Category: website

    Get the Most from Search Engine Traffic

    Search engine optimization is an important component in online marketing. It uses techniques to ensure that your website or blog receives as much traffic as possible from all the search engines. But, you don’t really want all the traffic; you just want the traffic that is right for your website. You want targeted traffic that wants what you have to offer. This is the way you make the most of search engine traffic.

    To get started making the most of search engine traffic, do the easiest things first.

    Check Your Site for Broken Links

    Do you have broken links on your page that you haven’t fixed? This can happen easily for many reasons. However, the reasons don’t matter as much as making sure that you fix the broken links. You can use a broken link checker to check for links regularly on your website. When you find links that don’t work, fix them right away.

    Link – http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/

    Optimize Your 404 Error Pages

    You can personalize a 404 error page to take advantage of your audience members accidentally going to the wrong page or a link you didn’t catch that’s broken. There are many ways you can personalize and optimize a 404 error page; how you do it will depend on the voice you want to project on your website or blog.

    Update Keywords

    Over time keywords change due to the audience changing or society changing. Words today may mean something else later. Taking time to study keywords and making a long list of all variations of keywords can also help you think of new content to create for your audience.

    Use Keywords in Headlines and Titles

    When you have studied the right keywords, you can use them as titles, headlines and sub-headlines on your website and blog posts. Don’t try to be tricky in your titles at all; instead use all words correctly and accurately.

    Remember Benefits over Features

    Your audience cares more about what’s in it for them than about what’s in it for you if you answer the CTAs. Find ways to get through to your audience about all the benefits of your offerings and what you can do for them.

    Get Links from Authority Sites

    The days of getting any links into your site are over, but getting links from authority sites is always important and will always be in. If you can get links from .edu sites, that’s even better. A way to accomplish this is to create your own courses that are high value enough that an education site may take notice.

    Link to Authority Sites

    A great way to get noticed by others, including search engines, is to link out to other sites that have authority. Content curation is a great way to create valid links out from your website to authority websites. Include a blurb of your own for each item you link to so that your opinion and thoughts are added to the information you share.

    Keep Content Updated

    Content of all forms is important to put on your website and blog. Use text content in the form of blog posts, audio, video, long form, short form, white papers and more on your blog and website to get the most from search engine traffic.

    Finally, use the right meta information such as “alt” tags on images, tags on posts, and so forth. Try using a plugin like SEO by Yoast if you use WordPress to build your site, to help you get the most from search engine traffic.

    Categories: Traffic Tags: Tags: ,

    Creating a Continuous Flow and a Positive Experience from End to End

    Today, consumers are more educated than ever. They also access information in various ways from their mobile device and their PCs. If you want to keep your customers as well as attract new customers, it’s important to think about each customer’s experience so that you can create a positive experience from end to end.

    It should not matter how your customers access your information; they should get the same experience. Naturally, it will have to be a little different on each device in order to fit the screen space, but what is offered should be the same content and the same functionality. It should have the same look and feel regardless of the device the customer is using.

    * Offer the Same Content – No matter which device your customer views the information you provide on, they should be able to access it and see the same content. Although different aspects may be highlighted, based on the device, the user should have a good experience on any device.

    * Use the Same Colors – Don’t mix up your brand with changing colors or logos for new devices. The look and feel of your website, while the layout might be different due to screen space, should be very much the same.

    * Optimize for Each Device – On one device you might optimize a different area that is easier to use via that particular device, provided that it doesn’t take away from the experience. Perhaps when reading your report on a smartphone, the images are on a single page rather than so small that you cannot even view them.

    * User Friendly Design – No matter which device your audience is viewing your material on, the design needs to put the user first and foremost. What you want your audience to know doesn’t matter as much as what they want to know.

    * Consider Scrolling instead of Clicking – Clicking on a smartphone can be a very different experience than on a PC. If you can instead create everything on one continuous page, so that to see the “next page” on the smartphone requires only scrolling (and on the website it can be via a click or scrolling), you can make reading more a lot easier for your audience.

