I spoke on seasonal trends and how they affect SEO and hence content marketing strategy at Pubcon last year.

While preparing my deck, I decided to create a list of resources here to make it easier for Pubcon visitors to get a neat overview of everything they need to get this content strategy in action.

This may turn out to be a useful reading for this blog visitors too, so everyone wins!

If you want to receive my full presentation:

Now, let’s start with some quick takeaways:

Why use trends and seasonality in content marketing?

Timing is everything: Giving people what they need at exactly the moment they need it is probably the most effective way to get that visitor convert into a customer. It’s also a great way to get that visitor share your content with their friends and thus bring more future customers to your site.

• The NSW Parks and Wildlife service Wild About Whale content marketing campaign launched in time for school holidays was able to turn the struggling business around and increased a 10% increase in visitors in the first year of the campaign
• Hulu.com launched their advertising campaign right before the launch of the Super Bowl, and the site’s traffic increased by about 50%.
• A timely hashtag marketing campaign resulted in Vodafone’s sales increasing 27% compared to previous year.
• Whenever we publish a link magnet targeting a fun holiday, the number of views easily reaches thousands without as much effort as we usually put into promotion on a regular day:

Types of trends: Predictable (annual) trends

These are the trends that you can foresee by doing some basic research. The good thing about these trends is that you can plan your content marketing campaigns one year in advance to target these trends better.

• Time-based (winter=flu season, ski season, etc.). These are pretty obvious and you don’t even have to be long in the industry to guess them. Simply use your common sense! Here’s a good example of season-based timely content: Keep an eye on the publication date for this one. The idea is, people plan their winter vacation in mid-open, so that’s where you catch the wave!
• Holiday-based. These are holidays you’ll easily find in an online calendar:
  • Official or well-known holidays.
    • Worldwide
    • Country- / city-specific. Depending on how local your business is, you can target these events as close to you as you, for example this could be your town day.
  • Unofficial / professional holidays (TaxDay, SysAdmin Day, etc.)
  • Weird / funny / special days (National Cat Day, National Hotdog Day, etc.). Try DaysoftheYear.com to find those.
• Event-based (conferences, festivals) => Industry monitoring. Here’s a good example of an event-based linkbait
  • One-time
  • Recurring

How to integrate predictable trends into your yearly editorial calendar

Planning content for the whole year is overwhelming: You are likely to have too much to think about.

Get a bird’s eye view of your upcoming year content marketing plans: Creating an editorial road map is a good first step and you’ll be able to reuse it next year for the most part too.

>>>You can easily make yourself a copy of this template here.

• Content Assets: infographics, pdf whitepapers or ebooks, etc.
• Articles: Any text content (expert interviews with influencers, indepth guides, etc.)
• “Promo support“: Content you’ll need to create to support a sale, giveaway, etc. These could be newsletter content or content for social media updates
• “Campaigns“: Content you’ll need to create for large-scale social media marketing campaigns (etc. content for a social media contest announcement and rules, road map for a Facebook quiz, etc.)
  

Label seasonal content ideas when doing keyword research

Identify which trends are of most importance using keyword research. I use a spreadsheet to organize my content ideas when I am into my keyword research routine. In the spreadsheet I note:

• Main keyword, i.e. the topic of my content asset
  • Secondary keyword: These will go into the same article as the main one but will probably be a subheading / subsection
• Search volume
• Probable search intent for the query (This will help to determine how to better funnel those readers into customer or subscribers)
• Whether I need to create new content for it or better tweak / optimize the existing one
• Type of content that would fit best (e.g. an infographic, section, blog post, a new section in the frequently asked category, glossary item, etc.)
• Whether it’s a seasonal term

This process helps me plan my content more efficiently (i.e. I can expand my editorial road map with these ideas as they come)

When to publish content to catch the annual trend?

It may depend… In many cases Google Trends will be able to help: The tool will show you exactly when the interest started growing previously, so you can predict when to publish your content:

Looking at the screenshot above you can tell with some level of certainty that the interest in Christmas starts picking up at about late October. This is where you can start preparing for the trend. Your preparation period may include content brainstorming, content research, outreach strategy outline and more. You can also start posting on social media hinting that something big is coming to spur some more interest and collect more subscribers.

Depending on how many pieces you plan to publish to benefit from Christmas trend, you may start publishing your content end of November – beginning of December:

Finally, the pick is around December 11-17: This is where you publish your cornerstone piece, start actively reaching out to influencers on social media to help you promote it and invest in social media ads.

So as an example, here’s how a Christmas-themed content marketing plan may look like:

• You own a playground equipment business, so your target audience is school teachers, camp owners, etc. Moreover, your other important target audience is parents because they can influencer your future customers. On top of that blogging parents are your “linking” and “sharing” audience too. Because content marketing is mostly about influencing the influencer, you decide that your Christmas content asset will target your  secondary audience, i.e. parents.
• With that in mind, when planning your editorial road map, you discover that that “Christmas safety” is one topic not many parenting blogs cover, yet there’s a huge potential: It’s more or less easy to rank for and it’s something no parent will want to miss, so it will obviously attract shares and backlinks.
• When thinking this over, you brainstorm that if you get a lot of blogging parents on board, it will be easier for you to get your content spread through those participating influencers, so you decide to put together an expert roundup with influential parenting bloggers who would each share their quick Christmas safety tip
• At around mid-end of November you start reaching out to those bloggers to invite them to contribute. You don’t want to reach out too early (or else they will lose interest to the piece by the time it is published) and you cannot reach out too late because you want to be polite and give them enough time to write up their tips
• By the beginning of December you’ve collected all the tips and decided on the format (in collaboration with your design team) to make it a beautiful piece with nice highlights, tweetable quotes and featured contributors sections. So you work on putting everything together until about December 1-5 and finally publish the piece at the beginning of December
  • Quick note: People start putting up Christmas trees on December 1, so technically you are good to publish it at the very beginning of December. For other topics (like Christmas recipes) you may want to catch the later trend. As you can see, timing may also vary a bit from topic to topic but it still falls into the major trend dates.

Reach out to those participating bloggers asking them to spread a word:

In other cases, you’ll need content right when it happens but you still need to lock the preparation and promotion timeframe in your calendar. For example, if you cover fun holidays, you are most likely to need that content on the actual day of the holiday.

