blogging

The Ultimate Guide To Creating An Effective Blog Strategy

July 15, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blog Strategy Guide

Success consists of various routes. Some people become successful by investing in stocks, singing very well, playing a sport very well, writing very well, or doing something very well that leads to a profit and meaningful, positive recognition. Success on the web also consists of various routes. Some people build their businesses around Twitter while others build their businesses around Facebook.

Although success on the web consists of various routes, 99% of all of the successes on the web have this in common—they all have successful blogs. Blogs are no longer online diaries. They allow you to build relationships with a targeted audience like never before. Blogs are now like business cards—you need them. Many people know that blogs are essential, and numerous people who visit my blog have blogs of their own.

However, having a blog does not guarantee that the blog will become successful or contribute towards your brand’s growth. Having a blog just means you have something that can potentially have a huge impact on your brand. Turning that potential into a reality is the challenge that all bloggers face at the beginning of their journeys. The most successful people who make their revenue on the web turned that potential into reality.

In order to get the same results from your blog, you must have an effective strategy in place. This effective strategy must account for various areas that all contribute towards blog growth, but in particular, it must account for traffic, SEO, social media, and subscribers.

Traffic

Without traffic, your blog won’t have an impact on your brand. You must come up with different methods of boosting your blog’s traffic and then implement those methods to see which methods bring forth the best results. You can use SEO, social media, and an email list to get more traffic, and I believe these three traffic-boosting methods are the most effective methods available. However, when you are first starting out, you need to generate some short-term traffic. Here are some tips that will help you generate the short-term traffic:

Engage in forums based on the community guidelines. Don’t be over-promotional.
Comment on viral pins. Your comment will almost always show up on the top since most pins (even the viral ones) get fewer than three comments.
Encourage your friends and family to share your blog on their social networks. Social media shares will get you more blog traffic from the social networks and Google because social shares are critical factors in Google’s ranking system.
Write guest posts and ask other bloggers within your niche to mention one of your top blog posts in the future.
Write a lot of content. Longer blog posts rank better on Google, and updating your blog consistently also helps.

SEO

Once you start generating some short-term traffic, you should start learning more about SEO. My advice with SEO is to approach it with caution. There are thousands of SEO-related articles, and it is easy to get confused with the entire process of optimizing your blog for Google. It took me several years to master SEO, but part of the delay was that I spent most of my time on other things such as writing content and polishing up my writing skills. The first few blog posts I wrote were decent at best, but my writing has improved since then. Not only did I have to improve my writing, but I also had to learn how to optimize a blog to get more subscribers and to provide a noteworthy experience for first-time visitors. I read a few SEO articles every month, and now I am able to read them with greater intensity since my blog is optimized to perform well. To save you from reading countless SEO articles, I compiled a list of methods you can use to boost your blog’s SEO.

Write longer blog posts. According to SEO expert Neil Patel, most of the blog posts on the first page of Google’s search results are 2,000 words or longer.
Write blog posts at a consistent rate, preferably multiple blog posts per week. Google appreciates it when you update your blog consistently. No matter how good your blog is, if your blog does not get updated consistently and often, Google won’t put your blog on the first page. Google prefers to show blogs that get updated with fresh content. When was the last time you went to the first page of a Google search result and came across a blog post that was published two years ago on a now dormant blog?
Use smaller pictures. Resizing a big picture into a small picture does not work here. You must choose pictures for your blog posts that are small from the start. I use Canva to create the pictures that I use for my blog posts. It is a free tool with a lot of versatility. Using small pictures makes your blog posts load faster, and speed time is another big factor of Google’s ranking system.
Link back to your older blog posts. When I find it relevant, I will use a new blog post to promote an older blog post (just like this. NOTE: it’s an SEO blog post). Promoting your older blog posts will give those blog posts more traffic. A highly populated old blog post indicates evergreen content, and the search engines will promote it more often. The main function of this strategy is to decrease your blog’s bounce rate, and a low bounce rate lets search engines know that people stay on your blog for a long period of time. The search engine logic is that since people stay on your blog for a long period of time, it must be interesting. Therefore, the search engines promote your content with more intensity.
Write blog posts with keywords. Although you want to avoid keyword stuffing (using the same keyword in every sentence just for the sake of SEO), you should use keywords in your blog posts often, and especially at the very beginning of your content.

It is better to apply a few methods to boost your SEO than it is to read hundreds of articles but not implement anything. Implement most or all of these tactics before you read numerous articles about SEO.

Social Media

The best way to strengthen your SEO in the beginning is to grow your social media audience and have that audience engage with your blog content. Getting more social shares from your social media audience will lead to an increased search engine ranking, and since you are growing a social media audience, you will get more traffic from your own social media accounts. When I started to get hundreds of daily visitors from Twitter, my SEO traffic increased to the same level, and the ratio of my Twitter traffic to SEO traffic is very close to 1:1.

Not only does social media provide you with more traffic and a better SEO rank, but you also get to interact with more people. Social media has allowed me to interact with thousands of people interested in my niche who now visit my blog and buy my products. Here are some tips to help you get started on social media:

Focus on one social network in the beginning. Many people like to use them all and master them all in one go, but social media mastery does not work that way. Social media mastery works in the same way as trying to master multiple languages. You would not learn multiple languages at the same time because that would be confusing, and you would most likely end up being mediocre at a few languages but fluent in none of them. If you focus all of your time on one language, then it will be easier for you to become fluent in that language. In the same way, if you focus on learning one social network, then it will become easier for you to master that one social network. Moreover, once you master a social network, it will become easier for you to master a second social network, and each time you master another social network, it becomes easier for you to master the next social network that you attempt to master.
Post consistently. The only way your followers will remember who you are is if they see you often. You can use a scheduling tool like HootSuite to schedule social media posts throughout the day.
Interact with your audience. Interaction allows relationships to build, and some of the people you interact with will take you and your content more seriously after the interaction takes place. It will definitely be easier for these people to remember you and your brand.
Grow a targeted audience. An audience consists of people. A targeted audience consists of people interested in your niche. There is a big difference between building an audience and building a targeted audience. When you interact with other people, look for the people who engage with the leaders in your niche. The people who engage with the leaders in your niche are targeted individuals who are interested in your niche. You want these types of followers to form your social media audience.
Follow other people. The biggest mistake I made in the beginning of my Twitter journey was assuming I could get 100,000 followers and only follow a few dozen people. Although those numbers are possible, my account grew at a slow pace and got stuck at around 1,667 followers for an extended period of time. In short, this mindset did not work well for my social media audience. When I started following other people, and in particular, highly targeted individuals likely to follow back, my audience grew dramatically.

Subscribers

As the saying goes, “The money is in the list.” This powerful saying has encouraged thousands of bloggers to take their email lists more seriously. It is this saying that eventually led to my landing pages and optimizing my blog to grow my email list. You want to convert as many of your blog visitors as possible into subscribers because subscribers will buy your products and become returning visitors.

However, subscribers only engage with what you do if you interact with them often. You must send out at least one email blast every week to the people on your list so they constantly see your name in their inboxes. Although you don’t want to excessively send out email blasts, you must also send the email blast even if you lose subscribers. The reality about most email marketing efforts is that you will lose some subscribers every time you send an email blast, but if you never send an email blast, then you don’t get to tap into the goldmine that is your email list. Here are some tips to help you grow your email list:

Get landing pages on your blog. Landing pages are optimized to collect email addresses. They typically offer a free prize that can only be received when someone enters his/her email address into a form. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages. The lowest price for Optimize Press is $97, but it is the best investment you can make as a WordPress.org blogger.
Have a pop-up. Pop-ups work surprisingly well at getting more email subscribers. I was a bit skeptical to use a pop-up, but after I used Pop-Up Domination, my email list grew dramatically. Some technical problems prevented me from using the Pop-Up Domination plugin, and I saw a decline in the average number of subscribers I gained per day. If you buy a pop-up plugin, or any plugin for that matter, make sure that plugin comes with excellent support.
Continue to get more traffic. At this point, this guide may sound like a yo-yo, and it should. The beauty of all four of these essential components of an effective blog strategy is that they all complement each other. More traffic leads to subscribers, and more subscribers leads to more traffic. Just get the cycle started, increase the power of that cycle, and then the cycle will continue itself as long as you continue writing blog posts and sending email blasts.
Include a subscription form at the bottom of every blog post. I include a subscription form below my blog posts so that they people who enjoyed my blog post have easy access to a free resource that I offer in exchange for an email address. People who read through an entire blog post and appreciate the value will be more likely to subscribe, but no one will subscribe without a call-to-action. Including a subscription box or link to a landing page at the bottom of every blog post provides that consistent call-to-action.
Use a paid emailing service. If you are not using a service like iContact, Aweber, or MailChimp, then you are not getting the best from your email marketing efforts. Many tools like Optimize Press work best with a paid emailing service, and these emailing services provide their users with functionality that free services don’t provide. Most of the paid emailing services provide their users with the ability to create autoresponders, segments, and send your own custom messages just to name a few of the available options.

In Conclusion

Creating an effective blog strategy requires you to focus on traffic, SEO, social media, and your email list. All four of these areas of blog growth complement each other well, and if you get a large enough audience through one of these methods (especially the email list), you can easily create a cycle in which people find you on social media, visit your blog, share it on social media (the social media visit and social share help SEO), and then these people may subscribe to your blog after reading one of your blog posts. Finally, these subscribers may decide to visit your blog and visit one of your social media accounts that you have on your blog’s sidebar. Then, the cycle continues. Continuing this cycle allows you to master blogging.

