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Hello -

How well does your website convert visitors to leads or customers?: That’s precisely the question I asked in a new Poll at LinkedIn. The advantage of placing a poll on LinkedIN, is that mostly professionals, executives and C-level management will see it, they run it in a directory of polls on the site, and you can see some interesting demographic breakouts like results by Gender, Job Function, and Company Size. So, how many C-Level Managers said their sites convert well? Pop over to the poll to find out (and take it while you’re there). Oh, and if you’re new to tracking conversions (leads are good “conversions” for service companies to track, while sales are a primary conversion to track in ecommerce), Google Analytics is an excellent package, recently updated with enterprise level features, to use at your sites.

I’m being followed: It just started recently. There are several people following me, and I know it is true. Paranoid? Schizo? We’ll leave that debate for another time — but for now, I’m talking about being followed — on twitter. I confess to avoiding “twittering” for some time, but when I saw the “first twitter report live from a jet airline crash” appear on network news — I had to cave in and check it out. There are a couple of great plugins for your WordPress CMS that place your twitter stream in your sidebar, and also automatically twitter your latest posts. I’m using them at WebFadds.com, and also just installed them for Tom Hale, adwords specialist extraordinaire (see Tom’s twitter stream at ThomasCreekConcepts.com).

Newsletter Options: When you plan to integrate an enewsletter into you site, you have three strong options. And I strongly recommend an eNewsletter as a key tactic to Connect — the middle strategy in our “Optimize, Connect, Convert” solution (contact me to learn more). The three options? Use FeedBurner to create a “newsletter” sign-up that sends your RSS feeds to email, integrate a newsletter plugin into your WordPress CMS, or use a 3rd-party SAS newsletter provider to host and send your newsletters. The Feedburner option is the most efficient. The newsletter plugin is good for do-it-yourselfers, while a professional service like Constant Contact, can be great for companies requiring tech-support and a large list solution, off-loaded from their site hosting server. Learn more about the last two at our eNewsletter Service page, and visit Feedburner to learn about their service, then BestRatePlans to see an implementation.

Best of luck and success online -

Scott

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Do you have Goals for your website? You probably set some when you first built it, but I am talking specifically about “Goals” in Google Analytics — an excellent way to track visitor behavior and analyze the R.O.I. for your web effort.  You should be tracking “conversions” (number of visitors who buy or become clients), via the “funnel” (series of pages at your site leading them to a conversion).  You can read more about this important strategy in this blog post.  Contact me to get your Goals set up.

Trusted Email Marketing

Remember to stay in constant contact. A colleague of mine, Bob Leonard from B2BContentConversations, was just hired for two jobs as a result of enewsletters he sent out several months ago.  Newsletters require discipline, but it pays off.  We offer two options to help with your email campaigns — a Pro Package through Constant Contact, and a Do It Yourself Package, where we install an excellent eNewsletter program in your WordPress website, build you a template and you go ahead and write and send a newsletter to key contacts.  Constant Contact provides your own account with support and tracking stats to see how many recipients opened your newsletter (you can take a free, 60-Day trial to check it out).  Read more about the two packages… here.  Contact me when you need help setting these key marketing tools up for your business.

New B2B Website on problematic Windows Hosting: We just finished a new B2B business blog for Wang & Wang, an international law firm, and wrestled with making it work properly in a Windows server environment.  The majority of hosting plans (like our own at WebFaddsHosting.com), are based on the Linux Operating System… the one most “friendly” to WordPress installations.  While WordPress will work on Windows based servers, a couple of key functions — automatic database backups, and “permalink” structure (see next item) — could not be activated.  Bottom line: Why did we install it on a Windows server?  That’s what the client wanted.  Does it run as well as on a Linux server?  No.  Choose a Linux based hosting solution for your dynamic WordPress based websites.

SEO Matters:  One main reason we develop dynamic websites and business blogs on the WordPress platform, is that it comes with built in/automated methods of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  But you have to configure it properly.  There’s automated “pinging” (your site will alert a number of indexing services when you publish new posts), but you need to input a good list of services.  There are user and search friendly “permalinks” (url structure) you can set.  And, a number of SEO related plugins which both strengthen your site, and save you some time by automating insertion of tags, titles, etc.  I’ve written a series on SEO Matters… here.  We also have a service package, “Max-SEO“, that can help you quite a bit.

Let me know when we can help with SEO strengthening, enewsletters, and development of your dynamic, automated websites. I’ll be pleased to provide a prompt estimate for your projects — reach me via our Contact Page.

SEO Matters: Title Tag Tips…
One of the big keys to the SEO puzzle is writing good Title tags.  Do you know about them?  You can watch a video overview with tips on how to write them (make sure your key SEO phrase is in them), and get advice on how to automate them at your WordPress Business Blog here.

“Conversion Blogging” Builds eMail Lists Leading to Sales…
If you’re in business to blog, or want to blog for your business, the whole thing boils down to conversions. How many blog visitors did you convert into customers? I’m not sure who coined the phrase “Conversion Blogging”, but I highly recommend two free videos about it by Yaro Starak, a blogging guru with a successful track record. You’ll see that he teaches you how to use your blog to build your email newsletter list, and gives a lot of other great tips to help you succeed.  TIP:  pay careful attention to how Yaro is using following his own advice on his video landing page — extra-credit when you note his own conversion technique there.

Biz Growth TIP: Get Real… Real Estate Agents (and Business Bloggers)…
We’ve built a number of custom real estate blogs this year, and one common mistake I see is too many boring listings appearing on those blogs.  They’re forgetting that the best conversion process at a business blog is to engage, then converse, then gain a client (convert).  Whether you’re in real estate, or any other profession, ask yourself if your business blog engages with interesting, personal (you’re selling yourself and your sales staff) content crafted to lead toward more conversation (comments, emails, phone calls).  That’s where the success comes from in your business blog.

Custom Theme Uses our MaxRef Widgets for Content Access…
I just finished a custom blog theme for Wang And Wang Law Offices, LLC, and it uses our own Max-Ref widgets plugin for WordPress to break out access to the “Intellectual Property” section of their site.  You’ll see it there on the sidebar.  Contact me if you’d like to deploy this technique on your own WordPress website.

For more details and quotes on deploying these techinques at your own dynamic, business websites, reach me at:  scott [at] webfadds [dot] com

By Scott Frangos, Managing Partner — WebFadds.com

Looking for ways to develop your business? Here’s an overview with tips on ways to reach and develop contacts with your clients and prospects, and ways to use new WordPress 2.6 features to create dynamic, compelling content for your CMS websites and business blogs.

New Pro eNewsletter Service Keeps you in Constant Contact…

Trusted Email Marketing

WebFadds.com has teamed up with the highly regarded Constant Contact service to bring you the ability to reach out, connect, and stay in contact with key customers and prospects.  Email Marketing by Constant Contact helps you create high-impact, professional-looking emails, and build strong, successful, and lasting relationships with your customers, clients, or members.  Why use a newsletter in addition to business blog posts? In a word, for “proactive” communication. Collect business cards and contacts at your trade shows, then make sure you connect on a regular schedule. Read More and take a FREE 60-day Trial…

Business Benefit SlideShows Focus Prospects on Results…

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, our new Business Benefit Slide Shows are worth, well… the value of a good slide presentation on how your business will help potential customers.  We recently created one for our client NextBus (see NEXTBusNews.com) which they use on their home page to explain the benefits of using their service.  Learn More…

WordPress 2.6 Helps you Get ‘Er Done…

WordPress 2.6 was released yesterday, so let’s take a look at a some ways this new version can help you get ‘er done.  I’ve included a short video overview, and highlights of some key features with tips on how they can help you develop successful content. Most of you know that our Dynamic, automated website solutions are built on the WordPress platform as a Content Management solution, and we can help you upgrade to this new version.

• Use Post Revisions to facilitate writing and editing with your content team.  Scroll down beneath your writing window to “Post Revisions” (bottom), to review your staff content writer’s work:
  

  Post revisions show up in WordPress 2.6 at bottom of editing area showing time and username of writers.

• Use Post Revisions to help you hone your writing skills. In Journalism school, writers develop skills by considering different “leads” (opening paragraphs) for their articles.  Leads are what hook your visitors and convince them to read your content.  They’re important.  Finish your first draft, then choose a different way to lead off your post (examples include a question lead, a quote lead, or a summary lead — I’ll write more about this in my series on CopyWriting here).  Compare your two drafts side-by-side, and choose the one you think will most interest your readers and grab their attention:
  

  Above, you can compare revisions side by side to gauge which will create a more compelling "lead" (click to enlarge).

• Use the new “caption” feature, as I’ve done above, to easily create captions underneath images for clarity, and also to automatically boost SEO since captions are automatically used in “Alt” tags in WordPress 2.6.

Watch the video for a quick overview of WordPress 2.6 Features: