Triple Threat Rev Share Phenomenon

Why Every eCommerce Website Needs a Blog?

Many people are into blogging these days, and it’s pretty hard to find a fresh topic that has not been covered yet. Still, the vast majority of ecommerce website owners prefer to focus on sales and leads, and think of a blog as of something irrelevant to the business. If you’re among them it’s time to change your attitude and start blogging. Here are a few reasons why blogs are vital to ecommerce websites these days.

Great Content Marketing Tool

Does the term “content marketing” ring any bells for you? Chances are you might have already heard about it as there’s a lot of buzz around this topic. In short, it’s any marketing effort that uses content (articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, etc) for customer acquisition and retention. A famous quote by Seth Godin goes like this “content marketing is the only marketing left.” He said it back in 2008. Ecommerce has evolved greatly since then, but content still remains one of the most effective marketing tools. Just read any article on the topic of hottest digital marketing trends and you’ll definitely find content marketing among them. Blogging is by far one of the most powerful and efficient content marketing tools, especially considering the medium- and long-term perspective. Why?

Additional Entry Points

Blog posts bring additional pages to your website. The more of them you have, the more points of entry you provide to your visitors. So how many pages is enough? HubSpot’s research can provide some clues. According to it, ecommerce websites that have over 400 pages get 6 times more leads compared to their counterparts with less than 100 pages. Even if your website is small, you shouldn’t think that no one will read your posts. This assumption will just ensure that your business doesn’t grow.

Improving SEO Rankings

As a business owner you naturally want your website to have higher search engines rankings. Blogs really come in handy when it comes to improving SEO. Google’s robots monitor websites on regular basis and what they like to see is new and relevant content. Adding new pages to your store is a sign that your business is still active. Google ranks websites that are updated regularly higher than those which are not. Keywords are another thing. If you sell slim fit t-shirts and write a blog post on how to choose them you’ll naturally use your focus keyword (or a few of them, like buy slim fit t-shirt or price of slim-fit t-shirt). From a search engine’s point of view this will make your website optimized better.

More Links

Another thing that matters to search engines is the quantity and quality of links, both internal and external. When writing a blog you can easily add a link to a related product you’re selling, or to any other related page. This will also be helpful in guiding your visitors to a purchase. Back-links is another significant thing. Getting other websites to share your website’s URLs is one of the main goals for any SEO specialist. Most of them will agree on that quality and quantity of back-links can make or break your SEO rankings. Quality content gets shared and anytime someone shares your stories on Twitter or Facebook you’re likely to attract new customers.

If you still don’t believe that writing blog posts can make a difference here’s a really outstanding success story. Marcus Sheridan wrote just one article on fiberglass pools and added it to his “River Pools and Spas”. The next morning his website had the top rank in search engines for his cost-related key phrase and it brought him $1.7 million in sales. The reason why this blog post was so successful is because it answered his customers’ questions.

Building Trust

People like to see that there’s a real organization behind your website. Let’s face it, no one likes to buy from a “no-name” shop. A blog allows you to create content that will show your expertise. Building trust is especially vital when it comes to customer retention. According to various estimates, retaining existing buyers is 5-10 times cheaper than finding new ones. Moreover, returning customers in the US generated 40% of revenue, according to Adobe’s study.

Getting Noticed

If you have an outstanding story to share – don’t hesitate. Not only potential customers might enjoy it, if it’s really good you can get noticed by the media. People tend to find the information more reliable if they read it in the news.

How to Start Blogging

First of all, you don’t have to be a professional writer or a popular social media commentator to start a blog. Blogging is a thing anyone can engage in. The key is providing information that can be interesting and valuable to your visitors. So what should you write about?

-Address a Particular Problem. With fiberglass pools the problem was that companies didn’t want to disclose the prices of their products on websites because they thought that could distract customers. Marcus Sheridan’s post changed that.

-Your Brand’s History and Updates. If your company has an interesting history behind it, it can make a good post for launching your blog. Everyone loves “behind the scenes” stories.

-Your Products. Think of a blog as of an extra space for providing more information on your products. Visitors are interested in how they are made and where. If your products have special features don’t forget to share them. But don’t try to write too much promotional stuff, make it more about helping your customers rather than aiming for a hard sell.

-Your Promotions. If you have promotions, give-aways or discount campaigns – dedicate a post to tell more about them. Blogs are good for providing a full list of terms and conditions applicable to any given promo campaign.

-Other Related Information. Your blog doesn’t have to be all about your company. You can write about the latest developments in the industry or just share something interesting you’ve recently discovered.

Experiment with Content

When blogging, you don’t need to stick to the “text only” format. Adding visuals, like infographics or videos, is also a good way of telling a story. And don’t forget to include subscribe boxes so that visitors could leave their emails to receive your latest updates by mail.

Author bio: Oleg Yemchuk is a marketing manager at Maven eCommerce sharing office space with Magento business experts in NYC and software developers worldwide. Oleg is marketing expert by day and geek by night. As a geek culture fan, he spends his free time playing video games and reading comics.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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Weekly Marketing Skinny • February 27, 2016

In the marketing spotlight this week:

♨ Google AMP results are live;
♨ no more sidebar ads in Google results;
♨ Facebook Reactions go live globally;
♨ Facebook live video-streaming comes to Android;
♨ Twitter’s new (partially) algorithmic timeline;
♨ Google hasn’t abandoned Google+;
♨ Instagram now supports multiple accounts;
♨ new social media keyboard;
♨ free group video calling on Skype;
♨ Google is shutting down Picasa;
♨ ...and a LOT more.

The post Weekly Marketing Skinny • February 27, 2016 appeared first on TrafficGenerationCafe.com.

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ThrpleThr3at Rev Share

5 Rules for Using Video on Landing Pages – and Examples of How to Bend Them

Bending and stretching is great. Not just for your body (who doesn’t want a Jennifer Aniston-like yoga-toned body?!), but for your creative and effective marketing efforts. Here’s what I mean: You know that video is an incredibly engaging and converting medium. You use it on your website, campaign emails, and you probably know it’s great for landing pages too; after all, video on landing pages can increase conversion by over 80%! And of course there are guidelines and best practices, like putting the video above the fold, keeping your video short, choosing an engaging thumbnail, and of course, including a CTA in the video to drive conversion (for details and more best practices, check out this post). But sometimes, rules are meant to be, well, bent. That’s how you can get a fresh perspective, and give your audience a fresh experience.

Want to see what I mean? Let’s check out a few different examples to help inspire you.

Example 1: Use a good thumbnail…but what’s a good thumbnail?

As I’ve said before, videos have to be tempting enough to be clicked on, so a thumbnail is your first big step to engaging and converting your audience. What do you think of when you think of a thumbnail? A static image from your video with a big play button overlaid (if you go this route, don’t forget to A/B test your thumbnails to see which image works best with your audience)? A thumbnail doesn’t have to be what you would expect.

Check out this creative landing page—the ‘thumbnail’ is a looping video that immediately helps engage your audience and draws them into the story.

Example 2: Put a video above the fold…but no one said there couldn’t be more videos below the fold!

You know your most engaging content should be placed above the fold of your landing page. Typically that means your video should be front and center, tempting people to click, be engaged, and convert. It’s also true that landing pages are generally meant for simple messaging and simple design so you don’t overwhelm your audience or confuse them. But that doesn’t mean that you can have only one video on a landing page! Yes, you should have one “hero” video consisting of your most important message, but you can further the experience and deepen the understanding of your message by providing even more videos throughout the rest of the page.

