Did you know that a second-long delay reduces conversion rates by 7%? That means, if your site suffers from a 5-second delay, your blog will lose 35% of its initial visitors.

Imagine your site or blog losing 35 visitors out of a 100 because it doesn’t load fast enough!

If your blog or site is loading immensely slow, don’t fret just yet. You can still salvage your site from loading time purgatory.

In this post, You will learn how to speed up WordPress site so you can convert visitors into clients effectively.

Without further ado, let’s do this!

Use hosting platforms for videos

If you have loads of video content on your site, then I’ve got some bad news for you:

Those videos take up a lot of space. Too much space on your web host can slow down your site and turn off your visitors.

However, take this as an opportunity to rise to the occasion. Instead of hosting your video content on your web host, use an external hosting platform.

Doing so will lift your web server from the massive video files. This way, you can increase conversion rates once the loading speed picks up.

So check out video hosting platforms like Vimeo and Wistia.

Instead of uploading videos directly to your site, let these hosting platforms handle the hosting for you. You can still embed them on your site using the code provided for each.

Switch to a better DNS provider

The length of time a Domain Name System lookup does its job affects page load time.

Think of a DNS lookup the same way as looking for someone’s contact info in an address book.

To get your hands on specific contact info, you have to dig through the other contacts in an address book.

Now, if you’re a slowpoke, it will take longer to get the information you need.

So if you’re using a slow DNS provider, it will also take longer for a server to get a specific DNS record, which it translates into an IP address.

And ultimately, your visitors will need to wait for your DNS provider to finish before they can drop by your site.

https://www.canva.com/design/DADQOGP5SK4/view

How to Speed Up WordPress Site and Increase Conversion Rate by Canva Presentations

Go for the right hosting option

You shouldn’t just choose the cheapest web hosting solution.

Instead, choose the right one for your needs.

If you own a blog that attracts around a hundred visitors a day, an affordable option like shared hosting ought to do the trick.

But if your site generates at least a thousand visitors every day, cheap hosting will no longer suffice!

A lesser web host can’t manage high traffic surges. As a result, your site will experience lots of downtimes and ultimately drive visitors away.

Therefore, choose a reliable hosting option for your needs – costs be damned!

Investing in the right web host provider might cost you more. But it will be cost-effective in the long run.

You can look at what Kinsta has for you.

Just make sure you do your research first. There are so many hosting providers out there, so to find the best WordPress hosting for your needs, compare costs, reviews, refund policies, load time, uptime, customer support and other important factors.

Compress files

If you can’t avoid using large data, this is your solution.

Compressing file sizes is an easy way on how to speed up a WordPress site.

Use a program like GNU Gzip.

It’s a data compression tool that finds codes in your text files. Then it replaces them with smaller versions.

Read this post to learn how you can enable GZIP compression on your site to optimize its speed. You can set it up manually by editing your .htaccess file, or you can tweak your caching plugin to activate this option.

Use a CDN

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network.

Using it lets you load copies of your site to that network’s servers. And when a visitor accesses your site, the server closest to his location will take care of loading it for him.

The result? Your site’s speed increases!

This is particularly useful when your visitors are located far from you because the farther they are, the longer it takes for information to get through.

But if they’re close to a server, they can get the information — and access your site — fast!

Among CDNs in the market, MaxCDN is one of the most preferred ones in the market. Aside from being affordable, the platform delivers faster loading site to your visitors.

Minimize all those HTTP requests

Did you know downloading on-page components consumes 80% of a page’s load time?

Well, now you know!

Each time you want to load an on-page element, you need to make an HTTP request.

The more HTTP requests you make, the longer it takes for your page to render.

So minimize HTTP requests.

Start by figuring out how many HTTP requests your site currently makes.

You can do that by going to a page, right-click anywhere, and choose Inspect.

Next, click Network.

There, you will see three columns:

• Name
• Size
• Time

On the bottom, you will see the total number of HTTP requests.

Minimize TTFB

TTFB stands for “Time to first byte.”

It refers to the time a browser has to wait until it gets the first byte from the server.

You can confuse it with a website’s speed, but TTFB is different and is more about a website’s responsiveness.

According to Google, your TTFB should be no more than 200ms.

A page with a higher TTFB is less responsive.

And therefore, it loads slowly and will see a decrease in conversion rates.

So get cracking on your site’s responsiveness!

But first, measure its TTFB first with a page performance test tool from KeyCDN.

It lets you measure TTFB from up to 14 different locations!

Conclusion

All of the methods above work. But you should prioritize the ones that can significantly impact your site.

To do this, you need to evaluate your site and determine which factors are profoundly affecting your site’s page load times.

Related posts:

Why the Speed of Your Site Should Be a Priority

5 Ways You Can Speed Up Your Website

The post How to Speed Up WordPress Site and Increase Conversion Rate appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Content marketing allows you to push your brand through unique and informative content that both educates your audience and provides them a path toward becoming a customer.

There are many forms of content marketing that work, both simplistic and complex. However, many bloggers are typically lacking in two essential resources that are vital to a complete content marketing plan.

Time and money.

As a blogger with limited time and an even more limited budget, what can you do to help start the content marketing ball rolling?

Read on to find out.

1. Optimize for SEO

SEO is complex, which is why you have to take it one step at a time.

However, there are a number of tasks that bloggers can do on their own to get a jumpstart on a solid SEO campaign.

First up, there’s keyword research. Without keyword research, you’re essentially entering into your SEO campaign blind.

Through keyword research, you’ll be able to know what the highest volume and relevant keywords for your audience are.

Once that’s done, you can start creating blog content optimized for these terms. Make sure that the terms are featured in the body of the article, the headline and subheads, the meta description, and the image titles and alt tags.

After that, connect all of your various pages and articles together through a series of internal links. This helps your SEO score and makes your website easier to navigate for potential customers.

You’re also going to have to get links to your pages listed on other websites. It’s not easy to do, but if you create a series of informative guest post articles, each containing a link back to your page, then it becomes somewhat easier.

Do not hesitate to use the service of a marketing agency specializing in SEO to make sure your website is well optimized.

2. Create Round-Up Style Articles

It’s not enough to just create random blog posts. You have to be strategic and think about what adds the most value to your reader’s life.

This is especially true for bloggers who are taking these early stages without the help of a third-party marketing agency.

You can’t go wrong in terms of optimization opportunity and educational offering with a round-up style article.

Present a problem impacting your target audience. It should be something that directly relates to the services that you or your affiliates offer.

Then, provide a series of related solutions to said issue. This lets you cover a lot of ground. That also means you’ll have ample opportunity to include relevant keywords. Round-ups also give you a huge linking opportunity.

This detailed guide from Reply.io on how to choose an email finder tool is a good example. Although they offer an email finder tool, they also present the competing tools objectively and weigh out their pros and cons.

Image Source

If you’re starting a blog or review site, you might want to consider affiliate marketing on top of content marketing. You can run comparison articles like Best Nursing School’s article about accelerated BSN programs. The key to a quality blog is to review your alternatives diligently, and only accept those that you truly recommend.

Every piece of advice you list in the round-up could be its own blog article on your website. When you’re approaching these topics in the round-up, you have limited space. If your round-up article is only 2,000 words, you don’t have a lot of room to provide a ton of information on each item.

However, if you spin each item off into its own 2,000-word article, you’re providing more information while also getting another opportunity to rank for SEO. You can connect each of these “satellite” articles to the main round-up, creating a hub and spoke article series.

It ensures that if even one of these pages gets some SEO traction, you’ll have a chance to direct traffic to other areas of your site as well.

3. Create Different Forms of Content

You can’t expect to just write blog articles and get all the attention in the world.

Content means so much more than just the written word. There are so many different ways to put content together, such as video, audio, infographics, and much more.

If you’re focusing solely on written content, then you’re doing a disservice to your blogging ventures.

You could also combine different content types on a single page, such as the example below from this company selling a route planning software.

Image Source

This product page has just about everything. There are graphics, written content, an image, and even a comparison chart helping you make the right choice. You could also easily add a video onto a page like this to create some content that really pops and informs.

Nlyte’s article about colocation data centers is a perfect example of how embedding a video in a blog article can help your content stand out.

Image Source

The video featured above breaks up the text wall and provides good quality information to the target audience for the software Nlyte provides.

In fact, video has become one of the most consumed and shareable forms of content. Adding product videos, animated videos, or even instructional videos to your website is a great way to reach more people.

Besides video, podcasts are another popular form of content. They provide you with a platform to share your industry expertise and open up lines of communication with potential clients.

Starting a podcast is also an easy and inexpensive way to increase traffic to your website. Getting together with new co-hosts can be a good way to collect new ideas and expand your audience.

4. Create Content Specifically for Your Audience

Remember who you’re marketing to. As a blogger, it’s important that you don’t cast your net too wide when it comes to identifying who your target audience might be.

It’s important to refer to your buyer profiles when planning out your content in advance. (Also, you should be planning out your content in advance!)

Who are your ideal customers? What problems do they have? What kind of outside-the-box content can you create to properly serve their needs?

This informative article on current internet abbreviations answers a specific question that would impact a particular audience.

It’s important that you similarly examine what kind of problems your audience has and plan content around solving those issues.

5. Create a Content Library and FAQ Page

Remember, it’s not just blog pages or product pages that have a good shot at ranking.

FAQ pages are prime for optimization. Often, these pages can rank for Google’s featured snippets, a position even more coveted than the first result on page one.

Image Source

You also have to organize your content. In the example given above, SimpleMoney organized their financial articles into one centralized page, indexed by category.

It’s always a great idea to take a step like this, because it adds to the user experience of your website, making your content easier to find. A positive user experience is indicative of the quality of your blog.

Even more important, when you’re just starting out your potential customers are likely to have a lot of questions. Compiling a list of FAQs that help explain your business concept, like what finance startup EarlyBird has done here, is a good way to explain your business in an easy to digest format.

In Conclusion

If you’re a blogger, you can’t afford to ignore content marketing. You also probably can’t afford to go all in on it either.

Implement these five content marketing tips for your business, and you will see growth over a period of time. Then, once you have more money coming in, you can invest more heavily in content initiatives.

This guest blog was provided in collaboration with Joanne Camarce, a digital marketing expert specializing in SEO, eCommerce, and social media.

Related posts:

Content Marketing: Expectations Vs Reality

Why You Should Add a FAQ in Your Blog

The post 5 Content Marketing Practices for Bloggers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

But take a closer look and you’ll see that not all fashion bloggers are created equal. In the search for the perfect outfit, it’s easy to lose yourself and waste time in the black hole of fashion blogs.

This is why we’ve rounded up our favorite no-nonsense fashion bloggers. When it comes to all things fashion and beauty, these guys and gals are constantly dishing out style inspiration as you’ve never seen before.

Jessica Wang

Her blog best exemplifies what a popular, high-fashion blog should look like. Jessica’s social media platforms are graced by high-fashion name brands like Gucci, Versace, and Fendi to name a few. She teaches all her followers not just how to style but also how to pose and shoot.

Check out her TikTok account here: Jessica Wang

Young Emperors

A little quirky, but a lot of fun – this couple is a sure icon in fashion. Isabelle Chaput and Nelson Tiberghien are not only fashionistas but performing artists that are collectively known as Young Emperors. They grace the streets of New York with their spectacular matching outfits. As anyone would see in their content, fashion is all about the texture, the pattern, the color, and the outrageousness of clothing. Their following on TikTok alone consists of 3.7 Million likers. Ergo, this couple deserves a mention in any fashion hall of fame.

Check out their TikTok account here: Young Emperors

Denise Mercedes

This gorgeous Dominican Model has launched a popular TikTok challenge back in 2020 titled “Style, not Size”. This TikTok challenge showed how she (a size 14 model) and her friend (Maria Castellanos) modeled exactly the same clothes. This challenge showed that clothing can make any woman feel beautiful regardless of shape, color, and form. Denise Mercedes is well-known to put together fabulous sets of clothing and feature them on her social media pages. We have to understand that fashion is now much less about clothes but more about body positivity, too.

Check out her TikTok here: Denise Mercedes

Guy Overboard

Ever heard of a plus-sized fashion blog for men? The Guy Overboard blog is probably the best one. We always talk about body positivity for women, but every person (for whatever gender) deserves to be confident with their bodies. In his blog, he features a lot of inclusive men’s fashion brands that are stylish and comfortable. Although his content is in Italian, the advocacy in men’s fashion transcends all languages!

