I find that many people have heard that they ‘should’ have a blog, but worry that they are just not the blogging type, or don’t think they will have anything to say.

Is there still hope without a blog?

I would say ‘yes’. After all, a blog only works if you actually post to it and actively promote it. It’s no silver bullet and it does take time and commitment, and honestly, it’s not for everybody.

One of the main benefits to having a blog is that with well-written and targeted content it can attract search engine traffic quite easily. This is the main benefit you will miss out on by not having a typical, text-based blog. But search engines are not the only source of traffic. So while there are many benefits to having a blog, let’s consider some alternatives.

1) Re-think what a ‘blog’ means

The typical idea of a blog is a text-based site that you update at least once per week and ideally more frequently, with posts of several hundred words. But here are some variations on what a blog can be:

• Video Blogs – If writing is not your thing, perhaps you would be more comfortable on camera posting short clips on topics related to your business or art? iJustine is perhaps one of the better-known examples of popular video bloggers. Video is great for those with something to say, but who don’t enjoy writing.

• Podcasts- Not everyone likes to be in front of the camera, but an audio-only format can be more comfortable. Podcasts can be short or long-form, could feature only you, or discussions with a ‘guest’, and are very easy to produce with minimal equipment required.

• Photo Blogs – Or more generally, image-based blogs. Obviously this lends itself to those creative types who would rather let their work speak for them. A beautiful photo, illustration or design concept with a short comment could be a blog post. This is a great way to showcase your work, get feedback on developing concepts and maintain an easy-to-update web presence.

• Short-form blogs – A blog doesn’t have to be filled with lengthy articles to demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership -  that works very well for some people and industries, but not everyone. You could post brief thoughts, insights, and remarks on your passion or industry. Matt Mullenweg from WordPress regularly posts short quotes and thoughts on his blog

While these forms of blogging will not get you as much search engine traffic as a traditional blog, they are still a way for you to have a personal, regularly updated, low maintenance online presence, and a place where others can see what you are about and connect with you.

OK, so after considering these options, if you still don’t want to have any sort of blog, what are the other alternatives?

2) There are still other ways to drive traffic to your site

You will still need some kind of web presence – a website with clear information about your business/product/service and the ability to collect email addresses – at the minimum. But even without a blog attached to it you still can generate traffic and create interest in your business. Here’s just a few ways you can go about it:

• Social media – Twitter, Facebook and other niche social networks for your industry can give you a platform to connect with people by focusing on what you are passionate and knowledgeable about. Short, casual updates are the norm so it’s low maintenance. Your profile will contain information and a link to your website, so the more you get involved, the more people will see and click on your website link.

• PPC (Pay Per Click) – If you have a budget, even a small one, you can buy sponsored ads on search engine results pages to drive traffic to your site. A PPC campaign should not be entered into without a little research, otherwise you’ll waste your money, but it can be a cost-effective solution. You can set a daily spending limit to make the cost more manageable.

• Email marketing – It takes some work to develop an opt-in email list, but writing one piece of content per month may sound much more manageable than multiple blog posts per week. Email is a very effective way to promote yourself and connect with your audience. More direct sales pitches are also tolerated and expected more with email marketing than on social media, for example. By providing useful content and a well-crafted call-to-action, you can generate sales directly through email marketing.

• Blog commenting – Just because you don’t blog, doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from those who do. Leaving thoughtful, insightful and positive comments on blogs that are relevant to your audience is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Most blogs allow you to include your url, usually linked with your name, so that if you leave valuable comments, people will be encouraged to find out more about you and click on your link.

Blog or no blog, there is no answer to generating traffic that doesn’t involve some work – that’s the bottom line. Whichever method(s) you use, blogging included, there is no short cut to developing an interested audience. But the internet offers a plethora of ways to express yourself, so find the medium that suits you the best and start there. With consistent efforts you will see results.

*image header courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/busyprinting/4227080733/

This past week these two major companies have provided a mini-study in a few do’s and don’ts of email marketing.

I hate to call people out, but, you know,  a huge national company should really know better.

