Website Content Archives | Bourn Creative

Create An Effective Content Marketing Plan At Content Camp

August 7, 2019 Jennifer Bourn

What do blogging, podcasting, attracting clients, acquiring customers, growing a YouTube channel, building an email list, and establishing a social following have in common?

Content.

No matter what your goal is, if you want to grow your business and expand your brand:

You need to create high-quality, strategic content on a regular basis. Year-over-year growth in unique site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders compared to followers (19.7% vs 2.5%) according to Aberdeen.
You need to market that content to gain as much visibility and website traffic as possible. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads according to DemandMetric.
You need people who engage and interact with your content to take action. Conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%) shares Aberdeen.

Your Website Contact Page Deserves To Be A Priority

April 7, 2017 Jennifer Bourn

When anyone thinks of creating a new website, writing website content, or interacting on an existing website to improve user experience, the onsite customer journey, or conversions, they almost always begin with the key services, products and sales pages. They then look at the checkout pages for online purchases, the home page, testimonials or reviews, the about page, maybe an FAQ or support page. They even look at the blog. Rarely does any website owner prioritize the website contact page.

When it comes to the contact page of a website, most people barely give it any thought.

Even some of the most beautiful, well-designed websites in the world have ho-hum contact pages. A basic contact form is added to the page, the page is checked off a list of website to-dos, and focus is given to something that matters more. Or worse, the website contact page is viewed as a necessary evil and is created to be more of a barrier than an invitation.

How to Create A Website That Works When You’re Not Working

December 21, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

Today, a website is a fundamental requirement for every business. The process of planning, designing, and building a website is a critical step in establishing and launching a brand, yet website building is often fraught with problems caused by common misconceptions, misinformation, dangerous shortcuts, and poor guidance.

While no one thinks it will ever happen to them, even the most careful and savvy business owners fall victim to potential threats that sabotage their website’s success from day one.

Luckily, with the right mindset about your small business website, the right approach to creating your site, and the right website strategy to gain conversions, you can create a powerful website that works when you’re not working.

When you’re beginning to think about building a new website, the first step is getting in the right frame of mind so you avoid these three common website fallacies:

A WordPress Blog Is A Filing Cabinet For Your Website

March 28, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

I’m guilty of it. Almost every blogger I know is guilty of it —, well, at least the bloggers who have been blogging for years. It’s a problem we caused that has haunted us for the life of our blog and now is either a huge task we know we need to tackle, or a huge task we’re just going to ignore and push to the side.

Category and Tag Abuse

WordPress category and tag abuse is a real struggle. It’s how this blog at one point, ballooned to more than 30 categories and 800 tags that I then had to clean up.

Now you may be thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal”

The big deal is that not only does category and tag abuse split and fracture your content, it creates a poor experience for your website visitors, making it harder to find similar or related content about the topic they are interested in on your website.

Categories and Tags Used As Keywords

The problem of category and tag abuse stems from the belief that categories and tags are similar to keywords, and that when assigned a category or tag to a blog post, it is the same as assigning a keyword to the post. This action is further perpetuated by the belief that assigning a post to a specific category or tag like a keyword somehow will help their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

WP Unicorn Project: Content Strategy With Jennifer Bourn

July 19, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

One of my favorite things to do is talk shop — to talk about business, design strategy, marketing, getting clients, content, blogging, WordPress — and recently I got to do it again with Suzette Franck and Natalie MacLees on Media Temple’s WordPress Hangout, WP Unicorn Project.

I originally met both of these incredibly smart women at Word Camp Las Vegas. We stayed in touch through Twitter and I connected with Suzette again at WordCamp Phoenix.

Suzette Franck is Media Temple’s WordPress Evangelist and she travels to and speaks at a lot of WordCamps around the country. Natalie MacLees owns Purple Pen Productions, is organizer for WordCamp LA, and is a published author, working on the second edition of her book jQuery for Designers.

Now, about that hangout …

Sales Pages, Landing Pages, and Squeeze Pages, Oh My!

