Archive for the ‘Business Blogging’ Category
30 Awesome Blogging Guides, Tips and Resources
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013Despite the occasional “death of blogging” pronouncements (often made, ironically, in blog posts), blogs remain the core of a robust social media strategy. The proliferation of themes, tools and plugins have transformed blogs from mere online text collections to powerful interactive, rich-media sites that can attract, engage and educate your potential buyers.
Particularly with Google’s emphasis in its recent Panda and Penguin algorithm updates on content that is fresh, compelling, unique, social, and naturally linked to, blogs have become even more essential to SEO strategies.
For those who still aren’t convinced of the value of business blogging (as well as those who need to convince others), the “why blog” posts below provide compelling evidence. Those getting started or already active in blogging will discover how to:
- • grow blog traffic,
- • make content more valuable to readers,
- • increase blogging productivity,
- • generate more comments and social shares,
- • find royalty-free images,
- • promote your blog, and
more here in 30 of the best business blogging guides and resources of the past year.
Why Blog
Why You Want To Be the Last Blog Standing by Outspoken Media
Reporting that “the number of Inc. 500 companies maintaining corporate blogs has dropped for the first time since 2007. Did you hear that? IT DROPPED! According to Dartmouth’s research, just 37 percent of companies interviewed said they had a corporate blog, down from 50 percent in 2010,” frequent best-of honoree Lisa Barone advises readers to “let your blog be the last blog standing because while sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn may be effective and sexy all in their own right, they don’t hold a candle to the sexiness and superpowers possessed by your blog,” and backs it up with 10 reasons and tactics to beat your competition through blogging.
Yes, Your Company Needs a Blog – 13 Reasons Why by AboutUs
Kristina Weis provides a baker’s dozen reasons for creating a corporate blog, from demonstrating your expertise (“If [prospective customers] can easily find some articles written by you and/or your staff that show your company’s expertise, they’re going to feel a lot more confident about spending their time or money [or both] with you”) and increasing website traffic to helping with customer support and generating new product ideas.
Past, Present and Future of Blogging: 3 Infographics by jeffbullas.com
Jeff Bullas shares a wealth of fascinating blogging facts and stats here, such as that 27 of the top 100 blogs are built on WordPress, with 16 on TypePad. 43% of U.S. companies now maintain blogs. And more than half of all social media-driven blog traffic comes from Facebook (28%) and Twitter (26%) combined.
7 Tips for Blogging – Maybe Your Most Important Social Media Activity for Business by SocialSteve’s Blog
Contending that “Everyone always jumps onto Facebook and Twitter as one of their first social media activities. I recommend you think about blogging first. No other endeavor can be better to promote you or your brand as a subject matter expert,” Steve Goldner offers seven tips for blogging success, such as utilizing your passion, speaking (writing) naturally, and posting on a consistent basis.
Dozens of reasons why corporate blogs still matter in B2B marketing by Content Marketing Experience
J-P De Clerck makes a comprehensive case for corporate blogging—as long as it isn’t done the “wrong” way: “It’s traditional PR in a new package: corporate blogs as a way to shout how great they are.” Done right, blogs serve as the hub of a company’s social media strategy, a magnet for search traffic, and an opportunity to speak to prospective customers on a more informal, human level. He points out that 57% of companies with blogs have acquired at least one customer through blogging; that blogs make it easy to share multiple types of information; and that they make it easy (and even inviting) for customers and prospects to provide feedback.
Blogging Tips and Guides
33 Ways to Get Help For Your Blog (Without Breaking the Bank) by Heidi Cohen
Frequent best-of author Heidi Cohen offers nearly three dozen ideas “to help you efficiently leverage resources in seven of the areas where many bloggers typically need support,” such as content block (one idea: “Answer customer questions…Collect the questions prospects and customers ask from sales and customer service; then answer them”), lack of creative resources, and disappointing blog traffic.
20 Ways to Improve Your Blog by TribalCafe
Reporting that “28% of brands that (didn’t previously) publish a blog (planned) to do so in 2012—bringing the percentage of brands that publish a blog to 85%,” Gary Fox lists 20 ways to attract more readers and generate better business results from blogging, among them using strong visuals, varying blog topics, and making your content SEO-friendly (“focus on a keyword [phrase] for each blog post and try to not venture too far” from it).
5 Tips to Becoming a Top Blog in Your Industry by Social Media Examiner
Michael Stelzner shares a handful of techniques he used to make Social Media Examiner a big success, such as surveying the interests of your audience (“When you know precisely what content your readers crave, it’s much easier to create posts that are widely read and shared on social channels”) and spinning a single hot topic into multiple posts from different perspectives (e.g., a beginner’s guide, biggest myths or misconceptions, case studies, etc.).
Five Tips to Make Company Blogs Worth Reading by Marketing Profs
Muhammad Yasin offers a handful of helpful recommendations for making your company blog a success, including focusing on expert tips: “If you are not an expert yourself in a particular field, find experts and learn from them. See what they are writing about, absorb their knowledge, and share their tips. Better yet, invite those experts to share their knowledge on your blog as guest bloggers. Allowing independent experts to write for your blog can provide a much needed fresh perspective and may result in their recommending your products or services.”
Fixing The Social Media Plateau by Soulati Media
The delightful Jayme Soulati identifies 10 signs that “may be an indication it’s time to step up your game, take it to the next level, and grow or remain complacent” in terms of your social media practices, such as “Learning new things becomes more rare; another 20 ways to use Pinterest blog post isn’t providing new insight over what you know now,” and tips to get un-stuck (e.g., “Reduce the time spent on the channels that don’t return much to you. That way, you’re not spread as thin”).
10 Valuable Ideas to Help You Find Time to Blog by MyBeak Social Media
Writing that “Creating content and finding the time to do it are the biggest obstacles entrepreneurs and small business owners face when marketing their business,” Laura-Lee Walker presents helpful ideas for generating more content in less time, among them inviting guest bloggers, repurposing existing material, and using mobile phone apps like Dragon Dictator: “You don’t have time to write down all your ideas or blog posts…simply use an application…that will translate your voice to text. (They are) not perfect but will give you a head start and reduce the time you spend on typing your blog articles.”
21 Business Blogging Tips From the Pros by Social Media Examiner
The impeccably discerning Cindy King curates an outstanding collection of blogging tips from pros like Leo Widrich (“A product is only useful if you know others want it. Validate an idea for a blog post in the same way”), Heidi Cohen (“Understand prospects, customers and the public are on your blog to get answers to their questions and accomplish their goals, not yours”), and Stephanie Sammons (“Work to develop a blogging style that is unique to you. What’s your angle? What’s your view? How can you differentiate yourself from others who are blogging in your niche?”).
Guest Blogging: Seven Tips for Success by Spin Sucks
PR expert and author Gini Dietrich offers several excellent tips for expanding your reach by publishing guest posts on other influential blogs. My favorite tip is her first, on how to gauge authority (and corresponding effort) of a blog: “Go to Open Site Explorer and type in the URL for the blog for which you’d like to submit content. I’ll do it for Wood Street…You’ll see the site authority is 48/100. If the authority is 40-70, it’s worth pursuing. If it’s higher than 70, you’ll have a tougher time getting your content on the site, so you’ll need to be extremely patient, but persistent. If it’s between 90 and 100, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get something placed there without the help of a communications professional.”
Starting a Blog in 2013? 16 Ideas to Avoid Complete & Utter Failure (Infographic) by Pinterest
Noting that “the majority of blogs starting every year end up failing,” Wendy Marx offers 16 tips in this infographic to beating the odds, such as “Be consistent: Whether you keep an editorial calendar or not, it’s important to continue to publish content on your blog because that consistency brings in more traffic” (amen!) and (perhaps most importantly), “Have fun with it: Don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun with the process and enjoy every minute as your grow your audience and build your business.”
