[DONE-FOR-YOU CHATBOTS] This Will Get Your Ecom Store To 6 FIGURE Income

Chatbots are software with Artificial Intelligence which conducts automated conversations to a person or a group of people via chat apps - In our case ...

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I think this is a great forum. New to marketing and could learn from here

Just found this forum and feel like it could be very helpful for me. So hello everyone. I work for an IT company and try to sell online. H.

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The Top 3 Reason Sales Campaigns Fail

The worst feeling in the world, as a marketer, is launching a campaign you're thrilled about, and watching it bomb worse than anything you e.

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Hello

Signature. Ryan Biddulph, Blogger, Author, World Traveling Digital Nomad If you want to become a full time blogger you can buy my eBook here.

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#1682 How to work through leadership growth pains (through writing)

Today’s guest is Dave Hanley, the founder of Tomorrow.me. It’s an app that allows people to create a trust with a free will and a free trust, and then back it up with just the right amount of insurance. Prior to Tomorrow, he helped build Shelfari which was acquired by Amazon. He followed that up with success after success. I invited him here to talk about how a guy who didn’t even want to get into entrepreneurship built this track record of success.

Dave Hanley is the founder of Tomorrow.me, an app that allows people to create a trust with a free will and a free trust, and then back it up with just the right amount of insurance.

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Episode 26: Matt LaClear, Founder @ Your Ad Squad on Navigating SEO and Ranking Your Website

SEO is an ever-changing landscape that can be hard to manage. But Matt LaClear has been rolling with it for the last 10 years, and he joined Jenna and Justina Fenberg (DM’s Community Manager) to talk about the past, present, and future of SEO.

Matt explains all of the services an SEO agency needs to provide, why testing an offer comes before driving traffic, and how to convince high-authority websites to put your link on their website.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why getting a website to rank might not be enough (and what your company should ensure it has first)
• How client expectations of their SEO agency have changed over the years and what services Matt provides to put his agency above his competitors
• A different way to look at asking for backlinks and how it will change the game for your company’s ranking
• The strategy Matt uses to get high-authority websites to add a link to their website on behalf of his clients

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Your Ad Squad
Link Building Debunked: Discover the Secret to Earning Huge Backlinks Without Hiring an SEO Agency
Matt on LinkedIn

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to The DigitalMarketer Podcast? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!

iTunes not your thing? Find us on Spotify, Stitcher, or TuneIn.

The post Episode 26: Matt LaClear, Founder @ Your Ad Squad on Navigating SEO and Ranking Your Website appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

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I can't write a blog post

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Selling Real Hair Online - Still on the head

Hey, just looking to pick some brains. So... my wife's sister who lives in the Philippines, (jungle part) sold her hair online... Got totally ripped off - thats a ...

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Freelancers Really Need To Stop Working For Pennies.

For more than 6 months now, I have been offering a few services on Fiverr. It amazes me the amount of people who bombard me to help them but ...

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I Put My Christmas Tree Up early This Year

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How to Become a Freelance Writer and Get Paid $200 – $1K per Post

Imagine you’re sitting in a lounge chair on the beach, staring out over the glittering sea, the ocean breeze ruffling your hair, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of the waves.

It’s peaceful. Perfect for thinking.

And so you do, scribbling down your thoughts with one hand and drinking a martini with the other.

You’re a freelance writer. You get paid to write for websites, magazines, corporate clients — all different types of gigs.

And it’s work you can do from anywhere.

One week, you’re on the beach. The next, perhaps you’re in the mountains. The week after that, you’re visiting family.

Sounds like a dream, right? Like it can’t possibly be real?

But it is.

In this post, I’m going to teach you how to become a freelance writer. I’m also going to talk about what’s changed with freelance writing and what it really takes to build a career in today’s world, both as a full-time writer or just doing it on the side.

Because the career is real. The freedom is real. In fact, you might even say it’s easier than ever before. Here’s why:

The $412.88 Billion Opportunity for Writers

That’s not a typo. 🙂

Have you noticed how just about every business has a website, blog, and Facebook page?

Maybe you’ve also noticed how the stuff most of them publish kinda sucks? Boring content, unprofessional spelling and grammatical mistakes, etc.

Well, that’s why successful businesses are hiring freelance writers in droves. In 2016, companies spent 195.58 billion on content marketing, and the research firm Technavio predicts spending will more than double to 412.88 billion by 2021.

It’s the new normal, but here’s what’s crazy:

While businesses are well-aware of the importance of content marketing, writers are still stuck in the Stone Age of wanting to get published in magazines and newspapers. Yes, you can still make a living that way, but with an increasing number of publishers not paying writers at all, the competition for paying gigs is getting stiffer and stiffer.

With content marketing, on the other hand, there’s actually a shortage of writers. You can make a lot more money with way fewer headaches.

Here’s how to get started:

How to Become a Freelance Writer

#1. Develop Your Content Creation Skills

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Your skill at creating exceptional content will have more of an impact on how much money you make than anything else. Here’s why:

The companies paying the highest rates are the ones who understand the importance of quality content. They are happy to pay the best writers, because they believe (correctly) that it will help them dominate their competitors.

For a handy visual reminder of the ROI of content marketing, check out the image below (click to see a larger view):

 
Embed This Infographic On Your Site

How to Become a Freelance Writer and Get Paid $200 – $1K per Post from SmartBlogger.com

 

So how do you level up your skill at creating exceptional content?

The good news is, we have dozens of posts about that very topic here at Smart Blogger. Start with this one about how to write a good blog post and work your way through.

