Internet Marketing

The Top 10 Most Infuriating Things about WordPress and How to Fix Them

Using WordPress is an experience that is very much like using another CMS, but it is also an experience that is completely unlike using any other CMS.

Maybe it is the “duct tape,” DIY nature of PHP coding, maybe it is the first-to-market nature of any product that explodes into worldwide recognition, or maybe it is something entirely undefinable.  Whatever the reason(s), many web developers hold that teaching yourself WordPress it a rite of passage—some sort of a vision quest into the heart of the digital forest. Some are after their professional content creation spirit guide, whereas others are just looking for the most direct route to casual blogging. Regardless of what you ultimately intend using WordPress is a process will bring you to the edge of sanity and back with its maddening logistics and mind-bending reasoning for nearly every part of its design.

The whole ritual generally includes, but is not limited to the following ten things.

1. Plugins

The Problem:

The WordPress plugins repository is a labyrinth of discontinued versions and half-patched improvements.

For every solid plugin author (for example, Yoast) there is going to be dozens of knockoffs floating up from the murky depths of the PHP world all trying to piggyback on the popularity of highly generic web terms (like ‘SEO plugin’).

Then, you have to go through the ordeal of trying to figure out which add-ons are either incompatible with your theme, or incompatible with other add-ons.

Finally, even if you manage to fill all of the holes in the functionality you are after, eventually you realize that the more plugins you add, the more you site is going to slow to a disgusting crawl.

The Solution:

Using WordPress plugins is like playing one big game of electronic Jenga with a drunken partner, and if you update WordPress itself, another plugin, a theme, a widget, or any number of other things, it’s probably going to bring those wooden rectangles crashing down. The advice here is to find that combination that works—then pray.

2. WYSIWYG Editing

The Problem:

At no point in (proper) web development should you think to yourself, “I am really scared to press this button right now.”

Yet for many people that are writing media and stylistically rich content, switching back and forth between the WordPress ‘Visual’ and ‘Code’ tabs is in the same emotional ballpark as walking across an old WWII landmine field. You are scared—possibly for your professional life.

Just to give you a little bit of background on the WordPress editor:

• It’s missing basic/expected features: tables, a form builder, and CSS class imports
• It’s riddled with known flaws: no HTML in full screen, removes all code except <div>, and the <div> that are left destroy paragraph spacing.
• Has been like this since day one.

Literally—I mean since the very first day of WordPress. Take a look at a screenshot from its debut in 2003:

 

The talk on Twitter is that the WordPress team does have plans to change the editor’s capabilities, but unfortunately it will not be until sometime around 2032.

The Solution:

If you are looking for a couple high quality alternatives, check out the Advanced, and Ultimate Tiny MCE editor plugins for a feel familiar to the native WordPress editor. Or try something completely new with the CKEditor.

3. Five (or more) Different Areas just to make an Edit

The Problem:

Developing an efficient workflow in WordPress is next to impossible.

Sorry if I have angered you, but it is. No, no, don’t fight it; just accept it. No matter how efficient you think you are, you’re still left with the sinking feeling that WordPress will never be used as a case study for highly efficient workflow.  After all, if you want to make a change on a page, chances are you will have to navigate to any number of, or all of the following areas:

1.  The page itself
2. One or more widgets
3. The style sheet
4. The settings for relevant plugins
5. Finally, the settings for your theme

The Solution:

There is really no solution to this problem because it’s just inherent to the software.  So long as you’re (power) using the WordPress user interface you will invariably sound like you are playing Starcraft 2 in the Master League. You will find no helpful suggestion here.

 4. The Search Bar my Fourteen-year-old Cousin Coded

The Problem:

The default search bar is doesn’t really search.

The WordPress search bar is one of the first things to be replaced on any real website, at least by any real developer. Whatever algorithm that search box uses seems to have the code complexity of a weekly computer science course assignment. The search bar is so bad that even WordPress.org—the official website of the platform—doesn’t use it. Talk about a ringing endorsement.

The search bar is yet another instance of a glaring lack of functionality in WordPress that has been ignored in favor of things like Bootstrapping the UI, or ensuring that lyrics from some song I don’t care about flash across my screen.  WordPress claims that “Code is Poetry” but you have to admit, some of their efforts on par with a William McGonagall poem.

The Solution:

Get literally any other search bar.

5. User Permission Insanity

The Problem:

The actual role of the ‘user roles’ functionality.

