The question is: how can do you do this? Well, if you’re utilizing a WordPress website, you can take advantage of a WordPress social media plugin. 

Looking for a good social media plugin WordPress? Then read on. We’re going to review the best social media plugins for WordPress. 

The Best Social Media Plugins for WordPress

The following plugins are equipped with a wide range of performance capabilities. While some are designed to handle specific social media platforms, others are designed to handle a variety of social media platforms. Let’s get into them now! 

1. Easy Social Share Buttons 

Easy Social Share Buttons is one of the biggest and most functional social media plugins on WordPress. Fast and easy to use, it accommodates well over 50 different social media platforms including the usuals such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Allowing for a great deal of customization, it provides you with the ability to reveal your total social media shares on each post. It also supplies top-notch analytic capabilities, allowing you to test the effectiveness of your various social media buttons. 

If you’d like to use Easy Social Share Buttons on your WordPress website, you can buy it for a one-time fee of $20.00. 

2. Social Warfare 

Ask Benji Marketing SEO Online Consultant and they’ll tell you: Social Warfare is a hugely popular and effective plugin. The reason for this? It gets the job done, and it’s easy to operate. 

Available in both free and $29.00 Pro versions, it can provide all of the social media buttons you’ll ever need. While its free version offers buttons for the big social media platforms, its Pro version offers social media buttons for much, much more. 

Equipped with a range of special sharing capabilities, it does everything it can to optimize your shared posts. Possessing top-notch analytics, it lets you need everything you need to know about the functionality and performance of your buttons.  

3. Instagram Feed 

If you’re looking for a good WordPress Instagram plugin, you might consider using Instagram Feed. This plugin is extremely easy to use and allows you to seamlessly share your Instagram feed on your WordPress website. 

Allowing for a good deal of design variation, this plugin allows you to place feeds in one or more places on your website. While there’s a free version that will show your entire feed, there’s also an upgraded version that will show only selected photos from your feed. This version allows you to select photos based on location, hashtags, and likes. 

To use an upgraded version of Instagram Feed on one website, you must pay $39.00. This payment will make you privy to an essentially endless array of features. 

4. Monarch 

Monarch is another terrific social media plugin for websites on WordPress. This plugin has one of the best user interfaces of all social media plugins, making it very easy for even the most novice of website managers to handle. 

Providing social media buttons for a wide range of social media platforms, it allows you to alter the style of buttons, alter the location of buttons, and alter the characteristics of buttons with ease. It also provides excellent analytical capabilities, allowing to keep tabs on the performance of your buttons. 

To purchase Monarch, you need to purchase an Elegant Themes yearly membership. Unfortunately, this costs around $90. However, with your purchase, you will get not only this plugin but also a range of other useful plugins as well as a variety of attractive website themes. 

5. Better Click to Tweet 

Would you like to embed Tweets into your website and make them easily shareable among your visitors? If so, you should consider utilizing the plugin called Better Click to Tweet. 

This plugin allows you to quickly and easily insert tweets into your website. Each tweet inserted will be accompanied by a small button containing the words “click to tweet”. All the user has to do is click this button, and he or she will be able to retweet it in no time. 

The standard version of Better Click to Tweet is available at no charge. However, there are add-ons available for purchase if you so choose. 

6. MashShare 

MashShare allows you to post social media buttons resembling those at Mashable.com. It comes in two versions: a free version and a $19.99 add-on version. The free version allows you to add common social media buttons while the $19.99 version allows you to add more obscure social media buttons. 

The paid version also provides analysis capabilities, allowing you to understand how your various buttons are performing. Not to mention, click to tweet capabilities.

All in all, this is a very good social media plugin. If you’re looking for that Mashable look on your social media buttons, this is the plugin to opt for. 

7. Social Pug 

The last social media plugin that we’re going to cover is Social Pug, a highly effective plugin that covers a range of social networks. The free version covers Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. The paid version starts at $24.00 and covers a variety of other social media platforms. 

It’s advised that you opt for the paid version because it provides everything from button analytics to button customization to link shortening and much more. Possessing a user-friendly interface, it can be used by web managers of all experience levels. 

If you want a social media plugin that is fast, efficient, and which doesn’t slow down your website, Social Pug well serve you well. Simply put, it’s one of the best WordPress social media plugins on the market. 

Need Assistance With Your Social Media Marketing?

And there you have it: the best social media plugins for WordPress. Each of these plugins can be used to simplify the social media optimization process.

In need of further assistance with your social media marketing? If so, SMSEO can help. Our site is loaded with helpful tips on all things social media. 

Check out some of our social media-related articles now! 

If that prospect sounds good to you and you don’t have a website yet (or don’t have a very good website) it’s time to start investing in one.

Building a business website may seem like a challenge to those that aren’t particularly tech-savvy. Fortunately, website building has never been easier given the number of tools (many of which are free) that are available to you online.

Below, our team takes you through the basic step-by-step process that’s required to build a website that will “wow” the online community and will help you to enjoy more sales!

1. Pick a Domain Name

Before people build business websites, they need to know what their website’s web address is going to be. This may be a simple process for some and an extraordinarily painful process for others.

When picking a domain name, you’re going to want to keep things short (below 8 characters preferably) and make sure that your web address is easy to spell.

Furthermore, you’ll want to get a “.com” domain since people are already programmed to type that extension in at the end of web addresses.

There are plenty of places you can register for your domain name. We recommend NameCheap for fair pricing and high quality of service.

2. Decide on a Platform

With your domain name in place, it’s time to decide how you’re going to build your business website.

Business websites are typically built on “platforms” that make the web building process simple. This comes in contrast to a decade or so ago when websites were being built by hand leveraging coding languages.

The vast majority of businesses build their websites on the WordPress platform which is free and relatively simple to use. You might also consider drag and drop platforms like Squarespace or Wix.

3. Pick a Web Host

Many people who are building their first website don’t understand the concept of web hosts. Web hosts are basically an entity that houses your website online.

When people type in your domain name, that domain takes them to your web host who then connects visitors to your website.

There are many web hosts out there and not all of them are created equal. A bad web host can make your website slow and can hurt your Google rankings.

Research web hosts carefully and always try and sign-up with one that offers a money back guarantee.

(Note that website builders like Wix and Squarespace require you to host sites you build on their platforms with them).

4. Outline What You Want to Include on Your Website

Building without a blueprint is a sure fire way to waste time. Before you start building your site, pull out a piece of paper and quickly sketch out how you want it to look.

If you’re not sure what you’re going for quite yet, study your competitor’s sites and see what they’re doing for inspiration.

5. Always Keep Goals in Mind While Building

It can get easy to lose sight of why you’re building a website, while you’re building a website. That’s bad news because business websites that don’t build with goals in mind underperform substantially.

What do you want from the visitors on your website? To contact you? To buy a product?

Figure out what your goals are and what your customer’s goals are likely to be and design your website to make achieving those goals as simple as possible.

6. Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity

Website building platforms like WordPress have a lot of bells and whistles you can enjoy. When you see them all, you might be tempted to incorporate everything into your site.

Don’t.

Remember, you have a goal with your website. By filling it with clutter, you make it that much harder for customers to take the actions you’d like them to take.

7. Include Strong Branding Elements

Given that most people are using the same website builders (generally WordPress) and are leveraging very similar templates, websites have started to look very similar online.

To make sure you stand out, keep your branding strong while building.

Include your logo at the top of your page. Adjust your theme’s accent colors to match your branding’s color palette. Change your site’s default fonts.

Anything you can do to give your business website a little bit of a unique flair can go a long way in making it pop.

8. Consider Getting an Assist

If you’re still overwhelmed by the website building process and are wasting a ton of time working your way through these steps, you have options.

