Marc's Blog

How To Get More Sales With A Custom Thank You Page

May 31, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Every time someone enters their email address into your opt-in box, they get sent over to a thank you page. Most thank you pages let people know how they can access the freebie they were promised.

However, people are incredibly savvy these days. Getting access to any freebie is just a matter of going to the inbox and reading the automated welcome email.

So why do we continue providing something on the thank you page that people will get in their inbox anyway?

Beats me. I do this for some of my landing pages to this day because of all of the social proof the thank you pages have received. My newer landing pages redirect people to something very, very different.

And I make more money because of this decision. Watch the video to learn more.

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My May 2016 Monthly Performance Report

May 31, 2016 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

I will begin doing monthly recaps at the end of each month. The monthly recaps are designed to let you know what I did this month and what I aim to do next month. I’ll share some insights along the way.

May 2016 Summary

May was my last month of high school. I received my diploma and said goodbye to many of my classmates.

I had a slow start in May because I had to finish some end-of-the-year assignments, but once school concluded, I got more productive.

One thing I started to do more of was exploration. I watched a video from Michael Stelzner this month that explained how we need to do more exploration while continuing to put in the work for our businesses.

Finding that time to explore without your business declining is an intricate balance. You want to explore to learn about more opportunities, but too much exploration leads to analysis paralysis.

I decided to explore for a bit and then either implement or forget what I learned. Now that the background has been set, here’s what I did in May 2016.

#1: I Changed My Blog’s Theme.

I used the same theme for my blog for so long that I didn’t think about changing it…until now. Remember when it used to look like this?

marc guberti theme

I thought that theme was beautiful until I invested in a Genesis theme ($60 value). Ever since I changed my blog’s theme, it has loaded faster which helps out with SEO.

And it looks a lot better.

I only changed my blog’s theme a few days ago so there’s still some work to be done. I’ll go more into detail about that when I discuss my goals for June 2016.

#2: I Created An SEMrush Account.

So many people recommended SEMrush to me. At first, I didn’t listen to them because I was under the belief that if your social media traffic was good, then your SEO traffic would be good too.

I decided to invest in SEMrush this month, and I am absolutely blown away. SEMrush is great for finding the perfect keywords to rank for and learning a lot about your competition.

Right now, I have been using SEMrush to fix my blog. I get to see all of the errors that are hurting my blog’s SEO ranking. Knowing these errors allows you to identify what needs to get fixed.

Once all of those fixes are made, your blog will start getting more search engine traffic.

#3: I Decided To Finally Start A Podcast.

Out of everything I did for my business this month, starting the podcast was the best thing I did. The podcast isn’t up yet, but I already have over a dozen guests slated for different times and dates. I said I would start a podcast twice. This is the third time, and this time it’s happening.

The podcast is about achieving breakthrough success. I find experts who have achieved success and/or know certain expertise that millions of people want to know for themselves.

The focus of each episode will be on the expert’s journey towards success (a.k.a. all of the work that led to the breakthrough).

My friend Jeffrey Shaw suggested that I use the Skype Call Recorder and use ScreenFlow as a backup. That’s exactly what I am going with for my podcast episodes.

Blog Posts I Wrote:

If you missed the blog posts I wrote in May and want to read them, I have included them here as a reference. I published a bunch of YouTube videos too which can be found on my channel.

The 7 Essentials Of A Successful Online Business: I wish I could have read this blog post before I started. It would have made my journey a lot easier.

4 Ways To Read Twice As Many Books: I enjoy reading books just as much as the next avid reader. My busy schedule seemed to get in the way too much. That’s why I came up with four ways to read twice as many books.

The 4 Step Plan To Hulk-Smash The Wall That Holds You Back: I thought of the title in my excitement of Captain America: Civil War. I couldn’t think of a way to fit Captain America or Iron Man into the title, so I settled with The Hulk.

5 Ways To Boost Your Kindle Book Sales: A great article for self-published authors looking to boost their book rankings. It’s a combination of methods I knew and methods I learned from Chandler Bolt’s Self-Publishing School.