All and all there are five different user roles: Super Admin, Admin, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber. Now, let’s take a look at something from the WordPress.org documentation regarding users and their roles (as of 2013):

 

In other words, if you can’t edit posts, you cannot moderate comments. Which user’s roles can edit posts you ask? The (super) admins and the editors…and that’s it. Only the three most executive roles can perform one of the most mundane features? Why? That makes absolutely no sense.

Say you are a huge news site that has to constantly monitor your comments, you are forced with the decision of either using some other comment system completely (making this yet another core functionality that fails), or you give the interns you hire the the keys to the content castle by making them an editor just so they can delete some hate spam, something that many administrators are going to be loath to do.

The Solution:

What would be better is if contributors, who only have the ability to write and submit content, also have the ability to moderate the comments on their own content. Or, you know, just make a damn user role for moderating comments. Or even better—and I know this is a novel idea—give us the ability to set custom user roles. Something tells me it’s not all that hard, and by something I mean the post(s) on Stack Exchange where people say, “It’s not that hard.”

7.  Enough Warnings Already

The Problem:

The dashboard warnings have been completely out-of-hand for a while now.

You can see the logic in the type of alert pictured above, after all you don’t want to overwrite someone else’s work. That said, the majority of the time you are seeing this message you are checking revisions caused by the auto-save that always end up being identical to the previous one anyway. Consider how much easier it would be if it told you that it was an exact duplicate of the previous version before taking you a few click away from where you want to be, just to show you the (lack of) differences between the two versions. Why isn’t one before the other? There is no real answer.

This is all putting aside the fact that most of the time you see this message the ‘other’ user is … yourself.

The Solution:

Instead of waiting for you to navigate into the post before it tells you what’s going on in there, perhaps in the main backend page could display which users are working on which posts so that you don’t end up running into them without looking.

8. Multisite Admins Get No Love

The Problem:

The reason you make a multisite is to get give yourself options, and you get less.

Presumably you have created a Multisite network (many WordPress websites under a meta-UI) because you are trying to make things easier for yourself. So it seems completely arbitrary that WordPress would restrict the capabilities of the administrator role so that it’s harder to do certain things. However, that is exactly what occurs. It’s not an option for the super administrator to toggle on and off; it just happens.

 

The Solution:

Once again, I am no development expert, but I don’t see this being more than a couple lines of code.

9. Lack of Social Media Sharing

The Problem:

Popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe Reddit should all have default ‘share’ buttons by now.

I say kudos to all the companies out there making high quality social media share buttons, and I say shame on all the other options that leak their slimy code juices all over your otherwise pristine website. When it comes to dealing with a bunch of different APIs for the social media sites, it sure would be nice to have some uniformity on the WordPress side.

After all, an essential feature of a content-rich website should be the ability for users to share published information, right? This all seems fairly straightforward. Case in point: social media integration is so commonplace that the “Twitter” plugin tag is a popular tag amongst more general keyword tags such as “Post”, “widget”, “image”, and “sidebar.”

Remember how Tumblr introduced its own share button in 2011 to complement an already robust content distribution system? Remember how 2011 would be the year that Tumblr would overtake WordPress(.com) for the most number of blogs on the internet? WordPress might not remember, but Tumblr sure does.

The Solution:

Standardize social media buttons so that each theme and plugin doesn’t have to do it from scratch.

10. Wow. Just Let Me Use Jetpack Already

The Problem:

The process of getting jetpack is more complicated than the rocket science to build an actual jetpack.

At first glance Jetpack seems like a good idea: bring some of the functionality from WordPress.com accounts to those people using WordPress software with their own web hosting. This includes things like After the Deadline (grammar) and latest tweets.

When you go to get the software, however, you are met with the realization that for some odd reason you need to go through all the trouble of creating a WordPress.com account just to get these features. But if you have a blog outside of WordPress.com, it is probably because you don’t want to use WordPress.com, right? So that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

What’s worse, for web developers creating a website that will be used for a given client, the confusion (and possible anger) is compounded more when you have to explain to the person paying for your supposed web efficiency why you are signing them up for a WordPress.com account, which they don’t need, won’t use, or even understand.

The Solution:

Remove the requirement to have a WordPress.com account.

 What about you?

What have you found infuriating about WordPress? What would you like to change?

Look forward to hearing your stories and feedback in the comments below.

