I had the great pleasure of presenting the idea of using social media for marketing purposes to a company’s senior management team last week.  During the preparatory process over the two weeks preceding the presentation, I learned so much not only about them and how they market that type of business but also about social marketing.  The vast implications of using Social Media hold no bounds and can greatly compliment (and in some cases completely replace) existing marketing strategies.

One of the things that I helped this dynamic group realize was that social media put simply is merely a communication tool.  More importantly, social media is a means by which we can communicate with our customers in a personal and sincere way – we can actually build relationships with people, hundreds (or even thousands) at a time.

For as long as there has been industry, sellers have wanted nothing more than to communicate and build relationships with their buyers.  Creating a connection, building a relationship with our customers has always been of the utmost importance.  Advertising has never been good enough – after all, how could it be, it is only a one way communication.

Over the years, this line of communication has become more intimate, but has never had the opportunity to be personal.  Cleverly crafted TV commercials, billboards or web site banner ads have captured our attention, caused us to respond but never allowed the consumer to feel connected with us.  Traditional advertisements have lacked one essential key element to selling products or services: the ability to build a relationship.

Social media has changed everything.

With the rapidly growing use of blogging as a tool to talk about your products, you’re given a medium by which you can talk about your products from a first-person perspective.  You can be yourself and through that self expression, people can get to know you.  They can connect with you.  They can feel the passion you have for your goods and services.  This connection is more important to your success than anything.

For years, when I was the only blogger at PCBDaily, people would chat my ear off at events.  This was great – people felt like they knew me because they read my rants and raves every day.  People could relate to me as a person, because my writing WAS me. People FELT like they knew me because they DID know me.

Facebook and Twitter give a way for your customers to actually talk to you.  When you post a message, your customers can actually engage you and you can engage them right back.  It’s like talking, only with a keyboard!

The types of conversations you can have with your customers can be anything you want.  With a little creativity, you can direct the conversations by asking questions that will lead to your customers becoming more educated about your products or services.  Creating consistent “post-themes” moves mountains when it comes to creating conversation, for example: “this week’s featured product”, “put your own caption on this photo”, “find on our web site and win”.  You can devise simple games that inspire your customers to interact with you and other customers.  All of this creates a sense of community, a tribe (thanks Seth Godin), and people love to be a part of a tribe.

People also love doing business with people they know.  By using social media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for marketing, you can build personal relationships with your customers on a huge scale.  As these personal relationships grow, your customers will trust you and when you write about something of value to them, they’ll not hesitate to buy it from you when they are ready.

As a word of caution: With slimy snake-oil salesmen slithering around, trust has become a slippery word these past couple years.  Don’t disobey the trust you’ve worked so hard to earn by practicing less than ethical tactics and pawning off products that you wouldn’t endorse or use yourself.  It won’t take long for your new “friends” to abandon the relationship you’ve built with them and go running for the door.

The whole object of social media is to build meaningful relationships, and if you can use these meaningful relationships to grow a business, then you can see great success.  Communication and relationship building is key in business, and social media is an enabler, a very powerful tool and will only grow more useful in the future.

In our last post about the power of email, we talked about the two different types of email communication – sending a regular email newsletter or sending a personal message. Remember, email marketing, if executed property, can provide explosive results when growing a business and online presence. Today we’re going to talk about how to grow your email list and why if you’re not on the email list-building wagon now, you’re missing out on the action.

I tell consulting clients all the time, if you’re not collecting email addresses, you’re missing out on one of the single most important ways to communicate with your customers. Just two years ago, I was told that email marketing was, “sooo 2006.” Well, it wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.

Even now with Twitter, Facebook and texting, email is still one of the most used methods of communication. Think about it, we check email on our phones, leave our email clients running on our desktop computers – we have “growl” messages display previews of new emails as they roll in. Your customers are waiting for each and every email that storms into their inbox, waiting for something to respond to, think about or forward to a friend or co-worker. If done right – that is to say, you write the perfect subject line, craft the message just right and send it at the right time of day – email can be the most important part of your marketing plan.

Now, obviously, the big question is, “How to I get all those email addresses that are going to change the way I do business?”