Which part of the effective blog strategy do you think is the most important? Do you have any tips to boost any of the four areas of the effective blog strategy? Do you think there is another essential factor to an effective blog strategy? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

What Makes Spreadable Content

June 22, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Getting More Blog Post Traffic

Spreadable content is the type of content that people are eager to share. To some people, sharing spreadable content is a calling unable to be ignored. We enjoy sharing content that we like because we get to empower our audiences and get some of the praise for taking the time to share the content.

We will all continue sharing spreadable content, but what if your content was spreadable? What if people visited your blog, read one of your blog posts, and felt an obligation to share that blog post. Not just a maybe; an obligation. You want people to feel that sense of obligation to share your content each time they read any of your blog posts. If you can generate that sense of obligation amongst a large group of people, then you have spreadable content. People will share it across their social networks, and as more people come in contact with your content for the first time, they will share it with their followers, and the cycle will continue. A few thousand people who enjoy your posts may eventually lead to hundreds of thousands of people actively engaging with your content.

Cool success story, but you may be wondering how you can create spreadable content of your own. How do you get your visitors to feel that sense of obligation to share your blog posts? That’s what the rest of this blog post will cover.

Write Valuable Content

The only type of content that spreads is valuable content. You can promote your content all you want, but if the content is not written well, people won’t share it. Valuable content empowers, entertains, and/or inspires your readers.

If you write how-to blog posts, don’t be shy to write a lengthy, high-value blog post. Your free blog posts give your readers a general idea of the amount of value in your paid products. Not only does providing free value entice people to buy your products, but when you write valuable content, people stick around. If you want a reader to share your content, then that reader must be reading a particular blog post for a long period of time.

Optimize Your Blog For Social Shares

If people read your blog post and appreciate the value they got from it, then they may want to share that blog post. However, these people live busy lives in which going on a social network, copying the link, pasting the link (and probably shortening it first), and writing the social media post takes too much time. Although this activity takes under 10 minutes, it is an activity that people don’t want to do.

The route around the problem is to optimize your blog for social shares. At the bottom of all of my blog posts are social share buttons for multiple social networks. When readers click on those buttons, they will get a prewritten tweet, Facebook post, pin, and more that could get published in a matter of seconds. I also make it easy for people to tweet custom-made tweets in the middle of my blog posts. Writing valuable content helps in creating spreadable content, but spreadable content must have a method of being spread. Optimizing your blog for social shares is that method.

Write Engaging Content

The content that gets the reader’s attention is the content that engages the reader. To make your content more engaging, turn your content into a conversation. Ask questions at different point in blog posts and use personal, relevant anecdotes so you and the reader can relate to one another. The relationship that builds from engaging content may lead to a reader sharing your blog post, and if enough people read the engaging blog post, that blog post will spread rapidly.

Writing engaging content isn’t just a method of creating spreadable content. Writing engaging content also allows you to build long-term relationships with your audience. This type of relationship is the relationship that grows a solid fan base for your blog and leads to product sales. Having an audience filled with loyal, returning visitors will be very helpful for your blog’s exposure.

Email The Top Bloggers About Your Blog Post

When you write a spectacular blog post that stands out, send a quick email to the top bloggers in your niche about your blog posts. Some bloggers will refer to this method as the “Skyscraper Method,” and it is a great way to get extra exposure for that blog post. If you get dozens of top bloggers to promote your blog post to their audiences, your one blog post alone could see thousands of visitors and dozens of backlinks within a few days. Although this seems too good to be true, it has happened.

When you email a top blogger, it is important to email them a blog post that stands out. Blog posts either stand out by providing an extraordinary amount of value, discussing something rarely discussed (new trend), or going into great detail about something (typically, big numbers help here. Think along the lines of “200 tips/tools or some massive number). The best part is that if you choose the top bloggers in your niche, you’ll get people from their audiences to read your content. These people are a part of your targeted audience since they read similar content on other people’s blogs.

Your Story

Remember when it didn’t matter whether you had a good reputation or not? I don’t, and I don’t think there has ever been a time where the importance of a good reputation has been undermined. Your reputation is important for getting loyal readers who will actively share and engage with your content. However, your reputation is also a part of your story. As bestselling author Seth Godin says, “Everything that you do becomes a part of your story.” How you tweet, write, talk to others, and live life all become a part of your story and how people see your brand—what you stand for.

The people with magnificent stories are the ones who have loyal audiences eager to share their content. Seth Godin doesn’t even have to write 100 words for his next blog post, and thousands of people will share it.

Not only do magnificent stories lead to loyal audiences, but they also spread like wildfire. If you have a spreadable story on the loose (that positively impacts your reputation and other people), then your content will spread as well.

In Conclusion

Spreadable content comes down to two things: the content itself and behind-the-scenes actions that must occur. Although the behind-the-scenes actions are not plentiful, they are all important, and they can lead to massive exposure for your content. Regardless of how much effort you put into creating spreadable content, patience is a must.

Do you think taking all of this time to create spreadable content is worth it? Which of these tips did you like the most? Do you have any additional tips for creating spreadable content? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

9 Ways To Strengthen The Bond Between You And Your Readers

June 17, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Better Blogging Experience For Visitors

A blog is more than just a bunch of blog posts put together. A blog provides you with a method to build a bond between yourself and the people who visit your blog…your readers. Building these bonds with numerous readers results in returning visitors who may share your blog posts on their social networks and tell others about you.

Many bloggers who go viral end up going viral because of their own work and the help from others. Going at it alone won’t help your chances of standing out, going viral, and making a full-time income on the web. The readers you know well are the ones who will help make your content go viral. Building the bond between you and your readers requires the usage of multiple platforms and interaction methods. Here are nine of the ways you can strengthen the bond between you and your readers.

#1: Start Conversations On Their Social Media Posts

Some of the people you know well on Twitter (when I say well, I am referring to a reader who may be in a different continent but you have interacted before in a meaningful way) may tweet links to valuable articles on the web. Since the average Twitter user has a little under 500 followers, most Twitter users, and social media users in general, are not a part of many conversations. These people often use social media as a broadcasting platform without taking the time to respond to or start conversations.

What I have noticed is that if you start a conversation with these people in a meaningful way, they will most likely respond to you. Just repeat the process and have numerous conversations with the same people, and that bond between you and those followers will grow. Some of them may decide to interact on your social media posts and share your content. This strategy is not exclusive to Twitter because social networks were primarily created to make socializing much easier. Use social media as a broadcasting tool, but also use it for its main purpose.

#2: Thank Your Followers For Sharing Your Content

Each time someone shares one of my blog posts on a social network, I make it a point to thank that person for sharing my blog post. This is something that few people do, and it is a great way to stand out and build the bond between you and the person who shared your content. Thanking your followers works because your followers will realize that you care when they share your content and that you are deeply appreciative of them sharing your content.

Regardless of whether someone has 10 followers or 10,000 followers, I thank the person all the same. With billions of articles on the web to choose from, someone choosing to share your article on their social platform is a big honor. When I see someone sharing my content, I understand that plenty of options exist, but the person choose my content. When this thought enters my mind, even if it’s midnight and I want to go to bed, I ask myself how I could possibly sit back and not thank someone for sharing my blog post. These people will most likely reply, a conversation will ensue, and the bond will be strengthened.

#3: Reply To Their Comments

On this blog, I make it a point to reply to every comment I get. Of course, if a comment appropriately ends up in the spam folder, I won’t respond, but for the comments that relate to my blog post, I’ll respond to them. This requires more time on my part because I can’t click “Approve Comment” and go on my way. I have to take the time to formulate a response. While most of these responses take less than a minute to write, others can take 5-10 minutes.

Replying to your readers’ comments will encourage them to ask questions and interact with you more. Once they interact with you often, they will trust you more, and almost to the level of a very reliable friend.

Not only does replying to comments allow you to build the bond between you and your readers, but replying to comments also allows new bonds to begin. Some of your new readers will scroll down to the comments section and see that you reply to every comment. These readers may leave a comment to test whether you respond or not, or they may comment with a question and come back waiting for the answer.

#4: Email Your Readers

When a reader comments on your blog, once piece of information you get is the reader’s email address. An email address is very valuable because conversations that take place through email are the most meaningful conversations you can have other than the oldie but goodie face-to-face conversation.

The conversations you have with your readers are only meaningful if you email your reader in the proper manner. The best way to have the first conversation through email is to send an email with a brief introduction of yourself and thanking the person for going on your blog. You want the first interaction to be short, sweet, and to the point because people don’t have much time on their hands. We are constantly going from one thing to the next, and a five sentence email is much quicker to read than a five paragraph email.

Sending a short, sweet, and to the point email is a great way to start the conversation, but when you have someone’s email address, you also have a huge responsibility. That simple responsibility is to avoid being irresponsible with what you have. Some marketers in an attempt to grow their email lists may look at past blog comments and copy and paste the email addresses into the list. You never want to put an email address onto a list that your reader never subscribed to because that will effectively hurt the relationship between you and the reader. Some of your readers may appreciate getting the emails, but it is always good to ask the reader first before you use their email address in any way. My recommendation is to guide and hint your readers to the process (“get this free product by entering your email address on the landing page” instead of “can I put your email address on my email list so you get more emails from me”).

