#because yeah they all have the same general questions etc. like traffic rules

[youjustwaitsunshine]

til that seb did three theoretical drivers license tests (motorcycles, cars and lorries, i assume EU license A1, B and C1) on the same day (x)

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Dream SMP Good Omens AU

I wrote a Good Omens AU! It’s on AO3 here, but I’m also posting it here

Sixteen years before the apocalypse, three babies were dropped off on the doorstep of an orphanage. Two of them were human as human can be, while the third was prophesied to bring about the great war between heaven and hell, start the apocalypse, and just have a generally fun time. 

How exactly did the antichrist get left on a doorstep on a rainy night?

A few hours before

Our journey starts in a graveyard, where Baby No. 1 was found. 

Now, when I say "Baby No. 1", know that I mean the great destroyer, future doom of the world, bringer of death, currently wrapped in a fluffy blue blanket in a wicker basket, etc. 

He glanced around at the tombstones almost judgmentally, as though to say I don't think this is where one-day-old children go, but hey, I don't know enough about existence to dispute this. 

The wicker basket remained tucked away in the graveyard for a while, a few drops of rain gently falling down. Apparently, the poor weather was what Baby No. 1's escort was looking for, as he appeared as the mist began to gather. 

Wilbur Soot always had a penchant for dramatic atmosphere.

Quite a few lords of hell would call Wilbur the worst demon ever to walk the pit. This was absolutely untrue. Wilbur was a fairly mediocre demon that happened to be walking the pit, but certainly not the worst, putting that stupid fiddle contest bet aside. 

The gossip-mongers would only say things like that (and other, harsher things) because Wilbur had been one of the best fallen angels to ever swear vengeance on a broken sword. 

But it's frankly hard to keep up an emo phase for 6,000 years.

He strolled over to the basket, checked to make sure that there was still a baby in it, and waited impatiently for the thing's ride to arrive. Technically, he was supposed to be the one driving the antichrist to St. Beryl's Orphanage, but he had tickets to see Heathers that night and decided to use that most clever trick: Getting someone else to do his work instead. 

Still, he didn't have much trust in the guy he'd asked, and wanted to make sure that the child actually got from the graveyard to the car.

It was already five minutes past the scheduled time, and the weather was terrible, and he was fine with starting the end of days, but why did he have to work overtime? At least Schlatt wasn't here to laugh at him being on babysitting duty. 

Almost on cue, a raspy laugh came from the shadows of the church in the center of the graveyard. Ugh. Speak of the angel. 

Almost everyone would call JSchlatt the worst angel to ever wear a suit. 

And they would be absolutely right. 

He had no care for heaven, or the great war, or any sort of noble deed. The only predictable thing about him was his biting snark and the ever-present stink of cheap alcohol. 

When he entered a room, everyone there knew that they would soon regret not keeping him out by any means necessary, and he knew that they knew, and he enjoyed that. 

The greatest miracle ever performed in all of earthly and non-earthly history was that he hadn't been thrown out of heaven by his horns yet.

"Are you on babysitting duty, Wilbur?". Wilbur crossed his arms, trying and failing to hide the annoyance on his face. He could have had a cool arch-nemesis, but no. He was stuck with this dick.

"Laugh all you like, Schlatt-"

"Oh, trust me, I am."

"But once the child reaches 16, he's going to bring about the finale of this pathetic excuse for an earth".

Okay, so maybe he wasn't entirely rid of that emo phase. Schlatt looked at him, smug.

"Whatever you say, Soot. Hey, did the lower-downs tell you who's watching over your little finale?"

"I am. I'm watching over the antichrist, being a "corrupting influence" (whatever that means), that sort of thing."

"Well, my higher-ups had a similar idea. They seem to think that if the kid is nudged in the right direction, he'll start the apocalypse and fight on heaven's side. Bla bla bla, defeating Satan and/or Slimecicle, honestly I zoned out during the briefing. Long story short, they thought the kid needed a positive role model, and my name got picked.". 

The idea of "positive role model" and "Schlatt" being considered at all similar rattled Wilbur enough that it took a few seconds for the implications to sink in.

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes. We're going to be neighbors!"

"No, no, no, no-"

"Isn't this exciting?". Wilbur barely restrained a scream, and only shuddered in horror. Before he could lose what was left of his sanity and discorporate anyone, a car horn beeped. It's about time.

He half walked, half sprinted over to the black car. The window cranked open, revealing a nervous foxlike face.

The general consensus was that Fundy was too mediocre of a demon to be worth any notice. 

He'd never been seen doing anything appropriately horrible or failed spectacularly, so according to most of hell he didn't exist. 

In truth, Fundy was about to prove tonight that he was much worse of a demon than they thought.

"Sorry I'm late, I forgot I cursed a major highway, and then I had to drive on that highway to get here, and-"

"Just take the kid.". The basket was passed to Fundy, who looked at it with fear and wonder.

Baby No. 1 didn't look like an antichrist (I mean, he was the only antichrist at this point and could only look like himself, but he didn't look like how one would expect an antichrist to look). He just looked like any one-day-old baby. Fundy tried to disguise how grateful he was about that. Maybe, just maybe, the plan could work. 

He looked back up to Wilbur.

"So, what was the important demonic business?"

"Hmm?"

"I mean, you said you had "important demonic business", and that's why you couldn't drive the kid yourself."

"Ah, yes. That important demonic business. Well, Fundy, that's for me to know and you to not know.". Wilbur shifted, hiding the Heathers tickets in his coat sleeve.

"Enjoy your drive!". With that, he teleported away from the graveyard. Schlatt shrugged, and continued eating protein powder out of the jar.

-----------

Fundy drove like a maniac down the highway, swerving off the road to avoid the cursed-induced traffic. 

He'd pulled off hundreds of scams before, but they were all on the humans. He'd never scammed the forces of heaven and hell simultaneously before. He was pretty sure that was called "treason". Which was punishable by death if he got caught. This is the worst idea of my entire fucking existence. 

As he sped down the road regretting his life choices, rain pouring down on the windshield, his co-conspirator teleported into the passenger seat.

"Hey, you ready to do something illegal?"

The executives in heaven had no idea what to make of Quackity. 

They could hardly call him the worst angel when there was Schlatt running about drunk off his ass, and he was even good at his job most of the time. Even now, the executives couldn't quite pin down a time he'd directly broken a rule.

However, he had a habit of taking the rulebook, shaking it out, finding whatever loopholes existed, and using them to do whatever he pleased.

There wasn't a rule saying he couldn't wear yeezys and sunglasses to important board meetings. 

There wasn't a rule saying that he couldn't try to seduce the archangels, that was implied at best. 

And there wasn't a rule saying that he couldn't get attached to the human world. The higher-ups had never considered that anyone would, so it hadn't been written down in the paperwork. 

Their mistake.

Here was the truth: Quackity didn't want the apocalypse to happen. If you spend 6,000 years in any place, how can you not care about it? Sure, humans are there and gone in the blink of an eye, but the things they make to show they were here can stay for centuries.

He knew too much history about the place to just stand back and let it get set on fire. 

So, he'd searched through all of heaven for a collaborator. There was no one willing to help him there, their reactions ranging from "I'd love to help, but I don't want to get hellfire poured on my face" to "If you're insinuating what I think you are, I'll turn you in to get hellfire poured on your face".

So, he took the escalator down to the basement. It took him a while to find someone, even there, but eventually he met a familiar fox-faced demon, and a plan was hatched.

Why did Fundy join in on a dangerous scheme like this one?

Attention, mostly. Humans were the only ones to really acknowledge his existence, even if it was almost all negative attention. Which was fair. He did steal their things a lot.

"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

"Great.". Quackity looked into the basket containing Baby No.1, breathed a sigh of relief that he looked like a normal human, and revealed a cardboard box. Inside the cardboard box was Baby No. 2, wrapped in a green blanket.

When I say "Baby No. 2", know that I mean a quiet mortal child with wisps of light blond hair, born to a regular human that didn't want him.

"I found him on the side of the road.". The two of them sat in silence for a while at that, before Fundy brought up the plan again.

"So, we drop them both at St. Beryl's."

"Yeah."

"And then they think that this kid is the antichrist, and the antichrist is the kid."

"Yeah."

"And our bosses try to raise the kid and sway them to the dark side or whatever, while we raise the antichrist and keep them from destroying the world."

"Yeah."

"Um. Quick question."

"Yeah?"

"If we're putting them both on the doorstep at the same time, how do we know they won't think the antichrist is the antichrist and the kid is the kid?"

"....I didn't think about that.”. They pondered the problem together. Eventually, Fundy conjured a sharpie and wrote "antichrist, this side up" on the side of the cardboard box in bold letters.

"That should work. Also, you need to stop teleporting into my car while it's moving. You could fuse with the seats, and that would suck to clean up."

And so, Baby No. 1 and Baby No. 2 were dropped off on the doorstep of St. Beryl's Orphanage. It was harder than expected to say goodbye to Baby No. 2, but they managed. 

The duo was somewhat confused by the third baby on the doorstep, who hadn't been put there by any of them, and actually just so happened to be dropped off at the wrong orphanage at the wrong time.

Baby No. 3 was in a red blanket, and when I say "Baby No. 3", know that I mean a human child that was currently doing what he would be doing for much of his life: Screaming at the top of his lungs. 

It is assumed that he was born to humans since he was one, but the kid could have been dropped off by a galaxy for all we know.

All that we need to know is that fate had not favored Baby No. 3, and that would continue for a while.

And so, three babies were dropped off on the doorstep of an orphanage, sixteen years before the apocalypse.

--------

Quite a few people (and things that at least looked like people) were excited about this. It was supposed to be a secret that the antichrist was at St. Beryl's Orphanage, so obviously everyone from purgatory to Portland had heard the news.

The lobby was jam-packed with a few demons with extremely good disguises, far more demons with very bad disguises, a mafia-style group of angels, another mafia-style group of angels but they were pretending to be a book club for some convoluted reason, a few very lost ghosts who didn't even want to be there in the first place, the man who was going to burn the orphanage to the ground in a couple of hours, the dread Charlie Slimecicle, hassled orphanage staff, and, notably, the owners of two motorcycles in the parking lot. 

The two motorcycles were a sickly hospital white and an empty-seeming black respectively, and their riders were lowkey famous (not that they liked to brag about it or anything). 

Any and all apocalypse enthusiasts knew their names (or at least their titles), and once they met up with two more friends Doomsday would truly be underway.

But that party wouldn't be started for another sixteen years. 

For now, only two out of the set of four were gathered, and tonight was less about the apocalypse than the drama and firsthand gossip to get. They sat in the corner, watching the chaos unfold with reflective eyes.

-----------

Now, someone would eventually have to adopt these babies. The antichrist would have to grow up among the mortals, and St. Beryl's Orphanage was always more of an apocalypse creating scheme than an orphanage to begin with, so they would have to find some unwitting soul to take Baby No. 2 and Baby No. 3 soon. 

Thankfully for everyone involved, three humans that showed up that day ready to adopt, with varying degrees of dread.

The first was a man seemingly in his late thirties, wearing a green coat that could almost be considered a cloak.

The second was a young adult with sunglasses and an almost royal quality about them.

And the third was a sweet-looking young woman in a soft striped sweater, who clutched an ancient book tightly under her arm.

They were quickly hustled through the lobby by the head of the orphanage, who tried her best to keep anyone in the group from seeing anything odd happening around them (Which is a bit of a challenge when certain demons think that a fake mustache from a corner store is enough to look completely non-supernatural). 

She rushed around from the tiny waiting room with the potential parents to the room with the babies to the stampede outside, internally wishing that she'd done what she'd planned in college and been a therapist instead of running an orphanage/doomsday cult.

All of the humans in the waiting room were understandably confused, but their questions were unheeded. 

The three of them sat in silence for several minutes. When it became clear that no one would be coming to check on them, small talk was attempted. 

Names were learned (The first parent went by the name Philza, while the second was named Eret, and the third Niki), the weather thoroughly discussed, and finally, the conversation turned to the inevitable:

"So, why are you here?". The question was asked by Eret, who seemed genuinely curious. Phil looked down from the clock he'd been watching, annoyed.

"To adopt a child. Why else?"

"I figured that, but what led you here? You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I'm just trying to break the silence.". Phil continued staring at the wall, preparing his words.

Half an hour before

"You want me to what?"

Phil had been driving home when he got the call. If he really had a say in the matter, he would have sent that to voicemail in two seconds flat, but his caller wasn't the kind of person you could hang up on ("person" wasn't even accurate to him). The rain was falling down on the windshield, the traffic was abysmal, and apparently he was supposed to adopt a child. 

"Listen, with all due respect, I owe you nothing anymore. I don't have to do missions for you, I don't have to kill for you, and I especially don't have to take care of a baby for sixteen years for you.". He nodded along as the other side of the call said his bit, before responding.

"Sixteen years is quick? Maybe to the likes of you it's quick, for me it's actually a sizeable chunk of time! I don't care that I have to 'just keep him alive-'". He was cut off, and he waited impatiently for his chance to speak again, which he got.

"You and I have gone our separate ways. Me and Technoblade are both in retirement, and there's no way in hell I'm adopting a child. That's my final word.". 

The voice on the other side of the call spoke how he usually did: Methodical, calm, devoid of mercy. Mentioning Techno had been a mistake, and the conversation eased into detailed and pointed threats. Finally, he gave up.

"If I do this, you'll finally leave me and Techno alone?". An affirmative answer. Phil sighed, already weary of the experience.

"Fine. Screw you, but fine. I'll take your stupid project."

Current

Phil folded his arms, a scowl on his face.

"I'm just very paternal."

For some reason, Eret doubted that, but they nodded anyway.

"I decided I wanted to adopt a few months ago. I mean, I have the money for it, and there are so many kids without parents. I think I just wanted to do something about it, and try to give some kid a good childhood.". They laughed quietly under their breath.

"Sometimes I feel like something else put the idea in my head.". Phil and Eret looked towards Niki, expecting her to speak. She held her book close to her, fingers drumming on the cover.

"I've known for a while that I was going to adopt a baby today. St. Beryl's Orphanage, April 1st, the year I turn 19."

"How did you know?". Niki opened the book, re-reading the same familiar page.

"It's just fate."

-----------

Meanwhile, the two horsemen of the apocalypse were tired of just watching. 

If they stayed any longer without doing anything, this trip wouldn't be worth the motorcycle fuel. 

They rose from the seats in unison and slipped casually into the baby room. The head of the orphanage had been slumped against the wall, exhausted. However, when the duo entered the room, she leapt to her feet.

