Author: Evan Hoeflich

How Your Digital Agency Can Leverage Client Reports to Prove Value

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How Your Digital Agency Can Leverage Client Reports to Prove Value

This is a guest post written by Raul Harman.

Agency-client relationships are very important, and those relationships must be meaningful, frequently somewhat more personal, and maintained at all times. After all, the success of your digital agency depends on client satisfaction.

The relationships with your clients are pretty straightforward; clients expect results and you deliver. However, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. In many cases, it’s difficult for clients to see value even when you provide them with viable results.

Client expectations can be quite overwhelming for digital agencies, mainly because clients don’t really understand how it all works.

Marketing campaigns take time to develop, and results are often small in scale. In time, the results will become more significant, and the value will increase, but that’s the part that’s difficult to communicate to the majority of clients.

Still, difficult doesn’t mean impossible, which is why you have to find a way to portray value to your clients. This is where client reports come into play. With that in mind, here’s how to leverage client reports to prove value.

Understand your clients

The first step towards creating exceptional client-centric reports is to understand your clients well. Understanding your clients’ needs is vital not only for the success of the marketing campaign but also for maintaining a good relationship with them.

The best way to learn what your clients need is to ask them directly. Undoubtedly, you’ve had a chance to negotiate with a client by now. Those negotiations are a perfect time to ask relevant questions regarding their needs and expectations.

The more information you manage to extract, the easier it will be to create reports everyone can understand and prove the value of your actions to them. That said, it’s important to discover to whom you’ll be reporting to.

Reporting to the CEO of the company or the head of the marketing department are two completely different things. In most cases, CEOs are concerned about the company’s profitability, while marketing experts tend to go into details about various tactics and strategies.

Leverage the best tools

The days of sending out chaotic Excel spreadsheets are long behind us. When it comes to client reporting, especially when you have to prove value, you can’t allow yourself to treat a client report as just another document.

The report should be an understandable data-driven presentation that you’ll present to your clients. For that to happen, you should consider leveraging the best digital marketing reporting tools you can find.

A good tool will allow you to extract valuable data from your campaigns and highlight the value of each action you’ve taken during the course of the campaign.

You can also combine results from various strategies, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and social media marketing to show clients how it all comes together to produce viable results and how those results bring value to the company.

Choose the right metrics and KPIs

Creating client reports comes down to extracting insightful data from relevant metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). As you may already know, metrics show your campaign’s progress and activities while KPIs show the value of your efforts and progress towards achieving business objectives.

That said, KPIs should always be aligned with specific business goals. For example, KPIs can be tied to objectives, such as an increase in sales, improvements in ROI (Return On Investment), improvements in customer service etc. That’s why it’s important to draft client reports based on client’s goals and objectives. Here are a few examples of relevant metrics and KPIs agencies should track.

Metrics to track:
KPIs to track:

Of course, which metrics and KPI you should track, depends on specific marketing strategies, campaigns, tactics and client goals. Each scenario is unique, and you must assess the situation before deciding what to track so that you can show value to clients.

Make it simple yet effective

Creating a client report is more than just adding a bunch of words and numbers on a spreadsheet and sending it via email. You have to make sure that a report is insightful, above else.

Moreover, you have to ensure that it’s understandable even by those who aren’t savvy in the marketing jargon and statistical analysis.

Therefore, you should focus on the design of your report. That said, make your reports simple. Here are some of the issues of presenting too much data in your report:

  • It can overwhelm your clients
  • Data may not be understood at all
  • If you’re not there to speak about it, the data may not stand on its own
  • Excess information can be distracting
  • Clients will make their own biased analysis of your data

So, to make things more engaging and to highlight the value of your actions, consider including visuals in your reports. Visuals are more memorable and easy to comprehend. Furthermore, visuals are well-suited for any audience, whether it’s a CEO or a marketing professional.

Be transparent

Portraying and proving value to clients is oftentimes very difficult. Clients can’t always understand what it is that you do or why. For example, a bounce rate of 40% or lower is actually considered good, but your client won’t be able to understand why such high numbers are good, to begin with.

That said, transparency is the key to portraying value and justifying your actions to your clients. Therefore, your reports should consist of more relevant information than just plain-old data. Here are a few examples of being transparent in your reports:

  • Show clients where and why their money is being spent
  • Explain the value of your actions and efforts but be simple about it
  • Include recommendations and advice for future developments for the campaign
  • Prioritize both weekly and monthly reports so that clients are updated regularly
  • Engage in some storytelling to help clients understand your report and the value, of course

Leveraging client reports to prove value is oftentimes mandatory. For digital agencies to remain competitive and relevant, they must ensure client satisfaction and one of the best ways to do so is to craft client-centric reports that will help clients understand the context and the value of your strategies.

Are you currently utilizing reports for your clients?

Raul Harman - Technivorz

Author Bio:

My name is Raul and I am editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Please take a minute to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

 

How To Make an Extra $100-500 Per Month Accepting Sponsored Blog Posts?

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What Is a Sponsored Blog Post

Today’s post is an exciting one and in my opinion one of the easiest ways to make extra income from your blogging efforts.

The method and strategy we will be discussing is accepting sponsored blog posts.

Before reading further however, if you’re a blogger, make sure that money/income is NOT your sole motivation for running your website.

This is a sure fire way to not succeed in the blogging world.

Focus on providing value first and the income will follow.

With that being said, let’s go over exactly what sponsored blog posts are, how to get them from other webmasters and how to turn this into a monthly recurring income stream.

(Note/Disclaimer: $100-500 per month is what I personally make using this strategy currently, but there’s potential to make a lot more or less than that depending on various factors. There are different variables at play here as you’ll see in the steps below but this could be a great strategy for many bloggers looking to increase their income).

What Is A Sponsored Blog Post?

A sponsored blog post is a guest article submitted to your website, written by another blogger or company, that you would publish to your blog for a fee.

The great thing about sponsored blog content is that it’s a win-win for both parties involved.

Let’s discuss briefly below:

How Does This Benefit The Guest Contributor?

  • They get exposure to their content, brand, product, name and/or business.
  • They are allowed a link to their website (also known as a backlink which is good for SEO) to be placed in their sponsored article. This overtime can help with their search engine rankings in Google.
  • They can receive good referral traffic from people clicking on their link within the article (also, the more sponsored posts a person gets published on different websites, the more referral traffic they will naturally generate overtime).
  • If they post their content on an authoritative website, there’s potential that the article could get plenty of social shares and even rank highly in Google for a given keyword, which means traffic on autopilot!
  • They’ll make great connections and collaborate with other bloggers/webmasters in their niche.

How Does This Benefit The Website Owner/Publisher?