In particular, here are some of the most important content skills for you to develop:

• Mastering content frameworks. The web is overflowing with list posts (i.e., 7 Ways to X) for a reason: they work. It’s not the only content framework, though. There are actually about a dozen proven frameworks, and the best freelance writers master as many as possible.
• Writing headlines. The headlines of your posts have a bigger impact on their traffic and overall success than any other factor. Get in the habit of brainstorming 5-10 per day. Like anything else, writing the perfect headline is mostly about practice.
• Thinking for yourself. Ever notice how most writers are just regurgitating the advice of other writers? Don’t be one of those. I’m not saying you have to be entirely original, but at least layer your own thoughts on top of the standard advice. It’ll give your writing a much greater sense of authority.
• Supporting points with examples. Instead of making a point and leaving it hanging there unsupported, get into the habit of backing up every point you make with an example. There are exceptions to this rule, but you’re far better off having too many examples than too few.
• Keeping the reader emotionally engaged. To get work as a freelance writer, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that your posts need to make logical sense, but you might not realize they also need to resonate with the emotions of the reader. The better you get at keeping readers emotionally engaged, the more shares you will get on your content, and you’ll be able to charge more.

And while those are a good start, there’s one particular skill that’s so important it deserves its own point:

#2. Up Your SEO Game

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Companies and agencies are more than happy to pay a little extra for someone who understands the basics of SEO.

The more intimate your understanding of keywords, user intent, and competitive analysis, the more likely your post is to rank well in the search engines. Therefore, your writing becomes more valuable.

Because put yourself in their shoes: wouldn’t you rather pay more for someone with a proven ability to rank? I certainly would, and so it makes sense to become that person.

Tip: here’s an extremely thorough SEO guide and resource list from my buddy Brian Dean.

The strongest portfolio you can have is a collection of posts ranking on page 1 of Google. Sarah Peterson, for example, now makes over $1,000 per post, because she has a proven track record of ranking well.

Granted, it takes time to build that kind of portfolio. Let’s walk through the process, starting with what you do when you’re a total beginner.

#3. Build a Portfolio of Sample Posts

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You’d think it would be really hard to become a freelance writer without an extensive portfolio, right? After all, it’s proof for clients that you know what you’re doing.

But here’s the thing:

There are different levels of proof, starting with…

Level 1: A Portfolio That Proves You Know How to Write a Decent Post

You’d be surprised how many so-called “freelance writers” don’t understand how to write a proper blog post. I’d say it’s more than 80%, which sounds horrible, but it’s also a huge advantage if you do know how to write a good post.

Let’s say you’ve been working on your content skills (the first step above *cough*), and you’re getting comfortable writing different types of blog posts. Well, write a few sample posts to show off your skills.

If you have your own website, put them there. If not, it’s quick and easy to publish them on other blogging platforms like Medium.

The best part is, you can do this in a matter of a week or two. Two or three posts is enough, and you don’t need anyone’s approval to publish them. If you don’t have a portfolio yet, it’s absolutely where you should start.

Level 2: A Portfolio That Proves You Know What You’re Talking about

Next, you want to build your credibility as a subject matter expert.

And I’m not just talking about demonstrating your expertise. This phase is also about showing you can get published on top publications.

Think about it… if you see someone writing on one of the top sites in your space, don’t you immediately assume they are an expert?

Well, that’s the kind of credibility you need. It’s also far easier to do than you might assume.

Because most big sites have stopped paying for content, they’re always looking for good writers. In our guest blogging program, we’ve helped hundreds of new writers get published on sites like Forbes, Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Lifehack, and dozens of others. I won’t say it’s easy, because it’s not, but it’s far easier than most people think. Here’s a guest post by Laura Tong published at Huffington Post:

I’m generalizing here, but for the most part, it’s about the pitch. If the editor likes your idea, and you follow up with a well-written piece, you can get published almost anywhere.

And that immediately helps make you a hot commodity as a freelance writer.

Level 3: A Portfolio Showing Documented Results for Clients

Finally, you want to prove you can get results for clients.

One way is to track shares and search engine rankings for the posts you write, like we discussed above for Sarah Peterson, but an even better way is to create case studies. Here’s an example from Ross Hudgens of Siege Media:

He shows screenshots of increasing client traffic by 250,000 visits per month for three different clients. Nothing is more compelling than that. Granted, it’s super hard to do, but that’s what makes it so valuable.

Your long-term goal should be to develop that kind of proof for yourself. It might take you years, and that’s fine, because when you get there, it can literally make you one of the highest paid writers and consultants in the world.

#4. Get Your First Paying Client

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So, we’ve talked a lot about the skill and credibility aspects of becoming a freelance writer. What about getting clients? That’s the hard part, right?

In the beginning, yes. Eventually, top freelance writers end up getting more work than they can handle, mostly by referral, but getting those first few paying clients can be a real slog.

Here are some insider tips for getting started:

1. Keep an eye on agency job postings. One of the best potential clients is agencies, because they usually have an ongoing need for writers. Instead of only getting paid once, you can develop a relationship with a few and get new gigs for months or even years into the future. Here’s a big list of content marketing agencies.
    
   

    
   There are two main ways of getting work from them. You can reach out to them and ask if they have any freelance work — a gutsy but effective approach — or you can keep an eye on their “careers” page.

2. Pitch software company blogs. This might seem odd, but stick with me here for a moment. You want to work with businesses who have money to spend on marketing. Chances are, those companies are subscribed to various apps for email marketing, analytics, and so on. Most software companies in the marketing space (like Hubspot, Sumo, Ahrefs, etc.) also publish a great deal of content.
    
