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migrate your website to WordPress

Google Business Profiles are Ending: How to Migrate Your Website to WordPress 

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The internet is constantly changing, take it from me. I’ve been working in the digital marketing world since BEFORE SEO strategy included keyword stacking. An upcoming change is going to have a significant impact on the way you market your business – if you built your business website through Google Business Profile. 

Google has decided to retire its Business Profile websites. The change began taking effect March 1. If you find yourself pondering the next move, look no further. Here are some tips on how to migrate your website to WordPress.

With Google Business Profiles on the Way Out, Will Your Site Be Affected?

How many are slated to be shut down? 21.7 MILLION! Is your business website one of them? Google’s Help site can give you more specific information on what’s happening.

It’s important to note, your Google Business Profile isn’t going away. Rather, it’s the websites built with that platform that are getting curtained. This latest development could severely hamstring your business if you don’t have an established website. 

What do the website development experts here at Grand River Agency recommend? WordPress is the answer! 

How to Move Your Business Website to WordPress

We’ve always appreciated WordPress for a variety of reasons. WordPress websites on a self-hosted platform are typically the most well-rounded solution – great for content management, SEO improvements, scalability and security. It’s a flexible platform that’s constantly growing, with the kind of features you need to improve your search engine performance. Savvy business owners like you know what this means for gathering website traffic, leads and customers.

(Related reading: WordPress Maintenance Checklist: Keeping Your Website Running Smoothly.)

You don’t want to have your website sunsetted simply because Google doesn’t want to be in the website business anymore. 

Why is Google Discontinuing Business Profile Websites?

The answer to this question, only the Google execs sitting in their posh boardroom know. Our best guess? The time and cost of maintaining the sites and keeping security up to date was not worth any revenue that the sites brought into the corporation.

Google has a long history of mothballing projects. Remember Google+ and Google Domains? Those didn’t get too far. (Check out Killed by Google to see more projects that Google has discarded over the years.)

What Does the Discontinuation of these Sites Mean for You?

It’s a reminder that it’s imperative that you make a website you own and control. External platforms like Google or Facebook are not always dependable. They can change their Terms of Service or even discontinue their service at any time. Then – POOF! – the site you’ve built is gone.

How to Migrate Your Site from Google Business Profile

1. Backup Your Current Site

Google Business Profile Sites does not allow you to automatically migrate your site. This is going to make this process a bit tedious. You need to save all of your images and media, and copy the text from your site to a document. Make sure that you get the information from each page on your site. 

Keep it organized!

2. Stake Your Claim

You’ll need a domain name and a web host. Use a site like GoDaddy or Name.com to purchase your domain and point it to your web host. There are many web hosts out there that can support a WordPress install. 

(Fortunately, at Grand River Agency, we offer state of the art, affordable web hosting with included SSL certificate and maintenance! We would be more than happy to talk to you about hosting.)

When we talk about WordPress, we’re referring to a site that uses the WordPress software on a web host. There are two sites: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The .org site is our starting place for this. This provides the files you need to download WordPress for your site. Many web hosts offer automatic WordPress installs as part of their package. 

3. Welcome to WordPress

Once installed, this is where you can build out your website content as “Pages” on your site. You’ll need a theme, and there are a number of free themes available that you can customize that are built into WordPress. We recommend Themify for a more robust and attractive website. (We use Themify for most of the sites that we build.)

4. Content Migration

Take a look at the content that you’ve pulled down from Google Business Profile Sites. You’re going to want to go through it once with an editor’s eye. Does the language use effective 21st-century digital storytelling to honor your brand?

Is it clearly written and compelling? Does it accurately describe the work you do, provide your offer to your website visitors, and clearly call them to action? If so, you’re ready to start plugging that content into your new WordPress website.

5. Search Engine Optimization

While you’re getting your content on the site, make sure that it’s properly formatted for SEO. There are a number of tools to help with this, including the robust YOAST SEO plugin. You can pay for premium, but the free version of this plugin is still great. It will do most of what you need to get your website SEO ready. 

