Here are a few of my favorite apps to stay connected, organized, and efficient:

Evernote – I use Evernote for everything – from taking notes in meetings to writing down my grocery list.  Evernote allows you to collect notes, photos, and lists in one simple place, organized in notebooks, to be accessed on a desktop, tablet, or phone. I can make a list of blog ideas while I’m sitting in traffic and then bring them up at my desk at work.

Dropbox – Dropbox is a great way to store files and access them whenever you need them. I use Dropbox as my go-to cloud storage service on my laptop, and I love that I can access my files from anywhere with the app, also. Dropbox also allows you to share files and folders with other users, fixing the pesky problem of files being too large to email.

Camera+ – Sometimes a photo you take on your phone just isn’t what you’d like it to be. When it comes to cropping photos, adding effects and borders and other simple editing tools, I love using Camera+. It helps if you want to post a picture to Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ when you’re not at your computer, or just for use in your free time (if you ever get any of that.)

Card Munch – This neat little app, created by LinkedIn, allows you to submit a photo of a contact’s business card, transcribes the card and then hunts them down on LinkedIn so that you can easily connect. You can also save their information to your phone book, saving you time and streamlining the process of networking.

Pages – Social media never stops. That’s why it’s sometimes nice to be able to check your social media profiles on the go or after hours. If you manage a Facebook page, the Pages app lets you update, reply, view new likes, and access your analytics. Combined with apps like Twitter, Google +, and LinkedIn, you can manage all of your networks wherever you go.

Have you ever had to tell a client that a portion of their website is not editable within the WordPress administration? Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is an essential plugin for WordPress theme developers that will give your client more freedom to manage their website and allow you to take control of how the content is displayed.

ACF allows the use of flexible data within your WordPress posts, pages, custom content types, templates and more. Imagebox has been using ACF for more than a year and it has changed the way we create themes for our clients.

Why is this plugin so awesome?

• You can visually create fields
• Create custom fields from multiple input types (text, textarea, WYSIWYG, image, file, page link, post object, relationship, select, checkbox, radio buttons, date picker, true / false, repeater, flexible content, gallery and more to come!)
• Assign your custom fields to multiple edit pages (via custom location rules)
• Uses the native WordPress custom post type and metadata for ease of use and fast processing

In the past, we would program complicated option pages from scratch that wouldn’t always turn out as intended and required an excessive amount of time to implement. ACF provides a great GUI interface for developers to create custom fields to leverage inside of WordPress theme templates, creating the ultimate experience for the client.

What types of fields can I create?

What types of fields do you want to create? The possibilities are endless; ACF provides fields for just about anything, right out of the box. See ACF’s page in the WordPress plugin directory for a complete list.

Could you show me an example of that?

Here are some examples of how we have leveraged the power of ACF:

1. On Kelly-Strayhorn Theater’s website, we are using ACF to help control Events (along with the aid of a Custom Post Type)
2. On Sherwood Oak’s website, we used the Options Page premium add-on to make the websites footer, sidebar content, banner images and logo easily editable in the WordPress admin. The homepage slideshow is also controlled by ACF fields.
3. Iron Bridge Integration’s website uses ACF to make the homepage content blocks editable with WordPress’ default WYSIWYG editor.

The capabilities of ACF are up to your imagination. ACF provides a stable framework for building helpful editable regions for your clients. If you are interested in more advanced tutorials that include code examples, or have any questions regarding the use of ACF do not hesitate to contact me. I would be happy to provide some insight.

Educate Your Clients – As the saying goes, “An educated client is a good client.” By this, of course, I mean that you need to explain how your process works (how things can be done most effectively), and what they can do to help make things go smoothly. I’m not saying that you need to set strict rules that can’t be broken, but rather give them simple guidelines to follow that will help you produce the best product for them. Having a documented system not only shows clients exactly what they need to do, but also it adds credibility to your firm as a whole.