If you use tools like Blinq, make sure it is added to your social media page for more exposure.

Putting everything together in your editorial calendar

If you plan more than 5 articles ahead, you’ll need an editorial calendar. If you work with writers, editors, designers and social media marketers – all working on one bog of yours or your clients, you must have an editorial calendar.

I never start with editorial calendar (because it’s just overwhelming). Instead, I start with editorial road map, expend it with keyword research and only then put together a calendar. Otherwise, I’ll be overwhelmed.

Coschedule is a great option. Don’t forget that just dropping the planned publication date will not do it. You need to put all the dates into your calendar:

• Date when you start brainstorming and researching the topic in more detail
• Date when you start reaching out to contributing influencers or subject matter experts (Even if it’s not an expert roundup, you may still want to get some quotes into your piece for more credibility and later more promotion help)
• Date when you edit, design and beautify
• Date when you publish
• Dates when promotion goes on

For bigger companies, this process needs to become part of the overall project management routine, as many teams (like sales, web design, etc.) can provide a lot of insight into trending topics and how to best cover them.

Further reading: How To Productively Monitor Trends & Write Newsworthy Content

I’d love to hear more on the topic: Do you use seasonal trends in your content marketing? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Sav

Visual marketing is an important part of just about any marketing strategy. Images get shared more, help your social media updates stand out and allow you to make your messaging more powerful.

But what’s more important, they help you boost cross-channel brand visibility if you are doing a good job reminding people of your brand by using your name or logo everywhere.

This is where watermaking your images and PDFs come in handy.

I was looking for some basic tools that would place a cute watermark on any images I want and I can tell you, finding a really useful and usable tool was not easy.

Anyway, I figured that some of my readers might be interested in that too – so I am sharing my tips here: some free useful watermarking utilities to identify and brand your images and PDF files:

Watermarking PDF files

Most PDF editors and converters are paid, I was really happy to discover one which is free, feature-rich and bug-free: Watermarkly

The process of adding an image watermark is quick and easy:

• Point the tool to the .pdf document you want to watermark;
• Point the tool to the image that will serve as a watermark;
• Customize the watermark settings
• Save the watermarked copy and you are done!

No registration is required. You can upload PDFs from your computer, Google Drive or Dropbox. You can choose to upload an image or simply use your brand name.

Watermarking Images (Free): Free Online Watermark

An online tool is only good unless you need it daily. When it comes to online watermarking tools, you won’t b able to find anything fancy but there’s no excuse for not checking one: they are all free and require no registration.

Let’s see how it works by trying one of them: Watermark.ws

• Select up your images (either from your computer or from Facebook, Flickr or Picasa) and choose the watermark properties (text or image);
• Click “Next step” and either download the watermarked image back to your computer or save the watermarked copy to your web album

If you need a more advanced solution, consider Photo Marks. It’s a downloadable app, but it is not free. It supports bulk watermarking of all sorts of files. It even has an iPhone app for you to watermark your smartphone collection:

Using watermarks on your images and PDFs is a straightforward yet powerful way to enhance your brand’s presence across many channels. Whichever tool you use, the key is to consistently brand your visual content. By doing so, you not only protect your work but also create a cohesive and memorable brand experience for your audience.

People seem to never grow tired of “20+ Weird Something” (I myself am guilty of regularly sharing these types of content with friends via IM and social media). So why not try them if they work and entertain people (looks like a win-win to me)?

As I’ve been playing with them for a while, I decided to go ahead and share my sources of link bait inspiration (in a hope you’ll share yours in return).

1. Google Search

Good old Google search is quite understandably my first source of inspiration. Here’s one trick I’d like to share that always works: Google wildcard search. Just insert * anywhere in-between your topical search phrase and you’ll get plenty of suggested term variations right within SERPs:

• [amazing * swimming pools] for more ideas on swimming pool designs;
• [“what kind * are you”] for more viral quiz ideas;
• [weird *] just for something bizarre.

Quick tips:

• Use usual “viral list” cliches to get more ideas (amazing * word, awesome * word, weird * word, bizarre * word, etc). Note: in case Google decides to drop the word as being “descriptive and unimportant” be sure to place plus sign (+) before it to force Google to include it;
• StumbleUpon addon installed with search integration activated helps much to quickly make judgments as to how popular each article might be (see the stars indicator in the screenshot above)

2. Google Images

I use Google images more and more lately. Most importantly, it allows great visualization: you almost always can predict which type of content each listing represents: an ecommerce shop, “viral” blog post or any other. Thus, you only click through if it looks like something worth attention (=saves time a lot) Look:

Besides, Google images search seems much more straightforward than general search: those images that are linked to, contain search terms in alt text and file path are usually ranked higher. So first pages will contain plenty of images from viral pieces like you do (other types of content seldom put so much emphasis on images).

3. Reddit Search

We’ve been heavily into Reddit marketing for more than 10 years now. We plan it for brainstorming topics for our link magnets to ensure they do well on Reddit.

 There’s no good native search functionality on Reddit, so I usually start my research searching Reddit on Google:

4. Flickr Groups

Flickr is still an awesome source of inspiration. Another useful tip that always turn effective for me is browsing through Flickr groups that unite photos on one particular topic.

While I didn’t have much luck finding really cool Flickr groups through its built-in Groups search option, I came up with an alternative way:

1. Search all images using your base term (and probably using one of the tools mentioned above);
2. Look which “pools” most popular / commented / favorited images belong to. Chances are, you will find many quality relevant Flickr groups this way:

Searching Instagram and TikTok locations can also be very inspirational.

Generative AI

I wasn’t really successful in using ChatGPT or similar tools to find REALLY cool ideas. It can give you new angles to explore. But not really something that really inspires.

There are definitely use cases for using AI for inspiration and creativity. For example, I am using AI all the time to find brand name ideas. I am always at a loss when trying to find something creative and easily brandable. For the content ideas, I am not quite there yet, and I am using old-school methods so far.

Therefore making some sort of social media editorial calendar to keep yourself accountable is a great idea.