Check out his Instagram here: Guy Overboard

Mercer 7

Slow fashion, sustainability – are two concepts that are highly sought after in today’s fashion world. The overall concept of Mercer 7 is to curate a luxurious and fashionable capsule wardrobe made up of timeless and classy pieces that will last anyone through seasons in fashion. Anyone can edit their closet, de-clutter their clothes, and curate an incredible wardrobe. You can have an effortless style by buying with intention and even when re-styling and re-wearing clothes.

Check out her Instagram here: Mercer 7

Fashion Should Be Fun

Fashion knows no age. If anything everyone gets even more beautiful and classy the older they get. Dawn Lucy is a fashion blogger that proves classy silver hair matches everything! Her style is effortless and chic, so stylish that everyone wants to dress up like her. As her motto, she simply shows through her Instagram that fashion SHOULD be fun – and it shows!

Check out her Instagram here: Fashion Should Be Fun

Conclusion

Whether you’re into street fashion, high fashion, or consumer fashion from places like JJ’s House, you can develop your own personal style by getting inspiration from today’s most influential style bloggers. Although not everyone can afford to be styled by a full-time stylist, you can always get style advice by following your favorite bloggers online. 

Whatever you’re wearing, always remember that you can glam up any outfit with the right attitude and confidence. The best fashion advice? Don’t be afraid to do you!

Related posts:

Top 10 Lifestyle Influencers and Bloggers You Must Follow

8 Best New York Lifestyle and Fashion Blogs

First published in April 2019; updated March 2022

The post 6 Best Fashion Bloggers for Style Inspiration appeared first on The Blog Herald.

You might be a great writer but still struggling to make a decent income. If that’s the case, then you might be missing your client process.

Creating excellent blog posts is one thing. Managing your clients the right way is another. How to do that? Well, read on!

Offer discounts

Offering discounts make potential clients choose you because of your service’s affordability. But this doesn’t mean that you’re getting the rough end of the deal. Even though you’re offering cheaper services, you still get more clients and more money in the end.

One way to do this is by offering quantity discounts. The more blog posts your client orders, the more significant discount they get. You want to stand out because it’s a competitive world out there. Offering discounts help you with just that.

Showcase your testimonials

You’ll look good if your clients see what people think about you. Put your previous client’s testimonials on your blog. It lets your potential clients know what to expect from you. Good reviews are the foundation of trust. And when they trust you, they’re most likely to hire you. Just make sure that the testimonials are from real people. You can also include their name and profession beside their testimony.

Use screenshots and stats on your blog

Another cool way to give more value to your clients is by presenting them with reliable facts. There are times when words can’t fully explain what you’re trying to point out. Good thing there are screenshots. This help because it can efficiently relay the message to your readers.

This is very useful if you’ve got a tutorial blog full of technical instructions.  Putting statistics also backs up your blog. It supports the ideas you’ve presented, making it look legitimate and factual. Just be sure that the stats are from a reputable source.

Ask your clients questions

What usually happens when negotiating with a new client is we immediately say yes. We don’t bother asking questions because we want to look confident and able. That helps at the beginning. But you’re just increasing the risk for complications later on.

You won’t have enough information to do the job properly. You’re also likely to get lost as you go deeper into the project. What would you do when that happens? You’re going to get back to the client and ask them things you should’ve known in the first place. Not only will you look unprofessional, but you’ve just wasted time. Ask as many questions as you can. It’s the recipe for becoming a great blogger.

Provide an easy way to receive payments (without being a brat)

You won’t be a freelance blogger if you don’t do it for a living. As obvious as it may sound, that reality is what keeps your career intact. That’s why you need to make sure that the payment process is easy.

It shouldn’t be a hassle for your client to pay you, and for you to receive the money. You can do this by using an invoice template generator like HubSpot’s. This will make it easier for you to notify your client about the payment. It’ll also help you receive the payments in time.

Promote their posts

Being a freelance blogger isn’t all about the writing. It’s also about the sharing. Your blog posts would be useless if no one reads it. When you’re through writing, you want to share it out with the world. There are lots of ways to do that. Working on your email marketing, social media, and SEO campaign are some of them. You can also use JustReachout to maximize your reach.

Conclusion

Income stability is an issue most freelance bloggers face. But with the help of these tips, there’s no doubt you’ll get over this common problem. Also remember that reputation, consistency, and continuous improvement are the pillars of being a great blogger. Keep these in your mind, and you’ll surely reach greater heights in no time.

Related posts:

How to Transition from Your 9-5 Job to Being a Freelance Blogger

How to Apply for Freelance Blogger Work (Yes, there’s a right way)

First published in 2018; updated December 2021

The post How to Provide Even More Value to Your Clients as a Freelance Blogger appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Some people just wing it when writing their blog posts, and they may achieve a certain level of success with this process. However, if you want your content to cut through the clutter and provide your readers with the blog content possible, you must consider taking a more deliberate approach with your blog writing. It starts with your research process.

This post will help you refine how to research content for your blog post. This step-by-step process will help you produce valuable, actionable, and helpful content. And by using the same process in all of your blog post research, you can build a rabid blog following.

Scour the Web for Competition

Once you have a topic you want to discuss on your blog, check out what other websites say about it. A quick search on Google will reveal to you the top pages discussing the topic.

These pages are ranking on top of organic search for the topic, which means they’re doing something right. From here, collect what you feel are the top pages from the search result and analyze them. 

Figure out what made Google decide that these pages appear as one of the top pages for the topic. Read the content and check out the questions it answers and subtopics it covered about the subject. Also, check out the formatting of the posts—see if the content has lots of images or videos.

List down the good things that you think and feel the pages did to warrant their rankings on Google search. Then take these things and apply them to your content to make it as good—if not better—than the competition. Doing so should convince Google that your page should eventually rank on top for the topic.

Search for Questions to Answer About the Topic

The researched pages in the previous step should provide you with enough information to write your content. But you want to get over and above to make the best possible content about the topic you wish to cover.

So to help expand your research, you must look for additional questions you should discuss and answer in your content.

There’s a People Also Ask (PAA) section from Google search containing the most relevant questions about the topic.

If you click on one of the questions to reveal the answer, two additional questions appear at the bottom of the section to provide you with more questions to consider answering in your content.

You can also go to Quora to find the top questions people ask about the topic.

More importantly, you can find multiple answers to each question, making research much more effortless. You can simply compile the best answers from here and rewrite them into your article to make them your own.

Use Answer the Public as well to exhaust all possible questions you should cover in your article. 

It produces a multitude of questions you can answer in your article. You can also use an alphabet soup section as additional subtopics or write a brand new article for each keyword suggestion.

Finally, another neat tactic you can use is blogger outreach. While this is commonly used to acquire backlinks to your site, you can use the same process of reaching out to bloggers. But instead of asking them for backlinks, ask them for answers to some of the questions you wish to answer in your blog post.

By targeting influential bloggers for their quotes to include in your post, you can get them to answer the tough questions you encounter in your research. At the same time, you build relationships with them that you can further leverage in the future—it’s a win-win!

Build Your Outline

Finally, you should have all the necessary information to help you produce an outline for your article.

The advantage of developing an outline before writing it is to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your piece. Aside from adding the subtopics and questions you plan on discussing in the article, you should also include the following:

• Statistics to help support your arguments and points. Refer to reliable case studies from authoritative sources like Statista to erase all doubt about the validity of the findings.
• Images and videos you should include in the article. Sites like Pixabay and Pexels are good places to start searching for free stock photos. Ideally, you should edit them using Canva to make them unique since there’s a good chance other sites will be using the same stock photo you want to use. As for videos, find the most relevant ones on YouTube to embed in your article.
• Internal and external links to include in the post. Ideally, you should always strive to link to relevant internal pages to prevent people from leaving your website. But if you haven’t any relevant content about the subtopic or idea, it’s best to link to a reliable source instead. The goal is to provide value to readers by pointing them to great content that will help explain the subtopic in greater detail.

By laying down all the information you must discuss in your article, writing will be much easier.

Conclusion

The key to writing a great blog post lies in how you conduct your research before writing it. The research is time-consuming, which leaves you better off passing this responsibility to a website content service provider like TopContent. But if you want to acquire this skill so you can implement it across all the articles you’ll be writing moving forward, it’s best to follow the simple steps above now.

The post How to Research Content for Your Blog Post appeared first on The Blog Herald.

At the heart of a successful blog are well-written articles that rank on search engines. These alone should help you rake up organic traffic that you can convert into leads and sales.

On the other hand, writing is just one aspect of a successful blog. You have to worry about:

• Managing your blog (from domain to hosting)
• Tweaking its design and layout
• Making it load faster
• Promoting your latest content for maximum reach
• Analyze the results
• …and more!

So, if you have the writing aspect of blogging down pat, there are other factors you have to master. And it won’t be easy especially if you don’t have the aptitude to tackle such tasks.

But fear not! In this post are some of the best blogging courses that will hold your hand and guide you through each step of the way. 

Some elearning statistics suggest that taking up online courses allows course takers to learn at their own pace and learn faster. More importantly, by choosing the right course from the list below, you can advance your way towards a successful and profitable blog!

Start Your Blog: From Idea to First Post

If you’re looking for a free course to help you get started, Elizabeth Stapleton’s offers some of the best ones out there.

Let’s say you already are a blog writer and are tired of writing for different clients. Elizabeth provides you with a step-by-step process to build your own blog from the ground up and become your own boss!

This 7-day course contains seven videos clocking in at 63 minutes and 23 text files. Each day covers a specific aspect of building a blog from setting up your WordPress blog to growing your email list once you have published a steady stream of content. You can proceed at your own pace with the course and go back to the more important aspects of blogging that you’re not familiar with.

The course is taught using Teachable, which is one of the best online course platforms out there as it makes learning much easier.

SEO For Bloggers by Money Lab

As mentioned, Google should become your blog’s main traffic driver over time. By ranking your pages on top of Google search for keywords with lots of monthly searches, you can expect thousands of daily visitors or more.

However, search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just writing optimized content. It also deals with setting up a blog that meets the standards of what Google deems high-quality and authoritative. Only then will you be able to make your pages rank.

If you already have an existing blog and technical SEO is a particular weakness of yours, SEO for Bloggers by Money Lab covers everything you need to know and do.

Aside from the modules that deal with the best on-page and keyword research practices, the course also shares different link building techniques to help expedite your blog’s growth.

For a one-time payment of $197 and hours of exclusive video content, SEO for Bloggers could be the only resource you’ll need to dominate Google in your niche. 

Superstar Blogging

For those looking for a more deliberate approach to building a blog, Superstar Blogging is something that you should highly consider.

Its instructor, Matthew Kepnes (also known as “Nomadic Matt), has been running a successful travel blog since 2008. Through the years, he was able to revenue seven figures in revenue, write two books, and get featured on publications like The New York Times, CNN, BBC, and more.

Through his course, Matt and his team will teach you how to build a blog similar to his, if not better! The detailed course syllabus includes eight sections – the first six sections teach its members how to build a blog that its target audience will love. However, the last two are dedicated to helping bloggers develop monetization strategies and partner with relevant brands to explode their traffic.

Best of all, Superstar Blogging also serves as a mentorship program which is included in the $297 price. You will be assigned a dedicated partner who will provide you with feedback on how you can make your blog better. You can also join weekly strategy calls with Matt and other members to ask questions and share your process.

Built to Blog

Ryan Robinson is one of the most renowned bloggers about blogging. With his blog earning in excess of $450,000 in monthly revenue, it only makes sense for him to launch a course where he shares the tricks of the trade.

The Built to Blog course is a massive guide that covers everything you need to build a profitable blog with income that you can sustain for years to come. With 54 lessons containing nine hours’ worth of video and 15,000 words, you can be sure to pick up the learnings and apply them on your blog.

For $497, you will also gain access to exclusive interviews with the world’s best bloggers and learn how they were able to break through profitability with blogging to inspire you on your journey. There’s also a module about productivity you should follow to help you stay on track with your progress.

