Best Practices Archives | Page 3 of 6

URL Shorteners and a free alternative

February 22, 2022

URL shorteners like Bitly are useful for a couple of reasons. The first is the most obvious. You can take a very long URL, and replace it with a much shorter one. You might need to do this in order to fit better into something like a tweet.

Another good thing about shortened URLs is that you can embed your tracking in a “wrapped” URL that might otherwise look ugly, but is hidden within the shortened URL right along with the destination URL. This can help you track which of your links or social networks are driving the most traffic to your site, and ultimately the most conversions to see which tactics are working the best.

If you swing for a custom URL shortener, then you don’t sacrifice being able to brand your shortened URLS. The downside is that those cost money. If you don’t have a branded shortener, you could also create your own shorter URLs using 301 redirects on your side. This allows you to have attractive, easy-to-remember URLs that are good for print ads or posters for people to remember later. Think something like

dijonmarketing.com/urls

that redirects the user to

https://www.dijonmarketing.com/blog/url-shorteners-and-a-free-alternative/?utm_source=dijon-marketing&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=url-shortener-blog&utm_id=url-shortners

SEO trend in 2022

January 1, 2022

Happy New Year! And welcome to the year 2022! As usual, a new year brings up question – what’s the latest trend in SEO this year? And as with most years, I balk at the use of the word “trend” as SEO isn’t trendy. It’s the long game. A set of tried and true principles that while they do change, should be more building upon the knowledge of the past, not swinging between the latest hip recommendation.

Google has a great way of summing up their foundational approach to search rankings: EAT. EAT is an acronym that stands for:

Expertise – Write about what you know. Be the expert such that people would likely want to hear what you have to say on your chose topic.
Authority – This is the traditional off-page SEO practice of building up your website reputation in the way of backlinks from other reputable sites related to your target keywords.
Trustworthiness – Any accolades you’ve received from third party organizations help with trustworthiness, although just being transparent with who the author is and what credentials they have can be a great starting point.

Looking at these three pillars of ranking credentials you can see how they needn’t change from year to year based on the latest technology or evolving ranking patterns. They remain true from year to year and any minor nuanced change to your technical implementation of your site is really aside from trying to make sure you tick these three boxes.

Sorry to disappoint, but my top SEO trend for 2022 is the same as every year prior – there are no trends. Keep creating great content people want to read and the rest are just details!

When to use a QR code

December 12, 2021

QR codes (or quick response codes) are similar to bar codes, but arranged in a square pattern. They are faster for readers to process and can hold much more information in a much smaller footprint. While they’re not new, they have ebbed and flowed in terms of popularity throughout the years. There is temptation sometimes to slap a QR code on everything, but when is it really best to employ a QR code?

To encode LOTS of data

My biggest aversion to QR codes is that humans can’t read them. And while most of us carry around a smartphone that doubles as a QR code scanner, not everybody does. If I purchased a billboard advertisement for Dijon Marketing, I would just put “dijonmarketing.com” at the bottom. That way everyone could read it, remember it, and Google it. I always argue against QR codes for encoding simple, short, memorable data.

If, however, I wanted to send you directly to a targeted advertising landing page, that might have a very long and confusing address. Or if I’m really doing things right, I have probably wrapped that complex URL with even more complex tracking codes. And maybe I then used a URL shortener in addition, making it even less human-friendly. In that case, I might employ a QR code that users could scan, but still put my domain along the bottom for those that don’t want to.

To link to a static location

I would also caution against creating QR codes that link directly to a very specific location. Think about the life of a QR code on a sticker somewhere. It may long outlast our current URL structure. If things change, it’s best to have your QR codes all pointing to easy to maintain addresses. You could employ 301 redirects to jump users from a generic QR landing page directly to the long/complex address you want them to find. If you plan to have lots of different QR codes then having an organizational structure around their destinations will make your life much easier in a few years when you need to make major changes to either your website or your messaging.

