Wordcamp US Header, Creative Mind Consulting Group, Montclair, NJ

20 Sep

Wordcamp Website Wow!

By Todd Sayles In Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Videos, Web Design, Website Refresh, WordPress / No Comments

Todd at WordCamp US in Portland, Oregon. This week, I had the chance to attend WordCamp US 2024 training in Portland, Oregon. As I write this, I think I’m still shaking off the jetlag and adjusting to the West Coast—being from New Jersey, the journey wasn’t exactly a quick hop. But all that aside, the value of the training on website development and management is absolutely priceless. Honestly, if it had been in India, I’d have tried to make it there too.

Now, on my last day of WordCamp US 2024, there’s one word that perfectly sums up both Portland and the event itself: Wow! Here’s why:

1. Disney at WordCamp US 2024

Our first keynote was from Disney. Yes, Disney. We’re talking about one of the biggest names on the planet. They walked us through how they’ve streamlined and branded their Disney Connect websites using WordPress’s new block editor, which they’ve embraced for its efficiency and speed. By using fewer plugins and more native blocks, they’ve optimized performance—a practice I’ll definitely be applying to our own sites.

2. AI Integration: Friend, Not Foe

Of course, AI is everywhere, but how can developers and designers use it instead of fearing it will terminate our jobs? At WordCamp, they previewed an AI-driven plugin that can help with everything from creating plugins to fixing issues and even designing or restyling content. It’s a tool that speeds up development and adds value to client projects long after they’re finished. That’s the kind of tech that makes a real impact.

3. Optimizing for A Gazillion Views

One session focused on the secret sauce for boosting website traffic—basically, giving Google exactly what it wants. They showed us techniques that can make websites stand out in search results, using a case study of a recipe site that hit 45 million views in a month. Wouldn’t you want that kind of visibility? I know I would.

4. Keeping Companies Running Strong

Several trainers offered insights on keeping businesses afloat during tough times—without resorting to layoffs or panicking about job security. They emphasized knowing your numbers, not just in terms of sales but in overall activities. Retainers, hourly rates, and even mergers were discussed as strategies to strengthen businesses. It’s advice that any entrepreneur can apply, whether you’re in tech or not.

There’s so much more I could share but I think it may be best for some upcoming webinars where I can go deeper into solutions my clients need. Listen out for that.

5. And Then, There’s Portland…

I was hesitant about coming to Portland. During the pandemic, I almost made a trip here while riding my motorcycle on the West Coast, but this time around, I decided to fully immerse myself in the experience. Instead of booking a standard hotel, I stayed at the International Northwest Portland Hostel—and it’s been incredible.

Todd with his Trivia Team at the Northwest International Hostel in Portland Oregon The hostel experience has been unique. I’m in a dorm-style room, but the 5-house complex has a huge kitchen, a restaurant, two laundries, multiple hangout spots, and much more. On Wednesday night, I joined the trivia event and nearly won the prize with my team. One of my teammates, who’s traveled the country himself, gave me a roadmap to explore Seattle—my next stop. Last night, there was a live music session featuring a dozen string instrument players doing old Western songs. As a musician myself, I was hooked.

Through conversations with locals and fellow travelers, I’ve discovered great restaurants, parks, shopping centers, and the convenience of Portland’s Max trains and buses. Yesterday, I strolled along Broadway and checked out Pioneer Square, which hosts concerts and events like Oktoberfest. Portland’s mix of historic homes, modern multifamily housing, and local pubs has impressed me. For anyone doubting whether mixed-income housing works in upscale neighborhoods, Portland proves it can.

Todd at Broadway in Portland, Oregon Tomorrow, I’m heading to Washington Park to get a feel for rural Portland before catching a train to Seattle. Lookout for some webinars that will come out of this to help my clients and colleagues succeed and enjoy their business.

Can Anyone Make a Website?

