Track Social Metrics From Your WordPress Dashboard

When was the last time that you examined the way users share your posts and pages to their social media accounts? It might initially seem strange to worry about how many people tweeted your last blog post, but such counts and trends give you a strong way to see how popular your site is, which pages/posts work and whether you’re gaining traction with search engines.

Because social media is such a strong measurement of credibility and search engine prowess, let’s take a look at how you can track your social metrics from the convenience of your WordPress dashboard. In this post, I’ll guide you through the steps to implement a simple social media tracking interface on your dashboard.

1. Install the Social Metrics Tracker Plugin

The first part of tracking your social metrics is to find a tool that brings together all of the graphs and stats that connect with your social media pages. A plugin like this should deliver easy-to-consume information with which you can make decisions. There aren’t many WordPress plugins to choose from, but the primary metrics plugin works quite well.

Log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New. Search for the Social Metrics Tracker plugin. You can then install and activate the plugin. You also have the option to download the zip file to your computer and upload that file to your dashboard, but I find that most people prefer searching for plugins and installing that way — it’s a lot easier.

2. Schedule a Full Sync

If you take a look at the left hand side of your dashboard you will see a tab called Social Metrics. Click on it to navigate to the primary Social Metrics page. Before peering at your social media statistics, you have to sync the plugin with your website so that it can pull the sharing data you’ve accumulated in the past.

Click on the Schedule Full Sync button. This takes a while, but it can run in the background while you configure some of the other settings. You can next select the Return to Social Metrics Dashboard button to start looking at your stats.

3. Configure the General Options

As I mentioned earlier, the full site sync takes some time, which just gives you a chance to configure some of the plugin’s primary settings and options. Click on the Configuration option underneath the Social Metrics tab.

The first area asks you which post types you want to sync up and view social metrics for. I recommend choosing posts and pages, but you may have some other options (like portfolio pieces or WooCommerce pages). You may also select whether or not you would like to see a dashboard widget that displays a quick look at your social metrics. I enjoy having the social metrics on my dashboard, but some people like keeping it less cluttered.

You can next specify which users are allowed to view metric reports. It’s standard to only allow admins access to the reports, but you may want to share the information with some of your authors as well. The Data TTL field specifies how often you want to store statistics before re-syncing new data. If you have a large blog with numerous posts, consider moving this number up a bit.

The last few settings in this area are all about designating some defaults. You can so a good many things:

• Choose how to sort your metrics,
• Specify which posts you want to analyze based on dates
• Set how many posts to see on the reports page

Typically, you can just leave all of these settings on default and expect the plugin to run quite well, but many people have their own preferences in terms of reporting. Next, click on the Save Changes button to move on.

4. Start Checking Out Your Reports

Now it’s time to see if the full site sync is complete. Click back on the Social Metrics tab and you should see the entire list of posts and pages that have any social activity.

This helps you immediately view which of your posts are the most popular. If you scroll over the colorful Social Score bar, you’ll see the breakdown of which social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) make up the majority of the shares for that post.

This area is rather simple, and it turns the discovery portion of the process into a breeze. When you scroll over the Social Score bar it displays the social sites, but what about the numbers? If you leave your mouse over one of the colored sections it shows another popup with the amount of shares for that particular post.

My favorite part is where it offers a percentage of the total social shares. How does this help you with your website? To start, the list of posts explains what content is the most popular. You can then formulate future posts based on what users are more likely to share. The percentages assist in comparing posts and seeing which of the social platforms is most useful for promoting your website.

5. Export Your Data for Further Analysis

What happens if the plugin report is not enough for you? In this case, go to Social Metrics > Export Data. Select the Download Export Data button to receive a nicely laid out Excel spreadsheet. This lets you manipulate the data however you want. Feel free to make your own graphs and move the data into new columns for comparing your multiple sites or even for sending the information to some of your other coworkers.

