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12 WordPress Plugins That You Need To Have

December 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

12 WordPress Plugins That You Need To Have

One of the biggest advantages WordPress.org has on the free version is that you gain access to various plugins that can be used to enhance your blog. These plugins perform a variety of functions such as get more subscribers, boost SEO traffic, and improve the way your blog looks.

Not every WordPress plugin is created equally, and after using hundreds of plugins for this blog, I have been able to identify the most effective WordPress plugins that your blog should be utilizing. Here’s the list.

#1: Optin Forms

Compared to other free plugins that perform similar functions, the Optin Forms plugins does a great job at getting more subscribers. This plugin connects with a variety of emailing options such as iContact and Aweber, and it allows you to include an optin box at the end of every blog post. After you read this blog post, you will be able to see the Optin Form plugin in action asking for your email address (you get free goodies).

The optin box that you see at the end of my blog post was also very easy to create. The Optin Forms plugin gives you five pre-made themes to choose from, and you can change any of the colors and text in your optin box. You can even change the button’s color to match your blog’s color. If you want to grow your email list, the Optin Form is the next WordPress plugin that you need to install.

#2: Quick Page/Post Redirect

The Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin allows you effectively redirect people to different pages on your blog or any webpage on the web. You can set up a Page in your menu that, when clicked on, can redirect your visitors to a product page, even if that product page is not a part of your blog.

When you go to this blog’s menu and click, “My Books,” you are immediately brought to my Amazon Author Page which consists of all of my books. This is a more direct approach than you clicking that page, staying on my blog, and having to click a link that leads to my Amazon Author Page first.

In addition, the URLs for your blog posts have an impact on SEO. For a blog post like “5 Blogging Tips For Success,” the usual URL would be www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success. However, a good SEO practice is to use fewer words in the title, and only focus on the keywords. The ideal URL would be www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success.

Many people realize this difference late in the process and are left with blog post URLs that are not SEO optimized. Changing the link to www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success would result in all of the people who go to www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success being led to a 404 error page. You can use the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin to fix this issue by having www.yoursite.com/5-blogging-tips-for-success redirect to www.yoursite.com/blogging-tips-success.

#3: Comment Redirect

As long as your blog posts are valuable and do not have grammatical errors, most of the people who muster up the courage to leave a comment on someone else’s blog enjoy the value that your blog provides. As a result, these people will be more likely to subscribe to your blog, but some people may not subscribe to your blog just because they do not know where the optin box is.

Even when people see my optin box made by Codeleon at the end of my blog posts, not all of them will subscribe at that moment. That’s even true for the people who comment on my blog. Some of the people who comment on my blog are not on my email list, but the Comment Redirect plugin allows me to change that.

All this plugin does is redirects someone to a different page on your blog immediately after that person submits a comment. The Comment Redirect plugin only gets applied when a visitor leaves his first comment on your blog. On this Comment Redirect Plugin, you can lead people over to a landing page, promote your most popular blog posts, or if you choose to do so, promote your products. Personally, I recommend promoting a landing page, and the last thing you want to do with the Comment Redirect is promote one of your products.

#4: Optimize Press

Speaking of landing pages, Optimize Press is a great plugin for creating great landing pages. I used Optimize Press to create my landing pages for my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. I was able to create the page in just 10 minutes, and it works. If you enter your email address on that page, you will properly get added to my list. You can create multiple landing pages for specific giveaways or reasons such as a good URL for the Comment Redirect plugin.

In addition to creating great landing pages, Optimize Press also allows you to create training courses and membership sites. Although Optimize Press is not a free plugin, it is worth every penny, and if you are confused with anything about the plugin, Optimize Press comes with great videos and support so you can get your questions answered.

#5: Hello Bar

Hello Bar allows me to display the message that appears on the top of my blog. The actual message up there has varied over time, but you can always promote a link (preferably a landing page or product), or you can use it as an optin form that collects email addresses.

Hello Bar has a variety of functions to choose from, and creating the actual bar is extremely easy. Hello Bar has a simple approach that allows you to easily add text, identify where you want to direct visitors who click on the link, and change any of the colors that you see. Hello Bar also has email integration for numerous mailing services such as iContact and Aweber.

One of the advantages of the Hello Bar plugin is that the message on the top can scroll down. Each time you scroll down while reading this blog post, the Hello Bar follows you. In addition, it is tempting to click on because it offers something valuable and the color combination was chosen to match the color psychology of consumers.

#6: Add Meta Tags

#6 is an SEO tip and a plugin’s name at the same time. Adding meta tags makes it easier for Google to understand what your blog post is about because you get to provide keywords, a short description for your content, and the title.

Keywords allows Google to identify what search terms should be used to lead people to your blog. With this knowledge, many people assume a great strategy would be to stuff their meta tags with keywords, but this is a mistake. My recommendation is to only have 5-7 keywords per blog post because if you add too many, they will lose their effectiveness on Google.

When you choose the keywords, be sure to use long-tail keywords (the ones that consist of multiple keywords). I could have chosen the keyword “WordPress plugins” for this blog post, but instead, I chose, “WordPress plugins that all blogs need to have.” Which one paints the better picture for what your blog post is about?

