The Dos and Don’ts of a Retreat Booking Process

The Dos and Don’ts of a Retreat Booking Process

Your website’s retreat booking process is crucial to getting more bookings. Watch this video to learn the dos and don’ts of creating a smooth and seamless booking process.

Transcription:

(Note: I recommend watching the above video with captions if you don’t want sound. However, if you prefer to read, here is the transcription of what is covered in the video)

Let’s talk about the one small but crucial tweak that will make or break your ability to make bookings online. It is the booking or checkout experience. You need to make it super simple for me or a visitor to book or get in contact with you, like really, really easy.

Eliminate the unnecessary. And when you think of the checkout experience, do not just think it’s for buying a product online. You know, as such as on, on an eCommerce website such as Amazon, there is a place for this whole checkout and booking experience for your retreat. You need to have the easiest, fastest, and most simplistic booking experience possible because how often have you experienced a bad checkout process and given up and never gone back and completed the purchase?

It is the same with your website.

Here are the booking experience, dos and don’ts.

Do have retreat package prices, payment plans, and dates on your website and even through your booking process so people know exactly what they are booking.

Have an instantly book on your website button so that they don’t have to reach out if people already to make a booking already.

Now we need to make it easy, so have a really nice clear button book Now, reserve your space. You know, something like, Also add more payment options, the more the better in this instance. So you could add Apple Pay, credit card, PayPal, and so on, because if you are reaching people internationally, they are used to different payment systems.

So make it easy for them, give them an option that they feel comfortable with, and it’s then more seamless for them to actually make the book. Again, I reiterate, make it simple and reduce your feels. Have the minimum feels that you need on your booking form. That leads me to the don’t. Don’t use old payment methods to accept payment such as the check system or bank transfers, because what you’re doing, you are giving extra steps to the person who wants to book with you and you have no control on, let’s say their own bank system.

If they have to do a transfer, an eft, they might have problems with their booking system or payment system, so you have no control over. So please eliminate that if you can. If people then request to do an EFT or transfer, sure, then give them the option. But when you want bookings direct on your website, don’t have it there.

and then don’t ask for more information that is needed at the time of booking. Many times I see a booking form that is asking, What are your allergies? Do you need pickups from the airport? And so on. At this stage, when you want somebody to make a booking, a reservation, you don’t need that information.

That can come later. You just need the name, email, telephone number. and that’s it. And then they need to pay. And then once payment has been received, do you send a form requesting if they’ve got any allergies, if they need pickup or any other special requests? So reduce the number of form fields. Now have a think of your checkout experience on your own retreat website.

Do you think it has a seamless and simple booking experie? Or doesn’t it? Let me know in the comments below if you feel that yes, you’ve it pretty much you’ve ticked all the dos and you’re definitely not doing the don’ts, let me know in the comments. But if you feel that it’s not a great experience, let me know below as well.

What do you feel is missing? And I hope this video can help you minimize the friction that people feel when they try a book on yours.

I’m a firm believer that systems and processes save us time and give us clarity to move our businesses forward, and that is why I created the Retreat Marketing Master Checklist to give you a complete overview of everything on my to-do list when promoting a retreat from 90, 60, 30 days before the retreat starts.

Plus what you should be. During and after the event too. So when you use this master checklist in promoting your retreat, you’ll know what to do and when to do it. You can download it for free below.

How to Write a Blog Post For Your Retreat Website From Start to Finish

How to Write a Blog Post For Your Retreat Website From Start to Finish

In this video, I’m going to share with you how I write a blog post for my retreat clients. You have probably noticed when reading blogs that they follow a similar format… And it’s not out of a coincidence. It’s for a reason. Because that formula works, gets traffic and saves time!

When it comes to promoting your retreat, blogging plays an integral part because it generates traffic to your website and makes Google happy which in turn improves your ranking.  But if you don’t have a rinse and repeat process when publishing your blogs then you give up, get distracted and get overwhelmed.  You never really gain traction and 6 months later you are right where you started.

Marketing systems and processes help you stay on track, and consistent and save you time! 

Today I’m going to share my process for a perfect blog post. 