May 24, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Sales pages and Landing pages are web pages with no navigation menu, no sidebar, no footer widget area, and no links off the page — except to a shopping cart or order form. Squeeze pages also have no navigation menu, no sidebar, no footer widget area, and no links off the page.

The premise behind these pages is to eliminate all distractions from the page, and keep visitors completely focused on taking one single action — they are used solely to increase conversions.

Let’s look at these types of pages a little closer:

Content Tips For The WordPress Page And Post Content Area

April 29, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

WordPress began as a blogging platform and quickly expanded into a content management system that powers 22% of the entire internet.

In fact, according to Matt Mullenweg in his State of The Word 2013 address, 69% of those whom use WordPress use is only as a content management system for their website, not as a blog.

The primary content region on a WordPress site is referred to as the content area. It can contain all different types of content, from text and images, to video and audio. The content area is where the primary web page content or blog post content that you write is added and formatted.

NOTE: Even though content can also be put in a sidebar or in a footer, content in those areas are put into widgets, so they have different names such as, sidebar widget area, footer Widget area, Home page widget area, after-post widget area, etc.

The Difference Between a WordPress Footer and a WordPress Footer Widget Area

April 16, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

A footer is the bottom section of a website, usually appearing on all pages throughout the site.

The most common use of a footer is a bar across the bottom of the page that includes the copyright information, and links to the privacy policy and disclaimer pages. Depending on the focus and design of your website, this area may also include your contact information and links to pages such as an affiliate page, a sponsors page, an advertising page, or even the contact page.

A footer widget area is the section above the footer that includes widgets (also referred by users as “boxes”) for content.

Typically the footer widget area is set apart from the rest of the content, either with a colored background, or a line or divider of some type. And, in many cases, they appear on almost every page of the website.

The number of widgets or content “boxes” in a footer widget area is determined by the design of the theme. Theme footer widget areas can contain one, two, three, or even four widget areas (or more) — and while many themes use three or four widgets that are all the same size, they don’t have to be the same size in width or height.

How to Create A Highly Effective Website Home Page

April 5, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

While many visitors may enter your website for the first time through a blog post, your Home page is the virtual front door of your website and the main door into your site for the rest of the world. When someone visits your site directly through your main URL, your Home page is the first page of your website they will see.

The Home page represents the very first opportunity you have to make an impression. So visitors need to be able to quickly figure out — in just a few seconds — if they are in the right place, and if your site is what they have been looking for.

Defining the purpose of your website, and in turn the purpose of your Home page is the first step in creating a strategy that will attract your ideal clients and customers to your website.

Why The Thank You Page is The First Step in Relationship Building

February 1, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Thank You pages are the final step of the sales, sign up, and opt-in conversion processes AND the first step in enhancing your relationship with your email subscribers. Unfortunately Thank You pages are also the most forgotten, underutilized pages by website owners. In fact, when sending us their final website content, most clients provide us their content and forget to include the Thank You pages — even when we remind them to! The Thank You page for most site owners is an afterthought and is almost never included as a valuable part of their website strategy.

Thank You pages may be “after the fact” but they deserve your full attention and should be part of your overall website strategy, as they play a much bigger role than you may realize your the big picture website success.

On many websites, Thank You pages are actually used to create even more conversions, start new conversations, strengthen relationships, make more sales, and create other amazing results! They are a critical part of your email marketing strategy!

Understanding Reciprocal Links and How to Use Them

December 4, 2013 Jennifer Bourn

Reciprocal linking happens when two sites link back and forth to each other. Often this happens when friends who both have websites link to each other — Joe links to Sally’s website and Sally reciprocates by linking back to Joe’s website.

This is also seen often in groups of business owners who are in a mastermind group together. One person in the group typically reads a blog post stating that you need lots of inbound links to get good search engine rankings, and without really understanding what they read or what it means, they get everyone in the group to link to each others’ websites.

Year ago, this SEO strategy was popular and widely used because, when search was less sophisticated, it worked. By getting others to link to your website, you could quickly increase your websites search engine results page rank — and friends would link to each other just for the link, not for any specific purpose or with any relevance in mind. Yikes!

Search engines, who want to bring you the most relevant, on point results, of course didn’t like this, and as search algorithms became more savvy and complex, this strategy began to backfire, as “gaming the system” with fake links is widely frowned upon. In fact, some links became bad links with negative effects on some websites’ rankings, and there are several websites that still today warn you of the “dangers” of reciprocal linking.

How to Use the WordPress Next Page Tag to Manage Long Content

August 22, 2012 Brian Bourn

At Bourn Creative we believe that the design and layout of your content is equally as important as the visual look and structure of your WordPress templates. Design is more than how something looks; it is also how a visitor to your site “moves” through your site and are naturally guided to your intended action.

One small part of this design principle is choosing the right way to manage long content, and one way we accomplish this is by using the WordPress “Next Page” tag to break long content into sections that are more easily consumed. The next page tag should not be confused with the WordPress “More” tag used on blog posts to limit the content on blog index pages. Read this article on how to use the WordPress more tag to learn about the differences.

On a recently completed custom WordPress theme, our client had extensive content that was important information to have on one page URL instead of broken over several pages and/or subpages. We decided this strategy based on SEO and site visitor usability. Without the Next Page tag, the content would have created one extremely long page that would seem to endlessly scroll and slow to load.

WordPress Now Supports HTML In Image Captions

June 20, 2012 Brian Bourn

WordPress 3.4 was released as a major update that included many new features for users and developers. One of my favorite new features included in version 3.4 is the ability to add HTML to WordPress image captions. Image captions have been available for quite a while in WordPress but they did not support any HTML elements.

A few plugins have been released to add this functionality, but now they are no longer necessary. I love using well created plugins but love it even more when new functionality is added to WordPress eliminating the need for one.

If Your Website Had to go to a Job Interview…

February 26, 2012 Jennifer Bourn

If your website had to go to a job interview, what sort of first impression would it make? Just as first impressions matter when searching for a job, they arguably matter even more when it’s your website. If you don’t hook your audience in the first few seconds, you could lose an opportunity that may not reappear.

While you may be sitting at home in your pajamas where no one can see you, your website is visible to everyone with internet access, anywhere in the world. There is no question that the first impression it makes has to be instantaneous and excellent at the same time.

There are 5 ways to ensure that your website gets the kind of attention you want it to get as soon as a prospect lands on your home page.

How to Automatically Change the Copyright Date On Your WordPress Website

January 27, 2012 Brian Bourn

With 2012 officially off to a start, one thing to remember that many people forget to do at the beginning of a new year is to change the copyright date on their websites.

WordPress sites can be built in various ways, so depending on how your site is built, there are a few ways that copyright dates are handled. If your website has the copyright date hard coded into the WordPress theme files (most likely footer.php) you can replace the current year with:

echo date("Y");

and the copyright date will change to the current year and change again automatically next year.

Always remember to make a backup copy of your theme before making any changes to your theme files.

When Your Website Home Page Isn’t The Entry Point

May 11, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

Your home page is one of the most critical pieces of your website, and if you use a squeeze page, splash page, or some other form of home page with little-to-no content, you’re shooting yourself in the foot!

Search engines value high quality, relevant content and links. That means that content and links into your website are the top things they are looking for when they are scanning websites and indexing pages to include in the search results.

To search engines, your home page is considered the main page and entry point of your website, so it needs to include valuable, relevant, high-quality content.

If you really want to benefit from high organic search engine rankings, you MUST put effort into your home page. Now I’m not talking about putting a lot of effort into writing your home page content once and not touching it again for months at a time. I’m talking about tweaking and testing different headlines, keyword combinations, bold text, and even the design of your home page.

Simple Sales Copy Formula — Stop Freaking Out Over Sales Pages!