#7: Google XML Sitemaps

Not having a sitemap is a big mistake for your SEO. Google uses your blog’s sitemap to index your blog posts and make sure they get seen on their search engine. That means if you want more SEO traffic as well as a reliable way to track results, then you need a sitemap.

Normally, a sitemap is very difficult to properly create, but this is when the Google XML Sitemaps plugin steps in. This plugin makes it super easy to create your own sitemap. Then, you can submit that sitemap to Google with the webmaster tools. What may take just 15 minutes of your time may result in hundreds of extra visitors later.

#8: Limit Login Attempts

We must embrace the fact that the internet is not secure, and hackers are everywhere. The Twitter accounts of Burger King, Donald Trump, and Uber Facts are three of the many accounts to have been hacked. There are also hackers who are hacking into blogs and putting up bad content.

Regardless of how popular you are on the web, chances are there is a hacker who is trying to obtain your password. Some of these hackers use a computer system that logs in and enters as many password combinations as it possibly can (which means thousands per day). This is one of the reasons why many websites including WordPress encourage you use to long passwords. However, that is not enough protection.

If you gave them the opportunity, some hackers would spend days trying to log into your account until they identified your password. The Limit Login Attempts plugin is the fix to that problem. This plugin limits the number of times that you (or any hacker) can log into your blog. If any IP Address exceeds the limit, that IP Address gets locked out for the time you specify. I choose to lock people out of my blog for 12 hours just in case I am the one who enters the wrong password (or someone tries to guess my password just for fun).

I get an email each time this plugin catches someone, and I have been amazed with the results. Initially, I thought this plugin was a joke because no one would ever hack my blog. Since installing this plugin, I have learned about thousands of attempts for logging into my blog.

Another great perk of this plugin is that it gives you the IP Address that was used for the login attempts. If you Google search an IP Address, you can find the location of the computer, and better yet, you have the option to prevent that IP Address from visiting your blog. I only recommend to use this as a last resort (if the same IP Address is a repeated violator), but with limits in place, your blog is very unlikely to get hacked. In a four number password, there are 10,000 possible combinations. That means someone would have to enter 10,000 passwords before they identified whether your password has four numbers or not. This does not even include letters, special characters, or if you wisely decide to use a longer password. My password exceeds 10 characters and is filled with special symbols, numbers, and letters. With the Limit Login Attempts plugin in place, I don’t have to worry about a robot guessing until it identifies the right password.

#9: Pinterest Pin It Button For Images

Pinterest is a social network that does not get as much credit as it deserves. While some people are thriving on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, there are not nearly as many people making it big on Pinterest. If you are not on Pinterest, then you are missing out.

Regardless of whether you use Pinterest or not, plenty of your visitors will have Pinterest accounts. Over 70 million people use Pinterest, and many of these people love to share pictures. If you make it easy for people to pin your blog posts, you will be able to get more traffic from Pinterest. Even if you do not have a large presence on Pinterest, some of the people who visit your blog may have large audiences on Pinterest.

The Pinterest Pin It Button For Images plugin is a plugin that adds a “Pin It” button to all of your pictures. This button only shows up when you drag your mouse on the image, but by clicking on the image, a new window that allows you to send the pin opens up to the side.

The more people share your content, the better, and Pinterest is a great source for more blog traffic.

#10: WWSGD

The abbreviation for this plugin stands for “What Would Seth Godin Do.” Although I wish this plugin allowed us to get business advice from the famous marketer himself, WWSGD allows you to put a message on your blog welcoming new and returning visitors alike.

You may have seen a message on the top of this blog post welcoming you back or welcoming you for the first time. These types of messages build a strong connection between you and the reader. You can customize what the messages say, and with some basic knowledge in HTML combined with Google searches, you can also modify how the box surrounding the text looks. This plugin is critical towards making your visitors feel like they belong on your blog. Making them feel like they belong will encounter those people to visit your blog numerous times. The more someone visits your blog, the more likely that person will be to buy your products and subscribe.

#11: WordPress Editorial Calendar

As you schedule more blog posts, it will be more confusing to remember when you scheduled blog posts. When I was writing two blog posts every day, I would accidentally send out three blog posts on some days because I scheduled two blog posts to get published at the same time. That did not help out towards keeping people on my email list.

That problem happens less often because now I only write one blog post every other day. In addition, I use the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin. This plugin allows you to stay organized by displaying all of your sent and scheduled blog posts on a calendar. If you do not know whether you properly scheduled a blog post three weeks in advance, you no longer have to scroll through your blog posts and look at the dates to see if that blog post was scheduled at the right time. The WordPress Editorial Calendar allows you to see the exact date and time you are scheduling certain blog posts.

#12: Widget Context

Isn’t it annoying when you put widgets on your blog only to realize that they should not appear on certain pages of your blog. You may not want a certain widget to be on your homepage, and you may want another widget to only show up on your homepage.

The Widget Context allows you to choose where widgets appear on your blog. If you want a widget to be displayed everywhere on your blog, then you don’t have to do anything else. The Widget Context is set to that default. However, if you only want to show your widget on certain blog posts and pages, the Widget Context plugin can be used to specify where you want the widget to show up.