   So, who better to write for? You’re instantly getting in front of thousands of the right clients. Many of these blogs will also pay you to write for them, so in many cases you can get your first client while also prospecting for clients. What could be better than that?
    
   

    

3. Link to your services in your byline. Let’s say you’re in “Phase 2” of the portfolio building process we walked through above, and you are writing some guest posts for top blogs in your space. You can mention it in your byline to attract clients. Here’s an example from Sophia Dagnon over at Copyhackers:
    
   

    

Before we move on, there’s one thing you SHOULDN’T do…

Compete against bottom dollar freelancers on sites like Upwork.

Yes, there’s always work available on sites like those, but generally speaking, it’s clueless, frustrating clients who will nickel and dime you over everything and never refer you other work. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but I believe you’re far better off pursuing some of the options I mentioned above. Not only will you get paid more, but you’ll be treated better too, and it will be much easier to grow your client base.

#5. Scale until You No Longer Want to

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In the beginning, you’ll probably be thrilled just to get a client paying you to write a few articles on the side, but I think it’s useful to step back and think about how freelance writing fits into an overall career.

Here’s the career path for most freelance writers:

Phase 1: A Nice Side Income

Most people start writing just a few articles on the side, and I think that’s smart. You can learn the craft, build your connections, and make a few bucks on the side. Most likely, about $20-$25 per hour.

Is it going to make you rich? No, but it’s certainly not a bad side gig. A lot of part-timers clear $500-$1,000 per month from their writing.

Eventually, if you’re good, you’ll also start getting more work than you can handle in your spare time, and that’s when you can ponder moving on to the next phase.

Phase 2: A Full-Time Job or Business

When should you consider quitting your day job?

The easiest answer: whenever you feel confident your freelance writing could replace your salary. You can either…

1. Go to work as a full-time content marketer. The number of job openings for full-time content marketers is exploding. Here’s a graph of the job growth just from 2017 to 2018:
    
   

    

2. Start your own content marketing agency. Once you’ve picked up a few clients, you can begin hiring people to work under you and grow your own miniature agency.

Both options have big upsides. You can have a long, solid career as a content marketer working companies who truly appreciate it, and building an agency could potentially make you a millionaire.

At some point though, I’ve found that even the most successful writers usually end up moving on to…

Phase 3: Starting Your Own Site

In the past, you’ve probably thought of starting your own site as the first step, not the last, and it’s true — there’s nothing stopping you from starting your site right now.

But think about it for a moment…

Would you rather start your own site right now, spend a couple of years learning everything from scratch, and then slowly but surely begin to make money from it, or could it actually be a better option to go to work for someone else for a while, get paid while you learn, and then start your own site with several years of experience under your belt?

Over the years, I’ve noticed an increasing percentage of our students choosing the second option, and I think it makes sense. Yes, you can absolutely start your own site right now, and yes, you can be successful — we are the market leaders in helping people do exactly that — but it’s a tough road. You have to persistently put in the effort for years before it begins to pay off.

If you become a freelance writer and start working for other businesses, on the other hand, the payoff is fast. Probably a month or two to learn the basics and then another month or two to get your first client. While it might take you longer overall to build your own publishing powerhouse, it’s easier to stay persistent when money is coming in each and every time you publish an article.

The bottom line:

You Can Make Good Money As a Writer

It’s tragic how many writers think go into another career because they believe no one can make a living from it. It’s just not true.

Yes, it’s tough to make a living as an author. Yes, it’s difficult to scrape by writing for magazines and newspapers. Yes, there are plenty of would-be poets and novelists living under bridges.

But those are only a few types of writing.

If you want to make money as a writer, go where the money is. That’s what I did. I started out writing for other sites, took a full-time job at Copyblogger, and then branched off on my own — exactly the career path I described above.

The results?

About $5.3 million so far. In this case study, I described exactly how I did it.

Oh, and did I mention I did it all from a wheelchair without being able to move from the neck down?

Yeah…

So please, don’t tell me you can’t make money as a freelance writer. You absolutely can.

You just have to be smart about it.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the CEO of Smart Blogger. Check out his new blog Unstoppable and read the launch post that went viral: 7 Life Lessons from a Guy Who Can’t Move Anything but His Face.

The post How to Become a Freelance Writer and Get Paid $200 – $1K per Post appeared first on Smart Blogger.

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A 6-Step “Mindset Maintenance” Checklist for Workaholics

Maintaining a healthy business requires a healthy mindset. And maintaining a healthy mindset requires maintenance to be…well…maintained ;-)

This is never more true than for the workaholic entrepreneur; staying sane is hard work!

The mind, body and soul are machines. Yes, beautiful machines, but machines nonetheless. And as with any machine, they can suffer when neglected. We productivity junkies and workaholics are defined by a high tolerance for stress and heavy workloads. We seek this stuff out, we love challenges, and we take great pride in massive accomplishment.

But we still have a limit, a “production capacity” if you will. Those who know their limit and capacity have only discovered it from the back end of a burnout. And those who don’t will soon find out…

That is unless we begin to institute some simple daily practices of mental oil changes and soul-battery recharging. The following checklist will motivate you to perform this essential maintenance. It offers a solution for the continuation of your precious productive life, while also delivering happiness, stresslessness, and comfort.

Bookmark this post, refer to it often and ask yourself these questions regularly. Every area of your life will thank you.

Check out the post in “presentation form” on Slideshare for a super duper visual treat!

