WordPress Training Expert

Author: WP Training Expert

  • Essentials of placing an ad banner in your WordPress sidebar

    Video: How to place an ad banner in your WordPress sidebar

  • Using Facebook Fan Pages vs. Facebook Groups

    Video: Facebook Fan Pages VS Groups

  • Essential Things You Need To Know About Social Media

    If you don’t know what social media is, you have probably heard of it. The most popular of social media platforms are mentioned in the media daily; Facebook and Twitter. In it’s most basic form social media are internet platforms and tools that encourage sharing and discussing of information among human beings. When it comes to your business it is all about engaging like minded individuals. If you want to find and be found by customers you need to be where they are. Today, that means you have to have a social media presence, because that is where your customers are.

    This short report will cover the most critical items you need to be aware of when it comes to social media for your business.

    Everyone is on Twitter and Facebook: OK, not everyone is on Twitter and Facebook, but the amount of users are staggering. It is estimated that these two social media hubs have around 700 MILLION users combined. That is a lot of people. Even more surprising is that all age groups and demographics are represented. Some more than others of course, but even the older demographics are steadily growing. It is likely that millions of people interested in your offer are using these social media services

    Social Media Is About Engagement: Joining social media sites like Twitter and Facebook isn’t about spamming your offers. It is about engaging with your potential customers. You want to watch and listen to what they are saying about your product or offer online. You want join some of these conversations, and know when not to. You want to offer helpful advice more often than you advertise. The goal of social media is to built a community around your brand or product, only engaging with customers will allow you to do that.

    Monitor Your Reputation: Social media makes it easier to share information faster than ever. People seem to love to circulate bad reviews of businesses or professionals. One irate customer can lead to thousands of people seeing their rant in minutes. You want to ensure you have a presence in social media so you can meet these claims heads on. You can defend yourself from any slander, explain misunderstanding or make things right with the customer. Any of these actions will lead to more loyal followers.

    Get Staff Involved: The number one complaint I hear is: “I am a business owner, I don’t have the time to be on Twitter and Facebook 24 hours a day.” Great point. Neither do I actually. I don’t think many business people in general do. I have two responses to that. First, it doesn’t take a huge time commitment to do the minimum required to have at least a basic social media presence. Secondly, get your staff involved. Younger staff will often enjoy a task like this. One tip though, make sure you have a couple staff participate, that way if you lose one of them there is no pause in your social media marketing.

    Where Do I Start: We have went over why social media is important, and some of the ways you should use it. What should you do if you want to get started today? I think at the very minimum you need a Twitter and Facebook presence. You can set up your Twitter account at Twitter.com. I suggest that you fill out your profile fully and add a picture. On Facebook, you will want to create a personal profile and then use that profile to create a “fan page”. A regularly updated Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account are basic social media steps that all businesses should take.

    As a consumer base we are growing more cynical and wary of traditional advertising. If you want to ensure that you can still reach a broad audience then you need to tap into social media. This relatively new technology allows businesses unparalleled access to their customers. At the end of the day you want to be where your customers are, so don’t ignore the 700 million people on Twitter and Facebook.

  • Pay Per Click Makes Real Cash

    Engaging in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has its own benefits and drawbacks.

    Business nowadays is doing different kinds of austerity measures when it comes to advertising their products and services. This is because of high rates of placing ads on print and on television. But there is a fast growing approach that businessmen can utilize to bring their services closer to the people and that is through Internet Marketing.

    One tool that is causing Internet marketing popularity is PPC advertising. This is a technique used in search engine marketing that requires one to pay a fee every time someone clicks an ad on your website. Usually this placement is done through a bidding process. If you are a top bidder for your keywords/phrases, you are sure to be on the number one spot on all search engines. Just be sure of the effectiveness of your ad copy to get the most number of clicks you need for your business.

    PPC – The Pros

    You need not be a genius in computer and technology to be able to run this ad campaign.

    Immediate results are seen after a few days.

    No need to make a website conform to the SEO rules.

    Nothing to lose even if you do not top the pages of different search engines. You can still always choose PPC advertising.

    You can make use any search engine available.

    You can type in any keyword you like.

    PPC – The Cons

    Fixed payments every month to the search engine you choose.

    Pay for each click received by your website. At times, visitors are just competitors or people playing pranks on search engines. This hassle wastes money you put in to this advertising.

    Inability to pay for the fees next month would mean removal of your website on the paid listings.

    This advertising can only be used temporarily because it is difficult to handle in the long run.

    Pay-per-click pricing can be costly for long periods of time, therefore, this should be stopped after an ad campaign.

    But how exactly PPC advertising can increase traffic, leads and sales?

    PRE-QUALIFIED TRAFFIC. All visitors of your website are already considered as a qualified consumer or buyer of your product. PPC advertising leads your customers to you for a lesser cost.

