The first version of WordpressSpecials is just around the corner!

But before I release it, I’d like to give those who aren’t familiar with running blog specials a bit of an overview on what goes on behind running one. Then I’ll get into some of the features of the plug-in.

What is a blog special?

Do you have a product or service to offer?  If so, do you have a blog?  If you have a blog, all that’s required to have a special is to create a new blog entry advertising your products or services.

Now, here are some of the critical details of what makes a blog special a success, or a complete failure…

One important part of running a blog special is the date and time.  I’ll usually run specials on Wednesday.  Why?  Because that’s when I find the most traffic on this site.  With that said, the day is obviously important to take note of.  If you have stats for your website, see how much traffic you get on Wednesday compared to Sunday.  There’s often quite a dramatic difference.

Next, I usually run my specials for 24 hours.  Surely, I wouldn’t want to run them for 1 hour, or 3 hours.  My traffic isn’t only from within the United States.  Many visitors that come to my site are from India, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.  So I’d prefer not running a special for those who are still in bed!

Prior to starting a special, a blog entry and often a sales page need to be created.  Then once the special is over, it requires coming back to the blog to update the post to remove the link to the order page.  Previously, that required me to be at a computer with Internet to make sure the special ended at the proper time. 

So, we’ve discussed the day and length, and the link from the blog entry to the order page.  Here’s where WordpressSpecials 1.0 comes in.

After installing the plug-in, you set a time for the special to start and what time it ends.  A nifty feature is programmed into that part.  It’s not even required that you look up a date and time.  If you’d like to start the special immediately, you would type in “now”.  If you want it to start next Wednesday, you type in “next Wednesday” and it will start on that day.  Ending is the same.  Want it to end next Thursday?  Then you insert “next Thursday”.  Or, you can simply insert a date and time if you wish.

The next step is making the order message.  This can be as basic as your order link, or you may construct a customized message until you’re satisfied.

Then, you create an expired message the exact same way.  This can be as simple as an expired message, nothing at all, or a link to a web form to be notified of future specials.

All that’s required after that is to paste a small snippet of code into a new blog entry.  It’ll look something like this:

You would simply replace specialID with the number of your special.

Stay tuned for a blog special for this on Wednesday.

- Aaron Brandon