To be a little playful

One of the great things about QR codes is that aside from a few key requirements, they can be largely customized. Colors can be adjusted. Logos can be embedded. And if you don’t mind alienating a small subset of people who aren’t carrying a phone, it can be enticing to want to scan the code to see what lies behind. Maybe it’s a menu, maybe it’s a 50% off coupon. Maybe it’s on the side of a building 20 blocks away but I can still scan it with my phone. In that case they are a cool, techy marketing tool to drive a little bit of interest with the little bit of inherent mystery that comes with them.

Now that you’ve got some boundaries about when to use a QR code, try some of these free online generators:

Acronym Check! Helpful Marketing terms and descriptions

November 6, 2021

In digital marketing, as with any industry, a certain jargon gets entrenched in every day conversations. You may find yourself nodding along wishing there was a dictionary you could reference not only to know what the many, many acronyms stand for – but what they mean. Well look no further!

AWQL – Adwords Query Language – Within Google Ads (previously Adwords) there is a proprietary set of function calls riding on top of traditional SQL (Structured Query Language) that allows you to perform some pretty cool and powerful reporting actions.
CPC – Cost Per Click – this describes the amount of money you pay each time your advertisement is clicked on a search engine results page.
CSS – Cascading Style Sheet – this is a file format for setting styles on a website. Everything from the page layout to the font, sizes, and colors, can be controlled centrally from the CSS file. Different styles can “cascade” down to members and children of different classes or identifiers.
CTA – Call To Action – once someone arrives on your site either from an organic listing or a paid ad, there’s usually something you want them to do. Either purchase an item, make a donation, download a whitepaper. A call to action is typically a big, bold, brightly colored button with command language directing your visitor to perform the desired action.
CTR – Click Through Ratio – for search marketing ads, there are a lot of different metrics to consider, but how often that ad generates a click through to your website is one of the main ones to monitor. This ratio is typically reporting on clicks divided by impressions (or how many times your ad was seen).
DNS – Domain Name System – when you typed dijonmarketing.com into your websites address bar, it was a DNS server that returned the actual IP address of my website’s server. DNS translates human-friendly names into computer-friendly addresses. DNS can also host text records for things like verifying Google Search Console or Facebook page ownership.
PPC – Pay Per Click – This describes one specific advertising payment format, though sometimes industry professionals will refer to the entire practice of search engine paid advertising as PPC ads. Strictly speaking, this is only applicable if you pay per click and not per impression, for example.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization – this refers specifically to the best practices employed by website owners and marketers to indirectly influence your sites rank on search engines like Google or Bing. Ranking higher on the search results page means lots more clicks which can lead to more sales or conversions.
SERP – Search Engine Results Page – after you’ve entered your search query on Google or Bing, the list of top results is sometimes referred to as a SERP. The SERP can also contain ads, local results, images, videos, etc. Owning more of the SERP helps you get more eyeballs onto your site.
TLD – Top Level Domain – some discussion of domains and URL structure will refer to the Top Level Domain. Examples are .com, .org, .net. There are also country code TLDs called ccTLD like .fr (France), .co.uk (United Kingdom).
UI/UX – User Interface/User Experience – these are often used together but can also stand alone as separate practices. The User Interface typically describes how your website looks. The User Experience is how a visitor interacts. Creating an attractive and frictionless experience will greatly increase your conversion rates.

What is a WordPress Child Theme?

September 15, 2021

There is typically only so far you can go with the adjustable attributes of an existing WordPress theme. Eventually, almost all developers find themselves needing at least small tweaks to what was provided. While WordPress is open source and any theme you’ve downloaded is perfectly open to be edited, doing so is not a best practice. Instead, a child theme is the preferred way to adjust a theme.

The advantage of a child theme is that it lives separate from the source files of the parent theme. That means when a new update gets pushed out all of your edits won’t disappear. That could be a very bad thing to have your customizations overwritten every time the theme is updated.

A child theme could be 100% exactly the same as the parent (though, then you wouldn’t need the child). It can have minor adjustments from the parent. Or it could be wildly different just using the parent as a framework. Regardless of how different it is, preserving even small changes will keep you from wasted time.

