Featured Articles WordPress Plugin

Today is an exciting day for us. We have kicked off our Featured Articles Wordpress Plugin Marketing Campaign.

Featured Articles WordPress Plugin - Campaign Landing Page

BETA version of this Plugin will be available for testing from 15th June onwards. We are calling in all the BLOG owners to volunteer for BETA testing of this Plugin.

We are running a WordPress Plugin contest where 50 BLOG owners from a list of  Subscribers will be chosen randomly and will be provided Featured Articles WordPress Plugin for testing purposes.

And the MOST exciting news is, these 50 BLOG owners will receive a FULL version of Featured Articles Plugin for FREE!! ($20 value) once we launch it on 15th of July 2009.

I invite my fellow bloggers and wordpress users to subscribe to the list here -

 

Join our growing list of Featured Article BETA testers (and receive a FREE Featured Articles Plugin worth $20 once the contest ends)

How thought turned into an idea?

I have always noticed a website visitors lack of attention to existing articles or banners thus loosing a lot of conversion value. It’s called Article / Ad Blindness, and every civilized human in the world has it.

“Ad Blindness is a term used to denote the state of conscious or subconscious ignorance of advertisements placed in a web page by visitors…”

We did check a lot of other Featured Articles Plugins available but none fit our need. They were either hard to install and implement or need code level access to pass the post ID’s as parameters. We wanted to use something that is simple and can be managed entirely by using WordPress Settings Console. We were not able to find a single Plugin that fits our need and thus Featured Articles WordPress Plugin was born.

Here are some COOL features of Featured Articles WordPress Plugin -

• Complete Management of Plugin by using the Settings Console in WordPress.

• Select the Height and Width from within the Management Console.

• Capable of creating Multiple Instances of the rotator, thus providing you the ability to rotate separatearticles on separate pages / templates.

• Ability to rotate BANNERS / ADS from within the same Management Console.

• Proven to increase conversion rates, and reduce Bounce Rates.

• Provides you with a new medium to present anything worthwhile to your visitors.

• Flush all the pending changes with a single click thus removing the margin of error.

As said above we do need a handful of smart BLOG owners for testing our product. And as a bonus reward for helping us we will offer this Plugin for free to those BLOG owners once we launch the FULL version.

If you think you will be able to help, please sign up and we will send you the plugin once the BETA is released. We will be selecting a list of 50 bloggers for testing this amazing product.

Are you a small business owner? Simple, Effective and Affordable steps to increase and monetize your web presence.

Are you a small business owner? Do you have a web presence? Is your Website related to the product or services that you sell?

If the answer to any of the above is Yes, then chances are you are missing on a big opportunity to monetize your Website and increase your sales.

Read the full article to learn about Site Monetization and How to increase affiliate conversions and thus increase sales.

As a small business owner, we can categorize Site Monetization into two key areas-

• You can optimize your site to increase sales of your current products and services. And can use your Website to promote your brand and improve relationship with your business clients and customers.
• You can use your Website to promote the products and services that complement the kind of products and services you already sell. This way you can expand your web audience and can also earn affiliate commissions thus monetizing your Website traffic.

Now lets dig down deeper into the first point about optimizing your Website. (Second bullet about promoting products and services that complement your existing services - needs a full article of its own, so I will touch back on that in a separate article within next 3-4 days. So stay tuned to coolwebdeveloper.com and click to Subscribe to my Email Feed, Newsletter or RSS feed).

Optimizing your Website - The first two important steps are:

• Make sure that your site has a Blog
• Make sure your site and blog are Search Engine Friendly.

“For many businesses, a Web site is the first way that your clientele will look at you, even if it’s just to find your address and phone number,” says Rand Fishkin, founder of Seattle-based search engine optimization consulting firm SEOmoz, which aims to increase the odds that search engines will happen upon a given site. “The quality of your site is often a measure of the quality of your business.”

As a small business owner it is costly to maintain and blog and to update and optimize your Website for Search Engines. Well, luckily enough, WordPress comes to the rescue.

What?? Not familiar with WordPress??

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available. But what many people don’t know is that it is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that can be used for more than just blogging. With WordPress you can build a blog, a Website, or both.