Want to see what I mean? Check out this page for Saleforce’s Dreamforce conference. The hero ‘highlights’ video gives the viewer a taste of everything the conference has to offer, and once the viewer is enticed by the content and interested in the conference, they can further explore more video below that offers a deeper look into past conference sessions.

Example 3: Keep your video meaty enough to be valuable for your whole audience…but specific enough to be valuable for one viewer

Is your face like “Whaaa??” right now? Let me explain. No one likes wasting even a few minutes of their day on filler content that doesn’t teach them anything or make their day better or easier. So it’s important to make sure your video’s content is meaty enough to back up, explain, or give more detail about your landing page’s key message. You want to make sure it’s useful enough content for everyone who lands on the page.

But you know what else it could be? The video on your landing page could be directed to one viewer only. Take a look at this event landing page video to see what I mean. Is there a more engaging experience than that? Personalized Video is a stunning way to build trust, enhance your credibility, and more easily convert your viewer because they feel like you’re talking directly to them and no one else.

Example 4: Video is a powerful experience—but it doesn’t need to be a standalone experience

Okay so by now you might be totally sold that video is the way to go for every message, every audience, every content type, etc, etc. Good for you for embracing video…but that doesn’t mean it has to be the only experience your audience gets. Some might want to read a bit, some might want to watch video, and some might like to do both. Keep that in mind when you’re creating your landing pages. This way you can offer an experience that appeals to all sorts of audiences. For example, if your video consists of vital information, put that information in text format nearby on the page as well. Or, if your video is simply meant to be a creative and fun way to introduce your content, you should still make sure the concept or theme of the video is carried consistently throughout the text on the page.

Want to see what I mean? Well with this landing page, if the text didn’t include a tie-in to the creative concept, then the background video would feel very random and out of place—page visitors might wonder why someone is crying in the looping video.

Now, in this example, the text is tied right into the video, so you can listen to it, enjoy the motion, feel swept away in the story, and also read along!

Example 5: Size your video so it gets noticed…but that doesn’t mean it has to scream and demand attention

If you’re going to use video on a landing page, you probably want it it stand out and get noticed. But that doesn’t mean every video on the page should fill up the whole screen, and drown out all other content. Size each video appropriately for the value it offers the audience.

Want to know what I mean? Look at this landing page for Space Camp, the video marketing summit. The page offers visitors a taste of what the summit is all about. The first video on the page is the hero video, pumping up last year’s attendees and future attendees with highlights (including ‘meaty’ comments and reviews) of last year’s incredible event. And for those who want to know more about the event (perhaps they didn’t make it to last year’s summit), they can scroll down the page, check out the “About” section, and then, if they want to experience even more, they can view the smaller, subtler video in the About section.

Feeling bendy now? Hopefully those examples will inspire you to use video on your own landing pages in creative and new twists on tried-and-true standards. Your audiences already love video, and they’ll love the fresh experience you can offer! (Still wanting to bend something? There’s probably a yoga class about to start nearby…)

The post 5 Rules for Using Video on Landing Pages – and Examples of How to Bend Them appeared first on Vidyard.

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No App for Your Website Yet? Check MobiLoud

As you probably know, mobile is the largest tech revolution we have seen in the previous decade (if not longer!). Since its inception in 2007 with the first iPhone, the smartphone started to dominate the world.

Heck, there was a research a while ago confirming that most people would rather give up sex than their smartphones!

What does this trend mean for a blog or news site? First of all that you absolutely need to have a responsive website that will display a friendly layout on any mobile device.

Second, you should also have a mobile app on the two important app stores: Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

In order to develop an app from scratch you need to have some technical know-how. Paying for a company to develop a custom app for your site is al alternative, but mobile development costs are very high these days, because demand is exploding.

Is there an alternative?

Yes. A company called MobiLoud launched a cool WordPress plugin that will allow any blog or news site to build a mobile app with a few simple steps.

Installing it is pretty easy:
1. Install and activate the plugin
2. Move to the “MobiLoud” section in the menu
3. Start designing your app

On the control panel of the plugin you will be able to specify all the details about your future mobile app. This includes the categories that should be included, the copyright notice, where the comments should come from and so on.

Here are the main features:
-Automatic content updates
-Full customization of your mobile app’s style
-An app that works on all major mobile devices
-Effortless push notifications
-Mobile advertising and monetisation
-One-tap commenting
-Easy social sharing
-Full Support for Google Analytics

There are some advanced features included as well. For instance, you’ll be able to notify your users when new content is published, and you can also integrate with advertising platforms such as Google’s DoubleClick or AdMob.

If you don’t have a mobile app for your site yet, check it out!

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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Podcast: Getting Personal with Video in an Impersonal World

The B2B Nation Podcast is made up of expert opinions and advice on the most important topics in B2B sales and marketing today. Recently, Jeff Gadway, the Director of Product Marketing at Vidyard, was a guest on our podcast.

In this episode, we discuss where the need for personalized video content arises, why it is important for marketers, whether marketers are underutilizing video for lead generation, MarketingSherpa Summit, and more!

Below are my key takeaways from the conversation.

Personalized video allows you to engage your audience on a one-to-one level, but at mass scale.

If you think about it, the sound of a person’s name is the sweetest word in the human language. It was Dale Carnegie who said that a long time ago. We all want to be treated as individuals. We want to be identified, respected, acknowledged as individuals, and personalized video allows you to talk to somebody on a one-to-one level, but at a scale of 10s or 1000s in one mass email campaign. It allows you to go very broad but also get really targeted and treat people as people. As Jeff explained, “We recognize people as individuals, and we’re seeing some amazing results that indicate that this is in fact working, and that it’s making a huge impact on the effectiveness of email campaigns.”

There are a number of different places that personalized video can be used.

Outbound email campaigns are definitely a great place to start. Including a video thumbnail in an email campaign increases click-through rates by 2x. When you add a personalized element, including the recipient’s name or company name or job title in that personalized thumbnail image in the email itself, the click-through rates skyrocket through the roof. That’s one of the simplest ways to implement a personalized video. You can also use it for inbound campaigns as well.

Get the Guide

7 Ways to Create Hyper-Personalized Marketing Experiences with Video

Get the Guide

You can put a personalized video on a campaign landing page, so when a person arrives on that landing page, they might fill in some information and then be sent a personalized video as a follow-up. Jeff shared, “We’ve seen customers that are using personalized video to do product demos for recruiting purposes. We’ve even got a couple of customers that are in the education space that are using it to recruit high-potential students that they’re looking to bring to their university.”

The results that Vidyard’s customers are seeing are really phenomenal.

“We recently worked with a number of customers on some holiday campaigns back in December, and we got them to share some of their results with us. Tradeshift is one of the customers we’ve been working with. What they shared is that their click-through rates are typically around 1% on their email campaigns, which is pretty average for marketers today. When they ran this personalized video campaign, they saw their click-through rates sky rocket to over 10.75% which is a pretty phenomenal increase in click-through. We saw Cetera Financial see similar types of increases, 600% increases in their click-through rates.”

Act-On saw 30% more people watching personalized videos right until the end.

“Typically speaking, just under 50% of viewers of Act-On’s videos would watch all the way to the end, and with personalized video, that number increased to approximately 80%. What we’re seeing typically is increases in click-through rates, increases in click-to-open rates, longer time spent on page, longer engagement with the videos themselves, and more downloads … in addition to fewer unsubscribes than people are typically used to.”

What marketers are saying about video and what marketers are actually doing about video, are two very different things.

