Monday, January 30, 2017

Using Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress

Getting SEO set up on your WordPress blog has gotten super easy with the Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin allows you to write and manage title, meta description, and open graph protocol tags all in one interface.


The Yoast SEO plugin is pre-installed on our class WordPress blogs. You can find it on the left hand nav menu - it is called "SEO". First, we'll be working with Titles & Metas.

Titles & Metas

If you don't know what title and meta description tags are, you'll first want to read my blog post about them. In the Yoast SEO submenu, you can select the "Titles & Metas" option.

The first thing you'll want to do is take a look at the title and description for your home page. The title is coded to dynamically add content from your current site name, page name, and site description - but you can change this based on Google's requirement that a title be unique, descriptive, and accurate. 

Write a description for your site that is also unique, descriptive, and accurate that further describes to a potential reader what your blog is about. Think about keywords you want your blog to be associated with. 

When you're done, click "Save Changes". Next, you'll enable Facebook Open Graph Protocol tags.

Facebook Open Graph Protocol Tags

Before you complete this step, you should read my blog post on Open Graph Protocol (You can ignore the part about Blogger code - that was what students in the past had to deal with).

Once you're open graph enlightened, go ahead and select the "Social" option from the Yoast SEO Plugin submenu.


You'll want to make sure that under the "Facebook" tab, that Open Graph meta data is set to "Enabled." This will automatically use the title and meta description tags you wrote from the previous step and add open graph tags that use the same data.


If you want to customize the title or description of your home page, you can do so in the section called "Frontpage settings".  You can also upload a preview image to use for your blog's home page. This image should conform to Facebook preview image standards.
  • For best display, use an image that is 1200 x 630 pixels.
  • Note that images in other sizes and aspect ratios may get cropped.
  • Next best image size is 600 x 315 pixels. Images smaller than this will appear in a smaller preview size.
  • Facebook will not display a preview image smaller than 200 x 200 pixels.

Ok - now you're ready to write title and meta description tags for your individual blog posts. There isn't a submenu option for that. You'll do that while you're editing the post itself.

Adding Titles & Meta tags to Wordpress Blog Posts

Go to one of your blog posts and scroll down past your post copy. You should see a Yoast SEO content area:

This gives you a "Snippet Preview" of what your blog post's google listing will look like. As you can see, WordPress has automatically created a title based on the post title - and has autofilled the meta description with the first paragraph of your post. Let's make that a bit more readable by clicking "Edit Snippet".
You should make the title and description unique, accurate, and descriptive - while piquing the curiosity of the reader to get them interested in clicking on the post in Google Search results. For example, this is a better description than the first paragraph of the article:


You can also designate a Focus Keyword for each post. A focus keyword is a word or phrase that you want your post to be associated with. In the example above, we might designate a focus keyword like "productivity apps".

The plugin gives you feedback on how well your page content and SEO tags relate to your focus keyword.

In general, you should fix things with red or orange dots until as many dots as possible are green.
Get into the practice and discipline of doing this for every blog post you write for maximum SEO benefit.

Ready to check your work? 

SEO Tools To Check Your Tags

First you should check your title and meta description tags by using the SEOCentro Meta Tag Analyzer.

Then check your open graph tags with the Facebook Sharing Debugger




Sunday, January 29, 2017

Social Media Project Roundup, Fall 2016

Every semester, my UNI Digital Advertising students work very hard on a massive project: To develop a professional brand based on their personal interests using social media. 

Let's take a moment to praise their work and note a few special honors.

The Big Picture

It's always astounding to me what my classes can accomplish in little under three months.  By measuring our activity and engagement on social media, we can quickly evaluate our performance with quantitative metrics.

From mid-January through April 18, 2016, my 48 #unidigadv students accomplished the following:
  • Posted a total of 5,656 tweets on Twitter
  • Gained a total of 5,262 followers on Twitter
  • Earned an average score of 40 on Klout
  • Added 3,570 connections on LinkedIn
  • Published 400 blog posts on Blogger or WordPress blogs
  • Earned 41,711 pageviews from 15,829 visitors to their blogs