6 step mindset maintenance checklist for workaholics from Aiden Fishbein

1. Did You Make?

Consider what you made. Did you create something you were proud of, or did you make for the sake of profit? Either way, scrutinize not just “if” and “what” was made, but why.

Making is an expression of the soul. Situations may warrant the creation of things that you may not care much about, but take care to make at least one thing each day that means something to you.

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your soul.”

– Pamela Anderson Lee

2. Did You Eat?

As a workaholic, many times we simply forget to eat. I won’t suggest any “right” method of eating — that is for you to decide. Mentally check this off if you succeeded in following your own personal practice of nourishment.

The real consideration here is this: Did others undeservingly suffer at the hands of your emotional hunger pangs?

“Hell hath no fury like me when I’m slightly inconvenienced and hungry.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

3. Did You Rest?

This is a broad one, but the consequences are no less hardcore. Did you get to sleep at a subjectively reasonable hour? Did you wake naturally without an alarm?

We workaholics are also usually seasoned in unique break-taking methods, so consider the following as well:

• Take a nap?
• Have a long relaxed lunch?
• Unplug from work on time?

“ATTENTION!
I am out of order until further notice.
My ‘Stupid People’ filter needs cleaning,
and my ‘Give a Damn’ batteries have run out.”

– Elon Musk

4. Did You Laugh?

Laughter is an easy sacrifice to make for us workaholics. There’s no shame in adding this bad boy to your to-do list when it doesn’t organically present itself to you.

A wholly shitty day can be flipped on its head with a simple chuckle.

For us work-from-home-loners, subscribing to joke newsletters, or popping into YouTube for some epic fails can be tremendously influential.

Laughter
/ˈlæf-ter/
(n.) When a smile has an orgasm.

5. Did You Think?

We workaholics sometimes opt to relegate all tedious tasks to a single day. This can be effective, but be careful not to fry your brain in such a way that you become useless the following day.

Seek out small challenges each day. Maybe it’s a puzzle, or a deep conversation with a friend.

The key is to stay stimulated. Keep your brain muscle fit and you’ll avoid that insidious mental atrophy.

“Your strongest muscle and worst enemy is your mind.
Train it well.”

– Mickey Mouse

6. Did You Help?

Workaholics tend to be overly focused on success, completion, productivity and efficiency. Take a step back and ask yourself, “ Was what I did today actually useful?”

Your work may not satisfy this question, and that’s ok. Find a door you can hold open for someone, find a shopping cart you can herd back to its stable, or do the dishes without being asked ;-)

Simplicity can be powerful.

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.
That’s my religion.”

– Jesus H. Christ (probably)

 

What other simple tricks have you found helpful in your strivings for self-employed sanity? We will never presume to know it all, and are quite interested in ANYTHING that keeps us well-oiled and humming! Share share share in the comments below!

from A 6-Step “Mindset Maintenance” Checklist for Workaholics

What Do Your Blog Post Titles Say About Your Brand?

The post What Do Your Blog Post Titles Say About Your Brand? appeared first on ProBlogger.

This is a post by ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke

If you’ve been reading ProBlogger for a while, you probably know the basics about writing blog post titles such as:

• Be clear and specific
• Use numbers where appropriate
• Use powerful words and phrases such as “how to”, “easy”, “quick”, “great”, “little-known”, and so on.

Using these guidelines, you’ll end up with titles that do an excellent job of “selling” your post to your audience. Take a look at some recent posts on ProBlogger for good examples:

• How to Approach Influencers in Your Niche: Twelve Crucial Tips
• 3 Ways to Give Your Readers a Fresh Take on a Well-Worn Idea
• 5 Blogging Lessons You Can Learn from a Small Country Town
• 8 Important Admin Tasks to Do When Launching a New Blog

However, one thing that might be missing from your title is a sense of your brand. This can be an issue when you see a title you love on someone else’s blog and try to use a variation of it on your own site. What if it doesn’t really fit your own voice and style?

Here are six titles from very different publications:

1. 22 Unbelievable Facts About The Human Body. #8 Will Astonish You! (EMGN.com)
2. The Moment You Noped Out Of A Movie You Thought You’d Like (Cracked)
3. If You’ve Experienced 21/31 Of These Problems, You’re Definitely a Baker (Buzzfeed)
4. Police ‘could let violent suspects go’ (BBC News)
5. The arts have a leading role to play in tackling climate change (The Guardian)
6. Functions of the Apostrophe (Daily Writing Tips)

These are all good titles – if used in the right context.

Each of them hooks the reader in some way and gives a clear indication of the content of the piece.

Just looking at the list, you can draw conclusions about not only the type of article you’re about to read but also the brand publishing it.

For instance, The Guardian is a serious UK newspaper. I’ve never seen them publish a headline like the EMGN one. If they did, their readers would probably think it was a prank or a successful hacking attempt.

Let’s take a closer look at how they work.

#1: 22 Unbelievable Facts About The Human Body. #8 Will Astonish You! (EMGN.com)

You’ve probably seen quite a few of these titles. (They were everywhere a couple of years ago.) They all follow a specific format: a total number of items, followed by “(item number) will [astonish/amaze/surprise/etc] you”.

The formula works: it’s cleverly designed to pique the reader’s curiosity. But it also brands the site in a particular way. It can seem like a cheap trick, and be associated with low-quality writing.

If you want to try this on your own blog, I suggest using it with caution (and perhaps toning it down just a notch by using something like “amazing” instead of “unbelievable”).

#2: The Moment You Noped Out Of A Movie You Thought You’d Like (Cracked)

While most Cracked titles have a fairly standard format, I picked this one because of the word “noped”. If a title uses something slangy (especially slang associated with a particular age group), it’s a strong clue to readers about the intended brand and audience.

