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1 October 2015

Talking website wins with Salena Knight

Had a great chat with Salena Knight on her Bringing Business to Retail Podcast where we talk about:

  • affordable ways to get a great website,
  • common mistakes people make with their existing websites,
  • and, I also offer to do a free website review for all her listeners (but you’ll have to listen to get the details).

Listen now at Salena’s website or download the podcast on iTunes.

This article originally appeared on iamnickdavis.com

 

4 September 2015

How to make pretty images happen on all your social media posts

You’ve gone to all the effort to write a blog post, record a podcast or release some other kind of work into the world.

But, for whatever time you spent writing that article, you should be putting in way more time promoting it.

Here’s the truth:

It’s smarter to find another 10,000 people to consume what you’ve already created as opposed to creating more.

Or, in other words, create content 20% of the time. Spend the other 80% of the time promoting what you created.

– Derek Halpern of Social Triggers

Of course there are an almost infinite number of ways to do that and I highly encourage you to try lots of different things and measure the results.

But if you’re regularly posting up content on Facebook and Twitter there’s one small extra ‘trick’ you can do to give your article a greater chance of being seen.

Making sure a beautiful, eye catching image accompanies every post.

And it’s not just about makings things look prettier, Twitter reports that tweets with images in them can get a 35% bump in retweets compared to updates without images.

Here’s how.

Where to find beautiful, eye-catching images

First of all, if your images are horrible go and get yourself some free (and awesome ones) from any of the following sources:

  • Unsplash
  • Gratisography
  • Jay Mantri
  • Stock Up (lets you search across several of these sites)

All of these images are free to use (in terms of cost and copyright). I found the image I’m using for this post via Stock Up.

Once you’ve done that, come back to this post.

How to have beautiful Facebook images

A well formatted Facebook update with a wide, landscape image
Our Facebook goal

We’ve probably all posted links to Facebook before and have an image come up automatically, so why the guide?

Because when you post a link, because sometimes it comes up with:

  • the wrong image, or
  • no image, or
  • an image that is very small and not very exciting.

However I post links to articles I’ve written on Facebook several times a week and now always manage to get the ‘big image’ version to appear (yes, I’m pretty proud of that).

Here’s how to do it from your WordPress blog:

1. Make sure you have an image ready that fits the Facebook guidelines

That means an image that’s:

  1. at least 470 pixels wide (though I recommend wider),
  2. at least 246 pixels tall (though I recommend taller),
  3. should be a landscape image (wider than it is tall, not a picture of an actual landscape).
  4. Finally, the photo the image should be saved as a JPEG (.jpg) or PNG (.png).

Not sure about all of that? As long as the image is landscape, reasonably wide and tall, Facebook should still handle it.

2. Login to your WordPress site

Don’t know how to do this or what your password is? Read this guide.

3. Install and activate the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

If you’re not already using it, I recommend you install the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.

There is a premium version of the plugin, but the free version is good enough for our needs and is designed to keep up with any of the latest changes to how Facebook handles this stuff.

From the WordPress Menu:

  1. Go to Plugins > Add New,
  2. Search for WordPress SEO,
  3. Find and install the plugin by Yoast,
  4. Activate the plugin when prompted.

4. Add your image to your article

Once the WordPress SEO plugin is installed and activated, go to the Edit Post screen of the post you want to an image to in WordPress.

From the WordPress menu:

  1. Go to Posts > [Name of Post]
  2. You should see a Featured Image box on the right side of the page.
  3. If you don’t already have a featured image, go ahead and add one now by clicking Set Featured Image, dragging and dropping your chosen image in and clicking Set featured image again.
  4. Click Update or Publish to update the post (your article must be published for this to work).
  5. (If you do already have a featured image but it’s not up to scratch follow the same steps but just remove the current featured image first).

5. Clearing your website cache

There may be one extra step for WordPress websites that use caching, which is to clear the cache.

(Caching is something which can speed up the speed at which a page loads on your site by storing a copy of each page that’s already ready to use, instead of checking with WordPress what should appear (what’s the title? where should this image go? etc) every time a visitor requests a new copy of that page).

Now there are an awful lot of different caching plugins and solutions for WordPress and I can’t cover every one here except to offer this advice.

