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23+ Successful Bloggers Reveal The Biggest Challenges (And Fixes) to Starting a Profitable Blog

by BusinessDigital Marketing

Every day, tens of thousands of blogs are created by people like you and me. However, most of those people never end up making any money with their blog.

Why?

Because they have unrealistic expectations. When looking at the surface, it seems easy to generate a significant income by blogging. I mean, look at Pat Flynn‘s income reports!

The truth is – making money by blogging is far from easy, and anyone who says otherwise has most likely never tried it out for themselves. It requires a tremendous amount of hard work, dedication and most importantly, time.

The road to success is longer than you’d like, but shorter than you imagine.

In an effort to paint a clearer picture of what it takes to generate income through blogging, I personally reached out to some very successful bloggers and asked them this simple question:

“Starting a blog that generates income isn’t easy and requires a tremendous amount of work… Based on your experience, what are the biggest challenges to starting a profitable blog from scratch?“

Also read 9 Steps To Publish Articles Frequently To Drive More Traffic.

The Contributors

To view a specific response, just click on the name of the blogger!

Tor Refsland

@TorRefsland

http://www.timemanagementchef.com/

Nowadays it has become a trend that people believe that everyone can take their passion and turn it into a business online. And it’s true. Even a chimpanzee with a VISA card and a laptop can buy a domain name.

However, what most people fail to understand is that creating a blog or website doesn’t mean that you are running a business… at least not a profitable one.

Even though it’s important that you are passionate about your online business, it’s even more important that you can deliver great value that people are not just willing to pay for, but actually paying for.

Long story short, in my first year of blogging I had been featured on 100+ blogs, won several awards and built an email list of about 3000+ people. Sounds kind of cool, right?

It was not. I actually felt like a total fraud. Why? Because my peers and the influencers I knew perceived me as a success, but I knew that I wasn’t earning the money I felt that I should compared to the hard work I had put in.

So what did I do?

I narrowed down my niche and pivoted from productivity to helping people to network with influencers and position their brand so they can attract the right clients. This included the following steps:

1. Narrowing down my niche

2. Finding my unique value proposition (why people should choose me)

3. Positioning my brand

4. Getting coaching clients

5. Building a highly targeted email list and launch my product

You might be thinking, “Okay, Tor. That sounds cool and all that. But did that really work?”

Good question. Judge for yourself. I got testimonials on my blogger outreach skills from big influencers like Evan Carmichael, Yaro Starak, Jon Morrow, Jaime Masters (Tardy) and John Lee Dumas. I built a coaching business from 0 to $3000 per month in less than 3 months. How did I do that? By using blogger outreach to turn cold leads into paying clients.

In 3 months I built a small, but highly targeted email list from scratch on about 840 people. Then I used something I call the “pre-free technique” to create an awesome free course for them, over deliver like crazy, and then sell them a premium course at the end. The results?

I just finished my launch using the pre-free technique, and it resulted in $6000+ in sales.

In addition, I managed to get featured on 158 top blogs in 14 months. This year I am going to be interviewed on the world’s biggest entrepreneur podcast, John Lee Dumas’s EOFire. And I will be featured in a book together with the best bloggers and marketers in the world, including Seth Godin, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan and Yaro Starak.

As Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Are you not making the money you want in your business? Then you need to pivot and make some changes.

Matthew Woodward

@MattWoodwardUK

http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk

The biggest challenge to starting a profitable blog from scratch is the sheer amount of time and hard work that is required to get it off the ground. Often people are under the illusion that blogging is a quick and easy way to make money online which couldn’t be further from the truth.

You typically find that people are so blinded by the illusion of riches, they very quickly get demoralized when 6 weeks in they haven’t made a single cent. Instead, it’s better to forget about the money entirely and focus on getting your first 100 subscribers, which will be nothing short of brutal hard work to achieve.

All in all, there is no substitute for hard work and sheer determination.  That is what separates the cream from the crop.

Zac Johnson

@zacjohnson

http://zacjohnson.com

Starting a blog is easy. Running a successful, high-traffic and profitable blog it not. The process of launching and site and making it successful and profitable is something many bloggers have to struggle with.

However, the best way to find success with a blog is to make sure you have a proper foundation and focus in place from the beginning. This is something I lay out in detail in this guide and that I will summarize in 3 simple steps below.

1. Choose a very tight niche focus for your site and know your audience

2. Create high-value content that also has a call-to-action within each post

3. Focus on your content promotion once your blog is live with content

The area where bloggers continue to struggle with is the monetization, traffic and outreach part. The important thing here to remember is that there are over a billion active sites on the internet, and over 300 million of them are blogs. So, why is your site any different?

If you want to compete in the world of blogging and make money with your site, you need to focus on building high-quality content on your site, that allows for high-quality sites to link back to it. At the end of the day, this is going to determine the success of your site and how it ranks in the search results.

Hernan Vazquez

@HernanV07

http://www.hernanvazquez.com/

I think that one of the most important part, and one that many marketers fail to do, is to set up a detailed plan and objectives when it comes to making their blogs work. Questions like:

– “Is this going to be a small niche affiliate website?”

– “Or do I want to turn it into an authority blog?”

– “What is going to be my target audience?”

– “What are their biggest pain points?”

– “How can I better segment my target audience and talk to them more directly?”

– “What are the sales funnels that I’m going to have behind the free content of my blog?”

– “Is there an exit strategy? If so, how much do I need to be making with my blog before selling it?”

All of those questions will help you determine pretty much everything you need to do from scratch. For example, if you’re planning to turn your blog into an authority website, there’s no point in registering a domain like “best-sciatica-creams-reviews.com”, but rather come up with a brand.

This will also help you knowing which tools to get. Should you go for every gadget and tool out there? Or will basic hosting, plugins, and an autoresponder do? What is your initial budget? How much time will you dedicate to your blog per day? Are you doing everything yourself or outsourcing?

Tom Hunt

@tomhuntio

http://www.virtualvalley.io/

The biggest challenges to starting a profitable blog are:

 1. Being consistent – In order to receive results, you must commit to creating valuable content over a period of years, not months. Therefore, you need to build a system that enables you to maintain a regular posting schedule with other resources taking on some of the lower $ value tasks that you either don’t enjoy or a not good at (or both!). This system will ensure consistency and ultimately success.

2. Picking a niche – Thousands of blogs are started every day. We all have an almost unlimited amount of blogs to read. Therefore, you must select a narrow niche in order to connect effectively with your readership. Don’t just be a fitness blog, be a weightlifting blog for 35-45-year-old women based in the UK.

Gina Horkey

@horkeyhandbook

http://horkeyhandbook.com/

I think that people underestimate that a successful or profitable blog takes time and you need to treat yourself like a paying client, even when you’re not. I.e.

1. Have a high standard for excellence in the content that you put out,

2. Post new, quality content consistently and

3. Lastly, you need to promote the heck out of it!

Writing/publishing is only 10-20% – the other 80-90% involves promoting it to get eyes on your site! Then give those visitors a reason to stick around and come back.

Tyler Cruz

@tylercruzdotcom

http://www.tylercruz.com/

It really depends on your definition of profitable, as technically $5 a month could be profitable… In any case, just as with mostly anything online, monetizing a blog or website is not the challenge. That is the easy part. The hard part is always building a loyal audience.

So how do you do that? Well, for a blog it’s really all about good, refreshing, unique content and post frequency and consistency.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen try to start up blogs over the past decade, all who were extremely optimistic in the beginning, but then give up a few blog posts later when they realize nobody is reading their content.

Try blogging consistently for a year before you decide to pull the plug – if you expect success as a new blogger after only a few weeks, then you’re likely going to fail.

Andy Crestodina

@crestodina

http://www.orbitmedia.com/

Great question. Let’s break it down…

1. The biggest challenge for building revenue is building traffic

2. The biggest challenge for building traffic is building / promoting content

3. The biggest challenge for building / promoting content is having a clearly defined mission

If you don’t connect all of the dots and begin with the end in mind, you’ll never get the content that drives the traffic that drives the cash. So be strategic. The first step in the process is to create your content marketing mission. Fill in these blanks, write it down and hang it on the wall in front of you.

Now, everything else you do in marketing will focus like a laser on the one thing (purposeful content) that gives visitors a reason to visit. Once you’ve got the visitors, everything else is possible.

Patrick Coombe

@patrickcoombe

http://www.elite-strategies.com

This is a great question, starting a profitable blog from scratch is not easy. One of the most important directions I would give someone who is interested in doing this is to find a niche that they are passionate and knowledgeable in. For example, I am really interested in (other than SEO and blogging etc.) PC components, networking, and technology. I enjoy doing this, so naturally writing about it comes rather easy.

Back to your question, one of the biggest challenges is overcoming that initial “hump” of being new. It is really hard to get exposure if you don’t really have a name for yourself and if your blog doesn’t have a lot of authority

With that said, my best advice is to just dive right in there and start blogging. If you don’t have credibility, start by creating some for yourself. This might come in the form of doing a few favors for people or just writing a small eBook.

Now to the income portion of things. There are a few ways to generate income:

– Affiliate sales

– Selling your own products (eBooks, actual products, etc)

– Selling ad space

– Consulting

Just to name a few. You can also use a combination of these methods. Its kind of a catch: you want to create a popular blog that people trust, but people don’t generally trust websites that have tons of affiliate links and lots of ads. So you’ll have to find that sweet spot in the middle. Always be sure to disclose this in your privacy policy or in a note at the bottom of your website.

Other forms of monetization aren’t so obvious. I monetize my blog in more subtle ways. For example, by writing about SEO and internet marketing, a lot of people looking to learn more about the industry visit my website and contact me for consulting. This might come in the form of a quick $150 job or could turn into a massive monthly recurring SEO contract.

But this didn’t happen overnight. It’s very hard in the beginning opening your analytics in the morning and seeing “zero visitors.” Keep at it, blog about quality information and people will come.

Ryan Biddulph

@RyanBiddulph

http://www.zacjohnson.com

Making money my prime driver was the biggest challenge to creating a profitable blog from scratch. Because money responds to value. Not money. Money flows through people. People will buy your eBooks or hire you – in essence, making your blog profitable – if you provide them with value. But since I obsessed over making money with my blog for many years I was trying to communicate with an inanimate object. Not good.

I turned things around by starting from scratch, deleting my old blog to create Blogging From Paradise. Except this time I was armed with invaluable experiences.