#5: Make Them A Part Of Your Next Blog Post Or Product Decision

Giving your readers influence in your own decisions is a powerful strategy to build the bond and get more exposure at the same time. When you make your readers a part of a big decision, and you reach a conclusion based on data from a poll or survey, you will have to entice the majority of your readers when you create your next product or write your next blog post.

Enticing the majority is important because that majority will feel as if it had a direct impact on your product or blog post. These people that form the majority of your readers will be more likely to buy your product, so you have more sales right then and there. They will also promote your product or blog post that you published to their friends because they influenced the decision. If they didn’t vote, maybe a different product or blog post would have been published instead. Get your readers involved in what you do.

#6: Shout Out Some Of Your Readers

Shouting out readers is a great way to build the bond between you and individual readers. I don’t always shout out readers, but I will retweet some of their tweets that I believe my followers could get value from. In other words, my shout outs look nothing like this:

“Shout out to my boy @username for being awesome. #ff”

My shout outs are random, and I rarely do them. Many people ask me for shout outs, but I’ll only shout out the people I believe match my audience’s interests. Just don’t get into the habit of doing too many shout outs because then people will beg you for them, and there is a big problem with asking for shout outs.

#7: Continue Showing Up

You can have a strong bond between you and your readers, but the moment you stop showing up, that bond gets weaker. If you are like most people, you look at your inbox every day expecting an email from the same person every day, and you enjoy reading this person’s emails. Then, imagine if that person suddenly stopped sending emails for an entire week. An entire month. An entire YEAR!

Most people would forget who that person was within a year. Since so many options exist on the web, it will be easy for people to find a substitute. Once the bond between you and your readers gets disconnected, your readers will look for another blogger to bond with.

Not only is it important to continue showing up in your readers’ inboxes, but it is also important to continue showing up on their social networks. I send over 100 tweets every day which makes me hard to miss. By showing up often on social media, your followers will share your content which exposes your content to more people who may be seeing it for the first time. Once you commit to a niche, never stop showing up, but when you show up, provide value. It is possible to run and take shortcuts. It is also possible to run and complete the entire workout from start to finish. There is a distinct difference between showing up and providing value each time you show up.

#8: Assess The Current Bond

Regardless of whether you get dozens of daily visitors or thousands of daily visitors to your blog, there is a bond building between you and your readers. One way to strengthen the bond is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the bond. Where are you lacking? Can those areas be improved in an efficient manner? Where are your strengths? How can you easily but effectively make those strengths stronger?

How is it possible to improve at anything if you don’t know where you currently are?

#9: Play Nice

If you wanted to make some friends at the playground, then you had to play nice. Many people gravitate towards the nice people, and that makes sense. Would you rather live with an angry person or a nice person every day?

When you build the bond between you and your readers, some of these readers will pay more attention to the way you interact with others. As you continue growing your audience, you will face criticism. Criticism is an inevitable part of life, and how you react to criticism will impact the bond between you and your readers. If you respond to criticism in a controlled manner, then your readers will respect you all the more for it. However, if you lose control when responding to critics, then the bond between you and your readers gets hurt.

Your reputation is the most important part of the bond that develops between you and your readers.

In Conclusion

Building the bond between you and your readers is essential for success as a blogger. Strong bonds entice readers to come back to your blog, promote your content, and buy your products along the way. With a bad reputation, the entire bond will fall apart, so you must preserve your good reputation and always look for ways to strengthen it.

What are your thoughts on building a bond between you and your readers? Do you have any additional tips for building that bond? Which of these methods was your favorite? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why You Need To Have A Pop-Up On Your Blog [Tips Included]

June 12, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Pop-Up Tips

About a year ago, I stumbled across Steve Scott’s blog. He is a successful self-published author who makes a full-time income from his Kindle books. On one summer day, I remember reading one of his articles explaining that the key to his success was his email list. As someone with 100,000 Twitter followers, 150,000 blog visitors, and no email list whatsoever at the time, this absolutely blew my mind.

I made one of the biggest mistakes any marketer could ever make. I ignored building my email list. With those numbers I mentioned before, I only got 300 subscribers which means 0.2% of my blog visitors were subscribing. Talk about a reawakening. Just as I read articles about getting more Twitter followers, I started to read more articles focused on getting email subscribers. This is when I went over to iContact and created landing pages.

Some of the articles I read discussed how pop-ups lead to a massive increase in subscribers. Initially, I was skeptical. I saw pop-ups as annoyances that block content and encourage people to go somewhere else. However, so many people recommended pop-ups that I decided to give them a try. After looking at multiple options, I ended up using Pop-Up Domination for the pop-up. My thinking was that worst case scenario, I would keep the pop-up on my blog for a few weeks, and if it didn’t get enough conversions, I could always take it down.

