Author: Evan Hoeflich

Blogging Report (March 2019) – Second Highest Month All-Time in Organic Traffic

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Blogging Report (March 2019)

Over the long-term when looking at my organic traffic trend in Google Analytics, it’s motivating to see that I’m now generating over 200 targeted organic visits to my website per month…

There was a time where I wasn’t even breaking 50 organic visits in a given month when just starting out, so this is a noticeable improvement.

This is why I always encourage bloggers to remain persistent with their efforts and never give up.

Although you may not be seeing the type of results you want right now, you MUST be in this for the long term.

It takes time for you to build up the authority of your website and for Google to take notice as well.

As long as you’re providing massive value and optimizing your website with SEO best practices in mind, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t begin to notice organic growth on your blog.

With that being said, let’s jump into my March 2019 blogging report.

Organic Traffic (March 2019)- 237 Visits

March 2019 was actually my second highest month all-time in terms of organic traffic at 237 visits.

I’m seeing lots of search engine ranking improvements in Google which in return is generating more organic traffic to my website.

This traffic comes in passively without me having to be physically working on my blog, which truly makes my website an online asset.

This is why I love blogging combined with proper SEO!

Year-Over-Year Organic Traffic Increases (March 2019 vs. March 2018)

Organic traffic when comparing year-over-year is up 78.20% (237 visits vs. 133 visits).

I’m definitely happy with over 100 extra organic visitors coming to my website this year.

This has resulted in more email subscribers, YouTube subscribers and revenue for my online businesses.

This first chart below shows my organic traffic over the long-term (plotted monthly).

March 2019 Blogging Report

 

You can see the overall trend in organic traffic is marching upwards!

This next chart compares the full month of March 2019 versus March 2018 (in organic traffic).

How to Increase Organic Traffic

Organic Traffic Increases

 

In both screenshots above taken from Google Analytics, you can see that my blog is gaining more traction and generating increased traffic from the search engines.

This is a trend I’m going to continue to push for with the SEO work laid out below.

Next Steps for Continued Year-Over-Year Growth

These blogging reports really help me take a step back and see where I need to be spending the most time on moving forward to increase my traffic and readership.

Below are two ares that I will be focusing on in the coming months.

Targeting Less Competitive Keywords

I think we all tend to target keywords that are way too broad and/or competitive, I am definitely still guilty of this. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t aim our sights high every once in a while in our keyword strategy, but we also need to be realistic and go after terms we can actually rank for. Trying to rank for keywords that are just too competitive can leave you buried in the search results (and very frustrated). Instead my focus here will be to target long-tail type keywords that contain 3, 4, and even 5+ words in a given phrase. I’ve noticed that these blog posts rank a lot better and much quicker. Check out my post here on keyword research and targeting long-tail keyword phrases.

Quality and Comprehensive Content

A common problem I see with many bloggers is that they try to post too often on their website which takes away from the quality of their writing. Google more than ever is looking for in-depth and comprehensive content to rank on their first page. My best performing blog articles are generally the ones that are at the very least 750 words or longer and really cover a subject in its entirety. Strive to answer your readers questions, provide examples and make your posts as informative as possible. Quality content that is highly valuable to your readers will give you the best possible chance of ranking in the search engines.

How was your March 2019?

That wraps up this monthly report!

I hope some of the tips and insights I provide with this series is helpful for your own blogging journey going forward.

If you’d like to follow my monthly blogging reports I recommend visiting and saving this link here.

How was your March 2019?

Why You Should Embed YouTube Videos in Your Blog Posts?

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Benefits of Embedding YouTube Videos

Today’s blog post is based around a super simple topic, yet something that I’ve personally seen noticeable results with…

What I’m talking about here is embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts.

This is just another way to stand out from your competitors and add more personality to your blog.

Today we will be going over some of the benefits of embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts, but first let’s explain how you would actually do this in the first place.

How to Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress Blog?

First things first, head over to the video that you would like to embed into your blog post and click on the “Share” button.

How to Embed a YouTube Video in WordPress Blog

 

Now you have two options here:

  • Option #1, you can grab the “embed” code and paste that directly into the “Text” editor within WordPress (see next steps below).
  • Option #2, you can grab the URL provided and paste that directly into the “Visual” editor within WordPress (for the sake of keeping this particular blog article to the point, I only demonstrate option #1 below. However, option #2 is dead simple and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment below).

Embedding YouTube Videos

 

Next “copy” the embed code (alternatively, as stated above, you can just copy and paste the YouTube URL provided directly into the “Visual” editor within WordPress).

How to Embed YouTube Video in Blog

 

Lastly, find the blog post you’d like to edit and once inside hit the “Text” tab. Then simply just paste the embed code in from the previous step.

Embed YouTube Video on BlogYou will also want to “preview” this to make sure it looks okay (note: you can adjust the height and width dimensions of your video if necessary).

Benefits of Embedding YouTube Videos in Your Blog Posts?

Now that we’ve gone over exactly how to embed YouTube videos directly into your blog content, let’s examine some of the benefits of this strategy.

Again, a simple yet powerful tip!

1.) Provides Readers Exposure to a New Platform

Many of your blog readers may not know that you have a YouTube channel unless you embed your videos into some of your posts. This is a such a great way to expose some of the traffic from your blog to your YouTube channel. If these people already like your blog content, there’s a good chance they will like your YouTube videos as well. Which leads to the next benefit!

