks have put this in, and we knew Divi would get it too, we just didn’t know when.

The one thing we didn’t like about Divi was how hard it was to customize the header and footer. There were ways, but it usually involved writing code.

Not anymore!

Elegant Themes (the company that makes Divi) has announced the release of Divi 4, which includes a theme builder! This means that we can now create headers and footers using the Divi Builder that we’ve come to love. There’s a lot more to it than that, but unless you already use Divi it might not make sense.

Suffice it to say that while Divi 3 was great, Divi 4 will be even better and make your websites even more awesome. As your developer, I’ll be able to do more of what you want and even things you aren’t thinking of, and I’ll be able to show you how to customize some things yourself later on if you ever want to.

I can’t wait to get into it, and I can’t wait to build your site with the new version of Divi!

The post Finally – Divi Theme Builder is Coming! appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

I understand the concern. I had it myself when I was just starting my business. I even still have trouble paying for Facebook ads even though I know if I did them right they’d be worth the money.

That said, you’re making a mistake if you decide a free website builder can get you a website just as good as a professional designer.

Think of it this way: sure, anyone can build a website. Anyone can build a house too, but there’s a reason we pay builders who do it for a living.

Please read this article before deciding to use a free builder. It will at least help you pay attention to some things you may not be thinking about yet.

Why you shouldn’t use a free website builder

They make it so easy, right? It’s drag and drop! It has pre-built templates! It’s perfect!

It’s handy, certainly. But it’s not ideal.

1. You don’t know what you don’t know

You can absolutely make a website that looks better than most of your competition if you use a free website builder. However, just because it looks better doesn’t mean it’s actually a well-built website.

Especially if you think your website is just a glorified business card, you really should talk to a professional web developer.

Building a website that actually works for you rather than is a simple overhead expense is something that people spend their professional lives studying and refining. It’s not just putting up a nice picture, coming up with a well-crafted tagline, listing your services, and adding a contact number.

Here’s an example: should your “about page” should be about your company’s history? Absolutely not. Not many people care about your company’s history. Even on your about page, people want to see how your company helps them solve their problem, and you have less than 5 seconds to convince them. So unless you can craft a really good story, don’t talk about your grandpa.

2. You haven’t studied design

There’s a difference between a picture and a photograph. You’ve seen the difference even if you haven’t noticed it. Think of it this way: a picture is something you snap in the moment. A photograph is something you could frame and hang on your wall.

Website builders help you get to the next step, kind of like learning the rule of thirds (which actually helps in web design too). It helps, and you can definitely tell the difference between your old pictures and the ones you take after learning composition. But you still need to practice to get really good at photography.

The builders and layouts help you incorporate some design basics, but you still need to practice to get really good at website design.

3. You haven’t studied user interaction

This is related to website design, but it takes it to the next level. Keeping with photography, it might be like learning how to use your aperture and shutter speed. Once you learn how to compose a good photograph, there’s still a whole world of exposure to get into.

Design is one thing. Understanding how people interact with your website is a different ballgame. Where should the call to action go (your website has a call to action, right)? What’s the flow you want a visitor to take on your site? When they click the button you want them to click, how does the next page capture their interest and keep them going down the path to becoming a customer?

I’ve talked to a lot of people who already have websites, and they’ve explained to me (because I don’t think they knew I am a website strategist) that websites shouldn’t be too salesy, and you should just use them to give away information.

What they’re saying is kind of true, but there’s a way to craft the website such that it is totally a sales tool without being “salesy”. In fact, a really well crafted one does it without the visitor realizing it. When you do it right, you are actually helping your clients, you’re not selling to them.

But if you don’t understand how they’ll interact with your website, you are not able to help them as well as you’d like.

4. You haven’t studied SEO

Optimizing your websites for Google is the main way people find you at the top of their search results. There are ways to do it right, and then there’s throwing spaghetti against the wall.

Is your business based in a certain area? Local SEO is what’s going to get you at the top of the local listings when someone searches for your kind of service in their area.

SEO used to be all about keywords and putting them everywhere, even if makes the title of a page sound weird. Some SEO consultants who aren’t keeping up with the times are still using that strategy. Did you know you shouldn’t even use a list of keywords on your pages anymore?

SEO changes ALL THE TIME. Google is constantly revising their algorithms for ranking. That’s why SEO is literally a full time job.

Yes, there are certain things you can do that help and are fairly obvious. You can learn pretty quickly how to write posts on other blogs to get links back to yours. There’s just way more to a good SEO strategy than you might realize.

I use tools on my website to make sure I’m doing the best I can. I’m not aware of website builders that give you those kinds of tools to make sure your content is optimized.

5. You haven’t studied digital marketing

This goes a little beyond the website itself, but it still centers around the website. When should you use pop ups vs banners? What should you offer your visitors in exchange for their email addresses (you are collecting email addresses, right)? What should the email sequence look like when someone signs up?

How do you create a proper Facebook ad? What’s the right way to use social media to promote your services? Should you buy ads in the yellow pages still?

