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How to Tell a Gripping Story on Your About Page

Your About page.

It’s one of those requisite elements of your website that’s easy to overlook.

But really, is it even that big of a deal?

How many visitors will actually take the time to check out your About page?

Well, here’s an interesting statistic.

According to a study from KoMarketing, “52% of your visitors want to see an About page.”

Without one, you’re instantly creating some distance between your company and over half of your visitors.

That’s why an About page is more important than you may think.

And here’s something else I’ve noticed.

A lot of brands (even some of the bigger ones) lack in the About page department.

Some fail to include an About page altogether, and others halfheartedly slap one together without putting any real thought into it.

Such About pages often miss the mark, which throws a wrench in the overall sales funnel.

I want to be fair and say that not everyone needs an About page. But most companies, individuals, and websites do. It’s a standard thing to do.

And it can be really valuable. As long as you do it right!

For this post, I would like to discuss A) the importance of a well-crafted About page, B) what goes into a well-crafted About page, and C) how to tell a gripping story on your About page that will resonate with your visitors.

Redefining an About page

First of all, let’s start with a formal definition of an About page.

According to Your Dictionary, it’s

a type of web page commonly seen on websites, containing general information about the person or organization that is responsible for the website in question, usually a description of the site’s history and mission or purpose.

Most people probably would say this definition is spot on.

But in my opinion, it has one fatal flaw.

It talks about only the person/organization and doesn’t address the needs or concerns of visitors.

Of course, you’ll want to talk about your company, its history, philosophy, values, achievements, etc.

But there’s more.

A great About page will answer some major questions for your visitors.

What types of questions should I answer?

Copyblogger nails it in this article.

Here’s their take on things.

Some of your visitors’ unanswered questions are:

What’s in this for me?

Am I in the right place?

Can this person help me with my problem?

Don’t send your readers screaming for the exit by talking only about yourself. Instead, make them want to pull up a chair, chat with you a while, and keep in touch long after the party.

How many times have you clicked on an About page only to hear a company ramble on about how awesome they are without ever answering any of the pressing questions of their visitors?

I see it happen all the time.

What you should aim for

The point I’m trying to make here is that the term About page can be a little misleading.

It shouldn’t be just about you. It should be about your audience as well.

And now, here’s my formula for telling a gripping story.

Know thy customer

I’m sure you’ve heard the Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself.”

It speaks to the importance of an examined life.

But when it comes to an About page, you want to thoroughly know your customer.

And I’m not talking just about gender, income level, education, etc.

You need to know where your average person is at in the sales funnel.

And if they’re looking at your About page, it’s safe to say they’re in the earlier stages of the sales funnel.

The large majority will be prospects with some level of interest and minimal awareness of your brand.

Most are looking to become more familiar with you.

Not only do they want to know more about your product/service, many want to know if you share their values and beliefs.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of an average prospect and figure out what specific information they’re seeking.

This will guide your efforts.

Start with a killer headline

Your headline is everything.

If it pops, visitors will want to read on.

If it sucks, many will leave never to return.

What makes a great headline?

As I mentioned in another article on NeilPatel.com, you should make your headline simple, clear, and benefit-driven.

Here’s a good example from Yellow Leaf Hammocks:

You can instantly get a sense of what’s being offered and the benefits. In this case, high-quality, comfy hammocks.

Here’s another good example from Gini Dietrich:

Be authentic and transparent

You want to be professional with your About page. That’s a given.

But some brands are overdoing it to the point of sounding stiff and almost robotic.

Unless you’re in a super formal industry (e.g., you’re a lawyer or an insurance broker), I think it’s a good idea to “let your hair down” a little.

Paint a realistic picture of what your company is and what you do.

If you’re snarky, be snarky. If you’re quirky, be quirky.

No matter how teched out we get, business is still ultimately founded on people buying from other people.

And they naturally want to do business with someone they like and trust.

Authenticity and transparency are two major elements in gaining that trust.

I think that Pete Adeny (a.k.a. Mr. Money Mustache) does a great job of doing this on his About page:

His page instantly allows his readers to get a sense of who he is, his philosophy, and his sense of humor.

Provide a brief but compelling back story

You don’t need (or even want) to go into elaborate detail, but I recommend giving visitors an idea of where you came from and how your company came to be.

In other words, tell them your brand’s story.

For instance, on NeilPatel.com, I explain how I started my first website at the age of 16 and how I was disillusioned with the first marketing firm I hired.

That (and being broke) was the catalyst for me learning marketing.

I also mention some of my first clients and how my initial results helped me realize the power of marketing.

Just touch on some of the key points of your development that show prospects how you got to where you’re today.

Here’s how Dollar Shave Club does this with its own signature brand of humor:

Be clear about your values

This is a biggie.

You want to offer insight into your company culture and what distinguishes your brand from the rest of the pack.

Yellow Leaf Hammock pulls this off flawlessly as well:

As you can see, there’s a strong emphasis on being socially conscious, sustainable, and adventurous.

Wild Friends Foods effectively conveys its values as well:

The bottom line is to show visitors what you believe in.

Answer these 3 questions

As I mentioned earlier, most visitors will have three main questions:

What’s in it for me?

Am I in the right place?

Can this person help me with my problem?

This is where a lot of About pages drop the ball.

You’ve talked about YOU.

Now, you need to explain how you can help THEM (your visitors).

Allow me to use my approach as an example.

On the About page of NeilPatel.com, I mention that I’ve helped huge companies such as Google and Viacom.

But I also point out that one of my biggest passions is helping small businesses succeed.

That right there answers the first two questions.

If a small business owner seeking help with their marketing visits my website, they can instantly see they’re in the right place and that I can help them increase their sales.

Later on, I point out that marketing doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult and that there’s a proven formula that gets results.

Since not having the financial means or marketing knowledge is a common problem for many small businesses, I quell their skepticism and let them know that I can, in fact, help them with their problems.

Regardless of your industry and your product/service, answering those three questions is your means of making the necessary connection that gets visitors interested and motivated to take action.

Exploring alternative formats

Here’s the beautiful thing about an About page.

You don’t have to limit yourself to any traditional format.

You’re completely free to use whatever format or combination of formats you want.

In fact, I skip the conventional text-based format altogether and use a brief video to explain myself on NeilPatel.com:

Moz uses an illustrated timeline to tell its history:

Don’t feel you have to stick with the same old tried-and-true formula companies have been using since the 90s.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out this post from Search Engine Journal.

It features 25 creative and engaging About pages that can get some ideas flowing.

Conclusion

Let’s recap.

An About page isn’t just about your brand. It also needs to be about your audience and how you can solve their pain points.

You must address their needs and concerns and position your brand as a trustworthy resource so they can feel comfortable doing business with you.

The key elements of your story should include:

A killer headline

A brief back story

Your values

Answers to visitors’ three big questions

It’s also important to customize your About page in a way that’s interesting and that represents your brand.

Often this means experimenting with different formats.

By hitting all the right notes, you can establish instant rapport, build trust, and motivate visitors to browse the rest of your site.

When it’s all said and done, this can positively impact multiple metrics, such as increasing the average time spent on site, lowering your bounce rate, and improving conversions.

What do you think is the most important element of an About page?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2oupbN1 from Blogger http://ift.tt/2ouCRrn April 14, 2017 at 08:34PM

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Don’t Kill Your Audience’s Vibe with These Content Marketing Turn-Offs

As of 2017, the overwhelming majority (89%) of B2B marketers use content marketing in some form.

  As you can imagine, how well marketers execute their campaigns varies quite a bit.

Or, as The Content Marketing Institute would put it, there are differences in “content marketing maturity levels.”

As you can see, a fairly small number (28%) would be considered either mature or sophisticated.

The rest could definitely use some improvement, and there’s a lot of room for growth for many content marketers.

One thing I’ve noticed (especially when it comes to those new to the game) is that many brands engage in tactics that could be considered turn-offs.

This doesn’t necessarily mean being unethical or using black-hat techniques.

It means unknowingly using tactics that annoy site visitors and slowly but surely drive a wedge between the company and its audience.

At best, this results in diminished engagement, a lower follower count, etc.

At worst, it can lead to dwindling traffic numbers, fewer leads, decreased sales, and diluted brand equity.

The bottom line is you don’t want to kill your audience’s vibe with content marketing turn-offs.

Here are some common mistakes I see marketers make and how to avoid them.

Fatiguing your audience

The amount of content on the Internet is mind-boggling.

According to Marketing Profs, roughly two million blog posts are written every single day.

If you really want to get a sense of how much content is being created, check out Every Second on the Internet. It’ll really put this phenomenon into perspective.

Here’s the thing.

Everyone is trying to outdo one another to claim their piece of the pie and get traffic.

What’s the result?

Many content marketers are grinding out content.

They have the mindset that if they slap up enough content, the leads will come.

They end up flooding their blogs with mediocre content and their social media followers’ feeds with sub-par updates.

This all results in one thing. Content fatigue.

They fatigue their audiences as well as themselves in the process.

Don’t get me wrong. Fresh content is great.

Of course, you want to post new content consistently.

But I know I feel overwhelmed when someone I follow is constantly blasting me with new content just for the sake of having new content.

I don’t have the time to consume it all.

What I suggest is to chill out with the frequency of your content creation.

Don’t worry so much about constantly populating your blog and social media with new content.

Instead, focus on creating fewer but higher quality pieces.

Try to find the sweet spot between updating your content regularly and giving your audience time to catch their breath.

The sweet spot will differ depending on the nature of your brand and the platform you’re using. Finding it requires a certain level of experimentation on your end.

I also suggest checking out this post from Buffer for advice on this topic. It will give you a better idea of how much you should be posting and how much is too much.

Being too content-centric

I love this graphic that illustrates the difference between being content-centric and audience-centric:

The difference between the two is to whom your content caters: yourself or your audience.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say your brand is passionate about obscure industry trends, so you frequently write about these topics.

That’s all well and good, but if those topics don’t resonate with your audience, you’re unlikely to gain any real traction.

It’s a fairly widespread issue, considering that creating more engaging content is a top priority for 73% of content creators.

Over time, being too content-centric will minimize the impact of your campaign.

It hinders engagement, lowers readership, and gradually drives your audience away.

Make sure you’re on the audience-centric side of the spectrum— not the content-centric.

How do you accomplish this?

Two words: qualitative research.

If you’re unfamiliar with this term, let’s start with a definition:

Qualitative research is designed to reveal a target audience’s range of behavior and the perceptions that drive it with reference to specific topics or issues. It uses in-depth studies of small groups of people to guide and support the construction of hypotheses.

Rather than merely observing what’s happening, qualitative research seeks to understand why it’s happening.

This type of research enables you to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and be highly informed when creating your content.

I’m not going to launch into a long-winded discussion of every facet of qualitative research, but let me offer a few key strategies:

Ask your blog readers what topics they would like you to cover.

Use analytics to identify content trends. See which posts are getting more traffic and engagement.

See which keywords your visitors are searching before landing on your blog.

Pay close attention to readers’ comments. Look for direct feedback. Note the number of comments on a post—it’s usually indicative of interest level.

Check your social media analytics. See what types of content are getting the biggest response.

I also recommend checking out two specific posts on this topic:

Go Beyond Analytics to Give Customers the Content They Crave from The Content Marketing Institute.

Find Out What Your Audience Wants Using Qualitative Research from Positionly.

Being pretentious

Does your content consist of a steady stream of douchey buzzwords and complicated industry jargon only a handful of individuals will actually understand?

If so, this is guaranteed to turn off your audience.

Don’t get me wrong.

You want to come across as being intelligent, knowledgeable, and generally knowing your stuff.

But I feel there’s a fine line between being smart and being pretentious.

It can be an issue especially for certain industries such as medical, legal, and finance, where complex subjects are routinely discussed.

If you’re not careful, you can easily launch into some needlessly complicated rant and lose the majority of your audience.

It makes you appear insincere, alienates your audience, and makes it much more difficult to get your point across.

To be totally honest, I have been guilty of it myself at certain times.

However, it’s something I seriously strive to avoid these days.

What’s the solution?

First, try to stick with a natural, conversational tone when it comes to your content.

I try to approach it as if I’m sitting down with someone face-to-face and having a conversation.

That seems to work for me.

Also, don’t try to jam-pack your content with big words just for the sake of using big words.

Always look for the most direct way to say something without using needless buzzwords and industry jargon.

I also recommend asking yourself the following questions when proofreading your content:

Will my average reader understand what I’m saying?

Am I writing in my own—unique—voice?

Can I simplify what I’ve written?

Did I use any overly annoying buzzwords?

Always going for the sale

Ever feel like a sleazy used car salesman when creating content?

It’s not a good path to be on.

In fact, this is perhaps the number one way to turn off would-be readers and lose the readers you’ve currently got.

No one wants to be bombarded with “Buy Now!” messages when they’re trying to kick back and read some content.

It’s distracting and detracts from the overall user experience.

Here’s the thing about content marketing.

It’s one of the more long-term inbound strategies.

It doesn’t typically involve going for an instant sale.

Content marketing is about building relationships, creating rapport with your audience, and establishing trust over time.

The mentality is that if you take the time to create awesome content that’s genuinely useful, you’ll be primed to make a larger volume of sales down the road.

Therefore, it’s important to have the right mindset when approaching your content.

Here are a few techniques that I recommend:

Avoid using interstitials on your website. Google actually started penalizing certain sites that use them.

Place your focus on educating rather than selling. Believe me. If you educate your audience and solve a problem for them, the sales will follow.

Don’t plug your business or include a CTA until the end of your content.

Work on building rapport and establishing trust before asking your audience to buy anything.

Conclusion

Content marketing has been proven to be less costly and get more leads than outbound marketing.

It also tends to yield higher conversion rates.

But using the wrong tactics and not understanding what your audience does and doesn’t want can marginalize the impact of your campaign.

You don’t want to kill their vibe unwittingly and create a rift between your brand and your audience.

But steering clear of the issues I mentioned above should prevent any missteps on your end and lead to deeper relationships and a more receptive audience.

What’s your number one content marketing turn-off?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2p8lc8M from Blogger http://ift.tt/2oyWNeI April 12, 2017 at 08:34PM

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If You Give Away Your Best Content, Your Business Will Grow by 290%

If you give it away—offer it free—they will come.

This should perhaps be the quote to encompass the business model of freeconomics.

It’s a model that involves giving away your best content.

Believe it or not, more and more companies are integrating and seeing amazing results with freeconomics today.

At first thought, it may seem ludicrous.

I mean, how can you expect to turn a profit if you’re getting no direct return on your content?

You’re spending loads of time and exerting a ton of energy to earn a big fat $0.00.

It just doesn’t make sense.

But when you look at the big picture, giving away your best content—offering it free—makes total sense.

It’s a catalyst for business growth, and I’ve even had clients who’ve grown their businesses by as much as 290% by going this route.

Allow me to explain.

How content impacts a buyer’s decision

Seldom do today’s consumers whip out their credit cards and blindly make a purchase.

No, most perform a considerable amount of research beforehand.

Besides researching the product itself, many consumers want to know more about the company behind the product.

They want to be sure that the company is legit, knows its stuff, and is trustworthy.

But how do they learn more about a company?

Besides simply reading the About page on the company’s website, consumers look at content.

In fact, Demand Gen Report found

47% of buyers viewed three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep.

The report also discovered that

51% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago.

This means that content has become an integral part of the buying process, and it’s now a trend that’s likely to continue growing.

By making your best content easily accessible to your audience, you can pull more leads into your sales funnel, which should eventually increase sales.

To gate, or not to gate?

This is a question posed by Vertical Response in an article discussing the benefits of giving away content.

By gate, they mean putting an obstacle in front of content (e.g., filling out a form to get it).

In this article, they point out two specific instances when not gating your content is a smart business decision.

Point #1

Internationally acclaimed marketing and sales strategist David Meerman Scott says that according to his statistics,

a white paper or eBook will be downloaded 20 times and up to 50 times more without a gate in front of it.

And why wouldn’t it?

By removing the gate and making content accessible to everyone free, you’ll naturally generate more downloads.

Point #2

Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and one of the most respected names in content marketing.

Here’s a quote from Joe regarding gated and non-gated content:

Let’s say you received 1,000 leads via your white paper download. From David’s numbers, let’s even take a more conservative 10x more downloads if we remove the gate.

This would give us 10,000 downloads with no lead data. Of all those people, let’s say that 1 percent would share this with their audiences (with a VERY conservative audience of 100 people, although most blogs get much more).

With those numbers, the total possible content reach for gated content would be 2,000 people. Non-gated content would be 20,000 people.

When you break it down, you see that gating the content would result in 2,000 people viewing the content, and not gating it would result in 20,000.

By simply giving it away, you’re theoretically getting ten times the leads.

Just think of the impact on your sales figures!

In it for the long haul

Here’s the thing with freeconomics and giving away your content.