That’s May 2016 in a nutshell. It’s been a whirlwind of activity since the graduation since my time has opened up. This upcoming Sunday will be my last track meet as a high school athlete.

As for what I’ll be doing for my business this June, here are some of the highlights:

#1: More Udemy Courses

I was not a fan of Udemy’s new pricing system. I saw my income drop, but now I’m back and ready to create more courses.

The thinking is that the revenue will continue dropping, but eventually that revenue will rise as the Udemy Staff predicted. I want my courses to rank on the top of Udemy’s search results by the time Udemy is back in its prime form.

To make up for the lost income, I am also putting my Udemy courses on SkillShare. I currently have one course on SkillShare which is doing well with zero promotion on my part. Someday I’ll have all of my Udemy courses on SkillShare. It’s simply another stream of passive income.

Right now I am in the midst of creating a podcasting course based on what I have learned throughout my journey. I’ll probably create an SEMrush course next.

#2: Blog Transformation

The changes I made to my blog are new. I changed my blog’s theme less than a week ago and am starting to see the power of SEMrush. I have been going through my content and optimizing it for hours so I can get more search engine traffic.

SEMrush is like SEO learning and implementation on steroids, but you won’t get a 50-game suspension.

The other big change I’m making on my blog is giving it a new homepage that looks something like Pat Flynn’s homepage:

Pat Flynn Homepage

I hope to have a home page like that for my blog in the middle of the month.

I don’t fully know what I will do for the sidebar yet, but I know it will look better when I am done.

#3: Guest Interviews

I am interviewing multiple people every week. I am getting as many interviews done in the summer as possible so I would only have to interview one guest per week during college.

While I would like to interview more than one guest per week, there are certain times when that can’t happen (i.e. the week of final exams).

That’s one of the reasons I am interviewing a lot of people in June. Interviewing people for my podcast will also expand my knowledge and allow me to explore new opportunities.

Podcasting seems to strike the perfect balance between exploration and sustaining your business. You sustain your business by interviewing the guests, and you also learn more by interviewing different guests.

My only regret about podcasting was why I didn’t start earlier. The podcast itself will get published before the end of the summer.

#4: More Landing Pages

During my exploration, I came across a fascinating article from HubSpot. Here are some of the facts from that article about landing pages:

Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing from 10 landing pages to 15 landing pages.
Companies with 40 landing pages get five times as many leads as companies with only 1-10 landing pages.
More landing pages equates to more search engine traffic

I didn’t need any more convincing. Since reading that article, I have created two additional landing pages. I aim to create at least 10 landing pages this month.

The more landing pages I have, the more opportunities I have to get leads. And leads are something that every marketer wants more of.

Even the people with email lists exceeding 1 million subscribers want more leads.

In Conclusion

May was a productive month, but I am expecting June to be a more productive one since it’s summer time.

Most of the work I did in May was for my podcast. I contacted guests, had to learn the art of podcasting within two weeks, and had to figure out how I would record the episodes.

The main reasons I was able to explore several new opportunities was because I took rapid action. In April, I would have never thought of changing my blog’s theme, using SEMrush, and starting my own podcast (let alone do everything else that I do).

The moment I thought of changing my blog’s theme, I bought the Genesis theme. The very next day, I was using that theme for my blog.

Purchasing SEMrush involved no hesitation. I heard about it before and knew it was a great tool. Since I knew it was great, I didn’t have to think about buying it. I just bought it and began taking action.

Before I had the chance to give up on my podcast, I sent five emails before I had any time to think it over. One of those people I emailed said yes. I was suddenly committed.

At that point, I emailed dozens of people. Most said yes while others said no. As more people said yes, I was digging myself deeper and deeper into the hole.

This was a good hole to dig myself deeper into. I was committed to podcasting and was forced to take rapid action.

If you set a close deadline for a reasonable goal, you’ll push yourself to take rapid action.

