Inspiration. Empowerment. Results.
Communication is key in every aspects of our lives. In the business world it is crucial. In this post I’ll share with you how to choose the right telephone answering service…
Do you have a blog? Are you confused that not too many people are reading it?
I know you want to drive lots of traffic to your site and get more people to read it, right?
Well, it won’t happen by magic. If you want to make sure that people read your blog, you need to make it truly engaging. Remember, there are loads of blogs out there, and so yours has to stand out. If there is nothing unique about your site, no one will bother to look at it. It doesn’t matter if you’re blogging all the time, if nobody’s visiting your blog it is a waste of time. BIG TIME!
To help you overcome this challenge I have handpicked the top 5 reasons why many people may not be reading your blog. I hope this will help you turn things around for good!
1. Your Content Is Useless
When people go online, they want to get useful information. That means that you have to offer people something. If there is no point in your posts, no one will bother with them. That means that you will have no traffic (and no profits). You should write engaging, interesting content that people want to read. If people can learn from your blog, they will come back again and again.
2. You Don’t Understand SEO
SEO is difficult to understand. There is no doubt about that. If you want your page to be popular, though, you need to start to learn some basic techniques. If you read content on a top SEO blog from time to time, you will start to pick up the techniques you need. Before you know it, you will know how to optimize your site as you upload new content. When you start applying new techniques to your site, you will see that it gets more hits than ever.
3. Your Titles Are Boring
When you write a title, what inspires you? Your headlines should be catchy and interesting. You need people to click on your posts so that they can read your articles. That means that each title has to excite or engage your audience. There are guides online that will help you write eye-catching titles. You should spend some time learning the art of writing headlines. Once you start improving this aspect of your posts, you will get more clicks and views than you do now.
4. Your Site Is Unattractive
The design of your site is as important as the content on it. If there is nothing attractive about your site, you will find that people avoid it. When people first view a page, they make a snap judgement about it. If they think that the site is ugly, they will not bother to stay on it. Instead, they will click on another blog that they prefer. You should ensure that the design of your blog suits your demographic.
5. You Don’t Post Often Enough
If you post a new blog every week or so, you’re not going to gain a following online. When it comes to the internet, everything needs to be instant. That means that you need to make sure that you upload new content each day. It might seem a little time-consuming, but it is the only way to succeed.
If you are guilty of any of these things, you need to change your ways. The only way to make your blog a hit is to improve it. Start today and see what you can do.
If you are given the option between continuously working to drive more #traffic and optimizing your operations to convert more of that traffic into leads, which would you choose?
There’s no doubt that as a wise #entrepreneur your best choice would be more conversions, right?
Everybody wants more conversions; we all know that. While a lot of #people think this is difficult to achieve the fact is, you can improve your conversions in 7 simple steps. That’s right; you don’t have to do much at all to get more conversions.
Excited?
Then read this very carefully…!
Step 1: Improve Your #Content Quality
Take a look at your content quality and assess whether it’s good enough. The quality of your content can make a massive difference to whether people choose to stay on your site or not. The better quality your content, the more people will stay and browse. Make sure your content is relevant, original, and targeted.
Step 2: Re-think Your Color Scheme
Colors can make a massive difference to how people feel when they’re on your site. Blue is usually used by professional companies and creates a feeling of trust. Red is used for sales because it implies urgency. Do you need to re-think your color scheme? Test different colors and see what works best with your visitors.
Step 3: A/A Test
Wait – shouldn’t that say A/B test? No, that’s later. A/A testing should always come first to make sure your software is accurate. Otherwise, what’s the point? When you’re sure it’s accurate, you can begin the A/B testing stage.
Step 4: A/B Test
A/B testing can be used for different elements and pages on your site to see what converts better. You should only change one thing at a time to ensure this is a fair test. You can continue to do this to make sure you always have the best version of your site online.
Step 5: Get Rid of Complicated #Business Language
Who wants to read boring business language? It might make sense to you, but does it make sense to your readers? If not, it’s time to get rid. If you wouldn’t use phrases in a conversation with your friend, then you shouldn’t be using them at all. Business jargon isn’t user friendly and definitely won’t dazzle visitors like you think it will. Take a few tips from this CRO Company and use a conversational, friendly tone when you write.
Step 6: Pre-empt Concerns and Answer Them
One of the most important things you should do is pre-empt a visitor’s concerns before they have the chance to feel concerned about them. They could wonder things like, ‘why should I trust you?’ and ‘Why should I pay that much?’. Show them your credentials, explain why your product is superior…do what you can to answer any problems they may have.
Step 7: Avoid Errors
Having errors on your site is a huge problem. Even small errors like spelling mistakes can stop you from getting as many conversions. You need to make sure your site is free from issues so it looks as professional as possible and encourages people to convert.
There you have it. 7 simple steps that will get you more conversions starting today. So if you are ready to get more conversions from your site you will want to start implementing these tips right away and you won’t regret it!
There is no doubt that social media has revolutionized the world of small business marketing. It has created new avenues for small business entrepreneurs to promote their businesses without putting a dent in their finances.
Unfortunately, not many of these small business owners are making a success of their social media presence. While many have created social media profiles on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr and Linkedin very few know what to make of it. It is not surprising therefore that after a few years of creating these profiles many throw in the trowel in frustration.
For example, in a 2013 social media marketing research published by SocialMediaExaminer.com, only about 29% of small business owners (self employed) agreed that their Facebook marketing was effective compared to about 46% businesses with 1000 or more employees!
This is indeed a testament that many small business owners are not finding it easy with social media marketing. And that shows that social media marketing is more than creating profiles on different social media platforms. You may create these profiles because they are free but if you don’t know how to forge deeper connections with potential customers and turn them into paying customers, you will only be wasting your time.
Related Reading: Social Media Vs Email – Which Is More Useful When It Comes To Small Business Marketing?
In this article therefore, I want to present to you a few ideas for making a success of your social media marketing as a small business owner.
First, let’s answer this very important question…
There are actually various reasons why small businesses want to jump into the social media marketing bandwagon. Apart from the fact that social media marketing is the “new” marketing, the low cost of entry is also a great incentive.
Besides, if used well social media is definitely the best inexpensive tool for acquiring more loyal customers, growing more brand recognition, gaining more repeat business and so much more. This is actually the biggest reason why small business owners, instead of expensive ad buys, are shifting to social media engagements in marketing their wares.
But to make a success of this you will need the right tactics. Here are top nine tactics that will be of great help:
1. Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
Remember time is of essence when it comes to marketing online. To make the best use of your time you need a plan. Creating a plan and setting goals for your social media marketing campaign will help you direct your efforts and also help in measuring what you are doing. Approaching your social media marketing with the “spray and pray” mindset will produce only frustration.
One of the areas your plan should look at is how you are going to integrate social media marketing into your existing marketing strategies. You should be able to lay out what goals and steps you will need to take and the social media tools you need in order to meet your marketing objectives.
2. Learn To Ease In
As mentioned above social media marketing requires time and patience. Most times as a small business owner you are also the marketing department. You must therefore avoid trying to jump in with a big splash!
If you start too big there are two scenarios you might end up with. One, you might end up being overwhelmed and ultimately neglect the whole thing or two, you might end up spending too much time on social media and neglect other importance business duties.
A better route is to start small and then grow things as you learn what works best for your time constraints and business goals. To do this you may need to choose one or two social media platforms where your customers are already congregating and concentrate on these ones instead of trying to work on too many platforms at the same time.
Take some time to research some influencers in your niche and see where they are concentrating their social media efforts on. If, for example you discover that most are spending more time on Facebook than they spend on Twitter, you can take that as an indication that FB is more suitable for your niche than twitter.
Your time can be more effectively used this way rather than trying to focus on all the social media sites out there.
3. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
First appearance definitely matters a great deal. Beyond trying to use social media to boost your brand visibility, it is also important that you put “personality” in everything you do. One way of doing this is by optimizing your profiles on these sites. Profile optimization will greatly help you gain more followers and also boost your SEO efforts.
Few things you can do to optimize your social profiles include using a real photo instead of using animals or anything that is not real. Write a good description about yourself or your company with specific keywords that indicate what you do.
A profile with your real photo will help people connect with you more easily while a good optimized description will help you drive more traffic from the search engines.
Recommended: How to Effectively Optimize Your Social Media Marketing For Success!
4. Create and Share Valuable Content
People on social media are looking to be entertained and informed!
Set yourself apart as an expert in your field by creating and sharing valuable content that both engage and entertain your followers. Of course, as a small business owner you are an expert in your target niche and you have sound advice and informed opinions to share with your social media followers.
Even in areas you don’t count yourself as an expert you can always search online and then create content around those questions and problems peculiar to your potential customers. This way your value to customers will skyrocket. If you can create your content with a professional touch providing plenty of links to other sites, blogs, or news articles, you will greatly increase your value.