There are a ton of professional development firms out there and freelancers that can offer advice, help you through snags, and can even design your site for you.

Don’t get overwhelmed and know that any questions or help you may need is always just an internet search away.

We’re serious! Check it out!

Wrapping Up How to Create Successful Small Business Websites

The steps above are steps that thousands of business owners before you have taken to create successful small business websites.

We hope that our article has given you the map you need to get your company online so you can start maximizing your success in 2019 and for years to come!

If you’re looking to learn more about everything from social media to website building and beyond, look no further than our killer content at SM SEO!

Plan A Structure In Advance

Not every theme has a structure that’s applicable to the type of content and imagery you want. Before you begin the hunt for themes, start to plan out how you want your site to look. Many WordPress users make the mistake of searching for themes too soon, and then molding their business to fit the theme provided. Truthfully, it should be the other way around: the theme should work around your site. For example, maybe your website will be very content-heavy, and you need a theme that supports this type of design. Or, you’re working on a portfolio that requires large, edge-to-edge images. To avoid trying to fit a square into a round peg, sketch out a rough layout of your ideal theme situation.

There are tools on the market that allow you to create a website blueprint before you begin. Website planning tools like Jumpchart and Slickplan allow to develop simple site plans, organize content, and create design mockups. Once you’ve fully realized the features, functions, and styles that matter to you, you can begin making a list of themes that capture those requirements.

Updates Matter

With so many themes in the marketplace, it’s important to choose one that comes from a developer that’s well-rated and updates their themes consistently. WordPress updates happen fairly often, and WordPress themes need to readjust as necessary to stay compatible with WordPress changes. Check out theme and developer ratings and reviews, and pay special attention to when the theme was last updated. Additionally, check out the Comments section to see what other users are asking about, and how those questions are being addressed by the support team.

Choose A Responsive Theme

With more than half of all search engine queries now coming from mobile devices, if your website isn’t responsive, you’re losing out on a chunk of your audience. Today, responsive themes are industry standard. These themes cater to all types of devices and screen sizes, reformatting your website for the optimal user experience regardless of where your visitor comes from. The majority of themes you’ll find during your hunt are responsive, but every once in a while, you’ll still likely come across a beautifully designed theme that appeals only to desktop users.

Understanding Customization Options

Not all themes are created equally, and how some developers handle customization varies. As the site owner, you likely want to be able to control various aspects of the theme, like text and image placement, menus, and widgets. You should be able to personalize your entire theme without touching code. Many developers allow you to play around with customization options in live demos. Otherwise, a full description of customization options should be available in the description, as well as images of what the back-end looks like when personalizing.

Fit Your Niche & Find Inspiration

Fortunately, there are likely hundreds of themes on the market that fit your industry and niche. And even if none of those work for you, it could also serve as inspiration for what you do expect from your theme. Opening up a salon or barbershop? Here’s a list of themes catered to salons. Starting an online ecommerce store? Here’s a few themes for ecommerce, too. A quick Google search of themes in specific categories will generate a plethora of results for you to choose from.

You can also look for inspiration from others in your industry and niche. Let’s say you’ve started a travel blog. This list of travel blogs that use WordPress themes offers a great start for the travel-minded entrepreneur. Additionally, you can analyze any website you admire to see if they’re running on a WordPress theme. Usually, you can check out the footer of the website to ensure it’s powered by WordPress and if so, who the designer is.

If no footer information is available, you can investigate the page source to find additional information. Simply right click and choose “View page source”, and then use the search function to search for the word “theme.”

What do you want your site to achieve?

Before you hire a designer, you need to know exactly what features your website needs to have. If your site is just basic info about your company, a one or two page site with a brief description, contact details and postal and/or business address will suffice.

If you want clients to be able to interact a little more, or receive regular updates, newsletters etc, consider a website with a subscribe feature. This also gives you a database for marketing, and lets you know what your clients need and expect from you as a company.

If you sell a product, whether physical or digital content, it may be worth looking at an ecommerce website design. A website is a great way to market your company and advertise your products, but not everyone who visits your website will visit your physical store. Being able to buy online is much more convenient, and if the opportunity is there, they may well take it.

Web Design Company, Freelancer or DIY?

Decide who you’re going to hire to design, create and maintain your website. Don’t tie yourself to either one right away, or you may be missing out on some of the best website designs. If you or your IT guy are able to maintain and update your site, go with a freelancer to help you with the design and get everything set up.

If you need someone to maintain and/or host your site, a web design company may be better, as they will be more likely to provide reliable ongoing service and support.

These aren’t your only options though. Programs like WordPress make it relatively easy for anyone with reasonable computer skills to create a website using one of about 3000 templates.

Incorporate Social Media

Social media accounts for your business could be just as valuable as, if not more than, a good website. Be sure to link to your website when you post on social media, and share what you post on your site via social media.

Should Your Website Have a Blog?

Some business models may not be suited to a blog, but for most, a blog can be great for business. Interesting, informative blogs posted on a regular basis will generate a following. That following will keep customers and attract new ones.

Once you’ve settled on a design for your site and found a web designer who works well with your company, set up your site and keep it up to date. Keeping in touch with your clients will keep them happy.

Self-Sufficiency in Technical Information

As the way people consume information evolves, so does the level and style of communication. Users no longer want a hard copy of words on paper. They are seeking self-sufficiency in everything they do, and online user guides and technical manuals are the mainstay for getting the information they are looking for. Young consumers may attempt to figure things out first, but at the point they need to search for a solution, they expect to find it quickly and easily.

Visual Experiences For The Answers

Next-generation audiences are seeking visual experiences for their answers. They can often look at a diagram or drawing and see what they need to do instead of reading through pages of text to find an answer. Whether they are searching for part assembly instructions, software configurations, or operations manuals, a visual is generally easier for them to comprehend. By searching online documentation young minds can expect a visual experience for the solutions to their problems.

Mobile, Easy, and Error Free Research

The ability to search and peruse online documentation, user guides, and technical manuals on any device at any time is crucial to younger generations. Their research experience must be mobile, easy to reach, and error free. They are using mobile devices for every task, and successful user guides will be responsive and viewable on any platform. There is no margin for error in holding the interest of these Generation Y and Millennial (usually born after the 1980s) generations.

The future of instruction manuals and user guides is more powerful than ever, but next generation users will drive the high demand for data that is easy to find and navigate.

I noticed more and more of rich pins on the Pinterest website lately.  What is a rich pin?  Well, it basically provides more information about the website the pin content origination.  For example, it will show helpful information with the pin, like a Favicon (the icon shown in your browser tab for a website), the author, the website name, and even recipe information if your article is recipe based.  It looks really professional when you see the company name and icon next to it and makes the pin more likeable, or errr pinnable?

How to enable Rich Pins on your WordPress website

Pinterest has a developer section where you can test and validate rich pins.  It can get a little confusing and complicated if you’re not a web developer. Even I had problems with it validating until I found out there’s an SEO plugin called by Yoast called the WordPress SEO Plugin.  This only will work for a WordPress website, so only read on if your website is WordPress or you are planning on starting a website using WordPress.

First thing’s first.  Add the plugin via your WordPress control panel or download/upload it.  Activate the plugin.  Now Navigate to SEO > Social.  Now simply enable “add open graph meta data”.  This will add the open graph meta tags necessary for rich pins.  Now add any other settings you wish to add below.  It may be good to add your Facebook page URL.  I added a front page image and description in case someone pinned my website’s homepage.  It’s not necessary to validate your site with Pinterest rich pins, but I did it anyway.

Great, now head on over to Pinterest’s Rich Pin Validator.  Copy and Past a page from your website into the validator and click “validate”.  Now that your page is validated you can click “apply” so they can accept your rich pins.  If something goes wrong they will email you.

