Blog

Client Profile

Choose to Love, Inc. Website Launch

I am proud to help announce the launch of a brand new website and non-profit, Choose To Love, Inc. Their mission is to ensure that children of low-income and marginalized communities have a fair chance at achieving their full health and wellness potential.

Have you ever heard the term “social determinants of health?” In a nutshell, it describes all of the things outside of the doctor’s office that play a role in your well being. Everything from school to home cleanliness to regular nutrition. For low-income kids, a lot of times these factors pit them in an uphill battle towards healthy living.

Choose To Love, Inc. aims to change all that. Through community generosity, they will be able to schedule home visits and determine the best course of action for each case. If a child suffers from asthma everything from a new vacuum cleaner to smoking cessation programs could be offered.

Choose To Love, Inc.

It’s a wonderful cause and a message I was proud to help bring to the world through their new logo and website, ChooseToLoveHealth.org. Take a look, learn more about their flagship program, and help spread the word!

Best Practices

LastPass Unveils updated Security Dashboard

LastPass, one of the top password management providers, has given their Security Dashboard a face lift! With this handy tool, you can prioritize maintenance of your passwords and eliminate weak, old, or repeated passwords. The new Security Dashboard is available from a link in the left-hand navigation of your LastPass Vault. It integrates much better into the vault than the previous password checker.

Security score

First, you’ll see an overview of your Security Score from 0-100%. To receive a perfect score:

  • Enable Multifactor Authentication
  • Disable offline access
  • Restrict devices
  • 50 passwords with no old, repeated, or weak

Click on “View passwords” to see an individual evaluation for each. They are grouped into categories requiring attention. You can then filter to focus on Weak, Missing, Reused, or Old. Many larger, popular sites will have an option to auto-update your password. No effort for you! Others may require you to navigate to the site and manually go through their password update process.

Dark web monitoring

Another great feature available is dark web monitoring. Sounds spooky and cybernetic. Really, it just means that any of the email addresses associated with your accounts are added to a monitored list. Any high profile breaches or leaked data will be checked to see if you have been impacted. Most of the time, encrypted data ensures your plain text password remains safe. However, even hashed passwords can sometimes be reverse engineered if they are common or weak. With dark web monitoring, you can change the potentially compromised password immediately (and upgrade it if needed).

Give the new LastPass Security Dashboard a spin. If you haven’t implemented any password management in your life, maybe this is a good time to try their product absolutely free. You’ll see all the benefits a well organized and managed password list can bring!

Best Practices

Yoast Readability Score

The Yoast WordPress Plugin is most known as the most popular SEO tool. But don’t overlook the Readability Score tool included with it. It will make your content easier to read, and could thus indirectly improve the SEO by increasing the number of shares or the time each visitor spends on your site consuming that content.

Readability aspects Yoast checks

  • Subheading distribution. See above. I sectioned off my list of checks with a subheading. That helps you key in faster on the info you want.
  • Flesch Reading Ease. This is a score between 0 and 100 that predicts how easy your content is to read. It looks at both sentence length and also how many polysyllabic words you use. (Using that word is going to hurt my score.)
  • Passive voice. This one is the hardest for me and makes the biggest improvement in my writing when I pay attention to it. “Limiting passive voice can make an improvement in your writing,” sounds better if you say, “Limiting passive voice improves your writing.”
  • Sentence length. Chopping up long, complicated sentences makes consumption faster and easier. If you are targeting a global audience, it is also generally better Global English and makes machine translation more accurate.
  • Paragraph length. Same as dividing up your sentences, giant monolithic blobs of text are hard on the eyes. A few line breaks can help people skim your content and find what they’re looking for more easily.
  • Transition words. I get docked for this one often because I’m not writing narratives. I am often listing technical aspects and don’t use a lot of flourishes like “therefore,” “hence,” or “thus.” Sometimes I ignore this suggestion.
  • Consecutive sentences. If I write like this. If I use repetition. If I don’t vary my sentence structure. If I flagrantly violate the rules. Then you can see why consecutive sentences is a check.

Yoast Readability Score Screenshot

As you type, your readability score will automatically update. You may notice that as you correct one issue, another pops up. Perhaps when you divided that sentence into two, you used passive voice without a transition.

The first time I paid attention to my readability score, I thought it wasn’t helpful. How can automated rules improve my writing. But over time, I’ve come to find it a handy tool. The end result of my articles are often much improved from the first draft just by improving my readability score. Check out the Yoast SEO Plugin if you haven’t before and start taking advantage of the Readability Scores on your website!

Best Practices

Using Permalinks in WordPress

A permalink is exactly what the portmanteau suggests – a permanent link. All WordPress content, whether it’s a post or a page, has a permalink. That lets you easily create internal links and to build a backlink portfolio for SEO. But there are a few tips for making the best use of permalinks.

WordPress General Settings for Posts

Each new post can be assigned a permalink in a few different ways. Navigate to Settings > Permalinks from the main WordPress menu. There you will see options for:

  • Plain /?p=123 (bad choice)
  • Day and name /2020/20/08/sample-post/
  • Month and name /2020/08/sample-post/
  • Numeric /archives/123 (bad choice)
  • Post name /sample-post/
  • Custom Structure

You’ll notice I’ve marked anything that uses numbers to represent your blog posts as a bad choice. The URL can be configured to contain keywords that you want to rank for. Giving up the opportunity to add keywords to your URL is a mistake. Be sure you’ve selected one that uses the post name. On my blog, I use a custom structure of /blog/%postname%/.

Edit a Permalink

In both a post and a page, the Document Settings > Permalink will allow you to edit the permalink after it’s been generated. It will default to the post or page name, forced to lowercase, and separated by dashes. For example: using-permalinks-in-wordpress. If you want to change that, you can do it from the URL Slug under Permalink Document Settings.

Just be careful that you either create a 301 permanent redirect or that you’ve set up your redirect plugin to automatically create redirects when you change a URL Slug. If it’s a brand new piece of content there’s no risk, but if it’s been indexed by Google or linked to by someone else, those links will break when the permalink changes.

Just a few easy settings, and little bit of forethought will have you with attractive, easy to read, high CTR links in Google results!

Best Practices

Volunteer Management System Features

Almost every nonprofit charity lives and dies by its volunteers. As your organization grows, eventually you are going to need to find a way to manage those volunteers. If you find yourself overwhelmed with the task, that’s a great problem to have! Online volunteer management systems, like Volgistics or BetterImpact, come with a host of features to make the life of a coordinator easier.

Reasons to have a volunteer management system

  1. Maintain a single source of truth for volunteer contact information and availability that users can update themselves as needed
  2. Use a centralized communication platform. Your message arrives in print, email, or text format at the preferred recipient address.
  3. Empower volunteers to self-schedule. They can view available time slots, assign or remove themselves, and free you from the task
  4. Recognize, reward, and celebrate milestones in volunteering

After you’ve implemented a volunteer management system, it frees you up for more important tasks. Let volunteers manage their own data and scheduling. You can set up a sign-in kiosk or just auto-crediting hours to individuals. Then you can gamify things like adding badges to name tags or sending out birthday or hour-milestone emails automatically. The benefits of an online, secure, self-service portal definitely justify the cost, so take a look at some options today!

Client Profile

Dallas Hope Charities Collective Hope Coalition

Dallas Hope Charities announced this week the creation of a new LGBTQ suicide prevention program – Dallas Hope Coalition. This is the first of its kind for a couple of reasons.

First, the focus is local. Other resources operate at the national level, but the idea is to keep a focus on Dallas County. Second, they will aim to eliminate or mitigate underlying causes of suicide in addition to intervention or prevention. This includes addressing everything from food insecurity to housing needs. This is especially important for the LGBTQ community who can often find themselves suddenly homeless (and hopeless) if coming out to their families does not go well.

This fits well with the overall mission of Dallas Hope Charities to provide food, shelter, and services that instill dignity, stability, and Hope For All.

To learn more about the Collective Hope Coalition, or to view volunteering or donating opportunities, visit DallasHopeCharities.org.

Graphic Design

Responsive Logo Design

You hear a lot in web design about responsive websites. A responsive website responds to the size of the screen viewing it. It may shift elements, change sizes of text or images, or drop elements completely from smaller phones.

What if you could do the same thing with a responsive logo?

Let’s take an example of Dijon Marketing. If I designed a letterhead or desktop graphic, I might be able to accommodate a very wide aspect ratio.

But as my screen gets smaller, if all I do is make the logo proportionally smaller, it can get harder and harder to distinguish. If you haven’t really considered web applications when originally designing your logo, it can be problematic.

In a responsive logo, much like a responsive website, elements of the logo can move, change size, or disappear altogether. Here’s a better way of displaying the logo on medium and small-width screens:

The brand is still recognizable, but the most identifiable elements stay front and center – and big enough to see!

It’s not too late to reconsider the implementation of your logo to add responsive elements to the display. A quickly recognizable brand means your users or followers will instantly recognize you from web to social platforms.

