Blogging Archives - The Rough Diamond Academy

The Rough Diamond Community

Supporting Small Business Websites

I have been working with small businesses for the better part of 2 decades, building, maintaining and supporting their web presences. As part of that support I have been developing The Rough Diamond Academy. The academy will consist of a course portal and a community to support the course material. The courses will cover the exact process I use to develop sites for customers; the plugins, the themes, etc. A step by step to building a website from scratch. When launched later this year it will be a subscription based program. It is my hope that this will bring the knowledge and processes I have developed over the years to a wider audience. As a small business owner myself I understand first hand how hard it can be to get the help needed to get a business seen.

That said, from the outset I also created The Rough Diamond Community. This is a Facebook group that is free to join for any small business owner. It's a great place to ask questions and get assistance to a wide range of topics related to web presence. It is my hope that this community grows and brings value to its members. So if you aren't already a member you can join the community here: The Rough Diamond Community. If you are already a member, please reach out to your fellow small business owners and send them an invite.

"Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied."
Robert Noyce, Intel Co-Founder

If you're interested in getting in on the Academy at the early stages, and take advantage of early bird deals you can register uyour interest here: Register interest in The Rough Diamond Academy. There's no obligation, just opportunity!

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

For over 21 years David has been building websites for clients. In 2013 he pivoted from running a web design agency to working hands on with clients to help them build their businesses by reaching their ideal clients. Going beyond the website. The experience of working at the coal face is the foundation of The Rough Diamond Academy. Real life experience for real life businesses. It starts with building a site, but that's only the beginning!

WordPress Website Security

Getting Your Website Hacked Sucks!

How seriously do you take your website security? What steps are you taking to protect your site from nefarious actors looking to hijack your site for devious doings? I've heard clients in the past shrug off the possibility of being hacked with the erroneous belief that their site is too small and of no value to a hacker. But that is simply not true. Sites of all sizes and reputation are prey to hackers for various reasons. If you have a site, you are a target.

So, what can you do to protect yourself?

Hosting

First up, pay for good quality hosting! This is one of those scenarios where going cheap can cost you a lot in the long run! Use a quality hosting company that provides prompt and excellent customer service. Good service includes keeping servers updated with the latest security patches! Don't go cheap, go good!

Update Your Software

I've touched on this a few times in previous posts. Make sure you have a regular maintenance cycle for updating your WordPress software, plugins and themes. Outdated software is a common reason sites are compromised. Keeping them patched mitigates that possibility. I have two processes for achieving this.

Every time I log into a site, for whatever reason, I run all the updates that need running
I use an automated system to do this on a weekly basis. Part of this process is a daily offsite backup, just in case! Backups go back 90 days.

Remove the admin user

I don't mean have no admin, that'd be dumb, I mean don't use the default user name 'admin' as your admin user. That's just giving hackers a leg up, and we don't want to do that. Use something obscure that can't be seen anywhere on the site.

Use Strong Passwords

I can't emphasis this enough! I cringe when people tell me their passwords. Firstly, don't give anyone your password! If you need to give someone access to your site, setup a temporary user that you can remove. Only give them the access level they need, and nothing more! Secondly, use string passwords. Really strong! And make them unique! Don't be lazy here, it might cost you!

By strong I mean long, 12+ characters and use a combination of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters. (!#$%^, etc)

Again, I repeat, don't be lazt with this. Using the same, weak password everywhere is a recipe for disaster!

SSL

If your site doesn't have an SSL certificate, time to get one. This ensures any data input into forms on your site are encrypted. It also gives visitors to your site peace of mind when they see that little padlock as opposed to 'this site is insecure' messages. Just sayin!

Get Help

If this stuff is just too hard for you, consider getting assistance from a website professional. Your website is just too important to leave to chance!

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Page Builders & WordPress Themes

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Themes and Page Builders

If you're a business owner and you're building or maintaining your own website in WordPress, you should take a moment to consider how best to get a flexible, light weight and easy to use theme and page builder combination. What you say?! A page builder, what the?!

A Quick Recap

WordPress uses a combination of core code, plugins and a theme to create a website. You can read more about that structure in this post. For now its enough to know that every site has these elements. Every site has a theme.

