Reginald Chan

Category: Marketing

  • Lesson 1: The Art Of Blogging For Beginners

    Lesson 1: The Art Of Blogging For Beginners

    Blogging for beginners

    Blogging is an art and artists who sell their painting get paid.

    Welcome to the first lesson in Blogging University – The Art of Blogging for Beginners.

    In this first lesson, I will be using my personal domain, www.reginaldchan.net as the reference point. I started this blog in May 2013 and the below are the stats:

    • 99,900 page views
    • Around 1,000 followers on email
    • Close to 10,000 followers on social media
    • Approximately $8,000 earnings on affiliate sales
    • Awarded top 100 bloggers in Tribber for 2014
    • Honorable mention on huge sites such as Harvard University blog and Yahoo Small Business

    Accept my apologies for being bold. At times, I often wondered what it really took me to get this far.

    Of course, mistakes I did were:

    • Over 8 years of blogging and making peanuts
    • Started over 30 various websites and having extremely low success
    • Wasted thousand of dollars in ‘guru tips’
    • And probably a dozen more to make me look bad 🙂

    With Blogging University, I certainly hope to share all my blogging tips I have collected over the years and helping bloggers to avoid those mistakes I had done in the past.

    Download this blogging lesson in PDF now!

    Prefer podcast? Hit the play button below:

    What blogging lessons will you learn today?

    • Importance of planning your blogging
    • Choosing the various blogging platforms
    • The type of hosting services you would subscribe

    Without further delay, let’s kick start the lesson today.

    Note: Since this is the first training, the information shared here are relatively very general. This would be a great baseline for any newbie bloggers. Much more extensive blogging tips will follow in the coming lessons.

     

    The importance of planning and strategy in blogging

    The importance of strategy and planning in blogging

    I know only a handful of bloggers who plan their blogging path and this … got to change!

    If you want to be make a living out of blogging or become a professional blogger, you need to utilize the power of planning and strategy building.

    Planning in blogging is simple. Some simple questions you can start asking yourself are:

    1. What are you writing about?
    2. Who will be your readers?
    3. Why would they want to read your blog?

    Now, take a moment to answer the questions above and compare them with the answer sheet below:

    • Very general blog topics (or over 10 different topics of choice)
    • My readers will be anyone who I can find (no specific target)
    • Because it is interesting!

    If the above are similar with your answer, then your blogging career will be seriously challenging.

    You don’t need a godly plan but at least, a simple strategy that will be your guidance in blogging.

    For example, a good blogging plan could easily be:

    1. Very specialized topics (select 3 to 5 related topics)
    2. Targeting readers from the United States aged 18 to 40 who dream of making a living online
    3. Focusing on writing detailed case-studies and tutorials

    Having a clearer blogging strategy could easily help you to have a better reach. More on that in the next lesson.

    Actionable blogging tips:

    Start building your blogging strategy using the simple questions starting with the who, what, where and how. The more detailed your answer are, the better it would be for you down the road.

     

    Choosing a blogging platform

    Choosing a good blogging platform

    There are countless blogging platforms nowadays which includes WordPress (self hosted), WordPress.com and Blogspot.

    You won’t go wrong with any of those but if you are planning of starting your career in blogging (seriously), it would best start with having a self-hosted website.

    The most common question many blogging newbies is the ‘WordPress vs Blogspot’.

    Personally, I would always recommend bloggers to use WordPress platform on their self-hosted domains compared to Blogspot due to the control and features.

    The below are some breakdowns for easier decision making.

    Advantages of self-hosted WordPress sites:

    • Highly configurable and customizable
    • Absolute freedom
    • The most popular blogging platform (availability of support is huge)

    Disadvantages of self-hosted WordPress sites:

    • Slight learning curve required
    • Too much features could be daunting for newbies
    • Very prone to hacking and security issues

    Advantages of Blogspot:

    • Setting up would take less than 10 minutes
    • No plugin required
    • Hosted on servers owned by Google (zero cost)

    Disadvantages of Blogspot:

    • Limited ability for customization (especially when you want to grow your blog)
    • Abide the Blogspot rules, terms and conditions
    • Risk of losing everything as Google is known of shutting down a site without notice

    For beginner bloggers, it is important to choose one platform and stick to it as migrating in the future is very troublesome.

    There is no such thing as best of both worlds and thus, go with the blogging platform that best fits your requirements. Again, my personal opinion is that if you are serious in blogging, it is highly recommended to get a self-hosted site for more control.

     

    Deciding on the best hosting for your money

    What are the common hosting issues

    It is not wrong for you to think big when you are a beginner. However, thinking big could easily burn a hole in your wallet.

