Sarah Fowler » Blogs

Back to Basics: What WordPress Plugins Should I Use?

Sarah Fowler — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:40:07 +0000

Picture by michelphoto53 en Rénovation on Flickr

So you’ve built a blog on WordPress. You see the Plugins section, but you have no idea what to do with them. Do you need them? Do they serve any purpose? What plugins are available?

There are plugins for almost everything you can think of, from linking your blog to Twitter to making it easier to insert photos in your sidebar.

There are a couple basics every blog should have, though; most related to either making your site easier for your customers to find (whether they know they are looking for you or not) or making your content easier to share. (NOTE: These plugins are available when you install the self-hosted version of WordPress–ie, your own URL– not with a blog hosted at WordPress.com)

First of all, when you install WordPress it comes with a plugin that helps block spam comments called Akismet. You will need to create a WordPress.com account and get an API key to activate it, but it’s well worth it because it will block 99% of spam comments in all but the most trafficked blogs. (If you find you need more help blocking spam comments, there are many additional plugins to accomplish this.)

If you have a Google Analytics account and plan to use it to track links and traffic to your blog (which I highly recommend), save yourself a lot of time and heartache by installing Google Analyticator, which automatically adds the necessary JavaScript to make that happen. You will have to enter a few things on the plugin Settings page to set it up initially, but after that it will do all the legwork for you!

Next you will want to install a few plugins to help make your blog easy for search engines to find and index.

The All in One SEO Pack is an excellent place to start; once activated it gives you a way to add keywords to the code of each blog post so posts will appear in relevant searches.
Google XML Sitemaps is another really helpful plugin. (It doesn’t just create and submit Google sitemaps; it will do it for all the major search engines.) Search engines don’t only search sites with sitemaps, but it makes the process easier and you can make recommendations for how often their bots come through. You can even make exceptions and keep the bots from scanning certain pages. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you would be well served by finding someone who knows a bit more about SEO, especially in the initial setup of your site.)

Finally, you’ll want to make your content as easy to share as possible.

A popular one-size-fits-all option is the Add to Any Share/Bookmark plugin, which adds a menu to the bottom of each post offering sharing options on many popular sites.
There is a Share on Facebook plugin to add that specific button, or you can use the code from Facebook’s own site to add their official button.
The TweetMeme Retweet Button plugin is very popular as it is an easy way to share the post on Twitter and also displays the number of times the post has been tweeted in a graphic in the post itself.
The Twitter on WordPress plugin creates a widget in your sidebar that will show all your tweets live.

This is just a start. There are hundreds of other plugins that do useful things like changing the way your blog archive appears or changing the “Next” “Previous” links at the bottom of the page. It’s worth searching anything you think of you might like to change; which you may have to change the code yourself to make some changes or add some functionality, the great developers who contribute to WordPress may well have already done the work for you! (And don’t forget to donate to those developers if you possibly can.)

Enjoy making your blog better with plugins!

Back to Basics: How to “listen” to social media

Sarah Fowler — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:51:03 +0000

(Image by ky_olsen)

You’ve heard a lot about social media. You know you should get involved. You’re just not sure you have time/not sure you know how/not sure you want to jump in just yet. That’s fine (for now). What do you do now, then? Ignore the conversation? Pretend no one is mentioning your brand because you’re not there? No way!

Whether you have profiles on every site, are waiting to jump in to social media or never plan to get involved, you should know what is being said about your company. Here’s how to do that.

Set up Google Alerts on terms you want to keep track of across the Web (your company name, your own name, brand names of your products or services, and– for best results– other terms related to your industry). Be sure to click Comprehensive! You can have these delivered to your email (in a daily or weekly digest, or as they occur) or to an RSS reader. (This step is really an absolute necessity. If you do nothing else, at least do this!)

While some tweets will eventually show up in your Google Alerts, for the most real-time results you should use Twitter Search. If you want to do this daily, you’re welcome to; but the easiest way will be to search the terms, then click Feed for this Query and subscribe in an RSS feeder.

In order to use Facebook Search, you’ll need a Facebook account. It’s worth signing up for, since anything within Facebook will not show up in your Google Alerts. If the mentions you see through Google are showing up in blogs, subscribe to search terms in the blog siteTechnorati. You might also search regularly through Alltop, a topic aggregator.