1. First and foremost, you have to tell your web site audience that you have a newsletter.

You need to put a box somewhere in the sidebar, above your content, or in the header of your web site that either clicks over to a page where people can enter their email address or where they can enter their email address right there. Remember, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Don’t make people dig for this, the harder it is for them to give you their email address, the less likely they’ll give it up.Darren Rowse, from ProBlogger.net had implemented and discussed putting a popup box that has an email contact form in it. I personally hate popups, but totally agreed with his logic. He eloquently explained that although he didn’t like popup boxes either, almost nobody complained about it and his newsletter subscription rate increase dramatically. That’s good enough for me!

2. By golly, if you want their email address, just give them something.

Right now I’m writing an e-book called 5 Traffic Secrets your Competition doesn’t want you to know about, and guess what? I’m going to give it away for free to everyone that signs up for the email newsletter. The goal is simple, I want to grow my email database, you want to grow the traffic on your blog or web site, so I’ll trade my knowledge for an opportunity to be your friend.

I’m hoping to have the book complete by the end of March – it will be pretty awesome! In the mean time, get signed up now and I’ll be sure you get it when it is released.

3. If you are a retail business, give your customers a reason to subscribe!

It doesn’t matter what type of retail business you are in, your main objective is to sell your product. The reasons to communicate with your customers are practically enumerable.

Here are some examples of what your customers want to hear from you: when you get new product lines in, updates to existing product lines, when existing products are getting low in inventory (they may want to stock up now), when you are having sales, special holiday (or otherwise) hours, opening a new shop, quick one-time push on a particular product (you may include a printable coupon or a coupon code for online shopping), the list is only limited by your imagination.

If you have a “bricks and mortar” store, ask for the email addresses of your customers as they make purchases. Many of these customers you may already have a relationship with, and the others, this is your chance to start building that relationship. Note: you just want to be sure that you send a “verification email” to them once you get them in your system so they have a chance to “opt-in” – this is just a precaution to maintain the integrity of your email account with whatever service you use, be it Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Blue Sky Factory, or whatever.

4. Write a whole article on why your readers should subscribe to your email newsletter.

If you are a blogger like me, or you have a web site that you use to drive traffic to your business, just write a quick article spelling out the reasons why people should subscribe to your email newsletter. Tim Ferris, from The Four Hour Work Week did this, titled simply 7 Reasons to Subscribe. Not getting to much into headlines here, Ferris capitalized on a winning headline that was sure to snatch the attention of his readers and persuade them to give up their email address for his further communication in the future.

Again, the whole purpose is to eliminate any confusion or lack of knowledge and convince your customers or readers that they are getting value by subscribing.

5. Run contests on your blog or web site that require an email address to enter.

When I was with PCBdaily, we would run contests from time to time, including giving away season passes to the local amusement area, gift cards to the local mall, consulting services, and others.In the rules, we clearly spelled out that by entering all entrants were agreeing to receive email communication from us and can opt out anytime.

Again, once the email addresses are collected, it is considered best-practice to send a “verification email” to all of the new email addresses giving them the opportunity to “opt-in”. This is called a Double Opt-in and is usually required by all the email marketing services available today. The point is to be sure that the people that don’t want to hear from you aren’t getting your emails and marking them as spam – that is bad.

Growing your email database can be a difference like night and day when it comes to marketing your business. Collecting email addresses can be one of the single most important things you do as a blogger and a business owner.

If you have any clever ideas for collecting email addresses you’d like to share, tell us about them in the comments section below.

One of the things I love is something I like to call absorption.  My goal is to read around the ubiquitous web for 30 to 60 minutes a day and pick up as much knowledge as I can about the social media world.  For me, reading stimulates that squishy material in between my ears and really gets the gears turning; it allows me to get the creative juices flowing.

Every morning, whilst I read, I’ll be updating my Twitter stream with all the great articles I come across.  You’ll know these by seeing the hastag #tcreads.

I’d be lying if I’d said I came up with this idea all on my own, but Christopher Penn is doing a similar daily routine he calls #the5.  Many of the articles I read may come from him as well.

The idea is to provide a resource for you.  One of the things I used to struggle with was finding great things to read.

So, enough talk, lets read!

Consistency is quite possibly the most important element of everything you do.  As a blogger and a marketer, your readers crave consistency.  They need it to relate to your brand and trust you.  That trust is essential to your growth and your success.

Think about 3 of the blogs that you read most.  How often do they post new content?  How often do you read their blog? If they posted one post a day for two days, then posted two weeks later, posted at the beginning of the next week then didn’t post again for a month, would you visit their blog regularly?  You may find some value in their content, but you wouldn’t know when to return.

