Blue-Shirt Trust: How to Increase Conversions on Everything
If you run a business it is conversions that matter most. Not traffic or Google rankings but conversions.
Sure, you need traffic in order to have someone to convert but unless you can capture a good percentage of visitors in some meaningful way you are largely wasting your time. All of your marketing, copy writing, SEO and social media efforts will amount to nothing.
In this article I am going to show one very basic but vital principle that will help you increase your conversions on everything. It is not complex or secret in any way but it is extremely important; especially if you don’t have it. Oh, and make sure you read all the way to the end as there is a nice little surprise at the bottom.
What exactly are conversions?
Just so we are all on the same page it is important to take a quick look at exactly what we are talking about when we say conversions. Because this blog is about online marketing we will stick mainly to internet products that you are attempting to get your visitors to interact with. These include:
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What is the Best Time to Publish Your Blog Articles?
photo credit: sirspacepilot
Did you know that that time of day that you publish your blog articles has a big impact on how well they do on social media, how many comments they get and how many people actually read it? Yep, the time of day and the day of the week are important parts of your blog posting strategy.
In this post I am going to you when you should post for maximum benefit. It is actually much more important than you might think.
A stupid experiment
I am doing this because I love you. Normally I wouldn’t publish a post on a Thursday night New York time because it is one of the worst times of the week. But by doing so I will be able to show you some of the data that I will have in a few days time – feedburner reach, traffic levels and probably even a smaller amount of comments. Note that every article I write gets at least 50 comments or so. I am betting that this post will get significantly less than the others.
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Does Your Blog Pass the Google Test?
Google. One of the greatest inventions of all time. The search engine that changed the way we look for information, advertise and communicate with each other. And for the most part Google is a blogger’s best friend, capable of sending tens of thousands of targeted visitors to your website every day. But there is a dark side. A dark side you might not have thought of and one that may have a dramatic effect on your online success and financial safety.
In this post I am going to talk about what I am calling the Google test. Read it and find out whether your blog passes.
My first blog: loved and hated by Google
I need to start this post with a little bit of a background story – a story about how Google both loved and then hated my first blog. Fresh out of high school and obsessed with fitness, martial arts and lifting weights, I started a blog about my training ideas and within a very short time gained a huge amount of traffic from Google thanks to some excellent rankings from some very popular keywords.
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The 3 Hottest Areas on Your Blog and How to Use Them Best
Did you know that your blog has certain hot areas that get more attention than other places on your blog? Did you know that the way you use these hot areas can actually have a significant impact on how successful your blog and its content will be over time? Well now you do. In this article I am going to show you where these hot spots are and, more importantly, how to use them to your advantage.
What exactly is a hot area?
Before we jump into the potatoes of the post I want to talk a little bit about what exactly these hot areas or hot spots are. Basically we can say that they fall in to two categories or types:
- The eye catching areas
These are the parts of your blog or website that the eye naturally gravitates to. Web designers will tell you that you can manipulate where the eye goes using clever design and I agree. But that being said, there are several areas on a blog that people’s eyes are used to landing. These areas are important. - The high clicking areas
After the eye catching areas you have the high clicking areas. These are the parts of the blog or website that are more likely to get clicks by your users. Yep, you heard right. Not all parts of a website are equal when it comes to clicks.
If you can tap in to these hot spots and hot areas you will be surprised at how much more success you have with things like generating revenue, subscribers, interactions and so on.
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Why Your Blogging is Damaging Your Health Beyond Repair
photo credit: shawncampbell
Normally I write about how to dominate your blog’s niche and work from home but today we need to talk about something even more important. Your health. Earlier this year I had a bit of a health scare and, as it turned out, the problem was largely related to the amount of time I spent on the computer. I always knew that computing could cause some health issues but what I never imagined was how potentially serious they could be.
In this article I am going to talk about a few ways that your blog is damaging your health beyond repair. Please note that the title is not intended to be (entirely) sensational; many of these problems are difficult to reverse unless you catch them really early.
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How to Write Successful Emails to A-List Bloggers & Industry Leaders
Its not what you know, its who you know. That’s what my father would always tell me. He was right. A lot of your blogging and online marketing success will depend on not the skills and talent that you have, but the people who promote you, partner with you and so on. And 90% of the time the way you make those contacts is by email.
In this article I am going to show you some tips I have learned on how to write successful emails to A-List bloggers or anyone in your industry that you want to get in contact with and be noticed by.
What not to do
I thought a good place to start this article would be by telling you what not to do. These are the cardinal sins of writing emails to celebrities and industry leaders, make sure you don’t do them.
- Don’t use the CC function to email a bunch of people
I remember getting an email a few years ago from a guy who was trying to pitch a new website idea. The problem was that he sent out an identical email to about 50 bloggers and web entrepreneurs and put all the emails in the CC line for everyone to see. The result was pretty ugly. Don’t share people’s email addresses unless they have said you can do so. And don’t write bulk emails to people you really need the attention of. - Don’t talk about yourself
One of the classic sayings in the best selling book How to Win Friends and Influence People is that people only find you interesting if you talk about them, not yourself. Unfortunately, most people do the opposite in emails. I get lots of emails from people who spend two or three paragraphs talking about who they are. And as much as I love hearing from my readers (I really do) I don’t have a lot of time so I pay more attention to the ones that are short and focused on the idea, proposition or (as selfish as it sounds) the way the email will benefit me. - Don’t use a free email address (if you can help it)
If you are trying to promote yourself or your brand to someone you want to show them you are serious. One sure fire way NOT to do that is to use a Hotmail or a Gmail account. Send emails from your domain name so they immediately know where you are from and that you take yourself seriously enough to have a website.