Sure enough, the pop-up got subscribers, and it exceeded my expectations. It accounts for more than 20% of all of the subscribers I get on my email list. There was no catastrophic drop in the amount of time people spent on my blog.

However, I didn’t just write this blog post to tell a cool story. I also want to share with you how to optimize your pop-up so it gets more subscribers.

One thing you must do in your pop-up is let people know they get a free prize for entering their name and email address. Some people call it the irresistible free prize, offer, or bribe. Regardless of what you want to call it, you must let people know that they get free value that is not available anywhere else. The exclusivity of the free prize will entice people to enter their name and email address. This free prize must be directly related to your niche. That’s why my pop-up shows my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. This free eBook fits my niche because I am a Twitter expert and have written hundreds of blog posts about Twitter on this blog and guest blogs.

After you introduce the free prize, let people know a little more about the free prize. For my pop-up, I include three benefits associated with the free eBook:

Spread Your Message On Twitter
Grow Your Audience
Get More Blog Traffic From Twitter

Including benefits associated with your free prize will further entice your readers to subscribe to your blog. On the right side of my pop-up is a description, form, and button. It is very important to let people know that this is a free prize. I make it a point to use the word “FREE” twice in all caps. Using all caps make something EASIER TO NOTICE, and making that word easy to notice will increase the percent of conversions your pop-up gets.

Then came the button, and I experimented with that on my landing pages and through my pop-up. I use different text for the buttons as part of the A/B Split Testing I do with Pop-Up Domination, but here are some good ones that I use:

Free Instant Access!
Get Instant Access!
Download Now!
Get Your Copy Now!

The colors you use for the text and the button are also important. Use bright colors so it is easy for your visitors to see the buttons, and either use white text. You want it to be as easy as possible for your readers to see the button because few readers will subscribe if they can’t see the button clearly. I use bright green button with white text for my pop-up and orange buttons with white text for my landing pages. If you are deciding which colors to use for your button, I have compiled a list of good colors with their functions:

Blue: trust building
Green: works well for call-to-actions if it stands out
Orange: inexpensive products (works well when you offer your free prize)

Of course, these are not the only three colors on the color spectrum, but these are the three colors you should choose among for the pop-up button’s color. One reason I decided against a blue button was because the free eBook I offer has a blue cover, there is blue text next to the picture of the eBook, and a blue box surrounds the form on the right. I use the a blue button for the HelloBar message that shows up on the top of my blog.

My recommendation for the description is to make it as clear as possible. Moreover, the description should only be 1-2 sentences. Remember that your readers are just getting an idea of what your free prize is all about. If you write a long description above the form, you won’t get as many conversions. Remember that pop-ups are initially annoyances that block out content. In order for your pop-up to convert, your reader should understand what your pop-up says from start to finish in 2-5 seconds. Anymore than that, and most of your readers will click on the “x” and continue reading your blog post or leave your blog.

In Conclusion

It was a year ago when I realized that I needed to take action. Now, my email list is growing at a healthy rate, and pop-ups are one of the benefactors that brings in a massive number of subscribers. Many people are quick to judge pop-ups as ineffective annoyances, but you can’t judge something until you do it. When I finally decided to put a pop-up on my blog, I was blown away by the results.

If you are looking for an easy way to get more subscribers, then get a pop-up on your blog. Creating a pop-up with Pop-Up Domination takes as little as 10 minutes once you buy the product.

Do you have a pop-up on your blog? If not, do you plan on getting one? Do you have a success story about growing your email list? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

When To Take A Break From Blogging

June 1, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Blogging break

At some point this year, I took a month off from writing blog posts. My blog still got updated three times each week, and I responded to blog comments and tweets. Basically, it was an invisible, unnoticed absence that did not require me to sacrifice my consistency.

I pulled it off by scheduling numerous blog posts in advance because of my policy of always having one month’s worth of blog posts scheduled in advance. Having this many blog posts scheduled allows me to focus more of my time on writing the content and less time stressing about the deadline. I had over two months to write this blog post, but I still wrote it well before the deadline. If I wrote this blog post on the day before the deadline, I would have stressed, and the quality of my work would have suffered. When I take a break from writing blog posts, I make sure it is possible without the risk of me losing my audience or publishing subpar content.

Why I Took My 1 Month Break

The break I took from blogging was used to reassess my strategy and see what I could do differently to reach more people and generate more revenue. Part of the strategy was to take Udemy seriously again. After the first two months of creating my Udemy account, I created two training courses that did well. For some odd reason, I stopped creating training courses and didn’t update my old ones, and I lost a lot of ground.

Now, I update my training courses often, and I have plans for several training courses. I have created a course about productivity and several about social media success. I also devised a plan for publishing books in a more effective manner to get more sales and publish them in bulk. I will publish several books by the end of the year, and I have already published a couple of books in 2015.