    TWITTER

    Most Prolific
    Tweeting is one of those things that seems very easy at first glance - until you do it every day in support of a professional brand.  That's hard work!  Here are the top five #unidigadv Tweeps by Tweet volume (I only counted original tweets for this - retweets did not count!):
    1. Rob Bremner @BlockParty1520 - 527 Tweets
    2. Melissa Curtis @SnapsMacsBooks - 270 Tweets
    3. Katelyn Kozak @k_dcreative - 179 Tweets
    4. Jeffery Johnson @VirtualRundown - 160 Tweets
    5. Jimmy Terronez @techwebfun - 154 Tweets
    Most Followers Gained
    If you want to wield influence on Twitter, you need followers.  Here are the students who added the most followers during the semester.
    1. Scott Burak @AdFlies - added 352 followers
    2. Parker Harrington @pv_only - added 331 followers
    3. Jeffery Johnson @VirtualRundown - added 320 followers
    4. Carson Zhou @zhouzhecheng - added 287 followers
    5. Travis Miller @securegadgets - added 316 followers
       

    LINKEDIN

    Most Connections Gained
    When job hunting, who you know is often as important as who you are.  Here are the class members who gained the most connections on LinkedIn during this project:
    1. Jeffery Johnson +851 connections
    2. Trenton Schulte +359 connections
    3. Natalie Siems +239 connections
    4. Mary Kluesner +148 connections
    5. Olivia Ballhagen +142 connections
    Most Overall Connections
    Some students already had a huge network of professional contacts on Linkedin. Here are the most well-connected class members overall:
    1. Jeffery Johnson - 911 connections
    2. Jamal White - 728 connections
    3. Trenton Schulte - 647 connections
    4. Carson Zhou - 536 connections
    5. Alyssa Meeker - 533 connections
    Highest Quality Profiles
    A high quality Linkedin profile can help you stand out to potential employers. The following students had outstanding profiles:
    Most Recommended
    These two students had the greatest number of recommendations by others on LinkedIn:


    BLOGS

    The real content was being generated on student blogs, where students developed unique and original posts related to their professional brand.  They then attempted to organically attract an audience of readers - a difficult challenge!

    Most Visited Blogs 

    We had SIX students who earned over 1,500 pageviews to their blog during the course of the semester - they did a fantastic job attracting and engaging their visitors.  Browse through their blogs and see what they came up with:
    1. Natalie Siems - Textbook Chic - 6,261 pageviews
    2. MC Pham - Vietnamese Cuisine - 2,198 pageviews
    3. Adisa Skrebo - Adisa Glam - 2,081 pageviews
    4. Josh Berendes - Berendes Media - 1,884 pageviews
    5. Lindsay Moore - Moore to Grow - 1,829 pageviews
    6. Teresa Connelly - Run Like A Millennial - 1,539 pageviews

    Special Honors

    Fashion Blogger of the Year
    Natalie Siems - Textbook Chic

    Natalie proved once and for all that fashion blogs rule. Her ambitious fashion blog is the #3 most visited #unidigadv blog of all time!

    Best Advertising Blog
    Carson Zhou - Social China 101
    Carson did an excellent job explaining how Chinese social media marketing works - learning about Weibo and WeChat was definitely fascinating.

    Thespian's Award (TIE)Abbie Takes - Engaging Theatre
    Abbie did an excellent job looking at some of the top theatres in the country and how they are successfully using social media to promote the theatrical arts.

    Zach Champlain - The Modern Backstage
    Zach is really into theatre lighting technology - and he clearly knows a lot about it. His blog seemed very helpful and relevant.


    Most Literate (TIE)
    Melissa Curtis - Snaps, Macs, and Actual Books
    A fun, readable blog that was authentically passionate about marketing college libraries.

    Ali Henkle - Book 'Em Blog
    If you like reading books - you'll enjoy Ali's blog. It is always good to have a student who gets my Harry Potter jokes.

    Most Tech Savvy
    Lydia Anderson - Histortech
    Lydia revealed a whole new world of connections between archeology, history, and technology that were fascinating and very well-written.

    Funnest Read
    Jimmy Terronez - Tech Web Fun
    I don't know why I liked reading Jimmy's blog - but I really did. Maybe it was the Spongebob animated GIFs. Maybe it was his YouTube video of Jimmy's celebrity impressions. But the fun always made the content more interesting and readable.

    Thanks again for a great semester - if you get nostalgic you can always tune into #unidigadv on Twitter and help the newbies out!

    Did you have a favorite blog this semester that I didn't mention?  Tell me about it in the comments!

    Tuesday, May 10, 2016

    Social Media Project Roundup, Spring 2016

    Every semester, my UNI Digital Advertising students work very hard on a massive project: To develop a professional brand based on their personal interests using social media. 

    Let's take a moment to praise their work and note a few special honors.

    The Big Picture

    It's always astounding to me what my classes can accomplish in little under three months.  By measuring our activity and engagement on social media, we can quickly evaluate our performance with quantitative metrics.