I signed up with Firestone to receive their email coupons (I’m way overdue for an oil change…..).
This is how their conformation email appeared in my inbox:

Well, actually it was in my junk mail folder. Fortunately I’m smart enough to check there ;)
But, yes folks “DO-NOT-REPLY” in all caps is really how they set up their “from” email address and “Confirm Sign Up” is really their subject line. If I hadn’t checked my email right away, and had seen this a few hours or a day later, I may well have not remembered that I signed up, or would have simply discounted this message along with the many other spam emails I receive every day since there was nothing about it that signified legitimacy.

So don’t do this! Learn from Firestone’s mistakes:

1)   Your ‘from’ address should display the name of your company so that it is instantly recognizable when scanning.

2)   Any number of subject lines would have been better than this one. Remind your subscriber what it is they signed up for especially since those first emails may well end up in the Junk folder and you need to make it clear that your message was solicited by them.  So perhaps “Firestone Discount Coupons – Confirm Sign Up” would be better in this case.

I’m guessing that just by making these simple changes, Firestone can increase the confirmation rate of their emails greatly.

The other example I found useful was from Bath & Body Works. I decided to unsubscribe because I was receiving too many emails and barely read them. So when I clicked unsubscribe the page I was taken to contained the following message:

I thought this was actually quite brilliant. It was as if they read my mind. Offering me lower volume options meant that I decided to stay subscribed, but at a more manageable frequency. A very smart way to utilize the unsubscribe function.

What can you do to improve the details of your email marketing campaigns and optimize them for success?

**header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ntr23/4642465883/

WordPress has an in-built image gallery feature which does not yet seem to be common knowledge even though it’s incredibly simple to use.

So let’s say you are writing a post that you want to include an image gallery in.

1)   Using the usual upload/insert image button, upload any images you want to include in the gallery BUT make sure to just click “Save All Changes” instead of “Insert Into Post.”

2)   If you want your gallery to have captions, make sure to fill in the Caption field when uploading your images.

3)   To display the images you just uploaded, simply use the shortcode:

[gallery]

You can type the shortcode in either the HTML or the Visual tab,  and it will automatically display the images you uploaded.

Slightly more advanced options:

1)   By default the gallery shortcode will display thumbnails – at the size set in your Media submenu under Settings.  You can choose to display the images at Medium or Large sizes (again, according to the settings in your Media menu), or at the full size of the image. Just use the following format:

[gallery size="medium"]

2)   You can determine how many columns you want the images to display in by using this format:

[gallery columns=”4”]

This example would display images in 4 columns.

4)   If you want to show images that are attached to another of your posts, just locate the ID number of that post and use this shortcode:

[gallery ID="123"]

and replace “123” with the ID of the relevant post.

5)   Combine options in the following way:

[gallery size="medium" columns="2"]

6)   If you want to get fancy with it, you can style certain elements of the Gallery. See the Codex for more detailed information

The example gallery below features 3 images I uploaded, displayed as thumbnails (which I had set at 125×125) in 3 columns, and I assigned a caption for the first image.

**header image courtesy fionamclaren

My online workshop series is launching July 14th with a free introduction to WordPress. If you’ve been shy to get WordPress set up on your site, this is your chance to have a guided tour to installation, plugins, themes, widgets, publishing content and more. Or perhaps you’ve been considering WordPress for your site and want to see how it works before trying it out for yourself.
Get more info and register

The online workshop series will provide training on various aspects of WordPress and also general online marketing topics. Some workshops will be free and others will cost money, but will be affordably priced.  There will always be time for question and answer so it’s a good opportunity to get help on a specific issue you are facing. If there’s a topic you’d like to have a webinar dedicated to, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line.

WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” has now been officially released (as you may have noticed from the upgrade prompt at the top of your WP dashboard).

I’ll be doing a couple of posts about the new features – in this one I’ll be discussing the brand new default theme that you’ll find if you upgrade.

New Default Theme – Twenty Ten

Twenty Ten is the new default theme and it’s infinitely better than tired ole’ Kubrick. Twenty Ten serves as a demonstration of many of the new WP 3.0 features, making it much more functional and customizable right out of the box, but also making it a great framework on which to build child themes. Some of the new WordPress features aren’t obvious to the non-developer because they require adding some code in order to activate the features – Twenty Ten makes many of them visible to the ordinary user and provides a nice guideline for theme developers to understand and expand upon what’s now possible.  See the theme in action.