So, What's The Best Way To Build A WordPress Website?

Ask a room full of WordPress developers and you'll probably get a whole raft of opinions about the best way to build a WordPress site. Some will say that you should build you own theme, others will say page builders are the way to go, and so on... But I'm not talking to a room full of developers. I'm talking to a business owner that is building their own site for whatever reason. And so, for me there are only two ways forward in this situation:

Buy a ready designed theme
Build your own

Buy a Ready Designed Theme

There are a myriad of ready to go themes available for WordPress, ranging from free to relatively inexpensive. The upside is that you just plug it in and fill out the available customisation options and you are good to go! It's fast and a good option if you need to get a site up quickly. The downside is that you are limited to the structure that the theme imposes on you. You can work around some of this with a good page builder, we'll come back to these, but even then you can't really change the layout dramatically. Another downside is that you aren't the only person with that theme. It's not exactly unique. In addition to this most of these themes come with a lot of code that is never going to be used if you don't use those options. This makes for bloated code and this can impact the speed of your site. It can also be a tad frustrating when you are forced to fit into the box you are given!

Build Your Own

In reality, you are unlikely to have the skills required to code your own theme. And personally, I haven't built a theme for years. It takes too long, and I would not generally be able to charge enough to make it a profitable option. But, there is a way to have the best of both worlds, ie a flexible, lightweight theme with the ability to design your own layout without code. Do I have your attention?

A Light Weight, Practical Approach

This is the exact approach I use when building sites. I want a site to be as lightweight as possible, that is not bloated with a bunch of unnecessary code, but I also need to be able to design with freedom. I use a specific theme with two specific plugins to achieve this.

Page Builders

I've already mentioned page builders, and this is the first of the plugins I use. My choice of page builder is Beaver Builder. I've used it for years now, and I've built some enormous sites using this method, including a recent site in excess of 500 pages. But there's a couple of others you might like to look at; Elementor and Divi.

Do your own research to decide what works for you best. For me Divi is out of the question because it leaves behind a mess of code in the content in the event you ever decide to move away from it and use a different builder. I have been in the position of rebuilding more than a few Divi sites, and quite frankly I hate it! There, I've said it! But I know many developers that love it. Then again, it's not their problem if it leaves behind a trail of rubbish code, is it?!

Elementor by all accounts is an excellent builder, however, I have been put off by a history of security issues with this plugin, and that's enough reason for me to give it a wide birth. So, it's Beaver for me all the way!

But Beaver Builder is only part of the story. The second plugin is Beaver Themer. To really create the full design experience I need the ability to design more than on page content. I need to be able to design and build every element of a site, eg headers, footers, etc. And so, Beaver Themer is a must! It's developed by the same people that developed Beaver Builder and they work brilliantly together.

Now, like I said, the choice of builder is up to you, and you can get a idea of comparison here: Elementor vs Divi vs Beaver Builder

Theme

Every WordPress site has a theme and the variety is huge! The builders I have mentioned will work on just about any theme, but for me, my go to theme is GeneratePress. I've used this as my base theme for years and it would take a lot to move me away from it. It's lightweight and well supported. In and of itself it has little in the way of design, it's just a framework that supports the builders I use. And thats great, because the last thing I want is a bunch of bloat in my theme. I don't want a theme telling me how my design has to look or define a structure that I can't alter easily. GeneratePress, no issues!

Another theme that gets a good mention in the forums is Astra theme. It along with GeneratePress are both amongst the recommended themes by Elementor. Beaver Builder also has their own theme and so does Divi. You might need to experiment a bit to work out what's best for you.

So my setup is Beaver Builder, Beaver Themer with GeneratePress. As part of the coming Rough Diamond Academy courses I will be building a website from scratch with this structure. If you are interested in being one of the first to join the Academy and benefit from the courses and support community that comes with them, you can register your interest here.