    * Keep the Search Bar Consistent – Keep the search bar in the same place on each device. If it’s at the top on a PC, keep it at the top on the mobile device. This consistency keeps your audience understanding how to use the site to find the information they want.

    * Make Recommendations – Never be afraid to make recommendations to your audience for more content that they might find interesting. Famous websites like Netflix and Amazon do this very successfully, and you can too.

    * Recommend Other Devices – Not only can you recommend other content that you’ve created, you can also recommend other devices and apps that you offer to help your audience member access more information from you.

    Your users should have an excellent experience regardless of which device they access your services on. It shouldn’t make a difference to their experience and the positive feeling they get when using your services or viewing your products.

    They should also be able to switch from one device to another as seamlessly as possible. For example, your customer might be on the train looking at your products, then come home and get on their PC; due to signing in and out they should be able to access the last thing they saw or page they were on without interruption.

    Categories: Run a Home Business, website Tags: Tags:

    How to Improve Your SEO from A to Z

    You hear a lot about search engine optimization or SEO, but often what that means is a mixed bag. Many people don’t understand what SEO is, or that there are many kinds of SEO and that you don’t have to be an expert to improve your SEO. There is both on-page and off-page SEO. Let’s take a look at both types.

    The thing to remember is that SEO tactics change continuously based on the algorithms that the search engines choose to use to help their audience find what they’re looking for. The big key to remember is that the search engines are trying to deliver excellent results for their target audience. Your job is to help them.

    Off-Page SEO

    Off-page SEO consists of anything you do to improve search engine traffic and results such as inbound links, trust building, social media, blog promotion, videos, press releases, commenting and more. You can use all of these tactics to help build up your website’s traffic and thus your conversions.

    * Comment on Blogs and Forums – Even if you’re not allowed a link back to your website, your comments on blogs and forums do not go unnoticed – especially today when most use identification procedures via Gravatar or Google to find you through your profile.

    * Social Media Posts and Promotions – When you write a blog post or publish anything on your blog use social media to promote it. Not only will you get more traffic to your posts, you’ll get more links to your website via your general social media promotions.

    * Conduct Interviews – Give interviews on radio shows, on blogs, and more. The more authority you can build by being interviewed, the more links you’ll get back to your website and products, and the more people will get to know you.

    Finally, when it comes to off-page SEO, don’t underestimate the power and effectiveness of the good old-fashioned press release to get the word out about your business to the media. Press releases are still excellent ways to publish information about your products and services, especially if you can tie it to a popular human interest story and news of the day.

    On-Page SEO

    On-page SEO consists of anything you do on your website to ensure that you get more traffic to your website via the search engines without paying anything for the traffic. Creating perfectly optimized pages is as simple as adding a little extra effort.

    * Publish Targeted Content – If your content is high quality, unique, and relevant to your audience, this will help them find you. They’ll look for words that are inside that content and be sent to your pages.

    * Headings on Pages – Using keyword-rich phrases for the headings on your website, including your blog posts, will help search engines find you too. Plus the words will be something your audience will focus on as they scan your page.

    * Check Grammar and Spelling – You want people who visit your website to come away believing you have authority on the topic that’s in your niche. Therefore, it’s important to double check your grammar and spelling.

    * Code Your Site Right – Within images, headings, descriptions and more, there are ways to use metatags to give the search engine clues about the topic on your blog or website. Use them properly to describe images and the subject matter, so that your audience will find you.

    Using both on- and off-page SEO is an effective way to ensure that you set up each page on your site properly. If you use self-hosted WordPress, you can use various plugins like SEO Yoast to help guide you for on-page SEO.

    Link to SEO Yoast – https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/

    Categories: SEO Tags: Tags:

    Providing Customers Value via Your Website

    Your website should provide information to your ideal audience in order to attract them to your offerings. But, it should also, without anyone ever having to make a purchase, offer some kind of value to the visitors. The great thing about focusing on value for your website is that you’ll end up with a better, more attractive website.

    Make an Excellent Contact Page

    Many people overlook the contact page as a way to provide value and make an impact. Due to that, the better you can make your contact page, the more people will trust you and want to do business with you. You can turn your contact page into a very important part of your conversion funnel by mentioning your value, giving a guaranteed response time, and then following through.

