In this article, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the AI Insight Forum, highlighting the key discussions, participants, and the significance of implementing AI regulation. By examining the insights shared during the forum, we aim to shed light on the importance of responsible AI development and the need for government intervention to ensure the safe and ethical use of AI technologies.

The Significance of the AI Insight Forum

The AI Insight Forum was a groundbreaking gathering that aimed to analyze the complex landscape of AI regulation. It brought together top tech CEOs, government leaders, and civil society representatives to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by AI. The forum served as a platform for comprehensive discussions on the need for government regulation, safety measures, and access to AI technologies.

By convening a diverse group of stakeholders, the AI Insight Forum facilitated a much-needed conversation about how Congress can tackle AI and ensure its safe and responsible development. The forum marked a significant step towards understanding the potential risks and benefits of AI, as well as the need for government intervention to protect public interests.

Key Participants and Discussions

Tech CEOs and Government Leaders Unite

The AI Insight Forum witnessed the presence of prominent tech CEOs, including executives from Tesla, Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and IBM. These industry leaders joined forces with United States Senators and civil society representatives to engage in meaningful discussions on AI regulation.

The forum provided a unique opportunity for tech CEOs and government leaders to come together and exchange ideas on the future of AI and its impact on society. It highlighted the shared responsibility of both the private and public sectors in shaping AI policy and ensuring its safe and ethical implementation.

The Need for Government Regulation

During the AI Insight Forum, there was a near-unanimous agreement among participants on the need for government regulation of AI. While tech companies have committed to responsible AI development, Congress was urged to play a role in requiring safeguards to minimize potential harm.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer emphasized the importance of government intervention, stating that even if individual companies promote safeguards, rogue actors and foreign adversaries may still pose risks. He highlighted the transformative potential of AI and the need to maximize its societal benefits while minimizing its risks through appropriate regulations.

Responsible AI Development

CEOs and representatives from various tech companies shared their commitment to responsible AI development during the forum. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, highlighted the US’ leading role in AI innovation and called on Congress to engage proactively in shaping AI’s future.

Zuckerberg outlined the two key issues facing AI: safety and access. He stressed Meta’s efforts to build safeguards into AI models and products through partnerships with academics and societal experts. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of access to state-of-the-art AI, which he believes will drive opportunities for individuals, companies, and economies.

Risks Posed by Open-Source AI Models

The forum also addressed the risks associated with open-source AI models. Tristan Harris, head of the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology, raised concerns about the potential misuse of open-source AI models. He specifically mentioned Meta’s Llama 2 model, claiming that his nonprofit convinced the model to provide instructions for creating dangerous biological compounds.

However, Zuckerberg countered this claim by stating that similar instructions are already accessible on the internet. The discussion highlighted the challenges of balancing open-source initiatives with the responsibility to prevent misuse and ensure public safety.

Effects of AI on Jobs

Participants at the AI Insight Forum also discussed the potential impact of AI on jobs. While AI has the potential to automate certain tasks and streamline processes, there are concerns about job displacement and the changing nature of work.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, emphasized the importance of considering AI as a copilot rather than an autopilot for jobs. He encouraged a mindset that views AI as a tool that enhances human capabilities and productivity rather than replacing humans altogether.

The Challenges of AI Regulation

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, compared the role of government in AI regulation to that of a referee in a sports game. He emphasized the need for a regulatory “referee” to ensure that AI companies operate safely and in the public interest. Musk highlighted the potential risks associated with AI and the importance of minimizing harm for all humans worldwide.

While some participants expressed concerns about over-regulation stifling AI advancement, there was a general consensus on the need for regulations to address safety, ethics, and public accountability.

The Importance of Implementing AI Regulation

The discussions at the AI Insight Forum underscored the importance of implementing AI regulation. While tech companies have made efforts to develop AI responsibly, government intervention is necessary to ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed in a manner that minimizes harm and maximizes public benefit.

AI has the potential to bring about significant advancements and transformations in various industries. However, without proper regulation, there is a risk of unethical use, privacy breaches, and social inequality. Government regulation can provide the necessary safeguards to protect individuals, society, and national security while fostering innovation and ensuring that the benefits of AI are realized.

The Next Steps for AI Regulation

The AI Insight Forum served as a crucial starting point for discussions on AI regulation. It laid the foundation for future legislative action and collaboration between tech companies, government leaders, and civil society.

The insights and discussions from the forum will inform policymakers as they work towards creating regulations that balance innovation, safety, and public interest. The next steps for AI regulation involve further research, collaboration, and the formulation of policies that address the challenges and opportunities presented by AI.

See first source: Search Engine Journal

FAQ

1. What was the AI Insight Forum, and what was its significance?

The AI Insight Forum was a gathering of tech industry leaders, government officials, and civil society representatives to discuss AI regulation and its implications. Its significance lies in bringing together diverse stakeholders to address the challenges and opportunities associated with AI and to emphasize the need for government intervention in AI development and deployment.

2. Who were the key participants in the AI Insight Forum, and what were the main topics of discussion?

Key participants included CEOs from tech giants like Tesla, Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and IBM, as well as United States Senators and civil society representatives. The main topics of discussion included the need for government regulation of AI, responsible AI development, risks posed by open-source AI models, the impact of AI on jobs, and the challenges of AI regulation.

3. Why was there a consensus on the need for government regulation of AI during the forum?

There was a consensus on the need for government regulation of AI because even though tech companies committed to responsible AI development, there were concerns about potential harm from rogue actors and foreign adversaries. Government regulation was seen as a way to require safeguards and minimize risks while maximizing the societal benefits of AI.

4. How did tech CEOs emphasize responsible AI development during the forum?

Tech CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, emphasized their commitment to responsible AI development. They discussed building safeguards into AI models and products, partnering with academics and societal experts, and viewing AI as a tool that enhances human capabilities rather than replacing humans in the workforce.

5. What concerns were raised about open-source AI models, and how were they addressed during the forum?

Concerns were raised about the potential misuse of open-source AI models, such as Meta’s Llama 2. Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology mentioned concerns about the model providing instructions for creating dangerous compounds. However, Mark Zuckerberg countered by stating that similar instructions are already accessible on the internet, highlighting the challenge of balancing open-source initiatives with preventing misuse.

6. How did the forum address the potential impact of AI on jobs, and what perspective did Satya Nadella provide?

The forum discussed the potential impact of AI on jobs, with concerns about job displacement. Satya Nadella of Microsoft emphasized the importance of viewing AI as a copilot rather than an autopilot for jobs. He encouraged a mindset that sees AI as a tool to enhance human capabilities and productivity rather than replacing humans entirely in the workforce.

7. What were the challenges discussed regarding AI regulation, and how were they addressed?

The challenges of AI regulation included concerns about over-regulation stifling AI advancement. Elon Musk of Tesla compared the role of government in AI regulation to that of a referee in a sports game. While there were concerns, there was a general consensus on the need for regulations to address safety, ethics, and public accountability while fostering innovation.

8. Why is implementing AI regulation important, and what are the potential risks of not doing so?

Implementing AI regulation is crucial because AI has the potential to bring significant advancements but also risks, such as unethical use, privacy breaches, and social inequality. Without proper regulation, these risks could materialize, leading to harm to individuals, society, and national security.

Featured Image Credit: Valery Tenevoy; Unsplash – Thank you!

The post What Happened at the AI Insight Forum? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Before we go to the main discussion, we should know some basics about the whole thing. You all know it is not free to host any website you want. If you want to secure your domain with a unique hosting name or under a dedicated domain, then you will need to contact domain registrars like GoDaddy. There are options for free websites too if you would like to use Google Sites or Wix.com. But for potential income purposes and a dedicated website, you should opt for buying a domain. 

Of various domain registrars, GoDaddy is one of the most popular ones. Moreover, GoDaddy is cheaper than other domain registrars. So in that instance, you may think of changing your current domain registrar. Moreover, it’s not just about the price; rather it’s about the support, service, and pricing. If you feel like your current registrar is not up to the mark, then now is the time for you to decide whether you want to change the domain registrar or not. If you decide to change the registrar and transfer, then you will need to learn the steps on how to transfer the domain to GoDaddy.

Steps to Follow to Transfer Your Domain to GoDaddy

Domain transfer is pretty straightforward and natural in the present world. There are six major steps for preparing your domain transfer from the current one to GoDaddy. You need to follow all the following steps to know how to transfer the domain to GoDaddy. 

Step 1: Unlocking Domain Name

Before you move forward with your domain transfer, firstly you need to contact your registrar to unlock the domain name for you.

Step 2: Acquire the Authorization Code

The domain registrar will provide you with an EPP code or transfer key, also known as the Authorization Code. This code will be necessary for the following steps.

Step 3: Verification of Contact Details

You will need to contact the administration for verification of contact information for your domain name. You need the verification for 100% completion of your domain transfer.

After these three steps, then you need to go to GoDaddy for further steps.

Step 4: Search for Your Unlocked Domain Name via GoDaddy Website

Now, use the GoDaddy Website Search Tool to find the unlocked domain. This is the reason, why the first step involved the unlocking of the domain name. Because if it was locked, the search bar won’t be able to find the domain.

There are some technical issues to keep in mind. Like, your domain won’t be eligible for transfer to a different registrar if your domain is newly registered or it has not completed the mandatory time period of 60 days of registration.

Step 5: Confirming the Unlocking of the Domain

It is easy to confirm whether the domain is locked or unlocked. You will be able to see a green check mark adjacent to the domain name. If it shows a green mark, then the domain is unlocked. Otherwise, you would have to contact the registrar for further information regarding the unlocking of the domain. Moreover, you may require to refresh the unlock status by using the Refresh Status Button available on the website of GoDaddy.

Step 6: Provide Authorization Code

Below your green-marked domain name, you will find another field that will say about the authorization code. You will also notice that there will be a yellow mark adjacent to the field.

When you put the correct code, the yellow mark will change to green. After the mark has changed, you should click the continue button. Moving forward, there will be a pop-up showing different domain privacy options. You should read about all those options and then select the suitable options. After selecting the privacy settings, click continue once again. Now, there will be a pop-up with details regarding the payment method. Provide the necessary information about the payment details and finally click on Complete Purchase to finish the payment procedure.

Step 7: Wait for the Transfer to be Completed

The transfer process may require from 5 to 7 days. So, wait patiently. Keep visiting the GoDaddy website to check up on the transfer status.

Conclusion

So, now you can see that it’s easy to transfer your domain after you have learned about the steps on how to transfer a domain to GoDaddy. You will be able to help others in a similar situation like you as well. GoDaddy has garnered high popularity for its reduced pricing, and other features. Moreover, the branding of GoDaddy has been phenomenal from the very beginning. If you visit the GoDaddy website, you will find relevant videos and also writings to further help you learn how to transfer a domain to GoDaddy. 

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5 Steps Towards Becoming a Food Vlogger

Step 1: Create a Facebook Page, YouTube Channel, and Other Social Media Platforms

The very first step of how to become a food vlogger is to create a platform for yourself. For maximum outreach, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one platform and rather try to attain followers by utilizing all the available platforms.

Creating a Facebook page and opening a YouTube channel are the two most popular paths nowadays. You should think of a catchy name for your food vlogging platform.

