ionadas local Blog

While we’ve been using WordPress for over a decade now, and occasionally provided WordPress services to our existing clients, we’ve never offered them publicly.

Until now.

Our suite of WordPress services provides everything a small business owner needs to get online using the powerful, yet approachable, Content Management System (CMS) WordPress.

Whether it’s getting your company live on a WordPress website, training you and/or your employees how to use the system on a daily basis, or ensuring that your WordPress instance remains buttoned up over time, ionadas local can help.

Brian Combs, ionadas local CEO, has been managing commercial web projects since 1993. And since 2004, most have been within WordPress.

“I’m a huge believer in WordPress as a solution for the small business. Whether you have a restaurant, an optometrist’s office, or a civil engineering firm, WordPress’s combination of power and ease of use is hard to beat,” said Brian.

Over the years, ionadas local has worked with a number of graphic designers and content creators, so we can either work with your preferred creative talent, or recommend someone we’ve worked with.

Our goal is to built professional websites that meet your business goals and can be managed internally on a day-to-day basis, so contact us today for a free consultation.

There is a school of thought that says that a company must respond to every single review they receive via the online review systems. At a conference a few weeks ago, I took a contrarian position and received some blowback via Twitter. I’d like to explain my stance a bit further.

There are several issues with a policy that requires every review to receive a response.

First of all, doing so sets expectations. If you have that level of engagement with reviews, and aren’t able to maintain it, your brand can be damage. Small business owners know that that there are only so many hours in the day.

Some days you’re just too busy to monitor and respond to reviews. Then that day becomes a week, and then a month.

Meanwhile, you’re company is being flamed online because you aren’t responding. Much (some?) of that wouldn’t have happened if people didn’t expect you to respond to every review because of your previous activity.

Second, sometimes reviews are just plain nuts. Communicating with a lunatic reviewer is like wresting with a pig: you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Third, as business owners, we’re all passionate about our companies. They’re like children to us, and we want to defend them when they’re attacked.

But, if you can’t respond calmly to a review, you’re likely to make things worse, rather than better.

If you must respond to a review that causes you to have an emotional response, you really should have your response reviewed before you post it. Preferably by someone outside the company that doesn’t have the same emotionally connection to the issue that you do.

The short version of all this is, if you’re going to respond to every review, be careful.

As another PubCon rolls to a close, I wanted to reflect on lessons either learned or reinforced. This is my first time to New Orleans, so most of the things learned regard this fine city.

Four Foci of Local SEO

Apparently, this concept was first popularized by David Mihm. I hadn’t heard it put this way, but it matches with my experience.

In short, there are four things an SEO needs to focus on for local sites:

• On-Site Optimization (I would include the Google listing here)
• Links
• Citations
• Reviews

Each of these is roughly equal in importance.

I would include the Google listing in the On-Site Optimization bucket, although others include it in Citations. Six of one; half dozen of another.

Link Building is Still Important

The rumors of the death of link building are, as always, premature.

Link building is still a critical part of SEO, although the balance has definitely moved towards quality over quantity. If you are just building junky links, especially using automated means, you are likely going to run afoul of one of the Google updates like Panda or Penguin.

One change over the last year or two is that link building has become important for local SEO. In the “good ole days” circa 2009, you could rank for competitive terms without even having a website.

That is no longer the case. Link building is now required for local businesses.

But make sure you do it correctly…

Link Building Without Content is Dangerous

A link building campaign that is not run in conjunction with an organized plan to produce quality content is much more likely to draw unwanted attention from Google.

The good news is that quality content makes link building much easier. Offer your users content that they will want to link to.

Another benefit for local businesses is that they can build out their site’s profile for their city and/or neighborhood. You want Google to view your site as an expert geographically, not just for your industry.

Weather is Fun

During the morning sessions yesterday, a fairly strong thunderstorm rolled through the area. This included a tornado warning.

One could quickly determine who in each room was from the middle of the country, and who was from the coasts. The latter were quite obviously very concerned, and some seemed on the edge of panic.

Those of us from Tornado Alley realized that it wasn’t likely to be a strong tornado, and that the New Orleans Convention Center is one of the best places you could be in one.

To be fair, I would have been even more panicked than the Coasters were yesterday if it had been an earthquake rather than a tornado. Having the ground shake just ain’t right.

Also, many people in the room received automated notices on their app phones about the tornado warning. I believe this is service provider dependent, as some on iPhones got the warning, but I have an iPhone on AT&T, and did not receive one.

Bourbon Street

My visit to Bourbon Street was interesting, as I imagine it is for most people. Imagine Sixth Street in Austin, with the lack of rules of Vegas.

The concentration of strip clubs was way higher than I’ve seen in any other place. No, I didn’t go in any. Way too scary.

French Quarter

I got to spend a few hours Monday walking around the French Quarter. The French Market was nice, as far as open air markets go.

As a coffee lover, I had to pay a visit to Cafe du Monde. It was everything you would expect from a tourist trap, plus extra slow and surly service. So, the visit is done, and I won’t be going back.

The most impressive thing was the quality of the street musicians. This was a Monday morning, and their were fine jazz performances all over the place. Nice.

Food

A few years back, I was working in a company that hired a new CEO. He moved from New York to Austin for the job.

After living in Austin for a few months, he asked me, “Brian, is it possible to eat anywhere in this town without having cheese on your food?”

New Orleans is like this, except with fried food. Just about every meal will have at least one fried item on the plate.

In general, the quality has been high, especially for seafood. Oysters, crawfish and catfish have all been great. Jambalaya at one place was fantastic, but just ok at another. I had etouffee at one place that was amazing.

The answer I gave to the question about cheese, by the way, was “no”.

PubCon South 2013 is in New Orleans this year from April 22nd to the 25th. PubCon is easily the most informative online marketing and search engine optimization conference, and I’m really looking forward to visiting the Big Easy to learn and network!

PubCon is already a great value for your dollar, but I can make it even better. This coupon code will allow you to save 15% off your conference registration:

Code: bc-6594215

Just use the coupon code when you’re registering for the conference. And if you go, let me know so we can meet or catch up!

History Collection at WordPress.org

ionadas local LLC has released its first software development: a plugin for WordPress. History Collection allows you to create a “Today in History” section on your WordPress site, inserted either through a shortcode or a sidebar widget.

See the “On this day…” section of the Wikipedia homepage for an example of the sort of thing you can do (although this does not use our technology).

For an example using this technology, check out the Today in Texas Longhorn History page on my personal blog.

This is just a first revision of the software, so considerable functionality will be added. Most notably, a search system is needed for editing. In the example above, we currently have over 1,000 entries, and I know there are some duplicates.

But what would you like to see added to the plugin? Let me know, or feel free to ask any questions you might have, in the comments below.

Revision History

1.1.1
Fixed a bug that added a slash to Titles that had an apostrophe, and added an import/export system.

1.0.2
Bug fix of an error in the shortcode display code.

1.0.1
This is the first public release.