About 75% of marketers would say that video is the most important content medium that they have. However, only about 15% of them are actually capturing actionable data about their viewers that they can use to score leads, segment customers, build more effective nurture programs and do things that would allow them to demonstrate the value of their video strategy and show the ROI on their video.

“Marketers definitely are under-utilizing video; not that they don’t understand that video is a powerful medium. They get that it allows them to capture the minds and hearts of their audience, but they don’t have the tools to be able to actually translate those views into actionable insights that allow them to move their business forward, generate revenue, and show results.”

—

This podcast was created and published by TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company looking to help buyers find marketing automation software, CRM systems, and more.

 

The post Podcast: Getting Personal with Video in an Impersonal World appeared first on Vidyard.

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The Blogger’s 101 Guide to Sponsored Reviews

Are you a blogger? Are you passionate about your blog and the kind of products you write about? Do you have a huge fan following? Are you equally frustrated about not making enough money from your writing? Most bloggers will identify with that one moment in life where they are forced to think to themselves, or lament to their best friends, “Ah, if only I were making money for this!” If you do identify with this crowd, then sponsored reviews are the answer to your every monetization question ever.

The Basics: Where do you Begin?

Many people believe that getting sponsorships are a matter of luck, but that is hardly ever the case. Behind every well sponsored blog, there lies a thorough framework and a great foundation. The building blocks for receiving successful sponsorship are the same as those of a successful website or blog: design, content and promotion. Without the help of a proper follower base, you offer very little incentive to sponsors. On the other hand, without a graphically beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and responsive blog, you are hardly likely to attract readers. Moreover, high quality content is an important factor in the kind of sponsorship deals you can secure and the followers you attract.

Let’s Get on to the Good Stuff

Now here’s the part where things get interesting: you’ve established a good website, you have readers, and you are consistently putting out good content. Next step is to create an advertisement page or media kit which is a short synopsis of your blog and everything it represents. View it as a kind of sales pitch for a potential customer or a CV for your potential employer. Reach out to advertisers and portray the many options for advertising on your blog, including an offer for a sponsored guest review. May be throw in a summary of how blog outreach programs are helping out companies? Anyhow, this is just one of the ways of getting to it.

Be your own person in writing reviews

Often, companies will approach you to do sponsored reviews even without your having to do a thing. Sometimes, they’ll even ask you to do a “positive” review on something that is potentially terrible. Our one advice for this would be: don’t! In the long term, one upsell is not a victory because it ends up hurting your loyal readers who might possibly try something bad just because you asked them to. Reward their loyalty by writing of your own opinion, let them know the pros and cons, and become a voice they can trust.

Select one of the many services online

We saved the best for the last: to get sponsored reviews, there are several options available online which can connect you to a suitable company. Social Spark, ReviewMe, GetReviewed for instance, offer great services by which advertisers and bloggers can connect on the online platform to work together. Bloggers generally make anywhere between $1 and $2000 on sponsored reviews from these sources, even though factors such as ratings and monthly limits do come into play here sometimes.

Mariia Lvovych is a an experienced guest blogging and blogger outreach expert, entrepreneur, owner at GetReviewed.org blog advertising network.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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The Non-Artist’s Guide To Storyboarding Marketing Videos

We’ve all been there before.

You’ve got a great idea.  This lead gen video is going to be the next Dropbox success story.

You talk to your video team.  You write the script.  Everyone is excited.  You shoot the video.  World-domination, an IPO and/or a promotion are mere frames away.  You launch the video.  That upload click has never felt so good.

…

Then the crickets start.  And when you watch the video you realize… “this is nothing like what I had in mind!!”

What gives?

Shoulda made a storyboard.

Some people think a storyboard has got to be a Pixar-level work of art in and of itself.  Or that you’ve got to be able to draw or be creative to make a good storyboard.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Here’s a simple process we use to make storyboards so there’s less of a chance of botching production.

It’s Got To Start As An Outline

Storyboards (unfortunately) aren’t magic.  If you don’t know what you’re going to say, there’s no saving it.

There are a few common outlines you can use to get started.  Here are two every video marketer should have in their tool belt:

1. Hero’s Journey

Here’s a link to a free Google Doc template that spells this out.

Stories from Star Wars to Dropbox’s legendary explainer have harnessed this framework to make high-growth videos.

It goes like this:

1. Meet the Hero, Bob.
2. Bob has got a problem.
3. He tried this, that, and the other thing and they didn’t work.
4. Then he found the solution which works like this __________.
5. Bob got this sweet, positively emotional pay-off + call to action.

2. Problem, Agitate, Solve

Check out this link for the Google Doc template

Cheesy infomercials have made BILLIONS with this framework.

The idea is when there’s a pressing problem you don’t want to let up on the pain, but keep pressing forward so it’s clear how much they need your solution.

Here’s a breakdown:

1. Do you have this problem?
2. Here are the things making your problem worse.
3. This solution focuses explicitly on your big problem.
4. Customer testimonials or proof.
5. Benefit recap and call to action.

Choose Your Software

My software of choice is Google Presentation.  One because it’s free, but two because it’s familiar and has almost zero roadblocks to getting started.

If you’ve got some paper, a cell phone camera/scanner and a Google account you’re ready to go.

Here’s a helpful, free slide template you can use. Or if you like to do the pencil-to-paper method, here are a few printable word docs.

If you’re looking to get a bit more fancy you can take a look at StoryboardThat.

Highlight Your Critical Frames

Inside a two minute video you may not have a ton of scenes, but there will always be a few critical frames.

Every marketing storyboard should have frames for:

1. Opener
2. Problem Statement
3. How the Solution works ← Often the most critical to storyboard.
4. Call to action ← This is a close second in terms of storyboard need.

Frame 1 – The Opener

The main goal in the first frame is to create a sense of mystery.  If you’re working on a lead gen video, this is doubly important since a visitor is normally trading their contact info to scratch the itch of their curiosity.

Frame 2 – Problem Statement

This is the frame that should get your viewer’s head nodding (or qualify out the ones who shouldn’t be watching anyway).  If you have any dark or depressing frames, this is where they’ll go.

Frame 3 – How Your Solution Works

My favorite frame of all.  This is where your marketing chops come into play.  You can shave major time off an explanation with a well-thought-out solution frame.  Binge watch the explanation section of some late night infomercials to see this one done exceptionally well.

Frame 4 – Call To Action

Without this you might as well go home.  This is a nitty gritty frame, with the most important factor being clarity.  Is your URL easy to read?  Did viewers see where to click?  Does your info stay on screen long enough?

One important note: some frames are important to script well but don’t really need their own storyboard.  For example, benefit statements are critical to a script, but as long as your wording is right, your imagery may not be as essential.

Doodle Your Frames

Nearly every video I make starts as a doodle.  Ironically, I can’t draw but it doesn’t take complicated images to get the idea across.  My go-to images?  Stick figures for people, and labeled rectangles for objects.

Some of the keys you’re going for are:

• Positioning.  Show the artist or videographer how the scene needs to be setup.
• Timing.  Get across how the audio is going to be timed against the visual.
• Transitions.  How much info is too much in your scenes?  When should you cut?  Pay attention to how your scenes are flowing into each other or if it feels like they’re not changing for a long period of time.

Do A Dry Run

The main value of storyboards is being able to run through your script and feel how your video is going to go BEFORE you’ve spent the time and money on production.

So fire up your script, pull out your key frames and do a dry run.  This is the step where the heaviest tweaking and revisions will come in and by doing it at the storyboard stage you’ll be saving yourself time and money.