Transcription:

(Note: I recommend watching the above video with captions if you don’t want sound. However, if you prefer to read, here is the transcription of what is covered in the video)

You’ve probably noticed when reading blogs that they follow a similar format, and it’s not a coincidence. It’s for a reason because that formula works, gets traffic and saves time when it comes to promoting your retreat, blogging plays an integral part because it generates traffic to your website, and makes Google happy, which in turn improves your ranking.

Marketing systems and processes and templates help you stay on track and consistent and save your time. So today I’m going to share my process. For Pay Perfect blog post. Hi, if you’re new here, I’m Tiffany, and I’m an online marketing strategist and systems creator. On this channel, I share all of my best tips and strategies for marketing retreats.

So if you are a retreat leader or aspiring retreat leader, make sure you subscribe below. And if you like this video, give you the thumbs up and share it with your friends and co. Right. Let’s get started. So first of all, you need to figure out what topic you’re going to be writing about. There’s no use in writing about something that nobody’s searching for, so it needs to be something that people are actively looking for in Google.

So there’s several ways to find out what this topic should be. The first one would be ask your clients. , ask your retreat goers from previous uh, retreats. What are they needing? What are they they’re struggling with? What are their questions? And just keep a running list of that so you can reference back.

So that’s the first way. Secondly, you could go and ask Google itself through go Google populate, Google , Google Populate, And it’s as simply as going into Google itself and typing. What are the benefits of retreats of a retreat? So this dropdown that automatically comes up when you type out, um, a query are what people actually typing in and variations of this particular topic.

So you go, what are the benefits of a retreat? What are the benefits of a silent retreat? So if that’s what you’re gonna be doing, the people actually typing this in. So that would be a good topic to start. , one of the benefits of company treats, yoga retreats and so on. So you could look at it that way. So if you press enter, you will see what comes up.

Gives you an idea of what people are searching for. At the bottom, you got related searches, so they will give you other variations of what somebody is typing in. You could click click into one of those and also look at people also. And just give you ideas on topics. Once you’ve decided on what topic you’re going to be writing on, you need to choose a focus keyword.

What is a focus keyword? A keyword is basically what somebody types in to Google. A key phrase. A key word is all pretty much similar, and you want to choose something that people are typing in. So for example, what are the benefits on going on a silent retreat, if that’s what you’re going to be offering.

You want to have that in your title, in your introduction. P. You gotta weave it into your actual article itself. But weaving it in that it makes sense, not stuffing it in that actually a no normal person would enjoy reading, so you gotta make Google happy. But more importantly, the person that’s going to be reading this article, because when a person stays longer on your blog post, It’s a signal to Google that it’s a good quality article.

If they just leave without reading it, that’s a bad signal to Google and it will affect your rankings. Next, we’ll go into the format of your blog post. To save time, I have mapped out a layout that I pretty much follow every single time I write a blog or I write a blog for my clients.  and it is a specific formula because it, it’s good for Google, it’s good for the reader, and therefore it works.

It generates traffic and it generates potential leads if you have a lead magnet or inquiries even. So let’s have a look in detail at this template. First, you’re gonna start off with a title. So the title, Some people recommend writing it at the beginning of your whole process. I. The contrary, so you can come up with two or three variations of the title, but if you don’t have it clear at this, right at this point, it’s not the end of the world.

If you feel like you need to write the article first before writing the title, that’s absolutely fine. But one thing to keep in mind, like I mentioned, make sure that you include the keyword in your title. Then you’ll have a featured image. So this is the, the thumbnail that will come up when someone shares your article.

It will come up in the actual blog article itself, and it’s something that you can use, uh, everywhere when you’re promoting this blog. , then you’ll go into your introduction paragraph and the introduction paragraph needs to summarize basically what they’re going to be reading. What are you gonna be telling them in this blog post, this is the hook that will get people to read your blog further.

So if they are interested in what they, they read in the introduction paragraph, they will continue. If they’re not, they will. You need to make sure that it grabs their attention. It shows what they’re going to be reading and what they’re going to be learning. And bonus tip, include your focus keyword in here as well.

So title, introduction, paragraph, because Google will be reading your article as well. I just wanted to show spacer here. The reason why I’m just bringing that in is purely from a design point of view. I’ve seen blogs, which is also squashed in at squashed together, and you can’t read it properly. I really recommend.

Looking at your blog post before publishing, would I feel comfortable reading this because you are making this blog article for the reader. If they feel comfortable, they’re able to scan, scan it, skim it, um, and, and not get, feel stressed by reading it, then you’re on the right track. So include space, white space is actually good.

