Plugins – Page 2 – Dennis J. Smith

Interested in Pinterest?

February 12, 2012

Are you in love with Pinterest? Wondering what the heck it is? My Pinterest Articles and Information Board on Pinterest will help you get the answer to your questions and help you get started. There is a collection I have pinned featuring great articles on how-to get start, marketing with Pinterest and WordPress plugins for the wildly hot social media site. Looking for an answer to a question you have about Pinterest? Leave it in the comments below and I will try and get you an answer. Now lets get pinning! Pinterest Articles and Information Board on Pinterest

How-To Stop Those Bouncing Website Visitors

August 2, 2011

How do you track visits to your website or blog? If you are are using Google Analytics you might be familiar with the term Bounce Rate. But what is Bounce Rate? The Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that hit a single-page and then bounce from your site. If you have 1000 visitors on your site and 200 visit other pages on your site besides the home page, your Bounce Rate would be 80 percent. That’s because 800 of those visitors hit just your home page and then bounced. The lower the bounce rate the better you are doing at keeping visitors on your website. Which should help improve other site stats and keep readers coming back. So how does one lower a sites bounce rate? That’s something I’ve been trying to master myself with some success. Below are some tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years. Eye-Catching Headlines Write catchy headlines that will draw in your readers and get them to click and then read your post. You want to get them off your home page and reading the meat of your site. Don’t Give Away The Farm The home page shouldn’t have full articles or you risk the reader bouncing. Just give enough information to entice them to clicking on a post so they go further into your site. There are tons of WordPress themes set-up to display part of the article and then display a link to read more. Find Reliable Hosting Don’t give your visitors an excuse to leave by having a slow site. Look for reliable hosting and keep your site running at top speeds. Related Post Plug-ins are a great tool to help keep your site bounce rate down. Related Posts will find and display a list of similar post. Think of it as walking your readers through your website. Great SEO Bring the right kind of people to your website with optimized pages. If you page is optimized for your subject matter the less chances a new visitor will bounce. Check out the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin and optimize your site. Remember to fine tune as you go since search engine rankings are always changing. Please feel free to comment below or leave any suggestions you have.

Jigoshop Is The Free WordPress E-Commerce Solution

July 8, 2011

Looking for a simple solution to sell product online? Look no further than Jigoshop! You need to have WordPress installed for Jigoshop to work. This free e-commerce plugin for WordPress takes less than 15 minutes to setup. You can download the plugin from the developers site or search for “Jigoshop” from your WordPress Dashboard Plugin menu. Once installed an entire dashboard to control your store is available. It can be used for both physical and downloadable products. Your customers can access your store from several different devices like smartphones and tablets. Right now it only supports PayPal, Skrill/Moneybookers and Cheque for payment gateways. I would imagine that will change in the future as the plugin evolves. Check out the links to the tour for more information on features. Jigoshop backend demo 3 from James Koster on Vimeo. If you are looking for a simple solution that is packed with features this might be the plugin for you. If you need help setting up a WordPress e-commerce solution using Jigoshop feel free to contact me at dennis@dennisjsmith.com for more information and pricing. Resources: Check out the Tour here ““ Jigoshop Tour GreenHostUSA Hosting Plans – WordPress Hosting Article by Dennis J. Smith Promote Your Business or Cause Using Social Media ““ A Beginner’s Handbook

Google AdSense Plugins

December 4, 2010

Google AdSense Plugins What is Google AdSense? Google AdSense is a program from Google that pays website and blog owners to display specific ads on their sites. It is free and you can track your earnings with online reports. The ads are usually targeted to match the relevant content on your site. How do I get started? Visit http://www.adsense.com and Newbie Central for new users to get started and for more information about AdSense. If you have an account with Google you are just a few steps away from Google AdSense. If not you just have to enter a little information to get started with creating ads. I highly recommend that you watch the videos provided by Google. There are several books available to learn more about AdSense and there is lots of information online. AdSense Ad Create Your AdSense Code Once you have an account set-up you can start creating the code that will generate your ad or ads. There are different sizes of ads you can generate and it is important think about ad placement in your blog. Placement of your ads is essential in the amount of revenue they generate. Review Newbie Central for more information on the placement of your ads. AdSense Plugins Several plugins are available to choose from when it comes to displaying ads on your WordPress blog. Search for “AdSense” from the Plugin menu of your WordPress dashboard to generate a list of available AdSense plugins. Click on “Details” for more details on each individual plugin and “Install Now” to install the plugin of your choice. There are also several WordPress themes that have settings to display AdSense ads along with other types of ads. Do a search on Google for “AdSense Ready WordPress Themes” for a list of themes ready for AdSense. I suggest you install a few plugins and see what works best for you. Take your code you created above and copy and paste it into your plugin. Each plugin will be different so read the instruction for the plugin you choose. List of some of the many plugins available for AdSense Things to keep in Mind AdSense policy allows for no more than three AdSense ads displaying per page. Encouraging others to click on ads is a violation of AdSense policies. Don’t risk losing what might be a lucrative stream of revenue. Read Newbie Central so you are aware of policies, best practices and have the knowledge of what works best. Have a favorite AdSense plugin you are using? Please feel free to comment below and share your AdSense experience. Need a WordPress Blog? Contact IgniteHost website and WordPress blog hosting and get started for less than $5 a month. More resources: Google AdSense ““ AdSense Website AdSense Official Channel on YouTube ““ AdSense Videos WordPress Themes ““ AdSense Ready WordPress Themes Newbie Central ““ Information for AdSense Newbies AdSense Blog ““ Inside AdSense Blog Content Provided By Dennis J. Smith