Blog Traffic Blueprint

Rounding up the list is Smart Blogger’s Blog Traffic Blueprint. Developed by blogger extraordinaire Jon Morrow, the course tackles five strategies on how beginner bloggers can grow their traffic and receive the attention it deserves. The strategies are:

• The Mafia Method
• The Rocky Technique
• The Fan Base Formula
• The Infiltration Game
• The Traffic Shortcut

The course breaks down each strategy and how members can implement it on their blogs.

Upon paying $497, you will receive the blueprint and use it on your blogs directly. The bundle contains 26 video lessons across all strategies.

Keep in mind that not all strategies will apply to your blog. Therefore, take time to review the strategies and determine which among the five is the best for you. 

This course is ideal for beginners who want to fast-track their journey to earning from their blogs.

The post 5 Best Online Courses for Blogging in 2021 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

What was once a shady practice in promoting your online business is now a full-fledged marketing framework that delivers value to your audience.

Below is an infographic from QuickSprout detailing the evolution of SEO over the years.

Click here for the source

Here are three takeaways from the information above:

Content Marketing

Content will be useless if no one is viewing it. But when used alongside SEO and other marketing channels, it becomes king.

The fact that companies have integrated content marketing into their strategy speaks volumes on the power of content.

Instead of sharing ideas and information, a single blog post can now increase your sales, build your brand, and engage with your audience, among other benefits. Also, you need to plan meticulously to reap the benefits of this marketing strategy.

Source: CoSchedule

Of course, it doesn’t stop with just one stop. Writing and publishing high-quality blog posts optimized for their target keyword should help establish the foundation of your SEO-friendly site.

The real power of content marketing, however, lies in how you expand your traffic sources.

As seen in the image above, SEO is just one of the many ways that your website can gain visitors.

So, even if your quality content isn’t ranking on search results, you can still gain traffic to your website from other channels like social media from your content promotion campaign.

Or if you send out emails to your subscribers, you can generate traffic and conversions from there.

Invest in Quality

Barrie Smith’s case study about cheap link building is a cautionary tale that proves one thing: less will always be less.

As the saying goes, if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.

SEO has evolved to become more than just a game of numbers. In today’s SEO, quality counts.

In the case of your posts, you need to ensure the following for each one:

• Has a title tag and meta description
• All its images have alt text
• There’s a table of contents to provide visitors with an excellent user experience
• Each one has featured snippets to help provide a direct answer to a question, which Google loves
• Has internal links to articles relevant to the topic

Some of these things aren’t specific to SEO. But since you want to improve your website

Also, it’s important to analyze the on-page SEO factors of your websites.

By optimizing your sites and blogs from the beginning, it’ll be much easier for you to rank higher on search results.

For starters, you can run try Netpeak Spider to perform a technical SEO audit.

The tool will crawl your site and search for issues and problems such as page speed, appearance on mobile devices, and broken links, to name a few.

And by correcting these errors, you can help enhance your site’s SEO performance sooner than later.

You can audit your site even if you don’t have a tool at your disposal, you can simply follow the checklist below and manually locate them on your site for potential issues.

Source: SEMrush

Stop Chasing the Tail of Search Engines

The mistake most people make with SEO is gamification.

Instead of focusing on developing a comprehensive strategy, most go for churn-and-burn methods of SEO. These include using tactics that may yield quick results but are against Google policies and guidelines.

These trends work in the meantime. But as with all trends, they go out of vogue.

Keyword stuffing? Flagged.

Article marketing? Dead.

Those who used these tactics found themselves removed from SERPs for their target keywords. They are left scrambling for new tactics to use and move up the rankings again.

This unsustainable way of SEO is a waste of your time and effort.

Instead of using these flimsy techniques, why don’t you go for something of substance?

Try out the Skyscraper Technique to find and use great content and make an even greater one. Find backlinks to the great content you used to produce greater content. Reach out to site owners and tell them to link to your content instead.

Source: Hubspot

Another smart way to build backlinks is the broken link building. You reach out to site owners with resource pages related to your topic. You tell them the links on the page that don’t work anymore and ask them to include your website on the list.

These strategies also line up with your content marketing and relationship building, which play important roles in SEO.

Doing these tactics will take you time and effort to accomplish. But unlike the techniques that have been flagged by search engines, the strategies above give value to your target audience and guarantee you a more sustainable SEO campaign.

Let Data from Google Search Console Lead the Way

It’s difficult nowadays to believe people saying what works and what doesn’t in SEO.

Keep in mind that what applies to them may not apply to your website or blog for a variety of reasons. Results and findings hinge on the industry, infrastructure, and tools used by the tester. For example, the SEO practices used in a law firm marketing practice are different from a beauty salon website.

Therefore, to improve your search traffic, the only thing you must rely on is the data at your disposal.

For example, Google Search Console and Google Analytics could show that your site is improving its organic traffic even if you’re not following conventional SEO wisdom.

In this case, you should stick with your guns and keep doing what you’re doing as long as you’re not delving into black-hat SEO territory.

Conclusion

SEO is constantly evolving if you wish to improve your SEO ranking. Just like the constant changes in life, you need to change your approach and adapt along with the developments in this field to stay competitive in your market.

At the same time, it’s possible to see your website traffic sustain its traffic even after multiple algorithm changes. That means you’re doing something right in the eyes of Google and you need to stay at it.

What’s truly important in SEO where people are at the mercy of the almighty algorithm is simple:

Always provide value.

If you consistently churn out amazing content that your audience loves and have a site that’s easy for Google to crawl and find, you simply can’t lose.

More on search engine optimization:

The Future of SEO – How Every Blogger Needs to be Positioned to be Successful

The Best SEO Tools For Keyword Research

First published in January 2015; updated September 2021

The post How to Cope With the Changes in SEO appeared first on The Blog Herald.

On one side are successful bloggers who run multiple revenue-generating blogs at the comforts of their home.

On the other side are bloggers who failed.

However, if there’s one thing that separates the good bloggers from the rest, it’s having a routine.

If you’re one struggling with making ends meet with blogging, don’t give up just yet!

It’s possible you haven’t established a blogging routine that you can replicate day in and out without fail.

In this post, you will learn how to develop a routine that provides you a clear direction on your way to having a successful blogging career.

Take your time

Did you know that 38% of bloggers who spend about six hours writing a post are reported having gained “strong results” from their efforts?

How about the fact that it takes almost four hours to whip up an average blog post?

Here’s my point?

Blogging isn’t something that you should do in a hurry.

You don’t just create a blog then cross your fingers for your desired results!

If the idea of becoming a full-time blogger seems promising to you, then you need to step up.

Don’t let it remain an idea. Instead, make it come true.

Start by making a commitment to invest time for blogging. Wanting to blog is one thing and actually doing it is another.

So come up with a blogging schedule where you can dedicate at least four hours to write your post. At the same time, you need to find which days of the week you’ll do this.

Keep in mind that your commitment to blogging should be realistic and practical. It has to align with your current situation to make it a walk in the park to follow through. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Create an actionable list

Jot down everything you need to do to achieve your goal. Be sure to stay away from generic statements and instead, be specific.

Specifics are more compelling, after all. They make matters clear and actionable.

Look at this list:

• Generate (at least) 10 ideas for blog posts
• Identify a problem based on your ideas and name possible solutions
• Start creating an outline for one of your blog post ideas
• Write a 100-word introduction
• Elaborate on a solution to a problem

Organize your workspace

To move forward, you need to let go of things that slow you down. It’s about discipline and drawing the line between what’s helping you and what’s not.

Do you have Netflix on your desktop? Shortcuts to your favorite RPG games? Folders containing pictures of your pets?

Don’t open them while you blog. No questions asked.

Sure, they may bring entertainment. But since you’re working towards establishing a routine that will help you work, you need to put 100% of your focus on blogging.

Worse comes to worst, these distractions need to go straight to your Recycle Bin!

With them around, you’ll end up slacking off and letting your productivity level go down.

Distractions at home? Then consider moving to coworking spaces. They’re like an office space but is open for bloggers like yourself. You can set up shop work at work without interruptions.

Create (and finish)

Taking care of your productivity is a huge deal. So always stay focused to have it in you to create content from start to finish.

One technique is to avoid distractions and set things accordingly beforehand. Say, put notifications from different social media channels on silent and only check on them during specific times. That’s a much better way than checking on them the moment you hear a ding, don’t you think?

You can also fire up your productivity if you win the morning. Starting on the right foot often leads to a good and productive day, doesn’t it?

The Pomodoro Technique is also another productivity hack. It involves managing your workload and giving yourself a break for five minutes.

Whatever approach you go with is less important. What matters is you create and finish your blog post.

Remember to stay consistent

“Rome wasn’t built in a day”, goes the classic saying. So don’t expect to enjoy a career as a successful blogger quickly.

A reason why some bloggers don’t make it is their inability to keep creating content for their blogs on a regular basis. So learn from their mistakes by reminding yourself to be consistent and wait. If you’ve played your cards right, you’ll reap the rewards of your hard work soon.

Look at Business Insider, for instance. Currently, it’s one of the most successful sites out there with around 25,000,000 monthly visitors.

If you think it started last month, you’ve got it wrong. It began opening its doors way back in 2009!

Conclusion

Successful bloggers may tell you that blogging is an easy task. Of course, there’s truth to that statement on the account that they’re living proof.

Then again, it isn’t always easy from the get-go. Those success-laden folks? They managed to nail their careers due to their relentless attitude in chasing after success.

They showed dedication, worked hard, and did whatever it took to come out strong. So if you believe you can also make it big as a blogger, then go for it!

Related posts:

5 Ways to Work on Your Blogging Strategy No Matter Where You Are

The Best Ways to Avoid Distractions whilst Blogging

The post How to Establish a Blogging Routine appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Below are ten tips on how you could increase blog traffic fast.

1. Optimize for Long-Tail Keywords

Simply put, long-tail keywords are lengthy, often specific search phrases that people use to find information online. The main benefit of using them is that they tend to be less competitive than the more popular search terms.

You can use free keyword tools like Ubersuggest to find out which words and phrases you should use on your blog to increase your site traffic.

2. Create Pillar Posts

Pillar posts (or pillar content) are a collection of articles that you consider your site’s best work. This type of content generates lots of clicks, leaving users to revisit pillar posts time and again.

One tip would be to publish evergreen content. These are blog posts that remain relevant regardless of how much time has passed since their original publish date.

3. Link to Related Content

Linking to related content improves your internal linking which greatly benefits your internal SEO. Also, it makes site navigation for your users and promotes content that’s buried beneath your archive.

A word of advice: Make sure that all your pages somehow link to each other. There are techniques you could look into like silo architecture for SEO.

4. Craft Click-Worthy Headlines

Your headline is the first thing users will see when they open your link. So you need to put in a lot of effort to make sure they’re as catchy as possible.

It should make it immediately clear what users can expect from your post. And it should reassure visitors that they’ll find the information they’re looking for after they read your article.

5. Write Well

Before publishing a post, you should review your content to make sure that it’s grammatically sound. There are different online grammar checker tools you could use to review pages.

Writing well also means making sure that you fact-check all of your sources so you don’t become a source of misinformation. You want to be known as a credible resource person in your community.

6. Mention Influencers in Your Posts (Then Reach Out to Them)

Mentioning influencers in your posts gives you an excuse to reach out to these people and possibly get mentioned in their posts and social media accounts. You want to get as much exposure as possible. Working with established personalities in your field will do that.

This could also lead to collaborations in the future.

7. Promote Your Content

After publishing your posts, you need to take a proactive approach in promoting them. Social media seems to be the platform of choice these days to gain exposure. Use social media promotional tools to get eyes on your newly published content.

You can also try promoting your content using forums, newsletter subscriptions, email marketing, guest posting, and paid ads.

8. Acquire Backlinks

High-quality backlinks make your site more valuable to search engines. The more you have, the higher your post will rank on Google.

There are lots of tips online on how you could get quality backlinks for your blog. Familiarize yourself with the process so you could get the top domains to link back to your posts.

9. Make Your Blog Load Faster

Image optimization is one of the most essential on-page SEO factors to consider when building a blog site. You want to optimize your images because it helps pages load faster.

Fast-loading pages not only improve user experience, but they also get your site to rank higher on search engines. It’s one of the factors that Google uses to determine which domains are worth showing to its users.

10. Double Down on What Works

When you discover what works best for your blog, stick to it. Experimenting is great and all but you don’t want to shift to new strategies needlessly, especially if you already have a winning formula.

If you’re not sure what works best for blogs in your niche, you can always check what your main competitors are doing. See what they’re doing right and how they interact with their audience.

These are just some of the ways on how to increase blog traffic fast. As you get used to the grind, it’s possible to find more ways to improve your site’s overall performance.

The most important thing to remember is that you have to stick to your guns. You won’t see consistent traffic spikes overnight.

The post How to Increase Blog Traffic Fast: 10 Ways appeared first on The Blog Herald.

This is true for some, but obviously not for non-writers in the strictest sense.

At the same time, they know the value content brings to the table which is why they are adamant in building a blog.

But while they can outsource the writing to someone else, maybe they want to take up the challenge and sharpen their verbal skills at the same time.

If you find yourself in this position, you’re in luck because this post will share all the things non-writers must know before writing their first blog post.

Determine Your Topic

The assumption here is you have a good idea of what you want to write about for your very first blog post.

However, you want to make it count. After all, this will be the first thing visitors will see on your blog written by you.

Therefore, you may want to determine, or at least refine, your blog topic before anything else.

For instance, you have a fitness blog set up.

As it stands, fitness is a very broad subject – it would be next to impossible to write an article that covers everything there is to know about the topic.

Therefore, it’s best to break it down into smaller subtopics.

What about fitness that you want to discuss?

Better yet, what aspect of fitness are you knowledgeable about?

Digging deeper from there, could I break down the subtopic into even more granular topics?

More importantly, what do my potential readers need to know about the subtopic I want to tackle?

From here, you should have a handful of topics lined up for the next few weeks or so.

There are tools that can help you break down your topic, but I’d rather you use the method above for starters.

The last thing you want to happen is to get stuck with using tools and software that might prevent you from getting any job done.

Which brings us to the next point:

Just Write

My advice is to just write whatever’s in your mind about the blog topic.

At this point, don’t worry about grammar, spelling, and sentence construction.

Your focus is to write the blog post the best way you can a sentence at a time.

The goal is to grease the wheels by just paying attention to the act of writing.

Oftentimes, people are bogged down by the smallest details of writing that only discourages them from getting even a word out from them.

By doing it this way, you leave all inhibitions behind and just crank out words you feel describes what you’re thinking.

Expect the end product to be a very rough draft. Some of its parts may be very incoherent and have lots of errors.

The biggest takeaway from this is you actually got the hardest part of the job out of the way.

From here, it should relatively be smooth sailing from here on out.

Proofread and Edit

In this part of writing your very first blog post, tools will play a major part in the editing process.

Since you’re not a full-blown writer, there will be parts in your blog post that need rewriting for clarity or corrections.

However, that would be difficult especially if you’re not fully aware of the best writing practices.

For this purpose, there are two tools I would recommend: Hemingway and Grammarly.

The former is a web-based tool that helps you write concise and straight-to-the-point sentences similar to Ernest Hemingway’s prose.

Copy your blog post and paste it on the text bar. Hemingway will then identify the issues that need your attention.

Keep in mind that the issues it points out aren’t necessarily incorrect.

In fact, you don’t have to correct them if the current words and sentences are much better in conveying your ideas than the ones suggested by Hemingway.

But by editing them accordingly, you can make your blog post easier to read by your audience. By using basic terms and rewriting the sentences, you get to connect with more readers much better.

One thing that Hemingway doesn’t check is grammar.

In essence, using correct grammar shows your mastery of the language. This not only shows authority to readers, but also shows how well you present the topic to readers.

And to help you correct your grammar, use Grammarly.

It’s a Chrome extension (or Firefox add-on) that you can install and use from your browser. It identifies the errors that you must at least review, if not correct with just a click.

The good thing about this tool is it’s free. While you don’t have access to its premium features, the free version is good enough to whip your blog post to shape.

Just to reiterate, the tools above could shape up your writing and help you produce better blog posts moving forward.

However, the operative word here is “could.”

Tools in general are not answers to your problems. With Hemingway and Grammarly, they provide you with guides on how you could write your very first blog post.

That said, tools may not always be correct. There are words or phrases that it identifies as mistakes but really aren’t.

Ultimately, you need to practice due diligence when editing your blog post using both tools.

Take a Break

After hours of immersing yourself in the writing process and having edited your post, it’s time to take a step back and let your written work site first.

For non-writers, just getting an article finished is an achievement in itself.

However, the battle’s still not done yet.

You need to re-read your content another time to ensure that the information contained within is correct and accurate.

But to get there, you must take a break first and get your mind off what you just wrote.

The idea here is to allow your mind to freshen up before going deep into the weeds of your writing again.

Ideally, give yourself a day to let your mind rest completely before getting back up the saddle.

With a fresh perspective of things, you may see mistakes and errors that you weren’t able to see before.

Conclusion

There you have it – four simple steps for writing your very first blog post.

There’s nothing fancy about getting an article up and running before publishing it.

What’s important is to spill your ideas onto the page. From there, things’ll get easier as you edit and put the pieces together.

You’ll be surprised with yourself as you write the blog post without regard to anything!

Related posts:

5 Headline Types You Underestimate When Writing a Blog Post

5 Things to Remember Before Launching a New Blog

The post Writing Your Very First Blog Post: A Non-Writer’s Guide appeared first on The Blog Herald.

When it comes to Real Estate, 53 percent of the potential customers search out for apartments, homes, or land online. And at least 92 percent of people search online at some point in their decision-making process. Below are some key points as to why every Real Estate business should have an online presence and how they can harness the power of a blog and social media to boost their business.

Keeping Tenants Engaged

As we all know, tenant retention is a massive problem in big complexes where there are dozens of apartments and hundreds of people living together. With the power of blogging, realtors or builders can develop a strong community where tenants feel a sense of purpose and have a certain sense of engagement with other tenants and the management. This way, Real Estate companies can avoid tenant turnover, which for most of the time, is a huge cost for companies to bear.

If you have a blog up on your real estate portal, you can share the latest information about events, offers, and tips. This is also a very positive way to address residents’ issues profoundly. You can encourage other residents to guest post on your blog and ask them to share their ideas on how to make this place more livable and lovable.

The positive reviews in comments sections can work as testimonials and help build your brand.

Establishing Your Brand as a Market Leader

Real estate is a cutthroat – or you can say a very competitive – business. Most agencies and agents are competing against each other in a very saturated market place.

The real estate companies that cover themselves 360 degrees have more chances of making sales than an average run of the mill agency. If you have a professional website up and a great looking blog with high-quality content, you are delivering a strong message to your audience that you are serious about your business, and they are in safe hands.

The real purpose of a real estate website is to engage consumers and transition them into buyers. You can do that by establishing a well-organized blog with high quality, well-researched content to help build your credibility. If your post regularly, then it goes a long way, your readers will know that you are a serious brand and have your game sorted.

Building Rapport and Credentials

Building a great looking user-friendly website will significantly help your real estate business. However, you will still need a blog as an extension to your website that you can use to build rapport with investors and customers. The purpose of the blog is to engage the audience and build your credentials while subtly promoting the range of services you offer.

Your business blog can be pivotal for showcasing that your knowledge is sharp and up to date in the local market. There are ways you can establish a rapport and stand out from the crowd. Examples are building property tools like tax calculators, unbiased buying guides, lists of local parks, hospitals, amenities, market trends, historical prices, and projected price graphs.

You should provide a range of tools to help clients make wise, rational, and unbiased decisions. According to a representative from Agenthire, “If you provide all this, the new homebuyers will naturally build a rapport with your brand, it helps them make a conscious decision, and they are more likely to choose you as an agent for their next purchase.”

The goal here is to establish yourself as a market expert.

Related posts:

How to Start a Popular Blog for Real Estate Agents

7 Tips for Starting a Successful Real Estate Blog

The post Three Ways a Blog can Help Boost Your Real Estate Business appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Blogging platforms like Medium have built their business model around the fact that people are willing to pay to get access to narrow, in-depth instructional blog posts that get into the nitty-gritty of implementation of new skills.

Google realizes this, too, and rewards long in-depth posts that engage readers, as measured by time on site.

On that note we let’s talk about how you can level up as a blogger while leveraging your expertise to create online courses that people will pay for.

Find an Angle

As you may have already found, you aren’t going to be successful in creating a course about a topic just because you’re an expert. First, you need to do your homework and find out if there are already courses in your field of expertise and where the gaps in coverage are.

You also must gauge the interest level people have for the topic. For instance, if there are not a lot of courses available about your topic, is it because you are the first to notice the opportunity or because people just aren’t interested.

Because it’s the internet, let’s start by assuming there’s a wealth of courses about your topic. You need to determine a subtopic, or niche, to answer questions people are searching for or asking about in forums that aren’t being covered by other content providers.

For example, there are lots of courses about blogging out there. But not all of the courses talk about how you can structure your articles into topic clusters, for instance. Maybe you can devote a course talking about this, from how you can extract content ideas for your topic cluster and how you should link them to each other.

One tool you can use to search for a good niche is Quora. The site covers everything under the sun. Look for questions related to your expertise that people didn’t answer correctly.

If you are wanting to develop a coding course, StackOverflow might be a good place to start. It might also make sense to google “[your topic] forum” to find relevant threads. Make sure to limit your search to the most recent year or so to dodge wasting your time with stale discussions.

Set up Your Tools and Equipment

Since you already have a blog, you can set up an online course there.

First, you need to identify the tools you need to use.

If you’re using WordPress for your blog, there are membership plugins like Wishlist Member that locks content you create on your site.

The only way people can access those pages is if they subscribe to your paid tiers. This way, you can monetize your course without the added expense of using another platform to set things up.

Other functionalities you must consider before creating your course are the following:

• Video capture (determine if your standard video capture tool is sufficient)
• Audio capture/recording (most operating systems have one that comes standard separate from the video tool if needed)
• Screen recorder, like CloudApp
• Video editing tool (for more advanced functionality that a screen capture tool might not be able to provide)
• Best presentation software to build your slide deck

Outline Your Course

Next, you need to think about how the content of your course is organized.

It’s best if you can outline the course first before you start recording anything. Flesh out your ideas first and organize each module to ensure that they flow and progress logically according to the topic you’re discussing, even go so far as writing out the script for each video.

For example, if you’re going to discuss topic clusters, you need to include the following information:

• Introduction
• Keyword research
• Internal linking
• Content structure
• Case studies

The intro should set the tone of the course as it lays down its foundation and sets the expectation that the people must have upon entering your course. Also, you should define the goals they will achieve after finishing through your modules.

The case studies are a vital part of your course. This shows to people that what you’re teaching works. There’s no reason for people to buy your course if you can’t produce the results that your course sets out for people to achieve.

Present statistics and real-life examples based on your experiences to help communicate the effectiveness of your concepts and teachings.

Hit Record

When recording your courses, you have to decide whether to record yourself behind a solid background or just stick to using slides and discussing each point.

If this is your first course, it’s best to keep things simple and just stick to presenting the course using slides. Once you get more comfortable with the recording process and have more budget to record your videos in a more professional studio, then it’s time to take things to the next level.

Also, expect to make mistakes when recording. It’s not going to be perfect but what you can do is limit the mistakes so you don’t keep repeating the same module just because of a single error.

What you can do is break down the module into different sections.

For example, record a section of the module then hit pause when done. Take a break and practice the lines for the next section before recording it. If you do commit a mistake, you can just repeat from the time when you last paused your video.

Field Feedback and Iterate

Once you’re done recording, it’s best to invite some beta users as a focus group whom you can send the course for review.

The group must consist of your peers who are equally as knowledgeable as you are and people who aren’t familiar with the topic.

This way, you can get different comments about the course and what you need to improve on it to make things better.

This is important because there might be details in the module you missed or a topic you didn’t cover that is important in the course. You can then make the necessary changes and additions to ensure that the course is useful for all levels.

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Related posts:

Professional Development Courses You Should Take to Succeed as a Blogger

Why Investing in a Digital Marketing Course is Worth It

The post How to Create Online Courses on Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

It’s easy to lay prey to pitfalls such as procrastination and poor time management since you have full control of your time and effort.

However, with enough willpower and determination, you can get more things done in less time. That means you can earn money from your blogging efforts faster and better.

Below are ways you can increase blogging productivity so you can build better blogging habits.

Pace Yourself

Blogging is a constantly moving practice. Even when you’re sleeping, your blog does the work for you, assuming that you have great content ranking on top of search results.

That said, don’t make the mistake of cramming everything in a single sitting. That means doing as much as you can until you’ve exhausted yourself day in and out.

While there’s nothing wrong in making the most out of your time blogging, you risk burning yourself out. And once that happens, itwill be much more difficult to become productive. You’ll reach a point when you feel spent from all the work you’ve put in even though there’s still loads to do.

If that’s the case, you need to train pacing yourself when blogging. One of the best methods to do this is the Pomodoro Technique.

In principle, you work in blocks of time with breaks in between. Normally, a working block takes between 15-25 minutes and the breaks takes 5-15 minutes. By alternating between working and taking a break, you maintain the balance of work and rest during the day.

As a result, you lessen the risk of feeling overworked and keep up with the demands of blogging for prolonged periods.

Stay Focused

Successful blogging requires you to plan out ahead of time so you set goals for yourself. Meeting these milestones allows you to feel a sense of achievement every time you accomplish them. At the same time, it brings you closer to making money with your blog.

But to set goals, you need a system to keep track of them. It’s easy to lose your way with your goals especially if you have lots to achieve within a period.

To help you stay focused, you need to use productivity software for startups that will serve as your system. Clickup is one such tool that helps you become more accountable in your blogging goals.

You can create projects within Clickup if you run different blogs. In each, you can create tasks and include details there. You can then set up the start time and deadline for each. Doing this, the tool will send you an email if you need to start the task or if you weren’t able to finish it.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to use a tool. If Google Sheets or Microsoft Word works for you, by all times use either instead. The goal is to help you focus on the goals at hand so you can maintain your blogging productivity.

Use an Editorial Calendar

In relation to preparing things ahead of time, an editorial calendar helps you keep track of the blog posts you’ll be writing soon. You can use a calendar to make this – just note down the article title to be published on that day so you have a visual way to keep track of your stuff.

There are other editorial calendar tools that you can use instead that have additional features. For example, CoSchedule can automatically share your post on social media upon publishing. You can also change the publishing dates of all your articles (you can do this using WordPress) if you want to re-publish them again and re-introduce them to your readers.

Use Automation Wisely

In relation to automation, you need to be careful about which tasks to run on autopilot.

You can’t automate the writing process using an article spinner, for instance, because it won’t produce an article suitable for publishing on your blog.

If you use AI-powered content creation, it’s time to ditch it instead as they can bring more bad than good to your site.

However, if you’re repurposing content, you may want to consider using automation to help you disseminate your content faster and more effectively to your audience. Using CoSchedule, for instance, allows you to share old posts on social media to help give them a new lease in life.

Aside from social media, other blogging tasks you can automate include sending your latest post to your mailing list. This way, you don’t have to log in to your email marketing tool and inform your subscribers about your latest post.

Have Time for Yourself

Part of productivity is having time for yourself. After working like a dog for weeks and months and making a sizable amount from your efforts, it’s only fitting to get yourself a pat on the back and celebrate.

Small things like treating yourself with good food or relaxing on the couch and watching streaming videos on www.getflix.com help release endorphins to relieve stress and help you be happy.

Experiencing these things give you incentive to keep doing a good job with your blog for as long as you can!

If you enjoyed this blog post, please share them using the buttons to your favorite social media site.

Related posts:

A Productivity & Health Guide for Home-Based Entrepreneurs

Tips for Bloggers to Stay Productive

The post 5 Ways to Increase Blogging Productivity appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you are one of these people, ready to try something new, we have a few tips for you to help you succeed in this unique business environment.

1. Pick the Right Industry

You’ve definitely got to be careful creating a startup in today’s volatile market. Many industries are changing for good so make sure you aren’t simply duplicating another’s a failed business. Look at things in a new light and ask yourself how the world has been changed in the recent months by the pandemic. What can you do to address the specific needs of consumers?

It’s helpful to know that while many people aren’t spending in large amounts right now, they will be eventually! In fact, Americans’ savings accounts are becoming more full than ever! Think about what your neighbors are going to be buying with their savings. What are folks using their stimulus money for? Those are the industries you might want to target! Home improvement, for example, has soared during quarantine periods. Stay clear of industries that you and your friends have gone without during the pandemic.

2. Choosing a Product or Service

In addition to choosing the right industry, it is equally important to choose the right product or service within that industry.

If your skillset leads you to the service industry, get familiar with how services are being changed. Read through this guide to understand how a person-to-person business has changed.

If you’re wondering how to create a successful product read this to make sure you’re bringing a product into the market that can work for those you are trying to serve. Also, consider e-commerce as an option that will allow you to sell your product without a physical retail location.

3. Go Contactless

Convenience is no longer the only concern driving consumers to contactless delivery options. Ecommerce already allows for this and is a great option. If your business startup idea doesn’t allow for contactless delivery, make sure you do what you can to make your business as contactless as possible.

4. Sanitize and Wear Masks

If you can’t avoid having people interact face to face, make sure to show your customers that you do care about their well-being. Sanitize everything regularly and wear a mask. Although many of your clients or customers will not choose to wear one, it is important for you as the owner to show that you will do anything necessary to protect those that purchase from you.

5. Utilize Social Media

Social media usage has skyrocketed during the pandemic as people are at home more. Additionally, social media companies are making it easier to use their platforms to sell directly to consumers. Use these new techniques and post often on social media. You can increase sales and overall brand awareness as you build your new startup.

6. Select the Right Funding Options

Make sure you know and understand your funding options. While the pandemic may scare you into thinking that you need to hide away your savings under your mattress, don’t wait too long to make your move in starting up your business. In the not-so-distant future, the market may become packed with fresh startups and difficult competition.

To help you navigate through these times, find a CRM finance tool to manage your money and understand the relationship you have with customers. Profile clients and prioritize loyal customers while targeting promising ones.

Also, read more about what kinds of loans, grants, and other financing options you may have in 2020.

You may be surprised how quickly you can get started on your dream of self-employment! Don’t let the pandemic stop you from making a difference in your industry!

The post 6 Tips For Starting a Business During a Pandemic appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Then enter 10x content. Compared to a standard piece of original content, it’s better — 10x better.

The fact that it can increase your blog’s traffic gives 10x content an upper hand. Particularly, it can rank on Google faster and for more keywords because of its usefulness and length. It’s more shareable, too.

So, let’s not beat around the bush and learn from excellent 10x content examples.

1. The magic of copywriting

“Content is king,” says the timeless saying in the world of internet marketing. And an article on Kicksta’s blog, How to Turn Good Instagram Captions Into Great Captions – With 1000+ Examples, is proof.

The article is detailed. It starts out with a relatable perspective (if you own an Instagram account) — that creating Instagram captions can be difficult.

This is EXTREMELY useful as you can apply the same principles here to engage with your audience, whether it’s sending a DM on Instagram or leaving comments on other posts.

Then, it slowly introduces relevant topics such as how captions can increase engagement. And it wraps up the post with a list of Instagram captions that you can easily copy. Plus, it comes with bonus content — an infographic material.

10x content elements:

• Quick links section – It breaks down its myriad of information into easily accessible links.
• Easy-to-read value – It supports its claim in the title with good readability and actionable tips. Plus, it shares copywriting ideas that readers can easily follow.
• Well-organized structure – It features subheadings and examples. So, its long-form and in-depth discussions are not challenging to go through.

2. Visual introduction

A visual introduction to machine learning does exactly that — introduce you to machine learning visually. What makes it a winning example of 10x content? It proposes a visually appealing and entertaining approach to a rather dull subject.

It kicks things off by telling you about computers applying statistical learning techniques. Then, it integrates examples using machine learning models. And ultimately, it recaps its strongest points.

10x content elements:

• Visual appeal – The website’s design is enticing. Just enough colors are present to provide value and entertainment — not to distract.
• Interactive nature – It features moving elements that add fun and help visitors ease into the experience.
• Concise texts – A smart choice of texts enables visitors to understand information that is otherwise hard to digest.

3. Information, numbers, and a simple journey

Fact: An easy-to-read article like How Moz Built a $35M Company Without A Single Salesperson is 10x content material.

In the post, the writer details the journey of Moz’s Rand Fishkin — and he didn’t pull any punches. He discusses how Moz’s guy could build a million-dollar empire from scratch.

10x content elements:

• Loaded with highly engaging information – It provides a blast of information backed by facts. The same information is less dull to come across since they’re sprinkled with specifics and numbers.
• Simple and easy-to-understand words – It uses “small words” to present details. It also uses quotes to highlight important points.
• Straightforward post – It focuses on Moz, and in this case, Rand Fishkin’s story. No irrelevant topics or overly appealing visuals.

4. Direct advisory

Chanel Reynolds is the author of What Matters Most, co-founder of GYST.com, and founder of Get Your Shit Together. Her purpose is to assist with wills, advance care directives, and other critical end-of-life documents. And her website is a clear-cut example of 10x content because it answers a problem — and it’s direct about it.

10x content elements:

• Acknowledges a problem – Once you scroll down, you’ll find “Life Goes Sideways”, a useful and relatable section. And if you scroll down, you can read about how the idea for Get Your Shit Together came to be.
• Proposes a solution – “Get your shit together” is advice you need to hear if you haven’t prepared for life’s possibilities.
• Clever choice of words – The headline in this unique content is attention-grabbing. The supporting texts are easy-to-read, too.

5. Show of personality

Meet Norbert, Voila Norbert’s email marketing tool. The moment he enters your life, he tells you how he can be of service:

“I can find anyone’s email address,” he says.

So, if his services are what you need, why not take him up on his offer?

10x content elements:

• Above-the-fold CTA button – To take Norbert up on his offer, you need not navigate elsewhere on the page. The spot he introduces himself to you is also the same spot where you can click a Call-to-Action button.
• Social proof – Well-known brands and CEOs associate themselves with Voila Norbert. For proof, just explore its homepage.
• Clean design – The choice of contrasting colors over a white background makes for a pleasant atmosphere. Without objects and other distractions, you can easily understand the texts.

 Related posts:

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The post 5 Excellent 10x Content Examples To Boost Your Blog Traffic appeared first on The Blog Herald.

What does the extra “s” mean?

In simple terms, the extra letter means that the website is encrypted, and your connection is secured. That “s” is SSL or Secure Sockets Layer.

In this article, we’ll talk about SSL and how it can be used to secure your site and its users.

What is an SSL?

As a user, you’ve probably encountered websites where you fill a form and hit submit. But where does all this information go?

When you have users that use and submit sensitive information on your website such as banking details, passwords, address, and contact numbers, security must be your number one priority.

SSL’s job is to safeguard sensitive data between web clients and web servers. Meaning, everything that you input on a website will be transferred over a secure connection to prevent hackers from eavesdropping and looking at sensitive information.

The evolution of the internet involves better protection and security of websites and its users.

But the bad news is that a lot of creative online criminals are also doing their best and lurking around various websites looking for their victims. Not having SSL can make you their target.

Why is SSL important?

Google, the top search engine, encourages website owners to install SSL or HTTPS protocol to ensure that your website is encrypted and safe to access.

SSL ensures that any of the sensitive data of your website’s users are transferred through a secure network.

However, despite the importance of SSL, the implementation of some websites are yet to be adopted.

It could be because of the price or even the process of installation.

Luckily, more and more hosting providers like Bluehost offer free SSL certificates and free installations when you host your website on their platform.

Why should you install SSL?

Having an SSL installed is vital and here are the reasons to convince why your site should have one.

Encryption

The main benefit of installing SSL is encryption.

This means that when you or your users enter information at your site such as username and email address, the data will go to multiple layers before it goes to its intended receiver.

In contrast, having no SSL means that these sensitive data will be sent as plain text and attracts malicious cybercriminals to use for their own accord.

Increase in credibility and customer trust

If you ever come across a warning of “your connection is not private” then that is the exact sample of how an unsecured website loads to their visitors.

If your website is like that, chances are, visitors won’t push through with their visit.

Having SSL is crucial from a customer perspective. They can easily see whether the data they will send is secured.

If they have this peace of mind, they are more likely to do business with you.

SEO benefits

Google gives secure websites a bit of a ranking increase compared to those that don’t have them. This will give you an advantage over your competitors that lacks better security.

