The popularity of blogging has practically gone through the roof, with everybody from kids to internet businesses blogging about everything under the sun. In fact, if you have an internet business that you aren’t blogging about, then your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts could be suffering, because having a blog is regarded as one of the major components of a well-rounded search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy.

Many people and companies use blogging for e-commerce purposes, whether through affiliate agreements, digital merchandising, services or actual physical products, but, according to Technorati, very few are actually making money, with a full 72% regarded as hobbyists making no money at all.

Spruce Up Your Blog

If your blog’s conversion numbers aren’t all they could be (and a conversion could be the action of clicking through to your company’s main web site, not just making a purchase), it could be that you need to make your blog a bit more snazzy.

A lot of bloggers use WordPress as their platform of choice due to its flexibility and expandability which comes from the ability to incorporate widgets and plugins into a blog, giving a once boring blog the appearance of the inside of a Las Vegas casino.

Grab These Plugins

Here are some plugins that are a bit more unique and can perform a complete transformation of your current blog into something virtually irresistible.

1. WP-Cumulus

When you first encounter this plugin, you may think you’re dealing with a custom-built widget, but that’s not the case. All the more reason to try it out; it uses Flash video to rotate your site’s categories and tags, all in 3D. So stimulating visually and guaranteed to mesmerise your visitors.

2. Sexy Bookmarks

What a great name for something as mundane sounding as a plugin. And the good news is, it lives up to its billing. It allows visitors to syndicate the content of your site to more than 50 portals and allows sharing via RSS feed and e-mail, all done very elegantly and economically. Another really sexy feature is the massive amount of customisation options available.

3. Explanatory Dictionary

This plugin gets rid of the need for inline text ads by providing explanations of words or phrases that may be hard to understand for the average visitor. You can use this on your site to provide your visitors with more information while avoiding the danger of information overload.

4. Custom Login Page

Make your login page stand out from others with this plugin, which allows you to change the colour and background image of your login form, the background image of your site’s login page, the primary image of your login page and you can even add customised CSS. It all sounds a bit tricky, but the great news is that you’re able to make all the changes using a simple interface, so you don’t have to be a super programmer to take advantage of this plugin.

5. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

Has your blog been the victim of spammers posting rogue comment blasts? Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard the horror stories about the effects of spam on web sites and know that it’s something to be avoided. This plugin helps you do just that by allowing you to add CAPTCHA to any or all forms on your blog, including your comment form, while still allowing trackbacks and pingbacks. It can also be hidden from administrators and users who are logged in.

Whatever the overall goal of your internet business, having a blog that converts visitors to get the results you want is essential, so anything you can do to make your blog stand out from the crowd will be helpful.

To turn your blog into a veritable conversion machine, contact a UK internet business consultant for help implementing the above plugins and more WordPress options.

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