Set Expectations – Similar to educating your clients, setting expectations can help assure that everyone is on the same page throughout the project. While planning out each step in the process isn’t always easy, making sure the client knows when you need feedback keeps the process moving.

This leads me into the third guideline, which is…

Communicate – This cannot be stressed enough! The only true way to make sure something gets done on schedule and budget is having open lines of communication. There’s nothing worse than wasting time trying to guess what a client meant in an email, when you could have easily picked up the phone and asked them to clarify something. Too many times we find that a five-minute phone call can save an hour of unnecessary revisions.

Know Your Team’s Schedule – Clients are ALWAYS going to ask for things on short deadlines, so it’s vital to know what your team can and cannot handle. This includes knowing where every active project is at a given time, as well as each project’s priority level. While every project often seems like it’s the most important, many times you can find extra time with creative priority shifting.

The skills involved in being an effective Project Manager are not developed overnight. But by following these simple guidelines, in time you will find that you’re able to save time and make more clients happy.

Besides these guidelines, what other best practices work for you?

1. Make it Short and Sweet

Most business owners are intimidated by social media because they don’t think they have the time for it. Truth is, it’s more important that you consistently post and reply to commenters. If you have a spare half hour in the morning to drink your coffee and check your email, consider adding an extra 10 minutes for social media. Post something valuable to your customers, and be sure to reply back to any comments and see if there is anything in your newsfeed you would like to share with your customers. You don’t need to spend all day on Facebook, you just need to make it count!

2. Pick Your Channels

Not every business will benefit from all Facebook channels. Businesses that mostly cater to men probably won’t want to create a Facebook page. A lawyer may not exactly benefit from having an Instagram account. Think hard about your customers and the ways in which they like to be reached. Exposure is obviously important, but there is no sense in putting your message out there in a place where your customers won’t be listening.

3. Use Tools

Checking a bunch of social media sites can be frazzling. That’s when it pays to use tools like Hootsuite. Hootsite allows you to post to several social networks all without leaving your Hootsuite dashboard. You can also schedule posts to be posted at a later date. So during your social media and coffee break in the morning, you can schedule posts to go out all day.

One last tip for being a social super hero? Don’t automatically post from Twitter to Facebook, or vice versa. These sites are used in different ways. If you post to Twitter from Facebook, you lose out on the opportunity to use valuable hashtags. Plus, if someone knows you say the exact same thing on Twitter as you do on Facebook, they may choose to ignore you.

You may not receive a medal of honor or a key to the city for managing your small business’s social media presence with ease, but hopefully you’ll see customer engagement and sales rise faster than a speeding bullet.

So now that you know that blogging is important for your business, how do you begin to organize your schedule in order to implement a blogging strategy? Just like any important task on your to-do list, part of getting your blogging done is prioritizing it. Here are a few tips.

Create an editorial calendar

Step one in getting blog posts done when you need them to be? Decide when you need them! At Imagebox, we post blogs three times a week. This week it will be four. Many of our clients post blog posts once a week or once every other week. Pick what fits best for your schedule and your industry.

Once you know how many times you will be posting a week, plan our an editorial calendar either online or printed, and remind yourself who is writing what and when. It will help you stay on schedule and hold yourself accountable.

Block off time for writing

Nothing will ever get done unless you make the time to do it. Block off time in your calendar in order to get your post done. Plan to some somewhere where you can be efficient and have little distraction. Some people write best at their desk, some in an empty conference room, and some on the floor. Choose your method and go there to get in the blogging zone.

Have a coworker hold you accountable

At Imagebox, blogging is a family affair. Everyone takes part in creating content for the blog so that each member of our team can write about their area of expertise. And one great thing about making everyone aware of the blog and blog schedule means that someone else on the team can always push you to remind you to get your post done. Or they can cover for you if you happen to get too overwhelmed with work one week.

In order to make it happen, you just need to have a plan. So start prioritizing and hopefully the posts will flow easily for you. (Maybe you just need a little bit of inspiration?)