I did my research in the same manner I started my research a few years ago to discover how I could get more Twitter followers. I read dozens of articles about getting more Udemy sales and even took several courses where successful Udemy instructors discussed how they got more sales.

Basically, my one month break was not one of those breaks where I avoided my computer and stopped working like an entrepreneur. I put in more work during this month than I put in most of the previous months. This one month break helped me catapult forward when I continued writing blog posts and started to take Udemy seriously again.

Was It A Complete Break?

I did not write a blog post for an entire month, but that doesn’t mean I did nothing for my blog. I outlined some of the blog posts that I knew I would write after the month was over. I wrote a list of key points I would write about. That way, I gave myself a foundation for when I wrote blog posts again. Creating an outline for a blog post takes as little as five minutes, but it saves you from a lot of thinking while you are writing the actual blog post.

It takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to write a blog post, so only taking five minutes to create an outline saved me a massive amount of time. I used this extra time to do my research.

Would I Ever Take A Break Just For Fun?

I consider writing blog posts a fun activity, so I wouldn’t take a break just for the fun of it. The only two reasons I would take a break form blogging would be if I need to do extensive research on something or if I am on a vacation. When I am on a two week vacation, I like to embrace the vacation, and my productivity dips for obvious reasons. I can’t do any videos since I don’t bring the massive desktop with me (I don’t know the exact dimensions, but it is bigger than my suitcase, and it is fragile) and my microphone equipment is at home. That’s okay, and I don’t mind. I bring my Mac Book Pro with me to interact with people on social media, but that’s just about it. If I am at my house, then I am always doing something for my business.

You Never Know When You Need The Break

Some events may pop up, and you may not feel like writing blog posts for an extended period of time. It happens, but you have to be ready. Scheduling blog posts for at least one month in advance will allow you to take those unexpected breaks without sacrificing the consistency of your blogging. You may burn out one day and want to take the week off. Those small burn outs occasionally happen. Having blog posts scheduled in advance will allow you to take a break during the small burn outs without you worrying about your blog getting updated.

In Conclusion

There comes a point when writer’s block takes the joy out of blogging and a time when we must shift our attention to other things. We must be prepared at any moment to not write blog posts for an extended period of time. That is why I schedule numerous blog posts in advance. As I mentioned before, I always have over one month’s worth of blog posts scheduled. However, I also have a bunch of blog posts that I already wrote but did not schedule. In some cases, I could have as much as three month’s worth of blog posts scheduled at one time.

Having the blog posts scheduled in advance allows you to take a break without sacrificing the consistency of publishing a certain number of blog posts every week. Many dedicated bloggers may view taking a break from writing blog posts as sacrificing the commitment needed to become a successful blogger. However, if you write blog post outlines and make the transition back to a blogger (which is easy if you write blog posts often), then that won’t be a problem for you.

In some cases, the break you take from blogging can be more beneficial than if you were to continue blogging. When I did research to learn more about Udemy, I learned an entirely new method to generate revenue, and now Udemy is emerging as my top revenue source. I learned valuable lessons from taking the small break that I would not have learned if I was blogging at my rapid pace. Sometimes, especially in our busy world, a break every once in a while can be a good thing. With automation, you can take a break, and your audience still gets the content as if you never left.

10 Methods To Become A More Successful Blogger

March 27, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Successful Blogging

The bloggers who become successful are the bloggers who strive to improve themselves at any moment possible. These bloggers want to acquire new knowledge and skills that they believe could accelerate growth. The more effective you are at your craft, the more people will notice, pay attention, and become loyal fans.

Now you probably want to become a better blogger so you can be more successful while spreading your message to the world. Remember that no matter how good you get, you can always get better. There is no limit to how good a blogger (or anyone) can become. In order to become a better, more successful blogger, follow these 10 methods.

#1: Look At The Pros

When you start on any journey, you need to have a role model to go by. This role model needs to be a leader of your niche who is thriving. I have many role models in the digital marketing niche who inspire me to constantly grow my blog and email list while creating products. Looking at the pros and reading their blog posts can also teach you various lessons about your own niche. I learned what I know about digital marketing through other people’s blog posts, books, videos, and training courses.

#2: Focus On Value Instead Of Quantity

Many people believe that having more blog posts means more traffic. The logic is that if every article on a blog gets one visitor every day, then it would be better to have 10,000 blog posts than just 100 blog posts. As a result, some people constantly produce blog posts thinking more about the potential traffic and maintaining consistency than the actual value.

However, the value of a blog post ultimately determines how far that blog post spreads on social media, how many of your visitors become returning visitors, and how many of your visitors buy your products. Taking the time to provide value in your blog posts will allow you to attract the visitors that matter the most—returning, targeted visitors who appreciate your content and may buy your products in the future.