It gives breathing room. Then you’re gonna break up your body of your article into subheadings and each subheading. We’ll have around five to six lines of, uh, text in no more because what people do, they don’t read your whole article. Even though we would love them to, they actually skim through it. So make sure you have clear subheadings.

Include the keyword or include a question that generally comes up. . Another option is to do, if you have a very long article, is a table of contents with links to the certain sections in your blog post. That’s a bit more advanced and it’s, if you’re using ver, creating very long articles, it’s just easier for somebody to click on a particular topic they want to read about within your article and it will take them to the section.

So it is not half to have, but it would be nice to have if you have a very long. So there we got this. Another subheading. Break it up with images so that it’s visually appealing. It’s not just a bulk of text. Like I said, each paragraph should have between five and six lines of text. Maximum. No more. If you have a lead magnet and encourage that you do to build your email list, include it within the body of your content in within the body of your article.

Then again, another subheading, however many that you need in your article, and you follow the same formula. Subheading image paragraph, subheading image paragraph. Also little note is within your actual article itself. Don’t be scared to link up to. Outside sources, so to a different website that’s not yours to somebody else’s website, somebody else’s article that fits in with your article.

Some people might be say, But I don’t want to send traffic away from my actual blog. I want to keep them there. Sure, that’s true, but I. It, it’s a, It builds an authority. It builds a credibility if you are citing external sources and Google likes it. Plus it gives you a little in. So if you really like somebody’s article and you want to include it into your blog article, you could then, once you’ve published it, write them an email and say, Hey, I loved your article.

I’ve included into mine. Please, could you share it with your community? That would be a great way of creating back links, um, getting the word out there of your blog article to communities that we generally wouldn’t have access to. So if you’re feeling brave enough, I would recommend you do that. Then right at the end of your, of your blog article, don’t just finish off.

Make sure you always have a conclusion and call it conclusion. The reason being people will actually arrive on your blog post. Go down to your conclusion. See what you have summarized there. So it’s a summary of what you’ve just elaborated in the article. If they like that, they will go back up and read it.

And that’s backed up with, with statistics and data that we’ve seen that that’s what people do. It’s a bizarre, uh, behavior, but it, that’s what people do. So we need to keep that in mind and a little pro tip. End the article with a question. You are asking a question to your reader because that will increase engagement.

They will want to comment if you have comments enabled on your blog post. You create dialogue and engagement. Also, another signal to Google that it’s a valuable post. , I’ve included here as well a section for Pinterest image that is if you are using Pinterest to market your retreat. Pinterest is a search engine based system as well, so it will generate traffic to this particular article.

If people want to share it on their own Pinterest, if you have an image already created to the right specifications, that would be cool to have in your blog. Another little thing that you could add at your blog article is links to related articles that are similar to this one. They’ve just read. You want to keep people on your website, you want them staying there.

If you can provide them other resources and blog articles that is of interest to them, that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? So let’s just include three or four related articles to keep them on your website. Then again, you could have a lead magnet at the end of your blog post. . And then like I said, if you have optional comments enabled, then that would be right at the bottom.

Just a quick little thing as well on the right hand side, usually you will see a little intro about you or about the retreat. Say hello. Be friendly. We want to create a connection with our readers. We want them to come into our ecosystem and. Engaged community. If you have your lead magnet, don’t be scared to put it on the right hand side.

Some people won’t even see that. Some people only look at that and not The rest of the article include some top articles and categories, so this will be on the right hand side. There you go. That was my blog writing system and template that I use every single time that gets traffic, keeps me consistent and saves time.

As you can tell, I’m a firm believer in systems and processes that save us time and give us clarity to move our business forward. That’s why I created the Retreat Marketing Master Checklist to give you an overview of everything on my to do list when promoting a client’s. From 90, 60, 30 days before the retreat starts.

Plus what you should be doing during and after the event too. We mustn’t forget those. So when you use this master checklist in promoting your retreat, you’ll know what to do and when to do it. Download it for free.

5 Marketing Systems For More Direct Retreat Bookings

5 Marketing Systems For More Direct Retreat Bookings

When you list your retreat with an agency you will pay 15% commission or more for each booking.  Today I wanted to share the types of systems you need to get direct bookings so you don’t have to pay a third party.

  1. List building system
  2. Email marketing system
  3. Content creation and distribution system
  4. Lead management system
  5. Testimonial and referral collection system

Transcription:

(Note: I recommend watching the above video with captions if you don’t want sound. However, if you prefer to read, here is the transcription of what is covered in the video)

1. List building system

The very first system that I recommend that you incorporate into your retreat marketing is your list building system. It’s gonna be a lot harder to get bookings from people that don’t know you so focusing on building your contact list should be your priority.

We want to be able to get people into your retreat ecosystem so that they get to know, like, and trust you so that they are ready to book and experience with you. Retreats are generally not cheap, that is why we need to nurture them a little while longer so that they are willing to make a bigger purchase.

The list building system is all about getting them onto your email list. How we do that? Well, we don’t just subscribe them to a newsletter. People generally don’t subscribe to a newsletter because they don’t want to have their, the inbox cluttered. They want to get something of value from you. You need to give them a lead magnet, something that will help them in their current situation. (What is a lead magnet?)

Get them a step closer to wanting to book a retreat with you. And we do that through a list building system, they sign up for the lead magnet and in exchange, you get their email address and name. Which leads us on to the second marketing system. And that is your email marketing system. Once they’re in your list, you need to be nurturing them.

2. Email marketing system

Once subscribers are on your list, you need to nurture them with an email sequence.

The purpose of an email sequence is to show who you are, the benefits of your retreat and your business, why it’s important to them address any concerns that they might be having in their mind before they even book and show some testimonials, some experiences of other people that have experienced your retreat.

How do you nurture them after the email sequence? By creating and sharing regular content with them. And that brings me onto the third system I recommend.

3. Content creation and distribution system

The content creation and distribution system helps you create regular, valuable content for your list. It’s not about just creating content for social media.

It’s about creating good, valuable content that will help them move them from not wanting to book your retreat, to discovering why your retreat is so important for them and how it will help them transform their current state to what there will be after the retreat experience. And you need to do that through regular long form content. Be it blogs, video or podcasts.

Make it consistent. Doing one or two pieces every couple of months is not going to build the momentum. You need to make a commitment to yourself to create at least once or twice a month. Ideally once a week. They need get used to seeing you in their inbox.

And that’s when you can showcase your retreat, you can launch your retreat to your email list who has been warmed up through the months that you have have them on your list. 

4. Lead management system

When they are nurtured and you’ve given them opportunities to inquire, to talk directly to you, you need lead management system.

It doesn’t have to be very complicated to following up on these leads.  When you conversations with the leads, write down what their objections and doubts are. Knowing this information helps you create content in the future because other people are going to be having the same doubts.

A lead management system keeps track of when you last had contact with the interested party and what the next action should be to follow up. It could be offering a payment plan if that helps them book. 

5. Testimonial and referral collection system

Lastly, number five is what retreat leaders generally forget about. The referral and testimonial collection system.

When you have a retreat, this is the prime moment to get video testimonials written testimonials from your current retreat goers.

They are in the moment. They’re feeling excited. They’re feeling the energy from the retreat. This is the time where you can say, “if you’re loving this so much, why don’t you book for next year’s retreat?” If you book it now you get it at a different price. Because they are repeat customer. And then at the same time, don’t be shy in asking for referrals.

Would a friend benefit from this retreat? Ask them to share your retreat details with somebody who needs it.

Summary

So those are the five basic systems you need to have to get more direct bookings and avoid having to pay those agency commissions. You need to take ownership of your retreat and see it as a business. Nurture the people that come in contact with you and make it easier for them to book your retreat.

These systems do take time to set up, but once you know how and you have done the work, then it is an automated system that saves you time and increases your profitability.

Easy Tech Tutorial – Keeping Your Website + Business Safe (Part 2) – Updating Plugins

Easy Tech Tutorial – Keeping Your Website + Business Safe (Part 2) – Updating Plugins

Step By Step: How To Update Your WordPress Plugins

Today, I’ll be speaking about the second part of keeping your website and business safe. In the last blog, we spoke about why you need to back up your website for better security. If you missed it, you can catch up here.

Just a note, before we go on – for this blog, I’m specifically talking about WordPress websites.

First, let’s do a quick recap of the last blog. It’s important to back up your website so that if you fall prey to hackers, or you have an incompatibility that breaks your website, you have a backup that you can then upload, and you can relax. Otherwise, if you lose it all, then effectively your online business is gone, you will have to build it up from scratch, and it’s a waste of time and money. To prevent this, back up your website regularly and automatically so that you don’t have to think about it. 

Part two is updating your WordPress plugins. If you have a plugin that is out of date on your WordPress website, it is a vulnerability in your website that allows hackers to get into your website, we don’t want that do we? 

Before you get started, please make sure you have followed the first process in this series, and that is backing up your website because sometimes when you update plugins, it might break your website. So I want to make sure that you have a backup just in case but most of the time, it’s fine.

Step 1: Find Out What Needs an Update

Log into the back of your website. Once you arrive at your dashboard, you will see the top two arrows going around in the circle. 

This is basically telling you that you need to update something, and how many things that you need to update. It might be either themes, or plugins. Click on it and it will take you straight to a page where it will tell you what is outdated and what you can update. 

Step 2: Update What is Out of Date

In my instance, I only have a theme that is out of date, So I’m going to be updating that. You will probably also have plugins that are out of date which is very easy to do. You would select what is what needs to be updated and click on Update Themes. 

Step 3: What Happens While it Updates?

Once you start this process, you will need to wait for it to be finished. Sometimes, it can take a long time, especially if you have multiple plugins up to date. 

While the updating of the plugins is going on, your website will be down, and it will say that the site is undergoing some maintenance, but this will only show while your website is updating. Once that’s finished, your website will go back to normal. 

Step 4: One Last Thing

Once you have finished with the updates, you should go back to your website and triple-check that it’s working because like I mentioned, sometimes an updated plugin might break your website and it’ll need to be fixed. 

For peace of mind, I would also recommend that you fill out a form if you’re updating a form plugin because it might affect how it works. 

How Often Should This be Done?

Since these can’t be done automatically, I schedule this update weekly by setting a reminder in Asana project tools, but you can use whichever method works for you. It should ideally be done weekly to make sure that you have minimal risk of your website going down. 

I look forward to connecting with you, helping you run your business online, getting more clients, and making sure that your systems are set up and ready so that you can grow and be successful in your business (and, of course, life.)

That’s all for today. I’ll see you soon

Easy Tech Tutorial – Keeping Your Website + Business Safe (Part 1) – Backups

Easy Tech Tutorial – Keeping Your Website + Business Safe (Part 1) – Backups

Step By Step: How To Backup Your WordPress Website

Today, we’re going to be talking about backing up your website, which may seem boring, but it is crucial to do. There are two different elements to it. I’ll share the second element – How to update WordPress Plugins here.

Just a note, before we go on – for this blog, I’m specifically talking about WordPress websites.

Why Should You Backup Your Website? 

It’s something that many people don’t think about when their website has been built, either by them or someone they have contracted. 

Your website is your shopfront, so just as you would secure a physical store, the same applies here.

WordPress is one of the world’s biggest website platforms; they have the most significant market share. And it’s a really, really great platform; it’s very easy to use, in my opinion. 

The downside of being the biggest is that it is also more vulnerable to hackers. As with most things in life, you may think it won’t happen to you, but I have seen it first hand. I’ve had clients that have logged in or gone to their website, and it has been taken down, and something else is in its place – sometimes not so nice things.

Imagine putting in all that time and effort, sometimes even money, and it is all gone in the blink of an eye. 

It’s for this very reason that you have to have a physical backup of your website so that if this happens, you’re able to go in and replace it with your website again. 

How to Back Up Your Website

It isn’t as complicated as it may seem! 

Step 1: Installing the Plugin

Log in to the back-end of your WordPress website. Go down to plugins and click “Add New.”

And we’re running a search for one that’s called Updraft. It should come up as Updraft WordPress Backup Plugin. It is one of the most popular ones and has over 3 million active installations, with great reviews. Once you have found the plugin, click on Install Now.

Give it a moment to install. And then you’re going to activate it. 

Step 2: Running Your First Backup

They will tell you exactly where you need to start. There will be a button that says, “Press here to start,” which will take you through the setup wizard.

