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Three Website Checklists for Creating a New Website

I've been project managing the construction and launch of new websites for twenty years.  I've also found that, no matter how much planning we do up front, something falls through the cracks.  Something always causes a last minute fire-drill.   As a result, I've decided to create these three Website checklists for use before, during and after a the development of your next website.   Where appropriate, I'll mention some of my favorite tools to help with Website development, in case you want to check them out.  (Full disclosure: this post contains affiliate links for products or services mentioned in this article.)

This is for a basic, mostly content oriented website.   Custom programming, eCommerce or highly interactive sites are likely to require many additional steps.

The Pre-build Checklist - This list includes the stuff you need to know before you get started on your new website.  Note that we mostly reference website's built in Wordpress.  Most of these steps don't depend on a specific platform and apply to Drupal and other platforms. 

• Identify and review all the roles on the project (The Boss, Client POV Spokesperson, Sales Representative, Project Manager, Web Designer, Web Developer/Programmer, IT/Technical including Webmaster, Database Admin, SEO Specialist, Analytics Specialist).  The Boss is the person who gets called if someone is dropping the ball in his organization. 
• On the IT front, its important for the Designer and Developer to have access to the hosting area.   In addition, make sure you identify the person who controls the Domain registration and the email system.   This is really important to have in place before launching the website.   You don't want to lose access to your business email because you didn't plan for this step. 
• Establish regular check-in times and method.  Whether you use GotoMeeting, a business conference service like freeconferencecall.com or just a 3-way phone call, meeting weekly is a good practice. 
• Agree on a sitemap.   A sitemap is an outline of the pages in your website.   You can do something simple in PowerPoint or you can use a tool like slickplan.com to provide a framework behind every step in the website building process.  Deciding on what's in, what's out before you start building will save you a ton of time!
  

  Slickplan allows you to build and track your sitemap
• Agree on who will provide content, including text, images and any videos
• Agree on expected timeframes for the stages of the project
• Review example Websites that the Client POV Spokesperson and Sales Rep both like.  This should inform your site's aesthetics.
• Provide the designer with high quality graphics for logos and specifications for color schemes.  No logo? try 99designs for an inexpensive way to create one.  

The Build Checklist - This list includes those steps you need to make sure you have a clean and successful Website build.

• Determine where the Website will be constructed and who will have access to the development site.  Some Internet Service Providers, like WPEngine and SiteGround,  provide built-in staging areas for Wordpress sites.   
• Decide on your Calls to Action and where they'll be placed. 
• Create wireframes of your home page and key supporting pages, like About Us, Contact Us, Blog Posts, etc.  Balsamiq is a great tool for creating
  wireframes. 
• Have the Designer and Developer create some mockup pages using a Wordpress theme that they recommend.  Themes are pre-configured designs that can be used to quickly create a high quality website.  One of our favorite wordpress theme sites is Theme Garden.
• Have the Developer review the plug-ins that will need to be purchased.  If you're building a Wordpress site (my favorite website platform), you have access to thousands of options.   Yoast is a good source of quality plugins for SEO and Analytics.   WooCommerce can help with sites that are using eCommerce to sell products.  Security is important.  I like BulletProofSecurity.  And BackupBuddy is a convenient tool to ensure your site is always backed up
• Once the themes, colors, logos, sitemap and page content has been identified, the Designer and Developer can begin building the website
• Content is developed for each page in the website and integrated into the design
• The SEO Specialist and Analytics Specialists make sure that every page is configured for SEO and Analytics.   I like Google Analytics.  It's free and powerful, but some commercial web analysis tools claim they can provide even better information.  
• Someone (usually the Project Manager) will QA the pages as they are deemed "complete"
• When everything is in place, the site is ready to launch

The Pre-launch Checklist - All done? Here is the checklist to make sure you have everything you need to complete this website and keep the Boss happy. 

• Make sure the email has been properly addressed in switching to a new website.  Not all website development projects have to worry about this, but its best to double check
• Make a backup of your existing site... just in case.  This is an insurance policy that you can call upon if there is a disaster
• Make sure the Webmaster is ready to switch the old site out and the new site in, including any domain registrar modifications that might be needed
• If possible, plan for a soft launch day when the team can test the site and make sure nothing is wrong (e.g. a weekend or evening)
• Make any configuration changes necessary to robots.txt
• Move the new website from staging into production
• Do another Quality Assurance pass before announcing it to the world
• Announce your new website to the world!