Like with any productivity hacks, the most important thing to keep in mind here: Keep it very simple. I’ve seen editorial calendars that actually take more time to create than to implement – I think this is counter-productive.

Weekly Social Media Editorial Calendar

I keep it simple and thus insanely productive: I know exactly what I do every set day of the week and when. I am not looking at my calendar any more because it’s very easy to memorize.

Here’s a sample social media editorial calendar you can steal:

Pre-Scheduling

I schedule social media updates for a few reasons:

• This way I know my (business) social media accounts get regularly updated no matter how busy I am
• Sometimes I have so much to share within such a short period of time that posting that all at once would over-whelm my followers. So I have to spread out
• This way I won’t forget to update my followers of some important news (See the part about re-sharing the same article a few times on Twitter).

So here’s my social media scheduling calendar:

Weekly task (Sunday): Schedule some important tweets one week ahead.

(Let’s say you are promoting your content, giveaway, digital book, etc. It’s a good idea to schedule tweets mentioning it one week ahead to be sure you won’t forget)

Tools I use for weekly scheduling:

• Agorapulse for Facebook and Linkedin scheduling of business page updates*
• Set you your Beacons page to consolidate different channels into one landing page
• Manage Flitter: This tool lets you easily schedule one social media update (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin) for each day of the week to go live at your “best time” (Time when this software deems most efficient in terms of your following activity). Somehow this tool has the best interface and it makes scheduling very productive (something I’d love to say about Hootsuite but I can’t as it takes much more time to schedule updates using Hootsuite). Unlike Hootsuite, Manage Flitter is free and its free version only supports scheduling for once a day and allows to connect only one Facebook page, so I use both.

Weekly tasks (Friday)

Friday is one of the easier, more relaxed days for me. I use it to catch up with my content brainstorming dashboards to get inspired as well as check if I missed any conversations involving brand names and hashtags I am monitoring.

Tool: I use Cyfe for both (collecting content ideas and social media monitoring). I have set up several dashboards there to monitor all sorts of data (hashtags, Twitter chats, etc.)

Friday is also my day to catch up with my other social media accounts when I am not as active yet (hey, I only have 24 hours a day!)

Tip: I am using a separate bookmark folder where I store links to my *other* social media accounts to access them quickly using “Open all in Tabs” option.

Daily tasks (Mornings)

Morning is my time to read all the emails and go through my favorite communities and blogs. Both tasks give me LOTS of things to tweet (mostly) and sometimes share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Posting that all at once would be over-whelming and non-effective (most of the updates would be lost in the clutter), so I am “buffering” everything I have to say throughout the current day.

Tools:

• Buffer App is (obviously) what I use to buffer my morning reading list to Twitter (Especially through their browser integration (I am using their FireFox plugin that lets me buffer my tweets right from the “Tweet this” pop-up)
• Viral Content Bee lets me keep my Twitter active as well (and it’s my major content discovery platform too). Plus it keeps my other social media accounts (Pinterest and StumbleUpon) active as well.

There are also several AI-powered content creation tools to play with. I haven’t got around to testing those but they are supposed to be great. Text Optimizer will help you come up with effective content for your updates. The tool gives you access to popular questions on any topic:

As-it-happens tasks

There’s no way around it. That’s how social media works: There will always be tasks you’d better do immediately and better keep them in mind.

Interacting on social media is something you can’t really plan or schedule. Without instant spontaneous replies, retweets, comments and likes your social media accounts will lack the most important component: Authenticity.

Tools:

• I use Tweetdeck to be on top of Twitter interactions (here’s my detailed article on that) without feeling overwhelmed. Tweetdeck keeps me very productive.
• For other social media platforms, I use their native iPhone apps to keep up using “push notifications” (especially during lunch and coffee breaks).

Social Media Posting: Advanced Tips

Now that we hopefully got a bit more organized and productive, let’s not forget about being creative! Keep these quick tips in mind to make your social media activity both varied and efficient:

Re-share the same content a few times on Twitter

Tweets have an extremely short lifetime. They are seen for just a few minutes and after that they will mostly be lost. Therefore re-sharing your (important) content on Twitter using different forms and at different time of the day makes so much sense.

Here’s a quick list of all different ways you can re-share your contest on twitter multiple times (including retweeting someone who shared it, making some use of visual tweets, tweeting quotes, etc)

Re-share your content as a photo on Facebook

Here’s one social media sharing trick: You can share anything as a photo (using “Upload photo” option versus letting Facebook generate the image thumbnail). Image updates get much more visibility in social media streams (Both social media platforms are believed to be giving photos higher rankings in the feeds). Plus these kinds of updates add variety to your feeds.

Agorapulse supports photo updates (but I don’t really like the output).

For more variety in your social media streams, try content re-packaging tactic I explained earlier. Content re-packaging is a great way to share the same content again and again while providing new content to your followers each time.

Tag people in social media updates

You can tag people on all three social media networks using:

• @username on Twitter
• @name on Facebook (You need to select the person from the drop down for the tag to work)

In all cases, the person you are getting will most likely be notified by an email (depending on his/her personal settings). These notifications work well for driving more attention to your social media updates.

Never tag irrelevant people though. I only tag people who I mentioned in the article I am sharing (or who I am quoting).

*This deck explains the process in more detail:

Monitor, Analyze, Adapt

Social media updates are only as good as their engagement: You need people to talk back to you and – more importantly – click to visit your site. Finteza is a great tool to analyze your social media traffic and identify the most effective sources:

Let’s face it, more often than not we use social media to promote our websites, so monitor your social media traffic!

It is a good idea to play with several social media engagement tools to come up with more ways to convert that traffic. Those methods include push notifications and chatbots to name a few.

Social media productivity is no longer an option: You have to find ways to get productive if you want to be on top of many things.

Have you developed any social media productivity tricks of your own? Please share them in the comments!

It is no secret that bloggers monetize. The secret is how they do it. How exactly do bloggers make money?

This article takes you on a journey through my seven-year journey to make money blogging.

By reading this post, you will discover what worked and what didn’t. You will also discover blogging monetization strategies that enable other bloggers to make money.

I bring you the benefit of my experience in hopes you can draw from my blogging tenure to make money blogging also.

My Early Attempts at Making Money Blogging

When I first started blogging in 2014, I had a motive: I would earn money as a writer to send my daughter to graduate school. If I couldn’t finance her higher-level education, at least I’d be able to contribute. 

I had just finished my own graduate-level program. I originally intended to contribute to her Physician’s Assistant Degree by working nights as a university teacher part-time. 

The professors in the MA Program raved about my writing. Upon leaving the program, I realized teaching night school at a university had no appeal. I needed a form of monetization that could keep me home with my husband. 

I had just seen the movie “Julie and Julia” which was about a blogger. I was inspired! I would start a blog. 

Believing Google would place its ads on my blog, I started blogging at Google’s blog site, Blogger.

Due to technical frustrations, I quickly switched to WordPress.com. More frustrations followed since I didn’t know what niche to hone in on.

Studying blogging in order to become a success made me realize the importance of a content niche. 

WordPress had a button called “reblog” that made it easy for bloggers to share your work. 

Between the reblog feature and promoting my content in Facebook groups, my blog took off.

However, I soon realized I would not be able to easily monetize my blog at WordPress.com. I heard of bloggers whose blogs were temporarily shut down due to monetization attempts. 

I made another move. In 2015 after being at WordPress.com for nine months, I moved my blog to WordPress.org, and I’ve been there since.

Despite my new monetization potential, my growth slowed. Bloggers no longer reblogged my articles. 

Despite my decreased subscriber growth, my income potential soared. 

It seems I had something called a “DA 48.” 

DA stands for Domain Authority. Moz, an online SEO corporation, came up with a metric to determine the quality of a blog. The DA has become the industry standard. 

I recall a time someone wrote about me in a blog post. The blogger didn’t call me by my name “Janice Wald” or even by my blog’s name. He referred to me as a DA 48.

The DA started me on the road to making money as a blogger. If you want to know your DA, you can use the Mozbar, a free tool. The SEO toolbar by Moz tells you your Domain Authority Ranking and other important metrics about your blog.

I was so new to SEO and this new “blogosphere,” I couldn’t even enjoy what hinted at being a lucrative ride.

Many content creators sent me pitches asking if they could guest post for my blog and inquired about my pricing.

Pricing? 

I was astonished. I was still so new to blogging that I was naive to the fact that blogging can be a profitable business.

People wanted to pay me to give me an article?

People wanted to pay me to save me the time it would take to research and write?

People wanted to pay me to have a chance at years of Google traffic?

At first, I accepted these posts for free and considered myself fortunate I was getting free content.

Eventually, I grudgingly accepted a pittance for a post. The compensation equaled per hour income that is way below minimum wage.

I was inundated with offers all of which I accepted happy to be getting this pittance and the articles.

I was neglecting my husband and rejecting my children even when they sorely needed me. I resented filling the offers since I knew I should be spending time with my family.

I was torn between genuinely loving all that blogging entailed and resenting the time away from my family. I wouldn’t return to WordPress.com since I still wanted the chance to give my daughter money for her graduate school.

In 2017, my husband, an entrepreneur, retired. I told him the truth: I needed help.

I love the joy of writing online and building an online community. I have no business savvy. I am a softie. I have no spine.

However, I knew my husband would be able to negotiate prices for me. Happily, he agreed and has been running my blogging business for five years. 

We just saw our accountant who told us in 2021 our blogging income was DOUBLE what it was just the year before in 2020. 

How We Make Money Blogging Today

Running our blog, MostlyBlogging.com, with my husband has been one of the highlights of my life. By using my husband to monetize, I no longer have reasons to feel guilty spending time away from him since we run the blog together.

Today, my blog’s DA is no longer a 48. At the time of this writing, our DA is 43. However, we consistently strive to boost our Domain Rating (DR), Ahrefs metric based on the number of links to your blog. Our DR is in the 60’s at the time of this writing.

Brands find me on Google. Wanting a link from a blogger with a decent Domain Authority Ranking and Domain Rating, they send us pitches which we refer to as queries (short for “inquiries”).

I send their pitches to my husband who generates the business and negotiates our prices. Once my husband and the brand representative agree on a price, my husband sends the content to me as an “order.”

We sell spots on our website for sponsored content. That is how I have found success making money blogging.

Are you wondering if this is illegal? Will Google get mad?

Not at all.

Brands have advertising budgets. Years ago, they’d advertise on billboards. Today, businesses advertise on websites.

How do bloggers make money?

It’s true that bloggers monetize in different ways. 

One question that people keep asking these days is, “Is it still worth starting a blog?”

My answer is, yes. Take your brand name very seriously though. It will define how successful your blog is going to be. Take your time going through a lot of domain name suggestions before you pick one that will be easy to remember and hence brand. Branding is key to visibility across just about any channel.

Bloggers put their posts together and sell them as ebooks.

I do this but my sales are rare. The Amazon Kindle Program takes such a large cut out of my $5.00 ebook, I am not motivated to promote my books.

Bloggers are affiliate marketers.

I tried this too. Recently, I became an affiliate marketer for the TubeBuddy Extension.

Maybe I had one sale in seven years.

Due to my lack of sales, I’m not inspired to promote my affiliate links.

If you want more information about how to make money as an affiliate without putting out any capital, you will find it here: how to start affiliate marketing with no money.

Bloggers sell courses.

I run a Blogging Academy with a business partner.

We offer a free trial. Marketing is like a funnel. A percentage don’t buy, a smaller percentage sign up for the free trial, and an even smaller number pay for our courses.

Bloggers freelance

It’s true that I make money as a freelance writer. 

I heard freelancing is lucrative, and it’s true that it pays well. Freelance writing is one of the best day jobs for writers.

You might ask where brands find me. They tell me they find me on Google. 

That’s why search engine optimization is so critical. You will be found on Google if you monetize correctly. Here are SEO marketing strategies you can follow that work for us.

Wrapping Up

By reading this post, you learned about my personal blogging journey toward monetization. You also discovered how bloggers make money. Last, you found out about the DA and DR, important metrics that might make your blog profitable.

For more monetization and SEO tips, follow me over to MostlyBlogging.com.

