Solid Stratagems

SEO

Inbound Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Uncategorized, WordPress

Inbound Marketing Resources

INBOUND MARKETING RESOURCES

A growing and updated list of tools, apps, and other resources.

Pre-Startup

NameCheckr: Check domain and username availability across several networks.

Domains, Hosting and Email

Pagely: Managed WordPress hosting in the Amazon cloud.

Synthesis: Hosting optimized for The Genesis Framework by Rainmaker Digital.

WPengine: Blazing fast managed WordPress hosting.

Pantheon: Developer hosting for WordPress and Drupal.

Flywheel: Managed WordPress hosting with phone support.

WhatsMyDNS.net: Global DNS propagation checker.

DNS History: DNS historical record archive.

nexcess.net: A hosting company built for specific CMS including Expression.

GitHub Pages: Host websites from your GitHub repository.

Firebase Hosting: Host static websites with Alphabet powered hosting.

Website Security

Sucuri: Scan your website for malware, it’s free.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

Max CDN: The king of CDN’s.

Website Speed

dotcom-tools: dotcom-tools provides website speed tests from 6 continents and many countries.

img2go.com: a simple app that compresses images without losing any quality of the image.

WordPress

WordPress: The most popular open source CMS.

Is It WordPress: Quickly find out if a site is using WordPress.

Studiopress: Awesome WordPress themes.

Gravatar: Set up your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar).

NinjaForms: Awesome forms for WordPress sites.

Fantasktic: WordPress migration service (Used by WebSynthesis).

Codeable: WordPress developers.

Other Content Management Systems

ExpressionEngine: A content management system.

Learning Management Systems

Udemy: The learning management system with the largest audience.

Thinkific: Create and sell online courses under your own brand.

Content

The Punctuation Guide: A simple clear guide to punctuation.

BuzzSummo: Analyze what content works best for any topic.

Piktochart: An easy to use infographic creator.

SlideShare: View and upload presentations.

Pablo: Create beautiful images that fit all social networks perfectly.

SummoMe: Tools to grow your website’s traffic.

Copyblogger Certified Writers: List of professional writers certified by Copyblogger.

Rainmaker Platform: A content marketing platform starting at $125/month.

Contently: Professional content writing a content marketing agency for brands that don’t want to do it in-house.

Hemingway Editor: Get suggestions that make your writing clear and simple.

VideoScribe: Create your own whiteboard videos.

ScreenFlow: A highly recommended screencasting and video editing software for Mac.

Camtasia: A highly recommended screen recording and editing software for Windows (also available for Mac buy ScreenFlow is recommended for Mac users).

WriterAccess: Hire writers and bloggers.

Hubstaff Content Marketing: Hubstaff’s content marketing service page.

Content Marketing

Triberr: Join a tribe of content writers of the same topic and share each other’s content.

Viral Content Bee: You share other people’s content and they share yours.

Medium: Republish your original content to an audience of 100 million.

Podcasting

Anchor: The easy way to podcast.

MatchMaker: Find podcast hosts or guests.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Marketing (SEM)

Google: Google’s explanation of how search works.

Google: Google’s Scraper Report Tool.

Google Keyword Planner: Use Adwords data (estimates) to plan your keywords.

Google: Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool.

Google: Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.

Google: Think with Google’s mobile speed test.

Google AdWords Help Center: Get all your AdWords questions answered.

Google Legal Support: Get help reporting illegal content on Google.

Opteo: Google Ads management.

KWFinder: Find long tail key phrases with low competition.

Rank Tracking

AccuRanker: Rank tracking.

Website Design

Google: The complete list of Google fonts.

GTmetrix: Get site speed recommendations.

ColorZilla: Great Chrome extension and gradient generator.

Dashicons: The official font for the WordPress admin/dashboard.

Ionicons: The font for the Ionic Framework.

Iconfinder: A fantastic selection of premium icons and some free ones too.

Fontello: Build your own icon fonts.

Pixels: Free stock photos.

Code Validators

HTML Validator: An HTML validator by w3.

CSS Validator: A CSS validator.

PHP Checker: A PHP code checker.

Java Lint: A Java linter.

Photos

Stockvault: A place to quickly get free downloadable images.

StockSnap: An even better place to get free photos.

Unsplash: A great place for free great photos.

Gratisography: Weird high-quality free photos you might not ever use.

Negative Space: Some really nice free photos.

Cut My Pic: Quickly make any photo rounded.

Pixabay: My favorite place for skylines and a lot of other great pictures.

E-commerce

Stripe: Start accepting credit cards in 15 minutes.

payhip: Sell digital downloads, courses, coaching and more.

Recurly: Our favorite recurring payment solution.

Rebilly: A real cool freemium subscription payment startup.

Shopify: Easily make an online store.

Eventbrite: Simple event registration and ticket selling.

Square Appointments: Built for businesses that sell time.

SendOwl: Sell digital products with ease.

