Internet Marketing

 

Do you want to know what it takes to successfully market a web site and generate repeat sales?

 

Do you want to know what it takes to successfully market a web site and generate repeat sales?

It’s simple really.

You must position yourself as a perceived expert. It doesn’t matter what product or service you are selling, this same premise will hold true.

What is a perceived expert, you ask?

Good question.

Gone are the days where you could build a simple company web site, list your products and send customers to an order page. New web sites are sprouting up like blades of grass and competition is intensely fierce.

The bottom line is this: why should a customer buy from YOU?

A small but growing number of small business owners have discovered the answer to this question and are kicking your butt. How are they accomplishing this? By positioning themselves as an expert in their industry and using their web site to communicate that fact to potential customers.

How can you become an expert too?

Offer your potential customers an education to compliment the product or service you are selling. You can write it, buy it or license the content you need. Whichever you choose, teaching your customers should be an essential component of your web site and its importance cannot be overstated.

Here are some examples:

If you are selling diamonds or jewelry online, offer articles, tips or even a free guide on “How do I choose the right diamond for me?” or “20 ways to spot fake jewelry.”

If you operate a job search or career database, offer a wealth of guides and tips such as “20 ways to improve your resume,” “what to wear at a job interview,” or “how do I know if a job is right for me.”

If you are selling health related items (ie: vitamins, pills or creams), don’t simply throw up ad copy, a few product images and an order form. Educate your customers on the benefits of each ingredient and how it can improve their well-being. Take it one step further and provide an education on every vitamin and mineral known to man. Just make it fun and easy to read.

You get the picture.

How can this help your web site prosper?

People want to buy the best product they can, at the best price, from someone they trust. Given the fact your customers will never see or meet you, this task is accomplished by your web site. By offering them a wealth of expertise related to the products you are selling, you immediately create a foundation to build upon.

You are helping them make a more informed decision as to what to purchase while at YOUR web site. In essence, your web site becomes the salesperson that the customer would normally see in the store or talk to on the phone. Customers always have questions. You have the opportunity to give them the answer and a whole lot more knowledge by becoming a perceived expert in your industry.

If you give your potential customers an education, they will reward you for it. Plus, they will likely tell their friends too!

Internet Marketing

 

Adding post lists and grids to your Site couldn’t be easier than with the WP Show Posts plugin. Dispatch uses the Free version to display posts on the Front page and in the Sidebars. Of course with a little Flint Skin CSS treatment.

Head off to Dashboard > WP Show Posts > All Lists. Within are six lists:

• Align
• Standard
• Sidebar
• Header
• Simple
• Simple Sidebar

Each of them have very particular settings required to match the demo content you see here. Changing those settings may affect the way the post is displayed, and not necessarily for the better. So please work on a duplicate or make a note before changing.

Note: the name of the List has no relevance to the different styles displayed.

General ( and important ) information

Before we go into the detail let’s cover some basic and very important information.

Advanced Settings

For the purpose of the demo content a couple of the Lists are using Advanced Settings. First off the Standard List is using Ascending Order (Default: Descending).  Secondly the Simple List is using Offset, so it omits the first 4 posts. You may want to put these back to default if you’re not intending to replace them.

Duplicating WP Show Posts List

So we have four lists, and we want to make a new Standard list with a different category. The easiest way is to use one of the Duplicate Post plugins in the WordPress repository. Simple hey. And it works for all post types including GP Elements. Awesome. Note: When making a duplicate you are generally given two options. Clone and New Draft. I advise using the New Draft as some people have reported issues when using Clone.

 

List: Standard

This is the standard WP Show Post list that has the same custom styling applied to the GP Blog:

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Styling

This is how the list is displayed within the Content area just by adding the WP Show Post Shortcode. Here follows the basic styling changes that have been made.

Content Wrap (WPSP Only)

Using a custom Hook Element the Post article content is now wrapped within a DIV container. This container carries a class of wpsp-content-wrap for styling. This wrap is present on all WP Show Posts that are output inside Dispatch.

Featured Image

The featured image has a fixed height to match the layout. This is achieved using this CSS:

.generate-columns-container article .inside-article img,  .wp-show-posts-image img {
    height: 180px;
    width: 100%;
    -o-object-fit: cover !important;
    object-fit: cover !important;
}

You can edit the height property to suit, or remove the CSS it entirely if you want to use your own sizes.

Meta above title

This is achieved using a flex box on the Entry Header. Again this applied to the GP Blog:

.generate-columns-container article .entry-header, .wp-show-posts-entry-header {
    display: -webkit-box;
    display: -ms-flexbox;
    display: flex;
    -webkit-box-orient: vertical;
    -webkit-box-direction: reverse;
    -ms-flex-direction: column-reverse;
    flex-direction: column-reverse;
}

Entry Title forced to 2 lines

The entry title always displays a minimum and maximum of 2 lines. This mantains the across row alignment. Again this is applied to GP Blog. The ex unit is used to define the number of lines visible. The lines are set by defining the line-height and setting the height to as many mutiples as you require lines. e.g up the height to 7.5ex will create three lines.

.generate-columns-container article .entry-header .entry-title, .wp-show-posts article .wp-show-posts-entry-title {
    line-height: 2.5ex;
    height: 5ex;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

 

List: Align

Designed for a single column list this displays the content the image to the left and content to the right. This is subtly different to just resizing the image in the WP Show Posts list settings and aligning it left. Thanks to the Content Wrap we added (above) the content will never wrap around the image. On mobile it just stacks.

To add one of these your posts requires a little markup. And is done like so:

<div class="wpsp-align">shortcode_goes_here</div>

 

Lists: Sidebar

In the right had sidebar you can see the Sidebar list. This List is set to 1 column and only displays the Featured Image, Title and Category. This is designed for Widgets, a narrow column or as part of a grid (like in our next List).

To add this style the Widget requires a CSS Class of:

wpsp-card

Dispatch comes with Widget Classes Plugin installed. This provides this function.

 

List: Header

The Header list as seen on the Front Page requires a list containing only 5 posts. And can accomodate most of the content elements. Which are only displayed on the large leader post.

To add this style the Header Element requires the following element classes:

wpsp-grid wpsp-card

List: Simple

This is output using the wpsp-card inserted into a containing DIV like so:

<div class="wpsp-card">shortcode goes here</dib>

 

List: Simple Sidebar

Nothing fancy here,  just a list being output using the a Widget in the sidebar.