Many of you might be confused by the title and the term “smart”. To me a “smart” blog is a blog that behaves differently depending on its visitors’ behavior and characteristics.
A simple example of this is a blog that displays a list of today’s most popular posts on the sidebar. The list changes based on visitors’ behavior so to this is definitely a smart blog feature. There are plenty of WordPress plugins out there that do this for you automatically (e.g. Top 10), but that is not the point. The point here is that having the ability to morph your blog per visitor activity can assist you in meeting your conversion goals (whatever they may be). A list of popular posts is quite a simple feature, so let me take you to another level by showing you more ways to make your blog smart.
List of “Smart” Features to Implement on Your Blog
1. Display a different welcome message to different people
A great way to meet conversion goals is to display different things to different types of visitors. For example, you can show a welcome message only to new visitors and not to returning visitors. The message could be used to encourage new visitors to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed, to download your eBook, to follow the your Twitter, or to satisfy any other conversion goal. You can also specify a call-to-action in the message depending on where the visitor is coming from. For example, you can ask your visitor to Digg your post if the visitor is referred to you from digg.com.
There are already some plugins that automatically do this for you (e.g. WP Greet Box and Referrer Detector) in case you were wondering how you can implement such a feature on your WordPress blog. Again the point here is that these plugins give you the ability to morph your blog based on your audience.
2. Show where other people went from current post
This feature is similar to a list of related posts, but is a bit different because the list is determined by visitor behavior. Most related posts plugins use an algorithm to determine post relativity, but algorithms only go so far. Why not trust your human visitors to generate this list of related posts for you?
To implement this feature, you can install the Where did they go from here? plugin. This plugin will add a “Readers who viewed this page, also viewed” section after your blog posts and track visitor activity to fill up these lists.
3. Show related post based on search queries
When a visitor comes to your site through a search engine, they are looking for something very specific. If they land on your site and do not immediately find what they are looking for, they are as good as gone. It would be smart for a blog to detect these search terms from search engine visitors and display a list of posts that closely matches these terms. That way if the current post is not what the visitor is looking for, they will be tempted to visit other posts relating to their search terms before they leave your site.
To implement this, all you have to do is install either WP Greet Box, Referrer Detector, or Landing Sites WordPress plugin.
4. Thank a first time commenter
Most people love human interaction. I love reading blogs because I know that there is somebody on the other side that I can email and chat with. A good way to gain loyal readers is to thank first time commenters for contributing to your blog. This helps you breaks the ice and assure your new reader that you are there if they ever want to email you.
For this feature, you can use the Comment Relish WordPress plugin.
5. Display custom message to people who use Ad Block software
I know I’m going to get flamed for introducing this feature, but here goes anyway (please don’t flame me too much).
If you are a blogger that makes the majority of your money from advertisements, your income is definitely hurt from ad block software installed with your visitor’s browser. A smart blog would remind visitors with ad block software that they are using ad block and suggest that they turn it off to support the blog. Of course this message shouldn’t be displayed more than once or the blog will definitely lose traffic.
If you are interested in this feature, you can check out the Anti-AdBlock WordPress plugin, which will display any message you like at any frequency (I recommend once) to visitors with ad block enabled.
6. Selective advertising
As you may know, Google Ads does “smart pricing” to determine how much they pay you per click. This means that if your ad has high click-through ratio, then they will pay more per click. You can optimize this click-through ratio by not displaying ads in situations where you know that they are not going to be clicked. To do this, you have to realize that there are two types of visitors to your blog: new and returning. New visitors are more likely to click on an advertisement than returning visitors so it is best if you do not show these ads to returning visitors at all.
You can implement this feature by installing Who Sees Ads?, which is the ultimate plugin for selectively displaying advertisments.
7. Mini “About” section only for new visitors
Have you even been to a blog that as a mini “About” section in the sidebar? (If not, you can check out Planet Ozh‘s sidebar) Doesn’t it make sense to show this section only to new visitors? Hiding the section for returning visitors helps you reduce clutter in your sidebar and helps you bring other important content above the fold.
You can also implement this using Who Sees Ads?. Just treat the “About” section as an ad unit in your sidebar and specify that it should only be displayed to new visitors.
8. Ask for donations from returning visitors
To me, it doesn’t really make sense to ask a new visitor for donations because I’m not sure how they feel about my content yet. Now if the visitor returns quite often, then I know that my content is useful to them. I am more comfortable asking regular readers for donations as they are more inclined to donate anyway. To me, this feature implemented along with feature #6 makes a whole lot of sense. New visitors only see ads and returning visitors only see donation requests.
You can also implement this feature with Who Sees Ads?. Just treat the donate banner as an ad unit and specify that it should only be displayed to regular visitors.
9. Display “Out on Vacation” message
Everybody needs to take a break once in a while. Wouldn’t it be nice to let your readers know that you are on vacation and let them know when to expect you back? That way you don’t lose readers from inactivity or lose readers who comment expecting an immediate reply.
