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- Jetpack: Bring WordPress.com Functionality to Your WordPress.org Blog
In the last week, Automatic (the team behind WordPress) released a nice little WordPress plugin bundle called Jetpack, which gives your self-hosted WordPress.org blog some of the functionality that was previously only available in the hosted WordPress.com-type blogs.This won’t appeal to all bloggers—especially not those who have been at it for a while and who have researched and installed a wide range of plugins to customize their blogs—but for some it’ll be a great addition to their WP.org blog.
Jetpack aims to give “feature parity” to both types of WordPress blogs, and includes the following features:
- WordPress.com Stats – a metrics tool
- Twitter Widget – display latest updates from Twitter
- Gravatar Hovercards – show pop-up business cards of users’ Gravatar profiles
- WP.me Shortlinks – a permalink shortening tool
- Sharedaddy – a sharing tool (shares to Twitter, Facebook etc.)
- LaTeX – mark up your posts with LaTeX markup language
- After the Deadline – adds spell, style, and grammar checking to WP
- Shortcode Embeds – embeds videos easily
Again, many of you will probably have other plugins that do some of this, but for those looking for an easy install to cover all of these plugins, Jetpackcould be a good option. It also looks like other plugins will be added soon.
Further reading: Read the Jetpack launch post.
Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
Jetpack: Bring WordPress.com Functionality to Your WordPress.org Blog
Переслать - Use a Facebook Campaign to Find New Fans
This guest post is by Matt Robison of Propdrop Web Development and Marketing.
In mid-April of 2010, I officially launched Pitbulls.org, a site for Pit Bull owners to connect with other owners and read accurate training and health information about their pets. At the same time it would help curb some of the myths out there about the breed, and promote rescue shelters in general. This was a cold launch with no prior promotion, and the blog started with only 20 articles.
By October 1st of 2010, after less than six months, the Pitbulls.org Facebook page had almost 40,000 Likes, and the site itself was ranking in the top three Google results for some of our main keywords.
I did no guest posting. I did close to zero link building. These more traditional, mainstay-type methods do work and they should always be part of your repertoire, but for this site I decided to go in a radical direction, ignoring the regular methods and seeing if it would pay off.
And it certainly paid off.
A steady stream of Facebook Likes
The initial key to everything rests in a Facebook ad that I ran sporadically from April to July. It was targeted at people in the US who had some mention of “pit bulls” in their Facebook profiles’ interest lists, and who had not already liked the page. Here is the ad:
Note that when I originally ran this ad, it had the old Facebook ad formatting, which had the image above the text instead of to the left of the text. Everything else is the same.
Three points to note about this ad, besides the targeting:
- The image used is also the main image for my Facebook page, establishing clear continuity.
- The ad asks a question, getting the user to say “yes” internally. Honestly, who would think that this dog is not cute?
- The ad contains a clear call to action: Become a Fan (when Facebook still used Fans, not Likes).
Most importantly, this ad did not link to my website. When someone clicked on this ad, it did not send them to Pitbulls.org. Rather, it sent them to the Pitbulls.org Facebook page.
Now this seems crazy. I’m paying Facebook to send traffic to Facebook. Imagine paying the girl behind the counter at your local coffee shop for a cappuccino, and instead of giving the cup to you, she drinks it herself.
But it turns out that people are much more likely to convert if the action you want them to take is within Facebook. And the action, in this case, was to Like my page.
I set the daily budget to $40.00, and sat back to see what would happen.
Here are the stats for the first day the ad ran:
The Actions column shows how many Likes I got directly from the ad: 247. But that day the site actually got 498 Likes. So friends of people who Liked our page from the ad were also Liking our page, doubling our result. This is the other reason you want your call to action to be inside Facebook: instant viral potential. And due to the high click through rate (CTR) of my ad, the cost-per-click (CPC) was very low.
The results just kept getting better and better. Here are the final lifetime stats for the ad:
Yes: 18,575 clicks. And at that time, over 28,000 Likes on the page. That is only 3.5 cents per Like. And the momentum we gathered was priceless. The site continued to gather Likes organically, and three months after I stopped running the ad, it passed the 40,000 mark.
One question you may ask: why didn’t I just up the daily budget, and get a lot of Likes in just a few days? Why just $40?
The answer is in the previous paragraph: I wanted to let the momentum play out as much as possible and in turn maximize the ROI of the ad. We received 18,575 clicks, but over 28,000 likes. There are almost 10,000 people who would never click on the ad—costing me money—but who still Liked the page.
Engaging new fans immediately
The ultimate goal of all of this is not just a Facebook Like. I wanted these people to go to my site, become engaged, and start building the community.
Most people recommend that you have a clear, customized landing area on your Facebook page with a strong call to action—especially if you’re spending money advertising it. See the ProBlogger Welcome tab on this site’s Facebook page for a good example. You will hear that it would just be a waste of money to send users straight to your wall. And generally, this is true—especially if your blog is already established.