Guest Author: Jamil is a freelancer writer who loves to write about anything and everything. A graduate from Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC, Jamil has written stories for several publications and has interviewed everyone from Hollywood celebrities to local musicians. When he’s not putting pen to paper, you can catch him watching episodes of Game of Thrones or tinkering endlessly with his Fantasy Football lineup. You can find a recent example of his work here.

Want to learn how to create and market your WordPress blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

 

How to Herd Cats on Twitter

If there is one thing you have to love about Twitter is that sometimes it seems like the “Wild West”. Untamed but with many opportunities.

At other moments it feels like you are herding cats.

A chaotic stream of tweets that have no apparent organisation, theme or filters.

Wikipedia says this on herding cats:

“An idiomatic saying that refers to an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic. Implies a task that is extremely difficult or impossible to do, primarily due to chaotic factors.”

Now doesn’t that sound like Twitter?

It is trying to make sense of its chaos, embracing a jumble of jellyfish or throwing a net over a swarm of bees.

Always fun, sometimes dangerous but with a lot of potential.

Twitter has its own rhythm

Facebook is filtered for family and friend fun. Google+ is like Twitter on intelligence steroids…. Long form content preferred, geeky and very visual….with an overdose of males from Silicon Valley.

Well… what about Pinterest?…..It needs no explaining, just pin your image and let it speak its thousand words.

And Instagram?

A distraction in the form of an app that makes you stop what you are doing as you walk and travel. It is always tempting…you shoot, filter and send…. to the socialsphere.

Twitter is a torrent of humanity. News, feelings, inspiration and un-throttled. The rhythm is short and punchy but with links to a million rabbit holes that can distract. 

It’s quick and sometimes requires little thought and it shows.

 So how do you herd?

The herding of this torrent is done in part by Twitter tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and others. There is no Hootsuite for Facebook or Google+.

It’s not needed.

The other part of the herding equation apart from the tools is the lowly hashtag..”#”.

Harmless looking isn’t it?

This started in 2007 according to Wikipedia by Chris Messina to tag topics of interest on the microblogging network. He posted the alleged first post on Twitter to include what would become the “hashtag”:

“How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp ? ”

The first high profile use of the hashtag was in the 2007 California fires by Nate Ritter with #sandiegofire.

On the international scene it gained more notoriety as hashtags became a common practice for the 2009-2010 Iranian election protests to glue stories and events together.

Want to send a Tweet to a loose global group with an interest and passion for social media? Use the hashtag #socialmedia . Interested in marketing then the hashtag #marketing is the go.

It is cat herding at its finest.

Are hashtags media glue?

Twitter’s fame continues to spread and in part it is because of its evolution as “the people’s” news channel. It has spread into Television, radio, billboards and conferences. Want to see the beat of the street at a conference? Enter the hashtag for the event and watch the feedback channel in all its 140 character glory.

Want to see the masses reaction to a TV show (many now display the shows hashtag on the screen). Then plug it into your smartphone and tablet and see the responses ebb and flow.

Negative, positive and reactive.

It is becoming the glue that connects social to mass media. It allows us to respond and interact with a medium that was meant to be a one way street.

The hashtag virus is spreading

The hashtag was “owned” by Twitter but it is now moving into Google+. It has been adopted by Instagram and its success there often revolves often around the hashtag habit and it continues to grow in stature.

Dan Zarella produces evidence that posts that include hashtags had a much higher like-to-follower ratios than those that did not.

Is Facebook going to hang with the gang ?

If rumours are true then they will… but at this stage a “Hashtag” on Facebook is like wearing belt and braces. It is not necessary or needed.

Want to know more about hashtags?

Here is an informative Infographic that will help you with the the art and science of hashtags to get you started.

It provides a simple what, why and where.

Infographic by: Social Caffeine

What about you?

How do use hashtags? Do you even use them?

Look forward to hearing your stories and feedback in the comments below.

 

Want to learn how I used Twitter to market my blog?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

 

How to Supercharge your Social Media Marketing Strategy with Employee Sharing

Employers have always known that employees are their best assets. If they aren’t engaged and passionate about the products or services they represent, then how can their customers feel the same?

It’s every employer’s dream to have fully engaged staff talking about the amazing benefits of the products or services the company offers, and positioning the company the way the founders intended. Social media has made this a lot easier, but ironically social media has also made the relationship between employees and employers somewhat awkward.

Employees are rarely provided with clear policies or strategies on social media outreach or engagement on behalf of the company. Occasionally this laissez-faire attitude can put employees and companies at risk.

