Inami How To

All You Need to Know About RSS

2020-05-07T02:38:00.000-07:00

All You Need to Know About RSS

What the heck is a RSS feed? What do you do with it?

Generally, if you’ve set up your blog on Blogger or WordPress, you already have a RSS feed installed. Now you need to harness the power of utilizing it to get more views and followers to your blog.

There are different things you can do to gain subscribers, readers, or even email subscribers.

What is RSS?

RSS is a simple way to display your content across various platforms. It stands for Rich Site Summary but is also referred to as Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a dumbed-down version of your content without your whole blog layout attached to it. RSS feeds contain your blog post content, the published date and time, and other standard information attached to your blog posts.

RSS feed readers exist so that your blog content can be read on a variety of devices, without the need to have to load up your entire website. Apps and websites (feed readers) like Bloglovin’ and Feedly access your RSS feed to display your latest posts and content to your subscribers. Many email programs also have an option to display RSS feeds from selected websites.

When a user “subscribes” to your RSS feed using a feed reader, your blog’s latest posts will automatically be delivered to them.

If you have a Blogger or WordPress blog, it is standard that an RSS feed is already created for you and will automatically update based on your settings. In WordPress, you can usually see your feed by accessing: www.yourwebsiteurl.com/feed, whereas Blogger automatically creates a feed at: yourblogurl.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

How can people subscribe to your feed?

Including a link to your RSS feed somewhere on your blog is always a good idea. When the reader opens the link, they can subscribe automatically using their feed reader of choice with the options that appear for them at the top of the page.

Sites and apps like Bloglovin‘ and Feedly will automatically find your feed and allow readers to subscribe to it, so there isn’t much to do but be sure that you have an active feed on your blog. Having an active feed allows different feed readers and apps to communicate with your website to display your content across their platforms automatically.

If you wish to personalize your Bloglovin’ profile and claim your blog, I go over all of that in this post.

People can also subscribe to receive your latest posts to their email inbox. For this, you’ll need to use an RSS to Email solution. Installing a gadget in your sidebar will auto-configure subscriptions for you and allow readers to start receiving your posts to their inbox after you publish them.

In WordPress, there are various Plugins available if you search “RSS to Email” on the “Add New” plugins page.

Aren’t RSS Feeds Old News?

Yes and no. With people consuming most of their updates and news through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, RSS feeds still have a place in terms of pushing stripped-down content from your blog to various platforms, like Bloglovin for example.

YouTube channels all have RSS feeds as well which allows for plugins and widgets to connect to a creator’s feed of content and display it on your blog. A WordPress plugin like Feeds for YouTube allows you to grab your video content so you an display it all on a blog page.

The best part about RSS feeds is that they update automatically, so you don’t constantly have to add new content. For example, if you add a new video to YouTube, your RSS feed is automatically updated resulting in your RSS feed widget to automatically update as well.

Have you harnessed the power of your own RSS feed yet?

How To Create Image Links

2020-04-19T23:20:00.004-07:00

How To Create Image Links

I wanted to talk today about something that may seem super easy for some, but I constantly see others struggling with when creating their blogs. I want to talk about image links.

Those who are experienced in HTML need not read any further. I’m dedicating this one to all of you beautiful newbs… because many years ago I was one of you as well.

Probably one of the most basic things you can learn when you dive into the world of HTML is how to create an image link. Or in other words, an image that (when clicked) sends you to a specific URL.

My goal is to have you memorize this, not just copy and paste a code. You will never learn anything by copying and pasting! I’ll do my best to explain what each part of the code does so that you actually know how it functions as well.

Here is a standard image link code:

<a href="http://www.yoururl.com"><img src="http://www.yoururl.com/image.jpg"></a>

Let’s break it down.

The first part (blue) of your code is your link code. HTML links are always wrapped in an <a href> element. Always, whether it be a text or image link. Make a mental note right now that <a href> means “link”. With a lot of HTML, you will have your element, followed by the action. In this case, the element is a link (<a href>) and the action is the destination (your URL).

The second part (green) of that element is just telling the <a href> (link) where you want it to go to. Since <a href> simply won’t work on its own, we need to set its destination. Basically, the link = (equals) “your URL”. Got it? Links should always start with http:// as that is their true URL. If you forget this part and just start it with “www“, you’ll quickly realize that your link does not direct to your URL but rather tries to open that URL within the page you are on by adding it to the end of your current URL.

The third part of the code is your image code. You should have your image ready and uploaded somewhere, like Photobucket or through your own blog if that is an option. <img src> means “image source“. In other words, the source of your image. Easy, right? Just like the link element, your code is simply asking you where your image is located. Enter the URL of your image in the fourth part of the code, in between quotation marks as shown. So now, your image destination = your image URL.

Finally, the last part of the code is your closing element. The </a> closes the link, plain and simple. It’s calling upon the “a” from “a href” and telling it to stop. It means that after your image, nothing else should be linked. If you leave this open, all other elements on your page following this code would be linked as well. The thing to remember in HTML is to always close your code.

Practice this on your blogs or websites. Try writing it out instead of copying and pasting.

Opening the link in a new window

One other quick example I wanted to show was how to open your link in a new window/tab. Sometimes you want to keep visitors on your website instead of directing them completely away from your content. Here is what that code looks like:

<a href="http://www.yoururl.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.yoururl.com/image.jpg"></a

All I added here was a simple link target within the same link code. Target means just that, where you would like to target your link to. See how the quotations separate each action? They are still contained within the image link (<a href>) but now you’re telling it to do something extra. “_blank” is standard HTML talk for opening in a blank (aka NEW) window.

The ALT Attribute

Finally, let’s talk about the ALT attribute. The Alt attribute should be added to the ending of your image code to specify alternate text in case the image cannot be displayed. It also helps your images appear in search engine image search results. Here is how you add the Alt attribute below:

<a href="http://www.yoururl.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.yoururl.com/image.jpg" alt="Description of Image"></a>

Your Alt text can be whatever you like, but should describe the image.

Things kinda make sense now, don’t they? It’s all about how you associate what you may consider a crazy computer language with normal terms. When you think about it like that, it starts to click.

If you have any questions or want to let me know what else you would like to see me cover, ask in the comments below!

Top Digital Marketing Trends

2020-04-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

Top Digital Marketing Trends

It’s crystal ball time! That time of the year where we look ahead into 2020 and see what we think will be the big digital marketing trends.

Content trends

At the heart of any digital marketing strategy is content so what are the big trends coming in content that you need to look at and consider adding?

Greater emphasis on visuals

Any time you read stats about adding an image to something, you will see that people respond better when there’s something more than words to look at. In 2020, this could go one steo further with the use of what Search Engine Journal calls ‘next levels visuals’ within content.

But what kind of thing does this mean? One example is using a GUF rather than a statis image. Another is to use augmented reality to add another dimension to images. We’ve mentioned video but even things like moving slide share presentations within content could be worth considering.

Visual storytelling

This ties in with both the previous content trend and the big emphasis on video. One survey from HubSpot found that over half of age groups between 25-44 wanted to see more video content from brands they follow. This shows that visual storytelling is a key way to keep people engaged.

Visual content tops the charts in terms of keeping people’s attention too. 62% of people watch an entire video versys only 44% reading a whole email and 25% reading full long-form content pieces. Long form content might be key for SEO but making that content into something visual is key for reader engagement.

Purposeful content

We’ve all been guilty of it in the past – creating content just to say ‘I made some content this week’ and not really being purposeful about it. I’m being purposeful in creating this content as last year, the 2019 version was my top post all year long. So I know my readers love to read about trends and keep checking it out all year long.

In fact, 90% of the top digital marketers put what their audience want to read above what they want to create. Not only that but by fulfilling their needs, you have a better chance of appearing higher on search engine results – because you are talking about topics or answering questions people are asking.

SEO trends

Predicting what Google will do is a bit like predicting the weather. You know there’s a good chance of snow in winter but you have no idea exactly when it will appear. You know Google will make changes and some of those could affect your strategy negatively or positively but what and when is still a mystery. However there are some strong predictions about search engine optimisation trends to spy out.

Voice search

Moving from the background to the foreground is the importance of voice search. Who owns a voice operated device? Or uses something like Siri on their mobile phone? We have two Amazon Echos in our home with a third on the shopping list. And we all have smartphones with a voice assistant at the ready. Even my Mac can respond to a whole range of voice commands.

Stats predict that as much as 50% of searches will be by voice in 2020. This means digital marketers need to be aware of this and start to create content with it in mind. Sure, you can’t write all of your posts for voice search because it tends to short, sharp answers. But you can incorporate ways for it to feature and gain that extra exposure.

Semantic search

Latent semantic indexing has been around a while but it is becoming even more important as Google gets smarter. This is where words are underwood in the context of other terms to give a more accurate search result.

If you use a tool like LSI Graph, you can see this in action. Type in a phrase like ‘content marketing’ and you will see related keywords like ‘content marketing examples’ and ‘content marketing tips’ but you also see things like ‘online marketing tips’ and ‘content strategy plan’.

These are related keywords that Google would understand as associated with each other. By using them in your content, you can help increase Google’s understanding and have a better chance of showing up in a search.

Diversifying content

We have already talked about some of the different ways that people use content and it is worth considering this from an SEO viewppint. In many cases, that first page of results no longer has just links. There could be:

Knowledge graph results (what Google knows about the term)
People Also Ask results
Video results
Image results
Related search terms
Paid ad content

An example of the first page of search when looking for ‘New York City’

In amongst all of these may be 3-4 organic search results which means the chance of ranking on page 1 is a lot harder with just an organic link. So it is worth looking to see if you can optimise for any of these elements and find an extra way onto that first page.

Using structured data

Structured data is the system that Google uses to organise content types. Recipes are a good example while FAQ’s are one of the newer types. There are lots of tools to use to add this depending on the type of structured data you are aiming for. The key is to have the right Schema to give Google the information it needs and have a chance of showing up.

Visual search

While many of us search with words, the ability to use an image to search continues to grow. Pinterest is at the forefront with Lens, a tool that lets you take a photo of something and see similar products on their site. They also introduced Pincodes, a QR-cide like technology as well partnering with brands like Target to allow catalogue searches based on real world products.

Both Google and Bing are creating something similar while apps are popping up that are designed specifically to help you track down products based on a photo you snap.

Search engine diversification

Not many days go by where there isn’t a report on the news about breaking up the big tech companies, Google and Facebook being the most common targets. While chatting about that is a whole different topic, the concept of search engine diversification is one that could become a relevant digital marketing trend in 2020.

What this means it is that it is worth exploring the other search engines and what it means to show up in their search results. Yes, there are still other search engines out there – Bing is one example and there are many more. As the battle over big companies and their monopolies continue, diversification of your SEO traffic sources might not be a bad idea.

AR & VR marketing (again)

I’ll admit I’m a little tired of hearing that this year will be the year that virtual reality and augmented reality will become mainstream. It seems to have been this year forever!! But some experts still believe that 2020 could be the year and it is worth keeping an eye on things to see if this does come true.

Honestly, I’m still a little sceptical that we will need to optimise web pages for AR glasses but who knows!

Artificial Intelligence sneaks into life

No trend report would be complete without a mention of artificial intelligence. We’ve mentioned voice search but the larger use of AI continues to grow, even if we aren’t always aware of it.

From robots that police parking lots to devices that help us make our home smarter than we are, AI is sneaking into our lives in all kinds of ways. But there are positive ones and ones that could help marketers.

One example is a natural language processing software being used by Mastercard to create a Facebook messenger. It analyses what you say, understands context and can reply like a real person. Simulatanously useful and a bit creepy!

Some of the key areas in digital marketing that AI is predicted to influence include:

Basic communication with customers
Customer service chatbots (predicted to cover 25% of customer service in 2020)
Product recommendations
Email personalisation
E-commerce transations

So don’t be afraid to look at the options and see if any of them could help with your strategy. Or you could make your content AI-friendly!

Geo-fencing gets location specific

Showing people content based on their location isn’t anything new but geo-fencing goes one step further. Let’s say you get the bus into town and search for resturants near me – geo-fencing means you will get results within a mile of where you stand. But more importantly, yoi can get push notifications, text messages or other marketing from those restaurants when you make the search.

Stats are impressive – 54% of people convert from segmented push versus just 15% for broad, general messages. And over half of people have push messages enabled on apps. Offering special deals, offers or promotions when you are near a store can help to propel you into the door and may be worth considering for digital marketers with a physical store presence.

Influencer marketing continues to be important

Despite there being something of a downer on influencers of late in some places, people really still respond to it and that’s what matters. 92% of people trust consumer recommendations over advertising by a company and that’s why real people (i.e. influecners) are going to remain a popular marketing strategy.

AI will also factor into influencer marketing. It will help companies find the right influencer and to root out those ones with loads of fake followers. This will improve the overall quality of the system, both for the influecner and the marketer as well as the customer, of couse.

A glimpse into the future

I love trends to see what might be happening and also to look back and see what did. This year, some of the trends are repeats from previous years but technology is moving to mean things like AI and voice search are prominent. These offer new opporunties and new challenges for all of us.

What do you think will be the big trend in 2020? And what trends are you factoring into your digital marketing strategy? Tell us below!

Bloggers: How To Really Promote Your Blog On Instagram (Video)

2020-04-19T14:24:00.001-07:00

Bloggers: How To Really Promote Your Blog On Instagram (Video)

In this post, you'll discover some super powerful and engaging ways to promote your blog and your content on Instagram. Forget all of what you've read anywhere else, this is the real deal!

So, here's my deal with Instagram:

I've been using Instagram since 2012, however, it's only been in the last few years that I've really pushed more content on my Instagram profile.

Before I started taking Instagram seriously, I was kind of skeptical whether it was the right platform for me to use to promote my blog, content, and my business services, etc.

I only signed up to Instagram because it was the thing that everybody was doing. My friends and family were all talking about it, so I jumped on board.

I kind of underestimated Instagram. And what I mean is that I always assumed it was a platform best suited for kids and celebrities.

I knew that it was a great place for lifestyle and travel bloggers to share their content too, but never did I imagine it would be a place where I could promote my blog and content, or more amazingly, generate leads to my business.

Then, I discovered something interesting - 70.7% of US businesses were actually using Instagram.

That kind of shocked me:

Despite this, could I really be bothered to start learning how to properly use yet another social platform?

I mean, it wasn't like I didn't have enough on my plate already, with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Let's fast forward to 2020

Yes, 2020 is just a few months away. But as I'm updating this post in late 2019, the short story is:

If Instagram were to disappear tomorrow, I'd be a very unhappy person. It seems that I've become addicted to the platform, at least in a business sense.

Instagram is now my favorite social channel for sharing and promoting content relevant and related to my blog, my business services, and my life.

Seriously guys and dolls, I get the most value out of Instagram than any other social media channel right now. Second, to Instagram has to be YouTube, for me at least.

If you're not familiar with Instagram, and for whatever reason, let me brief you quickly:

Instagram is considered to be the largest visual content-based social media platform, and it's primarily mobile-app based.

As of June 2018, Instagram has 1 billion users worldwide, 500 million of which are active daily users. (Source)

Have I got your attention now?

Bloggers, and businesses: Why should you even concern yourself with Instagram?

Asides from the basic maths that Instagram has a boatload of users, if you're still unsure whether you should or shouldn't be on Instagram, don't worry, because that's exactly how I felt before exploring the platform properly.

So, let me share with you some more 'startling' statistics to get your Instajuices flowing. Sorry, that was lame -

According to this article on WordStream, 60% of Instagram users say they have learned about a product or service on the platform.

And, according to this article on Sprout Social, Instagram's users has the most percentage of interactions with brand's post when compared with Twitter or Facebook. See image below.

Room for one more?

Today, a staggering 86% of top brands have an Instagram account. (Source).

So, with those statistics now firmly in your mind, isn't it time you really considered leveraging Instagram in your blog and content marketing strategy?

Of course, you don't need to be a top brand name to use Instagram. You don't need to be a social media marketing expert either to figure the platform out. You just need some direction.

If you're a blogger, solopreneur, or freelancer like me, and you're not yet using Instagram, or don't have a profile, your first action should be to go and download the app on your smartphone and create an account.

I have an Instagram profile but I don't have an audience

That's OK, don't beat yourself blind about it! We all have to start somewhere.

Even if you're starting from flat zero. You can start to build your audience up slowly.

Obviously, you can't build an audience properly, or organically at least, without first posting some quality content, which I'll talk more about shortly.

In the meantime, though, here are some simple ways to start growing your Instagram followers for your blog.

Connect your Instagram profile to your blog's or brand's Facebook page. Click here to learn how.
Link to your profile from all your other social media channels.
Mention you're on Instagram in your marketing videos, vlogs, and Livestream events.
Add your Instagram profile to your outgoing email signature. See mine below.
Do the same for your email marketing newsletters.
Add your Instagram profile URL to your blog's author box.

There are plenty of other things you can do to start building up followers asides from the obvious above tips, but this post isn't about growing your Instagram audience, it's about promoting your blog and content on Instagram, so let's get to it.

13 smart ways to use Instagram to promote your blog and content

First, watch the video slide presentation below. Some of the tips and ideas I mention in the video are different from the ones listed below. Think of it as some extra value 🙂

1. Introduce yourself (Add a Bio)

Let's start with your Instagram profile bio.

Now, you can't afford to NOT make this the best you possibly can.

Worst case scenario, you leave it completely blank! Don't do that.

Make sure you write a short but accurate bio telling users who you are, what you're passionate about, and what you do over on your blog. It doesn't need to be an essay, just short and sweet,

Also, make sure you add a nice call-to-action and a link to your blog or website. This is very important because you can't add a clickable link anywhere else on your Instagram profile, not even your posts unless you are promoting your content using Ads. See mine below.

2. Post quality and highly relevant content

Before you start adding photos and sharing cool videos on your Instagram profile, here's a big tip! Think quality and relevancy.

If you're trying to promote your blog and your content to a specific audience, start by making a list of all the types of Instagram posts you could create that's related to your niche or subject.

In addition to keeping your content sharing consistent with your blog or online business goals, make sure whatever it is you're sharing is high-quality stuff.

By this I mean, always use beautiful photos, add cool filters or light effects in your photos, explore with text overlays, really get creative with it. Make your content unique, make it stand out and shareable.

3. Screen-capture your latest blog post

A great way to share your latest blog post with your Instagram followers is to screen capture your actual blog post using your smartphone.

You can then edit the image a little bit before posting it. Here's an example below.

You can do better than that, I'm sure, though.

There's a great 'Layout app' for Instagram that I like to use and recommend for adding a featured image to your blog post screen capture.

If you're going to implement this strategy for your blog posts, I'd also recommend adding a short description and some appropriate hashtags relevant to the topic of your article.

What I also like to do is add a call-to-action and tell people to click on the link in my bio to read the post. Since the link in my bio actually leads to my blog page anyway.

4. Follow other bloggers and engage with their content

Posting engaging and "Likable" content is one great way to get noticed and to grow your Instagram followers.

Another effective way is to actively follow, 'Like', and 'Comment' on content shared by users in your blogging circle of friends.

See if any of the bloggers you follow are actually on Instagram, to begin with. Then start following them.

Do a search using 'people' or 'tags'. Find content similar to your own and 'Like' and 'Comment' away to your heart's content.

Be patient with this, it takes a bit of time to propagate yourself around Instagram.

5. Share behind the scenes stuff

When you take your fans and followers behind the scenes of your blog or online business, some amazing things can happen.

Not only do you add that all-important 'human-element' to your brand, but this strategy can also help you gain trust and loyalty from your followers.

I think that's pretty important, don't you?

One of my favorite things to do on Instagram right now is to share some behind the scenes of whatever is going on in my business.

This could be a picture of myself writing a new post in my favorite coffee shop, or a short video of my setup, or, simply a cool picture of something I'm working on. Here's an example. It's a picture of me pretending to be busy working!

6. Get all themed up

A beautiful photo can capture your audience's imagination and tell your story in a way that no other form of content can.

But why stop there?

Why not experiment and use multiple photos to create an even bigger picture?

Or, how about using some beautiful filters to enhance some of your images?

If you take a look at some of the most creative brands on Instagram right now, you'll notice that many of them love to have a unique theme or style.

It's what helps them to stand out from everyone else.

If you're thinking of getting creative with your Instagram posts, check out Pinterest here for some amazing theme and style inspiration.

One thing you could do with your own theme is to incorporate your brand image into your theme.

So, for anyone following your blog, they'll immediately recognize your brand and content on Instagram and hopefully begin following you.

7. You've got 60 seconds...

Literally...

Even though photos generate 36% more engagement than videos, with Instagram, you can also create a 60-second video about almost anything.