Even if you’ve never used the word “noped” it’s fairly clear what it means from the context, and suggests a post that will be cheerfully irreverent.

By all means use slang (or even swear words) if they’re a good fit for your audience and, most importantly, your own voice. Don’t use them just to look cool.

#3: If You’ve Experienced 21/31 Of These Problems, You’re Definitely a Baker (Buzzfeed)

This is a typical Buzzfeed post title. (Other examples include If You Own 23/33 Of these Products Then You Should Be A Beauty Guru and If You Get 9/13 On This Nursery Rhyme Quiz Then You’re Probably Four Years Old.)

It does a couple of clever things:

• It targets a very specific audience (bakers) with a post that promises to “get” what they’re like.
• It frames what’s essentially a list post in an interactive way by making it more like a quiz or a challenge.

As well as encouraging the reader to click, it also encourages them to share the post (and their score) with their friends on social media.

#4: Police ‘could let violent suspects go’ (BBC News)

BBC News headlines tend to be short – between five and eight words – so they fit easily in their sidebar. They also frequently use quotes from someone within the article. Five of the six words in this headline are within quotation marks, which isn’t uncommon.

Whether or not you like the technique (some writers aren’t keen), it does allow them to create short, powerful headlines without risking being accused of bias. (They’re required to be impartial in their reporting.)

Whatever your brand, you could experiment with using short quotes in your post titles and see if it increases the attention they get.

#5: The arts have a leading role to play in tackling climate change (The Guardian)

This title comes from the Guardian’s “opinion” section, which functions a bit like a multi-author blog. In fact, most of the headlines there sum up the argument or key point of the article.

This stands in clear contrasts to the headlines on Buzzfeed and EMGN, where the whole point is to “tease” the article. But it positions the Guardian as a place for serious journalism and quality, thoughtful writing.

You might also notice the Guardian uses sentence case rather than title case for the title, as does the BBC. This is a stylistic decision and perhaps lends itself to titles that can also work as sentences. (Sentence case for titles/headlines is also more common in the UK than in the US.)

#6: Functions of the Apostrophe (Daily Writing Tips)

This is a simple, straightforward title. But it works well in the context of Daily Writing Tips, which uses a lot of similar titles (especially in the “grammar” category). A short, clear title such as this promises a post that’s authoritative and complete.

On some blogs it would make sense to jazz up the title (e.g. “The Ultimate Guide to All the Functions of the Apostrophe”). But that wouldn’t suit Daily Writing Tips’ calm and slightly academic voice and style.

If you use a title such as this on your own blog, make sure you can deliver on the promise you make in the title. The post will need to be well-informed and comprehensive if you don’t want to risk losing your readers’ trust.

We’ve taken a look at six very different titles from six very different publications. Can you imagine any that would fit on your own blog, or that definitely wouldn’t work for your voice and your audience? Or do you have a different way of styling and branding your titles?

Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

Image credit: Pineapple Supply Co.

The post What Do Your Blog Post Titles Say About Your Brand? appeared first on ProBlogger.

      

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I don't think this is what they meant...

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6 Steps to Launch Your First LinkedIn Ads Campaign

If you have a job, you should be on LinkedIn.

If you own a business, you should also be on LinkedIn.

But especially if you provide any sort of B2B product or service, you have to be on LinkedIn.

You can go ahead and set up your new profile now before we get to the rest of the post, I’ll wait.

Those of you who are still dragging your feet, let me convince you.

With over 560 million users, including professionals in every industry you can think of, it’s the biggest source of potential new business leads available in the world.

And with LinkedIn ads, you have the ability to reach your ideal prospects through powerful targeting that allows you to customize your campaigns based on specific industries, locations, job titles, and more.

The only problem is, a lot of people seem to be confused by LinkedIn ads. This is a different animal than Facebook, so the ad platform might seem a little unfamiliar if you’ve never used it before.

But don’t worry, y’all. I got you.

In this post I’m going to walk you through the 6 most important steps to successfully launch your first LinkedIn ad—so you can start targeting and attracting your ideal prospects on a bigger scale than ever before.

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 1: Make Your Profiles Shine

So you’re going to advertise on LinkedIn? Great!

But don’t start working on your ad copy just yet.

Step #1 of launching a successful LinkedIn ad campaign is to optimize your profiles.

We have a few things to take care of first to make sure your new campaign is set up for success. You know that account you just set up (or maybe you’ve had it a while and it just needs some love)? You are going to have to put some work into it.

This is really important, y’all.

Remember that people do business with people. And this is especially true on LinkedIn, where it’s super easy for anyone to check out your profile and see what you’re all about.

That’s why step #1 of launching a successful LinkedIn ad campaign is to optimize your profiles and portray yourself as the kind of person that your prospects will want to do business with.

And there are 3 pieces to doing this right:

1) Optimize Your Personal LinkedIn Profile

I recently wrote a post that goes into this topic in depth, so rather than rehash everything again, just click here to learn how to create an all-star LinkedIn profile.

2) Create Your Company Profile

Once your personal profile is set up for success, the next thing step to create a great-looking company page.

If you don’t have a company page yet, you can easily create one in just 2 clicks:

Then specify your company name and LinkedIn URL:

Now your company page is created on LinkedIn! Of course, you still have to complete your profile by filling out all the information, adding copy, uploading media, and so on.

The 3 things that you’ll want to add right away are your cover image, your logo, and your “About Us” summary. Here’s where you can find them:

Make sure your header and profile picture are branded (a lot of companies just use their logo for the profile picture). This way when people land on your company page they’ll know right away who you are and that they’re in the right place.