It will walk you through the steps to make sure each page on your site is formatted correctly and effectively uses keywords to improve search engine standing.  Please note, though, the best way to keep your website relevant to search engines is to keep updating your site with new information and content. Keyword-optimized blog content is always the best way to keep the SEO ball rolling.

6. Let Google Know

Once you have the new site ready to go, go back to your Business Profile on Google, hit “Edit Profile” and then take out the old link, and paste in your URL to the new website. 

The Google Business Profile Aftermath: Ready to Migrate Your Business Website to WordPress?

If any of this seems overwhelming, don’t worry! We’re here to help. Get in touch with us today.

business website SEO

How To Boost Your Business Website SEO With E-E-A-T

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Let your business website SEO “E-E-A-T”! OK, so we’re trying to get cute with acronyms here. But when it comes to search engine optimization, E-E-A-T is an absolute necessity. What are the four words that define content and websites that deliver exceptional value?

  • Experience
  • Expertise
  • Authoritativeness
  • Trustworthiness 

E-E-A-T indicates what Google and prospective customers are looking for: expert-level content that answers all the right questions.

E-E-A-T first came up in Google’s Search Quality Guidelines in 2014 and has steadily become one of the most important factors of SEO. Its importance was ramped up during the 2018 Google Medic update. More recently, Google added the “Experience” parameter to its Search Quality Guidelines to add the second “E” to the acronym. 

Having amazing SEO content to support E-E-A-T can improve your chances of ranking highly on search engine response pages (SERP). As an added perk, your business website will also stand a better chance of staying ahead of future Google algorithm updates. The algorithms are continually changing and improving to not only be more helpful for end users, but also to avoid website developers from “gaming” the system to gain an unfair advantage.

While adjusting for helpfulness and avoiding unfair SEO gains are for the greater good, this also creates a moving target for legitimate business leaders like you simply trying to stand out in the ultra-crowded and competitive digital realm.

This blog post is a primer to learn more about the components of E-E-A-T. It’s always good to arm yourself with knowledge. With the latest website best practices at your disposal, you can supercharge your SEO efforts as part of your organization’s broader digital storytelling strategy. 

Let’s explore and let your website E-E-A-T!

The Essentials of E-E-A-T for Business Website SEO

In its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, Google explains that E-E-A-T content has a “high level of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.” Google says that high-quality main content takes effort, originality, skill and talent to create (Wholly AI-produced content need not apply).

Putting excellence content on your website can result in the following benefits:

  • Higher Search Engine Rankings: Search engine algorithms love content that showcases your site’s E-E-A-T.
  • Increased Behavioral Metrics: These would include metrics like time on page and click-throughs to other pages of your business website.
  • Increased Social Shares & Backlinks: The best content is content that’s shareable. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. People are more likely to share your work if it’s viewed as valuable E-E-A-T material.
  • More Featured Snippets: You’ll be at the top of SERP results, commanding attention and clicks over even the first paid ads.

Still a little unsure what these E-E-A-T marketing concepts mean? Let’s break each of them down individually.

Experience

The content creator should have legitimate first-hand experience in the topic at hand. If you’re creating website content on certain subjects without any experience in those subjects – unless you’re an expert in research in content creation like us – you’re unlikely to address the key points correctly for search engines to determine the information is accurate and credible. 

Examples of trustworthy content could include an editorial or blog post from a professional in your specific industry. Your product engineer writing about how that product works because she designed it is more credible than Joe Blow writing about it. Similarly, a product review from someone who actually used the product would be more credible than one who has never used it. 

Expertise

Expertise comes from experience, so the first two Es are part and parcel of each other. Search engines prefer expert-level content, again, because it’s demonstrably correct and credible. A chiropractor blogging about spine conditions or a craft beer brewer publishing content about the process of creating his new lager carries authority.

Which segues nicely to the next part of E-E-A-T. 

Authoritativeness

It’s one thing to demonstrate expertise, but it’s quite another to be recognized as an authority in your field. Having your work recognized and mentioned – and linked back to – does so much to improve your business website SEO.

