WordPress for Business: 5 Essential Plugins for Your WordPress Site

by Adam Kreitman

A plugin is a piece of software that can extend the out of the box functionality of WordPress to do just about anything you could want a website to do. Among the things plugins can do include beefing up the search engine optimization power of your site, cutting down on spam, giving site security a boost, adding social media capabilities to your site and more.

With over 9000 plugins to choose from on WordPress.org, there’s no shortage of choices out there. The question becomes which are the essential plugins you need for your business’ WordPress site. As a shortcut to get you started, here are 5 plugins I install on pretty much every WordPress site I set up.

1. Google XML Sitemaps

A sitemap is a document which has information about all the pages on a website and how they all link together. Sitemaps are important for search engine optimization purposes because they help Google and the other search engines index your site better. This plugin takes all the work out of creating a sitemap. It automatically creates one every time you update your site with new content and then will notify the major search engines that there’s new content for them to index.

2. All In One SEO Pack

With pretty much any business website, you’re going to want it to rank as highly as possible in the search engines so your prospects will find your site before your competitors. The plugin will take care of a lot of the optimization required for your website right out of the box. Simply install the All In One SEO Pack and it automatically starts working to make the search engines love your website. For those of you who may be more advanced in the ways of SEO, you can make changes and tweak settings in the plugin to suit your purposes. (There are some themes, like the Thesis Theme for WordPress, that have SEO functionality already built in which makes this plugin redundant).

3. Contact Form 7

Many business sites will have a form so visitors can submit questions, comments, request additional information, etc. However, it usually requires a bit of programming know-how to get that form on your site. Not with WordPress and Contact Form 7. With this plugin, creating a form and putting it on your site is a breeze. It has a drag and drop interface you can use to add fields such as name, email address, etc. to build your form. Once you have the form set up the way you want it you get a very simple code that you can cut and paste onto the page of your site where you want the form to go. That’s all there is to it – no programming involved.

4. Google Analytics for WordPress

When you have a website, it’s critical to get data about site visitors – how they found your site, what they do when they get to your site, etc. Google Analytics is a free program that lets you collect data about site visitors and run reports that will give you more information about your site then you’ll know what to do with. This plugin makes setting up Google Analytics on your WordPress site a snap. All you need to do after installing the plugin is enter your Analytics account ID and you’re done. From that point forward all current and future pages on your site will automatically have the Analytics code on them so you can collect the data you need about site visits.

5. WordPress Mobile Edition

The number of people using smartphones like the iPhone, Android, etc. is exploding. And a lot of those people are using their phones to browse the web. If your website is not mobile browser friendly, you could very well be losing out on some business. With WordPress Mobile Edition, that won’t be an issue. This plugin will determine if someone is coming to your site using a mobile browser and if they are will give your WordPress site a mobile-friendly interface making it easy to navigate with a phone.

Check my new site for more information about using WordPress for business purposes.

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A Big Disadvantage of Facebook PPC?

by Adam Kreitman

There’s a trend I’ve noticed in the Facebook PPC campaigns I’ve managed and has been noted by others using Facebook PPC as well.

That trend is that performance of your ads in Facebook tends to fade fairly quickly.

This makes sense when you think about it.

As you market to a particular demographic with a particular ad (or set of ads), the people you’re targeting grow weary of that ad after seeing it a few times. At that point they’ve either clicked on it or not and your clickthrough rate tails off.

At that point you either have to target a new demographic or make some fairly significant changes to your ads to get interest back up.

What this means for those setting up and managing campaigns in Facebook is that Facebook PPC requires a lot of attention and close monitoring.

Compare that to Google AdWords where when you find the right keyword/ad combination(s), it’s possible to leave things on autopilot for a while and not have to worry about it. Not to say the performance will stay strong forever, but campaigns certainly seem to have more staying power in AdWords.

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How Facebook’s Made Me a Hypocrite

by Adam Kreitman

So, like, have you heard the news?

Last week, Facebook made some big announcements. To say they have huge implications around the web would be a serious understatement.

Here are the basics of what Facebook’s done:

The “Become a Fan” button that let you show your support of companies, products, organizations, teams, etc. on Facebook has been replaced with a “Like” button. No big deal there.

