Bridget Willard | SaaS Marketing Agency

Author: Bridget Willard

  • Are One-Word Comments Really That Bad? TL;DR No

    So many people rant and rave about comments that aren’t “valuable.” Are one-word comments really that bad?

    TL;DR: No. It’s called small talk.

    All comments on your blog and social media posts are valuable including one-word comments. Comments are reactions to posts.

    Are one-word comments useless?

    One-word comments are not useless. They are input from your community. I’ve come across the attitude (which, frankly, seems a bit entitled) that one-word comments are not useful more often than not. I’d argue that any comment is feedback.

    “No single word comment is helpful. It doesn’t contribute to the conversation, or add value to the post. Writing ‘Nice’ may seem to him to be friendly and forthcoming, and certainly it isn’t a horrible word, but it doesn’t stimulate me into wanting to reply to him.” Allice Elliot 

    I completely disagree with this post from the Commenting Club. Generally, I appreciate them as I also do social media for Postmatic – the best commenting plugin for WordPress.

    I love all comments (save spam) because it tells me they read the article. It reminds me of who they are and who is reading. When 90% of our audience just consumes, you have no idea who is affected.

    Of course, a longer comment allows for the conversation to continue, but a moderator can also extract more information.

    “Thanks for the comment, Daniel. I’m glad you read the article. What part of it strikes you most after thinking about it a while?”

    Remember that introverts need time to process. They may be commenting to be polite. I’d rather have a comment than none at all.

    Comment Entitlement

    Do you really believe your content deserves prose in response? Should people just stop reading your blog because their feedback isn’t good enough for you?

    Seriously. If your article answered the question they had, then there is no reason to contribute to the conversation. If you want a conversation, ask a question.

    I’m so done on this subject.

    By the way, I tried to leave a lengthy comment on that post and, ironically, it was marked as spam.

    “I completely disagree. I love all comments (save spam) because it tells me they read the article. It reminds me of who they are and who is reading. When 90% of our audience just consumes, you have no idea who is affected. Of course, a longer comment allows for the conversation to continue, but a moderator can also extract more information. “Thanks for the comment, Daniel. I’m glad you read the article. What part of it strikes you most after thinking about it a while?” Remember that introverts need time to process. They may be commenting to be polite. I’d rather have a comment than none at all. “

  • What do I Need to Build My Small Business Website?

    Updated 2/4/2025

    It’s 2025. Your small business definitely needs a website. Yes, your brick-and-mortar shop needs a website. Yes, your online store should be your website. Now that we agree, what happens?

    To build your own small business website, you need to get all of your figurative ducks in a row first. This means branding and content. You need a marketing strategy, content layout, and, oh yeah, branding.

    Even if you hire a company to build your small business website, they will ask you tons of questions. To be a better client and speed up the launch of your site, you should gather the following.

    Developers I recommend:

    Quick Overview

    1. Write your marketing strategy.
    2. Establish and/or confirm logo and color scheme.
    3. Write Copy for Website in Google Docs including 3 blog posts for site launch.
    4. Purchase a Managed Hosting for WordPress Plan.
    5. Choose and install theme, plugins.
    6. Get a Google Analytics UA (Universal Code).
    7. Launch your website.
    8. Set up Google Alerts for your name and/or business name.
    9. Publish once a month on your new blog.

    Marketing Strategy

    Engage with current and potential clients while allowing the website to serve as a primary place for discovery and validation from word of mouth and search-based referrals.

    Establish Branding

    Before you build your small business website, you need to confirm or establish color and font pairings in a digital format. Colors need to be in hex codes and you need the names of the fonts you are using. The fonts should be accessible.

    Also, ensure your logo is digitized at the proper resolution. Ensure there is a square version of your logo for a profile photo on current and future social networks as well as your website.

    At the very least you need:

    • Primary Color Hex Code
    • Secondary Color Hex Code
    • Tertiary Color Hex Code
    • Heading 1 Font
    • Heading 2 Font
    • Paragraph Font

    Some tools that you may like are Google Fonts and Coolors.co.

    You have other things to do as a small business owner. You may want to hire someone. Your time is more valuable than trying to learn design. If you build the site yourself, at the very least I urge you to hire a designer to help with this section. It will be a better use of your marketing budget.

    I recommend the following people that I have worked with and actually seen their work. Seriously, it makes a huge difference.

    Website Content: Words

    Design is nice but people like words. Google likes words (around 300 at least). Siri and Alexa want words. Did I  mention you need words?

    You need to write about your business. Write this content in Google Docs so it’s ready when you start building your site (or hire a developer to do it for you).

    Start with the basic pages that should be in the main navigation:

    • Home
    • About
    • Contact
    • Services
    • Blog

    People get stuck with content for their blog posts. We all have trouble there. But sit down and think about the questions you’re always answering or things you wish your clients knew. I have a free WordPress Plugin to help you.

    Website Content: Photos

    Now, words are awesome. You still need photos. Each blog post should have a photo. Your about page should have photos of you. If it’s a family business, have a photo of you with your family. You need photos of your products. You need photos of your process, your office, things that interest people.

