Tag Archives: wordpress

Hiring Someone To Write Your Blog: The If, The Why, and The How

29 April

Many people are surprised when I tell them we ghost write for other blogs. Despite the fact that this blog is fun and kicky, we can be serious when we need to be. Some of our clients have been tech companies (since we have that knowledge anyway), some are just regular businesses.

Many people know that a blog is great for SEO and building authority. So the natural decision to make at this point is: are you going to do it or pay someone else to?

There are a whole group of people who think blogging can and should be handled within your company.

Why Your Blog Could Be Handled Within Your Company

should-someone-write-my-blog1) Someone in your company knows what’s going on. A content writer is not in your business so they can’t know close to everything that is going on like someone who is there 40 hours a week.

2) Someone in your company can write. Yes, most people graduate high school being able to string sentences together… and some people have a real talent for it.

3) The same person who can write has free time. You can probably think of idle times in your schedule (or an employee’s schedule) and have the thought ‘Hey, maybe I/they can crank out a blog!’

There are a few reasons though why you may hire people like us to coordinate your blog, write part of it for you, or write the entire thing for you.

Why Your Blog Could Be Handled By A Content Writer/Marketer/SEO Person

1) Content writers are lay people. Chances are your customer won’t care and, most importantly, won’t understand fancy jargon. Someone who can explain things about your business in a way your customers understand and enjoy can be worth some money.

2) Content writers are good writers. Someone who understands how to write for the web and how to write concise blog posts that are both interesting to read and written in the voice of your company will leave website visitors with a good impression.

3) Content writers get the SEO stuff. There is a bit more to blogs than the writing part. It’s part specialized data entry, part understanding how blogs work in the bigger picture of website traffic. You need to  know about the following to do it well:

  • using tags
  • interlinking to previous blog posts
  • how to find, use, and cite legal images in a blog post
  • how to write a grabbing headline that has keywords in it
  • proper formatting for easy reading and search engines
  • and more!

4) Content writers are fast. These people look at websites all day so we should be fast. They’ll work at least twice as quickly as your employee doing the same thing. (I’d be slow trying to ring up a customers purchases at your cash register since I have no idea what I’m doing in that situation!)

In other words, you have options. You don’t have to write the blog yourself! You can have a blog for your business and have someone else write it!

Even if you do hand this off, as the person driving this train (re: your business), you will need to set the person helping you (and your blog) up for success.

How You Can Set Up A Blogger For Success Who Isn’t You

  • A blog site

You’ll need to understand a bit on how your website works to understand if you’ll be able to blog on your current site or if you need to set up something on another domain that links to your site. Talking to a web person is worth it at this stage, mainly because you don’t want to build this blog up (and links coming into it) only to have to move it later. (I have moved my blog three times, trust me, don’t do this to yourself!)

If you are on the fence on the blogging thing, set up a free account on WordPress.com and try it for a month. If you like it, you can move it to a WordPress self hosted site by the Import/Export functions under ‘Tools’ without much trouble. All this to say, to blog you’ll need a place to blog. It may be worth it to have the employee you plan to blog with sit down with your web designer for some training on the software.

  • A regular publication schedule 

Whether you are going to publish every Monday or every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, establish this with the person you plan to work with. They are going to be limited by time constraints (like everyone!) and they need to know what is expected. For an employee that’s new to this, allow 3-4 hours per blog post (start off with 4 hours and as the person gets the hang of it, the time will be less). Remember a blog post isn’t sitting and writing: they may need time to contact information sources and do research in addition to the actual writing part.

If you are hiring a content writer, have them create a proposal of what you can expect from them in terms of content and publication schedule. (Note: content writers work much faster than your employee who is not a full time writer. It’s not fair to your employee to think otherwise!)

  • Sources for images

Whether you have a company Flickr gallery, an account with iStockphoto, or just a Dropbox folder where everyone puts in images, make sure whoever is writing the blog has access to this resource. They will need them for blog posts (blog posts with images are much more widely read, and having images has other benefits).

If you are creating the images, make sure to name the files something useful (like the name of the person in the photo). This way, the writer will be able to use the images appropriately and generate captions.

