Huge-IT Share Buttons – Review

Hello again friends,

We are back on the topic regarding the most suitable share buttons for your WordPress website. And in this post I will present to you another great alternative that might just be the thing that you need. It is called Share Buttons and it is created by Huge-IT.

Share Buttons by Huge-IT

Ok, a quick reminder why you need a solution like Share Buttons:

Your content might be great, but if no one knows that it exists it will stay in the dark. And your effort to create it doesn’t deserve such fate. But the great news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are lots of methods to make your content extremely popular and one of them is to share it in social media and to allow your visitors to share it as well. In order to increase the share rate and to improve the usability of your website you need a solution like Share Buttons that can be installed and configured in a flash.

What is so special about Share Buttons?

Speed and efficiency! Let’s start with the first one – speed. This WordPress plugin can be practically installed, activated and configured in less than a minute (if you have a proper Internet connection, of course). All you need to do after you have activated Share Buttons is to go to your WordPress Dashboard and then find the Share Buttons menu. It has 3 sub-menus: Share Buttons, Licensing and Featured Plugins. This is because Huge-IT (the creators of this wonderful plugin) have other great solutions that you might want to check out. Also Share Buttons has a PRO version which requires you to purchase a valid license in order to use it.

I will stick with the Free version for now – the one that you can find in wordpress.org.

So basically when you get to the sub-menu that is also called Share Buttons, you need to choose which share buttons you want.

You can make your selection from:

My advice to you is to make a research in advance (if you haven’t already done so) in order to find out which are the most commonly used social media networks by your target group of visitors. In most cases Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Linkedin are enough but you need to be sure about this. You can also leave all of them, of course, but that is not always the best solution.

In the settings menu you can also choose the size of the buttons. They can be small, medium or big.

You can also choose their position. For example this might be under the post, above it, etc.

Each change that you make in the settings menu of Share Buttons is displayed in an example content section so that you can be certain that everything will look great when you actually save them.

screenshot-16How to display Share Buttons in my content?

First of all you can either use shortcodes or you may add Share Buttons by using the newly added button in your Posts/Pages Visual Editor. Then all you need to do is to actually publish or update the content and it will be equipped with the chosen Share Buttons at the desired position and with the desired size.

Also for each post/page in the sidebar section of the visual editor you are presented with the option to remove the share buttons or to change their size and location for the current post/page only. This is awesome and allows even further customization of your content!

You can also integrate Share Buttons into your theme by adding PHP code to your template files.

screenshot-17What is in the PRO version of Share Buttons?

First of all – support and updates. This is vital for each PRO / Premium WordPress plugin. Then you can further customize the look&feel of your Share Buttons by:

And that’s it friends! You can see the Share Buttons in action by watching this video:

Would you give this plugin a try? Share your thoughts in the comments below – they are very important for us. Also if you find this post useful, please spread the word about it in social media.

See you soon friends!

SiteOrigin Page Builder – Review

Hello friends,

Nowadays there is an extremely easy way to build your WordPress pages. It is efficient and suitable even for beginners. Actually it might be better to say that the idea behind these solutions is that they are meant to be used mainly by the users who are not professional HTML and CSS specialists.

These solutions are called page builders and in this post I will make a review on one of them – SiteOrigin Page Builder.

SiteOrigin Page Builder

But first things, first! What is a page builder?

It is a plugin that allows you to create a custom design for each page/post/custom post on your WordPress website with drag&drop actions.

Are all page builders free?

No. Some of them are paid but this means that they provide you with even more options for building even more awesome pages.

Should I use a free page builder in this case?

Yes! And SiteOrigin Page Builder is one of these free solutions that will allow you to create the most beautiful pages without paying a cent!

What is so special about SiteOrigin Page Builder?

Convinced yet? Great! Now let’s see how to use it!

Install, activate the SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin and the Widgets Bundle plugin. You might need a couple of more plugins for the different widgets but the system will prompt you to do this. Ater you are done you might want to allow the usage of the additional widgets in the Bundle plugin and make additional settings. There is a settings menu for this in your WordPress Dashboard.

Now create a new page (for example). A new tab appears after the Text editor for the Page Builder. Click on it and you can add:

After this all you have to do is drag&drop and customize and then publish the page. That’s it!