Book Trailer–“Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media

October 29, 2010

Promote your Business or Cause using Social Media is a handbook for beginner’s interested in using social media to grow a small business or take any cause to the internet. Learn how to create a blog, start a blog radio show, upload videos to YouTube, Tweet on Twitter and build a fan page on Facebook with social apps and even eCommerce. Purchase your copy today for just $7.95 through CreateSpace or Amazon.com: CreateSpace ““ Order Now Online Amazon ““ Order Now Online -Available in Paperback and Kindle – Learn how to add a shopping cart to your Facebook fan page and sell product right from your fan page. – Learn how to get your own personal Facebook URL. – How to get started with WordPress and your own blog. – Twitter Tips! About the author: Dennis has been creating websites and browsing the web since the days of Netscape 1.0 while living in Seattle, Washington. His technology background goes back to the days of the Commodore Vic 20 and 64, Pong and Pac-Man. He later turned his passion for technology and web design into a love for Internet Marketing, blogging and now Social Media. He is the owner of IgniteHost and GreenHostUSA website hosting, search engine optimization and social media consulting located in Boise, Idaho and writes the tech blog GigaDroid.com for the popular Android phones. During his free time he enjoys road trips back to Seattle, exploring Idaho, microbrews, great coffee, sharing his knowledge with friends and Facebook acquaintances.

3 Social Media Tools To Grow Your Business

October 15, 2010

Here are 3 tools that are free and will help you grow your business through social media. There are many other applications out there and they appear and disappear as social media changes and evolves. I like these 3 listed below for their ease of use and little set-up time. Please feel free to leave a comments about the tools you use or if you use these. RSS Graffiti for Facebook Simplify your social media marketing with this free application available on Facebook. RSS Graffiti will automatically publish your RSS feeds to any of your Facebook Fan Pages. Setup is easy and and takes less than 10 minutes to establish. You can schedule how often RSS Graffiti updates your wall, set publishing limits and can even publish to Twitter. I use it to publish articles from my WordPress blog to my Facebook Fan Page. Then Facebook automatically send out a Tweet to my Twitter followers that alerts them of a new post on my blogs. Payvment E-Commerce Storefront If you are looking to sell product online with little upfront cost Payvment is the answer. Payvment is a free shopping cart application for Facebook Fan Pages and uses PayPal to process payments. Set-up is easy and most can have a storefront up and running in 1-hour or less. Visit the Facebook Fan Page of Pioneer Soap Works to see what an actual storefront is like. All In One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin This is a must have tool for any business with a hosted WordPress blog. All In One SEO is a free plugin that optimizes your blog for better search engine results. This application gives you better control over the optimization of your post, pages and site home page. Therefore your chances of moving up in search engine results increase. Easy enough for beginners yet fully customizable for those with a little more SEO background. Content by Dennis J. Smith ““ Social Media Author

5 Must Have Social Media Plugins for WordPress Blogs

October 1, 2010

With the explosion of Social Media many bloggers are discovering the power of sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and LinkedIn to name a few. With WordPress plugins you or your readers can share your blog postings with others just with a click of the mouse. Here are 5 plugins for Social Media that I think are the must haves if you are serious about promoting your business or cause. Update: Some of these plugins have been discontinued or have not been updated by their developers. WP FB Like With the exploding popularity of Facebook this is a must have plugin because it post to the king of social media. WP FB Like is easy to setup and will add the Facebook “Like” Button at the top and bottom of all your post or pages. When your reader clicks on the button a link to your blog post is added to their Facebook wall. If their friends click on the link they are sent to your blog and directly to the post. Update: This plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. Sexy Bookmarks Here is a WordPress plugin that does it all when it comes to sharing out your blog post. Sexy Bookmarks lets you pick and choice the social media networks you’d like your readers to share to. Plus you can drag and drop them into the position you’d like them to display on your page. You can display the social media networks at the top or bottom of your post. There over 80 social networks to choose from but I would suggest that you keep it under 20 so as not to overwhelm your readers. WP Google-Buzz With all the buzz about Google Buzz and Google’s jump into the social media arena you’ll want this plugin for sure. If you prefer to keep a minimalist look to your blog you might want to consider going with just a few buttons. Facebook, Twitter, Digg and maybe even MySpace depending on the demographics of your readers. WP Google-Buzz is easy to configure and has several customization choices to fit any bloggers needs. Update: This plugin has been discontinued Disqus Comment System This plugin replaces the default WordPress commenting system by adding elements that will drive more traffic to your blog. Both new and repeat traffic can be generated from the use of this popular plugin. Most major newspapers and news organizations use Disqus on their websites. Readers can check a like button just like the FB like button and can post their comments to Facebook and Twitter. Readers can also subscribe by email or RSS and get notified when someone replies to their comment. What’s not to like about this plugin? PostRank PostRank shows off the top post on your blog and is updated automatically as the rankings change. The look and feel of the widget can be set to match the color of your WordPress theme. Monitor your PostRank scores and social media analytic metrics right from the WordPress dashboard. The PostRank plugin is easy to install and setup is a breeze. Keep in mind that it might take a few hours for the top post to start displaying. Wibya The ultimate social media plugin for your WordPress blog is the Wibya Toolbar. Integrate both your Twitter and Facebook Fan Page feeds into your blog along with a host of other choices. Show off your YouTube videos or pick what videos you’d like displayed. Customize the look and feel of the toolbar to match your WordPress theme. Do you use any of the above plugins with your WordPress blog? Have something else that’s a favorite? Please feel free to leave a comment below and add to this list by letting others know your recommendations. Interested in other WordPress Plugins? Check out this post from the blog ““ How To Make My Blog Best WordPress plugins ““ 18 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever If you know someone who could benefit from the information above please feel free to share with others. I appreciate it and hope you’ll return again. Thanks!

10 must have WordPress Plugins

July 22, 2010

Being the most popular blogging platform in the world has its advantages. There are millions of individuals and businesses that are using a WordPress blog. Those blogs are the stepping stones to promoting a business or a cause. Plugins make those blogs even more powerful and there are over 10,000 to choose from. The best thing is they are all free and install in just minutes! We’ll cover some of the best plugins out there that make your blog more attractive to search engines, one that let you send a newsletter and others that will keep your readers on your site longer and some get you “Liked” on Facebook. All in One SEO Pack If you don’t have this plugin installed you should download it today. It is the most downloaded plugin for WordPress blogs. This plugin is used to assist in the search engine optimization of your WordPress blog. Installation only takes a moment and set-up is fairly simple. Find more information here on how to use it once you have the plugin installed. Akismet This plugin prevents spam from being posted to the comments section of your post. The plugin checks your comments against the Akismet server to see if they look like spam. The “Comments”" admin screen lets you review spam comments before they display below your post. Contact Form 7 Those looking for a way to gather customer information need to look no further. The plugin Contact Form 7 uses CAPTCHA in order to prevent non-humans from submitting a form. This plugin even uses Akismet to filter out any spam. It can help you manage multiple contact forms and is customizable for those with a little more experience with code. Contextual Related Posts Keep your readers around longer with a plugin that displays related stories. This plugin will display a list of related post at the end of the post the reader is viewing. The plugin looks at the tags or the current article to match it with similar post the reader might like. Therefore keeping them around longer on your site instead of reading one article and moving on. fbLikeButton Let your readers “Recommend” or “Like” your blog post and share them with one-click to their Facebook friends. The plugin is customizable in look and feel depending on your blogs theme. The button can be displayed before or after your post. This is a great way to draw traffic to your blog from Facebook. Google Analytics for WordPress This plugin bills itself as the most complete Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. Track where your readers are coming from, how long they are staying around on your blog and more. The newest version promises to be faster when loading the tracking code. Newsletter Keep your readers coming back to your blog with a newsletter you compose. It can be sent out on whatever frequency you like. Your readers can opt-in to your newsletter with just a name and email address. This is a very powerful plugin and you can read more information here. WP-DB-Backup Must have plugin to give you piece of mind that your hard work is protected. This plugin is able to backup your core WordPress database on a schedule or when ever you need. You can save it to the server, your PC or have it sent via email to protect your blog post. It also allows you to backup other tables that are related to your WordPress blog. WP Google-buzz Facebook and Twitter still reign when it comes to social media sites. Google might be the powerful search giant but its entry into social media with Google Buzz kind of fizzled. However there is rumor that Google has something new coming down the pipeline. WPtouch iPhone Theme Give your blog that iPhone look and feel for your readers on the go. WPtouch gives your WordPress blog an iPod/iPhone app look. The admin controls for the plug-in give you lots of customization. Viewer can toggle to the normal view for your blog with a flip of a switch. More information”¦ More Resources: WordPress Plugin Directory Affordable WordPress Hosting from GreenHostUSA ““ Starting at less than $10 a month!

Category: Plugins