  • Topic structure and leads

Usually at a blog client kick off meeting, we figure out a general topic posting schedule. For example, Mondays are going to be interviews with our suppliers. Here are the questions we’d like to ask them and here is the contact information of some people to start with in terms of the first four interviews. Thursdays are going to be a product review. Donna will email you a list of new products for this season. Here’s a sample review I wrote to kind of give you an idea of what we are looking for on Thursdays…

A ridiculous level of detail? Maybe. But you don’t want your blog writer to stare at the blinking cursor and think ‘What should I write today?’ Having a structure will force ideas for days there are none and give a structure for the writer to work within and make sure the blog stays on topics you want it to be on.

Sometimes people do is hire a content writer to set up a structure for the staff blogger to follow. Give it a month and if it’s not working, you can always change it… but at least it’s a place for the blog to go day to day and week to week, especially those first few months.

  • Access to social media

The best thing to do after you blog? Be able to promote it! If your company has a Facebook page or Twitter account, give this person access so they can promote their posts. Sure you can have it set up so posts automatically go out but letting your writer go onto the social network and respond to comments, share it on their profile, and more means you’ll get way more bang for your buck.

  • Autonomy

By all means, check the first few blog posts before they go online… But nothing will slow down your company’s blogging quite like the bottleneck you will become if this keeps happening. Trust your people to do a good job (and by all means read the blog when it’s online!) but after an initial period of training, let your content writer run with it.

How Do I Find Content Writers?

So you’ve gathered above that while paying an hourly or salary employee to blog is cheaper for you per hour than having a writer do it… but it will also take them at least twice as long as someone just figuring it out. How can you find someone to help your employee get started or to do this for you?

Read blogs.

By reading blogs, you will find bloggers whose style you like. If you want to find someone local, do a Google blog search for local blogs in your area and see who’s writing. If you want someone who specializes in an industry, read blogs in those industries and certain names will emerge. These are good starting points.

Try LinkedIn.

Now that you have some names, look these people up on LinkedIn. Are they legit? Do other people recommend their blogging skills?

With LinkedIn's new skills endorsements, at a glance you can see that while you might not want me to fix your leaking faucet, you probably can trust me to blog for you.

With LinkedIn’s new skills endorsements, at a glance you can see that while you might not want me to fix your leaking faucet, you probably can trust me to blog for you.

You can ever search by skill on LinkedIn (blogging) so think of this site as a way to check someone’s references.

Problogger.net Job Board

If you want to be a bit more general about it all (‘I just want someone who wants the job’), try posting it on the Problogger job board. This is a highly regarded place in the online community to find legitimate paid blogging opportunities. (Well it’s as legitimate as Craigslist for finding an apartment… there are always scammy people but plenty of reputable people use it too.)

No matter the route you go, all bloggers should be able to provide writing samples to you and other pieces of information that can help you make your decision.

Like the rest of the world, you are more likely to find someone you already know for the job. That said, there is no reason you can’t go out and seek a content writer yourself if you don’t know any!
Does this seem like a bit of work? It always is to implement something new at first.
Will your employee need a bit more help then someone who does this all day? Of course.
But is it worth having a blog? This being my 897th entry, I might be a little biased when I say absolutely.

New Website Launch: National Park Sea Kayak

25 April

When Robert approached us about a website redesign, we could see that while the information on his site was current, he needed a visual refresher.

The old National Park Sea Kayak homepage was text heavy and needed an update.

The old National Park Sea Kayak homepage was text heavy and needed an update.

Robert wanted to use a logo that Z Studio had made several years ago. He also wanted it really obvious how to make a reservation request on the site:

The new design uses more of the width of the page, showcases photos, and has a very obvious 'make reservations' button and the phone number on top.

The new design uses more of the width of the page, showcases photos, and has a very obvious ‘make reservations’ button and the phone number on top.

We wanted all the visitors’ most common questions answers on their homepage:

  • What will we see?
  • What should we bring?
  • Why are tours four hours?
  • Where will we go?
  • How do we make a reservation?

We also wanted to put some ‘trust’ symbols on the homepage. Trust symbols let people know they are dealing with a legitimate business. Since they have excellent Tripadvisor reviews and all kayak guides are certified Maine guides, we made those prominent so the visitor would have confidence in booking a four hour tour with people they may have never met in real life.

