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BY SONIA THOMPSON

Over the past year, a lot of brands have started to do a much better job when it comes to representation in their marketing. Whether it is in diversifying the speaker lineup at conferences or ensuring the visual imagery portrayed in ads and photography looks more like the people who are attending the conferences and or consuming the content, there is a noteworthy positive change.

For instance, a few months ago, I talked to the chief marketing officer of one brand whose team had even gone so far as to put clear metrics in place as to what representation should look like, by matching it to the latest population demographics of various groups from an ethnicity standpoint, and noting that negative stereotypes should be avoided.

Even though there is plenty of progress happening on the representation-in-marketing front, there are some common mistakes being made that prevent the brands creating them from getting the results they seek.

1. Including the token diverse person

When you’re looking through a conference lineup, and you see the same usual speakers and then one person who is part of an underrepresented group, it feels like the brand did it to check their “diversity and inclusion” box. As a consumer, it feels kind of insulting.

Same goes when you’re looking at the makeup of a brand’s internal team, and they’ve got one person who looks different from all the rest.

If you really want to signal to your customers that they belong with you, particularly your diverse and niche consumers, don’t make representation feel like an afterthought or something you have to do.

Instead, focus on diversifying your network and circle of influence so you’ve got plenty of diverse talent to feature for events and to work with on your team.

2. Thinking that photography is enough

I recently conducted a representation-in-marketing research study with more than 1,000 consumers. One thing that came through loud and clear was that consumers want more than just representative photography from a brand.

Your customers want features, storylines, and more in-depth content from people who look like them and have backgrounds similar to theirs.

That may mean featuring more diverse experts in your educational content, spotlighting the stories of your customers from a number of different backgrounds in your ads and social media content, or showcasing testimonials from your diverse and niche consumers on your sales pages.

Photos can be bought, but real stories and expertise from real people cannot.

If you want to make diverse and niche consumers feel like they belong with you, go deeper than the photos. David’s Bridal does a great job of this. They feature a lot of user-generated content on their social channels that features a broad variety of customers. And on their website, they feature the wedding stories of an impressive cross-section of their diverse customers.

3. Not building a truly inclusive brand

Increasingly, consumers are looking beyond just a brand’s marketing in terms of the products, services, and experiences they deliver to determine whether or not they are truly representative.

They are turning their attention to the internal teams and board of directors to see if they are representative as well. If representation only matters in your marketing, and not in your team building, then consumers get the signal that diversity, inclusion, and belonging aren’t as important to you as you would have them believe.

The fix is to build an inclusive brand from the inside out. Your customers, particularly diverse, niche, and marginalized consumers, want to spend their money with a brand that aligns with their values. They prefer to steer clear of the brands that are only being representative in their marketing just to get diverse and niche consumers to spend money with them, and those they don’t feel truly value or care about those who are a part of their community.

Representation matters. More and more, this is becoming accepted. But not all representation is created equal. Avoid the mistakes above to ensure your representation efforts are seen as authentic and by the customers you want to serve.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

BY SONIA THOMPSON

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGIST, CONSULTANT, AND SPEAKER@SONIAETHOMPSON

Sourced from Inc.

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Get the word out about your blog with these strategies.

Writing high-quality content is only a small part of creating and maintaining a successful blog. To further increase site traffic and attract more readers to your site, you’ll need to work on blog promotion.

Luckily, there are plenty of strategies that are cost-effective and easy to implement.

Read on to discover how to promote your blog effectively in ten different ways – start experimenting with any of these solutions and watch the traffic roll into your site.

SEO

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

1. Utilize SEO for your blog

Before learning how to promote your blog, the first step you should take is optimizing your site for search engines. With good SEO, it will be much easier for a blog to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs) and attract more traffic.

Many factors impact a site’s SEO performance, including the website platform and hosting service you choose to create a blog. These two aspects determine the overall consistency of the site experience you offer to visitors.

When choosing a platform to build a blog, consider starting with a content management system (CMS). This tool makes it easy for non-technical users to create and manage a website. It also offers complete control over a site’s design, functionality, and SEO.

One of the best CMSs to get started with is WordPress. It comes built-in with many SEO features, including meta descriptions, a customizable URL structure, and the ability to use page titles.

Keep in mind that there are two different versions of WordPress – WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Although both platforms provide the same quality of SEO performance, the latter gives users more freedom to utilize plugins to further improve their SEO.

Make sure to also pick a web hosting service that’s reliable, fast, and secure. Some of the top hosting providers to consider are:

Hostinger – has excellent performance and comes with an SEO toolkit to evaluate technical SEO issues on a website. Their hosting prices start at $1.39/month.

Bluehost – offers several SEO tools to increase site traffic. The cost of starting a WordPress blog with their shared hosting plans startsfrom $3.95/month.

HostGator – provides great uptime and speed. The fee of creating a blog with this web host’s shared hosting solutions starting at $2.75/month.

Aside from choosing the right platform and hosting service, there are other blog SEO practices to keep in mind in order to increase blog traffic:

  • Choose a mobile-friendly theme – Mobile page load speed is a key metric that Google uses when determining a site’s search ranking. That’s why it’s crucial to make a blog responsive to any device.
  • Internal linking – Internal links can boost a blog’s traffic since they help Google understand and rank the site better. Internal linking also allows visitors to navigate a blog easily.
  • Use a CDN provider – A content delivery network (CDN) can boost the speed and reduce the resource usage of a website.
  • Link out to other sites – Including links to some high-quality and authoritative websites can help search engine crawlers understand what a post is about.
  • Compress images – Reducing the file size of blog posts’ images can speed up a site and improve page loading times.

To manage and monitor your blog’s search engine rankings, make sure to use the best SEO tools for the job, such as SEMRush or Ahrefs.

Additionally, take advantage of free Google SEO tools such as Google Analytics to see the in-depth breakdown of your blog traffic, helping you identify how well your SEO efforts are working.

2. Do proper keyword research

Knowing the important keywords to use on your blog posts can also improve the blog’s ranking on SERPs and generate valuable traffic. These terms can be discovered by doing keyword research.

Keyword research helps bloggers to create content their visitors are searching for. This process also reveals how many people are searching for a specific keyword and how high the competition is.

SpyFu Website

(Image credit: SpyFu)

There are plenty of keyword research tools such as KWFinder and SpyFu that can be used to discover keywords, common questions, and topics for content.

When doing keyword research, consider these aspects to decide the best keywords for your blog:

Searcher’s intent – This refers to website users’ intention when searching Google for a specific term. To attract qualified traffic, be sure to choose keywords that match your target audience’s user intent.

