Some of the features included in this plugin work with:

• Post title and meta descriptions
• Robots meta configuration
• Breadcrumbs
• Permalink clean up
• XML Sitemap
• RSS Feed enhancements
• Robots.txt and .htaccess custom configuration

Now you are probably asking yourself, c’mon Tony what does this Yoast plugin look like? Well here is your chance to see the plugin work on one of our previous posts WordCamp Miami 2013.

WordPress SEO is not about adding a bunch of plugins to your site and hope for results. TECKpert takes pride in creating the proper campaign based on the client needs to fulfill a successful online experience.

Click here to give the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin a try.

Want to learn more? Get in touch with a Web Expert

The post Plugin of the Month: WordPress SEO by Yoast appeared first on TECKpert.

Is Content Marketing Right For You?

To be brief, if all you are looking for is brand awareness, buying ad space is more up your alley and there’s no need to read further. If you are looking to generate more business, to increase demand for your products, then this post is for you.

The main goal with content marketing is to create a dialogue between your brand and your clientele. The logic goes that the further you cement the bond between your business and your customers, the more they will trust your brand for its expertise, its credibility and its reliability. Once you achieve this, your clients become a part of your marketing team by promoting you through word-of-mouth.

Content Marketing Done Right

There are many mediums that you can use to effectively run a content marketing campaign. You can write blogs and case studies, create videos, share pictures and stories, provide tips through email newsletters and so much more.

The most effective content marketing campaigns always revolve around sharing stories.  Providing an intimate look at your work, your business’s culture and your philosophies promotes a more personal attachment and understanding of who you are as a brand.

When content marketing is done correctly (ie on a regular basis), it cements your clients as fans of your business, which allows them to promote you with more effectiveness than any basic advertising spread.

Before You Begin

Content marketing is not a simple undertaking. Managing social media alone can take up a good amount of time and energy, quickly swallowing up hours in your workday. Developing a full-on content marketing strategy takes time, effort and above all, expertise. This field may be young, but it has grown fast with an array of experts manning the helm. It’s important that you hire a online marketing firm to help guide you through this territory.

Building awareness through content allows you to promote your brand while not seeming overly pushy. Gone are the days when cold calls determined how any new clients would float across your desk. Keep the conversation going and business will follow.

If you are serious about gaining traction in your search engine rankings, content marketing is what makes up the core strategy behinds this. Get in touch with a Web Expert to learn more.

The post The Power of Content appeared first on TECKpert.

At TECKpert, we’ve taken part in launching a few start-ups. And, as we’ve helped them grow, we’ve learned a few tricks on how to minimize risks and give a start-up the highest chance of success.

The Start-Up Survival Guide

Start with your website as your storefront. First things first, in order to thrive you need to keep your initial costs as low as possible. Today, almost every industry can survive without prime office-space or the best retail location.

Instead, use your website as your storefront. It will be open for business twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week at a fraction of the cost it will take to operate a brick-and-mortar location. Once your site is doing steady business and handling your inventory, go ahead and open another location. Jumping the gun to appear more prestigious is one of the quickest ways to scuttle a great idea.

And for retail businesses—starting up with an online eCommerce storefront allows you to gauge which products will be your bestsellers and even which part of town will be the best spot for you to open an actual store.

Focus your marketing push online. It’s a tumultuous time for any business that relies on ad revenue. Newspapers, other periodicals and TV networks are in panic mode; their analog dollars are being replaced with digital pennies. While this may seem dire to them, it’s music in the ears of every entrepreneur building a start-up.

Integrating online marketing strategies like SEO, social media and content marketing has a proven track record to bring in a substantially higher ROI than traditional marketing. And, almost more importantly, you can get the data to track your progress practically in real time.

Mobilize your business. At the outset of starting a business, there are dozens of aspects that an entrepreneur needs to set in stone (like your brand’s name, your logo et cetera). With over 50% of Americans using smartphones to research and connect with businesses, it’s important to set up your brand’s mobile strategy early on.

For some businesses, this might be as simple as focusing their marketing push based on location based apps like Twitter, Foursquare, Google+ Local and Yelp. But for others it can be a whole lot more. If you could have a native app for iPhone and Android that can help acquire clients or function as a service to them, building it would be a sound investment.

As consumers live their lives on the go, engaging them on their schedule provides you with a quicker conversion from lead to sale. Keeping that in mind will help you take advantage of the flexibility and maneuverability that start-ups naturally have in abundance by utilizing the options available.

Manage your time with sound organizational strategies. A start-up is like a newborn: it relies on you for everything it needs to survive. That’s why, when you’re building a brand, the largest determining factor between success and failure is how efficiently you manage your time.

Leveraging programs like Freshbooks, Basecamp, Dropbox and Asana can help you better manage your files, keep in contact with team members manage to-do lists and tracking time spent on any given project. These software applications were built with start-ups in mind and yet they benefit the medium to large sized businesses that use them as well.

For a start-up to grow, you need to take your idea and fuel it with a driven work ethic. For more tips and tricks on how to grow your business, click here to sign up for our newsletter.

The post What Start-Ups Need To Know In Order To Succeed appeared first on TECKpert.

When you visit a website, you see the dining room. But when you run a website, you see it from the kitchen sink. That said, it doesn’t have to be chaotic for quality to exist there.

Why We (Almost Exclusively) Use WordPress

Many of the CMS options out there are optimized for specific uses and not much else. Running with the same analogy, it would be like building a kitchen with eighteen stoves for a twenty table restaurant.

Some companies hire engineers to custom-build a CMS, but that process can easily run into the six-figure range. Instead of developing a fully-customized CMS, which is not incredibly “user-friendly,” we recommend starting with WordPress. Within the framework of WordPress, we are able to develop a multitude of customizeable options that perfectly synch with your online needs. We develop features for every type of site be it content-based, portfolio-centric, real estate, or another.

Why You Should (Almost Exclusively) Use WordPress

The primary benefit to running your site on a WordPress platform as opposed to HTML is that you can update, maintain and add to the site yourself. You no longer need to email your web guy for a three sentence change or to update a set of photos on your homepage. You can easily work your own blog, coordinate new HTML5 slide shows and add new pages at your whim.

WordPress is a breeze even for those who would qualify themselves as “tech-illiterate.” Its platform is so easy and clean that within a few minutes of playing around you can easily integrate social media widgets and Google Site-Map creation, add videos and connect your mailing list to your blog and email newsletters.

We could go on and on about why WordPress is a perfect fit your website and your business–but that could take up more than this blog space will allow.

Instead, go ahead and schedule a free consultation to learn more. We would be happy to show you how the back end of a website can change the entire online experience.

The post Form Meets Function: A Look Behind the CMS curtain appeared first on TECKpert.

When just starting out, or while still a small operation–turning to social media is a simple, cost-effective and efficient method to drive leads and score new clients.

So, what to do if you are ready and eager to expand your business but not quite toe-deep in the pool of social media? It’s really quite simple–jump in!

We’ve compiled a few easy steps on how to get involved in social media, how to drive more traffic to your site and, in the end, gain more customers.

1. Be Findable

First things first, being online is pointless if potential clients can’t find you. Not only should your site be complete with SEO keywords but your brand should be also be identifying where your customers are online. What markets does your target audience flock to? What sites and social outlets are they getting involved in? Is it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest? When you are able to track what networks your clients are logged into when they are on your site, you can determine where you need to create an online presence and which sites you should have a promotion. In addition, you should be posting your business profile on various social media outlets and directories. Be sure to get listed on Foursquare, Yelp, and more.

2. Seek Reviews

Once you establish your brand’s online identity on multiple sources and mediums, it’s important to solicit online reviews. With platforms such as Yelp and Foursquare, you can promote your business effectively through reviews and word-of-mouth marketing. With consumers relying more and more heavily on social media channels for review information, every small business should actively encourage online reviews in order to generate more traction for your business and secure new leads through online searches.

3. Blog Regularly
With the majority of the world constantly online desperate for more information, it’s a wonder that the world keeps turning. The internet doesn’t turn off, and neither should your business. By allowing your business to showcase itself as a source of information–you are giving potential customers the chance to deem your company as helpful, insightful and a brand with which they would want to associate.

Generating more business can be tricky and difficult when it comes to small businesses. But the key will always remain in how wide you throw your net. Keep casting and you will be guaranteed to see results.

The post Are You an SMB? It’s Time To Be Social. appeared first on TECKpert.

We want to help speed up the learning curve. If you already get Twitter, you probably already know how to best leverage its system–but like many networking tools, there’s always something more to learn.

The best way to explain Twitter to the uninitiated is to compare it to Facebook. Twitter is best for networking with people while Facebook is best for staying in contact with those already in your network. Keep this in mind; you’re always trying to make a good first impression on Twitter.

Tips To Make Twitter Work For You

Get your profile perfect. This is your elevator pitch. Introduce yourself and elude to what type of content you are going to tweet about. A lot of folk will decide whether to follow you or not based on what you put here. Take the time to get it right.

Instead of writing a Tweet, write a headline. Early on, it’s easy to stumble over the 140 character limit. That’s why it’s best to think of a Tweet as a short and sweet introduction to whatever you are linking to (this obviously doesn’t apply to quotes or deep thoughts; those stand for themselves).

Don’t try to sell. The only way to get sales through Twitter is to not actively sell. Show your expertise. If you are in real estate, share links to articles about the shifts in the market. If you’re a lawyer, tweet links to interesting cases.

Interact with your followers and the people you follow. While a decent percentage of your tweets should focus on the tips mentioned above, the rest should focus on other users. If they ask a question, answer it. If they tweet something that makes you laugh, tell them about it. And above all, retweet everything you find interesting. Upwards of half your tweets should be retweets of other people.

Create Lists. It’s impossible to keep a thousand different people that you follow straight. Create lists and treat them the same as verticals; it will save you time in the long run. Users that maintain good lists get added to other people’s lists and it becomes the most effective way to gain traction.

Keep track of what works and what doesn’t. Maintaining data is key for Twitter. Keep track of what times in the day you get the most traction and the voice in which you write your Tweets that is the most effective. Get a web app to manage your Twitter account (we like Buffer) and pay attention to your analytics and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Variety is the spice of life. Every once in a while, tweet about something off topic. It shows depth and reinforces that a person is tweeting, not a machine…which, by the way, is the worst thing you can do tweeting. Let your personality shine through or your voice will be washed out by the white noise that perpetually threatens to take Twitter over.

Tweet often. You don’t need to tweet every five minutes, but ten to twenty a day is good. And don’t be afraid to reshare links (as long as you rewrite the verbiage of the tweet). There is such a constant flow of information on Twitter that it won’t come across as spam.

The post How To Make Twitter Work For You appeared first on TECKpert.

The post Importance of Google Places appeared first on TECKpert.

So if someone starts typing words into the search bar for Google, it usually relates to something they are looking for. We call those “keywords”. Let’s give an example. If I am looking to buy a house in Coral Gables, I will go into Google and type “real estate in coral gables” or “homes for sale in coral gables”. Once I hit search, I will be presented with various results ranked by relevance to my search terms. How does Google do it? How do certain websites get ranked higher than others? It’s a mystery to most people, but companies that provide SEO know this.

