In News

6 Things Every (Atheist) Blogger Should Know

August 8, 2019 No Comments

Recently, my blog turned two and a half years old! That means that today, I’ve been blogging for 136 weeks and this is my 136th post. Over the years, people have asked me for my greatest advice for blog writing, whether that is how to grow a following and get noticed or how to go about writing for an atheist blog when you’re still in the atheist closet. Today, I want to share with you some of my answers to some commonly asked blogging questions.

1. How do I start a blog?

This is a fairly simple question with a straightforward answer. Ask anyone who has ever started a blog, and they will tell you that this is by far the easiest step in blogging. For me, it involved choosing a blog name (The Closet Atheist at the time) and clicking on the big, unmissable Get Started button on WordPress.com. WordPress (almost) literally holds your hand throughout the blog-building process, and there is nothing technical to it. Any WordPress blog can be free, by the way, if you don’t mind a URL ending in .wordpress.blog and a few ads on your site. My blog started off as theclosetatheist39.wordpress.com (does anyone remember this?) because theclosetatheist.wordpress.com was (and still is) reserved. But oh, how far we’ve come!

2. How do I start an anonymous blog as a closeted atheist?

The first thing of which I must warn you—which I had to learn the hard way—is not to expect it to stay hidden forever. I think I did a pretty good job of writing anonymously for that year and a half. My name or face were nowhere to be seen on the site, my Twitter, or anywhere related to them. You better believe The Closet Atheist was not only the name of my site, but my second identity. It was my email address and my Twitter handle, and there was not any way that anyone who didn’t know me could have ever found me on Instagram or Facebook through it.

But writing anonymously, continuously, is hard. You can’t write your life story without details of your life slipping in. Even when I was writing anonymously, you would have known that I was raised in the Lutheran Church, that my mom was an organist, my brother-in-law was a pastor, and I went to a Christian college where I played in a marching band. But I think that giving up that many details of my life were worth how much this blog saved my sanity. Even YouTubers make videos anonymously, but I think that puts you at a much higher risk of being found by people you know.

3. How do I keep my blog going?

I’ve seen more blogs than I can count with one post, or a handful of posts, which were then left and never touched again. Thinking of a cool name, a sleek design, and a catchy topic is simple until you realize that if you want your blog to succeed, you are going to have to keep writing. And writing. And writing. And writing. (Repeat, in my case, 136 times so far.)

Not to be harsh, or overly obvious, but you probably shouldn’t start a blog if you don’t have a pretty long list of post ideas. You don’t want a blog with a total of four or five posts, but you want to be able to write for as long as possible, and to do that, you need things to talk about. I think that generating topics is more difficult as a blogger than it would be for a podcast or for YouTube, because on those media, there are endless other videos to reply to, and endless people to invite onto your podcast to interview (wink, wink—like me!). But I find that it is nearly impossible to collaborate with others or review videos through blogging, so I stick with reviewing books and articles, and in the past I’ve responded to sermons, speeches, bible studies, and class lectures.

4. How will I ever come up with that much to talk about?

The best way to come up with post ideas is deciding the overall topic of your blog. It absolutely has to be something you are passionate about, and that you could talk about for literal years. And you should be able to put your own spin on it, own it, and write about it from your perspective. If you’re telling your story, it should be easy because no one else can or has told it before. For me, I combined my story of becoming an atheist, living as an atheist at a Christian college and in a Christian family, and coming out to the people in my life. On quiet weeks, I interspersed my life experiences with the aforementioned reviews and responses. Nowadays, with my atheist story being quiet and peaceful, I’ve started branching out from the topic of atheism and religion—to posts like this!

5. How do I grow my following?

Here’s my practical, tried-and-true advice: Engage. This is true for every content creator: YouTubers, Instagrammers, and traditional bloggers alike. Comment on, follow, and like other people’s blogs and blog posts. Follow them on social media and interact with them there. The audience will follow if you have built relationships with people. This also means that you can’t make it all about you. If you comment on anyone’s blog saying only “Nice post! Check out my blog at doucheymcdouche.wordpress.com,” they will probably delete it immediately, if it doesn’t get sent automatically to spam. If the post you are commenting on is something you’ve also written about, you should still summarize your thoughts in your comments before linking to your specific post and explaining why. But I find that it is always good enough to not self-advertise at all. Just be logged in, where your blog link will be in your username automatically.

But on a more authentic, less marketing-centered level, it is really all about what you are actually writing. I am a firm believer, when it comes to personal blogging (as opposed to marketing blogs or other paid content), in this unpopular opinion.

The writer comes first. The readers come second.

This probably goes against any blogging advice you have ever read. But for he or she who blogs unpaid, just to tell their story, it is vital. If you write what you want to write, you will have more fun, you will write better, and your readers will know that you love what you’re doing. This is how you keep them around, and this is how you keep your blog going before you decide that it’s “just too hard,” it’s “not fun anymore,” and “no one’s reading it anyway and I can’t figure out what they want!” Just keep going. At the very least, you will be enjoying it. Even among my own readership, I can tell you right now that no matter what, this blog’s biggest fan is me!

6. What’s your biggest advice for anyone who wants to get into blogging?

STICK TO A SCHEDULE!

I cannot stress this enough. At all. Is it absolutely crucial.