I built pcbdaily on the reliance that we would have new content on a regular basis.  Many of our 15,000+ readers returned daily to find out what was happening in Panama City Beach.  Our traffic was high considering the super niche topic we discussed because we gave our readers a reason to come back and come back often.  But, it wasn’t always this way, though.

When I first started pcbdaily in 2006, I would scurry every weekend and Monday to get three or four posts up for the newsletter that went out every Tuesday morning.  Naturally, we would have huge spikes in traffic that day, then it would piddle off the rest of the week.  Then, I realized something.

What if I gave my audience a reason to come back every day?  If I wrote it, would they come?  The answer was yes.  Within one month of dedicating to posting one post a day, I saw a 50% growth in traffic.  Within 6 months I was breaking 20,000+ unique visitors a month.  Consistency directly resulted in more traffic.  If you give people a reason to come to your site, they will come to your site as often as you give them reason to.  If you want your readers to check your site first thing everyday, make sure they have something new for them to look at first thing every day.

So, how does this convey to marketers?  Think about all your favorite brands.  When you see a red aluminum can, you think Coca-Cola.  What about FedEX?  The letters always look the same with that iconic arrow between the E and the X.  A good brand drips with consistency.  We, as consumers need that consistency to trust the product.  We need to trust the product to feel good about using it.  And, we need to feel good about using it, or we’ll find something else that will fill the need.

What about commercials on TV?  The ones that stick with you, that drive you to purchase the advertised product, the ones that have a resonating message are all consistent in one way or many.  Do you remember the Bud-Weis-Er series of commercials?  What about the Gieco Caveman series?  Consistency, man.  Consistency.

Are you consistent in your efforts?  Can your audience rely on you?  What are you saying about you and your brand through your actions?

Post your comments about ways you are consistent and experiences you’ve had where consistency has paid off.

If you’ve been working with Wordpress for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve come across the menacing white screen of death.  Here’s how to fix it.

Recently I moved one of my blogs to a new server.  Everything went smoothly, the server environment was the same, the database imported correctly and when the name servers propagated, everything seemed in order.  Then the next day I typed up the url and hit enter just to check things out, and BAM! Nothing.

Right click > View Source Code > Nothing.  There was nothing being displayed.  Hmmm, so I type in my domain name/wp-admin.  Nothing again.  Shoot, I couldn’t even get logged into the back end.

So, fearing the worst, I check the files on the server.  Everything is there.  I check the database.  It looks normal. What to do next?  Well, if the site files are there, and the database seems normal, then the first place to start is to deactivate all the plugins.

I’ve experienced several white screens of death and every single time, they’ve had something to do with a buggy plugin.  I needed to deactivate them, but I had to do it through phpmyadmin because the back-end was just not accessible.

After a google search, I came across this nifty article on Perishable Press that provided one quick sql command that took all my worries away (it deactivates all the plugins in one quick, fell swoop).

So, here’s what you do.

Log into phpmyadmin

Start by logging into your server control panel and locate the phpmyadmin icon.  I use Hostmonster, and this is found under the sub-section called “Databases”.  It should be similar for you as well.  Click on it and a new window will come up that takes you right into the back end of your database.  Now, if you’ve never been here before, don’t be scared, it seems a little intimidating, but it won’t bite.  But you should be careful, you can screw up your whole site if you mess with the wrong thing.  Wow, was that contradictory?  NO PRESSURE!!

Find your database name

Once you’re in, on the left-hand side, you’ll find a list of all your databases (if you have multiple – I have like a million).  Find the database for your blog.  If you need help determining which one is tied to your blog, then you can just check in your wp-config file.  Either go into Dreamweaver, or open your wp-config file in a text editor and look at one of the first fields, it will have your database name.  When you’ve located your database name in the left hand sidebar, click on it – it will pull up all the tables in your database.

Run an SQL Query

Sounds cool, doesn’t it?  Yep, after this, you can say you’re a coder.  Well, not really, but who cares.  Along the top there are a series of tabs that read: Structure, SQL, Search, Query, Export, Import and Operations.  Click on the SQL tab.