But at the same time Facebook has made it very easy for websites to include “Like” buttons on their sites so you don’t even have to be on Facebook now to “Like” something. You can “Like” products, companies, movies, events, news stories and more all from many of your favorite websites and even add a comment there that will then be automatically posted to your FB wall.

By enabling websites to easily integrate Facebook into their sites, all of a sudden Facebook users don’t have to go to Facebook anymore. Facebook now comes to you.

Since the announcement last week it’s estimated that 500,000 websites have already added the Facebook “Like” code. These include sites like The New York Times, CNN, NHL.com, Levi’s, Yelp, iMDB, Mashable, and Kiva.org.

But there’s more than to it than just having a “Like” button on the site for you to click on. The code can also let site owners show the profile pictures of Facebook users who like their site, a particular story, a product, etc.

So when I visit Mashable now, I see pictures of my friends and the other 171,989 people who like Mashable.

Think about that for a second. From a marketer’s perspective nothing is more powerful than social proof from your friends. If I’m surfing iMBD looking at different movies and I see my friends’ pictures pop up in the sidebar because they “Like” a certain movie, you think I’m going to take note? Absolutely!

On the Levi’s site (an ecommerce site) it will even show you let you know who among your friends have birthdays coming up just in case you want to buy them a present while you’re browsing.

The marketing implications of this are huge and I don’t think many people have quite wrapped their heads around the possibilities here.

But wait, there’s more!

You know your Facebook Profile – the thing you filled out when you first signed up for Facebook that lists your hometown, high school, favorite movies, interests, hobbies, etc.? You probably haven’t touched it since you first signed up for Facebook.

Well, your “Likes” will soon be added to your profile page. And the information on your profile page allows marketers to run highly targeted Facebook PPC ads that show up while you’re on Facebook that are based upon all your profile information.

(If you’ve ever wondered how the ads on Facebook know you’re getting married, when your birthday is, what college you went to, etc., it’s because of the information you entered in your profile.)

Well now every time you “Like” something, you provide additional real-time information that marketers can use to target ads based upon your demographic info – including your “Likes.”

As Internet marketing guru Ed Dale (from Thirty Day Challenge fame) wrote recently, this is a marketer’s “wet dream.”

After these changes were announced another Internet expert declared Facebook has “won the web.”

I’m not ready to go that far, but the implications of the new Facebook “Like” feature are tremendous. And as a marketer, I’m downright giddy about the possibilities this opens up.

However, as an individual Facebook user I’ve got a completely different view of all this. I’m a fairly private person and like to keep my personal life, well, personal. The privacy issues raised by these recent changes have me concerned.

I’m interested to see how this all plays out in the coming weeks and months but there is one thing I’m sure about. For now, I will not be clicking the “Like” button much anytime soon. There may be some business and marketing related news items, products, etc. that I think will be worth a “Like.” I have no problem sharing professional related things.

But I’m not going to be “Liking” any movies, books, pairs of pants, political news stories, etc. It’s just too personal and I don’t trust that the information is going to stay private where it will only be available for my friends to see.

And that’s why I’m a hypocrite.

Because the marketer in me is drooling at the chance to run Facebook PPC ads that can target people by their “Likes.” I hope lots of people “Like” lots of things so I can run highly targeted campaigns for myself and my clients.

But the individual Facebook user in me is quite wary of what Facebook has done here and I personally don’t plan on jumping on the “Like” bandwagon anytime soon.

What are your thoughts on the new changes to Facebook? Have you started using the  “Like” button? Are you concerned about the privacy issues surrounding the changes Facebook has made?

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Oh, and I hope it’s not being too hypocritical to ask you to click the “Like” button below if you enjoyed this article. But only if you’re comfortable with doing so! ;)

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The 4 Ingredients For Effective Search Engine Optimization

by Adam Kreitman

Wondering how to get your small business’ website ranked on the first page of Google?

Here’s the thing. Despite what you might hear, there’s no magical shortcut, surefire formula and certainly no guarantees to claiming your spot on the first page.