There’s no immediate payoff.

It’s intrinsically a long-term strategy that involves making sales and growing your business over the long run.

It’s about building rapport and trust now so that you can make sales at a later date.

You could liken it to growing a crop:

When you plant a seed, you don’t expect to harvest the next day.

It takes time. But when you consider the bounty, it’s well worth it.

I realize this can be an issue for some people, considering the instant gratification culture we live in: we want results, and we want them now.

And I get it. It’s not easy spending an immense amount of time and energy working on something that will not give you visible results for six months or even a year.

But when you follow the right formula, the payoff is huge and makes way more sense than gating your content.

My own experience

Long ago, I realized the power that content marketing can yield.

That’s why I’ve made valuable content the cornerstone of my marketing.

More specifically, I’ve made it a point to give away the bulk of my content.

For instance, on Quick Sprout, I offer a sizable library of free content with Quick Sprout University:

This is where my audience can find in-depth information on everything from SEO and link building to reputation management and conversion optimization.

It also provides content for all knowledge levels (e.g., beginner, intermediate, and advanced).

On NeilPatel.com, I have a free podcast called Marketing School, where listeners can learn everything they need to know about online marketing:

Of course, I maintain blogs on these sites as well.

And you know what? It has completely paid off.

Although I didn’t get massive results right off the bat, giving away content has gotten me an insane number of sales.

Without it, I doubt I would be where I’m at today.

Another example

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk.

He’s an incredibly successful entrepreneur, author, speaker, and a major influencer.

He also swears like a sailor and makes no apologies for it.

Gary basically built an empire from scratch largely by giving away loads of quality content (e.g., YouTube videos, blog posts, infographics, etc.).

He even wrote a post called, Why You Shouldn’t Charge for Your Best Work.

Here’s a screenshot of his opening intro that captures his reasoning behind giving away content:

In other words, this tactic allows you to create real trust and boost your brand equity so that prospects feel comfortable doing business with you.

Even though you’re not earning any money initially, you’re investing in the long-term success of your company.

The full spectrum of benefits

Just so you’re aware of the impact that this tactic can have, I’d like to point out a handful of specific benefits:

It’s one of the best ways to nurture leads. According to Marketing Sherpa, “73% of all B2B leads are not sales ready.”

You can position your brand as an authority. “45% of a brand’s image can be attributed to what it says and how it says it.”

It enables you to tell your brand’s story and convey your philosophy and values.

It reduces skepticism. “In 1997, consumers indicated that they had a high level of confidence in 52% of brands. By 2008 that percentage dropped to 22%.” This is a great way to slash through any doubts your prospects may have.

It’s an excellent way to educate consumers on your product’s features and the way it differs from the products of competitors.

You can address any objections that may arise.

Which types of content most influence buying decisions?

Let’s say you’re on board with the concept of freeconomics and you understand the logic behind giving your best content for free.

This brings us to one important question.

What type of content should you create? Do certain types of content influence buying decisions more than others?

To answer these questions, I’d like to point out some additional statistics from Demand Gen Report.

Take a look at the type of content used in the past 12 months to make B2B purchasing decisions:

White papers – 82%

Webinars – 78%

Case studies – 73%

E-books – 67%

Blog posts – 66%

Infographics – 66%

Third-party/analyst reports – 62%

Video/motion graphics – 47%

Interactive presentations – 36%

This doesn’t necessarily mean this is the order in which your company should prioritize its content, but it should serve as a general guideline.

Conclusion

Although the concept of freeconomics and giving away your best content may go against conventional business wisdom, there’s no denying the impact this approach can have.

The results are convincing.

I can speak from personal experience and say this is absolutely one of the best ways to grow your business. It’s done wonders for me.

But in order to make this strategy work for you, it requires a long-term commitment.

You need to treat it as an endurance race—not a sprint.

If you stay the course with your content marketing, you can grow your business by as much as 290%.

What type of free content has resonated the most with your audience?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2nUuG5N from Blogger http://ift.tt/2oqG4dt April 10, 2017 at 08:39PM

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How to Do an Online Giveaway That Doesn’t Suck

Who doesn’t want something for free?

It’s a very enticing proposition.

Some of my best business-boosting hacks have taken place when I’ve offered something free.

I’ve given away free tools, free software, free headphones, free trips, free cash, and hundreds of free resources.

Free is amazing.

And hardly anyone will turn down a free gift, discount, etc. when it’s bestowed upon them with no strings attached.

Research from Kontest proves that an online giveaway can have a profound impact on your marketing campaign.

More specifically, they found that one-third of entrants will agree to receive information from brands and partners:

On top of that, they found that new campaigns acquire a 34% audience increase on average:

That’s pretty serious.

But I’ll be honest. There’s a lot that goes into a successful online giveaway.

There’s more to it than throwing something together, slapping up a prize, and expecting people to sign up in droves.

It doesn’t work that way.

The last thing you want to do is create an online giveaway that sucks. This can end up detracting from your brand.

Online giveaways have been around as long as the Internet has existed. And, let’s be honest, people are kind of tired of cheap and scammy giveaways.

In fact, a lot of people think giveaways are dead.

But are they? I’m not convinced. Why? Because I still use giveaways to generate massive traffic and huge amounts of revenue!

What I’d like to do now is walk you through the process of setting up an online giveaway.

I’d also like to offer some tips I’ve learned along the way so you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

Determine your specific goal

Before you can figure out the logistics of your campaign, you must first decide what you’re trying to accomplish.

Here are some examples of common campaign goals:

Get new email subscribers

Increase social media engagement

Get more social media followers

Increase blog engagement

Get more backlinks

Knowing your specific goal will dictate the specific approach you take later on.

Choose a prize

Coming up with an idea sounds pretty straightforward.

But I feel this is an area where a lot of brands drop the ball.

One of the main mistakes I often see is giving away something irrelevant to the industry.

As I said before in another guide on Quick Sprout, not every contest should consist of an iPad giveaway.

Please. Can we stop with the iPads already?

What you want to do is offer a gift that represents you.

For instance, Airbnb might offer a free stay at an awesome location:

A clothing brand might offer a free t-shirt.

An outdoor gear company might give away a sleeping bag or tent.

You get the idea.

Why is this so important?

If you’re gathering email addresses as part of the online giveaway, you want to ensure you’re getting people who represent your demographic.

Otherwise, you’ll have a junk list of unqualified leads who will probably never convert when you attempt to move them through your sales funnel later on.

Make the prize match the entry

Here’s something else to consider.

Some entry requirements are quick and easy, e.g., liking a post on Facebook.

Others are more long-winded and laborious, e.g., filling out several forms of questions, submitting a photo, and so on.

I suggest choosing a prize that matches the level of effort it requires to enter.

After all, offering a mediocre prize for completing an arduous entry process may result in very few entrants.

In other words, as an article from Wishpond states, “The prize value should always be equal to the effort required to win it.”

Consider bundling items

Wishpond also makes another interesting point.

They say offering a bundle of items can have a bigger impact than offering only one item.

It seems that a bundle is deemed higher value (even if it’s not, necessarily) than one single item. Plus more variety appeals to a wider audience.

This logic makes sense to me.

Most people have a tendency to think more is better.

So, even if you offer three gifts that combined are worth less than a single gift, the perception would still be that the three gifts are of a higher value (even if they’re not).

This isn’t to say that you have to follow this formula, but it’s definitely food for thought and could help you increase your number of entrants.

Consider offering multiple prizes

Let’s be real.

What are the odds of winning a giveaway with only one grand prize?

Pretty microscopic.

And people know this. They won’t jump through a bunch of hoops just to enter a contest where the chances of winning are slim to none.

But when there are prizes for first place, second place, and third place, the odds of winning increase a bit.

I suggest you offer smaller prizes for runner-up entrants in addition to the grand prize.

This makes people feel like they do have a chance, and even if they don’t win the grand prize, they can still get something.

I’ve found this to serve as motivation for people to sign up.

Contest duration

Okay, so you’ve got a goal, and you know what prize you’re going to offer.

The next thing to determine is how long your giveaway will last—its duration.

Now, there can be a huge variation in terms of duration.

But according to Kontest, the best duration for your campaign is either 25 or 60 days:

Research has found that these two lengths of time are the “sweet spots,” allowing you to get the maximum number of applicants.

But if it’s your first campaign and you’re still getting your bearings, I would definitely suggest sticking with 25 days initially.

Go any longer, and you might minimize the impact because some entrants may forget about the giveaway.

There’s a fine line between too short and too long. You’ll be able to pick the right duration based on how much exposure your giveaway has.

Create an epic landing page

Design plays an integral role in just about every element of marketing and branding.

And it’s no exception when it comes to your giveaway’s landing page.

It needs to pop.

But I realize that me telling you to create an epic landing page is a loaded statement.

Here are a few specific traits of a great giveaway landing page:

It’s simple

It thoroughly explains what it takes to enter and what the prize is

It’s easy to understand

It contains high-quality images

People can enter quickly and easily

Now, let me provide you with a few examples.

Example #1 from Startup Pirates

Example #2 from Cadence Watch

Example #3 from Cocoon Spa

Gather the right information

Here’s a biggie: choosing which information to ask for from entrants.

You need to proceed with caution here because this can often make or break your campaign.

On the one hand, the more info you ask for, the more effort it takes for someone to enter and the fewer entrants there will be.

On the other hand, you want to ensure you’re getting adequate info so that you can effectively enter giveaway participants into your sales funnel.

How much is too much info to ask for?

Let’s take a look at what Kontest found:

As you can see, no one has an issue providing their email address.

And most are totally fine giving their first and last names.

But once you start getting to age, country, and address, the number of entrants drops off significantly.

The bottom line is that you should ask only for the most important information you’re legitimately going to use.

Otherwise, getting too personal and requiring too many steps can scare off many would-be entrants.

Make a big announcement about the winner(s)

A lot of time and energy goes into creating an online giveaway.

You want to make a big deal about the winner and put the spotlight on them.

I suggest asking them to take a photo with your product and posting it on your social media accounts.

This serves as added brand exposure and lets other entrants know that the giveaway was legit.

Both of which should help you build more buzz if you decide to create another online giveaway in the future.

Choosing a platform

There’s one last and extremely important detail.

Which platform should you use to run your online giveaway?

Although there are several different options to choose from, there are two in particular that I recommend.

The first is Gleam.

It’s fairly easy to use, and it integrates with most major social networks.

It’s also super customizable and makes it simple to incorporate great looking pictures.

I love the fact that Gleam is fully responsive, which is crucial for keeping mobile users happy.

In fact, you can increase your number of entrants 8x by running a mobile contest.

The second platform is Rafflecopter, which, according to its site, is “the world’s easiest way to run a giveaway.”

It’s also user-friendly and customizable.

Even if you have zero experience with online giveaways, you can usually get one up and running quickly.

Conclusion

I love online giveaways and think that when done correctly, they can rev up your marketing.

Just think about it. An online giveaway kills multiple birds with one stone.

You can:

Get great brand exposure

Increase social media and blog engagement

Build your audience

Establish brand advocates in the people who win your giveaways

And when you think about the money you would spend on other marketing techniques, such as paid advertising, you’re usually getting more bang for your buck with this strategy.

It’s usually a win-win situation.

But quite frankly, the strategy you devise is equally as important as the prize itself.

You need to cover all your bases and ensure you’re offering a prize that people actually want and that will motivate them to enter.

Once you’ve got that covered, the rest should fall into place.

Have you ever experimented with an online giveaway?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2nSMSxr from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nmmSy8 April 07, 2017 at 08:36PM

[anseladams03]

18 SEO Tactics That Take Only 30 Minutes Each

I feel SEO has a reputation for being meticulous and painstaking.

And perhaps that’s true to a certain extent.

The initial phases of an SEO campaign can, in fact, be grueling.

There’s on-site SEO, off-site SEO, and—everyone’s favorite—technical SEO.

So, yeah, it can be kind of a pain.

But here’s the thing.

There is a multitude of “quick fix” SEO tactics that take hardly any time.

Many can be completed within 30 minutes.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that any specific technique will bring about massive results on its own.

But when done in conjunction with one another, they can have a significant impact and give your overall SEO campaign a nice boost.

So let’s get right down to it.

Here are 18 SEO tactics that will take you no longer than 30 minutes each.

1. Get set up on Google My Business

Local SEO is important, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar business.

If you’ve been skimping on this aspect of SEO, you’ll want to spend a few minutes setting up an account on Google My Business.

This allows you to edit the info on your business, verify contact info, add images, monitor reviews, and more.

This can give you a huge advantage over competitors who fail to capitalize on this powerful resource.

2. Optimize your profile

Already have a profile on Google My Business?

Why not spend some time sprucing it up and making sure that everything is “just right?”

Here are a few specific things you can do:

Make sure all your business info is up-to-date

Add additional info such as hours, parking location, menu details, etc.

Choose specific categories (e.g., “fresh organic grocery store” instead of just “grocery store”)

Replace any amateurish looking images with newer, more professional ones

Encourage loyal customers to leave reviews

3. Get set up on Google Search Console

I love Google Search Console!

If you’re not using it, you’re leaving money on the table and not getting the most from your SEO campaign.

Here’s a screenshot explaining exactly what Google Search Console is:

Although there is a wide array of features, here are some specific things you can do to improve your SEO:

Check who’s linking to your site

Check index status

Monitor crawl errors

Manually submit new content to be crawled

I recommend reading this post from Quick Sprout to learn how to use Google Search Console like a boss.

4. Check your site’s speed

I’m sure you know just how critical site speed is.

Even a one-second delay can have an adverse impact.

If you’re not sure what your website’s speed is, you can check it with Pingdom’s Website Speed Test.

It only takes a few seconds, and it will provide you with details on what you can do to speed it up.

Here’s the info I got when I did a speed test for Quick Sprout:

5. Check your site’s mobile-friendliness

I think it’s safe to say that smartphones aren’t just a fad.

In fact, many experts labeled 2016 as “the tipping point” for mobile search, when it finally eclipsed desktop search.

Research found that the average American spent 87 hours browsing on their smartphone in August 2016.

If you haven’t done so already, take the time to run a mobile-friendly test.

This will let you know what shape your site is in and what steps you need to take (if any) to resolve any issues.

6. Improve URL structure

Here’s the scenario.

You’ve been blogging for awhile, maybe several years.

Back in the day, you didn’t pay all that much attention to the URL structure of your blog posts.

As a result, they look something like this:

http://ift.tt/2nLdHU1

It’s fair to say this isn’t going to do your SEO any favors, and it’s going to make it unnecessarily difficult for search engine robots to decipher the meaning of your content.

To make your site more SEO-friendly, go back and improve these URLs so they look more like this:

http://ift.tt/2oDX7ZX

7. Improve mediocre titles

I’ll be honest.

Coming up with epic titles for blog posts can be a little tricky at times.

Maybe in the past, you ended up settling for less than stellar titles.

A good way to make use of 30 minutes is to look over your posts to identify any titles that could use improvement.

One helpful resource for streamlining this process is Title-Generator.com.

Simply enter your main keywords, and it will generate 700 potential titles with one click.

Here’s what happened when I entered “content marketing:”

8. Study AdWords ads to optimize titles and tags

Here’s a little hack I learned from Brian Dean of Backlinko.

It’s simple but genius.

Enter a keyword in Google, and check out the ads that pop up.

Then look for awesome copy that you could potentially use for titles or tags.

Here’s the example Brian uses.

He searches for “glass water bottles” and comes up with these ads:

From there, he comes up with these phrases:

BPA-free

Keep you hydrated

Durable

Reusable

So, why is this so smart? Just think about it.

The phrases used in ads like these are the result of extensive A/B testing, so you know they get clicks and conversions.

You can save yourself an immense amount of time and energy by incorporating the phrases you find in ads.

9. Find dead links

Dead or broken links can be a real buzzkill.

Not only can they be disruptive to your website’s visitors, but they also won’t do your SEO any favors.

But you can quickly identify any of these links with the Online Broken Link Checker:

Just type in your site’s URL, and it’ll do the work for you in seconds.

Then go back, and make any necessary repairs.

10. Do some internal linking

In an article on NeilPatel.com, I mention that I wrote a blog post every day for five years and amassed hundreds of posts.

But I made one major mistake. I never linked to any of my relevant articles!

Fortunately, I eventually figured out that I could greatly improve my SEO by simply linking new articles to relevant older ones.

If you made the same mistake with your older content that I did with mine, I highly recommend taking a bit of time to set up some internal links.

Even a 30-minute session should leave your SEO in much better shape than before.

You can learn more about this process by reading this article.

11. Find link opportunities on Alltop

If you’re unfamiliar with Alltop, it’s basically a blog directory where you can find some of the world’s best content in one convenient location.

Here’s what pops up when I enter “content marketing:”

Not bad, huh?

What you want to do is spend some time looking for potential link prospects.

Search for relevant blogs in your industry to see if there are any bloggers with whom you could build relationships.

12. Find link opportunities on BuzzSumo

You can use the same process with BuzzSumo.

Just enter your search phrase, and you’ll get a list of results.

Here’s what I get with “content marketing:”

From there, click on “View Sharers” on any articles that interest you.

You’ll then see a list of people who shared that article.

These can all be potential people with whom you may want to form relationships, which could eventually translate into link-building/guest-blogging opportunities.

13. Give your lower-ranking pages a boost

I’m sure you know that having content ranking below the first page of SERPs is essentially worthless.

Here’s what I mean:

If a post is ranked say #42, it might as well be ranked #20,000,000.

Here is how to improve that.

Identify a few of your posts ranked on the second or third pages of Google.

These have obviously gained some level of traction but need a little boost to get onto page one.

To get that boost, set up some internal links pointing to them.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes to get them “over the hump” and onto prime search engine real estate.

14. Target two leading industry blogs

This might be an old school tactic, but it can still prove to be quite fruitful.

It involves finding two A+ industry blogs you were previously unaware of.

Once you find them, leave a couple of awesome comments with a link pointing back to your site.

On top of this, I recommend subscribing and following some of their best writers on Twitter with the hopes of eventually building relationships.

15. Claim your Bing listing

I feel a lot of marketers totally discount Bing.

And I get it.

It’s like comparing David to Goliath in terms of search engine market share.

But pump the brakes.

Bing still receives a decent percent of overall searches.

In fact, a 2016 article from Search Engine Journal reported:

Bing’s share of the search market grew more than Google’s this past April. To be exact, Bing’s market share rose by 0.2 percent while Google’s dropped by 0.2 percent.

Google’s total share of the US desktop search market has dipped below its previous 64 percent to 63.8 percent. Microsoft’s share of desktop search is now sitting at 21.6 percent.

Will Bing be overthrowing Google any time soon? Probably not.

But there’s still SEO juice to be had by claiming your Bing listing.

Sign up for Bing Places to claim, complete, and verify your listing.

This can be especially helpful if you’re a local brick-and-mortar business.

16. Write comprehensive descriptions for videos

Do you post any videos on your website?

If so, you may be missing out on a golden opportunity.

What I mean is that you’re probably failing to extract all the SEO potential from your videos.

And this all boils down to descriptions.

Rather than writing a brief description like this:

Brian Dean recommends leaving a 200+ word description like this:

Not only will this help you improve your ranking in YouTube, but it can also improve your ranking in SERPs.

And it really doesn’t take that long.

17. Turn a standard post into a long-form post

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious fact that long-form content ranks better than, say, a typical 500-word post.

You already know that.

But here’s a nice little trick you can do with thin content.

Look for a shorter post, under 1,000 words, that’s pretty good but never lived up to its full potential.

Then spend 30 minutes “beefing it up” by adding more content, charts, graphs, visuals, etc. until it’s bona fide long-form content.

For more on this, check out this post from NeilPatel.com.

18. Spy on competitors

Finally, it’s time to tap into your inner James Bond.

By this, I mean “spying” on a few of your key competitors.

Just go to SEMrush and type in their URL.

Within seconds, you can find info on their:

Top organic keywords

Organic position distribution

Backlinks

Top anchors

Indexed pages

This will provide you with valuable intel that can guide your SEO campaign and enable you to be more effective.

Conclusion

SEO doesn’t have to be back-breaking, mind-numbing work.

In fact, there is a plethora of smaller SEO tasks you can easily complete in 30 minutes.

The ones I’ve outlined in this article will help you step up your SEO without an insane amount of effort.

And when you do several (five or more), it can potentially lead to a major breakthrough.

Do you have any other quick and easy SEO tactics up your sleeve?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2nLbyaX from Blogger http://ift.tt/2obcsAT April 06, 2017 at 01:26AM

[anseladams03]

How Any Digital Business Can Explode Using Word of Mouth Marketing

We live in a digital age.

Each day we’re bombarded with an endless stream of online ads via social media, websites, search engines, videos, and so on.

Marketing companies spend billions upon billions each year researching, analyzing, and pushing ads to consumers.

But you know what?

No matter how sophisticated and streamlined digital marketing becomes, it still pales in comparison with the power of good old-fashioned word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

According to in-depth studies from Nielsen, “WOMM recommendations still remain the most credible.”

Just look at this graph that ranks consumers’ trust, depending on the form of advertising and the action it produces.

Positioned right at the top as the number one trust factor is “recommendations from people I know.”

It heavily shapes consumers’ opinions on brands/products/services, and this is unlikely to ever change.

Here are a couple more stats that demonstrate the power of WOMM:

“74 percent of consumers identify WOMM as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.”

“WOMM has been shown to improve marketing effectiveness by up to 54 percent.”

Just think about it.

Would you feel more comfortable buying a product recommended by a close friend or by a marketing message shoved down your throat by some slick marketing guru?

I would bet the former.

The full impact

There’s another important detail I’d like to point out.

It has to do with the long-term impact of acquiring new customers through WOMM.

According to the Wharton School of Business,

a customer you acquire from WOM has a 16 – 25 percent higher lifetime value than those you acquire from other sources.

This means you’re far more likely to get repeat business from an individual who’s acquired through WOMM than otherwise.

They also have a higher likelihood of becoming brand advocates or even brand ambassadors.

Consumers trusting other consumers

And there’s one more thing.

You don’t necessarily need to have a person recommend your brand to someone they know directly to benefit from WOMM.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of consumers trust recommendations from other consumers.

According to Nielsen,

68 percent trust online opinions from other consumers, which is up 7 percent from 2007 and places online opinions as the third most trusted source of product information.

Bright Local also reports,

88 percent of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.

The way I look at it, old school WOMM has meshed with the digital age.

Many people now turn to other online consumers, whom they don’t actually know, to find out whether a brand is worth purchasing from.

If you can impress a handful of consumers and turn them into brand advocates, it can have a domino effect: they spread the word, which can lead to a surge in sales.

It can set off a chain reaction.

Have we forgotten about WOMM?

There’s a paragraph in a Forbes article I really like:

The problem is that for the last few years, marketers have been focused on ‘collecting’ instead of ‘connecting.’ In other words, brands are too caught up in collecting social media fans and they are forgetting to actually connect with them.

I think this really hits the nail on the head.

Many marketers (myself included) are guilty of it to some extent.

I feel we’ve gotten so caught up in the latest and greatest marketing techniques that we sometimes forget about what good business is founded on in the first place: relationships.

Before there was social media, SEO, PPC, or even radio/TV commercials, most businesses gained new customers from old school person-to-person recommendations.

But it’s never too late to cash in on WOMM.

However, it does require a slightly different approach from the one used in the past.

The great thing is there are some really potent resources and platforms out there to streamline WOMM and maximize its impact.

I’d now like to discuss some fundamental tactics you can use to make your digital business explode using WOMM in the modern age.

Focus on your core audience, not the masses

The first step to making this strategy work is to understand who your core audience is.

Founding editor of Wired Magazine, Kevin Kelly formulated what I think was a brilliant hypothesis in 2008—the 1,000 true fans theory.

His idea was that any artist, business, etc. could survive on having only 1,000 true fans and that “returns diminish as your fan base gets larger and larger.”

In other words, you’re more likely to have success if you focus on gaining 1,000 true fans rather than tens of thousands, or even millions, of lukewarm fans.

Tim Ferriss has actually embraced this idea, and it has been a key part of his meteoric rise to fame.

Ferriss even talks about the concept of 1,000 true fans in-depth in his new book, Tools of Titans.

And I think this is a good approach to take in WOMM.

You’re far more likely to create brand advocates if you focus on truly connecting with your core audience rather than trying to appease the masses.

This basically goes back to Pareto’s 80/20 principle, which applies to many different areas of life and business.

The premise is that 80 percent of your customers account for 20 percent of your sales and 20 percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your sales.

What you need to do is put most of your attention on “wooing” the 20 percent and deepening your relationships with them.

If you stick with this game plan, your core audience should grow even stronger, and you’ll be creating the perfect environment for WOMM to take place.

Be authentic and transparent

I know saying something like this may sound a little generic and cliché, but it’s still very important.

I feel many brands are out of touch with their audiences, and they end up suffering for it in the long run.

I believe authenticity and transparency are two of the most vital traits a brand can possess.

Most people can spot any ounce of pretentiousness from a mile away.

And with so many sleazeballs out there today, most consumers have developed a sense of skepticism that isn’t easy to stamp out.

I also realize that simply telling you to be authentic and transparent is a little vague.

You might be asking: how exactly does one accomplish this?

Of course, this is a huge topic to tackle, but I really like these suggestions from Copyblogger on how to get your customers to like you and build trust:

When it comes to transparency, it all boils down to being yourself and making it a point to engage with consumers.

You want to “humanize” your brand.

Check out this post from Vision Critical for more on this topic.

It highlights five specific brands that embraced transparency and found success as a result.

Leverage reviews

As I mentioned earlier, most consumers are receptive to online reviews and trust the opinions of other consumers even if they don’t know them directly.

If you can get your satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, you’re almost guaranteed to see a spike in sales.

So, I suggest doing everything within your power to encourage your satisfied customers to leave reviews.

This starts by “claiming” your business on some of the top review sites such as Google My Business, Angie’s List, and Yelp.

I won’t go into all the details of this process, but I recommend you check out an article I wrote on NeilPatel.com on how to get more online reviews.

This will provide you with an in-depth look at and tips on how to make this strategy a success.

I also suggest looking at this post from HubSpot that talks about 19 online review sites that can help your business get more reviews and gain traction.

Add fuel to the fire with a referral program

If you really want to expedite your WOMM, consider implementing some sort of a referral program.

When done correctly, it can lead to an influx of new customers while giving your brand equity a nice boost.

Here is a great example of a referral program that got it right.

Several years ago, Dropbox started a referral program that offered customers up to 16GB of free storage for “inviting a friend” to join.

What was the end result?

The refer-a-friend feature increased signups by 60 percent

Users sent 2.8 million direct referral invites

Dropbox went from 100k to 4 million users in just 15 months

This resulted in a 40x increase, or a doubling of users every 3 months

This just goes to show the power a referral program can have.

The key is to come up with some way to reward existing customers for referring your brand to a friend.

This could be a discount, freebie, cash back, or whatever.

As long as the reward has genuine value and isn’t going to kill your profit margins, it should work.

The specific reward program you’ll want to implement will depend largely on your industry or niche.

That’s why I suggest reading this post from Referral Candy.

It goes over 47 different referral programs that totally crushed it and should give you some ideas on coming up with an approach for your business.

I also recommend checking out this guide from Referral Rock, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know on the subject.

Conclusion

With all the cutting-edge, sleek, and sexy marketing techniques out there, WOMM sometimes gets overlooked these days.

And that’s unfortunate.

If you look at studies involving research on WOMM, it’s easy to see that it’s still alive and well.

In many ways, WOMM is more powerful than ever when you consider the ease with which consumers can share reviews with one another.

I know I usually find myself reading at least a couple of reviews before I purchase something on Amazon or especially before I book a spot on Airbnb.

The way I look at it, it’s never been easier to harness the power of WOMM than it is today.

It’s simply a matter of bringing this old school concept into the modern marketing era.

By using a handful of fundamental concepts like the ones I discussed, you can absolutely make your digital business explode using WOMM.

The best part is that many of the new customers you receive will be repeats and will even recommend your brand to their friends.

And this is the very definition of creating a sustainable business model.

How big of a role do you think WOMM plays in business today?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2oGZaZH from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nHLf8l March 31, 2017 at 08:36PM

[anseladams03]

28 Business-Boosting Marketing Activities You Can Do in 1 Hour or Less

The entrepreneurial lifestyle is often a hectic one.

Some “treps” easily end up working 50, 60, or even more hours per week.

Don’t get me wrong.

I love almost everything about running my businesses and blogs, but time is definitely at a premium.

And I’m sure many of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day to spend on an extensive, exhaustive marketing campaign.

But you know what?

There are a lot of marketing activities that can get legitimate results that you can do in 1 hour or less.

I came up with 28 specific activities you can do in your downtime but which will still give your business a nice boost.

Here we go.

1. Create an editorial calendar

Almost any great blog begins with a detailed editorial calendar.

This is where you coordinate your content, schedule your posts, set deadlines, list your CTAs, and so on.

In other words, an editorial calendar provides structure to your blogging campaign and keeps things from getting messy.

Honestly, this is the only way I’m able to stay on top of my game (and maintain sanity) with all of my different projects.

I recommend checking out this list of editorial calendar templates from Builtvisible for more.

2. Tweak your editorial calendar

You should also know that an editorial calendar is never static.

A good one is dynamic, ever-changing.

If you haven’t checked your editorial calendar in a while, look it over and make any necessary adjustments.

For instance, you might:

Check off posts that have been completed

Add new content to create over the next month

Look for ways to make it more organized

3. Read three industry blog posts

I really recommend staying on top of industry trends.

This is your ticket to spotting patterns, generating new marketing ideas, and coming up with interesting new content to share with your audience.

That’s why I try to make it a habit to read three high-level industry blog posts whenever I get a chance.

4. Comment on three industry blogs

When you’re done reading, leave a thoughtful comment.

Go for more than just saying, “I love this blog post!”

Instead, shoot for something more detailed and insightful to prove you’ve really sifted through the information and analyzed it.

Here’s a great example of a recent comment I received on Quick Sprout:

I think this comment added even more depth to the conversation, and I can guarantee you any blogger would greatly appreciate such a comment.

I know I do.

5. Research industry trends

The way I see it, crushing it in most businesses is all about striking while the iron is hot.

That’s why I routinely do industry research to see what’s happening and stay on top of recent changes.

A quick Google search on “[your industry] trends” should pop up a wealth of information.

This can shape your business and marketing decisions and will help you stay sharp as an entrepreneur.

6. Brainstorm topics for your blog

As I’ve said before, coming up with new ideas for blog posts can be quite exhausting.

That’s why I like to devote some time to simply brainstorming new ideas so I don’t have to come up with them off the top of my head.

One of the ways I streamline this process is by using Alltop and BuzzSumo.

Here’s Alltop:

And here’s BuzzSumo:

They’re both great for seeing what’s popular and for generating ideas.

Sometimes, I can come up with as many as 50 rock solid ideas in just 1 hour this way.

7. Do keyword research

I’m a big fan of a process known as “batching,” which I’ve written about before on Quick Sprout.

Batching can be used to make nearly any task quicker and more efficient.

Here’s a simple example of using batching to deliver mail:

One marketing task that can be quite time-consuming is keyword research.

When you do this prior to writing every blog post, it can really drain your time.

That’s why I suggest doing it in blocks: identify keywords to target—all in one sitting.

You can then add your keywords to your editorial calendar so you know what to use in your upcoming content.

8. Send a pitch for a guest post

You probably already know I’m a huge proponent of guest blogging.

If you can get in front of a large, established audience, you’ll get exposure for your brand.

It’s just as simple as that.

But, of course, guest blogging first begins with sending an initial pitch.

If you’ve got an hour to burn, why not send out a couple of pitches to relevant bloggers?

And if you’re new to this, I really love this guide from Backlinko.

It will walk you through guest blogging step by step.

9. Repurpose one of your best blog posts

If you’ve been blogging for awhile, there’s a good chance you have a handful of posts that totally crushed it.

They’re the best of the best—your “unicorn content.”

Repurpose one of your best posts using a different medium, e.g., a whitepaper, long-form guide, infographic, or a short e-book.

If your audience was receptive to a particular topic presented in a standard blog post, there’s a good chance they will give it a warm reception in a different medium too.

Read over this guide for everything you need to know on repurposing content.

10. Record a video

Video marketing is ridiculously huge right now.

On average, video gets crazy engagement.

It also gets massive conversion rates.

If you’re not already leveraging video marketing, I suggest getting on board right away.

I know for a fact that video allows me to connect with my audience on a level that most other mediums cannot.

And the odds are good that it will produce a positive impact for you as well.

11. Record a podcast

I friggin’ love podcasts!

Interest in them has grown over the past few years quite a bit:

In my opinion, they’re a great way to “round off” your content and offer your audience an alternative type of media to consume.

At the time of publication of this article, I’ve recorded over 200 podcast episodes on NeilPatel.com and have found it to be a tremendous experience.

Once you figure out the software and equipment, it doesn’t take much effort to record a podcast.

You can easily do it within 1 hour.

If you’re not sure how to get started, check out this guide from Pat Flynn.

12. Make a slideshow

I feel slideshows don’t get a whole lot of love and get lost in the content mix.

But they’ve got plenty of potential and are worth experimenting with.

Slideshare alone had 70 million users as of early 2017 and can be a great way to pull in some extra traffic.