Google has also rolled out warnings, and penalties for sites that do not have SSL certificates installed.

So it’s a win-win situation if you install one on your website.

How to install SSL

Installing an SSL certificate is a really simple way to secure your site and your users from hackers.

To install SSL, determine what type of certificate your blog needs.

Most of the time, the standard SSL is enough, but depending on your industry and the number of sites you own, you may want to look for paid SSL certifications and professional installation if you’re not familiar with such.

However, in most circumstances, using a paid Certificate Authority is a lot better especially if you have your own enterprise site or own multiple sites.

Check out these trusted companies that offer SSL to make sure yours won’t fail you and your users.

If you want to install the certificate yourself, you can do so by going to your web host control panel and pasting your certificate.

If your website runs on WordPress, you can also use a plugin like Really Simple SSL to configure your certificate automatically but you should buy your own certificate first for this to work.

Conclusion

Installing SSL is a really simple solution to add a layer of security to your website. So make sure not to overlook the added security you can do to your site and protect your users from being hacked.

Related posts:

How to Build a Popular, Trustworthy Blog

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The post How Does an SSL Work on Your Blog? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Your copywriting technique is key to keeping your blog engaging to your readers.

Having an audience that is interested and satisfied introduces your blog to a broader audience.

Copywriting is a lot more than using words and having a lot of them.

A good copywriting keeps readers from bouncing away from your site and helps you build a loyal readership that you can turn into subscribers or customers soon.

This article will help you frame the copywriting skills that you need to generate a discussion with your blog readers.

Know your readers

Copywriting helps you communicate important messages that are intended to a specific audience.

This copywriting guide says that a copywriter must understand their client’s needs.

Do you know who your audience is?

It would help if you didn’t start a blog without understanding what you want to write about and who you want to read your blog

If you don’t know them yet, look into Google Analytics and study the usual type of people that visits your blog.

This will tell you the demographics of your readers and the popular topics your blog produces.

Additionally, you can try interacting with your readers more through your blog’s comments and social media.

Knowing what your audience will like will guide you into what type of copywriting techniques you need to insert in your blog.

Add personality to your posts

Your audience will look for personalized interaction; thus, injecting character can be more engaging rather than the usual direct sales pitch.

Adding personality may be received differently, some may like it, some won’t.

But it’s essential to add a little spice throughout your content.

People like reading something when they are a part of a conversation rather than one that feels like they’re being lectured.

• Inject humor into your post
• Break grammar rules
• Use illustrations
• Write personal quotations
• Encourage readers to participate

Everyone loves a great storyteller.

Learning this skill will make your audience connect with you and engage with your posts.

Do your research

Writing and not doing research is a bad combination.

Being an authority means you should know what you’re talking about.

But not all authority sites are experts. They reached that point because they provide information backed with facts.

It means they did their research well.

Knowing what you’re writing about and using statistics and data from authoritative sources will make your article more professional and credible

Create killer headlines

Using compelling headlines are a sure way to get your content noticed.

David Ogilvy believed that a wasted headline is a lost 90% marketing budget.

Users read the headline and not the body content.

But there are more benefits to using catchy headlines. Here are some ways you can use headlines in your post.

• Trigger curiosity with how-to headlines
• Use numbers to deliver data
• State benefits to entice readers to click

Consider user experience

Your content will be viewed on multiple devices with multiple screen sizes.

That’s why the number of characters matters.

Instead of focusing on the technical qualities of content, make sure to be more aware of your user experience.

How a user interacts and feels about using your website describes how well you can bring them in a lot more often.

When people don’t have a pleasant experience using your website, chances are, they won’t come back.

Follow best practices

Check your competitors and see which patterns and contents that are working well for them.

Owning a blog means you have all the freedom in the world to do what you like. But, what you want may not always be the best for your blog’s long term success.

Use your freedom to know the things that will stick and will work for your audience.

Even your favorite bloggers all follow best practices because they’ve been in this industry for a longer time than you.

Take inspiration from their work to give you a new perspective on better ways to keep your copywriting in check then create a better version of that for your blog.

Conclusion

Keep a balance on all the different aspects of your site. Your copywriting skills will develop over time, and you’ll learn to do what’s best and avoid what’s not working.

There is no quick and easy way to doing knowing the perfect copywriting style you’d want to take on.

Use our tips to ensure that you deliver the best content and improve your blog’s readership and engagement.

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The post How To Develop Copywriting Skills To Engage Your Blog Readers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

One of the biggest mistakes of blog owners is not developing a deep understanding of their customer’s needs.

Designing your content shouldn’t be based on your interests alone. It should be a standard to collate your research and create the patterns in your data and combine it with what we call a user persona.

These user personas add a human touch to your data, which will then allow you to develop your content with a specific purpose for specific people.

You can leverage your understanding of your audience to create a better experience on your blog.

What is a user persona?

A user persona is a character that has the qualities based on your current or ideal customers.

User personas are created to mimic how your customers react and feel on certain aspects of your blog.

By knowing the demographics and psychographics of your blog’s data, you can construct various personas to make it easier for you to market your blog.

When you have a blog, you need to be able to determine what kind of content will be the most relevant and useful to your readers. These characters that you build are instrumental in growing and improving your content.

What should a user persona include

A user persona allows you to paint a picture of what your audience looks like. When you create one for your blog, make sure that it answers these questions:

• Who are they?
• What are their goals?
• What hinders them from achieving their goals?
• What are their pain points?

Even though your users may be reading the same content you produce, they still have their preferences on specific topics.

If you dive deeper into what their motivations are, every decision you make for your blog will be a little easier.

How to create a user persona

The problem with a lot of personas created is that they are based on irrelevant data or pure guesswork.

Creating a user persona shouldn’t be based on your assumptions on who your audience is.

Instead, it should be based on data-driven research using your blog’s analytics and insights to reveal your reader’s needs and wants.

You may also need multiple layers of sources to understand your audience’s motivations and desires to drive them to your blog instead of your competitor’s.

Usually, making three or more personas to represent your audience is enough, but a few more won’t hurt and can help you cover all the bases of some of the small yet valuable types of audience your blog has.

Here are some easy ways to capture information for your user persona.

Survey questions

Ask your readers questions using a tool like Hotjar. You can easily create a bunch of questions and let your visitors directly answer for you.

You can get a few ideas on what’s the right questions to ask your users here.

Check your site analytics

Google Analytics helps you dive deep into who your audience is and enhances your process of creating a user persona.

You can see various information from location and age to what pages and how long they stay on your site.

Research on social media

Social media sites like Facebook provide data about the followers of your page. Aside from checking out your Facebook Analytics, you can also post and ask your followers specific questions for your research.

After having sufficient data, eliminate what you think is irrelevant and capture only what is best for your business goals. You can even spend time to add a few details to each of your persona’s wants since the data can also give you an insight into each of their perspectives.

The next step after you have your data is to plot them and create a character.

Give them a name and a face as well as add a job that best describes them and the ones that they like to read the most. You can also include the brands they love the most.

Refine all these user personas you created so you’ll be able to quickly digest the information you created that you will use to guide you in improving your blog and content.

Conclusion

Understanding who your blog users are is vital in the success of your blog.

Before you can see success on your blog, you must understand who your audience is and what they like.

Use your user persona as a tool to create your content with a specific target user in mind rather than making one for everyone.

This information will help you control what type of content you will create and what kind of content will be successful.

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The post A Quick Guide To Creating A User Persona For Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Creating an authoritative site is one of the biggest challenges that bloggers and site owners face.

Google has a sophisticated algorithm to identify sites that are of high value. These sites consistently rank above other competing websites as a result.

Furthermore, authority sites usually have these common traits:

• Credibility
• Huge traffic volume
• High search rankings visibility
• Significant social media following

By building an authoritative site, you are telling Google that you are one of the high-quality sites which can lead you to rank your content in the top spots of the search results.

This can then create a domino effect where you’ll get more traffic, more social shares, and a wider following.

Follow our ways below to build your authority website.

Research for low-hanging fruit keywords

Lots of keywords are so out of reach that it’s almost impossible to rank on the first page of the search results. This is why you can opt for low-hanging fruit keywords instead that are not within the top positions on the search results and are quickly achieve than the rest.

Finding these keywords is pretty straightforward.

Use keyword research tools to help you find search phrases with lots of monthly search volume and low competition automatically.

Develop a content strategy

A content strategy means setting a defined purpose for your content.

Is your content meant to generate leads, or is it for improving your search visibility?

Here are the three factors to consider adding to your content strategy:

• Identify your audience
• Measure your results
• Amplify your blog content

If you’re not doing any of the three above, you must improve brand strategy pronto!

Once you’ve developed a clear goal, you can choose to use the low-hanging fruit keywords you researched and schedule the creation of high-quality and linkable assets on your website.

Use topic clusters

The competition to be at the top of the search results is intense. More and more bloggers and site owners are exploring new ways to rank on Google.

Because of that, SEO practices have evolved, and we now have a so-called topic cluster where a single page acts as the central pillar for other multiple related content pages.

These related pages all have the same topic that links back to the main one.

The purpose of topic clusters is to have multiple linking action signals that tell Google that this pillar page is of high authority. Therefore, it should rank above the rest.

This video explains in detail what topic cluster is all about.

The topic cluster page has a double purpose: to organize numerous pages and to try and build a better ranking on search engines.

Find backlink opportunities

A link is just a link in the past, but the backlinks today can be the reason why you’ll get more audience.

Make sure not to employ black-hat techniques as it may backfire and cause you to lose your hard-earned results.

Even before writing your content, you can already look for the biggest list of link building strategies so you’ll have a clearer idea of how to build your website assets.

Here are the most common and useful link building opportunities you can do:

• Organic backlinks
• Blogger outreach
• Social bookmarking
• Site directory posting

Your links shouldn’t be from just anyone with a website.

Therefore, when you build backlinks for your brand, make sure to get high-quality ones that came from authority sites that are relevant to yours.

Benchmark your performance using competitors

To truly understand where your website stands, make sure to check on your competitors.

Your competitors contain a whole lot of information you can use to your advantage.

First, check their standing and what kind of SEO strategy they use.

They may be ranking on keywords that you can use to outrank them.

Also, look them up on social media and see what types of content work for their audience.

You may find your competitors repurposing content which people are responding well to.

Your competitors are a goldmine when it comes to questioning whether you are on the right track.

Doing a comprehensive competitor analysis gives you a bird’s-eye view and understanding of the players you will be competing within the market.

Conclusion

Building an authority site can take over a year to achieve.

Lots of factors to incorporate and test before you can tell that you have an audience that looks up to your content and an SEO value Google recommends.

But looking beyond SEO, you should consider upping your game by exploring other channels. For instance, it’s not a longshot for authoritative sites to employ app development as part of their strategy.

Instead of going to the website, they can simply download the app and get updates from there.

yIn the meantime, You will surely increase your site authority little by little if you apply all our ways to your blog’s strategy.

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The post 5 Easy Ways On How To Build An Authority Website appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Sales enablement is made up of all the sales content, technology, and communication tools needed for a company’s sales processes.

It helps to empower salespeople to be highly efficient throughout the sales cycle. This will help them to focus more on providing the best service possible to each customer they interact.

Here, we’ll take a look at five helpful sales enablement blogs for empowering salespeople. Advice from these experts will broaden your knowledge and guide you towards achieving a successful sales enablement program.

That’s not all; they will also help you deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.

Sales Enablement Blogs For Empowering Salespeople

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is a very popular blog that spends so much time and effort perfecting and selling their software. They also work so hard to educate their partners and users on the best inbound marketing and sales tactics.

Their sales blog covers a wide range of topics that appeal to both sales reps and marketers. Because they started as a marketing platform, HubSpot knows the importance of sales and marketing coalition, which is a vital component of sales enablement.

HubSpot highlights the fundamentals of sales enablement programs. It is an excellent blog for both beginners and professional salespeople out there that genuinely want to acquire more knowledge about sales enablement.

2. Salesforce

Salesforce CRM is undoubtedly one of the most robust CRM tools in the industry today. Most sales professionals have used Salesforce at one point or another to keep track of their daily sales activities.

Because many Fortune 100 companies around the world use Salesforce, they understand the most critical factors of any sales team. For example, in this post, Salesforce highlights some of the reasons why you need a sales enablement program.

