Blogger vs WordPress Blog

No ratings yet.

While WordPress web design business is one of the best forms of solopreneur business, maintaining a steady flow of paying clients is something easier said than done.

If you're a starter, you'll often find getting newer clients your way is very difficult. Similarly, word of mouth and friendly referrals can bring a handful of clients to existing designers, but you deserve way more.

The WordPress freelance business is a competitive field and using the right way to market your business can give you an edge over your competition.

If you're wondering how to get more clients to your freelance web design business, here are three ways to market your web design business that will ensure you're in business.

Let's start!

Start a blog and funnel search engine clients.

While this is one of the simplest and commonly found ideas, starting a blog has a more scientific approach to it than visible. You'll understand this once you are in the shoes of your audience/clients.

Imagine you're a business person who just bought his copy of a WordPress theme for your company website. Since coding isn't your area of expertise, you are now confused how to add a menu bar to the theme that shows your company details or a call to action.

What will be your next big step? Obviously, Google!

You'll Google how to add a theme menu and voila you got your results!

The second result by Amethy Website Design is the blog of a website design agency, and you just landed there without them having to spend a dime on advertising.

You read their problem-solving article, and they get a credibility boost and a chance to funnel this Google visitor (you) to their website designing service. They remain in your subconscious mind so that you can contact them if you need a more complex design done.

This is the #1 principle to land website clients that have a clear intent of buying or hiring your services.

How to leverage your blog to get clients?

To leverage your blog to get clients from search engines, you have to write blog posts that solves your readers' problems or talks about those. This will increase your chances to appear when they search something on Google and hence eventually hire you.

Research carefully on the issues your clients are facing, check other competitors who are in your space (you can use a tool like SEMrush) and see what type of posts they are writing and that's where you get your starting point.

Then you can use Google's related searches to find similar ideas. Free keyword research tools like Google's keyword planner would also help you get a lot of similar content ideas and associated keywords to get started.

Make sure your blog is optimized and is relevantly visible to search engines too. Submit your sitemap, use schema markup to show up your availability, pricing, etc directly on your search results.

If you're not sure what to add, here is a list of essential WordPress SEO plugins that will help you install the right plugins. If you're targeting your local clients in your work area, the above list contains a list of local SEO plugins too, choose one as needed.

Pro Tip: Don't use too many plugins, only use the ones that your business needs from the above list.

Use Social Media

The next best place to get more clients for your business is to hang out where your potential clients hang out too.

Twitter and Instagram are great places to get started.

On Twitter, you can use relevant hashtags in your tweets so that it reaches the maximum people searching or using that keyword. To get started, use the following guide which is about using your competitors' social media strategy.

You can also use Twitter search to land potential recruiters by searching for relevant keywords like:

Hiring [add keyword here]

Looking to hire a [add keyword here]

I need a [add keyword here]

or even help-asking tweets like how to do [add your keyword/niche relevant work ideas] etc.

Also, make sure you are using the platform at its best. Read the official Twitter blog for great tips that work. Here is a golden nugget that helps you optimize your freelance shop to get more visibility on Twitter.

Similarly, Instagram is a place that is often underrated for business purposes. With over 800 million monthly active users (data source) Instagram is a place to market your business to get more clients.

Optimize your profile, add your location (if need be) and in the profile bio link, make sure you add a link that shows your visitor what to do next.

Since you cannot post multiple links on Instagram, your profile link should lead your potential client to the right location to get a free quote.

Use multiple images, post with relevant hashtags (hashtags are very important but don't use more than 5-7 hashtags) to your Instagram updates. Here is a perfect example of an Instagram post (by Fabrizio, a great designer) done right. It showcases the work of the designer, then uses a good description and relevant hashtags so the post gets found by a relevant community of users who can be his potential clients.

Leverage a bigger platform like TemplateMonster's marketplace

Sometimes, leveraging a bigger platform is an excellent alternative than struggling to get good referrals for your own network. Just like freelancers use a job board or a site like Upwork, designers can leverage Marketplaces like TemplateMonster's to get ahead of your competitors.

The main benefit of getting your work showcased in a marketplace is you get the exposure to 1000s of customers who already use and trust the platform. This saves you the time to market your business and get newer clients.

They do take away a part of your earnings for sure, but that fee is worth every penny, you get acquiring new clients. You can further use the word of mouth of these clients to land new referral gigs.

For example, if you get selected for TemplateMonster's MarketPlace, you can easily get in front of your millions of potential clients (they have 6 million potential clients in the last quarter itself) which is something you or me as an individual freelancer might not make it at an individual level.

You could also keep doing your freelancing and graphic design work side by side.

Wrapping up

So, these were the best yet often underrated strategies that you could use to market your WordPress web design business and land new clients.

Your client acquiring process shouldn't stop even after your first few clients. In fact, there starts your most vital method to leverage these happy clients to get new referrals.

We will, however, leave that topic to leverage your happy clients to get newer clients for a future post. Stay tuned by subscribing to the TemplateMonster blog.

What strategies have been working for you to get a steady influx of clients?

Share it with other readers and us in the comments section. Let's form a community of helping freelancers.

Related Posts

5 Ideas for Getting Exposure for Your Website

Best CDN Providers To Speed Up Your WordPress Website

How to Add Custom Login URL in WordPress?

A Guide to the WordPress Template Hierarchy

Premium Or Free WordPress Themes: A Constant Battle

Source: How to Market Your WordPress Web Design Business for More Exposure

Buying popular plugins with a large user-base and using it for effortless malicious campaigns have become a new trend for bad actors.

One such incident happened recently when the renowned developer BestWebSoft sold a popular Captcha WordPress plugin to an undisclosed buyer, who then modified the plugin to download and install a hidden backdoor.

In a blog post published on Tuesday, WordFence security firm revealed why WordPress recently kicked a popular Captcha plugin with more than 300,000 active installations out of its official plugin store.

While reviewing the source code of the Captcha plugin, WordFence folks found a severe backdoor that could allow the plugin author or attackers to remotely gain administrative access to WordPress websites without requiring any authentication.The plugin was configured to automatically pull an updated "backdoored" version from a remote URL — https[://]simplywordpress[dot]net/captcha/captcha_pro_update.php — after installat ion from the official Wordpress repository without site admin consent.

This backdoor code was designed to create a login session for the attacker, who is the plugin author in this case, with administrative privileges, allowing them to gain access to any of the 300,000 websites (using this plugin) remotely without requiring any authentication. "This backdoor creates a session with user ID 1 (the default admin user that WordPress creates when you first install it), sets authentication cookies, and then deletes itself'" reads the WordFence blog post. "The backdoor installation code is unauthenticated, meaning anyone can trigger it." Also, the modified code pulled from the remote server is almost identical to the code in legitimate plugin repository, therefore "triggering the same automatic update process removes all file system traces of the backdoor," making it look as if it was never there and helping the attacker avoid detection.The reason behind the adding a backdoor is unclear at this moment, but if someone pays a handsome amount to buy a popular plugin with a large user base, there must be a strong motive behind.In similar cases, we have seen how organized cyber gangs acquire popular plugins and applications to stealthy infect their large user base with malware, adware, and spyware.

While figuring out the actual identity of the Captcha plugin buyer, WordFence researchers found that the simplywordpress[dot]net domain serving the backdoor file was registered to someone named "Stacy Wellington" using the email address "scwellington[at]hotmail.co.uk."

Using reverse whois lookup, the researchers found a large number of other domains registered to the same user, including Convert me Popup, Death To Comments, Human Captcha, Smart Recaptcha, and Social Exchange.

What's interesting? All of the above-mentioned domains booked under the user contained the same backdoor code that the WordFence researchers found in Captcha.

WordFence has teamed up with WordPress to patch the affected version of Captcha plug-in and blocked the author from publishing updates, so websites administrators are highly recommended to replace their plugin with the latest official Captcha version 4.4.5.

WordFence has promised to release in-depth technical details on how the backdoor installation and execution works, along with a proof-of-concept exploit after 30 days so that admins get enough time to patch their websites.

Source: Hidden Backdoor Found In WordPress Captcha Plugin Affects Over 300,000 Sites

Want a good project for the whole family? Start a family blog. Blogs are easy to set up and customize, and fun to watch evolve. Whether you want to document your kids' artwork, post video of their finest achievements, write about your travels or create a general newsletter that'll keep friends and family up to date on your activities, the tools are readily available—and inexpensive.

