Once you’ve made the big decisions about who your course is serving and what transformation your course will deliver (our topic last week), it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of determining how you will actually execute your lessons.

In this episode, we discuss three important questions you need to ask yourself to be sure that you are moving forward in the direction that serves your big picture goals for your course.

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Once you have your website up and running, and you’re consistently publishing good content and connecting with your audience, it’s time to ponder whether creating an online course would be a smart next move. There are many different ways — both big and small — to incorporate an online course into your content and product mix. In this episode, we run down a few of them and then explore three questions that will help you plan your online course in a smart way from the beginning so you avoid major missteps later on.

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The best way to navigate the crowded marketplace for online content is with a smart positioning strategy. What makes you stand out? Why will people pay attention to you and your content with so many other options out there? In this episode, we take a high-level look at how to reassess, and improve, the positioning of your content and offers.

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This week, as our series on SEO continues, we’re talking about getting more links — which remain one of the most important and influential ranking factors that search engines look at. In general, what should you be doing to get more links? Here are three questions to ask yourself …

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How do you attract more search visitors to your site? And more importantly, how do you make sure that the majority of those visitors are members of your target audience? Your keyword strategy will play a huge role in this, and this episode you will discover three areas of focus that will optimize your keyword strategy for success.

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As we continue our series on SEO, we’re diving into local SEO this week. And we have a special guest to help out with this week’s lesson — and it’s a voice you know well: Sean Jackson. He provides insight on what NAP means, how to harness the power of reviews, and why images make such a big difference for local SEO.

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Now that you have a live website, and you’re publishing posts, and you’re building community and gathering subscribers, it’s time to start optimizing what you’ve got. And there is no better place to start your optimization than with search engine optimization. This episode begins a multi-part series on improving your SEO, and we start this week by discussing how to optimize your website’s performance.

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Brian Clark has written a lot of headlines. And the vast majority of those headlines have been very effective in achieving their simple goal of getting you to click on a post and read it. In this discussion, we tease out Brian’s best and latest advice on how to write magnetic headlines that readers won’t be able to resist clicking on.

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You can waste a lot of time creating amazing content if you don’t invest similarly in writing irresistible headlines. What’s the point of great content if you can’t get anyone to click on it in the first place? In this episode, we walk you through the mindset and techniques you need to write the kind of headlines that will fill your audience funnel with the kind of people you need so that your content can work its long-term magic.

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As you start building your audience, you may find yourself wondering how you can increase connection and give people more reason to interact with you and your ideas. One great way is to establish a community around your content. But don’t just jump into it head first. Consider these questions to make sure you start a community in a smart and sustainable way.

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Social media is a great way to extend your reach and influence … if you know how to do it right.

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Now that you have everything in place to build your email list, and you are publishing content, it’s time to start getting some attention, driving traffic, and building community. Social media is a great place to do this — but, as with anything else, you should have a smart, coherent strategy to make sure that you aren’t wasting your time.

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You’ve done a lot of work to get to this point. Now it’s finally here! You’re about ready to do what you, presumably, are launching a website to do: publish content so that you can build a relationship with an audience. But before you hit publish on that first piece of content, here are three important questions to consider first.

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This is the second part of our interview with Chris Garrett, Chief Digital Officer of Rainmaker Digital, on the best messaging for your site’s opt-in forms so you can build your subscriber base as big (and attentive) as possible.

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Last week, we discussed three key components for adding opt-in incentives to your website. But an opt-in form is only going to be as effective as the incentive you are promising. This week, let’s discuss three questions you should be asking yourself to make sure your opt-in incentive is irresistible to your audience.

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In this discussion with Chris Garrett, Chief Digital Officer of Rainmaker Digital, we explore best practices for adding opt-in forms to your WordPress website that help you maximize subscriber growth.

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We want to prepare for success, and that means being ready to capture subscribers from the first moment such capture is possible — which means from your very first blog post.

And that means you must have two things in place: opt-in forms, so people have the opportunity to subscribe to your email list; and a strong opt-in-incentive, so people have a compelling reason to actually give you their email address…. Listen to episode

Rafal Tomal – Creative Director for StudioPress – shares his deep insight on everything you need to know about WordPress design.