Here’s my website validation:

Here is WordPress 3.8

WordPress 3.8 Mobile UI

Adds temporary 503 status and customizable page on your site to automatically join webblackout day – 18th January 2012

On the Tuesday 24th January 2012, the US Senate will vote on the internet censorship bill.

Whilst it is an American law, it has far reaching repercussions for the web as a whole. Sites such as Reddit have said that on January 18th they are going to go dark between 8am and 8pm.

This plugin will let you join the cause. On 18th January your site will display a customizable page.

Search engine rankings will not be affected as the plugin sends a 503 status.

Screenshot of the administration screen

Screenshot of plugin in action.

But after a short period time, there is one thing that you can be doing that will quickly differentiate you from the pack.  And that is, being consistent in your content production.  You see, there are literally millions of new blogs being published to the web each day (not sure of the exact number).  And most of them following the same pattern – they launch, the owner goes through this honeymoon phase with the blog and produced a lot of content in a very short period of time, but then… well… then you know what happens.

I would say that within a month or two, the blog owner exits the honeymoon phase and then reality settles in.  The blog all of a sudden becomes work.  Then the work all of sudden starts to interupt everyday life.  And then before you know it, instead of posting 3 new articles a day, the blog owner is lucky to get one new article a week.  Then it’s one new article per month… and so on.

Running your blog like a business

Scheduling content production

In order for your blog to be successful, as it is with any business venture, the blog has to be treated like a business.  This means, blog posts must be scheduled.  And if not scheduled, then somehow, someway, “x” number of articles per day, per week, whatever, have to be produced.  There is no option in this – after all, your blog is a business.

The layout and design of your blog matters

Every single detail of your blog has to be taken into consideration.  From the colors of the theme, to the exact pixel width or padding of an element.  I’ve spent literally hours before adjusting one element until it was just right.  And then, within a few days I might realize it wasn’t quite right and then I would change it.

The point here is that if your blog is your business, then you need to treat it as such.  Just like a store owner wouldn’t neglect the front facing store front, nor the layout, design, look and feel of the store once you walk in the door, so it is with your blog.

Treating your blog like a business will produce better results

I’m fully convinced that if you are wanting to earn revenue from your blog and turn your blog into your business, then the only that’s going to happen is for you to start thinking of your blog as your business.

It’s a bit strange, I know.  After all, thinking of a blog as a business is a bit of stretch because the barrier to entry for blogs is so menial.  Anyone can start a blog today with literally no money out of pocket.  But that’s also the very thing that works in your favor as someone who wants to make a business out of their blog.

By being consistent with your content production, paying attention to every detail, considering every aspect of the color and design with the intent of making visitors feel more welcome, testing ad placement and revenue streams, and many more that I haven’t even mentioned, are collectively the things you can do to start turning your blog into a business.

And the best place to start is in your mind – deciding today that your blog IS your business.  I promise you… it’s a game changer.

I have to be honest with you here, the concept of preventing your tags and categories from being crawled, indexed, and thus generating PageRank (PR) from Google is ludicrous to me.

Why in the world would any blogger using WordPress want to prevent the crawling and indexing of content pages from their blog.  The more tags and categories that you have indexed, the more exposure you’ll get in Google search results.

Let me give you an example from this blog of the benefit of allowing your categories and tags to be indexed.

Below is an image of the keyword phrase “apple iphone 5”, which drives a fair amount of search traffic to my blog each day.

Notice in this graph that the main pages of my site that are getting the most traffic for the keyword phrase “apple iphone 5” are tags – to be more specific the “iphone-iphone-5” tag and the “apple-iphone-5-images” tag.

In fact, you’ll also notice that the tag “apple-iphone-5” has increased nearly 8500% in impressions and over 13,000% in clicks in Google.

This is something that would have never happened in my blog if I had categories and tags blocked from Google crawlers.

And then there’s the PageRank being delivered from this particular tag. As you can see in the image below, this tag alone carries a PR3 which dramatically helps all of the unique articles within this tag to earn more PR and authority.

Here’s the image of the PR for this tag:

And that’s just an example of one tag within my blog that is driving high levels of traffic.  And this traffic is a result of the PageRank and exposure in Google’s search results.

Then you have categories.

I think this is the easiest part for me to explain because you can verify that all 12 categories along the top of this blog carry at least a PR4.

And the categories themselves, because they are found in Google’s search results, help contribute to the overall traffic coming to my site.

Why this is safe from a content standpoint

The tags and categories within your blog, if you are building them strategically, will have a unique mix of your articles underneath them.  And these articles make up the unique content found within each category and tag.

This mix of articles, which are unique for each category and tag, allows Google to see unique content per category and tag.

Each category and tag is a page within Google just like any one of your individual articles.  This is true because each category and tag has it’s own unique URL.

And Google will see each URL as an individual page that is available to receive PageRank and be ranked for search results for specific keyword phrases.

Again, blocking Google from your categories and tags is something that makes absolutely no sense to me, and in fact, works directly against the whole premise of SEO – and that is, to get exposure in Google search results in order to increase traffic to your blog.

As a follow up to my article yesterday talking about how the SEO benefits of WordPress 3.2 (Gershwin), I wanted to show you something that I found very interesting as a message in my Google Webmaster account for this site.

There was a message, directly from Google Webmaster themselves, where they recognized I was running a WordPress version that was not the latest version, and they wanted to encourage me to upgrade.

Here’s the exact message I got from Google Webmaster:

—————

Messages for socialmediaseo.net 

First of all, I never realized that Google would contact a site owner (me) directly about something like upgrading my WordPress platform.

I mean, who’s ever heard of such a thing?

And then I got to thinking about it, and I think I know why.

As I pointed out yesterday, Google is now factoring site speed in determining search results.

The slower your site, the lower your rankings could be for any given keyword phrase.

And of course, the faster your site, the higher your rankings could be.

So why would Google Webmaster contact me directly to encourage me to upgrade my platform?

To me it seems obvious.

Anyone can see that I’m monetizing my site with Google Adsense – including Google themselves.

It’s also apparent to some (some not so much) that my site is built on WordPress.

In my opinion, Google sees an easy opportunity for me to increase the speed of my WordPress site by simply upgrading to the latest version of WordPress, and thus increasing the overall effectiveness of the SEO of my blog.

And by doing so, it would increase traffic and page views which would then increase ad revenue.

Of course, this would increase ad revenue for me as well, but I doubt (in fact I know…) that wasn’t Google’s intent.

Their intent is to get as many sites as possible to achieve the best rankings as possible – especially those that are running Adsense

So am I way off in this assessment?

Or am I precisely correct?

Did anyone else receive this message?

And with the latest version of WordPress – WordPress 3.2 – this is more true now than it’s ever been.

WordPress 3.2 – the latest release also known as “Gershwin” – hit the scene on Monday and already, according to WordPress, there’s been over 330,000 downloads in the first 24 hours.

Why such a frenzy of downloading and demand for the latest WordPress release?

Because according to WordPress, the goal of WordPress 3.2 was to make WordPress “lighter and faster”.

Here’s how they did it:  “This release included a multitude of under the hood improvements to remove unneeded code, rewrite queries for speed, and in general make WordPress much lighter on its feet.”

Speed Affects Google Ranking & Improves User Experience

For well over a year now, Google has been factoring in the speed of a website into the ranking algorithm.

Want better ranking in Google?  Find a way to make your website faster.

Meaning, when a user clicks on one of your pages in Google, how fast does your site actually load?

You can actually get a sense of your website’s speed, from Google’s perspective, by adding your site to Google Webmaster and then viewing “Labs > Site Performance”.

Here you can see, on a much larger scale, how the loading speed of your site compares to other sites and also get a quick insight into how Google ranks your overall site loading speed.