Just last week, someone said to me, “My kid can make a website for $1,000—why should I pay you more?” I hear that from time to time. But today, my response would be: How many years of training has that kid had? How much real-world business experience does he bring? What network does he have to ensure the site is up to spec? Ongoing training, in any field, is invaluable. It beats the $5 website that someone’s mom’s ex-boyfriend’s kid says he can whip up. What do you think?

Ready to take your marketing to the next level ? Contact us today to learn how we can help you with your website lead generation plans.

Todd Sayles, Principal of Creative Mind Consulting Group, has built a successful organization that services real estate, retail, hospital and wellness clients among others. His team’s expertise includes problem solving/market strategy, creative design, online website development, print collateral, public relations, search engine optimization and collaboration with outside designers and writers.

Creative Mind Design Group teams up with clients to strategize on marketing challenges and design goals. We partner with companies to ultimately create brilliant results which feature inspired design.

Marriage Retreat, Creative Mind Consulting Group

07 Feb

Can a “Marketing Retreat” Benefit Your Marketing Future?

By Todd Sayles In Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Web Design, Website Refresh, WordPress /

Nowadays marketing in this post pandemic world is different than it used to be. What do B2Bs do when they are on endless zoom calls and have little face to face time with leads, clients and even staff? They change their marketing or else become obsolete. Marketing in this new post pandemic world is pivoting. Saying that you get all your business from referrals can’t cut it anymore. Putting that marketing plan on the “back burner” is coming back to hurt some. Maybe it’s time for some to call for an SOS?

More and more people I’ve connected with have said they don’t know where they are with their marketing. As a marketing professional, it’s hard to even get these people ready for something as simple as marketing goals. I’ve learned that in these situations, it can be best to get my clients together as a group and just do an effective “Marketing Retreat”.

What is a Marketing Retreat?

To start, a Marketing Retreat can be many things. A few things include:

Stepping away from the norm to strategize improvements
Brainstorming a few hours together with key staff
A review of your marketing and sales numbers
Time to focus on better marketing effectiveness

It’s basically some time to regroup on what’s important for your clients and your company. With all the ways you can market your company, it can be mind boggling as to what’s your best route. Many times each person has different ideas on what can be done. At times when a decision maker has to decide on a path, hearing multiple ideas ends up sounding like lots of disjointed plans. That’s not usually the case though. When we get all the major stakeholders together (marketing VPs, researchers, salespersons, etc.) and fully review the ideas in a loose, but fun, structured setting, it’s an opportunity to bring out the best ideas, to brainstorm, and comprise a strategic plan.

Here are some obstacles that may come up when you bring up a “Marketing Retreat” to your staff.

Isn’t a Marketing Retreat a Time Waster?

Some may say “with all I have to do, and all the proposals I have to fill out, do I really have time to sit and think about my marketing.” Yes, I’m sorry but you have to take some time to do something you don’t normally do. You may learn that some of the time you currently take on sales and marketing may be going in the wrong direction. What if you’re working on sales that are not pulling in the best paying jobs for the company? Having a good marketing retreat takes time to looks at sales and recognizes what’s a good use of time, and time wasters. I’ve worked with clients that have made shifts away from what they thought were good sales on their websites to marketing other items that were better for their clients and paid better as well. A Marketing Retreat at the least is not wasted time.

Marketing Retreats Can’t be Fun?

For those who are more action-orientated and not number-crunchers does it all have to be work, to be work though? Many times, you can add intentional fun. You can add games that answer marketing questions. At one retreat I was at, we actually climbed a small mountain. Mind you, none of us were dressed to do this, but for some reason we all agreed. At one point, we were actually scaling a small wall. I’ll never forget the stories we came back with. The thing was, we all did something that bonded us together better, and it lasted way after the retreat.

Marketing is not as effective as on-the-street sales. Why focus on that?

