Dan Morris – Page 44 – Audience Industries

Using YouTube Annotations

YouTube is “shiny button syndrome” on steroids. Watch a video, then another one, then another one, then another one. As soon as it’s over, click something else in the sidebar. Hurry. . . you haven’t laughed in 2.1 seconds.

But you can stop them from doing that. YouTube Annotations gives you a way to add links in your video. That way while their “eyeballs” are pointed directly at your video they can see links to other videos. You could even create a “choose your own adventure” video where you ask a question at the end of your video and provide two things to click for answers.

Here’s an example (below this is the tutorial):

And here’s how to do that:

Do you consider yourself an “Advanced Level” blogger? (Part 2)

There’s a huge difference between a blogging hobbyist and a professional. While some bloggers seem to have defied the odds and have stuck to WordPress.com, TypePad or Blogger, the rest of us have taken on the challenge of a self-hosted, totally controlled site. But even some beginners start that way. So how do you know when you’ve broken free of the “beginner mold” and are truly advanced?

In the first of this 3-part series, I offered up some of the more advanced knowledge activities associated with website creation, writing code and monetizing a site. In this episode, let’s discuss SEO, audience contact and content strategy.

SEO
Organic traffic is one of the best converting sources when you’re optimized for the correct keywords. No matter your niche, there are people out there looking for exactly what you’re offering. The key is to place yourself directly in their way when they’re searching for it.

The focus is choosing the right keywords. Are you using Google AdWords to test your messaging to determine which keywords convert for you best? Have you tried analyzing written survey responses to look for common phrases used by your audience? Are you using a great keyword tool to find keywords that have a good amount of search volume, but little competition? And did you know that Google’s Keyword Tool is not what you’ve been told.

SEO is different for each search engine, beyond titles and tags and placement, are you doing what’s necessary to get your videos ranked on YouTube, podcasts ranked in iTunes, and your boards ranked on Pinterest? Are you using Google’s Contextual Targeting Tool to determine which related keywords to get ranked for, bolstering your main keywords?

For keywords that are bringing you the most relevant traffic, are you optimized for more than one page in the search results? Have you dominated those keywords by getting YouTube videos, slideshare presentations and podcasts into the search results as well? Have you written guest blog posts that are optimized for your best keywords? Only when you dominate the top 10 for your best keywords are you assured great traffic.

Email and RSS
Are you giving your audience a reason to join your email list? Have you tested different opt-in forms and opt-in incentives? And once you found the perfect ebook or language that inspires your audience to sign-up, have you tested the location and color and font till you found a winner?

Are you using an autoresponder or managed RSS system to contact your community, instead of relying on RSS alone? Are you able to segment your lists by their desires and send them targeted messages? Does your system give you the option to send mass email blasts as well? Have you built in automation rules that unsubscribe members from one list as they add themselves to another?

Are you looking in the “Campaigns” section of Google Analytics for your Feedburner stats? Are you actively following your open rate to determine what kinds of subject lines your audience pays attention to? Are you following up with those that opened your first email with another one of value? And are you resending your messages with changed subject lines to those that didn’t open the first one?

Are these decisions you’ve consciously made?

Content
Have you mapped out the steps that your audience needs to follow to attain their goals and are you leading them from step to step? Does your content also teach them the process and lead them to what you’re offering next? Does your audience know what your next blog post is going to be about before you write it? Do you know what you’re going to be talking about three months from now and are you already starting to plant the seed of that topic’s importance?

With a marketing plan in hand, are you writing the content now that you’re going to need when life gets really busy (like during the holidays)? Have you started creating the images necessary to create great Pinterest boards when the time comes? And have you determined if your audience would occasionally prefer a podcast or a video or just images?

Are you repurposing your content into ebooks, videos, downloadable printables? Are you then loading up your ebooks to Amazon, Google Reader and Kindle to reach a wider audience? Are you turning your great content into powerpoint presentations and putting it on Slideshare? How about repurposing your images for Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr, Stumbleupon and Infographics?

Are you recording and transcribing interviews, podcasts and videos and turning them into blog posts, emails and other written assets? Have you turned your content into a real book that can be found on Amazon? Are you turning your blog photos into videos with Animoto?

The question is . . . is your content on purpose?

3 Part Series
I would consider all these things to be the assets of an “advanced blogging” mind, but that’s not it. There are still a few parts of a professional blogging outfit that we haven’t discussed. In our final chapter, we’ll talk about becoming the expert in your niche, how to use tracking tools effectively and driving traffic from many different sources.

Go back to Part 1 of Are you an “Advanced Level” blogger?