May 4, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

If you are selling ANYTHING online, or even offline, you know how important your marketing copy is. The words you use to describe your product or service and how you communicate the benefits of it are critical to making the sale. Lot’s of marketers and copywriters will talk to you about including the right call to action, writing benefit statements, and using action verbs.

But, what many marketers won’t give you is their secret formula to writing a simple sales page that actually converts. Here’s the basic formula you need to use:

Problem -> Agitate -> Solution

I know you’re reading that thinking, “Great. But what does that mean?!” So let me walk you through a sales page from start to finish and we’ll review each part of the sales copy and what is for:

Your Contact Page Isn’t Just For Your Contact Information

March 3, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

The only reason a Contact page exists on your website is to provide a quick and easy way for your website visitors to access your contact information so they can contact you. Sounds pretty obvious, right?

I guess it’s not, because for some entrepreneurs, the Contact page has morphed into a necessary evil, not a way to help their website visitors. For these people, there is no contact information or personal message on their Contact page. Instead, there is merely a cold, unfriendly form, which for your visitors is irritating and frustrating.

Just like when creating your website sidebar and your website footer, when it comes to creating a successful Contact page for your website, you need to put yourself in your visitors’ shoes. When you visit the Contact page on a website what are you looking for?

Here is a list of things you should consider including on your small business website Contact page:

A Website Footer Is For More Than Your Copyright Notice

February 21, 2011 Jennifer Bourn

I guarantee that if you browse the internet for any length of time, you’ll notice that while some websites put a lot of information in their website footer, most simply use it as a space to put their copyright notice and maybe, just maybe if you’re lucky their contact information.

Like your website sidebar, the footer of your website is a very powerful part of your site that can make a big difference in your search engine rankings and how your website visitors move through your website, yet it is one of the most under-utilized tools.

Before I share with you some ideas on how you can leverage your website footer to improve your website and search engine rankings, I want to cover some of the biggest mistakes website owners make when it comes to their website footer:

How to Get Website Traffic With Ceasar Salad

September 21, 2010 Brian Bourn

Holy Time Warp Batman… 11 Years Already! Jennifer and I recently made the short drive to Napa Valley to celebrate our 11 year anniversary and her birthday, with no kids attached. We stayed at the Silverado Resort in Napa and had dinner overlooking the golf course at The Royal Oak restaurant inside the 19th century main building.

We had agreed to just enjoy the scenery and leave work at the office, but something occurred during our dinner that inspired this article. When perusing the menu, something caught my attention. Under the standard Caesar salad offering were the words, “prepared tableside”. No further description. I had no intention of ordering yet another Caesar salad at a steakhouse, but the two words in italics peaked my curiosity to the point that I went ahead and ordered it anyways.

Disclaim Your Way To Success

August 26, 2010 Brian Bourn

Including marketing and advertising legal disclaimers, with your online and traditional marketing campaigns, is not only a good practice but in many cases are also legally required by the Federal Trade Commission. All legal disclaimers for products, programs, or services that you are marketing should be clearly visible on the same webpage or printed marketing piece that your items are described.

I have gathered the following marketing disclaimers as examples to consult when crafting your disclosures with a professional legal advisor.

Get Me All Hot And Bothered And Leave Me Wanting More: Three Steps to More Sales

January 18, 2010 Jennifer Bourn

If you trim out all the fat, filler, and fluff that beef up a lot of marketing websites, you’ll see very clearly that there are really only three things that you need to do to make more sales and boost your bottom line.

STEP 1: Capture My Attention

Start with a captivating, powerful, direct headline that draws me in. Don’t beat around the bush or use cute-sy catch-phrases and don’t speak in jargon I don’t understand. Keep the headlines and the sub headlines strong, clear, and helpful. The easiest way to do this is to write one short sentence that communicates the benefits the article, web page, or blog post, etc. I will get out of the content.

Another great way to grab my attention is with a great photo, graphic or image. You have only a couple seconds to entice me to stay on your web page and read your content and sometimes a killer photo can do that even faster and more effectively than a headline.