See the plugin in action in this official video:

In addition I’d like to say that the SiteOrigin Page Builder is also quite suitable for complex content (for example many images on a row, multiple embedded elements, etc). By using it you are not only improving the design and the speed of your pages and posts but you are also improving their functionality.

So would you use SiteOrigin Page Builder for your WordPress website? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

In the mean time check the plugin’s official website.

See you soon friends!

How to Integrate Google+ Comments in WordPress

Hello again, friends!

In this post I will show you how to integrate Google+ comments in your WordPress website.

You might want this since the default comment system is not so good (however we already know that Jetpack can improve it). So far I have also shown you how to add Facebook comments and also how to integrate Disqus as your main comment system and you are familiar with the benefits of having an external comment system for WordPress. Now let’s see how you can achieve this with G+’s comments.

Before I tell you how to do this I will present you the current state of Google+ and the possible changes that might occur in the near future.

Google+ is the social media of Google. During its existence it has competed with all the major players in the market, especially with Facebook. G+ offered unique features and thus it attracted users mostly from the professional circles – developers, marketing experts, web designers, etc.

It is quite well known that Google+ has major benefits for SEO since the posts that are shared publicly are indexed and also each “+1” sends an important social signal that improves the ranking of your content. The social media allows you to create a business page and to make it your official publisher via a meta tag. This also improves the authority of your content. Not so long ago Google+ offered authorship which (in my opinion) was an awesome way to attract visitors because it showed them the author (name and G+ profile picture) of the content in the search results. This screamed “authority and quality” all around and it is a pity that Google removed this feature. However the authorship still works if you continue to create high quality content and share it publicly in your profile. A recent update allows the creation of collections and this allows better categorization of your shared posts.

The social media has many other features as well. However the situation with Google+ might change quite soon. The social media will either be shut down (the most unlikely option but still a possibility) or it will be transformed. However the Google+ as we know it will not be available in the near future and there are clear signs of this. For example the requirement for a mandatory G+ profile in order to use other Google products is gone. The same goes with authorship and so on.

Why would I want Google+ comments on my WordPress website if the fate of the social media is uncertain?

Mostly because Google won’t let go of the already attracted G+ users and their content. Many digital marketing experts think that the social media will most likely be improved and it will continue to exist. So having G+ comments on WordPress will be of value for you and your visitors in each case. And since the solutions that I am going to present to you allow the integration of Facebook and Disqus comments as well, you are in no danger of losing all your comments in case G+ shuts down because your visitors might comment using the other options that you are providing them.

In conclusion to this let me say that integrating Google+ comments as an additional (not the main) comment system will be a positive feature.

Now let’s focus on the pros and cons of G+ comments for WordPress.

Pros:

Cons:

OK – now to the main point of the article – the integration of G+ comments for WordPress

There are two solutions in the form of WordPress plugins that will do the trick. One is free and the other is premium and therefore paid.

I will start with the free solution.

Comments Evolved for WordPress is the solution to add Google+ Comments

You need the plugin Comments Evolved for WordPress (formerly known as Google+ Comments for WordPress). Install and activate it and then head to the settings menu (it should be under the Comments section) and configure the plugin. You may choose the tab order of the different comment options (as I have already pointed in the post this plugin integrates other comment options as well).

You can choose to display icons in the tabs as well. Comments Evolved for WordPress supports:

For Disqus you need to type in your Disqus Shortname if you intend to integrate this comment system via the plugin.

Save the settings and voila – Google+ comments as well as the other options are integrated. Simple, right?

Another way to integrate Google+ comments is the premium plugin Comments + which also allows your visitors to comment via Facebook, WordPress and even Twitter. You may find out more about it here.

Comments+ is a premium solution to add Google+ comments to WordPress

So this is all for now friends. Currently you have enough information for the most popular comment solutions for WordPress and you can choose the most suitable one for your website. Please share your decision in the comments below.

See you again!

Disqus and Jetpack comments for WordPress

Let’s return on the topic for the WordPress comment system. We already know the benefits of having Facebook comments on your website as well as the solution to add this functionality. Now I will talk about two other options.

One of them is called Disqus which is an externally added comment system and the other one is Jetpack Comments which improves the functionality of the core WordPress comment system.

Let’s begin with Disqus. First of all I’d like to explain why you might want to have this solution as your main WordPress comment system.

