Category: Grow a Home Business

    How to Come Up with Blog Topics

    Coming up with blog topics is often the bane of any blogger’s existence. Coming up with content for a blog for the same niche day after day and year after year can seem impossible. But, the truth is, it’s not really that difficult if you plan ahead. You need to focus on your niche and your audience with each piece of content, as well as understand the purpose of the blogging content.

    * Read about Your Industry – Keeping up to date about your industry will go far in helping you have ideas about what to write about. Information that experts talk about in magazines and in the news is wonderful fodder for future blog posts.

    * Read Competitors’ Blog Posts – Choose a few high-powered competitors in your niche to read what they have to say. Sign up for their newsletters, and read on a regular basis what they have to say about your niche. You will come up with ideas from reading.

    * Brainstorm Each Day – Take a few minutes each day to put pen to paper (or keyboard to document) to write down any idea that comes to mind. Just make a list as fast as you can about different topics to write about on your blog.

    * Ask for Guest Bloggers – Keep your blog open for guest blog posts. If you bring in other experts, people will actually view you as even more of an expert. Establish rules or originality and uniqueness for guest bloggers.

    * Come Up with a New View – As you read what others are saying, or even what you’ve said in the past, try to come at the subject matter from a new angle. Perhaps if you wrote “10 reasons to Blog Daily”, you might pick just one of the reasons to expand on.

    * Repurpose Older Content – Older content likely needs to be updated, but instead of updating it where it stands, why not write a new post about it, link to the old post from the new post and vice versa. Explain how the posts differ today and why.

    * Ask Readers for Questions – Readers and your audience are the perfect people to get content ideas from. Blog posts are the perfect place to highlight a reader’s question and answer them. You can then also add them to your FAQ.

    * Keep a Notebook Ready for Inspiration – You’re going to think of things to blog post about during the day when you’re not able to write. Find a way to keep track, either on paper or via a recording device on your smartphone or both. Don’t think you’ll remember later. You won’t. Even if it’s just a small inkling of an idea, keep track of it.

    * Consider the Minutia – Sometimes bloggers get carried away with the big picture. However, you can take it down smaller than that and focus on the minutia, the things beginners want to know, in order to come up with more blogging topics.

    * Change Formats – If something is a textual piece, you can change it to a podcast or a video. If it’s a “how to” piece then you can change it to a more informational piece instead of a how to. Switching up the format of a past blog post can help you create a new way to tell your audience about something important.

    * Curate Other People’s Content – This is mining for content that your audience would enjoy that is relevant to your niche, and then sharing it with your audience via a link on your blog. But, there is a little more to it than that. Be sure to add your own thoughts in your introduction to the information you are sharing.

    When it comes to coming up with content on a regular basis for your blog, you cannot wait for or rely on inspiration. You need to keep records of ideas, develop a publication calendar based on the products and services that you want to promote and create a regular writing schedule. Believe it or not, a regular planned writing schedule will produce better work than just waiting around for motivation. Using these suggestions should give you endless content ideas.

    Categories: blogging Tags: Tags:

    No – Guest Blogging Isn’t Out

    You’ve likely heard the rumor. Guest blogging is out; it’s dead. Reading that out loud is a little jarring, but don’t worry – it’s not true. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

    What is out is republishing the same work in multiple places. What is out is generic keyword-rich blog posts that have nothing to do with the website, being posted by people just trying to get backlinks. What’s out is lame and boring articles and blogs that don’t put the audience first. What’s out is blanketing the web with short blog posts that are either identical or almost identical, and never following up.

    If you really want to guest blog, this is how you do it.

    * Know the Audience You’re Writing For – There is no point posting a blog post just anywhere, or writing it for an audience you don’t know about. Know the audience and write directly for that particular audience. They should know that they’re still on the blog they went to when reading your guest post. Try to match the style that the blogger uses to make your blog fit in.