2.) More YouTube Subscribers

When you embed high-quality videos into your posts that help explain or sum up the content, people are way more inclined to subscribe to your YouTube channel. They are now primed and ready since they are already visiting and hanging around your blog. Embedding your YouTube videos within your blog content as an on-going strategy can really help grow your subscriber count and help build a loyal audience (both on YouTube and your blog).

3.) Longer-Time Spent on Page

If a visitor happens to watch your embedded video on one of your blog posts, this will most likely increase the time spent on that particular article. This is incredibly beneficial from an SEO perspective. The longer you can get people to stay on your website and click around, the better. This is a really easy and helpful tip to better optimize your blog posts for SEO.

4.) Potential for Inbound Links

If your content and videos are high-quality and provide loads of value, then these types of posts (copy with an embedded YouTube video) can attract inbound links. Informative articles get linked to and shared all the time. When you produce a really good piece of content on your blog that combines both text and video, you increase your chances of other webmasters linking out to you. Another huge SEO benefit that could lead to increases in targeted organic traffic.

5.) Makes Content More Engaging

Have you ever come across a blog post that flows fluently, smoothly and is very easy to read? Well, embedding YouTube videos within your blog posts can provide the same experience to your readers if done properly. YouTube videos within blog content can be a great way to break up the text and make it easier for your traffic to digest the information and stay on the page (similar to why we use text headings). Videos reveal additional layers about you, your brand and also helps add more personality to your posts.

6.) Deeper Relationships & Connections

When your readers either see your face or hear your voice (through video), this helps build deeper relationships and connections with your audience. Complimenting your text content with video really invites people into your world and creates a unique experience. It also shows that you’re transparent, human and willing to put yourself out there to help people your readers. This is a great way to build a following that will last for the long-term.

Bonus Tip:

Make sure you are also adding your blog article links within the YouTube description section (see screenshot below). This is an excellent way to drive more traffic to your blog with YouTube!

Adding Blog to YouTube Description

Conclusion

It’s hard to believe that so many wonderful benefits come from such a simple tactic like embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts. Yet, I’ve noticed over the course of my blogging experience, it’s the little steps over a prolonged period of time that yield the best results. Make sure to combine this strategy with other foundational blogging techniques for the best results!

Do you currently embed YouTube videos within your blog posts?

Have you noticed any positive benefits yourself?

Check out my video version of this post here!

3 Tips To Make Your Sales Funnel Future Ready (Guest Post)

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Make Your Sales Funnel Future Ready

This is a guest post written by Anubhuti Shrivastava.

If you want to keep your brand alive then it’s important to build and maintain a comprehensive sales funnel. It should have the capacity to nurture quality leads and guide them down through the pipeline in order to maximize conversions.

But the dynamism in the marketplace demands you to design the channel with a futuristic approach and optimize each and every phase. This process requires you to brainstorm and identify ways to improve the overall funnel for boosting sales.

It can be tough but a little bit of caution is enough to empower you with numerous ways to modify and make the funnel future ready. Let’s begin with the basics and try to look at the refining process with a different perspective with the motive of increasing sales.

How Can You Define A Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a tool which provides sales reps with essential insights into where the prospects are actually in the sales process. Also, it helps them to optimize different business processes which they accomplish in order to close a deal. Generally, these processes include:

  • Awareness: Grabbing the prospects’ attention by providing them with amazing offers
  • Consideration: Personal meeting and eventually signing the deal
  • Loyalty: Converting customers into permanent clients
  • Advocacy: Your loyal clients will indirectly become promoters

You can observe each and every member of your sales team and evaluate the way in which they are completing these steps. Also, measure the time required by each of them to finish one stage. Once you are done with analysis, identify the ways to optimize each and every process and eliminate the unnecessary and tedious processes.

Based on the outcomes you can choose the best sales CRM and tweak it in order to stay away from wasting time on redundant processes. The insights provided by the CRM tool can be used to create a precise sales funnel.

Which Factors Can Be Optimized To Improve Your Sales Funnel?

First of all, in order to empower your sales team, it’s necessary to guide them in creating a reliable funnel. This will allow them to analyze each and every movement of the prospects. But it’s not enough to just recognize key business processes and keep an eye on sales reps to gain an idea of their performance.

Along with this, sales managers must have knowledge of using the data generated by the CRM system and use it to improve the following aspects:

  1. Identify the niche audience serving to which can be the most profitable venture for your business.
  2. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team and provide them with proper training to help them in filling the gaps.
  3. Study the way in which sales reps are engaging with new customers and track all the conversations to identify the bottlenecks.
  4. Evaluate the most profitable region for your business and optimize your efforts in the same direction.
  5. Figure out which of your products are performing better and which fall short in fulfilling the customer requirements. Discovering the products with maximum conversions will allow you to develop an effective product line.
  6. Analyze different channels such as webinars, cold calls, newsletters, conferences, advertising, etc. and recognize which of the channels are proving to be the best in providing you with maximum quality leads.

How Can You Make Your Sales Funnel Future Ready & Capable To Endorse Your Products & Services In The Best Possible Manner?

1.) Remarketing Can Be The Magic Wand To Grab More Leads & Increase Conversions

You can identify a different set of targeted audience and use remarketing campaigns or tools to attract them. For example, you can focus on prospects who have placed orders or abandon their shopping carts at the last moment or those site visitors who explored a few pages but left the portal without taking any action.

