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Sport Science Wellness

How Blogging Can Help Market Your Business

How Blogging Can Help Your Business

How Blogging Can Help Market Your Business

Now that blogging has become so popular among everyone from the novice writer to the most experienced journalist, businesses are starting to take notice. A well-written and frequently updated blog can help market almost any type of business. Blogging can help target readers who are interested in a company’s product or service and businesses can keep track of what their readers are looking for through blogging.

In addition, blogging can help link together companies that complement each other very easily.

There is a lot of talk about blogging. Some feel that blogging is just a passing fad, but others feel it is just the beginning. Some business analysts feel that blogging does not significantly help a business market the company. Many businesses feel that this is not so. Blogging can be a beneficial way to market a business, build an audience and help link other companies together.

Blogging can help almost any business expose their readers to their services and products. Sometimes with new products, a blog can create interest in something new. Blogging is helpful because it can talk in depth about the product, and it can also give step-by-step instructions on how a certain product can be used.

A reader, who is interested in the product after reading about it on a blog, will be more inclined to research similar products on the Internet. This can lead to a more informed consumer and can save a consumer time when shopping or researching a new product. In turn, a company may save time because customers who have read the blog are already informed about the product. These customers can also read reviews on these products and services, which can be very helpful in the buying process.

Another great thing about companies using a blog for their products and services is that a blog enables the company and the customer to communicate effectively. A customer can read the blog and comment on it right away. This provides good feedback to the company and they can know what the customers want. Usually blogs will provide places for readers to leave their comments or send emails to the writer. This is a good marketing tool for businesses. People enjoy communicating about products and services that they have had good or bad experiences with and blogging provided the opportunity to do so.

Blogs can also help market a business because it will be included in search engines. When people enter certain keywords, blogs that contain those words will show up. When blogs are updated frequently, search engines can provide your company with a lot of hits. This can lead to many people looking at the company’s blog who might not otherwise have done so.

When companies use blogs, it also has the ability to create a sensation around a product and influence public opinion. This is an excellent tool for companies to use. Because of the huge popularity of blogging, this can be a more effective tool than some forms of advertising. Readers are more likely to share interesting blogs with their friends and this can help companies get the word out about their product.

Another way blogging can help market a business is that blogs often help a company position itself as a leader in a certain field. This means that those who blog can show their expertise about certain subjects and then update this information on a regular basis. 

Blogging can help generate leads and send a positive message about your company without spending a lot of money for advertising. Readers can look at these blogs and know that they are dealing with a quality company.

Companies also use blogs to help network with other companies that complement their business. This is beneficial because they can easily share their links and readers will see all of the blogs that relate to what they are searching for on the Internet. Link swapping is often used in blogging, especially with businesses.

Blogging is proving to be a beneficial marketing tool for businesses all over the world. While it’s a fairly new way for companies and customers to communicate with each other, blogging provides an immediate and unique form of advertising for the company. Customers are able to read and research products and services through blogging and companies can better understand what their customers want.

Ida Mae Boyd
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Sport Science Wellness

41 Tips that Get Over 10,000 People to your Email Sub List

Of course, not everyone struggles to reach these different stages.  Some people skyrocket to success in a few weeks, other people do well with traffic levels but not with your mailing list.

This particular blog has well over 10,000 people on the mailing list and gets a few thousand visitors per day.

In this post I’m going to show you a few really cool lessons I’ve learned while building it up to this level – a level that I think it genuinely attainable by any blog.

Let’s do it.

 

How to get to that magic 10,000 email subscribers mark

As always, I’ve probably forgot a lot of really cool things.

1. You need a strategy

Without an overarching strategy you are just blogging blindly. I spend a lot of time working on my blogging strategy because it gives me a laser-focus for what I want to achieve in the short and long term – and I know exactly what outcome I want from every article that I write. If you want more email subscribers you need to make it part of your strategy.

2. Your traffic sources matter

Some niches prefer Google traffic, others prefer referrals. Either way, you need to figure out which one works for you and go after it. Not all traffic is created equal. If you aren’t getting conversions it might be because of the places your visitors are coming from.

3. You need your own host

If your blog is on a free host with a free domain name you are shooting yourself in the foot from the start. It’s time to start a WordPress blog on your own host and make use of all the plugins and extra features that this allows you. Do it early, before it’s too hard to move.

4. A fast blog can make a huge difference

Speed matters not only for Google rankings but also for conversions. This study showed that for every second your blog takes to load you lose a massive amount of conversions. Figure out how to make your blog faster – it might mean a new host, a cache or some tricky coding fun.