If you’re on a premium WordPress host (like WP Engine)…

There’ll probably be be a ‘clear cache’ button somewhere in your WordPress admin or hosting control panel. If you’re not sure just ask their support.

If you’re using a caching plugin…

Simply check the settings for that plugin in your WordPress admin. Check with the plugin author or the plugin’s documentation if you’re not sure where this is handled from.

6. Checking what Facebook sees / clearing Facebook’s cache

Again, sometimes this is unnecessary but if you want to be sure of getting the right image in Facebook, there is one more step, this time outside of WordPress.

  1. Go to: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/
  2. Copy and paste in the link to your article and click Debug
  3. Click ‘Fetch new scrape information’
  4. Scroll down the page and see what Facebook ‘sees’ when it views your post. Under ‘When shared, this is what will be included’ you should see your post with the wide image style like this:
    2015-07-28 at 15.46
  5. If it doesn’t appear that way go back and clear your cache and then try again.
  6. If it’s still not appearing go back and check all the previous steps.
  7. If it’s appearing but the image is too small, your featured image is either not a landscape image or not a landscape image of enough width and/or height. Go back and try a different image size.

7. Post the update already!

Now simply go to the Facebook Group or Page or wherever you want to post your article. Add a few introductory words and paste your article link in.

After a few moments you should get your beautifully formatted Facebook update which you can go ahead and post.

Issues?

For 90%+ of WordPress themes this will be good enough. If you’ve followed all the steps and you’re still not getting the right image you might want to check with your theme author in case their theme handles Featured Images in a different way.

How to have tantalising Twitter images

A well formatted Twitter status update, featuring a full width image
Our Twitter goal

With Twitter, you’ll be pleased to know that there are less steps to achieve the above.

Firstly, though it’s important to understand that depending on which device and application you’re viewing a tweet on you might see an image automatically.

However if you want to be sure that an image will be displayed, it must be uploaded as part of the status update and it must follow a few guidelines, just like on Facebook.

Here’s how it’s done:

  1. Find and crop an image to match the following dimensions
  2. Login to Twitter on your phone or computer (computer is probably easier)
  3. Write out your status update including a link to your article but making sure you leave 23 characters for your image upload
  4. Click the Add Photo icon
  5. Find and upload the image, you should see a small thumbnail of the image (don’t panic that it’s not a full width image at this point).
  6. When you are finished hit Tweet and refresh your feed you should your update with a wide image
  7. If not, you can either delete it quickly and try again or wait till later and have another go.
  8. (If it didn’t work it likely means the image either was not wide enough or the wrong dimensions, e.g. portrait instead).

Anything not clear? Just ask in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to help.

3 September 2015

The top seven ‘7 Day Startup’ WordPress launch themes

In case you didn’t know, ThemeValet was finally (properly) launched as a result of me re-reading Dan Norris’ 7 Day Startup book – in which he lays out a system for launching an idea fast – while on holiday.

And a key part of that book lays out how to use a pre-made WordPress theme to setup a basic WordPress website cheaply, by yourself in order to get your new idea off the ground.

Of course the range of different themes can be overwhelming and it’s also hard to know the quality and support behind the themes if you’ve never used one from that company before.

Fortunately I have a lot of experience in this area, so I’ve made it my task for today to give you some solid recommendations.

For this list, my priority is design and reliability (looks good on all browsers, things don’t break unexpectedly), rather than fancy but ultimately pointless theme features.

The main goal is to create a striking landing page that will help you get your message out. And while we’re more concerned with launching fast, than slowing ourselves down worrying about unnecessary details, design does matter.

So if you can get a great looking site from day one, why not?

Also, to try to give you some variety I’m only going to pick one theme from each ‘theme shop’, though in most cases I could have picked more from each one.

Altitude Pro (by StudioPress)

Altitude Pro WordPress theme

Yes, you’re not doing a double take. This is the launch theme for ThemeValet (i.e. the one you’re viewing now) and has been lucky enough to attract a lot of compliments.

It’s strength undoubtedly is its homepage but it also supports inner pages and blog posts (like this one) too.

Altitude Pro is made by StudioPress, one of the oldest and best theme shops in the game and they have a lot of design talent (in the likes of Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke and Rafal Tomal).