6. Consider Other Plugins for Checking Your Social Metrics

The Social Metrics Tracker plugin works nicely for quickly viewing the landscape of your social media platform. But if you find that it isn’t your style or you are more interested in testing out some other features, here are a few alternative plugins for you to choose from that get the job done just as well:

• WP Social Stats – Free
• Social Stats Panel – Free

The paid plugins are certainly worth the price, since you get fancy graphics and more visual content that is a little easier to digest and communicate (especially if you have other people in your organization). Plus you receive premium support – which is a huge plus if you have any questions later on.

Conclusion

Social media metrics are not nearly as complex as managing your site statistics in something like Google Analytics, but since social media plays such a huge role in credibility and search engine rankings, it’s a wise idea to keep a social media metrics tool in your plugin arsenal. I would recommend starting with the Social Metrics Tracker plugin because it offers the dashboard preview and you don’t get overwhelmed with a clunky plugin that takes up tons of your time to learn.

The other free plugins aren’t as clean, but they’re worth a shot if you need other features to suit your site. If you have any questions about how to track social media metrics from your WordPress dashboard, drop a line in the comments section below. Have you used any other social media analytics tools to track how well you’re performing on platforms like Facebook and Twitter? I’d love to hear about them!

Schedule Your WordPress Posts in Bulk

One thing you’ll notice once you start getting the hang of WordPress is that it’s rather time consuming to open up your website and schedule a new blog post on a daily basis. This is quite similar to social media, where you waste valuable time changing your mentality and work focus to open up Facebook, Twitter, or another platform to post a new status update. Not to mention, you have to hone your focus to start looking for a new idea to post, which takes up even more time.

With the above in mind, the best way to manage your time with both social media and blog posts is to pick a day throughout the week and schedule everything for the coming days. Some people plan out their blog posts for the entire week, while others look further into the coming months. You’ll soon start to notice that since you remain focused on a single task of posting to your blog, you don’t waste any time booting up a new browser window or punching in your login credentials every time.

You also get the creative juices flowing during that single posting period, making it beneficial to schedule your WordPress posts in bulk. But how do you do it? It’s actually a piece of cake, and in this post, I’m going to show you how!

How to Schedule Your WordPress Posts in Bulk

Let’s say you (or your writer(s)) wrote five or six blog posts for the coming week. You know that the posts are edited and ready for publication, but you don’t want to open up every single post to click on the Schedule button. Yes, we all know that you can schedule a single post in WordPress, but what about taking a bunch of those draft posts and scheduling them all for future publication in one fell swoop?

While you can always choose to modify some code to make this happen, it’s far easier to use a plugin, which is exactly what we’re going to do.

Step 1: Install the Drafts Scheduler Plugin

Login to your WordPress account and go to the Plugins tab on the left hand side to search for plugins. Search for Drafts Scheduler, install it on your site, and click the Activate button. Once the plugin is all setup, click on the Posts tab on the left hand side of your Dashboard. Click on this button and it will reveal a Draft Scheduler option below. Click on this to open up all of your options.

Step 2: Choose Your Post Type and Start Date

The first part of actually scheduling your posts is selecting a post type to schedule. Go to the area that says Post Type to Schedule, and click on the dropdown menu. This gives you items to choose from like Posts, Pages, and whatever else you may have on your website (such as coupons and invoices). Pick whichever one applies to you (almost certainly Posts).

The Schedule Start Date area gives you a nice little calendar that enables you to choose when to start posting your articles. This calendar is strictly for designating the first day you want to start posts being published. For example, if you choose today, then the first post will get published at midnight. After that date, all the other posts will go out depending on the next steps you take.

Step 3: Setup Your WordPress Post Order and Intervals

Now that you have the first day figured out, you can go ahead and indicate your posting order. Since your posts are all stacked up in your WordPress dashboard, you may want to send them out randomly or put them in a sequential order.

Go to the Posting Order section and select which option you want. The random option grabs a random post (as you would expect) and schedules it to go out next. The sequential option sends the posts out depending on how old they are.

The Post Interval item is all about how much time you want to put in between the posts that you schedule. So, do you want one post to be scheduled every day? Would you rather one post goes out every eight hours? Specify what you want your post interval to be, test it out in the coming days, and modify it if you need to.

The final option is available as an alternative to the interval posting. Choose the Post Randomlyitem if you want the system to surprise you with the post order. Keep in mind that it still uses your initial start date, but all of the posts are scattered throughout a certain time period. Go in there and set that time frame so you know when the posts start and end. This way, you can go back in and schedule the next round when the cycle is finished.

Click on the Schedule Drafts button at the bottom to complete the process. Keep in mind that this takes all the posts that you have filed as Drafts, so if you have a random post that you never want to go out, delete it completely from the system.

Step 4: Make Sure Everything is Working Properly

While Drafts Scheduler has some positive reviews, and I’ve used it in the past with no problems, it does have some quirks.

With that in mind, be sure to check in on Drafts Scheduler’s performance over the first few days you’re using it. Monitor how long it takes the plugin to serve up your scheduled posts, because you might notice something wrong with the interval times or maybe even the start or end dates.

I would recommend checking in on every post, at least for the first round, to see if it works properly on your site. There could also be another plugin that interferes with the functionality of this plugin, so every site is different.

Step 5: Keep Adding Posts to the Schedule

From here on out you no longer have to mess with the plugin anymore. As long as the plugin is running you can keep adding your posts to the draft queue and they will get placed into the scheduling system. So, in a sense, you never have to schedule a post on your blog again. Not only are you cutting down time by scheduling your posts, but you don’t even have to work on the bulk scheduling process anymore.

How to Undo or Modify Your Schedule

If for some reason you want to modify the schedule or completely disable it, simply go to the main plugin page that we looked at before and click on the Undo Schedule button. This removes all the scheduling settings you made before and wipes the slate clean. I would recommend hitting this button whenever you want to make changes to the schedule, so something doesn’t go out by accident while you are modifying the schedule.

As a note, remember that you no longer have to schedule your posts manually, so don’t click on the Publish or Schedule buttons after you write something. Simply save the posts and let the plugin work its magic.

Conclusion

That’s it for learning how to schedule your WordPress posts in bulk. Share your thoughts in the comments section below if you have any questions about the process or if you think there are some easier ways to go about scheduling in WordPress.

Creating a View from Webform Data

If you have collected information or data using the Webform Module, you can display that data in a View. It is important to note that while the data can be displayed, there are limits to the ways the data is displayed at this time.

1. Creating a View of Webform submissions type, to display fields and set the pager as desired.
    
2. Save by clicking on Continue & edit. 
3. Set Filter criteria to Title. Here you will put the title of the Webform; this will limit the display to data from a specific Weform.  
4. Add fields of Webform submission data type.
   
   
5. Click on the Webform submission data: Valuecheckbox and the configuration screen displays.
   • Enter the Webform node ID on the Webform node field. (hover over the edit tab of the Webform to find the number).
   • Once you add the node ID, the fields or components display below in the Component data field. 
   • Choose the field that you want to display, configure and click Apply.
6. Repeat this for each field you want to display. Configure the rest of the View according to other preferences. 

Known Limitations when Displaying Webform Data

• Cannot create exposed filters to set criteria on the page.
• Can’t sort columns.

Tips to Drive More Traffic to Your WordPress Website

If you’re anything like me, you’re on a constant journey to drive more traffic to your site. The more traffic your site gets, the more money you make and the closer you are that coveted Four Hour Workweek lifestyle.

 

But getting traffic aint easy. The people are out there, but finding them and subsequently getting them to your site is another thing altogether. It takes a lot of trial and error to hit upon a winning formula.

 

Well, I’ve come across a few winning formulas in my time and I would like to share them with you in this post. Each one of the following tips is tried, tested and practically guaranteed to boost traffic to your WordPress website. Enjoy!

 

1. Optimize Your Posts in The SERPs

 

Most bloggers are obsessed with ranking in Google, but what many don’t realize is that how your post is displayed on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) in Google can make a big difference too.

 

 

   

Broadly speaking there are two things you should concern yourself with:

1.     The Title: you may want to change this so that it is more appropriate to people using Google to search for information.

2.     The Description: you should always write a meta description for your posts to give people a clear idea of what they can expect if they click. 