But if you have a clear call to action on your wall, and interesting content, I find this approach works just as well, and flows more coherently into the natural way a person uses Facebook. One the same day I launched the ad, I also launched our first photo contest:
This got people visiting the site, registering for an account, and sharing their entries. The contest announcement remained on top for a couple of days, before I started posting links to other articles on the site. People continued to Like the page, and continued to visit the site. All in all, our first contest garnered 205 entrie—not bad for a first run.
Photo contests also have another added bonus: you get to post about the winner. And usually the winning picture garners even more Likes and interaction than the contest itself.
Action items
Pitbulls.org now has almost 12,000 registered users, and 10% of those have opted into our mailing list. All of this is a direct result of the initial Facebook ad campaign. Our Facebook page currently sits at over 47,000 Likes and delivers consistent referral traffic.
The site now also ranks very well for its targeted keywords, even though I have yet to do an organized link campaign. Nearly every link the site has acquired has been acquired organically. Again, this is a direct result of the Facebook campaign. Without it, Pitbulls.org would be nowhere near as popular as it is today.
A campaign like the one I have described here would be even easier today, as Facebook has just implemented full News Feed displays for content that’s Liked by a user. Back when I implemented this plan, you had to get someone to actively share or comment on a story to get it to show up in their News Feed. Now just a regular Like will do.
Facebook continues to make itself more and more useful for people who are trying to market their websites. You can ignore it only if you want to deliberately sabotage your efforts.
I would encourage you to try out a Facebook ad campaign targeted directly at your demographic. You don’t have to spend a lot. $100 should give you a pretty good idea of the potential in your niche. Just ensure that the ad has a low barrier to the call to action, and gets targeted people to say “yes” to themselves even before they click on the ad. Here are some quick examples to help get you started:
- Photography niche: use a picture of the latest, greatest camera, then begin your text with something like “Do you drool at the thought of owning this camera?”
- Food niche: Use a picture of a fantastic looking meal, then begin “Wish you could cook meals like this?” or “Does this food look tasty?”
- Political niche: Picture of Obama or George W. Bush, depending on who you want to target, then begin with “Does looking at this face make you physically ill?” Best for US audiences, of course.
Have you found Facebook to be a good source of traffic for your blog? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.
Matt Robison is a web architect and entrepreneur who offers services and blogs way too sporadically at Propdrop Web Development and Marketing. In addition to Pitbulls.org, he also owns and operates a site publishing in-depth LCD TV reviews and several other online properties.
Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
Use a Facebook Campaign to Find New Fans
Переслать - How to Create an Instant Yes
This guest post is by Goddess Leonie of GoddessGuidebook.com.
Over the last three years, I’ve launched fifteen rounds of ecourses, four meditation kits, and two workbooks. It’s been a delicious combination of spectacular, exciting, and exhausting.
The thing about my business is that I adore creating new products. I love love love helping people. I need to make it as profitable as possible so I can support my sweet family and keep doing this thing that I love. But, oh gosh, I was so, so tired of launching products endlessly to reach my income goals.
Is anyone else tired of the launch process? All that marketing. All the deadlines. All the talking about it. All the effort to try and get people to see the value in what you’ve produced, and say “yes” to it. The sales pages, the tweet campaigns, the sequence mailing list emails. How on Earth do we find the balance between making money and not overdosing the ones you love the most—your clients and yourself—on the thing you do?
I knew there had to be a better way. I’m kind of a renegade that way. And as these things happen, there was.
Now, full disclosure time here: I’m a hippy. I make a living being a Goddess. So it’s totally, totally normal for me to come up with business ideas and strategies in my dreams. Which, of course, the Instant Yes did.
One night in the moments between nursing my newborn daughter back to sleep, I dreamed a dream. I got told to offer all my ecourses, all my meditation kits, all my workbooks—everything I had created over three years, and everything I was going to create for the next year. And I got told how to price it: $99 for a year’s access to over $600 worth of my stuff.
When I asked why I needed to do all this, my dream elders just said:
You want people to say “yes.” Without hesitation. With tremendous ease. Just: “I see what you are offering. It will help me beyond any doubt. Yes.”
So I listened, and they were right. Over 500 Yeses later, my Instant Yes has become the linchpin and the perfect income source for my business.
There is tremendous power and beauty to the Instant Yes. It means crafting an offer that is as simple as saying “Oh heck yes!” to. Without hesitation. Without concern. Without needing to be pushed or launched or funneled or marketed. All I need to do is turn up. Write. Create. Do the things that I was born to do. And my clients turn up, and say “yes.”
How can you craft an Instant Yes in your business? There are three elements to an Instant Yes.
1. It’s inexpensive
My program is super-affordable. Something clients can easily say yes to. And those who can’t? I created monthly subscription payments using Paypal, and offered that too.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How can you make your offer affordable?
- What would they say yes to?
- How can you offer payment plans?
- How can you make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to say “yes?”
