Blogging – Mad Lemmings

5 Reasons Your Website Drives Visitors Insane

Lori Soard — Mon, 12 May 2014 06:09:05 +0000

Today’s typical website visitor is busy.

They are more than likely accessing your site via a mobile device while on the way to work or between appointments.

If they are at home and have a few spare minutes, it is likely between cooking dinner, running the kids to after school activities or watching TV on the couch.

You have about three seconds to grab the reader’s attention and keep it.

A bad web design or slow site almost guarantees you’ll lose that hard-earned site traffic.

In fact, according to the New York Times

People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds

* That is 1/4 of a second!

In addition to making sure your site is not slow, visitors also expect that:

a site be visually pleasing
offer solid content
be easy to navigate

An annoying site distracts from capturing your readers’ interest.

However, there are five things that you should avoid to make sure people stay on your site.

Five Annoying Site Problems To Avoid

Busy Graphics

Newspaper and magazine editors know that white space in a publication is just as important as the black text.

The reason is that our eyes need to be able to skim content to read it easily.

Imagine an article without paragraph breaks, headers or any separation of content. It would be pretty difficult to read, right?

Busy graphics can create the same effect and make it difficult to read the content on your site.

Avoid:

Busy backgrounds that are tiled where an image repeats over and over and draws the reader’s eye.
Colors that clash
Neon colors (these hurt the eye)
Yellow text
Dark text on a dark background or light text on a light background

If it hurts your eyes to look at it, your site visitors won’t hang around very long.

Here are some samples of the worst “busy” web designs I could find:

Slow Load Time

According to KISSmetrics, loading time is the top reason for people leaving your site.

If your site doesn’t load in under three seconds (and maybe even less than that for some people), the site visitor will move on.

47% of Internet browsers said they expected a site to load in under two seconds.

To make your site load faster:

Optimize images
Use style sheets (instead of on-pages styling)
Limit the number and size of graphics (you need a balance here, as larger graphics improve conversion)
Choose a faster website server

You can test your website’s speed for free at Pingdom. It will even offer you a breakdown of which items are loading fast, give you a grade between zero and 100 and other analysis tools.

Too Spammy

Is your site ad-heavy?

Do you enjoy lots of ads when you visit a website? Of course not.

You visit a site for content and information, or perhaps interaction with others.

While you probably don’t mind an ad or two, because the site has to pay the bills, too many ads are annoying.

In addition, if your site has too many ads, you will take a hit from Google and your page will not rank as well as it should.

Google AdSense even limits you to three ads per page otherwise you could lose your AdSense privileges.

Related Post: Choosing between Mediavine and Ezoic Ads

Difficult to Navigate

If your site visitors can’t easily navigate back to the home page after reading an article, why would they stay around to read more?

Make your navigation simple, close to the top of the page and offer links at the bottom as well.

Keep it uniform on all the pages as well, so that the site visitor always knows where to find the menus.

Here are some other things to avoid in site navigation:

Using only images/icons without text and expecting visitors to know what each image links to
Using a fancy font or script that is hard to read
Using extremely tiny or extremely large text that is either hard to read or distracting

Not Mobile Device Friendly

Pew Research Internet Project estimates that 90% of adults in America own a cell phone and about 58% of those are smartphones.

A 2013 survey by Pew showed that out of those using mobile devices, about 60% use them to access the Internet.

If your site is not mobile device friendly, then you’re missing out on a lot of potential to reach new readers or customers.

There are some inexpensive tools that can help you turn your site into a mobile friendly site:

Or perhaps consider a responsive web design. Many modern WordPress Themes solve this problem easily.

If you need help choosing one, check out this post.

The Benefits of Improving Your Website Design

If people are leaving your website before you can convert them into customers, it may be because your web design needs an overhaul.

By focusing on a few basic design elements that other high-powered websites utilize, you can increase the amount of time visitors stay on your site, reduce your abandonment rate and improve conversion.

Why not take a good look at your website right now?

Not sure how to fix or improve your Website or Blog?

Request a private Website Review

photo credit: mastrobiggo via photopin cc

Grab People’s Attention Even If You’re a Blogging Nobody

Ashley Faulkes — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 09:15:18 +0000

Getting people’s attention in the noisy online world is tough.

In fact, according to Wikipedia: On 20 February 2014, there were around 172 million Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress blogs in existence worldwide.

And that is not including other platforms like Blogger and non-Wordpress sites.

So competition is fierce, and you need to do something a little different to get noticed.

Most of you probably know who Seth Godin is, right?

What would it take to get his attention do you think? What would it take to get him to comment on your blog?

Well, today’s guest on my podcast managed to do just that…and much more.

Enter Will Hoekenga – Attention Grabbing Copywriter

Will has tried blogging many times before. But it just never worked out.

Like many before him, he gave up on it. He has far more important things to do like earn a living.

But with his latest blog, CopyGrad, he decided to try some different tactics and see if he could get some influential people’s attention.

What did he manage to achieve:

A comment from Seth Godin on his first post
A skype call with Jeff Vincent of Wistia
A job at Leadpages via Clay Collins
Attention from Ramit Sethi’s team

Will has used a variety of techniques and ideas to achieve these amazing feats.

Basically he has:

written detailed and compelling posts
written posts about influential people or companies
gotten hold of these people (directly or indirectly) to alert them to his new content

In this podcast, Will explains:

exactly what he did
how and why it works
what not to do when contacting influencers
the kinds of content that works
how to be on the look out for new ideas
how to hook in your readers for life

Take a listen to what Will has to say, I am sure you will learn more than you can imagine…

(or read the transcript if that is your thing).

[powerpress]

Read the Transcript

If you prefer to read the transcript, you can

Download the Transcript PDF

Or read it below…

Show Podcast Transcript

Ashley: Welcome to the show, Will. I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me today.

Will: Yeah, thank you for having me, Ashley, happy to be here.

Ashley: And you’re calling me from Nebraska, right?

Will: It’s Nashville.

Ashley: Nashville, part of Tennessee, okay.

Will: Yeah, Nashville, Tennessee.

Ashley: Excuse me. My American geography is not as good as it should be, but, let’s just quickly dive into your background. Give us a quick run down.Will: Sure, yeah, so for I guess the last 5 years or so I did a lot of freelancing, consulting work, copywriting, email marketing, content marketing, blogging, stuff that locally and just, with people from a variety of locations around the country. And so back in January of this year, 2014, I started a new blog of my own called CopyGrad which was designed to be all about just teaching copywriting stuff and, online marketing, that sort of thing. And so, recently I’ve had a little bit, I guess, it’s more than a little bit of a career change, but I wrote a post about a company that I was a customer of and a big fan of called LeadPages. And LeadPages, it’s a landing page creation and lead generation software basically. And I actually … I used it a lot at the very beginning of getting started building my CopyGrad email list and as it continue to grow using LeadPages a lot.

So, anyway, I wrote this post kind of just about their launch strategies that they used, because they had this really cool way of launching new features. And so after I did that I kind of, I tweeted it out a little to the company’s co-founder Clay Collins and, the company Twitter account and stuff. And anyway, not thinking anything of it really, just be I’m like, “Hey, I wrote this about you guys. I hope you don’t mind,” and that sort of thing. And anyway, so I got a message back from Clay actually who … I then met … He’s the co-founder of the company and he was like, “Hey, we’re actually interested in hiring a copywriter. Would you want to hop on the phone sometime?” And so I was kind of, “Woo,” that’s kind of cool. Yeah, so I take that. And I wasn’t looking for a job or anything, but, it was an opportunity to talk to the founder of a company that I really like. So, I was like, “You know, sure, I’d be glad to.”

So, we got on the phone and kind of started this relationship and I ended up flying to Minneapolis where they’re located and one thing lead to another and I fell in love with the company so much, and the team they have there are just an amazing team of people that, yeah, I ended up accepting a job doing copywriting and content development for LeadPages and just started that last week. So, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. Still, doing a lot of writing about copywriting, content marketing, and that sort of thing, conversion optimization. So, I’m going to be doing a lot of content for their blog, and their community and helping write copy and all sorts of stuff. So, exciting, exciting changes.

Ashley: Congrats, it’s actually one of the reasons I got you on here today was to talk about this whole … this strategy and it’s actually worked really well.

Will: Yeah, yeah, it’s, yeah, definitely crazy, unexpected. But, yeah, I definitely learned some things from the experience.

Ashley: It’s interesting how you can touch … We were just discussing this before we started recording, but how you can touch people who’re actually quite high or influential or whatever you want to call that, and you can actually get a hold of them, by just almost being reasonable, or being nice, or … You don’t even have to send them a box chocolates, but, you know.

Will: Right, yeah, and I mentioned to you when we’re talking about this, but, in doing freelancing for some different bloggers and stuff, prior to all this, who had fairly sizeable email lists and online followings. One thing I kind of notice in seeing people reach out to them was 95 … 95% might even being generous. It might be more like 97 or 99%.

Ashley: A lot.

Will: That’s stuff that a lot of people who have followings get. Pitch to them or even just when someone says, “Hey, I wrote this about you.” And they send it to you so often. It’s so not good and I feel bad saying that. But it’s just what I kind of notice is that if you’re taking your time in producing stuff that is truly high quality, high value content, and you take a little bit of time and energy to make it presentable, make it look nice and demonstrate that there’s thought, and you know, real craftsmanship behind what you’re doing and you kind of put it out there, whether it’s through Twitter or shooting someone an email, someone who’s an influencer or … If you’ve taken the time and invested in your material, it’s going to stand out so much from what they’re used to receiving from people. And so that was one kind of surprising thing that I discovered that really helped me in growing CopyGrad early on, and eventually getting opportunities like this job with LeadPages for example.

Ashley: Yeah, the first thing … I guess the first opportunity you got there was the blog post, right? That was where I came across your writing actually. Was that the first thing that they asked for, or was it already done by then?

Will: No … No, I hadn’t even started on that. But the first time I talked to Clay he was interested in us working together in some capacity. So, just the first kind of thing he suggested was “Well why don’t you try writing a blog post for us.” Which I was definitely more than willing to do, because I think at the time my blog had maybe 500 unique visitors or something. So it was getting a good response, it just, it didn’t have a ton of traffic, I didn’t have a huge following or anything, and you know, the LeadPages blog, I think their list is over 75,000. So, that was a huge opportunity that came out of that.

Ashley: Yeah, it’s a quite a good strategy if you can manage that and that was what I was hoping to chat with you about. These results that you’ve had and these ideas that you’ve used. I’ve seen similar things done before, but you seem to have basically grabbed the bull by the horns and gone for it. I’m starting this blog and I’m going to leverage people directly or indirectly by writing stuff which I want to write anyway.

Will: Right.

Ashley: And try to maybe get somebody a lot bigger than me to notice me. So, what was your thinking behind that? For example let’s take the Seth Godin one which is quite amazing.

Will: Sure … Yeah, that was my first kind of holy crap type moment. But … and one thing I want to say also is that this blog, CopyGrad, it was actually … it’s the third blog that I’ve started. And the first two did not do well at all. And I just completely fizzled out on them after 6 months of trying on each and not getting any real response. So, but so what I noticed with this strategy was the very post that I wrote for CopyGrad was a post about … it was “5 copywriting tactics you can steal from Seth Godin”. And, so, it was just kind of an idea that came naturally the way ideas you like come. I’m on Seth Godin’s email list and he sent out an email. I want to say last November, it was a little before Christmas sometime and he was just, he had links to 5 different products that were unrelated to him. They were just products that he really liked a lot. And he wrote a little chunk of copy about each one, and the copy was so good, that I ended up buying one of the products. It was a pair of headphones actually. But I wanted to buy all of them. And I was sitting there. I was like, “Man,” you know, I’ve read this…

Ashley: How does he do it?

Will: Yeah, I’ve read some of Seth Godin’s books. But I was like, “He’s also this good at writing copy, this is unfair man,” So, anyway, I started writing this post I was sort of already mentally kind of picking apart the copy he had written and why I thought it was a good, and what techniques were at play and that sort of thing. So, anyway, I wrote this, it was a longish post. I think somewhere between 1500 and 2000 words.

Ashley: Okay.