13. Create a picture quote

I’m sure you’ve seen picture quotes floating on social media.

They look like this:

They’re especially big on Twitter and Instagram and work great for expressing thoughts in a visual-centric way.

The cool thing is that picture quotes are super quick and easy to make.

Canva is one of my favorite platforms because it offers a large library of professional images that are mostly free to use.

You can borrow from famous quotes or create your own.

14. Share three epic posts on social media

Curating content is an integral part of the social media marketing process.

You definitely want to shine the spotlight on other people’s great work rather than shamelessly self-promoting your brand.

Whenever you’ve got some free time, search the Internet for three epic posts to share.

To curate content like a boss, check out this guide from Curata.

15. Follow five relevant people

Sometimes I feel my social feed is a little stale.

In which case, I search for a few new follows to spice it up.

You may even be able to make some new contacts, so always be willing to make the first move on social media.

16. Engage with five people on social media

Allow me to piggyback on that last statement.

If you’re looking to expand your network and potentially find new business partners, be always engaging with others.

This hardly takes any time, but commenting or even liking or retweeting great content can sometimes be the catalyst for new opportunities.

17. Engage with five recent followers

It’s also important to engage with the people who follow you and build genuine rapport with your audience.

When you’ve got some spare time, go through your social media accounts and pick out a handful of recent followers.

Then hit them up by thanking them for following you or even start an online conversation.

18. Target an influencer

I’m sure you’ve heard about influencer marketing and how potent it can be as a marketing tool.

And it’s totally true.

But getting to the point where an influencer actually promotes your brand takes time.

The first step in the process is finding someone who is likely to be on board.

One technique I’ve found to be effective when searching for influencers is to use BuzzSumo.

Here’s an example of what pops up after I searched for content marketing influencers:

I think a great way to make use of an hour is to research and target potential influencers in your industry.

To learn about this process, check out this post from NeilPatel.com.

19. Contact an influencer

Once you’ve found an influencer, it’s time for the approach.

This typically involves doing a little research about them, their brand, values, philosophy, etc.

Next, send them an email or contact them via their website to give them your pitch.

I recommend reading this post from Crazy Egg for the skinny on reaching out to influencers.

20. Submit your business to directories

Did you know that 145 million people use Yelp each month?

And that’s just one of many business directories.

If you’re looking for a way to boost your exposure and reel in more local consumers, it’s smart to spend some time submitting your business to relevant directories.

This ultimate list from HubSpot highlights 50 of the best directories for local marketing.

21. Check Google Analytics

It’s important to stay current on key metrics.

I like to know about any visitor traffic patterns and behavior that could impact my ability to make conversions.

If you haven’t checked Google Analytics (or whatever type of metrics platform you use) in a while, it’s smart to spend some time there.

In particular, I pay close attention to the amount of time people spend on my site, referrals, and audience interests.

22. Analyze your top competitors

If you’ve got some extra time on your hands, you may want to see what the competition is up to.

I suggest identifying three or four of your top competitors and checking the following:

Top organic keywords

Backlinks

Top anchors

Referring domains

This will give you some valuable intel on what’s working for them and what you can do to gain the upper hand.

One of my favorite tools for doing this is SEMrush.

It’s free and will supply you with a load of information.

23. Do a content audit

Although the word audit may sound time-consuming and even a little intimidating, it’s actually not all that involved.

You can do a basic content audit in as little as 1 hour.

While it may be a tad boring, it’s a great way to ensure your content is hitting its mark.

You can learn the basics in this guide from Quick Sprout.

24. Do an SEO audit

Just like you want to ensure that your content is in tip top shape, it’s also crucial to see what state your SEO is in from time to time.

Doing an SEO audit is a great way to get a glimpse of how things are performing.

More specifically, you can tell:

What your top organic keywords are

Whether there are any issues with meta descriptions, URL structure, etc.

How your domain ranks among the competition

Check out this post from Search Engine Land to learn how to do your own SEO audit in only 5 minutes.

25. Check for dead links

Dead links aren’t cool.

They disrupt the user experience and can make your brand seem unprofessional.

That’s why I suggest checking for dead links every few months or so.

It’s no big deal.

Just use the Online Broken Link Checker.

It’s completely free, and it will give you the rundown of any broken links and identify their location on your site.

26. Do some internal linking

An internal link “is one that points to another page on the same website.”

Internal linking is a fundamental part of SEO and helps “spread link juice around your site.”

It’s a good idea to spend some time doing some internal linking if it’s something you’ve slacked on in the past.

Just make sure your links point to pages that are relevant and truly add to the reader experience.

27. Improve your email signature

Having an email signature that’s consistent with your company is an important aspect of branding.

Unfortunately, it’s sometimes overlooked.

If you really want to make a splash, add your logo along with a professional headshot.

Check out this infographic from Business 2 Community for the details on creating a killer email signature.

28. Fine-tune your sales funnel

Your sales funnel is the key to leading consumers through the buying process until they ultimately make a purchase.

But if you’ve been using the same sales funnel for the past few years, some serious inefficiencies could be holding you back.

Why not spend a little time going over your existing sales funnel to check for areas that could use some improvement?

Conclusion

Amping up your marketing doesn’t always require exhaustive work sessions.

In fact, there are many business-boosting marketing activities you can do in 1 hour or less.

If you’ve got some downtime and want to devote it to marketing, any of these activities should be worth your while.

Can you think of any other marketing activities that don’t require a big time commitment?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2mPXIYs from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nwlWEu March 29, 2017 at 09:26PM

[anseladams03]

How to Blast Away the Top 15 Conversion Roadblocks on Your Website

Conversion rate optimization has never been bigger than it is today.

Just look at how much interest in conversion rate optimization has increased over the past decade:

And there are more and more conversion rate optimization (CRO) agencies popping up every day.

A quick search on Google for “conversion rate optimization agency” gave me nearly one million results:

This tells me one thing: many companies have lousy conversion rates.

According to Econsultancy, “only about 22 percent of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates.”

So, what’s going wrong?

The issue with CRO is that there is a plethora of potential problem areas.

It’s not always easy to pinpoint precisely where the issue lies.

But based on my experience and research, there are 15 primary conversion roadblocks that disrupt the process and turn would-be customers away.

If your conversions aren’t where they should be, it’s very possible that at least one of these issues is the culprit.

In this post, I describe these problem areas and offer advice on how to fix them.

I’ll start with the more technical aspects and work my way down to onsite content and, ultimately, the checkout process itself.

1. Slow load time

Before you can ever spark initial interest, you must get visitors to actually browse through your site.

If they abandon your site before it loads, you’re guaranteed to have a zero percent conversion rate.

Not good.

Quite honestly, slow load time is an issue that still plagues many companies today, and that’s because people have little patience.

Here’s what I mean.

Research has found that “nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds.”

In the case of website conversions, a lack of speed kills.

If you think this is a problem for you, I recommend checking out these two resources:

10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website — and Improve Conversion by 7 Percent

How to Make Your Site Insanely Fast

2. Wrong color scheme

When it comes to choosing the color for a site’s design, I feel like many people just use something they think looks cool.

Often, they don’t consider the underlying psychology behind a particular color scheme.

But color may play a bigger role in conversions than you may think.

In fact, “studies suggest that people make a subconscious judgment about a product within 90 seconds of initial viewing. Up to 90 percent of that assessment is based on color alone.”

Here are some examples of the meanings of certain colors in the Western world:

The point I’m trying to make here is that you shouldn’t haphazardly choose a color scheme.

Instead, you should carefully choose colors based on the type of emotion you want visitors to feel.

It can have a tremendous impact on conversions and put leads in the buying mindset.

For more on this topic, check out these two resources:

The Complete Guide to Understanding Consumer Psychology

The Psychology of Color: How to Use Colors to Increase Conversion Rate

3. Confusing navigation

Two words should define your site’s navigation: simple and intuitive.

If your navigation is in any way confusing or complicated, your conversion rate is likely to take a hit.

Allow me to provide you with a couple of examples of this.

Here’s a site where navigation is in a non-standard location:

This can throw people off because they’re expecting to find it at the top or on either side of the page.

Another mistake that can be a conversion roadblock is having too many navigation items:

This can have a paralyzing effect on visitors: they will likely become so overwhelmed that they won’t know where to get started.

Either one of these issues is going to lead to a high bounce rate and low conversions.

The fix is to keep it simple and intuitive, which you can learn more about in this post from Kissmetrics.

4. Cluttered design

Have you ever come across something like this?

Or this?

These sites are messy, cluttered and can lead to a cognitive overload, which isn’t going to do your conversion rate any favors.

I enjoy sites with a minimalist feel, like this:

In fact, that’s what I aim for on Quick Sprout, Crazy Egg, and NeilPatel.com.

I recommend doing the same for your website.

Although you don’t necessarily want it to seem sterile, a simple, fresh design should put your visitors at ease and lower your bounce rate.

5. Crappy imagery

The word “crappy” may seem vague, but I think you know what I mean.

I refer to bad stock photos that come across as inauthentic.

Kind of like these:

“Overly corporate” stock photos are the worst.

Of course, visuals are important.

As Loyalty Square reports,

a research conducted by the Seoul International Color Expo 2004 suggested that 

92.6% people take into concern the visual factor while making purchases

84.7% of the total respondents think that color is [more] important than many other factors while choosing products for buying.

But you want to be very selective with the images you use.

I prefer spending a little money upfront for some quality stock images.

Sites like Shutterstock and Fotolia tend to be good.

If you’re going to use a royalty-free image site, I suggest be diligent about your quality standards.

For instance, Pixabay is one of the best for free images.

You may also want to experiment with making your own images, which you can learn about here.

Regardless of the path you take, just stay away from crappy imagery because it’s going to hurt your conversions and reputation.

6. Excessive options

Several studies have been conducted on the topic of options and the impact of those options on consumers.

The overarching consensus is this: having too many choices reduces the likelihood of a purchase.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to showcase a few different products.

But you don’t want to drown your visitors in a seemingly infinite number of options because it’s inevitably going to overwhelm them.

You’ll notice that I make it a point to minimize the number of options on all my sites, and it’s worked out beautifully.

7. Missing or hard to find contact info

I was honestly a little surprised when I came across the following stats regarding contact info from KoMarketing:

“Once on a company’s homepage, 64 percent of visitors want to see the company’s contact information.”

“44 percent of website visitors will leave a company’s website if there’s no contact information or phone number.”

“51 percent of people think ‘thorough contact information’ is the most important element missing from many company websites.”

I knew that having some means of contact was important but not necessarily that critical.

But these stats show that your conversion rate will basically be cut in half if there’s no contact info or phone number.

So it’s super important to include this information in a conspicuous area.

8. Spelling/grammatical errors

I know we’re all human, and humans make mistakes.

But spelling/grammatical errors can be costly. Really costly.

One study in particular found that “59 percent of people would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material.”

In other words, nearly six out of 10 would-be customers will abandon your site if they come across these types of errors.

This is why it’s so important to be hyper-diligent, and you may even want to use a free tool like Grammarly when writing copy, blog posts, or other content.

9. Stale content

Here’s one that might not be so obvious: having outdated content on your blog.

I instantly become skeptical of a company if its blog hasn’t been updated in at least six months.

I wonder if they even care.

If you run a blog, be sure to update it fairly frequently.

This doesn’t need to be every week, but it should be once a month at an absolute minimum.

10. Crazy salesy copy

Did you know that “approximately 96 percent of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy?”

If you go right for the jugular and beat them over the head with “salesy copy,” many will run.

In other words, using too much hype or BS and sounding like a sleazy used car salesman is going to hurt your conversions.

Instead, most leads need to be warmed up before they’re ready to buy.

I suggest checking out this post from Kissmetrics for advice on writing persuasive copy without any “icky gimmicks” that could turn off your audience.

11. No social proof

Anyone can make claims on their website.

Today’s customers want to know you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

Social proof in the form of testimonials, positive press, and social shares can go a long way.

One of my favorites is media icons (otherwise known as logo porn), which showcases companies you’ve partnered with, written for, or done business with.

That can instantly quell any doubt that may have arisen in a visitor’s mind.

12. No trust elements

Trust elements include things such as:

A badge from the Better Business Bureau

Indication of secure payment processing

Return and refund policies

Detailed product information

Unbiased reviews

If you’re missing these types of trust elements, it’s going to be difficult to get your leads over “the buying hump.”

I suggest reading this post from ConversionXL for a comprehensive list of ways to boost your website’s credibility.

13. Annoying sign-ups

You know what people really hate?

Those long-winded sign-up forms with fields that just seem to go on and on.

I’ve abandoned numerous sites when I got hit with these.

If you’re a first-time shopper, you don’t want to waste your time entering loads of info just to make a purchase.

Or as one disgruntled online shopper phrased it,

“I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.”

The bottom line is to reduce the number of fields a person has to go through to make a purchase.

Or better yet, ditch it all together, and let someone check out as a guest.

Going this route can result in a surge in conversions. If you’ve never read The $300 Million Dollar Button, I greatly recommend it.

It touches on this topic and highlights a real-life case study.

14. An arduous checkout process

This roadblock piggybacks on the previous one.

Besides having too many forms to fill out, a complicated, exhausting checkout process can really hurt conversions.

Just look at the number of customers that drop off during checkout:

If you’re making people jump through too many hoops or have confusing ordering/shipping policies, it’s going to disrupt things.

A streamlined checkout process will be simple and linear and have a progress indicator so customers can see the steps they’ve completed and still need to complete.

This post from Kissmetrics highlights some common problem areas of the checkout process and explains how to correct them.

15. No A/B testing

Last but not least, there’s the issue of A/B testing.

It’s amazing that many websites still fail to use this simple yet incredibly powerful technique.

Running continuous tests on elements like CTA buttons, colors, and copy can have a major impact:

I really like this article from ConversionXL for learning both the basics and more advanced techniques of this A/B testing.

Conclusion

There is a lot happens between the time when a person lands on your site and when they actually complete a purchase.

And that’s why a lot can go wrong.

Understanding some of the most common roadblocks and diagnosing them can make the process go far smoother.

I’ve found the 15 issues in this post to be some of the most pervasive.

But making the necessary fixes can be your ticket to boosting conversions and getting the most out of your traffic.

What’s been your main conversion obstacle? How did you overcome it?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2mIxUxC from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nYCTtQ March 27, 2017 at 08:41PM

[anseladams03]

26 Marketing Tools for Non-Tech-Savvy Marketers

Marketing tools are essential for streamlining and automating the more arduous aspects of the process.

The only issue is that you’ve got to actually learn how to use them.

You have to learn their capabilities, their limitations as well as their nuances.

It’s no biggie if you’re tech-inclined.

But what if you’re not so tech-savvy?

Using marketing tools can nearly negate the purpose if it’s a struggle just to figure them out.

That’s why I compiled a list of 26 marketing tools for non-tech-savvy marketers.

Each one is practical and user-friendly and requires a minimal learning curve. Many are even free.

Content creation

1. WordPress

Let’s start with the absolute basics: WordPress.

You could consider it to be the “OG” of content management systems.

As of late 2015, it powered 25% of the world’s websites.

And it’s very likely that number is even bigger today.

A large part of WordPress’ appeal is its utter simplicity and non-technical nature.

You can create and maintain a beautiful website with literally zero knowledge of coding.

And if you happen to understand HTML, you can completely crush it.

If you want to create a site for your business or blog, I highly recommend WordPress.

You can learn how to do it from scratch with this video from Quick Sprout.

2. Google Drive

When it comes to cloud storage, I think of Google Drive as being the universal platform.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve worked with clients or business partners who’ve made Google Drive their platform of choice.

Like most Google products, it’s super intuitive and easy to use.

I use it for writing and backing up content as well as for sharing content with others.

It’s perfect if you have multiple people working on a project because sharing and editing is a cinch.

Besides docs, you can create slideshows, drawings, spreadsheets, and more.

3. Grammarly

I don’t care if you’re Mark Twain, everyone is bound to make mistakes when writing.

Whether it’s a silly spelling error or poor grammar, it’s impossible to catch everything.

But Grammarly will do just that (or pretty darn close to it).

Add it to Chrome, and Grammarly will monitor everything you write, point out any issues, and offer advice on how to resolve them.

It goes above and beyond Word and will make you look like an expert even if your writing skills are lackluster:

The cool thing is that it will also scan your emails before sending them out so you don’t look like an idiot when corresponding to customers or clients.

I highly recommend it!

4. Word Counter

Word count is kind of a big deal, especially if you’re writing long-form content and need to reach a specific number of words.

But not all online writing platforms display word count.

I love this tool because I can quickly copy and paste a body of text, and Word Counter will let me know how many words I’ve written.

It’s super quick, and I’ve never experienced any sort of glitch.

Content ideas

5. Google Trends

Coming up with new ideas for content can be a major struggle.

Even if you’re an expert, it’s not always easy to come up with stellar ideas.

