Email newsletters are probably the most effective way in the universe to engage with your audience/customers. While social media is a great way to attract new visitors to your website or business, email is the way to make them stick around.

Cartoon by Tom Fishburne.

Is Email Really that Effective?

The metrics don’t lie. Email is still the best method for online marketing, even beating search. The DMA (Digital Marketing Association) conducted a survey in 2012 and found that 67% of respondents found email to be their most effective marketing tactic, delivering the highest ROI, followed by website performance and interface (52%) and paid and organic search (45%).

An article in the Harvard Business Review aptly demonstrates the value of email when comparing email campaigns to direct mail – the direct mail has a slightly higher response rate, but it costs the company a significantly higher amount to input.

So Why Does Email Work?

Email is so successful as a business tool because it goes directly to your customer – it doesn’t rely on them doing anything except clicking “open”. Email means that people don’t miss anything, because they’ve already signed up and said “I’m interested!” and now they’re receiving all the interesting things right in their inbox. They don’t have to login, visit a website, catch one of your social media updates or remember a URL – it’s right there for them to enjoy.

In contrast, a tweet remains visible for a minute or so, and Facebook now allows less than 20% of your fans to see your updates. Google updates can adversely affect your SEO, and many customers/fans aren’t interested in following a blog.

Every time you send out an email, you are reminding your clients, “Hey, I exist!” You’re landing right in the middle of their world, and if you play your email cards right, you can convert those passive fans (oh, those guys look kind of interesting) into active participants (OMG, new stuff from those guys – I must read now, and then share on my Facebook page! And then buy all the stuff!)

What should be in my email newsletter?

So you’ve decided an email newsletter is a good idea – good for you! Now comes the tricky question – how are you going to use an email newsletter? What type of content should you be sending out?

Here are a few ideas to get your started:

• You could send your blog posts as emails. This is the most basic newsletter option and a great idea if your business is primarily blog-based. You can create these emails manually or use a plugin or service to automatically generate an email every time you hit publish on your blog.
• You could create a digest. This would be a weekly or monthly roundup of new products, new content or other updates a customer might have missed if they don’t regularly visit your website.
• You could create all-new content. Many businesses use their email newsletters to provide useful, fun and timely content relating to their promotions or core customer base. This can be a great way to ensure your newsletter is sharable and engaging.
• You could promote a product. Many bloggers use their email lists predominantly to launch products, such as ebooks, courses and other info-products.
• You could invite readers to leave feedback. Use your email lists to conduct customer research via surveys and questionnaires. Offer customers a coupon code on completion of a survey to encourage participation.

Tips for Producing Newsletter Content:

• Keep it short and snappy: People are inundated with emails every day, and if your newsletter looks like it’ll take more than a few minutes to read, it will probably get deleted. Keep your content to below 500 words.
• Reuse Cornerstone Content: We’ve talked about Cornerstone Content on the blog recently – since this is content on your website, and your email newsletter isn’t published online, you can double up on content without risking your Google rankings.
• Make it Relevant: Think about your customers and their problems, and ensure your newsletter is providing some kind of solution.
• Create a Content Calendar: Write out ideas for your newsletters for the next year, focusing around the seasonal calendar for your industry. For example, if you are a retail business, make sure your Oct/Nov/Dec newsletters focus on Christmas, and if you offer B2B consulting, talking about goal-setting in the new year.

An email newsletter might just seem like one more chore that needs to be done, but in terms of ROI for time and money, email newsletters come out tops. Whatever your business model or industry, email should be a vital part of your online marketing strategy.

Do you have an email newsletter?

The post Why Your Business Needs an Email Newsletter appeared first on SEO Training.

Image from Flickr by Nerissa’s Ring

Back in Feb Joe published a fantastic blog about why cornerstone content matters – and how to create it. To summarise, cornerstone content is the foundation of your blog or website – it means creating strong content concepts on topics that will remain relevant to your readers for many years.

If you’ve followed the steps in this article, you’ll have created some excellent cornerstone content for your site – but now what do you do with it?

Highlight Your Cornerstone Content On Your Website

The first thing you should do with your cornerstone content is ensure it has a special place on your website. Why do you need to do this? Wouldn’t publishing your cornerstone content on your blog be enough?

No – and here’s why. Your blog is constantly being updated (At least, it should be. tsk tsk). If you simply publish your cornerstone content on your blog, you’ll quickly bury it under your new content, and it won’t get the attention it deserves.

Instead, focus on building features on your site to highlight and draw the reader’s attention to your cornerstone content:

• Create static pages for your cornerstone content that link from your sidebar.
• Have you noticed blogs with a page in their navigation tab labelled “Start Here” or “Free Articles”? Under this tab you’ll find their cornerstone content. Create your own introduction page, and give your readers a list of your best articles.
• Use a “Related Posts” plugin on your blog to direct readers around your site to other articles or interest – your cornerstone content should be a prominent feature.
• If it’s appropriate, link to your article from your website’s homepage.

Make Your Audience Aware

Now that you’ve placed your cornerstone content on your website, you’ve got to make your current audience aware it exists.

• Link to your new cornerstone content on Twitter and Facebook.
• Share your cornerstone content with your readers through your mailing list or newsletter. Invite them to comment and share their thoughts.
• Create a new blog post highlighting the content and your new static pages.
• Encourage your audience to share the article on their social media pages.

Expand the Reach of Your Content

Now that your current readers have read – and are excited by – your cornerstone content, it’s time to get it in front of some fresh eyeballs:

• Have you noticed another blogger asking a question on a topic relating to your content? Send them a link to your article. If they find it useful, they might consider reposting it.
• Add a link to your content in your email signature.
• If you wrote about a resource or tool, send a link to the article to the tool’s creator.
• Write guest posts on other blogs in your niche. Link to your cornerstone content in your content or bio.
• Go back through your old blog posts and place links to your cornerstone content, where appropriate to the topic. This ensures that visitors landing on your site through your older article will be able to find your cornerstone content.

