• Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Always work with it, not against it!
• Remember, happiness doesn’t depend on who you are or what you have, it depends solely on what you think
• There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen and there are people who wonder what happened. How about U?
• It is easy to sit up and take notice, what is difficult is getting up and taking action.
• Don’t ask yourself: “What do I want or what are my goals?” But: “What would excite me?”

Johan Bruyneel’s Tweeter: http://twitter.com/joHANbruyneel ~ Enjoy!

1. Advanced-Admin-Menus
   First Word Press plugin is for the backend to make your interface much easier to use and more professional looking.  In today’s world, time is money and every click counts.  This plugin creates a very nice down drop down menus where you can get to any backend page with one click. This is a must have plugin, I give it 5 stars all the way.  This plugin works best with WordPress Versions under 2.5, it does work for 2.5, but not perfectly nor does it look as professional as it does with older versions.
2. Top Level Categories
   Next Must have Wordpress plugin ONLY NEW wordpress site must have and install before building their site is Top Level Categories.  This plugin fixes the biggest problem with wordpress and takes out the /category/ in the URL and puts in the actually category name.  This is one of plugins I can’t understand why it was not built into Wordpress from the start, but Filipe Forte did a great job with it.  I give it 5 stars all the way. 
3. SEO Title Tag
   The next Wordpress plugin every person must install no questions asked is SEO Title Tag, by Stepfan Spencer at Netconcepts.  As a Search Engine Optimization Specialists, this is by far the most important and best plugin ever.  This plugin gives you the ability to right custom title tags for every page, post, and category.  This is essential for Effective SEO. I give it 4.8 stars. 
4. Breadcrumb Navigation XT
   The of most over looked important part of a web site is the breadcrumbs.  Not only do they help users, know where they are on your site, but most importantly they help search engines spider your site and increase internal linking.  This plugin does take a little easily, but once installed, works like charm.   I give it 4 stars.
5. cforms II
   This is the best Wordpress form plugin made hands down.  The form templates out there, but easily customizable if you can work with CSS.  The best part about these plugin is that it is also provides confirmation emails, any type of field format, database backup, tracking and much more.  This will save you time and make your site look professional.  It is fully customizable and easy to use.  I give it 4.5 stars.
6. Obfuscate E-mail
   Everybody in the word Hates Spam. However, little do they know, most people are helping cause more of it everyday and don’t even know it.  Most spam starts when unethical people use email extractors to harvest email address to form a list and send spam.  What email extractor does is spider web sites on the internet to find email addresses.  So if you put your email address on your website and it is not encoded, your email address be taken.  An easy way to stop that is install this Wordpress plugin and encoded any email address on your site so that spiders can’t understand it or know that it is a email address.   I give it 4.5 stars all the way.
7. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator
   A sitemap is very important to have on every page for your site.  Sitemaps helps search engines being able to get to every page for your site within two clicks.  Using this plugin will greatly help more pages of your site be indexed quicker.  This is the best automatic sitemap generator made.  Once you activate the plugin, you can put the sitemap tag on any page you want and you are done.  Automatically updates and word perfectly.   NOTE:  Do not put more than 100 link one on one page.  Search engines have ADD and get bored if you have to many links on one page.   I give it 4.5 stars all the way.
8. Google Sitemaps
   The next important Wordpress plugin is the XML Sitemap.  This plugin automatically makes the site map and will submit it to Google Webcentral, you can always use this sitemap to submit to Yahoo as well.  There is a little installation required before it works, but explained in directions.  I give it 4 stars all the way.
9. Akismet:
   When you start to get traffic, you will unfortunately start to get spam comments as well.  This Wordpress plugin is great and will take care of must it.  It does require you to register, but is well worth after a certain about traffic.  
10. WordPress Database Backup
    Last, but certainly not least, Wordpess Database Backup.  I always say, you only save and backup as much as you can afford to loose. Therefore, if you install this plugin, you can easily download a backup of the database of the site, and better yet, you can have the plugin email a copy of the database ever day, week, or month.  This is an essential Wordpress plugin to have and make certain you install this and get the email backup setup before it is tool there is a problem.  I give it 4.5 stars all the way.

As you know there are hundreds of other great plugins out there, but those are my top time essential Wordress plugins I recommend. I hope this helps, please let me know if you know of any other essential Wordpress plugins.  I would love to learn of any other plugins you think are great and why.  I will make certain to review them and add them to the site as well.  Thanks for your time.

I will definitely say without a doubt, hands down, “Creating Customer Evangelists” is one of the best business/marketing book I have ever read.