In your “About Us” summary, make sure you’re speaking to your audience. Let them know right away that what you offer is directly relevant to them, and that you offer an effective way to solve their problem.

Another thing to keep in mind here is search optimization. LinkedIn is really good at SEO, so if you fill out your company page well, it has the potential to show up in relevant Google results.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when optimizing your company page for search:

• Google previews 156 characters. So make sure the first 2 sentences or so of your “About Us” section do a really good job of communicating who you are, what you do, and how you can help people.
• Lead with a story. I’m a big fan of using narrative-style copy that tells a story. Paint a picture with your words that tells people what you do and how you can help them in a clear and compelling way.
• Members can search by keywords. Remember that LinkedIn has its own internal search function, too—so definitely remember to include any relevant keywords that you want to show up for.
• Communicate expertise and industry focus. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Generalists don’t typically win on LinkedIn. Instead, tell people what industry you focus on and what you’re GREAT at.

3) Get Your Team On Board

The last step here is to get your team on board. Because after all, everyone at your company makes up your brand. And any potential leads or business partners who interact with you on LinkedIn are going to be able to see your employees if they want to:

So get your team on board. Have everyone connect with your company page, and ask them to go through the same profile optimization tips that you completed for your own personal profile.

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 2: Promote Great Content

OK, so now you’ve got an all-star personal profile as well as an awesome company page that stands out and speaks to your ideal prospect.

Is it time to start creating ads yet?

Nope.

I know you’re antsy, but trust me y’all—there’s a method to my madness here. And there’s a really important reason why we’re going through all these steps before we create your actual campaign. It takes a little more time up-front, but I promise you it will be worth it in the end.

So with that in mind, the next thing you’ll need to do is to promote great content on LinkedIn.

(RELATED: 3 Simple Steps to Creating A “Pillar Blog Post” That Generates Organic Traffic for Years to Come)

LinkedIn is hugely underrated as a content platform. And now that they’ve launched native video, giving a massive engagement boost to your video content, it’s going to be even better.

LinkedIn is hugely underrated as a content platform.

There are about 9 billion content impressions every week on LinkedIn, which is an enormous number. And what’s even crazier is that those 9 billion impressions are being driven by just 3 million people.

Which means there’s a lot less competition here than other platforms like Facebook. That’s why, as long as you post good content and follow a few best practices, you stand a really good chance of generating great engagement with your content on LinkedIn.

Here are my top 5 tips to help you do that:

1) Share Daily

I recommend sharing content daily. Yes, you heard right—every single workday you should post some kind of content on LinkedIn.

That could include a huge variety of content. Company news and updates, blog posts, industry articles, and more.

If you’re a thought leader, or if you want to be, this is a great place to promote your thought leadership.

Share articles from your industry and weigh in on what the author has to say.(Even if you’re not the one actually writing these articles, simply the fact that you’re reading and sharing them will start to position you as a leader in your industry.)

It’s also a great idea to prompt your followers to weigh in. Ask for thoughts, opinions, and questions. This is a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of your audience so you can quickly respond to their changing needs and problems.

2) Optimize Your Copy

For any piece of content, the words you use are important.

The difference between good copy and bad copy often means the difference between an article people want to click on… and one they scroll past without a second glance.

But this doesn’t mean you have to agonize over every single word in your article. Instead, you can just focus on the few places in your content where the copy is most important.

Here are a few tips for improving your content:

• Keep your intro concise. Don’t spend too long introducing your topic. Just write a quick intro and get to the meat of your content ASAP.
• Write a snappy headline. What is a snappy headline? Simple: it’s one that STANDS OUT IN THE NEWSFEED. That’s your #1 goal, so keep it in mind when you write your headlines.
• Ask thoughtful questions. Many of us are so busy telling people about ourselves—what WE do, why WE are so great—that that we forget to ask questions about what THEY want. Doing this can be really powerful, and is a great way to put the focus of your content back where it belongs—on the customer.
• Write a clear call to action with a link. At the end of your content, what should people do next? Don’t force people to hunt around for a “Contact” page if they want to do business with you. Instead, make the next step super clear by writing a compelling call to action with a link for people to click.

3) Make It Visually Appealing

After the copy, the next thing you’ll want to work on is your content’s visual appearance.

This can make a HUGE difference in your performance.

Just take a look at these pieces of content—see how these bright images really stand out? They get much more engagement than they would without any images or video:

So the take-home message here is pretty simple. Use media—images and videos—to help your content stand out in the newsfeed and grab people’s attention.

4) Be Helpful, Not Salesy

Ultimately, your goal is to generate sales. I get that.

But don’t get ahead of yourself.

When posting content, now is not the time to get salesy. Instead you should be using content to help generate engagement, build goodwill and trust, and position yourself as an authority in your industry.

With that in mind, you should post content that is NOT overly promotional. Instead make sure that your content has a benefit to your audience—it helps them solve a problem, or answer a question.

5) Use Tags

If you want to give your organic content a boost, tag companies and/or people who would find that content useful. This will help generate some quick likes and comments right out of the gate—which will signal to the LinkedIn algorithm that this is an engaging piece of content that it should share with a wider audience.

We used this strategy when we announced the new DigitalMarketer Podcast by tagging some of our upcoming guests. The post performed really well as a result:

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 3: Analyze the Data

Now that you’ve been posting content on a regular basis, it’s time to analyze the data around that content to see how well it’s been performing.

