No one likes to wait for a web page to load – if a site is taking too long to load, the visitor is more likely to close it and move on. This is especially true for blogs, which are meant to be seen and read. Today, we will share with you several tips on how you can speed up a blog running on WordPress.
1. Eliminate unnecessary plugins

Don’t use too many plugins – they will noticeably slow down your website. Imagine them as too many apps running at the same time – they will affect the overall performance of the blog. Keep the number of the plugins low – let’s say from 5 to 10, but don’t go over 20.
2. Optimize your Database

All the information for your blog posts and comments is stored in a database. So, to speed up the loading speed, you can optimize this database. There are two ways to do that – with the WP-Optimize plugin, or manually. The plugin is the easier way, but always remember point 1 of this article. If you want to do things manually, follow these instructions:

1. Inside your web hosting Control Panel, locate and open PHPMyAdmin- you can find it in the Database Manager section.
2. Once logged in the PHPMyAdmin, select your database.
3. Click “Check All” at the bottom of the page.
4. Choose “Optimize table” in the drop-down list next to it.
5. Done!
3. Cache your Database

Another way to speed up the work of your database is to cache it. This way, you will reduce the number of queries made to the database each time a user visits your blog. You can cache your database with the DB Cache Reloaded plugin.
4. Disable Post Revisions

Post Revisions exist since WordPress 2.6 and they are useful when there are several writers working on the same blog, or if you make constant changes to your blog posts. If left enabled, this feature will create multiple entries for a blog post in your database, effectively slowing it down.
5. Use a Cache Plugin

You can also create static versions of the most visited web pages. This way, you will reduce the queries made to the database. And static HTML pages load much faster. There are a lot of cache plugins, but be careful with their configuration – if they are left untended and not properly configured, they tend to use too much CPU power.
6. Optimize your images

Have your images optimized – you can use Photoshop’s “Save for Web” function, which will save the image with a good balance between size and quality. Here is a list of other image optimization tools:

Online Tools:

PunyPNG
Smush.it
Online Image Optimizer

Desktop Tools:

Shrink O’Matic
PNGGauntlet

7. Optimize your CSS and JavaScript files

Another way to speed up your website is to optimize the CSS and JavaScript files – this way you will reduce the size of the files and save some disk space and decrease the server load. There are several tools you can use to do that.

To compress the CSS files, you can use several tools:

WP CSS plugin
CSS Optimizer
CSS Compressor

To optimize your JavaScript files, use:

JavaScript Compressor

Small Business Internet Marketing is not anything new. Small business owners have been promoting their products and services in various ways since the beginning of time.

What has changed is the way that small businesses go about marketing today.

If you have a small business that is struggling to promote itself here are a few things to keep in mind.

What is Small Business Marketing?

This is basically done so that you can promote what you have to sell. Today small business owners include off-line local business owners, and Internet marketers who are building their business online. It also includes home business owners who run their business from the comfort of their own home.

Why do Small Business Internet Marketing?

You have to be out in the marketplace where people can find you. Businesses of all sides struggle with the best way to do this.

The big difference with small business owner is they do not have the staff to hire full-time workers to handle their advertising for them. Unless you’re able to build a business strictly on word-of-mouth advertising, you will need to promote it, and the Internet is the best place to do that.

Where to Do Small Business Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing is great because of the many different avenues available to you. Regardless of your budget you can find ways to promote online.

You will want to consider search engine optimization in any Internet marketing that you do. People still log online looking for information and you have a chance to provide that for them when you promote online.

When to Do Small Business Marketing?

In the past off line business owners would sit down with their yellow page rep and put together their marketing plan for the next year. Then based on how business was going they would throw in additional advertising such as newspaper ads, direct mail, or even radio ads. Today that is not the best approach to take.

Small business Internet marketing should be done year round. You can automate much of this so you do not even have to pay attention to it and you can still benefit.

The best thing to do is to put together a marketing plan and then consistently monitor how it is working. You can make adjustments based on the results you are getting and eventually settle into a consistent successful advertising plan.

