Introduced in WordPress from 2.5 onward, they are “macro codes” you can place within your content – in the main content, in sidebars and widgets, where ever you need just a bit of customization to help your site stand out from all the others who are using a similar theme. This can be a great way to create a reusable dynamic ad spot or a call-to-action button in your posts.

Examples of custom shortcodes I’ve developed for my clients include simple “call to action” buttons and a custom module that grabs the 10 next performances from a musician performances database and then display those in a unique way on the artist’s home page.

Since shortcodes enhance the core functionality of the WordPress software, one has to know a bit about the internal file stucture of a WordPress site. Since your theme’s “functions.php” file will require a little adjustment, this brings up the issue of “where the heck to I place my shortcode code” such that it survives a software update to your theme or core WordPress itself. We’ll get to that in a minute.

If we use the call-to-action example, you could add something like this to your blogpost to show the button, and then edit the output in your templates functions.php file, which we’ll get to in a minute.

[button]

To customize the button, we could simply add something like:

[button type="twitter"]

Or to make it even better, we could use an enclosing shortcode:

[button type="twitter"]Follow me on Twitter![/button]

With some imagination, you soon realize the potential of shortcodes, and what can be done with them. In this article, I’ll show you how to create and use these three different types of shortcodes, and then I’ll show off some ready-to-use shortcodes to use on your own WordPress site.

Creating a self-closing shortcode

The simplest shortcode is the self-closing one. We’re going to create a simple link to our Twitter account, and then add it in a blog post.

All the code goes in functions.php, which is located in /wp-content/themes/your-theme/. If you don’t have one, just create it and put the code in it.

<?php 
function button_shortcode() {
    return '<a href="http://twitter.com/filipstefansson" class="twitter-button">Follow me on Twitter!</a>"';
}
add_shortcode('button', 'button_shortcode'); 
?>

Usage:

Getting Started with WordPress Shortcodes & Sample Snippets

https://cpothemes.com/using-wordpress-shortcodes
Separating The Content Into Columns
The most basic usage of shortcodes for layout is to create multiple columns. Separating the content into distinguishable blocks will make your content look more organized, and you can take advantage of this to add images or other media. As you work with columns, you will begin to see all the possibilities that open up– certain layouts are simply not doable without a column-based design. It is recommended you use from 2 to 4 columns, as it is a good balance between the number of content blocks and the available space of each block.

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Other CMS systems like Drupal and Joomla are credited with having a more powerful, customizable underlying “taxonomy” structuring capability that make them powerful content management systems. However the complexity and sophistication required to understand and design a complicated content system website is too much for most website owners and WordPress is a perfectly fine and powerful alternative for most websites. On the other hand, Drupal and Joomla can also be used to make fairly simple sites.

WordPress is “Open Source” software. This means it is developed by a community of thousands of volunteers from around the world. Nearly 500 people worked on WordPress 4.7 (named “Vaughan” in honor of legendary jazz vocalist Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan, was released in December 2016), including about 200 “first time” WordPress coders.

How WordPress Works

WordPress is arguably
the most used website
development software
on the internet.

In CMS systems, all content or references to media, etc are stored in a database on your server and each time someone “visits your page”, first the server on which your site is hosted has to make many, many queries to the database to gather the various elements that make up that individual page and assemble an HTML document. This resultant document is downloaded to your personal web browser which “renders” the beautiful web page you expect to see.

Since its inception, WordPress has now become arguably the most used website development platform on the web.

It is comprised of three major components:

The core

The core software code contains all the default functionality that makes up the WordPress content management system. This includes everything one can do from the admin backend. This includes functions such as creating pages and posts, interacting with the database, allowing the creation of Users and checking password strength,  etc. The core is like the engine of your car – it makes this work and allows the car to run.

Themes

1000’s of “themes” and
“plugins” allow you to
customize look, feel and
functionality of the core.