But, when it comes to effective and ethical (ie. not doing scammy things that may get you ranked on the first page quickly, but may ultimately get you banned from Google) search engine optimization (SEO) there are 4 main ingredients that give you the best chance of success.

1. Know Your Keywords

You have to know the actual search terms prospects are typing into the search engines when looking for your product or service. You simply can’t guess here.

At a bare minimum, head over the the free (and pretty awesome) Google AdWords Keyword Tool to so some basic keyword research.

Find 1-2 keywords to focus on first. These keywords should be selected using the information you get from your keyword research as well as your knowledge of your prospects and customers.

The ideal keywords are those with high levels of traffic, low levels of competition and indicate the searcher is in buying mode (ie. “need a st. louis plumber” vs. “plumber” or “buy a Sony KLV26S400A LCD TV” vs. “LCD TVs”).

2. Content

Content can take the form of videos, blog posts, photos, articles, podcasts, etc. The more quality, original content you have on your site, the better. Also, try to build your content around the keywords you’ve identified as the ideal ones for your business.

You can outsource the content creation if you’d like, but it’s better if it comes from you. It may not matter as much for SEO (as long as the content you’re getting from freelancers is truly original work) but it makes a big difference to prospects. When you can inject your personality and knowledge about your business/industry/problems your prospects face into the content you create, that’s going to make a much bigger impression on a prospect than outsourced material.

Frequently adding quality, original content to your site makes Google very happy. And when you’re trying to get on the first page, you want to do whatever you can to make Google happy.

3. Links

Along with content, getting links on other websites that point to yours is key to getting a first page ranking. While the number of links is important, I’d recommend focusing on the quality of the links. Getting links from sites related to yours means much more than a bunch of generic links from unrelated sites.

For example, if you’re a dog groomer in St. Louis, your best links will come from sites related to dog care as well as local St. Louis focused sites. Those will carry much more weight than a link from a site about lasers or celebrity gossip.

How do you get links? The best way is to create great content. When you do this people will naturally want to link to your site to share it with others.

You can also create your own links from external sites to your own site by commenting on blogs, posting on message boards, creating Web2.0 sites (Squidoo, HubPages, WordPress.com, Scribd and countless others) that link back to your main site, article marketing and more.

4. Time

Unless you are in a niche with very little competition (which is getting harder and harder to find), it will take time to get to the top of the search engines. It could take days, weeks, months or years to get your website to the first page of Google and you may not even get there at all.

But selecting the right keywords, focusing on content and links and giving the process some time to work will give you the greatest odds for success.

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Google Ads That Can Stalk Your Prospects Online

by Adam Kreitman

Google introduced an interesting new feature in AdWords the other day.

It’s called “Remarketing” and it allows advertisers to stalk have their ads follow prospects around the web.

Here’s how it works:

Say a prospect comes to my website and visits the page on my site promoting my article marketing service. They’re interested, but not quite ready to act.

So they move onto other sites and that’s the end of it right? Well, not anymore.

Using remarketing, I could have text or banner ads promoting my article marketing service placed on other websites that prospect visits after mine that display Google ads.

Pretty cool stuff.

Your website gets traffic every day from people who are interested in what you have to offer, but for whatever reason, aren’t ready to contact you or buy anything at that moment. And once they leave, they’ll likely never come back. With remarketing, you now have the ability to reach those people with targeted ads that appear on other websites they visit after leaving yours.

It’s a really great way to reach an audience – visitors to your website who leave without taking any action – that you had no way of reaching before the launch of remarketing.

To learn more about remarketing, here’s the official announcement on the Inside AdWords blog.

What do you think about remarketing? Is it a great tool for advertisers or too Big Brother-ish for your liking? Post your thoughts in the comment section below…

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3 Reasons Google AdWords Still Kicks Facebook PPC’s You-Know-What

by Adam Kreitman

There’s a lot to like about Facebook PPC advertising. And there’s certainly been plenty written about it recently (including on this blog) and how it’s a great paid advertising option for marketers.

It’s easy to get caught up in all the excitement (and hype) around Facebook PPC. But with headlines out there touting that Facebook PPC is better than Google AdWords, a reality check is in order.

