Six years after starting a blog called the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington sold the website for 315 million dollars. But 3 years before the deal was done, Arianna shared her secrets to creating a successful blog at the MarketingProfs event. Little did they know at the time just how successful her blog would become!
Here are 3 points she said marketers should keep in mind when creating and growing their own blogs, along with my elaboration:
1. “Make it easy for your contributors to contribute.”
You’ll notice when you visit the Huffington Post there isn’t just one writer, there are hundreds of writers. In fact, any celebrity can share their thoughts in a blog post if they do it “transparently and honestly.” How can you adapt this method to your blog? Allow anyone known (and perhaps even unknown but up and coming) in your industry to make blog posts, and make it easy. If they want to phone it in, email it in or use any other method (snail mail?) then let them. So long as it fits into your blog’s guidelines, publish it.
2. “Have a clear point of view.”
Forget keeping everyone happy by covering every point of view. Instead, choose your angle and stick with it. It’s clear to all where the Huffington Post stands, and it should be just as clear to your readers where your own blog lies in the spectrum of opinion. Find the truth in each story from your point of view and your visitors will have a clear idea of what you stand for.
3. “Provide a safe environment.”
It’s not going to be easy to get new contributors if they’re afraid they’re going to get attacked each time they make a post. That’s why the Huffington Post employs a team of comment “pre-moderators” who approve or reject comments. Thus no personal attacks are allowed, and disagreements are kept on a civil and intelligent level.
If success leaves clues and you consider selling a blog for $315 million to be successful, what can these blogging guidelines do for you? Put them into practice and let’s find out!
The right header can give your website a professional look, attracting attention from your visitors and even increasing your conversions. The header can set the tone for your entire page, and can help visitors decide to linger or leave.
Obviously, you want to spend some time making your header look professional and convey exactly the message you want. After all, if a picture paints a thousand words, then your header can say a lot about you and your product or service.
With this in mind, here are 7 tips on how to make your header work for you instead of against you.
1. Use great graphics. Think of the biggest benefit your visitors get from your webpage, blog or product, and then find a way to convey that in a picture. For example – if you teach gardening, then a luscious, bold garden filled with vibrant flowers will work nicely. If you teach cooking, you’ll want a header that conveys the type of cooking you teach – Italian? Vegetarian? Keto?
But what if your main benefit isn’t so easy to convey? For example, you’re selling a product on how to get massive traffic through social media. One idea is to have a person telling another person, who tells another, who hands over cash to the website owner. Or perhaps it’s one of those diagrams where one person tells 5, who each tell 5, who each tell 5 (think MLM.) There are a number of possibilities – you’ve just got to find the right one for your website.
2. So you’ve got the perfect web graphic for your header in your, um, head, but you’re no graphic artist. Now what? Consider hiring a professional to create your graphic for you. View their portfolios to find someone who makes headers you like, and then hire that person. The money you spend to make your header can pay off very quickly, so don’t sweat the $50 to $200 it costs for a professional looking header.
3. Don’t forget the headline. Sure, you’ve got your website name and your graphic, but what about a slogan or headline? Your header is prime real estate so be smart and think of the perfect headline that tells exactly what your site, blog, product or service does. Make it compelling and curiosity or benefit driven, something that grabs prospect’s attention and persuades them to read further.
4. If possible, place your best keyword(s) in your header. Again, this is to grab the attention of your visitor and get them to read further on your page, rather than passing you by for the next website.
5. Align your header with your theme. If your website is blue and yellow, use those colors in your header. If your website uses a particular font, consider using the same or similar font in your header, and so forth. Your website should look seamless, not like a bunch of disjointed parts slapped together in Frankenstein’s basement.
6. Make your header credible. Don’t claim to be the world’s foremost leading authority on space travel unless you really are. Credibility is everything online.
7. Consider including a simple animation in your video. We’re not talking about those horrible neon flashing things here. But something subtle with a bit of movement will catch the eye and add interest.
Want some inspiration to get you started? Here are 55 Awesome Website Headers. Mind you, some of these are totally out-of-the-box different, and maybe more than you need…
Just a quick thought – you see a guru using a particular service, doing a particular technique, sending out a certain email, etc. And you think, “Hey! If he’s doing it, then it must be the thing to do, right?”
Well, not necessarily. Guru types make mistakes too. And because they are generally playing in a bigger arena, they sometimes make very big mistakes they quickly regret. The problem is, if you’re watching them then you can’t know for certain if what they just did was a good idea or the stupidest idea ever.