Happy blogging!

You Might be Losing Traffic

According to HubSpot, companies that blog get 55% more website visitors and 97% more inbound links to their site. If someone finds the information in your blog post useful, they are more likely to check out your website for even more useful information.

Having a blog with regularly updated content also helps increase your chances of a higher search engine ranking page (SERP), and gives you the opportunity to use long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords are keywords that are more specific and related to a niche topic. For instance, while you might want to rank for “Pittsburgh swimming pools” on your website, you might want to include more specific and less competitive long tail keywords in your blog posts, such as “Pittsburgh above ground swimming pool.”

You Might Lose Credibility

If I am looking for somewhere to get my car repaired, I am probably going to do some research online. If I stumble upon a website with not much more than a phone number and a photo of a popped hood, I have no idea if they know how to fix my problem or not. But if I find a website that includes a blog covering topics like car maintenance, recalls, and DIY fixes, I already know that they are knowledgeable in their field.

Blogging about your industry gives you credibility that can ultimately help you earn business.

You Might be Missing the Opportunity to Perfect Your Tone

While your website copy should reflect your company’s tone and culture, your blog posts can further show customers and potential customers what your business is all about. Content on your site is usually more to the point and lets your customers know who you are, what you do and why they should choose you. Your blog can allow you to get more creative.

Blog posts give you the opportunity to have a conversation with your customers so that they can get to know your brand better.

You Might be Missing the Chance to go Viral

When content is good, the social media savvy are likely to share it. And lately, “social media savvy” covers more people than ever. When you choose not to blog, you also miss out on the chance to have your content shared with others.

Each time we write a post for Imagebox, we share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, also increasing the chances that the content will be shared. With more and more emphasis being put on buying products and services based on their recommendations on social media, it pays to put your name out there.

Part 2

So you’re read this blog post and decided that you want to get into blogging… but aren’t sure how to start or where to pull motivation from? Be sure to check out tomorrow’s follow-up post on how to get on track when it comes to blog

When searching for something in Google recently, have you noticed the tiny headshot next to the results? That means that the author of that blog has set up Google Authorship, tying their Google+ account to their blog and letting the world know, “I wrote this content!”

And, according to the Media Shift blog, some blogs have seen a 15-50% increase in traffic based on their photo showing up in search.

The benefits of Google Authorship are:

• Improved Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings
• Recognition for specific members of your team, rather than just the company as a whole
• Not totally known – Google puts more and more emphasis on Google+ features as time goes on, and we can’t be completely sure of their plans for Authorship

The process of setting up Google Authorship, in theory, is pretty simple.

For Imagebox clients, this is the process they go through in order to get everything set up. You need to have a link to your blog from your Google+ page and a link to your Google+ page from your blog. Don’t have a Google+ account? Actually, if you have a Gmail address, you do!

If you are an Imagebox client, here is what you need to do in order to get set up:

To log in to Google Plus is to log in to your gmail account. Log in to Gmail and click “YourName+” in the top left corner. Then, follow these steps:

• Go to your Google+ page.
• Click “profile” on the left hand side.
• Copy the URL of this page and send it to us via Basecamp. We will do everything within WordPress needed to complete Authorship (but we may need the name and emails of each blog author.)
• Go to this link, type in your email and click “Signup for Authorship”:
• Go to your Google+ profile hover over your photo and click “change profile photo.” Pick the image you would like to show up in search!

When I meet with clients to discuss blogging, they generally have two issues that stand in the way of churning posts out : time and ideas.

While we can save you time by writing posts for you, helping you organize an outline of your ideas and doing some research, we can also help you brainstorm blog post ideas to create buzz about your company and industry. Since it’s Friday, here are a few go-to ideas to get your creative juices flowing for the coming week!

