Online Marketing for Local Business
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Top 10 Plugins For WordPress
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
If you already have a blog, chances are that you are using WordPress as your platform. If you’re not, you should be. There are many reasons as to why WordPress is the most popular blogging platform on the Web today.
In terms of Internet marketing and getting rankings, WordPress offers the most search engine friendly blogging platform in addition to being very user-friendly. The other great thing about it is the number of plugins which you can add to your blog.
If you are not sure what a plugin is, it basically adds new functions to a WordPress blog. A plugin is essentially a program written in the PHP programming language that adds a specific set of features or services to the WordPress blog. All you have to do to add a new feature or service to your blog is find a relevant plugin, upload it to your plugin folder and then “activate” the plugin on the dashboard. It’s that simple.
That being said, there are literally thousands upon thousands of plugins out there (most of them are free) and if you are a newbie, you may get tempted to add as many plugins as you can to your blog. The bottom line is that you only need a couple of them to get your blog going. In order to help you with which plugins to choose, I’ve chosen the top 10 WordPress plugins that you must have.
Editorial Note: Most of the plugins mentioned below can be found by searching the WordPress Plugin Directory. The rest can be easily found by doing a Google search.
1. Akismet
Don’t you just hate people leaving spam comments on your blog? I certainly do, and if you dislike such comments appearing on your blog, the Akismet plugin automatically filters them for you. I don’t have time to deal with spam and I hope you don’t either.
2. All-In-One-SEO Pack
If you are looking for the ultimate plugin to transform your blog into an SEO optimized blog, then this is the one. It’s easy to use and before long you can be ranking for your keywords.
3. MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s for the blog to be banned from ping services. When you update or edit your blog, you automatically send a ping to let them know that your blog has been updated and that the changes need to be indexed. However, you can get banned from ping services if you end up doing this too often. In order to avoid this from happening, you need to use the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer plugin.
4. Remote Database Backup
Whatever you do on the Web, you need to have backups. Backing up data is one of those things that people don’t take seriously until a site failure happens to them. This plugin helps you backup your WordPress blog at any time.
5. SEO Smart Links
This cool plugin allows you to automatically link keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags on your blog. Furthermore, you can set up your keywords along with their own matching URLs. A must have if you want the maximum SEO benefit for your blog.
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6. Sexy Bookmarks
This allows your readers to submit your articles to numerous bookmarking sites on the Web. A must-have in the era of social media. Get your Sexy Bookmarks plugin today.
7. Frame Buster
This plugin will thwart any attempt to load your site in a frame. Optimal for getting images to rank on the search engines.
8. Google Sitemap Generator
If you want Google to index all the pages on your blog as quickly as possible, then you need this plugin. It allows you to create a sitemap with a clíck of your mouse.
9. CommentLuv
This plugin allows your visitors to comment while adding a link to their own blog post. This will encourage them to comment and in combination with the Akismet plugin can get you genuine and informative comments on your blog.
10. WP Backlinks
This plugin allows you to track the links going back to your blog. For SEO purposes, you want as many links back to your website as possible, but at the same time, you want them to come from reputable and legitimate sites. The WP Backlinks plugin gives you the ability to control and verify this.
If you go ahead and add the plugins featured on this blog, you can be ready to start dominating the Web with your blog. Keep in mind that it’s the quality and frequency of content that you add to your blog that will determine its success. My hope is that you have found this article about the top 10 wordpress plugins on the Web very useful.
About The Author – Martin Sejas is a top Internet business consultant in Sydney who helps people achieve their dream of having an online business. For those living in Australian, register for a free consultation at www.marketingadvice.com.au.
Top Myths About Social Media Marketing
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Myth #5: Social Media Is Hard Work
Well, this one isn’t a myth, but it’s worth addressing while we’re at it. Sure, successfully growing and interacting with a community on social networks require dedication and reasonable, but sustained commitment.
If that sounds like a bit of hard work to you, well, it is! But the rewards justify the effort. If you’re allergic to hard work, then you probably shouldn’t be in business anyway. Take some pride and joy in the interactions you have with your community and soon, what may have felt like another item on your to-do list will actually be one of the best parts of your day. And when you start having a demonstrated affect on sales and start capturing purchase intent with social media interaction, then all the hard work will be worth it.
I hope these myths won’t hold you back from engaging in social media interaction any longer. There are customers out there waiting to talk to you, and all you have to do is join the conversation.
So which other social media myths do you think need to be “debunked”? Have you fallen victim to any of those listed? Do you have anything to add when addressing these myths? Leave your comments in the box below.
Article Marketing and Backlink Basics
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Article Marketing is a very effective way to promote your company, brands, and products and services, and one we haven’t talked about in a while. Essentially anything resembling a press release can be sent to many distribution outlets online (our favorite PR Log, which like many other platforms is a free service/website). An interesting article or story could find itself literally anywhere after submission to this website and other similar ones, as your release will be shared with hundreds of outlets, and can be picked up by news services, newspapers, online new aggregators, anyone. After your submission to press release distribution sites, consider posting on one of the popular article directories. Once again, our favorite at Hat Trick Associates is Ezine Articles.
What is the benefit of these distribution services? Well, as noted the hope is that the article or story will be shared all over, and that potential customers or clients will find it online and read it. But there is another benefit. Every time the release is shared online, the backlinks contained within the article that direct back to your website are GREAT for SEO purposes. But there are some rules you should follow when adding these valuable backlinks in your submission, or in the Author’s box that follows the article. Here are some good tips for including links in your releases:
- 2 Self-Serving and 2 Non Self-Serving Links Maximum – A self-serving link is any link that you have a vested interest in promoting. A non self-serving link is a link that you do not have a vested interested in promoting but adds value to the article, such as unbiased facts or data about the topic.
- Less Means More When Including Links – When referring to rule #1, note that it isn’t necessary to include 2 self-serving links in every article. Including links that are unrelated to the topic usually makes the article appear spammy.
- Keep Links Below the Fold – “Below the fold” refers to the way a newspaper is folded across the middle to cut front page stories in half. In this case, links must be kept out of the first 3 paragraphs of text (the area above “the fold”) to keep your readers’ attention. Otherwise the same “spammy” problem just noted comes back into play.
- Try to Limit Self-Serving Links to the Resource Box – Only 1 self-serving link is allowed in the body of most articles submitted to the major distributors. Including more than this will get your article rejected!