And with the latest WordPress 3.2 release (a.k.a. “Gershwin”), you have the lightest, fastest WordPress platform right at your fingertips.

Now it’s just a matter of you getting out there and producing great content.

Facebook just introduced their new Facebook Send button that allows you to share content as a Facebook message to select friends or groups on Facebook.

I promised in my article announcing the Facebook Send button that I would figure out how to integrate it into WordPress – and to keep my promise, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

With WordPress, you have always make sure your include your content loop (think that’s what it’s called) as the HREF= reference.  Otherwise, you won’t technically be sharing the web page you thought you were.

Anyway, below is the code to integrate the Facebook Send button into WordPress, or any other web page for that matter:

<div id=”fb-root”></div><script src=”http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=181727651875642&amp;xfbml=1″></script><fb:send href=”<?php the_permalink(); ?>” font=””></fb:send>

I highlighted in the red the key element of this code.  Notice how for the href= reference it’s actually the WordPress PHP code for the content loop.

This is the necessary step required in order to add your Facebook Send button to your individual posts, and have the Send functionality work properly for individual posts.

Let me know if you have questions… thanks!

The new version 3.1.1 addresses, according to the WordPress blog, nearly 30 security issues identified in the WordPress 3.1 update.

Some of the major updates include:

• Some security hardening to media uploads
• Performance improvements
• Fixes for IIS6 support
• Fixes for taxonomy and PATHINFO (/index.php/) permalinks
• Fixes for various query and taxonomy edge cases that caused some plugin compatibility issues

The latest version of WordPress, WP 3.1, has been downloaded over 4.5 million times, according to Mashable.

You can upgrade to WordPress 3.1.1 by automatically updating from your WordPress dashboard, or by download the update from WordPress 3.1.1.

There’s a new WordPress plugin out that can convert your WordPress self hosted blog into a slick, professionally designed iPad app. This comes complete with the iPad app icon for the homescreen, the “please wait while it’s loading…” screen, and then of course your blog itself.

The app / plugin is called Onswipe, and carries the tag that reads Insanely Easy Tablet Publishing.

The app is powered by HMTL-5 and it allows readers to flick, swipe, and tap away at your WordPress powered blog on the iPad.

If you own one of the 18 million blogs on the WordPress platform, your blog is already to go on the iPad – just fire it up and take a look.

But with the plugin, you’ll be able to get all of the extra goodies (taken from the plugin page on WordPress):

Current features:

Accelerometer Aware

Content layout changes according to the way that your reader is holding their iPad®.

Homescreen Icon

Get homescreen real estate! Now your readers can save your blog to their home-screen and have an icon right next to the rest of their apps.

Loading Screen

When readers tap on your icon, they will be presented with a loading screen with an image or graphic of your choosing.

Cover Image

Padpressed grabs the image from your latest article and instantly makes a beautiful magazine-like cover for your publication.

Integrated WordPress Comments

We pull your existing comments and allow your readers to leave their own.

via Gizmodo

I’ve spent the last couple of days tweaking my other blog – TabletCrunch.com – into a blog that serves a dual role as a traditional blog and now also a Facebook app.

You know those Facebook apps, right?  Apps like CityVille, FarmVille, MafiaWars, etc…

Well, Tablet Crunch is now both a blog and a Facebook app.

The HUGE benefit of having an app on Facebook – well, actually there are quite a few benefits – but one of the major benefits is the ability to expand your traffic base and drive new, high quality, and highly social traffic to your blog.

And because this traffic is streaming to your site via the Facebook app, which is your site running within an iFrame on Facebook, you benefit from Facebook’s highly efficient servers.  This means, your site can get huge spikes in traffic via Facebook, and your site will be chugging right along, deliver every page view efficiently to your viewers.

How to make your WordPress blog a Facebook app:

First of all, to transform your blog, or any site for that matter, into a Facebook app, you need to know certain parameters.

The magic number – or the magic parameter that is far more important than all others – is the “760px width” parameter.

Facebook apps can only run at a maximum of 760px wide.

So what I did with TabletCrunch is I basically deleted the current theme I was using, which was basically a custom theme I’ve been hacking at for the past 6 months, and rebuilt the theme from ground to fit the 760px wide parameter.

The entire site is now optimized to run at 760px wide – the sidebars, my Adsense ads, the main content, navigation, header… everything.

Take a look at TabletCrunch here as it looks live on the web – here’s a screenshot for you as well:

Now check out the TabletCrunch Facebook app here (again, a screenshot for you as well):

The customization of your WordPress requires you to do a lot more than just adjust the container width to 760px.

Some other major points of concern and adjust to consider when converting your WordPress blog into a Facebook app are:

• navigation bar width and font adjustments
• Facebook app scroll bar code to remove / optimize the scroll bar
• sidebar adjustments to width and height
• Adsense adjustments to the ad sizes you integrate
• Re-thinking the placement, size, and type of plugins
• Keeping your site “reader friendly” outside of Facebook
• Favicons

Let me stop here to make a point about the favicon and it’s relevance in your Facebook app.

Whatever you use as a favicon (the small 16×16 image that you see in your browser tab and in the address bar for your blog), this will be the same image that is used to identify your app in user’s profiles.

This is a really big deal, and one of the ways that your Facebook app – which is your blog running within the Facebook graph – will get a lot of repeat visitors from Facebook.

The way apps are displayed now in Facebook user’s profiles is on the left hand side of your home screen.  Check it out – login to Facebook > click “Home” in the upper right hand corner > now look along the left hand side of your profile you should see a list of apps.

The apps are typically listed (or ranked) according to your level of use.  Meaning, the you engage a particular app, the higher it will eventually climb in your list of apps.

So basically, the most used apps work their way to the top.

The huge benefit here to having your WordPress blog running simultaneously as a Facebook app is the more people visit your blog on Facebook, the higher that little favicon image, along with your blog’s (or Facebook app) title will rank on user’s profiles.

I know that for me, that apps I use the most are always present to me when I’m on Facebook.

Imagine now if your blog was one of those apps – I’d be returning to it constantly throughout the day, simply because I see it constantly while logged in to Facebook.

With your blog just sitting out there on the web, I’m a lot less likely to remember to go visit it – on Facebook, as it’s own application, it will be presented to me continuously while I’m using Facebook.

I’ll be writing more “step – by step how to’s” shortly on how to make this happen, so stay tuned.

Until then, what do you think about the idea of building / converting WordPress blogs (or even your website, other blogs, etc…) to play an additional role of serving as a Facebook application?

Pretty much any site that is optimized for the proper width and height can be converted into a Facebook application.

Thoughts?

Facebook just released a new analytics tool for website owners called “Insights for Websites“.  This is an amazing tool for website owners to gain insightful traffic data and pattens into their site as it pertains to social media sharing and effectiveness.

With “Insights for Websites”, website owners can now do indepth analysis to see what pages within their sites are most popular within the Facebook graph.

As a manager of a WordPress site, I was of course instantly wanting to add my WordPress blog to the “Insights for Websites” dashboard.

When I first started, I was getting my butt kicked for about an hour or so because every time I tried to set my site, I would get an that read “bad request no data found”.

The trick here was that I needed to add a piece of code somewhere between the <head> and </head> tags.  But as you know, with a WordPress blog this isn’t as easy as one might think because of all the hooks and loops within the WordPress php code.

But I did finally figure it out, and here’s how I did it…

Here’s how to add your WordPress blog to the new Facebook “Insights for Websites” analytics tool:

1) Go to

2) In the upper right hand corner, click the green button that reads “Insights for your Website”

3) Enter the domain name into the “Domain Name” field.