Top Five Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Small Business Website -

• SEO - WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are many SEO benefits that WordPress provides for free. In fact Google’s own Matt Cutts says WordPress is “made to do SEO well” in this video: Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners.
• Content - It is super easy to update content on your Website without knowing HTML.  Do you hate the idea of having to learn to use a complex HTML editor tool like Dreamweaver? Do you have to “ask” your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your Website? Well no longer - once
  WordPress is set up for you, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.
• Extensions - There is a thriving ecosystem of developers creating themes and plug-ins - imagine free design themes, or the ability to extend your Website with polls, contact forms, ratings or hundreds of other cool features without having to hire a web developer.
• Support - If you do have problems, or want to add very custom features, it is easy to find support and developers who can help you. There are literally thousands of WordPress developers out there. And there are so many people writing about WordPress that help is only a Google search away!
  One-click-installation - Quick installs are provided by many hosting providers, including Bluehost, 1and1 and Thinkhost.

Thesis WordPress Theme has the following functions automatically built in, so you do not need to use these plugins if you are using this theme. Just as an FYI - This theme is already getting some great reviews around the blogosphere (you can see some testimonials here). You can download Thesis WordPress Theme here.

But if you are using other themes, the following plugins will give you a similar look/effect.

• All in One SEO Pack - This plugin makes it easy for you to optimize your article titles and other meta tags. 
• Google Analytics - This plugin makes it easy for you to insert your Google Analytics code and start tracking your blog visitors.
• WP-Note - This plugin lets you insert notes in your article to make them stand out. Kind of similar to the yellow colored notes I have twice in this article.
• WordPress Gravatars - This plugin lets you display Gravatars of your readers in the comments section and can put your Gravatar on top of your article to show who the article was written by.

Even if you are not using WordPress for your Blog or Website you can still follow these important and useful SEO tips for an enhanced web traffic -

• Start early. It can take up to six months for competitive search terms to see results through Google.
• Content really is king. Make a list of the top 20 search keywords relevant to your business and create content that’s thematically linked with those terms.
• Don’t use the same keywords over and over. Search engines have gotten smart enough to weed that out.
• Focus on Google. The magic formula is relevance and popularity. Having a well-written and well-structured Website is a big part of the battle. Mentions and links from blogger’s and other Websites can be a big boost as well.

If you choose to work with an SEO consultant, find one that specializes in the needs of startups and growing businesses. If he or she tries to guarantee you an instant #1 ranking in Google, run the other way.

What is Bounce Rate? Seven easy steps to decrease the Bounce Rate of your Wordpress blog or website.

In order to run a successful website you should know your site metrics. One key metric you should be aware of is Bounce Rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. This entrance can be from any page on your site. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages are not relevant to your visitors.

If you haven’t been tracking your users, you should start now. Google Analytics is free and awesome. Google Analytics - You can sign up here

To view the bounce rates for your website using Google Analytics. Sign in and go to the Bounce Rate report under Visitors > Visitor Trending > Bounce Rate.

Why monitoring Bounce Rate Metrics is important?

Lets assume you own a physical electronics store.To run your store successfully you will require a lot of foot traffic and once your customers arrive you want them to make transactions. Or at least surf the store, you never know as they can find something interesting and useful while surfing that they would like to buy.

Same rule applies to the online world and this process of getting more traffic and converting them to sales is called conversion. You invite customers to your website by investing both time and money on good content, email and affiliate marketing, paid search etc. And once your online users hit your website you would like to capitalize on that investment. 

Now this is where Bounce Rate Metric comes in handy. By measuring the bounce rate you can measure the effectiveness of your promotional marketing efforts. As you follow this metric at the landing page or the traffic source levels you can establish a baseline to track your success overtime.

We all spend a lot of money on conversions and this metrics can tell us where we are we acquiring quality traffic from and how successful we are on converting that traffic to sales or at the least have users stay on the site.

Bounce Rate metrics can be affected by a number of different variables. On an average bounce rate for your site should fall between 40 - 70%.  You can not convince all the site traffic to stay but if your Bounce Rate is more then 70% you are doing something wrong.

Bounce rate is a  great qualifying metric. Its a metric that helps you ask the right questions. Check the top web pages of your website from where people are entering the site and check there bounce rate. Remember as these pages are from where most of your online users are entering your site, you can determine by studying these pages if these pages are doing a good job.

How to bring down or decrease the bounce rate of your WordPress blog or website?