Search volume – A keyword’s search volume shows how competitive the term is. Try to target keywords with great search volume since they can increase a blog’s chance to generate significant organic traffic. Keep in mind, however, that it requires more effort to rank for terms with high search volume.

Traffic potential – To identify the keyword’s traffic potential of a topic, use tools like Ahrefs and see how much traffic the current top-ranking pages get and what other keywords they rank for. This process can help you prioritize your keywords and find related terms that users are searching for.

Keyword difficulty – Many SEO analytics tools provide this metric to show how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword. The higher the score of the term, the more competitive it is.

SEO analysis

(Image credit: Pixabay)

Once you have a list of terms to rank for, it’s time to use them for on-page SEO. Here are some key places on a blog to use these keywords:

Page titles – A blog page title is the first element of a site page that people notice in the SERPs. Make sure to use a target keyword at the start of the page title to have both Google and your audience recognize the main subject of the page.

Subheadings – The purpose of subheadings is to make content scannable. Using target keywords in subheadings can increase a content’s relevance for the readers.

Content – It’s one of the most important search ranking factors. Thus, try to include keywords naturally throughout the content and avoid keyword stuffing.

URLs – Using a clean URL with a keyword can improve a site’s architecture, make a blog easier to navigate, and help it rank higher in relevant search results.

Meta descriptions – A meta description is a short explanation that shows up on SERPs under the page title. To boost a page’s click-through rate, try to create a compelling description using target keywords.

Images – Always use alt text for pictures to help search engine crawlers understand your images. Additionally, alt text is vital to a blog’s accessibility since it allows visually impaired users better understand an on-page image.

Remember to use Google Search Console to track your current keyword positioning and analyse which pages drive traffic to your blog.

email

(Image credit: Geralt / Pixabay)

3. Use email marketing

Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways of promoting your blog and converting visitors if done correctly. This blog promotion strategy helps you notify readers of new blog posts or share any good news with ease.

Sending personalized messages to blog visitors can also help create meaningful relationships with them, keep the audience hooked with high-quality content, and boost engagement on a blog.

The first step to take before getting started with email marketing is to build an email list, a collection of email addresses used to send promotional material.

Here are a few ways to build an email list:

Offer an incentive – Consider giving readers an incentive like a free course, eBook, or cheat sheet in exchange for their email address.

Collect emails directly from the blogCreate a signup form and place it on your home page. Make it stand out and attract readers’ attention with a strong and compelling call to action (CTA).

Create content upgrades – A content upgrade is a valuable offer that complements an article that the reader is already interested in, created to get a visitor’s email address.

Once you have a mailing list, look for email marketing software like Constant Contact or MailChimp. Using an email marketing tool makes it easier to create attractive email templates, deliver emails to large groups of contacts, track messages, and view analytics.

The next step is to craft email content that can lead visitors back to your blog. Here are some tips on how to promote your blog with the use of effective promotional emails:

Darius Foroux

(Image credit: Darius Foroux)

Provide valuable insight for readers – Use your email to convince readers that your blog post can solve their problems. This email newsletter from Darius Foroux is a great example:

Highlight the content value in the email subject – Readers might receive dozens of promotions every day, so try to capture their attention by creating a short, compelling email subject that clearly states the value of your content.

Create personalized subject lines – Including recipient names in the email’s subject can lead to a 21.2 percent open rate. It can also make the subscribers feel like the email is crafted specifically for them, which helps to build relationships and establish trust.

Make it easy to read – Keep the email clean and easy to digest by using appealing pictures and paragraph breaks.

Use links – Avoid adding attachments to a message since it can affect email deliverability, making it more likely to get lost in spam filters. Instead, use call-to-action links to grab subscriber’s attention and encourage them to act.

Proofreading – To make your emails look more professional, be sure to check for any grammar errors before sending them out.

Social Media

(Image credit: Getty Images)

4. Share your blog on social media

To get more exposure quickly and efficiently, try sharing your blog post on popular social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.

Here are some of the benefits of using social media sites to promote your blog:

Increase blog traffic – Sharing content on different social networks helps bloggers reach a wider audience. Additionally, if the content provides value to the users, they might share it further and recommend it to others.

Cost-effective – With social media channels, bloggers can make their site visible to a targeted audience for free.

Improve engagement with the audience – A blogger can also have a personal and meaningful conversation with their readers through social networks. Devoting time to communicate with the audience will help to build trust.

Social media platforms aren’t all created the same, so try to focus on the most relevant social networks that suit your target audience. For instance, if you’re targeting female readers, then Pinterest might be the right social media for you.

Here are other tips for leveraging social media and bringing more traffic to your blog:

  • Add a blog link to the bio – A social media bio is the first thing people see on an account. Make sure to use it to drive traffic to your site or blog content.
  • Share engaging content using existing posts – Use a free tool like Canva to convert your top blog articles into appealing graphics.
  • Integrate social media icons into the site – Adding social media icons to a blog makes it easier for visitors to share blog content with their audience.
  • Post regularly – Be sure to know how often you should share in a specific social network. For example, Twitter users should share at least one tweet a day.
  • Use hashtags – Utilizing a hashtag is a great way to expand the reach of a post and connect it to a specific conversation, topic, or event. Hashtags also make it easier to locate other relevant content around particular terms.
  • Join online groups – Become part of a social community such as the ones found in LinkedIn, or a Facebook group to share content and increase the visibility of your blog.
  • Find the optimal time for posting – Knowing the optimum time to post on your chosen channel can help you get more clicks and engagements. Thankfully, most social platforms have an analytics or insights tool that provides this information. Once you know the best times to post, start planning and preparing your content in advance using social media management tools like Buffer.

Remember that social media is a two-way engagement platform that requires actual interaction. Don’t just reappear whenever you have a new blog post – instead, maintain a regular presence on a social network by starting conversations, responding to comments, and answering questions.

5. Promote your blog with online paid advertising

If you have a budget you’re willing to spend, consider using online paid advertising to promote your blog content. This strategy refers to a marketing method where you pay for ad spots to attract internet traffic.

With the paid promotion, your page can appear right in front of your target audience in no time. It’s also possible to see the results as soon as your ads go live.

Online paid marketing can feature one or more digital channels, including search engine results pages (SERPs) and social media platforms.

The process of increasing blog visibility on SERPs through paid advertising is usually known as search engine marketing (SEM). This method relies on keywords to target users when they’re performing searches in a search engine.

Here’s an example of how advertisements appear for the keywords “how to boost your SEO”:

Google Search Results Boost SEO

(Image credit: Google)

To promote a blog with search advertising, try using a popular online marketing service like Google Ads.

