BEFORE YOU START

We recommend you read the “Writing a Post” tutorial before continuing. We also recommend that you have an image ready that you would like to add to a post. See “Preparing an image for the web” tutorial.

STEP 1

Go to Posts -> Add New and create a new post. Add your title, categories and any other information as needed. See “Writing a Post”

Start by adding a new post

STEP 2

Directly below your post you will see the option “Canvas Custom Settings”. Click the “upload button”.

Below your post look "Image Upload" button

STEP 3

The “Add media” screen will appear. Click the “Select Files” button.

Find the image that you would like to add to your post

STEP 4

Locate the image on your computer and select it. The image will start uploading or “crunching”.

When you have located the image click "Open"

STEP 5

With your image uploaded you should now have a preview of it as in the example below.

Start filling in the blanks

STEP 6

Start filling in the blanks. A brief explanation of each field is below. When you are done click “Insert into post”. Preview your site live and you will now see your image with your post. Your image will automatically be re-sized and aligned for you. If you wish to add further images within your text or have further control of images in posts and pages see “Images in posts (Manual)” tutorial.

You're are almost there!

EXPLANATIONS

What do these mean?

Title - Text displayed as a tooltip (when a mouse is hovered over the image)Also see “SEO For beginners” tutorial

Caption - Image caption displayed directly underneath the image (will also serve as the alternate text.)

Description - Text displayed with the image in your dashboard and attachment pages on your blog. Also see “SEO For beginners” tutorial

Link URL / Link Image to: – The URL/web address to which the image will be linked. Click the File URL button to link the image to its original, full-size version. Click the Post URL button to have the image linked to its attachment page.

Alignment – (not applicable to automatic image upload)

Size – (not applicable to automatic image upload)

All JamJo websites are Search Engine Optimised. We’ve taken great care to ensure that your content is set up correctly to help search engines like Google to crawl your site and gather the information it needs to include your site within its database.

However in order to make sure that your site will achieve healthy rankings within search engines we recommend that you update your site regularly with new content by writing new posts. See “How to write a post” 

IMPORTANT: Content is the raison d’être for any web site. Retail sites feature a catalog of products. University sites contain information about their campuses, curriculum, and faculty. News sites show the latest news stories. Without some sort of updated content, there is little reason for anyone to visit your web site more than once. Updating your site regularly is a great way to achieve healthy rankings within search engines.

This tutorial will explain how to ensure new content added to your site is search engine friendly.

BEFORE YOU START

We suggest you read JamJo’s “How to write a post” tutorial before you continue reading.

Now that you have a new post ready to be published to your site there are 4 simple steps to ensure the content you are posting is search engine optimized. (if you have already published the content to your site, don’t worry. It is possible to make new edits to your post at any time)

SEO Checklist:

1. your words
2. your SEO Canvas options
3. your images
4. your keywords

STEP 1 – Your words

Search engines can’t “see” a site. They can only “read” a site. Pretty does not talk to a search engine. What “talks” to a search engine are the words, the content, the material in your site that explains, shares, informs, educates, and babbles. Make sure you have quality word content for a search engine to examine and compare with all the parts and pieces to give you a good “score”.

The quality of what you post is very important!

STEP 2 – SEO Canvas options

Directly below your post you will see the Canvas SEO Settings. Any information you enter here will greatly help search engines to index this post properly. We recommend leaving the first two options “SEO – Set follow” and “SEO – Noindex” in their default unchecked position for now.

The second two options “Custom page title” and the “Custom description” are the important options.

CUSTOM PAGE TITLE
Very important! Should be no longer than 70 characters and contain keywords (Keywords are what we type in when we are searching for products, services, and answers on the search engines) that you would like the search engine to pick up.

Only search engines see the "Custom Page Title"

CUSTOM DESCRIPTION
Very important! Should be no longer than 160 characters. Writing a short description is not easy, because you have to make sure that you can add the right keywords in a sentence.

Be descriptive, be specific, be relevant!

STEP 3 – Your images

Search engines can’t read images. Instead they look for image tags. An image tag is textual information that is attached to an image. If you are adding images to your post it is important to add an image title and description when you are uploading the image. See “Images in posts” tutorial.

Upload your image first

When you click the upload image button you will see the “Add media” screen appear. From here you can add both a title and description to your image. See example below.

Adding a title and description helps search engines "read" an image

STEP 4 – Your keywords

Keywords are what we type in when we are searching for products, services, and answers on the search engines. Add your relevant keywords in the “Post Tags” area as in the example below. Don’t stuff the post with keywords. Keep it to around 7 keywords and keep them relevant.

Select your keywords carefully...and don't over do it!

If you have followed these 4 steps then you can be sure that your post is now search engine optimized and will help search engines crawl your site and gather the information it needs to include your site within its database.

This article contains all the information you need to write a new post.

Why should I write posts?

Writing posts for your site regularly is a great way to create meaningful connections with others, boost traffic to your site and ensure healthy rankings in search engines.

What else?

• It is a Low Cost Marketing Device
• It Helps You Manage Your Online Reputation
• It Keeps You Ahead of Your Competition
• Excellent Social Media Marketing Device (share with your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.)
• It creates relationships with your customers

So how do I update my site with a post?

