Lightning Talks: Blogger Basics (Bey, Haden, Hockley)

Talking to Robots by Josepha Hayden

Official description:

The most important first step to writing for the web is understanding that you will forever be writing to dual audiences. Join Josepha for a look at what to do, and not do, when it comes to optimizing your content for search engines.

My notes:

• Writing for dual audiences
• Five in five
• Peeps (consumers) vs bots (search engine bots)
• Only onsite today
• Writing to peeps:
  1. Use keywords in a natural way
  2. Identify the person you’re writing to. Build a persona. Name them.
  3. Install analytics and use them. Not just volume, keyword reports, top content
  4. Write at an eight grade level. Not fifth grade level, like news organizations do now.
  5. Build a content strategy. Editorial calendar, including third party channels, where you will market the post.
• Writing for bots
  1. Use varied keywords: 50 and their permutations. Not more, but it gives them context
  2. Fresh content attracts robots
  3. Inbound and Outbound links are important. controversial, because of people game them
  4. Don’t use deceptive keywords. you are flagged as less quality
  5. Insist on flawless grammar and punctuation.
• Don’t be a piece of writing that you already have and replace keywords in them

Smarter Shopping Carts by Pamela Bey

Official description:

Is shopping on your site user friendly? Are you losing people because your checkout process is too complicated. Creating a delightful shopping experience can increase your sales by more than 50% and build customer loyalty. Whether you’re a blogger looking to generate more revenue for your writing or selling products, Pamela explains how to increase the income on your site by creating a great user experience.

My notes:

• We shop online, because it is convenient
• No lines or bad weather, parking not an issue
• Times when it is not convenient. Undelightful experience
• 67.44% people abandon carts – Baymard Institute stud in 2012
• controllable reasons for abandoning: presented with unexpected cost, slowness,
• There are uncontrollable ones too
• 1. No one likes unexpected costs: $4.99 item with $14.95 shipping
• Overseas shipping twice the price of the product quick delivery
• Re-stocking fee
• Put the sipping cost up front
• 2. Clean layout and buy buttons
• White space to show what to purchase. Loud buy buttons
• 3. Trust signals – for security
• 4. Easy purchasing for 1st and return buyers

More Than 1,000 Words: Power User WordPress Photo Tips by Aaron Hockley

Official description:

Learn how to better use photography on your website in this fast-paced tour of WordPress image tips. Get the most out of the built-in features in WordPress, learn how to select and prepare images for the web, and discover how strong photography can help your website.

My notes:

• You can embed a photo in WP from another site without any code
• Grab flicks, instagram, imgur… URL and paste it into a blank line in the post (oembed)
• Where to find photos for your website. Take a lot of photos and use on your site
• Flickr and 500px has pictures available for use. Use attribution.
• Use stockphotos for a few $
• Changing themes may change sizes of photos. use the “regenerate thumbnails” plugin
• If you forget to set the featured image  use the “featured image reminder” plugin
• Retina devices, higher dpi: use the “WP retina 2x” plugin to resize them
• Cropping the thumbnail to the center is not ideal, but is the default: use the  “my eyes are up here” plugin
• Check out wp-photographers.com