I follow a number of blogs, and I can’t tell you how much it drives me crazy when they do not keep a posting schedule, especially when they claim to! If you tell your audience you will upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m., you have to upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m. This is part of building trust. My readers knew that this post would be up today at 8 a.m., and I know that my views are always highest on Sunday mornings. I have never kept my readers wondering for longer than 12 hours where my last post was or when I would write next. There are many Saturdays when I don’t have time to write, and there are no Sundays (anymore) when I am up by 8 a.m. One of the greatest things about WordPress is the ability to write a post any time you want and schedule it to go up when you want it to.

When I was in a graphic design class in college, one of my projects was to make an instructional infographic. I chose a how-to on personal blogging. So if you want a more concise and design-centric list of blogging tips from me, you can look at this poster called “5 Traits of a Successful Personal Blog”.

By Rebekah K

Sourced from The Curious Atheist

In News

Want to Become an Influencer? Start Blogging

May 31, 2019 No Comments

By Dave Schneider

What do Neil Patel, Tim Ferriss, and Brian Clark have in common? They are three of the most influential personalities in the digital marketing sphere today. And they built their influence through blogging. Why don’t you start blogging to build influence as well?

You can say that they blogged their way to fame and fortune. But it was not an overnight success. It was a rigorous process borne out of a passion for finding solutions and sharing their knowledge to as many people as possible through digital tech and the Internet.

In this post, we will identify the common qualities influencers share. We will also look at some of the best’s best practices that, hopefully, you can adapt to position your best content forward.

The Common Denominators

Just like Patel, Ferriss, and Clark, top influencers share these qualities that help put them in their stature.

They create thought-provoking content that inspires their audience to take action. Influencers go beyond promoting their businesses and themselves. They spend time knowing the industry, pinpointing areas of improvement, knowing what makes people tick, providing solutions to problems, and keeping up with the trends. Take Barry Schwartz, for example. His site, Search Engine Roundtable, is often the first go-to resource for any Google algorithm update.
Influencers exude authenticity and transparency, both in the content they create and their online persona. They publish their works in different platforms and are active participants in online discussions. They are not afraid to voice their opinions, but acknowledge their shortcomings when they’re at fault. Making themselves more relatable as a human is the quality that builds the audience’s trust and the influencer’s credibility.
Despite his busy schedule, Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor and Chief Content Officer of Search Engine Land, still maintains his personal blog to talk about his personal musings and other passions aside from SEO and digital marketing.
They are engaging. Neil Patel, for example, has helped millions of his followers learn digital marketing in an engaging manner through his blog, Quicksprout. He crafts in-depth tutorials that are fun and easy to read. And beyond that, Quicksprout analyzes websites shows how they can be improved in terms of generating more traffic – free of charge.

So you want to become a digital influencer? Then…

1. Start blogging and give it all you got. Don’t expect it to be an instant hit though. As Seth Godin puts it, “If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you’ve got. Just don’t plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.”

It takes about a year or so for a blog to gain traction, provided you’re blogging more than 11 times per month. So, consistency is imperative.

To avoid sounding too boring in your writing, find a topic that you’re passionate about where you feel you can add value in. You’ll also find it’s easier to write in a conversational tone when you let your words reflect your personality. It’ll be easier for people to relate to you and see what you’re all about and how you’d contribute to your niche.

2. We all know how crucial content is when building a loyal following. If you’re still at a loss on what high-quality content is, let Google’s Quality Guidelines bring some light to it.

Create posts primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t write for writing’s sake, just so you have something to post for that day. The audience should learn something valuable from your post.
A useful test is to ask is, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” Because when you help people, they naturally want to like and trust you.
Think about what makes your website unique, engaging, and valuable. Make a list of things of what makes you stand out. Apply that to your writing and make your website stand out from others in your field.
Don’t mislead your users. Employing tricks to improve search engine rankings is definitely a no-no. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee.

3. Plan your strategy to start blogging

While content is crucial, the most important aspect of winning a loyal fan base is strategy. Use the analytics tool on your blog and social media. See what type of content is most shared and liked, and participate in discussions about it.

Study wording in the titles and images on articles in order to determine what attracts an audience the most, and then craft your content around it.

4. Determine collaboration options

For starters, look for other bloggers and ask if they could share your content and give you credit free of charge.

5. Use social media

Maintain visibility and activity in discussions on trending topics in your niche. Don’t just spew words. Do some research, if you need to, to bring more value to the discussion. You can easily build your online presence this way, attract more followers or blog subscribers.

6. Get ready to scale up

Reevaluate your blog analytics. If after at least a year you are attaining or exceeding your goals, then it’s time to scale up.

You will naturally produce more content than what you used to. So determine the need for additional writers and an editorial team to oversee that all articles are error-free and aligned to your branding.

Consider hiring a marketing manager to assist you in devising multiple streams of income through your blog and pitching to potential advertisers and partners. Get a professional graphic designer, if you can afford one, to help you in brand development through ongoing projects.

If your budget screams no to hiring one, use a graphic design tool such as Snappa to make it easier for you to create stunning visuals. The app’s resizing tool is one of its core features. So your blogs social media posts, display ads, emails, blogs, and infographics can be resized and repurposed as YouTube thumbnails.

Conclusion: Start Blogging TODAY!

Challenge yourself to be the most you can be. Set high goals, do some growth tracking, and crunch some numbers. It will all be difficult at the start but should be attainable once you set your mind to it.

Are you ready to start blogging now?

