mt-magazine-Oct18

THE INSIDER’SGU ID ETOWE BMA INT ENA NC
MT MultiTouch
The Online Marketing Guide for Local Businessess
PROTECTING YOUR
WEBSITE AGAINST
HACKERS
What you need to know!
HOW TO
WHY CREATING A
facebook
Group is an
ABSOLUTE MUST
FOR YOUR LOCAL
BUSINESS
THE INSIDER’S
GUIDE TO
WEB MAINTENANCE
HOW TO TURN
YOUR WEBSITE
Into a 24/7
SALES MACHINE!
An Adodo Consultancy Services Limited Publication

Contents
Why Creating a Facebook Group
is an Absolute Must For Your
Local Business
In February of 2018, Facebook announced
plans to prioritize personal
content and de-prioritize content from
pages. That means that if you’ve got a
Facebook page for your local business,
your content is only being seen by
a very small percentage of your fans unless you pay to promote
it. But there’s a super-easy (and FREE) way to connect with both
existing and potential customers on Facebook… Here’s what you
need to know.
Protecting Your Website Against
Hackers – What you need to know!
If you’re paying attention, you know
that cybercrime is no joke. In 2017,
cybercrime cost $3 trillion annually,
and projections indicate that number
will double by 2021. Scared? You
should be. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do something to
protect yourself. Cybersecurity experts are working constantly
to stay ahead of hackers but you need to be proactive and do
what you can to protect your business. Here are 8 ways you can
protect your website and data.
The Insider’s Guide to Web
Maintenance
As a business owner, you’ve got to
wear many hats in the course of a day.
You might be a salesperson one minute
and a human resources manager
the next. It’s a lot to do. Website maintenance
is the perfect example. It might seem unnecessary – and
you might wonder if it’s something you can ignore. Hot tip: It’s
not. In fact, website maintenance is essential to everything from
SEO to user engagement – and those things both lead directly to
your bottom line and we’re going to tell you why.
How to Turn Your Website Into
a 24/7 Sales Machine!
03
09
13
18
Having a great-looking website is
enough to keep your business healthy
and growing – right? Actually, it’s not
that simple. The sad truth is that most
local businesses aren’t doing enough
to generate leads online. And, it all starts with their websites,
which – let’s face it – aren’t getting the job done. The good news
is, you can change that. No matter what it looks like, you can
make it better and turn it into a 24-hour marketing machine. In
this article, we’ll show you how.
Welcome To MT
Thanks for checking out the latest
edition of MT, your online marketing
resource guide for local businesses.
Each month we will be covering topics
that resonate with local businesses
just like yours.
Our goal is simple. We want to
enable you to do big things online,
and it all starts by breaking down
the complexities of marketing your
business online.
It doesn’t matter if you are just starting
out, or an established business owner
in your local community, you can
always benefit from increasing your
brand’s visibility online.
To your Success,
Tim Glynn
CEO and head of fun
MT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Adodo Consultancy Services, the leading
small business marketing service dedicated
to putting reputation marketing at the heart
of a local businesses marketing strategy. We
help small businesses connect with more
customers online.
If you want to build your business, you need
to market, it’s that simple. But you can lose
thousands of dollars if you don’t know what
you are doing. So we urge you to take action
with some of the strategies we recommend.
Feel free to reach out to us at any time.

Why Creating A
Facebook Group
IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST
for Your Local Business
I
n February of 2018, Facebook
announced plans to prioritize
personal content and de-prioritize
content from pages.
That means that if you’ve got
a Facebook page for your local
business, your content is only
being seen by a very small percentage
of your followers unless
you pay to promote it.
Nothing to be done, right? It’s
one of those things that you
can’t control… or is it?
It turns out there’s a super-easy
(and FREE) way to connect
with both existing and potential
customers on Facebook without
paying a dime to promote
your content. Because Facebook
group communities are
thriving and now is the time to
create a group to promote your
brand. Here’s what you need to
know.

GROUP CONTENT IS PRIORITIZED
AHEAD OF BRAND CONTENT
The first thing you need to know is that Facebook
has downgraded content posted by company
and brand pages. However, it still prioritizes
content from groups.
Why? Well, the short answer is that people must
voluntarily opt in to a group.
You might be thinking that users have voluntarily
followed your page, too – and that’s true. But
Facebook views groups differently than pages. It
has to do with the purpose of a group:
A group’s purpose is to promote conversation
and build a community.
You might want your page to do that, too, but
Facebook assumes that the primary goal of a
page is to sell a product or service. That’s an important
distinction.
In other words, by creating a Facebook group,
you can build your brand and engage with customers
without worrying that members won’t
see your content.
Not convinced? There’s actually research to
support the idea that groups are a better way
to reach your audience than pages. A study by
Digiterati revealed that groups get approximately
50% more reach than pages.

CREATING A GROUP IS EASY
You can create a Facebook group from your
personal Facebook page. In fact, the process is
very similar to the one for creating a Facebook
page like the one you have for your business.
Simply go to the upper, right-hand corner of
your Facebook page and click the little down arrow
there. You’ll see an option to Create Group.
Click it and follow the steps.
It’s important to choose a memorable, brandspecific
name for your group. You don’t want to
give it the same name as your page, but you
do want it to appear in the search results when
people search for your business.
The title should be inspired by the content you’ll
be posting. So, if you run a dog grooming business,
you might offer dog care tips and incorporate
that into your group name, like this:
Fancy Dog Groomer’s Dog Care Advice
In other words, combine your business with
name with some compelling, buzz words to
make people want to join your group.

INVITE PEOPLE TO JOIN
You’ve created a group… but what’s next?
That’s easy. It’s time to invite some people to
join. Here are some easy ways to jump-start
your group and get new members:
1. Send group invitations to everyone who follows
your business page.
2. Send invitations to your personal connections
on Facebook.
3. Send an email to your list with a link to your
group and an invitation to join.
4. If you have a Twitter account for your business,
Tweet an invitation to your followers.
It’s likely that a significant percentage of your
followers will join the group. Once they’ve done
that, you can also post content in the group encouraging
members to send out invitations.
CREATE COMPELLING CONTENT
Once you’ve created your group and invited
some members, it’s time to create content.
Remember, the primary goal of group content is
to drive engagement. You want members to be
talking to you and to one another.
Facebook has a tool to create Welcome posts.
Underneath Members on the toolbar, click Write
Post. Facebook will automatically tag up to 100
new members (in this context, new means that
they have joined in the past seven days) in the
post. If you prefer, you can write a general welcome
post and ask new members to introduce
themselves in the comments.
Here are some other suggestions for engaging
group content:
1. Inspirational posts can be a good way to engage
your members. For example, if you’re a life
coach, you might post something inspirational
on a Monday morning and then ask group
members what they do to keep themselves motivated.
2. Tips and advice can also make great content.
You can share things that you’ve picked up while
running your business and then ask members if
they have anything to add – or if they’ve tried
any of the things you’ve suggested.

3. Community discussions can drive engagement
and make your group page a lively place
to be. You might post a question or conversational
topic and then ask members to chime in
with their answers or opinions.
4. Q & A posts are great for getting people involved.
Creating a post can be a simple as saying
“I know people have questions about ______.
Post them in the comments and I’ll answer
them!” Only do a post like this on a day when
you have the time to respond promptly.
5. Depending on the kind of business you run,
you may want to share success stories from
members. For example, if you do local market
ing, you could share a story from a member
who killed it with a marketing campaign. And
if you sell a product, you could share photos of
members using what they bought.
The content you create will have a direct impact
on the success of your group.
SOCIAL LEARNING GROUPS
Do you have the type of business that utilizes
video for educating or training? If you do, you
might want to check out Facebook’s new Social
Learning Groups feature, which enables groups
to add video courses to their group pages.
To add courses, go to the Edit Group Settings
tab and choose Group Type.