When you build your website, you may not know to think about these things. That’s OK, because you can learn them later. A good website designer will start asking questions early on, though, to get you thinking about them. A good branding expert will get you images to use on social media profiles so your brand is consistent.

Bonus: You don’t get to keep your website

I remembered this one as I was writing the article and it’s well worth the mention.

This may begin to change as time goes on, but at the moment when you want to switch hosts (and you very likely will – I’ve switched 4 times in the past 15 years) you don’t get to keep your website. You own the domain and all of the content, but you can’t just take the website you build on GoDaddy’s tools with you to another host.

When you have your site built by someone else (or if you are able to do it yourself without a builder), you can literally pack it up and take it somewhere else. When I moved this site from one host to another, I had everything switched in under an hour. Doing it from a website builder means you have to build another website and add all the content back.

You can build your own site, but do you really want to?

When you’re strapped for cash, it’s totally understandable. I won’t judge you for using a builder. Hopefully you’ll look into these points before getting started so you’re at least thinking about them as you build your site.

Think about it a second time, though. Your job is not to build websites. That shouldn’t be your focus. You should be focusing on what you do best to get your products sold and clients helped. Leave the stuff you aren’t a pro at to the pros. It will be well worth the financial investment.

The post 5 Reasons Small Business Owners Should Think Twice Before Using A Free Website Builder appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

I’ll show you how to set this all up yourself in this article, but if you’d just prefer to get someone else to do it, I’m happy to help. Just let me know by sending me a message via the form on this page.

Note: The “how to’s” of this article are mostly for WordPress users, but the concepts still apply to others.

If the details interest you, keep reading. If not, you can skip to the action steps.

What is HTTPS?

The “rules” for how your website gets from the host server to a person’s computer or phone is typically HTTP. Basically, the server sends the raw code to the browser, and the browser puts it together into the beautiful display you worked so hard on.

With HTTP, that code is sent as “plain text”, which means if you wanted to you could look at what’s being sent and more or less understand it if you knew a bit of HTML.

This data transfer goes both ways. If you collect email addresses or log into a dashboard or have forms on your site, when it’s only using HTTP all of that data is transferred back to the server in plain text.

So if someone was snooping your website, they could steal all of the information that’s being sent from the form in a browser to your server. Including your login information when you log into the back end.

HTTPS is Secure HTTP. It doesn’t send data in plain text. It encrypts everything, even links to images, so that it’s not as easily discovered. Using HTTPS makes your forms more secure.

You are actually doing your website users a disservice by not using HTTPS. That should strike a chord

How to enable HTTPS on WordPress

WordPress practices what they preach

It’s not difficult to start using HTTPS, but it is something you’ll probably need to set aside a couple hours for. I’ll walk you through how I put my sites on HTTPS and hopefully that’ll give you an idea of what to do even if you’re on a different host than I am.

What you need first

The way your website tells the browser it’s secure is through an SSL certificate. If you just change all your links to HTTPS, the browser will yell at the person viewing the site as a warning. Some browsers won’t even display the website. The reason is that you need a sort of key that says the URL of your website is authentically secure, not simply pretending to be secure.

So the first step is to get an SSL certificate. There are two options I’m aware of: a free one (the kind I use) and one you pay $30-$50 a year for through your web host.

Let’s Encrypt

SSL certs used to cost money. Let’s Encrypt is a wonderful organization that provides free SSL certificates. All you have to do is ask for one.

The catch, though, is that your host needs to support Let’s Encrypt. Mine does (check out Siteground), so it was very simple to switch. If your host doesn’t support Let’s Encrypt, then I’d consider switching hosts. Your other option is to purchase an SSL certificate from your host.

Host-provided SSL certificate

This is the way things used to be. If you wanted to run your site over HTTPS, you could purchase the certificate through them. I did that a couple years ago, and it was around $30 for a year for the certificate.

But seriously, try to find a host that uses Let’s Encrypt.

What you should set up on your website

Once you have a certificate, regardless of how you got it, you can set some things up on your site. Your end goal is to have the green lock show up in the URL bar.

There are code ways to do it, but if you want to try yourself, you can get plugins.

Admin dashboard

At a bare minimum you should put your admin dashboard behind HTTPS. There are WordPress plugins that make this pretty easy.

Forms

Next, at least make sure any pages with a contact or opt in form are behind HTTPS.

The whole site

To really get secure, put the whole site behind HTTPS.

Plugins to help do it for you

I didn’t use any plugins for my set up, but you could. Here are a few options I’ve found but haven’t fully vetted. They look OK from their details, though.

Really Simple SSL – You might need the pro version to fix images in posts, pages, and widgets
CM HTTPS Pro – $30 for the plugin, but it does a lot for you and helps you do the rest. This one looks like it actually updates the database reference rather than do it through redirects.
Easy HTTPS Redirection – This one writes to the .htaccess file on your server, so if you use this plugin make sure you have access to that file in case things go haywire. It does tell you what to remove from the file if necessary.

