tips and tricks

How To Choose The Best Blog Post Topics

October 10, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Each blog post you write involves a time investment. And as you continue along your journey, the time investment you put towards each blog post will most likely grow. To make your time worthwhile, you must choose the best blog post topics.

That way, your visitors love your blog and you love writing the content. To discover the best blog post topics, we’ll start with the basics and then expand upon that concept.

The Basics

First and foremost, choosing the best blog post topics come down to asking yourself this question:

“What do I enjoy?”

I have a strong passion for digital marketing which is why I can effortlessly write about the topic. I once allocated 15 minutes to write about digital marketing for the day but then became frustrated because I wanted to spend more than 15 minutes writing about digital marketing.

I was like the child who didn’t want recess to come to an end. That’s the mentality you must have when you’re writing your content and know that you’re running out of time to do so.

Obviously, we have a range of answers for that question, “What do I enjoy?” We need to narrow our focus on the few things that we can write about for many years to come and that will continue to provide value.

At one point, I enjoyed writing about LEGO Sets. I haven’t written about LEGOs for a very long time because I prefer writing about digital marketing and embracing that topic. It’s also a niche I can provide massive value for given my experience (years of experience means nothing to me. Results determine the quality of those years and if I should care. This is just a teen’s rant 🙂 ).

To determine if your content will thrive, you must finally ask the question, “Is this something people want?” I know people want this blog post because several of my subscribers asked me to specifically write a blog post on this topic.

I like coming up with my own ideas, but if my audience gives me some ideas, I’m more than happy to write about those topics as well.

Pay Attention To Your Audience

As your content attracts more visitors, your visitors will suggest more ideas. Some of them will be direct…“Write about THIS.” These visitors are rare.

The majority of your visitors will indirectly suggest new content ideas. Here are some of the signs you should pay attention to…

What questions do they ask you in the comments? I always invite my visitors to ask questions in the comments. That way, I can answer these questions and write out future blog posts (I copy and paste some comments together to form the skeleton of blog posts). If I see a lot of questions about, let’s say Pinterest, I know my audience wants a blog post about Pinterest.

What’s getting the most engagement. When I first started this blog, I wrote as many Twitter related blog posts as I could. These blog posts by far got the most engagement and each Twitter blog post worked like magic. Now I’ve slowed down on Twitter related blog posts due to the immense library of them on this blog and the over-saturation of “10 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers” type of blog posts. Engagement is like votes, and engagement can take the form of social signals, traffic, clicks, comments, and any other indicator.

Which of your posts are the top performers. Keep providing these types of posts and internally link them together so they each become top performers. You never know how long a post will retain its popularity, so you want to take action as quickly as possible. For instance, one of my most popular blog posts was a blog post about getting Vine followers. Now it’s not doing so well since Vine isn’t a social network anymore. When you’re content is popular, ride that wave. Hope to never see the shore but write as if that shore is coming and you want to capitalize on all of the growth you can get from the final part of the wave.

See What Your Audience Says Off Your Blog

Your visitors spread their time across multiple blogs and social networks. This is valuable knowledge for discovering what your audience wants. During this stage, we observe others and chime in.

Let me tell you a quick story.

One of the policies I adopted is that I will respond to the comments I get from my blog. I knew it would be a tedious process, but I do so anyway. In these comments, my visitors ask questions, share suggestions, and weigh in on the blog post.

I got inspired to respond to every comment because Neil Patel does it. It’s commonplace for Neil to get dozens or even hundreds of comments for each blog post he publishes. He goes through all of those comments to gather more content ideas and discover what his readers want.

If you’re a digital marketer, especially if SEO is your speciality, then why aren’t YOU going through the comments Neil gets? After you leave a comment (yes, you definitely should), look at all of the Qs and suggestions Neil gets. Each of his blog posts (comments alone) offers a treasure trove of ideas, but you’ll only access that treasure trove if you read each one.

I know. It’s tedious, and I don’t read all of the comments for each of his blog posts. However, when I do, I get many ideas from it.

You can take a similar approach via Quora, a social networking site which allows users to ask and answer questions. When people ask questions about social media and blogging, I make it a point to be one of the first people to answer the question.

