Weekly Marketing Skinny • April 30, 2016

In the marketing spotlight this week:

♨ Google on page speed;
♨ how quickly does link building work?
♨ Facebook News Feed ranking update;
♨ FB Instant Articles are open to all;
♨ how to turn off Facebook live video notifications;
♨ Twitter's move in the App Store;
♨ Sketching on Periscope;
♨ Pinterest rolled out Featured Collections;
♨ Snapchat's insane video stats;
♨ listen to podcasts right in the Google App;
♨ ...and much more.

The post Weekly Marketing Skinny • April 30, 2016 appeared first on TrafficGenerationCafe.com. Don't miss Ana's free Bite-Size Traffic Hacks email series - short actionable traffic tips to double your traffic in no time.

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Try Infolinks to Boost Your Website Earnings

The vast majority of bloggers and webmasters monetize their sites with banner ads (such as AdSense or CPM ad networks) or with affiliate marketing deals (where they earn a commission for every customer they refer to affiliate partners). These two are very efficient ways to monetize your traffic, but you should rely solely on them if you want to maximize your earnings. In fact, the more revenue sources you have on your site, the better. First of all because many forms of advertising are not mutually exclusive, meaning that you can use them at the same time and both will generate revenue. Second because you won’t be putting all your eggs on the same basket. Should one of your income sources die you will have others still going.

The key aspect here is to find monetization methods that integrate well with the ones you are currently using. If you are using banner ads or affiliate offers, there is one monetization method that you should try in combination of those: Infolinks.

Infolinks is the leader in in-text advertising. They basically transform words from your blog posts and web pages into relevant ads. If you have a blog post about cars, for instance, they might transform the word “BMW” into an ad for a BMW dealer, for instance. Such a monetization strategy has several benefits:

1. It integrates perfectly with your site, reducing the ad blindness of your users and increasing your click-through rate and revenues. Many studies confirm that users tend to ignore banner ads completely, so in-text ads will help to solve that problem.

2. In-text advertising is complementary to Google AdSense, banner ads and so on, so you can use it along those networks. This is a huge benefit because you will be able to increase your revenue without affecting your current income streams.

3. The ads will always be related to the topic of your posts, and this will increase the chance of your visitors finding value from the ads. Again, studies show that ads that are relevant to your content vastly increase the chances of your visitors noticing and clicking on the ad.

Singing up is very easy. You just need to provide the URL of your website and follow the steps. You can even signup with your Facebook account if you prefer. The approval may take up to 48 hours, but usually you will get approved on the same day. Right after approval you will be able to integrate their code and start showing in-text ads on your site.

If you face any problem during signup and integrating, just contact the Infolinks support department. They tend to answer to queries very fast, and their support employees are very friendly.

The technical part is pretty simple too. All you have to do is to copy and paste some code into your HTML. If you are using WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, it is even easier. You will just need to install a plugin and it will do all the work for you.

If you are not using Infolinks yet, give it a try, as it can certainly increase the revenues your site is generating right now.

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

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How to Use Pacing in Your Video Soundtrack – 5 Considerations

So, you’ve found the perfect music for your next video. Now it’s time to get splicing! Some marketers and video editors prefer cutting video to music and others like their music to be dropped in after the initial edit. Whichever you prefer, the abstract, yet important technique of ‘pacing’ is what sets your video apart from the bad, good and amazing!

We just need to get this pacing thing down right. I’d like to share with you some tips for getting your video’s soundtrack just right.

What is Pacing?

First of all, what is pacing? Pacing is arguably the most important technique in editing. It’s the sequencing of footage in order to create a cohesive story. A story that ebbs and flows has arcs, excitement, drama, tension, release, and of course, emotion..

It’s the crux of video editing and therefore music editing! The two go hand in hand, they are yin and yang.

How To Use Pacing In Your Video Soundtrack

1. Understand The Story

This definitely has to be number one!

Use music to clarify what’s happening in the story. Determine what feel and mood is being conveyed. Music can deliver a dramatic emphasis and foreshadow events or reinforce the intent of antagonist or protagonist characters.

The viewer will become confused and pulled out of the story if the mood of the music doesn’t match the feel of the story, so this is important.

2. Pacing is situational, it’s not all about speed

In my experience and in my research, I wasn’t surprised to learn that most editors equate pacing with speed., thinking faster cuts equals better pacing. But this is simply not true! Speed does not matter and the pacing can be set perfectly for either fast or slow tracks. It all comes down to the mood and feel that is desired. Pacing is ever changing! The music should move with the flow of the story and support the feel of the scene.

3. Know how the pacing of your music will influence the viewer

Now that we’ve touched on the misconception that fast means good pacing, we can discuss what different paces convey to the viewer. Here are some general ways that you can pace music to a video edit. Keep in mind that these are general starting points…there are always exceptions to the rule.

Slow = Building tension and suspense: Think of slowly evolving and droning high register strings with cuts that are longer. The viewer has time to think about what’s happening. This is an effective dramatic pacing technique.

My example below demonstrates a slow build of tension and suspense. Notice the space between the organ chords and how long the chords are held for while they are hurrying to board the ship.

I should also mention that depending on the subject matter, slower music can also be relaxing.

Normal = Neutral: No drama here. The music is a perfect balance of tension and release. This is perhaps the most common type of pacing in a video. Picture everyday tasks and average conversation. The pace of your normal heart rate is effective in these types of scenes.

The pacing in this example is really great. Feel how it breathes and flows so perfectly:

Fast = Intensity: This could also be tension or suspense (exceptions to the rule). Fast and driving drums are typically characteristic in music that works for a fast cut action scene. Check out the example:

4. Utilize key elements of pacing: Pattern, Timing and Flow

Now that we’ve talked about what pacing is and how it is applied, let’s look under the hood and see the inner working of pacing. In my opinion, pacing as it relates to music and video can be broken down into three different aspects: pattern, timing and flow.

Good pacing doesn’t mean all of these things need to be happening simultaneously, but at least one element should be involved at all times.

Pattern: Recurring music cues can act as themes for characters or subjects. It creates structure and cohesion in a video. Listen to the opening and closing music cues in this video. They act as bookends, which give the video full closure.

Timing: A change in the music at exactly the right moment. The music should hit important cues within the story. I really like the timing between the music and the action on screen in this ad for Jetta

Flow: The sense of the music moving with the picture and reflecting the emotion and feel of the story. The feeling of breathing should come to mind when a piece of music is paced well with video. The neutral pacing example above is an excellent demonstration of flow.

5. Practice! Know the difference between good and bad pacing

Having excellent pacing in your video isn’t something that comes over night. You develop a feel for when the music is paced well and when it isn’t. Listen to what your instincts tell you. You’ll know when the music should keep going or stop, change or not even be there at all.

It takes lots of practice, but it’s something that when done right can make your video stand a cut above the rest.

The post How to Use Pacing in Your Video Soundtrack – 5 Considerations appeared first on Vidyard.

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260 How to Make Money with Sponsored Content – Serena Appiah

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Have you ever thought about getting paid for the content you create?

Are you passionate about helping your readers discover new products and services?

In this episode, Serena Appiah will show you how to make money with sponsored content.

This is part one of a two-part series because there’s lots to cover with this topic. So be sure to come back for part two in episode 262!

Who is Serena Appiah?