Here are some of the main new features that Twenty Ten demonstrates:

Easy Header and Background Customization

Appearance > Header

Twenty Ten comes pre-stocked with 8 header images from which to choose. You can also choose to upload your own image, either at the exact size of 940×198 pixels, or upload a different size and crop it, all within the WP admin. At last – simple, code-free branding for your site!

Appearance > Background

The background feature allows you to easily customize the background of your site. You can upload an image, which can be tiled or fixed and aligned as you choose, or you can select a solid background color.

Both these features will give beginners a much simpler way to give their site a more custom look, all without touching code.

Customize Header Per Post

You can set a different header image for an individual post or page by utilizing the “set featured image” option, which is included by default in Twenty Ten. You’ll find it on the Edit Post or Page screen, in the right-hand column underneath the Categories and Tags boxes. Click “set featured image” and you’ll see the familiar image upload pop-up. However, if you upload an image of 940×198 pixels, you can then choose the new “set as featured image” option, to create a new header for that particular post or page.

Custom Menus

Appearance > Menus
Perhaps the biggest and most significant (from a non-techy user point of view) is probably the new custom menus feature. No more worrying about how to mix and match categories and pages in your navigation bar, or trying to include links  to other sites in navigation. Previously such tweaks required hacking code or at least using plugins – not any more. If you’ve ever used a Wootheme, you’ll be familiar with the custom menus system since it’s based on this popular Woothemes feature.

Now you can easily create a menu that includes pages, categories or other custom links by using a simple interface.
Twenty Ten offers space for one custom menu (horizontal beneath the header). But a theme may offer multiple menu areas in which case you could create a different navigation menu for each one which would give much more powerful and unique navigation possibilities. Support for custom menus has to be added to the theme, otherwise you can only add a custom menu as a sidebar widget, which is cool but less powerful.

Developers – read this guide to see how to utilize custom menus in your themes.

Another wonderful feature of custom menus allows you create dropdown menus that are no longer tied to page hierarchies. Any menu item can drop down from any other simply by indenting the item in the menu screen.

*Bonus tip – Click on Screen Options (top right of the page) to reveal some ‘hidden’ options such as the ability to include links to specific posts or tags giving you even more granular menu control! For developers, there is an option to add CSS classes to each menu item. Check out how Ivor Padilla used it to add a wee icon next to each menu item, which is a really nice touch.

Additional Widgetized Areas
Twenty Ten offers 6 widget areas giving you even more control over your theme right out of the box. There are 2 widget areas in the sidebar and 4 in the footer.

Extra Page Template
Twenty Ten comes with an additional page template called “one column, no sidebar” which is a great default option to have if you want to create a landing page on your site, or just have access to a slightly different look. This is available in the Page Attributes drop-down, under the Publish box of the Edit Page screen.

Gallery and Asides Post Styles

Another somewhat ‘secret’ feature is the in-built styles that have been provided when you set up categories called ‘gallery’ and ‘asides’. Simply creating categories with these names will activate the styles.

Taken from the Codex:

Twenty Ten includes special styles for posts that you file in the “Asides” or “Gallery” categories. When viewed on an index page (like your home page or a list of posts from a particular month), asides get a simplified look that seamlessly fit between full-length posts, while galleries give a peek at the photos that lie within. If you don’t already have those categories on your blog, just add them and start assigning posts to them. Twenty Ten will recognize the category name and start applying the correct styles automatically.

The image below shows the homepage display for a gallery post followed by two asides:

This covers what I have found so far to be the main features of the new default Twenty Ten theme, from a non-developer perspective. By providing such a full-featured and easy-to-use default theme, I imagine that it provides incentive for developers of themes such as Thesis, which are touted for being user-friendly, to step up their game a little bit and provide even more user-friendly options for their paying customers.

In a previous article I discussed how to add thumbnail images to your Thesis teasers as an easy way to customize the look.
Another fairly simple tweak you can make to the teasers is to change the width. By default the teasers are set to be half the width of the main column, displaying 2 teasers per row, like this:

For an alternate look, I like them to display the full width of the column so you only have one per row, like this:

To achieve this look:
Go into Custom File Editor in the Thesis submenu
Make sure custom.css is selected in the pulldown.
Scroll to the bottom of this file and paste the following code underneath: */

.custom .teaser {
width: 100%;
margin-top: 2em;
padding-top: 2em;
border-top: 1px dotted #bbb;
text-align: justify;
}
.custom .teasers_box {
padding-top: 0;
padding-bottom:0;
border-top: 0;
}

Save this and you will now have teasers that span the full-width of your main column!

I really like the way this looks, particularly for image-heavy blogs since it allows you to display a good size thumbnail making your posts all the more compelling. Once you’ve changed the teaser width, you now have more space to play with so you can increase the size of the thumbnail graphic to really catch attention. That is found in the Design Options menu, in Default thumbnail settings

Teasers are nice default feature of the Thesis Wordpress theme. However, to take them to the next level there are a couple of nice n’ easy customizations you can make to move beyond the default look. This post will discuss thumbnail images. A future post will address changing the width and styling of the teasers.

The addition of an image to the teaser is a really simple way to give your Thesis design an extra boost. This is especially great for creative sites that use wonderful imagery – food blogs, arts n crafty blogs, art/design blogs etc.

Assuming you also typically use a header image at the very top of your post (similar to the way posts on this blog look), the easiest way to achieve this by default is to use Thesis image fields to handle the main image for your post, from which it will also auto-create the teaser thumbnail.

Set up the default options
In the Thesis options menu, go to the Design Options submenu, then Post Images and Thumbnails. The Default Post Image Settings control where the main image for your post will be positioned. I personally prefer ‘before post/page content’ so that it shows up under the headline of the post, immediately before the text of the post. You can play with the options to see how it changes the look.

The Default Thumbnail Settings relate to how the thumbnail will be displayed in the teaser. I prefer “Left with text wrap” but again, play with it and see what suits you.

All of these settings can be overridden on a post by post basis if necessary.
Don’t forget the big ass save button.

Implement in a post
When you are writing your post and you want to add an image to the top of the post, you click on upload image as normal. The difference happens when you would ordinarily click ‘insert into post’. Instead, you now copy the url of your image and hit save instead.

Now scroll down the post editing page past several fields until you reach “Post Image and Thumbnail”. In the field labeled “post image” – paste the url of your image, then enter the alt text in the field below.

Now save your post and that’s it. Your image will automatically appear at the top of your post AND in the teaser as a thumbnail.
The other fields will inherit the information you set in the default Thesis menu as above. If you want to override the defaults, this is where you would do that, but generally speaking you won’t need to touch these.
You can play with the placement and border options to change the look.

This process will give you the same teaser thumbnail as main header image. If you want a different thumbnail – you’ll have to upload a separate image to your media library, grab the image url and paste it into the Thumbnail image field on your post. Note that if you specify an image url here Thesis will not resize it, so you will have to upload the exact size image you want to display.

Other images you want to include in the body of your post can be uploaded and inserted in the usual manner – this method relates to a main header image for your post only.

Head over to Small Business CEO to read my guest post on “Facebook Strategy For Your Small Business.”

I discuss the reality of using Facebook to market your small business organically – which is that it’s difficult! Facebook’s primary concern is creating revenue through their Ads, so they deliberately make it challenging to organically promote your page to a new audience. I provide some recommendations for shifting the way we use Facebook for small biz marketing and I let you know where I believe Facebook fits into a small business strategy. Take a look and of course let me know what you think, and what your experiences with Facebook have been.

Read the full article.

*awesome header image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/4300931777/

Should You Worry About Your Bounce Rate?
A low bounce rate is often cited as a hallmark of a good website – 40% or lower is typically heralded as the goal. But does it really matter that much? The answer is “yes” and “no” depending on your goals and your site.

What does bounce rate mean?
“Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page” – from Google’s Analytics help pages.

When does bounce rate matter?

- If you have a sales or conversion process which requires the user to follow through multiple pages on your site

- If exploration of your site is important to you

- If you are trying to turn new visitors into loyal readers or customers

- If yours is a retail site and want people to shop around and make purchases

- If your homepage is not inducing further clicks, particularly if it contains blog excerpts or other ‘teaser’ content

What a high bounce rate could mean:

- It could be an indication that your keywords are not aligned with your content (in cases where people are coming from search engines) or are misleading your visitor so that the page they land on does not meet their expectations

- Additional content is not easy to find, or the options are confusing or unclear

- Site navigation is not easy to use

- The next step is not made clear

- Your offer or product is not presented in a compelling or easy to understand way

- Your content is not compelling

- There could be a technical problem – broken images or links, or something on the page not loading up correctly.