Under the “Like With” drop down menu, you can select to link this to either your Facebook profile, a Facebook Fan Page, or a Facebook app – your choice.

If you select to link your website insights to a Facebook Fan Page or a Facebook App, then any other admins of those apps will be able to see your insights on your websites.

Once you select either your profile, page, or app to link your “insights for websites” to, you’ll see the corresponding “meta tag” underneath.  You’ll need this in a couple of minutes, so leave this tab open in your browser.

4) Now open up a new tab and go to your WordPress blog > login > and go to the “Plugins” tab on your dashboard.

5) Once you have the Plugins tab open on your WordPress dashboard, click “Add New”

6) In the search box, type in “Add Meta Tags” (without quotes).  Go ahead and install this plugin and activate it – its’ the plugin that has a 4-star rating.

7) Once you’ve activated the plugin, scroll down on the left hand side of your dashboard under “Settings” and find the plugin called “Meta Tags” > go ahead and click the “Meta Tags” plugin to open the settings dashboard.

8) Once your “meta tags” plugin loads, find the section that says:

Provide the full XHTML code of META tags you would like to be included in all of your blog pages.

In this section is where you’ll put the meta data line of code from your Insights for Websites page.

Just paste the code into that text box and hit “save”.

9) Now come back to your Facebook insights page where you have the pop up showing and hit “Get Insights”

This will then confirm your domain in the “Insights for Websites” dashboard and you’ll be able to very soon see massive amounts of Facebook insight data on your website.

Since yesterday, bloggers have buzzing about Facebook’s new commenting plugin that will, in my humble opinion, redefine the way comments flow throughout the web.

One defining comment from Facebook in their write up was this:

The upgraded Comments Box is easy for sites to implement and requires just one line of code:

I would say this is true with one huge exception – WordPress blogs.

If you want to integrate your comments plugin into a WordPress blog, AND take advantage of all of the features that the new Facebook commenting system offers, then you’ll have to do a bit more than add just one line of code to a page.

How to implement Facebook comments plugin into WordPress

First, let me tell you all of the benefits you’ll get if you implement the comment’s plugin properly into your WordPress blog:

1. Massive exposure and traffic to your articles – this will happen when someone leaves a comment and the title of your blog article is actually a link in the comment that people can click – click = more traffic to your blog, especially considering the fact that each time someone comments via Facebook, that comment syndicates out to all of the their friend’s walls.
2. Monitoring, aggregating all of the comments in one “administrator’s dashboard”.  If implemented properly on WordPress, you’ll be able to see every comment made throughout your entire blog, all in one location. This will help you ensure that you never miss an opportunity to engage and continue a conversation on any of your articles.  This happens on the Comment Moderation Tool.

There are more benefits to be sure, but these two are biggies for someone wanting to integrate Facebook comments into their WordPress blog.

So after hours of tweaking and testing, and trying to get all functions to work properly, I figured out one method that is working beautifully – I’m able to monitor all comments throughout my blog, comment as my Facebook page, and make sure I never miss an opportunity to engage with a Facebook commentor, which helps keep the conversation moving and getting more people involved.

A)  Install the Facebook Comments for WordPress plugin

Simply go to your “plugins” section in the dashboard of your WordPress blog and search for “Facebook Comments for WordPress”.

B) Setup the Facebook Comments plugin

After you install and activate that plugin, you’ll have to setup a new Facebook plugin so that you can enter the “application ID” and the “application secret”.

If you haven’t already, quickly setup your app here

Then make sure the first four settings are checked.  This will ensure that the proper code for the Facebook comments plugin is properly installed through your WordPress database.

Finally, ensure that all of the “Application Settings” are unchecked. There’s three application settings, and you want to ensure that all three are unchecked.

You do not want to use this plugin to display the Facebook comment’s box. This plugin has not been updated yet to present the latest commenting plugin. We only want to use this plugin for the first four settings, which sets up your WordPress blog to work with the new Facebook comment’s plugin.

C)  Embed the Facebook plugin into your single.php

Now you want to get the code for the new Facebook comment’s plugin and embed it into your single.php file in your WordPress blog.

Get the code for your Facebook comment’s plugin here.

Leave the “example.com” URL (or whatever is showing) in the “URL to comment” field for now.

Change the number of comments to something like “10” or more.  Remember, you want people to see a lot of comments and discussion happening on your articles – I’m using “10” on my blog.

Leave width at “500” unless your blog requires a shorter width px.

Now click “Get Code” and paste the entire piece of code in your single.php file.

Or just copy and paste the code below:

<div id=”fb-root”></div><script src=”http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=149712681755876&amp;xfbml=1″></script><fb:comments href=”example.com” num_posts=”3″ width=”500″></fb:comments>

D)  Customize your code to work properly in WordPress

#1 – you need to replace the appId number above with the appId you got when you setup your Facebook application.

If you don’t have an appId yet > click here to get one – then go back to “Step B” can complete setting up the plugin.

#2 – you need to replace the “href=” field with your WordPress URL php code which is this:

<?php the_permalink(); ?>

So the complete piece of code that you embed into your “single.php” file looks like this (replace the “x” with your own app ID):

<div id=”fb-root”></div><script src=”http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&amp;xfbml=1″></script><fb:comments href=”<?php the_permalink(); ?>” num_posts=”10″ width=”500″></fb:comments>

The <?php the_permalink(); ?> element is the piece of code that tells the Facebook comment’s plugin what URL and TITLE to display in the comments that get distributed throughout Facebook.

And that’s it.

Make sure you visit your Comments Moderation Tool to track the comments that are being made throughout all of your articles on your WordPress blog.

And of course, post your questions in the comments below if you need help!

WordPress just released update version 3.0.4 which they are calling a critical security update for all previous versions.

This WordPress update is the 3rd of its kind in the month of December. WordPress 3.0.2, 3.0.3, and now 3.0.4 have all been released this month. And all three of these updates have been called critical security updates for all previous WordPress versions.

How to Update to Version 3.0.4

Updating your WordPress to the latest version is as easy as clicking “Update Automatically” in your WordPress dashboard.

Simply login to your WordPress blog and find the update info at the top of your dashboard.

Here’s the summary from the maintenance release:

• Fix moderate security issue where a malicious Author-level user could gain further access to the site. (r16625)

Other bugs and security hardening:

• Remove pingback/trackback blogroll whitelisting feature as it can easily be abused. (#13887)
• Fix canonical redirection for permalinks containing %category% with nested categories and paging. (#x13471)
• Fix occasional irrelevant error messages on plugin activation. (#15062)
• Minor XSS fixes in request_filesystem_credentials() and when deleting a plugin. (r16367, r16373)
• Clarify the license in the readme (r15534)
• Multisite: Fix the delete_user meta capability (r15562)
• Multisite: Force current_user_can_for_blog() to run map_meta_cap() even for super admins (#15122)
• Multisite: Fix ms-files.php content type headers when requesting a URL with a query string (#14450)
• Multisite: Fix the usage of the SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL constant for upgraded WordPress MU installs (#14536)

via WordPress.org

As a WordPress fan who would never consider switching to Blogger, I must say that I was a bit shocked at the news that Google’s Blogger has been voted the most reliable blogging platform.

This is according to a study conducted by Royal Pingdom that found Blogger was the only service that achieved zero downtime overall.

Here’s a quote from the study conducted by Royal Pingdom:

“Since Blogger was the only service with zero downtime overall, we skipped the chart here. We hope you don’t mind. It simply wouldn’t have been very interesting.”

Ironically enough, the blogging platform with the most downtime is none other than Tumblr.

This report is great for Blogger, and not so great for Tumblr.

Here’s the complete ranking:

1. Blogger
2. WordPress.com
3. Typepad
4. Posterous
5. Tumblr

Thoughts?

