Archive for ‘Blogs’

December 17th, 2012

71% Like Statistics in Blog Headlines According to New 60 Second Marketer Research

Research about blogging

If you have a blog, your #1 priority is getting more visits to your site. After all, more visits leads to more prospects which leads to more customers which leads to more revenue.

Revenue is a good thing.

With that in mind, I’ve spent the past few weeks analyzing data about 60 Second Marketer visitors in the hopes of growing our global community. I’ve arrived at some interesting insights that I thought I’d share with you so that you can use it on your own blog.

About the Methodology. I collected the data for my analysis from these three sources:

  • Social Metrics WordPress Plug-In. This is a simple WordPress Plug-in that tracks social shares on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s a great way to get a simple snapshot about the posts your readers shared via social media.
  • Google Analytics. This a great way to track just about anything — page views, uniques, bounce rate, time on site, etc. I check it 2 to 3 times a week to analyze my traffic, to see which posts are the most popular and to see if I’ve been able to increase my “time on site” metric. (I’m convinced “time on site” is one of the key things Google tracks in their algorithm, which is why I’m occasionally writing longer, in-depth posts like this one — to keep you on the site longer which hopefully improve my Page Rank with Google.)
  • Fluid Surveys. I used Fluid Surveys to find out what was on the mind of our 60 Second Marketer e-newsletter subscribers. It’s a great, easy-to-use survey tool that provides up to 150 responses for free. I happen to like it better than Survey Monkey because it 1) provides 50 more free responses than Survey Monkey, and 2) is slightly easier to use.

More Insights About the Research. The analysis was based primarily on social sharing statistics. In other words, I ranked our posts from the last 6 months based on the number of times the posts were shared via Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.

This is different than ranking the posts with the highest page views, which I do occasionally with Google Analytics. The Google Analytics data provides insights on which posts are popular based on keyword searches, which is slightly different from ranking posts based on social sharing.

Here’s an easy way to distill what I just said:

  • The Social Metrics plug-in is a great way to analyze which posts go viral with readers based on their “vote” for the posts using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
  • Google Analytics is a great tool to use to analyze which posts — tied to certain keywords — are most popular with readers who are doing searches on Google, Bing or Yahoo!

There’s a difference between those two metrics. It’s a nuanced difference, but an important one.

What I Learned from Our Reader Survey. I learned some interesting things about our readers using the Fluid Surveys tool. For starters, I found out that most of our readers are interested in posts that provide specific tips and techniques as well as posts that are short, and to-the-point (unlike the one you’re reading now).

Interestingly, I also found out that our readers don’t like Infographics as much as I thought they did. In fact, Infographics came in third-to-last in our popularity poll.

You can see the details about what kind of posts people like below:

Blogging Best Practices

I also asked a related, but different, question about the specific topics. (The first question was about what kind — or what category — of posts people liked. This question was about what topics they liked.)

Here are the results of the topics question:

Statistics on blogging

I learned something important from the survey question outlined above — I’ve been focusing too much attention on posts about mobile marketing. Our readers prefer social media posts as well as general marketing tips and techniques more than they like our mobile marketing posts. That was an important finding.

(By the way, we’re still going to do mobile marketing posts — but we’ll sprinkle in a few more social media and general marketing posts on top of the mobile marketing we’re already doing.)

One final piece of data from the survey can be seen below. It supports the finding that our readers would like the blog to focus on social, mobile and digital marketing as well as on articles that focus on marketing for small- to mid-sized businesses.

Research on blogging

Ranking Blog Posts to Derive More Insights. Which of our blog posts are the most popular? That’s the real question I was interested in learning when I started this analysis. So, I ranked all of our posts over the past 6 months based on the number of social shares each post had.

What follows are the 6 most popular posts ranked in order of social shares. (We actually ranked our 21 top posts, but I don’t want to bore you with all of them, so I’ve just included 6 below.)

(Side Note: Our #1 most shared blog post of all time is The 14 Most Powerful Words in Marketing with over 1200 social shares.)