    * Write Only Original Blog Posts for That Particular Blog – Don’t regurgitate anything for a guest blog post. Write something new and original for that particular blog. The readers of that blog are used to a certain personality. While you want to be yourself, you should do things the way the owner of that blog wants them done.

    * Publish a Blog Post Only Once – Don’t reuse the content elsewhere. It now belongs to that blog, forever. If you want to write about that topic again, of course you can, but you need to keep that blog unique to avoid duplicate content issues for you and the blog owner.

    * Guest Blog Only Where Your Audience Reads – Don’t put guest blog posts anyplace just to get backlinks to your website. Put guest blog posts in places that your audience reads. Make sure there is a real reason for the guest blog post.

    * Write Posts That Are Not Sales Pages – A guest blog post is not the place to pitch your offerings and make a sales page. It should be an informative, educational and engaging blog post that provides value to the reader and the blog owner.

    * Promote the Blog Post – Once you’ve written it you must also promote it. You should inform your list, inform your blog about the post, and also promote it via social media as hard as you would anything else you have written.

    * Answer Comments on the Blog Posts – When someone comments on your blog post, you should respond to them. The more you respond, the more the viewers will appreciate your post and you.

    * Follow Up with the Owner of the Blog – Give it a week or two and then follow up with the blog owner to find out if they were satisfied with the results of the blog post. If they are satisfied, would they like you to contribute regularly? If not, why not, so that you can do better?

    If you really want to guest blog, do it strategically. Find blogs that have a rating higher than or equal to yours, which cater to your audience but which are not direct competition to you. Offer the blog owner an opportunity to join your affiliate program, or make one, so that they can get credit for traffic sent by their blog from your post.

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    What Is Scaled Content?

    Content is truly the lifeblood of your online presence. Content comes in many different forms from video, to audio, to text and everything in between. There are many different types of strategies you can use to develop your content. One is to create scaled content.

    Making the Most of Scaled Content

    Scaled content is all about creating the right content for the right audience and delivering it with the right technology. You’ll want different content for product pages, email messages, and marketing collateral that all describe the same thing, and you’ll want to use different words and sometimes different personalities to fit the form and technology you’re using.

    In addition, scaled content allows you to continually evaluate how it’s working. For example, do you have a way to tell whether or not the memes you pushed out through Twitter converted to leads or sales? Scaled content requires the technology to be in place to evaluate the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the content.

    Finally, scaled content requires that you have teams in place that can be trusted to make good content decisions – whether it’s real-time content marketing or planning for content being pushed out months from now based on product marketing material. Scaled content is visionary, builds relationships, and is assertive.

    Increasing the reach and impact of your content is difficult. But, if you put the right content into the right hands you can increase your reach across marketing channels. One way to do this is to offer affiliates editable content that they can use in their marketing efforts. Another way is to provide content like that to everyone who works in your company that they can use to get the word out. Or you can get colleagues and associates to share your information.

    If the content is clear about what your objectives and goals are, while adhering to your company values, then it will work well to do what you want. The point is that you provide awesome content for sharing and commenting and you end up turning the content into more than it was to start with, because more eyes will see it due to more sharing and commenting. If your content is top-notch, they’re going to feel proud to share it.

    Focus not only on content creation but on content curation, too. You want to become the hub of the information that flows from all directions about your product, service, and audience. Your affiliates can use the content that you’ve created and add their own voice, as can your co-workers, virtual workers and brand ambassadors. By making it their own, it’s not duplicate, even if the messages are the same.

    How to Scale Content

    To scale content, you can:

    * Curate content
    * Revive your original content
    * Send one message on multiple platforms
    * Provide editable content to affiliates and associates

    It can be hard to be relevant multiple times per day on multiple channels when you only have so much time and money to spend on content. But, if you get help via affiliates and those who work with you, as well as from colleagues and friends, then you can make your content work that much harder. Essentially scaling content is about getting the most out of the limited amount of content you can afford to produce.