 1. Analyze an interesting article

If something is inspiring to you, there is a chance it will be inspiring to your customers, too. Sharing great articles and giving credit to the site you acquired them from can also be a great way to build your network and build a cross-promotion filled relationship!

2.   Share company news

Business owners are often so busy wearing all of the hats that come with entrepreneurship that they forget to do a little bit of shameless bragging. If your company receives an award, moves or gets spectacular feedback from a customer, let it be known.

3.    Give a great client story

Testimonials of a job well done are always beneficial for you to share with potential customers. But when you can expand a testimonial into a rich story explaining a customer’s problem and how you solved it, you’ll give readers even more to think about as well as add credibility to your name.

4.    Post a video

You don’t need to use your words in each and every blog post. Sometimes videos or infographics can be a much better way to share a particular story.

5.    Interview an employee

Small businesses offer the benefit of interacting on a more personal level. Customers really do like to get to know the people they are buying a product or service from. Do a fun (or serious) interview with some of your employees, giving their back-story and why they love working for you and your company.

6.    Answer a few FAQs

For questions those questions that continuously pop up (but may not need a page of your website dedicated to them) a blog post is a great solution. It gives you the chance to answer a question in detail and invite customers and potential customers to ask more questions for you to address.

7.    Ask your network

Don’t forget to utilize your social networks in order to come up with some great post ideas, too. Simply Tweeting or Posting on Facebook that you want some ideas for your next post can give you engagement through several channels and show customers that you value their input.

8.    Give customers some suggested reading

Because you know your customers and the problems they may be facing that relate to your business’s services, it is sometimes helpful to suggest some extra reading on the topic. You may even want to do a post on your top 5 favorite industry books!

9.    Review an event

Travel writers are successful in part because people enjoy reading about the experiences of others that they may not be able to have on their own. If you go to an interesting industry gala, panel or fun local event, write a blog post about it. And don’t forget to take photos for a post-your blog should be as appealing to look at it as it is to read.

10. Talk about a lesson learned

You know what they say: you learn something new every day. If you learn a great new way to build team morale, a better way to communicate with customers or something less formal, like how to de-stress after a long week at the office, share your experience!

Happy blogging.

With an educational background in journalism, English, and public relations, I’m no stranger to the written word. I would even call it one of my best friends. Before coming to Imagebox, I wrote copy for lawyers on the West Coast, retailers in the East and home good manufacturers somewhere in between. But now most of my time is spent helping small and medium-sized Pittsburgh businesses tell their story.

Here is how the process of content creation and curation works here at Imagebox:

 1. Nice To Meet You

All of our projects begin with an in-person kick-off meeting. This allows us to discuss important details face-to-face and gives you the chance to tell us what you do, why you’re passionate about it and what you want your customers to know. Hearing how you speak in person also helps me get a more accurate tone of writing for your site or print materials.

2. Exchange of Ideas

We’re a creative company. We love big ideas. And we love our clients’ big ideas as much we love our own (sometimes more). You know more about your company than anyone else, so I like to take the time to ask you plenty of questions, not just so that I can get the facts to fill out your content, but so that I can share my ideas with you and soak yours in in return.

We use a project management tool called Basecamp, where most of our communication with clients takes place. Some of our most involved clients have a discussion feed dedicated to thought-provoking articles they’ve read, websites that inspire them, or just thoughts that popped up in their head at 3am.

3. A First Draft

Not everyone decides to make copywriting a part of their website or print project. Some of our clients are talented writers themselves and choose to write the content for their site on their own, relying on us more for editing and to bounce ideas off of.

Regardless of who is writing your content, we work with you to put together a site map, and then turn that site map into a content document. This document includes a page for each page on your site where you or I can write your content. It helps keep everything organized so that we can move on the project efficiently. If you do choose to write content yourself, I am here to answer questions or help you when writer’s block strikes.

4. Fine Tuning

Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian-American novelist, once said, “I have rewritten, often several times, every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”

We take the time to think hard about whether the content we’ve come up with is doing the job it needs to do, and this usually involves multiple editing rounds. During this phase, you usually begin to see near-completed content put into design mock ups, so that you can see how the pieces will look together in the final product.

