In this ISSUE:

In this issue we will reviewhow WordPress 3.0 (coming in late April) allows you to adjust your menus to deliver popular content, a new, easy way to do optimizations in your WordPress CMS, and how a well-known SEO company optimized a landing page to increase sales by $1 million a year.  Our topics are directly related.  The more ways you can deliver what your visitors actually want (not what you think they want), the more successful you will be.  $1 million.  Can’t promise you that much, but following the techniques given here will definitely increase your conversions — when a web visitor “converts” to a prospect, lead, or customer. And that’s what it’s all about in the Connection Cycle Marketing (CCM) game.  Let’s learn some specifics.

WordPress 3.0 to Deliver Precision Content Delivery via Menus ::::::::::::

Above, note that you will be able to easily create a menu item that links to individual posts, media, categories, and post tags.

Know what your prospects want.  Deliver it. Have you used Analytics to note key content that “engaged visitors” hunt for at your site (“engaged visitors” are those viewing 3 or more pages)?  Once you do, you’ll be able to better deliver it to visitors using WordPress 3.0 enhanced menu options.  Due in late April, this menu option enhancement should prove to be very popular with CMS managers on the WordPress platform.  Why?  For the simple reason it will be easier to deliver exactly the content that visitors seek with the new system.  Imagine a menu link directly to a compelling sales video.  How about direct to a list of post and pages for a popular “tag”?  Good work WordPress core team.

New Visual Website Optimizer for WordPress Plugin ::::::::::::

Above, the Visual Website Optimizer shows you which page variation gives you the best chance to beat the original test version.

Optimize visitor behavior. It’s one thing to get visitors to your site and help them find the content they seek — next you have to convert them from visitors to prospects, leads, and customers.  And, now there’s a helpful plugin from Visual Website Optimizer to help you do just that.  This is good because although Google also makes a Website Optimizer (we like and use it too when its strengths are appropriate), this company provides a WordPress plugin to help you set up the campaign parameters on your site.  We also like its easy to understand reporting charts.  You define a control version of a page, then some variations.  The Optimizer tracks what visitors do, and reports the best variation showing the highest likely improvement.  Always be testing.  Always be optimizing.  Get the plugin here.

How an Optimization company made $1 million for SEOmoz.org ::::::::::::

Million Dollar Case Study: If you’re concerned with SEO, you should be aware of the helpful professional tools and information you can find at SEOmoz.org.  They’re great at SEO — which gets visitors to your sites.  But, the major lesson to note here is that SEO only gets people to your site… you could be leaving literally millions on the table, unless you do what SEOmoz was smart enough to do next.  They optimized, with the as a team effort with Conversion Rate Experts.  Here are the major success points for their campaign:

• They did a lot of listening — to the customer.  Time and again, I see clients making the mistake of thinking that people who know their product and service inside the company… know what to do.  They don’t.  Only your customers know what they need you to do.  SEOmoz, heeded this wisdom, talked with paying and non-paying members, and let their consultants become a customer.  They took surveys and analyzed them.  They listened.  It paid off.
• They used quick wireframe pages to consider new page prototypes
• They ran a series of tests for continual improvements
• They ignored “best practices” and quadrupled the length of the conversion page to better engage visitors
• They explained precisely what customers would get
• They used compelling video to tell the story
• They served customers after subscription (reducing cancellations and charge backs) with a getting quick started guide

Read the rest of the article>>

That’s it for this issue — contact us when you need to Optimize, Connect, and Convert!