How I set up my sites with HTTPS

I’m kind of a purist. The more plugins you have the more processing your site needs to load, and the slower it can become. Not to mention each plugin is a different point of failure and just something else to keep maintained.

So when I set up HTTPS, I just did it the manual way. It works just as well, and maybe it takes slightly longer to get set up but it’s really not a big deal at all.

This tutorial assumes your host uses cPanel and offers Let’s Encrypt. If either of those aren’t true, or you’re not sure, I’ll be glad to find out for you.

A note before starting

If you already have a plugin that is supposed to handle some HTTPS activity, like iThemes Security, make sure the HTTPS settings are off. I imagine you’d have had problems before if you had HTTPS settings on without a certificate, but I want to make the point anyway.

Since I don’t know what your website setup is, I can’t guarantee that this will all work as smoothly as it did for me. What I’m outlining below is a simple approach that should be fine. I’m just not responsible if you accidentally screw up your site.

Step 1: Request the certificate

Log into your host and go into cPanel. If your host supports it, you’ll see an app for Let’s Encrypt. Mine was under the “security” section.

Click into it, and then you can pick the domain you’d like a certificate for. One click later, it’ll do some processing and eventually give you a message saying your certificate is approved and active.

If you have options for HTTPS Enforce and External Links Rewrite, turn Enforce on and leave Rewrite off. We’ll fix the external links (images, CSS files, etc) in a couple steps.

Turn Enforce on and keep Rewrite off.

Step 2: Change the WordPress URLs to https

Once your certificate is active, log into your WordPress dashboard. Navigate to the WordPress settings, and click “General”. You’ll see two URLs at the top: WordPress Address and Site Address. Change the http to https and save changes.

Both addresses should be changed to “https”

At this point, the site might kick you out because you logged in under http initially. Just log in again and you should be OK.

Step 3: Check the pages and verify that they’re all secured

The main problem with setting things up for HTTPS is that if ONE element of the page is being loaded over standard HTTP, the whole page (page, not site) will be loaded over standard HTTP, even if the URL says HTTPS. So it’s important to make sure at least the pages you need to be secure are fully secure.

If your website theme was coded well, you won’t have many theme images to adjust.

Where you could really have some work to do is with images on blog posts, pages, and widgets. Because the site URL used to just be HTTP, everything you’ve added up until now is going to load over HTTP. You have to change each reference to HTTPS or the browser will not consider the page to be HTTPS.

Go from this

To this

Going forward everything will be HTTPS, but you have to do something about the images you’ve added up until now.

A nifty tool for checking your content

Just the other day I came across this tool that will crawl your website and check for non-secure content. It’s super easy to use, and it even helped me find content that I’ve linked to but doesn’t actually exist (oops!). You just enter your URL once you’ve enabled your SSL cert and it will tell you what’s coming through over regular HTML. Those are the pages you will need to fix.

If updating all of your images is just something that’s not going to happen, there’s some code that can be written on a specific file (.htaccess) on your server or you can download a plugin called SSL Insecure Content Fixer to handle it for you. Those won’t actually update the references to be HTTPS.  They are supposed to automatically switch the request from HTTP to HTTPS.

If you use the plugin, set it to the “Content” fix, and it should catch most everything. As with any plugin, there could be conflicts and it may not work as you expect. It depends on what else you have.

Need more help?

I know this seems daunting, and I suppose it should. If the technical aspects of what I’ve written here make sense, you should be able to handle this yourself.

If you have any questions about what your setup is like, I’m happy to take a few minutes to check out what you have.  I’ll let you know if this process will work as simply as I’ve laid it out.

But if you just really don’t want to have anything to do with this process but realize it’s something you need to have done, let me know. Fill out the form on this page and we’ll get it sorted out.

The post If You Haven’t Enabled HTTPS On Your WordPress Site, You Need To Read This appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

We’re all told we need a website so we can sell our stuff online.

So we build a website, put our names on it, tell people about our company, and proudly share a link to it on Facebook. We might even get real fancy and create a Facebook page and ask all our friends to “like” it so the number doesn’t hang out in the single digits for long.

And then we wait.

And wait.

If we have money, we’ll take out ads and send people to our website. We’ll get business cards made (cj.com, vistaprint) and toss our URL on the bottom, but for some reason we can’t get any increase in sales.

Did you ever think your website might actually be losing customers for you? It’s very possible, but I’m about to show you how to fix it.

3 main problems with most small business websites

There are a few problems I see over and over again, but they’re all understandable especially for businesses that are trying to bootstrap their website.

Below I outline the problems as well as how you can fix them starting today.

your website is all about you

It’s a common mistake, and an easy one to make. Of course you want to sell yourself and your products to make sure people visiting your page see right away why they should hire you.

There’s nothing wrong with the concept. It’s the approach that causes issues.

Your potential customers don’t want to know how cool your product is. They don’t care how many awards you’ve gotten or where you’ve been featured. Those are nice things to have, because they give you credibility, but they shouldn’t be the focus.