One of the best ways through which you can engage with one of the above set of potential customers is by providing them with something unique. You can come up with some interesting ideas to organize a contest for grabbing the attention of prospects. Also, building a visually appealing and intuitive landing page can act as an anchor to capture quality leads.

It’s a better choice to leverage one of the website builders available in the market for building an impressive landing page for your sales funnel. It will help you in building a concise page with high-end images, compelling CTAs, and personalized content to attract more visitors. You can use precise forms to gather details and discover quality leads that can be easily converted.

2.) Make Your Offer Unique

The majority of the sales reps provide their prospects with exciting discounts, redeemable coupons, and free deals to capture their attention. But all these have become common ways which are used by most of the brands. Therefore, to implement a unique strategy you can leverage marketing apps to grab more leads.

With the help of integrating analytics these apps can provide you with the following insights with which you can make well-informed business decisions:

  • Tips on how to enhance the performance
  • Comparative analysis with business rivals
  • Examining current actions and identifying the problematic areas

3.) Eliminate Blockages By Studying Your Conversions

Visitors should not feel pressure to explore more pages of your business website. But they should feel that curiosity from inside. You can revoke their interest by incorporating small changes which can streamline the entire experience. For example, by analyzing your conversion details you can locate the points where the visitors are losing their interest.

Make their journey interesting by providing them with elements like appealing images, simple forms, seamless UX, intuitive interface, etc. Test your product and consider valuable feedback to improvise its functionality. Experiment with payment options and evaluate the impact of integrating features such as completing the purchase using special menus or choice of delivery.

In a nutshell, nowadays it’s not important to use conventional tools for building a sales funnel but it’s more relevant to leverage out-of-the-box techniques. This can allow you to create a funnel which can grab more customers, maximize sales, and build awareness for your brand.

Author Bio:

Anubhuti Shrivastava

Anubhuti Shrivastava is a content crafter at Arkenea and Benchpoint. She is passionate about writing articles on topics related to design and the software development industry.

 

 

Any comments/questions? Let us know!

Blogging For Income – Are You Doing This Backwards?

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Blogging For Income

I was inspired to write this post based on a common trend I see with some of my coaching students and also beginner bloggers in general.

Too many people get into blogging with the sole purpose of making extra money, without any sort of plan, and without any real direction.

We see all these success stories of bloggers who are making full-time incomes from their websites (which is entirely possible) but I personally think this gives people the wrong motivation and message.

The main problem I see with many beginner and aspiring bloggers is that they’re blogging for income. 

Now if you continue to just blog for income, your readers (if you even receive any) will be able to see right through this.

You don’t want to be a blogger who overloads their website with banner ads, Google adsense, affiliate links in almost every single post etc.

Blogging for income and using “money” as a main motivation in my opinion, will make it almost impossible to build a sustainable and thriving business.

In fact, this mindset needs to be shaken up a bit!

Now you’re probably wondering, “okay Evan, so if I’m not blogging for income what the heck is the point of starting a blog in the first place…What am I blogging for?”

Well instead I want you to switch your mindset from blogging for income to blogging for value (or blogging to create value).

Let’s jump into this in a bit more detail below.

Blogging For Value Instead

Now of course as bloggers we want to make extra money and for some of us, even turn this into our full-time incomes…

But as stated above, it’s going to be painfully hard to get there if your mindset only revolves around money, money, money!

Blog For Income

Blogging for value or blogging to create as much value for your readers as possible is the ticket to building a sustainable business in this arena.

A blog is one of the best ways to share high-quality and helpful information in your area of expertise and should be used for that.

People who just blog for income will quickly run out of topics to write about and most likely lose their passion along the way.

Creating value provides a huge sense of purpose and a reason to keep producing quality content.

Here’s the kicker and why this type of mindset is a win-win in my opinion.

If you blog to create value rather than income, overtime the income will actually follow.

If you give, you shall receive…this saying is true with blogging too.

When you are committed to giving and producing helpful content for your readers, making money becomes a lot easier with your blog.

This is such a simple concept, yet so many people have this backwards.

Below are a few specific ways that we can begin blogging for value:

Blogging to Answer Questions

  • A blog is the perfect platform to help answer questions that people may be searching for in your niche. People type in questions to Google all the time, and being able to help answer some of these positions yourself as an expert and authority figure. Not to mention, question and answer style blog posts can rank well in Google assuming you are optimizing them properly for search. If you provide a really thorough and thoughtful answer to a particular question that may be nagging at someone, you build immediate trust and credibility with that person. This can snowball upon itself (with other blog articles you write) assuming most of your content is value based, and eventually lead to a tribe of engaged fans, followers and readers.

Blogging to Solve Problems

  • Solving problems ties in directly with the point we laid above and should be used in a similar approach. You need to think of yourself as a problem solver. Do your own research and see what types of issues people are running into in your niche. Craft quality and informative content based around solving these problems. Sometimes this can even provide you with a good foundation to build out a product of your own. People are willing to pay for information that addresses a particular obstacle or hurdle they may be faced with. Always be solving problems!

Blogging to Educate

  • Informational articles that help educate your readers on a particular subject (without wanting anything in return), is another powerful value based approach. I know when I personally come across an article that really leaves me with a sense of “I really learned something new here“, it makes me that much more inclined to sign up for the newsletter or return to the website in the near future. Become almost like a teacher in your niche and provide practical, actionable and educational type content for your readers to indulge in.