5. Making friends will make or break you

The people that you connect with (both blog owners and readers) will make or break your blog. The more genuine connections you can make the more likely you are to grow a blog quickly as they help promote it and give you the right advice.

6. Free eBooks and courses still work well

Offering a free eBook to email subscribers still converts better than offering nothing. People are reading eBooks more than ever thanks to all our new portable devices. If you can give them something good you’ll make an instant impact.

7. You need to use Aweber or similar

Aweber is a service that hosts your email subscribers, lets you send them a free eBook after they subscribe, gives you access to a huge number of stats and also lets you design your own opt-in forms. It’s not hard to use and makes a huge difference to how a professional blog can function.

8. Costs add up

Website hosting, email subscriber hosting, advertising, purchasing images, etc. all adds up. A blog like this one costs around $300+ a month to keep online. Unless you are making a strategic income from it the costs can make it not worth while.

9. Your goals are important but can often change

It’s extremely important to have goals for your blog or website but it’s also important to make sure that they change if they need to. If something isn’t working and you’ve given it a lot of time and effort than it’s sometimes better to be strong and let it go and try something else.

10. You still have to sell the list

Just because you have a mailing list doesn’t mean that people will automatically subscribe. Don’t just stick a form in your sidebar and hope that people will give you their details – sell it. Mention it in posts, develop landing pages, talk about it in your guest posts. You need to let people know what’s going on.

11. Split testing can change your business

Glen wrote a really good post about split testing and how it can literally grow your conversions/income by 1000%+. You can split test your landing pages, your opt-in forms, your mail outs, etc. and see which versions works best. It’s easy to do nowadays so there really isn’t an excuse not to. Just make sure you’re testing things that matter and giving them enough time to show meaningful results.

12. Write on other blogs more than you write on your own

A lot of bloggers just write on their own blog and then wonder why no one is reading it. Well, it’s probably because no one knows it exists! Use guest posts as a starting point to get your name out there. Write more on other blogs than your own until you have a big reader base.

13. Text is great but other media is growing

Writing is, in my opinion, still the most powerful form of content on the net. People read a lot and not everyone can watch videos at work. But things like podcasts, videos, info graphics, etc. can play a huge role in getting you new and improved traffic.

14. SEO is dangerous

Relying on Google for anything is, as I’ve said before, a really stupid idea. They constantly change their algorithm and cause websites to go from fame to misfortune and visa versa. Play around with it and obviously try to do all the right things when it comes to blogging SEO and getting heaps of traffic but don’t ever rely on Google for your main source of income alone.

15. Advertising is a good idea

Dabbling in advertising can produce some really cool results. You don’t have to spend much. Try out Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon to give your posts a bit of a boost. There is nothing wrong with promoting your blog in this way.

16. Colors make a difference to conversions

Things as simple as colours can have a huge impact on how well your product or opt-in form convert. Again, you want to split test this stuff but I’ve noticed big changes in sign ups when switching my sidebar button from green to red and so on.

17. Social proof works in different ways

My friend wrote a really cool post on how different types of social proof can influence people in different ways. He explains it a lot better than I’m going to so have a read of the article and try to test whether social proof statements like subscriber counts are right for your blog.

18. Less is not always more

The idea that less is more is rarely true for a blog. You want more traffic, more subscribers, more sales. Of course, if the traffic isn’t any good it won’t make a difference, but try to to use ideas like “a small number of loyal subscribers” to stop you from growing a mailing list with a HUGE number of loyal subscribers.

19. Research is important

I spend a moderate amount of time researching keywords and competition before I write a blog post. It makes a huge difference about where I rank and how well the post is received. I show you my methods for this in Subscriber Special Ops – but until that opens up you might want to figure out your own ways to research before you write.

20. Pop ups work

I don’t care what anyone says.

😛

21. HelloBar is a great way to divert traffic

The bar at the top of this site is called HelloBar – a website/tool owned by Neil Patel that lets you put a message and a button up top and then split test two different versions. It’s a really cool way to divert traffic to a landing page or a mailing list sign up area. And it works really well.

22. Trying new things can inject a bit of magic

As I wrote in a recent post, sometimes you just need to do and try new things to see huge changes take place on your blog. You might not always know why it’s working but trying new things and failing is better than being stuck at a plateau for months on end.

23. Tracking and stats give you real insights in to what’s working

The statistics that you get in Aweber, Google Analytics and so on give you valuable insights into what is working. You can even use services like Crazy Egg to see where people are looking and clicking on your website. This stuff takes out a lot of guess work and lets you focus on real metrics.

24. You need to be different

Being different is the most important thing you can do online. Find a way to make your brand stand out from the crowd and then push that difference as often as possible.

25. What works on their blog might not work on yours

Sometimes I have “borrowed” ideas from my blogging icons after hearing how well it works for them only to find that it completely tanks for me. It’s a good lesson – what works for one blog doesn’t always work for another. And, yet again, this is why you need to split test different ideas and make sure what you think it the source of a success is actually the true source.

26. Find different reasons to mention your list

At the top of this post I mentioned that SSO was closed but that it would be open again soon and be announced to the mailing list. Moments like that are a very powerful way to get new email subscribers. Find different methods like that to work your mailing list in to your content and you’ll see new and curious subscribers on your mailing list.

27. Explain it in a really simple way

A lot of people who visit your blog will have absolutely no idea what a mailing list is or why they might want to give you, a total stranger, their personal email address. Spell it out for them very clearly, whenever you can.

28. The successful strategies change regularly

Something that I’m really only just learning is that successful strategies change regularly. I used to try to be really conservative with my online stuff because I was worried about compromising a “long term” blog for short term gain. But, what I’m seeing now, is that most of the successful people go after lots of little short term things and push them hard while they are working.

29. Don’t sell too early

Once you get to a certain level of subscribers it can be tempting to sell your blog/website and make a quick dollar (or 20,000). But what I sometimes regret is that I didn’t stick with that blog because I reckon it would probably be pulling in at least $100,000 a year by now. Just because you’ve reached one of those milestones, don’t sell up.

30. The homepage header works

You know those blogs that have the first half of their homepage devoted to an opt-in form? Those things work. I’ve heard of people who have them converting at 10% of all homepage traffic. You can get one of these added to your blog by a good designer and coder probably for a couple of hundred dollars.

31. Don’t forget mobile death windows

Not everyone can afford a beautiful responsive theme and some of us are too lazy to launch their beautiful responsive theme (guilty). But at least make sure your opt-in forms and pop ups work for mobile users. For example, if you use the lightbox version of the pop up you might find that people on iPhones have trouble closing the pop up and thus might exit your site without reading your content.

32. Target your offer in different segments

One thing you can do in AWeber is create different segments. So, you might have one landing page that lets people subscribe to your updates, another landing page that let’s people subscribe to updates only about “watermelons” and so on. By doing this you can target your offers and go after selective sources of traffic to ensure you’re really honing in on what people want.

33. Be consistent in your mail outs

One thing that I have learned the hard way is that inconsistency really gives subscribers the shits. If you tell them that they are going to get updates once a week don’t send them updates three times a week. You’ll lose them very quickly.

34. Email subscribers often hit “spam” first

Related to the last point, often you’ll find that an email subscriber will mark an aggressive or inconsistent email campaign as “spam” as opposed to just unsubscribing or deleting that particular email. Perhaps it makes them feel better but more likely it’s just easier to send it all into the spam folder dungeons.

35. Don’t be afraid to lose lots of subscribers

And now to throw a spanner in the works from the last three points – don’t worry about losing lots of subscribers. Every time we send out an email to the list we lose between 30 and 60 subscribers. That’s good. It means you’re getting rid of people who aren’t interested/aligned to your content.

36. What gets people to open an email might not get them to click through and buy

I ran an email campaign recently where I split test two different subject lines. The first email had an open rate of 41% and the second email had a dismal 26%. The funny thing was that the second email converted better than the first. I think this shows us two things: noise (attention grabbing tactics) doesn’t always lead to conversions, and that split testing is vital.

37. WWSGD?

There is a really cool plugin called WWSGD which stands for What Would Seth Godin Do that puts a little dialogue box at the top of your post and welcomes people based on cookies – new visitors get a message that old users don’t. But you can take this further. For example, if you came from Twitter you might get a message like “Hey there Twitter user! Check out our posts on getting the most out of Twitter”. These types of WordPress plugins are an amazing and easy way to attract more email subscribers by getting people deeper in to your content.

38. Tell me why I don’t like Mondays (but Sunday is okay…)

I’ve also found out that Monday is terrible for new posts, even though some people say it’s the best day. For me the best days are Tuesday and Wednesday but test for yourself.

39. Always be tired

Generally I find that the best traffic is around 9am East Coast time which tends to be around midnight in Australia – unless it’s daylight savings. Sure, I could set an automatic scheduler but I find that readers really love chatting to me in the comments section and if I’m in bed I get a lot less interaction. So – always be tired.

40. Redirect those comments

One of the coolest things I ever did on this blog (and one of the most popular and widely copied posts on my site) was redirecting comments to a “thank you” page using a simple plugin. As soon as someone leaves a comment for the first time they’ll get redirected to a little page that thanks them for their interaction and shows them the mailing list and some other cool content. It converts at around 7%.

41. Be genuine

Unless you can make all of this come together in a genuine way you’ll find that your readers will know. People are looking for a place/person to connect with – offer them genuine friendship through quality content and you’ll grow in leaps and bounds.

What has worked for you?

Growing an email list is one of the most important aspects of a successful blog. It is your mailing list that allows you to promote your content, sell products and launch new projects. So, what has worked for you? Leave a comment and let me know if I’ve missed anything obvious.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Sport Science Wellness

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Sport Science Wellness

Spamming and Photo Journalism

My latest post was a photo blog. I showered friend and followers with 15 photos. I received a complaint.

First let's try to understand what my project is not. It is not a MLM. It is not a program that requires a distribution network nor do I have a product or service to sell, a seemingly contrary position relative to the typical Markethive pursuit.

My project is a humanitarian project about the unseen and unattended menace of waste and as such it needs to provide education and attention.

Now about the photos.

I have discussed the image situation with the tech center and with Tom. Markethive does not handle images like WP does, no media library or storage to call from.

A comment from Tom about this; “When we upgrade the News Feed to work like Facebook with Images and Video the necessity of single posts for a large cluster of Images will improve as well”.

In order to use photos in your blog post on Markethive, the image must not be wider than 550 px and uploaded to your profile page. If you want it on your news feed,you post to you profile page and that's exactly what I wanted.

When I assembled the photo blog, I embedded these photos in the post using the link to that image on my profile. When I push this post to my social network every image links back to my Markethive profile. When the search engine scans the post it is obvious that where it came from and who. That to me is beneficial to me and Markethive.

The complaint called it spamming and me not understanding what I am doing on Markethive. The claim is that I am trying to “dominate the newsfeed”. On the contrary I was just setting up my post.

There are other ways to do this for sure. I could have uploaded the images to one of my blogs and then linked the images form there. Or, I could have uploaded to one of my groups, but only the members of that group would have seen them. None of these options were what I wanted.

My program is centered in and around Markethive and always will be. It is a “social” site and everyone is welcome to have an opinion but I try to understand first before casting my opinion.

It is obvious that the one who complained did not observe the content just the number, a rather shallow observation, me thinks, nor did they go to the actual blog post, they just wanted to pontificate.

Markethive is somewhat of a social anarchy, in that there are no rules except be respectful. There is no boss and there is no police.

Just one more thing. The value of a relationship (friend) is relative. There is no relationship that has the value to be leveraged as a threat. If a member in Markethive threatens you with the loss of a friendship in order to effect you activity, take the loss.

If you are discomforted by my activity, you have your options.

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Sport Science Wellness

TRULY FREE Stock Photos & Images For Commercial Use

DSLR Camera Image

 

Here's a quick post which i thought would be really helpful (if you didn't already know this).

Whether you are a designer, developer, blogger, marketer or do any kind of work online, you may find yourself in a situation where you NEED high-resolution images which are free for you to use on your commercial and personal creative projects.

Well, I do all of the above and it used to be really tough finding free images i could use on commercial projects that were truly free.. not just 'royalty free'. 

It seemed 'free' meant different things to different people and my dictionary was clearly different from theirs. 

I've now come up with my own personal Library of sites that provide high-resolution images that are free for commercial and personal creative projects, and I'm happy to share some of them with you – Did I hear you say "some?". Well it's not
because i'm trying to hide the rest.. it's just a rather long list and I dont have the time to do all of them right now.
 
Below are some sites that I've found tremendously helpful. Most are free of copyrights and under Creative Commons CC0. Some do require attribution to the creator though (i'm sure you'd happy to do that). Do donate towards their coffee fund wherever available.. we all need our coffee 🙂

Note : All links open in a new window / tab.

Disclaimer: Rules change. Please double check the site terms before you get yourself in trouble.

So what are you waiting for? In the words of RAUMROT.COM

"TAKE ALL THESE PICTURES AND DISTRIBUTE IT ABOUT THE WHOLE WORLD."

The info shared here has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, cure or treat any illness or disease.

Blogs, Uncategorized

Bloggers Help is Right Here

If you’re a blogger and are trying to increase your marketing reach to more viewers, please let me know. I will need you to connect your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or the social network of your choice with my social network where I can share with you the latest technology and new strategies for more viewers. Plus you can meet other professionals that share your same entrepreneurial business mindset too.

Just message me for my social network link to get started or just connect with me now at https://markethive.com/brucejacobs

Bruce Jacobs

social-media-image (1)