    Be More Creative with Submit Buttons

    The truth is having a button that says “submit” doesn’t actually convert that well. Having a button that says what the customers get when they click it will. Tell them what the benefits are right on the button. This means that in some ways you have real copy on the button. You may want to get help with writing it to ensure that it truly captures your audience’s attention and provides value.

    Make Your Free Offers Awesome

    Many people put together free offers to their audience without much thought to the value of what they’re offering. You must offer something of real value to them so that they think to themselves, “if this is free and this awesome, imagine how terrific their paid offerings are”. This is something that you can work on to ensure that everything you offer is up to par for your audience.

    Low Prices Doesn’t Mean Value

    When you set up your pricing, it can be tempting to offer your products and services at a low price because you want them to feel like they are getting their money’s worth. But, this can often backfire. People will perceive the value as lower when the price is lower. So instead, offer value-based pricing that prices any offering based on the benefits of the offering, not on the services you have to perform.

    Increase Engagement

    When you increase engagement on your website, the perceived value will automatically go up. Not only that, the more engagement on your website, the more likely people are to become repeat visitors. Those repeat visitors will help you promote your website and offerings due to their participation.

    Understand What Your Visitors Want

    Make an avatar or persona of your ideal website visitor or customer. Then, write all content, create all graphics, make all offerings appeal to that ideal customer. The more you write to, create for, and consider your ideal customer, the more valuable your offerings will become to them.

    Keep the Information Flowing

    People like going to websites where the information is in a continuous flow. The more blog posts and the more information you can provide that are relevant, the better. You do want to avoid updating for the sake of updating. But you want to update as often as possible with smart, relevant, creative and appropriate information.

    Ask yourself before adding anything to your website, “How does this add value to my customer’s life?” If you can’t answer that, don’t include it.

    Categories: website Tags: Tags:

    How to Get Volunteers to Help

    A really exciting aspect of memberships is that you can actually get free help. This is super important when first starting out, because you don’t want your membership website to seem barren and void of conversation and connection – especially in the discussion group.

    * Look to Your Audience – If you already have an audience that you’re creating the membership for, why not put out a call to them asking if anyone wants to volunteer. List the types of things you need done and make it like a job application. In this way you can be assured that they’re right for the membership but also have the right talents that can benefit the membership.

    * A Particularly Prolific Paid Member – Once you’ve started your membership website, you’ll notice some especially prolific members who always jump in to help, make suggestions, and have a lot of knowledge. You can ask them to keep doing what they’re doing in exchange for either free membership or something else of value.

    * Offer Volunteer Incentives – You can immediately incentivize all your members to volunteer to start discussions, contribute content and even recruit new members by giving incentives such as a higher affiliate payout or points to get free stuff.

    * Open the Blog for Guests – If you have a blog on your membership site, you can ask for volunteers to put content in it. You can set it up so that it’s mostly automatic with the exception of someone needing to approve the blog post for publication. You can choose to make the blog private for members only, or public to help encourage new members to join.

    * Implement a Point System – The point system has been mentioned, and it works well for encouraging activity on the forum, attendance at calls and so forth. Encouraging people to participate is volunteering in the respect that the more people who participate, the more people who will want to participate.

    * Reward Volunteers Publiclly – When someone has done something extraordinary, it’s important to recognize them. Member of the month and other freebies given to the most active members will automatically encourage more members to volunteer their time to keeping things moving.

    * Ask People – It doesn’t hurt to simply ask a member to volunteer a certain number of hours in a more formal arrangement in exchange for free membership (or ask those who aren’t members but whom you feel will benefit from a free membership). The number of volunteers you can get will coincide with the value of your membership.

    * Get Interns – Another way to get volunteers, if you have a popular and active membership already, is to get inters. There are laws and regulations you must follow when it comes to internships, but the main thing is that the intern needs to get more out of it than you do. So, it’s important to offer the interns some form of education.