I’ve found Google Trends to be a great place for getting a sense of what’s popular at the moment.

Often, it will point me in the right direction, and I can then use it to gauge the exact interest in a particular topic.

For instance, here’s how the interest in content marketing has grown over the past five years:

6. Alltop

Using Alltop is a breeze.

Simply type in a search phrase, and hundreds of popular blog posts on that topic will pop up:

I use this for brainstorming all the time, and Alltop has helped me come up with some epic ideas for blog posts.

7. BuzzSumo

Words cannot express how much I love BuzzSumo.

Pretty much anyone can figure it out within minutes, and it’s the perfect tool for generating an arsenal of content ideas.

But what separates it from other tools is the fact that it provides you with key info such as:

how much engagement content receives

who is sharing it

links pointing back to the content

The only caveat is that you must purchase the Pro version to unlock all the features.

But you can still do a basic search with the free version.

8. Ubersuggest

This one is a bit like the Google Keyword Tool, only simpler.

Enter a search term, and Ubersuggest will spit out dozens or even hundreds of ideas:

It’s really easy to use, and it’ll keep supplying you with topics whenever you need them.

Communication and collaboration

9. Basecamp

If WordPress is the OG CMS, Basecamp is the OG of project management and team collaboration.

Countless other products have been developed, many of which are cooler and sexier.

But Basecamp still retains its status and continues to be one of the big dogs.

I love its clean interface and how intuitive it is.

It’s very non-intimidating even for the most non-tech-savvy of marketers.

10. Trello

At this point, you probably know I’m big on visuals.

Images make it easier for me to absorb information and stay on top of my game.

That’s why I love Trello.

It involves a system of boards where you can communicate with colleagues and keep tabs on project progress.

It can easily be scaled up or down as necessary and can really boost productivity.

I know many people who swear by it.

11. Asana

This is another visual-oriented platform that I’ve used on several occasions.

I prefer Basecamp over Asana, but it’s the number one team-collaboration platform for many marketers.

In fact, some companies that use it include TED, The New Yorker, and Uber.

My favorite aspect of Asana is the ease with which I can track a project from start to finish.

I’m a stickler for deadlines, so this helps me ensure they’re always met without a lot of stress.

12. Slack

When I think of Slack, I think of hipsters. But in a very good way.

It’s perhaps the coolest, sleekest, sexiest collaboration app in existence.

And it’s dead simple to use.

Slack revolves around creating “channels” where you communicate with team members either publicly or privately.

Drag and drop your files to share with others, and search your archive any time you need specific information.

Slack makes it easy.

Task management

13. Wunderlist

I stay busy, so it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when I’m bombarded with a barrage of tasks on a daily basis.

One of my favorite weapons to counter that is Wunderlist.

I place it on my desktop so I can see exactly what’s going on and what I need to take care of on any given day.

And, of course, I can also access it from my smartphone or tablet.

I can easily save links, photos, and other media I want to keep.

I also use it to set reminders of specific tasks’ deadlines and make note of any business/project ideas that pop into my head.

In other words, Wunderlist helps me keep my you-know-what together.

14. WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin

If you use WordPress (like I recommend), you’ll want to take advantage of this plugin.

It’s a little like Google Calendar, but specifically for scheduling your blog posts.

You can:

Manage drafts

See what’s been posted

See what needs to be posted

Manage posts from different authors

Like most things on WordPress, it’s user-friendly, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out its features.

15. Todoist

The tagline of this platform is “Accomplish more, every day.”

And that’s fitting because I’ve found Todoist to be a major catalyst for productivity.

You simply record tasks, prioritize them as needed, collaborate with others, and get stuff done.

I love its no-nonsense interface and minimalist vibe.

SEO

16. Yoast SEO

This is another WordPress plugin and one that I highly recommend if you’re fairly new to the SEO game.

Here’s a screenshot of its features:

In other words, it handles nearly every major aspect of SEO.

The best part is its simplicity.

I love Yoast SEO because it’s very hands off and automates many of the more arduous SEO tasks like creating optimized URLs, keeping track of keyword density, and so on.

Before you publish your content, Yoast SEO will rate its readability and your keyword usage by giving it a color: red for poor, orange for okay, and green for good.

If you loathe the technical nature of SEO, this is a great plugin to use.

17. Google Keyword Planner

If you were to use only one tool for performing keyword research, this is it.

Even the biggest SEO nerd will agree that it’s useful because you’re gathering data right from the horse’s mouth—Google itself.

The cool thing is that you don’t need to be technically adept to figure it out. Most of the features are pretty self-explanatory.

18. MozBar

In my opinion, Moz is perhaps the Internet’s number one resource for all things SEO.

I especially love its Whiteboard Fridays, offering in-depth analysis and insight.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to determine key SEO metrics like links, page authority, and domain authority, I highly recommend MozBar.

Simply add it to your Chrome toolbar, and you’re good to go.

19. SEMrush

This is another great SEO tool that’s amazingly easy to use.

Just enter a URL or keyword, and you instantly get a boatload of useful information such as:

Organic search volume

Backlinks

Top organic keywords

Main organic competitors

Branded search

If you’re looking to perform competitive analysis for keyword or content opportunities, look no further than SEMrush.

Images

20. Canva

If you’re creating content, you’ll need plenty of beautiful visuals.

In my opinion, Canva is hands down one of the best platforms for creating your own images and documents from scratch.

It’s really easy, and Canva offers a wide array of images that are totally free.

You can modify them as needed for your content or for branding purposes.

The best part is that you can do this with virtually no design experience.

21. PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a photo editor that allows you to design, resize, do touch-ups, create collages, and a lot more.

Using it is no sweat even if you have no clue what you’re doing in terms of design.

It’s perfect if you have your own images you want to customize, and PicMonkey helps you make them look like a million bucks.

22. Pixabay

Here’s my take on stock photos.

I prefer to pay for them and get the best of the best.

But if you’re just starting out or are on a budget, Pixabay is one of my top picks.

Everything is royalty-free and available for the public to download, modify, and distribute.

They have a massive archive of pictures that covers most topics, and the quality of their images has really improved over the past couple of years.

Here are just a few samples:

23. Creative Commons

Creative Commons is basically an aggregator of images free to use for commercial purposes. These images can be modified, adapted, or built upon.

You enter a search query, and choose from multiple platforms like Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, Open Clip Art Library, and even Google.

It’s a great tool for streamlining your image search.

Metrics

24. Google Analytics

There are countless metrics platforms out there for measuring your website’s performance, traffic numbers, and so on.

But I think it’s safe to say that Google Analytics is the be-all and end-all tool.

The free version is more than sufficient for diagnosing your website and, in my opinion, quite easy to use.

I’ll admit there is a bit of a learning curve, but most people can figure out the basics in a day or two.

25. Bitly

Bitly is perhaps best known for being a URL shortener.

In fact, I use it all the time for condensing URLs on my Twitter page:

But it’s useful for way more than that.

Here’s the deal.

Bitly allows you to track individual links and gather key information about their performance.

You can tell what your audience is responding to (or not) and tweak your marketing efforts accordingly.

26. Clicky

Finally, there’s Clicky.

Despite its comprehensiveness and level of detail, I consider it to be one of the most user-friendly analytics tools.

You can see what’s happening on your website in real time, monitor the actions of visitors, and even look at heat maps, which I love.

I know some marketers who actually choose Clicky over Google Analytics.

Conclusion

I totally understand the frustration that many non-tech-savvy marketers feel.

There are many tools that are great but require serious knowledge to be utilized properly.

These can really cramp your style and drive you crazy.

But the marketing tools I’ve listed are ones that will get the job done without being overly complex.

With most, the core features can be learned within just a few minutes.

This way, you can spend less time trying to figure out your marketing tools and more time reaching your audience.

Can you suggest any other easy-to-use marketing tools?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2nZ2PCK from Blogger http://ift.tt/2o0bjJP March 24, 2017 at 10:39PM

[anseladams03]

Which Content Marketing Strategies Have the Biggest Impact on Keyword Rankings?

The term “content marketing” is a wide umbrella.

It encompasses a plethora of different strategies and techniques.

But at the end of the day, one of your primary goals is to create content that ranks as highly as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs).

This is important because organic traffic is the number one means of generating traffic for many companies.

A study from The Bright Edge even “found that organic search drives 51 percent of all visitors to B2B and B2C websites trumping all other non-organic channels.”

This means one thing.

You need to figure out the relationship between content marketing strategies and keyword rankings.

This is instrumental in fine-tuning your content marketing campaign and finding the right areas to focus on.

In this post, I analyze data from multiple studies and draw on my own knowledge and experience to give you a clear idea of the content strategies demanding the most attention.

So, let’s see which strategies have the biggest impact on keyword rankings.

Rich content

I won’t waste your time telling you about the importance of creating quality content.

You already know that.

But I’d like to share with you this statistic from an infographic on Quick Sprout:

That’s a lot of links!

And I’m sure you know the integral role links play in SEO.

This graph from Moz illustrates the importance of links and their influence on Google’s algorithm:

Let’s put this information together.

When you create rich content, it gets you more links.

These links improve your overall SEO, which improves your rankings.

So, being diligent about achieving and maintaining rigorous quality standards should be of the utmost concern.

Long-form content

Here’s the deal with long-form content.

It’s hot right now. Scorching hot.

I remember a few years ago when your average blog post was only somewhere around 500 words.

But if you look at the vast majority of content that ranks on page one of Google SERPs today, it’s rare that you’ll find anything under 1,000 words.

To prove just how important long-form has become, I would like to show you a couple of graphs.

The first is from a fairly old (September 2012) article I wrote on Quick Sprout.

I got the data from research performed by SerpIQ:

As you can see, every single piece of content that ranked on the first page had at least 2,000 words.

More specifically,

The first result typically has 2,416 words and the 10th result has 2,032 words.

Newer research (September 2016) from Brian Dean of Backlinko shows a similar pattern:

According to his research,

The average word count of a Google first page result is 1,890.

That’s over 500 words fewer than the original research from SerpIQ indicated back in 2012…526 to be exact.

But it still shows us long-form content is a key element in achieving solid rankings.

Why is this so?

The way I look at it, there are two main reasons for this phenomenon.

First, people have a tendency to scan through content these days.

Few actually sit down and read a 2,000-word piece word for word in its entirety.

Instead, they scan through and look at the sub-headers that grab their attention and may read little snippets of text from there.

Long-form content facilitates this new method of reading.

Second, a longer word count tends to translate into more links.

And this makes sense.

The more content you provide, the more opportunities for it to be linked to.

Put all this together, and you can see that long-form content means higher rankings.

Who knows, the whole “long-form content bubble” may pop in a few years.

But it’s stronger than ever at the moment.

However, it appears that the ideal word count has been reduced considerably, and you should aim for just south of 2,000 words.

How do you create 2,000-word content?

Decide on a specific and narrow topic.

Create a compelling title.

Discuss the issue from every angle.

Provide as much detail as possible.

If possible, provide step-by-step instructions on how to do something.

You should never stuff your articles with words just for the sake of hitting a word count.

But you should strive for detail, depth, clarity, and mastery of a subject matter.

Here’s what I’ve discovered about long-form content. When you truly make an effort to provide value in your content, it expands in length.

That’s not to say that you can’t provide value with a 400-word article.

But the level of value created in a 2,000-word article is usually much greater.

Content with “topical relevance”

But the plot thickens.

The same Backlinko article also points out that

content rated as “topically relevant” significantly outperformed content that didn’t cover a topic in-depth. Therefore, publishing focused content that covers a single topic may help with rankings.

Topical relevance basically combines my first two points of creating rich content and long-form content.

It simply means that Google values content that’s comprehensive and that thoroughly covers a topic.

This means it’s best to focus on a single topic for each piece of content you create.

Rather than bouncing around from subject to subject, you’re better off going all in on a single topic and leaving no stone unturned.

Does this mean you can’t discuss other topics?

No. In fact, you should touch on as many relevant topics as possible! But your focus should be on a single topic.

If you feel you need to cover a topic you weren’t able to get around to in the post, create a separate piece of content and cover it in-depth as well.

Using long-tail keywords

This strategy has been in existence seemingly since the dawn of SEO—back when SEO was in its primordial soup stage.

One of the main ways small-scale marketers have been competing with the big dogs is by using long-tail keywords.

And why wouldn’t they? It freaking works.

In fact, I’ve been using this strategy for years.

I even used it to grow my search traffic by 51% in just three months!

And guess what? It still works brilliantly.

An infographic from Adept states that “pages optimized for long-tail keywords move up 11 positions on average, compared to just 5 positions for head keywords.”

It’s really not rocket science.

Using long-tail keywords means less competition, which means a greater likelihood of achieving a favorable ranking.

The awesome thing is that long-tail searches account for roughly 70 percent of searches:

This means there’s plenty of opportunity out there.

Of course, you won’t get the same volume of traffic that you would for a head keyword or broad keyword, but you can still generate some sizable traffic if you do your keyword research and choose a phrase that receives a reasonable number of searches.

Check out this post from NeilPatel.com for a step-by-step walkthrough of integrating long-tail keywords into your blog posts.

The process is fairly straightforward:

Do your typical keyword research (using Google AdWords Keyword Planner or your preferred tool)

Select the long-tail keywords from the list (3 words or more)

Use these keywords in your content.

Image-rich content

If you haven’t heard, people respond positively to images.

It’s true.

And although I think the whole visual-centric discussion has been done to death, I would like to reference one more point from the Backlinko article I mentioned earlier.

According to Brian Dean,

Industry studies have found that image-rich pages tend to generate more total views and social shares.

But here’s the interesting thing.

Using at least one image is much better than not using any images at all.

However, they couldn’t find a correlation between the total number of images and rankings.

That means there’s no proof that using a lot of images will improve your rankings any further.

In other words, using just one image would in theory have the same effect as using 10 or more images.

The key takeaway is this:

Using a single image is clearly better than zero images. Including lots of images doesn’t seem to have an impact on search engine rankings.

When it comes to my posts, this information isn’t going to stop me from sprinkling plenty of images throughout my content.

In fact, you probably know that many of my posts are jam-packed with images.

I think my audience enjoys the “eye candy,” and graphs in particular are excellent for explaining fairly complex concepts.

But keep this in mind when creating your next piece of content: going nuts with images probably isn’t necessary.

Direct answers

If you’re not sure what I mean by “direct answers,” it’s simple.

Google is now starting to show direct answers when you use a “how to,” “what is,” “who is,” etc. type of search.

Here’s an example:

The first thing that pops up at the top of the page is a clip from the top ranking site.

It’s a way to streamline the process and offer searchers direct information without them having to actually click on the link.

Of course, oftentimes they’ll still click on the link to find more in-depth information.

I know I often do.

So, here’s the deal.

Providing a direct answer can be beneficial and a viable strategy for killing it on SERPs.

If you can provide a quick, logical, and direct answer, especially for a long-tail keyword phrase, there’s a good chance you can get your content featured at the top.

Just be sure your direct answer transitions smoothly into the rest of your content.

Here’s how I typically use this strategy:

Identify a question marketers are asking.

Create an article answering this question.

Provide a step-by-step solution to the issue.

When I follow this three-step process, the articles I write on those topics usually rank on page one for the associated keyword within five days or less.

This is the primary technique I’m currently using on NeilPatel.com, and it’s earned me over 800,000 unique monthly visitors.

Conclusion

I value objectivity when determining the approach of my content marketing strategy.

I find that examining the cold hard facts clears most biases and preconceived notions I might have.

This is important because this gives me the clearest path to achieving my goals.

While there are countless factors that contribute to keyword rankings, the ones I listed here appear to have the biggest impact pound-for-pound.

Putting your attention on these key areas should ensure that your content marketing is heading in the right direction while giving you the best chance of climbing in the SERPs.

What do you think the most important content marketing strategy for improving your rankings is?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2nJCSdj from Blogger http://ift.tt/2mtvBOR March 22, 2017 at 09:55PM

[anseladams03]

How to Run Your First Facebook PPC Campaign (if You Have no Experience)

Facebook’s reach is insane.

What started out in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room has gone on to revolutionize the world.

This means one thing for online marketers: boundless opportunities.

Of course marketers have been using Facebook organically for years, but recently Facebook PPC has become the go-to marketing trend.

It’s interesting because I remember not all that long ago that pretty much the only PPC platform on marketers’ radars was Google AdWords.

It was AdWords or nothing.

But with Facebook having 1.86 billion monthly active users as of Q4 of 2016, it’s easy to see why Facebook PPC has exploded.

Just look at Facebook’s growth from 2008 to 2016:

But I know from experience that getting started with a new PPC platform can be a little harrowing.

You want to make sure you’re not wasting your marketing budget, and you want to get legitimate results from the money you’re putting in.

This article is intended for those of you who are just getting your feet wet with Facebook PPC and have no experience.

I’m going to walk you through the initial steps so you can set up your first ad and feel confident that it will perform well.

Choose an advertising objective

One way that Facebook PPC differs from platforms like AdWords is that advertisers can have several different types of objectives.

While on AdWords your goal is to drive qualified traffic to your landing page, on Facebook, you can have multiple objectives.

Here are just a few examples:

Building brand awareness

Generating leads

Getting people to install your app

Getting store visits

It’s important you have a crystal clear idea of what you want to accomplish as it will dictate the specific approach you take.

I recommend doing some brainstorming beforehand so you know exactly what your advertising objective is.

Here’s the first thing you’ll see when starting your campaign:

Let’s say your objective is to increase engagement by getting more page likes.

You would click on “Engagement,” and this would pop up at the bottom:

Facebook will give you a generic campaign name. In this case, it’s “Engagement.”

But you can replace it with whatever campaign name you choose.

I’ll just use “Neil’s Engagement Campaign.”

Once you’ve entered your campaign name, click on “Create Ad Account.”

From here, you’ll need to choose your country, currency, and time zone.

Now click “Continue.”

Selecting your audience

Here’s where it gets a little trickier.

The first thing you need to do is select your audience.

It’s crucial that you zone in on your target audience and be as specific as possible.

Otherwise, you may end up wasting money if irrelevant or unqualified people find your ad.

Here’s what you’ll see:

This is pretty self-explanatory, but you need to be meticulous about filling out this info, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar business with a limited demographic in a particular region.

Carefully consider who it is you’re trying to reach.

Just below this, there is “Detailed Targeting” and “Connections.”

I really like the “Detailed Targeting” feature because I can be hyper-specific about who sees my ads.

Click on “Browse,” and you’ll be able to narrow your audience based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more.

In my case, I’m going to click on “Interests” > “Business and Industry” > “Marketing.”

That’s because I’m targeting people who want to improve their websites and grow their traffic.

Of course, you’ll want to target your specific audience.

I suggest taking your time with this and browsing through everything so that you select a highly specified segment of Facebook users.

Just below “Detailed Targeting,” you’ll see “Connections.”

Here you can add a connection type based on:

Facebook Pages – People who like your page – Friends of people who like your page – Exclude people who like your page

Apps – People who used your desktop app – Friends of people who used your desktop app – Exclude people who used your desktop app

Events – People who responded to your event – Exclude people who already responded to your event

Add any specific connections for even more segmentation. Save this audience.

Placements

You have two options in terms of how your ads are displayed.

There’s “Automatic Placements” and “Edit Placements.”

I recommend sticking with “Automatic Placements” if you’re just starting out until you get the hang of things.

If you’re unhappy with your CTR (click-through rate), you can always go back and “Edit Placements” later on.

Budget and schedule

You have two options for your budget.

There’s “Daily Budget” and “Lifetime Budget.”

HubSpot explains the difference between the two:

Daily budget. If you want your ad set to run continuously throughout the day, this is the option you’ll want to go for. Using a daily budget means that Facebook will pace your spending per day. Keep in mind that the minimum daily budget for an ad set is $1.00 USD and must be at least 2x your CPC.

Lifetime budget. If you’re looking to run your ad for a specified length of time, select lifetime budget. This means that Facebook will pace your spend over the time period you set for the ad to run.

I suggest keeping your budget fairly low initially.

If you’ve ever used any sort of PPC platform, you’re probably aware of the inherent learning curve that’s involved.

The last thing you want to do is drop a huge amount of money without first getting your bearings and learning the subtle nuances of a platform.

As for the schedule, you can either allow your ads to run continuously or select a specified start and end date.

If you want your ads to run only on certain days or at certain times, you’ll want to choose the latter option.

Simply change the date and time to your specified settings.

Creating your ad

Now that we’ve gotten all the preliminary steps out of the way, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty: creating your ad.

You have two options.

One is to use an existing post. The other is to create a new ad.

If you want to promote a post you’ve already published on Facebook, you’ll want to use an existing post.

Otherwise, if you want to create an ad from scratch, click on “Create New Ad.”

Here’s the first thing you’ll see if you go this route.

Just choose whichever option makes the most sense.

The next thing you’ll see is the “Images” section.

If you already have a particular image you want to use, you can either pull it from your library or upload it from your computer.

Otherwise, you can use Facebook’s “Free Stock Images.”

I love this feature because it gives you instant access to a good sized library of high-quality, professional looking images.

You’ll then connect your Facebook Page and enter whatever text you want to use.

Here’s how Buffer structured its advertisement:

And here’s a little slice of advice about your copy.

Keep it short, sweet, and clear. The key is to entice Facebook users to visit your page so they can discover more.

At that point, you can convince them to make a purchase.

Notice how short and concise Buffer’s copy is.

Placement

Finally, you need to decide where you want your ad to be shown.

At the moment, you can choose between the following:

Although the desktop news feed may be your first instinct, it’s a good idea to do some testing to see which options gets the biggest results.

Placing your order

Once you’re happy with your ad, click on “Place Order” in the green box on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.

Facebook will review it before it goes live. Once it does go live, you’ll receive a confirmation email from Facebook.

Continued reading

That’s the gist of running your first Facebook PPC campaign.

The initial setup process is fairly straightforward.

But, of course, there are a lot of different variables that will ultimately determine how well your campaign performs.

When it’s all said and done, you want your ads to convert and get you the most bang for your buck.

More specifically, you want to minimize your cost-per-click (CPC) and see a solid CTR.

This is a huge subject to tackle, and I don’t have time to properly address it in this post.

But what I recommend is checking out a couple of previous posts that I wrote on neilpatel.com:

Beginner’s Guide to Running Facebook Ads That Convert

Facebook Advertising Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide

These two posts pick apart the process of advertising on Facebook and will fill you in on the most important details you need for your campaign to be successful.

Conclusion

If you’ve played around with the idea of using Facebook PPC but haven’t quite gotten around to it, now is a great time to take the plunge.

Although I foresee it becoming fairly saturated in upcoming years, there’s still plenty of room for your brand right now.

And with an average CPC of only $0.64 (it’s $2.32 for AdWords), you stand a good chance of seeing a favorable ROI.

Once you get a feel for this platform, you can make the necessary tweaks to improve the performance of your campaign.

Do you think Facebook PPC could ever rival Google AdWords?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2n8lbEd from Blogger http://ift.tt/2mKw3XQ March 11, 2017 at 02:04AM

[anseladams03]

How to Increase the Revenue Value of Your Homepage by 851%

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

I think this is a fitting quote to demonstrate the importance of a great homepage.

Once a visitor lands on your homepage, you need to impress them in a hurry.

Failure to do this typically results in a lost conversion with the vast majority of visitors never returning.

How can you ensure you make a good first impression?

And, more importantly, how do you boost conversions and increase the revenue value of your homepage?

There are countless strategies that work to some extent.

But I’d like to cover a handful I feel are the most practical and impactful.

I’ve researched each of these strategies and have implemented them on my own as well as my clients’ sites.

I’ve even seen some clients increase the revenue value of their homepages by as much as 851%.

This is not an exaggeration or some gimmicky hype to get you to click on my articles. This is stuff that works.

Let’s get down to business.

Make the load time lightning fast

Your first objective is to ensure a fast load time.

This is perhaps the most important factor of all because the rest of the strategies I’m going to discuss don’t really matter if the bulk of your visitors abandon your homepage prematurely.

Here’s a graph that illustrates how page abandonment increases as the load time of your homepage increases:

I suggest using the Pingdom Website Speed Test to accurately assess the load time of your homepage.

If it takes any longer than 5 seconds, you need to speed it up. Learn how to do it from this article I wrote.

Provide a clear value proposition

Once a visitor lands on your homepage, they should be able to tell right away what you’re offering and why it’s worth their time to check out your site in further detail.

This requires you to take one simple but incredibly important step: create a clear value proposition.

ConversionXL defines a value proposition as a clear statement that:

explains how your product solves customers’ problems or improves their situation (relevancy),

delivers specific benefits (quantified value),

tells the ideal customer why they should buy from you and not from the competition (unique differentiation).

Here’s the value proposition I include on neilpatel.com:

It’s clear, specific, and to the point.

Below are some other good examples.

Dollar Shave Club pulls it off well:

So does Unbounce:

You get the idea.

For a more thorough explanation and tips on how to create a killer value proposition, check out this guide from ConversionXL.

Include a picture of a person

A few years back, there was a study that examined the impact of including a picture of a person on homepage performance.

The study involved A/B testing of two very different landing pages created for Highrise, a CRM software company.

The original design was pretty basic but fairly busy, meaning there was a lot of information.

However, the new design was very simple and included a large picture of a woman smiling.

The results were undeniable. Using the second design, with the woman smiling, resulted in 102.5% more sign-ups.

Here’s a comparison of the two designs:

What does this tell us?

It’s clear that including images of people (more specifically, people smiling) on your homepage can have a dramatic impact on conversions.

I actually follow this formula on my homepage for neilpatel.com, and it’s worked out wonderfully:

Other successful bloggers do the same.

Do you recognize this guy?

Here’s another one:

And here’s Marie Forleo:

This is Matt Barby:

Here’s Lewis Howes:

These people aren’t celebrities. They aren’t models.

They’re just bloggers. Successful ones.

They’ve figured out that a face on the screen vastly improves the profitability of the homepage.

Make your contact information easy to find

At first thought, placing your contact information in a conspicuous place on your homepage might not seem like a big deal.

It might seem like a mere footnote.

But it’s actually more important than you might think.

In fact, a study from KoMarketing found that

once on a company’s homepage, 64% of visitors want to see the company’s contact information.

And it’s not just your basic info like an email address.

Most people want thorough contact information like your phone, email, and address.

According to KoMarketing,

a lack of contact information will also deter buyers from moving forward with a Request for Proposal (RFP) and with filling out a form to request a demo or RFP.

I think this is important so visitors can tell for sure you’re a legitimate organization with a physical address and not some sleazy snake oil salesman who’s just looking to take their money and run.

The same goes for the About Us section

The same study from KoMarketing states that

once on a company’s homepage, 52% of visitors want to see ‘about us’ information.

This is one of quickest ways to establish trust and credibility with potential customers.

They want to make sure you’re legit.

Typically, the best location for your contact info and About Us section is the navigational menu at the top.

It’s above the fold and can be found in an instant.

However, if you have a fairly brief homepage, you could also place these sections at the bottom, like I do on neilpatel.com:

Don’t offer too many choices

There’s one mistake in particular I see countless companies make.

And that’s offering too many choices on their homepages.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

I would venture to say that vast majority of visitors who land on this page feel overwhelmed or even paralyzed with all the information.

It’s just too busy.

Here’s the deal.

People tend to enjoy having different options and choices. But only to an extent.

Too many choices have a paralyzing effect, and many people will end up doing nothing.

Here’s a screenshot from The Harvard Business Review in which they touch on a 2000 study involving choice:

The point here is that you should keep your homepage fairly simple:

That’s exactly what I tried to do with the Quick Sprout homepage, and it’s worked out very well.

If you have a lot of different products, build some type of filter so that visitors can figure out what they need without being overwhelmed in the process.

Don’t force a sign-up—allow a guest sign-up

You know what I hate?

When I land on a website and want to test out a trial version or make a quick purchase but get hit with a long registration process.

I find it really inconvenient and flat out annoying at times.

And guess what?

So do most other people.

There’s an article written about this issue by User Interface Engineering (UIE) called The $300 Million Button.

I suggest you check it out if you are not sure what I am talking about.

Long story short, most first-time shoppers find it irritating when they have to register before they can buy something. In fact, many resent it.

I love a particular quote from one shopper who said,

I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.

I think this sums it up perfectly.

Don’t make your customers jump through a bunch of hoops. Instead, allow them to complete their desired actions as guests rather than registered users.

That, right there, can have a dramatic impact on your revenue.

The article from UIE provides a concrete example of just how big of an impact it can have.

Here’s a screenshot:

Address visitor concerns

Let’s be honest.

It doesn’t take much for a would-be customer to turn around and hightail it out of your site.

And most people will have multiple concerns they’ll want addressed before they ultimately decide to make a purchase.

Here are some common concerns they may have:

Your company doesn’t fully understand my problem

What if your product doesn’t fix MY problem?

Why should I trust your company?

Why should I choose your product when there are so many other (and potentially more affordable) options out there?

Your goal is to quell any concerns or objections they may have.

But how do you do this?

It usually starts with acknowledging the problem your demographic is facing. Here’s a good example from Basecamp:

This lets visitors know that Basecamp understands how disorganization and confusion can create stress and hinder the progress of a project.

The suggestion is to let Basecamp help them get things back on track.

Including a few testimonials tends to be effective for proving that a product can fix a potential buyer’s problem. If it’s worked for countless other people, it will work for them too.

As for trust builders, here are some ideas:

Include logos of companies you’ve worked with or have been endorsed by

Include “trust seals” from third-parties such as the Better Business Bureau

Mention awards or certifications your company has received

Finally, with proving value, explain why your price is what it is and what customers will get from you that they won’t get from competitors.

Create scarcity or urgency

If a visitor doesn’t convert right away, there’s a good chance you’ll lose them forever.

You want to strike while the iron is hot and while you’ve got them on your website.

One of the best ways to do this is to create scarcity or urgency.

I do this on neilpatel.com by having a feature that says “Training Starts in: X amount of time”

It begins counting down immediately after visitors land on my homepage.

I’ve found this to be effective for getting visitors to take action and for increasing conversions.

Now, there are a lot of different ways to create scarcity or urgency, and I don’t have time to fully discuss them here.

But what I suggest is checking out this post from Marketing Land that explains some techniques for using urgency psychology to improve conversions.

Note: There’s legit scarcity and there’s fake scarcity.

Using fake scarcity is a sleazy, underhanded tactic that most people will sniff out.

Always be honest.

Conclusion

There are many factors that ultimately determine the revenue value of your homepage.

It can be maddening trying to figure out what makes your visitors tick and wrapping your head around the psychology of user experience.

But I know for a fact that using these strategies will have a positive impact on the process.

You can use them to build instant trust, encourage further browsing, increase conversions, and ultimately boost your revenue.

What do you think is the single most important aspect of your homepage? What makes it profitable?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2lFtXci from Blogger http://ift.tt/2mDxzuG March 09, 2017 at 07:24AM

[anseladams03]

5 Ways to Amplify the Reach of Your Content Without Spending a Dime

Content marketing can be a soul-crushing endeavor.

It’s like this. You spend several hours or maybe even days meticulously putting together what seems like a brilliant blog post, slideshow, infographic, etc.

But even with all your hard work and dedication, your content falls on deaf ears.

You post it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other network you can think of, but there’s no reaction.

Maybe you get a handful of shares, but your content never gains any momentum.

Are you alone?

Nope.

Some startling stats on content marketing

Here’s the deal.

There’s a lot of content that gets published every day. I mean a lot!

Just take a look at the skyrocketing number of blog posts published on WordPress between 2006 and 2016:

And according to BuzzSumo, “The number of pages Google has indexed over 7 years from 2008 to 2014 has increased from 1 trillion to 30 trillion.

This means one thing: more competition.

As more and more content gets created, it results in more “noise,” which inevitably makes it harder to bring attention to your content.

Here’s the most disturbing stat of all from the American Marketing Association:

“Marketers are blogging 800 percent more but getting nearly 100 percent fewer shares.”

Here’s what that looks like:

This isn’t exactly encouraging if content marketing is one of your primary means of advertising.

So, how can you get your content in front of your audience?

More importantly, can you amplify its reach without digging into your budget?

It all starts with an effective content amplification strategy.

You need to implement tactics that ensure your content attracts two key things: shares and links.

These are the foundation of content amplification.

I would now like to discuss five techniques I have personally had success with, which—if done correctly—can work for you too.

1. Create content that features original research

Let’s start from the top.

I’ll begin by going over a couple forms of content I’ve found to receive an insane number of shares and links.

After all, the first step to amplifying your reach is to create content people are genuinely interested in.

This is a natural catalyst for shares and links.

One type of content in particular that kills it is content that includes original research.

By this I mean statistics, graphs, charts, and other forms of data that provide readers with in-depth insight on a topic.

One particular piece of content I really love and have linked to on several occasions is this one from OkDork: Why Content Goes Viral: What Analyzing 100 Million Articles Taught Us

Noah Kagan (the creator of OkDork) partnered with BuzzSumo to analyze 100 million articles to determine things like:

which content is likely to get the most social shares

the correlation between content length and number of shares

which emotions you should target

Here are a couple of graphs to illustrate the point:

It’s incredibly thorough and well-written and has received a lot of attention as a result.

I’ve also noticed that sites such as The Content Marketing Institute and ConversionXL that provide users with consistent original research perform very well.