10 Important Headline-Writing Rules We Learned from Our Research. Data is just data until you derive insights from it. With that in mind, here’s my take on the most important lessons we learned about writing headlines that attract reader’s attention.

  1. Say Something Controversial. When we wrote the headline, 14 Insanely Simple Mobile Marketing Techniques You Can Steal from the Fortune 500, we intentionally used the phrase “insanely simple” and the word “steal” as a way to grab the reader’s attention. It’s all about standing out in a crowded marketplace.
  2. Provide Data in the Headline. Our reader survey indicated that people like statistics in the blog headline. (Did you notice the statistic in this blog headline?). The social sharing data indicated the same thing. Data in a headline says, “This post is based on scientific facts.” People like facts.
  3. Add the Name of a Social or Mobile Tool in the Headline. Some of our most popular posts include How to Run a Contest Using Instagram and Twitter and 5 Things You Can Do to Get Started with Google+ and 13 Ways Businesses are Using QR Codes to Grow Revenues. When we add the name of a social or mobile tool into the headline, it acts like a magnet to attract readers.BloggingResearch.001
  4. Use Attention-Grabbing Words and Phrases. Words and phrases like “critical,” “insanely simple,” “revolutionary,” “can’t miss” and “remarkable” all work to draw readers in to the blog posts. (Two of our top posts used the phrase “insanely simple.”)
  5. Write a Headline About What Doesn’t Work. Mobile Marketing Platforms: What Works and What Doesn’t Work and 5 Most Common Mistakes with Email Marketing were two of our more popular posts over the past 6 months. People click through because they want to know if they’re screwing up.
  6. Borrow Someone Else’s Brand Equity. I borrowed my friend Erik Qualman’s brand equity in a post entitled Erik Qualman: Research Shows that Multitasking is Worse than Smoking Weed. You’ll also notice that I said something controversial in that headline (see Rule #1). I returned the favor of borrowing Erik’s brand equity by providing a link back to his books in the post.
  7. Provide Free Tools. One of our more popular posts over the past 6 months was 7 Important Social Media Monitoring Tools You May Have Overlooked. People are always looking for new marketing tools. Especially free ones.
  8. Share a Long Lists of Tips. 30 Tips on How to Promote Your Next Blog Post and other posts like it are great ways to get people’s attention — and keep it!
  9. Talk About the #1 Reason People Are In Business – To Make Money. We sometimes forget that the #1 reason people blog is because they ultimately want to make money. One of our more popular posts recently was Want to Make Money with Mobile Apps? Here Are 10 Critical Things to Do Before Launch. It was popular because we focused on the essence of it all — making money and growing a business.
  10. Talk About the People’s Selfish Needs. In addition to growing a business, people are interested in themselves. Another popular post of ours was How to Use Social Media to Position Yourself as an Expert. Why? Because it focused on the #2 reason people blog — to get famous.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. We included a lot in this post, so feel free to print it out or share it with others. Hopefully, this will help you increase the number of visits to your blog as much as it’ll help us increase the number of visits to our blog.

About the author: Jamie Turner is the Founder of the 60 Second Marketer and co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile.” He is also a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.

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October 24th, 2012

3 Easy Steps You Can Take to Get More Readers for Your Blog

You may write some of the best blog posts under the sun, but not many people are going to read them if you just post the articles and walk away. It’s a consequence of the increasingly rapid growth of the internet. Whereas you might have been able to post an article about “at-home water conservation” a few years ago and received a good number of views, that same post today will easily become lost in the mire of similar topics, leaving your post on the back pages of search engine results.

If you want to drive readership on your website, you need to start reaching out to your readers. It doesn’t take much and even a little outreach can go a long way.

Step 1: Identify your target market

The internet population is now just about as diverse as it is in the real world. Pretty much everyone from ages seven to 70 are out there browsing the web, so instead of trying to cast your net over the masses, narrow down your ideal readership first and then get them hooked with some creative posting.