Big players in your industry sharing your content on social media also plays a big role. Search engine algorithms now weigh social interactions and shares in the credibility of SEO content.  When fellow experts link to your content basically anywhere in the digital realm, it’s yet another layer of credibility. 

Trustworthiness

Similarly, SEO content must be deemed trustworthy to rank highly in search results. As you can see, credibility is a BIG thing when it comes to search engine optimization. But there are additional layers to building that credibility. Your website itself must be seen as trustworthy. 

There are more than 1.1 billion websites on the internet, and more than 80% of those sit inactive in a digital graveyard. Still others are produced by shady people, groups and countries for nefarious purposes. 

To prove that your website is trustworthy, it must be accurate and regularly updated. It must seamlessly transition between graphic elements. Fast load times and user-friendly navigation are non-negotiable. 

Here are some other tips to make your site scream “trustworthy”:

  • Amp up your website’s security – Google loves it when you implement HTTPS to keep user data safe.
  • When dropping your knowledge, cite your sources. Remember the golden rule: Link to the heavyweights in your industry.
  • Clearly mention who to contact for site ownership queries.
  • State your organization’s physical location – be it an office or store address.
  • Keep a readily accessible Terms and Conditions page for users.

Some More E-E-A-T Best Practices to Improve Your Business Website SEO

Your business website has such an uphill battle to stand out in search engines. Whether you’re a small business or a Fortune 500 company, there are likely thousands or even millions of websites trying to accomplish the same objectives as yours. 

Your goal, quite obviously, is to secure those top spots on Google for the key search terms in your niche while delivering content that’s both valuable and accurate.

Here are some more E-E-A-T best practices to boost your website’s domain authority, credibility and trustworthiness:

  • Create an About Us Page: If you haven’t already, introduce yourself to your audience. Let them know who’s behind the curtain.
  • Keep Your Site Updated: Remember that digital graveyard we spoke of earlier? Content has a shelf life. Regularly check in to ensure your content is up-to-date. Focus on updating stats, links and fine-tuning your SEO strategy to adjust for algorithm changes. Remember, staying relevant is key.
  • Collaborate with Like-Minded Experts: Join forces with another brand through guest posts or joint research. It’s not just about good content – Google loves seeing material from credible sources, and it helps you build authority.

Interested in Reading Further?

Need Help With Your Business Website SEO? Don’t Hesitate To Ask For Help

Website development and digital marketing, in general, are arduous and multifaceted tasks. For most small businesses, who may have limited marketing resources, these tasks may fall on a small team, a team of one or even an overworked chief executive. (Sound familiar?)

If you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out for guidance or to enter a deeper relationship where these complicated tasks are handled by the experts. Why? So you can focus on the important things: growing your business!
Contact us here for a free consultation.

Wordpress Maintenance checklist

WordPress Maintenance Checklist: Keeping Your Website Running Smoothly

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WordPress is an essential tool in today’s internet economy. About 810 million websites use this popular site builder and open-source content-management system (CMS), which is known for intuitive site organization, design theme selection and back-end optimization tools. In this blog post, we’ll review a WordPress Maintenance Checklist – everything you need to keep your website running at top speed.

Over 500 new WordPress sites are made daily. The majority of business websites we build, design and optimize here at Grand River Agency are – you guessed it – WordPress sites.

But there’s something a lot of users forget, and it can lead to major problems for your site. Failure to perform regular WordPress maintenance and to update plugins can:

  • Leave your site vulnerable to hackers
  • Slow its performance
  • Make your site unusable for visitors
  • Harm your search engine optimization (SEO)
  • & More

If your potential customers can’t find, access and use your site properly, that’s obviously a big problem! Whether you’re a small business or a nonprofit organization, you need your site to be a digital marketing machine (for so many reasons)!

So we’re going to give you a brief overview of how to keep your WordPress-powered site maintained properly. Without further ado, here’s your WordPress Maintenance Checklist.

Backup Your Website Regularly

Imagine what would happen tomorrow if your website disappeared. I’ve seen it happen! I’ve seen website owners have to rebuild their sites from scratch because they didn’t have a backup plan in place. 

So it’s important to backup your website regularly. Here’s how your backup plan could work.