On top of that, you don’t know what their goals are. Maybe they’re selling a $2 ebook because they’re upselling a $97 course on the backend. So you sell a $2 ebook with no backend and then you wonder why you only made 6 sales and $12… It could be because you’re not a guru and so no one recognized your name and no one believed there could be value in something that costs $2.
That’s why you should never blindly imitate a guru – you don’t have the full story of what s/he’s doing and whether or not it’s working.
However, if you see him repeatedly doing something which he could easily change, then you might want to jump in and try it yourself. For example, you see a guru continually sending out emails with the same strange formulaic subject line. Try it.
If it wasn’t working for him, he wouldn’t keep doing it. Or at least we HOPE he wouldn’t – he might have someone in a faraway office sending those emails for him and he doesn’t even know the results.
Be cautious with imitating anyone, even the big dogs of marketing. Yes, it can be highly valuable to learn from others who are successful, but not everything that works for someone else is going to work for you.
Why don’t your customers recommend you to their friends? It’s not because they don’t like you – if they didn’t like you or your products, they wouldn’t be buying from you. Nor is it because they don’t have time – we all naturally recommend things we like to friends.
The reason they don’t recommend you is because you don’t make it easy for them. Here are 7 ways to not only make it easy, but to also remind them in a very nice, non-pushy way that you really would like a little word of mouth now and then…
1. Encourage them to write online reviews. Whatever your product or service, if you believe in it then ask your customers to rate it for you. Give them a 1 to 5 star option on one or several aspects of your product, and give them a place to write their comments.
2. Remember those “refer a friend” scripts? You used to see those buttons everywhere. Now that they aren’t as popular as they once were, it’s the perfect time to add them to your website. Remember, doing the opposite of what others are doing is quite often the way to stand apart and get ahead.
3. “Share with a friend.” There are other options besides “refer a friend.” For example, you can let them share the content of your blog post or article by simply clicking a button and choosing the email addresses they want it sent to. Better still, simply having this button will often remind people to send it to their friends, and they’ll copy and paste the content in an email.
4. Use your “Tweet This,” “Like This,” and “PlusOne” buttons. Then ASK them to share it. You can double your tweets and likes simply by asking.
5. Depending on your service, you might be able to “share the credit.” For example, the Flip digital video cameras have an option at the end of the video editing process where the user can “share the credit” with Flip. They check the box, and a small screen appears at the end of the movie saying it was created with a Flip Camera. If you can incorporate something like this into your product or service, by all means do so.
6. Do you have raving fans? Then create a button for their websites and Facebook pages that lets them share their enthusiasm for your product or service.
7. Make a special offer. For example, if you offer a monthly service, give each customer a free month of service for each paying customer they refer.
If you have a blog you might want to consider allowing others to post on it. Here’s why:
1. Guest bloggers create content for you, meaning you either a) don’t have to create as much content or b) you can have even more content on your blog without the extra work.
2. Guest bloggers know things you don’t. You’ve got your expertise and they’ve got theirs, and while you could take the time to master what they already know, it’s far easier to simply let them write about it.
Bonus: You look just as smart whether you write it yourself or get a guest blogger to do it for you.
3. Guest bloggers see things differently. Let’s face it, reading everything from the same perspective can get tiresome. Allow your readers to see different perspectives and it will keep your blog relevant and interesting.
4. Guest bloggers bring friends. They tell their followers about their guest posts, bringing fresh traffic to your blog.
Diversity is a big key to success in every field. Don’t always “go it alone”. Invite others into your fold. Then sit back and watch in appreciation as your business and influence grows.
Have no doubt, email marketing is still a huge powerhouse and offers perhaps the very best return on your time. So how can your emails have an even greater impact with your readers? Here are 5 tips for strengthening and adding power to content you create.
Shorter is better. But not too short. Shorter sentences are more likely to be read than longer ones. And shorter emails are more likely to be read all the way through than 3,000 word behemoths. But there’s also such a thing as TOO short. You know those emails that have one sentence designed to make you curious enough to click the link? Don’t be clever and copy those emails, because testing shows they don’t convert as well on the backend as emails that prep the reader for what they’re about to see. By that we mean, you may get just as many clicks as you would if you took the time to explain where your reader is going and why they should go there, but because you did not prepare them, you won’t get as many sales once they land on the page you sent them to.
The trick is to tell them, or in fact EDUCATE them just enough to make them want very much to go to the page you’re sending them to. This way they’re primed to learn more about the topic and quite possibly make the purchase. Think of it as warming up your prospect before sending them off to the sales page.
Being timely is key. Open your email with the latest news in your niche and then tie it into your offer and you’ve got a winner. Can’t find a way to tie the two together? Then don’t. There’s no reason why you can’t update them on both the latest news and your latest offer. Just be sure you lead with the news – keeping them informed is more important than making a sale, or at least that’s the way you should come across if you want your readers to continue opening your newsletters.
Be a problem solver. Regardless of whether or not you’re making an offer in your email, if you can show them how to solve a problem, you’re golden. Tell them about the solution you use and how they can use the same idea to fix their own problem. If you are promoting a product, begin with the problem it solves, and then explain why this particular solution holds an edge over the others.
Get them hooked, then link them over. A wonderful use of newsletters is to get your reader hooked into a story, and then at a key moment continue the story on your blog. This will get a vast majority of your readers clicking that link to find out what happens next in the story. (Be sure you put the entire story on your blog for those that land there without reading your newsletter.)
Be funny, or at the very least have fun. You receive two emails: One from your very serious uncle, the other from your cousin the comedian. Which do you open first? Obviously we all enjoy having fun, and if the writer had fun writing the newsletter to us, you know it’s going to be enjoyable to read. That’s why if you’re able to use humor, it’s like icing on the cake.
Keep these tips in mind the next time you prepare to write a newsletter or blog post, and you are sure to create more engaging content that draws your readers in.
A product’s name can often make the difference between best seller, and total dud.
Here’s some tips to help you choose a name for your new product that tilts the odds of success in the marketplace in your favor.
Make it memorable – Can someone recall the name 30 minutes after hearing it? If not, you might be picking a name that’s too generic. Something that paints a visual picture works the best.
Make it meaningful – Can someone look at the name and have a good idea of what the product does? If so, you might have a winner.
Be open – Just because you don’t immediately love a name doesn’t mean it isn’t the right one.
Say it out loud – Is it a name that people like to say out loud? If so, that can only help your viral marketing.
Check the name’s history – You might think you’ve got the perfect product name, but a few years ago a scam company used the same name for their product and then took the money and ran. Do a thorough search to find out who else is using the name and what type of products it’s being used on (or was used on in the past).
Break rules – If competing products tend to have similar names, choose something that totally sets you apart from the crowd.
Make a long list of possibilities – Don’t stop on the 5th name you think of – make a list of a hundred or more and then narrow it down. Sometimes the best name is the one you think of after you’ve made your list of 100 and you’re in the shower, thinking about something else. And the longer the list, the more confident you’ll be when you make your final selection.
Now that you know some guidelines for naming your product, go out there and create a new one so you can bring it to market and experience the power of these tips yourself.
Which would you rather do – spend two hours thinking of a great blog post idea, researching that idea, writing the post and finally editing the post… or dashing off a video post in less than half the time?
Heck, let’s be honest: If you’ve got a good idea and the ideas are flowing, you can dash off a video post in the same time it takes to make the recording. Post it to your blog, and you’re done.
No wonder why so many bloggers are turning to video.
Problem is, video is not the holy grail of blogging. In fact, if taken too far it can actually lead to the downfall of your blog (notice the crickets chirping, the tumbleweeds, err, tumbling, etc.)
Here are five tips for using video on your blog without totally alienating your readers or camouflaging yourself from the search engines. Or more specifically, five reasons NOT to use video exclusively.
Video is no substitute for the written word (sorry!) Users don’t just want video. Visitors want a clear idea of what they’re about to see before they hit that play button. Not to mention the fact that many of your viewers aren’t at their computer, they’re mobile users who may or may not have a speedy connection. If they can at least read your story and then decide if your video is worth downloading, you have a better shot at capturing and holding their attention.
Obvious solution? Incorporate video and writing into your blogpost, not just video.
The search engines don’t know what you’re talking about. The day has not yet arrived that search engines can figure out the words spoken in your video. Thus, if you have video only, or video and poor content from an SEO stand point, then you might as well have donned a cloak of invisibility as far as the search engines are concerned.
Instead, you want to couple good writing that incorporates your SEO terms with your video. The two paired together make a smashing team and work hand-in-hand to make your blog post even better.
Lousy videos are, well, lousy. Okay, if you’re breaking a story in front of a burning building, you’re going to use your cell phone to take the video because that’s what you happened to have handy at the time. But if you’re in your office doing “how-to” kinds of videos, PLEASE invest in an inexpensive HD camcorder. Please. Your viewers will thank you.