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    Using the Right Keywords for your PPC Campaign

    When you run a PPC campaign, choosing the right keywords is an important part of having a successful campaign. There are many places you can waste money, and one is over-bidding on the wrong keywords. Therefore, it’s important to understand what type of keywords you need to bid on and why.

    Don’t Use Broad Match Keywords

    Since broad match keywords are the default, most people make the mistake of bidding on them. A broad match means that if you want to bid on a keyword like snowflake, if someone types in “snow” then it will assume “flake,” or if someone types in “flake” it will assume “snow.” This isn’t the way you want your searches to work, especially when you are working on a low budget.

    Use Exact Match Type Keywords

    This is especially important when you are trying to build your email list. The exact match type keywords are the best ones to use because this means you’re sure of your keywords and keyword phrases, as well as your audience and what words they’ll choose.

    Choose Fewer Keywords per Campaign

    Instead of bidding on many keywords and keyword phrases, choose one to three phrases per campaign. This is the best way to ensure that the right people find your products at the right time. You’ll need to do a lot of research to determine what these keywords are, but it will work best if you do it this way. In an email campaign, consider using only one keyword phrase.

    Find the Right Keywords

    Use a keyword tool such as Google Keyword Planner or Keyword Tool, which is a good alternative to Google Keyword Planner. Once you’ve chosen your niche, you can start finding the best keywords to market your products. You want to find keywords that are low competition and high demand. This means people are searching for them, and there isn’t a lot of supply. These keywords will be your most lucrative yet less expensive.

    Links:
    Google Keyword Planner – https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
    Keyword Tool – http://keywordtool.io/

    Test Your Keywords

    Try out the keywords to see if they work. Run a test campaign to see if your targeted audience clicks the ads, joins your email list and buys your product. If all those things don’t happen, then you should choose a different keyword. You want keywords to attract the right people at the right time.

    Keywords are an essential element in your marketing efforts, most especially pay-per-click marketing. However, it’s also important, vital really, to remember that you are creating content and products for people. The people who are your target audience have desires, needs, hopes and dreams and problems that you need to solve. Never forget that.

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    Ad Extensions: What Are They and How Can You Use Them?

    When you place a pay per click (PPC) advertisement, there are many ways to enhance your advertisement so that it works harder to produce the results you desire. One of these ways is to use ad extensions. Essentially, an ad extension is special format for advertisements online that help extra information show on a search result.

    Not all ad extensions show, even if you’ve enabled them or added them. Many factors, such as how high your advertisement shows up on the search engine, will affect whether the algorithm determines that extra is needed for the consumer to make a good choice. Your ad will be compared to another ad, and as you learn more you can improve the likelihood of extensions showing for your ads.

    There are several extensions that you can use, such as:

    * Social Extensions – This extension is an automatic extension that you can include just because you have a Google+ account or other social account that you list.

    * Location Extension – This is a special extension that you have to set up with Google Business and go through a bit of proving that your business is real.

    * Seller or Consumer Ratings – An automatic extension that will appear if you fill out the information and someone has made a rating or written a review about your business.

    * Call Extension – A manual extension that you can add if you want people to have the ability to click to call you from the search result.

    * Sitelinks – Another manual choice that allows you to add the link to your site. Those who see the search results for your site can click on it.

    * Callout Extensions – This extension allows you to put extra information and descriptive text for the searcher to help them make a choice of what to click on.

    * Previous Visits – This is an automatic extension that shows the searcher whether or not they’ve clicked through this particular site before.

    There are many other extensions and more being created all the time that you can add to your PPC ads. Using ad extensions offers increased visibility for your business as well as helps make it easier for a customer searching for your business to find what they want. By providing as much information as possible, you allow searchers to determine if your link is right for them before they click through.

    Most extensions don’t actually cost anything to add, but they do offer more opportunities for a person searching to click through. Plus, it requires a little more thought and time to put them together.