STEP 1

Log in to your sites Administration Panel (Dashboard).

The URL address for this will always be your websites address (EXAMPLE: www.coolweb.com) followed by “/wp-admin”. This will always be where you return to log into your sites administration panel.

EXAMPLE: www.coolweb.com/wp-admin

Step 1: Go to your sites log in page

STEP 2

When you arrive at your sites admin log in page you will be asked to Input your unique USERNAME and PASSWORD that JamJo has provided for you.

Step 2: Log in using your username and password

STEP 3

Welcome to your sites dashboard. From here you have full control over your sites content. For this article we are going to add a new post to your site.

Step 3: When you log in this is what you will see

STEP 4

Click the “Posts” tab.

Step 4: Click the "Posts" tab

STEP 5

Click the “Add New” Sub Tab

Step 5: Click the "Add New" sub tab

STEP 6

Start filling in the blanks. As needed, select a category, add tags/keywords, and make other selections from the sections below the post. Each of these sections is explained below. When you are ready, click Publish.

Step 6: This is what your "Add New Post" page looks like

SECTIONS EXPLAINED

TITLE
Give your post a title. You can use any words or phrases. Avoid using the same title twice as that will cause problems.

Title of post

POST EDITING AREA
The blank box where you enter your writing, links, images, videos, audio or any other information you want to display on your site.

Further reading below:

• Adding a link to your post
• Adding a video to your post
• Adding audio to your post
• Adding a file or .PDF for download

Add your text, images and more here

PUBLISH, PREVIEW AND SAVE DRAFT
The “Publish” button will make the post live on the website. The “Preview” button allows you to view the post before officially publishing it. And the “Save Draft” allows you to save your post as a draft / pending review rather than immediately publishing it.

Publish, preview or save draft

CATEGORIES
The general topic the post can be classified in. Generally, bloggers have 7-10 categories for their content. Readers can browse specific categories to see all posts in the category. To add a new category, click the “+Add New Category” link in this section. You can manage your categories by going to “Posts > Categories.”

Select a category for your post

POST TAGS
Refers to micro-categories for your blog, similar to including index entries for a page. Posts with similar tags are linked together when a user clicks one of the tags.

Though not a necessity, it's a good idea to add tags

IMAGE
If you have an image to accompany your post use the upload tool here. Browse your commuter for the image and insert the image into the post. For more on images see “Images in a post (Automatic)” tutorial on the simple way to prepare an image for your website.

Upload your image here

JamJo is delighted to announce a website we designed just won a national award for the Best Website at the AOIFE (Association of Irish Festivals & Events) Irish Festival Marketing Awards. The Ardmore Pattern Festival website was announced as the winner during the AOIFE Annual Conference in Ballinasloe, Co Galway on 11 November.

Here’s what the good folks over at the festival had to say:
“…beat off competition from the Galway Arts Festival and the Dublin Theatre Festival!! A big thanks to AOIFE and the Carlton Hotel Group and to our website designers, Jamjo.”

Oh, and lest we forget, another website we got our designing mittens into – Studenty.me -  was also in the running for Best Student Web or Social Media Project at the Irish Web Awards 2011 held at the Mansion House in Dublin on 22 Oct. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be Studenty’s night but great to have made the finalists list all the same. High five JamJo!

Google, Bing, Yahoo etc etc. Search is still the primary way that potential customers find, research and shop for purchases, by quite a big margin actually. And even with the rise in recommendations via social networks and social media, search is still used to then find the best price or a reputable retailer, or reinforce the recommendation of any brand online.

So having your products & website rank as highly as possible in search engine results is an extremely good thing, and can make a huge difference to the amount that you take in at the checkout desk. In the case of top supermarkets and stores, ranking just one or two places higher can make a difference of millions to their profits, particularly if they are in the ‘top three’ results for a specific search, as those results get 70% of all of our clicky fingers.

Using relevant keywords for our Products

Researching and using the right keywords for your shop is a complete science in itself (we will try and pull together more blogs on this topic), but you can get a long way with some knowledge of the basics. Put simply, the keywords you use in your articles and product descriptions will tell search engines what to categorise your posts and items under.

So you want to find the most relevant, logical words to use, and check that those are the terms being used by the largest number of relevant customers surfing online. Plenty of tools out there like the Google Adwords Keyword tool is a free and easy way to run quick comparisons, and also get suggestions for related terms.

When you’ve got a list of relevant terms, the idea isn’t to fill every post and description with all of them, or endlessly repeat the same one over and over again. The best practice is to use the most important keyword in headlines and opening sentences etc, and then to use a reasonable amount of related terms and similar phrases throughout your articles and descriptions.

Write once, measure twice

It’s important to know whether what you’re doing is making a difference so you can focus your efforts on what is most productive.

In terms of search engine rankings, there are a number of good paid tools available, but if you’re starting out, concentrate on a handful of keywords or phrases, and just manually check your rankings once a month in addition to the name of your site/brand (Just make sure you’re logged out of Google when you’re searching for the terms or you’ll see personalised results).