There is one cool joke that the worst nightmare of a web hacker is that he suddenly forgets all his passwords. Password fatigue (or password chaos or identity chaos) is the feeling experienced by many people who are required to remember and manage a lot of passwords. And yet password statistics is really scary.

And how many passwords do you need to keep in your head? I am sure as an Internet marketer, blogger and/or active social media user you must have quite a few passwords to manage.

This post will attempt to make your life easier or at least to encourage you to take it easier…

Creating a Good Password

These are plenty naturally. Most will just generate a random combination of letters and numbers which will be impossible to remember. Others are more fun, they generate passwords based on some criteria you specify.

This online strong password generator will create a password for you in seconds, with a single click of a mouse. If you don’t have a built-in password generator, bookmark this one.

Facts: How Good Is Your Password?

1. This table shows the approximate amount of time required for a computer or a cluster of computers to guess various passwords. The figures shown are approximate and are the maximum time required to guess any password.

a 7-character password can be cracked in just two seconds, even when numbers, upper case letters, and lower case letters are utilized:

2. The following infographic visualizes the “breakability” of some of the popular passwords based on their strength – it might appear a little funny but lot of people are actually using those simple passwords (via):

3. There are also a few tools that help you measure the “strength” of your password: here’s one of them called Password Meter that checks how strong your password is based on the combination of the following criteria:

• Number of characters;
• Number of uppercase letters and lowercase letters;
• Numbers and symbols;
• Repeat characters;
• Consecutive uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers;

More

Many people recommend LastPass, KeePass and Roboform for password management. Whichever you choose, make sure to diversify your passwords everywhere. Never use the sames password over and over again. As Hari Ravichandran put it,

The second is don’t use the same passwords across all your services. Try to use a password manager because, again, if you have 50 different services, now if you think about if one gets breached, now all other ones are in trouble as well. Make sure that you’re going to start segregating your risk a little bit as well.

Re-purposing or re-packaging an article means giving it another form and format based on the exiting content and research. By re-packaging, you spread your article even further. You expose it to new audiences; you allow to download it and save for further reference.

Repackaging is one of the most powerful content marketing tactics. It does require time, effort and inspiration but it pays back with more exposure, links and recognition. This post is about different ways to re-package your content to give it wings. This post means to inspire.

1. Presentations

You can turn almost any article into the PowerPoint presentation:

• Collect all the screenshots and put them into a pretty slideshow;
• Turn your list part into an appealing presentation;
• Create an easy-to-digest summary of your article (move the key points into the presentation);
• Move any statistics data or case studies you are mentioning to the presentation (to make your point clearer); etc

Tools to promote:

Helpful tips!

If you consider using SlideShare to expand your content reach, be sure to go through these tips on promoting your presentations on Slideshare. Some most useful tips include:

• Don’t forget your keywords (and put them in tags and presentation title);
• Take part in SlideShare contests (like this World’s Best Presentation Contest)
• Create a group that’s exclusive to your brand and advertise your product or services
• Integrate some sound into your presentation with Slidecasting
• Launch a channel (Check out some of the newest channels and contact SlideShare for details on how to get started.)

Example?

Back in 2008, when I was doing my very first guest post for SEJ, I got so excited that decided to find a prettier way to share my guest post with my personal blog audience. So I came up with the short but pretty (and surprisingly well-branded) presentation to embed to my blog:

2. eBooks and PDF’s

Like with presentations, you can always re-package your content into PDF’s to let users download it and view on iPad, share with friends and save locally for further reference:

• Re-organize your tips into one-page cheat sheet;
• Re-arrange your article to create a mini eBook;
• Interview a few really prominent people on the topic of your post and collect the interview into an eBook;
• Collect related statistics to create a white paper.

Tools like AllMyLinks help you create one page to showcase your assets.

Best tool to promote:

I have a larger list in this post on sharing your (SEO) documents. There are also eBook sharing and reviewing sites like GetFreeEbooks you can try to use to increase exposure of your content.

Here’s also a very sweet tip on how to promote your eBook which I thoroughly enjoyed because it is very practical and genuine. Here’s an excellent article on eBook revolution from DirJournal web directory.

With marketing automation platform like GetResponse you can also turn your how-to article into a series of emails targeting your readers who chose to download the PDF guide.

Example?

I have mentioned this in my 3-R post, but I decided to include it here just because I really enjoyed the execution. Allison Boyer re-crafted her The 12 Days of Blogging 2010 series into an appealing eBook: each page of the eBook is dedicated to one prominent blogger with the citation from his article and Allison’s comment below it.

3. Cheatsheets

If you want to give your content some huge exposure, consider creating a useful cheat sheet or a quick-reference guide – that always results in insane popularity because people love sharing and printing out cheat sheets that offer an easy way to remember and use complex guidelines.

Tools to promote:

Note: Cheat sheets are very easy to promote via blogger outreach. Most bloggers (including myself) love sharing and creating round-ups of relevant and useful reference guides – so just take some time looking for such bloggers in your niche.

Example?

Ian Lurie did an awesome guest post at Moz and then followed up with this equally awesome Google Analytics Cheatsheet containing both basic and advanced tips on setting up the proper tracking. Obviously, he now owns Google SERPs for [Google Analytics Cheatsheet] term and also enjoys plenty of backlinks naturally flowing in (including mine):

4. Screencasts

If you (like myself) tend to shy away from creating a screencast, let me tell you that today it seems to be as easy as making a screenshot:

• Here’s one fun free tool I shared previously that makes screencasting fun.
• You can convert your PowerPoint presentation into a video as well!

By creating a screencast showing what you are explaining in the post you will cater for “visual learning” part of your audience. Besides, you’ll be able to increase your content exposure to highly popular online video sharing websites.

Tools to promote?Video sharing websites are plenty. Of course, I suggest focusing your efforts to max 5: you will get extra exposure only if you develop and promote your profiles at the selected video sharing websites (instead of trying to distribute your video to hundreds of them). Video social media websites work like any social networks: you need to commit to get noticed there!

5. Infographics (and Other Image Content)

If you take time creating some pretty charts, venn diagrams or other types of infographics, be sure to promote those separately.

Here are some free tools to help you quickly create useful infographic.

But not only infographics are worth sharing. If you have created a good collection of screenshots, for example, share and promote your collection as well!