SPECIAL: Mention this post to me, and receive 10% OFF on a Social Media Marketing campaign thru June of 2010

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

In this ISSUE:

NOTE: There’s still time to save on our WordPress Service and Upgrade PAK — thru. Jan. 15th. See: WP 2.9.x Features & Upgrade Special

Best ROI for online marketing in 2010? ::::::::::::

We have a new poll at LinkedIN of C-Level Marketing Managers to find out what popular marketing methods they believe will be key for ROI this year — you can take it too: BEST ROI POLL . Initial results (51 respondents) are shown here (click to enlarge)… and there’s a demographic breakdown revealed after the poll is taken showing age range, company size, role and other metrics. So far, CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization – is winning, by a nose over SMM – Social Media Marketing. Did you hear that Pepsi pulled out of the Super Bowl advertising in favor of Social Media? Hmmmm. This is definitely the year for Social Media in terms of spending, but I am in agreement with the current poll stats that CRO will be best for your ROI. I’ll report more on the Poll results in a future post, but in this issue I’d like to give you some tips about each for each of the tactics queried in the Poll: CRO, SEO, PPC, eMail, and SMM.

CRO Tip: Click Heat Maps for VBO… ::::::::::::::::::::::::

Above, (click to enlarge) the click heat map for WPsiteHosting.com shows what elements draw clicks and gives some commentary.

Ok, get ready for another TLA (Three Letter Acronym) for this issue’s tip on optimizing — VBO… Visitor Behavior Optimization. How many times have you been in an internal discussion about what color a box or link should be on your page so more people would click it? Everyone’s got their opinions — even the pros, and often just about everyone’s opinion is wrong — even the pros. So why not ask your visitors? WebFadds has been doing just that and learning some very good things about what visitors do at our site and client sites. Some methods include Click Heat Maps (click screenshot to see one for WPsiteHosting.com — where a lot of our clients have their sites), recorded visit tracking (no audio), and usability testing with transcript and recorded audio. We’re building this in for original design, redesign, and landing page optimization — read more about it here, and contact us for a quote.

SEO Tip: Title & Primary Terms:::::::::::::::::

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org (excellent site with tools to review your web performance), has done a couple of studies in the US and in Europe that point to a key tip for SEO workers: make sure your primary key phrase is in the FIRST part of your Title Tags. Below is a screenshot of an SEO plugin we install as part of our Max-SEO service with a key phrase highlighted in the Title Tag Entry field. To this advice, I would add that the most successful results we see with our clients come when that same primary key phrase (don’t try to use too many keywords/terms in a shotgun approach… instead, rifle in on one phrase for which you want to rank well) is used in seo-savvy copy that still reads well. This relates to the part of Google’s ranking formula called “density” — the number of times a phrase occurs on a page or in a post.

SMM Tip: Listen to Local Tweeters :::::::::::::::::

Above, Nearby Tweets is "tuned" into local talk about SEO.

Use NearbyTweets.com (version 2 BETA adds some great features including saved searches, search radius and more), to find people in your city talking about what you sell. Engage them. Meet them. Do so from a social, or soft-sell standpoint. Don’t begin by pushing what you have to sell. Just talk to them, and listen. In sales, there was a strategy called “consultative selling” that was very popular early this decade. It still works. Listen and wait for them to ask your advice. Then consult. Speaking of consulting, contact us to schedule a SMM training session with your sales and marketing team.

PPC Tip: Quality Score & LPO :::::::::::::

Ok… here’s another TLA for you — LPO, that’s Landing Page Optimization. I actually think that PPC is getting overlooked in the Poll — it can offer great ROI, but there’s a factor in adwords, Google calls your Quality Score that helps determines your placement, per click costs, and so your ROI. Unfortunately we see a lot of clients who are unwilling to give control of the Landing page advertised in adwords ads over to your marketing team. There’s a longer explanation to it (see our colleague Tom Hale’s excellent post on the subject), but to think about why it’s important, remember that Google wants people who click on ads to find highly relevant information, and there are ways to make that happen. One way, is to make sure the key phrase in the Ad headline is used prominently on the landing page. Of course, PPC, like organic SEO, just gets you targeted visitors — what they do after they get there is the other part of LPO. Contact us if you’d like to increase conversions on your landing pages.

eMail Tip: Subject line length :::::::::::::::::

Finally, here’s a tip on the other marketing tactic that’s languishing in the Poll — email Marketing. Email marketing can and should be optimized and tracked in Analytics for best ROI. Mailer-Mailer, an email marketing service provider, has created an excellent report with recommendations on Subject Line Length, Subject Line Content, Personalization, Bounces, and Click Rates. One tip… emails with subject lines of 35 characters or less get more opened more. And the best part of this tip… is the report is free for the download, here: Mailer Mailer Report. Pretty good marketing for Mailer Mailer, huh?

