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Best Practices

Using Permalinks in WordPress

  • July 8, 2020

A permalink is exactly what the portmanteau suggests – a permanent link. All WordPress content, whether it’s a post or a page, has a permalink. That lets you easily create internal links and to build a backlink portfolio for SEO. But there are a few tips for making the best use of permalinks.

WordPress General Settings for Posts

Each new post can be assigned a permalink in a few different ways. Navigate to Settings > Permalinks from the main WordPress menu. There you will see options for:

  • Plain /?p=123 (bad choice)
  • Day and name /2020/20/08/sample-post/
  • Month and name /2020/08/sample-post/
  • Numeric /archives/123 (bad choice)
  • Post name /sample-post/
  • Custom Structure

You’ll notice I’ve marked anything that uses numbers to represent your blog posts as a bad choice. The URL can be configured to contain keywords that you want to rank for. Giving up the opportunity to add keywords to your URL is a mistake. Be sure you’ve selected one that uses the post name. On my blog, I use a custom structure of /blog/%postname%/.

Edit a Permalink

In both a post and a page, the Document Settings > Permalink will allow you to edit the permalink after it’s been generated. It will default to the post or page name, forced to lowercase, and separated by dashes. For example: using-permalinks-in-wordpress. If you want to change that, you can do it from the URL Slug under Permalink Document Settings.

Just be careful that you either create a 301 permanent redirect or that you’ve set up your redirect plugin to automatically create redirects when you change a URL Slug. If it’s a brand new piece of content there’s no risk, but if it’s been indexed by Google or linked to by someone else, those links will break when the permalink changes.

Just a few easy settings, and little bit of forethought will have you with attractive, easy to read, high CTR links in Google results!

Best Practices

Volunteer Management System Features

  • June 20, 2020

Almost every nonprofit charity lives and dies by its volunteers. As your organization grows, eventually you are going to need to find a way to manage those volunteers. If you find yourself overwhelmed with the task, that’s a great problem to have! Online volunteer management systems, like Volgistics or BetterImpact, come with a host of features to make the life of a coordinator easier.

Reasons to have a volunteer management system

  1. Maintain a single source of truth for volunteer contact information and availability that users can update themselves as needed
  2. Use a centralized communication platform. Your message arrives in print, email, or text format at the preferred recipient address.
  3. Empower volunteers to self-schedule. They can view available time slots, assign or remove themselves, and free you from the task
  4. Recognize, reward, and celebrate milestones in volunteering

After you’ve implemented a volunteer management system, it frees you up for more important tasks. Let volunteers manage their own data and scheduling. You can set up a sign-in kiosk or just auto-crediting hours to individuals. Then you can gamify things like adding badges to name tags or sending out birthday or hour-milestone emails automatically. The benefits of an online, secure, self-service portal definitely justify the cost, so take a look at some options today!

Client Profile

Dallas Hope Charities Collective Hope Coalition

  • June 7, 2020

Dallas Hope Charities announced this week the creation of a new LGBTQ suicide prevention program – Dallas Hope Coalition. This is the first of its kind for a couple of reasons.

First, the focus is local. Other resources operate at the national level, but the idea is to keep a focus on Dallas County. Second, they will aim to eliminate or mitigate underlying causes of suicide in addition to intervention or prevention. This includes addressing everything from food insecurity to housing needs. This is especially important for the LGBTQ community who can often find themselves suddenly homeless (and hopeless) if coming out to their families does not go well.

This fits well with the overall mission of Dallas Hope Charities to provide food, shelter, and services that instill dignity, stability, and Hope For All.

To learn more about the Collective Hope Coalition, or to view volunteering or donating opportunities, visit DallasHopeCharities.org.

Graphic Design

Responsive Logo Design

  • May 15, 2020

You hear a lot in web design about responsive websites. A responsive website responds to the size of the screen viewing it. It may shift elements, change sizes of text or images, or drop elements completely from smaller phones.

What if you could do the same thing with a responsive logo?

Let’s take an example of Dijon Marketing. If I designed a letterhead or desktop graphic, I might be able to accommodate a very wide aspect ratio.

But as my screen gets smaller, if all I do is make the logo proportionally smaller, it can get harder and harder to distinguish. If you haven’t really considered web applications when originally designing your logo, it can be problematic.

In a responsive logo, much like a responsive website, elements of the logo can move, change size, or disappear altogether. Here’s a better way of displaying the logo on medium and small-width screens:

The brand is still recognizable, but the most identifiable elements stay front and center – and big enough to see!

