30 Day Challenge To Get Your Business Online

[workshop]

We have covered most of the basic moves
All except uploading images
And as with everything else it's also very basic

Open your dashboard
Select Pages and All Pages
Double click your Test page to open and Edit it
Change the title to something relevant
Delete Test in the text box
Click on Add Media (just above the tool bar)
Select Upload Files
You should see a Select Files in the centre of your page
This opens a window which allows you to browse the folders on your work station
Select a picture
Open and it will upload
Enter an appropriate Title for the picture, a caption which will appear under the picture and an alt tag using key words to make a second or alternative "title"
Select Align Left
And choose an appropriate size
Click Insert into Page

Finally Select Update under Publish on the right of your screen
And you are done

If you label your pictures correctly this is supposed to help with ranking but it's not something I can swear to
I have not paid it that much attention
What I do know is that it makes sense to label pictures with a phrase someone searching for pictures might use
This to find the picture you have just posted
This will bring you traffic, not so sure about ranking but traffic, if anyone is searching for your picture

[workshop]

Try a Google search for www.yourdomain.co.za
If it shows in the search results it means Google has found you and indexed your site

That's it you are done
You have all the tools you need to build yourself a business on the net
You have a future, an open door to an index of opportunities

EXCITING!
i think so
not everyone will see it the way I do
but i do believe that its exciting

[workshop]

Exciting! Why?

Because in the real world this should all take thirty minutes or less
I have dragged it out over the last two weeks
But that is only because this is a thirty day challenge
Theoretically it takes no more than half an hour to put tools that are needed, into the hands of almost anyone who wants to start a business.
This with virtually no start up costs, minimal overheads and whenever they can make time.
That to me is exciting.

But are we finished?
Not yet
There is still another two weeks to go

[workshop]

If it is this easy why is it not happening?
Why do most freeze like startled rabbits?
Why do so many good ideas never happen?

The internet works just fine
You are the problem!

It's not complicated
It's all the baggage, the preconceptions and particularly the expectations
That derail the simplest of plans

The first thing you have to get your head around is that nothing is original
You are not the only one working on whatever idea you have
There are no absolutes or proprietary rights on the net
It's person who figures out that all value on the net is the cumulative sum of an infinite number of smaller parts, that is going to be the first past the post
The person who understands that:

First you have to make yourself useful
Next you have to get seen
Thereafter you have to get used

And that it is only once you are getting used that you can start adding value and building the business you want.

[workshop]

You also have to learn that you have to mould yourself to, the ideas you have, to fit the resources that you have available to you
You are using Wordpress. It can only do so much. You are the one who has to bend, to change and to learn.

These simple rules apply, irrespective of whether you are building a site to profile your business or to market products or services on the net.

Your ideas are going to change, adapt and grow as you learn more.
And once you have a clear idea of what you want to do and more importantly how you are going to do it
You can start thinking of ways to customise the applications you start with.

[workshop]

I think we should start by creating a simple site profiling a business
We have already done most of the work

We have a list of the key words we are targeting
We have set up the title tags on the pages we have already created
Google has found the site and indexed it

What we need to do now is to build pages adding content and building a structured organised profile of the business and services offered
As we add static pages to the site we bleed the secondary key words down into the title tags of the internal or child pages.
You want to break your business up into three, four, half a dozen different divisions, departments or sections
And to then add child pages to each
This gives your site bulk and depth , something that Google likes.

Go to your admin dashboard
Select Pages/All Pages
Double click one of the pages you have created
This opens a window which allows you to edit the page
Across on the right of the page you will see Page Attributes under Publish
The first field allows you to structure a menu hierarchy with the Parent page at the top
Followed by child or internal pages.

Change no parent in the drop down box to one of the other pages you have created
And click Update
Click through to the live site and view the changes you have made.
Note that you can also change the order in which the Pages appear in the menu
The last field under Attributes is Order and you can control their position by allocating them a higher or lower numerical value.

You now start building your business profile, fine tuning the word picture you are creating for the Google spiders.

[workshop]

It takes Google anything from three days to three weeks to pick up new pages or to review the edits you make
And you now need to start pegging your ranking or position in the search results for each of key word searches you are targeting
Google has put together a very useful package Google Analytics which I have never bothered to familiarise myself with or to use
This because they are a little too protective about the stuff that is really important.

But it's something that you might want to look at and you can make up your own mind.

[Dave A]

Google has put together a very useful package Google Analytics which I have never bothered to familiarise myself with or to use
This because they are a little too protective about the stuff that is really important.

I've heard of other reasons as to why people are not so keen on GA, but your one is a first for me!

What important information do you want that GA doesn't give?

[workshop]

What important information do you want that GA doesn't give?

Does Google allow you to to peg your position in their search results for specific terms? They never used to.

They are forced to go to great lengths to counter link spam and it serves their interest to tie us all up in knots, to keep us busy, busy busy. They lead and fan inane debates about this, that and every looney tune they can think of. It's a bit like going to gym. Although the one thing I have been meaning to look at is the key word research tools they offer.

But once again if you are not balancing precariously on the top rung it is questionable whether common sense, trial and error takes less time and produces better results

[Dave A]

Does Google allow you to to peg your position in their search results for specific terms? They never used to.

Aah! Indeed, that would be outside of GA's current scope. It still provides a mine of useful information on your actual visitors, though.

Seeing as you mention Google's keyword research tool, let me try to sum up the most important tools Google provides for webmasters and where they fit in:

Google Analytics will provide stats based on your website's actual visitors.
Google Webmaster Tools will provide stats on your website's actual search performance.
Google Keyword Research Tool will provide stats on keyword potential.

On a side note, I've given the .co.za URL options where possible (seeing as we're primarily an SA site). And while I noted that they have slightly different content to the .com landing page versions, I'm confident the functionality will be the same.

On the loony tunes aspect - yes, if you burrow through everything these tools have to offer straight off the bat you will go nuts.
My suggestion is pick some key metrics you think are important, and focus on those in the beginning.

In terms of the performance tracking tools, top of that list for a newbie would probably be:
For Google Analytics:
Visits.
Unique visits.
Pageviews.
Traffic sources (direct, referral, search organic ((and search paid if you're using Adwords)) ).
And perhaps location of visitors.

For Webmaster tools:
No. of indexed pages.
Error reports.
Search displays and clicks (by keyword and by page)
Sitemap reports.
Crawl rates.
And perhaps Links (inbound).

[workshop]

Something that does make sense is registering for Google Maps
Click on Maps
Click on Put your business on Google Maps
And follow the prompts
You need a valid mail address to create a Google account
As well as a contactable telephone number to verify the upload
Otherwise it is straight forward

And it amazes me that most people never get around to doing it
Myself included.

[workshop]

At this stage I think we should recap

Decide on a hosting service
Register a domain
Get an installer to set up Wordpress
Draw up a list key words
And three word search phrases
Go to Settings/All in One SEO, enable it
Add a key word rich Title
Go to Plugins/Installed Plugins
And activate FS Contact form
Go to Pages/All Pages
Delete the default page and select Add New
Set up an Enquiries form, not forgetting the All in One title field
Select Add New and create an About Us page not forgetting the All in One title tag
Go to Settings/Reading and change your landing page to you the About Us page
Check your site settings
After a week to ten days start searching for your domain name on Google
When it does pop up you will know you have been visited and can expect a follow up every three weeks or so
Google will watch and index your every move
Register with Google Maps
And you can start building your site creating pages for each service centre
Adding a few pictures to brighten up what is essentially a drab and boring web site
And you structure each service centre by creating child or internal pages (not forgetting the All in One title tags)

This is when you start thinking page layout, look and feel

[bizwiz]

thxs Mark
I am reading

[workshop]

Thirty mins tops. That is all it takes to get someone started.

I think they have done away with the footer on the 2012 Template so lets change the template to 2010 which I am comfortable
And when you have lots of time you can play and experiment with the different options, learning the pros and cons on themes you want to work with
Go to Appearances/Themes
Click to activate Twenty Ten
Go to Widgets on the menu on the left and select

You will find the current menu options in the Primary Widget Area on the right of the page
We want to move most of these out of the way and into the footer.

Click on the Back button to take you back to the Dashboard and Appearances/Widgets
We are now going to Delete those widgets from the Sidebar
Go to the Primary Widget Area click on the open arrow next to Categories
Click on Delete
Do the same for Recent Posts and Recent Comments.

Move Archives to the Third Footer Area and Meta to the Fourth and delete them as well
Take a look at your Home page
It is beginning to take shape
You might want to move Recent Posts and Recent Comments to Footer Area Two
But that is Widgets done and that is the first step you have taken working with Templates
Experiment and enjoy!

[raffle]

Made the changes, easy when you know. Altho I had forgotten how intimidating that dashboard looks.