Disqus is a great platform. It combines discussions from all over the world wide web and you can easily find a conversation about a topic that you find interesting and of course join it. This service is used by many websites (hundreds of thousands, according to the Disqus help pages). Adding Disqus to your website will allow you to integrate a modern comment system with many features. Additional bonus is the full social network integration of Disqus. Worry about SPAM? Well… don’t be! Disqus comes with a powerful administration and moderation features so that you can fight the spammy comments with style.

But the main reason why you’d want to have it as your main WordPress comment system is that this will create a community around your content. And you want this to happen! Integrating Disqus will add your website in its platform and therefore you may attract more traffic from visitors that use Disqus. We are speaking of a community from over 60 million profiles and a vast number of global conversations. So you can imagine why you might want to attract users from this platform to comment on your website and possibly start a conversation regarding your content.

Disqus is also aiding the performance of your WordPress site. Having too many comments in your own database might slow down your page loading speed. But if you are using external comments systems like Disqus you can remove this burden since the comments simply won’t load from your database and thus your speed will be improved. Also if someone tries to hack your comments you can be sure that you can be safe as any hack attack has to pass through Disqus first and the platform is well protected. Also you can import/export comments which is very important but we’ll go back on this functionality later.

If you are interested in more information about Disqus (and I know that you are) you can find out more about the network and the comment system in the official help pages.

OK so now you know the important benefits of using Disqus as your main WordPress comment system. But how to integrate it?

Disqus comments for WordPress - how to install and integrate

First of all you need to install and activate the official Disqus WordPress plugin. It is called Disqus Comment System. Bear in mind that it is important to make a complete backup of your database (I’d make a backup of the files as well – better safe than sorry) before you continue with the integration of Disqus.

Now if everything was correct you should have the plugin installed and activated and a new subsection in your WordPress admin panel should be added. It is under Comments and is called Disqus. A note about WordPress 2.0 users: You should look for Options -> Disqus.

Then you need a Disqus account. Create one and in the plugin’s options add your username and password. After this choose the website that you are adding comments to from the list of your websites. If you haven’t added your website you may do this from a link in the options menu. And that’s it. Now you can moderate your comments by going to Comments -> Disqus. You can also import old WordPress comments to Disqus and what is more important – you can export comments as well. This is a major advantage since you do not need to depend on any external comment system for your comments in case you are considering a switch to another one.

The Disqus plugin is well supported and if you have any troubleshooting with your theme or a conflict between plugins then you can be aided on time.

Now – let’s return to the core WordPress comment system and see how to make it better by using Jetpack.

Jetpack - social sharing

Jetpack will help you by reducing SPAM and adding additional functionality to the core WordPress comment system such as the ability to comment using:

This saves time and effort to fill in additional details. This is one of the options, the other is to allow the user to enter their email, name and Website to comment so it is a good idea to mark some of these fields as required.

As for the social media integration – the users will be asked to allow access to the WP.com apps for the respective social media. This might be considered for a con.

To use the Jetpack Comment system you need to install, activate Jetpack itself and then from the plugin’s settings you need to activate the comment functionality. This will add additional options to the main settings for the core WordPress comment system under Settings -> Discussion.

So this is it, friends. It’s up to you to decide!

Social sharing solutions for WordPress

Sharing your content in your social media profiles and pages is important. It increases traffic and brand awareness and also helps you gain more social followers for your brand. That is why you are obliged to use social media and use it wisely. However you (as a website and brand owner) are not the only one who would like to share your content. If it is great enough your visitors will do this too. So you need to make it easy for them to post your content in the social media of their choice.

In this article I am going to present you some high quality social sharing solutions for WordPress that will allow your visitors to spread the word about your content in social media.

1. Jetpack and its sharing functionality

Jetpack - social sharing

Jetpack is an advanced WordPress plugin that makes it extremely easy for WordPress beginners to set up their websites so that they may provide all the necessary features. One of the functionalities of this awesome plugin is the sharing buttons. All you need to do is install and activate Jetpack, connect it to your WP.com account and then activate the sharing functionality. Then you may choose which buttons you want to be available for your users and how they will look like. The latter means that you can choose between the Jetpack social sharing button design or the integration of the official buttons for each social media.

The result is great and provides your blog posts the necessary social sharing capabilities. Not to mention that this is done within a couple of minutes. The arranging of the buttons is done via Settings – Sharing in the WordPress admin panel and you can do this by just using drag&drop. Also you may choose the text above the social sharing buttons. This is a call to action section so choose a suitable message. By default the sharing buttons will be at the end of the post but there is a way to show them at the beginning as well.

