website Archives - Denise Riches

How to Transfer Your Website Hosting

After 6 years of being with the same website host, I recently decided it was time to see if there were other options, hopefully, cheaper than what I was paying.

There were no hard feelings with my old host – on the contrary! They were always super helpful and quick to reply to my concerns. Always eager to help, which was fantastic. But, as with any technology, it had been a long time since I’d had a look to see what else was available.

If this sounds familiar, this post may help you:

Start with a wishlist

If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for in a web hosting company, it’s probably a good idea to write a list of your criteria. Some may be:

location
cost
payment options
automatic backups
free website migration
SSL certificate (security)
customer service
length of contract

Once you have your list, it’s time to do some research!

Research your options

If location is important to you, start with that. Good old Google will get you on your way.

Have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil next to you as you do this research so you can make notes along the way.

Open up the various websites in separate browser tabs if you like, so it’s easier to flip back and forth to check for features, but start with one hosting company, and write down what features it offers, being careful to note anything you also may NOT like about the company (you may wish to contact customer support later to ask questions).

Systematically do the same for all the companies that interest you, and don’t forget to jot down whether they have a live chat or email address that you can contact, if necessary.

Ask questions

Now that you have your list, you have a pretty good idea of who may be in the running. But don’t leave it at that. Just because you cannot find the information on the website doesn’t mean they don’t offer what you’re looking for.

Call, email or begin a live chat with their customer support and ask your questions. This is the time to get any missing information so you can make your decision. Add these answers to your notes.

Narrow down the top contenders

No matter how long your list is, it’s time to start narrowing it down. Note, maybe in a different colour, what you like most about each one, and whittle it down to the top two companies.

Spend some time really reviewing these choices, and make your final decision.

CHARGE it!

Money talks and now’s the time to go big with your decision. If you’ve had a chance to chat with customer support, you should have an idea of how to whole process works, but it should be something like this:

if needed, renew your domain name before purchasing a hosting plan
create an account and purchase your hosting plan with the new company
review the emails you receive: next steps, user names and password information
contact support to begin the site migration process

Customer support should be available to answer any questions, whether that is through email or phone support.

Be sure to find out your nameserver information for your domain, and insert it where necessary
Also, check/update your SMTP settings if necessary (for email setup)
Do you need them to migrate your email as well as your site?

Once the migration is complete, be sure that you can log into your website backend, C-Panel and webmail. If you are having problems with any of these, be sure to contact support right away and get it resolved.

Pro tip: don’t have your old company delete your account until you are POSITIVE that you have everything you need!

Migrating your website is not without its share of hiccups, but once it’s done and the dust is settled, you should feel better about the process, and have the knowledge for next time!

P.S. – If you can save those notes for next time, it may be interesting to compare services and prices.

Need some help with your admin? Book a free consultation call with me and we can talk about your business needs.

4 Steps to Creating a Supply of Blog Content

When it comes to writing blog posts, do you often find yourself with writer’s block?

It’s not uncommon! Here are four easy steps to creating a wealth of blog content!

Determine Who Your Client Is

It’s an important but sometimes overlooked step – figuring out who your ideal client is. If you don’t know WHO you’re speaking to through your blog, how can you possibly come up with something they will want to read?

Let’s assume you’re a wellness coach, and you specialize in helping busy women to take care of themselves. Now let’s grab a piece of paper, and create 4 columns:

General

Specific

Pain Points

Needs

Use this simple chart to get a feel for who your ideal client is. Under “General”, you might put, “Female”, “Married”, or “Kids”.

Under “Specific”, you want to delve into this person a bit more. Let’s give our client the name “Janet”, and the age of “40”. Going beyond that, she “Owns her own business”.

Next comes your client’s “Pain Points”. Janet is B-U-S-Y. Between juggling family life and her business, she’s got her hands full. There’s one pain point: “Busy Schedule”. What’s keeping Janet awake at night? There’s one more pain point right there – “Can’t sleep”.

Last, but certainly not least, what does Janet need? Some help, obviously. Janet knows that self-care is important, but she often puts herself last. It’s important for Janet’s business that she takes care of herself too, because if she doesn’t, how can she teach them to take care of themselves? So your chart may look something like this:

General	Specific	Pain Points	Needs
Female	Janet/40	Busy schedule	Extra time
30-50 yrs.	Lives local to me	Can’t sleep	Help
Runs own business	Has kids		Self-care

Step one is complete – now what? Well, let’s delve into Janet’s lifestyle a bit more.

Lifestyle

Under your chart, write Janet’s name in the center, in a circle, and have 4-5 “spokes” coming out of the circle.

One “spoke” could lead to the words “wants to help other families”.

Another could be “wants to do it all”.

Another could be “runs both her home and business”.

Let’s not forget that she has children of her own.

What is your ideal client Googling?

Poor Janet. Time-strapped. Has a successful business, which could be more successful, if she had the right help. She’s like many moms and runs her household on top of that.

She’s likely Googling time-saving ideas. These could be from getting help with housework or household projects, to finding a productivity tool to help her manage her time. She could also be searching for ways she can apply self-care to her own life. Let’s be honest, sometimes the pros don’t take their own advice, right?

So, let’s turn to Google and see what search phrases come up, and we’re paying close attention to the phrases that come up in auto-fill:

Create blog headlines from these examples

If you’re writing blog posts based on these search phrases, both Google AND Janet are going to love you! Google’s going to rank you pretty high, and Janet’s going to find what she’s looking for.

I hope you’ve found this post helpful 🙂

Need some help with social media? Book a free consultation call with me and we can talk about your business needs.

Rebranding? Things to consider…

I’ve just finished rebranding my business and while I’m completely and totally loving how everything has turned out, I’m amazed at how it snowballed from wanting to update my logo and tagline.

Setting up everything from the very beginning when starting a business is a lot of work, and I’m not entirely convinced there’s any less effort involved in rebranding. To be honest, there is a lot to think about, and a lot of editing to do.

Having said that, I’m hoping that you can learn from my experience. Here is a list of things to consider when you decide to rebrand.

Logo

When redesigning your logo, whether you pay someone to create it for you, or you do it yourself, there’s no question that you should LOVE it. It should capture the feeling you have for your business and be attractive to your ideal audience. I strongly suggest checking out a logo website such as pngTree and find a few styles you really like before getting to work on your own.

Website

Just as you should do some research on logo styles, check out (and bookmark) a few websites that you like the style of. Spend some time considering your fonts, colours and layouts. While you should definitely like the look and feel of your website, most importantly, it should be attractive to your ideal customers. It’s very important to think like your customer and design accordingly.

Headshot

If you want to be seen as a professional, it’s important to show a professional photo of yourself. Whether you pay for professional headshots, or you simply dress professionally and have a trusted friend take photographs of you, this is a key step of the process. Practice your smiles, stance and pose. If you’re getting a professional to take your photo, they will bring the best out in you – it’s their job.

Social Media

This is where things start to get a bit more complicated but bear with it because once it’s done, you’ll have a clear path for your brand and it will be easy to maintain.

Bios – your social media bios should be updated with what you do, links and hashtags (if applicable). They should say relatively the same thing, regardless of the platform. Bios only offer limited space, so make it count.

Photo – that gorgeous new headshot should be displayed loud and proud across all your social media as your profile image. This will help people to recognize you when they decide to follow your accounts.

Contact links – it’s super important to update all contact links within your profiles. Consider your website URL, email address, free downloads, etc and click to make sure each leads where it’s supposed to.

Your posts – this is personal preference, but you may decide that you want to have templates created for your social media posts that will match your website branding. This is a great idea if you want to carry the look and feel of your website right through to your social media. As an example, your Instagram posts can have a certain look and be different from testimonial image posts, but still carry your website branding.

Free downloads

If you offer a freebie or download to have people sign up for your mailing list, then these downloads should be reworked with your new branding as well. By creating a template, similar to the social media templates previously mentioned, it’s easy to transfer the information to the new template. Canva is fantastic for this.

Links

If you have links within your blog posts (or anywhere, really), it’s important to check these and update if necessary. As an example, if you’re offering a download on one page of your website, it shouldn’t still link to your old version. The new version will need to be uploaded as media to your website, and the link replaced within your blog post.

Blog post images

This is personal preference, once again. If you choose to stay with the images you’ve already got, will the logo need to be replaced on them? Or, do you want to carry the rebranding theme over to those as well? Again, the blog post image can be created as a template and reused over and over again, with your branding.

Media

If you decide to replace images with rebranded ones on your website, it’s important to remove all the old media once the new media has been linked to your blog posts/website pages. Think of it as spring cleaning.

Alt tags

Alt tags help with indexing your site for web searches, so try not to leave these fields empty on your media files.

Sitemap

Once all the changes have taken place on your website, be sure to submit a new sitemap to Google via Google Console. You probably won’t want your old pages being found in a web search once you’ve rebranded, so be sure to tell Google that changes have been made.

Update your favicon

If you’ve updated your logo, you may want to update your favicon. This is the tiny little image that shows on a webpage tab in your browser. It’s a tiny detail but still something to consider.

Spread the word

Once everything is somewhat in place, and all the tiny tweaks and details have been taken care of, it’s time to share, share, share! Let everyone know that you’ve given your brand a fresh new look. Be proud, you’ve worked hard.

If you could use some support with this whole process, book a free consultation call with me, let’s talk.

Are Your CTAs Working For You?

CTAs, or calls-to-action, are important for any business owner, but what happens if you aren’t using them often enough, or (oops) at all?

A wise woman once told a Facebook group I’m in that if you want action, you need to TELL your visitors what you want them to do next.

It’s such a simple thought, isn’t it? Yet, very, very true.

So when a visitor is on your website or your Facebook page, are your CTAs clear and strong? Or are you giving mixed messages? Here are 10 great CTA examples you can implement: (more…)

Why Your Website Needs a Blog

If you’re considering not having a blog on your website, you might be making a big mistake.

While not having a blog on your website isn’t necessarily life or death for your business, it’s certainly an important aspect to consider if you want to help drive traffic to your website and keep your content fresh.

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WordPress.com Versus WordPress.org

WordPress.

That word seems to pop up just about everywhere. Did you know though, that it’s not just for bloggers? More and more websites are being built using WordPress. But WordPress.com and WordPress.org are the same, right? No.

There is a world of difference.

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