Also, consider the following suggestions before getting started with paid search ads:

Be clear on budget and expectations – Make sure to have a specific budget to avoid overspending and clear goals in order to analyse whether a campaign works or not.

Keep the quality score up – A quality score rates the relevance of both your ads and keywords. Having a great quality score can help to keep your ad costs low.

Bid on competitive blog keywords – If your competitors have a lot of traffic for their brand name, try to target those keywords with your ads. This way, searchers will see your relevant content and go to your blog post instead of those of the competitors.

Another form of paid advertising is social media ads. This blog promotion method lets you target users based on their locations, specific interests, and buying behaviours.

Some of the best social media sites for advertising are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Here are a few tips on how to promote your blog with social media advertising:

  • Design the ads with mobile in mind – Since 91 percent of users access social channels via mobile devices, ensure your ads incorporate easy-to-view images on the small screen.
  • Use videos – A video is more engaging and has a better return on investment (ROI) than other media types.
  • Test your ads – Try A/B testing your ads to see what works best for your campaign and make the most of your spending.

Computer user

(Image credit: Pixabay)

6. Guest post on popular blogs

Guest posting on other blogs is an excellent way to promote your blog since it lets you expose your brand to other bloggers’ loyal audiences. This method also helps to establish yourself as an authority figure and connect with other thought leaders in a niche.

OnTopList

(Image credit: OnTopList)

To find guest blogging opportunities, go to blog directories like AllTop, Bloglovin, and OnTopList. These websites can help people discover relevant blogs in a niche that might accept guest posting.

Once you have a list of potential blogs to guest post on, use a backlink analysis tool like Moz to check the domain authority for each of the sites you’re considering – the higher a blog’s domain authority, the easier it can rank in search engines. Doing this also showcases whether these sites provide good value in terms of links.

Keep the following tips and tricks in mind to get started with guest blogging:

Form a genuine relationship with the site owners – Many website owners only take guest content from bloggers they already know and trust. Thus, try to connect with them first before sending a pitch by subscribing to their newsletter, leaving comments on their blog posts, and commenting on their social content.

Keep the pitch short and straight to the point – Since most site owners don’t have the time to read long emails, keep your email as brief and direct as possible.

Link to your blog articles – Some sites might let guest bloggers backlink to their site, helping to drive referral traffic and lead to better search visibility for the blog. Bloggers can use Google Analytics to track traffic from this guest posting effort.

Ask the audience to leave comments – Encourage readers to post their opinions and share the content. This helps to have the content rank for different keywords that are naturally mentioned in the comments.

Take advantage of the author’s profile – Guest bloggers can also include their blog’s link in the author’s bio, which helps to drive people to their site.

7. Reach out to other bloggers

Another viable blog promotion solution is the conduction of blogger outreach. It’s a marketing strategy that involves getting the help of well-known bloggers or influencers to improve a blog’s exposure by offering something in return, such as a fee, backlink, product, or service.

With this blog promotion method, new bloggers can acquire high-quality backlinks, attract quality traffic, and expand their network.

Lumanu

(Image credit: Lumanu)

To get started with blogger outreach, look for influencers in your niche using tools like GroupHigh, Influencity, and Lumanu.

Then, refer to these tips on how to promote your blog by leveraging the loyal audience of others:

  • Get the influencers to notice you – Mention influencers on social media and promote their relevant content to make them recognize you.
  • Interview professionals – Aside from asking for an inbound link from influencers, bloggers can also invite them for an interview. When the interview is published, the influencers might also share it with their audiences.
  • Try broken link building – A great tip to get backlinks from influencers without paying a dime is to identify broken links on their blogs and present your content as an alternative replacement.
  • Track the results – Use a backlink checker like Majestic to see which influencers are giving you the best coverage and the most leads.
  • Cultivate relationships – After getting blog coverage from an influencer, make sure to maintain your relationship with them. The stronger the relationship, the longer the benefits can last for your blog.

8. Get your blog on social bookmarking sites

A social bookmarking site is a platform to read and save a specific web page or article. With this tool, users can access their bookmarks from any device at any time.

Social bookmarking sites are great places to share blog posts with new readers. When your content is listed on or shared through a bookmarking site, it can result in massive increases in traffic back to your blog.

To begin with this blog promotion method, bloggers need to choose a platform to participate in and submit their content to that site. Some of the most popular bookmarking websites are Digg, Flipboard, and Pocket.

DZone

(Image credit: DZone)

Bloggers can also share their blog posts on niche social bookmarking sites like GrowthHackers and DZone to generate more relevant shares and traffic.

Here are a few tips on how to promote your blog content on a social bookmarking site:

Make the headlines count – Some social bookmarking platforms might only display the article’s title. Thus, compel potential readers to click on your link by using a catchy, captivating headline.

Add a featured image – Make the article stand out on the news feeds by using attractive graphics.

Keep the description length in mind – Some sites might limit the description space to 150 characters, so try to make the description short and match the content.

Utilize social bookmarking buttons on the blog – Consider adding a social bookmarking button on your site to let readers bookmark content with ease.

9. Promote your blog in online forums

Another excellent method of blog promotion is to join online forums. Being part of online communities lets you interact, contribute, and bring value to a niche group of people.

Joining online forums also allows bloggers to share their knowledge, which can help establish their expertise in a field.

However, finding niche forums can be overwhelming, especially in some of the biggest online communities like Reddit.

FindAForum

(Image credit: FindAForum)

To discover a forum that matches your field faster, try using an internet resource like FindAForum. Simply go to its categories section or enter your niche in the search bar to find a list of discussion forums.

Here are some suggestions on how to promote your blog via online forums:

Participate – To develop trust and make people more willing to engage in a blog, be prepared to contribute to the forum regularly. Try to answer questions, provide quality responses, and link to helpful resources.

Start a thread – Another way to prove that you’re a valuable member is to create your own threads. Begin by making a shorter and different version of your blog content and use it to start a new thread.

Create a signature – Some forums let users create a signature or a text that appears below a post or thread. Take advantage of this signature to make a call to action to bring traffic to your site.

10. Try reciprocal sharing sites

Bloggers can also use a reciprocal sharing site to promote their blog. Using this method, they need to share other users’ content on their social media accounts to get their blog posts promoted.

Triberr

(Image credit: Triberr)

One of the most popular reciprocal sharing websites is Triberr. This tool makes it simple and easy to grow your audience, find great posts to share with readers, and network with other bloggers.

When using a reciprocal sharing site, make sure to share content that is editorial in line with the type of post you want to be known for curating – it helps increase your credibility and exposure in a specific niche.

Also, remember to include relevant images, graphics, or relevant stock photos to make your content stand out.