So by picking a StudioPress theme for about $100 or less you can get a great looking modern theme that looks like it could’ve cost way more.

View Demo / Buy Theme

Basis (by The Theme Foundry)

Basis WordPress theme

The Theme Foundry has some fantastic designs, many of them blog focussed but, of all their themes, the Basis theme is probably most appropriate for new product or service launches.

(There’s even an alternate landing page template that comes with it).

View Demo / Buy Theme

Hatch (by Themedy)

Hatch WordPress theme

I have to admit I prefer a site that looks more finished than a countdown version, but I guess it wouldn’t be a list of pre-launch / launch themes without a countdown theme in here somewhere.

Yes, there are a lot of free countdown themes, but I like how the guys of Themedy have done Hatch.

View Demo / Buy Theme

Sprinkle (by Restored 316)

Sprinkle WordPress theme

If you’re looking for a more feminine style for your startup WordPress theme, I recommend checking out the stunning collection of themes by Lauren over at Restored 316.

I could’ve picked out a few different themes but I’ve gone for Sprinkle. It has a variety of homepage widget areas and a prominent subscribe box.

And the design is fantastic.

View Demo / Buy Theme

Storey (by ThemeZilla)

Storey WordPress theme

Made by one of my favourite WordPress designers Orman Clark for his ThemeZilla theme shop, Storey is an elegant theme that could suit all kinds of businesses.

If you like this style of themes I also encourage you to check out Orman’s themes in general because he has a few others in a similar style to this one.

View Demo / Buy Theme

Swank (by Pretty Darn Cute)

Swank WordPress theme

Lindsey Riel over at Pretty Darn Cute has created a lot of great WordPress themes but my favourite is probably Swank.

If you’re looking for a clean, light look for your 7 Day Startup homepage you can’t do much better. It also has an email subscription box and social media links prominently displayed.

View Demo / Buy Theme

Kickstart (by Lean Themes)

Kickstart WordPress theme

And finally, I have to admit more than a little bias here because I’m the co-founder of Lean Themes, but since launching our Kickstart theme we’ve had a lot of praise for it.

Like Altitude Pro it has a lot of homepage widget areas you can play with (to fit almost any kind of content) plus a stronger header image space.

It’s even had praise from the likes of Andrew Warner, interviewer of many startup founders over at Mixergy!

View Demo / Buy Theme

PS Got a favourite theme you want to give a shout out to? Let us know in the comments below (please feel free to include a link to your website if you’re still using the theme on it).

PPS And if you found your perfect ‘7 Day Startup’ launch theme but don’t want to set it yourself, we can do it for you from $99. Just browse our homepage for more details on how it all works or get in touch if you have any questions.

2 September 2015

Set up recurring payments with PayPal for a monthly consulting service on your WordPress website

There are also sorts of complex and clever things you can do with recurring PayPal payments and a WordPress website, like set up a membership site where people only have access to your content as long as their subscription payment is good.

But what if you don’t need something that does all of that?

What if you just want to set up the recurring payment and manually manage everything from there?

Maybe, for instance, you just want to provide some kind of recurring consulting service (e.g. social media management) each month to a client and right now you just want to get things off the ground and set up your recurring payments pronto?

Yes, bootstrappers and hustlers, I have a simple solution for you that will cost you exactly $0 to setup and just a few minutes of your time.

(You can even build in a free trial period too if you want).

The PayPal part

First we’re going to generate some button code that we’re going to copy and paste into WordPress. Here’s how we do it.

Login to PayPal and navigate to the Create a button page

  1. Login to your PayPal account
  2. Go to Tools (in the top menu)
  3. Go to PayPal Buttons
  4. Choose Create a button

Setting up the button

On the following page you should see three steps to creating your button:

Step 1

  1. Set Choose a button type to Subscriptions
    Choosing a button type when setting up a PayPal subscriptions button
  2. Set the Billing amount and the billing cycle that you want (e.g. $25 every month)
    PayPal subscription button billing amount and cycle example
  3. You also have the option of setting a (free) trial period (or even billing for that too if you want)
    Setting a trial period for a PayPal subscription button

Step 1 (additional options)

  • You can set the the billing cycle to stop after so many months / years, if you wish, via the After how many cycles should billing stop? option
  • You can also offer multiple subscription options via the same button under the Customize button > Add a dropdown menu with prices and options

Step 2 (optional)

You can probably skip.

