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The timing has never been better for virtual partnerships between businesses and schools. The pandemic has created a situation in which teachers and students are searching for meaningful learning and internship opportunities. And at the same time, businesses and organizations smust innovate and pivot towards more virtual engagement with clients. If you detect a win-win in the air, then read on!

I would like to suggest a few classroom or student internship projects that could tie directly into the needs of businesses (including nonprofit organizations), in the areas of

• Writing: documentary, social, and creative writing projects that tie directly to the needs of businesses to promote and engage their customers; writing projects can be posted on business websites and promoted to social media
• Qualitative Research: businesses can benefit from projects that examine a business’ niche and brand, in terms of market competition, customer personas, effectiveness of websites and marketing, etc.
• Photography: most businesses are in need to photo shoots and photo galleries, to be used on marketing materials and websites
• Videography and voice-scripted slideshows: every business has a story to tell, and video and slide shows are a great way to do it!
• Fine Arts: promoting businesses and organizations through drawings and paintings
• Quantitative Analysis: researching website audience behavior in terms of online traffic and engagement, including to websites, social media, and online business listings.

Partnerships obviously require a matching of between the interests and resources of schools and organizations, which might include:

• Identify school resources: especially counselors, department heads, and teachers who would oversee students and classes that might benefit from partnership opportunities.
• Identify business resources, especially business owners and leaders of nonprofit organizations who have the energy and enthusiasm to engage in partnerships; community outreach might be part of the business model of some organizations, and businesses owned by the families of students might show an interest in partnership projects.
• Identify costs and how to fund a project; these would inquire an investment of time to match resources, and allocation of time and materials on the part of businsses. In my capacity, I work with a handful of businesses and organizations that might benefit from partnerships, and would be willing to initiate some projects.

After identifying a school-business partnership, the next step would be a dialogue that might look something like

1. Preliminary conversation between school and business to identify scope of the project
2. Business sends relevant information, to be reviewed by teacher
3. Zoom call with the class (or intern) to introduce the business to students
4. Teacher works with students on their (independent) projects
5. Opportunity for exchange between students, teacher, and business
6. Presentation of results to business

High Peaks Media can donate some time and resources to testing some partnerships between businesses and schools. Please contact me (Spafford Ackerly) for information.

An organization recently contacted me to see if I had clients who might be interested in virtual partnerships between universities and their business or organization. Here’s how it works. University instructors are seeking real-life virtual projects for their students and interns – and during this time of the covid pandemic, the ‘virtual’ need has never been greater.

And on the other side, businesses and nonprofit organizations need virtual solutions and insights more than ever, especially in areas of their online presence (websites, social media, etc.) and marketing. It’s a virtual win-win as far as I can see.

The organization that reached out to me is Riipen.com. I decided to try it out. Account set up is free, and easy, and one is presented with project teplates that make the whole process quite easy. Creating a project or internship description will probably take a couple of hours.

I found some project templates that that might be of interest to some of the businesses and organizations that I serve:

• Brand Video – Voice-Over Scripting:  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=2&scroll=true&selected=wrVn2jVj
• Develop an SEO Strategy:  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=3&scroll=true&selected=DQVdvYzb
• Constituent Surveys: https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=1&scroll=true&selected=Wjzm4Omn
• Cusomer Segmentation Analysis: https://app.riipen.com/projects/templates/qWONKozn?utm_swu=4420
• Analyze your Competition:  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=2&scroll=true&selected=b7zXlPzE, and https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?searchQuery=competition&selected=QpL42NOk
• User Experience Testing (UX/UI);  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=2&scroll=true&selected=gQVxPwVe, and  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=3&scroll=true&selected=1pORDLqg
• Branding and Logo Development:  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=3&scroll=true&selected=yDOpGV51
• Website Design / Redesign: https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?searchQuery=content&selected=jEzvoLna, and  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?page=3&scroll=true&selected=2vLQaLPo
• Marketing Internship:  https://app.riipen.com/search/project_templates?searchQuery=advertising&selected=94LAq1LK

On the university side, you can look for courses that seek the type of project you have in mind.