Guest post: 7 powerful headline techniques to skyrocket your blog traffic by Creative Ramblings
Reminding us all that “in the online world, your headline is the single most important part of your content…instead of reading every blog post, people scan for information. They look for headlines that capture their interest, and only click on the ones they feel are worthy of their time,” Lillian Leon details seven techniques for crafting headlines that grab attention, including “Fear: Identify the one thing your readers fear the most, and you’ll have yourself a headline that’s pretty much impossible to ignore.”
10 Additional Ideas to Generate Comments and Shares by Spin Sucks
Following up on an earlier post on the same topic, Gini Dietrich (again) offers 10 more ideas to increase engagement on your blog, from writing book reviews and rants to covering the latest trends and answering questions commonly heard by your sales force or customer service reps.
Content Development and Writing Tips
26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts by Social Media Examiner
In her own unique and highly creative style, Debbie Hemley presents “26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write,” beginning with A for Anatomically Correct: every blog post should contain the “six parts of the anatomy of a lead-generating blog post” such as an eye-catching title, calls to action, and social sharing buttons.
12 Most Useful Sources for Good Stuff to Post by 12 Most
Peg Fitzpatrick passes along content curation tips from Guy Kawasaki in this post showcasing the top dozen places to find shareworthy content, starting with your own network and including both popular sharing sites (like StumbleUpon and AllTop) and less obvious choices (e.g., Futurity, TED and NPR).
How to find photos you can legally use anywhere by CBS MoneyWatch
Observing that “No matter what you publish — a blog, updates to the company website, project reports, or even the venerable tri-fold — you no doubt need artwork to complement it,” but just haphazardly reusing artwork found online can lead to legal troubles, Dave Johnson recommends two easy methods for finding photos that are usable under the Creative Commons license.
29 Free Blog Images Sources: Where to Get Royalty Free Photos by Directory Journal
***** 5 STARS
In case Dave’s recommendations above don’t quite meet your needs, Gail Gardner provides a massive list of sites where you can find free or reasonably priced images, as well as resources for comparing prices across different image sites, selling your photos, identifying trademarked images, adding images to blog posts, and more.
5 of the Most Important Content & Social Media Tips For A Successful Business Blog by TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Lee Odden writes that “If I were only to give 5 content marketing tips to a company that wanted to get the most for and from its customers through blogging, here are the tips I’d give.” Among his top five tips? Focus on the problems your audience faces—but don’t forget to tell them how you can solve those problems. Create an editorial plan. And measure results to support continual improvement.
How to Differentiate Your Content by Geoff Livingston’s Blog
Geoff Livingston lays out four steps to becoming an “A-list” blogger in your niche subject area. Given Geoff’s success, I won’t argue with his methodology—though it’s not for everyone. But if you’ve got the time, intestinal fortitude and financial backing or wherewithal to pursue his program, go for it.
The Nine Ingredients That Make Great Content by KISSmetrics
Contending that “In order to boost SEO rankings, gain traffic and/or leads, you need to have great content on your blog or website,” Zach Bulygo shares nine tips for producing stand-out content (such as making your content actionable: “The best content gives the user a sense of how to apply the information…Many times, just writing well about a topic will spark some ideas for readers,”) then follows up with half a dozen examples of sites that consistently provide remarkable content.
Blog Promotion Tips and Tactics
6 Tips For Building a High Quality Blog Following by Fearless Competitor
Shane Snow channels Jeff Ogden and Brian Clark in this post, providing “six tips to attracting readers who stick around longer than the click of a StumbleUpon button,” such as speaking to a specific audience, guest blogging and publishing guest bloggers, and encouraging loyalty through consistency: “taking an editorial stand for what you believe in, rather than watering things down to avoid offending anyone. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to try to be controversial. In this day and age, simply taking a position and standing behind it will bring people who agree, and people who don’t.”
Want Your Blog Noticed? (Hint: It’s Not Just Content!) by Heidi Cohen
Heidi Cohen (again) supplies 23 tips for growing awareness of your blog, such as integrating your blog’s brand into related content and activities (“As a media entity, your blog deserves its own brand. If it’s a corporate brand, it should be adapted for the blog”), referencing and linking to sources, and guest blogging.
Want to Increase Blog Traffic? Some Fab Tips for Success by Positively Peggy
The ebullient Peg Fitzpatrick (again) serves up five tips for growing blog traffic, such as sharing your content at optimal times: “Buffer App helps you not only share at the optimal times based on your followers being online but also evenly distributes your amazing content throughout the day so you don’t annoy your followers with a huge spurt of brilliance and then lose them with silence later.”
How Bloggers Can Grow Each Others Readership by The @Steveology Blog
Steve Farnsworth recommends Triberr as a tool for increasing the reach of your blog posts, and explains in detail how Triberr works and how to get the most out of it (e.g., by starting your own tribe, joining other tribes, and “dating around”). While the tool is a great concept and has potential, its ongoing technical issues are frustrating.
How to Effectively Promote Your Blog Posts by MyBeak Social Media
***** 5 STARS
Beyond the big social networks and Triberr, Laura-Lee Walker (again) presents an infographic illustrating 30 ways to promote your blog content using social media, social bookmarking sites (does anyone still use Digg?), your contacts, other blogs, and 10 top syndication sites.
5 ways to promote your blog by commenting on others by Creative Ramblings
Cendrine Marrouat explains why commenting on blogs is beneficial (chief among the rewards: “You get to connect and build relationships with other bloggers”) and how to do it well (e.g., add value to the conversation, share relevant links, and comment regularly on the same blogs).
30 Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts by Listly
***** 5 STARS
Ted Rubin shares a bookmark-worthy list of tactics for sharing and promoting blog posts, including Facebook (“Add it on your personal & business pages, groups and through ads”), Pinterest (“Create a board specifically for all your blog posts and pin each post to it”) and through AllTop.com (“syndicates content in every category, from autos and food to business and sports”).
102 Compelling Social Media and Online Marketing Stats and Facts for 2012 (and 2013)
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013With 92% of companies now incorporating social media into their marketing efforts, it’s no longer sufficient to just “be there” on social networks. Today’s most effective marketers are optimizing content across channels, coordinating search and social marketing activities with traditional PR, and measuring their web presence and performance with sophistication.
The first step to improving digital marketing results is to understand the emerging trends and best practices. This post, along with 79 Remarkable Social Media Marketing Facts and Statistics for 2012 and 87 More Vital Social Media Marketing Facts and Stats for 2012 previously published here, provide a solid foundation for that understanding.
What do buyers really want from social media marketers? What’s the key to generating more inbound marketing leads? What is the source of the largest share of social traffic to websites? (It’s not what you almost certainly think.)
Find the answers to these questions and many, many more here in over 100 engaging and intriguing social, search, content, inbound, email, mobile and other marketing stats and facts from the past few months.