I blogged to have fun. My creativity skyrocketed. Made friends with blogging big dawgs. Promoted my blogging success and boosted my profits.  Blog for fun! The value and influential friends and profits flow your way more easily if you blog your fun.

Ali Luke

@aliventures

http://www.aliventures.com/

I think the biggest challenge is giving in to overwhelm. So many bloggers quit after a few weeks, months or even years — potentially not long before they’d have started to see success.

 It can feel like there’s so much to do in order to build a profitable blog. If you’re not a very technical-minded person, it’s easy to procrastinate on that side of things — and if you’re not naturally a writer, then the sheer amount of content you have to produce can seem daunting.

Over the past eight years of blogging, freelancing writing, selling eBooks and developing a membership site, I’ve done a ton of things that I once had no idea how to do! The whole way through, I’ve tried to focus on what I need to learn next — in the early days, that was stuff like “how to buy a domain name”, now it’s stuff like “how to improve retention rates on my membership site”. A dig around on Google will always throw up helpful articles and tutorials.

Just take it step by step. Make sensible, clear, time-bound plans (like writing one post a week and developing one piece of big content every three months) to keep you on track. Don’t compare yourself to other bloggers — they have a different set of skills and life circumstances from you. Just keep moving forward, step by step. And don’t give in to overwhelm.

Mark Webster

@authorityhackr

http://www.authorityhacker.com/

The biggest challenge is almost always a lack of focus. New bloggers should focus entirely on activities which will move the needle and generate income. Writing new blog posts, collecting emails, promoting products are all important.

Things such as logo design, page speed optimization, home page design and other such things are not going to move the needle when you are just starting out. They quickly become distractions and new bloggers should not worry about these until they have a large and profitable site. Only then does it make sense to do these 1-2% optimizations.

Sharon Gourlay

@DigitalNomadWan

http://www.digitalnomadwannabe.com/

I think the biggest challenge in starting a profitable blog is figuring out the right things to focus on and then staying focused on them. That might sound easy if you have never created a blog, but there are so many different options about how to go about everything that it’s easy to become overwhelmed or to focus on the wrong things.

My recommendation is to always have a strategy – and keep to it! Don’t just play around in the dark but take the time to educate yourself and make educated decisions about everything to do with blogging. Don’t work on any task unless it has a purpose that relates to your goals and strategy.

Most importantly, make sure you are learning from the right people who measure success in the same way as you do. The biggest mistakes I made was following the advice of the wrong people.

Dominic Wells

@Human_Proof

http://www.humanproofdesigns.com/

The biggest challenges to starting a blog from scratch are not knowing exactly what to do. With so many different strategies available, and so many people teaching different methods (most of which actually do work), it can be hard to put your head down and get started.

Paralysis by analysis is the biggest killer of beginners in my mind.

Nate Shivar

@nshivar

http://www.shivarweb.com/

Staying consistent & focused on your core audience for a long (1+ years) period of time. Like any other skill, marketing a website takes time to develop. Finding channels, topics and messages that work takes time, and so many people give up right before things could take off.

Erik Emanuelli

@ErikEmanuelli

http://nopassiveincome.com/

When I started blogging, I thought I would be able to reach success without showing my face and telling my name. I was “hiding” behind a nickname.

Luckily, I found out just after a couple of months that I was wasting my time.

Building your online presence is among the first and most important steps to do when you start a blog from scratch. This includes creating social media profiles, interacting with your audience and creating connections with people inside your market.

I find the latter as the first and most imperative thing to do while working online. The relationships you nurture can bring many benefits, such as traffic, knowledge, and mentions – and sometimes, great friendships!

Nicholas Scalice

@nscalice

http://www.earnworthy.com/

The biggest challenge with starting a profitable blog from scratch is getting traction early on. I think a lot of this has to do with expectations.

Your brand new blog is not going to start making money overnight. You need to focus on producing high-quality, original content for many months in most cases before you see positive results. So, in many cases, we are our own worst enemies if we approach these types of projects without the correct mindset.

Focus on delivering value, and if you are consistent in your efforts, you will see success.

Brian Lang

@sbizideasblog

http://www.smallbusinessideasblog.com

From what I’ve seen, one of the best ways to use blogging to generate income is to start with something to sell and use blogging as a means to generate traffic and brand awareness for your business. Companies that focus on what they are selling first seem to make a lot more than on average than people who start blogging first and then figure out what to sell later.

For solo bloggers who want to monetize with advertising or info products, it takes a ton of commitment, dedication and hard work. You have to be committed enough to keep working and not quit. Most people will give up at some point along the way, but it’s the people who work the hardest and keep at it that ultimately make it. But bloggers should definitely put a lot of thought into monetization up front before even getting started.

Ashley Faulkes

@madlemmingz

http://madlemmings.com/

There are a lot of ways to make money with a blog or website, but some take a long time (are you prepared to wait) and some are not right for you in the first place.

So, my recommendation is to figure out:

– How urgently you need to make money

– What skills you can bring to the table (and possibly offer as services)

– What interests you the most

It will be a combination of these factors that help bring you to a decision.

Glen Dimaandal

@glen_dimaandal

http://www.glendemands.com

The biggest challenge in my experience is getting an initial set of readers to visit your site. It can be pretty demotivating when you’re pouring your heart and soul into articles that nobody seems to care about.

I found out that having a network of acquaintances and friends of like-minded people can really help. These are the folks who are more likely to form your initial reader base. They’ll also be the ones who’ll spread the word about your blog and share your content on social media.

In the case of my blog, I didn’t have it until I had a lot of friends in the SEO community. Instead of blogging and trying to attract readers, I built a network that demanded me to blog — so I did. These days, my blog drives more than half of the leads that sustain my digital marketing.

Mi Mauba

@BAMoneyBlogger

http://www.beamoneyblogger.com/

The biggest challenge to start a blog to earn money is clarity, yes clarity. It means you must be fully clear on:

1. What to sell,

2. Who to sell to and

3. How to sell

If you are clear on these three points you can easily start a money blog and earn income with it.

The answer to the first question “What to sell” should be a product or service that is unique and has an attractive price with offering benefits more than its peers available in the market.

The answer to the second question “Who to sell to” is to those who really need a product or service you want to sell and you can access them without much effort.

The third and last question “How to sell” requires creating a sales funnel to first win the trust of your blog readers, then offering them freebies and finally premium products or services to solve their problems permanently.

Ron Sela

@ronsela

http://www.ronsela.com/

You could have unlimited expertise, vigor, or time you have on your hands; nothing guarantees success. In reality, starting a blog that really generates a sizable profit is very difficult and time-consuming. Because these are very real challenges, very few blogs actually make it big and provide creators enough income to use them as a career- and in the end, most bloggers end up throwing in the towel.

The biggest problem by far that bloggers have is a lack of an audience to read their blog and comment on their articles:

It can be frustrating to wait for blog posts that never come. Instead, try writing comments on other industry leading blogs that other bloggers can appreciate, and they might come to your blog. Then, respond to questions, ask questions and write awesome controversial topics.

The second biggest issue that bloggers have is being resistant to advertising and social media marketing:

Advertising puts together the pieces that you can’t, giving you viability that you desperately need to make money and build a following. Jump in on social ad platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and get your friends active too.

The third biggest issue that bloggers have is when they forget about promoting their agenda or their products, instead getting sidetracked by the features that a blog offers:

Your blog must be clear and to the point. This is how you retain viewership. Think about why you’re blogging before you write and post. Plan out your theme, plan out your content, and plan out your topics, and then start working. Believe it or not, blogging, writing, editing, planning, and designing are full-time jobs. Bloggers that make it to the point where they really start making income have a gift, have done their research and haven’t given up (even when success seems impossible).

Eric Siu

@ericosiu

http://growtheverywhere.com/

The biggest challenge is staying consistent and motivated. Content marketing is a 12-18 month journey to really start to see the needle to move.

Devesh Sharma

@wpkube

http://wpkube.com

It would be to keep writing posts and pouring money for first months, even though you’re not making any money.

In order to build a successful business, you need to put a lot of hard work, even when that site / business is not generating any money.

There you have it!

Like most of the contributors mentioned, starting a profitable blog really isn’t easy and requires a lot of work and consistency. If you’re able to consistently produce high-quality content and promote it like crazy, you will eventually find success.

Thanks again to the bloggers who took the time to write these awesome responses!

email marketing

List Building Made Simple: The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing

by BusinessDigital MarketingTechnology

If you’re not capturing emails on your website yet, you’re really missing out. Email marketing is one of the most powerful and cheapest ways to advertise your website.

It allows you to transform a one-time visitor to your site into a life-long customer that you can keep marketing to (until they unsubscribe, of course).

This means that you can build a relationship with your website visitors and gain their trust, hence making it much easier to sell your products.

Here are all the different topics the Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing is going to cover:

That being said, get ready to take notes and let’s get started!

Why You Should Be Email Marketing

With all the hype around social media, people tend to forget how efficient email marketing really is.

First off, the total reach that email marketing has is practically unbeatable – there’s currently close to 2.7 billion active email users in the world and the majority of them check their email at least once a day.

Email marketing allows you to build credibility and create a strong relationship with your website visitors.

Since people enjoy doing business with people they know and trust, this will dramatically boost your sales.

Not surprisingly, email marketing is also the traffic source with the highest return on investment – on average, each $1 spent on email marketing returns $43.

Not everyone who visits your website will be ready to make a purchase or sign-up to a service. By capturing their emails, you’re given the opportunity to convince them by providing them with helpful and valuable content while building your brand at the same time.

Also read How To Build Your Networking Strategy.

There’s plenty of statistics that back up the importance and efficiency of email marketing:

  • Email conversion rates are three times higher than social media. (Source: McKinsey & Company)
  • 91% of consumers check their email at least once a day. (ExactTarget)
  • 89% of marketers say that email marketing is their primary tool for lead generation. (Source: Mailigen)

Now that you know why email marketing is so important to you as a marketer, it’s time to learn how you can implement it on your website.

Setting Up Your Email Marketing Software

To start building your email list, you’re gonna need email marketing software. What these programs do is keep track of all your email subscribers and allow you to set up autoresponders or simply send out newsletters to your list.

Most of these softwares cost a monthly price, but I’ll be showing you a great option if you are just starting out and don’t have a lot of money to spend.