The Widget Context is especially great for testing a widget. Some widgets that get put up for the first time do not work as intended just because we are not used to them. You can use the Widget Context to test out the widget on one of your blog’s pages that does not get a lot of attention. You can keep testing the widget until it works, and then you can display the widget everywhere on your blog knowing that it works.

In Conclusion

There are numerous WordPress plugins to choose from. However, not all of them are created equal. These 12 WordPress plugins have been the most beneficial for my blogger journey, and they have enhanced my blog in one way or the other. Plugins are essential to a blog’s success because they provide a blog with enhancements that a blog cannot provide for itself.

What are your thoughts on the 12 plugins? Do you have a favorite plugin? Please share your thoughts and plugins below.

5 Reasons Why Every Teenager Needs To Have A Blog

December 15, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

5 Reasons Why Every Teenager Needs To Have A Blog

With the dawn of social media and blogging, it has now become more possible than ever for a teen to become successful at a young age. The requirements of looking for a job or owning your own brick and mortar stores are over. There are millionaires who have no headquarters building other than the home they sleep in. Some of these people are under 30, but teenagers can find themselves in that category as well.

The two main reasons why there are not more teenager entrepreneurs is because teens do not know how to be successful on the web, and they think it is an impossible feat that is exclusively for people out of college. On WordPress.com, creating a blog is free, and it only takes a few seconds to create one.

However, the rewards of starting a blog at a young age are incredible. As a teenager myself, I am amazed with the abilities that blogging has given me. I am also amazed that not every teen has his or her own blog. If you are the parent of a teen, be sure to share this article with them, and if you are a teen, here are five great reasons to start blogging at a young age.

#1: Blogging gives teens something good to do

To many people, the phrase “teen years” typically brings a bad thought. Some parents may see the “teen years” as separation from the child who wants to break free and live without limits. Some teens see the “teen years” as a bundle of joy.

One of the problems with “teen years” is that teens start to go into unchartered waters. There are stories of teens getting drunk or shooting people or doing another morally wrong act. On a less intense level, some teens procrastinate to the point where it is obvious to the people around them. Some teens procrastinate by surfing the web too often while others procrastinate by playing too many video games.

Blogging is an experiment, just like any good or bad thing that teens do. However, blogging is a positive experience that gives teens something good to do. Instead of procrastinating out of pure boredom, teens can now write blog posts about what they are passionate about and share it with the entire world. Putting your content out there for the world to see puts you on a whole new level.

#2: Blogging makes teens feel more significant

Significance is one of the basic human desires. We want other people to see us as significant because it boosts confidence self-esteem. It feels better to be given a compliment than an insult. Would you rather have people say you are good at something or that you are bad at something?

Blogging makes a teen feel more significant because there content is reaching out to people, and if the content is good, some people will leave nice comments. I have had the ability to interact with people within all parts of the world (I’m not so sure about Antarctica and the Arctic region all the way up north, but people from all other parts of the world have interacted with me at some point). Interacting with that many people, and seeing them write good things about your content makes you feel significant.

The problem with feeling insignificant is that some individuals who feel significant perform morally wrong actions just to be what they believe would make them “significant.” Some people go around and shoot people because they become a main news story. Then they become “significant,” but for the wrong reason.

#3: Blogging allows teens to get into the real world sooner

One of the biggest lies of the “real world” is that you get there when you graduate college. This idea of the real world is what allows the status quo to thrive. Although blogging is a great way to bring in a full-time income, it takes a lot of time to bring in that income and build your presence on the web.

Many college graduates become impatient and want to make money immediately (they want to support a family, buy a house, buy a car, and buy other things with their own money). This is when students start to realize from first-hand experience that life is more than taking notes in class and talking with friends. Working at the local store will result in quick money, but it won’t necessarily result in the type of money that the most successful bloggers make (millions of dollars).

#4: You have more flexibility over your schedule

The deeper you go into the school process, the less control you have over your schedule. College is where your schedule starts to become more flexible, but before that, you gradually lose control over your schedule (especially junior year in high school. That one is the worst). The great thing about blogging is that you can do it all year round anywhere you go. On the other hand, you can only do a summer job for three months, and that’s assuming you take no vacations in between.

At this stage of the game, I know there are teens on the fence wondering where they should go. Some teens think they will start in the summer and turn blogging into a type of summer job while other teens may want to start now (even if now means during the school year), but are not fully convinced. My answer is that you should start immediately after reading this blog post.

If you become a successful blogger at a young age, you will practically have full control over your schedule. How many people do you know who go to work from 9 am to 5 pm. Chances are you know a lot of people. All of your teachers, whether they want to or not, have to show up early and leave in the afternoon. Any employee you have seen in a brick-and-mortar store (Target, Mrs. Greens, CVS, WalMart, and all of the other ones as well) has to wake up at a certain time and work for a certain amount of time before going back home.

Starting now and becoming successful before you “have to” get a job and work for someone else (please don’t do that if you don’t want to) will allow you to make money and work on your own schedule. The best part is that when you get really good, you will literally be making money in your sleep!

#5: Blogging is a wonderful, unique experience

I have referenced this throughout my article, but it is worth mentioning again that blogging is what I believe is a life changing experience. If it weren’t for blogging, I would still be playing video games for three hours a day and watching TV when I didn’t feel like playing video games. I still play video games for about three hours every week, but I now spend hours of day enhancing my blog and getting my message out to the world.

Blogging has dramatically improved my time management skills, and it allows me to feel significant. The best part about blogging is that it is fun if you write about anything you want. It is important for teens to avoid viewing blogging as school essays because school essays give you limitations while you can write about anything you want on a blog. I have already written over 1,000 words for this particular blog post, and I have written over 400,000 words for this blog. It does not feel like work. Instead, it is a fun activity because I am able to write about what I am passionate about on a daily basis.

In Conclusion

Although a majority of the established bloggers are adults, more teens are creating their own blogs and writing their own content. Blogging provides teens with a great way to make money from the comfort of their home by doing what they love to do. Many of the top entrepreneurs got to where they are after working for someone else. If you create your blog now and make a full-time income, you won’t have to work for someone else for your entire life.

My only request for the parents reading this blog post is to show it to as many teens about it as possible. My only two requests for the teens reading this blog post are to create their own blogs and let other teens know about this article as well. I want to have a big impact on as many young entrepreneurs as possible.

6 Reasons Why Your Success Is In Your Email List

December 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

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I am sure you have heard of phrases like, “The money is in the email list” and “Your blog must have a way to collect email addresses.” When I was a new blogger, I did not fully understand the power of an email list. I initially thought it was just a strategy surrounded by too much hype. I did read the types of phrases I mentioned before, but few articles with those phrases would go deep into why growing an email list is important.

It was just “understood” that a blog must have a way to collect email addresses. Few articles went deeper than that when discusses how important it is to grow an email list, and that resulted in me not taking my email list seriously for a long time (big mistake).

Other than me saying that not growing my email list was a mistake and that the money is in the list, here are six reasons why it is important to grow your email list.

#1: Higher click through rate.

If you craft your emails effectively, you will get a much higher click through with an email list than with a social media audience. Based on the number of tweets I send out, the number of followers I have, and the number of visitors I get from Twitter, my tweets as a lump sum get a click through rate lower than 1%.

Although my Twitter presence does equate to hundreds of daily visitors, my email list is proving to bring forth a greater click through rate. For the typical email, at least 10% of the people on my list end up clicking the link in the email. The higher your click through rate is, the more traffic your blog will get, and emailing your list is a great way to produce a high click through rate.

#2: Scalar traffic

Touching upon higher click through rates, scalar traffic is another great reason to grow your email list. If you get 10% of the people on your list to click on the emails you send, then you would get more clicks as your email list grows.

If you have 100 people on your email list, that mathematically means you are getting 10 clicks. If you have 1,000 subscribers on your email list, that mathematically means you are getting 100 clicks. Just keep on adding the zeroes, and you will quickly realize how powerful an email list is.

One of the most successful marketers in the world is Brendon Burchard, and he achieved a big portion of his internet fame through a big email list. Burchard boasts an email list of over 1 million people, and if 10% of those people are clicking on the links he sends out, he is getting 100,000 visitors each time he sends out another link.

#3: More sales

In order to effectively utilize your email list, you need to interact with the people on that list. One of the ways you can do this is by promoting one of your products. My recommendation is to only have one promotional email every month and make sure the rest are informative, but sending out that one promotional email every month has the power to bring in more sales.

Since your subscribers are seeing you often and reading through your content, it is quite possible to promote one of your products and expect to bring in more sales. All you have to do is send them emails before that point.

Another great way to get more product sales is by creating an autoresponder that sends out a series of emails that are several days apart from each other. Your autoresponder sequence has the power to entice people to buy your products and let them know about your story. Here is the order that you should create your autoresponder to bring in more sales:

An email about an aspect of your story that relates to something your readers may be facing.
An email that provides value such as a lengthy report or blog post for free.
An email about the product itself and what it is all about.
An email that pushes for the sale.

In the first three emails, you should reference the product but not push for the sale. Just include a P.S. here and there about your product and what it has done for others.

The reason the autoresponder sequence takes four emails to pull off is because you want potential customers to be in the right mindset when buying your product. Imagine how likely you would be to buy a product if the salesman rushed over and said, “Buy my product.” Then imagine what would happen if another salesman told you to buy his product who you felt related to and recognized as an expert. You would be more likely to buy from the second salesman than the first one.

#4: Powerful product launches

The product launch is one of the most important phases, and some would argue that it decides whether a product becomes successful or not. Your email list is a great way to get more sales which also means it is a great way to have powerful product launches.

For training courses that you create, this can mean a massive amount of customers quickly buy it, and that means you will quickly get new testimonials. For Kindle authors, a powerful product launch means Amazon will start to promote your book more throughout their site. Having lower sales ranks for their books allow Kindle authors to get more sales.

#5: Word of mouth

In a world filled with the internet, social media, and mobile phones, word of mouth marketing still emerges as a great way to get noticed. High school gossips still go around, and as a student myself, I know that most of those gossips still take place through word of mouth.