I’ve been doing this myself, mining data that has never been collected before and turning it into actionable marketing tactics.

Some of it is super technical data.

But it always has value. And that’s the whole goal!

I realize that performing your own research can be time-consuming and expensive, but it can really pay dividends in the long run.

I suggest incorporating this into your content strategy.

2. Create exhaustive “what is” or “how to” guides

Readers will inevitably have questions.

The resource that answers those questions most effectively is usually the one that gets their attention, which is often followed by shares and links.

You can amplify your reach by being the one who creates the best, most thorough, and most exhaustive guide.

Typically, this will come in one of two formats: “what is” or “how to” guide.

Your goal is to use your knowledge and expertise to walk readers through a step-by-step process, answering any questions they may have along the way.

Here’s an example.

I wrote a long-form article on neilpatel.com called SEO Made Simple: A Step-By-Step Guide.

It covers most aspects of SEO and walks readers through them in a way that’s easy to follow.

I was sure to provide lots of examples, data, screenshots, etc. to provide them with the most comprehensive explanation I could.

The end result was that it received a boatload of shares and links.

Here are the numbers for shares on different platfroms as of February 2017:

I’m not showing you these numbers to brag. I want to highlight the impact creating this type of content can have.

Whatever your niche may be, you can usually amplify your reach by creating be-all and end-all guides like this.

3. Base your content on industry trends

Another strategy I’ve been using for a while involves choosing the topics for my articles based on what’s trending at the moment in my industry.

Although this may not have the longevity of evergreen content and get you shares for years to come, it is a viable strategy for quickly amplifying your immediate reach.

Here’s the logic behind this technique:

you know for a fact your audience has an existing interest in a particular topic

you can prove it by analyzing metrics such as shares and engagements

you’re likely to get plenty of shares and links by creating high quality content based on that topic.

But how do you know what’s hot at the moment?

Well, there are several ways to tell:

you could simply pay attention to social outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and even Reddit

you could stay on top of industry publications to see what’s being talked about

you could check Google Trends

or you could streamline your efforts by using one of my favorite tools, BuzzSumo.

It’s quite easy. Just enter a topic in the search box. I’ll use “SEO marketing” as an example.

Here’s what pops up:

Just like that, I can see what the most popular content is based on metrics such as social shares and engagements.

I then use that information to base my next piece of content on.

The likelihood of that content “sticking” and reaching my audience increases considerably as opposed to the content I might come up with off the top of my head.

To learn more about how to use BuzzSumo to generate content ideas, I suggest reading this post from Moz.

4. Share only the best of the best

I feel like many content marketers think it’s a good idea to post every single piece of content they create on every platform they can get their hands on.

And I get it.

You’ve worked hard and are trying to get as many eyeballs on your content as possible.

But here’s the cold truth. The bulk of content of most brands isn’t overly impressive.

Usually only a fraction is super-interesting.

In other words, not every piece of content is a unicorn. The majority are donkeys.

But you want to post “unicorn content.”

Now, I’m not saying you should share only one blog post out of 20.

But you should maintain rigorous quality standards when choosing what to post on social media.

If someone does click on an article that’s clearly sub-par and reeks of mediocrity, two things are going to happen:

you won’t get any shares or links

it’ll turn many people off, and they won’t want anything to do with your brand

By being selective and sharing only the best of the best on social media, you can uphold your quality standards, which should amplify your reach.

Only share content worthy of unicorn status, and you should be good to go.

5. Leverage connections with influencers

All right, you’re probably getting sick of hearing about “the power of influencer marketing” and all that jazz.

I feel like it’s a topic that’s been done to death at this point.

But the fact is that getting your content featured by a key influencer or even having them give you a subtle nod can amplify your reach dramatically.

Here’s a quick example.

I like Tim Ferriss’ website The Four Hour Workweek.

I like to read his blog, listen to his podcast, and get his take on things. He’s an all around interesting guy, and I think his content is jam-packed with value.

He recently featured a guy who goes by the name “Mr. Money Mustache.”

Long story short, this guy has a blog about how he and his family live a comfortable lifestyle with annual expenses of no more than $27,000.

He tackles topics such as frugal living, efficiency, achieving happiness, and so on.

His content interested me, so I checked out quite a bit of his site.

I had never heard of “Mr. Money Mustache” up until that point, but being featured on Tim Ferriss’ site gave him instant credibility in my eyes, and I was interested in what he had to say.

I mean if Tim gave him his seal of approval, he must be legit. Right?

But if I simply came across his site on my own, I doubt I would give it the time of day.

The point I’m trying to make here is that having your content featured by influencers can take you from zero to hero insanely quickly.

I won’t give you a step-by-step guide to influencer marketing right here. But I will point out a few helpful resources on this topic:

6 Ways to Get Influencers to Link to You The Ultimate Guide to Writing Epic Content That Will Go Viral

Getting someone influential in your industry to share your content is your ace in the hole.

Conclusion

Content amplification is a way to increase the reach of your content, delivering it to more of your audience.

With such an ungodly mass of content already out there and piles of it being produced every day, content amplification has never been more important than today.

Using the strategies I discussed above should help you amplify your reach without having to dig deep into your pockets.

This should also minimize the numbing sense of disillusionment that so many content marketers feel these days when their content falls flat.

Your content will go further, and your brand equity will continue to grow at the same time.

Do you have any other suggestions for amplifying the reach of your content?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2mdlFFv from Blogger http://ift.tt/2mR49Kz March 07, 2017 at 11:21AM

[anseladams03]

7 Ways to Get High Quality Paid Traffic with Rock-Bottom CPCs

I’ve said it before: a successful PPC campaign boils down to two things:

Increasing click-through rate (CTR)

Lowering cost-per-click (CPC)

Pretty simple, right?

But I want to add one more point to that statement. It’s not complicated.

You also need to get high quality traffic.

This means reaching your target audience and bringing in visitors who are ready to buy. What you don’t want is lukewarm traffic with only a vague interest in your product/service.

You want leads who have one hand on their wallets, ready to whip them out and make a purchase.

Now, allow me to point out a brutal truth about PPC marketing.

It’s a slippery slope, especially if you’re new to the game.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, it can chew you up and spit you out.

Many “noobs” quickly find their budgets depleted with only a handful of sales to show for it.

Some even end up spending more on their PPC campaigns than they get in return from sales. It’s not a good situation.

In order to get a favorable ROI, you want to ensure that 1) you’re driving high quality traffic to your landing page and 2) you’re not overspending on CPC.

In fact, you want rock-bottom CPCs.

To accomplish this requires a bit of an out-of-the-box approach.

You need to zig when other PPC marketers zag.

Let me show you seven ways to get high quality traffic while spending the absolute least amount of money on it.

1. Look beyond Google AdWords

When you hear the word PPC, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

I would bet that for at least 90% of you, it would be Google AdWords.

And why wouldn’t it be?

It’s had a stranglehold on the PPC market for years.

In fact, a fairly recent study from Smart Insights reports that Google controls 67.78% of the search engine market:

Of course, this is the natural choice for an average PPC marketer.

The logic is that it receives the most traffic, so it’s the perfect PPC platform to target.

But I would have to disagree.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against Google AdWords.

In fact, I’ve pulled in a massive amount of high quality traffic from it over the years, and it has netted me thousands in sales.

But you should by no means pigeonhole yourself and think that this is the only platform there is.

Why?

Because it’s uber-saturated and highly competitive.

This means one thing: a high CPC.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the most expensive CPCs according to industry:

I’ve even heard of some keywords costing as much as $100 a click. That’s crazy!

So even if you bring in a lot of high quality traffic, your ROI will be minimized because you’re spending a fortune on each click.

This can quickly eat away at your profits.

The bottom line here is that it’s smart to explore alternatives to Google AdWords.

Here is a list from PPC Hero that highlights some specific platforms to check out.

Although you may not get the same volume of traffic, the CPCs tend to be much lower on average.

2. Lower your max bids

This is perhaps the simplest way to reduce your CPC.

Lower your max bids, and your CPC will diminish as well.

But there’s a catch.

If you lower your CPC too far, the positioning of your ads can suffer (e.g., they fall down the page, and fewer people click on them).

The trick to pulling this off is to find the sweet spot, where you lower your bids without your CTR taking a hit.

Here’s what I suggest:

Identify a handful of your top performing keywords

Lower their bids slightly (you may even want to start with just a cent or two)

See what your new CTR is

If those keywords still perform well, lower your bids again

Repeat this process until you find the sweet spot.

Just be sure not to make any monumental changes right off the bat, and keep a close eye on things.

If you notice a drastic drop in performance, increase your max bid to a number that’s closer to the original bid.

3. Do manual bidding

There are two types of bidding on most PPC platforms: automatic and manual.

While automatic bidding is more convenient and can be a good way for beginners to test the waters, it can definitely lower your CPC.

If you’ve primarily been sticking with automatic bidding thus far, I suggest switching to manual (at least for a little while) to see if it has a positive impact on your CPC.

This gives you a greater level of control and you’re not at the mercy of an algorithm that may not always have the best interests of your ROI in mind.

But here’s the deal.

It can be overwhelming if you’re doing manual bidding across several campaigns at once.

Start with just one campaign initially until you get the hang of it. Then you can expand to others.

4. Target long-tail keywords

You’ve probably heard me sing the praises of long-tail keywords in the past for organic SEO.

There’s no doubt that long-tails get results.

In fact, long-tail keywords account for 70% of all keywords.

But the truth is that they’re something you should implement in your PPC campaign as well.

Why?

It’s simple. You’ll pay considerably less for a click from a long-tail keyword.

Here’s an example…

Let’s see what the suggested bid for a broad keyword is. I’ll use “running shoes.”

As you can see, it’s $2.66.

Now let’s see what the suggested bid for a long-tail variation is.

It’s only $0.61. So you can save over $2 per click by simply using a long-tail keyword.

Just think of how much you would save for 100 clicks or 1,000.

I recommend looking at your ad groups to see if there are any broad keywords that could be revised and made into long-tail keywords.

It will take some trial and error, but this is a great way to reduce your CPC dramatically.

Of course, you won’t receive the same volume of traffic. But you can maintain higher quality standards with the traffic you do get and save a boatload of money in the process.

5. Add negative keywords

One way some PPC marketers get themselves into trouble is by forgetting to include negative keywords.

What exactly is a negative keyword?

White Shark Media defines it as “a word or phrase that allows you to filter out who your ads will be served to in the search results page.”

In other words, it minimizes the odds of the wrong person clicking on your ad.

Using negative keywords is important because it ensures you’re not wasting your money on irrelevant clicks from unqualified people.

Implementing negative keywords can really help you cut costs in the long run, thus lowering your CPC.

But how do you come up with negative keywords?

One of my favorite tools is Wordstream’s Free Negative Keyword Tool.

Allow me to show you how it works.

Start by entering your keyword phrase in the search box. We’ll stick with “running shoes” as an example.

You’ll then get a list of potential negative keywords.

Just choose which ones are irrelevant by clicking “No,” and they’ll be moved to the right hand side.

If I’m selling men’s running shoes, I would want to use “women’s running shoes” as a negative keyword.

Keep clicking on keywords that are irrelevant to fully populate your list of negative keywords.

Then add these to your campaigns and ad groups on your PPC platform.

6. Keep devices in mind

Here’s the deal with devices. Each one has a different CTR.

For instance, smartphones may outperform tablets and desktop computers.

In fact, that’s exactly the case according to a study from MarketingProfs that analyzed Google AdWords CTR by device:

By looking at this data, you can conclude that you would want to put an emphasis on reaching customers who are using smartphones.

However, this is just an example and doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the best course of action for your campaign.

What I’m saying is that you should keep devices in mind when looking over your reports.

If it’s clear that a certain device is outperforming the others, make it a focal point of your campaign.

You’ll also want to scale back or even eliminate other devices that aren’t carrying their weight.

7. Check geographic locations

Finally, there’s the issue of location.

You want to make sure you’re only reaching people in locations your business can actually serve.

Otherwise, you’re basically throwing money away.

Let’s say you’re a brick-and-mortar business located in Dallas.

The only customers you need and want to reach are those located within the greater Dallas area.

In this case, you wouldn’t want to spend money on a click from someone from Charlotte or Miami. It just wouldn’t make sense.

Your best bet is to select a radius so you know for sure you’re only paying for clicks from a relevant audience.

Conclusion

There’s a lot that goes into a well-run PPC campaign.

This makes it one of the more challenging marketing strategies, and there’s plenty of room for error.

But at its core, your end goal is to get high quality paid traffic while keeping your CPC to a minimum.

This is the key to maximizing your ROI and getting the most bang for your buck.

Although there are a lot of different ways to go about this, the following techniques I mentioned are some of the more practical ones.

Figuring out the ideal formula for you requires perpetual testing and plenty of trial and error.

But once you’ve got it pegged, you can rinse and repeat until you’re running a rock-solid PPC campaign.

What’s the most you’re willing to pay for a click?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2lE9vUo from Blogger http://ift.tt/2lnSVgs March 04, 2017 at 02:53AM

[anseladams03]

5 Clever Facebook Video Ad Hacks That Will Lower Your CPM by 81%

Scroll through your Facebook feed, and you can’t help but see video ads. Quite a few of them actually.

You may have even seen my video ads, which I’m using to promote my businesses.

I’m doing this, of course, because Facebook Video is huge right now.

One of the more recent studies found that there are “8 billion daily views for Facebook Video in November 2015—a 100% growth from 6 months prior to the study.”

And here’s another interesting stat.

Videos’ organic reach on Facebook is 135% greater than that of photos.

This means one thing. There is an insane number of opportunities out there.

Including Facebook Video ads in your marketing repertoire can yield big results.

But like with any form of paid advertisement, you’ll naturally want to lower your costs and maximize your ROI.

That’s a given.

I’ve done plenty of experimentation with Facebook Video ads and have come up with a recipe that gets me the most bang for my buck.

More specifically, I’ve come up with a way that will lower your CPM (cost per thousand) by as much as 81%.

Here are five clever Facebook Video ad hacks you need to know and implement right away.

1. Only feature videos that you know get engagement

Although this is an incredibly simple hack, it’s one many marketers overlook.

Often, they’re so thirsty to get their video content up and running on Facebook, they never take the time to perform some basic split-testing beforehand.

Here’s what I recommend.

Create a few different videos or variations of a single video (at least three), and do some basic split-testing to see which one is getting the best response.

However, place them on channels that won’t cost you a dime.

For instance, you might:

feature videos organically on Facebook

place them on your website or blog

place them on other social media channels

Then, take a look at some key metrics such as:

play rate

average length of viewing

engagement levels

number of leads each video generated

number of conversions each video produced

Here’s a graph that illustrates the various methods of measuring video success:

You get the idea.

Before you put your hard-earned money into Facebook Video ads, test the waters and see which video(s) your target audience responds most favorably to.

That way, you can approach Facebook Video ads with confidence.

That, right there, should lower your CPM considerably.

2. Keep them short and sweet

Wistia performed some fairly extensive research on the length of videos and engagement levels.

In fact, they examined 564,710 videos and more than 1.3 billion plays for their research.

Here’s what they found:

As you can see, there’s a steady level of engagement for up to 2 minutes:

But after the 2-minute mark, engagement drops off considerably until it hits 6 minutes.

At that point, engagement stabilizes once more until it reaches 12 minutes.

So, here’s the deal.

I wouldn’t recommend exceeding 2 minutes with your Facebook Video ads.

You probably won’t do yourself or your marketing budget any favors if you exceed this time limit.

Or as Wistia puts it,

Two minutes is the sweet spot.

But they also make another interesting point:

Engagement is steady up to two minutes, meaning that a 90-second video will hold a viewer’s attention as much as a 30-second video. This is surprising and actionable information for video marketers.

If you’re making short videos, you don’t need to stress about the difference of a few seconds. Just keep it under two minutes.

I find this to be great advice. You don’t need to sweat, getting your video length to an exact number of seconds.

Just keep it under 2 minutes, and it should maximize your engagement and lower your CPM.

But if you absolutely have to make a longer video, make it between 6 and 12 minutes because this is the “sweet spot number two.”

Anything longer than 12 minutes is just foolish.

3. Advertise “without advertising”

Here’s the thing about Facebook. Most people aren’t in the buying mindset when they log in to their accounts.

Most people are simply checking in to see what’s going on with their social circles and what their friends and family are up to.

Their mindset isn’t usually,

I’m desperately looking to make a purchase.

They may be thinking that when they log in to Amazon—but not Facebook.

Or as Aaron Zakowski eloquently puts it,

They’re buying intent is low.

This graph shows how people spend their time on Facebook:

And guess what? None of these activities involve buying.

I think it’s really important to keep this in mind when approaching your video ad content.

The last thing you want to do is clobber users over the head with ads that have the subtlety of a slap in the face.

What you want to do is to promote your product/service/brand without making it seem like an advertisement.