Police get social

Recently the NYC Police Department felt inclined to issue the first list of what officers can and cannot post to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites. This kind of official policy is one that many employers do not have, but setting clear guidelines about social media use can actually be extremely beneficial in the long term.

I recently wrote about the value of giving consideration to an employee engagement strategy, but in this article I want to go a step further. . I want to talk about the factors a business needs to consider when creating a social media strategy and how to implement one. 

What is an employee engagement strategy?

As a business concept, employee engagement is simply a method of getting employees more involved and excited about their organization. According to Kevin Kruse, author of Employee Engagement 2.0, he defines employee engagement as “the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.” 

Is it difficult to set up?

A social media employee engagement strategy is low risk and cost effective. It’s free to sign up to almost all social media networks and most employees will have at least one active network. A social media employee engagement strategy is also relatively easy to implement and the majority of employers have little difficulty in getting participants.

It can also be fun.

Gamification and incentivizing can make employee engagement a positive team building exercise in the office. It also has the additional return of increasing company and employee recognition. 

What should I consider before getting started?

Sometimes the hardest thing is getting started. Here are some tips to help you make those first steps.

• First, what is it that you want to share?
• Do you have coupons to distribute?
• Are you hiring?
• Is there major company news that you want the world to know?
• Knowing what to share is the primary concern employees always have. 
• You also want to consider how to get employees to share content as well. Employee driven stories, news or related posts are great at driving authenticity and building trust which any company can benefit from. 

And this is where a proper social media engagement strategy managed by an administrator who can guide the team through content sharing becomes valuable. 

Reward employees for their efforts

The next major consideration is how to recognize and reward employees for their efforts. If any employee is broadcasting to their social networks on behalf of the company you and they will need to know the following.

• What will they get in return?
• Are they motivated by intrinsic or extrinsic values?

Either way, this is where gamification and incentivizing employee engagement comes into play. A simple leaderboard for who has the most shares or who has brought the most earned media value through their shares can create a healthy competition between colleagues.

How to make it easy

So how do you make it easy for employees to share with their social networks? You can email everyone in the company and gently nudge them to post to their social channels, you can send out a daily newsletter with shareable links, or you can work with a social technology platform designed to make it easy to manage and run an employee advocacy program.

The employee social media advocacy platform VoiceStorm creates a hub where

• Managers and employees can join and connect their social accounts,
• Post and share content
• Drive gamification with points and leader-boards
• Track performance with analytics that measures reach and engagement  

However, with whatever sharing method you choose, I do want to stress the importance of not forcing employees to share. These are their social networks and an employee advocacy strategy is built on the trust that an employer has in their employees and vice-versa.

The benefits to the organization will come back full circle if the strategy is implemented properly. 

Will They Do It?

We find that most commonly, over 50% of employees want to share news/info about their company, and that the more members that share, the higher levels of employee satisfaction, productivity and engagement is gained by those companies. 

Best Practices for Employee Engagement

Here are the top ten best practices for social media employee engagement to ensure that your staff will indeed supercharge your social media marketing strategy. 

1. Align with corporate social media policy
2. 100% opt-in optional program
3. No surreptitious monitoring – transparent
4. Recognize participation
5. Team leaderboards & gaming
6. “Always On” & “MobileFirst”
7. Be authentic
8. Give employees space
9. Share employee posts/accounts
10. Encourage employee content 

Wrapping it up

The benefits of partnering with your employees to drive advocacy via their social networks is a win-win for everyone.  Engaged employees can help increase productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability while reducing costs and turnover.

Author: Russ Fradin is the co-founder of Dynamic Signal. If you want to learn more about employee advocacy, visit Voicestorm.com 

 

 

 

Want to learn how to build a global blog brand supercharged by social media ?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

7 Tips to Finding “Your” Writing Voice

Have you ever stumbled upon a blog and thought…”Was this written by an android, a robot or was it a Martian?“

Maybe it was produced by someone that had a personality bypass.

Whatever it was, it didn’t seem human.

That, I think touches on what a “voice” is.

It is about being human, displaying a personality and willing to be vulnerable.

Then the real fun starts.

Writing and creating from the “real” you is your voice. That can be daunting and  exposing. Your internal conversations start the jabber….”What if I show a side of me that no one likes or thinks is stupid?”

Looking daft or dork is not cool.

In fact we were all raised on the human craft of hiding behind a facade when the school playground often rewarded the strong, the fake and the facile.