And for site analytics, Google Analytics is the standard for website analytics which has pretty much all of the features you’d find in any alternative, and can handle millions of users per month when you get that popular! You should be tracking as much of the things you contribute to your site as possible with Google Analytics.

Don’t just look at the overall traffic for your site, but check out the Keywords for the site (Which is under the Traffic Sources link in the main analytics menu). And do the same for individual pages, including your best sellers, to see which keywords are working for you. Refocusing on certain keywords should be an ongoing process and refining this each month is a key component of any eCommerce website.

Your domain name?

It’s worth taking a few moments to consider the domain name you intend to use. Although domains have slowly seen their importance decline in search engine rankings (Although Google keeps the factors in search results as secret as possible), it’s still worthwhile paying attention to certain things, and it’s one of the factors you can definitely control.

• Having the product name in your domain name is becoming less important. So it’s not as vital to have www.cheapdressesshop.com  or www.bargainfishingbait.com as it used to be.
• It is worth considering where your main customers will be – are they likely to be in the UK or the US? It’s worth buying the .com and .co.uk extensions for your business, so you’ll want your main address to be for the right country, and then redirect the others to it. Google webmaster tools allows you now to choose the location of your site. Signing up for Google Webmaster is again free.
• Age is another factor which isn’t as important as it used to be, but over time a site will become recognised as delivering quality content. The flip side is that you want to make sure if you’re buying a domain name which has been in use, that it hasn’t ever been found to be used for spam or buying paid links etc.
• Hosting is another factor in determining the location of your site. If you’re using a .com domain name and an American hosting company, Google and Bing are much more likely to assume you’re a U.S business and rank you in searches on Google.com but not Google.co.uk. Again Google Webmaster tools will help you choose the perferred location of your site but there still will be a slight server lag as your site loads from a far away location like the US if you are based in Ireland or the UK.

(Over 200 items are being used by Google, for example, in ranking pages on a website).

Hi all…new work added to our portfolio of late….and some hum dingers too…
Rubicon Centre
we had the task of refreshing the Rubicon Centre website…we were first approached by the Centre some years back..so it was a case of out with the old and in with the new…really happy with how this one turned out …a nice clean and professional look with some bells and trimmings to give it the JamJo finish…see here

Studenty.me
Studenty.me is a multi-site blogging platform allowing students to stay connected to what’s happening both on and off campus…design, brand and build…the whole shebang here…a friendly, vibrant identity and a uber functional platform so the kids can get their rocks off online…see here

Creative and digital marketing (UCC Program)
Creative and Digital Marketing is a program at University College Cork designed for unemployed graduate-quality participants who are new to the business use of social media and wish to become rapidly employable through adding to their existing portfolio of competences a uniquely-integrated mix of creative, design and digital marketing skills of a high calibre…we took care of the site and identity…went for a bold and direct feel…utilizing trusty emoticons to get across the creative and digital theme…see here

A blog is basically an online diary or journal that digitally records about anything you would want people to read. “Blog” is short for the term weblog and a term coined in humor in the late 1990′s. They come in different styles and formats, support and settings, all depending upon user preferences. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting).

Of the numerous topics displayed by blogs, perhaps the best known are political, personal, niche, travel, health, religious, and educational. All serve to be a collective of a specific topic written or produced by an individual or by a group of people.

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.

Generally speaking (although there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

• A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
• An archive of older articles.
• A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
• A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”.
• One or more “feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Some blogs may have additional features beyond these. Watch this short video for a simple explanation for what a blog is.

Many of our new themes feature a Subscribe & Connect feature which asks for your Feedburner ID to enable e-mail subscription to your blog. Here is how to find the Feedburner ID:

1. Log in to your Feedburner account
2. Click on Publicize in the main menu
3. Click on Email Subscriptions and activate it if not already active
   
4. Look at the embed code and find your ID after the ?uri=

See the screenshot below to see that the ID in this case is MagnusJepson

Today JAMJO is 1:) We shall be celebrating this 1 year milestone when we get a break from the pixels…

When we started out a year ago we thought that it’d just be fun to build some websites and start making some mula to fund our madness (this was probably our main motivation to start JAMJO up:). Since the first JAMJO creation went live though, we’ve simply been creating one JAMJO gem after another… and it’s  most fun!….

Our second year starts here and we have a lot of some really exciting creations, new services and ideas to come…watch this here space for for some really great new sites and upcoming launches. We have worked with the greatest clients a company could wish for over the past 12 months and some amazing projects to boot….. social networks, arts blogs, Recording studios, and sites based in Ireland, Thailand, Australia, London and the USA… (I know i’ve left some place out!!)

Over the next year, We hope you get to know us better. We think that our clients enjoy the fact that they know the faces behind the screen, the e-mails they receive and support tickets being answered. It’s just our way of making sure we’re as personal as possible. With JAMJO, we’re hoping to show that we don’t take ourselves too seriously and that JAMJO is our passion before it is our jobs. We can smile and have a bucket-load of fun whilst working incredibly hard…and these things shouldn’t be mutually exclusive….thanks to all who make that possible for us!

Now where is that birthday cake?!!…

as always,
thanking you,
James + Jon