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.

The Smartest Investments To Make At Every Stage Of Your Small Business – Part 1: Just Starting Out

The Smartest Investments To Make At Every Stage Of Your Small Business – Part 1: Just Starting Out

Notes/Transcription

In this blog, I’d like to share some of the common problems that you might face when you are just starting your small business – and a snapshot of the smart investments that you can make to help you solve them!

Quite frankly, the biggest problem for most new small business owners is that you have no clue what you should be doing when you sit down to work every day! You feel fired up to get your business going and put the plans that you have into place but you don’t have a clear enough direction and end up filling your day up with tasks that don’t actually move the needle and impact your business growth positively.

But there are some tactics that can really help to nudge you in the right direction and give you some momentum. Let’s take a look:

Smart Investment #1: Online courses

Doing a targeted course that teaches you how to do specific things can fast track your business by minimizing the need for you to waste time learning hard lessons or spending hours/days/weeks on the non-essentials.

The key here is choosing a targeted course. Doing any old course to make yourself feel “useful” won’t cut it. For example, if you are looking at growing your list, Amy Porterfield’s List Building Society is really valuable. I used this course a lot when I first started out but I still refer back to it regularly now, so it has worked out as a great investment.

Smart Investment #2: Get a professional website

It’s pretty much impossible to run a successful and profitable business these days without having an online presence. But it’s not enough just to have a website. For the majority of your customers, your website is your online storefront, your business card, your brand – so it absolutely has to be professional and convert leads into customers.

If you are just starting out, it’s probably not necessary to hire a professional web and brand designer (for now, at least). Although they are worth their weight in gold in terms of amplifying your online presence, it is an investment that you will want to take later down the road. This is because, even if you are completely sold on our business idea, it is very likely to change a lot during those first few years. At this stage in your business, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to invest a large amount of money on getting a fancy website and brand made up, only to have to pay more later to have it updated.

But you should absolutely invest time and energy in creating a DIY website with an easy to use platform such as Squarespace.

Smart Investment #3: Use good stock photos

Photos can make or break a visitor’s impression of your website and brand. With this in mind, it is absolutely vital not to use any old mundane photo that you come across on a Google search.

But don’t panic – you needn’t book a photographer just yet! You can actually do some pretty amazing things with your website and social media posts using stock photos, and they are significantly cheaper than hiring a photographer when you are in the early stages of your business.

Here are a few places to find professional-looking quality photos:

·         Creative Market

·         Social Squares

·         Unsplash

·         Pinterest – You can search “stock photos” on Pinterest!

·         Etsy

Pro tip: Always buy your photos from the same photographers to keep your band and website images looking cohesive!

I hope you find my list of smart investments for just starting out useful in planning out your next big investment in your business!

For more tips, please subscribe to my YouTube channel!

What And When You Should Outsource To Be More Productive In Your Small Business

What And When You Should Outsource To Be More Productive In Your Small Business

Notes/Transcription

Hi, today we’re going to be covering what you should outsource as a small business owner. 

Small business owners generally tend to do everything themselves. I do that myself, I don’t like letting things go, and I do notice it does hamper my productivity. Trying to figure things out yourself takes so much time. For example, I was having a bit of technical problems, it just drove me up the wall and I wasted pretty much a whole day’s work trying to figure that out. Then when it comes to, for example, social media posting, editing the videos, posting the videos, all these different tasks are very time-consuming where I could be focused on getting new clients.

Why I need to outsource to a Virtual Assistant

It has to come a point in my life where I am seriously thinking about outsourcing and I have outsourced before to virtual assistants. I’m not sure if you ever heard of virtual assistants, but they are fantastic and there’s lots of different kinds which could help you more with the technical stuff or more administrative things that you need to have done. 

So this video is basically going through what you could outsource and how you even start the whole process of looking for somebody and where you look and what the cost is and all that. 

Benefits of outsourcing

Let’s discuss what and when you should outsource to be more productive in your small business. First of all, we are going to be talking about the benefits of outsourcing because a lot of people think, oh, it’s quite a hassle to brief the person I’m outsourcing to and I don’t have the control. But there are many benefits that I find way much higher than the disadvantages.

  1. It frees up your valuable time. You are your business, but you cannot be everywhere. So you need to be able to free up your time that brings in more money into your business instead of focusing on the little tasks that actually don’t bring in that much volume of money. 
  2. It increases your productivity. Of course, it does because then you don’t have to worry about all the little nitty-gritty. Somebody else is doing that for you. 
  3. You’re also then much more flexible because you have less tasks to focus on. You’re focusing on the bigger ones that actually show bigger returns.
  4. Your quality of work improves because you are not spread thin. You can really do a good job at what you are focusing on and then the rest is covered by somebody else.
  5. Which leads to less stress. Because you have more hours in the day, you can feel less stressed and really relax a little bit. Also, you could be pulling out your hair, trying to figure out why something doesn’t work, whereas if you hire somebody who has the technical knowledge, they can do it in five minutes where it usually would take you three hours.
  6. It’s less risky.  If you hire someone directly you are responsible for the labor costs, the salaries, and you are fixed with them. If your business gets a bit quieter over certain periods of time, you still need to be paying those labor costs. You still need to be paying their salaries. But if you outsource it, it is very flexible and you can stop the contract for a certain period of time and then when your business picks up, you can carry on and so on.