Serean Appiah left her job in January 2015 to blog full-time at Thriftdiving.com, where she shows you how to decorate, improve, and maintain your home on a DIY budget. She’s a creative at heart and thrives when she can make something beautiful out of something ugly. Since leaving her job over a year ago, she’s had her share of trials and successes.

Since making blogging her #1 gig, Serena says she’s generating a lot more sponsored content. In this interview, she’ll show you how to make money with your blog using sponsored content.

What is sponsored content?

Sponsored content is content that you produce that’s paid for by a brand. You might be promoting a product or a service. It can be a great way to make money by talking about brands that you already know and love.

Sponsored content is different from affiliate marketing. Usually, you get a set amount for creating the content, rather than making money based on the number of clicks or sales your post generates.

Pros and Cons

PROS and CONS OF SPONSORED CONTENT

Of course, there are pros and cons to everything. Here’s what Serena has to say about the ups and downs of sponsored content:

Pros: You’ll make money!

You’re building relationships with brands.

You’re introducing your readers to products and services that they may not have known about otherwise, so you’re providing great value for them.

Cons: Creating too much sponsored content can turn people off.

The trick is to make sure that you’re creating really high-quality posts, even when they’re sponsored.

Having too many sponsors can turn certain brands off. You don’t want to seem like your site it for sale to just anyone! Be savvy about which campaigns you choose and how many brands you create content for.

You don’t want your sponsored content to come across as fake. You can avoid this by mixing it up. Serena suggests that if you post new content three days per week, you could reserve one of those days for sponsored content. That leaves two days for your original content, which keeps your blog nice and balanced.

What’s possible with sponsored posts?

Making Money with Sponsored Posts

On the low end, Serena says she’s done sponsored posts for about $170. On the high end, it’s more like $750 or $1000, but she’s ready to start asking for more.

Serena says it’s important to know your own value, especially when you have some bargaining power and you’re negotiating directly with a brand. Creative marketplaces like Social Fabric often have set prices, so you don’t have as much control. But we’ll come back to them later.

Your readers and subscribers trust what you say about products and services, and that makes you really valuable to brands.

Serena’s advice? Name a figure that makes you uncomfortable.

If you ask for $1000, and the brand comes back with an offer of $800, you’re way better off than if you asked for $400.

Know your own value, and soon you won’t be uncomfortable asking brands for more money.

How do I start getting sponsored posts?

Before you start looking for sponsored content, Serena says you should make sure your blog looks like a million bucks.

Content is king, and brands want to see that they’re going to get a great service from you. So no matter how much traffic you get, create content as if a million people are reading your blog every month.

Serena’s top tips?

Attention to detail

This means great photography, a nice layout, and lots of value for your readers. Make it look top notch! You want potential sponsors to be really impressed with the look and feel of your blog.

CREATIVE MARKETPLACES

No cursing

If a brand pays you for a sponsored post, your content reflects back onto them. Would you want your sponsors to come to your page and see bad language? Only if you’re in a very niche market. Serena’s advice is to keep it clean.

Creative Marketplaces

When you’re ready to look for sponsored posts, creative marketplaces are a great place to start. They’re basically middlemen: they connect you to brands looking for bloggers to create sponsored content.

Serena recommends Social Fabric, Izea, and Massive Sway (also known as the Sitz Girls).

When you go to any one of these marketplaces, you’ll see a range of campaigns that you can apply to. You’ll see the name of the company, sometimes some prompts to tell you what they’re looking for from your post, and the amount you’ll be paid if your application is successful.

Submitting a pitch

Pitching your campaign

Once you find a campaign that you’re interested in, you’ll need to submit a pitch.

You don’t have to have a hugely popular site or lots of traffic to be successful. Great ideas and great content matter more. Serena says that you need to be specific, enthusiastic, and creative when you write your pitch.

Specific: Tell the brand exactly what you’re going to do in your post. Give as many details as you can.

Enthusiastic: If you’ve used to product or service before, tell them how much you like it. Regardless, let the brand know that you’d be really excited to work with them.

Creative: This one might be the most important of all! You’ve got to think outside the box. Serena told me how she landed sponsorship from Irish Spring soap by pitching a post about building a DIY shower caddy. It’s not what you’d expect—and that’s exactly the point!

Serena put it this way: think about what will stand out from the crowd. Say you’re looking to pitch for a pudding campaign. There might be fifteen or twenty pitches for pudding pie recipes, but only one for an out-of-the-box pudding storage unit. Guess which one will probably get the sponsorship? (Hint: the out-of-the-box idea!)

What happens once you’ve got the job?

If your pitch is accepted, you’ll get some instructions from the brand. Read these carefully and make sure you stick to them.

It’s always a good idea to go above and beyond for the brand. For example, they might not have asked you to link to their Facebook page or Twitter accounts, but they’ll be really impressed if you do! Giving them even more than they asked for can help you build a relationship with the brand so that you can work with them in the future.

Finally, make sure you get things in on time.

How to Make Money with Sponsored Content from Leslie Samuel

What about going directly to brands?

Serena says this is a really great way to build a relationship with a brand. But how do you reach out to brands you’d like to produce sponsored content for?

Serena suggests thinking about posts you’ve done that weren’t sponsored but featured a great product. You can share that post with the brand on Twitter, for example. Tag them in, follow them on Twitter, be visible for them on social media. That way, when you send them an email pitch later on, they’ll have an idea of who you are and what you can do for them.

Another way Serena meets her sponsors is at blogging conferences. Usually sponsors will have tables where you can meet PR representatives and exchange business cards.

Serena picked up a great tip from Toni at The Happy Housewife a few years ago:

When you get contact info from a potential sponsor, follow up right away.

Like, as soon as you’re out the door, send them an email. Say that it was really great to meet them, and add a personal touch so that they remember who you are. Then follow up with them every few months to pitch ideas and ask about any opportunities they might have for you.

Twitter is also a great place to connect with brands. Follow their accounts, join their Twitter parties, add them to a list.

By the way, Serena says you can follow up and build relationships with brands even if you first connected with them through a creative marketplace like Social Fabric. If you had a great experience working for a brand, get in touch again six months later with a new idea for a campaign.

If you need to find contact information for a brand, Serena suggests searching the company name and either “PR” or “media relations”. This often takes you straight to a contact number or email address.

Final Tip:

One last thing you should know about sponsored content: you want to make sure that the post uses a nofollow link. A nofollow link makes sure that you and the brand are not penalized by Google for creating sponsored content.

Similarly, say no to any brand that asks you to use a dofollow link. It’s not worth it!

Resources Mentioned:

• Creative Marketplaces
  • Social Fabric
  • Izea
  • Massive Sway

Infographic

The post 260 How to Make Money with Sponsored Content – Serena Appiah appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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So You Want to Be an Affiliate: Start Here

If you’re just starting to dabble in the world of affiliate marketing, it can be a lot to take in and wrap your head around. At the core, it’s simple: affiliate marketers promote a link (i.e. a product), and when people buy from that link, the affiliate makes a commission.

But before you take your first steps toward becoming an affiliate, it’s important to know the lingo and understand the different offerings and best practices out there. With that in mind, we’ve put together a primer with the basics.

Don’t force a square peg into a round hole

The most successful affiliates are the ones that have found their right niche and product fit. When thinking about what program to join, ask yourself: Is this product something that will fulfill a need for other people? Would I enjoy it for myself? Can I talk comfortably about it? You want to say “yes” across the board.