Blogging for Relationships & Community

  • Instead of blogging for income, blog to create relationships and a community that will last a life-time. Blogging is a long-term and never-ending journey. You want to build a community that will stick with you for the long-haul. As a blogger, you must always respond to comments and emails if you want to establish an engaged following and eventual customer base. Blog for the people that visit your website by making them feel welcome and supporting them with content that is useful and beneficial to their lives. Fall in love with your readers, show gratitude, invest your time in them and they will eventually invest in you.

Conclusion

Let me make clear that making an income from your blog is definitely important and should still be a goal of yours, but know that you must create value first for income to follow. I still encourage you to monetize your website, build your email list and create quality products but only if you’re providing value in the process as well. I know at first even when I started out as a blogger, I was too focused on just making money, it wasn’t until I completely changed my mindset from blogging for income to blogging for value (or blogging to create value), that things really started to take off.

I hope this post helps some of you maybe re-evaluate your current blogging strategy.

At the very least, it will be a good reminder just how important creating value in the marketplace is!

Do you fall into the trap of focusing too much on income when it comes to blogging?

How has creating value helped your blog grow?

Check out my video version of this post here!

Constant Contact Review – The Email Autoresponder I Personally Use For My Blog

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Constant Contact Review

IMPORTANT: I have since made the switch over to ConvertKit since Constant Contact just wasn’t providing the service I needed for my website. Read why I prefer ConverKit over any other email autoresponder here.

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

With so many options of email autoresponders available today it can be hard to decide which particular service to use.

I know I definitely had this problem when first starting out.

However, since being involved with Internet Marketing since 2007, this has allowed me to extensively test many different email marketing platforms.Review of Constant Contact

I’ve truly seen the good, bad and ugly when it comes to autoresponders and really only recommend a handful to my readers as of today (Constant Contact and Aweber).

Today we are going to be reviewing Constant Contact, which is the email marketing software that I currently use on this very blog you’re reading.

I’m very happy with Constant Contact’s email marketing services and highly recommend this to other bloggers, business owners and professionals…No matter what their experience level is.

With that being said, let’s go over a few of my favorite features/aspects of Constant Contact.

And as always, if you have any questions on this Constant Contact review, please feel free to leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

Constant Contact Review & Why It’s My Go-To-Choice For My Blog

1.) User-Friendly

Constant Contact is the ideal option for many people because it’s incredibly simple to use and operate. Many bloggers and business owners want to get up and running as quick as possible when it comes to email and really don’t want to be bogged down trying to learn a complicated software. One of the biggest benefits to Constant Contact is that you can have an email campaign created and ready to send out in a matter of minutes. I know with other email software I’ve tested in the past, it can be confusing and even discouraging to create a follow-up series or even send out a simple email broadcast blast. With Constant Contact, you might be surprised just how simple their entire process is!

2.) Free Trial Period

Constant Contact offers one of the longest trial periods out of any of the email autoresponders on the market today at 60 days (sign up for your free 60 day trial here). This lets someone who might be on the fence to really dive in and test out the software before making a commitment. Most people when they see and experience all that Constant Contact has to offer will upgrade to a paid membership. Regardless, 60 days gives you some breathing room and ample time to make a decision.

3.) Customization & Segmentation

Although I personally try to keep my email design pretty simple, Constant Contact offers many customization options when crafting your email templates. This can be beneficial for businesses who really want to customize their messaging by adding a logo, certain colors, graphics, spacing, styling etc. It allows us to create a unique and personalized email experience for our subscribers, keeping them engaged, intrigued and interested in more.

Segmentation is also a helpful feature that Constant Contact offers. I know with my own personal email list through Constant Contact, I have 3 different segments that I set up to market to. For many businesses, they may want to separate certain lists (for example, buyers vs. non-buyers). Furthermore, you are able to trigger this within your follow-up series through a “click segmentation” feature. This can help you add people to different lists just from them clicking on a particular link within your email.

4.) Integration with WordPress

As a blogger, I need something that easily and seamlessly integrates with WordPress. Luckily, there are many plugins that help you connect the Constant Contact platform to your website. I like to use MailMunch to get high-quality opt-in forms set up on my websites (such as sidebar forms, exit pop-ups etc.). This allows me to easily build my email list on my WordPress site and then manage it within Constant Contact. Because Constant Contact is such a reputable email marketing software, there are many plugin/marketing tool options that work with integrating it on your website.

5.) Deliverability

Let’s face it, deliverability is one of the single most important aspects when choosing an email marketing software. Fortunately, in my experience and years of testing many different email autoresponders, Constant Contact has one of the highest delivery rates out there. You must be able to fully rely on your email marketing provider to deliver the majority of your messages to people’s inbox. This is critical to your bottom line. I’ve been thoroughly impressed by my overall open rates and clicks throughout my emails lists with Constant Contact. You can tell they put in a lot of work to ensure that their deliverability remains as high as possible (and better than most of the competition).

6.) Customer Support

For me personally and with any marketing tool I purchase, customer support is one of the first things I look into. If you run into a snag or need additional assistance to solve an issue, you really don’t want to feel like you’re alone…and with Constant Contact, you definitely don’t. You can give them a call at their customer service number or start a live chat (which is my favorite). They are generally able to help resolve your problem/question within the first go around. At least that’s been my experience so far and with various requests!