While Facebook PPC is definitely a great option, if you forced me to choose just one PPC platform to use, I’d select Google AdWords over Facebook in a heartbeat.

Here are the 3 main reasons why:

1. Mindset of your prospects.

People are on Facebook to socialize – not because they’re looking for something to buy.

People are on Google actively searching for information because of a need, desire or itch they need to scratch. When they see your ad and it speaks to the need, desire or itch they’re looking to address, you’ve got a very motivated prospect headed your way. (Especially when their keyword is a specific model/part number or has the word “buy” in it.)

While you can take people on Facebook out of their socializing mindset and get them to buy from you, I’d much rather have someone coming to me who is actively looking for what I have to offer.

2. Reach

There was a lot of buzz recently when numbers were released showing that Facebook got more pageviews than Google for the week ending March 19, 2010.  That’s definitely a noteworthy event.

However, it’s important to understand that you still have a much bigger reach with Google AdWords. Why? Because your ads can appear not just on Google, but on Google’s search partners like AOL Search, Ask.com and others. Also you can tap into Google’s Content Network through AdWords which is made up of hundreds of thousands of websites that reach 80% of global internet users.

Throw in the fact that Google owns YouTube (which would be the #3 search engine in and of itself) and Facebook still has a long way to go before its advertisers can reach as many internet users as is possible with Google AdWords.

3. Flexibility and Features

Facebook PPC’s platform and feature set is still pretty basic (which, on the plus side, makes it much easier to understand and use than AdWords).

However, the feature set of the AdWords system is unparalleled and provides advertisers with more power and flexibility in their marketing campaigns. Here are a few of the features you can find in AdWords that you can’t replicate in Facebook PPC…

  • You can choose from text, image or video ads.
  • The reporting functions of AdWords lets you track, slice and dice the performance of your ads in more ways than you’ll know what to do with.
  • AdWords lets you target prospects by keyword, demographics and/or website. (And add to that Google’s remarketing, just rolled out this week, that lets you serve ads to people anywhere on the content network based upon their browsing history or past visits to your website.)
  • Google provides AdWords advertisers extremely powerful free tools like the Keyword Tool and Website Optimizer to help improve the performance of your campaigns.
  • The ability to target specific devices like smartphones vs. laptop/desktops. In fact, you can even target smartphones by mobile carrier or device OS (ie. iPhone vs. Android vs. Palm).
  • Heck, you can even create and manage an advertising campaign for TV on AdWords!

Whether Facebook PPC or Google AdWords is right for your business really comes down to your business and your advertising goals. There are certainly cases where Facebook is the better option, though it really shouldn’t be a one or the other proposition.

But with the advantages Google provides advertisers when it comes to prospect’s mindset, reach and the flexibility/features of AdWords, for most advertisers Google still reigns supreme in the land of PPC advertising.

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Are Costs Per Click Getting Too High?

by Adam Kreitman

That’s actually a trick question.

But one that comes up a lot when talking to people about pay per click (PPC) advertising.

My answer is “It depends and it doesn’t matter.”

Here’s why.

First, there’s no doubt costs per click are rising online. Gone are the days where competitive keywords can be purchased for $0.05 per click (at least on Google).

But are they getting too high?

The more important question to ask is “What is the lifetime value of a customer to your business?”

One client of mine sells a $20-$30 board game. For that company, paying $1, $5 or more per click is way too high. They’d need to have a ridiculously high conversion rate to be profitable paying that much per click. Plus, most customers buy one or two board games and that’s it. They don’t come back for more so the lifetime value of each customer is pretty low. For a client like this, the strategy is to find less competitive keywords that can be bought for $0.05 to $0.25 or so per click.

However, paying $1, $5 or much more may be well worth it for those in the legal or financial industries. There are advertisers in those fields paying $50 or more per click. That sounds like a lot, but if the lifetime value of a new client for your law firm or investment firm can easily be $1000s or more, then you may very well be able to afford paying that much per click.

So are costs per click getting too high? It really doesn’t matter because it all depends on what a customer is worth to you and how well your back end sales system can convert those clicks into paying customers.