Another tip is to be consistent and make it a habit to regularly share posts or respond to comments. The more consistent you post and interact with other users, the more reliable you seem to be.

Person working on a WordPress post

(Image credit: Pixabay)

Promoting your blog

Aside from publishing awesome content, bloggers must also spend time and effort promoting their blogs. Without a promotion strategy, it can be difficult for a blog to grow and generate a steady stream of readers coming to check the site out.

The most effective strategy for you also depends on the resources at your disposal, such as the budget, skill set, and timeframe.

Here are ten strategies on how to promote your blog and get more qualified visitors:

  1. Utilize SEO for your blog
  2. Do proper keyword research
  3. Use email marketing
  4. Share your blog on social media
  5. Promote your blog with online paid advertising
  6. Guest post on popular blogs
  7. Reach out to other blogs
  8. Get your blog on social bookmarking sites
  9. Promote your blog in online forums
  10. Try reciprocal sharing sites

Keep in mind that it may take a few weeks or months before you notice a significant increase in your traffic and online ranking.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology in a career spanning four decades. Following an eight-year stint at ITProPortal.com where he discovered the joys of global techfests, Désiré now heads up TechRadar Pro. He has an affinity for anything hardware and staunchly refuses to stop writing reviews of obscure products or cover niche B2B software-as-a-service providers.

Sourced from techradar.pro

Unique SEO content is the heart & soul of every blogging business. Whether you sell products and services online or have an affiliate marketing website, you need to consistently come up with fresh content that people are searching for. This is the basic idea behind SEO content.

But coming up with unique content is not easy. Especially for new writers who don’t know what SEO content is, to begin with. It can become quite difficult for bloggers to create quality content that gets ranked.

In this detailed guide, we are going to talk about the basic steps that can help you create quality SEO content for your blog.

If you follow the guidelines that we are going to go through in this article, you’d be able to create High Quality, Engaging SEO content for your blog on a consistent basis.

Why Do you Need to Create SEO Optimized Content for your Blog?

Creating quality content is the only way you can make your online platform visible in search engines. Google and all the major search engines use content as the most important ranking factor for a website.

It doesn’t matter what niche you are working on; you need SEO content if you want to rank at the top for the searches related to your niche. Creating search engine optimized content is the only way for you to do that.

You need to find what people are searching for and then you need to create content around the query that answers the question in the best possible way. This is what creating SEO Content all about.

Creating SEO Content – Step by Step Guide

Writing quality content is about rising above the noise. With every query that you write in the search engines, you get thousands of websites talking about the same idea. And if you want to make your place among the sites that you see on the first page as per your query, you’ve got to create content that is

  • More Informative
  • More Valuable
  • More Engaging

You create content like that, and you can be sure that search engines would pick your piece of content up and rank it at the top of their SERPs.

So, without further ado, let’s get started and talk about the steps you can use to create quality SEO content for your blog

Step 1: Keywords Research

Keywords research should be your first step when beginning to write content for your blog. The basic idea behind keyword research is, you need to find out the keywords or phrases that people are searching for and then create content around that keyword. But where do you find keywords to write content for your niche?

Well, there are multiple ways you can do that. If you can afford one, we recommend using a paid keywords research tool like Ahrefs or KWFinder.

When looking for keywords, you need to go for long-tail keywords that have a high search volume and low difficulty. Long-tail keywords are phrases with 2 or more words.

Now, if you can’t afford a paid keywords research tool, you can use Google Autocomplete to get an idea about the things people are searching for in your niche. This won’t give you the search volume, but you should be able to get a lot of phrases that you can use to get started with your content.

Step 2: Add Keyword of Relevant Phrases in the Title

Once you have found a keyword with high search volume and low difficulty, you need to start writing content on it. But don’t just start right away. You first need to come up with a title for your content. It is important that you take your time here.

You need to be careful when coming up with the title of your content because it can make or break the success of your content. The title is the first thing that shows up on google. If your title is not SEO optimized, Google would not make it appear on SERPs.

You can optimize the title of your content by adding the keyword in the title of your content. When you add the keyword in the title of your content, it makes the title seem relevant to the query that people are looking the answers for and it makes your content come off as optimized in the eyes of search engines.

Step 3: Structure Your Content the Right Way

A well-structured article will always do better on search engines than the one that is poorly structured. Even if you have extremely valuable content, if you fail to organize and structure it properly, your audience just won’t want to read it.

Here are some tips that can help you structure your content in a way that would make it easier for your audience to read

  • Use properly headings for title and subheadings
  • Break your content up into smaller paragraphs
  • Add bullet points to lists
  • Use standard fonts and font sizes
  • Analyse the readability of the content

Asking for a review of your content from an unbiased source can be quite helpful. Use a conversational tone and try to make things as simple as possible. Your ultimate goal should be to make your content as easily readable as you possibly can.

Step 4: Write for the Audience

Once you have created the outline of your content, you need to start adding in the content. Here, the most common mistake that beginner writers make is keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing happens when you add the focused keyword in your content more times than is recommended. This makes the content overly optimized and search engines mark it as spammy and don’t rank it on the SERPs.

When writing content, make sure that you are writing for the audience and not search engines. You need to come up with content that is user-friendly as well as search engine friendly.

A rule of thumb is to use the main keyword in the first 100 words of the content. The keyword should look perfectly natural when placed in the content. After that, you need to make sure that you add the keyword in the content as per the recommended keyword density. The bottom line is, keep the content natural and informative. This is the only way you can create content that works.

There is some powerful content rewriting tools that you can use to create quality SEO content for your blog in a short amount of time. You can use the sentence rewriter online by SEO Tools Centre to come up with unique, engaging and natural content for your blog.

Step 5: Use Different Content Mediums on your Blog

Although writing textual content is the most important thing that you need to focus on when creating quality SEO content, it is not the only thing. You need to utilize all other content mediums available out there to ensure that your content stands out from the crowd.

You need to add images, graphics, videos, and other forms of relevant content with the text that you have written. Adding these different types of content will add to the credibility of your content and it will also make it look more optimized.

When adding videos and images to your blog, use your focused keyword in the title to add an additional layer of optimization to your content. By using graphics and visuals, you can make your content look more engaging which will have a great impact on the bounce rate of your website.

Step 6: Format Content to Win Google Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are the blocks of information that show up at the top of search engines when you type in a search query. Google is always trying to improve the user experience by offering answers to user queries in the fastest way possible. This is the idea behind featured snippets.

And the best part is, your content can appear in the featured snippets, even if you don’t rank at the top of the search engine. You just need to format your content in a way that makes it eligible for it to appear in the Google Features Snippets.