It’s not too late to reconsider the implementation of your logo to add responsive elements to the display. A quickly recognizable brand means your users or followers will instantly recognize you from web to social platforms.

Best Practices

Don’t cross-post on social media platforms

  • April 27, 2020

If you are maintaining multiple social media profiles, it can be enticing to cross-post the exact same message on all at once. And certain social media management tools even explicitly allow/encourage this. But cross-posting can hurt the effectiveness of your social campaigns for a number of reasons.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t post the same message or content, it just needs to be tweaked to perform optimally on each network and avoid errors or follower confusion.

Things to make unique for each platform

  1. Post times. The optimal time to post on each network varies based on the network and your audience. You can use some statistical averages, or use your own analytics and insights to determine the optimal time of day to reach your audience, but chances are it will vary by platform.
  2. @ Mentions. Depending on which other profiles you are tagging or mentioning, the syntax may vary per network. That organization’s usernames may also vary. Or they may not participate in all the same social networks you do. Make sure to customize your @ mentions of other profiles for the network you’re on.
  3. #Hashtags. Hashtag best practices vary by network as well. Whereas Twitter and Instagram rely on them heavily, Facebook was late to the game and they were not intrinsic to the platform. Overuse of hashtags can actually hurt your organic reach on Facebook.
  4. Message length. Twitter is definitely the limiting factor on this one. You don’t necessarily want to cut your captions or messages to Twitter-length on all platforms, so customizing for the allowable length makes sense.
  5. Photo/video aspect ratio. The best sizes and aspect ratios to get the optimal cropping on preview varies by platform. Understand the best size for images and you’ll get better engagement as users scroll past your content. In general, Instagram is the only 1×1 square content.

With minimal extra effort you can take a single message or post and tweak it slightly. That way you can take advantage of the features of each social media platform. And your content can perform optimally on each.

Best Practices

Choose the right #hashtag for your social media post

  • April 9, 2020

Hashtags in social media posts serve a few different purposes. They can be funny. They can categorize your content. Or they can extend your reach to a new, larger audience. Knowing your goals can help you select the right mix of hashtags for your social media posts.

Sorry to break it to you, but expert use of hashtags requires some research up front. I like to use a free tool called Ritetag. It will give you some stats on the frequency of use as well as some related tags to consider. Once you find some relevant tags with high volume, take the time to search them on your favorite social media platforms. The last thing you want to do is unwittingly contribute to something unsavory! You never know when a hashtag has a hidden meaning.

Four Categories of Hashtags

I generally divide hashtags into four categories with different objectives.

  1. Branding – It’s great to use your brand name, product name, or something unique to your organization. You may not get a lot of new traffic from it, but it’s a nice addition to posts and can be a fun categorization to review for your users.
    Example: #DijonMarketing
  2. Engagement – Keywords that speak to your message, vision, or calls to action may not drive a LOT of traffic, but the traffic they do drive will be highly engaged and interested in your message.
    Example: #ConnectGoodPeople
  3. Reach – These are the keywords that have tons of posts. With the right message, imagery, and timing, you could gain yourself a much larger audience than without.
    Example: #DigitalMarketing
  4. Event – If you are attending an event, check first to see if they’ve proposed a hashtag for attendees to use. Similarly if you are the host, let your guests know there’s a hashtag to use.
    Example: #MeetAndGreet2020

Choose a couple keywords from each category to get the best mix of eyeballs on your social post. Don’t go overboard though. Nobody likes to see a list of hashtags longer than the post content. Strategic alignment on hashtag strategy will elevate your social media presence to the next level.

Search Engines

COVID-19 impacts on Google My Business

  • March 22, 2020

If you use Google My Business for local SEO optimization of your business or charity, there are a couple of things to know about how COVID-19 is impacting the service.

Log in to your Google My Business account and you will see information about how to best update your information linked directly on your home screen, like below.

Google My Business COVID-19

Things to do to your Google My Business during COVID-19

  1. Update your hours. If closed due to social distancing or quarantine, indicate that temporarily or update the hours of operation.
  2. Add new information about your COVID-19 response. If you’ve taken extra measures for safety, indicate that in your business information.
  3. Create a post. Let your users know how long you may be closed or any alternatives like take away versus dine in.
  4. Watch your My Business listing. User input may mark you as closed automatically. If that is not the case, you can remove erroneous information through your console.

Additionally, be aware that Google employees have been impacted the same as everyone else. They have pared down to essential staff and are only supporting reviews and responses from companies that directly impact public health, like doctors and clinics. They are working to prevent the spread of misinformation. You may wait a few weeks before new reviews of your business are posted.