    From mid-January through April 18, 2016, my 48 #unidigadv students accomplished the following:
    • Posted a total of 5,634 tweets on Twitter
    • Gained a total of 6,278 followers on Twitter
    • Earned an average score of 40 on Klout
    • Added 2,766 connections on LinkedIn
    • Published 450 blog posts on Blogger or WordPress blogs
    • Earned 28,586 pageviews from 10,471 visitors to their blogs

      TWITTER

      Most Prolific
      Tweeting is one of those things that seems very easy at first glance - until you do it every day in support of a professional brand.  That's hard work!  Here are the top five #unidigadv Tweeps by Tweet volume (I only counted original tweets for this - retweets did not count!):
      1. Travis Miller @securegadgets - 219 Tweets
      2. Wendy Grimm @Grimmw20Travel - 213 Tweets
      3. Olivia Jaschen @SocialSlopes - 200 Tweets
      4. Janiece Banks @mompreneurs1 - 178 Tweets
      5. Kaylee Tritle @TravelTourTech - 166 Tweets
      Most Followers Gained
      If you want to wield influence on Twitter, you need followers.  Here are the students who added the most followers during the semester.
      1. Elizabeth Stokely @DMAdAgencies - added 400 followers
      2. Tanner Bernhard @About_The_Brand - added 376 followers
      3. Kaylee Tritle @TravelTourTech - added 370 followers
      4. Simeon Moes @CeyboardComedy - added 345 followers
      5. Travis Miller @securegadgets - added 316 followers
         

      LINKEDIN

      Most Connections Gained
      When job hunting, who you know is often as important as who you are.  Here are the class members who gained the most connections on LinkedIn during this project:
      1. Tanner Bernhard +200 connections
      2. Sloan Beninga +149 connections
      3. Yobel Ande +140 connections
      4. Weston Merrill +130 connections
      5. Justin Klieman +111 connections
      Most Overall Connections
      Some students already had a huge network of professional contacts on Linkedin. Here are the most well-connected class members overall:
      1. Weston Merrill - 545 connections
      2. Stephanie Boardman - 518 connections
      3. Tanner Bernhard - 412 connections
      4. Kelli Alexander - 409 connections
      5. Seth Trautmann - 394 connections
      Highest Quality Profiles
      A high quality Linkedin profile can help you stand out to potential employers.  The following students had outstanding profiles:
      Most Recommended
      These two students had the greatest number of recommendations by others on LinkedIn:


      BLOGS

      The real content was being generated on student blogs, where students developed unique and original posts related to their professional brand.  They then attempted to organically attract an audience of readers - a difficult challenge!

      Most Visited Blogs 

      We had FOUR students who earned over 1,500 pageviews to their blog during the course of the semester - they did a fantastic job attracting and engaging their visitors.  Browse through their blogs and see what they came up with:
      1. Tanner Lawman - Loud Sound Logic - 2,099 pageviews
      2. Stephanie Boardman - New Adventures Events - 1,720 pageviews 
      3. Justin Klieman - First Order Kicks - 1,549 pageviews
      4. Yobel Ande - Underground Panther - 1,500 pageviews

      Special Honors

      Most Integrated Brand
      Stephanie BoardmanNew Adventures Events 
      Stephanie's impressive brand (created for her event planning business) integrated not only her Twitter profile, but also branded presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

      Most Helevant Blog (Three way TIE)
      "Helevant" is a term I coined that means both helpful and relevant. Sort of like "hella relevant". This is the type of blog that is sure to earn hundreds (if not thousands) of additional pageviews in the coming years due to organic search traffic.


      Joel West - Teach Me Cocoa
      If you're interested in iOS development, I'd encourage you to watch Joel's excellent video tutorial series, which has content for both beginner and intermediate coders who want to learn about . 

      Weston Merrill - Behind the Screen Sales
      Weston's blog focused on building a business by selling items on Amazon. Lots of excellent tips for those wanting to get product ideas, private label products, list products and sell them on Amazon.

      Travis Miller Secure Gadgets
      Travis' blog tackled the very current topic of security on internet-enabled gadgets such as smartphones, smartwatches, and other devices. 


      Best Design
      Bailey Nielsen - Graphic Design Trends
      A well-designed blog about the latest and greatest in graphic design trends.

      Best Brand Mascot (TIE)
      Weston MerrillBehind the Screen Sales
      Maicol Josephs - Squeegee Grafx
      Both Weston and Maicol came up with awesome and memorable brand mascots.