Sales is integral to keeping a company growing. Every salesperson needs leads. Some leads may come from cold calls and friends but others can come from online sources. Still others can come from inbound calls off of sales materials out there. Any salesperson knows that the better the leads, the better they are able to make sales. You can try and make cold calls all day long, but you know if they don’t have interest in your specific products, there can be lots of time lost in those calls. Why not have leads that come from marketing strategies that are tailored to a prospect’s needs that “clever” marketing has discovered. I know a real estate salesman who just relied on his referrals. Over the years, he knew he needed to be more strategic with his marketing but he never made the time or budget the cost to get the marketing moving forward. We tried to lead him several times. Instead he did very little. The thing is, he continued to make money but his partners did not do as well. Because they could not come together to decide on a marketing plan, it affected the growth of their leads and eventually the partnership fell apart.

So really, what is a marketing retreat?

The real answer is that a marketing retreat can be whatever you need it to be. When you work with a good marketing expert and a creative event coordinator, you can hold it for a day at a close by outdoor resort, or a half day on your campus grounds or board room. It can become memorable, and cause a transformation for your organization. A good marketing retreat will usually have these components:

Food/snacks
Activities
Prizes
Stats of current sales and marketing campaigns
Strategy and target discussions
Goals discussions
Budgets
Campaign options
Next steps

Our organization has done marketing retreats for a variety of organizations. If you need help finding focus in your marketing, schedule a call with us to help you create it at 973-655-9396.

Todd Sayles, Principal of Creative Mind Consulting Group, has built a successful organization that services real estate, retail, hospital and wellness clients among others. His team’s expertise includes problem solving/market strategy, design and marketing consulting, creative design, online website development, content and design creation for digital media and print collateral, public relations, search engine optimization and collaboration with outside designers and writers.

Creative Mind Design Group teams up with clients to strategize on marketing challenges and design goals. We come alongside companies to ultimately create inspired design alongside brilliant results.

Creative Mind Consulting Group websites gone wild

20 May

7 Steps to Avoid Websites “Gone Wild!”

By Todd Sayles In Web Design, Website Refresh, WordPress /

Lately, I have spoken to new clients that have many times said the same thing. “I got this site and certain things were not done. Now I’m not getting traffic.” Also “My images are not showing up and I don’t know what to do.” I’ve also heard “On mobile phones the site looks bad. I don’t know how to fix that.” Its like they are in their own surreal TV series called something like “Websites Gone Wild”.

Maybe now that the economy is affected by Covid-19 people are making sure their websites are fully working to help get more business. Hey. You’ve got way more on your plate than websites so here are 7 things to look for when you’re about to finalize a website design project.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Did you have a discussion concerning keywords and SEO for the website? Is the designer putting the right researched keywords into the page? Is this a separate package? These are things you should know as you’re moving towards the end of the project. It’s important for SEO to be taken seriously. I always say, what’s the sense of making a beautiful website when it’s hidden in a back alley where no one can find it. If SEO is not added, critical sales, service pages and site forms are going to lose out on organic leads over time. If you don’t ask you won’t know because SEO is not easily viewable in areas. The researched keywords need to be added to the title, description tags, keyword tags, headlines, sub-headlines, body copy, alt tags and so forth. Are there links to inside pages from the outside and inside of the site. Then services like Yoast should be added to the site to find other items on the page search engines are looking for. We offer a special service to combat SEO from many angles. It’s that important.

2. Broken Links / Missing Images

Sometimes in changing domains at the end an image may be missing. Many times its because the designer had it on a temporary server and had a few links straight to a page or image address instead of the page /image itself in the system. This can cause the image to be “broken” in that the URL is looking for an image on the test server instead of looking into the published site. Don’t worry. Just let your designer know and he/she can do a quick link check to correct any missing links. Easy fix.

3. Backend Editing is Hard to Work With

Some designers are editing it to be functional and fast online which is good for everyone. When it’s about function only, the coding may not be as nice and neat for you when you go to make your own edits in the backend (where you login to the site). The answer to this is to stress to your designer beforehand that you want to edit the site yourself afterwards. You may also ask which page editor does the designer work with. Look it up to make sure it’s user friendly for a novice. If so, review the site with the designer towards the end to see if anything is difficult for you. Ask for suggestions to make it easier. I’m sure the designer wants you to be happy and will do what they need to do to get it right for you. If they are using someone overseas that’s even more of a reason to watch out for this fast, non-functional, coding that we have seen in the past from sites done like that.

