Etika Marketing

Category: Wordpress

Simple Fixes To Make Your Content Mobile Friendly
In my previous two blog posts about mobile-friendly content, I wrote about what I feel is missing from most of the marketing content delivered to mobile devices.

I mentioned technologies that I believed are coming in the near future or are only available now from a small handful of providers (usually at a rather high cost, too).

So where does that leave you, right now? What can you do to improve the effectiveness of your communications on mobile devices, especially smartphones and smaller tablets?

First, let’s get the tech solutions out of the way.

Enhance Your WordPress Site’s Mobile Capabilities with Plugins

If you’re using WordPress you can take advantage of plugins that will automatically swap out graphics and other content based on the device being used to view your content. I’d love to offer a list of suggested plugins and I even started making that list, but ultimately scrapped it.

Why? Because, as I began vetting the WordPress plugins in my list, I noticed a high degree of volatility in support and updates. Plugins popular a year ago were now all but abandoned. New plugins with tempting feature lists were still in alpha or beta release. This area of plugin development is in its infancy and changing very rapidly.

My suggestion? Do a web search with keywords like wordpress plugin, mobile, responsive, content, graphics. You can also perform a similar search within WordPress.org for plugins, where you can also see a plugin’s update status and user reviews. And always check the support forum of a particular plugin to see how well it’s supported and if it’s working for most users.

Some features to look for:
- Images optimized by size. Instead of downloading the full-sized image and resizing it on the fly to fit a device, the plugin would manage different sizes of images and download only the one best suited for a device’s screen size. This improves page load speed.
- Alternate CSS loading. Plugin detects the device and loads a different stylesheet for certain page elements to present a better viewing experience.
- Content optimized by device. Plugin gives you the option to serve content for a specific device type by using shortcodes to bracket that content. For example, replacing a detailed image or photo with a simpler one. More advanced uses would allow you to replace longer passages of text with shorter ones for smartphone users.
- Mobile-enhanced menus. The plugin would allow you to create custom menus that are easier to use on mobile devices (particularly smartphones).
- Mobile-friendly forms. You’ll probably need a plugin specifically for contact and subscriber acquisition, so don’t expect to find this feature bundled into a plugin that includes any of the above features.
Consider Mobile When Writing Your Content

Sometimes the simplest solutions are best.

Technology-driven solutions might be cool and impressive—when they’re working—but in a rapidly-evolving area like mobile-responsive, they are prone to breaking and incompatibility.

So go back to your writing basics:
- Keep your written content lively, interesting and as short as reasonably possible.
- Use shorter sentences and much shorter paragraphs.
- Use frequent short and relevant headings to help readers skim and navigate your articles and posts.
- Use bulleted lists (just like this one!)
- For email, make your subject lines short and provocative. Include a call to action, like “Open Now” or “Details Inside.” Keep the body copy short and sweet. Includes links back to your website for more detailed info. (a little story on this below)
All of the above tips will also help your desktop readers, who happen to be adapting their desktop reading habits to match their mobile ones.

I have a story from a good friend of mine, Mike Young, about how smartphone users respond differently to email.

Recently, Mike was telling to me how he tends to scan email subject lines on his smartphone much the same way he does text messages. If the subject line appears to contain the bulk of the sender’s message, he moves on, never opening the message.

But the tables turned on him when he sent an email to his customers announcing an product update. Mike’s product, Website Legal Forms Generator, is web-based software that creates legal disclaimer and policy documents for websites. His email bore the subject line, “Announcing new Website Legal Forms Generator documents,” and discussed recent changes and updates to the forms produced by the software. Of course, the email went on to say that you could simply log into your account and retrieve the updated forms.

To Mike’s surprise, he received a number of support calls from customers asking how they could get the updated forms. It was obvious they’d never opened the email he sent or read the entire message inside.