Also, ad-libbing is something few people can get by with. Before you begin recording, make an outline of all your major points and post it right next to the camera so you don’t get lost and you don’t forget anything. Notice I said outline – writing it out word for word and then READING it is a big (HUGE!) no-no and will make your audience fall asleep faster than two blinks of the eye.
Please be aware of camera positioning. I recently saw a video on a major marketing website that was positioned on a coffee table and afforded a perfect crotch shot for the entire duration. Ewww.
One last thing – forget the umms, errrs, and ahhhs. If you need to pause for a second to think of a word, then just PAUSE. You do not need to fill in every second with sound, especially when that sound (um er ah) makes you sound like a bonafide rank amateur.
Hiding your content underneath your videos is not cool. Look, you want people to spend as much time as possible on your page, right? Then begin your post with written content and place your video within the content – not ahead of it. Your headline and lead-in should capture their attention enough to get them reading, and within the first 2-4 paragraphs you can reference the video. If they’re engaged, odds are they’ll read the rest of your post and then watch the video.
On the other hand, if the video appears first, then they will either watch the video and leave (they’ve seen the video, why read your content?) Or they’ll just leave because they don’t want to watch a video without first having a clue why they should bother.
Don’t over use video – think of video as an hors d’oeuvre or side dish, not the main course. Videos should be short – under 2 minutes whenever possible, and certainly under 5 minutes unless your content is drop-dead riveting.
Bottom line: Video is an excellent supplement to your blog, but it shouldn’t be the only thing on there. Provide plenty of SEO friendly content that grabs readers’ attention and you’ll keep visitors on your website longer and visiting more frequently, as well.
There are only 5 ways to increase the money you’re earning in your online business. Every method you might think of falls into one of these five categories. And at least one of these methods can put more money in your pocket within the next week – can you guess which one(s)?
Get more traffic to your offer
Increase the profit you’re making on each sale
Sell more stuff to your current customers
Cut your expenses
Make more sales
If you do all five, obviously you’ll see more money. But some of these take more effort than others, so let’s review them one by one:
Get more traffic to your offer
This is much easier said than done. You can tweak your SEO to rank higher, you can solicit joint ventures and recruit affiliates, you can hit social media and even buy traffic. While all of these can be good, none of them tend to be quick or easy.
Increase the profit you’re making on each sale
You might do this by increasing the price of your products. Then again, increasing your prices might decrease your sales, so study the market before you do this.
If you’re providing a service rather than a product, it’s entirely possible you might earn more by charging more, since you can focus on gathering a few big (ie: well paying) clients rather than servicing a lot of low paying clients.
Sell more stuff to your current customers
This can be a really simple thing to do and it’s one of two that I recommend you work on this week. If you don’t have a one time offer, get one. Even if it’s not your product. Buy resale rights or strike a deal with another product owner.
Next, place links to offers on your download page and inside your products. Your download page is the first thing a customer sees after making a purchase, meaning they are still in a buying frame of mind and this is the perfect time to offer them something different but related. And the inside of your products is a great place to make recommendations for appropriate products and services.
Cut your expenses
Unless you have significant expenses to begin with, this won’t give you much return on your time. For example, if you switch hosting to a company that’s $3 cheaper a month, how much are you really saving? You’ll have to switch everything over, and if you’re happy with the service you have now you’re potentially switching to a less reliable service. Use caution with this one.
Make more sales
This might be the easiest of all, as well as the fastest to employ. You’re going to tweak your sales copy and even your sales process to increase your conversion rate. Think about this: You don’t have to drive any more traffic or even offer any more products to make more money with this. You simply need to increase the number of people who say yes.
Let’s say that right now your product sells for $47, it’s converting at 3%, and you’re getting 3,000 unique visitors to your sales page each month. If you increase your conversion rate by just 1%, you’ll make another $1,410 per month.
Best of all, you only need to tweak and test and improve once to reap these added sales for as long as you’ve got traffic going to that sales page.
Just a side note: What you’re about to discover here can also be used to help others squeeze more profits out of their online businesses, as well. In fact, you could build an entire business out of making other people’s businesses more profit using these simple methods.
Before you create new products and new profit streams, it makes good sense to maximize the earnings in your existing business.
To show you how this might be done, I’m going to use a membership site as an example. I love memberships because of the continuity of payments you receive. After all, why get paid just once on a sale if you can get paid every month for several months or longer, right?
Let’s say you (or your client) have a membership site. Naturally, the first thing you want to look at is increasing your conversions. First, you work on increasing conversions on your squeeze page, to get as many new (free) subscribers as possible. The more subscribers / prospects you have, the more of these you can turn into PAID subscribers.