While the core is responsible for the backend of a website and how it operates. Themes are responsible for the front-end and how a website looks and feels. The WordPress admin area is used to create posts, pages, and other site content, but exactly how our posts and pages are displayed to visitors is up to the theme. This gives you amazing power over your website’s appearance.

One can find literally thousands of free and premium pre-built themes to install and activate, or one can “break out of the box” completely and create unique, custom designs. The sky (and your imagination) is literally the limit

Plugins

Plugins are like servants or drones, basically dutiful workers that provide additional functionality to WordPress that may be missing or limited in the core software. To do its job, a plugin may modify the backend and/or the front-end of a website.

A plugin that adds a Tweet button for Twitter is a good example. It would probably create a new settings page in the backend admin menu where you could set up some default options for a user’s tweet and it would also add a tweet button to the front-end of a website, most likely displaying under a post.

Photo gallery plugins are another great example. They provide a way of creating extensive photo albums and galleries and even slide shows of your images and provide a plethora of settings that determine every thing from border and background colors for you pictures, to transition times and effects in your slideshow.

Help! My Site Just Got Hacked!

Hackers are constantly
looking for ways to
exploit your website.

Unfortunately, some plugins are old, possibly created by software programmers who took shortcuts, may have been using non-standard coding “best practices” and may no longer have active support and development. This can be a huge problem for your site, as hackers are constantly looking for ways into your site to exploit server resources, send out spam email or even masquerade sections of your site to mimic porn or even reputable, well know websites like PayPal or your bank! The results run the gambit from pesky junk main from your website using up server resources, to your entire site breaking and no longer working.

WordPress is constantly releasing new versions of its core software that either plug freshly identified vulnerabilities, or add entirely new functionality. If your plugins do not keep up with the changes, your site can break. This can be a hassle, scary and even cost you money and search engine ranking, if your site is down and unavailable for a period of time.

Back up and Update
regularly – or you
WILL get hacked!.

So what to do? First, make regular backups of your site. Then when new updates are available, systematically update your plugins first, checking your site after each update to make sure it still works, then update your core. If the site breaks, you can restore from your last good backup, then turn off all plugins and step by step turn on and update each plugin till you find the one that is causing the trouble.

When you find the culprit, you may need to find a replacement plugin that does a similar job or contact the plugin maker to inquire about the problem.

When you are searching for plugins to perform a specific tasks, remember to check the user reviews and comments associated with them. The info section will also tell you when it was last updated and it’s level of probably compatibility with the version of WordPress core you intend to use.

Bottom line? Spend some time researching your plugins first. Make sure they do what you need them to do without a lot of extra bells and whistles you may never use, then have a regular backup and maintenance plan in place. If you let your site go for months or years with no attention, it WILL get hacked! Like a garden left unattended, it will grow weeds that may eventually choke out your beautiful vegetables and flowers.

Stay Relevant and “Fresh” – Engage in Conversation

Your website
is like a garden.
Will yours grow weeds
or flowers?

One needs to develop a relationship with their website to keep it fresh, vibrant and relative to your visitors. Spending a little time each month in the backend, reviewing your website Analytics and updating your Blog or responding to Visitor comments are a great ways to get to know your site and become confident you can manage it.

Google likes to see activity on your site and will reward you with a boost in your search engine ranking. Your Visitors also want to know there is somebody home, that it’s not just an other signpost or billboard on the internet highway. Think of your website as being an “Avatar” for you and your company. What is the “persona” with which you will interact with your visitors? How can you keep that persona fresh and engaging, such that people feel trust in you and your site and perceive you as an authority in your niche?

So it’s up to you. Will your website be like Cinderella, relegated to some dusty corner, or will it be a vibrant extension of your personality and message, interacting with the world wide web of visitors which may find your site?

Let’s Get Technical

Still with me? Cool. Then let’s go deeper into what powers WordPress (and other web development platforms) when you and your developer “open the hood”…

PHP, MySQL, Javascript/Jquery, AJAX, HTML and CSS! Oh my!