So, I’ll leave you with the challenge question: What are you offering for viral reports, ebooks, and white papers that can be tracked and shown to bring you more business?

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”.

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”.

In this Issue:

Read on to find tips, and tactics for each item… and more.

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

• Tim Ash, writing for Search Engine Watch, writes: “It isn’t uncommon to completely redesign your whole landing page and test it head-to-head against your original.” Are you doing this? If you’re not — you could be missing the chance to increase your “conversions” (convert visitors to leads and customers) by 23% or more — see: WhichTestWon.com:
  
  Above test increased conversions 23% for a SaaS — Software as a Service client.

• A WildWestWeb.com article on top four tips to increase conversions advises, “Your ads and your landing page copy must match.” This is a doubly important piece of advice. Important for increasing conversions, and important in increasing your quality score with Google PPC ads — a tactic which can actually lower click costs.

How much is each lead at your site worth? If you sell a service for $1000, and close one in ten leads, then each lead is worth $100 to your company. An increase of 23% would represent significant income for your company… so start watching “conversions” in Google Analytics.

We publish tips like these daily on our Twitter account @WebFadds. Contact us for your next Landing Page Optimization campaign.

WordPress Tips :::::::::::::::::::::::::

SEO: Consider this new plugin for your WordPress Business Blog and CMS:  SEO Smart Links.    The plugin works to improve your site’s interlinking by finding keywords in your posts, pages and comments and linking them to your other posts, pages, categories and tags.

Rich Content: Remember, publishing is the new marketing, so ask yourself how best to market your content.  Here’s an interesting new service to consider — Apture — a platform to “enhance your blog posts and articles with interactive videos, images, Wikipedia, maps and more from 50+ sources without making readers leave the page.”  We’re going to test it here at WebFadds, and you’ll see examples in our next edition.  For now take a look at the possibilities:

Above, (click to enlarge), is an example of how with one link, Apture (via a WordPress plugin), allows you to insert a YouTube video, related Twitter comments, a related Wikipedia article, and an Amazon.com related link — all in one mashup.  We like the potential here.

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

Twitter Mashups keep on coming: I am continually amazed at the creativity and range of features appearing in applications that revolve around Twitter. Often, they are a concept in search of practical application. So, when you first read about them, they don’t immediately suggest a good business use. Let’s brainstorm:

TwitterCal.com – why would I want to get twitter updates automatically to a Google calendar? Well, remember that you can set and save custom searches on Twitter (right bar). Recall also that you can have any number of Google accounts each with more than one calendar. And, Google calendars can be embedded in web pages. So… let’s connect the dots:

• Pick a business event tracking message you want to show in calendar format on your site. This could be local marketing & business meetings, like SEO groups, software groups, chamber of commerce meetings, etc.
• Set up a new calendar for it in your Gmail account
• Set up your free Twittercal.com account
• Go to your Twitter account and use some intermediate level skills to refine your search for local events. Save the search.
• Do a search and use the Twittercal protocal to send an event to your calendar — (add any events by sending a direct message to gcal – ie: d gcal meeting with fred on monday, 25th of june at 9am)
• Embed the calendar into your site as a service for your readers.

TweetBurner: When marketing on Twitter (make sure it doesn’t come off as spam) use “TweetBurner” to shorten your URLs… then track how they’re shared on Twitter.

Above, Twurl will track and show you how many clicks you got on Twitter for each link you post there.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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”.

Wouldn’t it be good if you could get 20% – 70% more leads from your site? Many companies do. What about increases of 200% – 400%? It’s possible. I’ll tell you how. And, we’ll see if the “description” tags most of us use to craft copy for search returns are outdated, plus we’ll consider an important new Twitter service… it’s commerce time for tweeters.