Best tool to promote?

There are many cool ways to promote an infographic. Also learn how I promoted my infographic here. Don’t forget to use best image SEO practices to generate extra organic visibility from Google image search and Google’s image carousels.

Example?

When I was launching MyBlogGuest, it struck me that not all people actually were familiar with the concept of guest blogging, so I created a short intro to explain what it was all about and one of our members did a great job visualizing the concept through infographic (which became a powerful independent piece of content).

Do you re-package your content? I’d love to know your tips and favorite tools!

cc licensed flickr photo shared by balanced.crafts

There are always those little but important things you need to do but never have time / motivation / memory to. For me, that’s my “About me” page. I set up my blog back in 2008-ish and my About page has been almost intact since then.

Yet, that’s not even a little thing… I talk so much about personal branding and I haven’t even done the essentials for myself: Taking care there’s one place on the web that has most complete information on myself.

Structure your “About” page properly

Some of the better About pages I have seen identify what the person or business offers, their expertise, how they can assist the public, and plenty of quality links re-enforcing what they have already said. Keeping the profile professional, showing a little personality, without overselling the product or service are the pages that catch my eye as a consumer.

Structure:

• A quick and to the point Tagline,
• An Introduction that outlines everything you want consumers to know about you or your biz,
• A fully completed Links section with good examples in each of the 3 categories of your own work to show your expertise.

Get inspired by examples:

Include unique proven entities

1. List all your official social media channels on this page
2. Link to your columns, profiles, books, and courses
3. Use Person schema to show Google who you are and what you do

Tell your story

Tell your story on your about page. People that click on it want to learn more about the person or company behind the brand. A story is an entertaining way to let people get to know who you are and studies have also shown that stories improve reader engagement.

Your story should include both some personal details that will enable people to connect with you and facts about your life or company that will boost credibility and make them want to learn or buy from you. Break your story into easy to follow sections and include supporting pictures and images.

Focus on your strong points but be truthful

Sharing your company values is all well and good, but if you’re not explaining why you have those values, the words don’t mean quite so much. If you want people to believe that you’re an authority in your field, you have to let them know how you became one.

Focus on your strong points – what are you known for? Customer service, attention to detail, innovative design…whatever it is, spend some time emphasizing it on your About page.

Be truthful.

Don’t say you’re the best at anything unless it’s true. If you exaggerate, the integrity and authority of your entire company will be called into question.

Don’t forget to include your call-to-action

I see an about page as an opportunity to tell your story, assert your authority and build your list at the same time.

For me, an about page has to tell people several things:

• Who you are
• Why people should listen to you (your background)
• Who is talking about you (for example, publications where you have been featured)
• Trusted by (if you write for top tier publications in your industry, include them)

You can then incorporate an opt-in form to capture email addresses – be specific about how signing up can benefit your audience.

Then add a dash of personality (and humor if that’s your thing) to show you’re real.

Add testimonials and “Featured in” section

I believe having an “About me” or “About US” page is necessary not only because Google wants to see the author behind the content but because when users get attracted by the content, one of the first thing they search for is the author information.

If you have a powerful About Me page chances are you will be able to convert and convince more potential leads in to customers. Here are the 5 things that I believe an Ideal About Me page should contain

Expertise and Experience

It is better to include your work samples and link to some giant industry blogs where you got featured.

Get inspired by examples:

Word from Experts

If you ever get a word from the expert within your industry, including that can amazingly increase your conversation rate from your About Me page. When people see words from the people they trust, they tend to trust you too.

Example: MailChimp does that on their About me Page quite beautifully.

Social Channels

When the users are reading more about you on your About US page, this is probably the most targeted time show them where they can find you online or how they can talk to you in person.

Visualize!

Images are worth thousands of words, especially when making the right first impression is so important!

If you are an active creator, consider setting up an off-site about page to link your channels and help with conversions. Beacons AI is a good option.

What am I missing? Let’s discuss!

One thing I have clearly realized while being a full-time blogger and editor is that most writers (no matter how much we love them) are terrible at formatting.

I mean, I get it.

Writing is a creative process, and things like formatting, interlinking and proofreading may keep you from letting your creativity flourish.

One workaround is hiring a VA but if you have control issues (like I do) and still want to do everything on your own, here’s a free blog checklist that’s easy to follow and help you publish a perfectly formatted article each time!

A good formatting checklist should be:

• As short as possible (The longer it is, the more chances there are that none of your contributors will follow all the steps);
• As concise as possible (Avoid explaining the reason why you want it to be formatted that way. The more you explain, the less obvious your point becomes. Just list your requirements)
• As easy to understand as possible (Add a few screenshots, bold most important points, etc).

Feel free to make yourself a copy of this checklist, edit minor details (like the preferred width of images) and use it to edit your blog. It will be suitable and (hopefully) useful for.

• A single-author blog for consistency
• A (business) blog with multiple co-authors;
• A business managing multiple paid contributors;
• A business owner outsourcing content to ghost writers, etc.

Attention: This guide requires that your blog contributor has a wp-admin (Contributor) access to your blog. Otherwise, you may ask to send you the articles in HTML.

*Make a free copy of the checklist here. Read some explanations below*

Structuring Standards

We know that breaking the article into sections is very important: blog readers tend to scan through the articles jumping from a subheading to a subheading (and probably reading the sections that seem most relevant to them).

One of the most efficient ways to capture your readers’ attention is to provide catchy subheadings that would summarize your article content nicely. Ideally, the reader of the article should understand what it is about by just scanning through the subheadings which should effectively summarize the article content while still encouraging the reader to go more indepth.

Other important guidelines that (may) go in this section:

• Make your sentences and paragraphs short (that makes the whole article easier to read)
• Introduce your article effectively in the opening paragraphs and encourage a discussion in the conclusion (by asking some questions)

Adding Links

Links are always great (unless links are brutally self-serving and anchor-text-dirty). I always encourage all my authors include links to any app, business or person they are mentioning. Links are user-friendly, so in my guidelines I always prompt contributors to:

• Link to relevant articles on my blog;
• Link to others relevant articles elsewhere (as well as sources of information, apps, etc)
• Normally link words (not image files or subheadings)
• Always make sure they are using the full URL and the original “clean” link (now a shortened version, stripping all tracking parameters, etc).