In addition to still existing and reaching out to a variety of people, word of mouth marketing is an extremely valuable form of marketing. When someone tells their friend about you, it’s not in Facebook post that can easily get overlooked. Instead, these people are talking to friends, and when these types of conversations take place, each friend is paying more attention than they would be to a social media post.

Sending emails to an email list will allow you to develop the type of bond with your subscribers that results in word of mouth marketing. Think of word of mouth marketing as something similar to click through rate. Although you cannot track word of mouth marketing statistics, it is possible to create an estimate.

Let’s say that 10% of the people on your email list will tell their friends about you. Then, you can play around with the numbers I mentioned when referring to scalar traffic to determine how many people would tell their friends about you. If you have 1,000 people on your email list, 100 people are going to tell their friends about you. That is 100 extra people who know about you and may end up on your email list. Then, some of these 100 people will tell their friends and some of those friends will tell their friends. It is an infinite loop of people telling their friends about you, your email list growing larger, and you getting more traffic and sales.

Growing an email list helps word of mouth marketing and word of mouth marketing helps your email list.

#6: People will remember you

Just because someone reads your blog and enjoys your blog posts does not mean that person is going to be a returning visitor. Some people may forget about your blog while others may get preoccupied by other things. The reason is that there are few visitors who have an extraordinary desire to visit your blog every day, let alone once every 30 minutes.

Since most people do not have this strong desire to visit your blog that frequently, it is possible to see a blog visitor one time and never again. However, if you get a visitor to subscribe to your email list, that person will be able to remember you.

The people will not automatically remember you by subscribing to your blog. Instead, you will remind people of who you are by sending emails to them. If you are someone who cannot remember to all of the blogs you have subscribed to over the years, then you are not alone. I do not remember all of the blogs I have subscribed to since the beginning of my journey, but each time I get an email from that blogger, I am reminded of the following:

Who that person is
Why I subscribed to this person’s blog
The desire to revisit this person’s blog so I can read what I missed

Being remembered is an important way to build an authority on the web, and an email list allows more people to remember you. We are obsessed with our emails. Most of us check our inboxes multiple times every day while some of us are even checking our inboxes once every 15-30 minutes. Insane? Yes, but having your message in other people’s inboxes will almost ensure that numerous people read that message and go to your blog.

In Conclusion

Your email list is where the money is, and it is essential for any blogger who wants to make it big on the web. You may have known that already, but now you also know why growing your email list is important.

Just to know that something is important is not convincing enough to take action. I learned that the hard way by not taking my email list seriously for a long period of time. I only took my traffic numbers seriously, but that also meant some people were visiting my blog and not coming back. Some people didn’t come back simply because in their busy worlds, they couldn’t remember me. Being able to send an email to these people’s inboxes would have resulted in them remember who I am and visiting my blog more often.

There are free emailing options available such as WordPress’ Jetpack option, but growing a big email list requires an investment. That is why I invested in iContact which I use to grow my email list.

Are you taking your email list seriously?

5 Ways To Optimize Your Blog For Social Sharing

December 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

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One of the two key components to a blog’s success is how many people get to see your content, and if you get numerous people to share your blog posts, more people will see your content. Social sharing is massively important because billions of people are on social media. In addition, whether the people who share your blog post have 100 followers or thousands of followers, they all have audiences.

Since all of these people have audiences, more people will be exposed to your content. Then, with more people seeing your content, it is possible for even more people to share your blog posts on their social networks. As a result, the cycle continues, and numerous people are sharing your blog posts.

In order to get there, you need the traffic, but you also need to prepare your blog for success. Implementing these five methods will make it easier for people to share your content so it reaches more people.

#1: Include social media icons at the bottom of your blog posts

There are millions of blogs with social sharing buttons at the bottom of every blog post. One of the reasons why these social sharing buttons are at the bottom of every blog post is because it gives the reader enough time to read through the entire blog post. If the reader enjoys reading your blog post and is then presented with the ability to share your content, that reader will be more likely to do so.

There are some bloggers who place their social sharing buttons at the top of every blog post instead of at the bottom. This is a strategy that will make readers remember that they can share your article at any point. However, some people may forget by the time they read the entire blog post, and then no social sharing buttons will be available.

My recommendation is to place the social media icons at the bottom of your blog posts, but putting them on the top or bottom both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

#2: Use Click To Tweet in your blog posts

I experimented with one of my blog posts by making all of the tips 140 characters or less which made each tip short enough to be tweeted. Ever since I published that blog post, numerous people have been tweeting that particular blog post using the custom tweets that I create with Click To Tweet.

The advantage of Click To Tweet is that you get to create a custom tweet with the proper heading and URL. That means your readers do not have to go through the trouble of thinking what to say when they promote your content.

Just to give you an idea, here is an example of Click To Tweet in action for this article. The tweet is prewritten, and you can include a shortened URL in the tweet as well. There are more people who use Bitly and other link shortening service to reduce the amount of characters in a tweet to get more characters. Some people do not like tweeting the long links of other people’s articles, but by using Click To Tweet and already having the shortened URL in the tweet, more people will send it out.

#3: Make sure people can pin your images just by clicking on them

Pinterest is a big player on social media, and in order to spread on Pinterest, you must have pictures in all of your blog posts. Having pictures is not optional for spreading on Pinterest because every Pinterest pin requires a picture. The importance of Pinterest is one of the reasons why I spend more time nowadays creating my own pictures.