    Ads with extensions generally appear higher in search results, which causes them to be a lot more effective in producing the results that you want.

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    Eight Ways to Market Online with PPC

    Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a very popular form of online marketing. It consists of an ad that is delivered to various websites that have the ad code on it. You can run PPC ads via Google AdSense, Bing, Facebook and others. You simply create your ad according to the guidelines of the service you choose to use, pick your keywords, the price you want to pay and your budget, and you’re good to go.

    You can use PPC for a lot of marketing needs.

    1. Build Your Email List – One of the best ways to use PPC if you have a small budget and a low-cost product is to use it to build your email list. Create a free giveaway that you exchange for an email address. Ensure that the freebie is well crafted and so that it gives them a taste of the paid items you want to promote.

    2. Promote a Product – Using PPC to promote a product is a great way to get visitors to your website fast. Ensure that you also have a slide or pop-under that only comes up if someone does not purchase the item so that they can get on your newsletter.

    3. Promote a Service – You can also use PPC to promote a service. This works especially well if you offer a high-priced service. It’s imperative that you write very professional copy so that you attract the right visitors to this offer.

    4. Sell Affiliate Products – Even if you don’t have your own products, you can still use PPC to promote other people’s products. It’s especially worth it if it’s a high-converting product with a good payout. Be careful to follow the rules about which keywords you can and cannot bid on.

    5. Use Social Media PPC – Social media sites like Facebook also offer pay-per-click opportunities that are inexpensive and which you can use to promote all sorts of products and services. It’s important to check the rules and terms of service.

    6. Try Bing PPC – Bing offers a pay-per-click program too. You can learn how to start a Bing pay-per-click campaign by checking out their website. It’s the same concept in terms of paying for clicks through to your site.

    Link – http://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/create-campaign/topic?market=en&project=Bing_Ads&querytype=topic&query=HLP_BA_CONC_ADCENTER_FLOW.htm

    7. Use AdWords PPC – AdWords is arguably one of the most popular methods by which marketers use PPC. It’s easy to get started with AdWords as they have very few requirements other than that your website cannot be pornographic, spam or illegal.

    Link – https://www.google.com/adwords/

    8. Don’t Forget the Landing Pages – One of the most important aspects of your PPC campaign is your landing page / sales page / squeeze page – whatever you choose to call it. You can use software like LeadPages.net to ensure that yours works as hard as it can for you.

    Using pay-per-click marketing can be very lucrative, or very expensive. It’s important that you understand how everything works and develop a plan of action before getting started so that you don’t waste any money.

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    Common PPC Campaign Mistakes to Avoid

    A pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can take your marketing to the next level. You can run PPC campaigns on social media networks like Facebook or on search engines like Google. Even some popular websites offer the ability for you to place PPC ads on them. But, if you want to be successful then you must try to avoid these mistakes.

    * Not Having a Goal – Your first job when you want to run a PPC campaign is to understand your goal. Each marketing campaign that you conduct will have a different goal. Some are to bring traffic, some are to spread brand awareness, some are to build your email list – but whatever your goal, know in advance what it is.

    * Not Making a Special Campaign for Each Channel – Don’t recycle an old PPC campaign to another network. Each network is unique and should be treated as such. The mood, the size of the images, the guidelines for the type of ad that will be approved, are very different between networks.

    * Not Niching Down Your Offerings – When you run any type of PPC campaign, it’s important to have only one CTA. Know exactly what you’re offering and to whom, and convey that in the imagery and copy of your advertisement.

    * Not Having a Clear CTA – Your call to action must be noticeable and clear. You want it to denote an action that gives a clearly defined benefit to the person viewing the advertisement. If it’s not clear, people will not click.

    * Not Using an Appropriate Picture – Don’t just use any picture; be sure to use the right image for the right advertisement. You want your PPC campaign to speak to your audience using images that they understand and that mean something to them.