    For those who are using self-hosted domain, you would require a hosting plan. Yes, this is an important start even before starting a blog.

    If a domain is your home, a hosting plan is the electricity.

    The quality of the hosting plan will determine the level of uptime you are getting. For starters, a website which have tons of downtime is bad for both the blog visitors and search engines.

    There are several types of hosting a blogger can choose; shared, reseller, premium hosting and dedicated servers.

    Shared hosting

    Basically, you are sharing electricity with around 500 to 1,000 websites. While this is probably the most popular hosting plan for many blogging beginners, located in a high traffic server could easily slow down the website loading speed.

    On average, you could get a hosting plan that cost $5 per month for a single domain.

    Reseller hosting

    This is one hosting option which is widely known among advanced and professional bloggers.  Instead of getting a hosting package from a hosting company, you subscribe to hosting services from a 3rd party.

    What makes this type of hosting an excellent choice for startup bloggers is that you get higher quality hosting in both quality of uptime and customer support.

    For example, clients in my reseller hosting packages get free plugin installation, daily backup and ability to host unlimited domains under $5 per month.

    Comparing to shared hosting, my reseller hosting package would be much affordable since they are getting a high end support from me personally. Plus, I only allow 10 clients in one server in order for them to have ultimate server speed.

    On average, a reseller hosting plan would cost as low as $5 per month to $50 per month.

    Premium hosting

    If you are worried of those hacking and security flaws, having a premium hosting would be a good option. Basically, you are getting top notch support in terms of backup, security and website performance.

    Instead of having 1,000 domains in one server, most premium hosting servers cater only (up to) 10 domains per server. This will ensure that the site performance will not be affected if you ever get a spiked in traffic.

    Premium hosting isn’t cheap and it cost around $29 per month. I would suggest getting this only if you have enough traffic and generating enough income for this service.

    Dedicated servers

    Once you have above 100,000 traffic a month, then you need more firepower. Dedicated servers means that you have the whole server for yourself.

    Dedicated servers usually cost around $70 (at least) per month.

     

    Blogging lesson recap

    For those who are starting a blog, these are the three very basic rules to get started on the right track. While these may seems very petty, don’t be fooled with the advantages these would bring you in the long run.

    The best blogging tips? Follow closely to these 3 blogging tips above!

    Now, I am going to wrap this blogging lesson up and if you have any questions, fire them up using the comment form below and I’ll get back to you with the answers.

    Upcoming blogging lesson: How to plan the perfect blogging strategy?

  • Blogging University Courses Transform Newbie Bloggers Into Professionals

    Blogging University Courses Transform Newbie Bloggers Into Professionals

    blogging university by Reginald Chan

    Are you experiencing problem building traffic to your blogs? Or simply, having issues generating income to your blog?

    The answers to these problems is simple; Enroll yourself in Blogging University. Yes, it is absolutely free for now and forever.

    Being a blogger myself, I know how it felt like when you felt like blogging is coming to an end.

    Constant Google updates and competing with over 160 million blogs out there are enough to drive any newbies away from blogging.

    Blogging university is created by me and what makes them different is that I will be sharing information that covers about the blogging niche.

    • Yes, you hear me right.
    • Zero nonsense crap
    • Zero BS talks
    • Pure information and actionable techniques to grow your blogging into a full fledged business

     

    Want to keep a PDF version of this blogging lesson? Download here!

     

    What are the visions and missions of Blogging University?

    The main objectives are helping bloggers gain:

    • More traffic
    • More money
    • More authority

    Blogging was much easier years back. Nowadays, blogging is much different. It takes more than the ‘usual’ techniques to grow your blog audience.

     

    Why is Blogging University different?

    I am a huge fan of writing lengthy posts and in Blogging University, I will be doing it with a twist.

    Blogging resources will include various podcast, videos, slides and as well as the blog posts. Therefore, feel free to choose any resources which fits your needs.

    Besides that, instead of verbally sharing the resources, I will include life experiences taken from my personal blogging experience. This is ensure you that you’re getting only the best blogging resources you can find on the web.

    All these resources would be absolutely free for you for now (and forever). I won’t be charging a dime for anything.

     

    What will Blogging University covers?

    In short, everything.

    For example, I will be covering:

    • Basic of bloggings
    • Lucrative topics or niches
    • Ways to monetize a blog
    • Building blog traffic
    • Search engine optimization and backlinks
    • Social media influence

     

    Who can participate in Blogging University courses?

    Absolutely everybody who want to make a serious living through blogging.

    It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an experienced bloggers, anyone is free to join. While there is no fee in joining this, it is highly recommended to subscribe for my separate mailing list to keep updated with the courses.

    And it only takes you 2 minutes to subscribe to my newsletter using the form below. With that, you will get timely updates on the courses published without missing any juicy parts of it.

     

    What to expect from Blogging University?

    New posts will be loaded up on a weekly basis (but I’ll try to do more than that). While this will covers from the ultimate newbie courses, bear in mind that there are some things you may have already know.

    Feel free to skip any courses if you feel that you have gained sufficient knowledge. Of course, I don’t recommend that but it is entirely up to you.

    Courses offered at Blogging University doesn’t guarantee success but with all the proven records, it is a no brainer that these blogging techniques really work.      

     

    Are you ready to take blogging to the next level (for free)?

    Blogging University will be launching real soon and if you want to grab a seat, sign up to my newsletter below for the latest updates.  

  • Thinking About Social Network Marketing? 3 Tips To Get Started!

    Thinking About Social Network Marketing? 3 Tips To Get Started!

    Social network marketing is a gold mine when it comes to building traffic, revenue and sales.

    It is not undeniable that if you are not doing social media, you are losing out; big time. And like it or not, we are already halfway through 2014.

    Some says that 2015 will be a huge year for digital marketing trend which is wonderfully compiled by Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog (read more about it here).

    The social media pace is getting fast and the ‘slow and steady’ don’t win the race anymore.

    If you have yet to start any social media campaign, you need to start right now. Yes, drop whatever you are doing and start creating a social media account on Facebook, Twitter or a zillion other accounts.

    But wait! You have already done that.

    Good job, you have just started your first step in any social media campaign.

    The moral of the story is not many of us realized we had already started some sort of social media marketing, regardless we are aware or not.

    While creating an account is easy, you need more than that.

    For starters, you need followers. Tons of them.

    There are several fundamentals when it comes to building more followers such as:

    • Luck
    • Timing
    • Funnel

    Luck is rather challenging as we have no control over them. Lucky for you, it is much opposite when it comes to ‘timing’ and ‘funnel’.

     

    Tip #1: Timing matters for any social network marketing

     

    The importance of social media timing

     

    Timing is everything. According to the Fast Company, you only need:

    • Around 5 tweets a day
    • 5 to 10 Facebook updates in a week
    • Approx. 20 times on LinkedIn in a month

    Take a moment to think about this. What’s your first thought?

    Mine is simple; “Are you freaking joking me?! I post around 15 times on Twitter and Facebook plus 5 times on LinkedIn daily!”

    Let’s talk about ROI myth and it is broken down into two parts:

    • Higher number of shares will contribute to higher traffic but higher bounce rate
    • Lower number of shares will contribute to lower traffic but a lower bounce rate

    This can be concluded that while there is absolutely no wrong-doing choosing either one of them, the method of reaching out to the prospective readers is important.

    What’s work for me is around 10 tweets, 5 Facebook shares and 3 LinkedIn updates close to a daily basis. How about yours?

    There is no ‘absolute timing’ when it comes to social media scheduling. Yes, there are guides to help you with it but at the end of the day, it is totally dependable to your visitors (time of action).

     

    Tip #2: Creating a funnel that drives traffic from social network marketing

     

    Boost traffic using social network marketing

     

    Are you using social media for marketing? If you are, you need good funnels to drive traffic and sales.

    Social network marketing basically means reaching thousands and thousands of readers with just a few clicks of the button.

    In social media, the easiest way to create funnel is by creating quality posts  with the proper Call To Action (CTA).

    And when it comes to social media marketing techniques, there is no one else better than Rebekah Radice. Check out her latest article on 5 Ways To Create A Social Media Call To Action That Converts.

    In short, a funnel can be done using:

    1. Knowing your (company) value
    2. Be exactly clear what you want your readers to do (read, click, buy etc)
    3. Understanding the market
    4. Speak your audience language
    5. Simply by asking for a kind retweet, reshare or a +1

    My social network marketing method is rather simple. I would share the same post using various CTA’s in a period of one week (or a couple of days). Judging from the response, it would provide us with a huge understanding on what readers love and what is driving those clicks.

     

    Tip #3: Social network marketing done right

     

    Drive traffic using social media
    The right social network marketing strategy will drive traffic to blogs and websites

     

    I’m a huge fan of social media automation. Running a hectic life with various projects from my start-up agency and as well as my lucrative day job is a no joke.

    After all, it’s our job to ensure that we put food on the plate right?

    Social media is business for me. Believe it or not, most of my business traffic comes from social media.

    If you want to rank well on Google, you need search engine optimization. In social media, you need social media optimization.

    To kick start social media, all you need is the right technique. Allow me to share mine (you can share yours using the comment form below):

    1. Identify the right social media platforms
    2. Understand what your goals are and focus on them
    3. Building some social media metrics

    There are more than a dozen social media platforms out there and you need to choose the most lucrative one for your social media campaign.

    Using Google Analytics, determine which platform provides you the best traffic and clicks.

     

    Referral traffic data taken from Google Analytics

     

    If you are starting up a social media marketing and time is a huge factor for you, you can simply choose the top 3 most productive platform to work with.

    Social media is always a two way traffic. This means that you need to be active and as well as utilizing the power of  automation.

    And my go-to tool would be HootSuite Pro. Honestly speaking, having the ability to sync 50 social accounts at the same time is godly.

     

    Bonus tip: Setting up HootSuite Pro for maximum social network power

     

    Social network marketing using HootSuite Pro

     

    HootSuite Pro offers up to 50 social accounts (free one offer 5 accounts) and this means that you need tons of planning.

    There are two things you have to decide:

    1. What you want to view on the timeline?
    2. Which account you want to sync with HootSuite?

    The below is an example my timeline. I separate them into platform based and even client’s tab (not visible for obvious purpose).

     

    HootSuite timeline arrangement

     

    Each tab can holds up to 10 timelines and this includes mentions, private messages, scheduling etc.

    Segmenting the timeline is important to ensure that you have enough visibility and contribution to avoid being labelled as spam or self promotion. This is where the segmentation in the image come into play.

    HootSuite offers scheduled posts and you can schedule up to 5 accounts at one time.

    The trick here is simple. Schedule posts which are highly attractive and relevant to the group or audience. Do that and you’ll get a winner!

    HootSuite starts from $8.99 per month and you can it for 30-days free using this link: Free 30-days HootSuite Pro

    Tell me your thought on social network marketing and if you are feeling generous, let’s discuss on social media strategies to increase traffic and sales revenue.

  • X Theme Review – Is It REALLY The Ultimate WordPress Theme?

    X Theme Review – Is It REALLY The Ultimate WordPress Theme?

    I have been a huge fan in the web development industry and my knowledge in coding is close to zero.

    My only tools of trade are the various theme builders and I usually build my homemade themes around Genesis Framework. Usually, my only go-to tools will be like this one (as it offers excellent integration with Genesis).

    With over 8 years of blogging under my belt, I was tired and a little bored with Genesis Framework. I wanted to move along a new path and many options come into my mind.

    For starters, being spoil with over 40 professional themes is seriously bad for psychology and I took up the challenge to build my own theme.

    I headed over to Theme Forest and began scouting for a new website build and it only took awhile for me to locate one that is extremely out standing.

     

    X – The Ultimate WordPress Theme Builder

     

    X theme review - The ultimate WordPress theme

     

    Let’s be completely honest here. When I first saw it, I was really attracted to the ‘X’ word. It reminds me a lot about X-men (huge fan here).

    This is a complete review of X Theme and thus, that’s what you are getting here; Both the pros and cons as well.

    And I thought the developers are definitely bold enough to name it with a single letter word.

    Just like any other human being, my eye was attracted to the price … my eyes literally popped out.

    A whopping $60 for Christ’s sake!

    Okay, for those who have no idea about the themes at Theme Forest, you can get tons of website theme builders around $40 each.

    This doesn’t stop me there but instead, I was curious on what the X theme has to offer. I mean, selling a theme for an extra $20 would either make or break the business … easily.

    And to cut the story short, I bought the X theme in the next few minutes.

    I toy-ed around with it for a couple of days and I am not sure if the word ‘impressive’ fits the case.

    Have a look at my complete review below.

     

    X Theme Review – Is It Worth Your $60?

    Okay, so you roughly know what X theme is by now. If you have no idea, here is a list of what X theme offers:

    • Complete website builder
    • Interactive visual and building features
    • Close to WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
    • Crazy customization options

    And X theme was created based on recommendations by 9 industry experts.

    Disclaimer: This is one of the biggest buying factor for me. Having a theme recommended by 9 industry experts? Hell yes!

     

    Installing and basic setting up of the X theme

    A walk in the park.

    Yes, that’s how easy it is to get the X theme working on your website. All you need are:

    Upload to WordPress database > Select the theme > Activate

    After activating, it will prompt you that you need to install several other plugins to make the X theme work properly such as:

    • Revolution Slider
    • WPBakery Visual Composer
    • X Shortcodes

    Don’t worry, those are required to get the X theme running properly.

    After installation, you will see the Customizer option in your WordPress dashboard.

