Software User Guide WordPress Plugin Version 1.0
Contents Introduction... 3 Information on downloading the plugin to your web host with your WordPress installation Plugin Steps Overview... 4 Basic list of the steps involved in setting up your Local Business Page Builder plugin Installation... 5 Installation and setup of the Local Business Page Builder WordPress plugin Preparing WordPress... 8 Information on preparing your WordPress installation for auto-generated pages Preparing your Content... 14 Instructions on preparing your template images and content for use with the plugin Creating your Local Pages... 19 Information on running the plugin to create your optimization local city pages Finalizing your Content... 24 Check over the plugin content and make final adjustments Additional Information... 25 Additional information for optimizing and enhancing your blog content 2
Introduction Thank you for using the Local Business Page Builder WordPress plugin. This guide will help you prepare your website or blog for use with the plugin. We have also included tips and suggestions on how to create and format your content for best results. Preparing You'll need to organize a few things before you start using the plugin - a little preparation will speed up the actual content creation later on. Hosting If you already have a website or blog online, you can skip to the Installation section. Otherwise please read the following information. If you need a domain and hosting for your new blog, there are many reputable companies that can provide you with this service quickly and easily online: WordPress Hostgator.com Current Web Hosting Specials Bluehost.com Current Web Hosting Specials The Local Business Page Builder plugin runs with any WordPress installation and theme. To use the plugin, you'll need a domain name and online web host to host your WordPress blog. If you already have a WordPress blog online, you can skip to the Installation section. Otherwise please read the following information. You can download and install the WordPress software for free online at http://wordpress.org There are tons of themes and additional plugins you can install to optimize your blog and customize the appearance exactly the way you would like. For more information on suggested features and plugins to enable, please refer to the section Preparing Wordpress. 3
Plugin Steps Overview Overview of Setup Steps for using the Local Business Page Builder Plugin 1. Create a New WordPress blog or Login to your existing WordPress blog 2. Upload and Activate the Local Business Page Builder Plugin 3. Prepare your WordPress, Install additional plugins (optional) 4. Upload Images to WordPress (if not using plugin images) (optional) 5. Create Parent Page on WordPress 6. Create Template Page and Write Template Content 7. Get List of Cities to Use for Content 8. Get List of Links to Use for Content (optional) 9. Copy and Paste Content into the Plugin (Title, Content, Cities) 10. Select Image Options, Parent Page Options 11. Run Content Check and Adjust Content if necessary 12. Create Test Page and Adjust Content if necessary 13. Create ALL Pages - Run final page creation 14. Make Final Content / SEO adjustments 4
Installation Installing the Local Business Page Builder plugin is quick and easy. 1. Login to WordPress and go to the "Plugins" section of the dashboard 2. Click "Add New" at the top of the Plugins page 3. Upload the localbusinesspagebuilder.zip Zip file to WordPress 4. Activate the plugin - everything is installed! Plugin Settings First off, you should familiarize yourself with the plugin. To view the plugin settings page, you can click "Settings" under the Local Business Page Builder Plugin on the Plugin page, or you can select "Local Page Builder" under the Settings navigation dropdown. The main page of the Local Business Page Builder Plugin consists of the header (the logo for the plugin), the main navigation (the buttons below the header) and the plugin settings on the rest of the page. The header of the plugin displays the software logo along with the plugin version number. If you have any issues with the plugin, please refer to your version number when contacting support. 5
The navigation of the plugin has a few buttons to help you use the plugin features. Plugin Home Plugin Home is the primary options and page creation page in the plugin. This is where you will paste your content and create your final pages (when ready). Image Options Image Options contains settings for copying and creating template images for local pages. For more information on creating template images, please refer to the next section: Preparing WordPress. Get Local City List Get Local City List will take you to an outside webpage at localbusinesspagebuilder.com. This page will help you get a list of your local towns and cities based on your zip code to use in the final page creation. For more information on using this page, please refer to the section: Preparing your Content. Get Page Link List Get Page Link List will take you to an outside webpage at localbusinesspagebuilder.com. This page will help you get a HTML list of the pages on your website to use in the final page creation. For more information on using this page, please refer to the section: Preparing your Content. 6
Help Desk Help Desk will take you to an outside webpage at localbusinesspagebuilder.com. This page contains additional information and resources on using the plugin - including the tutorials and help listed here. Plugin Form Options Below the navigation you will see a variety of options relating to your content creation, and at the bottom of the page you will see buttons relating to your final page creation. For more information on each of the form entries, please refer to the Creating your Local Pages. Create ALL Pages Create ALL Pages will create your final pages based on the content you entered in the options above. A seperate page will be created for every city you enter in the options. You can enter as many cities as you want, but 25-50 is the recommended number. Entering over 100 may slow down the plugin, and may be too many links on a single page for search engines to index them all. For more information on cities and content creation, refer to the section: Preparing your Content. For more information on creating your final pages, refer to the section: Creating your Local Pages. Create Test Page Create Test Page will create a test page based on the content you entered in the options above. A single test page will be created with a random name (for example: Test Page 48). You should create a test page before running the plugin for final page creation to check for content errors as well as replacement errors or problems the plugin may have encountered with your content. You can delete the page after reviewing it for errors. Check Content Check Content will check your content and city entries and give you a sample output of pages and content. No pages will be created, but a list of the pages the plugin will create will be listed after running a content check. You should run a content check before running the plugin for final page creation to check for content errors as well as city replacement errors. You can run the content check as many times as you need to until your content is formatted correctly. 7
Preparing WordPress Even if this not your first WordPress blog, there's a few things you should consider to prepare your WordPress blog for the Local Business Page Builder plugin. Here are some tips below. Please note these are not required, but strongly suggested to get the best results out of your blog. WordPress Optimization Suggestions There are tons of ways you can enhance and improve your blog - and as you become more experienced with the WordPress software, you'll find more things you can customize and improve. Here's a short run-down of features in WordPress you shouldn't miss out on. If you're already a WordPress expert, you can probably skip ahead to the Preparing Images section. Default Category Under the "Posts" section of the WordPress navigation, you'll find the category section. Categories are useful for grouping your posts into categories, and also useful for optimizing certain general keywords on your website. Even if you do not add extra categories at this time, you should change the name and slug of the default category to include a generic keyword that you want to optimize for, like "contractor", "roofing" your business State or other keywords. Media This is where you upload images into your WordPress blog. You may want to upload any company logos or images that you will want to use in your blog posts or local targeted pages. If you want to create template images for use in the final page creation, you can also upload them here and they will appear in the image dropdown on the Plugin Setting page. For more information on template images, refer to the Preparing your WordPress section. Pages These are pages on your website. When you create your final set of local pages with the plugin, they will appear in this section. For best results with the plugin, it is recommended that you create a "Parent" page for your local pages. This can be any page you like, but it should reflect how the local pages below it are built - for example: "Local Cities", "Work Areas", "Service Areas", "Work Zones", etc. This will help organize your site for potential visitors but also adds an extra keyword or phrase to work into your SEO. 8
Themes One of the best features of the WordPress blog platform is the number of available themes. Themes customize the appearance of your blog and are often easily customizable. You can browse through the available themes here and select one that reflects your business and style the most. Our plugin is built to be compatible with all standard WordPress configurations and themes. If you have trouble getting the plugin to work with a custom theme please contact support. Header The header of your blog is the top of the page - and is usually the same across your whole site. Most websites display company information - logos, phone numbers, etc. This is your most important advertising space, but it is also the frame for your whole blog. The plugin bonuses include pre-built headers and Photoshop ready files to help you create your own custom header. Permalinks One of the most important features to enable in the WordPress Settings area is regarding Permalinks. 9
You can format your permalinks anyway you like, but for SEO purposes it is always recommended to use the "Post Name" as the primary part of the permalink URL. This means keywords from the title of the page will be included in the URL for the webpage - this helps your search engine ranking for those terms. If your page title include local cities and towns along with your company business keywords, you'll have a huge head-start on your SEO game from the start. Plugins Like Themes, there are literally thousands of WordPress plugins available - some paid, many free. Plugins can help you customize your blog further and help your interactions with your customers. Browse through the popular and highly rated plugins on WordPress to see if there's any plugins you like. They often have documentation to make using the plugins easy. One of the best plugins you can install on your blog for SEO management is WordPress SEO by Yoast. With this plugin you can manage keywords template, xml sitemaps, meta information and more automatically. 10
Preparing Images In the Local Business Page Builder plugin there are a few options for including images in the pages in your blog. Use Template WordPress Images - You can use images you have already uploaded to WordPress as Template images for your posts, and still dynamically include the city name in the image. You can use any image, and you can also upload new images to use as templates. Using a template image with your city names is the best method for SEO, as both the image file name and the ALT text will include your local cities. If you would like to use this method, you have to first create a template copy of the image inside WordPress. To Create a Template WordPress Image, click the "Image Options" button at the top of the Local Business Page Builder plugin Settings page. You will see a short form which is used to create the copied image. The first dropdown menu is a list of your uploaded images to your WordPress blog. Select the image you want to create a template from. The next box is where the city name is in the image. For example, if the image file was: new-york-nyroofing-contractors.jpg you would want to enter "new-york" as the replace text. This is for the final page creation - as a seperate page is created for every city on your list, the image will be copied over as well - so each image will also include the city name. This is great for SEO, especially local image searches. This final section is what to name the template image. In this case our software looks for the code "IMG" (all capitals). Leave this entry as is, or there may be problems creating the template images. 11