How to do Small Business Marketing?

Whenever possible take a broad approach to promoting your business online. Here are a few ways you can do that.

1. Pay per click advertising. This is a fast way to get on page 1 of the larger search engines for keyword phrases that people are searching for.

You see these ads across the top of a page and down the right-hand side. You want to be as high up on the page as you possibly can based on your budget. You will be billed every time somebody clicks on one of your ads.

Googe Adwords is the number one place to promote on the Internet. Because Google gets the majority of search engine traffic today it only makes sense that you advertise with them.

Yahoo Marketing is an affordable alternative. They are the #2 search engine and you can generate more website traffic for considerably less money than you would with Google.

Facebook ads. They now have over 500 million users and have become a power player in the online advertising arena. You can purchase targeted Facebook ads at an affordable rate.

2. SEO. Search engine optimization should be done in every type of advertising you do.

This means you need to develop a keyword list that people are searching for relating to the niche your business is in. Your goal is to rank as high as you can on Google for those keyword phrases.

Once you know what these keywords are you can begin to implement them into all of your advertising strategies.

3. Article marketing. This is a good way to develop backlinks as well as provide information that people could be searching for.

Always remember that people do not come online to purchase something all of the time. Many times they are just looking for information and you may be able to provide that in the form an article.

If you do not like to write you can hire a freelance writer to write for you. Hands Off Article Marketing is a good way to develop an online presence with articles. In this program the articles are written for you, and submitted to online article directories, blogs, and shared video site such as You Tube.

4. Social media. This encompasses a large number of small business Internet marketing opportunities.

For sure you want to start a blog and add content to it on a regular basis. Search engines love blogs and this is a good way for you to develop an online presence and drive traffic at the same time.

When you make a blog post you want to also submit it to online social directories. Use Only Wire to reach the top directories with the click of one button.

Search engines spider these social directories all the time. It’s a good way to get them coming to your blog and spidering it as well.

Social networking is important to be involved in. You should set up a FaceBook and Twitter account for your business. ou should also join LinkedIn and personally interact with people whenever you can.

You can also outsource all of your social media to a professional. This is money well spent because it allows you to reach a segment of the market you might otherwise never reach.

5. Email marketing. Building an email list is smart for the long-term growth of your business.

You can add a sign-up form to your website and let people subscribe to your email newsletter. This is a good way to sell products as well as keep in touch with your subscribers whenever you have something new to announce.

6. Other types of small business Internet marketing. Other things you can do to promote your business online include ezine advertising, classified ads, banner ads, starting an affiliate program, and much more.

Over time you can dominate your market when you have a large number of small business Internet marketing strategies working for your business!

Utilizing Cost Per View as a traffic Source

Many people are actually not familiar with Pay Per View (PPV) advertising. This is actually the same as Cost Per View (CPV) if your more familiar with that term.

Cost Per View, or CPV is another great source of traffic to use for your campaigns. Pay Per View marketing is a whole new form of traffic generation. Comparing it to PPC where you end up paying when a person clicks on your ad, in PPV you end up paying every time someone views your site which comes in the form of pop-ups. So the site is viewed in front of a particular person’s eyesight. This maybe a little interfering of course. But the thing is there are a lot of people, and I mean millions of people, in the world who have given their permission to be shown these advertisements which comes in the form of window pop-ups. Some example websites where people opt-in to actually view pop-ups are vomba.com and gamevance.com.

This part is worth repeating, “ have given their permission”, millions of them!

Why would you run a CPV campaign?

• It’s a great source of CHEAP traffic
• Still very targeted
• Bids start as low as 1 cent, that’s .01
• Can start wit ha small budget
• No need to factor in quality scores
• You can Direct link to the advertisers offer page
• Easy to set up and maintain

How do you get started in PPV?