You can see the scheduled backups now, but because it’s new, we have nothing done. The same will apply to files. Before we go any further, you should run a full backup right now. It will mean that the complete database and all your files are backed up should anything happen to your website. If you need to use it, you will upload the file. You can leave it to run in the background. 

Step 3: Setting up Your Backup Schedule

You should set up the plugin to automatically and regularly run, so you don’t need to think about it. Once you’ve set it up, it will do it either weekly monthly, whichever way you would like to have it done. I suggest doing it weekly, especially if you’re working on it, so you don’t have a very, very old backup with old files. 

By now, the one running in the background should be done. It should say, “Congratulations, your first backup is running. But to avoid suicide threats, backup regularly to remote cloud storage in settings”. 

We’re going to follow the exact steps. You’re going to go to Settings, decide whether it’s going to be manual or automatic. Like I say, I would like to do it automatically every week. It will also ask you how many backups of your website you would like to store simultaneously; two is the standard. Once it has reached the third, the first will be deleted, and so on. 

Step 4: Storing Your Backups

Next, it will prompt you to decide where you’re going to store the backup. Of course, this is a free version. So if you want to store it with Updraft Plus vaults, you’ll need to subscribe. I don’t think it is necessary, but you can do that if you like. 

It also gives you other options. With the free version, you will only be able to choose one location. It offers Google Drive as an option, so I picked that. You’ll just need to create your folder, authenticate and authorize it, and then save it. Click Save Changes

Step 5: Embracing Peace of Mind

Now we have backed up your website, and we have set up an automatic backup every week. The files are going to be stored in Google Drive or whichever place you chose to save it. You can see where the next scheduled backup is and what is being backed up. If you want to back up manually again, you can just click on backup now. So there you go, you have added a much-needed layer of security to your website!

As you can see – this whole process will take less than 10 minutes, but it will save you hours of work should anything happen to your website! I have seen too many people who do not have this facility run into trouble, and then the whole website is gone. It’s a really, really sad scenario. 

If you feel like it would be easier for you to follow a video, you can click here. As always, if you have any questions, you can message me right in the comments or send me an email

In the next blog, I will explain why it is essential to update your plugins and show you how to do it.  

I look forward to connecting with you, helping you run your business online, getting more clients and making sure that your systems are set up and ready so that you can grow and be successful in your business (and, of course, life.)

Easy Tech Tutorial – How To Submit Your WordPress Website To Google

Easy Tech Tutorial – How To Submit Your WordPress Website To Google

Notes/Transcription

Hi, I’m Tiffany K. Borruso. And I help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses and get more clients through effective and powerful online marketing strategies and tactics. Today, I’m going to be showing you a very easy tech tutorial on how to submit your WordPress website to Google so that you are found much quicker and show up in the Google search results. So let’s get to it.

So first of all, you will log into the back of your WordPress website.

You know, again with your username and password,

Right, so the first thing you’re going to do, you’re going to log in to your WordPress website. And then if you do not have it already, you’re going to install a plugin called Yoast SEO. It is a very effective plugin that will help you with your SEO on your website, as well as give you the sitemap it’s a file that we need to give it to Google effectively so that they know which pages you are sending to them and they can find it quicker.

So if you do not have it already, you go into plugins on the left hand, start inside, add new under search plugins, type in Yoast SEO. And if you do not have installed it would say install and then once that’s installed, you would click on the button that gets changed here to activate. I’m just going to update mine.

It’s very important that you keep your plugins up to date because if you do not it causes a weakness in your site. And hackers can take that advantage and hack your site. I’ve seen that happen before and they put some very not pleasant things on your website. So always keep your plugins up to date.

Right then you will go into here you will see Yoast SEO has arrived on your dashboard and you can click on general.

And you’ll navigate to features and scroll down to XML sitemap. If you click on the question mark, it will actually give you your sitemap so see the XML sitemap will open a new tab. And here is your sitemap. This is your sitemap URL this you will need when you submit it to Google. A sitemap effectively is a document that lists all of the pages you would like Google to find. This reduces the amount of time it takes Google to actually find those pages. So instead of Google having to search through millions and billions of websites to find your pages, you are sending in a file and saying Here I am, here are my pages, please put them on Google. So that’s the first step. Second step will be to go to Google Search Console.