Will: And that was the first post I wrote for CopyGrad. And it was a new blog. So I had relatively no subscribers or anything. And that morning when I published it so I’ve Tweeted out a link just to my general audience which is not very big. And I was … I was aware of the fact that Seth Godin actually gets emails that are sent to Seth at SethGodin.com. And I was like, “What the hell, I’ll just send this out to him.” And I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. But I was like, “Why not?” So I spent maybe 2 or 3 minutes writing a super short, I think it was 3 paragraph long email, just saying like, “Hey, Seth. So, those products you wrote about were awesome. I got that pair of headphones. I wrote this post about your copywriting techniques. You know, thanks for all you’re doing, been a big inspiration.”

I sent it out that morning didn’t really think anything else about it. I’d forgotten about it by the afternoon and so I had that blog post sort of pulled up on a tab in my browser. And I was working on something else and I noticed at the corner of my tab, a little, one new comment thing popped up on … I use Disqus commenting system on my blog. So, it’s that kind of blue box that pops up saying there’s a new comment. And I was like, “Cool.” So, I clicked it and it’s literally a comment from Seth Godin, apparently he has a Disqus account I didn’t even know.

Ashley: You don’t see him around, yeah.

Will: Right, yeah, and he was basically, he made a comment about you know the copy that he wrote was easy because he was writing about stuff he really loved. And then he said “thank you for this post. I read all of it. I loved it.”

And I was just … First of all I wanted to make sure this was actually Seth Godin. I pulled up, I clicked on the Disqus account, started analyzing all the comments that … I think he had 200 something comments on various blogs. And I started picking them apart, trying to figure out if this is the real guy. And it became fairly clear after a little bit that it was him. And so at that point I was just kind of like, “Wow,” well, you know … Because it was cool to receive the comment just from a validation stand point. Someone who’s a marketing hero validating the stuff that I’ve done. You know, it was very good just from a personal stand point. But then I had this comment from Seth Godin saying that he loved my writing. I was like, “Man,” I’m totally using this as a testimonial, when I hit up people for guest post, I’ve got to let them know about this just as social proof or whatever, that I have some semblance of knowledge on a subject, and …

So anyway I was … Several weeks after that had gone by. I’ve done some more posts and they’ve gotten descent reactions, but nothing that had happened. And so I was like, “I need to try, what did I do with that post that made something like that happen.” And, so I started breaking it down and I was like, “Okay, so I wrote about someone who I really liked and who a lot of people really liked, people who liked Seth Godin.”
It’s not just, “Oh, I like Seth Godin.” They’re, “Oh, my God. I love Seth Godin.” Like they’re nuts, and so I was trying to find stuff like that, that people really loved to write about and that I love to write about and just see what they’re doing with their copywriting and their marketing. And sort of break it down in a fun interesting way. And so that kind of became the formula for every post that has done something good for me since then. And so I think the next one after that I wrote about a grocery store chain called Trader Joes that we have … I don’t know if it’s outside of the US or not.

Ashley: I don’t think so. And I’ve seen them in the States but not outside.

Will: Yeah, so it’s a cool a little grocery store and they have a really unique way of writing about their products in a fun kind of corky way and … Trader Joes fans are the same as Seth Godin fans. They freaking love Trader Joes, they would lie down on the streets for Trader Joes. And so I just … I wrote a post about how Trader Joes writes copy their customers love. And that kind of got bounced around on Twitter a little bit not by Trader Joes because they don’t really do a whole lot online, I discovered. But it ended up a guy who works for Wistia, the video hosting company in Boston that I’m also; I love their content they put out.

Ashley: Yeah, their videos are really cool.

Will: Yeah, yeah, their videos are great. So, a guy, Jeff Vincent, he is apparently a big Trader Joes fan and saw the post, and he was like, “Oh, man. I’ve been waiting for someone to write this post.” And I said, “Thanks.” And then he tweeted back and said something like, “You know, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve our copy sometime.” And so that lead to a Skype call with Jeff and getting to learn more about what Wistia is doing which is awesome because I said, I’m a huge fan of them. And then after that I think the LeadPages post came next. I wrote the post about “How LeadPages builds insane amounts of anticipation into all their product launches.”

And yeah, that ended up, Clay saw that and it lead to a whole a new kind of path in my career which has been really cool, and it’s just kind of strange to believe. But that a tweet can actually lead to that.

Ashley: Yeah, sure, it’s … As I was saying the leverage sometimes is quite crazy. The people that I’ve gotten to know even from posts recently through Pinterest Experts and so on. If you have a little bit of credibility it certainly helps. I mean, if you’re approaching them from zero it doesn’t help. But you don’t need to as you’re demonstrating. I mean, you have a virtually brand new blog or at least a few months old. You don’t have a huge Twitter following of 50,000 people or whatever and still these people are open to paying attention to a well-presented, whether it’s email or tweet and with good content behind it. I mean, that’s basically what you’re doing.

Will: That’s the goal, yeah.

Ashley: I mean, it’s quite an amazing thing and I was just reading here, this break down you did of the Seth Godin email which I think is quite interesting about how, you have the subject and the way you … I mean, you only wrote him a short mail but you obviously thought about what you put in there, because he’s not going to … First you got to catch him with the subject line, right, because he might not even open it.

Will: Yeah, definitely.

Ashley: And then once you’ve got him reading, you’ve got to catch him pretty early on to keep reading it, right? I mean, then he may follow through and click the link. How did you break that down?

Will: Well, when I was writing that email I didn’t even really have like, “I hope Seth promotes my post,” in mind that much. And not that it’s wrong to have that in mind cause I’ve definitely have ever since that happened, but I wanted to … You mentioned the subject line and I spent probably the most time writing that, thinking about the subject line. And so like I said I had bought a pair of these headphones that Seth really liked, and so I was thinking to connect on a personal level. I won’t make the subject or even the beginning of the email about, you know the post I’ve written. I’ll just make it about the headphones and be like, “Man, these headphones are awesome. Thank you for recommending them.”

And so I think making the subject about something that the person you’re reaching out to cares about and might have some bit of an emotional connection to, even if it is something as seemingly superficial as a pair of headphones. Just finding some type of common ground or whatever that you can relate to, I think that helps. And opening the email not with an ask right away, but just some way of making a connection and then doing a soft kind of ask for promotion, or you don’t even have to ask for a promotion. I think in that email I just made him aware of it. I was like, “I read this post. Thank you.” And yeah, it leads to that. And I don’t know with something like a person like Seth. Obviously I think that there is probably a fair amount of luck played into what happened with him. But I do think there are certain things you can do like I was saying just now to better your chances of the person opening the email, noticing the email, taking the time to read the email and then going to your post. Cause when you think about it you’re … it’s a lot of barriers you have to come just to get them to the point of reading the post that you’ve written.

Ashley: Yeah, as I said first … first thing is getting them to open it, right? So, if you think about and then I’m sure you did this, you think about what is appearing in his inbox, even if he doesn’t already have an assistant sort of trimming it down for him already and getting rid of the spam or whatever. But, yeah, what’s coming in his inbox, and … I just picked one I opened earlier a conversation here that I just had the other day and I get tons of these as well. And that they’re just so crazy. These are obviously spam.

“Greeting of the day, I am, Sonia. I was surfing through your website and realize that despite having a good design it was not ranking on any search engines and the keywords about your domain.”

Interesting premise they have, but that’s actually not true because it is ranking.

Will: Right.

Ashley: They obviously haven’t done their research. But I got something more interesting this morning which I actually might follow up on. But the person in my opinion made a mistake because they cut and paste a part of the email in, which in itself is okay. You know, we can’t all write fresh emails for everybody. But the fonts are different and the font size is also different.

Will: Yeah, it’s the little things like that, you know.

Ashley: It looks bad.

Will: That can …

Ashley: Making it bad.

Will: Yeah, there’s not a whole lot you have to do just sort of make it at least look like a normal email somewhat that’s sent.

Ashley: Well, maybe they don’t even know how, but it’s … I’m not sure if maybe in their email client they didn’t see that it was a different font or whatever. But, I don’t know, if you’re doing this on a daily basis you think you would get good at it. And maybe that’s the whole point, that’s the reason why you stood out and they don’t. Firstly you had a personal hook which I think is a great. And I found that also from meeting people even on the podcast and whatever and they reach out. I just love to talk to people and get to know them anyway, because I’m actually glad to meet them and you do find common ground usually very quickly and it’s good to chit chat and then afterwards usually you continue to stay in touch, and that’s really nice. But if you don’t find any common ground you’re like, “Right, thanks for joining me. Let’s record the podcast. Okay, I’m only here for the podcast. I don’t care about anything else.” That’s crazy.

Will: Right.

Ashley: And when people do that they write to me and say … They even write tweets to me say, “Can you just re-tweet this for me.” I’m thinking, “Who are you? Do I know you?”

Will: Right, yeah. Yeah, I think you have to search for that personal connection and you know offering the person something that has value for them as well. So writing that post about LeadPages for example. I didn’t write the post to make them look really good. But I wrote the post kind of about an awesome marketing technique they were using. And it did bring some attention to the company and stuff and it was just … It was a good value piece that you know that could be useful for them to share as well.

Ashley: Sure.

Will: And so as opposed to just asking for a share or whatever, I think creating something that you can see has a use for the person that you want to promote it. You know, if that value and that use is clear then you’re not even, you don’t really even have to explicitly come out and ask so much as you do. Just send it their way. You know, say thank you. Yeah, and I think people are kind of caught up and they’re trying to get a hundred different people to promote their posts so they don’t have the time to sort of invest, make that effort to invest personally in their asks, and they just end up as you said copying and pasting and just straight up asking for the promotion which … You know, that will work for if you do ask a hundred people I would be shocked if at least somewhere between 1 to 5 of them didn’t say, “Yes,” but yeah…

Ashley: But that’s a “burn and run” strategy, right?

Will: Exactly. It doesn’t build a relationship. And often if they’re sharing it. You know, all shares aren’t really created equally. I mean just re-tweeting something is not as good as if they’re like, “Wow, thank you so much for writing this awesome post.” You know if they get excited about it and they really want people to see it, they’re going to make more of an effort to get it in front of their audience.

Ashley: Yeah, I think that’s exactly true. And I mean, I’ve never actually done that until recently I’ve realized that maybe I should have. But, this whole asking people and share my stuff, I always thought I should earn it and maybe I’ve done it wrong, but then in the background and I’ve gotten to know a few people and I even had a guy I know really well the other day. I won’t name names, but he wrote to me and said, “You know what?” He said, “Send me 5 of your best posts and I’m going to throw them in my tweet stock and they tweet them out for you every week.”

Will: That’s awesome, yeah.

Ashley: And because we know each other really well now. I’ve written stuff for this guy and we have a really good relationship. And it’s about … It’s all about the relationship.

Will: Right.

Ashley: And his has come to me, I think I’ve almost covered this exactly little gem in every podcast I’ve had. Every topic I’ve talked about, it’s all come down to where is the relationship? Are you developing a relationship with whoever it is?

Will: Right.

Ashley: It doesn’t have to be a big person or whoever. But if you’re not forming a relationship then you’re not really achieving anything. It’s amazing.

And this other one that you wrote recently, this post about Ramit Sethi, did that go anywhere? I was just noticing that the other day as well.

Will: Sure, yeah, so that post that was following the exact same strategy I’ve been talking about. Yeah, I’ve been a big fan of particularly the way that Ramit Sethi writes emails. I’ve been on his email list for a year and he just, he writes awesome emails and sometimes they’ll be 2000 words long, which is…

Ashley: Really,

Will: Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of crazy, not many people will do that. And, but I always read to the end and, yeah, he has an amazing online business and so I’ve always really liked the way he writes emails. So, I wrote a post about a recent product launch he did, I think he wrote 20 something emails. I pasted them all into word and added up the word count and it was … I think it was close to 20,000 words worth of emails he wrote for his product launch. And so anyway, yeah, I wrote that post, I sent Ramit an email and when I promoted it on Twitter I used his Twitter handle. And I did not hear anything directly from him, but it was another one of those situations kind of like the Trader Joes thing, where there are lots of Ramit Sethi fans out there. And so when they saw the post they really connected, take time with it, and I get several emails about it. I actually, I got … I forgot about this, this is kind of a recent thing. I got my first speaking request ever.

Ashley: What? Awesome.

Will: Which … Yeah, I mean, I haven’t been chasing that at all. I hadn’t even really thought about doing speaking. But, yeah, it’s for a conference called the Social Recruiting Seminar I believe, and it’s in Alberta in Canada. And the guy who’s organizing it saw that post about Ramit and he’s a fan of his and emailed me. It was like, “Hey, I’d love, next May, for you to come up here and do a workshop of copywriting for recruiters.” It’s a conference for recruiters basically and so it will be about applying copywriting techniques to writing descriptions. And yeah, so that’s…

Ashley: It’s a desperately needed. I was just going to say that’s really, really needed.