    You’ll be surprised at how many people will want to volunteer if you put out a call for a popular and valuable membership website. You have a lot to offer so giving people free membership, or points and coupons for your products and services based on what they offer, is a great way to encourage more interaction on the membership.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    How to Increase Income with Your Inner Circle

    Creating an inner circle is almost a no-brainer when it comes to generating income for your business. You can charge for the inner circle, or you can use the inner circle as a product-generating test audience. It’s up to you how you choose to conduct business, but one thing is for sure – inner circles can increase your income substantially.

    * Offer Exclusive Webinars – When you have an idea for a webinar, try it out on your inner circle first. If you have a paid group, offer them a steep discount, or offer the webinar free as part of the monthly fee. You can then sell the recording of the webinar as a product to others, or use what you learned to improve the webinar content for a wide open audience in general sales.

    * Offer Private Training – A really effective inner circle often offers training either included or at a discount to members. Training can be anything from an email course to a video drip course, depending on the technology you offer. It can be an add-on to the initial membership or it can be offered for free or for a low price to the inner circle.

    * Have Members’ Only Sales – When you have members, push out everything you ever sell to them first, with a members’ only price, for a limited time. This is a great way to get testimonials, feedback and ideas for improvement before general release.

    * Host Value-Packed Teleseminars – A great benefit for a paid membership is a monthly teleseminar based on a particular topic of interest for your audience. Let’s say you’re an organizational coach. You could have a call that is all about the best ways to organize a closet. You can even have special guests.

    * Send Special Offers to Members – Your members want to feel special. If you know about a product or service that is exceptional and relates to them, you can promote it to them even if you will make affiliate income. It’s okay; if you are a high producing affiliate, talk to the product creator and ask for a special discount for your audience.

    * Host Elite Small Group Coaching Sessions – You can upsell your inner circle members to a smaller inner circle, such as a mastermind session with a small group of five or less individuals. You can lead the call and charge a premium for your time. Say the session is for one hour on FreeConferenceCalls.com, you allow five in a group, and you can offer a limited availability of four groups a week charging each person $29.97 or more each week to attend. This will increase your income by $600 or more a week.

    * Offer Special One-on-One Coaching – Your most expensive asset is your one-on-one time. In the example above, you’re making $149.85 an hour. For private coaching you should at least double that fee for one-on-one access to your expertise.

    * Create Products Especially for Members – Periodically ask your members what types of products or services they need. Then work hard to produce at least something that they’ve asked for. If you’re not sure what to go with, just send out a survey and let them pick one thing from the other.

    An inner circle can earn money in so many ways. Just staying connected with your target audience in a close way will help you create so many more products and services for your audience that you may not have considered. You’ll have, right at the tip of your fingertips, the ability to ask your audience in a direct manner what type of products or services they want. Then you can test them on that audience first before opening them to the general public. Inner circles are a win-win for you and your audience.

    Categories: Membership, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    Offer Exclusive One-on-One Opportunities

    When you have a membership, you want to add value when you can. One way is by offering one-on-one opportunities. You don’t have to include this offer in the membership price, but you can offer it as an upsell opportunity for a more expensive form of the same membership.

    Some of the types of one-on-one opportunities you can offer are:

    * In-Person Coaching – You can agree to meet people who are local for one-on-one coaching opportunities. For example, if you have a membership website about exercise, you can offer a membership upgrade for local people for in-person personal coaching to help people with their workouts.

    * Skype or Telephone Coaching – A great way to offer one-on-one opportunities is to offer coaching by phone or Skype. You can offer an upgraded membership option which includes whatever level of calls you want to offer, from a simple hourly rate with open-office hours, to a serious coaching relationship over a period of time such as six weeks where there will be real work done.

    * Email Coaching – Allow upgraded members to email you once a day for quick answers to easy questions. Be sure to make these limited to a simple answer, which can also be used to upgrade the member to more coaching opportunities.

    * In-Person Events – Have events that only members are invited to, then offer upgraded versions of the event where you will meet with those paying members for 30 minutes or one hour before, during and after the event.

    * Speak at Their Events – Agree to speak at your members’ events. Provide one opening a month, with a 90-day registration so you’ll have warning and can arrange your schedule. This can be an exclusive opportunity for top-of-the-line members.

