Hello, CJ!

Have you ever found yourself at a fork in the road with your business? You know…the place where things just didn’t turn out as planned and now you’re not quite sure what you should do moving forward! Perhaps you can identify with this today or you’ve encountered this scenerio previously.

In today’s featured article, “The Path To Change”, we are going to share some encouragement tips to discuss how changing your mindset can often help you find a new course of direction.

We hope you find encouragement and comfort here!

To Your Continued Success,

CJ & Lanita

The Path To Change

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go as planned and neither do our business plans! When you first started your business, perhaps it developed into a thriving, growing, well-nurtured business, but then with the rapid changes in technology and the volatile market, the demand for your services quickly changed and it seems you missed a turn! We want to encourage you today! Even if you take a wrong turn, you can still find another route to success!

Your perception of your business determines what road you will journey down next! We’ve heard it said that success is a journey – not your destination, so choose today to make every turn count! Be assured that if you are not entirely sure where you are with your business, you are not lost!

Do not let panic settle in if you find you’ve missed a turn. Missing a turn simply means you have countless options available to you now. You are no longer bound to only that one road. What an adventure! If you can learn to become spontaneous, you can now experience an entirely new freedom that is available to you.

Although you may feel fearful of this change that has come to you, know that its okay to accept this detour as something worthwhile. After all, you might discover some beautiful things along the way that you may not have discovered otherwise. A wrong turn or detour may lead you to find not only a NEW way, but also a BETTER way! Perhaps you will learn something new with technology that will bring a greater level of organization and efficiency, or you’ll simply learn a better way to remain at peace within yourself when difficulty strikes.

So often, we are taken to one place in life to get us to another place. Somehow, we end up in a new place we wouldn’t have voluntarily chosen! By being flexible and allowing creativity to come forth, you are likely to find a gift as you journey ahead if you will embrace this change in your business. Allow the unknown to excite you! Muster up your courage (the inner power to face difficulties) and stand firm on a foundation of confidence! Allow your mindset to be rooted in certainty! As a business owner, you are a natural risk taker! Pioneer the way ahead! Stay the course and forge a new path for yourself!

Thought to ponder:

Look past fear and you’ll see where the path leads

One very important housekeeping task we have learned is the need to plan out your WordPress upgrades. If you don’t tend to this important housekeeping item, you may suddenly lose plugin functionality or your theme may not work the way it used to work prior to the upgrade.

You don’t want to end up with a  broken website as indicated at this post: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/281-upgrade-breaks-site.

Upgrading is imperative for security and for new technological updgrades.  Spending a few extra dollars on the front end can save a whole lot time and money in the long run (and frustration).

WordPress and plugin developers have created an excellent plugin called WordPress Beta Tester.  Here are the steps we take when WordPress has released a larger update.

1. Install WordPress in a test environment – Either set one up on your desktop, or simply do a install on your server. We call ours BreakIt.
2. Install the WordPress Beta Tester plugin – You can change the settings to your choice, we pick Bleeding Edge Nightly Builds, meaning the plugin will update your WordPress install to be the latest nightly build automatically.  You can find the settings menu in your WordPress admin area and then Tools/Beta Testing.
3. Optional – We install the Top 10 Plugins. You may have your own favorite list of plugins that you install frequently. You will want to install those so you can test them also.
4. When we test a client site, we import their posts and pages through the Import/Export Tools in the WordPress Admin area and move their template files there to test.
5. You may want to copy your sidebar widgets over to make sure everything in the sidebars are working correctly as well.

With all of those steps completed, you can now test their templates and plugins on the test platform.

The next large release of WordPress that will fix security issues and will streamline the menu system. You can read more about it by clicking here.

Email me today at CJ@TheAdminProfessional.com to have your test platform installed.

Listen To A Free MP3

Listen to the full interview with CJ Gaul and Juliet Austin about the 10 WordPress plugins listed below!  The audio file will help you determine how these plugins can enhance your current website.

The audio file can be found at bottom of our WordPress Install and Upgrade Package page.  To go to this page now, CLICK HERE

Top 10 Plugins

Search Engine Optimization

SEO Ultimate – One of the best SEO plugins available!