5. Learn To Listen
You must understand that social media is about building relationships and not marketing. That may sound contradictory but it is the truth anyway. Instead of falling into the error of spending a whole lot of time talking about how great your product is or how great your business is, hoping that that will bring more sales, you should learn to listen to what your customers are saying.
Remember people are using social media to connect and converse with one another. Use it right by being a “friend” who is ready to listen and you will be able to build strong social relationships with you customers which will work great for you in the long run.
6. Cross-Pollination Your Content
Once you have created your social media profiles ensure that these are connected to your business website. One of the advantages of doing this is that it helps you to cross-promote your content reducing the time you would have spend in updating all your profiles. Also, it helps the search engines and social media websites correctly determine which website corresponds to which social media page.
All of these will boost your engagement rate and also traffic to your business site.
7. Make the Best Use of Your Time
Timing is very important as far as social media marketing is concerned. Apart from the fact that people have very short attention span online, these is also so much noise that instead of trying to “force” yourself into that noise, plan and schedule your updates – emails, tweets, status updates and blog posts – so that you can catch your audience when they are more receptive to your messages.
Do your research to know when best to update. Once you know the best time when your target audience is more receptive you can use tools like Buffer and HootSuite to schedule your updates so that they can be published at the right time.
8. Be Personal
As mentioned above social media is about personal interactions. When interacting with your audience on social media it is important that you make them feel they are dealing with another human being and not just a business. Done well this will inspire a greater feeling of loyalty toward your business. As a small business owner you have more opportunity of doing this as you can easily inject yourself and your opinions into every conversation. Nevertheless, remember you are there for business. Knowing this will help you take control of the conversation and then steer it to suit your business objectives.
9. Issue Calls to Action
Various researches have shown that people will not just engage with your content without your asking. For example, a report from the Buddy Media says Facebook posts with questions generate 92 percent higher comment rates than posts without questions. This means putting questions on your social media post will greatly help in engaging with your customers.
Whenever you post an update include some form of call to action that will engage your audience. You may ask a question or even ask them to fill in some blank spaces! These may drive more engagement thereby increasing the chances of your content going viral and bringing you greater success.
Recommended Reading: [Quick Guide] How To Use Social Media Marketing To Acquire Loyal Customers!
Conclusion
If you will implement the above social media marketing tactics for your small business you will definitely make a success of your social media marketing strategy. It will ensure increased business exposure and also more traffic to your business site.
However, driving that huge traffic from the social media sites without a lead generation strategy in place to capture new visitors to your site will amount to a waste of time and effort.
For social media traffic to be useful for your small business, it is important that you capture visitors’ contact info and then implement a system that will help you build long-term relationships with these new contacts.
A good optin builder that will help you build great landing pages and engaging calls-to-action is what you need. There are hundreds of such tools out there but one that I recommend is not only cost-effective but also very easy to use.
You can get more details about this great tool by clicking here.
Your Turn: What social media marketing tactics are you presently using? Will care to share with us in your comments below?
Is content marketing a culture in your company right now? Do you have a specific model for your marketing content?
Now, if your business is not using content marketing, you’re light years behind your competition!
Though using content for marketing by businesses is as old as marketing itself, in the recent past, the term “content marketing” has gained traction among online marketers. It is unfortunate however; that many businesses are not getting the commensurate returns from their investments as far as content marketing is concerned.
In this article I want to draw your attention to the different content marketing models that are helping many brands today. I hope that when you know these different models will help you better plan your strategy based on what you want to achieve.
Model #1: Brand Awareness
Brand awareness has always been one of the objectives of marketing. Billboard and television ads fall into this category of marketing. With the popularity of content marketing in recent times, many brands now use their marketing content to drive brand awareness. Using different types of content, these brands are not concerned with lead generation but how much traffic they are generating and also the quality of links from other sites.
Recommended: Your Killer Content Might Be Sabotaging Your Content Marketing!
Model #2: Projecting Thought Leadership
Another model being used by many brands is using their marketing content to project thought leadership. For these brands it is not about generating traffic but generating the right type of traffic. And the way they do this is by influencing their target audience through presenting their company ideas on issues that has to do with the industry.
Unfortunately, not many brands wants to use this model because of the expertise and in-depth research involved.
Model #3: Industry News
This is yet another model being used by some brands. In this model the brand publishes industry news with the intention of getting the attention of mainstream journalists or other online publications.
For these brands it’s not just about boosting traffic nor is it about generating leads. Most times, they simply look forward to influencing other websites, blogs and journalists with their stories as these are picked up and used these people. When this happens, there is a boost in visibility for these businesses.
