Below is an official Press Release about the two WordPress workshops (hands-on) I’ll be teaching along with Russell Sparkman next Month at the Langley Center for New Media on Whidbey Island — about 45 minutes NorthWest of Seattle, WA, in the scenic Puget Sound.  This will be a great way to hone your WordPress skills and to relax in a very scenic location — click pics to enlarge them.  Looking forward to seeing you there.

WordPress 201 – Beyond the Basics, Hands on Training Workshops Offered at Langley Center for New Media

Media Contact:  Sherry Jennings – sherryj@whidbey.com

Entrepreneurs, bloggers, and new media students have an opportunity to take their WordPress skills to the next level at their choice of two WordPress 201 workshops available in October on either the 20th or the 21st.

This workshop is for those with some basic familiarity with WordPress, but want to take their skills beyond the basics to understand the stand-alone version of WordPress, related plugins, tactics that address SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and integration with Social Media platforms.

Center Director, Russell Sparkman, explained that the 201 level course comes both in direct response to their beginner WordPress clinic, and the growing popularity of WordPress as a blogging and business website platform.  ”This is a hands-on workshop with a low student to teacher ratio to insure a high degree of learning and knowledge retention,” Sparkman said.  Both workshops are limited to 12 participants. Sparkman has an extensive digital media background dating back to 1992, when he was one of the first photographers in the States to embrace digital photography. He has been a multimedia producer, consultant and trainer since 1999.

Sparkman will co-teach the workshop with Scott Frangos (see ScottLinkedIn.com), a career Advertising and Marketing professional with a specialty in Content Management Website development in WordPress, optimized for SEO and business outcome goals like lead gathering. He has taught Publishing, Photoshop, Programming (for the Web), and WebMaster college level courses in the Portland, Oregon area for over 20 years.

• Learn More/Register for 10/20 Session: http://www.langleynewmedia.com/programs/marketing-pr/workshops/wordpress-201-102011/
• Learn More/Register for 10/21 Session:  http://www.langleynewmedia.com/programs/marketing-pr/workshops/wordpress-201-10-21/
• About LCNM:  The Langley Center for New Media is located in Langley, Washington, on Whidbey Island, just one hour north of Seattle. The Center offers a year-around schedule of workshops and events, including an annual Retreat focused on Content Marketing in January, and more workshops and clinics throughout the year on WordPress, Publishing and Marketing with New Media.

I’ve found that many marketers are overlooking lesser known techniques for WordPress Content Marketing strategy.  We’ll examine three tactics in this post, and to keep it simple, I’ll narrow down desired on-site Content Marketing goals to two categories:  engagement (visitors view 3 or more pages), and lead generation for B2B.  We’ll leave ecommerce sales aside for now, and in this post look at 3 ways to use WordPress tools to increase engagement, and so lower your bounce rates.  In a future post, I’ll cover lead generation tactics using WordPress.

Above (click to enlarge) we have added several key post categories to our "Blog" menu item to elevate awareness of available content.

Remember to Add Important Categories to your WordPress Menus

Category archives are landing pages too.  Not only does Google index them, but they also provide a gateway to important content on your site, so your tactic here is to surface links to important categories in a highly visible position.  Most content marketers using WordPress do so using a sidebar widget — but there’s an easy, and more visible way to do this.  I’ll share it with you, but first… how do you know which categories are most important to your visitors?  Analytics.

Check Analytics first to see what categories visitors frequent, but since they are likely not being promoted a lot on your site, check also for what key phrases your visitors use before visiting your site — both answers are available in Analytics.  Then, your tactic is  to use the new WordPress 3.x menu system to add categories as selectable items on a pop-down menu.

Most people only think of showing links to pages, and sometimes posts — but why not promote categories of content that you know visitors are seeking on your site?  And, when you do make sure you write a keyword-rich description that appears at the top of your categories — good themes like our Thematic-MAX framework build in the ability to do this.
TIP:  You can reword the Category Title in the Link to something more compelling — then watch “in-page Analytics” to see if your click-through rate increases.

Above (click to enlarge) are some settings with a MaxRef Widget to reveal key content.

Use Sidebar Widgets to Reveal, Engage, and Reduce Bounces

Most WordPress users know about the “Recent Posts” widget that comes standard with WordPress, but what about promoting older posts that are equally important, and for which your Analytics reports show a high degree of interest?