After a few of these support calls came in within hours after sending the email, he starting asking these customers if they’d read his email. Most replied that they saw only the subject line or scanned the first part of the message. The instructions about logging in to retrieve the updated documents were near the bottom of the message.

My first fix for this problem was to change the subject line:
- “Open Now For Your New Legal Forms”
- “New Legal Forms Added — Details Inside”
I also suggested simplifying the email body copy and starting with a sentence like:

“I just uploaded 5 new forms to Website Legal Forms Generator. Log into your account now to access them.”

Then provide a short summary of those five forms in the email copy.

Anticipate Mobile Limitations

The other big tip you can use now is to anticipate potential mobile limitations and offer simple alternatives in your content.

For example, if you include a video in your content, offer a link below that video so mobile users have the chance to view your video in a corresponding app (like YouTube or Vimeo), in case the video won’t play properly from the web page.

For graphics, consider loading a thumbnail in the copy, but link to the full-sized image.

Of course, you’ll need to test your own web pages on mobile devices to identify these potential problems.

Big Changes Coming Soon

Undoubtedly, we’ll witness enormous and rapid change over the next several years as mobile becomes the dominant platform for online access.

Your challenge as a marketer is to master this new technology as it becomes available (and affordable) and study the evolving behavior of mobile users. Most importantly, look to your own analytics for insight on how mobile users respond to your website and your online campaigns, then adjust your marketing efforts accordingly.

I see some exciting (and scary) times ahead.

And please share your experiences in the comments below. Theory is great, but real world experience is invaluable.
December 18, 2013
How and Why to Hide Your PDF Content from Search Engines
This blog post is the result of a recent discussion started on the LinkedIn HubSpot Partners Group about PDF files and duplicate blog content penalties. (Note: This group is a closed group, so you won’t be able to view the discussion if you’re not a member, sorry.)

I made a few suggestions in the LinkedIn discussion about hiding PDFs from search engines, but I realized that this topic required a much longer treatment to be useful. For this blog post I’m going to focus on using PDFs in an inbound marketing website. But my suggestions are also applicable for most business websites.

Here are some examples of PDF content you might offer on your website:
- Your own premium content, like ebooks, tip sheets or whitepapers for lead generation purposes.
- Content intended for printing, like worksheets, maps, how-to lists, mind maps, etc.
- Marketing collateral intended for downloading, printing, or redistribution, including brochures, data sheets, spec sheets, etc.
- Content from other sources that you are redistributing (with permission, of course), like articles, whitepapers, ebooks, etc.
In my opinion, the two biggest reasons why Inbound Marketers should consider hiding their PDF content form search engines are the duplicate content penalty and loss of leads.

Avoid the Duplicate Content Penalty

The duplicate content penalty is quite simple, so let’s get it out of the way now. Google and other search engines penalize websites that use the same content in different places on the same website.

Say you collect a number of related blog posts into an ebook PDF file and use that as a premium for lead generation. If the search engines robots can find that PDF, they will index all the text inside the ebook. Now, when the search engine sees those same portions of content in the old blog posts, it will flag those posts (or the PDF file) as duplicate content.

The easy solution is to make sure the search engines can’t find or read the PDFs. Duplicate content problem solved.

Protect Your Lead Generation Machine

As Inbound Marketers, you’re goal is to attract visitors to your website with quality relevant content and convert them into leads via an appealing offer. In many cases this offer is a piece of downloadable premium content, like a PDF file. The visitor completes a short form on a landing page to gain access to the PDF file.

It’s a basic lead generation technique, but it only works if the visitor completes the landing page form. If they can find your PDF offering directly through a web search, then they’ll likely view only the PDF file itself.

Even worse, by opening or downloading your PDF directly, they might never see your website and its accompanying navigation. They only see your PDF file, nothing else. All your hard work creating an accessible and useful website is wasted. And forget capturing their information or plugging them your marketing funnel. Not likely to happen. You’ve missed your chance.

Some marketers try to compensate by placing their website URL in the header or footer of their PDF, hoping that the curious reader clicks the link and visits.