4 Mobile Responsiveness

Its about 50/50 for how people see your site whether on a desktop or mobile phone. 50% in mobile makes that view even more important as time has gone by. Many designers leave this to the end and that makes sense when change orders could have you reworking the mobile coding all day long. Even though that’s the case, it’s up to you to check to see that Google, where 95% of people search, can easily read your site. Go here and have it checked: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly. If you see something saying its not mobile friendly just share the results with your designer. I’m sure they will be happy to make adjustments to get that worked out. Remember at the end, also to do a visual check on both an Android and iPhone phone. That should do it.

5. Sales, Sales, Sales

If you’re doing e-commerce make sure the connections are in place. Are the notifications set to you? Sometimes they default to the developer. Make sure they change them to you near the end, before the site is completed. Do a test sale to make sure the money goes into your account. Check for sales strategies like lead generation, popups, slide-ins, onsite ads and so forth. Make sure it’s all working well. You never want your site to go live and have mistakes here.

6. Picture Piracy

How were the pictures found? Are the licenses good for websites? You don’t want to end up months later with an attorney calling you to tell you that you stole the picture. In the end you’ll be liable by yourself. Give the designer places to find images. Ask about the licenses and read the fine print. That’s really all you need to do.

7. Is Rushing Helping or Hurting?

If you’re making change orders and rushing to finish up at the same time, there’s a good chance it could lead to mistakes. Is it the designer’s fault or are you asking too much in too short of a time? I guess that’s something you’ll have to ponder when evaluating how it’s going with your designer. In all things, seek first to understand rather than be understood. That’s straight from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Very wise words from the late Stephen Covey.

I hope this answers the questions you have. Please use it as a guide to finish your website project well. Work with your website developer to get where you need to be. If you still need help, schedule a call with us to help you work it out at 973-655-9396.

Todd Sayles, Principal of Creative Mind Consulting Group, has built a successful organization that services real estate, retail, hospital and wellness clients among others. His team’s expertise includes problem solving/market strategy, design and marketing consulting, creative design, online website development, content and design creation for digital media and print collateral, public relations, search engine optimization and collaboration with outside designers and writers.

18 Dec

WordCamp US 2018 and CMCG

By Todd Sayles In WordPress /

This year, Creative Mind Consulting Group’s founder, Todd Sayles and CMCG’s Senior Web Developer, Jesse Velez, ventured out to Music City for WordPress’s Annual US WordCamp.

WordCamp’s are locally hosted events that provide workshops on a variety of topics for those who want to learn more about WordPress (and other fun stuff).

There is a WordCamp happening almost every weekend through the United States and this volunteer led event culminates with WordCamp US. The exciting event was held at beautiful and enormous the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

WordPress is a Content Management System originally focused on bloggers, but over the years it has turned into a website software used by businesses as well as blogger. There are over 33 million websites powered by WordPress.

This years sponsors include JetPack (an Automattic company), BlueHost, Google, WooCommerce, SiteLock, WPMU Dev, DreamHost, GoDaddy, SiteGround, WP Engine and many others.

On Saturday, WordCamp US, had an awesome after party at the Adventure Science Center.

Music City Center

Music City Center

Hanging out with WordFence

Hanging out with PayPal

wordcamp-us-cmcg-2018-08

wordcamp-us-cmcg-2018-03

wordcamp-us-cmcg-2018-04

Super Strength Fulcrum

Super Strength Fulcrum

After Party

The Universe

Planetarium

Donut Wall

Music Legends

Todd Sayles, CEO & Founder of Creative Mind Consulting Group, has built a successful organization that services real estate, retail, hospital and wellness clients among others. His expertise includes problem solving/market strategy, design and marketing consulting, creative design, online website development, content and design creation for digital media and print collateral, public relations, search engine optimization and collaboration with outside designers and writers.