One classic example of a brand using this model of content marketing is Microsoft with its “Stories“ blog. Microsoft has been able to use this blog to greatly impact the industry.
Model #4: Lead Generation
This is the content marketing model that is common to many brands right now. The primary purpose of this model is to generate leads which are then passed on to sales with the mind of converting them into customers.
One typical example of a brand using this model is HubSpot – a software company that pioneered the concept of inbound marketing. Preaching the “superiority” of inbound content-based marketing over traditional outbound marketing techniques, HubSpot creates every piece of content with the mind of generating leads. To achieve this, HubSpot implements different type of call-to-action on every content published.
With the success of HubSpot in this area, many businesses are now focusing more on this model.
Recommended: Inbound Marketing Misconceptions Uveiled!
If you are familiar with the concept of inbound marketing you will agree that the above classification is not in any way fixed. Many brands are actually using a combination of two or more of these models. Depending on what your needs or objectives are therefore, you can either use one or more of these models.
The purpose of this classification as already pointed out is to help you understand these different models so that you can easily determine which to focus on based on your desired results.
Over to you: Which content marketing model are you presently using? Share your views on the different models in your comments below.
Blogging is a powerful tool that online marketers are presently using to promote their businesses online. Blogs are not only good for interacting with your site visitors but they are very good in driving traffic from the search engines.
For example, research have shown that Companies that blog regularly drive about 88% more leads each month than those who don’t while a whopping 92% of those who publish multiple times a day on their blogs have landed a new customer through their blog!
However these statistics notwithstanding, simply adding a blog to your business site does not automatically produce these results. The secret is really what you write about and how your blog posts are created! How your blog readers respond to your posts will be determined basically by how much the post is able to connect with their needs. It’s important therefore that you craft killer posts that will intrigue, inform and connect with the readers.
Unfortunately, not every entrepreneur or business person knows how to craft such blog posts. This is why this infographic by Who Is Hosting This.com is really a must read for all blogging entrepreneurs. I invite you therefore to carefully study it to learn the secrets of crafting a truly engaging and informative blog post that will help you drive traffic and generate leads from your business blog.
Over to You: What are your views on this post about crafting killer blog posts? Share with us in your comments below.
A few weeks ago I announced my decision to join the ongoing Niche Site Duel 2.0 hosted by Pat Flynn of smartpassiveincome.com. It was that decision that gave birth to the niche site series that has been on this site for a few weeks now. I must report that the response to the series have been very positive. Your comments and contributions so far have been wonderful. Thank you all!
Today, instead of my earlier announced video on how to run a keyword research using Traffic Travis, I want to use this post to talk more on my niche site strategy as regards the Niche Site Duel 2.0. I’ve decided to do this for 3 reasons:
1. Today being 1st of July is actually the beginning of the first full month in this challenge. Because I intend to give a situation report at the end of every month, this is just the right time to post this information.
2. Putting my thoughts and niche strategies here for everyone to read will serve as both a guide to help me stay focused as the challenge progresses and also as a “marking scheme” that will determine what scores I be awarding myself at every point in time!
3. I intend to post more details on the strategies I’ll be using on this blog and then once a month, I’ll post a report for that month. I hope this will give you the opportunity to follow along with me and also give you a platform to offer your positive criticism and suggestions.
4. These updates will offer me the opportunity to compare notes with others who are involved in this challenge! (My good friend Theodore of topBloggingCoach.com some days ago, published his own niche strategies and that gave me an idea that I should also lay my plans on the table so we can better assess ourselves as we go on!)
In my first post announcing my decision to be part of the Niche Site Duel 2.0 I mentioned the reasons why I decided to be part of this challenge. These include:
1. It is in line with my 2013 business resolutions of building some new niche sites within the year.
2. It will help me hone my niche site building strategies and also learn new ones
3. The challenge offered me an opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone!
How this challenge will meet up with these expectations will be seen in the days ahead as would be revealed in the reports as we go on.
Like I mentioned earlier, my niche site for this challenge is already up and running. However, for a few reasons I’ll want to keep the site address to myself, at least for now! At the appropriate time it will be revealed! 🙂 For now I want to simply say that I bought the domain name a couple of weeks ago and installed the blog a few days ago.
For the past 7 days or so I have been working on the site customizing the theme, installing the necessary plugins and also created the content for the necessary pages – About us, Privacy Policy, Contact us and a Resources page. Right now the site has about 3 blog posts!