Afterward, update your platform with the necessary initial details about what you want to share with your customers. You should talk about yourself, your attributes, and what you intend to do for the customers. Furthermore, it is better to provide a compelling statement about yourself, so that people are intrigued about you & your channel.

Since the channel is going to be about food vlogging, you can talk about your vlogging interest & experience, your food consumption habits, and more. But you should remember to focus on one single platform at the beginning. After gaining a significant amount of appreciation from people, you should then try to expand your horizon to other social media platforms. But yes, undoubtedly, you need to utilize all the platforms for proper branding.

Step 2: Make a Schedule and Plan

In the second stage of how to become a food vlogger, you should make a plan for your endgame. Additionally, you should think about exactly what you would like to achieve. Many food vloggers are trying to gain their desired popularity. Some others have already achieved their goals. So, for the attainment of your goals, keep working with a plan in mind.

Step 3: Visit Different Places and Eat at Various Restaurants

In this step, you need to go out and make the actual videos. Take a camera or mobile, camera stand and also take a person with you to help you with the whole procedure.

Influencers cut deals with restaurants. They deal in publicity for a free or reduced cost of food. The situation becomes a win-win for both the food vloggers and the restaurant owners.

Make a compelling script and practice what you would like to say. Then, create a good video. The video should be focused on entertainment and educational values. Because many people love food. Those people are always in search of good tasty dishes, and quality restaurants. And just like people who watch reviews regarding techs including mobile phones, food lovers want good reviews regarding food and restaurants. You need to keep this in mind, while you are trying to make the video to the best of your ability.

In the video, it is crucial to include some of the interior decorations of the restaurant and also the essence of the environment.

Step 4: Maintain Your Video-Creation and Sharing Streak

It is important to keep your streak regarding making & sharing food vlogs. Also, try to mix up food Details with the details of the location. Good quality vlogs will include entertainment and possess educational values. So, target that as your primary goal.

Step 5: Communicate with the Audience and Make Live Videos

It is crucial to maintain communication with your target audience. You don’t always need to talk about foods in your food vlogs. You should take time apart to introduce yourself to them. Also, you should show them your hobbies and others. But yes, undoubtedly, you should focus on your primary content. But it is good to mix everything up for maintaining entertainment values. Live videos and streaming videos are the best way to retain and increase your fan base.

Food Vlogging as a Career

Many people have now become an influencer regarding their food vlogging. It can be a good source of income when you get a certain amount of followers. After that, you can lead a solvent life after developing your food vlogging experience to a significant extent.

Issues and Opportunities

Becoming a food vlogger comes with various issues and also opportunities. You should learn about those issues & opportunities in depth. But the potential is vast. So, make sure to follow up with your plans to the best of your ability. After learning how to become a food vlogger, you should consistently maintain all phases of your plan to ensure that your food vlog is successful.

Marketing

Marketing is a major segment of being an influencer. Therefore, it is important to utilize the necessary marketing strategies to develop your brand.

Conclusion

A good vlog will require you to be consistent with your work. Moreover, you need to be capable of enjoying the act of food vlogging, for it to be really enjoyable for the audience. So, make it entertaining for both you and your audience. Hopefully, the article can provide the necessary information on how to become a food vlogger for interested people.

The post Become a Food Vlogger in 5 Easy Steps appeared first on The Blog Herald.

When a new year begins, people think about choosing some goals they want to attain in the following year. So, if you want to improve your fitness-related goals, you can set fitness goals for the New Year. And for maintaining your motivation and helping you achieve your goals, a fitness blog might be your best shot.

The article will discuss several steps on how to start a fitness blog.

Major Tips to Achieve Your Fitness Goals

There are 6 major tips that you should keep in mind before starting a fitness blog. Those tips will help you to achieve a 100% success rate concerning your goals. The tips are:

(i) Verbalize Your Fitness Commitment

The best way to start a commitment is to verbalize it often and to remind yourself about it from time to time for maintaining motivation.

(ii) Create and Maintain the Plan

A plan is your best option to achieve your desired goals. Make a plan and stick to it to the best of your ability. Remind yourself about your verbal commitment whenever you feel like giving up.

(iii) Find a Companion or More to do Workout

It is best not to embark on a long-term commitment on your own. Because, if you are alone, it gets very difficult to maintain your focus and energy. But, if there is someone who is by your side the whole time, then, that will give you motivation and inspiration to keep trying.

(iv) Keep Note About Your Progress

This step is very important, of course. You need to keep track of your progress, otherwise, you won’t find out how much further you have come toward achieving your goals. Maintain a fitness app or make notes regarding your fitness goals. An app might be preferable for this particular instance.

(v) Remember to Enjoy the Whole Process

The final tip is to enjoy. Because, if you can’t enjoy the process, it is almost predictable that you won’t be able to prolong your fitness regimes and attain your goals.

Steps on how to start a fitness blog

The following steps will help you get to learn how to start a fitness blog to your liking. It is important to go through all the steps as best as you can.

Step 1: Create a blog account

There are many blogging platforms available nowadays. To begin, you must create a blog account using your email address. Secondly, after the creation of the account, provide all the necessary details about you and your blog. Thirdly, provide a statement about your fitness blog, your aspirations, and your experiences. Fourthly, it is preferable to provide a video that will provide an introduction to your blog. Nowadays, videos create more impact than just writings.

Step 2: Update and Develop your account

During this step, you need to develop your account. For a better quality blog, you should maintain consistency. Provide quality writing with pictures and videos. To ensure consistency, you need to work on your fitness blog at regular intervals.

Step 3: Marketing your Blog for Branding Purpose

You need to do branding for your blog intensely to create a strong presence. This strong presence will help you to get a significant number of followers.

There are several popular social media platforms that you can use to your advantage. To get the most coverage, it is best to perform branding across all platforms.

Step 4: Make intensive plans for creating strong and quality content

Firstly, create a schedule and plan. Secondly, watch and read other blogs of a similar nature to get a feel for your content. Thirdly, you need to take all the help you can get. You need to collect the necessary equipment, which will be crucial for your blog.

Step 5: Create live Fitness Streaming Videos

Make a plan to include live-streaming programs. Live streaming programs and communication with the audience will help you to brand yourself & your inspiring blog. Branding is so crucial that with proper advertisements, you can attempt to expand your audience to a significant number.

Conclusion

If you can implement all the mentioned steps successfully, your fitness blog will run without any hitch. Moreover, a well-furnished blog will help you to develop a strong career in the field of freelancing or being an influencer. And finally, if you can create an amazing blog, that means your fitness goals are up to the mark and you have obtained your new year’s fitness goals. Hopefully, this article about how to start a fitness blog has created inspiration for many of you.

The post New Year’s Fitness Goals? Start a Fitness Blog! appeared first on The Blog Herald.

These small changes can bring more potential customers to your website, which often leads to a more successful business. 

Tip 1: Make Your Content Valuable

While it was possible to trick the algorithms in the early days of internet marketing, it’s much more difficult today. Google algorithms are more sophisticated and aren’t just looking for a few keyword phrases or other mechanisms. 

If you want your blog to provide value to your customers and also help your website rank well, you need to create quality content that has meaning. 

This content should be related to your brand, industry, and products. But, within that niche, it should be well-written and authoritative. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t take a more personal or fun tone in the blog, but it should be relevant to the company. 

Tip 2: Ensure You Have Good Cybersecurity

Unfortunately, websites of all kinds can be targeted by hackers and viruses. When running a company website and blog, you don’t want the pages taken over by someone else. This can harm your brand’s reputation and hurt your bottom line if you cannot access your website to make sales. It’s worth looking into cyber security options and double-checking that your blog and site are protected. 

Tip 3: Keep Blogs Easy to Read

When making a good business blog, you want to make the content simple to read and skimmable. The truth is that many people will only read through the content quickly, so you want the main points to jump out.

Some ways to do this include:

• Using short paragraphs
• Including numbered lists
• Creating concise, simple headers
• Breaking up the page with bullet points

Most of these techniques are used in this article, so you can get an idea of how to write in this style.

Tip 4: Have a Consistent Posting Schedule

How often you update your blog will vary on many factors, including the size of your business and how much time you have. Generally, it’s worth it to hire content marketing experts to write some of the blogs for you or at least edit them if you don’t have much writing experience. However, budget is also a factor. However, you should aim to post at least a couple of times per month.

Tip 5: Answer Questions in Your Blogs

Depending on your business, your customers might have questions about the services or products you provide; your blog posts are an excellent way to answer these questions. While most of your website content or promotional materials need to be brief and to the point, blogs allow for a more in-depth exploration of topics. You can talk more about your industry, explain the process of what your brand does, or give a peek into the company culture. 

To sum things up, you can improve your company’s blog by being transparent, protecting the blog, creating readable blogs, posting often, and answering questions. With these tips in mind, you can lead more customers to your site and build your brand.

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Use Social Media

Old school social media applications like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are great sources of information, but did you know that there are lots of other social media platforms that can connect you to consumers in unique ways? Kik and SoundCloud and Snapchat are just a few of the “newer” networking sites. They allow companies the chance to interface, track and collect information about the people they serve (or want to serve). When coupled with social listening tools (like HooteSuite and Google Analytics) that monitor key words and alert you to opportunities for additional consumer interaction, the value of social media is further compounded. Keeping abreast of the people talking about you, what they’re saying and why they’re saying it can give your small business the data it needs to drive engagement and assess, address and even forecast market behavior.

Eye Of The Beholder: Creative Ways To Use Data Visualizations

Track Your Sales Leads

Your sales team is another access point for big data. This is especially true when you provide them with a quality sales management system. With the right type of sales software, small businesses can easily track sales leads. Also, knowing who buys from you and the history of those relationships (including how each came to you) will enable you to generate more leads according to what works (and what doesn’t)! Basic software packages can quickly produce reports. These highlight lead origins so that you don’t have to manually keep track of each one yourself.

Find a Good CRM and/or Analytics Tool 

Like a good sales management program, a good customer relationship management (CRM) tool can give you high-speed feedback about the touchpoints with your customers that are most significant. It’s a lot like having the answers to market research questions right on hand. And it doesn’t require you to spend a lot of money; there are many free CRM options. You do need to commit to keeping comprehensive and consistent records. This way, you can accurately pull the information you need when you need it later. But today’s software programs feature greater functionality, making good records management easier than ever. 

The Bottom Line

Big data is often the catalyst for big change. This defines the meaningful facts and figures that lead businesses to actionable insight. This also increases sales, enhances customer experience, and generates an improved ROI. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s a tool only the big boys use. Big data can help businesses of all sizes stay ahead of the competition.

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These plugins pretty much tinker with your website’s images to make them optimized. There are plenty of benefits for doing that but the primary ones would be to make them fit in better with your content and to stop them from slowing down your website. That is why they are necessary for most blogs since a blog without images is basically handicapping itself.

So, in order to have the best of both worlds, image compression blogs exist. You can have your images and they won’t slow down your website. These godsend packets of software can rescue your blog and server from damaging slowdowns and ghastly formatting. Here are the best image compression plugins for your blog.

Smush

Here we are with one of the most popular options among image compression plugins, Smush. Aside from the cute and appropriate name, Smush just crushes most of the competition due to its generosity. It’s a free plugin that also offers an all-in-one solution to most things pertaining to your images in WordPress.

This can be lossless image compression, bulk compression, lazy loading, image resizing, and a lot more. Of course, one of Smush’s best selling points is how it promises to leave the image quality intact despite the compression. Smush also gives you an unlimited allowance for its free version, though the catch is that this only applies for images 5 MB or below in data size.

Compress JPEG & PNG Images

Another generous free option would be the aptly named Compress JPEG & PNG Images. This plugin is pretty straightforward and does what it’s named after. Expect its functionality to be not as versatile as Smush, however. Still, because of that, it might be a lighter plugin or software for your website.

In any case, Compress JPEG & PNG Images lets you automatically compress or optimize images on the fly as you upload them. You can even set a maximum custom upload size so you don’t have to tinker with it every upload. The allowance is more or less generous, however, since Compress JPEG & PNG Images only allows you to optimize 100 images every month for the free option.

EWWW Image Optimizer

Despite the comical name, EWWW Image Optimizer is the real deal when it comes to image compression plugins. Like the previous option above, it lets you optimize your images as you upload them. You can even use this to compress your previously uploaded images in bulk in case you want to fix some of your past errors for the older content.

Compression is also performed on your own servers which eliminates the need for an account. Optionally, you can let EWWW Image Optimizer convert any image you have to a lighter and more optimized format. It’s a free plugin as well and you’ll only have to pay for premium if you want compression qualities higher than 80 percent.

RELATED: How to Optimize eCommerce Product Images for Search and Social Media

ShortPixel Image Optimizer

Like Compress JPEG & PNG Images, ShortPixel Image Optimizer only allows for 100 images per month if you’re running on the free option. However, one of the most outstanding features for it is how upon installation and getting an API key, ShortPixel Image Optimizer immediately begins compressing images.

It even has the courtesy to store your original images in a separate folder. This, in turn, allows you to do some comparisons on how this image compression plugin performs. The plugin even lets you choose how you compare the images and formats.

reSmush.It

reSmush.It has most of everything the other plugins in here have from bulk compression of older images to automatic upload compression. Of course, you can also choose levels and customize how the plugin resizes and compresses your images.

In that regard, it’s also similar to how Smush handles its free plan; reSmush.It only allows compression and optimization for images sized 5 MB or below. Anything higher and you’ll have to avail of the premium plan. The plugin’s developers are also proud of how they made the plugin simple and a breeze to use; you can start any operation in as little as two clicks.

Imagify

Imagify has one of the best user interfaces as far as image compression plugins go and also comes in a free option. Nevertheless, you might find Imagify’s free plan more limiting as it calculates the allowance differently. Instead of limiting the number of images or the max image size, Imagify will give users a monthly limit of 25 MB total image data size.

For this, you can have the same or similar functionalities as some of the top image compression plugins on this list. The plugin does allow you to restore some of the media it has compressed back to the original version quite easily.

Lazy Load

As for this final plugin, it doesn’t exactly optimize or compress images directly. Instead, it uses the lazy load method; that is, it only displays the images which the website visitors only need to see. This frees a huge bandwidth for your servers and will certainly speed up your website. It decreases the number of requests needed when loading a page, thus improving the loading time.

Lazy Load is pretty much a dedicated plugin to lazy loading. It’s a great alternative to image compression or optimization especially if you run a photography website and don’t want to tamper with the image quality. It’s also free, like most of the plugins here so it’s up to you which one appeals to your needs and wants best.

RELATED: StickPNG: A Blogger’s Haven For Personal Use Images

First published in 2020; updated 2022

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Identify the Problem

As with any reclamation project, the first step is to define the problem. It might seem obvious to simply pick out the blogs with the lowest engagement metrics on your site and work on them first. And while that may be a good place to start, a blog with high engagement can still cause a company a lot of trouble if it’s not contributing in a positive way. (I.E. if it contains offensive, inaccurate, or plagiarized content.) So prioritize which blogs need the most immediate attention. 

Fact-Check

One of the worst things a copywriter can do is make an egregious factual error in a blog post. If, for instance, a writer claims that a product is lightweight and easy to carry, but it is in fact, quite cumbersome and weighs several hundred pounds, consumers are going to be confused (at best) or irritated by these falsehoods. Fact check all of your blogs to make sure they align with the true nature of your products or services. 

Change the Focus

Most companies market their product or service to several different buyer personas. As such, it makes sense to tailor specific blog posts to specific types of consumers. However, it’s possible that a blog post written for one kind of customer is actually more applicable to a different group. If one of your blogs is struggling to gain traction, consider changing its focus and remarketing it to a different kind of customer. What may not resonate with one group, it could be a smash hit with another. 

Get Creative

There are tons of ways to make a blog more interesting, from editing out long, dense sentences to adding new images, graphs, or videos. Whether your business blog focuses on sophisticated lab equipment like culture dishes or something as common as office supplies, blog design can have a massive influence on how customers perceive a post.

Delete It

Some blogs are simply more trouble than they’re worth. If a blog is actively hurting your company’s reputation, then get rid of it. Removing one blog isn’t likely to affect your SEO efforts or make your operation look unprofessional. 

First published in 2019; updated December 2021

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Freedom

Possibly one of the most important pros to working from home is freedom. Freedom to create your own work schedule, come and go as you please, and wake up when you want. With no time constraints, you can do what you want, where you want, and how you want. However, for those who need structure and restrictions, freedom can actually get in the way and make it much harder to earn a decent income. 

Uneven Income

As a freelance blogger, there are profitable months and those that are not. It takes some getting used to and good money management skills. The months where the earnings are high even out those that are low. If you can budget your income and use the extra earnings to support the next month, you will live comfortably. However, if you spend what you earn without budgeting, you will end up falling behind on your financial obligations. If this happens, you might be able to borrow money from a loan company from time to time to stay afloat. 

Discipline

A person who works independently and doesn’t require another looking over their shoulder to perform at their best is a good candidate for working from home. You are your own boss, which means you must meet all deadlines on your own without anyone’s influence. If, however, you need someone to push you along through each step, then working from home may not be in your best interest. 

No Cap on Earning Potential

Freelancers who work from home independently have unlimited earning potential. If you’re ambitious and dedicated to your work, you can earn what you want. Unlike working for an employer where you have a set income, there is no cap on your salary. However, if you don’t possess these skills, you may not earn enough to support yourself.  

Missing Out on Life

Long commutes and limited time off often leads to missing out on many important events in life. A child’s first school play scheduled mid-day, a grandmother’s 80th birthday in a distant state, or a family reunion are a few examples of some of the things you miss out on when you work for an employer. When you work from home, you take your computer in tow and enjoy all family gatherings and a child’s concert is something you factor into the day’s schedule. 

Healthcare and Retirement

One of the biggest drawbacks of working from home is the lack of provided benefits. Unlike working full-time for an employer where the benefits package includes healthcare and a retirement fund, you must provide this on your own. Healthcare alone can cost a thousand or more for a family plan, and the deductibles are higher and coverage less. It’s also up to you to secure and fund a retirement plan such as a 401K.

No Vacation or Sick Time

While you can schedule a vacation several times a year with no blackout dates, there is no reimbursement. It’s all out-of-pocket. The same applies to sick time. You can take a day off freely due to feeling ill, however, there’s no monetary compensation. 

The workforce that currently works from home is on the rise. Whether a blogger or content writer, if you have discipline, are ambitious, and can work independently, it may prove to be very profitable and a comfortable way of life. 

The post Switching to a Blogging Career: Can You Afford to Work from Home? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

This issue is all too common among bloggers. It’s very similar to the concept of “writer’s block,” wherein a writer simply can’t think of what they want to write or how they want to write it. After all, a blog topic doesn’t just appear out of thin air. You will need to take a lot of different factors into consideration before you hit that “publish” button.

So, do you want to learn how to come up with blog post ideas? If so, keep reading to see 3 ways to brainstorm new blog content!

Brainstorm New Blog Content With Your Readers

A lot of bloggers don’t want to ask their readers for advice, as it can make them seem less authoritative in their niche. For example, let’s say that you manage a blog about classic car restoration. If you’re running low on ideas, you may feel that your readers will trust your opinions on car restoration less if you go to them for advice.

15 Great Sites for Legal, Free Content

While there may be some truth in this assumption, it shouldn’t be your primary concern. In fact, most readers are happy when content creators look to them for direction. It makes them feel involved in the content brainstorm process and lets them know that you care what they think. So if you’re worried about your credibility, reach out to a small handful of dedicated readers for advice rather than submitting your inquiry to an open forum (like a social media post).

Examine Competitor Blogs

While you should never steal ideas or alter existing content to make it seem like your own, you can draw ideas from your competitors. Competing blogs offer some useful insight concerning what readers want and, just as importantly, what they don’t want. Examining competitor blogs can also help jumpstart your content brainstorm.

For example, let’s say that you’re running a blog about SEO and you’re in need of a new blog topic. Rather than generating random article ideas, you can head to your top-3 competitors to see what they’re writing about. Then, you can use these one or more of these ideas to create something original and unique for your own blog.

Look At Your Own Past Blog Posts

Sometimes, coming up with new blog post ideas just requires a blast from the past. Looking at your own blog posts will remind you of the ground that you’ve already covered. This way, you might be able to find potential topics that you’ve never written about.

This process will also help you find gaps in your existing content. Maybe you wrote a blog post that you now find somewhat lacking. Rather than updating the blog post (which is also a good option), you could create a new blog post that expands on the ideas of the original post and goes more in-depth on the topic.

We hope you found this guide useful! Following the steps above should help you brainstorm new blog content in no time. That said, if you’re looking for even more content creation tips, check out more Blog Herald posts today!

The post 3 Ways to Brainstorm New Blog Content appeared first on The Blog Herald.

But in a world where the internet world is constantly changing, how do you know what is trending and what is just a fad? Thanks to San Diego based printing company Coastal Creative for staying on top of the curve as they continuously predict hit trends year after year.

When it comes to trends in digital and graphic design, 2020 is a year that is looking towards the future. A new decade kicks off with design elements that embrace the surreality of the digital landscape and evoke a sense of endless possibility. You can look forward to trends such as immersive virtual reality panoramas, zero-gravity layouts, surreal product photography, and vivid, and futuristic colors.

View the full list of predictions for 2020 design trends from Coastal Creative in the colorful infographic below.

The post 2020 Design Trends [Infographic] appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Top Relationship Blogs 2020

1. DoULike Blog 

DoULike is one of the most popular dating sites for women/men, and one of the oldest, too. They have an entertaining and informative blog about all sorts of things, from the best Valentine’s day gifts ideas to couples therapy tips. They add fresh posts several times per month, which might not be too often. But if you’re new to their blog, you’ll find a ton of interesting reads for all kinds of situations. It’s a laid-back and informative relationship blog.

2. The Gottman Institute

The Gottman Institute is not your regular blog about relationship. It’s a massive resource ‒ a quintessence of professional work of the two couple therapists. Drs John and Julie Gottman have been studying relationships for decades. They found their own concealing method and gathered tons of practical tools and knowledge on how to build a strong and happy family. Whether you’re interested in dating or parenting, you’ll learn a lot from this site. 

3. Marriage.com 

As the name suggests, this relationship blog is primarily about marriage. How to prepare for the marriage, how to live together, how to save a marriage, how to overcome the challenges of building a parent ‒ you will find all the answers about it here. There is still some less serious, more chill content, but generally, everything is centered around marriage. A great space for the right audience. 

4. Sugardaters Blog

Sugardaters is a dating platform with a twist ‒ a place where “sugar mammas/sugar daddies” are looking for a “sugar baby/boy toy”. You can google the meaning behind all this, but from what you can tell, it’s one of those more curious dating blogs, mostly about sugar dating and related topics. Go check it out if you are interested. 

5. Psychology Today 

This is a super popular online resource that features one of the best relationship blogs out there. Psychology Today is different from many other sites because everything they share is either centered around, or backed up by a legit psychological knowledge. If you are looking to solve some of your problems or simply enjoy psychology as a science, you’re going to love it. And by the way, it’s not only about the relationships.  

6. The Urban Dater 

This blog is perfect for those who’d like to keep their hand on the pulse of online dating. What’s trending in the dating space, where youngsters prefer to meet each other, how to behave online to attract a great date and so on ‒ this is what the blog is all about, in short. There are also many posts about relationships, personal stories, and not-so-deep easy read content. 

7. Reddit Relationships

Can you think of a topic that is NOT on Reddit yet? Yep, me neither. And there it goes, under the letter R, an endless list of “relationships” related content. It’s not exactly a relationship advice blog, rather a Q&A board with hundreds of personal stories where people ask others to share their opinion about some situation. It might not be the most reliable resource, but it’s fun and addictive as hell. 

8. The Datemix 

The Datemix is a blog by Zoosk ‒ a popular online dating site and dating app. It’s a comprehensive resource, which includes several categories, such as tips for singles, online dating, breakups, dating studies, and more. A very convenient and organized layout combined with tons of entertaining pieces makes it a worthwhile place to check out.  And by the way, unlike other relationship blogs, it has a VIDEO section. How cool is that? 

9. Christian Connection 

You know the blog is going to be somewhat different when it’s named “Christian Connection”. This is a dating site for more spiritual and religious people. The blog is still about the relationship but it’s, you know, Christian. Very decent, very kind, moderate, but still quite interesting. We found a few amazing topics that are unique for dating blogs, such as eco-friendly dates ideas. Ever seen it in the relationship blogs? Go check it out. 

10. Coffee Meets Bagel 

For those who haven’t heard about Coffee Meets Bagel, it’s a dating site where girls must take the lead if they are interested in someone. A guy can’t hit on a girl unless she lets him know she likes him. A very different approach to online dating, but it actually works for many people. Anyways, they also have a blog, which is quite nice. It features many entertaining topics and incorporates some practical pieces of advice. 

Conclusion 

We hope you enjoyed our post. You might not find each of these sites useful, but there is definitely something for every reader. 

What relationship blogs do you like to read? Let us know in the comments below! 

The post Top 10 Relationship Blogs With the Best Pieces of Advice in 2020 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

According to research conducted by Statista, the Google email service had 1.5 billion active users worldwide in 2018. Predictions are that by the end of 2023 there will 4.4 billion users of email. 

With the evolution of AI and chatbots, emails did not lose their cool, because they are still one of the most effective digital marketing tools, with 4,300% ROI according to HubSpot.

As we shift from desktop to portable technology, mobile email marketing is one of the focus points for all marketers and small business owners who are doing their own marketing. 

In this Beginner’s guide, we will show you the basic rules of email marketing in 2020, with some insightful tips and examples from well-known marketers.

Basics Tools For Creating Good Email Marketing in 2020

Email service providers

There are a few basic tools when it comes to email marketing. For starters, you need to have the right email service which suits the needs of your company and the number of subscribers. 

There are many cloud-based email marketing software with trial periods or lower rates for businesses or blogs with shorter email lists. Explore the possibilities and start from simple and cheap solutions, and upgrade software regularly to stay in the game.

Art of Creating an Email List

After choosing an email service, the first step of your email marketing strategy is creating a subscriber list. Use pop-up or an elegant banner on the front page, and strive to find a balance between being friendly and being pushy. Play smart and offer discounts or exclusive access to some areas of the website in return for subscribing. 

Be prepared for answers

While you are building an email list, a reliable CRM system can help with creating a customer-centered marketing strategy, and allow you to create email templates for specific types of audience. This cloud-based technology can also help you organize, and keep track of your vendors, suppliers, buyers and sale opportunities. If you have a small business, you can find great CRM systems and use it for free until you hire more people. 

The Power of Follow Up Email 

As we mentioned earlier, the ROI (the return for investment)  for emails is very high. If the email is well optimized and sent to the right list of people at the right moment, they will respond with a reaction. Sometimes they will just visit the website, and some of them will make a purchase.  If a person makes any kind of action on your website, you need to have a professional confirmation email and that can also be automated and personalized. 

That way you can thank your buyers, or you can remind them that there is something in their e-basket. You can also get the data from Google Analytics and explore what was interesting to those who came to your website and create special templates for them.

It may sound that email marketing is like sending a rocket into space, but in fact, it is quite simple. If you pay attention to the needs of your audience and use the right tools, you can stay safe from the “unsubscribe” button. 

Set Up an Email Template

In 2020 responsive emails that can be answered on any device will improve the chances of opening emails. According to Wow Local Marketing, 52% of customers are less likely to engage with a company because of bad mobile experience. This data is backed up with this survey from the Econsultancy website which shows almost the same results.

All in all responsive emails are must-have in 2020, and it is not just about customer experience. It also gives you time to dedicate and master your writing skills, branding, and personalization of emails. 

To save time and other resources, marketers will use templates that can be branded and personalized. Look for templates that have a lot of options for personal    

Practice Persuasive Writing

Emails from brands can be marked as spam if you are not paying attention to details. Think about formating, bulletins, short paragraphs, and responsive design. Focus on crafting fun and smart stories and try to be wise about using jargon in your copy. 

For example, if you are selling clothes for women, you can share with them how to calculate bra size and help them in purchasing your products online. 

If you need help with the content subscribe to emails of your competitors, learn from them but never copy.  Use it as inspiration, and try to be different and clear. Basically just practice writing, especially persuasive writing. because in 2020 brands who fail to deliver, will not get another chance.  

Let them breathe

Email marketing is a way of direct communication with your future or regular customers, and it should be treated as any form of human relationship. Even if you personalize, and write quality and persuasive emails, the user may mark your email as spam if you start sending emails every single day. Pick a perfect day, and find the right rhythm but stay consistent because it can increase trust.

When we speak about space, I must mention the importance of clarity, and space around your “Call to action” button. Since most of your users will open emails on their tablets or phones, be careful, and don’t put too many links around important buttons such as link toward your website. 

Try to be concise and clear because minimalism is still a very popular design and communication trend.

Wrap Up

Next year we will certainly have more and more users of email, and as we mentioned they will mostly use portable devices. That is why all companies and brands must focus on responsive and mobile-friendly design. 

Do your homework, and read respectable blogs in order to learn tips and tricks, and try to get to know your customers. You can even take a break from emails that are created just for sales, and use them for gathering opinions from people who are your subscribers.

Content will still rank high on the list of priorities in email marketing strategy, and well-written copy mixed with perfect targeting should be your main priority if you are new in using email as a marketing tool.

The post How to Do Email Marketing in 2020: A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on The Blog Herald.

There will be 2 sections of this article: a short presentation of 5 music blogs that are probably the best on the planet and we will also discuss famous rock bands fonts, being a hot topic for the fonts industry, and how to get free fonts for your music band. Some of the most interesting lettering and fonts are used by rock bands, for their logos, album covers, T-shirts, and bracelets. Nice and inspiring things can be found in this niche.

Look at Metallica – awesome from all points of view: music, team members, look, but also their logo is extremely cool.

Below we will help you with 5 handpicked music blogs out of 100. These blogs will tell you what is new in the world of music, will help you listen awesome podcasts where artists explain how they are doing their music, and much more. 

1. Song Exploder

About – Song Exploder is an excellent podcast where musicians tell the story of how they made their songs. There are 2 posts per month, each episode featuring an artist. Extremely cool podcast.

2. Pitchfork

About – Pitchfork is the most popular music resource website on the planet, covering all the music genres: rock, hip-hop, electronic, pop, metal, and others.

3. Metalinjection

About – MetalInjection is probably the most important music website for metal music and news on the internet. Starting with the design, the daily and unique content being added, and ending with the awesome podcasts, this website should be on your favorites.

4. Pigeons & Planes

About – Pigeons & Planes covers several music genres and it is delivering new music daily and music news. 

5. Music | Reddit

About – On Reddit you will find tons of discussions and recommendations about all genres of music.

Famous Rock Bands Fonts and How to Get Free Fonts 

The music industry created some of the best fonts in the world, being super inspirational for other industries – advertising being probably the most inspired. Metallica, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, AC/ DC, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Nirvana, and many other music bands are using fantastic lettering, and designs. All these fonts are powerful, remarkable, and it will stay in your mind forever after you watch them for 1-minute. 

A strong font of an established band should send you the music band message or feelings. It’s very complicated to get it done properly and it probably takes many days of hard and team work. 

What do you do if you don’t have huge budgets like some music bands or blogs, and you still need a strong font?

How can you get free fonts for your music band or blog? There are many solutions for this task. A quick and efficient way to find free fonts is to use WhatFontIs service, it will help you identify any font from any picture, in seconds, without you needing to have any special skills or previous experience. 

WhatFontIs has a catalogue of 550K+ fonts (commercial and free) and a powerful and quick AI font finder, that will help you get a great font in seconds. For every uploaded image, the platform will show over 60 fonts with links, so you can download them right away.

To quickly identify a font you like, follow these 3 steps.

Step 1 – You upload a screenshot of the font you like or you enter the URL of the image.

Step 2 – You verify if the characters viewed by WhatFontis match the characters of your uploaded image.  On this step you can choose how you want to browse through the 550,000 fonts: display only free fonts or free alternative fonts, display commercial fonts or simply display all fonts.

Step 3 – On this step, the font you were searching for is identified. If it doesn’t find the right match, it suggests over 60 alternatives you can scroll down through and choose the one that most resembles your font. In most cases, WhatFontis also specifies the websites where you may download/buy the identified fonts.

Many of these fonts are available for free download.

The End

Music is awesome, it doesn’t matter how are you connected with the industry – you create music, you listen to it, you have a music blog, you produce music equipment, or whatever you do. These 5 blogs / websites will update you with everything you need to know about this industry.

Regarding fonts, they have a huge role in the music industry, being part of the music bands logos, posters, music blogs, and more. 

Read: Showcase: The Best 30+ Web Tools and Services on the Market

The post 5 Music Blogs That Are Rocking It And How To Get Your Own Band Font appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Increases Search Engine Optimization

SEO is everything in digital marketing. Having a powerful blog that gets linked to often increases your SEO and drives your website further up search engine results lists. A static website only has so many keywords in it, but a website with a blog is always increasing the amount of searches it lands on as a result. Give your blog a wide enough scope to bring in traffic from a variety of searches, but still narrow enough that it remains relevant to what you actually do.

Gets People Coming Back to Your Website

A potential client may click on your website once or twice when considering legal counsel, and you might be easy to forget. But if you run an interesting and engaging blog then they’ll keep coming back. Give readers a reason to return by filling your blog with exciting content that readers feel they couldn’t get anywhere else. Keep the language simple and relatively jargon-free. The law is complex to the layperson, and they’ll appreciate it being broken down in a way they can understand without feeling patronized. If your blog makes the law less intimidating, readers will be visiting your website daily to take in the information you give them. And every click gets them closer to soliciting your services.

Local SEO 101 For Law Firms

It’s Cheap Advertising

Marketing isn’t cheap, even in the digital space. But blogging is practically free, especially if it’s being written by the lawyers themselves. People link to blogs from their own websites or social media, and that drives up your traffic and SEO. Not to mention you can use the blog to bolster your own social media campaigns. You can tweet or email out every blog post to make those profiles more thought out and engaging. An eye-catching title with quality writing on an important subject will bring people to your webpage and have them considering your business.

Displays Expertise

A well-run blog with relevant and correct content doesn’t just improve traffic and SEO, it also helps establish your reputation. “Your blog tells customers you’re engaged in the industry and up to date”, comments Rod Dixon, the owner of The Dixon Firm, PC. “These days not having a blog can make you seem outdated, stuffy, and behind the times”. Technology has made itself a part of the legal process, and potential clients may be wary of a firm that doesn’t seem ready to embrace the modern world. Your blog should update readers with developments in the legal world, and show that you know what you’re talking about!

Sharpens Your Writing Skills

Obviously, writing is an important skill for lawyers. Writing a blog is a great way to keep that skill sharp and increase your creativity. You’ll find yourself wording things differently to get the message across in more clear or interesting way. Not to mention it forces you to research and actually stay up to date on your field, instead of falling behind. Maintaining a blog can be a fun and relatively easy way to train yourself in different writing styles.

People Like Blogs Better than Ads

Blogs are advertising that pretends otherwise. People don’t like ads. They’re annoying and intrusive. But blogs present themselves as an invitation to learn. People are rarely forced to read a blog, so any marketing attempts are going to come through more clearly and to a more accepting mind. Don’t be heavy handed about it, but let your blog present a problem to which your firm is the solution.

Helps Build Your Brand

A blog is one part of your overall brand, but it’s a clear way to establish your voice and place in the industry. Are you an international corporate firm with a focus on professionalism and huge accounts? You can let that show clearly in the language you choose. Are you focusing on the average Joe, trying to connect to an audience that doesn’t already know all the legal jargon and ins and outs of the process? Let your blog say that! Your blog can let the world know what your goals are and how you can serve your clients.

Develop a blog not just to keep up with the times, but because it’s an edifying practice than is sure to bring success to the people who write it and to your firm overall. People don’t tend to pick their lawyers from matchboxes anymore — so find them where they are!

Author Bio: Jamichael Mitchell is the founder of EraBright, a digital marketing agency specializing primarily in search engine optimization. He regularly produces content for a variety of business and marketing blogs, focusing on online lead generation for small to midsize businesses. 

7 Laws Every Blogger Must Know to Avoid Lawsuits

The post 7 Reasons Blogging is Essential for Law Firms appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Well, today we’re going to hold a different kind of intervention: a virtual one to reach out to the many executives out there populating the modern workplace, and who are good or even great at their jobs, yet make the mistake of assuming that their competence extends into the blog writing space. No, this delusion is (obviously) not life threatening. But it does indeed damage a business’s brand, reputation and in the big picture, the bottom line. That leads to budget cuts and job losses. 

These Are The Biggest Business Blogging Mistakes You Might Be Making

And so, if you’re an executive — we’re talking CEO, CIO, CTO, CMO and the list of acronyms goes on — then with the very best of intentions and the well-being of your business and employees in mind, here are three blatant truths that you urgently need to know:

1.You’re not a blog writer.

We thought it would be best to start with the most difficult realization and rip the Band Aid off (it’s better this way). Yes, you may be a skilled writer. And over the years, you may have written all kinds of important, impressive stuff: reports, speeches, articles, emails (so…many…emails), presentations, and so on. But as difficult as it may be to accept, you aren’t a blog writer.

How do we know? Because the test of whether someone has a skill is not a matter of belief. And this is a good thing. After all, we don’t want to go to a doctor who merely believes that she has an MD. And who wants to board a plane flown by a pilot who has never been in the air, but has a “I believe that I’m a pilot!” affirmation on their bathroom mirror? 

No, the test of whether someone can do something is simply and solely this: whether they can walk into a competent company right now that has an opportunity, and get hired at a fair market rate to perform whatever skill is required: flying planes, providing healthcare, and alas, writing blogs.

So, here’s the thing: if you can’t walk out of your office right now and get hired as a legitimate, full-time blog writer at a top-tier organization making an attractive salary, then you’re not a blog writer. Instead, you’re a good or great executive — which is nothing to sneeze at, right?

2. You don’t have as much time as you think you do.

OK, if the first blatant truth didn’t sink in (yet) and you’re convinced that you could indeed be a full-time blogger if it came down to that, then here is another angle: you know all of that time you picture in your head that will be allocated to researching, writing, editing, and proofing blogs? It doesn’t exist. Within days — it could be hours — something new will parachute into your work life. A project. A program. A difficult customer. Yet another status meeting (ugh). Suddenly, instead of spending an afternoon banging out a blog, you’ll be lucky if you can find 30 minutes. Or make that 15. 

Oh, and while it’s topical: an afternoon might (repeat: might) be enough to put together a solid 500-word blog. But if you’re aiming for long form content that could be 2000-words or more, then expect to spend at least a day, but probably two days from start to finish. It’s not as easy or as fast as it looks!

3. You’re not going to enjoy it.

Yes, we get it: work isn’t non-stop party. In fact, some stretches can be brutal. But unless you like using yourself for target practice, it’s in your best interest (and everyone else’s for that matter) if you try to mitigate the amount of work-induced misery. Adding blogs to your already-full plate isn’t going to do that. 

It’s not that blog writing is tedious — because it isn’t. But it’s not lying in a hammock with a laptop on your stomach as you sip piña coladas. It’s work. And most of the time, it’s hard work. Before long, you’ll subconsciously find ways to procrastinate (“oh, I’d love to start this blog, but I really need to, you know, do the thing with the thing first.”). After a while, the aversion will become conscious, and the mere thought of blogging will make you tired all over. You’ll be miserable and the quality of your blogs will reflect your wounded emotional and psychological state. Why do this to yourself? Why do this to your blog? 

The Last Word
Nothing above suggests that you shouldn’t write a blog every now and then. But believing that you can run the content show — or even have a starring role — is almost certainly going to be regrettable instead of rewarding. Remember, while there are many people who blog as a hobby, at the corporate level it’s not a pastime. It’s a profession that, when done properly, dramatically improves the bottom line.   

Blogging Mistakes: Ten Things to Avoid

The post Hands Up and Step Slowly Away from the Keyboard: Why Good Executives Often Make Bad Bloggers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

But, you need much more than that. If you’re just getting started down the road to becoming a successful blogger, make sure that you meet the following requirements.

#1. Equipment

First and foremost, bloggers are writers. As such, touch screen keyboards do not work as well as standard keyboards. Unless you use the hunt-and-peck method of typing — and you’re somehow fast and accurate —the ability to feel real keys is essential.

These days, most other physical equipment has been replaced with online alternatives. Shelves full of research books have been replaced by a wealth of information available on the Internet. You still need a phone, but landlines increasingly have been replaced by phones connected to the internet. Many people count solely on their cellular connections.

Finally, be aware that the need to fax has not gone away. If you write for clients. you’re bound to, at the very least, need to send and receive signed contracts. You don’t need a fax machine, though. You can handle this task online in a number of ways, including through email fax services.

#2. Software

There’s no escaping the need a blogger has for some form of Word Processing software, which typically comes with its own writing assistance, such as spelling checkers, grammar checkers, and even a thesaurus. You can also find a host of low-cost or free online writing tools that often provide robust writing assistance.

Since blogging is Internet-based, most bloggers need web publishing tools. If you have your own website, you’ll need to find a web host, which helps you to obtain a website address and probably provides the instructions and tools that you need to get things generally up and running.

Of course, you also need a tool to actually get your content on the screens of your audience. Perhaps the most popular tool is WordPress, which offers reasonably-priced web hosting alternatives. Whether you use their paid services or not, it’s free word processing-like interface is probably the most widely-recognized tool used by bloggers to easily format and publish blog content.

#3. An Audience

Every writer’s content is produced for an audience. Every journal writer has an audience of one, but bloggers expect their work to be followed by many people. As such, you can’t perform your craft and find appropriate readers until you first get to know your potential audience.

Your readers may be just like you; however, it’s more likely that a wide range of people might be interested in your words of wisdom. Whether your blog is intended to sell a product or service, explain how things work, or just share your personal insights, your goal is to identify every possible person who might become a loyal follower.

These people might have the interests of rural versus urban people. They may be beginners in your subject matter or experts who want to gain advanced knowledge. They may come from a variety of age groups, or even from many different countries. This information drives everything from the topics you write to the structure and vocabulary that you use, so it’s important to get it right.

If you write for clients, they might voluntarily identify the intended readership, but don’t count on it. Even though they know the intended audience, they may not think to describe your readers until you ask some pointed questions. So, regardless of the type or purpose of your blog posts, always assume full responsibility for this important step.

#4. Ideas

Particularly if you’re a paid blogger, you cannot afford to run out of ideas. This is why most professional bloggers maintain content calendars, which ensure that a list of ideas is always available.

How do you come up with the ideas to populate that calendar? Naturally, you’re likely to find countless idea sources by reading reputable Internet articles related to your subject matter — as long as you gain inspiration without copying content. But, don’t stop with obvious idea sources.

Reviewed with an open mind, general new reports can be full of inspiration. You might be a business writer who sees an article about a community that bans puppy mills. This one article might generate ideas about the future of commercial pet businesses or even about how that one community’s economic profile might be affected by the new law.

Your ideas can come from anywhere if you train your mind to be vigilant. Conversations with friends can be a rich source. You might even find that TV commercials suddenly become more interesting when they generate fodder for a future blog post.

#5. Editorial Assistance

Professional authors know that their work is more about editing than writing the first draft. They also know that they will miss many of their own errors, regardless of how many times they review the prose. In other words, self-editing only takes you so far.

The editorial capacity in your own brain does not always accurately see the words in front of it; it tends to forgive your errors. Spelling and grammar checkers provide some assistance. While they help find obvious mistakes, however, they do not provide the comprehensive assistance that you need.

Before you publish your writing for the world to see, find someone with an eagle eye whom you trust to review it. If you write for clients, they typically edit with a helpful, laser-like focus. If you don’t have this luxury, solicit help from friends and family.

Of course, developing an attitude that lets you accept edits to your golden words requires a thick skin. Until you learn to recognize the value of editing, your writing career may have limited success.

A Methodology Will Develop Over Time

If you intend blogging to become a full-time job, you will need to develop the efficiency to take each blog post quickly from idea to final published piece. Mastery of the above requirements naturally leads to the development of a methodology that shaves time and effort off of the content development process.

There are countless ways to do this, from developing macros and style sheets that speed the time taken for repetitive writing activities to filling enough detail and research links into each topic idea to jump-start the eventual writing. By carefully observing activities that slow you down or affect the accuracy of your content, your mind will help you find creative ways to resolve them.

Recognize that creativity extends beyond your prose to the procedures used to create it. Internalizing that one concept could help you to become the world’s most famous blogger!

The post 5 Things That Bloggers Use in Their Craft appeared first on The Blog Herald.

There are two clear characteristics that all successful blogs share.

The first is quality.

A blog should be memorable, shareworthy, and even quotable. The hallmark of a well-written blog is the ability to engage, inform and educate; with the ability to convey a complex subject in simple, easy to digest terms.  

The second is visibility.

The most well-crafted blog in the world will be considered a failure if it doesn’t cut through the noise of mediocre blogs and get noticed. With SEO becoming less of a mystery and more accessible for blog writers around the world, the ability to optimise your content and help drive it to the top of major search engines is critical.

So how do you do that?

Enter Answer the Public.

What is Answer the Public?

Answer the Public is a keyword research tool that creates simple visualisations out of the suggested search terms provided by Google and Bing.

Rather than manually enter your keywords into Google and collect the suggested autocompletes yourself, Answer the Public automates the process and provides potential topics for your keywords based on what people are actively searching for.

In doing so, business owners and marketers have access to search clouds that are categorised into:

• What
• Why
• Who
• When
• Where
• How
• Can
• Are
• Which
• Will

If you enter the keyword ‘Blog Writing’ into Answer the Public you’ll get a breakdown of potential questions to answer. For example…

• How to outsource blog writing?
• Why blog writing is important?
• What is SEO blog writing?
• Where to start blog writing?
• Can blog writing make money?

These variations on the questions people are typing into search engines can be used to create content that is highly targeted and direct. When you know what your audience is asking, it becomes easier to answer their questions and give them exactly what they wanted.

As a free and easy to use keyword research tool, this is how Answer the Public can help you to create unmissable blog posts that are directly answering the actual questions people are asking.

How can I use Answer the Public?

Successful content starts with a plan. Once you know what problems your audience is facing you’ll be best placed to address them and provide clear solutions.

As a result the benefits of Answer the Public include:

 Insight into your audience’s questions

 Target your keyword research to match audience questions

 Identify and optimise for long-tail keywords based on audience questions

 Identify and answer questions that can help you appear in Google feature snippets

According to Search It Local content marketer Clarinda Cheon, “You can maximise your chance of catching a valuable featured snippet answer by writing short paragraphs with  40 to 60 words. Once you’ve got your question from Answer the Public, see what currently appears as the featured snippet for that result. Model your answer on this but add value, clarity and facts to give yourself the best chance of taking top spot.”

Still, writing blog content after years on the job can become a challenge. So if you want to conduct free keyword research and create blog posts that rank at the top of Google, here’s what you need to do.

Step One – Select a topic

Start off by selecting a topic that is relevant to your business, and to what people are searching for.

For example, if people are searching for terms related to ‘Content Marketing’ you should have some expertise in the field and be able to appropriately address people’s concerns.

This will also fit naturally on your blog if you post about content marketing. In contrast, if you consistently write about home loans then this topic will have less value for you.

Remember, Answer the Public will yield the most successful results after you’ve conducted some preliminary keyword research. This will help you narrow down your focus and begin to write for a niche audience.

Wondering how to find low-hanging fruit keywords for your blog? Find out here.

Once you have your list of keywords, enter them into Answer the Public and you’ll be able to choose to answer one of the broad questions that people are searching for.

Step Two – Find out if you can rank for your chosen keywords

Your next step is to select a question to answer.

Let’s say your keyword research produced the search term ‘Content Marketing’.

By entering ‘Content Marketing’ into Answer the Public you’ll have clear visual data of all the ways people search for information related to that broad topic.

Once you’ve done this and selected a question to answer you’ll need to make sure you can rank for that question. The easiest way to check this is to enter your chosen question into Google.

The main questions you’ll be trying to find answers to include:

• Are the top results covering your chosen question thoroughly and in-depth?
• Are the top results ranking on the strength of their content?
• Are the top results ranking due to a lack of competition?

To show you the difference between broad keyword research and the niche approach provided by Answer the Public, let’s imagine you went with your core keyword ‘Content Marketing’ and didn’t feed it through Answer the Public.

Let’s have a look at the results on Google for the search query ‘Content Marketing’.

The results show a number of high quality websites covering this topic already. You can gauge the strength of these websites using the Moz Bar tool.

This tool will show you the Domain Authority, or DA, of each website. Though not a hard and fast rule, it is typically accurate to say that the higher the DA, the more challenging it will be for you to rank above these websites.

Instead of trying to go up against high-quality websites with well established content, you would take the keyword ‘Content Marketing’ and head back to Answer the Public to keep researching.

This shows the strength of Answer the Public as both a content generator and keyword research tool. Instead of wasting time and resources on creating content that will have a low chance of ranking, you can refine your search and find keywords with less competition.

Let’s see what questions show when we enter ‘Content Marketing’ into Answer the Public.

Going back to Answer the Public you might choose ‘Why Content Marketing is Important for B2B’.

Now it’s time to go back to Google and see if you’ve successfully identified a niche where your blog can rank.

Step Three – Write for your niche

Looking at the search results on Google for the longtail keyword ‘Why Content Marketing is Important for B2B’ it’s clear there is an opportunity to rank.

Not only do the top ranked sites have considerably lower DA figures than the websites ranking for ‘Content Marketing’, but the lower ranked sites are more than a year old, giving your content the edge.

This combination of a weaker DA and older publication dates provide you with the chance to include up-to-date statistics and quotes from experts to demonstrate your relevance in answering the search query. This will give you a better chance of ranking at the top.

People searching for information about B2B content marketing will naturally be drawn to more recent content to ensure the information they receive is as accurate as possible – particularly in a field like content marketing where changes are often occurring.

By seeing what your competition has done you can tailor your content to answer the search query in a way no one else has.

According to Head of Copy at Paperclip Digital, Alexander Porter, your content should look to use user signals to boost your rankings, saying “pay extra attention to your page title and meta description. While these should contain your keywords and answer the question you have picked, they are also your chance to drive traffic to your site. Try using numbers, power words, or questions to help get people to click on your result. These are all classic conversion optimisation tactics to give you an edge over your competition.”

What is the takeaway here?

Using Answer the Public you’ve found:

a). The real search terms potential customers are using

b). The low competition opportunities for you to rank your blog content

This allows you to create content that is most likely to rank, more likely to be read, and generate organic traffic – all beneficial to SEO efforts.

Using Answer the Public you’ll be able to tap into the actual questions people are asking. And the business with the solutions to these questions will be the one most likely to benefit.

From choosing your topic to identifying low competition long-tail keywords that have a higher chance of ranking, Answer the Public is the secret SEO tool agencies and marketers have been using for years.

And now you know how to use it to create unmissable blog posts too.

Author Bio:

Alexander Porter is Head of Copy and an experienced digital marketer working for Paperclip Digital – Sydney’s boutique agency with bold visions.

He is passionate about SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media and the power of language to strike consumers like lightning.

Website: https://paperclipdigital.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paperclipdigital/

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyAWdVLHZVkuKlTt4dlBAJQ

The post How to use ‘Answer the Public’ to Create Unmissable Blog Posts appeared first on The Blog Herald.

We get it.

When freelancers think of obtaining new clients on social media their minds often drift towards LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter is a highly underutilized platform for obtaining high-quality clients for your freelancing business, which is being over looked by most freelancers right now.

The problem is, most people don’t use Twitter for the right reasons and they don’t treat it like a business platform, and that is what’s killing your outreach potential on the platform.
In this article, we’ll show you how to find clients that are dying to work with you.

Have a Professional Profile

Before you ever send a message out to anyone you first need to take a look at your profile. If the picture is you in a coconut bra and hula skirt drinking a margarita, then you need to assess the situation and realize it’s time for a change.

You also want to take a look at your cover photo and pinned tweet. Make sure that when someone lands on your page, they immediately know what you do. This will help when you are sending messages out to prospects. The first thing they will do is hop over to your profile to see what you’re all about and if they feel that you are not a professional in your craft, they’ll probably ignore your message.

If you have a website, you want to make sure to include that in your bio with plenty of relevant keywords that tell a prospect what you do and why they need to hire you. In the same way that you search for clients on Twitter, someone might be searching for your kinds of services, and they’ll never find you if your profile doesn’t clearly tell them that you can solve their problem.

Stop Selling and Start Providing

A big mistake business owners and freelancers make when it comes to social media is selling too much. How many times have you gone onto Twitter or Facebook and you see an ad for some business, and it’s simply them, telling you what they are selling and why you should buy it?

That never works.

We are not on social media to buy things; we are on there to feel something. We want to look at pictures of something and feel love; we want to read a story and feel compassion or watch a video and laugh. Even as a freelancer you can create these emotions in people without actually selling to them.

For example, if you are a web designer. You could make a video of you sharing your screen and showing your followers the importance of mobile optimization. If a website owner sees that video they might take a look at their website and feel something if it doesn’t look good right?
They might feel embarrassed or ashamed. The result could be them reaching out to you for help.

Build Your Following

Once your profile is ready to go and you have plenty of excellent content on it you can start building a huge following by simply following everyone you see on Twitter.

Just kidding.

You need to build a following of quality followers. These are people who are interested in what you are doing and may become promoters of your business when they see how much amazing content you are posting on Twitter every day. When you give away free value to people, they are more willing to support your cause because it shows that you are “likable.”

So, how do you get quality followers?

You need to get involved in the Twitter community. It works the same way when local business owners need more clients in their local area. What do they do?

They network with people who might buy what they have.

You need to engage in relevant discussions so you can show your expertise. Even better, when you are posting content that helps people on your page regularly, you can direct potential leads to your Twitter page and use it as a portfolio.

Consider Paid Advertising

Twitter offers a paid marketing opportunity that allows you to display your tweets above the competition and you can target a specific demographic with these tweets. This will enable you to drastically increase your reach within your target market so your following will increase as well.

Paying for a spot on Twitter also gives you the ability to host a viral conversation. If you can create enough buzz around a topic relevant to your industry you can almost instantly become an authority on the subject.

A Final Word

The reason why Twitter is so powerful for freelancers is that it is underutilized. This opens up the opportunity for people willing to step into uncharted territory and do what others are not willing to do.

Treat Twitter like another platform to get the word out about your service. You can never have too much marketing and for the most part – it’s free, so get on it!

The post How To Use Twitter To Get New Clients appeared first on The Blog Herald.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is the strategic process of researching, identifying and engaging with highly influential individuals on social media platforms who create high-impact content about your brand’s products or services. Influencers are trusted figures within their niche community that retain a loyal and engaged following on their social media channels. When they endorse and post content about a product or service, they are seen to possess knowledge and experience about what they are advertising to their followers.

For example, a popular fashion blogger on Instagram with in-depth knowledge about Asymmetrical Dresses might be asked by a brand to post their Instagram wearing a particular garment. On some occasions, social media influencers might not have any knowledge or experience that is relevant to what they are advertising. When it comes to this situation, they basically rely on the loyalty of the followers they have built within their community.

5 Best Blogger Outreach Tools to Connect with Influencers

When influencer post to their social media channels they create their own original content and integrate a brand’s advertising specifications into the content The influencer is ultimately in control of the brand’s promotional message by choosing how they would like to represent it. This helps to create authenticity and a message that ultimately influences their community of followers. The most popular influencer categories amongst brands include fashion models, celebrities, photographers, comedians, food bloggers, artists and adventurists.

Why Is Influencer Marketing So Important for Brands in 2019?

Before digital advancements and the acceleration of new innovative and disruptive technologies, television was literally the only mass media channel that consumers had access to and was the primary platform for brands to advertise to a mass audience. However, as social media has grown over the past few years, consumers now have a plethora of different choices and the freedom to choose how they consume content. And, with this comes the challenge for brands. As their target markets spread out over the various forms of social media, the result is that it becomes increasingly more difficult to reach them with a marketing message. And, that is precisely why influencer marketing is so important and why you need to take advantage of it this year. Let’s take a look at the stats to this to prove this.

By 2020, Influencer Marketing will Become a $10 Billion Global Industry

There no denying that influencer marketing is a rapidly growing global industry with more and more brands will to invest in it. By as early as next year the global influencer marketing industry is set to be worth $10 billion which means that brands will be battling with each other to establish partnerships with influential social media users. However, not all influencers have mass followings, and this certainly isn’t a bad thing. This creates an opportunity to partner up with micro or nano influencers.

Over 20% of 18-34 Year-olds Make a Substantial Purchase after Seeing an Influencer Endorsement

The majority of people are mostly influencer by personal recommendation from their friends and family. But, influencers can still affect their consumer habits. The younger generation is influenced more by social media influencers. In fact, over 20% of young adults say that they have made a substantial purchase after seeing a product being endorsed by a social media influencer. So, if you are a brand that is looking to reach a younger user base, then influencers can help you boost sales.

Three-Quarters of Marketeers Think That Measuring ROI Will Be The Key
Measuring the return on investment from influencer marketing is one of the key challenges for brands and marketers. That’s exactly why the future of influencer marketing depends on the ability to prove that it is a successful digital marketing process and that the budget spent on it is justifiable compared to the return.

Almost 20% of Marketers Will Allocate Half of Their Digital Marketing on Influencer Marketing

Although this percentage may seem relatively small, it does prove that influencer marketing is expected to continue growing and an impressive rate. Considering that influencer marketing is the newest form of digital marketing and the fact that businesses are willing to dedicate this much of their budget shows how much they believe in influencer marketing.

So, What Are The Other Reasons To Use Influencer Marketing In A Nutshell?

Influencer marketing is going to continue growing in 2019, and the statistics mentioned in this article proves this. But, what are the other reasons for using it as a means of generating sales for your brand? Social media platforms show the main social networks to engage and influence the users to get positive results for your brand.

The post Why You Need Influencers for Your Brand In 2019 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Indeed, running a blog can have an incredible impact on your business. As much as 47% of consumers view three to five pieces of content before they actually make a buying decision.

Numbers don’t lie and nor do content marketing experts when they say that blogging is a cornerstone of their content marketing strategies.

Below are listed the five reasons why building an authority blog should be on your list of priorities for growing your business.

Builds your brand

From the dawn of civilization, people have been listening to stories. It’s simply in our genes and you can’t really do much about it. However, you can use this to your advantage and capitalize on your blog in order to create a successful brand.

Blogging is a great way to add a personal touch to your business. Here is how a blog that creates value can support your branding efforts:

–          It communicates the uniqueness of your business.

All brands want to be unique but they don’t truly understand what they need to give in return. Your blog tells your story and shows the personal side of your business that sets it apart from your competitors.

–          It creates value for your target market.

When you create value for your audience, you show that you care about them. Use your blog to create valuable, relevant, and meaningful content to help your customers solve their day-to-day challenges.

–          It builds brand awareness and exposure.

Coupled with a good SEO strategy, a blog can help you get a high level of brand awareness and exposure, driving traffic to your website.

Which leads us to the next point.

Supports your SEO

Image source

Search engine optimization can improve your website’s visibility but only if done right. In other words, optimizing nothing but your main web pages for industry-relevant keywords will not be enough.

Therefore, as you add more content to your website and optimize it for search engines, more pages from your website will be indexed, improving your organic search visibility and boosting your website traffic.

Enter blog.

Regular blog posts are the perfect way to always add new, quality, and optimized content to your website and give search engines a good reason to rank your website higher.

Bottom line, blogging is great for SEO and here is why:

–          It keeps your website fresh.

Google and other search engines want to deliver the most up-to-date information on every single topic. When you regularly update your blog, you send signals to search engines that you constantly offer fresh content.

In addition, this gives search engine algorithms more reasons to index your website more frequently and keep it on their radar.

–          It keeps people on your website.

Think about it. If you have valuable content to offer, your website visitors will have a reason to stay on your website for longer.

In other words, a quality blog will reduce your bounce rate. However, in order to reduce your bounce rate, you also need to optimize your website and blog.

In brief, make sure that your pages load fast and your blog does not spam your visitors with ads. Moreover, publish content that is relevant, easy to read, authoritative, and fresh. Finally, invite your readers to visit other blog posts by interlinking your content.

Builds your business’ authority

Just like your blog helps you connect with your audience and build trust and a stronger relationship with them, it also offers one of the best ways for your brand to position itself as an authority in its industry.

When you start a business, think of your blog as a place where you can share essential industry-related information and insights. Building authority means that you will breed long-term trust and familiarity as well as always be the go-to business for customers in your industry.

Furthermore, quality content will get you those backlinks you have been dreaming of for such a long time. As a matter of fact, running a blog will help you increase your chances of getting backlinks by as much as 97%.

However, building authority requires that you:

–          publish quality and original content on a regular basis

–          connect with your readers on a deeper level

–          promote content on social media and other platforms

–          engage in guest blogging in order to expand your audience

Increases conversions and sales

Image source

Businesses that blog regularly see their brand loyalty increase, which further leads to a significantly higher ROI.

If you think your conversions and sales are lagging behind, then a blog may be just what you need to get them back on track. However, if your blog does not encourage your readers to convert, they won’t do it on their own.

For that reason, you need to use gated content wisely and spark interest in your readers so that they want to learn more. When you entice curiosity in them, they will give you their email in exchange for the gated content and voila! They have just converted into your email subscribers.

However, in order for your readers to convert, your blog needs to have a strong call to action incorporated in your blog posts. In other words, your CTA has to be action-oriented, benefit-driven, persuasive, visual, and it should also create a sense of urgency.

Once you have created your call to action, you also need to find the best way to place it in your blog. Here are some of the most common CTA locations:

–          top of the page

–          end of the post

–          in the sidebar

–          within the post

–          as a pop-up (sliding, floating, or scrolling)

–          as a full-screen overlay

However, don’t overdo it and place your call to action in all these places as this would be counterproductive and make your readers bounce. Instead, use two to three call to actions in each post, test different options, and use what works best.

Makes you money

Finally, be honest and admit to yourself that your ultimate business goal is to make money. And that is perfectly fine because, after all, that is the goal of every business in the world.

But how can you actually make money blogging? Take a look at the examples below.

–           Create online courses, workshops, and ebooks.

These three types of content are a great way to build on your blog by offering more valuable content to your readers. However, this time it won’t be for free.

In addition, online courses, workshops, and ebooks are also great because they create an exclusive feeling for those who get to attend or read them.

–          Go for affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is still one of the best ways to earn a passive income from your blog. The best part is that if you manage to build an authority blog, you can actually make money promoting products and services that you like anyway.

–          Call it a day.

Lastly, if your blog becomes an authority in your industry, there will be a lot of people wanting to buy your website. In that case, you can simply sell your website and retire or start another blog and do it all over again.

The post 5 Ways a Blog Can Help Your Business Grow appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you want a quick rundown of what needs to be done to start a podcast, there are several steps that you need to cover:

Come up with a concept for your podcast

The concept should include its name, tagline, and artwork, as well as the episode style, structure, average duration, and the types of topics that you want it to cover. Presumably it will be in the same niche as your blog, but you’ll want to make it as unique as possible.

Get the equipment that you need

Recording a podcast doesn’t take much in terms of equipment. All you really need is a decent microphone, and software to record the audio.

Choose a media hosting service

It is best not to host podcasts on your blog’s webhost as you could run into bandwidth issues if there are too many downloads. Instead you can look into specific media hosting services such as Blubrry – though be prepared to pay for them. Some even include their own WordPress plugins that will make it easier to manage on your blog.

Plan a podcast episode

The planning for podcasts can vary in style. Some podcasters script the entire podcast, while others prefer to just list a series of talking points and talk off the cuff. Having some sort of plan is important however, so that your podcast has a coherent structure to it.

Record the podcast

Overall recording the podcast should be easy enough. Before you start recording however you may want to record a minute of test audio to check that the quality is good and there isn’t too much background noise. After that you can start recording, and then export the audio in MP3 when you’re done.

Edit the podcast

Some editing may be required before your podcast is ready to be published. In some cases all you’ll want to do is trim out certain parts, while in others you may want to add in music or even sound effects.

Upload and publish the podcast

After you’re done you can upload the podcast to your media hosting service, publish it on your blog, and submit it to iTunes and other podcast directories. The exact steps that need to be done to perform all that will vary, but if you’re using a WordPress plugin or good media hosting service it should be relatively straightforward.

Continue to create more and more episodes

The key to a successful podcast is to publish episodes frequently and on a fixed schedule. It can help to plan and record several episodes beforehand, and then publish them as a drip feed based on your schedule.

Keep in mind that the steps listed above are really just a quick rundown, and you may require more detail for one or more of them. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the information that you need however, as podcasts are becoming more and more popular.

If you want a software to record podcasts you can try Movavi Screen Recorder. It can be used as a streaming audio recorder as well as a screen recorder, and will let you capture the audio that you need, trim out the parts you don’t want, then export it as an MP3.

After you set up and publish your first podcast, it will get much easier to create the rest. In fact you will probably find that creating podcast content for your blog takes less time than most longform posts – and definitely far less than what it takes to record videos.

The post How to Start a Podcast for a Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The objective of a disaster recovery plan

The point of a disaster recovery plan is to enable an ordered recovery from disaster with all supporting information to hand – for example special passwords or contact details of specific people who can help such as IT professionals.

Even detailed information such as where ‘emergency’ supplies of stationery and business paperwork such as accounting tax forms can be found or sourced easily in the event of, say, a fire or flood destroying supplies kept on the premises.

Flooding and fire can strike totally unexpectedly; if your business is based in a part of the US where hurricanes are likely the risk is greater still.

What should your recovery plan include?

As much detail as possible written down in terms of how you’ll get your business up and running as soon as possible if disaster strikes.

• Who should you tell if disaster strikes? Any particular suppliers? Perhaps some or all of your customers?
• Insurance policies – are the policy numbers and contact details easily accessible so you can contact your insurers quickly?
• What alternative location is available if you have to stop working out of your present one?
• What are your data backup arrangements?
• What are the contact details of key people you’d need to call in? For example, an IT professional or emergency electricians and plumbers
• What roles will members of your staff perform in the event of a disaster striking?
• Do you have an up to date list of business equipment (with photos ideally) to provide insurance companies with?

Protect data

Most businesses rely to a greater or lesser extent on their data from a basic email list to fully integrated accounting, stock control and scheduling.

Any sort of data loss caused by a disaster whether natural or something like a cyber attack could prove hugely disruptive. Therefore, a disaster recovery plan should include detailed provision for data protection.

Back up everything

You’ll know that backing up data is important, but don’t forget tech such as smartphones – many people have very important information on these, so back them up too.

Back up to a storage system separately to your business computers and keep a copy away from your physical location.

The cloud is a very good way to store data remotely in a cost-effective way. Many people use cloud-based services already such as Google Drive and Dropbox; these may suffice for certain lower level storage or back up requirements, but for meatier needs a specialist cloud storage provider would be required.

Automatic backups can be set up; in the event of disaster, your data can soon be restored so helping get your business back on its feet quickly.

Minimizing effects of a disaster

While you may not be able to prevent a natural disaster, you can at least prepare for those you know you may be at risk from.

It could be as simple as having protective covers to hand to put over computers and other office machinery, and maybe moving equipment into a less vulnerable space if there’s a hurricane warning or similar.

If you do find yourself taking these protective measures, then date stamped photographs showing equipment protected like this will help if and when making insurance claims.

Review your plan

Along with creating a disaster recovery plan if you haven’t already, it’s important to review and update it as and when required. Over time your business is likely to change; equipment is replaced and you may find your current back up and data storage requires an upgrade.

The post Does Your SME Have A Disaster Recovery Plan? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The worst part? You have no clue why this is happening. After all, you did many of the things that experts were preaching. What’s the matter then?

Let me tell you a secret…

Knowing the strategy alone isn’t enough to succeed. To avoid blogging failures you have to adopt the right mindset. A mindset that will empower your strategies, not harm them.

Related: Blogging for Dummies (2019 Edition)

Here are 15 mindset hacks that will supercharge both you and your blog – thus helping you grow a successful blog.

1. Find Your Why

First of all, you have to find your why. Why are you trying to build a successful blog? Money? Fame? To leave a job you hate? To give your family a better future? Whatever it is, visualize it. Imagine vividly the impact that having a successful blog will have on your life.

This will give you motivation – and will help you keep going in spite of difficulties.

2. Commit Yourself

Decide that you’ll succeed, no matter what. Decide that you won’t take failure as an option. When you do this, the focus of your mind will totally shift: instead of thinking about what could go wrong, you’ll focus on what to do to succeed. When others won’t see a way out of a problem, you’ll find solutions.

3. Lay the Brick

If you think about building a house, you feel overwhelmed. It is so complex, so difficult and so scary. What happens, instead, if you just want to lay brick? That’s easy, you can do it – in less than 5 minutes.

It’s the same when it comes to blogging. If you look at the whole picture, you’ll feel overwhelmed: you have to write great content, promote your production, build an email list, create a sales funnel, etc…

It’s too much!

But if you focus on a single task, it’s easy. Can you write 200 words per day?  You bet! From this perspective, blogging doesn’t seem so hard, right? 

4. Keep Going

Look at this:

It’s the traffic chart for one of my blogs. It’s an impressive growth, isn’t it? I want to direct your attention to the beginning of the chart. Do you notice anything interesting? It’s flat.

It is not flat because I was doing something wrong – I kept doing the same thing for the entire time frame of the chart. It is flat because that’s how things go when you grow organically (it’s a compound growth).

At first, your traffic growth is so small that you won’t even notice it… but as time goes on, it starts to snowball – the end result is a massive traffic increase. You have to go through the “flat phase” to witness the big results after. Don’t give away in that phase.

5. First Things First

How are you spending your time when it comes to blogging? Let me clarify an important concept: being busy is different than being productive. In other words, you don’t want to waste your time on small tasks that won’t impact on your blog – and on your blogging success chance.

On the other hand, you want to spend as much time as you can on your most important tasks – the ones that have the biggest impact on your results. For example, if you need to convert your blog visitors into email subscribers, focus on creating an enticing lead magnet – don’t spend hours on Twitter.

6. There’s No Failure

There’s no failure, just feedback.

When you think about it, you realize that a failure is just a feedback: it tells you that what you were doing doesn’t work. From this point of view, each failure is an important lesson – one that gets you closer to your goals.

Actually, when you think about failures as feedbacks, you end up desiring to fail! The faster you fail, the faster you learn. And the faster you learn, the faster you succeed.

7. Investing Is Necessary

Lots of people think of blogging as a way to earn money for free… that couldn’t be farther from the truth! If you want to make money blogging, you have to think about it as a business. Investing is necessary for business. 

Be it buying a useful plugin, getting a design on Fiverr or hiring an expert – there will be times when you won’t be able to grow your blog without investing. The good news is that good investments repay themselves.

Here’s an example… Years ago I couldn’t find a way to further grow my old blog. So I looked for someone who could tell me how to do it… and then I found him! He was asking $3,000 for a 1-day consultation – a huge price for me. I reflected for a while and then I decided to risk. It was necessary to grow my business. We did the 1-day consultation and then I immediately started following the expert’s advice. About three months later the investment repaid itself and my business was thriving as never before.

8. Learn, learn, learn

We are in a world where a small difference in skills leads to a huge difference in income. For example, do you know what’s the scoring average difference between Tiger Woods and many other world-class golf players? It’s about 1%. Yet, Tiger Woods earns AT LEAST twice as much as them.

You want to improve your skills so that you can be (and stay) ahead of the competition. Make learning in your field a habit. Luckily, nowadays, you have countless ways to learn – other than a huge amount of useful books, there’s plenty of online courses, interesting blog posts and awesome podcasts.

9. Don’t Be a Jack of All Trades

Maybe you heard somewhere the advice “be everywhere”. It’s ok… if you have a team. But when you are alone, don’t make this mistake. You don’t want to find yourself managing YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc…

You don’t want to be a jack of all trades. You want to be great at a few things – remember the previous point. When you need to do something that is not relevant to your crucial skills improvement, simply outsource.

10. It’s Not About You

Having a blog doesn’t mean talking about the stuff that you like. It means talking about what the market likes. Luckily, you can find an overlap between the two and talk about what both you and the market like. 

But never forget the importance of the market. Give the market what it wants and you’ll get what you want in return.

11. Care About Your Audience

Your audience is very important, treat it well. Sure, you want to respond to comments on your blog and thank people for sharing your content. But that’s just the basis…

You want to listen to your audience – if you see an interesting question in the comments, write a blog post to answer it. Sometimes you want to share a reader’s post – this will me him/her feel special. Also, speak in your audience’s language, so that you’ll make it easy for them to understand you. The point is: do your best to bond with your audience.

12. There’s No Self-Made Blogger

There is this myth of the self-made man that is… well, a myth. Especially in the blogosphere.

How can you be self-made in a world where, to succeed, you need to get:

• links (by others)
• shares (by others)
• interview request (by others)
• guest post opportunities (by others)
• etc. (by others)

It’s impossible.

13. Think Outside the Box

Understand that to reach blogging success you need to work (a lot) with others and for others.

You can decide to be the same as many other bloggers or… be different. Imitating others is easy, but it brings little rewards. Being different is hard, but has huge benefits.

If you seriously want your blog to succeed, try to be different. Be creative. Sure, you’ll have to brainstorm ideas and think a lot… but it’s totally doable. By the way, don’t think that you have to reinvent the wheel: most of the times, the slightest creative difference will make a big impact.

14. Quitting Is the Only Way to Fail

There is only one way to fail: quitting. If you keep going, soon or later you’ll find a way to succeed. It’s a matter of fact: any time you fail, you learn; keep going long enough and you’ll have learned so much that you’ll be bound to succeed.

15. Prove Them Wrong

Every time you try to do something outside the norm, people will tell you that you can’t do that. Blogging is no exception. Your friends, your family, your colleagues may tell you that blogging is a stupid idea and a waste of time.

I had to verbally fight with my mother till she saw me on national television – she started accepting this “thing” that I was doing. I had to start earning more than my father to gain my family’s respect for my work.

So, be prepared: people will say that you can’t do it. Do you know what’s the best part? Realize your goals to prove them wrong.

Final Words

Now, you have a renewed knowledge – the knowledge to avoid blogging failure and make your blog thrive instead.

Imagine the difference that this new mindset can have on both you and your blog. It feels good, doesn’t it? Take action, now. Don’t waste your time.

As the very first step, leave a comment talking about the points that you liked the most about this post and how they helped you. This will consolidate the mindset hacks in your brain.

Andrew Morrison is a digital marketing strategist who helps bloggers, marketers, and entrepreneurs turn their websites into fine-tuned businesses. He has been an online business owner since 2011, but he didn’t get to work on a tropical beach yet because his girlfriend loves winter! Follow his blog for practical digital marketing tips.null

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Here are 7 investment blogs to follow to keep you informed of current and future events affecting the market and the various investment strategies available.

1. The Reformed Broker

Joshua M. Brown, author of the blog, is a financial advisor and CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management in New York City. On TRB, he dishes out advice and information on markets, economics, finance, politics, media and culture. He writes about current market-related events and gives his insights. A TV commentator and writer for financial magazines and websites, Brown’s years of experience in the stock market is valuable education that he shares in his blog.

2. A Wealth of Common Sense

Ben Carlson, CFA is a portfolio manager for individuals and institutions at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He blogs almost daily on topics like wealth management, investments, financial markets and investor psychology. His posts are quite long but written in a way that newbie investors can understand. He has written books, keeps a weekly podcast, and is a speaker at various financial events in the US and Europe. 

3. Financial Samurai

Sam Dogen worked at Wall Street for 13 years before founding Financial Samurai, the investment blog that is one of the most engaged with online users. His posts, while not all about investing, are unique and in-depth. He reviews financial products and gives practical and doable advice on investing money.

4. Investopedia

Investopedia, founded in 1999, is the go-to blog for comprehensive financial education that even those without marketing or investing background can understand. Its articles give thorough explanations of any topic and it has tutorials on investing, stock market basics, ETFs, etc. Its dictionary of financial terminology is comprehensive and includes both serious and ludicrous definitions. Topics on the blog include bonds, mutual funds, stock trading, taxes and world markets. 

5. All Star Charts 

The blog is a technical analysis publication for seasoned traders and those who are looking to trade more frequently. It has more than 500 charts for stocks, commodities, foreign exchange, ETFs and intermarket analysis written by JC Parets, CMT and chief strategist for All Star Charts LLC. The blog studies the stock market performance, volatility and trading, which are charted daily. 

Access to the blog is by membership and if you’re an active trader and into day trading, the money spent on membership will serve as your tuition for the comprehensive education the blog gives. 

6. Oblivious Investor

Mike Piper is a CPA with a series of financial books published. His blog focuses on simple investing and personal finance, with emphasis on diversification, basic microeconomics, index funds and wealth building. His articles are easy to understand and practical, focusing on simplicity. Novice investors can use Piper’s advice to start investing.

7. Contrarian Edge

The blog covers mainly investing but also has posts on classical music, a bit of travel and life musings. Its creator, Vitaliy Katsenelson, is a CFA char, the CEO of Investment Management Associates and an international sought-after speaker on. He has 20 years of experience in investing; hence, his authority on investments is unassailable. He writes about behavioral investing, cryptocurrency, options, capitalism and more.

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