Most projects likely require an initial consultation with the course instructor, and the need to supply any necessary information that will provide a basis for the project. Then, at the conclusion of the project, you must be available to view and review the student presentations. I can’t imagine that businesses and organizations would not benefit from the process, and may even bring some joy while working with the students.

Let me know if I can help facilitate this project!

https://youtu.be/_28RAL8LHDg

I work with small nonprofits to help implement all phases of the classical marketing and sales funnel, which includes: (1) attracting and engaging new donors, (2) creating avenues for donations and developing constituent services (e.g., event registrations, bookings, member libraries, ecommerce stores, etc.), and (3) managing ongoing relationships with a core community of supporters. The three areas of need are:

• Communications and Outreach (Marketing)
• Donations and Services (Sales)
• Donor Management and Engagement (Service)

An endless variety of tech tools are available for managing these needs, but here I address tools that are affordable, versatile, and relatively easy to implement, i.e., those that might be considered by small nonprofits, either just starting out or in the early phases of operation.

I should preface this discussion with the caveat that I work almost exclusively in the Wordpress website ecosystem, and so the tools presented below are mainly those which integrate with Wordpress. The tech tools include mainly:

• Website plugins and scripts, that provide back end functionality: Contact forms, Calendars, Donations and Payments, Bookings, Online Stores, Archives and AV Libraries, Integrations with third party services
• Third party services for functions such as: Social media, Payment gateways, Newsletters, CRMs (constituent relationship management), Event, Donations, Accounting, Automation, Tracking (search, analytics, search engine optimization), CDNs (content delivery networks), and son on.

I am particularly interested in the efficiency of back end processes, for example cross-platform integrations and automation that streamline and support the administration of the marketing and sales pathways.

I also advise nonprofits on the numerous discounts that are available to nonprofit organizations; see Discounted Pricing for Nonprofits. In particular, eligible nonprofit organizations should sign up early on with Techsoup, which is a clearing house of software and hardware available to nonprofit organizations at greatly reduced prices (most 501c3 nonprofits are eligible). Many platforms validate nonprofit eligibility by confirming a nonprofit’s Techsoup registration.

Finally, I may be able to offer reduced prices on some of the platforms listed below, through developer licensing/pricing options. Please check with me.

So let’s dive in.

COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH (MARKETING)

Get the Word Out: Email Lists and Newsletters. Most organizations create an email list and newsletter early on, to share the mission and activities of the organization, and to solicit support. Mailchimp is often the go-to choice for email communications, because it offers a free plan (currently for up to 1,000 subscribers), an intuitive interface, and it integrates easily with websites and other third party services. There are many other mail platforms to choose from of course, but Mailchimp seems the most commonly used by small organizations.

Know Thy Constituents: Think CRM (Constituent Relationship Management). Early implementation of a system for tracking constituent behavior is generally overlooked by small nonprofits, and I think mostly because organizations are not aware of a powerful and free tool offered by Hubspot, the Hubspot CRM. There is a small learning curve to be sure, but the Hubspot CRM will integrate with many of the tools in your tech toolbelt (especially if chosen for that purpose!). After some initial setup, the Hubspot CRM will automatically create contacts and record donations, purchases, event registrations, memberships, newsletter opens, email conversations, etc. And, members of the organization can easily record notes about conversations, and create tasks, and all of this can be accessed in one convenient dashboard. And it’s free, for unlimited numbers of users and for up to 1 million contacts (!)

Communicate as a Nonprofit: Upgrade to an Organizational Email Account. Many organizational admins continue to use their personal email accounts for organization business, or perhaps a dedicated gmail account (e.g. [email protected]). However, ideally an organization should be using an organizational email account (e.g. [email protected]). Such accounts can be set up and managed in a variety of ways (e.g. see email management on accounts hosted by High Peaks Media). Moreover, a free Google Nonprofit Gsuite account is probably the best option for organizations that qualify (which includes most 501c3s).

Track Aggregated Behavior: Make sure that Google Analytics is installed on your website, and that the website is registered with Google search console.

