Most people when they start a website, they have no plan for it.
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Here’s MY website plan.
It consists of 13 “ToDo” lists that I have my GUYS implement for me.
Some of this stuff won’t be relevant to your business, but my guess is
that most of it is relevant.
These lists were designed to be used to build and market an online
business that I don’t want to be involved in. This is supposed to get
the site ranked well in SEO and bring traffic in from lots of different
sources so that the site makes money.
Also, this list has some things that are specific to building
“review” websites with wordpress. You might want to use some other
plugins for wordpress than the ones I list here. Please think about it.
Maybe some of the plugins listed here aren’t relevant to you, or maybe
they’ve gone out of date by the time you get this. Nothing on this
list is CRITICAL. Nothing on this list will make or break the process.
You DO NOT have to do everything I list here to be successful. These are just the things WE do.
Also, there are probably some things on this list that we don’t do
anymore. Things change all the time. If something on this list doesn’t
work for you, SKIP IT AND MOVE ON!
Lists 10, 11, and 13 aren’t “todo” lists. They’re more for ideas of things you can/should do with your website.
If you have things to add to this, please post it in the comments.
If you find errors (I know there are quite a few), please post it in the comments.
I’ll monitor the comments and update the list as you add/correct things.
Things to do before you build the site. When I wrote this it was
based off the plan of building a website where we write reviews on all
the products in the niche we pick. If your business plan is different,
modify this list accordingly.
Decide on a market (one way to find
what’s hot is to record late night TV and watch the
commercials/infomercials. Those are hot products/markets) Here’s how I do niche research
Familiarize yourself with the market
Do initial keyword research (familiarize yourself with the keywords)
Install Wordpress
(You can usually do this through “fantastico” in your hosting control
panel, or you can download it from wordpress.org and install it
yourself)
Upload robots.txt file (in the zip file at the end of this post)
Configure Wordpress (Todo list #3)>
Do a 301 redirect from non www to www (.htaccess example is in the Files tab)
If not using Wordpress, figure out a way
to do tag and ping, and blog and ping (an easy way is to add tags to
your pages, and to use pingoat.com each time you add a new page). If you’re not using wordpress, I think you’re foolish right now.
Configure Wordpress
All these things can be done inside the admin area of wordpress.
This assumes you use Semiologic as your theme. We DON’T need to have
every single one of these plugins. Some of the URL’s might not work. Try
to find that plugin by searching google for it. If something doesn’t
work, just move on and set up other plugins. No single plugin is
absolutely necessary.
Depending on the theme you use, you won’t be able to do everything here.
The really important part is that you get rid of ALL widgets. We don’t
want any sidebars. All they do is distract people from our main
marketing message.
Plugins – Activate Akismet
Plugins – Activate Contact Form http://chip.cuccio.us/projects/contact-form-ii/
Plugins – Activate dd sitemap plugin –
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/
create a page called “Sitemap” and put into it and then link to that page in your footer nav
Plugins – Activate Any other plugin you think you’ll need/want
Plugins – Deactivate all the rest of the plugins (you don’t want extra crap going on)
Presentation – Install Semiologic (the pro theme is better…but I believe the free theme will work) – Make sure you get Semiologic Version 5! this page: http://www.semiologic.com/resources/wp-basics/how-to-upgrade-sem-pro/ is a good resource for installing/upgrading
Presentation – Turn off ALL widgets
Presentation – Change Font to Verdana, Small
Presentation – Footer – Uncheck “Kudos to WordPress, Semiologic and the skin author”
Presentation – Pick a layout you like. I do Wide with “Main, Ext Sidebar” (this is assuming you’re using Semiologic)
Presentation – SEO – Add title, keywords, description
Options – General – Let Anyone Comment
Options – Writing – Set up your ping list (mine is available in the Files tab)
Options – Discussion – Check: Attempt to
notify, Allow Link notifications, Allow people to post, Comment Author
must fill out name and email
Options – Permalinks – Custom Structure
/%postname%.php This is where the .htaccess file in the Files tab comes
in handy. If wordpress has problems, just upload that file to your base website directory
Options – Feed Control – Include Posts, Pages, and sort by modified date
Options – Google Analytics – Paste in
your google analytics code (this is a good time to sign up for google
analytics if you haven’t already). Update: I have now stopped using google analytics because it really doesn’t show me the data I want to see. I now use statcounter.com.
Categories – create one category for your default posts (always put stuff into this category)
Options – CQS – Add an “is_category” and
set it to -1 (this will show links to all posts in all categories on
the category pages)
Initial Site Work
Things to do to your site in the very beginning after it is configured
The business owner needs to decide what the “sales page” is.
Write your first post about your topic
Write your second post about your topic
Write a privacy policy as a page and
name it “Privacy Policy” (there is a privacy policy in the files tab
that you can pretty much copy)
Write a sales page as a “page” in wordpress. “Sales page” could be: - an actual sales page if yo-u’re selling your own product - review page (where you review affiliate products in your industry) - squeeze page (where you capture name/email and send them on to an affiliate offer) - lead generation form - whatever your goal is with the site
Link to your sales page in the header section of Presentation -> Nav Menus
Write a contact page and name it
“Contact” – in the body of the page put [CONTACT-FORM] and that’s it.
That will create a contact page using the “contact form” plugin you already activated
Initial SEO
Things you should do for immediate SEO for your site.
Make sure your keywords are in the title, meta keywords, meta description, and h1. If you can, add an h2 and h3.
Submit an article to ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, and articlecity.com. Link to your site in your resource box.
Initial Adwords Campaign
Adwords is how you should get your initial traffic. Make sure
you monitor this to see that it’s profitable for you. If it’s not, turn
it off. There is a full training on how to set-up and run and Adwords
campaign inside my outsourcing training website
Set up an adwords campaign
Use only a few keywords (just enough to get traffic and see it working)
Write 2 ads
Turn on the content network
Set up separate bids for content network and search network. Bid lower on content.
Long Term Linking Strategies
Tons of things you can do to get links to your site. This is the
most important thing to do for SEO. Start doing these things now, and
do them consistently. The more links you get over a long term period of
time the better your site will do. If you get too many links, too
quickly, search engines won’t consider it to be natural.
It’s important that you set up systems to do this stuff. If
you don’t have systems (whether it be reminders from google calendar or
be an employee doing it) they won’t get done and your site won’t
progress.
This is a SUPER long list. Don’t do all of these things at once. Do them
one at a time. When you’ve completed one, move on to another. Then do
the first one again, then the second again, then move on and do a third.
These do not have to be done in exact order.
Use UAW
to submit an article each week linking to your product. (There is NO
SUBSTITUTE to using UAW) Create a reminder for either yourself or for an
outsourced employee to get this done (use google calendar or rememberthemilk.com).
RECURRING – Submit each UAW article manually to ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, articlecity.com
Use need-an-article.com or elance.com or guru.com to get articles written for you.
(Education) Always use different
keywords as anchor texts when linking – If you don’t it doesn’t look
natural to search engines. Use as many anchor texts as you can, but focusing on your main keywords.
Buy links from high PR sites. www.text-link-ads.com or backlinks.com is a good place to start. Do this about 2 months into your site. You should be able to get a pr6 or 7 for $50 or less per month.
Use buyblogcomments.com or hire someone to do what they do for you (bbc has become somewhat unreliable)
Submit to directories (do both: pay seoster.com to do it, use directory submitter software to help you). There are ton’s of directory submitter softwares. Most will give you a free trial of like 300 sites to submit to. Submit slowly (like 5-10 directories each day).
Submit to DMOZ.org
Submit to Yahoo Directory (it costs $300 and is well worth it)
Build a blog on blogger.com that links to your sales page/other pages on your site
Build a squidoo page and add content to it every few days. Make it link to your site.
Squidoo site notes: - Use lots of tags - Create a bio - Use the Guestbook module at the end of the lens - Use the links module. Add affiliate links to your page - Use the write/text modules to add content - Add an opt-in form to your lens for your mailing list - Use the youtube/flickr modules to add relevant video/pictures to your page - Don’t forget to promote your squidoo page just
like your other sites (submit articles linking to it and submit it to
directories)
Use Pingoat.com every time you add content to any of your sites (including your squidoo site, myspace site, and other blogs)
Build a blog on wordpress.com
Build a blog on livejournal.com
Build a blog on clearblogs.com
(Education) With all blogs write a few
blog entries initially (1 every few days for 2 weeks) and link to your
site. Afterwards, write at least one blog entry each month.
(Education) Link all your extra sites
together in a circle (don’t reciprocal link them, link site A -> B
-> C -> D -> A)
Use onlywire.com to do social bookmarking for your site.
Create a blinklist.com space
http://www.blinklist.com/space/contribute.php
(Education) Don’t link every page on
your site to every other page on your site. Only link one way. (this
isn’t totally possible if using softwares…just use it as a general
rule).
Set up a wikipedia page for your topic
(or add a link to your site on an existing page). Make sure you put
legitimate info or it will get taken down.
Build an MSN Spaces blog.
Answer a few questions on yahoo answers and link to your site/sales page. After answering a few, answer one more each day.
Get an account and put your link on your profile page on these sites: flickr.com youtube.com facebook.com buddytobuddy.com twitter.com
Make some posts in forums that link to your site. (add your link to your forum signature)
Make some comments on blogs that link to your site (make sure they’re legitimate comments)
Submit a WTF at technorati.com/wtf
Use trackback spider to get links to
your OTHER sites. Don’t promote your main site with this (unless you
know what you’re doing) (WARNING: This is very black hat. It is spamming.)
Add listings to Craigslist.com. You can use craygo.com software to do it. Link to your sites. Make
sure you don’t look like you’re blatantly posting ads, the craigslist
community doesn’t like it. This can bring you TONS of traffic.
Add your site to stumbleupon.com
Pay prweb.com to do press releases for you. Come up with something interesting about
your site and pay them the full $200 to get them to do a good job with
your press release. It’s worth it.
Give something away that links to your
site (templates for your industry, site award, software, widget that
does something cool)
Testing
Testing is critical to getting conversions correct. You should always be testing.
use a multivariate testing program on
your sales page (or your review page, or your squeeze page). Try and
increase your conversions. Google Website Optimizer – Free SplitTestAccelerator.com – $900 KaizenTrack.com – $500
Test the headline and any other pieces of the page that are “important”. If you do nothing else, test your headline.
Enter wildly different variations of tests. Don’t just test different variations on the same concept.
Test using wp-cloaker (if you can find
the plugin). It cloaks or redirects visitors that come to your site who
have used certain search terms that you define. You can send those visitors to any page you want. Last I tried I couldn’t get the plugin to work, but if you can, it’s super powerful.
Adwords Campaign
Obviously I can’t give an entire adwords tutorial right here. There is a full Adwords tutorial inside www.ReplaceMyself.com. These are just things I’ve written down to serve as a reminder to me (and you) to do certain things.
(Education)Put benefits in your ads (put them on the first description line and test the CTR)
(Education) There are 3 types of buyers: Browsers, Shoppers, and Buyers Cater to the Buyers. Use buying keywords like discount, buy now, purchase, get, sale, limited time. Browsers don’t know what they want. Shoppers are looking to compare stuff. (These are notes I took from Mr. X)
(Education)Keywords that don’t convert, add them as negative keywords
Set up winneralert to test your ads. I bolded this because so few people actually do this, yet it’s so important.
Set up site specific targeting (the adwords180 concept).
Once the campaign is profitable,
duplicate the campaign in a new adwords account (Thanks Kirt
Christensen). With a new adwords account you can show 2 of your own ads
on every search page. Get more clicks. Get more sales.
Set the campaign up in Yahoo
Set the campaign up in MSN
Set the campaign up in second tier search engines: Looksmart Findwhat Goclick.com 7search.com
Building Trust
These pieces are more notes than things you have to do. They
help you build trust with your users. Some of them might not be
appropriate for your website. This is more as a set of reminders for me
(or you) to add things to our site to help increase conversions.
Add testimonials to your sales page
Add live chat to your sales page You can use skype to do this http://www.skype.com/share/buttons/index.html You can use www.liveperson.com There are ton’s of these (search google for “live chat” or “free live chat”)
Interrupt your users while they’re on
your site and chat with them about what they really want to find
(liveperson.com will do this). This helps you get into the head of your customers. Doing this allows you to write a better sales letter.
Put your contact info at the top of the
page and make it obvious. Tell them to read the whole page and then
contact you if they still have questions.
Tell them the flaws/negatives in the product (this really makes you sound honest)
Don’t charge their card until their
trial period is up (30 days, 14 days, …). Just authorize the money, but
don’t charge the card.
Use the plugin “What Would Seth Godin
Do” for wordpress. It allows you to display something to the user after
they’ve seen your site X times. Find out why they keep coming back.
Set up a broadcast phone message to your customers. voiceshot.com xmvoice.com search google for “voice phone broadcast”
This is by no means a comprehensive list of things to do in your
sales copy. It’s just a list of ideas/notes from different copywriters.
It is stuff you should try and refer back to in building your site.
Some of it might not apply to you.
Your headline is a Problem + a Solution. If you state people’s problem, they know you understand them. If you give them a solution, they’ll listen to you.
Guarantee - Give double money back if they do something extra. Make an outlandish guarantee. Remove the risk with the guarantee. This builds trust.
Add a drop first letter (where the first letter of your sales page is bigger than the rest)
Make it time/quantity limited. Create scarcity.
Offer a coupon to entice them to buy.
Offer a free trial/sample and then automatically charge their card at the end of the trial.
Scientific Advertising – Offer Service, don’t ask for a sale. “Try this for a week, then do what you want” (meaning either return it or pay for it)
Scientific Advertising – The longer the
copy, the better the response rate. But only if you’re telling people
relevant information. You should test, test, test sales copy.
Scientific Advertising – Copy other people’s ads, ads that have been used over and over again.
Long Term SEO
Things you can/should do long term to increase your natural search engine rankings.
Use a service to turn your blog posts
into speach. Add the mp3’s to your rss feed. This makes them podcasts.
Podcasts increase search engine rankings.
Create a video and add it to your site. You can use animoto or eyejot or veodia to easily create videos.
Submit your video to video sites (youtube, google video, … search google for video sites).
Add your video to your rss feed.
Landing Page Notes
These are notes for specific types of landing pages you’re
doing. This overlaps somewhat with the Sales Copy list. These are just
notes/ideas that I’ve had or that I’ve taken from other people. They
don’t apply to all cases.
Review Site – Ugly does it. If it’s ugly, it’s a little more trustworthy. Not too ugly.
Review Site – Make one product the clear winner. Don’t leave a doubt in the persons mind.
Review Site – Test different products as the best product.
Squeeze page – In addition to the
name/email, have them give you something else (a checkbox, a choice from
multiple check boxes, an open ended box, …). It makes them feel a sense of commitment because they’ve already given more info.
Squeeze page – There is software to help you make it: squeezepagemaker.com squeezepagegenerator.com
Squeeze page – Test all the different elements of your squeeze page