Step 3 (optional, but worth looking at)

To improve your checkout experience, in the Step 3 section I recommend setting up both a cancel page and a success page for completed transactions on your website.

  1. To add a cancel page, check the Take customers to this URL when they cancel their checkout option and paste the URL of the page on your site you want to direct visitors too.
  2. To add a success page, check the Take customers to this URL when they finish checkout option and paste the URL of the page you want to send customers too.

Get your button code

Finally to get the actual button code for your website:

  1. Click Create Button (just after Step 3)
  2. On the next screen hit the Select Code button under the Website tab and then copy this code to your clipboard

The WordPress part

Now we’re going to put this button somewhere on your website.

Adding the button to a post or page

Animated gif showing the process of adding a PayPal button to a website

  1. In a new browser tab, login to your WordPress website
  2. Navigate to the post or page you want to add the button to (or create a new post or page) via the Posts / Pages option in the WordPress main menu
  3. When you’re on the Edit screen of the post or page you want to edit, choose the Text tab next to the Visual tab, scroll down to where you want the button to appear in your text (do a few paragraph returns to make some space if necessary) and paste the button code in there.
  4. When you’re ready click Update or Publish to update or publish your new post or page with the button on it.
  5. You should now see the button on the front end of your site.
  6. (If it doesn’t appear for any reason go back and make sure you copied the entire PayPal code).

Adding the button to your homepage or a sidebar

Depending on your WordPress theme you should also be able to add the button to your homepage or a sidebar, if you wish.

Generally this will be done by pasting the code into something called a widget which can be displayed in certain parts of your WordPress theme (known as ‘widget areas’)

Probably the easiest way to find out if you can do this with your theme or not is to try, so here’s how you do that:

  1. Go to Appearance > Widgets from the WordPress left hand menu
  2. Review the Widget Areas on the right hand side, hopefully they’ll have obvious names like Homepage Top or Primary Sidebar that gives you some idea what each one represents but if not you can use trial and error to figure out which one does what
  3. From the left side of the page (under Available Widgets) drag and drop a ‘Text‘ widget into your chosen widget area on the right.
  4. The widget should now open automatically, you can now paste your button code into the second (larger) field that appears under Title and click Save.
    Where to paste your PayPal button code in a WordPress text widget
  5. If you check the front end of your website now you should see the widget in the appropriate section, if not try a different widget area or if you get really stuck contact the theme shop you bought it from.
  6. (You can add text above or below your button by adding your text in the the same Text widget that you just created, being careful not to overwrite any of the button code, of course).

Questions?

What if the customer wants to cancel later on?

No problem, just tell them to follow the steps here: https://www.paypal.com/gb/webapps/helpcenter/helphub/article/?solutionId=FAQ2145&topicID=&m=ARA

How do I know if a customer cancels a recurring subscription?

PayPal sends you an email.

If I’m offering people a trial period first, couldn’t I just ask them to subscribe later?

Yes, you could, but a word of warning from serial product and course creator Brennan Dunn:

Those who refuse to enter a credit card to start a trial, even after giving them a backdoor option, end up NEVER converting.

— Brennan Dunn (@brennandunn) July 7, 2015

It's taken me way too many years to realize this. Now I just turn them away.

— Brennan Dunn (@brennandunn) July 7, 2015

So if you’re going to offer a trial period, better do it as part of the process of them signing up and of course they can always cancel their subscription before their first payment is taken anyway.

24 April 2015

Adding a buy button to your WordPress website

You have an audience who respects your knowledge. They have problems they need solving. You have product ideas or other ways that you can help them.

You just need a buy button!

This tutorial covers two scenarios for quickly monetising your website, neither should take you more than 10 minutes:

  • Selling a digital download (via Gumroad)
  • Selling your time (via PayPal)

You can always switch to a more sophisticated solution, like those offered by my company eSanctuary, later on.

Selling a digital download

What can you sell with as a digital download?

You’d be surprised. Perhaps you already have something that is useful to your audience.

Amir Khella famously repackaged the templates he used to mock up new product ideas for clients and turned them into a product called Keynotopia which has earned him money ever since.

