Don’t waste that new budget on the same old, same old. It’s time to get creative; it’s time to get busy; it’s time to spend like a college freshman with an “emergencies only” credit card in hand for the first time. All joking aside, it really is time to move your online business forward and reap the rewards you’ve been hoping for and working toward.

Let me help you…

• Improve traffic to your site
• Build your brand identity
• Increase your online presence
• Take the load off your shoulders
• Grow your online business

Keyword Research Support

The most important task of all that you do to improve your website and build an online presence, keyword research is the most important, yet tends to be the most neglected. The keywords you use are how people find you, not to mention the search engines, of course.

Even if you began your online business with a well-researched, comprehensive list of quality keywords, you should upgrade them at least once a year, perhaps more often. The search terms people use to find you can easily change over time, meaning that your keywords may become obsolete or less effective. By refreshing your keyword list yearly, you will stay on top of the changes to the searches you need.

WordPress Websites Support

If you don’t have your site on WordPress, I have only one question for you. Why not? WordPress is the most popular hosting platform in the world for a reason. Actually, you should consider WordPress websites for a few reasons…

• WordPress is SEO-friendly, by structure and design it is especially Google-friendly.
• WordPress is easy to use, with intuitive dashboards and easy posting.
• WordPress has wonderful backup, with thousands of developers worldwide creating plugins and support programs.
• WordPress is easy to customize, making your site unique.
• WordPress is easy to maintain, so easy in fact, you can do it yourself once I show you how.
• WordPress can easily be your e-commerce platform. With both free and premium plugins and integration with popular shopping cart systems, you will be able to FINALLY monetize your website.

Building WordPress websites for online business, or moving an old site to WordPress, is what I do. I’m very good at it, because I am completely committed to helping you improve your online presence, enhance your identity, and build your brand.

The Social Network – an Internet Marketing staple

A major element in the current Internet Marketing campaign, social media marketing continues to hold an extremely strong position. Working side-by-side with your favorites, such as email and autoresponder campaigns, affiliate programs, and content distribution to content sharing sites, your social media marketing campaign should be welcomed into the fold with open arms.

Again, why are you not using the social network for marketing your business? Sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are where the people are. Put simply, they put butts in the seats for you. They are a way to connect and engage with your audience like no other place online. If you’re not a part of the social network, you need to be – today.

Product Launch Support

What a great time of year to launch a new product. Optimism runs rampant at this time of year, with nearly everyone you meet believing good things are ahead. This positive energy makes the beginning of the year the perfect time to introduce your new product.

My product launch team and I will handle all the details and manage your product launch with diligence and efficiency. We’ll relieve the stress you feel from trying to do-it-all yourself, freeing you to handle the Big Stuff while we take care of the details.

Videos for Marketing

Those New Plans for the New Year will be much less effective without the use of video for marketing. Research shows that video is 66% more effective than text when promoting your products or services. If you’re not on the video bandwagon yet, you need to be. I have dedicated an entirely separate website to help you introduce video into your new marketing efforts with style AND to fit within your tight budget.

Videos and Audios for your Products

Let’s not forget that one of the best ways to expand your income and revenue is to take your fabulous knowledge and turn it into sell-able products. Digital downloads are very easy to set up for your business and are a great way to spread the brilliance that is YOU!

Go ahead; let your own optimism and positive energy take you to a New Place this New Year. Let me, Andrea Kalli, help you and guide you into a more prosperous and profitable New Year for you – and your online business.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

If you struggle with the post/page editor in WordPress and you find yourself missing the comfort of your desktop document software, then desktop blog publishing tools may just be the answer to all your dreams.  (okay, maybe not ALL your dreams)

One such tool for Windows is Windows Live Writer 2011. I’ve been hearing about this tool for several years and, until just today, I’ve not explored using it. A quick and simple free download from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer and I was set up. Easy to connect to my blog with the url and login credentials and I was on my way to a life of familiarity and comfortable content creating.

It’s not just for creating and publishing blog posts either. You can create and publish pages, too. You can also edit existing posts and pages. Interesting. This is ideal when using WordPress for both your website and your blog. Pages = website pages, Posts = blog posts.

Simpler table creation

One of the things I find most annoying is utilizing tables in WordPress efficiently. Even with WordPress plugins, like TinyMCE Advanced, I find the lack of ease of use and functionality slightly aggravating.  The beauty of desktop blog publishing tools is that it blends the ease of use that you’ve become accustomed to, with the ability to post content to your online location painlessly. Being able to create your content while offline is ever-so-convenient. Adding categories, tags, setting a publishing date are all at your fingertips in the menu ribbon (now very familiar to Microsoft Office users). Once completed, publishing it live, or as a draft, online is as easy as pressing a toolbar button.

Creating a table for your WordPress blog post using Windows Live Writer 2011 is a breeze. However, while you can easily align an image on your page, I couldn’t find page alignment settings for the table. What? Oh wait, I just selected everything in the table and used the paragraph alignment toolbar button. OK. I guess that works.

this is text in my table cell 1	this is text in my table cell 2
added picture from my computer	added picture from my computer

Even better table options with a plugin

After posting this post the first time as a draft, I noticed the table layout still lacking what I wanted. Quick research revealed a free table plugin for Windows Live Writer to provide better tools and options for my tables. Here is another table after I installed this plugin.

The new plugin insert window. You actually have to click on the Table Plugin in the plugin window to get the right insert window to display:

The new table:

text in my table cell 1	text in my table cell 2

Breezy image tools

Adding screenshots is as simple as using your PrintScreen keyboard key to capture the image and using your Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut to paste it into your post in Windows Live Writer. It’s just like doing this in a Microsoft Word document. When you publish it to your blog, the images get uploaded automatically to your blog’s image folder location. Yay! I’m happy.

Double-clicking on the image opens the Picture Tools Editing toolbar in Windows Live Writer 2011, which allows you to easily crop, resize, stylize, align, set hyperlinks, set alt text, and edit the image on the spot.

Posting videos within your blog post is also a snap.

Choices are: from the web, from the computer, from a video service.

And here is the YouTube video embedded into the post.

Need a little reminder about setting your categories and tags? No problem.

There is a setting in the Windows Live Writer options to remind you about such important things when you go to publish your content. I like that.

Watch the publishing magic happen…

Plugins for those extras.

There are even plugins for Windows Live Writer for added features and functionality, located at http://plugins.live.com/writer/browse?orderby=featured&page=1.

While I’m thrilled with the various built-in options that come with this free tool, there are some features lacking. I wanted to be able to draw an arrow on my image and circle something on it, but there’s no way to do this. At least I can’t find a way.  If you know how, I would love to hear from you. Not sure if any of the available plugins can do this. Guess I’ll need to try some of them out. Ahem. Another day perhaps.

All in all, I believe I’ll be using Windows Live Writer from now on to create and publish my blog posts and pages on my various WordPress blogs.  I know many clients that might enjoy the extra ease of use and familarity.

Kind of a bummer…

It’s kind of a drag that you don’t have any control where the drafts are stored on your computer. However, I did find an article that talks about a registry change. Here’s hoping this is something that is available in the next version, don’t you agree?

http://www.lehsys.com/2011/04/how-to-change-the-drafts-and-recent-posts-folder-in-windows-live-writer-2011/

They are currently located under your My Documents folder in a subfolder called My Weblog Posts.

Features:

Get blogging with easy setup

Set up multiple blogs in Writer. Writer works with many popular blog services such as WordPress, Blogger, and more.

Add photos and videos to tell your story

Make your story come to life by adding photos and videos to your blog posts.

Create stunning blog posts in minutes

Create stunning blog posts in just a few moments using the ribbon to format text, photos, videos, and more.

Add a Bing Map

Insert a Bing Map in your blog post to display a location.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

To top it off, I’m proud to say that I am the instructor for one of the sessions about how to implement a strong SEO strategy within your WordPress site.

In just my session alone, you’ll gain extraordinary knowledge and be able to wrap your head around the sometimes scary world of search engine optimization.

• Learn how to utilize five key social media plug-ins within your WP site.
• Review the top five marketing plug-ins that will ignite your online presence.
• Explore the fundamental “SEO Best Practices” for getting maximum visibility in the Search Engines!

Join us virtually for a powerful, Two-Day WordPress Training Camp and leave equipped with the right knowledge and skills to set-up, design, manage and optimize all your client’s WordPress Blog sites!

VAClassroom WordPress Training Camp

Date: September 27 & 28
Time: 11 – 3pm PST (2-6 EST)

Oh, and not to worry if you cannot make these dates or times. It’s all being recorded for you to watch at your convenience! How about that.

VAClassroom has just launched a unique, online WordPress Success Training Camp. This live, interactive training takes place on September 27th & 28th. This is a great opportunity to learn what themes to use, how to make the site SEO friendly, what plugins to use and more. Registration is now open.

For only $20/per session, learn some top-notch ideas and skills on WordPress development and implementation. This live, interactive training program takes place on September 27th & 28th and seats are going fast!

Grab your seat at http://www.virtualassist.net/vacwp11 (affiliate link)

Take a look at these awesome topics that will be covered during the 2-day online training camp:

Session 1 – How to Select the Right WordPress Themes for Your Clients

• Uncover the different types of WordPress themes currently available and how they apply to your projects!
• Discover a simple strategy on how to narrow down your choices. (given the plethora of WP themes available)
• Learn the importance of thinking “long-term” on theme selection and how it impacts ongoing website maintenance and growth.

Session 2 – Maximizing the Potential of Word Press Plugins Part One

• Discover how to find and determine if a plug-in is right for your blog.
• Explore the difference between free and paid plug-ins.
• Review the ten “must-have” plug-ins for any WordPress Blog Site.

Session 3 – Maximizing the Potential of Word Press Plugins Part Two

• Learn how to utilize five key social media plug-ins within your WP site.
• Review the top five marketing plug-ins that will ignite your online presence.
• Explore the fundamental “SEO Best Practices” for getting maximum visibility in the Search Engines!

Session 4 – The Ultimate 30 Point Checklist for Designing Awesome WordPress Sites

• Review a 30-point checklist Erin has used to design literally 100s of WordPress sites for her clients.
• Learn the essentials of what you need to ask your clients for, what you will need to have prepared and what not to miss when designing WordPress sites.

Session 5 – Discover Seven Ways to Customize Your WordPress Site.

• Discover the simple adjustments you can make in the Sidebars, Widgeted Areas, Page Layouts and Custom Post Types to effectively customize your blog
• Learn how to recruit the right PHP designer when your client’s custom requests become too involved.

Session 6 – Creating Successful WordPress Design and Management Packages and Services!

• Discover how to set your overall pricing strategies for your packages and services
• Review effective strategies for offering ongoing web maintenance and support to your clients!

Grab your seat at http://www.virtualassist.net/vacwp11 (affiliate link)

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

Optimizing Your WordPress Blog for Effective Inbound Linking

While it may have been overtaken in popularity by services such as Twitter and Facebook, the blog remains the central hub for most major online presences. It’s an area where publishing – no matter how long or academic – is welcomed, with no character limits, forced social integration, or privacy issues. In short, it’s the social media home for many of the web’s biggest faces.

Among the most popular blogging platforms out there – by some measures the most popular – is WordPress. Completely free, open source, and amazingly user-friendly, it’s formed the heart of several of the internet’s biggest blogs, commercial websites, and content-based hubs.

These two tips can help you optimize your WordPress blog for inbound links, transforming it from a rather staid and invisible publishing outlet into a social media hub and a search-friendly property. If you’re tired of seeing just a trickle of traffic to your most important social media asset, put these two simple tactics into play and you’ll see that trickle turn into a steady stream of visitors.

Use ‘Pretty Permalinks’ to gain a search advantage.

By default, WordPress arranges posts and pages using a numerical sorting system. For math junkies, it’s the most sensible and orderly way to organize posts. For search engines, however, it’s a difficult way to classify pages according to topic, content, and relevancy.

That’s why you should enable ‘Pretty Permalinks’ on your blog – a WordPress modification that will change your permalink structure. Instead of being parsed as ‘Page 23′, your links will give readers a look into the type of content that’s on the page, boosting your search engine visibility and giving readers a simple reference for each post, status update, or content page.

Integrate social media with your WordPress blog.

Install social networking buttons on your blog to tie in all your social media presences together and give your readers a simple method for providing inbound links. Each click on those buttons generates a social page for your post, in turn generating a valuable inbound link from a very authoritative domain.

So add them – there’s no risk of them hurting your social media visibility. A variety of extensions are available to help users integrate social media with their WordPress blog. Install one with a high user rating and guaranteed compatibility with your version of WordPress.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant

Our list of go-to plugins we install on most every single WordPress site we set up for clients.  While many of them have stayed on our list from the beginning, some come and go. New shiny plugins make their appearance in the web-o-sphere and we just have to have them. You know what I’m talking about… don’t you.

A few of them don’t need any configuration at all. Some of them require thought, decisions to be made, and connections with accounts outside of WordPress. Overall, I’d have to say I spend on average several hours getting the plugins installed, configured, connected, and tested.

Sometimes certain plugins do not have to be installed because the theme selected already accomplishes the task. That’s cool.

Without further ado, here is my list of WordPress plugins I am currently using on not only my sites, but they are also part of my standard installation process when setting up my client’s WordPress sites:

1. Akismet – Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
2. All-in-one-SEO Pack – Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
3. Broken Link Checker – This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.
4. WordPress.com Stats – You can have simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server by plugging into WordPress.com’s stat system.
5. Widget Logic – Widget Logic lets you control on which pages widgets appear. It uses any of WP’s conditional tags.
6. Contact Form 7 – Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.
7. Really Simple Captcha – Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended to be called from other plugins. It is originally created for my Contact Form 7 plugin.
8. Google XML Sitemap – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog.
9. Search Everything – Increases WordPress’ default search functionality in three easy steps.
10. SEO Friendly Images – SEO Friendly Images automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search engines.
11. Sexy Bookmarks – Adds an attractive social bookmarking menu to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three.
12. Simple Tags – Simple Tags is THE perfect tool to manage perfectly your WP 3.0 tags (Tags suggestion, Mass Edit Terms (Tags and Category), Auto link tags
13. Social Media Widget – MY NEWEST FAVORITE! Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles. Icons come in 3 sizes, 4 icon styles, and 4 animations.
14. TinyMCE Advanced – Enables the advanced features of TinyMCE, the WordPress WYSIWYG editor.
15. WP-DB Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
16. Comment Reply Notification – When a reply is made to a comment the user has left on the blog, an e-mail shall be sent to the user to notify him of the reply.
17. Excerpt Editor – Quick edit or create excerpts for both Posts and Pages, auto-generate and append excerpts or replace the content with excerpts.
18. Smart Slugs – Smartify your post, page, tag and category slugs by removing too short or insignificant stopwords automatically.
19. Facebook Like Button – Allows you to configure and display the FaceBook Like Button before and/or after each post and/or page.
20. Twitter Button – Twitter Button is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily integrate Tweet Button in your blog.
21. Google Analytics – Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.
22. FD Feedburner – Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed seamlessly and transparently to Feedburner.com.

And if I’m setting up a simple e-commerce site for someone selling products, I also use these:

1. NextGEN Gallery – NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with dozens of options and features.
2. WP Simple Paypal Shopping Cart – The WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart is a very easy to use plugin that allows you to sell products or services online in one click from your WordPress blog.

(These two plugins integrate nicely together. I love how the shopping cart displays the purchases as the buyers select them with the Add To Cart buttons. A simple solution that is completely free. See an example of how this solution looks like on a products website: Colorado Nature Photography)

There are a few plugins I use on my sites that I don’t generally put on client sites. Not sure why. Maybe because I would feel guilty by adding more than 25 plugins, or perhaps it’s because I simply like to experiment on my own sites. Who knows.

1. Bad Behavior – Welcome to a whole new way of keeping your blog, forum, guestbook, wiki or content management system free of link spam.
2. Lucia’s Link Love – Lucia’s Linky Love does a service by making the first comments by a visitor “nofollow” BUT after commenting a specific number of times they become “dofollow”.
3. Most Comments – Display posts with the most comments, as a widget or on a page using the template tag.
4. Open Graph – Add Open Graph metadata to your pages
5. Please Link To Me – A plugin that adds a text box containing all the code necessary for visitors to easily create links back to your article from their website.
6. 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!
7. Restore Post ID – This plugin restores the link, post, and page Id columns to their respective management interfaces.
8. RSS Footer – This plugin makes it easy to add a line of content to the beginning or the end of all the articles in your feeds, for instance to display a link back.
9. WordPress Copyscape plugin – The WordPress copyscape plugin allows you to check posts and pages for duplicate content issues via the Copyscape API.
10. WordPress File Monitor – Monitor files under your WordPress installation for changes. When a change occurs, be notified via email.
11. WP Super Cache – A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.
12. WPtouch iPhone Theme – WPtouch: A simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application.
13. DewPlayer – Dewplayer WordPress plugin – Insert Dewplayer (Flash Mp3 Player) in posts/pages.
14. List Subpages – This WordPress plugin generates a list of subpages for the page being viewed.
15. Wibiya – Boost your blog / website with rich and interactive features.

Article by Andrea Kalli

Take a stroll over to my Facebook Page and become part of my community. I invite you to become a fan and participate in the conversation.
Certified Internet and Social Marketing Assistant