The two authors Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are two amazing people that were able to put into words the amazing concept of creating customer evangelism. Through a one-year research project of studying the best practices of the most “forward-thinking” successful companies, McConnell and Huba clearly online and give detailed examples of how implement and development evangelism marketing strategies and programs. The book breaks the concept of creating customer evangelists into six basic tenets:

• Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
• Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely.
• Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks.
• Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share.
• Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
• Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better.

So what more could you need than a detailed guide to success. I strongly recommend this book as a mandatory, must read book for any employee at a company even if they don’t deal with clients. I also believe that people in management should be required to read this book every year before they start creating their budgets for next year.

Lastly, I think that CEO’s or anybody that delegates and spreads vision should keep this book on their desk or close by because these concepts are that important.

As you can tell, I am a real customer evangelist of this book. I truly believe that it will change your life because it has definitely changed mine.

You can buy this book or audio CD version but clicking the buy from Amazon button now. Thanks for your support. Also, don’t forget to tell all your friends about the book as well, because we all have to work together to spread the dream and concept of customer evangelism.

Thanks for your time.

If you are not seeing the products you are looking for, you can use the search bar below to help. If the program exists, you will find it below. Good Luck!

If you don’t see the books you are looking for, you can use the search below. If the book exists, or is sold in a store, you will find it below. Good Luck.

Besides a monthly tithe to your local church, we have two charities that we absolutely love.

1. First of the charities that we absolutely love and highly recommend is Compassion International. We learned about Compassion from our church back in Atlanta, Northpoint Community Church. Below is a link to Compassion and how you can help support a child.
2. Operation Home Front - Operation Homefront provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home. Operation Homefront has processed more than 45,000 cases, including more than 2,100 involving wounded warriors. Operation Homefront serves all branches of the armed forces, including active duty, Guard and Reserve. To Donate to a chapter in your home town!~

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]]> http://www.erickooymans.com/giving-back/feed/ http://www.erickooymans.com/whats-erics-expertise/ http://www.erickooymans.com/whats-erics-expertise/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:39:19 +0000 admin http://www.erickooymans.com/?p=14 I, Eric Kooymans am an online marketer who specializes in Paid Search (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email Marketing, and Lead Generation. 

At the beginning of my career, I started as an email marketing specialists giving best practices consulting to clients such as American Cancer Society, AirTran Airways, and Thomson Financial.

I then moved into the Search Engine Marketing side of online marketing where I became a Search Marketing Specialist.  I put together and managed search engine optimization and paid search campaigns for companies like Lennox Heating & Air, Trentech, and Palm Harbor Homes.

From there, I moved on to be an Online Marketing Manager where I design, create, and manage online marketing campaigns from start to finish for 17 different companies around the country. I currently manages a team of 7 people and around 2.2 million annual marketing budget.

In addition, I also do a great deal of web design and ecommerce design and manage and do marketing for over 900 websites. With this, I use PHP, ASP, WordPress, Magneto Ecommerce, and Volusion Ecommerce depending on the project and clients needs.

I believe with the right strategy, anything is possible on the web. I have strong passion for taking normal businesses and transforming them in to amazing web businesses with a dominant online presence.  

I am hard working, self-starter with a make it happen attitude. I believe that every day is a chance to learn something new and honor God with the skills he has blessed me with. It’s the little things in life that really matter, and I want to do everything I can to shine His amazingness through the world.

At a closer look, as a day job, I am an Online Marketing Manager where I design, create, and manage online marketing campaigns from start to finish for 15 different companies around the country. I currently manage a team of 7 people and around 2.2 million annual marketing budget.

Though, I find myself working 50+ hours a week, in my spare time you probably find me on my couch with my feet up working on some type of side project.  To more effectively help people, I have put together a personal company called Harnessing Strengths. I started Harnessing Strengths with the goal to help individuals, non-profits, and small business to harness their strengths and take their idea or business the next level and really change the world.

Something this translates into me putting together a full on business plan, marketing plan, and web strategy for their idea or business. Other times this just involves me building them a website and launch their idea or business to the world.  But whatever their needs, I do everything from start to finish and only take on projects when I know that everybody will give  their 110% and we can really change the world.

So throughout a year, depending on my availability, I partner with 5 to 10 about different clients or projects. To learn more, go to www.HarnessingStrengths.com.

And like most other true only marketers who really love online marketing and helping poeple market more effective.   I also have a Online Marketing blog, that I try and update every couple days if not more. It is work in progress, but something I plan to work on more over the years.

If you have any questions, or want to learn more, feel free to contact me and I look forward to talking more.

Pictures of Moses: