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The DatAchieve Team

Facebook Ad vs. Boosted Post

Facebook has quickly become a popular and productive advertising medium for many businesses. While its do-it-yourself publishing tools enable a small business to easily boost a post from their Facebook page and reach an audience beyond those who have simply “liked” their page, a Facebook ad can offer more options for targeting your audience and generating results.

Boosted Posts

A boosted post is a quick way to increase the reach of a post on your Facebook business page by paying to boost its position in Facebook user’s news feed. You can set a fixed budget and target those who have liked your page, their friends, and even define an audience by geographic location, interests, age, and gender. Once your budget runs out, your boosted post ends.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads, particularly when managed using the Facebook Business Manager, offer more advanced targeting and budgeting options, as well as the ability to closely track results. Some of the options available when running a Facebook ad include:

  • Optimized Formats
    Facebook provides specific ad formats optimized to meet your particular goal, such as Page Likes, Website Clicks, Website Conversions, Video Views, and more. Some formats event include the ability to embed download or contact forms directly within your ad.
  • Calls-to-Action
    Unlike a boosted post, a Facebook Ad can include call-to-action buttons that prompt viewers to Learn More, Contact, Apply, Download, and many other options. Clear calls-to-action can significantly increase your responses
  • Placement
    Ads can be targeted to appear within a viewers news feed, in the sidebar, only on desktop devices or on mobile devices, in the Facebook audience network, or Instagram. Tools within the Facebook Business Manager enable you to preview your ad in each location.
  • Schedule
    You can schedule ads to appear on specific days of the week, time of the day, or both.
  • Reporting
    The Facebook Business Manager provides detailed reporting about your ad’s performance, enabling you to fine-tune content and placement.

We would welcome an opportunity to talk with you about the many ways you use Facebook and other social media advertising to meet your business goals and invite you to call us at 301-791-2622, toll-free at 1-800-706-1191, or drop us a note.

More than a Content Management System

Here are 7 things you can do with WordPress that you might not know about.

1. Support Corporate Enterprise Level Websites

Enterprise level websites generally need to accommodate heavy traffic and require more robust hosting and security than typical sites. With over a decade of development and refinement behind it, WordPress has proven to be a reliable platform for many large companies, including:

  • The Walt Disney Company
  • Fortune Magazine
  • Sony Music
  • Vogue
    and many others

2. Manage Multiple Websites

Building a network of sites? Running a business or restaurant with multiple locations? WordPress multisite installations enable you to run more than one website from a single dashboard while still providing administrators access to individual sites.

3. Create a Social Network

Want to build a social network? BuddyPress lets you build a community website using WordPress, with member profiles, user groups, timelines, messaging.

4. Build a Crowdfunding Site

Is your organization planning a fund raising event? WordPress can be used to create a crowdfunding site complete with goals, sponsorships, starting and ending dates, or even used for ongoing funding.

5. Offer E-commerce

Combined with WooCommerce, WordPress is a great e-commerce platform that will enable you to sell physical products or digital goods with product variations, multiple options, and merchant account choices. WooCommerce also provides great customer communication, inventory management, and shipping tools all from within your WordPress dashboard.

6. Promote and Manage Events

WordPress sites can be used to manage and promote events, including ticket sales, event registrations and RSVPs, e-minders, automated emails, and check-in lists and tickets that can be scanned upon arrival.

7. Build a Membership Directory

You can create a business or membership directory using WordPress, include front-end registration, multiple membership levels, and automated recurring billing.

We would welcome an opportunity to talk with you about how we can help with your requirements and invite you to call us at 301-791-2622, toll-free at 1-800-706-1191, or drop us a note.

Getting the Most Out of Your Facebook Campaign

With over 1.23 billion daily active users, Facebook is by far the most popular social media site today1. According to a recent Pew Internet & Technology report, nearly eight out of ten Americans who use the Internet are on Facebook and its users cut across demographic lines, making it a perfect medium for advertisers2. With the introduction of the new Facebook Business Manager, placing ads and measuring results is easier than ever. There are some common mistakes, however, that you should avoid.