Let’s keep with the at-home water conservation topic and imagine that you’re an eco-entrepreneur with a growing green products business. Your audience is pretty well defined on the surface, but instead of just targeting the green crew, take a moment and think about who else might be interested in what you have to say. Green products might also appeal to the thrifty crowd, as well as the crafty crowd. Young families and moms-to-be might be interested in products that protect their children from chemical exposure, and people who enjoy new tech might enjoy some of the more innovative green products that are coming out. Take a moment and identify all of the possible target groups that you want to reach with your business and keep a list around for reference.

Step 2: Identify the best social media approach

Now that you’ve narrowed down (or expanded on) your target audience types, it’s time to start looking into social media sites. The number of social media options is growing by the day and picking the ones that will work best for you will take a little initial research, but after that you’ll know exactly where to go to start your mini marketing campaign. Here are a few to get you going:

 

  • Pinterest.com — Pinterest is a great way to reach out to a specific audience, especially if you have good product pictures or are handy with a camera. By pinning an image from your blog post on Pinterest and categorizing it — say under “Gardening” or “Technology” or “DIY & Crafts” — viewers will be able to follow the image right back to your original post. And if they enjoy it, they might like it, comment on it or re-pin it on their own pages.
  • Google+ — Though Google+ has had its ups and downs in the social media market, it is constantly improving on its processes. One of the pluses of the program is that it allows users to streamline their posts by permitting the use of extensions that will also send your posts to Facebook and Twitter. Through Google+ you can build circles of friends and send posts only to specific groups, allowing you to further target your audiences, and people can follow your posts much as they would on Twitter. You can even post and tag pictures and follow status updates as you would on Facebook.
  • StumbleUpon.com — StumbleUpon adheres to the concept of allowing users to identify their interests when they sign up and update them whenever they wish. Every time users click on “stumble,” the website lands them on a page that falls within their interests. Pages are added to the site by user submission. By adding your post and defining who would find the topic interesting, you increase the chances of people “stumbling” on it and reading it.

Step 3: Keep up with Facebook

Posting to a myriad of social media sites is good for increasing the number of visitors to your site and your overall search engine optimization, but it’s just as important to keep up with your business’ Facebook page. While Facebook pages shouldn’t be used for selling products to people directly, visitors and friends are always interested in the latest news, helpful hints, and generally socializing with you, the owner of the business. Before wrapping up your reposting for the day, make sure you’ve added a link to your blog article on your Facebook page.

There are a number of ways to reach target audience members on the web, but the number one rule to walk away with is that you should always be vigilant and always be on the lookout for new ways to reach out to your target audiences. If people post responses to your article, do your best to follow up with them. Good business is about good relationships; it’s a fact that’s as true today as it has been throughout history.

What are some other social media sites that seem to be on the rise with your target audience? What are some ways you’ve found to identify your ideal target markets?

Tim Eyre works in the storage units industry, often visiting locations like this Baltimore storage units yard. Tim is part of Extra Space Storage which has locations across the U.S., which are listed at http://www.extraspace.com/Storage/Facilities/.

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October 9th, 2012

62% of Businesses Have a Blog. Here’s Why You Should Have One, Too.

If there were two days that contributed most to my achievement as an entrepreneur, they were:

  1. June 5, 2006, the day that I put in my notice at my corporate job, and
  2. September 21, 2007, the day I published the first post on my current blog.

Over the years, blogging has become so tightly woven into my identity as a professional that I don’t think about it much — it’s just part of who I am and what I do. But as I’ve been talking to business owners recently about my new book Blog for Business (affiliate link), I’ve had a lot of people ask me how and why I started blogging in the first place.

Regular blogging has contributed to my business in many practical tangible ways but for the purposes of this post I wanted to focus specifically on one: sales and relationship-building.

As a young business owner, it took me a long time to really get comfortable talking to clients, especially during the sales process. I’d get nervous, fidgety and sometimes even defensive answering questions and objections that I should have been able to field effortlessly.

Blogging helped me through that in a big way and I don’t think that I’m overstating anything when I say that I might not have a successful agency today — or possibly even a business at all — had I not started a serious blogging initiative.

Not only did blogging help me organize and refine my thoughts on issues that were important to my clients but it gave me scripts and talking points that I could keep in my head and prevent me from “going rogue” in a client meeting. Most importantly though, it created easy ways for me to follow up with clients and prospects during the sales process.

Early on, an email follow up after a meeting with me went something like this:

Dear Jane,

It was really nice meeting with you this week. I’m working on that proposal I promised and I will have it for you by Tuesday.

Thanks again,

-Erik.

Pretty lousy. It’s tough being the guy that’s missing whatever gene it is that enables the capacity for easy small talk. But blogging allowed me to easily write follow-up messages like this:

Hi Jane,

It was really nice meeting with you this week.

You mentioned you were thinking about starting an AdWords campaign to support your new product launch. I’ve been posting a lot about Search Engine Marketing on my blog lately and so I thought I’d send you a couple of helpful resources that will help you get it right if you decide to pursue this:

http://mysite/blogpost1: This one will show you how to properly budget
http://mysite/blogpost1: There’s a simple Q+A here that will help you figure out if you’re a good candidate for AdWords in the first place.

I’m also working on that proposal I promised and I will have it for you by Tuesday.

Thanks again.

-Erik.

Many times, this type of value-added email would start productive discussions and help me transition myself from “vendor candidate” to “trusted partner/advisor.” And I closed a LOT more business as a result.

Emails like this have also helped me retain more clients over the years.

When you’re running ongoing online marketing campaigns for small business clients, there are periods where clients get squeamish about the process — Are things happening fast enough? Is the growth we’re experiencing normal? When will I see ROI from social media? How can we get more conversions from our landing pages?

Blog posts are similarly useful in those circumstances, helping to provide valuable context for our methodologies, the decisions we make and the strategies we employ. Our content helps clients see the big picture when they are focused on the nitty-gritty details.

For me, blogging remains one of the most useful and versatile weapons in my marketing arsenal. It’s why I recommend it to clients and why I wrote a book about it.

If what I’ve written here is of interest to you, you might also find a free chapter from my book helpful. If so, feel free to download it by clicking here.

Erik Wolf is the author of two books including the award-winning Marketing: Unmasked. He is also the founder of Zero-G Creative, an online marketing agency serving small and midsized business clients exclusively.

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March 21st, 2012

Top 10 WordPress Plug-Ins for Small- to Mid-Sized Businesses

By Peter Rees, Founder of WSI Digital Marketing Solutions

It is over a year since I last published a list of my then 14 Favorite WordPress Plugins, revisiting this recently was quite interesting. A number of these remain firm favorites, some are no longer supported, and one or two simply don’t hack it any more, at least not for my purposes. So I thought it time to provide an update, this time with a tougher set of criteria to qualify as one of my ‘top 10′.

The difference in emphasis is to look for more than simply providing a function, and include plugins that also meet some or all of the following criteria:

  • Regularly updated and bug fixed
  • Robust and don’t cause conflicts
  • Easy to configure and supported with good documentation
  • Good support forum
  • Good value for money where appropriate[/list]

So here goes, in alphabetic order:

Backup Buddy

From the PluginBuddy family, an excellent plugin that enables backup, migration and restore of your site. Backups can be saved in a folder in wp-content, or sent to a remote FTP site, Amazon S3, RackSpace, Email (size limitations) or DropBox (some limitations are imposed by the DropBox API). The backups can be Database only or Files and Database, and can be scheduled at any interval you choose.

The backups are compressed into a zip file. Restore is accomplished using an import script that recreates your entire site including WordPress, your themes and plugins, and of course all of your posts and pages. Since this rebuilds your entire site (you need only create the hosting account and add an SQL Database), it also provides the means to migrate your site to a new host should you need to.

This plugin will cost you between $75 and $150 depending upon the number of sites you use it on. Find out more here: BackupBuddy – WP backup, restore, migration plugin N.B. This is an affiliate link.