Then, select Social Learning Group from the menu.
From there, you can create new Units for your
courses. They can be optional or mandatory,
and if they’re mandatory, users will see a progress
bar to track their accomplishments.
The great thing about this feature is that you can
upload courses or webinars you have already
created or create new content. You can find a
full guide on how to use this feature here.
GROUPS ARE THE NEW PAGES
The bottom line is that Facebook Groups are
to businesses today what Facebook Pages
were five years ago. They offer an inexpensive
but effective way to connect with current and
prospective clients, build your brand, and grow
your business.

PROTECTING YOUR
WEBSITE AGAINST
HACKERS
– What you need to know!
I
f you’re paying attention, you know that
cyber crime is no joke. In 2017, cybercrime
cost $3 trillion annually, and projections
indicate that number will double by 2021.
Yikes.
The real question is, what are you doing to
protect yourself? A lot of local business owners
do the bare minimum and tell themselves it’s
enough.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s not enough.
If all you’re doing is updating your anti-virus
software and filtering out spam, you’re still vulnerable.
Scared?
You should be. But that doesn’t mean you can’t
do something to protect yourself. Cyber-security
experts are working constantly to stay
ahead of hackers. Here are 8 ways you can
protect your website and data.

#1: KEEP ALL SOFTWARE UPDATED
Have you ever received a notification that
your software needed an update and delayed
it because it wasn’t convenient? The
answer is probably yes, and yet delaying
updates for your website can leave you
vulnerable to hackers.
One of the best ways to protect your site is
to install all updates and patches as soon as
they are available. Yes, it can be a pain to do
it. But you need to weigh that against the
inconvenience and cost of being hacked.
Any software, application, or plug-in you
use should be as up-to-date as possible at
all times.
#2: INSTALL AN SSL
CERTIFICATE ON YOUR SITE
As of 2018, Google Chrome is displaying a
warning on any site that doesn’t use HTTPS
protocol to protect its data. But that’s only
part of the problem.
Having a secure site will build trust with your
users. More importantly, it will make it far
more difficult for a hacker to gain access to
your data or to use it in the event they can
break through your other defenses.
There are several types of SSL certificates. You
can read about them here and decide which
one is best suited to your needs.

#3: REQUIRE STRONG PASSWORDS
When you log into your site on WordPress,
do you use a password that you also use
for other sites? When was the last time
you changed it? If the answers are yes and
never, it’s time to create a new password,
one that uses upper and lower-case letters,
numbers, and special symbols.
At the same time, look at your password
requirements for your site’s other users. If
you allow clients to sign in on a portal, you
should require them to use strong passwords
and update them regularly. This is
a common-sense change you can make
that can prevent hackers from accessing
your site.
#4: HIDE YOUR ADMIN AND
LOGIN FOLDERS IN PLAIN SIGHT
Hackers sometimes take the easy way
out and scan websites for folders with
names like ‘admin’ or ‘login.’ They can focus
their attention on those folders and, if
they’re successful, gain access to your data
through them.
There’s actually a very easy way to prevent this
– or at least, to make it more difficult for hack
ers to find your folders. Instead of giving your
folders obvious names, try giving them innocuous
names that don’t reveal their importance.
A determined hacker may still be
able to find them, but at least you won’t have
made it easy for them.
#5: USE DOUBLE
VALIDATION FOR FORM DATA
Do you collect data using forms that are embedded
in your website? If you do, then the
potential exists for a hacker to inject malicious
code using the form. And, if your form
is in a “one and done” format, you’re making
it easier than it should be for them to do exactly
that.
The solution is to use double validation for all
of your form data. That way, you can accomplish
two things:
1. Help valid users by ensuring that the data
they enter on their forms is properly formatted;
and
2. Prevent malicious scripts from injecting
harmful code onto your website
HTML 5 form validation is now supported by
all browsers. You can read more about it here.