    How to configure X theme
    X theme settings are instantly visible after installation

     

    Building WordPress theme with The X

    This is where everything become really juicy. You are (not really) required to build everything from scratch and all the options are very straight forward.

    Setting up X theme for WordPress is easy
    This is the general control panel for X theme

     

    The above image is the main ‘control panel’ for your theme. You can literally build everything and anything with these custom options; from typography to button sizes and colours.

    When using the X theme, the sky is really the only limit you have.

    Before you even start customizing the X theme, you need to decide the basic structure of the X theme; integrity, renew and icon.

    Integrity

    • Clean and professional outlook
    • Best fit for corporate websites and blogs as well
    • The real advantage of using Integrity is to highlight Call-To-Action (CTA) options

    Renew

    • Flat design but with huge 3-D effect (if configured properly)
    • Excellent for blogs
    • Clear theme with one purpose; outline your contents

    Icon

    • Modern but minimal designs
    • Unique layout which could make your blogs stand out
    • Best fit for blogs and extremely interactive (visual) with visitors

    Personally, you won’t go wrong with any of the three options but at the moment, I don’t see any option to use all of them at the same time.

    Once you have selected the above, the next step would be setting up the different layouts for your website.

    X theme offers various layout options for bloggers
    There are several layout options to choose from for customization

     

     

    X theme comes with different navigation options
    X theme allows you to choose your preferred navigation options with ease

     

    This means that you can decide whether to choose:

    • Sidebar position
    • Navigation position

    And if you think that’s all about the X theme, you are absolutely wrong. There is also option to create floating bars and you don’t need a plugin for that!

    Now tell me … how cool is that?

     

    Create ‘one-of-the-kind’ homepage with the X Theme

    X theme is pretty and it is a great WordPress theme.

    Great … but, you can’t seem to be able to recreate the homepage as what you thought and it is challenging.

    I been through this myself. For starters, that is insanely tough. You have no idea where to start and totally lost.

    You thought the drag and drop feature was as easy as A, B and C but it wasn’t. And you feel like asking for a refund (if possible).

    Before you even throw in the towel, allow me tell you that you are missing something out.

    The X theme offers unlimited customization features but it has a little learning curve and logic is absolutely needed.

    What you can do is head over to their demo page and check out the 30 website designs available. Choose one that fits your requirements and download the demo version.

    Upload it to your website (create a new page) and modify from there. The below is an example of my modification page layout.

    Creating homepage using X theme
    If you know some slight coding knowledge, you can easily modify your homepage without visual composer

     

    Drag and drop feature on X theme
    This is what it looks like after creating a homepage with X theme visual composer

     

    As you can see above, there are two ways to build a homepage using The X theme. You can either use the visual composer (highly recommended) or the shortcodes if you know what you are doing.

    If you want to build a homepage fast using The X theme, use the visual composer as it is much easier. Here are the various options you can choose from when using the visual composer for building a website theme (from scratch).

    Visual composer makes website customization easy using X theme
    Building a page is easy using visual composer

    Additional features of The X theme

    The X theme is not only a great WordPress theme builder but as well as an excellent ecommerce theme.

    It is fully integrated with the popular WooCommerce platform and you can easily put the visual advantage available to blow your customers away.

    While many other themes would just leave you with one layout options, each stack (Integrity, Renew and Icon) will offer an absolutely different layout and theme design for your ecommerce website.

    Not only that, there are many smaller features which you could use such as the delay of visual features. This is an absolute replicate to the popular WordPress plugin, Lazy Load.

    If you are worried about website loading speed, you are in good hands when you use The X theme.

    So, goodbye slow website!

    The X theme also comes with over 400 icon fonts. This means that there is no longer the need to hunt for the suitable icons for your website.

    Need to find an thumbs up, star or people icons? Don’t worry, X theme has them all!

    Last but not least, the support on the forum is great.

    On average, I get a reply within 60 minutes of posting a question during working hours and that is insane. The community at there are also very helpful and you are definitely in good hands since most of them are website developers.

     

    Review: Is The X Theme worth it?

    While $60 would probably half the crowd away, I would say that it is one hell of a website builder.

    With all the juicy features it can offer, I would absolutely be amazed if anyone would actually turn down this offer (unless you are nuts or plain stingy 🙂 ).

    Being a WordPress junkie and a homemade website theme developer, I would say this is probably the best $60 I ever spend on a WordPress theme.

    Don’t allow my review to mess with your decision but with over 829 sales and 4.5/5 star ratings since the release of it, I bet the data speaks for itself.

    Most popular WordPress theme on Theme Forest
    The sales and rating stats speak for itself

     

    I hope you enjoy this X theme review and if you are using the X theme, you are obligated (literally) to tell me what you think using the comment form below. If you have any questions about the X theme, fire your questions and I will try to answer them all.

    If you want to see what X theme is all about, you can check it out for free here! The X theme by Theme.co.

  • 5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    Content marketing is all about putting your articles on the first page of Google search.

    Or at least, that’s one of the top three goals for many bloggers.

    I started a simple survey that comes in my newsletter. The goal was simple; Drop your request to me and I will blog it up for you. And if you have yet to participate in the survey, you can do it here – Content Survey.

    The request was made by one of my readers in Kerala, India with the question, “Anything along the lines of content marketing.”

    I hope you are reading this and here are some useful content marketing strategies which can potentially double your website traffic in a very short period of time.

    Want to save the article for later? Download the PDF copy here.

     

    Content Marketing Strategies

     

    Best content marketing tips for 2014
    How do you do content marketing for 2014?

     

    Content marketing is never easy. If it is hard last year, expect a bomb this year instead.

    If you think that content marketing is just for businesses, you are dead wrong. You need it even if you are a small time blogger.

    Want to rank on the first page of Google? You need content marketing. Period.

    While that literally answered the question on how important content marketing is in today’s world, the biggest question I am going to touch today is as below.

     

    How do you do content marketing with just 5 steps?

     

    Why is content marketing important?

    Content marketing #1 – Strategies

    In my latest blog post on professional blogging tutorial, I outlined one very important factor; having a bulletproof strategy.

    Even before you purchase a domain or pick one up for free on Blogspot, you need to consider:

    • What your blog is all about? (single vs multiple niche)
    • Who would be your readers?
    • What makes others come to your blog?
    • How to make readers come back for more?
    • What makes the blog different from the rest?

    And the list continues.

    In content marketing, you need to be absolutely sure on the path you are heading to. The goals set have to be:

    1. Achievable
    2. Logical
    3. Within a specific time frame

    When it comes to content marketing strategy, putting a high bars in the beginning of the ‘race’ would easily lead to many failures.

     

    Content marketing #2 – Headlines

     

    Magnetic headlines will increase traffic

     

    Article headlines are the first thing your readers read and therefore, it is a no brainer to put all your effort into constructing a great one.

    Headlines should be craved accordingly to:

    • Reader’s interest
    • Latest headlines
    • Mysterious
    • Delivering promises

    Let’s take for example, both of these headlines:

    5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    5 Content Marketing Strategies To Build Traffic

    For starters, both the above are very close to each other but by just adding a few words, you could easily skyrocket your conversion rate; getting more readers to read your article.

    The first title is obviously a better choice because it has the word ‘simple’ and ‘double’.

    This give an impression for the readers that the 5 tips are easy to do (less time consuming) and a promise that it would increase blog traffic by at least once.

    A few other headlines that you could use are:

    • Best 10 … To …
    • A versus B
    • How to make money while you are sleeping (example for mystery headlines)

    Want to dig in more? You can check out what Brian Clark wrote here, How to write magnetic headlines.

     

    Content marketing #3 – The content itself

     

    Writing great content is important in marketing

     

    Two questions that easily pop into mind would be:

    • The length of the article
    • Creating out of this world discussion

    While there are probably hundreds of discussions in regards to this matter, I ought to differ.

    People says longer articles gets ranked better by Google and many of us are scratching our heads just to reach the 1,200 words mark.

    True?

    Honestly speaking, my case studies (unpublished yet) show that articles between 1,000 to 2,000 words would rank better but with heavy optimization; keyword density, title tags etc.

    Not only that, I have a website ranking on page two of Google without any SEO done to it and the epic part? The articles published on the site are created by a robot, has around 600 words on average per article and articles created are around 60% readable.

    Does longer articles get ranked better? Probably.

    Do you really need lengthy articles to rank well on Google now? Not really (or until Google changes its algorithm again).

    So, truth debunked? Go figure!

    And our next discussion, article creation.

    When it comes to content marketing, you need great content if you want to stand out from the crowd. If your blog posts are plain and simple, you are already losing half the battle.

    I often consider content marketing (or writing articles in this sense) as an art; The art to captivates audience.

    Take a read on what some of the professional and prominent figures in the blogging industry on their blogs and you will notice a huge difference between them. Some would simple start with a story while others, would give you bits of the story to drive you nuts.

    Either way, those are real darn good content marketing techniques.

    Moral of the story? Every single word that you use should be followed by another to make your reader NOT pressing the X button.

    If you are wondering, the below is one of the oldest tricks in blogging.

    Bribe your visitors with information they are looking for, not opposite.