DONATIONS AND SERVICES (SALES)

Setting up donation and payment gateways is a critical part of my work, as is setting up platforms for services such as memberships, event registrations, bookings, audio-video libraries, etc.

Below is a discussion of some third-party donation platforms as well as some independently hosted platforms on Wordpress that I have found useful. Before discussing the tools themselves, it’s important to identify some key elements or ‘deal breakers’ that might guide a decision to adopt:

• Cost: third party vs. self-hosted platform costs; these are generally a percent of donations, or an annual recurring cost. Note that developers may hold developer licenses for some platforms on Wordpress (check with me).
• Recurring donations: These are not difficult to set up, but can be difficult to manage. Generally donors are given access to their account online, where they can manage the subscription. An even larger issue is, once recurring donations are accepted on a platform, the organization is wedded to that platform for the duration. Choose wisely!
• End-of-year tax records: One of the features that distinguishes many donation platforms from CRMs is the ability of the latter to send year-end tax receipts to donors. The capacity of various platforms to provide year-end reporting, either in bulk to the organization or individually to donors, is a feature that reduces year-end work load for organizations.
• Offline donations: Most platforms allow for manual entries of donations in the dashboard of the admin account. However basic donation platforms generally use an email address to associate a donation with a donor. In the absence of an email address, one option is to generate a token email address using the organization’s domain; the email does not need to exist, although a catch-all email for the domain can catch those transaction notifications, and possibly modified to pass along to the donor.
• Customization and flexibility: some platforms offer very few options for customization of forms.
• Integrations: note that many integrations are possible because of automated services provided by Zapier (which offers free single-step zaps) and Integromat (which offers a free tier of multi-step sequences, but connects fewer platforms). A work-around for platforms without native integration is to parse and collect relevant data from email notifications (using Zapier or Integromat).

Online Donation & Payment Platforms and Plugins

See this DRAFT Google Sheet for a comparison of the features of different platforms and plugins. It’s a work in progress, so sorry about the mess!

• Paypal or Stripe (credit card) donation buttons installed on a website via an embed code or a simple plugin are sometimes the first step to collecting payments. In any case, most small nonprofits will want to create both Paypal and Stripe accounts, as donors vary in their choice of donation gateways. Note that reduced transaction fees are available to nonprofits.
• Third Party Platforms. A review will be forthcoming, of Give Lively, Donately, and Donor Box (the favorites on our radar!); these platforms provide very good options for accepting and managing donations. See this DRAFT Google Sheet to see features of third party donation platforms and the two Wordpress plugins below (currently in progress).
• GiveWP is a Wordpress plugin tailored specifically to nonprofit donations. It is versatile and powerful, and includes integrations with Mailchimp, Hubspot CRM, and other platforms via Zapier, as well as auto-generated replies. The form builder itself is less versatile than in Gravity Forms (below). However, users can access their donation history and modify subscriptions (recurring donations) by requesting a token sent to their inbox. GiveWP also provides year-end accounting, accessible directly to donors. Or, admins can download the year-end data and upload and send to donors via a Mailchimp mail merge.
• Gravity Forms is a versatile and adaptable ‘gold-standard’ plugin used to collect information, send automated replies to submissions, and/or process payments. The plugin is not, however, designed specifically for donations, as the plugin does not facilitate management of recurring donations, nor does it provide any kind of year-end reporting. However, it is flexible, and it works! The plugin can be integrated with both Paypal and Stripe payment gateways, including recurring payment and mobile payment options through Stripe (for Google and Apple Pay), as well as customized auto-replies (including PDFs). The plugin provides a good backend database of transactions, which can be downloaded, and also provides integration with Mailchimp signups, the Hubspot CRM, and other platforms (using Zapier) such as Quickbooks Online. See addendum for managing year-end downloads go a Google sheet.
• CRM Forms. Most CRMs (but not the Hubspot CRM free version) include form builders and payment gateways that can be integrated directly into your website, such as forms in Neon CRM and eTapestry. These forms integrate directly with a constituent database, which can store a variety of personal information and provide year-end acknowledgements.