1. Call me (just kidding you can do this without me
2. Find a good CPV network like TrafficVanvce (you nee a referral to get approved, ask me and maybe I’ll give you one)
3. Do your research. Develop a list of websites that you think a prospect might like to visit and keywords that your prospect would search for.
4. Target those websites and start testing small amounts of traffic
5. Test offers with short and long forms. I’ve seen as many as 38 fields convert well!
6. Be patient and watch your data closely
7. When you find a winner hammer it!
8. Get a course to help you with this – PPV Traffic

The only course I know of is the Mass PPV Traffic course. This course has everything you need to get started from beginning to end. This includes a quick start guide, for fast action starters. A mind map, so you can get a quick full overview of the campaign set-up. And of course videos and manuals for complete detailed instructions.

The CHEAPEST TRAFFIC source online is in PPV/CPV then make sure to check out this course as this maybe the first and only chance you have. As one of the successful users of Mass PPV Traffic course said “You can expect this kind of source to be really saturated in the next two years like PPC so make sure to check this out and run with it as fast as you can before everyone else gets hold of this knowledge”. You definitely don’t want to miss out on this one.

Why social media isn’t a replacement strategy

Social Media Marketing needs to be part of an overall marketing strategy and frankly it’s plan is different for every business. However, to ignore SMM would be a fool hardy decision. Most marketing plans today should include a well thought out Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan, a very detailed keyword rich Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign married with a Social Media Marketing (SMM) initiative. If your business includes off-line strategies then they need to support and involve all these methods.

The following post is Mitch Joel, well I let it speak for itself….

Mitch Joel’s big ideas behind “Six Pixels of Separation”

By Andy Sernovitz on November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments

We’re interviewing a bunch of brilliant word of mouth marketers as previews for the Word of Mouth Supergenius conference in Chicago on Dec. 16.

In this interview, Mitch Joel shares some of the big ideas behind his new book, “Six Pixels of Separation”:

• Digital channels shift the marketing focal point. Social media and other digital platforms now enable brands to focus on who, rather than how many people, they can put a message in front of.

• Think “with” not “instead of.” Companies should not halt what they are currently doing and shift all attention to the digital world; it’s all about effectively integrating those social media channels with what you already have in place.

• Don’t underestimate the “power of lazy.” We still live in a world where many people prefer to consume, rather than create, digital information.

Google has the Real Estate Industry on Borrowed Time

By Matt McGee on Nov 20, 2009 in Google

As you probably know by now, real estate is a subject that’s near and dear to my heart — quite literally. My wife is a real estate agent. My sister is a real estate agent. My dad opened his own agency in the 1950s and still works from a home office today as he approaches a tender 80 years old. It’s not just personal, though; real estate is all about small business and I try to watch what’s happening in the industry as much as possible.

Lately, I’ve been watching Google take one baby step after another, pushing into real estate as quietly as Google can do anything. Last night, I wrote about Google’s latest step on Search Engine Land: Google Builds out a National Real Estate Search Engine. The creation of individual “place pages” for property listings is Google’s latest step toward building out what I believe will be a challenger to any web site, big or small, that offers property listings. The article has apparently earned a lot of buzz today around real estate circles, and I want to point out two posts that caught my eye:

1.) 1000Watt Consulting: Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory

Author Brian Boero says, rightly so if you ask me, “Sure, Trulia, Zillow and a hundred other online real estate sites do this. But this is Google, folks – a force so large that it can upend entire categories overnight.”

2.) Bloodhound Blog: “Google Places” is a “National Real Estate Search Engine”? Not so much.

Despite the apparently contrary headline, I think author John Rowles and I are in agreement on what’s going on here. He makes the smart suggestion that Google could turn the Local Business Center into a Local Property Listings Center and allow the property owner and/or real estate professional to manage the listing the same way local businesses can manage their business information. Says John:

“Given that option, it’s easy to see how people, who are as distrustful of real estate agents as they have ever been in the wake of housing bubble, might migrate to a real estate information platform that is outside the industry’s control and has the added benefit of the familiar Google user experience.

When Google puts something like this out there, THEN its time to freak out if you are NAR, a local MLS, Move Inc, an IDX vendor, etc..

Until then, enjoy the borrowed time.”

Borrowed time. I think that’s a great way to put it right now.

Google Caffeine?

On the role of real-time search results in the search engine industry, Google has long realized that it falls short in terms of real-time search and has been busy! In recent months Google was working on a secret project: a complete renovation of the architecture in Google’s web search.

If you want to watch the videos:

…. and

Google Caffeine: Under the Cover

Google spokesperson Matt Cutts explains that Google Caffeine changes “under the cover” event. On Google’s user interface will change nothing. Caffeine Google’s search results are largely similar. The big difference is that new content much faster will appear in the top 10 Google Caffeine. This will ultimately lead to faster, more accurate and complete information in Google’s search results.

Real-time search

“Google is certainly faster Caffeine. New content will be indexed twice as fast. Google is rolling out some new adjustments to their sandbox. Performance, speed, reliability, accuracy, Relevancy and other parameters are some features that are being improved.

Here are some questions and answers, discussed on Matt Cutts Blog:

Q: How do I check out the Caffeine update?

A: If you search on URL you can get a preview of how the search results will change over the next few weeks and months.

Q: It doesn’t look any different to me?

A: The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure. But some of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback.

Q: Is this Caffeine Update because of Company X or Y is doing Z?

A: Nope. I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months. I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop trying to improve.

Q: How do I give Google feedback?

A: If you want to give us feedback on how the search results are different, look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the page that says “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Click on that link and type your feedback in the text box. Make sure to include the word caffeine somewhere in the feedback.

Conclusion #1

Business owners need to heavily promote & manage social sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook,Linkedin, and others. It also means photo sharing sites such as Picasa Web Albums & Flicker are important. It also means means blogs & local search sites such as yelp and citysearch are important….

Bottom Line folks Social Media is here to stay and your business needs to be in front of people looking for you…..

Conclusion #2

Business owners need Quality Content. Why? When you are signed into your Google account (many business owners are always signed in) Google is showing results from Social Circles in the result! How crazy is that. That means if we get all of our clients to follow us on Twitter, or all interested business owners to connect with us on Linkedin, or people follow us on YouTube.com.

THIS MEANS WHEN WE PUBLISH NEW CONTENT THEY SEE THAT CONTENT IN THE SEARCH RESULTS.

What a great way to target your target market. Google is practically telling everyone with this new addition that CONTENT is the new LINK VALUE online!

Pay Per Click Management – for your business or a not?

Although search engine optimization (SEO) is an excellent way to get free traffic to your website, it’s not all of the available traffic. Even more exposure for your website can be gained through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Research shows that nearly 70% of targeted visitors to a website come through free search results, the remaining 30% come through PPC campaigns. One major benefit of using PPC campaigns is that it enables you to attract the other 30% of customers that you would otherwise be missing altogether. PPC does cost money and it can cost a great deal, however, a properly managed PPC campaign can easily pay for itself. Many PPC management companies in the are experts at creating and optimising successful and economical PPC ad campaigns.

Speedy and Highly Targeted

A major advantage of a campaign is that it is highly targeted to people that are searching for what you have to offer. A professional PPC management company can easily find the right keywords and test them properly, helping make your campaign very cost-effective. Conversion rates are easily measurable if you have knowledge of proper tracking methods. You can collect data related to conversion rate, cost per sale and click-through rate (CTR), allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your ad. Another huge advantage is that all of the vital feedback from your ad testing is immediate. Ad results are available very quickly, and can be adjusted and retested in a short amount of time.

Test, Test and Test Again!

Knowledge of testing various campaigns to determine which will be most effective is vital in helping spend your marketing budget wisely. A professional PPC management company has the expertise to identify keywords for testing, determine maximum cost per click, write effective ads, create compelling copy, conduct detailed tracking, and make adjustments as needed to maximise the effectiveness of your advertising pounds. Without in-depth knowledge in all of these areas, a PPC campaign can end up costing much more money than it needs to. The profits gained from your investment in hiring professionals to manage your PPC campaigns is well worth the cost.