Your customers care about only one thing: how you can help them with the problem they’re trying to solve. Most of the visitors don’t go to your site to find you, they are looking for a solution.

how to fix it

The good thing is you likely already have everything you need to solve this:

1. Instead of thinking about how cool your product is, think about the problem it solves for your visitor.
2. Visit your website from the perspective of the person with the problem and try to see how quickly you can find how your product solves the problem. Don’t make assumptions about your content – only base your speed on what you see on your site.
3. Now take the content you found that tells you how you solve their problem and make that front and center on the home page. Tell them how you can improve their life rather than what you’re selling. Check out this blog post and podcast on Copyblogger to really find out how to roll out the red carpet on your homepage.

your information is difficult to find

How many times have you been on a website looking for one piece of information and you can’t find it to save your life? (By the way, if you have trouble with that on this website, please let me know!)

how to fix it

1. Think of the different questions your website visitors might have both before they get to your site and also once they start reading and want to learn more. Start with low-hanging fruit like “how can I get in touch with you”, “how much will this cost”, etc.
2. Make sure all of those questions have pages with answers.
3. Make sure those pages are easy to find. Have you linked to the main important pages in your header navigation?
4. Add a search widget to your site. Google has a good one. If you’re on WordPress, their built-in one is decent.

you’re not telling your customers what you want them to do

This one is probably the easiest one to miss, and it’s also pretty easy to fix.

Think about it this way: if you’d never used Google before, how would you know what to do when you got there? Well, there’s only one thing you can do – start typing in the search bar.

Each page on your website should have what’s called a “call to action”. And each page should really have only one call to action. There are a few exceptions, but there should at least be only one *main* call to action that gets the most attention.

What should the call to action be? That depends on what you want your visitor to do once they’re ready to leave the page they’re on. On a course landing page, the obvious call to action is “buy now”.

Maybe some pages you’ll want them to send you an email. Blog posts often ask for comments. Sometimes maybe you want a phone call. For the post part, your call to action will guide visitors into becoming a lead and eventually a paying client. So make that particular action obvious, and where it’s appropriate – specifically ask the visitor to take the action.

how to fix it

Decide what your main call to action on your homepage should be. Take a look at the Jayzilla homepage. There’s one button to click when you get there. Clearly, I want you to go to the page where I explain how I’ll fix your problem, and I even ask you to take that action via the button text.

It may help to draw out a tree of actions you want people to take in order to get to the point of initiating direct contact with you, and then set up your pages to easily guide visitors through those actions.

If you treat all of your pages and blog posts like a sales page (not one of those crappy, cheesy ones), you’ll start to see more people spending more time on your site as well as converting them into clients.

I can help you with it, if you’d like

That was a lot of information, and I hope I organized it well enough for you to evaluate your website and fix the common mistakes. If you’re not sure where to start, I’m happy to help!

Send me an email with your website URL and what you think needs the most improvement after reading this post. I’ll take a look and give you specific advice on how to adjust it so you’re capturing more leads. A set of fresh eyes might be just what your site needs!

The post 3 Subtle Ways Your Website May Be Losing You Customers And How To Fix Them appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

Download or share this infographic!

If I’m missing your favorite one, please leave a comment and let me know!

Facebook
Google Plus
Instagram
Linked In
Pinterest
Twitter
Image tutorial

How to make great social media profile images

When you’re using a photograph of yourself, it’s not too difficult to get one that works well. All of the platforms allow you to zoom and crop images, so unless you have an oddly-framed photo, you can usually find a profile image that looks good.

That’s not necessarily the case when you’re trying to create a profile image with your brand.

It’s pretty easy to find out what the right sizes are for profile images (especially now, since I’ve put them in this post for you), but what about when it isn’t a square or rectangle? You’ll run the risk of cropping out some text or parts of your logo if you’re not careful.

Take Instagram for example. The sweet spot is at about 110 pixels square for one that doesn’t scale down, but it’s a circle. So if you have text at the bottom of your image, you’ll be chopping off corners of it from the bottom left and right. It can be a pain to get it right.

This cheat sheet will help. Not only do I have the sizes for you (at least as of 2017), but I’m also including templates you can use to create your own for the trickier ones. At the end of the post, I’ll show you how to use the templates to get your images working really quickly.

File formats

Before I get to the platforms, I want to say a brief word about file formats.

Generally, if you’re using a photograph, a JPG will be the best option. If you’re using logos or text, you might want to try using a PNG format. They typically scale better and don’t distort as much as JPGs do.

Ok, let’s get started!

Facebook

Profile Image

Ideal: 170×170 px
Minimum: 128×128 px

Facebook tells us that on the image scales all the way from 170 down to 38px, but very few of your mobile users will be on the smallest end, so it’s safe to plan for something that will scale well at 128px. It’s a square with no odd cropping, so just start your graphic at 170×170 and make it all fit. The instructions at the bottom of this post will help you create one, and since it’s a basic square you don’t need to start with a template, just a new image.