Don’t count on it.

Be ruthless in forcing your visitors though your landing pages and opt-in forms. And the only way to enforce these opt-ins is to hide your PDF content from the search engines.

Fortunately, it’s not hard to hide PDFs and other files from compliant search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

The Right Way to Upload Files and Hide Them

First, upload your PDF to your website. In HubSpot’s COS you would follow the instructions provided here.

For other websites not using the HubSpot COS, you need to upload your file to a directory. You can create a unique directory for that PDF or you can have a directory that holds all of your PDF files and other downloads. If you choose to have a single download directory for all of your downloadable files, then make sure you protect it with an index file that prevents visitors from viewing a directory listing. If your website is installed on an Apache server, then you can add this simple line to the beginning of your .htaccess file:
```
Options -Indexes
```
This will prevent any directory listings.

If this change causes problems, then you will need to create an index file for your download directory.

In WordPress or other websites based on PHP, you can create an index.php file that contains the following line to redirect the visitor back to your home page:
```
<?php header("Location: /"); ?>
```
For non-PHP websites, you can create index.htm, a simple HTML file to redirect prying eyes back to your home page:
```
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Forbidden</title>
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL='http://www.yourwebsite.com/'" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Nothing to see here, go <a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/">home</a>.</p>
  </body>
</html>
```
Upload the completed file to your download directory.

Modifying the Robots.txt file to Hide Pages, Files, and Directories from Search Engines

The robots.txt file contains instructions for blocking search engine robots (or search bots) from certain pages or directories. A compliant search bot will obey the instructions in your robots.txt file and skip indexing that content.

If you’re using the HubSpot COS for your website, then you can edit your robots.txt files using the instructions here.

For everyone else, you’ll need to find your robots.txt file, located in the root directory of your website. This directory usually contains your index page.

Open your robots.txt file in an FTP program or online file editor. Or, you can simply enter your domain name with robots.txt at the end (www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt) and save the text file to your computer for editing in a text editor, like Notepad on Windows.

NOTE: Don’t edit the file in a full-fledged word processor like Word. Use a text editor that can save ASCII format

If your site doesn’t have a robots.txt file, don’t worry; it’s easy to create one. Use a text editor to create a new blank file named “robots.txt”.

Now you’re ready to edit your file.

If your file doesn’t have a line starting with “User-agent,” add this one now:
```
User-agent: *
```
The User-agent refers to the specific search bot you are allowing to crawl your website. The * allows all search engines to crawl your website. You can edit your file further to block certain search bots, but that’s a subject for a future post or your own research.

Next, we want to block access to the directory we are using for our PDF files. In a WordPress website, you might create a “downloads” directory in your “wp-content” directory. Your full URL would look like this:

www.yourwebsite.com/wp-content/downloads

To block this directory in robots.txt, you would add the following line:
```
Disallow: /wp-content/downloads/
```
You always list the directory path starting after your domain name. And pay close attention to capitalization. It counts.

If you started with a blank robots.txt file, your file would now look like this:
```
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-content/downloads/
```
You can also block individual pages or files in the same way. You should always block the download page (also called the “thank you” page) that contains the download link for the PDF file, unless you choose to provide the download link only in the confirmation email.

The download page for an ebook at www.yourwebsite.com/ebookdownload.html would look like this:
```
Disallow: /ebookdownload.html
```
The same page in WordPress, www.yourwebsite.com/ebookdownload, would look like this:
```
Disallow: /ebookdownload]
```
If you are using WordPress, you might want to consider using a search engine blocking plugin like PC Hide Pages to hide your download pages. It’s much easier to use than editing robots.txt.

To hide a specific PDF file (or other file) at www.yourwebsite.com/downloads/ebook.pdf you would enter:
```
Disallow: /downloads/ebook.pdf
```
Finally, this command will work to hide PDFs from most major search engines, but is considered non-standard:
```
Disallow: *.pdf
```
For more examples, take a look at Google’s very useful page on robots.txt.

