digitalstrategyworks

@tonyzeoli’s Digital Strategy Consulting & Coaching for Startups, Entrepreneurs, and SMBs |Watch and Listen: FB Live | YouTube | Instagram | Clubhouse | Podcast

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@cloudflare is having an issue with their @kinsta integration and it seems they have an outage affecting many websites. To our clients, we are actively monitoring this situation toward a resolution. Both Cloudflare and Kinsta are working on a resolution.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@pootlepress Product Managers

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

As for the design aesthetic, that can wait while we build out the framework. Then we can design around the edges. Makes no sense to crest a design of a home page that doesn’t yet exist. Let’s lay it out first and then take the next step.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Yesterday, we met with a small business owner who is trying to DIY a coaching and LMS startup. He hired a “designer” and for $2,500 they didn’t deliver anything satisfactory. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t get what he paid for.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

So, we’re building his site but coaching him on developing it himself with #nocode solutions like @LearnDashLMS and @gravityforms along with WordPress and @stripe payments. We’ll also walk him through using @aioseo for SEO and @Cloudflare, @wpengine, and @sucurisecurity.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Because we no long have to rely on code to define the front end and the tools in the form of plugins and themes give us a way to quickly rev out a layout, a wireframe may no longer be necessary. Do you still wireframe before you build?

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

#WordPress is changing the way we plan our websites features and functions. Because it’s modular and page builders are no-code solutions, you can now build out your wish list of features on a dev server instead of spending time on #witeframes.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

It would take you the same time to update your wireframes than it would to just switch a layout in a section, row, or columns.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Today, there are so many #WordPress page builders to choose from, however, it’s very hard to discern the a builders user interface and functionality since many are premium and you can’t trial them. How do you go about discovering which page builder you’ll invest in?

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

One of the key elements of executing your digital strategy is preparedness. It’s important to first, understand the outcome you want to see, and second, leave enough lead time to aggregate all of your campaign assets - images, video, text.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Due to the issues with this platform, for the foreseeable future, we will no longer actively participate on X/Twitter. You can find us on LinkedIn. https://t.co/0fxrWcCh11

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@elegantthemes Thank goodness! No more downloading code snippet plugins! Good stuff!

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

A neat new tool from @aioseo.

[WPBeginner @wpbeginner]

Today, we are excited to share more about our Google #Chrome extension, All in One SEO Analyzer, which shows you all your SEO details in a click 🎉

We built this tool to help you save time with #SEO checks, so you can focus on creating great #content 👇🏽
https://t.co/LYkms4m6pi

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Passing along this person’s critical review of the Elementor page builder system. Take from it what you will. With sharing so that those who have no idea about these things can learn from someone who has analyzed the plugin and come up with its pros and cons.

[Kevin Geary @thekevingeary]

Is @elemntor a professional page builder? While it's clearly used by many professionals, I'll continue to make the point that it's not a professional tool regarding output quality, scalability, maintainability, or best practices. THREAD...

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@thekevingeary @elemntor What do you consider the better option?

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@_JoshRobbs One would think Elementor is for those people who don’t write code or write as little code as possible to tweak around the edges unless they absolutely have to.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

What is digital strategy anyway?

To us, it’s the practice of thoughtfully understanding, utilizing, and applying digital tools and technology to address and solve complex business requirements using the myriad of digital solutions currently available in the market or innovating to create new tools and best practices that help our clients achieve their business goals.

Sone people might ask, “Can you give me an example so I can better understand what you do?”

Sure. Here goes!

We have a client who is a University professor. She contracted for two websites. The first is a new website that is a lead generator for a new program serving faculty and administrators who are seeking guidance in her unique area of expertise. The second is her personal website and blog that will be her primary point of media distribution around her personal brand - videos, blogging, podcasting, and that sort of thing.

She needs an affordable video hosting solution that she can upload videos too and control their distribution. If the task is given to someone competent but not a strategist, they might point to YouTube as a good option. On sone cases, it might be, but in this case while YouTube provides a free video hosting platform, we’d only recommend using it for the viral video aspect of the business served by the new site. With YouTube the professor can potentially garner a following and generate revenue from YouTube around the specific message being delivered as it relates to the content.

So why not use it for both?

There are times you don’t want the video content to be disrupted by an ad or embedded in another website, so for her personal site we’ll use Vimeo, a hosted video service that has a fee associated with it. There are other companies like Brightcove, but Vimeo is less expensive and targets the creator market. Because it’s fee based, it provides a set of useful controls to do things like hide the video title and avatar over the video or restrict which domains can display the video.

The client’s content in her personal site may be controversial or serious in tone and advertising would be an unwelcome intrusion to some of those video messages. With this client there’s a blend of issues that arise; there’s helpful content for a educator / administrator audience on one side, but in the other more controversial or serious messages that need to safely stay independent of advertising.

While there may be two YouTube channels, one for the new website and one for the personal brand, Vimeo will serve as a middle ground for weighty content that should not have ads and can be controlled.

If this task was given to a junior web producer or agency, they may not thane thought through all the angles and issues that could potentially arise but as digital strategists, we’re looking at the problem from a strategy lens and not a monetization or ease of use lens.

And, when we selected Vimeo, we thought about access. In mind, we thought about VideoPress by JetPack. It might have been a good option but it has a dependency on who has JetPack connected to the sites, DSW or the client?

Given the login issue and connecting JetPack to WordPress, it just made sense to go with Vimeo or be forced to log out of the primary DSW connection and reconnect with the new user account at VideoPress. And not that’s it’s not doable, it just provided a pain point of friction that was unnecessary. Vimeo was the best option.

Not clear which steps you should take with your digital project or product? Contact us today for a 30-minute consultation to discuss your digital requirements and we’ll see how we can help.

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

Here are the stats. @WordPress is far and away the leading web publishing platform. We've been working with #wordpress for over 20 years and we've watched it mature into a stable CMS for blogs, websites, e-commerce, and learning systems. There are so many opportunities in WordPress to build the website you need. If you hear it's too complex, well, anything new is a learning curve. Nothing is complex once you learn it. So get started today. We can help. Get in touch at 828-412-0990 or [email protected] for a free 30-minute consultation.

[Shahid Amin Khatana @Mr_ShahidAmin]

#WordPress powers over 43% of all websites on the internet, from blogs to major news sites and businesses. It's a true web powerhouse! 🌐🚀 #WordPressDominance #WebDevelopment #TV-MA #Daredevil #Fortnite #DemsDeliver14MillionJobs #FursuitFriday #Jeezy #Pardi #Megan #Breitbart

[digitalstrategyworks @dswks]

@bretwp Sorry, we missed "what happened yesterday." What did happen yesterday?