Cover Photo

Ideal: 820×312 px
Minimum: 399×150 px

The cover photo changes its scale depending on the screen. On a computer monitor it’ll be 820x312px, and on a phone it’ll be 640×360. You don’t even need to do math to realize that the scale is different.

computer

phone

So make sure the focus of the image you use is in the middle of the photo. You can see that it keeps the full wide content of the photograph on a phone, but it’s showing more above and below what it shows on a computer.

Google Plus

With G+, you can have personal pages and brand pages. I just want to point out that these guidelines appear to be the same in each.

Profile Photo

Ideal: 120×120 px
Minimum: 70×70 px

The thing about Google Plus profile photos is that they crop into a circle when they display, so you can’t just throw up a square image and expect it to look the same.

You can see that you can’t rely on your square version to display well, and you can’t just shrink the square down to a smaller scale and have it work (that could actually make it worse).

The key is the circle, and you want to optimize that real estate.

The other thing to consider is that in the current version of Google Plus, most of the time when people see your profile, the image will be very small. Consider not using more than a couple letters of text in your Google Plus profile. If you can get away with just a logo, that’d probably be best.

Cover Photo

Ideal: 1080×608 px
Minimum: 480×270 px

The cover photo is the wide banner at the top of your profile, and what shows up changes a whole lot depending on the size of your screen and whether or not you’re scrolling. The important thing to remember about your cover photo is that the subject should be in the middle third of the image.

Google Plus on phone

Google Plus on computer

After you scroll up on your computer, it shows more

Instagram

Ideal size: 180×180 px
Minimum size: 110×110 px

Much like Google Plus, Instagram also crops your image to a circle. It is, however, much larger than the Google Plus image and as a result can support some text. You still have to watch out for the cropping, though.

original

bad

good

Download the Instagram template

To help figure out the best positioning for your logo and any text, I’ve created an Instagram template to use in image editing software. See the bottom of this post for the tutorial.

Linked In

There effectively doesn’t seem to be a minimum for either images, so it depends on how crisp you want your photo to be. The minimum sizes are what I’d recommend.

Profile photo

Ideal: 400×400 px
Minimum: 70×70 px

Linked In has some strict guidelines when it comes to profile images. For example, you can’t use a logo as your profile image. Basically, you just need to stick to using a headshot-type photo.

You don’t need a template here – just find a nice photo with your face mostly in the middle, and the tool will help you find the right crop. It doesn’t even have to be square, even though it’ll crop it to a squared circle for you.

Just for fun, I uploaded a tiny image as my profile pic, and it took it. So I don’t think it looks for a minimum.

Background photo

Ideal: 1536×768 px
Minimum: 407×220 px

On page load, the background photo isn’t very large. It’s definitely not the ideal size that Linked In says it should be. But they do let you drag your image up and down until you get a good fit for the view.

Pinterest

Ideal: 170×170 px
Minimum: 75×75 px

Pinterest also crops to a circle, so you’ll follow the same principals that we looked at for Google Plus and Instagram. In fact, you can use the same image you create for your Instagram photo. Or if you don’t want Instagram but want Pinterest, you can use the same template to create it.

Download the Pinterest template

Twitter

Profile image

Ideal: 400×400 px
Minimum: 75×75 px

Twitter doesn’t have a minimum image size that I could find, but at a certain point it’s too small to be useful. I’d say that since they’re smallest display of the image is 75×75, that’s what you should use as minimum.

They slightly round their corners, but it shouldn’t mess up any of your text. The tool will also let you crop the image you upload if it’s not square.

Header image

Ideal: 1500×500 px
Minimum: 948×316 px

The minimum listed here is just the smallest the header image displays on a computer. The Twitter app probably shows it smaller, but it’ll likely scale it down. Be mindful not to use super small text in your Twitter header otherwise it’ll be hard to read on a phone.

How to use the templates

Ok, so now that you have your templates and logos, you’re ready to get started. You can do this with any image editing software that allows you to work with layers. If you don’t have something like Photoshop already, I highly recommend using Pixlr. It’s free, web-based, and totally rad. You don’t even need an account. I use it almost every day.

This tutorial will use Pixlr, and if you already have Photoshop, you probably know enough about how to use it to translate the steps. Just let me know if you need help with any of it.

Step 1

The first thing you want to do is open the Pixlr Editor, not Express. It’ll ask you to open the file or create a new one. Since you downloaded the template, just select the option to open from your computer, and then navigate to the template to open it.

Now you should see a blank template: a white background with gray circle. The circle represents the visible portion of the profile image, so that’s the area we’re going to work with.

Step 2

Next you’ll want to open your logo file in Pixlr so you can copy it into the template version. Choose File->Open Image, navigate to your logo file, and open it. You should see both images on the screen now.

If your logo is super huge, get it down to about 200 pixels wide. If you’ve got more than just the logo itself in the image (maybe banner text or something), use the crop tool to get down to just the logo. After that, if it’s still too big, select Image->Image size, and then resize it down so that the longest side is 200 pixels.

Step 3

Once it’s a good size, you can use the selection tool to select an area around your logo. Then use the copy shortcut. Click over into the template and paste it in. If it’s too big, you can use the Free Transform option under Edit to scale it down into the size you need it. When you select Free Transform, you’ll see some dots around the corners and sides of the layer, so you hold down the shift key, click one of the corners and drag it to the right size (the shift key makes sure you scale it rather than skew it).

Step 4

Ok, so now you should see the logo on top of the circle, and you will be able to move the layer with your image on it to where you’d like it to be over the circle. But how do you make sure it’s all inside the circle? I’ve found that changing the opacity of the logo layer lets me move things around pretty well.

To do that, you make sure you’ve selected the logo layer in the layers window, and then you click the slider icon. It’ll pull up some settings, and you will be able to move the opacity down so it becomes more or less transparent. Get it to a level that allows you to see both the logo you’re working with and the grey circle behind it.

Now you can make sure everything is positioned so that it will show up inside the circle, even if you have to add more text.

Step 5

Once your stuff is there, you can change the opacity back to 100%. If you need to, like if your logo has a background color, you can select the original layer (double click the lock icon if it appears locked) and just paint the whole thing with the background color. Now, even though your image is a square, once you upload it to your social media account, it should crop perfectly inside the display circle.

Don’t have the time or desire to do this yourself?

No worries! I’m happy to do it for you. Just send me an email and we’ll chat!

If you found this post useful, would you mind sharing it with your internet entrepreneur friends? I’d love to be able to help them out too!

Am I missing your favorite social media channel? Please let me know in the comments!

The post Social Media Profile Images Cheat Sheet appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

But what if you just want to take donations? You could use PayPal and create a donate button. That would be a simple solution and if all you care about is a way to allow people to send you money and don’t need to gather anything else, it’s about as straightforward as they come.

What follows is a case study with instructions about how we created a donation form in WordPress using Gravity Forms and PayPal.

Designing a more elegant solution

I have a client, a church, that wanted to allow their members to be able to submit their offerings online. They had a few specific requirements:

• make a one time donation
• option to make a recurring donation (monthly and weekly options)
• earmark the donation
• gather a bit of personal info

And they didn’t want to have multiple buttons to do the job.

We talked about it and eventually settled on two tools, one of which we were already using for contact forms: Gravity Forms and PayPal.

How we did it

The easy part was creating the form. Gravity has a nice selection of field options, so in addition to the standard personal information fields, we set up two fields that drive the actual donation: an amount field and a frequency field. Amount has to be a “Product” field from the Pricing section of field options, and frequency in our case is a radio button with one-time, weekly, and monthly options.

The second step is to set up the PayPal options, which are called Feeds in the Gravity settings.

We added three feeds, one for each payment frequency. The one-time one is set up as a simple donation field. The other two options are set up as “subscription” fields.

Donation settings

1. Set the Transaction Type to “Donations”
2. Select your amount field as the Payment Amount

Subscription settings

1. Set the Transaction Type to “Subscription”
2. Select your amount field as the Recurring Amount
3. Set the billing cycle. Like I said, we have one that’s 1 month, and one that’s 1 week. There are also yearly and daily options.
4. Set the length of recurrence to how many times you want the subscription to be charged. There’s an option for “infinite” too.

The key to the whole thing is at the end of each feed. There’s a “Conditional logic” section, and this is where the magic happens.

In order for your feed to charge your customers properly, you need to connect the frequency field to the feed. So for the one-time payment, the conditional logic says that the Frequency field must have an answer of “I want to make a one-time offering.”

Similarly, for the monthly option, Frequency must have an answer of “I want to make a monthly offering.”

When set up correctly, it works like a charm.

Summary

To set up your Donation form on your WordPress site where you want more than just a simple PayPal button, you need two things:

1. Gravity Forms
2. The PayPal add-on for Gravity

Then they key pieces to have set up are:

1. Product field for the donation amount in the form
2. A field to capture payment frequency in the form
3. PayPal feeds set up in the PayPal settings for each frequency
4. Get your conditional logic correct

Of course, this doesn’t have to only work for a donation form. You can use it for any kind of form where you’re selling stuff. For example, if you didn’t want to use WooCommerce, you could use this pattern to set up a way for someone to purchase downloads from you. You’d set the payment up through the Gravity form, and have the receipt email contain a link to your product.

I’d love to hear of other creative ways you’re collecting payments, donations or otherwise, on your website! Share with us in the comments!

The post Creating A Donation Form In WordPress With Gravity Forms appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

How it usually goes

Everyone knows that when you have a business you have to get set up on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest at a minimum. Facebook is all the things right now, so that’s usually where people start.

You set up your page, get your banner uploaded, set your icon, and then invite all your friends and family to like your page.

Slowly your tribe starts to see your Facebook like widget on your blog and begin to like the page. Your numbers go up. You post comments and blog posts to the page. Sometimes people respond, sometimes they don’t.

You get undewhelmed at the lack of participation. Isn’t this supposed to be “social” media?