When you click on the SQL tab, you’ll be taken to a page with a big white blank box.  Now, don’t freak out with all that white space, everything is functioning correctly here.  It’s within that white box that you’ll paste the following code:

SELECT * FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = ‘active_plugins’;

Once you paste that code into the box, click on the GO button.  This will pull up a table row that will have all your active plugins listed, it should only be one row and will look something like this:

Click the edit icon (hint: it looks like the pencil, right next to the radio button on the left).  The next screen, there will be a text area that will have a bunch of garble-dee-gook in it that will look something like this:

a:11:{i:0;s:31:”FeedBurner_FeedSmith_Plugin.php”;i:1;s:19:” akismet/akismet.php” ;i:2;s:19:”capsman/capsman.php”;i:3;s:36:”contact-form-7/wp-contact-form-7.php”;i:4;s:24:”flickr-tag/FlickrTag.php”;i:5;s:36:”google-sitemap-generator/sitemap.php”;i:6;s:47:”really-simple-captcha/really-simple-captcha.php”;i:7;s:15:”stats/stats.php”;i:8;s:35:”thesis-openhook/thesis-openhook.php”;i:9;s:37:”tinymce-advanced/tinymce-advanced.php”;i:10;s:20:”wordpress-mobile.php”;}

Select it all, cut it out, paste it in a fresh text document and hit GO in your SQL window. Viola, all your plugins will be deactivated.  Note: I say to paste it into a fresh text document out of a habit of never wanting to lose any code in case I need to go back.  There is no “undo” button with this process, but if you keep the code, at least you have a way to go back if you need to.

From here, go back to www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin and log in.  Go to your plugins page and one-by-one, reactivate each plugin until you get an issue and you’ve found your bug.

The plugin that was causing all the fuss for me was Contact Form 7, which needed an upgrade.  I upgraded it, and the problem was gone!

Post in the comments below your experiences with the menacing White Screen of Death and tell us about your solutions.

Who doesn’t love a bunch of mind-blowing stats that feed the imagination and drive motivation to get involved?  Jesse Thomas animated this video for a conference and within it’s confines lies some amazing stats.  Enjoy!

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

What the heck are you talking about, you may be saying right now.  Let me explain.

You know on Twitter, when you type the @ symbol succeeded by someone’s Twitter name, and the final text ends up making the name an active hyperlink back to their Twitter page?  That’s that I’m talking about.  Now, on Facebook Fan Pages, when you post a status update and type the @ symbol, a box appears below the text entry area that will begin prepopulating suggestions based on pages that you have labeled as a favorite for that page and your personal friends.  This is something that has been available  in the status updates on personal profiles for some time, but now that it’s here for Fan pages, the marketing implications are outstanding!

Some of you may know exactly what I’m talking about, but some of you are still confused.  I can see your eye brows doing that funny thing they do when you don’t understand.  Let me give you an example.

Say I was to post a status update on someone’s Facebook fan page: “Hey, I just wanted to let you know of there’s a huge sale @Pier Park this weekend.”   When I typed the @ symbol, then succeeded it with Pier Park, it would populate a drop down below where I’m typing that would then allow me to choose my Pier Park fan page.  In the final message, the text “@Pier Park” will be an active, clickable hyperlink that would take all that clicked on it to the Pier Park Facebook fan page.

Pretty neat, huh?

So, why is this important, cool, nifty, handy, and every other descriptive word you can think of?

The reason this is cool is because now you can reference your fan page from anywhere you post a status update on Facebook without having to use up your precious link share.  You can imbed hyperlinks right in the text.  If you go to other pages and post images, videos or links, you can still reference YOUR page through the text.

In the world of SEO, one of the greatest ways to get exposure through traffic is posting comments on other people’s blogs or web sites.  This often allows a direct hyperlink back to your site from theirs.  From a Facebook fan page standpoint, this can be an excellent way to attract new fans if you post messaged on other fan pages cleverly and creatively.  By linking back to your fan page, you can offer your page exposure anywhere on Facebook.  Cool, huh?

The secret-but-not-so-secret buzz about Facebook’s conceptualization of releasing the capability of it being a full-blown communication platform has ignited conversation all over the Internets.  Speculation is being made from either side of the field on whether it will be a Gmail killer.  Can Facebook take on the 800 lbs gorilla?  Maybe Facebook is an 800 lbs gorilla too.

Let’s think about the concept for a minute.