     

    Content marketing #4 – The effect of images in a blog post

     

    How to increase traffic with images

     

    Okay, so you had written a super lengthy post of 2,500 words.

    Great ~ but why is your bounce rate so high? Why are readers not digging into your articles?

    Chances are you are not using images.

    A picture represents a thousand words. Same goes to blogging!

    The concept here is fairly simple. Readers (including me) will not read your article from A to Z if it is over 1,000 words. Unless you are a great writer like Brian Clark, you are probably nowhere near success.

    In content marketing, you need to make sure that you are using the power of images. You don’t need to use high resolution images for all your blog posts. Instead, choose the right one which represents the best meaning of the word/sentence.

    Have you noticed that Pinterest is one of the prominent social media platform growing in the shadows of Facebook?

    Images are getting more important and if you are losing if you are not using images.

    Blogging or content marketing as what I call is a business. If you want to start growing your ‘business’, start utilizing images for Christ’s sake.

    It probably cost you around 10 seconds to find one thanks to Google.

    So seriously, use images, slides, videos or any visual related sources to drive your website visitors crazy. Yes, make them “wow”!

     

    Content marketing #5 – Are you ‘marketing’?

     

    Content marketing with social media
    Social media is apart of the content marketing strategy

     

    You may have:

    • The best content
    • Fully optimized with on-page SEO
    • More than 2,000 words
    • Killer headlines
    • Epic images, slides and videos

    And you are popped a beer and congratulate yourself for the job well done. Well, you are nearly there … but not there yet!

    Traffic is not going to flow in just-like-that with the above optimization techniques.

    Seriously!

    If you want your content to go viral or being shared across the various social media platforms, you need to market the article to ready-listeners.

    Yes, you’re right; Those followers you have in your mailing list.

    If you do not have a mailing list yet, you can get one here for 30 days free and no credit card required.

    While you can reach hundreds or thousands of followers with the right email marketing provider, the job doesn’t stop there.

    You need to continue marketing the article as long as it is still published and this, my friend, is one of the biggest mistakes done by many content writers.

    People tend to share new articles for the first 2 to 4 weeks from the date published and after that, everything goes flat; no more marketing after reaching the 5th week mark.

    If you are writing evergreen articles, then make sure you schedule them for social media sharing at least once a month. You can easily promote these articles across various social media platforms using Buffer.

    Not sure how to use it? Check this article out – How to schedule posts using Buffer App?

     

    Do you like the content marketing tips above?

    Tell me what you think using the comment form below and if you like to throw in your request, head over to this link and drop your request there!

  • How To Avoid Google Penalization And Manual Web Spam With Guest Blogging?

    How To Avoid Google Penalization And Manual Web Spam With Guest Blogging?

    Google did that again; unleashing web spam and search ranking penalization to not one but two major websites.

    When I saw that news on Twitter, I knew that the search engine world is changing and damn, it is changing rapidly.

    Matt Cutt’s said previously that we should be careful and not abusing guest blogging. While many took that seriously, there are still some who continue doing it.

    But hey, they aren’t wrong and they are probably doing everything by the book.

    As usual, Google is known for breaking things that works and penalized two sites from the face of search engine (literally). MyBlogGuest was nowhere to be found on Google front row pages and Portent Inc. who went from page 1 of Google to page 60.

    Words from Ann Smarty on Twitter:

     

    And Ian Lurie from Portent Inc.:  


    So, what the @#$% is wrong with them or Google?

    At the moment, the only confirmed updates are MyBlogGuest is a huge guest blogging sphere while Portent Inc. is a popular marketing agency. And the only linking between both Portent Inc. and MyBlogGuest is that they (Portent Inc.) have several guest posts published on MyBlogGuest.

    Words on the street are that MyBlogGuest’s database is affected but until this get verified, it will remain as a mystery, shall we?

    We all know MyBlogGuest and it is managed by the popular Ann Smarty. For me, MyBlogGuest is a great place for knowledge and for many, it is a huge filled with knowledge.

    Another question that comes to this is that does link building is more important that content quality, length and another dozen reasons more we have always been doing?

    Yes, go figure and tell me what you think using the comment form below.

     

    The discussion about guest blogging effects
    What do you think about guest blogging?

     

    So, what is guest blogging all about?

    Guest blogging is a ‘feature’ where webmasters of certain domains would allow other bloggers to submit or publish their posts on the site. This is a win-win situation where webmasters would be able to maintain the freshness of the site while the guest bloggers would get at least one backlink to their own blogs.

    Personally, this is one of the greatest link building technique where you are able to get quality links and building your authority at the same time.

    While this is close to a completely white hat link building technique, many bloggers are (indirectly) abusing the link building cycle. This means that you can literally gain as many backlinks as possible even if your website is below par … as long as you are constantly submitting guest posts.

    Therefore, excessive guest blogging would lead to many Google penalization and as well as manual web spam.

    Ultimately, this leads to the next question.

     

    Excessive guest blogging causes Google penalty and manual web spam

     

    Question: Should you continue to submit or accept guest blogging?

    Do it if you wish ‘¦ but do it with moderation.

    Guest bloggings are meant to be quality and probably one of your best article creations with hours of hard work put in it.

    Don’t just submit your article to a dozen websites but instead, submit just a handful of articles to the right and related websites.

    1. Before submitting guest blogging (checklist and tutorial)

    If you want to submit articles to websites, make sure you are providing quality articles. Most of the time, majority of the blogger would say that they are submitting top notch quality and a simple read through will know that those are really bad.

    If you are putting a high bar and expectation on your own guest blogging, you need to raise it even higher now.

    Search engine is changing and it is getting tougher!

    2. Before accepting guest blogging

    If you happen to accept guest blogging, don’t panic. Here are things you need to do in sequence:

    • Check each articles for dead links and low quality posts
    • Contact the guest blogger and ask if he or she would like to update the post(s)
    • Repeat and rinse these steps on a monthly basis

    While this is extremely time consuming, the effort taken would benefit you in a long run; avoiding yourself from being penalized by Google.

     

     

    What to do if you found manual web spam notification on Webmaster Tool?

    If your blog is PageRank 2 and below … plus, guest blogging isn’t your main backlink method, then you should be just fine.

    However, let’s say Google really hates you and you get a manual web spam notification. On average, it would take place immediately in terms of ranking effects but I usually see them in action between 3 to 7 days.

    So, this means that you have 72 hours (minus the sleep) to rectify it immediately. It doesn’t take you long but here are the steps you need to do:

    • Use backlink checker tools such as AhRefs, MajesticSEO or SEO PowerSuite to get a list of all your backlinks
    • Export them into an excel form or format
    • Check each link that is linking back to your website and do it with cautions (this means that even a single backlink to your site should be ‘˜flagged’)
    • Copy those domains into another excel tab and check for their PageRank, Domain Authority, Page Authority and anchor texts linking to those domains
    • Separate them into three lists such as Safe, Moderate and Dangerous (if you notice any domain is at risk of being penalized, place them in the Dangerous list)
    • Contact each of the webmasters in the Dangerous list and ask for amendment in guest post or remove the links
    • You should keep an eye on those domains in the Moderate list and if there any change in ranking (weekly basis), you can decide to move them to Safe or Dangerous list respectively

     

    Help! I am lazy and I don’t have the time, but I don’t want Google to penalize my blog

    Okay, the above 7 steps are not one-time jobs. Instead, those are your daily to-do lists to be honest.

    Guess what? Among us, there would be those who have thought about going shortcut.

    Example: How about I send the full list of Dangerous to Google Disavow directly. Would that be faster?

    Honestly speaking, that would be not faster but lighting fast.

    But wait! There’s a downside of this and a huge one to be honest.

    Imagine you send the list of domains on a weekly or monthly basis to Google for disavowing. Have you ever wonder what Google will think about you?

    1. You are plain lazy
    2. You are doing black hat SEO and in a rush to clear all your bad links
    3. Trying to come clean when you are not (or even if you are)

    I would always go against using Google Disavow tool unless you have really tried to contact the webmaster of the site simply because it doesn’t matter how much white hat SEO you do, Google will still try to find your mistake (here’s my case study).

    And in most cases, Google will consider you guilty until proven otherwise. Ouch!

     

    How to solve Google web spam issue?
    Okay guys. We need a contingency plan to counter attack Google … NOW! ~ President Obama

     

    So, what’s the new SEO strategy you should be using now? Some Q’s & A’s:

    Should I be submitting my guest blogging? ~ If you are doing it heavily, cut it down or reduce the numbers.

    As I have over 100 guest posts, do I need to be worried? ~ Yes if you are submitting to random sites. No if you are selecting guest posting sites like choosing your husband or wife.

    What should I do if my blog has a lot of guest posts? ~ Start checking all your blog posts and the links in them. Remove which ever are low in quality. 

     

    What do you think the future of guest blogging?

    While I would say this event has changed everything we know about guest blogging, there is still no reason why we should doubt the ability of guest blogging.

    The problem would lies in us where we tend to abuse the search engine ecosystem and indirectly, creating a huge loophole for unnatural link building.

    Do you have any thoughts about guest blogging? Tell me what you think using the comment form below.