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Grow Your List With Your Content
Grow Your List With Your Content
All marketers will tell you that the most important asset you can build is your email list and it is something they all wish they had focused on earlier. You own your list and can follow up with highly targeted email marketing to turn prospects into buyers.
Creating lead magnets of various descriptions is a great way to entice people to part with their valuable email address in return for a highly valuable free gift.
These gifts can be reports, checklists, video, audio, infographics etc. The point is they must be high-quality and extremely useful; in fact, your readers should be prepared to pay for it. Don’t go for volume; we are all swamped with too much information, and this is why quick checklists and the like are becoming more popular than a 100 page eBook!
OK, now that you’ve created and made multiple freebies and given your audience multiple entry points to your list, you can focus on growing your list, and a great way to do that is to write highly informative content on your blog, and then to offer a congruent freebie in exchange for their contact details.
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging and content marketing to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
Of course, you need to get eyes on the content first, so let’s look at a few ways to attract readers to your blog content using a couple of content marketing staples.
Write Enticing Headlines
When creating content to get more traffic, it’s important to make sure that people are interested in the topic. Interest begins with appealing headlines that make people curious enough to click on them.
So, what makes them curious? Many things in a headline can make the reader mentally ask a question when they see the wording and phrasing.
Let’s look at a few strategies and techniques you can use in your content publishing, specifically your headlines.
Some tips for writing effective headlines include:
- Use Numbers – Using a number implies a certain amount of information will be given to the reader and it makes them curious. Compare these two headlines. “How to Build Your List” or “7 Free or Low-Cost List Building Strategies”. Which one would you be more likely to click, if you were interested in building your list?
- Use the Right Keywords – It’s essential that you know what words your audience uses when they talk or think about their needs, pain points, and the solutions. This is because knowing the exact phrases and concepts will help you choose the words, phrases, and feelings that will persuade them to take action. You can also research keywords using tools like those from SemRush.
- Make Readers Think and Question – Using the right words can challenge your audience’s perception about something, just by reading the title. It can make them think, “How can that be?” or “Have I missed something?” This works well if you craft a title that mentions their problem and hints at the solution using an unexpected word or phrase.
- Mention the Benefits – People always care more about their results rather than how fancy the features are. A good way to develop a click-worthy headline is to focus on the benefits or the ultimate result of the solution provides. For example, “Save $50 Per Week Using These 3 Tools.”
- Offer Realistic Hope/Promise – Another tactic you can use to create headlines is to offer realistic hope and solutions. “How Single Mother Quits Waitress Job and Earns Six Figures with Part-Time Home Business” is a good headline that offers readers hope and encouragement for changing their status quo. The headline promises to tell you how to earn six figures from home, using the single mother as their case study or example. However, the hope must be realistically do-able for most people. Avoid unbelievable, sensationalized, exaggerated, or click-bait headlines at all costs.
Taking the time to create the right headline for your target audience ensures that you reach and connect with them in a more personal way – through their needs, thoughts, and feelings. Once they feel connected with you and want the benefits offered, they are compelled to sign up for your opt-in freebie or other item.
Make On-Page SEO A Top Priority
Another way to get more traffic to your opt-ins is to rank higher on SERPs. On-page SEO can help you accomplish this. Your audience usually finds you via search engine result pages (SERPs). A search engine’s job is to provide their audience with a list of relevant, useful information and content, based on the words they used in the search.
Your job is to ensure that your target market can find your content using the specific words and phrases that are natural to them.
Here are a few SEO strategies and tips to help you rank higher on search results pages:
- Titles – Use keywords in the first three words of page URLs and titles. Try not to use more than 50 characters per title. Be sure to clean up the URL by taking out the stop words unless it makes the URL misrepresent what the content is about.
- Make Content Long Enough – Long content of 2000+ words isn’t a must. However, when it comes to getting more traffic, Google and other search engines tend to rank longer content (2,250 to 2,500 words) higher on the results pages. Hubspot reported that some readers prefer to read content that contains at least 2000 words (current in 2021 but the ongoing trend is for higher quality lengthy content). So, the take-away here is to incorporate both types of content on your site. Depending on your goal, your “ideal” word count likely needs to be greater than in previous years.