Not only does the first answer tend to get the most views, but I can also use my answers as the starting points for future blog posts. Quora’s additional advantage is that as a big social network, it’s commonplace for me to find dozens of questions that I could answer in the form of high-demand blog posts.

Sites like Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and Wiki Answers are great for discovering more topics that your visitors want. I prefer Quora because I believe it’s the easiest to use, but the decision is up to you.

In Conclusion

When you choose a blog post topic and start writing, it involves a considerable amount of your time. Not only do you write the blog post from start to finish, but you also need to promote it so that blog post gains traction.

With so much of your time hinging on each idea, it’s important to choose the blog post topics that will resonate the most with your audience.

You can discover which topics work by observing your audience on and off your blog.

What are your thoughts on choosing the best blog post topic? Do you have any suggestions for discovering the best content ideas? Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Stay Organized On Your Computer

September 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Computers have transformed the way we work and have allowed us to reach new levels of productivity.

However, extreme usage (and in some cases reliance) on computers can actually HURT our productivity.

In fact, we cause most of the technical headaches. Saving numerous documents and photos eventually slows down a computer, a problem that can only be solved with a massive clean up or a new computer.

Another problem is the actual creation of documents, making it a struggle to find information in a timely manner.

Part of the reason we buy a computer in the first place is to create documents and save photos. So if we try to care for our computers by not creating documents or saving pictures, its primary purpose is essentially lost.

But we must also consider the ways in which many of us organize our work and documents — all stuffed into one folder. When, if fact, organization has been proven to boost productivity.

It’s easy to think that organization is limited to your desk space and the room you work in. But it goes much further than that, beginning with your computer.

Here’s how you keep all of your emails and other important stuff organized on your computer.

#1: Reduce Clutter

The more cluttered your computer, the more difficult it is to find the document you are looking for, which shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

Our attention spans resemble that of a goldfish, and when the internet (and Facebook) is just a click away, a day meant for work can quickly turn into meaningless hours of surfing the web.

I use the size of the icons on my computer’s dashboard to determine if I have too much clutter. If I must squint or move closer to see what certain documents are, I have too much clutter.

If my desktop is filled with too many pictures, documents, etc., I have too much clutter. Reducing the clutter reduces distractions.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, and a thousand more distractions.

#2: Use Folders To Group Documents

This is probably the best tip. I can’t emphasize this one enough.

When you save things to your desktop, you will see them each time you log onto your computer. This is when it’s easy to get distracted by screenshots and similar items saved to your desktop.

To avoid this, I group all of my screenshots into folders.

If I didn’t use these folders, my entire desktop screen would be filled with screenshots galore.

This isn’t just a way to keep your desktop clean, you can also group together important documents according to theme, client, work type, etc., to stay organized.

One of my folders, for example, is titled “Podcast.” Within that folder are the seven documents I use to keep my podcast organized.

Instead of keeping all of them on my dock (and having super tiny app sizes), I put them all in one folder on my desktop.

That not only saves me space, it also makes it easier to find all of the other documents I need.

And when I need those podcast documents, they are all in one place and super easy to find.

#3: Flag Important Emails

When you get emails that you can’t respond to immediately, or need to refer to again later, flag them. That way, you can find them more easily later on.

The only problem with flagging emails is that if it becomes too much of a habit, you’ll have an inbox overload. Try to relegate them to emails you need to respond to, and be sure you do it within a reasonable amount of time.

I recommend spending 30-60 minutes in your inbox at the time of day when you usually feel least productive.

For example, I never go through my inbox in the morning because that’s when I am at my peak level of productivity. When I do happen to see an important email in the morning, I flag it.

I always make a point of checking my email in the afternoon, just before I take a break. I respond to all of the flagged messages before checking my inbox for new messages.

#4: Make Each Flag Mean Something

When I decided to start a podcast, I needed guests.

Barely knowing what I was doing, I sent a bunch of emails to people who would be a great fit for my podcast. Naturally as more people agreed to participate, I became more excited about podcasting.

But I quickly lost control of my inbox.

Which guests were awaiting confirmation of time and dates? Which guests needed the initial questionnaire? Who did I need to follow-up with?

My mind was dreaming of the possibilities but running in circles trying to keep everything organized. Then I figured out what to do:

I started assigning a meaning to each flag.

When I receive a guest confirmation, I assign that email an orange flag.
Once time and date are determined, I change the flag to blue.
After the questions are submitted, I make the flag purple.

Once the podcast episode ends, I remove the flag and add the guest’s email address to a custom spreadsheet.

I also share a link to the episode with the guest and make a mental note to stay in touch (the relationship doesn’t end when the episode is over or even weeks after it’s published. It never ends).

#5: Put Everything Else In A Miscellaneous Document

You may have noticed the Misc folder on my desktop screenshot.

If there’s a screenshot, document or download that doesn’t belong anywhere else, that’s the folder it goes into.

That folder has hundreds of screenshots and pictures that would otherwise take up my computer’s entire dashboard, leaving it an unorganized mess!

In Conclusion

The traditional definition of getting organized involves having a neat workspace and working in a clean room.

But if your computer is unorganized, you might as well be working in a room filled with clutter with piles of paperwork covering your entire desk.

The worst part about an unorganized computer is that it’s extremely easy to get distracted – our computers provide us with virtually infinite options.

Any website is a click away. Pictures on our dashboards can distract us at a moment’s notice. And important emails can easily get lost in the shuffle.

But all of that is more likely to happen if your computer remains unorganized.

How do you organize your computer? Have any tips or stories for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Play More Offense For Your Business

August 8, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

The more offense you play for your business, the more successful you will become. All of the top entrepreneurs dedicate a portion of their time each day to play offense.

Playing offense does not mean writing the next blog post. It doesn’t mean engaging with your audience, creating videos, or doing anything else associated with being in your business.

Playing more offense involves you taking an aerial view of your entire business and asking yourself important questions. Is this working? What should I be focusing on? What small changes can I make that would yield dramatic results? How do I grow this?

This offense results in more directed action with a clearer path to victory. Instead of constantly creating content and marketing yourself, you now have more specific aims that you believe will create the most impact.

You may feel like you’re already on the right path, but taking 30 minutes to conduct that aerial view every day will open the door to old opportunities and platforms that can still lead to great results.

Write Down Everything That Constitutes Your Business

This is a one-time, time extensive task. You’ll occasionally go through this list as your business continues to grow. However, you need to take this step before you can truly play offense. Here are just some of the parts of my business:

Virtual Summits
Blog Posts
Guest Posts
Training Courses
Free Videos
Books
Public Speaking
Breakthrough Success Podcast
Coaching
Redistribution

Sometimes I focus so much of my time, attention, and energy on my virtual summits that I forget about other areas. When I took the aerial view, I rediscovered that I needed to pump out more content for my readers (plus, I LOVE writing content, and realized that I’d separated myself from my biggest passion for too long).

I also rediscovered my podcast outros need major updates. I didn’t see any traction from my previous outros because I mainly promoted my Udemy courses, but now I’m promoting more stuff on my site and a few tools which I use and am an affiliate for.

I also rediscovered that I could get more exposure by writing more guest posts and getting interviewed on more podcasts.

Discovering and doing are two different things, and if your schedule is constantly filled with in-business work, you never find the time to take that aerial view and ask yourself, “What should I really be doing?”

Then you need to rediscover and start implementing instead of letting these important tasks continue to remain unattended.

Writing down all of this information is so important because with tens of thousands of thoughts running through out minds every day, it’s easy to forget.

Start Delegating More Of Your Tasks

Delegating your tasks to others will open up hours of extra time. My freelancers are critical to my success because they subtract various tasks from my day. Over the long-term, I can easily see having a team of hundreds of freelancers, but I’m not there yet.

Some people may be interested in delegation but haven’t started yet. If that’s you, my friend Nick Loper from Side Hustle Nation has some great advice for you.

The two main ingredients you need to get started delegating are a log of where you’re spending your time and a well-documented process.

The time log will tell you where the biggest opportunities for outsourcing lie. What’s sucking up the most of your day? Is that something you HAVE to do, or could someone else reasonably handle it with a little training?

Next, you’ll want to have clear process documentation and instructions. This is like your recipe for completing the task, and the more detailed the better. Don’t leave anything to chance here, even though you probably take for granted some of the steps, especially if you’ve been doing the task yourself for any length of time.

How I normally create the process documentation is I take a screen capture video of myself doing the job and talking through the steps. Then I write out the steps in a Google Doc so I can share both a visual and written version with my assistant.

Delegating more of your tasks will also give you more time to play offense. Take some time to think about some of the important parts of your business, how you can take action, and then just do it.

Checking on your freelancers is part of playing offense because you want to make sure they have work, and more importantly, that your freelancers are effectively getting their jobs done. You should have more 10-15 minute meetings fill up your schedule to ensure that you and your freelancers are both on the same page. These meetings do take up some time, but they work like a charm for keeping everyone on track.

In Conclusion

I thought of ways that I could extend this blog post beyond my usual 1,000 word marker, but I decided against it. Playing offense for your business simply comes down to…

Taking the aerial view of your brand
Discovering/rediscovering what you need to do for the optimal impact
Start taking action

I could have said it in several different ways, but that’s the premise to working on offense. Taking action just comes down to putting the tasks on your schedule. If a task isn’t on the schedule, it doesn’t get done. If it’s on the schedule, it has a much higher probability of getting done.

What are your thoughts on playing offense for your business? Do you have any tips for us? Have a question? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Hacks For Writing Blog Posts Faster

July 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Writing blog posts takes time, effort and commitment.

You need to think up an engaging topic and headline, write an outline and the actual post, proofread and edit, then publish and promote your post before starting the entire process again.

But there are unconventional ways to hack the writing process and speed things up. Here are five ways to write your blog posts faster:

#1: Write On Your Smartphone

Just to clarify, I always prefer to write blog posts using a computer, but that isn’t always an option.

In fact, I’m writing this post in TJ Maxx. Why? Well, it’s not because I enjoy shopping (I find what I need and get out as quickly as possible), but today I am in the company of people who like to browse.

So instead of idly slouching against a wall, I decided to slouch against a wall and write the post you’re reading now. This way, the time I spend inside the store is actually productive.

Now I’m not saying to go shopping just so you can write blog posts. However, you can use moments of waiting as opportunities to begin, add to, or edit a post.

Certainly I could write much faster on my computer, but if I finish the post here in the store I won’t have to write again later today.

I could go on and on about this method because it’s the one I’m using now, and use often when I’m waiting, but let’s move on to the next hack.

#2: Get Your Videos Transcribed

Some people may be natural talkers but not natural writers. It takes more brain power for them to write than to talk. Just talking about your topic will help it flow out quicker and easier.

Not only that, but you can spend a few minutes dictating content that would take 30 minutes or more to write.

Talk about a time saver! And you’ve also got a YouTube video to boot. You can even turn it into a podcast episode using the MP3 file.

#3: Hire A Ghostwriter

Sometimes the fastest way to get your blog posts written is by not writing them at all! You can have one writer, or a team of ghostwriters, write your content for you.

I still haven’t hired ghostwriters for content creation, but I learned a lot about how it works after hosting the Content Marketing Success Summit.

Bascially, you can give a ghostwriter an outline of your blog post’s topic and he or she will write it up (you can also ask that they make suggestions for topic ideas).

Keep in mind it’s important that ghostwriters are familiar with your blog and writing style so they can write in a similar voice.

This ensures your content is consistent (without having to write it yourself). Why not focus more of your time on other areas of your business?

#4: Accept Guest Contributions To Your Blog

When you are first starting out, you may not have a budget for ghostwriters. To remedy this problem, you can invite people to contribute your blog.

You basically get free content. All you have to do is give credit and let the contributor link to his/her site and other essentials at the beginning or end of the blog post (whichever you prefer).

The best way to find contributors for your blog is by looking at blogs in your niche that accept contributors. Then ask the same contributors to contribute to your blog.

The people who contribute to your blog will naturally share their posts, so you’ll get more exposure for your blog.

Also, as more people contribute to your blog, other contributors will contact you and ask if they can contribute content for your blog.

In the beginning, getting contributors to your blog will involve sending many emails to bloggers. But as you get more contributors, the snowball effect will eventually kick in and new contributors will contact you with their ideas.

#5: Memorize The Keyboard

Do you know where the “q” key is on your keyboard. Did you have to look down to find it?

Looking down at the keyboard takes time. Although it may only take a second to look down and look up, that action makes you type slower and temporarily removes your focus from writing the blog post.

The seconds you spend looking down at the keyboard as you write each sentence and each blog post quickly add up to minutes and hours.

To make up that time, you must memorize the keyboard. Your WPM (words per minute) will skyrocket and you will be less susceptible to distraction.

Any moment that your fingers aren’t moving quickly on the keyboard, you are susceptible to distraction.

So now that I’ve sold you on the benefits (or, at least, I’m hoping), here’s how you master the skill.

Start by memorizing all of the key placements for a single 4-5 letter word. If you can type the word “blog” with your eyes closed, you have memorized the locations of 4 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

If you then memorize the word “each,” you have memorized 8 of the 26 letters on the keyboard.

Now typing a word like “beach” comes second nature as you’ve memorized the placements of those letters.

This is a simple exercise that will allow you to write blog posts faster. This one method has saved me countless hours of time.

In Conclusion

I’m wrapping up this blog post in yet another store. I didn’t bother looking for a table or taking out my computer. I simply wrote all of it on my iPhone.

Since the keys are located in the same places, I had no problem effortlessly typing words by memory.

Think about how many blog posts you can write while waiting for something or someone.

Think about how much time you can save with ghostwriters and contributors.

Think of how cool it is to not write them at all!

What are your thoughts on these hacks to writing blog posts faster?

Have any hacks for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

Until next time,

-Marc

How To Stop Your Landing Page From Leaking Conversions

June 17, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

This is a guest contribution from Deepasha Kakkar

Landing pages are designed to increase conversions. They are dedicated pages that direct and guide a visitor to specific places. But simply making a landing page isn’t the end of your battle to secure conversions.

Distractions are everywhere, and 55% users spend less than 15 seconds on a page. You simply can’t afford to lose sales because of distractions, especially from those on your landing pages.

Indeed, your goal should be to keep visitors on your landing page only long enough to commit to a sale. So how do you plug the leaks? Here are 10 ways to increase conversions:

1. Low Page Load Times = Low Conversion Leaks

Your ideal landing page load times should be under three seconds. In fact, a delay of as little as 2 seconds can increase your landing page bounce rate by 103%.

For example, Mozilla was able to cut 2.2 seconds off page load time, which led to 15.4% higher conversions.

Even the Obama Fundraising Campaign managed to raise $34 million additional funds just by decreasing the page speed from five seconds to two seconds.

Source

Remove the graphical elements that slow up load times, and avoid background autoplay GIFs and videos. They take a long time to load and can slow down the rest of the page, deterring and annoying visitors with frozen frames or black backgrounds.

Use as few elements as you can manage. Be minimalistic. The less you use, the faster your landing page loads.

Visitors are more likely to visit your website if your landing page loads in a flash; no delays, no fuss, and you deliver them straight to where you want them to be.

A hassle free experience goes a long way in crediting you with a good public image. Give your visitors an effortless and memorable experience.

2. Keep Your Audience Engrossed: Remove Possible Page Exits

The worst thing you can do with your landing page is to fill it with links that lead visitors away from the page. Keeping visitors in one place until they perform a particular action is the point of a landing page. If there are too many things screaming at them for attention, you won’t be able to keep their minds on any one thing.

Remove any navigational panels, links, flashy pop-ups, and perhaps even social share options that adorn the top or side of our landing pages. Your landing page has to be neat and amply populated, not overpopulated.

Hubspot saw significant conversion rate improvements on their landing pages after they removed links and navigation panels.

Source

Yuppiechef had a 100% increase in sign-up rates by removing their top fold navigation bar on the landing page.

Reserve your homepage for navigation menus. Remember, your landing page needs to distraction free. Although you might want to experiment with minimalistic social share options to see if your page fares better with or without them.

A good landing page is a beautifully orchestrated film that directs the audience’s attention where it wants to. Navigation menus and outbound links get in the way of that subtle art.

3. Use Landing Page Explainer Videos

Attention spans have been reduced to eight seconds, but the average video watch times are 2.7 minutes. So short explainer videos of 1-2 minutes in length are the way to go..

A simple animated explainer video can explain your complex business idea quickly, connect with your target audience, and influence buying decisions.

Studies say that companies using explainer videos on their homepage or landing page above the fold can increase conversions by up to 20%. Success stories include DropBox, which used an explainer video to generate 10% increase in conversion rate. It may sound like a small number, but when you do the math, that’s 10 million users and around $48,000,000 a year.

Crazy Egg saw similar success with their landing page explainer video, generating 64% more conversions in the form of $21,000 a month.

Explainer videos engage the viewer for at least 2 minutes, which means that your landing page gets two more minutes of traffic. Not only is that enough time to get people interested in your site and product, it also means that Google values your site more because of increased traffic and time spent on the site.

4. Use Custom Marketing Images & Graphics With One Clear CTA

If you can’t pull off a custom video, you can likely produce custom made graphics and images or even GIFs to engage and nurture customers.

Create images that are tailored to suit your copy and graphics needs. Custom images can improve your conversions by 40% and tailoring them to your target audience is well worth the time and effort.

Source

For the love of all things dear to you, do not use stock images. They are someone else’s vision that you are forcing onto your audience.

Stock images are insipid and make your audience think that you aren’t willing to put any effort into making an experience worthwhile. Don’t let that be a deterrent for visiting your landing page.

5. Have Only One Call To Action

Your landing page should have one purpose. You can try to get visitors to buy a product, sign up for emails, or connect on social media. Don’t include them all on one page.

Too many CTAs means that nothing really stands out. This is as anti-landing-page as you can get.

Whirlpool’s CTR shot up by 42% when they used only one CTA in their emails rather than the four they had been using before the change.

Having one CTA means that viewers have nothing else to focus on. You can lead your visitors to where you want them to go by giving the right cues.

You can also have arrows pointing where you want the viewer to look, or have subtle backgrounds that direct the focus of the viewer like this:

Source

6. Use Testimonials: Maintain Social-Professional Credibility

You have to create and maintain value and credibility amongst your user base and visitors. The best way to do that is by including positive reviews by authority figures, Twitter cards from users of your product, quotes, case studies, achievements, awards, statistics, client testimonials and logos, etc.

It creates a big impact to see someone or something well-known accrediting your product with trust and reliability. It can be the difference between a solid set of conversions and people leaving your landing page without doing anything.

Consumer reviews are one of the strongest sources of building brand trust, with 70% of global consumers saying that they trust reviews more than any other form of advertising. A whopping 92% consumers around the globe trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, according to this report.

You can even list the number of your current users and subscribers, current online viewers, or have badges of affirmation from known brands. Dishonored, a video game, features on its page appreciation from the top notch community critics.

It creates a solid standing for your product to show positive reviews from authoritative and known figures.

7. Make Your Purpose Noticed: Use A Bold Heading

The point of a landing page is to grab the attention of the visitor, and your page heading is the best way to do it. It isn’t enough to simply put a heading there. It has to stand out.

Use bold text, block letters, and use a clout theme that makes the heading stand out against the background and all other elements on the page. You have to pay close attention to the copy, too.

Don’t make your heading copy vague and undirected. It is one of the first and best tools that you have to direct people’s attention to the place you want.

You can make your heading enticing, curiosity inducing that makes the visitor read on or prompts them to click where you want them to. UpWork is a good example with their heading that prompts the user with a catchy result-based headline.

The bold heading gets your attention and you’re more likely to click to find out how Rob got more conversions for his Upwork clients. The subheading helps add context to the attention-grabbing headline.

Or you can be very specific and tell the visitors what exactly they are getting out of visiting your page like Moz does with its sign up page:

A neat heading that tells you exactly what you’re getting into.

In either case, both the pages present a strong case that catches the visitor’s attention and provides just enough details to guide the user along.

8. Be Smart: Use Few Words To Convey More

According to an Unbounce report, the higher the word count on your webpage, the lower your conversion rate.

