marketing

11 Cool Content Marketing Tactics That Will Push Your Blog Traffic To The Next Level

January 10, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Effective content marketing can determine whether your content is read by thousands of people or a handful of people, and your content marketing strategy can determine whether you’ll make a full-time income as a blogger or struggle to get by.

Many bloggers know this, which is why they continuously test different methods to expand their content’s reach. The blogger with 100 monthly visitors and the blogger with 100,000 monthly visitors both strive to get their content in front of more people.

But how can you consistently expand your blog’s reach? How can you attract more readers today than you did yesterday? Here are 11 cool content marketing tactics you can use to push your blog traffic to the next level:

#1: Accept Guest Posts

My blog generated the most traffic when I published two posts per day. But as my blog posts became longer and more content rich, it became increasingly difficult to publish as frequently and consistently.

I’m slowly getting closer to achieving that same frequency, but not because I’m writing 14 blog posts each week. Rather, I started accepting guest posts from my community.

Now I get free content for my blog without having to write a single word. How cool is that?

Of course, I still love writing at least one blog post every week, but having to write (and publish…big difference) a blog post every day would prevent me from addressing other parts of my business.

Accepting guest posts results in more updates and fresh content, and that results in more SEO love.

#2: Hire A Contributor

If you want to take accepting guest posts to the next level, you can hire a contributor who will produce the content for you. I recommend finding a paid contributor on Upwork and making sure this person is passionate about your blog’s topics.

You don’t want to hire a contributor who will write a blog post without any passion behind the topic. That lack of passion will show in the final draft.

If you hire a contributor, I recommend monitoring his or her content for 1-2 weeks and engaging in frequent conversations. This way, you are both on the same page and you’re more likely to get the content you want and expect.

#3: Use Internal Links

By linking to your content internally, you increase the amount of time readers engage with your blog. And the more time people spend on your blog, the more likely they are to come back for more.

Keeping people on your blog longer also helps build trust and will result in more subscribers and sales over time. Bring attention to some of your older posts and every new post you publish. On the flip side, you can edit your older posts to link to your newer content.

#4: Outsource More Tasks

Outsourcing opens up so much time to pursue other parts of your business. I’ve outsourced social media posts, blog post editing, podcast episode editing, video editing, and an array of other tasks.

After I started outsourcing these tasks, I was able to concentrate on creative ways to promote my content such as reaching out to influencers, promoting my content through various outlets, and growing my brand.

Outsourcing will open up more of your time, but be sure to use the extra time productively. Otherwise you’re completely missing the point of outsourcing.

#5: Create A Content Calendar

An editorial calendar is a guide that lays out which content gets published when. You can organize the publication of your content in such a way that includes weekly or monthly themes on your blog.

Monthly themes can help with product launches or affiliate promotions. For instance, let’s say you write a blog about the best toys around in July (and also know that new LEGO sets are coming out in August).

You can use mid-July and the entire month of August to focus your content creation efforts on LEGO sets. By the time you introduce your affiliate links, your audience will be more conditioned to buy the LEGO sets.

#6: Write Longer Blog Posts

Longer blog posts like these grab more attention and provide more overall value. When I published two blog posts each day, most were only 250-500 words. While I’ve lost that level of frequency, my current blog posts are more in-depth.

Writing longer blog posts is also great for more blog traffic. Not only do search engines love longer blog posts, but you’ll keep people on your blog for a longer period of time.

Think about it. If you’ve made it to this sentence, you’re virtually committed to reading this entire blog post. You’re committed to knowing all 11 tactics mentioned in the post, even if you skim.

Of course, no one is forcing you to read through the entire post, but once you make it to this point, full commitment tends to be the unwritten rule of reading content.

#7: Write 1 Blog Post Per Day

If you can muster it, writing one blog post per day will result in a blog that’s consistently updated with fresh content. While it may take a while for search engines to boost your traffic, writing blog posts at a frequent rate will also give you more content to promote on social networks.

My Twitter usage motivated me to write two blog posts per day. I mean, I was tweeting every 15 minutes and wanted to share fresh, original content. And by spacing it out over a long period of time, I was able to garner strong interest for my content.