What exactly is SEO? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the method of performing analysis and creating web pages and websites so they can be found, analyzed, and ranked based on the content and structure so they can be indexed by various search engines. In case you didn’t get that, SEO basically tells search engines your site is important and relates to what someone is searching for. So in our home search example, if I am a realtor who concentrates on selling homes in Coral Gables and I have a website, I would want my site to appear at the top of the rankings when someone searches for “real estate in coral gables” or “homes for sale in coral gables”. In order for that to happen, I would have to have SEO being done for my website.

SEO is not a onetime thing and its impact is not felt immediately. Usually based on the levels of effort undertaken on your website combined with what your competition is doing with their websites, determines how long SEO will impact you. Typically SEO is a monthly service with companies undertaking various tasks and efforts determined by constant analysis of consumer search behavior and competitor tracking (what your competitors are doing). A sustained, focused SEO campaign will have lasting effects on the quality and level of traffic to your website. Whether you’re selling a product or trying to get new clients, increasing quality traffic through SEO is a win-win for any business.

The post Do I need SEO for my website? appeared first on TECKpert.

The Social Media Revolution
Here are some interesting facts:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
• Years to Reach 50 million users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

Just watch this video to understand “The Social Media Revolution” and find out some interesting facts you didn’t know.

To start harnessing the power of social media, follow some of these tips:

Create a Fan Page
Using a fan page for creating content and interacting with consumers and client is easy and free. You can use them to showcase new and upcoming products and services which can help you gather useful feedback. A fan page can also be very informative by showcasing what you do. It also serves as a portal on a social network to your website. The most common and popular place to create a fan page is Facebook. If you don’t have a fan page setup on  Facebook, then this should be the first thing you do after reading this article.

Reaching your Customer
Social networks are a great place to reach and understand who your customers are and the best ways to relate your products and services to what they need.

Put up a Schedule of Events
It’s easy and simple to create a calendar of events for all your fans and friends to see. You can post upcoming events in your company, events you are participating in, and events you are hosting for potential customers.

Get People to Help You
Interact with people and get them involved with your business. You can easily talk with friends and customers who are more than willing to help promote you to their network. This is an easy way to get introduced to future customers

Get Useful Feedback
Social media is an ideal forum for interacting with customers and asking them for feedback. You don’t have to go anywhere…everyone is right there! Create a discussion, ask for feedback; the tools are at your disposal.

Targeting your Consumer
Some social networks provide you the ability to run advertisements that target a specific group. You can run ads that are shown to people by location, age, and more. Facebook’s advertising panels allow you to customize your ad, demographic, and view statistics on who viewed and clicked them.

SEO
Creating a fan page that uses your company name can improve your search engine rankings.  Social media marketing should be a part of an overall Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy.

The post Free Tips for Leveraging Social Media for Business appeared first on TECKpert.

That’s what we are going to answer in this article.

Having a nicely designed website for your business should be a top priority. But more importantly, you should have it loaded with fresh content and fully optimized to easily drive traffic. Why? Because a website should serve at least one of the following purposes:

• Provide information about your business.
• Market (or sell) your products and services online.
• Create leads (or inquiries) to generate business.
• Be a source of information (i.e. blog) for your specific area of expertise.

Here is a breakdown of how you should approach creating a web 2.0 small business website:

• Plan Your Website
• Choose Keywords
• Write Your Content
• Leverage Social Media
• Build Your Website

Plan Your Website

The first thing you can’t do is get a website because everyone else has one. It has to have a purpose and you have to find out what that purpose is. What’s the objective of your site? Is it to (1) sell a product, (2) market a service, (3) capture a sales inquiry, (4) have someone subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed, or (5) get followers to your twitter feed and Facebook page. Chances are you said yes to most of these. Once you know your objective, you can go about creating your website to achieve what you want. Without this first and most important component, you can’t get your website visitor to do what you want them to and they will be just left wondering “Ok, but I don’t understand how you can help me” as they leave your website. So now that you understand this and you have your objective, the next step is to determine what keywords are important for your website.

Choose Keywords

Before you go off spending countless hours writing content for your website, it is important to find out what people are searching for on the internet that relates to your business. For example, TECKpert provides web design and software development services. The type of visitors we want on our website are the people that are on Google typing “website design”, “website design company” or “software development service”. Why are keywords important? Because they enable your content to be ranked by Google and increasing your exposure on search engines will drive organic traffic to your website. That should be your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy for your business. Organic search results are the results you find in Google that are right under the search bar below the paid advertisements. You want great placement without having to pay Google. To rank well in organic search results should be your main SEO strategy. Remember, SEO is forever while ad placement is temporary (and costs money). So before you begin creating your content, make sure to pick your keywords carefully. Use free tools like the one provided by Google to help you in determining what keywords are right for your business.

Write Your Content

Your website can look awesome. But that doesn’t matter if the content doesn’t provide the website visitor what they came looking for. If you fail to provide meaningful content, your website visitor will simply leave looking for someone else and all that time, effort, and money you spent getting them there would be a waste. When a visitor arrives at your website you have just a few precious seconds to capture their attention and deliver your message as if they where standing right in front of you. You know your business well and how you want your clients and potential customers to see it. Get down on a personal level and abandon that overly technical or complicated message. Keep it simple and straight to the point. Use those couple of seconds you have to capture your website visitor. Remember, good content is what drives search engines. As we discussed in the previous section, you have to include the right keywords in your content. The last thing you want is someone being directed to your site only to leave and never come back.

Leverage Social Media

When you create a web page or blog post, share it. Post it on your Facebook page or Twitter feed. Social media is an easy, free way to get your business out there to a large number of people waiting to hear about it. Setup a blog and let your website visitors read and comment on it. You need to engage your audience. Some of your website visitors will notice you’re on a social network they use and will follow or friend you. Don’t be afraid, that’s a good thing because you got their attention.

Build Your Website

So now you have a good idea what your website needs to do and what you are going to put on it. Now, how do you get your website online? Without getting too much into technical talk, you’ll need what we in the web community call a Content Management System, or CMS. With a CMS you can manage your website content, design, and features. At TECKpert, the CMS of choice today for our small business clients is an open source platform called WordPress. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available. But what many people don’t know is that it is a powerful CMS that can be used for more than just a blog. With WordPress you can build a small business website that years ago would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. WordPress was designed as a platform for bloggers, but you don’t have to use it as a blogging tool. With a few modifications, it can be used to power your website. The fact that WordPress was designed as a blogging platform gives it some great advantages. It is optimized for easily publishing and you can add or update content without having to hire a website design company. And getting good search engine rankings requires fresh, unique content. You need a system that does not get in your way when you want to update your website with a new page, article, image, or video.

Expanding on topics earlier in this article, WordPress provides a strong foundation for:

• SEO – WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are a few tweaks you need to make, but there are many SEO benefits that WordPress provides for free.
• Content – it is easy to update content on your website without knowing HTML.  I am sure you don’t want to have to learn HTML and how to use a tool like Dreamweaver. Do you want to have to “ask” your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your website? Well that is a thing of the past. Once WordPress is set up, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.
• Social Media – all your pages and posts can be easily configured to share content on most, if not all, social networking websites. Furthermore, each category you setup comes with its own RSS feed for easy distribution.
• Plugins – There is a large community of developers creating themes and plug-ins. This means you can browse and use great design themes from a large collection, or extend your website with contact forms, a slick image gallery, a shopping cart, or hundreds of other cool features without having to hire a web developer.

Don’t suffer the same frustrations other small business owners experience with their website. With WordPress you don’t have to worry about that problem anymore. Building a website that is designed to meet your goals powered by a full featured content management system like WordPress will set your website up for years to come.

If you want to get a WordPress website created for your small business, check out TECKpert’s Express Website Design Package created specifically for small business. You will get a smashing design, setup, training, web 2.0 features, and a website built for your business. All for a price you can afford.

The post Website Design for Small Business appeared first on TECKpert.