If you own a small business and have dealt with online marketing tools in the past, then you are probably very familiar with several of the plugins and widgets that are available to help make your Ecommerce blog or website gain more hits each day. These little website wonders are available to download, sometimes free of charge, and offer the convenience of making your web designing or blog updating tasks much easier and faster to complete than they ever were before. Not to mention all of the extra visitors that will be directed to your website or blog thanks to the power of these WordPress Widgets or Plugins.

The Google XML Sitemap

This popular plugin will help you to create an easy to navigate and just as simple to edit XML sitemap so that your blog or website will show up in more search engine results than ever before. The Google XML Sitemap tool allows you to have your links show up on the top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com. It helps to index your blog in a more accurate way so that more people who are truly interested in the products or services that your company has to offer will be able to find your page quickly and easily.

Why are sitemaps important? Sitemaps are important because they help to direct the right type of traffic to your site or blog instead of bringing in a bunch of customers who are actually not interested in what you have to sell. A sitemap helps to organize your site and put it as close to the top of the list as possible which can be very beneficial when it comes to winning over customers and getting them to click on your site rather than your competitors.

SEO Plugins such as WordPress SEO by Yoast or the All in One SEO Pack

SEO is very important for any type of small business website because it is the foundation on which customers will be able to find your link amongst the sea of links from your competitor’s websites. By doing SEO properly, you will be able to raise your organic search rankings in Google/ Bing search lists and which helps your website be the first one any consumer visits when they are in need of the products and services that you have to offer.

WordPress SEO by Yoast is a favorite amongst WordPress bloggers because it allows you to have the opportunity to create better content for your customers to read, it double checks your posts to make sure there aren’t any SEO related errors or if you have any SEO possibilities on your blog that you are leaving out accidently.

The All in One SEO Pack is another excellent SEO tool for WordPress blogs. This helpful plugin automatically optimizes your blog so that it is ready to take on the battle to reach the top of the search engine’s list. The latest version of this plugin features Google Analytic support, a built-in API so that other plugins can have access and enhance the functionality of all the plugins that you currently own and it is currently the only plugin that provides you with SEO Integration tools for WordPress E-Commerce websites.

Social Media Plugin

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Social Media has quickly become one of the most successful ways for businesses to take part in online marketing. This process allows all types of businesses, no matter if they are big or small, to interact with their customers on a brand new level that has never been achieved before. The various types of social media websites out there can serve a different purpose for various small businesses and their marketing needs. Twitter is a great place for those who love the entertainment industry because so many celebrities have a twitter account and communicate with their fans. Therefore if your business center around this industry or your target audience is interested in all things Hollywood, then Twitter would be a great place for you to start your online marketing strategy.

Pinterest is a fairly new social media website that focuses on DIY projects, arts and crafts, weddings, and home décor as well as health and beauty items. Since there are clearly more women on this website than men, it would be a good idea for a business that specializes in products aimed to females to create an account on Pinterest and share information on their latest products for sale or find out more about what their customers would like to see from their company in the future.

Social media plugins allow you to post your latest blog entries directly to your social media account for your business so that you can spread the word to hundreds of people with just one click of the mouse. There are many great options out there so I linked to a great list by Smashing Magazine so you can choose from there.

Google Analytics for WordPress

This plugin allows you to find out how well your WordPress blog really is doing by letting you track your WordPress statistics and provide you with plenty of metadata, how many views per author to your page or category, tracking of outbound clicks and how many page views your blog has had in all.

Why are analytics helpful for small businesses? Analytics can be very helpful for many small businesses because it allows the business owners to see at a glance exactly how their blog is benefiting the company. This will give you a good idea on if there need to be any changes made to your current blog set up or if you are doing well so far and simply need to keep up the good work.

A Contact Form

Contact forms may be the oldest widgets or plugins that have been used on many websites before companies even started turning to blogging. When you add a simple and easy to use contact form to your company’s website or blog, you are allowing your site viewers and potential customers to get in contact you at any time of day and ask questions or leave comments about the products or services that you have to offer. This is much better than having a message board or simply placing an email link on the page because you receive the message right away and your email account is not displayed so you will only receive questions or messages from those who really want to know more about your company without weeding through all of the spam messages like you would if your email address had been exposed. Two of the best contact form plugins or widgets that you can find for your WordPress blog include Contact Form 7 and the Fast Secure Contact Form.