25 Social Media Facts and Statistics
1. While 76% of marketers believe “they know what their consumers want” in terms of social media content and interaction, only 34% have actually asked those buyers. (e-Strategy Trends)
2. At least on the B2C side, there is a disconnect between what marketers think consumers think is important and what consumers actually value. Marketers believe the highest consumer priorities on social media are insights for buying decisions (59%) and customer service (58%). Consumers actually place the highest value on deals and promotions (83%) and rewards programs (70%). (e-Strategy Trends)
3. B2B buyers are most likely to share useful vendor content via email (79%), followed by LinkedIn (53%), Twitter (39%) and Facebook (18%). (Earnest Agency)
4. While three-quarters of marketers consider measurement of social media impact important, 70% say that measuring those results is difficult. (Marketing Charts)
5. 79% of marketers measure website traffic from social media, and 68% track engagement metrics on social networks, but just 26% measure the relationship of social media activity to leads and sales. (Marketing Charts)
6. Just 4% of marketers said their companies were “very effective” at measuring social marketing in 2012. While 47% felt somewhat good at social measurement in 2011, just 38% said the same in 2012. “Nearly half of respondents (47%) feel they or their companies are either not very good at social marketing measurement, or do not measure well at all.” (Marketing Charts)
7. Ever feel frustrated and less productive than you’d like to be at work, even though you’re working hard and putting in a ton of hours? There’s a reason for that! Interruptions (like email and social media) are messing us up. Consider:
- • The typical worker is interrupted once every 28 minutes on average.
- • 28% of the average work day is spent on interruptions and recovery time.
- • 45% of workers believe they are expected to work on too many things at once.
- • And tasks done in parallel take on average 30% longer to complete than those performed in a sequence.
8. Everyone knows women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, but how about on other social networks? Women make up the larger share of users on Facebook (58% to 42%) and are a slightly larger share on Twitter (52% to 48%) while men are the predominate users of LinkedIn (63% to 37%) and Google+ (71% to 29%). Furthermore, half of all Google+ users are under 25 years old. (iMedia Connection)
9. Social CRM is still confusing. Only 16% of companies say they currently have a social CRM system in place. 21% plan to implement such a system in the coming year, but another 17% “don’t know what a social CRM system is and why businesses need it.” (Convince & Convert)
10. Only a quarter of all U.S. small businesses (20-99 employees) and a third of midsized companies say they use social media “to engage with customers and prospects in a strategic and structured way.” Another 20% of both groups say they use social media, but in an ad hoc manner. (eMarketer)
11. Despite growing interest in the concept of social business, less than 20% of U.S. companies have integrated social media with their customer service, sales, or product development processes. (eMarketer)
12. Worldwide, 86% of companies have a presence on Facebook and Twitter, while just over half use YouTube and Linked and only slightly more than a third have a presence on Pinterest and/or Google+. (eMarketer)
13. More than 80% of small to midsized businesses (SMBs) plan to increase their use of social media in 2013. Not suprising, considering that 87% of SMBs say that social media has helped them either somewhat or a great deal in th past year. Of those using this channel, social media accounts for 32% of SMB marketing activities. (Marketing Charts)
14. Okay, so most marketers have now embraced social media. But why? 84% of marketers say they use social media to “reach customers at multiple touchpoints,” while 62% want to reach customers where they spend time and 56% say that “customers expect them to be on social media.” (Marketing Charts)
15. Still, not every small business should be using social media—or at least not using it as they are currently. 79% of small business owners on Twitter post just once per day or even less frequently, yet one out of three want to spend less time on social media. These business owners would be best advised to either spend their time on other tactics or hire someone who knows and enjoys social media to interact on their businesses’ behalf. No deposit, no return. (Leaders West)
16. Social media may be good for 99 things, but lead generation ain’t one of them. According to research from MarketingSherpa, just 12% of marketers rate social media as “very effective” for lead gen while 27% say it is “not effective.” The only tactic that fares worse is print advertising (9% very effective vs. 30% not effective). (B2B Lead Blog)
17. Which social network sends the largest share of website traffic? The answer is…unknown. Literally. The well-known social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit account for, combined, on average, less than half of all social traffic. The majority (as much as 70%) is “dark social”—links shared through email or instant messaging that generally get lumped in with “direct” traffic in analytics programs like Google Analytics. (The Atlantic)
18. The most popular social media sites for distributing B2B content are LinkedIn (used by 83% of B2B marketers), Twitter (80%) and Facebook (also 80%). After that, it falls off sharply; 61% use YouTube, 39% are on Google+, 26% utilize Pinterest (really?) and 23% share content on SlideShare. (MarketingProfs)
19. Using social media boosts website traffic: companies gain a 185% lift in Web traffic after achieving 1,000 Facebook likes, and businesses with 51 to 100 Twitter followers generate 106% more traffic than those with 25 or fewer followers. (MarketingProfs)
20. 92% of U.S. companies now use social media in their marketing efforts. (Heidi Cohen)
21. Different social media channels serve different purposes. Blogging is generally seen as most valuable for SEO, YouTube for content marketing, and social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn most helpful for branding and engagement. (Heidi Cohen)
22. Globally, eight different social networks have now reached the 100 million user mark. Three of those (Weibo, the fourth-largest social nework, RenRen at #5 and Badoo at #7) are primarily used by non-English speakers. (WordPress Hosting SEO)
23. The average user spends nearly seven hours per month on Facebook, but just 21 minutes on Twitter, 17 on LinkedIn, and only three minutes on Google+. (WordPress Hosting SEO)
24. Social media now accounts for 18% of all time spent online, and the average American spends 6.9 hours per month on social networking. But we are spending less time on the phone, sending/reading email, and watching TV than we did just a few years ago. (WordPress Hosting SEO)
25. One-third of CEOs fail to consider their compananies’ social media reputation when making business decisions. (The Backup List)
12 WPO, Inbound and Content Marketing Stats
26. Leads from inbound marketing cost on average 61% less ($135 vs. $346) than outbound marketing leads. (Earnest Agency)
27. Though it varies across industries, of course, 24% of overall marketing spending last year was on digital/online marketing. Social media and SEO together account for 70% of that spending. (iMedia Connection)
28. Blogging generally gets the largest share of inbound marketing budgets, followed by social media, SEO (if calculated separately from blogging) and PPC advertising. Most outbound marketing spend is on telemarketing, followed by direct mail and trade shows. (iMedia Connection)
29. 57% of companies say they generated sales through their blogs, and an identical share have closed business through LinkedIn. 48% have generated customers through Twitter and 42% through Facebook. (iMedia Connection)
30. Why web presence optimization metrics are vital: half of marketers say tightening integration between social media and traditional marketing is a key goal for 2013, yet nearly a third identify that as one of their top social marketing challenges, and a whopping 57% way measuring social ROI is a challenge. (Convince & Convert)
31. 9 out of 10 marketers say they measure social presence (e.g., number of followers and fans) and social media-driven website traffic, but only about half measure share of voice and sentiment. (Convince & Convert)
32. Need more evidence that measuring social media ROI is hard? While about 90% of all companies do some form of social media marketing, just one out of eight measure the revenue impact directly from social media. (eMarketer)
33. The two biggest challenges faced by B2B content marketers are producing enough content (cited by 29% of marketers) and producing the kind of content that engages (18). Only 2% of marketers say that finding trained content marketing professionals is a big challenge. (MarketingProfs)
34. More content = more leads. On average, companies “with 51-100 web pages generate 48% more traffic than companies with 1-50 pages.” What’s interesting though is the differential is larges for very small companies (those with less than 10 employees), likely because larger companies make greater use of lead gen tactics like tradeshows, webinars and video. (Polaris B)
35. Lots more content = lots more leads. Companies with 101-200 web pages generate 2.5x more leads than those with 50 or fewer pages. More landing pages and more blog posts also mean more leads. On average, companies that have published 200 or more total blog posts generate 5X as much traffic as those with 10 posts or fewer. (Polaris B)
36. Inbound marketing leads cost on average 62% less than outbound-generated leads, and the “big three” inbound channels—blogs, social media and SEO—all cost less on average than any outbound channel. (Polaris B)
37. The financial services (75%), insurance (50%) and software (50%) industries are the most advanced when it comes to having separate content marketing strategies for each channel through which they distribute content. Companies in these industries are also the most likely to have formal content marketing editorial calendars. The automotive (14%) and banking sectors (14%) were the least likely to have separate strategies in place. (MediaPost)
8 SEO Stats and Facts
38. SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation for B2B companies. 59% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead gen goals, followed by social media (21%) and pay per click (20%). Not surprisingly, 98% of B2B marketers plan to maintain or increase SEO budgets next year. (Marketing Charts)
39. SEO also has the biggest impact on B2C lead gen. 49% of B2C marketers rank SEO tops for impact on lead generation, followed by pay per click (26%) and social media (25%). (Marketing Charts)
40. Agencies do SEO better. 21% of marketers who work with agencies on SEO report being highly satisfied with their program performance, compared with 11% of those who do SEO in-house. (Marketing Charts)
41. 78% of Internet users say they use the web for product research, and almost half (46%) of all searches on the average day for information on products and services (iMedia Connection)
42. Search is as popular as ever, but the percentage of searches actually done on search engines declined slightly in 2012 (by about 1%). More searches are taking place on websites (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and on Amazon.com, which is the top destination for product search). Still, organic search on search engines drive 50% of all referring traffic, compared to less than 8% for social media. (MediaPost)
43. SEO is rated as the most effective lead generation tactic, with 34% of marketers calling it “very effective” while just 7% say it is not effective. The next-most-effective lead gen tactics are paid search (32% vs. 9%) and webinars (30% to 6%). (B2B Lead Blog)
44. Demand for SEO skills has never been greater. SEO job postings on job board indeed.com increased 1900% last year and people with ‘SEO’ in their LinkedIn profile have increased by 112%. Still, few SEO jobs pay six figures. (Conductor Blog)
45. The largest number of SEO job openings are in New York and San Francisco, with Boston at #5, Austin at #11 and my own Minneapolis at #12. (Conductor Blog)
3 SEM Facts
46. Think AdWords isn’t important? For “commercial” searches on Google, actual organic links can take up less than 20% of the screen real estate and links. (Founder’s Blog)
47. Agencies do SEM better. 20% of respondents working with agencies for PPC report being highly satisfied with their program’s performance, compared to 15% who manage pay-per-click programs in-house. (Marketing Charts).