Basically any file that exists in the child theme will overwrite what is in the parent. That means you may have just one file in your child theme and WordPress will know you want to use all of the other files directly from the parent. The exception is functions.php, which will run in conjunction with the parent, not instead. So if you needed to add just one function that is an easy way to do it.

There is a specific syntax required for the child style.css file. This is what links the child to the parent. You can see more about exactly what that file must contain in the WordPress Developer Help Files.

The next time you find a theme that does ALMOST everything you want if only it had one minor change, you will know to ask around to find someone who can help you develop a child theme for the most robust and technically preferable way to get exactly what you need.

Continuing education with Udemy

August 8, 2021

One of the best things we can do for ourselves, our careers, and our hobbies, is to be continuously learning. And one of the best places to do this is at Udemy.com.

I will start by saying that this is not a sponsored blog post. I’m not affiliated or compensated by Udemy in any way. I’ve just found their platform to be filled with fantastic eLearning content. And trust me, I am extremely critical when it comes to bad content being mislabeled as “eLearning” when it is, in fact, recorded webinars.

I have taken two courses so far with prices ranging from $12-$19, they certainly don’t break the bank. They are split into manageable chapters so I can keep track of my progress while spending an hour here, 30 minutes there. They come with instructor led videos, downloadable assets, and self-paced content.

One thing I am especially guilty of is learning something, and then mentally checking it off. Javascript, CSS, web design, WordPress – check, check check. While all around me things are changing, new features are added, new best practices are shared. And if I stay stagnant, stubbornly doing things “the old way” the only one who suffers is me. So I’ve pledged to spend this year taking courses over topics I feel like I already know well. Honing my skills or finding new shortcuts to success is my goal. But as soon as I run out of courses in that effort, I’ll start picking new ones to learn.

With over 155,000 courses to choose from, there is definitely something for everybody. Check it out today!

Consistent Branding Through Hex Color Codes

June 15, 2021

Let’s say you created an awesome logo. Something like this:

The color palette used in your logo can inform the entire brand story from websites to print materials to PowerPoint presentations. You could approximate the colors by eye, but the key to doing it right is knowing your hex color codes. Take a look at Hex color codes explained for info on what a color code is. Here we’ll talk about how to use them.

In the awesome logo above, we have three colors:

Yellow #FFD400
Purple #7F3B96
Pink #E9529D

These three codes should now be part of your brand book. They should be shared with all employees who might be making banners for an event or ordering T-shirts for your volunteers. Getting the color exactly right will tie together your brand even tighter.

In Microsoft Office products like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, you can choose custom font and background colors. In the color dialogue, choose More Colors > Custom. There you’ll have the option to choose a color, input RGB values, or paste the hex codes from your brand book.

You can save them as templates and distribute them to your team to help everyone stay on brand.

What is progressive profiling?

May 28, 2021

Progressive profiling is a method for building a robust and complete customer database. You may want to know lots of different bits of info about user, customer, donor, or volunteer. Examples are email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, interests, open schedule times, and more.

Imagine the first touch point you have with an organization. You like their message and would like to stay in touch. So you click to join their mailing list. Only, before you can click “submit” you have to fill out 2 pages of information about yourself. What’s the most likely outcome of that scenario? Your users will give up halfway through the process and you’ll miss out on a new email recipient. This could be considered friction in the process. Asking for too much data up front will result in you getting no data at all.

The only thing you need to know in order to add someone to your mailing list is their email address. If they are willing to give it, then take it and move on. You can then progressively profile them for the remaining information.

In order to sign up for an open volunteer position they need to provide their first and last name associated with their email address.
The first time they log into your Volunteer Management software, a pop up asks them for their cell phone number.
Send an email 3 weeks after they’ve signed up asking them to populate their physical address to receive snail mail.

The basic idea is to take what you can get. Require only what is absolutely necessary. And never miss an opportunity to ask for more while making it easy to add just one additional piece of data at each touch point. What you’ll find by asking for less is … you get more!

What are render-blocking resources?

April 24, 2021

If you’ve run a speed test on your website, you may find that one of the biggest contributors to slow load speed are render-blocking resources. But what are render-blocking resources? And more importantly, how can you minimize them to help speed up your website’s load times?