Some affiliate programs involve promoting a single product or service, while others can open you up to many products that will help your readers. For example, joining eBay’s affiliate program gives you access to 800 million listings by sellers in a wide range of categories in eBay’s marketplace.

Getting paid

Affiliate marketing is a form of “performance-based marketing,” that is, affiliates drive visitors to purchase (or another action, below) and are then rewarded. There are three main commission models offered by affiliate programs:

• Cost per sale (CPS): You get paid when you drive a visitor to the affiliate merchant’s website and they complete a purchase. This is the most common payment type.
• Cost per lead (CPL): Also called cost per action (CPA), in this model a lead can be defined as a registration, download or other action.
• Cost per click (CPC): This model isn’t based on sales or conversions, but rather you earn commissions based on the number of visitors you drive to the merchant’s site.

Commissions vary across each network. With eBay’s affiliate program (a CPS model), the amount is based on category-level commission rates. Affiliates earn anywhere from 40% to 80% of eBay’s revenue, depending on what product they’re selling.

Commission models and base rates are one of the biggest factors to consider when looking at affiliate programs, but also be sure to compare any bonuses or other opportunities offered. For example, eBay Partner Network pays a 200% commission bonus for each purchase made by a new or reactivated eBay buyer.

Using tools and tracking

Once you’ve found the right program and model for you, you want to do things right. Luckily you’re savvy and do your homework. Stay ahead of selling trends with Terapeak, a powerful tool for eBay and Amazon sellers to identify top products and know where to focus your efforts. DataLabs, a free eBay-specific alternative, gives insight into top selling items in real-time, along with their value.

Finally, tracking and analytics should be woven within all of your efforts. Ensure your website is properly set up with analytics, use unique tracking codes for different campaigns, and dig into the data from your site as well as from your affiliate partner often to know what’s working and what isn’t.

Now that you’re primed with the basics, check out this comprehensive rundown by affiliate marketing expert Geno Prussakov to learn more about getting into the affiliate marketing game.

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

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Introducing the Worst Buzzword Ever: #Crexecution

Marketers complain all the time that creativity gets killed by too many processes, but creativity let loose often loses track of what the end goal truly is. Yes, it’s possible to be too creative, too cute, and in the process, create campaigns that are far too complex to execute properly. The same way, if you don’t let your creativity flag fly at least a little, the results will be boring, and probably won’t be any more successful.

That’s where #crexecution comes in: a mindset where you constantly challenge your creativity, and make up processes along the way to ensure execution goes smoothly. It’s a middle ground for marketers, a way to actually get the best of both worlds.

The Burrito Story: An Important Warning

Before we dive in the specifics of #crexecution, I have to give you a fair warning. This one actually happened to me. I was working at a tech company, and a graphic designer and I were in charge of all the creative production in marketing. We got along great, and our brainstorms always went swimmingly. We were consistently producing awesome, edgy work. Or so we thought.

One of our coworkers on the operations side of things started nicknaming us “The Creative Burrito”. As funny as it sounds, it was not done in good faith. She was frustrated that our ideas were always so complicated to execute. At the time, we didn’t realize this and we took the nickname as a pride badge. We renamed our brainstorm meetings to “Burrito Sessions” and referred to each other as “The Burrito”. You get the drift.

What we never stopped to think about is why that name came to be placed upon us. It was because my designer and I got along so well that we started doing things simply because they sounded awesome, and not because they made marketing sense. We would egg each other on over some pretty ridiculous ideas. Sometimes it worked, other times it failed pretty hard.

Because we were two very creative individuals, we lost sight of the end goal of many campaigns. We forgot what our prospects were looking for, and what our sales team needed to sell. It’s an easy mistake to make. Deep down, you probably know if you’re doing this. Looking back at my Creative Burrito days, I definitely knew something was wrong, but fixing it was a matter of admitting it to myself. It’s easy to find yourself in such a predicament, but it’s fairly easy to get out of. You just need to change the way you look at marketing projects, and how you work on them.

Meet Who Will Use What You Make

It’s a pretty fair bet that marketers know how to market things, right? And we do, but sometimes we have a hard time figuring out what to market. We’re often pretty far removed from actual operations, simply devising campaigns, and watching them perform.

We rarely talk to clients, or prospects. We don’t really know what they say, what they think. It’s always things we infer from their online behavior. This is the kind of attitude that builds silos within companies and diminishes effectiveness.

So swallow up your pride, and go talk to sales, go talk to customer support, go talk to whoever is going to be using the asset you are producing. They will tell you what they need. If you pitch it to them in a way that will help their job, they’ll gladly give you some of their time. You’re free to put a creative spin on what they say, but keep the original goal in mind. I know I’ve had a hard time with that last part. Don’t be afraid to go as dorky as visual reminders. I like to write the main goal of the asset I’m producing on a post-it, and sticking it on my desk. It keeps me focused at the most basic level. Sometimes, the simplest measures keep you grounded.

Hate Everything You Do

Obviously, you should be happy with what you produce. The important part is not being blinded by your ego since we are inherently biased about our own work. If you have what you think is a really good idea, there’s a high chance you’ll forget about other aspects.

I remember having this idea (yeah, in the Burrito) about a hospitality room our company was hosting at a convention. My designer and I thought it would be cool to make it into a relaxation room. Soft colors, comfy chairs, there was a table with a hollow center that we wanted to fill with sand to make a Japanese zen garden. I even wrote business haikus (what a nerd) and my designer made banner stands with soothing images. I still think that idea sounds pretty cool, but if I had stopped for a second and reviewed it from another stance, I would have seen the error of my ways. The room was a massive flop. It was way too complicated to execute, it was in a city far away in a different country, things were too hard to source, it was a mess.

The thing is, we rolled with this idea from the start, and things got out of hand. No one really questioned us along the way, but you can’t always count on that. My job was to produce a good concept, and I didn’t do that. If you don’t have a good concept, you have no chance at producing a good end product. This applies to anything, whether it’s a print document or a full conference. I thought since no one voiced concerns, my concept was good, but that’s not how it works.

Since I tend to get excited for concepts and forget to question myself about them, I came up with a trick to not repeat the relaxation room fiasco. I invented a few personas, of typical people that would interject to a more “out there” idea, and I read my briefs while pretending to be them. Here are the ones I use, but feel free to make up the ones that fit you and your job:

• The boss who think this will be too edgy/too expensive
• The sales guy who thinks some of his potential clients won’t “get the joke”
• Your coworker in marketing who always thinks what you do won’t align with the brand
• Your mom, because she always loves everything you do, but isn’t impartial at all

Make Up Deadlines

I’ve been out of university for a long time now, but I sure still work like a university student waiting until the night before a paper’s due to write all 15 pages. There is something about how our brains process stress that seems to make us more creative. Now, all-nighter work sessions were fun back in the day, but not so much now. At a real job, big projects have deadlines set up by management, but they can sometimes seem so far away.

To keep myself from procrastinating until the last minute, I found that making myself deadlines for smaller portions of the project worked well. If I had to deliver the copy for a whole website by April, I would make myself deadlines that I had to have finished the Product page by February, the About Us by March, and so on. This will help you put things into perspective, and it will allow you to look at the project at a more reasonable scale.

