As far back as 1996, Bill Gates stated that the Internet would evolve into a “marketplace of content”. This prediction has indeed come to pass, as content is now considered to be “king” in the world of CRM and marketing in general.

You are already aware that presentation is the key to success. Whether referring to blogs, white papers or the average product update, client engagement is key. Fully developed strategies to implement, collate and present this content are now critical to the success of any business. WordPress has become one of the cornerstones of this industry. What aspects of this turnkey software allows it to be the choice of countless companies?

The Intuitive Edge

Were you aware that no less than 55 percent of the top million most-visited portals in the world employ WordPress as their CMS provider of choice? This largely arises from the fact that WordPress is highly intuitive. In other words, you need to know very little in regards to coding to create a great online presence. From user-friendly dashboards to preview pages to make certain that your page presents correctly, the user-friendly nature of this system cannot be denied. If you are able to edit text within a standard Word document, you will have little trouble adapting to WordPress.

The Power of the Open-Source Force

Another massive advantage of WordPress is that it is an open source. You will not have to pay one cent in order to utilize all of its tools and benefits. This is in direct contrast to other systems which require monthly installments in order to access benefits. Free products and services are attractive; particularly those which are as effective and easy to work with as WordPress.

Multifaceted Multimedia

In the past, embedding videos, GIFs and other widgets into a website were difficult without having a great deal of experience with coding. This frustration has been done away with thanks to the streamlined presentation that WordPress offers. Importing videos, images and graphics has never been easier. As we all know, embedded visual aids can make all the difference between an interested visitor and a high website bounce rate. The built-in tools provided by self-hosted WordPress have made it very simple to design a high functionality, and visually compelling website without very little technical knowledge or experience.

The Mobile-Responsive Edge

It is no secret that modern websites need to be mobile responsive in order to reach the most users possible. This can be difficult to address with in-house systems and if the mobile demographic is not reached, a great deal of business will naturally be lost. WordPress offers a number of turn-key themes which can be quickly integrated into your existing website architecture. This alone can dramatically boost a website’s natural ranking in the search engines, and thus a site’s daily visitor numbers.

Community Help

The open-source nature of WordPress enables you to find help when you need it the most. While most features are easy to use, there will inevitably be times when questions need to be asked. Thanks to a robust online community, help is never far off. This is in direct contrast to other CMS systems which usually provide a much more limited range of community support and creative solutions. With WordPress, there is a solution for nearly anything that you want to accomplish with your website, and if it doesn’t exist yet, you could easily have a coder create it for you on third-party sites such as Fivver or Upwork.

WordPress is here to stay. As a continuously growing number of websites are building their online presence with WordPress, it only stands to reason that its marketing value for online businesses will continue to grow. It will be very interesting to see how WordPress evolves as the needs of the modern business likewise advance, but rest assured they will meet tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities just as they have been doing since 2003.

Once there was a king who wanted to bathe in a giant swimming pool of milk rather than water… He had heard it was great for your skin, but it was too large a task to do alone.

He first told some of his workers to dig a pond. Once the pond was dug, the king made an announcement to his people saying that one person from each household had to bring a glass of milk during the night and pour it into the pond. So, in his estimations, the pond should be full of milk by the morning.

After receiving the order, everyone went home. One man prepared to take the milk during the night but milk was very rare in this town and he wanted to keep it. He thought that since everyone would bring milk, he could just use a glass of water and pour it inside the pond instead. Surely, because it would be dark at night, no one would even notice. So he quickly went and poured the water in the pond and came back happy.

In the morning, the king came to visit the pond and to his anger, the pond was only filled with pure water! What happened was that everyone was thinking the same thoughts as the other man that “I don’t have to put the milk, someone else will do it.”

When it comes to business help, do not think that others will take care of it all for you. I’m not saying not to accept help where you can get it. Help is important, but remember that it starts with you. If you don’t do things for yourself or at least oversee them, no one else will do it and if they do, you can’t complain that they did it wrong because you used something or someone outside of yourself to make it work.

There are only so many experts, workers, software, systems etc. that you can use to get ahead, all that will come later when you are rolling in your fortune. Meanwhile, if you want quality, get your hands dirty, do the learning, do the work and feel genuinely rewarded from it. This will avoid mistakes caused by others, it will encourage you to take responsibility and it will give you a sense of achievement.

If you have many automatic processes working for you and they are performing well, that’s great. But if there is anywhere in your life that you can step in and say – “Can I do more here? What can I do today that I didn’t bother with yesterday? What extra mile of work can I put in just for now?” Then every day will have purpose and every moment will feel in your control.

Life and business is all about what YOU put into it, so be sure you are doing everything you can every single day to actualize your full potential. Yes, leverage the help of others along the way when needed to improve efficiency, but never fully rely on others. Your life is what you make it, so make it ALL that it can be!

It might seem strange to think of icons as helping with your email marketing efforts. After all, it’s the message that’s important, right? But anything that can help you to better convey your message is something worth looking into.

Icons can highlight your company’s benefits and show the positive effects of your offer. They can demonstrate particular features or characteristics of your product or service. And they can be used to split email blocks, making the message easier to read.

What else can icons do for your emails?

1. Icons help organize the content.

No doubt you’ve seen this on webpages but perhaps not as often in emails. Imagine if your email has three options:

→ Ask a Question
→ Share Feedback
→ Get More Information

Each of these can have an appropriate icon that helps to organize and clarify the options. “Ask a Question” can be a question mark; “Share Feedback” might be a talk balloon and “Get More Information” could be a video icon, a book icon, a person icon or whatever, depending on the format of the information.

2. Icons help express ideas.

There are times when an icon can be used either in place of – or in conjunction with – a keyword to clarify the meaning in a more straightforward manner. For example, a play button icon is so universally understood, it makes more sense to use that than to use the word, “Play.”

3. Icons can replace heavy images.

Images in emails are great… until they aren’t. Images need to be downloaded, they can be blocked by email clients and unfortunately their appearance changes in different apps. While icons are less expressive, there are times when they are a better choice than stock photography.

4. Icons support your brand identity.

If you are using a particular set of icons on your website and advertising, it pays to use them in your emails as well to maintain your overall design and brand strategy.

I’ll bet there are certain businesses that you recognize by icons (for example, social media sites). If you received an email from them that did not contain those icons, it wouldn’t look authentic. In fact you might even suspect it was a phishing email to steal your info.

5. Icons reinforce interactive elements.

When it comes to things like call-to-action buttons, icons can reinforce the action you want taken by the reader. And they can also be animated to draw attention to something important, like the “Check it out” or “Grab your copy” button.

If you’re just getting started in email marketing, give icons a pass until you master the basics. But if you’re looking for a way to increase your email readability and conversion rates then I highly suggest you spend the next week observing how others are using icons in their emails while you devise your own strategy.

It’s surprising what a few little icons can do for your business!

You send out an email and someone writes back that you’re a liar. You post on your blog and someone says you’re an idiot. You create a new product and someone says it stinks and it doesn’t work. Congratulations, because you are doing something RIGHT.

If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re pleasing no one. People who are having a real and positive impact on the world are inevitably met with trolls and haters.

If no one experiences discomfort when they see your work, then your work isn’t having an impact.

Think of every successful person and company you know. Every single one of them has trolls and haters. And likely every single one of them knows that those trolls and haters are clear indications that they are on the right track.

Maybe you don’t have ‘haters’ after all. Maybe you have ‘fans in denial.’ It’s all a state of mind. Remember, when people hate on you, it’s often because you have something they want.

And here’s how to have fun with your haters: Realize that the less they like you, the more religiously they will be checking your page. So smile. And maybe write them this note:

“Dear haters, I have so much more for you to be mad at. Just be patient.”

A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.

Is someone trying to bring you down? They’re already beneath you, and they probably secretly wish to BE you.

So love your haters.

They are often a true measure of your success.

You might not be telling your prospects and customers everything they want to know – and it’s hurting your sign-ups and sales. Yet these are 3 easy fixes you can do in a day…

Tell them what they get when they join your list.

Sure, you’re telling them they get an incentive like a report or a video… but are you telling them you’re going to be emailing them? Are you telling them how often, and what to expect in those emails? Most marketers don’t, and it’s resulting in unsubscribes.

If you’re not telling your visitors that grabbing your freebie means they get emails from you, then you need to do it in the very first email you send to them.

Make a bullet list of all the great things they’ll discover in your first 10 or so emails. And let them know how often you’ll be sending email.

Done right, this small step not only prevents unsubscribes – it even makes subscribers anticipate your emails and open and read them.

Tell them how you are different.

You’ve got competitors – probably LOTS of them. Your customers are having trouble understanding what makes you different from all the other guys. And when they can’t tell the difference – they don’t buy.

So clearly communicate your biggest difference. Communicate it well and communicate it often. Be specific. Don’t just say, “Our traffic generation product is terrific.”

Instead write, “Our traffic generation product stands apart from all others because it details 42 specific traffic generation techniques in step-by-step format. No question goes unanswered. And we even give you an assessment of which 3 techniques will be the most profitable for your exact business.

Wow – I’m sold! Seriously, somebody make this product and I’ll buy it.

Solicit feedback.

At the end of any purchase, service or project, let your customer know that you want their feedback on their experience. Tell them you’re going to be sending a survey so you don’t take them by surprise, and so they know you really do want feedback. This puts them in the frame of mind to give you that feedback when they do receive the survey.

There are three kinds of feedback – good feedback, bad feedback and B.S. feedback. The hard part is telling the bad apart from the B.S.

Bad feedback is legitimate complaining about your product or service and shows you where you need to improve. Bad feedback is priceless and can earn you a fortune if you listen and if you make the appropriate changes.

B.S. feedback is a troll who is having a bad day or a bad life and wants to take it out on you. You should ignore this totally because it’s only going to make you feel lousy if you let it.

How do you tell the difference? Sometimes it can be difficult. Ask yourself if acting on the feedback will improve the product or the customer experience. Have others given this feedback? Does it seem like a legit complaint? If not, file it in the round folder, as they used to say (that’s the trash can.)

Good feedback is of course wonderful to receive, but don’t let it go to your head. Instead, find ways to do MORE of what they are praising for an even better customer experience.

And there you have it – 3 things you should be telling your customers: What they’re going to receive in emails and how often they’ll receive it, what makes you head and shoulders better and different from the competition, and that you sincerely want their feedback.

These 3 small changes can add up to a much larger bottom line for you.

Many people think that they need to have all the answers to be successful in any capacity; business wise or in life. While we all require some knowledge, there are some people in the world that have made it without.

That is, without qualifications, studying, school or even full expert knowledge of the field they want to be in. In fact, the majority of the world’s richest people know that they don’t need to have all the answers in order to gain success, and what’s more, they use that to their advantage.

They may have a certain specialism in their field, but using Henry Ford as an example, having a solid team of people who fill out your knowledge gaps is far more important than having all the answers for yourself. Henry Ford was the founder of Ford Motor Cars and was a very wealthy man in his time.

A Chicago paper published some articles after the First World War, claiming that Henry Ford was an “ignorant pacifist”. Mr. Ford rejected the idea that he was ignorant and retaliated by bringing a libel suit against the paper, even taking the not-so-common approach of putting himself on the witness stand to prove that he was in fact, a very clever man with nothing to hide.

The court lawyers asked Mr. Ford a series of pointless general knowledge questions and accused him of being a man who runs a car company with no real knowledge or experience with cars, the industry, academics or mechanics. The answer he gave silenced the court and became a very famous statement…

“If I should really WANT to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer ANY question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Now, will you kindly tell me, WHY I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?”

This retort was genius. The fact was – Ford didn’t have all the answers and that was OK. He had instead kept his mind free from clutter and employed experts in their fields to answer his questions while he focused on keeping his company running smoothly. If he needed to know about brakes, he would push the button for that expert, if he needed someone to explain engines to him, he had another. He used the specialized knowledge of others as an external brain to store extra information in and it made him the success he was.

You Too Can Be Like Henry Ford

We now live in the greatest information age of our time. You can Google any question you may have, so without qualifications – we are becoming experts just by searching.