Which resources block rendering?

Any file that needs to load, but does so before the page has finished rendering is render-blocking. Rendering just means that the page becomes visible and is ready for interaction with menus and links. If the site is busy downloading a file before it begins to paint the picture of the final website, then that produces a poor user experience. Our attention span has become so short that even a load time of a few seconds can feel like an eternity.

Imagine you are preparing to bake a pie using a recipe. If the first step of that recipe says, “Refer to Chapter 2 for a basic pie crust,” then you must leave the recipe to go read the reference. While you are doing that, the recipe will not progress. But it may be a critical step to the finished product. If you skip the step you’ll have a pie tin full of filling. If you wait until the end of the recipe, you’ll have the crust sitting on top of the filling. So it’s not always guaranteed that render-blocking resources are unnecessary.

What can you do to mitigate the impact?

Evaluate each file that is being loaded. In many cases, the render-blocking files are not even used by the finished page. In this case, it’s an obvious benefit to remove the files. If you’re using WordPress, a lot of plugins will come with their own CSS style sheets or JavaScript files. Even if you deactivate a plugin, it may not remove all of the files from the page load. Determine which plugins can be removed, and deactivate and delete them.

In some cases, render-blocking content is absolutely necessary. In that case, all you can do is try to keep the number o files to a minimum. You can also “minimize” the files, which removes all white space, comments, and makes certain functions and loops use fewer characters. Reducing the kB size of the file will make it download faster.

You can also keep the files just as they are, but load them last. Moving certain file references from the header to the footer means the whole page will load first, and only after it is almost entirely finished will it load the footer. Depending on the file, this may be perfectly acceptable. Your page could take 20 seconds to fully load, but if all of the visual and interactive elements are available after 1 second, then your load speeds are good.

Check out the blog on Measuring load speeds with Google PageSpeed Insights to see if render-blocking resources are a problem for your site. Faster load speeds can not only delight your users, but can have indirect benefits like better SEO ranking.

Measure load speeds with Google PageSpeed Insights

April 4, 2021

Load speeds for your website are an important metric to be aware of. The most obvious impact of a slow site is frustrated users – especially on mobile devices. However, it can also create a technical debt that can be difficult to overcome. Search engine crawlers aren’t going to wait around for your site to load so they can crawl and index it. That will indirectly impact your SEO ranking and could lead to less organic traffic over time.

Be aware of site load speeds

There are two free tools from Google that can tell you about your site’s load speeds: Google Analytics and Google PageSpeed Insights. I like to start in Google Analytics, because you can see aggregate data over time for each and every page of your site. It might be that you have a fast home page, but a very slow blog archive. Google Analytics will also link directly to PageSpeed Insights suggestions.

Navigate using the left-hand main menu to Behavior > Site Speed > Page Timings. Here you can look for any problem child in your entire site and start your focus there. First, the average load time for all pages is show at the top of the chart. Then each page is assigned a bar chart for its deviation from the average. The red bars show the slower page and what percentage above average they took to load. This is accumulated for all users over a period of time, so may not perfectly represent a single load experience you may have had.

Average Page Load Time compared to site average

Get more detailed data on load speeds

The menu item just after “Page Timings” is “Speed Suggestions.” If you’ve determined that you have a page with a load speed problem, this is the next place to go to view suggestions. The link for suggestions will actually take you to a new window loaded with PageSpeed Insights. So you could skip right to there from the beginning if you already know you have some slow pages. Here you will see more detailed information about some timing measurements.

First Contentful Paint (FCP) – how long it takes your site to go from a blank screen to the user seeing something
First Input Delay (FID) – any delay between a user interacting with an element, say clicking a button, and the page being ready to respond
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – basically how long it takes your site to look good and as if its finished loading (even if maybe it’s still doing some work in the background)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – how much do items move around on the page as they are being loaded

There may be no problems with the perception of your load speed, and often times, perception is reality. Take a look at these advanced measurements and look forward to another blog describing some common problems and things you can do to speed things up!