For more information visit Google’s support pages about business impact to Google My Business and limited Google My Business functionality.

Dijon Marketing Logo Best Practices

Dijon Marketing’s Registered Trademark

  • March 6, 2020

Dijon Marketing’s logo is now federally registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office. It is protected against anyone else using it. While this might seem like overkill for a small brand, it was an interesting challenge that I wanted to work through in case future clients had need of such protection.

The first step is to fill out the paperwork and pay the fees associated. You can register under multiple different uses for free, but each category of use will cost you an additional fee. Dijon Marketing is registered for graphic design, web design, web hosting, and digital marketing. That spanned two different categories and raised the price a bit.

Be aware that as soon as you file, that is public information. Your inbox and mailbox will soon be flooded with offers from law offices to help you navigate the registration process. Chances are you won’t need any help, but if you do, try to find someone who did not solicit your business from your public listing.

There’s a good chance your original request will be rejected. You will have to provide further clarification on your submission. I had to explicitly state that I was not attempting to trademark the word “Marketing” by itself, and also that the color of the logo was not part of the trademark.

Then all it really takes is time. Start to finish, I spent about 8 months total waiting for the certificate to come in the mail. It may not make sense, or be in any way necessary for your organization to trademark your logo, but if it ever does, having been through it once, I feel confident I could give some good advice to help you on your way.

Social Media

Open Graph Tags for Social Sharing

  • February 15, 2020

When sharing a link on Facebook, sometimes it will pop up with a nice, big, clear photo. It depicts the logo of the organization you’re linking to or something specific about the page you’re sharing. Some of this happens automatically, but chances are if it looks really great, that’s not by accident.

Web developers can control the appearance of shared links in social media platform using Open Graph Tags. They’re not quite as daunting as they may sound to set up or use.

How to View Open Graph Tags

Right-click and View Source on this page. You’ll find a number of open graph tags right in the header of the page. They are all denoted by an og: prefix. For now, we’ll just focus on the og:image tag and how that works.

<meta property="og:image" content="https://i2.wp.com/www.dijonmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/dijon-marketing-logo-open-graph.jpg?fit=1000%2C500&#038;ssl=1"/>

It’s a metadata with a property of og:image and a content URL pointing to the photo I want to use. You can cut and paste the photo link into your browser to view it like any other image. This one happens to have “open-graph” in the name. That’s because it’s scaled properly to show on Facebook with no skewing or sections of the logo cut off. Here’s what it looks like if you share my website on Facebook (which … feel free to do).

Open Graph Tags using default og:image

Default Versus Featured Open Graph Images

In this case, the home page has no Featured Image set in the WordPress document. I’ve defined a default fall-back photo inside the Yoast SEO plugin. Just go to SEO > Social > Facebook and upload the photo of your choice. The aspect ratio should be 2×1 and preferably 1200×600 pixels large. Then Facebook can scale it as they wish.

If you have a featured image set, then Facebook will default to using that, like with this blog post:

Open Graph Tags using WordPress Featured Image

Sites Without Open Graph Tags

If you have no open graph tags, it doesn’t mean you won’t have shares with nice images. You’re just leaving it up to Facebook’s crawlers to scrape your page looking for some image to use. The results can be completely random, or even inappropriate. If you haven’t defined your og tags, take a moment to get at least a default photo set up. The click-through ratio of your social shares will thank you!

Email Marketing

Creating an Email Marketing Editorial Calendar

  • February 1, 2020

People frequently ask, “How often should I email my subscribers.” The simple answer would be somewhere between weekly and monthly. That depends on your audience and goals. The more involved answer would be to create an email marketing editorial calendar and then stick to it.

What is an Editorial Calendar?

An editorial calendar is a plan months in advance of when certain emails will go out and what topics they will cover. Instead of trying to come up with new topics on a monthly basis, the next 6-12 months should always be prepared and scheduled.

For any particular event, use the date as a base. Then count backwards and mark special milestones. You can send:

  • a first event notice 3 months prior
  • a reminder 3 weeks before
  • a follow up 3 days prior
  • and a follow up 3 days after.

Without planning ahead you might find yourself struggling to send out emails with enough advanced notice. Plan additional marketing, like a Facebook campaign, with enough lead time. It takes time for optimization to reach your audience.

It’s definitely an investment of time up front, but it will pay off dividends over the course of the year, and with recurring annual events, for years to come!