They Say Creativity Can’t Be Taught

I used to think being creative meant coming up with the wackiest, edgiest concepts, but that’s not at all what it’s about. Creativity in marketing is about servicing a goal through innovative means. It doesn’t mean your ideas are restrained, but that they have a purpose.

Creativity and execution will always be a balancing act for marketers. What you need to figure out, is which side you need to release. Whether you’re trying to become more creative, or you already are, you have the potential to fall into the same traps. In both cases, the #crexecution mindset will help you greatly. Just keep these four things in mind, and you should be good:

• Don’t become the burrito. Never think you’re better than others, and that you know best.
• Find out who knows best and listen to them. Just don’t forget to put your spin on it, don’t just become their mouthpiece.
• Learn to hate yourself. Give yourself critique, the nastiest ones are usually the most constructive.
• Make your own schedule. Invent deadlines for yourself, for where you want to be in the project.

 

The post Introducing the Worst Buzzword Ever: #Crexecution appeared first on Vidyard.

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5 Must-Have Ingredients for Any Online Marketing Strategy In 2016

If you are new to internet marketing, you may not know where to begin. It may sound complicated, but all you require is to have your strategy in check. You need to know the crucial ingredients for a successful marketing strategy. Remember it is s new terrain which you are not used to. Also, if you only have an online marketing campaign which is poorly performing, then you might be doing everything all wrong. A good strategy will have all the ingredients and track the progress of each when you launch the campaign. It is essential to know how to incorporate all those strategies into your aim to achieve the desired objective for your business.

Statistics show that small businesses will spend more than 15% to pay their SEO team as compared to large businesses, which brings the point of what you need for your small business. An effective marketing strategy will thus have to be cost effective especially for internet marketing. A successful marketer will try to find a gap in the market before they can set up a cutting edge strategy to fill that gap. This is how they achieve the objective of luring customers from their competitors. There are a couple of ingredients which are a must have if you want to be a successful online marketer.

Search engine option

There are numerous SEO strategies that will focus on different search engines. You have to optimize your content or business to a search engine that provides results. When it comes to Google search engine, it is the biggest concerning the searches conducted by people online. You have to build your SEO strategy around this search engine. Although other major search engines like Bing are proving to be reliable in the market, you cannot afford to sideline Google when developing an online marketing strategy. Google should thus be your priority search engine where you build your marketing campaign around. This is the case if you want to build a large customer base and increase traffic to your site.

Social media

It is the desire of every marketer to find marketing resources pooled together. It is what social media has to offer. With more than 400 million subscribers on Instagram only, you can do a lot with such a number. However, you need to single out your target market as not all will be buying what you are selling. You have to set your social media marketing strategy in a way that your target audience will find your message. Facebook can prove to be the most reliable depending on what you are selling. It is the best regarding the number of subscribers as it commands about 1.5 billion users.

Keyword research

Google analytics will help you discover what is trending regarding keyword research. You have to know the keywords to optimize, and this is achieved by researching on the keywords that your target audience is researching on major search engines. Let’s say; you have selected Google as the search engine to build your SEO strategy around. You can research the keywords that your target audience is using on search engines at the moment. After you have the highly searched keywords depending, you can optimize those keywords to increase traffic to your site. It makes it easy for your site to rank at the top on search engines like Google.

Quality of content

Scrapped or unoriginal content will choke your SEO efforts. The latest updates and SEO rules on Google will require that you have quality and relevant content. Original content will improve your SEO while relevance will impress your readers. You have to give interesting and up to date content if you want to engage your readers in a positive way. The best marketers will look for content that is relevant depending on your business and also maintains a proper SEO strategy. In short you have to optimize for both the search engines and also the readers. This is how you achieve quality. The number of views will help improve the online presence of your site and increase sales on the same. Social media marketing gives your business the needed attention to your target audience on social media.

Backlinks

They are aimed at improving traffic on your site. You can link your site to high traffic sites like news sites to increase the number of visitors. Backlinks work well when you have quality content. If you desire to improve your SEO, then you need to develop a site that gives your readers relevant and quality content. All these ingredients will help you launch your online marketing strategy.

This post was a contribution from ShoutAgency.com.au. Visit their website for more information on how you can optimize your site in 2016 and beyond!

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

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Get Free Access to My List Building Simplified Course

List Building Simplified Course

Are you building an email list?

Did you know that your email list is one of your most valuable assets in your blogging business?

In this article, you’ll discover why building your list is so important, and how to get free access to my List Building Simplified Course.

Why Build an Email List

One of the most important things I’ve done in my business is building my email lists.

My biology blog has an email list with 17,238 subscribers. This blog has an email list with 13,445 subscribers.

Why is this significant? Because that’s over 30,000 people who have given me permission to contact them in one of their most personal places in the digital world – their email inboxes.

These are people that I can nurture a relationship with by providing them with value.

It doesn’t matter if Facebook updates their news feed algorithm. It doesn’t matter if Google has a mood swing.

This relationship is influenced by only two parties – the sender (me) and the recipient (each subscriber).

That’s the kind of relationship I like – not one that’s controlled by someone else.

Now here’s the magic. When you nurture a relationship with your subscribers by providing them with value, they come to know, like and trust you.

When your subscribers know, like and trust you, they will be more likely to buy from you. And if you’re building a business, that matters.

How I Chose My Email Marketing Service

When I started my blog, I knew that I needed to start an email list. I started off with Aweber because it was recommended by the person who taught me about blogging.

It was a solid service. However, as my business grew, I was tempted by all of the advanced stuff you could do with InfusionSoft.

After using InfusionSoft for a few years, I really understood why some people called it ConfusionSoft. It was so complicated that I ended up hiring someone full time just to manage my email list.

I eventually had enough and decided to move back to Aweber. Then I decided to explore other services to see what was out there and to be able to make a more informed recommendation to my audience.

GetResponse

I eventually made the decision to move to GetResponse. In fact, I wrote a detailed article on why I switched.

How GetResponse Changed the Game

One of the most effective strategies I’ve used to make sales in my business is using webinars in conjunction with my email list.

When using webinars with a strong email campaign, I’ve increased signups to my coaching club by over 260% when compared to email alone.

I now consider this combination the sweet spot for bloggers trying to sell a product or service. It’s also a powerful way to build an email list. But here’s the thing.

In the past, I would use GotoWebinar to run my webinars and GetResponse to run my email campaigns.

A few months ago, GetResponse launched GetResponse Pro – an all-in-one marketing suite that includes webinars along with email marketing. All in one account.

This makes it easier to use webinars to grow your email list and make sales.

And instead of spending over $100/month for webinar service, you can get this one suite for significantly less, in some cases only $4/month more than what you’d pay for email marketing alone.

This is how they changed the game, and I love it.

Why I Created My List Building Simplified Course

One of the common regrets I’ve heard among bloggers who have been in the game for a while is not starting their email list early enough.

When I decided to create my training program on how to start a blog (now called my coaching club), I knew that this had to be a core part of my training.

I don’t want anyone to ever go through my training and not understand the importance of an email list or not be equipped to build one successfully.