"Excuse me, no demons, no angels, nothing dead or dying, no refunds, no Charlie, and no one I don't want here is allowed in this room!". The one cloaked in black stepped forward, hands raised in a pacifying gesture and a kind smile on his face.

"Well, I'm none of those things! My name's BadBoyHalo, but most people are kind of formal and call me Famine.". That last bit of the sentence was accompanied by a sheepish eye roll, as though to say I know it's silly, but I can't help being well-known.

"My friend over there is George. What's your name?". The head of the orphanage tried very hard to feel suspicious. There were two strangers in the most important room there, she should have her guard up as far as possible. Yet, for some reason, she couldn't feel any distrust for the Famine in front of her.

"My name is Puffy. Why are you here?"

"Us? We're just here for a look. Right, George?". George hadn't really been interested in the conversation, although it was hard to tell what he was thinking about behind his white sunglasses. He raised his head, looking bored.

"Yeah. Sure.". 

Puffy could see several concerning things about letting two horsemen of the apocalypse take a quick look at the antichrist, but she couldn't quite think clearly.

She tried to focus on the current situation, but all she could think about was how much she wanted a good night's sleep, and a vacation, and a different life. Bad's smile remained constant, cheerful and understanding.

"Is this the job you want, Puffy?". She shook her head, eyes glassy.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be a hero. Help out people who needed helping. I really have no idea how I got here.". Bad nodded.

"Well, Puffy, you seem tired. There's a lot of muffin-heads outside making a racket, and it seems like a lot to deal with. If you want to just go upstairs and take a quick nap, we can handle things for you!". Puffy quietly agreed and walked out of the room in a daze. Already, she could tell something was wrong, but she felt sapped of the strength to care.

As her head hit the pillow, she made a vow to herself that if she came back and the kids were harmed in any way, she'd personally bring hell to their doorsteps.

-----------

"Bad, did you seriously hypnotize a woman so you could hold a baby?"

"Not just a baby, George! Three babies!"

"That makes it much better, yes.”

"You're just upset that they like me more.". Bad bounced around the babies, cooing over them.

"Who's the cutest little antichrist? Who's the tiniest omen of doom? You are!". He picked up Baby No. 2 and tapped his nose.

"Boop!". George stood there quietly.

"He's going to be mad if he finds out we came here."

"Exactly, if he finds out. Besides, he needs us."

"I know he needs me. You, on the other hand, are kind of on thin ice."

"Calm yourself. Hold a baby.". Bad picked up Baby No. 2 from his box, where antichrist: this side up was clearly visible, and handed him to George. George held the green-blanketed baby, staring intently into his eyes. 

Baby No. 3 started screaming once more, and Bad ran over to pick him up and shush him.

"Aww, it's okay. You're not going to die for another 16 years, you have nothing to scream about now!". Baby No. 3 seemed to take in his words for a few seconds, before shrieking even louder. 

The door was flung open by the ominous angelic book club, who tried to shove their way to the child in George's arms. Bad sighed, exasperated, and shifted into a more monstrous form.

"Seems like I have to do some security work. Can you hold this one too?". Without waiting for an answer, he passed Baby No. 3 to George and walked out into the hallway, using his hollow iron scales to push otherworldly paparazzi aside.

After the first act of Heathers, Wilbur slipped out of the theater. It wasn't a particularly good production, and he didn't see the point in staying. 

He decided that if he wasn't going to do anything else, he should probably teleport to St. Beryl's and do his job. 

The orphanage was even more chaotic than before, and he had to light one or two minor demons on fire to clear his way. 

Finally, he reached the room with the antichrist. The room was mostly empty, except for one basket in the corner, and a familiar stranger holding two babies and panicking slightly.

The stranger turned to face Wilbur, and he realized who he was speaking to. He'd never met a horseman of the apocalypse before, but he'd heard of their reputations and seen them from afar.

"Pestilence. Pleasure to meet you.". Pestilence leaned nonchalantly in the doorway with a smile, which was quite a feat for someone holding two sobbing children.

"Please, call me George."

"George. Interesting name, for someone with your position."

“What's wrong with it?"

"It's fine, your colleagues have just mostly had ridiculous names. I mean, who in their right mind names themself Sapnap? No offense, don't discorporate me."

"Well, relatively speaking, I'm pretty new to the job. Stick around another 500 years, and who knows what will happen?"

"With your name, or with discorporating me?"

"Both, I guess.". Wilbur checked his pocket watch (it had been broken sometime in the 1910s, and he hadn't had the time to get it fixed, but he still liked the idea of checking a pocket watch).

"Fun as this conversation is, I was thinking that I should be the one to deliver the child to his parent.". George opened his mouth, probably to say no, but the sound of the babies crying increased. He stopped, irritated, and nodded.

"Why not? It's not like I actually work here."

"Excellent. Just give me the antichrist, and I'll be out of your hair. Unless you want to meet up again after this-"

"I'm good."

"Alright.". George held Baby No. 2 and Baby No. 3 side by side, as if weighing them. He titled his head from the child wrapped in a green blanket to the child wrapped in a red blanket. Finally, he handed the one in red to Wilbur.

"I'm pretty sure this is the antichrist. I'm a bit colorblind.". The sentence was accompanied by an airy laugh and a small grin, and Wilbur smiled back before leaving the room with Baby No. 3.

-----------

Phil was going to murder him. 

The guy couldn't die, but he was going to murder him anyway. Of all the petty things, he had to threaten Philza and his loved ones just for him to sit in a room for hours for absolutely no reason. 

Was this that creature's sick idea of a prank? 

Five seconds before he was going to storm out, agreement be damned, there was a polite knock on the door. He got up to open it, and Baby No. 3 lay on the floor, silent and peacefully sleeping for the first time in his short existence. 

Phil shrugged, deciding not to question it.

He gently picked the baby up from the ground, and headed home. 

(If he'd been looking more intently, he would have noticed 1) A certain demon sitting cross-legged on the ceiling, having decided that he probably shouldn't come face to face with someone he was supposed to spy on, and 2) His closest friend hiding behind a newspaper in the lobby, ready for some good old fashioned arson).

-----------

Anyway, once the antichrist was safely adopted (or so they thought), all that was left was to find a place to put all of these bonus babies. George picked up Baby No. 1 and Baby No. 2, and headed for the waiting room, where Eret and Niki regarded each other as friends already.

Unfortunately, Quackity decided that he had some meddling left in him for the evening, and he decided to make sure everything was going according to plan. He teleported into the orphanage seamlessly, folding his wings into his coat and looking over his sunglasses.

George strolled into the waiting room.

"Pick a child, any child. I don't have all day.". Eret tilted their head in confusion.

"Isn't there paperwork, or an application process, or something official we're supposed to-"

"Do you want the kid or not?". Niki reached for Baby No. 2, and Eret shrugged and took Baby No. 1.

Quackity watched the process take place through the keyhole. 

This seemed alright. They both seemed like non-horrible humans, and he'd be fine watching over either of them for the 16 years. Then, he noticed the book under the young woman's arm. 

The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. First edition, which should be impossible, unless she's some kind of descendant. And I'm not dealing with lying to a witch. 

He tried to remember which kid was the actual antichrist and which was the fraud. 

The green one and the blue one were both important. The blue one was the fake, and the green one was the real deal, right? Or was the green one the fake, and the blue one fake? Wasn't there a red one at one point? Fuck. 

At the last moment, Quackity decided that he couldn't just stand still and risk it. He did the first thing that came to mind and killed the lights. 

The lightbulbs exploded, leaving everyone in darkness. In the chaos, he telekinetically switched the babies.

Alright. No witches today, thanks. I'll just follow the other one home from afar, and everything will be fine.

----------

Later that night, when the orphanage was almost empty, a man set his newspaper aside and crept through the building. 

He lit Molotov cocktails with precision and chucked them wherever a fireball seemed needed. Flames weren't his usual method of destruction, but he had to get creative sometimes. 

His plan had been slowed down by Phil showing up at this "orphanage", but once he left the game was back on.

If anyone wanted to start the apocalypse and take away everything the two of them had worked for, they'd have to go through Technoblade.

The entire building was consumed and burnt to the ground. The arson case would remain unsolved, like most of his work, and Techno hadn't seen any potential casualties that would make people want to investigate. 

Sadly, there was one person left in the building when it burned, and she couldn't wake up from her dreams of the sea and a sword in her hands to smell the smoke.

----------

Wilbur followed Philza home unnoticed, disguised as wisps of shadow and cigarette ash. 

In lieu of a cradle, Phil temporarily arranged a drawer as a bed for Baby No. 3 and set him down. Once the baby seemed safe and calm, he left to collapse on the couch. 

Wilbur frowned. Where's his name? Names were important. They could be bargained with, broken, foretell fate, and be used as a lifeline if need be. You didn't just leave a child without a name.

This had to be remedied. He conjured a post-it note and a pen, and snuck over to the drawer considering the merits of different names. 

Kraken? Should I name him Kraken? No, he doesn't seem like a Kraken. The child stirred once, yawning, bright blue eyes nearly opening.

His name is Tommy.

The realization hit Wilbur all at once. Tommy wasn't a particularly demonic name, but it just felt too right to pick anything else. 

So, he wrote "Tommy" on the post-it note and stuck it on the blanket, hoping that Phil would think it had been there the whole time. 

The baby grabbed his finger as he pulled back his hand, not letting go. Wilbur's heart wasn't melted at all. Not a bit.

"I'm going to need that back, Tommy.". Carefully, he took his finger out of the tiny hand's grasp.

"It's very nice to meet you. My name's Wilbur. I'm your guardian, Tommy, and you're going to burn down the world one day."

-----------

At the same time, Quackity followed Eret back to their home (although mansion might be more accurate. Was the chandelier really necessary?). 

They'd been planning for this for months, and anything that Quackity could worry about had already been taken care of five minutes ago. Baby No. 2 was even named quickly and with care.

The angel breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing evil could be named "Tubbo", right? 

Eret disappeared to a nearby room, allowing Quackity the chance to formally meet him and Fundy's charge. He teleported down to the cradle and contemplated the kid.

"Hey, I know that this has been a long day, but I'm Quackity. Me and my friend are going to be looking after you for a few years, because Tubbo? It's up to you to save the world. Good luck."

-----------

At the same time, Niki went back to her home. 

The rain finally stopped, and she put the Nice and Accurate Prophecies back on the shelf to hold Baby No. 1, the real prophesied end of days. 

I don't know if I'm ready for this. I don't know anything about being a mother, or stopping the apocalypse, but I'm expected to do both.

The child opened his eyes. They were the one usual thing about an otherwise average baby: One eye was a fiery red, while one was a leafy green. They vaguely reminded Niki of a forest fire.

She set up the cradle and cast various charms, determined to get this right. 

She was so focused on protecting her son (for he was her son, now) that she didn't notice a skeletal green hand reach out of the shadows for her book and cut out select pages and phrases with a knife of bone. 

Niki gently put her child down, already full of intense care for him.

You're going to be okay. I don't know about heaven or hell or any of those idiots, but I can promise you one thing, Ranboo: I'll make sure you're safe. I swear it.

Hope you enjoyed!

[royallyprincesslilly]

Hey, I just started writing CE fanfic and posted my first ever and I wanted to ask you for some tips on like how you build a community of readers, promote your work, advice for a new fanfic writing, how to stay encouraged etc. Sorry if that seems like a lot haha, answer whatever but I'd love to know what you think.

Heyyy,

Welcome aboard the super talented and fun Chris Evans writing fandom. 

Wow. I am going to try to tackle this, and I hope that it is helpful and useful information. I took the last day or two to attempt to organize my thoughts, so here goes.

-Building A Community of Readers-

*I’d say consistency is a major part of it building readers. Find a way to post regularly, and I mean, what is regular for you and your life. I see people who post a story a day or even 2 stories a day all the time, and I am in awe. For me, that would only happen if I actually put my everything into cranking it out like that. So tweak what is regular for you and try to remain consistent with it.

*Creativity is also essential. You will see 5 similar stories within thirty minutes on this app if you’re searching. Similar in that the idea is relatively the same. That doesn’t mean don’t write it, it just means you now get to put your own spin on it. You get to play with it and be as creative as you can get. I think creativity is super important in fanfic.

*Interaction. You can post all day, every day, but if you’re not interacting with those who read your work, I feel like it defeats the purpose. As much as authors like to get their likes and reblogs and see those comments, a reply to a comment is also something readers want to see. Interact as much as you can, thank them for reading. Show appreciation for them because no one has to read anything. You will also get to know people on more than a URL basis, and that, to me, is really cool.

-Promoting Work-

This is something that I don’t do much of if I do it at all. The most promotion I do is post here, reblog my masterlist and individual work. Within the last year (think it’s coming up), I began posting on Wattpad as well, but I am not as consistent there are I am here. I know some writers are religious on the story sites such as Wattpad, AO3, and Tumblr and will post a link on Tumblr to their Wattpad and AO3 or vice versa. Some even create free websites to put all their work and direct traffic to it. There are so many ways to promote your writing.

I’ve been meaning to look into setting up an IG account and make posts highlighting what I write as well as putting them on my WordPress site. I’ve even been looking into Patreon and how it can work for me as a writer. These are all options you can look into as well. In this tech, era promotion can be as simple and as complicated as you make it—experiment on what works for you.

- Advice For A New Fanfic Writer-

*NEVER EVER EVER EVER compare yourself and your writing to that of someone else. This is like the GOLDEN RULE for me. This is soooo important. There is no better way for you to pigeon hole yourself and your potential and enjoyment on this ride that fanfic writing is. No good will come of this, you won’t feel any better, it will only make you doubt yourself, your ability, and question if you even want to try to do this anymore. Don’t do it!

*Have Fun! I think every one of us started doing this because we thought it would be fun and a nice avenue to explore our creativity. None of us came here like this is a job, and I have to do it. I think it is important to keep that reason forefront in your mind. Write for the fun of it, test limits, and have fun doing it. The minute it stops being fun and starts feeling like an obligation or job, then you need to get back to the root of it. 

*Try to hone your craft. This means yeah write and post but also try to get better at it. None of us are at the pro level where we won’t learn new things or make mistakes. I don’t even think the “pro” published writers are at this level. Take the time to learn more about writing, English, grammar, the power of storytelling, different voices and styles, etc. This can only help you in your fanfic journey as well as your everyday life and future if you decide that you want to venture out of fanfic into self-pub or traditional pub. 

*Write for You. Write what you would want to read. Chances are there are countless other people who are into what you are but just haven’t voiced it. If you wanna make a story about Sam Wilson AU where he is an actual shapeshifting Falcon and he falls in love with a woman who thinks is normal but turns out to be a vigilante by night who has questionable morals and a pet unicorn that is her sidekick, WRITE IT. Don’t think will anyone like this or read it. Write It!

-Staying Encouraged-

This is tough and it’s hard for me to give advice on this because I can tell you how to do it but everyone has to find that thing that works for them to stay encouraged enough to keep going. This is a personal thing for everyone. 

A general answer I can give is when you get discouraged try to remember that nothing happens overnight. It takes time to build something, time, patience, and dedication to build readers or even get better. Try to keep in mind that if you stick to it, it’ll happen. Sort of the equivalent to “If you build it they will come”.

Also, try to look at those who have voiced interest and excitement or even support for you and your writing. It may be fifteen people or even three. Those three to fifteen people found you and really like what you offer, focus on that, wrap yourself in that, and keep going knowing those three to fifteen people will love what you put out.

Don’t focus on the numbers. This means the likes, reblogs, comments, or even followers. Don’t focus on it and get so wrapped up in it that it has power over you to make or break your day. Keep it in the mindset of “if you build it they will come”. It’ll happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

These are the things that I can think of at the top of my head. I am sure there are other writers who can add on to this with a lot more advice and tips and I welcome anyone who has anything to add on to do so. 

I hope these were helpful. Thank you for the question. 😘

[purplesurveys]

795

Where is your favorite place to get fries? Hmmm I really like the fries from Jollibee and Bonchon, if we’re talking about fries as a side. But we have a local place called Potato Corner that mainly sells fries and they make the besssssst ones; it’s my go-to snack when I go to the movies or if I just wanna chew on something while at the mall.

What is the most recent article of clothing you’ve purchased? Yellow and black tops with puffed sleeves since they were getting in style, at least before the quarantine.

Have you ever paid for anything with a check? Not my own, obviously; but my mom has given me checks to pay for mine and my sister’s tuition fees back in high school.

Do you know anyone who was raised by their grandparents? So many kids here in the Philippines. The usual situation is that parents would still be climbing the ranks while their kids are little so they’d be under the care of extended family, and for the most part it’s the grandparents who would assume the task. In my case, I was raised by my maternal grandparents and an aunt for my entire childhood.

Have you ever made your own pie from scratch? Yeah, in Grade 7 home economics when we had to. Never made pie on my own time/for leisure.

Who was the last person you had an in-depth conversation with? Gabie.

Are there any waterfalls nearby? I guess so. It’s on the other side of the city, but then again that’s only about 15 minutes away and I would say that’s nearby.

What was the last food item you ate? Lumpiang shanghai and rice.

What are your earliest memories of going to see a doctor? Going to the school doctor in my first year of kindergarten to have my eyes checked. I remember being asked to peer into a machine, but I don’t remember what I saw anymore.

Can you hear traffic right now? I could never hear traffic from where I live and for anyone also living in a gated village, this is always the case.

Have you ever pulled a muscle? I may have, but only once or twice.

What did you do last weekend? I hung out with my dog, last Saturday my dad bought a sushi platter to celebrate my thesis getting approved, and last Sunday I collected all of Kimi’s baby photos because I realized I hadn’t looked back on his old pictures for a while. Here’s one that we took when he was two :)

What is your favorite gaming console? The PS2 gave me many of my most cherished memories; and it had badass games, too.

Are you talking to anyone via instant messaging right now? Nope.

Have you kissed someone today? Not since March 7th, eugh.

What is your favorite condiment? Mayonnaise. 

Do you have a strong opinion for or against Justin Bieber? He has definitely said and done questionable things both in the past and present that keeps me from rallying behind him 100%, but honestly his music has gotten better over the years lol. My personal favorite is the entire Purpose album.

Have you used a telephone today? I only have to use the telephone when my grandma calls, and the last time I had to do this was when she called on my birthday.

Do you prefer coffee or tea? Cooooooffeeeeeeee. The only time I get to drink tea is if it’s a freebie at a hotel or restaurant, but I never buy it for myself.

Have you taken a painkiller today? Yeah. This morning my body gave me signs that let me know I was about to faint – super sweaty, tunnel vision, dizziness, stumbling – and even though I was able to handle it and end up conscious, my head was still being weird a couple of hours later so I drank a Biogesic pill to make it go away.

How many theaters does the closest movie theater from your house have? I honestly can’t remember. I tried checking their website but it shouldn’t be a surprise that they have no data on their cinemas right now.

Do you always have a stock of alcohol in your house? Only because my parents aren’t big drinkers and they drink like, every six months. The stock of alcohol we’ve constantly had are ones they bought from way way back and they just haven’t consumed. I would drink them myself, but it’s all beer or wine so no thanks.

Have you ever had a pumpkin latte and if so, did you like it? No, not a thing here. Starbucks did bring it here for a short time last Octoberish? but it was always sold out whenever I’d try to order it, and eventually I just stopped trying.

Have you had a nap today? I took a nap all afternoon so I’ll probably be up very late tonight.

Is there an antique store in your town or city? I’m not ruling it out. If there is, I haven’t heard of it yet.

Have you ever been to a baby shower? Again, not a thing here. It’s such a first world thing hahaha. I do think my generation is gonna be the first one to make baby showers a thing though.

Do you have a hyphenated name or know anyone with one? (eg. Carter-Brown) I don’t have one. I know several people.

What would you wear if you were being taken out to dinner tonight? I’d assume the dinner would take place at home, so I’ll wear a simple dress.

What were the last shoes you wore? A pair of Nikes.

Do you know anyone who has been to rehab? I...don’t think so.

Have you ever had a mojito? I’ve had a sip or two, but I’ve never ordered it for myself.

Do you take your Christmas decorations down before or after New Years? End of January. The Christmas season in the Philippines doesn’t end until then.

What is the first thing you do when you get online? I go on my Facebook to check if I got any notifications while asleep. 

How many romantic relationships have you been in so far? Technically two, but they’ve been with the same person.

Have you ever been camping in the wilderness? I have not been camping, period.

Do you have any money on you right now? I have my last ₱1000 bill in my wallet. I used to have ₱2500++ but my dad has kept borrowing my money throughout quarantine and now I’m down to my last bill. I honestly can’t complain about it though, it’s not like I can use the money any time soon, plus my allowance is his hard-earned money to begin with.

Would you consider yourself to be a picky eater? Only if it comes to fruits or any grandma food like raisins, dates, fruitcake, food for the gods, etc. I dunno if those are food universally loved by grandmas but those are definitely what my lola loves, hence me classifying them as grandma food to make it easier lol.

Have you made a large purchase today? Not since Christmas.

What was the last candy you ate? Does Fererro Rocher count as candy? :/ I had one two or three weeks ago.

How often do you eat Subway? Once every two years, tops. It’s not my restaurant of choice and I only ever ate there when I would drive Gabie to her school extra early, and it’s the only place that would be open at 6:30 AM.

Have you ever lived in a house with a pool in the yard? I have not.

What color is your toothbrush? Maroon and white.

Do you have gluten intolerance or anyone who does? No and no.

Have you ever cried while watching a movie? For sure.

First thing that catches your eye when you look out the nearest window? The curtains covering the window.

Have you ever had a migraine? Occasionally. It only happens when I’m extremely stressed or if I don’t realize that I’ve been pushing myself too hard, which doesn’t happen a lot.

Do you have a gym membership? No.

Have you locked your front door today? Yep.

Have you ever slept in a car overnight? Yes. The thing about my mom is that she doesn’t let me stay out criminally late if I plan to go home, but by some weird reasoning on her end, I can stay out criminally late if I say I’ll be sleeping over at someone else’s which to me has always been like ??????? LMAO so anyway, that’s always been my story if I have plans to drink out, party, etc – that I’ll be sleeping over at a friend’s. But the truth is I don’t always have a friend that I can sleep over with, so for nights like those I have to sleep in the car.

Have you washed the dishes today? Just my own.

Have you ever fainted? I’ve only been extremely close to fainting, to the point where people have to carry me because my legs are jelly. But I haven’t lost consciousness.

Have you been awake before sunrise today? No. I’ve been waking up quite late during quarantine.

When was the last time you went to the bank? I’ve never had to go to the bank. If I do, it’s just to accompany my mom who will sometimes withdraw money while we’re out.

Do you avoid conflict as much as possible? Yes.

Have you ever used a leaf blower? We don’t even have one of those. We have someone in the village who gets paid to use one.

[scottstiles]

i was tagged by @clarz - thank you for this! rules: answer questions given by the person who tagged you, write 11 new questions of your own, tag 11 people. 

i’m gonna tag some people today cuz i worked hard on this and it took a long time...whoops. no pressure XD @wellsjahasghost @tylerstitties @runicscribbles @xproskeith @anomalagous @ginevraslovegood @quicklikelight​  @westhallen @lozenger8 @prudence-halliwell @malecbellarke

omg i’m sorry i just realized it’s really long. this is what happens when you take 2 days to answer a tag game. feel free to skip my answers and head to the new Qs if you want! or neither! love you <3

1. Do you find it frustrating that although you know how certain things “work” (for instance, how a love interest not calling you back automatically increases your interest), you can’t help but being drawn in? Can you give me an example? (For the record, this principle describes the entirety of my complicated one-sided relationship with one Harry Edward Styles.)

Yeeeeah i feel like most things in my life approach that level of frustration tbh. I have very little self control sometimes. I’m covered in a haze of addiction, and my impulse control/temper lives on a volatile little rickety branch in my brain where there’s always a lightning storm in the distance. Okay so what I mean is (and I’m not sure i really understand the question but I’m trying), I find it extremely frustrating that I am always aware of what the outcome will be and yet I constantly put myself in the position to be frustrated and/or disappointed by it. Did I get it? Like, if we’re talkin about celebrity obsessions, or having a crush on someone (which, yeah, I guess I kinda remember what that’s like irl), I suppose I’ve come to terms with that kind of distant admiration thing being divorced from reality- I mean, it’s been a life long struggle, so it doesn’t really get to me as much anymore. Usually. The “fangirl” in me is very, very young, and I don’t really know her anymore. If I’m talking about fighting my impulses or my mental health, or like, leaving earlier so I’m not late and then angry in traffic.... that’s a bit more frustrating. I will never leave early. Why? I don’t fucking know. And it’s the Worst. Idk if that fits with your question but yeah, I know how my behavior affects my mood and I could change it, but I don’t, and I can’t help it.

2. What is the longest book or series of books you’ve ever read? Were you at a loss when you finished? Do you generally like series or prefer stand-alone books?

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind! I love it so much. Haven’t read it in a long time, but that shit is like over 20 books and he’s still writing.. a legend. I was at a loss several times at the end of certain books that I thought were really gonna be the End, but then he made some like, spin off series a bit. So we’re good. Generally I love a good series, but there are so many stand alone books that I adore so.. I don’t know. Why am I writing so formally? This is tiresome, I’m gonna stop now. Stupid capital letters.

other series i love include everything in the tolkien universe, and of course harry potter, and also the percy jackson books. tolkien is pretty epic, to say the least, and rick riordan is fucking prolific, so hp is like, on the small side in terms of series (tho i did reread the last 2 at least a dozen times, and the audiobooks on many a long drive). also those motherfukcing maze runner books were like... there’s not that many of them, but that one i can definitely say left me at a loss. i’m still not ready to watch the last 2 movies but i hope to one day. for dylan.

3. Ever seen a therapist or gone to a support group? Did it help?

yup. i’ve seen quite a few therapists. i don’t think it’s helped in the long term, and i’m not sure it helped in the short, though there was a time i liked it because i was indulging my self analysis, but that for sure wasn’t helpful. i tried a couple cbt therapists thinking that could be a good way to go, but nothing ever really changed, so it’s hard to tell what’s going wrong- is it the therapy or is it me? idk i just think on the whole it’s got a negative color for me. i still see someone once every few weeks, but it’s a chore. this is really completely against everything i believe about therapy, btw, and i def considered becoming one when i was in university. i do think it’s beneficial, i guess just maybe not to me.

4. What is the longest road trip you’ve ever taken? Did you drive or were you just a passenger? What is your favorite road trip ritual, if you have any (the particular gas station snacks, the car games, the fights over music choices, the rest stops, etc.)?

oh my, well i’ve been on a few road trips in my life, but probably not as many as you americans do. the longest one was probably as a child, when i was about 3 or 4 my parents took us across the states, to the grand canyon (i don’t think we actually got there) in our mustard yellow vw bus. i had to be too small to remember but i definitely do (my dad’s a photographer so the boxes upon boxes of film helps): - sleeping on the ceiling in the bus like on a fucking shelf that stuck out above the driver seats. it was way too cool. - staying in a trailer park and walking over to this little building where there was some scary movie playing that had spinning wheels on fire (i think it was like some 80s horror version of rumpelstiltskin or something). i can literally picture a scene from it, just can’t really describe it. traumatizing. - playing on a beach somewhere (cape cod?) and having something nip at my little toes.

on other trips with friends we’ve shared the driving, but the most recent one from LA to vegas my friend wouldn’t let me touch the rental wheel. he thinks i’m a terrible driver. it was ok tho i got to take pictures instead.

i don’t really have a fave ritual since i don’t do much road “tripping” per se, but since i’ve lived in both toronto and new york i have done a shit ton of driving long distance, and i absolutely love it. my fave thing to do is make sure i have enough show tunes and stand up comedy on the playlist, and even some cds on back up, so i can lose my voice on the drive. usually i have some good ol’ tim horton’s french vanilla and a croissant on the side to keep me going, and if it’s long enough i usually stop somewhere for some french fries and/or a coke to wake up. god i love driving.

5. Which do you find increases more rapidly, your age or your idea of what age is old?

ugh. my age. i don’t feel old but that stupid time nonsense says otherwise. it needs to stop.

6. Do you talk to your animals when no one else is in the room? What do you say to them? Do you talk to animals you see on the street, at zoos, in your yard? How much of a face does an animal have to have to be talk-to-able? (For example, do rodents count? Birds? Fish? Cockroaches? WHERE’S THE LINE)

absolutely. i talk to pretty much fucking everything, animals or otherwise, i don’t care who’s in the room. there is no line. the line does not exist.