    * Host Webinars – If you have a top affiliate for your group, offer to host a webinar for them where you’ll speak about the memberships for them, and they will get to use their affiliate link to make a big payday.

    * Guest Blog – For exclusive upgraded members, who are at the top of their game, offer them the opportunity to have you write a guest blog post for them to put on their website to help promote something.

    * Joint Venture Opportunities – You may have some stand-out members whom you identify as great people to form limited JV partnerships with. Offer this to only your most active and exclusive members who have proved themselves as movers and shakers.

    As you see there are plenty of things you can do to ramp up your membership and make people want to become more exclusive and a cohesive part of your membership. When they know there is always a rung higher that they can join, they will strive for it. This is most especially true if you have a valuable membership.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    How to Create Impact with Short Blog Posts

    You may have heard that longer blog posts are “better” than shorter blog posts. But, nothing could be further from the truth – provided you know how to make an impact with a short blog post. After all, it’s the content that matters most, not the length. Short blog posts, from 300 to 500 words, serve a purpose too. That’s why it’s really best to include both long and short posts. Once you learn how to write short posts with impact, you’ll see the benefits of doing so.

    * Start with a Compelling Headline – You know it’s true. You read a blog post, or anything for that matter, based on the headline that you clicked through. Your headline needs to tell the reader what’s in the content without being absurd or tricky. Tell them what you’re going to tell them for the most impact.

    * Be Concise – A short blog post with all the fluff removed will make a huge impact because it’s based on one main subject and point. You won’t have to worry about losing your readers’ attention with a short blog post that imparts one important point to the reader. Good editing will help make short blog posts impactful.

    * Make It Scannable – People read differently online than they read on paper. On paper people always read from left to right. Online people tend to scan something from top to bottom first, looking at the left side of the page. Using bullets, headlines, and attention-grabbing headlines will help guide the reader.

    * Laser Focus the Topic – A short blog post needs one laser-focused topic to consider with one main point. For example, instead of “Five Reasons to XYZ” you might want to write about “The Most Important Reason to XYZ”.

    * Engage Your Readers – Always ask for comments. You can make a huge impact with engagement after your one-topic blog post. This makes the short blog post worth more than a larger post in terms of shareability and activity.

    * Include Relevant Imagery – Using the right images for your short blog posts carries new weight, because the better your image the more likely your blog post is to be shared by those who read it. A well-composed blog post along with the right image (which, by the way, can stand in for approximately a thousand words) will make a huge impact.

    * Practice Good Copywriting Technique – The best thing you can do is to remember that verbs are more important than nouns. Actionable content gets better results. Most people don’t think about copywriting when composing a blog post, but with a short blog post it’s imperative if you want to make an impact.

    * Know Your Audience – Which platforms does your audience use to access your content? How can you customize your content to match audience needs, wants, and preferences? What does your audience want and need to know? Any way that you can do that will improve the impact of your short blog posts immeasurably.

    Short blog posts also take less time to write than longer blog posts. They don’t have to keep the reader’s attention as long, and focus on only one topic at a time. Focus each short blog post on a minute topic that is important to your audience for the most impact. In addition, a shorter post will be better written than a longer post due to the attention paid to ridding a post of extraneous words and sticking to the point.

    Categories: blogging, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How to Incorporate More Human Speech, Humor, and Personality into Your Content

    When creating content for your online products, services, and marketing materials it can be easy to become stale, boring, and out of touch with your audience – to the point that they can no longer relate to you. If you keep in mind first your audience and then your goals, you will be able to overcome these common problems.

    Tell Your Story

    Starting from your customer’s perspective, tell your story with them in mind. You can speak to them from the voice of a customer yourself. After all, why did you create the products or services that you did? Did you do it because you needed them yourself? How did you discover the need for your product or service? Why you? Stay in the perspective of the customer during the story and they will relate to your offerings better.

    Don’t Be Pretentious

    Instead of using jargon and “corporate” speak, talk to your audience members as if they’re your equals and you’ll become more human to them. It will also give you a chance to show your personality to them. While you do want to be a thought leader and a teacher, you don’t want to appear as a know-it-all and boring.

