This months WordPress Tunbridge Wells Meetup was all about SEO. We’ve captured the main points in this article but if you prefer to watch on video, then you can!

All WordPress sites come with the leading SEO plugin Yoast. We recommend that users learn it’s key features and make a plan to use it to it’s best advantage
Make sure your site is registered on Google Search Engine Tools. Use the Yoast plugin to generate a site map
Use TinyPNG.com and TingJPG to reduce the site of your images before uploading as site speed is a key ranking factor in SEO
Use https://supermetrics.com/ to connect Google Analytics to Google sheets or Excel. We’re trying this out ourselves and will report back!
Good use for the keywords report on Search Engine tools. Use the keywords to create FAQ’s and other content people are looking for on your site.
Get more reviews. Either on a industry specific site like Trip Advisor or Google Reviews.

Want to learn more? Watch the videos or see the presentations here.

New for 2018, we are updating our support offerings for all our clients. We aim to provide a consistent, easy to use support service across all sites, with a range of packages to suit your needs.

We have developed a 3 tier support system and believe that each package will meet the different requirements of our clients. These range from a free basic level with minimal handholding, through to a monthly retainer with full support.

What are the Support Packages?

Bronze

This is the free, entry-level pack for all sites except Bespoke sites. This is most recommended for our basic, level one Teal sites.

Silver

This includes a block £100/ 1.5 hours of support time, which can be used as needed. This package is included in the site license fees for all Byzantium sites and is the minimum requirement for Bespoke. Additional blocks can be purchased as needed.

Gold

Regular monthly invoice of a minimum of £100 per month for 1.5 hours time which is reviewed monthly. This is our recommended support package for Bespoke sites.

How will the Support Packages be Rolled Out?

All support packages will start when you launch a new site or at renewal of your existing site. When we speak to you about a new or renewed site, we will recommend the support package for your needs. In addition, we will also make some ideas for improving or upgrading your site, for example increasing site speed or look and feel.

If you would like to take advantage of a paid for support plan now, these are available for £100 for 1.5 hours (Silver) or £100 per month (Gold). Please contact us if interested.

What Kind of Site Do I Have?

If you’re not sure which kind of site you have, Teal, Byzantium, Bespoke or other, please contact us to find out.

You can read more about the support plans in this document here or contact us with any queries

I can’t take credit for this idea, it was given to me by one of our clients, Janine Winfield of Alternative events. It’s a great way to display news, press and blog content in a list, with links to the full content with no need for extra modules and fees.

It’s a great idea, here’s a demo: https://www.alternativeai.co.uk/alternative-view/.

Add a new sponsor type: “News story”, “Blog Post”….
Admin > Sponsors > Sponortypes
Add New sponsors tagged to the group “News story”. Use the Sponsor Logo for the featured image that is displayed in the list. Use the Sponsor URL to link to more information.
Admin > Sponsors > Add New Sponsor

We are working on a new Blog pack with lots of enhanced features – contact us for more info.

Exhibitor Zone

What is it

The Exhibitor Zone is a back office function which allows Exhibitors access so they can upload their own information, logos, bios and links.

How it works

Once you have added the exhibitor to the system and chosen a password they will be sent an email with login details and links to the Exhibitor Zone.

Exhibitors will also see a progress bar1 so they will know if there are still outstanding items to complete when they login.

EXHIBITOR ZONE – WHAT THE EXHIBITOR SEES

WHAT FUNCTIONALITY IS THERE?

Marketing forms: Links, Forms, Pages
Exhibitor website details
Exhibitor logo upload
Exhibitor biography upload
Exhibitor grouping by trails
Categories to tag exhibitors and blog posts, press releases
Functionality to email all exhibitors
Ability to bulk upload exhibitors
Facility to download data

This month we looked at alternatives to WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS). We were especially looking at situations where WordPress not the best match. We were delighted to have two web experts to give us the benefit of their extensive experience.

Kevin Gillard of Really Quite Something (reallyquite.com) is a web and app developer specialising in the Open Source CMS Drupal. Really Quite Somthing clients include tunepropeller and the festival OnBlackheath. Kevin talked about the reasons and conditions they would recommend Drupal over WordPress to their clients.

As a general rule Drupal favours larger web projects with a minimum two week development time. This means it is not suitable for smaller projects or those requiring a tight turnaround time, such as those we deliver at Miramedia.

This longer development time is reflected in that there are very few off-the-shelf themes for Drupal as the majority of sites are hand built. Developers start with a blank box / site and build from there. Every element of the install is configurable. The Drupal equivalent to Plugins are Modules. Modules are blocks of functionality at a much higher level than plugins, so they do a specific technical job rather than a business job.

Druapl is an excellent alternative CMS to WordPress especially if your site requires complex user roles and permissions.

Trevor Spink is MD of Tunbridge Wells Digital Agency, Eonic – https://www.eonic.co.uk/.

