How to Integrate Social Media into Your Blog
In the last few years, social media has become essential for success in blogging. Engaging socially with your users can help you build partnerships with other webmasters, gain more followers, and access people that can help take your blog to the next level. If done correctly over time, you can build a community that will allow you to sell products, hold events, and grow your brand. Social media plugins can help you easily integrate your blog into the social space.
Social Media WordPress Plugins
There are a few plugins that can transform your wordpress blog into a hub of social activity. The “Tweet – Like” plugin is essential for all blogs, because it allows a user to easily link to your article from their facebook or twitter accounts. It also supports the new “plus one” feature which will soon become important for site rankings. Tweet-Like is a free plug-in that can be setup in about 5 minutes. Tweet-Like gives you the ability to rotate headlines over your twitter, facebook, and plus one buttons. Try creating unique headlines that will draw a users attention straight to those buttons. A headline like “If you hate the recession but like this article, click like”, will grab attention and encourage users to share your story.
Another essential social plugin for WordPress is the “Facebook Social Plugin”. This is a widget that can be placed on your sidebar to provide “social proof” that you run a well-liked website. The plug-in shows images and usernames of every person that has clicked “like” on your website or story. This plug-in is especially important for websites that sell products. Showing proof that other users are happy with your service, will give users the trust that they need to use their credit card on your site. Social proof is a very effective way to show trustworthiness and professionalism, even if a visitor has never visited your site.
A “Twitter Counter” button can also add social proof to your site. You must have an active twitter account with followers in order for it to work. This button can be placed on the header of your site or on pages where users make credit card transactions. These buttons will show new visitors that you are a legitimate business, and are well liked by your customers.
Increasing User Engagement
One factor that is increasingly important to search engines today, is user engagement. Search companies have many ways to track a user’s activity on your site,, and if they visit other pages before leaving. Experts predict that user metrics will become an even more important factor in rankings. In this case you will need better content, more features, and better design to keep the search traffic flowing. One easy way to increase user engagement is to add a poll to your sidebar. The plugin WP-Polls is easy to use and free. It can create any type of poll you want, within minutes. A poll will keep the user on your site longer and more engaged with a attention grabbing question.
Another way to increase user engagement and page-views is a plugin called Outbrain. Outbrain adds 4 images to the bottom of every post, to other pages on your site. These images draw attention and make a user more likely to stay on your site longer. One drawback to outbrain, it that it rotates a paid ad into these images every once in a while. But, the benefits seem to outweigh this factor.
As social media and user engagement become more important, webmasters will have to adapt. Becoming more involved in the social space is essential to start any new site. Facebook is an enormous platform that site owners can no longer ignore. It is important to develop and change your site to stay ahead of the curve and keep your users coming back.
Mike runs the new relationship and dating site called Dating Tips 1. It provides users with online dating advice, how to read body language on a date, and tips to improve their success for meeting people online.
A web consultant or Internet Agent is a person or company that specializes in all areas of a Website from web development to content creation and search engine optimization. Typically web consultants have been more of a temporary position, offering help when a company is redesigning a website or looking to better market their website. Web consultants are usually kept using a retainer but sometimes can be paid monthly. Many Start-Up Companies will employ a web consultant to help get there website up and running. The web consultant will help with everything from layout and design to function and marketing. Generally a web consultant will move on once the website is up and running. As society moves into web 2.0 and the need for constant content management is essential, businesses will start to hire web consultants to work full time on their website. Tasks can include blogging, updating content, social marketing, search engine optimization, analyzing traffic, building backlinks, and managing directories.
Analyzing and evaluating the target market for a website is essential. A web consultant will help analyze the web traffic data for particular keywords to help maximize effectiveness in the target market. This will help with Website ROI (return on investment) and overall business. Pay-Per-Click advertising can be a major part of an online business. PPC campaigns help get instant results while a SEO campaign is being developed. Web Consultants and Internet Agents usually specialize in PPC campaign development. They will go through a company’s PPC campaign to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the campaign, helping to deliver maximum ROI.