Lists

Including lists is also highly appreciated. A well-formatted list is likely to draw readers’ attention and make them stay.

Sadly, contributors tend to format lists in all possible ways using -, *, or any other inappropriate symbols instead proper <ul><li> coding. Therefore it’s a good idea to remind them of proper formatting here.

Images

Another very important element of any blog post. Images will never be added unless you clearly ask for them.

Here I specify the proper style and size of the images as well as encourage authors to include a relevant, catchy and properly attributed Creative Commons image.

Here are more checklists you may find useful for blogging:

• Writing Checklist: How to Create and Use One (+Free Template)
• Mastering On-Page Optimization: Improve Your Page Rankings by Shout Digital Agency
• On-Page SEO Checklist: How to Optimize Each of Your Articles
• And here’s also a free content quality checklist based on Google’s EAT definition

FAQ: Blog Post Checklist: Check All Prior to Hitting “Publish”

What is the purpose of the blog post checklist?

The blog post checklist is designed to help bloggers and editors publish well-formatted articles consistently, without having to compromise on the creativity of the writing process.

Who can benefit from using this checklist?

The checklist can be beneficial for a range of people including single-author blogs, multi-author business blogs, business owners outsourcing content to ghost writers, and businesses managing multiple paid contributors.

What are the key components of the checklist?

The blog post checklist focuses on:

• Structuring standards (including catchy subheadings and succinct paragraphs)
• Proper linking to relevant articles and sources
• Creating well-formatted lists
• Adding appropriately styled and attributed images.

How should the article checklist be crafted?

The checklist should be as short, concise, and easy to understand as possible, with important points highlighted, possibly with the use of screenshots.

How can readers access the checklist?

Make a free copy of the checklist from the link and modify it according to their preferences and needs.

If you find the guidelines useful or have any improvements to suggest, please comment below!

We know too well that in order to succeed online we need to create great sharable and linkable content.

What many of us are missing though is that we may already have loads of great content piling up which we once created, promoted and then moved on.

That content is the huge asset we should be re-using again and again on social media and your own site.

Here are 25 ideas for you to start doing that right now (and ChatGPT prompts to make each idea a breeze!):

Content Re-Packaging Ideas

Content re-packaging is one of my favorite ways to market content and promote my website. It creates so many new opportunities and marketing channels that you find yourself constantly inspired!

*Content re-packaging means turning existing content into new formats.

1. Turn the Article into a PDF File

The easiest way to re-use an old article is to turn it into a new format. This trick works best for:

• Resource list
• How-to
• Guide

If you get into a habit of turning your guides into PDFs, you can then put together a members-only library! Using Google Docs is the easiest way to do that! Just copy-paste your idea into a new Google Doc and download it as a PDF file. Make sure to add a table of contents to make your PDF easier to navigate!

ChatGPT Prompt:

Here’s my text “PASTE YOUR ARTICLE HERE”. Generate takeaways, a FAQ section (4-6 questions with quick answers below each one) and a summary in a table format.

2. Put Together an eBook or a Whitepaper

Collect old articles you did on one topic and put together a nice whitepaper or an eBook.

Again Google Docs can help make this one an easy task. You can also create an ebook cover using Google Docs.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my text “PASTE YOUR ARTICLE HERE”. Break into more chapters to turn it into an ebook. Suggest what else should be added to make it a better ebook.

3. Create a Podcast Show

Find an old article that’s still valid and create a voiceover for it. Fliki is an AI-driven voice-over generation tool. It solves the problem of many creators who are in need of high-quality voiceovers for their videos. It also makes it incredibly easy to create an audio or video version of blog posts.

You can then publish it as a podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and more.

ChatGPT prompt:

Turn this article into a script for me to create a voiceover (to create a podcast show)

4. Turn It into a Video

Grab that voice-over, download screenshots from the article (as well as some inspirational videos using tools like these) and put together a video version of your article. Tools like Wave are perfect for that. The results are always great, and you end up with a new video within less than 30 minutes.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my video script. Please come up with a video title and description for me to upload it to Youtube.

5. Put Together an Audiobook

Find more old articles on a similar topic, record more voice-overs and (apart from creating individual podcast shows and videos) create an audio-book to promote it via your newsletter list and generate more subscribers!

ChatGPT prompt:

I have an audiobook on this topic “Paste your audiobook title and description”. Generate 10-20 tweets, Facebook messages and Instagram captions for me to promote it over a few upcoming weeks.

6. Create a Video Course

With more voice-overs you can create more videos! See if there’s an opportunity to put them together into a video course and market on sites like Udemy.

You can also enhance your cource by allowing free ebook/whitepaper downloads you created above.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my video course outline “PASTE YOUR COURSE OUTLINE”. Create quizzes for me to test my students’ knowledge once they finish it.

and

Here’s my video course outline “PASTE YOUR COURSE OUTLINE”. Create a 600-word article for me to promote it on Medium and Linkedin

7. Put Together a New eMail Course

Collect old articles you did on one topic and put together a useful email course to auto-send to your subscribers or market your list.

ChatGPT prompt:

I am going to create an email course. Here’s the outline PASTE YOUR COURSE OUTLINE”. Write a short and engaging email to send with each chapter.

8. Create an Infographic

Most of the articles can be turned into an infographic which work great for link building. Grab minimum text, numbers and stats and use easy tools to create an infographic.

ChatGPT prompt:

I’ve put together an infographic based on this content “PASTE YOUR CONTENT.” Create 500-word content promoting that infographic for me to announce it on my blog and to my email list.

9. Create a Cheatsheet

If you have an article listing shortcuts, ingredients, must-have things, etc., put those together into a quick downloadable cheatsheet and use it to promote your old article again.

ChatGPT prompt:

I’ve put together a cheatcheet based on this content “PASTE YOUR CONTENT.” Generate JSON-LD HOWTO Schema based on the steps described there

10. Create a Downloadable Checklist

For longer instructions listing steps, create a checklist.

ChatGPT prompt:

I’ve created a checklist based on this list “PASTE YOUR LIST HERE”. What is it missing?