#5: LIMIT FILE UPLOADS
If your website has a customer portal
where users can upload files, you’ve got to
be careful to include extra security measures
around the uploads. Why? Because
an infected file could easily take your website
down. A user might even upload a file
they don’t know is infected.
There are a lot of things you can do to
protect yourself, but the best option is to
quarantine uploaded files outside of your
server, so they can be scanned before you
allow them in. You should also use secure
transport methods (like SFTP or SSH) when
allowing files to be uploaded from the internet.
Learn more here.
#7: MINIMIZE ADMINISTRATIVE
ACCESS TO YOUR SITE
How many people have the login information
for your site? If you have given administrative
authority to multiple employees,
then you could be opening yourself up to
attacks by giving hackers more potential
entry points to your data.
Does that mean you should deny anyone
access to your site? Not necessarily. But
here’s what you should do:
Delete any users who don’t need access to
your site or who no longer work for you
Require every user to use a strong password
that they update regularly
Talk to your administrators about security
and the importance of protecting your data
A lot of big companies use what’s called a
“least access” system, which limits employee
access to only those systems that they need
to use to do their jobs. That’s a method that
can work for small companies as well.
WEBSITE SECURITY SHOULD
BE YOUR PRIORITY
A lot of small and medium-sized businesses
think they won’t be targeted by hackers because
they don’t store the same kind of data
that big organizations do. Don’t make that
mistake. Even a small data breach can do irreparable
harm to your business, causing you
to lose money. Even worse, it can damage
the trust you’ve built with your clients.

The Insider’s Guide
TO WEB MAINTENANCE
As a business owner, you’ve
got to wear many hats in the
course of a day.
You might be a salesperson
one minute and a human
resources manager the next.
It’s a lot to do.
And, when it comes to adding
things to your to-do list, you
might avoid taking a new
project at all costs. Your time
is limited – and valuable – and
there are only so many hours
in a day.
Website maintenance is the
perfect example. It might seem
unnecessary – and something
you can ignore, or at least put
off for as long as possible.
Hot tip: It’s not, and you really
shouldn’t. In fact, website maintenance
is essential to everything
from SEO to user engagement
- and those lead directly
to your bottom line.

Google
and Website Maintenance
Let’s start with something that’s a huge priority for most business owners: earning
(and keeping) a high Google rank for your primary keywords.
As you know, Google doesn’t make
its search algorithm public. However,
we do know some things about it. For
example, we know that:
››
Google prioritizes fresh content
››
Websites with a high bounce
rate don’t rank as high as
websites with a low bounce rate
››
Google cares about security
and will sometimes penalize
sites that aren’t secure
Put these three things together and
it’s pretty clear that failing to maintain
your website can affect your search
rank.
WordPress
and Website Maintenance
If you used WordPress to build your site, then you need
to do routine maintenance to ensure that your theme,
security, and plugins are all up-to-date.
In fact, that’s true of any Content Management System
(CMS) websites, including Drupal, Joomla, Magento, and
others.
A failure to do regular (at least monthly) updates on your
website can lead to a host of problems, including slow
loading times, security breaches, and even a drop in your
page rank with Google.
Most updates don’t take long and considering the negative
impact they can have on your website, they’re worth
doing regularly.

Website Maintenance
and the User Experience
What does website maintenance have
to do with the way users experience
your website? The short answer is:
quite a lot.
At some point you’ve probably clicked
on a link from Google’s search results
and landed on a webpage that takes
too long to load. And because of that
you hit the back button to return to
your search results and try another site.
In other words, you bounced – and
that means that, as a user, you had a
negative experience with that site.
A USER’S EXPERIENCE ON YOUR WEBSITE
CAN ALSO BE AFFECTED BY THESE THINGS:
››
Stale or outdated content
››
Broken internal or external links
››
A confusing menu or a lack of intuitive
navigation (such as having your logo be
a hotlink back to your home page)
››
Page not found (404) errors
››
Spelling and grammar mistakes
If it’s been a long time since you’ve updated your web content or checked your links, this might be
a good time to do an audit of your site, identify potential problems, and fix them.