Best Practices

Don’t cross-post on social media platforms

If you are maintaining multiple social media profiles, it can be enticing to cross-post the exact same message on all at once. And certain social media management tools even explicitly allow/encourage this. But cross-posting can hurt the effectiveness of your social campaigns for a number of reasons.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t post the same message or content, it just needs to be tweaked to perform optimally on each network and avoid errors or follower confusion.

Things to make unique for each platform

  1. Post times. The optimal time to post on each network varies based on the network and your audience. You can use some statistical averages, or use your own analytics and insights to determine the optimal time of day to reach your audience, but chances are it will vary by platform.
  2. @ Mentions. Depending on which other profiles you are tagging or mentioning, the syntax may vary per network. That organization’s usernames may also vary. Or they may not participate in all the same social networks you do. Make sure to customize your @ mentions of other profiles for the network you’re on.
  3. #Hashtags. Hashtag best practices vary by network as well. Whereas Twitter and Instagram rely on them heavily, Facebook was late to the game and they were not intrinsic to the platform. Overuse of hashtags can actually hurt your organic reach on Facebook.
  4. Message length. Twitter is definitely the limiting factor on this one. You don’t necessarily want to cut your captions or messages to Twitter-length on all platforms, so customizing for the allowable length makes sense.
  5. Photo/video aspect ratio. The best sizes and aspect ratios to get the optimal cropping on preview varies by platform. Understand the best size for images and you’ll get better engagement as users scroll past your content. In general, Instagram is the only 1×1 square content.

With minimal extra effort you can take a single message or post and tweak it slightly. That way you can take advantage of the features of each social media platform. And your content can perform optimally on each.

Best Practices

Choose the right #hashtag for your social media post

Hashtags in social media posts serve a few different purposes. They can be funny. They can categorize your content. Or they can extend your reach to a new, larger audience. Knowing your goals can help you select the right mix of hashtags for your social media posts.

Sorry to break it to you, but expert use of hashtags requires some research up front. I like to use a free tool called Ritetag. It will give you some stats on the frequency of use as well as some related tags to consider. Once you find some relevant tags with high volume, take the time to search them on your favorite social media platforms. The last thing you want to do is unwittingly contribute to something unsavory! You never know when a hashtag has a hidden meaning.

Four Categories of Hashtags

I generally divide hashtags into four categories with different objectives.

  1. Branding – It’s great to use your brand name, product name, or something unique to your organization. You may not get a lot of new traffic from it, but it’s a nice addition to posts and can be a fun categorization to review for your users.
    Example: #DijonMarketing
  2. Engagement – Keywords that speak to your message, vision, or calls to action may not drive a LOT of traffic, but the traffic they do drive will be highly engaged and interested in your message.
    Example: #ConnectGoodPeople
  3. Reach – These are the keywords that have tons of posts. With the right message, imagery, and timing, you could gain yourself a much larger audience than without.
    Example: #DigitalMarketing
  4. Event – If you are attending an event, check first to see if they’ve proposed a hashtag for attendees to use. Similarly if you are the host, let your guests know there’s a hashtag to use.
    Example: #MeetAndGreet2020

Choose a couple keywords from each category to get the best mix of eyeballs on your social post. Don’t go overboard though. Nobody likes to see a list of hashtags longer than the post content. Strategic alignment on hashtag strategy will elevate your social media presence to the next level.

Search Engines

COVID-19 impacts on Google My Business

If you use Google My Business for local SEO optimization of your business or charity, there are a couple of things to know about how COVID-19 is impacting the service.

Log in to your Google My Business account and you will see information about how to best update your information linked directly on your home screen, like below.

Google My Business COVID-19

Things to do to your Google My Business during COVID-19

  1. Update your hours. If closed due to social distancing or quarantine, indicate that temporarily or update the hours of operation.
  2. Add new information about your COVID-19 response. If you’ve taken extra measures for safety, indicate that in your business information.
  3. Create a post. Let your users know how long you may be closed or any alternatives like take away versus dine in.
  4. Watch your My Business listing. User input may mark you as closed automatically. If that is not the case, you can remove erroneous information through your console.

Additionally, be aware that Google employees have been impacted the same as everyone else. They have pared down to essential staff and are only supporting reviews and responses from companies that directly impact public health, like doctors and clinics. They are working to prevent the spread of misinformation. You may wait a few weeks before new reviews of your business are posted.

For more information visit Google’s support pages about business impact to Google My Business and limited Google My Business functionality.