15 Nov

WordPress 5.0 Update and Gutenberg

By Jesse Velez In Gutenberg, WordPress /

After November 27, Be Wary Before You Hit the “Update” Button in WordPress!

The Largest Change In How Content Is Created In WordPress Is Being Introduced – And It Is Called Gutenberg

On November 27, 2018, WordPress is set to release version 5.0 of their popular website software. This version will include the new default editor, Gutenberg. Many website owners are concerned as to how the new default editor will affect their website. Below are some steps you can take to prepare for this new update — that is taking place during one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year!

Ensure your website is backed up regularly and that you have a backup of your website and database before November 27. Daily backups are recommended.
Ensure sure your website’s WordPress version, theme, and all plugins are up-to-date. Before updating to Gutenberg, make sure you have a recent backup with these updates.
Review any theme customization or extended functionality which could be incompatible with Gutenberg, exporting theme options if possible.
Finally, install the Classic Editor plugin, which will replace Gutenberg as the default plugin and will keep the classic (former WordPress) editor that users are accustomed to and know works with their site. By adding this plugin, you will be able to re-activate to Gutenberg when you and your site are ready.

Why Even Have the Upgrade to Gutenberg?

As a brand-new editor, Gutenberg was built from scratch and as a result its interface and features are completely new. How you add or edit content in WordPress is completely different but substantially easier with Gutenberg.

Users will create content “blocks” and be able to dictate layouts directly in the editor without relying on plugins or a developer to create that functionality. Users can also insert pre-made blocks in different configurations such as two-column and four-column layouts.

Gutenberg allows for embedding third-party content very easily. It eliminates the need of using plugins for adding YouTube videos or Twitter feeds into content areas, for example. As of now, there are more than 34 different embed blocks supported. In addition to embeddable content, adding a feed of the latest blog posts, a custom shortcode, a widget or layout elements are also possible. Users should find it easier to add content than it was in the past.

So What is the Downside?

Many believe Gutenberg is not ready for release and there are bugs being worked on. WordPress has pushed the release date to November 27, to make sure all the bugs are worked out. In addition to the changes Gutenberg will introduce, users will experience a significantly new way of editing, literally overnight, forcing them to relearn a tool which they may spent months or years learning.

Since Gutenberg will introduce major changes to virtually every WordPress website, all users who own a WordPress website should pay attention to this update. After a website is updated to Version 5.0, Gutenberg will be the default editor, the former editor will be replaced, and the interface will be completely different. Even if the upgrade executes without a hitch, the new interface could cause a lot of confusion since it is being used for the first time.

Key Factors of Concern

To what extent users should be concerned depends on the following:

Website Use or Type

If your WordPress site is used for e-commerce or a high traffic blog/website such as a business to consumer or business to business website, users should take proactive steps (previously mentioned) to ensure they don’t have any issues. It may be best to post-pone updating to version 5.0 until you are sure you will not be adversely affected.

Out of Date Website Software

If your WordPress website and plugins have not been updated for a long time, users may encounter issues. Plugin developers are scrambling to add support for Gutenberg. If users don’t have the latest updates in place, they could be more at risk for problems.

Custom Built vs. Third-Party Website

Potential issues related to Gutenberg will be impacted by how your website was built. If it was built using a third-party theme with a page builder and that theme or page builder hasn’t been updated recently to work with Gutenberg, users might not be able to add or edit content. Third-party themes tend to rely on more plugins for functionality. If users haven’t updated their theme recently, they may not have also updated their WordPress or plugins either.

How Compatible with Gutenberg?

Unless a website developer took proactive steps to ensure a website is already compatible, it most likely isn’t going to be compatible with Gutenberg. Gutenberg is a major change to how content is created in WordPress and the largest change ever introduced. Users who have been proactively keeping their software up to date will most likely fair much better than those who did not.

If you think that your WordPress website is in need of updates, give us a call at 973-655-9396.

WordPress