WordCamp Phoenix — Conversion Optimization for Your WordPress Blog

January 29, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Apologies in advance, this post has nothing to do with Phoenix real estate. Nor is it really a random musing, but I said I’d post it, so here it is!

This morning I had the opportunity to speak at WordCamp Phoenix, a ridiculously well organized multi-track conference about WordPress (the software this blog is running on).

The topic was “Conversion Optimization for Your WordPress Blog”. Boring to many, I’m sure, but it’s important stuff if you have a real estate blog (or any blog for business).

Here’s the overview:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important. After all, if no one can find your blog then really, what is the point?

But let’s face it. You can have a visually stunning blog, that is NUMBER ONE ON GOOGLE! for every search term on the planet, and that won’t amount to a hill of beans or put money in your pocket if you don’t convert those visitors into some sort of paying client.

“Conversion Optimization” is rarely discussed, but it is a critical component of a blog designed to attract and generate clients and business.

While this session is targeted to real estate professionals (it is in the real estate track after all), anyone that has a blog designed to convert visitors to clients might find some nuggets of wisdom. We’ll explore:

Defining your blog’s ultimate purpose.
Using heat maps, A/B testing and Google Analytics URL builder to optimize for conversion various design elements on your real estate (or other genre) blog.
Look at real life examples and <<gasp!>> data to show the impact of various conversion optimization techniques.

No sales pitches, no ridiculous promises of untold wealth. Just nuts and bolts tools, ideas and concepts to get that blog of yours converting visitors to clients.

Here is the presentation:

Conversion Optimization for Your WordPress Blog on Prezi

A video of the presentation will also be available in a couple of weeks. I’ll post it then!

About Jay Thompson

I'm a former real estate broker in Phoenix, Arizona, currently work for Zillow Group and am the founder of the Phoenix Real Estate Guy blog. I tend to drive too fast and scream at the University of Texas and Denver Broncos football teams. My two kids are smarter than most adults I know and my wife is simply amazing.

Comments

Janae Jaynes-Learned via Facebook says

January 29, 2011 at 2:01 pm

Thanks Jay! Another great one!
Renee Burrows says

January 29, 2011 at 2:12 pm

Thanks for the tools for click heat.
Joanne Dean Crum via Facebook says

January 29, 2011 at 3:44 pm

Great article Jay! Thanks for sharing.
Elizabeth Ramsey Cooper-Golden via Facebook says

January 29, 2011 at 6:28 pm

Fantastic Jay! It’s true…you’re da bomb 🙂
Keith says

January 29, 2011 at 8:00 pm

Thank you Jay, I can’t wait for the video, because I get the overall sense of the Prezi app but the details would be great. Need to check out the heat mapping software.
Mary says

January 30, 2011 at 8:31 am

Jay,

Thanks for the truth-Most people think when you are on Google page one you are set-Nope! Unless you have high quality site with great content then you will see some cash while you sleep as for those autoblogs,autobacklinks Mmm!no hope unless you are running adsense ads that pay a penny a click.

1
Dave Kinkade says

January 30, 2011 at 2:25 pm

Those heat maps are really cool! I’ve always wondered what my visitors are looking at – what interests them.
Anita [email protected] Robins Real Estate says

January 30, 2011 at 5:41 pm

Converting leads separates the men from the boys (so to speak). Good post and a nice video Jay….thanks for sharing.
Denise Hamlin says

January 31, 2011 at 6:37 pm

Interesting stuff Jay. Definitely need to check out heat maps. Thanks for the tips, there are some very cool tools here.
justin says

January 31, 2011 at 8:58 pm

Love it. Thank you for the info, I will definately use it. PS…I love Pheonix!!
Joe McDermott says

January 31, 2011 at 10:03 pm

Thank you for posting this. I’ve been blogging for a few years but haven’t really worked on conversion…it was just a vehicle for venting.

I’ve been successful in getting buyers with many different websites, but feel I need to do a lot of work on my blog so I can provide a better service to folks in my area. This is very helpful for me. Thanks, Joe
Jose Dias says

January 31, 2011 at 10:35 pm

Jay, thank you for posting this… If we are not careful we end up writing posts repeating key words only for the sake of better ranking in Google. I wonder how the reader will feel when he reads the post only to see the same work Phoenix REALTOR repeated 20 times in the first 3 paragraphs… :O)
Susan MacEwen says

February 1, 2011 at 4:00 pm

Wow! I have been blogging and need to work on conversion and content. Thanks for posting this Jay!
Dan Krohn says

February 1, 2011 at 9:21 pm

I used to show up well on search engines with my blog, but I think when I changed my theme to print for dead. It really messed it all up. Word Press I still haven’t had much luck doing it.. I need to goto a class like that.
Hunt says

February 1, 2011 at 9:57 pm

Great presentation but the best part may be this statement… “NUMBER ONE ON GOOGLE! for every search term on the planet, and that won’t amount to a hill of beans” Sometimes it can be overwhelming and its easy to lose focus.
Terry Paranych says

February 3, 2011 at 2:27 pm

Really great post, and excellent presentation. We all need to remember that SEO isn’t just about getting to the top of the list, but also getting quality leads and converting traffic on your website or blog. Unless there’s a conversion, you’re just paying for useless traffic.

Definitely saving this to review more in depth later. I just discovered this blog: you’ve got a ton of great resources here!
Rob McCance says

February 7, 2011 at 12:19 pm

Thanks for sharing Jay.

Conversion is huge. If you get 10k visitors a month, just improving from 1% to 1.5% or 2.0% is a gigantic difference in potential business.

Currently, this has all my focus on my site and I’ve been working on my test site like crazy to try to get it right.
[email protected] watches says

February 10, 2011 at 8:15 pm

i have totally been looking for a tool like this. can’t wait to try it. i am getting it as we speak. thanks jay
Garrigus Real Estate says

February 11, 2011 at 9:51 am

Jay,

Thanks for these conversion tools and ideas. BTW I loved the presentation, but you have created soooo much work for me! 🙂 Now I gotta explore all these tools that you’ve introduced me too. Thanks!

(Go Denver Broncos! Our next season can’t be as bad as our last!)