E-Signatures

HelloSign: E-signatures simplified.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

Insightly: Insightly is a robust CRM worthy of consideration. Insightly is also an incredible value with a starting package price of $0/user/month for up to two users. The starting package provides a very good set of features and allows companies to really use the CRM before upgrading (if they so choose). Pricing goes up to $129/user/month  for the the unlimited plan with a full set of features.

Pipeline Deals: Pipeline Deals is another great CRM. They offer a free trial, after which, there are two packages – $24/user/month and $48/user/month. If you’re the type who appreciates phone support, you’ll want to consider Pipeline Deals, it’s the only CRM on our favorites list that offers phone support.

Base: Base is yet another great CRM. They also offer a free trial and then you’ll choose a package ranging from $25/user/month up to $125/user/month.

Hubspot: Hubspot is another of our favorites. They offer a limited plan at $0/month with unlimited users but the full set of features costs $2,400/month.

Salesforce: Probably the most popular CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics: The CRM built by Microsoft. Starts at $50 per user per month. There is a “gamification” add-on which helps inbound marketing teams stay motivated and improve productivity.

Zoho: Probably the most popular free CRM.

Infusionsoft: A great CRM for inbound marketing and marketing automation.

Social Media Management & Sharing

Mention: This app alerts you when your brand is being talked about online.

Respond: A brand monitoring tool from Buffer (coming soon).

SharedCount: Check or track url shares or likes.

Hootsuite: Social media management.

RecurPost: Freemium social media management with post recycling.

Buffer: Social media management.

MySocialSuite: Social media management.

Everypost: Social media management.

OnlyWire: Yet another social media management app.

dlvr.it: Connect your WordPress feed to social accounts for automatic sharing.

Warfare Plugins: WordPress plugins that increase social shares.

ManageFlitter: Work faster and smarter with Twitter.

Twitter Card Guide: Twitter’s guide to getting started with cards.

Social Media Sites

Facebook: The most popular. A must for every business. Also great for remarketing purposes.

Twitter: Another must.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is important to every business. Can be used to post employment opportunities and to do a basic background check on applicants.

Pinterest: If your target audience is women this is a good place to be.

Google+: Strongly recommended.

Instagram: Brand profiles projected to be available sometime third quarter 2016.

Foursquare: Can add value, but mostly for food, entertainment, or retail businesses.

GitHub: A place for developers.

YouTube: Your videos should be on here.

Alignable: A local networking app.

Meetup: Get together with others in your community that share your interest.

PR

BitesizePR: Get access to journalists who want to quote and cite you.

H/A/R/O: Help A Reporter Out by getting quoted and cited.

PR Underground: Low-cost press release distribution.

Email Marketing

MailChimp: Email marketing management.

Marketing Automation

Hatchbuck: Simple marketing automation for small business.

Leadsius: Marketing automation for SMB’s.

Jumplead: Nurture website traffic to leads and customers.

Online Courses

The Perfect Promo Video: Udemy’s guide to creating the perfect promo video.

Reviews and Review Management

Google: Google’s instructions on how to give a Google Maps review (from a desktop).

Google: Google’s policy on reviews.

Zurvia: Freemium review management software.

Dashboards

Dasheroo: An affordable dashboard builder.

Databox: Dashboards with 60+ integrations.

Segment: Dashboards with hundreds of integrations.

Klipfolio: Dashboards with hundreds of integrations.

Supermetrics: Application that allows data to connect to Google Studios.

Funnel: Application that connects 300+ sources to Google Studios.

Data Studio: Google’s dashboard application.

Tableau: Popular dashboard builder acquired by salesforce.

Power BI: Microsoft’s data visualization app.

Data Connectors

Supermetrics: Connect the data of your apps.

Adverity: Another data connector.

alightanalytics:  Yet another data connector.

Datorama: A data connector acquired by Salesforce.

Rapid Application Development

Bubble.io: Build apps visually and quickly without any code.

Google App Maker: Google’s low code app builder.

NoCode.tech: The RAD that was used to build internal.io’s onboarding app.

Client Onboarding

Internal.io: Internals tool to help teams manage onboarding clients simply.

Inbound Marketing, Local Business Results, Local Inbound Marketing, Marketing, SEO

What You Need To Know About SEO Before You Start A Local Business

START-UP SEO

I’ve seen it too many times. People start awesome local businesses, but with business names or domains that are not optimized for success. At least not for search engine success. Local searches can add anywhere from up to a million to much more in annual revenue for a local business. So if you’re serious about attracting a lot of local search traffic – this is what you need to get right before you even open your doors.

Quick Note: At a future date I may go more into why each of these tips are crucial. For now, this post is intended to focus more on the suggestions and not dive deeply into the explanations (some of which are common sense and others go deeper down the optimization rabbit hole).

#1 Your “Primary” Business Category Matters (this will be your bread and butter)

When you set up your Google business profile, Google will ask you to select a “primary” business category. This “primary” category is important because the category you choose will be the category Google considers you a local authority in. Here’s what you should know about your primary category before you choose it.

  • It will be your bread and butter.
  • It’s what you want to rank highest in search engines for.
  • It should be what you do better than anybody else.
  • It should be what you’ve perfected (or at least are committed to perfecting).
  • It’s what will get people talking about you.
  • It’s what will get people in the door.

