In this document you will find the guidelines, training, and resources necessary to successfully complete your role. If you have any questions at all regarding this, please contact Daryl using slack chat.
Your role while working at Lion Zeal will involve managing and expanding our large network of over 400 blogs.
This includes, tweaking their functionality, making design improvements, creating logos, writing content, and more.
Your main responsibility is to make great looking blogs that look trustworthy to visitors. These blogs will not receive much traffic, and are by no means magazine quality, but it is important that visitors view them as legitimate websites.
I look forward to working together.
- Daryl Rosser, Founder of Lion Zeal
Your Workflow
You will be working daily from Trello and DropBox (with spreadsheets).
Within Trello, you can access your cards, to see which tasks are due earliest:
See a list of tasks due and their due date:
From this page you can also access the board for each task:
You will primarily be working in the Blog Management board, but your role also involves tweaking and improving clients websites, and each client has an individual board.
The blog management board is formed by 4 categories:
To Do - this lists tasks you need to work on
Site Errors - you can add cards here to list errors and assign 'Daryl' to them
Done - drag and drop all completed tasks here
Each individual clients board is also similar:
To Do - this lists tasks to be completed
Doing - indicates a task that is in progress
Done - drag and drop all completed tasks here
Please note that not all tasks are yours. If a task is showing under your "Cards" menu, or has your profile picture in the bottom right, it means it was assigned to you, therefore is your task. Otherwise it is not.
The To Do' list is where the tasks that need done are stored, note in the screenshot below that I am assigned to these tasks:
To get the full detail about the task, click them, and it will popup with more information:
This task is related to a spreadsheet document in the DropBox folder named 'pbn_031114'. All spreadsheets are named 'pbn_daymonthyear" of creation. This example 'pbn_031114' was made 3rd November 2014.
If there is a checklist, you can start checking them off as you complete each individual task:
If you half finish a task, or want to add a relevant note, you can scroll down and enter it under 'Activity':
With any board, once you have completed the task, drag and drop it in the "Done" list:
If you encounter any errors with setting up the sites, or for MainWP Maintanence (covered later), you can "Add a card" to the Site Errors category within the Blog Management board:
And then assign 'Daryl Rosser' to that card to look into it:
If your task also involved a spreadsheet in DropBox, when it is completely finished (including any site errors fixed), drag and drop it to the 'Completed' folder within DropBox:
How to install WordPress
Using Softaculous (the best way if available):
Manually (if Softaculous or an auto-installer is not available):
How to setup WordPress
How to create a logo
Blog content
The video below shows you how to add posts and pages to WordPress:
Every blog should have a minimum of 3 posts, here is how to find content:
There are so many different types of blog titles you can use, the media/content found will determine which is best. Here are some ideas and examples...
How To - How to lose 28 pounds in 28 days
Lists - 7 ways to lose weight when you're over 40
Checklists - First Time Marathon Checklist
Reviews - Nike Free Run vs New Balance 420 Review
Website Update - Welcome to the new website!
On top of the posts, each blog should have a minimum of 2 pages. Here are a few ideas for pages:
About us - Write about the website, team, author, or all
Contact us - Explain why people should contact them and include contact form
Events/ Workshops - For dates put "in 2 weeks" or "this sunday", explain what the event is about
Advertising - Have information about advertising on the site and a contact form
Why we created XYZ - Explain the backstory of why the blog was created
FAQ - Answer frequently asked questions about the topic / website
Tips / Ideas - Have a contact form with information about how to send an article tip in
Resources - Useful advice, links to useful authority sites/videos, book recommendations
Do not use the exact same page name on every website either. There are many ways of saying the exact same thing. Examples:
About, About us, About this website, About [sitename], What is this, Who are we
Contact, Contact us, Get in touch, Talk to us, Contact me
You can also find content to use in posts and pages using the WayBackMachine, this video explains how:
Adding links to the navigation bar
To create a navigation bar, first go to Appearance -> Menus, in the WordPress admin area:
Enter a Menu name if you don't already have one. Usually this is only seen on mobile devices, so you can just put something like 'Navigation'.
On the left you can select the pages, categories, or custom links that you want to add to the menu. Then hit 'Save Menu'. Basic stuff.
Finally, to get it to show up on your site, you'll need to switch to the 'Manage Locations' tab, and select it as your primary menu.
That is all there is to it, now the navigation bar you set should be showing on the site.
Please remember: You do not need to add 5 pages to the site. Once you have created posts, you set them to a category, you can also add these categories to the navigation bar.
Adding sticky posts to blogs
At least one post on each blog must be set to sticky, this means it always shows at the top of the homepage. Here is how to do it:
Backdate Blog Posts
It looks bad when a blog only has 3 posts for example, but all of them were posted on the same day. Instead of this, we backdate our posts up to 3 months. Here is how to do that:
Creating Sidebars on Blogs
Sidebars need to make the site look good by making it look like a real site someone has put effort into, and not showing how inactive it is.
This means the following widgets should not be used, ever:
Archives
Meta
Recent Comments
There are three types of sidebar widgets we are going to use a lot, at least one of them must be on each blog, these are:
Banner Ads - real adverts used on the web
Newsletter Signup - to get email updates from the site
Welcome / Introduction - shows background behind the site or author
Adding widgets to and changing the sidebar is easy. Go to Appearance -> Widgets, and then drag widgets into the "Primary" sidebar.
How to add banner ads
You will need to use this code:
<a href="http://www.lionzeal.com/" rel="nofollow"><img src="URL of image" /></a>
Using a standard "Text" widget, you can write some text to introduce people to the website and/or author.
Short example:
Hey welcome to XYZ.com! On this blog you will find the latest trends in design, ranging from DIY training videos, to inspirational galleries and photos.
This adds something extra to the sidebar without taking up much space. You will still want to add plenty of other widgets.
Longer example:
"Bad home design sucks. But who has the money to invest in luxury design aka design that looks really good?
On this free blog, I'm going to share with you, the inside secrets to great interior design on a small budget.
This isn't about cheap junk that looks good but falls apart in 2 months... it's the secret tricks interior designers use to get the best stuff at the lowest prices.
Whether you are into modern, contemporary, or traditional design, we will be able to help you.
To learn more about this website, take a look at our about page."
This is only 100 words, but in a sidebar it is a lot of content because of the short width. You can easily get away with just sticking 1 or 2 widgets below this, maybe 'Recent Posts' and 'Categories'.
You can also use a welcome message to explain an 'oddity' about the website. Say it has been rebranded and the domain doesn't quite suit the new topic, explain why this is the case here.
"Welcome to phonecovers247.com! Your online resource for home design news, trends, and inspiration.
We have been sharing design advice and inspiration since 2009, starting with just phone covers, but evolving into general design at home.
Whether you are looking to create a contemporary, modern, or traditional space, you'll find plenty of useful content on the blog."
Author Introduction
Another welcome style widget you can use is an author introduction, like this example:
Hey, there! My name is John Smith and I'm obsessed with time pieces. Ever since I was given my first watch, I've been an avid collector. Now I've got 27 real swiss watches and constantly adding to my collection. On this blog you'll see which brands to buy, what watches I like, and I'll even show you what I'm buying.
How to complete the weekly MainWP maintenance
Every monday, the first task you should complete is MainWP maintenance, the video above covers how to do this, including:
Synchronising blogs
Updating WordPress and Plugins across blogs
Ensuring all sites are included in security snippet and maintenance runs
How to setup CloudFlare
Ocassionally you may be asked to setup CloudFlare for the websites. This will be given to you in a Trello task, with a corresponding Excel document within your DropBox folder. The video above explains what you need to do.