Here is how you can make your content appear in the Features Snippets

  • Keep the central idea of your content to the point
  • Properly structure your content
  • Use bullet points and lists in your content
  • Add useful data and stats to your content

Step 7: Proofread your Content to make it Better

Once you are done writing your SEO content, you need to make sure that you proofread it to get rid of any mistakes that you might have made in the content. You can run your content through a grammar checking program to quickly find the mistakes. You can also use the online plagiarism fixer by SEOMagnifier to fix and check for plagiarism in your content.

Make sure to read the content with a fresh mind a few hours after you are done writing. The thing with writing content is, you can always make it better. You can always improve it and make it more engaging. Rereading what you have written is the best way you can do that.

When you proofread your content, you can see the areas where you are lacking. You can get an idea about your current writing skills and you can learn the frequent mistakes that you’ve been making. After that, it is just about getting around these mistakes and making sure that you don’t make the same mistakes again.

Final Words

SEO optimized content can give your online platform the edge that it needs over your competition. Also, you need to keep coming up with helpful content for your audience if you want your blog to stay relevant and dominate the search engines.

The SEO content creation process that we have talked about here will help you do just that. Go over the SEO content writing process that we have talked about here to consistently come up with unique content for your blog.      

Feature Image Credit: pixelcreatures on Pixabay

Sourced from INFLUENCIVE

BY ELIZABETH WALTON EGAN

Unsure of your next marketing strategy? Here’s why nostalgia never fails.

In one of the most iconic scenes from the Emmy-winning television series Mad Men, advertising executive Don Draper pitches the name “Carousel” for Kodak’s slide projector. “[An old colleague] told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new.’ Creates an itch–you simply put your product in there, as a kind of calamine lotion,” Draper says. “But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It’s delicate–but potent.”

As he flips through old photos of his family on the slide projector, Draper further describes nostalgia as “a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.” While Kodak’s (fictional) marketing executives were insistent that the word wheel be used to brand their futuristic piece of technology, Draper sells the device as a time machine, rather than a spaceship.

That scene is set in the 1960s. But if you fast-forward to today, Draper’s message still resonates. This is partially because the message still stands out–many marketing strategies remain focused on the “new,” for understandable reasons. Particularly in the world of tech, consumers want to know what unique benefit your product brings to their life, often requiring a fresh set of features to unlock that value.

But there will always be new, newer, and newest. That’s the fleeting nature of technology–Draper called it a “glittering lure.” Distinct memories, on the other hand, are unique and irreplaceable. Using nostalgia is the trigger that brings those memories and emotions back.

Research shows that people are 22x more likely to remember a story over a fact. And that’s just any story–nostalgia prompts people to recall their own stories. When watching the ’80s-inspired TV series Stranger Things (and the surrounding marketing assets around the show), folks from that generation–consciously or unconsciously–recall memories from that era and associate that positive experience with their viewing.

Spotify cleverly used the ’80s song “Never Ending Story” and the original actor from the movie to say that the song is still streamed today, with the tag line “Stories end. Songs are forever.” Uber used Wayne’s World actors Michael Myers and Dana Carvey to connect with the show’s fans from the early ’90s, making their message to “Eat local” that much more compelling.

And those are examples that romanticize the past. A recent commercial from CarMax relives parts of our past that “we don’t ever need to experience again,” including wearing headgear, renting movies from a physical store, running with a CD player, and–to pay it all off–having only one way to buy a car. While these behaviours now seem ridiculous, they were, at the time, part of normal life. With the song selection of “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips for the commercial, the brand is sending a clear signal of nostalgia, even if they’re poking fun at it.

My team and I wanted to evoke a similar emotion with our latest brand campaign at Yext. Our search platform is intended to replace keyword search, a technology that hasn’t changed since the ’90s and yet is still widely used. And so we personified Keyword Search and juxtaposed “him” with three other technologies from the era that have evolved (Cellphone, Internet, and Storage) at a faux high school reunion. As Cellphone, Internet, and Storage reminisce about how far they’ve come since the ’90s, Keyword Search stands out as an over-the-top character who’s stuck in that time period, right down to his frosted tips. For viewers who grew up in the ’90s, we’re hoping they connect with the struggles of dial-up internet or clunky cellphones–and realize how absurd it is to be using an unchanged technology from that era in the present day.

Of course, all of the brands mentioned above eventually bring users into the present and explain their product’s value proposition. Focusing on “new,” in some form or another, is here to stay. But what’s also timeless are real, human connections with our past, and that’s where nostalgia marketing can serve as an effective and memorable way to capture your audience’s attention.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

BY ELIZABETH WALTON EGAN

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF GROWTH, YEXT@LIZWALTON

Sourced from Inc.

Sourced from EHL Insights 

Analytics give an important way for businesses to track and measure whether they are meeting their goals. We have analytics to track online marketing efforts, finances and many other aspects of business. Now, analytics technology is being used for human resources (HR), especially in the recruitment of employees but also in much broader company applications. This type of technology is known as people analytics, or you may hear it referred to as HR, workforce or talent analytics.

What is people analytics? How can it be used by HR professionals, including those in hospitality?

Definition of People Analytics

People analytics uses technology to determine insights about potential employees by collecting and analysing data about each candidate. This method combines both quantitative and qualitative data taken from a collection of sources, including social media, psychometric or game-based assessments, applications, profiles and others. It often relies on the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), which can help to quickly collect and analyse data from many sources.

People analytics brings together numerous disciplines into one application. It incorporates:

  • Human resource management
  • Data science
  • Finance
  • Organizational management

It can be applied to many business decisions relating to employees, which makes it ideal for use by human resources managers and departments. This method works for any type of business, and hospitality businesses could find it particularly useful for recruiting and onboarding employees with the mix of hard and soft skills that are important for their roles.

Why is People Analytics important?

This type of analytics is not exactly new, as large organizations have been using it for years. But as technologies and capabilities for this purpose are becoming more accessible, more businesses are able to use it. Also, more brands are developing their own versions of this type of analytics as technology advances at a fast pace.

It is important that technology is making employee data more prevalent for recruiters and managers because the modern world has made it increasingly difficult for them to make hiring decisions. Now, more and more people are working remotely, by necessity or by choice. This may mean working from home, yet it can also mean that professionals work from afar when it fits a role, sometimes from another country.

It is not always possible for managers to conduct in-person interviews or get to know a candidate as they could in the past, even the same way they did just a few months to a year ago. The work world has changed, and most likely many people will continue to work from home even as society resumes in-person activities over time.