What’s in the Course

The course consists of six lessons on the following topics:

• Why Your Email List Is Your Most Valuable Asset
• How to Create the Best Free Gift to Get People to Subscribe
• How to Create an Awesome Opt-in Page
• How to Nurture Your Email Subscribers
• How to Make Money from Your Email List
• Advanced Email Marketing Strategies

How to Get it for Free

List Building Simplified is a course that’s available to all members of my Coaching Club. However, you can get it free by doing 2 things:

1. Sign up for GetResponse using this affiliate link.
2. Complete this form letting me know that you signed up.

If you are currently using a different service and have been contemplating switching, check out this tutorial where I show how to transfer from Aweber to GetResponse.

Regardless of where you’re transferring from, the process will be similar:

1. Export your email lists from whatever service you’re migrating from.
2. Import your email lists into new campaigns in GetResponse.

Your subscribers will not have to re-confirm their email addresses.

All you need to do is let GetResponse know that you have their permission to email them and the compliance department will validate the email addresses for you.

Why I’m Doing This

There are two main reasons I’m providing this to my GetResponse referrals.

The first is that I want to empower the people who I refer to build a successful mailing list. Yes, I can just refer you over there and say – good luck.

Helping you build your list

But that’s not what I’m about.

Getting an account is the easiest part. The difficult part is actually building your list. When I refer someone to GetResponse, I consider them to be part of my unofficial “team.”

I want my team members to do well. This is why I created my GetResponse resource center and why I’m providing you with this course.

The second reason will seem very obvious. Well, I’m an affiliate of GetResponse. I get a commission every time I refer a paid account to them.

One of the things I cover in detail when I teach affiliate marketing is how to amplify your results by providing resources to help your referrals be successful.

Well, this is me practicing what I preach, and I know you will get tons of value from it.

But I Don’t Want to Switch to GetResponse

Yeah, I get it. You may be happy with your current service and see no need to switch. That’s perfectly ok. You SHOULD stay with your service if you’re happy.

But you can still get access to the course (and many others) in my Become a Blogger Coaching Club. We’ll be happy to have you.

For those of you who want to make the switch (or get started for the first time), all you need to do is:

1. Sign up for GetResponse using this affiliate link.
2. Complete this form letting me know that you signed up.

Infographic

List Building Simplified – How to Do it Right

The post Get Free Access to My List Building Simplified Course appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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The Importance of Visual Content for Your Blog

When you read an article, either in a paper form or online, do you enjoy the whole process more if you have a long ream of text, or do you prefer to have the content broken up with videos and pictures?

Whilst many people do respond well to the written words, there’s no denying that being able to see some images is the way to get to the heart of most people.

If you’re currently wanting to spruce up your blog, perhaps reach more people and increase your traffic, it’s probably time you should look at how much visual content you have on your site.

Why Is It All About Vision?

Because the human eye and the brain responds in a much more positive way to the things it can see itself.

Think about yourself and what appeals to you. If you were reading a blog and it was a long page of writing, without a picture or GIF to break it up, would you continue reading? And if you read a little more, would you be inclined to act upon the content?

Probably not.

However, if you were reading content and it had writing and visual content, such as photos, videos, and GIFs, would you feel more pulled in, more enthralled, and more inclined to continue?

I’m guessing so.

Our Brains Are Trained to React to Visual Stimuli

There is a statistics that 90% of the information that is processed by the brain in a better manner is visual, so taking advantage of that biological statistics is certainly the way to go in terms of boosting your blog content traffic.

Visual content creates emotions and feelings, it pushes the point you are writing about to the fore, and it allows people to see what you are talking about, rather than just trying to imagine it for themselves. Yes, people like to use their imagination, but sometimes they need to see what you are discussing.

Content such as this is easier to share, and this is another reason why it works so well for your blog. If you embed a YouTube video into your blog, it can be shared on Facebook or Twitter, for example, which pushes your blog content to more and more people, which could then lead to more followers in the long run.

Pictures, videos, GIFs etc, make people want to read, and they make people want to act.

You don’t spend hours writing an article for someone to just read it and think, ‘ok, that was interesting’, and then move on; you write blog posts because you want people to read it and feel something about the content. This could be a formed opinion, an action, or a need to read your future posts later. People can tell friends and family about your blog, generating more traffic this way.

That all can all be achieved with the help of visual content, and it doesn’t have to be anything too complicated. A few nice photographs, a video at the end of your post, or even just a GIF in the middle to drive home the point, these will all work wonders for your traffic numbers, and future action by readers.

The story was contributed by Sunny Dawn, a writer at http://ift.tt/1QxoRDy.

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Top Social Media Content Marketing Tips

Great content and social media marketing isn’t terribly unlike chemistry: the slightest alterations to the ingredients can produce either amazing results… or painfully disastrous ones. So we’ve scoured available research and collected some of the best ways to increase your blog’s social media engagement and strengthen your content marketing across social media.

Share Images on Twitter to Increase Your Retweets

Twitter’s new image capabilities allow twitter accounts to share images alongside links, not unlike Facebook. And there’s a significant uptick in retweets when you share links which have images. Don’t expect a major change in CTR; but those retweets offer notable SEO benefits! In fact, Moz theorizes that page-level social metrics like retweets comprise a notable portion of a specific page’s ranking power.

Share Your Content More than Once

If your blog is trying to gain traffic from multiple time zones, consider sharing your content more than once! This increases the likelihood that you’ll net visitors from different time zones. Ideally, this should be staggered to occur on different days; for example, if you share one post at 8am on Wednesday, consider sharing it again two or three hours later on Friday. This is especially useful for extending the shelf-life of high-performing articles or blogs.

Don’t hesitate to do this for blogs that are weeks or months old; links to deeper content can be another positive signal to search engines, and of course increases the amount of benefit you can get from each post. Where possible, develop a ‘sharing timeline’ that includes posts the day a blog is published, weeks after it is published, and months after it is published. Larger blogs might consider enlisting the help of marketing experts to help develop optimized content posting calendars.

Don’t Let Your Posts Get Stale

Do you ever feel that you’re repeating yourself on social media? It’s an easy trap to fall into, and one that’s best avoided: because if you notice it, so will your followers. Look to other high-profile blogs or news outlets to see how they mix up the framing of their posts (the words and images they use) to keep similar content feeling fresh. This is especially important when you’re re-posting the same articles! A good rule of thumb is to mix up the style and type of images you highlight in your social media posts, and to draw potential readers in with questions in the text, rather than statements.

Use Sharing Data To Guide Your Content

What’s the most-shared and liked content in your blog’s niche? The best blogs always keep track of what’s trending, and use that information to guide their content marketing. It’s relatively easy to set up free news alerts for your niche keywords, and there are plenty of free tools which allow you to analyze the top content for specific keywords. Buzzsumo, Ruzzit, and Social Count are all good examples! Being aware of trending subjects can help you pin down the formula for going viral.

Use Social Media Targeting Opportunities

Most social media outlets allow you to target your audience when you’re promoting posts and information. Always take advantage of this option! Doing so will help ensure that the people most likely to engage in your content are the ones who see it. It’s widely understood that using Facebook’s ‘life events’ parameters can have dramatically positive effects. You can target individuals who land new jobs, new relationships, are recently married or engaged, have children, start college… and the best part is that there’s almost certainly one of these ‘life events’ which can indicate likely readers for your blog.

The Bottom Line

Social media marketing isn’t rocket science; but it can be very difficult to measure the ROI from your efforts, or to tell which tricks you’ve used have had the best effect. After all, the process you use successfully for one kind of content might not work as well for another! The most important tool you can give yourself for successfully engaging in content marketing and social media outreach is to collect data and analytics on your successes… and your failures. Understanding how they happened will help you avoid them in the future!