Eonic started the development their own in-house CMS platform EonicWeb in 2002 and have continually updated and evolved it ever since. They have recently released it on an OpenSource licence http://www.eonicweb.net , and are looking to build a wider user base.

Trevor explained their decision to develop and stick with their own platform and its advantages, rather than using one of the off the shelf alternatives.

Eonics CMS is very feature rich with member modules, shopping carts and lots more straight out of the box. As it runs on a Windows server this would be a very big advantage for larger corporation already running Windows servers.
An in-house system the market share is much smaller and so the system is very secure. It is built on XSLT / XML and so rendering pages for other devices is a simple addition. This makes is very future-proof.

In our opinion whilst business continuity is a possible problem, the Eonic CMS is a very comprehensive complete solution and a definite consideration. This is especially for clients wanting to run a website from their in-house windows server.

Next WordPress Meetup, 6th July 2017 from 7 – 9

The next event is on 6th July from 7 – 9. The topic for the event is “WordPress Hosting” and we’ve lined up a great external speaker and our own Dominic Johnson

Talk 1: Dominic Johnson, Miramedia.

Dominic will build a blog and website for a client using WPEngine hosting and a purchased theme. Covering:

1) Setup a site on WPEngine
2) Buy and install a pre-built theme
3) Buy a domain name & point at the new wordpress website
4) Add creative (previously designed and developed by Miramedia)
5) Tweak the website, add copy
6) Launch the site & train the client.

Our good friend and client Craig Heaven will be the guinea pig here, launching a new blog based website for his consultancy business.

Talk 2: Mike Houghton, Depth of Focus

Mike is our “please help, fix this….” go-to guy. His knowledge and passion for technology is vast.

He’ll be talking about hosting, tweaking WordPress and generally answering highly technical questions. The talk is aimed at the advanced user / developer but he’ll make it suitable for all untrained ears.

We hope you can make it. If it’s nice weather, it’ll be in the garden. Pizza and Beer will again be supplied by our sponsors: The House, Miramedia & ASK

Signup for the next event here

On the whole, it was a great event attended by many great people. Here is what I’ve learnt and what changes we plan to make:

The WordPress community is very varied in terms of experience and technical knowledge. We need to appeal to complete novices and highly experienced developers.
We will split the evening onto 2 halves: from 7 – 8 it will be focussed more on beginners and more marketing focussed people. The second half will be for more technical folk, with more detailed and advanced talks. We’ll also provide a clinic in a separate room where anyone can pop along and discuss their sites with our developers here at Miramedia
We need Pizza – and more beer. We had to resort to drinking cider, which is never a good idea.
One of our sponsors will be providing Pizza at half time – provided by our friends at ASK
User stories and mini-talks work really well. We were lucky enough to have Bruce from https://thelemongrove.net/ talk for 5 minutes about his site and experience with WordPress. He comes from a journalist background so an excellent case study
The speakers need to give room to the attendees so they can talk amongst themselves – These relationships and conversations are the most useful part of the meetup and this needs to be given space.

Here is a photo from the event. Last night was just an intro so we won’t be publishing slides or videos. However keep in-touch, we will be.

The next event is on 1st June from 7 – 9. The topic for the event is “Why would you not use WordPress” and we’ve lined up 2 great speakers – details to follow.

Signup for the next event here

Q. I have a chairman and some panellists for a particular seminar session. How is the best way to display these different contributors?

A. Using Speaker Roles within the seminar system.

Q. But How do I do that?

A. Simple. Just follow these instructions:

1. Add 2 Speaker roles: Chairman & Panelist

ADMIN > SEMINARS > Speaker Roles

2. Set the order you want the roles to appear. E.g. Move the Chairman above the panelist.

ADMIN > SEMINARS > Speaker Role Order

3. Then assign the speaker roles for each seminar session with a chairman and a panelist. Edit the session, and select a panelist and a chairman.

ADMIN > SEMINARS > [Select a seminar] > Select Panelist in this Seminar

4. And the final result:

What is it

It’s a collection of widgets, design options and tools to help you layout pages better.

The 1 page Home Page:

It is now possible to set the page template to “Full Width” and create a Home Page that lists all the key content from the Event. The page is split up into sections and then filled with content from the website.

Example: Internet of things, DWTC: http://www.iotx.ae/

Visual Page editor

Each section within a page can be assigned:

Full Width Y/N and padding options
Background colour, image or video content

Each section then becomes a container to fill with content. The sections can be split into columns, each column with a width of 1/6, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2.

Content can then be added:

What does it cost

The price for the Design+ Pack, to be added to either the Sphere or the Prism templates is £250 for the year.

The price for us to design a full page home page for you is £250.

What next if I want to use it

Please email me on dominic@miramedia.co.uk and I’ll get it switched on. As with all our stuff, if you don’t like with after 30 days, we’ll cancel the invoice and you won’t have to pay a single penny.