Top WordPress Plugins for your site or Blog

I have probably built somewhere in the region of around 50 websites/blogs using the WordPress platform, and rely on some really cool plugins which make it a real breeze.

If you want a Blog or Site that rocks, WordPress Plugins are the answer to your own personal coder! No need to learn how to integrate functions such as contact forms, seo, sidebar widgets, downloads etc, quite often, there is a plugin available to do the job for you.

Plug-in Junkies beware though, too many plugins can slow a site down, and some can even cause conflicts depending on which theme or framework you have chosen.

You should always try to map out your Blog / Site before you start building, and have a good idea of the types of wordpress plugins and widgets that you will need to use to complete the look and feel of your site.

Below is a list of Top WordPress Plugins I use on a regular basis.

• All In One SEO
  This Plugin Optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
• Ultimate GA
  Plugin to add Google Analytics JavaScript to each page on your weblog without making any changes to your template. The plugin can also add tracking to outbound links, downloads from your own site and mailto: links
• W3 Super Cache
  This Amazing Plugin speeds up the load time of your site (keeping it ever so Google Friendly) It makes your pages load faster and stores static versions of your site on the server, decreasing the CPU processing required to view your site. Get it!
• Pretty Link
  Shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet from your WordPress website. Create short links suitable for Twitter using your own domain name!
• Google XML Sitemaps
  This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently
• Contact Form 7
  Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.

The plugins you use will depend on the type of site/blog that you are building. Many plugins will add widgets which you can simply drag and drop into your sidebar, which is a huge time saver and will eliminate the need to write any html code whatsoever.

Looking for More Free WordPress Plugins?

You can visit the Official WordPress site here where you can simply search what you want your plugin to do and WordPress will fetch back the best results for you.

What WordPress Plugins have you found the most useful?

Making Branding Work For You

Brand Strategy

So many posts, salespages, social media noise and general advice about branding, but what exactly is your brand and how can you use it to help your business, product or service reach a greater audience and how can you use your brand to market more effectively?

Your brand is the core of your marketing efforts, essentially it is the central theme around which your products and services sit.

Most of the small businesses I speak with are confused  about  brand marketing and positioning. Its essential that you remember that your brand is not just about your Company name or your logo unless you are coca-cola or Apple!

For you to get real brand recognition, on a smaller business scale, your brand needs to rouse your customers into action. It needs to be attractive, exciting, powerful and clear. It must actively express what you are about, incorporating your USP if possible. Using this kind of approach will help you become more ‘recognised’ and will eventually be the platform from which your logo or company name becomes recognised and defined.
Once you’ve made sure your brand truly reflects what you are selling, you need to make a tangible and easy way of talking to people about what you do. It makes it so much easier to do your marketing when you have it clear in your mind what it is you’re selling in the first place. This is commonly known as the ‘elevator speech’

Elevator speech is the 20 second tagline that describes the who, what, why and how of your business, product or service. Once heard, your customer should know exactly who you are, what you do, why they need your product or service and how they can get it. Difficult? It can be, but remember – once perfected you’ll be making sales hand over fist. Don’t be afraid to make it sound attractive and exciting, even slightly ‘pitch’ style, it’s all about conveying ‘your message’

When you’re creating your brand you’re effectively creating a memorable marketing message that will inspire consumers to take action and choose you over your competitors.

Five useful tips to help you find your brand strategy:

1. Your brand is the core of what you do. What feelings or emotions does your business inspire in you and in your customers? Did you know that peoples’ decision to buy is based on emotions, not facts?
2. Think about how you present yourself, not just on your website but when people see you, talk to you on the phone, or read your email. Is your marketing consistently saying what you want it to? Are people getting confusing messages from you, or is it clear from the start what you do?
3. Think like your potential customer, try to get inside their head and see your products or services from their point of view. How do they experience what you do, and how does it make them feel?
4. What is it you do that makes you stand out from the crowd? If you don’t think you do, then you need to think of a way that you can, because your brand should be somehow different from everyone else’s, its not enough to be just the same as others but better.
5. What are your best abilities, do you know your greatest strengths? Choose an unbiased person, who knows you well, to help you decide what your top attributes are; your brand should be based around your unique strengths and abilities.

Ultimately, creating a strong, memorable, compelling and meaningful brand is essential for successful marketing, and something you can do with a bit of thought, and may be a bit of help from your (unbiased) friends.