First things first, you need to find the plugin. Go to the Plugins section from the navigation on the left. Click on Add New. From there, the following screen will appear.  Type in Twitter Tools into the search box and click Search Plugins.

You will see a list of Plugins appear. Go to the one that says Twitter Tools (should be the first one in the list).  Click on Install Now directly underneath the Plugin.

You will be asked to confirm that you do indeed wish to install the plug in. Once it’s installed, click on Activate Plugin.

Once you have done this, you should be a link at the top of the page that prompts you to update your Twitter Tools settings, or you can go to the Settings section near the bottom of the left navigation in your admin portal. Finally, you will want to add your user name and password to connect with your Twitter account. Unless you want all of your tweets to be published in a blog post (not advisable) then select No for that option. That’s it! Just update at the bottom of the screen. Next time you publish a post, it will go out to Twitter!

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Manda is a busy working mom of twin boys. She is passionate about her family and loves her crafts! Check out her new site at www.mandascraft.com. Again, like Gia’s site, Manda’s blog is created using WordPress so she has the flexibility to easily modify her site, add new blog posts and change content on the pages. Keep up the great work Manda!

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Their new site incorporates content from their old site but in a concise manner that allows visitors to find what they are looking for with just a couple of clicks. With two contact forms, rotating testimonial and client flash files, newsletter sign up and a blog, there is a lot packed in to this site! If you are in need of seamless, smooth, fast & professional moves of computers, electronics, digital communication, & sensitive equipment, they are the company to call! Check out their new site at www.computermovers.net

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Gia is going to feature recipes, weight loss ideas and tips on making it all work! I am so honored that she asked me to create her website! Gia is pretty techie herself so walking her through how to use the blog was a breeze. Looking forward to reading her articles! Check her out at OneHealthyMama.com

The blog was created using WordPress and is self hosted. Hosting WP allows for greater functionality and flexibility on your custom theme and plugins. Below you can see the one of a kind theme I created for the site. The site has a limited color scheme to keep it clean and not too “busy”. Another advantage of using WordPress is that Gia now has the tools needed to update her site as often as she wants to. Already she has a weeks worth of posts written out and ready to publish.  Check her out and tell her I sent you! Can’t wait to read more my friend!

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This post is all about plugins to help with your different social media profiles:

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/wordpress-social-media-profile/

This article shows 50 great widgets for your blog:

http://mashable.com/2007/09/06/widgets-2/

30 cool plugins:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/30-cool-wordpress-plugins-for-web-publishers/

10 Cool WordPress plugins to show your ratings:

http://www.geeksucks.com/showcases/10-cool-wordpress-plugins-for-ratings.htm

Plugins designed to get your readers to your blog:

http://mashable.com/2007/08/02/wordpress-readers/

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We are excited to announce a great competition for the rest of this month! One lucky business will have a WordPress blog added to their website. This gives you the opportunity to keep your own clients informed about any specials or events you have coming up. You can write educational articles giving facts and helping teach others about your craft or field. You can share ideas and opinions easily. WordPress is accessed through an online portal you can log into directly.

So what do you have to do to win?

Creating a blog to fit in with your current website is a pretty big deal. For a small business owner, the cost of web design or site work can be a luxury. So, its not going to be as simple as just submitting your name, or signing up for a newsletter. What we are looking for is a little more creative. Tell us why you want a blog, what you will blog about and how you hope this will improve your own business. Must be at least 100 words, but can be as detailed and entertaining as you wish!

Simply click here to enter our WordPress Blog Contest

Be sure to read the Terms and Conditions of the contest

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The next guest blogger is really two bloggers! Both Melissa Casserly and Laura Fields take it in turn to post regularly on their blog.The  Baby Steps Online Blog is full of great information about babies, nursing, pregnancy and so much more. Below, Laura talks about journey from having blogs in the past to truly embracing the concept and making it work for them.

Our blog has been active for almost 2 months now. We’ve made an effort to add new entries to our blog regularly, and as a result our website has moved up on the search engines.  Depending on the search terms used, we’re often on the first or second page of results, which is extremely high compared to where we ranked before we started using our blog.

Blog: www.babystepsonline.net/blog/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Powder-Springs-GA/Baby-Steps

E-mail: babysteps@babystepsonline.net

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Our guest blogger for today is Valerie Pegg, a pet sitter, dog walker and all around animal lover in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Val has managed to use the blog to her advantage and truly push her site up the search engine rankings. Type ‘Pet Sitter in Gwinnett’ into Google and you will see exactly what I mean!

Megan has worked with me, one on one, to make sure my site got to the top, and stays at the top. First of all she set me up with WordPress so I could log in and make changes to my site whenever I want to. Second, she gave me a great document that explains how to log in, create a new post, and publish it out using the right keywords, titles and descriptions for search engine optimization. The biggest thing is that I feel I am in control of my own site. If I want to show up for some new keywords, I can just write a new post and keep those keywords in mind. I am at the top of Google at the moment, have more clients, and am very happy with where I am right now.

Blog: www.bestfitpetsit.com/pet-talk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BestFitPetSitServices

E-mail: info@bestfitpetsit.com

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Yesterday I talked about what a blog is, and what I think the best option is. Today I am excited to introduce our first guest blogger. This starts the first in a series all about the benefits of using a blog in your website. The ability to have a direct affect on your own search engine rankings is pretty darn cool! In the post below, Jerry certainly recognizes the power he has at his fingertips!

However blogging has been pretty easy.  We share information that we feel is useful to our customers in general and on occasion share some information about what we will be doing as far as jobs.  I didn’t know how much of an impact blogs would have, but Megan also installed Google Analytics to our web site.  Now I can log into the analytics website and see how many people are visiting my website and what pages they are viewing.  It’s amazing how many people read the blog pages.

Something I’ve recently learned is that the keywords used on the header to your post can be very important.  I now Google search my key words prior to posting to see what other sites might be using those words.  Doing this allows my blogs to generally be at the top of the page.  Thus giving my web site more exposure.  In a little over 5 months I have had over 1,000 hits on my web site.  I would say almost half have come through my blog posts.  Also we have our blog page posted to our Facebook page which gives it more exposure.

Blog: www.georgiatrolleyservice.com/trolleytalk/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GeorgiaTrolleyServices

E-mail: thetrolleyguy@msn.com

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No doubt you have heard of  Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Good SEO means that the search engines are finding your website and indexing it correctly. When this happens it means your site will come up in the search results when someone types in keywords found on your site. When posting a new article on your blog, you have the power to determine those keywords directly, giving you some control over your own sites SEO.

Why do the search engines like new content? Their job is to find new information to spread out to visitors on the web. They may come to crawl through your site for the first time and look at the content, then index it. They might even come back the following week to look for more new content. If don’t find anything, they might come back next month, and then again, but would eventually stop looking at your site due to old or stagnant content. If, however, you have a blog and therefore are continually adding new content, the search engines will love your site. They will come back again and again to grab the new content and share it with the rest of the web.

If you do a search online, you would find two sites for WordPress. WordPress.com and WordPress.org. While both are free and made by the same developers, there are some big differences.

WordPress.com will host your blog on their servers at no cost. However, this means that the address for your blog will be a sub domain of wordpress.com. In plain English, you will not be able to pick the web site address used for your blog and will need to link to the blog from your main website. Not ideal.

From WordPress.org you can download the files needed to install WordPress on your own server. This means that you can use your own unique website address and totally incorporate it into your current website. Your blog can be designed to fit right in with your pre-existing site and follow the color scheme and design you have.

WordPress.org allows you to create your own themes, WordPress.com has only a limited amount of themes you can use. WordPress.org allows you to add plugins (code that designers have created) to enhance the functionality of your site, WordPress.com does not.

There are other differences but adding WordPress directly to your own server offers you the most flexibility and functionality. Over the next few days I look forward to sharing information with you from some of my clients, in their words. Each one I have worked with and created a blog for them, they have seen a drastic increase in the number of visitors to their site, and the number of clients they are working with. Read their stories, then make your own decision!

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