WordPress 3.0.2 is available is now available and WP is calling this a mandatory security update for all previous versions.

The 3.0.2 maintenance release specifically addresses an Author-level security loophole that was allowing Author-level users to gain access to higher level site features… NOT GOOD!

3.0.2 addresses some other features as well but it’s pretty much all centered around database security.

Update WordPress Automatically:

You can update your Worpdress blog to 3.0.2 automatically.

Next time you login to your dashboard, you should see a message at the top of your dashboard announcing the update – just click the “Update automatically” button and follow the steps from there.

Here’s the summary from the maintenance release:

• Fix moderate security issue where a malicious Author-level user could gain further access to the site. (r16625)

Other bugs and security hardening:

• Remove pingback/trackback blogroll whitelisting feature as it can easily be abused. (#13887)
• Fix canonical redirection for permalinks containing %category% with nested categories and paging. (#x13471)
• Fix occasional irrelevant error messages on plugin activation. (#15062)
• Minor XSS fixes in request_filesystem_credentials() and when deleting a plugin. (r16367, r16373)
• Clarify the license in the readme (r15534)
• Multisite: Fix the delete_user meta capability (r15562)
• Multisite: Force current_user_can_for_blog() to run map_meta_cap() even for super admins (#15122)
• Multisite: Fix ms-files.php content type headers when requesting a URL with a query string (#14450)
• Multisite: Fix the usage of the SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL constant for upgraded WordPress MU installs (#14536)

via WordPress.org

The Notion Ink Adam Tablet has been generating a lot of buzz since around the beginning of the year. On Thursday, Notion Ink founder Rohan Shravan wrote a blog post that talked about everything from the Adam Tablet release date, to pricing.

One of the main points I took away from his post was this:

The product will shoot for FCC certifications in the second week of November. And then it depends on them. Add few more logistics issues to that and it can swing either way. (Don’t get surprised it we hit for certification in October, cos there is some tight buffer, though that will be extremely good news).

This sounds like we could see the Notion Ink Adam Tablet here by Christmas, which I’m sure is what would be preferred by Notion Ink.

The Adam Tablet sports a 10 inch touch screen and will run the Android OS, Chromium OS, and Ubuntu OS.

Below is video from Gizmodo on the Notion Ink Adam Tablet:

For those of you who may not have heard of  Skyfire, is a company that makes a mobile web browser under the same name for Android, Windows Mobile & Symbian/Nokia.

The Skyfire mobile web browser uses cloud computing for mobile devices in order to process video & rich media websites. The company has just announced today Skyfire 2.0 beta for Android with quite a few new features one of them being support for Flash web video content.

Another new feature of the web browser is called “SkyBar” which has three icons Video, Explore & Sharing. The video icon allows users to view Flash videos from the web that normally wouldn’t play on other mobile web browsers. The Explore icon, which shows the most recent content, viewed.  The Sharing icon allows the user to share articles & video through Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail, and SMS & WordPress. Skyfire 2.0 also supports pinch-to-zoom on Android 2.0 devices. Skyfire 2.0 also features multi-tab browsing which allows the user to open up to eight windows and simultaneously browser the web.

In my experience using Skyfire 2.0 beta it seems to run very well on the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1.  Web Pages seems to render fairly quickly and the browser doesn’t seem to drain the battery as quickly as the stock web browser for Android. So if you own an Android handset I would recommend Skyfire 2.0 over the Android web browser.

Source: Skyfire

Josh Uhlemeyer

Former Author of Mobile News Now.

Why Your Business Needs A Blog

Take a look at the chart below and you should immediately see the value of search traffic that comes from Google.  Another way to say it is that organic search traffic from Google is more valuable than any other referral source on the web.  And it’s because of the high quality traffic that Google sends to websites that you and your business need a blog!

Blogging For Search Traffic

The site you are on right now is a blog (in case you didn’t know…)!  And this site (my blog) gets over 80% of the daily unique visitors from Google.  The traffic is coming directly from Google search results when someone searches a keyword phrase relevant to one of the 1100 plus articles that make up this blog.

And the people coming to the blog are happy about what they’re getting because, by nature of Google referring traffic, people are typically finding what they’ve searched for.  This is because Google is such a high quality search engine that it works hard to ensure the highest quality pages are at the top of any given search querry.

Your Business Needs A Blog

In my opinion, your business cannot afford to not have a blog. People these days turn to Google to quickly search for the things that can satisfy their wants and needs – no matter what it is.

So this means the majority of your customers – regardless of what your business is – are first searching in Google for your type of business, product, or service.

Your future customers are searching in Google first!

Did you hear that?  The majority of your future customers are simply sitting down at a computer, laptop, or their iPhone, pulling up Google and then doing a search for what you offer.

And as you can see from the chart above, the customers coming from Google are high quality, and high paying.

Searches Represent Intent

But most important is the fact that search, in and of itself, represents “intent”.

Let me say that again:  Search represents intent!

Think about this – when someone searches for something, they had to gather some thoughts about a particular thing, get interested enough to inquire about it, and then gather up the time and energy to sit down at a computer and search for it.

Why would anyone go to that degree of trouble if they weren’t sincerely, and of their own accord, interested in what they were searching for?

They wouldn’t…

But Google represents your customers, and future clients, that are in a disposition of “inquiring” about you or your business.

And it’s because of this, that you (your business) cannot afford to not have a blog!

How a Blog Helps your Business

Having a blog for your business, product, or service will allow you to directly impact your ability to reach new customers who are searching for you in Google (and all search engines for that matter).

By you generating content about your business, products, and services, you are creating content that will be crawled, indexed, and found in Google search results.

And the more you write, the more authority your blog will build in Google.  The more authority your blog has in Google, the more favor all of your articles will have in Google’s search results.  And the more favor your articles have, the faster they will be found by being ranked higher in Google’s search results.

Keep writing more content, build more authority, and attract more visitors from Google search.

And remember – from the chart above – that Google search traffic represents the highest quality, and most profitable traffic on the web.

So what are you waiting for?  Get started with a blog for your business today!

Google Adsense – How To Make Money

As someone who generates revenue exclusively from Google Adsense, I’m going to share some of my thoughts and observations that I’ve discovered.  These tips and tricks aren’t really “tricks” in the sense that I’m cheating, or somehow out thinking Google.  It’s more like techniques I’ve discovered through testing, re-testing, and patience!

Understanding Advertisers in Google Adwords

When it comes to Google Adsense, you have to understand that how much you make is a derivative of how much the advertisers are paying who’s ads appear on your site.

So logic would tell you that if you want to maximize your chances of making the most money per click, then you need to find a way to get the highest paying advertisers to show their ads on your site.

And this is not something you can do by talking to someone, or asking advertisers to place their ads on your site.  This is a process where Google analyzes the keyword phrases and content of your page, and then according what the Google crawlers find, they will automatically place ads from Google Adwords advertisers.

You have to understand that Google Adsense is all a big matching game.  Your site has the keywords and the content – Google has the ad inventory via Google Adwords – so now its simply a process of Google matching the two.

It’s not rocket science by any means – it’s simply a matter of understand that certain ads will migrate toward matching content.

Attracting the highest paying Google Adsense ads

In order for your site to attract the highest paying ads, and thus generate the highest possible revenue from Google Adsense, you should follow some simple principles in generating content.

1)  Using Profitable Keywords in your Title

When it comes to the hierarchy of a web page, the most valuable element is the <H1> tag – otherwise known as the page title.

For those of you who use WordPress, it’s the title of your article.

So using profitable, targeted keywords in your title is one of the best ways that you can directly influence the type of ads that appear on your site.

Then, throughout the content of your site using subtitles, and making those subtitles bold, helps to target your page even further and attract ads that match the phrases in your subtitles.

Concluding Part 1 – Making Money with Google Adsense

That’s all I have time for at the moment.

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Add Facebook Fan Box To WordPress

A Facebook Fan Box is a great way to build fans to your Facebook Fan Page directly from your WordPress blog.  Having a Facebook Fan Box on your WordPress blog allows for “one click” fan conversions, without people ever having to visit Facebook.

Here’s how to add a Facebook Fan Box to WordPress

First, you need to locate your Facebook Fan Box application:

1. Click “edit page” which is located directly under your picture (your Facebook Fan Page picture)
2. Look on the right hand side of your dashboard page and find “Promote Your Page” – you may need to scroll down a bit to see it
3. Under “Promote Your Page” you’ll see the “Promote With A Fan Box” link

Once you’ve clicked “Promote with a Fan Box”, you’ll be taken to the admin dashboard for your Facebook Fan Box.

Notice the options that you have:

1) Chose your Fan Page (if you admin more than one page, the drop down will show the pages to chose from) – also, notice that you can select to include “stream” and “fans”.  Go ahead and click those on and off and notice the change in the fan box on the right.  Basically, you are deciding what content to include in your Fan Box.

2) Next, in section #2, you have the pre formatted options to embed into Blogger or Typepad.  For WordPress users, I recommend you chose “other”.

I recommend iFrame for WordPress Blogs

Once you’ve selected “other”, you will see directly underneath the box of code a link called “Visit our wiki for advanced options »”

You need to click that link to get to the section that will give you the iFrame code for adding your Facebook Fan Box to your WordPress blog.

The reason I recommend you use the iFrame code is because of experience.

I have found that the standard embed code for Facebook Fan Boxes are not always compatible to all browsers when embedded into a WordPress blog.

For example, in Firefox, if you’re using the standard embed code for your Facebook Fan Box in a text widget, then the Fan Box will not always appear to your visitors.  They will be presented with an empty white box.

So go ahead and click the link called “Visit our wiki for advanced options”.

Now scroll down to the section called:

Using an IFrame instead of JavaScript

In that section, you’ll see the iFrame code with the yellow background.

Go ahead and copy that entire block of code.

Adding The Code To Your WordPress Blog

Now that you’ve copied the code, it’s time to add it to your WordPress blog.

Go to the dashboard of your WordPress blog and we are going to add the code into a text widget for your sidebar.  So add a text widget to your sidebar – or to wherever you are wanting to place the Facebook Fan Box.

Go ahead and paste the iframe code into that text box and click “Save”

Finalizing Your iFrame code for your Facebook Fan Box

Finally, in order to get your Facebook Fan Box working correctly, we need to make a couple of tweeks.

1) You need to add your Facebook Fan Page ID to your iFrame code.

Look at the iFrame code you’ve placed in your text widget and find the part that says:

id=YOUR_PAGE_ID

You’ll replaced the “YOUR_PAGE_ID” with your actual Facebook Fan Page ID.

Find your Facebook Fan Page ID simply by visiting your Facebook Fan Page and then clicking on the profile pic you’re using for your Facebook Fan Page > then look up at the URL in the address bar – you’ll see at the very end of that URL your page ID – just copy the number portion of that ID and paste it into the iFrame code replacing YOUR_PAGE_ID.

2)  Connections & Streams

Right after your page id part of the iframe code, you’ll see the connection and streams attributes:

connections=10&stream=1

The settings are by default set to 10 (connections) and 1 (stream).

This means your Facebook Fan Box will show 10 fans and the stream will be active (1 = active).

You can tweek this if you like – for example here at Social Media SEO, I DO NOT have my stream active – I only want my Fan Box to show 10 of my fans.

To turn off the stream, change the “1” to a “0” (0=inactive, or not showing).

You can also tweek the height and width to be more customized to your WordPress blog.

3)  The URL Link at the bottom

Finally, there’s the portion of the iFrame code that looks like this:

<div style=”font-size:8px; padding-left:10px”><a href=”URL_TO_YOUR_PAGE”>PAGE_NAME</a> on Facebook</div>

I actually just recommend deleting that all together because if you don’t, you’ll have a text link underneath your Facebook Fan Box.

Of course the link will direct people to your Facebook Fan Page, but you’ve already got a Fan Box on your blog now, so why clutter things up?

And that’s it…

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below!

Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages

I have to give a serious shout out to the geeks over at WebDigi for put this amazing app together. I wrote yesterday about the Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Page tweek that WebDigi created and I set everything up yesterday.

Stats from my Facebook Fan Page are flowing into Google Analytics and it’s amazing, to say the least!

I’m able to see all the traditionally valuable data that Analytics provides for a website, but now it’s for my Facebook Fan Page:

* referral sources: this is even showing me keywords that people are using in Google to find my Facebook Fan Page.

* cities, states, countries: I can now see exactly where people are from that are hitting my Facebook Fan Page

* content: I have Analytics installed on my “Join” tab and on my “Wall”

* Now that I have Analytics installed to track visitors to my “Join” tab – which is set to be the default landing tab for new visitors and also has a powerful call to action to encourage people to become a fan – I can now start calculating fan conversion rates on my Facebook Fan Page – meaning, I can see how many unique times my “Join” tab was viewed and then track any many new fans my page received today – divide views by fans and now I have an official “fan conversion rate”.

Plus, the Google Analytics for my Facebook Fan Page is now a powerful compliment to the already valuable “Facebook Insights” that are already provided to you by Facebook.

Wow – again… serious “thank you” to the WebDigi guys!

Self Hosted WordPress Blogs:

For those of you with self hosted WordPress blogs who want to host this application on your own servers – follow these steps:

For self hosted WordPress blogs, you can add this tool to your own server by doing the following:

1) Download and unzip the self hosted server file provided by WebDigi
2) Unzip the file once you’ve downloaded it
3) Upload the entire folder to “public_html” directory for your WordPress blog
4) You should now be able to find the tool at yourblogname.com/fbga-version1.1

Get Mortgage Leads With A Facebook Fan Page

I’m really starting to buy into the concept that Facebook Fan Pages are the most effective tool at generating leads.  And I want to quickly give an example of how a Facebook Fan Page can be used to generate leads for a mortgage company.

This is all hypothetical of course, since I don’t own a mortgage company, nor am I generating leads for a mortgage company.  But my point here is to show how I would do it if I had to, or if I owned a mortgage company.

What’s Most Important To A Mortgage Customer

I would start by asking myself the question, “what’s most important to a mortgage customer?”  Regardless of whether someone is a new homebuyer or looking to refinance their existing mortgage, more than likely everyone is initially concerned with interest rates.

Interest rates might very well be the most important factor for mortgage customer.  And then from there, customers will be interested in things like monthly payments, different mortgage product options, etc…

My Facebook Fan Page For Mortgage Leads

Now that I’ve answered the question, “what’s most important to mortgage customers?”  I’m ready to put my Facebook Fan Page into action to start generating leads.

For existing mortgage websites:

If my mortgage company already an existing website, then this is super easy to achieve.

I would simply take my Facebook Fan Page box and embed it directly into my website.  The fan box would be positioned so that it’s seen on every page within my site, and also positioned so that people’s attention are drawn to it to quickly become a fan of my mortgage Facebook Fan Page.

If I don’t yet have a website:

If my mortgage company is new and I’m just starting out, then I would actually build a website upon the WordPress blogging platform.  This way I can have a powerful blog integrated into my mortgage website.

The blog would be utilized to generate a lot of high quality mortgage related content.  And in the sidebar, or at the top of the blog, would be my Facebook Fan Page fan box.

Again, this would allow people to quickly and easily become a fan of my Facebook Fan Page.

