Case Study: Consolidating Multiple Websites Into One

When I posed the question “Do You Want to Consolidate Multiple Websites?”, I didn’t expect such clear lines to be drawn between people who strongly believe in maintaining separate niche sites and those who themselves are dealing with whether or not to combine WordPress blogs into one main site. While everyone wasn’t in total agreement, most everyone agreed that there can be situations where consolidation is the best route to go.

Was my post controversial? Yes. Not everyone agreed with our strategy. Some readers felt that clearly defined niche sites are the route to go. Other readers were considering the same strategy. The thing is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy for deciding if you need one website or multiple sites. This week, let’s take a closer look at the thought process behind the decision to merging multiple blogs into a new cohesive brand.

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Keeping Your Online Business Secure

Running an online business can be a very rewarding opportunity. Due to the potential savings for the business owner from not paying for a physical storefront, online businesses can often offer services and products for a better price to their customers or, at the very least, afford to offer free shipping. Both can drive a lot of business to their websites from those looking for a deal or those who simply do not have the time to shop at their local stores.

The main problem lies in the fact that running an online business can bring about security risks, not only to your customers, but also to yourself. No one online is immune to cyberattacks, and many aren’t even aware of how to protect themselves online to begin with. Though data breaches could still happen when you’re well protected, it’s very rare, and by following some simple security tips, you may never have to deal with the devastating effects of a security breach at all.

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Do You Sell Online? Want To?

(c) Can Stock Photo

Building an eCommerce website or simply adding an online shopping cart to an existing site can seem like an overwhelming task. There are so many options available including: selling on popular online marketplaces (like eBay, Etsy or Amazon’s Handmade Marketplace), adding WordPress plugins to an existing site, using services such as PayPal, or creating an online store using eCommerce software. Many of  the eCommerce solutions available today will handle many (if not all) of the components you need.

In addition to an online storefront (or simple shopping cart), you need: payment processing, website building & hosting, inventory management, marketing and even CRM (customer relationship marketing) tools. Given the wide variety of options, you should be able to find a solutions that requires either zero technical skills or build-it-yourself options. With the right solution, you can get a store up quickly and easily.

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Do You Want to Consolidate Multiple Websites?

Do you have multiple blogs and struggle to maintain them? Have you ever thought about rebranding and combining your websites under one brand? How would you begin? Could it have a negative impact on your SEO efforts?

These are interesting questions and consolidating multiple websites into one is not a strategy that should be taken lightly. It is also a journey that I just went on with Doreen Pendgracs (a published author, travel blogger, speaker and freelance writer).

Over the years, Doreen found herself with four separate websites. Not only was it time consuming to create content for each site, she also found herself torn between which site the content belonged on. Was it about chocolate, travel, writing, lifestyle or one of her books? Sometimes, the answer was yes to all.

So, how and why did Doreen and I decide that the best strategy would be to consolidate her sites? Come along with us as I show you how we made the decision. Hopefully, you’ll gain some insight by taking a look behind the scenes.

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How Convincing Content Can Get Your Customers to Buy

Any digital marketer will tell you that the average conversion rates they get from websites hovers between 2 to 6% across the board. Of course there are outliers at both ends of the spectrum, however, that’s the ballpark in which most websites operate. So what do the high performing outliers do that sets them apart from the average Joes?

In two words, inbound marketing. A sound inbound marketing strategy can double average conversion rates for websites from 6% to 12%, according to research from HubSpot.

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Podcasting: Because Your Audience Wants To Hear From You

Podcasting is the natural next step in relationship building. They know and trust your voice. They feel like they already know you. Knowing that your audience, your target market, and your clients truly want to hear from you is the most compelling reason to get started with your own podcast.

They know and trust your voice. They feel like they already know you. Your podcast is just the natural next step in your ongoing relationship.

You already have at least two-thirds of the structure you need: your blog, your audience. The other third would be your email autoresponder series. Podcasting is the natural next step in building relationships online and offline.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!

Radio Tales

When is the last time you listened to the radio, as in AM/FM? This morning? Last week?

Personally, I don’t listen to AM/FM radio much these days at all. But it so happened that I was visiting a friend on a Sunday morning and she had her radio tuned to her favorite weekly old-time gospel program. What struck me was the line-up of songs: they didn’t appeal to me in the least but it got me to thinking about how the radio station chose the songs to play.

They play what the people want to hear.
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SEO Resources Bloggers Can Use #FridayFinds

SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most talked about topics that bloggers hear about. Whether we want to understand it or not, bloggers need to be aware of the basics of SEO. If we choose to ignore it, we’ll either miss the opportunity to get free organic search traffic or (even worse) risk being de-indexed by Google completely.

Today, in this episode of my #FridayFinds series, let’s take a look at some of the basics of SEO. My first find is chock full of SEO tips for publishing on LinkedIn and my second find recaps a roundup of eleven articles from bloggers including Dr. Peter J. Meyers (MOZ.com), Christopher Ratcliff (eConsultancy.com), David Shiffman (SEMRush.com), Garrett Moon (CoSchedule.com), Danny Sullivan (SearchEngineLand.com), Jayson DeMers (AudienceBloom.com) and Rizvan Ullah (Ranktactics.com).

You’ll also find some videos from Matt Cutts and John Mueller. Some of these posts are older but (I believe) they’re evergreen.

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Choosing WordPress Themes: Security Risks, Code Bloat and Other Issues

Years ago in the early days of WordPress, everything was free. You either chose a boring default theme, picked one someone else had created or wrote your own theme. Then two things happened: 1) people realized they need to make money and 2) hackers discovered themes are a way to create security holes.

Unfortunately, since one can get website code easily, it is easy for a hacker to use a particular theme to hack your website. Also, there is the do-it-yourself trend, in which someone who knows no coding wants to set up a whole WordPress site with only a click here and there.

However, if one also wants a complex theme or lots of choices, this can bring about what is called “code bloat” – lots of calls to the database that slows down your site or lots of short codes that make theme switching difficult. In this post we will discuss two issues: theme security and code bloat. Then the post will suggest a few ways to make good theme choices.

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2 Powerful Strategies You As A Blogger Desperately Need

Who doesn’t love blogging?

Who doesn’t want to improve upon what they’re already doing or learn something that might help them move forward!

Whichever might be the case for you, we are happy you’re here.

Sherryl was so kind to extend an invitation to be her guest so I thought I would share some very powerful strategies with you that have really benefited me.

I have no doubt that you’re already doing really well with your blog but there is always room for improvement wouldn’t you agree?

I believe every blogger needs to know these 2 powerful strategies in order to improve their blogs.  They can even help you become a better blogger too.

So what exactly am I referring to?

Let’s start with this one…

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What Is Your Response to Google’s Mobile Friendly Update? #FridayFinds

We’re less than a week away from Google’s April 21st date to have our sites mobile-friendly. Hopefully, by now, your site already passes Google’s test, you’re implementing a plan to meet the deadline, or you have come to the conclusion that you’ll be okay if your website is not returned in the SERPs (search engine result pages) that are performed from mobile devices. The decision is individual. What we don’t want to do is make rash decisions that could derail our overall business strategy. We need to take a common sense approach to this and not fall prey to the #Mobilegeddon hysteria.

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