These are the benefits of outsourcing, especially for digital marketing. When you have to do it yourself, it can be really overwhelming because there’s so much to do. I mean it’s endless. There’s website, social media, blogging, SEO and email marketing, the list goes on. So if you’re trying to do everything yourself, you can easily, easily feel overwhelmed. Instead of doing it all yourself, outsource it to a virtual assistant.

What kind of tasks can you outsource?

This is just based on digital marketing in this case, but there are lots of other types of tasks that you can outsource such as bookkeeping that will help you as well. 

Social media

  • Create a social media calendar
  • Research inspiration and ideas for social media posts
  • Find images for social media posts
  • Click “like” when people comment on your social media posts

Website/blog

  • Basic management of blog/website 
  • Format and publish your weekly content
  • Have weekly content transcribed (video, audio, podcasts)
  • Research blog topics relevant to your niche

Email marketing

  • Prepare and schedule newsletter
  • Set up your lead magnet opt-in, thank you page and confirmation email
  • Set up your new subscriber and/or new customer nurture sequence

Customer Service

  • Respond to questions and inquiries 
  • Send thank you notes, emails or shoutouts to followers and customers 
  • Handle Facebook group community management

Miscellaneous

  • Research guest blogging and podcast or video show interview opportunities
  • Create lead magnets
  • Research keywords
  • Get testimonials
  • Set up Facebook ads

Where do you find a VA and what is the cost?

As a small business owner, sometimes you don’t have lots of money that you could just throw around and just get somebody else to do it. That’s why we do a lot ourselves…to save of course. 

But you’ve got to weigh out the benefits of saving the money versus the time that you waste doing the little things where you could be actually going out and increasing your income. 

Here are some places you can find virtual assistants. 

Hire a freelancer

Find them on Upwork.com, and in Facebook groups such as Virtual Assistant Savvies

Rates start at 10$ per hour. (depending on skills)

Virtual Assistant agencies

Priorityva.com (US based)

Timeetc.com (UK and US)

Boldly.com (UK and US)

More expensive per hour – starting at 20$ p/h and may have “enrollment” fee.

As you can see it’s not that expensive. And the return that you get on that because it saves you so much time and you can actually go and get more clients, which boosts your income really, really makes sense, doesn’t it?

Conclusion

This was a little video on what I think about outsourcing and how it actually could benefit your business. Try hiring a VA and hopefully you can see a huge return on your investment in terms of time and more sales.

If you want to learn more and ask questions about digital marketing for small businesses, tips and hacks, join me in my private Facebook Group – Digital Marketing Simplified. I hope to see you there!

Bye for now.

A Common Struggle When Running A Small Business…Lack Of Time!

A Common Struggle When Running A Small Business…Lack Of Time!

Links mentioned in the video:

Free download – Time Saving Tips For Small Businesses

Video Notes/Transcription

I have been doing research the last couple of weeks and have posted surveys in women business groups.

The main struggle that all have in common is lack of time.  So I wanted to address this and tell you what I do to save time and be more productive in my business.

1 – Use a project management tool called Asana 

There is a free and paid version.

It is effectively tool I use every single day all day to list my tasks, order them by due date and keeps me focused on what I have to do every day.

I used to do handwritten lists every day but found myself slacking and losing the lists so I looked for an electronic format since I am on my computer most of the time for work.

There are other tools out there but I found Asana suited my needs and can recommend it.

2 – Schedule time to be on social media

Being on social media can really suck time out of your day.  You start doing one thing, and then the next time you look at your clock hours have gone by.

I am open to say that there is an element of addiction being on social media so I have had to be strict with myself so that I can be more focused and productive on my business and more present in my life.

I try not to look at my phone upon waking.

When I get into my “office” – although at home I login to my social media accounts on my computer, not my phone and set a timer for 30 minutes to be present in social media groups, see what my friends and family are doing etc…

Then once the half hour is up I close the tab completely and get on with the tasks I need to do for the day.

At the end of my work day I spend another 30 minutes on social media to catch up on conversations I had in the morning.

Lastly, I do NOT take my phone into the bedroom.  It sits in the lounge on charge.

This is a good day, of course, not all days are like this but I try not to be too hard on myself and start the next day with a good intention again.

3 – Batch creative tasks

This is a new tactic I am using to try and stay ahead of content generation and social media.  Instead of posting or recording a video when I have time (which is NEVER), I schedule time in batches.

For example, the videos I am creating for social media which I post once a week, I record in 1 day (8 videos for 60 days).  I then send them all for transcription.

When I receive them back I schedule another Batch day of editing the transcriptions and converting them into blogs and posting and lastly, a batch day for creating the posts and mailshots that go with the videos.

I lastly then schedule the posts and emails to go out once a week.

This way I only work on my videos, blogs, posts and mailshots every 2 months!

I am trying really hard to do this for 2020 so I can ensure I am sharing content, helping you in your business and grow my list and business.

These are my top 3 tips to save time in business.

  1. Use a project management system like Asana
  2. Schedule time to be on social media
  3. Batch create your content, social media posts and mailshots

I have created a cheatsheet for you to download – Time Saving Tips For Small Businesses , print and stick on your wall so you can also save time!

Bye for now!