Extra for Experts: Use Your Cornerstone Content as Inspiration

If you get imaginative, your cornerstone content can do more than sit on your website and attract that awesome Google juice – it can help you grow your business in other ways. Here are a few bonus ideas on how to leverage cornerstone content to improve your platform on- and off-line:

• Take a section of your cornerstone content, rewrite the content – expanding it with lots of additional detail – and add links to some other resources online (including your original cornerstone content). Voila – you now have a fresh blog post or guest post!
• Combine the info in your cornerstone content with additional information and case studies to create a free downloadable ebook.
• Use the info in your cornerstone content to create a pitch for a magazine or ezine article. Publishing articles in magazines will increase your platform and establish you as an expert in your field. As an added bonus, most magazines will even pay for your article!
• Create a short online course, webinar or seminar series based on your cornerstone content.

Creating powerful and engaging cornerstone content is only the first step – you have to make sure people notice it. Your premium content should be awarded a position of honour on your website, and you should ensure that as many people as possible read it, learn from it, and pass it on.

How are you promoting your cornerstone content? Tell us about it in the comments!

The post You’ve Created Your Cornerstone Content – Now What? appeared first on SEO Training.

There are some great examples of cornerstone content on Copyblogger’s blog: if you take a look at the right-hand sidebar, you’ll see a number of tutorials. Each of these links leads to a page that links to a number of articles on that particular topic.

Why Your Site Needs Cornerstone Content

If most of your blog posts are short updates about your company, or brief pieces aimed at bringing in SEO traffic, then cornerstone content is crucially important.

It serves two purposes:

• It attracts and impresses new readers. A post about your company’s new product may not be all that interesting or exciting to people who’ve never heard of you before … but a post that teaches them how to perform a particular task may get widely shared.
• It demonstrates your authority within your industry. Your peers, as well as your potential customers, will pay attention to your long, in-depth posts.

How to Create Great Cornerstone Content

Some business owners find the idea of creating cornerstone content a little daunting. If you normally write short blog posts (or if your blog is new, or has been neglected for a while), then you might struggle to know where to begin.

Here’s a simple four-step plan that you can use:

Step #1: Come Up With a Strong Idea

Your cornerstone content might consist of stand-alone pieces or a linked series of posts (like the Copyblogger tutorials, mentioned above).

To come up with good ideas, try:

• Considering the questions that new prospects typically ask. Could you take one of these (or several related questions) and write a blog post about them?
• Thinking back to when you were new to your industry. What questions did you have? What information did you struggle to find?
• Looking at posts on your blog that have had a good reaction – perhaps lots of comments or social media shares. Could you expand on these topics?

Step #2: Write it Well

As with any blog post you produce, your writing matters. If you’re not a confident writer, or if most of your experience of writing has been in a corporate or academic context, use these tips to help you produce a great piece of cornerstone content:

• Have a clear structure. Your introduction should get the reader’s attention, and give them a clear idea what the post is about. The main body of your post should be logically ordered and split into sections. If you’re struggling, read How to Plan and Structure Great Blog Posts, Every Time.
• Write in a fairly informal, accessible way. Try to avoid jargon, and overly complex words. For instance, “pay” is better than “remuneration”.
• Edit your post carefully, looking out for missing or badly ordered information, as well as spelling mistakes and typos. If you can, get a colleague to look over it and offer feedback.

Step #3: Format Your Post

Good formatting makes your content easy for readers to engage with. If your post consists of long paragraphs of text, it will look instantly unattractive – even if the information it contains is top-notch.

Aim to:

• Use subheadings and bullet points to make your post easy to scan. Your readers won’t necessarily read every word: they may be looking for specific pieces of information.
• Use bold text to pull out key sentences or ideas. If possible, use this consistently (e.g. for the first sentence of bullet points, as in this post).
• Add images that will enhance your writing. This might mean putting an eye-catching image at the top of your post (especially if it helps set the tone) – or adding screenshots or diagrams to help readers understand your advice or instructions.

Step #4: Add a Call to Action

Hopefully, your cornerstone content will be read by lots of readers – both those who’re familiar with your blog and those visiting for the first time. Don’t waste the opportunity to get them to take action!

At the end of your post, you can:

• Encourage readers to leave a comment. As well as potentially providing useful feedback for you, this helps build the community on your blog. It also gives the reader a greater sense of engagement with your content.
• Prompt readers to subscribe to your blog or newsletter. It might take weeks or months before a reader is ready to buy from you – but the more of your content they read, the more likely they are to become a paying customer.
• Point readers towards your products or services. Even if they’ve been visiting your blog for a while, they might not realise what you have available. Ideally, you’ll want the topic of your post to relate to the product or service that you promote at the end.

Making the Most of Your Cornerstone Content

Creating cornerstone content takes time, energy and perhaps even money – and you want to get a good return on your investment. It’s important, then, to ensure that your cornerstone content actually gets read.

Two good ways to promote your cornerstone content are to:

• Highlight it on your site, ideally in the sidebar. That way, readers can see links to your best content, whatever post they initially land on. You can simply put textual links, or you could create small banners that link to your posts, or add brief descriptions.
• Link to it from your guest posts. If you’re writing for another website, you’ll get a “bio” at the end of your post where you can link to your site. Instead of linking to your homepage or one of your products, try linking to a blog post: you’ll usually find that many more readers click through to your site, as you’re offering something immediately useful to them.

If you’ve not experimented with cornerstone content yet, make a plan today for a piece that you could create. If you’ve already written some high-quality, in-depth posts for your blog, look at ways you could polish them up even further and promote them to both new and existing readers.

Leave a comment below to let us know how you get on!

The post Why Cornerstone Content Matters – And How to Create It appeared first on SEO Training.

Image from Flickr by Photos by Mavis

You’ve started a company blog, or you’re planning to begin one soon. You’re probably feeling a little unsure what to write about … or you might be worried that your blog won’t bring the results that you want.

By considering your ideal reader, you can solve both of these problems. You’ll have a clear idea of what topics you should cover, and in what depth – and you’ll be much more likely to reach your business-related goals.

Your ideal reader is an imagined individual who represents those you want to reach through your blog. If the main goal of your blog is to boost sales, for instance, then your ideal reader will also be your ideal customer: someone with money to spend, who’s ready for the services or products that you offer.

Finding Your Ideal Reader

Your ideal reader will probably fall into one of two groups. They could be:

1. Someone who’s likely to be interested in buying from you (and in a position to do so).
2. Someone who has influence in your field – like a well-known blogger, or a journalist.

You may decide to come up with a clear image of your ideal reader for both of these, or you may choose to angle your blog primarily towards one or the other.

Example:

Let’s say your company sells premium health foods.

Your ideal reader-as-customer will probably be:

• Reasonably affluent – able and willing to spend enough to afford your products.
• Interested in health and nutrition – simply having enough money isn’t enough to make them buy.
• Willing to order products online – though you may need to be prepared to do a little work to show that your company is reputable and reliable.

Your ideal reader-as-influencer will probably be:

• Able to spread the word about your company to a wide audience – perhaps through a health-related website or magazine, or through a newspaper.
• Knowledgeable about your industry – but interested in new developments and good angles for a story.
• Potentially sceptical about “miracle diets”, “superfoods” and other over-hyped trends – they’ll want facts, not just promises, about your products.

Questions to Ask About Your Ideal Reader

As you think about your ideal reader, ask yourself these questions:

#1: How old are they?

There’s obviously a big difference in writing content for teenagers versus content for pensioners … but there’s also a difference in how you’ll approach writing for readers aged 20 – 35 instead of those aged 35 – 50.

This will have an effect on your content. For instance, if you want to include testimonials from people who’ve enjoyed your health foods, you might want to mention their age – and you’ll want to focus on testimonials from customers who are a similar age to your target audience.

#2: Are they male or female?

With a few exceptions, most businesses will have at least somecustomers from each gender – but you may want to skew your content toward one or the other, if your customers are predominantly male or female.

The same goes for the major influencers in your niche. If most of the bloggers and journalists covering your subject are from one gender, you’ll need to make sure that your content is going to resonate well with them.

#3: What sort of lifestyle do they lead?

You may want to consider whether they live alone or with a partner, whether they have children, what their interests are, and how affluent they are.

Knowing about your customers’ lives and lifestyle will inform the topics that you choose to write about (e.g. “eating healthily when you have young kids” versus “great one-person meals you can create in 10 minutes”).

#4: How educated are they?

This will inform your writing style: if your customers are highly educated, you can use more advanced vocabulary. As well as considering their general level of education, think about how much they already know about your industry area.

You may need to create content that helps answer beginners’ questions – an FAQ page can be great for this, or a series of “101” blog posts. Alternatively, if you’re writing for influencers in your niche, you might need to go much more in-depth with your content – they won’t be interested in reading yet another rehash of the basics.

For readers-as-influencers, add this question too:

#5: What stories do they cover?

Try to pinpoint specific influencers in your niche, and see what types of content they write about. If they have a big social media following, look at the content that they share.

By taking a look at the content that naturally interests influencers, you can plan and write blog posts that will have a strong chance of engaging them.

Creating Content With Your Reader in Mind

When someone visits your website, they’ll have particular questions in mind, or particular needs that they’re trying to address. For instance, on a website about premium health foods, a reader might have arrived because they’re anxious about their weight but don’t know where to begin with healthy eating.

Your website might not be their intended destination – they may have come across it by chance, through Google or through a friend’s link on social media – but it’s part of their journey to where they need to be in their life.

Even if you don’t make a sale instantly, being helpful – providing the information that they need – makes you look good. They might read more posts on your site. They might share information with their friends. They may very well come back again in the future, when they are ready to buy.

This doesn’t just apply to potential customers. Influencers who visit your website will be looking for something. Perhaps they simply want to check out who you are. Maybe they’re trying to find a specific piece of information. They might not spread the word about your company today or tomorrow or even next week … but if the quality of your content impresses them, they may well be back.

When you brainstorm ideas for content, picture your ideal reader coming to your site for the first time. Ask yourself:

• What questions are they trying to answer?
• What needs or desires do they have?
• What worries do they have?
• How can I help them?

You’ll probably find that it’s easy to come up with ideas … and that these ideas result in content that really engages your ideal reader.

Addressing Your Ideal Reader

Some people find that it’s helpful to write out a description of an individual reader – either an imagined avatar, or potentially a real life customer who matches up well to your “average” target audience.

When you create blog posts, or other content for your site, you can imagine that you’re addressing this person directly: you might even want to pretend you’re writing them an email. This can be very helpful if you get stuck on what information to include, or how to phrase something.

It doesn’t take long to get to know your ideal reader – but by investing 30 minutes in this now, you can ensure that your blog will be heading in the right direction and attracting the right audience.

The post Get to Know Your Ideal Reader – the Key to Your Blog’s Success appeared first on SEO Training.

Image from Flickr by Adam Tinworth

When you’re building your business through online content, it’s not enough to simply write great posts. Without readers, you may as well not bother.

Getting readers means getting attention – and that can seem like a tough prospect when you’re new to the blogging world. Unfortunately, some bloggers decide that all attention is equal – and go about getting entirely the wrong sort with misguided tactics like:

• “Calling out” big names in their industry, without any real justification or rationalisation
• Making provocative, even offensive, remarks
• Spamming lots of blogs with comments, hoping to gain more visibility
• Pestering influencers in their field for links, tweets, or social media shares

These methods might bring some instant attention for those bloggers – but they’re also likely to make a very poor first impression on blog readers and blog writers.

Don’t risk your reputation; make sure you’re getting the right sort of attention with these seven tips:

#1: Write Consistently Great Content

One of the best things you can do in the blogging world is to produce really good content, week after week. Yes, you’ll want to implement other tips too in order to get readers’ eyes on that content – but without a strong foundation, any attention you get will quickly fade.

Make sure you spend time developing your writing style and your ability to plan and structure posts. That way, you can build up a core of great posts on your blog before you reach out too far.

#2: Pay Attention to Your Readers

It’s very easy to get caught up in writing what you want to write, or what you think will be popular … but a better tactic is to find out what your readers want, and give it to them. By paying attention to them, you increase the chances that they’ll pay attention to you!

The comments and emails that you receive can be an invaluable source of blogging ideas and feedback; make sure you not only read them but also take them on board.

#3: Leave Valuable Comments

Commenting on blogs is a powerful way to build relationships – if you do it the right way. Don’t expect to gain SEO benefits from comments: instead, you’re looking to build and strengthen your relationship with the blogger in question (or with their readers).

It’s often much better to focus on a few highly-regarded blogs in your niche, rather than commenting on as many blogs as possible. That way, you’ll quickly get your name known.

#4: Speak Your Mind

Don’t be afraid to give your opinion, or to write something that’s passionate or even angry: this is usually much more interesting to readers than bland content that just gives facts or information.

However … don’t be controversial just for the sake of it. If you do want to “call out” a big name in your industry, or slam a popular brand, then make sure you’ve got evidence to back up what you say. Otherwise, you’ll just end looking vindictive or whiny.

#5: Don’t Just Focus on Influencers

When you’re hoping to get links or retweets, it’s all too easy to look straight to the key influencers in your field – the bloggers with tens of thousands of readers or Twitter followers. The problem is, everyone else is doing the same thing as you – so these bloggers are inundated with requests.

Instead, look for people who are a little less well known in your field. You might try those who’ve guest-posted on popular sites, or who interact with bigger names on Twitter. Reach out to them instead – and you might well start a very fruitful relationship.

#6: Create a Brilliantly Useful Resource

As well as writing consistently valuable content, it’s a good idea to create a show-stopper piece that will be worthy of special attention. This could be a big post that rounds up lots of great links and resources on a particular topic, or one that quotes from or compares lots of experts in your field. You might well use images or video to enhance it.

You’ll need to set aside some time to create a resource like this – and it’s often best done over several days or weeks. You’ll find, though, that it’s well worth the time investment, as this sort of post will be likely to receive lots of attention.

Do you have a tip to add? Or will you be trying out one of these this week? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post 6 Ways to Get (Good) Attention in the Blogosphere appeared first on SEO Training.

Image from Flickr by paul bica

Once you’ve mastered a few basic types of blog post, it’s easy to get stuck producing the same type of content day after day and week after week. It’s a great idea to occasionally throw in something a bit different.

Here are eight fantastic structures you can use to craft attention-grabbing blog posts (and to stand out from fellow bloggers in your field). Why not pick one to try this week?

Structure #1: “How I … and How You Can Too”

Although this format might sound similar to a “how to” post, it won’t necessarily result in a step-by-step guide. Rather than giving instructions, you’re giving your personal experience – and readers will often be fascinated to read exactly how you accomplished something that they’re keen to try.

Tip: Make sure you put plenty of weight on the “how you can too” side of this post, even if you don’t include that wording in the title. Give your readers specific action points (or advice on what not to do!)

Examples:

How I Got Published on Forbes.com – and How You Can Too, Kelly Watson, Men with Pens

Cutting Down on Splurges: How I Did It – And You Can Too, Trent Hamm, The Simple Dollar

How I Leveraged LinkedIn to Create a 7-Figure Business In Three Years, Lewis Howes, Forbes.com

Structure #2: “What is …?”

Whatever your businesses is, there’s a good chance that newcomers will have some basic questions that they want answered, or specialist terms that they want defined. By answering these, you can pick up on search engine traffic and give your readers the basics that they need in order to get more from your blog (and buy from your business).

Tip: This type of post needn’t be long – in fact, it will probably be more effective if you keep it quite concise and straightforward. If you feel that readers will benefit from extra information, consider writing follow-up posts and linking to them.

Examples:

What is a Blog?, Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips

What is RSS?, Darren Rowse, Problogger

What is a Good Credit Score Rating?, Pinyo Bhulipongsanon, Moolanomy

Structure #3: “Ask the Reader: …”

This type of post hardly needs any structure at all: it’s just an introduction, with the main body of the post in the comments. You post a topic for conversation or debate and encourage readers to leave their responses. As well as being great for building your community, this is a good way to find out more about your readers – helping you craft great posts (and offers) in the future.

Tip: Although this might sound like an easy option if you don’t have time to write, you will need to put aside time to read and reply to lots of comments…

Examples:

Ask the Reader: What Major New Feature or Change Would You Add to WordPress?, Tom Ewer, ManageWP

Ask The Reader: What Is Your Bounce Rate?, Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips

[ask the reader] how can you make the most of your time on earth?, Mary Jaksch, Goodlife Zen

Structure #4: What Not to Do

This type of post can follow a conventional structure (a list post often works well) – but it has a crucial twist. Instead of giving “do this” advice, you’re writing a post that points out mistakes or tells people what not to do. It’s a tongue-in-cheek way to make readers think – and it can give you a great angle on a done-to-death topic.