  • They receive fresh and unique content to publish to their website which Google loves.
  • The website owner has the ability to charge $50, $100, $250 or even $500 per sponsored post which can add up to a nice side income. Many companies have no problem paying good money for sponsored blog posts for the benefits described above.
  • Saves website owner time of not having to write the article for themselves. They can also pre-schedule these out far in advance which frees up time and allows the website owner to focus on other areas of their business.

Something I’d like to note is that sponsored blog content should be mixed in with the content you personally produce as well on a monthly basis. You do not want all of the content published on your website to be from external writers.

Your readers most likely found/followed you because of the relationship you’ve built with them through your own content, so make sure you continue to write articles yourself. Do not just rely on sponsored content or your momentum/following might suffer.

Now let’s discuss exactly how to get sponsored posts for your blog!

How to Get Sponsored Posts for your Blog?

Getting people interested in publishing a sponsored post on your blog becomes fairly easy after a certain point, but you do have to go through the steps laid out below first.

The more established your blog is, the more money you will potentially be able to charge external writers.

The process below will provide you with certain checkpoints to focus on so you can begin getting sponsored post submissions and create a new stream of income for your blog.

1.) Write Compelling, Engaging & High-Quality Content

First things first, you must have a healthy dose of high-quality, compelling and engaging content on your website. I wouldn’t even think about accepting a sponsored post until you have at least 50 personal articles published to your website. If someone is interested in publishing content on your blog, they will need to see that you produce really good content to begin with and on a consistent basis.

If they were to come to a website that didn’t look updated and only had a few articles published, there would be no benefit for them to even bother writing a sponsored post. The first area you need to focus on is fleshing out your website with loads of high-quality and top-notch content.

2.) Build Up Your Domain Authority (DA) & Website Traffic

Simply put, the higher your domain authority the more you can charge for sponsored blog posts. The same goes for website traffic. Domain authority is a metric created by MOZ that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s on a scale of 1-100 (1 being a low domain authority, like a brand new website and 100 being a super reputable website like a Forbes.com). Read more about domain authority here.

In order to build up your own domain authority, you will need to be building backlinks for your blog. You can do this via guest posting or sponsored blog content. I recorded a step-by-step and in-depth video on exactly how to build backlinks through guest posting here. This should be very helpful if this process is new to you.

I recommend building up your domain authority to at least a 15 or higher before you start accepting sponsored posts. In order to see your domain authority score, you can use a free tool like this one here: https://smallseotools.com/domain-authority-checker/ and just plugin your website. Below is a screenshot of where to find your domain authority using this tool:

This is not an overnight process and will indeed take a little time to build up your website’s authority but be consistent for a couple of months and build as many quality backlinks as you can. Focus on building backlinks on websites that have a higher domain authority than yours and you’ll begin to notice your own domain authority increase as well.

3.) Create a “Write for Us”, “Contribute” or “Advertising” Page

Once you’ve completed the two steps above, you are now ready to create a designated page on your blog to let people know that you accept sponsored content. I recommend using “Write for Us”, “Contribute”, “Sponsored Posts” or “Advertise” as the title of the page. A lot of times people searching for sponsored or guest post opportunities use these keywords in Google to find various opportunities. I know myself and others have seen a lot of success with “Write for Us”.

You can make this page super simple and it’s basically a place for you to explain to potential writers what type of content you accept, your guidelines etc. For example, you can take a look at my page here to get some ideas: https://evanhoeflichmarketing.com/write-for-us

A few sections I would incorporate into your “Write for Us” or “Contribute” page are:

  • General guidelines
    • 100% unique and high-quality content only
    • The wordcount you are looking for
    • If an author bio is required or preferred
  • Topics You Accept
    • List out a bunch of topics you’ll accept that make sense within your niche and area of expertise
  • Contact Information or Contact Form
    • Provide people with direction on how they can get in touch with you to submit a sponsored blog post

4.) Share Your Page & Field Responses

A lot of times, the inquires you will receive will come from people finding your website in organic search once your DA is high enough and you create your “Write for Us” page. You will want to come up with a price range that you will charge for publishing content (make sure to only accept high-quality and well-written articles). Feel free to experiment with your pricing as well. You will get better at negotiating and gauging what people are willing to pay with the more experience you have under your belt.

Also, be sure to share your page with other bloggers and let them know that you have sponsored content opportunities. People are always looking to get their content published on other relevant websites for the additional exposure and SEO benefits.

Wrapping Up & Final Notes

When you get to the point where you are accepting sponsored blog posts, you will need to run every article you receive through a plagiarism checker such as Copyscape. You do NOT want to publish any duplicate content or in other words, content that’s been previously published elsewhere. This is an SEO best practice to make sure that the content you publish is 100% unique to your website. Copyscape is super affordable and only a couple of cents per article search.

Also, as a reminder, the more you build up your own domain authority and website traffic, the higher you can charge for sponsored posts moving forward. Keep building backlinks to your website and also constantly work on increasing the amount of traffic your blog receives on a monthly basis. This will allow you to charge top dollar for sponsored blog content!

Are you currently accepting sponsored posts on your blog?

Interested in one-on-one blog coaching? Get in touch with me here to see if you’d be a good fit for my program!

Blogging Report (February 2020) – Organic Traffic Increase of 34.56%

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Blogging Report (February 2020)

Welcome to another blogging report, this time for February 2020.

Although February was a good month for my website, it will be interesting to see in the coming months how this trend plays out due to the Coronavirus.

I will not be surprised if my organic traffic slows a bit due to the pandemic we are currently facing and I think that is an important note to make in this particular blogging report.

If you also see a drop or decline in your organic traffic over the next couple of months, remember that it could be due to this issue.

On the flip side, some websites may actually see a surge in traffic depending on the niche they’re in or topics they’re writing about.

For example, a health and wellness blog may be highly visited in times like these and rightfully so.

I think another point to make is that many people are forced to stay home now due to the Coronavirus, meaning they are most likely consuming more content than they normally would.

This could also attribute to increases in traffic to your website.

Therefore, I really think it depends on the blog or website for what types of traffic fluctuations one may experience, whether that be positive or negative.

My advice in saying all of this is to keep producing high-quality content and potentially even ramp up your content generation efforts in times like these.

This is NOT the time to pull back.

Instead produce even more blog content, videos, social media posts etc. than you normally would to capitalize and grow in uncertain times.

Being able to generate extra income during difficult times is incredibly valuable and that’s why a blog in my opinion is one of the best side hustles someone can do from home.

With that being said, let’s get into this month’s data.

Organic Traffic (February 2020)- 292 Visits

Organic traffic for February 2020 came in at 292 visits.

This is actually my third highest month all-time and my long-term chart (which you’ll see below) is really showing a positive trend over the past few years.

