Don’t concentrate on making it perfect, concentrate on getting it out there.

There are plenty of excellent and low-cost software tools that will walk you through the process – you just have to come up with the ideas.  Here are some of my favorites for both high-end, and low-end content creation –

Video Content Marketing Tools

If you’re creating demonstration or how-to videos, whether on your screen or in a studio workspace, there are different software programs for different needs.

High-End Video Screencasting Tools

If you’re recording video on your computer screen (screencasting), one of the best software programs on the market is Camtasia. It’s available for both Mac and PC users and comes with a 30 day trial. Still, the $299 price tag can be a barrier for many do-it-yourselfers and startups.

Free Screencasting Software

Fortunately, the same company behind Camtasia makes a more compact “lite” version of its screen recorder called Jing.  While you can’t record as long of a presentation (5 minutes at the most), it’s free and you can share your video link instantly over the web or social networks.

Studio Video Recording Software

If you’d like to try your hand at creating your own miniature studio workspace, you’ll want to check out a series of how-to DVDs by Bill Myers.  They often have sales where you can pick and choose the DVDs you want. Some titles include:

•    Tools of How-To Video Production

•  Marketing How-To DVDs

•  Camtasia to DVD

• Producing How-To DVDs

Podcast Content Marketing Tools

If you’d like to create your own content marketing strategy with audio, one of the best ways is to create a podcast. Podcasts were originally available only through Apple’s iTunes and iPod devices (hence the name), but are now listened to across the web.

High-End Podcasting Software

One of the leading podcast software programs is Propaganda  ($49.95). It doesn’t exactly have a user-friendly interface, but if you’re at all familiar with the basics of creating a podcast, it does everything you need, including:

• Recording and Editing a Podcast
• Importing Audio and Interviews (such as over Skype)
• Publishing to websites, blogs and iTunes
• Organizing your audio files

A helpful welcome tutorial walks you through all the steps of creating your first podcast.  Support is available through the program itself, as well as a help desk, tutorials and a knowledge base.

Free Podcasting Software

BlogTalkRadio is a free and easy way to get your content “on the air” without any technical experience. A paid version is also available for as low as $39/month or $399/year. It also supports social networking, lets you import interviews, conduct live chats or privately screen users for a Q & A session.

Document Formatting Tools

eBooks have recently experienced a massive (re)surge in popularity thanks to e-reading tablets like Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s e-Reader and the Nook by Barnes & Noble.

Thankfully, creating an ebook is as simple as writing your manuscript in Microsoft Word.  But formatting it to work with Kindle and Nook (which read a special type of format called “EPUB”) can be overwhelming if you’re not a document editing pro.  Thankfully, there are ePub templates where you can simply copy and paste your text from Word into these pre-made Word templates and upload your finished work to Amazon and BN.com.

Converting an Existing Book into ePub Format

If you have an existing paperback or hardback book, workbook, or your book has large images that may not fit on an e-reader, you’ll want to get in touch with a professional Book Scanning company.  They can scan your book without damaging the binding, and convert it to a Kindle-friendly format for publishing on Amazon.

Launching Your Content Marketing Strategy

Now that you have an overview of some of the top-rated tools and services available, there’s nothing stopping you from getting your content out to hungry buyers.  If you’ve already conducted a podcast, created a video or launched your ebook on Kindle, I’d love to hear your experience about it.  Please share your story and comments below!

But there was one unique difference…

In addition to your tickets, you also got a token.  The token could only be given to one vendor – presumably whoever’s chili you liked best.  The vendors with the most tokens would then proceed to a judging round.

The Devil’s Ice Cream

In addition to the green-themed chili, there was the obligatory green beer.  With chili names like “The Devil’s Ice Cream”, even warm green beer was refreshing.  But I noticed that, out of the dozens of cook-off participants, one particular table was getting a surprising amount of attention.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t the chili with the most “creative” name (that would have to go to “Runs for Your Life” which I steered clear of), and it wasn’t the most outlandish St. Paddy’s costume hawking their samples louder than everyone else.

More Cowbell

This particular table had a sizeable amount of tokens, and the crowd was milling around enthusiastically cheering.  Two little old ladies were stealing the show with, not just good chili, but a lot of surprise extras too, like:

• Lots of chili toppings – From guacamole to cheese to corn chips. Garnishes were, surprisingly, something very few other competitors thought to do.  It made everyone else’s contribution pale in comparison.

• Dessert – After awhile, lots of chili tastes the same.  These ladies took the time to bake little green cake bon-bons to give away something extra to their patrons.

• Cowbell – Yes, more cowbell.  Every time they got a token, these little old ladies would ring that cowbell so loud that it would drown out whatever music was playing.  Naturally, people who had just come to the event would quickly make their way over and see what all the fuss was about…which led to an endless cycle of more tokens and more cowbell.

Lessons Learned

The crowd psychology and the social spread of the whole thing was almost surreal, but interesting to watch too, since there were a few important takeaways from this lesson –

1)  Make Your Product Irresistible – That means going the extra mile, whether it’s doing the research, gathering the case studies, or getting help to design the graphics.  Whatever you’re selling, always stop to ask yourself “How can I make this even better?”  Once you’ve done that, ask it again — until you completely run out of ways to improve upon what you’ve started.

2) Differentiate Yourself – Despite all the loud, colorful and festive costumes, these folks were more quiet, unassuming and friendly.  They didn’t have to yell over the music; a great big, welcoming “grandma smile” was all it took to draw people in closer.  The cowbell got people’s attention and motivated them before they ever saw what was causing all the commotion.

3) Walk the Walk – Of course, all that noise would’ve been for nothing if they didn’t have amazing chili to back it up.  And then, the whole “reciprocity” urge kicked in when you got a little something extra beyond that.  Socially, it almost seemed selfish not to give them your vote.  And that’s exactly what people did – time and time again.

Share Your Stories

Have you ever had a moment where something that seemed to have nothing at all to do with your business actually taught you a lesson about it? Share your story below in the comments!

But it’s still a common problem that can leave you feeling deflated and uninspired.

Let’s face it, content marketing truly has a ripple effect on every other part of your business. I’m not just talking about a bigger return on investment, but things you’d never think would play a role in improving your business, such as:

• Better collaboration between departments and colleagues – Content marketing seeps into facets of business beyond marketing. It can expand to include HR, customer service, sales and more.

• Improved trust and authority – When you create content so intrinsically valuable that customers would even gladly pay for it if given the chance, you’re helping build trust and authority automatically rather than relying on third party services (like Yelp reviews or Verisign trust seals) to do it for you.

• Create more personal connections – You want your customers to feel like you created content “just for them”. Doing this can also help you get into that coveted “inner circle” where trusted content is shared and recommended among friends.

• Improved search engine rankings – Google’s “Search Plus Your World”, an off-shoot of Google+, is now including personalized results in its pages. The more “Circles” you find yourself in, the more your name, company and even your content will appear at or near the top on those customized results pages.

Real, Actionable Information

To sell content marketing effectively to upper management, you have to think in their terms. That means breaking down the data you glean from metrics like Google Analytics, and translating it into real, actionable information.  Not everything can be measured in terms of pure dollar value, so set Conversion Goals and be able to show your boss the gist of the results at-a-glance.

That’s not to say, however, that you should just plop a stack of analytics reports on their desk and call it a day.   Not everyone can be as fluent in web analytics as you   – so it’s worth breaking down the numbers into mentally-digestible graphs and translating things like “bounce rate” and “referral”.  For all they know, “organic results” could be what they’re gardening – not what’s driving traffic to their website.

Cause and Effect

More importantly, can you correlate rises (and falls) to certain actions taken on your website or as a result of your social networking?   You’ll want to be able to show how seemingly different points are related, and what it means for the overall goal you’re aiming for.

• How many qualified leads did you generate as a result of your latest Facebook campaign?
• Did tweeting a link to your latest free download translate into more orders for your paid service?
• Was your corporate blog content able to shortcut the decision-making process so that you were able to make more sales even faster than before?

Tracking Changes Effectively

One of the best ways to measure your content marketing results is to be able to track the changes in a way that provides meaningful information to both you and your senior management.

At its simplest, this can be a basic spreadsheet that shows what you tested, the date range, the anticipated results and the actual results.  This way too, you can create a graph that shows the success (or lack of it) so that adjustments can be made for future tests.

Don’t forget that for many test results to really make an impact with your superiors, you’ll want to keep records and screenshots of the before and after versions.  This way you can clearly show how certain changes increased conversion rates or boosted subscriber numbers.