Details of how I did these will be in a later post.
For content, I’ve decided on writing them myself, at least for now. I must repeat here that I’m not looking to build some authority niche site. I intend to build a niche site of about 20 to 30 pages of content for a start. Once the site is doing well in the SERPs, I will commit to occasionally update it on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. This is for the site to stay relevant in the SERPs in view of the recent SEO changes by Google, especially the “Freshness Update“.
I may consider outsourcing some of the content along the line depending on how the site performs in terms of ROI. Also because I intend to build more niche sites within the year trying to write all the content myself when other sites are up and running will be tasking, so once I start building other sites the content creation may be outsourced.
I’ve already said it before that building niche sites is about building money sites! You’re not here to build relationships with other bloggers or a place to rant about your personal life and how your cat or dog is doing in life!
The primary purpose of a niche site is to make money. GED!
This being so, I’ve decided to monetize the site for this challenge in the following 3 ways:
1. Clickbank.com – There are a good number of products with very good reviews on clickbank.com and from these I’ve chosen 3 products to promote on the site.
2. Amazon.com – I’ve also found some very good products from Amazon.com. The reviews are also very good from which I’ve picked 4. I’ve also built an Amazon store and integrated it on the site.
3. Google Adsense – This is going to be the only Pay Per Click (PPC) ad program on the site for now and it’s simply to complement the other products. The niche presently has a very high volume of sponsored adverts on Google.com with the CPC for some of the keywords going as high as $4.3!
I want to concentrate on these ones for now but as we go on, depending on the results, I may add other monetization tactics like selling ad spaces or getting other products from other platforms and possibly creating my own product!
Traffic is definitely one thing that you cannot toy with when it comes to building niche sites. To make a success of your niche sites, the traffic you generate must be the right type of traffic. Simply driving traffic from just any place will not give you what you want.
Recommended: Website Traffic Generation: Why You Are Getting It Wrong 99% of the Time!
The best traffic for niche sites is traffic from search engines (organic traffic). These are people who are online searching for solutions for one problem or the other. This being so, my primary traffic source will be the search engines.
In a nutshell the traffic strategy will include the following (in order of preference):
1. Search engines (SEO)
2. Guest blogging on similar sites
3. Blog commenting on similar sites
4. Niche forum profiles and updates
5. Online answer sites
6. Social media
7. Article submission directories
8. Directory submissions
9. Link exchange
It will interest you to know that during my niche research I was able to uncover some potential similar sites for blog commenting, guest blogging and link exchanges. I also have some potential niche forums to concentrate on for that purpose.
Niche Site Duel 2.0 for me is only a primer. I intend to use the gains from this challenge to build more niche sites in the nearest future. If it turns out the way I want then it might just be my top-most online business model in the coming days!
Over to You: What do you think of my niche site strategies as revealed above? On the traffic strategies what is your take? Are there some traffic strategies you would suggest I consider? Please give your comments and suggestions below.
Blogging and make money blogging is one topic that is common among bloggers. Unfortunately, despite the much purported big earnings quoted by many bloggers only a few TRULY making anything worthwhile from their blogs!
I’m very much aware that this subject of making money with your blog has been dealt with by different persons; however I still believe that there is something that many are missing out. While many of the posts that discuss this subject want to offer tips on how to make money with your blog, I truly believe that the problem goes far beyond that. Or, if you doubt this, why is that despite the many tips offering ways to make money blogging many bloggers are still struggling to do so?
Don’t you think there is something responsible?
When hundreds of years ago, well meaning men and women in different countries of the world rose up and advocated for the abolition of slavery, it is clear that they did a good service for humanity. This is because the evils of slavery go beyond the physical violence.
It has been proven that the damaging psychological effects that the institution of slavery can have on a person far outweigh the physical effects. This can result in mental shackles that only a miracle can bring the desired freedom!
Recommended: Circus Elephants, Distorted Beliefs and Entrepreneurial Success
Now, I believe strongly that the biggest reason why many bloggers are not making money from their blogs is because of their mindset. They are incapacitated in their minds, not knowing what to do and how to go about it and so, have become slaves to their blogs!
Indeed, many are online because they desire freedom – this could be financial freedom, freedom of choice, freedom to do what they want and when they want! But, think about it, when you slave it all year round on your blog without making anything from it, where is the financial freedom?
Frankly, as a blogger you need mental emancipation if you truly want to achieve your dream of making money blogging. And as Bob Marley put it, “Only you can emancipate yourself from mental slavery!”