You need to be cool about it. You need to be stealth.

How exactly can you deliver your message without being overly salesy or pushy?

Here are some suggestions:

infuse humor into your ad

use storytelling

surprise them/catch them off guard

teach them something

offer insightful information

In other words, ditch the pitch.

People hate being pitched to, and it’s only going to inflate your CPM.

Instead, try to be entertaining and strive to make a genuine connection.

4. Add captions

There’s another phenomenon about Facebook videos that I’ve noticed.

It’s that many of us don’t watch videos with sound.

I know I find myself doing this quite a bit. And there are several reasons for this.

For instance, a person might be at work and “sneaking into” their account when they should be tending to more pressing matters.

Or a person might be accessing their Facebook account via mobile device in a public location where it’s simply not appropriate to have the sound blaring.

This means that a decent chunk of the people viewing videos are doing so without any sound.

If your video ads lack captions, this can obviously be a problem because it’ll be difficult for the viewer to decipher what you’re trying to promote.

One study of Facebook video ads even found that

41% of videos are basically meaningless without sound.

In turn, many people will simply gloss over your video ad and scroll down to the next interesting thing in their feeds.

If you haven’t been using captions thus far, I suggest including them right away.

This is almost guaranteed to improve engagement and, in turn, lower your CPM.

In fact, internal testing from Facebook found that

captioned video ads increase video time by an average of 12%.

5. Add music for those who do listen

I know it may sound a little contradictory to suggest adding music, considering my last point was about a great number of people viewing video ads without sound.

But there will be a portion of users who will view your ads with the sound on.

You’ll want to do everything within your power to increase their focus.

One of the most effective ways to go about this is to include music.

I’m sure you’ve heard about how helpful music is for aiding students in studying:

But you don’t want to include just any type of music.

You also don’t want the music to get in the way and drown out what someone is trying to say in the video.

It should simply accompany the video and enhance it.

But which type of music is ideal?

There have been several studies done to determine which kinds of music aid in focus and concentration.

By and large, classical music is the way to go.

According to a particular study, “researchers found that listening to classical music had the greatest effect on improving visual attention.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to use classical music. It just means that classical is one of the best “go-to’s” for capturing viewers’ attention.

Here’s my suggestion.

Play some type of background music throughout the duration of most of your ads.

If classical music happens to fit your message, brand, theme, etc., that’s great—stick with that.

But if not, go with something you feel would be suitable for optimizing your video ad.

I would recommend experimenting with a few different options until you find the one that meshes with your content the best.

Conclusion

The way I see it, Facebook Video ads are a fairly cost-effective form of paid advertising.

I get the fact that most people aren’t exactly “dialed in” to make a purchase when using their Facebook accounts.

But I have experienced first hand the results that video ads can get when they’re used effectively.

And, of course, you don’t want to just throw something at the wall to see what sticks with this, or any other, form of paid advertising.

It’s all about getting a solid ROI and lowering your CPM.

These hacks are great little loopholes for doing just that and will lower your CPM by as much as 81%.

Do you have any other Facebook Video Ad hacks that have helped you reduce your costs?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2lrbzig from Blogger http://ift.tt/2lX148z March 01, 2017 at 10:52PM

[anseladams03]

Want to Know How to Make Influencer Marketing Work?

The Internet is a noisy, overcrowded place.

Building momentum for your brand is often an uphill battle, and getting your audience to buy in can be daunting.

So, how do you get people to take you seriously?

How can you go from being just a little fish in a vast ocean to becoming a recognizable brand or even a household name?

One strategy that’s proven to be effective is influencer marketing.

The number of brands using this strategy has grown exponentially over the past few years.

In fact, “interest in influencer marketing has risen more than 90x from 2013 to the present.”

Here are some other stats to give you a better idea of the state of this strategy at the moment:

“Influencer marketing content delivers 11x higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing.”

“Twitter users report a 5.2x increase in purchase intent when exposed to promotional content from influencers.”

“40 percent of people say they’ve purchased an item online after seeing it used by an influencer on Instagram, Twitter, Vine or YouTube.”

The list goes on and on.

I think we can all agree that influencer marketing gets results.

But when you get right down to it, the term “influencer marketing” can be a little nebulous.

There’s a lot of confusion about how exactly to implement it and take advantage of it.

How can you get an influencer to link to your website, share your content, promote your product, etc.?

I’m going to be brutally honest with you. It’s not easy.

There’s a lot more involved than simply cold-emailing an influencer and saying, “Hey, please give my brand a shout out.”

It doesn’t work like that.

However, like with most forms of marketing, there is a formula. It’s worked for me, and it can work for you too.

Let’s get right down to it.

A three-step process

Of course, there’s a lot involved with influencer marketing.

But when you really break it all down, it involves three basic steps:

Finding a suitable influencer

Reaching out to them

Getting them to share your content

That’s how I approach it anyway.

Let’s begin with step one.

Finding a suitable influencer

This is probably the easiest step, but it does require a fair amount of research.

How exactly do you zero in on an influencer?

Well, for starters, you’re probably already aware of at least a handful of influencers in your industry.

For example:

Bloggers with sizable followings

Popular YouTubers

Industry experts

Writers who regularly contribute to popular publications

Celebrities

But if you need a little help or want to know how likely a particular person is to share, I recommend using BuzzSumo.

One of the features I love there is “View Sharers.”

Let me show you how it works.

First, I enter a subject relevant to my industry/niche. In my case, it’s “content marketing.”

Here’s what pops up:

Next, I choose an article and click on “View Sharers.”

Here’s what pops up now:

Just like that, I get a list of people and companies that shared that particular article.

I can also tell:

How many Twitter followers they have

Their retweet ratio

Reply ratio

Average retweets

These metrics are important because I can determine if they could potentially be an influencer that I would like to connect with.

I also know what the likelihood of getting a response from them would be. And I can easily follow them or tweet to them for instant interaction.

Other tools worth considering, besides BuzzSumo, include Traacker and Little Bird.

I also suggest checking out this post from Kissmetrics for other ideas.

I’m not saying you have to use a tool for finding influencers, but it does streamline the process substantially.

How big of an influencer should l target?

A common question marketers new to this concept have is whether they should target a macro-influencer (e.g., Tim Ferris or Seth Godin) with hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers or a micro-influencer with say 15,000 followers.

I’m a proponent of starting small and working your way up.

From my experience, micro-influencers tend to be more receptive and much easier to get in touch with than major players who may get bombarded with thousands of emails every day.

But feel free to take the path that makes the most sense to you.

Reaching out to influencers

This is hands down the most difficult part of the process.

You have to somehow figure out a way to:

a) get in touch with an influencer and

b) build rapport with them.

You can accomplish this in several ways, but I’m a fan of simply sending an email or using the contact box on their website.

Most influencers (unless they’re huge celebrities) will have some means of contacting them. Do your research until you find an efficient means of doing so.

If you absolutely can’t find their contact info, move on to the next potential influencer on your list.

How should I approach them?

The specific request you have will dictate the template you use.

For instance, there’s a:

curation template

influencer mention template

guest blog template

and others.

I recommend checking out this article from Entrepreneur. It will provide you with five basic templates so you’ll know what to say when making contact.

Here’s their initial outreach template:

The key to getting a response is to be authentic, personable, and honest.

Just remember that you need to make them an offer they can’t refuse (using my best Vito Corleone voice).

You may want to give them a shout out on your blog, send them a sample of your product, or maybe even compensate them if the situation calls for it—whatever you think would tickle their fancy.

However, I would tread lightly with compensation because it can make you come across as being insincere. But it’s definitely an option to keep in mind.

Now let me say this.

It’s ideal if you interact with an influencer on at least some level before hitting them up out of the blue.

For example, you might regularly comment on their blog for a month prior to asking them for a favor.

I know that I’m more receptive to requests from loyal blog readers than to someone “off the street.”

Have thick skin

There are a couple of other little pearls of wisdom I would like to share with you.

First, you should be prepared for rejection.

It’s not realistic to expect the first influencer you contact to immediately respond and cater to your every whim.

Most of these people are busy and already have their inboxes flooded with similar requests.

No matter how charming or charismatic you may think you come off, you’re probably not going to get many responses.

Don’t take it personally. It’s a numbers game.

That’s why I recommend creating a list of at least 10 potential influencers to get going. However, the more, the merrier.

If you expect to have success, it’s going to take perseverance and patience.

Just keep at it until you finally make a breakthrough.

And here’s another tip.

Use a free email tracker, like this one from HubSpot, so you’ll know who opened your emails and who didn’t.

It’s a simple way to see what type of activity has happened after you hit “send.”

If you don’t get a response from someone who most definitely opened your email, I recommend sending them a follow-up email after a few days or so.

Don’t be a pest about it, but a polite follow-up may get an influencer to take notice of you and get you the response you’re looking for.

Getting them to share your content

Finally, you need to ensure that what you’re delivering is genuinely providing them (and their audience) with value.

For instance, if you’re asking an influencer to share a blog post you’ve written, you’d better make sure that it’s top quality and highly relevant to their audience.

If they’re willing to let you guest-post on their blog, it needs to be A+ content. Nothing less will suffice.

In other words, you need to follow through and prove to them that they’re making a good decision by helping you out.

This is obviously integral to building a solid relationship and could potentially lead to other opportunities down the road. You never know.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing seems simple enough on paper.

Get in touch with someone influential, get them to promote your brand in some fashion, and boost your exposure.

Of course, it’s never this easy, and there are a lot of twists and turns along the way.

I’ll be the first to admit that influencer marketing is a tricky process.

But it’s definitely something you can do successfully, provided you take the right approach and have enough persistence.

And once you actually get it to work, it will boost your confidence, and you’ll feel much more comfortable with the process.

At that point, you can rinse and repeat to grow your brand even more.

Have you ever experimented with influencer marketing? What are your results?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2mwbYlE from Blogger http://ift.tt/2l5qm7d February 27, 2017 at 09:52PM

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How to Improve Your Alexa Ranking in 30 Days or Less

Numbers don’t lie.

When it comes to the popularity and overall value of your business, it’s important to have a solid Alexa Ranking.

Why? It’s a common metric that potential business partners, investors, etc. will use to determine the state of your business.

They’ll use it to gauge your business’s health and whether it’s trending up or down.

The lower your Alexa Rank, the better, and vice versa.

This is why so many business owners agonize over their Alexa Rank and work tirelessly to improve it.

In this post, I’d like to discuss two key things.

First, I’d like to talk about the factors that Alexa assesses when determining rankings.

Second, I’d like to offer a tangible strategy you can use to improve your Alexa Ranking in 30 days or less.

Let’s hit it.

What’s an Alexa Rank?

Just to be sure we’re on the same page, allow me to formally define an Alexa Rank.

According to Avangate,

“It’s a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com) that audits and makes public the frequency of visits on various web sites.

Alexa’s support section clarifies matters even more by explaining how its traffic rankings are determined:

“Alexa’s traffic estimates and ranks are based on the browsing behavior of people in our global data panel which is a sample of all Internet users. Alexa’s Traffic Ranks are based on the traffic data provided by users in Alexa’s global data panel over a rolling 3 month period.”

Here’s what Google’s Alexa Rank looks like at number one:

And here’s what Quick Sprout looks like at the moment:

Not nearly as good as Google but solid nonetheless, considering the fact that the lowest ranked website is somewhere around 30 million.

Which factors does Alexa analyze?

Before we can formulate a game plan, it’s important to understand what Alexa is looking at when assigning a ranking to websites.

Fortunately, Alexa is very upfront about how its data is calculated.

According to the Alexa Blog, “Every day, Alexa estimates the average daily visitors and pageviews to every site over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews over the past 3 months is ranked #1.”

“The site with the least is ranked somewhere around 30 million. If no one in our measurement panel visited a site over the past 3 months there is no rank at all for that site.”

They also provide a couple of graphs to illustrate this:

Of course, Google receives more traffic than any other site on the Internet.

It gets more daily visitors and pageviews, so it sits at the top of the mountain.

Alexa also points out the fact that the closer you get to the top of the plot, the harder it gets to move up a rank.

While it may be fairly easy for a site ranking 24,500,132 to move up to, say, 20 million, it’s significantly more difficult to climb from 50 to 40.

The main takeaway is that it’s all about two key factors: (1) average daily visitors and (2) pageviews over the last three months.

That being said, here’s what you need to do in order to improve your Alexa Ranking quickly.

Certify your site metrics

If you don’t mind making a small investment, it’s a good idea to use Alexa’s Certified Site Metrics.

This will give you an Alexa Certified Code, which will directly measure your site’s traffic.

It offers several advantages:

You get a more accurate Alexa Rank

You have access to more in-depth analytics reports (there’s a private dashboard)

You can closely monitor your site’s performance

You also have the option of displaying unique visitors, pageviews, and ranks publicly

Here are the different pricing options:

It’s also important to note that you get a free monthly SEO audit with the “Insight” plan and a full site audit with the “Advanced” plan every two weeks.

This is just something to keep in mind when choosing a plan.

Here’s a screenshot from Alexa support, explaining how to get your site certified:

The bottom line is that certifying your site metrics gives you an advantage over other websites.

You can gain a clearer perspective on the health of your site and are equipped with tools to improve your ranking.

Produce epic content

Sorry if I sound like a broken record with the whole “epic content” thing.

But when you break it all down, it’s an essential component of online marketing on many levels.

I’m not going to bore you with all the gory details, but it’s extremely important to create A+ content that genuinely satisfies your audience.

Check out this guide I wrote on Neil Patel for pretty much everything you need to know on the subject.

This will be a necessity for boosting your Alexa Ranking.

Get quality backlinks

What are two critical factors that Google takes into account when assigning a ranking to your website?

Trust and authority. In fact, “Domain trust/authority represents 23.87% of Google’s ranking algorithm.”

One of the most straightforward ways to increase your site’s trust/authority is to obtain quality inbound links.

You know the drill. They need to be from reputable, relevant websites.

I realize this is obviously easier said than done.

I wish it was as easy as putting out a few decent blog posts and having multiple big name publications chomping at the bit to link to you.

Of course, it’s a fairly arduous process.

But at the end of the day, it all goes back to creating great content.

In fact, I like to adhere to the 90/10 rule of link building, where “90% of your effort should go into creating great content, and 10% into link building.”

And when it comes to the process of link building, there’s one technique that outshines all the rest: guest-posting.

Now, I’m not going to rehash what I’ve already written about this topic here. But you can learn the essentials from this guide on Quick Sprout.

If you can get even a few guest posts published on reputable websites, this should result in an improved Alexa Ranking within a month.

Analyze your competitors’ keywords

Here’s a question for you.

What’s your motivation behind wanting to improve your Alexa Ranking?

I bet it’s to have a better ranking than your primary competitors. Right?

Of course, you’ll want to outperform the competition. But how do you go about it?

One of the best ways to gain an edge with your Alexa Rank, and with SEO in general, is to analyze your competitors’ keywords.

You’ll want to know which keywords are bringing them the most traffic, generating backlinks, and so on.

Once you know which keywords are driving the bulk of traffic to their websites, you can optimize your site for those keywords and build momentum.

It’s like killing two birds with one stone. Not only will your Alexa Rank improve, your overall SEO rankings should improve as well.

But how can you analyze their keywords?

I recommend using Google’s Keyword Planner.

There are a lot of tools out there, but this is perhaps the most universal. Besides, Google is usually the go-to source for Internet data.

Here’s what you do.

Go to your Keyword Planner dashboard.

Click on “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.”

Under “Your landing page,” type in the URL of a competitor.

I’ll just use quicksprout.com as an example:

Click on “Get Ideas” at the bottom, and your screen will be populated with a list of competitor keywords.

Here are just a handful that popped up from my search:

The great thing about using the Keyword Planner is that you can instantly determine the volume of monthly searches and the level of competition for each keyword.

Creating better content that outperforms your competitors is a great way to gradually boost your SEO and at the same time improve your Alexa Rank.

But in order to see a significant improvement within 30 days, I would suggest first going after the “low hanging fruit,” meaning keywords with minimal competition and a lot of searches.

Focus on those initially for a surge in your ranking.

Conclusion

In many ways, your Alexa Rank directly affects the health and progress of your business.

It’s something that key stakeholders will often look at when determining whether or not your company is worth doing business with.

Therefore, achieving a favorable ranking (at least in the top 100,000) should be a priority.

If you follow this formula, I can pretty much guarantee that you will see at least a reasonable improvement fairly quickly.

However, if your site ranks really poorly, it may take awhile to get to the point where your business is attractive to stakeholders.

And because your Alexa Rank is such an important metric, I recommend making your efforts at improving it ongoing.

How big of a factor has your Alexa Ranking been in terms of business partnerships and opportunities?

from Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2l1ogna from Blogger http://ift.tt/2lSWYRz February 17, 2017 at 09:35PM