    A post just on photos (like Kinsta did here), is probably warranted but not by me. My basic advice is to rename your image files based on something that makes sense. If, God forbid, you just email a bunch of photos to your web developer, then at least make the subject line of the email make sense. It shouldn’t be IMG8675309.jpg with a blank subject line.

    These days, most of the photos you want for your site are probably on your phone. Work with your web developer and ask her how she wants them sent.

    There is no perfect time: just start.

    Even if you hire a WordPress Developer, you will still need to write content, provide photos, logos, and/or make decisions on branding. So get that done first.

    If you start with the basic page content and it takes you 30 minutes, that is 2 hours and 30 minutes. If you spend 30 minutes each day completing one at a time, you’ll be done by Friday. You can always edit the text later. Or hire an editor like me.

    Just do it.

  • About Page: Hire a Copywriter

    It’s pretty tricky to write an about page. It’s hard to write this yourself. Either we’re too clinical or too coded. It’s even weirder if we have inside jokes in our online bios. Let’s fix that.

    How did I start writing About Page bios?

    It may seem weird that I do copywriting for web pages. But, in social media, you’re constantly copywriting. It’s published as a post or a tweet.

    After seeing so many people tweet about hating to write their own speaker bios, I came up with my secret menu. By the way, it’s always good to experiment with your pricing.

    It was a bit controversial, actually, and there are some tweets about it floating around the Internet, but I kept doing it.

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  • Your Business Marketing Should (Still) Include The X Platform (Twitter)

    Yes, your business marketing strategy should include X (formerly known as Twitter). It’s one piece, albeit a large one, of any successful branding campaign. If I’ve said it once, I’ve tweeted about it ten times.

    I may have even written an article or two. Okay, maybe more than two.

    Twitter is the best platform for B2B marketing. It serves several marketing purposes including brand awareness, public relations, listening, content curation, and relationship building.

    Twitter/ Is Relevant

    Twitter has been around for over ten years; I’ve personally been using it for business to business marketing since 2009. It’s not going away. Don’t allow the pop culture or political atmosphere blind you to Twitter’s relevance in any good marketing plan.

    Yes, X is still super relevant in 2025.

    Google Indexes Tweets/Posts from X

    It’s true that Google indexes tweets. It’s an excellent way to help with brand awareness and even to rebuild your brand.

    “If you want to displace negative content or build a strong brand identity, Twitter can help, says Contributor Chris Silver Smith.” Search Engine Land (2018)

    If you would like to test it out, perform your own search. Do it in private or incognito mode. Google someone’s name or your own if your account is active.

    Though there is quite a bit of fluctuation at how tweets affect SEO in general, I believe it is helpful. Google has increasingly changed their math to favor what is helpful to the person searching. If the results of that math, prove Twitter is a good result, then your tweets will be shown.

    “Study finds that percentage of tweets indexed by Google increases in proportion to the tweeter’s follower count.” Stone Temple (2018)

    Twitter/X Distributes Content

    Whether you are microblogging on Twitter or publishing articles on your website (best practice), you are creating content. Creating content makes you an author, elevates you as an expert, and helps you find and cultivate an audience.

    People use Twitter to read and to discover information. Customers will use it to validate you the same way people use Yelp or TripAdvisor.

    What should be included in a healthy marketing strategy?

    Though this section should be an article on its own, I will say that any healthy business to business marketing plan should include the following — in order of importance:

    • Website
    • Twitter
    • Facebook Page
    • LinkedIn
    • Instagram*

    *if you have the time. Instagram takes more work because of the original content that is required. Also, it’s not designed for a sell, it barely works for soft sales. Though, I will admit I’ve bought consumer goods, for B2B it’s about relationships.

    Time and money is a factor in starting and maintaining these pieces of your marketing puzzle, but you should be investing in your own business. Many suggest 15% of your revenue should go to marketing.

    That said, if you don’t have a website, you can hire one of my friends.

    Need help with Twitter/X?

    I have a YouTube Twitter/X Course — though somewhat dated now that it’s X instead of Twitter.

    I can also train you myself or you can outsource to me. It’s up to you. I strongly recommend taking Twitter seriously for your business.

  • Productive Procrastination: How To Stop It

    Procrastination isn’t always being lazy sitting on the beach. For those of us who work for our own businesses, it can be much more productive.

    I’ve talked about procrastination before. I never saw myself as someone who would procrastinate. After all, growing up I would do my homework during class. I always did my school work before I went out to play. At almost 46 and self-employed, I still practice this.

    In order to help myself stay on track, I even set up a recurring event on Fridays from noon to 2:00 PM to write. This week I slept until 2:00 PM.

    The truth is that being self-employed and single I’ve noticed that anxiety has crept in. It manifests in productivity. But it’s still procrastination.

    What is Productive Procrastination?

    I’ve become productive in my procrastination. Busy being busy. Not doing anything really.

    So, it’s Sunday (two days late) and I’m finally keeping the promise I made to myself and writing this post. (more…)