Putting your life in the public eye, though, does bring up some considerations. You want to make sure that you're on the same page with the rest of the fam when it comes to what should be written. Don't embarrass anyone. Don't air dirty laundry. And don't post things that could jeopardize your career, your good name or your kids' chance at getting into college. If you're careful, using your real name shouldn't hurt you; if you have concerns, use only first names or nicknames, or consider blocking your blog from search engines—Wordpress, free blogging software, has a handy checkbox that'll put you in stealth mode.

Ready to take on this new project? You can get your blog up and running in an evening with these easy steps.

1. Find a host. There are two basic ways to host your blog—on your own domain or with a blogging platform. If you own your own domain, maybe it's time to start using it; or if you're interested in registering one, it's relatively cheap and painless. Check out sites like Register.com, GoDaddy.com, iPowerWeb.com or NetworkSolutions.com to register a name and find a hosting provider for about $10 a month.

If you don't care about your vanity URL and are a bit wary when it comes to tech, most blog platforms will host your new site for free. You'll end up with a name like "thehitchedfamily.wordpress.com" instead of "thehitchedfamily.com," but the blog program will take care of a lot of the technical back-end stuff you'd have to deal with otherwise. Also, if you want to customize your blog beyond some relativ ely strict parameters, expect to pay a few dollars a month—it'll be comparable to paying for hosting, which will run you about $7.00 a month.

2. Choose your platform. Some of the more popular blog platforms are WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger, LiveJournal and TypePad. You definitely have a lot of options to check out and most of these are free, like Blogger. WordPress for example, is one of the most popular platforms because it's easy to modify and has an intuitive interface. For a small fee you'll be able to do some customizing of the layout, the colors and the header.

3. Pick a name. Naming your blog is often harder than expected. You can go with something like The X Family Blog, but you may not want your last name associated with it, depending on your privacy concerns. You can also go with nicknames, first names, an inside family joke or a more targeted name that has something to do with the content you're planning on posting.

4. Customize with plug-i ns. You can do a lot on your blog with very little technical knowledge when you start adding plug-ins. Search your blog platform's site for add-ons that can help you create photo galleries, easily add videos, let users subscribe by e-mail, track your stats and more. Plug-ins can be installed within minutes and they can help make posting easier for you and your site will be more exciting for your visitors.

5. Set up your authors. Will you be the main author of the blog, acting as the mouthpiece for your family? Will your spouse or children be contributing, too? You can set everyone up with their own username and login, and everyone can post at will. Don't forget to write short bios to share.

6. Start posting. The first post is always the most nerve-wracking. You're staring at the blank screen in front of you, wondering what you can say that'll really impress people. Don't worry about impressing. Your blog isn't a dissertation. Just say hello, introduce yoursel f and what you'll be talking about then get on with it. Your blog can and will change over time as your voice develops and your life changes. And you can always erase things, go back and edit them or just put them out of your mind once they've moved off your front page.

Also, keep in mind that blogging isn't just about writing. You can post videos, photos or audio content. And if you're more comfortable with those methods of expression, by all means use them.

7. Tell your friends. The worst thing that can happen to your blog is that nobody will read it. So make sure you tell your friends and family, then make it easy for them to sign up for updates via e-mail or RSS (we'll get into this another time). Don't forget, you can spread the word through Facebook and Twitter too. You'll love seeing your stats spike when you post something new. And knowing people are reading is the best motivation to keep writing.

Still need some more motivation to get started? Ch eck out some family-themed blogs for inspiration, like: Dooce, AtHomeDaddy, Sweetney, Uncornered Market, and The Marriage Blog of Brian and Trula.

Do you have any tips on creating a family blog? Go to our Message Board and let others know.

Source: How to Start a Family Blog

"Content marketing" has long been a buzzword among marketers and business owners. Problem is, getting started is a pain and actually turning a profit through blogging for your business is much easier said than done. Here's how you can get started in five simple steps.

So you've decided that starting a blog is the best way to market your business moving forward. When we first started HighSpark and our blog on presenting and design, we quickly realized that it was not as easy as most make it seem. Over a few years, we've managed to grow our email list to about 11,000 people by being deliberate with how we run our blog.

If you're new to the publishing space and want to get started on the right foot, here are some easy steps to ensure you build your blog properly from the beginning.