    * Not Considering the Headline – Your headlines when creating a PPC campaign are critical to the success of the ad. The reason is you have very little space when it comes to PPC campaigns and you want every word to mean something and add value.

    * Not Targeting Narrowly Enough – Many people run ads and think they want to cast a wide net, but this can be far more expensive and lower your conversion rates. You want only people who really need, want and desire your offering to click through.

    * Not Setting a Budget – You need to know what you plan to spend before even getting started. Most platforms allow you to set your budget on a daily basis, or even a total allotment for the entire campaign. By setting the budget you’ll end up saving money in the long run.

    If you avoid these common PPC campaign mistakes, you’ll be a lot more successful with all your PPC campaigns. Avoiding mistakes in all aspects is not possible, but avoiding common mistakes is. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to marketing. People with deep pockets have already done the work for you; all you have to do is set up a campaign for success by learning from others.

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    Why Facebook Ads Work

    Facebook ads are inexpensive, effective, and something any small business owner should consider getting involved with. The reason you should be running Facebook ads, whether they are sponsored posts or other types of ads, is that they do work. Here is why.

    * People Live on Facebook All Day Long – People use Facebook on PCs and on their mobile devices, and keep it with them all day long. They take Facebook with them to dinner and some people never turn it off. This is a real chance to connect with your audience that you cannot pass up.

    * They Are Relevant Due to Extreme Targeting – Facebook allows you to target your individual audience down to their interests and gender, and you can even provide email addresses for the exact people you want to target.

    * Easy to Include a CTA – The tools that Facebook offers the people who want to run ads help to create compelling CTAs that your audience will be more likely to answer, whether it’s as easy as liking your page or downloading your app.

    * It’s Easy to Make Professional-Looking Ads – The tools that Facebook offers let you create professional Facebook ads without having the ability to make ads. They lead you through it with their system to make it simple, so you’re more likely to repeat the process.

    * Easy to Include Great Value – You can easily include enough information in each ad that shows the value of your offering. With just a few clicks you’ll have an awesome ad that your audience can see the value in.

    * They Offer Disruption with Significance – In many cases people are blind to advertisements, but on Facebook the disruption is noticeable and your audience will want to check it out. This is due to the ability to target the ads so closely to your target audience.

    * They Are Simple to Create – The ads are easy to create and it gets easier all the time. As Facebook makes the ads work better for business owners, and easier to do with a click of a button, they become more relevant, more valuable, and more useful to you as a business owner.

    * Easy to Run A/B Tests – Due to the ability to duplicate an ad and then easily edit to change one part of the ad such as the title or the image, you can run ads simultaneously. You can even target different audiences to find out which works better.

    Facebook ads work for a variety of reasons. However, they will only work if you plan them out and spend the time ensuring that you run relevant ads. They must be of value to your audience, grab the attention of the viewer and include a compelling call to action.

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    Eight PPC Tactics That Get Results

    Pay per click (PPC) is often overlooked by small businesses because they don’t realize how effective a well-planned PPC campaign can be for them. But, a PPC campaign that has realistic goals can be very lucrative. Here are eight tactics that work very well to improve your business when PPC is used.

    1. Remarketing – It’s not just for big business; small businesses can also remarket too. Basically you sign up with an agency such as Google or something like Remarketing.com. They will provide the technology which puts a cookie on the computer that has visited your website but not converted. Then, when the visitor goes to other pages, they will see mention of your website.

    2. Build Your List – Instead of using PPC to sell the actual products you want to sell, use it to build your list. You can offer a freebie of some kind in exchange for an email address. Once they’re on your list, you can now market all your products and services to them instead of just one at a time.

    3. Local Targeting – Even if you have a national or international business, local targeting is a good thing to do. Write content that is focused on a particular location that has a high amount of your target audience.

    4. Segmentation – When you plan a PPC campaign, you want to segment your market down as small as you can for each type of advertisement that you create. You can use the tools available to target only certain people with the ads that you create.