A lot of what we did we editing the content. By making the website less wordy, we hoped that users would get the information they needed quickly and easily. We also used the extra space to showcase large scale photos by local photographer and friend of Acadia Kayak StealthVader Photography.

Congratulations to Robert and his team, who are planning on blogging this summer on their brand new site! Catch them on the water if you are in Bar Harbor this summer!

New Website Launch: Quigley’s Building Supply

27 February

What happens when you run three different kinds of businesses but want to run them on the same website platform? This is the issue Quigley’s Building Supply had… until their new website we launched yesterday.

Three Templates, One Website

Quigley’s Building Supply has always evolved to respond to community needs during its over 60 years of existence. These past couple years, this has meant moving beyond building supplies and into two other areas: equipment rental and an outdoor department. These businesses within the business have related but separate logos and operate in different parts of the same building. How do we represent this idea of separate but cohesive online? Three templates running one piece of software.

buildingsupplyminirentalminioutdoorsmini

Designwise, Alice made the images in the menu, headers, and sidebars all different. There is one template for the building supply side (We love the red hammer and were glad when Quigley’s did too!), one for the rental business, and one of the outdoor supply store. It’s really important that website visitors be able to move around on the website so tabs to the other sections are on each page. We also have breadcrumbs and site search allowing people to navigate the website beyond using only the menu.

What’s great is while these three parts of the website all look different, they all run on one install of WordPress. This allows the site search to work best since when a user submits a term or phrase, it searches all three parts of the site to find the information. From the angle of Quigley’s staff, this also gives them one administrative panel to log in and update the site.

To keep the look similar as website visitors move from one part of the site to another, the logos were placed in the same location and the same background color was used throughout the site. Each part of the site shows a different ‘business’ but it gives a unified sense so the web visitor understands that it is the same business.

Pro Staff

Part of the initiative of Quigleys Outdoors was to partner with area outdoor guides and give them a place to showcase their work. Many guides don’t have their own websites so this should be a valuable marketing opportunity. Each guide page has photos, information, and a contact form which gets emailed directly to the guide, allowing both Quigley’s Outdoors staff and the guides themselves to monitor referrals.

Mobile Template

We created a simple mobile template (with simplified menu going to each of the three main sections) using Obox Mobile. This way, if users are visiting from their smartphone, they can still get the information they need.

Third Party Integration

Quigley’s uses external services like social media, their eBay store, and a credit company called BlueTarp they use to give contractors and others store credit. We made all these resources easy to access and prioritized them on different parts of the website.

While the Quigley’s website seems simple, the three templates mean it only looks that way. Congratulations to Justin and the Quigley’s team on your new website!

Breaking Even Communications would like to thank Matthew Baya and Tom Beal for their contributions to this site. 

Full disclosure: This business is owned by my mom and managed by my brother-in-law. Not sure what this means since they paid us to do it and we aren’t receiving any other kickbacks from it but thought I’d disclose that anyway!

What A Website Designer Can (And Can’t) Do For You

12 December

What can your website designer do for you? They can do a lot. But there are some things that are unrealistic to expect. Here’s the breakdown:

Making Decisions

Ugg Boy, Shoes, August 17, 2010, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/4901412031/

In a world of choices, consult an expert to bring you back the best choices for you. Trust me, this photo was a more interesting illustration of choices than the website version would have been. Photo from Ugg Boy, Shoes, August 17, 2010, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/4901412031/

A website designer can create a website that minimizes your headaches/decisions.
This morning, I trained a woman who is going to make her own WordPress website for her business. ‘Wow, there are a lot of choices!’ she said. I know she’ll get through it but she seemed so overwhelmed. And that’s when it hit me.

A big part of hiring a designer, a contractor, a wedding planner, a caterer? We take all the choices possible and give you a couple really good ones just for you. We do other stuff too but not overwhelming clients is a big part of it. Think about getting the best choices brought to you versus having to research all options yourself in any task and you’ll see why this is valuable.

A web designer can not make business decisions for you.
Want me to figure out if offering free shipping is financially viable for you? How to draft a contract for an affiliate you want to work with? These are much bigger questions that aren’t for your designer to decide, especially if they involve something legal or financial. (Fun aside: I can tell you that most successful Fortune 500 companies spend 10% of their gross budget on marketing. In other words, you gotta spend money to make money as the adage goes!)

We can give you the website end of information but as the person that runs your business, you know much more about its focus, goals, price points, etc. than I do. If you need help, try a business counselor/consultant. Women Work and Community, CEI, and SCORE all have counseling services, in the state of Maine (where this blog is written) and beyond.

Training

The right teacher can and should make it look easy. Photo from Kheel Center, Maria Vargas, October 4, 2010, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/uggboy/4901412031/

The right teacher can and should make it easy. Well, except for that annoyed looking lady in black. Photo from Kheel Center, Maria Vargas, October 4, 2010, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5279015653/

A website designer can train you on making website updates.
One of the major improvements in website technology the last few years? The ability to create a system where someone can update a website.

In my famous example: I trained a definitely-over-65 year old lady on how to use WordPress. We did two, 1.5 hour sessions. The first one I did a basic overview, the second she brought her questions and we did more advanced stuff. I haven’t heard from her in over two years and her website is still online. Success, and an illustration of how we all should keep learning everyday.

A website designer can not train you on how to do their entire job.
I find it kind of funny when someone thinks they can figure out my entire job in two weeks. Or even a year. Honestly people, I’ve been doing this for years and I still see things daily that make me say “What the…?”

In other words, I could train you… to a point. And to be fair, I don’t think I could learn your job in a few short sessions either. So trust me when I say something is ‘a bit complicated’. I’m not trying to make a quick buck; I am trying to save your sanity.

Maintenance

Sometimes that tiny bike needs five guys to repair it. The same with even the tiniest seeming website. Photo from Ian Munroe, Bike 5, August 27, 2009, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ian_munroe/3862828181/

Sometimes that tiny bike needs five guys to repair it. The same with even the tiniest seeming website. Photo from Ian Munroe, Bike 5, August 27, 2009, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ian_munroe/3862828181/

Web designers can build ‘insurance’ into your website.
From my point of view, handing over a website to its owner is like handing over a beloved car you’ve been driving awhile. Its new owner could be a reckless driver or someone who cares of the car like a member of their family; you have no idea.You just hand over the keys and hope it gets a good home.

The point is, it’s your site when we’re done. Yours to tackle the Indy 500… or crash in a explosive wreck. What we can do is have automatic backups and other insurance in place to cut down on spam, block repeatedly failed logins, etc. It doesn’t completely prevent bad things but it helps.

Website designers can not make you a site that will never break or need maintenance. 
Do you expect to drive your car without oil changes, periodic maintenance, or gas for 250,000 miles? Of course not. Yet some people expect that you can have people visiting and using a website everyday and not update it. Or that they’ll never get hacked.

First off, there is no rhyme or reason to hacking most of the time. There could be just some bored 15-year-old looking for something to do on a Friday night. It’s (usually) nothing personal. But it can happen. Especially if you don’t update your software. So you see, the two are related.

Truth is much of the maintenance you can do yourself, some of it you’ll need help doing though. You’ve invested in a website, treat it with periodic care… sometimes care that is needed by your trusty website mechanic.

Marketing

Website built with automatic traffic pouring in? If that were possible, I'd be lying on a beach somewhere, and so would you! Photo from Chris Brown, Traffic, March 19, 2007, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoonabar/458499400/

Website built with automatic traffic pouring in? If that were possible, I’d be lying on a beach somewhere, and so would you! Photo from Chris Brown, Traffic, March 19, 2007, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoonabar/458499400/

A website designer can build search and user friendly features into your site.
It’s interesting when I get a list of requirements for a website and on it, the business/organization has listed ‘SEO’ or ‘search engine friendly’ features. To me, it’s like saying ‘I want a house with windows and doors’. We automatically set things up to be search friendly… though I can see why people include this to ensure it happens.

Things like search engine friendly URLS (www.breakingeveninc.com/about versus www.breakingeveninc.com/page=22), unique page titles, and images with alt tags are standard in how websites are done. Or at least should be.

A website designer can not make traffic go to your site.
So there’s two parts of search engine optimization. One part is called ‘on page SEO’ which is stuff you do on your own website to make it friendly (like examples above). The other part is called ‘off page SEO’. These are things you do not on your website, like using social media or having links from other websites/blogs. These are equally important to what you do on your own website and some would argue even more important.

Besides thinking about off-page issues, you also have to keep your website up-to-date with useful information. If a website has old information, no one will visit it, no matter how amazing the features.

So as you think about hiring a web designer (or using your web designer), keep these in mind. Like most service professionals, we will always try our best to give you as much as we can.

Nicole Ouellette

New Website Launch: Ellsworth Public Library

29 October

We were very fortunate to be trusted with redesigning the Ellsworth Public Library’s website.

Like many of the libraries in Down East Maine, the Ellsworth Public Library (EPL) was still running a basic HTML site. When it was built years ago, it was top of the line.

Since the site was built, not only has the library changed, but its patrons have changed too. The typical library patron five years ago didn’t even have a home computer, and now the average visitor to the EPL not only has a computer, but a smartphone, tablet, and or eReader as well. Serving these customers with an old website platform was becoming increasingly difficult.

The library staff really wanted to be involved with their new site so they could easily add current information, and also they wanted their new website to represent the ever changing and growing community they serve.

The old website had about ten static pages, so in that way, it was fairly easy to navigate. But there were some limitations. For example, some pages didn’t provide navigation so you had to use your browser’s back button to find the menu again. Email addresses to library staff were visible on the staff page, inviting spam. And most importantly, it required a knowledge of HTML for any new information to be posted there. Despite these frustrations, the library staff felt that the overall look of the site well represented the library, and they wanted to stay close to the theme.

To stay with the same feel with the website update, a similar color palette was chosen to provide the consistent look:

The old and the new

Homepage 

While the old website was static, the home page of the new site offers four areas for the visitor to interact:

  • Slideshow of images helping users navigate to resources, see event information, and view important content that the library continually changes.
  • News- Updates of library news including upcoming events and new resources
  • Library Resources- Links to some of the library’s most popular offerings
  • Recent Events- Displaying participation and photographs from past events
The new logo that the library had decided on was also incorporated:

 Menus and Sidebars

While the main navigation menu stays regardless of location in site,  the sidebars reflect the area of the library the page represents. For example, if you are looking at the Kid’s page under Youth Resources, the sidebar offers up links that kids or parents will find helpful.

This plan for the sidebar grew as we got to know the Ellsworth Public Library better. With every conversation, we learned more about what information they wanted online, and they learned that there were possibilities that they hadn’t thought of to make their jobs easier. For example, twelve contact forms each get distributed to a different department or staff member, ensuring information gets to the right staff member quickly and efficiently and that they collect the information they need from patrons.

 

 

The primary goal of  the new website is to offer more information, resulting in more pages and in depth navigation.

  • A current events and news area, where the staff of the EPL can post.
  • Online services offered through the library, with links and  instruction pages are provided on how to use these resources.
  • Contact forms on the website, which connect users to the appropriate staff members at the library, streamlining the communication process between patrons and staff.
  • Links to other social media sites
  • Individual department pages
  • Visual elements like navigation buttons that make scanning a page for information easy
  • Current photographs of staff and the library itself

Because the site needed to be interactive, it was build the site in WordPress, which has a very user friendly Dashboard set up. This makes training people (even the so-called non-technical ones) easy, allowing them to make new pages and update existing ones. Like most open sources CMS systems, WordPress has a thriving community of people who are constantly improving the platform. Plugins which allow interaction with other technologies and sites, such as Facebook and Flickr, help keep the time spent on website maintenance down. The library already does a lot of work on these platforms so connecting them with the website cut down on time staff was spent posting information and allows them more time to do what they love: helping library patrons.

We’d like to thank Charlene and the rest of the staff for being a pleasure to work with. Nicole and I enjoyed learning more about the library’s resources, in particular the digital ones. Congratulations EPL on your new website!

Do you want to know more about your website options? Here’s our short guide on different kinds of websites. Want to support the great work of the Ellsworth Public Library? Like them on Facebook or join them on any of the other social media sites they are a part of.

Building Your Own Website: When To DIY

17 August

So you could build you a website. You also could cut your own hair and change the oil in your car, but that doesn’t mean you are going to. You may ask yourself, “When should I attempt my own website? How am I going to know when I am in over my head?”  Here is when I say go for it:

Wondering if you should build your own website? As usual, we have opinions on this sort of thing.

Wondering if you should build your own website? As usual, we have opinions on this sort of thing.

If you have way more time than money.
Chris owns his own stand up paddleboarding (SUP) business. As someone who has worked seasonally for years in Bar Harbor, he has about five months of downtime when he goes to Florida or the Bahamas, takes a part time job, and recovers from his insane summer. During his downtime this past winter, he spent hours figuring out websites and built his own very functional site. If you have the discipline and desire to spend hundreds of hours learning anything, you are going to be successful at whatever you do.

This is a functional website. Would I have built it differently? Yes. Does it work though? Yes.

This is a functional website. Would I have built it differently? Yes. Does it work though? Yes.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Outliers’ says it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. But can you learn enough carpentry to build a table in 100ish hours? Probably. Would it be functional? Yes. But if you did 10,000 of practice could you build a better table? Absolutely. I can build you a better website if only because I’ve spent longer doing it. (Well there are other reasons too but let’s say that one for sure.)

If you want to figure things out on your own, I am not going to be the Negative Nancy saying you can’t. But I will say it may not look or function exactly how you envisioned at the end.

When you see yourself having to do it again.
Do I need to learn how to set up Quickbooks for my online business? No because that is a one time thing. But I should know how to invoice properly? Yes, I will do that repeatedly. Hopefully.

If you run several business and see yourself building several websites over time, it might be worth learning how to do it and applying what you learn several times over. Otherwise, you can just learn enough to maintain your website once it is build. Your time is probably better spent on your business making money the way you best know how.

If what you want isn’t complicated.
Like most things in life, web development can surprise you. As my friend Calvin once said “I spent three hours putting in five lines of code to make a site show up properly in Internet Explorer.” In other words, stuff that looks easy to do might be really hard, and vice versa.

Just as a very general frame of reference, the following items are examples of complicated features to implement in a website:

  • Custom search (like if you wanted people to be able to search your rental website for number of beds available, location, and price range, that has to be custom built to search the correct parameters)
  • Building an ecommerce site that takes credit card payments (Paypal only is easy since the financial transaction part of it is technically taking place off your website)
  • Custom design (this takes layout skills and experience customizing templates with CSS or a programming language like it) and/or running different designs on different portions of the site
  • Integrating third party functionality. Whether it is porting in your real estate data feed or making sure your reservation system works when people book a table online, there is some gears that have to work in the background to give your customer a seamless experience.

But if you just want a web page with some information, photos, and, say, a contact form, that’s kind of easy. Go for it if you’re interested!

So are the options to go it alone or pay someone to do it all? Not necessarily. Think about the following alternatives:

1) Take a class. You might be able to find something through adult ed or a local college but if you have a more constrained schedule/budget, there are also some great online courses. I recommend Lynda.com for online learning and at $30/month, that’s pretty affordable professional development. Love this blog so much you want to take our class? Sign up for our email newsletter (look left to where you are reading this on our website) and then you’ll know when we’re having it! Hint: It’s twice a year.

2) Get ‘coached’. Maybe you’ve taken your site so far and just want another set of eyes to look at it or want help with a certain aspect of the project. We coach people and others like us do too. While you’ll typically pay an hourly rate, it’ll save you time, money, and headaches to ‘talk it over’ with someone who knows more.

3) Join an online (or in person) user group. Whether it’s a WordPress group on LinkedIn or a Joomla group that occasionally meets up for beers and conversation, there is something to be said about a group of people talking about the same topic. Usually you can even ask questions of other users in the group for free. The downside is these groups are often nerds talking to each other so get the basics down in terms of a vocabulary or risk being slightly overwhelmed and/or not know what’s going on.

In other words, there are lots of paths you can follow to get to your own website. It all depends on your enthusiasm to learn, time constraints, budget, and talents. With those in mind, you can make the best decision for you and your company.