2. Shareaholic | share buttons & related posts

Shareaholic - social sharing

Shareaholic is a great WordPress plugin that will do exactly what you need – add all the necessary social sharing buttons. But that is not all. Remember when we talked about related or similar posts in WordPress? Well this plugin also provides such a functionality and thus it will not only aid you in getting more social traffic but will also help you reduce your website’s bounce rate.

Shareaholic | share buttons & related posts  is:

And if this is not enough for you – well this plugin provides Social analytics i.e. all the necessary metrics so that you can monitor the activity on your most popular pages, referral channels and of course social sharing activities for your WordPress website.

Final verdict – a must have plugin!

3. Social Media Feather

Social Media Feather

Well since we started talking about speed I must say that this is an extremely important SEO ranking factor. So you have to choose plugins that will not slow down your WordPress website. And here is one of them. Social Media Feather adds lightweight social media sharing and follow buttons so that your visitors can share your content with ease and also without any additional load on your hosting. This plugin focuses on simplicity and better website performance as well as unobtrusive impact. Social Media Feather also provides full support for the Retina and high resolution displays. As for customization – there are skins for the social sharing buttons to choose from and you can also make other changes so that the buttons will fit perfectly for your website.

4. Share Button Mashshare

Share Button Mashshare

This plugin is created by Mashable and it is a great social sharing solution. Its free version only supports Facebook and Twitter and this is more than enough for most websites. This is the negative side of the plugin. But regardless of this Share Button Mashshare is able to provide caching so that you can control the update frequency of the social shares counters. This is extremely important because if used correctly can increase the social sharing rate of your content by stimulating the visitors to share. This is actually the main and most important functionality of this plugin that makes it unique and perfect for your WordPress website. Of course it provides many more functionalities as well.

5. Floating Social Bar

Floating Social Bar

WP Beginner’s baby! It is awesome since it constantly shows the social sharing buttons when the visitors are reading your posts. This floating bar acts as a call-to-action and makes it extremely easy for them to share. Using this plugin may drastically increase the virality of your posts and believe me – you want this to happen! 🙂 Again this plugin is lightweight and it fits perfectly to most of the WordPress themes. So go ahead and try it.

6. Simple Share Buttons Adder

Simple Share Buttons Adder

This plugin does exactly what its name says – adding social sharing buttons to your posts in the simplest way possible. It can be configured very quickly and works correctly without unnecessary burden to your site.

So with this the list ends. However there are more awesome plugins out there so you just need to find the most suitable one for your WordPress website.

Last but not least – let me remind you when your visitors might want to share your content. In order this to happen your posts have to be:

See you again!

Facebook Comments for WordPress

Having a fully functional commenting system for your WordPress site is imperative!

There are many reasons why this is a must but for now let’s focus mainly on building relationships with your audience by speaking to them via the comments. This will definitely help your reputation and will lead to more traffic and followers. Knowing how to handle positive and negative comments and how to respond to each of them is vital but this is a topic that will be discussed later on.

Let’s get back on the need for a fully functional commenting system.

WordPress has one which could be useful by tweaking it a little bit. But this solution could be complex and if you want your visitors to be able to share their opinion on your content as fast and as easy as possible then you will need another option. Starting from this post I will present to you several ways of integrating different comment solutions for WordPress as well as improving the default commenting system.

In this article I am going to explain to you how you can integrate Facebook comments for your WordPress website and why you would want to do this in the first place.

Actually let’s start with the latter. The main reason why you will want this is because you want your visitors to feel great when they are browsing your website. This means that if they want to comment something they should be able to do this instantly without any additional actions. And while most of them are logged in Facebook as they are searching for useful information on the web they will benefit of having the ability to comment directly using their own personal profile. Also the Comment box is similar in terms of design and functionality to the Facebook comments on the social media itself. Thus the visitors will be familiar with the functionality of the commenting system on your WordPress website and will feel comfortable using it. And what is more important – no additional registrations, no extra passwords to remember, no extra personal data to be submitted, etc. But wait there’s more – they will be notified of new comments in Facebook and they will be able to return to your website to re-join the conversation which will result in extra traffic for your website.

The next reason why you would integrate Facebook Comments in WordPress is because this commenting system will lead to virality for your content. Each visitor may choose to share their comment in Facebook as well and this will end up sharing your post/page as well.