One great method to get more people to share your pictures, and therefore your blog, on Pinterest is by allowing people to pin a picture just by clicking on it. There are millions of websites that now make it possible to pin an article just by clicking on the picture. If you go back to the picture in this blog post, you will notice a “Pin It” button that appears faintly enough to be seen but not be too distracting.

You may be wondering whether Pinterest is really worth it, especially if you do not have a large audience on Pinterest yet. Including this feature gives other people the ability to share your content to their audiences on Pinterest. That means you may only have 100 followers, but one of the people who pins your blog post may have 10,000 followers. That is a lot of extra exposure just for adding a “Pin It” button on all of your pictures.

I use the Pin It Button For Images WordPress plugin to get the “Pin It” button to appear. Pinterest is gradually making it easier for anyone to pin something just by clicking on the picture, but this is a powerful feature that you want to make sure you have on your blog now.

#4: Share your blog posts on your own social networks

The main benefit seen with sharing your blog posts on your social networks is that you will get more traffic. Whether that means 1 new visitor, 10 new visitors, or something higher, sharing your blog posts on your own social networks results in more traffic.

Sharing your blog posts on social media is also a great way to spread on the social networks you share them on. If someone retweets your blog post, more people are seeing it. Some of the people who retweet your tweets may have over 10,000 followers. That is extra exposure that may result in more retweets and visitors as well.

It is great to get other people to promote your content on social media, but you also want to build a big presence for yourself on social media. Building a bigger presence for yourself on social media will allow you to boost your credibility, build strong connections, and achieve the main goal referenced in this blog post: get more people to share your content on social media.

#5: Decrease your blog’s bounce rate so people stick around

Just because you get a lot of people to view your blog posts does not guarantee that people share them. In order to boost the chances of someone sharing one of your blog posts, you need these people to stay on your blog for a long period of time. Someone staying on your blog for a long period of time indicates that the person enjoys reading through your content. The people who enjoy your content are the ones who will become returning visitors and let their followers know about your content dozens of times.

I have been thanking people again and again for sharing for sharing my blog posts. Some of the people who share my blog posts are new people that I interacted with for the first time while other people have been sharing my blog posts for several months. The reason someone would continue sharing blog posts from the same blog is because they find that blog interesting. Reducing your blog’s bounce rate will make people stay on your blog for a longer period of time, which may lead to more social shares in the long-term.

In Conclusion

The more your content spreads, the more people will be able to see it. As more people see your content, more of them will share it. Spreading on social media works like a chain reaction. If enough people are sharing your content, more people will see and share it.

Some of the people who read and share your blog posts may not be introduced to your blog by one of your social media posts. Instead, someone else who promotes your blog can introduce it to the people in their audience. The more people you get to promote your content, the greater of an impact this strategy has to attracting more audiences to your blog.

Then, with all of the traffic coming in, your blog’s success then comes down to what people do when they visit your blog. Are they subscribing, buying products, and promoting your blog to more people? If your visitors are performing those actions, then you are going to have a very good blogging career.

Do you have a 6th tip for optimizing a blog for optimized sharing?

6 Pinterest Mistakes You Do Not Want To Make If You Want A Big Audience

December 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Pinterest is a unique social network in its design and usability. Many brands such as Nordstrom Rack have accumulated millions of followers that, as a combined force, make pins from these brands go viral. There are marketers who are utilizing Pinterest as well, and I can testify that Pinterest is a great way to promote your content.

Although I do not use Pinterest as often as Twitter, I have been able to accumulate over 15,000 followers. Pinterest users love to share other people’s content because the social network turns sharing other people’s pins into a reward. Many Pinterest users want to have boards with numerous pins. The Pinterest board with 100 pins looks way better than the Pinterest board with only 1 pin. Having more pins on their boards allows users to create a more enticing account for potential followers.

Pinning valuable content will allow your pins to spread farther on Pinterest, but there are mistakes that may prevent you from growing the big audience needed to go viral and build an authority on Pinterest. If you want to have a big audience on Pinterest, these are the six mistakes that you must avoid.

#1: Surfing on Pinterest

The double-edged sword fact about Pinterest is that it is highly addictive. The advantage of the double-edged sword is that if you have a large audience, some of those people will scroll through your entire boards and repin everything in sight. This means more exposure for you, and in some cases, more traffic for your blog as well. The disadvantage is that Pinterest can eat away a giant chunk of your time. The Pinterest memes on the web that say things like, “I’ll be on Pinterest for a few minutes hours” are popular for a reason.

Pinterest has millions of users that could benefit from your content which means with great power comes great responsibility. If you strive to grow a big audience on Pinterest, you must spend a bulk of your time on Pinterest sending pins instead of looking through other people’s pins.

#2: Pinning numerous pins in a row

Pinning frequency is an interesting topic of discussion. When you are a newbie, it is important to fill your boards with pins. However, once you have enough boards filled with pins and an audience, you need to pin smarter. If you send out more than three pins in one minute, you are pinning too much at one time.