Tip: If you’re giving “anti-advice”, like in the example from Dumb Little Man below, make the humour very clear – without tone of voice and body language clues, readers may be confused.

Examples:

10 Ways to Hurt Your Blog’s Brand by Commenting on Other Blogs, Darren Rowse, ProBlogger

Ten Ways to Make Yourself (And Everyone Around You) Miserable, Ali Luke, Dumb Little Man

Five Easy Ways to Fail, Joel Spolsky, Inc.com

Structure #5: “The … Checklist”

Readers like posts that they can use – and structuring your post as a checklist makes it very easy for them to take action on your great advice. A checklist should help them out with a specific task, and could cover anything from “essentials for starting university” to “optimising a web page”.

Tip: If you can manage it in your blog software, put little tick boxes alongside each item on the checklist – it’s a small thing, but it does help make it look like more than just another list post.

Examples:

Checklist: 12 Things You Must do After Writing a New Blog Post [with Infographic], Oli Gardner, Unbounce

Using Twitter: A Really Simple Daily Checklist, Tim Tyrell-Smith, Tim’s Strategy

Deployment SEO Strategy and Checklist, Geoff Kenyon, SEOMoz

Structure #6: Case Study

A case study is a little like a “how I…” post – but it normally focuses on a business rather than an individual, and it probably won’t be about your business. You might choose to write about a prominent company in your industry, or you could write about one of your clients (with a particular eye to how your company has helped them).

Tip: Go into detail where it’s needed, but try not to get bogged down in too much information at the expense of giving the reader actionable ideas. You may want to have a section at the end of your case study to show what they might be able to apply to their own life / business.

Examples:

How an Alaskan Mom Brings Millions to Her Carpentry Blog, Casey Hibbard, Social Media Examiner

Case Study: Social Media Campaigns Outperform Banner Ads for Driving Quality Web Traffic, Jim Tobin, Ignite Social Media

How we made $1 million for SEOmoz – with one landing page and a few emails, Conversion Rate Experts

Structure #7: X Experts Answer…

This is sometimes called a “one question interview” format: you round up a bunch of experts in your field, and ask them to respond to one question (or several quick questions). You then collate these responses into a single post, offering a great range of viewpoints on that particular issue. If you’re new to blogging, or if you’re very busy, you could use existing material (e.g. quotes) on a topic.

Tip: Make sure you allow plenty of time for busy experts to get back to you – and approach, ideally, twice as many people as you need; not all will respond.

Examples:

Interview: 12 Top Online Entrepreneurs Share How Hard They Work, Daniel Scocco, Daily Blog Tips

21 Business Blogging Tips From the Pros, Cindy King, Social Media Examiner

The Most Creative Link Building Post Ever, Jon Cooper, Point Blank SEO

Structure #8: “30 Days to…”

This type of post can be very popular with readers: it acts like a mini online course to help them achieve something sizeable (going well beyond the scope of a typical “how-to” post). It can range from a single post with a timetable of actions to a month-long series.

Tip: You don’t have to use 30 days – 31, 7, 14, or 365 (!) are all other good options.

Examples:

31 Days to Building a Better Blog, Darren Rowse, ProBlogger

30 Days to Become a Freelancer, Skellie, Skelliewag

How to Write a High-Quality eBook in 30 Days, Ali Luke, Copyblogger

Which of these structures will you be trying out this week? (Or have you come up with a whole new idea for a great blog post structure?) Let us know in the comments!

The post 8 Under-Used Blog Post Structures to Try Today – And 24 Inspiring Examples appeared first on SEO Training.

These are business who’ve proved themselves agile enough to respond with grace and humour, often in tricky situations or with the clock ticking. Whether you’re a solo-preneur or a social media manager for a big company, these all serve as great examples of how to get social media right:

#1:  Bodyform Telling the Truth About Periods

After a humorous comment on the Bodyform Facebook page gathered nearly 40,000 likes in under a day, prompting a Mashable post, Bodyform responded with a great video that went viral (it currently has almost 3 million views on YouTube.

Image from Man’s Strange Maxipad Rant Captivates Facebook,  Mashable.

Lessons learned:

• Take “viral” seriously. With the original comment gaining so much attention, it made perfect sense for Bodyform to invest significant time and resources into creating this video.
• Have a sense of humour. This turns up again and again in social media … companies who can take a joke (especially one aimed at themselves) come out looking great.

#2: Oreo Supporting Pride Day

Oreo created an eye-catching rainbow Oreo Cookie image to show their support for Pride day on June 25th – gaining a lot of attention, and a generally very positive response.

Image from 10 Social Media Risks MOST Companies Are Too Afraid to Take, HubSpot. 

Lessons learned:

• Sometimes, it’s worth taking a stand. Yes, some people will disagree with your stance … but did you really want them as your customers in the first place? (Plus, those who agree will become much more loyal.)
• Eye-catching images work. Whether or not you’re courting controversy, it’s worth investing time in creating or finding an image that people will want to share.

#3: Red Cross Turning Potential Social Media Crisis Around

As we saw in the social media fails, it’s all too easy for employees to accidentally tweet from a company account rather than a personal one … and this can cause a lot of embarrassment all round.

When a Red Cross social media specialist accidentally sent a tweet from the wrong account, Red Cross responded admirably:

Images from Red Cross Does PR Disaster Recovery on Rogue Tweet, Mashable. 

Lessons learned:

• Humour works well on social media. Everyone makes mistakes – and if you can laugh about it, you can turn around a potential crisis.
• However, do be very careful with social media tools like Hootsuite (especially if you’ve had a beer or two…) If you manage a company account as well as a personal one, try using two completely separate applications to avoid any possibility of accidentally tweeting from the wrong one.