Conversion Alert: Are there ways to squeeze more ROI out of your website? Definitely, and recent studies show the pay-off can be very big. I attended a webinar this week by a company specializing in squeezing more results — conversions (like when a visitor “converts” to a prospect, etc.) — out of landing pages and direct emails. So far every single company that applies a certain conversion success formula has seen increases… and some of them are huge — over 200%. To prove it to yourself, all you need is a free Google analytics account set-up properly to track goals, conversions and related ROI numbers. Then you use another free tool — the Google “Optimizer” to test for winning combinations of headlines, graphics, and calls to action. We can make this happen with a Landing Page Optimization Campaign – contact me for a quote.

Google Evolution: Have you squinted at the Google search results page lately? If you do, you’ll see a “show options” link  at top left, which when clicked reveals a sidebar of search refinements like related videos, forums, past week returns and more. Nice. But for SEO professionals and “Content Masters,” still another Google development adds a new twist on ways to succeed in search ranking, attracting visitors and inspiring conversions: “Rich Snippets.” Now Google is encouraging webmasters to mark-up content so that Google will find and return more meaningful excerpts than what is commonly delivered in search returns. Watch for plugins to facilitate this work.

Above, watch video presentation by Google experts on new Rich Snippets tactics

Twitter Update: It’s commerce time on Twitter folks. You knew it had to happen. Check out Twitpay’s new RT2Buy service . So now for all those who ask just what is the ROI for twittering? You can have a direct answer in the form of revenue via your twitter followers. We have a great program — our Social Media-MAX Package – to build a focused, targeted list of followers efficiently — contact me today.

So… how are your landing pages… and now, your growing Twitter list(s) converting? Time to call an Optimizer – reach me at (360) 566-2451.

Playing Ball: Innovation, change, and Social Media Marketing growth… it’s happening rapidly each week.  Last week, Twitter reported astronomic growth — up 422% in 12 months. WordPress reported 2 million business blog and CMS installations in 2008.  Wow.  Talk about “playing ball on running water.”  How do you grab a hold of this tiger and make efficient and effective use of it in Business?  I’ll give you some pointers on how to stay optimized.

CMS Thought of the Week: The *whole web* is your Content Management System.  Today, I was checking my LinkedIN homepage, and reviewed a number of blog posts — there — from friends and colleagues.  The same posts often show up in my twitter stream (shortened into 140 characters with links back to posts). And, Google lets you create a sort of “mash-up” via Google reader (for RSS feeds) where you can share your posts and those of others — see: my Google Reader Public Mashup.  Are you optimized to take advantage of these key web CMS techniques?  Contact me and we’ll work on it together.

Twitter Tips of the Week: If you’re looking for a job, check this link to an excellent Mashable article (a great web publication, using a CMS developed in WordPress) will help you learn how — on Twitter.  That’s right!  I’ve found and worked with two clients there in two weeks.  Plus… even if you’re not looking now… consider the article carefully and you’ll understand some key Twitter Social Media Marketing strategies and Tactics.

Next, look carefully at the “Five Phases of Social Media Marketing” — Social Marketing is not “free”, but it will pay off when you tie it into Analytics… and — analyze for conversions (that’s the R.O.I. secret).  One great question from the article:  “Will your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system interface with your social media tools?”  Watch for good CRM’s to start adding in Twitter functionality.

WordPress Eding Tips on Video: WordPress is a great CMS solution — we develop exclusively with it.  As you learn WordPress, and start managing the admin. area, you may like to review these short (approx. 2 min.) videos.  There are more available at WordPress.tv, but these are my “A-List” to help your work be optimized… in WordPress:

Posts:

• writing-and-publishing-a-post
• using-quick-edit-and-bulk-edit-to-manage-your-posts-in-half-the-time
• saving-and-returning-to-draft-posts-pages
• publishing-your-post-at-a-later-date

Add Categories & Tags to Your Posts (always do this — good for both SEO, and helpful site navigation):

• adding-categories-and-tags-to-your-posts

Pages:

• creating-a-post-excerpt-using-the-more-tag

Sidebar:

• adding-a-widget-to-your-sidebar

There you go.  That should help you optimize your WordPress and Social Media work.  Now… about those conversions? Have you optimized your landing pages so you can increase your conversion rates?  Contact me.