    5. Make Better Landing Pages – When you plan a PPC campaign you should create special landing and sales pages for each advertisement. This will help ensure that you target the people that you want to target – not just with the ad that they click, but on the page they land. You can use software like LeadPages.net to make it simpler.

    6. Test Everything – Testing is important in all marketing and advertising, but don’t be tempted to skip it with PPC. Try two different PPC ads targeted to the same audience with just one minor thing changed such as headline, or use the same ad targeted to different audiences to figure out which responds most. The important thing is to only change one aspect at a time.

    7. People First – With all the focus on keywords, content, and technology, don’t forget that first and foremost you’re marketing to human beings; humans with thoughts and feelings and the ability to differentiate between a good deal and a bad deal.

    8. Study Your Numbers – Nothing is ever complete without studying the numbers. At various points during your PPC campaign, compare the results with your goals. If they’re not lining up then you need to adjust the campaign.

    Running a successful PPC campaign is easy for small business owners today with the tools available on Google as well as social media like Facebook. But, before you start, ensure that you have a goal in mind, and that you have prepared for the PPC campaign to be successful. Nothing is worse than having your site crash due to too much traffic, or the newsletter sign-up form not working. Be prepared, get ready, and go.

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    Why You Should Run a PPC Campaign to Market Your Offerings

    There are numerous reasons why you should run a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign to promote your business. PPC campaigns are inexpensive and work wonders when you need a jump start. If you’re already working to earn traffic via SEO and other means, adding a PPC campaign to your marketing mix will bring added attention and energy to your offerings.

    1. Control Your Brand’s Message – When someone conducts a search of your business, they may find information that isn’t the first thing you want them to find. But, if you run a PPC campaign, that will be listed first and help you control better the message you want out there about your business.

    2. Rise in the Search Engine Results – Your SERPS are important, and if they’re slacking you can bring them back up with a well-planned PPC campaign. Not only will searchers see the organic search results, but they’ll see the paid ones as well. This means that they’ll see you a lot more.

    3. Your Competition Is Doing It – If you don’t run PPC campaigns, you’re going to be left behind by those who do. Your competition is running PPC ads right now, and due to that they’re likely outselling you many times over.

    4. It’s Inexpensive Relatively Speaking – PPC is not expensive. You have a lot of control over the budget. In fact, having a small budget can actually help you be more successful because you’re going to be careful about how much you put into it, only increasing your ad runs when you see a ROI.

    5. Fast-Track Buying Choices – Your customers are someplace in the buying cycle and decision-making process. If you run PPC ads you can speed up that cycle exponentially, causing them to buy faster than if you stick to organic means.

    6. Paid Traffic Converts – Even though earned traffic is awesome, you have to get a lot more earned traffic before conversions take place than when you pay for it. This is true with one caveat, and that is ensuring that your ads are targeted and well planned out.

    7. Promote New Products or Services – When you decide to switch things up and promote something brand new to an entirely new audience, running a PPC campaign is a fast way to get up to speed in the new niche.

    8. Build Your Email List Fast – Anytime you want to freshen up your email list by adding new members to it, you can do it easily by running a PPC campaign designed to get more subscribers by marketing a white paper or other type of free offer.

    9. Damage Control – Is bad press getting you down? You can use PPC to cover up and push down bad press in the search engine results. Just run multiple PPC campaigns using Google AdWords and Yahoo! Bing Network, using the terms that the bad press is attracting. In this way you can push the bad press out.

    10. Building Traffic – Pay per click is an excellent way to build traffic to your website. What’s more, you can choose the targeted traffic you want to be taken to your website, which will build up the traffic with more responsive visitors.

    Running a PPC campaign can jump-start or refresh your marketing efforts, no matter what kind of business you have. PPC works wonders if you take the time to learn about your audience, understand your goals, and place the campaign where your audience goes.

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