Google.  Everyone know’s google.  Everyone starts their search at google.com or in that nifty little search window tucked in the upper right hand corner of your screen.  Google is not only a noun, but it’s been a verb for years, YEARS!  Gmail has been around since the beginning of time.  In fact, if you were to go create a shiny new gmail account, you’d find out that like 30 other people with your exact same name have already taken up every possible contorted combination of your name – you’d end up with john3998.smith887373737@gmail.com.  WTF (what the frank?).

But, Gmail is the gold-standard. . . right?

Facebook.  Facebook has been around for a while, but it’s nothing like Google.  But, and this is a big BUT, Facebook’s user base has been and continues to accelerate.  At one point, MySpace was all the rage, but early in 2009, MySpace became a has-been when social marketers began talking about how Facebook was then the “MySpace” for grown-ups.  I keep waiting for Facebook growth to slow down and for it to turn into a trend that crumbles and whithers away with the times, but it keeps growing stronger.

The demographic with Facebook is vast.  The problem with MySpace was that it catered more towards youth.  And while that is a highly coveted demo, they age – and with age, comes maturity – and with maturity comes the desire for something more sophisticated than a bunch of cluttered band-pages with crappy looking backgrounds.

The beautiful part about Facebook is that even though tons of young people are on it, it is still very friendly, usable, etc. for the older crowd.  In fact, the fastest growing age-group on Facebook right now is women over 55.  Facebook isn’t going to have the ‘our demographic is getting too old to use our platform’ problem.

The point is – everyone and their mom (literally) is using Facebook to do all sorts of things, including share pictures, communicate, chat, message, do business, the list could go on forever.  It only makes sense to continue to build that value and add a feature that would bring even more people into the Facebook fold and commit others so that they can never leave.

Now, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.  I think Facebook can create a Gmail killer.  Now will it ever really kill Gmail?  Heck no, Gmail will never go away, but they can certainly take some market share if they do it right.

1. They need to offer full pop/imap functionality.  For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about: users NEED to be able to hook up whatever email client they normally use so that they can check their @facebook.com email account (e.g. Outlook, Entourage, Mac Mail, iPhone, etc.) from their computer rather than actually logging onto facebook.com.
2. No restriction on the address names.  I read that they were talking about doing the vanity url@facebook.com.  This isn’t going to cut it.  There must be a no limitations attitude here.  It needs to be wide open.  If I want jkoertge @ facebook.com, and it’s available, I should be able to have it.
3. They need to offer expanded functionality similar to google-apps gmail self hosted email service.  I use google apps for my email on this server, my Too Creative server and several client sites because it’s easy and it works.  I love it because if I’m not at my computer or have my iPhone handy, I can check my email as long as I have internet access.  Plus when I’m working with client sites, it makes it such a breeze to get their email up and running.  I don’t have to hassle with programming their Outlook, etc.
4. Facebook needs to look real hard at what Gmail offers, what people like and what they don’t like (like the annoying hell of connected “strings” just because some emails have commonalities like same from name or subject line) and learn from that.  They don’t need to go half-throttle on this and roll things out along the way.  They need to open it up wide in the beginning and ride it hard all the way home.  It’s all about momentum baby.  If they get enough of it, it will swipe huge market share right away.

Google’s a behemoth, but so is Facebook.  Can Facebook take ‘em?  Actually, I don’t think Zuckerburg has the balls to come out swingin’.  My personal opinion is that they’ll putz it out, restrict the crap out of it, change the TOS 287 times and maybe get it right 18 months after roll-out.

Ding ding ding.  FIGHT!

This is part 1 in a series of posts that will show you how to use email marketing to grow your traffic and therefore grow your business quickly and easily.

I get asked all the time, “Can email marketing help my business, is it worth my time and is it something I can even do?”  Yes, to all of them.  Using email to market and convey sales messages and drive traffic to your web site is extremely easy.

Read on to find out how marketing using email can grow your business and increase profits.

There are two basic forms of email communication in the marketing world, the Newsletter and the Personal Message.  The Newsletter, is a communicatory update that is goaled at providing information on a consistent and regular basis.  My newsletters in the past included updates on new posts, events coming up, contests, etc. The typical formating layout for the newletter will often have a two or three column setup with the main content being on the left side and a sidebar on the right or the content broken up into boxes. Using imagery is highly recommended as it provides visual reference and catches the eye.

The other form of email communication I use in marketing is the Personal Message.  This is a powerful to communicate and can have explosive results when it comes to conveying a message.  Let me tell you a case study from PCBDaily.com, my old blog.