7.) Affiliate Opportunity

Last but certainly not least is the affiliate opportunity that Constant Contact offers. If you are accepted into the Constant Contact affiliate program you also get assigned a dedicated account manager to help you get the most out of the partnership. This to me was a really nice touch and I’ve been in contact with my account manager each week brainstorming different ideas on how to best promote the Constant Contact service. The payouts are also much more impressive than many of the competing email affiliate programs with $5 per free trail sign up and $105 per paid member sign up. Really it’s a no-brainer to promote this if you qualify and adhere to their guidelines!

Conclusion

I hope this Constant Contact review was helpful and provided more clarity and direction if you’ve been struggling to make a decision on an email marketing software.

My rating for Constant Contact is a 5/5

I have absolutely no reason to rate it any lower and have not run into any issues with the platform to date.

Again, this is the email marketing service that I personally use on my blog and I’ve really enjoyed my partnership with Constant Contact.

The quality features, tools, and overall support really makes this a stand out in my opinion.

IMPORTANT: I have since made the switch over to ConvertKit since Constant Contact just wasn’t providing the service I needed for my website. Read why I prefer ConverKit over any other email autoresponder here.

Check out my Constant Contact Review on YouTube:

Keep Putting Out High-Quality Content – Be A Content Producing Machine!

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Quality of Content

In order to start establishing a following for yourself, it’s essential that you produce quality content on a consistent basis.

This is how you build a loyal readership/viewership and eventually a customer base.

However, I’d like to emphasize the word quality here, as there’s no point in publishing loads of mediocre or sub par content.

Do NOT sacrifice quality for quantity.

For example, you are much better off publishing 4 highly valuable blog posts per month compared to 30 below average posts.

Although you want to be consistent in your content generation strategy, you need to combine this with quality work.

With that being said, here are a few strategies that I’ve been successfully using to push out lots of quality content.

Blog Posts

My blog is really my main hub and where I eventually try to direct all of my traffic to. I generally publish 1 high-quality article to my website per week (4 per month). These articles are normally about Internet Marketing tactics, blogging, SEO, traffic generation, my overall journey and a lot more. I try to make these as informational as I can for both new and returning visitors of my website (how to guides, tutorials, personal failures/successes etc.). Many times these will be long-form style blog posts of 1,000 words or longer to really try to help people as much as I possibly can. For one these types of articles tend to rank well in Google and two they allow you to really go in deep on the topic you’re writing about. A blog is a great platform to produce quality content on a constant basis.

YouTube Videos

I try to use the same schedule as my blog posts above for my YouTube channel as well, 1 high-quality video per week uploaded to YouTube (4 per month). Since there is so much traffic “hanging out” on YouTube nowadays, this is a platform that I believe every marketer should be utilizing. I like to publish videos based on the blog posts I am writing for that given week. Again these are designed to be both in-depth and helpful to my viewers. For example, if I write a blog post on “4 Tips to Generate More Organic Traffic For Your Blog”, I will generally publish a video to YouTube on the same topic. I will also embed my video in the blog post itself and add the blog post link to my YouTube video description. This gets people navigating both to my blog and YouTube channel for maximum exposure. I will also do one off videos on separate topics from my blog posts as not all of my articles require a supplemental video.  The key takeaway here is 4 high-quality videos published to my channel per month.

Forum Posting

I am a member of a handful of authoritative and popular forums in my niche and try to post on them a couple of times a week. But for this example, let’s just say I publish 2 times per week to my favorite Internet Marketing forum WarriorForum.com. That comes out to around 8 forum posts per month. And these aren’t low-quality comments. Just like my blog posts and YouTube videos, I try to make my forum posts as informative as possible. When you provide value like this, people are intrigued to learn more from you. Forums are an excellent way to answer people’s questions and position yourself as an expert in your niche. You are generally allowed a link in your forum signature which can generate additional traffic to your website…see screenshot below:

 

High Quality Content

Conclusion

If we total all this content up (blog posts + YouTube videos + forum posts) it comes out to 16 high-quality pieces of content each and every month. That’s a lot of valuable content and a great way to build a loyal and engaged following. Of course there’s dozens of other ways to generate content that I did not mention in this particular post, but these are just some of the strategies I’ve seen success with lately. Test them out for yourself and for a prolonged period of time to collect some data. Remember, it’s a combination of consistency and quality!

What content generation tactics are working for you?

Blogging Report (February 2019) – Noticeable Increases compared To Last Year

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SEO Blogging Report February 2019

When you start seeing noticeable year-over-year organic traffic increases on a consistent basis, it’s a sign that the SEO work you’re implementing is paying off.

I have more blog articles ranking in Google now then I did compared to this time last year, which in return is generating additional organic traffic for my website.

Again, as I always state, it takes time to see growth with your blog and you need to be patient when building your business.

Part of the reason I do these blogging reports is to be as transparent as possible to demonstrate that this has not been an overnight process for me (and will continue to take a lot of work).

It’s my own personal case study.

You’ll see months where my blog traffic spikes, plateaus/stagnates and even dips here and there.

That’s all part of the process…

Now of course everyone’s results will be different depending on the niche they operate in, posting frequency, SEO knowledge etc…Some will grow much quicker than me and others much slower.

But the important part is that you stick to a plan and continue on with your efforts over the long-term.

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

Organic Traffic (February 2019)- 217 Visits

Organic traffic in February 2019 came in at 217 visits.

Not as high as last month (January 2019- 259 visits), but up noticeably when comparing year-over-year, which is a much better way to gauge how your website is performing overtime.

Year-Over-Year Organic Traffic Increases (February 2019 vs. February 2018)

Organic traffic for my blog is up 72.22% when comparing year-over-year (217 visits vs. 126 visits).

Overall I’m happy to see my organic traffic trending in the right direction and with the work I have planned moving forward, this should continue to tick upwards.

Let’s take a look at a couple of charts below from my Google Analytics account to show these organic traffic increases.

This first chart below shows my organic traffic over the long-term and I plotted Feb. 2019 and Feb. 2018 to clearly highlight the increases.

Organic Traffic Increases Feb 2019

This next chart shows the full month of February 2019 compared to the full month of February 2018. The blue line represents the data in February 2019 and the orange line in February 2018.

Organic Traffic Month Over Month
Year over Year Organic Traffic

It’s always helpful to look at various angles of your traffic within Google Analytics.

I especially like looking at the long-term view as you see in the first traffic chart above in order to analyze the organic growth of my website as a whole.

An increase of 72.22% year-over-year is definitely a number I’m happy with and below I’ve laid out a few next steps I will be implementing in order to build upon this trend.

Next Steps to Increase my Blog Traffic

Below are two specific areas that I will be focusing on in the coming months.

Of course this will go alongside my normal routine of producing high-quality, long-form style content and proper optimization of SEO tags and copy.

1.) New Link Building Techniques:

I will be incorporating two additional link building strategies into my routine.

  • HARO – HARO (helpareporterout.com) connects journalists to sources for upcoming stories, articles and news. This is a great opportunity for the source (us) to gain some media coverage and potentially a link back to our website. Generally HARO will send out daily emails of journalists looking for additional information on a particular piece they are working on. If you see something in your area of expertise, you can simply pitch these journalists with the information they’re seeking. If they like your write-up, they will include it in their story and most likely reward you with a backlink.
  • Roundups – Many times other bloggers will do an “expert roundup” type of post which highlights webmasters who specialize in a certain niche. This is a great way to gain additional exposure for your website as well as a quality backlink. There are different ways to find these opportunities and sometimes just a simple google search can do the trick. Roundups are not something I look into often, but I do want to weave this into my overall link building strategy every once in a while.

2.) Create a Strategic Content Calendar

I tend to create the content for my blog based on what’s currently going on with my business, what I’m experiencing and what’s working for me. While I’ll still continue to generate this type of content, I do think it would be beneficial if I created more of a concrete content calendar so I have my blog posts planned out weeks in advance. I will most likely utilize a Google Sheet or Excel file for this and break my ideas into sections such as:

  • Topic Idea
  • Keywords and monthly search volume (will be doing keyword research prior)
  • Date of publication
  • YouTube video in correlation to the post (yes or no)
  • Additional notes/thoughts

Sometimes getting your ideas out of your head and onto “paper” (in this case virtual paper), is incredibly beneficial. Having my posts scheduled will help keep me more organized and consistent in my content generation.

How was your February 2019?

That about wraps up this monthly report.

The continued growth I see is encouraging and motivates me to continue pushing forward and share what strategies I’ve had success with.

If you want to follow my monthly blogging reports, you can do so by visiting this page here.

How was your February 2019?

Celebrate Small Wins When It Comes To Blogging

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Celebrate Small Wins With Blogging

For many of us bloggers, sometimes it can feel like we aren’t making any noticeable progress.

I recently wrote a post on how blogging is not an overnight process and that it can take a long time before any measurable results are seen.

This can make it difficult to stay motivated and stick with it.

However, when I adopted a slight shift in my mindset, it really helped spark new inspiration and kept me moving in the right direction.

I started celebrating small wins in all areas of my blog and this gave me a new appreciation and enthusiasm in the work I was doing.

When I say celebrate small wins, I truly mean small.

This is especially helpful for bloggers who are brand new to the game and feel like they’re not making any headway.

In this post, we will go over a few areas that should not be overlooked and instead celebrated as you grow your blog and your business.

Celebrate Small Wins – Keep Track of Simple Victories

Comments on Your Blog

Having people engaged and commenting on your blog is definitely something worth celebrating about. If you’re just getting started with your website, even receiving that first comment is a huge accomplishment. Since I’m still in the growth stage of my blog, not all of my posts receive comments and that’s okay. I’ve learned to celebrate the new comments that do come in, which frees me from a “scarcity” type mindset. The most successful bloggers we see today started with no following and very little reader engagement. Did that stop them from pushing forward? Of course not. We need to celebrate the positive comments/interaction that we do currently receive which will help spur future growth.

Increases In Traffic

I keep track of my organic traffic stats (and publicly here) on a monthly basis. Not every month do I see my traffic explode through the roof but I do notice the growth when looking at trends over the long-term. To me, this is something to celebrate, no matter how big or small my traffic increases are. The fact that my website is growing in both new and returning visitors deserves to be acknowledged. Traffic metrics for new bloggers can be incredibly minimal when first starting out so it’s important that any increases they see, they give themselves some credit. This positive reinforcement can mean all the difference for someone who is on the fence of continuing or quitting.

New Email Subscribers

Every blogger should be building their email list to stay connected with their readers, promote additional products and point people back to their website. Any new subscriber you add to your email list is a big reason to celebrate as these people are giving you permission to send them updates, tips, tricks etc. This means that they want to hear from you and are interested in the content you are providing. So often, people get caught up in the overall size of their email list instead of celebrating the small incremental growth they see on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Each and every new subscriber you generate is something to be proud of. 

Note: If you’re looking for an email autoresponder, I highly recommend ConvertKit for bloggers and webmasters.

Any Income Generated

Of course, any income made from your blog is worth the celebration. But if you don’t take victory in some of the other areas we discussed above, you likely won’t get to this stage. Producing money from your blog can be an exhilarating feeling and means that people trust you and your website (whether they are customers or advertisers). I think for first time bloggers, the biggest celebration obviously is making that first dollar from their website. Maybe for more advanced bloggers, it’s making their first $1,000, $5,000 or even $10,000 per month. Whatever level you are at currently, celebrate any revenue that your blog generates.

Now it’s important to note that my message with this post is NOT about accepting where you are as a blogger and becoming stagnant.

I’m constantly implementing various strategies to grow my readership, traffic and overall income.

But I DO want you to acknowledge the progress you are making, no matter how small it may seem.

This will indeed keep you moving forward and on a path to even bigger results.

Give yourself a pat on the back every once and while…

This is the perfect time to take a step back and reflect on how far you’ve come.

Celebrate the small wins and enjoy the journey!

Below is the video version of this post:

 

Two Powerful Tips on How To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings In Google

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Improve Search Engine Rankings

Over the years I’ve been increasingly intrigued by which SEO strategies really help the most with improving search engine rankings in Google.

Besides the essential first steps like identifying relevant keyword phrases and optimizing your meta tags, I wanted to provide two specific tips that I’ve seen a lot of success with lately.

The two tactics that we’ll talk about below, combined together, can be incredibly powerful in terms of gaining more traction and improving your search engine rankings in Google.

Again, as stated in many of my previous blog posts, seeing movement in Google and the other major search engines is not an overnight process.

It will indeed take time and consistent effort on your end, but the hard work is worth it.

Ranking your blog articles or webpages highly in Google has the potential to bring in floods of traffic to your website (and quite passively).

For many webmasters, this could mean more exposure, leads, sales and returning customers.

This is why it’s such a competition to get ranked at the top of Google and why studying the process is so fascinating to me…I enjoy the challenge and know the rewards of obtaining high search engine rankings.

With that being said, in this post I’m going to provide you with two powerful methods I’ve been using to rank certain articles at the top of the search results.

How To Improve Search Engine Rankings in Google

Please note that these tips below are just a small part of an overall SEO strategy. They should be used in supplement with additional SEO tactics for the best results.

1.) Create Long-Form Style Content

Creating quality content is more important than ever now and especially because there is so much competition in any given niche. Generally the highest ranked articles in Google are ones that are written with the reader in mind, that help identify and solve problems, answer questions and provide immense value.

Along with quality, what really increases your chances of securing a top position in Google is by producing long-form style content.

When I say long-form, I’m referring to crafting content that is over 1,500 words long for your readers. The reason why Google will rank this type of article higher than an article that is 300 words for example is because there’s a lot more effort involved to create the longer piece. A longer article oftentimes covers a lot more ground as well and allows the writer to really go in depth.

Another benefit about writing longer content is that you have more room for optimizations within your actual copy. There’s additional opportunity to target your main keyword phrases/variations of keywords and also more opportunity to really utilize header tags to your advantage (H1, H2, H3, H4 etc.).

Long-form style content gives Google a lot to “grab a hold of” rather than a page that is super “thin”. Many SEO tools will even “flag” pages on your website that have a low word count and encourage you to add more copy. You need to show Google that you are producing valuable content that indeed took some time to put together.

Now of course not every blog post you write has to be this type of long-form style content. I’m totally guilty of still writing a 500-600 word blog post from time to time. But I would definitely recommend getting into the habit of weaving in these types of articles to your content strategy.

Do this over the long-term and track your progress using a ranking tools such as MOZ or Serpfox. This is just one step that can really improve your search engine rankings overtime.

Now for tip #2!

2.) Build Backlinks to Specific Pages/Posts

Most of us know that building quality links on other authoritative websites is absolutely critical to a successful SEO campaign. But one problem I see often is that too many people build links that point to just their homepage. Now I do recommend acquiring links for your homepage on occasion, but I also would encourage you to build links to individual posts/pages that you want to rank for. This really diversifies your link building strategy and helps pass link equity/juice to a specific page.

how to improve google rankings

Another area I will use this strategy on is for keywords where I’m ranking on page #2 of Google. This tells me that I’m within striking distance and can most likely push to the first page of Google with more quality links built (and to that specific ranking page/post). This is an excellent way to build up page authority and encourage ranking movement in the search results.

Probably the simplest way to master this technique is through guest posting.

For example, I once had a blog post that was hovering between position #11-14 for a couple of months (top of page #2 in Google) and for a really strong keyword. This particular keyword had approximately 1,000 searches per month. I knew if I could get to the first page of Google, even within the first #1-6 positions, I could capture a portion of the organic traffic for that given keyword.

I used the same exact strategy we’re discussing here and over the next few months, I started targeting that page in my guest posting efforts. I would reach out to other relevant websites in my niche and offer to write a guest post for them. Within my article, I placed a link to that specific blog post that had been hovering on page #2 for a while.

Slowly but surely, I built a bunch of quality links to this particular blog post.

Lo and behold, after approximately 6-8 months I started noticing significant improvements in my ranking position for that term and page. I had jumped up to the #5 position on page #1 of Google. Now as of writing this today, I hover anywhere from position #3-6, but this is a noticeable improvement thanks to building links to that specific page.

How do I plan on securing the top spot for this term in Google?

Same exact method laid out above…I’ll continue to build quality links to this page.

One important thing to note about search engine rankings is that you’re not always going to secure the top spot and in some cases you won’t even make it to the first page of Google. That’s just the way it is with SEO.

However, you give yourself a heck of a chance by producing long-form/quality content and also building links to these pages. If you practice this process for long enough, you really should be able to improve your Google rankings quite substantially.

Conclusion:

To close, use the two steps laid out above together for the best results and overall search engine ranking improvements. Produce long-form style content based around certain keyword phrases and then build quality backlinks to those pages. This will show Google that your articles are highly valuable through in-depth writing and also important since other websites are linking back to them. This is a recipe for success if you’re looking to improve your search engine rankings and drive more targeted traffic to your website!

What strategies do you currently use to improve your Google rankings?

Have you had success with any of the tips above?

Interested in private one-on-one SEO coaching sessions? Check this out!

Below is the video version of this post:

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5 Ecommerce Lead Generation Strategies to Skyrocket Your ROI

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ecommerce lead generation

Effective lead generation is a crucial element of success in any industry, but when it comes to ecommerce, it can mean the difference between a sold-out store and a backlog of inventory you simply can’t get rid of. Yes, lead generation matters for your long-term growth and success in the millennial-driven ecommerce world, however, the process itself can oftentimes seem overly cumbersome and resource-demanding.

While it is true that generating quality leads does require hard work, time, and some financial investment, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t several cost-effective strategies that will give you the best bang for your buck.

Here are the five lead generation strategies you can use to maximize your online influence and skyrocket your ROI.

First up, invest in marketing automation

Acquiring quality leads is not just about finding, nurturing, and converting prospects – it’s also about doing it in a financially-sensible way. In other worlds, your strategy needs to be cost-effective. With that in mind, your first order of business is to utilize the power of software automation in order to minimize resource expenditure while increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of your lead generation strategy.

Automation is excellent for expediting menial tasks and effectuating template marketing content such as bulk emails or forms, and even replicating high-performing landing pages in a short time-frame. What’s more, keep in mind that marketing automation software can provide you with unique consumer insights you can later use to personalize every marketing campaign, from your emails to your social media strategy.

Use social media to your advantage

We live in the age of social media, and given the fact that everyone and their dogs have social media accounts nowadays, it would be a terrible waste if you didn’t use your SM presence to generate quality leads and inspire people to fall in love with your brand. Not only does smart social media management allow you to improve your company’s image in the competitive online world, but if you engage with your audience just right, you can even inspire them to follow the link to your website and make a purchase.

The best part of it is that there are numerous ways you can achieve this goal. From sharing quality content on a daily basis, to offering deals and discounts, referral bonuses, and even giveaways, you can incentivize your existing and potential followers to visit your website and take advantage of the limited-time offer. And remember, the more quality content you publish, the higher the chances of disseminating your brand across the online world through shares, likes, and mentions.

Strengthen your sales chat strategy

If you had to choose to focus on a single lead generation strategy, especially if you’re operating in the B2B realm, it would have to be your sales team. Without a doubt, sales chat and communication in general is one of the most powerful tools for any modern business to reach out to their prospects and convert them into paying customers and recurring clients.

Most importantly, comprehensive sales communication allows you to generate leads without spending resources on content creation, so if you were wondering how to generate b2b leads efficiently as a growth-oriented ecommerce brand, sales chat is the way to do it. While this doesn’t mean that you should forgo content creation completely, it does mean that you can reallocate resources towards other more lucrative opportunities all the while maintaining a high-performing sales cycle.

Build an email marketing strategy

Email marketing is not only alive and kicking, but it has become another crucial element of a winning lead generation strategy, especially in the overly-saturated ecommerce industry. Simply put, your business is one of thousands of similar companies that are trying to attract potential customers and convert them into paying ones. Email marketing might just be the thing that sets your brand apart from the rest.

From sending out automated welcome emails when people sing up on your website, to sending newsletters and promotional emails to your potential and existing customers, there are a myriad of ways your business can benefit. Much like chat, email allows you to communicate with your prospects in a more personal way, and thus establish a brand-consumer relationship that will drive loyalty and engagement through the roof.

Combine quality SEO optimized content with PPC

Earlier we touched on the subject of content creation. It’s important to remember that content will remain king in the online world for quite some time, and that you can use it to attract consumers to your website and build your site’s authority in the eyes of the search engines to boot.

Combining SEO-driven content with quality PPC ads on Google and social media platforms will further expand the visibility of your brand, and incentivize people to visit your online store. You can also give a specific purpose to each tactic, and use PPC to obtain leads quickly while nurturing them to fruition via compelling storytelling, imagery, and video content.

In closing

Lead generation should be a vital part of your long-term growth strategy. After you have discovered new leads, you can effectuate your retention strategy and convert them into paying customers, but more importantly for your brand’s future, into loyal brand followers and recurring clients.

Author Bio:
Lauren Wiseman

Lauren Wiseman is an entrepreneur, currently based in Melbourne and a regular contributor to bizzmarkblog.com. She assists clients in growing their personal and professional brands in a fast-changing and demanding market environment. Covering finance and investment topics, Lauren strongly believes in holistic approach to business.

What types of ecommerce lead generation strategies do you use?

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