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Stream Of Social Shares Followed by Email Leads, Here is How I Do it

Ranking higher in search engine results and building up a targeted email subscribers list, who doesn’t like it. The problem is, things aren’t as simple as they are told to be. Methods of doing these things can be found on Guru Internet Marketer blogs but they become so common that they lose their effectiveness.

In such cases, adding your own twists to these methods can get you awesome results. What you are going to read here is also not very simple but when done correctly, gets awesome results. I saw a sudden surge of social shares on my blog posts that I did this experiment on. Four of my posts were shared 43, 71, 64 and 80 times in a few hours after following these exact steps.

I know these are nothing when compared with those who get thousands of shares. But, they are super famous people with a very huge follower base. I am a starter, a newbie who can only spend a few hours on his blog each week. I am somebody who started with zero investment.

And when it comes to convincing people to subscribe to your list, this methods rocks. I saw a conversion rate of 20+ percent.

In this post I will tell you my exact strategy of building up social signals to a post and then start gathering email subscribers from it. First let’s have a look at what all is required to make this happen.

Tools required
1. A very lucrative and relevant freebie that your target audience craves
2. Social share locker plugin
3. Email content locker plugin
4. Email marketing service subscription
5. Access to targeted groups on social networks and relevant forums

I know some people don’t like the very concept of locking downloads but this is how things work in Internet Marketing. They give you their email addresses; you give them something they really want.

Step 1: Choosing The Freebie

Choosing the right freebie to giveaway is very important. It must be something that your audience really craves for. It should be a problem solver for them. You cannot rehash something that is already available on the internet and expect people to sign up for that. Your freebie should be unique and something that can’t easily be found.

I blog mostly about internet marketing and SEO. I came up with a few very lucrative freebies that my target audience really craves for. In the SEO audience there are people who use many black hat SEO tools to rank their sites. GSA SER is one of those tools.

The tool requires you to have a very good and huge list of websites where it can submit your backlinks. Scraping huge lists of websites that also have good metrics is another technical and tedious task. Most GSA SER owners are not good at it.

I paid somebody to scrape me such a list and I offered it as freebie on my blog. Guess what? People loved it and were ready to share my post and subscribe in order to get the download.

Step 2: Posting On Your Blog

Post your giveaway with a very catchy title. What is in the freebie should be clearly explained in the title. Sense of urgency needs to be created.

Write some lines and paragraphs but preferably keep it short. Our aim is to take them to the download as soon as possible.

Create a download button or link for the downloadable file and lock it behind a social locker. Social locker is basically a plugin that locks the content behind itself and one has to share the website on social networks to unlock the download.

You can search on google to find many free and paid ones but I use Bizpanda. Bizpanda has both social and email locker features and is very easy to use.

Clearly explain that they have to unlock the download by sharing it using social media sites available on the locker.

Step 3: Getting some initial traffic

Find social media groups and pages relevant to your freebie and submit your blog post link to all of them. Comment on relevant blog posts and question answer sites. Also exploit forums and post there wisely.

If people love what you have to offer, they will surely come and share your post to get the download.

This will result in more social shares and subsequently more traffic. Social signals will increase referral traffic from social media sites as well as give some positive SERP push. Due to my keyword being easy to rank, I hit first page with so many social shares coming from real people.

Once you start getting traffic you will notice numbers increasing in share counters after a few hours.

Step 4: Capturing Leads

Getting social shares is good. But we want laser targeted leads too. Once you get some decent amount of shares, replace your social locker with email locker. The traffic is already pouring in from all the social shares.

Now people will have to subscribe to your list to get the download. And they will surely do. Once you feel the traffic is dying, post in social media groups and pages again.

The Next Time You Repeat The Process

I got really good results from my first attempt. After sometime I decided to come up with a new freebie and do it all over again. Guess what? This time step 3 was even easier for me. I already had list of laser targeted subscribers to send the offer. After going through step 2 I emailed my subscribers about the freebie I was offering. They came running after it and my post saw 40+ social shares in a few hours.

Click through rate in most of these emails was well above 4% mark. In one of my email campaigns the click rate was a whopping 7.2%. This number is well above the industry average.

The more you do it, the better you get at it. But the key point here is “How good your freebie is”. Believe me, people who own GSA SER love New and Fresh Links Lists. I found the weakness of my audience and I am exploiting it. Hope you do it too.

About the author: Nabeel Shamshad is a blog scientist and writes about SEO, Internet Marketing, Blogging, online money making ideas and many other things related to the Internet. He is dedicated to showing others what he learns and experiments in his blogging life. To know more about what he is up to, please visit his blog: www.imnabeel.com

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Why Knowledge of This Might Be All the Power You Need for Better Leads

Knowledge is power. Like knowing that your top quality leads — those that MQL — are 3.4x more likely to have engaged with video content than those that didn’t. (Psst … Altium knows this!)

This type of knowledge is like TOP TIER® gasoline with 10% ethanol.

It’s the best of the best. Because your prospects are watching video every day, for hours of their day. And a large majority, 72%, are watching all the way through the buying process. But while watching view counts climb might be a good ego boost, it’s not giving you the information you need to identify top opportunities and close more deals.

Knowing who’s watching your video content, when, and for how long is critical to the smooth running of your revenue engine.

Wait, what’s a revenue engine?

Sign Up Now!

Webinar: How to Rev Up Your Revenue Engine by Adding Video Data to Marketo

Sign Up Now!

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What’s a Revenue Engine?

/ˈrevəˌn(y)o͞o ˈenjən/

A revenue engine is an integrated marketing and sales system that powers your company’s opportunity funnel. It does this by coordinating your strategy, content, technology and analytics so that your organization can better understand your audience’s digital body language and deliver the right message at the right time to the right person at every stage of the buying process.

So remember: knowing who’s watching your video content, when, and for how long is critical to the smooth running of your revenue engine.

Less Idling, More Results

Seriously, we’ve spoken about this a lot. About scoring leads based on the video content prospects are watching and adjusting based on where the video content sits within the funnel, how much of it is watched, and the type of video it is. Or how about knowing when to send a lead directly to sales when they’ve already consumed the threshold level of video that you know their account has a high propensity to close.

We’ve blabbed and blabbed. But great marketers always say ‘show, don’t tell’.

So after all of our preaching, best-practice posts, and ‘how-to’ guides, we have a team to show you first-hand, just how they’ve done this. And how they were able to determine the direct impact their video content has on likelihood to purchase.

Join us for the live webinar! Or … if you’re more of the watch-on-your-own type, sign up to get the recording once the session is over. We won’t judge either way.

The post Why Knowledge of This Might Be All the Power You Need for Better Leads appeared first on Vidyard.

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How to Increase Open Rates and Better Engage Prospects

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all instantly increase our effectiveness at engaging sales prospects or even better, our dream customers?

It would be nice, I’m talking like, realllly nice. That’s why I coach my team of sales development rockstars at LevelEleven personalized outreach to only our ideal customer profiles. Today, I’m going to share some of our best Motor City strategies.

This is going to take both creativity and research on your part, but I’m confident that if you’re reading this, you’ll be up for the challenge.