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Cheap Is Often Very Expensive

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Cheap vs Value

If you are working with a sub contract web developer, how do you know you are getting value? Value can be a difficult thing to define, but value and cheap are quite often very different things, and cheap is often very expensive in the long term. Have a look at the image below. The Cheap/Fast/Good triangle. For me it's the simplest way to explain the cheap versus value equation. When faced with someone looking for a bargain, it's easier to point at the triangle and say, of the three options here, you can only pick two!

So:

Cheap and Fast ≠ Good
Cheap and Good ≠ Fast
Good and Fast ≠Cheap

So, it's possible to get cheap and good, you just won't get it quickly! The question for you is always going to be what matters the most. The issues, or disappointments, come with the expectation that you can have it all!

Hourly Rates

Value and hourly rates is another area that is difficult to define. I gave up using hourly rate years ago. I don't do piece meal work, and I only do project work occasionally. By and large I work with my clients on an ongoing basis. The issue for me is that an hourly rate doesn't really account for value. What ZI can achieve in an hour doesn't necessarily equate to the what other people can achieve in an hour. So, if you are always looking for the cheapest hourly rate you may actually end up paying more in the long run. I've seen jobs I can do in a few hours take days, or longer, by others. They may have a cheaper rate, but they charge more!

If you are going to use contractors on an hourly rate basis it pays to get a considered estimate of the time it is likely to take to complete the work. At least you will get a rough ideas in advance of what you are likely to pay.

And hourly rates definitely don't tell you anything about quality. What someone charges for an hours work doesn't really tell you how good they'll be. It that triangle again. Good, cheap and fast.

And this is the dilemma. Going for cheap can end up costing you a lot more in the long run if the quality is poor or the job never gets finished. Look for developers with a portfolio of quality work and happy customers to refer to. Ask them for the expected delivery time and expected cost, and keep your expectation realistic.

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Web Skills for Small Business Owners

Can Anyone Learn How To Build A Website?

The Rough Diamond Academy was created for a single purpose; to help small business owners develop the skills they need to manage their web presence. Specifically its aim is to teach small business how to build a website and then leverage that site to build their business.

Take a good look at the image above that accompanies this article. There's a bunch of skills outlines in what appears to be lines of code. That gives the impression that it's complex or requires a special set of skills like coding to create a website. But that is an illusion.

About eight years ago I moved away from project based web development and started focusing on working with clients to work their web presence. There are many reasons for that decision, but one of them was that I could see that website development was becoming commoditised and that the true skill lay in what you did with the site, not in building it. That may piss a bunch of web developers off, but it is no less true today.

During the last eight years or so I have made it a point to teach as I go along. I want to impart the skills to my clients so they can make informed decisions or, should they decide to, go it alone at some point. If you know the basic skills, and can speak the lingo, you are far better placed to use the tools and contractors to your advantage. That's why The Rough Diamond Academy exists. To teach the skills and empower small business owners to take control. You can definitely do it! You can learn the skills to build a website and leverage it to build you business. And here's the thing: you can do it without knowing a single line of code! There are others skills you will need, but you can learn those!

That's not to say you shouldn't work with developers on your site. But with the right knowledge you'll be able to choose the right people to work with. And of course if you're not in a position to outsource in the early days, you can do it yourself.

A great place to start is by joining our FREE Facebook community. We're in the process of building course material that will be available down the track, but for now the community is a great place to ask questions and get assistance.

We want to empower you and we know you can totally do it! You can build a website form scratch. Yes, you! And you won't be alone; we're here to help!

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Aesop and Search Engine Optimisation

Aesop's SEO | Search Engine Optimisation | Rough Diamond Academy

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A Hare, A Tortoise, A Moral and Search Engine Optimisation

Despite living over 2500 years ago, Aesop had a lot to say about SEO! Well, sort of. I loved Aesop's Fables growing up, and still do! At the end of every fable there was always a moral to the story. Whether you're familiar with Aesop or not, there's an extremely high probability that you are familiar with the stories. The one I currently have in mind is The Hare & the Tortoise.

Do you know it? Well, just in case, here's a quick synopsis:

This is a story about a tortoise, which is a very slow moving creature, and a hare, which is extremely fast! They are having a race. The hare is pretty cocky. Supremely confident! He knows he can outrun (or hop) the tortoise with ease, so he's not at all concerned. He sets out at a pretty fast clip and is soon far ahead of the tortoise. The tortoise knows he's not quick, but he goes about the race in a slow methodical way, step after step, never stopping.