Keep in mind that you are writing for your readers and they don’t count words. They want accurate, detailed information that fully answers their questions and solutions that help them fix their problems. Give them what they want/need and a little more.
- Avoid Duplicate Content – This is important whether the content is on your site or off your site. If you have duplicate content on your site due to sales pages, set the site to skip indexing the duplicate content. Also, avoid plagiarizing by double checking content using a service like Grammarly.com or Copyscape.com.
- Include Meta Descriptions – These are necessary to ensure that your audience can find you. Include the keywords that help your audience find the content. If you use software like Yoast SEO, it will help you optimize your content.
- Create Title and Alt Image Text – Don’t just upload an image to your site without filling out this information. This is helpful to search engines and readers, in case the images don’t load. A side benefit is that it helps people with visual impairments to read your site more easily.
- Use Header Tags – You have H1, H2, and H3 header tags that you can use to organize and make your content look better and make certain words stand out. In addition, it helps search engines determine what information is important. Make these tags logical with the most important words using H1 tags.
- Edit Well – Spelling and grammar do matter. If you spell things wrong, the search engines may not send the traffic your way. If people find the content, they won’t trust you as much if you have these issues. You don’t have to be perfect, but you do need to use grammar that is appropriate for your audience.
Finally, be sure to add internal linking under the articles and blog posts with relevant content. This helps your audience find related information on your site. In addition, it also helps search engines to properly map your site and send the traffic to you.
If you want to know more about nurturing you list, check out the featured resource below for a free Simple List Building report; download, read it and take action 😊
Scheduling A Series For Your Blog
Scheduling A Series For Your Blog
A series is a good way to keep people tuning back in for more. It works the same way on television – you tune in weekly to see what happens next after you’ve seen a cliffhanger or an upcoming episode snippet.
But what can you do a series on for your blog?
Reviews make a good series. If you buy and implement a digital product, then you can go through the entire process in a series of blog posts. For example, your posts can include blogs about why you bought it and how the order and download or access process went (including s sales copy review).
Then you can break down each step of your implementation process over the next several days. If it’s a text product, do a chapter a day. If it’s a video product, do a video a day.
Always link to the previous and subsequent blog posts so that a new visitor who happens to land on your blog in the middle of it can find their way back to the beginning.
Step-by-step tutorials also make a great series for you to blog about. For example, let’s say someone wanted to know how to start a container garden. You could go through a different topic each day, such as:
- Planning your container gardening space
- Picking which fruits and vegetables you want to grow in each season
- Building your containers
- Getting the soil just right
- The planting process
- Dealing with pests
- Harvesting…etc.
Q&A sessions with your audience work well for a series, too. Invite your subscribers to ask any questions they have – you can even schedule certain days to be “Mailbox” days where you answer audience questions.
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
7 Ideas For Individual Blog Posts
If you’re not doing a series but posting individual blog posts, there’s a whole host of options for you! Make a list of these and try to mix it up on your blog so that you’re not using the same old approach on a continual basis.
Top tip lists make great blog posts. These are tips you gather and then blog about, explaining each one. For example: 7 Ways to Fall Asleep Faster, 6 Ways to Say No to Sweets When You’re on a Diet, the Top 3 Tips to Help You Save Money at the Grocery Store, etc.
Tips like this are easy to digest and people can usually come away knowing they’ve absorbed a few good nuggets, even if they didn’t appreciate all of the tips you presented.
Reviews were mentioned in the last section as far as series that you can do. But they can also be done for individual blog posts. You don’t have to draw it out if it doesn’t call for it – or if it’s for a tangible item that you want to go over.
Rants about a topic can generate a buzz for your blog. You don’t want to be nothing more than a person who rants all of the time, but if you find something in your niche that needs to be exposed or discussed, don’t be afraid to talk about it!
Curated content is something that everyone is buzzing about in the blog world. You can use short snippets where you quote or reference something from a magazine, news site, book or other blog and launch a discussion about it on your blog.