#4: General Electric Using Pinterest Brilliantly

With the Pinterest description “#pinning things that inspire us to build, power, move, and cure the world,” General Electric’s account emphasises humour as well as their humanitarian aims.  It’s a world away from the “boring engineer” stereotype that potential customers might have had.

Image from 4 Brands Defying Pinterest Stereotypes to Their Advantage, Business2Community.

Lessons learned:

• Even if your product isn’t all that exciting, you can use social media to engage with an audience. Humour is, again, a key force here – but so are inspirational messages that emphases social good.
• Images get attention (not just on Pinterest!) If you have intangible or uninteresting-looking products, then graphics, memes and great photos can all be ways to connect to your potential customers.

#5: Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign Urges Women to “Touch Yourself”

In an attention-grabbing campaign, F Cancer, Women’s Health and Men’s Health magazines combined to encourage women to check their breasts for lumps. As well as a provocative slogan, they produced pre-written postcards for women and men to share.

Image from Cancer Campaign Tells Women: ‘Touch Yourself’, Mashable. 

Lessons learned:

• It takes a fresh approach to get a familiar message across. The humour, slight risqué nature, and creativity of this approach led to a lot of attention.
• Interactivity plays a big role in social media. By producing a Facebook app, where women could pledge to check their breasts, and by creating virtual postcards to be shared, this campaign got widespread attention.

#6: Starbucks Facebook Game Promotes Pumpkin Spice Latte

The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte is an eagerly-awaited autumn treat for many coffee fans in the US … and Starbucks have capitalised on this with a Facebook game / competition to determine which city will get the drink first.

Image from Earn the Most Points to Get the First Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, The Gamification Corporation.

Lessons learned:

• Games and competitions create engagement. You might not have the resources of Starbucks – but you could still run a simple competition through your company’s Facebook account or Twitter feed.
• Take advantage of what people are already excited about. If your customers show particular affection for a certain product, then capitalise on that through social media.

It’s great to see companies getting it right … and if you’re looking to take your own social media strategy further, why not take inspiration from one of the examples above?

The post 6 Awesome Social Media Wins … And What You Can Learn From Them appeared first on SEO Training.

Some business, though, don’t quite get it right. And some make mistakes that get splashed across the headlines. Going viral might well be what you’re aiming for … but not like this.

These seven social media fails show that there definitely is such a thing as bad publicity. They serve as great examples of what not to do.

Warning: some of these examples contain offensive language or sentiments.

#1: HabitatUK Spamming Hashtags

If you’re familiar with Twitter, you’ll have seen hashtags – words, short phrases or acronyms with a # symbol in front of them.

Some companies are tempted to “piggyback” in hashtags, knowing that users may well search on those particular tags – and thus see their promotional tweet.

In this case, though, Habitat ended up looking like a spammer with no regard for Twitter etiquette:

Image from Stupid Twitter Mistakes, DonCrowther.com

Lessons learned:

• Never use irrelevant hashtags in your tweets. The potential boost in visibility isn’t worth the backlash from annoyed tweeters.
• Don’t let an intern handle your social media account (which is what happened here). If you do want to let them gain some experience of this, make sure an experienced colleague is on hand to help out.

#2: Cornetto UK Ignoring Remembrance Day

Cornetto UK sent a light-hearted Facebook update very shortly before 11am on Remembrance Day (11th November). Understandably, many of their Facebook followers were offended by the timing – the update struck an inappropriate tone for that particular moment.

Whether this was a badly-time pre-scheduled update, or one sent out by someone who wasn’t thinking, it was a big mistake.

 Images from 3 Stupid Facebook Mistakes by Big Brands, Top3.net

Lessons learned:

• Be aware of national events and news stories – and avoid scheduling updates too far in advance, in case you miss something.
• If you do make a mistake, step in quickly to apologise and rectify it: as you can see from the screenshots, negative comments were pouring in half an hour after this update went onto the Cornetto UK page.

#3: CamryEffect Spamming Twitter Users

Toyota’s campaign to promote the Camry made a poor impression of Twitter users, by targeting individuals directly with unwanted messages. Worse, the content was blatantly promotional and self-serving – hardly an ideal way to make a good first impression on a Twitter user.

 Image from Social Media Campaigns: Case Studies of the Biggest Fails of 2012 (So Far), Social Axis

Lessons learned:

• Never mass-message users in this way on Twitter. If you want to engage with a specific individual, take the time to read their bio or look at their recent tweets, and start an actual conversation.
• Think hard about how many promotional messages you’re putting out there. If someone comes to your Twitter page, you don’t want all your recent tweets to look boring and self-serving.

#4: KennethCole Making Light of Cairo Riots

In an even worse mistake than simply spamming a hashtag, Kenneth Cole made light of the May 2012 Cairo riots with an exceptionally ill-judged tweet:

Image from Kenneth Cole’s #Cairo Tweet Angers the Internet, Mashable

Lessons learned:

• Be careful about twisting a news story, or a hashtag, to suit you. This might work for light-hearted stories, but it’s a fast route to failure if you come across as offensive or ignorant.
• Before you send any potentially sensitive tweet, ask someone else to read it to see whether they think it’s OK – especially if you have an off-beat sense of humour.

#5: MarkJacobsIntl Account Hijacked by Disgruntled Intern

After some unfortunate PR mistakes by CEO Robert Duffy, Mark Jacobs temporarily assigned the Twitter account to an intern.

Unfortunately, the intern clearly hadn’t had a very happy time in their role – and wasn’t afraid to let all 114,000 followers of the Mark Jacobs’ Twitter account know about it.