Dan R Morris is the founder of LettersFromDan.com, a website dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.

Do you consider yourself an “Advanced Level” blogger? (Part 1)

What level of expertise would you say you have achieved in your blogging career, and how do you measure that for yourself? If you’re not a beginner, are you an advanced level blogger? And what would you have to know to consider yourself an expert?

I’ve put together this list of activities that I’d consider to be evidence of an “advanced blogger”. I’ll add the caveat that there are highly successful bloggers who don’t do all these things. Choosing which activities to do from day to day is a sign you know your business well; knowing which activities fit is the “advanced” part. It’s not important as a professional blogger that you know how to do everything, but familiarity is good insurance against poor consultants and bad advice.

So let’s start with the first thing you do as a blogger:

Website Creation
Can you get a website up and going, whether WordPress, Joomla, HTML or otherwise? Do the terms nameservers, hosting and 301 redirects leave you at ease or cringing? Can you upload a site via your cPanel File Manager or by using a utility like FileZilla? Do you know what to change, if you upload using Fantastico, to secure it from hackers and malware? Are you familiar with the process of adding a subdomain or redirecting a different domain name to your site? Finally, have you customized your .htaccess file to protect your site the way you want, not the default?

Writing Code
Oooh. . . code is scary isn’t it? With utilities like Windows LiveWriter you don’t really have to know any code, but it sure is handy to know how to do a handful of things – and perhaps how to fix some easy, common problems. For some bloggers who outsource coding, knowing how to do it isn’t important. But knowing how gives you great insight into what things should cost so you never have to accept a high bid.

First of all, are you able to make your posts look like you envision them? I would consider bold, ordered bullets, h1 tags, tables and images to be beginner stuff, do you agree? Can you do the hard stuff like changing the global font in your site? Are there things like centering photos, creating Johnson Boxes and eschewing photos that you just can’t do? How about customizing WordPress themes or knowing when you should hardcode a plug-in instead of uploading it? Do you know how to add hard coded “hooks”, change the header or modify links in the sidebar?

If you’ve doneall these things, you’re on your way to expert status for sure.

Money
Are you making money from lots of different sources like speeches, Adsense, affiliate income, membership site dues, Kindle books, mobile apps, in-text ads, coupon prints and even physical products?

Do you understand your site’s money map? From your AdSense account you probably know which ad in your sidebar or on your post pages generate the most income. But do you know which kinds of ads (Adsense, affiliate, or even email opt-ins) in those positions make the most money? Are you A/B testing ads using an adserver or Google Website Optimizer? If someone asked to advertise on your site, do you know what each position is worth in the private marketplace?

With AdSense have you optimized your campaign testing ad sizes, locations and font colors? Have you been to an “AdSense in the City” event to have Google look over your campaign? And do you have the necessary channels set-up to really understand which ads are making you money? Do you know which pages on your site are optimized for “commercial keywords” and which are not? And have you tested whether internal ads make more sense on non-commercial pages than pay-per-click ads?

Have you attracted the attention of Sponsors or better yet gone after the ones you really want? Have you put together a long term contract with a Sponsor that benefits you, them and your audience? Are you finding others requesting Sponsored Posts or advertising opportunities from you? For that matter, do you have a Media Kit easily accessible to those searching?

Are you monetizing everything? For instance did you make sure to change the “powered by Thesis” language in your blog footer into your affiliate link? Are you doing the same thing with your emails where it says “Powered by Feedblitz”? Are you using redirects for your affiliate links in case the affiliate changes something or you get a better offer? Are you using a plug-in like Alinks that automatically turn your main keywords into in-text affiliate links automatically (even in blog comments)?

Part 2
I would consider all these things to be the assets of an “advanced blogging” mind, but that’s not it. In Part 2 we will be discussing “Advanced Level” SEO concepts, how great bloggers are contacting their audiences, and how they’re thinking through their content strategy. And in the final chapter we’ll explore the tasks necessary to becoming an expert in your field, advanced steps to traffic generation and how to use tracking tools to make big moves.

Using Analytics to Fuel Your Marketing Calendar

Hopefully you’re using an analytics suite like Google Analytics to track your efforts. The information you get from these statistics enable you to make decisions, change your methods and better target your revenue sources. What most people don’t do however, is use their analytics to improve their marketing calendar strategy.

Let’s take Halloween for example. You’ve used Google Trends (among other ways) to figure out when your marketing should begin, you’ve used your keyword research tool to figure out what to write about, and you’ve used the AdWords Contextual Targeting Tool to help figure out how to structure your internal linking.