Pinterest users who surf see their updates on a timeline, similar to Twitter, Facebook, and most of the other social networks as well. The only difference is that Pinterest users see their timeline in the form of large pictures that take up more space on the screen than a tweet.

I recently went on Pinterest to see how pins appear on my feed. Here is what I saw

Two pictures and their descriptions
Half of an infographic
Half of two pictures and no text

I was startled to realize that I only saw five pins on my feed, and I couldn’t even see everything that three of those five pins contained. On Twitter, I typically see five tweets from start to finish. Many Pinterest users like Pinterest because of the variety it has. If you send out 10 pins in 1 minute, there is no variety. It’s all you, and that results in some people clicking the unfollow button.

While pinning constantly in a short period of time is initially a great way to get more pins on your board, it will annoy your audience. A good fix to the problem is to create a secret board and add 100 pins or more to that board before publishing it. That way, you don’t have to annoy your followers with 100 pins in a few minutes.

#3: Not taking the time to craft an effective bio

Your bio is one of the most important components on any social network or blog. It is the make or break point of your authority. People will not know anything about you until they read your bio. Sure, having pins available related to your niche does help, but since Pinterest is all about variety, you may have some boards related to your niche and some boards that have nothing to do about your niche.

An effective bio allows people to know who you are, and this clarity makes people feel more confident when they click the follow button. In your bio, it is important for you to list your expertise, accomplishments, and hobbies. I let people know that I am a digital marketing expert, but I also let people know I am a runner.

Letting people know about my expertise, accomplishments, and hobbies allows me to be compatible with more people. The more people you are similar to, whether the similarities are small or huge, the more people are going to follow you. We like to follow and listen to people who are similar to us.

#4: Not verifying your blog on Pinterest

Including your blog’s link in your Pinterest bio and verifying it on Pinterest is one of the easiest ways to get a backlink for your blog. In addition to providing a backlink, verifying your blog also gives you the checkmark that allows you to stand out from the crowd. The checkmark combined with a large audience will let people know that you are a big deal. You are verified which means you must be important.

Just as we like to follow and listen to the people who we are similar to, we also like to follow and listen to important people. Even if you have iPhones, iPads, and Macs galore, wouldn’t it be nice to meet Bill Gates. He is important, wealthy, and smart–and those are the types of people who many people enjoy listening about.

Although the checkmark may not give you Bill Gates status, it lets people know you are important. It lets people know you are worth following. It lets people know you are a valuable person in your niche.

#5: Having too many boards with not enough pins

The value of a Pinterest board is not just in the value of the pins. It is also in the quantity. The typical Pinterest user will not browse through a Pinterest board with five valuable pins as much as a Pinterest board with 500 valuable pins.

The more pins your boards have, the more someone will scroll through your board. Some of these people will repin as many pins on one of your boards as possible. Some individuals have repinned hundreds of pins from one of my boards.

Your boards need to have more pins, but it is also important to avoid annoying your followers. That is why I mentioned that pinning numerous pins in a row is a mistake before mentioning this mistake. You don’t want to send out 500 pins in 30 minutes at the cost of losing a good chunk of your followers.

#6: Not Having A Variety Of Boards

Pinterest is all about the variety. If someone searches for food on Pinterest (by the way, food pictures on Pinterest happen to be very popular), that person will see fruits, vegetables, meat, recipes, and more. When other people search for vacation destinations, they will find pictures on the beach, mountains, cities, and other places as well.

The great thing about Pinterest is that you can still let people know your expertise while pinning content related to both food and vacation destinations. Pinning content related to these two topics will result in your pins and boards related to those two topics appearing on Pinterest’s search engine.

When you are pinning about a variety of topics, you can easily let people know your expertise by putting all of the boards related to your expertise on top of your other boards. However, pinning about all of these topics will allow you to reach out to more people and grow your audience.

Some people may be skeptical because not all of these followers are necessarily targeted followers. Someone who only followed me because of my Pinterest board with cool bookshelves may not be as interested in my digital marketing articles. Growing your audience through this method has three major benefits:

You get better social proof
They are real followers
Most important of them all: You need a big audience to rapidly spread on Pinterest, and growing this type of audience will give you the leverage you need to reach out to more people. Some of the people you reach out to through this method may end up being targeted users.

Having a variety of boards will ensure that you get more followers, but you also need to make sure these boards are heavily populated with pins. My recommendation is to make sure that a majority of the boards on your account has under 20 pins. None should have under ten.

In Conclusion

Pinterest is a powerful social network that is highly addictive. Pinterest has the power to grab attention. As long as you are the one pinning content that grabs attention and not surfing, you will have the much needed time to implement the other methods and grow your audience.

Like any other social network or any blog on the web, it takes time to grow a Pinterest audience. It may take you a year to reach 5,000 followers, but each time you reach a certain milestone, it will be easier to achieve the same milestone quicker. If it took you 100 days to get your first 1,000 followers, it may only take you 90 days to get your next 1,000 followers. The reason it gets quicker each time is because you are learning new things about growing your audience and implementing them along the way.

Which tip was your favorite? Do you have any additional tips for the people who strive to grow a big audience on Pinterest?