We’re not done yet, friends! There’s more! Having Facebook Comments on WordPress will help your content also by increasing its credibility. Why? Because this reduces the fake comments to a minimum since most of the Facebook users will have their own profile picture and name set for their accounts and therefore everyone can see that the comment came from a real person.

OK, so currently we have the following reasons to choose Facebook Comments as a commenting system for WordPress: improved usability, extra social traffic, virality and credibility. What is missing? Ah, yes! SPAM! You don’t want spammy comments for your website, right? Then you have to take care of it somehow. The Facebook Comment system will do this for you since the administration of the social media is fighting with SPAM and fake accounts on a daily basis. So you will have one of the most SPAM-free commenting systems there is.

So with this I am more than sure that you are wondering how to integrate Facebook Comments in WordPress. So let’s focus on this.

There are many plugins that will do the trick for the task at hand. The problem is that many of them are not working correctly or might not fit into your theme design. Either way this is something that is not desired so I am not going to lie to you that the best way to integrate Facebook comments is by visiting the Facebook Developers page and generate the code for the social plugin by yourself. Then place this comment in the respective theme file so that i will show exactly where you want this to happen and voila – you are done!

However this may be hard for beginners that is why I am going to present a solution that I have tested on some of my websites and I know that it functions correctly. It is called Facebook Comments and it is a simple to use plugin. All you need is a Facebook app ID that you can easily create on the Facebook Apps page. Actually you will need this for all the solutions regarding Facebook comments that is why it is important. Now go through the app creation process fill in the necessary details and link the app to your website by choosing Website as the desired platform for the app and finally you will be presented with your app ID which you have to paste in the Facebook Comment plugin settings. Then choose the moderators for your comments. You may assign some of your friends as well.

The settings menu of the Facebook Comments WordPress plugin

Each comment on your WordPress website will result in a Facebook notification and this will allow you to easily moderate the comments. You may allow them as public, delete or hide them with ease. In the plugin’s setting you will find a link to the Facebook moderation tool for your app. Also this plugin provides a great set of options so that you can end up having a perfectly fit and functioning Facebook Commenting system for your website.

The Facebook Comments WordPress Plugin in action on a WordPress Post

Finally I’d like to inform you that if you have entered your app ID in any other plugins and it is present in the Open Graph Protocol code you should not enter it once again for this plugin as it will lead to duplicate lines. So ignore the plugin’s error messages that you have not entered your app ID and proceed using it. It will work.

If you have any questions – feel free to ask in the comments below. Which is your favorite commenting system for WordPress?

See you again friends!

Top 5 tips on promoting your blog or site on Google+

All marketers know that building quality traffic to your blog or site requires constant effort. Unique and engaging content is certainly one of the key ingredients. Gone are the days of relying purely on traffic from SERP, we all know now that we should dedicate time and effort to attracting usage from SM networks. So, how about Google+? For many professionals this platform is a mystery at best or the “spare wheel” of the SM world at worst.

Here are 5 tips that will actually show you that there is considerable mileage in Google+ and you should take advantage of them to promote your site or blog.

1. Communities of enthusiasts

One of the key benefits of being on Google+ is that you can target specific communities that have interests matching your content and objectives. Find the right community (popularity and relevance are important), ask to join, provide value and post but don’t spam. If you are interesting and engaging, you will awaken genuine interest, which will result in more traffic and shares to your pages.

2. Take care when setting up your Business Page

Similarly to a Facebook Page, you’ll need to set up one on Google+. You will need a personal profile to be able to do that. To make the most of it add:

3. Influencers

Google+ is no different than any other “network”, whether it is in the digital or real world. So the simple rule of networking and engaging with real people who are influencers in their field applies here too. Use the “Find people” tool to connect with them – share their updates, follow up on communication and you will gradually get noticed and your content shared.

4. Hashtags

You can use hashtags on Google+ like in other SM platforms. 3 is the golden rule here and if you really think them through, you will stand out as most people overlook the importance of hashtags on Google+.

5. Optimize

Yes, it is important to optimize your content on Google+ just like you do on your blog or website.  Here is some useful advice on what you should focus on:

If you follow these tips and do some additional research about Google+ you can make the platform a very valuable asset in your overall SM marketing mix. Like with any other channels, there are no “ready-made” formulas, you need to be creative and find out what works for you and your business, as this will vary greatly.