Once you have selected the information, click "Copy Template Image" to create the template image for the plugin. If you have more than one image in your content that you would like to create a template for, you will need to run through the above steps for each image. Use Plugin Template Images - Included with the Local Business Page Builder plugin are a small handful of business and contractor images that can be used automatically in your final local pages. There are two ways to use these images - Insert Images at Code - This will insert a random selection of the images wherever you use the "{IMG}" code as the source ("src") of in image in the HTML code of your content. For example, you could use the following code in your content to utilize the plugin images: <img src = "{IMG}" alt = "{CITY} NY Roofing Contractors" /> Insert Images at Paragraph - This will insert a random selection of the images after paragraphs ("<p></p>") in your content. For this method you do not need to add the 'img' code to your content, but you do need to make sure you have multiple paragraphs in your content: <p>your page content and text goes here.</p> <p>here is a second paragraph in your content.</p> 12
Both of these methods use template images included with the plugin. There is a small selection of images for each of the following business types: Builder, Chiropractor, Commercial, Contractor, Dentist, HVAC, Interior, Landscaping, Lawyer, Painter, Paving, Plumber, Remodeling. No matter which of these options you select, images in your post will be automatically replaced if a matched code is found, and any additional images without the image code will be left alone. For example, if your post has 5 images in it total, 2 images may use the image code to be replaced for each city. You can have as many replaced and non-replaced images as you like, but too many images can devalue the content. 13
Preparing your Content The content of your template post is the most important part of the plugin. This will be the basis for all the pages built by the plugin. The best way to get the page working exactly the way you want it to look is to actually create a sample page in WordPress first. 1. Navigate to the "Pages" section of WordPress, and Add a New Page 2. Type out your page content. For help on writing your content, refer to Writing Content 3. Format your content. For help formatting your content, refer to Formatting Content 4. Add in your Images and Image Code. For help, refer to Adding Images 5. Click the "Visual" tab on the WordPress editor to view your page HTML code that will be used as your template page content. Writing Content If it's not already clear, the content is going to be the most important part of your preparation for running the plugin. This page content should target keywords and services that you want to target. Unique Content Because this content is going to be used multiple times on your blog, you don't want to copy and paste from someone else's blog or website. Using copied content in this case can actually hurt your website ranking. If possible it is best to write your template content for this plugin from scratch. If you cannot create a full page of new content about your company, or simply want to go the faster route for content creation, you can use other content sources like articles, press releases and guides for pieces of your content. It is our strong recommendation that you mix the sources (use more than one article for your content) and separate sources (use sentences or paragraphs rather than whole pages of text). What to include in your Content Anything you want! It is your business and your blog, so think about what you want to target. Here are some suggestions: 14
Write about your business and services. Each page created by the plugin will include your city and state name throughout the content and meta data, so write about services you provide these communities. Mention how long you've been in business, how many customers you've served, high-profile jobs or partnerships you have, etc. Write about materials and additional services. Talk about the construction of your materials, warrantees that the manufacturers offer, service warranties that you offer your customers, special deals, discounts, yearly service plans, maintenance, etc. Advertise seasonal services or new products. You can write as little or as much as you like, but for best results a good target is 400-800 words. Remember to use a variety of keywords throughout your post, and to mention your city AND state throughout the content. Use your city and state in multiple ways in every paragraph, for example: New York, NY Contractors New York, New York Repairs NY Commercial Services in New York Often people search differently, so including variations of city and state formatting helps match more searches, and increases your rank for all the included terms. Formatting Content Now that you've got great quality content, you can do some formatting. If you haven't already, break up the content into easily "digestible" paragraphs, so you're readers don't get tired with long blocks of text. You can use headers and section titles to break up your content and guide your readers through your content (sort of like this help guide!). Headers are also important for targeting additional keywords and local areas. The Plugin {CITY} Code Now we can add in the "{CITY}" code to get your content ready for page creation. Anywhere you would like the city mentioned, you need to replace the city name with the "{CITY}" code. Do this every time you would like the plugin to add in the city name - recommended at least 5-15 times in your content. You can include the city and state by themselves, but you should also make sure to include them together. 15
For Example: We are the best contractors in {CITY}, NY We repair any type of {CITY}, New York exterior system {CITY} NY Emergency Services You should include the "{CITY}" code throughout both the paragraphs and headers of your content. You should also include it in any ALT tags for images (see next section). This will ensure that you get the full benefits of targeting each city in your work area with a local blog page. Adding Links There are two types of links you can consider adding to your content template to link content together on your site for an enhanced experience for both human visitors and search engines spiders searching your site. Internal Linking Internal Links are links within the page content to other pages on your website. This is a great way to help visitors navigate through the multiple pages or categories on your site, and to direct them to actions, like filling out an estimate or contacting you. It is a good idea to include links to actions like direct contact at the beginning or end of your content, so visitors won't just leave your site after viewing a page. You can also use internal links to target keywords and additional pages on your site, by using the link anchor text. For example, you could have the following link to your Free Estimate page: <a href = "free-estimate.html">free Estimates in New York</a> This would help direct visitors, but will also help your search engine ranking for the included terms like "estimate" and "New York" etc. External Linking External Links are links within the page content to pages on an outside website. This is a great way to help visitors find more information and resources. Unfortunately, this also takes your visitors and potential customers away from your website, which is definitely a bad thing. For example, a contractor may want to link directly to product manufacturers' websites for customers to find more detailed information about the products they use. This is great for both the manufacturer (free link and possible lead!) and the customer (free information) but can be hurtful to you (the customer may never come 16
back to your website!). In this way, internal links for more information are much better, and can help you keep hold of your lead throughout the process. Adding Images The final step in preparing your content is adding the images to your content. You can add as many images as you like to your post, but to get the full impact of re-naming images files to match your work areas, you should add in the image code as detailed below. There are three ways to format your images. Copy WordPress Images - This will use your previously uploaded WordPress images, along with any Template Images you created through the plugin. The images will be included wherever you use the "IMG" template code in your content based on your WordPress template images. For the plugin to find and replace images in your content, your image HTML code must be formatted like this example: <img src = "IMG-ny-res.jpg" alt = "{CITY} NY Residential" /> Images and image HTML in your posts not using the template format will be left alone. Copy Plugin Images - This will use the plugin's included stock images in your post, based your "Image Type" setting selection in the next form option. The images will be included wherever you use the "{IMG}" template code in your content. For the plugin to find and replace images in your content, your image HTML code must be formatted like this example: <img src = "{IMG}" alt = "{CITY} NY Electrician" /> Images and image HTML in your posts not using the template format will be left alone. Insert Plugin Images - This will use the plugin's included stock images in your post, based on your "Image Type" setting selection in the next form option. The images will be included randomly after paragraphs of text in your content. For the plugin to insert images in your content, your image HTML code must include formatting like this example: <p>your page content and text goes here.</p> <p>here is a second paragraph in your content.</p> 17
Images will be inserted between the paragraphs. Images and image HTML in your posts not using the template format will be left alone. Getting a City List You can use the link at the top of the plugin settings page ("Get City List") to get a list of your local cities at the Local Business Page Builder website. Simply enter your zipcode and choose a distance to grab local cities. Usually 25-40 miles are the best choices to get quality results out of your blog. Getting a Link List You can also use the link at the top of the plugin settings page ("Get Link List") to get a list of links to use on your website or blog for internal linking. This is optional - read the next section for additional information. Get A List Of Nearby Cities: Click Here To Load Webpage Create A List Of Your Pages: Click Here To Load Webpage 18
Creating your Local Pages Now that you've made all the preparations, you are ready to run the Local Business Page Builder plugin. On the Settings page of the plugin, inside WordPress - you'll see the page creation form, with a few options and buttons and the bottom of the page. Local Page Builder Options Once you have the formatted content, the form is somewhat simple: Page Title The title template to use for all created pages. This title will be repeated and used on all created pages, and therefore should always include the "{CITY}" code somewhere in the title. If you do not include the "{CITY}" code in the title, all the pages will have the same name. Below are some example titles that would work well for SEO purposes: {CITY} New York Roofing Contractors {CITY} NY Plumbing Repairs Contractors in {CITY} New York Page Content The page content template to use for all created pages. This page content will be repeated and used on all created pages and therefore should always include the "{CITY}" code throughout the content - along with images and formatting. If you do not include the "{CITY} code throughout the content, all the pages will have the same content. Please refer to the associated Content Samples, as well as the section "Preparing your Content" earlier in this help guide. Page Cities The list of cities to use as the basis for the created pages. A separate page will be created for every city you list here. The list of cities can be separated by commas, or you can put each city on a new line. The number of cities that you can list here is unlimited, but keep in mind that creating more than 100 city pages with the plugin may decrease the effectiveness of the local search engine targeting. If you want to create pages for more than one state, you'll have to create a template page for each state, and run the plugin multiple times (using separate city lists for each state). 19