Dynamic Widgets

If you want greater control over where your widgets appear then this plugin is invaluable. It enables you to define which pages, posts, post categories etc., a widget will be displayed on. So if, for example, you had widgets that promoted a particular service offering you have, then you can ensure that the widget only appears adjacent to contextually relevant pages of posts.

For more information see the WordPress Plugin Directory entry for Dynamic Widgets.

Google Analytics for WordPress

If you want a plugin that does more than just put the GA Script on every page, then this plugin from Yoast is the best around. You can authenticate the plugin with Google Analytics and select the appropriate account and profile. If you want to track outbound clicks and downloads, then there is a check box to select this option. (This is a quick and easy way to start gathering this information, however if you want to categorise these event types, then you should not check this box, and you will need to create ‘onclick’ tracking code for each event.)

You also have options to set some custom variables such as ‘Post Type’, ‘Author’, ‘Tag’, ‘Category’ etc. depending upon what data you specifically need to gather.

You then have a whole bunch of advanced settings to play with, but here you really do need to make sure you understand what you are doing.

If you need help or more information then just pop over to Yoast’s site:  http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/

Gravity Forms

A great forms tool-set. Almost unlimited scope to design forms for just about any purpose. Conditional logic can be applied, custom CSS classes can be created, and routing to administrators etc. can be managed. A number of useful add-ons are available including interfaces to the more popular email marketing products such as Aweber, Campaign Monitor and MailChimp. Google ReCaptcha can be incorporated, or for a simpler and more compact system, Simple Captcha can also be used.

A variety of lisence options are available from $39 for basic single user lisence. For more information Click here to visit rocketgenius. N.B. This is an affiliate link.

Shortcodes Ultimate

I am increasingly using short codes to help with formatting posts and pages. This particular plugin has the greatest variety of options I have yet found, and is conveniently accessed via an icon above the content editor. There are almost 40 short codes to choose from, and additionally many have a number of formatting options.

Uses include creating multiple columns; adding list icons; creating tabs; styling buttons; adding image frames; making notes sections with colored backgrounds; building image galleries and so much more.

ShortCode UI

Whereas Short Codes Ultimate does all of the heavy lifting for you, ShortCode UI enables you to create your own short codes using php; javascript; HTML; CSS etc.

Now whilst I don’t attempt much that is too technical, I find that this plugin helps for anything that you use regularly. For example, a site I set up recently has lots of guest contributors. Each contributor has an Author biography that is added at the end of each post. Using the combination of this plugin and Short Codes Ultimate, each Bio, which can include links and a picture as well as being surrounded by a frame, is included by inserting the short code via an icon in the editor toolbar.

Simple Tags

This plugin uses a number of free sources to help you tag the content of your posts. Some of these such as Yahoo and Tag the Net are set up by default. For the sources such as OpenCalais, Zemanta and AlchemyAPI you will need to register (free) and get an API key. Each of these taxonomies suggest tags that are relevant to your post, just click on the ones you want to use.

This helps you maintain a consistent set of tags, which helps you create tag clouds (another option) within this plugin, as well as aid the creation of related posts lists. This last element now requires that you use a separate plugin such as YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) for this.

WordPress FAQ Manager

This plugin adds a new section to your admin, enabling you to add FAQs using the editor in the same way as you might for a page or a post. The ‘title’ is in effect your question and the body becomes the answer.

You can also define topics (categories) and add tags. To display your FAQs all you need do is set up a page or post with a suitable title, and add an appropriate shortcode. The available shortcodes enable you to show all short codes, just a list linking to answers on separate pages, a limited number which you define, a specific topic, or a specific FAQ by ID. With all of these options you can deploy your FAQs  such that they appear in the most relevant places.

WordPress SEO

From Yoast again, this is a very powerful plugin, that merits careful use. The best place to start has to be to read all of Yoast’s excellent topics on the subject and follow the guidance offered when setting up here: http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

Creating default settings is a good place to start, and this is quite easily accomplished, via the ‘Title’ section of the plugin.  These can always be amended per post or page with a settings dialogue which will appear below the editor.