Maybe there’s an interview or webinar you did which has value. Or some standard process or knowledge you use or form the basis of a product.

If you’ve got an audience, hopefully they’ll already be sharing some of their frustrations and pain points with you so that should give you some ideas.

You don’t have to think of something on the spot, but once you have something you believe will provide value to your audience, it’s never been easier to make a buy button.

Adding a buy button with Gumroad

We’re going to use this method to sell any kind of digital download (PDF, video etc) as long as it’s yours to sell.

  1. Register and login at gumroad.com
  2. In the Products section choose Add a product
  3. Choose Product and then give it a name, a price and then upload the file from your computer. When it’s finished uploading just click Add.
  4. You’ll now have the choice of uploading a description and a cover image. I recommend doing this if you have some artwork (perhaps a photo of you if not?), if not you can do this later.
  5. If you’re ready to sell just choose Publish or Save changes to come back to it later.
  6. (You can also create discount codes or set a unique URL for the product under the Options section if you wish).
  7. To embed a buy button on your website, click Timeline and then Embed this product on your website. Set the product and options you want and then copy the code that appears at the end of the page.
  8. Now return to your WordPress website, login to the admin area (Lost your password or don’t know how to login?) and navigate to the Posts or Pages area depending on whether you want to add the button to a blog post or a page.
  9. Choose the Page or Post you want to edit or create a new page (e.g. eBook), then in the editor part of the screen, make sure you choose the Text tab. Creating a new line for your button, you should now copy and paste the PayPal code onto your new line. This code generates your button.
    Animated gif showing how to paste Gumroad buy button code into a WordPress post
  10. When you’re happy click the Publish or Update button to make your changes your live on the website. Then navigate to that post or page on the front and test the button and you’re done. Now go promote!
  11. (If something didn’t work, make sure you copied and pasted all of the code from Gumroad correctly).

Example Gumroad button:

Buy my product

I also cover selling with Gumroad in more detail in this video.

Selling your time

Perhaps you offer some kind of consulting or you’re a fitness trainer who wants to pre-book classes online.

Whatever you do, if you sell your time and you have an audience you can add a simple buy button to your website and start collecting money today.

Forgot about shopping carts and fancy booking systems. You can email or call them your customer after a purchase to make whatever arrangements you need.

(Sure, you can still do that more complicated e-commerce or membership website later on but why not just get started? Plus, the money you make now will help pay for it).

Adding a buy button with PayPal

In most countries, PayPal will let you take payments from people registered with PayPal or even those who haven’t registered via a credit card.

Customers are sent from your website to the PayPal website to complete their payment, after which both you and the customer will be notified of a successful payment.

You can then follow up via email with the customer to arrange your consulting session.

You can even make different PayPal buttons for different amounts to cover different coaching packages.

  1. Register (if you’re not already) and login to PayPal.com
  2. Choose Tools from the main menu and then PayPal Buttons
  3. Choose Create a button
  4. On the following page, set Button type to Buy Now, add an Item Name (e.g. 90 minute consulting session with Nick Davis) and set a Price in your chosen currency.
  5. (Your options may vary slightly depending on whether you have a Personal or Business PayPal account but your goal here is to just complete the form and generate your button, you can tweak things later).
  6. You’ll now be presented with some code. Copy this or save it to a text file, this is the code you will add to your website to create the button.
  7. Now return to your WordPress website, login to the admin area (Lost your password or don’t know how to login?) and navigate to the Posts or Pages area depending on whether you want to add the button to a blog post or a page.
  8. Choose the Page or Post you want to edit or create a new page (e.g. Consulting), then in the editor part of the screen, make sure you choose the Text tab. Creating a new line for your button, you should now copy and paste the PayPal code onto your new line. This code generates your button.
    Gif animation showing how to add a PayPal button to a WordPress website
  9. When you’re happy click the Publish or Update button to make your changes your live on the website. Then navigate to that post or page on the front end, test the button and you’re done. Now go promote!
  10. (If something didn’t work, make sure you copied and pasted all of the code from PayPal correctly).

Example PayPal button:

Something not clear in the instructions above or got another question? Let me know in the comments below.

This article originally appeared on iamnickdavis.com

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