By Dave Schneider

Dave Schneider is an expert on Blogging. Dave is the cofounder of NinjaOutreach, an innovative new blogger outreach software for marketers based in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes about blogging for businesses, entrepreneurship, and has a love for travel, having visited over 40 countries. Dave can be found at lesschurn.io and daveschneider.me.

Sourced from Neal Schaffer

In News

Thinking of Adding a Blog to Your Website? Here’s How to Get Started

May 30, 2019 No Comments

By Melissa Burns

Blogging is one of the most valuable tools you can use to engage with your customers online and ultimately improve your marketing and business results. If you don’t have a blog already, you should definitely start one now.

Over the years, blogging has emerged as one of the main elements in marketing strategies today. And 2019 promises to be the year of blogging.

Before we delve into how you can use blogging to connect with your audience, let’s examine the benefits of adding a blog to your website. Then, we’ll discuss how to get started with blogging.

The Benefits of Blogging

A blog is really a simple, concise and easy-to-use platform that allows you to connect with your target audience online and share with them relevant information about your business and other relevant information. Because it is your own platform, you can explain directly to your audience all about your products or services and how to use them. Also, you can easily track customer engagement on your blog and get their valuable feedback firsthand.

As SEO is a part of most content marketing strategies nowadays, more and more businesses are focusing on optimization to improve their search engine rankings. To have a better ranking on Google, the most popular search engine, the most effective way is to add a blog to your website. However, it’s not enough just to have a blog. It will have to be active and you’ll need to learn how to apply SEO recommendations to make your blog popular.

According to a Hubspot survey, 60% of businesses that have a blog on their website acquire more customers. Your blog is where your content strategy starts. From your blog, you can pull out content for your email and newsletter campaigns, social media channels, webinars, eBooks, guides, and so on. Having all your vital information in one place will not only be helpful for your customers, but also for yourself as well.

Keep in mind, though, that your target website or business audience is whom you’re writing to when blogging. That’s why it’s important to provide them with useful tips and tricks so they are benefiting from the blog and finding reason to keep coming back for more information.

Among the numerous benefits of adding a blog to your website, the most crucial one is that it gives you and your company a voice. There is no better way to personalize your company than by having a blog. For instance, you can show all the values that are important to your company and its employees by writing about company culture.

Your blog is also a place where you can write about upcoming products or services, and comment on industry trends. Use it to showcase your brand personality and industry expertise. Remember that customers are less likely to buy a product from a company they don’t like. However, they are more loyal and likely to become repeat customers for those brands they like.

5 Steps to Add a Blog and Start Blogging

Starting a blog is easier than it once was, but you have to be more determined and have clearly defined goals before you start working on your platform.

Here’re crucial steps to make your blogging an interesting and beneficial process.

Step 1: Prepare and plan ahead

Every good strategy requires preparation, and it’s the same with blogging. What are the goals of your blog? Do you wish to inform people about your products or service? Do you want to provide them with additional information on product usage? Do you want to position yourself as an opinion maker in your industry so you’ll comment on recent trends and provide guidelines?

Answering these questions will help you determine in which way to go. Don’t forget about writing a list of topics for your blog. To research and get some ideas, use Google Trends, a free tool provided by Google.

Step 2: Add a blog page on your existing website

As a company or serious professional, you probably already have an existing website. To add a blog to the website, create a new website page with a link to a blog you set up on a popular blogging platform like WordPress (WP).

Alternatively, you can move your website to WordPress. Use .htaccess codes to redirect old links on your existing website to new ones on WP. The power of a static blog homepage in WordPress can allow you to run your blog with your website name as the main domain.

You can then customize your blog to match your website and post content on the blog. Visitors will not have a problem identifying and reading your blog.

Step 3: Publish the blog page

If you want your blog to be accessible on your website so that other people can read it, you will have to publish the website page with a link pointing to your blog, or add the blog link to your website navigation. Check that everything is correct in the page and click the ‘Publish’ button.

After publishing and making your blog link live on your website, go to your WP Dashboard and choose ‘Settings’ on the left side. Click the button to create a new static page in WP and select ‘Blog’ under the drop-down menu for ‘Posts.’

It’s very important that you choose ‘Blog’ under the drop-down menu for ‘Posts’ and not the ‘Front’ page, because it will determine where your blog feed appears on your website.

When you’re done with that, you will now have to decide how many posts you want to appear when your readers visit your blog. The number is up to you.

Step 4: Add your first blog post

This is where you’re going to need that list of blogging topics you created in the first step of preparation. Decide on the title and subject or topic that is best to publish as your first blog post.

With blogging topics already decided and written down in the first step, you will have no problem creating content that is high converting. This is why it’s essential that you don’t skip the preparation phase.

Don’t be too strict on yourself, though, especially if this is your first blog post ever. The good thing about blogging is that you can edit all your posts after they’re published without any problem.

Step 5: Create an editorial/blogging calendar

Blog posting should follow a pre-determined strategy for it to be effective. For this reason, create an editorial calendar for your upcoming articles, with topics, deadlines, the persons who will write them and any other information you find useful. Have this information clearly written down ahead of time.

When you blog without an editorial calendar, your blogging messages and schedules are likely to be all over the place, making your blog look disorganized and messy. Your customers may easily get confused. Blogging is pretty straightforward, but mistakes like these can harm your blog performance.

Conclusion

Adding a blog to your website is not something you can ignore today at a time when every business is focused on content marketing. When you decide to start a blog, remember these key points:

With a blog, you can easily communicate and engage your audience
Blogging will increase your search engine ranking results
A blog is a perfect platform for publishing converting content
Having a blog allows you to show your company culture
With quality preparation, you will simplify your blogging process
Having an editorial calendar is crucial for your content to succeed

With all of this in mind, blogging will be inspiring for you and your audience. It will simplify your communication with customers and make it easier for you to convert prospects into customers as well. So, get blogging today!

By Melissa Burns

Melissa Burns is an independent journalist and marketing consultant. Business innovations, technology, and marketing are central topics of her articles. She started writing with a single goal of sharing her expertise with other people. Melissa also provides workshops for start-ups and small businesses.

Sourced from The Web Writer Spotlight

In News

LinkedIn Sponsored InMail, Micro-Influencers and Blogging: A Winning Combination

May 29, 2019 No Comments

By Nick Mattar

LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail isn’t always seen as the most effective type of outreach method, but there are ways that it can be used to great effect.

My organization hosts several events each year, focused on best practice-sharing and helping small businesses, and I recently took the lead on marketing a new event which focused on digital marketing and how companies can use it to drive their bottom line. I was ambitious and set a goal of 200 event registrations. With two months to market the event, I had some time to drive registrations using my organization’s traditional marketing channels.

The Problem

My traditional marketing playbook was simply not working. I managed to bring in approximately 15% of my event registration goal through email and organic social media, but I needed to reach more marketers – in particular, digital marketers or those who worked in the online space.

My database of contacts simply didn’t provide the target market necessary to reach my goal, and after two weeks running social media ads on Facebook and LinkedIn, my budget was nearly depleted, and my registration numbers hadn’t moved significantly.

It was clear, at this point, that I needed to take a different approach.

The Big Idea

I not only needed to reach marketers, but I needed to establish a relationship with them, and drive enough brand trust where they would feel comfortable spending money to register for my event. I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone.

My first thought was to use influencers to help spread the word. Recent studies have shown that 94% of marketers have found influencer marketing to be effective. They would help drive brand awareness, and subsequently bring in new event registrations. The ticket price was not cheap ($55) so I needed to really focus on the brand awareness aspect.

But then I thought about the specific influencers in more depth. Simply reaching out to my core digital marketing influencers wasn’t going to do the trick – I needed over 150 people, and there was nobody within a hundred-mile radius that had that kind of pull with the budget I had remaining.

This led to a new plan – aim for dozens of micro-influencers who would each be able to bring in a small handful of paid registrations.

The Implementation

I like to think of myself as a relatively well-known digital marketer, but I don’t have nearly the network required to achieve my micro-influencer goal. I needed a platform to broadcast my call for these people.

This is where LinkedIn Sponsored InMail was useful. Rather than using it for annoying sales pitches or free e-books, I was going to use it to appeal to marketers’ egos. Most marketers like to consider themselves subject matter experts in at least one area. If people were going to respond to my call for help, there needed to be something in it for them.

Thus, I would ask them to provide their expertise by writing a blog post, publishing it with a plug for my event, and then promoting it on their top social channels. In return, they would receive a free registration to the event, and then I would also promote their blog post, giving them the byline and bowing to their expertise.

I made sure my Sponsored InMail headline would catch their eyes: “Call For Digital Marketing Experts.”

I was careful to target only the most experienced and connected digital marketers. Thanks to LinkedIn’s superior ad targeting capabilities, I was able to narrow down my search to a few hundred individuals that would help me achieve my goal.

The Results

My Sponsored InMail campaign only ran for 48 hours, and resulted in 150 delivered messages. Of the 150, 70 responded and 33 eventually became official micro-influencers.

I provided each micro-influencer with a unique link to my event page so I could track the traffic they would bring in to the event site. In total, my 33 unique links led to 2,000 unique pageviews, and 160 event registrations, giving me the numbers I needed to exceed my initial goal.

The numbers may not seem overwhelming, but they’re exactly what I wanted out of my micro-influencers. I gained thousands of new users at minimal cost, while also gaining valuable content from new connections.

Final Takeaways

If you’re considering an influencer campaign, but lack the budget for big names, consider micro-influencers instead. You may need to do a call out to attract their attention, but by bringing together the right combination of people, content and promotion, you can achieve your goals.

Most businesspeople are influencers at some level – it just requires the right type of action to activate their networks.

By Nick Mattar

Follow Nick Mattar on Twitter

Sourced from Social Media Today

In News

How To Use Instagram To Power Your Business Blogging

May 27, 2019 No Comments

By Dave Schneider

You might have heard it already…

Instagram has recently surpassed 1 billion users and has taken the social media industry by storm.

For the blogging community, it works as a gateway to find new followers and like-minded people in their niche. It has become one of the top social media marketing platforms not only for many influential bloggers but also for many major businesses.

In this post, you’ll learn why Instagram is important and how you can use it for your business to complement your blogging strategy.

There was a misconception about Instagram’s importance being limited to businesses like retailers, restaurants, or travel companies.

Not anymore!

Now, it’s increasingly important for all kinds of businesses looking to build their brands online. Despite the surprising fact that it’s been underutilized by many, Instagram is one of the best ways to use visual marketing for your business.

Industry bloggers are consistently leveraging the power of Instagram marketing to promote their brands and grow their business on a large scale.

Why?

Because Instagram is all about visual content, and visual content makes it easier to grab their audience’s attention.