Pages aren’t enough

It’s good to have a Facebook page for your business. It definitely helps you with SEO because it’s yet another business listing with your information for Google to index.

But if you’re only using a Page, you’re missing out on a *huge* tribe-building resource Facebook gives you.

The problem with Pages is that most of the “likers” won’t see your content. A very, very small percentage do. I’ve also found that they aren’t good places for interaction. You can post things and your tribe can respond, and if you’re lucky they’ll start conversations in the comments.

But you really want more.

Do this: Facebook Group vs Page

As a business owner, you want to build a following, a tribe. What do tribes do? They hang out together, talk to each other, encourage one another. And as they do that, they give you amazing insight without you even having to ask.

So how do you do that? In addition to having a Facebook Page, you really need to start a Facebook GROUP for your brand.

With groups, not only can you post things for your tribe to see, but THEY can post things for others to see. They’ll organically start to converse with each other. Eventually they’ll start to see questions they can answer, and they’ll begin to do some of the moderating for you.

Best of all, because it’s much easier to converse in a Group, your tribe updates your posts and keep them at the top. And when a post is constantly updated, it stays towards the top of the group members’ feeds.

You get massive exposure in your group. Many, many times over what your Page is giving you.

Don’t wait another minute. Get over to Facebook and start your Group. Then send an email to your whole list letting them know it’s there.

I want to hear from you: what has your experience with Groups vs Pages been? Share it in the comments (and add a link so we can join!)

The post The Single Most Important Tip To Getting Facebook To Work For Your Business appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

“If you cannot add value don’t participate in online communities.”
Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor

Do you agree with this statement? Think before you answer.

Because even if you say yes, your stream might just betray you and tell an entirely different story about your social media marketing strategy.

We tell rather than converse

This is a tough principle to get our social brains around, especially if we mistakenly view social media–and any online presence for that matter–not as a platform, but a stage; not as a conversation, but a megaphone. To have real, true and lasting influence online, we have to change our thinking. And the sooner the better.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I get why we do it. We don’t understand the nature of social media. We base our understanding on our first screen experience, TV. And TV operates like a megaphone. It’s one-sided. Commercial. And obnoxious at times. Unfortunately, some of us have been guilty of approaching our social communities the same way.

I want to challenge us today to change our perspectives. Instead of viewing social media like a megaphone (or a bullhorn) to view it as a one-on-one conversation.

Tweet: In reality, every social interaction is a one-on-one conversation. Good social media isn’t one-sided‎

It’s one on one, and it’s not about you

I know you think you are talking to a group, a network, your “Twittersphere” (which I checked, and we are no longer saying); but most content is consumed one person at a time. Sure, we may watch a YouTube video in a group or engage through comments, but most often, I’m consuming social media on my phone, by myself, at my convenience. When you think about it, it’s a very intimate conversation. One not appropriate for using a megaphone.

In her book, The Whuffie Factor, Tara Hunt points out that:

“turning the bullhorn around is about changing your interaction with customers from trying to get them to listen and pay attention to you, to listening and paying attention to them.”

Wook-ah-mee! Wook-ah-mee!

When my son was about three, he had this adorable habit. (adorable then, now I’m not so sure!) He would bounce into the room demanding, “Wook-ah-mee. Wook-ah-mee.” (for those of you without kids, that’s three-year-old speak for “look at me.”) At that point, we were to stop what we were doing, usually talking or caring for his baby brother, and give him our full attention. Sometimes it worked. And sometimes we were good parents, and ignored him. The truth is he still commands attention in our family gatherings…and we tease him about it, now that he’s 30 and should know better.

How many of us are approaching social media the same way? We run on the scene, demanding others pay attention to us, our cause, our business. And we are surprised when we get ignored.

Here’s what will get you attention:

Offer value to the people you connect with. Find a way to encourage, resource, or connect them. That’s what people are truly looking for online. They want to be understood, to be heard, and to find solutions for their own pain points. Furthermore, if we don’t take the time to learn what those needs are and keep talking, we still have a megaphone in our hands, and that’s no social media marketing strategy at all.

Let’s face it, it’s time to grow up. If we are serious about making an impact and growing our own “whuffie factor,” we need to throw down the bullhorn and start making conversation. You’ll be amazed at what you learn, and excited to discover how to add your own unique kind of value to the world.

Author Bio: Sue Brage is a communications consultant, content coach, and copywriter who helps Christian business owners, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit leaders articulate and communicate their message with more purpose, passion, and clarity. Her blog, BigShoesCommunications and online community provide support, resources, and encouragement to help leaders achieve their goals.

Photo by CodenameCueball (Own work) [cc], via Wikimedia Commons

The post Stop Using Social Media Like a Megaphone – Fix Your Marketing Strategy appeared first on Jayzilla Media.

Small business website design – for free

Regardless of why, I’m about to take away any barrier you may have. There’s literally no reason you shouldn’t have a website for your business, and today you’re going to find out how to get a beautiful site built without paying a cent. You really can get your small business website design for free.