In your business page Engagement highlights you can see how well each piece of content performed in terms of impressions, clicks, video views, followers acquired, and more.

So take some time to dig into these reports. Your goal at this step is to find out 2 main things:

First, WHO is engaging with your content? Are you reaching the right kind of people? If not, go back and tweak your headlines to see if you can appeal to a more appropriate audience.

If you are reaching the right people, the next thing you want to find out is:

WHAT kind of content are they engaging with the most? Are there certain topics that appeal to your audience? Certain formats (blogs, podcasts, videos)?

This is a really important step because you can learn so much about your audience, like what issues are important to them and what kind of content they’re most likely to engage with on LinkedIn.

And armed with that knowledge, the moment you have all been waiting for: it’s time to finally create your first LinkedIn ads campaign.

(NOTE: Want to make sure you are capturing all the leads you can? Download the FREE 10-Point LinkedIn Audit  so you know your LinkedIn Profile is honed to boost your business.)

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 4: Target & Sponsor Content

LinkedIn offers 3 primary ad types:

• Sponsored content
• Sponsored InMails
• Text and dynamic ads

When you’re first getting started, I recommend using sponsored content.

Sponsored content is a great way to get your feet wet with LinkedIn ads.

Sponsored content is a great way to get your feet wet with LinkedIn ads because, for one thing, you don’t need a huge budget to reach a wide audience. InMails and display ads are great, but it’s typically a lot more expensive to reach a wide audience with those ad types. Boosted content, on the other hand, is more cost-effective… especially if you boost content that gets good organic engagement.

And this should be music to your ears because you’ve already posted and analyzed organic content, which means you should already have a really good idea of what kind of content is going to resonate best with your audience.

In other words, all you have to do at this stage is amplify your best-performing content!

Another great thing about sponsored content is how easy it is to get started. Just open the post from your business page and click “Sponsor now”:

That will take you into the Campaign Manager, where you can create your new campaign. And there are 5 main steps to doing this:

1) Create Your Campaign

In the Campaign Manager, click “Create campaign”:

Next you’ll choose which account to use for this campaign. Each account is tied to a different company page, so in most cases you’ll probably only have one to choose from.

Then specify a campaign name and choose a goal—do you want to send people to your website or collect leads using Lead Gen forms?

For your first campaign, I recommend just sending people to your website.

Once you click “Next,” you’ll see a list of all the content you’ve shared from your company page. Find the content you want to sponsor and click the checkbox on the left.

As I said, in general you’ll get the best results if you boost content that has already performed well organically.

3) Set Your Targeting

Here’s where you’ll start to see why LinkedIn has so much potential as a B2B advertising platform. The targeting options are amazing.

Your first option is to filter by geography. Just type in your area, and LinkedIn will tell you how many people you can reach in that area. For example, there are over 1.1 million LinkedIn members in the Austin, TX area:

Next, you can specify which industries you want to target. Here at DigitalMarketer, we help people who are in marketing and advertising, so I chose that industry. As a result, my estimated target audience narrowed to 35,000:

Finally, you can focus your targeting even more by targeting people based on their job titles. So if you only want to reach decision-makers on LinkedIn, you might target titles like “Owner,” “Director,” “President,” and “Chief Executive Officer”:

When I add those job titles, my audience shrinks down to 5,000:

It might seem like a small audience compared to the 1.1 million we started with, but keep in mind, these are 5,000 business owners and executives in the marketing/advertising industry in the Austin area. These are people who meet the exact specifications for my target audience.

Considering how tightly targeted this is, it’s actually a big audience with HUGE potential.

3) Decide on Your Campaign Goal

Next you’ll need to choose a campaign goal. Do you want to optimize this campaign for awareness (views), visits, or conversions?

When boosting your first piece of content, I recommend Website Visits. You really want to get people to your website where they can learn more about you. (And if you want, you can also continue to follow those people on other platforms with remarketing.)

4) Set Your Budget & Bidding Options

Next you’ll have to decide between 2 different pricing models: CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions). The choice is up to you, although LinkedIn recommends CPC bidding if your campaign goal is website visits.

And now you’re almost done! Just decide on a budget, a bid limit, and your campaign dates:

So you can specify a lot here.

Your Daily budget is how much money you’re willing to spend each day on average. (LinkedIn may spend a little more or less on any given day, but it will average out to equal your daily budget.) 

Your Bid is how much you’re willing to pay per click. LinkedIn will tell you about how much other people are bidding to reach a similar audience, so you should probably choose a bid that’s somewhere within that range.

Your Campaign start date is when your ads will begin displaying. Pretty self-explanatory.

And your Campaign end date is exactly what it sounds like. If you want your ads to continue showing, just click Run indefinitely.

If you want to specify a Total budget, that will give LinkedIn a total budget that it won’t exceed. If you don’t specify a total budget, it will continue spending the daily budget for the length of the campaign (which might be more than what’s in your account)

Finally, Ad rotation tells LinkedIn how to decide which ads to display. You can tell it to show your ads evenly, or to display the better-performing ads more often. (Which is probably the way you want to go.)

5) Enter Your Payment Information

You’re almost done! The final step is to enter your credit card details.

Congratulations—you’ve just created and launched your very first LinkedIn ad campaign!

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 5: Optimize Your Campaigns

If you’ve followed along with steps 1–4, you now have a LinkedIn ads campaign up and running.

But like any advertising campaign, your work isn’t done. You’ll need to monitor your LinkedIn ads to see how they perform, then work to improve that performance over time.

And I want to challenge you to think deeply about how you measure your results on LinkedIn.