Here’s a graph from their report which suggests that perhaps 20-30 words are your best bet to get more conversions. As you keep moving forward with your word count, the more steadily your conversion rate declines.

Keep your words simple. The simpler your message, the better people will understand what they are getting into. Don’t be fancy with your words, your landing page needn’t feel like a newspaper column or a critique.

Keep your language simple; easy enough for a 6th grader to understand. Once again, according to the Unbounce report, the further you move along the reading difficulty curve of the Flesch test, the less conversions you secure.

Nobody likes to be duped and vaguely told things in a fancy language. Be simple, be precise, and cut straight to the point. Your visitors will be grateful and you will see the difference.

9. One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Test Your Landing Page Variations

This one is more or less self-explanatory. There’s a lot of variety on the internet: customer types, their needs, products, as well as your own image and how it is perceived.

You cannot hinge your landing page conversions on something that has worked for someone else. Sure, it might be a good strategy to that yielded results, and it may for you too, but you have to get the best out of what you are doing to your landing page.

Test what you do, implement variations, then test again. See what works out best for you.

You might add more images to your landing page when what you really needed more was a better, bolder headline. Or you might be optimizing your form fields when what you need is a better color theme,

Make a variation of different elements and see how they impact conversions and the response to your landing pages.

Once you’re satisfied enough with the results, slip that variation in for long term use. When the variation has run its course, repeat the above strategy. It’s all about hit and miss, even if you have the best strategists and practices holding your landing pages in place. Internet trends and needs change very fast. You need to, too.

10. A Ton Of Landing Pages, A Ton Of Leads

Once you have mastered, implemented and tested these techniques, it’s time to build a whole network of landing pages that cater to different audiences coming from different sources. Why?

According to Hubspot, the more landing pages you have the more lead generation you’ll get.

Source

But it isn’t simply about making more landing pages. A dozen similar landing pages are no good. Make separate landing pages for separate consumers, arriving from different places around the internet.

You have to make the experience of the user unbroken when they come to your landing page from a website.

Maintain a theme. If a user clicked on an ad that offers free e-books, don’t give them a webpage that asks them to sign up. Give them a page that prompts them with the e-book. Of course, after that you can ask them to sign up to get the book.

Remember to update your landing pages as you update the theme and graphical feel of your website and ads. You’d be losing out on conversions if the visitor feels he has landed on a different website if the color themes of what they click on and what they land on are different.

Conclusion

This is by no means a definitive list, but the methods listed above are effective enough to kickstart your attempts to plug the holes in your landing pages to get you more conversions.

Most of it comes down to testing what works for you. Your industry and the sphere you work in governs a lot of what your traffic is like and prefers, and thus influences the way your landing pages should look.

Observe, learn, test, implement, and then rinse and repeat.

Of course, don’t just wait for traffic to pour onto your site; plan marketing strategies to actively promote the landing page.

Struck gold with some technique you used yourself? Let us know in the comments. A new technique you hooked your page up with? Share with the community. Sound off below.

About The Author

Deepasha is an Entrepreneur, Visual Marketer and the Founder of Crackitt. Crackitt helps startups and enterprises harness the power of visual marketing to generate leads and close sales through Explainer Videos and Infographics

3 Strategies To Get Out Of Your Inbox Faster

May 13, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

A lot of people suffer from inbox paralysis. This happens when they receive so many emails — and believe they must respond to each one — that overwhelm takes over and leaves them inert. Sound familiar?

Even when you do respond to your emails, you probably end up stuck in your inbox for long periods of time. Email is basically invading our lives. To think about the impact of the inbox, consider these statistics:

2.4 million emails are sent every day.
The average person receives nearly 121 emails each day.
50% of Americans check their inbox while in bed.

It’s easy to feel as if we’re chained to our inbox (much like our mobile phones). In reality, the inbox is a double-edged sword. Some people can focus on potential opportunities and good email content, while others complain, “Oh, this is such a time suck!”

To avoid inbox paralysis, you need to become conscious of how you use your inbox. At the same time, you’ll want to make sure you’re capitalizing on the opportunities presented therein. This means taking control of the situation and making sure you are getting the best possible results from the time you spend in your inbox.

One of the dangers lurking in your inbox is the notification. The red icon, or circle, that appears every time you get a new message. You must avoid being tempted by that! How? The following strategies will help you make sure that you are using your inbox more strategically.

The first strategy is called ‘Zero Inbox’ day

This is the strategy I use. Every Monday, I go through all of my emails and respond to every one. This means I’m responding to dozens of emails. And on some Mondays, I’ve responded to over a hundred emails!

Bur rather than scatter this out throughout the week, I prefer get it all done on one day so that I have another six days to address other areas of my business.

If you do a little here and a little there, you’ll end up losing focus and inbox paralysis kicks in. And it takes time to reposition that focus on the projects that you’re supposed to be working on.

So I choose one day to blow through all of the emails and get them done so I don’t have to worry about them for the next six days. Sure, there are lots of emails piling up during the week, but I only respond to the critical emails.

When I was planning my virtual summit, for example, I responded to every potential speaker or any speakers who had questions. I’m very particular about which emails I respond to during my six-day hiatus. But on Mondays, I respond to every single email that is addressed to me.

The second strategy is to shorten your responses

Basically, there are two things that control how long you stay in your inbox: the amount of emails addressed to you, and how long your responses are to each one of them.

If it takes you a minute to respond to 60 emails, averaging one minute per email, you’ll be in your inbox for an hour. But if it only takes you 30 seconds, on average, to respond to an email, and you’re responding to the same 60, you’re only in your inbox for 30 minutes. That is a big difference, and it all comes from writing shorter responses.

My rule of thumb for writing an email response is to keep it no longer than five sentences. Most often, it’s one to three sentences. I’m very quick with it. I have an automatic signature so I don’t have to reenter the same details over and over and over again.

And instead of writing, “Hello Name,” and hitting the enter button twice, I’ll sometimes just include the person’s name on the same line as the message. This basically allows me to write shorter responses, which in turn allows me to address more emails within a shorter period of time.

The people who are really busy and seem like they are getting hundreds, or even thousands, of emails every day, have the shortest responses.

That is very intentional because they have a whole bunch of people to get back to, and they also have projects they want to pursue.

Don’t be afraid to make your email responses a little shorter. Don’t be afraid of coming off as curt or anything like that. It’s just part of the nature of communicating with as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, so that you can free up time for the rest of your business. You can be short and still be polite.

The third strategy is to hire an assistant

You should take this step when you’re getting hundreds of emails every day that require your attention. The assistant can go through the emails that follow a certain rubric. For example, answer all emails that say, “Please be a guest on my podcast.”

It’ll be a different person with a different audience and different podcast link. But the assistant can go through all of them and answer based on your preset recommendations for how to proceed. A good assistant will determine whether or not the gig is a good fit and/or which emails need your personal attention.

You can also ask the assistant to address common questions, send out thank you notes, or answer others who have written to thank you. Still, I would proceed with caution when hiring an assistant. Personally, I respond to thank-you messages myself. The idea of someone using my email address to respond on my behalf makes me a bit uncomfortable. But it’s done all the time.

If you do use an assistant, be sure they respond to your audience the right way. I suggest monitoring the person for the first week. My own rule is to micromanage for three to seven days only, just until I’m sure that my assistant or freelancer is competent.

Analyzing every little thing that your freelancer does, or micromanaging everyone on your team, makes hiring them to free up your time pointless.

Make yourself available for questions and clarifications the first week. Once you’re confident in their skills, step back and let them do their thing. They can always reach out to you with questions. But you needn’t bother analyzing every single email they send on your behalf.

To save even more time, you can take it a step further and hire a manager who oversees your freelancers.

These are three strategies for spending less time in your inbox.

I hope you enjoyed them. If you know someone who might benefit from these tips, please share this post.

Do you have your own tips to share? If so, please leave a comment. I read them all (and sometimes I end up turning them into a video or blog post).

If you are new to this blog, welcome! Sign up for more content like this using the form below 🙂

But what I’d really like from you is to dream big, achieve greatness, and unlock your potential today.

Until next time,

-Marc

*image credit: Pixabay.com