Also, technology allows managers to understand a lot more about candidates than they could through past methods. They gain access to a much greater amount of data, allowing them to find the best candidates and know as much as possible about each one, including factors such as:

  • Work performance
  • Personality
  • Strengths and weaknesses
  • Reasoning skills
  • Employer and customer satisfaction
  • Turnover rate
  • Level of engagement

They get better information, rather than relying on instincts, first impressions and a candidate’s answers to standard questions during an interview. These kinds of old-fashioned measures can be deceptive. People analytics brings more legitimacy and data-driven methods to a human resources department. Technology can take data from various sources and bring it together in helpful formats like graphs and charts. This helps give a better picture of a candidate to inform decisions. Having better data and insights to share can help human resources keep up with other departments that are using high-tech capabilities. HR professionals become better able to show their processes and results compared to past HR methods. They can more easily answer questions on employee turnover and related workforce information that helps the company overall.

Benefits of People Analytics

People analytics helps companies find the best candidates for their open positions and fill them with the right people for the job. Making these hiring decisions can make all the difference to an organization’s success.

Yet the role of people analytics is not just for recruitment. Executives can also use it to make management and organizational decisions related to their employees and their companies. Let’s go over some many benefits of using people analytics. Management can use it to:

  • Understand their workforce and find the best potential in their employees by better developing and managing them.
  • Improve their employee satisfaction and performance; in turn, this can reduce turnover and improve retention rates.
  • Gain information to inform broader business decisions and goals.
  • Learn more about top-performing staff and use the knowledge in training efforts for those who are performing at a lower level.
  • Grow their workforce.
  • Inform workforce planning.
  • Reduce bias and increase diversity within the workforce.
  • Improve speed and accuracy within recruitment measures.
  • Create more business productivity.

It’s clear to see how these benefits can have a significant positive impact on any company, including those in hospitality.

We talked about how management can look at individual employee characteristics through people analytics. Yet they can also use it to look beyond individual employees and see wider patterns. For instance, management can see collective data on performance throughout the company. They can better understand factors that lead to successful employees and better performance, as well as where there is room for improvement. They can use this information to improve their current workforce and also to have better recruitment and development practices for new hires. They can have a better idea of the right characteristics to seek going forward.

The data can even go beyond the organization to include the whole industry. People analytics technology is able to collect publicly available information on an industry to show a company how it is measuring up. In addition to showing a company’s place compared to industry competitors, it can provide helpful industry-specific information on the best sources for recruiting top talent and the best characteristics for roles within this field.

People Analytics can even help companies adapt as the world changes, such as the way COVID-19 changed the way business was carried out. Businesses who use it and have data at their fingertips are better able to change the way they use their employees as the company needs to change its methods. For instance, they could identify roles that are able to switch to remote work and identify employees who could shift into different work roles as needed.

Using People Analytics well

It’s not enough for businesses to have the technology and collect data on their workforce. Instead, they need to properly understand and use the data. They need to put it into action. This is where many organizations fall off track. What helps is to:

  • Develop a data-driven organizational culture.
  • Collect accurate information.
  • Make sure the information is current.
  • Have an experienced analytics team to analyse the data and create effective insights.
  • Share the insights in real time with decision-makers.

People analytics can also be incorporated into relational analytics, explains an article in the Harvard Business Review. This type of analytics shows how people interact with one another, and it can use a range of data like email exchanges and file transfers. Looking at both individual characteristics and employee relationships together can show an employee’s effectiveness. It can also help identify an employee’s hard and soft skills to further develop their talent and role within the organization. For example, it can be used to find employees who excel at ideation, efficiency or leadership.

Conclusion

The information gathered through people analytics can improve an organization on every level. Employees are the heart of every company. This is especially true of hospitality companies, where employees work directly with guests and have a direct bearing on their experience. Even employees who are behind the scenes need to be effective at influencing the company’s processes and guest experience. People analytics offers a great way to find the right employees, use a workforce in a better way and improve a company overall.

Sourced from EHL Insights 

By ,

In recent years, the word authenticity has become the smart marketer’s approach to building customer loyalty, and with good reason.

The truth is — people are fed up with companies churning out perfectly polished images, well-crafted press releases, and corporate statements that sound like a publicist wrote them. They’re tired of some corporations turning a blind eye to the reality of their (toxic workplaces, unfair wages, and poor working conditions for factory workers), or for that matter, lying about it all.

In reality, customers have become savvier, sassier, and more vocal about what they expect (and often demand) from brands these days. That’s one of the compelling reasons why smart brands are leading with authenticity, rather than relying on it as a last resort.

As Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon says, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” To help create a more influential brand that people rave (instead of rant) about, here are some helpful tips to think about when planning marketing and communications campaigns.

Whether you’re just starting a company or have been in business for decades, here are three ways to use authenticity to build customer loyalty in today’s times.

Engender trust from customers

To start with, authenticity inherently breeds trust. When customers get a better sense of the types of people who run a company, they begin to trust them more. Whether the message is coming from a brand founder or a marketing team, one of the keys to engendering trust amongst your customer base is to be open, honest, and transparent with them. Express your values, show your integrity, and share your beliefs in a way that reflects your brand identity.

For example, if you produce goods, consider posting Instagram stories that take your audience on a “behind the scenes” tour of your factory. Show your customers that the factory has undergone a social accountability audit and meets standards (for fair treatment of workers and safe working conditions). These are just some of the things that consumers care about, as human rights have become an aspect that customers consider when deciding which brands to support.

Create deeper connections

Another way to use authenticity in your marketing approach is to think about the human-to-human interaction.

Whenever your brand launches a marketing campaign, posts on social media, or engages with customers online, focus on creating deeper connections with them. They want to know that you care about their needs, are listening to their complaints and value their feedback.

In previous decades, companies would market to consumers like a one-way street. More often than not, their executive teams would hide behind FAQ pages on websites and rely on call centres shielded by 1-800 numbers. But, nowadays, everyone is essentially a click away. This means the power has shifted to give customers a louder voice (which can either be an asset or a liability to you, depending on what they’re saying about your brand).

Smart brands use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to actively engage with their audience. Instead of just constantly promoting and selling, their teams make sure to reply to comments and questions, to answer disgruntled complaints, and to even spotlight raving fans (which make them feel valued and recognized). Just like any relationship, both parties need to feel valued and heard. So, think about your online marketing approach as a two-way dialogue, which will create deeper connections and more loyal customers.

Evoke a sense of humanity

Finally, when you focus on authenticity as a core part of your marketing efforts, you evoke a sense of humanity. Whether your company donates funds to charities or actively supports worthy causes, brands that show care for humanity often go further in the eyes of consumers than those that are only profit-oriented. A perfect example of this is TOMS, the shoe brand that has earned strong through its philanthropic business model.