This is not really a feature based on visitor behavior, but I feel that it is still a smart feature because the message is only displayed to visitors that visit within a certain time period.
You can again use Who Sees Ads? to display an “Out on Vacation” message near the top of your blog between a specific date range. I love this because when you come back from vacation, you won’t have to remember to take down the notification banner. You can also reuse the same notification banner the next time you go on vacation.
Conclusion
By now, I think you guys get what I mean by a “smart” blog. Hopefully, these powerful plugins can help you reshape your blog into a more visitor oriented blog.
Got a “smart” blog feature of your own? Please share any other “smart” blog ideas in the comments section.
Smart Tips, I have been using WSA for some time but haven’t really thought about maximizing its use for something like, showing a biography to regular new users only and the latter information, thanks!
Greetings,
Kevin Paquet of Pinoy Teens
pinoyteens.net
Nice Thaya,
cheers for that.
i guess you could also use one of those Google keyword plugins at the top of a search entry, just to show you know how to do that.
…but your tips are better than that ol’ chestnut.
Thanks.
I will use some of these on my blog.
But you know some people like me prefer not to feel too exposed when checking out a blog or any other website. Some websites go like : “Good afternoon you are in : —– your IP is xx.xx.xx.xx this is the second time you visit”
Also about ads for returning visitors. sometimes I do click ads on blogs as some form of “thank you” to the blogger. So i think it is better to show ads to returning visitors
PsMan
http://angrybyte.com webmaster
Thanks for compiling the list. I especially took interest in those relating to customizing content based upon which search engine sends the traffic. My main concern here is the additional load that the server will endure when these plugins are installed. I suppose that trial and error will determine which ones I actually use.
Thanks for the informative post.
Tony from The Shopping Network
shop-network.org
Thankees for the tips!
My blog may never see more than 100 visitors a day but at least I can make those visitors’ visits a bit more pleasant.
yes babs, you’re absolutely right. every visitor coming should have a pleasant experience with our blog or website, that’s the only way you can expect them coming back twice or may be thrice 🙂
Thank you Thaya for all these tips and for introducing me to several new plugins to help improve my blog. I especially like the fact that plugins like “Who Sees Ads?” and “WP Greet Box” have multiple uses to them; hopefully most plugins in the future will have multi use options like these (maybe i’ve just been living under a rock and they’re actually already here). So thanks again for introducing them, they’re exactly what I was looking for 🙂
I’m a newbie with WordPress but have managed to find my way round the stylesheets etc. These tips are the icing on the cake to make it work more like a fully fledged cms rather than just a blog.
Thanks!
Very cool list, I’m going to give the Who Sees Ads option a try! Thanks
I installed the Comment Relish plugin last week and think it’s a great ideal. The Greeting plugin looks quite interesting too.
Nice practical tips.
This is a great list of ideas, and adds a bit of personality to your blog. A must read, for sure.
Thanks for this list! It’s very helpful!
I installed WP GREET BOX plugin and i found it very useful.
Nice article, I installed comment relish and activated my week old deactivated wp greet box plugin.
Very nice tips.
I’d add Popularity, which shows the most popular posts on the blog, and a top referer widget also.
I don’t agree on showing about only to new visitors. This widget uses to has a little info about ourselves, and recurring visitors may want this info.
This anti-adblock message is abusive, we can’t interfere on how users choose to interact with sites they visit. I’ve already seen sites that related ads with content, forcing they to be shown to be able to post on the forum, etc.
And I doubt visitors will donate to a blog just because they visit it a lot. Unless we offer very valuable exclusive content, ppl will never donate anyway.
🙂
Awesome plugins. I have been thinking about pop ups for new visitors and asking returning visitors for donations and wondered how to go about it.
God bless great plugins!
Cheers!
Useful tip
I use referral detector and wordpres greet box extensively. Now I will have a look at who see’s my ad plugin.
Thanks for these useful tips. I appreciate if you could allow me to translate and publish in Turkish on my blog. (Will put a link to here)
Cheers.
Taylan
Thanks for the great list of plugins. I have been thinking about istalling Who Sees Ads for some time now. With you suggestions I think that now is the time. I didn’t think you could use it for so many different things!
Thank you for all of your kind words. I love it when my posts gain steam!
This is great! Thank you very much.
Firstly, that was a great article. It was encouraging to find some new plugins (Comment Relish is a newcomer to my blog!), and to confirm some of my other choices (WP Greet Box).
I’d like to really strongly recommend Transposh as another “Must Have” plugin. The support for the plugin has been great, and the I’m now seeing more international non-English readers of my blog. I put an article on my blog, http://itjuggler.ollis.id.au/2.....instantly/, that generated a lot of hits, and international users.
I have no affiliation or financial relationship with Transposh – it’s just a great plugin.
This is perhaps one of the most brilliant posts I’ve seen for blogs in a long time. Not the typical list of plugins or tips but really practical and creative ideas to improve the quality of a blog
Thanks alot!