#3: Write Every Day

A great way to write more valuable blog posts is by writing every day. If you write every day, then writing will come natural to you. I used to struggle to produce valuable blog posts just because I was by no means a writer. Then, I started to write every day about a topic I am passionate about to this day, and my writing got better. You can’t get better at something unless you are willing to put in more practice than you are already putting in.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1zOLri1″]The best way to get better at #blogging is by writing more often.[/tweetthis]

#4: Enhance SEO

SEO is a valuable stream of blog traffic. However, it only takes a few minutes of exploration to realize that successful SEO is like going through a gigantic maze. My recommendation is to focus some of your time on SEO, but the moment it becomes an obsession, you need to stop focusing on it. In the end, valuable content matters the most because you want your blog visitors to appreciate your content.

I wrote a blog post that contains a few methods to boost your blog’s SEO and SEOMoz came out with this awesome guide. There is more information in their guide than in my blog post, but I also warn you to not go too deep into SEO right away. Only implement a few methods at a time. If you begin by implementing dozens of methods to boost your blog’s SEO at the same time, then you will become overwhelmed.

#5: Optimize Your Blog For Getting Subscribers

Optimizing your blog for getting subscribers is a very important step towards success. Your email list is the best way to communicate to your visitors about your recent blog posts and products. Most of the revenue successful bloggers generate is from their email lists. Your success as a blogger depends on how effectively you are building your email list. Here are some tips to get you started.

#6: Grow Your Social Media Audience

Your social media audience is another critical component of a blogger’s success. In fact, social media also plays a critical role in SEO, so if you feel confused about SEO, focus your time on growing your social media audience.

When you grow your social media audience, focus on one social network at a time. That way, you can focus on learning new things about one social network. You should only start to utilize a second social network once you master one social network. Mastering social networks is like mastering languages. You wouldn’t try to learn 10 new languages at the same time. Instead, you would learn each new language one at a time. The same methodology applies to mastering social networks.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1zOLri1″]Mastering different social networks is just like mastering different languages.[/tweetthis]

#7: Write Guest Posts

Guest posts serve many benefits. The first benefit of guest blogging is that as you write more guest posts, you will also become a better writer. The second benefit of guest blogging is that you build your authority on the web (the more times people see you on the web, the more your authority grows). The third benefit of guest blogging is that you can tap into a new audience and generate traffic to your blog. The fourth benefit of guest blogging is the SEO benefit (as long as the guest blog is related to your niche). Sometimes, guest blogging even leads to joint ventures with some of the top bloggers in your niche.

You never know where your guest posts are going to take you. The only way to figure out where your guest posts may take you is by giving it a try. Look for guest blogs related to your niche, see what the requirements are, and then start writing.

#8: Have Your Own Product

As grow your visibility and start to establish an authority on the web, you must have a revenue generating product of your own. Whether you choose to write a book or launch a training course, this product needs to generate revenue without your involvement. That way, you can make money in your sleep and then you’ll know that you are crushing it as a blogger.

Having your own product does not mean being an affiliate for someone else. You must take the time to create a product related to your niche so you can bring in a bigger profit.

#9: Make Your Blog Load Faster

Your blog’s speed is essential. Google takes blog speed seriously in its algorithm, and for every second it takes for your blog to load, visitors are less likely to read articles, subscribe, or stay on your blog for a long period of time. One of the easiest ways to make your blog load faster is by creating pictures on Canva instead of copying and pasting them from Google. On Canva, you choose the size of your pictures (I choose 300×300) instead of resizing a 2500×2500 picture to the size I want (a resized picture still loads as if it were the original size). Here are more tips to make your blog load faster.

#10: Decrease Your Blog’s Bounce Rate

Your blog’s bounce rate is another SEO factor that Google takes into consideration when it ranks blog posts for certain keywords. The lower your blog’s bounce rate is, the better. When one visitor views multiple pages on your blog, your bounce rate is decreasing. If one visitor only views one of your blog’s pages (this can be a blog post, a page on your blog’s menu, or any other part of your blog), then your blog’s bounce rate is increasing (not good). You can verify your blog on Alexa to see your blog’s bounce rate. Alexa shows you how to do that. Once you know your bounce rate, here are several methods you can use to lower your blog’s bounce rate.

In Conclusion

The journey to becoming a successful blogger is a long journey, and the journey to becoming a more successful blogger is an endless journey. No matter where you are as a blogger, you can always make more revenue and become more successful. The most successful bloggers are still looking for more ways to generate more revenue. Ultimately, the key to being a successful blogger is to be a committed blogger.

Which of these methods was your favorite? Do you have any other methods for achieving success as a blogger? Please share your thoughts and advice below.