Usually, you’ll do something like present a snippet or portion of something someone else created (not a swipe of their material, but a very small piece, with a link back to their site).
Then you add your own commentary about it. For example, you might be writing a blog post about hot flashes – and the Mayo Clinic has an article about it. You can take a quote from that, link back to the full article, and discuss their findings.
Think of it like a dinner party where you say, “Oh did you hear about …” and then you add your own opinions, insights, and even disagreements about the subject matter.
Categorized posts will help you develop content for your blog. Some people map out the categories for their blog as they go. But if you have categories ahead of time, it can help you develop content just for that purpose.
For example, if you ran a health blog, you could do a post on health tips for boys, girls, teens, men, women and seniors. Then you can go through your editorial calendar and say, “I haven’t done anything on senior health this week, so I’ll do that today!”
Breaking news is always beneficial when blogging. Usually, this will help you see a spike in traffic because it’s new and there won’t be as many posts about it as there will be later.
Set up a Google Alert so that you get notified when news happens about certain topics. But also go out and search Google and specific news sites for breaking topics yourself.
PLR (private label rights) can give you great ideas. You can buy PLR for about $1 per page – and just rewrite it or use it as springboard content to give you an idea of what to blog about for that day!
Soliciting Guest Bloggers For Filler Content
Guest bloggers will often seek you out once your blog becomes a traffic hub for a particular niche. You won’t want to accept everyone who requests a spot on your blog.
But you may want to use a guest blogger from time to time, as long as they continue with the purpose and direction of your own blog. You can approach people or post blog topic jobs – sometimes you’ll pay for the post and sometimes the blogger will be happy with a link back to their own site.
You can ask someone who is an authority figure in your niche to provide a guest blog post – this reflects well on you as a blogger because you’re pulling in valuable resources for your own readers, which they’ll appreciate greatly.
Or, you can find new bloggers who are eager to get some experience under their belts. Either way, make sure the piece is suitable for your audience and don’t let the topic veer off course.
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Filling Your Blog Editorial Calendar
Filling Your Blog Editorial Calendar
When you get an idea to become a bona fide blogger, you really want to start off on the right foot. You know how blogging works and you take the time to find out which platform is best, which plugins will help you make the most of your visitors’ experience – but you get stuck when it comes time to create the actual content for your blog.
You’ll find that many marketers who teach this topic are always talking about themes and plugins – but that’s often because they make a significant commission on the promotion of those tools.
When it comes time to instruct you on creating content, they’re often just as lost as you are about the process, so you’re left struggling in front of your audience. It can be embarrassing and it can hurt your blog traffic if you start abandoning your blog frequently to wait for inspiration to strike.
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
You have to take a three-pronged approach to blogging. First, get everything organized. If you’re scattered on your blog, it confuses the readers, search engine spiders – and even you.
Then you want to map out a schedule for your blogging efforts. Having a deadline for yourself can benefit you and help you work towards a specific goal, not just something vague.
Last, you want to begin creating your content – and we’re going to cover three options for you to choose from – a series, an individual post, or a guest blog post (and you can mix these up – you don’t have to choose from just one).
Getting Your Editorial Calendar Organized
There are two things you can do to get organized. The first is a planning calendar and the second is an editorial calendar, which is for completed work that you are doing on your blog.
You can either buy a calendar or print one out from a site like this: http://www.pdfcalendar.com/monthly/. Print one out for the current month, and possibly the next month. You can schedule it as far out as you like.
This is your planning calendar. You can use this to fill in the days with whatever you’ll be blogging about (and we’ll go over that shortly). This helps you plan what needs to be written, and when.
This is perfect for using yourself or for whenever you’re using a freelance ghostwriter to create your blog content and you want to share it with them so that they can plan for publishing dates.
Once you have the blog posts created, you can use a different type of organizer to help you schedule them for publication. A free plugin called WordPress Editorial Calendar makes this a simple drag and drop process.
As soon as you upload a new post, you can drag the post around on your calendar to wherever you want it to be for it to go live. This can help if you have some timely information that needs to bump a previously scheduled topic.
By using a calendar plugin, you can glance quickly at your blog schedule and see where there are gaps. You want a consistent publication schedule, and we’ll look at that in depth next!