You can do it all yourself, and you don’t need to be a programmer.

Let’s get to it.

Step 1. Get a place to put it

The first thing you always need is a place to put your site. There are a plethora of companies out there that will charge anywhere from $3 to $50 a month (and higher) to host your website for you. Usually you get what you pay for, but there’s one exception I know of.

WordPress is the most popular platform for putting sites together. It’s what I use when I build a site for someone. The folks that have developed the software also have a way for you to sign up for a free website and hosting. Once you have an account on WordPress.com, you have free website hosting for any site you build there.

There are two main down sides to the free account that may or may not be game changers. The first is you don’t get a domain name (your website would be yoursite.wordpress.com as opposed to www.yoursite.com), and you may occasionally have ads show up on blog posts. Check out the “upgrade” section below to get around that.

Action step 1 – Head on over to WordPress.com and click “Get Started” to get your free website and hosting.

Upgrade:

If you want your own domain name and no ads, you can pay for a pro WordPress account. You could find a cheaper option with less limitations, though, with a different host. The market is big, so the prices are low.

Personally, I use and recommend SiteGround. Their plans start very inexpensively but have top-notch features. Their support is phenomenal, and they have some excellent security options if you feel you need them.

You can buy your domain with SiteGround, but a lot of people are turning to 3rd party registrars. The one I use is Namecheap*. Go there to buy your domain name.

The best part is that your design options are effectively limitless, and you don’t have to put ads on your site (unless you want to get paid for them).

If you’re curious, check out SiteGround’s site* for more information.

2. Find your design without spending a dime

Once you have hosting, you can set up your design. If you’ve gone with the free site from WordPress, you’ll get a whole bunch of really cool design to choose from. View their theme gallery and select the one you like most and customize it with your own colors and text.

To find the themes from your Dashboard:

1. click “Appearance”
2. click “Themes”
3. make sure you click “Free” on the right
4. then browse the themes

When you find one you like, click “Preview” to see what your site might look like, and if you still like it click “Activate”.

Action step: follow the above steps in your new WordPress.com account.

(If you decided to go with your own hosting or don’t like any of WordPress’ free themes, read the “upgrade” section below.)

Voila! You have just finished creating your website. All you need next is some content, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Upgrade:

WordPress.com offers some nicer-looking themes, but you have to pay for them. That’s totally fine if you want the free hosting and just want to pay $50-$100 for a design. It’s way cheaper than paying a designer to do a totally custom site for you.

If you’ve bought your own hosting, you can search even more free WordPress themes on the internet. WordPress.org is a great place to start with a searchable theme library, most of which are free, as well as really useful WordPress plugins. So you’re paying for hosting, but you can still find a free WordPress theme to use.

Still, the free themes aren’t always going to be awesome. You can do what I do and buy a “premium” theme. The studio I always buy from is StudioPress. They’ve got a ton of designs, and they have a really cool WordPress framework that supercharges what WordPress has to offer and makes it better.

If that sounds like something you’d prefer, you can claim your new WordPress theme* here.

Now, if you really want to get fancy, send me a note and we’ll talk.

3. Set up some bells and whistles

Regardless of how you’ve built your site and where you put it, you’ll want to add some flair. Don’t go overboard, but there are some plugins that will enhance your site. You always want to make sure your site is useful for your visitors (it’s not a vanity plate), and that goes especially for the widgets.

Depending on the theme’s design, you’ll be able to add sidebar or footer widgets, maybe one in the header, etc. WordPress.com gives you a long list in your dashboard (“Appearance->Widgets”). Here are some examples I’d consider:

• Categories – to display the post categories to view all posts in that category
• Contact Info – to display contact info, hours of operation, etc.
• Top Posts and Pages – display links the most popular content on your site
• Custom Menu – you can set up a menu to display pages or posts you want to always show up on the sidebar
• Search bar – so people can find content

Action step: add some useful widgets to your website design to give your visitors a better experience!

That’s it!

Congratulations! You’ve built your own website, and you have done it for free! See how easy that was? It might not be the best website ever, but it’s yours and now it’s done. You can put it on your business cards, tell your friends, and give our customers somewhere to go to find out more about you.

Once you have the site set up, just add your content! Add a couple pages at first, like the products or services you offer, an about page so they can learn about your company, a testimonials page, and a contact page. Those are the minimum I’d recommend.

See? You really can get a website for free. Sure, paying for things does get you more, but if you’re in a pinch, free is a good starter option.

If you ever get to a place where you need someone else to build your site or are ready for a professional redesign, you know where to find one. Website design specifically for small businesses is one of my specialties, and I’d love to be considered part of your team. Just let me know if that’s something you want to do!

Do you have any other questions I can answer about setting up a site for free? Ask away in the comments!

*This is an affiliate link. That means I get a commission for having referred you, but your price stays the same. If you use this link to purchase something, I appreciate your support!

The post 3 Simple Steps To Design A Beautiful Small Business Website For Free appeared first on Jayzilla Media.