Once you have a good idea of the conversation happening about your brand (or related topics), you’ll have a chance to decide where you want to go from there. Do you want to set up profiles on existing networks, or try to start a community around your brand? Do you want to blog or just chat? Is there an educational gap surrounding your product? After listening for a while, you’ll know where the gaps are– and you can figure out (or get help figuring out) just how you want to fill them.

Without being active on the Web, you’ll have a hard time responding if you hear something about your brand getting out of hand, but at least you won’t be blindsided by something that arises “behind the scenes”. (Remember: Your customers have access to search engines and are usually on at least one social media site. It’s not behind the scenes for anyone but you.)

Back to Basics: 10 Things You Can Do with Web 2.0

Sarah Fowler — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:19:53 +0000

It’s very common for me to have a conversation with a potential client that starts something like this:

“I know I should be on social media; I keep hearing that. But I don’t get it. What can I use it for?”

Let’s start with how you do business already– there’s no need to totally reinvent the wheel.

Host a town meeting or focus group– via UStream, Twitter or another chat service.
Host an educational seminar (in this case, a webinar)– use UStream, GoToMeeting, or another service.
Publish educational content– via a blog (WordPress, Blogger, Facebook or another platform) or as multimedia (on YouTube, SlideShare, etc.)
Provide top-notch customer service through Twitter, Facebook, or any number of forum or chat platforms.
Send a newsletter– use ConstantContact, Emma, or the bevy of other products available. (By permission only, please!)
Distribute informative literature by posting it on your website, Facebook fan page, or other platform.
Send invitations or spread the word about events– store openings, special sales, educational seminars, campaign rallies, whatever! Use MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, or a range of other options.
Distribute coupons, discount codes, or event tickets individually via email or generally to online fans/followers.
Organize volunteers to political events, community service opportunities, or other causes (MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, etc.).
Make announcements or distribute press releases. You can do this through regular communications on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, on a section of your website, or officially either through direct communication with reporters or by using a service like PitchEngine.)

(PS – This video on the social media revolution is worth seeing.)

Blog Comments

Sarah Fowler — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:48:38 +0000

The first thing companies often want to do to “jump in” to social media is start a company blog. They put together a nice-looking page, build a sidebar of links to their site (ahem, perhaps try linking to other sites too), and write a few helpful posts. Within a few weeks, I usually hear ‘Why aren’t we getting any comments?’

Well, let’s see. Do you read blogs? (I hope the answer is Yes, because if not we have a lot to talk about!) Assuming you read blogs, and quite a few because there is lots of great content (get thee an RSS reader!), do you comment on blogs? How often? What kind of comments? (ie, are you actually contributing to the conversation or saying things like ‘Hey yeah, me too’?)

In order to “do” social media, you have to interact. And no matter how good your SEO or how big your brand, no one is going to know you’re available to interact until you find the people already in the space and initiate a conversation.

Assuming you’ve done a basic social technographics profile and determined that blogging is a good way to reach your audience and that your target base contains a decent percentage of Creators and Critics, the only reason you’re not getting comments should be that the people you’re trying to reach haven’t found you yet (unless commenting is unduly difficult on your blog—such as requiring a registration. Try leaving a comment on the blog from a computer outside your office and make sure it’s super simple.). Reach out a little, and the people you touch will help more people find you along the line. I believe in inbound marketing, but I never promised you could literally just sit back on your butt and watch the sales roll in!

(If the first part of the last paragraph sounded like scary gibberish to you, you haven’t read Groundswell yet! I recommend you do that before embarking on any of this, especially if you think you’re just going to “get your feet wet” and don’t really understand how social media can help build your business.)

If you don’t know where exactly to jump in—or worse, read very few (or no!) blogs— start by asking existing customers, coworkers, your marketing team, your friends, and anyone you can get ahold of what they read online. Most of those sites will lead you to other places… and then you’re off!

An additional great tip for learning about improving your blog: listen to or particpate in #blogchat on Twitter, which happens every Sunday night at 8:00pm CST. If you have no idea what I just said, shoot me an email and I’ll introduce you to some Twitter basics.