Next, you’ll want to work on increasing conversions on your immediate upsell to the paid membership. And then you’ll want to work on increasing conversions with your autoresponder sequence as you follow up with prospects who haven’t yet subscribed to the paid membership.
Odds are you already know all about this. In fact, you’ve probably read numerous articles that tell you the exact same thing. The problem is, this is the point where those articles STOP, and also the point we will jump off from.
Now that you’ve maximized conversions on your funnel, what else can you do to increase revenue?
In fact, what can you do to DOUBLE the revenue you receive from paid subscriptions?
You can choose from several methods, ALL of which I highly recommend you implement.
First, offer your current paid subscribers a yearly payment option.
For example, if your membership is $25 per month, you might offer an annual membership for $175. This is a great deal, since it saves your subscribers $125.
“But won’t I be LOSING money if I do this?”
GREAT question. Your first step in deciding how much an annual membership costs is to find out how long your average subscribers stay with you.
In this example, if the average subscriber keeps their paid subscription for 5 months (5 x $25 = $125) then you are making an extra $50. If your average subscriber stays for 3 months, then you are making an extra $100.
You’ve got to know how many months your subscribers stay with you, multiply that number times the monthly subscription rate, and then charge an annual fee higher than that number, but lower than 12 times the monthly rate.
Confusing? It’s simple math, so just read the previous paragraph again and you’ll catch on.
Another example:
You charge $40 per month for your membership. Your average subscriber stays with you for 6 months (that’s really good at this price point, btw.) That’s $240 that you are currently making on the average subscriber.
You offer an annual membership for $320, which is $160 off of the normal rate. Your subscribers save $160, and you make an additional $80.
Your numbers will vary, but you get the idea. Adding this option can potentially bring in a very nice chunk of money very quickly.
You might want to offer the annual rate for one week only, so that subscribers don’t procrastinate.
And be sure to give new subscribers this option, too. New subscribers are generally the most excited, and thus the easiest to convert to an annual membership.
Second, you’ve got some prime real estate on your members page that’s most likely not being used right now.
Choose some hot affiliate offers your members are bound to like and add those to your member page.
You can do it in the form of banners or ‘personal recommendations.’ Switch these out every so often. This isn’t likely going to be a huge source of revenue but guaranteed, you will get some sales from this page.
An alternative is selling paid advertising on your members page. Basically, you are doing the same as before, except the banners or ads go to someone else’s offer instead of your affiliate links. You’ll find that fellow marketers would LOVE to offer something free to your members in exchange for their email address, and they will pay you nicely for the chance to get their offer on your member’s page for a month or two, or longer.
Third, create an entirely new page in your member’s area, and call it “Member Benefits.” Be sure to use that exact name – we’ve tested other names like Member’s Discounts and so forth, and “Member Benefits” out-pulled everything else we tested.
On this page, you’re going to place discount offers that you’ve negotiated with other marketers.
These might be discounts on products, free courses and books, free consultations, free coaching sessions and so forth.
Everything on this page benefits you. The courses and products with discounts earn you affiliate commissions. The free items cookie you in for commissions on anything purchased in the future, and so forth.
And again, you can place paid advertising on this page if you want to.
You might think this sounds like a lot of promotion, but we’ve found that almost no one complains. After all, what member is going to complain that you’ve found them a discount or something valuable for free? Occasionally someone will quip about banners, but it’s rare and nothing to worry about, as long as you don’t go crazy overboard with advertising.
Best of all, if you implement all three methods above, you’ll see a big cash boost from day one.
Your results will vary. And what if you don’t have a membership site? You do have a download page, correct? You can place ads for products there.
You can also bundle products and offer a discount. If you create products on a very regular basis, you can sell ‘memberships’ to all of your forthcoming products for a certain period of time.
And you can create a ‘Subscriber Benefits’ for your email subscribers. Add to the page every week, and also send out a weekly reminder email, letting them know there are new goodies to go collect – goodies that are available for a short time only.
That last paragraph may have slipped by your attention almost undetected, so I’m going to recommend you read it again. Go ahead…
I hear from so many marketers that they have trouble monetizing their lists. But if they would simply create a ‘Subscriber Benefits’ page and keep it filled with interesting things that result in commissions and send their readers there each week to collect those benefits, they could earn a six-figure income from this one technique alone.
Bottom line: Take a good look at your current products, funnels and business. Get creative and find ways to squeeze more money out of what you’re already doing, and it’s entirely possible to double your income without creating any new products or businesses. Until you do, you’re probably leaving thousands of dollars on the table that could be yours.