Before we started sending out Personal Messages to our email database, we sent out one weekly newsletter on Tuesday morning.  Our monthly traffic hovered around 17,000 unique visits.  We had good response from the content with plenty of comments and our click through rate on the newsletter was a respectable 46% (we kept our list pretty clean), but we wanted more.  So, I decided that at least once a week I would send out a personal message email to the database, in addition to the regular newsletter.  Within 30 days our traffic shot up to 25,000 unique visitors for the month.  So, what did we say?

The messaging doesn’t need to be complex.  Our goal was to send an email that looked like we were sending it to the reader personally and the message length had to be short for it to work.  In face, I found our readers really only wanted to focus on one or two posts, rather than read down a list of new content.  The amount of traffic we would get from Personal Message emails was often times comparable to the traffic we would get on newsletter days.

There is an important detail to note about sending a Personal Message email to your database:  in order for you to get the response you are looking for, you  need to have something compelling to say.  PCBDaily was a news blog specific to real estate, growth and tourism in Panama City Beach.  Here is an example of a personal message that I sent to our database:

Hi John,

I just wanted to send  you a quick email, I was too excited to wait until the newsletter to come out for you to see this.  I went up to the new airport yesterday on the invitation that I was the only “camera” invited to film the capping of the air traffic control tower.  I repeat, no one else has this footage except us!  It was a great honor to be on site to see the progress.

Click here to watch the video now!

I mingled urgency with scarcity to create demand and guess what happened?  We had a traffic day that rivaled any regular newsletter day.

So, can you double your traffic by implementing a regular email newsletter? Absolutely.  Email will change the way you do business, it will increase not only web site traffic, but it will increase your sales, grow your brand and ultimately put your business on an entirely new level within 6 months.

Stay tuned for part 2, we’ll be talking about how to grow your email database and how it will help make you more money.

It’s no secret that Wordpress is the best blogging platform and most widely used self-hosted blogging system available.  With endless extendability options, you can pretty much make a standard Wordpress installation look anyway you want and use it for any kind of web site.  Even popular CMS systems like Joomla and Drupal are shrinking in popularity at the ever growing capability of a simple Wordpress blog.

The team at Too Creative (the How To Social Marketing parent company) has been blogging professionally for years and have used several plugins consistently during that time.  These Wordpress plugins are must-haves.  If you are a pro blogger, you can’t live without these 7 best Wordpress plugins.  In no particular order:

Akismet

If you have any number of visitors to your site, then you know it doesn’t take much for the spam comments to start flowing in.  PcbDaily.com, one of our blogs about Panama City Beach, Florida sees around 20,000 to 25,000 visits per month (I know that’s small time, but we’re a small city!) and on average, we see around 500 to 900 spam comments per month, with spikes during July peaking at over 1,600 spam comments. Could you imagine managing that alone?

Some of the comments are tricky, disguising themselves as legitimate flattery or the like, but with shady looking link-backs.  Akismet is smart in detecting this stuff, and I rarely have to go back and correct it.  In fact, I don’t remember the last time I caught it slippin’.

All of the Wordpress self-hosted installations come with Akismet right out of the box, you just have to activate it.  When you do activate it, you’ll have to provide an API key.  Getting an API key is easy, all you have to do is create an account at Wordpress.com; I would use the domain name that you are using for your site, if it’s available (e.g. AlwaysWordpress’ is AlwaysWordpress.Wordpress.com).  In order to set up a Wordpress.com account, you’ll need a valid email address.  Once you’re all set up, just hover over the “My Account” drop down, and click on “Edit Profile”.  Your API key will be at the top.  Easy picken’s, as Cebo always likes to say. 

FeedBurner FeedSmith

There may be others out there that do a great job, but I’ve found the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin to be the best at handling RSS subscription management.  One of the cool things about the Wordpress blogging platform (and all the others, come to think of it!) is that they create and automatically update an xml file that RSS readers can source to keep your content fresh in their native RSS reader.  The trouble in the past has been tracking how many people are subscribed to your feed.  Insert Feedburner.

Feedburner Feedsmith was created by a regular guy like you and I that grew into something great enough to entice the folks at Feedburner to let go of some of their cash and take over the ongoing updating and development of the plugin.  Shortly after Google acquired Feedburner and resumed updating the plugin.