You must recognize your blog as a vehicle for achieving your desired freedom. Spending days and nights pushing out blog posts, engaging with peers, working the social media and at the end have nothing to show for it, is not good enough!
Stop being a slave to your blog!
Recommended: Who Is Setting Your Rules?
So, how can you emancipate yourself from this mental slavery as a blogger?
I have a few suggestions for you:
1. Stop Treating Your Blog As A Hobby Instead Of A Business!
A business is a business. A hobby is a hobby. They can never be one and the same! Unless, you learn to treat your blog as a business it will continue to run without any monetary value. One thing you must understand is that every business exists to create customers. And so, if your blog is not creating customers then you are heading on the wrong direction. Take a second look at what you are doing on your blog; are you handling it with a business mentality? If not, it is time to do so!
Recommended: Frankly, Are You Building A Business or a Blog!
2. You Must Learn To Take Responsibility
One thing that is sure about a slave is the fact that he has no capacity, or better still, he is not allowed to make decisions for himself. As a blogger you must not allow this to happen to you. When others dictate the direction of your blog, you will find it difficult to achieve your dream of financial freedom with your blog. Many would want to dictate how you must monetize your blog while others would outright frown at you attempting to monetize your blog! But may I say that the onus of making that blog a money earner is on you! Either you’re ready to take up that responsibility or someone else will dictate for you. So, ask yourself again, why did you start that blog in the first place?
Recommended: Are You Responsible?
3. Push for the Right Traffic
Hmm, traffic! What a sweet sound to the ears!
Of course, traffic has been referred to as the holy grail of making money online. But as I have said before on other occasions, the quality of your blog’s traffic matters a lot when it comes to making money blogging.
My good friend Theodore did a post a few days ago where he asked the question: “Blog Comments Count: Does it Equates to Traffic?” I ask that you go and read it and also look out for my comment on that post!
The question you will want to ask here is how do you drive the right traffic to your blog?
The simply solution is to invest in SEO! I know many bloggers don’t want to hear that word but it is really a big determinant to what you can make from your blog. Apart from getting valuable traffic that are interested in what you are offering on your blog, it will also help advertisers to decide on placing their adverts on your blog. Knowing the basics of SEO is enough as a blogger except you want to offer SEO services.
4. Decide On Something To Sell On Your Blog!
Now, you may be wondering what I mean by this. But think of it, when you look at your blog can you point to any product or service that you are selling? So, what business is out there do you think that does not have a product or service that it is selling?
Of course, you may want to rationalize that you are building the traffic before you know what product or service to offer. But have you thought about it if businesses in the really world first set up their ware houses before thinking of what product or service to sell? Unfortunately, this is one blogging advice we must take with a pint of salt. Decide on your product or service and build your blog around it! This way you will be able to really have a focus as you move on with your blog.
Recommended: Hey Blogger, What Really is Your Product?
Let me end this post by giving you a classical example of the potential of a typical blog.
In 2005, an American woman started a political blog. Seven years later that blog became so popular that AOL purchased it for a whopping $315 million and added it to its other online blog assets.
That blog? The Huffington Post.
Now, why would AOL dish out such a fortune for a blog?
Three key elements are responsible:
1. Its global influence.
2. Its advertising revenue.
3. Its huge traffic – Huffington Post’s traffic today is measured at over 77 million visitors per month!
So, can you replicate this feat? Whether yes or no, you must understand that your blog influence, its advertising revenue and traffic will determine how much you can make from it.
The point here is that you should work on your blog with the mind of building a business so, whether you are thinking of selling it later on or you just want to make some money from it right now, your dream will be a reality!
Over to You: I’ll love to know what you think of these ideas on making money with your blog. Share your thoughts with us in your comments below.
Driving free organic traffic is something that many online marketers desire to master any day – who wouldn’t anyway? But unfortunately, it is only a pipe dream for many!
But this shouldn’t be because driving targeted organic traffic is not really as hard as some people think it is. Truth is, if you understand the basic requirements of search engine optimization (SEO) and you commit to applying them in your marketing content, pulling free traffic from the search engines becomes a child’s play!
In this post I want to share with you a few SEO tactics and strategies I’ve used in the past few years to grow my real estate blog.
But first, let me emphasize that the online Real Estate market is a big emerging market. Only recently, this market has grown increasingly diversified and very competitive. Despite this big competition however, a few years ago I started a real estate blog because I’ve always had a deep passion for real estate. Today that real estate blog is pulling in free organic traffic from the search engines like a magnet!