There are a number of measures that we can take to grab attention and compel users to stay on the site and thus decrease the bounce rate. I call them triggers or call to actions. Following are some of the steps that I follow rigorously and have been successful in decreasing the Bounce Rate for coolwebdeveloper.com over a period of time -

• Interesting Headline - Keep the title of your post interesting and should ignite quest to read the full post.
• Interactive Posts - Make your posts interactive by encouraging users to click on other useful links within your site. For example if you are writing a post on HP laptop, you can refer to previous posts you have written about HP laptop in this new article thus providing more options to your users.
• Best or Related Posts - Make sure your users can reach the Best or Related Posts from every page of your site.
  Wordpress Plugin you can use - Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
• BLOG’s design and SEO - Reconsider your blog’s navigation and overall theme design that could generate usability issues.

Thesis WordPress Theme has the following functions automatically built in, so you do not need to use these plugins if you are using this theme. Just as an FYI - This theme is already getting some great reviews around the blogosphere (you can see some testimonials here). You can download Thesis Wordpress Theme here.

But if you are using other themes, the following plugins will give you a similar look/effect.

• All in One SEO Pack - This plugin makes it easy for you to optimize your article titles and other meta tags. 
• Google Analytics - This plugin makes it easy for you to insert your Google Analytics code and start tracking your blog visitors.
• WP-Note - This plugin lets you insert notes in your article to make them stand out. Kind of similar to the yellow colored notes I have twice in this article.
• Wordpress Gravatars - This plugin lets you display Gravatars of your readers in the comments section and can put your Gravatar on top of your article to show who the article was written by.

• Error page - Make sure to use a 404 landing page on your blog or website. Users will hit this page if any link on your site is broken or not found. Using this page you can suggest your users about possible areas of site that can visit and might be interested in.
• Navigation - Easy to spot link to the Home Page. Use breadcrumbs feature for easier navigation. Categories and Posts should be easily visible on the site.
  WordPress Plugin you can use - Breadcrumb Navigation
• Not using relevant tags - One of the reasons why a lot of blogger’s and website owners have a high bounce rate is NOT using relevant tags while writing posts. Tag relevancy is very important. Users coming through Google or other sources are expecting to get the result based on there search keywqords. If you tags are not relevant, your bounce rate will definitely be higher. 
• Incentive Offers - If you have something to give away like Free themes, free e-books, free reports etc then you will always be able attract visitors to click on that link.
• Interactive Elements - Use interactive elements that would require users to take small actions, such as polls.

By following these check points consistently you will be able to reduce the Bounce Rate of your site.

Do you have a high or a low bounce rate? How has the bounce rate affected your blog? What methods did you find most efficient to reduce the bounce rate? If you have suggestions or want to discuss more about Bounce Rate please leave your comments.

How to build a home page for your wordpress BLOG

Adding a Home page to your BLOG gives you an opportunity to present your site in a more professional manner and  let users visiting your home page have a better understanding of your niche and site’s foundation.

Why good site foundation is necessary?
Each successful site is based on a certain foundation and as a site admin or as a site owner make sure you know what you need that foundation to do. I mean, think about how those words, sentences and paragraphs are going to effect your bottom line. Remember, you are making this site for a reason. Whether it is to get a laugh, express a thought or make a buck, all those words, sentences and paragraphs need a reason for being there. They mean something. Once you have all those thoughts gathered, its very important to display them in an hierarchical and meaningful manner.

Here is a list of what a perfect web site hierarchical structure might consist of -

Home Page or Landing page with content “buckets”
Blog
Single Post with Comments and Pingbacks
Single Page
Archive and Search Pages
Custom Pages
Store and product sub pages
Forum
Well designed 404 page

How to build a BLOG Home Page -

This article is first in a series of articles covering How to build a BLOG home page, BLOG landing page template and an Archives page template.

An ideal home page will display any or all of the following:

Featured Articles and Videos
Top viewed posts (or Pillar articles)
Top Comments
Sponsors of your site and/or Products showcase
People following you (Social Networking sites/RSS feeds/Email Newsletters)

For this article we will be reusing the header, footer and sidebars from an existing theme and hence we will concentrate on building the main body of the Home page that will display featured categories and a limited number of articles per category.

We are going to name our home page as Home.php. (A complete download of the code is available at the bottom of this article).

Following is the code that you will need to use to display each category and a limited number of articles for each category along with a thumbnail that will be picked up by associating a custom field in the admin section while writing an article.