They write evergreen content that’s backed by solid research and real-world data, making their blog very rich in context for sales enablement programs.

3. Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) provides priceless tips for effective content marketing, which includes sales content.

The CMI blog is curated by a team that breathes content marketing every day. Additionally, CMI hosts one of the most significant events on the internet today (Content Marketing World event) on the topic of content marketing.

The blog has a truckload of knowledge on the topic of sales enablement. Whether you’re planning to start a new sales enablement program or enhance your existing program, the CMI blog has you covered.

4. Sales Hacker

Sales Hacker is a platform for thought leaders on the topics of sales and marketing. The blog focuses on building and shaping the future of sales via educational and actionable content and events.

They offer world-class thought-leadership, conferences, webinars, sales training online courses, and digital partnerships – this is evident on their homepage.

Sales Hacker understands the evolving role of sales enablement in businesses and wants to provide ongoing support and assistance for those people that wish to learn more about it.

Apart from their blog, their webinars and podcasts are platforms where they share their knowledge about the industry. They also get to talk to experts and pick their brains about sales.

5. Challenger

You might have come across one of the best-selling sales books from Challenger before. Their blog utilizes the same knowledge that sets the grounds for the books that make the Challenger a trendy brand.

The blog focuses on sales tactics and strategies that describe the “challenger rep.” Sales enablement consists of using the articles within the entire sales process and delivering valuable resources for your prospects.

As a sales rep, one of the best ways to up your game is to use content to tell a story. This reason inspired Challenger to write a post about enlightening sales professionals on the importance of storytelling.

Conclusion

There are lots of other enjoyable and valuable blogs out there on the topic of sales enablement. This is all about providing your sales team with the necessary content, tools, and resources needed to help the buyer in the buying process and finally close the sale.

The content should be educative and highlights solutions that solve the buyer’s pain points. Being aware of the latest tips and tricks for implementing a successful sales enablement program will help keep you ahead of the game and crush the competition.

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The post 5 Helpful Sales Enablement Blogs For Empowering Salespeople appeared first on The Blog Herald.

In this post, you’ll learn some of the common mistakes marketers make when building their email lists.

Building an email list is just one part of a solid lead generation strategy. We suggest that you check this post on the lead generation process if you wish to learn more.

With that out of the way, let’s jump right in.

Here are the 7 common email list building mistakes that marketers often make.

1. Marketers Try to Buy Email Subscribers

Instead of earning email leads organically, some marketers resort to buying their lists from vendors. And we get it. It takes time to build a sizeable list for email marketing. Buying emails seems like a faster solution.

You’ll find many freelancers on Fiverr who would offer you email leads for a price.

However:

It’s not a good long-term solution. The people behind the emails you buy will likely not have heard of you. And they are probably not interested in whatever you have to offer. The emails you’ll send them will be nothing more than spam to their recipients.

Nobody likes unsolicited emails.

2. Marketers Ask Too Many Questions

People will gladly sign up for your list in exchange for something they want. You promise to send an informative e-book, newsletter, or other special offers? Interested parties will hand over their information in a heartbeat.

But:

Don’t make them fill out long forms. And you definitely don’t ask for information that you yourself wouldn’t hand over to a stranger.

Go take their name and email address. Asking for anything more will only raise the user’s suspicion.

3. Marketers Don’t Invest in a Landing Page

A good landing page will encourage users to sign up.

But what is a good landing page to begin with?

It’s a dedicated page with one purpose in mind: To get people to take action. In our case, it’s to sign up for a webinar, a free tutorial, or any other asset or event your audience might find interest in.

And in exchange, they will give you their email address.

Neil Patel has a dedicated page for newsletter subscriptions

Some marketers add a small entry form on their homepage to ask for emails. But smarter ones will have an entire page dedicated to generating leads.

4. Marketers Are Not Using a Content Upgrade

What is a content upgrade?

These are tools that you add on top of the content you’re providing your audience. Imagine you have blog posts on how much replacing carpets cost in your city. You can also provide a calculator that will compute carpet replacements costs based on how big a room is.

WordPress users will find plugins that help create pop-up forms with integrated content upgrade features in this helpful Profit Blitz post.

5. Marketers Don’t Send Welcome Emails

Don’t stop when you get a user’s email address. Immediately follow up with a welcome email.

Your want to thank your lead for signing up and give a preview of what they can expect from here on out.

This also helps ease them into your email cycle. If they start receiving marketing copy, they may unsubscribe from your list immediately. But by sending a welcome email first, they would know what to expect moving forward.

Shopify has a compilation of the best welcome emails including this one from Huckberry.

6.  Marketers Have Weak Call-to-Action Buttons

That line of text or button that tells customers what they should do next. You may not realize it but it does play an important role in your lead generation campaign.

The right combination of words can have people giving out their email addresses or ignoring you completely.

Instead of a generic “Sign Up” or “Click Here to Subscribe”, how about getting more specific. If your newsletters deliver valuable SEO advice, then how about using a call-to-action button like “Improve Your SERP Rankings Today” or something similar.

7. Marketers Make It About Themselves

Perhaps the biggest mistake there is in lead generation, marketers tend to make it all about themselves.

What you should be thinking of first is your audience. What are they getting in exchange for giving out their email?

Go ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I being too aggressive with my emails?
• Am I not delivering any valuable information?
• Are my freebies really making a difference?
• Should I be sending more or fewer emails?
• Am I giving my subscribers what I’ve promised?
• Are my emails too focused on the products I’m selling?
• What sort of information do my subscribers need?

Answering these questions could lead you to provide more powerful and effective emails. And in turn, it will give your potential customers better reasons to give you their emails.

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The post 7 Common Email List Building Mistakes appeared first on The Blog Herald.

While customer success is far from a novel concept, it’s also the easiest to forget especially if you’re focused on generating profits instead of genuinely helping people.

By ensuring a good customer experience, you also afford your business the opportunity to grow.

Through customer success, you increase customer retention rates. Also, you get to back up marketing, sales, and other vital departments of your business.

To get a clearer picture of an effective customer success strategy, I’ll elaborate on the top reasons why you must implement one for your blog.

This way, you can reap the benefits of lending a helping hand to your customers.

Temper expectations

As you try to meet your customers’ expectations, you should always keep yourself from going overboard.

Setting the bar too high can work against you if you are unable to maintain your performance.

So take it down a notch and back away from over-delivery.

Know your limits and come up with a sustainable plan that allows you to deliver the goods and satisfy your customers.

Here are different ways that you can go about this:

• Present timelines –  And always follow through! By doing so, your readers don’t expect instant results. Instead, they learn to wait a certain period from you before they can see results
• Discuss problems and solutions openly -Teaching them that there are solutions to their problems is practical. This approach also takes away pressure from you. Rather than lean on you every time they encounter a problem, they can simply turn to themselves to easily resolve it
• Be realistic -The key is moderation. As mentioned, set expectations where you can deliver work on a consistent basis so you won’t have any problems meeting it

Maintain professionalism

Always remember that you represent your brand.

Therefore, how you interact with your customer matters.

For them to see your product or service in a positive light, you should also approach them the same way.

For example, you address your customers with a friendly attitude. If so, they’re likely to address you with a friendly attitude, too.

To make this happen, start by knowing your customer. Understanding who they are and what they want gives you a clue about how you should treat them.

Focus on providing value to readers

Your readers go to your blog for value. So if you keep providing them that, you’re not handing them a reason to leave.

Again, you shouldn’t downplay the importance of knowing who your customers. Knowing this will help you appropriately deal with the different challenges of knowing a customer along the process.

But be determined in moving forward with this agenda. Remember, getting hold of who your customers are will help you figure out the kind of value that they need.

Effectively communicate

Communicating with your customers is not a one-way street.

If you think that speaking out to them is about your message, then you need to think things through.

You should also allow customers to voice out their opinions and concerns.

Some might not have a problem with how you present your message. But you can’t say the same for the rest.

By having a platform where you and your audience can talk, you put the focus back on the customer.

Below are a few ways to effectively communicate with your customers.

• Use screening tools – Video conferencing programs and live chat software are some tools that a customer success manager gears up with.
• Conduct webinars -Doing so gives your customers a venue to ask questions.
• Step-by-step tutorials -Providing in-depth lessons on what your customers should do can easily and quickly help them.

Build better relationships with readers

If your reader gave useful feedback, the right thing to do is to acknowledge the effort he made.

For example, you can send them a thank you email to show your gratitude. By not taking them for granted, you are nurturing your relationship.

Another way to go at this is to offer them something special. You can send freebies or exclusive content their way, for example.

Contribute to your customer journey

Customer success is difficult to measure. It’s like putting a price tag on friendship.

However, this is only true if you don’t map out your customer journey.

From here, you can determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) for customer success.

When plotting out your customer touchpoints, don’t hesitate to be as detailed as possible.

Along with the benefits, you should also bring to light the obstacles that your customers can face.

Remember, your blog can help ease your readers into becoming customers. That is if you can bring them down your marketing funnel.

Better understand customer insights

As you aim to help your customers succeed, you should also monitor customer health.

And a surefire approach of monitoring customer health is to turn to the KPIs that can give you the real deal.

Below are some of the important KPIs to watch out for.

• Customer churn rate -A low customer churn rate is a good sign. It means you’re dealing with a low percentage of customers who choose to not renew their subscription
• Net Promoter Score -If your customers are likely to recommend you to their peers, you should take it as a win. It means you get a high Net Promoter Score from them
• Rate of adoption -It refers to the number of beginners and advanced users of your product or service over a period of time

Conclusion

Remember, customer success is about making your customers feel confident that they can rely on your brand.

If you leave them feeling doubtful, your credibility goes down.

And shortly after, so will the number of customers you have, as well as revenue.

Therefore, don’t ignore the usefulness of a customer success strategy!

If your blog doesn’t have one yet, then it’s time to craft an effective one!

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The post Customer Success Strategy: 7 Reasons Why You Need One for Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Setting up a landing page is the easy part. Getting this to have a high conversion rate…that’s a different story altogether.

The overwhelming amount of online content published every day, combined with the ever-changing ways how customers decide what to buy, has made getting the right traffic to visit your blog more challenging.

Add to that is the reality that only 1-3% of your site’s traffic will convert into leads and customers.

So, rather than hustling to get more content published and promoting them like there’s no tomorrow, what you should be focusing on is improving your landing page’s conversion rate.

Why is it important to prioritize conversion rate optimization?

Having a 1% landing page conversion rate may look pathetic, at first…

…until you shift your perspective.

The fact that you got this 1% is that people are visiting your blog and are liking what you see.

What conversion rate optimization does is to get more of these people already visiting your site to do what you want them to. 

That’s why brands that practice conversion rate optimization makes more money and cut back their cost per acquisition costs by half.

The best part?

Conversion rate optimization is a fairly new strategy, so not very many bloggers—even marketers—are using this.

Source

That said, here are seven ways how to amplify your landing page’s conversion rates to grow your email list and generate more income through your blog.

1. Craft a compelling Call-to-Action button

Your Call-to-Action (CTA) button is the most critical part of your landing page because it’s what’s going to give your visitors a reason to take action.

When writing your CTA button’s message, don’t just tell your visitors what to do. Tell them what they’re going to get. Not only will this make your CTA button more specific, but it’ll also give them the gist of the copy of your landing page.

The length of your CTA button’s message also matters. Jeff Bulas recommends to use between two and five words in your CTA button like what H&M uses in their newsletters:

Source

Also, steer clear from using any jargon in your CTA button. They may make you look smart, but if your visitors can’t understand them, they won’t click.

The CTA button’s design also matters. The color should make it stand out enough to quickly catch your visitor’s attention, but subtle enough so that it doesn’t distract them from reading your copy.

At the same time, you’d want your CTA button to be large so that it’s easy for your visitors to click whether they’re viewing your landing page on their laptop or smartphone.

2. Use text CTAs within your blog post

Your visitors have grown so accustomed to seeing image banners that they’ve now started skipping any image offering something, even if it’s a free offer. Nielsen Group calls this “banner blindness,” and it’s apparent in the heatmap results of this web page:

Source

Now that doesn’t mean you should ditch using these banners altogether because they can still convert a few of your visitors.

However, if you want to get more visitors to convert, sprinkle text CTA links within your blog post.

