Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.
In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:
- Content. How to Optimize Your SEO Strategy for Voice Searches
- Design. How to Make Your Website Reader-Friendly
- Technology. 9 Antidotes to the Facebook Algorithm Squeeze
- Strategy. Seven Types of Product You Could Sell From Your Blog
- Bonus. Why Digital Sharecropping Is the Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy
But first …
Last week on Sites
There was no new episode of the Sites podcast last week, but fear not! We’ll be back soon with new episodes … and a new name!
In the meantime, get caught up on the most recent episode if you missed it. It’s Sean Jackson’s conversation with StudioPress founder Brian Gardner.
Listen: WordPress Design Trends for 2018
And now, on to this week’s links …
Content: How to Optimize Your SEO Strategy for Voice Searches
Over the last handful of months, I’ve included a lot of links to helpful articles about voice searches. And for good reason. As you’ll learn here, “One in five searches on a mobile device are voice.” And that number will continue to rise.
As with anything SEO-related, the overarching fundamentals for how you build trust with search engines and start to generate better rankings haven’t really changed. But once you get the basics down, there are some more specific strategies to pursue for success with particular search types, like voice search.
This post highlights several of them, including a great tip on how to rank for featured snippets.
Design: How to Make Your Website Reader-Friendly
You could have the greatest, most perfectly chosen words in the history of the web, but if your website isn’t readable — and doesn’t present those words in a way that visitors can easily absorb — then it won’t matter a lick.
This is why readability is so important. And in this article from Line 25, you will get some useful tips on how to improve your website’s readability.
My favorite:
“Draw attention to certain words or elements through adjusting styles before you try changing fonts. Italicize, underline, or bold words. If you’re looking to draw attention to a whole section, you might want to use a colored background.
Overusing any of these elements will do the opposite of what you want, making the reading experience bland and also making it difficult for a viewer to read.”
Check out the rest:
Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?
Now they can.
Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.
Technology: 9 Antidotes to the Facebook Algorithm Squeeze
So … you may have heard that Facebook is making a significant change to its algorithm.
Basically, Facebook News Feeds will be prioritizing content from your friends (individual people) over content from pages and brands. This was bound to happen at some point, and I think it’s a good change for Facebook users.
While it certainly presents challenges for brands, it doesn’t mean you should jump ship. There are still smart ways to use Facebook to build relationships with your current audience members and attract new people into your realm. (Hopefully you’ve been paying attention over the years to our advice about digital sharecropping!)
This post provides some helpful guidance on how to navigate the new waters at Facebook.
Read at ConvinceAndConvert.com
Strategy: Seven Types of Product You Could Sell From Your Blog
If you’re new to the online content space, and you have a long-term goal of generating revenue from your website, then this article is a must-read for you. It’s written by one of the legends of blogging for business (Darren Rowse), and it includes a breakdown of seven products that you can sell from your website to generate revenue. Six of the products are digital, and one is physical.
Even if you’re a grizzled veteran of online marketing and digital entrepreneurship, I still recommend reading articles like these. Seeing the descriptions of these products on another site, and in another writer’s words, can often jog your imagination in ways it hasn’t been jogged before. Maybe you’ll have a light-bulb moment about a new product you can add to your mix.
And, again, it’s Darren Rowse. You can never go wrong reading Darren Rowse. 😉
Bonus article: Why Digital Sharecropping Is the Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy
Upon further reflection, the link I included in the Technology section to a pertinent Copyblogger article just isn’t enough.
This occasion of Facebook’s unilateral move to change their algorithm on a dime is the perfect opportunity to make a bigger deal about reminding you why digital sharecropping is always, always, always a bad decision — especially if it forms the bulk of your content marketing strategy.
So here’s an oldie, but always a goodie, from Sonia Simone. There is never a wrong time to be reminded of this internet truth.
So …
Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?
I’ll be back with a new edition next week.
Keep building.