So, what’s the point of the plugin anyway?  Well, you can go to Feedburner.com (which redirects to feedburner.google.com) and “burn” a feed, but in order for  your Wordpress self-hosted installation to recognize that connection, you need the plugin.  The plugin used to be easy to find, but it is not available in the “Add New” link under the Plugin menu in your Wordpress control panel’s sidebar.  When Googleling it, it doesn’t come up, but we’ve provided the link to it here.  If something happens in the future and this link dies, drop us a comment and we’ll get it updated.

Update: I tried to download and use the plugin provided in the link in the title of the Feedsmith section and the plugin was giving me an error that the “header” was not valid.  So, here is a link to the plugin that I had updated from another installation of Wordpress that works just fine.  Download Feedburner Feedsmith Wordpress plugin.

Flickr Tag

Quote from the Flickr Tag plugin page:

“When I started using WordPress for my blog, I had a hard time finding a Flickr plugin that didn’t download all the photos onto my server, have them appear in a separate gallery out of context from my post, or otherwise look totally horrible. I just wanted something simple. . . and Flickr Tag was born.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  I’ve never needed anything super fancy, I just wanted to use Flickr from the social perspective in having my images with optimized titles and tags.  In addition, I wanted a way to display those neatly in my blog.  I’ve used this plugin for years with the only bug coming in when I use the Lightbox effect.  If creates a huge black box over the top half of my site that prevents the reader from reading – never figured that one out, but not everyone has that problem.  I think it’s a server issue, but I digress.

The one thing that I love about the Flickr Tag plugin is that it easily allows me to insert a Flickr “Set” into my post, and keep the images stored on the Flickr server, not on my own.  So, when people go to Flickr and search for photos using words that mine are optimized for, they could land on my site.  If my site is relevant to them, them I’ve just earned a new regular visitor.  Plus, Flickr provides stats on the image views so I can track everything.  The only downside is that Flickr requires a premium upgrade to host unlimited “Sets”, but that’s only $20/year.

Google XML Sitemaps

This is a no-brainer for any blog owner.  How do you make sure that Google has the most updated version of your sitemap?  Furthermore, how do  you be sure you have a Google-compliant sitemap built and updated everytime you change the content on your blog?  This plugin does it all.

Everytime you add a new post, edit an already published post or add a page, your sitemap is rebuilt by the plugin and google is notified of the new sitemap.  The more Google sees your site is updated, the more regularly it will index your site.  The more your site is indexed, the more relevant your content is perceived by Google for those searching using the keywords you use in your site.  I think you can connect the dots from here.

TinyMCE Advanced

I have had mixed success with Wordpress’ standard WYSIWYG editor, depending on which remote host I’m with.  I can’t explain it, but I’ve seen it enough to know it’s an issue.  For those of you smarter than I (plenty of you, I can assure you), it’s probably something to do with php versions, etc.  The standard “insert image” functionality never seemed to work quite as expected, but with TinyMCE, I get all the functionality I need as it adds the standard “insert image” button .

Some of that functionality includes the ability to correctly align images where the result looks the same in all browsers, and the ability to add horizontal and vertical space to add margin between text and the image.

All in One SEO Pack

With the exception of a few Premium Wordpress Themes, the All in One SEO Pack plugin is an absolute necessity for bloggers.  The first thing the search bots see when they come to a page is the title tag, and unless your theme has the built in capability to change this specific to your post, you are missing out on one of the most important aspects of SEO.  Guys, it’s 2009, if you’re not optimizing your site, you’re not going to succeed.  In addition to changing the title tag, this plugin allows you to enter keywords and a description specific to each post.

As part of the All in One SEO Pack control panel, you can modify the site’s main title tag, and embed all your keywords and description to be planted in the code of the main page of your blog.  Everything is placed near the top in the code.

WordPress.com Stats

The thing I love about this plugin, in contrast to watching my analytics through Google Analytics is that it provides an easy-to-look-at break down of the traffic to the site, specifically as it relates to each post.  I have found some discrepancies in the data with regards to actual numbers, when compared to Google Analytics, but it provides a good picture of where we are at and helps determine trends, keywords people are using to land on the site and referring sites pointing to our blogs.

The Stats page provides a flash graphic that is dynamic and repopulated each time you visit the page.  The traffic peaks are clickable and take you to the traffic counts, sorted by post for the specific day you click on.  The traffic stats are close to real time, too, which is cool.