(Nidan) Black Belt Joomla(now with added social)

Barrie North

Joomla Day New England, June 2th, 2011

The Usual Bit

www.joomlashack.com (3 million)(2005)

www.compassdesigns.net(2005)

www.joomlabook.com (3rd Ed)(2007)

www.simplweb.com (CMS SaaS)(2008)

Nidan Blackbelt?

1st Dan = Shodan

2nd Dan = Nidan

3rd Dan = Sandan

Black belt = beginner!

Leveraging JoomlaJoomla is a great hammer, but every website is not a nail!

So When Should I Use Joomla?Joomla? Wordpress? Drupal? When should I use Joomla?

• When you are a content publisher (and you ARE)• When you want your site to grow (and you DO)• When you want an affordable solution (Don't we all?)• You want to immerse in your Social Media Network (and

you DO)

When should I NOT use Joomla?- When you need complex custom features (you DON'T [use Drupal])- When all you need is a blog (you DON'T [use Wordpress])

Why Do You Want a Website?Black Belt Move #1“What is the GOAL of your website?”

To get sales referrals?To keep a community informed?To establish an offline brand to the web?

Using Joomla WiselyBlack Belt Move #2“Don't make your site too complicated”

There are so many bells and whistles for Joomla, its easy to have a site that's bloated.

Barrie's Golden RulesBlack Belt Move #3

“I have two golden rules...”

1 . 80% of what you want will take 20% of the effort

2. You don't know what your visitors want

2a. Nor does your boss/client

2b. No, you can't have that shade of blue

OK, SO Now What?

The Pachinko Machine (Godin)

• The balls are visitors• Traffic comes in the top• Conversions at the bottom

You Sure About that Barrie?Jakob Nielsen

B = V x C x L

Where B = amount of “business” done by the site V = unique visitors coming to the site C = conversion rate L = loyalty rate

Getting SocialThe Facebook Effecthttp://www.simplweb.com/blog/235-making-social-media-workGoogle is still the #1 way that people will find your content, but word of mouth is becoming more powerful.

Social Networking != Buttons“The reality is unless you are already a leader in you're niche (in which case you don't need the traffic) you are very unlikely to ever get dugg, stumbled upon or, er, delici-cized(?).”

http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/why-50-social-bookmarking-icons-is-50-too-many

“According to Digg itself, 94% of Digg users are male. 88% of Digg users are in the 18-39 year age range, and 52% of them are "IT professionals, developers, or engineers."

http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/why-digg-is-useless

Black Belt Move #4Social Networking = CONTENT (more on this later)

Stage 1 – Getting TrafficGetting raw traffic to your website

Traditionally called SEOOther options, e.g. PPC

SEO is not SEF

Shodan Black Belt SEOKeyword Use in Title Tag (4.9) Global Link Popularity of Site (4.5) Anchor Text of Inbound Link (4.4) Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure (4.1) Age of Site (4) Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site (3.9) Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community (3.9) Keyword Use in Body Text (3.9) Global Link Popularity of Linking Site (3.7) Topical Relationship of Linking Page (3.6)

Source:http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Joomla “Automates” SEOBlack Belt Move #5“Turn on SEF, craft article titles, use linking modules”

Google Will Find You

SEO is About Content

• Get the on-page stuff right - that's easy• Target the right keywords - again, easy• Earn large numbers of links from diverse, high quality sources

with descriptive anchor text - that's crazy hard (see next slide)

If you can't create compelling content you will struggle to get traffic!

Google vs Facebook

The way people find information is in transition

Steps to Social Networking• Know your tribe (it's not using Twitter Unfollow)• Know where they live (Social Media Outposts)• Build a content driven CMS website (the J thing)• Make sure your site is Social Media Enabled (see next

slide)• Don't be a jerk (have a conversation)

Black Belt Move #6 Successful businesses have honest conversations about their

products and services to people that are interested.

Being Social Media Enabled• Your site needs to connect with your Social Media

Outposts.• Your site needs to push and pull key content to and from

your Social Media Outposts.

Don't Bother With the Buttons

So... No buttons then?Recent site launch example...

Stage 2 – Converting the TrafficAll the traffic in the world won't help if you can't CONVERT.

With Joomla, you can easily make mistakes that will reduce your conversion....

Ooooooooookkkkk!Black Belt Move #7“Use very big banana's”

Seth Godin likens visitors to monkeyslooking for a banana.

Your goal is your banana.

Make it big and obvious

A Home Page Banana

A Content Banana

Bananas and Extension DevsSometimes extension developers don't think in terms of goals and conversion.

(can the contact us form please have a unique URL please!)

Black Belt Move #8“Use template and component overrides to customize output”

Joomla has a feature to override output. Templates can do this.

SOME extensions can, check with the developer. Its called the “view” part of the Model/View/Controller.

There is No Place Like HomeWebsite home pages are the most expensive real estate in the world

Black Belt Move #9“Take control of your homepage”

• Don't use the built-in 'Frontpage' component• Use an uncategorized article and then use Google Web

Optimizer

Google Web OptimizerCan give surprising results

www.compassdesigns.net/tutorials/17-joomla-tutorials/294-how-to-use-google-web-optimizer-in-joomla.html

Improve the Joomla RegistrationBlack Belt Move #10“Use template overrides to improve conversion on registration”

• Big glowing buttons• Customize your language files (On site AND the emails)• Get your emails delivered (From Address)• Template the registration form• Add a privacy policy link• Words on the submit button

Landing PagesYou MUST use landing pagessimplweb.com/teaching-sellssimplweb.com/schoolssimplweb.com/expo

Make a Joomla category and use a hidden menu (easy to remember URL’s)

Check out unbounced.com

Remember your Goal?Black Belt Move #11“You mean your not using Google Goals (analytics)?”

Of course you are using Google Analytics, but you should also use the “goals” feature and Joomla URL's

Start URL = /component/user/?task=registerEnd URL = /index.php?option=com_user&task=activate&activation=

Baby StepsI changed the default title of “Login” to “Register and Login for Free Downloads”

Stage 3 – Visitor LoyaltyWhy should visitors come back?

Sticky Joomla CommunitiesBlack Belt Move #12“Social networking is good, but communities are better!”

Extensions that extend social network

- Comments (Disqus)- Forums- Jomsocial- Community Builder- Anahita (new)

ALL sites can become communities

Using EmailBlack Belt Move #12“Offer something of value in return for an email”

• Use a sign up form• Add value• Get people coming back• Measurable and predictable

Even schools can use email to provide paperless news to parents!

Let's Review!Three Phases of Pachinko

This Ain't Field of Dreams

“It's the content stupid”

simplweb.com/7-days-to-a-successful-business-website

Stump the Chump

You got questions? We got answers...

(maybe)