Change Archives - The 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!

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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!

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!

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Domain Phishing Scams

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Beware Of Domain Name Phishing Scams

Have you ever received an email, or physical mail that you felt at a gut level wasn't quite right? It looks kind of legit, but something makes you hesitate. Good! There's a very good chance it's a scam. If in doubt, always reach out for clarification.

This actually happened today with one of the members in the Rough Diamond (Academy) Community. She received an email asking her to upload various documents to verify that she was the legitimate owner of her domain name and was meeting the government criteria for owning a .AU domain. To back up the request the email pointed her to a website that appeared to outline the requirments for a .AU domain. In fact, that site is legitimate:

https://www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/internet/internet-governance/domain-names

That's the catch. By directing you to a legitimate website that outlines the regulations, or whatever, it tricks you into thinking the whole thing is legitimate. But, if you then follow up with the requested uploading of the documents, that will be a different site, usually made to look like the legitimate site.

For the hacker it's a numbers game. Send the email out to owners of domain names, and a percentage of those will fall in to the trap. If the email arrives when you are stressed, distracted or otherwise occupied you might act on it before thinking. And then they have your identity documents. That's the name of the game: Identity theft!

Here's the scam alert from the Domain Authority here in Australia: https://www.auda.org.au/news/scam-alert-email-scam-targeting-au-registrants

What To Do When Receiving One Of These Emails or Letters

Don't Panic! Don't rush to do anything. It's the rushing that causes people to fall for the ruse. Follow up with the company you bought your domain from and ask them if the request is legitimate or not if you're uncertain. Reach out to others, like our community, and ask for advice before proceeding. Read the email carefully, there are often clues like poor spelling that give the game away.

There's so many variations of these scams, so it pays to be suspicious. If it's legitimate your domain registrar, the company you bought it from, will know.

I have personally received two variations of this theme in the last few weeks.

The first is the renewal of my business name. Here in Australia that is done through ASIC: https://asic.gov.au/for-business/renewing-your-business-name/

Every year I get these fake renewal notices that use the exact formula mentioned above. They point to the legitimate website for the explanation, but a different one for the payment - theirs. It's actually written on the renewal that they aren't ASIC and that they're a private renewal company., so I guess they get around it by being honest in a less than honest and very deceptive way. If I paid them I have no idea whether they would renew my business name, but even if they did it's at a highly inflated price. So, I throw their renewal notice in the recycling and head to ASIC and renew it there. Thanks for the reminder scammers!

The other one get is for domains that are very similar to the one I own. Again, somewhere in a less than obvious place is says it's not a renewal, but again it's made to look like one. The aim is that I'll buy a new domain at a highly inflated price, and they get my details, etc. I get several clients call me every year asking if these are legit. Recycle the paper so at least it not a complete waste!

Report the Scam

After you've had a cuppa and calmed your heart rate, report the scam here: https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/

Be on the lookout for scammers. It's a sad fact of life, but it is what it is!

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

WordPress – Should I Pay For Plugins?

Should I Pay For WordPress Plugins?

Should I pay for WordPress Plugins? Given that you can get free plugins for WordPress, and WordPress itself is free, why should I pay for a plugin? It seems to be at odds with the whole WordPress 'free' thing, doesn't it?

Well, not really. In fact, not at all!

Plugins Are Addons, Not WordPress

The architecture of WordPress allows for third party developers to create code that extends the features of the core. Some of these developers create plugins for free, or a 'lite' version of a plugin that is free. But at the end of the day, developing is how they make their living. And like anyone creating a value add it's not at all unreasonable to be paid for that added value. In fact I would argue that payments for plugins are not only supporting the developer, they are supporting the ongoing viability of the entire WordPress environment. A developer that is paid for their work can continue to developer further functionality, additional plugins, and support existing plugins they've developed. And so, there is often a premium version of the same plugin with additional functionality. Support of the plugin is often limited with the free version, but available with the premium version. It all comes down to whether you need the additional functionality, or like to support the developers if you don't.

It's A Business

Just like you, developers are running a business. I'm sure you like to get paid and so do developers. It's a mistake to treat software like the WordPress ecosystem as 'only' free. I use many premium plugins, and in many cases I won't build a site without them. Most of my go to plugins are premium. I also use free plugins, but I'm always wary about the quality of any plugin. I limit plugins to ones I know are quality. That usually means premium, but not always. Stability of code and support are of incredible value to me, and hopefully is to you too.

Your website is a huge part of the marketing of your business, so if that means paying for a premium plugin to achieve results, it should be a no brainer! But, of course, is a call for you 🙂

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Is WordPress Free?

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WordPress - Is it Free?

Is WordPress Free? The simple answer to that is YES! But like most things in life it's a little more complicated than it looks at first glance. Let's take a closer look.

WordPress Core

The core software that is at the heart of WordPress is free to download and use. There are no user licenses or yearly fees. No matter how big your website is. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero!
That's great news, because it's hard to get cheaper than free!

So, What's The Catch? There's always a catch, right? Well, yes... and no.

Plugins

The core is free, but there's more to WordPress than just the core. There are also plugins. Plugins are extensions to the core. They allow for additional functionality to be plugged in to WordPress. Now, a lot of these are free, just like the core, but there are also many commercial plugins, or premium plugins. These attract either a one-off fee or an annual subscription. Now if you only use free plugins - it's all still free 🙂 (Duh, obviously!)

Themes

And then there's themes! Every WordPress site has a theme. Yep, every single one of them! Just like plugins, there are lots of free themes around, and just like plugins there are lots of premium themes. So, use a free theme, and free plugins, and... you guessed it, it's still free!

Yes, But Is This Realistic?

Is it a realistic expectation to never use premium themes or plugins. Probably not, but it is totally possible. At some point you're probably going to want to use a premium plugin. And you still have to factor in hosting and associated costs. So, plan to pay a little bit! 🙂

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Your New Life Requires the Death of Your Old Life

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There Is No Change Without Pain!

Your New Life Requires the Death of Your Old Life! It's impossible to change and remain the same, yet that's exactly what so many of us try to achieve. Whether it's adopting a new business structure, or getting fit, or letting an idea go, or adopting a new one... we try to maintain the status quo with all our might! We want change, we want better outcomes, but we don't want to change a thing. We don't want to do the work. We want easy. We wan't magic. And surprise, surprise, we are left wishing things could be different. And as the saying goes, a goal without action is just a wish!

One of my mentors, the wonderful Mel Robbins, says it like this: The Cost of Your New Life Is Your Old Life! We hang on to the old because change is painful. It's hard to let go, but you can't change and remain the same. That just isn't possible! Another way of saying it is; “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Today marks 4 years to the day I let my old life die. Sounds dramatic doesn't it?! But in reality my old life died on a walking track at Mt Macedon, an hour north of Melbourne. We'd called in to visit an old friend who lived in the area and he took us on 'quick' walk up a mountain track. It damn near killed me! I was struggling with every step, out of breath, uncomfortable and sweating bullets despite the mild weather. I quickly fell behind as my friend raced up the track. In that moment I knew I had to make changes. In that moment I killed that overweight unfit guy and began rebuilding him. I killed him with a decision. A 5 second decision. I'd recently ready Mel's book, The 5 Second Rule, and employed the rule in that moment. That decision killed my excuses as surely as if I'd ambushed them on that track and left them in the bush. By the time I returned to the car old me was gone, even though I still looked exactly the same. Every day since them has been a process of employing the action I knew I needed to take in order to be the guy that could race up a mountain track with relative ease. A course of action I'm still taking and modifying.

Change Starts With A Decision, but It Doesn't End There

Today I'm 37 kilos lighter and significantly fitter. I walk 4-5 kms most days and weight train under the supervision of a coach 4 days a week. My diet is nothing like the diet I consumed 4 years ago. I track my food, my weight, my measurements and I report these to my coach. I am accountable to the decision I made all those years ago! It started with one quick decision, and continues with daily, hourly and momentary decisions. I continue to refine myself by letting go of the behaviours and habits that no longer serve me. As they comes to light, as I have the clarity around what needs to change, I change! The cost of my life today was letting go of bad food choices, alcohol, laziness and excuses. I am more alive today because I chose to kill the old me!

This Is True In Business!

It's the same with business. We avoid change because it's hard! We hang on to routine, comfort, what we know, because it's easier than doing the work to get where we say we want to go! We do this even when we know things aren't working. We hang on to ur excuses when we should move on. I am coming up to 22 years in this business. It looks nothing like the business I started all those years ago. As I have had clarity around the direction I wanted to take, I have had to let go of old ideas and structures to recreate my business on many occasions. Each time creating a better business. When you know better, do better. I am in the process of doing this right now with the creation of The Rough Diamond Academy. The cost of this new business is the old business. The prospect of what this new business will bring fills me with excitement and energy.

And so I ask you, are you hanging on to a life that no longer serves you? Are you missing opportunities because you are afraid of change? Are you trying to hang on to the old but wanting the new? If so, let it go, you can't be different and the same. If it's calling you, go toward it. If it excites you, even if it's daunting, go toward it. Embrace the new life and let go of the old life. That's the price!