When is a high bounce rate not necessarily a bad thing?

- If your blog homepage contains all your recent posts in their entirety – Blogger blogs are notorious for this. When all your posts are presented up front there would be little reason for someone to click to any other pages.

- It’s possible that if you have more returning visitors than new visitors to your blog, especially those that are subscribers, they may just want to read the newest thing you’ve posted and have no need to visit other pages.

- If you are promoting a landing page which contains the call to action within it, such as submitting an email address, that page can do its job effectively without require further clicks.

- If the call to action or conversion takes your visitor off-site – to an external shopping cart or email sign up for example – this would look like a bounce, but can still be a conversion.

- Blogs typically have higher bounce rates compared to other types of sites so the same benchmarks do not apply.

Bounce rate is not the only metric
Don’t look at bounce rate in isolation – look at the overall picture of your website and how it’s performing according to the metrics that matter to you. What DO you want your visitors to do at your site? Are you making it easy for them to do that, and are you measuring it?

Look for trends and other data that gives you a fuller picture of what the bounce rate really means:

- Is the bounce rate higher or lower for certain keywords?

- Does it vary according to how people found your site? Search engines vs. social media, for example.

- How does it vary with New vs. Returning visitors?

- Which particular pages or types of content on your site have higher or lower bounce rates?

- Look also at length of time the visitor spends on the page which could indicate whether or not they are reading what they find – this is very important for a blog.

What other factors can make bounce rate an issue, or non-issue? How much attention do you pay to your bounce rate?

Using some of Facebook’s native features will help you organically grow your audience whether using a personal profile or business Page.

1) Hyper target your status updates (personal profile)

When you post any type of status update you now have the option to control exactly who sees it. It’s a privacy feature but can be used for marketing to hyper target your messages.

Why would you want to do this?

If you have a personal profile that contains many different types of ‘friends’ – from work friends to clients to personal friends or relatives, not all your updates will be relevant to all your friends. Using this technique helps provide only relevant info to those who are interested in it, and filters out the unnecessary noise for certain segments of your audience.  You can avoid saturating the wrong people with the wrong message.

Of course Facebook is great for cross-pollination –  some of your friends that you may not consider to be business contacts, especially your ‘weak ties’ could turn out to be potential clients. I’ve personally found unexpected clients in my personal network on who happened to see my blog posts on Facebook. So it is helpful to let your whole circle know what you are up to work-wise, but once you’ve figured out which of your group could be interested in more, you can add them to a more specific list to give them more targeted updates.

Here’s how:

For this to work you have to have your friends grouped into Lists. Under Account at the top right, go to Edit Friends. From there you can create and edit your lists.  Once you’ve got some lists set up, whenever you add a new friend you can immediately add them to the appropriate lists.

Then, when you create a status update you will see a padlock next to the Share button. Click the padlock, then Customize. In the pulldown, select Specific People, then you can enter the name of a friend list.

This seems only to work if you are on Facebook itself – not if you are using a 3^rd party app to update your status (If anyone knows different, please let me know!)

On business pages you can customize updates geographically and by language.

2) Be seen on other’s Pages and Profiles.

When writing your status update you can reference or ‘tag’ other pages and profiles that you friends with. Your post will then show up on that person’s wall. To ‘tag’ someone in your status simply use the @ symbol followed by their profile name. It’s a little awkward using this as a business Page because you personally, as a page admin, have to be a fan of the profile, in order to be able to tag them.

3) Leverage your personal network for your Page

If you are promoting a business page, you can utilize the power of your personal network. Use the Share button on an update from your Page in order to repost that to your personal network. You can control the privacy setting as above. This is an easy way to let your personal network know about your Page without being overly promotional and begging people to ‘like’ you.

4) Make sure you know who you’re talking to

If you run a business page, are you checking the Insights that Facebook provides to make sure that your content and strategy is on-point for your audience? Insights show you the age, sex and location of your fans – information that your regular web analytics on your site cannot reveal. You can also learn which types of content – audio, video, or photo – elicit the most interactions. All of this info can help you tweak your content strategy.