Get Social - A Plug-In For More Likes and Pluses
Published: Mon, 02/13/12
Hi, guys!
I've been busy lately doing something I hadn't quite expected and it has reminded me it's time to share a special plug-in that can give you important information about how people feel about your site.
In the past month, our neighborhood has been plagued with break ins and burglaries. We live in a historically upscale and safe neighborhood so this has been a bit of a wake up call for us. When four houses on our street were all burglarized in a two week span, our subdivision realized we were being targeted by one, if not multiple, burglary rings.
Burglary rings. I had no idea such a thing existed. That's how safe we've always felt in this neighborhood. Yet, here are these thugs breaking into our homes and taking our stuff.
Knock on wood, our house was not hit but we're very close with the neighbors who have been. What is truly scary is that both my husband and I work from home and never heard a single one of the break-ins - not even the one that happened right next door.
I'm not the kind of person to take this lightly so I've been working outside, getting in touch with neighbors, "patrolling" our neighborhood, and studying up on home security.
Times like these certainly underscore the fact that life isn't always fun. However, even these kinds of situations can bring about some important lessons (hint: don't ask me about home security, you'll get a full college thesis on the subject!) and they often come with a silver lining.
Despite all the drama and the fear, despite wondering if putting metal window shades on all of our windows would be going too far, and despite having to carefully explain to our 8 year old why it only seems like the police have permanently moved into the area, the community has very much pulled together.
We've become more in touch with our neighbors. Our street was once very close as we'd all moved into the new subdivision at the same time but the economy changed all of that as people tightened their belts, lost their jobs, or had to move away.
In the past month, our neighborhood has been plagued with break ins and burglaries. We live in a historically upscale and safe neighborhood so this has been a bit of a wake up call for us. When four houses on our street were all burglarized in a two week span, our subdivision realized we were being targeted by one, if not multiple, burglary rings.
Burglary rings. I had no idea such a thing existed. That's how safe we've always felt in this neighborhood. Yet, here are these thugs breaking into our homes and taking our stuff.
Knock on wood, our house was not hit but we're very close with the neighbors who have been. What is truly scary is that both my husband and I work from home and never heard a single one of the break-ins - not even the one that happened right next door.
I'm not the kind of person to take this lightly so I've been working outside, getting in touch with neighbors, "patrolling" our neighborhood, and studying up on home security.
Times like these certainly underscore the fact that life isn't always fun. However, even these kinds of situations can bring about some important lessons (hint: don't ask me about home security, you'll get a full college thesis on the subject!) and they often come with a silver lining.
Despite all the drama and the fear, despite wondering if putting metal window shades on all of our windows would be going too far, and despite having to carefully explain to our 8 year old why it only seems like the police have permanently moved into the area, the community has very much pulled together.
We've become more in touch with our neighbors. Our street was once very close as we'd all moved into the new subdivision at the same time but the economy changed all of that as people tightened their belts, lost their jobs, or had to move away.
Now, people are stopping to chat again and we're all spending more time outside. We're hanging out in the driveway with a glass of wine and keeping an eye out for each other and our families.
There's certainly a social element to building a good neighborhood and all of this has reminded me that there is value in social feedback for your Amazon review sites, too. Visitors to your site are a huge asset, and not just because they can generate sales and commissions.
Visitors can give you very valuable feedback and also bring new traffic.
Visitors can give you very valuable feedback and also bring new traffic.
Several months ago, I installed a plug-in on my sites to see if visitors would help me spread the word through Facebook and other social networking sites. I also wanted to get feedback from visitors on what they thought of my site. This plug-in helped me do both.
How many Facebook Likes a post receives lets me know which content is most popular while also getting that content shared with my visitors network.
(I do NOT buy Likes or Google Pluses or anything else along those lines. Messes with the naturalness of my overall plan!)
The plug-in has been on my site for months now and I've seen no negative impact - only benefits. I've racked up hundreds of likes on some pages and I haven't even tried - just installed the plug-in.
The plug-in has been on my site for months now and I've seen no negative impact - only benefits. I've racked up hundreds of likes on some pages and I haven't even tried - just installed the plug-in.
It's called Add Twitter, Facebook Like, Google plus one Social share and it's FREE. You can search for it from inside your WP dash or read more here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-facebook-google-plusone-share/
Just fine-tune the settings to match the color and look of your site. I've set it up only to show options for Facebook Like, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Google+. I am not using the LinkedIn share button as it just didn't seem relevant to my niches.
Every few days, I check the counts on my home page and I like seeing that people have taken action and shared my site. It's like a vote that I'm doing things right. If I don't see the votes going up, I know I need to put in a little more effort or modify my content.
If you're ready to get more in touch with how people feel about your site, add this plug-in to the mix and see what happens over the next few hundred visitors.
PRODUCT LIST
Someone asked for a list of all of my products so they could see which ones they had and which they didn't. I put that together as part of my regular thank you page for my customers and you can see the full list towards the bottom of this page: Erica Stone's How To Guides for Affiliate Marketing
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH PANDA?
I've had two emails this week asking if my sites have been negatively impacted by Panda. I'm almost embarassed to admit that unless one of you asks that question, I'm usually very out of touch with whatever is going on with Panda updates.
It's only when someone asks that I take a look at all of my sites, check my favorite SEO news sources, and take a peek at posts on the WarriorForum to see if something is up.
I haven't found evidence of any recent changes but I know people are concerned that review sites may fall out of favor with Google. Actually, there are some that I truly DO hope fall out favor - those thin sites with no purpose. Just don't build those. Instead, build a solid site with lots of info and a focus on quality. You'll stand a far better chance of weathering any future changes if you put together something really useful.
To put your minds at ease, too, I have NEVER seen a negative impact from ANY of the Panda updates on my Amazon sites. I did see some impact on some Squidoo lenses at the onset but everything quickly returned to normal and has not been impacted negatively since.
It may be tempting fate to say, even, but I have sites I haven't touched in 1-2 years that still rank at the top of Google for great keywords. I haven't added content, updated content, or built any more backlinks in all that time and the things just stay right up there earning money.
The difference is that when I start I site, I throw my all into it for months and months. Sometimes a year or more. Everything is done by hand, too. I do not use plug-ins to bring in content. My backlinks are mostly built by hand with some outsourcing. I weather through the normal Google dance, sometimes up and sometimes down until my site is SOLIDLY in place and has quality content. Once that's done, the sites tend to stay where they are for long periods of time.
Yes, a lot of work up front but so well worth it. That's the model that has worked so well for me. There's no magic trick. No special software in my secret sauce. Just research, writing, and backlinks as I've outlined in all of my guides.
Just fine-tune the settings to match the color and look of your site. I've set it up only to show options for Facebook Like, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Google+. I am not using the LinkedIn share button as it just didn't seem relevant to my niches.
Every few days, I check the counts on my home page and I like seeing that people have taken action and shared my site. It's like a vote that I'm doing things right. If I don't see the votes going up, I know I need to put in a little more effort or modify my content.
If you're ready to get more in touch with how people feel about your site, add this plug-in to the mix and see what happens over the next few hundred visitors.
PRODUCT LIST
Someone asked for a list of all of my products so they could see which ones they had and which they didn't. I put that together as part of my regular thank you page for my customers and you can see the full list towards the bottom of this page: Erica Stone's How To Guides for Affiliate Marketing
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH PANDA?
I've had two emails this week asking if my sites have been negatively impacted by Panda. I'm almost embarassed to admit that unless one of you asks that question, I'm usually very out of touch with whatever is going on with Panda updates.
It's only when someone asks that I take a look at all of my sites, check my favorite SEO news sources, and take a peek at posts on the WarriorForum to see if something is up.
I haven't found evidence of any recent changes but I know people are concerned that review sites may fall out of favor with Google. Actually, there are some that I truly DO hope fall out favor - those thin sites with no purpose. Just don't build those. Instead, build a solid site with lots of info and a focus on quality. You'll stand a far better chance of weathering any future changes if you put together something really useful.
To put your minds at ease, too, I have NEVER seen a negative impact from ANY of the Panda updates on my Amazon sites. I did see some impact on some Squidoo lenses at the onset but everything quickly returned to normal and has not been impacted negatively since.
It may be tempting fate to say, even, but I have sites I haven't touched in 1-2 years that still rank at the top of Google for great keywords. I haven't added content, updated content, or built any more backlinks in all that time and the things just stay right up there earning money.
The difference is that when I start I site, I throw my all into it for months and months. Sometimes a year or more. Everything is done by hand, too. I do not use plug-ins to bring in content. My backlinks are mostly built by hand with some outsourcing. I weather through the normal Google dance, sometimes up and sometimes down until my site is SOLIDLY in place and has quality content. Once that's done, the sites tend to stay where they are for long periods of time.
Yes, a lot of work up front but so well worth it. That's the model that has worked so well for me. There's no magic trick. No special software in my secret sauce. Just research, writing, and backlinks as I've outlined in all of my guides.
Hope you're all finding new levels of success online or getting ready to ramp it up. It's a great year to be in affiliate marketing!
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com