For promoting your blog content, for instance, you might want to use video to quickly introduce a brand new blog post, or mention some key points of your article to tease your audience, and so on.

You could also create a 60-second video to share even more 'behind the scenes' with your followers. Or simply share a quick and inspiring story.

Here's an Idea:

How about using the Hyperlaps app to create a time-lapsed video of you 'hard at work' on your next big thing?

Or, simply use the 60 seconds you have to give some quick tips because providing value is what it's all about, right?

I think that's enough ideas for your 60 seconds video... But, you could go one step further and start using the brand new Instagram TV feature!

Whatever you do, don't avoid using video in your Instagram marketing. Here's another stat for you -

By 2021, mobile video will account for 78% of total mobile data traffic, according to Instagram Business.

8. What's your story?

Just like videos, stories are great for sharing what is happening right now, or what you're currently doing, or working on.

Did you know you could even convert one of your epic blog posts into a mini-story or mini post to share on Instagram?

Check out this amazing post on Social Media Examiner to learn how.

Keep in mind, though, stories only stay for 24 hours, after that they disappear.

This is great because the next day you could share a completely new story.

9. Let them know what's coming!

Are you working on something new and cool that you can barely keep it a secret?

Maybe you're writing a brand new eBook or adding finishing touches to a hot new product or incentive offer?

Or, maybe you're about to launch a podcast or vlog!

Check this out:

A great way to start creating excitement, hype, and buzz around your new 'thing' on Instagram, whatever that new thing might be, is to tease your audience.

Let them know that something BIG is coming, take a photo of what you're working on, create a custom banner poster with some cool text overlay, or create a teaser video even.

Or, maybe you've got an event coming up, a Facebook Live Q&A Session, or a webinar. Just Instagram it!

10. Be consistent

Like any serious effort to make social media work for your blog or your online business, you've got to be consistent.

There's no point in feeling all inspired and motivated now and posting content every day, to only drop out of using Instagram a few weeks later.

Great content + Consistency = more content views and engagement = more followers = more clicks to your blog or website.

According to this infographic on Tailwind, actually posting more frequently increases engagement.

In a recent experiment, I decided to increase my activity on Instagram by posting twice a day instead of once every few days, and what I saw was an increase in both followers and website clicks by over 100%.

A great way to be consistent with the content you share and promote on Instagram is to create a Social Media Content Planner.

You can either create one using Google Docs or Excel.

11. Over-deliver on the value 'thing', give, give, give!!!

Regardless of whether you're sharing a powerful photo, or sharing a cool and funny video, or a story to inspire and motivate your followers. Whatever you do, just make sure you're providing some form of "value".

Instagram is a special place, so think of creative ways to market your blog and content while continuing to provide great value for your followers.

Sure, from time to time post a cool pic of your delicious lunch, or a smooth cup of coffee and muffin! But always think of ways to give some kind of value back to your followers.

This will give them more reason to follow and stay loyal to you, and even check out your bio and click on the link to your blog.

12. Use Instagram Ads to drive traffic to your blog, or blog post

Using Ads to promote your content on Instagram is not expensive at all. Well, I don't think it is, anyway.

And, the great thing about using Instagram Ads is that you can actually select where you want to send people. In this case, your blog, or your latest blog post, or a conversion page on your website.

You can also quickly select your target audience by either letting Instagram target people for you, or you can create your own using targeting options.

It's a wrap!

So, peeps, that's it. That's my list of tips for promoting your blog and content, as well as your business services on Instagram.

Remember above all to be consistent, plan ahead, be creative and have fun, and you'll be rewarded. You don't need to have thousands of followers to get the most from Instagram.

I hope you enjoyed reading through these 12 tips, and more importantly, I hope you're going to take action and start implementing a few of them into your Instagram marketing strategy to help you boost the growth of your blog.

The Top Free Ways to Promote Your Business

2020-04-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

The Top Free Ways to Promote Your Business

Advertising is often a major business expense. For a new or small business, ad costs can take up most of the budget. Luckily, free advertising options exist. Some of these options work better than others. Knowing the top ways to promote your business for free will help you save money and generate new customers.

Online Classified Ads

Some websites allow you to post free classified ads. In most cases, you must set up an account with the site and follow its posting guidelines. To see positive results from your classified ads, you should place them online on a regular basis. You also may need to test different advertising messages to figure out which wording yields the best results.

Word of Mouth

Word-of-mouth marketing is one the most powerful ways to promote your business for free. However, to experience success, you must educate and satisfy your customers. When customers enjoy their experiences with your business, they quickly spread the word to others who they believe will also benefit from your products and services. To maximize word-of-mouth marketing, focus your attention on customers who you feel will spread the word. Make it easy for people to spread the word about your business. For example, you can include Facebook "Like" buttons and Twitter icons on your website so your fans can share the link to your site with their online networks.

Social Media

Social media sites provide opportunities to promote your business for free. Social media sites are most effective when you spend time networking and establishing relationships with your online followers. Simply placing ads on your social media accounts may not generate positive results. Popular examples include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Strategic Partnerships

Networking with other businesses that offer similar products or services can help you generate leads and customers. You can enter into a formal or informal partnership that provides benefits to you and affiliate businesses. You can seek out businesses that offer products or services that complement what you offer. For example, if you are a freelance writer, collaborating with a website designer may help you find new customers looking for Internet content.

Local Directories

Online directories work similar to a phone book. When a consumer searches for the services you offer in your area, your business information appears in the local directory. To make local directories more effective, you can set up a website that customers can visit to learn more information about your company.

How to Request for a verified badge on Facebook

2020-04-18T16:13:00.002-07:00

If you see a verified badge on a Page or profile, it means that Facebook confirmed that this is the authentic Page or profile for this public figure, media company or brand.

Keep in mind that verified badges are for well-known, often searched Pages and profiles. Not all public figures, celebrities and brands on Facebook have a verified badge.

Learn more about how Pages or profiles are verified.

The verified badge appears next to a Facebook Page or account’s name in search and on the profile. It means Facebook has confirmed that an account is the authentic presence of the public figure, celebrity, or global brand it represents.

What are the requirements to apply for a verified badge?

We look at a number of factors when evaluating Facebook accounts to determine if they're in the public interest and meet our verification criteria.

In addition to following Facebook’s terms of service, your account also needs to be:

Authentic: Your account must represent a real person, registered business or entity.
Unique: Your account must be the unique presence of the person or business it represents. Only one account per person or business may be verified, with exceptions for language-specific accounts. We don't verify general interest accounts (example: Puppy Memes).
Complete: Your account must be active and have an about section, profile photo and at least one post.
Notable: Your account must represent a well-known, often searched person, brand or entity. They review accounts that are featured in multiple news sources, and don't consider paid or promotional content as sources for review.

Keep in mind that if you provide false or misleading information during the verification process, Facebook will remove your verified badge and may take additional action to delete your account.

If your account doesn't meet the criteria for a verified badge, there are other ways to let people know it's authentic. For example, you can link to it from an official website, Instagram profile or Twitter account.

How do I request a verified badge?

You can submit a request by filling out a contact form.

If your account represents a person, you’ll need a copy of your official government-issued photo identification (example: passport, driver's license, national identification card) to validate your request. If your account represents an organization, you’ll need a copy of a phone or utility bill, a certificate of formation, articles of incorporation, or tax exemption documents. Please also include a few sentences explaining why the account should receive the verified badge, and relevant URLs that help illustrate the account's notability.

You'll receive a notification once we review your request. Please don't submit more than one request for your account. For denied requests, you can submit a new request after 30 days.

Can I buy a verified badge?

Never engage with anyone offering to sell you a verified badge. Facebook don't sell verified badges, and any accounts found doing so will have their badges removed.

Also, they reserve the right to remove the verified badge from accounts at our discretion.

Verified badge requirements for law enforcement, city governments, politicians and elected officials

There are some additional requirements for verified Pages for law enforcement agencies, city governments, politicians, and elected officials.

Law enforcement:

Everyone who manages the Page must turn on two-factor authentication for their profiles.

City government:

The Page name must include the word “Government” to avoid confusion with a physical location.

Politician:

The Page name can include a government title or abbreviation, such as senator, representative, MP, mayor, etc.
The Page name can't include “for Parliament,” “for [your Country],” etc.
The Page category must be set to Politician.

Elected official:

The Page name must include a government title or abbreviation, such as senator, representative, MP, mayor, etc.
The Page category must be set to Government Official.
The Page's About section must clearly state that it's a government Page.

How To Use Custom Fonts in Blogger or WordPress

2020-04-17T08:18:00.002-07:00

How To Use Custom Fonts in Blogger or WordPress

The idea of adding custom fonts to your blog has definitely come a long way over the years. Back when I started creating websites, you could pretty much only use standard computer fonts like Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman. The font had to be one that was available (by default) on every computer. If you were to add a font to your CSS/HTML that you had installed to your own computer, only the visitors with that same font installed would be able to see it properly. You can imagine this made for some messy looking websites! Unfortunately, some people still try to add fonts this way, not realizing their errors.

Javascript codes were then created to allow you to use whatever font you wanted, whether it was pre-installed on your visitor’s computer or not. This method was tricky and required more work than it was worth.

Today, we have Web Fonts, which make it incredibly easy to use not-so-basic fonts throughout your site. If you’re not familiar with Google Web Fonts, this post will show you exactly what they are and how to use them.

First, why web fonts? Let’s say you want to add a fancier font or a script font to your blog. Web fonts make that possible without having to have the font installed on your actual computer. Instead, the font is accessed through a script, where it is stored on the Google servers… so anybody can see it!

It’s easier than ever to install web fonts on your site. First, you need to choose a font you like from the Google Fonts site. This can take some time, but luckily you can filter your options if you wish. You can even change the default sample text to whatever you like so you can see exactly what your text will look like with each font.

Once you find one you like, click on the Quick Use icon:

On the next page, scroll down and grab the “Standard” code:

Highlight the text and copy it to your clipboard (CTRL/CMD + C). If you’re using WordPress, simple paste this into the <head> of your HTML template. For Genesis, go to Genesis > Theme Settings and insert it into the first Header and Footer scripts section.

In Blogger, you’ll want to go to Template > Edit HTML and paste it just under the <head> code. In Blogger, however, you need to add a trailing slash / to the end of the URL, right before the ending bracket, like so:

Next, you can add the font to your stylesheet (CSS) wherever you like.

Copy the CSS code shown on the font page and either replace existing font-family elements with your new font, or create new elements. It helps to know which IDs are applied to the different elements of your blog. Here are some examples for Blogger that you can add to the CSS portion of the Template Editor:

Remember to replace the font-family bit with your own generated font-family code!!

Change your post title font

Change your blog header font

Change your post body font

Change your date font

Change your post footer font

Change your previous/next link font

Change your sidebar title font

Save your work and your new custom font will be applied!

You can also add multiple web fonts to your site. You can either just generate another “Standard” link code from Google Fonts, or you can combine them by selecting the Add To Collection button instead of the Quick Use button:

They will be added to a window on the bottom of the screen, and selecting “Use” will generate a single “Standard” link code for all of them, as well as a CSS style for each.

I hope this helped you. Be sure to check out my HTML/CSS lessons to learn even more about codes.

If this post helped you, please consider sharing it.

The Ultimate HTML Cheat Sheet For Beginners

2020-04-17T08:10:00.003-07:00

The Ultimate HTML Cheat Sheet For Beginners

Below is a complete guide of HTML codes that you can copy and paste for use on your own blog or website. Although I like to insist on bloggers taking the time to learn how to write these codes and know what each part of them does, sometimes you need a code in a pinch! Be sure to view the other tutorials on this site for more in-depth demonstrations and explanations of coding.

Quick jump:

Text Formatting

Headings

Defines an important heading in your text. You can use <h1> to <h6>, with the highest number resulting in the smallest font size.

<h1>Your important heading</h1>

Aligned Heading

Aligns your heading using a little bit of CSS. You can use “left”, “right”, or “justify” in place of “center” below:

<h1 style="text-align:center;">Your aligned heading</h1>

Paragraphs

Inserts a paragraph break. Defines each paragraph.

<p>Your paragraph here</p>

Aligned Paragraph

Aligns your paragraph using a little bit of CSS. You can use “left”, “right”, or “justify” in place of “center” below:

<p style="text-align:center">Your paragraph text is aligned</p>

Line Breaks

Line breaks are used instead of paragraphs, when you want to create a new line without starting a new paragraph.

The end of your sentence.<br />

Bold Text

Makes the weight of your font bold

<b>Your bold text</b>

Strong Text

Same look as bold text, but is semantic. Instead of it being simply a style, strong text shows how the text should be read or understood.

<strong>Your strong text</strong>

Italic Text

Makes your text italicized

<i>Your italic text</i>

Emphasized Text

Same look as Italic text in HTML, but is semantic. Specifies that the text should be emphasized when read.

<em>Your emphasized text</em>

Underlined Text

Underlines your text

<u>Your underlined text</u>

Strike-through

Places a line through your text to ~~strike it out~~.

<s>Your text here</s>

Font Family

Changes the font of the text using a little CSS. You can change the font to any web safe font or Google web font:

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your new font</span>

Font Color

Changes the color of your font to any hex color value of your choice:

<span style="font-color:#030303;">Your new font color</span>

Highlighted Text

Highlights the text with a background color using a little CSS:

<span style="background-color:#C2F2CA">Your highlighted text</span>

Block Quotes

Useful when quoting someone or when you need a particular part of your text to stand out.

<blockquote>Your quoted text here</blockquote>

Links

Basic Text Link

Use to add a link to specific text or a word. Replace the http://www.yourlink.com with your own link:

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com">Your linked text</a>

Open Link in New Tab

Used to open the link in a new window or tab instead of in the same web page:

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com" target="_blank">Your linked text</a>

Link To An Email Address

Opens the user’s email program to quickly send an email to the address supplied. Replace the email address with your own:

<a href="mailto:you@youremailaddress.com">Your email address or link</a>

Link To An Email Address With Subject Line

Useful if you want the email to have a specific subject when a user clicks your link. Use %20 in place of any spaces and replace the text with your own subject line:

<a href="mailto:you@youremailaddress.com?subject=Your%20Email%20Subject">Your email address or link</a>

Anchored (“Jump”) Link

For jumping to a particular part of a page with the click of a link. This happens in two parts. First, include the code below wherever you want the user to end up when they click the link, for example, at the top of the post. Name it something unique:

<a name="backtotop"></a>

Then, add the anchor to your link that the user will click on to jump to that section:

<a href="#backtotop">Back to top</a>

Images

Basic Image

Include an image in your post. Replace the image URL with your own URL. You will need to have this image uploaded somewhere online. Describing your image helps with SEO:

<img src="https://www.yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="describe this image"/>

Image Link

For adding a link to a certain image. Replace the image URL and link with your own:

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com"><img src="https://www.yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="describe this image"/></a>

Image Link Opens In New Window

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="describe this image"/></a>

Image Width and Height

You can change the width and height of the image if you need to, however it’s usually best to resize your image prior to adding it to your site. You can specify the width and height below for browser compatibility. Change the width and height values to those of your actual image:

<img src="https://www.yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="describe this image" width="450" height="600"/>

Align Image to Left or Right of Paragraph

If you want to place your image to the left or right of a paragraph, use the following code, replacing “left” with “right” if you like:

<img src="https://www.yoursite.com/yourimage.jpg" alt="describe this image" align="left"/>

Backgrounds

The following should be completed in your site’s main CSS file, or a dedicated CSS section of your website/blog editor. If you don’t have a CSS section or file, you can place these codes in between <style> and </style> tags in the <head> section of your website’s HTML, although it is recommended to have an external CSS file.

Page Background Color

Change the overall background of your website or blog with this code. Replace the color hex code with your own.

body {
background-color:#c3c3c3;
}

Repeating Background Image

For smaller backgrounds that you want tiled, or larger backgrounds that were made to be repeating, use this code and replace the image URL with your own. You will need to upload the image online first:

body {
background-image:url(https://www.yourwebsite.com/background-image.jpg); 
background-repeat:repeat;
}

Change the above red “repeat” if you want the image to only repeat vertically: repeat-y
Change the above red “repeat” if you want the image to only repeat horizontally: repeat-x

Non-Repeating Background Image

For background images that you want displayed only once (not repeated or tiled). Replace the image URL with your own.

body {
background-image:url(https://www.yourwebsite.com/background-image.jpg);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
}

Top Centered Non-Repeating Background Image

Center your background image on the page, at the top. Replace the image URL with your own.

body {
background-image:url(https://www.yourwebsite.com/background-image.jpg);
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position: top center;
}

Top Centered Vertical Repeating Background Image

Center your background image on the page, at the top. It will repeat vertically down the page. Replace the image URL with your own.

body {
background-image:url(https://www.yourwebsite.com/background-image.jpg);
background-repeat:repeat-y;
background-position: top center;
}

Lists

Ordered List

This will create a numbered list. Replace list elements with your own:

<ol>
<li>List item 1</li>
<li>List item 2</li>
<li>List item 3</li>
</ol>

Unordered List With Bullets

This will create a list with bullets instead of numbers. Replace list elements with your own:

<ul>
<li>List item 1</li>
<li>List item 2</li>
<li>List item 3</li>
</ul>

Unordered List With Different Bullet Types

You can change the bullet type of any unordered list to circle, square, or disc (default):

<ul>
<li style="list-style-type:square">List item 1</li>
</ul>

Unordered List with Custom Image Bullet

If you want to use your own bullet image instead of the default ones, you can do that as well with a little CSS. Perhaps a star or a heart or check mark? You will need to create a small enough image and upload it somewhere online:

<ul style="list-style-image:url('https://yourimageurl.com/yourbullet.jpg')">
 <li>List item 1</li>
 <li>List item 2</li>
 <li>List item 3</li>
 </ul>

Special HTML Characters

&copy;

Less Than Symbol <

&lt;

Greater Than Symbol >

&gt;

Ampersand &

&amp;

Trademark Symbol ™

&trade;

Non-breaking Space

&nbsp;

Quotation Mark ”

&quot;

Registered Trademark ®

&reg;

Heart ♥

&hearts;

Euro sign €

&euro;

Left Arrow ←

&larr;

Right Arrow →

&rarr;

Up Arrow ↑

&uarr;

Down Arrow ↓

&darr;

Spade ♠

&spades;

Club ♣

&clubs;

Diamond ♦

&diams;

How to Add a “Back To Top” Button to Any Blog (Blogger, WordPress)

2020-04-17T08:05:00.002-07:00

How to Add a “Back To Top” Button to Any Blog (Blogger, WordPress)

Having a lot of content means a lot of scrolling. It helps to make things a little easier for your readers if you include an easy way to jump all the way back to the top of the page. Adding a Back To Top button can easily solve scrolling issues and is really simple to implement! I’ve included a really easy Back To Top button here for you that you can add to any website or blog. All you need to edit are the theme’s CSS file and the main HTML template file.

Add a Back To Top button to your site:

To get started, add this to the CSS section of your site. In Blogger, this would be under Template > Customize > Advanced > CSS. In WordPress this is your theme’s style.css file.

.back-to-top {
    display:none;
    position: fixed;
    bottom: 2em;
    right: 0px;
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #000000;
    background-color: rgba(235, 235, 235, 0.80);
    font-size: 12px;
    padding: 1em;
   
}

.back-to-top:hover {    
    background-color: rgba(135, 135, 135, 0.50);
    text-decoration:none;
    color:#ffffff;
}

Then, make sure your site is loading jQuery. Add this code in the <head> section of your template’s main HTML file:

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js"></script>

If you already have a similar jquery script in there, you don’t need to add this one. One jQuery script is enough! Next, add the following code directly before the </body> code in your template’s main HTML file. In Blogger, go to Template > Edit HTML and search for </body> and add this above it:

<a href="#" class="back-to-top">Back to Top</a>
<script>
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
var offset = 220;
var duration = 500;
jQuery(window).scroll(function() {
if (jQuery(this).scrollTop() > offset) {
jQuery('.back-to-top').fadeIn(duration);
} else {
jQuery('.back-to-top').fadeOut(duration);
}
});

jQuery('.back-to-top').click(function(event) {
event.preventDefault();
jQuery('html, body').animate({scrollTop: 0}, duration);
return false;
})
});
</script>

Save your template and you should see the Back to Top link appear as you scroll down the page!

7 Ways to Use Facebook for Marketing

2020-04-17T02:26:00.001-07:00

7 Ways to Use Facebook for Marketing

In this post we will be looking at seven ways you can use Facebook for marketing.

Whether you’re a big corporation or a small local biz, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool – it’s a great space to keep customers informed, develop brand identity, and broaden your reach.