Generating Mortgage Leads via your Facebook Fan Page

The old method of generating leads from a website is by placing a form somewhere that captures names, emails, phone numbers, etc…

And then when someone filled out the form and submitted their information, the mortgage company would have someone new to follow up with.

The problem with email subscription forms is they have very low conversion rates – meaning, very few people fill out the form compared to the number of people that visit your website.

With Facebook Fan Page fan box on your mortgage website or mortgage related blog, people don’t have to fill out any forms nor have to go back to their email inbox to verify they’ve subscribed to receive your information.

A Facebook fan box allows people to become a fan of your Facebook Fan Page with one click – that’s it.

The simplicity of getting new fans to your Facebook Fan Page allows you to spend more of your time focusing on communicating with your new mortgage leads, instead of having to manage complex email form submissions.

Plus, with people only having to click a button once (the “Become A Fan” buttong) – your mortgage website will dramatically increase fan conversions (lead conversions).

Following Up With Leads on your Mortgage Facebook Fan Page

As the fans increase on your mortgage related Facebook Fan Page, you now simply need to provide high quality information – the type of information that is most important to your potential mortgage customers.

That’s why the first thing I did is ask and answer the question – what is most important to potential mortgage customers?

Sending out valuable mortgage information on a regular basis will allow your Facebook Fan Page fans to see your specific mortgage company more often than your competitors.  Plus, with high quality mortgage information that you are sending out for free, you’ll build a strong reputation with your fans and increase your chances of mortgage customer conversions.

So if I had a mortgage company, or I was in charge of generating leads for a mortgage company, that is how I would leverage the power of a Facebook Fan Page!

WordPress

I know this sucked for you guys as much as it did for us — the entire team was on pins and needles trying to get your blogs back as soon as possible. I hope it will be much longer than four years before we face a problem like this again.

One day, this real estate agent was driving around town and made a most preculear observation.

She noticed that everyone who was walking on the streets had their cell phones, iPhones, and Blackberry’s out as they were walking down the street.  Some people were talking on them, yet others appeared to be reading things.

Then, once she became curious with this observation, she decided to explore this curious behavior a bit further.  So she started visiting local coffee shops and restaurants  and noticed that a lot of people were on their laptops and also on their mobile phones.

This behavior really started to catch her attention.  This young real estate agent was slowly coming to the realization that everybody, young and old, is engaged and connect on the web.  Regardless of what age they are, and whether or not they are inside sitting down or outside walking around.  She sees the same behavior over and over again.

Finally, she came to one final conclusion: everyone is on the Internet!

And she realized that not only is everyone on the Internet, but the Internet is so accessible to people that it doesn’t matter where you are, you can be connected.  As she sat and pondered this new phenomena, she started asking herself, “how can I leverage the Internet to achieve my goal of becoming the #1 real estate agent in my town?”

It was a question that would not leave her – day and night she pondered this question.  She wrestled with the thoughts, ideas, and concepts that were racing through her mind.  But nothing really seemed to click – she couldn’t quite figure out how to leverage the Internet to help her achieve her goal of becoming the preferred real estate agent in town.

Then one day, while she was sitting in a coffee shop browsing the web on her laptop, she read a most interesting article.  The article talked about how the Internet was literally destroying the newspaper industry.  She read about how people are no longer buying printed newspapers, and instead are turning to the web to get their news and information.

This made sense to the young real estate agent.  She figured, why not?  If you can get your news and information online for free, and also get the most up to date information instantly, then why would anyone want to pay for a newspaper that is covering news that has already been reported on the web?

And the answer became obvious to her.  The reason why the newspaper industry was dying is because people are no longer buying newspapers, and instead they are getting all of their news and information on the web.

And then it her like a ton of bricks!  The young real estate agent had an idea as to how she can become the most preferred real estate agent in town.

The concept was so simple to her that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought about it before.  And it made so much sense to her that she just couldn’t help but explore the concept further and take action on her idea to see how it worked out.

So what was the idea that this real estate had?  What was it she was about to do that was seemingly going to propel her to the top of the food chain amongst all of the real estate agents in town?

She decided to start a blog that covered local news and information!

That’s right, she started a blog where all she wrote about was local news, events, and issues that were important to the people who lived in her city.

Everyday, this real estate agent took an hour or two and wrote several articles about things such as the local high school football team, trends in new shopping plaza’s that were being developed, and how certain parts of town are growing, and how some are dying.

Being a real estate agent gave her insights into all of the local trends, income levels, school districts, and everything else that was important to the citizens.  There was never enough time to write about all of the issues and “breaking news” that was happening around town.  Which was fine with the real estate agent because she knew that each time she sat down to write a new article, there would always be something to talk about.

This seems odd doesn’t it, that a real estate agent who wants to rise to the top in her industry would chose to start a blog and cover local news and events, instead of writing about what’s happening in the world of real estate?

At first glance, yes, it does seem strange indeed.  But the real estate agent came to the following conclusions:

1. Real estate is all about the local market, and being a successful real estate agent meant she had to have a strong brand name locally.
2. The masses in her city did not spend their days reading about the real estate market, housing trends, new home sale’s data, the economics of real estate financing.  Instead, they were more likely to read about local news and information, opinions, and events that were happening around town.
3. There really wasn’t any other online news and information site that covered things happening in her city, with the exception of the local newspaper’s online site.  This was fine with her because she figured that even though the local newspaper had an online presence, there were a lot of things not covered in their news website that she could capitalize on.
4. And finally, she concluded that if she could build a popular online local news and information site, and because she actually owned the site, then she could be the sole advertiser on the site.  This would mean exclusive advertising of her real estate business to every single person that visited her website.

And the most amazing thing happened!  Her news and information blog grew exponentially.  People from the local area were visiting her blog more ofter.  Her RSS feed subscribers grew.  More people were syndicating her content through Twitter and Facebook.  And best of all, her unique visitors per day were growing by leaps and bounds.

This sounds like a great success story for any website.

But the purpose here for the local real estate agent wasn’t just to have thriving website.  A thriving website was ultimately just a tool for her.  She needed a marketing platform that was all her own.  One where she didn’t have to pay for advertising exposure.  And one where her presence – her real estate business – wasn’t competing with all the other real estate agents in her city.

What she built was her very own marketing platform.  A platform that was all hers, and one that she controlled regarding advertising her real estate business.

As the traffic grew to her site, the locals started to associate high quality news and information with her site.  This started the process of branding.  Which also meant that more people from the local area would be talking about the site, visiting the site, and sharing information that was written on the site.

And ultimately, the real estate agent achieved her goal of becoming the most preferred real estate agent in her city.  She achieved what she sought so eagerly to achieve.  And it was all due to her generating content on her own blog!

Content Is King

The point of this story is that when it comes to the web, content is king! That’s the way it’s been since the beginning in 1998 when the Google guys started crawling and indexing websites, and started bringing order to the web.  And that’s exactly how it is still today!

Someone who is obscure, or unknown, can rise to stardom simply through the use of effective content.  Despite the fact that there may be better qualified individuals out there about a certain subject, someone who is unknown can come along, start a blog, and quickly become the “go to person” for that particular subject.

It’s the power of the web, and the web’s hierarchy is based on content!

Write great content, and write a lot of it, and eventually your hard work is going to meet opportunity.  And you can quickly find yourself at the head of your industry, with opportunities that more qualified individuals should have gotten, but didn’t because there is no content associated with them.

How does this all tie into WordPress?

It’s simple – WordPress is a powerful blogging platform that takes care of 90% of your SEO work for you.

But ultimately, it doesn’t what type of blogging platform you are working from.  If you don’t do the hard work of producing great content, and producing it on a regular basis, you are going to hard pressed to achieve your goals.

Content is king!

Always has been, and more than likely always will be…