Content is king. There is evergreen content but that only goes so far. Been there seen that. What do you have for me today? You have to keep writing. It is the heart of every good website and serves multiple purposes. The first purpose is to educate prospects and build expertise. This is why blogs are so heralded. A well-written blog can help you stand out from the competition and educate your prospects. Content + Readers + Time = Clients.
- Each time you write a post it gets a title, category, tags, and a description and its own address on your server which is then available for anyone on the Internet to Find.
- When you write the content on your site, it gets crawled by Google ( automatically since you have sent your site to Google and they are automatically notified when you have new content) It get crawled faster if you send your post to Twitter. You can automatically link your content to Linked-In, and your Facebook Fan Page, showing your friends that there is new content and bringing them back to your website. You can send send it to Digg, Stumble upon and countless other bookmark sites. You submit the article to a group or two that you belonged to on Linked-In and all of this drives people and the Search Engine Bots to your site.
- Make em Laugh, Make em Mad, Make em Think, Be Outrageous, Be Provocative, in order to get linked to by others. This sends more people to your site and gives you a higher search engine ranking for your key words.
- You want eyeballs- but then what do you do when you have them.
- First Impressions. Returning Visitors - Unlikely people act right away. Give them something. Amuse them, Inform them, Comfort them, Offer them a reason to come back.
- Get their e-mail addresses. Develop "Your Fans", Seth Godin calls it "Your Tribe", "Your Peeps"
Here are eight of my favorite WordPress Plugins that I use or recommend to help bring people back to your site or to keep them there longer. I have included some that do the same thing but are styled differently so one may look better than another for different themes. So don't try to use the same function plugins at the same time.
- Sexy Bookmarks - I had been using Share and Follow and Add To Any for awhile, but a few months ago found the Sexy Bookmarks plugin and find it looks great on my site and I love how the icons peek up. It is not for all sites. Some need a more conservative look . But it is pretty cool.
- I Love Social Bookmarking; This is a sweet little plugin that makes an unobtrusive little heart that drops down to offer you a choice of Social Media Bookmark sites to send the post to.
- Share and Follow: Provides the share and follow buttons below the post but also along hte side edge of your site background.
- Add To Any : This plugin is a bit more sedate and comes in small, smaller and smallest sizes. It is very good for a conservative site like a law office or for a minimalist theme where the share buttons shouldn't fight with the theme style.
- WWSGD : What Would Seth Godin Helps welcome new visitors to your site and asks them to subscribe to your RSS feed. It shows 3-5 times and then another messages comes up for return visitors. Currently installed it on New Tricks Website.
- Follow Me : Offers a way to have visitors go to your pages and follow you by installing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn icons show up in your sidebar. This saves you from having to fool with adding a lot of linked images to a text box widget then this is a great little plugin.
- Yet Another Related Posts : This plugin may not be what you think of as a "social media" plugin, But having this or another similar posts plug as a post footer is very helpful to be able to direct users to other relevant on your site. This plugin automatically identifies similar articles in your blog, and displays them as related posts. It keeps your readers engaged on your site and drives down bounce rates.
- Twitter Tools -Is a great Twitter Plugin which automatically posts your twitter feed to the sidebar as well as a lot of other option. It can also help you by automatically tweeting your blog posts once you publish a new post.
Keep track of your stats as you try various tools and techniques. It will amaze you.