I hope that armed with these checklists and a healthy dose of luck, you will have a smooth and pain-free website launch.  

Let us know what works for you?    Leave us your favorite steps in the comments and we'll add the best ideas to our post. 

 

The Ultimate Resource Guide List for Entepreneurs

As entrepreneurs, we're always on the look out for resources that can help us streamline and cost-effectively build our startup. Whether it's building a website, creating a logo, looking for free legal docs, coming up on with business/domain names, optimizing our site, editing our photos, sending email campaigns, managing our online community, running A/B tests, sending surveys, finding free creative common photos we can leverage, testing out collaboration tools with the team, organizing our tasks, or even figuring out how to split equity with our co-founders. 

If it sounds like a lot, it is. And now there's a comprehensive site that lists all of these resources across 5 categories - Business, Marketing, Design/Code, Productivity, and Learn - called Growth Supply to make them easy to find. Each list has a mini description next to the resource so you can quickly scan and discover which one suits your needs best.

This was our goal with this blog - to share, evaluate, and test new tools as well as post about what we're learning as we build our companies. We'll continue to do so and for now, check out this resource site and let us know what you think. 

Similar blog posts we've written to help you find free or cheap resources are below: 

• Alternatives to Quickbooks
• Top (Mostly Free) Legal Resources for Startups
• Top 10 Productivity Boosters for Startups and Small Businesses
• Top 7 Alternatives to Constant Contact
• Finding the best freelancers
• 9 Creative & Affordable Gift Ideas for Employees

5 Steps to the Best Use of a Tight Marketing Budget

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are often struggling to balance their need for great Internet marketing and their limited budget. In today’s post, I thought it would be helpful to share some of the marketing basics that business owners can use to drive results on a limited budget.

This blog post is geared towards business owners with a website, a solid understanding of their customers, a knowledge of your competition and a sense of your brand message. If you don’t have every one of these elements, conquer these goals first – and then return to this post.  See Step 1 for an easy self-diagnosis for your businesses marketing maturity.

Step 1:  Diagnose your Current Needs

Our first stop on this tour is to take some time for this 5 minute tour of the Internet Marketing Pyramid of Needs. This is an internet marketing maturity model that I built years ago after having worked with startups, small businesses and mid-sized businesses. (Disclaimer: I’m a partner in the business that runs this site, but I believe that using this model to gain a basic understanding of where your business stands vis-à-vis internet marketing maturity can be helpful in determining what you need.) 

Assuming that you have already mastered the understanding of your business model, your competitive landscape and your product’s value proposition in the marketplace, you can move to working on your digital marketing. 

Hubspot’s marketing grader is a good place to identify some of the holes in your Website and  how you can improve your on-page SEO marketing.  You can add some of your best competitors to see how they stack up against your business.

Step 2:  Claim your Local Profiles

If you don’t know what this is, you need to. Google Places is the blocking and tackling of local businesses.  Your most valuable searches on Google are going to be from active shoppers who don’t already know your brand.  When they search on:

Chocolate shops in Wayne

Philadelphia eyeglass repair

Getting auto repair estimates in Berwyn

Your Google places page is one of the easiest and most potent ways to show up.  You are, quite literally, placed “on the map” by Google. 

Example of a local search in Google - and the local businesses that show up on the map.

Step 3: Enable Free Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free.  It is an incredibly powerful Website tool built and provided to the world for free by the the $290 Billion behemoth that has been turned into a verb.  Google wants to be as useful (and important) to you as air. So they've invested their money into their free search utility, their free email platform (gmail) and their free analytics tool (Google Analytics). In each of these 3 cases, they are so good that they are practically category killers. If you aren't using these free tools, you are losing ground to your competition.

In order to sign up for Google Analytics, you'll probably want a gmail account (also free).  Once you've created the account, ask your Web designer or Webmaster to install the analytics code into the header of your Website.  

If they don't know how to do this, find another Web designer or Webmaster. 

Google's checklist for using Google Analytics is here.

