Online marketing that works
We’ve been thinking a lot about new WordPress users lately.
As elegant and simple as it is, WordPress can be a little daunting if you’re just beginning to work with it. The beauty of it though, is that it doesn’t have to be.
So, we’ve been taking some time to think through the big questions people have when they’re just starting out.
TweetShare
One of the original forms of content marketing is publishing a good old-fashioned book. It’s not the book sales that make most business authors wealthy, but what they can do because they’ve written a book — consulting, speaking engagements, and more.
But here’s the twist. A recent report out a few weeks ago that electronic books are outselling paperback books, and Apple expects to sell more than 28 million iPads by the end of 2011. So it’s no surprise that a lot of writers want to know how they can get a new-fangled electronic book into the iBookstore.
Getting your book into the iBookstore can be a low-cost and profitable route that exposes your work to entirely new markets. But getting a book approved by Apple isn’t a simple process.
TweetShare
Ever wonder where you’re supposed to find the time to promote your blog?
If you’re blogging in your spare time, it can seem impossible. You’re already struggling just to publish a post every weekday, and sometimes you can’t even manage that. You want to work on your SEO, twitter following, and relationships with popular bloggers, but you also have a job, family, friends — responsibilities that are just more important.
And so you wonder: should you just keep going, doing the best you can?
Or is there a strategy you can use that doesn’t require so much time?
TweetShare
One of my favorite posts from around the web last week came from our own Associate Editor Jon Morrow. He recorded a 20-minute video post for Problogger about how he works with speech recognition software to do all of his blogging.
I do an awful lot of writing every week, and I’ve been thinking about trying speech recognition out in order to speed up the process. But like most people, I was afraid it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to get it working.
Jon’s video made me realize how simple (and inexpensive) it will be for me to make it happen.
TweetShare
If you’re blogging to promote your services, physical products or digital offerings, you understand that getting a return on investment for the time and effort you put into blogging is important. On the other hand, if you spend all your time relentlessly pitching your wares, you’ll find that you alienate a good portion of your prospective audience.
The problem bloggers face from a selling standpoint is that various readers are at different awareness levels, depending on how long they’ve been reading and how much exposure you’ve provided to your offer. I was reminded by the great John Forde of Copywriter’s Roundtable that this is not a new problem.
TweetShare
Facebook has been all the rage these days since the site opened its doors to the masses and experienced a steep growth spurt. It’s an interesting place to watch no matter what, but it can also clue you in on how to more effectively market your products, services or affiliate offerings with your blog.
Some people seem to miss the value in Facebook’s 35 million users, because the advertising rates are low and the click-through rates abominable. The real value in Facebook’s audience comes from data mining and the ability to watch, track and cluster what attractive demographics are doing in the aggregate.
TweetShare