WebFadds Optimizer: Wave, Twitter & Optimization Tips

In this ISSUE:

A Big Wave is coming ::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hail, Google: All of information, in the all knowing cloud mind, in the all present psyche of the ever inquiring consciousness of the googlezonification of the world. Pardon me. I just riffed poetic about Google — evil overlord, or ultimate resource of freedom — and it’s apparent continuous march to be, well, the ONE content management system. Case in point: the Google Wave. The Wave itself is a sort of embedded chat, plus email, plus documents… plus applications. Then consider that you can take a Wave and embed it in your WordPress CMS or Business Blog. Hmmmm.

What’s the Advantage of a Wave? Above, I played a game in a Wave with four other people, where the game could be any application (ecommerce apps are coming, with real-time translation).  Now remember that Waves can be played back… for an educational advantage, and also that they can be embedded in your websites.

Hey… I have some Google Wave invitations (Wave is still in Beta-By Invitation mode) left, so email me if you want one.

Optimizer Tips ::::::::::::::::::::::::

Never Say Submit: Two of the most important things I can tell you about optimization are that it’s not just about SEO, and sometimes a change to just one tiny element on a page means more conversions of visitors to customers. Oh, and never say “submit” in your buttons. Why? Well you can take a look at the two buttons below. Guess which one 96% more people continuing in the checkout process? You don’t have to guess… vote and see the results at Which Test Won.

Note that neither button said “Submit” — click image to go vote for a winner. On, and one final rule… always be testing — WebFadds can help you… Contact Us.

WordPress News :::::::::::::::::

Two items in this edition: WordPress just won the “Best Open Source CMS” Award award  for 2009 from PAKT Publishing, beating out Joomla, Drupal, MODx, and SilverStripe — it’s come a long way from its humble beginnings as a blogging platform.

And, WordPress is adding new editing features scheduled for the 2.9 upgrade, due in early December, include some image edition tools which Content Managers will like:

Above… you can now scale, rotate, crop and align — all in the new WordPress image editor.

Twitter Tips :::::::::::::::::

Think Like a Journalist: I’ve often said that in today’s sphere online, Publishing is the new Marketing, but Marketing still equals sales. What’s that mean? It means you need to think like a Journalist first when you’re publishing, but write with conversions in mind. Conversions? Yes — an Analytics term where you can track your web efforts to see which are most effective at creating actions where your visitors “convert” to a prospect, lead or customer. One example is when a visitor fills out a form at your site, and so becomes a sales lead.

Ok… now what does this have to do with Twitter? Two things: first, you need to write short tweets that provide valuable information to your prospects/readers — just like journalists do. This might even be a question (in journalism school you learn that one of the most effective “leads” to get readers to read a story was the “question lead”). And, second, make sure your staff time spent is “ROI positive” by setting conversion dollar values in Analytics (contact us, and we’ll explain more).

A recent post on Mashable, detailed how five real-world journalists use Twitter and Social Media. You can learn from their techniques, and also remember that journalists are seeking information there, so if they use your tweets and credit you, it’s another way of amplifying your reach. Read the whole story here.

I’ll conclude with five tips to use Twitter like a Journalist:

• Instantly check sources before retweeting, by checking in forums, Facebook, etc.
• You can become a recognized expert to followers and potential journalists for interviews
• Pose a question to followers, then lead them to a poll on your site or LinkedIN that you create. Later tweet the results of the poll.
• Consider “angles” for a tweet and related blog post, the way Journalists consider angles for a story — by understanding how other people online relate to your subject matter (read their tweets)
• Remember that your “community” of readers/prospects extends beyond your blog and twitter — but be efficient by uploading a video to Facebook, then tweet and blog about it.

WebFadds.com is an agency focused on CMS, Social Media Marketing, & Landing Page Optimization solutions. Contact us today for a free quote. And, be sure to download our latest Guide: “Winning Twitter Marketing Tools & Tactics”.