Notes about Payment Flows

• About Recurring Payments. Recurring payments that are setup using simple website buttons Gravity Forms must be managed manually, either by the donor in the case of Paypal, or by the organization in the case of Stripe. Otherwise, for donors to manage recurring payments through your website, you must install some form of membership or recurring payment plugin that registers donors as users on the website (e.g. Memberpress or Woocommerce Subscriptions). GiveWP is an exception to this, in that donors can access their records through a unique token.
• About Mobile Giving and Text to Give: use QR codes or auto-SMS replies to connect donors to mobile payment forms. SMS services are typically costly for a small nonprofit, but you might consider Givelively (organizations must verify their nonprofit status on Guidestar) or Twilio (access to inexpensive 10-digit SMS numbers, but less easy to implement).
• About Off-site Fund Transfers. Checks, bank transfers, and other types of payments (e.g. Zelle Pay) can be manually entered into most of the payment flows above (e.g. Gravity Forms, GiveWP, and CRM forms). Stripe provides an integration for ACH payments.
• About International Payments. Stripe provides integration with a wide variety of payment gateways that are used in other countries, as do other payment platforms (which are too many to explore in this post). For international bank transfers, consider using Transferwise.

Examples of Additional Services

• Online Stores: Woocommerce > connects to Hubspot via Zapier
• Memberships: Memberpress or Woocommerce Subscriptions > connections to Hubspot via Zapier
• Calendar and Event Plugins > my current favorites are Modern Events Calendar and EventOn.
• Event Registrations: Gravity Forms or Eventbrite – connect to Hubspot and Neon via Zapier
• Retreat Registrations: Gravity Forms or Retreat Guru – connect to Hubspot and Neonvia Zapier
• Donation and Crowdsourcing Websites: Facebook, Colorado Gives, GoFundMe
• Nonprofit Accounting: Integrate donations and payments directly into accounting software (e.g into Quickbooks Online, using Zapier)
• etc. etc.

DONOR MANAGEMENT AND ENGAGEMENT (SERVICES)

Donors and constituents are connected to you in various ways, and you want to know what drives their behavior and piques their interest in your organization. Knowing and communicating with your constituents is key to nonprofit success.

Track Communications and Constituent Activity using a CRM

One of my first recommendations to nonprofits (see up top, ‘Know Thy Constituents‘) is to enable a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) platform, possibly the Hubspot CRM to start, or some other CRM that is tailored to nonprofit needs. I have reviewed numerous CRMs with several nonprofits, but unfortunately cannot go into all of the details here (but I do have a sweet spot for Neon CRM). In ...

A Guest Post by Ashley Dear 

Facebook can be a great tool for finding and connecting with your target audience. I get requests for advice for particular social media sites and each one has its own strategies. It’s true that if you “pay to play,” you will gain Facebook likes and followers using Facebook ads. The good news is your can still gain social influence without paying for it. Here are my top five tips for gaining Facebook likes without feeding the beast.

1. Create Relevant Content

Creating a business Facebook page is a great way to position yourself as an authority in your field and captivate your readers’ attention. Consider topics that focus on relevant keywords and relate back to your website or business. Your page gives your site a voice, so let your business’ personality shine through. For example if you are marketing a local hotel, post content about the surrounding area and fun things for the guest to do.

2. Add Hashtags

You can also add hashtags (#vacation #dream #summer) throughout your posts to reach more people, and help visitors search for relevant content. Hashtags help aggregate relevant content on the search feed of Facebook. But weary of overusing hashtags because it will start to look impersonal. #winning

3. Get Personal

The users that are most engaged with Facebook are those that are natural brand ambassadors. They like your product or business already, so cater your messaging to them and they will be more likely to share your posts and gain new followers. Find new brand ambassadors by joining Facebook groups that relate to your business.

4. Use Your Email List

If you have an email list, create a email blast that links back to your business Facebook page. Create an incentive for them to like your page and you will see an increase in engagement and likes.

5. Add a Video Facebook Cover

Choose a great image to feature in your post or add a video for extra engagement. The image or video should grab the readers attention. You can use this space to promote a current special or to highlight one of the features of your business. See an example here: https://www.facebook.com/FriscoLodge

About the Author

Ashley is on a mission to help High Country Colorado businesses thrive online. She has over 10 years of experience in the digital marketing field and was raised on technology. She says, “ Trust is the currency of the mountains. Let’s have coffee and discuss your business needs!”