Will: I know, yeah, and it’s crazy cause I just went through this whole process of recruitment with LeadPages so it was kind of odd timing. But, yeah, they (Leadpages) wrote a kick ass job description. So, yeah, it’s a subject that I have some things to say about. So, yeah, it was really exciting and that’s another sort of takeaway is that it doesn’t always have to result in the person or company or whatever it is that you’re about. It doesn’t have to result in them promoting you. A lot of times it’s in their fans, their fellowing. Finding it and connecting with you that way. So, yeah, that was another really cool result that’s happened.

Ashley: Yeah, I mean, I’m just looking at your post here. It’s actually, I mean, how many words is it? And it has a lot of pictures in here as well obviously, but it’s a really, really, really long.

Will: Yeah, that’s another, a good point, yeah, it’s the longest post I’ve written and I think it’s over 3,000 words which, yeah, I don’t … Being super long isn’t a requirement, but, I think a post that’s at least in the thousand range is usually going to give you a better shot that a quick little 500 word post. Not that a 500 word post is always something that’s quick and easier to write. You know, it’s actually really tough to pull off great posts that are at that length.

Ashley: Yes, I have that problem.

Will: Yeah, but I think what I would say is that all those posts that have done well for me; I wouldn’t use length to describe them. I would just say that they were very in-depth.

Ashley: Yes, exactly.

Will: So, yeah, they’re very thorough and both an analysis of the copywriting and marketing and describing how you, the reader the can implement those techniques and apply them to your business. So, that’s another 2 things I think to keep in mind, is having great analysis, but then also having a great practical application for the reader. They should be able to read your post and not only learn something but then be, “Oh, cool. Now I’m going to go try that right now with my stuff.” So, actionable items, things like that. Cause if someone can read your stuff and then they actually do something because of it, that creates kind of a bond with your content that, isn’t always easy to earn, but it’s definitely stronger than just a connection made if they just read the post and didn’t do anything, when they do that action, that’s a really big connection that can be made.

Ashley: That’s actually a great idea. And you’re talking here about teaching an actionable tip and there’s one from you just now.

Will: Sure, yeah.

Ashley: Which is just actionable connection and I read something in Darren Rowse’s book, one of his blogger books. And he was talking about building community and it’s actually quite difficult to do outside of his niche, but he was building his digital photography school or whatever it’s called.

Will: Right, right.

Ashley: And one of the things he used to do was get people to do homework or a project every week and then joining this community of assessing and looking at each other’s photos based on a particular tip of the week. And it’s along the same lines, but in marketing you’re basically giving people something to do easily in a broken down way and then that is, you are the teacher and they will remember you for that.

Will: Right, yeah. And it’s not like everyone is … Even if you give someone … If you had the best, greatest tip that a hundred percent of the time worked for people, which nothing like that ever exists even if people say it does. But if you had that and it was real and everyone knew it was real there would still be a good percentage of people reading it who would not turn around and act on it. So people, even when you print out great actionable stuff, people aren’t always going to act on it. But the percentage of people who do are going to be worth so much to your community and your audience. They’re going to be so engage. They’re going to be the ones promoting every post you write and commenting all that time. And down the road if you’re planning on releasing products or anything like that or if you’re trying to get coaching clients, those are the people that going to be your biggest supporters in those areas.

Ashley: That’s a great idea. I mean, that’s something I hadn’t thought about. I mean, I always try and provide and really useful information. But having this idea of developing a deeper connection I’ve always really missed that one point that you just said. That’s fantastic. I’m going to steal it and use it now.

Will: Awesome, yeah. You know I would love to see that. That’s great.

Ashley: So, let’s just backtrack and cover what we’ve gone over here and so we can bundle it all into 3 or 4 tips that people could use. I mean basically what we’re talking about here is writing great stuff which is then actionable and detailed and getting somebody’s attention whether it’s someone specific or a fan, I mean, that’s basically what you’ve done, and … so how would you go about thinking about such a topic. I saw in one of your posts you were talking about being passionate and writing about things that mean something to you and that you notice on a daily basis. How do you normally go about doing that just to give some people an idea?

Will: Yeah, well, I mean I’ve never been a great note taker kind of person. In school growing up who had one notebook that was just overflowing with crap and so disorganized and didn’t take notes in class and stuff like that. I just didn’t have this note taking mind. So, one thing I’ve kind of made an effort to do especially since I’ve started writing more often, it’s just whenever I see something I like, whatever idea I get. I just make a little, have a note on my iPhone and, I’ve just got blog ideas, and just write everything down there. And I know it’s a fairly common tip. But what I would recommend people really look out for is that stuff that for some reason you can’t help but find yourself liking. Even if it seems there’s not that much of a connection. I mean, I wrote a post about a grocery store, it doesn’t always immediately in your mind seems like something that would fit well in copywriting a marketing blog. But when you notice things that you like, make a note of it and go back and just sort of … You know, if you’re writing about something, like marketing for example, ask yourself what’s making you like it. What is it about them that crated that connection with you? And just sort of look for things like that and then look for ways to apply however they’ve accomplish creating that connection to your audience.

Ashley: Yeah, yeah, that’s what I think I read on your post. That’s really, that’s what it’s all about, right? I mean, you’ve got to bring it back. Whatever you see, you have to bring it back and I wouldn’t say twist, but apply it to your area and see how it would applies to your area and why it’s appealed and how you can leverage that to learn something like you said about: how LeadPages builds anticipation. You noticed that, it really caught your attention and you wrote about it. And you wrote about it as a copywriter because that’s what you do. I could write about it more in terms of how they do the process or how they do their websites or whatever. But you just apply it back to yourself. So then you write the post, you try and get as much information as you can, make it useful and break it down. And then you, somehow whether it’s, you also said, you look for people’s connection details as well, right?

Will: Yeah, so…

Ashley: To emails and tweets and stuff like that.

Will: Right, yeah, so basically you know it’s always good to know the best way to get in touch with somebody. So, it could be hard to find email addresses or it can even get into border line, like creepy stalker territory. If you’re doing … There have been times in my life, I feel like I’m trying too hard to get this email address. It might be weird. But, anyway, yeah, I mean, just take a look at their activity, and, I mean, almost anyone that you write about is going to be on Twitter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the best way to get in touch with them. But the two that I found work best are email and Twitter and, a lot of times when you email somebody and they may not get back to you. A lot of times they still read it and that can sort of lead to things down the line. For example, I sent that post about Ramit Sethi, to his email address, and I didn’t hear anything back from them. But I did notice that someone from his company subscribed to my … or joined my email list. So it was someone who had like at @ramitsethi.com name or whatever. So, I mean, someone saw it and, who knows, if anything could come at that down the road, but yeah…

Ashley: I think that’s very true. I’ve heard stories like that before where someone says, “Hey, I’m sorry”. I think it was John Paul Agiuar. was saying, “Look, I do notice you. I may not reply. But I do notice you.” People do notice who’s commenting on their blog and who’s sending them specific tweets. Generally they do notice.

Will: Definitely.

Ashley: And so it has an impact. And one tip I was just going to give them when I was actually stalking some people as well for email addresses. You sign up to their newsletter. That’s where you generally get the email address that they respond to. Because I send some people I connected with last year, Christmas cards actually. That was a really good trick.

Will: I’m amazed.

Ashley: Proper mail actually makes more of an impact than anything else, cause nobody gets any anymore.

Will: Yeah, that would be cool thing to try.

Ashley: You’re just getting bills in the mail, right? That’s it. So, I didn’t know, right? Because you’re supposed to put your proper address on the bottom of your email as part of the anti-spam. So, I use that trick. And it had some impact.. I had written to people I really wanted to thank cause they’ve been supportive and whatever. It was something that I used to do with all my friends and they all stopped replying. So, I stopped sending my friends Christmas cards from Switzerland and now I send them to influencers instead.

Will: That’s awesome.

Ashley: Nobody does it anymore. People would send electronic Christmas cards or just emails or whatever. But, I like making them out of photos that I’ve taken or whatever. But, yeah, anyways, so yeah, that’s a really cool strategy.
Basically you’ve ended up with not only a comment from Seth Godin and tweets from the LeadPages team, you’ve actually got a job with LeadPages. And then in 6 weeks you’re off. So fantastic and congratulations.

Will: Thank you. Yeah, I’m really excited about it.

Ashley: So, there you go, that’s it… is there anything else you want to quickly want to add? I think that rounds up everything we’ve discussed.

Will: Yeah, I think that’s really good. Just, yeah, I would say the only biggest other sort of lesson I’ve learned from blogging is to make it a habit and, to not let one crappy post or one post that doesn’t get any response sort of dig at you and cause you to stop writing. And … I will say real quickly just one time when this technique totally, seemed it backfired on me was the second post I wrote. It was about how to write a great about page. And I talked about several different about pages and I won’t say which one, but I sent … So anyone who I mentioned in the post, I sent the post to them, I was like, “Hey, I mentioned your about page. You know, I hope you don’t mind.” And then anyway, I didn’t hear anything. And then I got a 3 word email back from one of them, and it just said, “Your post sucked.” And yeah, and so I was, yeah, it was just kind of crushing at the moment. But, I mean, nothing horrible happened and then kind of bizarrely, like a day later, the same person. I kind of responded and I was just, “Hey, sorry you felt that way. Thanks anyway.” You know, so I would say don’t take it personally. Cause after I sent that back the person wrote back and they were, “Oh, I forgot to put a smiley face on that email. So, it might have … I was trying to be joking with it.” I was, “Okay, cool.”

Ashley: Maybe, yeah.

Will: Yeah, but, so anyway, yeah … Just don’t … Stuff like that happens, that happened to me and then my next 2 posts, I talked to someone from Wistia and, I got hooked up with LeadPages. So, don’t let the one bad thing kind of slow you down.

Ashley: Yeah and keep working on the relationships. That’s the key.

Will: Definitely.

Ashley: Alright, cool. Well, thanks for your time today, Will. You’ve really given us some motivation here. I know it’s, I mean, you’ve had obviously difficult time with your blogs in the past and now it’s finally, it’s finally paid off and that’s awesome.

Will: Yeah, thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it, great talking to you actually.

Ashley: Yeah, no worries and we’ll probably catch up again in the future. I’ll see how things are going in LeadPages.

Will: Awesome, yeah, definitely I’d love to talk about that.

Ashley: Alright, cool. Alright, thanks and have a great day.

Will: Alright, yeah, bye.

Send Will A Thank You Tweet

If you enjoyed this podcast with Will, why not send him a thank you Tweet…

Thank Will with a Tweet

Posts and Resources from the Podcast

5 Copywriting Tactics You Can Steal from Seth Godin

How to Get Awesome Results from a Low Traffic Blog

The 17,000-Word Beast Ramit Sethi Created to Launch His New Course

How LeadPages Bakes Insane Anticipation Into Every Launch

My Pinterest Expert Post that got shared like mad

Connect with Will

Website

Twitter

How About A Review on iTunes Or Stitcher?

As this podcast is just starting out, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a review on iTunes to help me promote it and reach more people.

I have a quick How To Do a Review on iTunes

(only because it may not be so simple to find the place to do it)

Previous Podcast Episodes

If you don’t really need to head to iTunes or Stitcher, you can find all the previous podcasts here

Final Words

Although it is not easy to become famous online, if you get the right people’s attention it can really help.

So why not try writing something that your role models would love to read.

Maybe even a post about how they have inspired you? Then let them know it exists.

The results might surprise you.

10 Reasons Why You Must Use WordPress

Ashley Faulkes — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 09:57:00 +0000

You landed on this page because you are wondering why you should use WordPress?

There are loads of options for building websites these days, and it can get a little confusing.

But if you take a good look at the benefits or reasons you should use WordPress for your website, I think you will be convinced.

WordPress is Free

Free is a powerful word.

And if someone said you can build your website using technology that is completely free, would you say no?

Probably not.

But maybe you would ask yourself if it was any good. After all, if something is free, often it is lacking in quality.

But not always.

In the world of software that is often not the case.

Some of the best stuff is free – like Java (used for Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy) and probably much of the banking software out there. It all revolves around what they call “open source”

But for you it means – community-supported and free.

So free is great for many reasons.

It’s So Easy Your Grandma Could Use it

I am guessing you have used Microsoft Word before?