Google Analyticator – Places your analytics code on every page automatically and also places some statistics on your dashboard for quick/easy viewing.

Google XML Sitemaps – Automatically creates and updates your sitemap.

Mobile Plugins

WPtouch – Enables your site to have a Mobile Template, making it easier to browse your site from a smart phone.

WordPress Mobile Admin – Gives you an easier-to-use admin area on your smart phone.

WordTwit – Allows you to easily send a Tweet from within the Post admin area.

Functionality

WP FancyZoom – enhances images that you want to zoom in on by a click of a mouse!  Quick and easy!

WP Autoresponder – Excellent and FREE Newsletter and Auto-Responder plugin

EZPZ One Click Backup – Super easy backup plugin

Social Sharing

Sociable for WordPress – Allows visitors to share your posts/pages to social networks.

You can find over 12,000 plugins and themes at WordPress.org!

Bonus Plugins For Developers

Popupper – Tool tips popup.

CollabPress – Simple project manager to install on your stage or on the developing site to track and communicate changes. Nothing elaborate, but works. I have made some modifications to the plugin to create a nicer feel and user interface simpler to understand. Shoot me an email for a copy.

Top 10 Package

For a limited time, we are offering you the  Top 10 Package! It includes:

• The Top 10 WordPress Plugins shared here today, installed on your WordPress Website
• Your website will be backed up
• Your website will be upgraded to the latest version of WordPress.

All for just $299 USD – Offer ends July 29, 2011!

CLICK HERE to take advantage of this special offer!

SEO Techniques (Search Engine Optimization)

A few years ago, this term would have meant trying to get your site up in the rankings with Google through meta tags on your website, matching them up in your headings and content, and making sure you had current and fresh content that deals with your website topic or field. This is still true, but now we have to move into a new arena. That new arena is…

Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)

With the introduction of the social craze, there have been new opportunities to meet new clients with the networks.  These allow you to not only send message to your clients with one click but also allow you to integrate from network to network, streamlining the whole process and allowing you to make one announcement get it published on a lot of your networks at one time. This is great for SEO because as you can now link back and forth giving you links back to your website and giving you great marketing opportunities right out of the box. The Social Networking platforms also sprouted a new arena of SEO and technology hype with videos.

Video Syndication

Video syndication along with HTML5 is currently on the edge. YouTube has released their HTML5 player along with Vimeo, Livestream and many others – most are already working their way there, if they don’t have the capability already. HTML5 brings along the capability to embed a player that is browser and platform friendly, meaning, you can view the video on your iPhone or your Windows PC, Mac,  your Android, or any other device. It is smart enough to recognize what platform you are viewing it on and loads the appropriate video. What does this mean? You can have a browser device friendly video that will work for anyone.

There are user-friendly SEO techniques in syndicating your videos. You select your title (keyword optimized of course for all of these) keywords and description and place the video on your social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or others.  You now have great capabilities to again reach another aspect of your market.

Where is this all taking us? Seven to ten years ago I would have said you didn’t need to have a website to market yourself or your business, but these days, it’s almost mandatory. Consumers purchase products based on running a search on Google or some other search engine to find reviews or information about what they are looking for – you need to be there. Now is the time to jump in and begin upgrading and building the future for you and your business and have some fun while your at it. Enjoy life and shoot some Vid’s!

Now that we have some keyword terms under our belt, let’s move on to the foundation of building a website. You will need to put together a Website Development Plan (assuming you know what your product is and you have your business plan already in motion)

1. Figure out what functionality you need.

a. Do you want it to be CMS style?

b. Shopping cart – Are you going to accept credit cards, or PayPal?

c. Track inventory- Do you need to track inventory?

d. Calendar – Do you need a calendar of events?

e. Forums – A forum is a place where people can leave a post for others to respond to.

f. Contact Us Form (Inquiry Form) this can be done through data-bases that can gather information for later use when you want to send out mass emailing. (Highly recommended!)

2. Style

a. 2 Column or 3

b. Colors

c. Clean, professional, template modified

3. SEO Considerations

a. Flash is not good as a intro page

b. Not a lot of pictures – as in the whole art work shouldn’t be sliced up and used as the website

c. CSS keeps more content first and not coding

d. WordPress is a CMS web based software and is excellent for SEO. (Our VIP Package comes with a WordPress Site installed)

4. Marketing Considerations

a. RSS.

i. Really Simple Syndication

1. Go to http://www.theadminprofessional.com/blog

2. RSS is a great sales tool. You can download a RSS Reader such as YeahReader and begin seeing what the hype is all about. RSS is truly one of the greatest sales tools available on the net, and the greatest part is, IT’S FREE!  It works like an email client, except it is only information from web sites that you choose. If you went to our blog and you like the articles that you see, and would be interested in getting future articles automatically –  then you would find the RSS button and add that URL to the YeahReader. Every time we add an article, you will receive it in your YeahReader without you having to come back to the site. It’s a huge time saver.

3. If you like Crafts, you can go out to www.blogsearch.google.com and find a blog on crafts and subscribe to the ones you like, so whenever you want a craft idea you just open up your reader and wham, you have ideas just waiting on you!

4. As homework you need to download YeahReader and begin going on a blog search to find relevant blogs on topics you like and get them in your RSS YeahReader. If you don’t get started this week, then your diligence will break down and you won’t ever do it. So get started today.

5. This is the future of the Internet, so if you can learn it now, you will be ahead of your teenagers. MySpace is a blog. Classmates is a blog. They are all modified, but easy and inexpensive to do.

6. You have an open door to people who like you, your site, and the products you offer! It’s like the Kirby salesperson, you don’t want him knocking on your door more than 1 time a year, but if the ice cream truck comes around, we are all like, hmmm maybe I could get some this time. Consider RSS – the ice cream truck.

5. Find a web hosting company. As mentioned before we offer one of the best hosting packages available. $9.95 per month gets you unlimited domain name email addresses, 10 MySql Databases, and best of all it comes with an auto installer, for all kinds of web based software.

6. Find a web developer that can install your web site and do the modifications that you need done to the site. If you would like to have us do the work for you, you might want to consider upgrading your account to the VIP membership and you will get everything you need to have your web site up and running in just a few days! Give us a call for your discount.

You do not want to spend too much time on your web site and not enough time on your product. Always remember that the product comes first, then the web site.

Here is a worksheet to get you a little organized and to set some goals.

Give the most important purpose a “1″, next most important a “2″. Leave those blank which do not interest you at all.
__ To gain a favorable impression of the company or organization.
__ To develop a qualified list of prospects
__ To sell products directly taking credit card information over the Internet
__ To encourage potential customers to contact us by phone or mail to consummate a sale.
__ To make available product information and price lists to distributors.
__ To make available product information and price lists to customers.
__ To strengthen brand identification.
__ Other _______________________________________________________

List what pages you’ll need on your web site. Some examples are “About us” “Products” “What’s New”, etc

Total number of pages decided upon ________________

3. Site and Domain Names

Site Name on Masthead: ____________________________________

Domain Name It must be registered through your web hosting service and approved by a domain registration service before you can use it. You may check the availability of your domain name at Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com)

Domain name ____________________________ ___Desired ___Already Registered

__ Company Logo incorporated in the masthead graphic.
__ Photo or drawing of product?
__ Typeface preference __________________________________________

__ Preferred colors in palette _______________________________________

__ Other ideas _________________________________________________________

These are the important items which appear on nearly every web page on your site (except the “home” page).

• Page titles which show at top of Web browser only
• Top-of-page graphic based on the design of the masthead graphic
• Page Title in larger type. Heading Font Style: ________________ (recommend Arial Bold)
• Text. Body Font Style: ___________________ (recommend Times New Roman)
• Image Map by Image Map bar
• Standard company ID near bottom of page
• E-mail response link to the following e-mail address: _________________________
• Copyright and trademark information in small print at the bottom of every page. What registered trademarks, trademarks, and service marks does your company want to indicate here?

Do you have any trademarks or service marks? If so, please list them here and indicate which are registered trademarks.

• What pictures, photos and art? ______________________
• Do you need audio and video capabilities? _______

What is the purpose of your response form?

__ Guestbook for visitors to record comments
__ Request for information
__ Survey of customer preferences

Domain name required_____________________________

Web Hosting Service _____________________________________

Phone: _____________________________

E-mail for support or help ______________________________

Consider:

• Advertising your Website to Web search engines that index the Web
• Giving customers a good reason to come by offering them something
• Finding industry-wide linking pages and negotiating reciprocal links to and from their web pages.
• Purchasing Web advertising
• Becoming active in several of the thousands of Internet news groups and mailing lists
• Developing a “signature” mini-ad attached to all your e-mail messages
• Making your website part of one or more of the many “malls.”
• Including your e-mail and Web addresses on all your company’s print literature, stationery, and display advertising
• E-mail newsletters

Target Date____________________

Make sure you write down all of the ideas that pop into your head so you can remember them, but also remember to take action on the ideas. If you don’t act, you won’t see a difference. Acting RIGHT NOW will ensure you will see results,. Otherwise, the information goes by the wayside and you won’t reap the benefits. This is the benefit of you being a small company compared to a corporation – you can act fast. So let’s get started.

When planning to build a website to sell a product or for any purpose, you need to do some research. Marketing research, Keyword Research, and if you don’t have a product, then you will need to do product research. Let’s start with the product research first.

For product research you want to be looking at what interests you, something that you do all the time that you take for granted, but others don’t know or they don’t know how to do it well, or you just know how to do it better. If it is something you like, or like to do, then you will succeed just because of the passion you have behind your future product. Even if you are not a professional at it, but love to do it, then you can learn everything you need to know right on the internet to become a professional.

The Conceptual Marketing Masterminding Chart will help you organize your thoughts for success. Fill out as much of it as you can and then refer back to it as you get more ideas and as you do more research.

Conceptual Marketing Masterminding Chart

1. Fill in the things you like to do business wise. Mine was computers, web sites, managing businesses and helping people.

2. Products- Try to find a product that fits into the category of what you like to do. A solution to a problem.

3. Fill in what the pain or problem the client may have, and then the pleasure.

Here is an example of what one would look like.

If you have to create a product, you will need to spend time in development, improvements, and different phases that take time. During this time you can take advantage of moving some of the administrative tasks on to someone else so you can focus on the revenue producing project. This is hard for most people to do, first because of money, and second, it’s hard to let go of something you know how to do and you like it a certain way. But this is not the best solution for you. One of the main practical business laws is the 80/20 principle. Spend 80 percent of your time on the 20% of the business that is going to make the revenue come in – in other words, your product.

How can you do this? We have found that a Virtual Administrative Assistant is perfect for the job. You don’t have to hire full time or part time, do it per job if you like. Whatever the case, they are trained and ready to go to work for you in a moments notice. Let them do your billing, emails, appointments, answering phone calls, and much more. If you were to pick a VA, I would definitely pick one called The Admin Professional. I am just a little partial of course.  Your time is worth more then the lowest paying client you have, so delegate it out to where you can take on more work that is higher paying or helping another VA get off the ground while you bring in the profits. Remember, anytime you are building a business, you need to think BIG! Always keep your vision for the business bigger then where it is currently. If you keep thinking big, it will become big.

Let’s get back to the product research. You need to push to get the information on paper. This is a big mistake a lot of people make. If you don’t get it on paper then you really don’t have anything except thoughts. Put it on paper and you have a vision, a dream, a product in the making.

Next you want to go out on the web and do some research on the products you have on the list. Look at the competitors’ sites and see if you can find a niche in a category that you can offer that they aren’t.

Start learning about the product, learn everything you can about it. Find audio files and listen to them on your mp3 player or burn them to a CD and listen to them in the car. Become an expert on that product.

**Note – keep track of all of your competitor’s web sites so you can visit them later for your “breakthrough keyword list”.