2. It’s generous
I wanted to be able to give my clients absoolutely everything I had that could help them. My program gives away not just everything I had created, but everything I was going to create as well. Wildly generous. Everything my goddesses could want, I’ve given to them. Easily, it’s a yes!
Questions to ask yourself:
- How much can you give your clients?
- Why not give it all away?
3. It’s wanted
I already knew my tribe wanted a permanent membership home. They were asking for it again and again. And I knew my products were popular and needed. I decided to combine the two and fill the need.
Questions to ask yourself:
- What do my people ask for?
- What would I want from me?
How can I make what I offer as Yes-able as possible?
In Twitter-speak, if you want an Instant Yes, make it:
Affordable. With payment plans. Be wildly generous. Give your people what they are asking for.
Thus, the Instant Yes. Personally, I think I’m starting a revolution. I wish more online businesses would do the same—offer everything they have for under $100. Launch less. Produce more. Market less. Let the clients flood in, and let their creativity out.
Have you offered your blog readers an Instant Yes? Let us know about it in the comments.
Goddess Leonie is the creator of the upcoming Business Goddess course and GoddessGuidebook.com, a popular creativity and spirituality blog for women.
Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
Переслать - Is Advertising Revenue Dead as a Blogging Income Stream?
Earlier in the week I observed a conversation between two Internet marketing bloggers on Twitter which grabbed my attention.
The topic of conversation? Monetizing blogs by selling advertising directly to advertisers.
Their conclusion on the topic? It’s a dead and obsolete method of making money.
It was a fascinating conversation to observe. They gave some solid-sounding reasons for their conclusions, including:
- There’s been a decrease in the budgets that companies are putting into marketing (due to the economy).
- There’s much more money to be made in selling your own products and services.
- Advertising, by its very nature, sends people away from your blog, to advertisers’ sites.
- Online banner ads don’t convert and just distract people from what you are on about.
- Selling ads directly to advertisers takes too much time and administration.
As I watched the conversation unfold I found myself agreeing with some of these points, however I also wondered if they might also be writing off an income stream that need not be mutually exclusive to other forms of income.
In my own experience of making money online, advertising has always been a part of my income mix. In the early days, it made up 95% of that mix (too much, to my mind), but even today it remains an important element for me. (Advertising made up around 24% of my income in December if you include direct ad sales and ad network income.)
Let me explain the reasons why I think it’s worthwhile to keep advertising in your mix.
The economy: rebounding more strongly for online advertising?
In talking to a number of bloggers who rely heavily upon advertising revenue, I would agree with the assessment that in many niches there seems to have been a contraction in the amounts companies are spending on their advertising. However I do know of bloggers who have seen an increase in spending in some niches.
Also, as we see the economy improve, I suspect we’ll see money return to advertising budgets—particularly in the online space. Companies are realizing the potential of online media to reach target audiences and get conversions. I suspect we’ll see online advertising bounce back bigger than it was before the Global Financial Crisis.
Your own products and services
I completely agree that bloggers should be looking at ways of developing their own products and services. I’ve written about how I’ve done this myself on numerous occasions over the couple of years, however I do think it’s possible to do this in conjunction with running advertisements on your blog.
In my own experience of blogging—particularly on Digital Photography School—I’ve found there’s a limit to how many of your own product/s you can promote on your blog.
While we sometimes talk about the “ad blindness” of readers to the advertising we run, I suspect the same can be said about blindness to your own products. If all you ever do is promote your own products, readers can switch off from those messages. Mixing things up with other people’s messages (whether they’re advertising or affiliate promotions) can actually keep things fresh (to some point).
Get creative with what you offer advertisers
I also think there’s a variety of other creative ways to weave advertising into what you do as a blogger—without just slapping banner ads everywhere. For example, a couple of things we’ve experimented with offering advertisers on dPS include:
- Sponsored competitions: here, an advertiser sponsors a competition on your blog. They provide a prize, you highlight their products, and you earn income for giving them that publicity
- Newsletter advertising: one of the surprises to me in the last year is that we’ve found advertisers willing to pay more for ads in our newsletters than for banner ads
- Sponsored content: by this I don’t mean that we sell space on our blog for companies to actually write their own content—or even for us to review their posts. Rather what we’re exploring with companies is to have them sponsor particular posts. For example, a company might sponsor a series of posts on a topic related to its industry. They’d have no influence on the actual content—they’d simply be mentioned in the intro to the post as the sponsor of that post.
The above options just scratch the surface of what can be offered to an advertiser—particularly as part of a bundle of sponsorship opportunities.
What I’ve found is that when an advertiser buys multiple points of presence on a blog, rather than just a CPM banner ad, they’re much more likely to get conversions, and renew as an ongoing advertiser.
Is advertising revenue still in your income mix?
I’d be interested to hear if ad revenue is a focus for you. Whether you’re using an ad network like AdSense, or you directly sell ads or sponsorships, do you focus upon it?
Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
Is Advertising Revenue Dead as a Blogging Income Stream?
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