Year-Over-Year Organic Traffic Increases (February 2020 vs. February 2019)

When comparing year-over-year, my organic traffic is up 34.56% (292 visits vs. 217 visits).

If we look at my long-term organic traffic chart below, we can really see the growth over the past few years and also the year-over-year comparisons.

My next goal is to consistently hit 300 targeted and organic visits each month, which I believe I can definitely acquire moving into the spring.

I already make a nice part-time income from the current traffic I am generating, and I’m making more revenue compared to last year as my blog traffic grows.

If I continue to increase my monthly flow of organic traffic, this will only result in more email subscribers, product sales, affiliate sales and coaching/consulting clients.

Screenshots from my Google Analytics account can be seen below:

Organic Traffic - February 2020 versus February 2019

Feb. 2020 versus Feb. 2019 (Longer-term chart)

YOY Increases - Feb. 2020 vs. Feb 2019

Feb. 2020 (blue) versus Feb. 2019 (orange) (plotted daily)

Next Steps & Blogging Goals

As stated above, the next goal for me is to consistently hit (month-in and month-out) 300 organic visitors per month. I’ve been able to hit the 200 organic visits mark consistently for the past 14 months, so I think this is an attainable goal as we move further into 2020. Below are a couple tasks I currently have in the works to help me get there.

1.) Finish Up 3 Guest Post Articles for Other Websites

I’m currently finishing up writing three guest post articles for other relevant websites in my niche. I’ve identified/reached out to a few really solid blogs who were interested in my content ideas, which in exchange will build me a handful of quality backlinks. Link building is a strategy I’ve been meaning to get back into the groove of. I have a good amount of keywords right on the cusp of ranking highly in Google, where they just need a little push with the help of quality backlinks. Once I get these three guest posts published and give it some time, I should see a direct improvement in organic rankings and traffic. If you’re interested in learning how to find and land guest post opportunities yourself, I recommend checking out my video here.

2.) Working on 4-5 Long-Form Style Articles for My Own Website

I’ve identified a few strong keywords with relatively low competition/difficulty that I am crafting long-form style content around. By this I mean I will be writing blog content that is 1,500 words or longer on a given subject. This type of comprehensive content tends to rank well in Google for me. Every blogger’s style is different, but I really like to take the time on certain posts to create a piece of writing that is detailed as well as valuable. I always strive for quality over quantity and this generally results in higher search engine rankings.

How was your February 2020?

That wraps it up for this month’s blogging report!

Again, stay patient in uncertain times like we are facing now and produce even more quality content than you normally would.

If you’d like to follow my progress moving forward, I recommend bookmarking this page here.

You may also want to subscribe to my YouTube channel for additional blogging tips, tricks and secrets.

Need additional help with your blog? Reach out to me here!

How was your February 2020?

Simple WordPress Plugin to Improve Overall Website Speed

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How to Increase Website Speed WordPress

I was inspired to write today’s post based on a recent coaching call I had with one of my clients.

Sometimes my best blog article ideas come from the questions and/or the situations I experience when working with different bloggers and companies.

Basically, my client Santanna was a fairly newer blogger and I noticed just from manually navigating her website that we needed to drastically improve the loading speed from page to page.

She had numerous high-quality images uploaded to her blog posts and pages which was great, but I had a hunch that this was part of the reason her website was so slow.

Most beginner bloggers do not realize that if your images are not compressed properly, it can negatively affect the website’s loading speed.

So the process we took with Santanna’s blog was as follows:

  1. I plugged her website into a free online tool that analyzes page speed and provides recommendations based on what can be improved. I like using GTmetrix (https://gtmetrix.com/) and/or Google’s PageSpeed Insights (https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/) for website speed tests. This generally only takes 30 seconds to a minute to run.
  2. GTmetrix confirmed my suspicion and let us know that Santanna’s blog images were not compressed/optimized for speed. It also revealed that her overall loading speed was right around 14 seconds, yikes!
  3. Next, I had Santanna install a very simple WordPress plugin call Smush which with a simple click of the mouse compressed all of her images and reduced their file sizes.
  4. We re-tested her website after the Smush process was complete and were pretty amazed to see that we shaved off over 10 seconds in loading time according to GTmetrix! This test showed her website speed now at 3 seconds compared to 14 seconds from the first test. And just from utilizing this one simple plugin.

Now there are many different ways to improve loading speed and every website will require a unique approach. In fact, I wrote an entire post on the steps I took to improve my own website speed here.

But starting with the images is a good first step for many bloggers to get things loading a bit quicker.

If you know that your images can use compressing/optimizing, follow the steps below to install Smush and run a before & after test using GTmetrix.

1.) First, Test Your Initial Website Speed (Before Test)

Again I recommend using GTmetrix or Google’s PageSpeed Insights to test your website speed.

Simply paste your URL into GTmetrix and hit “Test your site” (see screenshot below):

How to Speed Up WordPress Website

Next, let the tool run and analyze the data it provides. If your images need compressing you will most likely see a “C, D or F” rating next to “Optimize images” and an orange or red bar. The screenshot below reveals that my website images are well optimized already and compressed which is why you see a “B” rating and it showing green. You will also see a section for “Fully Loaded Time” in seconds, which is highlighted in the image below as well:

Improve WordPress Website Speed

 

This will be your “Before” test that you can use as a benchmark. At the end, you will want to compare this to your “After” test once you install the Smush plugin, which brings us to the next step.

2.) Next Install The Smush Plugin for WordPress

Now we will want to install the Smush plugin for your WordPress website.

  • To do this, make sure you’re logged into your WordPress dashboard and click “Plugins” in your left navigation menu and then “Add New”.
  • Next search for “Smush” and select “Install Now”.
  • Lastly, hit “Activate”.

Now find the Smush plugin that you downloaded in your left navigation. Smush will most likely take you through a quick setup process and all you need to do is select “BULK SMUSH NOW”. See screenshot below:

How to Speed Up WordPress Website with Plugin

Let the Smush process run and it’s as simple as that!

You images will now be compressed.

Now we are ready for our “After” test.

3.)Lastly, Re-Test Your Website Speed (After Test)

Now the final step is to re-test your website in GTmetrix to see if there’s been any improvements in speed and performance.

Follow the same exact process laid out in step #1 above.

Analyze both the “Fully Loaded Time” and “Optimize images” section to see if you notice any progress.

If your images were not compressed prior, this should really help improve your overall website speed!

Wrapping Up:

Website speed is an area that you should look into consistently. You will want to re-visit this on a monthly basis and make a high-priority. Not only does this help with overall user-experience, but it also can improve your SEO. Google would much rather rank a website that is fast loading compared to one that is sluggish to provide their users with the best possible experience. Also, it’s recommended to check into other ways that you can improve your WordPress website speed outside of just compressing/optimizing images. This is just one area of many that can help your pages and posts load faster.