So, how did this come to be?
1. It Begins With the Understanding
Yes. For your blog to surge free organic traffic from Google, you need to understand your niche.
What kind of people are you building the blog for?
Lawyers, Accountants, Marketing Consultants, Realtors? Name it! You’ve got to find out the specific people you’re building the blog for.
There was a time when I had challenges of ranking my web pages on the first page of Google; at first, I thought I was going about it the right way, but didn’t realize I was actually messing the whole thing up.
Let me point out this truth:
It’s not enough to know the problems or challenges people face; you’ve got to understand and find out what got them into the problem at the first place. You’ve got to proffer solution to those challenges.
Pro Tip: Prospects don’t want to know the pain they’re going through, they’re after the solution. Give them the solution—that’s what blogging is all about.
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2. Write Profit Pulling Content
The only way to resurrect a dead blog or turn a dying blog into a money making machine is creating quality content.
My real estate blog is today surging a whole lot of free organic traffic from Google because, my content is well written and planned.
I had my reader’s goal in mind. Usually, before I write anything, I study my readers to know the kind of problems they’re seeking solutions for.
By doing this, you’d gather helpful information to help create better and more informative contents.
The best way to go about creating quality contents that get ranked in Google within 2 weeks is by planning a keyword strategy.
And, do you know that the best keyword tool or strategy isn’t Google’s keyword tool or any other SEO tool?
An effective keyword strategy can only be discovered when you take time to study and understand your readers.
Are you a real estate blogger, social media consultant or Word press expert?
Then make LISTENING the ultimate thing to do in your business.
Don’t listen casually; listen with your mind; feel the pain and desperation in your prospects mind…
3. Build Quality Links
I can’t stress this enough. Most of my external links are from related real estate and investing blogs.
Here’s what I mean:
The page rank of a blog doesn’t matter, what matters to Google is the relevancy.
If you’re starting out in the blogging world, you don’t have to struggle to build quality backlinks from Problogger, Huffingtonpost, or Copyblogger, you can start from niche based blogs.
Begin with small blogs of PR 2 to 4. Contact the blog editors or owners and propose to write for them.
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Don’t be scared of getting a ‘’No’’. The fact is, some are going to reject you but don’t allow that discourage you. Don’t give up or give in. If you’re rejected, take up your mantle and move on to the next blog.
Pro Tip: Do you know that if you publish ten quality guest posts in real estate or investing blogs in 7 days or less, you can easily rank on the first page of Google for your desired keyword in 90 days?
But you cannot achieve this if you use primary key phrases. You can only get results from your guest posts if you use keyword variations.
Here’s what I mean: If my main keyword is, ”real estate Dallas’‘ and I’m linking from realestate.com which is a top real estate blog; I’d use ”Dallas real estate investing” as my primary anchor text and link back to the same page or article on my blog.
Take-Away Tip: That’s how to get quality results from your guest blogging campaign.
I’ve got to end this now
I’m sure you learned a few things from this post content.
But please note, my success did not come overnight. I had to work hard, invest a lot of time and efforts into creating quality content.
I didn’t give up–you shouldn’t.
Don’t give up–don’t give in; keep working hard and Google will send you more traffic than you can handle.
Were you inspired by this post?
Kindly share your thoughts and views in your comments below. Feel free to share with us your experience on driving free organic traffic to your sites. I’d be waiting to reply your comments.
If you ask any blogger, content marketing professional or web entrepreneur what their #1 priority is, the answer you will get most of the time is, generating website TRAFFIC!
Indeed, traffic is like the magic wand that opens the door to online riches. Unfortunately, many of us are getting it wrong every way when it comes to generating traffic.
You must know this:
TRAFFIC on its own does not guarantee riches. To get the best from every piece of traffic you generate, that traffic must be the right kind of traffic.
Many a time I’ve heard a lot of online marketers talk about TARGETED traffic but I’ve also discovered that many who advocate this go on to suggest the wrong places where to get that targeted traffic.
For example, the last time you were told to drive targeted traffic to your sites and business blogs where did you go looking for that targeted traffic?
My guess is, other SIMILAR or related sites/blogs, right?
But did you take into consideration that 99% of those sites and blogs are nothing but other businesses trying to drive the type of traffic you are aiming to drive to your sites?
Did you consider the fact that these are marketers like you, who even when they visit your site or blog are only looking to drive more traffic to their sites and blogs?
Indeed, those similar or related sites and blogs are good for link building but not what you will call TARGETED traffic.
This is where you are getting it wrong 99% of the time!