1. Identify why you're starting the blog.

The 'why' I'm referring to here is tied more closely to your business goals. If you're looking to get immediate sales through a blog from the get-go, look elsewhere. Blogging and content marketing, in general, is a long-term commitment. It can be powerful, but only if you commit to it consistently.

Be clear on which of these you're starting a blog to do:

a) Build credibility as a subject matter expert

b) Engage with your audience to drive traffic

c) Boost your search profile on engines like Google

d) Garner sales for your company

e) Monetize viewership from ads or sponsors

f) Build a list

g) All of the above

What you decide on will affect the content you put out and how you decide to run it. For B2B companies, their blog typically sits at the top of their marketing funnel to drive qualified traffic to their website and build credibility for their company and offerings. It's hardly ever a 'build a blog and make money' scenario.

Writing a blog without an intentional bottom line can be disastrous in the long term because of the time invested without a return. In our case, our blog is an avenue to build expert authority for our brand, collect information of prospects and boost our search profile on Google. We have managed the content we publish as such.

2. Select your niche.

Before you even register your domain name or host your blog, it's critical to know exactly who you're serving. Typically, your niche will be tied closely to your business and expertise. For our company, we write mainly to executives who want to develop better presentations in a different way. This profile has shaped the kind of content we create and how we reach out to our clients.

The type of audience you want and what you'd like them to do will affect the language you use, and these metrics help you as the webmaster to craft content that resonates with them.

An easy way to do this for your blog is to ask yourself these questions:

What are the hopes and dreams of my readers?

How can I help them achieve those dreams with content?

Does the content I put out help to build my blog's brand as trustworthy to these readers?

What is the follow-up action I'd like them to take after reading my blog?

3. Decide on your domain name and hosting provider. Selecting a domain name

Getting bogged down by this decision is the worst, but it's not something to take lightly. Here are some tips:

Try to have a short domain name. Shorter URLs are easier to remember and type.

Use words that are easy to spell. This makes sharing your posts much easier.

Choose a name that implies the niche of your blog. This way, your readers can immediately guess what your blog is about, even if they've never heard of it before.

Don't box yourself too much into one niche. If your domain name is too specific, this can stop you from expanding your niche later on.

Selecting a host

If you're just starting out, there is no hard-and-fast rule or recommendation for picking a web host. Generally, there are some affordable options that work great for new blog owners, and more specialized and optimized options for blogs with more traffic.

Here are some key things to note:

If you intend to host your website on the WordPress CMS, ensure that your web host has a cPanel dashboard that lets you install WordPress in a single click.

Test the host's support staff to ensure you can get help when you need it. There will be instances when you need technical help, so try speaking to the support staff to gauge responsiveness and competency before signing up.

Hosting that is cheap upfront tends to have more expensive renewal rates, so ensure that you keep tabs on how much you're paying.

Try to get web hosts that also provide a free domain upfront when you first sign up so that you can save some money.

5. Set up a theme for your website.

WordPress offers thousands of free theme options by default that allow you to customize the visual design of your blog. For our website, we use the Divi theme from Elegant Themes – a drag-and-drop builder that allows non-programmers like us to make design changes really easily.

Starting a blog can potentially boost your business by helping you reach out to more potential customers and build authority. Don't let the inertia of starting stop you – it's a lot easier to get started than you think. Good luck!

Eugene Cheng

Eugene Cheng is Partner & Creative Lead at HighSpark a strategic presentation consultancy and training company serving Fortune 500 companies based in Singapore. He has previously written and been featured on Inc-Asean, Forbes, e27, HubSpot, Asiaone, Channel News Asia, Yahoo News and more. He also runs https://motionsauce.com and https://freelancefuel.com
Source: How to Start a Blog for Your Business That Actually Makes Money

No ratings yet.

You don't have to be a technical genius to create a site with a WordPress theme. But once the work is done, it's too early to relax. All WordPress sites break at some point. There are many hazards that can affect their performance: malware, hackers, DDoS attacks, and outdated software.

Have you ever thought who'll care of your WordPress website once it goes live? It takes longer to keep it updated, backed up, and protected. Unless you are tech savvy, you'll also have to seek advice on WordPress help forums and study many tutorials. Add your main business tasks to that, and sleepless nights are guaranteed.