The next thing to do is to go to the XML Sitemap settings and define what you want included or excluded from your sitemap(s).

There are then a host of further settings to investigate as you gain confidence and knowledge.

WP to Twitter

Yes I know there loads of ways of doing this. However this is a really nice plugin that does what it says quietly and efficiently, AND has loads of features that make it quite sophisticated.

Options allow you to tweet when a new post or page is published, if you are using the FAQ Manager you can also tweet when a new FAQ is published, or come to that, when you add to your BlogRoll or when a new comment is posted.

Then you can tweet all of the above again if you edit any of the entries. Each tweet can be appropriately prefaced so that is is clearly an edit, and you can include shortcodes so that you can customize exactly what goes into the tweet. Naturally you can use a variety of link shorteners.

The advanced settings allow you to define the maximum number of tags to use and their length; the length of a post extract; the date format etc. You can also use a campaign identifier to capture information in Google Analytics.

So that’s it, my 10 top plugins, I would love to hear your feedback, and would welcome any additions or alternatives you have experience of.

Peter Rees is the Founder of WSI Digital Marketing Solutions and can be followed on Twitter @WSIeBusiness.


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February 16th, 2012

How to Make Money from Your Blog

Want to learn how to make money from your blog? Yesterday, I answered that question for people who subscribe to our e-newsletter. It got such a positive response, I thought I’d re-post the answer here on the 60 Second Marketer blog.

Enjoy!

“A few weeks ago, one of the members of the 60 Second Marketer community asked me to write about how to monetize a blog. It’s a great question. And rather than answer it with hypotheticals and theory, I thought I’d give you a real-life example by sharing information on how I generate revenue from my blog.

For starters, let’s get one thing out of the way. It’s not easy to make money from a blog. Despite what you may have heard, blogging isn’t a sure-fire way to become a millionaire. Blogging is sort of like acting — there are a handful of people who make a lot of money at it, but the vast majority do it because they want to share their ideas and concepts with a larger audience.

In my case, I run the 60 Second Marketer because I want to share my thoughts on marketing and because it’s a great way to generate revenue for my consulting business.

You’ll see from the chart below that the majority of my revenue comes from consulting with companies interested in using social and/or mobile media to grow their sales and revenues.

I also make money by doing workshops and keynote speeches. Sometimes, as in the case of the Go Mobile Workshop I ran last year, I’ll handle the whole shebang — set-up, speaking, logistics, etc. In other cases, people hire me to come in and do a social media and/or mobile marketing workshop on their behalf.

It might surprise some people that I don’t generate a lot of revenue from book sales. The publisher keeps about 85% of any book sold, so the real reason for writing a book is so you can 1) get on TV and, as a result 2) charge more for speaking gigs.

If you’ve been hanging out with us for any length of time, you know that occasionally I’ll send out an email that provides a link to a free white paper download. Those are called sponsored emails and are another way we generate revenue.

What is The ROI on the 60 Second Marketer Blog? By most people’s standards, I make a very good living, which has been a blessing. But I also work very, very hard. In the end, any sane person would crunch the number of hours I put into my job and say, “Not for me. I’d rather work normal hours and receive a regular paycheck.”

But that brings us full circle to the whole acting comparison. Like many actors, I’m not doing this only for the money (even though the money is pretty good). I’m doing it because I love teaching, I love sharing and I love speaking.

The money is an added bonus.

Where Does This Leave You? The answer to the question, “How do you monetize a blog?” isn’t a simple thing. As you can see, the only way I’ve been able to monetize the 60 Second Marketer is by having multiple revenue streams from different sources. By doing so, I’m able to spread my risk across many places — when one stream goes down, another goes up.

The end result is that I get to do what I love and, thankfully, make a pretty good living at it.

Let me know if you have any other questions (or if you want to work with me). As corny as this sounds, you’re the fuel that keeps me going.”

Other Items of Interest on the 60 Second Marketer Blog:

Posted by Jamie Turner, Founder of the 60 Second Marketer and co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile.” He is also a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.

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