7 Social Media Excuses You Need To Expel From Your Thinking So You Can Thrive

December 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are many people who have grown large audiences on social media. Some of these people have thousands of people in their audience while others are up there in the millions. However, there are few people who get to see these accounts develop to those stages.

Teen celebrities, fashion stars, and digital marketing experts are three of the many types of people who have dominated social media. They all started out with zero followers, and at one point, the only people who knew about them were family members. You don’t just get born with fame. It takes countless hours of work in order to build that fame and have a large audience.

Despite many people being successful on social media, there are many people who are constantly giving themselves excuses that limit their capabilities. Anyone on the web has the power to become successful and build a powerful presence based on their expertise. This statement is by no means an exaggeration, but if you want to truly be successful on social media, these are the seven excuses that you must expel immediately.

#1: I’m not popular enough

The current popularity any individual has is not final. If no one knows about you, it is still possible to build a large audience. One of the most important things to remember is that everyone started from the ground up.

You may not be what you define as a popular person, but you can become popular. Reading articles like this one show me you have a desire to be successful on social media. Having this desire makes you one step closer to becoming popular on social media.

#2: “Why would a random person want to follow me?”

Some people who create social media accounts tend to think, “Why would a random person want to follow me?” The problem with asking this question is that “random person” is too vague. Vagueness is the main reason why most people get confused about what they need to do on social media.

In order to identify who would want to follow you, you have to replace the word “random” with “targeted.” One small change changes the question to, “Why would a targeted person want to follow me?” That one small change makes a big difference. At this stage, you want to identify who your target audience is. Here’s the quick summary:

Identify what you are going to tweet about most of the time (at least 90% of the time)
Identify which people are interested in that type of content (look at a popular account that tweet content in the same niche. That account’s followers would be interested in your type of content).

Once you identify your target audience, follow some of the people in your target audience whose numbers suggest that they would follow you back. As you gain more followers, your confidence will grow, and then you will eventually be asking yourself, “Why wouldn’t someone want to follow me?” Just don’t be a show off.

#3: Who is really going to like what I say?

More people than you would think.

Your targeted audience is the group of people who would like what you have to say. Since there are over 1 billion people using social media, it is almost guaranteed that there are millions of targeted people on the same social network as you. You just need to make the connection happen so that person knows about you and can see your posts.

Social media gives you the power to put your own voice on the web, and you need to be proud of that voice. If you want help with crafting powerful posts, look at what the leaders of your niche are going. The two best ways to learn on social media are by example and experimentation.

#4: I don’t have the time

This excuse is one of my biggest pet peeves. Not having enough time is another way of saying one of two things:

You have more important things to do.
This is just absolutely never going to happen.

The people with the big audiences have the same amount of time in a day as you. Everyone has 24 hours in one day, and we all spend a good portion of that time sleeping, eating, and drinking water.

What happens after the necessary activities to keep life going are what make or break success. I find it preposterous that many people complain about not having enough time, and yet the average American watches 32 hours of TV every week. You have more time than you realize. Carving out time from unproductive activities will allow you to find the time you need to grow your social media audience and learn more about building a powerful presence on the web.

#5: I’m not getting results fast enough

Starting your journey towards growing a large social media audience is the equivalent of signing a contract that says, “I understand that there is no such thing as overnight success.” It takes multiple years before a large audience develops. It took me multiple years to come up with an effective Twitter strategy that I currently use to gain hundreds of Twitter followers every day.

No matter which social network you choose, it will not take a few days to go from no audience to 1 million followers. If it were that quick and easy, then there would be no point. There would be nothing special about having a large audience. It does take a while before you grow your large audience. However, it feels extremely good once you have the big audience and realize you built it from the ground up.

#6: “There are too many things I have to learn about social media”

No matter what you pursue in life, there will be a necessary learning curve to cross. Social media is no exception. The reason why there is no overnight success is because it takes time to learn how to be successful, and it takes time to implement the same process at a consistent rate until you get the audience that you want.

Many people jump into social media head-on and try to learn everything about every social network. This approach is what results in people saying that there are too many things to learn about social media. Instead of trying to learn everything about every social network, only focus on one social network. Then, when you master one social network, move onto the next social network. It is better to learn about a bunch of social networks in a few years and have big audiences on all of the social networks that you master than it is for you to attempt to learn about every social network right now and not have a big audience on any of them.

#7: It’s too late to jump on the social media bandwagon

Just because social media has been around for a little over a decade does not mean it is too late to jump on the social media bandwagon. Social media makes it possible for anyone to thrive, regardless of when they join.

It is never too late to be successful on social media. There are rising stars on social media that started off with no followers just a few months ago. Now, some of these people have big audiences.

If you can interact with your followers and provide them with value, you can be successful on social media, regardless of when you create an account.

In Conclusion

There are over 1 billion people on social media, and it is possible for anyone to become successful on any social network. We often use excuses to get out of putting in the work or because we think a goal is impossible.

Success on social media is attainable for any individual, and there is no overnight success in any niche. However, once you have that large audience, you will be proud of all of the work that you put in to make that big audience possible. Eliminating the excuses is a great way to start on the path towards social media stardom.

Which of these excuses resonated with you the most? Are there any other excuses that you believe hold others back?