The hare, who has no fear of losing, stops for a rest... and falls asleep. The hare, step after slow methodical step, passes his sleeping opponent and goes on to win the race! The moral of the story? Slow and steady wins the race! See, you did know it!

Now, if Aesop was alive today and giving advice to businesses on their approach to SEO, I have a feeling he would see more hares than tortoises in the mix. And I'm sure he'd be a little disappointed his wisdom of the ages was being ignored. I see it all the time! People set off at a frantic pace, writing posts and getting content together only to stop for a rest under a tree and falling asleep. And that's when the competition passes them.

I'm not sure it's confidence that causes business owners to fall asleep and give up writing. Often it's because they don't get instant results, or they get distracted, but they stop and that's the point. The trick with winning the SEO race is to keep going regardless of your pace! Because if there's one thing I've learned in all the years of doing this, most people stop, your competitors will stop, and that's when you can win the race!

So, when people ask me for the trick to ranking, or getting seen on search engines, I know they're looking for some magic silver bullet, like how to structure an article, or how long and article should be. And these things do matter, but one well structured article by a business owner who's fallen asleep against a tree is no match for the business owner who writes, one word after another, day after day, week after week. The may be slow and not quite so flashy, but... slow and steady wins the race!

Be an SEO tortoise, not and SEO hare!

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Outsourcing Your Website Management

Managed Hosting | Pros & Cons | Rough Diamond Academy

Outsourcing Your Website Management. Is it a good idea?

Outsourcing Your Website Management. Is it a good idea, or should you handle the whole thing yourself? Well, here's my thinking on it...

Ok, in the interest of transparency, a good percentage of my business is managing websites for my clients. So, clearly, I'm probably going to lean heavily toward outsourcing this for your business. But, there's some things you should consider before you do this, and like most things, you should understand what is being managed and what it means for you and your business.

Hosting

Doesn't my hosting company handle my website? Well, depending on the level of hosting you are paying for, you will get different levels of service from your provider. This will include things like allocated space, bandwidth, backups, etc. In essence though, most hosting is similar to renting an apartment. You get the space, but no the furniture; unless of course you a leasing a serviced apartment.

Web Developer

Well ok, but doesn't my web developer handle my website management? Again, depends on the level of service arrangement you have with your developer. Some developer will have maintenance plans available, sone don't. Just because they built it doesn't mean they are looking after it. Kind of like your home builder. They build it, hand it over and the living in part is up to you!

Website Management

The thing is there's a lot more to website management than hosting and making changes to a website. It's going to be different for everyone that offers this kind of service, so I'll give you a breakdown of what I do for my clients so you can get an idea of what I mean.

But first...

Why does it matter? Well, it's you business website. It's a critical part of your business marketing, or should be, so it should be treated as a valuable and valued asset for your business. In truth though it's often treated as an afterthought!

Ok, here are some of the services I take care of for clients on a Website Management Plan. I only manage sites I've built by the way.

Hosting (obviously)
Domain Name Management and Renewal
DNS management
Daily Offsite backups
SSL Certificate Management & Renewal
WordPress updates, including core, themes and plugins
Plugin licences
Hacker protection, eg if it's hacked I fixed it!

The reason I began doing this is the reason I suggest you consider it for your business. Most business owners think they'll be ok handling all this stuff themselves but either don't have the knowledge or time to actually do it! And usually they think it'll be ok... until they're hacked, or their domain lapses or some other crisis hits. Then, suddenly it's important... super important!! And that's the thing, it is important if you are running a serious business.

So, if you're going to handle the management of your website yourself, ask yourself if you really have the time and knowledge to do it, or if you're trying to save a few bucks at the potential expense of your business?! Ask yourself whether it's worth the risk of being offline, or hacked, or losing your entire site... forever! My view? Put your time and energy into doing what you do well, and get a pro to look after the management of your website. It's like insurance for your business website.

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Just Push Publish!