Build on a core of HTML
and CSS, the real power
“behind the curtain” is
PHP, mySQL, javascript…

As mentioned, data that is required to represent the various pieces and elements of your webpages are first retrieved from the database on the server, using a server programming language called PHP (an immensely popular server-side scripting language, used in over 80% of all websites) and “structured mySQL queries“, then assembled into structured HTML and styled with definitions in CSS (cascading styles sheets). “LESS” and/or “SASS” are supersets of CSS, which means that all valid CSS code is valid LESS and SASS code. What both of these extensions to CSS add is the ability to use variables, functions, and other constructs in CSS, which adds a whole world of dynamic possibilities.

The role of JavaScript on the web is ever-increasing, especially with new JavaScript-based tools like Node and Angular. Javascript is a “browser-based” programming language which means it runs in your own browser – not on the server. It is typically used to add dynamic functionality to websites and for asynchronous loading of content, based on triggers from user interaction or timers running in the background.

The extremely popular jQuery framework is basically built on Javascript. It is used extensively in WordPress and in millions of projects on the web. It provides both CSS styles and dynamic functionality. Perhaps you wish for a webform to be completely hidden, but fade-in inside a lightbox when the user clicks on a button. Maybe you wish to do validation checks on form fields before its content is sent to the processing script on the server – javascript/jquery are well adapted and popular solutions for such browser-based tasks.

Asynchronous loading is done via the mechanism called AJAX. AJAX can be used to retrieve information from the server and then display it without requiring that the page be reloadede. A good example is endless scrolling where the first 10 posts are loaded and when you get close to the bottom of the page the next 10 posts are retrieved and appended to the currently displayed set.

REST API

The REST API allows one to create true web applications based on WordPress. This includes iPhone and Android apps exotic things like TV apps, but these require knowledge of some other server-based programming languages.

Build powerful
multi-platform apps
with REST API.

To explain what REST API is and is capable of, let’s consider Twitter or Instagram – you have probably seen someone’s Twitter or instagram feed displayed on their website. (See CassClayton.com, for example.)

To implement this feature to your own site, you don’t need to know how Twitter’s core code works, all you need is a bit of code that says: “please retrieve my latest five tweets”. Twitter handles the actual retrieval, sending back the data of your requested five tweets. Then, simply use HTML and CSS to format and display that data in a way that suits your site’s design and layout.

It is the REST API that does this for WordPress. You can connect to any website and ask it for your latest five posts. But wait, there’s more! With this connection, you have amazing control over your accounts on these Social platforms – you can delete users, create new users, edit categories and more. It is required, of course, to first “login” and authenticate yourself before performing these sorts of functions.

So why is this useful? Among other things, this means you can use WordPress as a repository of information and build front-end and/or the backend using an entirely different system. The power inherent in this cross-platform capability may be a little hard to grasp, but the flexibility available to you via WordPress takes a leap in sophistication and possibility, using the REST API.

The post What is “WordPress” and What Does “CMS” Mean? appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.

Deciding to build and launch a website or web based business can seem like a daunting task. All those plugins and themes and software and server hosting packages to choose from. Will you “self-host” a WordPress site or get one of those “free blogs” at WordPress.com, Weebly or Wix? What about Squarespace – that seems to be getting a lot of attention these days. Then there are cheap “shared hosting” plans, dedicated and VPS packages, “managed webhosting”,…

Remember – there is no such thing as “free”. When you sign up for a free blog, you immediately see the limitations – from limited functionality and theme choices, to having to live with advertising from some other company. You will be informed that in order to have your own, personal domain name associated with your site, you will have to pay for the “enhanced” package.

We can help you brainstorm what you wish to accomplish by having a website and explain what avenues make sense for your needs, future growth and budget. We will hold your hand as we walk together through the myriad of things that need to be considered before you can make an informed choice.

