Searching for a new WordPress plugin and testing new plugins is a time consuming process that doesn’t always yield good results.

In my last post about WordPress Plugins, I discussed my method for searching for new WordPress plugins. Most of the time when we are designing and developing custom WordPress themes, we have a stable of plugins that have not caused us or our clients any major headaches.

The list below of free WordPress plugins are ones we use depending on the goals and needs of the individual WordPress site we are working on.

Get Our List of Top Free WordPress Plugins

Even the most seasoned bloggers can forget an important step when publishing a new blog post.

And forgetting a step usually means a lost opportunity to optimize your post for the search engines, to get found by your ideal clients online, and to attract new readers to your website.

Use this blog post optimization checklist each time you publish a new post to ensure that it is ready to attract visitors, and optimized to improve your search engine rankings.

Learn the 11 Ways to Optimize a Blog Post

If you use Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, it’s no doubt that you have seen shortened links like http://bit.ly/ipOaP5. Tiny URL and Bit.ly are just two of the free URL shorteners available to help you share links with social media.

Why use a URL shortener? First, it keeps the link shorter so you take up fewer characters in the post. Second, you can track data and statistic for the shortened links.

A while back, I upgraded my free Bitly account to use a custom domain (http://bourn.co) while they were beta testing custom domains. The result is branded sharable domains like: http://bourn.co/jMuRs4 and http://bourn.co/lPMbCK which are trusted because you recognize the brand name – our name – in the link.

Here’s the great Custom Domain Shortlink news for you!

Learn How to Get Your Own Branded Short URL

Links on your website to other pages on your website are known as internal links, meaning all traffic stays on your website.

The internal links on your website, and more important, the words used in the internal links are a very important part of your organic search engine optimization efforts and can make a big difference!

Here is a quick guide to maximizing the click-throughs and effectiveness of your internal website links:

Learn How to Optimize Your Internal Website Links

Online marketing and search engine optimization consultants talk A LOT about website links and why you need to pay attention to them and optimize them.

But while they talk a lot, and blog a lot, and write a lot, they use a lot of jargon and technical speak that can be really hard to understand if you’re new to link building and link optimization.

Today, I’m sharing with you the real story about inbound links, outbound links, and internal links, why you need them, what they do for you, and how they are different.

Read More About Inbound Links, Outbound Links, and Internal Links

Often when we start working with a new client, they are anxious to get their site up quickly and want to jump into the website design process and get started right away.

But design isn’t the first step in the process of creating a successful small business website. Before we get started on the design of any client site, we first need to work with our clients to plan the site.

Planning a small business website or a small business blog can be a daunting task, but it will make a huge difference in your conversion rates, sales, and results you see from the site.

Here is a list of things you need to take into consideration and plan for before you get started on the design of your website:

Read More About Planning a Successful Small Business Website

Did you know that Google has a segmented search engine just for searching blogs and blog content?

That’s right! There is a blog search engine. Cool right?

Here’s the link: http://blogsearch.google.com/

Why should you as an entrepreneur or business owner care about Google’s Blog Search Engine?

That’s easy!

Bloggers are the new wave of trusted, authentic media, and they have a huge impact on journalism, sales, consumer thought, and communications.

Google’s blog search engine will help you if:

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When you type the keyword or key phrase you want to be listed under into the LinkedIn search bar, do you show up?

And, here’s the more important question – Do you show up when others are searching for you?

When searching for people on LinkedIn, the default setting is to show the results by relevance – which means when search for your keyword, you should show up at the top of your list, with your first tier connections showing up next, and second tier connections showing up after that etc.

When you change the results to display by keyword instead of relevance, the results change. Do you show up for the keyword you want to in this setting?

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If you haven’t set up a profile page on the About.me website yet, you should. Not only it is another way you can be found online and direct web surfers back to your website or Facebook page, but it is another marketing resource you can use for free!

When setting up your About.me portal page, you have total control. You can show a photo and no text, all text and no photo, you can add a custom background, create a custom layout, choose your fonts, add your text, and link the page to all of your websites and social media sites.

Your About.me profile is nothing more than a single page all about you. It’s a free portal page tool you can use to help people visit all the places you are active at online. With your profile, you can:

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Have you ever been searching for directions with Google Maps and seen a business listing come up in the results?

The businesses that appear are taking advantage of a free service from Google called Google Places (Formerly Google Local).

Any business – even a virtual business can create a Google Places business profile that includes customer reviews, special offers or coupons, hours of operation, videos (up to 5) and more.

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