If you’re a blogger looking for additional guidance and coaching, make sure you visit my page here!

Are you currently using Smush or a similar plugin?

Google’s BERT Update: What’s Changing for My Content?

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Google's BERT Update

This is a guest post written by Raunak Pandey.

Since the end of October 2019, the term “BERT” designates a new update from Google. On its blog, the undisputed leader of search engines, Google, described this update as “one of the greatest advances in the history of search”. Currently, one in 10 requests made in English in the United States is affected by this change in algorithm.

Since the BERT update, many crazy stories circulate on the net about its effects. But what is the real effect of BERT on search engine rankings? And what should website managers and operators do to optimize their content?

Here we have collected the most important information on the subject.

What does the BERT update mean?

BERT, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is the method used by Google for natural language processing. Simply put, BERT is an application of artificial intelligence. It is about teaching computers to understand and properly process information from natural language.

Long live the context

With this technology, Google can now better understand queries. BERT, in particular, allows the search engine to better understand the meaning of certain words by relating them to contextual terms and keywords. This applies, for example, to prepositions in requests. Thanks to BERT, Google now recognizes even better the exact context, even for the most complex queries, instead of just looking at individual words. The results obtained are therefore more targeted.

With this change in algorithm, Google is arming itself, among other things, to deal with the growing number of voice search requests. No question that they are growing. Market research company ComScore predicted that in 2020, at least half of all queries would be voice searches. Voice search differs from text search. Voice searches are often done in natural language, for example in the form of ‘Q’ questions or whole sentences. In addition, voice searches are generally much longer than conventional text searches.

The algorithm change was implemented during the week of October 21, 2019. A timetable for international deployment is still pending. According to Google, the BERT algorithm is already partially used in certain European countries, such as Germany or France.

Which search queries are affected by the BERT update?

BERT concerns above all the long-tail queries, the most complex, that is to say, queries consisting of several keywords. Concretely, it is above all a question of better evaluating the prepositions. Some SEO expert, explains: “Google, how much does a flight from Berlin to Rome cost? The search engine will be able to answer these questions better in the future, because understanding the words “from” and “to” will clearly show that it is precisely the direction of the flight that is at stake. In the past, such an understanding request was not possible.”

What are the consequences of the BERT update on SEO?

Many people wonder what are the consequences of BERT on SEO and how they can take into account the update to improve their website. The impact of the update had already been discussed in advance in various articles.

There has been particularly frequent discussion about how website operators should optimize their pages for long-tail queries, following the introduction of BERT.

Downgrades due to BERT? Unlikely!

Uncertainty about the update became even greater when an editor of the famous New York Times reported ranking losses on Twitter soon after the launch of BERT in the United States.

But according to John Mueller, an analyst at Google and webmaster of Google Trends, it is extremely unlikely that BERT is involved. Instead, Google said it made some basic updates soon after, which could be the reason for the new ranking. The expert recommends focusing on high-quality content rather than the technical aspects – and ignoring BERT in the optimization strategy.

Raunak Pandey, the co-founder of Maiden Stride, says, “BERT has no influence on the best possible strategies that have been recommended for years regarding Google. The update should have a rather weak impact on the visibility indices, but a positive impact on the qualified traffic.”

Some SEO experts said: “This update has nothing to do with indexing and understanding content – it should advance the interpretation of search queries. This is why you cannot immediately implement optimization measures.”

One thing is certain: with BERT, Google can better understand user queries and obtain more relevant results. With the update, the machine connects the user’s intention better than before with the content that is already available on the websites.

According to the unanimous opinion of experts, it is not really possible to optimize for BERT. Instead, the usual optimization methods continue to pay off. They focus on high-quality content. It is particularly important that this content is adapted to the expectations of the user.

Let’s clear up some of the myths circulating about BERT.

How to design good content with BERT in mind?

Danny Sullivan, an American Google employee, wrote on Twitter: “There is nothing to optimize with BERT and nothing to rethink for anyone. Our desire to reward qualitative content remains unchanged. This point is confirmed by other experts: “The emphasis should continue to be on high-quality texts. ”

To prepare for BERT, it suffices to remember the main characteristics of high-quality texts – and to pay attention to them. For example:

  • interesting and unique content
  • comprehensive treatment of the subject
  • the use of simple and unambiguous formulations
  • good structure
  • good formatting
  • of a correct language

Easily understandable information should also be an advantage with regard to BERT. In this context, you should not hesitate to consult the Google FAQ.

Website operators and SEO specialists, therefore, need not fear negative effects from BERT. At least, if they continue to focus on good content that takes into account the expectations of the user. Before planning your content, you should pay attention to the ‘Q’ questions and answer them as best as you can – whether on the website, in the blog or in the FAQ.

Natural language remains complex

The complexity of human language remains a challenge, even for search engines. But with BERT, Google has taken a big step in the right direction, with smart assistants like Alexa or the Apple Home Pod. The user can now rely on research formulated in natural language.

What are your thoughts on BERT?

 

Raunak Pandey

Author Bio:

Raunak is a Mechanical Engineer by qualification & Marketer by passion. He is the co-founder of Maiden Stride, a leading digital marketing company that provides world-class search engine marketing services and website & application development.

 

 

Learn How To Monetize Your Blog (Using These 14 Methods)

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How To Monetize Your Blog

This is a guest post written by Jeff Finder.

You might have heard or seen people who make a lot of money from their blogs. But is it really possible to make money from blogging?

Yes, if your blog gets a number of visitors a month it’s practically possible to monetize it and earn a nice income out of it.

The real hurdle is making money from a blog that does not receive a lot of visitors. When you are just starting out it can seem like one of the most frustrating and difficult tasks. With so much knowledge to apply and strategies to use, how can you even find the resources and time to do this?

In this post, you’ll learn how to monetize your blog and make money with 14 profitable and proven strategies.

1.) Start Affiliate Marketing

If you are wondering how you can monetize your blog, you should consider affiliate marketing. It’s perhaps one of the most common ways that website owners and bloggers make money. This method is good especially when you’ve just started out and you don’t have a service or product to sell.

With affiliate marketing, you promote the services and products of other businesses. All you need to do is to create quality content that is in line with what you are promoting. Every time someone buys a product through your affiliate link you earn some commission.

For instance, if you are running a fashion blog you can sell, footwear, fashion apparel, and sportswear. To start affiliate marketing you can begin by joining programs such as Amazon associates, ClickBank, Shareasale and Commission Junction.

LaptopCut.com is a good example. It’s a dedicated blog for laptops and they write in-depth laptop reviews and put affiliate links to Amazon to monetize. Best Laptops For Teachers for example is an article where they have done a round-up review of top 10 laptops ideal for teachers with an in-depth review and buying guide (and of course put amazon affiliate link).

2.) Try Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the less expensive and most powerful ways to monetize your blog and make money. This method involves adding new subscribers to your email list.

By giving your subscribers a free gift you can get many visitors to subscribe to your blog. You can also do this by consistently creating quality content that drives people back to your site.

In order to be successful use some of the most popular email marketing platforms such as ConvertKit, AWeber, Mailchimp or infusionSoft. A good amount of money can be made by building a connection with your readers. With the help of email marketing, you can offer both affiliate and your own products through email.

3.) Use Google Adsense

Most people start a blog mostly for Google Adsense and Ads. This means Google Adsense is one of the most popular platforms around. There are two methods that you can use to make money through Google Adsense. These include:

  • Based on Clicks. Despite page views, if a visitor clicks on the ad you’ll earn some money. Depending on the ad this can be something to do with $0.01 to a couple of dollars.
  • Based on impressions. This generally depends on page views. For instance, for every 1000 page views, you can earn a certain amount of money.

4.) Sell Ad Space Directly

Although Google Adsense is quite simple to set up, the amount of money that you can earn is not much. With that said you might want to consider selling your ad space directly to the customers.

By doing this you get to set the price. Instead of getting paid only a small amount of cash, you can charge a flat rate for any ad to appear on your blog. This is not only easier but you can also earn some good money.

If you are looking for businesses willing to buy your ad space, just create an “Advertise Here” page on your blog where people can contact you for pricing information.

Since you’ll be responsible for everything, doing this is a little bit difficult. However, there are a number of tools online that you can use to make the process easier.

5.) Sell Ebooks

Making Ebooks of your services and goods is also another way to monetize your blog. Write an Ebook that explains the content on your blog. If you are teaching your users a new skill, then the Ebook is likely to give them value.

If you are committed and consistent there is a lot of money to be made from Ebooks.

6.) Accept Sponsored Posts

Accepting sponsored posts is a great strategy to make extra money from your blog. It is also a win because you will be receiving fresh and unique content to publish on your website without you having to write it.

If you have a consistent blogging schedule, great looking blog, and engaged visitors then companies will be willing to pay you a lot of money to get their content published. You can start by directly reaching out to brands, or simply create a “Write for Us” type of page.

Pro Tip: Any content that gets submitted to your website for publication should be checked with a plagiarism tool such as Copyscape. You do not want to publish a duplicate article as this could negatively affect your SEO.

7.) Make Money through Branded Merchandise

If you’ve developed a solid brand and following you may want to consider selling branded merchandise. Lots of people love to show their connection to a particular community by sporting branded merch. Some influences even use this as a way of monetizing their podcasts.

If you are looking to monetize your blog you can also do this. If your brand is not popular you may change this strategy and sell merchandise that’s relatable, funny and even helpful. The good thing is that you can do this without investing a lot of cash upfront.

8.) Get Paid Writing Reviews

Getting paid to write a review is almost the same as accepting sponsored posts. With this strategy, you can try out a product, write a review about it and then earn from the same.

The best thing is to write reviews of products that are related to your blog. For instance, if your blog niche is budgeting, reviewing budgeting apps and softwares make more sense than writing reviews about vacuum cleaners.

And just like sponsored posts you can contact brands directly and ask them whether they are interested in hiring you for review.

9.) Offer Coaching Services

If you are looking to make money within the shortest time possible then become a coach. Giving customers and prospects direct access to expertise and products is one of the best ways of making money.

It doesn’t matter how much experience you’ve gathered in the process, offering coaching services to your clients or visitors can always earn you some cash. Your responsibility as a coach will be to help people manage the challenges they are facing instead of giving up or getting frustrated.

10.) Create a Private Forum

Instead of turning your entire blog into a mentorship or coaching site you can create a private forum that people have to pay for to gain access. A forum is basically a page that people use to discuss different topics with each other and get the advice that they need.

Having a forum is one of the best ways of getting engagement and building a following around you. Plus with a paid forum, you can create a revenue stream from your blog.

11.) Sell Other Digital Products

Apart from selling eBooks and other services, you can also monetize your personal blog by selling products such as WordPress themes, printables, templates, audio recordings, and video tutorials among others. If you have a skill and digital product, sell it to earn money.

12.) Create a Directory

Depending on your blog niche, you can use your blog to play the role of matchmaker and create a job board or directory. These resources when done well are not only useful but can also attract a lot of readers.

The directory used to be the “in” thing online and they are still in high demand. If you are wondering how to go about this, there are a bunch of good directory plugins that you can use. You’ll even get plugins that will allow you to accept payments.

13.) Host Webinars

Although many businesses use webinars to generate leads, hosting a well-paid webinar is another means of making money. When doing this you only need to ensure that you are providing value.

Since there are many free webinars out there you should be offering something pretty good if you intend to earn money from it.

14.) Become a Freelance Blogger

A freelancer is a writer who creates content on various topics for emails, websites landing pages and products. If you already have a blog then you have all the skills you need to be an on-demand freelance blogger.

Top brands and companies are constantly looking for bloggers with the appropriate skill sets. So becoming a freelancer will give you a huge opportunity to improve your financial life. Once you’ve marketed yourself well you’ll start seeing business coming your way.

You can also join several Facebook groups and use the same to market yourself.

Wrapping Up

If you’ve already done the work of creating your blog, why not make some cash out of it. This process will just take a bit of know-how. After paying for development, hosting and design cost, your blog can easily make you money.

Give one of the above approaches a try and you may be pleasantly surprised by what comes out of it. Just make sure you choose the best niche and be consistent in what you are doing. Remember there is no success that comes overnight.

Author Bio

Jeff Finder

Jeff Finder is a Digital Nomad who travels around the world and blogs about technology, gadgets and specifically laptops at Laptopcut.com. He’s also an international speaker and loves to persuade youth to find their voice online and make it count.

 

 

Which blog monetization methods will you try from the list above?

5 Tactics to Increase Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate

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Increase Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate

Many ecommerce business owners make the same mistake, believing that developing an amazing product and investing in unique website design is enough to increase conversions. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. Conversions don’t happen overnight. No matter if you want to generate more leads, boost newsletter signups, or maximize sales, you need to optimize your website for conversions.

Want to learn more about increasing ecommerce conversion rates? Keep reading.

Prove that You Care about your Customers’ Online Security

With the rise of online frauds, online customers are deeply concerned about the security of their data. Research says that 17% of lost sales are caused by security concerns. Before entering their credit card information, they will want to know that they are buying from a legitimate online store that cares about their safety and meets industry standards.