Thank you for reading my month in review. I hope you enjoyed it.

The 7 Essentials Of A Successful Online Business

May 27, 2016 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

What makes an online business tick? It’s a question I have been asking myself for many years. In fact, it’s a question I continue asking myself today.

I am what people would call an expert, but the playing field is constantly changing. Live streaming is now hot. Buying backlinks stopped working a long time ago.

In the midst of a changing playing field, there are certain essentials that make up all successful online businesses. It took me a while to discover what these qualities are.

Through a lot of stumbling, I finally ended up discovering what these seven essentials are. The playing field will continue changing, but these seven essentials will be around for a very long time.

#1: Social Media

Every successful business has some type of social media presence. While few business owners can truly master all of the social networks, most business owners master a few social networks and use that knowledge to expand.

You don’t want to approach social media with the intention of mastering every social network right away. The way to master social media is to master one social network at a time. I only saw social media success when I focused most of my time towards Twitter.

That’s the main reason why Twitter is still my go-to social network. Since I mastered Twitter before I mastered any of the other social networks, my Twitter audience continued growing and I know how to interact with them.

It doesn’t matter which social network you choose to master. What matters is that you choose a social network to master and then grow your social media presence.

Once you master one social network, you’ll have the skillset to expand into other social networks. I first mastered Twitter. Now I have a strong presence on Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook just to name a few.

But it all starts with mastery of a single social network.

#2: Email List

The money is in the email list. It is the best method of communication you have with your audience for getting clicks and generating sales. Every successful online business owner has a big, targeted email list.

There are a variety of methods for generating an email list. Facebook ads, AdWords, and organic promotion are some of the key tactics.

However, the email list is the most important platform you have. That is why it is necessary to take your email list growth one step further.

The purpose of EVERY platform you create must be to grow your email list.

That means if you have a YouTube channel, one of your goals for that channel must be growing your email list. The same rule applies if you use live streaming, Twitter, Facebook, any other social network, or any other platform/opportunity.

Always think about growing your email list.

#3: Landing Page

The landing page is the page on your blog that you promote in order to get more subscribers.

If you plan on using YouTube to get more subscribers, promote your landing page at the end of your YouTube videos. But don’t stop with YouTube. Use any of your social media audiences you have built up to promote your landing page.

Promoting a landing page with a free offer is how you get more subscribers. The more optimized that landing page is and the more traffic it gets, then the more subscribers you will get.

The main focus of a landing page is to get more subscribers. You don’t want people to go on your landing page and then find a way to read your blog posts. That’s why for all of my landing pages, I don’t have a navigation menu.

The navigation menu would distract visitors with too many options and result in fewer subscribers.

The landing page’s only mission is to get the visitor’s email address. If you don’t have a landing page yet, you can create one with either Optimize Press or LeadPages. Both of these tools are awesome, so no matter which one you choose, you’ll have awesome landing pages at your disposal.

#4: Product(s)

Every successful online business features a few products. The training course or book is the most popular route that online marketers pursue. Creating your own book or training course is easy with an outline, and it doesn’t cost much money to create the product.

Depending on how you create the book or training course, it may not cost you a single penny.

That makes it easier for you to achieve an ROI. More importantly, it is these products that you must promote to your email list in order to make money.

You can also leverage affiliate marketing to boost your sales. Affiliate marketing is the act of you promoting someone else’s product. However, you need to create your own product eventually, and offering your product as a free bonus can dramatically boost your affiliate sales.

In a split-test, affiliate marketing legend Matt McWilliams discovered that including a bonus to one of your products for a price similar to the affiliate product could result in a 650% increase in sales.

So even if you rely on affiliate marketing for your income, it wouldn’t hurt to create your own product. You’ll make more money when you promote your own product, and you will get more affiliate sales by offering your product as a free bonus.

#5: Mentor(s)

If you are a newbie and don’t do anything I have mentioned in this blog post, then you must start here. Having mentors will make a HUGE difference between success and failure.