How Often Should You Be Blogging?
Many people want to know how often they have to blog. Well if you feel that way, you probably shouldn’t be blogging in the first place! Blogging should be for someone who can’t WAIT to wake up in the morning and share more information with people.
If you lack that, it could be a sign that you’re in the wrong niche. But let’s talk about traffic and authority. You’ll see some leaders in a niche who blog very infrequently.
This is sometimes because blogging is a side tool for them. They primarily use other things like television, radio, webinars and live, in person seminars to attract and cultivate an audience.
For bloggers who want to use this platform as their primary source of audience engagement, then you need to make a commitment to show up and share on a regular basis.
The more, the better – but there’s an asterisk to that*
* It’s only better when there’s more if there’s something valuable that you’re sharing. In other words, don’t blog just to blog. Don’t slap up meaningless content that dilutes the truly valuable blog posts you have just because someone told you to blog 3 times a day.
What you ought to do is go through and develop your editorial calendars to see how much content you can conceivably create. You’ll be surprised at how many ideas you generate once you understand how to look for good blog ideas.
As far as search engine bots (spiders) are concerned, they like to see a certain amount of “freshness” in your blog. They typically start off visiting your blog once every couple of weeks, but they narrow their visitation schedule to index your site if you blog regularly, and this looks good and helps you get content indexed faster.
It’s also helpful to your blog subscribers if you blog frequently. If this is a topic they’re interested in, then you want to be the go-to authority figure in your niche – the person they know will have continual updates and fresh information.
A daily schedule may be best but this can be quite hard to stick to. Some people post several times and day, and this is great too, but the problem is that their posts may be a little shallow and not have much depth or detail. Don’t burden yourself trying to reach that goal, though. Just be consistent. Sometimes less is more.
If you can only manage to post 2-3 times a week, then do it two to three times a week, but ensure your posts are high-quality and of a decent length i.e., at least 1000 words long.
However, there is such as thing as blogging too little. When you start going weeks or months without blogging, don’t expect a blog audience to stick around and become subscribers and fans of your content. In fact, they won’t even know who you are!
If you really want to know more about the power of blogging, you can take a look at the Rapid Blogging Blueprint training course or if you just want a few pointers for now you can grab the featured resource below for a free blogging report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Use Your Blog For Your Own Personal Development
Use Your Blog For Your Own Personal Development
Many people think of blogging as a way to try to make money online, perhaps by writing posts and recommending products or services where they get paid a commission.
But blogging didn’t really start that way. It was a way to jot down your thoughts and feelings and to allow readers to follow your journey, especially if they were going through the same situations.
And you can still do this, as well as using your blog for business. It may even help your business as it will make you more human to your readers and potential customers.
And it can help you to grow too, on a more personal level, so what are you waiting for?
By the way, if you are serious and want to take your blogging to the next level, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint. This is a premium level training that takes you through each and every step of setting up your own highly profitable blog and profiting from it. You can check it out here.
OK, on with the article…
Banish Distractions When You Blog for Personal Growth
When you embark on a journey of personal growth, you have a mission to become a better person. It’s not an easy task and very few people make a stated effort to do it. It requires a lot of introspection and uncomfortable inner work.
Thinking through tough questions about how your life is unfolding and what personal responsibility you have in how it’s turning out requires you to do it in an uninterrupted space.
If you’re in the middle of a thought and about to have a major breakthrough, it’s a shame when something – some outward distraction – thwarts your progress and throws you off track.
Many people blog for their personal development and self help issues. It’s a platform that allows them to streamline their thoughts and work through any issues they may have.
They blog whenever they have a few minutes of free time – maybe from a coffee shop or on a mode of public transportation during a commute. But some of these places are filled with distractions that pull you away from your train of thought.
Even in the comfort of your own home, it’s sometimes difficult to write at a steady pace without having your spouse or children enter the picture, the pets needing you to let them outside, or the phone ringing.
If you’re serious about making changes in your life, you have to be just as committed to the quality of your introspection as you are the consistency of it. That means refusing to put up with interruptions and distractions as you wade thorough the current state of your life to analyze it for a better future.