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Once you have chosen your WordPress theme, there are some immediate items that need to be placed atop of your to-do list. Two of them have to do with the emotions your site will evoke, and the other has to do with how users will interact with your site.

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This episode begins a short two-part series about getting your initial design ready to go. We start this week with three macro questions that will help you determine the right kind of design to move forward with.

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Pamela Wilson — author of Master Content Marketing — joins the show to share her framework for creating compelling content on your site.

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Content is the lifeblood of your audience building. No one is going to flock to your website just because you launch it. You have to give them reasons to come, compel them to stay, and earn their loyalty. The only way to do that is through content, which is why investing time now to make smart choices about what content you’re going to create is time well spent.

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Email marketing is an essential tool for online marketers. But picking the right email provider can be a challenge — unless you know what to look for.

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Building an email list remains the preeminent way to build an audience asset that you own and can access whenever and however you choose. Which is why the choice you make for an email marketing service provider is an important one. In this lesson, Jerod Morris provides three questions that will help guide you toward making the correct choice.

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WordPress hosting can make or break your site. So if you are serious about WordPress then you will want to know the right ways to pick one.

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Above all else, you want to make a hosting choice that gives you peace of mind. And that means rushing the choice is probably not a smart move. There is plenty to consider — more than we can dive into in just one podcast episode. But the three questions I’ve prepared for you here should move you in the right direction toward picking the right host for your website.

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Should you still worry about getting the .com extension? Does protecting your brand by buying non-.com extensions still matter? And how did an impulse domain purchase allow Brian Gardner to hang out with a former contestant on The Bachelor? All of that and more in this discussion between Brian and Sean Jackson.

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Settling on a domain name for your website can be a difficult process. Your ideal choice probably isn’t there, and you probably want to balance picking something clear and easy to remember that also gives you some kind of keyword or branding benefits. Fear not — Jerod is here with three questions (and a mindset shift!) that will help you make this a smooth process that propels you forward, rather than hold you back.

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If you have a WordPress website and are looking to grow your audience through content, then this episode will help. Sonia Simone is one of the most accomplished content marketers in the world, and she stops by to discuss smart, winning content strategies with Sean Jackson.

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This week, Jerod Morris walks you through the next step after defining your ideal audience: putting together your initial content marketing strategy, which help propel you and your content forward in the direction of specific goals.

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“It is more important to have some people love you than everyone to be indifferent.” In this episode of Site Success, Brian Clark joins Sean Jackson to describe three key elements of a framework for choosing who you want your audience to be.

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The Sites podcast is back! And with a brand new name, plus a new format and schedule. Jerod Morris discusses what all the changes mean, and then dives right into our first topic of 2018 — how to define your ideal audience.

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With major changes coming to WordPress core in 2018, web designers will have a new set of challenges. Are you ready for them?

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Nathan Rice, the creator of the Genesis Framework, shares his insights on maximizing the power of Genesis for WordPress.

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Are you having technical issues with your WordPress site? Then this podcast episode is for you.

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Affiliate marketing is a great way to enhance the income from your site — if you know how to do it right.

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Chris Lema shares his insights and ideas on the best way to leverage membership plugins on WordPress.

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Joost de Valk — the creator of WordPress SEO by Yoast — joins us for an in-depth discussion on the future of WordPress SEO.

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StudioPress has come a long way, and you won’t believe what is coming next.

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This week, Sean Jackson (creator of the patented SEO tool Scribe) joins Jerod to discuss SEO. We reflect on last week’s episode about the importance of site speed, discuss the emerging importance of preparing your content for voice search, and then deliver some important news about the future of this podcast.

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This week, we dive in and discuss SEO-friendly tips that will make your WordPress site faster. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Today’s episode is based on a blog post over at Copyblogger by Loren Baker, the founder of Search Engine Journal.

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Do you understand how to craft an analogy that is actually an analogy (and not a metaphor or simile) and that holds the power to persuade? You will after you listen to this week’s episode.