    INSTANT EXPOSURE, IMMEDIATE PROFITS. PPC search engines enable you to get your desired results fast. They will have your website live within just a few hours which means immediate increase in sale.

    CONSISTENT TOP LISTINGS. This is to get your website on top of the sponsored search results for free. You just have to choose the keywords related to your site and business and place them within your web pages. After this, you are done.

    PPC advertising enables advertisers to control their advertising campaigns. Advertisers have effectively targeted their audience and set their own price per click. PPC advertising networks provide the platform to identify the desired audience by geographic setting, topic and industry. These networks have a list of websites of the publishers where the ads will be placed.

    Tools are provided by the networks to check how the pay per click limit is working for a certain advertiser. If its still competitive, would it be even listed among the paid search lists or does it generate sales? Of course, if the advertiser made the highest bid, the better chances the ad will be seen in the search engine. These networks too provide protection for the advertisers against click fraud. This advertising set-up allows advertisers to set a daily budget for his ads, thus, less spending for unnecessary clicks. Advertiser will never go over his budget.

    In PPC advertising, what are important are the keywords and phrases. You have to select at least 10 “very specific” keywords that would give you the best traffic in the search. Then, write the ad creatively but straightforward. Tell the truth about your product or service and do not lie. Good thing if your product or service will not disappoint those that are relying on your ad’s promise – but what if it did otherwise? Important too is the clarity of the ad. Do not use very vague languages. Include important details like the price.

    Important! You should also remember to budget your bids. Do not go overbidding because you will only lose your money and do not go so low that your ads will never get the chance to show up. Check your profit against your spending. If you see no progress then most likely you have to drop your ad campaign.

    More and more advertisers have been using PPC advertising and it will continue to grow faster than any online advertising techniques. From revenues of $2.6 billion in 2004 to $5.5 billion in 2009, cost per click will dramatically go up as well from $0.29 to $0.36.

    PPC advertising is new in online marketing and it is going to continue in the years to come. For advertisers, this means increase revenues with fewer advertising expenses, savings, more sales, good return of investment (ROI) and effective ad campaigns in the days to come.

  • Essentials of Adding a Facebook Like Button to WordPress

    Video: Brad demonstrates how simple it is to add a Facebook like button to a WordPress site.

  • Essentials of Adding An Image to a WordPress Post

    Video: Brad demonstrates how to add an image to a WordPress blog post.

  • Essentials of installing WordPress manually

    Video: How to install WordPress manually if you don’t have cpanel

  • The Fundamentals of List Building

    To win big, you have to start out small, as Demosthenes suggests. Small opportunities will often lead you to great successes. The process of creating a list leads to the potential for greater success and wealth, regardless of the business you are in. In this section we’ll talk about some simple tools you can use to build your list. Let’s look at each method independently.

    Sometimes it is best to rely on simple tools and small opportunities when you are just starting out in the industry. You will have much time to grow your business and expand your customer base if you follow the simple steps outlined in this guide. So let’s begin first by talking about subscriber leads.

    Subscriber Leads

    One easy way to build your list is by collecting subscriber leads. This is one of the best ways to expand your business. There are many ways to acquire leads, but the best way to collect leads is to gather them automatically, through email or by your website through various forms. In the next few sections of this book, we will go into greater detail about the ways you can grow your subscriber list and maintain your list over time.

    You will find as you run your business that your subscriber leads prove vital to your businesses success and ability to grow and expand over time.

    Opt-In Leads

    Like subscriber leads, opt-in leads are a good tool for building your business. Opt-in leads are leads you get when you invite someone to enter their information into your database. When they do this, they are granting you permission to contact them in the future about new products or updates to your site.

    For example, when you create your website, you can set it up so each person that visits has the choice to sign up for a newsletter or some other type of routine e-mailing. By signing up, visitors are “opting in” to your list. Setting your site up this way allows you to gain visitor’s email addresses. While you can never force someone to do what you want them to, this approach often works if you encourage people to sign up by describing all the benefits your site offers. You can then reap the benefits of gaining important subscriber leads.

    Survey Leads

    Another way to produce automatic subscriber leads is by conducting surveys on your website. This is a simple way to increase the number of subscribers to your list. You can place survey ads on your website so they pop up when a customer checks out.

    How do you get someone to fill out a survey? It is not as hard as you think. For starters, some people enjoy filling out surveys. For those that don’t you can employ some simple tactics to encourage them to offer their information to you. For example, tell your customers what benefits they will reap from filling out your survey. Don’t assume your customer’s know what benefits they will gain by filling out a survey. You have to tell them. Maybe they will gain access to your website, which contains thousands of free articles on the topic they are researching. Maybe you will enter them into a contest to win a free gift. Giveaways are a great way to encourage people to sign up for just about anything.