For starters, switch from HTTP to HTTPs. Apart from being a minor ranking factor, SSL certificates also build trust with online users. Google Chrome now labels all websites with HTTPS are labeled as “safe,” while those still using HTTP are marked as “unsafe.” This warning may discourage many customers from buying from you, so install SSL site-wide.

Next, add trust badges to your checkout pages, product pages, or individual landing pages. These could be cybersecurity badges, accepted payment badges, safe checkout badges, or money-back guarantee badges. You should also highlight your industry certifications and qualifications to build trust with prospective customers.

Leverage Social Proof

In psychology, social proof is a phenomenon where an individual conforms to the opinions or actions of the masses. As such, social proof is a powerful ecommerce marketing tactic.

There are many ways to use social proof to enhance online sales. You could use a conversion rate optimization tool to show real-time conversion data. You could show how many people are viewing your website pages or products, how many sales you have scored over the last week or month, who has recently signed up for your free trials, etc. The real-time information will show up in a small popup and you can tailor its shape, color, messaging, and position to your website’s specific needs.

You should also show your customers’ ratings and reviews. Almost 90% of customers believe online reviews as much as their friends’ recommendations. Therefore, encourage customers to rate and review your products or write testimonials. To inspire them to share opinions of your brand, don’t ignore negative reviews. Address them promptly and focus on solving customers’ problems. You could also offer free shipping, discounts, or freebies to customers that write reviews.

Finally, share user-generated content, as it impacts the purchasing decisions of 79% of your customers. UGC builds trust with them and shows that people with similar preferences and needs are already buying from you. One of the best ways to encourage customers to share user-generated content is to host massive photo contests.

Improve Product Pages

When purchasing online, customers cannot touch your products, test them, or put them on. Precisely because of that, they rely on your descriptions and photos of your products.

To gain their trust and convert them, use visual content. Invest in high-quality photography. Take product photos from multiple angles and offer close-up shots so visitors can zoom in your product. You could also use 360-degree snapshots to take your product photos to the next level. Apart from photos, you could also use video content. Explainer videos, unboxing videos, instructional videos, and so forth, will engage your customers and build stronger relationships with them.

Now, investing in awesome visual content is only half the job done. The other half is writing killer product descriptions. Instead of spamming them with exact-match keywords to boost your rankings, write organic and helpful product descriptions that will show the benefits of your products and inspire customers to make purchases faster.

Keep your Site Easy to Navigate

Too complex navigation is one of the major reasons why customers ditch their shopping carts. Simplify your website architecture to make it easier for your customers to find your products and make purchases.

For example, you should keep your navigation menu simple. Overly complex menus may confuse visitors and prevent them from finding the right product. Keep your most prominent product categories and subcategories and choose informative labels for them.

Remember that many customers already know what they want to buy. Shorten their shopping life-cycle by offering a search box and letting them find the desired product faster.

You should also use chatbots to improve customer service and increase website search functionalities. With the rise of mobile technologies, many customers don’t want to waste time browsing through your website. They turn to chatbots that ask them straightforward questions and provide them with personalized product recommendations in real-time.

Finally, add filters to your category pages to help customers drill down to the right products. Choose filters that are relevant to your customers, such as product price, manufacturer, availability, characteristics, etc.

Optimize the Checkout Process

If your checkout process is overly complicated or long, you may lose customers. There are many ways to minimize the shopping cart abandonment rate and some of them are:

  • Let customers make purchases as guests.
  • Simplify your checkout forms, optimize them for mobile, and keep them easy-to-understand.
  • Keep your call-to-action buttons and Add to Cart buttons prominent on your website.
  • Offer multiple payment gateways to improve user experiences.
  • Always show a shopping cart icon.

Over to You

Testing and tweaking your website continuously to improve conversion rates is immensely important. You need to walk in your customers’ shoes, know their preferences, and determine how you will inspire them to convert once you get them in.

In 2020, ecommerce marketing is highly customer-centric, so focus on improving their experiences on every level. While there are numerous tactics to apply, those I mentioned above go far beyond boosting one-off sales. They will help you position yourself as an industry leader, increase customers’ satisfaction with your brand, and encourage brand loyalty.

Raul- Technivorz

Author Bio:

My name is Raul and I am editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Please take a minute to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Have any questions? We are listening!

4 Content Marketing Tips For New Blogs

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4 Content Marketing Tips For New Blogs

As digital marketers, we have all heard the saying “content is king,” and this is still relevant today in 2020. SEO can only get you so far in the search engines, but your actual content is what will increase your traffic and make visitors convert into customers over time. It’s no secret that billions of google searches are being made every day for informational content, but with thousands of new blogs being created every day, how can you stand out from the competition? Well, this is where having a solid content marketing strategy can help you get ahead of your competitors.

Content marketing works by providing opportunities to increase your website’s brand awareness, increase website traffic, and attracting new customers. First, you should have a reliable content management system to help you manage and adjust your content effortlessly, and then you can strictly focus on your content marketing strategies.

Content Marketing helps widen your audience to the billion of users who are actively on the internet. Still, it also provides a long-term solution for your company to continue growing organically. With that being said, let’s dive into four content marketing tips that can turn your blog into a traffic-driving machine.

1.) Create Content Tailored for Your Audience

To keep your audience engaged and coming back, you must provide helpful, unique, and valuable content that will help them grow, learn, and master the industry. By creating user-centered content, it will allow you to generate topics that will educate and provide value to the end-users.

But how do you create user-centered content? Well, for beginners, you want to put yourself in their shoes. Think about what type of questions could they have? What could they be struggling with? Or in what areas could they improve on? All these questions will help you create more interesting topics that your user will love and keep them coming back. You can find hidden questions by going to popular forums like Quora and Reddit to search for repeating questions that people in your niche might have. Then you could take 2-3 of these questions, assuming that they are related to the same topic and create a long-form blog about it.

2.) Get On Trends Early

In today’s digital age, most topics have already been covered online, and while you could still put your twist to it. Why not jump on some of the growing trends in your industry early on? Not only will this give you the credibility of being one of the first sources but also bring in tons of traffic when the trend reaches its peak. A great way to find keywords that are trending or on the verge of taking off is to use Google Trends. It gives you a clear indication of whether that keyword will continue increasing or decreasing over time. It also allows you to compare two keywords against each other so that you can further increase your chances of picking a hot trend to create content about. If you want to maximize your efforts with this technique, don’t just create a 1000 word blog. Instead, create an “Ultimate Guide” and make sure to answer every question that somebody could have on that specific topic. This way, your article will be the go-to guide for information on that trend.