After all, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual!

Image Source: Kissmetrics Blog

Why You Need Instagram For Your Business

Think about this for a moment, bloggers are always using Instagram to connect with peers and colleagues, influencers and readers.

How do you think it affects their brand and their business?

It’s simple.

Their network evolves and grows, their brand is exposed to millions of followers, all thanks to the influencers they network with.

According to Brandwatch, “48.8% of brands are on Instagram and by 2017 this number is likely to rise to 70.7%.”

Surely, you don’t want to be left behind, do you?

There are many reasons why you should consider Instagram for business. One of the main reasons is the level of user engagement you get.

The number one goal of your social media marketing strategy is to be where your target audience is engaging and spending their time.

Research suggests that the engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times better than Pinterest, and 84 times greater than Twitter.

So if your business is not active on Instagram, you are missing out…big time!

How To Use Instagram For Your Business

Using Instagram to promote your business is pretty straight forward, but you need a solid strategy to get your desired results.

Remember:

Like any other social media platform, you must have a strategic plan for marketing on Instagram to gain traffic, get leads, and generate sales.

Instagram Marketing Strategy

First, you need to establish your marketing goals.

Do you want to increase your product sales?
Do you want to increase traffic to your website?
Do you want to increase your brand awareness?

Each social media network has its own features and advantages. You have to determine which of Instagram’s features match best with your marketing goals.

Next, you should be asking yourself –

Who is my target audience?
Having a well-defined target audience is critical. You cannot say that your target audience is “anyone who is interested in my products or services”!
Your target audience should be a specific market that is more likely to engage and buy from you. For example, single moms over 30 who speak English as their first language. This is a more effective and efficient way to reach your potential clients.Check out this detailed guide by Neil Patel to understand how to define and reach your target audience.
Which part of my audience is most active on Instagram?
After you have a clear idea of who your target audience is, next you need to find out which part of your audience is most active on Instagram; men and women of different age groups, college students with different taste and styles – who is actively using Instagram?
What kind of content do they love to engage with?
Find out what kind of content your target audience is mostly sharing, liking, and commenting on. This will help you create content they’ll love to engage with.

As you can see, doing market research is an important part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

You need data to find out what other brands, businesses, and competitors in your niche are doing on Instagram.

Use this data to evaluate what is working for them, and to find things they are missing out on, as well as things you can implement better than them.

High engaging visual content is the key for Instagram marketing so your goals and strategy should reflect that.

Your Instagram marketing strategy should involve –

Strategizing what you should post on your Instagram.
Finding out how often you should post.
Creating a well-maintained content calendar.
A strategy to get more engaged followers.

Instagram Marketing Tips

Tools: You can use tools like Hootsuite, Later, ScheduGram to schedule your Instagram posts in advance. Schedule your posts at your audience’s most active times.
Hashtags: They play a very vital role these days in social media. It’s the same with Instagram too! Using hashtags the right way will allow your target audience to discover your content easily. So choose them wisely!
Tagging people: This is a powerful technique and can play a huge part in your Instagram marketing strategy. Tag influencers, brands, or businesses featured in your posts and it will show up in their profiles.
Following influencers on Instagram: This will keep you updated on the latest industry trends. You can also find interesting, engaging and inspirational content ideas for your own posts.
Monitor and Analyze: Monitor and analyze your marketing strategies and see what is working and what is not. Adopt new tactics when necessary.

Image source: Social Media Examiner

Use tools like Iconosquare to measure your performance and optimize your strategy. Some other tools similar to Iconosquare are Dash Hudson, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social.

When you are setting up your Instagram marketing campaigns, pay very close attention to your target audience and what they are interested in.

Make sure you are engaging with them by liking, commenting, replying to their mentions and direct messages in a timely fashion.

Eventually, you will find what types of content and strategies are working for your business.

By Dave Schneider

Sourced from Neal Schaffer

In News

3 Blogging Best Practices for Business

May 24, 2019 No Comments

By Laura Hill

An essential part of an effective content marketing program, blogging is a great way to accomplish several of your marketing goals at once.

Need fresh content for your website? Post a blog. Want to establish yourself as a subject matter expert? Write a blog that demonstrates your mastery. Need high-quality content for social media that drives traffic to your website? What about writing you can repurpose for email marketing? Yep. Blogs.

Aren’t there already a ton of blogs out there? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re too late to start leveraging this very effective tool. Here are some helpful guidelines, so the time you spend on your blog will return the highest return on your investment!

Our top 3 tips for business blogging

1. Provide value

Give prospective customers a real reason to make the jump to your content on the website. Write about topics that are relevant to your audience, whether they are timely or evergreen. A good place to start is with questions you are frequently asked about your services or products. These are questions people will be using on search engines, using keywords that relate directly to your business, making it even more likely you will be found online!

2. Keep it interesting

Make the text easily scannable by breaking up large blocks of text with attractive white space, and adding pictures, videos, and links. Need quality sources for free or low cost images? Create your own using graphic design tools or try free photo sites that provide a natural range of people in current and realistic settings.

3. Connect your blog to your website

Hopefully, by sharing links to your blog through social media and email marketing, and by being found during online search, you will be driving traffic directly to your blog. HubSpot recommends making sure your blog is directly connected to your business website, either as a subdomain (blog.yourdomain.com) or as a page (yourdomain.com/blog) so visitors can easily access additional information about your company.