Once you know those numbers you can start to make some good judgements about what you can afford to pay per click.

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Are Facebook PPC Ads Too Intrusive?

by Adam Kreitman

Interesting article in today’s New York Times about Facebook PPC.

It seems like some people are a little creeped out about how personalized the ads are on Facebook (the reason is because advertisers can use the information on your profile to target ads based on your relationship status, college, hobbies, favorite book, etc.)

A few takeaways:

1. Some of this is due to advertisers abusing the system and not abiding by Facebook’s rules for ads. You can blame advertisers for this, but you can also blame Facebook for not enforcing their own rules. In the article, they claim they are doing more to make sure their rules are followed, which is a good thing.

The last thing Facebook wants is for their users to think the ads are misleading, offensive, creepy, etc. and to start ignoring them in masse.

2. Facebook’s PPC ad platform is still in its infancy and it will take some time to work the kinks out.

3. Advertisers need to be mindful that people on Facebook are not there looking for ads. Being too pushy, creepy, or otherwise over the top will likely backfire (and could even get you banned).

4. Here’s a major media outlet with an article about Facebook PPC advertising. Facebook PPC will not be the best kept secret in online advertising for long. Give it a try now before your competition catches on.

You can read the NYT article here.

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Why Isn’t the Facebook PPC Advertising Program More Popular?

by Adam Kreitman

With the potential to reach 400+ million users and demographic capabilities that are second to none, why isn’t the Facebook PPC advertising program more popular?

Here are a few reasons…

1. No Agency Management Tool

Google AdWords has a free tool called My Client Center that internet marketing companies, like mine, can use to easily manage multiple client accounts (other paid search platforms have similar options). Clients have their own AdWords accounts, enter their credit card information so they pay Google for clicks directly, and then grant me access to their account where I can do everything except access their billing information.

Because Google makes it so easy for agencies large and small to manage accounts for multiple clients, they have a huge sales force of companies out there selling AdWords for them.

Facebook has no such tool. For the clients who I’ve run Facebook ads for, I’ve had to run the ads through my personal Facebook account, using my credit card to pay the click costs. While clients could give me their Facebook log in information, Facebook is a very personal thing and I really don’t want access to that information even if a client were willing to give it.

The other option for now is to have clients run Facebook ads through their account while I serve as a consultant, helping with strategy, getting them things set up correctly, etc.

While none of these two options are ideal, if I think Facebook advertising is a good option for my clients then we’ll find a way to make it work.

It’s a lot more difficult for the large, national paid search firms to do this for their clients. And that’s a big part of the reason they don’t offer Facebook PPC management services. Until Facebook has some sort of client management tool in place, the big companies especially won’t be pushing Facebook PPC to their clients.

2. Low Clickthrough  Rate

Generally clickthrough rates (CTRs) on Facebook are lower than those on Google.com. However, the better comparison is Facebook PPC to ads running on Google’s content network (websites that display Google ads). Both the content network and FB will generally give you many more impressions (# of times your ad is displayed), lower CTRs and lower costs per click than those displayed on Google.com.

Is this a good or a bad thing? It all comes down to tracking your ROI. A low CTR in and of itself is not a bad thing if you can turn those clicks into business. So while marketers may complain about Facebook’s low CTR, it doesn’t matter so long as you’re making money on the clicks you do get.

3. Lack of Training Tools/Information

There is no shortage of information about how to use Google AdWords. Google itself has built an incredible (and free) learning center where anyone can go and get a good education on using AdWords. There are tons of AdWords gurus out there publishing books, ebooks, blog posts, training programs, etc. to show people how to use AdWords.

If you want to take the time to learn how to use AdWords, there’s no shortage of places to turn.

Not so with Facebook. In fact, I only know of one training program that focuses on how to use Facebook PPC. And that only went live within the last month. I’m starting to sense a change in people’s attitudes towards FB advertising so I expect a lot more information about it to published in the months and years to come.

As Facebook’s PPC program continues to mature, expect it’s popularity to rise quickly. In the meantime, it’s relative lack of popularity presents a very enticing (yet limited) opportunity for marketers to take advantage of.

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Facebook PPC vs Google PPC: Which Is Right For Your Small Business?

by Adam Kreitman

For years Google AdWords has been the undisputed champion of the pay per click (PPC) advertising world. Google AdWords revolutionized the way businesses small and large could market themselves. And while AdWords is still a highly effective way to reach prospects, there’s no doubt AdWords has grown quite competitive and complex with costs per click much higher in many niches than they used to be.

Enter Facebook PPC. A fairly recent entrant to the PPC game, with 400+ million users and 260 billion page views a month, Facebook is well positioned to be a major player in paid online advertising.

While there are some similarities between running a PPC campaign on Google and running one on Facebook, they are very different beasts. If you’re looking at doing some paid advertising, it’s important to understand these differences before deciding which one is right for your small business.

Here are four main areas where these two PPC programs greatly differ:

1. Targeting

Targeting with Google AdWords is done by keyword. Through keyword research (not guessing!) you come up with a list of keywords that your prospects are likely typing into Google search that indicates they are an ideal prospect for your business.

With Facebook, targeting is done by demographics. Facebook compiles an enormous amount of profile data about their users. This lets advertisers target prospects by age, gender, college (and whether someone is in college or a college grad), relationship status (single, in a relationship, engaged, married), employer, birthday and keyword. Keywords let you identify people based on their interests, hobbies, favorite books, TV shows, etc.

2. Ease of use.

Creating an ad and running a PPC campaign in Facebook is much easier than it is with Google. You can pretty much set your budget, create your ad, select your target demographics and get your ads running.

It’s not quite so easy with Google AdWords. This is because Google provides a much more comprehensive set of options to let you set up, tweak and monitor your campaigns. Depending on your goals, taking the time to understand these options may well be worth the extra degree of difficulty.

Whether you use Google or Facebook, however, it’s important to understand how to create a compelling pay per click ad, develop an effective landing page strategy and track and measure the results of your campaign(s).

Also, both platforms have their own rules and regulations you have to follow in order to make sure your ads aren’t rejected, disapproved or get you banned as an advertiser. Be sure to read the advertising policies carefully for both before creating a campaign so you know how to play by their rules.

3. Costs and competition.

Google AdWords is a well established and proven advertising platform and has a good track record of success with many advertisers. This has led to more and more advertisers using AdWords which, in turn, has driven the costs per click up on many keywords (though costs are generally pale in comparison to what you’d pay for more traditional advertising mediums).

Facebook is a relative newcomer to the PPC game and advertisers either aren’t familiar with it or are waiting for the system to mature a little bit. The upside here is that generally the competition is lower as are the costs per click.

4. The Mindset of Your Prospects.

This is a biggie to understand because it’s going to drive how you position your business/product/service.

When someone types a keyword into Google, that keyword or phrase demonstrates a need, desire, or a problem they need solved at that very instant. They are actively searching for a solution.

The importance of this concept should not be overlooked. When you advertise on Google, you are advertising to people who, through their search query, have identified themselves as highly interested and motivated prospects for your business. Your job as an advertiser is to continue the conversation they have going on in their head and lead them to the conclusion that your solution is the ideal one for them.

Facebook users have a different mindset. They are on Facebook first and foremost to socialize and connect with people, not to look at your ads. So to be effective there, you need to run ads that are highly targeted to your ideal prospects and then grab their attention with the ad copy and the image you use in your ad.

Basically, your job is to disrupt them from what they’re on Facebook to do and persuade them that clicking your ad is worth their time. And because they are not in buying mode on Facebook, sending them directly to a sales page on your website tends not to work as well as it might on Google.

Which PPC program is right for your business?

The short answer is I don’t know. It completely depends on your business and your goals.

They both have their pros and cons and I’m not advocating one over the other. The important thing to understand is that both Google AdWords and Facebook PPC advertising are viable options for marketing your small business online.

My recommendation is to test them both out, see what kind of results you get and then decide whether Google, Facebook, both or neither are an effective marketing strategy for you small business.

Have you been using Google AdWords or Facebook PPC? Both? Neither? Please share your thoughts on these two advertising programs in the comments section below.

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