Create a space that’s reserved for your blog purposes. It can be a quiet nook of your home, with a comfortable seat and perfect lighting. No technology other than your laptop or PC should be present.
Enable yourself the private time necessary to reach into your mind and see what’s troubling you or what you wish you could do differently. Then you can formulate a plan of action that lets you evolve into a better person.
Don’t accept any guilt over the fact that you need some personal space to create your blog and learn form it. Everyone should indulge in some self care, and this is a form of that which can help you become more fulfilled in life.
A Blog Keeps You from Bottling Up Your Emotions
In a world where just about everyone is suffering from some sort of stress, it’s difficult to find a venue to be able to express your emotions without worrying that you’re just going to burden others.
In our private lives, we often keep the turmoil hidden just below the surface, never sharing our troubles, but instead keeping them bottled up so that we can deal with them on our own when time allows – if that ever happens.
But now, you can use a blog as your pathway to emotional peace and end the frustration of keeping all of that stress inside your head and in your heart. You can let it all out in a digital format and also get the support of your global audience.
A blog allows you to do this with your anonymity intact if you prefer – or, you can use your real name. If you’re shy or uncomfortable talking about things that are troubling you, then you may want to keep your name hidden.
Journaling on a blog is the perfect way to let out pent up emotional trauma. It’s very healing and can combine the down times with the good, letting you see that life is a mixture of peaks and valleys, so you’re never despondent for long.
With a blog, you can be creative about how you convey your emotions. You can do it with text, but you can also embed a video into a blog entry if you prefer to speak your mind on screen or off.
Blogging can teach you a lot about yourself. It lets you talk about and work through thoughts and feelings without having to expose yourself to anyone else’s judgment. It’s your digital home, and you can pick and choose who stays in your community – or whether your blog posts even go public or not!
The words you formulate on your blog will have an impact on your life as you sort through the emotions you’re going through. This isn’t just a chronological history of your day – it’s a focus on how you’re dealing with whatever happened, good or bad.
You can slant your blog so that it’s all encompassing regarding your life – career, parenting, relationships, health, etc. Or, you can target one area of your life for the blog that you want to improve. You get to choose how you document your emotional outlet, which can be very freeing and put you at peace.
Blogging Allows You to Heal from Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma can be very debilitating into the future. So it’s something you want to address before it festers out of control and haunts you at every turn. There are many different types of emotional trauma.
You may have experienced being bullied, natural disasters, medical events, grief, violence at the hands of strangers or loved ones or other forms of horrific abuse. Some people even endure multiple forms of trauma they have to deal with.
There are many forms of therapy and you may need to embark on a journey to find out which one best suits you personally. Therapy is never a one size fits all solution. Everyone responds uniquely to these methods.
Blogging is one strategy to help men and women deal with the events that have happened to them. It allows you to spend time working through your reactions to the moments you spent suffering and the time since then that has never been the same.
No matter how long ago the event transpired, a blog can assist you in journaling about it. You’ll formulate your thoughts based on the emotions you’re feeling at that moment and be able to take note of any healing methods you’ve tried in the past.
You can use the blog as a portal to vent and release anger and sadness whenever you have down moments, or to fortify your strength and prove to yourself that there are many good days sprinkled amid the bad ones.
One of the best things about using a blog to deal with emotional trauma is that it lets you create a community of other survivors. People who are online seeking solace about something similar can find your blog and interact with yourself and others who have experienced the same thing.
You’ll find that it’s not just the fact that they’re able to give you insight about recovery or provide comfort, but the blog helps restore your faith in humanity and feel a sense of camaraderie as you grow and provide support for others in your circle who have landed on your blog in search of help.
This can be a very soothing process for you as it takes the focus off of your own troubles and allows you to help heal others as you, yourself are healed. Your blog can be the beacon of hope and light that others need to get past traumatic events in life.
And remember, if you want a premium training on blogging the right way, check out the Rapid Blogging Blueprint which includes over the shoulder training on blogging the right way.