5 Ways to Increase Open Rates and Better Engage Prospects  

1. Intrigue

Use your subject line to bring a little intrigue to your emails. One of my reps got a very well-known SVP of Sales to respond / engage with our team with the subject line “Chips, Broncos and … Beer?” Who could possibly resist opening that email? Even better, this subject line was very personalized, referencing that specific prospect’s alma mater and football team. (Note: I’m a massive Detroit Lions fan. Lions-s-s-s-s-s!!!)

Get a little bit creative when it comes to your email subject lines and come up with something that even you couldn’t resist opening. Another personal favorite I’ve seen someone use is “Life is like a box of chocolates…” I think it’s safe to say that most people recognize this famous movie line, and therefore would be compelled to open the email and find out what comes after.

2. Humor

Here’s another chance to use creativity to ramp up your open rates. Why not break up someone’s mundane workday with a little laugh? Here are a few examples that our SDRs have come up with:

• “Would you rather: CRM metrics or Beef Jerky?”
• “My mom will NOT get off my back about productivity.”
• “What’s your commit for this month…sound familiar?”

Not only does this type of email stick out in a business professional’s inbox, but your prospect will feel more inclined to listen to what you have to say if you happen to put a smile on their face while adding value to their daily responsibility. Just remember that you must tie the subject line in to your email. Don’t promise a bit about beef jerky and then not deliver the meat. Man that stuff is good.

3. News

This is where the research element comes in. Look for any recent news about your prospect or their company. Please do not over-complicate this. We live by the 3 x 3 rule: find three relevant pieces of information in less than three minutes. Was your prospect recently promoted? Did the company launch a new product? Has the company just finished a really strong Q1? Use this to drive a personalized message around your touch-points with your ideal prospect. Great resources for this are LinkedIn, InsideView, and Google Alerts.

4. Connection

Because we live in such a connected world, it’s only natural to leverage your network to your advantage. Use social media to find out what connections you have in common with prospects. Maybe they are connected to a few of your biggest customer advocates. Perhaps they even used to work at some of those companies. Or what if they know your Uncle Steve? I have an uncle, his name is Steve and yes, he is money. (Love ya, Uncle Steve!) The possibilities are endless. Channel your inner Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to see what kind of magic you can whip up.

5. Interest

You’re going to want to get really cozy with LinkedIn. Take a deep dive into your prospects’ social profiles and find out what their interests are. One of our SDR’s identified that a targeted prospect played the cello and was able to better engage with them because they both had that in common. People aren’t so different from each other, so look for something that you can use to make a genuine connection with the person on the other end of the line — whether it’s their alma mater, favorite sports team, or recent article they posted.

These are just a handful of ideas that our team keeps top of mind. Take this opportunity to use your imagination and take calculated risks. I challenge you to design and develop other engagement ideas that land your dream customer.

The post How to Increase Open Rates and Better Engage Prospects appeared first on Vidyard.

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259 Advanced YouTube Marketing Strategies for Bloggers

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YouTube Marketing Strategies

Are you ready to take your YouTube marketing to the next level?

Is your channel a victim of “unsubscriptionitis”?

In this episode, you’ll learn how to get the most out of YouTube using top marketing tips and analytics reports.

YouTube Marketing Tips

Online videos are becoming more and more powerful as tools for building your business, and YouTube is still a major player. I used YouTube to build my Biology blog, and now I have 99,374 subscribers!

So one day I got an email from someone at YouTube. He told me that my channel had been growing and that I could be eligible for a free one-to-one consultation to help me grow even further.

His advice was so great, I just couldn’t keep it to myself! So here are some top tips, straight from the source, to help you market your business on YouTube.

1. Have a Consistent Upload Schedule

Consistent Posting Schedule

My contact at YouTube told me that this is the most important thing you can do to help your business grow. It’s something that I advocate all the time, too!

A consistent upload schedule helps your audience know what to expect and gets them to look forward to your content. You can train your audience to plan on new content at regular intervals, and that’s exactly what you want!

But here’s the thing: you don’t just need a consistent upload schedule, you need to advertise it in as many places as possible. Over-communicate your schedule to your audience so there’s no way they can miss it.

You can let people know your upload schedule in the video channel banner, in the about section, in the video description, at the end of the video, in your cards and annotations—anywhere you can think of. Let the world know when you’ll be uploading your content!

2. Have a Channel Trailer

Channel Trailer

A channel trailer is what people will see when they visit your channel, but they aren’t subscribed yet. You want to help these people suffering from “unsubscriptionitis” (it’s cheesy, but I like it!). Encourage them to subscribe with your channel trailer.

Hook them into your content by highlighting your best videos. Keep it short and sweet, but point them to where they can see your best content.

Use annotations to send them to top videos and playlists, too. Together, we can cure unsubscriptionitis!

What are annotations? They’re ways for viewers to interact with your content—but they don’t work on mobile devices. Which brings us to the next point…

3. Use Cards

YouTube Cards

Cards are like annotations, but they work across desktop and mobile devices.

People are spending more and more time accessing video content on their phones and tablets. My YouTube contact told me that the average viewing session on a mobile device is now more than 40 minutes. That’s up over 50% from a year ago! So it’s super important to be reaching your audience on mobile devices.

So how does a card work? If you’re watching a video on your mobile device, a little icon with an eye in it will pop up at the top of the screen. If you click that icon, cards will pop up over the video with extra information in them.

Using cards, you can link to other videos, playlists, your website, your blog, your fan funding page (like Patreon)…the possibilities are endless.

Cards are a great way for your audience to interact with the content and for you to enhance the experience that you’re creating for them.

4. Use a Branding Watermark

Video Branding Watermark

A branding watermark is a logo or a picture that appears at the bottom right of your video. It allows you to increase engagement in a different way: if a viewer hovers over the watermark, they can click to subscribe to your channel right then and there.

As you know, subscriptions are really important, because your subscribers get notified every time you post new content. So when I upload a new video to my biology channel on YouTube, almost 100,000 people immediately know about it.

What’s great about a branding watermark is that it stays with your video and shows up on other websites. So if someone else thinks your video is awesome and embeds it in their blog, your watermark will still be there. This means that anyone viewing your video on that other blog can hover over the watermark and immediately click to subscribe to your channel.

So how do you get a branding watermark? Go into your channel settings, enable the branding watermark, and then upload the image you want to use.

5. Use Custom Thumbnails

Custom Thumbnail

You don’t have this option everywhere you want to upload a video, but YouTube allows you to customize your thumbnail.

Why is this important? According to my YouTube contact, 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails. That’s huge!

A custom thumbnail increases your click through rate (CTR) because it catches people’s attention. So how do you make sure that your custom thumbnail does its job? Here are the best practices for creating a custom thumbnail:

Make sure it’s clear, in focus, and a relatively high resolution (640px x 360px minimum).

Keep it to a 16:9 aspect ratio (basically, widescreen!).

Make sure it’s bright, high contrast, well-framed, and visually compelling. Look at the top-rated videos on YouTube for ideas—you’ll notice that almost all of them have really exciting custom thumbnails.
Think about it even before you shoot the video. What do you need to communicate to your audience through the thumbnail?

Check that it’s clear and consistent across devices. For example, text might look great on a desktop but terrible on a mobile device, so use a bigger font or go for a powerful image instead.