The right mentors can arm you with new knowledge and present you with more business opportunities. I have had several mentors who have been critical to my success.

And yes, reading blog posts from experts in your niche helps, but I’m talking about mentors who know you by name and offer advice specifically tailored towards you.

I have a few mentors like that. They know more than me in certain areas, and when the path gets a little fuzzy, I’ll email one of my mentors and ask for advice.

I’d rather get the advice right away then continue for weeks, months, or even years to discover the same knowledge that I could have received just by taking five minutes out of my day to write an email to one of my mentors.

You need to have mentors. Even if you are successful right now and don’t have a mentor, your success will only be amplified with the aid of a mentor.

#6: Resources

If you want to become successful, you must analyze successful people and learn from them. When analyzing successful people, one thing you should pay attention to is the resources that they use.

What social media tools are they using to get better results in a shorter period of time?

HootSuite Pro and ManageFlitter (RAM actions) are the two main tools that I use to continue expanding my social media presence.

These tools do cost me money as do the other resources that I use for my business. However, they save time while providing better results.

I don’t want to go too much into the time concept because that’s the next thing that you must have to build a successful online business.

#7: Time

The importance of time is right up there with the importance of having a mentor. Every minute you spend doing one thing is a minute that you can’t spend doing anything else.

So one must prioritize. You look at how you are using your time, focus on what is bringing you the best results, and then focus most of your time and energy there.

However, certain things get in the way. Scheduling social media posts, creating or finding pictures for your blog posts, and email outreach are some of the things that may get in the way of that one opportunity that brings in the most results.

Becoming more productive will allow you to use your time more effectively. However, there is one rule that even the most productive people can’t escape.

There’s only 24 hours in one day. And most of that time is spent eating, drinking, sleeping, and doing other things necessary for survival that have nothing to do with the business.

While this is a rule that affects all of us, there is also a workaround—outsourcing.

You can hire other freelancers to help you pursue your goals. By allocating the right tasks to freelancers, you will take the workload off your shoulders. I used to do several tasks each day that I have now outsourced to my freelancers.

I save a little over two hours each day. Those extra hours add up, and those extra hours are the reason I can get more stuff done.

In Conclusion

Building a successful online business is NOT harder than ever. There are different platforms constantly emerging, but the basic storyline remains the same. Have persistence, have mentors, have the desire, and put in the work each day.

Maybe a few years from now, something completely new is superior to live streaming. However, these rules for online success will remain intact and continue to serve as an effective guide.

How do you define online success? Do you have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

4 Ways To Read Twice As Many Books

May 20, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

stack of books — Without feeling exhausted or hurting your vision.

Ever since I went back to my YouTube channel, I decided to read and review one book each week on my YouTube channel.

So far, I have reviewed books like Thrive by Arianna Huffington, Power Of Broke by Daymond John, and The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz (The Pumpkin Plan review was a while ago so I may read the book again and create a new video of me reviewing the book).

Since I suddenly went from not reading at all to forcing myself to get through at least one book every week, I had to read these books fast. The faster I read these books, the quicker I can review them and do other things for my business.

At the same time, I don’t want to rush the books. Rush the books, and then you don’t remember the insights.

I was about to get started with a speed reading course and do some research about that. However, my brother pointed out that speed reading hurts your eyes big-time.

He read an eye yoga book and told me that the speed reading methods make your eyes function similarly to a lazy eye.

Basic summary: speed reading can hurt your vision. And since I have bad long-range vision to begin with, I don’t need that to get any worse.

So this blog post won’t contain tips about skimming through pages or when to rotate your eyes to the next line of text.

I will be discussing the methods that will help you speed read, but at the same time, not hurt your vision.

#1: Read Shorter Books

Theoretically, you could read a 100 page book twice as fast as a 200 page book. Unless it’s ancient text because that always takes forever to read.

If you read shorter books, you will get them done sooner. I like to read shorter books because they give me a lot of great information, usually cost less, and involve less of my time.