Reviving a blogging program or starting a new one?

Beginning a blogging program (or restarting a dormant one) can be intimidating and overwhelming. Listen to your customers and clients to learn what topics they are interested in, and follow these best practices to make the time you spend blogging more rewarding and effective.

By Laura Hill

Sourced from BreezyHill

In News

The Key to Profitable Blogging Is to Find a Niche

May 24, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from Inc.

Approach it the right way, and your blog can be a revenue centre.

Blogging offers an amazing opportunity to build authority and earn income. You can create a blog about anything you know or in which you have experience. The key is to choose a niche–serving a specific audience is better than writing about a jumble of topics.

Whether you want to focus on a business topic like growth marketing or a personal passion like a sport, choose a vertical and dive in. With effort and time, your blog can generate income and position you as an authority in your space. It may even help you make a profit.

You can use your blog to position yourself as an expert in any field. Take Facebook marketing, for example. Facebook Messenger marketing and Messenger chatbots are on the rise, and the marketing possibilities are endless.

If you’re a digital marketing or social media consultant, leverage the buzz surrounding Facebook chatbots, and create a blog that’s all about using Facebook Messenger chatbots for businesses. Potential topics could include things like why chatbots are great for business, how to set up a chatbot, how to use it to capture leads, the lower cost for click-to-messenger ads, etc.

Over time, you can use your blog to build authority as a Facebook chatbot expert. With a blog as your base, you can successfully add a chatbot consultancy to your business.

Feature Image Credit: CREDIT: Getty Images

Sourced from Inc.

In News

How To Start A Blog And Actually Keep It Up

April 2, 2019 No Comments

By Phoebe Simmonds

There are so many reasons why you should start a blog. It might be to have a place to voice your opinions, to share your ideas, develop your career or to keep friends and family updated as you travel.

Either way, writing on a blog is a great way to spend some free time and there’s even the potential to earn money off of it in the long run. However, with so many blogs and so much information out there, it can be confusing to know how to start a blog and what’s more, keep it up. Here are our top tips.

Think about what you want to write about

If you want to start a blog then your first step should be deciding what you actually want to blog about. Whether it’s food, travel, fitness or a specific hobby, there are no boundaries when it comes to blogging.

Keep in mind that if you are planning to make money from your blog or use it as part of a professional CV then it pays to pick a niche. This is because there’s so much competition out there that it’s better to narrow your focus down in order to stand out. For example rather than just doing a travel blog, why not do an adventure travel blog or better yet an adventure travel blog that focuses on doing so on a budget.

Choose your blog name

It’s best not to change your blog’s name that often because as soon as you create your site and start posting content, it will get indexed by Search Engines. Constantly changing the name of your blog will mean that it is harder for your blog to get found online.

When it comes to picking a name, try to think of something that’s relevant to your content. It’s important to keep it unique and memorable- a little humour never hurt anyone. The best ways to come up with blog names is to have a bit of a brainstorm on paper. Maybe come up with words associated with your topic and branch off from there. It’s also worth having a look at other peoples blogs to see what names have and haven’t been done.

Pick your Blogging Platform

Blogging Platforms are sites that host your blog and choosing one of these is the first step that you need to take in actually creating your blog. The most popular blogging platform is WordPress which is what the majority of sites and blogs are built on. WordPress is free and as blogging platforms go it’s pretty simple to use and visually appealing. Other popular blogging platforms include Wix, Blogger and Tumblr.

Choose your site layout

WordPress has a number of free themes available for you to choose when you first start your blog. The theme that you choose is integral to the overall feel of your blog and different ones will be suitable for different blogs depending on the type of content that you are going to be posting. Blog platforms usually let you demo a theme first so have a play around with those until you find one that’s right for you. You can always change it at a later date.

Add in your pages

Pages are important when it comes to helping people (and search engines) navigate your site so have a think about what pages you would like to include. It’s usually a good idea to have a Home, About, Contact page and then a different page for each of your main categories such as Travel, Food, Fashion etc.

Write your first post

Every writer knows that the hardest of writing is when you’re faced with that blank page and a blog is no different. When you first start a blog, be sure to hit that new post button straight away. Whether you write an introduction post or get stuck in their right away, as soon as you’ve got your first post published, you’re on your way to blogging success.

Share your content

When you first start a blog, the idea of sharing your content can be really daunting. You might feel that it’s not ready or good enough to share yet but in truth, most bloggers always feel a little like that. Blogging is always going to be a work in progress but it’s so important to share all of this amazing content that you’re creating with others from the get-go. What’s more, knowing that people are actually reading the content that you are writing is when blogging starts to become addictive.

Have Fun with it

It’s so important to have fun and continually try out new ideas on your blog. Be it new themes, a new tone of voice or even a whole new direction with it. Either way, just get creative with it and express yourself. The beauty of a blog is that’s your very own to with what you want.

Challenge yourself

Blogging is a fantastic opportunity for you to really push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get inventive with it, share your thoughts and watch online tutorials so that you can create something you’re really proud of. Having a blog can push you to seek adventures and new experiences that you can write about and in doing so, blogging becomes really addictive.

There’s always more to know when it comes to blogging but it’s a learn as you go kind of thing. Every successful blogger started off with an empty site so don’t let that blank page scare you. The best way to start a blog is to do just that and before long, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

By Phoebe Simmonds

Sourced from SOCIETY19

In News

How to be a perfectly grateful blogger

March 15, 2019 No Comments

By Debbie Harris

News just in …..