WordPress CMS News: A new report shows WordPress taking a leading position as one of the top four Open Source Content Management Solutions — read more here.  Version 2.8 is coming soon, and rumored to add even more flexible CMS capabilities.  If you have upgraded to 2.7.x, the upgrade to 2.8 will be easy — no expensive programmer required… just push a button.  If now… contact us, and we can upgrade you.

Are you optimized for Twittering yet? Social Media Marketing is coming fast and hard, with Twitter a major force (see below).  You will find me twittering @webfadds (and Spirit too). And, there are ways to optimize and automate — I’ll show you some here.

Not yet? Well, maybe you’re still on the fence about the “business worthiness” of Tweeting. It’s simply micro-blogging for business people and you are out there letting people get to know you before they buy. Why? People buy from people they know. It’s that simple. Add to that the ability to brand and establish authority in your niche.

And, the Twittersphere itself is offering increasingly useful tools to take your twittering to the next level…

Twitter Resources:

• Polling? You bet — check out: StrawPoll
• Productivity? It’s covered. Track Daily Goals with a social twist of accountability  | An event manager that auto-links to Google Maps, updates your Google Calendar, and auto-invites via Twitter  | Twitter for Organizations | Share files on Twitter
• Job Search? You got it… a job search engine for Twitter
• Research? Check it out… Track Trends and Events with TwitScoop | Tweetscan hunts for topics of interest and sends you an alert
• Publicity? Of course. TweeTube shares photos, YouTube videos, multiple website urls and more (from your iPhone too)
• Staying Efficiently Organized? Right. Have a good look at Easy Tweets* to promote your business and monitor your brands featuring an easy, efficient dashboard (we include coaching for this service in our Social Media MAX pack)
• In Gmail? Yup. Get an app to do Twitter from Gmail (another reason why Google is watching carefully)

Interesting Business Marketing Use of Twitter: ForkFly — a service providing discounts from hundreds of Portland, Oregon merchants. Hmmmmm. Get a following, sell access to focused followers. Earn money. Opportunity knocks.

Another Interesting, Government (hey… looks like they can be efficient sometimes) use of Twitter: If you are a Twitter user you can get northbound Canadian border wait times by sending a direct message to WSDOT – the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Is all of this useful in business? Well, what is one closed sale worth to you? Ten? I had a business meeting last week with a prospect I found on twitter, and am estimating proposals this week. Still questioning it? I agree, in business you have to focus on ROI… so do it. You can track it — Web Analytics Word is reported that Ominiture, a popular commercial Analytics provider, is integrating with Twitter.

Time to Get Going: We have a new package — Social Media-MAX Pack – here at WebFadds to help you get going. You leverage your Business Blog in a synergy with Twitter to engage prospects and leads… and learn about your niche. We coach and train you on efficiency in addition to installing and configuring your package. Contact us to start today.

It works. A week ago, I had 38 followers on Twitter. Now I have 295 (at time of writing), 344 predicted later this week, with over 1,000 predicted ( by yet another twitter service, of course) next month…

How did I do it? I’m practicing what I teach… using the synergy in our Social Media-MAX Pack is very powerful. Like a rocket. Watch me prove this @webfadds.

Is it fake? No.  Not if your intent is actually to engage colleagues and prospects in dialog about your niche focus, and business passions (with a bit of the personal side sprinked in, so people can know you too).  There are automated tools that save you time, but if you proceed ethically, (no spam) with honest intent… it’s for real.  You’ll probably see a few “fakes”… but Twitter is pretty quick to close down those accounts.

You can use our “old technology” contact form to get started… or just contact me on Twitter. And, we can chat about ways to increase conversions at your site too.

* WebFadds is an authorized reseller for Easy Tweets.  You’ll find excellent service and features (more coming… in Beta now) from the support folks there.

Social Media Marketing — who has time for this busy new marketing strategy? Busy indeed, but optimizable using automated techniques… I’ll tell you how.

What is Social Media Marketing? Simply put, it’s the use of new technologies — from blogging to twitter tweets — to engage prospects for your company’s services and products.

Is Social Media Marketing (SMM) on the Rise? Yes. You know — I resisted Twitter for some time due to my perception that it was juvenile and had no real business purpose. Wrong.

One example of how I was wrong about Twitter, and a tip for you: I used a new Nearby Tweets Search Engine (Twitter posts are called “Tweets”) recently to find out who was talking about similar business strategies in my neighborhood. Results? I have five leads, and one coffee meeting scheduled to discuss new business. Could I have looked up related businesses on Google? Perhaps. But I would not have known who was actively and currently focusing on certain business topics. That’s the key, and you can easily do the same.

Take a look below at the “Benefits of Social Media Marketing” chart which appears in a whitepaper, free for the download, by Michael Stelzner, who interviewed 900 business people and marketers for his research. You’ll get some great insights when you read the report.

Above, over 900 business professionals report positive results using Social Media Marketing methods (from Social Media Marketing Industry Report, by Michael Stelzner)

How to understand SMM and make it work? Two recommendations: Think about standard sales and marketing principles in new venues. Look for automation.

On the first point, just think about standard sales methods and think of social media a bit like those “business after hours” prospecting events that sales people always attend. You tune in, listen, make yourself known, and schmooz around a bit. People buy from those they know.

Of course, you’ve still got to find the time to make the switch from old ways of doing things to new. Good news. Since the new “venue” for Social Media Marketing is online, on computers, some of the work may be automated. I want to caution you — you still have to get in there and “hand out cards” and make your personality known… that’s what it’s all about.

Which social media sites for business? There are a lot of choices out there, but for now, I recommend concentrating on just three: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIN. These are market leaders, each with a different focus and functionality, and I have seen all three bring business for our clients.

New WebFadds Social Media Max Service: Now about automation — one of the reasons we’re focused on CMS solutions using the WordPress platform (in addition to SEO strengths) is the excellent sets of plugins to add features and streamline your work. We have identified eight key plugins for SMM which in particular automate blog postings to twitter, and facebook walls, display of feeds from twitter in your blog, display of linked in information, and more.

We will install and configure this Social Media Max package on your WordPress Content Management System for $739. Need your Facebook, LinkedIN, and Twitter accounts set-up too? No problem — we’ll do it for $339. Includes initial coaching on working these services for business “conversion” purposes. We then set up your Easy Tweets controls for a powerful way to grow your twitter following, and channel them back to your business blog (we coach you on success with your Easy Tweets – $25mo. account). And for a limited time, we’ll include installation of Google Analytics at your site to help you track your site for conversion health. Contact me today to get started.

That’s enough Optimizing for this time — remember to always be converting.

#3 on Google in less than 19 Minutes: What’s the true power of a Business Blog? Well, you know I always focus on conversions. But before you can convert a visitor to a customer, you have to have visibility. And once your Blog gets accepted as a trusted source for information in your market niche (about 2-3 months of steady posting at least twice a week for new blogs), then your latest posts will go up fast — and rise to the top if your content is good.

A case example is a blog post on camp cooking contests we put up Saturday morning at SportsExposBlog.com, during their four-day tradeshow, where each day selling more tickets is a key to success. Within 19 minutes, that post was #3 on Google for the search, “Cooking Contests, Salt Lake City.” Great for immediate, and targeted visibility for those interested in reviewing cooking contests.  It’s still in position #4 on Google as I write this post.  Another client, Tom Hale — an Adwords Expert Extraordinaire — regularly sees his posts register high on Google in under 10 minutes.

SEO Technique Tip: First, the business blog for SportsExposBlog.com is developed on the WordPress platform, which out of the box provides a number of ways to Optimize for Search Engines. Then, we used a professional SEO plugin called HeadSpace (see articles about how HeadSpace works here ) and configured it for the phrase “Cooking Contests”, and the locality, “Salt Lake City”, for that specific post. It worked.

