Categories
Customer Engagement & Retention

A Couple Guest Blog Posts Worth Reading

I’ve talked about guest blog posts with clients quite a bit.

I really do believe guest posts on other blogs are beneficial to all involved:

  • the blogger getting the guest post (as long as it’s quality)
  • the blogger providing the content (as long as they know how to subtly promote what they do)
  • the readers of the blog (sometimes a different voice can “strike a new cord” with active blog readers)

Here are a few guests posts I’ve done that will give you some ideas on how I do things (the first two guest posts were requested from a reader of Moller Marketing that thought his audience could benefit):

Here’s a sample of what I shared there:

I’ve worked with thousands of clients who are either just getting started, have dabbled a bit with online marketing, or who have quite a bit of online experience. Although they all have different backgrounds and knowledge about internet marketing, most usually seem to have one thing in common…

They don’t know what they really want their website to do.

What can a website do for my business?

Makes Sales: Products, services, memberships, information, affiliate products, advertising space, cross promotions – what CAN’T you sell online? To me, if you have a website and you’re not selling something (even another companies products, services or ad space), you’re missing a source of business revenue. (read more…)

Here’s a sample:

Hopefully by now you’ve focused in on what you want your website to do for your business.

  1. Make sales
  2. Generate leads
  3. Serve as an online resume

A website can perform these and many other important functions, but I recommend you FOCUS on one or two core things first before you attempt to become the next “Wal-Mart” of your industry.

Here’s a quick review of the three things you need to do short-term to make your business website effective:

  1. Make sure your website is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly.
  2. Create a way to capture names and emails.
  3. Start a pay per click campaign. (read more…)

Is Guest Posting More Valuable Than Posting On Your Own Site?

This is a common question.

The answer is an astounding…Maybe!

Here’s the catch:

  • Guest posting is great IF you have a consistent blog that you can direct people to.
  • Guest posting is perfect IF you are competent in the topic you’re writing about.
  • Guest posting is ideal IF you have a pretty good understanding of the audience you’re writing to.

Guest posting is AWFUL if you don’t understand the three points mentioned above.

Why Guest Blog Posting Can Be a Waste of Time

Consistency (or lack thereof): I had a conversation with Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net about 2 months ago. In that conversation he mentioned that blogging is NOT for everyone if they are not consistent. If you blog once every six months and then the next day and then 2 years later, it’s better that you don’t even start. A blog like that will kill your credibility with potential readers that get let down when you’re high on promises and low on delivery.

Knowledge: It’s IMPERATIVE, when you offer to do a guest post about a specific topic, that you provide content that enlightens, expounds, or teaches something of value to the target audience. If your post is regurgitated ideas or re-written content from somewhere else, readers will most likely catch on and your guest post will hurt you more than it will help. One way I’ve found to be most successful with guest posts are real life case studies on how I did something specific and the result of the test.

Target Audience: Would you ever write an article about Utah dermatology for a memory foam mattress company? Do people interested in ballet have a care in the world about the New York Yankees or their fans? I’m sure you get the point. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Ask them questions. Find out what they want to know. Read the blog you want to guest post on and be aware of what’s been shared in the past before you invest the time to compose something that is completely out of their league or gets no reaction whatsoever.

Conclusion

In my opinion, guest posting can have huge results for an online business.

It can build credibility.

It can get you new readers.

It can help you increase sales.

And most of all, it’s a great way to build quality business relationships. And that’s what profitable business is all about.

How do you plan to use this information to improve your online business?

Categories
Customer Engagement & Retention

Don’t Let Email Slow Down Your Online Business

Do you get so many emails that you don’t have time to really focus on anything else?

Are you sick of getting SPAM or stupid forwards from your family and friends that simply waste valuable time?

I read an article quite a while back on Zen Habits stating the author was ditching email all together; at the time I was honestly like – “Yeah right!”

As of today, though, I’m seriously considering ditching my email too.

But, thanks to Google and a few other cool online tools, I’m considering a couple options before I throw email to the curb:

  1. Use Twitter for all correspondence. Leo Babauta from Zen Habits uses Twitter for the majority of his communication. Here’s why:”What I love about Twitter is that it’s very limited (140 characters), so you have to keep things brief, and also there isn’t the expectation that you’ll respond to every message, as there is in email. Friends can DM me on Twitter for personal communication.”

    Another great thing about Twitter is that, if you don’t want to get messages from specific people, you can block them or just not follow them.

  2. Set up a Gmail Account!

Gmail is always coming out with cool new functions. One I discovered today is Priority Mail. Check out this cool video:

Here are a few more details from the Gmail Team:

Get through your email faster

sectionsTry reading and replying to the messages in the “Important and Unread” section first. Mark anything that requires follow-up with a star, then go through the “Everything Else” section. If you leave Priority Inbox, you can return to it by clicking the link next to Inbox on the side navigation of Gmail.

How it works

Gmail’s servers look at several types of information to identify the email that’s important to you, including who you email and chat with most, how often you email with these people, and which keywords appear frequently in the emails you read.

Train Priority Inbox

If Priority Inbox makes a mistake, you can use the Mark important Mark not important buttons to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important, and Priority Inbox will quickly learn what you care about most.

sections

And more…

  • Customize Priority Inbox: You can change what type of email you see in each section (like switching the “Important and Unread” section to just “Important”). Just click on the section headers or visit the Priority Inbox tab under Settings to customize.
  • Use filters to guarantee importance: If you want to be absolutely sure that some messages are always marked as important (like email from your boss), you can set up a filter and choose “Always mark it as important.”
  • Search by importance: If you want to see all the messages that have been marked as important, both read and unread, do a Gmail search for “is:important.”
  • Switching back to your old inbox: If Priority Inbox isn’t for you, you can easily switch back to your normal inbox by clicking “Inbox” on the left or hide Priority Inbox altogether from Gmail Settings.

To learn more about managing your email with Priority Inbox, check out the Gmail Help Center.

So, set up a Gmail Account and save yourself some time!

Why aren’t you using Gmail yet?

Categories
Digital Presence & Marketing Strategy

How to Make eCommerce Pages SEO Friendly

This is a great video by SEOMoz about making eCommerce Pages SEO friendly and linkable.

Rand talks about how to make product pages unique, linkable, and search engine friendly. Even if you sell the same products that hundreds of other people sell online, you can be unique enough to dominate SERPs.

Key Takeaways from the ECommerce SEO Video

  1. Use keyword rich phrases as the title of products
  2. Show multiple images of products that YOU take
  3. Write creative descriptions of the products (not duplicate content from the manufacturer)
  4. Display cool statistics that people can source or write about on their own sites
  5. Run side by side comparisons of other products – the pro’s and con’s, benefits, etc.
  6. Allow user generated feedback: comments, rankings, thumbs up/down, reviews

How do you optimize individual product pages for search engines?