See more about Ashley at AshleyDear.com.

Ashley is a High Peaks Media Business Partner

I recently needed to replace the Coupon Code wording in a Woocommerce store, from “Insert  your Coupon Code” to “Insert your Membership Code”. I used some code posted on Grahame Thomson’s blog, but there was an error that prevented it from working on the Checkout page. I sought help from our developer, and here is the corrected code that worked on our application. The correction was in the function woocommerce_rename_coupon_message_on_checkout. Here is the code that worked.

/**
add_filter( 'gettext', 'woocommerce_rename_coupon_field_on_cart', 10, 3 );
add_filter( 'gettext', 'woocommerce_rename_coupon_field_on_cart', 10, 3 );
add_filter('woocommerce_coupon_error', 'rename_coupon_label', 10, 3);
add_filter('woocommerce_coupon_message', 'rename_coupon_label', 10, 3);
add_filter('woocommerce_cart_totals_coupon_label', 'rename_coupon_label',10, 1);
add_filter( 'woocommerce_checkout_coupon_message', 'woocommerce_rename_coupon_message_on_checkout' );


function woocommerce_rename_coupon_field_on_cart( $translated_text, $text, $text_domain ) {
	// bail if not modifying frontend woocommerce text
	if ( is_admin() || 'woocommerce' !== $text_domain ) {
		return $translated_text;
	}
	if ( 'Coupon:' === $text ) {
		$translated_text = 'Membership Discount Code:';
	}

	if ('Coupon has been removed.' === $text){
		$translated_text = 'Membership discount code has been removed.';
	}

	if ( 'Apply coupon' === $text ) {
		$translated_text = 'Apply Membership Discount Code';
	}

	if ( 'Coupon code' === $text ) {
		$translated_text = 'Membership Discount Code';
	
	} 

	return $translated_text;
}


// rename the "Have a Coupon?" message on the checkout page
function woocommerce_rename_coupon_message_on_checkout() {
	return 'Have a Membership Discount Code?' . ' <a href="#" class="showcoupon">' . __( 'Click here to enter your code', 'woocommerce' ) . '</a>';
}


function rename_coupon_label($err, $err_code=null, $something=null){

	$err = str_ireplace("Coupon","Membership Discount Code ",$err);

	return $err;
}
 */

Feature image photo by Safar Safarov on Unsplash

There was a time, when websites were static and more stable, and the internet was safer and more forgiving. That time is over! Websites are now built on dynamic and constantly evolving platforms that integrate with a wide variety of online services, for example that monitor and protect from hacking and malware attacks, generate and save backups to the cloud, insert cookies on browsers, communicate with search engines, provide downtime alerts, and so on.

As you can imagine, keeping up with these developments is an ongoing process, requiring constant tweaks and adjustments. We do our best to balance the costs of management with exposure to risks.  However, 2 of the approximately 40 websites managed by High Peaks Media were hacked this year, despite reasonable precautions.

For Owners of Websites Hosted by High Peaks Media – Please be Advised!

Websites require active management. High Peaks Media provides premium offsite backups, automated plugin updates, and active monitoring of downtime and security alerts. We also actively update websites in response to critical security-related concerns. However, time commitment and costs of such management are increasing, and we will be passing some of these costs along to you. For context, you may wish to visit Wordpress Website Maintenance Costs You Should Be Paying in 2019 and the 2019 Wordpress Website Maintenance Survey (see summary below).

Security plugins installed on our managed websites provide alerts of possible security vulnerabilities. However, we cannot fix all possible vulnerabilities under our standard management packages. Please contact us to for a security audit of your website.

Wordpress recently released a major update (called Gutenberg). The update affects the visual editor, so please get in touch if you are having difficulty editing your site. The update also affects the integrity of numerous plugins. Please check your site, and get in touch to review your plugin suite.

We recently updated spam protection on most website forms on our managed sites. However, email spam is an ongoing issue. Please contact us if you wish to review spam protection options for your web forms and email accounts.

Older websites are especially vulnerable to breaches. Please contact us to review and update your website accordingly.

Does your site show the https:// security lock on the browser bar? Google marks http:// sites as ‘Not secure’. We highly recommend upgrades of all http:// sites to https://. Contact us.

Check your website often. Wordpress is reasonably stable, but sometimes things break. Check sliders, images, sidebars, etc. Test contact forms to make sure they are working property.

That’s it for now. Happy New Year!!

Resources

Wordpress Website Maintenance Costs You Should Be Paying in 2019. In a nutshell:

• Personal blog or website, no more than $15-30/month
• Professional blog, ~$50/month
• Company website, upwards of $100/mo
• Complex websites, $100-$200/mo

2019 Wordpress Website Maintenance Survey. In a nutshell:

• Median monthly cost: $50/month

Image attribution: image url: https://www.flickr.com/photos/casparhuebinger/15260782219/sizes/l; by Carpar Huebinger, https://www.flickr.com/photos/casparhuebinger/; license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/.

Hey business owners — when a customer or client leaves your establishment, do you follow up with a request for feedback and reviews? Or do you find asking for help difficult and awkward?

Well, here is an effective and painless (!) way to ask for help using a quick online survey to gather feedback about your business, and also to ask customers to leave reviews in the process.

The Why

Why should you ask for feedback? By asking for feedback, you empower your customers to voice their appreciation and their concerns, and they provide immediate information on how to improve your services.

In addition, you can use their feedback in testimonials on your website, and perhaps most importantly (!), you can ask clients to leave reviews on your business listings (positive reviews are a critical ranking factor in local listings).

The How

Google Forms are a simple and powerful tool for building customer feedback forms. Click here for a sample Google Form questionnaire (this form is also embedded at the end of this post). You will see examples of some different question types. Also, you will see requests for reviews at the end of the survey.

You can place this feedback form on your website, for example at https://mywebsite.com/feedback. Service-oriented businesses can contact their clients soon after their visit (by email or text), expressing the importance of their opinions to improving your service, and asking them to complete the form.

Retail establishments could pass out business cards with the URL, or perhaps a free pen with the URL printed on it. Customers who appreciate your business will likely want to help make it better – they want you to succeed!

It’s that easy –  you just have to do it!

Information on Google Forms is easy to find in a web search. For example see

• WP Beginner’s How to Embed a Google Form in Wordpress, and
• Google’s Using Google Forms.
• And, here is the place to Create a Google Form (you will need to be signed in to a Google account).

Some Suggestions

The number of questions should be relatively small, and even one or two questions might be enough. The questions should be meaningful however.

You might consider creating two different feedback forms, one for less satisfied and one for more satisfied customers. You want to give less satisfied customers a way to express their concerns, and then to see if you are able to address their concerns or not ( it is possible that your business goals are not aligned with their needs). More satisfied customers on the other hand are in a better position to help you fine tune what you already do well, and to promote your services to others with similar needs. The types of feedback you solicit on those two forms might be slightly different.

You should test test test your form. If the form on your website does not behave well on mobile, the URL can automatically redirect to the stand-alone form on Google.

Resources

See the great info in What’s the Best Way to Ask For a Review?

Resource to generate a link to write a Google review. and similarly a Direct Link from Google.

Great tips on refining your links to your Google review section on Super Digital (25 Jan 2018): How to Ask Your Clients for Google + Business Reviews.

A compendium of insights on Google Reviews, on Local Visibility System (14 Feb 2018): 25 Hard Truths about Google Reviews.

How Should You Ask for Online Reviews? The Pros and Cons of Each Approach, from Local Visibility System (Apr 5, 2018)

Moving Forward

Are feedback forms the way to go for your business? If yes, then go for it! Do get in touch if you wish to discuss your situation further, or if we can be be of assistance. You could see enormous returns from this simple process.

Please add any suggestions that you might have in the comments below.

Sample Feedback Form (click for standalone form)

Use your cursor or scroll with the controls at lower left. Have fun!

Mountain Man Outdoor Store, Nederland

Image taken with Google Street View App on an iphone;
JPG downloaded from Google photos
Plugin: 360 Panoramic Image Viewer

Note that panoramas taken with Google Street View require that the camera is horizontal, and in the case of this store with relatively low ceilings, too much ceiling is captured.

Here’s the original:

Alpine Eyecare Center, Boulder

Images taken with iphone 5s Pano mode;
Plugin: 360 Panoramic Image Viewer

Note that panoramas taken with Google Street View require that the camera is horizontal, and in the case of this store with relatively low ceilings, too much ceiling is captured.

Here are the originals:

Notes

Note that many plugins did not work, including PanoPress, WP Photo Sphere, WP-VR view. 360 Panoramic Image Viewer is a premium plugin ($25).

Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)

Google Search results are increasingly varied, appearing for example as ‘rich snippets’ of information extracted from websites, news, shopping options, related searches, and detailed data about local businesses (menus, reservations, etc.). For example, the search engine result page (SERP) for the query “France” (below) shows News items (Top Stories), country data, points of interest, and related searches.

Google search engine result page (SERP) for the query ‘France’ showing different types of search results

Google is amassing an enormous database, and users will be less and less likely to click through to websites, as more and more website info is extracted in search results. This is the prediction of David Mihm, in the excellent review, 2017 Local Marketing Predictions: Part I, Search:

To see some of the variety of search results, see

• About Google Search Feature, from Google
• Useful Responses Take Many Forms on Google, from Google
• Types of Search Results in Google, from King of Digital Marketing
• Google Search Results – A Visual Guide, from Link Assistantt

THE FUTURE OF WEBSITE SEO

What does this mean for website design and the future of SEO? It means that your website will need to serve more and more information to Google, in the form of meta data and structured data (or schema), and in forms delivered by smartphone devices.

Metadata

Metadata provide a summary of other data on a web page, for example a brief description of the content of a web page or of a media file. On a web page, the metadata are often expressed in the form of ‘meta tags’. These tags are hidden from view in the head section of a page.

• Definition of Metadata, from Tech Target
• Create Good Titles and Snippets in Search Results, from Google

Structured Data

Structured Data are data provided in a standardized format or in fixed fields. One such standardization is referred to as schema. Structured data for a business or organization are tagged with predefined categories and labels, making it easier for Google to identify the content of a website. See

• Google’s Introduction to Structured Data, from Google
• Structured Data with Schema, the Ultimate Guide, from Yoast

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a convention for delivery of simplified html-coded websites on smartphones. AMPs are important because Google will search for AMP pages to deliver search results on mobile.

• About AMP on Google Search, from Google

WORDPRESS PLUGINS FOR IMPROVING GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS

Below is a compilation of several tools that will increase chances of website content delivery in Google search results.

Metadata. Ensure that basic metadata are included in the code of your website, especially as titles, page descriptions, and image alt tags. Useful plugins to review and update metadata:

Yoast Wordpress SEO (free and premium) provides tools to review titles and descriptions, including inline edits in lists of pages and posts.
Media Library Assistant allows reviews and inline edits of media tags (image alt tags)
WPSSO Pro version provides inline edits of SEO field on admin pages

Structured Data. A variety of plugins are available to add structured data (schema) to your site:

• Bypass the plugins, and go straight to the Google Data Highlighter Tool (you must add your property in the Search Console first)
• See more info on the Yoast post, Google Search Console and Structured Data
• Yoast Free and Premium plugins (Local, Reviews, etc.)
• More Complex and In-depth: WPSSO Core Plugins, and free and premium extensions, e.g., their schema and local SEO plugins.
• All in One Schema Rich Snippets (Review, Event, People, Product, Recipe, Software Application, Video, Articles ),
• Use the Structured Data Testing Tool to test your configuration

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). Configure your website to deliver AMP pages (URL/amp); useful plugins include:

• AMP
• Premium WP AMP — Accelerated Mobile Pages for WordPress and WooCommerce ($39)
• Use the Google AMP Testing Tool to test the installation, and submit the pages to Google.
• Or use the Amp Project validator, another testing tool.