7. If they cooked, which dish of your mom’s/dad’s/parental figure is or was your favorite? Which was your least favorite? Do you often cook dishes your parents used to make for you for yourself now, as an adult?

welllllll my parents do cook, but over the years i came to really dislike a lot of my mom’s cooking.. habits, lets say. my dad is great on the bbq, and with all meats, but my mom is usually the organizer and most often the chef. her staples are chicken and brisket, sometimes salmon, in various ways. the problem is i’ve always been a picky eater, and tho my own tastes have branched out, my mom still thinks she needs to cook everything super plain and sometimes it’s kinda gross. like, she’ll make some fancy chicken for everyone else and throw a boneless breast covered in teriyaki sauce in a casserole in the oven for me. it does NOT taste good. but she can make a really great schnitzel, and brisket is hard to do wrong. i don’t make anything for myself the way she does it really, but my eating/cooking habits are all wonky anyway.

8. Do you ever check your voicemail? Do you answer calls from numbers you don’t have programmed into your phone?

i check it if someone left a message, why wouldn’t you? what if it’s an emergency? in fact, my best friend does not. so i guess.. that’s a thing. i for sure do not answer any call that doesn’t show a name that i recognize- even then it’s a stretch. i have to really want/need to talk to you, otherwise it’s gonna be on my terms. my phone and i have a hate-hate relationship.

9. How often do you go to the grocery store? Are you good at it? Do you have any kind of strategy or list prepared beforehand?

i go when i run out of something i wanna eat; my store is right on the corner. i basically just do the curve around the breads/fruits/veggies if i need it, then head to the aisles which i skim from the back where the frozen/refrigerated stuff is, poking in to the aisles i need to grab the shit i’ve run out of. i eat pretty much the same way most of the time so my list is in my head (which is not always a good place, but i try hard. if i forget something i go back for it next time).

10. Do movies frequently make you cry? Do you find you’re more likely to cry in the theater or at home? When people are around or by yourself?

oh hell yes. if they’re good or i’m in a mood. i don’t think it matters much where i am if it’s public or private, the cry will come if the moment is right, and i could give no shits XD

11. Have you ever seen the sun rise? Did you kind of like the weird, slightly chilly liminal space of it, or did you just wish you were still in bed?

yes i have, in so many different contexts. mostly i watch it rise because i stay up That Late most of the time (except this time of year, i haven’t seen it in a good while), wishing my ass was finally in bed going “fuck. there’s the sun again. way to go me.” but i’ve also experienced that first bit. out in the desert after a 16k hike, sweat pouring off my skin and fire burning on the surface, hissing it away. standing on top of an ancient mountain facing the dead sea, limbs aching from climbing it with the sun racing at our backs, trying to get to the top before we missed it rise. ya. sunsets are pretty, too.

so how am i supposed to think of 11 questions?? i hope none of these are from some post i saw one time, i’m gonna try to be original without rambling too much:

1- if you could go back to one major decision you made that impacted the path of your life and change it, would you? what was it? how do you think your life would be different? or don’t answer those second two questions, if you don’t want to.

2- in what direction does your belief lean (like, you don’t have to agree with my description of it, but what fits your image best):

a single/multiple divine power that controls every facet of our existence (or like, any traditional religious worldview), with or without free will?

a harmonious interconnected universal complex that directs matter and energy but is affected by our existence in said universe?

everything is just a series of random events passing through time and everything that happens, everything we do, makes the next thing happen, but it could have happened any other way as well.

do these things make sense? idk try and figure it out.

3- on that topic, what do you think happens when we die? do we go to heaven/hell or some other religious construct? do we have a soul that sticks around? reincarnation? do we just... end, and decompose, and that’s it? what do you really think? are you afraid to find out you were wrong?

4- tell me about a moment in a movie or a show that made you go all tingly inside, like, that really special tingle, and every time you see it you get those feelings again.

5- what’s your go-to method for letting out stress?

6- what are 3 of your favorite words (english or otherwise)? why do you love them? the way they sound? the way they look? what they mean? (i usually would answer this based on sound, kinda like fave color, just a feeling).

7- this isn’t so original but i wanna know- if you could live in any other period of time, in any part of the world, what would it be and why? or would you even? would you if you could choose your station/place in society?

8- is there anything you’ve ever done or ever happened to you that you absolutely never ever could ever tell anyone about? not even your soulmate or someone who would never judge you? if so, does it bother you, or do you have it tucked away in your mind and never think about it?

9- which teen wolf cast member would you get along with best? not who would you like to be in a relationship with, but who do you think you’d have the best relationship with (romantic/platonic/otherwise)? if you don’t think you know any of them well enough... which one would you bone? boooooooooone all night long?

10- do you have a talent/skill that you feel is really underrated or underused by you or others? is there something you’re really proud of but have nobody to brag to about it because nobody you know really cares at all? brag to me.

11- do you think it’s truly possible to be happy if you never have a significant other(s) for the rest of your life? could you ever be?

THAT’S ALL FOLKS. wow i can’t believe i wrote all of that shit and you read it. way to go us. thanks again, clara!

[josephpauldigitalagency]

How To Get eCommerce Sales With SEO

Having an e-commerce site nowadays is easy. Dozens of platforms can get your online store set up in a matter of minutes.

The problem is that as it gets easier, the eCommerce space is more crowded than ever.

Even if you have your website ready to take orders, chances are you won’t get much if any traffic at all. So your options are ads on social media or pay per click campaigns on Google Ads.

And the other option, while it’s more of a long-term strategy, is content marketing, which, according to Demand Metric, costs 62% less to produce than ads

Should you abandon Facebook Ads or pay per click campaigns altogether? 

No.

But SEO for e-commerce sites should definitely be part of a sustainable strategy to generate traffic.

We are going to take a look at five ways e-commerce sites can apply SEO tactics to improve their online presence and make ad-free sales.

All of these tactics are easy to implement and free. Most of these tools have a paid option to get more results, but for most people, these small but powerful tweaks can make the difference.

Let’s jump right in.

Keyword Research for E-Commerce

Keyword research is one of the most basic ways to optimize your site for search engines. 

Targeting keywords still work on regular websites, and it definitely works for e-commerce sites.

In its most basic form, Keyword Research involves:

Finding how many searches per month a particular keyword has

Creating content that caters the intention of that keyword

There’s more to it, of course, but for e-commerce, you get to use two tools that will supercharge your keyword research efforts.

Amazon as a keyword eCommerce SEO research tool – Part 1

Ever meet a stranger and think, “I wish I knew what they were thinking?” 

Well, your wish is Amazon’s command. 

Amazon is the biggest e-commerce site in the world. And the search bar is a fantastic keyword research tool that not everyone takes advantage of!

Simply type in a broad category term in the search bar. For example, beard products.

Even if you only write the word beard, Amazon will show you a list of searches people are currently using to buy items. 

Did you get that? 

Amazon will give you some of the most common ways people find things to buy on Amazon.

But Joe! I don’t sell my stuff on Amazon!

Yeah, but if people use a search term on Amazon to buy something, chances are they’ll use that same term in Google.

It would be wise to make that part of your eCommerce SEO plan.

Amazon as a keyword research tool – Part 2

The other way you can use Amazon as your keyword research tool is to go into a competitor product and read the reviews.

Notice what words people use to describe the experience and features of that product. Notice the pain points, what they do right.

Then, plant those words into your own product’s description. This way, you optimize your product descriptions into something that addresses their problems before they have them.

You can use this tip on eBay, Etsy, Home Depot, Walmart, etc. Any big eCommerce website will have a search bar and will give you keyword suggestions. 

Honestly, Amazon and eBay will give you most of what you need. So don’t be surprised if there’s an overlap. 

The best advice I can give you for keyword research is to go in, get what you need, and take action as fast as possible. 

Otherwise, you can get easily overwhelmed with information and get decision paralysis.

Make it Easy to Purchase Your Products

No one wants to feel like a mouse in a maze trying to find cheese. So why would you make your visitors feel like this?

For e-commerce websites, there’s an unwritten rule that says that your products should never be more than three clicks away.

Make sure your website is easy to navigate both in desktop and smartphones, that your categories make sense, and that’s it’s just intuitive.

A good site structure to have is having your home page lead to a categories page. From the categories, have subcategories where specific products are listed.

Being three clicks away means that it takes two clicks to get to your product page.

Why? Because click number three is where the money is. Your ADD TO CART button should be click number three.

If your website is disorganized, I would recommend you work closely with an SEO.

An SEO will make sure that all the proper redirects are in place, so you don’t have dreaded broken links on your website.

Optimize Your eCommerce Product Page

In the context of your website, your product has three elements:

Product URL

Product Title

Product Description

Make sure that whatever keyword you decided you wanted to target is in these three elements.

For example, back with our beard products example. Let’s say we’re trying to target beard balm, and your product is a fantastic beard balm.

Your product URL must be:

myecommercesite.com/product/badass-beard-balm

Your product title must be something like:

Badass Brand – Beard Balm 5oz bottle

And your product description must tell us everything that makes this beard balm so amazing.

How to Write Product Descriptions

Product descriptions are everything for a product. So make sure you:

Describe what the buyer gets from getting your product. How their lives will be better. What problem it solves.

Bullet points, numbers, comparisons, features.

Include photos, video, graphics.

Pay close attention to bullet point one. Do not focus on features but rather the benefits those features bring to your customer. 

Technical Tips to Write Great Product Descriptions

If you have two or more products that are mostly the same (ex. different sizes or colors). Instead of making one product for each variation, create one Variable Product with different attributes that modify the product. 

If you must have two separate product pages for two similar products, make sure the descriptions are different. Do not copy and paste descriptions. 

Make sure they’re at least 300 words each description, but I recommend using 500 – 1,000

eCommerce SEO Audit

Another thing you can do is do a website audit. A website audit will give you a list of things you can fix from a technical and content point of view. 

It can get overwhelming, and you may need professional help for some things, but most of them are easy fixes.

To do a website audit, you can use Ubersuggest by submitting your website’s URL.

Once the tool loads your website, click on the Site Audit link to the left, and you’ll get a list of things you can start fixing on your site.

You can pay to get the full list, but the free version gives you enough to get started.

Content Marketing 

Know that guy at the high school reunion that won’t shut up about how great he is now? That’s how people feel about content that is only about a company’s product. 

Content marketing is about creating content that your audience finds useful. The goal is to create content that is related to the product, but not the product itself.

So, back to the beards example, content marketing is not creating a 1,000-word article about how excellent your beard balm is. That is what the product description is for

You should produce a great article about the best ways to keep a healthy beard.

The way to do it is simple.

You talk neutrally about ways to keep a beard healthy, and oh, by the way, we have a beard balm you can use. Here’s a link and a coupon. But you can also try this other thing you may have at home. 

People love to buy, but they don’t like to be sold to. Content marketing takes care of this problem.

Be helpful, be excellent, and people will buy from you.

Create written content or video content. It’s up to you.

But Joe! I don’t know what to write about!

The best way to know what to talk about is to spy on competition or what people are saying.

You don’t need a hacker for this. 

All you need to do is, search in forums related to your niche and look at the discussions that are going on. Go to Reddit, Quora, blog comments, the Youtube comment section (good luck there!). 

There are hundreds of places you can find what kind of questions people are asking. 

Find a question, answer it in a blog post or video, and you have a new piece of content.

**Bonus Tip** Use AnswerThePublic to see what questions people are asking around your product. 

Get Backlinks

Let’s go back to your high school reunion again. In this scenario, you’re there, and you only casually talk about yourself. 

Everyone else away from you is mentioning how awesome you are. Since the praise is coming external sources, it builds your authority. 

Well, Google and potential customers think the same way. Essentially that’s what backlinks are. 

Ranking in Google is kind of like a popularity contest. There’s just no way around it. 

You can create the most exceptional content on the web about your product. Pour your heart, soul, blood, and tears into your blog posts and videos, and still get no momentum.

Why?

Cause no other website linked to your content.

Backlinks are like votes. The more links you get, the more you get noticed by search engines.

Getting backlinks is tricky. But here’s how you can get started.

Find a competitor’s website.

Steal competitor backlinks by using UberSuggest. 

Once you have a list of other websites who already gave your competition a link. 

Analyze what your competition did to earn that link. Maybe it’s a graphic, or a tool, or their product page is better. 

I tend to do things to the extreme, so instead of only doing a little better, make your page 10x better. 

For example, if your competition did a piece of content titled “5 ways to style your beard.” Create a topic that’s “50 ways to style your beard.” 

Yes, it will be a lot of work, but the chances of someone trying to outdo you will be unlikely.

Then, reach out to the website who gave a backlink and see what you can do to get a backlink yourself.

Conclusion

It’s important to not overthink your SEO for your eCommerce website. Between your homepage, product pages, and content, there’s a lot of work to be done. 

The best way to eat an elephant (so I’ve heard) is one bite at a time. Optimizing your eCommerce site is no different. 

Start with setting your foundation with keyword research using Amazon and other eCommerce platforms. 

Next, use the research to optimize your product pages’ titles, descriptions, and URLs. 

Once you’ve done that, make it as easy as possible for someone to buy your products with the fewest clicks possible. 

Uncover all the technical errors on your website to make sure it’s healthy. Once you have a healthy website create educational content, your visitors will love. 

After it’s all said and done, it’s time to get others to share your website with the world. 

What are some of your favorite eCommerce SEO tips? 

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The post How To Get eCommerce Sales With SEO appeared first on Joseph Paul Digital Agency.

[sempiternalsandpitturtle]

Prospect marketing: What you do when you have a fish on the line

We’re all guilty of conflating “leads” and “prospects.” But at the end of the day, it’s not so much what you call them that matters, as it is the ability to verbally distinguish between opportunities based on where they are in your sales funnel. After all, you market very differently to someone prior to first contact than you would after they display clear interest in what you’re selling.

So for our purposes, we’ll use an old fishing analogy to define exactly what we see as a “prospect” and where that falls in a funnel.

A lead is any fish swimming in the pond. You’ve chosen this pond because you know that the type of fish you want likes those waters. So you’re not completely blind here. You already know that you have a decent chance of finding what you’re looking for.

Lead building

In fishing: What are you fishing for? In marketing: Who are you trying to sell to?

In fishing: Are you fishing in the right spot and during the right season for that type of fish? In marketing: Are you marketing on the right channels for whomever it is you’re trying to convert?

In fishing: Is the drag set correctly and are you using the right lure? In marketing: Are you delivering content in a format and style that will actually capture leads?

You can pay for leads (a la email lists) or you can earn them through various lead-generation efforts (which we’ll get into in just a bit).

So when does a lead become a prospect? And what exactly is prospect marketing?

This is where a lot of people start to split hairs, and for good reason. The answer, in part, boils down to the level of consideration, or the size of the sales funnel. A “light” consideration product has a much smaller funnel. You might buy a granola bar near the checkout counter without giving it a tremendous amount of thought because you’re just a little hungry. In this sense, you’re a prospect just by being in plain sight of the thing. If you’re a sales clerk, you basically just throw a net in the water and wait for some minnows.

But that $1,000 laptop, or that $10,000-a year SaaS offering? The water here is a little murkier but requiring more effort and exploration.

So then, focusing on products that involve greater consideration, we’ll call a “lead” someone who has shown interest in your content (a fish hanging around or lightly following your line), whereas a prospect is someone who has shown interest in your product or brand (a fish bumping or nibbling your lure).

By definition, then, prospect marketing is how you bring a prospect deeper into the sales funnel.

More simply, it’s deep-funnel content marketing.

Some preliminary housekeeping items

Effective prospect marketing content is any content that increases the likelihood of a prospect converting into a sale.

But before we say another word about that, we need to go over the golden rule of prospect marketing: Always facilitate sales and marketing alignment.

Sales spends so much time speaking with and listening to prospects, so they can anticipate the questions and concerns that other prospects might have. Deeper-funnel content can then be created around addressing those recurring questions and concerns. This is an example of marketing automation. Rather than asking sales to repeatedly handle the same recurring queries, you create collateral that can do that without direct human involvement.

This is also, more or less, how inbound sales works: You’re focusing on how your product meets a prospect’s needs rather than making assumptions about why they need your product. Inbound marketing works the same way (just replace every instance of “product” in the sentence above with “content”).

OK then: What are some examples of prospect marketing?

With all that in mind, let’s look at some examples of the type of content involved in prospect marketing:

Whitepapers: Well-researched and carefully crafted whitepapers are much more than just lead-creating machines. They can also be used deeper in the funnel to convey authority to prospects who are interested in your brand but aren’t necessarily sold on the value of your offerings. Whitepapers can present your company’s thought leadership ideas, provide justification for those ideas through statistics, research and technical expertise, and finally, show where your products fit into the equation you’ve so eloquently articulated for the audience. In this way, deep-funnel whitepapers automate the “challenger” approach to sales, whereby you make a prospect re-evaluate his or her current approach.

Case studies: Case studies act as social proof for your product. They illustrate concrete examples of how your products or services have solved specific problems that other prospects struggle with. Well-written case studies can certainly be used higher in the funnel, but in prospect marketing, their main function is to solidify the prospect’s interest in a particular service or product. Ideally, the prospect can almost see themselves in the scene you set, as if they could say “yeah, that’s exactly the issue that we’ve been having.” Case studies can be produced in text format or as videos.

Email marketing: Email marketing (which is largely replacing “direct mail”) is a form of direct marketing that can take place at nearly any stage of the marketing and sales funnels. It’s also one of the best ways to build and utilise a prospect database. You typically start with a list of leads (could be earned contact information from inbound marketing efforts, purchased email lists, people you met at conferences, and so on). You can send these leads content, promotions etc., ad hoc, as part of a campaign, or in a drip-campaign format. This is often referred to as “direct mail.” If certain recipients open your emails and take the prescribed actions (e.g., download an eBook of infographic), they can be moved into the prospect stage. At this point, you would ostensibly pull out the big guns – your whitepapers, case studies and video testimonials. The purpose here is to keep them engaged, escalate their interest and ultimately lead into the final mile of prospect marketing … the hard sell.

To summarise, then, successful prospect marketing does two things

It keeps a prospect engaged with your brand. If you create a piece of content that a prospect finds useful and engaging, they’ll likely come back for more, even if they’re still on the fence about buying. Good things happen when you’re still on a prospect’s mind. They might share content with someone else, and who knows? That could lead to a new potential prospect. The point is, not every stab at prospect marketing will expeditiously move the prospect into a sale (especially in heavy-consideration markets), so it’s important to have realistic expectations. Half of prospect marketing is just to keep them in the “prospect” phase (keep the fish on the line, so to speak).

That prospect will move deeper into the sales funnel (inquiring about additional information and pricing). We call this a “sales-ready prospect,” and they’re generated through a culmination of the many efforts listed above. At this point, it’s really up to the judgement of sales how to proceed.

Succeed here, and you’ll vastly improve the fluidity of your marketing and sales funnels.

A closing thought about devising a prospect marketing strategy

It’s worth reiterating that you need leads before you can get prospects, and in today’s multichannel world, that requires a multichannel effort.

This is where the aforementioned inbound marketing comes into the equation. Top-of-funnel content such as blog posts, infographics and how-to videos that live on your web properties help generate traffic on your website and your social media channels. We’ll call these visitors “opportunities.” Each opportunity is a potential lead. You can move an opportunity into “lead” status by incorporating mechanisms into your top-of-funnel content that will drive deep-funnel engagement.

For instance, you can offer access to eBooks, case studies, infographics and other marketing collateral in exchange for contact information. This can be achieved with scroll-triggered contact forms or embedding clickable buttons that redirect to gated-content download pages.

The bottom line is that you need to nourish your lead list. And in this sense, inbound marketing is a crucial component of prospect marketing.

Otherwise, remember to reset the drag on your reel after a big catch, always carry your fishing license and beware of waterfowl when casting.

Fish on!

from http://bit.ly/2QXOYNQ

[videomarket6]

Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!)

The internet sees about 200 thousand domains being registered daily. Not all websites are made equal. Some are just an online placeholder for businesses, while others are used to generate leads or get revenue from ads. But they all have one thing in common: websites need the traffic to serve the purpose they were designed for. And this is where the problems start.

While launching a website is relatively easy, driving traffic to it is rather challenging. We often see a trend where people start a website, invest a lot of time and effort trying to make it work, and then abandon the venue because they get no traffic. Imagine spending a few days crafting a blog post, which eventually got some 40 pageviews 10 of which are you checking how things have gone. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Competition makes it tough to get traffic naturally from Google. Time and patience may help, but you should have a truly stellar website so Google could notice you without extra effort on your side. The good news is Google is not the only potential source of the traffic to your website. Besides, optimizing your website to check every box on Google’s quality checklist is also a doable task. But first things first. Let’s see how visitors may come to your website.

Check out our complete and detailed free strategy on driving traffic with zero budget here.

 A few words on traffic sources

Website traffic can come from various sources. Here we will briefly go over some of the most common channels for website traffic.

Search engines: Naturally, SERP or Search Engine Results Page links are on the top of the list. The most successful websites get most of their traffic from SERP as users searching for something online click their website link.

Social media: People share articles they liked on social media and their subscribers may also read those articles if they find them interesting. The best scenario here is the “pass-it-on” effect when new people share the post and even more users get a chance to read it. If an article goes viral, it can generate tons of free traffic.

Referrals: Other websites may link out to one of your pages. Direct referrals and indirect referrals like backlinks in content come under this category.

Ads: The fastest way to get a lot of traffic is by paying Google or another search engine for putting your post at the top of SERP’s page one. Paying Facebook or Instagram is another option.

Email marketing and other sources: You can invite the user to your website directly by using email marketing and other marketing methods.

Search engines and social media are what we call “free traffic sources”, but still, they are conditionally free. We still have to invest time in search and social promotion and to make our investments to pay off, we need to build up a strategy for this.

Since search overtakes social as the main traffic driver to websites, let me first share some SEO advice with you.

Jumpstart your SEO strategy

Remember me telling your quality blog post may start ranking in Google if you give it some time? The thing is since Google updated its algorithms, quality content rules.  If it brings some unique value to the readers, Google will notice it and start ranking your page. All the search engines value content that answers users’ needs, so there’s no point to create texts stuffed with keywords. Or to write an instruction that is hard to read, no matter how relevant it is. Content should be relevant, yes, but also interesting, easy to comprehend and, when it’s appropriate, fun.

At the same time, simply writing some engaging text wouldn’t work. Users should be interested in the topic to start googling it, so make sure to collect keywords relevant to your business before and transform the topics into the content pieces.

You can do keyword research manually, but it will take you ages. Instead, you can use special SEO tools to speed things up. For example, SE Ranking is a toolset that can help you with all sorts of SEO tasks. Its SEO/PPC competitor research tool, for example, is great for collecting keywords for your website and it’s available for free under a 14-day trial.

Once you’ve published some comprehensive posts, make sure your website is error-free. A buggy slow-loading website is something both users and search engines hate. Run a website audit to see if you have any technical issues to fix. Also, pay attention to on-page optimization – this is how you help search engines associate your page with a certain keyword.

Being one of the biggest traffic sources, SEO doesn’t give instant results – you’ll have to wait for at least 2-3 months to get some decent rankings. To see the significant growth of traffic you’ll need to wait patiently for up to 9 months. SEO is a long-run game, but it is totally worth the time and effort you’ll have to invest.

Engage online to build links

Networking is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. One way of building up the traffic is by interacting with users across popular online platforms.

Find threads related to your niche on forums and Quora, join Facebook groups. Actively interact with community members leaving relevant remarks and giving helpful answers to their questions. You can leave links to your website when appropriate, which people may use to visit your site. One thing that you must keep in mind is that your comments shouldn’t sound too promotional or otherwise, site moderators on websites like Quora can delete it.

Guest posting is another way to get leads and increase your website authority. Try reaching out to popular websites in your niche and ask them if you can write a guest post on their website. With interesting and intriguing topics, many websites will accept your guest post request.

A lifehack! You can start searching for the targeted blogs by googling the following combination: [“blog” + “write for us”]. In the first pair of quotation marks, you can specify a type of blog you are looking for: “food blog”, “fashion blog”, “travel blog”, etc. In the search results for this query, you’ll find the blogs that are open for guest posting in your niche.

You can also ask for comments from expert bloggers on a certain topic and include the quotes to your content. Don’t forget to tag the experts in your Facebook or Twitter posts citing your content – they might even repost it.

You should also engage with the visitor who comments on your blog posts. Make sure that you answer their queries and follow up on their requests.

Reach out to influencers

A way to get a quick boost to your website is by seeking the help of popular figures in your niche. With their help, you can connect with a wider spectrum of an audience in a very short amount of time.

Advertising from influencers is expensive, but some of them may work for free if your product is of particular value to their audience. At first, it is important to get mentions from people who have 500-1000 subscribers. If you know people followed by your target customers, invite them to try your product or service. There’s a chance that if they like your product, they will offer preferential terms for advertising or mentioning your business.

Instagram influencers are naturally also included.

Everyone that you reach out may not be eager to accept products or guest posts, and that how things are! All you need is to be persistent and keep trying with new influencers.

Leverage images and video content

Even if you have amazing content on your website, visitors may not be so inclined to read it if it looks like a large chunk of text. In 2019 and beyond, you need to be careful about how you structure your content.

Adding images and videos to your content is a good way to spruce it up. And the best part is that you don’t have to make videos specifically for your content. You can link a YouTube video for the user to better understand the topic but be sure to mention sources whenever you use something from another website to your own website. Once your website gets enough traffic, you can consider custom images and other media content.

Besides using media content for illustrating your articles, consider extra possibilities for sharing images and videos.

You can create infographics or explanatory images for different ideas you are trying to convey. And then share them on Pinterest

You should exploit YouTube as a traffic channel too! Create your channel and share video guides, backstage info about your product, organize free online webinars to attract new users. You’ll have to promote your videos using online communities that can be potentially interested in your topics.

Bottom line

Getting traffic to your site with no investment is not a far-fetched dream only big websites can achieve. Once you create something that provides real value to the user, Google will ensure you get proper visibility. However, in 2019 and beyond, you need to optimize your website so that your website becomes visible among the crowd and SEO is a way to do just that! With a bit of effort and patience, you can leverage SEO and start driving traffic to your website with 0 money. Well, yeah, almost.

The post Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!) appeared first on Full Scale SEO.

From https://www.fullscaleseo.com/marketing/driving-traffic-free/

from https://fullscaleseo2.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget-or-even-free/

From https://affordableseoservices4.blogspot.com/2019/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget.html

from https://affordableseoservices5.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget-or-even-free/ from https://videomarketing6.blogspot.com/2019/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget.html

[affordablese4]

Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!)

The internet sees about 200 thousand domains being registered daily. Not all websites are made equal. Some are just an online placeholder for businesses, while others are used to generate leads or get revenue from ads. But they all have one thing in common: websites need the traffic to serve the purpose they were designed for. And this is where the problems start.

While launching a website is relatively easy, driving traffic to it is rather challenging. We often see a trend where people start a website, invest a lot of time and effort trying to make it work, and then abandon the venue because they get no traffic. Imagine spending a few days crafting a blog post, which eventually got some 40 pageviews 10 of which are you checking how things have gone. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Competition makes it tough to get traffic naturally from Google. Time and patience may help, but you should have a truly stellar website so Google could notice you without extra effort on your side. The good news is Google is not the only potential source of the traffic to your website. Besides, optimizing your website to check every box on Google’s quality checklist is also a doable task. But first things first. Let’s see how visitors may come to your website.

Check out our complete and detailed free strategy on driving traffic with zero budget here.

 A few words on traffic sources

Website traffic can come from various sources. Here we will briefly go over some of the most common channels for website traffic.

Search engines: Naturally, SERP or Search Engine Results Page links are on the top of the list. The most successful websites get most of their traffic from SERP as users searching for something online click their website link.

Social media: People share articles they liked on social media and their subscribers may also read those articles if they find them interesting. The best scenario here is the “pass-it-on” effect when new people share the post and even more users get a chance to read it. If an article goes viral, it can generate tons of free traffic.

Referrals: Other websites may link out to one of your pages. Direct referrals and indirect referrals like backlinks in content come under this category.

Ads: The fastest way to get a lot of traffic is by paying Google or another search engine for putting your post at the top of SERP’s page one. Paying Facebook or Instagram is another option.

Email marketing and other sources: You can invite the user to your website directly by using email marketing and other marketing methods.

Search engines and social media are what we call “free traffic sources”, but still, they are conditionally free. We still have to invest time in search and social promotion and to make our investments to pay off, we need to build up a strategy for this.

Since search overtakes social as the main traffic driver to websites, let me first share some SEO advice with you.

Jumpstart your SEO strategy

Remember me telling your quality blog post may start ranking in Google if you give it some time? The thing is since Google updated its algorithms, quality content rules.  If it brings some unique value to the readers, Google will notice it and start ranking your page. All the search engines value content that answers users’ needs, so there’s no point to create texts stuffed with keywords. Or to write an instruction that is hard to read, no matter how relevant it is. Content should be relevant, yes, but also interesting, easy to comprehend and, when it’s appropriate, fun.