Visually reinforce the video title with your thumbnail. Consistency encourages clicks!

Make sure the thumbnail is an accurate reflection of the video content. How annoying is it when you think a video is going to be exactly what you need, only to find out that it doesn’t deliver what the title and thumbnail promised? That’s a great way to get a lot of dislikes. Don’t do it! The thumbnail, the title, and your branding on the channel should all work together to deliver the content that your viewers expect.

Ways to Analyse and Improve Your Channel

There’s so much more to YouTube’s analytics than the numbers. My contact showed me some great ways to analyse your reports so that you can make informed decisions about when to upload content, how to structure or re-structure your videos, what kind of content you should be creating, and how to use your annotations. Here are four different reports that you can take advantage of:

Watch Time Report

Watch Time Report

The watch time report tells you when people are viewing your content.

On my biology channel, the report told me that more people watch at the beginning of the week. Since I haven’t uploaded a video in a long time, my YouTube contact said that I’m naturally getting more viewership at the start of the week rather than at the weekend.

What does this tell me? Well it can help me decide when I should be uploading new content! Based on my Watch Time Report, Monday would be a good day to upload new videos.

By the way, YouTube marketers think that watch time is really, really important. If your channel has lots of watch time, that’s keeping people on YouTube for longer. Obviously, they want people to stick around on their site, so if you’ve got high watch time, YouTube will start to rank your videos higher.

So it’s super important to ask yourself: when are viewers engaging with your videos the most?

Audience Retention Report

Audience Retention Report

You can use audience retention data to make decisions about the flow of your videos.
When he looked at my biology channel, my YouTube contact saw that I had a high dropoff rate at the start of some videos. When he looked at those videos in detail, he could see that I was using a long introduction that basically just repeated the video title.

Keep in mind that—for better or for worse—people’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. On YouTube, you can jump straight into the content because your title and your custom thumbnail already tell people what to expect from your video.

Check your Audience Retention Report to find out when and how you’re losing viewers. This empowers you to make changes to the structure of your videos.

Traffic Sources Report

Traffic Source Report

How are people finding your videos? The Traffic Sources Report can help you find out.

In my case, a high number of people are finding me through searches for specific topics. My YouTube contact said this wasn’t a surprise, because my content is highly valuable and discoverable. Awesome!

Here’s the tip he gave me, though: you can use the “YouTube search” data to see the terms that people are using to find you and your content. That’s an indication of the content that people are most interested in. On my channel, people are mostly searching for videos on the cardiovascular system, so that tells me I should be making more videos on that topic.

Digging deep into these analytics helps you to make decisions about what kind of content you should be uploading.

Annotations Report

Annotations

My YouTube contact says that, as a rule of thumb, your CTR (click through rate) should always be higher than your close through rate.

That means that when people click on your video, they shouldn’t be clicking again to leave your video too quickly.

My report showed that certain videos on my channel had a high close through rate. When my YouTube contact looked at those videos in detail, he could see that I was introducing the videos by offering viewers a link straight to my Interactive Biology Blog. Basically, I was giving them an opportunity to leave the video before they’d even watched it.

Don’t do that!

Don’t encourage your viewers to click away before they’ve even seen the content. Show them the value of your video before you give them a chance to click away. Give them the value first!

Analytics Are More Than Just Numbers

These reports help you to make informed decisions about how to keep your audience engaged!

Resources Mentioned

Infographic

The post 259 Advanced YouTube Marketing Strategies for Bloggers appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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How to Setup Your 1st Online Business for Maximum Profit?

Opening an online business can be a great decision, whether it’s a transition from physical to virtual, or a start-up. Going online can be a rich and exciting experience, but needs as much time and attention as any standalone business. As with kind of business, your end goal is profit and you’re going to have to keep finding ways in which you can maximize those profits and streamline your business processes. Irrespective of the industry or type of business, diversifying your revenue stream is always your best bet. But apart from a good marketing strategy and a killer product, you can never really be sure as to whether your online gamble will pay off. Most online businesses can be managed and operated by a single competent individual, even the profitable ones. So, here are a few tips that will help you set up your business for maximum profit:

1. Try to sell your own product
This one might not be feasible for all online businesses, but it does offer one huge advantage- selling your own products means that you have complete control on how much profit you’re making, right from material procurement to distribution, allowing you to have the widest profit margins. Knowing the exact production cost of your products also allows you to experiment with different price points to find the one that works out best for you and your business. Removing any middlemen also allows you to provide personalized customer service.

2. Manage and sell your own services
Selling your own service is typically easier than selling a physical product, but it also tends to limit your revenues. This is because, unlike physical products that can be stored and shipped on demand to hundreds or thousands of users, you can only provide a service to as many people as time permits. When selling a service, you’re selling your time in order to perform a service, which requires you to establish some sort of rapport & credibility before you can actually begin making money. Just remember that when you’re selling a service, you’re supposed to explain the benefits of your service, as well as the kind of value that your customer can derive from the service.

3. Drop ship Inventory
Selling products, while also managing inventories, tracking storage space, and maintaining PoS systems can result in high cost and time wastage. Drop-shipping is a good option if you want to avoid dealing with confusing logistical infrastructure as it allows you to sell your high-quality products at super-high margins. This is possible because you’ll outsource your logistics component, allowing you to focus on your core business.

4. Sell Your Ad space
You can also selling advertising space on your site, provided that your site receives lots of targeted traffic or at least a massive opt-in list. There are literally hundreds of advertisers out there who are willing to buy ads from sites that are redirected towards large numbers of their target audience. And although today’s advertising revenues are much less than they used to be, they are still a source of revenue. But should never be your only source as the profits from ads probably won’t be enough to keep your business profitable.

5. Create Joint Venture (JV)
A joint venture is all about like-minded businesses coming together to combine their skills, resources, and goodwill to create new streams of revenue. The best way to make your online business successful is to seek out products and services that your site visitors would be interested in, and then tie-up with the companies that provide to such services. Most other businesses will gladly agree to recommend your products on their site, for a share of the profits.

6. Initiate Affiliate Programs
An affiliate program gives you long term exposure in the internet as it allows you to hire a team of affiliates, who will in turn recommend your product or services on their web site for a share in the sales profits. Affiliate programs will allow you to drastically increase the income of your online business, gradually increasing as more affiliates sign up on your network.

7. Recommending Affiliate Products
Recommending the products and services of your affiliates is a “risk-free” alliance that allows you to promote the products/services of another company’s, in order earn a portion of their sales. Unlike advertising, wherein another company merely pays to advertise for a product, recommending your promotion partners includes marketing efforts to sell your affiliates’ products. You can do so by advertising, or simply clubbing your products/services, with that of your affiliates.

8. Develop a Solid Sales Model
Whether you’re a small business or a large scale enterprise, you’re not going to be able to maximize your online profits without an effective sales model. Thanks to the fairly straight-forward nature of sales models, they allow you to constantly keep tabs on your main and auxiliary revenue streams, while also allowing you to add future revenue streams.

9. Invest in Amazing Employees
Time has always proved that the best way to maximize your profits is to constantly motivate and value your employees, and nothing changes just because it’s an online business. Any employee who feels passionate towards their organization is almost guaranteed to produce effective results. Apart from monetary compensation, investing in your employees also involves training them, helping them adjust to a new work environment, and even organizing recreational activities such office parties and off-site events.

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

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