WebFadds has produced a great Content Marketing plugin  after considering much the same questions — MaxRef Widgets (I’d also like to give thanks to Newt Barret, co-Author of “Get Content, Get Customers” who prompted some of these ideas, originally).  “MaxRef” stands for Maximum Reference to content, and the reason we added an “s” to Widget, is that you can use as many as you need in your sidebars and widget locations — we often place one in the footer area to re-engage visitors who have scrolled to the bottom of a page, and are thinking about leaving.

We’re pleased that MaxRef Widgets has a 5-Star rating with over 4,000 downloads at the WordPress plugin repository.  Our screenshot (click to enlarge) shows an example tactic to use its various settings to reveal posts about how Landing Page Optimization helps your ROI.  Of course you can use it for a different strategy, like rotating overall posts into view so visitors may engage with less recent, but equally valuable content.

Link to searches on your blog based on Analytics Key Phrases

WordPress automatically presents a dynamically updated lists based on keywords or phrases entered into its built-in search field(s).  So the next time you write a post, here are three steps to take:

• First check your Analytics for visitor patterns including what keywords/key phrases relating to your post are popular
• Do a search on your WordPress CMS for the phrase* you decide upon.  Copy the URL that results (in your browser).
• Past that into your post using relevant text.  Here are two examples:  Content Marketing  |  Landing Page Optimization

*TIP:  Research shows that Google users are frequently typing in 2-4 word phrases, rather than just a single keyword.

Download your Google Plus Guide (PDF) – click image.

Most tuned in Content Marketing and WordPress MarCom professionals are aware of the tremendous success Google is having with Google Plus. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about a manual +1 embedding method to get the button on your blog and CMS.  Now, to answer questions about strategies, extensions and plugins, here’s your WebFadds Guide to using Google Plus (complete with PDF — download at right).  We’ll take a look at what I call “Circling Strategies”, plus (pun intended) learn how to integrate Google Plus with other networks and WordPress.

Google Plus Circling Strategies

One great feature of Google Plus that will empower you to speak directly to and listen (always remember to listen) to targeted groups is called, “Circles.” The concept is simple — drag and drop your important contacts into appropriate and specific circles you create, then you can set your stream to only display messages from a certain circle or circles — the listening part.  You also can send message only to certain circles, plus enable image albums to be only viewable by certain circles.  Let’s consider some “circling strategies”:

• Target Images:  You create a circle for potential clients in your industry, called “prospects.”  Then you create a photo album of helpful images (think screenshots and powerpoint-like slides that explain important concepts), enable it for just that group, and “stream” out a notice and trickle of individual photos just to that circle.
• Phone Stream:  Continue to stream your comments and images to a certain circle using your phone’s built in camera and a Google Plus app on your phone.
• Serve Clients:  Create another circle just for your current clients, and load an album with PDFs and visual examples to frequently asked questions.
• The Schmooze Factor:  People buy from those they feel they know, so you have an opportunity to let your personality shine by gradually allowing clients and prospects to see more of your personal side.
• The International Effect:  Recall that Google earlier intended to add real-time translation for chats into the Google Wave and think about what that means for developing your global circles.

Watch out Mr. Zuckerberg — the circling feature alone (not to mention all the other Google integrations with Gmail, etc.) zooms Google right past the clunky way FaceBook operates.

Integrating Google Plus with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN

Now that your circles are streaming, it’s time to get efficient.  This is a brand new network with its own learning curve.  Tim O’Reilly was complaining about its complexity on his Google plus stream today… but he does seem to be embracing it.  So, your tactic here is to seek efficient integration using a Chrome extension or two to make it easy to send Google+ stream comments over to Twitter, LinkedIN, and Facebook.  To do this, go and get the Extended Share extension from the Google Chrome Web Store:

Remember to be in Chrome (I’m usually surfing in FireFox), then just click install.  You will find options to select the networks to use under Window ==> Extensions.  Then you’ll see the “Share On” link which will pop-up a box with the network icons you selected.  Click the icons and post to those networks.

Integration on your WordPress CMS and Business Blogs

One of the best things about WordPress as a CMS solution are the thousands of plugins available in the great spirit of the open source community.  I have been looking for one that provides a smooth integration for Twitter, LinkedIN, StumbleUpon (many overlook this, but it is showing recent growth, and Analytics stats prove its worth), and now FaceBook — and it’s here, thanks to Kunal over at SearchTechWord.  You install, then configure it, with the option to have it placed at the top of posts and on the blog index page as you can see here at WebFadds.com, or use it in a side floating option position as you see in the screenshot below:

There ya go — you’re all integrated and on your way with Google Plus… let the circling begin.  Contact us if you need help with any of these integrations.

There are a lot of short overview videos about using your WordPress CMS at WordPress.tv. We’ve also done a few that include some strategic tips about optimizing your CMS. Below is a good overview video about WordPress — it’s getting older, but you can still get some good tips. For newer videos from WebFadds bookmark our new Videos Category.

Optimization Tip: As I say in the video below, you’re not optimizing a website — you’re optimizing how visitors think about your website and the actions they take including completing key business goals at your site. I recommend you take a good look in Analytics at the new “on page Analytics” that shows you “hot-spot” activity on your pages — where visitors click. Make sure those clicks are tied to goals you’ve set, like submitting a lead form. At right is a thumbnail you may click to review how this looks for our own site. Note that you not only see where visitors click but also get key insights to how those clicks may lead to goal completions, and other visitor behavior including what they do after scrolling down the page, “beneath the fold”. Contact us for an estimate to take your Google Analytics to the MAX with actionable advice.

Video: Overview of Using WordPress as your CMS:

Web Engagement, Social Marketing Tip, and Visual Optimization

On today’s web, it’s all about Engagement and Connection.  In fact, Connection now trumps Content (see why in Why Content is King No More)  as the most important part of your marketing tactics.  Connection to who?  Prospects, leads, and customers.  One on one.  Think of this like what your sales people do at a tradeshow.  They engage booth visitors and get to know them.  People buy from those they know.  That’s the promise of Social Media, and many national brands have already proven this — two times in a row, SouthWest Air has had its highest ticket sales ever, from promotions that only happened on Twitter.  So… what is your “1:1″ marketing strategy?  In this post, I’ll give you some tips, tactics and techniques to help you. One big key — insights into your potential customers. Learn more about 1:1 marketing strategies and tactics from Marketing Experiments (highly recommended) – One To One Marketing.

Another new TLA — W.E.M., Web Engagement Management

Ok… so how do we engage and learn more about our prospects?  How about yet another TLA — Three Letter Acronym.  Tired as I am of TLAs, I like what this one is about… WEM — Web Engagement Management.  In a great post on the “5 Pillars of W.E.M.”, writing at CMSWire, Barb Mosher identifies them as:

1. Content Optimization
2. Multi-Channel Management
3. Conversational Engagement
4. Demand Generation
5. Sales & Relationship Automation

More on each point in future posts, but the key is that all five are required for an effective Web Engagement strategy.  Read the source article here:   5 Pillars of Web Engagement Management

Social Marketing Tip with HootSuite

So, let’s look at a tactic to address two WEM “pillars”:  Multi-Channel Management, and Conversational Engagement.  Time is a scarce commodity in most MarCom departments, and especially during this time of rapid social technology change.  That’s why I like HootSuite for its team workflow and cross platform engagement automation features.  So, my tip of the week is show below — use HootSuite’s “hidden” ability to profile tweeters:

Above (click for larger view), using Hootsuite to first monitor important business conversations, we can then learn more about a prospect by clicking on their photo/logo, then clicking on “view more tweets from…”.  Use this tactic to find out how influential the prospect is, and what their major interest focus might be.  Contact us to explore ways to use this engagement tool in your 1:1 marketing strategy.

Visual Media Optimization for Your WordPress CMS

With millions of smartphones, and now over 2 million iPads sold with more “tablets” on the way, now is the right time to consider your visual media methods of engagement and persuasion on your site.  We develop successful CMS solutions on the WordPress platform and are always looking for good ways to do this, so I’m pleased to recommend a versatile way to do that — with one note of caution.  Slideshows are great visual ways to explain B2B technical concepts in a persuasive and easy to understand way.  Consider the slides we did for a recent client, Lopez Research (click small image at right to see site).  This is a simple and effective way to present what you do in a way that engages emotions.  Remember — everyone makes a buy decision based on emotion.  What’s the caution?  Well, right now Apple has said they will not use Flash on their platforms, and most slideshows are done using Flash to drive them.  We look for new emerging standards in HTML 5.0 to break through this wall soon.

Above, a new plugin offers you the ability to show images that zoom and pan, while text explains the concept pictured and gives a link deeper into your site content.

Have a Web Engagement Management challenge you’d like us to review?  Great — contact us today and we’ll do a free review.

WebFadds is an Agency specializing in CMS Websites and Business Blogs, plus Marketing techniques optimized for Connection Cycle Marketing — CCM. We focus on delivering SEO savvy, Content Management System solutions on the market-leading WordPress platform, then provide Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Landing Page Optimization services to ensure you get maximum visitors converting to prospects, leads, and customers.

How do you capture key prospect information on your site? Until recently many using a CMS simply installed a forms processing plugin and enjoyed the convenience of an automatic contact form entry to their email. But now there are new options that include cloud computing solutions for better Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We’ll examine the relative merits of three ways to process lead forms in this post.  These solutions are key to what happens AFTER your landing page is optimized to increase conversions… more visitors converting to leads is great, but you have to “nurture” those leads in an efficient and effective way.

Three ways to process your lead forms

1. Old School CMS Forms Plugins (that’s so 2008): Content Management Systems (CMS) made a big splash in the last 4-5 years as excellent ways to efficiently manage content and operate on the web.  Part of their allure is the array of “plugins” available — mini-programs that help you get things done.  For example, we build sites exclusively on the WordPress CMS platform, winner of Best Open Source CMS for 2009 (PACKT Publishing), and there are a number of free open source plugins available for it, including our preferred “cForms II”, a very robust and extensively featured solution that includes the ability to develop multi-page forms.

• Advantage:  Automatic forms processing sent to one or more Admin. emails, plus a variety of features depending on plugin used.  Free, if you are using an Open-Source program, though we always recommend you donate to plugin programmers.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide lead nurturing (sales focus and follow-up) features — requires manual entry into a corporate CRM, or custom programming for same.  Does not include other features including survey and poll reporting, the ability to collect payments for seminar sign-ups (etc.).  Mainly — no easy integration with an emerging set of business mission tools including CRM systems, and eMail Newsletter software.  Your IT group is forced to focus on maintaining a free plugin and to rely on the plugin programmer to keep it in compliance without professional and timely support.

2. Forms Processing Providers – More Integration & Features:  Recently a number of good forms processing companies like WuFoo.com, and FormStack.com (we’ve used both — compare pricing and features at those sites).  This is a smarter way to collect data, for several reasons including range of features, and ease of integration with other services like CRMs, Payment Providers (PayPal), and eNewsletter providers (MailChimp, etc.).

• Advantage:  Better integration with key business systems.  More features including the ability to collect and assess surveys, and the ability to accept payments for events.  Good prompt technical support.  Easy interface for creating forms.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide lead nurturing (sales focus and follow-up) features, although most service providers automate import into CRMs.  It’s not free — but then nothing really is.  Even “free” open source plugins require configuration work and may be in conflict with other plugins.

3. CRM Form on Your Site For Direct Capture of Prospect Details:  All major cloud Customer Relationship Manager systems like SalesForce.com (larger companies), and BatchBook.com (for smaller businesses — we use them) offer the ability to plugin forms and collect prospect data directly from  your site right into the CRM.

• Advantage:  Eliminates manual entry into CRM.  Provides immediate sales and lead nurturing focus, a very important strategic objective for every business.  Good integration with other business systems including eNewsletter providers (MailChimp), and forms processors listed above.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide some features of Forms Processors including payment acceptance, and poll and survey processing.  It costs money — most good business services do.  Initial learning curve for sales and marketing team, though we see this as a net gain and a real strength after everyone comes up to speed.  Why?  Done correctly, you should close more sales.

A couple of FAQ’s

Why Would You Ever Need Both a CRM and a Forms Processing Solution in Addition to Your CMS?

First of all, CMS options are limited and picking from the healthy field of both CRM solutions and Forms Processors gives you an excellent selection of features, beyond what a CMS can provide.  Next, recall that open source plugins are “free” and so do not provide professional support options.  Most CRMs currently do not provide the same out of the box features of Forms Processors including payment processing, and survey/poll management.  We’ve been asked, “shouldn’t the CMS do it all?”  No.  A CMS is a complex system on it’s own with a primary focus on delivering site content dynamically, not Forms Processing, or Customer Relationship Management.  To do Forms Processing and CRM well, requires a sophisticated system which is best maintained, updated, and supported separately from your CMS.

What is Your Recommended CMS/CRM System?

At this time we always recommend a good CRM for the focus it brings to the sales process.  It is not just about content — authentic connections are what it takes to get the sales you need.  Your CMS is for web content management, not lead nurturing.  Then, we recommend an integrated eNewsletter provider like MailChimp.  This is our “solution set #1″:

CMS –> CRM –> eNewsletter Provider (ie. We use WordPress –> Batchbook.com –> MailChimp.com)

When you need direct payment processing, or survey management, we then add a Forms Processor that will integrate with the first set, and seamlessly inport data into your preferred CRM.  You may only need this option seasonally.  It is our “solution set #2″:

CMS –> Forms Processor  –> CRM –> eNewsletter Provider (ie. We use WordPress –> WuFoo.com –> Batchbook.com –> MailChimp.com)

Contact us at WebFadds.com for a 1-page proposal with more details geared to your operation.

WebFadds has added a Mobile Readiness PAK for WordPress CMS installations based on installation, configuration and testing methods reviewed here. Cost ranges between $399 and $999 depending on the complexity of your theme, configuration, and features required. Below you can learn more about how it works. Contact us for a quote today.

As most people have noticed, mobile device use is exploding, and with the high-successful launch of the iPad, now is a great time to consider your Mobile Readiness strategy for your website.  Is it ready for web visitors with tiny smartphone screens, and also for site admins working on the road?

Smartphone Trends = Mobile Browsing:

• The top three smartphone makers sold 800 million units last year — all carrying web browsers that do better with sites optimized for their small screens
• Apple is on target to sell around 5 million iPads (close to 3 million already) — just in 2010 — and sold 25 million iPhones in 2009 (a 100% increase over the previous year)
• Flash is not supported by the majority of mobile phones. Steve Jobs has said the iPad will not support Flash. Flash looks to be sunsetting in favor of HTML5 video standards.

Solutions to Make Your WordPress CMS Website Mobile Ready:

There are two sides to the site mobile readiness game, both involving simplifying delivery of site content and functions for a smaller screen — for site visitors, and site administrators.  And, the solution technology is emerging and evolving quickly.  At last count there were  eleven plugins for WordPress with mobile solution features, and more than one online service designed for same.  We’ve tested several and believe the following three solutions are flexible enough to accommodate just about any WordPress CMS set-up.

Above, the Wapple plugin for your WordPress CMS aims to make on the road editing easy for administrators using a smartphone.

For Administrators, Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress: This plugin helps you write posts and manage your site from mobile devices. WordPress Mobile Admin is a WordPress control panel for your mobile. It works on every device and is fully featured. You can write and edit posts, moderate and reply to comments, update and manage tags, categories and pages.  Learn more here.

For Visitors to your Sites - WordPress Mobile Pack: The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance, and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to your iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini mobile, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm visitors without modifying a single bit of code (or affecting) your regular desktop theme. The theme also includes the ability for your visitors to easily switch between the WPtouch view and your site’s regular theme.   Learn more here.

Above, Mobify is a one source solution for mobile design, analytics, mobile advertising, and integration with Social Media.

Combine mobile design and ads with Analytics with Mobify: Mobify is an interesting service play offering extended styling to design a mobile layout for your website, the ability to capture mobile traffic from Twitter & Google, and a platform to manage mobile analytics & advertising. They have their own WordPress plugin for smooth integration in to your WordPress CMS.  Take a tour at Mobify.

We believe that the best solution will involve a couple of the technologies profiled here, and selected to best meet your website mobile mission objectives.  Contact us today for a no obligation consultation.

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”.

Here Comes Easier Editing & Video Embedding…

2010 is shaping up to become the year of media and video online.  Not only is Google moving forward with its new WAVE technology (email me if you’d like an invite to the BETA test version), but WordPress 2.9 is officially out today with enhanced image editing, and easier video embedding features.

Below is a short overview video showing off the new features — I used the simple new Video embedding method to add it.

SPECIAL Upgrade Deal – Complete Upgrade, Monitoring & Analtyics Install

I’ve been installing and enjoying the new version — great for content editing — so I wanted to offer a SPECIAL WordPress Upgrade & Service PAK deal for the holiday release.  Our normal 3-month Upgrade & Service PAK costs $239 — that’s only $79 a month.
Special for readers of this newsletter, and blog post… just $199 (click to pay now with any major credit card — limited time… good through 1/25/2010).

You get a complete upgrade of both WordPress plus all your currently installed plugins.  PLUS… we install and configure five essential plugins, including a Virus scanner, System Health monitor, Disk usage monitor, backup program, and an actionable analytics visitor review with recommendations to increase conversions.    To read more about how our Analytics report will help you — see article, Using Google Analytics for Profitable Results.  At the end of the three months we provide a live chat walk through of your site to make sure you know how to automatically do upgrades in the future, and for optimization recommendations to gather more prospects, leads and customers at your sites.  It’s a great PAK, and we do it for three months for two reasons:

• Usually there are 1-3 “bug fix” and “security patch” upgrades that follow a major update
• That should be all you need for a year or more!  Note that WordPress 2.9 makes both updating the core program and plugins a snap you can do yourself.

To see how much power we add to your WordPress CMS & Business Blog… click the small screenshot at above right to enlarge it.

WordPress 2.9 Feature Overview:

Extending Your Presence Online — How Intense Debate Comments Helps SEO

“He Parlayed his Way to a Million Dollars” – unknown

As I’ve said before, Publishing is the new Marketing, and Marketing via Content now offers continuing new ways to extend your reach and engagement prospects. But you have to foment — that is, promote the growth and development of  your comments, so you can “parlay” your way toward business objectives. One way to do this is with “Intense Debate” — a WordPress plugin that also helps you with SEO.

What is “Intense Debate”? It’s a plugin for WordPress that makes commenting easier to manage and extends your potential reach by allowing your blog readers to choose to tweet their comments. IntenseDebate.com is owned and managed by the same folks that are behind WordPress.com (the remote hosted blogging platform used by millions) and WordPress.org (the software used to create your own hosted CMS and business blog solutions) — Automattic.com.  The company also enables Blogger, Tublr. and TypePad integration.  Features include Comment Threading, Reply by Email, Reputation points and Comment Voting, and Twitter integration — your commenters have the option to send a simultaneous tweet when they post a comment.  Add to that the opening up of the plugin’s API to developers, and I think there’s even more potential to plumb here.  Try it by leaving a comment below.

Above – the Intense Debate comments template allows your commenters to login with Social Networking IDs, Subscribe to comments, and also to post comments on Twitter.

How does Comment Debate help you in SEO? The system provides a very clean, rankable set of Comments on your site, plus gives each commenter the option to tweet their comments when they post them — with links back to your site.

Above, you can manage the comments from more than one blog — all in the same place.

How does Comment Debate help you in Business?

• As stated at Intense Debate — the system serves to bring “quality comments to the forefront”.  And “forefront” translates to engagement with just the right sort of thinkers and prospects for your brand.
• Save Administration Time: Once you have an Intense Debate account, you can quickly manage the comments from multiple blogs all from one control panel online.
• Synergy Loop:  You comment on a post(s) at other sites related to your business mission, and this gets automatically tweeted on Twitter, whereby like-minded people may visit your business blog, comment and have their comments then appear on Twitter with links back to your blog.

Can my business stand up in an “intense” debate? Of course.  This is like asking if your sales force will be able to handle discussion, and even criticism at a trade show.  They can, can’t they?  Good companies will always embrace engaging the market because the constructive criticism will help them perfect products and services.  And great sales people know that debate is an opportunity to present your position which leads to more sales.  Plus, you can always moderate your comment system to weed out spam and destructive comments.

Recommendation: Install IntenseDebate (the WordPress plugin is freely distributed) and add your business blog to the debate.  Webfadds will be pleased to provide this service for you — we’ll be adding it as an option for our Social Marketing Solutions (just contact us at that page).