2,395 Categories to Choose From

As of today, Google has 2,395 separate categories for local businesses. If Google has created a category for your type of business, there’s a good chance people search for it. On the other hand, if Google hasn’t created a category for your type of business, you’re probably not starting a business that gets a lot of local search traffic.

Want to take a look at your business category options? Check out the local business category list.

Got it?

Let’s move on.

#2 How to Discover Your Million Dollar Word/Phrase

After you’ve identified your “bread and butter”, it’s time to identify your million dollar word or phrase. This is the word or phrase that people use most often when searching online for a business like yours.

How do you discover such a phrase?

Google Trends.

For example, if you’re starting a “Pest Control Service” (this is Google’s category for pest control companies), you might use Google Trends to compare “pest control”, “exterminator”, “exterminators” and “exterminating”.

Here’s what Google Trends tells us about those four phrases:

The graph is clear. Searches for “Pest Control” outpace all others by a long shot. The two-word phrase “pest control” is the million dollar phrase.

Discover your million dollar phrase with Google Trends.

#3 What Makes An Optimized Business Name

Choosing an optimized business name can have several benefits. Here’s what you need to keep in mind.

Include Your Million Dollar Word/Phrase

Including your million dollar word or phrase in your business name will have lasting search engine and conversion rate benefits. Let’s go back to the pest control example. The name “Orkin Pest Control” will over time be of greater benefit than “Orkin Exterminators”, “Orkin Exterminating” or just plain old “Orkin”.

Optimize The Length

An optimized business name is short, but not too short. More specifically, your name should be between 5 and 15 characters (not including spaces). You’ll learn more about why when you choose your domain name and your handle/vanity URLs (for social profiles).

Make it Easy To Remember and Spell

Don’t make it a name that’s hard to remember or hard to spell. Your direct website traffic and returning website visitors (not to mention referrals) will both be greater if you have a memorable name that’s easy to spell.

Availablity

There is a good chance the business name you want isn’t available. Not only does your business name need to be available but the appropriate domain name and vanity URLs (for social profiles) need to be available too.

You can check if your idea for a business name has an available matching .com domain and social handles/vanity URLs at NameChecker.com

#4 What Makes An Optimized Domain Name

Choose an optimized domain the first time. You’ll be happy you did. Here’s what you need to know about your domain.

It Should Match Your Business Name

By default, this means it will include your million dollar word/phrase, be between 5 and 15 characters (not including the .com), be easy to spell, easy to remember and available.

You’ve Got To Stick With The .com

You’ve got to get yourself a domain name that has an available .com. This means many of the business names you’ve thought up won’t be available (or at least not for $12). The .com will have search engine and conversion benefits.

Make Sure Your Canonical URL is a www. (please do this from the start)

Most websites use the www. For example, the two giants are www.Google.com and www.Facebook.com. But many business owners don’t realize they’ve chosen a non-www. URL as their canonical url. For example, twitter uses twitter.com not www.twitter.com as their canonical URL.

For those who want to go more technical visit my post on www vs. non-www URLs.

#5 The URLs You Use For Your Social Profiles Matter

Good branding means you keep the same handle/permalink/vanity URLs across all of your social profiles. If you use your optimized business name as your social handle/permalink/vanity URL you’ll be happy you did. Your keyword rich business name will result in a lot of relevant links and anchor text.

#6 How to Choose An Optimized Business Address

Choosing an optimized address is very important. You can read my full post about how to choose a business location search engines will love. Here are the criteria for an optimized business location.

  • Within the principal city
  • Right in the sweet spot (visit the post for more on this)
  • A place you can stay
  • An address that is listed on Google Maps
  • The “correct” address structure

#7 Your Phone Number Matters

Your phone number matters! Believe or not Google has actually created profiles for local businesses based only upon a business landline being installed for the business at a particular address. In other words, they’re aware of the business name, address and phone number just based on info the phone company provides. Here’s what you want to do to optimize your phone number.

  • Get a local area code, not a 1-800 number.
  • Stick with a business (not residential) phone line / service provider.
  • If possible, choose a landline (VOIP is not a landline).
  • Be sure your phone company uses your exact address (with the proper structure) on their records.
  • Be sure the phone company lists your exact address (using the proper structure) in their business directory.

Not all phone service providers will meet the above criteria. Usually, in each city, there are only one or maybe two companies that provide business landlines and directory listings. Stick with them.

Quick Tip: You can always use additional VOIP lines for tracking and analytics purposes, but the line that’s listed on your Google profile and other local directories should meet the above requirements.

#8 Permalinks Matter (you gotta get these right the first time)

A permalink is the part of the URL that comes after the domain name. For example, the URL www.Google.com/business has ‘business’ as a permalink. Each URL you create on your business website will gain authority (aka ranking power) over time. When you change the URL you lose the ranking power you’ve earned.

If you have to do this you can create a 301 redirect and pass most of the authority to the new URL, but it is hands down better and less of a headache to get them right the first time!