I woke to the news recently that I have been nominated in the Best Lifestyle Blog category of the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards. I sincerely thank whoever nominated me and I humbly accept the nomination. I’m thrilled, proud as punch and amazed to even be nominated!

Nominated in Best Lifestyle Blog category

BUT….

But there’s a problem – I’m a fraud. Well maybe that’s a bit harsh, I just feel like a fraud and only sometimes, not all the time!

I think I’m having one of my confidence meltdowns – where I don’t think I’m good enough, or have anything interesting to say or get confused or simply overwhelmed by everything. Do you ever feel like this?

Despite having been blogging for years and somehow amassing thousands of followers, I still don’t think I’m any good at it. I’m not looking for compliments here or being self deprecating, I’m seriously doubting my abilities – which I do from time to time! At least I’m an honest fraudster I’ll be fine in a day or two!

Why do I do this to myself and where has this feeling come from?

I really had to stop and think about it. I don’t know if I’m just having a mini confidence crisis, feeling lost, overwhelmed by things going on or is it just a slight case of imposter syndrome?

Maybe it’s just a mix of lots of things. Hopefully it will pass and I will resume normal transmission soon. Do you feel like this sometimes, I’d love to know?

But I’ve also read a few articles about on-line bloggers/wellness experts/influencers who have abused their power and had some major negative press, and well deserved I must say, as a result of their questionable actions. Only this week I read Jennifer’s review of a book about one such person and as she said, if it was a novel, it would seem unbelievable.

I’m not one to presume to tell anyone what to do. I don’t like to give advice very often as I don’t think I’m qualified to do so. Blogging is different for everyone, some want to entertain you, some want you to buy things, some want to rant about issues impacting on their lives, some want to tell you what to do.

I suppose this hit me as we all tend to hide a little behind our keyboards. Life isn’t always as we blog about it.

I’m fortunate to have met in real life, some of my friends who I’ve got to know through this blogging community. They have all been lovely, real, kind, generous, authentic and caring people – something I aim to be too.

Blogging Awards in fiction

Given the recent nominations for those of us lucky enough to have received them, these two books by Holly Wainwright also struck a chord. I read them a while ago, and although works of fiction, they hit a nerve.

I thought of them and had a wry smile, as I read the post about the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards. Thankfully I think it is an over the top depiction of bloggers, and none of us are going to go to such lengths to win an award!!

They are light reading but for those of us who are bloggers they also have some home truths, as many people can, and do, get caught up in their own ‘online’ and sometimes ‘unreal’ world.

The Mummy Bloggers by Holly Wainwright:

The blurb:

Sometimes life behind the screen is not as rosy as it seems…

Meet three Mummy Bloggers – each of them followed, idolised, imitated, taunted and trolled online.

Elle Campbell is a glossy, lycra-clad mum with washboard abs, a ten-year plan and a secret past. Abi Black has quit sugar, moved to the country and is homeschooling her kids. Leisel Adams slogs away at her office job each day before rushing home, steeped in guilt, to spend precious moments with her kids before bedtime.

When all three women are nominated for a prestigious blogging award with a hefty cash prize, the scene is set for a brutal and often hilarious battle for hearts, minds-and clicks. As the awards night gets closer, their lies get bigger, their stunts get crazier – and some mistakes from the past become harder and harder to hide.

The Mummy Bloggers is a frank and funny look at the perils and perks of life online.

This was my review on Goodreads:

I was conflicted with this book. I’m a blogger, though not a mummy blogger, more of a midlife blogger, and understood many of the issues. The using everything that goes on around you for fodder for a post, the social media aspect and the time involved in maintaining a blog. Holly Wainwright got most of these things spot on. It made me stop and think about my ‘following’ and how intrusive some parts of blogging can be, in terms of time and effort. I don’t blog for money, have nothing to sell, and use it as a creative outlet but I could still see similarities, which I didn’t like! I also didn’t care much for the main characters. My blogging community is a much nicer world than the three bloggers in this story, I’m happy to say. The story was quite well done but it all just left me a bit cold at times. I also read the second book before reading this one so maybe that clouded my thinking a bit. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either.

How to be Perfect by Holly Wainwright

The bestselling author of The Mummy Bloggers is back with another page-turning, rip-roaring story about mums, phones and the cult of self-improvement.

In the rolling green hills of Australia’s hippest hinterland, a new guru is blogging about her breakfast.

ELLE CAMPBELL is back, holed up in an exclusive retreat where women pay thousands to mimic her extreme lifestyle, or die trying. But who’s bankrolling Elle’s new empire? And why are her two tiny sons suddenly absent from her glossy public image?

ABI BLACK just wants to marry her true love under a tree in the garden on New Year’s Eve. But her ex-husband is building a financial cult in the shed, Elle is looming and her teenage daughter’s YouTube channel is gaining followers for all the wrong reasons. The wedding might have to wait.

FRANCES GRAHAM has a colicky newborn, an absent husband and a WhatsApp mothers’ group that’s giving her anxiety. But she’s certain that if she can just be more like those fitmums on Instagram, things can only get better. And surely, if she can scrape enough money together to make it to Elle’s retreat, everything in her life will be just . . . perfect.

Through a world of fake gurus, green smoothies and bad influencers, How to Be Perfect follows Elle, Abi and Frankie into the cult of self-improvement that’s taking over your phone . . . and your breakfast.