At the same time, simply writing some engaging text wouldn’t work. Users should be interested in the topic to start googling it, so make sure to collect keywords relevant to your business before and transform the topics into the content pieces.

You can do keyword research manually, but it will take you ages. Instead, you can use special SEO tools to speed things up. For example, SE Ranking is a toolset that can help you with all sorts of SEO tasks. Its SEO/PPC competitor research tool, for example, is great for collecting keywords for your website and it’s available for free under a 14-day trial.

Once you’ve published some comprehensive posts, make sure your website is error-free. A buggy slow-loading website is something both users and search engines hate. Run a website audit to see if you have any technical issues to fix. Also, pay attention to on-page optimization – this is how you help search engines associate your page with a certain keyword.

Being one of the biggest traffic sources, SEO doesn’t give instant results – you’ll have to wait for at least 2-3 months to get some decent rankings. To see the significant growth of traffic you’ll need to wait patiently for up to 9 months. SEO is a long-run game, but it is totally worth the time and effort you’ll have to invest.

Engage online to build links

Networking is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. One way of building up the traffic is by interacting with users across popular online platforms.

Find threads related to your niche on forums and Quora, join Facebook groups. Actively interact with community members leaving relevant remarks and giving helpful answers to their questions. You can leave links to your website when appropriate, which people may use to visit your site. One thing that you must keep in mind is that your comments shouldn’t sound too promotional or otherwise, site moderators on websites like Quora can delete it.

Guest posting is another way to get leads and increase your website authority. Try reaching out to popular websites in your niche and ask them if you can write a guest post on their website. With interesting and intriguing topics, many websites will accept your guest post request.

A lifehack! You can start searching for the targeted blogs by googling the following combination: [“blog” + “write for us”]. In the first pair of quotation marks, you can specify a type of blog you are looking for: “food blog”, “fashion blog”, “travel blog”, etc. In the search results for this query, you’ll find the blogs that are open for guest posting in your niche.

You can also ask for comments from expert bloggers on a certain topic and include the quotes to your content. Don’t forget to tag the experts in your Facebook or Twitter posts citing your content – they might even repost it.

You should also engage with the visitor who comments on your blog posts. Make sure that you answer their queries and follow up on their requests.

Reach out to influencers

A way to get a quick boost to your website is by seeking the help of popular figures in your niche. With their help, you can connect with a wider spectrum of an audience in a very short amount of time.

Advertising from influencers is expensive, but some of them may work for free if your product is of particular value to their audience. At first, it is important to get mentions from people who have 500-1000 subscribers. If you know people followed by your target customers, invite them to try your product or service. There’s a chance that if they like your product, they will offer preferential terms for advertising or mentioning your business.

Instagram influencers are naturally also included.

Everyone that you reach out may not be eager to accept products or guest posts, and that how things are! All you need is to be persistent and keep trying with new influencers.

Leverage images and video content

Even if you have amazing content on your website, visitors may not be so inclined to read it if it looks like a large chunk of text. In 2019 and beyond, you need to be careful about how you structure your content.

Adding images and videos to your content is a good way to spruce it up. And the best part is that you don’t have to make videos specifically for your content. You can link a YouTube video for the user to better understand the topic but be sure to mention sources whenever you use something from another website to your own website. Once your website gets enough traffic, you can consider custom images and other media content.

Besides using media content for illustrating your articles, consider extra possibilities for sharing images and videos.

You can create infographics or explanatory images for different ideas you are trying to convey. And then share them on Pinterest

You should exploit YouTube as a traffic channel too! Create your channel and share video guides, backstage info about your product, organize free online webinars to attract new users. You’ll have to promote your videos using online communities that can be potentially interested in your topics.

Bottom line

Getting traffic to your site with no investment is not a far-fetched dream only big websites can achieve. Once you create something that provides real value to the user, Google will ensure you get proper visibility. However, in 2019 and beyond, you need to optimize your website so that your website becomes visible among the crowd and SEO is a way to do just that! With a bit of effort and patience, you can leverage SEO and start driving traffic to your website with 0 money. Well, yeah, almost.

The post Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!) appeared first on Full Scale SEO.

From https://www.fullscaleseo.com/marketing/driving-traffic-free/

from https://fullscaleseo2.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget-or-even-free/ from https://affordableseoservices4.blogspot.com/2019/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget.html

[smallbusineseo]

The internet sees about 200 thousand domains being registered daily. Not all websites are made equal. Some are just an online placeholder for businesses, while others are used to generate leads or get revenue from ads. But they all have one thing in common: websites need the traffic to serve the purpose they were designed for. And this is where the problems start.

While launching a website is relatively easy, driving traffic to it is rather challenging. We often see a trend where people start a website, invest a lot of time and effort trying to make it work, and then abandon the venue because they get no traffic. Imagine spending a few days crafting a blog post, which eventually got some 40 pageviews 10 of which are you checking how things have gone. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Competition makes it tough to get traffic naturally from Google. Time and patience may help, but you should have a truly stellar website so Google could notice you without extra effort on your side. The good news is Google is not the only potential source of the traffic to your website. Besides, optimizing your website to check every box on Google’s quality checklist is also a doable task. But first things first. Let’s see how visitors may come to your website.

Check out our complete and detailed free strategy on driving traffic with zero budget here.

 A few words on traffic sources

Website traffic can come from various sources. Here we will briefly go over some of the most common channels for website traffic.

Search engines: Naturally, SERP or Search Engine Results Page links are on the top of the list. The most successful websites get most of their traffic from SERP as users searching for something online click their website link.

Social media: People share articles they liked on social media and their subscribers may also read those articles if they find them interesting. The best scenario here is the “pass-it-on” effect when new people share the post and even more users get a chance to read it. If an article goes viral, it can generate tons of free traffic.

Referrals: Other websites may link out to one of your pages. Direct referrals and indirect referrals like backlinks in content come under this category.

Ads: The fastest way to get a lot of traffic is by paying Google or another search engine for putting your post at the top of SERP’s page one. Paying Facebook or Instagram is another option.

Email marketing and other sources: You can invite the user to your website directly by using email marketing and other marketing methods.

Search engines and social media are what we call “free traffic sources”, but still, they are conditionally free. We still have to invest time in search and social promotion and to make our investments to pay off, we need to build up a strategy for this.

Since search overtakes social as the main traffic driver to websites, let me first share some SEO advice with you.

Jumpstart your SEO strategy

Remember me telling your quality blog post may start ranking in Google if you give it some time? The thing is since Google updated its algorithms, quality content rules.  If it brings some unique value to the readers, Google will notice it and start ranking your page. All the search engines value content that answers users’ needs, so there’s no point to create texts stuffed with keywords. Or to write an instruction that is hard to read, no matter how relevant it is. Content should be relevant, yes, but also interesting, easy to comprehend and, when it’s appropriate, fun.

At the same time, simply writing some engaging text wouldn’t work. Users should be interested in the topic to start googling it, so make sure to collect keywords relevant to your business before and transform the topics into the content pieces.

You can do keyword research manually, but it will take you ages. Instead, you can use special SEO tools to speed things up. For example, SE Ranking is a toolset that can help you with all sorts of SEO tasks. Its SEO/PPC competitor research tool, for example, is great for collecting keywords for your website and it’s available for free under a 14-day trial.

Once you’ve published some comprehensive posts, make sure your website is error-free. A buggy slow-loading website is something both users and search engines hate. Run a website audit to see if you have any technical issues to fix. Also, pay attention to on-page optimization – this is how you help search engines associate your page with a certain keyword.

Being one of the biggest traffic sources, SEO doesn’t give instant results – you’ll have to wait for at least 2-3 months to get some decent rankings. To see the significant growth of traffic you’ll need to wait patiently for up to 9 months. SEO is a long-run game, but it is totally worth the time and effort you’ll have to invest.

Engage online to build links

Networking is an essential part of a successful marketing strategy. One way of building up the traffic is by interacting with users across popular online platforms.

Find threads related to your niche on forums and Quora, join Facebook groups. Actively interact with community members leaving relevant remarks and giving helpful answers to their questions. You can leave links to your website when appropriate, which people may use to visit your site. One thing that you must keep in mind is that your comments shouldn’t sound too promotional or otherwise, site moderators on websites like Quora can delete it.

Guest posting is another way to get leads and increase your website authority. Try reaching out to popular websites in your niche and ask them if you can write a guest post on their website. With interesting and intriguing topics, many websites will accept your guest post request.

A lifehack! You can start searching for the targeted blogs by googling the following combination: [“blog” + “write for us”]. In the first pair of quotation marks, you can specify a type of blog you are looking for: “food blog”, “fashion blog”, “travel blog”, etc. In the search results for this query, you’ll find the blogs that are open for guest posting in your niche.

You can also ask for comments from expert bloggers on a certain topic and include the quotes to your content. Don’t forget to tag the experts in your Facebook or Twitter posts citing your content – they might even repost it.

You should also engage with the visitor who comments on your blog posts. Make sure that you answer their queries and follow up on their requests.

Reach out to influencers

A way to get a quick boost to your website is by seeking the help of popular figures in your niche. With their help, you can connect with a wider spectrum of an audience in a very short amount of time.

Advertising from influencers is expensive, but some of them may work for free if your product is of particular value to their audience. At first, it is important to get mentions from people who have 500-1000 subscribers. If you know people followed by your target customers, invite them to try your product or service. There’s a chance that if they like your product, they will offer preferential terms for advertising or mentioning your business.

Instagram influencers are naturally also included.

Everyone that you reach out may not be eager to accept products or guest posts, and that how things are! All you need is to be persistent and keep trying with new influencers.

Leverage images and video content

Even if you have amazing content on your website, visitors may not be so inclined to read it if it looks like a large chunk of text. In 2019 and beyond, you need to be careful about how you structure your content.

Adding images and videos to your content is a good way to spruce it up. And the best part is that you don’t have to make videos specifically for your content. You can link a YouTube video for the user to better understand the topic but be sure to mention sources whenever you use something from another website to your own website. Once your website gets enough traffic, you can consider custom images and other media content.

Besides using media content for illustrating your articles, consider extra possibilities for sharing images and videos.

You can create infographics or explanatory images for different ideas you are trying to convey. And then share them on Pinterest

You should exploit YouTube as a traffic channel too! Create your channel and share video guides, backstage info about your product, organize free online webinars to attract new users. You’ll have to promote your videos using online communities that can be potentially interested in your topics.

Bottom line

Getting traffic to your site with no investment is not a far-fetched dream only big websites can achieve. Once you create something that provides real value to the user, Google will ensure you get proper visibility. However, in 2019 and beyond, you need to optimize your website so that your website becomes visible among the crowd and SEO is a way to do just that! With a bit of effort and patience, you can leverage SEO and start driving traffic to your website with 0 money. Well, yeah, almost.

The post Driving Traffic for Very Little Budget (Or Even Free!) appeared first on Full Scale SEO.

From https://www.fullscaleseo.com/marketing/driving-traffic-free/

from https://fullscaleseo2.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget-or-even-free/ from https://smallbusinessseo3.blogspot.com/2019/11/driving-traffic-for-very-little-budget.html

[ghostlypeachkryptonite]

I don’t know about anyone else who blogs but I do it because I enjoy it. But despite enjoying it, I wish I could make a real living out of it. So, my big question for last month was- can I make my blog profitable and turn it around in 30 days?

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Where do we begin?

The first place I had to look was my site, and this meant having a hard look at it to see what was wrong. Now, remember, blogging is an individual thing and everyone who blogs has the right to fly their freak flag proud. Unfortunately, this does not mean that it will pay the bills. I also had to consider the ways that a blogger can make money, what my theme(s) are, and if this was something that I wanted to keep doing. I’ve been at this for a few years now and I have no intention of giving up. So what gives? Why am I not rolling in the dough that other bloggers claim to be making?

Why you are not making money

Let me be clear, this list is not actually mine, this is a collection of different things I have heard other bloggers say when people go “why am I not making any money?” or “why is my blog not successful?” and I don’t agree with all of them.

You aren’t putting the time in- I’m on the fence with this one because I know bloggers who claim to have massive amounts of traffic and have a healthy wage coming in, but only “work” at their blog one day a week for a few hours. I can spend a day getting my entire site planned out in advantage for the week and that will be my posts sorted and scheduled. But then again, I have heard of bloggers who claim they are putting in 60+ hours a week with it and are getting no-where.

You have no idea what you are doing- Sit and think for a minute, and ask yourself this question- do you know what you are doing? You might say yes but in the back of your mind you know it is a no. Blogging is a highly complicated business to work in, and as much as we would like to think that popping some words on to the site will be enough, it’s not. Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way. There are tax laws, marketing rules, ASA guidelines, and individual social media hoops to jump through.

You don’t have a niche- This one I am completely against. Why? Because I don’t have a niche and I don’t want one. I am one of those highly complicated individuals that likes some variety in my life, and if I was made to sit and write about the same stuff every day, I would go insane. I love health and fitness, I love reading, I love life. So why should I either pick one subject to write about, or have around 10 different sites just so that each one has a niche?

You aren’t self-hosted- Again, this is one that I am on the fence with. Yes, being self-hosted has its perks because you can gain more sponsored posts and things like that. But, I know plenty of bloggers who have used free sites and been very happy with their lot. The only problem is if your free hosting site thinks that your content is offensive or they take a dislike to it, they can wipe your site out without notice. I don’t know of any bloggers that have had this happen to them, and it does sound a bit urban legend like, but apparently is it true. If you do want to switch to self-hosting, I really like Lyrical Host.

Your spelling is terrible- This sounds really mean, and I am guilty of this too, but spelling matters. I have seen people go nuts over a spelling error, which is kind of sad. Mistakes happen, and most of the time people will ignore it. But if you are always making spelling mistakes then you are in trouble. People don’t want to read a blog that is filled with spelling mistakes and grammar Nazi fodder.

How do bloggers make money?

As a blogger, I have a few ways that I make money, and they are open to everyone who has a site (especially if you are self-hosted).

Sponsored posts- You have probably seen the disclaimers popping up on my posts from time to time that tell you if a post is sponsored or not. In a nutshell, sponsored posts are normally advertising a product or providing a backlink to a site and money has exchanged hands (or the virtual equivalent of money exchanging hands). I just want to stress that point, because I have seen people kick up a fuss because someone linked to someone else, not all links are paid for! Sometimes those links are there to reinforce a point or the blogger in question just likes the company. But, yeah, you can get paid for those links too.