Track It!

The biggest pitfall encountered by inexperienced PPC managers is the lack of knowledge when it comes to tracking. It is absolutely crucial to know precisely what traffic you are receiving, where it originated from, the keywords that were used, where the user went using those keywords, and which keyword combinations get the best results. A successful campaign includes not only selecting and tracking the correct keywords, but determining proper bid prices, writing good ad copy, creating compelling landing pages, creating search engine friendly links and headings, streamlining usability, and writing those all important calls to action. Professional companies managing PPC campaigns are highly skilled in tracking every aspect of a campaign and adjusting all of the crucial items to maximise your PPC profits.

Is Social Media Marketing like “Cat Herding”?

The first thing I did today when waking was to run down to get some coffee. I needed caffeine in a bad way. You see, I was challenged to answer a question, can you quantify a ROI with Social Media Marketing? I already knew the answer however let me bore you a bit of what I found when searching for this topic. Google, Yahoo and Bing each had over 14 million results for “Social Media Marketing ROI’’s”.  So I set out on a mission to read them all……just kidding, I barely got off the first page when it struck me.

I couldn’t help but think, “my audience is Small Businesses and if I am going to be true to this I need to be painfully blunt.” Of all the posts I read on this seemingly elusive question; “Can you put a ROI on Social Media Marketing” all and I do mean all were over intellectual attempts at trying to impress others that they have the answer. Some well meaning, others a blatant marketing campaign. Here are some of the babble.

“an overarching truth about business: The best marketing strategies, those that yield long-term value, are based not on trends, anecdotal evidence, or past “success stories” but on new scientific methods and metrics explicitly developed for analyzing often-imprecise data.”

HUH?

“The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.”

Really now!

“No marketing program has value that can be measured separately or independently. The value of marketing derives from its ability to help the organization implement its strategy … Marketing programs seldom have a direct impact on financial outcomes such as increased revenues, lowered costs, and higher profits. (Rather,) Marketing affects financial outcomes through chains of cause-and-effect relationships.”

… No impact? Ouch!

At the risk of insulting some of my colleagues I am going to stop there. The point I want to emphasize here is this; small businesses are concerned with one thing, can we make money? We can all agree ROI is hard to measure or because it is too time consuming, many small businesses shy away from social media. I myself own a small business and I am largely concerned with my bottom line. How we get to a good bottom line is with constant Plan, Do, and Review with marketing as a whole.

Ultimately, the key question to ask when measuring engagement is, Are we getting what we want out of the conversation? When you ask businesses why they are participating in social media, what do they say? Most, “to make money,” If they say, “to grow our business,” they’re just saying, “to make money,” in a nicer way. If they say, “to participate in the conversation,” which is the more appropriate reason to be involved in the social web.

In it’s simplest term let me tell you the why you need to be engaged in this type of marketing, however, Social Media on it’s own is not the end all be all. A well executed Online Presence for a business should include a well designed and thought out Web Site/Blog, Search Engine optimized pages, as well as a well researched Pay Per Click program. On top of this should be the inclusion to the 30-40 Social Media sites which will in turn earn you back links to your site.

You may be wondering, “you didn’t answer the original question”, and your right. Let me answer it this way. Did you ask the Yellow Page sales person for the return on investment? Did you ask the Value Coupon rep for that same answer? Even still there is an answer, yes in your business it can be tracked and quantified with some very simple techniques like simply interacting with your costumers. I’ll conclude with this, the Internet is the place where your potential customers are looking for your products and services and you do need to be there. Be there in a way that shows how great of a business you are.

Lastly, I hope I didn’t over simplify this issue, please comments and questions to l.mcleod@bulbwired.com, we love the interaction.

The Future of the Social Web