A few caveats though. If there is a particular book you want to read, but it is a lengthy book, then read it. I wasn’t going to stop myself from reading Think and Grow Rich because it’s over 200 pages long.

I have read many books that surpassed 200 pages. I don’t care how many pages Seth Godin’s books are. If it’s sitting on my desk, I am going to read it to completion.

But here’s a caveat in favor of reading shorter books. It’s easy to look at a short book and think something like this:

“This book has less than 100 pages. It must be worthless.”

Well, this blog post would barely be 10 pages if that. The fact that you are reading to this point proves this blog post has been useful in some way.

A blog post is not a book, but don’t think that a small page count indicates a bad book or that a book with a lot of pages must be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Some short books do a good job at summarizing the same points that lengthy books explain within hundreds of extra pages.

I like to have a mixture of both types of books, but when I am reading, I almost always read the shorter books.

So how do I read the longer books?

#2: Listen To Audiobooks

I am currently experimenting with this option, but I think it has a lot of promise.

The idea behind audiobooks is that you can’t read a book all of the time, so you can listen to the audio version instead. There are certain scenarios that prevent us from reading, but audio wouldn’t be a problem.

I run every day, and if you have ever tried to run and read at the same time, you know it’s a disaster. However, what about running and listening to a book at the same time?

People listen to music all of the time while they run. Why can’t I listen to a book every once in a while?

Say what you may about the audiobook audio speed. First off, if you think the audiobook is too slow, there are ways to enhance the speed. The lowest rate I have seen so far for an audiobook is 150 WPM. I run anywhere from 1-2 hours per day.

When I try this out, I’ll hear anywhere from 9,000 to 18,000 words in each run. I can increase the amount of words I hear during each run by speeding up the audio rate.

Not all books are available as audiobooks. That is why when you create your book list, you should look to see which books on your list have audiobook versions and which ones do not before you decide on which hardcovers to buy.

I use Audible to read my audiobooks. You’ll get a free book every month just for signing up!

#3: Turn Reading Into A Daily Habit

I’m not Charles Duhigg, but I do take habits seriously. Habits will make or break you in anything that you pursue. If you want to read more books, you have to read every day.

It doesn’t matter how often you read. On some days, I manage to read for over an hour. On other days, I can barely read for more than five minutes.

However, I read every day, and each day adds more momentum to the last.

Once you turn reading books into a daily habit, it gets much easier to read the books. According to science, it takes about 66 days for something to become a habit.

That means the first 66 days are going to be the hardest, but after that, it’s all smooth sailing from there.

#4: Only Read Books That You Want To Read

This is the golden rule. Only choose to read the books that you would want to read. If you are forced to read a book that you don’t want to read, then you will find yourself slogging through it (unless the plot or content is really good).

But why take a chance when it comes to your reading (and your time). Only read the books that you know will fascinate you right from the start. Before you buy a book, you should get an idea of whether that book will be the right one for you or not.

You can do that by reading the author’s blog posts, customer reviews, and/or by reading the first few pages of the book’s free preview (assuming it’s on Amazon).

Once you decide on the book you want to read next, the final decision is deciding which format you will read the book in.

In Conclusion

Reading is important because it expands your knowledge. If you get new insights from the books that you read, then you are moving closer and closer to the dreams you wish to accomplish.

Before I put myself in a position where I could start calling myself a digital marketing expert, I read the books and blog posts written by the experts (experts are people who don’t have to tell you that they are experts for you to believe in their expertise).

Each time I read a book or blog post, I saw myself as inching closer and closer to my own digital marketing empire. Also my singing empire.

What books do you read? What are your reading habits? How do you read books quickly? Sound off in the comments section below.

Myth Busting: The Role Model Status

May 18, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

It’s great to be inspired by role models. However, I believe that some people are inspired by role models without thinking of how they can reach the same level of success from the role model standpoint.

Get inspired by your role model, but also have a desire to become a role model. I’ll talk more about it in this video.

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