Targeted traffic is simply this:
Getting visitors who already want what you’re selling to your sites or business blogs!
It’s as simple as that. If you are not driving that type of traffic, no matter the high traffic stats you are getting, it will amount to nothing!
1. What Is Your Product?
This is indeed the biggest determinant of how much success you will get from your traffic generation tactics. This could be a physical product, digital product or a service. Whatever that may be, it should be able to meet the needs of your target audience whether it is healing a pain or answering a question. This will be much easier for you if you create your product in response to an existing demand.
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2. Who Is Your Perfect Prospect?
This is where many online marketers get it wrong, greatly. As mentioned above if you’re driving mostly other internet marketers who are looking for customers for their businesses, you will end up broke! Your perfect prospect is that person who is online with her credit card in hand ready to buy what you are offering or who is online researching more information about what you are offering.
There are different tools and products out there that will help you determine your perfect prospect. But if you have created your product in response to an existing demand as in #1 above, you would have known your perfect prospect from the beginning.
3. Where Do You Find Your Perfect Prospect?
From my experience online, I have discovered that this is the biggest problem for many online business persons. This problem is biggest if you are in the internet marketing niche. I’ve also seen this among entrepreneur bloggers. In these markets, I’ve discovered that everyone is looking for the same prospect as you are. That blogger who is coming to your blog to post a comment is, most times, doing it because he/she expects you to return the “favor.” Any time you fail to return the favor that is the end of that traffic! (#1 Commandment of Blogging: Thou shall commit to post comments on my and I’ll do the same on your blog if not if not, count me out!)
Recommended For Further Reading: Hey Blogger, Please Quit!
This is also the case in the make money online niche.
This is why I am always wary of traffic generation tactics that advise you to use keyword phrases that are related to your business to build connections on social media sites like twitter, Google plus etc. Matter of fact is, most of those whom you connect with on the social media sites using those keywords are nothing but other marketers who are looking to create customers for their own businesses.
Just think about it, how many times have you connected with someone on twitter or LinkedIn only to be sent a link promoting some product or service similar to what you are marketing?
I’m sure you get my point here, right?
Now, I’m not advocating that you stop blog commenting or networking with other marketers on social media sites. You definitely can build relationships that will be of benefit to you later on from such connections. But never you regard such as your perfect prospects.
The point here is, 99% of the time, your perfect prospect is not using the same keyword phrase you have in mind! The secret in targeting your perfect prospect is in thinking like your target prospect and using the same lingo they are using!
And that brings us to…
4. What Are They Using To Look For What You Are Offering?
As mentioned in point #3, your perfect prospect is not looking for you with what you think they are using. Again this is where about 80% of the keyword research guides out there are misleading you.
Indeed, keyword tools like the free Google adwords tool are very good when you are looking for your perfect prospect. But unfortunately, most of the results you get from the Google Adword tool, for example, are what some other marketers are using to do keyword research.
These are not looking to buy but to sell!
Over 80% of marketers doing keyword research use Google every month. When you use the Google adwords tool for your research, all of these figures are returned. They may look good but in reality, they are not what you want.
This is why the Google adword tool is faulty for keyword research.
To know what your perfect prospect is using when they are searching for your offerings, it is better to use ecommerce sites like eBay, Amazon and Clickbank.com. The good thing is that there are plugins and keyword tools that will help you determine what people are using to find such sites or in searching within such sites.
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Conclusion
Whether you are paying for your traffic or using free methods to drive traffic to your business sites or blogs what you should look out for is your “visitor value.” This will help you determine where and what to spend your money and time on.
Indeed, some traffic generation techniques pay over a longer time than others. Go for such techniques rather than the ones that happen only once. This is the simple reason I am a big advocate search engine optimization.
No traffic beats organic traffic any day any time.
This is one aspect internet marketing you must commit to learn as a blogger or content marketing professional. And as a web entrepreneur if, by any means, you lack in-house resources to effectively create SEO optimized web content for your sites and business blogs, you should get the services of an experienced SEO web content writer to help you write some. This way you will be able to position your sites and blogs to drive the right kind of traffic over time.
Ditch the idea that any traffic is good traffic. That is a recipe for failure. Many businesses who took that route have failed woefully. If you have too much of the wrong kind of traffic you will end up as another statistic in the dotcom trash can. But you cannot fail because you have too much qualified traffic!
Over to you: What is your idea of targeted traffic? Can you give an insight into your experiences in driving traffic using similar sites? Share with us in your comments.
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