You can also use one of several robots.txt file generators to create your file. Do a web search on the phrase “robots.txt generator.”

Using “no follow” Links

If you have PDFs that are available for download from any public page on your website (those pages not hidden by robots.txt or other means), then you should consider making all links to those files “no follow” links.

The “no follow” link will tell compliant search engines that you don’t want them to index that link; thus, hiding the PDF.

You’ll need to add rel=”nofollow” to your link, like this:
```
<a href=”www.yourwebsite.com/downloads/ebook.pdf” rel="nofollow">Download PDF</a>
```
As a Last Resort, Use PDF Security Settings to Hide Content

Many PDF creation and editing programs allow document creators to apply security settings to a PDF file. These settings include file opening and editing restrictions, plus search engine attributes.

Access restrictions on a PDF file means encryption, which requires a password. We’re going to set a password, then customize the permissions available to users and search engines.

For this example I’m using screens from Adobe Acrobat Pro X, but the settings terminology should be similar for most programs.

First, you need to access the security settings at the time of PDF creation or when you edit it afterward.

In Adobe Acrobat you can find the settings in Document Properties, under the Security tab:

You’ll need to select password security to set restrictions.

Then set the options like this:
- We want to encrypt all document contents to hide the text from search engines.
- We don’t want to require a password for opening the document, but we do want to set a password to restrict editing the document.
- We want to allow high resolution printing.
- We only want to allow readers to comment and fill forms.
- Do NOT enable copying of text, images or other content.
- Do NOT enable text access for screen reader devices. This is important for hiding the PDF text from search engines.
Confirm your security changes and save your PDF.

That’s it! Upload your PDF and set your robots.txt file.

What about PDF Content NOT Used for Lead Generation?

If you have PDF that you provide to your visitors without requiring a lead gen form, then you should still consider hiding the PDF files from search engines.

Why?

First, the duplicate content penalty. Second, you want visitors to have the full experience of your website. That won’t happen if they access the PDF files directly from a search engine.

Of course you don’t want to hide the fact that you have this PDF from the search engines, but do it right. Describe the content of the PDF on the page that features the download link. Make sure you describe what’s in the PDF and the benefits of downloading it.

Do you agree with my reasons for hiding PDF content? Any suggestions for doing it better? Please share your thoughts below.
November 13, 2013
Selecting a WordPress Theme for Inbound Marketing
With the re-launch of the Etika Marketing website under a new design, I thought it only appropriate for the inaugural blog post to discuss WordPress theme selection. The theme I’m using for this site is called Good Bones, by Make Design, Not War (MDNW on Themeforest) and ~~available from Themeforest~~. (9/10/14 update: The Good Bones theme has been pulled from sale at Themeforest after many promises from the developer to update it. A perfect example of why you need to consider developer support of a complex theme or theme framework. Themeforest is not at fault; they are merely the marketplace. I suggest avoiding any themes by Make Design, Not War. I’m now shopping for a new theme for this website.)

I’m a big fan of using WordPress as a CMS (content management system) for inbound marketing websites. I enjoy the design flexibility, the ease of expanding capabilities through plugins, and its search engine friendliness.

Clients appreciate the ease of adding content via a familiar WYSIWYG interface. I like to tell newcomers to WordPress that adding a blog post is as easy as editing a document in Microsoft Word. And they don’t need to deal with the technology to perform routine tasks.

Another huge plus for WordPress sites is the availability of thousands of themes, which allow you to alter your website design with only a few clicks.

Well… maybe.

A (Very) Short History of WordPress Themes

As WordPress has evolved, so have themes. In the old days you had a fairly straightforward collection of templates and CSS (cascading style sheet) files and a limited number of configuration options. It was rather easy to recognize WordPress-driven websites without peeking at the source code.