    Seek to Be Relevant

    Stay up-to-date on your industry so that you can remain relevant. Don’t stick to the old ways of doing things long after it’s not being done any longer. Pay attention to what’s coming down the pike and you’ll always stay on top of your niche and be relevant to your audience.

    Use Plain Language

    Speak to your audience as if you’re talking to a good friend. Write how you talk. No need to use bigger words than you would normally use. If it helps, get some voice to text software and talk your blog posts and content. You can also try doing vlogs if it helps you avoid using language that is unnatural to you.

    Focus on Your Audience

    No matter what you are writing, blogging, vlogging, and doing, it’s always supposed to be about your audience. They need to know what’s in it for them, and to keep the focus on them over yourself. Instead of seeking to glamorize yourself and put yourself above them, put them on a pedestal and make it all about them at all times.

    Make Each Word Count

    Once you finish writing a piece of content, edit it for extraneous words. Pare it down so that your writing is concise and to the point. Try writing shorter sentences instead of long-winded sentences. In addition, don’t make paragraphs too long and keep each blog post to one narrow focus.

    Keep One Voice across Channels

    Regardless of which channel you’re promoting your content on, it’s important that you know what your voice is. The tone, voice, and feeling of what you put out to the world should feel the same whether they read it on your blog or read it on LinkedIn.

    Include Appropriate Imagery

    With any content, you can get your point across easier if you use images. Sometimes a concept is just easier to express with an image and other times the image just helps set the mood and tone for the entire post.

    You can incorporate more humanity, humor and personality into your content by remembering who your audience is and who you are. Seek to be yourself, while also delivering great content to your audience.

    Categories: blogging, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How to Know If You’re Making an Impact 

    One of the things that can be frustrating when you start an online business, is knowing whether or not the hard work you’re putting in is making an impact at all. This can be hard to tell if you don’t know the signs, when you’re not making a full-time living yet from your efforts. Here are some good indicators that you’re making an impact.

    You Have Regular and Increasing Website/Blog Visitors

    Building traffic on a website or blog takes time. You’re not going to get a million page views overnight. But if your visitors are increasing and regular then that shows that what you’re doing is making an impact. Pay close attention to individual blog posts or other content that is getting the most the most traction and do more content like that.

    Your Content Is Being Read, Shared, and Commented On

    If people who visit your website read, that’s great, but if they share and comment on what you’re doing, that’s even better. Engagement is a much better indicator of impact than pure site visitors. Be sure to reply to those who comment and if you are notified of shares, thank them.

    You’re Consistently Making New Connections

    Are people seeking you out more and more to connect with you on various social media accounts? If so, that is a great sign that you’re making a huge impact on their thoughts and actions with your online presence.

    You’re Being Invited to Speak at Events

    A very exciting thing that can happen when you’re making an impact in your niche is getting invited to speak at events – either online or offline. It might frighten you, or feel as if it’s way out of your comfort zone, but it’s important to accept opportunities as they come that will further your business goals.

    Your Content Is Being Curated

    If other people are talking about your content on their blogs and websites and sharing it, then you’re absolutely making an impact. This type of engagement is an excellent indication that you’re making waves within your niche as a thought leader.

    You’re Getting New Email Subscribers Every Day

    If you’ve set up an email subscribe form (and you should) and you’re getting new subscribers every day, then you’re making a huge impact. Every subscriber will take you closer to your online business success goals.

    You’re Building a Community

    The more you build your business, the more you will (if you set it up right) build a community consisting of prospects and customers. Your customers will become fans for you, convincing the prospects to join them. You can do this via your Facebook page or a LinkedIn group, or even with a forum on your own website. Often it happens rather organically when you’re making an impact.

    You’re Earning Money

    You promote products and services and start making money or someone asks to pay money to put an advertisement on your website. Even just a few dollars means you made an impact on someone.

    In addition to these success indicators, some other signs that you’re making an impact are that you’ve taken the time to create a professionally designed blog that you’re proud of, and keep it updated regularly.

    Categories: blogging, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: