Use stats to convince your client or boss of the benefits of WordPress

Posted: 04 Jul 2016 04:31 AM PDT

Even though WordPress is used by over a quarter of all websites on the Internet it's still avoided by most small businesses.

WordPress is free, simple, and powerful. It's behind some of the biggest and most popular websites there are.

It's so popular in fact that some developers specialise in using WordPress because it is so flexible and simple.

Here are some statistics about WordPress that you should share with your clients or your boss to convince them that WordPress is the way to go.

There are some impressive stats associated with WordPress that are going to be enough to convert even the most stubborn boss or client.

WordPress powers the Internet

One impressive statistic right of the bat is that, as of half way through 2016, over 26% of all websites (yes, every website) is powered by WordPress.

1.1 million WordPress powered websites are created every six months. WordPress is becoming more popular by the day as people begin to realise how simple and easy it is to use.

Their CMS makes it super easy to create and run a website. WordPress powers one third of the top 1000 websites on the Internet.

Even though WordPress has a bit of a reputation for being a blogging platform the truth is that many major websites also use WordPress and not just the neighbor next door with her mommy blog.

Wouldn't your client want to tap into it? Just show them how many people are using and working with WordPress websites and you could have them convinced right away.

WordPress is used by major websites

Your client's opinion is probably just as misguided as most CTO's and CMO's in the corporate world are; they think that WordPress is just a blogging platform and is only good for personal blogs and small hobby websites.

That's an opinion that is very far away from the truth. There are loads of big-name corporations and well-known household hold brands that use WordPress too.

Here is a shortlist of some of the major brands that are taking advantage of the WordPress CMS:

The Wall Street Journal
Forbes
CNN
TechCrunch
Mercedes-Benz
Samsung
Microsoft
And many more!

These are all websites that bring in millions of visitors a month. Even a list as small as this is bound to impress a client and convince them that WordPress is worth a look after all.

WordPress is a CMS that can handle a website of any size.

WordPress comes with plenty of options

Something else that is bound to please your clients is all of the customisation options that WordPress comes with. People like to perpetuate the falsehood that every WordPress website looks the same.

This just simply isn't true. You only need to take a look at all the customisation options on offer to realise that no two WordPress websites need to look the same. For the majority of people it's impossible to tell that a website is run on WordPress by looking at it because a WordPress website can look how you want it to.

WordPress.org currently has over 45,000 free plugins that have been downloaded over 1,300,000,000 times. Plugins can be used to customise a site to meet your needs. There are also many more premium plugins available for a small fee. There are plugins for almost everything.

Plugins help to make a website SEO friendly, stop spam, organise content, and customise your site with design and accessibility features.

WordPress.org also lists over 1,800 free themes. Just like with plugins there are a number of commercial themes that you have to pay for. There are also third party themes and apps that, while not listed on the WordPress site, are still compatible with the WP platform.

These thousands of themes and plugins give you all the tools you need to make a truly unique website that is perfect for your needs.

WordPress is frequently updated

Everyone should, rightly, avoid any platform, service, or site that doesn't receive regular updates and has security flaws. Luckily WordPress has a great community that works around the clock to keep WordPress secure.

WordPress receives a major update every 152 days on average. All of these updates are free. Some of the bigger themes and plugins are also constantly updated so they always work.

WordPress 4.5 is the current version of WordPress and it has been downloaded more than 24,000,000 times.

In most cases when a WordPress website is compromised, then it's not because of the platform itself but rather because of poor website management like:

Using an unreliable web hosting
Not updating WordPress and its components.
Using weak easy to "brute force" usernames and passwords.
Installing plugins from sources that aren't trusted.

Research from Wordfence, a WordPress security firm, states that if you protect yourself against the two major methods attackers use to hack a website, namely via WordPress plugin vulnerabilities and using brute force attacks, then you are accounting for over 70% of the problem.

Combined, these measures will reduce the risk of being hacked to a minimum and make WordPress as safe as any other website and content management system out there on the market.

WordPress is the most popular CMS

If your client still has doubts about WordPress then inform them that the WordPress CMS is used by almost 59.4% of all content management systems, making it by far the most popular CMS in the world.

To show the dominance of WordPress; second place goes to Joomla, which has a 6% market share. That's a difference of more than 50%. WordPress is the biggest and best for a reason; it's so user-friendly.

Any product or service that is that dominant is bound to be incredible at what it does for a reason. Show your clients around WordPress and show them how easy it is to use.

Conclusion

Using stats is one of the best ways to sell your client or boss on going with WordPress. WordPress is the right choice and these stats have more than enough firepower to back up your argument.

WordPress is so popular that it just makes sense to use it as a content management system. Show your client or your boss the numbers and show them around WordPress and you'll leave them wondering what took them so long.

This post was contributed by ReviewSquirrel.com, a website dedicated to helping small businesses start or grow their website or online shop.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

“PB129: How to Create Your Facebook Advertising – 3 Types of Ads to Consider” plus 1 more

PB129: How to Create Your Facebook Advertising – 3 Types of Ads to Consider

Posted: 04 Jul 2016 02:00 AM PDT

Three Types of Ads to Consider When Creating Facebook Advertising

Today we are talking about Facebook advertising. If you are all about organic, we also have a podcast about organic Facebook reach coming up. Facebook has been putting more emphasis on advertising, and I know it something that many of you grapple with.

A nice thing about Facebook advertising is that you don't have to invest a lot, and it can have immediate results.

I have done some Facebook advertising, especially when I have a product to launch. But since I'm not an expert, I brought in one of our Facebook advertising subject matter experts. Angela Ponsford from Dotti Media.

Today Angela is going to share some tips on how to create our first Facebook ad.

Listen to this episode above here on the show notes or check it out over on iTunes here.

In Today's Episode How to Create Your Facebook Advertising – 3 Types of Ads to Consider

Boosted posts
- Facebook tracks everything that you do
- It uses the information to build a database of your interests and likes
- It also measures what you do off of Facebook, like clicking on links or spending time on a website
- As a marketer, you have that information available to you
- Facebook determines objectives for each type of post
- The objective of a boosted post is to get engagement on that post within the Facebook platform, someone liking, commenting, or sharing that post
- If you want to get people to a blog post on your website a boosted post is not the best way to do that
- At Dotti Media, we used a boosted post to get feedback from our Facebook fan page because we wanted engagement on that Facebook post
- Before you click on the boosted post button, be sure of what action you want to take
Clicks to website ads
- From Facebook's perspective, these are designed to get people to click out to your website
- They will show the ad to people who have historically clicked out to other websites
- To set up a clicks to website ad
  - Click the link in your status update
  - Paste the URL of your website post in the status update box
  - Then go to the Facebook Ads Manager or Power Editor to set up the Clicks to Website Ad
Website conversion ads
- The difference between a clicks to website ad and a website conversion ad is that with the website conversion ad, you want a user to take an action on your website
- There is a bit more to set these up because you need to install the tracking pixel – a piece of code on your website that allows Facebook to track visitors on your website
- This is a powerful Facebook ad, and it can give you powerful insight into your audience

Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view

Darren: Hi there, it's Darren from ProBlogger here. Welcome to Episode 129 of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about Facebook Advertising.

I know some of you are probably about to hit the stop button because you're not interested in Facebook in terms of advertising because you’re all about organic, that's great, that's totally fine. We've actually got an episode on organic Facebook reach coming up soon.

But as most bloggers are aware, Facebook has been putting more and more emphasis into advertising as a way to reach your followers. So, it is something that I know many of you are grappling with. One of the great things about Facebook advertising is that it isn't something you need to invest a whole heap of money into. It can be something that you can get into for just a few dollars and it can have immediate results on your side.

I don't do a lot of Facebook advertising, but we over the last year have put more emphasis into it particularly when we've been launching products or when I have a key blog post that I need to get out there, or a podcast episode for that matter. Some of you will have seen some of the advertising that we have done for the ProBlogger Facebook page.

I’m not an expert in Facebook Advertising, so I brought in today one of our Facebook advertising subject matter experts from the blog, Angela Ponsford who you'll be hearing more from on the blog in the coming months. Angela is also speaking at the ProBlogger event in September. She works at Dotti Media where you can find out more about her as well, dottimedia.com is the address for that.

Today, what I've asked Angela to do is to just share with us for seven or eight minutes some tips on how to create our first Facebook ad. Facebook advertising can get very overwhelming and very complicated. You can waste a whole heap of money on this, so you do want to do it the right way. But in this particular episode, Angela explains three types of ads to consider for that first Facebook ad and talks about the differences between them.

She talks about boosted posts which is the one that most of us are most familiar with because we see it every time we go to Facebook. On our page, we see the option to boost our post. There are times and places where boosted posts can work and Angela talks about what the boosted post is and when you should use it.

She also shares two other types of ads which may be more appropriate for your first ad and may get you better results. Firstly, click to website ads and secondly, website conversion ads. These are two different types of ads which are not too hard to set up but may have much better results for you depending upon your goals. She gives you some examples of when you should potentially be thinking about using these.

I’m going to leave it at that and hand over to Angela who's prepared about seven minutes of content on this particular topic first, and then I'll wrap it up at the end. Here's Angela.

Angela: Hey, it's Angela from Dotti Media here. You can find me online at dottimedia.com. Today, I want to talk to you about some Facebook ads and just give you an explanation of some of the types of ads that you might be running as a blogger.

The first one I want to talk to you about is boosted posts. One of the most common things that I hear from people that are running Facebook ads is, "I boosted my post but it didn't work because nobody came to my website and bought my stuff." Before we can answer that question and realize that it may not actually be a problem with your Facebook ad, you have to understand how Facebook ads work and how Facebook determines who to show those ads to.

When you’re using Facebook, Facebook is tracking everything that you do. It's tracking what photos, what videos you’re liking. It's tracking if you’re commenting on things, it's tracking if you’re sharing things. It's using that information to build a database of your interests and your likes.

The other thing that's happening with Facebook is it's also measuring what you’re doing off of Facebook. It's measuring if you’re clicking on links and going to someone's website. And then once you get to that website, it's measuring how long you’re spending on that website and if you’re taking any actions on that website such as buying a product, signing up for somebody's newsletter.

Facebook really is the most amazing database of information on consumers that really exists in the world. As a business owner and a marketer, you have that information available to you to target your ads to.

Let's come back to the boosted post. Facebook determines objectives for each type of post. The objective of a boosted post within Facebook is to get engagement on that post within the Facebook platform. Therefore, it's someone liking, commenting, or sharing that post within the platform. If you wanted to get people to see and read your blog post on your website, a boosted post is not the best way to do that.

When would you use a boosted post? Well, if I gave you an example of when I've used one for Dotti Media, we wanted some feedback from the fans of our page. We asked a question on the page. I wanted as many people as possible to see that post so I boosted it. I boosted it to the fans of the page so that I could get engagement on that post. That's an example of when you might want to use a boosted post as well.

I know it's really, really tempting to hit that boost post button because it's right there in front of you on Facebook, but the one thing I really need to challenge you to do before you hit it and before you run any ads is to be completely clear on what action you want people to take once they see your ad.

If you do want somebody to click through to your website, then you should run clicks to website ad. Let's talk about click to website ads and how you set them up. Well, as I said, the aim of that from Facebook's perspective is to get people to click out to your website. They are going to show that ad to people that have historically indicated within their actions on Facebook that they like to click on links to websites.

I'll give you an example from my own personal experience. My mom uses Facebook to connect with me and see my photos and my kids, but she never ever clicks through to our website. Facebook is not going to show her an ad or my new blog post because she's not going to click on it. As I've said, it's a super database for individuals and for marketers to tap into, although it does seem a bit creepy sometimes.

When you set up a clicks to website ad, it's essentially just you clicking a link in your Facebook status update. Often times I’m sure if you have your Facebook page, you'll copy the URL of your latest blog post and you'll just paste it onto the status update box. That essentially becomes the clicks to website ad. And then, you'd have to go into the ads manager to set it up as your clicks to website.

The next one on from a clicks to website, and one that people often get confused about and they mix it up with the clicks to website ad is a website conversion ad. I like to look at these ads and instead you start with the boost post, and then the clicks to website, and then the website conversion ad.

The difference between the website conversion ad and the clicks to website ad is that the conversion ad is when you want someone to take an action on your website. For example, you want them to give you their email address in exchange maybe for your free opt-in or just to get on your newsletter, or the conversion could be that someone buys your product. It's an action that somebody takes on your website.

As I said, Facebook is measuring and monitoring these things all the time so it knows the people that like to buy things online, that like to sign up for newsletters. If you run a website conversion ad, then it's going to show your ad to those people that are most likely to take that action.

Obviously, there is a little bit more of setup on your website because you have to be able to track that conversion. I haven't mentioned the Facebook pixel. It's basically a little piece of code, sits on your website, and it allows Facebook to track visitors from Facebook. That's how it gets all this information.

When you’re running the website conversion ad, there is a little bit more code that you have to add to your website. It's a little bit more advanced, but I can talk about that in another session. But then, it really is a powerful ad and it can give you lots of insight into your audience and it can really help you narrow down who you wanna target with future ads.

That's a quick say into three of the most common ads that you might want to run as a blogger.

Darren: I hope you found that useful. Thank you, Angela, it's nice to have another accent on the show as well. I look forward to introducing you to her again in the future. She's going to be writing some blog posts over on the blog.

Also, I'd love to get her back on the podcast as well to take some of your questions. If you've got any questions about what she's just said or the next steps, I would highly recommend that you head over to the show notes of this particular podcast at problogger.com/podcast/129. There's an option there to leave questions in two ways. Firstly, you can leave a comment and ask your question there. Angela may be so kind as to answer that question live, but we'll also take some of those questions in the next podcast episode that I do with Angela and do more of an interview style podcast.

You can also leave a question via audio over on the show notes as well. You see a big green button which invites you to leave me an audio message. You've got a couple of minutes to share your message although briefer is better, and we'll play that on that particular show as well if it's one that we think is appropriate.

Again, go to problogger.com/podcast/129 and let us know what your Facebook advertising questions are. We also will have an episode in the coming months on organic Facebook reach, we've got a social media subject matter expert on that particular topic coming up for you as well. I look forward to that one. Make sure you’re subscribed and you'll get notified when that one goes live.

Thanks for listening today and we'll chat with you in a couple of days time with Episode 130.

How did you go with today's episode?

If you have any more questions for Angela, please leave them here by comment or audio. We will answer some of those in the next podcast.

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The post PB129: How to Create Your Facebook Advertising – 3 Types of Ads to Consider appeared first on ProBlogger Podcast.

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