Authenticity has become one of the most important aspects to incorporate into any marketing and strategy. The more effectively that you can connect with, listen to, and relate to your customer base, the more loyal they’ll be. And, that, we know – is one of the keys to a lasting business.

By

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

By Melissa Pepper,

My first real marketing job was at a law firm with about 40 attorneys. It was their first marketing role, too, so we learned together how to do this marketing thing.

One of the sayings I used over and over again when working there was, “Marketing is more than posters and parties.”

Yes, marketing can and may always have a bit of party planning and sign making. It’s part of the territory. But what elevates marketing to become a strategic partner with leaders in your organization is moving beyond these conversations to key questions and imperatives for the success of your business.

Let’s break down what I believe are the key components of marketing in 2021.

1. Digital-First Strategy

Whether your business is B2B or B2C, your customers are likely finding you and interacting with you digitally. But how do we change the ways we market in a digital environment to increase our lead generation?

The first place many often look is through a better optimized, modern website. A client asked me the other day if websites are even relevant anymore. I answered yes, because while new media has come about to connect consumers with brands, company websites still are a primary way leads in your sales funnel learn about you and travel through their decision-making process. The better your website keeps them engaged, the more apt they may be to buy your product or service.

I also recommend focusing on a variety of digital activities, such as email automation, pay-per-click and landing page campaigns, and social media advertising. You may find that a different mix suits you, but regardless of your industry, think critically about the intersection of your sales and marketing functions and how strategic digital marketing can efficiently capture leads to hand to your sales team.

2. Holistic

Marketing cannot operate in a silo. To make your marketing effective — which means to do activities that lead potential customers to become customers — your marketing team should be welcomed into your sales and operations. Marketers can tell a good story, if we know the story to tell. Empower your marketing person or teams to really learn the business so they can adequately communicate your unique value proposition to potential customers.

For example, at my law firm job, this meant meeting with the practice area leaders and attending practice group meetings regularly. I had a weekly habit to make “rounds” to learn what the attorneys were working on, ask questions and understand how they communicated. This habit allowed me to delve into an industry that was foreign to me when I started and to craft messaging that would speak to their potential and current clients.

3. Goal-Oriented

Marketing often comes under fire because it’s been historically hard to measure. Digital-first strategies have changed that because we have data to understand how our marketing efforts are reaching (or not reaching) consumers. How we measure marketing, then, should be a function of the data available to us. Ensure your goals are tied to your overall company strategy and that there is a person in your organization who is held accountable to meet them.

As your business grows, you can seek out more sophisticated marketing metrics. If you’re just hopping onto the measurement bandwagon, I’d suggest starting small with only a few metrics. Be sure to optimize your website to track conversions. You can also track contact forms and conversions on your website. Measure your email open rate. Keep an eye on engagement and bounce rate.

At the end of the day, marketing is a strategic driver for new and returning customers. Can posters and parties bring you that outcome? Yes. But only if you are also considering a digital, holistic and goal-oriented marketing approach.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Melissa Pepper,

President at Total Solutions and Founder of Lead(h)er. Read Melissa Pepper’s full executive profile here

Sourced from Forbes

Today, content marketing is important because it can easily take a business to the next level. Especially when a business has to operate on a budget and grow exponentially, the reliance on content marketing is justifiable and for that, you have to learn how to Create a Content Marketing Strategy. Gone are the days when firms had to invest in conventional marketing tools such as pamphlets, flyers, television or ads. Now, content is king and it can easily expand the horizons of the business in a defined time. Here, in this feature, we will guide you through a few steps to grow your business through a content marketing strategy:

Carve a Plan

Before you sit back, grab a cup of coffee and invest in a certain strategy, you need to do a little bit of homework first. How  do you want to expand your business? What are your business goals? Where do you wish to publish your content? What channels will be responsible for the distribution of your content? You need to answer each and every one of these questions before moving towards carving a certain strategy for your content.

Secondly, when you carve a content marketing strategy, you need to ensure that it is measurable. In simple words, if you can’t measure it, you won’t be able to manage it  either. However, when you have a plan in place, you can achieve your marketing and business goals easily.

Always Work on Original Contents

Content Marketing Strategy

Sharing an article or a retweet might work for a while but your target audience is always looking for something that will bring a change in their lives. This is where your brand can assume the opportunity and work with unique content to grab more attention. Remember, you can never make the most out of somebody else’s perspective.

So when you have an opinion of your own, it will stand out to the customers. For example, if a customer wants to learn about the Aluminum laser cut by ACT Laser and applications of laser cutting technology, they will only swoon over a website that has something unique to educate them about. So if your website provides them with an educational article about this topic, you will easily get more traffic on your platform.

Distribute Your Content

Content Marketing Strategy

Now that you have carved a plan and have identified the targeted audience, it’s time for you to share your content. Bear in mind, your content is a means to finding ways to the hearts of more audience, so you better stick to your plan instead of making any changes. Create an engaging blog post for your website and keep updating it every month. This will improve the quality of your website and get it ranked at a higher position in the search engine.

Keep a Track of Results

Content Marketing Strategy

This is probably the part, you’ve been waiting all this while. So did the content marketing strategy help you accomplish the goals you wanted to achieve? You can make sure of the Google Data Studio and the Google Analytics to keep a track of the results and see how everything has been done. This will enable you to keep on investing in content marketing because it is the most powerful marketing tool out there right now.

Sourced from Trend Pickle

By ,

But what if someone else developed that content for you? That’s the idea behind user-generated content. Put it to work for you and it could elevate your brand to new levels — but there is no guarantee of success.

By now, most entrepreneurs are familiar with the tenets of content marketing. You write, record or produce content from scratch, promote it, then reap the rewards of higher brand visibility and traffic.

But what if someone else developed that content for you?

That’s the idea behind . Put it to work for you, and it could elevate your brand to new levels — but there is no guarantee of success.

What is user-generated content?

In case you aren’t familiar, user-generated content is any content that’s created by your users (including customers, fans and followers).

These include things like:

  • Social content. If someone makes a comment about your brand, posts a review or shares a video of them interacting with your product, it’s a form of user-generated content.
  • Forum posts. Some brands explicitly try to cultivate a brand community by launching forums, where users can ask questions, make comments and talk to one another. Sometimes, this is to solve issues. Other times, it’s just to engage about the brand in some way.
  • Blog comments. If you write new blog posts regularly, this is a great opportunity to collect comments and facilitate more discussions in thread form.
  • Photos, videos, etc. Visual forms of content, including photos and videos, can be used to promote your best products.
  • Reviews and testimonials. Of course, even user reviews and testimonials can count as user-generated content — and provide you some of the best benefits.

Why is user-generated content valuable?

So why is this strategy so valuable to brands?

  • Minimal manual effort. For starters, if users are generating this content, you won’t have to do the dirty work. Instead of paying a full-time employee or hiring a content agency, you can recruit your users to do the work for you. Obviously, this is a bit of oversimplification — but user-generated content is still highly cost efficient.
  • SEO benefits. User-generated content also carries SEO benefits. Any content you produce for your blog and website will serve as a way to boost your authority and get new pages ranking in search engines. Assuming the content is high-quality, new and relevant, its SEO ranking power can be substantial.
  • External trust. Customers are much more likely to trust the word of an existing customer or fan than they are the word of a company they’re unfamiliar with. Reading a review posted by a previous purchaser is going to be much more persuasive than reading advertising copy. Accordingly, user-generated content can help you build external trust.
  • New voices. If you have an in-house content team, even if they’re extremely talented, eventually their work can become stale. The voice they’ve created can get repetitive and uninteresting to recurring followers. Allowing user-generated content can help you get an influx of new voices and perspectives, adding to the diversity of your blog, website or social media platform.
  • Brand community development. This is also an opportunity to develop a brand community from the ground up. If you nurture your top content generators and get involved in conversations, you can improve public perceptions of your brand and increase customer loyalty simultaneously.

Tips for cultivating more user-generated content

What steps can you take to cultivate more user-generated content?

This is arguably the most important element of your strategy, because users don’t typically generate content for your brand on their own.

  • Ask. One of the easiest ways to get more content is to directly ask for it. Ask your followers to leave reviews or write testimonials for your brand. Open up your blog to accept new guest submissions. Tell your fans you’re eager to see their best photos of your product in action.
  • Run a contest. You can also attempt to run a social media contest, incentivizing participation further. For example, you can ask followers to post a photo or video of themselves that enters them in a drawing for a $100 gift card in exchange for their submission. It’s only a mild form of bribery.
  • Incentivize with other rewards. It’s also possible to incentivize user participation with other rewards. For example, you can have a kind of loyalty program or rewards program for your forum participants.
  • Promote your best examples. When you come across a piece of user-generated content that rises above the rest, such as an interesting video or an excellent guest post, make sure you promote it. The increased visibility might motivate other users to follow suit.
  • Get involved. Finally, get involved in conversations and engage your users directly. It will build stronger brand-consumer relationships and make people more comfortable providing submissions.

With the right user-generated content strategy, you can get more visibility, develop a better reputation and generate more traffic for your brand. It takes time to build momentum, but with the right investment and enough patience, you’ll stand to benefit enormously.

By

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

By Margie Zable Fisher,

The invite-only, audio-based social network launched in April 2020 and now has over 10 million weekly active users. Here’s how participating in Clubhouse can boost your business’s sales.

By now, you’ve probably heard about Clubhouse—the invite-only, audio-based social network where users create or join “rooms” and have conversations about various topics.

The fastest-growing social media app in the world launched in April 2020 and now has over 10 million weekly active users. Previously available only to iOS users, Clubhouse is experiencing another surge in growth, as it became available worldwide to Android users in May 2021.

Just like any social media platform, participating on Clubhouse can be a time waster, but it can also be helpful if you’re a small business. In fact, you can even get new business from it. The key is finding ways to offer value to clients in this new platform. Here are some real-life examples of businesses that have done just that.

Giving value first

Books ranging from The Bible to The Go-Giver tout the importance of giving first, receiving later. This strategy works in many areas of life, and in Clubhouse, as well.

“From participating in Clubhouse discussions, we were able to sell 15 LLCs and 3 corporations, which led to around $15,000 in sales for our firm,” says Zachary Hanby, client relations manager for Fisher Stone, P.C., a business and real estate law firm in Brooklyn, NY.

“Our business attorney, Greg Stone, and I joined Clubhouse and found groups that were interested in entrepreneurship, sales, business ideas, marketing and finance,” says Hanby. “We listened to the conversations, and then spoke to some of the points people were making, and were able to teach some people about business law in the U.S.” After giving business advice and value to the people listening, we would do a shameless plug of our free 15-minute consultation, he said.

Small business expert and Smart Hustle founder Ramon Ray says, “Consultants, coaches and speakers make money on Clubhouse by providing lots of value and then encouraging folks to direct message them to connect further.”

Ray shares that the connections he has made on Clubhouse led to the following sources of revenue: working with brands who pay him to host Clubhouse rooms and getting booked as a speaker, including at the Listening and Beyond Summit.

Personally, I believe that the most legitimate transactions are the ones that begin as legitimate social interactions.

James Surrey, founder and chief editor, Review Home Warranties

Hosting and moderating rooms in clubs

Terri Holley, of Spencerville, Maryland, is the founder of the Flip The Script After 50 Club on Clubhouse, and is the owner of Holley Creative, a digital marketing firm. In her club, she leads discussions about online marketing. She is also a regular co-moderator for three rooms, including one for Womxn in Business, one of the largest clubs on Clubhouse, that focus on helping current and soon to be entrepreneurs work through challenges and roadblocks.

This exposure has brought Holley new business in the areas of online marketing consulting and website design.

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey-based dermatologist Naana Boakye, MD hosts the “Holistic Acne Specialists Hangout Club,” on Clubhouse. Each Friday at 2 p.m. experts discuss skincare, acne and beauty. Providing free, useful information has provided exposure for her business.

“I have gained several new patients through Clubhouse,” says Dr. Boakye.

Michele Bellisari, a realtor with Real Broker in Boca Raton, Florida, founded two clubs on Clubhouse: Club Real #REALTORLIFE and The South Florida Network | #SoooBoca. By leading and participating in conversations in these clubs and other clubs on the app, she has built relationships that have led to real estate referrals and listings.

Connecting through shared interests

“Personally, I believe that the most legitimate transactions are the ones that begin as legitimate social interactions,” says Raleigh, North Carolina-based James Surrey, founder and chief editor at Review Home Warranties, which examines the differences of each home warranty and assists clients who need guidance.

Surrey explains, “I spent some time in a gardening room at Clubhouse and introduced myself, and what I do. I mentioned how I reviewed home warranties as a living and did gardening on the side. I was delightfully surprised to get queries about home warranties. A lot of the people in that room (and there were around 60) were confused by the concept, and I told them to hit me up on email so I could write up a quote and get back to them soonest.”

To date, Surrey has successfully closed 16 deals and counting, all because of a shared love for gardening.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images/izusek 

By Margie Zable Fisher

Sourced from CO

CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.