The point is this – do not avoid a certain field or reject a job opportunity or investment because you feel you are not up to scratch, use other experts and research to find out as much as you can about your industry. Knowledge is power. If you think you don’t have it and that’s stopping you from moving forward, find someone who does and get up to speed.

Getting traffic to your squeeze page, website and sales pages is terrific. But if that traffic doesn’t convert, what good is it doing you? Here are 22 proven strategies to get your visitors to do what you want – whether that’s giving you their email address, sharing your content on social media or buying your products.

Before you read the following, allow me to offer 3 words of caution: Empty your cup. Just as a full tea cup can hold no more, a closed mind can’t increase conversions.

Imagine 3 people read this article. The first person says, “I’ve heard some of these before,” and dismisses the entire list. But is he doing these things? No. Are his conversions increasing? No. The second person reads this list and says, “These won’t work.” Again, her cup is full and her conversions never improve. The third person? Is you. You read through these and say, “That’s a good idea, yeah, I’ve been meaning to do that. I’m glad for the reminder.”

And then you get busy. Think your conversions will improve? Absolutely.

Let’s get started…

→ Use testimonials and case studies. A lot. Don’t just have a section for testimonials – work them into your copy, into your videos, everywhere.

→ If you don’t have testimonials and case studies, get some. Even if it means giving your product or service away or at a steep discount.

→ Use a guarantee. Or two. Or three. What sounds better, “If you’re not happy, you get your money back” or “You are 100% covered by our TRIPLE guarantee.”

→ Don’t make your guarantee contingent on anything but their satisfaction. Don’t say, “When you do every step in the program exactly as outlined, we guarantee you will get x results.” Instead, tell them if they so much as don’t like the font, they are fully covered. This takes all the fear away. Yes, refunds may increase slightly. But sales will increase even more.

→ Give them an ongoing bonus. Refunds do affect your true conversion rate, so reduce refunds by offering a terrific bonus that they get only if they don’t refund. For example, a valuable year-long membership can work well.

→ Use action verbs. Instead of, “Get yours today,” say, “Grab yours” “Reserve yours” or “Claim yours today.”

→ Reaffirm the sale repeatedly. Write an autoresponder sequence that kicks in after the sale. Each email should reaffirm how smart they were to buy the product, provide testimonials and show them something about the product they may have missed. “Did you see the trick in video 4 on how to get your mother-in-law to stop harping on you? Sally Smith used this exact technique and here’s what happened…”

→ On opt-in forms, use as few fields as possible. If you can just ask for their email address and first name, do it. If you need more info, consider asking for it later.

→ Use a two part opt-in. The first page announces the bonus and has a button to grab their copy. They click the button and it takes them to the second page where they put in their email address. These almost always out-perform one page opt-ins.

→ Pay a graphic designer to create a professional looking cover. Whether you’re giving away a book or selling a course, your cover should look as good as a New York Times Best Seller. If it does, your conversions will increase – sometimes dramatically.

→ Test and retest possible headlines. Sure, you’ve heard it before. But how many headlines have you tested on your squeeze page? Your sales page? It’s possible there is a headline that will literally double or even triple your conversions – you just need to find it.

→ Use video. On landing pages and sales pages, have a short, simple video showing that there is indeed a real live person behind the brand.

→ Create a dedicated landing page for… everything. You’re doing a guest blog post? Create a page that says, “Welcome readers of ABC blog.” You’re running a PPC ad? Create a dedicated page that perfectly matches what the ad said.

→ Include subscriber or social media follower counts. Anytime you can provide positive social proof, you’ll increase conversions. That said, if you have 5 followers or 10 subscribers, wait until your numbers are more impressive to share them with the world.

→ Use strong, clear calls to action. Never assume they’ll fill out the form if you don’t tell them to.

→ Lose the hype and “get real.” Customers can spot hype a mile away. So instead of “BUY THIS NOW,” try, “If you want (benefit) then I’ve found ABC product works well.” Then tell them why it’s not for everyone.

→ Prevent them from comparison shopping. Let them know that your product has no competition because you do things or offer things no one else does. (Do this only if it’s true. If it’s not true, make it true.)

→ Get visitors excited. Use emotionally charged language, tell stories and create desire. Get visitors eager to have your product or service.

→ Don’t use boring generic images. You know the ones – a stick figure at a computer, 4 people in suits sitting around a table, a lightbulb, etc. Use interesting images that capture attention and make the visitor look twice.

→ Test a single column layout. MECLabs tested having a sidebar versus not having a sidebar. The version with only one column won – and generated an astonishing 681% increase in conversions. But further tests showed this is not always the case – thus the need for testing it on your own pages.

→ Include headshots on your webpages. Again you want to show there is a real person behind the brand.

→ Spend serious time crafting your “about me” page. Include your bio, come across as a real person, include plenty of contact info, and talk about what you want to help the reader accomplish. Done right, your “about me” page can be your greatest selling tool.

Pick out exactly 3 and write them down. Do one of them today, one tomorrow and the third on the following day.

Then pat yourself on the back, because you’ve just done more to increase your conversions than 95% of marketers out there.

Do you have trouble completing tasks? Try this…

You’ve got a ton of stuff to do to set up your funnel…

→ create a lead magnet
→ write squeeze page copy
→ build a squeeze page
→ install tracking software
→ write follow up emails
→ create an OTO
→ create an OTO sales page
→ create an OTO download page

And so forth and so on.

It’s a big project, and when confronted with such a big project, what do most people do? They start on something – maybe the lead magnet – but they hit a snag.

So they set it aside and work on something else; maybe the squeeze page. But now they have questions about how to do it.

So they start on the follow up emails…

You see where this is going. Does it sound familiar?

Here’s the 79 cent method to getting stuff done:

Buy a pack of index cards.

Break down everything you need to do into steps.

Write each step on a card, in order.

Now pick up the top card and lay it right in front of you.

Put the rest of the stack inside your desk.

You don’t get card #2 until you finish card #1.

No exceptions.

NO exceptions.

Now when you run into an obstacle, you’ll find ways to get through it or around it so you can get that card off of your desk and move onto the next one.

Having trouble setting up the squeeze page? Go to Google for answers, or check YouTube for a ‘how-to’ video.

Just.Get.It.Done.

I noticed 2 things back when I first used this method. First, I got things done. It was great! And such a relief. Second, I built confidence. Every time I ran into an obstacle, I found the answer and powered through. I can’t tell you what that did for my belief in my ability to make things happen.

After a while, I couldn’t wait to get to the next ‘problem’ so I could solve it.

And even today, if I notice I’m procrastinating on a project because it seems too big, I pull out my blank index cards and start writing.

It works every time.

If there was a way to make almost guaranteed money in the make money online, internet marketing niche – would you be interested?

The concept is simple – take away the work and offer a ‘done for you’ solution. People want to make money online. They want to create products to sell, create blogs full of content, create Amazon affiliate sites and so forth.

They want all these things – but what they don’t want is the WORK of DOING these things.

They don’t want to write their own book, or record their own video product.

They don’t want to set up their own sites and write their own site content.

They don’t want to write sales pages and emails and guest blog posts.

They don’t want to create plugins, build membership sites, set up funnels or list build.

But they WANT all of these things.

All you do is supply what they want and you’ve got an easy sale.

To start with, you might want to do the work yourself. But once you get a job or two done, you can consider outsourcing the work to someone else. Now you just take the orders, order the work done, and deliver.

You’ve provided much wanted services, and it’s not taking much of your own time. All because you’re helping new marketers avoid that thing they dislike the most – work. And giving them exactly what they do want – their own business.

I know of a/b split tests where making this one simple change increased conversions and it might do the same for you.

On things like banners, opt-in forms and sales pages, (you’re going to think I’m crazy) test LEAVING OUT the button.

That’s right – don’t use a button.

Instead, test it with a blue hyperlink.

In the few tests I’ve seen, using a blue text link converts about 5% better than using a ‘click here’ type of button.

5% might not sound like much, but if you’re throwing a large amount of traffic to your banners, opt-ins and sales pages, it can really add up.

And as with anything else, be sure to test it yourself and see what kind of results you get.