Affiliate marketing- I do different posts, but my beauty posts are generally packed with affiliate links to Amazon so that you can by the products for yourself. I’ll be honest, I love telling people about the beauty products that I use, and I love to review them when the bottles are empty. Hence, Empties from the Bathroom was born. There are loads of affiliate marketing schemes that you can sign up for with different companies, it is just a case of looking around to see what one will fit with your site.

Ads- I have ads running on here and it can be a great way to make money just for having traffic coming through your site. The more traffic you have, the more money you make. I am currently using Adsense for my ads but there are others out there. Mediavine is used by the bigger bloggers, but Adsense is open to small to medium bloggers.

What can you do to turn it around?

As I am sitting writing this, it is the beginning of October and I am very aware of the fact that Christmas is around the corner, 2019 is knocking at the door and I’m due my fourth baby at the end of January. If you are reading this, you have arrived hoping that I have the magic formula because Christmas comes around every year, the cost of living keeps getting higher, and you would love nothing more than to shut up the nay-sayers you think you have a “silly little blog” and you want to rub it in their faces that your “silly little blog” has just paid for the family holiday, paid off the mortgage etc. You know who I am talking about, everyone has one, and your feelings are completely natural. And you know what? I might just have the answers that you are looking for.

Get organised- You need to treat your blog as a business because it is. First of all, work out your goals. I want to be earning £XXX per month. I want to blog about X, Y and Z. You need to work out what you want to do. Then organise how to do it. I post every day, and I post about different things. But I have a theme. Mondays, I do movies. Tuesdays is KappaCino Book Club. Wednesdays are my beauty posts, so it is either an unboxing, a PR package, or Empties from the Bathroom. Thursdays are supposed to be house goals and Fridays are supposed to be Fitness Fridays, but these don’t tend to happen because something else always comes up. Saturdays are about my mini-missions and weekly tasks. Sundays are social Sundays and the site has either a guest post or The Big Quiz. It’s not perfect, but it is a start. And I am tough with myself but making sure that I post every day.

Learn everything- I went on a real learning kick when I decided to turn the site around and read everything I could about blogging. There are loads of free e-books that you can download that can help you turn things around. Even if the information in them isn’t perfect, you should be able to take bits and pieces from each source and slap it together to make something that will make sense for your site.

Be social- Are you involved in any blogging groups? If not, you need to be. First of all, they are packed with resources that have been reviewed by other bloggers, so they can point you in the right direction. You can also get involved with other bloggers for things like round-ups. What is a round-up? Basically, have you ever seen those posts “21 fun things to do with your kids” or something like that? Those are blogger round-ups. Someone has collected blog posts from a load of bloggers (with their permission of course) and popped it into one big post. Why? Because it is a great way to drive traffic to sites. People are lazy and like collection posts because then they don’t have to look too hard themselves, and if they like the look of your “idea”, then they might click through to get the fun recipe/activity. It is win-win for everyone involved.

This sounds too good to be true

Maybe, maybe not. But I can tell you that my site has seen a real difference the last while. I am so confident with what I have just said, I am willing to publish my income reports for the next few months. To look at the traffic and stats, it doesn’t look the best. But, this is a snowballing thing. I might have started this in September (and not seen any amazing results because I spent a week or two trying to find out how to do it) but in the first week of October I saw a massive upswing with stats. You will just have to check back next month when I publish my income report to see how I have done, the changes I have continued to make, and if I have learned anything new. But to answer the question at the beginning, yes, if you follow the tips in the above section, you could see a positive change in your site within 30 days. Mine took 30 days for a real upswing, I challenge you to beat me!

Is it possible to create a profitable blog within 30 days? || A year to make a million I don't know about anyone else who blogs but I do it because I enjoy it. But despite enjoying it, I wish I could make a real living out of it.

[eelgibbortech-blog]

8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again • Smart Blogger

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I get it.

You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters

Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome —  another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

[…]

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

  Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side

Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things —  even though he may fail.

  Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China

Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah. Homepages suck. Blah. Do some A/B testing. Blah. Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

  And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

  But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

  Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

  The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart

When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

  See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).

Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.

The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

  Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.

Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.

Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

  Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude

There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

  Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

  And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

  Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You’re a blogger because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone

Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.

Be annoyed by simplicity.

Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.

Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

  And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

  The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future

The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.  

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals

You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images and GIFs like these:

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

About the Author: Miranda Hill is a writer and coach who helps life-hungry souls get unstuck from the chaos of life. If you want to stop spinning your wheels, hopping from one thing to the next in search of answers, discover the 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart and realize your full writing potential today.

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The post 8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again • Smart Blogger appeared first on Ebulkemaimarketing Blogs and updates.

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8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

I get it.

You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters

Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome —  another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

  Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side

Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things —  even though he may fail.

  Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China

Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah. Homepages suck. Blah. Do some A/B testing. Blah. Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

  And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

  But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

  Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

  The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart

When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

  See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).

Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.

The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

  Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.

Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.

Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

  Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude

There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

  Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

  And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

  Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You’re a blogger because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone

Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.

Be annoyed by simplicity.

Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.

Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

  And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

  The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future

The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.  

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals

You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images and GIFs like these:

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

About the Author: Miranda Hill is a writer and coach who helps life-hungry souls get unstuck from the chaos of life. If you want to stop spinning your wheels, hopping from one thing to the next in search of answers, discover the 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart and realize your full writing potential today.

 http://www.successwize.com/8-ways-to-make-old-and-boring-topics-feel-new-and-exciting-again/

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Instagram Blueprint: 16 Steps to Blowing Up Your Engagement

Almost every business should be on Instagram. You need to be on Instagram because the engagement opportunities for brands with customer’s and prospective customers are off the charts. It’s a social network that allows users to upload pictures or up to :60 videos… oh and they just added stories to compete more directly with Snapchat. This isn’t a one-trick pony.

Here are some eye-popping stats:

The engagement rate with content is 50x greater than on Twitter or Facebook.

Instagram now has over 400 million active users, 60% of that log in at least once per day, and the rate of use has doubled since 2015.

Over 80 million videos are shared each day.

Engagement with brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

You can’t look at that as a marketer and not understand the value. To put it simply, you get more attention on Instagram than other social networks. That’s why it’s a must.

Here are 16 Tips to building a massive and highly engaged Instagram following.

1)   Bio = Good Impression

Pay attention to your bio, profile pic and your website link. Your bio is the first chance for someone to interact with your brand on Instagram, make it a good one. Make it clear who you are, what you do, how to connect with your business and relevant hashtags or links. You only have 150 characters, so test out your creativity and make it sharp.

2)   Links In Bio

You get 1, count it, 1 clickable link in your bio to take a prospect somewhere. This is a great way to drive traffic to a site or page. Change the link often to draw attention to new products, programs and offers you feature. A quick image of the item or program you want to feature with “info in bio” is a quick and subtle way of driving more traffic to your site.

3)   Be creative, Be Original.

Use your own photos and be creative about what you shoot and when. It’s easy to repost others photos, but you want to focus on your business. Take 20-45 minutes once per week and shoot various pics. Give yourself a pipeline of pics that you can choose from and utilize to grow your brand.

Utilize sites like canva.com to help enhance your posts and produce watermarks and text over your pics as needed. Wordswag is another great option that you can use to produce great posts.

4)   Captions = Attention

Attention is what you want and need. The more attention you get on Instagram the more your brand will grow. Remember that Instagram is the preferred social platform of Millennials, an age demographic larger than Boomers with a growing amount of wealth that is only going to get larger.

Captions give you a chance to tell your story. Twitter has a character limit. It’s all about telling short stories or getting attention with something catchy. With Instagram, you are using the video or picture to get attention. Utilize the caption space (which is not limited) to tell more than is possible in the picture. This is your chance to go into detail and utilize hashtags to connect with others talking about this subject.

5)   Question Your Audience

Ask your audience a question to get engagement and find out more about your followers. When they give you answers you find out more about who follows you and why. You can use that to dig deeper and potential connect 1-1 with certain prospects. It may also give you an idea of what topics you can touch on that will be valuable to your audience.

6)   Pareto Principle Still Applies

The 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) applies on Instagram. This network is all about value add, so give 80% of the time and sell the other 20%. This is where you can be creative and discussing who you are, what you do, why you matter and what others have to say about you. That’s a ton of potential content that allows you to not be a social sales pitch each time. You need to pitch, just 20% of the time.

7)   Shares

Shares are great ways to get the attention of other brands you want to work with, share your audience, share your values, and share a similar message. When you share pics, give them credit and talk about that business. Acknowledge who they are and what they do, and then bring it back to how it aligns with your business.

8)   Frequency + Message

Posting 3 to 4 times per day will connect you with your followers and prospects more frequently allowing you to grow your list and be seen more. Don’t post the same thing each day, however. Focused on a product? How can you touch on that product 3-4 different ways throughout the day? Be creative and develop a more complete way of sharing your message.

9)   Hashtags

I know, it’s a pound symbol, but let’s move on. Hashtags connect you with other people talking about the same topics. Creating a hashtag is hard, but using what others are already using is smart. When you click on a hashtag you see others talking about the same thing. Finding trending tags is a way to get into a larger conversation, meaning more people to connect with your brand.

You can use up to 30 hashtags. Use all 30. Yes, all 30. You’ll need to find and work through 30+ relevant hashtags that you can use to build your audience, find people to engage with, allow others to better find you and have a bulk of the content. No, you shouldn’t write them all out each time. Write them into notes on your phone and copy and paste them. Hashtags are clutch for your business and ability to grow, use them and use them often.  

10) Tags

Who is on Instagram that has a great following that you can connect with? Tag that business or person on your photos. You can tag up to 20 users per photo, but that’s a bit excessive. Fans of these other businesses will see the tags and will see your photo, checking out your page.

This can also work if you know of a specific person that follows you. Offering a product or service that they would like? Tag them directly. What a better way to get in touch with a customer than to say, “this is perfect for you.”?

11) Comments

Get to know your followers in the comments. Yeah, you might have some people post silly or irrelevant things, but those who really have something to say are worth talking with. Build a relationship through the comments and you’ll connect in a new way.

12) Video

Make sure you are using video once a day in your posts. Video can be creative, funny, and share a lot of information in a very short period of time. Videos can be of your team, products being used, sharing the culture of your business, sharing your philosophy or customer testimonials. Get creative with your message and how you can use video.

13) Multiple Accounts

There are some businesses that utilizing multiple accounts is a great idea. You can utilize these accounts by working them off of one another, giving the appearance that they are separate.

Your clothing boutique offers clothing for both men and women. You have an e-commerce store and can sell worldwide. Your primary account touches on all clothing and focuses locally. Your second account focuses on women’s clothing, fashion tips, and trends and promoting your e-commerce store sales. Your third account does the same this, but for men’s clothing and shoes. Three different accounts, all with the same overall focus, different categories and different purposes all tied together on the back end under your business.

14) Takeovers

Instagram takeovers can be very successful when done with the right person. A takeover allows someone outside of your business to take over your account for a period of time. The intention is to grow your followers utilizing that persons influence and command of a network. The person that takes over your account needs to have an impact on your audience, there needs to be some type of connection here that creates demand enough to pay attention to the takeover. There needs to be a plan for what this person will do on the takeover. Plan it out in advance. Review what your objectives are, what the goal(s) of the takeover are and how you can help them in return.

15) Competitions

What can you give away? A product or service? Gift cards? Swag? Book? Break down a list of all the things you can give away. Then, begin to craft your content and schedule a competition once a month, every other month, etc.

The objective of a competition is to grow your followers and create raving fans.

With any giveaway or competition you want to ask people to do 2 things:

1)   Repost your photo or video

2)   Tag 1 – 5 people

These need to be requirements to win. Give value but you must get value in return (followers and raving fans).

16) Stories

Stories are new to Instagram. They were introduced in August 2016 after the success of Snapchat stories. You can use videos or pictures, add filters, and draw on the images. It gives you a chance to produce something else, in a unique way and send it out to your followers. It’s not a post, but it is at the same time. Once you post a new story, the previous one goes away.

This creates a great opportunity for limited time offers. You control the message, when it goes out and when you can take it down. Offer a 75% off flash sale for a limited time. Once you post a new story, that sale offer is gone and your followers can no longer take advantage. Great way to create a captive audience, have them pay attention to your stories and drive an increase in sales.

Instagram is where your business can connect with the ever-evolving millennial generation. The use of video and images will allow you to present your brand in the best light, being authentic and sharing who you are and what you do. Capture your business effectively and you will capture the attention of your audience.

digitalAIM is not your typical agency. With several small offices throughout the country, we live locally and work nationally. To better understand your markets and your business, we strategically place our offices in communities both large and small, allowing us to better understand the various businesses we work with and their audience. At digitalAIM, we are one team in many places. With full creative, video production, content creation, as well as campaign creation, placement, execution and reporting, digitalAIM is a comprehensive agency that meets exceeds your needs.

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[richardrobertsimsuccessblog]

8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

I get it.

You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters

Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome —  another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

[…]

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

  Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side

Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things —  even though he may fail.

  Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China

Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah. Homepages suck. Blah. Do some A/B testing. Blah. Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

  And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

  But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

  Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

  The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart

When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

  See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).

Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.

The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

  Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.

Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.

Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Note: If you want to make your data look pretty, check out online chart creation programs such as chartgo, onlinecharttool, plot.ly and rawgraph.io.

  Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude

There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

  Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

  And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

  Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You’re a blogger because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone

Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.

Be annoyed by simplicity.

Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.

Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

  And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

  The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future

The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.  

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals

You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images and GIFs like these:

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

About the Author: Miranda Hill is a writer and coach who helps life-hungry souls get unstuck from the chaos of life. If you want to stop spinning your wheels, hopping from one thing to the next in search of answers, discover the 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart and realize your full writing potential today.

  8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

[annegalliher]

8 Ways to Make Old and Boring Topics Feel New and Exciting Again

I get it.

You don’t want to be one of the millions of bloggers stuck in the land of sameness — indistinguishable as you parrot the same old advice everybody else does.

You want your voice to be heard, and you want it to feel vibrant, fresh and new.

But your blog topic feels threadbare, and you’ve got no bloody idea how to make it exciting again. Every angle has been rewritten, rehashed and reused. It bores you so much you’d rather poke your eye out with a stick of spaghetti than write another post.

So you search for answers on how to stand out.

But all you find is airy-fairy platitudes. Provide unique insights! Be interesting! Write in your own voice!

It’s all surface-level hoopla that lacks the substance and specifics you really need.