Step 4:  Give People a Reason to Interact with You

So you have a Website, but now you need a conversation starter. How to do that?

Make sure that your Website has a blogging capability.   That is where you will announce the answers to your marketplace's problems.  

What do you write about?

Solve a problem.  Help the do-it-yourselfers.  Give away some of your secret sauce. In the process, you will show people that your company is the go-to team for problems that are too much effort for them. 

If  you really answer the question, then people will link to your answer, +1 it and like it. Like all good answers, your answer will probably raise more questions in the reader's mind. This is the place to offer offer time to talk more in-depth about their specific needs.

Invite people to sign up for your newsletter at the end of the answer. Give people a way to contact you with more questions.   

When sharing this kind of content, your primary objectives should be focused on:

1. Build your house list.  The house list refers to your database of contacts who have engaged with your business - or at least shown an interest in the past.  A Sign up for our Newsletter!  button or link needs to be a very visible call-to-action on your Website
2. Drive sales. The Contact Us form can be used to collect prospect names, phone numbers and emails. Always make sure your phone number is easily found by the reader. Many businesses are still mostly person to person, phone-initiated sales environments. 

This step could easily have been named Blog Your Butt Off.   To get inspiration to do exactly that, check out this video of Marcus Sheridan from Postwire / Inbound 2012 conference.

Step 5: Email Marketing

Despite what your kids might tell you, the rest of the world still very much runs on email.   Email serves an important function in the digital communication eco-system, so it isn’t going anywhere soon.  In fact, seasoned digital marketers might not want to let you in on the secret.  Email marketing provides the highest conversion rate of the digital channels  - sometimes pretty dramatically. 

Email Marketing is a big topic.  Email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, iContact, Constant Contact and more have emerged to help business owners drive results from their “House List”.  Take some time to research them before settling on one.   Check out our post on comparing these powerful Email Marketing alternatives.

If you invest the time and effort to do these 5 Steps, then your business should see marked improvement over the next year!  You may also be interested in checking out our 25 Nearly Free Ways to Market your Business post. 

In the comments below, please weigh in with your own marketing ideas - or success stories with these techniques.   

 

Switching Costs and CAN SPAM Policies of Top Email Campaign Services

The end goal of all marketing is to attract interest and generate sales of whatever you are selling. And toward this end, email marketing is still one of the most cost effective ways to get in touch (and keep in touch) with both current and potential customers.

In our most popular blog post, “7 Alternatives to Constant Contact,” we dove into the top email campaign services, their benefits, features, pricing and plans. Many of the comments asked about the ramifications of switching services and how CAN SPAM policies have impacted their email initiatives, which is what we’ll dig into this post. It’s most useful for those who are not satisfied with their email marketing campaign software or may be thinking of switching to a different service.

60 Low & No Cost PR & Marketing Strategies

One of the most trafficked posts on our blog is on free PR ideas. It provides fifteen, free, do-it-yourself ideas that can be implemented quickly and without a penny. It's easy to see why the entry is so popular - Companies are always looking to save on their PR and Marketing budgets.

That's why we had to share this complimentary eBook whe we came across it. It provides over SIXTY strategies to generate awareness and reach new customers. Best of all, many of them are completely free. Download this practical guide to free PR and Marketing now.

Free White Paper: "Social Mobile User Engagement" by Virtue

According to eMarketer, by the year 2016, the growth of mobile social network users is expected to reach 1.7 billion users, a 210% increase from 2011. Marketers need to be aware of this growth and begin to build a strong foundation for an effective mobile social engagement strategy now. In this whitepaper, Virture explores how mobile users are connecting with brands on Facebook.

Review of Hubspot's Inbound Marketing System – An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

I started using Hubspot a few years ago as part of my digital marketing business.  After watching a demo of the tool's capabilities, we decided to try using Hubspot within our company.  We quickly introduced it to some of our entrepreneurial clients as well.   I don't use Hubspot in my Philadelphia marketing consulting business today.  I'll explain why later, but first...