Google Trends for Content

3.) Track Your Performance

As many of you may know, “data doesn’t lie,” and it shouldn’t be ignored — your content marketing strategy need to be data-driven. The whole purpose of content marketing is to provide value and build relationships with your audience. If you’re not tracking your website’s analytical performance, then you could be creating content that your audience might not even be looking for. You want to look at specific KPI (Key Performance Indicators) such as engagement, traffic, and conversion rates related to your companies goals. Looking at your blog’s analytical reports by using free tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can get a good idea of what blogs users are landing on and what they are immediately bouncing off. You can take all this data to find out which type of content your users are engaging with the most to increase your marketing strategies ROI.

4.) Include Relevant Visuals

In 2020 simple blog posts with just a block of text on it just won’t cut it anymore. The online space has become very competitive, and if you want to stand a chance, you want to include custom visuals were it makes sense. It has been found that 65% of humans are visual learners, and 90% of the information that transfers to the brain is visual. So considering just how important visuals are in the learning process, it only makes sense to include visuals in your next content marketing campaign that could help you attract more visitors to your website and also increase user retention rates. You could include custom images, screenshots, infographics, graphs, and videos to support your written content. So make sure to generate high-quality content along with visuals and watch your traffic start to pour in.

Author Bio:

Patricio - Code Authority

 

Patricio Quiroz is a digital marketer for Code Authority that enjoys reading about the newest business and marketing trends. In his free time, you can catch him at the gym, playing sports or hanging out with friends.

 

 

What content strategies are you currently using for your blog?

ConvertKit Review – Why I Made the Switch Over To ConvertKit (Email Marketing Software)

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ConvertKit Review & Pricing

If you like what you hear when reading this ConvertKit review, it’s important to know that they offer a free 14 day trial here to test out their email marketing software!

I am proud to say that I have officially made the switch over to ConvertKit!

Now if you’re new to my blog, I’ve been an Internet Marketer since 2007 and have tried dozens (yes dozens) of email autoresponders.

And to be honest, a good portion of these platforms underdelivered in different areas in my opinion.ConvertKit Review & Features

Whether it was pricing, customizability, segmentation, deliverability, product support etc., I had the hardest time finding an email marketing software that hit on all levels.

But then I came across an article/review online (similar to this one), that basically raved about how much better ConvertKit was than many of the leading autoresponders we are all so familiar with.

At this point, I was fed up with the current autoresponder I was using and was specifically looking for a service that would mesh well and fit perfectly with my blog.

After doing more research and really digging deeper into other reviews, forums and demos on ConvertKit, this seemed like the ideal service for me.

I became a customer and the rest is history.

ConvertKit is simply the best email marketing software I have used since 2007 and by a long shot.

But enough rambling from me, let’s get into the actual ConvertKit review and why it’s a notch above the rest of the competition.

ConvertKit Review – Pricing, Features & More

It’s important to note that ConverKit is wildly popular among bloggers, but their email marketing software can work for anyone and any type of business. It’s designed for creators (as they state on their website), but provides email marketing solutions for all types of businesses and websites. Again, I have used many of the popular autoresponders out there and ConvertKit is just different. Let’s review why ConvertKit stands out from the crowd.

1.) Pricing (Freemium Model, Free Trial Option & Flexible Pricing for More Subscribers)

ConvertKit’s pricing model is just the bomb. They also just released a Freemium model where people can get started without any money down. Within the Freemium model, there’s also perks by referring friends to unlock subscribers and broadcast sending. Here’s a snapshot of a statement released by the owner of ConvertKit regarding the Freemium plan (read the full article here):

“Our mission is to help creators earn a living and we believe that by adding a free entry-point we are removing a large roadblock for beginner creators towards earning a living online.

Right now so many creators start on MailChimp for free and then switch to ConvertKit once they get meaningful traction. That switch can be time consuming and they would be so much better off to just start on ConvertKit, which is tailor-made for creators to grow their audiences.” ~ Nathan Barry

How much is ConvertKit?

If you’d rather just jump into a paid plan, ConvertKit first offers a 14 day free trial to test out their email marketing software and then various packages thereafter depending on your subscriber count. Currently at the time of writing this post, their pricing is as follows:

  • $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers
  • $49/month for up to 3,000 subscribers
  • $79/month for up to 5,000 subscribers
  • Over 5,000 subscribers is calculated

ConvertKit Pricing - How much is ConvertKit?

Visit ConverKit’s pricing page here for more information.

In my experience, ConvertKit’s pricing is way more affordable than so many email autoresponder services out there. Even up to 5,000 subscribers, you are still paying under $100 per month. They make their service affordable so that any blogger, creator or business can get started. And remember, their 14 day free trial gives you some breathing room and ample time before making a decision to upgrade to a paid plan.

2.) Simple to Use

Let’s face it, many email marketing platforms can be incredibly confusing and difficult to operate. Especially if you’re new to email marketing, finding the right autoresponder provider can be a nightmare. With ConvertKit, you are comfortable using the software from the first time you log in. Your “back office” is beautifully laid out, easy to navigate and they even provide a guided tutorial for first time users. This is a major benefit in my opinion because it makes setting up your first campaign incredibly simple. You can build a capture page, connect it to your website and craft an email follow-up series with very little effort and overwhelm.

ConvertKit - Simple Layout

3.) Custom Segmentation Options

Being able to segment your email list is crucial for many bloggers and business owners. For example, you may want to keep your paying customers separate from your “freebie” subscribers. Most likely, you will have different offers and messaging for people who have already bought from you. You may also just want to add segments to cater to different topics or interests. An example of this is a new campaign I just started. See the screenshot below:

ConvertKit - Segmentation

You can see that I have my main follow up (“Follow-Up Series”) when people opt into my email list, but I also prompt them to answer a question in my welcome email that helps segment my subscribers. Within this welcome email, they can choose 1 of 2 answers by clicking on a couple of links. ConvertKit’s “click-segmentation” feature automatically adds these subscribers to the appropriate list based on their click. As you can see in my snapshot above, I want to know which of my subscribers are beginner bloggers (“Blog Beginner List”) and which are more advanced (“SEO Advanced List”). This way I can provide my subscribers with unique and customized information to fit their needs.

For me, ConvertKit’s segmentation features have been a life saver and many other email marketing platforms don’t even offer this (example, Constant Contact) or require a third party service (example, Aweber) to implement. Having segmentation features like this all under one roof is a game-changer and a major reason why I switched to ConverKit to begin with.