1. Making the Most of Your Facebook Business Page

A Facebook page is a great free marketing tool for businesses. These pages let businesses identify themselves – not just through listing product offerings and services, but also by sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page to give a better sense of a business’s personality and character.

Your Facebook business page is a great spot to develop your brand identity and show your human side. Facebook is where you can loosen the tie a bit – don’t be afraid to be funny.

Ultimately you should consider what your key audience would want to see. Share social media images, links, videos, anything, as long as it is connected to your business and it seems like something your target audience would enjoy.

In addition to hilarious videos of dogs walking in tiny shoes, a store specializing in footwear might also post an article about how to measure your foot size accurately, what kind of shoe inserts are best for different sore feet woes, etc. A nice mix of humor, educational resources, and posts about your store updates is ideal.

2. Facebook Advertising: Classic Ads

Facebook offers its own form of advertising with Facebook ads, which appear in the side columns of the Facebook site. These classic ads are referred to more specifically as Marketplace Ads. They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to either a Facebook page, a Facebook app, or an outside website.

Implementing Facebook advertising into your Facebook marketing strategy is one possible technique for increasing likes or driving website clicks.

Facebook advertising features include:

Demographic targeting by Facebook user data on age, location, education, and interests.
The ability to set ad budgets.
Ad testing, in which multiple ad versions can be run simultaneously in order to compare ad designs and setup.
Built-in ad performance measurement tools.

Facebook doesn’t release information about their ad CTRs, so it’s difficult to know how successful Facebook ads really are. In our Facebook Ads vs Google Display Ads Infographic, we found that Facebook ads generally have a CTR of 0.051%, and an average CPC of $0.80; however, a business’s Facebook advertising cost can vary a lot depending on the targeting options set and competition.

Using Facebook advertising to increase your “Likes” can be very beneficial – once a user likes your page, they essentially become followers of your business page, and your posts will appear on their Facebook news feed.

This results in more users interacting with you and your brand, forming relationships that may end up translating to conversions in the future.

3. Hosting Facebook Contests

Running Facebook contests, sweepstakes, or promotions is another Facebook marketing tactic that can increase fans and brand awareness.

When conducting a Facebook contest, be aware that contests can’t be hosted through Facebook itself (meaning you can’t ask for likes as entries, have people write answers in the comments, etc.) Businesses must use a third-party app for creating their Facebook contest, then direct users to the app from their Facebook page.

There are plenty of paid tools to help you do this, as well as some free ones. Shortstack offers a number of free contest templates, so long as your page has under 2,000 likes. Pagemodo also has a free option. Many third-party Facebook contest apps offer free versions, but your options with them are limited.

4. Facebook Promoted Posts

Facebook Promoted Posts let Facebook page owners pay a flat rate in order to have their individual Facebook posts reach a certain number of users, increasing a specific post’s reach and impressions.

Some businesses have asked – why should I have to pay to ensure that my post is seen by users who are my followers? If a user has liked my page, they should always see my posts on their news feed, shouldn’t they? The answer to this question is no, because it assumes that users spend every waking moment of their life on Facebook’s news feed. For the health and safety of your Facebook fans, we hope this isn’t true!

If a fan of yours happens to be looking at their news feed when you post your story, they are likely to see it, but even then there is no guarantee if their news feed is swamped by other posts. That’s where Promoted Posts comes in – it ups your chances of being seen on a user’s news feed. Facebook Promoted Posts are shown to existing fans, with an added option to reach friends of fans.

Promoted Posts are easy to set up – just click the button beneath any of your page posts.

While the flat rate simplifies the process, Promoted Posts lack the targeting options offered by other Facebook ads.

5. Sponsored Stories

Sponsored Stories are a type of Facebook ad that shows a user’s interactions, such as a Facebook like, to the user’s friends.

Sponsored Stories seeks to capitalize on the “word of mouth” marketing concept. If a user sees that three of his friends like a certain page, he is more inclined to pay attention. The goal of Sponsored Stories is to have a user take the same action as their friends. Advertisers can choose to show friends “likes” if they want more page likes, show friends who have “claimed this offer” if a business wants more users to claim offers, etc.

While the action performed by a friend liking a page or claiming an offer is automatically posted in a user’s news feed, these posts easily get overlooked. Sponsored Stories get preferred positioning, capable of appearing in news feeds and the right side bar. Sponsored Stories is also the only ad format available on mobile devices.

Sponsored Stories don’t only apply to likes or offers – they can be used with any Facebook Open Graph app. If a friend has just installed Scramble With Friends on Facebook, Sponsored Stories can show users that their friend has just played the Scramble game, with an invite to “challenge them,” “play with them,” or any similar variation.

Facebook claims that Sponsored Stories have 46% higher CTRs and 20% lower CPCs than regular Facebook ads, making them a very serious strategy for marketing on Facebook.

Facebook Sponsored Stories can be created easily through the Facebook ad create flow. Open Graph Sponsored Stories with a customized call to action require advertisers to use a third-party provider.

6. Facebook Open Graph

Facebook Open Graph lets businesses label a user’s action with their app. Billions of interactions are posted with Facebook Open Graph every day.

Businesses can create third-party apps that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action with the app. Facebook’s Open Graph allows for creative interactive options outside of the standard “like” and “comment.” Posts can suggest that users “listen,” “taste,” “read,” – it’s up to businesses to get creative.

Virtually any time a site or app prompts users to sign in to Facebook, it has something to do with connecting the user with the Facebook Open Graph.

Spotify is a great example of how Facebook Open Graph becomes a powerful Facebook marketing tool.

It all starts with a Facebook login prompt.

This is followed immediately by a permission request, which many users click through with little thought. I actually discovered that I had given permissions to 130 apps, 95% of which I don’t recall the reasoning behind.

Once permission has been obtained, Spotify is able to stream what songs a user is listening to on a friend’s news feed.

Pic borrowed from Justin Lafferty of AllFacebook.com

Notice that users are given a variety of options – they can like the song their friend is listening to, listen to the song themselves, or star it as a favorite in Spotify.

Open graph actions like these are unique enough to stand out from the cluttered craziness of a user’s news feed.

Many Facebook games make frequent use of Facebook open graph actions, posting a notice when a user has completed a level or won an achievement.

Farmville. Oh joy.

Open graph actions are being categorized as a new type of consumer story, taking advantage of the word of mouth phenomenon. Open graph posts are more meaningful to users because they are being generated by a familiar friend, not simply a brand, making them the latest and greatest of Facebook marketing tools.

7. Facebook Exchange (FBX)

Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on web history data – when a user visits a product page on a retailer’s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.

While Facebook retargeting ads were only relegated to the side columns, recently these ads have been allowed to appear in news feeds, the most valuable Facebook real-estate. This is great news for FBX advertisers, since response rates for news feed ads are 10 to 50 times higher than that of ad placements in the right column.

So how do Facebook Exchange ads perform? The CTR for Facebook Exchange ads is 40% lower than for other web retargeting ads, like those offered by the Google Display Network. Other retargeting ads are also cheaper, with price per unique clicks costing 80% less than Facebook retargeting ads. Still, in terms of cost-per-impression and cost-per-click, FBX ads are considerably cheaper, so the monetary benefits depend on your business’s needs. These numbers are also subject to change as FBX ads begin to appear more often in the news feed.

Google Ads: How They Work

2020-04-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

What are Google Ads?

Google advertisements are strategically placed along the page to attract attention from the searcher. This is done so that companies can better promote their product on the internet.

What is Keyword Intent?

Keyword intent consist of keywords that are used to target searchers that are most likely to have interest in your product. It is the basic approach to matching the keywords of your product with the searchers intention.

What are sponsored ads on Google?

Sponsored results account for 64.6% of click for high commercial intent keyword searches. Sponsored advertisements rank higher on the search results page than organic searches and take up 85.2% of the above-the-fold pixels.

What is paid search?

Paid search is the process of gaining traffic at the result of purchasing advertisements on search engines. Buying keywords is a form of paid search keyword advertising. Buying banner ad space on Google's Display Network is also another example of paid search.

What is click through rate (CTR)?

CTR is a type of measurement to determine the success of an advertisement campaign on a search engine page. It is a ratio that displays how frequently searchers who view your ad then click on your site.

What is an average CTR?

Average CTR is the rate of which searchers will click on your site page on average. This is a strong indication of which advertisements are working and which ones aren't meeting the average standard rate.

What is average CTR for Facebook?

Facebook does not publish its average CTR, but independent analysis from Webtrends on more than 11,000 Facebook campaigns showed that the average CTR for Facebook ad in 2010 was 0.051% which apparently has dropped from their 0.063% in 2009.

What is average CTR for Google ads?

The average CTR of an ad on the Google display network is 0.4%. Recently total CTR for Google ads on high commercial intent queries are up to 600 times higher than the CTR for ads on a typical Facebook page.

What is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is Google's online advertising program that allows businesses to reach new customers as they search the internet.

Benefits of Google AdWords?

The benefits of Google AdWords range depending on your product or business. Generally companies gain better exposure when advertising with Google AdWords and this exposure then increases their clientele.

How to advertise on Google?

Businesses can advertise on Google by registering their company with a Google AdWords account with the objective of gaining more clientele. They can also expand onto the display network and serve banner ads to generate affordable clicks.

How much does search engine optimization (SEO) cost?

The cost of SEO may vary between the services needed per customer and the services provided. It can also vary dependant on whether your company hires an SEO consultant or a full time SEO wiz, either way the value of a company enhancing the promotion of their product is worth the price.

Does SEO work?

SEO works to increase the ranking on your company on a search page based on a search query that matches your advertised keywords. The better the SEO on a page the more frequently it will appear as a result of searches.

How does SEO work?

Proper SEO utilizes keywords that are relevant to your business, already have high traffic volume and are qualified to produce conversion. Once this is established keywords are embedded in the text as well as variations that are associated with keywords for product promotion this way once a search query is conducted the search engine will pick up your site based on your keyword material.

Does PPC work?

PPC is beneficial for high commercial intent keyword, people type "toaster oven reviews" into a search they are trying to buy products or services. PPC thrives on engaging ad formats that drive high click-through rates and ROI.

How does PPC work?

PPC works by advertisers focusing ads to their target searchers on a site engine. The fee that the advertiser pays is based on the amount of clicks that each advertisement receives.

What is remarketing?

Remarketing allows companies to track site visitors with a cookie and chase them around the web, displaying relevant banner ads until they click and convert.

What are chat ads?

Chat ads prompt viewers to open a chat window with a sales guy to the leads while they are still fresh.

SEO vs PPC

SEO is beneficial for a searcher with a question or provides informational keywords whereas PPC targets more high commercial intent keywords used by searchers who are trying to buy products or services.

SEO benefits

SEO is still dominant for low-value informational keyword searches.

Benefits of SEO marketing

A major benefit to SEO marketing is the functions ability to boost site rankings on a search page. The hire the rankings that a business has for their site the more likely a searcher will see it and click for their services. A site has a better chance of conversion at the beginning of page one of a search than in the middle of page two.

What is SEO web spam?

SEO spam happens as a result of keyword stuffing. Recently SEO spam has been combated by Google's Penguin update.

PPC benefits

By using PPC businesses can set their own budget while still increasing their chances of targeting a relevant searcher.

Benefits of PPC marketing

Because most PPC advertisements are posted at the top of a search page or along the right side it is prime real estate for getting the searchers attention.

Benefits of PPC advertising

PPC advertising levels the playing field by giving big businesses and small businesses an even chance of gaining visibility on the web.

What are email ads?

Email ads prompt viewers to provide an email address right from the SERP which marketers can then use to send email-based offers.

What is a click to call ad?

A click to call ad is a mobile ad format that lets customers call a business phone number with the click of a button.

What is a mega sitelink?

A mega sitelink offers viewers up to 10 additional places to click, this greatly increases your chances of presenting them with a relevant link.

What is a social ad extension?

A social ad extension can show you who has +1'd yolur site, which lends credibly and potential name recognition.

What are Google location extensions?

Google location extensions allow you to display your address and phone number to local searchers, enticing them to visit you faster.

What is PPC advertising?

PPC advertising is a wide spreading online advertising platform used by many companies worldwide. This method allows for advertisers to pay for ads displayed on search engine result pages based on the number of clicks the advertisement receives. There is an ongoing debate on whether PPC advertising is considered inbound marketing or outbound marketing. One school of thought is that a person searching for a

What is PPC marketing?

PPC marketing allows for companies to test their business model without having to invest in a full SEO team. With PPC marketing it is crucial for companies to target appropriately and to target well, since each click is paid for it is vital to make each click count.

How do SEO listings work with Google?

SEO utilizes keywords that are relevant to your business, already have high traffic volume and are qualified to produce conversion. When a query is entered in a search it is picked up by the server based on keywords used or variations of the given keywords. The ad is then placed along the page based on relevance.

What is an organic search?

An organic search is a non-sponsored search that appears on a search engine result page. Organic results account for just 14.8% of the above-the-fold pixels and on average, the top organic listing gets just 8.9% of the clicks.

Who is Matt Cutts?

Matt Cutts works for Google's search quality team and specializes in SEO related issues, Matt Cutts is currently head of Google's webspam team.

What are branded keywords?

Branded keywords are keywords that are targeted towards a particular brand. Brand keywords often have the highest value and conversion rates.

What are paid advertisements?

Paid advertisements are often ads whose advertisers use a form of PPC or CPC. Although visually it is difficult to distinguish a paid advertisement from an organic search; 45.5% of people couldn't identify paid ads on the search engine results page if there wasn't a right column.

What is search engine marketing (SEM)?

SEM is an online marketing tactic that is driven to promote websites by increasing their ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).

How does search engine marketing work?

SEM is usually conducted through means of SEO, PPC or other forms of paid placement and contextual advertising.

What is an organic search result?

An organic search result is a non-sponsored search that appears on a SERP.

What is Google Panda?

Google Panda is an algorithm with the basis of filtering through contented with little substance allowing for a beneficial user experience.

How does Google Panda work?

Google Panda was originally designed to lower the rankings of sites that blatantly reproduce content from other websites with the objective of providing a better user search.

What is a Panda update?

The update was targeted to crack down on "thin content" and ad –heavy site. Up to 12% of search results are affected by Google Panda.

What is Google Penguin?

Google Penguin is an algorithm used for the purpose of fighting web spam and avoid users from coming into contact with sites known for link schemes, false redirects and keyword stuffing.

How does Google Penguin work?

Google Penguin works by automatically penalizing sites where unnatural sites or black hat tactics are evident. A warning is then sent to the site where they site is given a period to produce changes for an eventual reconsideration request. Warnings result in lowered page rankings.

What is a Penguin Update?

The newest Penguin update produced an "over optimization penalty" where Google has begun to devalue sites for keyword stuffing and spammy links.

What is an unnatural link?

An unnatural link is an artificial link with the intention to manipulate a page's ranking. In April 2012 Google warned 1 million websites about unnatural links and ordered webmasters to cease and desist such manipulative activities.

What is a keyword search?

A keyword search is a search algorithm based on subject term, phrase, or search objective.

What are Google analytics?

Google analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics regarding visitor usage and data to a company website.

How does Google analytics work?

Google analytics is a tool mainly for marketers and displays statistics for all aspects of visitor usage. This is possible due to the tracking ability of the service and a massive collection of user data for an individual company site traffic.

10 Smart & Easy Ways for Facebook Marketing Ideas

2020-04-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

10 Smart & Easy Ways for Facebook Marketing Ideas

It’s rare for a day to go by without me scrolling through my Facebook feed. And I’m not alone: According to DMR, 65% of Facebook users log on daily.

As marketers, we know how critical it is to have a business Facebook presence, but we also know that it’s becoming increasing challenging to stand out among our peers. With over 1 billion daily active Facebook users, marketers need to be smart in terms of how they grow their audience and business through Facebook.

It’s tricky, but it’s not impossible! Here are 10 smart Facebook marketing ideas to help you stand out in the crowded social sea.

1. Target an Insanely Specific Audience

Did you know that you can target French and English speaking women, between the ages of 31-56, who live in a 10-mile radius of Boston, MA, who are “fit moms” of grade-school kids? Don’t believe me? Check out my article on the 11 unbelievably specific Facebook audiences you can target.

The super-sophisticated level of ad targeting is one of the main reasons to be excited about Facebook marketing.

Caution! If you go too specific this strategy can work against you so, keep an eye on the audience definition tool to ensure you’re not getting so granular with your persona targeting that nobody sees your stuff.

2. Run a Simple Contest to Up Engagement

Facebook contests are nothing new, but that doesn't make this Facebook Ad tip any less helpful. You’ve likely been exposed to many, and have potentially even entered some (I know I have). But have you actually tried running one yourself?

Running a contest with a tempting incentive is one of the best ways to spur ad engagement on Facebook. What beer lover wouldn’t want a free trip to one of the best beer-fests in Boston (see ad below)?

The best thing about running a contest is that it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Follow Harpoon’s lead for instance, simply asking people to submit photos with your product in them, and then choosing a winner at random for a fun trip.

3. Create Short, Enticing Video Posts

So, you’ve tried marketing your company with videos on Facebook, but people just don’t seem to be interested? This is likely due to one of two reasons:

Your videos are too long
Or, they’re just not engaging enough

Facebook users are looking to be entertained. They’re spending their time on a social platform, likely to kill time or stalk their friends, so you need to divert their attention quickly, with entertaining content. What better way to do that then through video?

Other marketers are catching onto this trend. The amount of average daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion video views per day to 8 billion, bewteen April and November of 2015!

Companies like BuzzFeed have figured out the recipe to driving video engagement – keep it short and sweet, with a visually engaging thumbnail. I spent about 2 hours the other night watching these short video recipe posts on BuzzFeed Food’s Facebook page.

As a bonus for you, the marketer, short videos are easier to film and edit! Here are 15 tips for filming and editing marketing videos.

4. Use Eye Contact in Your Images to Direct Attention

People follow directional cues from other people. If everybody in the room looks up, you’re going to look up too. This is human nature.

“Human beings have a natural tendency to follow the gaze of others, and we have been coached since birth to follow arrows directing us to where we should be looking/going,” says Help Scout’s Gregory Ciotti.

Take advantage of this fact to focus viewers’ attention toward the most important part of your Facebook ad. For instance, if you have a strong call-to-action, you could show an image with a person looking at or pointing to that text.

Check out Moz’s Facebook post below – the image shows a clear journey of where to direct your eyes, starting with Rand’s gaze and then following the red arrows.

5. Post Images of Dogs Acting Like Humans or Babies Acting Like Adults

I’m aware that this tip sounds bizarre. But it works! Why? Because who doesn’t love dogs and babies?

Oh, dogs and babies aren’t related to your brand? Who cares? Make them related to your brand by giving them hilarious, brand-related captions. Bark Box happens to be in the pet industry, but they truly excel at this with adorable images of dogs with human-like captions.

When you’re doing Facebook marketing, it’s a good idea not to take yourself too seriously. Inserting some playfulness into your posts will grab busy, distractible people’s attention, and this is the perfect formula to do just that: Baby + headset and suit + adult-like caption, always makes for a good laugh.

6. Target the Leads You Already Have on Facebook

Did you know that you can upload a list of emails right into Facebook and then show your ads to that audience? Through Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature, you can target the leads you’ve captured from your newsletter signup or other lead gen efforts, or perhaps a group of your current customers that you’re trying to upsell.

In addition to focusing on insanely targeted audiences (see tip #1) you should also be crafting ads to the contacts you already have, but in an even more personalized way. For instance, let’s say you have a list of people who downloaded a guide titled “Introduction to Building Your Own Website.” You can upload that list of people and target them with a highly specific ad that refers to that guide and what the next steps are to take their website to the next level.

7. Clone Your Main Revenue-Generating Audience

We’ve discussed a few strategies for creating relevant audiences; once you’ve acquired enough data, you can clone your top-performing Facebook audience. Facebook’s Lookalike Audience feature allows you to take an audience you already have and expand your reach by finding new leads that have similar attributes. You can pretty much clone your best customers. It’s that simple!

8. Humanize Your Brand with Fun Employee Photos

Facebook is all about people. The original intent of Facebook was to interact with friends, not advertise your business, but it’s easy for marketers to forget this. The problem is, pushing solely product-related messages is only going to take you so far. You need to show the people behind the brand to connect with your audience.

There are a lot of companies that do this well – take Unbounce. They use their Facebook business page to show off employees in a humorous and relatable way.

9. Only Pay to Promote Your Best Content

You’re likely reporting on a bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis to see which content is resonating with your audience in terms of page views, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics. With all of this knowledge at your fingertips, you should be using this data to decide where to focus your promotion budget. Put some money behind your best content to get it even more exposure.

It might seem like common sense, but it’s easier then you’d think to let rockstar content fade away and acquire dust in the corner. Stop doing this, and run Facebook ads to give a second life to your content superstar performers. Evergreen content will still resonate with a larger audience if it did well when it was originally published. (This is especially effective for content that isn’t ranking well in organic search.)

10. Use Emojis in Your Facebook Marketing

In May of 2015 WordStream’s beloved data-scientist Mark Irvine found that ads with emojis get far higher click-through-rates than ads without. Unfortunately, Google quickly caught on and emojis are no longer allowed in AdWords ad text.

According to AdWeek, 92% of online users use emojis, and frequent users feel emojis express their feelings more accurately than words. Emojis are kind of like dogs and babies, people just like them. Moral of the story, use emojis in your Facebook marketing posts to add personality and emotion to your text.

It’s just that easy. Before you know it Facebook Advertising might become your fastest-growing marketing channel!

Facebook Marketing - What To Know

2020-04-17T01:06:00.002-07:00

Facebook Marketing - What To Know

In the first few years of social networking, MySpace was the big name. Between 2003 and 2006, it grew to 100 million users, and by June 2006, the website was even more visited than Google. Then came Facebook.

By 2008, Facebook had surpassed MySpace in worldwide users, and in United States users a year later. As MySpace declined (it dropped to approximately 25 million users in June 2012), some businesses wondered about making a major advertising investment in Facebook—might it not also be displaced as MySpace was?

Well, perhaps—but in the meantime Facebook has surpassed 950 million users (and about 145 million users in the United States, about 43 percent of the nation’s population). Other than Google.com, it is the single most visited website on the Internet, giving companies unprecedented access to potential consumers.

Facebook marketing refers to creating—and actively using—a Facebook page as a communications channel to maintain contact with and attract customers. Facebook actively provides for this, allowing users to create individual profiles or business pages for companies, organizations, or any group attempting to develop a fan base for a product, service, or brand.

Who Employs FB Marketing?

Featuring nearly a billion potential customers, every business should be using Facebook. It is at least as essential as having a business web page—and actually much easier to create. Whether you represent a big brand or a small business employing only a handful of people, you can bet that some portion of your customers are already on Facebook. Commonly, Facebook marketing is used by:

Brands. Food, electronics, home goods, restaurants—nearly any kind of brand can be promoted through Facebook, turning passive customers into active fans who follow news of promotions and developments, and who share with their own friends.
Local businesses. Whether a business is family-owned, or a franchise of a larger company, a Facebook page can be used to turn a local customer base into a fan base that more commonly visits your store.
Personalities. Musicians, celebrities, authors, syndicated columnists—anybody who makes their money through being known wants to be known by as many people as they can on Facebook.
Non-profit organizations. Charities, political groups, and public service campaigns can all leverage the natural sharing capabilities of Facebook.

What Kind of Customers is FB Marketing Effective?

While originally marketed to college students, Facebook has expanded well beyond that demographic. More than half of all users are in the 18-34 age range, and slightly more than half of United States users are women. In the United States, about half of all user profiles are accessed through mobile devices as well as through computers. Due to its considerable amount of users, there is a wide variety of market segments that can be reached on Facebook, and an active fan base for nearly any niche.

A more helpful question about Facebook customers would be: When is Facebook marketing most effective? For brand and company pages, posts made in the morning attract more comments than posts made in the afternoon. Consumers at home may check Facebook at any time during the day (the peak traffic period is around 3:00 in the afternoon). However, working or school-going consumers commonly check Facebook before and after work/school; therefore, only posting during the 9-5 business day misses a lot of opportunities.

How to Develop FB Marketing

Facebook pages are often linked to company web pages elsewhere on the Internet; therefore, it’s often a good idea to use some of the same information in both places, in order to maintain a familiarity. A business page can be searched for as soon as it is up, but unlike a personal profile, you cannot invite friends through it. Business pages do not get “friends,” they get “fans”—and that distinction does make a difference.

To create an initial seed for the fan base, each member of the marketing team should begin by liking the business page on their own personal profiles; all employees, in fact, should be encouraged to join in. When an individual likes a page, Facebook immediately posts (read: advertises) this event to their profile—and this activity can be seen by every one of their friends. “Joe Smith likes [this brand].” The word begins to spread.

The most important aspect of Facebook marketing is consistency of communication. Creating a Facebook page and then leaving it alone will net a business nothing. To attract fans, a business should regularly post new content in a variety of different formats, so that more people will see and share the page. Content can announce upcoming promotions, spot-light specific products or people, share fun facts, provide incentive codes for discounts on products and services, and anything else that will catch the interest of fans.Every Facebook user who likes a page will get to see any content a business posts, and be notified of posts through their news feed. If they are engaged by that content, they may comment on it, or like that item; and “Joe Smith commented on [this brand’s] status update” appears on all of their friends’ news feeds. Additionally, they may share this content, which will post (again, read: advertise) the entire content to their own profiles, and notify their friends to come look. The company's task, then, is to encourage this process as much as possible.

Given the way Facebook’s news feed works, the recency of a post is a major factor in organizing what a user sees. The average user has more than 130 friends, and may be a fan of several brands, personalities, and organizations. When he or she logs in, there is no way to instantly see activity from every one of those sources.

The news feed shows them posts from the friends/etc. they interact with most, and which are more recent. Therefore, a company's post is only likely to be visible on their fans’ news feeds for about three hours after they post it. Furthermore, depending upon the time of day they post, it is likely to be seen by entirely different portions of their fan base.

In addition to varied content and formating, posts should invite customers to interact and respond. Businesses should present consistent calls to action, which can be as simple as “watch this,” “like this,” or “share this." Additionally, businesses can invite participation through contests and polls (which are also a way to collect market research). Such low-commitment investments encourage familiarity and affinity in their customer base.

This positive relationship can be further promoted through maintaining two-way communication. In other words, when fans post a comment on content, businesses should respond. How much they respond will depend upon how many fans comment, and how much time they can commit to Facebook marketing; but the more any particular fan interacts with a page, the more likely he or she is to buy.

FaceBook Marketing Strategies and their Careers

Internet Marketing Managers

What do they do?

promote company engagement with social media, including Facebook
coordinate Internet marekting campaigns, including Facebook, Twitter, company blogs and websites, and affiliate programs
establish goals and metrics for marketing efforts through Facebook, and evaluate success
assign and monitor teams to create content for the company’s Facebook page

Education and experience

Most marketing managers have at least a bachelor’s degree (often in marketing, advertising, or business management) and substantial successful experience in conducting online commerce. They must be expert in social media and online business models. Education preparing them for this career includes classes in marketing, market research, consumer behavior, with an emphasis in online market behavior.

Advertizing and Promotional Managers

What do they do?

develop promotional videos and other content that can be posted to a company website, and shared through Facebook
create advertising slogans to represent products and brands
manage specific promotional assignments, such as conducting an online contest for Facebook fans
advertise internally as well as externally, so that a company’s employees are more likely to become a part of the company’s Facebook fan base

Education and experience

Most advertising managers have at least a bachelor’s degree in advertising or marketing, as well as substantial successful experience in creating and executing advertising campaigns. They must know how to advertise through multiple communications channels, including social media. Education preparing them for this career includes classes in media arts, market research, and consumer behavior.

Public Relations Managers

What do they do?

write short-form press releases to post to a company’s Facebook page
identify trending attitudes towards a company, and craft messages to respond
develop spotlight stories for particular people or products within the company, which can be shared on the company Facebook page, among other places
develop a narrative for the company

Education and experience

Public relations managers need at least a bachelor’s degree, usually in public relations or communications; about one-fourth of them also have a master’s degree. Managers often also have a minor in advertising, business management, or marketing. They must also demonstrate expertise in all communications channels, including social media. Work experience often begins with an internship supporting more experienced staff members, or writing for a company newsletter or blog. Other necessary skills include excellent speaking and writing ability, organization, and management.

Effects of Marketing School

Effective Facebook marketing requires the ability to use social media effectively, engaging customers such that they increase their participation level. Both consumer knowledge and excellent communication skills are required, and a good marketing program will help to develop them.

A marketing program will teach you how to better understand your customers. Classes in market research (including statistical analysis) will equip you to identify different consumer segments, and how to reach them. You’ll learn how to identify and adjust to changes in supply and demand, and how to deal with various trends and opportunities in the market. As the market has become increasingly shaped by online business and social media, specific courses of study will prepare you for these domains, and help you understand how customers function differently in this venue than in the traditional market environment.

Another major area of focus in a marketing program is communications. At a marketing school, you will not only learn how to communicate through a variety of different means and channels, but you will be required to practice speaking and presentations skills in your other classes. You will learn not only sales communication, but also organizational and online communication. Likewise, you’ll not only communicate through words, but also through pictures, videos, graphs, and other media. This array of skills will be important when using social media (such as Facebook) to promote your client(s), as you’ll be able to employ multiple methods to reach multiple market segments.

To learn more about what a marketing school can do for you, request information from schools with degrees in marketing. You might even be able to contact them through their Facebook pages.

How Long Does It Take To Start Getting Blog Traffic?

2020-04-17T00:48:00.000-07:00

How Long Does It Take To Start Getting Blog Traffic?

Almost everyone who starts a new website for the first time asks this question: How long does it take before you start getting traffic to your site?

I remember when I built my very first blog, I was checking my analytics everyday. Literally every single day I would log into my analytics to see if anybody had come to see my empty site.

It might seem silly to experienced bloggers, but it’s actually a common practice for people who are new to this.

Like others, I believed that once I published a site on the internet, people came to visit it.

I compared it to offline shops in the real world. If you built an ice cream store on any street, surely at least one person would walk in right? What are the chances that nobody visits your shop?

Sadly, the internet doesn’t work that way. You can think of it more like hundreds of thousands of people opening an ice cream shop all next to each other in the middle of the desert, and hoping that someone just happens to be walking through it, and then amongst the unlimited number options, chooses yours and walks in.

Might sound brutal, but that’s actually a close analogy.

There are thousands of NEW blogs being built every single day. There are over 5 million blog posts published everyday.

The majority of them will never see a single visitor aside from themselves and friends and family.

So how long does it take?

If you’re asking this question, you’re not thinking about this in the right way. You can start getting traffic on day 1. You can theoretically get thousands of visitors to your blog within days of launching.

For example, let’s say you or someone you know has a Twitter account with millions of followers. All it takes is a tweet or two pointing them to your new blog and you’ll get a flood of traffic.

Another example: You publish your first blog post, and submit it to Reddit. Somehow, it gets voted up to the front page. You’ll get more traffic to your site than you can handle. It’ll probably crash your web server.

These all may sound great to you. But the problem is, these are short-term solutions to getting traffic. Plus, these aren’t exactly repeatable strategies you can rely on.

The best long-term solution to getting consistent traffic to your blog is SEO.

How long does SEO take?

If you’re wondering how long it takes to get search traffic to your blog, once again the answer is “it depends.”

It depends on how many backlinks you’ve built to your site. It depends on how strong these links are. It depends on what keywords you’re targeting with your blog posts (low-competition keywords rank easier than high-competition keywords).

The average time it takes for a new blog to get traction in the search engines is around 3 to 6 months.

This is assuming that you’re publishing high quality content consistently, and you’re out there building backlinks to those articles.

The sandbox

New sites take awhile before starting to rank in Google (usually 3 to 6 months, sometimes up to a year). This delaying effect is often called “The Google Sandbox”. It’s to prevent spammers from throwing up new blogs to rank for big keywords and make a quick profit. It used to work in the past, but not today.

It doesn’t matter how skilled you are in SEO, the sandbox is consistent for every new site. You always have to go through it.

It’s frustrating for a lot of people who just want to see results right away. Imagine putting in a ton of work for 3 months straight and seeing no results.

But if you’re like me, and repeatedly build new niche sites, you come to respect and expect the sandbox. For me, I don’t mind the sandbox at all. Blogs are a long-term play for me anyways. There’s really no need to bicker about not seeing results in the first few months because I know that eventually I can grow it to something much bigger.

What I’m trying to say is, there’s no need to fuss over your traffic and rankings. Stay motivated and just stick to your strategy and continue working, and trust that your SEO and blogging strategy is a good one.

Conclusion

So how long does it take to get blog traffic?

SEO is the most reliable, repeatable, and consistent traffic source for long-term growth of your blog. Just know that for new blogs, it can take up to a year before you start seeing significant traffic numbers from Google.

Other traffic methods, like social media and community sites, are essentially instant. If executed properly, you can get traffic immediately to your blog.

Unfortunately, these traffic sources are short-lived. You’ll see a spike in traffic one day, and the next day it’ll be back to zero. Plus, these are not repeatable strategies that you can do over and over again.

Therefore, the best traffic strategy is to focus on SEO (you may want to check out this 3-month blogging plan as well). Publish really high-quality content, and build a lot of strong links. If you do, eventually you’re going to see your rankings and traffic start to surge and grow month after month.

Why Your Page Isn’t Ranking: A Quick Content Quality Check

2020-04-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

Why Your Page Isn’t Ranking: A Quick Content Quality Check

Let’s do an honest analysis of your content.

I receive at least a dozen emails each month from people frustrated that their article isn’t ranking on the first page of Google for their keyword. They claim they’re doing “everything right” but nothing seems to be working.

It doesn’t take long to see what their problem is. Apart from lack of strong backlinks, 9 times out of 10, they’re simply not creating content that’s good enough to be ranking.

Want to really get good at producing content that ranks?

Pay attention to these 5 things.

1. Do you have the keyword in your title?

Let’s start off really, really simple. I feel like this is a given and I shouldn’t have to mention this, but a surprising amount of blogs fail to do it.

I don’t care if you’re one of those people who purposely ignore SEO. Having the keyword in your title is far too important to not pay attention to.

You MUST have your primary keyword in the title in some way if you want to rank highly for it.

I’ve seen blogs with monstrous backlink profiles and huge domain authorities miss out on a boatload of free search traffic because they neglected to do this.

Here’s an example: A blog will write an amazing article about a topic like parenting. With a meaty article and a high backlink profile and strong authority, they should be ranking on the first page.

However, they’ll title the page something like: “Some Thoughts On A Sunday Afternoon.

From an SEO’s perspective, that’s crazy! I mean I guess it can make sense to the reader. But even just changing it to something like “Some Thoughts On Parenting” would make a big difference.

I see this kind of thing too often when I’m doing niche research (having the homepage titled as “Home” is probably the most common one).

Even if you hate SEO and have no intention of learning what it is, you’ve at least got to pay attention to your title tag.

2. Are your articles full of unnecessary filler content?

This is by far the biggest reason I have such a hard time finding long-term writers: Unnecessary filler content. Even expensive writers have this problem, and it’s a huge pain in the behind.

Every time I order a longer article of 2000 to 3000 words from a writer I’ve never worked with, I will end up having to cut 30% to 40% of it. It’s full of unnecessary information and add-on sentences.

It may be just because I’m really picky about everything, but they’re writing about useless things just to fill up the word-count and it’s annoying as hell.

How do you prevent this?

If you’re outsourcing articles… the only true way around it is to find a long-term writer who understands what you’re looking for.

Once you do, just trust them and don’t set any strict limits on them.

Give them a lot of room with word count on each article (at least for the bigger, more important articles). And give them plenty of time to write it. Don’t give them two days to write a 2000 word article. Give them up to a week, or maybe even two if you’re not in a rush. As professional writers, they have a lot of other clients than just you. If you rush them, you’re the one who will come up on the losing end.

One of the things I started doing is working directly with higher-paying writers and giving them a huge range in word count. So instead of telling them I want a 2000 word article, I’ll tell them to write between 1000 to 3000 words and that they have full control over how long the article is.

You don’t have to go to this extreme for your shorter articles, but for bigger pages that are targeting important, high-value keywords, this has been working out very nicely.

3. Do you know the goal of each article you’re publishing?

Every single article you publish, you should be able to categorize them according to your goals.

For me, I’m either creating content for promotion (getting shares/backlinks), or for quick rankings. It’s one of the two every time.

If it’s going to be for promotion, I’ll need to create it into a linkable asset and make sure that it’s longer and better than my competitors. These are the kinds of articles I’ll spend more time and money on to work with better writers.

If it’s for quick rankings, I won’t really care as much.

What do I mean by quick rankings? These are pages published to take advantage of domain authority. When I build up enough strong backlinks, I can start ranking for long-tail keywords automatically without needing to build any links directly to that page. They’ll just index on page two or three and slowly climb into the top 5 in a few weeks. Sometimes, they’ll even index straight to the first page.

These aren’t linkable assets. They would perform poorly if I were to use them in an outreach campaign. They’re simply created to increase organic traffic every month.

4. Are all your articles under 1000 words?

Surprisingly, even with all the information on the web about creating long-form content, this is still a common mistake.

I’m not saying that ALL shorter articles are bad. Shorter, straight-to-the-point blog posts are better for some cases, especially for more specific keywords where the user wants a quick answer.

However, having a blog where EVERY SINGLE article is under 1000 words is usually going to be bad sign. It likely means you’re slacking off and not paying enough attention to the topics you’re writing about.

Bigger keywords/topics almost always require bigger pieces of content. It’s just not possible to fully cover a larger topic under 1000 words. And it’s not something people share or link to either.

So if you’re wondering why your 500-word article about how to lose weight fast isn’t ranking, it’s likely because it’s thin, generic, and provides no actual value to the reader.

If you need help identifying which articles should be longer, think about the search intent of the keyword/topic you’re targeting.

Which leads us to our next point…

5. Do you think about search intent?

Most people don’t pay enough attention to search intent.

What is the reader looking for when they search for your primary keyword and land on your article?

You need to get deeper than just identifying it on a general level.

Ask yourself:
What is the reader EXACTLY looking for?
What would make them search this keyword?
What are they struggling with?
What information would make them feel fully satisfied?
How are they feeling when they search this keyword? Happy, sad, angry, panicked?
Are they in a rush?
Are they looking for in-depth information or a quick answer?

The last one is the most important, and the one where most people fail.

For example, for a keyword like “how to tie a tie” people just want a quick answer. They’re likely in a rush, and just want a clear, simple answer. A giant 1000 word introduction is not going to make for a better article in this case. The entire article should be under 1000 words, probably around 500 to 800 words.

But for a keyword like “how to become a plumber” people want as much information as possible. The longer the better. A 500 word article here would not work. If you want to create a resource that fully satisfies someone who searches for that kind of keyword, it should be 3000+ words long.

These are the things you need to be able to recognize.

Understanding search intent is a skill that comes with practice. If you get good at it, your content quality on a whole will become 10x better.

You’ll get a better understanding for what the bulk of the article should be about, and what it shouldn’t be about. And as a result, you’ll have lower bounce rates, longer read times, and a more satisfied experience from visitors.

Conclusion

Don’t expect to rank on the first page of Google if your article doesn’t deserve to be there.

Ask yourself if your page answers the reader’s question completely and in the best way. It takes a lot of work to create great content. It’s not just about having the longest article.

If you can clearly understand your page’s goal, and the search intent of the keyword you’re targeting, you’ll be much better at planning out what kind of content will be best suited for it.

You’ll get better on-site engagement metrics, pick up more links and shares, and develop a stronger following of readers who appreciate the resources you’ve published.

Twitter Tips (2020): How To Share Someone’s Twitter Video Without Retweeting

2020-04-15T17:45:00.001-07:00

Twitter Tips (2020): How To Share Someone’s Twitter Video Without Retweeting

In this post, you’ll learn how to share someone’s Twitter video without having to retweet them and why this is incredibly important.

For example, when you retweet someone, your post typically will look like this:

Retweeting is fine and is certainly encouraged.

But sometimes, instead of retweeting someone, you should embed their active video in your own Tweet.

Doing this not only makes your post look nicer, but this also gives you the ability to change the text when posting the video.

If you’re not familiar, when you retweet something, you’re unable to change the wording or anything of that Tweet.

So how do you post a Twitter video without retweeting the original post?

There’s a very simple way to do this… but you have to be on a mobile device.

Here is how to Tweet someone’s video from another Tweet:

Step 1 — Scroll over and view the Tweet/video that you want to embed and post.

Step 2 — Tap and hold down on the “play button” for the Tweet’s video

Step 3 — Select the “Tweet Video” icon at the bottom of your screen.

You’ll then be given a URL (like what you see below).

Once you compose your message and post the Tweet, you’ll successfully post a video on Twitter (see below) without having to retweet it from someone.

NEW UPDATE:

Here’s how to share a video on Twitter without Retweeting if you have an Android phone/non-iPhone:

(There are actually two ways you can do this so be sure to read the second explanation below this one as well)

Step 1: Copy the link to the Tweet you want

Step 2: Paste the link to the tweet and add:

/video/1

.. to the end of the Tweet’s URL.

For example, if you wanted to share this Tweet’s video without retweeting it:

You would simply copy the link to the Tweet which is:

https://twitter.com/GramSpacer/status/1139189232508067841

And I’d just add “/video/1" (without quotations) to the end of the Tweet’s URL like so:

https://twitter.com/GramSpacer/status/1139189232508067841/video/1

Once you have the Tweet’s URL with /video/1 at the end of it, you can paste the new link on Twitter to share a Twitter video without retweeting it like so:

Side note (before I explain the other way to do all of this):

Here’s another way for those that might be interested:

Step 1: Go on a desktop computer

Step 2: Go to the Tweet that has the video you want and click the drop down arrow in the top right hand corner of the Tweet

Step 3: Click “Embed Tweet” (See below)

Step 4: Copy the full text (see below)

Step 4: Paste what you just copied in a note or something so you can find the URL you need to copy next.

Step 5: From what you just did in Step 4, find and copy the 2nd URL in the text you pasted.

Step 6: Now just compose what you want to say and paste that URL at the end of your Tweet and you’ll successfully share someone’s video on Twitter without having to retweet them — and you don’t have to have an iPhone.

Thanks for reading!

If you found this guide helpful or insightful, I’d be appreciative if you could leave a comment in the comment section.

Action Blocked on Instagram: What Triggers And How To Get Rid of It?

2020-04-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

Action Blocked on Instagram: What Triggers And How To Get Rid of It?

Every so often, Instagram users encounter this problem — Instagram action block. Here’s your short guide on how to fix and avoid it.

Types of action blocks

The temporary block is the most common action block implemented by Instagram. It usually lasts up to 24 hours.

Action block with an expiration date. The name speaks for itself — this type of block states the date up to which the block lasts.

Action block without an expiration date. The duration of the block may vary from several hours up to two weeks. This type of block usually doesn’t have the Tell us button, so if you’re sure you haven’t done anything wrong but still got flagged, you may request a manual review going to Instagram Settings ->Help ->Report a Problem.

What can trigger the action block?

Action blocks are typically caused by the number of actions you do in a window of time — per hour or day. Once you exceed the allowed limit, your actions get blocked by Instagram.

The limit set by the platform may vary depending on your account age, previous violations of Instagram rules, misuse of automation third-party tools or bots, and some other things we’ll discuss below. Knowing all the reasons that trigger action blocks will help you to avoid such an issue in the future.

You exceed the Instagram daily action limits

Instagram has daily limits on actions that are to be performed by each user an hour or a day. In June 2019, Instagram reduced the limits for about half, so now, even those users who perform all the actions manually are at risk of getting blocked if they exceed the limits. The action limits touch on likes, comments, follow/unfollow actions, and even users’ data loading. The exact limits are not yet revealed and may be different for each account.

Your account is too young

Your account age has a direct impact on the allowed number of actions you can perform from the account. The younger your account is, the higher the limits are. If your account is from one up to three months old, you should gradually increase the number of actions you do. Otherwise, the boost of activity will be detected by Instagram as suspicious, even if you do it all manually.

You have already violated Instagram rules

Previous violations can cause action blocks, shadowban, etc. The number of allowed daily actions increases once you break Instagram guidelines. Moreover, if you’ve violated the guidelines from one account, it may influence your other profiles run with the same IP address. That’s why it’s so vital to use different IPs while using several Instagram profiles.

You are slightly active on Instagram at all

Instagram tracks your activity on the platform, so if you only check it a couple of times a day to like several people, it reduces your limits on daily actions. In this case, perform your actions slowly increasing them week by week.

You misuse automation

There still are ways to use automation tools properly; now, it just demands consciousness. To get the most out of automation tools, mix different types of actions, don’t repeat the same tasks, and don’t perform similar tasks within the same windows of time. For instance, if you use any third-party tool for Instagram growth and utilize it only for liking, you should change your strategy asap.

Act like a human-like within your tool but later comment manually, or follow people automatically but some time later unfollow them gradually without any tools. Combine the automation with manual use, don’t forget to like posts from your feed because, well, that’s what people usually do on Instagram.

All in all, always alter your actions and keep in mind your account age, overall activity rate, number of followers and posts, and types of actions you perform.

Your actions are too heavy

Have you ever thought why the action limits differ? This is because all the Instagram action types vary in their weight. If you use only commenting, for instance, your overall action restrictions elevate. Likes are the lightest actions in terms of limits.

How to get rid of the action block?

In order to answer this question, we’ve done some research and looked through forums to find effective tips on how to remove the Instagram action block.

1. Reinstall your Instagram app.

The most obvious way is to delete your Instagram app and relaunch. After that, the cookies and other data collected by Instagram should be removed, which is helpful in getting rid of the action block, especially the temporary one.

2. Report a problem.

Primarily, if you did nothing wrong. When the “action blocked” error pops up, it usually has two options: Tell us and Ignore. To request a manual review by Instagram, tap the Tell us button. But some types of error pop-ups have no other option but OK. In this case, do the following: press Settings, then Help, then Report a Problem. In the text field, write that for some reason you’ve been blocked though you haven’t done anything wrong (try it even if you’ve done).

This should be done even if you spam or use third-party tools for growing your account. This action of yours will show Instagram that you’re not a bot.

3. Switch to mobile data.

The reason for your actions blocked may be your IP address. Sometimes, Instagram even blocks accounts at the stage of creating ones if it doesn’t like the IP. So after you see any errors, switch from the Wi-Fi to the mobile data.

4. Link your Instagram account to Facebook.

Now Instagram allows creating Business and Creator accounts without connecting them to Facebook. If your account is not linked to Facebook and it has been threatened with the action block, link it to your Facebook page. Thus you’ll prove that you’re not a bot. To make it even better, you can link your Instagram page to other socials.

5. Log in with another device

Change the device you log in to Instagram. Try using another phone, tablet, or even PC.

6. Wait it out.

All of the aforementioned ways may or may not help. If none of the above enables you to get rid of the Instagram action block, wait it out, and your block will disappear shortly. Even better if you stop any of the Instagram actions for 24 or 48 hours. Don’t use Instagram or any third-party tool within this period of time.

Instagram Trends for 2020

2020-04-15T17:29:00.001-07:00

Instagram Trends for 2020

Talks about 2020 trends are here I decided to take the liberty of forecasting the upcoming avenues of Instagram marketing.

As for trends in 2019, those were AR, online shopping, change in the Instagram algorithm, video content, focus on Stories, and UGC.

Now let’s cut to the chase and speak about Instagram trends 2020 in detail.

1. AR effects

Augmented reality is not new on Instagram. Everyone knows and used these funny Snapchat-like cat face masks at least once, but the trend is not about it.

Admittedly, these masks are not going anywhere, but they will be accompanied by AR effects made by brands and casual users. Now brands can create their own AR masks where an object can be not a face only, but their product as well.

This is a hot trend right now. Check it yourself: open your Instagram page and view your followings’ Stories. How many of them contain no effect at all? I bet, not many. AR masks easily go viral, so even a no-name brand can get its audience thanks to them.

How to use the trend?

Create your own masks! If you’re not tech-savvy at design, you can ask your in-house designer or a freelancer to help you out. If you’re lucky and the mask you’ve designed goes viral, people will start following you.

The drawback of this strategy is that some of those followers may not interact with your page. Then it’s for you to decide what to do with those followers — manually remove part of this dead weight or try to attract their attention with your content.

As a brand, you can create your product-related AR effect, letting your audience virtually try out a piece of cloth, accessories, and somehow interact with your product. Brands like ASOS, Starbucks, Off-White, and others already follow this path.

2. Nano-influencers

Quality over quantity in terms of followers is a crucial rule. This principle also works when you’re trying to outreach a relevant influencer. So far, nano-influencers are those bloggers whose audience is active, genuine, and responsive.

The audience considers the blogger as a friend, so they do read and watch what is being promoted by an influencer.

Such influencers have up to 5,000 followers, but very engaged ones, not bots. The audience of influencers likes and comments a lot. A small tip: the longer and more informed the comments, the more followers are engaged with the content.

So partnering with them may be a cost-friendly and an actionable way of getting new followers, and later, clients.

Accounts of such bloggers look like personal blogs, not polished profiles like those of influencers with thousands of followers. Besides, their feeds and Stories are not overwhelmed with ads because brands don’t outreach them often.

How to use the trend?

Search for relevant nano-influencers with your target audience and start collaborating with them. This may be not easy to find a suitable blogger because you can’t rely on the followers’ count.

What you need to look at is the way the influencer talks to the audience, their engagement rate, overall quality of followers (make sure the audience is not bots or Instagram shops), and their ER by reach.

Hope you get the point: just be confident the audience is your buyer personas.

Once you find your ideal nano-influencers, you can turn them to your brand ambassadors and create an affiliate program with them. Or even give exclusive coupons to the blogger’s audience. Thus you will also track how the campaign is working.

3. Lengthy captions

In 2019, social media experts already noticed this trend in influencers’ posts. The average amount of characters used in a caption is growing year by year.

If in 2016 we typically saw only photos and videos with a short description or even without a word, now Instagram influencers tend to write more extended captions.

Communication with the audience is the clue that helps build a trustful relationship and grow engagement. Bloggers who know that their audience is genuine and engaged, try to become friends with the followers, and friendship means communication.

Even influencers started using lengthy captions for their blogs, and for businesses, it’s a must. You don’t need to write novels in your captions, just let people know that you care and not making content for content.

Besides, Instagram itself endorses this approach and claims that words help your media get on the Explore Tab.

How to use this trend?

Length of captions significantly depends on the account goals. On online store pages, this may feel strange to see long captions. Still, if your account is associated with you as an individual, then you should try to use captions as an advantage — inspirational quotes, tips, advice, infographics, life stories, random thoughts, etc.

4. TikTok’s influence

TikTok — a fast-growing lip-sync app — is popular among kids and teenagers (now even adults) because it’s easy to make content for the platform and become famous in just one night.

If Instagram tends to make things complicated in getting followers and reduces reach, TikTok does the opposite: only one viral video is enough to become a TikTok star.

The platform has the For You page, which is similar to Instagram’s Explore Tab where users can discover new creators and follow them right from the page.

Content creation is effortless on TikTok; that’s why many youngsters choose it as the leading platform and then attract the existing audience to Instagram.

Besides, TikTok has a powerful video editor, features used by many Instagram bloggers for Stories and IGTV. TikTok effects look fresh and new on Instagram.

Moreover, TikTok sets lots of trending challenges and memes, which later go viral on Instagram.

How to use this trend?

Open a TikTok account and start making content there. There, you can easily find influencers relevant to your business who can promote your product on the platform.

5. Bigger eCommerce potential

One of the rumours around Instagram shopping is that Instagram top management wants to turn the social network into a Shopify counterpart. And this tendency is already transparent.

Look what shopping tools Instagram offers now: shoppable posts and Stories, shoppable influencers’ posts, shop section on the Explore, and residents of the US can even check out right on Instagram.

Experts say that the latter feature will be implemented in more countries this year.

How to use this trend?

If you are on the market list where Instagram shopping is available, you can use its full potential — create a Facebook catalogue, add all items, and start selling.

6. Updated Instagram analytics

Instagram is testing new insights that will show us how people find our profile on Instagram. Most of all, the update will touch on hashtags.

Instagram will show us how many impressions we gain from a particular hashtag. This will assist in hashtags research.

Probably, this is not the only insights update from Instagram that will be rolled out soon. Some countries already have it, so check your insights to see if you have it, too.

How to use this trend?

As soon as the insights are available to you, you are free to use them for your benefit. Such an update can significantly streamline the process of hashtags research as sometimes it’s challenging to find relevant hashtags that will bring you followers or profile visits.

But you need to remember that impressions are not as crucial in Instagram analytics as reach, ER, and ER by reach.

7. Focus on IGTV Series

In 2019, people did watch IGTV finally. And one of the reasons is that Instagram has ultimately accepted landscape videos which allowed brands and creators to share the content as it was.

In October 2019, Instagram launched IGTV Series, which work like YouTube Up Next videos when a current clip ends, and the next one is recommended to play. Aside from it, you can now turn on notifications to be alarmed when a new episode of your favourite creator is live.

This trend is predicted to be widely used both by brands, influencers, and casual users.

How to use this trend?

If you have a story to tell, you can now start implementing this strategy into your business. Storytelling sells rather well and keeps an audience engaged as people are waiting for a new episode to come out. Remember how you are looking forward to watching your favourite TV show’s new episode. This works similarly in marketing.

8. Tweets and memes

Like it is with TikTok, the interaction between Instagram and Twitter is a trend of 2020. Many meme accounts use tweets screenshots and crop them to post on Instagram. Typically, these are funny jokes or, on some accounts, motivational quotes. No matter the content itself, we are going to see lots of tweets on Instagram this new year.

As for memes, brands actively use them, too. Clothing brand River Island posted a series of memes (and tweets) on Christmas.

How to use this trend?

If you want to hit the trend, you need to keep the memes, tweets, and jokes relevant to your target audience. They need to be niche-specific and easy-to-digest for your followers. The example above is a perfect one since the jokes resonated with the brand’s audience and engagement under these posts was remarkable.

Hopefully, you found some of the trends interesting and useful, and we’d love to see you implement them in your brands’ profiles!

Instagram FAQ — All You Need To Know

2020-04-15T17:25:00.001-07:00

Instagram FAQ — All You Need To Know

If you’re reading this story, you already know what Instagram is and why every blogger or entrepreneur uses it. So with no introduction, let’s move straight to the point — frequently asked questions about Instagram.

What are Instagram promotion methods?

With the implementation of new Instagram features and algorithms, it’s getting harder to promote your account without paid ads. But still, there are some relatively free (and yet effective) ways of promotion.

Follow/Unfollow

This method is somewhat controversial, but if you use it wisely, it may work rather well. To make the method work, follow people who have the same interests as yours, who create similar content, and pay attention to the content of your own account. No strategy will do the job if your page is empty or full of useless posts. Don’t follow random people.

To get genuine followers but not bots, follow active users, i.e., commenters or likers. But don’t exceed Instagram daily limits (we’ll talk about them below).

Mass commenting

If you want to gain new followers using this way, try to comment as a real person. No need to post short words or emojis because Instagram will consider them as spam and will not promote the page of those you comment. And people rarely react to such bot comments, so if you want to attract people’s attention, comment like a human.

Mass liking

A rather well-working strategy, by the way. The principle here is similar to the one with follow/unfollow. You should like those users which most possibly will like you back. Same interests and related content are a must. This is an easy and free way to get the target audience to your page. This can be done either manually, which is rather long, or via specialized software. But again, don’t forget about daily limits.

Mass Story viewing

Or sometimes it’s called mass looking. Many users start noticing that a number of their Stories views increased a bit. The reason is mass Story viewing. It’s a relatively new way of Instagram promotion. Some tools allow users to look through millions of Stories per day. What’s the point in that strategy, you wonder. The thing is that it may work really well with micro-accounts. Users with big followers counts will hardly notice who watch their Stories, but people with a small number of followers usually do. Millions Stories views sound tempting, of course, but developers of such apps recommend viewing about 200–300 thousand Stories daily.

Engagement groups

These are groups in DMs where all the members enhance each other’s activity — like and comment on each other’s posts and view videos of one another. The primary purpose of such groups is to drive up the ER and get their posts on the Explore Page.

What are the daily limits?

Instagram doesn’t officially claim how many likes, comments, f/u, or Direct messages users may do daily, but Instagrammers test it by themselves. Though precise limits are not covered, there are things that influence your daily actions restriction.

1. Age of your account2. Followers count3. Engagement rate

New Instagram accounts (not older than three months) have stricter limits, that’s why it’s so important to increase your automatic actions on Instagram gradually. Instagram analyzes your previous activity, and it may look suspicious if your activity boosts at once.

Follow/unfollow limits

The daily limit for follow/unfollow actions is about 200–300 a day, BUT if you only start using automation services, gradually increase your actions. Instagram will suspend you if after two years of non-active use you will follow and then unfollow up to 300 per day.

Likes limits

Not more than 1,000 daily. But again, it all depends on your account. To protect your account from getting flagged, do not exceed 600 likes a day.

Comments limits

Accounts older than one year can leave 10–15 comments per hour. Another essential thing in automatic commenting is comment duplicates. Instagram analyzes and recognizes them, so text different things under different posts.

Direct messages limits

Send up to 50–80 DMs to keep your account away from the danger zone.

Important note for your automation experience — don’t automate everything at once. Optimize and change your automation actions, mix strategies so that Instagram will not detect you use some third-party tools for that. Leave some of your tasks organic. For example, direct messages or comments can be easily made manually.

Hashtags

I won’t talk too much about hashtags here. Everything I’ll point out is that you should mix hashtags of different density, use real-time popular hashtags (only if they can be somehow reflect your post or business), and avoid putting the same hashtag pack under each post.

How do Instagram algorithms work?

Simply put, Instagram shows you only the posts you will possibly react to. The platform analyzes your interaction with other blogs and showcases publications that are interesting for you. Sometimes Instagram is wrong, and the posts we see on the Explore Page or in our feed are not at all valuable for us. Then Instagram analyzes our activity again and decides whether to show us similar content next time or not. Similar principles work in Stories and IGTV.

Does shadowban exist?

To make a long story short, it does. Sure, there are opinions that shadowban is a myth, but it’s very easy to check if your account got shadowbanned. A removed post, having your account reported, getting over the daily limits are factors that may lead to the shadowban.

How to make money on Instagram?

Unlike YouTube, Instagram doesn’t pay its bloggers for the content they make on the platform. So the bloggers need to find something else to make money on. What can an Instagram blogger do to monetize their time and efforts?

Selling ads

This method is a perfect fit for bloggers with high ER because followers of such influencers will more likely react to the ads and buy a product. But some brands prefer to work with micro-influencers.

Shoutouts

When a blogger posts something with an offer to follow some particular account. This is a nice way for blogger with not a vast audience to promote themselves or other similar bloggers.

Merchandise

Bloggers selling clothes, coffe cups and teacups, or stationery with their names or logos on them are also typically rather famous and have a loyal audience who buy this stuff.

Checklists or other value

If a blogger is a professional in some niche, it’s an easy way to sell the knowledge at a reasonable price. For example, fitness bloggers or trainers can sell tutorials with exercises; fashion influencers can make up lists with new trends or something similar. The main point here is to sell something really valuable and unique, not something any of us can find on the Internet for free.

If you want to know anything else about Instagram or want to share some insights with us, kindly text us in comments below.

Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide For Your Business

2020-04-14T12:09:00.001-07:00

Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide For Your Business

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. The app, which was established in 2010 to allow users to share photos and videos, has expanded to give businesses a way to market their products and services to the world. By June 2018, the network reached 1 billion monthly active users, up from 800 million in September 2017.

Every year Instagram makes business marketing easier and more targeted through an extensive list of features and analytics tools that help business owners create profiles, attract followers, build engagement, and develop insights into their customer base and, of course, sell their products and services with speed and efficiency.

To help get your business up to speed, we’ve compiled a comprehensive blueprint into everything you need to know — from setting up your business profile to establishing your target audience to live video streaming. Within a day you can do what you do best: Start selling!

Is There an Instagram Shadowban?

But before you dive in, it’s a good idea to understand the Instagram Shadowban.

Sounds ominous, right? The term came to light in early 2017 when a photographer saw that his images weren’t appearing in some hashtag searches. Eventually it became evident that some images weren’t showing up in all searches, or that different people would see different content in the same hashtag search.

Instagram has an algorithm applied to hashtag search results, which means that for certain searches, different users may see different content results. And the same user may even see different content when looking at the same search at different times. So contrary to what the term implies, there is no ban on images.

The only account restrictions on Instagram involve suggestions of spam when a user’s posts exceed the limit the platform has determined to be within normal user range. To make sure you or your business are not restricted, be certain you do the following

Respect the boundaries ‘follow’ and ‘unfollow.’
Instagram users are limited to following 7,500 accounts. Once you hit that limit, you will have to unfollow someone to be able to follow someone new. Instagram also limits the number of people you can follow within a certain time period. Newer accounts have lower limits on the number of accounts they can follow hourly or daily.

Limit ‘likes’ to 350/hour.
Limit group direct messages to 15 recipients.
Cap hashtags at 30 per post.
Tag no more than 20 users per post.

Setting Up Your Instagram Business Profile

Now it’s time to set up a profile for your business. Easy right? Yes, but it requires an understanding of analytics that are designed to get people to your site from searches. You can get there through a series of short steps:

Create Your Instagram Business Profile

First, make sure your Instagram app is the latest version. If it is, tap your profile photo at the bottom right and then tap on the settings wheel icon at the top right. Click “switch to business profile” and you’re in business.

Set Up Your Instagram Business Profile

Now it’s time to connect the profile to your company’s Facebook page, which you will need to create, add contact information such as your email and phone, create promotions, and more.

Explore Instagram Insights

This is the platform’s analytics tool that lets you see details on the impressions and reach from your posts, plus the number of clicks you’re getting from your profile to your website. Results from Insights can guide you in determining how to best optimize your Instagram business profile.

Promote Your Instagram Posts

To get more followers and ‘likes’, tap on any post and hit the “promote” link. Here you can set the audience, budget, and duration of the promotion as well as customize your own audience rather than let Instagram decide who to direct your posts toward.

Selling Products and Services On Instagram

Now that your business is set up it’s time to start selling. Instagram is geared to promote and sell products and services to the targeted audience of your choice. Instagram posts designed for shopping are designated with a little shopping bag icon. That enables users to click when scrolling through their feed. Once they click, pop-ups appear with the product names and details.

To enable purchasing is the next step. You’ll want to add an action button to your business profile that will take users from Instagram to your website or account. There they can make a reservation, purchase a product, or make a booking.

If your company sells a service like house cleaning and not a tangible product like a mop, no problem. Instagram is designed to create connections between your business and potential customers in order to drive business on your end and deliver value on their end. To make this happen requires telling a story with every set of nine squares on your Instagram feed. This algorithm works best when structured this way:

Four posts should add value and help your ideal client.
Three posts should create connections with your ideal client.
Two posts should promote or sell your service.

This content mix helps you develop a good relationship with your followers and allows them to get to know you, rather than simply pushing your services at them.

Advertising Products and Services On Instagram

To drive traffic to your page, Instagram allows you to create advertising that boosts your profile among users.

The most basic form of Instagram advertising is lead ads, which collects valuable contact information from potential customers without pushing them off the platform. To create these ads requires three easy steps:

Promoting a post within Instagram.
Creating Instagram ads for Facebook news feeds.
Creating Instagram Stories ads in Facebook Ads Manager.

Instagram Stories ads appear above the user’s Instagram feed and are viewable for only 24 hours from ad launch. These represent the best form of advertising on Instagram and are perfect for driving brand and product awareness, calling for user-generated content, and announcing discount sales.

Instagram Facebook ads are useful for creating email marketing funnels. To do so requires outlining your ad sequence funnel, preparing your campaign components such as a landing page or thank-you page, and more.

Marketing Through Instagram Stories

Besides advertising on Instagram, your business will benefit from contributing to Instagram Stories that will increase brand awareness and keep users engaged in the daily life of how your product or service operates. The first step to enhancing your online story is changing your Instagram story highlights cover from the default view to a branded cover image.

This feature lets you group and save important, educational, or entertaining content from your stories. Unlike regular Instagram stories, which disappear after 24 hours, highlights are saved to custom categories on your Instagram profile, and they live there until you delete them. Think of highlights like containers for similarly themed Instagram stories you share. After you add content to your story, you can choose to highlight that content by saving it to one of these containers.

You’ll also need to add links to your Instagram Story that give users more ways to engage with your business profile. Part of this viral marketing concept is resharing Instagram posts into your business profile’s Instagram Story, which you’ll want to do if those external posts compliment your product or service.

The same concept is at play when you create and push out your own Instagram Stories using your business account. This is important because they’ll help you get more visibility in the Instagram app and give people more of your content to consume. If you really want more value from your Instagram Stories and are interested in repurposing content on your Instagram profile, you might want to use Instagram’s Highlights feature that lets you combine multiple Instagram stories into long-term content your audience can discover at their convenience.

Another popular form of Instagram marketing is the Instagram Takeover. In this scenario, all you have to do is arrange for an influencer to take over your account for regular posts for a day or during a special event. Not only will this expose your brand or service to their followers, but it will also give your business external credibility.

Polls are a great Instagram tool that allows you to poll followers and monitor the result so you’ll get immediate feedback, but also some valuable insights into customer behavior, values, and needs. Polls are good to get feedback on your product and service, options for both (what add-ons are they hungry for or not?), preference for timing and communication (when do they like to receive emails and when not?), and topics for future blog posts.

Having a good product or service is one thing. Getting people to notice on Instagram is another. Sometimes all it takes is the smart use of colors, fonts, and backgrounds to redirect users to your business profile.

Instagram has five fonts to currently choose from and it takes experimenting with all of them to determine which ones, in combination with the right colors and backgrounds, are reliable fits for your messaging.

Finally, another marketing tool via Instagram are Stickers. These square smiley faces can be inserted at the top of the screen of a story post; clicking on them gives you an array of features such as Location, Temperature, Clock, Date, Mention, Poll, Question, GIF, Slider, and Music. Again, this is a great way to keep your users engaged with your page to ensure they don’t move away.

Marketing Through Instagram Hashtags

We’re all aware of how hashtags work on Twitter and Facebook to keep topics organized, or to help you reconnect your messages with the people interested in reading them. The same concept works on Instagram. Your business will want to follow specific hashtags in your regular Instagram feed because it will help you connect with customers who may be potentially interested in your product or service.

The key is knowing which hashtags resonate best with your target audience. Determining that requires relying on different tools Instagram offers to measure impact.

They are:

Command, the all-in-one analytics tracking tool.
Social media management tools like
Sprout Social,
Simply Measured,
Iconsquare, and
Keyhole.

Once you figured out the hashtags, you then have to create a strategy. Instagram lets you include up to 30 hashtags per post. A search of any Instagram hashtag will show you how many posts are associated with that hashtag. To build an effective hashtag strategy, you’ll need to combine hashtags from four categories. The proper combination of these hashtag types will maximize your post performance and help you reach your target audience.

Location tags are also helpful, especially for businesses targeting a local consumer base. While there aren’t any definitive statistics available to show the number of searches on Instagram, there are countless success stories about businesses being found by Instagram users, leading to sales.

This is most common for restaurants, retail, and other brick-and-mortar businesses. People may be out and about, looking for a place for dinner. Instagram’s search algorithm will populate content that corresponds to a location-based business if that business has its address set up through Facebook or Instagram.

Using Analytics For Your Instagram Business Profile

Once you have your hashtags and your strategy and your location tags, how do you know if all of them are working in tandem to the best of their abilities for your business? Analytics will give you real data about impact — The who and when and where of engagement from your target audience.

There are a few free analytics tools to help you get those valuable insights. These will link to your business account so you can assess the impact of your marketing efforts, find out more about your followers, when they’re engaging with Instagram, and what your top posts are, and which ones don’t resonate at all. To get the right insights often means tracking the right metrics. In other words, you want metrics that show you which users to your website from Instagram would be considered “hot” and open to buying and which ones are warm, or even cold.

So now you have the analytics data that is tailored for your business. What do you do with it? Ideally you’ll want to use the insights to create more effective posts and promotions. In order to do that you can use Instagram Insights, a native analytics tool that provides data on follower demographics and actions, as well as your content. This information makes it easy to compare content, measure campaigns, and see how individual posts are performing.

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are good for getting insights from your Instagram Stories. There are four different KPIs that will get you that insight:

Reach and Impressions
Story Features
Taps Back/Forward and Exit Rate

Actions Taken on Location and Hashtag Stickers

Broadcasting Video On Instagram

Finally, the most involved form of business marketing on Instagram is broadcasting. Live video streams within your Instagram Stories are great ways to attract followers, build excitement, and deliver information. The feature, titled Instagram Live, is designed using an algorithm that puts your video on top of user feeds for 24 hours, which means it’s the surest way to get noticed within a short period of time.

You’ll want to save your video for viewing outside those 24 hours; consistent streaming means that you’ll soon create a temporary library that can be organized according to products, services, options, and more. Of course the main purpose of these videos is to generate leads. You can do that by teasing new products, promoting a social contest, and gathering questions for a live Q&A. All of these will help you collect emails and generate genuine excitement you can use for following up.

The most sophisticated form of Instagram Live is the two-person live video. Bringing in a guest will bolster engagement because you’ll appeal to their followers plus have a more dynamic broadcast that will attract more eyeballs. In a way, you can think of this two-way conversation like a podcast where two people can engage in an interview setting or have a more informal and entertaining conversation that is focused on your product or service.

Tune in to Stay Current With Instagram Tactics and News

Social Media Examiner offers two weekly audio podcasts and a weekly live video talk show to boost your marketing skills and keep you up to date with the ever-changing world of social media

The Guide to Auditing Your Youtube Channel

2020-04-13T17:44:00.001-07:00

The Guide to Auditing Your Youtube Channel

Audits may not be the sexiest thing on the planet, but all of the optimization in the world would be for nothing if you can’t measure the success of your YouTube presence. Most people think it’s enough to just mentally keep track of things like subscribers and views, but the real masters of the platform perform deep audits on a regular basis.

Audits also give you an opportunity to step back from your content and take an objective look at what’s working and what’s not.

How Many Subscribers Are Watching Your Content?

Machinima, one of the leading channels for video game content on YouTube, has been the most consistent in branding and packaging it’s Youtube channel, and no doubt it has led them to garner over one million subscribers. Your brand will serve as a navigation marker in a sea of online content. Having a strong point of view within your content helps define your brand and position yourself as an expert and leader in your field.

Your number-one priority should be creating content that connects with your audience and provides value to them. The subscribers-to-views ratio can help you determine how well your content meets that goal.

Which Videos Have the Highest Audience Retention?

Home Depot’s videos are not just repurposed commercials. Instead, they offer DIY expertise and insight on products and projects around the home. By creating engaging content that is valuable to the specific DIY community, Home Depot is able stay on brand and increase their chance of satisfied viewers seeing their content as long as possible.

To find it in Creator Studio, go to Analytics > Watch Time Reports > Audience Retention. Below the graph that shows your overall channel’s audience retention, you can see the audience retention for individual videos including the percentage watched for each video on the far right.

By studying the videos that attain the highest audience retention, you can gauge which topics and styles perform best and repeat those in the future.

How Many Of Your Videos Are Searched?

Many people think optimizing for search simply means stuffing their titles full of keywords to get the video to rank. Following a formula can help you write keyword-rich titles that people still want to click. The formula uses the pattern shown in this video by Gillette. Start the title with a broad category (How to Shave). Then add your main keyword with a compelling reason to click (Shaving Tips for Men). If your video is for a brand, add the brand name at the end (Gillette).

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. It’s important to optimize your YouTube channel for search and track the effectiveness of your efforts in your audits. If a video performs especially well in search, the algorithm may rank your channel highly for that search term so creating more videos on that subject might be a good idea. Titles are only one element though. Don’t forget about others such as keywords, tags, playlists, descriptions, etc.

The questions I asked are only three of many others you could be asking while auditing your Youtube channel. When you audit and question your YouTube channel metrics on a regular basis, some ideas for improving performance and optimization will reveal themselves immediately. Other metrics and trends may take some time to interpret, and sometimes you may find things you were never looking for. You’ll never know until you look.

Instagram auth - How to convert a personal Instagram profile into a business profile

2020-04-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

Instagram auth - How to convert a personal Instagram profile into a business profile

Instagram business profiles are required to have an associated Facebook Page, so this procedure is completed in Facebook!

Since Facebook owns Instagram, they’ve made it easy to manage your business’ social presence by streamlining workflows between the two social networks. Full Instagram functionality like direct publishing and analytics is made available to third parties (e.g. Hootsuite) through an authentication with Facebook.

More benefits of associating a Facebook Page with an Instagram business profile.

To convert your Instagram profile

Sign in to Facebook and navigate to the list of Pages you have access to with your Facebook profile. You can find that here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/?category=your_pages
Note that you have to be an Admin for the Page to complete this procedure.
Click the name of the Page associated with your business, that you’re going to connect your business’ Instagram profile to.
Only one Instagram profile can be connected to a Facebook Page and vice versa.
You can also click Create Page in the top-right corner and create a new Page to represent your business.
Click Settings in the top-right corner of the Page.
Click Instagram in the left menu.
Click Connect Account. You will be prompted to log in to Instagram.
Enter the Instagram username and password for the profile you want to connect, and then click Log In.
Your Instagram profile is now connected to the Facebook Page, and should appear under Instagram Account Details.
Now click Get Started to convert the Instagram account into a business profile.
Follow the prompts in the pop-up to complete the conversion to an Instagram business profile.
Not seeing the prompts to switch to a business profile? Try converting to a business profile from your Instagram app instead.

Now you're ready to connect your Instagram business profile to Hootsuite.

15 Tips for Growing Your YouTube Channel

2020-04-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

15 Tips for Growing Your YouTube Channel

Want to produce algorithm-friendly YouTube content?

Wondering how to attract viewers and keep them watching?

In this article, you’ll find 15 tips and tactics for optimizing your YouTube video content at every stage of the video production process.

1: Commit to Posting to YouTube Multiple Times Per Week

Recent reports have shown that YouTube channels that post more than once a week are performing much better and getting more recommended views. If possible, post a video to YouTube three or more times per week, especially if you’re just starting out and trying to build an audience. Keeping a regular schedule with multiple posts per week can quickly raise your channel in the algorithm.

Creating a ton of content in the beginning on similar topics will help your channel perform well in the algorithm, and also create a library of content that will usher viewers from one video to another, boosting your watch time and giving them a reason to subscribe.

2: Develop a Sustainable Video Production Workflow

You might be making Oscar-worthy short films and videos, but if each video takes 6 months to produce, your videos aren’t going to grow your YouTube channel. Regular video uploads at familiar times are what bring people back for more.

Whatever kind of videos you want to make, choose content that you can develop and create on a regular basis and find ways to streamline your production workflow, whether it’s setting up a studio, creating an editing template, or hiring assistants or a production team. Keep refining your topics and production workflow until your process is a well-oiled machine.

Tip: One of the best things you can do is set up a small video studio so when it’s time to shoot, you can simply turn on the lights and get started.

3: Begin Each Video With an Interesting Hook

How you hook viewers depends on you and your content. If a video features a project of any kind, show the end result first. A stunning result makes people more interested to see how you achieved it. This approach is great for DIY and makeover videos. For instance, Cute Girls Hairstyles always begins by showing the end result before explaining how to create a hairstyle.

Stories are another way to pique viewers’ interest. People are hardwired for stories. When you start your video with a story, people will naturally want to stick around to see what happens. Plus, personal stories endear the presenter to the viewer and can often provide a helpful segue to more complicated ideas.

To demonstrate, Michael from VSauce is a master at starting his videos with an intriguing story or idea that leads into the subject matter.

However you hook viewers, make sure your opener relates directly to the subject matter. Viewers clicked because they were interested, so quickly get into the subject they wanted to hear about in the first place.

You may have seen YouTubers create intrigue by starting with a story or fact that seems completely off-topic and then connecting it to the topic. This tactic works best when you already have a large audience that trusts you.

4: Keep Titles and Opening Credits Short

Attention spans are short. A long title or credit sequence at the beginning of a video can cause people to lose interest. Also, a long opener discourages binge watching because people don’t want to watch the same long sequence over and over.

Instead, make your opening title and credits short and punchy. Make the whole opener no longer than 5 seconds. As a great example, Crystal Joy’s title sequence is short, sweet, and delightfully quirky.

5: Add End Screens to Promote Your Videos, Channel, or Website

End screens are interactive graphics that link to another video, playlist, channel, or web page, or prompt someone to subscribe to your channel. As the feature name suggests, you can add end screens only in the last 20 seconds of your video, so you have to plan where the end screens will appear.

One option is to frame the subject of your video in such a way that you have room for end screens. Talking over the end screen will continue to engage the viewer.

Or you can add a slate with an image or logo where you can place the end screens. This option is useful if you don’t want the end screen to interfere with your content.

End screens tend to work best if the on-screen presenter is still talking and giving information to the viewer. If you just cut to a screen with a color or design and no new information, viewers are likely to click off of the page. YouTube viewers are somewhat conditioned to do that now. If you continue to provide information, it will give viewers a reason to stick around.

Extend Session Length With a Video or Playlist End Screen

Because YouTube wants to keep people on the platform, session length is important to the algorithm. Session length is the amount of time a viewer spends watching videos. If you add to session length by sending viewers to another YouTube video or playlist (even if it’s not one of yours), your video will be boosted in the algorithm.

Put some thought into where viewers will go after watching your video and send them there via end screens (and links in the video description). Marques Brownlee does a good job of leading people from his video to another video on a similar topic through end screens like the one shown here:

To add an end screen in Creator Studio, open Video Manager, click the drop-down arrow next to the video to which you want to add the end screen, and select End Screen & Annotations.

Another way to get to the Info & Settings screen is to click any of your videos in Creator Studio and select End Screen & Annotations at the top of the page.

On the End Screen & Annotations page, the timeline will automatically snap to 20 seconds before the end of the video. To add an end screen that will extend session time, click Add Element and then click the Create button next to Video or Playlist.

Next, choose from one of three options for adding your playlist:

Most Recent Upload will link to your most recent video.
Best for Viewer will let Google select the best video based on the viewer’s past viewing habits.
Choose a Video or Playlist lets you choose the video or playlist where you want to send the viewer.

Research has shown that Best for Viewer works really well. That’s not surprising because this option is based on the person’s individual viewing habits. But if the video is part of a series, make sure you point viewers to the next video in that series or to a playlist so they can watch the entire series in sequence.

Promote Your Channel or Website With Subscription, Channel, or Linked End Screens

If you add a video or playlist end screen, you’re also able to add other types of end screens. As shown above, you can add a subscribe, channel, or linked end screen. (Note that if you want to show only a subscribe link or a link to your website on the end screen, you’re out of luck. You must include a link to a video or playlist.)

A subscribe end screen will insert a link for people to subscribe to your channel. This end screen is round and by default shows your profile picture. There’s really no reason not to include a subscription button.

Make sure you point viewers to the subscription button in some way, because nothing on it tells the viewer what it is. You can explain what the subscription end screen is by talking on-screen or including a graphic that explains the end screen’s purpose.

A channel end screen lets you promote another channel, which is especially useful in collaborations. If the video is a collaboration with another creator, you can link viewers to their channel as well as your own, as shown in the example below. If you just want to point people to a channel you admire, you can do that, too.

A linked end screen allows you to add a link to an associated website, including merchandising sites, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or Patreon, or your own website.

An associated website needs to be one you own, and YouTube has a process for setting up an associated site. After you set up your website with YouTube, you can send viewers literally anywhere via redirects. Plugins for WordPress make creating the redirects easy.

As a general marketing rule, the more calls to action (CTAs) you provide, the less likely people are to choose any of them. Thus, it’s a good idea to add no more than three links to your end screen.

Tip: As you think about what end screens to use, focus on your goal for the video. Do you want to get more subscribers? Boost your channel in the algorithm? Sell something? Having a goal in mind from the beginning is a good habit to develop. That way you can craft your video and optimization around that goal.

Import an End Screen Template From a Previous Video

After you refine your end screen strategy, you can save time by importing a template from a previous video. All you have to do is click Import From Video and select the video from which you want to import end screens. This feature makes applying end screens fast and easy, especially if you have an end screen template that performs well.

To monitor the success of your end screen elements and refine your strategy based on your data, open Analytics in Creator Studio and select End Screens to see which perform best. Then, obviously, do more of what works.

6: Edit Distractions Out of Your Video

Long pauses, meandering talking, bouncing from one subject to another, or just being boring can make people start looking at the recommended videos for something more interesting. Keep tangents to a minimum, and if you do veer from the topic, make sure it’s engaging either visually or with a story. Don’t give viewers a reason to click away.

To simultaneously avoid distractions and keep your videos fast-paced and engaging, you can quickly cut from one shot to another like Devinsupertramp. To create cuts, you don’t necessarily need to film with multiple cameras. You can also use text or transitions that come with basic video editors.

7: Design Video Thumbnails YouTube Users Want to Click

Thumbnails, more than any other factor, can make or break your success on YouTube. Why? Suggested videos.

Suggested videos are the leading source of organic traffic on YouTube. As someone is watching a video on YouTube, your video thumbnail needs to stand out when it’s a suggested video in the right sidebar. When your video appears as a suggested video, YouTube is basically endorsing it by saying that someone watching some other video might enjoy your video as well.

Moreover, if your video attracts clicks as a suggested video, its clickability is likely to register with the YouTube algorithm. Remember that more than anything else in the world, YouTube wants viewers to click another video. So they’re going to recommend videos that are most likely to get that click.

Deliver on the Thumbnail’s Promise

First and foremost, make the thumbnail relevant to the video’s title and content. Nothing makes people click away faster than a video that has nothing to do with the thumbnail. Viewers feel tricked. You’ll not only alienate your audience, but you’ll also have low watch time, which the YouTube algorithm values most of all.

Make Viewers Wonder What’s Next

Try to tell a story with your thumbnails. Show an image that sets up or teases a situation. Make the viewer wonder what happens next, or what happened before. This Amy Schmittauer thumbnail with the words “I Quit” tells a story that complements the video title. If you can feature an image that contains some action or movement of some kind, even better.

Keep in mind that thumbnails are only half of the story. The other half is the title. A clever juxtaposition of title and thumbnail can go a long way toward increasing viewer interest.

Design Small

Many people create 1280 x 720 pixel video thumbnails as YouTube recommends. The images look great, but nobody ever sees a thumbnail at that size on YouTube. Although you want the pixel size to follow YouTube’s recommendation, you still have to design the imagery for a smaller viewing size.

To check how your thumbnail will really look on YouTube, always zoom out so you view the image on-screen at the size that it will appear on YouTube. You want to make sure the thumbnail image still makes sense and stands out when it’s the size of a postage stamp.

If not, a few simple image edits might help. Try cropping the image to a smaller area or making the colors super-saturated, as in the example here. Also, the Sharpen tool can define the edges of your image. At a large size, these edits might look bad, but at the size viewers will see, your image will stand out.

Create a Consistent Look and Feel

When all of your thumbnails have a consistent look, people can recognize your videos at a glance. This consistency might include a similar text font, a logo, familiar colors, a shape or design element, or the same person’s face. Whatever you choose, find something consistent and stick with the style on all of your thumbnails.

Consistency is powerful because it teaches people to look for that familiar element in your thumbnails, and if they like your content, they’ll be more likely to check it out. By adding a logo in a specific place, HP’s video thumbnails stand out at a glance:

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Be Emotional

Excitement is the emotion that people respond to most. When we see someone showing enthusiasm, it makes us want to know why they’re excited and maybe join in so we’ll feel excited, too.

Nothing sells enjoyment more than the eyes, so show an excited face and focus on the eyes. Your video will get a much better response.

#8: Test Thumbnail Options With AdWords

Ultimately, you won’t know if a thumbnail will work unless you test it. Create several options to test your thumbnails with Google AdWords.

Then spend $10 per day for about a week to see which thumbnail gets the highest view-through rate (VTR). This tactic is especially worthwhile if you’re running a campaign or taking advantage of a tentpole event.

In YouTube Analytics, the Suggested Video views can help you check on the success or progress of your thumbnails. To group the videos you want to test, open Creator Studio and go to Analytics > Overview. In the top right, click Groups and select Create Video Group from the drop-down menu.

From there, you can create a group of similar videos.

Next, select Traffic Sources in the Analytics area and then Suggested Videos to see which video in your group performed best. Find similarities between the top-performing videos, build those elements into future thumbnails, and see how they work. You can learn a lot through this process.

9: Replicate Topics or Tactics From Top-Performing Videos

There is no substitute for nose-to-the-grindstone research. Take a deep dive into your analytics to find out which videos get the most subscriber conversions per view. Look for patterns among them, such as subject, delivery, or editing style. Then make more videos like that.

To find your highest-converting videos in Creator Studio, go to Analytics, click Subscribers, and then click YouTube Watch Page.

In the list that appears, see which videos attracted the most subscribers.

If you want to get more detailed, you can get a subscriber ratio by dividing the number of subscribers by total number of views for each video. Be aware that the number will be really low because most people subscribe on the channel page.

10: Create Long Videos to Improve Watch Time

Although you want to keep your credits short, make your actual video content as long as makes sense for your topic. Making long videos seems counterintuitive, given the famously short attention spans online. Indeed, shorter videos were considered better. But today, longer videos equate to more watch time, which boosts your content in the algorithm.

Ultimately, the right length for a video is just long enough to get all of the information across without padding your video. Don’t make a video longer just for the sake of making it longer because you’ll lose viewers. But you do want to develop your video content with longer videos in mind. In general, videos from 7-15 minutes tend to perform best.

PBS Space Time is a popular channel with many videos that fall into the general range of 7-15 minutes, but also has longer videos that go almost 20 minutes. You even find channels that regularly post 30-minute videos.

Understanding Watch Time

Watch time basically means the amount of time people spend watching your videos. The YouTube algorithm values watch time because YouTube believes that people will watch a video longer if it’s high-quality. If the video is low-quality or misleading, viewers will quickly click away.

When you audit your channel, the Audience Retention metric tells you the watch time for individual videos. Videos that have high audience retention will be promoted in the algorithm, and channels with high watch time (meaning their videos consistently get higher retention) will see their videos given more prominence on the platform.

11: Go Live on YouTube

Live-streaming is a great way to pump out content without spending a ton of time on it. Although live-streaming has a definite learning curve, after you’ve mastered the format, live video is the easiest way to create video content.

Live-streaming is heavily supported on all social media platforms. (On YouTube, the live video feature is YouTube Live.) This video format provides excellent engagement opportunities because you can communicate directly with your audience. Live video also has long watch times.

To start sharing live video, you can use your smartphone or webcam for live broadcasts. Even relatively inexpensive webcams can still provide high-quality video.

12: Use Three Types of Videos in Your Content Mix

With the “Hub, Hero, Help” strategy, you post videos that have one of three goals: serving the community around the channel, being shareable, or performing in search. You add these videos to your content calendar at various intervals: post hub videos monthly, hero videos quarterly, and help videos weekly.

Hub videos are community-focused and designed to create a strong bond among your viewers and you, and your viewers and each other. In hub videos, you might respond to comments, answer questions, interact via live video, initiate projects that require viewer participation, or share personal stories that give fans a behind-the-scenes peek at your channel.

Hero videos are tentpole videos that are designed to be very successful. These videos often focus on topical subject matter like holidays and news events. Put extra effort into a hero video to increase the likelihood that people will share it on social media and/or blogs, and that other media pick it up.

Help videos are designed to have highly searchable content that provides actionable value. For example, create DIY, how-to, advice, and troubleshooting videos. For these, focus on search intent for discoverability.

For help choosing topics for both hero and help videos, Google Trends is an excellent resource for trending topics and highly searched content.

13: Develop Videos as a Series

Nothing increases watch time like binge watching. Ultimately, you want to create a “lean back” experience for your viewers to go seamlessly from one of your videos to the next. Series playlists are one of the best ways to do this, and yet are an underutilized tool on YouTube. To use them, however, you need a series.

You can develop a series based on content that has performed well. Indeed, many successful YouTube channels have more than one series, each with a special topic focus and even different thumbnail image style. To illustrate, Roberto Blake uses one thumbnail style for unboxing and tech reviews, and another for tutorials:

As you post videos in your series, you can add them to a series playlist. When you use a series playlist, YouTube will automatically add the next video in the playlist to the Up Next section at the top of the recommendations. And if a viewer has autoplay turned on, the videos in your series playlist will play one after another.

To change a playlist into a series playlist in Creator Studio, open Video Manager and click Playlists.

Then click the Edit button next to the playlist you want to change.

On the edit screen, click Playlist Settings near the top of the screen. In the Playlist Settings dialog box, select the Set as Official Series for This Playlist checkbox.

One note about series playlists: Although a video can be in as many playlists as you want (and adding each video to at least three playlists is recommended), a video can be in only one series playlist. So make sure your series playlists are high-level categories and get more specific on your regular playlists.

14: Collaborate With Other YouTubers

Collaborations are videos that are shared among multiple content creators and are one of the most effective ways to expand your audience on YouTube. Whether you’re a brand or a YouTuber (or both!), working with another content creator will expose your channel to people who likely would never have heard of you.

Social proof has a strong influence on people. When a content creator collaborates with another creator, it’s an endorsement to their audience. It can be just enough for a viewer to check out your channel, and if they like your content, you’ve got a new subscriber.

People often forget that YouTube is first and foremost a social network. And some of the largest creators got popular by cross-promoting and working together. So while it may be easy to let your competitive side take over when you see a channel getting more attention or growing faster than yours, try to see their growth as an opportunity for you to grow along with them.

But you can’t collaborate with just anyone. You need to consider some finer points of collaborations when looking into this tactic to grow your channel.

Find Channels With Similar Audiences But Different Content

You want collaborators who have similar audiences but different content. Ask your viewers who else they enjoy watching and look for names and shared videos in the comments.

Also, tools like Social Blade can help you identify a channel’s size and demographics and find who’s serving the same audience as you. The metrics you want to look for include age, gender, interests, location, and engagement.

The most successful YouTube collaborations are with channels that have a similar audience but cover entirely different content from yours, because the audience won’t get a repeat of your subject matter on their channel. The fact is that all of us have multiple interests, including your audience. So anywhere you can find overlap is a great opportunity for growth.

For instance, a science education channel might share an audience with a sci-fi movie channel. A gaming channel might share an audience with a tech review channel. A family channel might share an audience with a toy review channel, and so on.

Look for Channels That Are the Right Size

Generally, you want to find channels that are slightly larger than yours, but not too big. Super-large channels are asked to do collaborations all the time and usually work only with people they know (so get to know them if you can!).

Working with a smaller channel can be great if they’re a good fit and especially if they’re growing fast, because today’s tiny YouTuber could be tomorrow’s big breakout star.

Team Up With Multiple Creators

Collaborations don’t have to just be two-person deals. Multiple creators can come together for videos and gain exposure to multiple audiences. Tyler Oakley often collaborates with other creators of various genres and has grown his audience exponentially while developing relationships in the process.

You’ll find the larger your channel grows and the more relationships you form, the more opportunities for multiple-creator collaborations you’ll have. Many of the largest YouTube channels do these all the time, simply because these other creators become their friends and they hang out together in real life. A rising tide truly lifts all boats.

Connections with other creators make YouTube the social media site it is, and through multiple-creator collaborations, you can form tight bonds and teams that work together to go much further.

Good ways to reach outside of YouTube are to look for bloggers, people with

large Twitter followings, and Facebook pages. Anybody with a large or engaged following is a good candidate for collaboration

15: Promote Collaborations in the Video’s Title, Tags, and Description

You want your collaborator’s viewers to find your channel through them. So feature the collaborator’s name and face prominently in the thumbnail of the video. Add their name to the title, tags, and description. Also, make sure that your collaborators do the same for you in their videos.

The power of a collaboration is in the promotion, so don’t bury the lede. Highlight your collaboration partner front and center.

Also, at the bottom of your video’s Info and Settings page, you can add the other creator’s channel in the credits. This connects your channel to theirs in the algorithm and can boost your number of recommended views via their channel’s videos.

To find the credits field, scroll to the bottom of the Info & Settings page on your video, below the keywords field.

Conclusion

To grow a YouTube channel, you need to develop YouTube content with your viewers and the algorithm in mind. For viewers, make sure your thumbnails grab their attention and deliver what you’ve promised. Start your videos with a strong hook and edit the content to keep it interesting. Overall, you want to create an experience that keeps viewers watching.

Fortunately, attracting clicks and keeping viewers interested also raises the visibility of your videos and thus your channel via the YouTube algorithm. Interesting content that people click, and that leads to a good watch time and session duration, can boost your videos’ visibility throughout YouTube. Playlists, collaborations, series, and end screens also improve your odds.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these tips or tactics in your YouTube videos? What did your results look like?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.

How To Increase Your YouTube Watch Time

2020-04-13T10:41:00.005-07:00

How To Increase Your YouTube Watch Time

Lets begin by defining what "watch time" actually is. According to YouTube, watch time is: "The amount of time that a viewer has watched a video. This gives you a sense of what content viewers actually watch (as opposed to videos that they click on and then abandon)." Now why is watch time so important? Because YouTube uses it as part of its algorithm for suggesting videos (in terms of rankings).

According to Margin Media, in the past, the algorithm YouTube used for ranking videos in search results was based off how many views a video had. However, that is no longer the case. YouTube now gives priority to videos that will lead to longer watch times, versus videos that get more clicks. So what does this mean for you? It is imperative you now optimize your videos for watch time to increase your chances of ranking well, and this is how you can achieve that:

Create Quality Content

This is a no-brainer, but it still needs to be said. YouTube is full of average content. Don't produce content that adds to that never-ending library. This stat is pretty mind blowing - every minute, there are 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. That tells you how fierce the competition is for watch time, so if you aren't producing quality content, scratch that, EPIC content, why bother at all? The old adage, "content is king", doesn't just apply to written content, such as blogs or articles, it applies to videos, too. So your goal when producing content for YouTube should be to put yourself in the shoes of your viewers and think "what would make me want to stick around and watch this entire video?"

It doesn't matter what your interests are - it matters what the interests of your target audience are, so always design your content for them, and ensure they will find it both relevant and engaging, otherwise your watch time is going to suffer dearly. If you aren't delivering value to your viewers on YouTube, your time is best spent on other marketing activities that are going to produce better results. You want content that is going to teach your viewers something, content that is so great they won't think twice about wanting to share it with their friends and family. The kind of content that stands out from the crowd that is going to boost your watch time and ultimately help boost your rankings in whatever niche you're targeting.

Maximize On The First 15 Seconds

If you don't capture your viewers attention right off the bat, they are going to lose interest in what you have to say pretty quickly. High bounce rates are bad for business, and will drive your watch time down big time. According to Your Social Voice, on average, the first 30% of videos do a subpar job at capturing the attention of viewers, and that is not a statistic you want your video to fall into. The first 15 seconds of your video need to be engaging, interesting, to the point, and inform your viewers of what they can expect from the rest of your video.

This isn't the time for long-winded introductions (short and sweet is the best rule of thumb to follow), to talk about yourself, all of your accomplishments, or your business in detail (keep the branding at the end of the video if it's going to be more than a few seconds long). Remember this video is for your viewers, and if it doesn't provide value to them, they will have zero interest in it, so you need to stick with that mindset with every video you make. All of your videos should maintain the same overall message and tone of your channel for consistency. If you can hook your audience within the first 15 seconds, your watch time is going to benefit.

Have Relevant Titles & Thumbnails That Aren't Misleading

When people are searching for videos on YouTube, the first thing they are going to see for any video is the title and thumbnail. So it is critical both are relevant and compelling, otherwise what reason do people have to click on your video, versus all of your extremely fierce competition? You need something that is going to entice them, something that is going to pull them in, but also something that isn't misleading at the same time. The absolute worst thing you can do is trick people into watching your YouTube videos. A high click rate means nothing if you also have a high bounce rate to go with it, especially considering you are likely to be reported by the viewer for misleading content.

Consider this fact - there are 1 billion mobile video views on YouTube every single day, with the average time per mobile session spanning a whopping 40 minutes. So the thumbnail you choose for your video should be responsive on both desktop and mobile devices to ensure you're capturing as much of that mobile traffic as possible. In addition to having a relevant and compelling title and an engaging thumbnail, don't forget to write a description, which will be displayed directly underneath your video in search results. Here is a good example from Margin Media of titles and thumbnails that match up perfectly with the actual content of the videos:

Keep A Close Eye On Your Analytics

You need to keep a close eye on the Audience Retention report for every video you upload to your YouTube channel. This will enable you to see if there are any trends as to what point of time your audience is dropping off from the videos you are uploading so you can make adjustments as necessary, versus operating in the blind, so to speak. You can access the Audience Retention report by logging into your YouTube account, selecting your account in the top right and clicking on Creator Studio, then on the left selecting Analytics then Audience Retention. To view the Audience Retention report for individual videos you have uploaded, simply click on the name of the video then play the video to see how different parts are performing. For more information on this report, visit: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1715160?hl=en.

In the below example of an Audience Retention report from Vidooly, you can see most of the audience is dropping off between 0 and 45 seconds and at around the 3 minute 44 second mark.

So what does all of this mean? As discussed above, if you have a misleading title and/or thumbnail, you are going to have a high bounce rate, and that appears to be exactly what is happening with this video. People click on this video expecting one thing, find out the video has nothing to do with that topic, and quickly leave the video. That is why it is absolutely critical you do not mislead your viewers. The second issue is people are losing interest in the video as it goes on. It is good that people are sticking around and watching the video, but with the goal here being to extend your watch time, Vidooly suggests adding an annotation to a related video or another playlist of your channel.

Use Long-Tail Keywords To Help You Create Content

One way to help drive more traffic to your videos (and increase your watch time if you are putting the other tips into action at the same time) instead of your competitors is by targeting long-tail YouTube keywords. While there are many possible avenues for identifying long-tail keywords to use for your content, one of the rather easy ways is to use YouTube itself. In the below example, we typed "facebook marketing" into the search bar, and got some valuable long-tail keyword ideas from YouTube we could use for content. This enables us to create more targeted content, as opposed to simply creating content with the keyword "facebook marketing", which is going to have much more competition, and reduce our chances of coming up in the search rankings.

Keep in mind you are not just getting random suggestions on long-tail keywords from YouTube. These are video topics based on what viewers are actually interested in, and will assist with your videos being found and seen. In addition to creating content based off long-tail keywords as a means of increasing your watch time, you can also check out what kind of content your competition is producing, and mainly what keywords they are using, to use in the future for your own content.

How to Make a YouTube Video (Beginner’s Guide)

2020-04-12T17:45:00.002-07:00

How to Make a YouTube Video (Beginner’s Guide)

Get tips from some of the top YouTubers and learn exactly what you should (and shouldn’t) do to make a YouTube video.

It’s no secret that YouTube is the ultimate place to post video content.

YouTube has over 1.9 billion monthly active users and they watch a billion hours of video every day. To put that in perspective, that’s over 114,000 years of video consumed EVERY DAY.

Top YouTube content creators can make hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars a day, but ironically, being successful and making money on YouTube has little to do with actually making a video.

Today I’m going to share with you techniques from some of the top YouTubers that show exactly what you should (and shouldn’t) do for YouTube content creation.

If you want to know how to start making YouTube videos, you’ll love this guide.

With a few simple steps, you’ll be creating content in no time!

Let’s go!

Step 1. Create a YouTube Video Strategy

Choose the right topic (for the right audience)

Want to know the best-kept secret about being successful on YouTube (or any other content platform)?

It has very little with you as the creator.

You can be charismatic, funny, and smart — but if you don’t provide value, your videos are useless.

It’s not about you or what you can gain. If you show up to YouTube looking to get something out of it, you probably won’t be very successful.

You need to focus on your audience. Not yourself.

Find your perfect audience for YouTube

Before you start working on your first script or storyboard, you must answer this question:

“Who is your audience?”

Knowing your audience will guide nearly every decision you make about your video.

Knowing general information is helpful, but think about your specific audience.

What are their problems?

What will they learn from your video?

How does your video benefit them?

If you can’t answer these basic questions you need to dig deeper. The answers to these questions will guide you as you plan out and create your video.

Experts’ Take

As you start looking at what your audience wants and needs, there are some things you can do to help you narrow your focus.

Here’s advice from YouTube experts who have learned (from a lot of practice and work) what you need to define your audience.

YouTube Marketing Consultant Owen Video says, “The very first thing we do is run our clients through a questionnaire that helps them to get the biggest topics that the audience would be interested in.”

Jeremy Vest, Director of Marketing for vidIQ, suggests that listening is critical because “if you don’t listen to your audience then…you’re not going to serve them very well.” However, it’s not all about just seeking what the viewer wants.

Once you have a sense of your audience, you need to create content that matches your persona. It doesn’t matter if your video doesn’t work for other groups or other personas.

When you’re just starting out you want your audience to be as specific as possible.

Niche is good. Broad is bad.

Focus your content on helping the viewer achieve their goals. If you’re selling software, you need to make sure your video helps the viewer learn exactly what they need to be successful.

Fernando Silva, Account Executive for Wistia, emphasizes this need and suggests that we must “[get] a sense to what your audience is actually interested in and what they want to keep watching or maybe what doesn’t interest them. It … helps you make better content in the future.”

If you work hard to understand your audience but aren’t sure of what you should create for them, Tyler Lessard, Vice President of Marketing at Vidyard, stresses that you should, “focus more on the quality of the content and how you deliver it. Making sure it’s relevant to your audience, and I think that’s a simple way to start.”

Throw perfection out the window

Just start.

It’s really that simple.

I know it can be tempting to watch the big-name YouTubers and think you have to create videos just like that and engage a massive audience all at once, but all of those thoughts can be paralyzing.

“I personally believe that we’re all on the same plane, whether you’re a business or whether you’re an individual creator. Because we all start somewhere…”
Amy Landino, Co-founder of Aftermarq, and Best-Selling author of Vlog Like a Boss.

Too many people worry about getting things perfect from the beginning. We paralyze ourselves into not creating anything or releasing our content because we’re so concerned about whether we have all the right equipment, or if every part is perfect.

What should you do if you find yourself stuck on making it perfect?

Start by asking yourself a few questions:

Will my audience not clearly understand the purpose of the video if these changes aren’t made?

Will the video, as is, achieve your goal?

Does the video contain something incorrect that would seriously impact the viewer?

What is the worst that will happen if the current version is released as is?

Can the time that could be spent continuing to edit be put to better use on another project?

Once you answer these questions, give yourself permission to move on. If you focus too much on creating the perfect video you will limit yourself in the long run.

Step 2. Make sure your video is found on YouTube

A video can’t be successful if no one sees it! You must consider Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) when you start creating your video.

There is a lot to learn and figure out, but mainly you want to get your content found by the people who are searching.

Two key ways to rank your YouTube videos are:

Make content that is good for the users

Make content that is good for search engines

At the end of the day, you want your content to be found. SEO can be a hugely complicated endeavor, but you don’t have to do everything at once. The creators we talked with made a few easy suggestions.

Andrew Kan, of TubeBuddy, recommends that you make your content focused on a specific topic and niches, which will help your content be more searchable.

“Many people spend time on broad terms that have so much competition they’re never going to show up for [in search],” he said. “If you show up on the race day, and you’re [not] a runner and you’ve practiced once, you can’t expect to win. So by practicing, by understanding that being more specific helps you be more discoverable, it helps you win.”

In addition to focusing your content on specific topics, Jeremy Vest recommends that you make sure your content is helpful and answers questions your potential audience is asking.

“Match that search intent with ‘how do I fix this blank’, and you sell that blank,” he said. “Instead of just talking about how good your widget is, be the answer to questions being asked … And being the answer to those is…one of the easiest ways for brands to start doing well in this environment and then from there beat that expectation. Provide things they’re not expecting. Have guests they wouldn’t expect to be on your program. And, give more value than they can even believe.”

To make your content helpful and findable, consider the questions being asked and where they’re being asked. Then you can create the right content and post it where it will be found.

Step 3. Find YouTube ideas and topics

Now that you know your audience, you may be wondering “What should I make a YouTube video about?” The good news is that there are tons of ways to find YouTube video ideas that your audience is searching for.

Let’s say you run a home contracting business. You decide you are going to target your channel towards current homeowners looking to spruce up their house. Your initial video topics might include things like How to Remove Popcorn Ceilings or How to Refinish Your Kitchen Cabinets.

That’s a great start, but for even more ideas than your initial list, here are some tips from Gord Isman of the best places you can use to get inspired and find highly-relevant topics for your specific audience.

1. YouTube search

YouTube search is one of the best ways to find what people are looking for. When you come up with a content idea, do a quick YouTube search and see what comes back.

Then look at the search results and decide if it’s a saturated area or there’s room to create a unique, valuable version.

You want to choose topics that you’re passionate about and that are relevant to your audience.

When you have a basic topic idea YouTube can help you narrow it down.

Search YouTube by typing some keywords into the search bar.

The auto-suggest/autocomplete feature will give you additional keywords that YouTube suggests.

Here’s an example where I typed “tutorial video” into the search bar, and a list of suggested topics appeared below.

You want to take those terms and write them down. You may find after all of your research that one video can cover a lot of the same topics, or that you can create a series of videos.

For a topic focusing on “video tutorial” I would want to focus on editing, video ideas, and background music as a good starting point.

2. Comments section

The comments section of videos and articles can be a great resource for YouTube video topics.

Viewers often suggest additional topics or ask questions that suggest areas of interest for creating additional content.

So start by looking at a competitor’s YouTube channel and start mining the comments.

3. Communities and groups

Whether it’s Twitter, a Facebook group, or a membership group, find like-minded people who will inspire you and help you out along the way.

Don’t discourage yourself by assuming you must go at it alone.

Find a group that you can bounce ideas off of and ask questions. You might even come away with some different (and better) video topics to start with.

4. Ask your audience

If you already have an audience (even a small one) it’s worth asking them what types of content they would like to see.

This is a surefire way to figure out what your audience wants to know, learn, and watch.

Step 4. Understand YouTube equipment for beginners

It can be easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you don’t have the right tools to create your video.

It’s fun to have high-end equipment and there is no question that better equipment can produce a better quality video.

Keep in mind, too, that highly specialized equipment that can be complex to run, and requires considerable time and training to master.

Especially as you’re starting out, try not to worry too much about equipment.

First, learn to get good at creating the content and worry about leveling up your gear later.

If you’re still worried about what gear you should use, Brian Fanzo, of iSocialFanz has some advice. He suggests baby steps, “…start with your phone, and then move to a web camera, then move to professional gear.”

A lot can be done with things like screen recording software, a simple video editor, or a smartphone and a little bit of creativity.

These tools can help you learn the basics of video creation, and help you to practice good techniques that will be beneficial no matter what gear you use.

“So many people focus on ‘I don’t have the right gear’ and ‘I don’t have the right camera,’ but they don’t really think about, well, what is my message? What am I trying to get across with my brand? They don’t want to just be told, buy my product. If you can make someone feel something, if you can make them relate to what you’re doing, that’s more important than any piece of gear.”
Andrew Kan, TubeBuddy

Here is some of the basic gear (outside of your phone) you may want to consider if you are going to create high-quality YouTube videos:

1. Microphone

Whether for your mobile device, input directly into your camera, or even a digital recorder, a microphone will improve the overall quality of you your video. A decent mic doesn’t have to be expensive, but it is well worth it.

2. Screen recorder and video editor

When you choose screen recording software, pick a tool with built-in recording, editing, and sharing features. It will save you time and let you do all of your work in one tool.

Recording your screen is a great way to make a YouTube video without a camera. At TechSmith, we think Camtasia is the perfect video editing software for beginners.

If you want to learn more about Camtasia and it’s simple video editing functionality, check out this quick video from Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators.

3. Lighting

If you’re recording camera video or even a webcam, video lighting will make a big difference in how you look, and the overall quality.

Lights will even improve the look of mobile device videos and can be a great investment. You don’t have to pay a lot of money for lights when starting. Since lighting is a mixture of science and art, a basic set will help you create a professional-looking video.

4. Camera or webcam

Cameras can be large investments, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

While DSLRs or other high-end cameras can drastically improve the look of your video, they also add a ton of settings and options that need to be managed, increasing the complexity of shooting your video.

An external webcam is a relatively inexpensive option to improve your video quality. Most built-in webcams are pretty low quality when compared to their external counterparts.

Step 5. Learn the first YouTube video you should make

There are all kinds of videos that people create on YouTube. The best video you can start with is an instructional video.

According to a recent TechSmith study, 53% of people reported watching two or more instructional videos per week (up 152% compared to 2013).

A simple tutorial or how-to video is a great way to get your feet wet.

A tutorial video simply answers a question someone asked. It could be How to Freeze Panes in Exel or How to Change Your Oil. Either way, you’re simply sharing your expert knowledge with others.

These types of videos are all over YouTube, and with good reason.

According to a Pew research study that surveyed over 4,500 Americans in 2018, 87 percent of users said that YouTube is important for helping them figure out how to do things they haven’t done before.

That means you have a great opportunity to take create helpful and valuable instructional videos for your audience.

Do you have dog training tips to share? Gather a list of all the questions a dog owner might have and create a series of how-to videos to give them answers.

If you are an expert in Photoshop and want to help others get better, a tutorial video or training video would be a great place to start.

And if you’re a business or entrepreneur, there’s no better place to start than a product demo video or explainer video.

These videos will help your potential customers see exactly what your product or service does without having to read a ton of material.

People look for video help every day. Learning and educational content alone drives over a billion views a day on YouTube.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to make a high-quality YouTube video using screen recorded content, just like this one from TubeBuddy:

Step 6. Set up your video recording

Now that you know your audience, have you topics planned out, and know what video to make it’s time to get started making your video.

Write a script or outline

A script may seem pretty formal, but it’s a great tool to help you stay focused. Plan out the visuals (shots, angles, graphics, etc.) that go along with each line of dialogue.

If you already have a blog post for a topic, I’d suggest you write a script based off of the original post. It doesn’t have to be elaborate.

If a script seems like overkill, a simple outline will help you talk through your points, and is better than hitting record without a plan.

Clean up your desk (and desktop)

One of the top mistakes to avoid when you record yourself is to have too much clutter, both on and off the screen.

If you’re shooting a video at your desk, business, or home you want your environment to be clean and presentable.

Next, you’ll need to adjust your camera or webcam, and video lighting (if you have them). Use an external webcam mounted behind your laptop, or—even better—turn a DSLR camera into your webcam for superior video quality.

Here’s everything you need to know about setting up your workspace for a perfect video:

Clean up your mess

Position yourself in front of a solid color wall or hang a sheet behind you so your viewers aren’t distracted by a busy background.

If your video includes a screen capture or screen recording, clutter on your computer screen is just as distracting. And there’s nothing worse than having to fumble through unnecessary apps and programs to get what you actually want to show in your video.

Make sure to close any unnecessary programs and windows before you record.

Avoid recording in front of windows

If you record near a window, avoid recording in front of it. Position yourself next to the window or facing the window. This way, you won’t be washed out or become a silhouette. Pro tip: this is also a great way to enhance your lighting, though be careful, as it can be hard to control the amount of light.

Position your camera correctly

Tilt your webcam or camera so that it’s at eye level and your viewers don’t have to look up at you. Stick to the Rule of Thirds or position yourself in the center of the frame.

Step 7. Record your desktop

Pick your favorite screen recorder and walk through your script as you record your desktop.

Here at TechSmith, we use Camtasia for a lot of our YouTube videos.

It’s perfect for anyone who needs to make instructional videos on YouTube and we have a ton of help videos to get you started.

Your recording can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. You can record webcam to give it some personality, create an intro, add music, or simply hit record and share it out.

1. Record your screen

To start a recording, click the Record button at the top of the tools panel. This opens the Camtasia recorder, which by default, is set to capture everything that happens on your screen.

2. Customize your settings

First, you’ll want to choose to record the full screen or select a custom region to record.

Next, choose other inputs to record along with the screen. Options include webcam, microphone audio, and system audio. Select the down arrow or double arrows next to each to choose a specific microphone or webcam.

Finally, click ‘Start Recording’ to begin.

3. Finish Recording

Windows

When you’re finished recording, click the Camtasia recorder icon in the taskbar, then the stop button. If you need to re-record, choose ‘delete’ to start over.

Quick Tip: Press “F10” to stop a recording, or “F9” to pause/resume a recording.

Mac

To finish the recording, click the Camtasia icon in the Apple menu bar, then click “Stop Recording.” Or, if you need to re-record, choose “Start Over.”

Quick Tip: Press “CMD+OPTION+2” to stop a recording, or “CMD+SHIFT+2” to pause/resume a recording.

Step 8. Edit your video

Editing your video can be the most fun and most time-consuming part of the creation process. And for a beginner, it can definitely be the most overwhelming.

Here a few simple edits you can use to get started:

1. Trim mistakes

Often we record a little extra at the beginning and end of a recording. To remove the extra content, drag the end of the clip “in.” This is called trimming. If you trim too much, drag the video clip back to restore your video.

It’s good to note that any edits you make on the timeline, won’t affect your original recording in the media bin.

2. Use cuts

Drag the red or green handle on the playhead to select the area to remove, then click the cut button to remove the section. A stitched line appears, showing you where the cut was made.

If you make a selection and want to bring the playhead back together, double click the playhead.

3. Add titles, transitions, annotations, and more

Add a level of polish and professionalism to your videos with eye-catching titles, annotations, effects and more. Click and drag them from the tools panel to the timeline or canvas.

Video editing tips

There are endless resources across the web that can show you the intricate details of video editing. But there are a few video editing tips you’ll need to make a high-quality video without overcomplicating it.

Let’s go over some other common enhancements that can really make your video stand out.

Add a simple intro

A video intro leads your viewers into your content. Keep your intro simple and to the point. Viewers want to get to the meat of your content. They don’t care about anything other than what you promised to teach them.

An intro can be used throughout all the videos on your YouTube channel, a playlist, or just a single video.

Create lower-thirds

A lower-third (also called a chyron) is placed on the lower third portion (usually to the right or left) of the screen and is a simple way to provide your audience with information. Usually, they display a name, place, or other useful information.

They shouldn’t cover up your visual and are meant to be complementary to your primary subject.

Add music

Finally, you’ll want to add music to your video. It will probably take you more time to choose the music you want to use than it will to actually add it to your video.

For most purposes, your best bet is to use music from a premium royalty-free music site. While the music won’t be free, it’s typically inexpensive, and you’ll have a wider range of high-quality music to choose from.

Premium Beat is a popular choice, but there are many other premium royalty-free music sites out there, as well. If you use Camtasia to create your videos, you can access free and premium music tracks from TechSmith Assets.

Focus on good audio

Poor audio can sink your video. In the beginning, editors often have their music track overpowering their other tracks. Make sure the music blends in with your voice over or sits just below the voice. Pay special attention to your final edit by focusing on the sound.

Close your eyes and just listen to your video. If it sounds off, you should adjust it, regardless of how amazing your footage or screen content is.

“My editing style has always been to keep our content as concise as possible. I want people to get what they need from my videos as fast as possible. And to keep our videos on brand, we always use the same font, brand colors, and tone of music – which creates consistency and familiarity.”
Sunny Lenarduzzi, Founder of YouTube for Bosses

Create a compelling outro

A YouTube outro is where you can add specific calls to action to your video. This can also be referred to as the end screen, and it is the last part of your video.

There are four different content types available for use in your end screens on YouTube, called elements. These four elements are:

Video or playlist: This allows you to link to a different individual video or a YouTube playlist of multiple videos.

Subscribe: This allows you to link to your own channel where a viewer can click to subscribe.

Channel: This allows you to link to a different YouTube channel.

Link to approved website: This allows you to link to a website outside of YouTube.

Step 9. Upload your video to YouTube

Uploading to YouTube is simple. If you use Camtasia to create your YouTube video you’ll have the option to share directly to YouTube from within the product. You’ll simply have to log into YouTube and connect your YouTube account to Camtasia.

Or you can upload videos with the YouTube platform.

Step 10. Optimize your video for YouTube

As you start making your video there are few key areas you’ll want to focus in on to make sure your video performs well in YouTube. By being strategic while you make your video you’ll give yourself a better shot at ranking on YouTube.

Video Production Optimization

Target keywords that list videos on Google 

Have you noticed more videos popping up in your search results?

Google processes 3.5 billion searches per day, and many how-to based searches now include YouTube videos directly in the Google search engine result.

These online videos show up for all sorts of searches. Simply type in “how to fix my fridge” or “how to change spark plugs” and Google will give you the top YouTube videos based on your search.

Make longer videos

Longer videos generally rank higher than shorter ones.

Backlinko analyzed 1.3 Million YouTube Videos and found that the average length of a video on the first page of YouTube is 14 minutes, 50 seconds.

YouTube will push longer videos higher in search results.

This has to do with two key ranking factors: Total Watch Time and Total Session Time.

Essentially YouTube will push videos higher in the ranking if they provide value and keep people on the site as long as possible.

So as you plan your videos, think about how you can expand them. And rather than just adding filler content, think about how you can dive deeper into your topic to create an even more useful video.

Make sure your keyword is spoken in your video

YouTube transcribes your content, so try and say your main keyword 1-2 times in the script.

Make a unique introduction

Retention is everything on  YouTube. Incentivize users to  watch as long as possible in  your first 10 seconds. Tease out what you’re going to talk about and give them a reason to stay and watch your video.

Tell users to…

Comment, like, subscribe, and visit your site at the end of the video. If you don’t tell them to do it, they probably never will. And if you are creating supportive, helpful content they will be more likely to interact with your YouTube channel.

Screenshot via AmyTV

YouTube Ranking Optimization

Now that you’ve created an optimized video, it’s time to optimize within the YouTube platform. You don’t want to overcomplicate this. It isn’t about stuffing keywords into places and trying to trick YouTube into ranking your video.

You want to be strategic in what you do, and above all else, provide value to your audience.

Title, description, and thumbnail

Get the keyword in the title and description, preferably at the front, but don’t forget to make it compelling and click-worthy. It’s less about trying to stuff keywords in and more about letting viewers know that your video will help solve what they are looking for.

Pro tip: Be honest in your title and description. People stop watching videos that don’t deliver on their promises.

According to YouTube, 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube use a custom thumbnail. Try to make your YouTube thumbnail interesting and different than everything else in the search results.

Make your video worthy of a click.

Leverage your current audience to build video velocity

The first 48 hours your video goes live are critical. This is where leveraging your current audience plays a big part.

You can create a stronger buzz and your views begin to climb through your existing base. Owen Video likes to create video velocity by acquiring views before a video is public and rewarding his followers with exclusive content.

As a result, YouTube sees the video as more valuable and it becomes more likely to appear high in the search results.

Here is one of Owen Video’s most successful strategies for YouTube video promotion. Mirroring his strategy with your own videos will help you improve their performance early on:

Owen Video’s video promotion strategy example:

The first day he publishes a video, he leaves it unlisted (the video can’t be searched or found by the public without a link).

The link to the unlisted video is distributed on social media channels.

The link to the unlisted video is emailed to applicable mailing lists.

The audience gets early access to a new piece of content and feels rewarded for maintaining a relationship with Owen Video.

Then he makes the video public. When the video goes live, there are already views which help build traction for the video.

This is video velocity, and essentially, you’re getting a head start on YouTube.

“So what happens is, you create velocity with your video…people are watching it before it’s even public, yet. Having that distribution, or pre-promotion plan is going to set [you] apart from your competitors who are just figuring this stuff out.” – Owen Video

What’s next?

We’ve covered a lot in this guide. And whether you’re just getting started, or you’re a video veteran, you’ve learned some of the key tools and strategies to create successful YouTube videos.

Camtasia is built for anyone who needs to make any kind of instructional video. We offer a ton of helpful tutorials to get you started. And, for the record, we make 100% of our tutorials and other screencasts using Camtasia.

Frequently asked questions

How do you make your own videos on YouTube?

Too many people worry about getting things perfect from the beginning. Start by getting a simple video editor like Camtasia and just try making a few videos on topics you’re an expert on.

If you know a lot about a particular product or service, try putting together a quick tutorial. There is no shortage of people searching for help across YouTube, and you could be their answer.

What should I make a YouTube video about?

There are tons of ways to find YouTube video ideas that your audience is searching for. Three of my favorites are YouTube searches, comments sections, and communities.

Which type of YouTube video is most watched?

There are all kinds of videos that people create on YouTube.

Over half of the most common types of videos that marketers are investing in are a type of instructional video. That gives you a lot of good videos to start with.

What do you YouTubers use to edit their videos?

YouTubers use all sorts of different programs to edit their videos, but at TechSmith, we think Camtasia is the perfect video editing software for beginners.

If you want to learn more about Camtasia and it’s simple video editing functionality, check out this quick video from Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators

How to make a YouTube video without a camera?

Recording your screen is a great way to make a YouTube video without a camera.

When you choose screen recording software, pick a tool with built-in recording, editing, and sharing features. It will save you time and let you do all of your work in one tool.

What equipment do you need for YouTube?

It can be easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you don’t have the right tools to create your video. Start with your phone or screen recorder and a simple video editor. Then move to professional gear.

Inami How To

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Top Digital Marketing Trends

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It’s crystal ball time! That time of the year where we look ahead into 2020 and see what we think will be the big digital marketing trends.

Content trends

Greater emphasis on visuals

Visual storytelling

Purposeful content

SEO trends

Voice search

Semantic search

Diversifying content

Using structured data

Visual search

Search engine diversification

AR & VR marketing (again)

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A glimpse into the future

Bloggers: How To Really Promote Your Blog On Instagram (Video)

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Let's fast forward to 2020

Bloggers, and businesses: Why should you even concern yourself with Instagram?

I have an Instagram profile but I don't have an audience

13 smart ways to use Instagram to promote your blog and content

1. Introduce yourself (Add a Bio)

2. Post quality and highly relevant content

3. Screen-capture your latest blog post

4. Follow other bloggers and engage with their content

5. Share behind the scenes stuff

6. Get all themed up

7. You've got 60 seconds...

8. What's your story?

9. Let them know what's coming!

10. Be consistent

11. Over-deliver on the value 'thing', give, give, give!!!

12. Use Instagram Ads to drive traffic to your blog, or blog post

It's a wrap!

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