Search Engine Optimization – Properly Utilizing Title Tags

When optimizing your Website for high search engine rankings, targeted search engines such as Google and Bing, the first step is writing keyword driven Meta title tags.  This title tag is the title on the top left of your browser window.  Search engines put a lot of weight on these titles when ranking your Website.  Many Websites utilize the company name or the name of that Webpage as the page title which is typically a mistake if you want to rank that Webpage for targeted keyword phrases. Even if you do not execute any other types of optimization in your WebPages, keyword driven title tags will help you rank your Website in a higher position.

The Meta title tag serves two purposes in relation to search engines.

1. When a searcher searches keywords that are in your title tag you will rank higher for those keywords.  Google’s number one focus is to give the searcher relevant Websites to choose from that is most closely related to their search.  Google assumes your title tag describes the Webpage and uses that information in deciding where to rank that Webpage.
2. The clickable title of your search engine listing is your title tag for that page.  Unless you’re a known brand your company name serves no purpose here.  It is better to display text that is closely related to the searcher.  For example if someone is searching for a” Bankruptcy Lawyer in Philadelphia” a Website with a title of Philadelphia Bankruptcy Lawyer or Bankruptcy Lawyer in Philadelphia is much more relevant to the searcher then “J & J Law Firm” and will increase the chance of your site being visited from that search.
   

Title Tag Best Practices

• Research your keywords and make sure these are keywords that people are searching. I personally prefer to use multiple tools for this process.  A free tool that works well for keyword research is SEO Book
• Try to be somewhat specific in the keywords you target, very general keywords are very competitive.  For example instead of targeting the keyword “lawyer”, target “Philadelphia bankruptcy lawyer”.  By targeting that phrase you are actually targeting four searchable phrases in one shot; “Philadelphia bankruptcy lawyer”, “bankruptcy lawyer”, “Philadelphia lawyer” and “lawyer”.
• If possible utilize the most important keyword words two times in the title but no more than twice.  For example, “Philadelphia Bankruptcy Lawyer – Bankruptcy Lawyer in Philadelphia”
• Limit your title tag to 70 or fewer characters, including spaces.  If you go over the 70 character limit it won’t hurt your rankings but only the first 70 characters are displayed on Google’s search results.  Also it is possible that characters after the 70 character limit will carry less weight in your ranking.
• Capitalize the first letter of each word.
•  Instead of using the word “and” (takes up space) you can use a “-“ or “|”.  Instead of “Serving Philadelphia and Delaware” you can use “Serving Philadelphia | Delaware”
• Google puts more weight on the left most words of the title tag.
• Your title tag should be focused on the content of that Webpage.  If the Webpage describes a bankruptcy lawyer then bankruptcy lawyer should be in the title and not divorce lawyer.

Keep in mind that by properly writing your title tags does not mean you will magically appear at the top of Google rankings for many targeted keyword phrases. In some cases, typically non-competitive keyword phrases, this will give you a major boost in your rankings.  To be truly successful you need keyword dense webpage copy and a link building strategy among other factors in addition to targeted keyword driven titles.

Stay tuned for future blog posts on how to better rank your Website with SEO.   Have you done a title tag review of your Web site?  How does it stack up against these guidelines?

Jason Lomberg is an SEO Strategist with Team and a Dream

Find the best freelancers - ODesk vs eLance vs GetaFreelancer vs RentaCoder (now vWorker)

One of the biggest challenges of a startup or growing small business is to find the right people for the right seat on the bus.   You often find yourself with a part-time need from a very qualified individual.

Can you take advantage of the Global effects of Web to help with your search?   

You bet you can! There are a number of platforms for sourcing freelancers or contract hires.  As you can see from this graphic, many of these platforms are drawing hundreds of thousands of visits each month.  That translates into a ready pool of talent for you. 

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/guru.com+elance.com+odesk.com/

Here is what we can share from personal experience. 

oDesk - This is the latest platform that we tried and we love it.  There are so many ways to search, there is such a rich group of contractors and you can find incredibly cost-effective offerings. We're going to deep dive into oDesk shortly.  

First, lets take a quick look at some other options.  

Guru - They claim to be the world's largest online freelancer marketplace, with over 1,000,000 freelancers to choose from.  We've used it before and found some great project teams... and some not so great.  For a while, we offered a service to help with freelancer screening process (We did a series of posts on how to effectively screen freelancers ).  Guru was our favorite for a while and we wrote a blog comparing Guru with elance and rentacoder.

eLance, rentacoder (now vWorker.com) and getafreelancer - We've heard of good results for these but haven't used them personally. They appear to be an especially great source for copywriters, coders and web designers. The Compete graph above shows eLance to have the most traffic of the sites that we surveyed in Compete. 