There’s a reason why some of today’s best-loved and most well-known companies spend up to a third of their budget on content marketing:  it works.  And if you’re still having trouble converting your marketing ideas into practical plans – why not hire a conversion rate expert to help you get more of the results you really want for your business?

Numbers 2 and 3 go hand-in-hand, because it seems like you have to have too much of one and not enough of the other to get things done.  A lot of people outsource content marketing thinking they’ll get lucky and hit that viral sweet-spot that finally makes all their efforts pay off.

But I’ll be honest with you and say that no one knows your industry as well as you do.  And no one knows your prospects and customers like you do. And here’s the kicker – taking the time to produce quality, relevant content will pay you back: in terms of better conversion rates, higher customer retention, improved communications with your prospects and much more.

Look at the questions you wrote down from Challenge #1 – what kind of complete, actionable content could you create that addresses those issues? If you’re not sure what questions your best customers are asking – ask them!  Go on Twitter or Facebook and post “What’s the #1 question you have about (your product or service) right now?”

If you don’t get much in the way of answers (not everyone has a massive Twitter following or tons of Facebook fans), check out your competition.  What are their most popular blog posts, or which posts are getting the most comments?  Those are the kinds of things people want to know about.

Save Time and Money by (Re)Using What You Have

All this talk of content marketing makes many people panic because they think they instantly have to come up with fresh, new, vibrant ideas that spread like wildfire the moment they’re out of the gate.

And while that would be great if it really happened, you don’t have to freeze up when it comes to making good use of your existing content.

Some examples:

• Include reviews from third-party sites like Yelp, Google Maps, Yahoo and Bing Local on your website, your giveaways (ebooks, whitepapers), and in your direct mail pieces. Incorporating ratings and reviews helps inspire customer confidence.

• Look outside your department, and even your company, to get new ideas for potential topics.  Ask your product suppliers, affiliates, and customers what their biggest questions are about getting the most out of what you sell.

• Show your product or service at work!  Create a Pinterest board with examples of customers using and enjoying your product or service.

• Freshen up old blog posts that are buried in the archives by updating them and reformatting them into a webinar or a how-to video.

• Give your company a personality.  Show us the day-to-day inner workings or a lighthearted look at corporate culture. People build relationships with people, not faceless brands.

Action Steps to Content Marketing Time and Budget

• Take the time to learn what kind of questions your ideal customers are asking. These are the people you want to work with – they just don’t know you exist (yet!) Or if they do know, they’re not paying attention and your content marketing is going to change that.  Post questions on social networks, but be prepared for some unexpected answers!

• If you’d rather hire someone to be in control of your content marketing (hint, hint), then make certain they know all about the persona(s) you’re trying to reach – what pushes their hot buttons, what their concerns are, and what questions they’re asking about your product or service. Great content marketers can put themselves into the prospects’ shoes and write from their perspective.

• Be prepared to spend more to get more. The best content marketers with the most effective results set aside nearly 1/3^rd of their budget on content marketing.  And it’s worth it, too — companies of all sizes are focusing on improving their content marketing strategies more than any other marketing tactic, including social media and search engine optimization combined!

But knowing what percentage of marketers struggle with content marketing is like finding a group of “kindred spirits” who are fighting the same marketing battles you are.  Good to know, but what are you actually doing about it?

Let’s face it, beyond knowing the numbers, you also need a comprehensive road map that helps provide direction and solutions to each of these issues.  In this four-part series, I’m going to give you immediate, actionable steps at tackling your most pressing content marketing issues head-on – starting with…

Challenge #1: Creating Original Content

This is by far the biggest challenge. And it’s not just a lack of originality that’s causing marketers to panic. More to the point, it’s being able to create the kind of content that people want – and delivering it to them the way they want it.  Forget top-down, “take it or leave it” one-way broadcasting.  Consumers are in control, now more than ever.

One of the best ways to create content that engages customers is to develop personas for every major type of customer you have. This isn’t to say you should pigeon-hole people into a mold, but rather take the time to get to know your best customers, online shoppers, and even random browsers who aren’t ready to buy yet – as they all paint a larger picture of where your brand fits in to their lifestyle.

The biggest pitfall in designing personas is creating figures based on what you think the customer wants, and not what they truly want.  On the surface, someone might say “I want to buy an MP3 player”, but when you delve a little deeper, you’ll find that one of their core motivations is “I want a portable music player that I can clip to my pocket while running”.

Action Steps to Create Original Content

• Ask yourself, what content can I create that this persona would be most likely to share? Write a list of questions each persona may have about your product or service, no matter how simple.

• After you create your question list, think of how your ideal customer would best like to receive your content. Not everyone wants more stuff piling up in their inbox that they’ll never get to read.  If you do make your content deliverable by email, consider turning it into a podcast or slideshow too.

• Don’t forget to make your content appropriate for your prospect’s level of “tech-comfort”.  Few people outside the IT industry know what white-papers are, and the younger generation would rather watch streaming video that read an ebook.

With so many feeds, blogs, posts and updates to keep track of on the web, content curation was inevitable. Put simply, content curation means actively discovering and sharing the best news, tools and reviews in your industry.  Much like the way a museum curator helps maintain and manage a permanent collection while deciding what to exhibit and when, content curators look for the best ways to showcase relevant information in their niche.

While it’s currently more of a buzzword in content marketing circles, content curation is an invaluable skill for sifting through information overload and presenting the best pieces in a way that’s organized and helpful to others.  It’s also a great way to build up your authority, make new connections in your network, and expand your social reach.

Benefits of Content Curation

There are several benefits to being recognized as a content curator in your subject area.  If you’re the first to write about a developing story in your niche or share a different angle on a trend, you’ll get the lion’s share of links, social media shares and mentions.  Essentially, you’re taking the time to do what few other people can or will do – highlighting content that is worth reading and sharing.

And it doesn’t just have to be blog posts.  You can draw from all kinds of digital sources – slideshows, videos, whitepapers, and interviews can all be curated.  You’ve seen content curation in action if you’ve ever read a “Best of…” post, or spent any length of time on sites like Mashable or Alltop.

This then makes your site the go-to source for relevant information on your topic of choice.  No site, not even Mashable or Alltop can curate all newsworthy links and stories all the time. People want and need experts to sift through the chatter – that’s where you come in.

An example of a Scoop.it digital magazine for content curation

Content Curation Tools

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend every waking moment slogging through link after link to find share-worthy stuff.  There are several excellent content curation tools that can make your job easier.  Here are a few of the more popular sites (and they’re all free)

Pinterest – Mostly used for social media humor, recipes, quotes and outfits, this digital pinboard is one of the most popular ways to collect and share content.  Includes a “Pin It” bookmarklet that you can install in your browser, letting you instantly save content to your pinboard.  Be careful, Pinterest can be addictive!

Pearltrees – If you prefer a “tree” based method of organizing things, Pearltrees is the content curation tool for you.  Individual web pages and other content can be saved as “pearls” and then organized into trees.  You can also invite other users to add to your tree, or you can add to theirs.

Scoop.it – Not only does Scoop.it let you curate content, it also lets you display it in an easily readable online magazine format. Here’s an excellent article from Search Engine Journal on getting the most out of Scoop.it which includes how to choose a topic of interest and the proper etiquette for using articles and writing teasers.

BlogBridge – Rather than being an online bookmarklet, BlogBridge is specifically designed to handle RSS feeds – you know, all those blogs you subscribe to but never get to read? (Except for mine, of course!) It’s a software program, so it runs on your Mac or PC as a desktop feed aggregator.

YourVersion – My personal favorite.  YourVersion lets you type in a few keywords relevant to your interests, and it auto-magically delivers relevant content (without the spam or fake blogs).  You can vote stories up or down, or completely close out ones you don’t like.  I’d be curious to know whether or not YourVersion learns based on your votes and what you close.

In fact, just in the span of writing this blog post, I discovered pieces on content marketing to the millennial generation, Coca-Cola’s “Content 2020” marketing plan, Google’s Zero Moment of Truth  and a heap of other interesting things.  I can easily see myself using YourVersion and Scoop.it together as an absolute content curation BEAST (maniacal laugh in the background).

YourVersion lets you quickly find quality content without the spam and fake blogs

Getting the Most Out of Content Curation

The point behind curating content is to put an expert – a personality, if you will – behind the pieces being showcased.  This is not something you can (or should) automate. This is not something you can “set and forget”. Yes, you will have to invest some time to get your collections off to a running start.  But you’re only investing a fraction of the time involved when you use one or more of the aforementioned content curation tools to help you find things worth sharing.

It’s also important that you not post an entire article, but rather a snippet, and credit the original author.  When showcasing content, focus on quality rather than quantity.  And if you’re really proud of something you’ve written or created – toss in it there too!  There’s no reason you can’t toot your own horn if you’ve got something share-worthy.  And believe me, this post is going straight into my Scoop.it collection.

Content Curation and SEO

Does researching, writing, editing and sharing all this content affect your site’s ranking?  Not directly.  But if done well, it does highlight you as someone who’s “in the know” on current events, different perspectives and new ideas in your industry.  Don’t just throw up a bunch of links – add your insights and opinions to them.  Your backlinks will increase as more and more people see you as a trusted source for information.  When you focus on quality instead of quantity, you’ll reach more of your ideal customers – and that’s the kind of win-win that everyone can appreciate.

Action Steps for Content Curation

• Sign up for one of the content curation tools most relevant to your organizational style – for example, Pinterest for a more visually-oriented method, or Pearltrees for a hierarchical tree-based showcase.
• Use a relevant content aggregator like YourVersion or an RSS feed management software like BlogBridge to find snippets of news, photos, videos and other trends worth sharing.
• Create an account name for your business and highlight your shares on Twitter, Facebook and your own blog.  Be sure to credit the original article and link to the source.

A website audit works on a similar principle.  It’s designed to make sure your site reflects best practices according to design, content and search engine optimization.

So the question is… how do you know if your site needs a website audit?  And if it does, how can you put those systems into place?

Paid Website Reviews – Are They Worth It?

Hiring someone to do a website review can be a murky area if you don’t know what to look for.  It’s no different than hiring a web designer or an “SEO specialist” – the term means different things to different people.

Some business owners simply ask their friends and colleagues to review their website – but that will only scratch the surface of how your website is performing.   You’ll likely get lots of pats on the back and “great job!” comments – which feel great, but might not really reflect your site’s true performance.

If you really want to know how to improve website design, increase conversion rates and get better performance from your site, it’s worth hiring a professional reviewer to do a paid website review together with you.

What’s Included in the Review?

Typically, a professional website review will involve having a conversion expert (like me!) go through every aspect of your site as if they were were a first-time visitor and potential customer.  In my case, I look for common mistakes like navigation issues, design errors or coding bugs.

I also comb through your content to see how well it answers common questions and if it compels readers to take action.  If you have a shopping cart, I go through each step in the ordering process – noting any potential pitfalls that can gum up the checkout and cause shopping cart abandonment.

Should You Have Your Website Reviewed?

You’d be a great candidate for a website review if:

• Your website or blog’s bounce rate is above 70%
•  You get a decent amount of traffic, but few sales
• Visitors stay on your site around a minute or less
•  You’re preparing to launch your site and want to ensure it has the best possible reach
• Your site has moved lower in the search engine rankings for no apparent reason
• You want to make sure your landing pages are built to increase conversions

How Much Does a Website Audit Cost?

A landing page review starts at $149, with multi-page websites (or blogs) being reviewed for $299 and complete e-commerce sites being reviewed for $449 respectively.  I supply all of my clients with a 10+ page printable report that details immediate steps they can take to increase conversions and improve ranking in the search engines.   You are welcome and encouraged to share this report with your web design team, or you can work with me to have the changes made for you.

A professional website audit is an inexpensive way to make sure your website has the best possible start to reaching buyers, increasing sales and building a brand you can be proud of.

Let’s take a closer look at the most popular comment management programs — Disqus, IntenseDebate and Livefyre, and their built-in SEO benefits for your site.

Disqus and SEO

Disqus – By default, Disqus shows comments using Javascript, which search engines can’t read or index. There is a plugin available for WordPress that will convert comments into HTML that can be indexed by the search engines.  In addition, it also backs up your comments and includes social mentions such as posts from Twitter and Facebook.

SEO Rating: 

Having to go through an extra step to make your comments indexed by search engines is just one strike against what many bloggers consider a clunky comment management system

IntenseDebate and SEO

IntenseDebate – Made by the same people behind WordPress, IntenseDebate (ID) works flawlessly with WordPress’ built-in commenting system. This means your comments can still be indexed and even users who have Javscript disabled can leave comments which you can then import into the ID system for easier management.  One added feature that sets IntenseDebate apart from the competition is its “Reply by Email” which lets you respond to comments and moderate them directly through your email.

SEO Rating:

Working seamlessly with WordPress is a big plus, as is comment management by email. The more convenient and easy it is to moderate comments, the better.

LiveFyre and SEO

LiveFyre – Livefyre was built for the social community. Lightweight and easy to install, you can pull comments from Twitter, Facebook and let users login with a variety of popular services to move comment activity from the social sphere to your blog.  Naturally, they also have a WordPress plugin which replaces the default comments.  All comments, even those from Facebook, can be indexed from your blog by search engines.

SEO Rating: 

Livefyre’s social capabilities and flexibility (you can moderate comments from your smartphone) are second to none, and so far, its performance and scalability are holding strong.  But if you get a lot of comments, you’ll quickly find that LiveFyre turns it into more of a conversation.  If that sounds good to you, go for it – but if not, you might want to try an alternative.

In part one of this three part series, I’ll show you how to set up conversion goals with Google Analytics. In part two, we’ll look at how Webmaster Tools plays a crucial role in making sure Google sees your site the way you want it to, and in part three, we’ll take a closer look at how using Website Optimizer can get you on the fast track to increasing your conversions by leaps and bounds.

What Exactly is Google Analytics – And Why Do I Need It?

Google Analytics is a free service that shows you where your website traffic is coming from:  keywords they used, how long they stayed on your site, and what pages they visited.  You can get this report sent to your email on a particular schedule (like every Tuesday) or you can login to your account at any time and see how your site is performing.

One question I’m often asked is – why would you need Google Analytics if you already have a traffic analyzer in place?  Many people turn to already-existing programs from their web hosting company such as AWStats (which comes with Cpanel in your hosting account) and Sitemeter (a free website traffic tracking service).

The reason being is that since Google delivers the lion’s share of search engine traffic, it makes sense to use their system to get a better idea of where people are coming from, and what search terms they used to get there.

Rather than just giving you visitor counts by month/week/day, Google Analytics goes beyond just numbers to produce meaningful details – including how long people stayed on your site and what pages they visited, in addition to what browsers they were using and what connection speed they were browsing at.

Getting Started

To get started, go to www.google.com/analytics/ and click the “Sign Up Now” link under the “Access Analytics” button. Or if you already have another Google service (like Gmail), you can just login to your regular Google account and add analytics to it.

You can do this once you login to Gmail. After you’re logged in, just click the link above and add Analytics to your Gmail account. Here’s a helpful checklist that will make sure you’ve got everything set up correctly.

Using WordPress? Thankfully, you don’t have to copy and paste that code onto every page. A helpful and free plugin called Google Analytics for Wordpress can do it for you. All you have to do is give WordPress permission to access your analytics account – and you’re all set!

Once you’ve got your site set up with analytics and you’ve got the checkmark that shows it’s tracking correctly, it’s time to set up conversion goals. Click on the name of the website you want to set conversion goals for, and when its page opens, under the Actions column, click Edit.

Setting up conversion goals in Google Analytics

Setting Conversion Goals

Scroll down on this new page until you get to a section marked Goals. You’ll see they’re labeled Set 1, Set 2, Set 3 and Set 4.  Each set could target something completely different: email marketing could fall under Set 1, and pay-per-click marketing under Set 2, for example. But for right now, to keep things simple, we’ll just be working with Set 1.

Give your goal a name (so you can easily recognize it when you get your analytics report), leave “Active Goal” set to On, and then choose a goal type.  Here’s what each one means:

• URL Destination– When the goal is for the user to get to a certain URL. When you choose this, you also get some more specific options –
  • Head Match– This is used when you have individual IDs as the destination URL which change with each user. Like www.example.com/ checkout.php? page=1&ID=123456.Since the ending always changes, this conversion goal makes it so that Google Analytics only reads the first part of this URL, not the ID. So if you set the URL destination to www.example.com/ checkout.php?page=1 – Google will understand that everything after that part will always change, and it can track the goal successfully.
  • Regular Expression Match – You’d use this setting if you have options on your website such as different languages for the checkout process or users coming from different subdomains. So by selecting this type, you ensure that different paths throughout your website all lead to the same conversion goal.
  • Exact Match – If you use a regular “thank you” page, such as the kind you’d set up through Paypal’s shopping cart or checkout (like www.example.com/checkout/ or www.example.com/thanks.html) you’d use the Exact Match URL, since it doesn’t change for each user, and no matter where people come from through your website, they all end up at the same thank you page.

Creating a Goal Funnel in Analytics

• Goal Funnel– This is optional but recommended if you have a general checkout process such as the kind used in an ecommerce shopping cart.  Using a Goal Funnel, you can see how many users completed different steps of the checkout process.Highly recommended if you’re dealing with a high shopping cart abandonment rate, or are getting lots of visits, but few sales.

That’s it!  You’ve set up your first Conversion Goal. You can repeat these steps if you’d like to set up different goals for different areas of your website – for instance, how many people ultimately subscribe to your newsletter after reading a blog post?  How many subscribers purchased your latest offer?  These are precisely the kinds of things you can track in Analytics.

You can create up to 20 different conversion goals and you can edit them at any time, though it’s a good idea to let them run for 1-2 weeks (depending on how much traffic you get) to see how many people are going through the entire process, or if there’s something stopping up your sales funnel.

In the next part of the series, I’ll explain how to use Google Webmaster Tools.  You may have your Analytics code already tracking your website, but Webmaster Tools will help you see precisely what Google sees, and if it found any errors along the way.

Despite its name, this isn’t something you’ll want to primarily rely on your webmaster to do — it’s just as important that you, the site owner, understand if there are any obstacles preventing people from taking the action you want them to on your site.

And you may not even know you’re a victim until it’s too late.

Hackers can exploit this vulnerability in several ways without your knowledge.  They can insert hidden links to spyware, adware and viruses.  Google picks up that your site could be a risk to other users, and puts up a “This Site May Harm Your Computer” warning.  You lose your hard-earned visitors, rankings and revenue.

It’s even possible that your web hosting company was the victim of the hacking, and it spread from site to site across the entire server.

What are the Symptoms of a Blog SQL Injection?

You may not even realize there’s a problem with your blog if you don’t regularly login to Cpanel, FTP or other website management systems outside of WordPress.   In fact, you may find out about the hacking

• From a web-based security scanner like McAffee SiteAdvisor or Norton SafeWeb
• From Google’s diagnostic database, which can tell you if any spyware attacks have been coming from your site within the last 60 days (check your own site by replacing the EXAMPLE.com with your URL by clicking here)
• From the search engine result pages which come up with strange links or pages when you search for your own URL. An example might be searching for your site and seeing pharmaceutical links inside.
• From your visitors themselves who report getting a virus (or being redirected to a spyware site) when they visit your page.

Prevention is the First Step

The best way to protect your blog against SQL injections is to make it as inconvenient and difficult as possible for the hackers to get in.

This includes obvious things like not using “admin” as your login name (if your WordPress was setup this way, you can create a new user, give them administrative privileges and then move your “admin” posts over to your newly created username), setting a strong password and storing it in a safe location (I use Roboform and love it), and updating both your WordPress installation and your plugins as soon as new releases are available.

When WordPress plugins show outdated updates, it can be an invitation for hackers to find security holes

There are some helpful plugins that make blog management and protection easier too – but keep in mind, the more plugins you have installed on your blog, the more you could be leaving it vulnerable to being exploited, as plugin authors don’t always keep their work up to date.

WordPress Security:  Recommended Paid Plugins

BackupBuddy – This paid plugin lets you backup and restore your WordPress blog and schedule regular backups for a one-time fee.  Backup 2 sites for $75 or unlimited sites for $150.

VaultPress is a backup and security plugin from the same people who brought you WordPress. They have different monthly fee packages depending on the level of security you need and a new feature is coming soon that will update your plugins automatically as new ones are released – a huge help if you manage multiple blogs.

Free WordPress Security Plugins

Bulletproof Security – Protects your blog against SQL injection attacks as well as other common types of hacking and exploits.

Bei Fen – One of my favorite WordPress backup plugins, it backs up the database (where your content is stored) as well as themes, plugins, images and non-Wordpress tables. You can also schedule backups.

WordPress Firewall – Blocks many WordPress-specific hacking attempts while also letting you whitelist specific IP addresses for login.

Login Lockdown – Prevents brute-force login to your WordPress (admin) dashboard.  If more than a certain number of failed logins are made from a certain IP range, Login Lockdown prevents them from attempting to login for an hour.  Timeouts and IP addresses can be edited in the admin area.

WordPress Security – Share Your Thoughts!

Do you have a blog hacking horror story or security plugins that you’d recommend?  Tell me about it below in the comments!