Your Hosting Company

Often, your hosting provider will have a scheduled backup in place as a matter of day-to-day WordPress maintenance. It might be wise to check with them to see how often they create a backup, and how to access it if you need it.

Some hosting companies charge for this service, and others will include it in your hosting plan. 

50 Blog Ideas for Businesses

Automated Backup Plugins

There are a number of automated backup plugins out there to preserve your website data. Jetpack, which is an essential plugin for any website, has a fantastic paid plan that runs $4.95 a month called Vaultpress.

Free and “Free-mium” plans from Duplicator and UpDraft Plus are also worth looking into.

How to Manually Back up your WordPress site with cPanel

  • Access your cPanel dashboard by logging in with your credentials.
  • Locate and click on “File Manager” under the “Files” section.
  • In the left panel, locate the “public_html” folder and expand it by clicking the “+” symbol.
  • Choose the folder corresponding to your website’s name.
  • Right-click on your website’s folder and choose “Compress” from the options.
  • Select “Zip Archive” as the compression format and click on “Compress File(s).”
  • Once the compression process finishes, select the generated zip file and click “Download” from the top menu bar.
  • Ensure the backup is stored in a secure location on your hard drive to preserve your data safely.

Congratulations! You have successfully completed the manual backup process. Feel free to repeat these steps as frequently as needed to maintain a reliable backup of your website.

Update WordPress Core, Themes & Plugins

wordpress maintenance checklist - plugins and themes

Many don’t understand that much of the WordPress software is crowdsourced. That means there’s a large community of developers who create the core software, themes, and plugins. Some of those are paid features from those developers, and some of those are free features. Both the paid and the free features though, are often being updated to keep them functional and secure.

Every so often, WordPress will issue an update to its core files, or the plugin developer will issue an update as well to address bugs and security issues. If you don’t keep these up to date, the plugins, and themes can break, making your site not function properly.

You can configure wordpress to auto-update these files, and most of the time, you won’t have problems as a result. Every now and then, the update may cause a bug or a conflict. Usually, these issues are identified quickly, and another update is issued to correct the problem.

Rather than using auto-update, it may be wise to use a staging area to test each update to make sure it doesn’t affect your site.

Secure Your WordPress Website

Many years ago, when I was new to WordPress maintenance, I was hosting several websites for my own ventures and several clients. The developer of the WordPress theme at the time closed up shop, and stopped updating their theme.  At the time, I knew very little about website security. 

Hackers from a foreign political group exploited the theme, and were able to gain access to several websites, replacing the front page with a splash page that promoted their political agenda, and deleting all of the content that I had created! 

It took weeks to get that mess sorted out – and many embarrassing apologies to my clients!

But we live and learn. I certainly learned the importance of making sure that my webhost used strong security measures on the backend, and I started using some different tactics for securing the WordPress sites on the front end.

WordPress Security Plugins

I typically use Jetpack’s built in security features, as well as a plugin called Wordfence to keep sites secure. There are a number of additional security plugins to choose from. Depending on the nature of the business your website does, you may consider purchasing a premium service or using a free plugin. (Just make sure the plugin has great reviews from other users!)

Passwords

Last, but certainly not least, let’s go back to the basics. One of the best ways to keep your WordPress site secure is to make sure that you are using strong, properly formatted passwords. You can also use two-factor authentication and limit login attempts. This helps to stop brute-force attacks and other similar breaches.

Let’s Wrap This Up Our WordPress Maintenance Checklist

It’s important to keep your website running smoothly. Your site has so much to do with your success as you tell your organization’s story in the digital realm. Here at Grand River Agency, we want our friends to succeed! So:

  • Update your core files, themes, and plugins
  • Get a security plugin
  • Use a strong password
  • Backup your site regularly

Sounds simple, right? 

Well, there are quite a few intricacies that can necessitate more experienced hands (like mine). But these WordPress maintenance tips are generally applicable and easy to implement for someone with moderate technical skills.
If you need help with any of this, there’s no shame in reaching out for help. Let a professional guide the process to avoid website failure and other headaches along the way.