Here we go. And you will start now. Here you need to log in with your Google account that you have used to set up your Google Analytics. If you have not set up your Google Analytics, I recommend you check out my video, which I have linked at the top here, it will show up now. And you can install Google Analytics. So with that Google account or your Gmail account is the same thing. You will then click on that. You will submit a property so you will scroll down and click on Add property.

And here you will insert your URL prefix. So my website would be this here with my HTTPS as a secure site. And I will put it there if yours is not a secure site, without that with this without the S take that away. Okay, on is I’m going to continue.

My ownership is already verified because I’ve already submitted it, but you will get an option to verify yours. So to do that, you will need to insert a snippet of code.

Right once you’ve logged into your Google account, you will need to add a new property. The property is the website. So you would go to your drop-down here. Click on Add property. Or if you have no other websites, this should actually just pop up immediately. This is where you will add your URL. I’m going to just use a fictitious one for now. So you can see the process of installing a snippet of code that verifies your website. the snippet isn’t like a short piece of code that you will need to install on your website or a link to your Google Analytics. So testing.com continue, it will verify the property not because I do have not verified the property, it will give me options to verify it.

Then there’s an option to upload an HTML file. If you do not know how to do that I would skip it, it is a little bit more complicated. The easiest way is all with an HTML tag or with Google Analytics, I will walk you through both of them. So the HTML tag is pretty simple, you would copy this tag underneath and insert it into your head section of your website. If you have seen my Google Analytics video on how to install it, I go through the process of doing that with the Google Analytics code. So you will follow the same path. But I’ll quickly show you here. So you would copy this.

And going back to your website, you will find a plugin called insert headers and footers. I walked through the process, click on add new plugins. And under search plugins, insert headers and footers whoops.

Go

You would install it and then activate this plugin.

This is a very easy way to actually get code on your website, if you want to have it in the header and in the body of your website. What it means to have it in the head, it means it will show up on every single page.

So I’ve now installed it. And now we’re going to find it under Settings, insert headers and footers.

And this is where you will paste the code that Google Search Console gives you are going to copy it again just in case, go back and under the scripts in the header, you will paste it and click on Save.

Once you have done that, you will then click on verify. And if you’ve installed it correctly, it will give you a green tick and all is good. Now I’ll show you a different way and that’s through Google Analytics.

Here is another option of verification, Google Analytics. Open that up. And you need to have your Google Analytics installed on your website. If you do not this will not work.

So if you have it installed, it’s very straightforward, you will click on verify very important is that your Google Analytics code, Google Analytics account and your Google Search Console account need to be the same so that they communicate if there are two different accounts will not work. So those are the two easiest ways to verify your website. Once you have verified your website, it will take 24 hours for the data to populate here to actually show you the data from the past. So how many people have searched for keywords that have shown your website.

And so the third step is now the final step and that is to submit the sitemap that we have found on your WordPress website using the Yoast SEO plugin. So you would go down on your left-hand menu to Sitemaps. And here it will ask you for the URL of your sitemap. This is where we go back to that XML sitemap URL. And we’ll simply copy the slug and paste it here. Okay, got Submit.

And now it will work through it. And if there’s any errors, it will notify here.

So now this URL I have submitted today, and it’s successful, so there are no errors in the sitemap. And at the moment, it shows zero discovered URLs because it takes some time to actually read through it. But this is a much faster way for Google to actually start showing your website in its search results. It’s good for brand new websites. Also for websites where you have made a major makeover and you have new URLs you want to submit And it’s also a very quick way, if your website’s been going for a while, but you’re just not getting the search, you’re not showing up in the search results. It’s worth taking a look and just submitting it, just to see if maybe Google hasn’t found it yet.

And that’s set up very simple. You can refer back to this page over a day or two, and you can start seeing the results. Another video I’m going to be doing is how to submit your website to Bing We mustn’t forget that Bing is a very big search engine, not as big as Google. But a lot of the Microsoft computers come with being automatically installed. So it’s important we also submit your website to Bing.

And that’s it for today. I hope you have found this really useful and it has made it easy and not so scary and you’re not feeling as overwhelmed anymore. If you’ve liked this video, give it a like on YouTube, and even subscribe to my channel so you can keep up to date with all my new videos and see all my latest videos. And I hope to bring value and take away a lot of the overwhelm when it comes to online marketing.

Bye for now.