48. Search (paid and organic) is a leading driver of new customer sales, while email matters most for repeat business. Social media isn’t a significant driver of either type of sale, though of course it is vital for support SEO, brand image (which leads to higher PPC click-through rates) and customer service. (Marketing Pilgrim)
3 Email Marketing Stats
49. There are 62 billion emails sent every day. The average worker receives 112 emails and spends 28 of his or her time on email each day. (Visual.ly)
50. Email is the most common lead gen tactic, used by 81% of marketers. (MarketingSherpa)
51. SEO drives traffic, but email drives conversions. While 43% of marketers say that organic search drives the greatest volume of traffic to their websites, only 29% say that traffic converts at the highest rate. On the other hand, though just 22% cite email as their largest web traffic generator, 25% say those visits convert at the highest rate. (MarketingSherpa)
7 Business Blogging Stats and Facts
52. Just 139 of the Fortune 500 corporations maintain public-facing blogs, only 29 more than in 2009. (e-Strategy Trends)
53. Only 185 of the Inc. 500 (fastest-growing companies) had a blog in 2011, down from 250 firms in 2010, despite the fact that 92% of all companies with blogs say it has been successful for their business. (e-Strategy Trends)
54. Meanwhile, 55% of small businesses have a blog. (Leaders West)
55. On average, companies that publish 15 or more blog articles per month generate five times more Web traffic than companies that don’t blog at all, and those that blog 9-15 times per month generate three times more traffic than companies that don’t maintain blogs. (MarketingProfs)
56. Companies that publish new blog posts just 1-2 times per month generate 70% more leads than companies that don’t blog at all. (MarketingProfs)
57. 57% of companies that blog have acquired a customer through their blogs. (Polaris B)
58. Blogs are the core of social media marketing. Among companies that use social media in their marketing efforts, 59% rank their company blog as critical or important to their business, higher than any other social sharing site or network. (Heidi Cohen)
8 Facebook Facts and Statistics
59. There are one billion posts per day made on Facebook. The average user spends nearly 7 hours per month on the social networking site, and one out of every five pageviews on the Internet is on…Facebook. (Visual.ly)
60. Three out of four American moms use Facebook. (iMedia Connection)
61. Facebook accounts for one out of every five pageviews on the Internet. It’s used by more than half of all people in North America, more than a third of all citizens in Australia and New Zealand, and more than a quarter of the population in Europe. (iMedia Connection)
62. Of Facebook’s one billion-plus users, 57% access the site at least occasionally from mobile devices. The most popular operating systems for mobile Facebook access are iOS (26%) and Android (21%). (Jeff Bullas)
63. Among Facebook marketers, 64% have used Facebook Events to inform fans about online or offline events, making this a far more widespread tool than display ads and targeted posts. (Marketing Charts)
64. 90% of small businesses are on Facebook, and roughly two-thirds post more than once per week. (Leaders West)
65. All of the Ad Age Top 100 Advertisers have now established Facebook pages for their brands. (WordPress Hosting SEO)
66. Facebook grew 18% in 2012 and accounted for more than half of all social content sharing. (AddThis Blog)
6 Twitter Stats
67. There are 400 million tweets per day on Twitter. A million new Twitter accounts are opened each day. The average user spends nearly and hour and a half on the site each month. (Visual.ly)
68. Twitter now has more than 500 million users worldwide, including more than 100 million in the U.S. Twitter’s second-largest user base is in Brazil. (Jeff Bullas)
69. Almost two-thirds (64%) of Twitter access is via Twitter.com (web access), while 16% of use is mobile and 10% is via Twitter clients like HootSuite and TweetDeck. (Jeff Bullas)
70. What’s the most popular marketing tactic on Twitter? 30% of marketers report using hashtags tied to specific campaigns, while 26% use Promoted Tweets. (Marketing Charts)
71. Twitter grew 55% in 2012 and accounted for 15% of all social content sharing. (AddThis Blog)
72. 42% of companies have acquired at least one customer through Twitter. (Polaris B)
6 LinkedIn Facts
73. LinkedIn has more than 150 million users, but less than 20% have reached the level of having 500 or more first-degree connections, and only 8% are using the paid premium version. (Jeff Bullas)
74. Also, only 51% of LinkedIn users have “complete” profiles, and just 52% spend two hours or more per week on the site. (Jeff Bullas)
75. The most popular use of LinkedIn is for researching people and companies (77%). Other popular uses include building relationships with industry influencers (50%), finding job opportunities (38%) and increasing brand recognition in the marketplace (37%). Just 28% of companies say they have generated identifiable business opportunities on the site. (Jeff Bullas)
76. The most popular marketing tactics on LinkedIn are the use of LinkedIn groups (cited by 33% of marketers) followed distantly by InMail messaging (14%), LinkedIn Events (13%) and LinkedIn ads (10%). (Marketing Charts)
77. LinkedIn is the most powerful social site for driving B2B sales. Pinterest is most valuable for driving B2C business. (Heidi Cohen)
78. Want to connect with top-level executives? 26% of Fortune 500 CEOs are on LinkedIn. Less than 8% are on Facebook. o% use Pinterest. (Heidi Cohen)
3 Google+ Statistics
79. Google+ has more than 400 million users, with 100 million accessing the site each month. The typical user is a male in his late 20s with a technical position or background. (Jeff Bullas)
80. Google+ users tend to be more technical than Facebook users. The top three brands on Google+ are Android, Mashable, and Chrome; on Facebook, the three most popular brands are Coca-Cola, Disney, and Starbucks. (Jeff Bullas)
81. 12 of the top 15 interest categories on Pinterest are related to commerce, including jewelry and accessories (#1), flowers and gifts (#2), food (#4), books (#7), travel (#8), apparel (#11), home furnishings (#14) and toys (#15). (Jeff Bullas)
3 Pinterest Facts
82. Mothers are 61% more likely to use Pinterest than the average American. Pinterest ranks as the #1 “family and lifestyle site” for moms – ahead of Disney Online. (iMedia Connection)
83. Pinterest’s user base is 79% female, and Apple-centric. The iPad is the most device for mobile access (55%), while an additional 17% of mobile access is through the iPhone. (Jeff Bullas)
84. Pinterest grew an astounding 379,599% in 2012. The biggest driver of growth was pins of food photos. (AddThis Blog)
6 B2B Marketing Facts and Stats
85. 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say when they are ready to make a purchase, they will find a vendor. 81% use search, 59% look for peer recommendations, and 41% read content from “thought leaders.” (Earnest Agency)
86. For purchases over $10,000, 70% of buyers review four or more pieces of content before making a decision. (That actually sounds quite low, doesn’t it?) The most popular type of content: white papers, read by 88% of buyers. (Earnest Agency)
87. Traditional marketing tactics are not dead. 74% of B2B marketers rate direct mail as very effective, while 72% say the same about live events and 71% call email marketing critical. (Earnest Agency)