      Personal Favorite
      Yobel AndeUnderground Panther
      I'm a big fan of local underground music and loved Yobel's blog detailing some of the interesting musicians and cultural events happening in the CV this spring.

      Thanks again for a great semester - if you get nostalgic you can always tune into #unidigadv on Twitter and help the newbies out!

      Did you have a favorite blog this semester that I didn't mention?  Tell me about it in the comments!

      Monday, February 8, 2016

      Create Your Own Branded Favicon

      What are Favicons?

      Ever notice that some websites have neat little custom icons next to them in your browser tabs when you load them up?



      These icons add an element of unique branding to websites, giving them a professional appearance. 

      They're known as favicons.



      Favicons are literally "favorite icons" - short for when bookmarks for websites were called "favorites".  They are very small (usually 16 x 16 pixels). In addition to appearing in the address bar, favicons also appear in browser tabs, bookmarks, and the links bar.

      How do you Create Favicons?

      Traditional favicons are saved in the ICO graphic file format (used for old school Windows icons). Photoshop used to be able to save to this format, but no longer does. Not to worry - just create a 16x16 pixel GIF or PNG and use the icon utility ConvertIcon.



      There are even online tools like favicon.cc or the favicon generator to help you create and save them.  



      A newer type of icon is the Site Icon, used by WordPress. The Site Icon can be a PNG or GIF up to 512 x 512 pixels. Once uploaded, WordPress automatically creates a favicon, along with many other icon sizes in between for various mobile devices.

      Once you have your custom 16x16 favicon in the ICO format (or 512x512 Site Icon), here are some instructions on how to get them working on your site or blog:

      Favicons on websites

      Favicons can be hand coded into any HTML file with a single line of code in the HEAD section:



      However, doing this for every page in a site is tedious and prone to inevitable error. An easy workaround is that most browsers will automatically look for a file called favicon.ico at the root level of your site. If you simply copy your favicon file to your root level, you should be good to go.

      Favicons on Blogger blogs

      Easy. Go to the Blogger admin page and click on Layout. You'll see on the top left of your layout an area called Favicon where you can upload your ICO file by clicking on "Edit".



      Site Icons on Wordpress blogs

      Wordpress users have it a little easier - they can use PNG or GIF files that are 512 x 512 pixels. Wordpress will resize as needed. Just go into Appearance / Customize in your Wordpress admin page. Most themes will allow you to customize your "Site Identity" which includes a custom site icon. Just click on "Select Image" and upload your 512 x 512 PNG or GIF image. Wordpress takes care of the rest.



      Now that you know what favicons are and how to create them - why don't you make one for your blog?

      Wednesday, December 30, 2015

      Social Media Project Roundup, Fall 2015

      Every semester, my UNI Digital Advertising students work very hard on a massive project: To develop a professional brand based on their personal interests using social media. 

      Let's take a moment to praise their work and note a few special honors.

      The Big Picture

      It's always astounding to me what my classes can accomplish in little under three months.  By measuring our activity and engagement on social media, we can quickly evaluate our performance with quantitative metrics.

      From early September through November 18, 2015, my 43 #unidigadv students accomplished the following:
      • Posted a total of 6,066 tweets on Twitter
      • Gained a total of 5,691 followers on Twitter
      • Earned an average score of 44 on Klout
      • Added 2,471 connections on LinkedIn
      • Published 397 blog posts on Blogger or WordPress blogs
      • Earned 35,565 pageviews from 11,733 visitors to their blogs

        TWITTER

        Most Prolific
        Tweeting is one of those things that seems very easy at first glance - until you do it every day in support of a professional brand.  That's hard work!  Here are the top five #unidigadv Tweeps by Tweet volume (I only counted original tweets for this - retweets did not count!):
        1. Christian Nichols @SpawnCampGaming - 258 Tweets
        2. Ryan Smith @DestinyReveal - 229 Tweets
        3. Matthew Moody @onevideogameguy - 223 Tweets
        4. Staci Langel @markithealth - 199 Tweets
        5. Eldina Siljkovic @BasicallyHID - 186 Tweets
           
        Most Followers Gained
        If you want to wield influence on Twitter, you need followers.  Here are the students who added the most followers during the semester.
        1. Griffin Kuntz @StrongFarms - added 1,146 followers (Record Breaker!)
          This is a class record for a personal brand!
        2. Spencer Moser @ComposerMoser - added 393 followers
        3. Tyler Meier @GamerGuyTy - added 322 followers
        4. Morgan Sanders @PrintsFuture - added 264 followers
        5. Valerie Yeltman @DrupalNewb - added 222 followers
           