As for oDesk, we were impressed by the ability to search across so many different criteria - areas of expertise, feedback from other clients, number of tests passed, test scores compared to their peer group, experience in hours, rates and more. Take a look at the dashboard below illustrating a search for SEM professionals. We recently posted an entry on "ODesk vs Elance" and how they compare. 

With over 300 qualification tests available on oDesk, there are a wide range of hard skills you can use to sort out the freelancers you'd prefer to work with.

Properly finding a freelancer needs a significant time investment.  Beyond finding your ideal candidate based on qualifications, tests, references and rates, you need to check references.  You should also gauge responsiveness and communication.  We recommend starting with a small project and growing from there.  

Have you used any of these platforms?  If you have, please share your experience with us. Are there other freelance platforms, freelance marketplaces or freelance forums our readers should know about? 

Look to the future - 2010 Social Media and Internet Marketing trends

Many of us are happy to have 2009 behind us! I've enjoyed looking over the predictions and forecasts for
  2010.  I thought it might be helpful to provide a roundup of some of my favorites - and add my reflections to kick off the conversation. 

What are your favorite Internet Marketing and Social Media trends for the upcoming year?  2010 breakthroughs may present themselves as shiny, new technologies... but the biggest surprises might come from mainstream business use of stuff thats been around for some time. 

 

Here are some of my favorite predictions for 2010.

 1) Harvard Business Review takes an industry level peek into how we organize our social media, business scaling, gaming, mobile and more.

2) Dan Zarella, A Social Media and Viral Marketing Scientist who also works at Hubspot, talks about Social Media trends toward more IRL (In Real Life) translation, micro-segmenting, small business Social Media Marketing and the Real time Web.

3) StartupNation has a terrific set of Top 10 Internet Marketing Predictions for 2010 from Tom Now covering everything from the explosion of the US Hispanic Market online through the rise of video blogs, Digital Portfolios and your digital footprint, Location-based Marketing and Integrated Marketing.  

4) Trendwatching wins my creative insight award though... by taking a wide angle lens on all of society and culture they forearm us with predictions of embedded generosity, intention-based online profiles and Tracking & Alerting to manage our INFOLUST.   They wrap with some reflection on the opinionated, risque, outspoken - and (might I add) rude - brand speak of 2010 that emanates from the mouthpiece of the online world.  Hmm... sounds like a teenager to me. 

My Takeaways and Favorites... 

Favorite #1 - INFOLUST and too much noise.  While I haven't heard the term before, it seems to me an accurate perspective on many of our online pursuits.  This necessitates the need for Attention Filters like alerts, automated search tools, RSS feeds and aggregation tools.  Twitter Lists, Google Sidewiki and other ways for the collective to annotate our ramblings reminds me of how folksonomies are being taken to the entire Web. 

Favorite #2 - Craving of life to meet life.  IRL (In Real Life).  As a  Meetup organizer, I appreciate the value of online meetups.  Meetup passed the 50 Million RSVP mark this year, with 5 Million Meetup groups per Scott Heiferman in this YouTube video on Meetup in 2009. 

Favorite #3 - Portfolio thinking - Digital portfolio/digital footprints.  For the past year, I've been realizing and advocating that we are all going to have start thinking in terms of portfolios. In the highly fragmented world we call 2010, it is more and more likely that our money, time and attention will be coming from/directed to a wide range of sources.  How many income sources do you have?  (I can count six and growing).  How many social (online and offline) outlets do you have (I'm well over a dozen). Have you Googled yourself lately to see your Digital Footprint? 

Favorite #4 - Embedded Generosity.  The idea of seeing tighter, micro-embedding of cause-based efforts is one of the more positive trends that helps tighten the weave of our global blanket. 

What are your takeaways or favorites? What would you add? 

BTW - I know I'm missing some great trends and predictions.  If you have one, please add it to the comments below.  

Thanks - and here is wishing you a life-inspiring 2010!

-Skip