How To Monetize Your WordPress Web App

by Matthew Tschoegl November 28^th, 2012 2 Responses

As people increasingly use mobile devices to view websites, developers are taking proactive steps to make their sites more mobile-accessible by:

Designing responsive mobile themes
Making existing themes more mobile-friendly
And converting websites into mobile apps.

Despite this activity, the development of monetization options for web apps has not kept up. Considering that it is already more difficult to display banner ads on those small mobile screens, a lot of websites are feeling the pinch.

Tutorials

Save Time And Money By Syncing Your WordPress Site

by Matthew Tschoegl November 20^th, 2012 3 Responses

More and more, I find my web browser’s tab bar taken up with applications. I have my Gmail, Google Calendar, Asana task sheet, Twitter, WordPress website(s), Dropbox, and Facebook page open so that I can easily move between each of those applications, syncing, posting, checking, and being notified.

Community, Plugins

A WordPress Chat Plugin That Draws A Crowd

by Matthew Tschoegl November 15^th, 2012 3 Responses

As blogging becomes more and more professional, we are seeing a range of new analytic services, tools, and techniques that aim to better understand the mind and intentions of the user. The user, we are to understand, is a fickle, inscrutable, and unfathomable beast who can only be understood through careful observation by the Jane Goodall of your analytics software.

Plugins

Boost User Engagement With Call-To-Contact Plugins

by Matthew Tschoegl November 11^th, 2012 Leave a comment

There is a reason that telemarketers still blow up your phone while you watch Law & Order: SVU reruns in your sweatpants while eating frozen dinners (that’s not just me…right? right?). Nothing converts like a phone call. On the phone the seller can communicate confidence in their product and talk their potential customer through the benefits it offers.

Plugins

Are You Running The Right Ads?

by Matthew Tschoegl November 5^th, 2012 Leave a comment

Nowadays, if you want to run ads on your website, that usually means signing up for Google’s Adsense service and running their banners on your site. It’s the default option and one that works well enough: it is open for anyone to join and pays out regularly. There are a handful of complaints, though, that people have with Adsense (some more justified than others):

Click revenue is low and getting lower
The ads aren’t always very attractive
You don’t have much control over what is published

Plugins

How To Get Intel On The Competition

by Matthew Tschoegl October 31^st, 2012 3 Responses

Ever look at a competitor’s site and think to yourself, “How is this guy more popular than me?!” An ugly and cluttered theme, broken links, obvious keyword fishing, and terrible content (it’s his, isn’t it?) are all beating your clean, attractive, well-maintained, and thoughtful (it’s yours, right?) WordPress website. What is he, the other guy, doing that you are not? Unfortunately, you can’t look in the backend of his site or examine his analytics data to get an idea of what he might be doing right. Or can you?

Plugins

How To Finance Your Site With Micro-donations

by Matthew Tschoegl October 23^rd, 2012 Leave a comment

Every time you go to the coffee shop nowadays, you will see a tip jar next to the register. Why do the baristas put it out there? Because they know that people are more willing to give a little bit a lot of the time than to give a lot once. If the barista were to ask me for a $35 dollar donation, they would be very lucky to get it out of my hands. But when I buy a cup of coffee each morning for $1.86, hand over $2.00, and then drop the remaining $0.14 in the tip jar, that is exactly what I am doing.

Plugins

WordPress Ad Plugins That Go Beyond The Banner

by Matthew Tschoegl October 19^th, 2012 Leave a comment

As anyone who has put AdSense on their website recently can attest, it is becoming harder and harder to get people to click on ads. Once upon a time, you could just throw up a couple of banners and the clicks would come running in. Then people got savvier and you had to figure out how to insert ads to work better with your theme and content. But now, visitors’ eyes glide over even the best-placed ads and thousands of impression can go by without one measly click.

Plugins

Get SEO Tips When You Need Them

by Matthew Tschoegl October 17^th, 2012 1 Response

One of the primary features or benefits of a CMS like WordPress is that it does a lot to make basic SEO easy for users. WordPress allows you add tags, categories, titles, and other information that helps to optimize your website content for search engine indexing.

Of course, there is more to do and a number of excellent plugins have been created that try to squeeze more SEO leverage out of the platform. However, what they also do is presume a pretty robust understanding of how SEO works and what strategies work best.