Image from Marc Jacobs Intern’s Twitter Meltdown: Calls CEO A ‘Tyrant’, SMH.com.au

Lessons learned:

• Treat your employees and interns well. Not only is this the right thing to do, it’s also hugely important for your brand, when one angry employee can easily let the whole world know exactly how they feel.
• Don’t let an intern or junior employee have access to company social media accounts outside working hours or on personal devices. These tweets were sent around midnight, from an iPhone.

#6: Boners BBQ Insult Yelp Reviewer

After a disappointing meal at a BBQ restaurant, a customer, Stephanie, left an in-depth, and balanced, review on Yelp.

The owner of Boners BBQ took expection to this, though, and posted Stephanie’s photo and an angry comment about her on their Facebook page, and on Twitter. (They also accused her of not tipping, though in a later response on Reddit, Stephanie explained that she did tip.)

Image from Worst Use of Social Media in 2012: Boners BBQ,  UnMarketing

Before long, social-media savvy users on Facebook and Twitter realised what had happened – Boners BBQ had snapped in response to Stephanie’s Yelp review.

You can read the full story in Scott Stratten’s post Worst Use of Social Media of 2012: Boners BBQ or Huffington Post’s piece Boners BBQ Bashes Customer on Facebook and Twitter, Social Media Battle Ensues.

Lessons learned:

• Never react in anger. It might well be very upsetting to you to get a negative review … but step away from the computer, and take a few deep breaths.
• Never insult your customers in public (and your Facebook page is very, very public). If you really must let off steam, talk to a colleague or close friend.

#7: KitchenAidUSA Insult the US President … and his Dead Grandmother

Image from Lessons from KitchenAid: Even the worst social media mistakes are preventable, Chicago Tribune

In this very recent fail, the KitchenAid account was used to tweet an offensive message during the US presidential debate in October 2012.

It’s clear that the individual in question didn’t intend to tweet from the company account. KitchenAid were swift to apologise. They were honest about what happened (rather than claiming that the account had been hacked), and this went some way toward repairing the damage done the their brand.

Lessons learned:

• Make sure that your employees keep their personal account completely separate from the business one, using different applications if possible. This is far from the first case of an employee accidentally tweeting an inappropriate message from the company account.
• Be careful with what you tweet from your personal account – and consider training employees on what is and isn’t appropriate on social media. Even if they’re tweeting from their own account, an offensive message could reflect badly on their employer.

As someone who loves social media, and who’s had many business benefits from it, I couldn’t help but cringe at these examples of companies getting it very, very wrong.

It takes time to learn the etiquette and nuances of social media, but generally, a few simple rules of thumb will serve you well:

1. Be extra-careful if you have multiple social media accounts in HootSuite (or another application) – always double-check that the tweet you’re about to send is going from the right account.
2. Limit how many people have access to the company accounts – and be very wary of giving access to inexperienced colleagues or interns. It only takes a moment’s poor judgement to cause huge damage.
3. Don’t say anything on social media that you wouldn’t be willing to shout in the village square, or publish in a newspaper. Yes, it’s an informal medium … but that doesn’t mean that you can be offensive or rude.

The post 7 Cringe-Worthy Social Media Fails … And What You Can Learn From Them appeared first on SEO Training.

Coming from a search background, what pulled you towards branding and marketing in general?

Branding is a topic that has always captivated me. It’s the simple idea of a company’s perceived value being, at times, greater than its actual value that interests me. Or, that reputation can have more influencing power than price. Or, that consumers can become so passionate about a brand that they’ll happily defend it at the drop of a hat.

With that, I am still very much a search marketer, but I do work hard to integrate branding and other marketing opportunities into my client’s overall portfolio. I believe this is a common transition that many search marketers are now making. I think we’re finding out quickly that search marketing isn’t just limited to showing up in Google.

Big companies spend a lot of time (and money) on branding but how important is it for the smaller guys?

Big or small, brand building is important. While it is true that bigger companies seem to have more time, budget, and resources at their disposal, being small is not an excuse for ignoring the branding of one’s products, services, or company. Branding isn’t limited to running 2.5 million dollar television commercials or taking out full-page ads in the New York Times. Small businesses will need to get creative with their approach.

In fact, search is one of those platforms that, for the most part, ignores budgets and allows businesses of all sizes to compete on even ground. Branding through search marketing should present itself to be a viable opportunity for small business owners.

Before brainstorming lots of business and domain names, is there anything important that you need to consider first?

I’m not sure there is, other than what is commonly known. For example, be careful of picking a name that might have an alternate meaning or even one that displays poorly. I believe the Mole Station Native Nursery Company in New South Wales was the perfect example of what I am referring to. For the longest time, their registered domain was www.molestationnursery.com. You can imagine how difficult branding might have been for this company.

Furthermore, when researching a name for your product or company, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to look at what others in your space are doing first. You can review their branding, determine what is or isn’t working, and then decide if it makes sense to mirror their approach or distance yourself from it.

So I guess there is more to branding than just a cool company name, logo and slogan?

Oh yeah, that’s for certain. While it is nice that a company is recognized by a name, logo or slogan, this recognition alone isn’t what drives consumers to buy a product or service. In fact, this is probably the single biggest misconception about the branding process.

A logo is just one part of a company’s brand identity. The brand, as a whole, represents much more – the mission of the company, its history, people’s perceptions of it, and so on. An effective logo plays an important part, but it won’t save a poor product or service, or a company with a weak mission.

Instead, branding is primarily about emotion and the overall impression that companies and products bestow on to us. For example, I love Under Armour running gear because it’s durable, stylish, and, to date, has exceeded every one of my expectations. When I see an Under Armour commercial or branded product, these are the values that immediately come to mind.

Amazon is another example of a solid brand, but it has nothing to do with its name or logo design. Personally I prefer to shop at Amazon because they take care of me. They have every product I’ve ever wished to purchase, ship products fast and often for free, maintain a hassle-free return policy, and fix their mistakes quickly and with sincerity.

Branding is everything and anything a company is and does.

So you’re suggesting that branding is an emotional connection between the customer and a business? How important is it to win hearts?

Yes. In my professional opinion, branding is any initiative that helps to bridge emotion to a company or product. If a company or product exceeds expectations and customers are happy, then I’d consider this to be a good branding experience. With that, the opposite would be true. Brand damage comes from those instances of when a consumer’s perceived value or expectation of a product, service, or company is higher than what is delivered.

Knowing this, winning the hearts of consumers should be at the top of every company’s branding campaign.

Where do small businesses often fail with branding?

Great question! Small businesses often get caught up in this idea that brand building is expensive or that it’s impossible to do without a deep wallet, and therefore they fail to even get started. For those small businesses that feel this way, I’d like to bring their attention to what might be one of the best branding examples our time, Google.

Google, to my knowledge, has yet to run a commercial or an advertisement of any kind for their core search service. Google was a small project (not fair to call them a business as their initial goal wasn’t to make money) where their focus was on solving a problem that others failed at… effectively searching the web. They focused on delivering a quality tool and experience, and through word-of-mouth they were able to build what is easily one of today’s most powerful brands. Google is a multi-billion dollar brand and they, in a sense, didn’t spend a dime to build it.

Are there any other cool branding tips you’d like to share? Are there any online tools or resources that you recommend?

Building a brand that is loved is about doing lots of small things right. With that, small businesses should focus on providing quality over quantity in terms of product and service offerings, and provide the absolute best in customer service.

Businesses need to understand that a time will come when their company will make a mistake or their product fails. This much is inevitable. How a company reacts and resolves these issues will play a huge part in how it is later branded.

Quality expeirences create customer satisfaction. Satisfaction drives repeat business, which in turn builds customer loyalty. Loyalty leads to word-of-mouth and brand advocacy. And thus, a powerful brand is born.

About the Blogger



Karl Ribas is the Vice-President of Marketing at All Web Promotion, and a website design and marketing consultant specializing in search and social media marketing strategies. Ribas has been blogging since 2005, and covers a variety of website marketing and design topics on his blog and other industry related blogs.

If you have anything to add to the interview, or any questions at all, please comment below. Any real life branding tips are most welcome too.

The post Karl Ribas on How Small Businesses Should Think Big with Branding appeared first on SEO Training.

Image from Flickr by tee.kay

Are your content marketing efforts paying off … or are they yet another thankless task on your to-do list?

If content marketing isn’t bringing you the results you want, you might need to take a look at the goals that you’ve set yourself.

It’s easy to come up with goals that look like this:

• Publish three blog posts every week
• Get 1,000 subscribers to the blog
• Write a guest post for a major site in my industry
• Achieve a higher ranking on Google

There’s nothing bad about these, and I’d say that they’re good targets. They’re not, however, good goals.

Unless you’re blogging for the fun of it, you’ve almost certainly got business goals that you want to reach. Those might include:

• Improve customer retention
• Increase customer base
• Increase profits

At the end of the financial year, whether your blog has 500 or 5,000 subscribers isn’t going to matter. What matters is whether those subscribers have been successfully converted into paying customers – preferably paying customers who keep coming back for more.

Setting Your Content Marketing Goals

Your goals will depend on your overall business objectives.

If you run a small start-up company with financial backing, for instance, you might not be too worried about immediate cash-flow – but you will want to build a list of qualified potential customers.

If you’ve just quit your day job to work for yourself, immediate cash-flow is probably more of a concern. You may only need a handful of new clients each month, so a few highly-engaged blog readers are almost certainly more valuable to you than a large amount of passing traffic.

Do It:

Set aside some time to think about what you really want to get from content marketing. Is it about having more high-quality leads arriving at your website? Is it about keeping your existing customers engaged and interested?

Write down two or three goals for the next quarter, then pick your one top goal. If you like, share your goals with us in the comments below.

Planning How to Achieve Your Goals

Once you’re clear about your goals – and you have one top goal in mind – you can move on to considering specific targets.

Let’s say your key goal is to make more sales, quickly. You don’t have a large customer / client base, and your mailing list is tiny, so you need to bring in some new leads.

There are several ways you can do this through content marketing. The ones I’d particularly recommend are:

• Writing guest posts for major sites in your industry, and using your bio (byline) to advertise your products / services.
• Creating a big, useful, shareable resource – perhaps “50 Ways to…” or an in-depth “how to” post, with a clear call to action at the end that encourages people to check out your services.
• Choosing a high-quality keyword phrase (the sort that someone looking to buy would use) and focusing your content marketing on ranking highly for that phrase.

There are other tactics you could use, like increasing your posting frequency from two 500-word  posts per week to three 500-word post per week … but while you might see a little more traffic, this won’t necessarily have as much impact as a single really in-depth post.

One great way to plan is to use a mindmap to help you generate and capture ideas. You might have some initial thoughts about the best way to use content marketing, but you may find that these lead to something even better.

Do It:

With your key goal in mind, think about what specific actions you could take to reach it. What would be the best way for you to make the most of content marketing?

Look for two or three specific targets to aim for within the next month – and feel free to share these with us in the comments.

Don’t fall into the trap of blogging for the sake of blogging. Of course, content marketing is a great way to take your business to the next level – but you do need to be strategic about it.

Before you write another blog post, ask yourself what your key business goal is – and make sure that your post is going to help you reach it.

The post What Are Your Content Marketing Goals – and How Will You Achieve Them? appeared first on SEO Training.