John Lasseter, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer puts it well.

“I will never let something go into production unless it is working fantastic in that version with the still drawings. Because no matter all the great animation you can do will never save a bad story. We will work and rework and rework and rework these reels — sometimes thirty times before we let it go into production.”

Go Forth And Storyboard!

While it seems like a little more work upfront, dropping in a storyboard step can save major time in production.  

If you have any tips of your own, please share them below!

The post The Non-Artist’s Guide To Storyboarding Marketing Videos appeared first on Vidyard.

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11 Reasons Students Should Run Blogs

The digital era has changed the way we live. It’s more common to express your thoughts and ideas online than have a face-to-face communication. It has become the main reason people start blogging more often. Sharing their thoughts online, they can learn something new from others, get an insight, and even name out. No matter who you are, you can run a blog. And what is more, there are some benefits why it’s so crucial. Today we’re going to explain why students should run blogs.

Here is a list of 11 reasons to run a blog:

1. Do What You Like

Around 51.7% of Americans are unsatisfied with their jobs. The survey shows that people feel no happiness while doing their work, and this is a sad fact. You might hear a saying “Do what you love. Love what you do”. In fact, this is a key to success, and running a blog you have no limits – it is you who decide what theme to disclose. Thus, having a blog is a way to start doing what you enjoy.

2. Show Your Expertise

If you’ve decided to start blogging in some particular niche, it’s more likely you are fond of it. It also means you might spend much time developing as an expert, so you have the experience to share with your audience and other people. Don’t be afraid of showing your expertise as it is a useful skill that might help you get a job of your dreams in the future.

3. Develop Communication Skills

Running a blog, you need to keep in touch with readers, bloggers, and even clients sometimes. While the number of ‘trolls’ is high on the web, it’s important to learn how to reply to their tricky comments, as most of them are eager to give some negative feedback.

4. Hone Your Writing

If you don’t like writing, running a blog you have to write a lot. Obviously, crafting a blog post is not the same as writing an academic essay, but it is still honing your writing skills. Even if you don’t know when to use the adverbs or where to put a comma, a practice can help you a lot. The more you practice, the better you write. Writing is not so hard and boring. It’s a way to express your thoughts and share ideas, so enjoy this process and hone your skills.

5. Do Research

No matter what your blog is about, you might surf the Internet to find other blogs in your niche, analyze them, get some insights, and learn from them. Being a blogger who wants to develop means doing research. It develops skills that are extremely useful for the educational process.

6. Build Authority Online

Running a blog means showing your expertise in some particular niche, and most bloggers want to become a thought leader as it’s a key to success nowadays. If you’re reliable and credible, it’s more likely you can build authority online. Even if you don’t need to become a guru in some niche, you can make the most out of your authority.

7. Establish Business Contacts

Although some people believe that blog comments are dying, there are people who share their expertise and thoughts in comments. No matter where you cause a buzz, whether at your blog or not, it’s important to listen to other people who succeed in your niche and learn from them. If you’re polite and open, there is a chance to establish business contacts. You never know when they are needed, so it’s better to win friends but not lose.

8. Start a Career

Nowadays blogging is popular, and the number of bloggers is growing rapidly. It’s easy to find good blogs in any niche, and many brands use blogging as a marketing tool, advertising their services or products. If you know how to grab your audience attention and keep them interested, it’s more likely you drive traffic and, therefore, you can get collaboration requests from different people, companies, and brands. All in all, blogging is a way to earn money and start your career.

9. Keep Developing Yourself

Life is the process of development, as we meet new things and tasks daily. It’s important to grow as it’s a way not to stop reaching your potential and enjoy the life itself. If you’re a blogger, it’s more likely you’re interested in somethings and you do everything to learn new things. All in all, maintaining a blog, you keep developing yourself and can become a happier person.

10. Create a Career Portfolio

Recent graduates face a problem that employers want to hire experienced people. While it’s hard to study and work, there is a way to earn experience and create a career portfolio. It’s all about blogging. As it is an online business, you do it whenever you want and improve some core skills (communication, research, writing, etc.). Next time you want to impress your future boss, mention you blog as a hobby that helps you grow.

11. Have Fun

Having your blog, you can share what you like. And you can make it fun! For example, today is getting popular to vlog (video blogging), and the process of making videos is interesting and funny. Plus, a good blog has photos, images, and other media content. And it’s you who can make it! Use tools or take a camera, invite your friends and craft what you like.

Not only marketers but students as well start running blogs today. There are many reasons to become a blogger, and everyone can make the most out of it. As a student, blogging is a great way to combine work, development, and fun. Give it a try, and you can obtain knowledge.

About the Author: Andrew Howe is fond of writing and learning languages. He runs Adverbless.com tool as he believes it helps people hone their writing skills. To get in touch with Andrew, write him at andrewhowe306@gmail.com

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251 How to Increase Your Traffic by Deleting Your Content – Todd Tresidder

Learning with Leslie: | Download MP3 | iTunes | Stitcher | Soundcloud | Raw RSS | More |

Increase Traffic by Deleting Content with Todd Tresidder

Who: Todd Tresidder
Blog:Financial Mentor

In September of 2015, I attended the Financial Bloggers Conference where I sat in on a session entitled “How I Tripled my Traffic by Deleting ⅓ of my Content”.

The title was intriguing to me, and it was being presented by Todd Tresidder, someone I was getting to know from meeting up at multiple conferences.

I sat in on the session and was BLOWN AWAY. I decided that day that I had to get Todd on my podcast to share his strategy with you.

Who is Todd Tresidder

Todd used to be a hedge fund manager, but he retired at the age of 35. He has been playing the “money game” for a while and has been helping ordinary people learn about building wealth.

After hearing a talk by Cory Rudl about using the internet, he was so excited about the possibility that he decided to start Financial Mentor (in 2007).

At the time, it was essentially a brochure site for his practice. Eventually, he started focusing on content marketing.

He eventually switched to WordPress and this was a game changer for him. However, he wasn’t fully thinking about the structure of the site. There was a lot wrong with his site.

He then gave himself an ultimatum. He either had to throw the site away or clean it up and get it right. He wanted to get it right, so he decided to do a full content audit.

How to Perform a Content Audit

A content audit is a process where you go through all of your content and do a full examination of what’s working and what isn’t. The goal is to make your content MUCH better.

This is what Todd did and here are the steps he took.

Create a spreadsheet with every post on your blog

Blog Spreadsheet

The first thing you want to do is get a database dump of every post that’s on your blog. Take this information and put it into a spreadsheet. Include the following details in that spreadsheet (as a minimum):

• The name of your post
• URL of the post
• The category the post is in

This will serve as a foundation for everything else you do in the content audit, so be as detailed as possible.

Figure out your brand

In order to perform a good content audit, you need to start with a very important question: What is your brand?

Your answer to this question will give you exactly what you need to analyse the content in your spreadsheet. EVERYTHING on your blog has to be in alignment with your brand.

Analyse Relevant Statistics

Blog Statistics

To get a sense of how well your content is performing, analyse the relevant stats for your posts such as:

• Social media shares
• Traffic and popularity
• Links back to your posts

When Todd did this, he saw that the posts that really got traction with his audience were the posts that were in complete alignment with his brand.

Place each post in one of four categories

Because you want all of your content to be in alignment with your brand, Todd suggests arranging all of your posts in one of four categories:

• Keep: These are the high-quality posts that are in complete alignment with your brand. They will remain the same or be just slightly modified.
• Improve: These are potentially high-quality posts that match your brand. However, they need to be updated or expanded in order to be in full alignment with your brand.
• 

  Four Post Categories

  Consolidate: These are series of posts that can be combined to make one killer post. Maybe each of the individual posts contains one section of the overall topic. These are excellent candidates for consolidation. Analyse all of the posts that fit in a series and determine which of them is the best. That post should be rewritten and should serve as the post that covers the topic fully. All of the other posts in the series should be redirected to the new “epic post.” This should be done via a 301 redirect. This can be done via the Yoast SEO premium or Simple 301 redirect plugins.

• Remove: These are posts that are out of date, irrelevant, or simply low quality. In other words, they don’t match your brand and can be completely removed. When you remove them, make sure to redirect their URLs to another post that makes sense.

Why a 301 Redirect

If a post is indexed in Google or is linked to from another post or site, you should never simply remove that post.

If you do, your visitors will reach a 404 error page and that’s a poor user experience. In addition to the user experience aspect, Google penalizes sites for having too many 404 errors.

Doing a 301 redirect essentially tells Google (and any other site that links to your content) that the content has been moved and the traffic is passed on to the new location. There is no penalty for that.

How to Increase Your Traffic by Deleting Your Content – Todd Tresidder from Leslie Samuel

How to Improve Old Posts

Once you’ve gone through the content audit process, it’s time to make your content better.

There are a number of things you can do to improve the quality of the user experience for your visitors.

Here are some of those things:

Add relevant images with proper tagging for SEO

Update and Optimize Blog Images

The internet is becoming more and more visual. Visual posts get shared on social media more than posts that are only text.

As a result, Google rewards posts with those visual elements. Also, images enhance the user experience significantly. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Clean out all old images

If you have posts with old images that aren’t optimized, swap those out with newer images. In other words, make your posts look better.

Add headings throughout your posts

Add headings throughout your posts

Take a look at this post that you’re currently reading. Do you notice the headings? Do you notice how it makes this post easier to scan and understand what the different sections are about?

That’s because those headings make the content easier to consume. If you haven’t been using headings in your content, start now.

Clean up your internal linking

Are you linking to old, irrelevant posts? Are there relevant posts that you should be linking to within your posts?

Clean up your internal linking

Go ahead and clean that all up.

Have proper social media conventions

Make sure to specify titles and descriptions for all of your posts for when they are shared on social media. You can do this using the Yoast SEO plugin.

Also, you can specify which images are shared on social media for each post. The best plugin I’ve found for doing this is the Social Warefare plugin.

How About You

Have you ever performed a content audit on your site? Is this something you think you should be doing?

Go ahead and share in the comment area below.

Infographic

Increase Your Traffic by Deleting Your Content

Resources Mentioned

• Financial Mentor – Todd’s blog
• Plugins for redirecting posts to a different page:
  • 301 redirect
  • Yoast SEO premium
  • Simple 301 redirect plugins.
• 404 error page – an article about error pages
• Plugins for optimizing social sharing conventions:
  • Yoast SEO plugin 
  • Social Warefare plugin

The post 251 How to Increase Your Traffic by Deleting Your Content – Todd Tresidder appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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Businesses See 500% Lift in Email Conversion with Personalized Video

How to set up a Proper Backup Strategy for your Small Business

Today’s businesses are so reliant on data that most of them will cease to function without a steady flow of it. The case is especially true for small to medium enterprises, where most of the decision making is left to one or two individuals. Just like retail users, small business owners fail to realize the importance of a solid data backup & recovery system. The truth is that they’re playing a very dangerous game by thinking that new technologies will continue to make their lives more efficient, all on their own. It’s important to remember that in today’s world of data-dependency, a bad backup plan, or complete lack of, can mean the end of a business if that data is lost or stolen.

The real problem is that most small businesses either can’t afford to invest in a good backup strategy, or are simply ignorant of the fact that it could happen to them and end their livelihood. Not to say that small business owners aren’t tech savvy, but the concept of backup and storage strategy has recently caught up with their otherwise modern work ethics. Another problem is that most businesses run by millennials prefer to stick to the early 2000s concept of batch backups, failing to realize the need to have a constantly updated repository of their sensitive business data.

Do Small Businesses Really Need Backups?

The need to have securely backup data has never been more critical to businesses, especially for smaller more vulnerable businesses. While users can always store data for free on a cloud, some argue that you’re better off manually backup your data in an external hard drive. But backup isn’t just hardware, and a business’s backup strategy will depend on the organization’s unique storage needs.

A disaster recovery plan can act as a guiding light in times of IT disasters, and should be your first priority. Here are few of the weaknesses one would find when thinking about what can go wrong:

Locally hosted data might be secure, but if the building burns to the ground?
Backup tapes are permanently on-site.
Computer access in smaller organizations isn’t usually regulated by an administrator, enabling employees to misuse or siphon data.

Backup 101

For business data, always ensure to:

-Make two full copies of the data, maintained on separate physical devices, whether it’s on a hard drive, USB stick, Blu-ray, or even a good old fashioned rewritable disk.
-Keep a third optional virtual copy, stored in a cloud or on a server, preferably in a different location as your office servers.

Having multiple copies of your data can greatly reduce the chances of total data loss, as well as offer a degree of business continuity. Optionally, you can keep this data updated by synchronizing all the devices that the data is stored on.

Best Data Storage Solutions

Rather than create a detailed backup & recovery strategy that would require you to invest in paid data services, a good choice would be to use convenient storage options that are practically suitable for small businesses. Here’s a look at some of the best backup storage options.

1. Direct Attached Storage (DAS)

Direct Attached Storage devices are those that are physically connected to a computer or server, typically via USB 2.0 and above, ports. This ensures that the data is nearby and within reach, with the occasional issue of having to perform batch backups. This won’t be a major issue if your data doesn’t have to be real-time, and if you have the time and patience to perform manual backups.

2. Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Network Attached Storage devices are those that are directly connected to a network. A NAS system will offer support functions that one would expect from a file server, with the added feature of accepting multiple storage drives. NAS devices usually come equipped with redundancies, like RAID capabilities; because NAS supports a range of protocols to allow users to directly access a PC. Some NAS models offer the capability to synchronize specific data with a suitable remote NAS system.

3. Disaster Protected Storage (DAS)

Disaster Protected Storage systems are specialized storage devices that can withstand disasters that typically erase or corrupt unprotected data. DAS systems can exist as DAS or NAS. Most of these devices are made out of durable military grade materials, and offer a range of protection features such as water-proofing, fire-proofing, etc.

4. Online Storage

The internet is a great place, even more so now that we can store data online. And while most people only think of the cloud when it comes to online storage, there are two distinct form of online storage; paid services like Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), and online storage systems, like the cloud. There are a number of such services that have been created specifically for small businesses, like MozyPro. The only downside of online storage is that online data recovery can take a long time, especially in a case of full-recovery, since the data is being recovered from a remote location.

If you prefer not to leave you sensitive data under the protection of 3rd party cloud vendors, you could even opt to build your own private cloud service. And although it might not have been practical for small businesses to invest in their own cloud, new innovations now allow them to get private cloud storage on a budget.

Mauricio is the CEO of Cloudwards.net, a data and user feedback driven comparison engine for cloud apps and services. He enjoys writing and producing educational videos around the cloud to help people find the best cloud service for their needs.

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Businesses See 500% Lift in Email Conversion with Personalized Video from Vidyard

Personalization helps Act-On, Cetera Financial Group, Lenovo and Tradeshift get – and keep – audience attention in crowded email inboxes 

KITCHENER, Ontario – February 22, 2016 – Getting your audience to pay attention to marketing emails is difficult in this era of crowded inboxes, but businesses including Act-On, Cetera Financial Group, Lenovo and Tradeshift are standing out from the crowd by using personalized video from Vidyard, the video platform that helps businesses turn viewers into customers.

By using personalized videos within email and content marketing campaigns:

• Act-On increased video engagement by 182 percent and time-on-page by 62 percent
• Cetera Financial Group saw a 600-percent increase in email click-through rates
• Lenovo boosted click-through rates by 4.5 times and open rates by 400 percent while re-engaging cold, unresponsive leads within their funnel
• Tradeshift increased page views by 231 percent

In a recent holiday email campaign, PC maker Lenovo more than quadrupled click-through rates compared to previous campaigns. Even more impressive: in a campaign to contact inactive recipients – people who hadn’t responded to the company in more than six months – 5 times as many people opened the personalized video emails compared to those that weren’t personalized.

“We expected personalized video to improve the results, but we were amazed by how effective it was,” said Michael Ballard, senior manager for digital marketing at Lenovo. “Personalization makes a huge difference for getting noticed in a crowded market.”

Business users sent and received on average 121 emails a day in 2014, and that is expected to grow to 140 emails a day by 2018. As much as marketers rely on email to reach their audiences, email campaigns don’t have a high success rate. Just 18 percent of marketing emails get opened, and recipients only click through 2 percent of them.

Personalized videos are customized to each individual recipient by seamlessly weaving unique information about them or their company right into the video. That could be something as simple as featuring their name, company name or job title at different points throughout a video or an image like a company logo or a picture of their website. In addition to personalizing the video itself, each recipient receives a personalized thumbnail image to drive greater engagement.

“Today’s marketers and sales teams face stiff competition for their audiences’ limited attention span,” said Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard. “Video by itself helps their messages get noticed. Personalized video compels action. It gets people to watch, keeps them watching longer and creates a memorable experience that builds brand affinity.”

For marketing automation provider Act-On, personalizing its videos resulted in more recipients actually viewing the content. Nearly twice as many people watched Act-On’s entire personalized video than typically watched other videos of similar length. Those viewers also spent 62 percent more time than average on Act-On’s campaign landing page.

“Our customer success team is in love with it,” said Linda West, director of digital marketing for Act-On. “Personalization helped lead to more conversions on our email campaign, but it also kept them engaged longer with the message we were trying to deliver, which is what really matters.”

Tradeshift, the leading global supplier collaboration platform, saw its click-through rate increase by a factor of 10 for its personalized 2015 holiday campaign, as compared to a similar campaign in the previous year that did not feature personalization. In turn, it led to a 231-percent jump in page views and an 88-percent increase in e-book downloads over the previous campaign.

“The results we have seen with Vidyard’s personalization capabilities have been remarkable,” said Denica Stoyanova, head of digital marketing and marketing operations at Tradeshift. “We understood it would have a positive impact on our engagement metrics, but the actual outcome was astonishing.”

Cetera Financial Group uses video content to capture the interest of new prospects and increase engagement in their lead nurturing programs. The rich video analytics provide new insights into customer behavior and their interest in Cetera’s services. During a recent email campaign featuring personalized videos, Cetera saw a 600-percent increase in email click-through rates.

“Besides the phenomenal metrics associated with personalized video, the technology is a real ‘surprise and delight’ for our customers that shows a level of sophistication associated with our brand,” said Eric Hansen, director of demand generation at Cetera Financial Group. “When you receive an email from a customer thanking you for making a video just for them, you know you’ve made a lasting impression.”

As with other Vidyard video offerings, Personalized Video integrates with leading marketing automation and CRM solutions including Salesforce, Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud and Act-On. Marketing and sales teams can easily track second-by-second video engagement data for each prospect and customer to improve lead scoring, segmentation and customer insights. Sales teams can generate personalized videos for targeted prospects and customers with the click of a button from right within Salesforce.

To learn more about Vidyard’s Personalized Video, visit here: http://ift.tt/1TzZoP3

 

About Vidyard

Vidyard (Twitter: @Vidyard) is the industry’s leading video marketing platform that helps marketers drive results and ROI with online video content. With Vidyard, customers can add video to their websites in minutes, get real-time analytics, syndicate video to social networks and YouTube, create calls to action, optimize search engine hits, capture leads, and brand their player skins all from one place. Vidyard integrates with key marketing automation and CRM tools to deliver user-level video engagement data, turning views into sales.

 

Media Contact:

Brad Hem
Phone: (281) 543-0669
press@vidyard.com

 

The post Businesses See 500% Lift in Email Conversion with Personalized Video from Vidyard appeared first on Vidyard.

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The Everyman Guide to Blogger Outreach And Its Impacts

In the world of ever changing trends and increasingly different viewpoints, the role of a social influencer is an important factor, especially for businesses and brands trying to keep up with the customers’ changing needs. Not surprisingly, out of every five fashionable businesses, at least two employ blogger outreach programs as part of their marketing strategy.

Let’s Begin with Blogger Outreach Programs

Google Analytics is an amazing algorithm which helps websites gain significant rankings, but the caveat is that it tends to demerit too promotional content and tends to push it down significantly. This might include SEO pages written with a view towards promoting a particular object or brand. On the other hand, when companies creatively use link building features and tie up with bloggers instead, they are guaranteed a 100% personalized content which – without sounding at all like its promoting them – can often give a very favorable result.

Why You Need to Get on Board

With the help of a blogger outreach program, you can do three main things: use bloggers influence, leverage their own content to reach out to real customer bases, and get non-promotional, quality SEO plugins. Take Sally from Sallysbakingaddiction, whose recipe for Pizza dough comes with a glowing recommendation for Red Star Yeast (and at the very end, a disclaimer that this review was sponsored by Red Star, even though she personally had been using it for a long time). Sally has an enormous fan following among the target group of bakers, and her endorsement can make thousands of women and women switch their brand of yeast to match their favorite recipe-blogger’s personal favorite.

How Best to Use Blogger Outreach Programs

Initially, it can be difficult to jump into the foray of blogger outreach programs but with the right strategies, it shouldn’t be unachievable at all. Here’s a simple list of resources and things to consider:

1. The First Step: Before approaching bloggers, you should ensure that you know about them and their work. You may love somebody’s writing style and number of followers, but if they talk of chalk in their blog and you offer cheese, it just won’t work. The followers will immediately whiff something suspicious, so don’t underestimate the customer.

2. Build a relationship: Once you’ve decided on the right bloggers, you need to start thinking of building a relationship with them. For instance, you may offer to do an expert guest blog as an authority on your product, on the blogger’s website.

3. Employ some passion: If your blogger of choice has never heard of you before, which is likely to happen, don’t be disheartened. Make sure that you are quite passionate about your product when you pitch it to them, because writers can better emote with a piece or product through passion.

Blogger outreach programs can be hugely beneficial for not just small and medium sized businesses, but well established ones. In an age where every TV or FB promo ad just makes us more wary, this is the perfect antidote for gaining some attention.

Mariia Lvovych is a an experienced guest blogger and blogger outreach expert, entrepreneur, owner at OlmaWritings.com blogger outreach and business writing service.

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3 Reasons To Press Record at Your Next Event

You’ve printed your name tags, triple checked your conference bookings, and finally got all your slide decks in order. You’re ready to kick off the most memorable event of the year, right?

Totally! But the big question is, will your event live on beyond this week? Video is like a time machine for your event content—if you set up your event video strategy from the start, attendees can rewind and re-live the amazing experience from your event whenever they want. And future attendees can see what all the hype was about and plan their trip to next year’s event accordingly.

Here’s why recording your event content is win-win for today and tomorrow:

Live Streaming and Episodic Content

Live streaming your event content is nothing new. Dreamforce has been streaming keynotes and major sessions for years and they report five-figure viewer numbers in addition to those in the audience watching live. The recorded videos also make for great episodic content to be released leading up to your next event.

Salesforce used footage from Dreamforce 2014 in the lead up to last year’s event, posting a weekly “Road to Dreamforce” update for three months before the big 2015 event. You can check them out here.

These videos included everything from what to expect at your first Dreamforce (featuring testimonials from first-time attendees at the 2014 event) to navigating the various keynote talks and finding the right content for you (featuring footage from 2014 keynotes and panel discussions). All of this helped build excitement for return attendees, but also presented Dreamforce 2015 to new attendees in an engaging, visually appealing way.

Live streaming your event content is an absolute must if you’re looking to increase the eyes on your keynotes and product presentations, but don’t forget to press record on that live steam. Using your existing event videos as episodic content leading up to your next event is a great way to drive more value from your past events, and build up the hype for your next one in equal measure.

Creating An Awesome Event Video Experience

If someone wants to watch your keynote video a week after your event, and they head over to your event site, will they find it? If they go to YouTube, they may find what they’re looking for, or they may find a grainy camera-phone version from someone in the audience. Not a great experience.

Video hubs aren’t just for showcasing your product content, they’re a great way to aggregate your event videos so that attendees (and future attendees) can easily find the sessions they want to re-watch, and share it with their colleagues. In addition to driving great pre-event video, Salesforce does an excellent job hosting their Dreamforce content on a hub, indexed by highlights, innovation keynotes and product keynotes. Check it out here.

We took a page out of Salesforce’s book for our own event, Space Camp, and set up a branded hub featuring all of the keynotes and session videos in an easily accessible format that can be shared with anyone. Take a look here.

When someone wants to re-live the Space Camp goodness, or see what next year’s event is going to be like, they can catch all of the important sessions and keynotes easily without having to turn to YouTube. The big lesson here? Don’t make interested viewers hunt for your content. If you’ve recorded all of your sessions, give your viewers an easy way to consume this content, and find more videos like it. You may help someone who’s interested in your product find the right info they need to move forward, and you may help someone interested in your next event justify the ticket price!

Using Today’s Content to Woo Tomorrow’s Attendee

Many events make use of pre-event video. We’ve talked about it more than once, and the results are astounding (especially when you personalize the video). But if you’ve already recorded a wealth of sessions from your last event, don’t reinvent the wheel.

Right after their 2015 event, Oracle quickly assembled the best talking points from James Franco, Jay Baer, Charlene Li, and other keynote speakers into a fantastic wrap-up video and trailer for their 2016 event:

If you were curious as to whether or not this event is relevant to your interests, this video gives you a quick and easy overview of what to expect from the keynotes, and the overall event atmosphere.

For follow-up content, it’s important to get this out as soon as you can so you stay top of mind with your attendees, but just like the Salesforce example from earlier, it’s never a bad idea to use your existing content to get future attendees on board. Recording all of your sessions gives you access to those perfect one-liners that define the entire atmosphere of your event, so it’s worth pressing record whenever you can!

The post 3 Reasons To Press Record at Your Next Event appeared first on Vidyard.

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The Dos and Don’ts of Guest Posting Opportunities

Content marketing has become the ultimate SEO buzzword, so it isn’t a surprise that marketers are using guest posts to build links. Guest blogging is the ideal way to get visibility and it allows you to develop relationships and get more web traffic. Google is making its algorithm more complex and tough with each passing day, which means that you have to follow strict standards of originality, quality and creativity when you decide to guest blog. There is no doubt that guest blogging is an excellent marketing method, but you can only reap its benefits when you choose the right guest post service. Choosing a good blog/website for getting your posts published is also important.

If you are making the guest posting efforts yourself, there are some things that you should pay attention to, and some, you should avoid when you are researching through the numerous guest blogging opportunities:

Things to Do

1. Always seek out platforms where you can reach your readers. The blog’s niche doesn’t have to be identical to yours, but the audience should overlap and you should be able to offer something valuable to the readers that makes sense from the perspective of branding.

2. Do some research to ensure that the blog you are considering has the right search engine ranking and appropriate page authority. Publishing guest posts on a low quality blog is going to get you penalized.

3. Make sure the blog is active and gets visitors frequently. This can be judged by the number of activity and comments on the pages. You can also check the subscriber count of the blog to know how many people visit it frequently.

4. Go through the various posts on the blog and see who has contributed to it. It is crucial to ensure that the posts don’t fall under the ‘spammy’ category.

5. The blog shouldn’t accept posts from just about anyone. They should have strict guidelines and requirements for a guest post. If anyone can get his or her post published, the blog is probably not worth it.

Things to Avoid

Pursuing sub-par blogs is only going to waste your time. Most blogger outreach services as well as bloggers now understand that it is completely useless to publish on substandard blogs. When you are navigating through the various guest blogging opportunities, these are the things to avoid:

1. Never publish on blogs that don’t have a clear subject matter or audience. Your goal is to get in touch with your target audience and this will only waste your time and resources.

2. Avoid guest blogging on blogs that have excessive ads. Chances are that they don’t have a lot of visitors and subscriber count because people get annoyed with a lot of ads and they are less likely to visit the blog. Hence, your guest post will not get the exposure you desire.

3. Blogs that have poor infrastructure, confusing design and navigation, a bad interface and offer a bad experience to users is another platform you should avoid.

4. Don’t go for guest blogging on blogs that don’t have any social media presence. Only make an exception if it has a large following. Social media has become integral to today’s marketing strategy and a blog should have presence on the popular networks to make it a good choice.

Mariia Lvovych is a an experienced guest blogging and blogger outreach expert, entrepreneur, owner at HQGuestPosting.com

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New from Forrester: Building a Predictable Lead-To-Revenue System

There was a time when marketing was considered a cost center. Unable to determine what impact their segment of the business was having on the bottom line, marketers fought hard to prove their worth.

Now, marketing has earned its spot at the table with more and more marketing execs committed to pipeline and revenue performance.

But with increased recognition comes increased pressure to deliver on specific results.

Get the Report

Forrester Report: Understanding the Performance Levers in Your Lead-to-Revenue System

Get the Report

“How can we double our SAL count by next year?” or “What will it take to increase marketing’s contribution to pipeline by 5%?”

B2B marketers need to understand the causes and effects of their marketing in order to accurately predict the outcome.

Forrester suggests that it is, in fact, feasible to accurately predict the outcome of your marketing efforts if you take an analytical approach to understanding the key performance drivers.

As Lori Wizdo, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester says “B2B CMOs must step up to building a standardized lead-to-revenue process because a well-designed and documented process enables scalability, roots out excess cost, improves marketing execution, and provides the basis for continuous incremental improvement.”

Dive in to this report to explore techniques from results-based management to help identify drivers of marketing results and determine marketing’s impact on each component of revenue performance: volume, velocity, and value.

The post New from Forrester: Building a Predictable Lead-To-Revenue System appeared first on Vidyard.

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250 Q&A: Autoresponders, Surveys, Membership Sites and More

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250 Q&A: Autoresponders, Surveys, Membership Sites and More

I launched the Become a Blogger coaching club in July of 2014.