1. Wrong Type of Ad

Simply boosting a post from your Facebook business page may drive engagement, but taking advantage of the tools available in the Facebook Business Manager will help you fine-tune your ad and better target your audience.

  • Brand Awareness: These ads are designed to appear often, engage viewers longer, and keep your business in front of qualified buyers.
  • Clicks to Website: Are you trying to promote your website or sell a product or service? Clicks to Website ads are designed to drive traffic away from Facebook and onto specific pages or sections of your website.
  • Lead Generation: Facebook Lead Generation ads can include forms directly within the ad, collecting contact information from potential customers without the inconvenience of multiple clicks.

These are just a few of the ad formats available to better target your audience and increase results. More can be found at the Facebook Business Ads Guide.

2. Ads that are Not Mobile Friendly

Facebook ads do not only appear in the timeline. Does your ad image contain text? Can it be read in the sidebar? On a mobile device? The Facebook Business Manager can provide you with previews of how your ad looks in the Mobile and Desktop News Feed, the sidebar column, Instagram, and the Audience Network.

3. Poor Targeting

Facebook ads can be targeted by location, gender, age, job, special interests, and many other criteria. Through a Facebook remarketing campaign you can even schedule your ad to appear within the timeline of people who have recently visited your website, reminding them again about your product or service, or create a lookalike audience based on the interests and demographics of people who have visited your site. By properly targeting your ad, you can avoid paying for unproductive clicks.

4. No Call-to-Actions

Remember that your ad viewers aren’t finding your message as the result of a search. They are browsing social media and your product or service may not be top-of-mind. Make sure that you provide a clear call-to-action telling them what to do. Examples include, “Download Our Report” or “Make Your Reservation Today.”

5. Irrelevant Landing Page

Once you have the viewer’s attention it is important that you direct them to a page that is clearly related to your ad content and call-to-action. Also be sure to include a short form to collect their contact information. Don’t simply link to your Home page and expect your visitor to find what they need.

We would welcome an opportunity to talk with you about the many ways you can grow your business and increase results and invite you to call us at 301-791-2622, toll-free at 1-800-706-1191, or drop us a note.

When choosing a content management system, customers can sometimes be at a disadvantage when talking with a potential web developer or designer. Because of the ever-changing and technical nature of the web, it can be easy to be misled by someone who is not experienced or familiar with WordPress. Here are a few misconceptions we’ve heard over the years.

WordPress is just for blogs.

WordPress is the most popular content management system in use today. Because of its ease of use and flexibility, it has also become one of the primary platforms used by design agencies. In fact, over 25% of all websites, worldwide, are built on the WordPress platform. From small businesses to large enterprise level websites, if you can think of it, it can probably be accomplished using WordPress.

WordPress isn’t secure.

As with any site that can be directly edited, maintaining security is important. By working with a company that follows industry best practices for WordPress development and hosting, including security measures that discourage automated, brute-force attacks or other intrusion, you will ensure a safe environment and optimal site performance. Oh, and don’t forget to lock the front door. Regardless of the platform you chose, always use strong passwords.

WordPress isn’t suitable for big businesses.

Sony Music, The New Yorker Magazine, Walt Disney, Best Buy, Fortune Magazine, major universities, and many other enterprise-level websites are powered by WordPress, and more are being launched daily.

There’s no support.

WordPress is a very well documented content-management platform with an active development community. Questions posted to the wordpress.org forums are often answered within minutes. And, when you are working with an experienced and reputable developer, support is usually a phone call away.

Using plugins is dangerous.

One of the great things about WordPress is the many plugins that are available to accomplish just about any task. While you should always be careful when adding third-party code to your site, the WordPress repository provides detailed reviews and records of the latest updates. Again, working with an experienced and reputable developer will help ensure that your site uses well-vetted, secure scripting.

WordPress is a versatile, extensible, and reliable web content management system, but don’t take my word for it. Visit wordpress.org/showcase and see for yourself some of the latest enterprise level websites being on the platform. And be sure to visit us at DatAchieve Digital for more on WordPress design and hosting best practices.