5. Formatting

Most of our clients’ sites are hosted on WordPress. Once we ‘ve gotten the thumbs up from you on content, it’s time to place that content into the site to see how everything looks. Often, we will need to make formatting changes and last-minute edits in order to make sure the site is ready for launch. Once the design and copy are both complete and combined, it’s time to share your story!

If you have any questions about Imagebox’s content process or just want to hear me tell you why I love working with Pittsburgh business owners, email me at jessica@imagebox.com.

In outdated link building strategies, you could simply use paid links in order to drive more traffic to your site. You could email webmasters and request that they link back. While quality links were taken into consideration, sites with more inbound links often ranked higher, regardless of their quality.

The Content Contrast

Content marketing is different. It’s smart. It’s strategic. It is the act of creating content that is valuable to readers. Where traditional SEO tactics created content that was useful to search engines, content marketing focuses on content that is useful to real people. And content marketing is the new way that marketers are driving warm leads to their site.

So when did link building become last year’s news and content become king?

* Dates and projections are general estimates. Some statistics are not specifically measurable. For illustration purposes only.

Penguin and Panda

The answer is, “When Google said so.” Google frowns upon tactics such as keyword stuffing and unethical link building, and all of this is laid out in their Webmaster Guidelines. Google has wanted sites to put out useful content all along, they just didn’t have a clear plan to make it happen. In February 2011, they decided to crack down on those breaking the rules with a set of changes in their algorithm called “Panda.”

Google said that the goal of Panda was to decrease ranking for low-quality sites. This allowed for improved rankings that WERE providing useful content, or concentrating on a content marketing strategy.

In 2012, the next round of changes, called “Penguin,” were rolled out, further penalizing marketers using poor SEO tactics to drive traffic, like the manipulation of search engine indexes for a higher ranking. Panda and Penguin are updated regularly, which is why it is important to keep up to date with what is working when it comes to SEO.

And right now, content marketing is working.

New Ways to Measure

Links are still important to SEO – but it’s the links that point to your site because you’re sharing great content that help you in rankings. However, there a lot of other factors that are important to Google and its algorithms.

With more people than ever sharing their opinions on social media, it pays to have sharable content. Google is now taking into consideration how many times people are sharing your posts, especially on Google+. In fact, you now see someone’s Google+ photo right on the Google search page when someone enables Google Authorship. And your search results can differ depending on content those in your circles have posted.

Once you get a lead to your site, the measurement isn’t over yet. Google Analytics gives you a plethora of information about their activity on your site – information you can use to change your strategy. This includes things like the time spent on your site, time spent on individual pages, and more. Google Analytics is regularly updated, and many of the factors it measures weren’t even considered a few years ago.

Blog Your Way Up the Rankings

A perfect way to regularly provide useful content that will help you rank in search engines and become a thought leader in your industry is by blogging. Social share buttons and comment sections make this kind of content ultra-sharable and easy to engage customers with.

Writing blog posts that are keyword rich and topical to your customers is an important part of a successful content marketing strategy. All it takes is a little bit of time to get into your customers’ heads. One useful exercise is creating personas of your readers, giving them a background story so that you can more clearly write to your audience.

Looking at the list of keywords you want to rank for is also good practice when trying to think of a blog topic. Knowing which words you want to focus on ahead of time will help you weave them into your post more easily. And once you’ve got a blogging strategy down, it’s important to blog actively. Having a well-updated blog will keep you relevant in search engines.

A New Plan of Attack

There are a lot of factors that affect your search rankings, and the rules change daily. But the need for good, relevant content will always be there. Having a content marketing strategy that includes great content that will encourage people to link and share your content, as well as an SEO plan with well thought out keywords and strategy will get you far.

It’s about more than just links now: it’s about content.