I still knew I could tweet some content over and over because my new followers wouldn’t have seen it before, and my regular followers wouldn’t have seen everything. I try to write a lot of evergreen content so a tweet linking to a blog post from two years ago would still be relevant to both groups.

#8: Submit At Least 3 Guest Post Pitches Per Day

Writing guest posts for other blogs is a well-known tactic to expand your reach. In my experience, it’s easy to approach guest blogging inconsistently.

It’s easy to send multiple pitches in a single week, but then concentrate on creating content for one or two guest p0sts, and stop or simply forget to keep sending pitches.

That’s a mistake. Sending at least three pitches per day helps step up your commitment to producing more content because you may have to meet a deadline that is not self-imposed.

If you submit at least three guest post pitches per day, you’ll submit 1095 guest post pitches each year. Assuming a conservative 20 percent acceptance rate, you’ll write at least 219 guest posts in a given year.

Writing one guest post every other day may seem like a lot of work, but it will result in many more people seeing your content (perhaps millions of additional people will read your content depending on where it’s published).

A single guest post of mine, published on Jeff Bullas’ Blog, was shared over 6,000 times. Talk about more exposure (and that’s just one guest post)! Imagine if you got those results from more than one of your 219 guest posts.

In fact, if you averaged 1,000 shares for all 219 of your guest posts, you’d get 219,000 shares for all of your guest posts that year. It’s very easy to assume that, at this point, over 1 million people will have viewed your content.

#9: Link To Influencers In Your Posts

Influencer marketing will be a strong form of marketing for a very long time. The idea behind influencer marketing is that you mention several influencers within your blog post. You then email them to let them know.

Some will share your content with their audiences while others won’t. The key thing not to do in every email to an influencer is to ask them to share your content.

I’ve gotten many emails from people mentioning me in their content and saying something like, “Can you share this with your audience?”

Influencers know how influencer marketing works. Instead of asking them to share your content, just tell them you featured them in your blog post. Don’t try to influence the influencer with explicit requests because those emails are usually ignored.

The more influencers you mention in your content, the better, but make sure the content doesn’t drag on because you’re trying to mention every possible influencer in your niche. That’s why you write multiple blog posts.

#10: Create A Content Series

There’s nothing more frustrating than not knowing the ending. Imagine going to the theater, watching Rogue One, and then halfway through the movie the screen stops working. The staff comes out and says they can’t fix the problem. You get a full refund, but you are left with only half of Rogue One.

You don’t know the ending, and that will frustrate you until you see it at another movie theater.

While it’s very difficult to reproduce the same feeling as stopping halfway through Rogue One, you can still create a content series without an ending.

Imagine writing a blog post called “5 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers.” At the end of the blog post you can say something like, “I actually have a bonus tip to get more Twitter followers, but I’ll reveal it in the next blog post along with four additional tips.”

Now you build suspense while creating a content series. People who read and enjoy Part 10 will be more likely to read the other nine blog posts in the series.

#11: Ride The Trendy Waves Of The Internet

Google Trends allows you to see what is trending on the internet. If you can connect a trending topic to your niche, you’ll write a blog post that will get traffic from its value plus additional traffic from riding a trendy wave.

One writer from Mashable rode the wave of Taylor Swift’s 1989 World Tour at just the right time. She wrote a post in June 2015 on the Taylor Swift businesswoman guidebook.

No, Taylor Swift didn’t actually write a businesswoman guidebook and publish it on Amazon. Rather, the writer analyzed Swift and came up with tips that Swift seemed to exemplify. The final result was a blog post filled with business insights and Swifty euphoria that was shared across the internet.

In Conclusion

The great thing about content marketing is that no matter how much traffic you get, you can always get more. You can always challenge yourself to do more today than you did yesterday.

Getting more traffic involves writing valuable content and spreading it. Spread your content to more people via search engines, social media, blogs and influencers, and you’ll eventually build an unforgettable blog.

What are your thoughts on these content marketing tactics? Do you have tips to share? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Ways To Stand Out In Today’s Marketplace

September 18, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Today’s marketplace is constantly expanding. Just a decade ago, it was difficult to publish your own book. Nowadays, anyone can self-publish a book in a matter of minutes with KDP.