   
   

Customizing the title and description is a piece of cake with the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. Just make the changes via the meta box on the Post screen:

 

 

That’s all there is to it — Google will pick up the information and use it within their SERPs.

 

2. Add Breadcrumbs

 

Breadcrumbs navigation is great for usability — it gives visitors to your site an immediate idea of where they are relative to your site’s structure and enables them to navigate through your site with ease.

 

But there is a secondary benefit to breadcrumbs: they add another dimension to your site’s appearance in the SERPs.

 

 

 

As you can see, breadcrumbs included on your site are also displayed within the SERPs. This gives searchers more information about your site before they’re even on it, which can’t be a bad thing.

 

Enabling breadcrumbs on your site is a relatively straightforward affair and uses the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin again. 

 

3. Split Test Your Headlines

 

If you have been blogging for any length of time then you will know all about the importance of headlines. The same post can be a complete flop or go viral on the strength of its headline alone.

 

With that in mind, one of the most effective things you can do to boost traffic to your site is split test your headlines. This is easily done with the Title Split Testing for WordPress plugin. It enables you to create two or more headlines for each post and/or page that you write, then randomly presents them to visitors and measures the click through rate.

 

After a number of clicks you will be able to decide which headline is the most successful and conclude the split test. The benefits of this are immediate, but even better, if you take note of trends (i.e. what kinds of headlines perform best) you can create better headlines for your readers in the future.

 

4. Interlink Your Pages

 

In my opinion, few things are more important to boosting engagement on a blog than linking between your posts (i.e. interlinking). Many visitors to your site will initially be blind to your navigation and you will find that the only way to compel them to explore your site further is to include links to related posts directly within your content.

 

As such, I recommend that you include as many relevant links to related posts on your blog as possible when creating blog posts. However, this is not always that easy with WordPress’ default search functionality (which leaves a lot to be desired).

 

That is why I swear by the Better Internal Link Search plugin. While WordPress default search functionality will look for your chosen keyword literally anywhere within all of your posts and pages and return results in chronological order, Better Internal Link Search will consider only post and page titles.

 

 

 Given that you are likely to be able to remember at least one or two words from the title of the post you are linking to, the process of interlinking becomes far easier with this plugin.

 

5. Include Related Posts

 

You are probably familiar with the concept of including related posts at the bottom of an article — something like this:

 

 

Included relating posts is a proven way of boosting engagement by giving visitors a clear opportunity to continue reading content on your site. However, you may (quite reasonably) be wondering what related posts has to do with driving more traffic to your site. 

 

That’s where Zemanta comes in. It provides related posts not only from your own site but from others. This works both ways — if you are part of the Zemanta service then other blogs will also link to yours. Zemanta claims that using their plugin can boost external traffic referrals by 5%.

 

If you are confident that you can keep people from leaving your site and think that your content is compelling enough to draw people from other sites to yours, Zemanta is an option well worth considering.  

 

6. Re-Tweet Archived Posts

 

I am a huge fan of Twitter — I think it is by far the most accessible social network in terms of being able to build a following and drive traffic. Not only that, you can automate the flow of traffic from Twitter to your site with the Evergreen Post Tweeter plugin.

 

The process is simple: you link the plugin to your Twitter account and it re-tweets archived posts on your blog based upon criteria that you set (such as specific categories/tags, how often tweets should be published and within what times). Evergreen Post Tweeter then does the rest:

 

 

Archived posts are periodically posted to your Twitter profile and your Twitter followers will click on them, thus discovering old content and re-engaging them with your blog. Furthermore, they may re-tweet your posts, leading to their discovery by people who hadn’t previously heard of you. 

 

In order to get the most out of this plugin, I recommend that you create a specific tag (e.g. “Tweetable”) for only those posts that you think are “evergreen” and worthy of being promoted. Then set Evergreen Post Tweeter to only tweet out those posts.

 

What Tips Do You Have?

 

The six tips above are some of my favorites, especially because they are so actionable — you can implement them in moments and start to reap the benefits immediately. And that’s what we all want at the end of the day: actionable tips that we can put into practice.

 

However, I have really only scratched the surface above in terms of utilizing WordPress to drive more traffic to your site. Which is why I want your help now. What do you do to drive more traffic to your WordPress site? Do you have any tips to share? Please let us know in the comments section below!

 

Alternatively, if you have any questions at all about the above tips (or about building traffic in general), do not hesitate to ask.

How to Build a Freelance Business, a Symple Guide for WordPress

You’re a born entrepreneur, a risk taker per se. At some point in your life, either recently or in the past you decided, “Heck I’m going into business for myself”, and here you are. Perhaps that isn’t the case. Perhaps you just loathe the 9 to 5 grind you’re stuck in. You need more out of life. You crave the freedom of being your own boss, and the possibility of earning infinitely more.

 

You want to build a freelance business, so you can work wherever and whenever. You want to work from home, and never have to sit for hours in traffic. You desire to work in your pjs, actually cook lunch, and watch an episode of your fav show in between projects. You desire to travel the world without having to wait for a vacation all year long. You crave falling in love with new cultures, and being genuinely happy.

 

You feel it in your gut that you’re up for the challenge, and can’t wait to cash in your first check. Perhaps the excitement is intense. Perhaps you love intense. Intense is good. Well, your ambition is admirable, but where do you start?

 

In today’s posting, we shall cover some of the fundamentals you should consider (and implement) when building a freelance business based on WordPress. Prepare for instruction, and more so inspiration, as these tips will make you quite the champion you desire and deserve. Are you ready? Here we go.

 

Decide on the Business Idea

 

First things first, you have to decide the business you want to launch and build. You can’t start a business just to start one – you know – for the hell of it, or for the thrill, or to show off to friends. Your choicest business idea should be guided by your passions, experience and knowledge. there are a couple of WordPress-related avenues into which you can venture. You just need to find your love.

 

You can develop WordPress themes and/or plugins if you possess web development skills or are passionate enough to learn. You can transform yourself into a respectable WordPress blogger, provide WordPress hosting, and/or offer live WordPress support among others. While all these are lucrative opportunities, you will spend a lot of time working in and on your business, so best is to follow your passions.

 

You also need to be well-versed at whatever it is you will be doing. How will you offer a service if you don’t the first thing about the service? Most importantly, your business idea shouldn’t fall from space. It should be realistic enough to cater to a certain problem; it should be a solution in the market. In simpler terms, your products and services should be something people are willing to pay for. Finally, you can create any freelance business with WordPress, so don’t limit yourself to the options we’ve mentioned.

 

Craft a Sound Business Plan

 

When I started my freelance blogging business, I had no plan whatsoever. Just a shred of an idea, and motivation for ten people. Nonetheless, lack of a business plan delayed my transition into a full-blown blogger. I learned my lesson, which is…

 

A plan helps you to remain focussed, and stay on top of business matters even when you feel like quitting. You can make financial projections, set up reliable content strategies, devise effective marketing and generally win big. And without a plan, you’ll be like a ship without navigation. You will lose direction, wreck and end up wasting a lot of time and money. This I know firsthand, and out of my experience, I now start businesses (as well as my day) with a plan.

 

Your plan doesn’t need to fill pages; it doesn’t need to be the plan of the century; just a written declaration of how you’ll move from zero sales to a healthy freelance business. Your day to day plan can be a few tasks in Evernote, or your calendar app. Need help drawing up a business plan? Check out by the iThemes for some inspiration. Moving on…  

Build it & They Will Come

The most important asset you can have as a WordPress freelancer is an online hub where prospective clients can learn more about your services/products, check out your portfolio, contact you, and eventually make orders. This is where WordPress shines.

 

The platform is easy to setup and use. With the perfect WordPress theme (see Total Responsive WordPress Theme) and a couple of plugins, you can build just the perfect portfolio website without a hassle (like this, or even this).

 
You don’t need to hire a web developer to set up a WordPress site for you, just fire up your theme of choice, add a couple of power plugins, and you’re good to go. Without a doubt, you’ll need great WordPress hosting for your business, so you can concentrate on business without having to worry about malicious hackers, for instance.