Here are some of the best email marketing software out there:

GetResponse:

The reason I like GetResponse is because of how easy it is to use and how many great features they have. You can set-up time or action based autoresponders, create and host landing pages, create visually emails using their builder and other cool features. They offer a free trial for 30 days, then the pricing starts at $15/month.

TRY GETRESPONSE

AWeber:

Aweber is one of the most trusted names in email marketing. Although it doesn’t have all the features that GetResponse does, AWeber claims a 99% delivery rate (getting the email to their inbox rather than the SPAM folders) which is impressively high. Like GetResponse, they offer a 30-day trial and the pricing starts at $20/month.

TRY AWEBER 

MailChimp:

MailChimp is probably the best starting point for beginners since they are one of the few email marketing companies who offer a free for life plan limited to 2000 subscribers and 12000 emails a month. Although this won’t suffice once you have a bigger list and need to send more emails, it’s a great option for those who don’t want to invest into email marketing tools yet.

TRY MAILCHIMP

How To Build Your Email List

To build your email list, your will first need to have traffic coming to your website.

I won’t be covering how to get traffic in this post since I’ve covered the topic in depth in both my guide on making money by blogging and on how to promote blog content.

Once you have traffic coming into your website, you’re halfway done. Now, all that is left to do is capture as many of your visitors’ email as possible so that you can keep marketing to them even after they leave your site.

On average, 83% of people leaving your website will never return – hence why capturing emails is so important.

Creating A Lead Magnet

The most efficient way by far to capture emails is by using lead magnets.

Simply put, lead magnets are basically a bribe that you offer your visitors in exchange for their email. Here are some examples of good email opt-in pages using lead magnets:

A lead magnet can be really anything that you can offer to your website visitors. Here are some ideas:

  • Step-by-Step Guides
  • EBooks
  • Free Shipping
  • Free Trials
  • Templates
  • Checklists
  • Free Consultations
  • Coupons
  • etc…

The key to making a good lead magnet is finding out what your website visitors really want.

The best way to do this is to research more about your target audience and come up with your website’s buyer persona.

A buyer persona is basically the ‘ideal’ person to represent your target audience as a whole. Creating buyer personas can help you figure out what your target audience really wants, and can help you create better, more relevant content.

Another thing you can do to find inspiration when creating your lead magnet is spying on your competition.

Odds are at least one of your competitors will be using lead magnets with their opt-ins, so you can see what’s working for them and learn from it.

Different Ways to Integrate Your Opt-in

At this point, you have a good lead magnet that your audience will want badly enough to exchange their email for.

The next part is making sure that our visitors are actually presented to it in the best way possible.

Using pop-ups is the most popular way people integrate their lead magnets because it works. The problem with pop-up ads is that you’re interrupting the readers browsing and they might not like that.

In fact, 70% of Americans say they get annoyed by irrelevant pop-up ads – this means you need to be offering them something worth their while to make up for interrupting them.

Although it is intrusive, integrating a pop-up email opt-in can dramatically increase your conversion rate.

For example, blogger and crafter Nikki McGonigal experimented by implementing a pop-up email form rather than a sidebar form. This was the pop-up she used:

This resulted in her getting 1375% more sign-ups than from the sidebar form. Imagine if she was using a quality lead magnet! These were her stats after 8 months:

Even though some readers will find your pop-ups annoying, it’s a worthy sacrifice to exchange for super fast list building.

Plus, it’s been found that adding relevant pop-ups to your website barely has any effect on your site’s traffic and bounce rate (visitors who view only one page and leave).

Another way to integrate your lead magnet is within your content. Here is a great example of something like this in action:

Doing this takes a bit more work however because the lead magnet needs to be very relevant to the content of your article, so you will most likely need multiple different lead magnets which can be hard to manage.

In the example above, the lead magnet used was a cheat sheet version of the whole post.

A free and simple way to start integrating email opt-ins to your site is the WordPress Plugin ‘SumoMe’.

SumoMe is basically a complete toolkit to grow your website. You can use it so set up pop-up forms, top bars, and many other cool features. Although full access requires a monthly subscription, they offer a free version for all of their tools.

They also provide super easy integration with most big email marketing software, so you don’t need to know a single line of code to integrate this to your website.

Split Testing Your Email Opt-ins

You should always be trying new things and split testing to make sure you’re getting the highest conversion rate possible on your email opt-ins. If you haven’t heard of A/B Split Testing, it’s not as hard as it sounds.

It’s pretty straight forward – you send some of your traffic to Version A of your website and some to Version B.

Then, whichever is converting better is the winner. You can keep split-testing practically forever as there’s so many different little things you can split test that can affect your conversion rate, such as:

  • Lead magnet
  • Headline text
  • Colors
  • Button text
  • Removing or adding fields to your form
  • etc…

You only want to split test a single change at once so that you have a constant variable to compare too. For example, a blue button vs an orange button while the rest of the opt-in is the exact same.

That way, you can actually see what changes are boosting or decreasing your conversion rate.

If you are making visually appealing email opt-ins with tempting lead magnets, you will be able to convert a good amount of your website visitors into email subscribers and hence quickly build up your email list.

Warming Up Your List

Ok, so you have your email list.

Now, I should start sending them emails filled with affiliate products right away, right?

No. Right now, your list is cold – your subscribers probably just heard of you and still don’t completely trust you.

That’s why you want to spend some time actually sharing good content to your list for a while and make them like you.

If you warm up your list efficiently, you will not only build trust and get constant open rates on the emails you send out but you will also sell your products much easier because your subscribers will actually like you, rather than the email seeming like some SPAM ad.

The first goal is interest. You wouldn’t ask a person to marry you on the first date, would you? This applies to cold traffic marketing.

Creating Emails That Perform

The truth is that most of your email subscribers won’t always open and read your emails.

If you want high open and click-through rates, you need to be creating perfect emails that will excite your readers enough to get them to visit your landing page.

Here are some important components that all successful emails share:

Attention-Grabbing Subject Line

Having a good subject line is critical to have for your email to be successful. In fact, 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone – this gives you an idea of how important it is to have an optimized subject line.

Remember those buyer personas we talked about? This is another situation where they can come in handy.

You want to make the subject line relevant to your buyer personas’ probable problems or concerns.

For instance, if your target audience is single mothers who tend work too much and don’t get to spend as much time with their kids as they want, a subject line like “Wish you could spend more time with your kids?” could work well.

Another great way to make your subject lines more attention-grabbing is by personalizing them. In fact, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

The downside to this is that you need to capture both the user’s name and email rather than just their email and this can result in lower conversion rates on your opt-in.

Recognizable “From” Name

Although this seems like something of minimal importance, it’s not.

With a number of commercial emails people are getting nowadays, consumers are spending less time on irrelevant mail, making it much harder to stand out even with a good subject line.

In fact, 43% email recipients report emails as spam based on the from name – that’s why it’s important that you pick a name that you readers will recognize instantly.

If your real name plays a big part in your branding and you think that you would be recognized with it, using it can make your readers feel like they are more personally connected with you.

Neil Patel constantly brands himself on Quicksprout , so when subscribers receive an email from ‘Neil Patel’, they instantly make the connection.

The key to choosing the right sender name is simply to pick the most logical and recognizable name for your company.

Also, make sure that you stick with the same name and don’t try changing it – with time, people will recognize your sender name as trustworthy if you properly warm up your list and changing your name could screw that up as you won’t be under the name that they are expecting you to be.

Good Body Copy

It’s important to be writing effective copy in your emails so that you can properly convey why they need what you are offering.

Once again, using your buyer personas can be really helpful while doing this – you want to speak to your subscribers on a personal level and make your emails as relevant to their concerns.

A great way to do this is to adopt a conversational type of writing. Conversational content is written in a friendly tone, and the goal is basically to make it seem like the content was written specifically for your prospect.

To do this, you must be writing as if you were having a conversation with your reader. For example:

“Have you been finding it hard to …? I know exactly how you feel.”

Another great way to really engage your subscribers with your emails is by telling stories. People love hearing stories that they can relate to – especially when the outcome of the story is where they want to be.

The solution to the conflict in your story should be the product you are promoting.

Reflect on how much this product helped you and even throw in some specific results to increase your credibility.

Writing good copy is a huge topic on its own and requires years of mastery. It’s a skill that you are going to be wanting to learn, as you will be needing it for nearly every aspect of affiliate marketing.

Strong Call-To-Action

Since the main goal of your email marketing is to generate leads, having a strong call-to-action is arguably the most important part of your email.

Depending on the purpose of your email, you will be using different call-to-actions. Firstly, find the main focus of your email – what is the first thing you want your subscribers to do after reading your email?

Then, use this to create your call-to-action. It’s important that it stands out from the rest of the email and that it is visually distinctive since it is the main focus of your email.

It’s also a good idea to make sure that your call-to-action is located above the fold – this means that your readers won’t need to scroll down to see it.

Here’s an example of an email with a good call-to-action:

As you can see, the call-to-action clearly stands out from the rest of the email and the text tells us exactly why you should take action and what you will get from doing it.

The button is also in a bright orange color that stands out and immediately catches the eye, which is exactly what you want when creating a call-to-action.

Conclusion

Email marketing is a very powerful tool for us marketers and should definitely be cherished.

Focus on building a targeted email list and on creating trust between you and your subscribers.

Always focus on helping your subscribers and providing them with quality content, and the rest will follow on its own.

Designer

Designer’s Delight: A List Of Must-Have Free Resources

by DesignTechnology

There’s no lack of freebies on the web, but it would take a lot of time to sift through each and then stock up on what’s actually worth it.

So we take the burden off of your hands and scour the web for some of the best deals for designers. From icons to themes to vector images and badges, this varied list of freebies would make your day.

16 Business Vector Badges

16 Business Vector Badges

Vector badges are indispensable when your website is an e-commerce, you need them to announce sale, authenticity guarantee, a discount, a free gift and a lot more. But badges aren’t only limited to e-commerce, they add a funky quirky element to your page, so you can rehash them anyway you like.

This freebie comprise of 16 vector badges that has a retro vintage feel to it, and also a Fight Club feel to it too. Available in .EPS format, these badges would come handy for a lot of your projects.

25 Hand Drawn Vector Icons

25 Hand Drawn Vector Icons

What’s better than a hand drawn vector? 25 of them! Hand drawn vectors have a nice cutesy look to it and it takes the bland out of old-styled vector icons.

This set is an assorted mix of social media icons, communication icons, general icons and a few eccentric random ones. Put them on your website or integrate one into a post to add zing to it without breaking a sweat. These icons will instantly transform a boring web page, and would increase your click rate too. They’re just so cute, who would not click on these?

The icons are available in three different formats and sizes, so choose the one that you would mostly work with, or download all three it’s free!

Modern Touch UI Kit by PixelKit

Modern Touch UI Kit by PixelKit

UI kits can help lighten your workload by almost half, and one such UI kit is a hot favourite with designers. The Modern Touch UI kit definitely scores on aesthetics but it doesn’t disappoint in the functionality department either.

For websites that need to put the right amount of spotlight on their content, the UI Kit with its correct blend of typography, positioning and weight would be a great pick to create a superior web interface.

Note that the UI kit comes in the .PSD format and not HTML format, and it includes a commercial license.

Passion Portfolio WordPress Theme

Passion Portfolio WordPress Theme

Not one to blow your own trumpet? Let Passion Portfolio communicate the sheer prowess of your work where it gives the centre stage to your portfolio.

Whether it is stunning street portraiture or caricatures that you create for a living, or even video content or written text, include their thumbnail in your portfolio slideshow and multiple gallery option to not just wow your readers but also impress your prospects and win a gig or two.

But this theme can also be used for a news-based website, as you put out time-sensitive and trending pieces, the slideshow will help draw readers’ attention to the current post.

The theme also comes replete with your essential bogging features and has an AJAX form integrated already.

Wedding template for Photographs

Wedding template for Photographs

Wedding websites are extremely common these days, and no why should that be a surprise since couples want to retell and preserve their best memories eternally. And what better than a wedding website.

This template not only gives the right frame for your photographs but increases its appeal with a nice retro touch. From pictures of the kiss to candid clicks, show the world how your big day went, and relive the memories forever. The theme, with a filterable portfolio comes with a responsive grid and a working contact form too.

Additionally, the theme can be used to exhibit portfolio works as well.

100 high-resolution Vector Icons

100 high-resolution Vector Icons

Grabbing eyeballs is difficult, especially when a visitor on your site will only spare you 6 seconds to capture their attention. You can write elaborate persuasive text or you can draw the focus to an image gallery or a slideshow.

Or you can also make small but powerful changes like including icons to both communicate your message and break the monotone of text. These high-resolution icons that you get in this pack are self-communicating and which also means that it would save you oodles of space by doing the work of a sentence or even two three sentence-long text.

The vector icons are available in .AI .PSD and .EPS formats.

Heraldry Vector Images

Heraldry Vector Images

Heraldry vector images comprise of a series of images that are used in communicating something royal or noble. Think designing a website for Games of Thrones fans or maybe putting up a profile of a royal king where these images could be inserted to add some mojo.

Besides that, these also can be worked in a lot of ways. The royal, macho feel of these images can be put on your website or a post just for the fun of it. Or maybe you need to add certification to your site, use the laurel image for a little extra.

Note that the deal allows you to mainly use it for personal websites.

Concrete Texture Pack

Concrete Texture Pack

Designers know the importance of textures, they enhance the face value of a project. Taking a flat dull image and adding depth to it by including textures isn’t unheard of. These both imperceptibly and dramatically change the face of your work.

And one such type is the concrete texture element. The concrete texture pack would be perfect for anything spelling rustic or with a bricked feel. You can choose from 6 different options to find the right fit. The high-res textures could be the prompt to your creative genius, use them to create stunning designs.

15 Metallic Photoshop Gradients

15 Metallic Photoshop Gradients

Everything metallic is working rather well these days, and these gradients are no exception. With metallic tones in vogue, chances are you’d be using them more than often.

The set comes replete with 15 different shades of metallic gradients, use them as backgrounds, for layer blending, to improve text visuals and for images. The gradients are extremely easy to work with.

Each gradient has been created using actual metal, so what you get is an exact replica of the physical metal of that color and tint.

Minicons from Pixlsby.me

Minicons from Pixlsby.me

Minicons always make us wish for the Transformers’ version but as designers we’d have to be happy with these. Minicons are cute little icons that although mightn’t play a major role, but would hike up the charm of your web page.

Use them as it is or to break text or simply to grab attention, these 25+ scalable minicons are an eclectic mix you would love to experiment with.

Final Words

Which of the freebies did you like best? Leave a comment below and let us know what you thought.

Keep WordPress Website Backup into Dropbox

How to Keep WordPress Backup into Dropbox for Free?

by BusinessDigital MarketingOther

Hey! Welcome again to the WordPress Backup Tutorial. Actually, I’ll cover all the aspects of backing up your WordPress sites accurately. In this tutorial, I will discuss Keeping backup WordPress freely into Dropbox. In the previous tutorial, we’ve learned about keeping Backup WordPress manually. Not to mention, it’s the best way to secure your website and restore it at any time. But when it comes to backing up WP websites in the cloud. It’s the best option to keep WordPress backup on Dropbox.

Important to realize, Dropbox is an American based company and it offers cloud storage services, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software maintenance. From 2007 it’s one of the best cloud options to keep your data safely. For the first time, Dropbox provides 2GB space freely. Though by inviting friends or doing some process you can easily increase it. Now in this post, we will learn how to keep WordPress backup freely to Dropbox for safety.

Ways to Keep Your WordPress Backup into Dropbox

Alt-text: wordpress-website-backup

For keeping Backup your WordPress files into Dropbox, we will use two WP plugins. Actually, it will complete all the work for you. But for the first time, you have to configure it. In this tutorial, we will use two plugins of WordPress to complete our process and I will show you the installing, activating and customizing process step by step. To point out…

  1. Backup & Restore Dropbox
  2. WordPress Website Backup to Dropbox

Also read Useful Image Optimization Plugins For WordPress Users.

1. Using “Backup & Restore Dropbox” WordPress Plugins

It’s so easy to keep backup by “Backup & Restore Dropbox” plugins. The first thing to remember, it’s the best free plugins to keep your WordPress into Dropbox. Important to realize, it works to take backup only into Dropbox. With this in mind, if you want to keep backup into Dropbox only, it’s the best plugin in WordPress.

Features of Backup & Restore Dropbox WP Plugins:

  1. Unlimited Dropbox backups;
  2. Unlimited dropbox restores;
  3. Including any files or folder
  4. Excluding any files or folder
  5. Exporting the database
  6. Unlimited local backups;
  7. Unlimited local restores;
  8. Active with an APP key, it will ensure your personal security
  9. local backup: backups to the server

and much more.

Now, Follow the below steps to configure the plugins for your WordPress websites.

  • Firstly, you will need to download the plugins. You can also add and install it from the WordPress plugins directory by searching the name Backup & Restore Dropbox.
  • Now click on Dropbox Full Backup and it will take you to the dashboard of the plugins. At this point, click on Create Dropbox backup.
  • Now it will open a pop-up and will inform you to connect your Dropbox account. For more security, it will indicate to you to generate an App key.
  • At this point, connect your Dropbox account following the below screenshot. You can customize the location and other things. If you are not an expert, keep it default. Note: you can tick “Don’t delete a local backup copy after uploading to dropbox”  not to delete from local files.
  • In the next session, it will open a pop-up window and you have to sign in here with your Dropbox username and password. Now it will show you a message to create a folder, or you can keep it default to WPAdm. Give access permission and click allow to continue.
  • Now it will start to take backup automatically and when it will finish taking backup of your files, it will show a message “Dropbox Backup was created successfully”.
  • In this case, do your work without any tension.

Now, you have completed full backup of your WordPress websites by the most popular plugins Backup & Restore Dropbox of WordPress. Cheers, and enjoy!

Also read Most common WordPress issues and how to solve them.

2. Using “WordPress Backup to Dropbox” WordPress Plugins

Now I will discuss keeping the Backup of your WordPress websites with the “WordPress Backup to Dropbox” plugins. Important to realize, it is also very popular and user-friendly to use. It is so effective for backing up your WordPress websites into Dropbox.

Special features of the plugins:

  1. It’s totally free and user-friendly.
  2. Unlimited backup to Dropbox
  3. Unlimited Backup to local files and folder
  4. It will give you to customize files and folders into Dropbox

Let’s take a look at the step-by-step guideline to take backup by “WordPress Backup to Dropbox” plugins.

  • Firstly, you have to download the plugins to install it on your WordPress websites. Click here to download it. Similarly, you can also install it from the WordPress plugins directory of your websites. Now install and activate the plugins.
  • Now go to the admin panel of the plugins. To do that, go to the Backup settings of the plugins from the Dashboard. See the below screenshot…
  • Now give access to your Dropbox and start to take backup.

It’s so easy to take backups. WordPress Backup to Dropbox. Keep enjoying.

My Recommendation:

I have used both of the plugins, but “WordPress Backup to Dropbox” gave me the Error message when entering into the setting page for the first time and users give this feedback too. Though it’s not so bad for keeping backups of your WordPress site into Dropbox.

On the other hand, I have not faced any problem yet for keeping backup by “Backup & Restore Dropbox” plugins. Its feature is so amazing and for free it can be the best alternative to take backup into Dropbox. Not to mention, I’m using this plugin for a long time. Though I usually use the 2nd mentioned plugins too. But I will recommend you to use the Backup & Restore Dropbox plugins for permanent backup and I have described all the processes in the first.

Final Thought

By all means, I will tell you it’s so important to keep backup your WordPress websites regularly for safety reasons. On the other hand, you will become worried-free. Similarly, my recommendation will be to Backup & Restore Dropbox plugins. It’s totally free and amazing to take the backup. Never hesitate to use security plugins also to become more secure. If you get this article helpful, share it on your social media and if you need any extra support from me, explain it from the comment box. Thanks in advance. 🙂

Get Instagram Followers

25 Best Ways To Get Instagram Followers Fast

by BusinessSocial MediaTechnology

Instagram is an astonishing photograph sharing system, yet it is just fun when other individuals are following you. Notwithstanding, on the off chance that you joined as of late, the chances are that you do not have numerous followers. Thankfully, there are some basic and non-spammy procedures that anybody can use to pick up followers on Instagram, and in this article you are going to find 25 best ways to get Instagram followers fast.

Also read Everything You Need To Know About Pinterest!

So, you need to increase 1000 followers on Instagram? Not an issue! Getting huge amounts of followers is moderately simple, if you know how. The main thing you have to do is situated up a truly incredible account, with a particular subject or reason at the top of the priority list. Besides, you have to begin taking delightful, fascinating and interesting photos and figure out how to label them fittingly. Lastly – and in particular – you have to realize some sharp little-known techniques which will send your number of followers soaring!

Despite everything I recall how disappointing it was when I began using my Instagram account, the previous summer. For the initial couple of weeks I had basically no supporters, and no one loved or remarked on my photographs. That is the point at which I chose to acquire followers on Instagram using the following tips:

Points to consider

Tip 1: Pick A Clear Focus For Your Account

Alt-text: instagram account login page

Before you do whatever else, you ought to pick a reasonable center for your Instagram account. In the event that your objective is to showcase your best photography, you ought to stick to it and never post low quality photographs of you hanging out with companions. The individuals who need to see your masterful photographs presumably would prefer not to see the sandwich you had for lunch today.

Also read How To Get Free Instagram Followers Using GetInsta Application.

Tip 2: Make Inquiries In Photo Captions

Some Instagramers have discovered accomplishment in posting little depictions of their everyday life in a way that their devotees or followers can become acquainted with them better, yet this is much harder than just sharing incredible photography. Unless you are a very important person or a celebrity, the chances are that just individuals who know you, in actuality, would be keen on taking after your every day exercises.

Tip 3: Use Filters And Applications

Alt-text: using instagram application

To give you an illustration, I utilize my @iPhonePS Instagram record to share my best iPhone photographs. Individuals are upbeat to follow me in light of the fact that they realize that I just post intriguing iPhone photographs. I would never post photographs of me hanging out with companions subsequent to the dominant part of my devotees or followers would prefer not to see them.

Also read Why You Need Instagram Followers To Become Popular On Instagram?.

Tip 4: Make Your Account Look Great

Alt-text: make your instagram account great

When you have picked an unmistakable center for your account, for example, sharing your best iPhone photographs, you need to do all that you can to make your account look extraordinary. While a fascinating portrayal and a cool profile photograph can help, it is much more vital that your photograph food looks awesome, in light of the fact that that is the thing that individuals will take a gander at when they settle on a choice about following you.

Tip 5: Offer Images People Can Connect And Relate To

Before you proceed onward to the following step, you ought to construct an arrangement of 20 astounding photographs that match the center of your account, and you ought to verify that there are no appalling or unessential photographs in your Instagram account. Before they begin following you, individuals will take a gander at your food and ask themselves, “Would I like to see photographs like this on my Instagram newsfeed?”

Tip 6: Take Smarter Selfies

On the off chance that you post exhausting photographs, senseless content screenshots, or what you had for lunch today, the chances are that numerous individuals would prefer not to see that on their Instagram homepage. Erase your old photographs in the event that you need to, and recollect that quality is more essential than amount.

Investing energy to enhance your iPhone photographs will unquestionably pay off when you attempt to acquire supporters on Instagram.

Tip 7: Leverage Your Existing Channels

Alt-text: promote instagram professional account

At the point when your Instagram profile at last looks incredible, take the opportunity to tell the world about it, and the least demanding approach to begin is to influence your current channels and stages. On the off chance that you go to instagram.com/username you will get an immediate connection to your Instagram profile, which you can then share on Facebook, Twitter, your web journal and different channels you may have.

Tip 8: Post At The Right Time

You can likewise approach your E-mail contacts and send a brisk email telling individuals that you have needed Instagram, clarifying what sort of photographs you are going to post and when, and requesting that individuals follow you in the event that they are intrigued. Contingent upon the measure of your system, this is an awesome approach to pick up your initial 50 to 100 Instagram supporters.

Tip 9: Get In Touch With Other Instagram Users

After individuals from your current system are now following you, take the opportunity to connect with more individuals who will possibly be occupied with seeing your photographs. Disregard posting a hundred hashtags, requesting shoutouts, exchanging preferences for preferences or takes after for takes after. None of that works. I got a shoutout from a record with 150K followers and it just got me around 10 new followers.

Tip 10: There Are “Right” Words

The most ideal approach to stand out enough to be noticed on Instagram is to leave a decent and mindful remark on one of your photographs. Do not simply say “decent” or “incredible photograph”, say something insightful or clarify why you like that photograph. When you leave a remark like that, that individual will more often than not be upbeat to likewise look at your photographs and possibly follow you.

Tip 11: Get Featured

Alt-text: how to get featured on instagram

Never ask individuals you do not know to follow you. That way you can just disturb them. Be that as it may, on the off chance that you leave a pleasant and insightful remark around one of their photographs – and if your Instagram food looks awesome – a lot of them will be glad to follow you back.

Tip 12: Use Popular And Relevant Hashtags

Alt-text: instagram hashtags

In the first place, you would prefer not to do that from a cell phone. You can leave great remarks such a great amount quicker from a PC. Go to IconoSquare, sign in with your Instagram account, scan for a hashtag that identifies with the center of your Instagram account, and leave remarks at whatever point you have something to say in regards to the photographs that show up in that hashtag.

In the event that you post photographs of autos, quest for hashtags like #Cars, #SportsCars and #BMW as individuals who utilize those hashtags are more prone to take after a record about autos.

Tip 13: Keep In Mind Why You Are On Instagram

Alt-text: downloading instagram app on mobile

You ought to just remark on photographs that were posted inside of the most recent day or two, and that have under 5 remarks. In the event that there are 50 different remarks as of now, the chances are that no one will see your remark. This technique may appear like a considerable measure of work, however, it would not take you long to leave attentive remarks on IconoSquare.

Tip 14: Post Frequently, But Not Too Much

Not at all like the trick systems that a few individuals choose to pick up followers on Instagram, this strategy will just get you genuine followers who really need to see your photographs and who will keep on captivating with them after some time.

Tip 15: Keep Your Followers Engaged

There is no reason for making an account on Instagram unless you keep your supporters connected with, and the most vital thing you can do is post fantastic photographs all the time. You ought to attempt to post consistently, additionally recollect that quality dependably beats amount.

Tip 16: No Filter Is The Best Filter

Alt-text: nofilter-instagram-frame

Then again, on the off chance that you post various photographs without a moment’s delay, there is a decent risk that you will irritate some of your followers who will unfollow you on the grounds that they would prefer not to see such a variety of photographs from you with so many filters. To verify that does not happen, you ought to spread out your posts equitably and never post more than one photograph inside of a six hour period using not-to-many filters.

Tip 17: Follow Others

After you have enough followers, start following them. This will give your followers an impression that you are even interested in their pictures. Like back for a like. Follow back for follow!

Tip 18: Have A Shtick

Truly effective Instagram accounts have a tendency to stick to a topic: a planner who posts in the background looks into the style business; a sustenance craftsman who does astonishing things with rice and string beans; a world voyager with a whirlwind of previews from Paris, Portugal and Peru; a tricky celebrity over the top; and, obviously, a plenitude of adorable puppies and little cats.

Tip 19: Stick To A Schedule

Alt-text: follow a schedule to post on instagram

It is imperative that your supporters know when to expect another picture. “In case it will be day by day, you need to post day by day,” Dasher told The Huffington Post. “Your gathering of people will expect that cadence.”

Tip 20: Host Contests

Lee likewise adheres to a day by day plan holding contests for followers. “On the off chance that I upgrade my account once per week or an excess of at once then vanish for quite a long time, it is impossible that I can fabricate a devoted following,” she told Huffington Post in an email.

Tip 21: Do Not Be Boring

On the off chance that individuals are going to your account for photographs of your frowny-confronted little cat, you most likely would prefer not to toss in a photo of your morning soy latte. Yet, giving the individuals what they need does not need to mean posting the same photographs of nightfalls and cityscapes again and again and over.

Tip 22: Complete Your Biography

Alt-text: Neil Patel Instagram Bio

“The most exceedingly terrible thing for me is to take a gander at my own food and be exhausted,” said Ketron. “I realize what kind of photograph is going to get more likes, yet despite everything I do my best to make presents that I need to see and offer. I like symmetry, I like lines, I like structures. Be that as it may, I do not care if I do not shoot scenes or pictures too.”

Tip 23: Fine, You Can Use A Bunch Of Hashtags

It is simple for a themed Instagram account to become dreary, yet being a travel picture taker implies that you dependably have something new and diverse to share – and that is the thing that a group of people needs. Considerably, use a bunch of hashtags with a couple fan workmanship photographs.

Tip 24: Use Interesting Hashtags

Alt-text: using interesting Instagram hashtags

Hashtags are seen as a definitive approach to get more eyeballs on your post, however, they do not essentially hold individuals returning for additional. Our Instagram specialists have a tendency to shun regular hashtags like #dog or #love, on the grounds that, as Ketron called attention to, “In case I am going to post a photograph of a bicycle, why might I hashtag it #bicycle? There are actually a huge number of photographs with that hashtag.”

Tip 25: Interact With Your Audience

Regardless of the possibility that you are not a slave to the omnipotent “like,” you ought to fare there well to recognize your gathering of people somehow. “I’m deliberate about reacting [to commenters], despite the fact that I am not ready to react to everyone,” Dasher said. “I need them to realize that I welcome them.”

What number of followers do you have on Instagram? What is the best strategy you have used to pull in followers? Do you follow back? Tell us in the comments!

Happy Instagramming, everyone!

about pinterest

Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest!

by BusinessSocial MediaTechnology

I created my first Pinterest account in the later days of July. To be honest, I didn’t even know pinterest was undergoing any changes. I was just going with the flow and doing what I thought was acceptable. Soon enough, I was having loads of problems, from account suspensions to blockings and low impressions, I knew I had to do more intensive research. Through this research, I came across some really helpful answers which I have compiled into a blog post.

Pinterest has undergone numerous changes throughout the years and it sometimes gets hard to keep up with all the demanding changes! For this reason, I made a simple to read and understand guide on the do’s and don’ts of new pinterest.

Why are your impressions dropping on Pinterest?

Alt-text: how to fix reducing impressions in pinterest

Pinterest impressions are a metric used by Pinterest to calculate how many views your pins are getting. They are also used to determine which groups of people relate to your pins the most and which seasons your pins do well in. Due to recent changes, people are experiencing dropping impressions, so below is the reason for this:

According to an email received from pinterest themselves, the reason most of our impressions are falling is not because we are being penalized! In the letter pinterest suggested that the impressions of pins may differ from time to time depending on the season or importance.

Also read 5 Best Infographics Maker Tools.

Alt-text: email about pinterest reducing impressions

 

De-indexed Pinterest Accounts:

Other unlikely possibilities may be that your pins have been deindexed! Interesting right? De-indexed pins simply mean that Pinterest has flagged your account as being really spammy and the penalty is more dangerous than it actually seems!

De-indexing behaves as if blocking and suspension had a very subtle pin killing baby! You lose all your impressions very quickly and they remain very low as they are only seen by your followers! If nothing is done quickly, your pins are automatically removed from pinterest!

How to know if you are being de-indexed on Pinterest?

De-indexing, as I said earlier, is very subtle and easy to miss. To find out if you are a victim, intentionally look for your pins in the my pins section in the search bar. Try almost all keywords you have used as well. If you notice any missing pins, contact pinterest and hope they reply!

With the amount of emails they are receiving from frustrated pinners it won’t be surprising if you get a reply next year! Happy Christmas though!!

Pinterest tips to keep your impressions up:

Alt-text: tips to get more traffic on  pinterest

One thing I want to tell you about Pinterest is that it has undergone a lot of changes within this year and many people, like me, didn’t get that memo earlier on which has affected us drastically. Luckily, these tips I came across are not too hard to implement. After a lot of reading and watching, here is a more detailed and helpful analysis and overview of the new recommended practices for pinterest success.

1. Think like your readers:

I know the title sounds a bit bland but just read this. With the recent increase in the number of monthly pinterest users and new accounts, pinterest is now shifting their focus on their average pinners who are looking for something to engage with. For bloggers and other content creators who use pinterest as a major source of traffic, the average pinner here is your follower! So the more people (followers) engage with your pin the more your pins get distributed. They want people to be presented with informative, actionable and helpful pins that they actually want to see.

All this is an attempt to increase the average user’s experience and keep them coming back for more. Remember, they have tight competition with other large companies  as well (Google, Facebook and YouTube) so if this is what they have to do to earn more and keep users from going to these other sources for what they can also provide, then they will do it. They are not giving much chance to pins that no one actually cares about so don’t waste your time as well.

BEFORE YOU CREATE A POST OR PIN FOR PINTEREST, KINDLY ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS:

~ Who are the readers/customers i am targeting and what do i want to achieve with this pin?

~ Is it attractive, encouraging, informative, actionable or bananas?

~ Will pinterest appreciate this pin? Will my followers and board followers want or need this pin?

If you are able to answer these simply then you are through with the first stage of pinterest pin success.

2. The more relevant it is to your followers the better:

Pinterest came out with some quite disturbing news this year which is really rocking the boats of new and relatively small accounts. This site that used to not place a teaspoon of importance on followers is now placing a full barrel. It was announced that, from whenever they decided, every fresh pin you post would automatically be shown to your followers first. The rate at which your followers engage with that pin would also determine the distribution you can get.

This simply means if your followers don’t like it then they are not going to invest as much impressions into it. This rule is practiced not only by Pinterest. On YouTube for example, the first people that know of the existence of your newly released video are your subscribers and they are used as a pre-test (if that is a word) to see how other people will react to your post.

TO EASILY PUT THIS TIP TO USE, ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS:

~ What has worked for my followers before and what is working now?

~ What are other pinners in my niche doing or trying?

~ How are new pinners in my niche fairing and what can I learn from them?

3. New pinterest is all about new/fresh pins:

Alt-text: fresh pins on Pinterest

Take this into consideration!

As this email emphasizes, pinterest is now placing more importance on what they now call fresh pins! To be honest I was a bit confused at first and really horrified as well. But as I did more research it wasn’t as scary as it seemed any more!

Pinterest is increasingly prioritizing fresh content for distribution as today’s Pinners respond most strongly to fresh content. Pinterest’s algorithm favors content that’s relevant and timely, so creating more fresh Pins means more exposure for you to your followers, in users’ home feeds, and in search results — helping you to maximize your reach and traffic potential on Pinterest. 

What are fresh pins in a nutshell?

Fresh pins basically mean a new image or video that leads to a newly published post or url that isn’t already on pinterest. Also, and gratefully, fresh pins can also be new images or videos for old urls that are performing well. New URLs here mean blog posts or products that do not have a pin already linking back to it. Old URLs in this context means blog posts or products that have a pin already linking to it.

YOU MIGHT CONSIDER CREATING FRESH PINS FOR:

~ Old pins that have been performing really well.

~ High quality landing pages and email forms.

How to keep on creating more fresh pins:

Personally, the first thing I do is read through my finished blog post and look for recurring words and sentences. After doing this, I go onto Google and Pinterest and sometimes YouTube and search for those keywords and see what images show up. I look for inspiration from these images and go onto canva.com, my favourite tool, and start my creation process. With every pin, I make sure to elaborate some popular keywords I found in my searches.

Since these pins are being created for pinterest, i make sure and i also recommend that these special keywords are placed in strategic points (middle or upper part of the pin) to ensure that they are viewable by the visual searcher on pinterest. This will ensure that your pins are found in the related section below the pin or visual search results section.

●You can also include quotes, tips or titles from the blog post when creating the pin.

What pinterest considers a fresh pin and what they don’t:

For a pin to be considered as fresh on pinterest, it must check most of these requirements:

1. It must have a good stock image.

2. The templates must be different from other previously published pins leading to that url. You can find easy to customize templates on Canva!

3. Different colour combinations and illustrations that give off a different effect.

4. Different font, text and text positions

Alt-text: 10 things I wish I knew about pinterest earlie

Alt-text: 10 things to know about pinterest before starting

Below are characteristics of so called “fresh pins” that won’t make the cut:

1. Slightly shifting the image to the left or right without any other major changes.

2. Moving texts up, down, left or right and passing it as a new pin.

3. Using the same pin but pinning to a different board with a different title or descriptions.

4. The quality of your pin is much more important than the quantity:

Pinterest has now decided to place more importance on the quality of your pin. What then do they mean by the quality of a pin? This simply means, if you can’t provide pinterest with good and necessarily fresh then don’t pin as much as you used to. It is that simple right. By reducing the number of pins you publish daily to personal, fresh and diverse pins only, you increase the distribution of your pins which leads to more traffic!

For your pins to be considered as quality pins they must be fresh. This however doesn’t mean throw up some horrible mess and call it a pin. This rule also reduces the effectiveness of Duplicate and Stolen Pins.

What are Duplicate and Stolen pins ?

Duplicate pins are pins that have been shared by a pinner to so many boards usually under a very short period of time. Pinterest has been requesting for more fresh pins so if you go around re-pinning the same old pins then you’ll get less distribution.

Stolen pins, however, are pins that are published on pinterest with the same design, lettering, fonts and colour combinations. These pins usually have the text and text layout to be the difference. This mostly results when people purchase or use a template and make no other changes or tweaks to the pin. Similar pins that lead to a similar content on different blogs may also be considered stolen pins. This usually occurs when people download already pinned images and reuse them for their blog posts.

HERE ARE TYPICAL EXAMPLES:

Alt-text: example of a duplicate or stolen pin

Alt-text: example of a duplicate pin on Pinterest

This is real though!!

Pinterest is making more attempts to punish lazy pinterest creators with these new rules and promote more diversity for the average pinner. If you need more help in creating pins in general or on Canva then sign up to my email list.

 

5. Pinterest favours video pins and story pins:

Pinterest is now investing more in story pins and video pins. Mainly because they are more attractive and fun to watch. You can also see the rise in popularity of tik tok styled videos as a sign that you need to level up.

Tik tok styled videos have been popularised and i believe that soon enough Pinterest is going to release features similar to that just like Instagram has done with the reels. With this in mind, adding video pins to your pinterest strategy is the best move to make. I easily create video pins like the one below by using Canva.

Still struggling with creating attractive and interesting video pins for pinterest? Simply join my Make Canva Easy Email list to get the inside scoop on how to create click-worthy designs that drive traffic.  You’ll also be treated to some tips and tricks used by some of the best bloggers around.

What are story pins?

Pinterest Story pins are ways through which pinterest users can share their ideas and pins simply. Although it has different characteristics, story pins can be described as the pinterest versions of status (WhatsApp) and stories or highlights (Instagram). Your pinterest story is whatever you want it to be. Be it book lists, ingredients, supplies or product lists. With a Pinterest Business account, you can use story pins to record videos, create lists, add images and most importantly grow your followers!

To get access to story pins, you must request for early access from pinterest.

Pinterest allows a maximum of 20 pages and a minimum of 2 pages for every story you create and it is advisable to make stories at least 5-8 pages long. This ensures that your story is long enough to convey your message yet short enough to keep people intrigued.

6. Pin and Repin the right way:

Alt-text: right way to pin on Pinterest

PIN ME!!

I have gone on and on about fresh pins in the posts above but to be honest, none of it would matter if you are not pinning the right way! My pinterest journey has been rough since the very beginning, in order to cope and get ahead I had to avoid some tips and remind myself of so many facts.

Below are the best and most recommended practices for pinners you should definitely try from now onwards:

Best pinning practices for a new url:

1. Create at least 3-6 new/fresh pins for a new url you are publishing on pinterest.

2. Do your seo research and select at least one keyword you want each different pin to rank for. Allowing each pin to rank for a different search result will increase your chances of getting more traffic and site visitors.

*I will recommend pinning every pin with a new title and pin descriptions to help it rank for different keywords.

3. Ensure that every pin is different from your other pins to create a more interesting and diverse account.

Best pinning practices for old urls:

1. Do not pin old images with a different title or pin descriptions (that is still not a fresh pin, it is a duplicate.)

2. Create at least 2 fresh pins each month for pins that perform really well.

3. Do not attempt to create a redirect to old posts in the name of making fresh pins as it is considered spammy and your pin will lose impressions.

Right pinning practices concerning boards:

1. Pin each pin to at least 8 – 10 of your most relevant boards first. Pin to the boards with the closest connection to the keyword you want to rank for.

2. When pinning manually, do not pin from one board to another directly on pinterest, you need to re-upload the pin in order to pin to different boards. To simplify this simply, I recommend using an automaton like Tailwind or Ninja Pinner.

3. Do not schedule to re-pin a duplicate pin to a different board on the same day. The recommended space to be given while pinning a duplicate pin is 24 – 48 hours.

4. Pin at least one fresh pin to one board each day.

5. The recommended amount of pins to post each day is 50 pins and the majority of those pins should be from your personal blog or your own content.

6. Always pin to personal boards first before pinning to other relevant group boards.

Using automatons to get the best out of pinterest:

If you have been on pinterest for a while then you have probably heard of automatons like Tailwind, Ninja pinner, Viralwoot, sprout social and hootsuite. What these technological helpers do is to help pinners keep up with their pinning schedule without any struggles. You can use these tools if you have a busy schedule or you just feel really lazy. I use tailwind to stay up to date with my pinterest strategy and it has helped a lot over these few months. It has tons of tools I adore like the smart guide, tailwind tribes and the analytics.

How I use tailwind smart guide to assist me while pinning:

Tailwind SmartGuide is a set of rules that helps tailwind users make the right pinning choices and decisions to gain maximum benefits while on pinterest.

Alt-text: Tailwind SmartGuide about Pinterest

This super tool aids in reminding you to create fresh content, helps you avoid spammy practices and flagging you when you are making risky account decisions. The Tailwind SmartGuide is in response to Pinterest’s new best practices for users. The tailwind SmartGuide will also suggest easy fixes to help you maintain a healthy queue of scheduled Pins. If you’re scheduling a healthy volume of pins and sticking to the latest Pinterest guidelines then you will see the All Clear SmartGuide badge.

Common pinterest questions many people have:

Alt-text: common questions about Pinterest with their answers

PIN ME!!

Below are answers to the most common questions that are being asked by pinners. Hopefully my answer will help out a lot of pinners who are not sure what to do with pinterest anymore.

Q: What is happening with pinterest and will pinterest still be helpful to bloggers and sellers? Should we be worried?

I dare say pinterest will continue to work the same for a long time with or without constant algorithm change. Mostly, I tend to think of all of this as a way through which Pinterest discovers itself and it’s potential for both the users and its owners. What most bloggers and sellers fear the most is that they may not have the capacity to create new blog posts, products or ideas through which they can market their work. Pinterest, like any other, is run like a business. And like a business their main goal is to serve and earn as well, and these two go hand in hand.

What is presently happening is like a test to see how people will react to their changes. If the response is positive then it will remain but if negative then there will be a switch up. There have been many examples of these on pinterest, Like the hashtags.

If the response of the majority is good then you’ll have to do the switch up and do your research or else pinterest won’t work for your blog or your product like you want it to. I believe no matter the circumstances there should be no need to worry at all.

Q: What happens when you are trying to change the content to write about?

With the recent change in emphasis of a person’s following, people trying to change or branch into other niches (like myself) may not appreciate it at all. But just like with every situation there is always light at the end of the, seemingly long, tunnel. With the majority of my followers interested in book reviews and book lists and all my boards focusing on books, it was a bit tricky so I found a new way.

With every new, I made it a point to make it related to my followers and group boards followers. For example, I made a post on Ten things I wish everyone knew about pinterest and in order to attract my followers and have my pin accepted to the group board, i created a pin with the title, Ten things i wish book bloggers knew about pinterest. By finding a link between my new content and my followers I killed three birds with only one stone!

Q: Do group boards and tailwind tribes still matter?

Group boards have played a crucial role in the success of my pins today. It has helped me make friends on pinterest who share and support my work while helping me get my content to a wider audience. Although group boards are sometimes misused, I still believe it should be included in your pinterest strategy. If you follow my rules on pinning to boards, you can make the best out of your group board.

Tailwind tribes on the other hand somehow act like Pinterest group boards. If the person re-pinning your pin follows the correct pinning practices then you both get to benefit from tailwind! Tailwind tribes also help to drive traffic to content even without getting re-shares. This is because tailwind members can visit your content directly from the site!

Q: What happens if you have no or little followers? How do I build my followers quickly?

Pinterest success is generally slow but luckily, followers are not used to measure the success of a user. To simply get followers you can use Media Mister but I recommend using the old methods, that is, pinning, joining group boards and following people you love.

Q:  Pinterest wants story pins but what happens if it isn’t available in your country?

Story pins are a work in progress and Pinterest wants to ensure that it can provide maximum benefits to its users before they make it available to everyone. It really doesn’t impact you negatively if you don’t have them but while waiting for pinterest to make it available to everyone, i suggest creating more posts and pins and improving your pinterest marketing strategy.

Q: How should I brand my pins if all of them have to be different?

Remember, branding doesn’t necessarily mean publishing the same pins over and over again with different texts. Just because other bigger sites do this doesn’t make it right. Pinterest is changing fast and in order to stay ahead, it’s better to take their directives. In order to still brand your pins on pinterest, you can include your logo at the top, middle or bottom centre of your pin where the visual search can find it. In this way, other pins with your logo will appear!

You can simply upload your logo and add them to every pin you create using canva! Try out Canva Pro Today!!

Q: How many pins should I create and how many boards should I pin each to and at what intervals?

For every post or content, I recommend creating a maximum of seven pins with different keywords. Pin to your personal board first and make sure the keyword is related to that board and pin each pin to a maximum of ten boards. For every particular pin, a twenty four hour interval should be observed before pinning that same pin to a different board.

Q: Do I have to pin at specific times?

No, you don’t. This advice is very shallow and really not helpful at all. You can pin at any time you want as long as you observe the right pinning practices.

Q: Should I delete under performing pins to increase my monthly viewers?

I don’t think that would be necessary. Some pins take a maximum of a year to obtain its maximum views and deleting them will make it impossible. Instead of deleting such pins, I will advise you to create more visually appealing pins to balance it out. In doing so, you make Pinterest happy!

Q: How do I get my content across to people who don’t follow me?

Tailwind Tribes can help you get your content out to different people who don’t follow you, that is, if your pin is re-shared. Group boards are also great for reaching new audiences.

Q: Why are my old pins performing better than my new ones?

Your old pins are probably performing way better because you followed the right pinning practices during the time it was published and so Pinterest is rewarding you for that. Your new pins are doing much worse because you are still following the old pinning practices you used and that is not going to end well for you.

Another reason may be because your old pin is more informative or beneficial to users and your new ones are not. Or your pins are not as attractive as your old pins and for that reason there are low engagements.

Q: Does pinterest hate me and my content?

Most probably not. They just reward people who follow their rules so you should probably do that.

Q: Why do my pins have 1000 impressions one day and 0 the next day?

Pinterest impressions are constantly refreshed so your pin may have 2000 impressions on some days and the next time you check it is at 0.

Q: I just started blogging and I already feel like giving up because my main source of traffic is tanking. What should I do?

Most new bloggers make the mistake of placing all their eggs in only one basket so when they all get broken, they start to lose hope. There are tons of other apps or networks you can use to promote your content so don’t stick with only one! Sign Up to my newsletter to find out the best sites to promote your work!

Q: I create fresh pins (new url+ new images) . I even rank well in the searches but my impressions are still low. Any reasons why?

You may rank for something but if it isn’t being searched for then you won’t get any traffic. As i said earlier, Fresh pins don’t necessarily mean throwing together a bunch of ugly images and text, pinterest won’t reward you for that. So you may create fresh pins but if it isn’t beautiful and of great quality you still get no points.

Also, if you create tons of fresh pins but don’t pin them correctly, it negatively affects those pins.

Q: I sell products through pinterest so how can i keep my pins fresh without creating new urls or blog posts?

Fresh pins doesn’t necessarily mean a new url. You can create multiple beautiful pins for the same url to keep it fresh.

how-to-publish-the-articles-frequently

9 Steps to Publish Articles Frequently To Drive More Traffic

by BusinessDigital MarketingTechnology

The next big thing you would be struggling with starting a blog is to publish articles consistently.

I have seen many bloggers not being consistent with blog posting and waiting for a miracle to happen and boost site traffic. If you are not consistently publishing articles, there are a few chances of building your audience and ranking on search results. And there are some people who publish content every day without knowing the tricks of getting more visitors.

There are a lot of things you need to do, and I have listed them below to make your content creation process easier.  You might be familiar with a few of the things but I am sure, you are still unaware of the gems.  

1. Coming up with content ideas

Alt-text: explore-the-trend-on-the-internet-to-get-the-latest-content-ideas

Your content idea is the first thing you need to care about to publish articles frequently. You should be aware of what your audience is searching for and how you are going to solve their problem.

Once you know the niche you are writing about, you can search for where the audience exists on the web.

Quora: Quora is the biggest online community where you find the best answers to any question. Find out what people are asking and how you are going to write content around the topics.

Google trends: See the latest trends and the most popular search terms on google. The graph is the most important thing to see as it shows the popularity of the topic by time.

Buzzsumo: Search for the top content in your niche that is being shared most on social media. This will give you an idea of popular topics that actually work.

In the same way, you can look for other communities and forums where your audience exists for coming up with content ideas.

2. Keyword research

Alt-text: keyword-research-is-a-crucial-step-to-make-a-blog-popular

Keyword research is the most important step you should never miss if you want to publish articles that more and more people are searching for. Once you get the topic idea, you should then search for how people will actually find your content. You should be thinking of the terms people will search to discover your content.

Brainstorming: Think about the terms that people will look up for and jot them down in an excel sheet. Don’t just think about the exact words but go for long-tail keywords.

Semrush: Once you complete the brainstorming process, enter each word on this tool and check for the number of searches. I personally use this tool as it gives the related keywords and the content that is already ranking.

If your site is new, it’s a bit difficult to compete with high-volume keywords. A good option is to look for low-volume and long-tail keywords. Choose less competitive keywords and add more related keywords that you think fit best for your content.

Keyword planner: Keyword planner is another popular tool to see the search volume for different keywords. Enter the keywords from your excel sheet and look for which keyword is being searched the most.

Once you have analyzed all the keywords, choose the keyword you think is the best fit. If you still have doubts about selecting the right keywords, I suggest you go through the keyword research process.

3. Writing an attractive title

Coming up with a great title takes equal time to spend time writing the whole content. You should not take this lightly. After spending enough time and still not getting a good title, use the below tools to Analytics Help to publish articles with an attractive and catchy title.

  1. Portent content idea generator
  2. Awesome title generator
  3. Tweak your biz title generator
  4. SemRush Title Generator

Here is an alternative way to come up with effective article topics.

4. Choosing a header image

Alt-text: a-good-header-image-increases-ctr

You all would agree with the fact that choosing a great header image really works if your title isn’t strong enough. Title and header image are the only things people see when you share content on social media. So, always try to create a header image that attracts attention and compels people to click.

5. Go through the Grammar checker

Once you are done with writing, make sure your content isn’t full of grammatical errors. Nobody would like to read your content even if it is full of jewels.

Grammarly: Download this tool on your PC and make a habit of checking grammar before publishing your content.

6. Optimize the images before you upload

Alt-text: compress-the-images-in-the-blog-to-optimize-the-content

Nobody likes to wait for your content to load. Before you publish articles on your website, the best practice is to optimize your images before uploading them to the server. This reduces the size of your images and loads pages faster. Below are the two best tools you need to bookmark for your future use.

  1. Compressor.io
  2. Tinypng.com

For large size header images, I suggest you compress with compressior.io first and then with tinypng. For any other image, just go with compressor.io.

Use copyright-free images while creating your article. There are lots of free and paid copyright-free images tools available. Here is the best copyright-free images site list you can check.

7. Optimize your content (On-site optimization)

When your draft is ready, don’t just hit the publish button. The important thing is to optimize your content for search results. Make sure to add the keyword in your title, URL, and the first 100 words of your article. If you are running a WordPress site, I suggest you use the Yoast plugin.  

8. Promote your content

Alt-text: promote-your-articles-through-social-media

Once you hit the publish button, don’t just close your laptop. This is the time to apply the 80/20 rule to your content creation and promotion strategies.

Buffer: Save time by using a buffer. This is very useful for scheduling and promoting your content to multiple platforms simultaneously.

9. Measure the results

Alt-text: measuring-the-results-of-blog-performance

Now it’s time to see the results. Which is the most popular content and where in the world your targeted audience exists.

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is one of the best tools to analyze your site traffic. Using this tool, you can see the top content on your site, your website’s daily visitors, audience location, and much more.

Conclusion

So far you have come to know that creating content does need great effort and time. But by using the tools I mentioned above can make your life easier and save time to generate more content.

If you have read up to this point, allow me to say thanks and comment below with your favorite tools which you think I have missed.

learn-proper-and-effective-ways-for-managing-phone-calls-for-smes

Proper and Effective Ways For Managing Phone Calls For SMEs

by BusinessTechnology

A business receives so many calls every day. Almost all the inbound calls are very important. To increase the efficiency and growth of  your business, you should follow proper and effective ways for managing phone calls.

It cuts down on the amount of time you need to spend actually speaking on the phone. This time management principle can be applied to incoming phone calls without being rude to your customers, or making them feel unimportant.

Use a Business Greeting

use-business-greetings-on-phone-calls

First and foremost, you want the caller to know exactly who they have called, and immediately move onto the purpose of the call. The caller will know why they are calling, but if there is any doubt in their mind who they’ve just called, they may seek clarification and waste time. It’s important to move the phone call along as quickly as possible. 

Also read Best Top 10 Android Apps Must To Know.

Consider Follow-Up Calls as a Quick Solution

making-a-follow-up-call-to-a-customer

As the caller launches their query, you can assess if the query is something that can be dealt with immediately, or may require some investigation, and therefore would be best suited to a follow-up call later in order to save time. If it is something that can be dealt with on the spot, then no need to refer the caller to any further action, but if you think it is something that may take a little time, then it may be better to assure the caller that their query will be dealt with, and arrange a suitable time to call them back. 

Also, read Reasons To Opt For Lifeline Free Phone Program.

Keep the Call on Track

talking-with-a-customer-on-call

Often, callers have an idea about the query they are calling for, but are not specific in the questions they need to be asking. This can cause delays in getting to the root of the problem. In such a case, you should use summaries as way markers for managing phone calls and speed up the process along.

For example, “so what you’re saying is…”, and also pick out anything which you feel is straying from the main point, e.g. “I think that may be a separate issue”, or “could we just deal with the first point first”, and so on. The caller is likely to appreciate being guided through their inquiry. 

Close the Call Effectively

closing-the-call-with-greetings

In order for the call to end, it is the receiver’s role to close it off. This can be done by providing a brief summary of all that was discussed, followed by a reminder of the actions that you will take, also including anything they agreed on that they need to do. If you need to hurry the call along because you need to be getting on with other tasks, then this is a really good way of closing down the conversation and ending the call, rather than leaving it open and more flow of dialogue eating into your time. 

Always Ensure There is Someone Dealing With the Phone Calls

business-representative-dealing-with-a-customer-on-phone-call

It may be tempting to have a voicemail machine collect messages, or just as bad in our book is an automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, since customers are proven to not like it either at the end of their phone call. If you’re struggling to cope answering calls alone and there is no one else inside your business that can help, then you should outsource this side of your business to professional providers, such as Reception HQ USA call answering service. They’ll be able to help you increase productivity, and the small cost is likely to be offset in greater sales volumes.

Time management for SMEs can be difficult, so it’s useful to use effective ways for managing phone calls, or another solution might be to have a professional answering or reception service take the calls for you.

: an-entrepreneur-needs-to-seek-outside-help

5 REASONS AN ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO HIRE OUTSIDE HELP

by BusinessOther

Most entrepreneurs work from home and by themselves when they’re starting out. Being an entrepreneur is more than a 40-hour-per-week job. Sometimes, you need help with your work, but you don’t want to hire someone full time. Instead of trying to handle everything in your business by yourself, the following five reasons may convince you to let go and hire some outside help.

To Deal With Finances

deal-with-finances-to-analyze-business-growth

As an entrepreneur, giving up any amount of control in your business can be hard. Preparing business taxes is often one of the first tasks entrepreneurs subcontract because tax preparation can be a time-consuming task, with processing payroll being another time-involved chore.

You should hire outside help to take care of finances because the support will ease stress and help you focus on improving your products and services. Hiring a business coach can also help you learn where to focus your attention.

To Help With Periods of Heavy Sales

an-entrepreneur-monitoring-sales-of-is-business

Most businesses experience fluctuations in sales throughout the year. This scenario is especially true when selling seasonal products and services. When your business enters a period of heavy sales, hiring outside help to handle the transactions is a lifesaver, especially if you get extra customer service help, shipping and handling labor, or an account executive who handles sales.

As an entrepreneur, consider turning to a temp agency to help you fill temporary roles in your company.

To Increase Your Website Traffic

increase-your-website-traffic-to-boost-your-sales

Website marketing is another area where entrepreneurs can hire outside help. Page rank success is not something you can attain overnight, and you have much to learn. Networking system also helps to your business here you can learn how to build your networking strategy.

Instead of trying to expand your business and learn SEO overnight, hire a professional to handle your website marketing so that you can focus on business operations. You can find businesses that can help you improve the design treatment of your website, increase your website traffic, handle content marketing, monitor your analytics, and improve your site’s SEO rankings.

To Handle Marketing and Advertising

marketers-handle-marketing-and-advertising-of-the-business

Every entrepreneur starting out knows that you can’t grow a business without focusing some attention on marketing and advertising. Here is where outside help is useful. You can hire someone to analyze your audience and then create a marketing plan that will convert leads to sales. Marketing and advertising can involve areas ranging from television commercials and online ads to print media.

To Receive Customer Service Calls

employees-receive-customer-service-calls

As you gain more and more customers, your need for customer service representatives also grows. You never know when customers will call in with a question or complain about something with your products or services that dissatisfied them.

As an entrepreneur, you can’t be tied to your phone all day resolving customer issues. Instead, you can subcontract your customer service responsibilities if you hire outside help. You can find many businesses that specifically handle customer service for other companies.

When you reach a point in your business where you can’t do everything yourself, you’re on your way to success. Stop trying to control everything and consider hiring outside help for the tasks that tie you down. If you can’t hire full-time employees, look for business services and software that can help you fill some roles.

6-ways to cut your business stationery costs

6 Ways How You Can Cut Your Business Stationery Costs

by BusinessCommon QuestionsTips & Tricks

Who would have thought that humble stationery items could cost so much and do so much damage to bottom lines? Not many business owners, that’s for sure. stationery costs are insidious. The damage to your bottom line is usually done by a thousand tiny paper cuts if you’ll excuse the pun. And many small businesses can end up spending over £500 a year just on stationery. That seems like an awful lot when you consider just how much administration is now done online.

But here are a few pieces of advice by which you can cut your business stationery costs. Following are those cost-reducing strategies.

Cost-Reducing Strategies

Pick A Competitive Supplier

Stationery is still a necessity. But, if you want to cut your business stationery costs, then you don’t have to settle for any old stationery supplier. Be picky with your provider and haggle the best price if you can.

Don’t just be content with a supplier who can deliver some products cheaply, but puts a significant markup on others. And don’t be impressed by vendors who throw in free gifts. Usually, it means that their prices are higher than they could be. You can also check how to build your networking strategy.

Hire In Equipment When You Need It

how to cut your business stationery costs

Companies like Grangewell Management Ltd allow you to hire things like printers when you need them. This saves you a tonne of money on upfront printer costs for starters. But bigger printers are also a lot more cost-effective on a per unit basis than small inkjets. And much, much faster.

Have Company-wide Standard Products

Quickly identify which stationery products your company uses most often and stick to them. This should help to streamline processes and build familiarity in-house.

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Having a standard product list also prevents staff from ordering in more expensive, premium brands. Create a favorites list and tell staff to stick with that. If they need something special, they should run it by you first.

Consider Compatible Cartridges For Printers

compatible printer cartridges

When you bought your office printer, you probably spent a lot of money. But I bet that you were still surprised by how much you got for your money.

Part of the reason why you get so many printers for your money is that printer companies know they can make back the money with cartridges. It’s a quirk of the market which can end up costing your business an arm and a leg. That’s why it’s good to keep an open mind and consider third-party compatible cartridges. No, they won’t have the manufacturer’s seal of approval. But they’ll still work and they’ll be a lot cheaper than the conventional alternative. These tips also boost your Business leads at a low cost.

Appoint A Stationery Monitor

office stationery monitor

If you find that your staff is making reckless stationery purchases, appoint somebody to sign them off. A supervisor can act in the company’s best interest and ask staff why they’ve decided to spend company money in the way that they have. This will surely help you to cut your business stationery costs.

Take A Month Off Every Year

Some companies have a policy whereby each year they take a month off from stationery orders. Bosses are always amazed by how many sheets of paper and pens staff find lurking in their cabinets and drawers.