Many childhoods are lived in quiet desperation of hiding the real “you.”

Being grown up means accepting yourself for all its glorious imperfections.

A formula, an evolution or a revelation?

I don’t have a process or a magic potion to finding a writing voice or an expression formula but let’s have a look at what happens when you start to create, write and express yourself in an online world.

The journey commences.

I am curious and wanting to express my insights. I write. I record and express myself. The publish button is struck! The blog post is live and the YouTube video is online!

No clapping or cheering can happen until you step onto the stage.

There the music is revealed, the words are displayed and your design is exposed.

Whoa!…on the internet two billion web users can see your thoughts and concepts in black and white and high definition in all its wonderful glory and imperfection.

If you are honest the world will show up and say “fabulous” …work harder and maybe “well done”.

Your genius that is you is on display.

Don’t like what you hear? Then there is more work to do. The fun stuff is in growing….not shrinking!

That is sometimes a painful revelation but is part of your journey of personal evolution.

The unique you

There is only one “unique you”. Own it and embrace it with two arms and welcoming introspection.

It’s all you’ve got.

The strange thing is that creating a writing “voice” is more a journey of subtle growth that happens by stealth and mundane action.

Sitting down to write in the small hours. Staying up so late that the next morning you ask yourself…”Was that necessary?”

It is turning up and “doing the work”.

Influencers and stealing ideas and inspiration

I have had some strange influencers on my writing and expression including Jeremy Clarkson of “Top Gear” fame.

An introduction to a car review that is is 900 words of fun, humour and stories and 100 words of features and functions about a Porsche, Ferrari or Skoda with maybe a telling pithy insight.

That is it.

Who would have thought that. Inspiration from a car magazine writer.

Inspiration comes from content and creators who can be geeks, intellectuals or artists.  These can be taken from any walk of life and whose ideas are so good that you want to steal them.

Just ask David Bowie.

“The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from”

What is your voice?

So what is you?

Your persona and humanity is multi-dimensional and many faceted. It is a jumble of experience, thoughts, expression and passions.

Here are some tips to find your voice.

1. Show your personality

Your voice is your personality on display… warts and all. Place a stake in the ground. Put your hand up and say “this is what I think, believe and feel”. I believe in this and I am sharing it.

When that happens people start trusting and listen. This is how I am and this is how I talk.

That is an insight into your voice.

2. Display your humor

Is you humour dark, dry or ironic? Don’t let your children, friends and family’s seemingly innocous non appreciation dissuade you. Press on.

Have fun.

Sometimes the crowd doesn’t get it. You are not creating for the masses…only those who are fans and believers.

Some of them live in a distant town on the other side of the world. They are your neighbours.

3. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes

The audience you want to communicate with will help you define your voice. How you write will be be also woven into who you are writing for. It must be kept in mind that most people read at a grade school level. Trying to be smart and clever by using big  words and complicated sentences will just make them click away.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

4. Expose your imperfections

Accepting that you are not perfect but a product of a life journey can empower you to realise, write and reveal the naked you. People will find a voice that is transparent and full of bumps, scrapes and scratches with a rich  voice tapestry much more interesting than a mass produced sound of blandness.

People read books and watch movies to see life’s dramas in all its glory. That is much more interesting than a manufactured sound.

5. Reveal your passion

Allowing the passion that drives you  to radiate and express your ideas and creativity will allow the genius that is you to shine. Passion is not a singular word but a synergy of interests, skills and focus that is wrangled and woven together.

Put passion on display.

A primary passion might lead the pack but all around it are the chorus of sounds that make the symphony rich and deep. Put them up to the light, place them on a pedestal and let them sing.

Talk and write how you “feel”.

6. Tell your stories

Your voice can be evolved as you tell your stories that make up the days and years that is your life. Those stories can be tales of woe, insightful experiences or even just plain side splitting fun.

Tell those tales and let them communicate a powerful message.

7. Develop brand “you”

Can you write down a few key words and phrases that could encapsulate you and could be turned into a caricature or a logo. This is more an art more than a science but is worth a try.

Sally Hogshead is an author that wrote the book “Fascinate”. Her byline is an insight into her brand voice.

“A hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons, so what’s your name smartass”

Now, that is part of her voice and reveals her personality and sense of life. You can’t borrow or steal that line but you can learn from it.

What about you?

What is your voice? Are you putting your personality on display? Are you willing to be judged.