You can get third-party WordPress support in two ways. The first one is to hire a specialist, but his work can cost you a four-digit paycheck a month.

A much cheaper alternative is to order a WordPress maintenance service with pricing plans starting at less than $100.

What Kind of WordPress Help You Can Get

There are many technical issues to handle on your site. Here's a full checklist of what you'll get with WordPress support services.

WordPress Backups. You'll have all the data saved in the cloud storage. If your site crashes, you won't lose anything.

WordPress Updates. Whenever there's a new version of your plugin, theme or WordPress core, you'll get it installed.

Uptime Monitoring. Your WordPress site will always be under supervision. If it suddenly goes down, you can bring it back online ASAP.

WordPress Security Monitoring. Malware and other threats will be detected before they harm your site.

Incident Management. Even with bullet-proof WordPress security, websites sometimes get hacked. Professionals will clean up the hack and restore your data from the latest backup.

Custom Development. You can order experts to complete small jobs such as WordPress theme customization and plugin setup.

Page Speed Optimization. That's what will make your site load faster for lower bounce rates and higher SEO rankings.

WordPress Migration Website. You can have your site migrated to another hosting if your current one is slow or buggy.

Hosting. Some of these companies can host your website on their private servers.

Staging Site. Sometimes installation of new WordPress features causes issues. You can have them tested on a staging site first.

SEO WordPress Support. Experts can add alt tags to images, metadata, links, and sitemap to grow your ranking.

Reports. You'll receive the info about your site performance, security, backups, WordPress updates, etc.

Detailed Comparison of 10 Premium WordPress Services

Learn how the best WordPress support services differ from each other in this table. It will let you choose the most profitable solution for your needs.

WP Site Care Maintainn The WP Butler Proactive WP WP Buffs API Studios Total WP Support SkyrocketWP Cinch Web Services GoWP Cloud Backups daily / hourly daily weekly / daily weekly daily / hourly daily weekly / daily / real-time daily daily / real-time daily Software Updates weekly or whenever available weekly once / twice / thrice a week within a few days of the release daily weekly or whenever available on the 1st day of each month weekly daily daily, weekly Uptime Monitoring 24/7 every 5-15 min 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 Security Monitoring 24/7 24/7 once / twice a week daily daily 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 24/7 Incident Management + + + + + + + + + + Custom Development starting from 2 hours per month for extra fees (5 hours cost $750) unlimited 15-minute tasks starting from 1 hour per month unlimited edits starting from 2 hours per month starting from 1 small job per month starting from 1 hour per month for extra $50 per hour unlimited 30-minute tasks eCommerce Support + + + + + + for extra $60 per month + + + Page Speed Optimization + for extra fees for extra $140 per hour + + + + + + + Website Migration for extra $200-$300 + + + for extra fees + for extra $150, free - to their own hosting + + for extra $99 Hosting no no no no for extra fees + + + + no Staging Site + + for extra fees no for extra fees + + + + + SEO Services + no no no + + + + no no Reports monthly no no monthly weekly monthly monthly monthly no weekly Monthly Price $79 - $999 $49 - $149 $41 - $205 $79 - $399 $40 - $120 $119 - $599 $49 - $249 $99 - $449 $49 - $99 $29 - $149 Support Hours 7am - 7pm MDT / MST (urgent - 24/7) 9am - 8pm ET 7am - 4pm PST 9am - 5pm CT 24/7 9am - 8pm EET / EST 9am - 5pm PST 7am - 6pm CST (urgent - 24/7) 9am - 6pm CT 7am - 5pm ET Verdict

With these professional WordPress services, your site will always be up to date, secure, and fast. GoWP is the cheapest solution, while SkyrocketWP provides all the features without charging any extra fees. It's up to you which one of them to use to maintain your site. You can also delegate your WordPress tasks to the support team of wordpress.com.

Related Posts

WordPress Themes According To Our Customers' Choice in 2017

Want to Track Customer Behavior Under the Loupe? Let Us Add Google Analytics to Your WordPress Site Blazing Fast

Best Customer Service and Chat Plugins for WordPress 2017

Brand New Solution to Attract Home Customers: Real Estate Agency WordPress Theme

Source: Where to Get the Best WordPress Customer Support?