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This week, we talk about the power of repurposing. And I have an example from one of my own projects to use to illustrate my point.

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As an ever-evolving open source venture, WordPress changes a lot, and often, for the better. And it’s up to you to make sure you update to the latest version.

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The greatest call-to-action copy in the world won’t make a lick of difference if your CTA isn’t visually compelling enough to draw attention to it. So that’s what we’re going to discuss this week: how to create visually effective calls to action.

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If you don’t know what to say, then how you say it isn’t going to matter. That’s one of the concluding points of the blog post by Brian Clark that is featured in this episode — a blog post that was inspired by one of the great films of our time.

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What content should you give away for free, and what content should you sell? It’s a tricky question. There is no perfect, one-size-fits all answer. But there are guiding principles. And some of the best guiding principles I’ve ever come across for this question come from a blog post that Chris Garrett wrote back in July of 2015.

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As wonderful as plugins can be, it’s wise to use patience and discretion when choosing which ones you will use and which ones you will pass over or replace. In this episode, I will present you with a simple decision tree, in the form of a few short questions, to help you decide whether you should install that plugin … or move on.

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There comes a point for any website when more creativity actually becomes too much, and becomes a negative. In this episode, we discuss a couple of important points to keep in mind so that creativity with your web design doesn’t harm your users’ experience.

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Now that we know who we’re talking to and what we want to say, we just have to fine-tune how we say it to achieve maximum impact.

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Could it really be possible? Well, back in March of 2017, no less an authority than Brian Clark wrote a blog post on Copyblogger with that very headline. Let’s hear him out before we make our judgment.

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What can you do, as a site owner, to protect your website from the evildoers who will stop at nothing to harm your site for their own nefarious purposes? The first step is the most important.

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Henrik is getting ready to launch a new website, but he is wondering if he actually should split his content up on two separate sites. He also wonders about options for an ecommerce plugin to get started with.

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Creating a positive user experience is very important, but it should not — in fact, can not — trample on your business goals. Even the greatest user experience in the world isn’t worth it if the cost will cause you to be unprofitable.

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Our first Q&A episode is based on a question from Rene, who wants to know how to increase conversions from all digital media. That’s a broad question! So I enlisted the help of our remarkably capable marketing maven Loryn Thompson to answer.

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In this week’s episode we proceed to the next step in our series on content marketing strategy by discussing how to know what content you need to be delivering to achieve your content marketing goals.

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In this episode of Sites, we revisit a classic post from Sonia Simone that lists and describes 10 content marketing goals that are worth pursuing. Which ones are you already pursuing? Which ones should you add to your mix? Listen and find out.

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In this ultra-short episode, I put out a call to action for your current questions and desires. What issues are keeping you from moving forward with your website? What burning website desire do you have that a well-timed piece of advice can you help you move toward? Let me know!

Two ways to submit your question:

• @JerodMorris on Twitter
• jerod@copyblogger.com

In this episode of Sites, I walk you through a critical mistake related to SEO that too many website owners are making. Then I will provide you with 3 action steps that will help you compete in the modern, and future, SEO landscape.

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Good design is not just how a website looks; it’s how it works. In order to create a web design that connects, we need it to reach new levels of interaction with our audience. Let’s walk through three ways we can do that.

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Not only do you want to attract your ideal customer, but you want to repel the people who you know are not right for you. In this episode, we provide specific examples that illustrate why understanding your WHO is so important, and then we lay out a proven strategy for empathy that will help you get into the eyes, ears, and mind of your ideal customer.

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What is digital sharecropping and why is it so dangerous? We explore those questions this week on Sites, with the help of one of the most widely shared strategy articles in the history of Copyblogger.

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This week, we are going to talk about an element of your website that will impact every single word and image you publish. It may not be the sexiest topic, but it sure is important. Hosting.

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In this episode of Sites, I share with you a brilliant little essay that describes a few simple ways that great design can help your content marketing.

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Let’s begin here in episode 1 with content. Because, quite simply, if your website has no content, your website has no chance. But it can’t just be any content. It needs to be strategic content.

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