WEBSITE MAINTENANCE
AND SECURITY
We’ve already covered several reasons
that website maintenance should be a
priority, but there’s one more – and it’s
hugely important.
The security of your website – that
means everything from your data to your
users’ privacy to your server – depends
upon regular website maintenance.
Let’s use WordPress as an example. If
you have a WordPress site, then you’re
probably using multiple plugins, whether
they’re free or premium, to give your
site the features you want. Any plugin
has the potential to give hackers
access to your site if it’s not properly
maintained.
It’s your responsibility to install
any updates and patches as soon
as they become available. You’ve
also got to ensure that your code
is up-to-date and that you’ve done
things like update your site to HTTPS to
protect and encrypt your data.

What You Can Do
Right Now to Maintain
Your Website?
You know why website
maintenance should be
a priority, but what can
you do about it today?
Here are some quick
suggestions.
01
05
Log into your WordPress dashboard and check
for updates to your WP theme and any plugins
on your site. Install them immediately and then
create a schedule to remind yourself to log in at
least once a month to take care of updates.
Find a way to post fresh content at least once
a month. Whether you add a blog to your site,
write a press release, or add a news page that
you can easily update, do something to ensure
that you’re posting new content regularly.
02
Do a quick audit of your site. Check for:
03
04
a. Broken internal and external links
b. Outdated or stale content
c. Slow loading times
d. Spelling and grammatical errors
Fix any of the errors you identified in
your audit. Internal links you can
fix yourself. If an external link
isn’t working, you should
either remove it or find
a link to replace it. If
spelling and grammar
aren’t your strong suit,
hire a proofreader or editor
to review your content for
you.
Update your content. Your basic
content (like your homepage and About
Us page) don’t need to be updated regularly,
but it can’t hurt to make a few tweaks to get
Google to crawl and re-index your page.

06 07
Backup your website to ensure you can recover
your data in the event that something happens.
Specifically, you should back up:
Create a comprehensive web maintenance
schedule to remind yourself of what you need
to do and when you need to do it.
a. Your website’s code, including Javascript,
HTML, CSS, PHP code, themes, plugins,
and other files. Plan a backup anytime you
change or update your site, as well as any
time your CMS releases an update.
b. Your content, including audio files,
images, text, and videos. Backup at least
once a quarter – but, if you have a blog, you
may want to create a new backup every
time you post something new.
It might seem like a lot to do, but once you’ve
done your initial maintenance, it should only
take you a short amount
of time to stay
on top of
things.
MAINTAINING YOUR WEBSITE
IS A MUST…
Website maintenance might not be
glamorous, but it can spell the difference
between building a meaningful web
presence and having your website fall off
the map. Dedicating just a little time to
it each month will ensure that users to
your site have a great experience – and
that your data is safe.

HOW TO TURN YOUR
WEBSITE INTO A 24/7
SALES MACHINE!
Having a great-looking website that represents
your company is enough to keep your business
healthy and growing – right?
If only it were that simple. The sad truth is that
most local businesses aren’t doing everything
they can to generate leads online. And, it all
starts with their websites, which – let’s face it –
aren’t getting the job done.
In fact, I’ll take it a step further. If you’re not
opening your inbox to find new leads from your
website every day, you might as well not have
a website.
The good news is, you can change that. Your
website might be basic or have all the bells
and whistles. It might be years old or freshly
designed. No matter what it looks like, you
can make it better and turn it into a 24-hour
marketing machine.
I’m not going to bore you with the same old
advice you’ve heard a million times. You know
that your site needs great content and a killer
call to action. Instead, let’s dig into some of the
next-level stuff you can do to kick your website’s
lead-generating power into high gear.

DO A COMPLETE WEBSITE AUDIT
FOR SEO AND USER EXPERIENCE
Audits. Nobody likes them, but they’re necessary
if you want to fine-tune your website and get
more leads than you are now.
A website audit should look at two things. The
first thing is SEO. You want to make sure that:
Each page on your site is optimized for
a local keyword
The second element of your audit should focus
on the user experience. You may even want to
hire testers to pinpoint roadblocks on your site.
If your pages take too long to load or your site
is difficult to understand, user testing can help
you get to the bottom of it. You can find a list
of effective usability tools here, including some
that will allow you to create heat maps of your
site even mimic the eye movements of users.
You’ve completed every tag and you’re
using your keywords in them
You’ve written a killer meta description
for every page
Your site is free of broken links and
spammy links
You’ve got a good system of internal
links

USE RESPONSIVE CONTENT
For many local businesses, creating one-sizefits-all
content is the goal. It’s certainly easier to
do that than to work on unique content based
on the user’s preferences and needs. But I’ll let
you in on a secret: it’s also holding you back in
terms of conversions.
You have two basic options when it comes to
tailoring your content to a visitor’s interests:
1
2
Create separate landing pages
for each product or service
you provide and then craft a
marketing campaign around
them; or
Have visitors to your home
page check boxes to identify
their interests and then display
responsive content tailored to
their selections.
The first method is the old-school way of
marketing. The second is something that’s
become increasingly popular.
Here’s a simple example of responsive content.
This martial arts school prompts visitors to
choose a program on the home page. Once
they do, they get a page of content where they
can choose “pain points” to see the benefits of
the program

Once they finish choosing, the page would display
information related to their choices, including
benefits and frequently asked questions like this:
Writing this type of content doesn’t take any more time
than it would take to write individual pages of content. It
ensures that every visitor to your site feels that they matter.
You can even offer lead magnets that are tailored to each
product if you choose.
LIVE UPDATES AND CHAT
What happens when someone visits your website outside of
your regular business hours? If the answer is that visitors are
greeted with a static site that does nothing to acknowledge
their presence, then it might be time for an update.
Interactive and live content can help you engage new visitors
to your site and give the impression that you’re there to serve
them even if you’re at home with your family. There are two
simple changes you can make that will engage visitors at any
time of day.
The first is by providing live updates. That means displaying a
notification any time someone new fills out your contact form
or buys your product. This is something we’ve been seeing on
some sales pages as well as on website home pages.
To see an example, check out the website for Inspire Martial
Arts in Burbank, CA. They display a notification that reads,
“Jane from Burbank requested information about our classes.”
If your site gets a decent amount of traffic, these notifications
will capture visitors’ attention and create a sense of urgency.
The second option is live chat. You’ve probably noticed live
chat windows popping up on some of the websites you visit.
They often have a greeting, something like “Hi! How can we
help you?”
The technology behind this type of live chat is actually less
complicated (and less expensive) than you might think. It’s basically
a chatbot that can be programmed with simple answers
to your most commonly asked questions. If you’ve got an online
store, your chatbot can even make product suggestions.
It might surprise you to learn that there are programs that will
allow you to design your own chatbot. Of course, you can pay
a programmer – and you may need to if you want your bot to
engage in complex interactions. But if all you want is a simple
bot to give the impression that you’re available at all times, you
can check out this article for more information on DIY options.

FAQS AND SELF SERVICE
If it’s been a long time since you updated your
FAQs, then reviewing them and adding some
updated information with internal links to your
lead forms and sales pages can go a long way
toward helping your website generate leads.
Not sure which questions to answer? Try
checking your social media pages for ideas. Your
followers probably ask questions and if several
people ask the same question, it should be part
of your FAQ.
A related issue is self-service options. The more
information you provide on your site, the more
likely it is that visitors will want to buy from you.
Providing articles, links, infographics, and other
information can help you keep visitors engaged
and increase your conversions.
CONCLUSION
There’s no reason your website
shouldn’t be generating leads
around the clock. In addition
to the usual advice about your
content, images, design, and call
to action, the four areas we’ve
outlined here can help you engage
visitors, get more leads, and
ultimately, close more sales.

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