This has been the strategy HubSpot has been using ever since they discovered that 93% of their blog readers click on text CTA links while only 6% clicked on the CTA banner.

Source

The reason why this works is that text CTA links blend more seamlessly with the rest of your blog post because it looks like another subheading, making it less likely for your readers to skip it.

Tools like Hotjar and Crazy Egg have a scroll map feature that’ll show you which sections of your blog posts do your readers stop scrolling and start reading.

Source

These are the prime areas where to include your text CTA links.

3. Improve your landing page’s loading speed

Ideally, your landing page should take no longer than 3 seconds to load. Any longer than this and your visitors will leave.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help you see how fast your landing page is loading. It’ll also give you a list of issues within your landing page and, more importantly, suggestions on how to fix these to boost your landing page’s loading speed.

4. Use landing page templates that are functional and visually appealing

Have you ever gotten turned off by a landing page, but can’t seem to put the finger on what exactly made you feel that way?

Chances are, it’s got something to do with the landing page’s design.

That’s because your landing page’s design subconsciously affects your visitor’s decision-making process.

And that’s the reason why your landing page isn’t converting as many visitors as you’d like, despite having all a spectacular copy and all the critical elements in place.

You don’t have to be an expert graphic designer or web developer to have a visually appealing landing page. You can find lots of free landing page templates that you can use.

When designing the layout of your landing page, a clean layout with lots of white space works best because it helps your copy and CTA button stand out.

Source

This will help lead your visitor’s eyes to where you want them to focus and take action.

5. Share your USP in your headline.

That stands for your Unique Selling Proposition.

More than telling your readers what sets you apart from others in your niche, your USP explains how you can help them solve their most pressing problems.

You can do some research on Quora as well as Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Here, you’ll not only learn about their dreams and struggles, but you can also pick up the words they use to describe these in your USP.

This is what Uber did when sharing its USP on this landing page.

Source

Phrases like “set your own hours,” “get paid fast,” and “earn on your schedule” are just some of the words you’ll most likely hear from their buyer persona.

Another example that puts this tip into practice is from Locksmiths of Durham, where their USPs are outlined above the fold. It’s the first thing people see whenever the page loads, and it’s a great way to explain what the site is about.

6. Focus your copy on your customer

When your target audience search online, they’re looking to solve their problems — not someone else’s.

So, when they visit your landing page, and they read through the copy, the only question they want answered is, “what’s in it for me?”

That’s why you’ll need to have a well-crafted buyer persona or avatar. This will give you an insight into what are the things that are keeping your target audience up at night and the goals they want to achieve.

Your buyer persona will also give you an insight into what information they want to know, how they want it presented, and even in what order.

If you don’t have a buyer persona or avatar for your blog yet, you can quickly create one using an online buyer persona generator tool.

7. Match your opt-in forms with your offer

Landing page forms have one sole purpose: to help you collect your visitor’s contact details. Without this, you won’t be able to connect and build a relationship with your visitors, and eventually convince them to buy.

The mistake many bloggers and marketers make is including a form that asks a lot of information.

Your target audience is very protective of their contact details. They would only give out their details when they’re convinced that they get in exchange is worth divulging this information.

So if you want to increase your landing page’s conversion rates, you have to make sure that the value of what you’re offering should justify the amount of information you’re asking from your visitors.

If you’re landing page is offering an ebook or a training video, asking for their name and their email address should suffice like this one in Amy Porterfield’s website.

On the other hand, if you’re offering a free product demonstration and you’re targeting B2B businesses, then it’s perfectly understandable to ask for more details like their job title and their phone number.

If you need a lot of details, make this less intimidating by auto-filling the long form with your lead’s contact details like this landing page from Salesforce.

Source

Conclusion

Optimizing your landing page’s conversion rates is a relatively new, but very promising, strategy to get more customers and grow your business. That’s because it allows you to maximize the current traffic your website’s already receiving.

At the core of the seven different tips shared here is your target market. Things like search engine optimization can affect your conversion rates. However, in the end, it’s the people that visit your site—not Google—that will download your content offer, register for your webinar, or buy your products.

Get to know who’s your target market. Understand their pain points and dreams. Learn what words resonate most with them. These are what’s going to help you write an eye-catchy headline, a copy they can relate with, and a call-to-action that’ll get them to take action.

Above all, make the process easy for them. Have a clean and uncluttered landing page design and don’t scare them away with a lengthy and intimidating form.

The tips shared here aren’t a magic formula that’ll boost your conversion rates overnight. However, stay consistent with this, you’ll begin to notice a positive change in both your analytics and revenue.

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The post 7 Tweaks to Amplify Your Landing Page’s Conversion Rate appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Having your own blog is beneficial besides it being a profitable venture you can embark on. Blogs serve as a creative outlet, perfect if you love writing and its craft. It is also a platform that you can use to talk about topics that you’re passionate about and let these reach a wider scope. You even have the potential to provide solutions and value in another person’s life.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to blogging! And if your interest is getting piqued, you may be asking yourself, “How do I start a blog?”

Blogging is more than just typing in words and sentences, and then publishing them online. There are actually processes behind the craft that can help you build a side hustle blog that is successful. Whether your goal is to earn money from blogging or spread the word about a topic or cause, you can create a system that can let you achieve that.

Brainstorm Your Blog Niche

When it comes to topics, anything goes when it comes to blogging. So, why is determining a blog niche important?

Having a niche is going to give your blog the focus and consistency it needs. It’s the focal point from which your design, theme, and even content plan is going to spring from. It will help you map out the path your blog will take.

A blog niche will help you attract the right audience and readers because whatever the topic is, there will be people who will share the same interests as you do. The key is finding this group of people.

So, before you even start with the technical aspects, ask yourself why. Why are you writing this topic? Why is it important to you? Why are you interested in it or passionate about it? Will you be motivated enough to continue to write about it once you’ve launched your blog?

Build Your Lean Marketing Funnel

Once you’ve decided on the niche, you’ll have to then figure out who your target audience is. The population of Internet users is huge and you don’t have to cast your net that wide. Ryan Robinson said it best, “Remember, when you write to everyone. You’re writing to no one.”

Put yourself in the shoes of a potential reader of your side hustle blog. Get a clear understanding of who they are and what their needs are, and that will help narrow down the crowd. Address their pain points, empathize with them, and help them find solutions to their concerns.

It isn’t enough to attract your readers’ attention. You have to reel them in, make them stick around, and eventually convert them to customers and loyal fans. This can be done with targeting and posts tailored to your audience.

Develop Your Content Cluster

It may be tempting to start blogging as a side hustle and launch your blog as soon as you set your mind to it. But there is value in taking the time to develop a content strategy first. What types of posts will you be publishing? Will you focus on shorter articles or long-form media? How about lists, infographics, photo essays?

So, before you share your blog to the world, start writing first! Brainstorming on what specific topics you’ll be writing in your niche is made easier now because of online tools like ContentWonk and CoSchedule. Take photos, create the graphics and videos that you need, or tap the help of someone who can do it for you.

Create quality content that can you can post for at least 3 months. By that time, you would have enough data to evaluate which posts are gaining traction, which you can use to tweak your strategy where you see fit.

Publish and Promote Your Content

Once you’re satisfied with the content you’ve prepared, it’s time to choose which platform you’ll be hosting your blog. If you have your own website, then it’ll be best to create a page dedicated to the posts. Otherwise, utilize blogging platforms such as WordPress until you can get a domain of your own.

Come up with an editorial calendar and commit to a publishing schedule. Consistency is key and is one of the foundations of building a strong blog following. Create a pattern so your readers know when they can expect from you.

In line with this, you also need to create a plan for promoting your blog on social media. Repurpose your blog post into short posts and tweets that you can easily share to your followers. You can also go beyond social media and head to forums and other online communities that are related to your niche. What’s the use of having great content if it won’t be read by your audience, right?

Monetize your blog

You’ve built a solid audience, your blog’s reach is growing wider and wider. You’re probably thinking of ways on how to make money from bin logging. One of the first steps is to make sure that all the elements of your post are optimized for conversions, such as using an attractive headline, headers and embedded images. Make use of scroll pop-ups and backlinks, as well.

You can also start with affiliate marketing and partner with companies and brands that are in the same niche as your blog. Just make sure that you do your research when it comes to choosing the best affiliate programs for your blog.

For instance, you may want to avoid Clickbank for reasons stated in the post. And if you personally don’t like Clickbank, then move on to the kind platform to try out.

Going beyond your blog itself, you can use blog posts to create eBooks about certain topics in your niche. You can then use these as freebies in a sales funnel to gain more clients or sell them to gain additional profit.

Starting a blog may seem like a tedious process, and while it does take time, doing these steps can help build you one that produces quality content that will eventually be profitable too. We’ve hopefully answered your concerns on how to start a blog, so what’s there left to do? Go out there and start your blog now!

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The post 5 Steps on How to Do Blogging on the Side appeared first on The Blog Herald.

According to a study by Econsultancy, only 22% of businesses in 2017 were satisfied with their conversion rates. Aside from low conversion rates, companies also cited low visitor engagement and high bounce rates as their major concerns.

Leads won’t automatically turn into sales by themselves. You need to have a compelling reason for your visitors to do business with you. Here’s a quick guide on how you can get in more sales for your business.

Step 1: Score ‘em!

To convert your leads into sales, the first thing you need to do is get to know them. Some leads may be an offer away from turning into a sale, while others may need a bit more convincing. The only way that you can profile them properly is by segregating them based on where they are in your sales funnel.

Luckily, you don’t have to do this manually as there are plenty of CRM platforms to choose from. Simply choose the platform with the best leads management feature. Make sure to choose a mobile-friendly CRM so that you can manage your customer relationships even when you’re on the go.

Step 2: Grab their attention

Who doesn’t love free stuff? One tried-and-tested technique for converting more leads is to offer an incentive for every sale. It can be a discount coupon, a free product, or an insightful ebook. As long as it addresses your prospects’ pain points, your freebie could nudge them into placing an order.

You can also grab their attention with a kick-ass landing page. Most people use landing pages to catch leads, but you can also use it to convince people to buy. Consider adding a shopping cart with a payment gateway to your landing page to encourage impulse buys. Don’t forget to include customer testimonials.

Step 3: Have an excellent FAQ page

Even if you already have a good amount of leads, they don’t always translate to sales. Why? Because there’s not enough information about your products and/or services that will nudge visitors to buy. This is where an excellent FAQ page comes in.

A great FAQ page covers different topics related to the sales process. From usage to pricing and access to customer support, your FAQ page should support different stages of your sales funnel. Ask your sales team to come up with a list of FAQ they receive and answer all of them. Make sure to display your FAQ page on your website where your visitors can quickly see them.

Step 4: Follow-up your leads

Sometimes, the simplest way to nudge prospects into buying is to remind them that you exist.  A simple follow-up email offering your help is usually an effective way to get your prospects into buying mode.

And while you’re creating that follow-up email, make sure that it stands out. Chances are, your competitors are also reaching out to your leads so you don’t want your email to get lost in the noise. Instead of pushy sales messages, send out clever emails that your leads won’t be able to resist.

Step 5: Present your USP

In other words, make your leads an offer they can’t refuse. In the good old days, businesses could get away with giving information about their products or services. But these days, you need to give your leads more.

Your USP or Unique Selling Proposition should be focused on solving their problems. With customers relying on the internet to educate them about products and services, giving them the hard sell is just not that effective anymore. A more effective approach would be asking them what you can do to help. And when they speak up, make sure that you listen.

Step 6: Spy on your competition

There are plenty of reasons why you should “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer”. For one, you can learn a lot about your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. You’ll see which of their strategies work and which ones don’t. If you’re after the same target market, you can then figure out how to offer something similar or better.

Whether it’s checking on their pricing, studying their marketing strategies, or testing their website, you’re sure to find information that will help you convert your leads into sales. The goal for spying on the competition is not to beat them, but to serve your potential customers better.

Conclusion

The secret to getting more sales is to focus on building better business processes. Companies will often focus on lead generation efforts, but won’t really do much to keep them warm. If you don’t have a process for qualifying or nurturing those leads, all your efforts will end up in vain. You need to constantly keep track of your sales pipeline to move leads closer to a sale.

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The post How to Convert Blogging Leads into Sales appeared first on The Blog Herald.