Technology has virtually wiped out the barrier of entry for most industries. Business owners can now enter the marketplace and grow a large audience without paying a single penny. For less than $150 per year, I grew my Twitter audience to over 250,000 people.

You don’t need advertising dollars to stand out in today’s marketplace. While they help, they are not needed. However, the ease of entering the marketplace has resulted in an outpour of experts.

How exactly do you stand out when thousands—nay, millions—of people are trying to do what you do? Here’s how:

#1: Write Fantastic Content

Blogging is one of the main reasons why the barrier of entry is so low. You can create a free blog on WordPress in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to get started. The challenge is standing out.

The main reason some blogs stand out more than others is because of fantastic content. With that said, I understand that a larger audience gives a blog more leverage. However, to accumulate a large audience of returning visitors, the content must be fantastic.

We all have a favorite blog. We return to that favorite blog because the content is fantastic. When I become a returning visitor, I’m not returning just so a system can tally me as another visitor. I am returning because the blog posts fascinate me.

I always find myself returning to Seth Godin’s blog. Most of his blog posts are thought provoking and quick reads. In “The interim strategy,” Seth Godin brings one major point home: a great organization must start great and never cut corners in the beginning just for quick success.

Stay on his blog long enough, and you’ll find yourself reading dozens of his blog posts trying to catch up with what you missed.

#2: Create Awesome Videos

I understand this sounds similar to writing fantastic content. It sounds as if the only difference is that I’m talking about videos instead of blog posts.

However, videos are huge on the web. The average video gets more engagement than the average blog post. So does that mean give up writing blog posts all together?

NO! It’s understood that videos tend to perform better than blog posts. However, writing blog posts is an essential part of standing out. Here’s why doing both is the best approach:

Blog posts can easily be edited and revised while you type. In a video, you are put on the spot. While you can do a redo, it’s much easier when writing a blog post.
Writing a blog post in my opinion doesn’t require as much energy. Typing is easier than talking and barely stopping. I can type, stop, and think. That luxury is only available for videos by splicing and editing.
Videos get more engagement than blog posts.
Videos and blog posts are two different types of media which gives your audience more options
Writing blog posts about something strengthens your skill in that area. Strengthening your skill makes it easier to do awesome videos. I wrote hundreds of blog posts to strengthen my knowledge before I did my first video.

Creating videos is commonly associated with putting them on YouTube and getting subscribers from there. However, you can also create videos that you put into a training course.

From my experience, creating a training course is quicker than writing a book. With speed on your side, you can create high value products at a higher frequency.

#3: Be “Everywhere” Your Targeted Audience Goes

To be successful in your niche, you must meaningfully put yourself in front of your targeted audience. Whether you put your blog posts, videos, or something else in front of your targeted audience, it must be something that positively grabs your targeted audience’s attention.

To be everywhere your targeted audience goes, you must first know where your targeted audience goes. Are they reading Inc Magazine? Are they on this blog right now? Are they reading celebrity blogs? Are most of them on Twitter?

The places where your audience goes are the places your content and videos must show up. Ask bloggers in your niche if they take guest posts. Submit that application to Inc Magazine again and again until they say yes (preferably get other writing opportunities first. Inc Magazine wants writers with solid experience). Partner up with people in your niche to reach new audiences.

I recently listened to one of Jeff Bullas’ webinars about getting blog traffic. In that webinar, Jeff talked about how he got a speaking opportunity. Jeff asked the event organizer why he got the opportunity, and this was the (paraphrased) response:

“Because I saw you everywhere.”

It turns out Jeff’s content has been featured on many prominent guest blogs. He has also been featured on The Huffington Post, Forbes, and a few others for his social media savvy. When the event organizer said he/she say Jeff everywhere, it wasn’t an exaggeration—to a certain extent.

Jeff didn’t get featured on a celebrity site. He got featured on most of the blogs and top magazines about business and digital marketing. As people see you more often, and they appreciate your content each time, they will remember you.

It’s hard to forget about the blogger you see dozens (or hundreds) of times on the web.