So I scoured the Internet in search of posts that felt new and exciting despite having well-trodden topics. And I unearthed a handful of practical tactics you could add to your repertoire.

Enough small talk. Let’s get into it …

Tactic #1: Turn Fluffy Concepts into Living, Breathing Characters

Procrastination. It’s a well-worn topic. It’s also a bit of an ethereal concept — untouchable, yet it touches us all.

But in this insanely viral post, Tim Urban skillfully brings procrastination to life by casting interesting characters to play the roles of emotions that live inside a procrastinator’s brain. See what I mean …

Mel Wicks also did it when she created the Imp to play the role of Imposter Syndrome —  another fluffy concept.

I have a nagging voice inside my head that constantly reminds me of my unworthiness. It tells me to give up before I’m laughed off the Internet. That I’ll never compare to other writers — the real ones.

[…]

I call this voice the “Imp.” Her full name is Imposter Syndrome, and chances are you’ve already met. If you’ve ever had that dread of being outed as a fraud because you don’t stack up to other writers, you’ve experienced Imposter Syndrome, and you have an Imp of your own.

  Doing this makes reading about fluffy concepts much more fun and interesting for the reader. You bring the topic to life, as readers can visualize these characters better than ideas that only exist inside our minds.

So if you write about a topic that only exists in the abstract plane, consider breathing some life into it. Think of crazy names for concepts or aspects of problems that your readers may face, and cast human or animal characters in their roles.

Your readers will love it.

Tactic #2: Make Your Readers Choose a Side

Trump or Clinton? Yankees or Red Sox? Ebooks or paperbacks?

You can’t help but choose a side. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s one that you as the writer can play to your advantage. It’ll create standout content for even the most dreary topics.

Devise contrasting sides or categories and compare them to spark your reader’s attention.

Like this:

There are two types of bloggers in this world — let’s call them Sameness and Fearless. Sameness writes posts that are as functional and beige as an L.L. Bean parka. Fearless reveals his deepest thoughts and dares to try new things —  even though he may fail.

  Take, for example, Elle Luna’s post, The Crossroads of Should and Must, in which she rockets interest levels to amazing heights by contrasting two paths we can choose to take. It’s a home run of a post that takes the well-trodden topic of “living life to the fullest” to an entirely new level.

And then we have the $2 Billion Wall Street Journal Sales Letter, which is one of the most successful sales letters ever written:

It begins by introducing two young men, painting a picture of their near-identical happy lives, then throws in a surprising contrast to generate curiosity and emotion that makes it impossible to stop reading.

Contrasting two sides like this can be both engaging and persuasive. Readers will be swept up by the comparisons, and they’ll find themselves agreeing with the side you want them to pick.

So next time you write about a dreary topic, consider presenting two opposite sides, and force the reader to choose one.

Tactic #3: Make Them Laugh So Loud They Wake Up People in China

Humor is the perfect way to flip the script on a humdrum blog topic. Oli Gardner proved this point beautifully in his highly entertaining post on landing page optimization.

His setup was gold and left no doubt in the reader’s mind that the post was going to be an interesting ride.

Landing pages rule. Blah. Homepages suck. Blah. Do some A/B testing. Blah. Base your optimization strategy on customer feedback. Blah.

All of those statements are true. But they sound boring and being boring is lame. It’s twenty fourteen and I refuse to be lame.

If you want to be a non-lame marketer, it’s really easy. Read this post, have a laugh, and treat everything I say as gospel.

  And he certainly continued to deliver throughout the entire post.

The experienced adult readers amongst you might remember that “Shit. The condom broke!” moment. Yeah you do. You might also remember that it felt like a good time to run a test. #STDsArentFunny. Perhaps. But, as we go through this epic journey together today, I’ll show you exactly when and how you should really be testing.

  But what if you’re not funny? Humor can’t be taught, right?

Not true.

Humor writing is a creative art, and, just like all creative arts, it has structure and formula. And all artistic endeavours are built on teachable skills and techniques. — Mark Shatz, Comedy Writing Secrets

  Sure, some people seem to be born oozing raw comedic talent, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are doomed. You’ll have to do the legwork, but it’ll be worth it. Many of the most successful and memorable blog posts ever written contain humor or quirkiness.

Here are two of the simpler humor writing tricks to get you started.

Humor Technique #1: The Rule of Threes

Simply put, you write three statements. The first two are the setup, and they establish a thought pattern. Then you add a third, incongruent idea, which is your main point or punchline. Like this:

Let me predict a few things that will happen in the next year. Jon Snow will unite the Seven Kingdoms and save the world. The day you wash and wax your new Honda will be the day it rains. And your inbox will clog up with so many deathly uninteresting posts that you’d rather stab your hand with a freshly sharpened pencil than read another one.

  The rule of three is a classic joke structure that you’ll see used by many comedy writers. Here are a couple of examples by the pros so you can see it in action.

Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts, and batteries for the remote control. — Diana Jordan

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land. — Jon Stewart

When you die there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. When my father dies, he’ll see the light, make his way toward it, and then flip it off to save electricity. — Harland Williams

  See how that works?

Humor Technique #2: Ridiculous Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an age-old trick used to emphasize importance and evoke strong emotions. It’s also a powerful way to inject humor into a post. You can embellish or stretch everyday truths, over- or understate distance or size, and express extreme or ridiculous emotions.

Geraldine DeRuiter’s side-splitting post I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything is a good example, as it’s riddled with exaggeration. Just check out these entertaining quotes:

Like most things in my life, I’ve jumped in headfirst without putting any thought or research into it (this is also how I ended up taking a workout class called “Insanity.” Afterwards, I was drooling and delirious. So I guess it delivered).

Parenthetically, I really should stop listening to people just because they’re attractive. If Jeff Goldblum told me to get a bowl haircut and rob a bank, I totally would.

The cookies look exactly the same before they are digested as after. They are eternal and unchanging. As time passes, they don’t decline in quality or taste because they can’t. They’ve already started out at theoretical zero on that scale.

  Hilarious, right?

To do this yourself, begin with a common situation, such as having dismal site traffic. Then play with how it makes you feel, what it makes you want to do, etc. Here are a few I came up with:

Dive into a pit of Kleenex and cry like a baby.

Send a fire-breathing dragon to incinerate Google HQ.

Run away and live in an igloo for the rest of your life.

You get the idea.

So dust off that funny bone and give it a go. It’s a hoot.

Tactic #4: Give Data-Driven Answers to Compelling Questions

In his book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger reveals the results of a study of New York Times articles. He discovered that science articles that discuss research results are more likely to go viral because “they frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries” that evoke a feeling of awe in readers.

In other words, readers love data-driven content.

So instead of approaching your topic the same way as everyone else, perform an experiment or run a survey and share the results with your readers in a post.

That’s what Mark Manson did when he crowdsourced his article, The Ultimate Relationship Guide to End All Relationship Guides™.

Rather than share his own opinion, he ran a survey by the people in his audience who were happily married for 10+ years that asked for their best relationship advice. He then turned the most common answers into an article.

BuzzSumo took another approach. They analyzed 100 million headlines to find the commonalities that popular headlines share and the ones unpopular ones share. Lots of content has been written about writing headlines, but data-backed insights like these are hard to come by.

Of course, you may not have access to thousands of subscribers like Mark does, or to millions of headlines and their share counts, like BuzzSumo does, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create data-driven content.

You could run a survey through Facebook Groups or forums. There are plenty of communities online that you could tap into. And hey, you might just go out into the real world and survey people on the street. That works too!

Or you could run a small-scale experiment of your own. For example, if you write about social skills, you could try different conversation openers with strangers and track their responses, seeing which ones work best.

Or, you know, you could grab data and research results from studies that have already been conducted.

Creating data-driven content takes work, but the end result will be a fascinating post that will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Note: If you want to make your data look pretty, check out online chart creation programs such as chartgo, onlinecharttool, plot.ly and rawgraph.io.

  Tactic #5: Inject Your Post with a Healthy Dose of Attitude

There’s a powerful theme that appears in many wildly interesting posts — they all ooze head-flicking, hip-swaggering attitude.

They’re unmistakable because the writer totally embraces their irreverence. They’re written with wit and quirk. They’re unconventional, confrontational and bold. And they border on unreasonable as the writer dances on the edge of insult.

An undeniable strength and passion is woven through every word. There’s total conviction and unwavering commitment to the main idea.

David Wong nails it in his post, 5 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Own Life (Without Knowing It):

What I hate about articles like this is that they’re always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. “What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts! Get off your ass and go become the high-achieving superman you know you can be!” That pisses me off because I know exactly why I’m on the sofa eating ice cream. It’s because I’ve had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I’m doing is a frivolous waste of time, I’m doing it for a reason.

  Johnny B. Truant also does it well in his post, The Universe Doesn’t Give a Flying F**k About You (I mean, that title alone …) His irreverent message of “You don’t matter” hits hard, yet he turns it into something inspirational.

That means that although what you do doesn’t matter to the universe, it should matter one hell of a lot to YOU.

In fact, it should matter to you more than it currently does. If you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn’t waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn’t waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn’t waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you’d really like to do.

  And let’s not forget Jon Morrow’s How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Bloggers. He just flat-out calls his readers dumb and gets away with it.

Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.

It’s because you’re dumb.

And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

  Any post you write with irreverence will stand head and shoulders above the masses. Nobody remembers a fence-sitting, white-bread boring post. They remember the hilarious rant in which the writer unleashes daggers of unspoken truth upon a popular idea or common situation. They remember the posts in which the writer says the things that everybody wishes they had the balls to say — but don’t.

Be willing to put your neck on the line. And be ready to piss a few people off along the way. You’re not a blogger to lull people to sleep. You’re a blogger because you’ve got amazing ideas that need to be heard.

Do this by kicking your emotions into a higher gear. Give yourself permission to write freely — not as you should, but as you want. Don’t be angry, be furious. Don’t be happy, be delirious. Don’t be annoyed, be completely pissed off.

Tactic #6: Snare Your Readers’ Attention with a Surprisingly Mismatched Tone

Let’s start by imagining that all your readers are Walking Dead zombies.

They’re stumbling through their days on autopilot, scrolling through their newsfeeds in a stupor. Your only hope is to shove something unexpected into their eyeballs and shock them back to the here and now.

Contrasting your tone with the topic is a fantastic way to inject interest into your post. You can:

Mismatch a story about disappointment with an appreciative tone.

Be annoyed by simplicity.

Find pleasure in the pain of something going wrong.

Write about something you hate as if you love it.

For example, like this …

Ahhhh, tax time. I’m truly astonished by the painful and grim stories of hate and loathing I hear in the weeks leading up to the financial year’s end. Why would any sane person hate a justified reason to never answer their cell phone and leave emails unopened, unanswered and unactioned for weeks on end? And then there’s the crazy-sweet pleasure of spending hours searching for that needle in the haystack of receipts — and then finding it. It sends me into excited fits of high-fiving anybody within a ten-foot radius.

  And check out this hilarious post about the worry of thinking you have cancer. A topic that summons expectations of gravity and worry.

So This One Time I Thought I Had Breast Cancer—And the Doctor Was a Huge D*ck

So today I placed my boobs into a giant, hospital-grade George Foreman grill and held my breath as the nurse took the X-ray.

  The headline piques interest, and the wry and unexpected tone of the opening sentence snares your attention and commits you to an irreversible free-fall until the end of the post.

Tactic #7: Predict the Future

The future is the devil we don’t know. And it’s cloaked in uncertainty.

Your readers desire for certainty about tomorrow is as guaranteed as day turns into night — and it can be used to your advantage.

Build your reader a safe haven of certainty by predicting the future as Jon did here by sharing his view on how to write great content in 2014.

There’s evidence everywhere to illustrate how not-so-interesting, written-to-death topics, such as content marketing, can continue to pull huge share counts every year by exposing trends for the immediate future.

Mike Blankenship also worked this tactic nicely in How to Write a Paragraph in 2017.

But what if you don’t know the future?

Remember that none of us do. Chances are, however, that you know the history of your niche (if you don’t, get researching), you’ve checked out your competition, and you have an opinion about how things are evolving.  

So be bold. Write a future prediction that becomes a magnet for attention as it creates hope, generates discussion and encourages new ways of thinking for your reader. If you get it wrong, no one’s going to call you on it — it’ll just vanish into the fog of forgotten posts. (You can always delete it too.)

Tactic #8: Pepper Your Post with Quirky Visuals

You’ve probably heard that you should add visual content to your blog posts. And yes, adding infographics, screenshots or photographs can do a lot to liven up your posts… But you can also use visual content to add some whimsy and fun to your posts.

Several of the posts I’ve already featured as examples do this.

Take the aforementioned Medium post from Elle Luna, the Crossroads of Should and Must. She doesn’t just have her readers pick a side, her post is also full of line drawings like this:

The casual nature of these line drawings lifts the feeling from humdrum to fun and injects the post with an entertaining dose of personality and character. As soon as the reader scans the page, they instantly feel like they’re in for a treat.

Tim Urban also uses drawings in his post about procrastination (and every other post he writes).

Line drawings are a great way to move away from the dry formality of graphs and screenshots, but they’re not your only option.

If you don’t feel that artistic — though you don’t have to be that artistic to draw a stick figure — you can also use other quirky imagery, like memes, cartoons and funny pictures. These can be found on the web or easily created with tools like Canva and other meme generators.

If you look back on Geraldine de Ruiter’s I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything, she interchanges the expected photos of food with images and GIFs like these:

Dull topics are more likely to send your reader’s brain for a coffee break instead of paying full attention. Keep them riveted to their seats by entertaining them with unusual, surprising and vibrant visuals.

Time to Breathe New Life into Those Old and Boring Topics

No blog topic is too boring, too dull or too worn-out to ever be interesting again. It’s you, the writer, who has everything within you to make it interesting.

Because when you do, your voice will be heard and you’ll know you’re helping others as you share new ways of doing things, thinking, and approaching tasks, work or life.

Your posts will stand out from the masses of regurgitated ideas and cookie-cutter advice.

Your posts will open the doors of possibility for your readers, and let you shine brightly.

So which tactic are you going to try first? Pick one and start today.

Light up your blog topic with an explosion of freshness like only you can.

About the Author: Miranda Hill is a writer and coach who helps life-hungry souls get unstuck from the chaos of life. If you want to stop spinning your wheels, hopping from one thing to the next in search of answers, discover the 10 Mindset Secrets That Set Truly Successful Writers Apart and realise your full writing potential today.