It seems the challenge has been taken up anew![]()
It seems the challenge has been taken up anew![]()
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Don Quixote rides again in the relentless pursuit of.............................
We have set up a site, baited a hook for the Google spider and thrown our line into the water
And we now wait.....and wait......and wait
This is what fishing is all about
But while we are waiting we need to reflect on what we are doing and why
Ultimately we want a list of search phrases (key words) that visitors are going to use to find your site
We want the most obvious (primary key words)
And we want the not so obvious ones (long tailed key words)
They are all important
This process is called key word research
A service you will pay an expert a lot of money for when you learn how to do it yourself
It's exhausting, an endless task
where the tracks you follow fan out, converge and disappear in a swirl of dust.
(I like that last bit).
We are waiting for Google to pick up the title tag on your test page
We have a list of search phrases and key words which we keep adding to as new combinations come to mind
We now need to start building the site.
This we do by building static pages
And the first page we create is the Contact page
Someone might very well stumble across your unfinished site and want to contact you.
Go to your dashboard
Select Pages in the menu on the left
Select Add New
Enter a title - Contact
Add your contact details to the text box
Scroll down to All in One SEO
Enter your area, city, province, country and the name of your business or any combination you consider to be more appropriate
Click on Publish
This is how you build your site
Page by page, day by day, month by month
You need to seed your key words into the title tags of the pages you create
Building a word picture and site structure that Google can use
Don't try and do everything all in one sitting
This is an ongoing effort and anyone who does happen to find your first clumsy attempt
Won't give a damn
They might even stop to ask you how to do it.
Last edited by workshop; 04-Apr-13 at 12:57 PM.
We have set up a title tag for both your test page www.yourdomain.co.za/test
As well as your contact page www.yourdomain.co.za/contact
These are known as child or internal pages
But we still need a title tag for your home page www.yourdomain.co.za
And it might have been better to have attended to this first
This is where we place your primary key words
But it doesn't really matter
Google is busy and it can take up to three weeks before they pick up and digest what you are doing
So the chances are that you have time to tidy up before they arrive
And if you do miss the bus there will be another and then another
So make a few mistakes, learn from those mistakes
Everything can and should be edited and changed on an ongoing basis
But do understand that at the same you do need patience
And whilst listening to the chatter don't believe everything you hear
Experiment and explore for yourself, watch, listen and share.
Go to your dashboard
Look for Settings at the bottom of the menu on the left
Select All in One SEO
(If it's not there ask your installer why not)
Change plug-in status to Enabled
And add a Title tag for your home page in the appropriate field
This should (as far as is possible) look like a page title
But in practice you want to cram it full of all your primary key words
You need to be careful to avoid key word stuffing, however
And there you have the conundrum that will face you for evermore
There are no rules in this game
Just guidelines and common sense.
Ignore Description and Key Words for now
Scroll down to and click on Update Options
It's done
Finally click on the site name top left of your screen, next to the Wordpress logo
This will take you to your home page
Point your cursor anywhere in the body of the page
Right click
Select View Source
And you will be confronted with the gobbledy gook that is used to tell the browser what to display
You are looking for <title>Key words</title>
It's right near the beginning and that is what Google feeds on, what you need to set up in every page and post you make and what you need to edit and fine tune till you get it 99% right.
This is not the sort of advice you are going to get from the professionals
And at this stage most will be curling at the edges
But then again, three, four five years ago there were very few professionals who even knew what a targeted back link is
And to them it was all pretty pictures, eye candy and how much you can afford?
But that's all wrong.
If you want to drive a vroom vroom
You need to know how to steer the confounded thing.
Forget about branding, no one is looking and if they do so what?
You are digging the foundations and can worry finishes when you have a roof over your head and a constant stream of visitors.
The next page you want to create should tell whoever visits your site something about your business
And you are going to be surprised at how little you know about the business you run
You are also going to write more than you need to
But don't agonise over it, get it down, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and all. It can all be changed later.
And once again don't forget All in One SEO and your title tag
You are placing another piece to the puzzle.
That done we are going to change the landing page
Right now we get presented with the default Hello World post and "Just another Wordpress blog"
This we want to change to Your Domain
Go to your dashboard
Find and select Settings - bottom left in your menu on the left
Select Reading
And change Front Page displays to A Static Page
Choose the page you have just created
Click on Save Changes.
Go to Your Domain top left
Click and view your site and new landing page.
Far too many people baulk at publishing an unfinished, incomplete web site.
They would rather spend R1500 to R15000 to get someone to do it for them and then to forget about it
Don't. It does not work for any of us
All that is going to happen is that you will turn around and tell everyone that the internet does nothing and is a waste of money.
That's not right
The internet works just fine
You are the problem!
All it takes is a bit of spare time.
Get to know the medium
What it can do, what it can't do
Get yourself to the point where you can make informed decisions
And then start making those decisions.
This is ninety percent common sense
And if you lack imagination like I do
The other ten percent it takes for someone else to make it look good.
But if it's look and feel good, that is a must have
It's easy enough
Go to your dashboard
Select Appearance from the menu on the left
Click on Themes
Choose a Theme, any theme
Click on Activate
Go to Your Domain, top left next to the Word Press logo
And view your handiwork
You have just designed (changed the look and feel) on your first site
It's that simple
You literally have thousands of designs, thousands of templates to choose from
Some are good, some are not, some are free, some are not
But understand that you can come up with something that looks the part
And we will get to downloading templates all in good time.
What you need to know now, is that you can, if it is really that important for you.
We have created an About Us page, a Contact page and a test page
We have changed the landing page to the About Us page
We have primed the pages for Google's spider by setting up key word rich title tags for each page from a list of search phrases we have drawn up
We now need an Enquiries Form
To add some functionality to the site we are creating
Go to Plug-ins on your Dashboard
Select Installed Plug-ins and look for Fast Secure Contact Form
(if it's not there ask your installer why not?)
Once again as with your graphics you have a host of functional options to choose from
If you want an Enquiry Form or Classifieds or a Shopping Cart you download, plug-in and learn from the mistakes you make
In this case we are assuming the plug-in is ready and waiting for you
And all you have to do is to activate it.
Select Pages then Add New
Add a title Enquiries
Add [si-contact-form form='1'] to the body of the form
Add some key words in the All in One title field. Something that is relevant to your location - possibly your business name and address.
Click on Publish
Try it out
It probably won't work
But there is a reason for that
Last edited by workshop; 09-Apr-13 at 06:56 AM.
Dave A (09-Apr-13)
And the reason is that there is a good chance we haven't looked at the site settings and the mail is going to the wrong address.
Select Settings from the bottom of the menu on your dashboard
Go to General
You can edit the site Title (not to be confused with the title tag)
Change the tagline from "Just Another Wordpress Blog" to something like Another Very Useful Web Site
Make sure the email address is good
You don't want to allow the public to register so skip that
Change the time zone to UTC+2
The rest of the settings at your discretion
Save Changes and test your Enquiry form
Go to Permalinks
I use "Post Name"
Save Changes
I also use Log In Lock
To keep the little furry critters out
But we don't have to worry about that just yet
As long as you keep your scripts up to date you should be bullet proof.
Last edited by workshop; 10-Apr-13 at 04:04 PM.
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