#4: Expert Interviews

Expert interviews—whether you are the interviewer or interviewee—are growing in importance. These interviews positively affect your social proof and the way your audience views your brand and mission. Here’s a quick breakdown:

When you get interviewed by an expert in your niche, that signals two things about you to their listeners:

You had enough expertise and/or a great enough story to land the interview
You probably say something valuable in the interview

Interviewing an expert in your niche signals two things about you to your listeners:

You’re good enough to get that expert on your show
Your podcast (or series of interviews if you don’t run a podcast) must be valuable)

Not only do expert interviews make the host and guest look good, but they also contribute to a larger audience.

The guest usually promotes the interview or podcast episode on the day it gets published. That means more visibility for the host. The host repeats the process a few hundred times and the results multiply. New listeners watch/read the past interviews.

The more of this interviews you are a part of (as the host or the guest), the more interviews you get. Hosts of podcasts see how well you can answer questions, and then they choose you as their next guest. Notable experts ask if they can be guests on your podcast.

It’s this ripple effect that has allowed some podcasters to accumulate six figures every month and attract millions of people to their episodes.

#5: Write A Book That Becomes Successful

Writing a book is challenging the first time. Making a book successful the first time is more challenging. For all successful products, the marketing side is more challenging than the creation side.

Why would a successful book make a big difference? Take a look at the people event organizers choose for public speaking events. Most of the speakers have a successful book. If they don’t have a successful book, then they have a massive amount of social proof. Some speakers have both.

Writing a successful book shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do (unless you are a passionate writer). You need to accumulate a large audience so when it comes time to promoting your book, you can rest assured it will get plenty of sales.

#6: Do Cool Things For Your Audience

Making your audience feel special is the difference between any audience and a cult-style audience. Engage with them on Twitter. Build relationships in the most meaningful way you can think of.

Random acts of kindness and random gifts—no matter how big or small—can go a long way. There is one true fact about every successful blogger, singer, baseball player, and President (in a word, every successful person).

All of the individuals within the audience make the success happen. Recognizing this success will let you realize how important the people in your audience are. Random acts of kindness and random gifts aren’t suggestions. They’re mandates for building a cult-style audience.

#7: Have A Powerful Philosophy and Purpose

Your mission affects the way people see your brand. Let’s say two people offer Twitter courses at the same price, and they are virtually the same. One person’s stated mission is to make money. The other person’s stated mission is to give everyone the ability to become successful on Twitter.

Who do you think gets the sale?

The person with the better mission. Of course, we know why the person who wants to simply make money won’t get the sale. However, we’ve become smart at crafting great mission statements.

The most powerful mission statements have the biggest impact on sales. Take a look at the people in your niche who experience the most success. Then look for their mission statements. Some will state their mission statements right from the start. For others, it takes some digging in the About Me page to find someone’s mission statement.

The mission statement is a starting point, not a final end. The mission statement implants a thought into a visitor’s mind. If that person sees your mission statement driving your journey and content, then the mission statement is valuable.

Creating a mission statement that doesn’t support what you do is the quickest way to disaster.

In Conclusion

Standing out in an ever expanding playing field isn’t easy. There will be great struggles but also great triumphs along the way. Providing value in what you do, getting a large amount of people to respond that value (visiting, subscribing, purchasing, etc.), and having an authentic mission statement is how you dominate your industry.

What tips do you have for standing out in today’s marketplace? Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you believe it’s better to fight against competitors or work with competitors? Sound off in the comments section now!

The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle: Your Product

November 15, 2013 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

The missing piece is somewhere hidden away. The consumers are looking for that missing piece in order to complete the puzzle. They look at product after product in order to find the final piece to the puzzle. Your product needs to be the missing piece to the puzzle, and you need to tell consumers that you have the missing piece of the puzzle.

There was a time when tablets were not successful. Kindle was the best, but people just saw Kindle as a way to buy books and read magazines. Then, Steve Jobs came in with the first iPad. The iPad was a new tablet, and Jobs told the consumers that the iPad was like the missing piece of the puzzle. Now, we know the iPad very well. The iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, and iPad Mini are effective tablets.