        LINKEDIN

        Most Connections Gained
        When job hunting, who you know is often as important as who you are.  Here are the class members who gained the most connections on LinkedIn during this project:
        1. Rhydian Talbot +226 connections
        2. Taylor Aitchison +171 connections
        3. Spencer Moser +150 connections
        4. Brandon McConnell +128 connections
        5. Griffin Kuntz +105 connections
        Most Overall Connections
        Some students already had a huge network of professional contacts on Linkedin. Here are the most well-connected class members overall:
        1. Griffin Kuntz - 866 connections
        2. Austin Hansen - 487 connections
        3. Taylor Aitchison - 453 connections
        4. Rhydian Talbot - 418 connections
        5. Jake Schmidt - 377 connections
        Highest Quality Profiles
        Working to build a high quality Linkedin Profile can help you stand out to potential employers.  The following students all had excellent quality profiles:
        Most Recommended
        These three students had the greatest number of recommendations by others on LinkedIn:


        BLOGS

        The real content was being generated on student blogs, where students developed unique and original posts related to their professional brand.  They then attempted to organically attract an audience of readers - a difficult challenge!

        Most Visited Blogs 

        We had SEVEN students who earned over 1,500 pageviews to their blog during the course of the semester - they did a fantastic job attracting and engaging their visitors.  Browse through their blogs and see what they came up with:
        1. Rhydian Talbot - Campus Chripsters - 2,307 pageviews
        2. Isak Knivsland - DIY Isak - 2,106 pageviews 
        3. Spencer Moser - Composer Moser - 2,024 pageviews
        4. Taylor Aitchison - California Dreams Marketer - 1,751 pageviews
        5. Valerie Yeltman - Drupal Newb - 1,591 pageviews
        6. Morgan Maiers - The Next Chapter - 1,582 pageviews
        7. Griffin Kuntz - Strong Farms - 1,575 pageviews

        Special Honors

        Most Integrated Brand
        Christian NicholsSpawn Camp Gaming
        Christian's impressive brand (offering news about the video game industry) integrated not only his Twitter profile, but also his custom YouTube channel, his Twitch channel, and a custom Facebook page. The Spawn Camp Gaming site had its own URL and is nicely integrated across a variety of social channels.

        Strongest Writing
        Rhydian TalbotCampus Chripsters
        Rhydian is a master of verbiage, and her blog on Christian Hipsters (Chripsters) offers some of the most playful and well-crafted copy you will read. 

        Best Design
        Dana Potter - Redder
        For a blog about color theory in interactive design, one would expect nothing less than the beautifully crafted design of Redder. It also contained excellent posts on color and UI design.

        Most Resonant Brand
        Griffin Kuntz Strong Farms
        Griffin's authentic understanding of farming and ability to connect and inspire other farmers on Twitter created a strong brand that delivered strong results. Earning over 1,100 Twitter followers also set a new class record for a personal brand. 

        Best Personal Brand Logo
        Jake Sweezy - DJ Sweezy
        It's techno - it's fun.  I love it!


        Best Sports Brand
        Austin Eller - The Money in Sports
        A lot of students like the idea of a sports-related blog, but few can find a truly unique focus that is different than everything else out there. By using his background in Finance to look more closely at the financial aspects of sports, Austin found a niche that is a real winner.

        Most Helevant Blog
        Isak Knivsland - DIY Isak
        "Helevant" is a term I coined that means both helpful and relevant. Sort of like "hella relevant". Isak's blog offered helpful and relevant production tips on sampling beats and creating EDM/hip hop tracks that were excellent for a beginner, often incorporating many original examples embedded in each post as sound clips. This is the type of blog that is sure to earn hundreds (if not thousands) of additional pageviews in the coming years due to organic search traffic.

        Most Poetic Blog
        Aaron SprengelerClasp
        Aaron's blog was a showcase for his poignant animated GIFs (cinemagrams) and thought-provoking creative writing. Note that the load time is a little slow due to the large GIF files.

        Biggest Win
        Morgan Sanders - Print's Future
        When she started her project, Morgan was full of anxiety about her topic. "What do I know about the future of the print industry?", she worried. After putting a lot of work into her Twitter presence and blog, Morgan was contacted by a company that specializes in social media marketing for companies involved in the print industry. They offered her a job based on her work on this project!

        Thanks again for a great semester - if you get nostalgic you can always tune into #unidigadv on Twitter and help the newbies out!

        Did you have a favorite blog this semester that I didn't mention?  Tell me about it in the comments!