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Analysis Paralysis

Do you find yourself hesitating before publishing your posts? It's quite common actually, but next time you find yourself in this position I want you to hear my voice in your head...

Just. Push. Publish!

I get it. At point of publishing you suddenly doubt yourself. You begin to question whether you are worthy of writing on this subject, or whether you may have made some mistakes, or whether anyone would want to read what you have to say, etc.

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. There might be others with more experience who are, or could be, writing about this subject. Good old imposter syndrome! But, not one other person on this planet has your unique perspective, and that's a valuable thing. Your unique take. It's something to value. It's a gift and you shouldn't hold it back!

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. You might have made mistakes. We all do that. but it's not a reason to hold your work back. If you find you've made a mistake after you've published, fixed it and move on. If it's a simple thing like a typo, just update and forget about it. If you've made a technical error that needs to be highlighted, do exactly that. Put an amendment notice on the post for anyone who might have read the original. Then move on.

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. No one might be interested in what you've written about. Actually most people won't be interested. That's perfectly ok. You're only interested in servicing the people who are interested. Funny about that! We can't be all things to all people. If you felt it was important enough in the first place to write about at least you're interested. and that might just have to be enough. But, odds are, if you're interested others will be too. That's why I always say write for yourself first.

Just. Push. Publish!

In the end, you are letting fear and doubt get in the way if you are hesitating tp push publish. That over thinking, that over analysing is a form of analysis paralysis. The easiest way to get over it is...

Just. Push. Publish!

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David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

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Q: How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

A: As long as it needs to be to get the message across clearly... and not one word more!

Photo by kraken images on Unsplash

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Analytics: Don’t Fixate On One Metric

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Website Analytics

When looking at analytics for your website it is important to take a multi metric view. I see so many business owners fixate on one aspect, or one metric of their site analytics. For example traffic numbers.

It's All Feedback

For several years now I have been on a fitness journey. About 4 years ago I decided to turn my life around and get back into shape. I had drifted for years and allowed myself to get lazy and overweight. Now, like most people in this position I was focused on one metric only; weight! Everything I did was around losing weight, but the scales I have come to learn, are very misleading. They are but one metric in the mix. A more balanced approach, which is the one I take today, is to use a number of metrics to gauge my progress. For example:

weight
measurements
how clothing fits
how I feel
blood pressure
sleep cycle
macro balance (nutrition)
exercise progress (weight increments, sets, etc)
resting heart rate

You get the picture. Focusing solely on weight doesn't give me the whole picture.

Six months ago I employed a new trainer. A body composition coach. Together we track a myriad of metrics to track progress. Interestingly enough my weight is exactly the same as it was 6 months ago. If that was the only focus I'd be disappointed, perhaps even demoralised. But in the same period I have dropped 6cms around my chest, 8cms around my waist, trimmed my legs, and grown my biceps and triceps and added muscle across the board. So, I can clearly see progress because I am measuring a broad range of metrics.

Business is exactly the same. If you are only tracking a metric like traffic from your website analytics you are in danger of misinterpreting the results. You may become overly enthusiastic or equally disappointed. Traffic alone won't tell you what's really happening. I like to think of traffic as people walking past my business but not necessarily coming in. It's important to know the difference. If you get excited by 1000 people visiting your site a day, but no one is engaging... there's really nothing to be excited about! There's something wrong, but if you're not digging deeper, you'll never know what it is! Conversely if 10 people a day visit your site and 5 of them engage, that's an amazing result. You're clearly doing something right, and if you could get more people to your site, you'd probably continue to get great engagement. The problem is, without knowing what you're doing right you could change something and the whole thing might fall in a heap.

So, you need to track a number of metrics and you need to understand what they mean. For example, you might want to track metrics such as:

traffic
traffic source
bounce rate
time on site
pages visited
where they exit
do they engage: fill out a form, call the contact number, etc
add product to cart
abandon cart
complete purchase

And so on and so on. Knowing a broader range of metrics gives you a more complete picture of what's really going on. It's important to measure. You can react and test and evaluate based on the information you're getting. The feedback. Informed feedback, not just hunches and guesses.

Keep digging my friends, there's diamonds in that data!