11. Turn a Guide into a Mind Map or a Flow Chart

If you have a detailed guide with steps or an article explaining some complicated concepts, turn those into a mind map or a flow chart (or both).

ChatGPT prompt:

I’ve created a flow chat based on the process described here. Create the problem-solution type of content explaining who it can help and which problems it is solving.

12. Turn Old Interviews into Visual Quotes

Visual quotes provide great opportunities: They can be turned into new blog posts, videos, presentations and more. Plus they do great as social media updates too (especially Facebook and Pinterest). Use these tools to create awesome visual quotes.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s the quote I am going to turn into an image “PASTE YOUR QUOTE”. Generate engaging captions for me to promote it on Instagram.

13. Create a Slideshare Presentation

Slideshare can be a great traffic source of its own and Slideshare presentations are actually not hard to create. Use these tools to put your old article images, quotes and screenshots into a neat presentation to upload to Slideshare.

• To create clickable links in a presentation, use Insert -> Hyperlink option in your PowerPoint
• Links are only clickable starting from Slide #4: Don’t include calls-to-action earlier than that as viewers will be confused and won’t try clicking it again.

ChatGPT prompt:

I am about to upload my presentation to Slideshare. Create a 500-word description targeting my keyword “KEYWORD” for me to use on Slideshare.

Ideas for Round-Ups

Articles referencing a collection of curated links are referred to as “link round-ups”. While most round-ups list industry trending content, creating round-ups of old links is a great way to bring more attention to your old content!

When creating round-ups, don’t forget to:

• Write a one-two sentence description of each link
• Mention the author of each article (And maybe even create tweet-a-quote links tagging him)

14. Create a Yearly/Monthly Round-up

Round-up most popular / useful articles you published the previous year or even a month (depending on how active your editorial calendar is).

• “What we published in 2022 and our plans for 2023!”
• “Most popular March posts and April plans!”
• etc

ChatGPT prompt:

This is my expert interview on “TOPIC” “TEXT”. Generate the introduction and the conclusion to go with the article.

15. Update the Article Using an Expert Round-up

Find an old article that have gone outdated and invite experts to discuss what has changed and how to approach that topic these days

ChatGPT prompt:

I have collected these expert quotes on new trends on “TOPIC” “QUOTES”. Generate subheadings and introduction for each expert point.

16. Create “Tweetable” Tips Round-Up

Grab a 280-character-long tip from each of your blog old articles and put together “Tweetable tips” roundup letting readers tweet each tip (like here).

ChatGPT prompt:

For this list of quotes “PASTE YOUR QUOTES HERE”. Create content to lead into each article. Break the resulting content into sections. My goal is to create a useful article that flows well, so you can change the order of those quotes.

17. Create “Best Tools of XXXX Year” Roundup

Do you cover many tools when you write? Collect them all and put together a separate round-up of tools your blog featured last year.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s a list of tools I covered on my blog (with links to each article). Create a short description for each tool and break the article into sections based on the goal of each tool.

18. Create Most-Popular-Article-of-Each-Year Roundup

Grab the most popular article of each year of your blog existence and create a cool round-up. Not only will this make those articles even more popular, it will give you an opportunity to re-package this list as a pdf (see above)!

Marketing idea: This trick works best for multi-author blogs: You can give away badges to the winning authors for them to place on their sites!

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s the list of the most popular articles from my site with author names and their Twitter handles “PASTE YOUR LIST: ARTICLE TITLE + URL + @TWITTER HANDLE”. Create tweets promoting each article including author’s Twitter handle and a few relevant hashtags.

19. Create a Timeline Round-up (+Visualize!)

Create your own blog timeline: What were your favorite topics to cover and when? It’s a good opportunity to turn it into a visual timeline too!

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s the list of the most popular articles from my site. Create a summary of my popular topics and generate a conclusion for that article

20. Publish Your Lists on List.ly

Now that you have plenty of curated links, re-market them on List.ly! If you spend some time there, it can become a traffic source for your blog!

ChatGPT prompt:

I am creating a list of ITEMS. Create a short description of my list to use as an introduction.

Social Media Re-Marketing Ideas

Your social media channels are a good way to turn your followers’ attention back to your older content again, especially if you present it as a fun tradition.

21. Publicize on Social Media as “Back in Time” Column

Use this WordPress plugin that emails you every day with links to content you published on the same day years ago. Each time you get that email, tweet your old link.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my old article “TEXT”. Generate Twitter and Facebook posts for me to promote it. Make it sound like “Back in time” posts so that it is obvious I am promoting my old content.

22. Identify Most Shared Articles and Start Regularly Re-Publishing Them on Social Media

Schedule your old articles to be re-shared months ahead. DrumUp is an easy way to do that manually. This plugin is an option too!

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my old article that was once very popular “PASTE YOUR CONTENT.” How should I update it before I promote it on social media again?

Ideas for Future Content

ALL of the above activities are most likely to provide lots of new content ideas but here are two more:

23. Go Through Old Article Comments and Put Together a FAQ Section on Your Site

A “Frequently Asked Questions” section is usually a goldmine of long-tail rankings opportunities. And there’s no better place to find questions to cover there than your blog comments.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here are readers’ comments to my article “PASTE YOUR COMMENTS”. Generate a FAQ section based on these comments.

24. Find Where You Reviewed Old Tools and Find New Alternatives to Compare

Tools! In many industries, there are dozens of new tools every year: Here’s your opportunity to create new content while bringing more attention to the old content. Find articles where you mentioned or reviewed tools, find newer alternatives and create comparison articles (Don’t forget to link to your old review too!).

Tool comparisons are effective affiliate commission earners too!

Note: Use Google Suggest to find popular & trending alternatives of tools you already covered:

ChatGPT prompt:

I am creating a comparison of “TOOL vs TOOL”. Create a comparison table in various categories I should expand on.

25. Create Follow-up Content to Your Older Content

Old content is a great source of ideas for new content, so make sure you check what you previously covered before you turn to other sources of inspiration.

ChatGPT prompt:

Here’s my old content “PASTE CONTENT”. Which are possible topics to write a follow-up article?

Over to YOU

And how are YOU (re-)marketing your old content? Do you see any missed opportunities there?