///////////////////////////////////////////////

<div id=”homepage_leftarea”>
  
   <!–This section is currently pulling category ID #1, and can be switched by changing the cat=1 to show whatever category ID you would like in this area. You can get your category ID by hovering over the category in admin section and looking at at the URL–>
    
   <div class=”featuredCategory”>

   <h3>Featured Category #1</h3>
   
    <!–This is where the thumbnails are found for the homepage bottom section - note the custom field name for this image is “thumbnail”.–>
   
    <?php $recent = new WP_Query(”cat=18&showposts=5″); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>

    <?php if( get_post_meta($post->ID, “thumbnail”, true) ): ?>

        <a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><img style=”float:left;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;” src=”<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, “thumbnail”, true); ?>” alt=”<?php the_title(); ?>” /></a>

    <?php endif; ?> 

    <?php if (false): ?>

        <a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><img style=”float:left;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;”  src=”<?php bloginfo(’template_url’); ?>/images/thumbnail.png” alt=”<?php the_title(); ?>” /></a>

    <?php endif; ?>    

    <b><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?></a></b>

    <?php the_content_limit(100, “”); ?>
    
    <div style=”border-bottom:1px dotted #94B1DF; margin-bottom:10px; padding:0px 0px 10px 0px; clear:both;”></div>
    
    <?php endwhile; ?>

    <!–This is where you can specify the archive link for each section. Replace the # with the appropriate URL–>
    
    <b><a href=”#” rel=”bookmark”>Read More Posts From This Category</a></b>
    
   </div>   
    
  </div>

//////////////////////////////////////////////

By passing the category ID as parameter (and by using DIV’s or tables to place each category in an individual container) you can create a Home page providing an overview of a limited set of articles for each category. 

And by implying some PHP skills you should be able to write a Featured Articles Plugin by simply associating article posts with custom field, and then picking that custom field randomly you should be able to rotate the articles on each page refresh. I will leave this to our readers as an exercise but do let me know if you need help.

After the Home Page has been crated, the very first problem you will face is how to make home.php your BLOG’s default landing page.

Well the good news is you don’t have to do anything. Why? because wordpress takes care of this for you.

The answer to above question comes from Wordpress Page Hierarchy -

e.g. If a visitor goes to your home page at http://example.com/wp/, WordPress first determines whether it has a static front page. If a static front page has been set, then WordPress loads that page according to the page template hierarchy. But if a static front page has not been set, then WordPress looks for a template file called home.php and uses it to generate the requested page. If home.php is missing, WordPress looks for a file called index.php in the active theme’s directory, and uses that template to generate the page.

So if your page name is home.php, wordpress will automatically pick it up before index.php and thus home.php becomes your sites default home page. There you go you are all set now with a landing page for your website.

Please leave your comments or email me - info[@]coolwebdeveloper[.]com if you need help implementing this article or any of your web development tasks.

Click here to download the complete code and related functions.

Downloaded folder include - home.php and functions.php. (You will need WinZip Software to open the downloaded file)

home.php - includes the home page structure
functions.php - includes the functions required that are not available in wordpress.

How to host multiple blogs with a single WordPress install

Ever heard of WordPress MU …  yes, you got it right its WordPress Multi User. You can run multiple BLOGS with a single install using WordPress MU and can manage users and BLOGS individually.

And more importantly you don’t have to be a techie to start using WordPress MU. Its easy to set up and use, just like WordPress.

Plugins work just like they work with regular WordPress install. You can activate and de-activate Plugins per BLOG level.

You can configure different domains with different BLOGS you set up using WordPress MU.

You can set up different permissions for different BLOGS.

You can find a lot of WordPress MU resources at the official site here -

http://mu.wordpress.org/

WordPress MU is a wrapper around the core WP code that virtualizes multiple blogs. The code that differs is in some bootstrap files, and administration for multiple blogs and users.  Approximately 95-99% of MU is core WP.

WordPress MU is most famously used for WordPress.com where it serves tens of millions of hits on hundreds of thousands of blogs each day.

Here are Links to some good resources if you are using or even if you are planning to use WordPress MU -

• WordPress MU plugins, themes and news
• BuddyPress will transform an installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform.
• OpenID Provider for WordPress MU
• Wordpress MU Plugins - All about Wordpress Multi-user

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