Now that is a scary thought.

Are you telling your story and revealing your passions. Don’t hide behind a faceless set of words. Are you willing to stand up.

We stand outside the arena and say “I am going to go in and kick some ass when I am bullet proof and perfect. That is seductive. The truth is that you will never be perfect” – Author Brene Brown “Daring Greatly”

Let the words you create speak for you.

 

 

 

Want to learn how to create a powerful blog that has “your” voice?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

21 Social Media Tool and Technology Tips that will Make your Day

It’s hard to argue that social media tools and technology is not an important part of your social media strategy. 

It’s one of many ingredients you need to be successful but not the only ingredient. 

Clint Eastwood was, and still is a very successful actor and one of the areas he is well known for is his action movies such as Dirty Harry. 

We would like you to take some action to-day!!! 

So here are 21 actionable tool and technology tips that we hope will make your day…

#1. Get Mobile with Glyder

Glyder is a social media tool for your smartphone specifically designed for small businesses.  When you’re out and about and want to share your social media updates to your social networks use Glyder.  

We know that on social media visual works best.  Sending a nice image helps get noticed.  Glyder provides a series of graphical templates that you can customize, add in your status update and then send to your social networks.  

If you’re on the move more than you are at your desk, then check out Glyder. 

#2. Set up Goals to Monitor Conversion of Social Traffic Through Google Analytics

 Do you know the difference between your conversion rates on traffic you are getting from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.?  

Goals in Google Analytics allow you to track when something is accomplished.  For example, a product is sold or a visitor subscribed via e-mail. 

If you set up goals you can track where the source of the traffic came from that completed the goal and then you can work out conversion rate on these goals.  You might find that traffic converts better from twitter or from Facebook or vice versa.  

In the Google Analytics under the Traffic Sources section select the option for ‘all traffic’  and in the menu across the top of the screen select your goal. 

You can now see the conversion rates across a range of sites.  This could be traffic from Twitter or Facebook or event guest posts on other blogs. 

#3. Build Email Subscribers through Facebook using Heyo

When you post content on Facebook on average 16% of your fans see your content.  So if you are promoting an offer or a deal you need to find other ways of promoting your content.  

You need to consider how you can convert your Facebook fans to email subscribers.  When you do have an offer you can promote it via Facebook and also promote it to the same people via email giving you a much higher chance that they will actually see the offer. 

Heyo provides a suite of templates you can use to create a custom page within Facebook and this includes the ability to create competitions with email subscription options. 

#4. Optimize Your Blog Content for Google using WordPress SEO

You don’t have to be an SEO expert to get the basics right and if you don’t get the basics right you are not helping Google to index your content correctly.  

If you’re a WordPress user install the WordPress SEO plugin and this will give you an idea of how well you have optimized your blog post.   Once you select your focus keyword ideally you want your results to display green!  

After writing an article focusing on ‘Facebook Competition Applications’ I now rank number 5 in the US search results for this term.  Make sure to work out what keywords you are focusing on with your blog post.

#5. Review Your Facebook Page Using LikeAlyzer

 Facebook Insights is an analytics tool provided within Facebook.  While it is very comprehensive it is also very confusing.  LikeAlyzer is a much simpler tool that provides you with a score out of 100 for your page with recommendations on how to improve it.  If you implement the suggestions this will improve the engagement rate on your page and more fans will see your content!

#6. Get a daily reports emailed to you from Google Analytics

Your website is typically your most important Digital Asset so you should be reviewing performance on a daily basis.  The great thing about social media/digital marketing is that we get instant feedback.  We see what has worked the previous day and what hasn’t worked.  Set up Google analytics to get that daily e-mail and this will focus the mind!

#7. Monitor Your Brand Name Using Mention

Mention is fantastic monitoring app that you can set up for free and pay as you see benefit from it.  It will track mentions of you or your brand name across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Websites and more.  It’s like Google Alerts on steroids and well worth setting up.

#8. Post Your Facebook Updates Using PostPlanner 

I’ve started using PostPlanner recently to update our Facebook page and really find it useful.  It’s an app that runs within Facebook and allows you to queue up content using a predefined time you have set up. 

What’s really nice about it is that you can add feeds from blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and easily add content to your queue.

#9. Monitor Email Conversion from each Conversion Form

If you are collecting email subscribers you need to have multiple options on your website for collecting them.  For example, we have a feature signup image across the top of our home page, a side panel signup, an option to subscribe at the end of every blogs post and also in the footer.

With your email marketing tool (such as AWeber, Constant Contact, MailChimp) you can define unique names for each form and then track conversions to see which is performing the best.

#10. Build email subscribers, leads or sales through Lead Converter

When you get people to your website to read your blog content you ideally want to take them to the next level.  This could be interacting with you online, signing up for your newsletter or buying your product or service.

Lead Converter is a very interesting tool that provides all of these features.  You can create a popup that encourages visitors to sign up, a bar across the top of the screen that drives people to a particular page, an survey that pops up in the corner of the screen and much more.  A really powerful tool and well worth checking out.

#11. Automate your blog post delivery using Dlvr.it 

When you create a blog post you want to share it out with your social network.  It makes sense to automate this.  Dlivr.it will monitor your blog feed and automatically send out the content to your social networks of choice.

#12. Review Your Blog Posts and Link Internally 

There is value from an SEO point of view to link your blog posts to each other.  Each page on your blog is ranked by Google and by referencing another page with relevant keywords you are promoting that other page. 

Take a look at previous posts and see if it makes sense to link to newer posts.  For example,  if you are writing a post on Content Marketing and a previous post was on content marketing tools.  It may make sense to edit the content marketing tools post and link to the newer post on content marketing.  This will help rank the newer post!

#13. Create presentations for your blog content on SlideShare 

When you create your content through your blog you should do everything possible to reach different audiences.  One way is to create a presentation using your blog post and post on SlideShare to reach a new audience.  I’ve been very surprised with the views I’m getting on presentations without investing any time on that platform.  Reach Todd Wheatland’s book on SlideShare if you are unfamiliar with it.

#14. Find Targeted Followers on Twitter using ManageFlitter 

If you want to grow your following on Twitter you can follow many people and some will follow you back.  But that is not particularly useful to you.  What is more useful is targeting the right people to follow and building a network of people that are relevant to your business. 

In Twitter there is a 140 character bio which summarizes who you are.  In Manageflitter you can search through Twitter bio’s for keywords and also have further filters such as the country. Based on the results you can then follow a group of people. 

Finding relevant people to engage with on Twitter is a great way of being successful.

#15. Research Pinterest using Pinalytics 

Pinalytics is Pinterest analytics tool.  If you want to find out what is the more popular content based on your niche or find out the most popular people on Pinterest within that niche, Pinalytics is where you should start.

#16. Optimize Your Facebook Promoted Posts using PropelAd 

As only a small percentage of your fans are likely to receive your updates advertising using Facebook promoted posts is becoming essential if you want to grow your presence on Facebook but what posts do you promote?  If you post something and there is no engagement on the post does it make sense to promote this? 

PropelAd automates the process of promoting posts and makes sure you are only promoting posts that already have engagement so you will get some benefit from the promotion. 

Using PropelAd will only make sense if you are spending regularly on promoting posts.

#17. Analyze Your Blog for SEO using Screaming Frog 

Screaming Frog  is a free tool that allows you to do an analysis of your blog for SEO.  One of the key areas to watch out for on your blog is that you have unique titles and descriptions on every page and also ‘alt tags’ for your images.

After you run the tool start updating your page title, descriptions and alt tags to ensure they are relevant to the content on the page.  This will help with Google ranking.

#18. Create an editorial calendar using DivvyHQ 

An editorial calendar for a blog is essential.  DivvyHQ helps you plan and schedule out your content and helps you become more organized and efficient.  By planning out your content it also helps ensure that you are delivering a good variety of content.

 

#19. Read it later using Pocket

It’s very important to stay up to speed on the latest changes to Digital Marketing tools and technology.  One tool that is useful for keeping on top of all this is Pocket.  If you find a good article you can ‘pocket’ it, which simply sets it aside so you can read it later on your laptop or phone when it’s more convenient for you.

#20. Manage Twitter on your mobile using TweetBot 

Tweetbot has a really nice user interface for sending and reading tweets on your mobile device.   Swipe a tweet and see all the conversation related to that tweet, email a tweet or save it for later, perform twitter searches and much more.  Try it and you’ll see!

#21. Track your followers /unfollowers on Twitter using Nutshellmail

Everyday I get an e-mail from Nutshellmail showing me my new followers and also who unfollowed me.  It gives you a nice snapshot showing you the images of new people that followed you so that you can make sure to follow people you recognize back.  Also, it’s interesting to see how many people unfollowed you. 

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