88. 75% of B2B marketers use SEO for lead generation. 72% utilize social media, and 54% have embraced content marketing, while just 15% of marketers say they are using mobile marketing. (MarketingSherpa)
89. B2B marketers are spending more on content marketing. “On average, B2B content marketers are spending 33% of their marketing budgets on content marketing (in 2012), up from 26% (in 2011, and) 54% plan to increase content marketing spending next year.” (MarketingProfs)
90. The most popular B2B content marketing tactics are the use of social media other than blogs (used by 87% of B2B marketers), articles on their own websites (83%), eNewsletters (78%) and blogs (77%), followed by case studies, videos and externally published articles, all at about 70%. On the other end of the scale is gamification, used by just 11% of B2B marketers. (MarketingProfs)
3 Video Marketing Statistics
91. 75% of senior executives watch videos on business sites every week. 65% go on to visit a vendor’s website after watching a video. (Earnest Agency)
92. 71% of American Internet users watch online videos; 28% do so on a daily basis. (iMedia Connection)
93. YouTube is the world’s second largest social media site, with 800 million unique monthly visitors, and the second largest search engine. (Heidi Cohen)
6 Mobile Marketing Stats and Facts
94. Of the four billion mobile phones in use globally, more than a quarter (27%) are smartphones. Half of all local searches are performed on mobile devices. (iMedia Connection)
95. The top online uses of mobile phones are gaming (61% of users do this), checking the weather (55%), maps and search (50%) and social networking (49%). (iMedia Connection)
96. Despite the growing popularity of local mobile search and social activity, only 3% of U.S. small businesses use geolocation services. (eMarketer)
97. Mobile marketing is “becoming mainstream” for small to midsized businesses (SMBs). 18% said they were “very likely” and 31% “somewhat likely” to incorporate mobile elements in their advertising and marketing efforts to reach potential customers in the coming year. Meanwhile, 7 in 10 plan to either maintain or increase spending in this area (Marketing Charts)
98. Is mobile marketing effective for lead generation? The jury is still out. In a recent survey, 15% of marketers rated mobile marketing as “very effective” for lead gen while an identical share said mobile is not effective. (B2B Lead Blog)
99. 30% of all the time spent on mobile device use is on social networks. (MediaPost)
And Finally, 3 Other Miscellaneous Online Marketing Stats
100. While 45% of all B2B businesses have now implemented some type of marketing automation software, less than 20% of SMBs have done so. However, smaller companies that have embraced marketing process automation are nearly 50% more likely to report revenue growth above plan than those that haven’t. (MediaPost)
101. Half of all employed people in the U.S. have been with their current employer for less than five years. The average tenure for all employees is 4.6 years. Professionals in architecture and engineering (7 years) and management (6.3 years) tend to have the longest tenures, while occupations with the shortest tenures include food service (2.3 years) and sales (3.4 years). (westXdesigns)
102. Social media crisis management in crisis? More than 10% of companies report they will not take any action to respond to a damaging article or social media post. Worse, less than two-thirds of B2C executives and just 43% of B2B leaders even believe their companies could respond to a negative post within 24 hours. (The Backup List)
What to Know Before You Start Your Blog
Friday, October 19th, 2012Guest post by Darcy Leutkemeyer.
Whether you’re starting a business, documenting your travels or writing for self-expression, transferring great ideas to the Web is a step-by-step process. The excitement of starting a blog can be overwhelming but hastily trying to execute your ideas could backfire in the long-term. From carrying out ideas and choosing a domain name to selecting a design and comparing web hosts on a site like webhostingchoice.com, the steps for publishing a blog should be carefully considered and taken to avoid poor aesthetics or a unreliable CMS program.
Organize Your Ideas
Identify the type of blog that you want to create. Ask yourself what you want your blog to focus on.
- Will the content have a first or third person perspective?
- Who will be the target demographic?
- Will it strictly focus on one subject matter such as parenting, or include an array of topics such as parenting, pregnancy, home and cooking?
A blog can be narrowly focused on a genre or include a variety of subject matters. If you want your blog to encompass a variety of categories, then it’s easier to account for those during design and installation at the beginning.
Establish Your Vision and Set Goals
Create a vision for your blog and determine how you see it positioned in the blogosphere.
- Is your blog private and personal? Reserved only for the eyes of families and friends? Or do you want it to reach a large audience?
- Do you want to build relationships with other bloggers and develop an authoritative voice in the blogging community?
- Are you open to advertising such as PPC, pay-per-impression and pay-per-action? Will your blog be a platform for contextual, text-link, impression-based, affiliate or direct ads?
Typically a lot of momentum comes with starting a blog. Set goals for writing and publishing posts so that your efforts don’t wane.
Aim for goals such as:
- Posting once a day
- Analyzing performance
- Requesting link exchanges with relevant, high-quality blogs
- Establishing partnerships with other bloggers
Build Your Blog
Choose a domain name that represents the content and focus of your blog. Your domain name is like the brand of your website; it will reflect its identity and mission.
WorkHappy.net offers the following online tools for establishing a unique, top-notch domain name:
- DomainHole.com
- NameStation.com
- Wordoid.com
- Domize.com
Once you’ve determined your domain name, find a superior Web hosting provider that can provide your blog with reliable uptime, sufficient bandwidth and data storage and expert, responsive technical support. There are helpful resources for bloggers to refer to while researching Web hosting options. You can compare prices, read reviews and learn about which type of server best meets the needs of your blog. WordPress and Joomla are main open-source content management systems that can be installed manually or through your Web host provider. Lastly, select a template that matches the tone and voice of your blog from premier and extensive template collections such as Elegant Themes.com and TemplateMonster.com.
Promote Your Content
Sharing your blog is the most fun and rewarding part of blogging. Engage in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and even Pinterest to interest readers and promote your content. Understanding SEO is also essential for expanding your blog and increasing traffic. For optimal SEO, write updated, original content and link to relevant, credible resources. As you start to expand your network, attract readers and gain authority, writing your blog will grow and could even start to profit monetarily.
About the author: Darcy Leutkemeyer has a degree in journalism with an emphasis on digital technology. She also is an avid gamer, much to the dismay of her mother, who was hoping for a pageant queen.
The Ultimate List of The Best WordPress eCommerce Plugins
Wednesday, October 10th, 2012What’s better than getting an expert’s opinion on the best ecommerce plugins for WordPress? How about getting the opinions of 10 experts!
That’s what you’ll find here: the combined and consolidated wisdom of 10 top WordPress experts on the best WordPress ecommerce plugins (and which ones to avoid), along with the number of downloads to date, user ratings and additional information. A complete list of references is provided at the end of the post.
Image credit: The Wondrous Design Magazine
As with many things in life, which alternative is “best” largely comes down to: “it depends.” The plugins below provide various levels of functionality, customizability, price, popularity and other features. Which is best for you depends on your application, the type of product(s) you are selling, the geographic area in which you sell, your level of sophistication, your budget and other factors.
The three sets of plugins below, compiled from reviews by top WordPress experts, are divided into (mostly) free, premium, and possibly obsolete.
Popular, (Mostly) Free WordPress eCommerce Plugins
To start, here are 26 (mostly) free ecommerce plugs available through WordPress.org, plus 1o more (generally fee-based) scripts and plugins available from third-party sites. These are sorted in descending order of popularity (number of total downloads to date), though keep in mind—just as in high school, the most popular isn’t always the best.
Price: Free
Included in: 9 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.8
Based on: 746 ratings
Downloads: 2,049,822
Last updated: July, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“No Worpress E-Commerce line-up would be complete without WP e-Commerce from GetShopped.org as this was the forerunner in the WordPress E-Commerce stakes. Alas for us therein lies the problem – the plugin has become overstretched, buggy and whilst we have found that the support offered has improved overall it still feels lacking. To focus on the best bits the plugin offers an interesting slant on shopping with their premium ‘DropShop Drag & Drop Cart Widget’, but in reality the actual usefulness of the plugin is limited as users tend to find it easy enough to simply add an item to their basket. The plugin however does cover Digital Downloads and also you can easily monetize your NextGen Gallery with another premium ‘add-on’. On the negatives WP e-Commerce mainly lends itself to WP e-Commerce themes and this makes setup and indeed updates a real pain. We’ve found that fixing a bug on one set of templates is then totally overridden and replaced by a set of new bug on update – for a developer that is pretty tiresome.” – Slick Media
“This is a fully feature-rich plugin that is free of cost. This adds a shopping cart to your blog rather easily and quickly…The only downside is that this plugin requires frequent maintenance and this can become a really cumbersome task.” – All Blogging Tips
Despite its popularity, this plugin earned more “1″ ratings than “5″ ratings.
Price: Free
Included in: 8 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.8
Based on: 282 ratings
Downloads: 429,264
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Utilize eShop if you want customers to create profiles to sign up on your site to purchase your products and services. It also allows you to view basic statistics and download your sales data for your convenience. Also enjoy multiple gateways like PayPal, WebtoPay, iDeal, and other popular portals.” – Shareaholic
“eShop (free) has most of the features that put it in direct competition with the top three plugins…Yet, it is completely free.” – WinkPress
Unless you need special features that this plugin doesn’t include, it is possibly the best of the bunch.
Price: Free
Included in: 7 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.1
Based on: 244 ratings
Downloads: 359,893
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“WooCommerce (free) is the first ecommerce plugin on this list because since its recent introduction, it has quickly gained popularity and community support. It is based off of Jigoshop (which is definitely worth checking out also). WooCommerce is free, and it’s backed by plenty of premium extensions and themes.” – WinkPress
“The WooCommerce plugin is built by the WooThemes company. With WooCommerce plugin you can transform any WordPress-powered website into a powerful eCommerce store and sell anything beautifully. It allows to keep an eye at incoming sales and reviews, stock levels, general store performance and statistics from the WordPress dashboard. An integration of successful themes with WooCommerce can give a huge impact to any business giving the ability to grow sales on the web.” – TemplateMonster Blog
With its 4.0 rating, another legitimate contender for the “best” title.
WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart
Price: Free
Included in: 3 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.3
Based on: 118 ratings
Downloads: 2003,893
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Simple PayPal Shopping Cart by Tips and Tricks HQ is the most downloaded and highest rated lightweight shopping cart plugin on WordPress.org. I like the way it works. It outsources location-based shipping and tax calculations to PayPal. It is simple to use, yet highly customizable.” – WinkPress
“The WordPress Simple shopping cart can be easily integrated to any existing site or Facebook profile in minutes. (It’s) very easy to use.” – Durham Web Designer
Price: Free
Included in: 4 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.0
Based on: 119 ratings
Downloads: 129,485
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Set up shop in minutes with physical and downloadable products or even services. Jigoshop provides you with the features necessary to set up an eCommerce web site lickety-split. With the option to create a multitude of product types and apply detailed attributes customers can easily refine your catalog, ensuring they find what they’re looking for in just a couple of clicks.” – DynamicWP
“Jigoshop is a WordPress eCommerce plugin that is developed by professionals with years of experience delivering online shops for global brands. After installation, with all that features available, you can adjust your future online shop within several minutes. With Jigoshop plugin you can create multiple product types, apply detailed attributes making sure that your customers will find any product with just a couple of clicks. Inside the dashboard you get sortable sales graphs, incoming order/review notifications together with stats on your stores performance.” – TemplateMonster Blog
Ready! Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.9
Based on: 119 ratings
Downloads: 98,255
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Actually better to say shopping cart plugin which have lots of features along with free themes. Some unique features of this plugin: Manual Payment Options for users (via checks/or through money orders), PayPal Payments Standard, PayPal Payments Pro…Show as featured : Special Products, Gifts, Coupons Pack added.” – BLOGVKP
Though it was featured in only one expert review, the fact that this plugin has the highest overall rating (4.9) based on input from more than 100 users makes it worth checking out.
Price: Free
Included in: 5 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.0
Based on: 44 ratings
Downloads: 93,399
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Ecwid is free ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It is a fully featured shopping card system that is pretty easy to install and set up. You can set this plugin with few key strokes and clicks. Ecwid is also customizable so you can have it the way you want it.” – HostingTag
“It is always said that the best things in this world are priceless. So is true for this plugin because it is free to use. It is a shopping cart system which is easy to install and even easier to. It is fully customizable so you can decide how it looks on your site.The drawback is that this plugin uses Ajax, so SEO value of website is affected. Moreover the users who do not have JavaScript enabled will not be able to use it.” – All Blogging Tips
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.7
Based on: 40 ratings
Downloads: 87,492
Last updated: May, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Quick Shop is a popular lightweight cart plugin. It only works with PayPal, but it provides more flexibility than usually expected from a plugin in its category. It allows the merchant to set the currency and even provide free shipping for orders exceeding a certain amount.” – WinkPress
“This is useful with the themes that have a sidebar installed as this plugins gives a sidebar shopping cart option in your cart. The plugin requires PHP 5 and you need to make your own CSS. The plugin is really customizable though.” – All Blogging Tips
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.4
Based on: 11 ratings
Downloads: 87,981
Last updated: October, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Welcart is a program made in Japan, which assists you to build e-commerce system on WordPress. It has not only simple shopping cart function but also other functions necessary to run your store, such as “Order management function” and “membership function”. Welcart corresponds to various types of WordPress template. 8 widgets included in the program will help your blog to become an online shop. Note that the community page is in Japanese.” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.5
Based on: 72 ratings
Downloads: 79,908
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“wpStoreCart is a free, open source, and full featured e-commerce platform built atop of WordPress. It is easy to use, lightweight, heavily supported and constantly updated with new features.” – DynamicWP
“wpStoreCart (free) has most of the features that you’d need in a shopping cart, but I found its features to fall a little short of meeting customer requirements.” – WinkPress
Price: Free (standard) or $39 (upgrade)
Included in: 4 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.1
Based on: 62 ratings
Downloads: 71,302
Last updated: June, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“We’ll cut to the chase and say that MarketPress is probably the best WordPress E-Commerce plugin for a WordPress Multisite Configuration. Like all wpmudev plugins, MarketPress is fully WordPress MS compatible. This is a killer feature as it means that when installed on WordPress Multisite all products, product tags, and product categories from across the network are indexed globally. They are then displayed on your main site/blog marketplace pages or with a set of powerful global widgets or short codes. This means that MarketPress is powerful enough to enable you to create an entire Shopping Network like Etsy or Shopify within a WordPress framework.” – Slick Media
“MarketPress is the easiest to use, best designed and most powerful ecommerce / shopping cart plugin available for WordPress today.” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.9
Based on: 51 ratings
Downloads: 71,519
Last updated: October, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“The Professional WordPress eCommerce Plugin. Use it as shopping cart, catalog or framework. You can extend its functionality with plugins and themes to customize your store exactly in same way that you do with WordPress. It is compatible with many existing plugins in the WordPress repository.” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 5 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.9
Based on: 41 ratings
Downloads: 68,391
Last updated: August, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Use this plugin if your site is dedicated to offering several products and services. The plugin’s features will make shipping both physical and digital products easy, and you can experience the Amazon S3 integration for all of your digital products. You can also manage orders effectively and use custom fields for products. Collect recurring payments for subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans. Memberships behind a pay wall. Sell access to content on your website. Protect any blog post or page so that it is only available to paying members. Setup teasers where a part of the page is public but the rest of the page is only visible to paying members. Create membership feature levels (i.e. basic and premium memberships) and fine tune the access to your content. Show or hide content based on the logged in members feature level.” – Shareaholic
“Cart66 is a WordPress e-commerce plugin that gained huge popularity among theme designers. Cart66 plugin works with any WP theme, that’s why it’s easy to implement a shopping cart on any WordPress website. You simply create your product and place it, via shortcode, on any page or post. Theme designers are taking Cart66 even further by incorporating features like custom post types and a rating system. Cart66 comes equipped with a powerful admin panel. Set your currency, choose which countries you want to sell to, charge tax by zip code ranges or states, manage orders, view sales reports, track your inventory and start selling.” – TemplateMonster Blog
Note the depending on your needs, you may need to the paid version ($89) of this plugin.
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.7
Based on: 56 ratings
Downloads: 64,851
Last updated: August, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Zingiri Web Shop is a WordPress plugin that turns a great content management system into a fantastic e-commerce solution.” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 4 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.9
Based on: 71 ratings
Downloads: 60,811
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“YAK stands for “Yet Another Kart,” but in my opinion, this shopping cart really stands out from the rest. This free WordPress plugin is one of my favorite shopping cart solutions because it allows the user to create products from either posts or pages and also includes a basic XML feed. You will enjoy the configurable shipping address feature and your customers will love the plugin’s order tracker. ” – Shareaholic
“If you already have an online retail presence, and want to create a blog to make sure your customers are constantly updated about the latest products and services offered by you, then this YAK plugin is an unbeatable option for you. This is an open-source shopping plugin which allows categorization of products and services, and gives the users a pool of multiple payment options.” – All Blogging Tips
Though the reviewers liked it, note that this plugin, like WP e-Commerce, received more “1″ ratings than “5″ ratings from users.
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.6
Based on: 30 ratings
Downloads: 46,153
Last updated: September, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“WP Online Store (free) is an integration between osCommerce and WordPress. It has a fairly good rating on WordPress.org. Premium add-ons and services are offered on the plugin’s website.” – WinkPress
WordPress Ultra Simple Paypal Shopping Cart
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.7
Based on: 27 ratings
Downloads: 44,672
Last updated: October, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“WordPress Ultra Simple Paypal Shopping Cart allows you to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button on any posts or pages. It also allows you to add/display the shopping cart on any post or page or sidebar easily. The shopping cart shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items. You can also add a form between the cart validation and the paypal submit if you choose a 3 step process.” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.2
Based on: 48 ratings
Downloads: 32,900
Last updated: January, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“DukaPress (free) handles shopping cart integration with WordPress in a smart and efficient manner. It also has more pre-built themes than the average plugin.” – WinkPress
Price: $35-$279
Included in: 3 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.7
Based on: 23 ratings
Downloads: 29,862
Last updated: May, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“This plugin is acclaimed among many WordPress users as the best Auction plugin there is, so a little investment for auctioning items on your site via this plugin is probably worth it. Enjoy 3 bidding engines, registered only users and reserve price features as well as options for Pro and Pro Plus plugin.” – Shareaholic
Price: Free
Included in: 3 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.7
Based on: 19 ratings
Downloads: 18,431
Last updated: February, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“You can use this plugin if you want to provide privileges to access exclusive content of your blog, only to the registered users. It will restrict the guests from seeing the hidden content. It is basically designed to sell stuff which cannot be shown to all people , like digital arts or intellectual property. Instead of showing the content to the unregistered users, they are shown with the actions they need to take (such as registering with you via a minimal payment) to view that content. Google’s bot can index that hidden content though, so users can search for it but they cannot see and access it without registration. This plugin uses Pay Pal – IPN (Instant Payment Notification) protocol so that the payment and content delivery processes are quick and automatic.” – All Blogging Tips
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 5.0
Based on: 1 rating
Downloads: 599
Last updated: July, 2012
What the reviewers had to say:
“Shippingeasy is a powerful online platform which gets integrated with your WP eCommerce store completely. You get complete set of custom features from tracking to setting up shipment prizes. Actually its like an addon to wp-ecommerce plugin. This plugin utilizes the api of Shipping easy.” – BLOGVKP
Premium (Mostly) Fee-Based Third-Party WordPress eCommerce Plugins
These are listed alphabetically, as ratings and download information was not available in all cases.
Credit Card Payments WordPress
Price: $21
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 5.0
Based on: 10 ratings
Downloads: 175
What the reviewers had to say:
“This script allows you to have a quick & easy payment terminal for your clients to pay with major credit cards (Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover) on your WORDPRESS website without leaving it. Installation and configuration of the script takes less than 5 minutes (however you do need to have SSL and one of 4 merchant accounts (PayPal, OptimalPayments, Moneris US or Moneris Canada, Authorize.net).” – DynamicWP
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“GetShopped (free) is one of the earliest shopping cart plugins for WordPress. It used to be a little shaky, but its more recent versions have seen tremendous improvements. While official support for the plugin is lacking, its community is huge.” – WinkPress
Price: $55
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“Market Theme ($55) is a very user-friendly shopping cart solution for WordPress. While its features are limited, it is very reliable and easy to use. It’s very affordable at $55 only and it is backed by a solid satisfaction guarantee.” – WinkPress
PayPal File Download for WordPress
Price: $20
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“PayPal File Download for WordPress is the easiest way to sell digital content to your visitors. Easily sell and automatically deliver e-books, PDFs, ZIPs, and any other kind of file to your customers—with built in IPN , email delivery, and download expiry.” – DynamicWP
PayPal Payment Terminal for WordPress
Price: $12
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 5.0
Based on: 43 ratings
Downloads: 267
What the reviewers had to say:
“With PayPal being ubiquitous for online shopping, splurge a little on this plugin and enjoy features that allow you to view all of your transactions, sort your transactions list, and also gives you and the purchaser automatic notifications throughout the purchasing process.” – Shareaholic
Price: $55
Included in: 3 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“This is an excellent plugin but comes with a price tag of 55$. What you will be getting is a single license to this plugin, some extra plugins and modules, and priority for support. This plugin is specially designed for big firms which can use this as a solution to all their online shopping problems.” – All Blogging Tips
Price: $79
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“ShopperPress ($79) has plenty of shopping cart options and features and plenty of appearance customization features. Yet, it is very easy to use thanks to the setup wizard and the extensive online documentation. It also includes more than 20 child themes. For its features, it is fairly priced at $79 only.” – WinkPress
Price: $65
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“Templatic Ecommerce ($65) is a shopping cart solution by Templatic. It’s a collection of different themes that are all powered by the same shopping cart code. Each ecommerce theme from Templatic costs $65. Buy one of these if you’ve fallen in love with the designs — as there’s nothing special in the functionality..” – WinkPress
Price: $55
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
What the reviewers had to say:
“Tribulant Shopping Cart ($55) provides plenty of bang for the buck. It is full of advanced features, such as integration with shipping carriers, but only costs $55.” – WinkPress
Price: $15
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 4.0
Based on: 14 ratings
Downloads: 89
What the reviewers had to say:
“I love Themeforest’s WPdeposit for any site that needs a deposit system for advertisements, subscriptions and the like. Aside from offering PayPal, Authorize.net and iDeal as gateways, manual bank payment is also an option. The plugin also comes with a full developer guide that can be used to create and customize a module for your site.” – Shareaholic
Free but Possibly Obsolete Plugins
These last five plugins haven’t been updated in a while, so they may or may not still be supported. Caveat emptor.
Price: Free
Included in: 2 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 5.0
Based on: 3 ratings
Downloads: 7,329
Last updated: February, 2010
What the reviewers had to say:
“This is another free WP plugin for selling online. This was originally created for the artists to sell their art work online through their own blogs and websites. One can seamlessly integrate his/her Pay Pal account with this plugin and leave the rest on this plugin. This plugin does real time sales update, so as soon as your product is sold it will be excluded from your catalogue. You need not worry about your product being sold twice.” - All Blogging Tips
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.0
Based on: 6 ratings
Downloads: 5,035
Last updated: May, 2009
What the reviewers had to say:
“FatFreeCart works with PayPal and Google Checkout. I think it’s very underrated. It supports product variations, taxes, and shipping & handling fees. It also has a nice ajax-powered shopping cart view. While the plugin is made by e-junkie, it works completely independently of the e-junkie service.” – WinkPress
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 3.4
Based on: 5 ratings
Downloads: 3,437
Last updated: August, 2009
What the reviewers had to say:
“This plugin is one every eCommerce site should use. Using this widget, you can showcase featured shopping offers in the sidebar of your website. Use the “live-shopping” widget to create custom badges, buttons and banners that pull in your products and draw attentions, clicks and hopefully new sales!” – Shareaholic
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 2.6
Based on: 5 ratings
Downloads: 3,056
Last updated: November, 2009
What the reviewers had to say:
“This provides a button which can easily be embedded into blogs and websites to accept payments or even request donations. This can be helpful if your blog is shared across the internet via RSS because it allows every blog entry to act as its very own mini store. MiniCart will implement a mini-shopping-cart. The users will be able to buy one item at a time. You can embed the items into posts. This can also be used as a donation plugin.” – All Blogging Tips
Price: Free
Included in: 1 of 10 reviews
Overall rating: 5.0
Based on: 3 ratings
Downloads: 2,678
Last updated: November, 2010
What the reviewers had to say:
“LBak Google Checkout, as the name implies, only works with Google Checkout. It is very simple, yet very usable. It is for merchants who deal in U.S. dollars and charge a fixed shipping rate per product. The plugin also supports product variations. The original author of this plugin no longer maintains it.” – WinkPress
Whew! There you have it–three dozen WordPress e-commerce plugin options, from free to premium, to meet virtually any need. And now to acknowledge the experts…
Resources
10+ Best eCommerce Plugins For WordPress, All Blogging Tips, by Ammar Ali
Top 10 eCommerce Plugins for WordPress, Shareaholic, by Nicole Crimaldi
Analysis of the Most Popular WordPress eCommerce Plugins, TemplateMonster Blog, by Alex Bulat
Top WordPress eCommerce Plugins For 2012, BLOGVKP, by Vivek Kumar Poddar
The Best WordPress Shopping Cart and Ecommerce Plugin, WinkPress, by M. K. Safi
MarketPress – WordPress eCommerce, WordPress.org
Top 5 Ecommerce Plugins For WordPress, Durham Web Designer, by Larry James
20 Best WordPress eCommerce Plugins, DynamicWP, by Eko Setiawan
Top 4 Best Ecommerce Plugins for WordPress, HostingTag
Best WordPress e-Commerce Plugins for 2012, Slick Media, by Glenn Eastland
6 Reasons a Blog Should be the Center of Any Social Content Strategy
Monday, June 4th, 2012Despite the many business benefits of blogging, it remains an underutilized tactic. Recent research shows that only 37% of the Inc. 500 fastest-growing companies and just 35% of the Fortune 100 enterprises maintain blogs. While blog adoption is actually slightly higher among small to midsized businesses (SMBs), roughly half are still not taking advantage of this medium.
Here are six compelling reasons for organizations of all sizes to make blogging the center of their social media and content marketing efforts.
Search engine optimization (SEO). Blogs are naturally great for search because they enable a company to rank for a much higher number of keywords, they can organically attract diverse high-quality links, and blog posts are far more likely to be shared in social media than standard website content. And presuming that blog is hosted on your company domain (e.g. blog.company.com or company.com/blog), the benefit of all of that link and social signal authority also accrues to your corporate website.
Fresh content. A blog is one of the best ways to continually produce fresh content for your website. Search engines love fresh content, and a steady stream of new information is what keeps visitors coming back to your site.
Flexibility. Every other type of social venue imposes limits on the length, format or type of content you can post. Twitter gives you only 140 characters, LinkedIn limits you to a corporate profile and product descriptions, Facebook limits you to whatever Mark Zuckerberg decided this morning. But blog posts can be short or long, visual or text-heavy, and incorporate virtually any type of media. You can post a video on YouTube, pin an infographic on Pinterest, upload a presentation to SlideShare, and embed any of these in a blog post.
Ownership. On social networking sites, you give up significant control over your information. There’s no easy way to find or search old tweets. Facebook changes its layout with annoying frequency. Smaller social networks have been know to disappear entirely, taking your content with them into the ether. With a blog, you own the content, control the platform, and decide on the format.
Leads. According to research from HubSpot, “Businesses with websites that have 401-1000 web pages get six times more leads than those with 51-100 pages. By creating more offers and blog articles, you create more opportunities to rank in search engines.” Unless your company or product line is very large, blogging is the most practical and valuable way to expand your website content.
Content that makes all other tactics more effective. Integrating a blog makes a static corporate LinkedIn profile into a dynamic company information page. A blog provides content for Facebook postings. And blogging makes Twitter use much more successful. Another HubSpot study found that “”companies that blog have 79% more Twitter followers than those that don’t…The relationship between blogging and Twitter followers is particularly strong for small businesses…small businesses that blog on average have 102% more Twitter followers than those who don’t.”
Given all of the benefits, why have so many firms still not embraced blogging? Many will cite the ongoing cost and effort required. But using figures from Mack Collier on the cost of blogging, a typical setup cost is $3,000 or less, and common ongoing cost is $3,000 or less per month for 1-2 blog posts per week. Those costs assume using an external writing resource, but the internal cost equivalents of using your own staff are likely close.
That works out to an ongoing cost of $36,000 per year for an appreciating asset (blog traffic builds over time as more content is added and authority is built). Considering the average cost to exhibit at a single trade show is around $25,000, blogging seems like a no-brainer bargain.