If you wanted to modify your theme beyond the out-of-the-box configuration, you needed to delve into CSS and PHP coding to make those changes—and pray the next release of WordPress didn’t break those customizations.

Then themes like Thesis appeared, giving the more tech-savvy among us the ability to control many design features via dashboard controls. More complicated CSS and PHP customizations were managed via customization files. This made the theme more stable and less likely to break during both theme and WordPress updates.

Along with Thesis (and later, Genesis) came the rise of “super themes,” called “frameworks.” Frameworks are base themes that allow for much more sophisticated customizations that could be saved as “skins.”

Not long after, WordPress introduced “child theme” capabilities. Child themes allow users to customize a theme without changing the original or “parent theme’s” files. A child theme is a set of customized CSS files, templates, function files, and images stored in a separate directory. Only the customized files are stored in the child theme’s directory. WordPress will automatically use the parent theme files if a required file is not presentin the child theme.

When a developer releases a new version of a theme, only the parent theme’s files are updated. Customized child theme files usually need to be updated manually.

In addition to themes based on frameworks and others based on parent-child relationships, we have hybrid themes that use both.

What’s Needed in a Theme?

So what does all this have to do with selecting a WordPress theme for your inbound marketing site?

Be patient, I’m getting there.

Today’s WordPress themes can range from simple “old school” themes to hybrid monstrosities with frameworks, child themes, skins, additional settings files, and even special plugins.

So what’s the best theme for you?

In the old days you would either pick a theme whose design appealed to you or you would contract with a web designer to create a custom theme for you.

For now, let’s forget about custom theme development and focus on how to pick an off-the-shelf theme.

As an inbound marketer, you should have the following elements available in the theme or through third-party plugins:
- Ability to create landing pages free of distracting elements like sidebars and navigation.
- Flexibility to customize your sidebars (third-party plugins like Custom Sidebars can provide this capability if your theme doesn’t).
- Responsive design, where the layout automatically adjusts for the screen size or device type, like desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones. Third-party plugins can handle some functionality for mobile devices, but it’s far better to have a responsive design built into your theme.
- Ability to easily add boxes to your pages and blog posts for calls to action. This can also be handled through third-party plugins, like Call to Action.
- Flexible page layouts, like multiple columns and boxed content, which are easy to create and modify. This allows for more modern and dynamic page layouts.
How to Shop for a Theme

Here’s how I shop for a theme:
- Find several themes that have designs that appeal to me or my client. I usually ask clients to provide several examples of websites they like, then I review those sites with the clients to establish the design elements they want and need.
- Check to see which themes support my “must have” design elements, like responsive layouts for mobile devices, flexible page design via widgets or customizable boxes, sliders, tables, etc. I also view the theme documentation, if available, to get an idea how the theme works from the inside. Some themes require extensive CSS experience for customizing, while others don’t.
- Look for active developer support. I want to see recent theme updates–at least within the last six months. And the developer must maintain a community support forum. That’s an absolute for me. A support ticket system is also appreciated. Some themes have a flat license fee with lifetime upgrades and support, while others require periodic license or support subscriptions.
- Read customer reviews about the theme. Start with the negative reviews first to expose any fundamental problems. Then move to the support forum and view the common user complaints and questions. Not every developer will offer refunds, so do your homework, especially if the theme is expensive.
- Lastly, buy the theme and test it on a development WordPress installation. You won’t know if a theme is right for you until you try it. You might have to sacrifice the cost of a theme to test it, unless the developer offers a good refund policy. How much you are willing to sacrifice is up to you.
Regardless of the theme you buy, expect to invest several hours to learn how your theme works and even more time to tweak and adjust your site to your liking. How much time you spend and how much frustration you experience depends on how wisely you pick your new theme.

The plus side of picking a smartly-designed and well-supported theme is the time you will save after you’ve covered the initial (unavoidable) learning curve. Changes and updates should go much more smoothly—your site will look great—and it will meet your needs as an inbound marketer.
June 12, 2013