These books show just how easily people can get hooked on believing something that’s far from real. I’m not sure I recommend you read these books but it showed me how thankful I am that my blogging community is completely different to the world in these books.

What I’m trying to say is that blogging is like any creative artwork, we all have our ups and downs from time to time, a crisis of confidence, writer’s block, burnout – you name it!

MY 6 TOP TIPS ON HOW TO BE A GRATEFUL BLOGGER:

I suggest we:

Engage with others regularly
Find a blogging buddy or a mentor and interact
Check in on your buddies from time to time – it can be hard to know why some bloggers just disappear from our feeds
Never be mean or nasty in comments – it is fine to agree to disagree but do so politely
Try to meet in person – it can be such fun!
Support each other wherever possible

So, in summary, I am trying to be a grateful blogger and I truly appreciate all your continued support. Thanks again for the nomination, it made my day

Deb xx

By Debbie Harris

Sourced from Deb’s World

In News

A Life of Blogging

March 5, 2019 No Comments

By Jason Weiland

What it’s like to analyze everything I do

I’ve been writing my whole life. But, I didn’t start blogging until my twenties.

Back then I called it “online journaling” because blogging and WordPress weren’t a thing yet.

I’ve journaled since I was young, so when I became interested in the internet in the 1990s, I tried to figure out a way to put my personal observations online. As I said, there was no WordPress, so I had to get creative.

This is my journey!

(I tried to use the Internet Archive to find screenshots of my old websites, but it didn’t go that far back. Let’s just say that all my websites were awesome and well before their time. You’ll have to take my word for it!)

BigHeadBoy.com

In the early 1990s, I taught myself how to use Photoshop and HTML and started building simple websites. As you can imagine, my first sites were horrendous! I think I remember clashing colors, loud tiled backgrounds, and animated GIFs of gophers dancing across the page.

After some time, my Photoshop skills got better, and I started creating interesting designs. But because of the nature of bandwidth at that time, images on web pages had to be very small. I figured out a way to create a graphical interface that had a small file size but was very appealing. I wish I had a screenshot.

It was an image of me with the head enlarged and some fancy clickable buttons. I would add new journal entries a few times a week, but each page had to be coded, so it took some time. I got well versed at cutting and pasting.

Eventually, HTML got better and better, and I added some very neat animated rollover buttons (again, I wish I had made screenshots). My first job as a web designer came because somebody saw my website and was impressed with my skills.

Not only did I love designing and coding the web pages, but I enjoyed writing online. Back then, the only comments I received were through email, because there wasn’t any way to add comments to a website yet. People reacted positively, and it’s one of the reasons I continued to design and write online.

I eventually got too unwell to continue updating the website. BigHeadBoy.com stayed with me for some time, and later when I started my own web design firm, BigHeadBoy Design, we used the domain for the company website.

When you clicked on this dude’s big head it loaded the website! (image owned by Jason Weiland)

During one of the years I was hospitalized quite a bit, I failed to renew the domain and lost it. Someone else snapped it up, but they never developed it.

JasonWeiland.com

There was a time I owned the .com for my name and used it as a portfolio/online journal. I was experimenting with design, and I used typefaces in interesting ways. I changed this website about once a month as I learned new things like JavaScript and CSS.

As far as the writing, I didn’t do anything groundbreaking because I was using the site as a portfolio, so I had to be very careful what I wrote about.

Again, I got sick and lost the domain.

SchizoIncognito.com

During the next few years, much was going on in my life with my marriage and my mental health. For some reason, I felt I should protect myself, so I started blogging anonymously. I’d never felt the need to hide before, but I needed to say some things that I didn’t want my family knowing.

I wrote with brutal openness. Some people were turned off because I was writing about my experiences with psychosis and self-harm. But, I had quite a few fans who followed religiously, even though I don’t think my writing was particularly good.

One of the banners I used for the site. (image owned by Jason Weiland)

I got some publicity one day, and I felt like the people writing it were trying much too hard to find out who I was in real life, so I shuttered the blog and never reopened it.

JasonWeiland.net

More recently, I wrote about the changes in my life after my last suicide attempt. I wrote a lot about my mental health, diet, and the businesses I tried and failed to start.

This blog changed quite a bit, as I used it as a way to get freelance clients at times.

It’s no longer active, but I may open it again soon.

ChangingMineChangingYours.com

A few months ago, I got the idea to start a blog chronicling the life and times of my family and I. I had thought to talk about the two girls we were going to foster, but they ended up going back to their mother. I’ve been paying attention to it more now that my wife is pregnant again, and I plan to start writing three times a week.

I guess when I started writing almost every day on Medium, this blog took a back seat. But that will change.

The site itself is not even complete. I don’t even have a mailing list set up, and so far I’ve only posted twice (and an about page). If you want to take a look, please let me know what you think so far.

That is Not All

I’ve had many, many more blogs, but these were either the most interesting, or the ones that changed my life somehow.

Blogging and journaling have been part of my life for as long as I can remember, so I’m sure I will keep doing them for as long as I can. Finding Medium has changed the game a bit for me, but I still think there is a place for standalone blogs on the internet. I know I will probably always have at least one going.

Blogging is great fun, and I feel if I ever decide to stick to it long enough, one day I will be successful with it.

It doesn’t hurt to try.

By Jason Weiland

Sourced from The Writing Cooperative