And then you’ve got Google Analytics (and to some degree WebmasterTools) to help you assess your progress. Well if you stop there, you’re only using half your resources. What you learn in your analytics package is how you begin putting together your marketing calendar in the first place. (it’s like a vicious circle) Continue reading “Using Analytics to Fuel Your Marketing Calendar”

Lynn Terry’s Pinterest and Image Marketing

Before you dive into our Pinterest and Image Marketing talk, know there is some additional information below the video that came up during the discussion. Please check that out as well.

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I hope that call was useful to you. You can see there were a couple questions that didn’t get fully answered. I’ve added that information here.

1. How do you make a “pinnable image”?

I thought it would be best if I made a quick tutorial for you. It’s less than 5 minutes (since I used the free screen capture service Jing to make it). I show you exactly which buttons to press and how to take an ordinary image and make it something special. Click this link Gimp.org Image Editing Tutorial to go directly to the video.

I also include several different examples of “pinnable images” including infographics, photo instructions and this kind here.

2. Via email I got this follow-up question:

I heard you say that you should only use your own pics that you have taken yourself, or ones you have purchased. What about if you are an affiliate of someone and they say you can use their images? Or in a dropship arrangement, where you are given a datafeed of images. Are those ok legally to use?”

So this is a legal / insurance / liability question. It’s a great question and shows that the person asking it is truly thinking like a professional. In the case of the affiliate, if you’re afforded the images to be used as marketing material you have a pretty good case that you were given rights and authority to use them. If the image is of the product itself, you’ve got no issues. If the image is a woman smiling at an amusement park and looks like a stock photo – maybe you should ask. Always move forward while protecting your rear.

3. List of sites we spoke about:

Pinerly – Great place to collect stats and data regarding your Pinterest account. According to Pinerly, I have 20 invitations to hand out. In theory that means this link can only be used 20 times. Good Luck!

Pinterest.com – If you need an invite still, email me. I can send you one. They don’t give out links like Pinerly, there’s a form I have to fill out with your email addy.

IFTTT – Amazing site for automating a great deal of your world. You’ll love it if you use Gmail, Evernote, Pinterest, Twitter, or Youtube. So many options.

Followgram.me This is an online place to connect with other Instagram users. My account is here: http://followgram.me/danrmorris/ and the example we showed with the photographer is http://followgrame.me/yaron007

Flickr.com – The largest photo sharing site on the net, and at the moment the shining jewell of the Yahoo! empire. Great place to connect with others in your niche via photos.

Marketing Calendar Blueprint.com This discussion about Pinterest and Image Marketing is a module in our Marketing Calendar Blueprint. The calendar should be your friend and should help you become not only more efficient, but more in tune with your audience. We teach you how to map out your customer’s ladder of value and determine when they need the next piece of information in their journey with you. We teach you how the show The Bachelor markets to their audience and how you can apply that to your efforts. And there’s a great interview with Carrie Wilkerson about her motive matrix. Fascinating stuff.

Pinterest 101 We created a Pinterest 101 video showing you exactly how to sign up, how to pin, how to use affiliate links in your pins, getting the SEO right on Pinterest and a few other things. A bunch of that we covered in this video, but if you need a 101 course to get the basics right, this one is great.

Business Continuity Planning Should Start at Customer Aquisition

The most important part of putting together your business continuity plan is the original offer. Why is that the case? Because the original offer brings the customers into the “funnel”. And the original offer is what sets the tone for the continuity program and the price.

For instance, our antioxidant nutritional supplement has a front end offer of “Buy 2 Get 1 Free”, which comes out to a 90 day supply. With a 90 day supply on the front end, the continuity plan doesn’t begin until the 91st day, and in theory the customer will have been taking the supplement daily and will need new product.

I say “in theory” because this continuity program doesn’t work unless the customer is truly interested in improving their health. We learned the importance of that the hard way several years ago. Continue reading “Business Continuity Planning Should Start at Customer Aquisition”

Using Hashtags in your Marketing Plan

Are hashtags part of your annual marketing plan? Have you ever even considered doing something more proactive with them than just using your normal ones? If you spend any time preparing for holidays, seasons and events, then you should actively market with hashtags.

[stextbox id=”black”]In case you missed the memo, a hashtag is a set of characters used to organize content in social media. Typically a hashtag starts with the pound sign (#) and is followed by some characters. Since common English words don’t start with a pound sign, using a hashtag means you can easily search for content that contains that unique phrase. Both on Twitter and Instagram, for instance, you can click on the hashtag and find everything else using that tag.[/stextbox] Continue reading “Using Hashtags in your Marketing Plan”