Or, if you just want some more basics to see whether blogging is right for you, check out the featured resource below for a free Blogging Fundamentals report; download, read it and take action 😊
Never Stop Learning Marketing
Never Stop Learning – Expanding Your Marketing Knowledge Is Crucial
Growing up, you may have heard the phrase “never stop learning,” which is such a powerful statement. The phrase goes for everyone in the world. Without knowledge, it may be hard to go through life and you certainly won’t achieve all that you would like!
Everyone everywhere has to learn something so they can survive. It is important to survive in the business world as well, so here are some tips and advice to expand your marketing knowledge.
First of all, if you are an Internet marketer, you have the power to learn new things by doing a simple search. There are sources out there which are not the most reliable, but still, you can learn something from it.
If you read a blog or an article online, think about it objectively. See if there is anything on that blog or in the article that you may never have used in with your own marketing. How can you start to implement it in your own business?
If the blog or article mentions something unfamiliar to you, keep that new idea in mind and do further research on it. New information should always prompt you to do more research about something, thus expanding your knowledge.
If the information is good, you will find out more about it and if it is bad, then the article you are reading may not be worth it.
Marketing tips are all over the place. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box. For instance, you will walk around and notice that advertising is all around you.
From the time you wake up, get your morning coffee and eat your breakfast, to the time you go to sleep for the night, there are hundreds upon hundreds of types of advertising you saw in one day.
You know that billboards are common, radio commercials, and even newspaper ads, but you may not think of the shirts people wear, or signs on the street as ways to advertise too.
Did you ever go to the city and see a sign for something like a museum or theatre and wonder what it will be like to go there? Well, thinking about that, is that not a way to market your brand?
Of course if you go to a big city and you are only an Internet marker, you may not be able to get a big sign placed on the street that says something like “this way to such and such brand,” but you get the idea.
So if you are an Internet marketer, there are tons of other things you can do to market your brand online instead.
Word of mouth is a common and cost-effective way. This is where you need to be creative. You may think that just asking your customers to tell people they know about you is enough.
There is more than meets the eye here though. Just telling people alone may not work. What you can do is make the time you spend with your client fun and engaging.
Most of the time if they are laughing or really enjoy themselves when they are doing business with you, they will tell their friends. They do this because people love to share things that are funny or memorable. If it is not done in a way that people will enjoy, they may forget about it themselves.
Simply making a video for YouTube talking about your brand is not the most effective way to go about it. Actually the most creative ways I have seen effective advertising is when you don’t even realize they are advertisements.
You can put a funny video of your or someone using a product that you sell. Talk a little about the product then use it in the video. What you don’t realize is people will see it and may go out and purchase the product. Don’t forget to let them know that you have a link to the product so if they buy through your link, you’ll make some money!
They want to use the product the same way that made them laugh in the video. One other way you can be creative with this is by going to an event of some sort and demonstrate your product. The more ways people can see how to use the product, the better chance you have at making some great sales.
There are many people in this world that are full of ideas and you will never know if they will work or not if you don’t try it yourself or expand your knowledge about it. Talk amongst your friends or engage with your audience online and see if they have any ideas.
With your friends, you can pretty much ask them directly if they have any ideas for you. With clients you won’t be able to be so direct.
After you have some idea of what you want to do for a funny or entertaining ad, talk a little about it online to your customers. Have people vote on two different ideas by asking “would you want to see this product used this way, or that way.”
Of course replace the “this” and “that” with the actual thing you will be doing. That way, you asked for their idea without really asking at all.
When you have an answer from your clients, the next thing to do is to make the video. Of course if you are camera shy, get someone who isn’t to do it.
Instead of a video, however, you may be able to write a song. Don’t sing the song yourself if you aren’t the best at singing unless you can be funny about it.
So I hope this article helped to expand your marketing knowledge just a little bit 😊. It is crucial to do this as you need to survive out there in the business world.
People will remember funny or entertaining methods of advertising instead of simply telling them about it. Do your research too and don’t just take the advice as you read it; make sure it is legit and that more than one person says it works.
And if you want to learn more about how businesses use branding then check out this great course called B.R.A.N.D. here. Or check the featured resource below for a free Brilliant Branding report.