If so, then you can use WordPress.

Writing a page or post in WordPress is very easy.

You simply type, add bold and italic, center align, add headings, images and that is pretty much it.

There are many more things you can do (and I will go into those below) but the basics are very easy.

So creating new content, and being the boss of your website is simple.

And that is what I tell my customers:

My goal is to give you a website you can control

Easily Add Functionality with WordPress Plugins

The way WordPress is designed, it is very simple to add functionality to your website.

Let’s imagine you need a contact form for people to email you via your website.

No worries. There are at least 5 great plugins you can add to do this.

If you need a stylish image gallery to present your latest photoshoot, no problem, the makers of WordPress themselves have a great plugin for that too.

In fact, WordPress has been around for so long that there are plugins for almost anything you can imagine!

And I have summarized some of the best in a post you can refer to when you need it.

WordPress Makes SEO Easy

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization (aka getting noticed on Google) is also quite simple when you use WordPress.

Of course, you need to learn a little about what SEO is, but with a simple plugin you can do get results in no time.

Adding SEO functionality is so simple with WordPress, I often forget I didn’t have it to start with.

And it is easy to use. It is a set of fields I fill in below each page or post before you publish new content.

It’s that easy folks.

Make it Stylish with WordPress Themes

Functionality is not everything, and sometimes you just want your site to look great.

After all

Your website is your most important online asset, and probably your most often seen “business card”.

So you want it to look awesome, right? I hope so.

Well, WordPress comes to save the day again.

WordPress has themes. And themes are simply skins or styles you add that completely change the look and feel of your site.

So you can try a few out, and go with the one you love.

If you need a hand choosing one, you can read this post on how to go about choosing a theme.

You can also get a pro to help you too, if you need a hand.

Adding a Blog is Built-in

One of the best ways to advertise these days is to add great content to your website.

Whether it is videos, infographics or just blog posts, the best way to do this is by adding a blog to your website.

A blog is just a page with a date on it.

And WordPress was originally built around blogs. So adding one is as easy as pie.

Of course you can also build a site without one, so don’t feel pressured to create loads of content.

But the option is there. And it takes only a few minutes to add it.

WordPress Is Flexible

WordPress is really a complete CMS (Content Management System).

This means you can do almost anything with it.

The plugins and themes I mentioned above are some of the highlights.

But even if you don’t play with those, WordPress has lots of other simple, yet powerful, things to help.

You can easily create menus to get your customers to your pages.

Then there are the widgets – these are flexible elements that you can add to the header, footer or sidebar of your site.

What goes in a widget? Again, almost anything.

Advertising
Forms
Buttons
Images
Content

and much much more.

In the end, by using WordPress you can create anything you can imagine – and often with zero programming skills.

Tip: If you use a page builder like Thrive Content Builder, you can create even more amazing pages and without tech skills too!

Ecommerce is Simple to Do

Many of you are building a website because you want to sell something.

And WordPress has certainly not forgotten you there.

Depending on what exactly you are selling, there are plenty of options.

It could be as simple as adding a PayPal button to your site. (there are plugins to help!)

Or you can integrate complete eCommerce systems, like the free one from WooCommerce.

Of course, the bigger eCommerce systems are not forgotten either. You can integrate the more popular Shopify, or even BigCommerce (not sure about that one? Read this BigCommerce Review).

It is actually amazing how much functionality WooCommerce gives us for free.

So fear not if you have a shop, you can easily get online with WordPress too!

Loads of Support

Last but certainly not least, WordPress comes with a fantastic amount of support.

Because so many people use WordPress, and so much has been written about it, you will almost always find an answer.

There are forums, blog posts, support from the developers of WordPress, and plenty more.

So if you are tweaking or playing with things and you get stuck, chances are someone out there can help you.

And if you are not up for playing around with your site, you can always just pay a professional to do it.

Sometimes it is simpler and safer to do.

Try WordPress Today

I hope I have convinced you of the huge amount of benefits of using WordPress for your website.

As a web designer and developer myself I could just write all the code for my customer’s websites, but I don’t.

I use WordPress.

For all of the reasons above, and much much more, I could not live without it.

Grab my FREE Website Guide

photo credit: thisismyurl via photopin cc

How to Get Noticed by Influencers Without Appearing Needy

Julian Sakanee — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 17:00:39 +0000

Do you ever wonder why or how there are so many successful bloggers in an industry?

Especially in a crowded one like the blogging and online marketing space.

Yeah, I used to wonder about that, too.

It’s kinda strange, right?

Your content is just as good as theirs, if not better, but they still get all the glory, all the shares, all the comments.

So what are you missing?

Why does it just seem to just “work” for others, but not for you?

It’s actually quite simple, once you know the trick.

It’s because they’ve got connections. That means relationships with other more powerful bloggers in their industry.

And every time they publish a new post, they reach out to the people they’ve mentioned, and to people they’re friends with – which ultimately encourages lots of sharing.

So the question then is: How do you connect with these influential bloggers?

It’s a long road, I can tell you that.

And it all starts with getting their attention.

These are extremely busy people. So you better do it right.

And in this post, I will show you the 7-step process to getting on an influencer’s radar.

Ready?

Let’s get started.

How to Get an Influencer’s Attention and KEEP IT

The following are all the steps you need to take.

Most of them are simple, and they’re all very important. So don’t skip any.

Step 1: Become a Subscriber

Becoming an email subscriber on their blog is pretty straightforward. And these influential bloggers get dozens, or hundreds, of email opt-ins every day.

That is why you can’t just be a passive subscriber, like most of their readers.

You, my new friend, are going to become a more engaged type of subscriber.

Here’s what to do:

i. Sign up for their list.

I’m sure they have signup forms all over their blog so it won’t be hard to find the form.

So take a look around and as soon as you find one, sign up.

ii. Send your first email to them.

After you’ve signed up, and confirmed your subscription, you’re going to send them an email.

Most influencers will send you a “welcome email”. Some will even ask you to reply with any questions you might have.

This is great because it means they actually read their subscribers’ emails.

Here’s what to do:

Hit the reply button.
Introduce yourself and what you do.
Ask them a legitimate question.

Let me give you an example.

Here’s a screenshot of a welcome email I got from Henneke at Enchanting Marketing.

As you can see, she lets her subscribers know that she’d like to answer their questions.

So, if your welcome email asks you to reply with a question, you reply with a legitimate question.

Now, if they don’t ask you this, you have 2 options:

Hit reply and ask them, anyway.
Hit reply and send a fan-like email.

With a fan-like email, you’ll basically be telling them you like their content.

Here’s a basic template you can get some inspiration from:

Hey [first name],

I just wanted to let you know that I am a big fan.

I really loved your post on [insert title of a post you read and enjoyed] especially because you [give a reason the post was so great]

Really looking forward to learning more from you.

I can’t wait to read your emails!

Regards

[your name]

Pro tip: The trick in this email is to be genuine and show you have actually read their content. Don’t be fake, or over the top, because it won’t come across well. Also remember, this is the start of a relationship (aka friendship) so treat it as such.

Step 2: Share Their Posts On Social Media

The social share is the easiest to do out of all the 7.

Read, share, done. Simple.

But, in order for the influencer to know you’ve shared their content, you’ll have to tag or mention them in your social media post.

It’s easy. Most of them may even have it set up in their share buttons.

Here’s what to do:

i. Choose a post that interests you.

You don’t even have to read it.

Just browse through their blog page and choose a post you like.

ii. Share it, but make sure they’re mentioned/tagged.

Hit one of the share icons.

I’d suggest going with Twitter because it’s easier to mention them and be noticed.

iii. Share a couple more posts – optional.

I’d highly recommend you share a couple more of their posts. Just in case they don’t see your first share in their notifications.

Also, sharing multiple times shows you are doing this more than just to get their attention.

So, again…choose a post that catches your eye, hit the share button, and mention.

Tip: Spread your share out over a longer period (ie. not all at once).

Step 3: Comment on a Post

The blog comment requires a little more work than subscribing and sharing.

For your comment to get noticed, and I mean really noticed, it can’t be the old “Hey Ashley, great post. It helped me a lot. Cheers, Julian” type of comment.

It’s got to add value to the post OR to the discussion that is happening in the comments.

You can do this in a number of different ways.

The easiest way would be by asking a question or sharing your experience or opinion on the topic at hand.

That means reading the whole post, too.

In an article he wrote for Boost Blog Traffic last year, Kevin J. Duncan (of Be a Better Blogger) broke down the anatomy of a great blog comment. Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see, you have:

The Greeting – a simple a “Hey [first name]” is great.
The Compliment – which is basically a “great post”.
The Added Value – this can be a legitimate question, an opinion, sharing an extra tip etc, or sharing your experience.
The Parting Promise – a simple promise for a share is good.

Note: Always read the post before leaving your comment.

Pro tip: Try to be one of the first people to comment on a post. This not only gets you on the influencer’s radar, but also all the other commenters that follow.

Step 4: Let Them Know of an Error

We all have issues with our websites from time to time, and appreciate it when someone gives us a heads up.

An error can be:

a broken link
a spelling mistake
a slow loading page
a issue with an optin form (popup etc)
and more

Some of these may take a while to find, or be glaringly obvious if you are lucky.

I’d suggest the broken link or the spelling error as they are often easier to find, and there are some cool tricks to help.

Here’s what to do:

i. Find a Broken Link.

Don’t worry. You won’t have to go through every post and manually check if any links are broken.

We live in a world full of expert coders and developers. And there’s a tool for everything, right?

Well, maybe not everything. But there certainly is a tool for checking if a website has any broken links.

BrokenLinkCheck.com.

Here’s what do to:

Go to the homepage.
Copy and paste your influencer’s blog URL into the search bar.
Hit enter and let it works its magic.

This will bring up all the domain’s broken links.

Another option is to use the Chrome extension: Check My Links.

Install the Chrome extension
Go to the page (or pages, one by one) you want to check
Hit the icon in the top right of your browser

The extensions then highlights any broken links in red.

ii. Find a Spelling / Grammar Error.

There’s a tool for broken links, then that means there’s one for spelling and grammar, right?

Right. Grammarly – you can see a full review here on Mad Lemmings .

Grammarly is great for spotting spelling mistakes as it shows you them visually on the page.

Here’s what to do:

Sign up for a free account.
Copy and paste the full post into the Grammarly editor.
Grammarly will give you some suggestions.

Now, when you find something worth letting them know about it, shoot them a quick email.

It should be nothing else but the mentioning of the error itself.

So keep it short.

Get straight to the point.

And don’t ask for anything in return.

Step 5: Link to a Post

A backlink is worth a lot on the internet. Especially if it’s from an industry relevant blog.

And, it’s worth even more if it’s from an authority site (but, let’s not talk about that right now).

Linking out is easy. You can do this the regular way with just a plain old hyperlink.

Or, you can do it by using the influencer as an example in your post.

Multiple influencers mentioned by SEMRush on one of their pages.

Or, you can do it “the resource way“, which is using an influencers’s post as an additional resource to read for your visitors.

This post shows multiple related resources relevant to the post (you will also see this method used in this post in some places)

Also, and this is crucial (otherwise they won’t know what you just did for them), let them know you linked to them.

You can do this via email or social media.

1. Reaching Out Through Email

If you decide to shoot them an email, here’s what to do:

Start with a personalized subject line – “[first name], mentioned you…”
Open with a simple greeting – “Hey [first name],”
Let them know who you are – “It’s [your name] from [your blog]. You might remember me from the other day. I was the one who left that huge comment on [post name].
Let them know you’ve linked out to them – “I just published a post on my blog and mentioned [their post headline]. I thought you might like to check it out. :)”
Let them know where they can find it – “Here’s the link: [URL here] It’s under [subheading name].”
End it – “Let me know what you think. Your #1 fan, [your name]”

Get the idea?

It’s short and to the point. Right on.

2. Reaching Out Through Social Media

If you decide to send them a social media notification, here’s what to do:

Hit the Twitter share button on your blog.
@ mention them in your social post.
Let them know you’ve linked out to them.

Before we move onto the final 2 steps, I just want to say something important.

These next steps will take longer than any of the previous steps. The final step, in particular, may take longer than the first 6 steps combined. But it is definitely a lot more powerful and therefore, worth the effort.

If you haven’t quite captured their attention, these next two steps will do the job.

But if you have, then steps 6 and 7 will get you on his good side (which may lead to lots of other opportunities).

Step 6: Create an Egobait List Post (and Feature Him)

Publishing an egobait list post on your blog is one of the best ways to getting people to notice you.

It’s great for generating traffic, but it’s just as great for getting on some influencers’ radars.

What is an egobait list post? you ask.

It’s basically a “top blogs to follow” type of post. But there are 2 differences:

Instead of “to follow”, you go with some other phrase (eg: become a better blogger).
Instead of writing it like a grocery list, you write it like you would with a comparison post (each list item gets a summary, image, and subheading).

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Determine How Many Pros You’ll Feature

The more people you feature, the better chance you have at a successful post.

If you’re in an industry, like blogging / online marketing, consider going for a larger list. Like 50+.

2. Find Your Pros

This shouldn’t be too hard to do. Industry experts are practically everywhere.

A great place to look is on Buzzsumo. (you can read more about how BuzzSumo works here)

Simply go to their homepage, enter your main keyword, and then hit the “Amplifications” link in the top menu.

This will give you a list of influencers that are doing well on Twitter.

Another place you could check out it Alltop.

Go to their homepage, enter your main keyword, and then click the category that seems right for you.

This will bring up a page full of websites for that keyword.

Note: Most sites that are in Alltop are quality sites. They don’t accept anything that looks spammy or low-quality.

The last way to find some pros is…through Google, obviously.

You can search for lists that feature the pros you’re looking for (top blogs to follow posts).

Here are some you can search for:

top “industry” experts
top “industry” blogs

You could also search for phrases that are obvious in your niche, for example, “blogging tips” if you’re in the blogging niche.

3. Come up with a Bangin’ Headline

Your headline is super important.

(Check out this post if you want to learn how to create great headlines)

It should say how many pros/blogs are featured on your list and how they can help the reader.

Here are a few example headlines to give you some inspiration:

50 SEO Blogs That’ll Help You Get Better Rankings
63 Productivity Pros That’ll Save You A Lot of Time
75 Blogs That’ll Teach You How to Make Money Blogging
100 Weight Loss Pros: They’ll Show You How it’s Done
101 Web Hosts That Offer Cheap, Fast, Reliable Services

Remember, don’t use the words “to follow” in your headline.

4. Create Your Egobait

Have you ever written a list post before?

I’m sure you have. List posts are pretty much the most written type of post on the internet.

And that’s how you’d write your egobait, too.

It’s like this:

Start with your outline – wrap your list items/points in h3 subheadings.
Fill them in – include an image (headshot/logo), a 50-200-word summary, and a link to their site or content.
Everything else – introduction, conclusion, featured image, CTAs, etc.

Here’s what a list item should look like:

5. Reach Out To Those Mentioned

Now you send them an email letting him know you’ve just featured him.

You could also do this on Twitter (with a @influencersName mention).

Pro Tip: make sure you reach out to everybody in your egobait post. This is where the real “money” is, so take your time to do this properly and multiple times if necessary (to ensure you get everyone’s attention).

Step 7: Use Their Advice

As I mentioned before, this step will likely take you a little longer. But if you do it right, your relationship with the influencer will be a lot stronger.

Here’s what you to do:

1. Find Something They Teach and Take Action.

If you’re in the blogging / online marketing niche, for instance, you’d probably find something like a traffic generation strategy, an SEO technique, or even a guide on how to get social media followers.

Whatever it is, make sure that it’s really doable.

Let me give you an example:

Let’s pretend you’re in the blogging space, ok?

And the person you’re trying to connect with is Ashley.

So, you’d browse around his blog looking for something that you actually need help with.

And let’s say you find the post about speeding up WordPress. Since you’re blog loads like a turtle, you follow his every step.

BAM! Your blog now loads within a second.

So what do you do?

2. Tell Him Your Awesome Results.

You’d shoot him a quick email that thanks him for his post and shows him your results (through screenshots).

But it’ll have to be just that.

When you’re showing him your results, you can’t be asking him for anything.

You’ll do that afterwards, once you have exchanged a few emails.

Further Reading:
This technique has actually become famous through both Noah Kagan and Bryan Harris. Bryan took Noah’s advice and got on his radar by documenting his results. Bryan calls it the Poster Boy technique and has an amazing post on it.

Wrapping It Up

There are a lot of steps in this post, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.

So let’s do a quick recap :

Become an email subscriber.
Share one or some of their posts.
Comment on one or some of their posts.
Let them know of an error on their site.
Link out to one of their posts.
Create an egobait list post that features him (or them).
Take action on something they teach (and show him great results).

These 7 steps (or at least the first 5_ will definitely grab an influencer’s attention.

So go out there and get on some influencer radars and let me know how you go!

If you need help with anything, I’ll see you in the comments below.

How To Propel Your Marketing Efforts With Blogger Outreach

David Schneider — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 05:53:45 +0000

Last year Ashley did a podcast with influencer marketing expert, Ron Sela, in which he described influencer marketing as a hot trend.

One year later, and the trend has only gotten hotter. And for good reason. It can help you expand the reach of your content, get more social shares and links as well. So what’s not to like?

If you’re not executing influencer marketing (or blogger outreach, as some might say), this post is going to provide you with the necessary tools and information to do so from start to finish.

What Is Blogger Outreach And Who Is It For?

Asking what is blogger outreach, is a little like asking, what is paid advertising – it’s a marketing channel.

However, instead of the primary channel being a platform like Google Adwords, it’s bloggers themselves.

The basic principle is to work with bloggers and to leverage their audience to promote your business.

Why would someone want to do this?

Bloggers have highly engaged and large audiences, who are beginning to trust their recommendations over other marketing alternatives.

A Technorati report from 2013 found that blogs are now the third most influential digital resource (31%) when making overall purchases, behind retail sites (56%) and brand sites (34%).

So who is blogger outreach for?

Well, the people with the most to gain are:

Bloggers
Startups
SMBs
Agencies
Freelancers and Consultants

But the reality is that blogger outreach is appropriate for anyone who wants to promote their content, product, or service, and believes that their audience shops online.

Could that be you?

How Do Your Find Bloggers To Work With?

Alright, you get the “why”, but what about the “how”.

That is – how do you find bloggers who want to work with you?

Let’s consider the manual way, first.

It looks a bit like the following:

Come up with a search term related to your target niche. For example if you are targeting food bloggers you could search “best pasta recipes”
Run a search in Google.
Open some interesting looking websites.
Analyze them for the specific metrics that matter to you. For example, if you are interested in their traffic you might want to put it in Alexa. If you want to see their social following then you can visit their social media pages. If you are interested in their engagement then you can look at how many comments and social shares their posts get.
Find their contact information such as email or contact URL.
Add this information to a spreadsheet
Create a personalized pitch based on your research.
Send it. Note it. Repeat.

While this may sound like a tedious process (and it is), you might have noticed two wonderful things:

At no point did it require you to spend any money.
Everyone can do it, independent of their audience size.

That’s right – blogger outreach is the perfect marketing channel for anyone on a budget, with no audience to leverage.

That’s what makes it special, unlike paid advertising or email marketing, which require money and an audience upfront.

But it also takes a lot of work, which is why we have tools.

In the podcast with Ron, he mentioned a bunch of tools you can use. I’ve used many of them myself, and in principle they are similar – they’re essentially databases of bloggers. They mainly vary on the metrics they show, how much they cost, and some unique features.

So for example, I’ll show you how this looks in Ninja Outreach, which, full disclosure, is my own blogger outreach software.

First, you start with a keyword and run a search:

Next, if you want, you can filter the results by the different metrics.

Lastly, you add bloggers to lists, which you can export and use for outreach.

Naturally, this process is a lot quicker and more accurate, and is good for anyone who values their time.

How Can You Work With Bloggers?

The last piece of the puzzle is how to work with bloggers to propel your business forward.

While there are an innumerable number of ways to partner with an influential individual, I’m going to highlight four common ones that we’ve been using ourselves to double our traffic in the last few months:

Guest Posts

Surely, you’ve heard of guest posting?

I bet you’ve heard of Buffer, too?

Leo Widrich, Co-Founder of Buffer, wrote over 150 guest posts, which lead to over 100k sign ups!

Similarly, Groove, who just started heavily content marketing last year, Reached More Than 1 Million People By Guest Blogging.

In short, it’s a proven system that works, and fits in very nicely with blogger outreach.

It’s not altogether difficult to find quality blogs that accept well-written content in any niche. For example, at Ninja Outreach we have written over 25 guest posts in the last two months, by leveraging our software.

Product Reviews

If you have a product that needs to be reviewed, a blogger might be the perfect person to do so.

This works exceptionally well if you would rather leave the writing to the professionals. Additionally, it is more likely to lead to sales because the focus is on your product as opposed to a general guest posting topic.

Although some bloggers might charge for the service, others are happy enough to review it in exchange for free access and perhaps an affiliate program.

Giveaways

Earlier this year Ashley wrote about the power of viral giveaways using the KingSumo plugin.

I’ve done this myself before, such as when I ran a $15k giveaway on my blog.

That giveaway allowed me to collect over 500 email addresses in a two week period, and I promoted it strictly through blogger outreach.

The great thing is, you can do it too by following these simple steps.

Step 1: Pick a killer prize that your audience covets. For example, if you are in the internet marketing niche, Aweber. You can’t contact the company and ask if they are willing to provide a free license, or simply pay for it yourself.

Step 2: Use all possible promotional strategies to reach the maximum number of people possible. Here are a few examples:

Call in favors from other bloggers to share it with their audience/send it out to their list.
Manual outreach to anyone who is related to your prize, or niche. Look for:

Relevant interviews
Round Up Posts
Backlinkers

Email your list, plus a reminder before the contest ends
Publish a post on your blog and make it sticky for the duration of the content
Share it on social media, with recurring tweets
Set up a sidebar banner for entire duration

Step 3: Leverage a viral plugin like >KingSumo, which incentivizes people to share the giveaway in exchange for greater chances of winning.

Recruiting Affiliates

Last but not least is to simply recruit affiliates, if you have a program that is.

This works well because it incentivizes the blogger to not just mention you once, but to include you in all future write ups on your topic, as well as potentially mentioning you in their email series, on their resources page, or on their sidebar.

At Ninja Outreach, we have a 50% monthly recurring commission for our affiliate program, and we leverage this to work with bloggers on the tactics mentioned above. We’ve recruited dozens of affiliates simply by reaching out.

Final Thoughts

If you’re struggling to get the word out about your blog, product, or service, and don’t carry around a huge budget like the big agencies, definitely consider blogger outreach.

Try it the manual way first to get a hang for the process, but know that there are tools available to help you along your way.

Am I missing anything else?

7 Powerful Tips To Build Your First WordPress Site With Ease

Taylor Manning — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 12:24:39 +0000

WordPress has become insanely popular for building blogs and websites, because it is just so simple to use!

However, when you get deeper inside, there are a lot of things that are confusing or not so obvious for the beginner.

So in this post I want to go over some of the fundamentals to make your life simpler when creating your first WordPress website.

1. Where Should You Put Your WordPress Website?

Many people become confused with WordPress.com versus WordPress.org.

Let’s make it simple:

WordPress.com is where you can go to use WordPress as a subdomain for free (Result:. mywebsite.wordpress.com)
WordPress.org is where you can download the WordPress files to use with your hosting account (Result: mywebsite.com)

I recommend sticking with using the WordPress.org option (ie. owning and running your own website).

Why?

Because you get to choose:

Where your website will be hosted (a website hosting provider such as Bluehost, SiteGround or Traffic Planet)
What your website will be called (choose a domain name like yourcompany.com, your own space online)
What exactly will be installed with WordPress (eg. what plugins/functionality your site will have – social share buttons, contact form, membership site etc)

While this may sound like the most difficult option, most hosting providers can walk you through the process either through their live support or through the support files on their website.

Power Tip:

If you are serious about your blog or website (or business) you will want to have your own hosting, domain name and NOT choose WordPress.com!

2. Don’t Use The ‘Admin’ User

When you first install it, WordPress will prompt you to set up an admin username and password.

Many people stick with the username they suggest: ‘admin’.

While this can save you a few seconds in the beginning, it opens a big hole in your website’s security.

Why? Since so many people keep this username, hackers know to use it when hacking into WordPress websites.

Power Tip:

When installing WordPress create an admin username no one would be able to guess. Avoid names, common words or anything related to your website name.

And use a secure password: try a tool like Password Generator and keep a copy offline somewhere.

3. Add Users With The Correct Permissions

If more than one person needs to access your site, you will need to add additional users.

Whether it is to do design work or simply posting blog posts, you want to make sure that each person only gets the access they need.

Every user type in WordPress has different security levels and permissions. By giving your users the correct permissions they need, you reduce the possibility of being hacked or someone doing something wrong in your site.

Here is a quick overview of all the roles from the WordPress Manual:

WordPress User Roles and Permissions

Super Admin – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features. See the Create a Network article.

Administrator – somebody who has access to all the administration features within a single site.

Editor – somebody who can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users.

Author – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.

Contributor – somebody who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.

Subscriber – somebody who can only manage their profile.

4. Setting Your Permalink Structure

Once you have your WordPress site set up you will want to start configuring the settings to get things up and running.

One of the first places you should go to is the Permalink Settings.

(I know, it sounds like a foreign language, but bear with me)

Setting up permalinks is something many first time WordPress users don’t understand, but it is extremely important. That is why you should head here very early on.

To get to the Permalink Settings go to:

your website Dashboard
click on Settings
now click Permalinks

A permalink is the way WordPress names your links for your posts and pages. Especially the last part (after yourwebsite.com/)

You can set these links to end in:

Random numbers
The current date (plus post or page title)
Post or Page title

Personally, I recommend using the page/post title. As it is the easiest to read, the shortest and the best for SEO (aka Google).

Power Tip:

When you are editing your page or post, you can also edit the permalink underneath where you set the title to be something completely custom. Simply click on the end, and edit that part how you like.

The overall structure is still defined in the Permalinks Settings though

WARNING:

Once you set a Permalink it should never be changed. Because once that link is shared on other websites or on social media, it will be a broken link and will not work, causing you to lose potential traffic.

5. The Difference Between Pages and Posts

WordPress uses two ways of categorizing the content you create: pages and posts.

Each of these have their own section in your dashboard where you can get an overview of each.

But what is the difference between the two?

Think of:

posts as all of the content you put on your blog.
pages as the main sections of your website such as your home page, about me page and contact page.

Pages are often referred to as “static” because they don’t usually change so much.

Blog posts on the other hand, have a date, and are always being added to.

They all go onto one page called your blog. This page displays them all in chronological order, with the newest at the top.

Power Tip:

Create a blog post when you want to write something on a topic that is not going to go in your menu or other fixed location.

Create a page when it is more permanent or structural content like About Us, Contact, Services etc.

6. Adding menus to your site

Once you have your WordPress site set up, you will definitely want some sort of menu on your site.

While the placement will normally be determined by your theme, you do have the option to add all sorts of links to your menu.

You can add:

Pages
Post Categories
Custom Links (to any page on the web)

anywhere in your menu.

To create and edit menus go to your WordPress dashboard and then go to

Appearance
Then to Menus

From here you can select a menu to edit and choose pages, categories and custom links to add and change the look of those links.

Power Tip:

You can also create sub-menus by dragging the menu items slightly to the right of the one above. Watch the dotted gray boxes that appear, they will guide you as to whether it is a sub-menu or still the same level as the one above.

7. Setting the blog and home page

Our last tip for getting started with WordPress is how to set your home page and your blog page.

While some people have their blog page as the home page, others like to give each of these pages their own specific location.

To do this you want to go to

Go to the Dashboard
Then to Settings
Lastly go to Reading

From here you will see two options:

The Font Page (which will be the Home Page)
The Post Page (which will be your blog)

By choosing from the dropdown list, you can assign any of the pages you have previously created as the home or blog page.

Just be careful that the page you choose is actually set up to function as that kind of page (like the blog) otherwise you might be in for a surprise!

Power Tip:

Although having the blog page as your home page seems like the "only" choice for a blogger. Have a serious think about what you want people to do most on your website.

That is what you should focus on on your home page.

eg. If you are focusing on email signups, have an optin box at the top of your homepage.

If you are selling something, focus on that.

WordPress sites often have the blog as the home page, but it does not have to be that way!

Are you considering using WordPress for your website already? You might want to learn the basics first

What are top WordPress struggles that you would love for us to cover?

We can’t wait to hear and we can’t wait to help.

Resources and Tools

The following are some other resources and tools you might want to check out:

What is a WordPress Plugin?

WordPress Tools To Help Build Your Website

ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp: It’s A Close Call

David Hartshorne — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 06:01:50 +0000

Whether you’re a blogger, a solopreneur or a small business, you need an email marketing service to keep your fans and clients informed.

Email marketing still outperforms social media marketing, so it makes sense to pick a service that fits your requirements and doesn’t cost you a fortune.

In this post, we’re looking at ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp. Two great services that are reasonably priced (starting from free) and have tons of handy features.

Each service has its pros and cons, so let’s dive in and see which one is best for you.

Quick Navigation

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign - Pros

ActiveCampaign - Cons

Active Campaign Pricing Overview

MailChimp

MailChimp - Pros

MailChimp - Cons

Mailchimp Pricing Overview

Conclusion

Pricing Comparison

Our Verdict

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign began in 2003 as a solution for business owners who needed a way to keep in touch with their contacts. Since then they’ve refined their solution to become a leader in marketing automation.

ActiveCampaign - Pros

There’s a lot to like about ActiveCampaign, so let’s take a look at some of its finest points.

Contacts

Contacts are the driving force in ActiveCampaign.

A contact in its simplest form is a unique email address. But more importantly, a contact only counts once even if it exists in multiple lists.

That is an important fact. Many email service providers charge you multiple times for the same contact if it’s on more than one list.

For instance, let’s say Mad Lemmings has several lists:

SEO Checklist
SEO Success Formula Course
Keyword Research Course

First I sign-up for the SEO Checklist. Now I’m a contact, and I’m on the first list. (I’m probably tagged too – more later).

A few weeks later I join Ashley’s brilliant SEO Course. Now I’m on a second list. But I still only exist as one contact in the system.

You get the idea.

A contact record can contain a whole lot more information than just an email address, too:

Are you thinking you’ll have to add loads of fields to your opt-in form to collect all that contact info?

Don’t panic.

Even if you only collect an email address on your opt-in form, ActiveCampaign can automagically add a contact’s age, gender, location, interests, social profiles, and more.

It’s scary, but at the same time extremely handy.

Segmentation

ActiveCampaign lets you create segments of lists in many different ways, not just based on tags.

You can create segments like these, for example:

Is a member of List A
Clicked on Link B
Is based in the USA
Replied to Campaign X

And you can narrow or broaden your segment using the “AND” and “OR” operators.

[Adding additional conditions with “AND” logic will narrow the contacts that match your segment and adding conditions with “OR” logic will broaden the contacts that match your segment.]

So you could have:

Is a member of List A “AND” Clicked on Link B “OR” Replied to Campaign X
Is a member of List A “OR” Is based in the USA “AND” Clicked on Link B

Automation

If you liked Contacts, Tags, and Segmentation, then you’ll love Automation.

ActiveCampaign has a powerful drag-and-drop Automation Builder. Using the visual editor, you can easily create fully automated workflows based on triggers. After an automation is set up, it continues to run with no further input from you.

Let’s take a look at some examples of using automation.

1) Automated email follow-up

Most email service providers have an autoresponder that you can use to create a basic drip sequence (a timed sequence of emails) that treats all your contacts the same.

But with ActiveCampaign you can get more sophisticated.

For instance, your automation could check to see which link a contact clicked in your welcome email. Then, depending on which link they clicked, it would send entirely different messages.

As a result, you would get a decision branch (like in the image above) which is easy to visualize and control. And it gives you a lot of power over how to address your email list.

2) Moving contacts between lists

You don’t always want a contact to remain on one list. So, you can set up automation actions to move them.

For example:

You could move a contact from a Prospect List to a Customer List if they purchased an item
You could move a contact from the Welcome List to the General List once their initial automated sequence is complete

3) Trimming your lists

It’s good practice to keep your lists healthy. Not everyone who signed up 2 years ago is still interested in what you have to offer. And you may have shifted direction, too.

To keep your lists lean (and your monthly subscription costs down) you could set up some automation rules to delete inactive contacts. For example:

If a contact has not opened the last five emails, send a friendly reminder offering them to stay or leave.
If a contact has not opened the last six emails, then remove them automatically.

*Pro Tip: A lot of these sequences can be found in Active Campaign user groups, so you don’t have to know, understand or set them up yourself!

4) Reacting to contact behavior

Automations can begin when someone (a contact) performs an action such as visiting a page on your website or opening an email.

For example:

If a contact visits your sales page repeatedly but doesn’t buy anything, then send an automated email asking if they need help.
If a contact opens an email but doesn’t click the link, then send a follow-up email two days later.

ActiveCampaign - Cons

There’s not much we don’t like about ActiveCampaign. But there are a couple of minor points worth mentioning:

Steep learning curve

ActiveCampaign is not super intuitive if you’re not technical. This is just a warning if you like your tools simple.

The automation editor is excellent, and the visual editor helps you picture your intended workflow. It’s just that sometimes workflows may get a little complicated and that can be overwhelming at first.

Like with most new tools you’ll have to invest some time in getting to know the ins and outs, or as we prefer to say: “playing around with it!”

Timezone delivery

There is no timezone delivery in ActiveCampaign. (This is something we like in MailChimp.)

When you press send, or schedule your campaign, your email will be sent to everyone at the chosen time. So, if you send an email at 9:00 AM in London means it will get delivered at 4:00 AM in New York. This is probably not the ideal time to send an email if you’re looking for optimal open rates.

Active Campaign Pricing Overview

ActiveCampaign has four different offerings depending on the size of your business: Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise.

The Lite Plan has plenty of features to get you started:

Unlimited sending
Email Marketing
Send Newsletters
Marketing Automation
Chat & Email Support
Up To 3 Users

The other higher level plans introduce features like Advanced CRM, SMS, and Custom Domain.

Within each plan, there are different prices depending on the number of contacts you have. (See below)

Prices start from $9/month for up to 500 contacts. So, even if you are just starting out it's still pretty competitive.

Here’s a quick comparison of the monthly prices:

Contacts	Lite	Plus	Professional	Professional
500	$9	$49	$99	$149
1000	$17	$49	$99	$149
2500	$29	$73	$99	$149
5000	$45	$113	$154	$225
10000	$70	$175	$238	$350

If you pay annually, you can get a 15% discount.
Try ActiveCampaign with a 14-day free trial - no credit card required.

TRY ACTIVE CAMPAIGN

MailChimp

MailChimp is the world’s leading email marketing platform, sending more than a billion emails a day on behalf of its 15 million customers.

MailChimp - Pros

MailChimp is easy to use, so let’s look at some of it’s best features.

RSS-to-Email

With RSS-to-Email, you can publish your new blog posts and send it automagically to your email subscribers. Ie. without even thinking about it.

That’s a great time-saver!

Inside MailChimp, you can:

create your RSS template
control how many posts go out
decide how often you send them - daily, weekly, or monthly

Here’s an example of my blog feed, that I’ve scheduled to go out every Tuesday at 9:00 AM:

Don’t worry: A campaign will only go out when you post something new.

Here’s a basic RSS email template I knocked together, using a single column template.

1. Add RSS Content

I’ve used Excerpts, so only the first few lines of the blog post will be sent in the email:

2. Add RSS Header

Next I’ve added the blog header, and I’ve uploaded the blog post image:

3. Send RSS Email

And here’s what the email looks like:

This is just a simple RSS-to-Email example. You could make it much fancier.

For a start, MailChimp has loads of themes and templates from which to choose.

Regular Email Newsletter

If RSS-to-Email isn’t your style, don’t worry.

WithMailChimp you can create a regular email newsletter.

Using the same drag-and-drop form builder (like above), you can create a layout that suits you.

If you don’t know where to start, then MailChimp has you covered with its wide selection of layouts, templates, and themes.

Here’s a sample.

Themes:

Email Delivery

When it comes to delivering your emails, there are a couple of neat features in MailChimp.

Like most service providers, you can send your email campaign immediately. But with MailChimp you can also choose from one of these smart options:

1. Send Time Optimization - this option lets MailChimp decide what will be the best time to send the email to get the best open rate and clicks. MailChimp uses its email delivery data to determine what is the best time to send an email to each subscriber.

2. Timewarp - this option lets you specify a delivery time in each subscriber’s local time zone. For example, if you want to send your campaign at 11:00 AM, then no matter which time zone a subscriber belongs to they’ll receive it at 11:00 AM in their local time.

Segmentation and Groups

MailChimp encourages you to create segments and groups from one master list rather than creating multiple lists. There are pros and cons to this idea depending on your business.

A Group is a collection of subscribers based on their interests and preferences. For example, on Mad Lemmings, we might choose to create three distinct groups based on these categories:

SEO
WordPress
Social Media

A Segment is a collection of subscribers based on shared qualities, like engagement activity. For instance, MailChimp has some pre-built segments:

Subscribers who joined in the last week
Subscribers who haven’t opened any of the last five campaigns
Subscribers who recently purchased a product
Subscribers who haven’t purchased in the last 6 months

You can also create your own segments.

Remember in ActiveCampaign how you can use a combination of “AND” and “OR” operators to create a unique segment?

Unfortunately, MailChimp is limited to using “All” (“AND”) or “Any” (“OR”).

If you choose “All”

You can create a segment of All subscribers who:

Opened Email A “AND” Opened Email B “AND” Clicked in Email C

If you choose “Any”

You can create a segment of Any subscribers who:

Opened Email A “OR” Opened Email B “OR” Clicked in Email C

But if you wanted to create a segment of subscribers who:

Opened Email A “AND” Opened Email B “OR” Clicked in Email C

then you’d be stumped.

Segmentation is a good idea, as it helps you send targeted messages to sections of your list, but the functionality is limited in MailChimp.

MailChimp - Cons

MailChimp has plenty to offer and is easy to use. But sometimes you feel it just lacks a little bit of oomph.

Automation

The automation in MailChimp is not as advanced as ActiveCampaign.

MailChimp’s Automation is better than the old-fashioned autoresponders, like you get in AWeber, which restrict you to sending a single email based on a subscriber’s action.

With MailChimp, you can create a targeted series of emails triggered by a specific date, event, or subscriber’s activity.

MailChimp includes several preset workflows created for different industries. You can use them ‘as is’ or use them as a starting point to develop your own workflows.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the Ecommerce workflows:

There are also preset workflows for Nonprofit, Education, Music, and Software. Plus, you can create custom workflows too.

Unfortunately, MailChimp does not have visual automation like ActiveCampaign. Visual workflows for automation are a lot easier to understand because you can see the workflow mapped out in front of you.

Lists

You can create as many Lists as you want in MailChimp, but there various drawbacks.

The main problem is that it’s not possible to send your campaign to multiple lists.

When you create your campaign you have to choose one of your lists:

That’s why MailChimp encourages you to create one master list and use Groups and Segments.

However, It’s not ideal for all businesses to do this.

It’s OK if you run separate lists, perhaps if you have separate businesses and domains, or want to separate customers and partners.

But for online content creators, it can become a pain.

Mailchimp Pricing Overview

There are three different pricing options for MailChimp. You can choose how you want to pay and what features you want.

Forever Free

The Forever Free plan gives you a free email marketing service forever; i.e. it’s not limited to a 14-day free trial.

Restrictions:

You can only have up to 2,000 subscribers.
You can only send up to 12,000 emails per month.
Some features excluded; e.g. Automation, and the Timewarp message scheduling.
No access to email and chat support, only the online documentation.

Prepay

Prepay is the stepping stone in-between Forever Free and the Monthly subscription plans.

You get access to all the features but without the commitment of a monthly fee.

As MailChimp puts it:

“If you’re not a frequent sender, you can purchase credits that work like stamps for email.”

For example, you could buy 300 email credits for $9:

Monthly Subscription

The monthly subscription plans include all features and support.

Prices start from $10/month for up to 500 subscribers.

Here’s a quick comparison of the monthly prices:

Subscribers	Price Per Month
0 - 500	$10
501 - 1000	$15
1001 - 1500	$20
1501 - 2000	$25
2001 - 2500	$30
2501 - 2600	$35
2601 - 2700	$40
2701 -2800	$45

There is no annual discount option with MailChimp

Try MailChimp with a forever free trial - no credit card required.

Conclusion

ActiveCampaign and MailChimp are both well-established and well-respected email marketing service providers. I’ve seen both of them used by different-sized businesses and blogs.

So which one should you use?

If you’re just starting out, then you can’t argue with MailChimp’s Forever Free plan. You don’t have to worry about costs; you can just get started with a good service. Sure, it doesn’t have all the features included, but what do you expect for free.

If you need to start using some of those excluded features, like the Automation or TimeWarp Delivery, then you can move onto their Prepay option. Again, it’s an excellent way to control your costs.

The next step is where you have to make your big decision.

Once your business starts growing, do you go with MailChimp’s Monthly Subscription service or switch over to ActiveCampaign?

Regarding pricing, there isn’t much to choose. MailChimp has more incremental steps, but when you compare like-for-like stages they are almost identical:

Pricing Comparison

Subscribers	MailChimp (Price Per Month)	ActiveCampaign (Price Per Month)
0 - 500	$10	$9
501 - 1000	$15	$17
1001 - 1500	$20
1501 - 2000	$25
2001 - 2500	$30	$29
2501 - 2600	$35
2601 - 2700	$40
2701 -2800	$45
2801 - 5000	$50	$45

As the pricing is on a par, then you have to weigh up the functionality.

While MailChimp is robust and straightforward, ActiveCampaign has a lot more flexibility.

The Visual Automation, Segmentation, and List Management are all more advanced than MailChimp. The learning curve might be steeper, but in the long-run, mastering these features will help your business grow and keep your contacts engaged.

Our Verdict

Start with MailChimp and progress to ActiveCampaign.

Identify Your Ideal Customer And Watch Your Business Soar

Brent Jones — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 04:11:01 +0000

I’m going to be very honest with you… sometimes conversations with prospective clients can be downright painful.

Especially when I’m trying to understand who exactly they want me to target for them on social media.

Here is a quick example:

Me: Describe to me your perfect, ideal customer.

Client: What do you mean?

Me: I mean, who are we trying to reach? Can you describe your target market?

Client: Oh. Everyone.

Me: Everyone?

Client: Yeah, everyone could use my product.

Me: Okay, but not everyone is going to buy your product... if we really had to hone in on your ideal customer, who would it be?

Client: I don't know... women, maybe?

Me: Okay, women... married? With children? Pets? A certain age? Career status? Hobbies or interests? Buying patterns? Location?

Client: Uh, none of that... just all women, I think.

Me: Oh boy...

Why did I start this post by relaying such a silly conversation?

Because it’s very similar to a conversation I recently had with a prospective client… a prospective client that I ultimately declined to work with.

And by highlighting the absurdity of this conversation, I hope to offer some clarity to you — the reader.

Are you a solopreneur of some kind? A freelancer, maybe?

Or perhaps you are thinking of quitting your day job to launch your own online, service-based business…?

If so, this post is for you.

Because if I have learned anything over this past year and a half of working for myself online, everyone is not my target market.

And everyone isn’t your target market, either.

In this short post, my goal is to get you thinking about your target market — who you can truly serve, and how to reach that market.

Let’s Start with Some Basics… What Do You Do?

There are about a million different ways to earn a living on the internet… from graphic design to coaching to affiliate marketing, you’re only limited by your own creativity.

But for all intents and purposes, I am going to assume that you are offering — or intend to offer— a freelance service of some kind.

And before the word freelance gets taken out of context, I want you to understand that there is more to freelancing than simply taking on writing jobs.

In fact, I recently published an article on my blog highlighting 11 different types of freelance jobs, and more than 100 corresponding services a freelancer could offer.

Yes, that’s a whole lot of services.

And no, you shouldn’t offer all of them.

Because there are so many different avenues to monetize your talents, many newer solopreneurs end up overwhelmed and confused.

Ever look at someone’s Twitter bio who has a little too much going on…?

Twitter Profile with lack of focus:

Writer. Blogger. Mom. It Works Rep. #Marketer. #Entrepreneur. Traveler. Author. Speaker. Affiliate. Illustrator. #DreamsBig #LovesStarbucks

You know the type?

Me, too.

(And in case you were wondering, yes, I made sure that fake Twitter bio was under 140 characters…!)

Anyway — the point is — you can’t be all things to all people. You’ve got to figure out what you do, and who is willing to pay for you to do it.

There’s a Market for Every Skill Set

Let’s say you’ve decided to offer website design or web development as your primary service.

Great skill to offer — everyone needs a website, right?

Sure, but to identify your target market, you’re going to need to dig a little deeper. Ask yourself a few questions:

What is your skill level?
How much evidence do you have of your skill level?
Which web design jobs can you do quickly and for a competitive rate?

Maybe you’re excellent at building three-page websites or designing custom WordPress blogs… but that does not necessarily mean you have the time, skill or resources to build a fully functional eCommerce platform or the next social network.

And even if you could develop the next Facebook, how long would it take you? Are you willing to work at this 24-7 for the next several months? And could you do it as well and for as competitive a rate as an offshore agency?

If so, do you have any portfolio samples to prove those claims — or even a few client testimonials?

See, what newer freelancers and solopreneurs often don’t understand is that evidence counts for more than skill level when you’re getting started. Sometimes we have to take the smaller jobs to begin accumulating portfolio samples, testimonials, and experience.

From there, we can use that evidence to attract bigger and better clients.

So if your skill level precludes you from working with Starbucks or Walmart, that’s fine.

Because there is a market for every skill set and skill level — no matter what service(s) you offer.

There is a market for every skill set and skill level, no matter what service you offer

Click to Tweet

Be Honest about Who You Truly Serve

Speaking of Starbucks and Walmart, let’s play a little game…

When you think of a typical Starbucks customer, who comes to mind?

Is it a hipster dressed in plaid with unkempt hair and thick-rimmed glasses? Or perhaps a young college student in UGG boots who literally can’t even?

I’m playing off stereotypes here, of course — but if you think those images come to mind by accident, you’re wrong. They’re by design. Because Starbucks is very clear on who they serve.

Know what Walmart’s slogan is?

Save Money. Live Better.

Kind of speaks to a busy mom on a budget who wants to spend less time shopping for essentials and more time enjoying life… doesn’t it?

Couldn’t everyone enjoy a Mocha Frappuccino on their way to work?

Sure.

And couldn’t everyone shop at Walmart?

Absolutely.

So why do these brands put so much time, money and energy behind targeting certain customers…?

Because when your branding speaks to everyone, it speaks to no one. You want your best prospects — the individuals most likely to spend the most money with you the most often — to be able to immediately identify with your message.

When your branding speaks to everyone, it speaks to no one!

Click to Tweet

One Person. One Problem. One Solution.

No, Starbucks and Walmart aren’t likely to be your first customers… you don’t have the time, resources, skills, or evidence to serve them.

But you can take a page from their marketing handbook.

To paraphrase my friend Don Purdum, focus on the businesses who are able, willing and ready to pay for your services. And then figure out how you can position yourself to earn their business.

Make sure you keep your customers satisfied by doing customer experience analysis. You’ll need to eliminate any misunderstanding about your customers’ needs and problems and make them feel great about you.

You simply need to identify those individuals or businesses who are either:

Not as great at what you do as you are, or
Do not have the time to do what you do.

In other words, focus on identifying a person — or business — with one of these two problems, and position your services as the solution to that problem.

Simple, right?

Know Your Ideal Client: One Person. One Problem. One Solution.

Click to Tweet

Use Your Limitations to Your Advantage

Going back to the website design example I used earlier… let’s say you choose to focus on offering simple three-page website designs or setting up new WordPress blogs with a custom theme.

No, you probably won’t be able to get away with charging $20,000 for either of these services, but…

You can do an excellent job and you have the evidence to prove it,
You can do a number of these jobs every month for a competitive price, and
There is a large pool of prospective customers you could serve.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you narrow down your list of prospective customers — those who may need your help — to just two categories… bloggers and local brick-and-mortar businesses.

Taking it a step further, you might wish to target bloggers with ugly, cookie cutter WordPress websites, or perhaps those publishing on platforms like Blogger.

Or, instead, you may want to consider targeting small, local businesses with outdated websites… or maybe mom-and-pop shops with some great reviews on Yelp but no online presence otherwise.

Either way, these are both possible clients who have a need for your services.

Accordingly, you might consider branding yourself in one of these two ways:

I help local businesses get found online.
I design blogs as unique as their authors.

If you want to copy and paste either of these sample taglines, go for it.

But whatever description you choose for the services you offer, use it everywhere…

Social media bios
Email signature
Website header
Business cards
Pitches and proposals
Conversations

You get the idea.

And now?

You can speak to those prospective clients with confidence, knowing you are positioned perfectly — and priced accordingly — to earn their business.

Don’t Wait to Become an Expert… Just Get Started!

If you think it’s a better idea to wait until you’re an expert at your craft before getting started, you might never start.

That goes for any craft — whether it’s website design, copywriting, social media management, or otherwise.

Everyone begins somewhere, and we work our way up from there.

Just whatever you do — and please remember this — be honest with prospective clients about your skill level and capabilities. Don’t deceive anyone, because bad news travels fast over the internet.

And as you gain more experience, start to ramp up your prices and think about who else you may have the capacity — and evidence — to serve.

The right customer is out there waiting for you to pitch them… so don’t wait to be an expert. Figure out who you can serve today, and just get started!

Don't wait to become an expert...just get started!

Click to Tweet

5 Simple Ways To Win More Clients For Your Business

Bill Achola — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 12:53:49 +0000

Did you ever start offering your services online, hoping to earn tons of cash?

Do you regularly deal with clients that haggle more, pay less, and never seem to be satisfied with your services?

After a while our daily struggles to get more clients, earn more money and just make a living weigh down on us, crushing our hopes and dreams.

But there are some easy solutions to this problem that you could implement today!

So in this post I am going to share with you five strategies that you can use to turn your online services business around.

But first, relax, take a deep breath and get ready to change your life!

1. Are You Targeting Crappy Clients?

If you are only getting clients that pay too little and expect you to deliver more, then maybe you’re targeting the wrong types of clients.

You need start by considering what clients have at the moment and then re-evaluating who you’re providing services to.

For example: If your target audience is of small businesses and solo professionals, then it might be very difficult to secure clients that pay you very high rates.

Identifying your ideal customer is the key. Small business may not be able to pay $1000 every month for ongoing services (like SEO or Social Media).

One way to earn more is to target big corporations or larger organizations that are willing to spend more and also don’t expect the world in return.

Yet why would the big firms hire you?

It’s true that most big companies have dedicated teams working for them. And often they don’t need the services of outside experts.

However, there are a wide range of businesses that do seek outside services when they have a specific need. Examples could include companies that :

are encountering a specific problem that you could help with
want a temporary staff member or expert
need to fill a role but don’t want to take on a new staff member

and a whole range of other reasons.

So if you clients are too poor to afford your services, have a think about targeting some bigger fish!

Struggling to find sources of new clients?
Check out this guide with 70 experts best place to find new clients

2. Are You Offering Too Little?

'Never negotiate on price. Negotiate on project scope.' - John DohertyClick To Tweet

Now you are sure you are targeting the right kind of clients.

These are the clients that are able and willing to pay more for your services, but are not doing so. At least not to you.

If this is the case, then you may need to consider the “scope” of projects you’re working on.

For instance, the client only hired you for copywriting services and relies on someone else to improve their website’s ranking in Google.

In these kinds of cases, it pays to have a range of complementary skills to offer a client so that you can “extend” a project’s scope and earn more money. It can also help when bidding for projects too. More skills, more helpful, more projects!

But when you are extending your skills into a new area, take the following into account:

For starters, you need some great testimonials to show you can do amazing work
It also helps if you can impress the client with your knowledge, vision, and skills during a sales call (so be prepared).

Positive customer reviews/testimonials could be a stand-alone marketing tactic. Consulting.com has amassed more than 3000 positive video customer reviews in one page and that page has a huge impact on their conversions.

If you don’t have any examples or experience, consider starting for free (or cheap) until you have a portfolio of clients or experience to draw from.

Soon enough, you will see your income rising and your range of skills increasing too.

3. Find Your Niche And Stick To It

The first rule for success in offering any service is: do what you do best.

In your scramble to attract more and more customers, did you bite off more than you could chew? Or just lose focus?

If you are trying to offer services to everyone under the sun then, you’re doing it wrong.

What you have to do is think about how many of your competitors can offer the exact same services as you.

If the answer is ‘most of them’, then you need a change of plan.

Narrow your niche or specialize. That is the key (despite it not being obvious)

Focus on offering unique services that none of your other competitors can.

According to Josh Garofalo,

Small businesses do have money. They just hang onto it a little tighter. You need to provide unique value that they can't find anywhere else.Click To Tweet

Promote your unique offer in such a way that your clients won’t hesitate spending $1000 for your content marketing strategy (or whatever it is that you offer).

A concrete example:you’re an engineering major turned SEO expert. Although you can offer a wide range of SEO services to all kinds of clients, you’re still not able to secure clients.

What should you do?

You have to narrow down your target audience and the range of services you offer.

Why not offer SEO services to firms that are hoping to secure mining contracts?

You’re an engineering expert.

You can do better than most of other SEO specialists, in this field. Why should the clients not prefer you over others?

Below is just such a company that offers SEO services specifically for the engineering sector:

4. Set The Bar Too High On Purpose

You won’t believe how many low-paying clients you can get avoid if you just display your minimum rates on your website.

A minimum project price is exactly what it sounds like: the minimum amount of money you’re willing to accept for a project.

You absolutely have to display your project minimum or the monthly retainer on your services and contact page if you want to earn more money.

Furthermore, if you want to earn more than say $1000 per month on one client, you have to stop accepting clients that pay less than that.

Simple!

Your project minimum disclaimer can act as a filter to keep the undesired clients (aka time-wasters) out so you can deal with only the kind of clients you prefer and need.

Not only that, but once you start working with the right kinds of clients (aka higher paying ones) then your life will become easier too.

Higher paying clients are usually less demanding and more understanding of running a business.

Example of a Pricing Scheme:

If you offer SEO services, your price plans could look like this (what is in each service, and the price):

If you are new and cannot set the project minimum as high, don’t worry.

Start low.

Work your way up.

Build a reputation and demand.

Then, when you reach the point that you feel you’re comfortable with such a price hike, don’t hesitate to raise your rates.

For more guidance, refer to what Sir Richard Branson has to say about building a small venture from the ground up. His advice is definitely worth reading.

5. Be Open From The Beginning…

Be upfront with the client before you start a project.

You can even make a list of tangible services that you would offer in exchange for a certain amount of money.

For instance, you might say that you will offer ten email opt-in ideas for a fixed sum of money.

That is a tangible goal – one you can measure easily. And, one where the client is sure of what they are getting.

If you offer a more fixed level of service at a set price (often referred to as productized services), it will have two advantages.

Firstly, it will define the client’s expectations regarding what you offer.

Second, you won’t need to go out of the way to accommodate any unreasonable demands of the client.

Why? Because the expectations and deliverables were state upfront!

Here’s an example of an SEO company providing several plans for specific services:

Last Advice

When you are rethinking your clients, your services, your prices and your business, it can seem a lot to get your head around.

Instead of making it more complex than it needs to be just remember to be specific about:

who you work with
what you offer
what you deliver
and how much you charge

So, if you want to earn more with your online services, or just get more clients, start with one of the above (the most relevant to your business right now). Then once you improve that, move on to the next one.

One step at a time.

Do you wish you could charge more for your services?

Let us know your struggles in the comments below.

Why You Need a Responsive Website

Ashley Faulkes — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:34:16 +0000

Responsive websites are all the rage these days.

They are very useful, and I would even say “a must” for any business today.

But if you are not a web designer, maybe you don’t know why you actually need one?

So let’s take a look at what exactly a responsive website can do for you and why you need such a website.

Why anyone online needs a Responsive Website

The problem with fixed sized websites started with laptops and large screen monitors.

Then came mobile phones with internet connections, smartphones and tablets like the iPad.

All of these computers and devices have different screen sizes.

And you might have noticed that a lot of websites do not look very good on them. In fact, some are downright horrible.

You have probably given up on some websites too.

That is why you need a responsive website.

Responsive websites adapt to the size of the screen and look great on almost any device or computer.

So instead of zooming in or out and scrolling all over the place, responsive websites provide a fantastic experience for anyone who visits your site.

How do Responsive Websites work?

Without getting all “techy” on you, I will try to provide a simple explanation of how responsive websites work.

Basically, when you visit a website your browser sends information about the size of the screen you are using.

The website can use that information to re-arrange the webpages, to display them differently (better) for you on your phone, iPad or computer.

Almost anything can be changed – font sizes, colors, images, positions of elements on the page, and so on.

You can even show some things, and hide others. It really is quite flexible.

If you want to see some examples, here are 5 great ones from Social Media Examiner

Responsive websites are not perfect, because they have to make some estimates of the screen sizes to expect.

However, having one means your website looks great on almost any device.

So anyone who visits your website will be able to find, read and interact with your site, without cursing your name!

And they will probably come back too, because it was so easy to use.

How can you get a Responsive Website?

For any kind of responsive website you need a web designer to get involved, but there are some easy ways to avoid this.

For example, if you are using WordPress, you can use a Theme for your website that is already “responsive”.

This means that a web designer has already developed a responsive design for you, that looks good on smartphones, tablets and PCs.

You should always test their design before you buy, to make sure you are happy with the way it looks on at least a few devices.

However, normally they do a pretty good job.

I have used quite a few and the results are fantastic.

Testing a Responsive Website Design

If you want to test a specific responsive design or WordPress Theme, there are a couple of ways you can do it:

Try it out on a few computers, smartphones and tablets (if you have access to them)
Change the size of your browser by moving the right hand edge left and right (smaller/bigger)
Run a test URL through a responsive test site

Option 3 is often the best as you can see the results for a large number of screen sizes all on one page or specifically see what it does at certain screen sizes.

If this is something you would like to try, here are a couple of good responsive test websites I have used:

Matt Kersley’s Responsive Tester – Tests many sizes at once

ResponsivePx – Test a specific size

Tip: Find lots of other useful website building tools

You need a Responsive Website

With so many people on smartphones or iPads today, you cannot afford to NOT have a responsive website.

If you already have a website, use the testers above and see how good or bad it looks.

If it’s good, pat yourself on the back. Your customers probably love you.

If not, have a serious think about moving to a responsive design very soon. You could be losing customers.

How can I help you with your website?

Photo credit: ZERGE_VIOLATOR via photopin cc

Blogging – Mad Lemmings

5 Reasons Your Website Drives Visitors Insane

Five Annoying Site Problems To Avoid

Busy Graphics

Slow Load Time

Too Spammy

Difficult to Navigate

Not Mobile Device Friendly

The Benefits of Improving Your Website Design

Not sure how to fix or improve your Website or Blog?

Request a private Website Review

Grab People’s Attention Even If You’re a Blogging Nobody

Enter Will Hoekenga – Attention Grabbing Copywriter

Read the Transcript

Send Will A Thank You Tweet

Thank Will with a Tweet

Posts and Resources from the Podcast

Connect with Will

How About A Review on iTunes Or Stitcher?

Previous Podcast Episodes

Final Words

10 Reasons Why You Must Use WordPress

WordPress is Free

It’s So Easy Your Grandma Could Use it

Easily Add Functionality with WordPress Plugins

WordPress Makes SEO Easy

Make it Stylish with WordPress Themes

Adding a Blog is Built-in

WordPress Is Flexible

Ecommerce is Simple to Do

Loads of Support

Try WordPress Today

How to Get Noticed by Influencers Without Appearing Needy

How to Get an Influencer’s Attention and KEEP IT

Step 1: Become a Subscriber

Step 2: Share Their Posts On Social Media

Step 3: Comment on a Post

Step 4: Let Them Know of an Error

Step 5: Link to a Post

Step 6: Create an Egobait List Post (and Feature Him)

Step 7: Use Their Advice

Wrapping It Up

How To Propel Your Marketing Efforts With Blogger Outreach

What Is Blogger Outreach And Who Is It For?

How Do Your Find Bloggers To Work With?

How Can You Work With Bloggers?

Guest Posts

Product Reviews

Giveaways

Recruiting Affiliates

Final Thoughts

7 Powerful Tips To Build Your First WordPress Site With Ease

1. Where Should You Put Your WordPress Website?

2. Don’t Use The ‘Admin’ User

3. Add Users With The Correct Permissions

4. Setting Your Permalink Structure

5. The Difference Between Pages and Posts

6. Adding menus to your site

7. Setting the blog and home page

ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp: It’s A Close Call

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign - Pros

Contacts

Tags

Segmentation

Automation

1) Automated email follow-up

2) Moving contacts between lists

3) Trimming your lists

4) Reacting to contact behavior

ActiveCampaign - Cons

Steep learning curve

Timezone delivery

Active Campaign Pricing Overview

MailChimp

MailChimp - Pros

RSS-to-Email

​

Email Delivery

​