A friend sought my advice on migrating his business website from one service (one that retains control of the site) to a platform where he retains control. In this article, I’ll share my recommendations to him. If you find yourself in a similar situation, these recommendations could very well apply to you, too.
General
Most articles in this category address general Web and Internet issues. Some of them are rants and ramblings that may have less to do with the Web and the Internet and more to do with life lessons and business lessons.
Visualize an Audience of One
Coming up with ideas for potentially useful content you can turn into blog posts or YouTube videos isn’t the hard part of content creation. The hard part is composing that blog post or video in a way that resonates with members of your target audiences. In this blog post, I offer a simple but proven solution to this problem.
How To Structure MemberPress Memberships
When it comes to designing and building a membership site, the most important step is strategizing how to organize your content and how to structure your memberships accordingly. This article provides an outline of how memberships are structured using MemberPress.
(Pictured here is Groucho Marx, who famously said, I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.
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MemberPress Quiz Question Types: What You Should Know
In April of this year, MemberPress announced what they called a significant enhancement of the MemberPress Courses quiz feature, including the introduction of 4 new question types. In this article I’ll describe and give examples of all 9 quiz question types and share my ideas about when to use which question types in your MemberPress courses.
Scam Alert: ATT/Yahoo! Phishing Scam 6/4/2024
Alert: Phishing scam purportedly from ATT/Yahoo! Mail. They’re telling you to update your account. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS!
How To (and How Not To) Choose a WordPress Theme
This article is for “civilian” website owners and addresses some of the considerations that should go into choosing a website theme.
I think lots of WordPress website owners select a WordPress theme based on how the demo model looks. That could be a big mistake. A WordPress theme is much more than the superficial look & feel that its demo model conveys. This article explains why.
Being the Master of your Domain (Name)
Choosing a domain name for your business (or any other enterprise) can be a daunting, stressful, protracted process. It’s a bit like naming a child. You really want to get it right. Somewhat to my surprise, the guidelines in the article I wrote in December of 2004, “What’s in a (Domain) Name?“, still represent the best advice I can give you. While I hope you go read that article, I’ll summarize and elaborate here.
What’s In a (Domain) Name
Probably the FIRST marketing decision you”ll make with respect to your Web site is its DOMAIN NAME! Sure, you want to find (and register) the right domain name. But we recommend you not sweat this too much. In this short article, we’ll discuss some common preconceptions (and their antidotes); the handful of rules that exist; and, finally, a set of considerations we think you should entertain.
So you want to offer online courses…
People ask me if I can help them convert content they’ve developed or plan to develop — in some cases it’s a video, in other cases it’s a book, and so on — into an online course. My short answer is “yes”. But here’s a caveat:
The experience and insights I’ve gained from studying education at the graduate level, teaching elementary and high school students, and developing and delivering adult training programs compels me to stress that there’s a lot that goes into making a “course” that is a truly effective learning experience.
How to Make a Stale Website Fresh
Is your website stale? Has its content or appearance (or both) remained static and unchanged for too long?
If so, you might be giving your customers and prospects the impression that you’re missing in action. (Because, in a way, you are.)
In this article, I offer a number of suggestions for turning a stale website into a fresh one.