    It’s funny how quickly people are willing to give up their personal information, including their name, address and email for a gift. We’ll talk more about gifts later in this guide.

    Make sure you offer them an irresistible reason to fill out your survey. Tell customers how they will profit by signing up. This is a very easy and successful tool marketers use to produce new leads. Most times visitors are willing to offer their email address for a survey.

    Let’s talk now about the next simple tool you can use to build your subscriber list.

    Affiliating

    One way you can collect leads for your subscriber list is by affiliating. Affiliating means joining in or offering an affiliate program. When you take part in an affiliate program you immediately realize the benefits of getting leads that an affiliate will create and then forward to you.

    For this process to work you need an opt-in program and an auto responder programmer. We will devote an entire section to auto responders later in this guide. Using these programs you can gather information and instantly send out confirmation emails to new subscribers on your list. Don’t worry about having people fill in their address fields or phone number. Most people are hesitant to provide this information, but very willing to provide their email address. There is much less pressure involved when you are collecting email addresses instead of personal information.

  • Make Your Site Cool Using Web Page Keywords

    Finding the right web page keywords so your website will show up on the first page of Google, and other search engines, is the main goal for internet marketers. The good news is that it really is not that hard to do, with a little patience and a little practice you can optimize your web pages and benefit from free traffic too.

    It is really quite simple, if you do it the right way and you get that coveted first page ranking for your website, you will get a lot of traffic, quality targeted traffic, for free.

    These are called organic searches. Someone will go to their web browser and type in a search term. Let’s say someone is looking for golf balls. If they search for that term and if you’ve optimized your web pages with those keywords your website can show up very high in the search results.

    This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and it is a great way to get a ton of very targeted traffic which is completely free.

    By ranking so high it also gives your site a lot more credibility. The average internet web surfer does not really know that much about how it all works. For that reason, many people assume that the websites listed on the top of the results pages are the best.

    And in a way they are, they are the best at optimizing their web pages so they can cash in on all that organic traffic.

    So, how do you benefit from using these keywords to land on the first page of the search engines? Well, the first thing you have to do is compile a list of keywords. If you really want to benefit from a top ranking you need to target the keywords you use very carefully.

    It’s easy to think that you should grab all the most searched for keywords in your niche, but that very rarely works because those keywords are just too competitive.

    A much better, and more efficient, strategy is to find keywords that are made up of 3 – 4 words. These long tailed keywords won’t get the huge hundreds of thousands of searches, but they will get plenty of searches a month and they won’t be so competitive that you can’t rank for them anyway.

    If you choose a dozen, or more, of these long tailed keywords and each one gets say around 1,500 searches a month, you stand a very good chance of ranking for several of them, not just one.

    That will provide you with plenty of traffic and since the traffic you are getting is from people who are searching for the exact keyword (and item) that you have to sell, you will get a lot of sales.

    It’s just not that hard to optimize your web pages for search engines. The better you get at adding the best

    web page keywords, the more organic search results you will get. That is free traffic and you will make more sales and have a much higher rate of return on your investment of time. Other than time, it’s totally free.

  • Securing Your Child’s Blogging Activities

    I have strongly urged parents to allow their children to blog. I believe it can help develop their technological, social and writing skills. In a world that is becoming smaller everyday due to technology like the internet, it is important our children have a strong basis in it. That said, you have to be careful because blogging by children can be dangerous. Follow these four tips and you will make blogging a safe and fun activity for your children.

    Make Rules: You need to sit down with your child and set up some rules. Whatever rules you decide on you should explain them clearly to your child and explain why they are important. Set some consequences as well, let them know what will happen if they break any of the rules. You don’t want to be lackadaisical when it comes to online rules. Stay firm and your children will understand.

    Strong Passwords: Make sure that your children’s accounts are all protected by good passwords. “12345” is not a good password. You should use number, letters and symbols. It might be impossible for them to remember, but if it means you have to log on for them – even better.

    Screen The Content: Encourage your child to create their blog posts on the computer before they go live. This way you can check them out and ensure they don’t give away any sensitive information, or have any objectionable content. Another bonus with this method is you can help your child get used to word processing software. You can also teach them about grammar and spelling with this method.

    Monitor Blog: Check your child’s blog everyday and make sure they haven’t snuck any objectionable content on to it. Also make sure no one has been leaving weird comments. Even some spam comments can have dangerous links so make sure you have access to delete these. Install Akismet if you use WordPress and most of them should be caught. Also check out any links your child puts up, who knows where they could be linking to.

    If you follow these four tips you will ensure that your child’s blog will be a great learning experience and not a potential danger. Commit to strong passwords, screening and monitoring and your child can benefit from blog ownership!