Why WordPress as a CMS? Last week I was at the Portland Search Engine Marketing Professionals annual Search Fest — a day of seminars and trainings on tips, traps, and techniques for this rapidly evolving field. There, a sales rep. told me that WordPress was not a CMS. Huh? Funny, it seems that Ford Motors, Comacho Cigars, CNN, the New York Times, and a host of other Fortune 500 players didn’t get that memo. They’re all enjoying the strengths of WordPress as their primary Content Management Solution. Of course, the sales rep. was, well, repping his own proprietary CMS based on Microsoft’s unpopular ASP.net platform.

There are several platforms out there offering CMS solutions, ranging from Cold Fusion, to Open Source PHP/MySQL, to Ruby on Rails, and ASP.net. Check around, and you will find many more options in the PHP realm, of which WordPress is arguably one of the top five choices. Way back in 2007, WordPress won “Best Open Source Social Networking CMS” from Packt Publishing.

What’s the best CMS solution for your company? Well, WebFadds, of course, can make the case for WordPress. But I admit, you’ll see some great contenders out there. A young fellow on a plane I took to Salt Lake City last week showed me an impressive proprietary CMS built in the Ruby on Rails environment. One big choice is Proprietary (you pay one company for a license and rely on them to continually improve your CMS) versus “Open Source” (the initial core program is free to download and install, and upgrades are free).

WordPres wins again, since it is in this initially “free” category.  But to be frank, free is not really free. You will want to custom configure and tweak it for maximum SEO and administration optimization — and that costs some money. But I think you’ll see that WordPress still wins when you compare your R.O.I. to other systems over the mid-term.  And, optimization with WordPress is not just about SEO — you’ll also streamline your content administration wrok.

Contact me — I’ll be pleased to work with you to find the best solution for your R.O.I… and, take a look at this overview: CMS WebSite Solutions with WordPress.

So… what is a “Conversion”: I get this question a lot.  Remember when everyone worried about “hits?”  Well, “conversions” are the new hits. You see, it’s not really that good to get a lot of hits, if your visitors simply bounce away without doing anything that brings them closer to a business goal.

You want to think very carefully about how you intend to “convert” visitors, into prospects (they might download a whitepaper, for example); into leads, where they usually fill out a contact form which may be given to your sales team; and into customers — when they make a purchase at your site.

The good news? You can use Google Analytics to track with precision your site visitor behavior leading to conversions.  The bad news?   Well, when you consider that most conversion optimization work yields improvements in the 20% – 75% range… it’s really all good news for your R.O.I. (Return On Investment).  If there is any bad news, it’s simply that your work isn’t done after the first design and formatting pass.  You need to always be testing, reviewing, and tweaking to increase conversion rates.

Is there a formula? Yes, in a general sense, but forget about “best practices” here.  Why?  Because every site, niche, and business model is different, and in particular your product or service’s value proposition is different — even from your closest competitor.  So… the right combination of Headline, Graphics, and Calls to Action yielding the highest conversion rates will vary.  But… sound the trumpets — Google rides to the rescue again with the “Google Optimizer” program which rotates these key elements and reports on the best combination.

Above, we can see a Google Analytics report showing that traffic referred from a Business Blog (for a WebFadds client — International Sportsmen’s Expositions) converts 31% higher than average per visit, and 255% higher for the specific “Goal 2″ — a purchase of eTickets for a show in Salt Lake City.

It works. Using analytics for a current client we are able to determine that visitors originating from their Business Blog show a higher ecommerce conversion rate (they purchased 255% more eTickets) than those originating at the parent site.  And using our favorite landing page optimization formula… we were able to increase exhibitor information form fill-outs by 50%, year over year,  for a 3-month period – a $9200 increase in R.O.I. just in 3 months so far. Not too bad.

Give me a call, or contact me and we’ll explore ways to increase conversions and R.O.I.  for your company.