4.) Smooth Integration with WordPress

As a blogger and business owner, I need to seamlessly be able to add my capture pages within WordPress in order to build my email list. ConvertKit does have a plugin to help with this, but I personally like to use MailMunch which allows you to create compelling capture pages and connects directly to your ConvertKit account. All you need to do is input your ConvertKit API key (found in ConvertKit’s account settings) into MailMunch and you’re ready to start building your email list. There’s many other autoresponders where the process is not as simple as this. ConvertKit combined with MailMunch (although you don’t need this) can help to eliminate all of the frustration, confusion and headaches.

5.) Impressive Deliverability Rates

Let’s face it, ensuring your emails reach the inboxes of your subscribers is essential when it comes to email marketing. Again, after testing dozens of email marketing platforms, ConvertKit performed the best in terms of deliverability. There is nothing more frustrating than low open rates and your emails landing in spam. If you run a business where email marketing is one of your main strategies, you need to have confidence in the software you are using to send out emails. Luckily, ConvertKit delivers here too (no pun intended) providing dependability and peace of mind with your email sends.

Below is a screenshot of impressive open/click rates for a new follow-up campaign I am running. This definitely shows me that my emails are hitting my subscriber’s inboxes!

ConvertKit - Email Delivery Rates

6.) Responsive Customer Service & Support

Customer support is another area that is vital for any online tool or service you purchase. I also think it’s an area that gets overlooked quite a bit. This can lead to a customer being frustrated if the support is lackluster or even non-existent. With ConvertKit, they offer a phenomenal live chat feature, community/forum support and the ability to send email tickets. In fact, when I first signed up with ConvertKit, I had a question regarding segmentation and within minutes I literally received a video response back showing me exactly how to solve my problem. And this wasn’t a video pulled from YouTube, this was created specifically for me and my particular situation. Customer support like this REALLY helps ConvertKit stand out even more. In fact, I was pretty blown away by this first experience!

7.) Fantastic Affiliate Program

Last but certainly not least is the affiliate program created by ConvertKit. They offer a whopping 30% recurring commission for every paying customer you send their way. This blows many other affiliate programs out of the water and when you love the tool you are using, it’s an easy sell. ConvertKit also provides you with all the necessary tools for promotion such as banner ads, affiliate training, various graphics, custom links and more. I even love that they have an “affiliate calculator” that allows you to slide a bar to see how much you can potentially earn selling their software (see screenshot below). Talk about motivating!

ConvertKit Affiliate Program

Conclusion

To wrap everything up, there is not enough good things I can say about ConvertKit and in fact, I could’ve written another 1,000 words about how much I love this email marketing software.

I am a happy customer for all the reasons laid out above and will continue to recommend this to other bloggers and my coaching students.

I hope this ConvertKit review was helpful and makes your decision a lot easier.

My rating for ConvertKit is a 5/5

Again, this is the email marketing service that I personally use on my blog (after testing dozens) and I’ve really enjoyed my partnership with ConvertKit to date.

If you would like to test out ConvertKit for yourself, make sure to sign up for your free 14 day trial here!

(ConvertKit Review on YouTube)

Disclosure: I get affiliate commissions for purchases made through links on this page.

Blogging Report (January 2020) – Organic Traffic Increase of 16.60%!

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Blogging Report (January 2020)

Welcome to another monthly blogging report!

It was a good kick off to 2020 for my website as I saw good overall movement in organic traffic.

I noticed a nice uptick both when comparing year-over-year and month-over-month as you’ll see in the data below.

This is definitely due to more and more blog posts ranking on page #1 of Google for various keywords.

NOTE: If you’re a blogger, I highly recommend you track your search engine rankings to see where you’re positioned in Google (there are many affordable tools out there that you can utilize for this). Also, make sure to set up Google Search Console (which is free) as it provides additional insight on keyword data, clicks and a whole lot more.

Some blog posts I’ve written years ago are just now starting to gain traction in Google, which is super exciting to see.

Remember, blogging is a long-term game and sometimes it simply takes time to generate results.

With that being said, let’s jump into this month’s data.

Organic Traffic (January 2020)- 302 Visits

In January 2020, organic traffic came in at a total of 302 visits.

In fact, this has been my second highest month all-time in terms of organic traffic (traffic coming in through the search engines).

As stated above, this was a nice uptick compared to the prior month and also the prior year during this time period.

I’d like to work on getting my organic traffic to consistently hit 300 visits moving into the latter half of 2020.

I believe this is attainable with the content and SEO work I have planned moving forward.

Year-Over-Year Organic Traffic Increases (January 2020 vs. January 2019)

When comparing year-over-year, my organic traffic is up 16.60% (302 visits vs. 259 visits).

It’s always important to analyze your year-over-year data.

Before January 2020, it almost looked as if my traffic was trending on the downward (see screenshot below), but knowing that blogging is all about longevity, consistency and at times monthly fluctuations I was confident more growth was on the horizon.

The more blog posts you write overtime and properly optimize, the more you stack the odds in your favor.

This content if approached strategically and with a value-based mindset will start to work for you.

My long-term chart below demonstrates this trend.

 

January 2020 vs. January 2019 - Organic Traffic

Jan. 2020 versus Jan. 2019 (Longer-term chart)

Organic Traffic Plotted Daily for January 2020

Jan. 2020 (blue) versus Jan. 2019 (orange) (plotted daily)

A Few Blogging & SEO Strategies I’ll Be Focusing on in 2020

To continue the growth I’m seeing with my website, I will be putting a big focus on the strategies below:

1.) Guest Posting

Towards the end of 2019, I was really slacking here in terms of guest posting. Guest posting is an excellent strategy to build quality backlinks to your website but it does indeed take time. Outsourcing is possible, but I prefer to do this in-house as I think the quality is better. Whenever I’m consistent in guest posting on other websites, I really notice good growth in blog traffic and improvements in search engine rankings. I will plan to ramp this up in 2020.

2.) Updating Older Blog Posts 

I’ve looked into some of my older blog articles and noticed that there’s a lot of room to update them with fresh, unique and higher-quality information. This can be a great tactic to give older content a total revamp and increase its ranking potential in the search engines.

3.) Target More Keywords with Lower Competition 

I’ve seen measurable results when targeting keywords in my blog content that are lower in competition and this was especially a focus of mine in 2019. Certain keyword research tools will provide some sort of competition or difficulty metric to let you know what you’re up against when trying to rank for a certain term. I will continue to target terms that I can more easily rank for in order to drive more targeted traffic to my website. Although some of these may have less search volume, you can stack these types of posts up overtime for great results.

How was your January 2020?

That wraps it up for this month’s blogging report!

If you’d like to follow my progress moving forward, I recommend bookmarking this page here.

You may also want to subscribe to my YouTube channel for additional blogging tips, tricks and secrets.

Need additional help with your website, reach out to me here!

How was your January 2020?

What plans do you have to make 2020 your best year yet?

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