Great tips! As someone who is just starting out in the blogging world, I appreciate the advice. 🙂
George Beckingham
More fun stuff to try adding to my blog. I especially like the “Where did they go” module. Thanks!
Good tips… I will give them a try
Thank You.
Wp greet box is useful alright but the problem with it is that it really takes a lot of time to load. By the time it loads, the readers would have already be some where in the middle of the article
@Sriraj
You can use it in PHP mode so you don’t get the *bump* effect.
thanks.. useful post.. implemted search engine referral plugin..
Great tips and tricks. Thanks for the ideas. I’ll sum up and comment your post and publish it. It just doesn’t fit in a comment box 😉
I like this list. As a webmaster of a new blog/cms site, there are some real winners in there.
I had been considering wpgreet box, but will certainly give it a try now.
Also, good logic on some of the other functions regarding differing content for new and returning visitors. I think this part is better subtle, as to not engage privacy concerns for returning viewers.
great article.
~ Dpak
Most of the plugins you recommended will not work with a caching plugin / software in place and so it won’t be useful for any popular blogs.
@Angsuman
I don’t think so. All plugins I mentioned in the post works with WP Super Cache except for Who Sees Ads. You should try them out.
Let me correct myself, all except Who Sees Ads and Landing Sites.
Turkish translated version of your post at http://tuguts.com/2009/04/word.....n-9-oneri/
Thanks again 🙂
I think the Greeting Box Plugin some how is very attractive for some of blog’s visitor..
That is very clever indeed. Thank you very much.
Great tips.May be I’ll try it for my new blog
Thanks
Terrific post and I have implemented the Greet Box on my site – thanks!
Great tips! And perfect timing too. Just when I needed to set up a blog for a friend you come with all these plugins and examples to make it even better. Thanks a lot!
I can’t believe you are giving all these tips away…. they are really helpful! Thank you very much. One thing I find useful for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is Digg.com. They seem to have a great relationship with google’s spiders.
They are all great tips, thanks for sharing! The only complicated is to get donations from returning visitors, but they are great.
That Comment Relish plug-in is a great way to foster goodwill. We can always use more of that on the www. Thanks for the tips.
-Mitch
Comment Relish is my fave out of all those recommended in this post. I’ve been trying to get my friends and family to focus on posting their responses in one spot. Giving them kudos for commenting about my blog ON my blog is always a good thing. 🙂
Great ideas! looks like I have several new plugins to install and configure thanks to this post.
Great list. These are useful plugin especially the “Who See Ads” as the plugin will increase our Adsense earnings.
Hi,
Nice article. Starting to implement the above tipson my blog. How did you get the ‘visiters from this post also read’ and ‘related posts from the past’ in 2 columns with a vertical line in between ? And how do you get the horizontal lines ?
D.
Great post. Lots of good tips in here.
Wow, I’ve bookmarked this page. I’m most interested in optimizing for Google Smart pricing. I’ll try the “Who sees ads” plug-in for sure and report back here for how it worked for me. I also have some PHP code that will selectively show ads for WP blogs to search visitors only. This cuts helps to boost the AdSense CTR. The combination of these tools can be very powerful.
Wow Thaya, I am very impressed by your post! I look at these types of posts a lot in the last couple of weeks, hoping to find a diamond in the rough plugin that I didn’t know about. Usually similar posts have the same old basic, well known plugins and do not offer anything new. Your post on the other hand, lists ones I have never even heard of! I have bookmarked you and will get to adding some of these plugins ASAP.
Thanks!
~Sandy
Great stuff. I like to email first time commenters too when I get a chance. You can build a good email list that way to keep people updated on what you’re doing. This also ties in nicely with the vacation tip, you can just send out a blanket email in addition to updating on your blog.
I will not flame you my friend, but I will say this… I believe in the concept that everything on the net should be free. Its like with plugins, who can afford to pay $10 per plugin when there are over 900 different plugins for wordpress? needless to say 50% of them do exactally the same thing, making the listing of “unique” plugins way below that, but still who can afford that much? I think asking for donations is good, because thats an option, but I DO NOT believe in subjecting people to ads. As long as the ads aren’t obtrusive I pretty much don’t care, its the popups, popunders, and other tactics that some websites use for tracking users activity that I don’t care for. spyware in other words, and most people block ads because of fear of spyware, especially on a personal blog they don’t trust because for all they know you could be a hacker or warez person so I can understand why people use ad blockers. I’m just jealous because out of all the years I’ve been designing sites I have NEVER EVER made 1 dime off of ads! google or anywhere else! I’ve never been able to figure out how people make money on their personal blogs, so I’m firmly against the idea of having any advertisements on a blog, but thats IMHO. if I can’t make money on google ads or any other ad company nobody else should be able to either. lol there I’ve said my peace. lol
Thanks for the tips, i will start to test some!
Excellent advice! One of the worst things for an end user looking for something specific is trying like heck to find it and wasting valuable time. Some blogger miss the whole concept of having a well designed blog.