Since then, we’ve had 27 live coaching calls where members come and get their questions answered.

What I love about this is that it isn’t a cookie cutter training program.

Here’s the thing…

As you grow your blog, you will have different problems than your friend who started their blog last year.

In fact, you will have different problems than someone else who is starting at the exact same time.

It’s great to have courses. We have 14 inside the coaching club. However, it’s much better to have something that’s a little personalized. That’s what those coaching calls are.

In this podcast episode, I will share seven questions that were asked by your peers along with my answers to those questions.

The questions answered in the episode are:

• Can You Give Me Tips for Creating an Autoresponder Series?
• Should I wait for Professional Equipment before doing a launch webinar?
• What’s the Best Lead Magnet for Getting People on Your List?
• How do I create a good survey?
• What’s the best way to backup my WordPress Blog?
• Should I watermark my videos to prevent copying
• How Can I Retain Members in My Membership Site?

If you would like to hear my answers to the questions, I would encourage you to listen to the episode.

And if you’d like to join the Become a Blogger coaching club, use the coupon code “episode250” and get a special discount for podcast listeners only.

Click here to join the coaching club

Note: When you enter the coupon code “episode250” during checkout, you will find out how much of a discount it is. It’s a surprise

The post 250 Q&A: Autoresponders, Surveys, Membership Sites and More appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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5 Steps to Remove a Google Manual Penalty

When digital marketing was in its infancy, there was no such thing as a bad link. But in recent years, Google’s focus on relevancy and user experience has caused SEO specialists to reconsider their approach. Webmasters who receive “questionable” links to their site are commonly finding themselves penalized by the very search engine that they’re trying to impress. Receiving a manual penalty can be a time-consuming, difficult process at times, so you may want to hire a reputable firm like Coalition Technologies, a leading Los Angeles SEO company.

1. Site Assessment

The first step is going to be to gather a list of all of the websites that link to you. There are many different tools to accomplish this, including Google’s Webmaster Tools. Once you can clearly view exactly where your backlinks are coming from, you should be able to accurately determine which are toxic and which are legitimate. Depending on how many backlinks you have, you may want to organize the list on a clearly labelled spreadsheet. Organization is critical during this step.

2. Link Determination

The next step is to manually classify each link as natural, unnatural, or suspicious. While there are link classification tools that can grade your links, you are better off going through each link manually so you can ensure a thorough job. Some common unnatural links include those that come from spammy directories and from content farms. Suspicious links often stem from blog rolls, footers, or seemingly useless link archive pages. You may want to also consider flagging links from sites that are irrelevant to your niche.

3. Contact Webmasters

Once you have decided which links are natural, unnatural, or suspicious, it is time to take action. You will need to contact the webmasters of any unnatural or suspicious links. You will need to request that all unnatural links are removed, and suspicious links should be — at the very least — tagged as “no follow.” Some website that are loaded with spam may require several contact attempts, so make sure you keep diligent track of who you have contacted and when, as you may need to follow up regularly. Once a webmaster tells you that the link has been removed or changed, make sure to manually verify the removal before you cross them off of the list.

4. Submit Disavow Requests

It is highly likely that you will not hear back from some webmasters, or you may have backlinks appearing on sites that are no longer active. When this occurs, you will need to use Google’s disavow tool to mark links that should be ignored during Google’s assessment. Create a .txt file that contains all of the links in question, and then simply upload it to your Webmaster Tools. If a website is known for using black-hat SEO techniques, or if it is suspicious for any reason, you may want to request that the entire domain is disavowed, instead of just the one page linking to your website.

5. Ask for Reconsideration

Finally, you should send a message to Google via your Webmaster Tools, outlining what actions you have taken to rectify the problem, as well as changes that you have made to your SEO strategies. It may take a month or longer before you hear back, and you may need to submit more than one reconsideration request. The webspam team may need to manually review your website, which may take some time, but don’t give up. Persistence is the key to getting manual penalties removed.

Atinder Pal Singh, an SEO specialist at Coalition Technologies, has been actively involved in SEO and Online Marketing industry for over 3 years from website audit, link building, social media and search engine optimization. He is passionate for his work and finds innovative ways of providing excellent results for his clients. When he is not in front of his computer, he enjoys canoeing, writing, and collecting classic, first-edition novels.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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Vidyard and Media One Creative Bring Video Personalization and Analytics to Businesses

New partnership delivers end-to-end video marketing solutions spanning content production, personalization, distribution, and analytics

TORONTO, Ontario – February 17, 2016 – Vidyard and Media One Creative today announced a partnership to offer comprehensive video marketing solutions to help businesses drive new levels of engagement in their content and turn viewers into customers. The new partnership will see the leading video marketing platform and one of Canada’s fastest growing digital agencies help businesses quickly deploy video marketing programs while ensuring they can track individual viewer engagement and the ROI of their video content. Media One Creative will also offer a new service to help businesses create Personalized Video experiences that seamlessly weave the viewer’s name, company logo and other personally relevant content into the flow of the video to drive greater engagement, higher conversion rates and increased ROI.

Video is proven to be the most effective content type for engaging audiences and converting prospects into customers. While the majority of businesses are increasing their investments, a 2015 industry research report found that the top barriers to video marketing success include the lack of an effective video strategy and the lack of compelling content. Vidyard and Media One Creative will collaborate to help businesses overcome these challenges, delivering video marketing solutions that combines content production, video personalization, online distribution, individual viewer tracking and ROI reporting.

“Every business needs to be thinking about analytics and insights as a core part of their video marketing strategy,” said Derek Rider, co-founder and CEO of Media One Creative. “We’re thrilled to partner with Vidyard to help clients take their video programs from tactical to strategic, and to deliver exceptional content and video analytics that deliver real results in a way that is integrated with their broader marketing and sales strategy.”

Through the new partnership, Media One Creative will also use the Vidyard Personalized Video technology to create 1-to-1 personalized video experiences that literally bring viewers into the story. Personalized videos have been proven to significantly increase click-through and conversion rates, offering an innovative new way for marketers to cut through the noise and create memorable content experiences.

“The results we’re seeing with personalized video are incredibly exciting, with some of our largest customers seeing more than a 500 percent increase in conversion rates over their typical campaigns,” said Tyler Lessard, chief marketing officer at Vidyard. “We’re excited to partner with Media One Creative as a trusted personalized video content producer. Together, we’ll help clients in both B2C and B2B markets deliver innovative video campaigns that drive action and deliver results in a scalable manner.”

To see personalized video in action, simply visit here and enter your information to have a custom video rendered just for you. For more information on Vidyard and Media One Creative, please visit www.vidyard.com and http://ift.tt/1OeHE3C.

 

About Vidyard

Vidyard (Twitter: @Vidyard) is the industry’s leading video marketing platform that helps marketers drive results and ROI with online video content. With Vidyard, customers can add video to their websites in minutes, get real-time analytics, syndicate video to social networks and YouTube, create calls to action, optimize search engine hits, capture leads, and brand their player skins all from one place. Vidyard integrates with key marketing automation and CRM tools to deliver user-level video engagement data, turning views into sales.

 

About Media One Creative

Media One Creative has become one of Canada’s fastest growing digital video agencies, with a team of over 65 professional video, audio, creative and project management staff.  Media One Creative specializes in working with clients and agencies to solve business challenges through video.

 

Media Contact:

Brad Hem
Phone: (281) 543-0669
press@vidyard.com

The post Vidyard and Media One Creative Bring Video Personalization and Analytics to Businesses appeared first on Vidyard.

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