Apple took the world by storm with its iPads because tablets were not doing well. The iPad offered a solution which just happened to be the missing piece of the puzzle.

What puzzle are your consumers trying to complete, and what is the missing piece? That missing piece needs to be one of your products.

Why Giving Away Your Products Will Dramatically Transform Your Business

November 8, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are a lot of bestselling authors who use numerous methods to promote their books. I have been looking through all of the methods that various bestselling authors shared. There were some of the common ones such as use social media, increase traffic, and so on. However, there was one uncommon practice that commonly appeared as a method used by bestselling authors to increase sales.

Giving away a product for free is an uncommon practice. A majority of people don’t follow this method. The thought of giving your own content away for free baffles a majority of entrepreneurs. After all of that hard work, giving anything away for free seems crazy.

Giving away a product is going to result in you losing some money in the beginning. One bestseller advised to, “Give till it hurts.” The secret is that you’re not famous yet. People don’t know about you, and they don’t know what to expect from your products. If a product is free, the risk of being unsatisfied gets taken out of the equation. By giving your products to consumers for free, the consumer will appreciate your product for its quality. They tell their friends about you, and you’ll get more sales.

Giving away products will also allow you to create testimonials. For bestselling authors, these testimonials appear as reviews on popular e-commerce websites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When a consumer sees all of the good reviews, they are more likely to buy the product. The consumer thinks, “If other people liked the product, I’ll probably like it too.”

Most entrepreneurs aren’t open to the idea of giving their product away for free. When these entrepreneurs imagine giving 100 of their own products away for free, many will avoid giving away their products no matter what happens. However, giving away your product will allow you to create the buzz that won’t go away.

The road is going to be very bumpy in the beginning, but the ROI is going to be legendary.

Bragging Rights And New Products

October 31, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

When a product first comes out, it has the potential of getting a lot of sales right away. Consumers see the new product, and they want to be the first of their friends to have that product. There’s a commercial about a giveaway for the Playstation 4 that would be awarded to a lucky winner before it came out. If you have heard, “Play the future first” before, then you have probably seen this commercial.

Consumers who get the new product first get to show off the product to everyone they know. The consumer doesn’t have to shout, “Hey! Look at what I got!” Simply seeing that Playstation 4 in someone’s room does the trick. As long as the new product is on display in some way or fashion, friends are going to notice.

The Playstation 4 is going to get old. Friends who once saw the Playstation 4 being displayed are now going to have their own Playstation 4’s. Then Sony will come out with the Playstation 5 or something like that. Then, people will get the Playstation 5, friends will see it on display, and the cycle will continue.

By buying new products, we get to show off what we have. Millions of consumers bought the iPhone 5C and 5S. Those consumers are going to show off their new iPhones to their friends. The conversation might go like this, “Is that an iPhone 4S? Well, I have the 5S.”

Both the iPhone 5C and 5S are going to get old. The people who were boasting about their iPhone 5C’s and 5S’s will have to find something else to show off. By then, the iPhone 6 will have come out, and a new line of consumers will have something to talk about.

Remember when the iPhone 4S was the big thing? You can now get that for free on Apple’s official site. It would only be able to hold 8 GB, but if you want a free iPhone, the 4S is the phone for you. It used to cost a lot. It used to be the one featured in commercials. That no longer happens since it’s become old. Now everyone has an iPhone 4S or a more updated version of the iPhone.

Has it come down to bragging rights? It is a factor, but getting the enhanced product is also a factor. The iPhone 4S came with Siri which made it a big enhancement from the other iPhone devices. The usefulness of Siri can be argued, but Siri was an enhancement. People want something that is going to be better than what they already have. If we didn’t believe in enhancing what we have, we’d be stuck with those big computers that are incredibly slow.

Things do break, and they need to be fixed. That’s another reason why people make changes. However, most of the people who make this kind of change can’t help but say, “Look at what I have.”

When it comes to innovation, making enhancements and fixing what is broken plays a part. However, the reasons for buying a new product go back to bragging rights. If people can brag about your product when they get it, that product will sell. When more people have the same product, less people get to brag about it. That’s when you need to come up with a new product.