Building the Best WordPress Websites

There are many things to consider when building a WordPress website. Aside from the obvious message, audience, and marketing aspect, there are technical considerations that should be addressed at the beginning of a project so that you don’t find yourself “painted into a corner” and unable to make changes later on. By following industry standard WordPress best practices for design, development, and hosting, you’ll be able to avoid problems.

WordPress Security

While perfect security is never possible, there are things that you can do when developing a WordPress website to significantly reduce risks and ensure recovery should a problem occur.

  • Hide the standard WordPress login area. WordPress is the most popular content management system in use today, powering over 25% of websites, worldwide. That means millions of websites can be accessed simply by adding “/wp-admin” to the end of the address. Changing this will send most attackers off to an easier target.
  • Force strong passwords. By including code that forces strong passwords for all users you’ll avoid having a client or someone else introduce vulnerability later on.
  • Limit the number of incorrect login attempts. Frequently attackers use automated scripts to repeatedly enter a variety of usernames and passwords. By limiting the number of incorrect login attempts, you’ll discourage these “brute force” attacks.
  • Use a separate username and WordPress nickname. Articles and posts are often published under the username byline. By requiring a posts to be published under a separate “nickname” you make it more difficult for a hacker to learn your WordPress login credentials.
  • Protect system files. Blocking public access to readme.html, readme.txt, wp-config.php, install.php, wp-includes, and .htaccess files prevents disclosing important information about your site.
  • Disable directory browsing. The contents of a web directory that does not include an index file can be easily viewed by anyone online.

Design & Development

  • Use the latest version of WordPress. WordPress is updated regularly to address ever-changing security threats, so always maintain the latest version.
  • Never modify core WordPress files. If core WordPress files are modified to accommodate a design or functionality need, the changes will be overwritten when WordPress is updated, potentially breaking your site.
  • Use recent HTML and CSS coding conventions. Currently HTML5 and CSS3 are the most recent version finalized, and published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
  • Use recent versions of javascript. Often plugin developers will include out-dated or conflicting versions of jquery.php within their code. You may want to consider loading the latest scripts directly from the Google Javascript libraries so that you’ll know they are always up-to-date.
  • Remove installation files. Remove wp-config-sample.php and /wp-admin/install.php after installation. These files are used during the initial installation of WordPress, but can introduce security holes after installation is complete.
  • Limit plugins. One of the great things about WordPress is the many plugins that are available to accomplish just about any task you can think of. Over-reliance on plugins, however, can create slow, code-heavy sites and conflicting code. Consider coding functionality directly into your site. When you do use a plugin, make sure that it is from the WordPress.org repository or a well-known company or developer.
  • Set proper directory permissions. WordPress needs to allow various files to be writable by the server, but this can sometimes be dangerous. Try and set directory permissions to be as restrictive as possible.

Hosting

Customers often assume that their hosting provider monitors their website and takes care of security. While some do, most only provide security that limits damage to the hosting providers servers, not your site.

  • Avoid shared and “underpowered” hosting. Shared hosting environments can be a bargain and seem to offer the same features as more expensive dedicated server plans, but your website will be hosted together with hundreds of other sites on the same machine. Someone else gets busy–your site slows down. Somebody else gets hacked–they slip into your site while they are there. These “noisy-neighbors” can have a direct impact on your website’s performance.
  • Backup both website files and databases. Schedule frequent and ongoing backups of your website files and databases. You may want to backup all of your website files each month and backup the database weekly, depending upon how often your site is updated.
  • Use version controlling. If you’re operating a large or enterprise-level website with frequent changes and multiple users, a version control system will enable you to track changes that are made to your site and revert to earlier versions when problems arise. Git and Subversion are both popular version control tools. You may also want to develop a “staging” site to develop, test, and review new content and functionality before deployment to the live site.

WordPress Resources

Here are a few tools that we’ve found useful when designing WordPress sites.

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