Personal Business Coaching

We will talk with you and provide various “client tools” with which you can discover the “unique voice and persona” you wish to portray on the web and your ISP (Unique Selling Proposition). After accomplishing these important first steps, we can then create the specifications and requirements lists that will determine just what sort of website and functionality will best suit your intent and desires.

John-EriK’s training in NLP provides an excellent basis from which to listen well to what you are trying to accomplish. This, combined with an extensive background in computer programming, web hosting, webmaster services and various online marketing and search engine marketing technologies, make him a unique and talented ally to have in your corner for all your various webmaster needs.

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Do you have a new idea to promote or outdated site that needs help? Are you mobile-friendly? Do you know who your ideal web visitor/client/customer is and how best to engage in conversation with them?

Analytics to see what has happened in the past, and what changes there are in the future after our website fine-tuning or redesign.

Having your own domain name and “self-hosted” website will give you control over your own online presence.

Unlike your Twitter account, Facebook or even a wordpress.com blog, with your own site you will completely own your content. You can post what you like and will be able to export it at any time, should you wish to move to a different server hosting company. But with power comes responcibility.

Social and “free” blog platforms actually “own” your content (remember to read the fine print!) and can use it as they see fit. Remember if it’s free online – then you are the product. Selling your information and usage data to interested third parties, or even banning you and taking down your material if your freedom of expression does not match their increasingly agenda-driven rules and regulations.

The post New, Redesigned Websites appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.

What is your online “persona” and how does it speak your message to your intended audience?

How to establish
Trust and Authority?

For what sorts of problems will your products and services offer help and remedy? What of the visitor’s needs and issues will your offerings be solutions? How will their lives be made better by contracting with you?

Webpage Speed Optimization, SEO, Web Analytics

Your pages should load as quickly as possible, look good and be easy to navigate on phones. They should be represented compellingly and cleverly on search engine results pages, for your most important keywords. They should talk interestingly about topics the visitor finds interesting and relevant to their lives, desires and available time.

When you can hook your products and service solutions into current events “news”, you can hook into emotional trends and hot spots and people make purchase decisions based on emotion at least as much as on logic. (As was published in Forbes article about Facebook manipulation of timelines and feeds…)

Caching and site speed.

Your server may have special “caching” available or you may have a “cache plugin” installed on your WordPress site.

Without caching,
your site seems to
take forever to load!

Caches are a technique to get sites to appear to load more quickly as they take stuff that is supposed to be fairly static and serve to the person’s web browser the cached version instead of, having site tell the server retrieve all the little bits and pieces required to construct the page from the database, assemble that into HTML and send that down to the person’s browser.

Then again on the person’s browser, there are cache settings there also. Basically one sets up some code that tells the browser how “fresh” the actual webpage is and if it’s within a reasonable time, to just use whatever the Browser has stored in its memory (from visiting the page in the past) instead of requiring a fresh download from the server. Without caching, your site seems to take forever to load!

Why bother looking at Google Analytics and what is it anyway?

You can’t determine the success of something you don’t measure. Hence the importance of Web Analytics. Google makes it so easy to install tracking code on all your site pages and as long as you don’t mind giving web visitor data to Big Brother’s servers, you have a free and powerful way to analyze monthly visitor trends and patterns.

You can’t determine the
success of something
you don’t measure

Knowing how to evaluate and navigate through the hundreds of “views into your data” available with any good web analytics program can reap you rewards of insights. These can serve as confirmation of both challenges and opportunities available for fine-tuning and adjusting on your website pages.

If you can define at least three business questions, Google Analytics can provide dozens of actionable insights – if you know where and how to look. Comparing standard metrics in current and past months can provide fruitful information that can help you spot trends and take advantage of timely current events and issues.

Befriending Analytics and active involvement with your site content (and any relevant conversations), You can organically grow, in Google’s eyes, your site’s relevance as a topically important and authoritative reference for Google’s main customers – those who consume web content suggested by its search results pages. Paying attention to this will get you noticed by Google and if getting more web traffic is a goal, noticed by Google can be a good thing!

(And remember, there exists Life outside of Google. What unique and golden opportunities are there for you because your competition may have focused solely on Google?)

The post What do you expect to see and experience when you visit a webpage? appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.

In order to have copy that engages people to take action on your product or service offer, here is an effective system:

• Attention – get the reader’s attention with a magnetic headline.
• Interest – Connect with their problem or “pain point”, make it relevant to them.
• Desire – make them “feel the transformation”. How will their situation be positively impacted by your offering? Have them step into that.
• Action – Lead the reader to your “call to action” and make it easy for them to do that.

Attention:

On the average,
five times as many people
read the headline
as read the body copy.

When you have
written your headline,
you have spent eighty cents
out of your dollar.
– David Ogilvy

People are too busy today and if you don’t catch their attention, forget about them reading your webpage, blog and Facebook posts or email.

How can you create a title that captures attention and sounds relevant, not spammy? Your headline, page title or email subject line must answer the question “Why should I invest my time reading further? What’s in it for me?”

What piques
your interest?

Interest:

Peak their interest. Give them somthing that gives pause. If someone slows down when visiting your site, they are more likely to engage in conversation. Will you be willing and able to meet them in conversation?

What is your
Desire Nature?

Desire:

People pay attention and eventually take action, when their Desire Nature has been appealed to. When some part of them is aroused to stay a while longer and see what else ya got.

Tell them what
you want them to do
then make it easy
for them to do that.

Action:

“Calls to action” are powerful and kind ways to tell your site visitors what you want them to do.

After they scan or read your webpage, what would you most like them to do next? What Next Page visited? What action taken?

Try your AIDA skills now by leaving a comment below. Please be courteous and constructive in your feedback and questions – thank you!

The post How to Write Effective Sales Copy | A.I.D.A. Model appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.

When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.
– David Ogilvy

Each webpage has to work for both search engines and people. You need enough on-point copy on a page to highlight strategic keywords for which you wish your site to rank in search results. Even if you show up #1 in Google, your page won’t convert a visitor into a sale if they get bored after the first paragraph.

Before you write a single word of page copy, you must have a goal. What’s this page going to talk about? What action do you want the reader to take if they scan or read the page? What impression and message do you want the reader to remember when they leave this page? How will you know you have been successful in achieving your goals?

Webpage META tags

You should create a clear and concise TITLE and DESCRIPTION statement for each page. Also, write an “intention script”. TITLE is 5-9 words sumarizing what the page is about. It’s also the phrase that shows in many browers at the top, above the address/URL bar. It’s the default phrase describing the link when you Bookmark the page. Most importantly, it’s the clickable first line representing your webpage in a Search engine results page.

The DESCRIPTION is 2-4 short sentences which tell more about what the reader can expect when they click into the page. Often, the DESCRIPTION is the text immediately under the TITLE in your search result listing. Here you can use a couple more keywords to influence the search engines, but more importantly, motivate the viewer to click your link.

KEYWORDS meta tag is no longer considered by Google, since it had been so horribly abused in the past. Never the less, I still find it useful as a sort of “scratch pad” on which I record the most important keyword phrases thsi page should cover. If it’s not on this page, don’t put it in the KEYWORDS list. If there’s something important on the list that doesn’t really fit on the page, create another page/post for that phrase and link it to this page. Your KEYWORDS list can later be harvested to supply CATEGORIES and TAGS  for your individual posts, which will provide alternative ways for people to search your site for things in which they may interest.

The Intention Script describes what you consider the most important parts of your page, what you want the reader to do and what sorts of things you might measure in Google Analytics to measure the success or failure of this page. It can be a simple paragraph or two or even a bullet point outline of what you consider important about this page, how it is relevant to your Buyer Persona person and what you wish them to do next.

Your webpage Needs One and Only One Clear Goal:

So what is your goal for this page or blog post?

1. Can you clearly and simply state one goal for this page in a short paragraph? To many goals water’s down the power and effectiveness of your page and can confuse or frustrate your reader. K.I.S.S.! (Keep it simple, sweetheart!)
2. How is this page different and unique than others on the site?
3. How does it tie in with the overall goal and theme of the site?
4. How does it address the needs, desires and wants of the User Persona you have built for describing your audience?
5. What action are you trying to persuade your readers to take?
6. Is anything on the page distracting visitors from that goal?
7. Is there anything that needs to be added to anticipate “resistance points” to help people move forward through your site to the action you wish them to take?

Capturing interest is more important than being “creative” and clever. Every headline, image, subject line etc. should tie back to your buyer persona and be able to persuade such a person to take action. Be willing to put “innovative copy ideas” aside if they are boring to read. Create, concise, to-the-point copy that is relevant to this person’s interests.

Make your copy personable, believable, conversational, maybe even humorous but certainly relevant. You will only have 6 seconds to capture their interest and get them to read on past the first sentence or paragraph. Deliver a perception of authority and value to this person and you are more likely to convert them into a customer or client.

Exercise:

In your mind’s eye, picture the person you have defined in your Buyer Persona. Imagine they are in the room with you and reacting to the copy you are writing. How would this person react to your content and the layout of this page? Does it make sense to them? Does it answer their questions? Does it provide value? Does it have a clear call to action and make it easy to do that action? Does it reward the person for taking an action? Does it present benefits rather than merely list features? Do any and all images and pictures support rather than detract from the main message and topic of that page?

The post How to design an effective webpage appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.

…thanks for the reports.  Any suggestions based on the info?  I’ve had 0 bookings for January and only one so far for February.  This has never happened before.

How come there is a listing for Catskill yoga retreats?  I am not a good place for yoga retreats because I don’t have indoor space for yoga.

My reply:

Web Marketing Takeaways

Notice that the links above in the very first page paragraph have special Google “UTM tags” included. This way I can view analytics for this client and easily see how many visitors came to her site from my blog post and all sorts of information about their visit! Here’s a handy tool to build your own, customized URL using UTM tags: ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder.

Google’s “freshness factor” is a really important consideration for your website. Creating a profitable web presence is not a one time “set it and forget it” event. It is an organically growing process. You want to create a good relationship with Google and you do this by delivering quality content to its customers that keeps up with changing times and events.

Your Google Analytics reports are a gold mine of information. But like a promising employee, it needs proper care and attention to deliver results for your business. (Check out this post about GA Spamming for important setup information.) Remember you can’t judge the success of something you don’t measure. Regular review of strategic reports is critical to your online success and can make a significant cost savings to any online marketing you may employ.

UTM tagging can help you quickly identify Campaigns in your analytics reporting.

Social Triggers are a tricky topic. Getting referrals and traffic from social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn, Instagram, G+, etc will, no question, increase your traffic and sales.

But this comes at a cost – the cost of participating with and managing those web-social relationships. One needs to think about actual people coming from these social platforms. If you could picture in your mind’s eye an image of an actual semi-fictional person you’d like to interact with, how would you describe that? What is your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? This tool will help you build a user persona profile and USP for your website and business.

And finally, become friends with your blog! Use it to communicate with your audience to give them value. Once you find out what people are searching for and for what your site is being seen, you can always use your blog strategically to gain more exposure for your products and services. Try our Quora.com, Google Trends and other research tools to gain valuable insights, increase your “authority factor” and boost your representation and success online!

Excited but overwhelmed by all the possibilities? Need Help? Contact us to setup a consultation to discuss how to make your site perform better for you. Or download these “Top-10 Tips to Online Success“.

Happy blogging!

The post My Sales Are Down. What can I do? appeared first on JEO Webmaster Services.