If your content matters to you, especially content on your WordPress site, then please take a few moments to back it up.  It’s much like your backup of your hard drive.  You wouldn’t pass on that, don’t pass on this. Work it into your morning routine.

You’ll need complete backups in order to restore with confidence.  How do you do this?

First, backup your content by exporting it from WordPress.  Like so.

It really does take 60 seconds.  If you really don’t have 60 seconds a week to think about this, hire me.   At least do it weekly, if you blog more often, daily.

Second, backup the database.  You can do this three ways.

The easy way is to install WP DB Backup and set the plugin up to email you weekly or daily versions of your database. I have mine set to weekly, both emailed to me and stored on the server.

Alternatively for plugins you can set up Automatic WordPress Backup which back everything up to an Amazon S3 server offsite.  It’s a little more complicated to set up but I’m beginning to think worth it given the recent rash of hacks with malware.

If you want to do it manually, it’s pretty easy to do that too.  Just follow the instructions straight from WordPress.

It doesn’t matter HOW you do it, so much as you do it and do it right.  Or at the very least get your assistant or web developer to ensure that it’s being done.  It’ll save you time, money and a massive headache if your site is ever infected with malware.

How short are your subject lines?  Do you find the majority of your customers are reading your email newsletters on their mobile devices?

In January this year, PEW released a report on Internet, broadband, and cell phone statistics stating that they “…found that 83% of adults have cell phones or smartphones”.  With mobile use increasing and Apple’s iPad release this year, it’s important to be as concise as you can when sending emails and especially, newsletters. If you’re like me on the go, your attention goes to the most compelling things in your inbox, the rest gets ignored and then archived if it’s not important.

Blue Sky Factory often talks about telling your customers what to expect in your email marketing.  In this mobile world, it is incredibly important.  If you’re attempting to reach your customers with a special offer or want them to act, tell them what they’re going to get by opening your email.  Forget 140 characters.  You now need to do this in 5 words or less.

In this Android screenshot, you can see that email subject lines trunicate at 5 or 6 words.  Doing some research I found the same is true for both the iPhone and the iPad.

To find where your customers are reading your emails and determine if this affects your strategy, go to Google Analytics (you DO have Google Analytics right?) browse to Visitors -> Mobile -> Mobile Devices.  Make sure you check out their screen sizes too to see what the majority of the devices are showing, you can do that at Visitors -> Browser Capabilities -> Screen Resolutions.

Screen Resolutions

Mobile Devices

It’s time to be increasingly thoughtful about mobile marketing given the growing trends.  Give people a compelling reason to read your email when they’re on the go and make sure it’s easy also for them to follow through on your call to action via their mobile device.  If not, then it better be compelling enough for them to leave it in their inbox for when they return to their computer vs archiving right away.

There’s a lot to say for practice, but at some point we have to jump out of the plane or into the deep end.  We cling to the safety blanket of what it is, instead of doing the things that would get us to the place we envision in our minds.  This applies to all areas of life: saying no, learning martial arts, taking downtime, working on our own content, taking a leap from our day job, jumping on the speaking bandwagon, or writing a book.

There is one major goal that applies to small businesses marketing online: make more delighted customers.  Reputation and word of mouth are kings.

If you’re a business owner, you probably have a website and/or are involved in social networking. There are many great ways to learn more about how to improve your efforts and meet your goals.  Often time is spent doing research, attending genius webinars, reading brilliant blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, and downloading ebooks.  Of course you want to learn from others who have done a remarkable job.

But now it’s time to get to work with the knowledge that you’ve accumulated.

Here are 6 things you can do right now to make a difference in your marketing efforts online:

1. Tell your story. Why are you so different from every Tom, Dick and Jane, Inc.?  Customers want to know what makes you different, what makes you tick.  If you don’t know the story, how can you market it?  Freshbooks does a brilliant job with sharing their story and they stand out from other invoicing companies as a result.

2. Test. Test everything. Click on things.  I promise that button won’t make things explode.  Maybe.  Test links, test to see how the website looks in different browsers, test the forms, and when you get everything right, dig into A/B testing to see what makes visitors happier.

(Editor disclaimer: if you click the button that does make something explode, I’m in no way responsible for your failure to read.)

3. Make it easy. Every business has a call to action.  You want to sell something, raise money, raise awareness, or share information.  Help me find it when I land on your page.  Help your visitors find it.  Easily.  Big, red (not literally) and loud works.  A site can be pretty and loud at the same time.

4. Think locally. Online marketing is a fabulous thing, but local groups, meetups, networking and other events can help you get to know people around town and boost your business.  Target the local market with Google Places, find a way to share special deals with people in your neighborhood.  Even if your business is virtual, you can still find local customers.

5. Work on your inbound links. The first step in this is creating valuable content that others will want to share with their network. This again goes back to sharing knowledge, but make sure you’re doing it in keyword rich phrases.  Think of it as online word of mouth marketing.

6. Be extraordinary. As Chris Brogan says, if you can’t be extraordinary, be helpful.  Do the unexpected.  Send a customer flowers when their date cancels.  Monitor social channels and reach out if you have knowledge that will help.  Offer them a reward just for being your customer.  When you’re extraordinary, it makes you sticky.  Sticky in a world full of businesses in your niches is good, yes?

It’s now time to stop thinking and start doing.  Stalling runs the risk of the knowledge becoming stale before you have a chance to implement. Learn more and expand your understanding of how to build a better business through online marketing.  Then share it with the rest of us.

What other advice would you give small businesses?