Of course you need to pay attention to your cost per click and/or cost per impression—because that’s how you’re actually bidding on the LinkedIn platform.

But here at DigitalMarketer, we’ve evolved beyond those standard metrics and we now measure our LinkedIn campaigns based on our cost per meeting.

When you down to it, this is a much more useful metric for our business.

And it’s a pretty easy number to come up with a quick benchmark for. Just think about how much a new client is worth to your business, and work backwards.

If a new client is worth $10,000 on average…

And if you convert 1 out of every 10 meetings to a client…

Then a meeting is worth about $1,000.

Make sense?

Knowing that, you can now optimize your campaigns to generate new meetings at or below that threshold and still be profitable with your LinkedIn campaigns.

Launch a LinkedIn Ads Campaign Step 6: Tips & Best Practices

Now that you know how to create and optimize a campaign on LinkedIn, I want to share some of the most helpful tips that I’ve learned from my experience advertising on this platform.

(RELATED: Episode 7: Marcus Murphy, Dir. of Monetization @ DigitalMarketer on Why You Should be Using LinkedIn to Boost Sales and Brand Image)

Higher Ticket B2B Wins

LinkedIn is a perfect place to reach professionals, which means it’s ideal for B2B offers. And because of the high costs for quality B2B traffic, high-ticket offers tend to work best on LinkedIn.

If you’re using LinkedIn to promote a B2C offer, that’s going to be tough. Because the costs are just too high to justify most consumer purchases.

But if you’ve got a B2B product or service with a high price tag—think business coaching, exclusive communities, masterminds, etc.—then you can do really well on this platform.

Do’s & Don’ts for Sponsored InMail

In this article I focused mainly on boosted content. But LinkedIn has other ad types as well—including display ads and something called Sponsored InMail.

So what is Sponsored InMail?

LinkedIn is a perfect place to reach professionals, which means it’s ideal for B2B offers.

This ad type sits on top of LinkedIn’s messenger platform, and allows you to deliver real-time targeted messages.

InMail also allows you to use conversion tracking for attribution, which is important because Sponsored InMails don’t send out all at once (like an email blast). Instead, your sends will trickle out over time to avoid feeling spammy. It’s really important to set up conversion tracking so you can measure the success of your campaign.

Generally speaking, the open rate for these messages is really high—20% or higher. And when done right, a Sponsored InMail campaign can perform really well.

Here are my main dos and don’ts for using Sponsored InMail in LinkedIn:

• DO narrow the scope and use your customer data for targeting. Just like any campaign, the more tightly targeted your campaign is, the better your response rate will be.
• DON’T be formal. Be conversational, and people will be more likely to read and engage with your message.
• DO include a clear call to action. Ask people to “Try” your solution, “Register” for your webinar, “Reserve” a copy of your product, “Join” your community, “Confirm” whether they meet your specifications, or “Download” a whitepaper or other online resource.
• DON’T have just anyone send the message. You can choose who to use as your “From” profile, so choose someone high up in your organization whose message would carry the most weight and credibility with your target audience. And make sure that person has a dynamite LinkedIn profile, because anyone interested in your message will almost certainly check out the sender’s profile.
• DO plan for mobile. Remember that a lot of people will see this message on mobile, so keep it to about 1,000 characters to avoid overwhelming people with too much text.

And that’s all there is to it! When you launch your Sponsored InMail campaign, your prospects will get a message like this inside LinkedIn Messenger:

(Notice that you can also upload an image for your message, too, which will appear on the right-hand side of your message.)

Prepare for the Future of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is already a powerful platform for B2B marketers, and it’s still growing and evolving rapidly. I believe that over the coming months and years you’ll be able to leverage even more powerful strategies on LinkedIn.

Here are a few things to keep your eyes peeled for:

• Live video. It’s coming to LinkedIn, and it will help you connect with your audience to build more authority and generate more engagement. Video works, and live video works better. Watch for it and use it.
• Sales Navigator. This tool (which is already amazing) is getting better all the time and is moving more and more toward becoming a full-fledged CRM for B2B companies. I highly recommend using Sales Navigator.
• Education. I think education is going to be big on LinkedIn. So if you offer any sort of professional development services, you really need to start getting active and building a presence on LinkedIn—because this is going to be a really profitable network for you.

There it is, y’all: everything you need to know to set up your first successful LinkedIn ads campaign.

I hope this has been helpful, but as always, the best way to learn these things is by DOING them. So go get onto LinkedIn and start going through these 6 steps to start growing your business with LinkedIn ads.

(NOTE: Want to make sure you are capturing all the leads you can? Download the FREE 10-Point LinkedIn Audit  so you know your LinkedIn Profile is honed to boost your business.)

The post 6 Steps to Launch Your First LinkedIn Ads Campaign appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

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SPI 347: How to Organize a Massive Event (Brick by Brick with Chad Collins)

According to today's guest, Chad Collins, throwing a massive event is the most powerful thing you can do for your audience. Here are some of the strategies he uses to sell out tickets.

SPI 347: How to Organize a Massive Event (Brick by Brick with Chad Collins) from The Smart Passive Income Blog.

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#1681 How a founder must change as the company grows from startup to IPO

Joining me today is an entrepreneur who was working on a startup during the dot com boom and he was shaped by the foolishness of that era. Most recently he is the founder of a company called MobileIron which he took public. Bob Tinker is the co-founder of MobileIron which helps companies enable their employees to choose the best devices and best apps they want to do their work.

Bob Tinker is the co-founder of MobileIron which helps companies enable their employees to choose the best devices and best apps they want to do their work.

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