Image Options The image replacement options for your content. For help on preparing your images, please refer to the section Preparing your Content. For help on creating template images, refer to the section Preparing WordPress. Copy WordPress Images - This will use your previously uploaded WordPress images, along with any Template Images you created through the plugin. For the plugin to find and replace images in your content, your image HTML code must be formatted like this example: <img src = "IMG-ny-res.jpg" alt = "{CITY} NY Residential" /> Copy Plugin Images - This will use the plugin's included stock images in your post, based your "Image Type" setting selection in the next form option. For the plugin to find and replace images in your content, your image HTML code must be formatted like this example: <img src = "{IMG}" alt = "{CITY} NY Electrician" /> Insert Plugin Images - This will use the plugin's included stock images in your post, based on your "Image Type" setting selection in the next form option. For the plugin to insert images in your content, your image HTML code must include formatting like this example: <p>your page content and text goes here.</p> <p>here is a second paragraph in your content.</p> Do Not Change Images - This will not replace any images in your content. Although it is recommended to get the best results, you can use this option to ignore the images and just make the regular "{CITY}" code replacements throughout your content. Image Type The type of stock images to use with your content. This only applies if you select to use the Plugin Images in the option above. Select "None" to ignore, or select from one of the following stock image types: Builder, Chiropractor, Commercial, Contractor, Dentist, HVAC, Interior, Landscaping, Lawyer, Painter, Paving, Plumber, Remodeling. 20
Parent Page If you would like to include the created pages under another page on your blog, select it here - otherwise, select "No Parent". This is entirely optional, but still suggested for search engine optimization. One of the best ways to target your local search traffic is to create a Parent page in your WordPress blog outlining your services and service areas. Possible titles for the Parent page are: Local, Work Areas, Service Areas, Work Zones, Service Map, etc. You can call the Parent page whatever you like, but all your pages will be located under that title (for both website URLs and Search Engine Results). Checking your Content The Local Business Page Builder is a powerful plugin, and is capable of automatically creating and linking together hundreds of pages, so it is important to check over everything before continuing. Take a look over your copy and pasted content to see if there are any errors, or if any content is cut off. When everything looks good, you can run a "Check" over your content and list by clicking "Check Content" at the bottom of the page. 21
This will run a scan of your content and cities, and show you what the plugin is going to do to your content (how many replacements, etc.) as well as showing you what pages will be created based on your city list and title template. Look over the output of the check to see if there are any problems with how the plugin reads your list of cities, etc. The form will carry over your entries, so make any adjustments or updates to the form below the results of the check. You can always re-run the check after making changes as well. Creating a Test Page Once you have checked over the content and made any changes you can create a test page by click the "Create Test Page" button at the bottom of the screen. This will create a randomly named (for example: Test Page 48) page on your WordPress blog using the content settings you selected on the plugin form. After clicking the button you will see an output of the created test page. To view the page, you can click the link, or navigate to the page from your website home page. This test page should be formatted the way you designed your content template. Check over the post for any corrections in content or errors that may have appeared. You can make any additional change in the content on the form. Once everything is finalized, you are ready to run the plugin to create your final optimized local pages. 22
Creating All Local Pages Now you're ready to run the plugin to create your final page content. Give everything one last look over and hit the "Create ALL Pages" button at the bottom of the page. Depending on your web server and WordPress installation, this can take 1-5 minutes to complete. Plugin Results If everything went smoothly, you should see a list of all the newly created pages, along with links to view the page directly. If you see any errors, consult the help for more information on your specific error. Premium Themes For Your Blogs Daves Recommendation 23
Finalizing your Content Everything should have gone great with the content creation, but there are a few last things you can do to improve the content and SEO of your blog. Link List If you haven't already, you can use the "Get Link List" button to create a columnized list of the newly created pages on your website. This is optional, but adding a list of links to your Parent page can help both your visitors and search engines find all your content more quickly. You can choose to automatically build the list with 1,2,3 or 4 columns for organization. 24
Additional Information Here are some additional information and resources to help you build your targeted blog online. Website Hosting Hostgator.com Bluehost.com Blog Software Wordpress.org Themes Twenty Twelve (Default) Catchbox Mobile Theme Stunning Themes For All Businesses WordPress Plugins WordPress SEO by Yoast Article Creation Software Instant Article Wizard Pro Article Builder The Best Spinner Website Premium Graphics Package Fabulous Marketing Graphics 25