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How to Blog Part 2: The 7,809 Word Series You’ll Need to Bookmark (Twice)
Here we go again. The 7,809 word series on how to blog and do it well. Remember, this is part two in the series. You can find the first part in which we covered content that sells and setting up your blog for success right here. In this post I am going to cover a lot of areas so make sure you bookmark it for future reference. If you read the whole thing in one go you might need to get some sunshine.
Breaking it down part two
In this post we are going to be covering a lot of ground. Like last time, I want to give you a sort of contents here at the start so you can move around the post to areas you are interested in. They are:
- Using social media
(Facebook, Twitter and all the reasons you need them, etc.) - Growing your blog’s traffic
(SEO, keywords, going viral, analytics etc.) - Making money from your blog
(Adsense, Ebay, affiliates and how to make good money from home)
As I am writing this post mostly in the evenings there is a good chance I am going to miss some important points. Feel free to drop a comment and point out my ineptness or make some suggestions that you think might help some other bloggers. I always love hearing what you guys have to say.
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How to Blog Part 1: The 7,809 Word Series You’ll Need to Bookmark
photo credit: Cara Photography
Believe it or not there are people out there who don’t know how to blog. And without being rude, a lot of those people have been blogging for many years. In this two part series I am going to go through every component of blogging from choosing the right blogging platform to writing titles, articles, social media and networking. This series might actually kill me. But hopefully it helps you learn how to blog and do it well.
May I suggest bookmarking this post now? Hopefully you will want to refer back to this one and PART TWO in the future.
Breaking it down
This is a pretty massive undertaking so I want to break it down in to some clear sections which allow you to skip through and read areas that you are interested in. Of course, I encourage you to read the whole lot as you might learn about something you have thus far overlooked. The sections are:
- Starting a blog
(hosting, platforms, themes, plugins, etc.) - Creating content that sells
(sexy titles, blog posts that people actually read, guest posting etc.) - Using social media
(Facebook, Twitter and all the reasons you need them, etc.) - Growing your blog’s traffic
(SEO, keywords, going viral, analytics etc.) - Making money from your blog
(Adsense, Ebay, affiliates and how to make good money from home)
As always I want to see lots of comments with things I’ve missed. I will always answer your questions and angry criticisms as best as I can and I love seeing what other bloggers have to offer.
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The Tyrant Takes on ProBlogger… Again
Its been pretty quiet around here lately so I wanted to write a quick post letting you know about some really cool stuff that is happening next week (read: make excuses). If you have liked anything on Blog Tyrant so far you are going to go crazy like a fourteen year old at a Justin Bieber concert next week. Make sure you are following me on Twitter and subscribed to the feed so you don’t miss any of the action.
The Tyrant on ProBlogger
Next week I have a guest post on Problogger that is sure to ruffle a few feathers. It is about three serious problems that make me leave your blog straight away and never return again. I have been pretty honest in there so hopefully there is some good information for you to check out and compare against your own blog. I’ll put a Tweet up when the post goes live so you don’t miss out.
In case you missed it, a few weeks ago I did a massive guest post on ProBlogger called How to Make Your Blog Addictive Like World of Warcraft which got over 70 comments and 0 phone numbers. That’s a joke.
The article to end all articles?
For what seems like forever now I’ve been writing an article that might be so big and complete in its brilliance that it puts me out of business. Just kidding. But it is huge. I am going to put it up at the same time as my guest post on ProBlogger goes up so you might want to take that day off work. Remember the bookmarks function up the top of your browser window? You might even use that again!
Did you hear Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are merging?
Its going to be called YouTwitFace. That’s a Jay Leno funny for you. Anyway, we now have our own Blog Tyrant Facebook page so please head over and click that like button. I am actually going to interact with my readers pretty often there as I have Facebook open all day long. If you want “live” responses or a chat about blogging that it probably the best place for it.
See you next week
I’m closing the comments on this post because I want you to save your typing energy for my posts next week. I’m going to need your support with that rowdy ProBlogger crowd.
Killer Comments: How to Grow Your Traffic, RSS & Google Rankings with Comments
photo credit: Loren Sztajer
This post is simply about developing a comment strategy that will grow your traffic, boost your number of subscribers and also get you better rankings on Google. Yep, that’s right. All of that can be done by leaving some cleverly crafted comments. Here is how to do it.
NOTE – This post is entirely white hat and Google friendly. I never buy backlinks or use paid comment services and don’t encourage my readers to do it either. Relevant and useful comments that add value are the only thing I will advocate.
Some advice about sexy comments
Before I get into the actual strategy elements of this post I want to talk about the comments that you leave on people’s blogs and websites. They need to be sexy. And I do not mean sexy like dance around a pole or wear some nice lingerie sexy, I mean they need to be interesting, involved and personal. Please do not waste time leaving comments on people’s blogs saying things like “hey, nice post” or “this is a really good article”. Read the article (or a part of it) and leave a comment that is either adding something to the discussion, criticizing (nicely) the ideas of the post or saying something else that someone will find useful.
Why do all this? Here’s why: Read the rest of this amazing literary work…